THE BRIDE OF THE NILE

By Georg Ebers

Translated from the German by Clara Bell


PREFACE.

The “Bride of the Nile” needs no preface. For the professional student I
may observe that I have relied on the authority of de Goeje in adhering to
my own original opinion that the word Mukaukas is not to be regarded as a
name but as a title, since the Arab writers to which I have made reference
apply it to the responsible representatives of the Byzantine Emperor in
antagonism to the Moslem power. I was unfortunately unable to make further
use of Karabacek’s researches as to the Mukaukas.

I shall not be held justified in placing the ancient Horus Apollo
(Horapollo) in the seventh century after Christ by any one who regards the
author of the Hieroglyphica as identical with the Egyptian philosopher of
the same name who, according to Suidas, lived under Theodosius, and to
whom Stephanus of Byzantium refers, writing so early as at the end of the
fifth century. But the lexicographer Suidas enumerates the works of
Horapollo, the philologer and commentator on Greek poetry, without naming
the Hieroglyphica, which is the only treatise alluded to by Stephanus.
Besides, all the other ancient writers who mention Horapollo at all leave
us quite free to suppose that there may have been two sages of the same
name—as does C. Leemans, who is most intimately versed in the
Hieroglyphica—and the second certainly cannot have lived earlier
than the VIIth century, since an accurate knowledge of hieroglyphic
writing must have been lost far more completely in his time than we can
suppose possible in the IVth century. It must be remembered that we still
possess well-executed hieroglyphic inscriptions dating from the time of
Decius, 250 years after Christ. Thus the Egyptian commentator on Greek
poetry could hardly have needed a translator, whereas the Hieroglyphica
seems to have been first rendered into Greek by Philippus. The combination
by which the author called in Egyptian Horus (the son of Isis) is supposed
to have been born in Philae, where the cultus of the Egyptian heathen was
longest practised, and where some familiarity with hieroglyphics must have
been preserved to a late date, takes into due account the real state of
affairs at the period I have selected for my story.


BOOK 1.


CHAPTER I.

Half a lustrum had elapsed since Egypt had become subject to the youthful
power of the Arabs, which had risen with such unexampled vigor and
rapidity. It had fallen an easy prey, cheaply bought, into the hands of a
small, well-captained troop of Moslem warriors; and the fair province,
which so lately had been a jewel of the Byzantine Empire and the most
faithful foster-mother to Christianity, now owned the sway of the Khalif
Omar and saw the Crescent raised by the side of the Cross.

It was long since a hotter season had afflicted the land; and the Nile,
whose rising had been watched for on the Night of Dropping—the 17th
of June—with the usual festive preparations, had cheated the hopes
of the Egyptians, and instead of rising had shrunk narrower and still
narrower in its bed.—It was in this time of sore anxiety, on the
10th of July, A.D. 643, that a caravan from the North reached Memphis.

It was but a small one; but its appearance in the decayed and deserted
city of the Pyramids—which had grown only lengthwise, like a huge
reed-leaf, since its breadth was confined between the Nile and the Libyan
Hills—attracted the gaze of the passers-by, though in former years a
Memphite would scarcely have thought it worth while to turn his head to
gaze at an interminable pile of wagons loaded with merchandise, an
imposing train of vehicles drawn by oxen, the flashing maniples of the
imperial cavalry, or an endless procession wending its way down the five
miles of high street.

The merchant who, riding a dromedary of the choicest breed, conducted this
caravan, was a lean Moslem of mature age, robed in soft silk. A vast
turban covered his small head and cast a shadow over his delicate and
venerable features.

The Egyptian guide who rode on a brisk little ass by his side, looked up
frequently and with evident pleasure at the merchant’s face—not in
itself a handsome one with its hollow cheeks, meagre beard and large
aquiline nose—for it was lighted up by a pair of bright eyes, full
of attractive thoughtfulness and genuine kindness. But that this
fragile-looking man, in whose benevolent countenance grief and infirmities
had graven many a furrow, could not only command but compel submission was
legible alike in his thin, firmly-closed lips and in the zeal with which
his following of truculent and bearded fighting men, armed to the teeth,
obeyed his slightest sign.

His Egyptian attendant, the head of the Hermeneutai—the guild of the
Dragomans of that period—was a swarthy and surly native of Memphis;
whenever he accidentally came too close to the fierce-looking riders of
the dromedaries he shrunk his shoulders as if he expected a blow or a
push, while he poured out question and answer to the Merchant Haschim, the
owner of the caravan, without timidity and with the voluble garrulity of
his tribe.

“You seem very much at home here in Memphis,” he observed, when the old
man had expressed his surprise at the decadence and melancholy change in
the city.

“Thirty years ago,” replied the merchant, “my business often brought me
hither. How many houses are now empty and in ruins where formerly only
heavy coin could secure admittance! Ruins on all sides!—Who has so
cruelly mutilated that fine church? My fellow-believers left every
Christian fane untouched—that I know from our chief Amru himself.”

“It was the principal church of the Melchites, the Emperor’s minions,”
cried the guide, as if that were ample explanation of the fact. The
merchant, however, did not take it so.

“Well,” he said, “and what is there so dreadful in their creed?”

“What?” said the Egyptian, and his eye flashed wrathfully. “What?—They
dismember the divine person of the Saviour and attribute to it two
distinct natures. And then!—All the Greeks settled here, and
encouraged by the protection of the emperor, treated us, the owners of the
land, like slaves, till your nation came to put an end to their
oppression. They drove us by force into their churches, and every
true-born Egyptian was punished as a rebel and a leper. They mocked at us
and persecuted us for our faith in the one divine nature of our Lord.”

“And so,” interrupted the merchant, “as soon as we drove out the Greeks
you behaved more unmercifully to them and their sanctuaries than we—whom
you scorn as infidels—did to you!”

“Mercy?—for them!” cried the Egyptian indignantly, as he cast an
evil eye on the demolished edifice. “They have reaped what they sowed; and
now every one in Egypt who does not believe in your One God—blessed
be the Saviour!—confesses the one sole nature of our Lord Jesus
Christ. You drove out the Melchite rabble, and then it was our part to
demolish the temples of their wretched Saviour, who lost His divine Unity
at the synod of Chalcedon—damnation wait upon it!”

“But still the Melchites are fellow-believers with you—they are
Christians,” said the merchant.

“Christians?” echoed the guide with a contemptuous shrug. “They may regard
themselves as Christians; but I, with every one else great and small in
this land, am of opinion that they have no right whatever to call
themselves our fellow-believers and Christians. They all are and shall be
for ever accursed with their hundreds—nay thousands of devilish
heresies, by which they degrade our God and Redeemer to the level of that
idol on the stone pillar. Half a cow and half a man! Why, what rational
being, I ask you, could pray to such a mongrel thing? We Jacobites or
Monophysites or whatever they choose to call us will not yield a jot or
tittle of the divine nature of our Lord and Saviour; and if the old faith
must die out, I will turn Moslem and be converted to your One Omnipotent
God; for before I confess the heresies of the Melchites I will be hewn in
pieces, and my wife and children with me. Who knows what may be coming to
pass? And there are many advantages in going over to your side: for the
power is in your hands, and long may you keep it! We have got to be ruled
by strangers; and who would not rather pay small tribute to the wise and
healthy Khalif at Medina than a heavy one to the sickly imperial brood of
Melchites at Constantinople. The Mukaukas George, to be sure, is not a bad
sort of man, and as he so soon gave up all idea of resisting you he was no
doubt of my opinion. Regarding you as just and pious folks, as our next
neighbors, and perhaps even of our own race and blood, he preferred you—my
brother told me so—to those Byzantine heretics, flayers of men and
thirsting for blood, but yet, the Mukaukas is as good a Christian as
breathes.”

The Arab had listened attentively and with a subtle smile to the Memphite,
whose duties as guide now compelled him to break off. The Egyptian made
the whole caravan turn down an alley that led into a street running
parallel to the river, where a few fine houses still stood in the midst of
their gardens. When men and beasts were making their way along a better
pavement the merchant observed: “I knew the father of the man you were
speaking of, very well. He was wealthy and virtuous; of his son too I hear
nothing but good. But is he still allowed to bear the title of governor,
or, what did you call him?—Mukaukas?”

“Certainly, Master,” said the guide. “There is no older family than his in
all Egypt, and if old Menas was rich the Mukaukas is richer, both by
inheritance and by his wife’s dower. Nor could we wish for a more sensible
or a juster governor! He keeps his eye on his underlings too; still,
business is not done now as briskly as formerly, for though he is not much
older than I am—and I am not yet sixty—he is always ailing and
has not been seen out of the house for months. Even when your chief wants
to see him he comes over to this side of the river. It is a pity with such
a man as he; and who was it that broke down his stalwart strength? Why,
those Melchite dogs; you may ask all along the Nile, long as it is, who
was at the bottom of any misfortune, and you will always get the same
answer: Wherever the Melchite or the Greek sets foot the grass refuses to
grow.”

“But the Mukaukas, the emperor’s representative… the Arab began. The
Egyptian broke in however:

“He, you think, must be safe from them? They did not certainly injure his
person; but they did worse, for when the Melchites rose up against our
party—it was at Alexandria, and the late Greek patriarch Cyrus had a
finger in that pie—they killed his two sons, two fine, splendid men—killed
them like dogs; and it crushed him completely.”

“Poor man!” sighed the Arab. “And has he no child left?”

“Oh, yes. One son, and the widow of his eldest. She went into a convent
after her husband’s death, but she left her child, her little Mary—she
must be ten years old now—to live with her grandparents.”

“That is well,” said the old man, “that will bring some sunshine into the
house.”

“No doubt, Master. And just lately they have had some cause for rejoicing.
The only surviving son—Orion is his name—came home only the
day before yesterday from Constantinople where he has been for a long
time. There was a to-do! Half the city went crazy. Thousands went out to
meet him, as though he were the Saviour; they erected triumphal arches,
even folks of my creed—no one thought of hanging back. One and all
wanted to see the son of the great Mukaukas, and the women of course were
first and foremost!”

“You speak, however,” said the Arab, “as though the returning hero were
not worthy of so much honor.”

“That is as folks think,” replied the Egyptian shrugging his shoulders.
“At any rate he is the only son of the greatest man in the land.”

“But he does not promise to be like the old man?”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” said the guide. “My brother, a priest, and the head of
one of our great schools, was his tutor, and he never met such a clever
head as Orion’s, he tells me. He learnt everything without any trouble and
at the same time worked as hard as a poor man’s son. We may expect him to
win fame and honor—so Marcus says—for his parents and for the
city of Memphis: but for my part, I can see the shady side, and I tell you
the women will turn his head and bring him to a bad end. He is handsome,
taller even than the old man in his best days, and he knows how to make
the most of himself when he meets a pretty face—and pretty faces are
always to be met in his path…”

“And the young rascal takes what he finds!” said the Moslem laughing. “If
that is all you are alarmed at I am glad for the youth. He is young and
such things are allowable.”

“Nay, Sir, even my brother—he lives now in Alexandria, and is blind
and foolish enough still in all that concerns his former pupil—and
even he thinks this is a dangerous rock ahead. If he does not change in
this respect he will wander further and further from the law of the Lord,
and imperil his soul, for dangers surround him on all sides like roaring
lions. The noble gifts of a handsome and engaging person will lead him to
his ruin; and though I do not desire it, I suspect….”

“You look on the dark side and judge hardly,” replied the old man. “The
young….”

“Even the young, or at least the Christian young, ought to control
themselves, though I, if any one, am inclined to make the utmost allowance
for the handsome lad—nay, and I may confess: when he smiles at me I
feel at once as if I had met with some good-luck; and there are a thousand
other men in Memphis who feel the same, and still more the women you may
be sure—but many a one has shed bitter tears on his account for all
that.—But, by all the saints!—Talk of the wolf and you see his
tail! Look, there he is!—Halt! Stop a minute, you men; it is worth
while, Sir, to tarry a moment.”

“Is that his fine quadriga in front of the high garden gate yonder?”

“Those are the Pannonian horses he brought with him, as swift as lightning
and as…. But look! Ah, now they have disappeared behind the hedge; but
you, high up on your dromedary, must be able to see them. The little maid
by his side is the widow Susannah’s daughter. This garden and the
beautiful mansion behind the trees belong to her.”

“A very handsome property!” said the Arab.

“I should think so indeed!” replied the Memphite. “The garden goes down to
the Nile, and then, what care is taken of it!”

“Was it not here that Philommon the corn-merchant lived formerly?” asked
the old man, as though some memories were coming back to him.

“To be sure. He was Susannah’s husband and must have been a man of fifty
when he first wooed her. The little girl is their only child and the
richest heiress in the whole province; but she is not altogether grown up
though she is sixteen years old—an old man’s child, you understand,
but a pretty, merry creature, a laughing dove in human form, and so quick
and lively. Her own people call her the little water-wagtail.”

“Good!—Good and very appropriate,” said the merchant well pleased.
“She is small too, a child rather than a maiden; but the graceful,
gladsome creature takes my fancy. And the governor’s son—what is his
name?”

“Orion, Sir,” replied the guide.

“And by my beard,” said the old man smiling. “You have not over-praised
him, man! Such a youth as this Orion is not to be seen every day. What a
tall fellow, and how becoming are those brown curls. Such as he are spoilt
to begin with by their mothers, and then all the other women follow suit.
And he has a frank, shrewd face with something behind it. If only he had
left his purple coat and gold frippery in Constantinople! Such finery is
out of place in this dismal ruinous city.”

While he was yet speaking the Memphite urged his ass forward, but the Arab
held him back, for his attention was riveted by what was taking place
within the enclosure. He saw handsome Orion place a small white dog, a
silky creature of great beauty that evidently belonged to him—in the
little maiden’s arms saw her kiss it and then put a blade of grass round
its neck as if to measure its size. The old man watched them as, both
laughing gaily, they looked into each other’s eyes and presently bid each
other farewell. The girl stood on tiptoe in front of some rare shrub to
reach two exquisite purple flowers that blossomed at the top, hastily
plucked them and offered them to him with a deep blush; she pushed away
the hand he had put out to support her as she stretched up for the flowers
with a saucy slap; and a bright glance of happiness lighted up her sweet
face as the young man kissed the place her fingers had hit, and then
pressed the flowers to his lips. The old man looked on with sympathetic
pleasure, as though it roused the sweetest memories in his mind; and his
kind eyes shone as Orion, no less mischievously happy than the young girl,
whispered something in her ear; she drew the long stem of grass out of her
waist-belt to administer immediate and condign punishment withal, struck
it across his face, and then fled over grass-plot and flower-bed, as swift
as a roe, without heeding his repeated shouts of “Katharina! bewitching,
big damsel, Katharina!” till she reached the house.

It was a charming little interlude. Old Haschim was still pondering it in
his memory with much satisfaction when he and his caravan had gone some
distance further. He felt obliged to Orion for this pretty scene, and when
he heard the young man’s quadriga approaching at an easy trot behind him,
he turned round to gaze. But the Arab’s face had lost its contentment by
the time the four Pannonians and the chariot, overlaid with silver
ornamentation and forming, with its driver, a picture of rare beauty and
in perfect taste, had slowly driven past, to fly on like the wind as soon
as the road was clear, and to vanish presently in clouds of dust. There
was something of melancholy in his voice as he desired his young
camel-driver to pick up the flowers, which now lay in the dust of the
road, and to bring them to him. He himself had observed the handsome youth
as, with a glance and a gesture of annoyance with himself, he flung the
innocent gift on the hot, sandy highway.

“Your brother is right,” cried the old man to the Memphite. “Women are
indeed the rock ahead in this young fellow’s life—and he in theirs,
I fear! Poor little girl!”

“The little water-wagtail do you mean? Oh! with her it may perhaps turn to
real earnest. The two mothers have settled the matter already. They are
both rolling in gold, and where doves nest doves resort.—Thank God,
the sun is low down over the Pyramids! Let your people rest at the large
inn yonder; the host is an honest man and lacks nothing, not even shade!”

“So far as the beasts and drivers are concerned,” said the merchant, “they
may stop here. But I, and the leader of the caravan, and some of my men
will only take some refreshment, and then you must guide us to the
governor; I have to speak with him. It is growing late…”

“That does not matter,” said the Egyptian. “The Mukaukas prefers to see
strangers after sundown on such a scorching day. If you have any dealings
with him I am the very man for you. You have only to make play with a gold
piece and I can obtain you an audience at once through Sebek, the
house-steward he is my cousin. While you are resting here I will ride on
to the governor’s palace and bring you word as to how matters stand.”


CHAPTER II.

The caravansary into which Haschim and his following now turned off stood
on a plot of rising ground surrounded by palm-trees. Before the
destruction of the heathen sanctuaries it had been a temple of Imhotep,
the Egyptian Esculapius, the beneficient god of healing, who had had his
places of special worship even in the city of the dead. It was half
relined, half buried in desert sand when an enterprising inn-keeper had
bought the elegant structure with the adjacent grove for a very moderate
sum. Since then it had passed to various owners, a large wooden building
for the accommodation of travellers had been added to the massive edifice,
and among the palm-trees, which extended as far as the ill-repaired quay,
stables were erected and plots of ground fenced in for beasts of all
kinds. The whole place looked like a cattle-fair, and indeed it was a
great resort of the butchers and horse-dealers of the town, who came there
to purchase. The palm-grove, being one of the few remaining close to the
city, also served the Memphites as a pleasure-ground where they could
“sniff fresh air” and treat themselves in a pleasant shade. ‘Tables and
seats had been set out close to the river, and there were boats on hire in
mine host’s little creek; and those who took their pleasure in coming
thither by water were glad to put in and refresh themselves under the
palms of Nesptah.

Two rows of houses had formerly divided this rendezvous for the sober and
the reckless from the highroad, but they had long since been pulled down
and laid level with the ground by successive landlords. Even now some
hundreds of laborers might be seen, in spite of the scorching heat,
toiling under Arab overseers to demolish a vast ruin of the date of the
Ptolemies and transporting the huge blocks of limestone and marble, and
the numberless columns which once had supported the roof of the temple of
Zeus, to the eastern shore of the Nile-loading them on to trucks drawn by
oxen which hauled them down to the quay to cross the river in
flat-bottomed boats.

Amru, the Khaliff’s general and representative, was there building his new
capital. For this the temples of the old gods were used as quarries, and
they supplied not only finely-squared blocks of the most durable stone,
but also myriads of Greek columns of every order, which had only to be
ferried over and set up again on the other shore; for the Arabs disdained
nothing in the way of materials, and made indiscriminate use of blocks and
pillars in their own sanctuaries, whether they took them from heathen
temples or Christian churches.

The walls of the temple of Imhotep had originally been completely covered
with pictures of the gods, and hieroglyphic inscriptions; but the smoke of
reeking hearths had long since blackened them, fanatical hands had never
been wanting to deface them, and in many places they had been lime-washed
and scrawled with Christian symbols or very unchristian mottoes, in Greek
and the spoken dialect of the Egyptians. The Arab and his men took their
meal in what had been the great hall of the temple—none of them
drinking wine excepting the captain of the caravan, who was no Moslem but
belonged to the Parsee sect of the Masdakites.

When the old merchant, sitting at a table by himself, had satisfied his
hunger, he called this chief and desired him to load the bale containing
the hanging on a litter between the two largest baggage camels, and to
fasten it securely but so that it could easily be removed.

“It is done,” replied the Persian, as he wiped his thick moustache—he
was a magnificent man as tall and stalwart as an oak, with light flowing
hair like a lion’s mane.

“So much the better,” said Haschim. “Then come out with me.” And he led
the way to the palmgrove.

The sun had sunk to rest behind the pyramids, the Necropolis, and the
Libyan hills; the eastern sky, and the bare limestone rock of Babylon on
the opposite shore were shining with hues of indescribable diversity and
beauty. It seemed as though every variety of rose reared by the skilled
gardeners of Arsinoe or Naukratis had yielded its hues, from golden buff
to crimson and the deepest wine-tinted violet, to shed their magic glow on
the plains, the peaks and gorges of the hills, with the swiftness of
thought.

The old man’s heart beat high as he gazed at the scene; he drew a deep
breath, and laying his slender hand on the Persian’s mighty arm he said:
“Your prophet, Masdak, taught that it was God’s will that no one should
think himself more or less chosen than another, and that there should be
neither rich nor poor on earth, but that every possession should belong to
all in common. Well, look around you here as I do. The man who has not
seen this has seen nothing. There is no fairer scene here below and to
whom does it belong? To poor simple Salech yonder, whom we allowed to
tramp half naked at our camels’ heels out of pity.—It is his as much
as it is yours or mine or the Khaliff’s. God has given us all an equal
share in the glory of his works, as your prophet would have it. How much
beauty is the common possession of our race! Let us be thankful for it,
Rustem, for indeed it is no small matter.—But as to property, such
as man may win or lose, that is quite a different matter. We all start on
the same race-course, and what you Masdakites ask is that lead should be
tied to the feet of the swift so that no one should outstrip another; but
that would be…. Well, well! Let us feast our eyes now on the marvellous
beauty before us. Look: What just now was the purple of this flower is now
deep ruby red; what before was a violet gleam now is the richest amethyst.
Do you see the golden fringe to those clouds? It is like a setting.—And
all this is ours—is yours and mine—so long as we have eyes and
heart to enjoy and be uplifted by it!”

The Masdakite laughed, a fresh, sonorous laugh, and said: “Yes, Master,
for those who see as you see. The colors are bright no doubt over the sky
and the hills, and we do not often see such a red as that at home in my
country; but of what use is all that magic show? You see rubies and
amethysts—but as for me! The gems in your hanging stand for
something more than that shining show. I mean no harm, Master, but I would
give all the sunsets that ever glowed on earth for your bales and never
repent of the bargain!” He laughed more heartily than before and added:
“But you, worthy Father, would think twice before you signed it.—As
to what we Masdakites hope for, our time is not yet come.”

“And suppose it were, and that the hanging were yours?”

“I should sell it and add the price to my savings, and go home and buy
some land, and take a pretty wife, and breed camels and horses.”

“And next day would come the poorer men who had laid nothing by, and had
made no bargain over hangings and sunsets; and they would ask for a share
of your land, and a camel and a foal each, and you would not be able ever
to see a sunset again but must wander about the world, and your pretty
wife with you to help you share everything with others.—Let us abide
by the old order, my Rustem, and may the Most High preserve you your good
heart, for you have but a foolish and crotchety head.”

The big man bent over his master and gratefully kissed his arm; at this
moment the guide rejoined them, but with a long face for he had promised
more than he could perform. The Mukaukas George had set out—a quite
unheard of event—for an excursion on the river in his barge, with
his son and the ladies of the house just as he was hoping to secure an
audience for the Arab. Orion’s return—the steward had explained—had
made the old man quite young again. Haschim must now wait till the morrow,
and he, the guide, would counsel him to pass the night in the city at an
inn kept by one Moschion, where he would be well cared for.

But the merchant preferred to remain where he was. He did not care about
the delay, more particularly as he wished to consult an Egyptian physician
with regard to an old standing complaint he suffered from, and there was
no more skilful or learned leech in the whole land, the Egyptian guide
assured him, than the famous Philip of Memphis. The situation here,
outside the town, was very pleasant, and from the river’s bank he might
observe the comet which had been visible for some nights past—a
portent of evil no doubt. The natives of the city had been paralysed with
terror; that indeed was evident even here in Nesptah’s caravansary, for
usually as the evening grew cool, the tables and benches under the palms
were crowded with guests; but who would care to think of enjoyment in
those days of dread?

So he remounted his ass to fetch the physician, while old Haschim, leaning
on the Masdakite’s arm, betook himself to a bench by the river. There he
sat gazing thoughtfully at the starry sky, and his companion dreamed of
home and of buying a meadow, even without the price of the gorgeous
hanging, of building a house, and of choosing a pretty little wife to
manage it. Should she be fair or dark? He would rather she should be fair.

But his castle in the air was shattered at this point, for an object was
approaching across the Nile which attracted his attention, and which he
pointed out to his chief. The stream lay before them like a broad belt of
black and silver brocade. The waxing moon was mirrored in the almost
unruffled surface and where a ripple curled it the tiny crest glittered
like white flame. Bats swooped to and fro in the gloom from the city of
the dead to the river, and flitted above it like shadows blown about by
the wind. A few lateen sails moved like pale, gigantic birds over the dark
waters; but now from the north—and from the city—a larger mass
came towards the palm-grove with bright, gleaming eyes of light.

“A fine boat,—the governor’s no doubt,” said the merchant, as it
slowly came towards the grove from the middle of the stream. At the same
time the clatter of hoofs became audible from the road behind the inn.
Haschim turned round and was aware of torchbearers running ahead of a
chariot.

“The sick man has come so far by water,” said the Arab, “and now, he is to
be driven home.—Strange! this is the second time to-day that I have
met his much-talked-of son!”

The governor’s pleasure-barge was nearing the palm-grove. It was a large
and handsome boat, built of cedar-wood and richly gilt, with an image of
John, the patron-saint of the family, for a figure-head. The nimbus round
the head was a crown of lamps, and large lanterns shone both at the bows
and stern of the vessel. The Mukaukas George was reclining under an
awning, his wife Neforis by his side. Opposite to them sat their son and a
tall young girl, at whose feet a child of ten sat on the ground, leaning
her pretty head against her knees. An older Greek woman, the child’s
governess, had a place by the side of a very tall man, on an ottoman
beyond the verge of the awning. This man was Philip the leech. The
cheerful sound of the lute accompanied the barge, and the performer was
the returned wanderer Orion, who touched the strings with skill and deep
feeling.

It was altogether a pleasing scene—a fair picture of a wealthy and
united family. But who was the damsel sitting by Orion’s side? He was
devoting his whole attention to her; as he struck the strings with deeper
emphasis his eyes sought hers, and it seemed as though he were playing for
her alone. Nor did she appear unworthy of such homage, for when the barge
ran into the little haven and Haschim could distinguish her features he
was startled by her noble and purely Greek beauty.

A few handsomely-dressed slaves, who must have come with the vehicle by
the road, now went on board the boat to carry their invalid lord to his
chariot; and it then became apparent that the seat in which he reclined
was provided with arms by which it could be lifted and moved. A burly
negro took this at the back, but just as another was stooping to lift it
in front Orion pushed him away and took his place, raised the couch with
his father on it, and carried him across the landing-stage between the
deck and the shore, past Haschim to the chariot. The young man did the
work of bearer with cheerful ease, and looked affectionately at his father
while he shouted to the ladies—for only his mother and the physician
accompanied the invalid after carefully wrapping him in shawls—to
get out of the barge and wait for him. Then he went forward, lighted by
the torches which were carried before them.

“Poor man!” thought the merchant as he looked after the Mukaukas. “But to
a man who has such a son to carry him the saddest and hardest lot floats
by like a cloud before the wind.”

He was now ready to forgive Orion even the rejected flowers; and when the
young girl stepped on shore, the child clinging fondly to her arm, he
confessed to himself that Dame Susannah’s little daughter would find it
hard indeed to hold her own by the side of this tall and royal vision of
beauty. What a form was this maiden’s, and what princely bearing; and how
sweet and engaging the voice in which she named some of the constellations
to her little companion, and pointed out the comet which was just rising!

Haschim was sitting in shadow; he could see without being seen, and note
all that took place on the bench, which was lighted by one of the barge’s
lanterns. The unexpected entertainment gave him pleasure, for everything
that affected the governor’s son roused his sympathy and interest. The
idea of forming an opinion of this remarkable young man smiled on his
fancy, and the sight of the beautiful girl who sat on the bench yonder
warmed his old heart. The child must certainly be Mary, the governor’s
granddaughter.

Then the chariot started off, clattering away down the road, and in a few
minutes Orion came back to the rest of the party.

Alas! Poor little heiress of Susannah’s wealth! How different was his
demeanor to this beautiful damsel from his treatment of that little thing!
His eyes rested on her face in rapture, his speech failed him now and
again as he addressed her, and what he said must be sometimes grave and
captivating and sometimes witty, for not she alone but the little maid’s
governess listened to him eagerly, and when the fair one laughed it was in
particularly sweet, clear tones. There was something so lofty in her mien
that this frank expression of contentment was almost startling; like a
breath of perfume from some gorgeous flower which seems created to rejoice
the eye only. And she, to whom all that Orion had to say was addressed,
listened to him not only with deep attention, but in a way which showed
the merchant that she cared even more for the speaker than for what he was
so eager in expressing. If this maiden wedded the governor’s son, they
would indeed be a pair! Taus, the innkeeper’s wife, now came out, a buxom
and vigorous Egyptian woman of middle age, carrying some of the puffs for
which she was famous, and which she had just made with her own hands. She
also served them with milk, grapes and other fruit, her eyes sparkling
with delight and gratified ambition; for the son of the great Mukaukas,
the pride of the city, who in former years had often been her visitor, and
not only for the sake of her cakes, in water parties with his gay
companions—mostly Greek officers who now were all dead and gone or
exiles from the country—now did her the honor to come here so soon
after his return. Her facile tongue knew no pause as she told him that she
and her husband had gone forth with the rest to welcome him at the
triumphal arch near Menes’ Gate, and Emau with them, and the little one.
Yes, Emau was married now, and had called her first child Orion. And when
the young man asked Dame Taus whether Emau was as charming as ever and as
like her mother as she used to be, she shook her finger at him and asked
in her turn, as she pointed towards the young lady, whether the fickle
bird at whose departure so many had sighed, was to be caged at last, and
whether yon fair lady….

But Orion cut her short, saying that he was still his own master though he
already felt the noose round his neck; and the fair lady blushed even more
deeply than at the good woman’s first question. He however soon got over
his awkwardness and gaily declared that the worthy Taus’ little daughter
was one of the prettiest girls in Memphis, and had had quite as many
admirers as her excellent mother’s puff-pastry. Taus was to greet her
kindly from him.

The landlady departed, much touched and flattered; Orion took up his lute,
and while the ladies refreshed themselves he did the maiden’s bidding and
sang the song by Alcaeus which she asked for, in a rich though subdued
voice to the lute, playing it like a master. The young girl’s eyes were
fixed on his lips, and again, he seemed to be making music for her alone.
When it was time to start homewards, and the ladies returned to the barge,
he went up to the inn to pay the reckoning. As he presently returned alone
the Arab saw him pick up a handkerchief that the young lady had left on
the table, and hastily press it to his lips as he went towards the barge.

The gorgeous red blossoms had fared worse in the morning. The young man’s
heart was given to that maiden on the water. She could not be his sister;
what then was the connection between them?

The merchant soon gained this information, for the guide on his return
could give it him. She was Paula, the daughter of Thomas, the famous Greek
general who had defended the city of Damascus so long and so bravely
against the armies of Islam. She was Mukaukas George’s niece, but her
fortune was small; she was a poor relation of the family, and after her
father’s disappearance—for his body had never been found—she
had been received into the governor’s house out of pity and charity—she,
a Melchite! The interpreter had little to say in her favor, by reason of
her sect; and though he could find no flaw in her beauty, he insisted on
it that she was proud and ungracious, and incapable of winning any man’s
love; only the child, little Mary—she, to be sure, was very fond of
her. It was no secret that even her uncle’s wife, worthy Neforis, did not
care for her haughty niece and only suffered her to please the invalid.
And what business had a Melchite at Memphis, under the roof of a good
Jacobite? Every word the dragoman spoke breathed the scorn which a mean
and narrow-minded man is always ready to heap on those who share the
kindness of his own benefactors.

But this beautiful and lofty-looking daughter of a great man had conquered
the merchant’s old heart, and his opinion of her was quite unmoved by the
Memphite’s strictures. It was ere long confirmed indeed, for Philip, the
leech whom the guide had been to find, and whose dignified personality
inspired the Arab with confidence, was a daily visitor to the governor,
and he spoke of Paula as one of the most perfect creatures that Heaven had
ever formed in a happy hour. But the Almighty seemed to have forgotten to
care for his own masterpiece; for years her life had been indeed a sad
one.

The physician could promise the old man some mitigation of his sufferings,
and they liked each other so well that they parted the best of friends,
and not till a late hour.


CHAPTER III.

The Mukaukas’ barge, urged forward by powerful rowers, made its way
smoothly down the river. On board there was whispering, and now and again
singing. Little Mary had dropped asleep on Paula’s shoulder; the Greek
duenna gazed sometimes at the comet which filled her with terrors,
sometimes at Orion, whose handsome face had bewitched her mature heart,
and sometimes at the young girl whom she was ill-pleased to see thus
preferred by this favorite of the gods. It was a deliciously warm, still
night, and the moon, which makes the ocean swell and flow, stirs the tide
of feeling to rise in the human breast.

Whatever Paula asked for Orion sang, as though nothing was unknown to him
that had ever sounded on a Greek lute; and the longer they went on the
clearer and richer his voice grew, the more melting and seductive its
expression, and the more urgently it appealed to the young girl’s heart.
Paula gave herself up to the sweet enchantment, and when he laid down the
lute and asked in low tones if his native land was not lovely on such a
night as this, or which song she liked best, and whether she had any idea
of what it had been to him to find her in his parents’ house, she yielded
to the charm and answered him in whispers like his own.

Under the dense foliage of the sleeping garden he pressed her hand to his
lips, and she, tremulous, let him have his way.—Bitter, bitter years
lay behind her. The physician had spoken only too truly. The hardest blows
of fate had brought her—the proud daughter of a noble father—to
a course of cruel humiliations. The life of a friendless though not
penniless relation, taken into a wealthy house out of charity, had proved
a thorny path to tread, but now-since the day before yesterday—all
was changed. Orion had come. His home and the city had held high festival
on his return, as at some gift of Fortune, in which she too had a goodly
share. He had met her, not as the dependent relative, but as a beautiful
and high-born woman. There was sunshine in his presence which warmed her
very heart, and made her raise her head once more like a flower that is
brought out under the open sky after long privation of light and air. His
bright spirit and gladness of life refreshed her heart and brain; the
respect he paid her revived her crushed self-confidence and filled her
soul with fervent gratitude. Ah! and how delightful it was to feel that
she might be grateful, devotedly grateful.—And then, then this
evening had been hers, the sweetest, most blessed that she had known for
years. He had reminded her of what she had almost forgotten: that she was
still young, that she was still lovely, that she had a right to be happy,
to enchant and be enchanted—perhaps even to love and to be loved.

Her hand was still conscious of his burning kiss as she entered the cool
room where the Lady Neforis sat awaiting the return of the party, turning
her spinning-wheel by the couch of her invalid husband who always went to
rest at late hours. It was with an overflowing heart that Paula raised her
uncle’s hand to her lips—Orion’s father, might she not say HER
Orion’s?—Then she kissed her aunt—his mother, and it was long
since she had done so—as she and little Mary bid her good-night.
Neforis accepted the kiss coolly but with some surprise, and looked up
enquiringly at the girl and at her son. No doubt she thought many things,
but deemed it prudent to give them no utterance for the present. She
allowed the girl to retire as though nothing unusual had occurred,
superintended the servants who came to carry her husband into his bedroom,
gave him the white globule which was to secure him sleep, and with
indefatigable patience turned and moved his pillows till his couch was to
his mind. Not till then, nor till she was satisfied that a servant was
keeping watch in the adjoining room, did she leave him; and then—for
there was danger in delay—she went to seek her son.

This tall, large and rather too portly woman had been in her youth a
slender and elegant girl; a graceful creature though her calm and
expressionless features had never been strikingly beautiful. Age had
altered them but little; her face was now that of a good-looking, plump,
easy-going matron, which had lost its freshness through long and devoted
attendance on the sick man. Her birth and position gave her confidence and
self-reliance, but there was nothing gracious or captivating in her
individuality. The joys and woes of others were not hers; still she could
be moved and stirred by them, even to self-denial, and was very capable of
feeling quite a passionate interest for others; only, those others must be
her own immediate belongings and no one else. Thus a more devoted and
anxious wife, or a more loving mother would have been hard to find; but,
if we compare her faculty for loving with a star, its rays were too short
to reach further than to those nearest to her, and these regarded it as an
exceptional state of grace to be included within the narrow circle of
those beloved by her somewhat grudging soul.

She knocked at Orion’s sitting-room, and he hailed her late visit with
surprise and pleasure. She had come to speak of a matter of importance,
and had done so promptly, for her son’s and Paula’s conduct just now urged
her to lose no time. Something was going on between these two and her
husband’s niece was far outside the narrow limits of her loving kindness.

This, she began by saying, would not allow her to sleep. She had but one
heart’s desire and his father shared it: Orion must know full well what
she meant; she had spoken to him about it only yesterday. His father had
received him with warm affection, had paid his debts unhesitatingly and
without a word of reproach, and now it was his part to turn over a new
leaf: to break with his former reckless life and set up a home of his own.
The bride, as he knew, was chosen for him. “Susannah was here just now,”
she said. “You scapegrace, she confessed that you had quite turned her
Katharina’s little head this morning.”

“I am sorry for it,” he interrupted in a tone of annoyance. “These ways
with women have grown upon me as a habit; but I have done with them
henceforth. They are unworthy of me now, and I feel, my dear Mother….”

“That life is beginning in earnest,” Neforis threw in. “The wish which
brings me to you now entirely accords with that. You know what it is, and
I cannot imagine what you can have to say against it. In short, you must
let me settle the matter to-morrow with Dame Susannah. You are sure of her
daughter’s affection, she is the richest heiress in the country, well
brought up, and as I said before, she has quite lost her little heart to
you.”

“And she had better have kept it!” said Orion with a laugh.

Then his mother waxed wroth and exclaimed: “I must beg you to reserve your
mirth for a more fitting season and for laughable things. I am very much
in earnest when I say: The girl is a sweet, good little creature and will
be a faithful and loving wife to you, under God. Or have you left your
heart in Constantinople? Has the Senator Justinus’ fair relation.—But
nonsense! You can hardly suppose that that volatile Greek girl….”

Orion clasped her in his arms, and said tenderly, “No, dearest mother, no.
Constantinople lies far, far behind me, in grey mist beyond the farthest
Thule; and here, close here, under my father’s roof, I have found
something far more lovely and more perfect than has ever been beheld by
the dwellers on the Bosphorus. That little girl is no match for a son of
our stalwart and broad-shouldered race. Our future generations must still
tower proudly above the common herd in every respect; I want no plaything
for a wife, but a woman, such as you yourself were in youth—tall,
dignified and handsome. My heart goes forth to no gold-crested wren but to
a really royal maiden.—Of what use to waste words! Paula, the noble
daughter of a glorious father, is my choice. It came upon me just now like
a revelation; I ask your blessing on my union with her!”

So far had Neforis allowed her son to speak. He had frankly and boldly
uttered what she had indeed feared to hear. And so long she had succeeded
in keeping silence!—But now her patience gave way. Trembling with
anger she abruptly broke in, exclaiming, as her face grew crimson:

“No more, no more! Heaven grant that this which I have been compelled to
hear may be no more than a fleeting and foolish whim! Have you quite
forgotten who and what we are? Have you forgotten that those were
Melchites who slew your two dear brothers—our two noble sons? Of
what account are we among the orthodox Greeks? While among the Egyptians
and all who confess the saving doctrine of Eutyches, among the
Monophysites we are the chief, and we will remain so, and close our ears
and hearts against all heretics and their superstitions. What! A grandson
of Menas, the brother of two martyrs for our glorious faith, married to a
Melchite! The mere idea is sacrilege, is blasphemy; I can give it no
milder name! I and your father will die childless before we consent! And
it is for the love of this woman, whose heart is so cold that I shiver
only to think of it—for this waif and stray, who has nothing but her
ragged pride and the mere scrapings of a lost fortune, which never could
compare with ours—for this thankless creature, who can hardly bring
herself to bid me, your mother, such a civil good-morning—by Heaven
it is the truth—as I can say to a slave—for her that I, that
your parents are to be bereft of their son, the only child that a gracious
Providence has left to be their joy and comfort? No, no, never! Far be it
from me! You, Orion, my heart’s darling, you have been a wilful fellow all
your life, but you cannot have such a perverse heart as to bring your old
mother, who has kept you in her heart these four and twenty years, in
sorrow to the grave and embitter your father’s few remaining days—for
his hours are numbered!—And all for the sake of this cold beauty,
whom you have seen for a few hours these last two days. You cannot have
the heart to do this, my heart’s treasure, no, you cannot!—But if
you should in some accursed hour, I tell you—and I have been a
tender mother to you all your life-but as surely as God shall be my stay
and your father’s in our last hour, I will tear all love for you out of my
heart like a poisonous weed—I will, though that heart should break!”

Orion put his arms round the excited woman, who lead freed herself from
his embrace, laid his hand lightly on her lips and kissed her eyes,
whispering in her ear:

“I have not the heart indeed, and could scarcely find it.” Then, taking
both her hands, he looked straight into her face.

“Brrr!” he exclaimed, “your daredevil son was never so much frightened in
his life as by your threats. What dreadful words are these—and even
worse were at the tip of your tongue! Mother—Mother Neforis! Your
name means kindness, but you can be cruel, bitterly cruel!”

Still he drew her fondly to him, and kissed her hair and brow and cheeks
with eager haste, in a vehemence of feeling which came over him like a
revulsion after the shock he had gone through; and when they parted he had
given her leave to negotiate for little Katharina’s hand on his behalf,
and she had promised in return that it should be not on the morrow but the
day after at soonest. This delay seemed to him a sort of victory and when
he found himself alone and reflected on what he had done in yielding to
his mother, though his heart bled from the wounds of which he himself knew
not the depth, he rejoiced that he had not bound Paula by any closer tie.
His eyes had indeed told her much, but the word “Love” had not passed his
lips—and yet that was what it came to.—But surely a cousin
might be allowed to kiss the hand of a lovely relation. She was a
desirable woman—ah, how desirable!—and must ever be: but to
quarrel with his parents for the sake of a girl, were she Aphrodite
herself, or one of the Muses or the Graces—that was impossible!
There were thousands of pretty women in the world, but only one mother;
and how often had his heart beat high and won another heart, taken all it
had to give, and then easily and quickly recovered its balance.

This time however, it seemed more deeply hit than on former occasions;
even the lovely Persian slave for whose sake he had committed the wildest
follies while yet scarcely more than a school-boy—even the
bewitching Heliodora at Constantinople for whom he still had a tender
thought, had not agitated him so strongly. It was hard to give up this
Paula; but there was no help for it. To-morrow he must do his best to
establish their intercourse on a friendly and fraternal footing; for he
could have no hope that she would be content to accept his love only, like
the gentle Heliodora, who was quite her equal in birth. Life would have
been fair, unutterably fair, with this splendid creature by his side! If
only he could take her to the Capital he felt sure that all the world
would stand still to turn round and gaze at her. And if she loved him—if
she met him open-armed…. Oh, why had spiteful fate made her a Melchite?
But then, alas, alas! There must surely be something wrong with her nature
and temper; would she not otherwise have been able in two years to gain
the love, instead of the dislike, of his excellent and fond mother?—Well,
after all, it was best so; but Paula’s image haunted him nevertheless and
spoilt his sleep, and his longing for her was not to be stilled.

Neforis, meanwhile, did not return at once to her husband but went to find
Paula. This business must be settled on all sides and at once. If she
could have believed that her victory would give the invalid unqualified
pleasure she would have hastened to him with the good news, for she knew
no higher joy than to procure him a moment’s happiness; but the Mukaukas
had agreed to her choice very reluctantly. Katharina seemed to him too
small and childish for his noble son, whose mental superiority had been
revealed to him unmistakably and undeniably, in many long discussions
since his return, to the delight of his father’s heart. “The
water-wagtail,” though he wished her every happiness, did not satisfy him
for Orion. To him, the father, Paula would have been a well-beloved
daughter-in-law, and he had often found pleasure in picturing her by
Orion’s side. But she was a Melchite; he knew too how ill-affected his
wife was towards her, so he kept his wish locked in his own breast in
order not to vex the faithful companion who lived, thought, and felt for
him alone; and Dame Neforis knew or guessed all this, and said to herself
that it would cost him his night’s rest if he were to be told at once what
a concession Orion had made.

With Paula it was different. The sooner she learnt that she had nothing to
expect from their son, the better for her.

That very morning she and Orion had greeted each other like a couple of
lovers and just now they had parted like a promised bride and bridegroom.
She would not again be witness to such vexatious doings; so she went to
the young girl’s room and confided to her with much satisfaction the happy
prospects her son had promised them,—only Paula must say nothing
about it till the day after to-morrow.

The moment she entered the room Paula inferred from her beaming expression
that she had something to say unpleasant to herself, so she preserved due
composure. Her face wore a look of unmoved indifference while she
submitted to the overflow of a too-happy mother’s heart; and she wished
the betrothed couple joy: but she did so with a smile that infuriated
Neforis.

She was not on the whole spiteful; but face to face with this girl, her
nature was transformed, and she rather liked the idea of showing her, once
more in her life, that in her place humility would beseem her. All this
she said to herself as she quitted Paula’s room; but perhaps this woman,
who had much that was good in her, might have felt some ruth, if in the
course of the next few hours she could but have looked into the heart of
the orphan entrusted to her protection. Only once did Paula sob aloud;
then she indignantly dried her tears, and sat for a long time gazing at
the floor, shaking her pretty head again and again as though something
unheard-of and incredible had befallen her.

At last, with a bitter sigh, she went to bed; and while she vainly strove
for sleep, and for strength to pray and be silently resigned, Time seemed
to her a wild-beast chase, Fate a relentless hunter, and the quarry he was
pursuing was herself.


CHAPTER IV.

On the following evening Haschim, the merchant, came to the governor’s
house with a small part of his caravan. A stranger might have taken the
mansion for the home of a wealthy country-gentleman rather than the
official residence of a high official; for at this hour, after sunset,
large herds of beasts and sheep were being driven into the vast court-yard
behind the house, surrounded on three sides by out-buildings; half a
hundred horses of choice breed came, tied in couples, from the
watering-place; and in a well-sanded paddock enclosed by hurdles, slaves,
brown and black, were bringing fodder to a large troop of camels.

The house itself was well-fitted by its unusually palatial size and
antique splendor to be the residence of the emperor’s viceroy, and the
Mukaukas, to whom it all belonged, had in fact held the office for a long
time. After the conquest of the country by the Arabs they had left him in
possession, and at the present date he managed the affairs of his Egyptian
fellow-countrymen, no more in the name of the emperor at Byzantium, but
under the authority of the Khaliff at Medina and his great general, Amru.
The Moslem conquerors had found him a ready and judicious mediator; while
his fellow-Christians and country-men obeyed him as being the noblest and
wealthiest of their race and the descendant of ancestors who had enjoyed
high distinction even under the Pharaohs.

Only the governor’s residence was Greek—or rather Alexandrian-in
style; the court-yards and out-buildings on the contrary, looked as though
they belonged to some Oriental magnate-to some Erpaha (or prince of a
province) as the Mukaukas’ forefathers had been called, a rank which
commanded respect both at court and among the populace.

The dragoman had not told the merchant too much beforehand of the
governor’s possessions: he had vast estates, in both Upper and Lower
Egypt, tilled by thousands of slaves under numerous overseers. Here in
Memphis was the centre of administration of his property, and besides the
offices for his private affairs were those he needed as a state official.

Well-kept quays, and the wide road running along the harbor side, divided
his large domain from the river, and a street ran along the wall which
enclosed it on the north. On this side was the great gate, always wide
open by day, by which servants or persons on business-errands made their
entrance; the other gate, a handsome portal with Corinthian columns
opening from the Nile-quay, was that by which the waterparty had returned
the evening before. This was kept closed, and only opened for the family,
or for guests and distinguished visitors. There was a guardhouse at the
north gate with a small detachment of Egyptian soldiers, who were
entrusted with the protection of the Mukaukas’ person.

As soon as the refreshing evening breeze came up from the river after the
heat of the day there was a stir in the great court-yard. Men, women and
girls came trooping out of the retainers’ dwellings to breathe the cooler
air. Waiting-maids and slaves dipped for water into enormous earthen
vessels and carried it away in graceful jars; the free-men of the
household rested in groups after the fatigues of the day, chatting,
playing and singing. From the slaves’ quarters in another court-yard came
confused sounds of singing hymns, with the shrill tones of the double pipe
and duller noise of the tabor—an invitation to dance; scolding and
laughter; the jubilant shouts of a girl led out to dance, and the shrieks
of a victim to the overseer’s rod.

The servant’s gateway, still hung with flowers and wreaths in honor of
Orion’s recent return, was wide open for the coming and going of the
accountants and scribes, or of such citizens as came very willingly to pay
an evening call on their friends in the governor’s household; for there
were always some officials near the Mukaukas’ person who knew more than
other folks of the latest events in Church and State.

Ere long a considerable number of men had assembled to sit under the deep
wooden porch of the head-steward’s dwelling, all taking eager part in the
conversation, which they would have found very enjoyable even without the
beer which their host offered them in honor of the great event of his
young lord’s return; for what was ever dearer to Egyptians than a brisk
exchange of talk, at the same time heaping ridicule or scorn on their
unapproachable superiors in rank, and on all they deem enemies to their
creed or their country.

Many a trenchant word and many a witty jest must have been uttered this
evening, for hearty laughter and loud applause were incessant in the head
steward’s porch; the captain of the guard at the gate cast envious and
impatient glances at the merry band, which he would gladly have joined;
but he could not yet leave his post. The messengers’ horses were standing
saddled while their riders awaited their orders, there were supplicants
and traders to be admitted or turned away, and there were still a number
of persons lingering in the large vestibule of the governor’s palace and
craving to speak with him, for it was well known in Memphis that during
the hot season the ailing Mukaukas granted audience only in the evening.

The Egyptians had not yet acquired full confidence in the Arab government,
and every one tried to avoid being handed over to its representative; for
none of its officials could be so wise or so just as their old Mukaukas.
How the suffering man found strength and time to keep an eye on
everything, it was hard to imagine; but the fact remained that he himself
looked into every decision. At the same time no one could be sure of his
affairs being settled out of hand unless he could get at the governor
himself.

Business hours were now over; the anxiety caused both by the delay in the
rising of the Nile and by the advent of the comet had filled the
waiting-rooms with more petitioners than usual. Deputations from town and
village magistrates had been admitted in parties; supplicants on private
business had gone in one by one; and most of them had come forth content,
or at any rate well advised. Only one man still lingered,—a
countryman whose case had long been awaiting settlement—in the hope
that a gift to the great man’s doorkeeper, of a few drachmae out of his
poverty might at length secure him the fruit of his long patience—when
the chamberlain, bidding him return on the morrow, officiously flung open
the high doors that led to the Mukaukas’ apartments, to admit the Arab
merchant, in consideration of Haschim’s gold piece which had come to him
through his cousin the dragoman. Haschim, however, had observed the
countryman, and insisted on his being shown in first. This was done, and a
few minutes later the peasant came out satisfied, and gratefully kissed
the Arab’s hand.

Then the chamberlain led the old merchant, and the men who followed him
with a heavy bale, into a magnificent anteroom to wait; and his patience
was put to a severe test before his name was called and he could show the
governor his merchandise.

The Mukaukas, in fact, after signifying by a speechless nod that he would
presently receive the merchant—who came well recommended—had
retired to recreate himself, and was now engaged in a game of draughts,
heedless of those whom he kept waiting. He reclined on a divan covered
with a sleek lioness’ skin, while his young antagonist sat opposite on a
low stool, The doors of the room, facing the Nile, where he received
petitioners were left half open to admit the fresher but still warm
evening-air. The green velarium or awning, which during the day had
screened off the sun’s rays where the middle of the ceiling was open to
the sky, was now rolled back, and the moon and stars looked down into the
room. It was well adapted to its purpose as a refuge from the heat of the
summer day, for the walls were lined with cool, colored earthenware tiles,
the floor was a brightly-tinted mosaic of patterns on a ground of gold
glass, and in the circular central ornament of this artistic pavement
stood the real source of freshness: a basin, two man’s length across, of
brown porphyry flecked with white, from which a fountain leaped, filling
the surrounding air with misty spray. A few stools, couches and small
tables, all of cool-looking metal, formed the sole furniture of this lofty
apartment which was brilliantly lighted by numerous lamps.

A light air blew in through the open roof and doors, made the lamps
flicker, and played with Paula’s brown hair as she sat absorbed, as it
seemed, in the game. Orion, who stood behind her, had several times
endeavored to attract her attention, but in vain. He now eagerly offered
his services to fetch her a handkerchief to preserve her from a chill;
this, however, she shortly and decidedly declined, though the breeze came
up damp from the river and she had more than once drawn her peplos more
closely across her bosom.

The young man set his teeth at this fresh repulse. He did not know that
his mother had told Paula what he had yesterday agreed to, and could not
account for the girl’s altered behavior. All day she had treated him with
icy coldness, had scarcely answered his questions with a distant “Yes,” or
“No;” and to him, the spoilt favorite of women, this conduct had become
more and more intolerable. Yes, his mother had judged her rightly: she
allowed herself to be swayed in a most extraordinary manner by her moods;
and now even he was to feel the insolence of her haughtiness, of which he
had as yet seen nothing. This repellent coldness bordered on rudeness and
he had no mind to submit to it for long. It was with deep vexation that he
watched every turn of her hand, every movement of her body, and the
varying expression of her face; and the more the image of this proud
maiden sank into his heart the more lovely and perfect he thought her, and
the greater grew his desire to see her smile once more, to see her again
as sweetly womanly as she had been but yesterday. Now she was like nothing
so much as a splendid marble statue, though he knew indeed that it had a
soul—and what a glorious task it would be to free this fair being
from herself, as it were, from the foolish tempers that enslaved her, to
show her—by severity if need should be—what best beseems a
woman, a maiden.

He became more and more exclusively absorbed in watching the young girl,
as his mother—who was sitting with Dame Susannah on a couch at some
little distance from the players—observed with growing annoyance,
and she tried to divert his attention by questions and small errands, so
as to give his evident excitement a fresh direction.

Who could have thought, yesterday morning, that her darling would so soon
cause her fresh vexation and anxiety.

He had come home just such a man as she and his father could have wished:
independent and experienced in the ways of the great world. In the Capital
he had, no doubt, enjoyed all that seems pleasant in the eyes of a wealthy
youth, but in spite of that he had remained fresh and open-hearted even to
the smallest things; and this was what most rejoiced his father. In him
there was no trace of the satiety, the blunted faculty for enjoyment,
which fell like a blight on so many men of his age and rank. He could
still play as merrily with little Mary, still take as much pleasure in a
rare flower or a fine horse, as before his departure. At the same time he
had gained keen insight into the political situation of the time, into the
state of the empire and the court, into administration, and the
innovations in church matters; it was a joy to his father to hear him
discourse; and he assured his wife that he had learnt a great deal from
the boy, that Orion was on the high road to be a great statesman and was
already quite capable of taking his father’s place.

When Neforis confessed how large a sum in debts Orion had left in
Constantinople the old man put his hand in his purse with a sort of pride,
delighted to find that his sole remaining heir knew how to spend the
immense wealth which to him was now a burden rather than a pleasure—to
make good use of it, as he himself had done in his day, and display a
magnificence of which the lustre was reflected on him and on his name.

“With him, at any rate,” said the old man, “one gets something for the
money. His horses cost a great deal but he knows how to win with them; his
entertainments swallow up a pretty sum, but they gain him respect wherever
he goes. He brought me a letter from the Senator Justinus, and the worthy
man tells me what a leading part he plays among the gilded youth of the
Capital. All this is not to be had for nothing, and it will be cheap in
the end. What need we care about a hundred talents more or less! And there
is something magnanimous in the lad that has given him the spirit to feel
that.”

And it was not a hale old grey-beard who spoke thus, but a broken man,
whose only joy it was to lavish on his son the riches which he had long
been incapable of enjoying. The high-spirited and gifted youth, scarcely
more than a boy in years, whom he had sent to the Capital with no small
misgivings, must have led a far less lawless life than might have been
expected; of this the ruddy tinge in his sunburnt cheeks was ample
guarantee, the vigorous solidity of his muscles, and the thick waves of
his hair, which was artificially curled and fell in a fringe, as was then
the fashion, over his high brow, giving him a certain resemblance to the
portraits of Antinous, the handsomest youth in the time of the Emperor
Hadrian. Even his mother owned that he looked like health itself, and no
member of the Imperial family could be more richly, carefully and
fashionably dressed than her darling. But even in the humblest garb he
would have been a handsome—a splendid youth, and his mother’s pride!
When he left home there was still a smack of the provincial about him; but
now every kind of awkwardness had vanished, and wherever he might go—even
in the Capital, he was certain to be one of the first to attract
observation and approval.

And what had he not known in his city experience? The events of half a
century had followed each other with intoxicating rapidity in the course
of the thirty months he had spent there. The greater the excitement, the
greater the pleasure was the watchword of his time; and though he had
rioted and revelled on the shores of the Bosphorus if ever man did, still
the pleasures of feasting and of love, or of racing with his own
victorious horses—all of which he had enjoyed there to the full—were
as child’s play compared with the nervous tension to which he had been
strung by the appalling events he had witnessed on all sides. How petty
was the excitement of an Alexandrian horse-race! Whether Timon or Ptolemy
or he himself should win—what did it matter? It was a fine thing no
doubt to carry off the crown in the circus at Byzantium, but there were
other and soul-stirring crises there beyond those which were bound up with
horses or chariots. There a throne was the prize, and might cost the blood
and life of thousands!—What did a man bring home from the churches
in the Nile valley? But if he crossed the threshold of St. Sophia’s in
Constantinople he often might have his blood curdled, or bring home—what
matter?—bleeding wounds, or even be carried home—a corpse.

Three times had he seen the throne change masters. An emperor and an
empress had been stripped of the purple and mutilated before his eyes.

