So take patience, sweetheart.

What are two weeks, or at most three--and then...." "But I shall die before then!" cried Paula.

"The Nabathaean, you say, is here and willing to go." "Yes, Mistress." "Then we will secure him," said Paula resolutely.

Perpetua, however, who must have discussed the matter fully with her fellow-countryman, shook her head mournfully and said: "He asks too much for us!" She then explained that the man, being such a good linguist, had already been offered an engagement to conduct a caravan to Ctesiphon.

This would be a year's pay to him, and he was not inclined to break off his negotiations with the merchant Hanno and search the deserts of Arabia Petraea for less than two thousand drachmae.
"Two thousand drachmae!" echoed Paula, looking down in distress and confusion; but she presently looked up and exclaimed with angry determination: "How dare they keep from me that which is my own?
If my uncle refuses what I have to ask, and will ask, then the inevitable must happen, though for his sake it will grieve me; I must put my affairs in the hands of the judges." "The judges ?" Perpetua smiled.