Do what you will with me." "Then the sooner the better, princess.

How soon can you be prepared ?" She smiled, and stooping picked up her slippers, saying as she did so, "I am ready!" There were no arrangements to be made.

Every instant was of value.

So, to be brief, I threw a dark cloak over the damsel's shoulders, for indeed she was clad in little more than her loveliness and the gauziest filaments of a Hither girl's underwear, and hand in hand led her down the log steps, over the splashing, ankle-deep courtyard, and into the shadows of the gateway beyond.
Down the slope we went; along towards the harbour, through a score of deserted lanes where nothing was to be heard but the roar of rain and the lapping of men and beasts, drinking in the shadows as though they never would stop, and so we came at last unmolested to the wharf.
There I hid royal Seth between two piles of merchandise, and went to look for a boat suitable to our needs.

There were plenty of small craft moored to rings along the quay, and selecting a canoe--it was no time to stand on niceties of property--easily managed by a single paddle, I brought it round to the steps, put in a fresh water-pot, and went for the princess.
With her safely stowed in the prow, a helpless, sodden little morsel of feminine loveliness, things began to appear more hopeful and an escape down to blue water, my only idea, for the first time possible.