Aye, then and there he had had real and intense excitement to thrill him
to the marrow and quick. As for the rest! Well, yes, he had had more
trivial pleasures too. He had not been received as other Egyptians were:
half-educated philosophers—who called themselves Sages and assumed a
mystic and pompously solemn demeanor, Astrologers, Rhetoricians,
poverty-stricken but witty and venemous satirists, physicians making a
display of the learning of their forefathers, fanatical theologians—always
ready to avail themselves of other weapons than reason and dogma in their
bitter contests over articles of faith, hermits and recluses—as foul
in mind as they were dirty in their persons, corn-merchants and usurers
with whom it was dangerous to conclude a bargain without witnesses. Orion
was none of these. As the handsome, genial, and original-minded son of the
rich and noble Governor, Mukaukas George, he was welcomed as a sort of
ambassador; whatever the golden youth of the city allowed themselves was
permitted to him. His purse was as well lined as theirs, his health and
vigor far more enduring; and his horses had beaten theirs in three races,
though he drove them himself and did not trust them to paid charioteers.
The “rich Egyptian,” the “New Antinous,” “handsome Orion,” as he was
called, could never be spared from feast or entertainment. He was a
welcome guest at the first houses in the city, and in the palace and the
villa of the Senator Justinus, an old friend of his father, he was as much
at home as a son of the house.

It was under his roof, and the auspices of his kindhearted wife Martina,
that he made acquaintance with the fair Heliodora, the widow of a nephew
of the Senator; and the whole city had been set talking of the tender
intimacy Orion had formed with the beautiful young woman whose rigid
virtue had hitherto been a subject of admiration no less than her fair
hair and the big jewels with which she loved to set off her simple but
costly dress. And many a fair Byzantine had striven for the young
Egyptian’s good graces before Heliodora had driven them all out of the
field. Still, she had not yet succeeded in enslaving Orion deeply and
permanently; and when, last evening, he had assured his mother that she
was not mistress of his heart he spoke truly.

His conduct in the Capital had not certainly been exemplary, but he had
never run wild, and had enjoyed the respect not only of his companions in
pleasure, but of grave and venerable men whom he had met in the house of
Justinus, and who sang the praises of his intelligence and eagerness to
learn. As a boy he had been a diligent scholar, and here he let no
opportunity slip. Not least had he cultivated his musical talents in the
Imperial city, and had acquired a rare mastery in singing and playing the
lute.

He would gladly have remained some time longer at the Capital, but at last
the place grew too hot to hold him-mainly on his father’s account. The
conviction that George had largely contributed to the disaffection of
Egypt for the Byzantine Empire and had played into the hands of the
irresistible and detested upstart Arabs, had found increasing acceptance
in the highest circles, especially since Cyrus—the deposed and now
deceased Patriarch of Alexandria—had retired to Constantinople.
Orion’s capture was in fact already decided on, when the Senator Justinus
and some other friends had hinted a warning which he had acted on just in
time.

His father’s line of conduct had placed him in great peril; but he owed
him no grudge for it—indeed, he most deeply approved of it. A
thousand times had he witnessed the contempt heaped on the Egyptians by
the Greeks, and the loathing and hatred of the Orthodox for the
Monophysite creed of his fellow-countrymen.

He had with difficulty controlled his wrath as he had listened again and
again to the abuse and scorn poured out on his country and people by
gentle and simple, laymen and priests, even in his presence; regarding him
no doubt as one of themselves—a Greek in whose eyes everything
“Barbarian” was as odious and as contemptible as in their own.

But the blood of his race flowed in the veins of the “new Antinous” who
could sing Greek songs so well and with so pure an accent; every insult to
his people was stamped deep in his heart, every sneer at his faith revived
his memory of the day when the Melchites had slain his two brothers. And
these bloody deeds, these innumerable acts of oppression by which the
Greek; had provoked and offended the schismatic Egyptian and hunted them
to death, were now avenged by his father. It lifted up his heart and made
him proud to think of it. He showed his secret soul to the old man who was
as much surprised as delighted at what he found there; for he had feared
that Orion might not be able wholly to escape the powerful influences of
Greek beguilements;—nay, he had often felt anxious lest his own son
might disapprove of his having surrendered to the Arab conquerors the
province entrusted to his rule, and concluded a peace with them.

The Mukaukas now felt himself as one with Orion, and from time to time
looked tenderly up at him from the draught-board. Neforis was doing her
best to entertain the mother of her son’s future bride, and divert her
attention from his strange demeanor. She seemed indeed to be successful,
for Dame Susannah agreed to everything she said; but she betrayed the fact
that she was keeping a sharp watch by suddenly asking: “Does your
husband’s lofty niece not think us worthy of a single word?”

“Oh no!” said Neforis bitterly. “I only hope she may soon find some other
people to whom she can behave more graciously. You may depend upon it I
will put no obstacle in her way.”

Then she brought the conversation round to Katharina, and the widow told
her that her brother-in-law, Chrysippus, was now in Memphis with his two
little daughters. They were to go away on the morrow, so the young girl
had been obliged to devote herself to them: “And so the poor child is
sitting there at this minute,” she lamented, “and must keep those two
little chatter-boxes quiet while she is longing to be here instead.”

Orion quite understood these last words; he asked after the young girl,
and then added gaily:

“She promised me a collar yesterday for my little white keepsake from
Constantinople. Fie! Mary, you should not tease the poor little beast.”

“No, let the dog go,” added the widow, addressing the governor’s little
granddaughter, who was trying to make the recalcitrant dog kiss her doll.
“But you know, Orion, this tiny creature is really too delicate for such a
big man as you are! You should give him to some pretty young lady and then
he would fulfil his destiny! And Katharina is embroidering him a collar; I
ought not to tell her little secret, but it is to have gold stars on a
blue ground.”

“Because Orion is a star,” cried the little girl. “So she is working
nothing but Orions.”

“But fortunately there is but one star of my name,” observed he. “Pray
tell her that Dame Susa.”

The child clapped her hands. “He does not choose to have any other star
near him!” she exclaimed.

The widow broke in: “Little simpleton! I know people who cannot even bear
to have a likeness traced between themselves and any one else.—But
this you must permit, Orion—you were quite right just now, Neforis;
his mouth and brow might have been taken from his father’s face.”

The remark was quite accurate; and yet it would have been hard to imagine
two men more unlike than the bright youth full of vitality, and the
languid old man on the couch, to whom even the small exertion of moving
the men was an effort. The Mukaukas might once have been like his son, but
in some long past time. Thin grey locks now only covered one half of his
bald head, and of his eyes, which, thirty years since, had sparkled
perhaps as keenly as Orion’s, there was usually nothing, or very little to
be seen; for the heavy lids always drooped over them as though they had
lost the power to open, and this gave his handsome but deathly-pale face a
somewhat owl-like look. It was not morose, however; on the contrary the
mingled lines of suffering and of benevolent kindliness resulted in an
expression only of melancholy. The mouth and flabby cheeks were as
motionless as though they were dead. Grief, anxiety and alarms seemed to
have passed over them with a paralysing hand and had left their trace
there. He looked like a man weary unto death, and still living only
because fate had denied him the grace to die. Indeed, he had often been
taken for dead by his family when he had dipped too freely into a certain
little blood-stone box to take too many of the white opium-pills, one of
which he placed between his colorless lips at long intervals, even during
his game of draughts.

He lifted each piece slowly, like a sleeper with his eyes half shut; and
yet his opponent could not hold her own against his wary tactics and was
defeated by him now for the third time, though her uncle himself called
her a good player. It was easy to read in her high, smooth brow and
dark-blue eyes with their direct gaze, that she could think clearly and
decisively, and also feel deeply. But she seemed wilful too, and
contradictory—at any rate to-day; for when Orion pointed out some
move to her she rarely took his advice, but with set lips, pushed the
piece according to her own, rarely wiser, judgment. It was quite plain
that she was refractory under the guidance of this—especially of
this counsellor.

The bystanders could not fail to see the girl’s repellent manner and
Orion’s eager attempts to propitiate her; and for this reason Neforis was
glad when, just as her husband had finished the third game, and had pushed
the men together on the board with the back of his hand, his chamberlain
reminded him that the Arab was without, awaiting his pleasure with growing
impatience. The Mukaukas answered only by a sign, drew his long caftan of
the finest wool closer around him, and pointed to the doors and the open
roof. The rest of the party had long felt the chill of the damp night air
that blew through the room from the river, but knowing that the father
suffered more from heat than from anything, they had all willingly endured
the draught. Now, however, Orion called the slaves, and before the
strangers were admitted the doors were closed and the roof covered.

Paula rose; the governor lay motionless and kept his eyes apparently
closed; he must, however, have seen what was going forward through an
imperceptible slit, for he turned first to Paula and then to the other
women saying: “Is it not strange?—Most old folks, like children,
seek the sun, and love to sit, as the others play, in its heat. While I—something
that happened to me years ago—you know;—and it seemed to
freeze my blood. Now it never gets warm, and I feel the contrast between
the coolness in here and the heat outside most acutely, almost as a pain.
The older we grow the more ready we are to abandon to the young the things
we ourselves used most to enjoy. The only thing which we old folks do not
willingly relinquish is personal comfort, and I thank you for enduring
annoyances so patiently for the sake of securing mine.—It is a
terrific summer! You, Paula, from the heights of Lebanon, know what ice
is. How often have I wished that I could have a bed of snow. To feel
myself one with that fresh, still coldness would be all I wish for! The
cold air which you dread does me good. But the warmth of youth rebels
against everything that is cool.”

This was the first long sentence the Mukaukas had uttered since the
beginning of the game. Orion listened respectfully to the end, but then he
said with a laugh: “But there are some young people who seem to take
pleasure in being cool and icy—for what cause God alone knows!”

As he spoke he looked the girl at whom the words were aimed, full in the
face; but she turned silently and proudly away, and an angry shade passed
over her lovely features.


CHAPTER V.

When the Arab was at last admitted to the governor’s presence his
attendants unfolded a hanging before him. The giant Masdakite did the
chief share of the work; but as soon as the Mukaukas caught sight of the
big man, with his bushy, mane-like hair, and a dagger and a battle-axe
stuck through his belt, he cried out:

“Away, away with him! That man—those weapons—I will not look
at the hanging till he is gone.”

His hands were trembling, and the merchant at once desired his faithful
Rustem, the most harmless of mortals, to quit the room. The governor,
whose sensitive nerves had been liable to such attacks of panic ever since
an exiled Greek had once attempted to murder him, now soon recovered his
composure, and looked with great admiration at the hanging round which the
family were standing. They all confessed they had never seen anything like
it, and the vivacious Dame Susannah proposed to send for her daughter and
her visitors; but it was already late, and her house was so far from the
governor’s that she gave that up. The father and son had already heard of
this marvellous piece of work, which had formed part of the plunder taken
by the Arab conquerors of the Persian Empire at the sack of the “White
Tower”—the royal palace of Madam, the capital of the Sassanidze.
They knew that it had been originally 300 ells long and 60 ells wide, and
had heard with indignation that the Khaliff Omar, who always lived and
dressed and ate like the chief of a caravan, and looked down with contempt
on all such objects of luxury, had cut this inestimable treasure of art
into pieces and divided it among the Companions of the Prophet.

Haschim explained to them that this particular fragment had been the share
of the booty allotted to Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law. Haschim himself
had seen the work before its dismemberment at Madain, where it hung on the
wall of the magnificent throne-room, and subsequently, at Medina.

His audience eagerly requested him to describe the other portions; he,
however, seemed somewhat uneasy, looking down at his bare feet which were
standing on the mosaic pavement, damp from the fountain; for, after the
manner of his nation, he had left his shoes in the outer room. The
governor had noticed the old man’s gestures as he repeatedly put his hand
to his mouth, and while his wife, Orion, and the widow were besieging the
merchant with questions, he whispered a few words to one of the slaves.
The man vanished, and returned bringing in, by his master’s orders, a long
strip of carpet which he laid in front of the Arab’s brown and strong but
delicately-formed feet.

A wonderful change came over the merchant’s whole being as this was done.
He drew himself up with a dignity which none of those present had
suspected in the man who had so humbly entered the room and so diligently
praised his wares; an expression of satisfaction overspread his calm, mild
features, a sweet smile parted his lips, and his kind eyes sparkled
through tears like those of a child unexpectedly pleased. Then he bowed
before the Mukaukas, touching his brow, lips and breast with the
finger-tips of the right hand to express: “All my thoughts, words and
feelings are devoted to you,”—while he said: “Thanks, Son of Menas.
That was the act of Moslem.”

“Of a Christian!” cried Orion hastily. But his father shook his head
gently, and said, slowly and impressively: “Only of a man.”

“Of a man,” repeated the merchant, and then he added thoughtfully: “Of a
man! Yes, that is the highest mark so long as we are what we ought to be
The image of the one God. Who is more compassionate than He? And every
mother’s son who is likewise compassionate, is like him.”

“Another Christian rule, thou strange Moslem!” said Orion interrupting
him.

“And yet,” said Haschim, with tranquil dignity, “it corresponds word for
word with the teaching of the Best of men—our Prophet. I am one of
those who knew him here on earth. His brother’s smallest pain filled his
soft heart with friendly sympathy; his law insists on charity, even
towards the shrub by the wayside; he pronounces it mortal sin to injure
it, and every Moslem must obey him. Compassion for all is the command of
the Prophet….” Here the Arab was suddenly and roughly interrupted;
Paula, who, till now, had been leaning against a pilaster, contemplating
the hanging and silently listening to the conversation, hastily stepped
nearer to the old man, and with flaming cheeks and flashing eyes pointed
at him wrathfully, while she exclaimed in a trembling voice-heedless alike
of the astonished and indignant bystanders, and of the little dog which
flew at the Arab, barking furiously:

“You—you, the followers of the false prophet—you, the
companions of the bloodhound Khalid—you and Charity! I know you! I
know what you did in Syria. With these eyes have I seen you, and your
bloodthirsty women, and the foam on your raging lips. Here I stand to bear
witness against you and I cast it in your teeth: You broke faith in
Damascus, and the victims of your treachery—defenceless women and
tender infants as well as men—you killed with the sword or strangled
with your hands. You—you the Apostle of Compassion?—have you
ever heard of Abyla? You, the friend of your Prophet—I ask you what
did you, who so tenderly spare the tree by the wayside, do to the innocent
folk of Abyla, whom you fell upon like wolves in a sheepfold? You—you
and Compassionate!” The vehement girl, to whom no one had ever shown any
pity, and on whose soul the word had fallen like a mockery, who for long
hours had been suffering suppressed and torturing misery, felt it a relief
to give free vent to the anguish of her soul; she ended with a hard laugh,
and waved her hand round her head as though to disperse a swarm of
gadflies.

What a woman!

Orion’s gaze was fixed on her in horror—but in enchantment. Yes, his
mother had judged her rightly. No gentle, tender-hearted woman laughed
like that; but she was grand, splendid, wonderful in her wrath. She
reminded him of the picture of the goddess of vengeance, by Apelles, which
he had seen in Constantinople. His mother shrugged her shoulders and cast
a meaning glance at the widow, and even his father was startled at the
sight. He knew what had roused her; still he felt that he could not permit
this, and he recalled the excited girl to her senses by speaking her name,
half-reproachfully and half-regretfully, at first quite gently but then
louder and more severely.

She started like a sleep-walker suddenly awaked from her trance, passed
her hand over her eyes, and said, as she bowed her head before the
governor:

“Forgive me, Uncle, I am sorry for what has occurred—but it was too
much for me. You know what my past has been, and when I am reminded—when
I must listen to the praises even of the wretches to whom my father and
brother….”

A loud sob interrupted her; little Mary was clinging to her and weeping.
Orion could hardly keep himself from hastening to her and clasping her in
his arms. Ah, how well her woman’s weakness became the noble girl! How
strongly it drew him to her!

But Paula soon recovered from it; even while the governor was soothing her
with kind words she mastered her violent agitation, and said gently,
though her tears still quietly flowed: “Let me go to my room, I beg….”

“Good-night, then, child,” said the Mukaukas affectionately, and Paula
turned towards the door with a silent greeting to the rest of the party;
but the Moslem detained her and said:

“I know who you are, noble daughter of Thomas, and I have heard that your
brother was the bridegroom who had come to Abyla to solemnize his marriage
with the daughter of the prefect of Tripolis. Alas, alas! I myself was
there with my merchandise at the fair, when a maddened horde of my
fellow-believers fell upon the peaceful town. Poor child, poor child! Your
father was the greatest and most redoubtable of our foes. Whether still on
earth or in heaven he yet, no doubt honors our sword as we honor his. But
your brother, whom we sent to his grave as a bridegroom—he cursed us
with his dying breath. You have inherited his rancor; and when it surges
up against me, a Moslem, I can do no more than bow my head and do penance
for the guilt of those whose blood runs in my veins and whose faith I
confess. I have nothing to plead—no, noble maiden, nothing that can
excuse the deed of Abyla. There—there alone it was the fate of my
grey hairs to be ashamed of my fellow-Moslems—believe me, maiden, it
was grievous to me. War, and the memory of many friends slain and of
wealth lightly plundered had unchained men’s passion; and where passion’s
pinions wave, whether in the struggle for mine and thine or for other
possessions, ever since the days of Cain and Abel, it is always and
everywhere the same.”

Paula, who till now had stood motionless in front of the old man, shook
her head and said bitterly:

“But all this will not give me back my father and brother. You yourself
look like a kind-hearted man; but for the future—if you are as just
as you are kind—find out to whom you are speaking before you talk of
the compassion of the Moslems!”

She once more bowed good-night and left the room. Orion followed her; come
what might he must see her. But he returned a few minutes after, breathing
hard and with his teeth set. He had taken her hand, had tried to tell her
all a loving heart could find to say; but how sharply, how icily had he
been repulsed, with what an air of intolerable scorn had she turned her
back upon him! And now that he was in their midst again he scarcely heard
his father express his regrets that so painful a scene should have
occurred under his roof, while the Arab said that he could quite
understand why the daughter of Thomas should have been betrayed to anger:
the massacre of Abyla was quite inexcusable.

“But then,” the old man went on, “in what war do not such things take
place? Even the Christian is not always master of himself: you yourself I
know, lost two promising sons—and who were the murderers? Christians—your
own fellow-believers…”

“The bitterest foes of my beliefs,” said the governor slowly, and every
syllable was a calm and dignified reproof to the Moslem for supposing that
the creed of those who had killed his sons could be his. As he spoke he
opened his eyes wide with the look of those hard, opaquely-glittering
stones which his ancestors had been wont to set for eyes in their portrait
statues. But he suddenly closed them again and said indifferently:

“At what price do you value your hanging? I have a fancy to buy it. Name
your lowest terms: I cannot bear to bargain.”

“I had thought of asking five hundred thousand drachmae,” said the dealer.
“Four hundred thousand drachmae, and it is yours.”

The governor’s wife clasped her hands at such a sum and made warning
signals to her husband, shaking her head disapprovingly, when Orion,
making a great effort to show that he too took an interest in this
important transaction, said: “It may be worth three hundred thousand.”

“Four hundred thousand,” repeated the merchant coolly. “Your father wished
to know the lowest price, and I am asking no more than is right. The
rubies and garnets in these grapes, the pearls in the myrtle blossoms, the
turquoises in the forget-me-nots, the diamonds hanging as dew on the
grass, the emeralds which give brilliancy to the green leaves—this
one especially, which is an immense stone—alone are worth more.”

“Then why do you not cut them out of the tissue?” asked Neforis.

“Because I cannot bear to destroy this noble work,” replied the Arab. “I
will sell it as it is or not at all.” At these words the Mukaukas nodded
to his son, heedless of the disapprobation his wife persisted in
expressing, asked for a tablet which lay near the chessboard, and on it
wrote a few words.

“We are agreed,” he said to the merchant. “The treasurer, Nilus, will hand
you the payment to-morrow morning on presenting this order.”

A fresh emotion now took possession of Orion, and crying: “Splendid!
Splendid!” he rushed up to his father and excitedly kissed his hand. Then,
turning to his mother, whose eyes were full of tears of vexation, he put
his hand under her chin, kissed her brow, and exclaimed with triumphant
satisfaction: “This is how we and the emperor do business! When the father
is the most liberal of men the son is apt to look small. Meaning no harm,
worthy merchant! As far as the hanging is concerned, it may be more
precious than all the treasures of Croesus; but you have something yet to
give us into the bargain before you load your camels with our gold: Tell
us what the whole work was like before it was divided.”

The Moslem, who had placed the precious tablet in his girdle, at once
obeyed this request.

“You know how enormous were its length and breadth,” he began. “The hall
it decorated could hold several thousand guests, besides space for a
hundred body guards to stand on each side of the throne. As many weavers,
embroiderers and jewellers as there are days in the year worked on it,
they say, for the years of a man’s life. The woven picture represented
paradise as the Persians imagine it—full of green trees, flowers and
fruits. Here you can still see a fragment of the sparkling fountain which,
when seen from a distance, with its sprinkling of diamonds, sapphires and
emeralds, looked like living water. Here the pearls represent the foam on
a wave. These leaves, cut across here, belonged to a rose-bush which grew
by the fountain of Eden before the evil of the first rain fell on the
world.

“Originally all roses were white, but as the limbs of the first woman
shone with more dazzling whiteness they blushed for shame, and since then
there are crimson as well as white roses. So the Persians say.”

“And this—our piece?” asked Orion.

“This,” replied the merchant, with a pleasant glance at the young man,
“was the very middle of the hanging. On the left you see the judgment at
the bridge of Chinvat. The damned were not represented, but only the
winged, Fravashi, Genii who, as the Persians believe, dwell one with each
mortal as his guardian angel through life, united to him but separable.
They were depicted in stormy pursuit of the damned—the miscreant
followers of Angramainjus, the evil Spirit, of whom you must imagine a
vast multitude fleeing before them. The souls in bliss, the pure and
faithful servants of the Persian divinity Auramazda, enter with songs of
triumph into the flower-decked pleasure-garden, while at their feet the
spirits were shown of those who were neither altogether cursed nor
altogether blessed, vanishing in humble silence into a dusky grove. The
pure enjoyed the gifts of paradise in peace and contentment.—All
this was explained to me by a priest of the Fire-worshippers. Here, you
see, is a huge bunch of grapes which one of the happy ones is about to
pluck; the hand is uninjured—the arm unfortunately is cut through;
but here is a splendid fragment of the wreath of fruit and flowers which
framed the whole. That emerald forming a bud—how much do you think
it is worth?”

“A magnificent stone!” cried Orion. “Even Heliodora has nothing to equal
it.—Well, father, what do you say is its value?”

“Great, very great,” replied the Mukaukas. “And yet the whole unmutilated
work would be too small an offering for Him to whom I propose to offer
it.”

“To the great general, Amru?” asked Orion.

“No child,” said the governor decidedly. “To the great, indivisible and
divine Person of Jesus Christ and his Church.”

Orion looked down greatly disappointed; the idea of seeing this splendid
gem hidden away in a reliquary in some dim cupboard did not please him: He
could have found a much more gratifying use for it.

Neither his father nor his mother observed his dissatisfaction, for
Neforis had rushed up to her husband’s couch, and fallen on her knees by
his side, covering his cold, slender hand with kisses, as joyful as though
this determination had relieved her of a heavy burden of dread: “Our
souls, our souls, George! For such a gift—only wait—you will
be forgiven all, and recover your lost peace!”

The governor shrugged his shoulders and said nothing; the hanging was
rolled up and locked into the tablinum by Orion; then the Mukaukas bid the
chamberlain show the Arab and his followers to quarters for the night.


CHAPTER VI.

Pangs of soul and doubtings of conscience had, in fact, prompted the
governor to purchase the hanging and he therefore might have been glad if
it had cost him still dearer. The greater the gift the better founded his
hope of grace and favor from the recipient! And he had grounds for being
uneasy and for asking himself whether he had acted rightly. Revenge was no
Christian virtue, but to let the evil done to him by the Melchites go
unpunished when the opportunity offered for crushing them was more than he
could bring himself to. Nay, what father whose two bright young sons had
been murdered, but would have done as he did? That fearful blow had struck
him in a vital spot. Since that day he had felt himself slowly dying; and
that sense of weakness, those desperate tremors, the discomforts and
suffering which blighted every hour of his life, were also to be set down
to the account of the Melchite tyrants.

His waning powers had indeed only been kept up by his original vigor and
his burning thirst for revenge, and fate had allowed him to quench it in a
way which, as time went on, seemed too absolute to his peace-loving
nature. Though not indeed by his act, still with his complicity he saw the
Byzantine Empire bereft of the rich province which Caesar had entrusted to
his rule, saw the Greeks and everything that bore the name of Melchite
driven out of Egypt with ignominy—though he would gladly have
prevented it—in many places slain like dogs by the furious populace
who hailed the Moslems as their deliverers.

Thus all the evil he had invoked on the murderers of his children and the
oppressors and torturers of his people had come upon them; his revenge was
complete. But, in the midst of his satisfaction at this strange fulfilment
of the fervent wish of years, his conscience had lifted up its voice; new,
and hitherto unknown terrors had come upon him. He lacked the strength of
mind to be a hero or a reformer. Too great an event had been wrought
through his agency, too fearful a doom visited on thousands of men! The
Christian Faith—to him the highest consideration—had been too
greatly imperilled by his act, for the thought that he had caused all this
to be calmly endurable. The responsibility proved too heavy for his
shoulders; and whenever he repeated to himself that it was not he who had
invited the Arabs into the land, and that he must have been crushed in the
attempt to repel them, he could hear voices all round him denouncing him
as the man who had surrendered his native land to them, and he fancied
himself environed by dangers—believing those who spoke to him of
assassins sent forth by the Byzantines to kill him.—But even more
appalling, was his dread of the wrath of Heaven against the man who had
betrayed a Christian country to the Infidels. Even his consciousness of
having been, all his life long, a right-minded, just man could not fortify
him against this terror; there was but one thing which could raise his
quelled spirit: the white pillules which had long been as indispensable to
him as air and water. The kind-hearted old bishop of Memphis, Plotinus,
and his clergy had forgiveness for all; the Patriarch Benjamin, on the
contrary, had treated him as a reprobate sentenced to eternal damnation,
though at the time of this prelate’s exile in the desert he had hailed the
Arabs as their deliverers from the tyranny of the Melchites, and though
George had principally contributed to his recall and reinstatement, and
had therefore counted on his support. And, although the Mukaukas could
clearly see through the secondary motives which influenced the Patriarch,
he nevertheless believed that Benjamin’s office as Shepherd of souls gave
him power to close the Gates of Heaven against any sheep in his flock.

The more firmly the Arabs took root in his land, the wiser their rule, and
the more numerous the Egyptian converts from the Cross to the Crescent,
the greater he deemed his guilt; and when, after the accomplishment of his
work of vengeance—his double treason as the Greeks called it—instead
of the wrath of God, everything fell to his lot which men call happiness
and the favors of fortune, the superstitious man feared lest this was the
wages of the Devil, into whose clutches his hasty compact with the Moslems
had driven so many Christian souls.

He had unexpectedly fallen heir to two vast estates, and his excavators in
the Necropolis had found more gold in the old heathen tombs than all the
others put together. The Moslem Khaliff and his viceroy had left him in
office and shown him friendship and respect; the bulaites—[Town
councillors]—of the town had given him the cognomen of “the Just” by
acclamation of the whole municipality; his lands had never yielded greater
revenues; he received letters from his son’s widow in her convent full of
happiness over the new and higher aims in life that she had found; his
grandchild, her daughter, was a creature whose bright and lovely
blossoming was a joy even to strangers; his son’s frequent epistles from
Constantinople assured him that he was making progress in all respects;
and he did not forget his parents; for he was never weary of reporting to
them, of his own free impulse, every pleasure he enjoyed and every success
he won.

Thus even in a foreign land he had lived with the father and mother who to
him were all that was noblest and dearest.

And Paula! Though his wife could not feel warmly towards her the old man
regarded her presence in the house as a happy dispensation to which he
owed many a pleasant hour, not only over the draughts-board.

All these things might indeed be the wages of Satan; but if indeed it were
so, he—George the Mukaukas—would show the Evil One that he was
no servant of his, but devoted to the Saviour in whose mercy he trusted.
With what fervent gratitude to the Almighty was his soul filled for the
return of such a son! Every impulse of his being urged him to give
expression to this feeling; his terrors and gratitude alike prompted him
to spend so vast a sum in order to dedicate a matchless gift to the Church
of Christ. He viewed himself as a prisoner of war whose ransom has just
been paid, as he handed to the merchant the tablet with the order for the
money; and when he was carried to bed, and his wife was not yet weary of
thanking him for his pious intention, he felt happier and more
light-hearted than he had done for many years. Generally he could hear
Paula walking up and down her room which was over his; for she went late
to rest, and in the silence of the night would indulge in sweet and
painful memories. How many loved ones a cruel fate had snatched from her!
Father, brother, her nearest relations and friends; all at once, by the
hand of the Moslems to whom he had abandoned her native land almost
without resistance.

“I do not hear Paula to-night,” he remarked, glancing up as though he
missed something. “The poor child has no doubt gone to bed early after
what passed.”

“Leave her alone!” said Neforis who did not like to be interrupted in her
jubilant effusiveness, and she shrugged her shoulders angrily. “How she
behaved herself again! We have heard a great deal too much about charity,
and though I do not want to boast of my own I am very ready to exercise it—indeed,
it is no more than my duty to show every kindness to a destitute relation
of yours. But this girl! She tries me too far, and after all I am no more
than human. I can have no pleasure in her presence; if she comes into the
room I feel as though misfortune had crossed the threshold. Besides!—You
never see such things; but Orion thinks of her a great deal more than is
good. I only wish she had been safe out of the house!”

“Neforis!” her husband said in mild reproach; and he would have reproved
her more sharply but that since he had become a slave to opium he had lost
all power of asserting himself vigorously whether in small matters or
great.

Ere long the Mukaukas had fallen into an uneasy sleep; but he opened his
eyes more frequently than usual. He missed the light footfall overhead to
which he had been accustomed for these two years past; but she who was
wont to pace the floor above half the night through had not gone to rest
as he supposed. After the events of the evening she had indeed retired to
her room with tingling cheeks and burning eyes; but the slave-girls, who
paid little attention to a guest who was no more than endured and looked
on askance by their mistress, had neglected to open her window-shutters
after sundown, as she had requested, and the room was oppressively sultry
and airless. The wooden shutters felt hot to the touch, so did the linen
sheets over the wool mattrasses. The water in her jug, and even the
handkerchief she took up were warm. To an Egyptian all this would have
been a matter of course; but the native of Damascus had always passed the
summer in her father’s country house on the heights of Lebanon, in cool
and lucent shade, and the all-pervading heat of the past day had been to
her intolerable.

Outside it was pleasant now; so without much reflection she pushed open
the shutter, wrapped a long, dark-hued kerchief about her head and stole
down the steep steps and out through a little side door into the
court-yard.

There she drew a deep breath and spread out her arms longingly, as though
she would fain fly far, far from thence; but then she dropped them again
and looked about her. It was not the want of fresh air alone that had
brought her out; no, what she most craved for was to open her oppressed
and rebellious heart to another; and here, in the servants’ quarters,
there were two souls, one of which knew, understood and loved her, while
the other was as devoted to her as a faithful dog, and did errands for her
which were to be kept hidden from the governor’s house and its
inhabitants.

The first was her nurse who had accompanied her to Egypt; the other was a
freed slave, her father’s head groom, who had escorted the women with his
son, a lad, giving them shelter when, after the massacre of Abyla, they
had ventured out of their hiding-place, and after lurking for some time in
the valley of Lebanon, had found no better issue than to fly to Egypt and
put themselves under the protection of the Mukaukas, whose sister had been
Paula’s father’s first wife. She herself was the child of his second
marriage with a Syrian of high rank, a relation of the Emperor Heraclius,
who had died, quite young, shortly after Paula’s birth.

Both these servants had been parted from her. Perpetua, the nurse, had
been found useful by the governor’s wife, who soon discovered that size
was particularly skilled in weaving and who had made her superintendent of
the slave-girls employed at the loom; the old woman had willingly
undertaken the duties though she herself was free-born, for her first
point in life was to remain near her beloved foster-child. Hiram too, the
groom, and his son had found their place among the Mukaukas’ household; in
the first instance to take charge of the five horses from her father’s
stable which had brought the fugitives to Egypt, but afterwards—for
the governor was not slow to discern his skill in such matters—as a
leech for all sorts of beasts, and as an adviser is purchasing horses.

Paula wanted to speak with them both, and she knew exactly where to find
them; but she could not get to them without exposing herself to much that
was unpleasant, for the governor’s free retainers and their friends, not
to mention the guard of soldiers who, now that the gates were closed, were
still sitting in parties to gossip; they would certainly not break up for
some time yet, since the slaves were only now bringing out the soldiers’
supper.

The clatter in the court-yard was unceasing, for every one who was free to
come out was enjoying the coolness of the night. Among them there were no
slaves; these had been sent to their quarters when the gates were shut;
but even in their dwellings voices were still audible.

With a beating heart Paula tried to see and hear all that came within the
ken of her keen eyes and ears. The growing moon lighted up half the
enclosure, the rest, so far as the shadow fell, lay in darkness. But in
the middle of a large semi-circle of free servants a fire was blazing,
throwing a fitful light on their brown faces; and now and again, as fresh
pine-cones were thrown in, it flared up and illuminated even the darker
half of the space before her. This added to her trepidation; she had to
cross the court-yard, as she hoped, unseen; for innocent and natural as
her proceedings were, she knew that her uncle’s wife would put a wrong
construction on her nocturnal expedition.

At first Neforis had begged her husband to assist Paula in her search for
her father, of whose death no one had any positive assurance. But his
wife’s urgency had not been needed: the Mukaukas, of his own free will,
had for a whole year done everything in his power to learn the truth as to
the lost man’s end, from Christian or Moslem, till, many months since,
Neforis had declared that any further exertions in the matter were mere
folly, and her weak-willed husband had soon been brought to share her
views and give up the search for the missing hero. He had secured for
Paula, not without some personal sacrifice, much of her father’s property,
had sold the landed estates to advantage, collected outstanding debts
wherever it was still possible, and was anxious to lay before her a
statement of what he had recovered for her. But she knew that her
interests were safe in his hands and was satisfied to learn that, though
she was not rich in the eyes of this Egyptian Croesus, she was possessed
of a considerable fortune. When once and again she had asked for a portion
of it to prosecute her search, the Mukaukas at once caused it to be paid
to her; but the third time he refused, with the best intentions but quite
firmly, to yield to her wishes. He said he was her Kyrios and natural
guardian, and explained that it was his duty to hinder her from
dissipating a fortune which she might some day find a boon or indeed
indispensable, in pursuit of a phantom—for that was what this search
had long since become.

The money she had already spent he had replaced out of his own coffers.

This, she felt, was a noble action; still she urged him again and again to
grant her wish, but always in vain. He laid his hand with firm
determination on the wealth in his charge and would not allow her another
solidus for the sole and dearest aim of her life.

She seemed to submit; but her purpose of spending her all to recover any
trace of her lost parent never wavered in her determined soul. She had
sold a string of pearls, and for the price, her faithful Hiram had been
able first to make a long journey himself and then to send out a number of
messengers into various lands. By this time one at least might very well
have reached home with some news, and she must see the freed-man.

But how could she get to him undetected? For some minutes she stood
watching and listening for a favorable moment for crossing the court-yard.
Suddenly a blaze lighted up a face—it was Hiram’s.

At this moment the merry semi-circle laughed loudly as with one voice; she
hastily made up her mind—drew her kerchief closer over her face, ran
quickly along the darker half of the quadrangle and, stooping low, hurried
across the moonlight towards the slaves’ quarters.

At the entrance she paused; her heart throbbed violently. Had she been
observed? No.—There was not a cry, not a following footstep—every
dog knew her; the soldiers who were commonly on guard here had quitted
their posts and were sitting with their comrades round the fire.

The long building to the left was the weaving shop and her nurse Perpetua
lived there, in the upper story. But even here she must be cautious, for
the governor’s wife often came out to give her orders to the workwomen,
and to see and criticise the produce of the hundred looms which were
always in motion, early and late. If she should be seen, one of the
weavers might only too probably betray the fact of her nocturnal visit.
They had not yet gone to rest, for loud laughter fell upon her ear from
the large sheds, open on all sides, which stood over the dyers’ vats. This
class of the governor’s people were also enjoying the cool night after the
fierce heat of the day, and the girls too had lighted a fire.

Paula must pass them in full moonshine—but not just yet; and she
crouched close to the straw thatch which stretched over the huge clay
water-jars placed here for the slave-girls to get drink from. It cast a
dark triangular shadow on the dusty ground that gleamed in the moonlight,
and thus screened her from the gaze of the girls, while she could hear and
see what was going on in the sheds.

The dreadful day of torture ending in a harsh discord was at end; and
behind it she looked back on a few blissful hours full of the promise of
new happiness;—beyond these lay a long period of humiliation, the
sequel of a terrible disaster. How bright and sunny had her childhood
been, how delightful her early youth! For long years of her life she had
waked every morning to new joys, and gone to rest every evening with
sincere and fervent thanksgivings, that had welled from her soul as freely
and naturally as perfume from a rose. How often had she shaken her head in
perplexed unbelief when she heard life spoken of as a vale of sorrows, and
the lot of man bewailed as lamentable. Now she knew better; and in many a
lonely hour, in many a sleepless night, she had asked herself whether He
could, indeed, be a kind and fatherly-loving God who could let a child be
born and grow up, and fill its soul with every hope, and then bereave it
of everything that was dear and desirable—even of hope.

But the hapless girl had been piously brought up; she could still believe
and pray; and lately it had seemed as though Heaven would grant that for
which her tender heart most longed: the love of a beloved and love-worthy
man. And now—now?

There she stood with an inconsolable sense of bereavement—empty-hearted;
and if she had been miserable before Orion’s return, now she was far more
so; for whereas she had then been lonely she was now defrauded—she,
the daughter of Thomas, the relation and inmate of the wealthiest house in
the country; and close to her, from the rough hewn, dirty dyers’ sheds
such clear and happy laughter rang out from a troop of wretched slave
wenches, always liable to the blows of the overseer’s rod, that she could
not help listening and turning to look at the girls on whom such an
overflow of high spirits and light-heartedness was bestowed.

A large party had collected under the wide palm-thatched roof of the
dyeing shed-pretty and ugly, brown and fair, tall and short; some upright
and some bent by toil at the loom from early youth, but all young; not one
more than eighteen years old. Slaves were capital, bearing interest in the
form of work and of children. Every slave girl was married to a slave as
soon as she was old enough. Girls and married women alike were employed in
the weaving shop, but the married ones slept in separate quarters with
their husbands and children, while the maids passed the night in large
sleeping-barracks adjoining the worksheds. They were now enjoying the
evening respite and had gathered in two groups. One party were watching an
Egyptian girl who was scribbling sketches on a tablet; the others were
amusing themselves with a simple game. This consisted in each one in turn
flinging her shoe over her head. If it flew beyond a chalk-line to which
she turned her back she was destined soon to marry the man she loved; if
it fell between her and the mark she must yet have patience, or would be
united to a companion she did not care for.

The girl who was drawing, and round whom at least twenty others were
crowded, was a designer of patterns for weaving; she had too the gift
which had characterized her heathen ancestors, of representing faces in
profile, with a few simple lines, in such a way that, though often
comically distorted, they were easily recognizable. She was executing
these works of art on a wax tablet with a copper stylus, and the others
were to guess for whom they were meant.

One girl only sat by herself by the furthest post of the shed, and gazed
silently into her lap.

Paula looked on and could understand everything that was going forward,
though no coherent sentence was uttered and there was nothing to be heard
but laughter—loud, hearty, irresistible mirth. When a girl threw the
shoe far enough the youthful crowd laughed with all their might, each one
shouting the name of some one who was to marry her successful companion;
if the shoe fell within the line they laughed even louder than before, and
called out the names of all the oldest and dirtiest slaves. A dusky Syrian
had failed to hit the mark, but she boldly seized the chalk and drew a
fresh line between herself and the shoe so that it lay beyond, at any
rate; and their merriment reached a climax when a number of them rushed up
to wipe out the new line, a saucy, crisp-haired Nubian tossed the shoe in
the air and caught it again, while the rest could not cease for delight in
such a good joke and cried every name they could think of as that of the
lover for whom their companion had so boldly seized a spoke in Fortune’s
wheel.

Some spirit of mirth seemed to have taken up his quarters in the draughty
shed; the group round the sketcher was not less noisy than the other. If a
likeness was recognized they were all triumphant, if not they cried the
names of this or that one for whom it might be intended. A storm of
applause greeted a successful caricature of the severest of the overseers.
All who saw it held their sides for laughing, and great was the uproar
when one of the girls snatched away the tablet and the rest fell upon her
to scuffle for it.

Paula had watched all this at first with distant amazement, shaking her
head. How could they find so much pleasure in such folly, in such
senseless amusements? When she was but a little child even she, of course,
could laugh at nothing, and these grown-up girls, in their ignorance and
the narrow limitations of their minds, were they not one and all children
still? The walls of the governor’s house enclosed their world, they never
looked beyond the present moment—just like children; and so, like
children, they could laugh.

“Fate,” thought she, “at this moment indemnifies them for the misfortune
of their birth and for a thousand days of misery, and presently they will
go tired and happy to bed. I could envy these poor creatures! If it were
permissible I would join them and be a child again.”

The comic portrait of the overseer was by this time finished, and a short,
stout wench burst into a fit of uproarious and unquenchable laughter
before any of the rest. It came so naturally, too, from the very depths of
her plump little body that Paula, who had certainly not come hither to be
gay, suddenly caught the infection and had to laugh whether she would or
no. Sorrow and anxiety were suddenly forgotten, thought and calculation
were far from her; for some minutes she felt nothing but that she, too,
was laughing heartily, irrepressibly, like the young healthful human
creature that she was. Ah, how good it was thus to forget herself for
once! She did not put this into words, but she felt it, and she laughed
afresh when the girl who had been sitting apart joined the others, and
exclaimed something which was unintelligible to Paula, but which gave a
new impetus to their mirth.

The tall slight form of this maiden was now standing by the fire. Paula
had never seen her before and yet she was by far the handsomest of them
all; but she did not look happy and perhaps was in some pain, for she had
a handkerchief over her head which was tied at the top over the thick fair
hair as though she had the toothache. As she looked at her Paula recovered
herself, and as soon as she began to think merriment was at an end. The
slave-girls were not of this mind; but their laughter was less innocent
and frank than it had been; for it had found an object which they would
have done better to pass by.

The girl with the handkerchief over her head was a slave too, but she had
only lately come into the weaving-sheds after being employed for a long
time at needle work under two old women, widows of slaves. She had been
brought as an infant from Persia to Alexandria with her mother, by the
troops of Heraclius, after the conquest of Chosroes II.; and they had been
bought together for the Mukaukas. When her little one was but thirteen the
mother died under the yoke to which she was not born; the child was a
sweet little girl with a skin as white as the swan and thick golden hair,
which now shone with strange splendor in the firelight. Orion had remarked
her before his journey, and fascinated by the beauty of the Persian girl,
had wished to have her for his own. Servants and officials, in
unscrupulous collusion, had managed to transport her to a country-house
belonging to the Mukaukas on the other side of the Nile, and there Orion
had been able to visit her undisturbed as often as fancy prompted him. The
slave-girl, scarcely yet sixteen, ignorant and unprotected, had not dared
nor desired to resist her master’s handsome son, and when Orion had set
out for Constantinople—heedless and weary already of the girl who
had nothing to give him but her beauty—Dame Neforis found out her
connection with her son and ordered the head overseer to take care that
the unhappy girl should not “ply her seductive arts” any more. The man had
carried out her instructions by condemning the fair Persian, according to
an ancient custom, to have her ears cut off. After this cruel punishment
the mutilated beauty sank into a state of melancholy madness, and although
the exorcists of the Church and other thaumaturgists had vainly endeavored
to expel the demon of madness, she remained as before: a gentle,
good-humored creature, quiet and diligent at her work, under the women who
had charge of her, and now in the common work-shop. It was only when she
was idle that her craziness became evident, and of this the other girls
took advantage for their own amusement.

They now led Mandane to the fire, and with farcical reverence requested
her to be seated on her throne—an empty color cask, for she suffered
under the strange permanent delusion that she was the wife of the Mukaukas
George. They laughingly did her homage, craved some favor or made
enquiries as to her husband’s health and the state of her affairs.
Hitherto a decent instinct of reserve had kept these poor ignorant
creatures from mentioning Orion’s name in her presence, but now a
woolly-headed negress, a lean, spiteful hussy, went up to her, and said
with a horrible grimace:

“Oh, mistress, and where is your little son Orion?” The crazy girl did not
seem startled by the question; she replied very gravely: “I have married
him to the emperor’s daughter at Constantinople.”

“Hey day! A splendid match!” exclaimed the black girl. “Did you know that
the young lord was here again? He has brought home his grand wife to you
no doubt, and we shall see purple and crowns in these parts!”

These words brought a deep flush into the poor creature’s face. She
anxiously pressed her hands on the bandage that covered her ears and said:
“Really Has he really come home?”

“Only quite lately,” said another and more good-natured girl, to soothe
her.

“Do not believe her!” cried the negress. “And if you want to know the
latest news of him: Last night he was out boating on the Nile with the
tall Syrian. My brother, the boatman, was among the rowers; and he went on
finely with the lady I can tell you, finely….”

“My husband, the great Mukaukas?” asked Mandane, trying to collect her
ideas.

“No. Your son Orion, who married the emperor’s daughter,” laughed the
negress.

The crazy girl stood up, looked about with a restless glance, and then, as
though she had not fully understood what had been said to her, repeated:
“Orion? Handsome Orion?”

“Aye, your sweet son, Orion!” they all shouted, as loud as though she were
deaf. Then the usually placable girl, holding her hand over her ear, with
the other hit her tormentor such a smack on her thick lips that it
resounded, while she shrieked out loud, in shrill tones:

“My son, did you say? My son Orion?—As if you did not know! Why, he
was my lover; yes, he himself said he was, and that was why they came and
bound me and cut my ears.—But you know it. But I do not love him—I
could, I might wish, I….” She clenched her fists, and gnashed her white
teeth, and went on with panting breath:

“Where is he?—You will not tell me? Wait a bit—only wait. Oh,
I am sharp enough, I know you have him here.—Where is be? Orion,
Orion, where are you?”

She sprang away, ran through the sheds and lifted the lids of all the
color-vats, stooping low to look down into each as if she expected to find
him there, while the others roared with laughter.

Most of her companions giggled at this witless behavior; but some, who
felt it somewhat uncanny and whom the unhappy girl’s bitter cry had struck
painfully, drew apart and had already organized some new amusement, when a
neat little woman appeared on the scene, clapping her plump hands and
exclaiming:

“Enough of laughter—now, to bed, you swarm of bees. The night is
over too soon in the morning, and the looms must be rattling again by
sunrise. One this way and one that, just like mice when the cat appears.
Will you make haste, you night-birds? Come, will you make haste?”

The girls had learnt to obey, and they hurried past the matron to their
sleeping-quarters. Perpetua, a woman scarcely past fifty, whose face wore
a pleasant expression of mingled shrewdness and kindness, stood pricking
up her ears and listening; she heard from the water-shed a peculiar low,
long-drawn Wheeuh!—a signal with which she was familiar as that by
which the prefect Thomas had been wont to call together his scattered
household from the garden of his villa on Mount Lebanon. It was now Paula
who gave the whistle to attract her nurse’s attention.

Perpetua shook her head anxiously. What could have brought her beloved
child to see her at so late an hour? Something serious must have occurred,
and with characteristic presence of mind she called out, to show that she
had heard Paula’s signal: “Now, make haste. Will you be quick? Wheeuh!
girls—wheeuh! Hurry, hurry!”

She followed the last of the slave-girls into the sleeping-room, and when
she had assured herself that they were all there but the crazy Persian she
enquired where she was. They had all seen her a few minutes ago in the
shed; so she bid them good-night and left them, letting it be understood
that she was about to seek the missing girl.


CHAPTER VII.

Paula went into her nurse’s room, and Perpetua, after a short and vain
search for the crazy girl, abandoned her to her fate, not without some
small scruples of conscience.

A beautifully-polished copper lamp hung from the ceiling and the little
room exactly suited its mistress both were neat and clean, trim and
spruce, simple and yet nice. Snowy transparent curtains enclosed the bed
as a protection against the mosquitoes, a crucifix of delicate workmanship
hung above the head of the couch, and the seats were covered with good
cloth of various colors, fag-ends from the looms. Pretty straw mats lay on
the floor, and pots of plants, filling the little room with fragrance,
stood on the window-sill and in a corner of the room where a clay
statuette of the Good Shepherd looked down on a praying-desk.

The door had scarcely closed behind them when Perpetua exclaimed: “But
child, how you frightened me! At so late an hour!”

“I felt I must come,” said Paula. “I could contain myself no longer.”

“What, tears?” sighed the woman, and her own bright little eyes twinkled
through moisture. “Poor soul, what has happened now?”

She went up to the young girl to stroke her hair, but Paula rushed into
her arms, clung passionately round her neck, and burst into loud and
bitter weeping. The little matron let her weep for a while; then she
released herself, and wiped away her own tears and those of her tall
darling, which had fallen on her smooth grey hair. She took Paula’s chin
in a firm hand and turned her face towards her own, saying tenderly but
decidedly: “There, that is enough. You might cry and welcome, for it eases
the heart, but that it is so late. Is it the old story: home-sickness,
annoyances, and so forth, or is there anything new?”

“Alas, indeed!” replied the girl. She pressed her handkerchief in her
hands as she went on with excited vehemence: “I am in the last extremity,
I can bear it no longer, I cannot—I cannot! I am no longer a child,
and when in the evening you dread the night and in the morning dread the
day which must be so wretched, so utterly unendurable….”

“Then you listen to reason, my darling, and say to yourself that of two
evils it is wise to choose the lesser. You must hear me say once more what
I have so often represented to you before now: If we renounce our city of
refuge here and venture out into the wide world again, what shall we find
that will be an improvement?”

“Perhaps nothing but a hovel by a well under a couple of palm-trees; that
would satisfy me, if I only had you and could be free—free from
every one else!”

“What is this; what does this mean?” muttered the elder woman shaking her
head. “You were quite content only the day before yesterday. Something
must have….”

“Yes, must have happened and has,” interrupted the girl almost beside
herself. “My uncle’s son.—You were there when he arrived—and I
thought, even I firmly believed that he was worthy of such a reception.—I—I—pity
me, for I… You do not know what influence that man exercises over
hearts.—And I—I believed his eyes, his words, his songs and—yes,
I must confess all—even his kisses on this hand! But it was all
false, all—a lie, a cruel sport with a weak, simple heart, or even
worse—more insulting still! In short, while he was doing all in his
power to entrap me—even the slaves in the barge observed it—he
was in the very act—I heard it from Dame Neforis, who is only too
glad when she can hurt me—in the very act of suing for the hand of
that little doll—you know her—little Katharina. She is his
betrothed; and yet the shameless wretch dares to carry on his game with
me; he has the face….”

Again Paula sobbed aloud; but the older woman did not know how to help in
the matter and could only mutter to herself: “Bad, bad—what, this
too!—Merciful Heaven!…” But she presently recovered herself and
said firmly: “This is indeed a new and terrible misfortune; but we have
known worse—much, much worse! So hold up your head, and whatever
liking you may have in your heart for the traitor, tear it out and trample
on it. Your pride will help you; and if you have only just found out what
my lord Orion is, you may thank God that things had gone no further
between you!” Then she repeated to Paula all that she knew of Orion’s
misconduct to the frenzied Mandane, and as Paula gave strong utterance to
her indignation, she went on:

“Yes, child, he is a man to break hearts and ruin happiness, and perhaps
it was my duty to warn you against him; but as he is not a bad man in
other things—he saved the brother of Hathor the designer—you
know her—from drowning, at the risk of his own life—and as I
hoped you might be on friendly terms with him at least, on his return
home, I refrained…. And besides, old fool that I am, I fancied your
proud heart wore a breastplate of mail, and after all it is only a foolish
girl’s heart like any other, and now in its twenty-first year has given
its love to a man for the first time.”

But Paula interrupted her: “I love the traitor no more! No, I hate him,
hate him beyond words! And the rest of them! I loathe them all!”

“Alas! that it should be so!” sighed the nurse. “Your lot is no doubt a
hard one. He—Orion—of course is out of the question; but I
often ask myself whether you might not mend matters with the others. If
you had not made it too hard for them, child, they must have loved you;
they could not have helped it; but ever since you have been in the house
you have only felt miserable and wished that they would let you go your
own way, and they—well they have done so; and now you find it ill to
bear the lot you chose for yourself. It is so indeed, child, you need not
contradict me. This once we will put the matter plainly: Who can hope to
win love that gives none, but turns away morosely from his
fellow-creatures? If each of us could make his neighbors after his own
pattern—then indeed! But life requires us to take them just as we
find them, and you, sweetheart, have never let this sink into your mind!”

“Well, I am what I am!”

“No doubt, and among the good you are the best—but which of them all
can guess that? Every one to some extent plays a part. And you! What
wonder if they never see in you anything but that you are unhappy? God
knows it is ten thousand times a pity that you should be! But who can take
pleasure in always seeing a gloomy face?”

“I have never uttered a single word of complaint of my troubles to any one
of them!” cried Paula, drawing herself up proudly.

“That is just the difficulty,” replied Perpetua. “They took you in, and
thought it gave them a claim on your person and also on your sorrows.
Perhaps they longed to comfort you; for, believe me, child, there is a
secret pleasure in doing so. Any one who is able to show us sympathy feels
that it does him more good than it does us. I know life! Has it never
occurred to you that you are perhaps depriving your relations in the great
house of a pleasure, perhaps even doing them an injury by locking up your
heart from them? Your grief is the best side of you, and of that you do
indeed allow them to catch a glimpse; but where the pain is you carefully
conceal. Every good man longs to heal a wound when he sees it, but your
whole demeanor cries out: ‘Stay where you are, and leave me in peace.’—If
only you were good to your uncle!”

“But I am, and I have felt prompted a hundred times to confide in him—but
then…”

“Well—then?”

“Only look at him, Betta; see how he lies as cold as marble, rigid and
apathetic, half dead and half alive. At first the words often rose to my
lips…”

“And now?”

“Now all the worst is so long past; I feel I have forfeited the right to
complain to him of all that weighs me down.”

“Hm,” said Perpetua who had no answer ready. “But take heart, my child.
Orion has at any rate learnt how far he may venture. You can hold your
head high enough and look cool enough. Bear all that cannot be mended, and
if an inward voice does not deceive me, he whom we seek…”

“That was what brought me here. Are none of our messengers returned yet?”

“Yes, the little Nabathaean is come,” replied her nurse with some
hesitation, “and he indeed—but for God’s sake, child, form no vain
hopes! Hiram came to me soon after sun-down…”

“Betta!” screamed the girl, clinging to her nurse’s arm. “What has he
heard, what news does he bring?”

“Nothing, nothing! How you rush at conclusions! What he found out is next
to nothing. I had only a minute to speak to Hiram. To-morrow morning he is
to bring the man to me. The only thing he told me…”

“By Christ’s Wounds! What was it?”

“He said that the messenger had heard of an elderly recluse, who had
formerly been a great warrior.”

“My father, my father!” cried Paula. “Hiram is sitting by the fire with
the others. Fetch him here at once—at once; I command you, Perpetua,
do you hear? Oh best, dearest Betta! Come with me; we will go to him.”

“Patience, sweetheart, a little patience!” urged the nurse. “Ah, poor dear
soul, it will turn out to be nothing again; and if we again follow up a
false clue it will only lead to fresh disappointment.”

“Never mind: you are to come with me.”

“To all the servants round the fire, and at this time of night? I should
think so indeed!—But do you wait here, child. I know how it can be
managed.

“I will wake Hiram’s Joseph. He sleeps in the stable yonder—and then
he will fetch his father. Ah! what impatience! What a stormy, passionate
little heart it is! If I do not do your bidding, I shall have you awake
all night, and wandering about to-morrow as if in a dream.—There, be
quiet, be quiet, I am going.”

As she spoke she wrapped her kerchief round her head and hurried out;
Paula fell on her knees before the crucifix over the bed, and prayed
fervently till her nurse returned, Soon after she heard a man’s steps on
the stairs and Hiram came in.

He was a powerful man of about fifty, with a pair of honest blue eyes in
his plain face. Any one looking at his broad chest would conclude that
when he spoke it would be in a deep bass voice; but Hiram had stammered
from his infancy; and from constant companionship with horses he had
accustomed himself to make a variety of strange, inarticulate noises in a
high, shrill voice. Besides, he was always unwilling to speak. When he
found himself face to face with the daughter of his master and benefactor,
he knelt at her feet, looked up at her with faithful, dog-like eyes full
of affection, and kissed first her dress, and then her hand which she held
out to him. Paula kindly but decidedly cut short the expressions of
delight at seeing her again which he painfully stammered out; and when he
at length began to tell his story his words came far too slowly for her
impatience.

He told her that the Nabathaean who had brought the rumor that had excited
her hopes, was not unwilling to follow up the trace he had found, but he
would not wait beyond noon the next day and had tried to bid for high
terms.

“He shall have them—as much as he wants!” cried Paula. “But Hiram
entreated her, more by looks and vague cries than by articulate words, not
to hope for too much. Dusare the Nabathaean—Perpetua now took up the
tale—had heard of a recluse, living at Raithu on the Red Sea, who
had been a great warrior, by birth a Greek, and who for two years had been
leading a life of penance in great seclusion among the pious brethren on
the sacred Mount of Sinai. The messenger had not been able to learn what
his name in the world had been, but among the hermits he was known as
Paulus.”

“Paulus!” interrupted the girl with panting breath. “A name that must
remind him of my mother and of me, yes, of me! And he, the hero of
Damascus, who was called Thomas in the world, believing that I was dead,
has no doubt dedicated himself to the service of God and of Christ, and
has taken the name of Paulus, as Saul, the other man of Damascus did after
his con version,—exactly like him! Oh! Betta, Hiram, you will see:
it is he, it must be! How can you doubt it?”

The Syrian shook his head doubtfully and gave vent to a long-drawn
whistle, and Perpetua clasped her hands exclaiming distressfully: “Did I
not say so? She takes the fire lighted by shepherds at night to warm their
hands for the rising sun—the rattle of chariots for the thunders of
the Almighty!—Why, how many thousands have called themselves Paulus!
By all the Saints, child, I beseech you keep quiet, and do not try to
weave a holiday-robe out of airy mist! Be prepared for the worst; then you
are armed against failure and preserve your right to hope! Tell her, tell
her, Hiram, what else the messenger said; it is nothing positive;
everything is as uncertain as dust in the breeze.”

