noon
All these scenes , nay everything she met with on the high-road , scared the girl who was accustomed to the silence and the solemn life of the temple of Serapis , and she therefore struck into a side path that probably also led to the city which she could already see lying before her with its pylons , its citadel and its houses , veiled in evening mist . In a quarter of an hour at most she would have crossed the desert , and reach the fertile meadow land , whose emerald hue grew darker and darker every moment . The sun was already sinking to rest behind the Libyan range , and soon after , for twilight is short in Egypt , she was wrapped in the darkness of night . The westwind , which had begun to blow even at noon , now rose higher , and seemed to pursue her with its hot breath and the clouds of sand it carried with it from the desert . She must certainly be approaching water , for she heard the deep pipe of the bittern in the reeds , and fancied she breathed a moister air . A few steps more , and her foot sank in mud ; and she now perceived that she was standing on the edge of a wide ditch in which tall papyrus-plants were growing . The side path she had struck into ended at this plantation , and there was nothing to be done but to turn about , and to continue her walk against the wind and with the sand blowing in her face .