The bishop now made an attempt to address the people, but he was soon reduced to silence.  So he once more joined Paula, and hand in hand they went on to the pier.

All she had in her of strength, pride, and heroic courage she summoned to her aid to enable her to walk these last few paces with her head erect, and without tottering; she had gone half way along the wooden structure, with a mien as lofty and majestic as though she were marching to command the obedience of the mob, when hoofs came thundering after her on the boards.

Old Horapollo, on his white ass, had overtaken her and stopped her on her road.  Breathless, bathed in perspiration, scornful and triumphant, he desired her to remove her veil, and ordered the bishop to leave her and give up his place to the man who represented Father Nile—­a gigantic farrier who followed him, somewhat embarrassed in his costume, but very ready to perform his part to the end.

The priest and Paula, however, refused to obey.  At this the old man tore the veil from her face and signed to the Nile-God; he stepped forward and assumed his rights, after bowing respectfully to the prelate—­who was forced to make way—­and then led the Bride to the end of the platform.  Here the two elders who had headed the procession in honor of Bacchus, cast the gold cups as offerings into the river, and then a lawyer, in the costume of a heathen priest, proceeded to expound, in a well-set speech, the meaning of this betrothal and sacrifice.  He took Paula’s hand to place in that of the farrier, who made ready to cast her into the river for which he stood proxy.

But an obstacle intervened before he could do so.  A large and splendid barge had drawn up close to the platform, and shouts were heard from the tribune and from the mob which had till now looked on in breathless suspense and profound silence: 

“Susannah’s barge!”

“Look at the Nile, look at the river!”

“It is the water-wagtail—­Philammon’s rich heiress!”

“A pretty sight!”

“Another Bride—­a second Bride!”

And the gaze of the multitude was now, as one eye, fixed on Katharina.

Susannah’s handsome barge had been passing up and down near the platform for the last hour, and the guards on duty had several times desired that it was to be kept at a distance from the scene of the “marriage;” but in vain; and they in their little boats were not strong enough to take active measures against the larger vessel manned by fifty rowers.  It had now steered quite close to the pontoon, and the splendid gilding and carving, the tall deck-house supported on silver pillars, and the crimson embroidered sails would have been a gorgeous feast for the eye, but that the black flag floating from the mast gave it a melancholy and gloomy aspect.

Within the cabin Katharina had made her waiting-women dress her in white and deck her with white flowers-myrtle, roses and lotos; but she vouchsafed no reply to their anxious enquiries.