The freedman then explained that this Nabathaean was a trustworthy man,
far better skilled in such errands than himself, for he understood both
Syriac and Egyptian, Greek and Aramaic; and nevertheless he had failed to
find out anything more about this hermit Paulus at Tor, where the monks of
the monastery of the Transfiguration had a colony. Subsequently, however,
on the sea voyage to Holzum, he had been informed by some monks that there
was a second Sinai. The monastery there—but here Perpetua again was
the speaker, for the hapless stammerer’s brow was beaded with sweat—the
monastery at the foot of the peaked, heaven-kissing mountain, had been
closed in consequence of the heresies of its inhabitants; but in the
gorges of these great heights there were still many recluses, some in a
small Coenobium, some in Lauras and separate caves, and among these
perchance Paulus might be found. This clue seemed a good one and she and
Hiram had already made up their minds to follow it up; but the warrior
monk was very possibly a stranger, and they had thought it would be cruel
to expose her to so keen a disappointment.

Here Paula interrupted her, crying in joyful excitement:

“And why should not something besides disappointment be my portion for
once? How could you have the heart to deprive me of the hope on which my
poor heart still feeds?—But I will not be robbed of it. Your Paulus
of Sinai is my lost father. I feel it, I know it! If I had not sold my
pearls, the Nabathaean…. But as it is. When can you start, my good
Hiram?”

“Not before a fort—a fortnight at—at—at—soonest,”
said the man. “I am in the governor’s service now, and the day after
to-morrow is the great horse-fair at Niku. The young master wants some
stallions bought and there are our foals to….”

“I will implore my uncle to-morrow, to spare you,” cried Paula. “I will go
on my knees to him.”

“He will not let him go,” said the nurse. “Sebek the steward told him all
about it from me before the hour of audience and tried to have Hiram
released.”

“And he said…?”

“The lady Neforis said it was all a mere will-o’-the-wisp, and my lord
agreed with her. Then your uncle forbade Sebek to betray the matter to
you, and sent word to me that he would possibly send Hiram to Sinai when
the horse-fair was over. So take patience, sweetheart. What are two weeks,
or at most three—and then….”

“But I shall die before then!” cried Paula. “The Nabathaean, you say, is
here and willing to go.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Then we will secure him,” said Paula resolutely. Perpetua, however, who
must have discussed the matter fully with her fellow-countryman, shook her
head mournfully and said: “He asks too much for us!”

She then explained that the man, being such a good linguist, had already
been offered an engagement to conduct a caravan to Ctesiphon. This would
be a year’s pay to him, and he was not inclined to break off his
negotiations with the merchant Hanno and search the deserts of Arabia
Petraea for less than two thousand drachmae.

“Two thousand drachmae!” echoed Paula, looking down in distress and
confusion; but she presently looked up and exclaimed with angry
determination: “How dare they keep from me that which is my own? If my
uncle refuses what I have to ask, and will ask, then the inevitable must
happen, though for his sake it will grieve me; I must put my affairs in
the hands of the judges.”

“The judges?” Perpetua smiled. “But you cannot lay a complaint without
your kyrios, and your uncle is yours. Besides: before they have settled
the matter the messenger may have been to Ctesiphon and back, far as it
is.”

Again her nurse entreated her to have patience till the horse-fair should
be over. Paula fixed her eyes on the ground. She seemed quite crushed; but
Perpetua started violently and Hiram drew back a step when she suddenly
broke out in a loud, joyful cry of “Father in Heaven, I have what we
need!”

“How, child, what?” asked the nurse, pressing her hand to her heart. But
Paula vouchsafed no information; she turned quickly to the Syrian:

“Is the outer court-yard clear yet? Are the people gone?” she asked.

The reply was in the affirmative. The freed servants had retired when
Hiram left them. The officials would not break up for some time yet, but
there was less difficulty in passing them.

“Very good,” said the girl. “Then you, Hiram, lead the way and wait for me
by the little side door. I will give you something in my room which will
pay the Nabathaean’s charges ten times over. Do not look so horrified,
Betta. I will give him the large emerald out of my mother’s necklace.” The
woman clasped her hands, and cried out in dismay and warning.

“Child, child! That splendid gem! an heirloom in the family—that
stone which came to you from the saintly Emperor Theodosius—to sell
that of all things! Nay-to throw it away; not to rescue your father
either, but merely—yes child, for that is the truth, merely because
you lack patience to wait two little weeks!”

“That is hard, that is unjust, Betta,” Paula broke in reprovingly. “It
will be a question of a month, and we all know how much depends on the
messenger. Do you forget how highly Hiram spoke of this very man’s
intelligence? And besides—must I, the younger, remind you?—What
is the life of man? An instant may decide his life or death; and my father
is an old man, scarred from many wounds even before the siege. It may make
just the difference between our meeting, or never meeting again.”

“Yes, yes,” said the old woman in subdued tones, “perhaps you are right,
and if I…” But Paula stopped her mouth with a kiss, and then desired
Hiram to carry the gem, the first thing in the morning, to Gamaliel the
Jew, a wealthy and honest man, and not to sell it for less than twelve
thousand drachmae. If the goldsmith could not pay so much for it at once,
he might be satisfied to bring away the two thousand drachmae for the
messenger, and fetch the remainder at another season.

The Syrian led the way, and when, after a long leave-taking, she quitted
her nurse’s pleasant little room, Hiram had done her bidding and was
waiting for her at the little side door.


CHAPTER VIII.

As Hiram had supposed, the better class of the household were still
sitting with their friends, and they had been joined by the guide and by
the Arab merchant’s head man: Rustem the Masdakite, as well as his
secretary and interpreter.

With the exception only of Gamaliel the Jewish goldsmith, and the Arab’s
followers, the whole of the party were Christians; and it had gone against
the grain to admit the Moslems into their circle—the Jew had for
years been a welcome member of the society. However, they had done so, and
not without marked civility; for their lord had desired that the strangers
should be made welcome, and they might expect to hear much that was new
from wanderers from such a distance. In this, to be sure, they were
disappointed, for the dragoman was taciturn and the Masdakite could speak
no Egyptian, and Greek very ill. So, after various futile attempts to make
the new-comers talk, they paid no further heed to them, and Orion’s
secretary became the chief speaker. He had already told them yesterday
much that was fresh and interesting about the Imperial court; to-day he
entered into fuller details of the brilliant life his young lord had led
at Constantinople, whither he had accompanied him. He described the three
races he had won in the Circus with his own horses; gave a lively picture
of his forcing his way with only five followers through a raging mob of
rioters, from the palace to the church of St. Sophia; and then enlarged on
Orion’s successes among the beauties of the Capital.

“The queen of them all,” he went on in boastful accents, “was Heliodora—no
flute-player nor anything of that kind; no indeed, but a rich, elegant,
and virtuous patrician lady, the widow of Flavianus, nephew to Justinus
the senator, and a relation of the Emperor. All Constantinople was at her
feet, the great Gratian himself sought to win her, but of course, in vain.
There is no palace to compare with hers in all Egypt, not even in
Alexandria. The governor’s residence here—for I think nothing of
mere size—is a peasant’s hut—a wretched barn by comparison! I
will tell you another time what that casket of treasures is like. Its door
was besieged day and night by slaves and freedmen bringing her offerings
of flowers and fruit, rare gifts, and tender verses written on perfumed,
rose-colored silk; but her favors were not to be purchased till she met
Orion. Would you believe it: from the first time she saw him in Justinus’
villa she fell desperately in love with him; it was all over with her; she
was his as completely as the ring on my finger is mine!”

And in his vanity he showed his hearers a gold ring, with a gem of some
value, which he owed to the liberality of his young master. “From that day
forth,” he eagerly went on, “the names of Orion and Heliodora were in
every mouth, and how often have I seen men quite beside themselves over
the beauty of this divine pair. In the Circus, in the theatre, or sailing
about the Bosphorus—they were to be seen everywhere together; and
through the hideous, bloody struggle for the throne they lived in a
Paradise of their own. He often took her out in his chariot; or she took
him in hers.”

“Such a woman has horses too?” asked the head groom contemptuously.

“A woman!” cried the secretary. “A lady of rank!—She has none but
bright chestnuts; large horses of Armenian breed, and small, swift beasts
from the island of Sardinia, which fly on with the chariot, four abreast,
like hunted foxes. Her horses are always decked with flowers and ribbons
fluttering from the gold harness, and the grooms know how to drive them
too!—Well, every one thought that our young lord and the handsome
widow would marry; and it was a terrible blow to the hapless Heliodora
when nothing came of it—she looks like a saint and is as soft as a
kitten. I was by when they parted, and she shed such bitter tears it was
pitiable to see. Still, she could not be angry with her idol, poor,
gentle, tender kitten. She even gave him her lap-dog for a keepsake—that
little silky thing you have seen here. And take my word for it, that was a
true love-token, for her heart was as much set on that little beast as if
it had been her favorite child. And he felt the parting too, felt it
deeply; however, I am his confidential secretary, and it would never do
for me to tell tales out of school. He clasped the little dog to his heart
as he bid her farewell, and he promised her to send some keepsake in
return which should show her how precious her love had been—and it
will be no trifle, that any one may swear who knows my master. You,
Gamaliel, I daresay he has been to you about it by this time.”

The man thus addressed—the same to whom Hiram was to offer Paula’s
emerald—was a rich Alexandrian of a happy turn of mind; as soon as
the incursion of the Saracens had made Alexandria an unsafe residence, so
that the majority of his fellow Israelites had fled from the great port,
he had found his way to Memphis, where he could count on the protection of
his patron, the Mukaukas George.

He shook his grizzled curls at this question, but he presently whispered
in the secretary’s ear. “We have the very thing he wants. You bring me the
cow and you shall have a calf—and a calf with twelve legs too. Is it
a bargain?”

“Twelve per cent on the profits? Done!” replied the secretary in the same
tone, with a sly smile of intelligence.

When, by-and-bye, an accountant asked him why Orion had not brought home
this fair dame, the bearer too of a noble name, to his parents as their
daughter-in-law, he replied that, being a Greek, she was of course a
Melchite. Those present asked no better reason; as soon as the question of
creed was raised the conversation, as usual in these convivial evenings,
became a squabble over dogmatic differences; in the course of it a legal
official ventured to opine that if the case had been that of a less
personage than a son of the Mukaukas—for whom it was, of course, out
of the question—of a mere Jacobite citizen and his Melchite
sweetheart, for instance, some compromise might have been effected. They
need only have made up their minds each, respectively, to subscribe to the
Monothelitic doctrine—though, he, for his part, could have nothing
to say to anything of the kind; it was warmly upheld by the Imperial
court, and by Cyrus, the deceased patriarch of Alexandria, and was based
on the assumption that there were indeed two natures in Christ, but both
under the control of one and the same will. By this dogma there were in
the Saviour two persons no doubt; still it asserted His unity in a certain
qualified sense, and this was the most important point.

Such an heretical proposition was of course loudly disapproved of by the
assembled Jacobites; differences of opinion were more and more strongly
asserted, and a calm interchange of views turned to a riotous quarrel
which threatened to end in actual violence.

This discussion was already beginning when Paula succeeded in slipping
unseen across the court-yard.

She silently beckoned to Hiram to follow her; he cautiously took off his
shoes, pushed them under the steep servants’ stairs, and in a few minutes
was standing in the young girl’s room. Paula at once opened a chest, and
took out a costly and beautifully-wrought necklace set with pearls. This
she handed to the Syrian, desiring him to wrench from its setting a large
emerald which hung from the middle. The freedman’s strong hand, with the
aid of a knife, quickly and easily did the work; and he stood weighing the
gem, as it lay freed from the gold hemisphere that had held it, larger
than a walnut, shining and sparkling on his palm, while Paula repeated the
instructions she had already given him in her nurse’s room.

The faithful soul had no sooner left his beloved mistress than she
proceeded to unplait her long thick hair, smiling the while with happy
hope; but she had not yet begun to undress when she heard a knock. She
started, flew to the door and hastily bolted it, while she enquired:

“Who is there?”—preparing herself for the worst. “Hiram,” was the
whispered reply. She opened the door, and he told her that meanwhile the
side door had been locked, and that he knew no other way out from the
great rambling house whither he rarely had occasion to come.

What was to be done? He could not wait till the door was opened again, for
he must carry out her commission quite early in the morning, and if he
were caught and locked up for only half the day the Nabathaean would take
some other engagement.

With swift decision she twisted up her hair, threw a handkerchief over her
head, and said: “Then come with me; the moon is still up; it would not be
safe to carry a lamp. I will lead the way and you must keep behind me If
only the kitchen is empty, we can reach the Viridarium unseen. If the
upper servants are still sitting in the court-yard the great door will be
open, for several of them sleep in the house. At any rate you must go
through the vestibule; you cannot miss your way out of the viridarium. But
stay! Beki generally lies in front of the tablinum—the fierce dog
from Herrionthis in Thebais; and he does not know you, for he never goes
out of the house, but he will obey me.

“When I lift my hand, hang back a little. He is quite quiet with his
masters, and does not hurt a stranger if they are by. Now, we must not
utter another word.—If we are discovered, I will confess the truth;
if you alone are seen, you can say—well, say you were waiting for
Orion, to speak to him very early about the horse-fair at Niku.”

“A horse was off—off—offered me for sale this very day.”

“Good, very good; then you lingered in the vestibule to speak of that—to
ask the master about it before he should go out. It must be daylight in a
few hours.—Now, come.”

Paula went down the stairs with a sure and rapid step. At the bottom Hiram
again took off his shoes, holding them in his hand, so as to lose no time
in following his mistress. They went on in silence through the darkness
till they reached the kitchen. Here Paula turned and said to the Syrian:

“If there is any one here, I will say I came to fetch some water; if there
is no one I will cough and you can follow. At any rate I will leave the
door open, and then you will hear what happens. If I am obliged to return,
do you hurry on before me back by the way we came. In that case I will
return to my room where you must wait outside till the side door is opened
again, and if you are found there leave the explanation to me.—Shrink
back, quite into that corner.”

She softly opened the door into the kitchen; the roof was open to the
light of the declining moon and myriad stars. The room was quite empty:
only a cat lay on a bench by the wide hearth, and a few bats flitted to
and fro on noiseless wings; a few live coals still glowed among the ashes
under the spits, like the eyes of lurking beasts of prey. Paula coughed
gently, and immediately heard Hiram’s step behind her; then, with a
beating heart and agonizing fears, she proceeded on her way. First down a
few steps, then through a dark passage, where the bats in their unswerving
flight shot by close to her head. At last they had to cross the large,
open dining-hall. This led into the viridarium, a spacious quadrangle,
paved at the edges and planted in the middle, where a fountain played;
round this square the Governor’s residence was built. All was still and
peaceful in this secluded space, vaulted over by the high heavens whose
deep blue was thickly dotted with stars. The moon would soon be hidden
behind the top of the cornice which crowned the roof of the building. The
large-leaved plants in the middle of the quadrangle threw strange, ghostly
shadows on the dewy grass-plot; the water in the fountain splashed more
loudly than by day, but with a soothing, monotonous gurgle, broken now and
then by a sudden short pause. The marble pillars gleamed as white as snow,
and filmy mists, which were beginning to rise from the damp lawn, floated
languidly hither and thither on the soft night breeze, like ghosts veiled
in flowing crape. Moths flitted noiselessly round and over the clumps of
bushes, and the whole quiet and restful enclosure was full of sweetness
from the Lotos flowers in the marble basin, from the blossoms of the
luxuriant shrubs and the succulent tropical herbs at their feet. At any
other time it would have been a joy to pause and look round, only to
breathe and let the silent magic of the night exert its spell; but Paula’s
soul was closed against these charms. The sequestered silence lent a
threatening accent to the furious wrangling in the court-yard, which was
audible even here in bursts of uproar; and it was with an anxious heart
that she observed that everything was not in its usual order; for her
sharp eyes could discern no one, nothing, at the entrance to the tablinum,
which was usually guarded by an armed sentinel or by the watch-dog; and
surely—yes, she was not mistaken—the bronze doors were open,
and the moon shone on the bright metal of one half which stood ajar.

She stopped, and Hiram behind her did the same. They both listened with
such tension that the veins in their foreheads swelled; but from the
tablinum, which was hardly thirty paces from them, came only very faint
and intermittent sounds, indistinct in character and drowned by the tumult
without.

A few long and anxious minutes, and then the half-closed door was suddenly
opened and a man came forth. Paula’s heart stood still, but she did not
for an instant lose her keenness of vision; she at once and positively
recognized the man who came out of the tablinum as Orion and none other,
and the big, long-haired dog too came out and past him, sniffed the air
and then, with a loud bark, rushed on the two watchers. Trembling and with
clenched teeth, but still mistress of herself, she let him come close to
her, and then, calling him by his name: “Beki” in low, caressing tones, as
soon as he recognized her, she laid her hand on his shaggy head to scratch
his ears, as he loved it done.

Paula and her companion were standing behind a column in the deepest
shadow. Thus Orion could not see her, and the dog’s loud bark had
prevented his hearing her coaxing call; so when Beki was quiet and stood
still, Orion whistled to him. The obedient and watchful beast, ran back,
wagging his tail; and his master, greeting him as “a stupid old
cat-hunter,” let him spring over his arm, hugged the creature and then
pushed him off again in play. Then he closed the door and went into the
apartments leading to the courtyard.

“But he must come back this way to go to his own rooms,” said Paula to her
companion with a sigh of relief. “We must wait. But now we must not lose a
minute. Come over to the door of the tablinum. The dog will know me now
and will not bark again.” They hastened on, and when they had reached the
door, which lay in shadow within a deep doorway, Paula asked her
companion: “Did you see who the man was who came out?”

“My lord Orion,” said Hiram. “He was co—co—coming home from
the town when I preceded you across the yard.”

“Indeed?” she said with apparent indifference, and as she leaned against
the cold metal door-panels she looked back into the garden and thought she
was now free to return. She would describe to the freedman the way he must
now go—it was quite simple; but she had not had time to do so when,
from a room dividing the viridarium from the vestibule she heard first a
woman’s shrill voice; then the deeper tones of a man; and hardly had they
exchanged a few sentences, when every sound was lost in the furious
barking of the hound, and immediately after a loud shriek of pain from a
woman fell upon her ear, and the noise of a heavy object falling to the
ground.

What had happened? It must be something portentous and terrible; of that
there could be no doubt; and ere long Paula’s fears were justified. Out
from the room where the scene had taken place rushed Orion, and with him
the dog, across the grass-plot which was usually respected and cherished
as holy ground, towards the side of the house facing the river, which was
where he and all the family had their rooms.

“Now!” cried Paula, quickly leading the way.

She flew in breathless haste through the first room and into the unguarded
hall; but she had not reached the middle of it when she gave a scream, for
before her in the moonlight, lay a body, motionless, at full length, on
the hard, marble floor.

“Run, Hiram, fly!” she cried to her companion. “The door is ajar—open—I
can see it is.”

She fell on her knees by the side of the lifeless form, raised the head,
and saw—the beautiful, deathlike face of the crazy Persian slave.
She felt her hand wet with the blood that had soaked the hapless girl’s
thick, fair hair, and she shuddered; but she resisted her impulse of
horror and loathing, and perceiving some dark stains on the torn peplos
she pulled it aside and saw that the white bosom was bleeding from deep
wounds made in the tender flesh by the cruel fangs of the hound.

Paula’s heart thrilled with indignation, grief and pity. He—he whom
she had only yesterday held to be the epitome of every manly perfection—Orion,
was guilty of so foul a deed! He, of whose unflinching, dauntless courage
she had heard so much, had fled like a coward, and had left the victim to
her fate—twice a victim to him!

But something must be done besides lamenting and raging, and wondering how
in one human soul there could be room for so much that was noble and fine
with so much that was shameful and cruel. She must save the girl, she must
seek help, for Mandane’s bosom still faintly rose and fell under Paula’s
tremulous fingers.

The freedman’s brave heart would not allow him to fly to leave her with
the injured girl; he flung his shoes on the floor, raised the senseless
form, and propped it against one of the columns that stood round the hall.
It was not till his mistress had repeated her orders that he hurried away.
Paula watched him depart; as soon as she heard the heavy door of the
atrium close upon him, heedless of her own suspicious-looking position,
she shouted for help, so loudly that her cries rang through the nocturnal
silence of the house, and in a few minutes, from this side and that, a
slave, a maid, a clerk, a cook, a watchman, came hurrying in.

Foremost of all—so soon indeed that he must have been on his way
when he heard her cry—came Orion. He wore a light night-dress,
intended, so she said to herself, to give the wretch the appearance of
having sprung out of bed. But was this indeed he? Was this man with a
flushed face, staring eyes, disordered hair and hoarse voice, that
favorite of fortune whose happy nature, easy demeanor, sunny gaze and
enchanting song had bewitched her soul? His hand shook as he came close to
her and the injured slave; and how forced and embarrassed was his enquiry
as to what had happened; how scared he looked as he asked her what had
brought her into this part of the house at such an hour.

She made no reply; but when his mother repeated the question soon after,
in a sharp voice, she—she who had never in her life told a lie—said
with hasty decision: “I could not sleep, and the bark of the dog and a cry
for help brought me here.”

“I call that having sharp ears!” retorted Neforis with an incredulous
shrug. “For the future, at any rate, under similar circumstances you need
not be so prompt. How long, pray, have young girls trusted themselves
alone when murder is cried?”

“If you had but armed yourself, fair daughter of heroes!” added Orion; but
he had no sooner spoken than he bitterly regretted it. What a glance Paula
cast at him! It was more than she could bear to hear him address her in
jest, almost in mockery: him of all men, and at this moment for the first
time—and to be thus reminded of her father! She answered proudly and
with cutting sharpness: “I leave weapons to fighting men and murderers!”

“To fighting men, and murderers!” repeated Orion, pretending not to
understand the point of her words. He forced a smile; but then, feeling
that he must make some defence, he added bitterly: “Really, that sounds
like the utterance of a feeble-hearted damsel! But let me beg you to come
closer and be calm. These pitiable gashes on the poor creature’s shoulder—I
care more about her than you do, take my word for it—were inflicted
by a four-footed assassin, whose weapons were given by nature. Yes, that
is what happened. Rough old Beki keeps watch at the door of the tablinum.
What brought the poor child here I know not, but he caught scent of her
and pulled her down.”

“Or nothing of the kind!” interrupted Neforis, picking up a pair of man’s
shoes which lay on the ground by the sufferer.

Orion turned as pale as death and hastily took the shoes from his mother’s
hand; he would have liked to fling them up and away through the open roof.
How came they here? Whose were they? Who had been here this night? Before
going into the tablinum he had locked the outer door on that side, and had
returned subsequently to open it again for the people in the court-yard.
It was not till after he had done this that the crazy girl had rushed upon
him; she must have been lurking somewhere about when he first went through
the atrium but had not then found courage enough to place herself in his
way. When she had thrown herself upon him, the dog had pulled her down
before he could prevent it: he would certainly have sprung past her and
have come to the rescue but that he must thus have betrayed his visit to
the tablinum.

It had required all his presence of mind to hurry to his room, fling on
his night garments, and rush back to the scene of disaster. When Paula had
first called for help he was already on his way, and with what feelings!
Never had he felt so bewildered, so confused, so deeply dissatisfied with
himself; for the first time in his life, as he stood face to face with
Paula, he dared not look straight into the eyes of his fellow-man.

And now these shoes! The owner must have come there with the crazy girl,
and if he had seen him in the tablinum and betrayed what he was doing
there, how could he ever again appear in his parents’ presence? He had
looked upon it as a good joke, but now it had turned to bitter earnest. At
any cost he must and would prevent his nocturnal doings from becoming
known! Some new wrong-doing-nay, the worst was preferable to a stain on
his honor.—Whose could the shoes be? He suddenly held them up on
high, crying with a loud voice: “Do these shoes belong to any of you, you
people? To the gate-keeper perhaps?”

When all were silent, and the porter denied the ownership, he stood
thinking; then he added with a defiant glare, and in a husky voice: “Then
some one who had broken into the house has been startled and dropped them.
Our house-stamp is here on the leather: they were made in our work-shop,
and they still smell of the stable-here, Sebek, you can convince yourself.
Take them into your keeping, man; and tomorrow morning we will see who has
left this suspicious offering in our vestibule.—You were the first
to reach the spot, fair Paula. Did you see a man about?”

“Yes,” she replied with a hostile and challenging stare.

“And which way did he go?”

“He fled across the viridarium like a coward, running across the poor,
well-kept grass-plot to save time, and vanished upstairs in the
dwelling-rooms.”

Orion ground his teeth, and a mad hatred surged up in him of this mystery
in woman’s form in whose power, as it seemed, his ruin lay, and whose eyes
mashed with revenge and the desire to undo him. What was she plotting
against him? Was there a being on earth who would dare to accuse him, the
spoilt favorite of great and small…? And her look had meant more than
aversion, it had expressed contempt…. How dare she look so at him? Who
in the wide world had a right to accuse him of anything that could justify
such a feeling? Never, never had he met with enmity like this, least of
all from a girl. He longed to annihilate the high-handed, cold-hearted,
ungrateful creature who could humble him so outrageously after he had
allowed her to see that his heart was hers, and who could make him quail—a
man whose courage had been proved a hundred times. He had to exercise his
utmost self-control not to forget that she was a woman.—What had
happened? What demon had been playing tricks on him—What had so
completely altered him within this half-hour that his whole being seemed
subverted even to himself, and that any one dared to treat him so?

His mother at once observed the terrible change that came over her son’s
face when Paula declared that a man had fled towards the dwelling-rooms;
but she accounted for it in her own way, and exclaimed in genuine alarm:
“Towards the Nile-wing, the rooms where your father sleeps? Merciful
Heaven! suppose they have planned an attack there! Run—fly, Sebek.

“Go across with some armed men! Search the whole house from top to bottom!
Perhaps you will catch the rascal—he had trodden down the grass—you
must find him—you must not let him escape.”

The steward hurried off, but Paula begged the head gardener, who had come
in with the rest, to compare the foot-prints of the fugitive, which must
yet be visible on the damp grass, with the shoes; her heart beat wildly,
and again she tried to catch the young man’s eye. Orion, however, started
forward and went into the viridarium, saying as he went: “That is my
concern.”

But he was ashamed of himself, and felt as if something tight was
throttling him. In his own eyes he appeared like a thief caught in the
act, a traitor, a contemptible rascal; and he began to perceive that he
was indeed no longer what he had been before he had committed that fatal
deed in the tablinum.

Paula breathed hard as she watched him go out. Had he sunk so low as to
falsify the evidence, and to declare that the groom’s broad sole fitted
the tracks of his small and shapely feet? She hated him, and yet she could
have found it in her heart to pray that this, at least, he might not do;
and when he came back and said in some confusion that he could not be
sure, that the shoes did not seem exactly to fit the foot-marks, she drew
a breath of relief and turned again to the wounded girl and the physician,
who, had now made his appearance. Before Neforis followed her example she
drew Orion aside and anxiously asked him what ailed him, he looked so pale
and upset. He only said with some hesitation: “That poor girl’s fate…”
and he pointed to the Persian slave.—“It troubles me.”

“You are so soft-hearted—you were as a boy!” said his mother
soothingly. She had seen the moisture sparkling in his eyes; but his tears
were not for the Persian, but for the mysterious something—he
himself knew not what to call it—that he had forfeited in this last
hour, and of which the loss gave him unspeakable pain.

But their dialogue was interrupted: the first misfortune of this luckless
night had brought its attendant: the body of Rustem, the splendid and
radiantly youthful Rustem, the faithful Persian leader of the caravan, was
borne into the hall, senseless. He had made some satirical remark on the
quarrel over creeds, and a furious Jacobite had fallen upon him with a log
of wood, and dealt him a deep and perhaps mortal wound. The leech at once
gave him his care, and several of the crowd of muttering and whispering
men, who had made their way in out of curiosity or with a wish to be of
use, now hurried hither and thither in obedience to the physician’s
orders.

As soon as he saw the Masdakite’s wound he exclaimed angrily:

“A true Egyptian blow, dealt from behind!—What does this mob want
here? Out with every man who does not belong to the place! The first
things needed are litters. Will you, Dame Neforis, desire that two rooms
may be got ready; one for that poor, gentle creature, and one for this
fine fellow, though all will soon be over with him, short of a miracle.”

“To the north of the viridarium,” replied the lady, “there are two rooms
at your service.”

“Not there!” cried the leech. “I must have rooms with plenty of fresh air,
looking out upon the river.”

“There are none but the handsome rooms in the visitor’s quarters, where my
husband’s niece has hers, Sick persons of the family have often lain
there, but for such humble folk—you understand?”

“No—I am deaf,” replied the physician.

“Oh, I know that,” laughed Neforis. “But those rooms are really just
refurnished for exalted guests.”

“It would be hard to find any more exalted than such as these, sick unto
death,” replied Philippus. “They are nearer to God in Heaven than you are;
to your advantage I believe. Here, you people! Carry these poor souls up
to the guests’ rooms.”


CHAPTER IX.

“It is impossible, impossible, impossible!” cried Orion, jumping up from
his writing-table. He thought of what he had done as a misfortune, and not
as a crime; he himself hardly knew how it had all come about. Yes, there
must be demons, evil, spiteful demons—and it was they who had led
him to so mad a deed.

Yesterday evening, after the buying of the hanging, he had yielded to his
mother’s request that he should escort the widow Susannah home. At her
house he had met her husband’s brother, a jovial old fellow named
Chrysippus; and when the conversation turned on the tapestry, and the
Mukaukas’ purpose of dedicating this work of art with all the gems worked
into it, to the Church, the old man had clasped his hands, fully sharing
Orion’s disapproval, and had exclaimed laughing “What, you the son, and is
not even a part of the precious stones to fall to your share? Why
Katharina? Just a little diamond, a tiny opal might well add to the
earthly happiness of the young, though the old must lay up treasure in
heaven.—Do not be a fool! The Church’s maw is full enough, and
really a mouthful is your due.”

And then they drank a good deal of fine wine, till at last the older man
had accompanied Orion home, to stretch his limbs in the cool night air. A
litter was carried behind him for him to return in, and all the way he had
continued to persuade the youth to induce his father not to fling the
whole treasure into the jaws of the Church, but to spare him a few stones
at least for a more pleasing use. They had laughed over it a good deal,
and Orion in his heart had thought Chrysippus very right, and had
remembered Heliodora, and her love of large, handsome gems, and the
keepsake he owed her. But that neither his father nor his mother would
remove a single stone, and that the whole hanging would be dedicated, was
beyond a doubt; at the same time, some of this superfluous splendor was in
fact his due as their son, and a prettier gift to Heliodora than the large
emerald could not be imagined. Yes—and she should have it! How
delighted she would be! He even thought of the chief idea for the verses
to accompany the gift.

He had the key of the tablinum, in which the work was lying, about his
person; and when, on his return, he found the servants still sitting round
the fire, he shut the door of the out-buildings while a feeling came over
him which he remembered having experienced last on occasions when he and
his brothers had robbed a forbidden fruit-tree. He was on the point of
giving up his mad project; and when, in the tablinum itself, a horrible
inward tremor again came over him he had actually turned to retreat—but
he remembered old Chrysippus and his prompts. To turn and fly now would be
cowardice. Heliodora must have the large emerald, and with his verses; his
father might give away all the rest as he pleased. When he was kneeling in
front of the work with his knife in his hand, that sickening terror had
come over him for the third time; if the large emerald had not come off
into his hand at the first effort he would certainly have rolled the bale
up again and have left the tablinum clean-handed. But the evil demon had
been at his elbow, had thrust the gem into his hand, as it were, so that
two cuts with the knife had sufficed to displace it from its setting. It
rolled into his hand and he felt its noble weight; he cast aside all care,
and had thought no more with anything but pleasure of this splendid trick,
which he would relate to-morrow to old Chrysippus—of course under
seal of secrecy.

But now, in the sober light of day, how different did this mad, rash deed
appear; how heavily had he already been punished; what consequences might
it not entail? His hatred of Paula grew every minute: she had certainly
seen all that had happened and would not hesitate to betray him—that
she had shown last night. War, as it were, was declared between them, and
he vowed to himself, with fire in his eyes, that he would not shirk it! At
the same time he could not deny that she had never looked handsomer than
when she stood, with hair half undone, confronting him—threatening
him. “It is to be love or hate between us.” he muttered to himself. “No
half-measures: and she has chosen hate! Good! Hitherto I have only had to
fight against men; but this bold, hard, and scornful maiden, who rejects
every gentle feeling, is no despicable foe. She has me at bay. If she does
her worst by me I will return it in kind!—And who is the owner of
the shoes? I have taken all possible means to find him. Shameful,
shameful! that I cannot hold up my head to look boldly at my own face in
the glass. Heliodora is a sweet creature, an angel of kindness. She loved
me truly; but this—this—Ah; even for her, this is too great a
sacrifice!”

He pressed his hand to his brow and flung himself on a divan. He might
well be weary, for he had not closed his eyes for more than thirty hours
and had already done much business that morning. He had given orders to
Sebek the house-steward and to the captain of the Egyptian guard to hunt
out the owner of the sandals by the aid of the dogs, and to cast him into
prison; next he had of his own accord—since his father generally did
not fall asleep till the morning and had not yet left his room—tried
to pacify the Arab merchant with regard to the mishap that had befallen
his head man under the governor’s roof; but with small success.

Finally the young man had indulged his desire to compose a few lines
addressed to the fair Heliodora—for there was no form of physical or
mental effort to which he was not trained. He had not lost the idea that
had occurred to him yesterday before his theft in the tablinum, and to put
it into verse was in his present mood an easy task. He wrote as follows:

He penned the lines rapidly; and as he did so he felt, he knew not why, an
excited thrill, as though every word he threw off was a blow aimed at
Paula. Last night he had intended to send the costly jewel to the handsome
widow in a suitable setting; but now it would be madly imprudent to order
such a thing. He must send it away at once; he had hastened to pack it up
with the verses, with his own hand, and entrusted it to Chusar, a
horsedealer’s groom from Constantinople, who had brought his Pannonian
steeds to Memphis. He had himself seen off this trustworthy messenger, who
could speak no Egyptian and very little Greek, and when his horse was lost
to sight in the dust of the road leading to Alexandria he had returned
home in a calmer mood. Ships were constantly putting to sea from that port
for Constantinople, and Chusar was enjoined to sail by the first that
should be leaving. At least the odious deed should not have been committed
in vain; and yet he would have given a year of his life if now he could
but know that it had never been done.

“Impossible!” and “Curse it!” were the words he had most frequently
repeated in the course of his retrospect during the past night and
morning. How he had had to rush and hurry under the broiling sun! and the
sense of being compelled to do so for mere concealment’s sake seemed to
him—who had never in his life before done anything that he could not
justify in the eyes of honest men—so humiliating, that it brought
the sweat to his burning brow. He—Orion—to dread discovery as
a thief! It was inconceivable, and he was afraid, positively afraid for
the first time since his boyhood. His fortunate star, which in the Capital
had shone on him so brightly and benevolently, seemed to have proved
faithless in this ruinous hole! What had that Persian girl taken into her
crazy head that she must rush upon him like some furious beast of prey? He
had been bound to her once, no doubt, by a transient passion—and
what youth of his age was blind to the charms of a pretty slave-girl? She
had been a lovely child, and it was a vexation, nay a grief to him, that
she should have been so shamefully punished. If she should recover, and he
could have prayed that she might, it would of course be his part to
provide for her—of course. To be just, he could not but confess that
she indeed had good reason to hate him: but Paula? He had shown her
nothing but kindness and yet how unhesitatingly, how openly she had
displayed her enmity. He could see her now with the name “murderer” on her
quivering lips; the word had stung him like a lance-thrust. What a
hideous, degrading and unjust accusation lay in that exclamation! Should
he submit to it unrevenged?

Was she as innocent as she was haughty and cold? What was she doing in the
viridarium at midnight?—For she must have been there before that
ill-starred dog flew at Mandane. An assignation with the owner of the
shoes his mother had found was out of the question, for they belonged to
some man about the stables. Love, thought he, for a wonder had nothing to
do with it; but as he came in he had noticed a man crossing the court-yard
who looked like Paula’s freedman, Hiram the trainer. Probably she had
arranged a meeting with her stammering friend in order—in order?—Well,
there was but one thing that seemed likely: She was plotting to fly from
his parents’ house and needed this man’s assistance.

He had seen within a few hours of his return that his mother did not make
life sweet to the girl, and yet his father had very possibly opposed her
wish to seek another home. But why should she avoid and hate him? In that
expedition on the river and on their way home he could have sworn that she
loved him, and the remembrance of those hours brought her near to him
again, and wiped out his schemes of vengeance against her, of punishment
to be visited on her. Then he thought of little Katharina whom his mother
intended him to marry, and at the thought he laughed softly to himself. In
the Imperial gardens at Constantinople he had once seen a strange Indian
bird, with a tiny body and head and an immensely long tail, shining like
silver and mother of pearl. This was Katharina! She herself a mere
nothing; but then her tail! vast estates and immense sums of money; and
this—this was all his mother saw. But did he need more than he had?
How rich his father must be to spend so large a sum on an offering to the
Church as heedlessly as men give alms to a beggar.

Katharina—and Paula!

Yes, the little girl was a bright, brisk creature; but then Thomas’
daughter—what power there was in her eye, what majesty in her gait,
how—how—how enchanting her—her voice could be—her
voice….

He was asleep, worn out by heat and fatigue; and in a dream he saw Paula
lying on a couch strewn with roses while all about her sounded wonderful
heart-ensnaring music; and the couch was not solid but blue water, gently
moving: he went towards her and suddenly a large black eagle swooped down
on him, flapped his wings in his face and when, half-blinded, he put his
hand to his eyes the bird pecked the roses as a hen picks millet and
barley. Then he was angry, rushed at the eagle, and tried to clutch him
with his hands; but his feet seemed rooted to the ground, and the more he
struggled to move freely the more firmly he was dragged backwards. He
fought like a madman against the hindering force, and suddenly it released
him. He was still under this impression when he woke, streaming with
perspiration, and opened his eyes. By his couch stood his mother who had
laid her hand on his feet to rouse him.

She looked pale and anxious and begged him to come quickly to his father
who was much disturbed, and wished to speak with him. Then she hurried
away.

While he hastily arranged his hair and had his shoes clasped he felt vexed
that, under the influence of that foolish dream, and still half asleep, he
had let his mother go before ascertaining what the circumstances were that
had given rise to his father’s anxiety. Had it anything to do with the
incidents of the past night? No.—If he had been suspected his mother
would have told him and warned him. It must refer to something else.
Perhaps the old merchant’s stalwart headman had died of his wounds, and
his father wished to send him—Orion—across the Nile to the
Arab viceroy to obtain forgiveness for the murder of a Moslem, actually
within the precincts of the governor’s house. This fatal blow might indeed
entail serious consequences; however, the matter might very likely be
quite other than this.

When he left his room the brooding heat that filled the house struck him
as peculiarly oppressive, and a painful feeling, closely resembling shame,
stole over him as he crossed the viridarium, and glanced at the grass from
which—thanks to Paula’s ill-meant warning—he had carefully
brushed away his foot-marks before daybreak. How cowardly, how base, it
all was The best of all in life: honor, self-respect, the proud
consciousness of being an honest man—all staked and all lost for
nothing at all! He could have slapped his own face or cried aloud like a
child that has broken its most treasured toy. But of what use was all
this? What was done could not be undone; and now he must keep his wits
about him so as to remain, in the eyes of others at least, what he had
always been, low as he had fallen in his own.

It was scorchingly hot in the enclosed garden-plot, surrounded by
buildings, and open to the sun; not a human creature was in sight; the
house seemed dead. The gaudy flag-staffs and trellis-work, and the pillars
of the verandah, which had all been newly painted in honor of his return
and were still wreathed with garlands, exhaled a smell, to him quite
sickening, of melting resin, drying varnish and faded flowers. Though
there was no breath of air the atmosphere quivered, as it seemed from the
fierce rays of the sun, which were reflected like arrows from everything
around him. The butterflies and dragonflies appeared to Orion to move
their wings more languidly as they hovered over the plants and flowers,
the very fountain danced up more lazily and not so high as usual:
everything about him was hot, sweltering, oppressive; and the man who had
always been so independent and looked up to, who for years had been free
to career through life uncontrolled, and guarded by every good Genius now
felt trammelled, hemmed in and harassed.

In his father’s cool fountain-room he could breathe more freely; but only
for a moment. The blood faded from his cheeks, and he had to make a strong
effort to greet his father calmly and in his usual manner; for in front of
the divan where the governor commonly reclined, lay the Persian hanging,
and close by stood his mother and the Arab merchant. Sebek, the steward
awaited his master’s orders, in the background in the attitude of humility
which was torture to his old back, but in which he was never required to
remain: Orion now signed to him to stand up:

The Arab’s mild features wore a look of extreme gravity, and deep vexation
could be read in his kindly eyes. As the young man entered he bowed
slightly; they had already met that morning. The Mukaukas, who was lying
deathly pale with colorless lips, scarcely opened his eyes at his son’s
greeting. It might have been thought that a bier was waiting in the next
room and that the mourners had assembled here.

The piece of work was only half unrolled, but Orion at once saw the spot
whence its crowning glory was now missing—the large emerald which,
as he alone could know, was on its way to Constantinople. His theft had
been discovered. How fearful, how fatal might the issue be!

“Courage, courage!” he said to himself. “Only preserve your presence of
mind. What profit is life with loss of honor? Keep your eyes open;
everything depends on that, Orion!”

He succeeded in hastily collecting his thoughts, and exclaimed in a voice
which lacked little of its usual eager cheerfulness:

“How dismal you all look! It is indeed a terrible disaster that the dog
should have handled the poor girl so roughly, and that our people should
have behaved so outrageously; but, as I told you this morning, worthy
Merchant, the guilty parties shall pay for it with their lives. My father,
I am sure, will agree that you should deal with them according to your
pleasure, and our leech Philippus, in spite of his youth, is a perfect
Hippocrates I can assure you! He will patch up the fine fellow—your
head-man I mean, and as to any question of compensation, my father—well,
you know he is no haggler.”

“I beg you not to add insult to the injury that I have suffered under your
roof,” interrupted Haschim. “No amount of money can buy off my wrath over
the spilt blood of a friend—and Rustem was my friend—a free
and valiant youth. As to the punishment of the guilty: on that I insist.
Blood cries for blood. That is our creed; and though yours, to be sure,
enjoins the contrary, so far as I know you act by the same rule as we. All
honor to your physician; but it goes to my heart, and raises my gall to
see such things take place in the house of the man to whom the Khaliff has
confided the weal or woe of Egyptian Christians. Your boasted tolerance
has led to the death of an honest though humble man in a time of perfect
peace—or at least maimed him for life. As to your honesty, it would
seem…”

“Who dares impugn it?” cried Orion.

“I, young man,” replied the merchant with the calm dignity of age. “I, who
sold this piece of work last evening, and find it this morning robbed of
its most precious ornament.”

“The great emerald has been cut from the hanging during the night.” Dame
Neforis explained. “You yourself went with the man who carried it to the
tablinum and saw it laid there.”

“And in the very cloth in which your people had wrapped it,” added Orion.
“Our good old Sebek there was with me. Who fetched away the bale this
morning; who brought it here and opened it?”

“Happily for us,” said the Arab, “it was your lady mother herself, with
that man—your steward if I mistake not—and your own slaves.”

“Why was it not left where it was?” asked Orion, giving vent to the
annoyance which at this moment he really felt.

“Because I had assured your father, and with good reason, that the beauty
of this splendid work and of the gems that decorate it show to much
greater advantage by daylight and in the sunshine than under the lamps and
torches.”

“And besides, your father wished to see his new purchase once more,”
Neforis broke in, “and to ask the merchant how the gems might be removed
without injury to the work itself. So I went to the tablinum myself with
Sebek.”

“But I had the key!” cried Orion putting his hand into the breast of his
robe.

“That I had forgotten,” replied his mother. “But unfortunately we did not
need it. The tablinum was open.”

“I locked it yesterday; you saw me do it, Sebek…”

“So I told the mistress,” replied the steward. “I perfectly recollect
hearing the snap of the strong lock.”

Orion shrugged his shoulders, and his mother went on:

“But the bronze doors must have been opened during the night with a false
key, or by some other means; for part of the hanging had been pulled out
of the wrapper, and when we looked closely we saw that the large emerald
had been wrenched out of the setting.”

“Shameful!” exclaimed Orion.

“Disgraceful!” added the governor, vehemently starting up. He had fallen a
prey to fearful unrest and horror: he thought that his Lord and Saviour,
to whom he had dedicated the precious jewel, regarded him as so sinful and
worthless that He would not accept the gift at his hands. But perhaps it
was only Satan striving to hinder him from approaching the Most High with
so noble an offering. At any rate, human cunning had been at work, so he
said with stern resolution:

“The matter shall be enquired into, and in the name of Jesus Christ, to
whom the stone already belongs, I will never rest nor cease till the
criminal is in my hands.”

“And in the name of Allah and the Prophet,” added the Arab, “I will aid
thee, if I have to appeal for help to the great chief Amru, the Khaliff’s
representative in this country.—A word was spoken here just now that
I cannot and will not forget. And the tone you have chosen to adopt, young
man, seems to spring from the same fount: the old fox, you think, put a
false gem of impossible size into the hanging, and has had it stolen that
his fraud may not be detected when a jeweller examines the work by
daylight. This is too much! I am an honest man, Sirs, and I am fain to add
a rich one; and the man who tries to cast a stain on the character I have
borne through a long life shall learn, to his ruing, that old Haschim has
greater and more powerful friends to back him than you may care to meet!”

As he uttered this threat the merchant’s eyes glistened through tears; it
grieved him to be unjustly suspected and to be forced to express himself
so hardly to the Mukaukas for whom he felt both reverence and pity. It was
clear from the tone of his speech that he was in fact a determined and a
powerful personage, and Orion interrupted him with the eager enquiry: “Who
has dared to think so basely of you?”

“Your own mother, I regret to say,” replied the Moslem sadly, with an
oriental shrug of distress and annoyance—his shoulders up to his
ears.

“Forget it, I beg of you,” said the governor. “God knows women have softer
hearts than men, and yet they more readily incline to think evil of their
fellow-creatures, and particularly of the enemies of their faith. On the
other hand they are more sensitive to kindness. A woman’s hair is long and
her wits short, says the saw.”

“You have plenty to say against us women!” retorted Neforis. “But scold
away—scold if it is a comfort to you!” But she added, while she
affectionately turned her husband’s pillows and gave him another of his
white pillules: “I will submit to the worst to-day for I am in the wrong.
I have already asked your pardon, worthy Haschim, and I do so again, with
all my heart.”

As she spoke, she went up to the Arab and held out her hand; he took it,
but lightly, however, and quickly released it, saying:

“I do not find it hard to forgive. But I find it impossible, here or
anywhere, to let so much as a grain of dust rest on my bright good name. I
shall follow up this affair, turning neither to the right hand nor to the
left.—And now, one question: Is the dog that guarded the tablinum a
watchful, savage beast?”

“How savage he is he unfortunately proved on the person of the poor
Persian slave; and his watchfulness is known to all the household,” cried
Orion.

“But I would beg you, worthy merchant,” said Neforis, “and in the name of
all present, to give us the help of your experience. I myself—wait a
little wait: in spite of her long hair and her short wits a woman often
has a happy idea. I, probably, was the first to come on the robber’s
track. It is clear that he must belong to the household since the dog did
not attack him. Paula, who was so wonderfully quick in coming to the
rescue of the Persian, is of course not to be thought of…”

Here her husband interrupted her with an angry exclamation: “Leave the
girl quite out of the question wife!”

“As if I supposed her to be the thief!” retorted Neforis indignantly, and
she shrugged her shoulders as Orion, in mild reproach, also cried:
“Mother! consider…” and the merchant asked:

“Do you mean the young girl from whom I had to take such hard words last
night?—Well, then, I will stake my whole fortune on her innocence.
That beautiful, passionate creature is incapable of any underhand
dealings.”

“Passionate!” Neforis smiled. “Her heart is as cold and as hard as the
lost emerald; we have proved that by experience.”

“Nevertheless,” said Orion, “she is incapable of baseness.”

“How zealous men can be for a pair of fine eyes!” interrupted his mother.
“But I have not the most remote suspicion of her; I have something quite
different in my mind. A pair of man’s shoes were found lying by the
wounded girl. Did you do what my lord Orion ordered, Sebek?”

“At once, Mistress,” replied the steward, “and I have been expecting the
captain of the watch for some time; for Psamtik….”

But here he was interrupted: the officer in question, who for more than
twenty years had commanded the Mukaukas’ guard of honor, was shown into
the room; after answering a few preliminary enquiries he began his report
in a voice so loud that it hurt the governor, and his wife was obliged to
request the soldier to speak more gently.

The bloodhounds and terriers had been let out after being allowed to smell
at the shoes, and a couple of them had soon found their way to the
side-door where Hiram had waited for Paula. There they paused, sniffing
about on all sides, and had then jumped up a few steps.

“And those stairs lead to Paula’s room,” observed Neforis with a shrug.

“But they were on a false scent,” the officer eagerly added. “The little
toads might have thrown suspicion on an innocent person. The curs
immediately after rushed into the stables, and ran up and down like Satan
after a lost soul. The pack had soon pulled down the boy—the son of
the freedman who came here from Damascus with the daughter of the great
Thomas—and they went quite mad in his father’s room: Heaven and
earth! what a howling and barking and yelping. They poked their noses into
every old rag, and now we knew where the hole in the wine-skin was.—I
am sorry for the man. He stammered horribly, but as a trainer, and in all
that has to do with horses, all honor to him!—The shoes are Hiram’s
as surely as my eyes are in my head; but we have not caught him yet. He is
across the river, for a boat is missing and where it had been lying the
dogs began again. Unless the unbelievers over there give him shelter we
are certain to have him.”

“Then we know who is the criminal!” cried Orion, with a sigh as deep as
though some great burden were lifted from his soul. Then he went on in a
commanding tone—and his voice rang so fiercely that the color which
had mounted to his cheeks could hardly be due to satisfaction at this last
good news….

“As it is not yet two hours after noon, send all your men out to search
for him and deliver him up. My father will give you a warrant, and the
Arabs on the other shore will assist you. Perhaps the thief may fall into
our hands even sooner and with him the emerald, unless the rogue has
succeeded in hiding it or selling it.” Then his voice sank, and he added
in a tone of regret. “It is a pity as concerns the man, we had not one in
our stables who knew more about horses! Fresh proof of your maxim, mother:
if you want to be well served you must buy rascals!”

“Strictly speaking,” said Neforis meditatively, “Hiram is not one of our
people. He was a freedman of Thomas’ and came here with his daughter.
Every one speaks highly of his skill in the stable; but for this robbery
we might have kept him for the rest of his life still, if the girl had
ever taken it into her head to leave us and to take him with her, we could
not have detained him.—You may say what you will, and abuse me and
mock me; I have none of what you call imagination; I see things simply as
they are: but there must be some understanding between that girl and the
thief.”

“You are not to say another word of such monstrous nonsense!” exclaimed
her husband; and he would have said more, but that at that moment the
groom of the chambers announced that Gamaliel, the Jewish goldsmith,
begged an audience. The man had come to give information with regard to
the fate of the lost emerald.

At this statement Orion changed color, and he turned away from the
merchant as the slave admitted the same Israelite who had been sitting
over the fire with the head-servants. He at once plunged into his story,
telling it in his peculiar light-hearted style. He was so rich that the
loss he might suffer did not trouble him enough to spoil his good-humor,
and so honest that it was a pleasure to him to restore the stolen property
to its rightful owner. Early that morning, so he told them, Hiram the
groom had been to him to offer him a wonderfully large and splendid
emerald for sale. The freedman had assured him that the stone was part of
the property left by the famous Thomas, his former master. It had
decorated the head-stall of the horse which the hero of Damascus had last
ridden, and it had come to him with the steed.

“I offered him what I thought fair,” the Jew went on, “and paid him two
thousand drachmae on account; the remainder he begged me to take charge of
for the present. To this I agreed, but ere long a fly began to hum
suspicion in my ear. Then the police rushed through the town with the
bloodhounds. Good Heavens, what a barking! The creatures yelped as if they
would bark my poor house down, like the trumpets round the walls of
Jericho—you know. ‘What is the matter now,’ I asked of the
dog-keepers, and behold! my suspicions about the emerald were justified;
so here, my lord Governor, I have brought you the stone, and as every
suckling in Memphis hears from its nurse—unless it is deaf—what
a just man Mukaukas George is, you will no doubt make good to me what I
advanced to that stammering scoundrel. And you will have the best of the
bargain, noble Sir; for I make no demand for interest or even maintenance
for the two hours during which it was mine.”

“Give me the stone!” interrupted the Arab, who was annoyed by the Jew’s
jesting tone; he snatched the emerald from him, weighed it in his hand,
put it close to his eyes, held it far off, tapped it with a small hammer
that he took out of his breast-pocket, slipped it into its place in the
work, examining it keenly, suspiciously, and at last with satisfaction.
During all this, Orion had more than once turned pale, and the sweat broke
out on his handsome, pale face. Had a miracle been wrought here? How could
this gem, which was surely on its way to Alexandria, have found its way
into the Jew’s hands? Or could Chusar have opened the little packet and
have sold the emerald to Hiram, and through him to the jeweller? He must
get to the bottom of it, and while the Arab was examining the gem he went
up to Gamaliel and asked him: “Are you positively certain—it is a
matter of freedom or the dungeon—certain that you had this stone
from Hiram the Syrian and from no one else? I mean, is the man so
well-known to you that no mistake is possible?”

“God preserve us!” exclaimed the Jew drawing back a step from Orion, who
was gazing at him with a sinister light in his eyes. “How can my lord
doubt it? Your respected father has known me these thirty years, and do
you suppose that I—I do not know the Syrian? Why, who in Memphis can
stammer to compare with him? And has he not killed half my children with
your wild young horses?—Half killed every one of my children I mean—half
killed them, I say, with fright. They are all still alive and well, God
preserve them, but none the better for your horsebreaker; for fresh air is
good for children and my little Rebecca would stop indoors till he was at
home again for fear of his terrifying pranks.”

“Well, well!” Orion broke in. “And at what hour did he bring you the
emerald for sale? Exactly. Now, recollect: when was it? You surely must
remember.”

“Adonai! How should I?” said the Jew. “But wait, Sir, perhaps I may be
able to tell you. In this hot weather we are up before sunrise; then we
said our prayers and had our morning broth; then….”

“Senseless chatter!” urged Orion. But Gamaliel went on without allowing
himself to be checked. “Then little Ruth jumped into my lap to pull out
the white hairs that will grow under my nose and, just as the child was
doing it and I cried out: ‘Oh, you hurt me!’ the sun fell upon the earth
bank on which I was sitting.”

“And at what time does it reach the bank?” cried the young man.

“Exactly two hours after sunrise,” replied the Jew, “at this time of year.
Do me the honor of a visit tomorrow morning; you will not regret it, for I
can show you some beautiful, exquisite things—and you can watch the
shadow yourself.”

“Two hours after sunrise,” murmured Orion to himself, and then with fresh
qualms he reflected that it was fully four hours later when he had given
the packet to Chusar. It was impossible to doubt the Jew’s statement. The
man was rich, honest and content: he did not lie. The jewel Orion had sent
away and that purchased from Hiram could not in any case be identical. But
how could all this be explained? It was enough to turn his brain. And not
to dare to speak when mere silence was falsehood—falsehood to his
father and mother!—If only the hapless stammerer might escape! If he
were caught; then—then merciful Heaven! But no; it was not to be
thought of.—On, then, on; and if it came to the worst the honor of a
hundred stablemen could not outweigh that of one Orion; horrible as it
was, the man must be sacrificed. He would see that his life was spared and
that he was soon set at liberty!

The Arab meanwhile had concluded his examination; still he was not
perfectly satisfied. Orion longed to interpose; for if the merchant
expressed no doubts and acknowledged the recovered gem to be the stolen
one, much would be gained; so he turned to him again and said: “May I ask
you to show me the emerald once more? It is quite impossible, do you
think, that a second should be found to match it?”

“That is too much to assert,” said the Arab gravely. “This stone resembles
that on the hanging to a hair; and yet it has a little inequality which I
do not remember noticing on it. It is true I had never seen it out of the
setting, and this little boss may have been turned towards the stuff, and
yet, and yet.—Tell me, goldsmith, did the thief give you the emerald
bare—unset?”

“As bare as Adam and Eve before they ate the apple,” said the Jew.

“That is a pity—a great pity!—And still I fancy that the stone
in the work was a trifle longer. In such a case it is almost folly and
perversity to doubt, and yet I feel—and yet I ask myself: Is this
really the stone that formed that bud?”

“But Heaven bless us!” cried Orion, “the twin of such an unique gem would
surely not drop from the skies and at the same moment into one and the
same house. Let us be glad that the lost sheep has come back to us. Now, I
will lock it into this iron casket, Father, and as soon as the robber is
caught you send for me: do you understand, Psamtik?” He nodded to his
parents, offered his hand to the Arab, and that in a way which could not
fail to satisfy any one, so that even the old man was won over; and then
he left the room.

The merchant’s honor was saved; still his conscientious soul was disturbed
by a doubt that he could not away with. He was about to take leave but the
Mukaukas was so buried in pillows, and kept his eyes so closely shut, that
no one could detect whether he were sleeping or waking; so the Arab, not
wishing to disturb him, withdrew without speaking.


CHAPTER X.

After the great excitement of the night Paula had thrown herself on her
bed with throbbing pulses. Sleep would not come to her, and so at rather
more than two hours after sunrise she went to the window to close the
shutters. As she did so she looked out, and she saw Hiram leap into a boat
and push the light bark from the shore. She dared neither signal nor call
to him; but when the faithful soul had reached open water he looked back
at her window, recognized her in her white morning dress and flourished
the oar high in the air. This could only mean that he had fulfilled his
commission and sold her jewel. Now he was going to the other side to
engage the Nabathaean.

