"I was afraid," he said, as he took the vacant seat before her.
"Of what?"
"Of sinking the boat," he replied, smiling.
"Wait until we are in deeper water," she said, giving a signal to the black, who dipped the oars, and they were off.
If love and Ben-Hur were enemies, the latter was never more at mercy. The Egyptian sat where he could not but see her; she, whom he had already engrossed in memory as his ideal of the Shulamite. With her eyes giving light to his, the stars might come out, and he not see them; and so they did. The night might fall with unrelieved darkness everywhere else; her look would make illumination for him. And then, as everybody knows, given youth and such companionship, there is no situation in which the fancy takes such complete control as upon tranquil waters under a calm night sky, warm with summer. It is so easy at such time to glide imperceptibly out of the commonplace into the ideal.
"Give me the rudder," he said.
"No," she replied, "that were to reverse the relation. Did I not ask you to ride with me? I am indebted to you, and would begin payment. You may talk and I will listen, or I will talk and you will listen: that choice is yours; but it shall be mine to choose where we go, and the way thither."
"And where may that be?"
"You are alarmed again."
"O fair Egyptian, I but asked you the first question of every captive."
"Call me Egypt."
"I would rather call you Iras."
"You may think of me by that name, but call me Egypt."
"Egypt is a country, and means many people."
"Yes, yes! And such a country!"
"I see; it is to Egypt we are going."
"Would we were! I would be so glad."
She sighed as she spoke.
"You have no care for me, then," he said.
"Ah, by that I know you were never there."
