I am dying of impatience, and every fresh report that the eunuchs and slave-girls bring makes it worse.

I am in a perfect fever--I cannot wait.

Ask whatever else you like, only deliver me from this awful suspense.

Afterwards I will listen to you for days, if you wish." Boges' smile at these words was one of great satisfaction; he rubbed his hands and answered: "When I was a child I had no greater pleasure than to watch a fish writhing on the hook; now I have got you, my splendid golden carp, at the end of my line, and I can't let you go until I have sated myself on your impatience." Phaedime sprang up from the couch which she had shared with Boges, stamping her foot and behaving like a naughty child.

This seemed to amuse the eunuch immensely; he rubbed his hands again and again, laughed till the tears ran down over his fat cheeks, emptied many a goblet of wine to the health of the tortured beauty, and then went on with his tale: "It had not escaped me that Cambyses sent his brother (who had brought Nitetis from Egypt), out to the war with the Tapuri purely from jealousy.
That proud woman, who was to take no orders from me, seemed to care as little for the handsome, fair-haired boy as a Jew for pork, or an Egyptian for white beans.