When she had closed the shutters and darkened the room she again lay down.
Youth asserted its rights the weary girl fell into deep, dreamless
slumbers.

When she woke, with the heat drops on her forehead, the sun was nearly at
the meridian, only an hour till the Ariston would be served, the Greek
breakfast, the first meal in the morning, which the family eat together as
they also did the principal meal later in the clay. She had never yet
failed to appear, and her absence would excite remark.

The governor’s household, like that of every Egyptian of rank, was
conducted more on the Greek than the Egyptian plan; and this was the case
not merely as regarded the meals but in many other things, and especially
the language spoken. From the Mukaukas himself down to the youngest member
of the family, all spoke Greek among themselves, and Coptic, the old
native dialect, only to the servants. Nay, many borrowed and foreign words
had already crept into use in the Coptic.

The governor’s granddaughter, pretty little Mary, had learnt to speak
Greek fluently and correctly before she spoke Coptic, but when Paula had
first arrived she could not as yet write the beautiful language of Greece
with due accuracy. Paula loved children; she longed for some occupation,
and she had therefore volunteered to instruct the little girl in the art.
At first her hosts had seemed pleased that she should render this service,
but ere long the relation between the Lady Neforis and her husband’s niece
had taken the unpleasant aspect which it was destined to retain. She had
put a stop to the lessons, and the reason she had assigned for this
insulting step was that Paula had dictated to her pupil long sentences out
of her Orthodox Greek prayerbook. This, it was true, she had done; but
without the smallest concealment; and the passages she had chosen had
contained nothing but what must elevate the soul of every Christian, of
whatever confession.

The child had wept bitterly over her grandmother’s fiat, though Paula had
always taken the lessons quite seriously, for Mary loved her older
companion with all the enthusiasm of a half-grown girl—as a child of
ten really is in Egypt; her passionate little heart worshipped the
beautiful maiden who was in every respect so far above her, and Paula’s
arms had opened wide to embrace the child who brought sunshine into the
gloomy, chill atmosphere she breathed in her uncle’s house. But Neforis
regarded the child’s ardent love for her Melchite relation as exaggerated
and morbid, imperilling perhaps her religious faith; and she fancied that
under Paula’s influence Mary had transferred her affections from her to
the younger woman with added warmth. Nor was this idea wholly fanciful;
the child’s strong sense of justice could not bear to see her friend
misunderstood and slighted, often simply and entirely misjudged and hardly
blamed, so Mary felt it her duty, as far as in her lay, to make up for her
grandmother’s delinquencies in regard to the guest who in the child’s eyes
was perfection.

But Neforis was not the woman to put up with this demeanor in a child.
Mary was her granddaughter, the only child of her lost son, and no one
should come between them. So she forbid the little girl to go to Paula’s
room without an express message, and when a Greek teacher was engaged for
her, her instructions were that she should keep her pupil as much as
possible out of the Syrian damsel’s way. All this only fanned the child’s
vehement affection; and tenderly as her grandmother would sometimes caress
her—while Mary on her part never failed in dutiful obedience—neither
of them ever felt a true and steady warmth of heart towards the other; and
for this Paula was no doubt to blame, though against her will and by her
mere existence.

Often, indeed, and by a hundred covert hints Dame Neforis gave Paula to
understand that she it was who had alienated her grandchild; there was
nothing for it but to keep the child for whom she yearned, at a distance,
and only rarely reveal to her the abundance of her love. At last her life
was so full of grievance that she was hardly able to be innocent with the
innocent—a child with the child; Mary was not slow to note this, and
ascribed Paula’s altered manner to the suffering caused by her
grandmother’s severity.

Mary’s most frequent opportunities of speaking to her friend were just
before meals; for at that time no one was watching her, and her
grandmother had not forbidden her calling Paula to table. A visit to her
room was the child’s greatest delight—partly because it was
forbidden—but no less because Paula, up in her own room, was quite
different from what she seemed with the others, and because they could
there look at each other and kiss without interference, and say what ever
they pleased. There Mary could tell her as much as she dared of the events
in their little circle, but the lively and sometimes hoydenish little girl
was often withheld from confessing a misdemeanor, or even an inoffensive
piece of childishness, by sheer admiration for one who to her appeared
nobler, greater and loftier than other beings.

Just as Paula had finished putting up her hair, Mary, who would rush like
a whirlwind even into her grandmother’s presence, knocked humbly at the
door. She did not fly into Paula’s arms as she did into those of Susannah
or her daughter Katharina, but only kissed her white arm with fervent
devotion, and colored with happiness when Paula bent down to her, pressed
her lips to her brow and hair, and wiped her wet, glowing cheeks. Then she
took Mary’s head fondly between her hands and said:

“What is wrong with you, madcap?”

In fact the sweet little face was crimson, and her eyes swelled as if she
had been crying violently.

“It is so fearfully hot,” said Mary. “Eudoxia”—her Greek governess—“says
that Egypt in summer is a fiery furnace, a hell upon earth. She is quite
ill with the heat, and lies like a fish on the sand; the only good thing
about it is…”

“That she lets you run off and gives you no lessons?”

Mary nodded, but as no lecture followed the confession she put her head on
one side and looked up into Paula’s face with large roguish eyes.

“And yet you have been crying!—a great girl like you?”

“I—I crying?”

“Yes, crying. I can see it in your eyes. Now confess: what has happened?”

“You will not scold me?”

“Certainly not.”

“Well then. At first it was fun, such fun you cannot think, and I do not
mind the heat; but when the great hunt had gone by I wanted to go to my
grand mother and I was not allowed. Do you know, something very particular
had been going on in the fountain-room; and as they all came out again I
crept behind Orion into the tablinum—there are such wonderful things
there, and I wanted just to frighten him a little; we have often played
games together before. At first he did not see me, and as he was bending
over the hanging, from which the gem was stolen—I believe he was
counting the stones in the faded old thing—I just jumped on to his
shoulder, and he was so frightened—I can tell you, awfully
frightened! And he turned upon me like a fighting-cock and—and he
gave me a box on the ear; such a slap, it is burning now—and all
sorts of colors danced before my eyes. He always used to be so nice and
kind to me, and to you, too, and so I used to be fond of him—he is
my uncle too—but a box on the ears, a slap such as the cook might
give to the turnspit—I am too big for that; that I will certainly
not put up with it! Since my last birthday all the slaves and upper
servants, too, have had to treat me as a lady and to bow down to me! And
now!—it was just here.—How dare he?” She began to cry again
and sobbed out: “But that was not all. He locked me into the dark tablinum
and left—left me….” her tears flowed faster and faster, “left me
sitting there! It was so horrible; and I might have been there now if I
had not found a gold plate; I seized my great-grandfather—I mean the
silver image of Menas, and hammered on it, and screamed Fire! Then Sebek
heard me and fetched Orion, and he let me out, and made such a fuss over
me and kissed me. But what is the good of that; my grandfather will be
angry, for in my terror I beat his father’s nose quite flat on the plate.”

Paula had listened, now amused and now grave, to the little girl’s story;
when she ceased, she once more wiped her eyes and said:

“Your uncle is a man, and you must not play with him as if he were a child
like yourself. The reminder you got was rather a hard one, no doubt, but
Orion tried to make up for it.—But the great hunt, what was that?”

At this question Mary’s eyes suddenly sparkled again. In an instant all
her woes were forgotten, even her ancestor’s flattened nose, and with a
merry, hearty laugh she exclaimed:

“Oh! you should have seen it! You would have been amused too. They wanted
to catch the bad man who cut the emerald out of the hanging. He had left
his shoes and they had held them under the dogs’ noses and then off they
went! First they rushed here to the stairs; then to the stables, then to
the lodgings of one of the horse-trainers, and I kept close behind, after
the terriers and the other dogs. Then they stopped to consider and at last
they all ran out at the gate towards the town. I ought not to have gone
beyond the court-yard, but—do not be cross with me—it was such
fun!—Out they went, along Hapi Street, across the square, and at
last into the Goldsmith’s Street, and there the whole pack plunged into
Gamaliel’s shop—the Jew who is always so merry. While he was talking
to the others his wife gave me some apricot tartlets; we do not have such
good ones at home.”

“And did they find the man?” asked Paula, who had changed color repeatedly
during the child’s story.

“I do not know,” said Mary sadly. “They were not chasing any one in
particular. The dogs kept their noses to the ground, and we ran after
them.”

“And only to catch a man, who certainly had nothing whatever to do with
the theft.—Reflect a little, Mary. The shoes gave the dogs the scent
and they were set on to seize the man who had worn them, but whom no judge
had examined. The shoes were found in the hall; perhaps he had dropped
them by accident, or some one else may have carried them there. Now think
of yourself in the place of an innocent man, a Christian like ourselves,
hunted with a pack of dogs like a wild beast. Is it not frightful? No good
heart should laugh at such a thing!”

Paula spoke with such impressive gravity and deep sorrow, and her whole
manner betrayed such great and genuine distress that the child looked tip
at her anxiously, with tearful eyes, threw herself against her, and hiding
her face in Paula’s dress exclaimed: “I did not know that they were
hunting a poor man, and if it makes you so sad, I wish I had not been
there! But is it really and truly so bad? You are so often unhappy when we
others laugh!” She gazed into Paula’s face with wide, wondering eyes
through her tears, and Paula clasped her to her, kissed her fondly, and
replied with melancholy sweetness:

“I would gladly be as gay as you, but I have gone through so much to
sadden me. Laugh and be merry to your heart’s content; I am glad you
should. But with regard to the poor hunted man, I fear he is my father’s
freedman, the most faithful, honest soul! Did your exciting hunt drive any
one out of the goldsmith’s shop?”

Mary shook her head; then she asked:

“Is it Hiram, the stammerer, the trainer, that they are hunting?”

“I fear it is.”

“Yes, yes,” said the child. “Stay—oh, dear! it will grieve you
again, but I think—I think they said—the shoes belonged—but
I did not attend. However, they were talking of a groom—a freedman—a
stammerer….”

“Then they certainly are hunting down an innocent man,” cried Paula with a
deep sigh; and she sat down again in front of her toilet-table to finish
dressing. Her hands still moved mechanically, but she was lost in thought;
she answered the child vaguely, and let her rummage in her open trunk till
Mary pulled out the necklace that had been bereft of its gem, and hung it
round her neck. Just then there was a knock at the door and Katharina, the
widow Susannah’s little daughter, came into the room. The young girl, to
whom the governor’s wife wished to marry her tall son scarcely reached to
Paula’s shoulder, but she was plump and pleasant to look upon; as neat as
if she had just been taken out of a box, with a fresh, merry lovable
little face. When she laughed she showed a gleaming row of small teeth,
set rather wide apart, but as white as snow; and her bright eyes beamed on
the world as gladly as though they had nothing that was not pleasing to
look for, innocent mischief to dream of. She too, tried to win Paula’s
favor; but with none of Mary’s devoted and unvarying enthusiasm. Often, to
be sure, she would devote herself to Paula with such stormy vehemence that
the elder girl was forced to be repellent; then, on the other hand, if she
fancied her self slighted, or treated more coolly than Mary, she would
turn her back on Paula with sulky jealousy, temper and pouting. It always
was in Paula’s power to put an end to the “Water-wagtails tantrums”—which
generally had their comic side—by a kind word or kiss; but without
some such advances Katharina was quite capable of indulging her humors to
the utmost.

On the present occasion she flew into Paula’s arm, and when her friend
begged, more quietly than usual that she would allow her first to finish
dressing, she turned away without any display of touchiness and took the
necklace from Mary’s hand to put it on herself. It was of fine
workmanship, set with pearls, and took her fancy greatly; only the empty
medallion from which Hiram had removed the emerald with his knife spoiled
the whole effect. Still, it was a princely jewel, and when she had also
taken from the chest a large fan of ostrich feathers she showed off to her
play-fellow, with droll, stiff dignity, how the empress and princesses at
Court curtsied and bowed graciously to their inferiors. At this they both
laughed a great deal. When Paula had finished her toilet and proceeded to
take the necklace off Katharina, the empty setting, which Hiram’s knife
had bent, caught in the thin tissue of her dress. Mary disengaged it, and
Paula tossed the jewel back into the trunk.

While she was locking the box she asked Katharina whether she had met
Orion.

“Orion!” repeated the younger girl, in a tone which implied that she alone
had the right to enquire about him. “Yes, we came upstairs together; he
went to see the wounded man. Have you anything to say to him?”

She crimsoned as she spoke and looked suspiciously at Paula, who simply
replied: “Perhaps,” and then added, as she hung the ribbon with the key
round her neck: “Now, you little girls, it is breakfast time; I am not
going down to-day.”

“Oh, dear!” cried Mary disappointed, “my grandfather is ailing and
grandmother will stay with him; so if you do not come I shall have to sit
alone with Eudoxia; for Katharina’s chariot is waiting and she must go
home at once. Oh! do come. Just to please me; you do not know how odious
Eudoxia can be when it is so hot.”

“Yes, do go down,” urged Katharina. “What will you do up hereby yourself?
And this evening mother and I will come again.”

“Very well,” said Paula. “But first I must go to see the invalids.”

“May I go with you?” asked the Water wagtail, coaxingly stroking Paula’s
arm. But Mary clapped her hands, exclaiming:

“She only wants to go to Orion—she is so fond of him….”

Katharina put her hand over the child’s mouth, but Paula, with quickened
breath, explained that she had very serious matters to discuss with Orion;
so Katharina, turning her back on her with a hasty gesture of defiance,
sulkily went down stairs, while Mary slipped down the bannister rail. Not
many days since, Katharina, who was but just sixteen, would gladly have
followed her example.

Paula meanwhile knocked at the first of the sickrooms and entered it as
softly as the door was opened by a nursing-sister from the convent of St.
Katharine. Orion, whom she was seeking, had been there, but had just left.

In this first room lay the leader of the caravan; in that beyond was the
crazy Persian. In a sitting-room adjoining the first room, which, being
intended for guests of distinction, was furnished with royal magnificence,
sat two men in earnest conversation: the Arab merchant and Philippus the
physician, a young man of little more than thirty, tall and bony, in a
dress of clean but very coarse stuff without any kind of adornment. He had
a shrewd, pale face, out of which a pair of bright black eyes shone
benevolently but with keen vivacity. His large cheek-bones were much too
prominent; the lower part of his face was small, ugly and, as it were,
compressed, while his high broad forehead crowned the whole and stamped it
as that of a thinker, as a fine cupola may crown an insignificant and
homely structure.

This man, devoid of charm, though his strongly-characterized individuality
made it difficult to overlook him even in the midst of a distinguished
circle, had been conversing eagerly with the Arab, who, in the course of
their two-days’ acquaintance, had inspired him with a regard which was
fully reciprocated. At last Orion had been the theme of their discourse,
and the physician, a restless toiler who could not like any man whose life
was one of idle enjoyment, though he did full justice to his brilliant
gifts and well-applied studies, had judged him far more hardly than the
older man. To the leech all forms of human life were sacred, and in his
eyes everything that could injure the body or soul of a man was worthy of
destruction. He knew all that Orion had brought upon the hapless Mandane,
and how lightly he had trifled with the hearts of other women; in his eyes
this made him a mischievous and criminal member of society. He regarded
life as an obligation to be discharged by work alone, of whatever kind, if
only it were a benefit to society as a whole. And such youths as Orion not
only did not recognize this, but used the whole and the parts also for
base and selfish ends. The old Moslem, on the contrary, viewed life as a
dream whose fairest portion, the time of youth, each one should enjoy with
alert senses, and only take care that at the waking which must come with
death he might hope to find admission into Paradise. How little could man
do against the iron force of fate! That could not be forefended by hard
work; there was nothing for it but to take up a right attitude, and to
confront and meet it with dignity. The bark of Orion’s existence lacked
ballast; in fine weather it drifted wherever the breeze carried it, He
himself had taken care to equip it well; and if only the chances of life
should freight it heavily—very heavily, and fling it on the rocks,
then Orion might show who and what he was; he, Haschim, firmly believed
that his character would prove itself admirable. It was in the hour of
shipwreck that a man showed his worth.

Here the physician interrupted him to prove that it was not Fate, as
imagined by Moslems, but man himself who guided the bark of life—but
at this moment Paula looked into the room, and he broke off. The merchant
bowed profoundly, Philippus respectfully, but with more embarrassment than
might have been expected from the general confidence of his manner. For
some years he had been a daily visitor in the governor’s house, and after
carefully ignoring Paula on her first arrival, since Dame Neforis had
taken to treating her so coolly he drew her out whenever he had the
opportunity. Her conversations with him had now become dear and even
necessary to her, though at first his dry, cutting tone had displeased
her, and he had often driven her into a corner in a way that was hard to
bear. They kept her mind alert in a circle which never busied itself with
anything but the trivial details of family life in the decayed city, or
with dogmatic polemics—for the Mukaukas seldom or never took part in
the gossip of the women.

The leech never talked of daily events, but expressed his views as to
other and graver subjects in life, or in books with which they were both
familiar; and he had the art of eliciting replies from her which he met
with wit and acumen. By degrees she had become accustomed to his bold mode
of thought, sometimes, it is true, too recklessly expressed; and the
gifted girl now preferred a discussion with him to any other form of
conversation, recognizing that a childlike and supremely unselfish soul
animated this thoughtful reservoir of all knowledge. Almost everything she
did displeased her uncle’s wife, and so, of course, did her familiar
intercourse with this man, whose appearance certainly had in it nothing to
attract a young girl.—The physician to a family of rank was there to
keep its members in good health, and it was unbecoming in one of them to
converse with him on intimate terms as an equal. She reproached Paula—whose
pride she was constantly blaming—for her unseemly condescension to
Philippus; but what chiefly annoyed her was that Paula took up many a
half-hour which otherwise Philippus would have devoted to her husband; and
in him and his health her life and thoughts were centred.

The Arab at once recognized his foe of the previous evening; but they soon
came to a friendly understanding—Paula confessing her folly in
holding a single and kindly-disposed man answerable for the crimes of a
whole nation. Haschim replied that a right-minded spirit always came to a
just conclusion at last; and then the conversation turned on her father,
and the physician explained to the Arab that she was resolved never to
weary of seeking the missing man.

“Nay, it is the sole aim and end of my life,” cried the girl.

“A great mistake, in my opinion,” said the leech. But the merchant
differed: there were things, he said, too precious to be given up for
lost, even when the hope of finding them seemed as feeble and thin as a
rotten reed.

“That is what I feel!” cried Paula. “And how can you think differently,
Philip? Have I not heard from your own lips that you never give up all
hope of a sick man till death has put an end to it? Well, and I cling to
mine—more than ever now, and I feel that I am right. My last
thought, my last coin shall be spent in the search for my father, even
without my uncle and his wife, and in spite of their prohibition.”

“But in such a task a young girl can hardly do without a man’s succor,”
said the merchant. “I wander a great deal about the world, I speak with
many foreigners from distant lands, and if you will do me the honor, pray
regard me as your coadjutor, and allow me to help you in seeking for the
lost hero.”

“Thanks—I fervently thank you!” cried Paula, grasping the Moslem’s
hand with hearty pleasure. “Wherever you go bear my lost father in mind; I
am but a poor, lonely girl, but if you find him…”

“Then you will know that even among the Moslems there are men…”

“Men who are ready to show compassion and to succor friendless women!”
interrupted Paula.

“And with good success, by the blessing of the Almighty,” replied the
Arab. “As soon as I find a clue you shall hear from me; now, however, I
must go across the Nile to see Amru the great general; I go in all
confidence for I know that my poor, brave Rustem is in good hands, friend
Philippus. My first enquiries shall be made in Fostat, rely upon that, my
daughter.”

“I do indeed,” said Paula with pleased emotion. “When shall we meet
again?”

“To-morrow, or the morning after at latest.”

The young girl went up to him and whispered: “We have just heard of a
clue; indeed, I hope my messenger is already on his way. Have you time to
hear about it now?”

“I ought long since to have been on the other shore; so not to-day, but
to-morrow I hope.” The Arab shook hands with her and the physician, and
hastily took his leave.

Paula stood still, thinking. Then it struck her that Hiram was now on the
further side of the Nile, within the jurisdiction of the Arab ruler, and
that the merchant could perhaps intercede for him, if she were to tell him
all she knew. She felt the fullest confidence in the old man, whose kind
and sympathetic face was still visible to her mind’s eye, and without
paying any further heed to the physician she went quickly towards the door
of the sick-room. A crucifix hung close by, and the nun had fallen on her
knees before it, praying for her infidel patient, and beseeching the Good
Shepherd to have mercy on the sheep that was not of His fold. Paula did
not venture to disturb the worshipper, who was kneeling just in the narrow
passage; so some minutes elapsed before the leech, observing her
uneasiness, came out of the larger room, touched the nun on the shoulder,
and said in a low voice of genuine kindness:

“One moment, good Sister. Your pious intercession will be heard—but
this damsel is in haste.” The nun rose at once and made way, sending a
wrathful glance after Paula as she hurried down the stairs.

At the door of the court-yard she looked out and about for the Arab, but
in vain. Then she enquired of a slave who told her that the merchant’s
horse had waited for him at the gate a long time, that he had just come
galloping out, and by this time must have reached the bridge of boats
which connected Memphis with the island of Rodah and, beyond the island,
with the fort of Babylon and the new town of Fostat.


CHAPTER XI.

Paula went up-stairs again, distressed and vexed with herself. Was it the
heat that had enervated her and robbed her of the presence of mind she
usually had at her command? She herself could not understand how it was
that she had not at once taken advantage of the opportunity to plead to
Haschim for her faithful retainer. The merchant might have interested
himself for Hiram.

The slave at the gate had told her that he had not yet been taken; the
time to intercede, then, had not yet come. But she was resolved to do so,
to draw the wrath of her relations down on herself, and, if need should
be, to relate all she had seen in the course of the night, to save her
devoted servant. It was no less than her duty: still, before humiliating
Orion so deeply she would warn him. The thought of charging him with so
shameful a deed pained her like the need for inflicting an injury on
herself. She hated him, but she would rather have broken the most precious
work of art than have branded him—him whose image still reigned in
her heart, supremely glorious and attractive.

Instead of following Mary to breakfast, or offering herself as usual to
play draughts with her uncle, she went back to the sick-room. To meet
Neforis or Orion at this moment would have been painful, indeed odious to
her. It was long since she had felt so weary and oppressed. A conversation
with the physician might perhaps prove refreshing; after the various
agitations of the last few hours she longed for something, be it what it
might, that should revive her spirits and give a fresh turn to her
thoughts.

In the Masdakite’s room the Sister coldly asked her what she wanted, and
who had given her leave to assist in tending the sufferers. The leech, who
at that moment was moistening the bandage on the wounded man’s head, at
this turned to the nun and informed her decidedly that he desired the
young girl’s assistance in attending on both his patients. Then he led the
way sitting-room, saying in subdued into the adjoining tones:

“For the present all is well. Let us rest here a little while.”

She sat down on a divan, and he on a seat opposite, and Philippus began:

“You were seeking handsome Orion just now, but you must….”

“What?” she asked gravely. “And I would have you to know that the son of
the house is no more to me than his mother is. Your phrase ‘Handsome
Orion’ seems to imply something that I do not again wish to hear. But I
must speak to him, and soon, in reference to an important matter.”

“To what, then, do I owe the pleasure of seeing you here again? To confess
the truth I did not hope for your return.”

“And why not?”

“Excuse me from answering. No one likes to hear unpleasant things. If one
of my profession thinks any one is not well….”

“If that is meant for me,” replied the girl, “all I can tell you is that
the one thing on which I still can pride myself is my health. Say what you
will—the very worst for aught I care. I want something to-day to
rouse me from lethargy, even if it should make me angry.”

“Very well then,” replied the leech, “though I am plunging into deep
waters!—As to health, as it is commonly understood, a fish might
envy you; but the higher health—health of mind: that I fear you
cannot boast of.”

“This is a serious beginning,” said Paula. “Your reproof would seem to
imply that I have done you or some one else a wrong.”

“If only you had!” exclaimed he. “No, you have not sinned against us in
any way.—‘I am as I am’ is what you think of yourself; and what do
you care for others?”

“That must depend on whom you mean by ‘others!’”

“Nothing less than all and each of those with whom you live—here, in
this house, in this town, in this world. To you they are mere air—or
less; for the air is a tangible thing that can fill a ship’s sails and
drive it against the stream, whose varying nature can bring comfort or
suffering to your body.”

“My world is within!” said Paula, laying her hand on her heart.

“Very true. And all creation may find room there; for what cannot the
human heart, as it is called, contain! The more we require it to take and
keep, the more ready it is to hold it. It is unsafe to let the lock rust;
for, if once it has grown stiff, when we want to open it no pulling and
wrenching will avail. And besides—but I do not want to grieve you.—You
have a habit of only looking backwards….”

“And what that is pleasurable lies before me? Your blame is harsh and at
the same time unjust.—Indeed, and how can you tell which way I
look?”

“Because I have watched you with the eye of a friend. In truth, Paula, you
have forgotten how to look around and forward. The life which lies behind
you and which you have lost is all your world. I once showed you on a
fragmentary papyrus that belonged to my foster father, Horus Apollo, a
heathen demon represented as going forwards, while his head was turned on
his neck so that the face and eyes looked behind him.”

“I remember it perfectly.”

“Well, you have long been just like him. ‘All things move,’ says
Heraclitus, so you are forced to float onwards with the great stream; or,
to vary the image, you must walk forwards on the high-road of life towards
the common goal; but your eye is fixed on what lies behind you, feasting
on the prospect of a handsome and wealthy home, kindness and tenderness,
noble and loving faces, and a happy, but alas! long-lost existence. All
the same, on you must go.—What must the result be?”

“I must stumble, you think, and fall?”

The physician’s reproof had hit Paula all the harder because she could not
conceal from herself that there was much truth in it. She had come hither
on purpose to find encouragement, and these accusations troubled even her
sense of high health. Why should she submit to be taken to task like a
school-girl by this man, himself still young? If this went on she would
let him hear…. But he was speaking again, and his reply calmed her, and
strengthened her conviction that he was a true and well-meaning friend.

“Not that perhaps,” he said, “because—well, because nature has
blessed you with perfect balance, and you go forward in full
self-possession as becomes the daughter of a hero. We must not forget that
it is of your soul that I am speaking; and that maintains its innate
dignity of feeling among so much that is petty and mean.”

“Then why need I fear to look back when it gives me so much comfort?” she
eagerly enquired, as she gazed in his face with fresh spirit.

“Because it may easily lead you to tread on other people’s feet! That
hurts them; then they are annoyed, and they get accustomed to think
grudgingly of you—you who are more lovable than they are.”

“But quite unjustly; for I am not conscious of ever having intentionally
grieved or hurt any one in my whole life.”

“I know that; but you have done so unintentionally a thousand times.”

“Then it would be better I should quit them altogether.”

“No, and a thousand times no! The man who avoids his kind and lives in
solitude fancies he is doing some great thing and raising himself above
the level of the existence he despises. But look a little closer: it is
self-interest and egoism which drive him into the cave and the cloister.
In any case he neglects his highest duty towards humanity—or let us
say merely towards the society he belongs to—in order to win what he
believes to be his own salvation. Society is a great body, and every
individual should regard himself as a member of it, bound to serve and
succor it, and even, when necessary, to make sacrifices for it. The
greatest are not too great. But those who crave isolation,—you
yourself—nay, hear me out, for I may never again risk the danger of
incurring your wrath—desire to be a body apart. What Paula has known
and possessed, she keeps locked in the treasure-house of her memory under
bolt and key; What Paula is, she feels she still must be—and for
whom? Again, for that same Paula. She has suffered great sorrow and on
that her soul lives; but this is evil nourishment, unwholesome and bad for
her.”

She was about to rise; but he bent forward, with a zealous conviction that
he must not allow himself to be interrupted, and lightly touched her arm
as though to prevent her quitting her seat, while he went on
unhesitatingly:

“You feed on your old sorrows! Well and good. Many a time have I seen that
trial can elevate the soul. It can teach a brave heart to feel the woes of
others more deeply; it can rouse a desire to assuage the griefs of others
with beautiful self-devotion. Those who have known pain and affliction
enjoy ease and pleasure with double satisfaction; sufferers learn to be
grateful for even the smaller joys of life. But you?—I have long
striven for courage to tell you so—you derive no benefit from
suffering because you lock it up in your breast—as if a man were to
enclose some precious seed in a silver trinket to carry about with him. It
should be sown in the earth, to sprout and bear fruit! However, I do not
blame you; I only wish to advise you as a true and devoted friend. Learn
to feel yourself a member of the body to which your destiny has bound you
for the present, whether you like it or not. Try to contribute to it all
that your capacities allow you achieve. You will find that you can do
something for it; the casket will open, and to your surprise and delight
you will perceive that the seed dropped into the soil will germinate, that
flowers will open and fruit will form of which you may make bread, or
extract from it a balm for yourself or for others! Then you will leave the
dead to bury the dead, as the Bible has it, and dedicate to the living
those great powers and gracious gifts which an illustrious father and a
noble mother—nay, and a long succession of distinguished ancestors,
have bequeathed to a descendant worthy of them. Then you will recover that
which you have lost: the joy in existence which we ought both to feel and
to diffuse, because it brings with it an obligation which it which is only
granted to us once to fulfil. Kind fate has fitted you above a hundred
thousand others for being loved; and if you do not forget the gratitude
you owe for that, hearts will be turned to you, though now they shun the
tree which has beset itself intentionally with thorns, and which lets its
branches droop like the weeping-willows by the Nile. Thus you will lead a
new and beautiful life, receiving and giving joy. The isolated and
charmless existence you drag through here, to the satisfaction of none and
least of all to your own, you can transform to one of fruition and
satisfaction—breathing and moving healthily and beneficently in the
light of day. It lies in your power. When you came up here to give your
care to these poor injured creatures, you took the first step in the new
path I desire to show you, to true happiness. I did not expect you, and I
am thankful that you have come; for I know that as you entered that door
you may have started on the road to renewed happiness, if you have the
will to walk in it.—Thank God! That is said and over!”

The leech rose and wiped his forehead, looking uneasily at Paula who had
remained seated; her breath came fast, and she was more confused and
undecided than he had ever seen her. She clasped her hand over her brow,
and gazed, speechless, into her lap as though she wished to smother some
pain.

The young physician beat his arms together, like a laborer in the winter
when his hands are frozen, and exclaimed with distressful emotion: “Yes, I
have spoken, and I cannot regret having done so; but what I foresaw has
come to pass: The greatest happiness that ever sweetened my daily life is
gone out of it! To love Plato is a noble rule, but greater than Plato is
the truth; and yet, those who preach it must be prepared to find that
truth scares away friends from the unpleasing vicinity of its ill-starred
Apostles!”

At this Paula rose, and following the impulse of her generous heart,
offered the leech her hand in all sincerity; he grasped it in both his,
pressing it so tightly that it almost hurt her, and his eyes glistened
with moisture as he exclaimed: “That is as I hoped; that is splendid, that
is noble! Let me but be your brother, high-souled maiden!—Now, come.
That poor, crazy, lovely girl will heal of her death-wound under your
hands if under any!”

“I will come!” she replied heartily; and there was something healthy and
cheerful in her manner as they entered the sick-room; but her expression
suddenly changed, and she asked pensively:

“And supposing we restore the unhappy girl—what good will she get by
it?”

“She will breathe and see the sunshine,” replied the leech; “she will be
grateful to you, and finally she will contribute what she can to the whole
body. She will be alive in short, she will live. For life—feel it,
understand it as I do—life is the best thing we have.” Paula gazed
with astonishment in the man’s unlovely but enthusiastic face. How
radiantly joyful!

No one could have called it ugly at this moment, or have said that it
lacked charm.

He believed what he had asserted with such fervent feeling, though it was
in contradiction to a view he had held only yesterday and often defended:
that life in itself was misery to all who could not grasp it of their own
strength, and make something of it worth making. At this moment he really
felt that it was the best gift.

Paula went forward, and his eyes followed her, as the gaze of the pious
pilgrim is fixed on the holy image he has travelled to see, over seas and
mountains, with bruised feet.

They went up to the sick girl’s bed. The nun drew back, making her own
reflections on the physician’s altered mien, and his childlike, beaming
contentment, as he explained to Paula what particular peril threatened the
sufferer, and by what treatment he hoped to save her; how to make the
bandages and give the medicines, and how necessary it was to accept the
poor crazy girl’s fancies and treat them as rational ideas so long as the
fever lasted.

At last he was forced to go and attend to other patients. Paula remained
sitting at the head of the bed and gazing at the face of the sufferer.

How fair it was! And Orion had snatched this rose in the bud, and trodden
it under foot! She had, no doubt, felt for him what Paula herself felt.
And now? Did she feel nothing but hatred of him, or could her heart, in
spite of her indignation and scorn, not altogether cast off the spell that
had once bound it?

What weakness was this! She was, she must, she would be his foe!

Her thoughts went back to the idle and futile life that she had led for so
many years. The physician had hit the mark; and he had been too easy
rather than severe. Yes, she would begin to make good use of her powers—but
how, in what way, here and among these people? How transfigured poor
Philippus had seemed when she had given him her hand; with what energy had
he poured forth his words.

“And how false,” she mused, “is the saying that the body is the mirror of
the soul! If it were so, Philippus would have the face of Orion, and Orion
that of Philippus.” But could Orion’s heart be wholly reprobate? Nay, that
was impossible; her every impulse resisted the belief. She must either
love him or hate him, there was no third alternative; but as yet the two
passions were struggling within her in a way that was quite intolerable.

The physician had spoken of being a brother to her, and she could not help
smiling at the idea. She could, she thought, live very happily and calmly
with him, with her nurse Betta, and with the learned old friend who shared
his home, and of whom he had often talked to her; she could join him in
his studies, help him in his calling, and discuss many things well worth
knowing. Such a life, she told herself, would be a thousand times
preferable to this, with Neforis. In him she had certainly found a friend;
and her glad recognition of the fact was the first step towards the
fulfilment of his promise, since it showed that her heart was still ready
to go forth to the kindness of another.

Amid these meditations, however, her anxiety for Hiram constantly recurred
to her, and it was clear to her mind that, if she and Orion should come to
extremities, she could no longer dwell under the governor’s roof. Often
she had longed for nothing so fervently as to be able to quit it; but
to-day it filled her with dread, for parting from her uncle necessarily
involved parting from his son. She hated him; still, to lose sight of him
altogether would be very hard to bear. To go with Philippus and live with
him as his sister would never do; nay, it struck her as something
inconceivable, strangely incongruous.

Meanwhile she listened to Mandane’s breathing and treated her in obedience
to the leech’s orders, longing for his return; presently however, not he
but the nun came to the bed-side, laid her hand on the girl’s forehead,
and without paying any heed to Paula, whispered kindly: “That is right
child, sleep away; have a nice long sleep. So long as she can be kept
quiet; if only she goes on like this!—Her head is cooler. Philippus
will certainly say there is scarcely any fever. Thank God, the worst
danger is over!”

“Oh, how glad I am!” cried Paula, and she spoke with such warmth and
sincerity that the nun gave her a friendly nod and left the sick girl to
her care, quite satisfied.

It was long since Paula had felt so happy. She fancied that her presence
had had a good affect on the sufferer, that Mandane had already been
brought by her nursing to the threshold of a new life. Paula, who but just
now had regarded herself as a persecuted victim of Fate, now breathed more
freely in the belief that she too might bring joy to some one. She looked
into Mandane’s more than pretty face with real joy and tenderness, laid
the bandage which had slipped aside gently over her ears, and breathed a
soft kiss on her long silken lashes.

She rapidly grew in favor with the shrewd nun; when the hour for prayer
came round, the sister included in her petitions—Paula—the
orphan under a stranger’s roof, the Greek girl born, by the inscrutable
decrees of God, outside the pale of her saving creed. At length Philippus
returned; he was rejoiced at his new friend’s brightened aspect, and
declared that Mandane had, under her care, got past the first and worst
danger, and might be expected to recover, slowly indeed, but completely.

After Paula had renewed the compress—and he intentionally left her
to do it unaided, he said encouragingly:

“How quickly you have learnt your business.—Now, the patient is
asleep again; the Sister will keep watch, and for the present we can be of
no use to the girl; sleep is the best nourishment she can have. But with
us—or at any rate with me, it is different. We have still two hours
to wait for the next meal: my breakfast is standing untouched, and yours
no doubt fared the same; so be my guest. They always send up enough to
satisfy six bargemen.”

Paula liked the proposal, for she had long been hungry. The nun was
desired to hasten to fetch some more plates, of drinking-vessels there was
no lack—and soon the new allies were seated face to face, each at a
small table. He carved the duck and the roast quails, put the salad before
her and some steaming artichokes, which the nun had brought up at the
request of the cook whose only son the physician had saved; he invited her
attention to the little pies, the fruits and cakes which were laid ready,
and played the part of butler; and then, while they heartily enjoyed the
meal, they carried on a lively conversation.

Paula for the first time asked Philippus to tell her something of his
early youth; he began with an account of his present mode of life, as a
partner in the home of the singular old priest of Isis, Horus Apollo, a
diligent student; he described his strenuous activity by day and his quiet
studies by night, and gave everything such an amusing aspect that often
she could not help laughing. But presently he was sad, as he told her how
at an early age he had lost his father and mother, and was left to depend
solely on himself and on a very small fortune, having no relations; for
his father had been a grammarian, invited to Alexandria from Athens, who
had been forced to make a road for himself through life, which had lain
before him like an overgrown jungle of papyrus and reeds. Every hour of
his life was devoted to his work, for a rough, outspoken Goliath, such as
he, never could find it easy to meet with helpful patrons. He had managed
to live by teaching in the high schools of Alexandria, Athens, and
Caesarea, and by preparing medicines from choice herbs—drinking
water instead of wine, eating bread and fruit instead of quails and pies;
and he had made a friend of many a good man, but never yet of a woman—it
would be difficult with such a face as his!

“Then I am the first?” said Paula, who felt deep respect for the man who
had made his way by his own energy to the eminent position which he had
long held, not merely in Memphis, but among Egyptian physicians generally.

He nodded, and with such a blissful smile that she felt as though a
sunbeam had shone into her very soul. He noticed this at once, raised his
goblet, and drank to her, exclaiming with a flush on his cheek:

“The joy that comes to others early has come to me late; but then the
woman I call my friend is matchless!”

“Well, it is to be hoped she may not prove to be so wicked as you just now
described her.—If only our alliance is not fated to end soon and
abruptly.”

“Ah!” cried the physician, “every drop of blood in my veins….”

“You would be ready to shed it for me,” Paula broke in, with a pathetic
gesture, borrowed from a great tragedian she had seen at the theatre in
Damascus. “But never fear: it will not be a matter of life and death—at
worst they will but turn me out of the house and of Memphis.”

“You?” cried Philippus startled, “but who would dare to do so?”

“They who still regard me as a stranger.—You described the case
admirably. If they have their way, my dear new friend, our fate will be
like that of the learned Dionysius of Cyrene.”

“Of Cyrene?”

“Yes. It was my father who told me the story. When Dionysius sent his son
to the High School at Athens, he sat down to write a treatise for him on
all the things a student should do and avoid. He devoted himself to the
task with the utmost diligence; but when, at the end of four years, he
could write on the last leaf of the roll. ‘Here this book hath a happy
ending,’ the young man whose studies it was intended to guide came home to
Cyrene, a finished scholar.”

“And we have struck up a friendship…?”

“And made a treaty of alliance, only to be parted ere long.”

Philippus struck his fist vehemently on the little table in front of his
couch and exclaimed: “That I will find means to prevent!—But now,
tell me in confidence, what has last happened between you and the family
down-stairs?”

“You will know quite soon enough.”

“Whichever of them fancies that you can be turned out of doors without
more ado and there will be an end between us, may find himself mistaken!”
cried the physician with an angry sparkle in his eyes. “I have a right to
put in a word in this house. It has not nearly come to that yet, and what
is more, it never shall. You shall quit it certainly; but of your own free
will, and holding your head high….”

As he spoke the door of the outer room was hastily opened and the next
instant Orion was standing before them, looking with great surprise at the
pair who had just finished their meal. He said coldly:

“I am disturbing you, I see.”

“Not in the least,” replied the leech; and the young man, perceiving what
bad taste it would be and how much out of place to give expression to his
jealous annoyance, said, with a smile: “If only it had been granted to a
third person to join in this symposium!”

“We found each other all-sufficient company,” answered Philippus.

“A man who could believe in all the doctrines of the Church as readily as
in that statement would be assured of salvation,” laughed Orion. “I am no
spoilsport, respected friends; but I deeply regret that I must, on the
present occasion, disturb your happiness. The matter in question….” And
he felt he might now abandon the jesting tone which so little answered to
his mood, “is a serious one. In the first instance it concerns your
freedman, my fair foe.”

“Has Hiram come back?” asked Paula, feeling herself turn pale.

“They have brought him in,” replied Orion. “My father at once summoned the
court of judges. Justice has a swift foot here with us; I am sorry for the
man, but I cannot prevent its taking its course. I must beg of you to
appear at the examination when you are called.”

“The whole truth shall be told!” said Paula sternly and firmly.

“Of course,” replied Orion. Then turning to the physician, he added: “I
would request you, worthy Esculapius, to leave me and my cousin together
for a few minutes. I want to give her a word of counsel which will
certainly be to her advantage.”

Philippus glanced enquiringly at the girl; she said with clear decision:
“You and I can have no secrets. What I may hear, Philippus too may know.”

Orion, with a shrug, turned to leave the room:

On the threshold he paused, exclaiming with some excitement and genuine
distress:

“If you will not listen to me for your own sake, do so at least, whatever
ill-feeling you may bear me, because I implore you not to refuse me this
favor. It is a matter of life or death to one human being, of joy or
misery to another. Do not refuse me.—I ask nothing unreasonable,
Philippus. Do as I entreat you and leave us for a moment alone.”

Again the physician’s eyes consulted the young girl’s; this time she said:
“Go!” and he immediately quitted the room.

Orion closed the door.

“What have I done, Paula,” he began with panting breath, “that since
yesterday you have shunned me like a leper—that you are doing your
utmost to bring me to ruin?”

“I mean to plead for the life of a trusty servant; nothing more,” she said
indifferently.

“At the risk of disgracing me!” he retorted bitterly.

“At that risk, no doubt, if you are indeed so base as to throw your own
guilt on the shoulders of an honest man.”

“Then you watched me last night?”

“The merest chance led me to see you come out of the tablinum….”

“I do not ask you now what took you there so late,” he interrupted, “for
it revolts me to think anything of you but the best, the highest.—But
you? What have you experienced at my hands but friendship—nay, for
concealment or dissimulation is here folly—but what a lover…?”

“A lover!” cried Paula indignantly. “A lover? Dare you utter the word,
when you have offered your heart and hand to another—you….”

“Who told you so?” asked Orion gloomily.

“Your own mother.”

“That is it; so that is it?” cried the young man, clasping his hands
convulsively. “Now I begin to see, now I understand. But stay. For if it
is indeed that which has roused you to hate me and persecute me, you must
love me, Paula—you do love me, and then, noblest and sweetest….”
He held out his hand; but she struck it aside, exclaiming in a tremulous
voice:

“Be under no delusion. I am not one of the feeble lambs whom you have
beguiled by the misuse of your gifts and advantages; and who then are
eager to kiss your hands. I am the daughter of Thomas; and another woman’s
betrothed, who craves my embraces on the way to his wedding, will learn to
his rueing that there are women who scorn his disgraceful suit and can
avenge the insult intended them. Go—go to your judges! You, a false
witness, may accuse Hiram, but I will proclaim you, you the son of this
house, as the thief! We shall see which they believe.”

“Me!” cried Orion, and his eyes flashed as wrathfully and vindictively as
her own. “The son of the Mukaukas! Oh, that you were not a woman! I would
force you to your knees and compel you to crave my pardon. How dare you
point your finger at a man whose life has hitherto been as spotless as
your own white raiment? Yes, I did go to the tablinum—I did tear the
emerald from the hanging; but I did it in a fit of recklessness, and in
the knowledge that what is my father’s is mine. I threw away the gem to
gratify a mere fancy, a transient whim. Cursed be the hour when I did it!—Not
on account of the deed itself, but of the consequences it may entail
through your mad hatred. Jealousy, petty, unworthy jealousy is at the
bottom of it! And of whom are you jealous?”

“Of no one; not even of your betrothed, Katharina,” replied Paula with
forced composure. “What are you to me that, to spare you humiliation, I
should risk the life of the most honest soul living? I have said: The
judges shall decide between you.”

“No, they shall not!” stormed Orion. “At least, not as you intend! Beware,
beware, I say, of driving me to extremities! I still see in you the woman
I loved; I still offer you what lies within my power: to let everything
end for the best for you….”

“For me! Then I, too, am to suffer for your guilt?”

“Did you hear the barking of hounds just now?”

“I heard dogs yelping.”

“Very well.—Your freedman has been brought in, the pack got on his
scent and have now been let into the house close to the tablinum. The dogs
would not stir beyond the threshold and on the white marble step, towards
the right-hand side, the print of a man’s foot was found in the dust. It
is a peculiar one, for instead of five toes there are but three. Your
Hiram was fetched in, and he was found to have the same number of toes as
the mark on the marble, neither more nor less. A horse trod on his foot,
in your father’s stable, and two of his toes had to be cut off: we got
this out of the stammering wretch with some difficulty.—On the other
side of the door-way there was a smaller print, but though the dogs paid
no heed to that I examined it, and assured myself—how, I need not
tell you—that it was you who had stood there. He, who has no
business whatever in the house, must have made his way last night into the
tablinum, our treasury. Now, put yourself in the judges’ place. How can
such facts be outweighed by the mere word of a girl who, as every one
knows, is on anything rather than good terms with my mother, and who will
leave no stone unturned to save her servant.”

“Infamous!” cried Paula. “Hiram did not steal the gem, as you must know
who stole it. The emerald he sold was my property; and were those stones
really so much alike that even the seller…”

“Yes, indeed. He could not tell one from the other. Evil spirits have been
at work all through, devilish, malignant demons. It would be enough to
turn one’s brain, if life were not so full of enigmas! You yourself are
the greatest.—Did you give the Syrian your emerald to sell in order
to fly from this house with the money?—You are silent? Then I am
right. What can my father be to you—you do not love my mother—and
the son!—Paula, Paula, you are perhaps doing him an injustice—you
hate him, and it is a pleasure to you to injure him.”

“I do not wish to hurt you or any one,” replied the girl. “And you have
guessed wrongly. Your father refused me the means of seeking mine.”

“And you wanted to procure money to search for one who is long since dead!—Even
my mother admits that you speak the truth; if she is right, and you really
take no pleasure in doing me a mischief, listen to me, follow my advice,
and grant my prayer! I do not ask any great matter.”

“Speak on then.”

“Do you know what a man’s honor is to him? Need I tell you that I am a
lost and despised man if I am found guilty of this act of the maddest
folly by the judges of my own house? It may cost my father his life if he
hears that the word ‘guilty’ is pronounced on me; and I—I—what
would become of me I cannot foresee!—I—oh God, oh God,
preserve me from frenzy!—But I must be calm; time presses…. How
different it is for your servant; he seems ready even now to take the
guilt on himself, for, whatever he is asked, he still keeps silence. Do
you do the same; and if the judges insist on knowing what you had to do
with the Syrian last night—for the dogs traced the scent to your
staircase—hazard a conjecture that the faithful fellow stole the
emerald in order to gratify your desire to search for your father, his
beloved master. If you can make up your mind to so great a sacrifice—oh,
that I should have to ask it of you!—I swear to you by all I hold
sacred, by yourself and by my father’s head, I will set Hiram free within
three days, unbeaten and unhurt, and magnificently indemnified; and I will
myself help him on the way whither he may desire to go, or you to send
him, in search of your father.—Be silent; remain neutral in the
background; that is all I ask, and I will keep my word—that, at any
rate, you do not doubt?” She had listened to him with bated breath; she
pitied him deeply as he stood there, a suppliant in bitter anguish of
soul, a criminal who still could not understand that he was one, and who
relied on the confidence that, only yesterday, he still had had the right
to exact from all the world. He appeared before her like a fine proud tree
struck by lightning, whose riven trunk, trembling to its fall, must be
crushed to the earth by the first storm, unless the gardener props it up.
She longed to be able to forget all he had brought upon her and to grasp
his hand in friendly consolation; but her deeply aggrieved pride helped
her to preserve the cold and repellent manner she had so far succeeded in
assuming.

With much hesitation and reserve she consented to be silent as long as he
kept his promise. It was for his father’s sake, rather than his own, that
she would so far become his accomplice: at the same time everything else
was at an end between them, and she should bless the hour which might see
her severed from him and his for ever.

The end of her speech was in a strangely hard and repellent tone; she felt
she must adopt it to disguise how deeply she was touched by his
unhappiness and by the extinction of the sunshine in him which had once
warmed her own heart too with bliss. To him it seemed that an icy rigor
breathed in her words—bitter contempt and hostile revulsion. He had
some difficulty in keeping himself from breaking out again in violent
wrath. He was almost sorry that he had trusted her with his secret and
begged her for mercy, instead of leaving things to run their course, and
if it had come to the worst, dragging her to perdition with him. Sooner
would he forfeit honor and peace than humble himself again before this
pitiless and cold-hearted foe. At this moment he really hated her, and
only wished it were possible to fight her, to break her pride, to see her
vanquished and crying for quarter at his feet. It was with a great effort—with
tingling cheeks and constrained utterance that he said:

“Severance from you is indeed best for us all.—Be ready: the judges
will send for you soon.”

“Very well,” she replied. “I will be silent; you have only to provide for
the Syrian’s safety. You have given me your word.”

“And so long as you keep yours I will keep mine. Or else…” the words
would come from his quivering lips—“or else war to the knife!”

“War to the knife!” she echoed with flashing eyes. “But one thing more. I
have proof that the emerald which Hiram sold belonged to me. By all the
saints—proof!”

“So much the better for you,” he said. “Woe to us both, if you force me to
forget that you are a woman!”

And he left the room with a rapid step.


CHAPTER XII.

Orion went down stairs scowling and clenching his fists. His heart ached
to bursting.

What had he done, what had befallen him? That a woman should dare to treat
him so!—a woman whom he had deigned to love—the loveliest and
noblest of women; but at the same time the haughtiest, most vengeful, and
most hateful.

He had once read this maxim: “When a man has committed a base action, if
only one other knows of it he carries the death-warrant of his peace in
the bosom of his garment.” He felt the full weight of this sentence; and
the other—the one who knew—was Paula, the woman of all others
whom he most wished should look up to him. But yesterday it had been a
vision of heaven on earth to dream of holding her in his arms and calling
her his; now he had but one wish: that he could humble and punish her. Oh,
that his hands should be tied, that he should be dependent on her mercy
like a condemned criminal! It was inconceivable—intolerable!

But she should be taught to know him. He had passed through life hitherto
as white as a swan; if this luckless hour and this woman made him appear
as a vulture, it was not his fault, it was hers. She should soon see which
was the stronger of the two. He would punish her in every way in which a
woman can be punished, even if the way to it led through crime and misery!
He was not afraid that the leech bad won her affections, for he knew, with
strange certainty that, in spite of the hostility she displayed, her heart
was his and his alone. “The gold coin called love,” said he to himself,
“has two faces: tender devotion and bitter aversion; just now she is
showing me the latter. But, however different the image and superscription
may be on the two sides, if you ring it, it always gives out the same
tone; and I can hear it even in her most insulting words.”

When the family met at table he made Paula’s excuses; he himself ate only
a few mouthfuls, for the judges had assembled some time since and were
waiting for him.

The right of life and death had been placed in the hands of the ancestors
of the Mukaukas, powerful princes of provinces; they had certainly wielded
it even in the dynasty of Psammitichus, whose power had been put to a
terrible end by Cambyses the Persian. And still the Uraeus snake—the
asp whose bite caused almost instant death, reared its head as the
time-honored emblem of this privilege, by the side of St. George the
Dragon-slayer, over the palaces of the Mukaukas at Memphis, and at
Lykopolis in Upper Egypt. And in both these places the head of the family
retained the right of arbitrary judgment and capital punishment over the
retainers of his house and the inhabitants of the district he governed,
after Justinian first, and then the Emperor Heraclius, had confirmed them
in their old prerogative. The chivalrous St. George was placed between the
snakes so as to replace a heathen symbol by a Christian one. Formerly
indeed the knight himself had had the head of a sparrow-hawk: that is to
say of the god Horus, who had overthrown the evil-spirit, Seth-Typhon, to
avenge his father; but about two centuries since the heathen
crocodile-destroyer had been transformed into the Christian conqueror of
the dragon.

After the Arab conquest the Moslems had left all ancient customs and
rights undisturbed, including those of the Mukaukas.

The court which assembled to sit in judgment on all cases concerning the
adherents of the house consisted of the higher officials of the governor’s
establishment. The Mukaukas himself was president, and his grown-up son
was his natural deputy. During Orion’s absence, Nilus, the head of the
exchequer, a shrewd and judicious Egyptian, had generally represented his
invalid master; but on the present occasion Orion was appointed to take
his place, and to preside over the assembly.

The governor’s son hastened to his father’s bedroom to beg him to lend him
his ring as a token of the authority transferred to him; the Mukaukas had
willingly allowed him to take it off his finger, and had enjoined him to
exercise relentless severity. Generally he inclined to leniency; but
breaking into a house was punishable with death, and in this instance it
was but right to show no mercy, out of deference to the Arab merchant. But
Orion, mindful of his covenant with Paula, begged his father to give him
full discretion. The old Moslem was a just man, who would agree to a
mitigated sentence under the circumstances; besides, the culprit was not
in strict fact a member of the household, but in the service of a
relation.

The Mukaukas applauded his son’s moderation and judgment. If only he had
been in rather better health he himself would have had the pleasure of
being present at the sitting, to see him fulfil for the first time so
important a function, worthy of his birth and position.

Orion kissed his father’s hand with heart-felt but melancholy emotion, for
this praise from the man he so truly loved was a keen pleasure; and yet he
felt that it was of ill-omen that his duties as judge, of which he knew
the sacred solemnity, should be thus—thus begun.

It was in a softened mood, sunk in thought as to how he could best save
Hiram and leave Paula’s name altogether out of the matter, that he went to
the hall of justice; and there he found the nurse Perpetua in eager
discussion with Nilus.

The old woman was quite beside herself. In the clatter of her loom she had
heard nothing of what had been going on till a few minutes ago; now she
was ready to swear to the luckless Hiram’s innocence. The stone he had
sold had belonged to his young mistress, and thank God there was no lack
of evidence of the fact; the setting of the emerald was lying safe and
sound in Paula’s trunk. Happily she had had an opportunity of speaking to
her; and that she, the daughter of Thomas, should be brought before the
tribunal, like a citizen’s daughter or slave-girl, was unheard of,
shameful!

At this Orion roughly interfered; he desired the old gate-keeper to
conduct Perpetua at once to the storeroom next to the tablinum, where the
various stuffs prepared for the use of the household were laid by, and to
keep her there under safe guard till further notice. The tone in which he
gave the order was such that even the nurse did not remonstrate; and
Nilus, for his part obeyed in silence when Orion bid him return to his
place among the judges.

Nilus went back to the judgment-hall in uneasy consternation. Never before
had he seen his young lord in this mood. As he heard the nurse’s statement
the veins had swelled in his smooth youthful forehead, his nostrils had
quivered with convulsive agitation, his voice had lost all its sweetness,
and his eyes had a sinister gleam.

Orion was now alone; he ground his teeth with rage. Paula had betrayed him
in spite of her promise, and how mean was her woman’s cunning! She could
be silent before the judges—yes. Silent in all confidence now, to
the very last; but the nurse, her mouthpiece, had already put Nilus, the
keenest and most important member of the court, in possession of the
evidence which spoke for her and against him. It was shocking,
disgraceful! Base and deliberately malicious treachery. But the end was
not yet: he still was free to act and to ward off the spiteful stroke by a
counterthrust. How it should be dealt was clear from Perpetua’s statement;
but his conscience, his instincts and long habits of submission to what
was right, good, and fitting held him back. Not only had he never himself
done a base or a mean action; he loathed it in another, and the only thing
he could do to render Paula’s perfidy harmless was, as he could not deny,
original and bold, but at the same time detestable and shameful.

Still, he could not and he would not succumb in this struggle. Time
pressed. Long reflection was impossible; suddenly he felt carried away by
a fierce and mad longing to fight it out—he felt as he had felt on a
race-day in the hippodrome, when he had driven his own quadriga ahead of
all the rest.

Onwards, then, onwards; and if the chariot were wrecked, if the horses
were killed, if his wheels maimed his comrades overthrown in the
arena-still, onwards, onwards!

A few hasty steps brought him to the lodge of the gate-keeper, a sturdy
old man who had held his post for forty years. He had formerly been a
locksmith and it still was part of his duty to undertake the repairs of
the simple household utensils. Orion as a youth had been a beautiful and
engaging boy and a great favorite with this worthy man; he had delighted
in sitting in his little room and handing him the tools for his work. He
himself had remarkable mechanical facility and had been the old man’s apt
pupil; nay, he had made such progress as to be able to carve pretty little
boxes, prayer-book cases, and such like, and provide them with locks, as
gifts to his parents on their birth days—a festival always kept with
peculiar solemnity in Egypt, and marked by giving and receiving presents.
He understood the use of tools, and he now hastily selected such as he
needed. On the window-ledge stood a bunch of flowers which he had ordered
for Paula the day before, and which he had forgotten to fetch this
terrible morning. With this in one hand, and the tools in the breast of
his robe he hastened upstairs.

“Onwards, I must keep on!” he muttered, as he entered Paula’s room, bolted
the door inside and, kneeling before her chest, tossed the flowers aside.
If he was discovered, he would say that he had gone into his cousin’s
chamber to give her the bouquet.

