sleep

The sleep command makes a script pause for a specified amount of time. This is often necessary between commands such as say that might cause the remote computer to do things that need some time to process before proceeding to the next command.

sleep needs an argument specifying how long to pause:
 

sleep number of seconds

You can specify fractions of a second with a decimal number:
 

sleep 1.5
sleep .2

You can use sleep whenever you need to pause before going on to another script file command.

Here's an example of a small script file using sleep: 

dial'loop:
  dial 555-1212            ; dial remote system
  if err0 = 0 goto connect ; exit loop when remote answers 
  sleep 30                 ; wait 30 seconds before trying again
  goto dial'loop
connect:
  ; simulate a user typing three carriage returns at human speed!
  say "^M" ; give carriage return to remote system
  sleep .5 ; pause briefly
  say "^M" ; another carriage return 
  sleep .5 ; another pause
  say "^M" ; third carriage return