While she gave a few decorative touches to her person she handed the tablet to the waiting-woman, whom she had taken into her own room, and desired her to carry it at once to her husband, and tell him whither she had gone, and to beg him to return without delay to take care of Dada.

But what if her husband and son could not come away?
The girl would be left quite alone, and then...

The picture rose before her anxious mind of Marcus appearing on the scene and tempting Dada on shore--of her niece stealing away by herself even, if the young Christian failed to discover her present residence--loitering alone along the Canopic way or the Bruclumn, where, at noon, all that was most disreputable in Alexandria was to be seen at this time of year--she saw, shuddered, considered--and suddenly thought of an expedient which seemed to promise an issue from the difficulty.

It was nothing new and a favorite trick among the Egyptians; she had seen is turned to account by a lame tailor at whose house her father had lodged, when he had to go out to his customers and leave his young negress wife alone at home.
Dada was lying barefoot on the deck: Herse would hide her shoes.
She hastily acted on this idea, locking up not only Dada's sandals, but also Agne's and her own, in the trunk they had saved; a glance at the slave's feet assured her that hers could be of no use.
"Not if fire were to break out," thought she, "would my Dada be seen in the streets with those preposterous things on her pretty little feet." When this was done Herse breathed more freely, and as she took leave of her niece, feeling perhaps that she owed her some little reparation, she said in an unusually kind tone: "Good bye, child.

Try to amuse yourself while I am gone.