“Onwards; I must go on!” was still his thought, as he unscrewed the hinge
on which the lid of the trunk moved. His hands trembled, his breath came
fast, but he did his task quickly. This was the right way to work, for the
lock was a peculiar one, and could not have been opened without spoiling
it. He raised the lid, and the first thing his hand came upon in the chest
was the necklace with the empty medallion—it was as though some kind
Genius were aiding him. The medallion hung but slightly to the
elegantly-wrought chain; to detach it and conceal it about his person was
the work of a minute.

But now the most resolute. “On, on….” was of no further avail. This was
theft: he had robbed her whom, if she only had chosen it, he was ready to
load with everything wherewith fate had so superabundantly blessed him.
No, this—this….

A singular idea suddenly flashed through his brain; a thought which
brought a smile to his lips even at this moment of frightful tension. He
acted upon it forth with: he drew out from within his under-garment a gem
that hung round his neck by a gold chain. This jewel—a masterpiece
by one of the famous Greek engravers of heathen antiquity—had been
given him in Constantinople in exchange for a team of four horses to which
his greatest friend there had taken a fancy. It was in fact of greater
price than half a dozen fine horses. Half beside himself, and as if
intoxicated, Orion followed the wild impulse to which he had yielded;
indeed, he was glad to have so precious a jewel at hand to hang in the
place of the worthless gold frame-work. It was done with a pinch; but
screwing up the hinge again was a longer task, for his hands trembled
violently—and as the moment drew near in which he meant to let Paula
feel his power, the more quickly his heart beat, and the more difficult he
found it to control his mind to calm deliberation.

After he had unbolted the door he stood like a thief spying the long
corridor of the strangers’ wing, and this increased his excitement to a
frenzy of rage with the world, and fate, and most of all with her who had
compelled him to stoop to such base conduct. But now the charioteer had
the reins and goad in his hand. Onwards now, onwards!

He flew down stairs, three steps at a time, as he had been wont when a
boy. In the anteroom he met Eudoxia, Mary’s Greek governess, who had just
brought her refractory pupil into the house, and he tossed her the nosegay
he still held in his hands; then, without heeding the languishing glances
the middle-aged damsel sent after him with her thanks, he hastened back to
the gate-keeper’s lodge where he hurriedly disburdened himself of the
locksmith’s tools.

A few minutes later he entered the judgment-hall. Nilus the treasurer
showed him to the governor’s raised seat, but an overpowering bashfulness
kept him from taking this position of honor. It was with a burning brow,
and looks so ominously dark that the assembly gazed at him with timid
astonishment, that he opened the proceedings with a few broken sentences.
He himself scarcely knew what he was saying, and heard his own voice as
vaguely as though it were the distant roar of waves. However, he succeeded
in clearly stating all that had happened: he showed the assembly the stone
which had been stolen and recovered; he explained how the thief had been
taken; he declared Paula’s freedman to be guilty of the robbery, and
called upon him to bring forward anything he could in his own defence. But
the accused could only stammer out that he was not guilty. He was not able
to defend himself, but his mistress could no doubt give evidence that
would justify him.

Orion pushed the hair from his forehead, proudly raised his aching head,
and addressed the judges:

“His mistress is a lady of rank allied to our house. Let us keep her out
of this odious affair as is but seemly. Her nurse gave Nilus some
information which may perhaps avail to save this unhappy man. We will
neglect nothing to that end; but you, who are less familiar with the
leading circumstances, must bear this in mind to guard yourselves against
being misled: This lady is much attached to the accused; she clings to him
and Perpetua as the only friends remaining to her from her native home.
Moreover, there is nothing to surprise me or you in the fact that a noble
woman, as she is, should assume the onus of another’s crime, and place
herself in a doubtful light to save a man who has hitherto been honest and
faithful. The nurse is here; shall she be called, or have you, Nilus,
heard from her everything that her mistress can say in favor of her
freedman?”

“Perpetua told me, and told you, too, my lord, certain credible facts,”
replied the treasurer. “But I could not repeat them so exactly as she
herself, and I am of opinion that the woman should be brought before the
court.”

“Then call her,” said Orion, fixing his eyes on vacancy above the heads of
the assembly, with a look of sullen dignity.

After a long and anxious pause the old woman was brought in. Confident in
her righteous cause she came forward boldly; she blamed Hiram somewhat
sharply for keeping silence so long, and then explained that Paula, to
procure money for her search for her father, had made the freedman take a
costly emerald out of its setting in her necklace, and that it was the
sale of this gem that had involved her fellow-countryman in this
unfortunate suspicion.

The nurse’s deposition seemed to have biased the greater part of the
council in favor of the accused; but Orion did not give them time to
discuss their impressions among themselves. Hardly had Perpetua ceased
speaking, when Orion took up the emerald, which was lying on the table
before him, exclaiming excitedly, nay, angrily:

“And the stone which is recognized by the man who sold it—an expert
in gems—as being that which was taken from the hanging, and unique
of its kind, is supposed, by some miracle of nature, to have suddenly
appeared in duplicate?—Malignant spirits still wander through the
world, but would hardly dare to play their tricks in this Christian house.
You all know what ‘old women’s tales’ are; and the tale that old woman has
told us is one of the most improbable of its class. ‘Tell that to Apelles
the Jew,’ said Horace the Roman; but his fellow-Israelite, Gamaliel’—and
he turned to the jeweller who was sitting with the other witnesses will
certainly not believe it; still less I, who see through this tissue of
falsehood. The daughter of the noble Thomas has condescended to weave it
with the help of that woman—a skilled weaver, she—to spread it
before us in order to mislead us, and so to save her faithful servant from
imprisonment, from the mines, or from death. These are the facts.—Do
I err, woman, or do you still adhere to your statement?”

The nurse, who had hoped to find in Orion her mistress’ advocate, had
listened to his speech with growing horror. Her eyes flashed as she looked
at him, first with mockery and then with vehement disgust; but, though
they filled with tears at this unlooked-for attack, she preserved her
presence of mind, and declared she had spoken the truth, and nothing but
the truth, as she always did. The setting of her mistress’ emerald would
prove her statement.

Orion shrugged his shoulders, desired the woman to fetch her mistress,
whose presence was now indispensable, and called to the treasurer:

“Go with her, Nilus! And let a servant bring the trunk here that the owner
may open it in the presence of us all and before any one else touches the
contents. I should not be the right person to undertake it since no one in
this Jacobite household—hardly even one of yourselves—has
found favor in the eyes of the Melchite. She has unfortunately a special
aversion for me, so I must depute to others every proceeding that could
lead to a misunderstanding.—Conduct her hither, Nilus; of course
with the respect due to a maiden of high rank.”

While the envoy was gone Orion paced the room with swift, restless steps,
Once only he paused and addressed the judges:

“But supposing the empty setting should be found, how do you account for
the existence of two—two gems, each unique of its kind? It is
distracting. Here is a soft-hearted girl daring to mislead a serious
council of justice for the sake, for the sake of….” he stamped his foot
with rage and continued his silent march.

“He is as yet but a beginner,” thought the assembled officials as they
watched his agitation. “Otherwise how could he allow such an absurd
attempt to clear an accused thief to affect him so deeply, or disturb his
temper?”

Paula’s arrival presently put an end to Orion’s pacing the room. He
received her with a respectful bow and signed to her to be seated. Then he
bid Nilus recapitulate the results of the proceedings up to the present
stage, and what he and his colleagues supposed to be her motive for
asserting that the stolen emerald was her property. He would as far as
possible leave it to the others to question her, since she knew full well
on what terms she was with himself. Even before he had come into the
council-room she had offered her explanation of the robbery to Nilus,
through her nurse Perpetua; but it would have seemed fairer and more
friendly in his eyes—and here he raised his voice—if she had
chosen to confide to him, Orion, her plan for helping the freedman. Then
he might have been able to warn her. He could only regard this mode of
action, independently of him, as a fresh proof of her dislike, and she
must hold herself responsible for the consequences. Justice must now take
its course with inexorable rigor.

The wrathful light in his eyes showed her what she had to expect from him,
and that he was prepared to fight her to the end. She saw that he thought
that she had broken the promise she had but just now given him; but she
had not commissioned Perpetua to interfere in the matter; on the contrary,
she had desired the woman to leave it to her to produce her evidence only
in the last extremity. Orion must believe that she had done him a wrong;
still, could that make him so far forget himself as to carry out his
threats, and sacrifice an innocent man—to divert suspicion from
himself, while he branded her as a false witness? Aye, even from that he
would not shrink! His flaming glance, his abrupt demeanor, his laboring
breath, proclaimed it plainly enough.—Then let the struggle begin!
At this moment she would have died rather than have tried to mollify him
by a word of excuse. The turmoil in his whole being vibrated through hers.
She was ready to throw herself at his feet and implore him to control
himself, to guard himself against further wrong-doing—but she
maintained her proud dignity, and the eyes that met his were not less
indignant and defiant than his own.

They stood face to face like two young eagles preparing to fight, with
feathers on end, arching their pinions and stretching their necks. She,
confident of victory in the righteousness of her cause, and far more
anxious for him than for herself; he, almost blind to his own danger, but,
like a gladiator confronting his antagonist in the arena, far more eager
to conquer than to protect his own life and limb.

While Nilus explained to her what, in part, she already knew, and repeated
their suspicion that she had been tempted to make a false declaration to
save the life of her servant, whose devotion, no doubt, to his missing
master had led him to commit the robbery; she kept her eye on Orion rather
than on the speaker. At last Nilus referred to the trunk, which had been
brought from Paula’s room under her own eyes, informing her that the
assembly were ready to hear and examine into anything she had to say in
her own defence.

Orion’s agitation rose to its highest pitch. He felt that the blood had
fled from his cheeks, and his thoughts were in utter confusion. The
council, the accused, his enemy Paula—everything in the room lay
before him shrouded in a whirl of green mist. All he saw seemed to be
tinted with light emerald green. The hair, the faces, the dresses of those
present gleamed and floated in a greenish light; and not till Paula went
up to the chest with a firm, haughty step, drew out a small key, gave it
to the treasurer, and answered his speech with three words: “Open the
box!”—uttering them with cold condescension as though even this were
too much—not till then did he see clearly once more: her bright
brown hair, the fire of her blue eyes, the rose and white of her
complexion, the light dress which draped her fine figure in noble folds,
and her triumphant smile. How beautiful, how desirable was this woman! A
few minutes and she would be worsted in this contest; but the triumph had
cost him not only herself, but all that was good and pure in his soul, and
worthy of his forefathers. An inward voice cried it out to him, but he
drowned it in the shout of “Onwards,” like a chariot-driver. Yes—on;
still on towards the goal; away over ruins and stones, through blood and
dust, till she bowed her proud neck, crushed and beaten, and sued for
mercy.

The lid of the trunk flew open. Paula stooped, lifted the necklace, held
it out to the judges, pulling it straight by the two ends…. Ah! what a
terrible, heartrending cry of despair! Orion even, never, never wished to
hear the like again. Then she flung the jewel on the table, exclaiming:
“Shameful, shameful! atrocious!” she tottered backwards and clung to her
faithful Betta; for her knees were giving way, and she felt herself in
danger of sinking to the ground.

Orion sprang forward to support her, but she thrust him aside, with a
glance so full of anguish, rage and intense contempt that he stood
motionless, and clasped his hand over his heart.—And this deed,
which was to work such misery for two human beings, he had smiled in
doing! This practical joke which concealed a death-warrant—to what
fearful issues might it not lead?

Paula had sunk speechless on to a seat, and he stood staring in silence,
till a burst of laughter broke from the assembly and old Psamtik, the
captain of the guard, who had long been a member of the council of
justice, exclaimed:

“By my soul, a splendid stone! There is the heathen god Eros with his
winged sweetheart Psyche smiling in his face. Did you never read that
pretty story by Apuleius—‘The Golden Ass’ it is called? The passage
is in that. Holy Luke! how finely it is carved. The lady has taken out the
wrong necklace. Look, Gamaliel, where could your green pigeon’s egg have
found a place in that thing?” and he pointed to the gem.

“Nowhere,” said the Jew. “The noble lady…” But Orion roughly bid the
witness to be silent, and Nilus, taking up the engraved gem, examined it
closely. Then he—he the grave, just man, on whose support Paula had
confidently reckoned—went up to her and with a regretful shrug asked
her whether the other necklace with the setting of which she had spoken
was in the trunk.

The blood ran cold in her veins. This thing that had happened was as
startling as a miracle. But no! No higher Power had anything to do with
this blow. Orion believed that she had failed in her promise of screening
him by her silence, and this, this was his revenge. By what means—how
he had gone to work, was a mystery. What a trick!—and it had
succeeded! But should she take it like a patient child? No. A thousand
times no! Suddenly all her old powers of resistance came back; hatred
steeled her wavering will; and, as in fancy, he had seen himself in the
circus, driving in a race, so she pictured herself seated at the
chess-board. She felt herself playing with all her might to win; but not,
as with his father, for flowers, trifling presents or mere glory; nay, for
a very different stake Life or Death!

She would do everything, anything to conquer him; and yet, no—come
what might—not everything. Sooner would she succumb than betray him
as the thief or reveal what she had discovered in the viridarium. She had
promised to keep the secret; and she would repay the father’s kindness by
screening the son from this disgrace. How beautiful, how noble had Orion’s
image been in her heart. She would not stain it with this disgrace in her
own eyes and in those of the world. But every other reservation must be
cast far, far away, to snatch the victory from him and to save Hiram.
Every fair weapon she might use; only this treachery she could not, might
not have recourse to. He must be made to feel that she was more
magnanimous than he; that she, under all conceivable circumstances, kept
her word. That was settled; her bosom once more rose and fell, and her eye
brightened again; still it was some little time before she could find the
right words with which to begin the contest.

Orion could see the seething turmoil in her soul; he felt that she was
arming herself for resistance, and he longed to spur her on to deal the
first blow. Not a word had she uttered of surprise or anger, not a
syllable of reproach had passed her lips. What was she thinking of, what
was she plotting? The more startling and dangerous the better; the more
bravely she bore herself, the more completely in the background might he
leave the painful sense of fighting against a woman. Even heroes had
boasted of a victory over Amazons.

At last, at last!—She rose and went towards Hiram. He had been tied
to the stake to which criminals were bound, and as an imploring glance
from his honest eyes met hers, the spell that fettered her tongue was
unloosed; she suddenly understood that she had not merely to protect
herself, but to fulfil a solemn duty. With a few rapid steps she went up
to the table at which her judges sat in a semi-circle, and leaning on it
with her left hand, raised her right high in the air, exclaiming:

“You are the victims of a cruel fraud; and I of an unparalleled and wicked
trick, intended to bring me to ruin!—Look at that man at the stake.
Does he look like a robber? A more honest and faithful servant never
earned his freedom, and the gratitude Hiram owed to his master, my father,
he has discharged to the daughter for whose sake he quitted his home, his
wife and child. He followed me, an orphan, here into a strange land.—But
that matters not to you.—Still, if you will hear the truth, the
strict and whole….”

“Speak!” Orion put in; but she went on, addressing herself exclusively to
Nilus, and his peers, and ignoring him completely:

“Your president, the son of the Mukaukas, knows that, instead of the
accused, I might, if I chose, be the accuser. But I scorn it—for
love of his father, and because I am more high-minded than he. He will
understand!—With regard to this particular emerald Hiram, my
freedman, took it out of its setting last evening, under my eyes, with his
knife; other persons besides us, thank God! have seen the setting, empty,
on the chain to which it belonged. This afternoon it was still in the
place to which some criminal hand afterwards found access, and attached
that gem instead. That I have just now seen for the first time—I
swear it by Christ’s wounds. It is an exquisite work. Only a very rich man—the
richest man here, can give away such a treasure, for whatever purpose he
may have in view—to destroy an enemy let us say.—Gamaliel,”
and she turned to the Jew—“At what sum would you value that onyx?”

The Israelite asked to see the gem once more; he turned it about, and then
said with a grin: “Well, fair lady, if my black hen laid me little things
like that I would feed it on cakes from Arsinoe and oysters from Canopus.
The stone is worth a landed estate, and though I am not a rich man, I
would pay down two talents for it at any moment, even if I had to borrow
the money.”

This statement could not fail to make a great impression on the judges.
Orion, however, exclaimed: “Wonders on wonders mark this eventful day! The
prodigal generosity which had become an empty name has revived again among
us! Some lavish demon has turned a worthless plate of gold into a costly
gem.—And may I ask who it was that saw the empty setting hanging to
your chain?” Paula was in danger of forgetting even that last reserve she
had imposed on herself; she answered with trembling accents:

“Apparently your confederates or you yourself did. You, and you alone,
have any cause….”

But he would not allow her to proceed. He abruptly interrupted her,
exclaiming: “This is really too much! Oh, that you were a man! How far
your generosity reaches I have already seen. Even hatred, the bitterest
hostility….”

“They would have every right to ruin you completely!” she cried, roused to
the utmost. “And if I were to charge you with the most horrible crime.
…”

“You yourself would be committing a crime, against me and against this
house,” he said menacingly. “Beware! Can self-delusion go so far that you
dare to appeal to me to testify to the fable you have trumped up….”

“No. Oh, no! That would be counting on some honesty in you yet,” she
loudly broke in. “I have other witnesses: Mary, the granddaughter of the
Mukaukas,” and she tried to catch his eye.

“The child whose little heart you have won, and who follows you about like
a pet dog!” he cried.

“And besides Mary, Katharina, the widow Susannah’s daughter,” she added,
sure of her triumph, and the color mounted to her cheeks. “She is no
longer a child, but a maiden grown, as you know. I therefore demand of you—”
and she again turned to the assembly—“that you will fulfil your
functions worthily and promote justice in my behalf by calling in both
these witnesses and hearing their evidence.”

On this Orion interposed with forced composure: “As to whether a
soft-hearted child ought to be exposed to the temptation to save the
friend she absolutely worships by giving evidence before the judges, be it
what it may, only her grandparents can decide. Her tender years would at
any rate detract from the validity of her evidence, and I am averse to
involving a child of this house in this dubious affair. With regard to
Katharina, it is, on the contrary, the duty of this court to request her
presence, and I offer myself to go and fetch her.”

He resolutely resisted Paula’s attempts to interrupt him again: she should
have a patient hearing presently in the presence of her witness. The gem
no doubt had come to her from her father. But at this her righteous
indignation was again too much for her; she cried out quite beside
herself:

“No, and again no. Some reprobate scoundrel, an accomplice of yours—yes,
I repeat it—made his way into my room while I was in the sick-room,
and either forced the lock of my trunk or opened it with a false key.”

“That can easily be proved,” said Orion. In a confident tone he desired
that the box should be placed on the table, and requested one of the
council, who understood such matters, to give his opinion. Paula knew the
man well. He was one of the most respected members of the household, the
chief mechanician whose duty it was to test and repair the water-clocks,
balances, measures and other instruments. He at once proceeded to examine
the lock and found it in perfect order, though the key, which was of
peculiar form, could certainly not have found a substitute in any false
key; and Paula was forced to admit that she had left the trunk locked at
noon and had worn the key round her neck ever since. Orion listened to his
opinion with a shrug, and before going to seek Katharina gave orders that
Paula and the nurse should be conducted to separate rooms. To arrive at
any clear decision in this matter, it was necessary that any communication
between these two should be rendered impossible. As soon as the door was
shut on them he hastened into the garden, where he hoped to find
Katharina.

The council looked after him with divided feelings. They were here
confronted by riddles that were hard to solve. No one of them felt that he
had a right to doubt the good intentions of their lord’s son, whom they
looked up to as a talented and high-minded youth. His dispute with Paula
had struck them painfully, and each one asked himself how it was that such
a favorite with women should have failed to rouse any sentiment but that
of hatred in one of the handsomest of her sex. The marked hostility she
displayed to Orion injured her cause in the eyes of her judges, who knew
only too well how unpleasant her relations were with Neforis. It was more
than audacious in her to accuse the Mukaukas’ son of having broken open
her trunk; only hatred could have prompted her to utter such a charge.
Still, there was something in her demeanor which encouraged confidence in
her assertions, and if Katharina could really testify to having seen the
empty medallion on the chain there would be no alternative but to begin
the enquiry again from a fresh point of view, and to inculpate another
robber. But who could have lavished such a treasure as this gem in
exchange for mere rubbish? It was inconceivable; Ammonius the mechanician
was right when he said that a woman full of hatred was capable of
anything, even the incredible and impossible.

Meanwhile it was growing dusk and the scorching day had turned to the
tempered heat of a glorious evening. The Mukaukas was still in his room
while his wife with Susannah and her daughter, Mary and her governess,
were enjoying the air and chatting in the open hall looking out on the
garden and the Nile. The ladies had covered their heads with gauze veils
as a protection against the mosquitoes, which were attracted in swarms
from the river by the lights, and also against the mists that rose from
the shallowing Nile; they were in the act of drinking some cooling
fruit-syrup which had just been brought in, when Orion made his
appearance.

“What has happened?” cried his mother in some anxiety, for she concluded
from his dishevelled hair and heated cheeks that the meeting had gone
anything rather than smoothly.

“Incredible things,” he replied. “Paula fought like a lioness for her
father’s freedman…”

“Simply to annoy us and put us in a difficulty,” replied Neforis.

“No, no, Mother,” replied Orion with some warmth. “But she has a will of
iron; a woman who never pauses at anything when she wants to carry her
point; and at the same time she goes to work with a keen wit that is
worthy of the greatest lawyer that I ever heard defend a cause in the high
court of the capital. Besides this her air of superiority, and her divine
beauty turn the heads of our poor household officers. It is fine and
noble, of course, to be so zealous in the cause of a servant; but it can
do no good, for the evidence against her stammering favorite is
overwhelming, and when her last plea is demolished the matter is ended.
She says that she showed a necklace to the child, and to you, charming
Katharina.”

“Showed it?” cried the young girl. “She took it away from us—did not
she, Mary?”

“Well, we had taken it without her leave,” replied the child.

“And she wants our children to appear in a court of justice to bear
witness for her highness?” asked Neforis indignantly.

“Certainly,” replied Orion. “But Mary’s evidence is of no value in law.”

“And even if it were,” replied his mother, “the child should not be mixed
up with this disgraceful business under any circumstances.”

“Because I should speak for Paula!” cried Mary, springing up in great
excitement.

“You will just hold your tongue,” her grandmother exclaimed.

“And as for Katharina,” said the widow, “I do not at all like the notion
of her offering herself to be stared at by all those gentlemen.”

“Gentlemen!” observed the girl. “Men—household officials and such
like. They may wait long enough for me!”

“You must nevertheless do their bidding, haughty rosebud,” said Orion
laughing. “For you, thank God, are no longer a child, and a court of
justice has the right of requiring the presence of every grown person as a
witness. No harm will come to you, for you are under my protection. Come
with me. We must learn every lesson in life. Resistance is vain. Besides,
all you will have to do will be to state what you have seen, and then, if
I possibly can, I will bring you back under the tender escort of this arm,
to your mother once more. You must entrust your jewel to me to-day,
Susannah, and this trustworthy witness shall tell you afterwards how she
fared under my care.”

Katharina was quite capable of reading the implied meaning of these words,
and she was not ill-pleased to be obliged to go off alone with the
governor’s handsome son, the first man for whom her little heart had beat
quicker; she sprang up eagerly; but Mary clung to her arm, and insisted so
vehemently and obstinately on being taken with them to bear witness in
Paula’s behalf, that her governess and Dame Neforis had the greatest
difficulty in reducing her to obedience and letting the pair go off
without her. Both mothers looked after them with great satisfaction, and
the governor’s wife whispered to Susannah: “Before the judges to-day, but
ere long, please God, before the altar at Church!”

To reach the hall of judgment they could go either through the house or
round it. If the more circuitous route were chosen, it lay first through
the garden; and this was the course taken by Orion. He had made a very
great effort in the presence of the ladies to remain master of the
agitation that possessed him; he saw that the battle he had begun, and
from which he, at any rate, could not and would not now retire, was raging
more and more fiercely, obliging him to drag the young creature who must
become his wife—the die was already cast—into the course of
crime he had started on.

When he had agreed with his mother that he was not to prefer his suit for
Katharina till the following day, he had hoped to prove to her in the
interval that this little thing was no wife for him; and now—oh!
Irony of Fate—he found himself compelled to the very reverse of what
he longed to do: to fight the woman he loved—Yes, still loved—as
if she were his mortal foe, and pay his court to the girl who really did
not suit him. It was maddening, but inevitable; and once more spurring
himself with the word “Onwards!” he flung himself into the accomplishment
of the unholy task of subduing the inexperienced child at his elbow into
committing even a crime for his sake. His heart was beating wildly; but no
pause, no retreat was possible: he must conquer. “Onwards, then, onwards!”

When they had passed out of the light of the lamps into the shade he took
his young companion’s slender hand-thankful that the darkness concealed
his features—and pressed the delicate fingers to his lips.

“Oh!—Orion!” she exclaimed shyly, but she did not resist.

“I only claim my due, sunshine of my soul!” he said insinuatingly. “If
your heart beat as loud as mine, our mothers might hear them!”

“But it does!” she joyfully replied, her curly head bent on one side.

“Not as mine does,” he said with a sigh, laying her little hand on his
heart. He could do so in all confidence, for its spasmodic throbbing
threatened to suffocate him.

“Yes indeed,” she said. “It is beating…”

“So that they can hear it indoors,” he added with a forced laugh. “Do you
think your dear mother has not long since read our feelings?”

“Of course she has,” whispered Katharina. “I have rarely seen her in such
good spirits as since your return.”

“And you, you little witch?”

“I? Of course I was glad—we all were.—And your parents!”

“Nay, nay, Katharina! What you yourself felt when we met once more, that
is what I want to know.”

“Oh, let that pass! How can I describe such a thing?”

“Is that quite impossible?” he asked and clasped her arm more closely in
his own. He must win her over, and his romantic fancy helped him to paint
feelings he had never had, in glowing colors. He poured out sweet words of
love, and she was only too ready to believe them. At a sign from him she
sat down confidingly on a wooden bench in the old avenue which led to the
northern side of the house. Flowers were opening on many of the shrubs and
shedding rich, oppressive perfume. The moonlight pierced through the
solemn foliage of the sycamores, and shimmering streaks and rings of light
played in the branches, on the trunks, and on the dark ground. The heat of
the day still lingered in the leafy roofs overhead, sultry and heavy even
now; and in this alley he called her for the first time his own, his
betrothed, and enthralled her heart in chains and bonds. Each fervent word
thrilled with the wild and painful agitation that was torturing his soul,
and sounded heartfelt and sincere. The scent of flowers, too, intoxicated
her young and inexperienced heart; she willingly offered her lips to his
kisses, and with exquisite bliss felt the first glow of youthful love
returned.

She could have lingered thus with him for a lifetime; but in a few minutes
he sprang up, anxious to put an end to this tender dalliance which was
beginning to be too much even for him, and exclaimed:

“This cursed, this infernal trial! But such is the fate of man! Duty
calls, and he must return from all the bliss of Paradise to the world
again. Give me your arm, my only love, my all!”

And Katharina obeyed. Dazzled and bewildered by the extraordinary
happiness that had come to meet her, she allowed him to lead her on,
listening with suspended breath as he added: “Out of this beatitude back
to the sternest of duties!—And how odious, how immeasurably
loathesome is the case in question! How gladly would I have been a friend
to Paula, a faithful protector instead of a foe!”

As he spoke he felt the girl’s left hand clench tighter on his arm, and
this spurred him on in his guilty purpose. Katharina herself had suggested
to his mind the course he must pursue to attain his end. He went on to
influence her jealousy by praising Paula’s charm and loftiness, excusing
himself in his own eyes by persuading himself that a lover was justified
in inducing his betrothed to save his happiness and his honor.

Still, as he uttered each flattering word, he felt that he was lowering
himself and doing a fresh injustice to Paula. He found it only too easy to
sing her praises; but as he did so with growing enthusiasm Katharina hit
him on the arm exclaiming, half in jest and half seriously vexed:

“Oh, she is a goddess! And pray do you love her or me? You had better not
make me jealous! Do you hear?”

“You little simpleton!” he said gaily; and then he added soothingly: “She
is like the cold moon, but you are the bright warming sun. Yes, Paula!—we
will leave Paula to some Olympian god, some archangel. I rejoice in my
gladsome little maiden who will enjoy life with me, and all its
pleasures!”

“That we will!” she exclaimed triumphantly; the horizon of her future was
radiant with sunshine.

“Good Heavens!” he exclaimed as if in surprise. “The lights are already
shining in that miserable hall of justice! Ah, love, love! Under that
enchantment we had forgotten the object for which we came out.—Tell
me, my darling, do you remember exactly what the necklace was like that
you and Mary were playing with this afternoon?”

“It was very finely wrought, but in the middle hung a rubbishy broken
medallion of gold.”

“You are a pretty judge of works of art! Then you overlooked the fine
engraved gem which was set in that modest gold frame?”

“Certainly not.”

“I assure you, little wise-head!”

“No, my dearest.” As she spoke she looked up saucily, as though she had
achieved some great triumph. “I know very well what gems are. My father
left a very fine collection, and my mother says that by his will they are
all to belong to my future husband.”

“Then I can set you, my jewel, in a frame of the rarest gems.”

“No, no,” she cried gaily. “Let me have a setting indeed, for I am but a
fugitive thing; but only, only in your heart.”

“That piece of goldsmith’s work is already done.—But seriously my
child; with regard to Paula’s necklace: it really was a gem, and you must
have happened to see only the back of it. That is just as you describe it:
a plain setting of gold.”

“But Orion….”

“If you love me, sweetheart, contradict me no further. In the future I
will always accept your views, but in this case your mistake might involve
us in a serious misunderstanding, by compelling me to give in to Paula and
make her my ally.—Here we are! But wait one moment longer.—And
once more, as to this gem. You see we may both be wrong—I as much as
you; but I firmly believe that I am in the right. If you make a statement
contrary to mine I shall appear before the judges as a liar. We are now
betrothed—we are but one, wholly one; what damages or dignifies one
of us humiliates or elevates the other. If you, who love me—you,
who, as it is already whispered, are soon to be the mistress of the
governor’s house—make a statement opposed to mine they are certain
to believe it. You see, your whole nature is pure kindness, but you are
still too young and innocent quite to understand all the duties of that
omnipotent love which beareth and endureth all things. If you do not yield
to me cheerfully in this case you certainly do not love me as you ought.
And what is it to ask? I require nothing of you but that you should state
before the court that you saw Paula’s necklace at noon to-day, and that
there was a gem hanging to it—a gem with Love and Psyche engraved on
it.”

“And I am to say that before all those men?” asked Katharina doubtfully.

“You must indeed, you kind little angel!” cried Orion tenderly. “And do
you think it pretty in a betrothed bride to refuse her lover’s first
request so grudgingly, suspiciously, and ungraciously? Nay, nay. If there
is the tiniest spark of love for me in your heart, if you do not want to
see me reduced to implore Paula for mercy….”

“But what is it all about? How can it matter so much to any one whether a
gem or a mere plate of gold…?”

“All that I will explain later,” he hastily replied.

“Tell me now….”

“Impossible. We have already put the patience of the judges to too severe
a test. We have not a moment to lose.”

“Very well then; but I shall die of confusion and shame if I have to make
a declaration….”

“Which is perfectly truthful, and by which you can prove to me that you
love me,” he urged.

“But it is dreadful!” she exclaimed anxiously. “At least fasten my veil
closely over my face.—All those bearded men….”

“Like the ostrich,” said Orion, laughing as he complied. “If you really
cannot agree with your… What is it you called me just now? Say it
again.”

“My dearest!” she said shyly but tenderly.

She helped Orion to fold her veil twice over her face, and did not thrust
him aside when he whispered in her ear: “Let us see if a kiss cannot be
sweet even through all that wrapping!—Now, come. It will be all over
in a few minutes.”

He led the way into the anteroom to the great hall, begged her to wait a
moment, and then went in and hastily informed the assembly that Dame
Susannah had entrusted her daughter to him only on condition that he
should escort her back again as soon as she had given her testimony. Then
Paula was brought in and he desired her to be seated.

It was with a sinking and anxious heart that Katharina had entered the
anteroom. She had screened herself from a scolding before now by trivial
subterfuges, but never had told a serious lie; and every instinct rebelled
against the demand that she should now state a direct falsehood. But could
Orion, the noblest of mankind, the idol of the whole town, so pressingly
entreat her to do anything that was wrong? Did not love—as he had
said—make it her duty to do everything that might screen him from
loss or injury? It did not seem to her to be quite as it should be, but
perhaps she did not altogether understand the matter; she was so young and
inexperienced. She hated the idea, too, that, if she opposed her lover, he
would have to come to terms with Paula. She had no lack of
self-possession, and she told herself that she might hold her own with any
girl in Memphis; still, she felt the superiority of the handsome, tall,
proud Syrian, nor could she forget how, the day before yesterday, when
Paula had been walking up and down the garden with Orion the chief officer
of Memphis had exclaimed: “What a wonderfully handsome couple!” She
herself had often thought that no more beautiful, elegant and lovable
creature than Thomas’ daughter walked the earth; she had longed and
watched for a glance or a kind word from her. But since hearing those
words a bitter feeling had possessed her soul against Paula, and there had
been much to foster it. Paula always treated her like a child instead of a
grown-up girl, as she was. Why, that very morning, had she sought out her
betrothed—for she might call him so now—and tried to keep her
away from him? And how was it that Orion, even while declaring his love
for her, had spoken more than warmly—enthusiastically of Paula? She
must be on her guard, and though others should speak of the great good
fortune that had fallen to her lot, Paula, at any rate, would not rejoice
in it, for Katharina felt and knew that she was not indifferent to Orion.
She had not another enemy in the world, but Paula was one; her love had
everything to fear from her—and suddenly she asked herself whether
the gold medallion she had seen might not indeed have been a gem? Had she
examined the necklace closely, even for a moment? And why should she fancy
she had sharper sight than Orion with his large, splendid eyes?

He was right, as he always was. Most engraved gems were oval in form, and
the pendant which she had seen and was to give evidence about, was
undoubtedly oval. Then it was not like Orion to require a falsehood of
her. In any case it was her duty to her betrothed to preserve from evil,
and prevent him from concluding any alliance with that false Siren. She
knew what she had to say; and she was about to loosen a portion of her
veil from her face that she might look Paula steadfastly in the eyes, when
Orion came back to fetch her into the hall where the Court was sitting. To
his delight—nay almost to his astonishment—she stated with
perfect confidence that a gem had been hanging to Paula’s necklace at noon
that day; and when the onyx was shown her and she was asked if she
remembered the stone, she calmly replied:

“It may or it may not be the same; I only remember the oval gold back to
it: besides I was only allowed to have the necklace in my hands for a very
short time.”

When Nilus, the treasurer, desired her to look more closely at the figures
of Eros and Psyche to refresh her memory, she evaded it by saying: “I do
not like such heathen images: we Jacobite maidens wear different
adornments.”

At this Paula rose and stepped towards her with a look of stern reproof;
little Katharina was glad now that it had occurred to her to cover her
face with a double veil. But the utter confusion she felt under the Syrian
girl’s gaze did not last long. Paula exclaimed reproach fully: “You speak
of your faith. Like mine, it requires you to respect the truth. Consider
how much depends on your declaration; I implore you, child…”

But the girl interrupted her rival exclaiming with much irritation and
vehement excitement:

“I am no longer a child, not even as compared with you; and I think before
I speak, as I was taught to do.”

She threw back her little head with a confident air, and said very
decidedly:

“That onyx hung to the middle of the chain.”

“How dare you, you audacious hussy!” It was Perpetua, quite unable to
contain herself, who flung the words in her face. Katharina started as
though an asp had stung her and turned round on the woman who had dared to
insult her so grossly and so boldly. She was on the verge of tears as she
looked helplessly about her for a defender; but she had not long to wait,
for Orion instantly gave orders that Perpetua should be imprisoned for
bearing false witness. Paula, however, as she had not perjured herself,
but had merely invented an impossible tale with a good motive, was
dismissed, and her chest was to be replaced in her room.

At this Paula once more stepped forth; she unhooked the onyx from the
chain and flung it towards Gamaliel, who caught it, while she exclaimed:

“I make you a present of it, Jew! Perhaps the villain who hung it to my
chain may buy it back again. The chain was given to my great-grandmother
by the saintly Theodosius, and rather than defile it by contact with that
gift from a villain, I will throw it into the Nile!—You—you,
poor, deluded judges—I cannot be wroth with you, but I pity you!—My
Hiram…” and she looked at the freedman, “is an honest soul whom I shall
remember with gratitude to my dying day; but as to that unrighteous son of
a most righteous father, that man…” and she raised her voice, while she
pointed straight at Orion’s face; but the young man interrupted her with a
loud:

“Enough!”

She tried to control herself and replied:

“I will submit. Your conscience will tell you a hundred times over what I
need not say. One last word…” She went close up to him and said in his
ear:

“I have been able to refrain from using my deadliest weapon against you
for the sake of keeping my word. Now you, if you are not the basest wretch
living, keep yours, and save Hiram.”

His only reply was an assenting nod; Paula paused on the threshold and,
turning to Katharina, she added: “You, child—for you are but a child—with
what nameless suffering will not the son of the Mukaukas repay you for the
service you have rendered him!” Then she left the room. Her knees trembled
under her as she mounted the stairs, but when she had again taken her
place by the side of the hapless, crazy girl a merciful God granted her
the relief of tears. Her friend saw her and left her to weep undisturbed,
till she herself called him and confided to him all she had gone through
in the course of this miserable day.

Orion and Katharina had lost their good spirits; they went back to the
colonnade in a dejected mood. On the way she pressed him to explain to her
why he had insisted on her making this declaration, but he put her off
till the morrow. They found Susannah alone, for his mother had been sent
for by her husband, who was suffering more than usual, and she had taken
Mary with her.

After bidding the widow good-night and escorting her to her chariot, he
returned to the hall where the Court was still sitting. There he
recapitulated the case as it now stood, and all the evidence against the
freed man. The verdict was then pronounced: Hiram was condemned to death
with but one dissentient voice that of Nilus the treasurer.

Orion ordered that the execution of the sentence should be postponed; he
did not go back into the house, however, but had his most spirited horse
saddled and rode off alone into the desert. He had won, but he felt as
though in this race he had rushed into a morass and must be choked in it.


CHAPTER XIII.

Paula’s report of the day’s proceedings, of Orion’s behavior, and of the
results of the trial angered the leech beyond measure; he vehemently
approved the girl’s determination to quit this cave of robbers, this house
of wickedness, of treachery, of imbecile judges and false witnesses, as
soon as possible. But she had no opportunity for a quiet conversation with
him, for Philippus soon had his hands full in the care of the sufferers.

Rustem, the Masdakite, who till now had been lying unconscious, had been
roused from his lethargy by some change of treatment, and loudly called
for his master Haschim. When the Arab did not appear, and it was explained
to him that he could not hope to see him before the morning, the young
giant sat up among his pillows, propping himself on his arms set firmly
against the couch behind him, looked about him with a wandering gaze, and
shook his big head like an aggrieved lion—but that his thick mane of
hair had been cut off—abusing the physician all the time in his
native tongue, and in a deep, rolling, bass voice that rang through the
rooms though no one understood a word. Philippus, quite undaunted, was
trying to adjust the bandage over his wound, when Rustem suddenly flung
his arms round his body and tried with all his might, and with foaming
lips, to drag him down. He clung to his antagonist, roaring like a wild
beast; even now Philippus never for an instant lost his presence of mind
but desired the nun to fetch two strong slaves. The Sister hurried away,
and Paula remained the eyewitness of a fearful struggle. The physician had
twisted his ancles round those of the stalwart Persian, and putting forth
a degree of strength which could hardly have been looked for in a stooping
student, tall and large-boned as he was, he wrenched the Persian’s hands
from his hips, pressed his fingers between those of Rustem, forced him
back on to his pillows, set his knees against the brazen frame of the
couch, and so effectually held him down that he could not sit up again.
Rustem exerted every muscle to shake off his opponent; but the leech was
the stronger, for the Masdakite was weakened by fever and loss of blood.
Paula watched this contest between intelligent force and the animal
strength of a raving giant with a beating heart, trembling in every limb.
She could not help her friend, but she followed his every movement as she
stood at the head of the bed; and as he held down the powerful creature
before whom her frail uncle had cowered in abject terror, she could not
help admiring his manly beauty; for his eyes sparkled with unwonted fire,
and the mean chin seemed to lengthen with the frightful effort he was
putting forth, and so to be brought into proportion with his wide forehead
and the rest of his features. Her spirit quaked for him; she fancied she
could see something great and heroic in the man, in whom she had hitherto
discovered no merit but his superior intellect.

The struggle had lasted some minutes before Philip felt the man’s arms
grow limp, and he called to Paula to bring him a sheet—a rope—what
not—to bind the raving man. She flew into the next room, quite
collected; fetched her handkerchief, snatched off the silken girdle that
bound her waist, rushed back and helped the leech to tie the maniac’s
hands. She understood her friend’s least word, or a movement of his
finger; and when the slaves whom the nun had fetched came into the room,
they found Rustem with his hands firmly bound, and had only to prevent him
from leaping out of bed or throwing himself over the edge. Philippus,
quite out of breath, explained to the slaves how they were to act, and
when he opened his medicine-chest Paula noticed that his swollen, purple
fingers were trembling. She took out the phial to which he pointed, mixed
the draught according to his orders, and was not afraid to pour it between
the teeth of the raving man, forcing them open with the help of the
slaves.

The soothing medicine calmed him in a few minutes, and the leech himself
could presently wash the wound and apply a fresh dressing with the
practised aid of the Sister.

Meanwhile the crazy girl had been waked by the ravings of the Persian, and
was anxiously enquiring if the dog—the dreadful dog—was there.
But she soon allowed herself to be quieted by Paula, and she answered the
questions put to her so rationally and gently, that her nurse called the
physician who could confirm Paula in her hope that a favorable change had
taker place in her mental condition. Her words were melancholy and mild;
and when Paula remarked on this Philippus observed:

“It is on the bed of sickness that we learn to know our fellow-creatures.
The frantic girl, who perhaps fell on the son of this house with murderous
intent, now reveals her true, sweet nature. And as for that poor fellow,
he is a powerful creature, an honest one too; I would stake my ten fingers
on it!”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“Even in his delirium he did hot once scratch or bite, but only defended
himself like a man.—Thank you, now, for your assistance. If you had
not flung the cord round his hands, the game might have ended very
differently.”

“Surely not!” exclaimed Paula decidedly. “How strong you are, Philip. I
feel quite alarmed!”

“You?” said the leech laughing. “On the contrary, you need never be
alarmed again now that you have seen by chance that your champion is no
weakling.—Pfooh! I shall be glad now of a little rest.” She offered
him her handkerchief, and while he thankfully used it to wipe his brow—controlling
with much difficulty the impulse to press it to his lips, he added
lightly:

“With such an assistant everything must go well. There is no merit in
being strong; every one can be strong who comes into the world with
healthy blood and well-knit bones, who keeps all his limbs well exercised,
as I did in my youth, and who does not destroy his inheritance by
dissipated living.—However, I still feel the struggle in my hands;
but there is some good wine in the next room yet, and two or three cups of
it will do me good.” They went together into the adjoining room where, by
this time, most of the lamps were extinguished. Paula poured out the wine,
touched the goblet with her lips, and he emptied it at a draught; but he
was not to be allowed to drink off a second, for he had scarcely raised
it, when they heard voices in the Masdakite’s room, and Neforis came in.
The governor’s careful wife had not quitted her husband’s couch—even
Rustem’s storming had not induced her to leave her post; but when she was
informed by the slaves what had been going on, and that Paula was still
up-stairs with the leech, she had come to the strangers’ rooms as soon as
her husband could spare her to speak to Philippus, to represent to Paula
what the proprieties required, and to find out what the strange noises
could be which still seemed to fill the house—at this hour usually
as silent as the grave. They proceeded from the sick-rooms, but also from
Orion, who had just come in, and from Nilus the treasurer, who had been
called by the former into his room, though the night was fast drawing on
to morning. To the governor’s wife everything seemed ominous at the close
of this terrible day, marked in the calendar as unlucky; so she made her
way up-stairs, escorted by her husband’s night watcher, and holding in her
hand a small reliquary to which she ascribed the power of banning vile
spirits.

She came into the sick-room swiftly and noiselessly, put the nun through a
strict cross-examination with the fretful sharpness of a person disturbed
in her night’s rest. Then she went into the sitting-room where Philippus
was on the point of pledging Paula in his second cup of wine, while she
stood before him with dishevelled hair and robe ungirt. All this was an
offence against good manners such as she would not suffer in her house,
and she stoutly ordered her husband’s niece to go to bed. After all the
offences that had been pardoned her this day—no, yesterday—she
exclaimed, it would have been more becoming in the girl to examine herself
in silence, in her own room, to exorcise the lying spirits which had her
in their power, and implore her Saviour for forgiveness, than to pretend
to be nursing the sick while she was carrying on, with a young man, an
orgy which, as the Sister had just told her, had lasted since mid-day.

Paula spoke not a word, though the color changed in her face more than
once as she listened to this speech. But when Neforis finally pointed to
the door, she said, with all the cold pride she had at her command when
she was the object of unworthy suspicions:

“Your aim is easily seen through. I should scorn to reply, but that you
are the wife of the man who, till you set him against me, was glad to call
himself my friend and protector, and who is also related to me. As usual,
you attribute to me an unworthy motive. In showing me the door of this
room consecrated by suffering, you are turning me out of your house, which
you and your son—for I must say it for once—have made a hell
to me.”

“I! And my—No! this is indeed—” exclaimed the matron in
panting rage. She clasped her hands over her heaving bosom and her pale
face was dyed crimson, while her eyes flashed wrathful lightnings. “That
is too much; a thousand times too much—a thousand times—do you
hear?—And I—I condescend to answer you! We picked her up in
the street, and have treated her like a daughter, spent enormous sums on
her, and now….”

This was addressed to the leech rather than to Paula; but she took up the
gauntlet and replied in a tone of unqualified scorn:

“And now I plainly declare, as a woman of full age, free to dispose of
myself, that to-morrow morning I leave this house with everything that
belongs to me, even if I should go as a beggar;—this house, where I
have been grossly insulted, where I and my faithful servant have been
falsely condemned, and where he is even now about to be murdered.”

“And where you have been dealt with far too mildly,” Neforis shrieked at
her audacious antagonist, “and preserved from sharing the fate of the
robber you smuggled into the house. To save a criminal—it is unheard
of:—you dared to accuse the son of your benefactor of being a
corrupt judge.”

“And so he is,” exclaimed Paula furious. “And what is more, he has
inveigled the child whom you destine to be his wife into bearing false
witness. More—much more could I say, but that, even if I did not
respect the mother, your husband has deserved that I should spare him.”

“Spare him-spare!” cried Neforis contemptuously. “You—you will spare
us! The accused will be merciful and spare the judge! But you shall be
made to speak;—aye, made to speak! And as to what you, a slanderer,
can say about false witness…”

“Your own granddaughter,” interrupted the leech, “will be compelled to
repeat it before all the world, noble lady, if you do not moderate
yourself.”

Neforis laughed hysterically.

“So that is the way the wind blows!” she exclaimed, quite beside herself.
“The sick-room is a temple of Bacchus and Venus; and this disgraceful
conduct is not enough, but you must conspire to heap shame and disgrace on
this righteous house and its masters.”

Then, resting her left hand which held the reliquary on her hip, she added
with hasty vehemence:

“So be it. Go away; go wherever you please! If I find you under this roof
to-morrow at noon, you thankless, wicked girl, I will have you turned out
into the streets by the guard. I hate you—for once I will ease my
poor, tormented heart—I loathe you; your very existence is an
offence to me and brings misfortune on me and on all of us; and besides—besides,
I should prefer to keep the emeralds we have left.”

This last and cruelest taunt, which she had brought out against her better
feelings, seemed to have relieved her soul of a hundred-weight of care;
she drew a deep breath, and turning to Philippus, went on far more quietly
and rationally:

“As for you, Philip, my husband needs you. You know well what we have
offered you and you know George’s liberal hand. Perhaps you will think
better of it, and will learn to perceive…”

“I!…” said the leech with a lofty smile. “Do you really know me so
little? Your husband, I am ready to admit, stands high in my esteem, and
when he wants me he will no doubt send for me. But never again will I
cross this threshold uninvited, or enter a house where right is trodden
underfoot, where defenceless innocence is insulted and abandoned to
despair.

“You may stare in astonishment! Your son has desecrated his father’s
judgment-seat, and the blood of guiltless Hiram is on his head.—You—well,
you may still cling to your emeralds. Paula will not touch them; she is
too high-souled to tell you who it is that you would indeed do well to
lock up in the deepest dungeon-cell! What I have heard from your lips
breaks every tie that time had knit between us. I do not demand that my
friends should be wealthy, that they should have any attractions or charm,
any special gifts of mind or body; but we must meet on common ground: that
of honorable feeling. That you did not bring into the world, or you have
lost it; and from this hour I am a stranger to you and never wish to see
you again, excepting by the side of your husband when he requires me.”

He spoke the last words with such immeasurable dignity that Neforis was
startled and bereft of all self-control. She had been treated as a wretch
worthy of utter scorn by a man beneath her in rank, but whom she always
regarded as one of the most honest, frank and pure-minded she had ever
known; a man indispensable to her husband, because he knew how to mitigate
his sufferings, and could restrain him from the abuse of his narcotic
anodyne. He was the only physician of repute, far and wide. She was to be
deprived of the services of this valuable ally, to whom little Mary and
many of the household owed their lives, by this Syrian girl; and she
herself, sure that she was a good and capable wife and mother, was to
stand there like a thing despised and avoided by every honest man, through
this evil genius of her house!

It was too much. Tortured by rage, vexation, and sincere distress, she
said in a complaining voice, while the tears started to her eyes:

“But what is the meaning of all this? You, who know me, who have seen me
ruling and caring for my family, you turn your back upon me in my own
house and point the finger at me? Have I not always been a faithful wife,
nursing my husband for years and never leaving his sick-bed, never
thinking of anything but how to ease his pain? I have lived like a recluse
from sheer sense of duty and faithful lose, while other wives, who have
less means than I, live in state and go to entertainments.—And whose
slaves are better kept and more often freed than ours? Where is the beggar
so sure of an alms as in our house, where I, and I alone, uphold piety?—And
now am I so fallen that the sun may not shine on me, and that a worthy man
like you should withdraw his friendship all in a moment, and for the sake
of this ungrateful, loveless creature—because, because, what did you
call it—because the mind is wanting in me—or what did you call
it that I must have before you…?”

“It is called feeling,” interrupted the leech, who was sorry for the
unhappy woman, in whom he knew there was much that was good. “Is the word
quite new to you, my lady Neforis?—It is born with us; but a firm
will can elevate the least noble feeling, and the best that nature can
bestow will deteriorate through self-indulgence. But, in the day of
judgment, if I am not very much mistaken, it is not our acts but our
feeling that will be weighed. It would ill-become me to blame you, but I
may be allowed to pity you, for I see the disease in your soul which, like
gangrene in the body…”

“What next!” cried Neforis.

“This disease,” the physician calmly went on—“I mean hatred, should
be far indeed from so pious a Christian. It has stolen into your heart
like a thief in the night, has eaten you up, has made bad blood, and led
you to treat this heavily-afflicted orphan as though you were to put
stocks and stones in the path of a blind man to make him fall. If, as it
would seem, my opinion still weighs with you a little, before Paula leaves
your house you will ask her pardon for the hatred with which you have
persecuted her for years, which has now led you to add an intolerable
insult—in which you yourself do not believe—to all the rest.”

At this Paula, who had been watching the physician all through his speech,
turned to Dame Neforis, and unclasped her hands which were lying in her
lap, ready to shake hands with her uncle’s wife if she only offered hers,
though she was still fully resolved to leave the house.

A terrible storm was raging in the lady’s soul. She felt that she had
often been unkind to Paula. That a painful doubt still obscured the
question as to who had stolen the emerald she had unwillingly confessed
before she had come up here. She knew that she would be doing her husband
a great service by inducing the girl to remain, and she would only too
gladly have kept the leech in the house;—but then how deeply had
she, and her son, been humiliated by this haughty creature!

Should she humble herself to her, a woman so much younger, offer her hand,
make….

At this moment they heard the tinkle of the silver bowl, into which her
husband threw a little ball when he wanted her. His pale, suffering face
rose before her inward eye, she could hear him asking for his opponent at
draughts, she could see his sad, reproachful gaze when she told him
to-morrow that she, Neforis, had driven his niece, the daughter of the
noble Thomas, out of the house—, with a swift impulse she went
towards Paula, grasping the reliquary in her left hand and holding out her
right, and said in a low voice.

“Shake hands, girl. I often ought to have behaved differently to you; but
why have you never in the smallest thing sought my love? God is my witness
that at first I was fully disposed to regard you as a daughter, but you—well,
let it pass. I am sorry now that I should—if I have distressed you.”

At the first words Paula had placed her hand in that of Neforis. Hers was
as cold as marble, the elder woman’s was hot and moist; it seemed as
though their hands were typical of the repugnance of their hearts. They
both felt it so, and their clasp was but a brief one. When Paula withdrew
hers, she preserved her composure better than the governor’s wife, and
said quite calmly, though her cheeks were burning:

“Then we will try to part without any ill-will, and I thank you for having
made that possible. To-morrow morning I hope I may be permitted to take
leave of my uncle in peace, for I love him; and of little Mary.”

“But you need not go now! On the contrary, I urgently request you to
stay,” Neforis eagerly put in.

“George will not let you leave. You yourself know how fond he is of you.”

“He has often been as a father to me,” said Paula, and even her eyes shone
through tears. “I would gladly have stayed with him till the end. Still,
it is fixed—I must go.”

“And if your uncle adds his entreaties to mine?”

“It will be in vain.”

Neforis took the maiden’s hand in her own again, and tried with genuine
anxiety to persuade her,—but Paula was firm. She adhered to her
determination to leave the governor’s house in the morning.

“But where will you find a suitable house?” cried Neforis. “A residence
that will be fit for you?”

“That shall be my business,” replied the physician. “Believe me, noble
lady, it would be best for all that Paula should seek another home. But it
is to be hoped that she may decide on remaining in Memphis.”

At this Neforis exclaimed:

“Here, with us, is her natural home!—Perhaps God may turn your heart
for your uncle’s sake, and we may begin a new and happier life.” Paula’s
only reply was a shake of the head; but Neforis did not see it the metal
tinkle sounded for the third time, and it was her duty to respond to its
call.

As soon as she had left the room Paula drew a deep breath, exclaiming:

“O God! O God! How hard it was to refrain from flinging in her teeth the
crime her wicked son…. No, no; nothing should have made me do that. But
I cannot tell you how the mere sight of that woman angers me, how
light-hearted I feel since I have broken down the bridge that connected me
with this house and with Memphis.”

“With Memphis?” asked Philippus.

“Yes,” said Paula gladly. “I go away—away from hence, out of the
vicinity of this woman and her son!—Whither? Oh! back to Syria, or
to Greece—every road is the right one, if it only takes me away from
this place.”

“And I, your friend?” asked Philippus.

“I shall bear the remembrance of you in a grateful heart.”

The physician smiled, as though something had happened just as he
expected; after a moment’s reflection he said:

“And where can the Nabathaean find you, if indeed he discovers your father
in the hermit of Sinai?”

The question startled and surprised Paula, and Philippus now adduced every
argument to convince her that it was necessary that she should remain in
the City of the Pyramids. In the first place she must liberate her nurse—in
this he could promise to help her—and everything he said was so
judicious in its bearing on the circumstances that had to be reckoned
with, and the facts actual or possible, that she was astonished at the
practical good sense of this man, with whom she had generally talked only
of matters apart from this world. Finally she yielded, chiefly for the
sake of her father and Perpetua; but partly in the hope of still enjoying
his society. She would remain in Memphis, at any rate for the present,
under the roof of a friend of the physician’s—long known to her by
report—a Melchite like herself, and there await the further
development of her fate.

To be away from Orion and never, never to see him again was her heartfelt
wish. All places were the same to her where she had no fear of meeting
him. She hated him; still she knew that her heart would have no peace so
long as such a meeting was possible. Still, she longed to free herself
from a desire to see what his further career would be, which came over her
again and again with overwhelming and terrible power. For that reason, and
for that only, she longed to go far, far away, and she was hardly
satisfied by the leech’s assurance that her new protector would be able to
keep away all visitors whom she might not wish to receive. And he himself,
he added, would make it his business to stand between her and all
intruders the moment she sent for him.

They did not part till the sun was rising above the eastern hills; as they
separated Paula said:

“So this morning a new life begins for me, which I can well imagine will,
by your help, be pleasanter than that which is past.”

And Philippus replied with happy emotion: “The new life for me began
yesterday.”


CHAPTER XIV.

Between morning and noon Mary was sitting on a low cane seat under the
sycamores which yesterday had shaded Katharina’s brief young happiness; by
her side was her governess Eudoxia, under whose superintendence she was
writing out the Ten Commandments from a Greek catechism.

The teacher had been lulled to sleep by the increasing heat and the
pervading scent of flowers, and her pupil had ceased to write. Her eyes,
red with tears, were fixed on the shells with which the path was strewn,
and she was using her long ruler, at first to stir them about, and then to
write the words: “Paula,” and “Paula, Mary’s darling,” in large capital
letters. Now and again a butterfly, following the motion of the rod,
brought a smile to her pretty little face from which the dark spirit
“Trouble” had not wholly succeeded in banishing gladness. Still, her heart
was heavy. Everything around her, in the garden and in the house, was
still; for her grandfather’s state had become seriously worse at sunrise,
and every sound must be hushed. Mary was thinking of the poor sufferer:
what pain he had to bear, and how the parting from Paula would grieve him,
when Katharina came towards her down the path.

The young girl did little credit to-day to her nickname of “the
water-wagtail;” her little feet shuffled through the shelly gravel, her
head hung wearily, and when one of the myriad insects, that were busy in
the morning sunshine, came within her reach she beat it away angrily with
her fan. As she came up to Mary she greeted her with the usual “All hail!”
but the child only nodded in response, and half turning her back went on
with her inscription.

Katharina, however, paid no heed to this cool reception, but said in
sympathetic tones:

“Your poor grandfather is not so well, I hear?” Mary shrugged her
shoulders.

“They say he is very dangerously ill. I saw Philippus himself.”

“Indeed?” said Mary without looking up, and she went on writing.

“Orion is with him,” Katharina went on. “And Paula is really going away?”

The child nodded dumbly, and her eyes again filled with tears.

Katharina now observed how sad the little girl was looking, and that she
intentionally refused to answer her. At any other time she would not have
troubled herself about this, but to-day this taciturnity provoked her, nay
it really worried her; she stood straight in front of Mary, who was still
indefatigably busy with the ruler, and said loudly and with some
irritation:

“I have fallen into disgrace with you, it would seem, since yesterday.
Every one to his liking; but I will not put up with such bad manners, I
can tell you!”

The last words were spoken loud enough to wake Eudoxia, who heard them,
and drawing herself up with dignity she said severely:

“Is that the way to behave to a kind and welcome visitor, Mary?”

“I do not see one,” retorted the child with a determined pout.

“But I do,” cried the governess. “You are behaving like a little
barbarian, not like a little girl who has been taught Greek manners.
Katharina is no longer a child, though she is still often kind enough to
play with you. Go to her at once and beg her pardon for being so rude.”

“I!” exclaimed Mary, and her tone conveyed the most positive refusal to
obey this behest. She sprang to her feet, and with flashing eyes, she
cried: “We are not Greeks, neither she nor I, and I can tell you once for
all that she is not my kind and welcome visitor, nor my friend any more!
We have nothing, nothing whatever to do with each other any more!”

“Are you gone mad?” cried Eudoxia, and her long face assumed a threatening
expression, while she rose from her easy-chair in spite of the increasing
heat, intending to capture her pupil and compel her to apologize; but Mary
was more nimble than the middle-aged damsel and fled down the alley
towards the river, as nimble as a gazelle.

Eudoxia began to run after her; but the heat was soon too much for her,
and when she stopped, exhausted and panting, she perceived that Katharina,
worthy once more of her name of “water-wagtail,” had flown past her and
was chasing the little girl at a pace that she shuddered to contemplate.
Mary soon saw that no one but Katharina was in pursuit; she moderated her
pace, and awaited her cast-off friend under the shade of a tall shrub. In
a moment Katharina was facing her; with a heightened color she seized both
her hands and exclaimed passionately:

“What was it you said? You—you—If I did not know what a
wrong-headed little simpleton you were, I could….”

“You could accuse me falsely!—But now, leave go of my hands or I
will bite you. And as Katharina, at this threat, released her she went on
vehemently.

“Oh! I know you now—since yesterday! And I tell you, once for all, I
say thank you for nothing for such friends. You ought to sink into the
earth for shame of the sin you have committed. I am only ten years old,
but rather than have done such a thing I would have let myself be shut up
in that hot hole with poor, innocent Perpetua, or I would have let myself
be killed, as you want poor, honest Hiram to be! Oh, shame!”

Katharina’s crimson cheeks bad turned pale at this address and, as she had
no answer ready, she could only toss her head and say, with as much pride
and dignity as she could assume:

“What can a child like you know about things that puzzle the heads of
grown-up people?”

“Grown-up people!” laughed Mary, who was not three inches shorter than her
antagonist. “You must be a great deal taller before I call you grown up!
In two years time, you will scarcely be up to my eyes.” At this the
irascible Egyptian fired up; she gave the child a slap in the face with
the palm of her hand. Mary only stood still as if petrified, and after
gazing at the ground for a minute or two without a cry, she turned her
back on her companion and silently went back into the shaded walk.

Katharina watched her with tears in her eyes. She felt that Mary was
justified in disapproving of what she had done the day before; for she
herself had been unable to sleep and had become more and more convinced
that she had acted wrongly, nay, unpardonably. And now again she had done
an inexcusable thing. She felt that she had deeply hurt the child’s
feelings, and this sincerely grieved her. She followed Mary in silence, at
some little distance, like a maid-servant. She longed to hold her back by
her dress, to say something kind to her, nay, to ask her pardon. As they
drew near to the spot where the governess had dropped into her chair
again, a hapless victim to the heat of Egypt, Katharina called Mary by her
name, and when the child paid no heed, laid her hand on her shoulder,
saying in gentle entreaty: “Forgive me for having so far forgotten myself.
But how can I help being so little? You know very well when any one laughs
at me for it….”

“You get angry and slap!” retorted the child, walking on. “Yesterday,
perhaps, I might have laughed over a box on the ear—it is not the
first—or have given it to you back again; but to-day!—Just
now,” and she shuddered involuntarily, “just now I felt as if some black
slave had laid his dirty hand on my cheek. You are not what you were. You
walk quite differently, and you look—depend upon it you do not look
as nice and as bright as you used, and I know why: You did a very bad
thing last evening.”

“But dear pet,” said the other, “you must not be so hard. Perhaps I did
not really tell the judges everything I knew, but Orion, who loves me so,
and whose wife I am to be….”

“He led you into sin!—Yes; and he was always merry and kind till
yesterday; but since—Oh, that unlucky day!”

Here she was interrupted by Eudoxia, who poured out a flood of reproaches
and finally desired her to resume her task. The child obeyed
unresistingly; but she had scarcely settled to her wax tablets again when
Katharina was by her side, whispering to her that Orion would certainly
not have asserted anything that he did not believe to be true, and that
she had really been in doubt as to whether a gem with a gold back, or a
mere gold frame-work, had been hanging to Paula’s chain. At this Mary
turned sharply and quickly upon her, looked her straight in the eyes and
exclaimed—but in Egyptian that the governess might not understand,
for she had disdained to learn a single word of it:

“A rubbishy gold frame with a broken edge was hanging to the chain, and,
what is more, it caught in your dress. Why, I can see it now! And, when
you bore witness that it was a gem, you told a lie—Look here; here
are the laws which God Almighty himself gave on the sacred Mount of Sinai,
and there it stands written: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against
thy neighbor.’ And those who do, the priest told me, are guilty of mortal
sin, for which there is no forgiveness on earth or in Heaven, unless after
bitter repentance and our Saviour’s special mercy. So it is written; and
you could actually declare before the judges a thing that was false, and
that you knew would bring others to ruin?”

The young criminal looked down in shame and confusion, and answered
hesitatingly:

“Orion asserted it so positively and clearly, and then—I do not know
what came over me—but I was so angry, so—I could have murdered
her!”

“Whom?” asked Mary in surprise. “You know very well: Paula.”

“Paula!” said Mary, and her large eyes again filled with tears. “Is it
possible? Did you not love her as much as I do? Have not you often and
often clung about her like a bur?”

“Yes, yes, very true. But before the judges she was so intolerably proud,
and then.—But believe me, Mary you really and truly cannot
understand anything of all this.”

“Can I not?” asked the child folding her arms.

“Why do you think me so stupid?”

“You are in love with Orion—and he is a man whom few can match, over
head and ears in love; and because Paula looks like a queen by the side of
you, and is so much handsomer and taller than you are, and Orion, till
yesterday—I could see it all—cared a thousand times more for
her than for you, you were jealous and envious of her. Oh, I know all
about it.—And I know that all the women fall in love with him, and
that Mandaile had her ears cut off on his account, and that it was a lady
who loved him in Constantinople that gave him the little white dog. The
slave-girls tell me what they hear and what I like.—And after all,
you may well be jealous of Paula, for if she only made a point of it, how
soon Orion would make up his mind never to look at you again! She is the
handsomest and the wisest and the best girl in the whole world, and why
should she not be proud? The false witness you bore will cost poor Hiram
his life: but the merciful Saviour may forgive you at last. It is your
affair, and no concern of mine; but when Paula is forced to leave the
house and all through you, so that I shall never, never, never see her any
more—I cannot forget it, and I do not think I ever shall; but I will
pray God to make me.”

She burst into loud sobs, and the governess had started up to put an end
to a dialogue which she could not understand, and which was therefore
vexatious and provoking, when the water-wagtail fell on her knees before
the little girl, threw her arms round her, and bursting into tears,
exclaimed:

“Mary—darling little Mary forgive me.

Oh, if you could but know what I endured before I came out here! Forgive
me, Mary; be my sweet, dear little Mary once more. Indeed and indeed you
are much better than I am. Merciful Saviour, what possessed me last
evening? And all through him, through the man no one can help loving—through
Orion!—And would you believe it: I do not even know why he led me
into this sin. But I must try to care for him no more, to forget him
entirely, although, although,—only think, he called me his
betrothed; but now that he has betrayed me into sin, can I dare to become
his wife? It has given me no peace all night. I love him, yes I love him,
you cannot think how dearly; still, I cannot be his! Sooner will I go into
a convent, or drown myself in the Nile!—And I will say all this to
my mother, this very day.”

The Greek governess had looked on in astonishment, for it was indeed
strange to see the young girl kneeling in front of the child. She listened
to her eager flow of unintelligible words, wondering whether she could
ever teach her pupil—with her grandmother’s help if need should be—to
cultivate a more sedate and Greek demeanor.

At this juncture Paula came down the path. Some slaves followed her,
carrying several boxes and bundles and a large litter, all making their
way to the Nile, where a boat was waiting to ferry her up the river to her
new home.

As she lingered unobserved, her eye rested on the touching picture of the
two young things clasped in each other’s arms, and she overheard the last
words of the gentle little creature who had done her such cruel wrong. She
could only guess at what had occurred, but she did not like to be a
listener, so she called Mary; and when the child started up and flew to
throw her arms round her neck with vehement and devoted tenderness, she
covered her little face and hair with kisses. Then she freed herself from
the little girl’s embrace, and said, with tearful eyes:

“Good-bye, my darling! In a few minutes I shall no longer belong here;
another and a strange home must be mine. Love me always, and do not forget
me, and be quite sure of one thing: you have no truer friend on earth than
I am.”

At this, fresh tears flowed; the child implored her not to go away, not to
leave her; but Paula could but refuse, though she was touched and
astonished to find that she had reaped so rich a harvest of love, here
where she had sown so little. Then she gave her hand at parting to the
governess, and when she turned to Katharina, to bid farewell, hard as it
was, to the murderer of her happiness, the young girl fell at her feet
bathed in tears of repentance, covered her knees and hands with kisses,
and confessed herself guilty of a terrible sin. Paula, however, would not
allow her to finish; she lifted her up, kissed her forehead, and said that
she quite understood how she had been led into it, and that she, like
Mary, would try to forgive her.

Standing by the governor’s many-oared barge, to which the young girls now
escorted her, she found Orion. Twice already this morning he had tried in
vain to get speech with her, and he looked pale and agitated. He had a
splendid bunch of flowers in his hand; he bestowed a hasty greeting on
Mary and his betrothed, and did not heed the fact that Katharina returned
it hesitatingly and without a word.

He went close up to Paula, told her in a low voice that Hiram was safe,
and implored her, as she hoped to be forgiven for her own sins, to grant
him a few minutes. When she rejected his prayer with a silent shrug, and
went on towards the boat he put out his hand to help her, but she
intentionally overlooked it and gave her hand to the physician. At this he
sprang after her into the barge, saying in her ear in a tremulous whisper:

“A wretch, a miserable man entreats your mercy. I was mad yesterday. I
love you, I love you—how deeply!—you will see!”

“Enough,” she broke in firmly, and she stood up in the swaying boat.
Philippus supported her, and Orion, laying the flowers in her lap, cried
so that all could hear: “Your departure will sorely distress my father. He
is so ill that we did not dare allow you to take leave of him. If you have
anything to say to him…”

“I will find another messenger,” she replied sternly.

“And if he asks the reason for your sudden departure?”

“Your mother and Philippus can give him an answer.”

“But he was your guardian, and your fortune, I know…”

“In his hands it is safe.”

“And if the physician’s fears should be justified?”

“Then I will demand its restitution through a new Kyrios.”

“You will receive it without that! Have you no pity, no forgiveness?” For
all answer she flung the flowers he had given her into the river; he
leaped on shore, and regardless of the bystanders, pushed his fingers
through his hair, clasping his hands to his burning brow.

The barge was pushed off, the rowers plied their oars like men; Orion
gazed after it, panting with laboring breath, till a little hand grasped
his, and Mary’s sweet, childish voice exclaimed:

“Be comforted, uncle. I know just what is troubling you.”

“What do you know?” he asked roughly.

“That you are sorry that you and Katharina should have spoken against her
last evening, and against poor Hiram.”

“Nonsense!” he angrily broke in. “Where is Katharina?”

“I was to tell you that she could not see you today. She loves you dearly,
but she, too, is so very, very sorry.”

“She may spare herself!” said the young man. “If there is anything to be
sorry for it falls on me—it is crushing me to death. But what is
this!—The devil’s in it! What business is it of the child’s? Now, be
off with you this minute. Eudoxia, take this little girl to her tasks.”

He took Mary’s head between his hands, kissed her forehead with impetuous
affection, and then pushed her towards her governess, who dutifully led
her away.

When Orion found himself alone, he leaned against a tree and groaned like
a wounded wild beast. His heart was full to bursting.

“Gone, gone! Thrown away, lost! The best on earth!” He laid his hands on
the tree-stem and pressed his head against it till it hurt him. He did not
know how to contain himself for misery and self-reproach. He felt like a
man who has been drunk and has reduced his own house to ashes in his
intoxication. How all this could have come to pass he now no longer knew.
After his nocturnal ride he had caused Nilus the treasurer to be waked,
and had charged him to liberate Hiram secretly. But it was the sight of
his stricken father that first brought him completely to his sober senses.
By his bed-side, death in its terrible reality had stared him in the face,
and he had felt that he could not bear to see that beloved parent die till
he had made his peace with Paula, won her forgiveness, brought her whom
his father loved so well into his presence, and besought his blessing on
her and on himself.

Twice he had hastened from the chamber of suffering to her room, to
entreat her to hear him, but in vain; and now, how terrible had their
parting been! She was hard, implacable, cruel; and as he recalled her
person and individuality as they had struck him before their quarrel, he
was forced to confess that there was something in her present behavior
which was not natural to her. This inhuman severity in the beautiful woman
whose affection had once been his, and who, but now, had flung his flowers
into the water, had not come from her heart; it was deliberately planned
to make him feel her anger. What had withheld her, under such great
provocation, from betraying that she had detected him in the theft of the
emerald? All was not yet lost; and he breathed more freely as he went back
to the house where duty, and his anxiety for his father, required his
presence. There were his flowers, floating on the stream.

“Hatred cast them there,” thought he, “but before they reach the sea many
blossoms will have opened which were mere hard buds when she flung them
away. She can never love any man but me, I feel it, I know it. The first
time we looked into each other’s eyes the fate of our hearts was sealed.
What she hates in me is my mad crime; what first set her against me was
her righteous anger at my suit for Katharina. But that sin was but a dream
in my life, which can never recur; and as for Katharina—I have
sinned against her once, but I will not continue to sin through a whole,
long lifetime. I have been permitted to trifle with love unpunished so
often, that at last I have learnt to under-estimate its power. I could
laugh as I sacrificed mine to my mother’s wishes; but that, and that
alone, has given rise to all these horrors. But no, all is not yet lost!
Paula will listen to me; and when she sees what my inmost feelings are—when
I have confessed all to her, good and evil alike—when she knows that
my heart did but wander, and has returned to her who has taught me that
love is no jest, but solemn earnest, swaying all mankind, she will come
round—everything will come right.”

A noble and rapturous light came into his face, and as he walked on, his
hopes rose:

“When she is mine I know that everything good in me that I have inherited
from my forefathers will blossom forth. When my mother called me to my
father’s bed-side, she said: ‘Come, Orion, life is earnest for you and me
and all our house, your father…’ Yes, it is earnest indeed, however all
this may end! To win Paula, to conciliate her, to bring her near to me, to
have her by my side and do something great, something worthy of her—this
is such a purpose in life as I need! With her, only with her I know I
could achieve it; without her, or with that gilded toy Katharina, old age
will bring me nothing but satiety, sobering and regrets—or, to call
it by its Christian designation: bitter repentance. As Antaeus renewed his
strength by contact with mother earth, so, father do I feel myself grow
taller when I only think of her. She is salvation and honor; the other is
ruin and misery in the future. My poor, dear Father, you will, you must
survive this stroke to see the fulfilment of all your joyful hopes of your
son. You always loved Paula; perhaps you may be the one to appease her and
bring her back to me; and how dear will she be to you, and, God willing,
to my mother, too, when you see her reigning by my side an ornament to
this house, to this city, to this country—reigning like a queen,
your son’s redeeming and guardian angel!”

Uplifted, carried away by these thoughts, he had reached the viridarium.
He there found Sebek the steward waiting for his young master: “My lord is
asleep now,” he whispered, “as the physician foretold, but his face….
Oh, if only we had Philippus here again!”

“Have you sent the chariot with the fast horses to the Convent of St.
Cecilia?” asked Orion eagerly; and when Sebek had replied in the
affirmative and vanished again indoors, the young man, overwhelmed with
painful forebodings, sank on his knees near a column to which a crucifix
was hung, and lifted up his hands and soul in fervent prayer.


CHAPTER XV.

The physician had installed Paula in her new home, and had introduced her
to the family who were henceforth to be her protectors, and to enable her
to lead a happier life.

He had but a few minutes to devote to her and her hosts; for scarcely had
he taken her into the spacious rooms, gay with flowers, of which she now
took possession, when he was enquired for by two messengers, both anxious
to speak with him. Paula knew how critical her uncle’s state was, and now,
contemplating the probability of losing him, she first understood what he
had been to her. Thus sorrow was her first companion in her new abode—a
sorrow to which the comfort of her pretty, airy rooms added keenness.

One of the messengers was a young Arab from the other side of the river,
who handed to Philippus a letter from the merchant Haschim. The old man
informed him that, in consequence of a bad fall his eldest son had had, he
was forced to start at once for Djiddah on the Red Sea. He begged the
physician to take every care of his caravan-leader, to whom he was much
attached, to remove him when he thought fit from the governor’s house, and
to nurse him till he was well, in some quiet retreat. He would bear in
mind the commission given him by the daughter of the illustrious Thomas.
He sent with this letter a purse well-filled with gold pieces.

The other messenger was to take the leech back again in the light chariot
with the fast horses to the suffering Mukaukas. He at once obeyed the
summons, and the steeds, which the driver did not spare, soon carried him
back to the governor’s house.

A glance at his patient told him that this was the beginning of the end;
still, faithful to his principle of never abandoning hope till the heart
of the sufferer had ceased to beat, he raised the senseless man, heedless
of Orion, who was on his knees by his father’s pillow, signed to the
deaconess in attendance, an experienced nurse, and laid cool, wet cloths
on the head and neck of the sufferer, who was stricken with apoplexy. Then
he bled him.

Presently the Mukaukas wearily opened his eyes, turned uneasily from side
to side, and recognizing his kneeling son and his wife, bathed in tears,
he murmured, almost inarticulately, for his paralyzed tongue no longer did
his will: “Two pillules, Philip!”

The physician unhesitatingly acceded to the request of the dying man, who
again closed his eyes; but only to reopen them, and to say, with the same
difficulty, but with perfect consciousness: “The end is at hand! The
blessing of the Church—Orion, the Bishop.”

The young man hastened out of the room to fetch the prelate, who was
waiting in the viridarium with two deacons, an exorcist, and a sacristan
bearing the sacred vessels.

The governor listened in devout composure to the service of the last
sacrament, looked on at the ceremonies performed by the exorcist as, with
waving of hands and pious ejaculations he banned the evil spirits and cast
out from the dying man the devil that might have part in him; but he could
no longer swallow the bread which, in the Jacobite rite, was administered
soaked in the wine. Orion took the holy elements for him, and the dying
man, with a smile, murmured to his son:

“God be with thee, my son! The Lord, it seems, denies me His precious
Blood—and yet—let me try once more.”

This time he succeeded in swallowing the wine and a few crumbs of bread;
and the bishop Ptolimus, a gentle old man of a beautiful and dignified
presence, spoke comfort to him, and asked him whether he felt that he was
dying penitent and in perfect faith in the mercy of his Lord and Saviour,
and whether he repented of his sins and forgave his enemies.

The sick man bowed his head with an effort and murmured:

“Even the Melchites who murdered my sons—and even the head of our
Church, the Patriarch, who was only too glad to leave it to me to achieve
things which he scrupled to do himself. That—that—But you,
Ptolimus—a wise and worthy servant of the Lord—tell me to the
best of your convictions: May I die in the belief that it was not a sin to
conclude a peace with the Arab conquerors of the Greeks?—May I, even
at this hour, think of the Melchites as heretics?”

The prelate drew his still upright figure to its full height, and his mild
features assumed a determined—nay a stern expression as he
exclaimed:

“You know the decision pronounced by the Synod of Ephesus—the words
which should be graven on the heart of every true Jacobite as on marble
and brass ‘May all who divide the nature of Christ—and this is what
the Melchites do—be divided with the sword, be hewn in pieces and be
burnt alive!’—No Head of our Church has ever hurled such a curse at
the Moslems who adore the One God!”

The sufferer drew a deep breath, but he presently added with a sigh:

“But Benjamin the Patriarch, and John of Niku have tormented my soul with
fears! Still, you too, Ptolimus, bear the crosier, and to you I will
confess that your brethren in office, the shepherds of the Jacobite fold,
have ruined my peace for hundreds of days and nights, and I have been near
to cursing them. But before the night fell the Lord sent light into my
soul, and I forgave them, and now, through you, I crave their pardon and
their blessing. The Church has but reluctantly opened the doors to me in
these last years; but what servant can be allowed to complain of the
Master from whom he expects grace? So listen to me. I close my eyes as a
faithful and devoted adherent of the Church, and in token thereof I will
endow her to the best of my power and adorn her with rich and costly
gifts; I will—but I can say no more.—Speak for me, Orion. You
know—the gems—the hanging….”

His son explained to the bishop what a splendid gift, in priceless jewels,
the dying man intended to offer to the Church. He desired to be buried in
the church of St. John at Alexandria by his father’s side, and to be
prayed for in front of the mortuary chapel of his ancestors in the
Necropolis; he had set aside a sum of money, in his will, to pay for the
prayers to be offered for his soul. The priests were well pleased to hear
this, and they absolved him unconditionally and completely; then, after
blessing him fervently, they quitted the room.

Philippus heaved a sigh of relief when the ecclesiastics had departed, and
constantly renewed the wet compress, while the dying governor lay for a
long time in silence with his eyes shut. Presently he rubbed them as
though he felt revived, raised his head a little with the physician’s
help, and looking up, said:

“Draw the ring off my finger, Orion, and wear it worthily.—Where is
little Mary, where is Paula? I should wish to bid them farewell too.”

The young man and his mother exchanged uneasy glances, but Neforis
collected herself at once and replied:

“We have sent for Mary; but Paula—you know she never was happy with
us—and since the events of yesterday….”

“Well?” asked the invalid.

“She hastily quitted the house; but we parted friends, I can assure you of
that; she is still in Memphis, and she spoke of you most affectionately
and wished to see you, and charged me with many loving messages for you;
so, if you really care to see her….”

The sick man tried to nod his head, but in vain. He did not, however,
insist on her being sent for, but his face wore an expression of deep
melancholy and the words came faintly from his lips.

“Thomas’ daughter! The noblest and loveliest of all.”

“The noblest and loveliest,” echoed Orion, in a voice that was tremulous
with strong, deep and sincere emotion; then he begged the leech and the
deaconess to leave him alone with his parents. As soon as they had left
the room the young man spoke softly but urgently into his father’s ear:

“You are quite right, Father,” he said. “She is better and more noble,
more beautiful and more highminded than any girl living. I love her, and
will stake everything to win her heart. Oh, God! Oh, God! Merciful Heaven!—Are
you glad, do you give your consent, Father? You dearest and best of men; I
see it in your face.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” murmured the governor; his yellow, bloodshot eyes looked
up to Heaven, and with a terrible effort he stammered out: “Blessing—my
blessing, on you and Paula.—Tell her from me…. If she had confided
in her old uncle, as she used to do, the freedman would never have robbed
us.—She is a brave soul; how she fought for the poor fellow. I will
hear more about it if my strength holds out.—Why is she not here?”

“She wished so much to bid you farewell,” replied Neforis, “but you were
asleep.”

“Was she in such a hurry to be gone?” asked her husband with a bitter
smile. “Fear about the emerald may have had something to do with it? But
how could I be angry with her? Hiram acted without her knowledge, I
suppose? Yes, I knew it!—Ah; that dear, sweet face! If I could but
see it once more. The joy—of my eyes, and my companion at draughts!
A faithful heart too; how she clung to her father! she was ready to
sacrifice everything for him.—And you, you, my old…. But no—no
reproaches at such a time. You, Mother—you, my Neforis, thanks, a
thousand thanks for all your love and kindness. What a mystical and magic
bond is that of a Christian marriage like ours? Mark that, Orion. And you,
Mother: I am anxious about this. You—do not hurt the girl’s feelings
again. Say—say you bless this union; it will make me happier at the
last.—Paula and Orion; both of them-both.—I never dared before—but
what better could we wish?”

The matron clasped her hands and sobbed out:

“Anything, everything you wish! But Father, Orion, our faith!—And
then, merciful Saviour, that poor little Katharina!”

“Katharina!” repeated the sick man, and his feeble lips parted in a
compassionate smile. “Our boy and the water—water—you know
what I would say.”

Then his eyes began to sparkle more brightly and he said in a low voice,
but still eagerly, as though death were yet far from him:

“My name is George, the son of the Mukaukas; I am the great Mukaukas and
our family—all fine men of a proud race; all: My father, my uncle,
our lost sons, and Orion here—all palms and oaks! And shall a dwarf,
a mere blade of rice be grafted on to the grand old stalwart stock? What
would come of that?—Oh, ho! a miserable little brood! But Paula! The
cedar of Lebanon—Paula; she would give new life to the grand old
race.”

“But our faith, our faith,” moaned Neforis. “And you, Orion, do you even
know what her feeling is towards you?”

“Yes and no. Let that rest for the present,” said the youth, who was
deeply moved. “Oh Father! if I only knew that your blessing…”

“The Faith, the Faith,” interrupted the Mukaukas in a broken voice.

“I will be true to my own!” cried Orion, raising his father’s hand to his
lips. “But think, picture to yourself, how Paula and I would reign in this
house, and how another generation would grow up in it worthy of the great
Mukaukas and his ancestors!”

“I see it, I see it,” murmured the sick man sinking back on his pillows,
unconscious.

Philippus was immediately called in, and, with him, little Mary came
weeping into the room. The physician’s efforts to revive the sufferer were
presently successful; again the sick man opened his eyes, and spoke more
distinctly and loudly than before:

“There is a perfume of musk. It is the fragrance that heralds the Angel of
Death.”

After this he lay still and silent for a long time. His eyes were closed,
but his brows were knit and showed that he was thinking with a painful
effort. At length, with a sigh, he said, almost inaudibly: “So it was and
so it is: The Greek oppressed my people with arbitrary cruelty as if we
were dogs; the Moslem, too, is a stranger, but he is just. That which
happened it was out of my power to prevent; and it is well, it is very
well that it turned out so.—Very well,” he repeated several times,
and then he shivered and said with a groan:

“My feet are so cold! But never mind, never mind, I like to be cool.”

The leech and the deaconess at once set to work to heat blocks of wood to
warm his feet; the sick man looked up gratefully and went on: “At church,
in the House of God, I have often found it deliciously cool and to-day it
is the Church that eases my death-bed by her pardon. Do you, my Son, be
faithful to her. No member of our house should ever be an apostate. As to
the new faith—it is overspreading land after land with incredible
power; ambition and covetousness are driving thousands into its fold. But
we—we are faithful to Christ Jesus, we are no traitors. If I, I the
Mukaukas, had consented to go over to the Khaliff I might have been a
prince in purple, and have governed my own country in his name. How many
have deserted to the Moslems! And the temptation will come to you, too,
and their faith offers much that is attractive to the crowd. They imagine
a Paradise full of unspeakably alluring joys—but we, my son—we
shall meet again in our own, shall we not?”

“Yes, yes, Father!” cried the young man. “I will remain a Christian,
staunch and true…”

“That is right,” interrupted the sick man. He was determined to forget
that his son wished to marry a Melchite and went on quickly: “Paula….
But no more of that. Remain faithful to your own creed—otherwise….
However, child, seek your own road; you are—but you will walk in the
right way, and it is because I know that, know it surely, that I can die
so calmly.

“I have provided abundantly for your temporal welfare. I have been a good
husband, a faithful father, have I not, O Saviour?—Have I not,
Neforis? And that which is my best and surest comfort is that for many
long years I have administered justice in this land, and never, never once—and
Thou my Refuge and Comforter art my witness!—never once consciously
or willingly have I been an unrighteous judge. Before me the poor were
equal with the rich, the powerful with the helpless widow. Who would have
dared….” Here he broke off; his eyes, wandering feebly round the room,
fell on Mary who had sunk on her knees, opposite to Orion on the other
side of the bed. The dying man, who had thus summed up the outcome of a
long and busy life, ceased his reflections, and when the child saw that he
was vainly trying to turn his powerless head towards her, she threw her
arms round him with passionate grief; unscared by his fixed gaze or the
altered hue of his beloved face, she kissed his lips and cheeks,
exclaiming:

“Grandfather, dear grandfather, do not leave us; stay with us, pray, pray
stay with us!”

Something faintly resembling a smile parted his parched lips, and all the
tenderness with which his soul was overflowing for this sweet young bud of
humanity would have found expression in his voice but that he could only
mutter huskily:

“Mary, my darling! For your sake I should be glad to live a long while
yet, a very long while; but the other world—I am standing already on
its threshold. Good-bye—I must indeed say good-bye.”

“No, no—I will pray; oh! I will pray so fervently that you may get
well again!” cried the child. But he replied:

“Nay, nay. The Saviour is already taking me by the hand. Farewell, and
again farewell. Did you bring Paula? I do not see her. Did you bring Paula
with you, sweetheart? She—did she leave us in anger? If she only
knew; ah! your Paula has treated us ill.” The child’s heart was still full
of the horrible crime which had so revolted her truthful nature, and which
had deprived her of rest all through an evening, a long night and a
morning; she laid her little head close to that of the old man—her
dearest and best friend. For years he had filled her father’s place, and
now he was dying, leaving her forever! But she could not let him depart
with a false idea of the woman whom she worshipped with all the fervor of
her child’s heart; in a subdued voice, but with eager feeling, she said,
close to his ear:

“But Grandfather, there is one thing you must know before the Saviour
takes you away to be happy in Heaven. Paula told the truth, and never,
never told a lie, not even for Hiram’s sake. An empty gold frame hung to
her necklace and no gem at all. Whatever Orion may say, I saw it myself
and cannot be mistaken, as truly as I hope to see you and my poor father
in heaven! And Katharina, too, thought better of it, and confessed to me
just now that she had committed a great sin and had borne false witness
before the judges to please her dear Orion. I do not know what Hiram had
done to offend him; but on the strength of Katharina’s evidence the judges
condemned him to death. But Paula—you must understand that Paula had
nothing, positively nothing whatever to do with the stealing of the
emerald.”

Orion, kneeling there, was condemned to hear every word the little girl so
vehemently whispered, and each one pierced his heart like a dagger-thrust.
Again and again he felt inclined to clutch at her across the bed and fling
her on the ground before his father’s eyes; but grief and astonishment
seemed to have paralyzed his whole being; he had not even the power to
interrupt her with a single word.

She had spoken, and all was told.

He clung to the couch like a shattered wretch; and when his father turned
his eyes on him and gasped out: “Then the Court—our Court of justice
pronounced an unrighteous sentence?” he bowed his head in contrition.

The dying man murmured even less articulately and incoherently than
before: “The gem—the hanging—you, you perhaps—was it
you? that emerald—I cannot…”

Orion helped his father in his vain efforts to utter the dreadful words.
Sooner would he have died with the old man than have deceived him in such
a moment; he replied humbly and in a low voice:

“Yes, Father—I took it. But as surely as I love you and my mother
this, the first reckless act of my life, which has brought such horrors in
its train… Shall be the last,” he would have said; but the words “I took
it,” had scarcely passed his lips when his father was shaken by a violent
trembling, the expression of his eyes changed fearfully, and before the
son had spoken his vow to the end the unhappy father was, by a tremendous
effort, sitting upright. Loud sobs of penitence broke from the young man’s
heaving breast, as the Mukaukas wrathfully exclaimed, in thick accents, as
quickly as the heavy, paralyzed tongue would allow:

“You, you! A disgrace to our ancient and blameless Court! You?—Away
with you! A thief, an unjust judge, a false witness,—and the only
descendant of Menas! If only these hands were able—you—you—Go,
villain!” And with this wild outcry, George, the gentle and just Mukaukas,
sank back on his pillows; his bloodshot eyes were staring, fixed on
vacancy; his gasping lips repeated again and again, but less and less
audibly the one word “Villain;” his swollen fingers clutched at the light
coverlet that lay over him; a strange, shrill wheezing came through his
open mouth, and the heavy corpse of the great dignitary fell, like a
falling palm-tree, into Orion’s arms.

Orion started up, his eyes inflamed, his hair all dishevelled, and shook
the dead man as though to compel him back to life again, to hear his oath
and accept his vow, to see his tears of repentance, to pardon him and take
back the name of infamy which had been his parting word to his loved and
spoilt child.

In the midst of this wild outbreak the physician came back, glanced at the
dead man’s distorted features, laid a hand on his heart, and said with
solemn regret as he led little Mary away from the couch:

“A good and just man is gone from the land of the living.”

Orion cried aloud and pushed away Mary, who had stolen close to him; for,
young as she was, she felt that it was she who had brought the worst woe
on her uncle, and that it was her part to show him some affection.

She ran then to her grandmother; but she, too, put her aside and fell on
her knees by the side of her wretched son to weep with him; to console him
who was inconsolable, and in whom, a few minutes since, she had hoped to
find her own best consolation; but her fond words of motherly comfort
found no echo in his broken spirit.


CHAPTER XVI.

When Philippus had parted from Paula he had told her that the Mukaukas
might indeed die at any moment, but that it was possible that he might yet
struggle with death for weeks to come. This hope had comforted her; for
she could not bear to think that the only true friend she had had in
Memphis, till she had become more intimate with the physician, should quit
the world forever without having heard her justification. Nothing could be
more unlikely than that any one in Neforis’ household—excepting her
little grandchild should ever remember her with kindness; and she scarcely
desired it; but she rebelled against the idea of forfeiting the respect
she had earned, even in the governor’s house. If her friend should succeed
in prolonging her uncle’s life, by a confidential interview with him she
might win back his old affection and his good opinion.

Her new home she felt was but a resting-place, a tabernacle in the
desert-journey of her solitary pilgrimage, and she here meant to avail
herself of the information she had gathered from her Melchite dependents.
Hope had now risen supreme in her heart over grief and disappointment.
Orion’s presence alone hung like a threatening hail-cloud over the
sprouting harvest of her peace of mind. And yet, next to the necessity of
waiting at Memphis for the return of her messenger, nothing tied her to
the place so strongly as her interest in watching the future course of his
life, at any rate from a distance. What she felt for him-and she told
herself it was deep aversion-nevertheless constituted a large share of her
inner life, little as she would confess it to herself.

Her new hosts had received her as a welcome guest, and they certainly did
not seem to be poor. The house was spacious, and though it was old and
unpretentious it was comfortable and furnished with artistic taste. The
garden had amazed her by the care lavished on it; she had seen a
hump-backed gardener and several children at work in it. A strange
party-for every one of them, like their chief, was in some way deformed or
crippled.

The plot of ground—which extended towards the river to the road-way
for foot passengers, vehicles and the files of men towing the Nile-boats—was
but narrow, and bounded on either side by extensive premises. Not far from
the spot where it lay nearest to the river was the bridge of boats
connecting Memphis with the island of Rodah. To the right was the
magnificent residence—a palace indeed—belonging to Susannah;
to the left was an extensive grove, where tall palms, sycamores with
spreading foliage, and dense thickets of blue-green tamarisk trees cast
their shade. Above this bower of splendid shrubs and ancient trees rose a
long, yellow building crowned with a turret; and this too was not unknown
to her, for she had often heard it spoken of in her uncle’s house, and had
even gone there now and then escorted by Perpetua. It was the convent of
St. Cecilia, the refuge of the last nuns of the orthodox creed left in
Memphis; for, though all the other sisterhoods of her confession had long
since been banished, these had been allowed to remain in their old home,
not only because they were famous sick-nurses, a distinction common to all
the Melchite orders, but even more because the decaying municipality could
not afford to sacrifice the large tax they annually paid to it. This tax
was the interest on a considerable capital bequeathed to the convent by a
certain wise predecessor of the Mukaukas’, with the prudent proviso,
ratified under the imperial seal of Theodosius II., that if the convent
were at any time broken up, this endowment, with the land and buildings
which it likewise owed to the generosity of the same benefactor, should
become the property of the Christian emperor at that time reigning.

Mukaukas George, notwithstanding his well-founded aversion for everything
Melchite, had taken good care not to press this useful Sisterhood too
hardly, or to deprive his impoverished capital of its revenues only to
throw them into the hands of the wealthy Moslems. The title-deed on which
the Sisters relied was good; and the governor, who was a good lawyer as
well as a just man, had not only left them unmolested, but in spite of his
fears—during the last few years—for his own safety, had shown
himself no respecter of persons by defending their rights firmly and
resolutely against the powerful patriarch of the Jacobite Church. The
Senate of the ancient capital naturally, approved his course, and had not
merely suffered the heretic Sisterhood to remain, but had helped and
encouraged it.

The Jacobite clergy of the city shut their eyes, and only opened them to
watch the convent at Easter-tide; for on the Saturday before Easter, the
nuns, in obedience to an agreement made before the Monophysite Schism,
were required to pay a tribute of embroidered vestments to the head of the
Christian Churches, with wine of the best vintages of Kochome near the
Pyramid of steps, and a considerable quantity of flowers and
confectionary. So the ancient coenobium of women was maintained, and
though all Egypt was by this time Jacobite or Moslem, and many of the
older Sisters had departed this life within the last year, no one had
thought of enquiring how it was that the number of the nuns remained still
the same, till the Jacobite archbishop Benjamin filled the patriarchal
throne of Alexandria in the place of the Melchite Cyrus.

To Benjamin the heretical Sisters at Memphis—the hawks in a
dove-cote, as he called them—were an offence, and he thought that
the deed might bear a new interpretation: that as there was no longer a
Christian emperor, and as the word “Christian” was used in the document,
if the convent were broken up the property should pass into the hands of
the only Christian magnate then existing in the country: himself, namely,
and his Church. The ill-feeling which the Patriarch fostered against the
Mukaukas had been aggravated to hostility by their antagonism on this
matter.

A musical dirge now fell on Paula’s ear from the convent chapel. Was the
worthy Mother Superior dead? No, this lament must be for some other death,
for the strange skirling wail of the Egyptian women came up to her corner
window from the road, from the bridge, and from the boats on the river. No
Jacobite of Memphis would have dared to express her grief so publicly for
the death of a Melchite; and as the chorus of voices swelled, the thought
struck her with a chill that it must be her uncle and friend who had
closed his weary eyes in death.

It was with deep emotion and many tears that she perceived how sincerely
the death of this righteous man was bewailed by all his fellow-citizens.
Yes, he only, and no other Egyptian, could have called forth this great
and expressive regret. The wailing women in the road were daubing the mud
of the river on their foreheads and bosoms; men were standing in large
groups and beating their heads and breasts with passionate gestures. On
the bridge of boats the men would stop others, and from thence, too,
piercing shrieks came across to her.

At last Philippus came in and confirmed her fears. The governor’s death
had shocked him no less than it did her, and he had to tell Paula all he
knew of the dead man’s last hours.

“Still, one good thing has come out of this misery,” he said. “There is
nothing so comforting as the discovery that we have been deceived in
thinking ill of a man and of his character. This Orion, who has sinned so
basely against himself and against you, is not utterly reprobate.”

“Not?” interrupted Paula. “Then he has taken you in too!”

“Taken me in?” said the leech. “Hardly, I think. I have, alas! stood by
many a death-bed; for I am too often sent for when Death is already
beckoning the sick man away. I have met thousands of mourners in these
melancholy scenes, which, I can assure you, are the very best school for
training any one who desires to search the hearts of his fellow-creatures.
By the bed of death, or in the mart, where everything is a question of
Mine and Thine, it is easy to see how some—we for instance—are
as careful to hide from the world all that is great and noble in us as
others are to conceal what is petty and mean—we read men’s hearts as
an open page. From my observations of the dying and of those who sorrow
for them, I, who am not Menander not Lucian, could draw a series of
portraits which should be as truthful likenesses as though the men had
turned themselves inside out before me.”

“That a dying man should show himself as he really is I can well believe,”
replied Paula. “He need have no further care for the opinions of others;
but the mourners? Why, custom requires them to assume an air of grief and
to shed tears.”

“Very true; regret repeats itself by the side of the dead,” replied the
physician. “But the chamber of the dying is like a church. Death
consecrates it, and the man who stands face to face with death often drops
the mask by which he cheats his fellows. There we may see faces which you
would shudder to look on, but others, too, which merely to see is enough
to make us regard the degenerate species to which we belong with renewed
respect.”

“And you found such a comforting vision in Orion,—the thief, the
false witness, the corrupt judge!” exclaimed Paula, starting up in
indignant astonishment.

“There! you see,” laughed Philippus. “Just like a woman! A little
juggling, and lo! what was only rose color is turned to purple. No. The
son of the Mukaukas has not yet undergone such a dazzling change of hue;
but he has a feeling and impressible heart—and I hold even that in
high esteem. I have no doubt that he loved his father deeply, nay
passionately; though I have ample reason to believe him capable of the
very worst. So long as I was present at the scene of death the father and
son were parting in all friendship and tenderness, and when the good old
man’s heart had ceased to beat I found Orion in a state which is only
possible to have when love has lost what it held dearest.”

“All acting!” Paula put in.

“But there was no audience, dear friend. Orion would not have got up such
a performance for his mother and little Mary.”

“But he is a poet—and a highly-gifted one too. He sings beautiful
songs of his own invention to the lyre; his ecstatic and versatile mind
works him up into any frame of feeling; but his soul is perverted; it is
soaked in wickedness as a sponge drinks up water. He is a vessel full of
beautiful gifts, but he has forfeited all that was good and noble in him—all!”

The words came in eager haste from her indignant lips. Her cheeks glowed
with her vehemence, and she thought she had won over the physician; but he
gravely shook his head, and said:

“Your righteous anger carries you too far. How often have you blamed me
for severity and suspicions but now I have to beg you to allow me to ask
your sympathy for an experience to which you would probably have raised no
objection the day before yesterday:

“I have met with evil-doers of every degree. Think, for instance, how many
cases of wilful poisoning I have had to investigate.”

“Even Homer called Egypt the land of poison,” exclaimed Paula. “And it
seems almost incredible that Christianity has not altered it in the least.
Kosmas, who had seen the whole earth, could nowhere find more malice,
deceit, hatred, and ill-will than exist here.”

“Then you see in what good schools my experience of the wickedness of men
has ripened,” said Philippus smiling, “and they have taught me chiefly
that there is never a criminal, a sinner, or a scapegrace, however
infamous he may be, however cruel or lost to virtue, in whom some good
quality or other may not be discovered.—Do you remember Nechebt, the
horrible woman who poisoned her two brothers and her own father? She was
captured scarcely three weeks ago; and that very monster in human form
could almost die of hunger and thirst for the sake of her rascally son,
who is a common soldier in the imperial army; at last she took to
concocting poisons, not to improve her own wretched condition, but to send
the shameless wretch means for a fresh debauch. I have known a thousand
similar cases, but I will only mention that of one of the wildest and
blood-thirstiest of robbers, who had evaded the vigilance of the watch
again and again, but at last fell into their hands—and how? Because
he had heard that his old mother was ill and he longed to see the withered
old woman once more and give her a kiss, since he was her own child! In
the same way Orion, however reprobate we may think him, has at any rate
one characteristic which we must approve of: a tender affection for his
father and mother. Your sponge is not utterly steeped in wickedness; there
are still some pores, some cells which resist it; and if in him, as in so
many others, the heart is one of them, then I say hopefully, like Horace
the Roman: ‘Nil desperandum.’ It would be unjust to give him up altogether
for lost.”

To this assurance Paula found no answer; indeed, it struck her that—if
Orion had told her the truth—it was only to please his mother that
he had asked Katharina to marry him, while she herself occupied his heart.—The
physician, wishing to change the subject, was about to speak again of the
death of the Mukaukas, when one of the crippled serving girls came to
announce a woman who asked to speak with Paula. A few minutes later she
was clasped in the embrace of her faithful old friend and nurse, who
rejoiced as heartily, laughing and crying for sheer delight, as if no
tidings of misfortune had reached her; while Paula, though so much
younger, was cut to the heart, and could not shake off the spell of her
grief.

Perpetua understood this and owed her no grudge for the coolness with
which she met her joyful excitement.

She told Paula that she had been well treated in her hot cell, and that
about half an hour since Orion himself, the young Master now, had opened
the door of her prison. He had been very gracious to her, but looked so
pale and sad. The overbearing young man was quite altered; his eyes, which
were dim with weeping, had moved her, Perpetua, to tears. She trusted that
God would forgive him for his sins against herself and Paula; he must have
been possessed by some evil demon; he had not been at all like himself;
for he had a kind, warm heart, and though he had been so hard and unjust
yesterday to poor Hiram he had made it up to him the first thing this
morning, and had not only let him out of prison but had sent him and his
son home to Damascus with large gifts and two horses. Nilus had told her
this. He who hoped to be forgiven by his neighbor must also be ready to
forgive. The great Augustine, even, had been no model of virtue in his
youth and yet he had become a shining light in the Church; and now the son
of the Mukaukas would tread in his father’s footsteps. He was a handsome,
engaging man, who would be the joy of their hearts yet, they might be very
sure. Why, he had been as grave and as solemn as a bishop to-day; perhaps
he had already turned over a new leaf. He himself had put her into his
mother’s chariot and desired the charioteer to drive her hither: what
would Paula say to that? Her things were to be given over to her to-morrow
morning, and packed under her own eyes, and sent after her. Nilus, the
treasurer, had come with her to deliver a message to Paula; but he had
gone first to the convent.

Paula desired the old woman to go thither and fetch him; as soon as
Perpetua had left the room, she exclaimed:

“There, you see, is some one who is quite of your opinion. What creatures
we are! Last evening my good Betta would have thought no pit of hell too
deep for our enemy, and now? To be led to a chariot by such a fine
gentleman in person is no doubt flattering; and how quickly the old body
has forgotten all her grievances, how soothed and satisfied she is by the
gracious permission to pack her precious and cherished possessions with
her own hands.—You told me once that the Jacobites had made a Saint
Orion out of the pagan god Osiris, and my old Betta sees a future Saint
Augustine in the governor’s son. I can see that she already regards him as
her tutelary patron, and when we get back to Syria, she will be begging me
to join her in a pilgrimage to his shrine!”

“And you will perhaps consent,” replied the physician, to whom Paula at
this moment, for the first time since his heart had glowed with love for
her, did not seem to be quite what a man looks for in the woman he adores.
Hitherto he had seen and heard nothing that was not high-minded and worthy
of her; but her last words had, been spoken with vehement and indignant
irony—and in Philip’s opinion irony, blame which was intended to
wound and not to improve its object, was unbecoming in a noble woman. The
scornful laugh, with which she had triumphantly ended her speech, had
opened as it were a wide abyss between his mind and hers. He, as he freely
confessed to himself, was of a coarser and humbler grain than Paula, and
he was apt to be satirical oftener than was right. She had been wont to
dislike this habit in him; he had been glad that she did; it answered to
the ideal he had formed of what the woman he loved should be. But now she
had turned satirical; and her irony was no jest of the lips. It sprang,
full of passion, from her agitated soul; this it was that grieved the
leech who knew human nature, and at the same time roused his
apprehensions. Paula read his disapproval in his face, and felt that there
was a deep significance in his words, “And you will perhaps consent.”

“Men are vexed,” thought she, “when, after they have decisively expressed
an opinion, we women dare unhesitatingly to assert a different one,” so,
as she would on no account hurt the feelings of the friend to whom she
owed so much, she said kindly:

“I do not care to enquire into the meaning of your strange
prognostication. Thank God, by your kindness and care I have severed every
tie that could have bound me to my poor uncle’s son!—Now we will
drop the subject; we have said too much about him already.”

“That is quite my opinion,” replied Philippus. “And, indeed, I would beg
you quite to forget my ‘perhaps.’ I live wholly in the present and am no
prophet; but I foresee, nevertheless, that Orion will make every effort,
cost what it may….”

“Well?”

“To approach you again, to win your forgiveness, to touch your heart,
to….”

“Let him dare” exclaimed Paula lifting her hand with a threatening
gesture.

“And when he, gifted as he is in every way, has found his better self
again and can come forward purified and worthy of the approbation of the
best….”

“Still I will never, never forget how he has sinned and what he brought
upon me!—Do you think that I have already forgotten your
conversation with Neforis? You ask nothing of your friends but honest
feeling akin to your own,—and what is it that repels me from Orion
but feeling? Thousands have altered their behavior, but—answer me
frankly—surely not what we mean by their feeling?”

“Yes, that too,” said the leech with stern gravity. “Feeling, too, may
change. Or do you range yourself on the side of the Arab merchant and his
fellow-Moslems, who regard man as the plaything of a blind Fate?—But
our spiritual teachers tell us that the evil to which we are predestined,
which is that born into the world with us, may be averted, turned and
guided to good by what they call spiritual regeneration. But who that
lives in the tumult of the world can ever succeed in ‘killing himself’ in
their sense of the word, in dying while yet he lives, to be born again, a
new man? The penitent’s garb does not suit the stature of an Orion;
however, there is for him another way of returning to the path he has
lost. Fortune has hitherto offered her spoilt favorite so much pleasure,
that sheer enjoyment has left him no time to think seriously on life
itself; now she is showing him its graver side, she is inviting him to
reflect; and if he only finds a friend to give him the counsel which my
father left in a letter for me, his only child, as a youth—and if he
is ready to listen, I regard him as saved.”

“And that word of counsel—what is it?” asked Paula with interest.

“To put it briefly, it is this: Life is not a banquet spread by fate for
our enjoyment, but a duty which we are bound to fulfil to the best of our
power. Each one must test his nature and gifts, and the better he uses
them for the weal and benefit of the body of which he was born a member,
the higher will his inmost gladness be, the more certainly will he attain
to a beautiful peace of mind, the less terrors will Death have for him. In
the consciousness of having sown seed for eternity he will close his eyes
like a faithful steward at the end of each day, and of the last hour
vouchsafed to him on earth. If Orion recognizes this, if he submits to
accept the duties imposed on him by existence, if he devotes himself to
them now for the first time to the best of his powers, a day may come when
I shall look up to him with respect—nay, with admiration. The
shipwreck of which the Arab spoke has overtaken him. Let us see how he
will save himself from the waves, and behave when he is cast on shore.”

“Let us see!” repeated Paula, “and wish that he may find such an adviser!
As you were speaking it struck me that it was my part.—But no, no!
He has placed himself beyond the pale of the compassion which I might have
felt even for an enemy after such a frightful blow. He! He can and shall
never be anything to me till the end of time. I have to thank you for
having found me this haven of rest. Help me now to keep out everything
that can intrude itself here to disturb my peace. If Orion should ever
dare, for whatever purpose, to force or steal a way into this house, I
trust to you, my friend and deliverer!”

She held out her hand to Philippus, and as he took it the blood seethed in
his veins with tender emotion.

“My strength, like my heart, is wholly yours!” he exclaimed ardently.
“Command them, and if the devoted love of a faithful, plain-spoken man—”

“Say no more, no, no!” Paula broke in with anxious vehemence. “Let us
remain closely bound together by friendship-as brother and sister.”

“As brother and sister?” he dully echoed with a melancholy smile. “Aye,
friendship too is a beautiful, beautiful thing. But yet—let me speak—I
have dreamed of love, the tossing sea of passion; I have felt its surges
here—in here; I feel them still…. But man, man,” and he struck his
forehead with his fist, “have you forgotten, like a fool, what your image
is in the mirror; have you forgotten that you are an ugly, clumsy fellow,
and that the gorgeous flower you long for….”

Paula had shrunk back, startled by her friend’s vehemence; but she now
went up to him, and taking his hand with frank spirit, she said
impressively:

“It is not so, Philippus, my dear, kind, only friend. The gorgeous flower
you desire I can no longer give you—or any one. It is mine no
longer; for when it had opened, once for all, cruel feet trod it down. Do
not abuse your mirrored image; do not call yourself a clumsy fellow. The
best and fairest might be proud of your love, just as you are. Am I not
proud, shall I not always be proud of your friendship?”

“Friendship, friendship!” he retorted, snatching away his hand. “This
burning, longing heart thirsts for other feelings! Oh, woman! I know the
wretch who has trodden down the flower of flowers in your heart, and I,
madman that I am, can sing his praises, can take his part; and cost what
it may, I will still do so as long as you…. But perhaps the glorious
flower may strike new roots in the soil of hatred and I, the hapless
wretch who water it, may see it.”

At this, Paula again took both his hands, and exclaimed in deep and
painful agitation of mind:

“Say no more, I beg and entreat you. How can I live in peace here, under
your protection and in constant intercourse with you, without knowing
myself guilty of a breach of propriety such as the most sacred feelings of
a young girl bid her avoid, if you persist in overstepping the limits
which bound true and faithful friendship? I am a lonely girl and should
give myself up to despair, as lost, if I could not take refuge in the
belief that I can rely upon myself. Be satisfied with what I have to offer
you, my friend, and may God reward you! Let us both remain worthy of the
esteem which, thank Heaven! we are fully justified in feeling for each
other.”

The physician, deeply moved, bent his head; scarcely able to control
himself, he pressed her firm white hand to his lips, while, just at this
moment, Perpetua and the treasurer came into the room.

This worthy official—a perfectly commonplace man, neither tall nor
short, neither old nor young, with a pale, anxious face, furrowed by work
and responsibility, but shrewd and finely cut-glanced keenly at the pair,
and then proceeded to lay a considerable sum in gold pieces before Paula.
His young master had sent it, in obedience to his deceased father’s
wishes, for her immediate needs; the rest, the larger part of her fortune,
with a full account, would be given over to her after the Mukaukas was
buried. Nilus could, however, give her an approximate idea of the sum, and
it was so considerable that Paula could not believe her ears. She now saw
herself secure against external anxiety, nay, in such ease that she was
justified in living at some expense.

Philippus was present throughout the interview, and it cut him to the
heart. It had made him so happy to think that he was all in all to the
poor orphan, and could shelter her against pressing want. He had been
prepared to take upon himself the care of providing Paula with the home
she had found and everything she could need; and now, as it turned out,
his protege was not merely higher in rank than himself, but much richer.

He felt as though Orion’s envoy had robbed him of the best joy in life.
After introducing Paula to her worthy host and his family, he quitted the
house of Rufinus with a very crushed aspect.

When night came Perpetua once more enjoyed the privilege of assisting her
young mistress to undress; but Paula could not sleep, and when she joined
her new friends next morning she told herself that here, if anywhere, was
the place where she might recover her lost peace, but that she must still
have a hard struggle and a long pilgrimage before she could achieve this.


CHAPTER XVII.

During all these hours Orion had been in the solitude of his own rooms.
Next to them was little Mary’s sleeping-room; he had not seen the child
again since leaving his father’s death-bed. He knew that she was lying
there in a very feverish state, but he could not so far command himself as
to enquire for her. When, now and again, he could not help thinking of
her, he involuntarily clenched his fists. His soul was shaken to the
foundations; desperate, beside himself, incapable of any thought but that
he was the most miserable man on earth—that his father’s curse had
blighted him—that nothing could undo what had happened—that
some cruel and inexorable power had turned his truest friend into a foe
and had sundered them so completely that there was no possibility of
atonement or of moving him to a word of pardon or a kindly glance—he
paced the long room from end to end, flinging himself on his knees at
intervals before the divan, and burying his burning face in the soft
pillows. From time to time he could pray, but each time he broke off; for
what Power in Heaven or on earth could unseal those closed eyes and stir
that heart to beat again, that tongue to speak—could vouchsafe to
him, the outcast, the one thing for which his soul thirsted and without
which he thought he must die: Pardon, pardon, his father’s pardon! Now and
then he struck his forehead and heart like a man demented, with cries of
anguish, curses and lamentations.

About midnight—it was but just twelve hours since that fearful
scene, and to him it seemed like as many days—he threw himself on
the couch, dressed as he was in the dark mourning garments, which he had
half torn off in his rage and despair, and broke out into such loud groans
that he himself was almost frightened in the silence of the night. Full of
self-pity and horror at his own deep grief, he turned his face to the wall
to screen his eyes from the clear, full moon, which only showed him things
he did not want to see, while it hurt him.

His torture was beginning to be quite unbearable; he fancied his soul was
actually wounded, riven, and torn; it had even occurred to him to seize
his sharpest sword and throw himself upon it like Ajax in his fury—and
like Cato—and so put a sudden end to this intolerable and
overwhelming misery.

He started up for—surely it was no illusion, no mistake-the door of
his room was softly opened and a white figure came in with noiseless,
ghostly steps. He was a brave man, but his blood ran cold; however, in a
moment he recognized his nocturnal visitor as little Mary. She came across
the moonlight without speaking, but he exclaimed in a sharp tone:

“What is the meaning of this? What do you want?”

The child started and stood still in alarm, stretching out imploring hands
and whispering timidly:

“I heard you lamenting. Poor, poor Orion! And it was I who brought it all
on you, and so I could not stay in bed any longer—I must—I
could not help….” But she could say no more for sobs. Orion exclaimed:

“Very well, very well: go back to your own room and sleep. I will try not
to groan so loud.”

He ended his speech in a less rough tone, for he observed that the child
had come to see him, though she was ill, with bare feet and only in her
night-shift, and was trembling with cold, excitement, and grief. Mary,
however, stood still, shook her head, and replied, still weeping though
less violently:

“No, no. I shall stop here and not go away till you tell me that you—Oh,
God, you never can forgive me, but still I must say it, I must.”

With a sudden impulse she ran straight up to him, threw her arms round his
neck, laid her head against his, and then, as he did not immediately push
her away, kissed his cheeks and brow.

At this a strange feeling came over him; he himself did not know what it
was, but it was as though something within him yielded and gave way, and
the moisture which felt warm in his eyes and on his cheeks was not from
the child’s tears but his own. This lasted through many minutes of
silence; but at last he took the little one’s arms from about his neck,
saying:

“How hot your hands and your cheeks are, poor thing! You are feverish, and
the night air blows in chill—you will catch fresh cold by this mad
behavior.”

He had controlled his tears with difficulty, and as he spoke, in broken
accents, he carefully wrapped her in the black robe he had thrown off and
said kindly:

“Now, be calm, and I will try to compose myself. You did not mean any
harm, and I owe you no grudge. Now go; you will not feel the draught in
the anteroom with that wrap on. Go; be quick.”

“No, no,” she eagerly replied. “You must let me say what I have to say or
I cannot sleep. You see I never thought of hurting you so dreadfully, so
horribly—never, never! I was angry with you, to be sure, because—but
when I spoke I really and truly did not think of you, but only of poor
Paula. You do not know how good she is, and grandfather was so fond of her
before you came home; and he was lying there and going to die so soon, and
I knew that he believed Paula to be a thief and a liar, and it seemed to
me so horrible, so unbearable to see him close his eyes with such a
mistake in his mind, such an injustice!—Not for his sake, oh no! but
for Paula’s; so then I—Oh Orion! the Merciful Saviour is my witness,
I could not help it; if I had had to die for it I could not have helped
it! I should have died, if I had not spoken!”

“And perhaps it was well that you spoke,” interrupted the young man, with
a deep sigh. “You see, child, your lost father’s miserable brother is a
ruined man and it matters little about him; but Paula, who is a thousand
times better than I am, has at least had justice done her; and as I love
her far more dearly than your little heart can conceive of, I will gladly
be friends with you again: nay, I shall be more fond of you than ever.
That is nothing great or noble, for I need love—much love to make
life tolerable. The best love a man may have I have forfeited, fool that I
am! and now dear, good little soul, I could not bear to lose yours! So
there is my hand upon it; now, give me another kiss and then go to bed and
sleep.”

But still Mary would not do his bidding, but only thanked him vehemently
and then asked with sparkling eyes:

“Really, truly? Do you love Paula so dearly?” At this point however she
suddenly checked herself. “And little Katharina…”

“Never mind about that,” he replied with a sigh. “And learn a lesson from
all this. I, you see, in an hour of recklessness did a wrong thing; to
hide it I had to do further wrong, till it grew to a mountain which fell
on me and crushed me. Now, I am the most miserable of men and I might
perhaps have been the happiest. I have spoilt my own life by my own folly,
weakness, and guilt; and I have lost Paula, who is dearer to me than all
the other creatures on earth put together. Yes, Mary, if she had been
mine, your poor uncle would have been the most enviable fellow in the
world, and he might have been a fine fellow, too, a man of great
achievements. But as it is!—Well, what is done cannot be undone! Now
go to bed child; you cannot understand it all till you are older.”

“Oh I understand it already and much better perhaps than you suppose,”
cried the ten years’ old child. “And if you love Paula so much why should
not she love you? You are so handsome, you can do so many things, every
one likes you, and Paula would have loved you, too, if only…. Will you
promise not to be angry with me, and may I say it?”

“Speak out, little simpleton.”

“She cannot owe you any grudge when she knows how dreadfully you are
suffering on her account and that you are good at heart, and only that
once ever did—you know what. Before you came home, grandfather said
a hundred times over what a joy you had been to him all your life through,
and now, now…. Well, you are my uncle, and I am only a stupid little
girl; still, I know that it will be just the same with you as it was with
the prodigal son in the Bible. You and grandfather parted in anger….”

“He cursed me,” Orion put in gloomily.

“No, no! For I heard every word he said. He only spoke of your evil deed
in those dreadful words and bid you go out of his sight.”

“And what is the difference—Cursed or outcast?”

“Oh! a very great difference! He had good reason to be angry with you; but
the prodigal son in the Bible became his father’s best beloved, and he had
the fatted calf slain for him and forgave him all; and so will grandfather
in heaven forgive, if you are good again, as you used to be to him and to
all of us. Paula will forgive you, too; I know her—you will see.
Katharina loved you of course; but she, dear Heaven! She is almost as much
a child as I am; and if only you are kind to her and make her some pretty
present she will soon be comforted. She really deserves to be punished for
bearing false witness, and her punishment cannot, at any rate, be so heavy
as yours.”

These words from the lips of an innocent child could not but fall like
seed corn on the harrowed field of the young man’s tortured soul and
refresh it as with morning dew. Long after Mary had gone to rest he lay
thinking them over.


CHAPTER XVIII.

The funeral rites over the body of the deceased Mukaukas were performed on
the day after the morrow. Since the priesthood had forbidden the old
heathen practice of mummifying the dead, and even cremation had been
forbidden by the Antonines, the dead had to be interred soon after
decease; only those of high rank were hastily embalmed and lay in state in
some church or chapel to which they had contributed an endowment. Mukaukas
George was, by his own desire, to be conveyed to Alexandria and there
buried in the church of St. John by his father’s side; but the carrier
pigeon, by which the news of the governor’s death had been sent to the
Patriarch, had returned with instructions to deposit the body in the
family tomb at Memphis, as there were difficulties in the way of the
fulfillment of his wishes.

Such a funeral procession had not been seen there within the memory of
man. Even the Moslem viceroy, the great general Amru, came over from the
other side of the Nile, with his chief military and civil officers, to pay
the last honors to the just and revered governor. Their brown, sinewy
figures, and handsome calm faces, their golden helmets and shirts of mail,
set with precious stones—trophies of the war of destruction in
Persia and Syria—their magnificent horses with splendid trappings,
and the authoritative dignity of their bearing made a great impression on
the crowd. They arrived with slow and impressive solemnity; they returned
like a cloud driven before the storm, galloping homewards from the
burial-ground along the quay, and then thundering and clattering over the
bridge of boats. Vivid and dazzling lightnings had flashed through the
wreaths of white dust that shrouded them, as their gold armor reflected
the sun. Verily, these horsemen, each of them worthy to be a prince in his
pride, could find it no very hard task to subdue the mightiest realms on
earth.

Men and women alike had gazed at them with trembling admiration: most of
all at the heroic stature and noble dusky face of Amru, and at the son of
the deceased Mukaukas, who, by the Moslem’s desire, rode at his side in
mourning garb on a fiery black horse.

The handsome youth, and the lordly, powerful man were a pair from whom the
women were loth to turn their eyes; for both alike were of noble demeanor,
both of splendid stature, both equally skilled in controlling the
impatience of their steeds, both born to command. Many a Memphite was more
deeply impressed by the head of the famous warrior, erect on a long and
massive throat, with its sharply-chiselled aquiline nose and flashing
black eyes, than by the more regular features and fine, slightly-waving
locks of the governor’s son—the last representative of the oldest
and proudest race in all Egypt.

The Arab looked straight before him with a steady, commanding gaze; the
youth, too, looked up and forwards, but turned from time to time to survey
the crowd of mourners. As he caught sight of Paula, among the group of
women who had joined the procession, a gleam of joy passed over his pale
face, and a faint flush tinged his cheeks; his fixed outlook had knit his
brows and had given his features an expression of such ominous sternness
that one and another of the bystanders whispered:

“Our gay and affable young lord will make a severe ruler.”

The cause of his indignation had not escaped the notice either of his
noble companion or of the crowd. He alone knew as yet that the Patriarch
had prohibited the removal of his father’s remains to Alexandria; but
every one could see that the larger portion of the priesthood of Memphis
were absent from this unprecedented following. The Bishop alone marched in
front of the six horses drawing the catafalque on which the costly
sarcophagus was conveyed to the burying-place, in accordance with ancient
custom:—Bishop Plotinus, with John, a learned and courageous priest,
and a few choristers bearing a crucifix and chanting psalms.

On arriving at the Necropolis they all dismounted, and the barefooted
runners in attendance on the Arabs came forward to hold the horses. By the
tomb the Bishop pronounced a few warm words of eulogy, after which the
thin chant of the choristers sounded trivial and meagre enough; but
scarcely had they ceased when the crowd uplifted its many thousand voices,
and a hymn of mourning rang out so loud and grand that this burial ground
had scarcely ever heard the like. The remaining ceremonies were hasty and
incomplete, since the priests who were indispensable to their performance
had not made their appearance.

Amru, whose falcon eye nothing could escape, at once noted the omission
and exclaimed, in so loud and inconsiderate a voice that it could be heard
even at some distance.

“The dead is made to atone for what the living, in his wisdom, did for his
country’s good, hand-in-hand with us Moslems.”

“By the Patriarch’s orders,” replied Orion, and his voice quavered, while
the veins in his forehead swelled with rage. “But I swear, by my father’s
soul, that as surely as there is a just God, it shall be an evil day for
Benjamin when he closes the gate of Heaven against this noblest of noble
souls.”

“We carry the key of ours under our own belt,” replied the general,
striking his deep chest, while he smiled consciously and with a kindly eye
on the young man. “Come and see me on Saturday, my young friend; I have
something to say to you! I shall expect you at sundown at my house over
there. If I am not at home by dusk, you must wait for me.”

As he spoke he twisted his hand in his horse’s mane and Orion prepared to
assist him to mount; but the Arab, though a man of fifty, was too quick
for him. He flung himself into the saddle as lightly as a youth, and gave
his followers the signal for departure.

Paula had been standing close to the entrance of the tomb with Dame
Neforis, and she had heard every word of the dialogue between the two men.
Pale, as she beheld him, in costly but simple, flowing, mourning robes,
stricken by solemn and manly indignation, it was impossible that she
should not confess that the events of the last days had had a powerful
effect on the misguided youth.

When Paula had led the grief-worn but tearless widow to her chariot, and
had then returned home with Perpetua, the image of the handsome and
wrathful youth as he lifted his powerful arm and tightly-clenched fist and
shook them in the air, still constantly haunted her. She had not failed to
observe that he had seen her standing opposite to him by the open tomb and
she had been able to avoid meeting his eye; but her heart had throbbed so
violently that she still felt it quivering, she had not succeeded in
thinking of the beloved dead with due devotion.

Orion, as yet, had neither come near her in her peaceful retreat, nor sent
any messenger to deliver her belongings, and this she thought very
natural; for she needed no one to tell her how many claims there must be
on his time.

But though, before the funeral, she had firmly resolved to refuse to see
him if he came, and had given her nurse fall powers to receive from his
hand the whole of her property, after the ceremony this line of conduct no
longer struck her as seemly; indeed, she considered it no more than her
duty to the departed not to repel Orion if he should crave her
forgiveness.

And there was another thing which she owed to her uncle. She desired to be
the first to point out to Orion, from Philip’s point of view, that life
was a post, a duty; and then, if his heart seemed opened to this
admonition, then—but no, this must be all that could pass between
them—then all must be at an end, extinct, dead, like the fires in a
sunken raft, like a soap-bubble that the wind has burst, like an echo that
has died away—all over and utterly gone.

And as to the counsel she thought of offering to the man she had once
looked up to? What right had she to give it? Did he not look like a man
quite capable of planning and living his own life in his own strength? Her
heart thirsted for him, every fibre of her being yearned to see him again,
to hear his voice, and it was this longing, this craving to which she gave
the name of duty, connecting it with the gratitude she owed to the dead.

She was so much absorbed in these reflections and doubts that she scarcely
heard all the garrulous old nurse was saying as she walked by her side.

Perpetua could not be easy over such a funeral ceremony as this; so
different to anything that Memphis had been wont to see. No priests, a
procession on horseback, mourners riding, and among them the son even of
the dead—while of old the survivors had always followed the body on
foot, as was everywhere the custom! And then a mere chirping of crickets
at the tomb of such illustrious dead, followed by the disorderly squalling
of an immense mob—it had nearly cracked her ears! However, the
citizens might be forgiven for that, since it was all in honor of their
departed governor!—this thought touched even her resolute heart and
brought the tears to her eyes; but it roused her wrath, too, for had she
not seen quite humble folk buried in a more solemn manner and with
worthier ceremonial than the great and good Mukaukas George, who had made
such a magnificent gift to the Church. Oh those Jacobites! They only were
capable of such ingratitude, only their heretical prelate could commit
such a crime. Every one in the Convent of St. Cecilia, from the abbess
down to the youngest novice, knew that the Patriarch had sent word by a
carrier pigeon forbidding the Bishop to allow the priests to take part in
the ceremony. Plotinus was a worthy man, and he had been highly indignant
at these instructions; it was not in his power to contravene them; but at
any rate he had led the procession in person, and had not forbidden John’s
accompanying him. Orion, however, had not looked as though he meant to
brook such an insult to his father or let it pass unpunished. And whose
arm was long enough to reach the Patriarch’s throne if not…. But no, it
was impossible! the mere thought of such a thing made her blood run cold.
Still, still…. And how graciously the Moslem leader had talked with him!—Merciful
Heaven! If he were to turn apostate from the holy Christian faith, like so
many reprobate Egyptians, and subscribe to the wicked doctrines of the
Arabian false prophet! It was a tempting creed for shameless men, allowing
them to have half a dozen wives or more without regarding it as a sin. A
man like Orion could afford to keep them, of course; for the abbess had
said that every one knew that the great Mukaukas was a very rich man,
though even the chief magistrate of the city could not fully satisfy
himself concerning the enormous amount of property left. Well, well; God’s
ways were past finding out. Why should He smother one under heaps of gold,
while He gave thousands of poor creatures too little to satisfy their
hunger!

By the end of this torrent of words the two women had reached the house;
and not till then was Paula clear in her own mind: Away, away with the
passion which still strove for the mastery, whether it were in deed hatred
or love! For she felt that she could not rightly enjoy her recovered
freedom, her new and quiet happiness in the pretty home she owed to the
physician’s thoughtful care, till she had finally given up Orion and
broken the last tie that had bound her to his house.

Could she desire anything more than what the present had to offer her? She
had found a true haven of rest where she lacked for nothing that she could
desire for herself after listening to the admonitions of Philip pus. Round
her were good souls who felt with and for her, many occupations for which
she was well-fitted, and which suited her tastes, with ample opportunities
of bestowing and winning love. Then, a few steps through pleasant shades
took her to the convent where she could every day attend divine service
among pious companions of her own creed, as she had done in her childhood.
She had longed intensely for such food for the spirit, and the abbess—who
was the widow of a distinguished patrician of Constantinople and had known
Paula’s parents—could supply it in abundance. How gladly she talked
to the girl of the goodness and the beauty of those to whom she owed her
being and whom she had so early lost! She could pour out to this motherly
soul all that weighed on her own, and was received by her as a beloved
daughter of her old age.

And her hosts—what kind-hearted though singular folks! nay, in their
way, remarkable. She had never dreamed that there could be on earth any
beings at once so odd and so lovable.

First there was old Rufinus, the head of the house, a vigorous, hale old
man, who, with his long silky, snow-white hair and beard, looked something
like the aged St. John and something like a warrior grown grey in service.
What an amiable spirit of childlike meekness he had, in spite of the rough
ways he sometimes fell into. Though inclined to be contradictory in his
intercourse with his fellow-men, he was merry and jocose when his views
were opposed to theirs. She had never met a more contented soul or a
franker disposition, and she could well understand how much it must fret
and gall such a man to live on,—day after day, appearing, in one
respect at any rate, different from what he really was. For he, too,
belonged to her confession; but, though he sent his wife and daughter to
worship in the convent chapel, he himself was compelled to profess himself
a Coptic Christian, and submit to the necessity of attending a Jacobite
church with all his family on certain holy days, averse as he was to its
unattractive form of worship.

Rufinus possessed a sufficient fortune to secure him a comfortable
maintenance; and yet he was hard at work, in his own way, from morning
till night. Not that his labors brought him any revenues; on the contrary,
they led to claims on his resources; every one knew that he was a man of
good means, and this would have certainly involved him in persecution if
the Patriarch’s spies had discovered him to be a Melchite, resulting in
exile and probably the confiscation of his goods. Hence it was necessary
to exercise caution, and if the old man could have found a purchaser for
his house and garden, in a city where there were ten times as many houses
empty as occupied, he would long since have set out with all his household
to seek a new home.

Most aged people of vehement spirit and not too keen intellect, adopt a
saying as a stop-gap or resting-place, and he was fond of using two
phrases one of which ran: “As sure as man is the standard of all things”
and the other—referring to his house—“As sure as I long to be
quit of this lumber.” But the lumber consisted of a well-built and very
spacious dwellinghouse, with a garden which had commanded a high price in
earlier times on account of its situation near the river. He himself had
acquired it at very small cost shortly before the Arab incursion, and—so
quickly do times change—he had actually bought it from a Jacobite
Christian who had been forced by the Melchite Patriarch Cyrus, then in
power, to fly in haste because he had found means to convert his orthodox
slaves to his confession.

It was Philippus who had persuaded his accomplished and experienced friend
to come to Memphis; he had clung to him faithfully, and they assisted each
other in their works.

Rufinus’ wife, a frail, ailing little woman, with a small face and rather
hollow cheeks, who must once have been very attractive and engaging, might
have passed for his daughter; she was, in fact, twenty years younger than
her husband. It was evident that she had suffered much in the course of
her life, but had taken it patiently and all for the best. Her restless
husband had caused her the greatest trouble and alarms, and yet she
exerted herself to the utmost to make his life pleasant. She had the art
of keeping every obstacle and discomfort out of his way, and guessed with
wonderful instinct what would help him, comfort him, and bring him joy.
The physician declared that her stooping attitude, her bent head, and the
enquiring expression of her bright, black eyes were the result of her
constant efforts to discover even a straw that might bring harm to Rufinus
if his callous and restless foot should tread on it.

Their daughter Pulcheria, was commonly called “Pul” for short, to save
time, excepting when the old man spoke of her by preference as “the poor
child.” There was at all times something compassionate in his attitude
towards his daughter; for he rarely looked at her without asking himself
what could become of this beloved child when he, who was so much older,
should have closed his eyes in death and his Joanna perhaps should soon
have followed him; while Pulcheria, seeing her mother take such care of
her father that nothing was left for her to do, regarded herself as the
most superfluous creature on earth and would have been ready at any time
to lay down her life for her parents, for the abbess, for her faith, for
the leech; nay, and though she had known her for no more than two days,
even for Paula. However, she was a very pretty, well-grown girl, with
great open blue eyes and a dreamy expression, and magnificent red-gold
hair which could hardly be matched in all Egypt. Her father had long known
of her desire to enter the convent as a novice and become a nursing
sister; but though he had devoted his whole life to a similar impulse, he
had more than once positively refused to accede to her wishes, for he must
ere long be gathered to his fathers and then her mother, while she
survived him, would want some one else to wear herself out for.

Just now “Pul” was longing less than usual to take the veil; for she had
found in Paula a being before whom she felt small indeed, and to whom her
unenvious soul, yearning and striving for the highest, could look up in
satisfied and rapturous admiration. In addition to this, there were under
her own roof two sufferers needing her care: Rustem, the wounded
Masdakite, and the Persian girl. Neforis, who since the fearful hour of
her husband’s death had seemed stunned and indifferent to all the claims
of daily life, living only in her memories of the departed, had been more
than willing to leave to the physician the disposal of these two and their
removal from her house.

In the evening after Paula’s arrival Philippus had consulted with his
friends as to the reception of these new guests, and the old man had
interrupted him, as soon as he raised the question of pecuniary
indemnification, exclaiming:

“They are all very welcome. If they have wounds, we will make them heal;
if their heads are turned, we will screw them the right way round; if
their souls are dark, we will light up a flame in them. If the fair Paula
takes a fancy to us, she and her old woman may stay as long as it suits
her and us. We made her welcome with all our hearts; but, on the other
hand, you must understand that we must be free to bid her farewell—as
free as she is to depart. It is impossible ever to know exactly how such
grand folks will get on with humble ones, and as sure as I long to be quit
of this piece of lumber I might one day take it into my head to leave it
to the owls and jackals and fare forth, staff in hand.—You know me.
As to indemnification—we understand each other. A full purse hangs
behind the sick, and the sound one has ten times more than she needs, so
they may pay. You must decide how much; only—for the women’s sake,
and I mean it seriously—be liberal. You know what I need Mammon for;
and it would be well for Joanna if she had less need to turn over every
silver piece before she spends it in the housekeeping. Besides, the lady
herself will be more comfortable if she contributes to pay for the food
and drink. It would ill beseem the daughter of Thomas to be down every
evening under the roof of such birds of passage as we are with thanks for
favors received. When each one pays his share we stand on a footing of
give and take; and if either one feels any particular affection to another
it is not strangled by ‘thanks’ or ‘take it;’ it is love for love’s sake
and a joy to both parties.”

“Amen,” said the leech; and Paula had been quite satisfied by her friend’s
arrangements.

By the next day she felt herself one of the household, though she every
hour found something that could not fail to strike her as strange.


CHAPTER XIX.

When Paula had eaten with Rufinus and his family after the funeral
ceremonies, she went into the garden with Pul and the old man—it had
been impossible to induce Perpetua to sit at the same table with her
mistress. The sun was now low, and its level beams gave added lustre to
the colors of the flowers and to the sheen of the thick, metallic foliage
of the south, which the drought and scorching heat had still spared. A
bright-hued humped ox and an ass were turning the wheel which raised
cooling waters from the Nile and poured them into a large tank from which
they flowed through narrow rivulets to irrigate the beds. This toil was
now very laborious, for the river had fallen to so low a level as to give
cause for anxiety, even at this season of extreme ebb. Numbers of birds
with ruffled feathers, with little splints on their legs, or with sadly
drooping heads, were going to roost in small cages hung from the branches
to protect them from cats and other beasts of prey; to each, as he went
by, Rufinus spoke a kindly word, or chirruped to encourage and cheer it.
Aromatic odors filled the garden, and rural silence; every object shone in
golden glory, even the black back of the negro working at the water-wheel,
and the white and yellow skin of the ox; while the clear voices of the
choir of nuns thrilled through the convent-grove. Pul listened, turning
her face to meet it, and crossing her arms over her heart. Her father
pointed to her as he said to Paula:

“That is where her heart is. May she ever have her God before her eyes!
That cannot but be the best thing for a woman. Still, among such as we
are, we must hold to the rule: Every man for his fellowman on earth, in
the name of the merciful Lord!—Can our wise and reasonable Father in
Heaven desire that brother should neglect brother, or—as in our case—a
child forsake its parents?”

“Certainly not,” replied Paula. “For my own part, nothing keeps me from
taking the veil but my hope of finding my long-lost father; I, like your
Pulcheria, have often longed for the peace of the cloister. How piously
rapt your daughter stands there! What a sweet and touching sight!—In
my heart all was dark and desolate; but here, among you all, it is already
beginning to feel lighter, and here, if anywhere, I shall recover what I
lost in my other home.—Happy child! Could you not fancy, as she
stands there in the evening light, that the pure devotion which fills her
soul, radiated from her? If I were not afraid of disturbing her, and if I
were worthy, how gladly would I join my prayers to hers!”

“You have a part in them as it is,” replied the old man with a smile. “At
this moment St. Cecilia appears to her under the guise of your features.
We will ask her—you will see.”

“No, leave her alone!” entreated Paula with a blush, and she led Rufinus
away to the other end of the garden.

They soon reached a spot where a high hedge of thorny shrubs parted the
old man’s plot from that of Susannah. Rufinus here pricked up his ears and
then angrily exclaimed:

“As sure as I long to be quit of this lumber, they are cutting my hedge
again! Only last evening I caught one of the slaves just as he was going
to work on the branches; but how could I get at the black rascal through
the thorns? It was to make a peep-hole for curious eyes, or for spies, for
the Patriarch knows how to make use of a petticoat; but I will be even
with them! Do you go on, pray, as if you had seen and heard nothing; I
will fetch my whip.”

The old man hurried away, and Paula was about to obey him; but scarcely
had he disappeared when she heard herself called in a shrill girl’s voice
through a gap in the hedge, and looking round, she spied a pretty face
between the boughs which had yesterday been forced asunder by a man’s
hands—like a picture wreathed with greenery.

Even in the twilight she recognized it at once, and when Katharina put her
curly head forward, and said in a beseeching tone: “May I get through, and
will you listen to me?” she gladly signified her consent.

The water-wagtail, heedless of Paula’s hand held out to help her, slipped
through the gap so nimbly that it was evident that she had not long ceased
surmounting such obstacles in her games with Mary. As swift as the wind
she came down on her feet, holding out her arms to rush at Paula; but she
suddenly let them fall in visible hesitancy, and drew back a step. Paula,
however, saw her embarrassment; she drew the girl to her, kissed her
forehead, and gaily exclaimed:

“Trespassing! And why could you not come in by the gate? Here comes my
host with his hippopotamus thong.—Stop, stop, good Rufinus, for the
breach effected in your flowery wall was intended against me and not
against you. There stands the hostile power, and I should be greatly
surprised if you did not recognize her as a neighbor?”

“Recognize her?” said the old man, whose wrath was quickly appeased. “Do
we know each other, fair damsel—yes or no? It is an open question.”

“Of course!” cried Katharina, “I have seen you a hundred times from the
gnat-tower.”

“You have had less pleasure than I should have had, if I had been so happy
as to see you.—We came across each other about a year ago. I was
then so happy as to find you in my large peach-tree, which to this day
takes the liberty of growing over your garden-plot.”

“I was but a child then,” laughed Katharina, who very well remembered how
the old man, whose handsome white head she had always particularly
admired, had spied her out among the boughs of his peach-tree and had
advised her, with a good-natured nod, to enjoy herself there.

“A child!” repeated Rufinus. “And now we are quite grown up and do not
care to climb so high, but creep humbly through our neighbor’s hedge.”

“Then you really are strangers?” cried Paula in surprise. “And have you
never met Pulcheria, Katharina?”

“Pul?—oh, how glad I should have been to call her!” said Katharina.
“I have been on the point of it a hundred times; for her mere appearance
makes one fall in love with her,—but my mother….”

“Well, and what has your mother got to say against her neighbors?” asked
Rufinus. “I believe we are peaceable folks who do no one any harm.”

“No, no, God forbid! But my mother has her own way of viewing things; you
and she are strangers still, and as you are so rarely to be seen in
church….”

“She naturally takes us for the ungodly. Tell her that she is mistaken,
and if you are Paula’s friend and you come to see her—but prettily,
through the gate, and not through the hedge, for it will be closely twined
again by to-morrow morning—if you come here, I say, you will find
that we have a great deal to do and a great many creatures to nurse and
care for—poor human creatures some of them, and some with fur or
feathers, just as it comes; and man serves his Maker if he only makes life
easier to the beings that come in his way; for He loves them all. Tell
that to your mother, little wagtail, and come again very often.”

“Thank you very much. But let me ask you, if I may, where you heard that
odious nickname? I hate it.”

“From the same person who told you the secret that my Pulcheria is called
Pul!” said Rufinus; he laughed and bowed and left the two girls together.

“What a dear old man!” cried Katharina. “Oh, I know quite well how he
spends his Days! And his pretty wife and Pul—I know them all. How
often I have watched them—I will show you the place one day! I can
see over the whole garden, only not what goes on near the convent on the
other side of the house, or beyond those trees. You know my mother; if she
once dislikes any one…. But Pul, you understand, would be such a friend
for me!”

“Of course she would,” replied Paula. “And a girl of your age must chose
older companions than little Mary.”

“Oh, you shall not say a word against her!” cried Katharina eagerly. “She
is only ten years old, but many a grown-up person is not so upright or so
capable as I have found her during these last few miserable days.”

“Poor child!” said Paula stroking her hair.

At this a bitter sob broke suddenly and passionately from Katharina; she
tried with all her might to suppress it, but could not succeed. Her fit of
weeping was so violent that she could not utter a word, till Paula had led
her to a bench under a spreading sycamore, had induced her with gentle
force to sit down by her side, clasping her in her arms like a suffering
child, and speaking to her words of comfort and encouragement.

Birds without number were going to rest in the dense branches overhead,
owls and bats had begun their nocturnal raids, the sky put on its spangled
glory of gold and silver stars, from the western end of the town came the
jackals’ bark as they left their lurking-places among the ruined houses
and stole out in search of prey, the heavy dew, falling through the mild
air silently covered the leaves, the grass, and the flowers; the garden
was more powerfully fragrant now than during the day-time, and Paula felt
that it was high time to take refuge from the mists that came up from the
shallow stream. But still she lingered while the little maiden poured out
all that weighed upon her, all she repented of, believing she could never
atone for it; and then all she had gone through, thinking it must break
her heart, and all she still had to live down and drive out of her mind.

She told Paula how Orion had wooed her, how much she loved him, how her
heart had been tortured by jealousy of her, Paula, and how she had allowed
herself to be led away into bearing false witness before the judges. And
then she went on to say it was Mary who had first opened her eyes to the
abyss by which she was standing. In the afternoon after the death of the
Mukaukas she had gone with her mother to the governor’s house to join in
her friends’ lamentations. She had at once asked after Mary, but had not
been allowed to see her, for she was still in bed and very feverish. She
was then on her way to the cool hall when she heard her mother’s voice—not
in grief, but angry and vehement—so, thinking it would be more
becoming to keep out of the way, she wandered off into the pillared
vestibule opening towards the Nile. She would not for worlds have met
Orion, and was terribly afraid she might do so, but as she went out, for
it was still quite light, there she found him—and in what a state!
He was sitting all in a heap, dressed in black, with his head buried in
his hands. He had not observed her presence; but she pitied him deeply,
for though it was very hot he was trembling in every limb, and his strong
frame shuddered repeatedly. She had therefore spoken to him, begging him
to be comforted, at which he had started to his feet in dismay, and had
pushed his unkempt hair back from his face, looking so pale, so desperate,
that she had been quite terrified and could not manage to bring out the
consoling words she had ready. For some time neither of them had uttered a
syllable, but at length he had pulled himself together as if for some
great deed, he came slowly towards her and laid his hands on her shoulders
with a solemn dignity which no one certainly had ever before seen in him.
He stood gazing into her face—his eyes were red with much weeping—and
he sighed from his very heart the two words: “Unhappy Child!”—She
could hear them still sounding in her ears.

And he was altered: from head to foot quite different, like a stranger.
His voice, even, sounded changed and deeper than usual as he went on:

“Child, child! Perhaps I have given much pain in my life without knowing
it; but you have certainly suffered most through me, for I have made you,
an innocent, trusting creature, my accomplice in crime. The great sin we
both committed has been visited on me alone, but the punishment is a
hundred—a thousand times too heavy!”

“And with this,” Katharina went on, “he covered his face with his hands,
threw himself on the couch again, and groaned and sighed. Then he sprang
up once more, crying out so loud and passionately that I felt as if I must
die of grief and pity: ‘Forgive me if you can! Forgive me, wholly, freely.
I want it—you must, you must! I was going to run up to him and throw
my arms round him and forgive him everything, his trouble distressed me so
much; but he gravely pushed me away—not roughly or sternly, and he
said that there was an end of all love-making and betrothal between us—that
I was young, and that I should be able to forget him. He would still be a
true friend to me and to my mother, and the more we required of him the
more gladly would he serve us.

“I was about to answer him, but he hastily interrupted me and said firmly
and decisively: ‘Lovable as you are, I cannot love you as you deserve; for
it is my duty to tell you, I have another and a greater love in my heart—my
first and my last; and though once in my life I have proved myself a
wretch, still, it was but once; and I would rather endure your anger, and
hurt both you and myself now, than continue this unrighteous tie and cheat
you and others.’—At this I was greatly startled, and asked: ‘Paula?’
However, he did not answer, but bent over me and touched my forehead with
his lips, just as my father often kissed me, and then went quickly out
into the garden.

“Just then my mother came up, as red as a poppy and panting for breath:
she took me by the hand without a word, dragged me into the chariot after
her, and then cried out quite beside herself—she could not even shed
a tear for rage: ‘What insolence! what unheard-of behavior—How can I
find the heart to tell you, poor sacrificed lamb…’”

“And she would have gone on, but that I would not let her finish; I told
her at once that I knew all, and happily I was able to keep quite calm. I
had some bad hours at home; and when Nilus came to us yesterday, after the
opening of the will, and brought me the pretty little gold box with
turquoises and pearls that I have always admired, and told me that the
good Mukaukas had written with his own hand, in his last will, that it was
to be given to me I his bright little ‘Katharina,’ my mother insisted on
my not taking it and sent it back to Neforis, though I begged and prayed
to keep it. And of course I shall never go to that house again; indeed my
mother talks of quitting Memphis altogether and settling in Constantinople
or some other city under Christian rule. ‘Then our nice, pretty house must
be given up, and our dear, lovely garden be sold to the peasant folk, my
mother says. It was just the same a year and a half ago with Memnon’s
palace. His garden was turned into a corn-field, and the splendid
ground-floor rooms, with their mosaics and pictures, are now dirty stables
for cows and sheep, and pigs are fed in the rooms that belonged to Hathor
and Dorothea. Good Heavens! And they were my clearest friends! And I am
never to play with Mary any more; and mother has not a kind word for any
living soul, hardly even for me, and my old nurse is as deaf as a mole! Am
I not a really miserable, lonely creature? And if you, even you, will have
nothing to say to me, who is there in all Memphis whom I can trust in? But
you will not be so cruel, will you? And it will not be for long, for my
mother really means to go away. You are older than I am, of course, and
much graver and wiser….”

“I will be kind to you, child; but try to make friends with Pulcheria!”

“Gladly, gladly. But then my mother! I should get on very well by myself
if it were not… Well, you yourself heard what Orion said to me, that
time in the avenue. He surely loved me a little! What sweet, tender names
he gave me then. Oh God! no man can speak like that to any one he is not
fond of!—And he is rich himself; it cannot have been only my fortune
that bewitched him. And does he look like a man who would allow himself to
be parted from a girl by his mother, whether he would or no?”

“He was always fond of me I think; but then, afterwards, he remembered
what a high position he had to fill and regarded me as too little and too
childish. Oh, how many tears I have shed over being so absurdly little! A
Water-wagtail—that is what I shall always be. Your old host called
me so; and if a man like Orion feels that he must have a stately wife I
can hardly blame him. That other one whom he thinks he loves better than
he does me is tall and beautiful and majestic—like you; and I have
always told myself that his future wife ought to look like you. It is all
over between him and me, and I will submit humbly; but at the same time I
cannot help thinking that when he came home he thought me pretty and
attractive, and had a real fancy and liking for me. Yes, it was so, it
certainly was so!—But then he saw that other one, and I cannot
compare with her. She is indeed the woman he wants,—and that other,
Paula, is yourself. Yes, indeed, you yourself; an inner voice tells me so.
And I tell you truly, you may quite believe me: it is a pain no doubt, but
I can be glad of it too. I should hate any mere girl to whom he held out
his hand—but, if you are that other—and if you are his
wife…”

“Nonsense,” exclaimed Paula decidedly. “Consider what you are saying. When
Orion tempted you to perjure yourself, did he behave as my friend or as my
foe, my bitterest and most implacable enemy?”

“Before the judges, to be sure…” replied the girl looking down
thoughtfully. But she soon looked up again, fixed her eyes on Paula’s face
with a sparkling, determined glance, and frankly and unhesitatingly
exclaimed: “And you?—In spite of it all he is so handsome, so
clever, so manly. You can hardly help it—you love him!”

Paula withdrew her arm, which had been round Katharina, and answered
candidly.

“Until to-day, at the funeral, I hated and abominated him; but there, by
his father’s tomb, he struck me as a new man, and I found it easy to
forgive him in my heart.”

“Then you mean to say that you do not love him?” urged Katharina, clasping
her friend’s round arm with her slender fingers.

Paula started to feel how icy cold her hand was. The moon was up, the
stars rose higher and higher, so, simply saying: “Come away,” she rose.
“It must be within an hour of midnight,” she added. “Your mother will be
anxious about you.”

“Only an hour of midnight!” repeated the girl in alarm. “Good Heavens, I
shall have a scolding! She is still playing draughts with the Bishop, no
doubt, as she does every evening. Good-bye then for the present. The
shortest way is through the hedge again.”

“No,” said Paula firmly, “you are no longer a child; you are grown up, and
must feel it and show it. You are not to creep through the bushes, but to
go home by the gate. Rufinus and I will go with you and explain to your
mother…”

“No, no!” cried Katharina in terror. “She is as angry with you as she is
with them. Only yesterday she forbid…”

“Forbid you to come to me?” asked Paula. “Does she believe…”

“That it was for your sake that Orion…. Yes, she is only too glad to lay
all the blame on you. But now that I have talked to you I…. Look, do you
see that light? It is in her sitting-room.”

And, before Paula could prevent her, she ran to the hedge and slipped
through the gap as nimbly as a weasel.

Paula looked after her with mingled feelings, and then went back to the
house, and to bed. Katharina’s story kept her awake for a long time, and
the suspicion—nay almost the conviction—that it was herself,
indeed, who had aroused that “great love” in Orion’s heart gave her no
rest. If it were she? There, under her hand was the instrument of revenge
on the miscreant; she could make him taste of all the bitterness he had
brewed for her aching spirit. But which of them would the punishment hurt
most sorely: him or herself? Had not the little girl’s confidences
revealed a world of rapture to her and her longing heart? No, no. It would
be too humiliating to allow the same hand that had smitten her so
ruthlessly to uplift her to heaven; it would be treason against herself.

Slumber overtook her in the midst of these conflicting feelings and
thoughts, and towards morning she had a dream which, even by daylight,
haunted her and made her shudder.

She saw Orion coming towards her, as pale as death, robed in mourning,
pacing slowly on a coal-black horse; she had not the strength to fly, and
without speaking to her or looking at her, he lifted her high in the air
like a child, and placed her in front of him on the horse. She put forth
all her strength to get free and dismount, but he clasped her with both
arms like iron clamps and quelled her efforts. Life itself would not have
seemed too great a price for escape from this constraint; but, the more
wildly she fought, the more closely she was held by the silent and
pitiless horseman. At their feet flowed the swirling river, but Orion did
not seem to notice it, and without moving his lips, he coolly guided the
steed towards the water. Beside herself now with horror and dread, she
implored him to turn away; but he did not heed her, and went on unmoved
into the midst of the stream. Her terror increased to an agonizing pitch
as the horse bore her deeper and deeper into the water; of her own free
will she threw her arms round the rider’s neck; his paleness vanished, his
cheeks gained a ruddy hue, his lips sought hers in a kiss; and, in the
midst of the very anguish of death, she felt a thrill of rapture that she
had never known before. She could have gone on thus for ever, even to
destruction; and, in fact, they were still sinking—she felt the
water rising breast high, but she cared not. Not a word had either of them
spoken. Suddenly she felt urged to break the silence, and as if she could
not help it she asked: “Am I the other?” At this the waves surged down on
them from all sides; a whirlpool dragged away the horse, spinning him
round, and with him Orion and herself, a shrill blast swept past them, and
then the current and the waves, the roaring of the whirlpool, the howling
of the storm—all at once and together, as with one voice, louder
than all else and filling her ears, shouted: “Thou!”—Only Orion
remained speechless. An eddy caught the horse and sucked him under, a wave
carried her away from him, she was sinking, sinking, and stretched out her
arms with longing.—A cold dew stood on her brow as she slept, and
the nurse, waking her from her uneasy dream, shook her head as she said:

“Why, child? What ails you? You have been calling Orion again and again,
at first in terror and then so tenderly.—Yes, believe me, tenderly.”


CHAPTER XX.

In the neat rooms which Rufinus’ wife had made ready for her sick guests
perfect peace reigned, and it was noon. A soft twilight fell through the
thick green curtains which mitigated the sunshine, and the nurses had
lately cleared away after the morning meal. Paula was moistening the
bandage on the Masdakite’s head, and Pulcheria was busy in the adjoining
room with Mandane, who obeyed the physician’s instructions with
intelligent submission and showed no signs of insanity.

Paula was still spellbound by her past dream. She was possessed by such
unrest that, quite against her wont, she could not long remain quiet, and
when Pulcheria came to her to tell her this or that, she listened with so
little attention and sympathy that the humble-minded girl, fearing to
disturb her, withdrew to her patient’s bed-side and waited quietly till
her new divinity called her.

In fact, it was not without reason that Paula gave herself up to a certain
anxiety; for, if she was not mistaken, Orion must necessarily present
himself to hand over to her the remainder of her fortune; and though even
yesterday, on her way from the cemetery, she had said to herself that she
must and would refuse to meet him, the excitement produced by Katharina’s
story and her subsequent dream had confirmed her in her determination.

Perpetua awaited Orion’s visit on the ground-floor, charged to announce
him to Rufinus and not to her mistress. The old man had willingly
undertaken to receive the money as her representative; for Philippus had
not concealed from her that he had acquainted him with the circumstances
under which Paula had quitted the governor’s house, describing Orion as a
man whom she had good reason for desiring to avoid.

By about two hours after noon Paula’s restlessness had increased so much
that now and then she wandered out of the sick-room, which looked over the
garden, to watch the Nile-quay from the window of the anteroom; for he
might arrive by either way. She never thought of the security of her
property; but the question arose in her mind as to whether it were not
actually a breach of duty to avoid the agitation it would cost her to meet
her cousin face to face. On this point no one could advise her, not even
Perpetua; her own mother could hardly have understood all her feelings on
such an occasion. She scarcely knew herself indeed; for hitherto she had
never failed, even in the most difficult cases, to know at once and
without long reflection, what to do and to leave undone, what under
special circumstances was right or wrong. But now she felt herself a
yielding reed, a leaf tossed hither and thither; and every time she set
her teeth and clenched her hands, determined to think calmly and to reason
out the “for” and “against,” her mind wandered away again, while the
memory of her dream, of Orion as he stood by his father’s grave—of
Katharina’s tale of “the other,” and the fearful punishment which he had
to suffer, nay indeed, certainly had suffered—came and went in her
mind like the flocks of birds over the Nile, whose dipping and soaring had
often passed like a fluttering veil between her eye and some object on the
further shore.

It was three hours past noon, and she had returned to the sick-room, when
she thought that she heard hoofs in the garden and hurried to the window
once more. Her heart had not beat more wildly when the dog had flown at
her and Hiram that fateful night, than it did now as she hearkened to the
approach of a horseman, still hidden from her gaze by the shrubs. It must
be Orion—but why did he not dismount? No, it could not be he; his
tall figure would have overtopped the shrubbery which was of low growth.

She did not know her host’s friends; it was one of them very likely. Now
the horse had turned the corner; now it was coming up the path from the
front gate; now Rufinus had gone forth to meet the visitor—and it
was not Orion, but his secretary, a much smaller man, who slipped off a
mule that she at once recognized, threw the reins to a lad, handed
something to the old man, and then dropped on to a bench to yawn and
stretch his legs.

Then she saw Rufinus come towards the house. Had Orion charged this
messenger to bring her her possessions? She thought this somewhat
insulting, and her blood boiled with wrath. But there could be no question
here of a surrender of property; for what her host was holding in his hand
was nothing heavy, but a quite small object; probably, nay, certainly a
roll of papyrus. He was coming up the narrow stairs, so she ran out to
meet him, blushing as though she were doing something wrong. The old man
observed this and said, as he handed her the scroll:

“You need not be frightened, daughter of a hero. The young lord is not
here himself, he prefers, it would seem, to treat with you by letter; and
it is best so for both parties.”

Paula nodded agreement; she took the roll, and then, while she tore the
silken tie from the seal, she turned her back on the old man; for she felt
that the blood had faded from her face, and her hands were trembling.

“The messenger awaits an answer,” remarked Rufinus, before she began to
read it. “I shall be below and at your service.” He left; Paula returned
to the sick-room, and leaning against the frame of the casement, read as
follows, with eager agitation:

“Orion, the son of George the Mukaukas who sleeps in the Lord, to his
cousin the daughter of the noble Thomas of Damascus, greeting.

“I have destroyed several letters that I had written to you before this
one.” Paula shrugged her shoulders incredulously. “I hope I may succeed
better this time in saying what I feel to be indispensable for your
welfare and my own. I have both to crave a favor and offer counsel.”

“Counsel! he!” thought the girl with a scornful curl of the lips, as she
went on. “May the memory of the man who loved you as his daughter, and who
on his death-bed wished for nothing so much as to see you—averse as
he was to your creed—and bless you as his daughter indeed, as his
son’s wife,—may the remembrance of that just man so far prevail over
your indignant and outraged soul that these words from the most wretched
man on earth, for that am I, Paula, may not be left unread. Grant me the
last favor I have to ask of you—I demand it in my father’s name.”

“Demand!” repeated the damsel; her cheeks flamed, her eye sparkled
angrily, and her hands clutched the opposite sides of the letter as though
to tear it across. But the next words: “Do not fear,” checked her hasty
impulse—she smoothed out the papyrus and read on with growing
excitement:

“Do not fear that I shall address you as a lover—as the man for whom
there is but one woman on earth. And that one can only be she whom I have
so deeply injured, whom I fought with as frantic, relentless, and cruel
weapons as ever I used against a foe of my own sex.”

“But one,” murmured the girl; she passed her hand across her brow, and a
faint smile of happy pride dwelt on her lips as she went on:

“I shall love you as long as breath animates this crushed and wretched
heart.”

Again the letter was in danger of destruction, but again it escaped
unharmed, and Paula’s expression became one of calm and tender pleasure as
she read to the end of Orion’s clearly written epistle:

“I am fully conscious that I have forfeited your esteem, nay even all good
feeling towards me, by my own fault; and that, unless divine love works
some miracle in your heart, I have sacrificed all joy on earth. You are
revenged; for it was for your sake—understand that—for your
sake alone, that my beloved and dying father withdrew the blessings he had
heaped on my remorseful head, and in wrath that was only too just at the
recreant who had desecrated the judgment-seat of his ancestors, turned
that blessing to a curse.”

Paula turned pale as she read. This then was what Katharina had meant.
This was what had so changed his appearance, and perhaps, too, his whole
inward being. And this, this bore the stamp of truth, this could not be a
lie—it was for her sake that a father’s curse had blighted his only
son! How had it all happened? Had Philippus failed to observe it, or had
he held his peace out of respect for the secrets of another?—Poor
man, poor young man! She must see him, must speak to him. She could not
have a moment’s ease till she knew how it was that her uncle, a tender
father.—But she must go on, quickly to the end:

“I come to you only as what I am: a heart-broken man, too young to give
myself over for lost, and at the same time determined to make use of all
that remains to me of the steadfast will, the talents, and the
self-respect of my forefathers to render me worthy of them, and I implore
you to grant me a brief interview. Not a word, not a look shall betray the
passion within and which threatens to destroy me.

“You must on no account fail to read what follows, since it is of no small
real importance even to you. In the first place restitution must be made
to you of all of your inheritance which the deceased was able to rescue
and to add to by his fatherly stewardship. In these agitated times it will
be a matter of some difficulty to invest this capital safely and to good
advantage. Consider: just as the Arabs drove out the Byzantines, the
Byzantines might drive them out again in their turn. The Persians, though
stricken to the earth, the Avars, or some other people whose very name is
as yet unknown to history, may succeed our present rulers, who, only ten
years since, were regarded as a mere handful of unsettled camel-drivers,
caravan-leaders, and poverty-stricken desert-tribes. The safety of your
fortune would be less difficult to provide for if, as was formerly the
case here, we could entrust it to the merchants of Alexandria. But one
great house after another is being ruined there, and all security is at an
end. As to hiding or burying your possessions, as most Egyptians do in
these hard times, it is impossible, for the same reason as prevents our
depositing it on interest in the state land-register. You must be able to
get it at the shortest notice; since you might at some time wish to quit
Egypt in haste with all your possessions.

“These are matters with which a woman cannot be familiar. I would
therefore propose that you should leave the arrangement of them to us men;
to Philippus, the physician, Rufinus, your host—who is, I am
assured, an honest man—and to our experienced and trustworthy
treasurer Nilus, whom you know as an incorruptible judge.

“I propose that the business should be settled tomorrow in the house of
Rufinus. You can be present or not, as you please. If we men agree in our
ideas I beg you—I beseech you to grant me an interview apart. It
will last but a few minutes, and the only subject of discussion will be a
matter—an exchange by which you will recover something you value and
have lost, and grant me I hope, if not your esteem, at any rate a word of
forgiveness. I need it sorely, believe me, Paula; it is as indispensable
to me as the breath of life, if I am to succeed in the work I have begun
on myself. If you have prevailed on yourself to read through this letter,
simply answer ‘Yes’ by my messenger, to relieve me from torturing
uncertainty. If you do not—which God forefend for both our sakes,
Nilus shall this very day carry to you all that belongs to you. But, if
you have read these lines, I will make my appearance to-morrow, at two
hours after noon, with Nilus to explain to the others the arrangement of
which I have spoken. God be with you and infuse some ruth into your proud
and noble soul!”

Paula drew a deep breath as the hand holding this momentous epistle
dropped by her side; she stood for some time by the window, lost in grave
meditation. Then calling Pulcheria, she begged her to tend her patient,
too, for a short time. The girl looked up at her with rapt admiration in
her clear eyes, and asked sympathetically why she was so pale; Paula
kissed her lips and eyes, and saying affectionately: “Good, happy child!”
she retired to her own room on the opposite side of the house. There she
once more read through the letter.

Oh yes; this was Orion as she had known him after his return till the
evening of that never-to-be-forgotten water-party. He was, indeed, a poet;
nature herself had made it so easy to him to seduce unguarded souls into a
belief in him! And yet no! This letter was honestly meant. Philippus knew
men well; Orion really had a heart, a warm heart. Not the most reckless of
criminals could mock at the curse hurled at him by a beloved father in his
last moments. And, as she once more read the sentence in which he told her
that it was his crime as an unjust judge towards her that had turned the
dying man’s blessing to a curse, she shuddered and reflected that their
relative attitude was now reversed, and that he had suffered more and
worse through her than she had through him. His pale face, as she had seen
it in the Necropolis, came back vividly to her mind, and if he could have
stood before her at this moment she would have flown to him, have offered
him a compassionate hand, and have assured him that the woes she had
brought upon him filled her with the deepest and sincerest pity.

That morning she had asked the Masdakite whether he had besought Heaven to
grant him a speedy recovery, and the man replied that Persians never
prayed for any particular blessing, but only for “that which was good;”
for that none but the Omnipotent knew what was good for mortals. How wise!
For in this instance might not the most terrible blow that could fall on a
son—his father’s curse—prove a blessing? It was undoubtedly
that curse which had led him to look into his soul and to start on this
new path. She saw him treading it, she longed to believe in his conversion—and
she did believe in it. In this letter he spoke of his love; he even asked
her hand. Only yesterday this would have roused her wrath; to-day she
could forgive him; for she could forgive anything to this unhappy soul—to
the man on whom she had brought such deep anguish. Her heart could now
beat high in the hope of seeing him again; nay, it even seemed to her that
the youth, whose return had been hailed with such welcome and who had so
powerfully attracted her, had only now grown and ripened to full and
perfect manhood through his sin, his penitence, and his suffering.

And how noble a task it would be to assist him in seeking the right way,
and in becoming what he aspired to be!

The prudent care he had given to her worldly welfare merited her
gratitude. What could he mean by the “exchange” he proposed? The “great
love” of which he had spoken to Katharina was legible in every line of his
letter, and any woman can forgive any man—were he a sinner, and a
scarecrow into the bargain—for his audacity in loving her. Oh! that
he might but set his heart on her—for hers, it was vain to deny it,
was strongly drawn to him. Still she would not call it Love that stirred
within her; it could only be the holy impulse to point out to him the
highest goal of life and smooth the path for him. The pale horseman who
had clutched her in her dream should not drag her away; no, she would
joyfully lift him up to the highest pinnacle attainable by a brave and
noble man.

So her thoughts ran, and her cheeks flushed as, with swift decision, she
opened her trunk, took out papyrus, writing implements and a seal, and
seated herself at a little desk which Rufinus had placed for her in the
window, to write her answer.

At this a sudden fervent longing for Orion came over her. She made a great
effort to shake it off; still, she felt that in writing to him it was
impossible that she should find the right words, and as she replaced the
papyrus in the chest and looked at the seal a strange thing happened to
her; for the device on her father’s well-known ring: a star above two
crossed swords—perchance the star of Orion—caught her eye,
with the motto in Greek: “The immortal gods have set sweat before virtue,”
meaning that the man who aims at being virtuous must grudge neither sweat
nor toil.

She closed her trunk with a pleased smile, for the motto round the star
was, she felt, of good augury. At the same time she resolved to speak to
Orion, taking these words, which her forefathers had adopted from old
Hesiod, as her text. She hastened down stairs, crossed the garden, passing
by Rufinus, his wife and the physician, awoke the secretary who had long
since dropped asleep, and enjoined him to say: “Yes” to his master, as he
expected. However, before the messenger had mounted his mule, she begged
him to wait yet a few minutes and returned to the two men; for she had
forgotten in her eagerness to speak to them of Orion’s plans. They were
both willing to meet him at the hour proposed and, while Philippus went to
tell the messenger that they would expect his master on the next day, the
old man looked at Paula with undisguised satisfaction and said:

“We were fearing lest the news from the governor’s house should have
spoilt your happy mood, but, thank God, you look as if you had just come
from a refreshing bath.—What do you say, Joanna? Twenty years ago
such an inmate here would have made you jealous? Or was there never a
place for such evil passions in your dove-like soul?”

“Nonsense!” laughed the matron. “How can I tell how many fair beings you
have gazed after, wanderer that you are in all the wide world far away?”

“Well, old woman, but as sure as man is the standard of all things,
nowhere that I have carried my staff, have I met with a goddess like
this!”

“I certainly have not either, living here like a snail in its shell,” said
Dame Joanna, fixing her bright eyes on Paula with fervent admiration.


CHAPTER XXI.

That evening Rufinus was sitting in the garden with his wife and daughter
and their friend Philippus. Paula, too, was there, and from time to time
she stroked Pulcheria’s silky golden hair, for the girl had seated herself
at her feet, leaning her head against Paula’s knee.

The moon was full, and it was so light out of doors that they could see
each other plainly, so Rufinus’ proposition that they should remain to
watch an eclipse which was to take place an hour before midnight found all
the more ready acceptance because the air was pleasant. The men had been
discussing the expected phenomenon, lamenting that the Church should still
lend itself to the superstitions of the populace by regarding it as of
evil omen, and organizing a penitential procession for the occasion to
implore God to avert all ill. Rufinus declared that it was blasphemy
against the Almighty to interpret events happening in the course of
eternal law and calculable beforehand, as a threatening sign from Him; as
though man’s deserts had any connection with the courses of the sun and
moon. The Bishop and all the priests of the province were to head the
procession, and thus a simple natural phenomenon was forced in the minds
of the people into a significance it did not possess.

“And if the little comet which my old foster father discovered last week
continues to increase,” added the physician, “so that its tail spreads
over a portion of the sky, the panic will reach its highest pitch; I can
see already that they will behave like mad creatures.”

“But a comet really does portend war, drought, plague, and famine,” said
Pulcheria, with full conviction; and Paula added:

“So I have always believed.”

“But very wrongly,” replied the leech. “There are a thousand reasons to
the contrary; and it is a crime to confirm the mob in such a superstition.
It fills them with grief and alarms; and, would you believe it—such
anguish of mind, especially when the Nile is so low and there is more
sickness than usual, gives rise to numberless forms of disease? We shall
have our hands full, Rufinus.”

“I am yours to command,” replied the old man. “But at the same time, if
the tailed wanderer must do some mischief, I would rather it should break
folks’ arms and legs than turn their brains.”

“What a wish!” exclaimed Paula. “But you often say things—and I see
things about you too—which seem to me extraordinary. Yesterday you
promised….”

“To explain to you why I gather about me so many of God’s creatures who
have to struggle under the burden of life as cripples, or with injured
limbs.”

“Just so,” replied Paula. “Nothing can be more truly merciful than to
render life bearable to such hapless beings….”

“But still, you think,” interrupted the eager old man, “that this noble
motive alone would hardly account for the old oddity’s riding his hobby so
hard.—Well, you are right. From my earliest youth the structure of
the bones in man and beast has captivated me exceedingly; and just as
collectors of horns, when once they have a complete series of every
variety of stag, roe, and gazelle, set to work with fresh zeal to find
deformed or monstrous growths, so I have found pleasure in studying every
kind of malformation and injury in the bones of men and beasts.”

“And to remedy them,” added Philippus. “It has been his passion from
childhood.

“And the passion has grown upon me since I broke my own hip bone and know
what it means,” the old man went on. “With the help of my fellow-student
there, from a mere dilettante I became a practised surgeon; and, what is
more, I am one of those who serve Esculapius at my own expense. However,
there are accessory reasons for which I have chosen such strange
companions: deformed slaves are cheap and besides that, certain
investigations afford me inestimable and peculiar satisfaction. But this
cannot interest a young girl.”

“Indeed it does!” cried Paula. “So far as I have understood Philippus when
he explains some details of natural history….”

“Stay,” laughed Rufinus, “our friend will take good care not to explain
this. He regards it as folly, and all he will admit is that no surgeon or
student could wish for better, more willing, or more amusing house-mates
than my cripples.”

“They are grateful to you,” cried Paula.

“Grateful?” asked the old man. “That is true sometimes, no doubt; still,
gratitude is a tribute on which no wise man ever reckons. Now I have told
you enough; for the sake of Philippus we will let the rest pass.”

“No, no,” said Paula putting up entreating hands, and Rufinus answered
gaily:

“Who can refuse you anything? I will cut it short, but you must pay good
heed.—Well then Man is the standard of all things. Do you understand
that?”

“Yes, I often hear you say so. Things you mean are only what they seem to
us.”

“To us, you say, because we—you and I and the rest of us here—are
sound in body and mind. And we must regard all things—being God’s
handiwork—as by nature sound and normal. Thus we are justified in
requiring that man, who gives the standard for them shall, first and
foremost, himself be sound and normal. Can a carpenter measure straight
planks properly with a crooked or sloping rod?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then you will understand how I came to ask myself: ‘Do sickly, crippled,
and deformed men measure things by a different standard to that of sound
men? And might it not be a useful task to investigate how their estimates
differ from ours?’”

“And have your researches among your cripples led to any results?”

“To many important ones,” the old man declared; but Philippus interrupted
him with a loud: “Oho!” adding that his friend was in too great a hurry to
deduce laws from individual cases. Many of his observations were, no
doubt, of considerable interest…. Here Rufinus broke in with some
vehemence, and the discussion would have become a dispute if Paula had not
intervened by requesting her zealous host to give her the results, at any
rate, of his studies.

“I find,” said Rufinus very confidently, as he stroked down his long
beard, “that they are not merely shrewd because their faculties are early
sharpened to make up by mental qualifications for what they lack in
physical advantages; they are also witty, like AEesop the fabulist and
Besa the Egyptian god, who, as I have been told by our old friend Horus,
from whom we derive all our Egyptian lore, presided among those heathen
over festivity, jesting, and wit, and also over the toilet of women. This
shows the subtle observation of the ancients; for the hunchback whose body
is bent, applies a crooked standard to things in general. His keen insight
often enables him to measure life as the majority of men do, that is by a
straight rule; but in some happy moments when he yields to natural impulse
he makes the straight crooked and the crooked straight; and this gives
rise to wit, which only consists in looking at things obliquely and—setting
them askew as it were. You have only to talk to my hump-backed gardener
Gibbus, or listen to what he says. When he is sitting with the rest of our
people in an evening, they all laugh as soon as he opens his mouth.—And
why? Because his conformation makes him utter nothing but paradoxes.—You
know what they are?”

“Certainly.”

“And you, Pul?”

“No, Father.”

“You are too straight-nay, and so is your simple soul, to know what the
thing is! Well, listen then: It would be a paradox, for instance, if I
were to say to the Bishop as he marches past in procession: ‘You are
godless out of sheer piety;’ or if I were to say to Paula, by way of
excuse for all the flattery which I and your mother offered her just now:
‘Our incense was nauseous for very sweetness.’—These paradoxes, when
examined, are truths in a crooked form, and so they best suit the
deformed. Do you understand?”

“Certainly,” said Paula.

“And you, Pul?”

“I am not quite sure. I should be better pleased to be simply told: ‘We
ought not to have made such flattering speeches; they may vex a young
girl.’”

“Very good, my straightforward child,” laughed her father. “But look,
there is the man! Here, good Gibbus—come here!—Now, just
consider: supposing you had flattered some one so grossly that you had
offended him instead of pleasing him: How would you explain the state of
affairs in telling me of it?”

The gardener, a short, square man, with a huge hump but a clever face and
good features, reflected a minute and then replied: “I wanted to make an
ass smell at some roses and I put thistles under his nose.”

“Capital!” cried Paula; and as Gibbus turned away, laughing to himself,
the physician said:

“One might almost envy the man his hump. But yet, fair Paula, I think we
have some straight-limbed folks who can make use of such crooked phrases,
too, when occasion serves.”

But Rufinus spoke before Paula could reply, referring her to his Essay on
the deformed in soul and body; and then he went on vehemently:

“I call you all to witness, does not Baste, the lame woman, restrict her
views to the lower aspect of things, to the surface of the earth indeed?
She has one leg much shorter than the other, and it is only with much
pains that we have contrived that it should carry her. To limp along at
all she is forced always to look down at the ground, and what is the
consequence? She can never tell you what is hanging to a tree, and about
three weeks since I asked her under a clear sky and a waning moon whether
the moon had been shining the evening before and she could not tell me,
though she had been sitting out of doors with the others till quite late,
evening after evening. I have noticed, too, that she scarcely recognizes
men who are rather tall, though she may have seen them three or four
times. Her standard has fallen short-like her leg. Now, am I right or
wrong?”

“In this instance you are right,” replied Philippus, “still, I know some
lame people…”

And again words ran high between the friends; Pulcheria, however, put an
end to the discussion this time, by exclaiming enthusiastically:

“Baste is the best and most good-natured soul in the whole house!”

“Because she looks into her own heart,” replied Rufinus. “She knows
herself; and, because she knows how painful pain is, she treats others
tenderly. Do you remember, Philippus, how we disputed after that
anatomical lecture we heard together at Caesarea?”

“Perfectly well,” said the leech, “and later life has but confirmed the
opinion I then held. There is no less true or less just saying than the
Latin motto: ‘Mens sana in corpore sano,’ as it is generally interpreted
to mean that a healthy soul is only to be found in a healthy body. As the
expression of a wish it may pass, but I have often felt inclined to doubt
even that. It has been my lot to meet with a strength of mind, a
hopefulness, and a thankfulness for the smallest mercies in the sickliest
bodies, and at the same time a delicacy of feeling, a wise reserve, and an
undeviating devotion to lofty things such as I have never seen in a
healthy frame. The body is but the tenement of the soul, and just as we
find righteous men and sinners, wise men and fools, alike in the palace
and the hovel—nay, and often see truer worth in a cottage than in
the splendid mansions of the great—so we may discover noble souls
both in the ugly and the fair, in the healthy and the infirm, and most
frequently, perhaps, in the least vigorous. We should be careful how we go
about repeating such false axioms, for they can only do harm to those who
have a heavy burthen to bear through life as it is. In my opinion a
hunchback’s thoughts are as straightforward as an athlete’s; or do you
imagine that if a mother were to place her new-born children in a spiral
chamber and let them grow up in it, they could not tend upwards as all men
do by nature?”

“Your comparison limps,” cried Rufinus, “and needs setting to rights. If
we are not to find ourselves in open antagonism….”

“You must keep the peace,” Joanna put in addressing her husband; and
before Rufinus could retort, Paula had asked him with frank simplicity:

“How old are you, my worthy host?”

“Your arrival at my house blessed the second day of my seventieth year,”
replied Rufinus with a courteous bow. His wife shook her finger at him,
exclaiming:

“I wonder whether you have not a secret hump? Such fine phrases…”

“He is catching the style from his cripples,” said Paula laughing at him.
“But now it is your turn, friend Philippus. Your exposition was worthy of
an antique sage, and it struck me—for the sake of Rufinus here I
will not say convinced me. I respect you—and yet I should like to
know how old….”

“I shall soon be thirty-one,” said Philippus, anticipating her question.

“That is an honest answer,” observed Dame Joanna. “At your age many a man
clings to his twenties.”

“Why?” asked Pulcheria.

“Well,” said her mother, “only because there are some girls who think a
man of thirty too old to be attractive.”

“Stupid creatures,” answered Pulcheria. “Let them find me a young man who
is more lovable than my father; and if Philippus—yes you, Philippus—were
ten or twenty years over nine and twenty, would that make you less clever
or kind?”

“Not less ugly, at any rate,” said the physician. Pulcheria laughed, but
with some annoyance, as though she had herself been the object of the
remark. “You are not a bit ugly!” she exclaimed. “Any one who says so has
no eyes. And you will hear nothing said of you but that you are a tall,
fine man!”

As the warm-hearted girl thus spoke, defending her friend against himself,
Paula stroked her golden hair and added to the physician:

“Pulcheria’s father is so far right that she, at any rate, measures men by
a true and straight standard. Note that, Philippus!—But do not take
my questioning ill.—I cannot help wondering how a man of one and
thirty and one of seventy should have been studying in the high schools at
the same time? The moon will not be eclipsed for a long time yet—how
bright and clear it is!—So you, Rufinus, who have wandered so far
through the wide world, if you would do me a great pleasure, will tell us
something of your past life and how you came to settle in Memphis.”

“His history?” cried Joanna. “If he were to tell it, in all its details
from beginning to end, the night would wane and breakfast would get cold.
He has had as many adventures as travelled Odysseus. But tell us something
husband; you know there is nothing we should like better.”

“I must be off to my duties,” said the leech, and when he had taken a
friendly leave of the others and bidden farewell to Paula with less
effusiveness than of late, Rufinus began his story.

“I was born in Alexandria, where, at that time, commerce and industry
still flourished. My father was an armorer; above two hundred slaves and
free laborers were employed in his work-shops. He required the finest
metal, and commonly procured it by way of Massilia from Britain. On one
occasion he himself went to that remote island in a friend’s ship, and he
there met my mother. Her ruddy gold hair, which Pul has inherited, seems
to have bewitched him and, as the handsome foreigner pleased her well—for
men like my father are hard to match nowadays—she turned Christian
for his sake and came home with him. They neither of them ever regretted
it; for though she was a quiet woman, and to her dying day spoke Greek
like a foreigner, the old man often said she was his best counsellor. At
the same time she was so soft-hearted, that she could not bear that any
living creature should suffer, and though she looked keenly after
everything at the hearth and loom, she could never see a fowl, a goose, or
a pig slaughtered. And I have inherited her weakness—shall I say
‘alas!’ or ‘thank God?’

“I had two elder brothers who both had to help my father, and who were to
carry on the business. When I was ten years old my calling was decided on.
My mother would have liked to make a priest of me and at that time I
should have consented joyfully; but my father would not agree, and as we
had an uncle who was making a great deal of money as a Rhetor, my father
accepted a proposal from him that I should devote myself to that career.
So I went from one teacher to another and made good progress in the
schools.

“Till my twentieth year I continued to live with my parents, and during my
many hours of leisure I was free to do or leave undone whatever I had a
fancy for; and this was always something medical, if that is not too big a
word. I was but a lad of twelve when this fancy first took me, and that
through pure accident. Of course I was fond of wandering about the
workshops, and there they kept a magpie, a quaint little bird, which my
mother had fed out of compassion. It could say ‘Blockhead,’ and call my
name and a few other words, and it seemed to like the noise, for it always
would fly off to where the smiths were hammering and filing their loudest,
and whenever it perched close to one of the anvils there were sure to be
mirthful faces over the shaping and scraping and polishing. For many years
its sociable ways made it a favorite; but one day it got caught in a vice
and its left leg was broken. Poor little creature!”

The old man stooped to wipe his eyes unseen, but he went on without
pausing:

“It fell on its back and looked at me so pathetically that I snatched the
tongs out of the bellows-man’s hand—for he was going to put an end
to its sufferings in all kindness—and, picking it up gently, I made
up my mind I would cure it. Then I carried the bird into my own room, and
to keep it quiet that it might not hurt itself, I tied it down to a frame
that I contrived, straightened its little leg, warmed the injured bone by
sucking it, and strapped it to little wooden splints. And behold it really
set: the bird got quite well and fluttered about the workshops again as
sound as before, and whenever it saw me it would perch upon my shoulder
and peck very gently at my hair with its sharp beak.

“From that moment I could have found it in me to break the legs of every
hen in the yard, that I might set them again; but I thought of something
better. I went to the barbers and told them that if any one had a bird, a
dog, or a cat, with a broken limb, he might bring it to me, and that I was
prepared to cure all these injuries gratis; they might tell all their
customers. The very next day I had a patient brought me: a black hound,
with tan spots over his eyes, whose leg had been smashed by a badly-aimed
spear: I can see him now! Others followed; feathered or four-footed
sufferers; and this was the beginning of my surgical career. The invalid
birds on the trees I still owe to my old allies the barbers. I only
occasionally take beasts in hand. The lame children, whom you saw in the
garden, come to me from poor parents who cannot afford a surgeon’s aid.
The merry, curly-headed boy who brought you a rose just now is to go home
again in a few days.—But to return to the story of my youth.

“The more serious events which gave my life this particular bias occurred
in my twentieth year, when I had already left even the high school behind
me; nor was I fully carried away by their influence till after my uncle
had procured me several opportunities of proving my proficiency in my
calling. I may say without vanity that my speeches won approval; but I was
revolted by the pompous, flowery bombast, without which I should have been
hissed down, and though my parents rejoiced when I went home from Niku,
Arsmoe, or some other little provincial town, with laurel-wreaths and gold
pieces, to myself I always seemed an impostor. Still, for my father’s
sake, I dared not give up my profession, although I hated more and more
the task of praising people to the skies whom I neither loved nor
respected, and of shedding tears of pathos while all the time I was minded
to laugh.

“I had plenty of time to myself, and as I did not lack courage and held
stoutly to our Greek confession, I was always to be found where there was
any stir or contention between the various sects. They generally passed
off with nothing worse than bruises and scratches, but now and then swords
were drawn. On one occasion thousands came forth to meet thousands, and
the Prefect called out the troops—all Greeks—to restore order
by force. A massacre ensued in which thousands were killed. I could not
describe it! Such scenes were not rare, and the fury and greed of the mob
were often directed against the Jews by the machinations of the creatures
of the archbishop and the government. The things I saw there were so
horrible, so shocking, that the tongue refuses to tell them; but one poor
Jewess, whose husband the wretches—our fellow Christians—killed,
and then pillaged the house, I have never forgotten! A soldier dragged her
down by her hair, while a ruffian snatched the child from her breast and,
holding it by its feet, dashed its skull against the wall before her eyes—as
you might slash a wet cloth against a pillar to dry it—I shall never
forget that handsome young mother and her child; they come before me in my
dreams at night even now.

“All these things I saw; and I shuddered to behold God’s creatures, beings
endowed with reason, persecuting their fellows, plunging them into misery,
tearing them limb from limb—and why? Merciful Saviour, why? For
sheer hatred—as sure as man is the standard for all things—merely
carried away by a hideous impulse to spite their neighbor for not thinking
as they do—nay, simply for not being themselves—to hurt him,
insult him, work him woe. And these fanatics, these armies who raised the
standard of ruthlessness, of extermination, of bloodthirstiness, were
Christians, were baptized in the name of Him who bids us forgive our
enemies, who enlarged the borders of love from the home and the city and
the state to include all mankind; who raised the adulteress from the dust,
who took children into his arms, and would have more joy over a sinner who
repents than over ninety and nine just persons!—Blood, blood, was
what they craved; and did not the doctrine of Him whose followers they
boastfully called themselves grow out of the blood of Him who shed it for
all men alike,—just as that lotos flower grows out of the clear
water in the marble tank? And it was the highest guardians and keepers of
this teaching of mercy, who goaded on the fury of the mob: Patriarchs,
bishops, priests and deacons—instead of pointing to the picture of
the Shepherd who tenderly carries the lost sheep and brings it home to the
fold.

“My own times seemed to me the worst that had ever been; aye, and—as
surely as man is the standard of all things—so they are! for love is
turned to hatred, mercy to implacable hardheartedness. The thrones not
only of the temporal but of the spiritual rulers, are dripping with the
blood of their fellow-men. Emperors and bishops set the example; subjects
and churchmen follow it. The great, the leading men of the struggle are
copied by the small, by the peaceful candidates for spiritual benefices.
All that I saw as a man, in the open streets, I had already seen as a boy
both in the low and high schools. Every doctrine has its adherents; the
man who casts in his lot with Cneius is hated by Caius, who forthwith
speaks and writes to no other end than to vex and put down Cneius, and
give him pain. Each for his part strives his utmost to find out faults in
his neighbor and to put him in the pillory, particularly if his antagonist
is held the greater man, or is likely to overtop him. Listen to the girls
at the well, to the women at the spindle; no one is sure of applause who
cannot tell some evil of the other men or women. Who cares to listen to
his neighbor’s praises? The man who hears that his brother is happy at
once envies him! Hatred, hatred everywhere! Everywhere the will, the
desire, the passion for bringing grief and ruin on others rather than to
help them, raise them and heal them!

“That is the spirit of my time; and everything within me revolted against
it with sacred wrath. I vowed in my heart that I would live and act
differently; that my sole aim should be to succor the unfortunate, to help
the wretched, to open my arms to those who had fallen into unmerited
contumely, to set the crooked straight for my neighbor, to mend what was
broken, to pour in balm, to heal and to save!

“And, thank God! it has been vouchsafed to me in some degree to keep this
vow; and though, later, some whims and a passionate curiosity got mixed up
with my zeal, still, never have I lost sight of the great task of which I
have spoken, since my father’s death and since my uncle also left me his
large fortune. Then I had done with the Rhetor’s art, and travelled east
and west to seek the land where love unites men’s hearts and where hatred
is only a disease; but as sure as man is the standard of all things, to
this day all my endeavors to find it have been in vain. Meanwhile I have
kept my own house on such a footing that it has become a stronghold of
love; in its atmosphere hatred cannot grow, but is nipped in the germ.

“In spite of this I am no saint. I have committed many a folly, many an
injustice; and much of my goods and gold, which I should perhaps have done
better to save for my family, has slipped through my fingers, though in
the execution, no doubt, of what I deemed the highest duties. Would you
believe it, Paula?—Forgive an old man for such fatherly familiarity
with the daughter of Thomas;—hardly five years after my marriage
with this good wife, not long after we had lost our only son, I left her
and our little daughter, Pul there, for more than two years, to follow the
Emperor Heraclius of my own free will to the war against the Persians who
had done me no harm—not, indeed, as a soldier, but as a surgeon
eager for experience. To confess the truth I was quite as eager to see and
treat fractures and wounds and injuries in great numbers, as I was to
exercise benevolence. I came home with a broken hip-bone, tolerably
patched up, and again, a few years later, I could not keep still in one
place. The bird of passage must need drag wife and child from the peace of
hearth and homestead, and take them to where he could go to the high
school. A husband, a father, and already grey-headed, I was a singular
exception among the youths who sat listening to the lectures and
explanations of their teachers; but as sure as man is the standard of all
things, they none of them outdid me in diligence and zeal, though many a
one was greatly my superior in gifts and intellect, and among them the
foremost was our friend Philippus. Thus it came about, noble Paula, that
the old man and the youth in his prime were fellow-students; but to this
day the senior gladly bows down to his young brother in learning and
feeling. To straighten, to comfort, and to heal: this is the aim of his
life too. And even I, an old man, who started long before Philippus on the
same career, often long to call myself his disciple.”

Here Rufinus paused and rose; Paula, too, got up, grasped his hand warmly,
and said:

“If I were a man, I would join you! But Philippus has told me that even a
woman may be allowed to work with the same purpose.—And now let me
beg of you never to call me anything but Paula—you will not refuse
me this favor. I never thought I could be so happy again as I am with you;
here my heart is free and whole. Dame Joanna, do you be my mother! I have
lost the best of fathers, and till I find him again, you, Rufinus, must
fill his place!”

“Gladly, gladly!” cried the old man; he clasped both her hands and went on
vivaciously: “And in return I ask you to be an elder sister to Pul. Make
that timid little thing such a maiden as you are yourself.—But look,
children, look up quickly; it is beginning!—Typhon, in the form of a
boar, is swallowing the eye of Horns: so the heathen of old in this
country used to believe when the moon suffered an eclipse. See how the
shadow is covering the bright disk. When the ancients saw this happening
they used to make a noise, shaking the sistrum with its metal rings,
drumming and trumpeting, shouting and yelling, to scare off the evil one
and drive him away. It may be about four hundred years since that last
took place, but to this day—draw your kerchiefs more closely round
your heads and come with me to the river—to this day Christians
degrade themselves by similar rites. Wherever I have been in Christian
lands, I have always witnessed the same scenes: our holy faith has, to be
sure, demolished the religions of the heathen; but their superstitions
have survived, and have forced their way through rifts and chinks into our
ceremonial. They are marching round now, with the bishop at their head,
and you can hear the loud wailing of the women, and the cries of the men,
drowning the chant of the priests. Only listen! They are as passionate and
agonized in their entreaty as though old Typhon were even now about to
swallow the moon, and the greatest catastrophe was hanging over the world.
Aye, as surely as man is the standard of all things, those terrified
beings are diseased in mind; and how are we to forgive those who dare to
scare Christians; yes, Christian souls, with the traditions of heathen
folly, and to blind their inward vision?”


CHAPTER XXII.

Up to within a few days Katharina had still been a dependent and docile
child, who had made it a point of honor to obey instantly, not only her
mother’s lightest word, but Dame Neforis, too; and, since her own Greek
instructress had been dismissed, even the acid Eudoxia. She had never
concealed from her mother, or the worthy teacher whom she had truly loved,
the smallest breach of rules, the least naughtiness or wilful act of which
she had been guilty; nay, she had never been able to rest till she had
poured out a confession, before evening prayer, of all that her little
heart told her was not perfectly right, to some one whom she loved, and
obtained full forgiveness. Night after night the “Water-wagtail” had gone
to sleep with a conscience as clear and as white as the breast of her
whitest dove, and the worst sin she had ever committed during the day was
some forbidden scramble, some dainty or, more frequently, some rude and
angry word.

But a change had first come over her after Orion’s kiss in the
intoxicating perfume of the flowering trees; and almost every hour since
had roused her to new hopes and new views. It had never before occurred to
her to criticise or judge her mother; now she was constantly doing so. The
way in which Susannah had cut herself off from her neighbors in the
governor’s house, to her daughter seemed perverse and in bad taste; and
the bitterly vindictive attacks on her old friends, which were constantly
on Susannah’s lips, aggrieved the girl, and finally set her in opposition
to her mother, whose judgment had hitherto seemed to her infallible. Thus,
when the governor’s house was closed against her, there was no one in whom
she cared to confide, for a barrier stood between her and Paula, and she
was painfully conscious of its height each time the wish to pass it
recurred to her mind. Paula was certainly “that other” of whom Orion had
spoken; when she had stolen away to see her in the evening after the
funeral, she had been prompted less by a burning wish to pour out her
heart to a sympathizing hearer, than by torturing curiosity mingled with
jealousy. She had crept through the hedge with a strangely-mixed feeling
of tender longing and sullen hatred; when they had met in the garden she
had at first given herself up to the full delight of being free to speak,
and of finding a listener in a woman so much her superior; but Paula’s
reserved replies to her bold questioning had revived her feelings of envy
and grudge. Any one who did not hate Orion must, she was convinced, love
him.

Were they not perhaps already pledged to each other! Very likely Paula had
thought of her as merely a credulous child, and so had concealed the fact!

This “very likely” was torture to her, and she was determined to try, at
any rate, to settle the doubt. She had an ally at her command; this was
her foster-brother, the son of her deaf old nurse; she knew that he would
blindly obey all her wishes—nay, to please her, would throw himself
to the crocodiles in the Nile. Anubis had been her comrade in all her
childish sports, till at the age of fourteen, after learning to read and
write, her mother had obtained an appointment for him in the governor’s
household, as an assistant to be further trained by the treasurer Nilus.
Dame Susannah intended to find him employment at a future date on her
estates, or at Memphis, the centre of their administration, as he might
prove himself capable. The lad was still living with his mother under the
rich widow’s roof, and only spent his working days at the governor’s
house, he was industrious and clever during office hours, though between
whiles he busied himself with things altogether foreign to his future
calling. At Katharina’s request he had opened a communication between the
two houses by means of carrier-pigeons, and many missives were thus
despatched with little gossip, invitations, excuses, and the like, from
Katharina to Mary and back again. Anubis took great pleasure in the pretty
creatures, and by the permission of his superiors a dovecote was erected
on the roof of the treasurer’s house. Mary was now lying ill, and their
intercourse was at an end; still, the well-trained messengers need not be
idle, and Katharina had begun to use them for a very different purpose.

Orion’s envoy had been detained a long time at Rufinus’ door the day
before; and she had since learnt from Anubis, who was acquainted with all
that took place in Nilus’ office, that Paula’s moneys were to be delivered
over to her very shortly, and in all probability by Orion himself. They
must then have an interview, and perhaps she might succeed in overhearing
it. She knew well how this could be managed; the only thing was to be on
the spot at the right moment.

On the morning after the full-moon, at two hours and a half before noon,
the little boy whose task it was to feed the feathered messengers in their
dove-cote brought her a written scrap, on which Anubis informed her that
Orion was about to set out; but he was not very warmly welcomed, for the
hour did not suit her at all. Early in the morning Bishop Plotinus had
come to inform Susannah that Benjamin, Patriarch of Alexandria, was
visiting Amru on the opposite shore, and would presently honor Memphis
with his presence. He proposed to remain one day; he had begged to have no
formal reception, and had left it to the bishop to find suitable quarters
for himself and his escort, as he did not wish to put up at the governor’s
house. The vain widow had at once pressingly urged her readiness to
receive the illustrious guest under her roof: The prelate’s presence must
bring a blessing on the house, and she thought, too, that she might turn
it to advantage for several ends she just now happened to have in view.

A handsome reception must be prepared; there were but a few hours to
spare, and even before the bishop had left her, she had begun to call the
servants together and give them orders. The whole house must be turned
upside down; some of the kitchen staff were hurried off into the town to
make purchases, others bustled round the fire; the gardeners plundered the
beds and bushes to weave wreaths and nosegays for decorations; from cellar
to roof half a hundred of slaves, white, brown and black, were toiling
with all their might, for each believed that, by rendering a service to
the Patriarch, he might count on the special favor of Heaven, while their
unresting mistress never ceased screaming out her orders as to what she
wished done.

Susannah, who as a girl had been the eldest of a numerous and not wealthy
family, and had been obliged to put her own hand to things, quite forgot
now that she was a woman of position and fortune whom it ill-beseemed to
do her own household work; she was here, there, and everywhere, and had an
eye on all—excepting indeed her own daughter; but she was the petted
darling of the house, brought up to Greek refinement, whose help in such
arduous labors was not to be thought of; indeed, she would only have been
in the way.

When the bishop had taken his leave Katharina was merely desired to be
ready in her best attire, with a nosegay in her hand, to receive the
Patriarch under the awning spread outside the entrance. More than this the
widow did not require of her, and as the girl flew up the stairs to her
room she was thinking: “Orion will be coming directly: it still wants
fully two hours of noon, and if he stays there half an hour that will be
more than enough. I shall have time then to change my dress, but I will
put my new sandals on at once as a precaution; nurse and the maid must
wait for me in my room. They must have everything ready for my return—perhaps
he and Paula may have much to say to each other. He will not get off
without a lecture, unless she has already found an opportunity elsewhere
of expressing her indignation.”

A few minutes later she had sprung to the top of a mound of earth covered
with turf, which she had some time since ordered to be thrown up close
behind the hedge through which she had yesterday made her way. Her little
feet were shod with handsome gold sandals set with sapphires, and she
seated herself on a low bench with a satisfied smile, as though to assist
at a theatrical performance. Some broad-leaved shrubs, placed behind this
place of ambush, screened her to some extent from the heat of the sun, and
as she sat watching and listening in this lurking place, which she was not
using for the first time, her heart began to beat more quickly; indeed, in
her excitement she quite forgot some sweetmeats which she had brought to
wile away the time and had poured into a large leaf in her lap.

Happily she had not long to wait; Orion arrived in his mother’s
four-wheeled covered chariot. By the side of the driver sat a servant, and
a slave was perched on the step to the door on each side of the vehicle.
It was followed by a few idlers, men and women, and a crowd of half-naked
children. But they got nothing by their curiosity, for the carruca did not
draw up in the road, but was driven into Rufinus’ garden, and the trees
and shrubs hid it from the gaze of the expectant mob, which presently
dispersed.

Orion got out at the principal door of the house, followed by the
treasurer; and while the old man welcomed the son of the Mukaukas, Nilus
superintended the transfer of a considerable number of heavy sacks to
their host’s private room.

Nothing of all this had seemed noteworthy to Katharina but the quantity
and size of the bags—full, no doubt, of gold—and the man, whom
alone she cared to see. Never had she thought Orion so handsome; the long,
flowing mourning robe, which he had flung over his shoulder in rich folds,
added to the height of his stately form; his abundant hair, not curled but
waving naturally, set off his face which, pale and grave as it was, both
touched and attracted her ir resistibly. The thought that this splendid
creature had once courted her, loved her, kissed her—that he had
once been hers, and that she had lost him to another, was a pang like
physical agony, mounting from her heart to her brain.

After Orion had vanished indoors, she still seemed to see him; and when
she thrust his image from her fancy, forced to remind herself that he was
now standing face to face with that other, and was looking at Paula as, a
few days since, he had looked at her, the anguish of her soul was doubled.
And was Paula only half as happy as she had been in that hour of supreme
bliss? Ah! how her heart ached! She longed to leap over the hedge—she
could have rushed into the house and flung herself between Paula and
Orion.

Still, there she sat; restless but without moving; wholly under the
dominion of evil thoughts, among which a good one rarely and timidly
intruded, with her eyes fixed on Rufinus’ dwelling. It stood in the broad
sunshine as silent as death, as if all were sleeping. In the garden, too,
all was motionless but the thin jet of water, which danced up from the
marble tank with a soft and fitful, but monotonous tinkle, while
butterflies, dragonflies, bees, and beetles, whose hum she could not hear,
seemed to circle round the flowers without a sound. The birds must be
asleep, for not one was to be seen or broke the oppressive stillness by a
chirp or a twitter. The chariot at the door might have been spellbound;
the driver had dismounted, and he, with the other slaves, had stretched
himself in the narrow strips of shade cast by the pillars of the verandah;
their chins buried in their breasts, they spoke not a word. The horses
alone were stirring-flicking off the flies with their flowing tails, or
turning to bite the burning stings they inflicted. This now and then
lifted the pole, and as the chariot crunched backwards a few inches, the
charioteer growled out a sleepy “Brrr.”

Katharina had laid a large leaf on her head for protection against the
sun; she did not dare use a parasol or a hat for fear of being seen. The
shade cast by the shrubs was but scanty, the noontide heat was torment;
still, though minute followed minute and one-quarter of an hour after
another crept by at a snail’s pace, she was far too much excited to be
sleepy. She needed no dial to tell her the time; she knew exactly how late
it was as one shadow stole to this point and another to that, and, by
risking the danger to her eyes of glancing up at the sun, she could make
doubly sure.

It was now within three-quarters of an hour of noon, and in that house all
was as still as before; the Patriarch, however, might be expected to be
punctual, and she had done nothing towards dressing but putting on those
gilt sandals. This brought her to swift decision she hurried to her room,
desired the maid not to dress her hair, contenting herself with pinning a
few roses into its natural curls. Then, in fierce haste, she made her
throw on her sea-green dress of bombyx silk edged with fine embroidery,
and fasten her peplos with the first pins that came to hand; and when the
snap of her bracelet of costly sapphires broke, as she herself was
fastening it, she flung it back among her other trinkets as she might have
tossed an unripe apple back upon a heap. She slipped her little hand into
a gold spiral which curled round half her arm, and gathered up the rest of
her jewels, to put them on out of doors as she sat watching. The
waiting-woman was ordered to come for her at noon with the flowers for the
Patriarch, and, in a quarter of an hour after leaving her lurking place,
she was back there again. Just in time;—for while she was putting on
the trinkets Nilus came out, followed by some slaves with several leather
bags which they replaced in the chariot. Then the treasurer stepped in and
with him Philippus, and the vehicle drove away.

“So Paula has entrusted her property to Orion again,” thought Katharina.
“They are one again; and henceforth there will be endless going and coming
between the governor’s house and that of Rufinus. A very pretty game!—But
wait, only wait.” And she set her little white teeth; but she retained
enough self-possession to mark all that took place.

During her absence indoors Orion’s black horse had been brought into the
garden; a groom on horseback was leading him, and as she watched their
movements she muttered to herself with a smile of scorn: “At any rate he
is not going to carry her home with him at once.”

A few minutes passed in silence, and at last Paula came out, and close
behind her, almost by her side, walked Orion.

His cheeks were no longer pale, far from it, no more than Katharina’s
were; they were crimson! How bright his eyes were, how radiant with
satisfaction and gladness!—She only wished she were a viper to sting
them both in the heel!—At the same time Paula had lost none of her
proud and noble dignity—and he? He gazed at his companion like a
rapt soul; she fancied she could see the folds of his mourning cloak
rising and falling with the beating of his heart. Paula, too, was in
mourning. Of course. They were one; his sorrow must be hers, although she
had fled from his father’s house as though it were a prison. And of course
this virtuous beauty knew full well that nothing became her better than
dark colors! In manner, gait and height this pair looked like two superior
beings, destined for each other by Fate; Katharina herself could not but
confess it.

Some spiteful demon—a friendly one, she thought—led them past
her, so close that her sharp ears could catch every word they said as they
slowly walked on, or now and then stood still, dogged by the agile
water-wagtail, who stole along parallel with them on the other side of the
hedge.

“I have so much to thank you for,” were the first words she caught from
Orion, “that I am shy of asking you yet another favor; but this one indeed
concerns yourself. You know how deep a blow was struck me by little Mary’s
childish hand; still, the impulse that prompted her had its rise in her
honest, upright feeling and her idolizing love of you.”

“And you would like me to take charge of her?” asked Paula. “Such a wish
is of course granted beforehand—only….”

“Only?” repeated Orion.

“Only you must send her here; for you know that I will never enter your
doors again.”

“Alas that it should be so!—But the child has been very ill and can
hardly leave the house at present; and—since I must own it—my
mother avoids her in a way which distresses the child, who is over-excited
as it is, and fills her with new terrors.”

“How can Neforis treat her little favorite so?”

“Remember,” said Orion, “what my father has been to my poor mother. She is
now completely crushed: and, when she sees the little girl, that last
scene of her unhappy husband’s life is brought back to her, with all that
came upon my father and me, beyond a doubt through Mary. She looks on the
poor little thing as the bane of the family?”

“Then she must come away,” said Paula much touched. “Send her to us. Kind
and comforting souls dwell under Rufinus’ roof.”

“I thank you warmly. I will entreat my mother most urgently….”

“Do so,” interrupted Paula. “Have you ever seen Pulcheria, the daughter of
my worthy host?”

“Yes.—A singularly lovable creature!”

“She will soon take Mary into her faithful heart—”

“And our poor little girl needs a friend, now that Susannah has forbidden
her daughter to visit at our house.”

The conversation now turned on the two girls, of whom they spoke as sweet
children, both much to be pitied; and, when Orion observed that his niece
was old for her tender years, Paula replied with a slight accent of
reproach: “But Katharina, too, has ripened much during the last few days;
the lively child has become a sober girl; her recent experience is a heavy
burden on her light heart.”

“But, if I know her at all, it will soon be cast off,” replied Orion. “She
is a sweet, happy little creature; and, of all the dreadful things I did
on that day of horrors, the most dreadful perhaps was the woe I wrought
for her. There is no excuse possible, and yet it was solely to gratify my
mother’s darling wish that I consented to marry Katharina.—However,
enough of that.—Henceforth I must march through life with large
strides, and she to whom love gives courage to become my wife, must be
able to keep pace with me.”

Katharina could only just hear these last words. The speakers now turned
down the path, sparsely shaded from the midday sun by a few trees, which
led to the tank in the centre of the garden, and they went further and
further from her.

She heard no more—still, she knew enough and could supply the rest.
The object of her ambush was gained: she knew now with perfect certainty
who was “the other.” And how they had spoken of her! Not as a deserted
bride, whose rights had been trodden in the dust, but as a child who is
dismissed from the room as soon as it begins to be in the way. But she
thought she could see through that couple and knew why they had spoken of
her thus. Paula, of course, must prevent any new tie from being formed
between herself and Orion; and as for Orion, common prudence required that
he should mention her—her, whom he had but lately loaded with
tenderness—as a mere child, to protect himself against the jealousy
of that austere “other” one. That he had loved her, at any rate that
evening under the trees, she obstinately maintained in her own mind; to
that conviction she must cling desperately, or lose her last foothold. Her
whole being was a prey to a frightful turmoil of feeling. Her hands shook;
her mouth was parched as by the midday heat; she knew that there were
withered leaves between her feet and the sandals she wore, that twigs had
got caught in her hair; but she could not care and when the pair were
screened from her by the denser shrubs she flew back to her raised
seat-from which she could again discover them. At this moment she would
have given all she held best and dearest, to be the thing it vexed her so
much to be called: a water-wagtail, or some other bird.

It must be very near noon if not already past; she dusted her sandals and
tidied her curly hair, picking out the dry leaves and not noticing that at
the same time a rose fell out on the ground. Only her hands were busy; her
eyes were elsewhere, and suddenly they brightened again, for the couple on
which she kept them fixed were coming back, straight towards the hedge,
and she would soon be able again to hear what they were saying.


CHAPTER XXIII.

Orion and Paula had had much to talk about, since the young man had
arrived. The discussion over the safe keeping of the girl’s money had been
tedious. Finally, her counsellors had decided to entrust half of it to
Gamaliel the jeweller and his brother, who carried on a large business in
Constantinople. He happened to be in Memphis, and they had both declared
themselves willing each to take half of the sum in question and use it at
interest. They would be equally responsible for its security, so that each
should make good the whole of the property in their hands in case of the
other stopping payment. Nilus undertook to procure legal sanction and the
necessary sixteen witnesses to this transaction.

The other half of her fortune was, by the advice of Philippus, to be
placed in the hands of a brother of Haschim’s, the Arab merchant, who had
a large business as money changer in Fostat, the new town on the further
shore, in which the merchant himself was a partner. This investment had
the advantage of being perfectly safe, at any rate so long as the Arabs
ruled the land.

After all this was settled Nilus departed with that half of the money
which Orion was to hand over to the keeping of the Moslem money changer on
the following morning.

Paula, though she had taken no part in the men’s discussion, had been
present throughout, and had expressed her grateful consent. The clearness,
gravity, and decision which Orion had displayed had not escaped her
notice; and though the treasurer’s shrewd remarks, briefly and modestly
made, had in every case proved final, it was Orion’s reasoning and
explanations that had most come home to her, for it seemed to her that he
was always prompted by loftier, wider, and more statesmanlike
considerations than the others.

When this was over she and Orion were left together, and neither she nor
the young man had been able to escape a few moments of anxious
heart-beating.

It was not till the governor’s son had summoned up his courage and,
sinking on his knees, was imploring her pardon, that she recovered some
firmness and reminded him of the letter he had sent her. But her heart
drew her to him almost irresistibly, and in order not to yield to its
urgent prompts, she hastily enquired what he had meant by the exchange he
had written about.

At this he went up to her with downcast eyes, drew a small box out of the
breast of his robe, and took out the emerald with the damaged setting. He
held them towards her with a beseeching gesture, exclaiming, with all the
peculiar sweetness of his deep voice:

“It is your property! Take it and give me in return your confidence, your
forgiveness.”

She drew back a little, looking first at him and then at the stone and its
setting—surprised, pleased, and deeply moved, with a bright light in
her eyes. The young man found it impossible to utter a single word, only
holding the jewel and the broken setting closer to her, and yet closer,
like some poor man who makes bold to offer the best he has to a wealthy
superior, though conscious that it is all too humble a gift to find favor.

And Paula was not long undecided; she took the proffered gem and feasted
her glistening eyes with glad thankfulness on her recovered treasure.

Two days ago she had thought of it as defiled and desecrated; it had
gratified her pride to fancy that she had cast the precious jewel at the
feet, as it were, of Neforis and her son, never to see it again. So hard
is it to forego the right of hating those who have basely brought grief
into our lives and anguish to our souls!—and yet Paula, who would
not have yielded this right at any price a short time since, now waived it
of her own free will—nay, thrust it from her like some tormenting
incubus which choked her pulses and kept her from breathing freely. In
this gem she saw once more a cherished memorial of her lost mother, the
honorable gift of a great monarch to her forefathers; and she was happy to
possess it once more. But it was not this that gave life to the warm,
sunny glow of happiness which thrilled through her, or occasioned its
quick and delightful growth; for her eye did not linger on the large and
glittering stone, but rested spellbound on the poor gold frame which had
once held it, and which had cost her such hours of anguish. This broken
and worthless thing, it is true, was powerful to justify her in the
opinions of her judges and her enemies; with this in her hand she would
easily confute her accusers. Still, it was not that which so greatly
consoled her. The physician’s remark, that there was no greater joy than
the discovery that we have been deceived in thinking ill of another,
recurred to her mind; and she had once loved the man who now stood before
her open to every good influence, deeply moved in her presence; and her
judgment of him had been a hundred, a thousand times too hard. Only a
noble soul could confidently expect magnanimity from a foe and he, he had
put himself defenceless into the power of her who had been mortally
stricken by the most fateful, and perhaps the only disgraceful act of his
life. In giving up this gold frame Orion also gave himself up; with this
talisman in her possession she stood before him as irresistible Fate. And
now, as she looked up at him and met his large eyes, full of life and
intellect but sparkling through tears of violent agitation, she felt
absolutely certain that this favorite of Fortune, though he had indeed
sinned deeply and disastrously, was capable of the highest and greatest
aims if he had a friend to show him what life required of him and were but
ready to follow such guidance. And such a friend she would be to him!

She, like Orion, could not for some time speak; but he, at last, was
unable to contain himself; he hastened towards her and pressed her hand to
his lips with fervent gratitude, while she—she had to submit; nay,
she would have been incapable of resisting him if, as in her dream, he had
clasped her in his arms, to his heart. His burning lips had rested
fervently on her hand, but it was only for an instant that she abandoned
herself to the violent agitation that mastered her. Then with a great
effort her instinct and determination to do right enabled her to control
it; she pushed him from her decisively but not ungently, and then, with
some emotion and an arch sweetness which he had never before seen in her,
and which charmed him even more than her noble and lofty pride, she said,
threatening him with her finger.

“Take care, Orion! Now I have the stone and the setting; yes, that very
setting. Beware of the consequences, rash man!”

“Not at all. Say rather: Fool, who at last has succeeded in doing
something rational,” he replied joyfully. “What I have brought you is not
a gift; it is your own. To you it can be neither more nor less than it was
before; but to me it has gained inestimably in value since it places my
honor, perhaps my life even, in your keeping; I am in your power as
completely as the humblest slave in the palace is in that of the Emperor.
Keep the gem, and use it and this fateful gold trifle till the day shall
come when my weal and woe are one with yours.”

“For your dead father’s sake,” she answered, coloring deeply, “your weal
lies already very near my heart. Am not I, who brought upon you your
father’s curse, bound indeed to help you to free yourself from the burden
of it? And it may perhaps be in my power to do so, Orion, if you do not
scorn to listen to the counsels of an ignorant girl?”

“Speak,” he cried; but she did not reply immediately. She only begged him
to come into the garden with her; the close atmosphere of the room had
become intolerable to both, and when they got out and Katharina had first
caught sight of them their flushed cheeks had not escaped her watchful
eye.

In the open air, a scarcely perceptible breath from the river moderated
the noontide heat, and then Paula found courage to tell him what Philippus
had called his apprehension in life. It was not new to him; indeed it
fully answered to the principles he had laid down for the future. He
accepted it gratefully: “Life is a function, a ministry, a duty!” the
words were a motto, a precept that should aid him in carrying out his
plans.

“And the device,” he exclaimed, “will be doubly precious to me as having
come from your lips.—But I no longer need its warning. The wisest
and most practical axioms of conduct never made any man the better. Who
does not bring a stock of them with him when he quits school for the world
at large? Precepts are of no use unless, in the voyage of life, a manly
will holds the rudder. I have called on mine, and it will steer me to the
goal, for a bright guiding star lights the pilot on his way. You know that
star; it is….”

“It is what you call your love,” she interposed, with a deep blush.—“Your
love for me, and I will trust it.”

“You will!” he cried passionately. “You allow me to hope….”

“Yes, yes, hope!” she again broke in, “but meanwhile….”

“Meanwhile,” he said, “‘do not press me further,’ ought to end your
sentence. Oh! I quite understand you; and until I feel that you have good
reason once more to respect the maniac who lost you by his own fault, I,
who fought you like your most deadly foe, will not even speak the final
word. I will silence my longing, I will try….”

“You will try to show me—nay, you will show me—that in you, my
foe and persecutor, I have gained my dearest friend!—And now to
quite another matter. We know how we stand towards each other and can
count on each other with glad and perfect confidence, thanking the
Almighty for having opened out a new life to us. To Him we will this
day….”

“Offer praise and thanksgiving,” Orion joyfully put in.

And here began the conversation relating to little Mary which Katharina
had overheard.

They had gone out of hearing again when Orion explained to Paula that all
arrangements for the little girl must be postponed till the morrow, as he
had business now with Amru, on the other shore of the Nile. He decisively
confuted her fears lest he should allow himself to be perverted by the
Moslems to their faith; for though he ardently desired to let the
Patriarch feel that he had no mind to submit patiently to the affront to
his deceased father, he clung too firmly to his creed, and knew too well
what was due to the memory of the dead, and to Paula herself, ever to take
this extreme step. He spoke in glowing terms as he described how, for the
future, he purposed to devote his best powers to his hapless and oppressed
country, whether it were in the service of the Khaliff or in some other
way; and she eagerly entered into his schemes, quite carried away by his
noble enthusiasm, and acknowledging to herself with silent rapture the
superiority of his mind and the soaring loftiness of his soul.

When, presently, they began talking again of the past she asked him quite
frankly, but in a low voice and without looking up, what had become of the
emerald he had taken from the Persian hanging. He turned pale at this,
looked at the ground, and hesitatingly replied that he had sent it to
Constantinople—“to have it set—set in an ornament—worthy
of her whom—whom he….”

But here he broke off, stamped angrily with his foot, and looking straight
into the girl’s eyes exclaimed:

“A pack of lies, foul and unworthy lies!—I have been truthful by
nature all my life; but does it not seem as though that accursed day
forced me to some base action every time it is even mentioned? Yes, Paula;
the gem is really on its way to Byzantium. But the stolen gift was never
meant for you, but for a fair, gentle creature, in nothing blameworthy,
who gave me her heart. To me she was never anything but a pretty
plaything; still, there were moments when I believed—poor soul!—I
first learnt what love meant through you, how great and how sacred it is!—Now
you know all; this, indeed, is the truth!”

They walked on again, and Katharina, who had not been able to gather the
whole of this explanation, could plainly hear Paula’s reply in warm, glad
accents:

“Yes, that is the truth, I feel. And henceforth that horrible day is
blotted out, erased from your life and mine; and whatever you tell me in
the future I shall believe.”

And the listener heard the young man answer in a tremulous voice:

“And you shall never be deceived in me. Now I must leave you; and I go, in
spite of my griefs, a happy man, entitled to rejoice anew. O Paula, what
do I not owe to you! And when we next meet you will receive me, will you
not, as you did that evening on the river after my return?”

“Yes, indeed; and with even more glad confidence,” replied Paula, holding
out her hand with a lovely graciousness that came from her heart; he
pressed it a moment to his lips, and then sprang on to his horse and rode
off at a round trot, his slave following him.

“Katharina, child, Katharina!” was shouted from Susannah’s house in a
woman’s high-pitched voice. The water-wagtail started up, hastily
smoothing her hair and casting an evil glance at her rival, “the other,”
the supplanter who had basely betrayed her under the sycamores; she
clenched her little fist as she saw Paula watching Orion’s retreating form
with beaming eyes. Paula went back into the house, happy and walking on
air, while the other poor, deeply-wounded child burst into violent weeping
at the first hasty words from her mother, who was not at all satisfied
with the disorder of her dress; and she ended by declaring with defiant
audacity that she would not present the flowers to the patriarch, and
would remain in her own room, for she was dying of headache.—And so
she did.


CHAPTER XXIV.

In the course of the afternoon Orion paid his visit to the Arab governor.
He crossed the bridge of boats on his finest horse.

Only two years since, the land where the new town of Fostat was now
growing up under the old citadel of Babylon had been fields and gardens;
but at Amru’s word it had started into being as by a miracle; house after
house already lined the streets, the docks were full of ships and barges,
the market was alive with dealers, and on a spot where, during the siege
of the fortress, a sutler’s booth had stood, a long colonnade marked out
the site of a new mosque.

There was little to be seen here now of native Egyptian life; it looked as
though some magician had transported a part of Medina itself to the shores
of the Nile. Men and beasts, dwellings and shops, though they had adopted
much of what they had found in this ancient land of culture, still bore
the stamp of their origin; and wherever Orion’s eye fell on one of his
fellow-countrymen, he was a laborer or a scribe in the service of the
conquerors who had so quickly made themselves at home.

Before his departure for Constantinople one of his father’s palm-groves
had occupied the spot where Amru’s residence now stood opposite the
half-finished mosque. Where, now, thousands of Moslems, some on foot, some
on richly caparisoned steeds, were passing to and fro, turbaned and robed
after the manner of their tribe, with such adornment as they had stolen or
adopted from intercourse with splendor-loving nations, and where long
trains of camels dragged quarried stones to the building, in former times
only an occasional ox-cart with creaking wheels was to be seen, an
Egyptian riding an ass or a bare-backed nag, and now and then a few
insolent Greek soldiers. On all sides he heard the sharper and more
emphatic accent of the sons of the desert instead of the language of his
forefathers and their Greek conquerors. Without the aid of the servant who
rode at his side he could not have made himself understood on the soil of
his native land.

He soon reached Amru’s house and was there informed by an Egyptian
secretary that his master was gone out hunting and would receive him, not
in the town, but at the citadel. There, on a pleasant site on the
limestone hills which rose behind the fortress of Babylon and the
newly-founded city, stood some fine buildings, originally planned as a
residence for the Prefect; and thither Amru had transported his wives,
children, and favorite horses, preferring it, with very good reason, to
the palace in the town, where he transacted business, and where the new
mosque intercepted the view of the Nile, while this eminence commanded a
wide prospect.

The sun was near setting when Orion reached the spot, but the general had
not yet come in from the chase, and the gate-keeper requested that he
would wait.

Orion was accustomed to be treated in his own country as the heir of the
greatest man in it; the color mounted to his brow and his Egyptian heart
revolted at having to bend his pride and swallow his wrath before an Arab.
He was one of the subject race, and the thought that one word from his
lips would suffice to secure his reception in the ranks of the rulers
forced itself suddenly on his mind; but he repressed it with all his
might, and silently allowed himself to be conducted to a terrace screened
by a vine-covered trellis from the heat of the sun.

He sat down on one of the marble seats by the parapet of this hanging
garden and looked westward. He knew the scene well, it was the playground
of his childhood and youth; hundreds of times the picture had spread
before him, and yet it affected him to-day as it had never done before.
Was there on earth—he asked himself—a more fertile and
luxuriant land? Had not even the Greek poets sung of the Nile as the most
venerable of rivers? Had not great Caesar himself been so fascinated by
the idea of discovering its source that to that end—so he had
declared—he would have thought the dominion of the world well lost?
On the produce of those wide fields the weal and woe of the mightiest
cities of the earth had been dependent for centuries; nay, imperial Rome
and sovereign Constantinople had quaked with fears of famine, when a bad
harvest here had disappointed the hopes of the husbandman.

And was there anywhere a more industrious nation of laborers, had there
ever been, before them, a thriftier or a more skilful race? When he looked
back on the fate and deeds of nations, on the remotest horizon where the
thread of history was scarcely perceptible, that same gigantic Sphinx was
there—the first and earliest monument of human joy in creative art—those
Pyramids which still proudly stood in undiminished and inaccessible
majesty beyond the Nile, beyond the ruined capital of his forefathers, at
the foot of the Libyan range. He was the son of the men who had raised
these imperishable works, and in his veins perchance there still might
flow a drop of the blood of those Pharaohs who had sought eternal rest in
these vast tombs, and whose greater progeny, had overrun half the world
with their armies, and had exacted tribute and submission. He, who had
often felt flattered at being praised for the purity of his Greek—pure
not merely for his time: an age of bastard tongues—and for the
engaging Hellenism of his person, here and now had an impulse of pride of
his Egyptian origin. He drew a deep breath, as he gazed at the sinking
sun; it seemed to lend intentional significance to the rich beauty of his
home as its magical glory transmuted the fields, the stream, and the
palm-groves, the roofs of the city, and even the barren desert-range and
the Pyramids to burning gold. It was fast going to rest behind the Libyan
chain. The bare, colorless limestone sparkled like translucent crystal;
the glowing sphere looked as though it were melting into the very heart of
the mountains behind which it was vanishing, while its rays, shooting
upwards like millions of gold threads, bound his native valley to heaven—the
dwelling of the Divine Power who had blessed it above all other lands.

To free this beautiful spot of earth and its children from their
oppressors—to restore to them the might and greatness which had once
been theirs—to snatch down the crescent from the tents and buildings
which lay below him and plant the cross which from his infancy he had held
sacred—to lead enthusiastic troops of Egyptians against the Moslems—to
quell their arrogance and drive them back to the East like Sesostris, the
hero of history and legend—this was a task worthy of the grandson of
Menas, of the son of George the great and just Mukaukas.

Paula would not oppose such an enterprise; his excited imagination
pictured her indeed as a second Zenobia by his side, ready for any great
achievement, fit to aid him and to rule.

Fully possessed by this dream of the future, he had long ceased to gaze at
the glories of the sunset and was sitting with eyes fixed on the ground.
Suddenly his soaring visions were interrupted by men’s voices coming up
from the street just below the terrace. He looked over and perceived at
its foot about a score of Egyptian laborers; free men, with no degrading
tokens of slavery, making their way along, evidently against their will
and yet in sullen obedience, with no thought of resistance or evasion,
though only a single Arab held them under control.

The sight fell on his excited mood like rain on a smouldering fire, like
hail on sprouting seed. His eye, which a moment ago had sparkled with
enthusiasm, looked down with contempt and disappointment on the miserable
creatures of whose race he came. A line of bitter scorn curled his lip,
for this troop of voluntary slaves were beneath his anger—all the
more so as he more vividly pictured to himself what his people had once
been and what they were now. He did not think of all this precisely, but
as dusk fell, one scene after another from his own experience rose before
his mind’s eye—occasions on which the Egyptians had behaved
ignominiously, and had proved that they were unworthy of freedom and
inured to bow in servitude. Just as one Arab was now able to reduce a host
of his fellow-countrymen to subjection, so formerly three Greeks had held
them in bondage. He had known numberless instances of almost glad
submission on the part of freeborn Egyptians—peasants, village
magnates, and officials, even on his father’s estates and farms. In
Alexandria and Memphis the sons of the soil had willingly borne the
foreign yoke, allowing themselves to be thrust into the shade and humbled
by Greeks, as though they were of a baser species and origin, so long only
as their religious tenets and the subtleties of their creed remained
untouched. Then he had seen them rise and shed their blood, yet even then
only with loud outcries and a promising display of enthusiasm. But their
first defeat had been fatal and it had required only a small number of
trained soldiers to rout them.

To make any attempt against a bold and powerful invader as the leader of
such a race would be madness; there was no choice but to rule his people
in the service of the enemy and so exert his best energies to make their
lot more endurable. His father’s wiser and more experienced judgment had
decided that the better course was to serve his people as mediator between
them and the Arabs rather than to attempt futile resistance at the head of
Byzantine troops.

“Wretched and degenerate brood!” he muttered wrathfully, and he began to
consider whether he should not quit the spot and show the arrogant Arab
that one Egyptian, at any rate, still had spirit enough to resent his
contempt, or whether he should yet wait for the sake of the good cause,
and swallow down his indignation. No! he, the son of the Mukaukas, could
not—ought not to brook such treatment. Rather would he lose his life
as a rebel, or wander an exile through the world and seek far from home a
wider field for deeds of prowess, than put his free neck under the feet of
the foe.

But his reflections were disturbed by the sound of footsteps, and looking
round he saw the gleam of lanterns moving to and fro on the terrace,
turned directly on him. These must be Amru’s servants come to conduct him
to their master, who, as he supposed, would now do him the honor to
receive him—tired out with hunting, no doubt, and stretched on his
divan while he imperiously informed his guest, as if he were some freed
slave, what his wishes were.

But the steps were not those of a messenger. The great general himself had
come to welcome him; the lantern-bearers were not to show the way to
Amru’s couch, but to guide Amru to the “son of his dear departed friend.”
The haughty Vicar of the Khaliffs was the most cordial host, prompted by
hospitality to make his guest’s brief stay beneath his roof as pleasant as
possible, and giving him the right hand of welcome.

He apologized for his prolonged absence in very intelligible Greek, having
learnt it in his youth as a caravan-leader to Alexandria; he expressed his
regret at having left Orion to wait so long, blamed his servants for not
inviting him indoors and for neglecting to offer him refreshment. As they
crossed the garden-terrace he laid his hand on the youth’s shoulder,
explained to him that the lion he had been pursuing, though wounded by one
of his arrows, had got away, and added that he hoped to make good his loss
by the conquest of a nobler quarry than the beast of prey.

There was nothing for it but that the young man should return courtesy for
courtesy; nor did he find it difficult. The Arab’s fine pleasant voice,
full of sincere cordiality, and the simple distinction and dignity of his
manner appealed to Orion, flattered him, gave him confidence, and
attracted him to the older man who was, besides, a valiant hero.

In his brightly-lighted room hung with costly Persian tapestry, Amru
invited his guest to share his simple hunter’s supper after the Arab
fashion; so Orion placed himself on one side of the divan while the
Governor and his Vekeel—[Deputy]—Obada—a Goliath with a
perfectly black moorish face squatted rather than sat on the other, after
the manner of his people.

Amru informed his guest that the black giant knew no Greek, and he only
now and then threw in a few words which the general interpreted to Orion
when he thought fit; but the negro’s remarks were not more pleasing to the
young Egyptian than his manner and appearance.

Obada had in his childhood been a slave and had worked his way up to his
present high position by his own exertions; his whole attention seemed
centred in the food before him, which he swallowed noisily and greedily,
and yet that he was able to follow the conversation very well, in spite of
his ignorance of Greek, his remarks sufficiently proved. Whenever he
looked up from the dishes, which were placed in the midst on low tables,
to put in a word, he rolled his big eyes so that only the whites remained
visible; but when he turned them on Orion, their small, black pupils
transfixed him with a keen and, as the young man thought, exceedingly
sinister glare.

The presence of this man oppressed him; he had heard of his base origin,
which to Orion’s lofty ideas rendered him contemptible, of his fierce
valor, and remarkable shrewdness; and though he did not understand what
Obada said, more than once there was something in the man’s tone that
brought the blood into his face and made him set his teeth. The more
kindly and delightful the effect of the Arab’s speech and manner, the more
irritating and repulsive was his subordinate; and Orion was conscious that
he would have expressed himself more freely, and have replied more
candidly to many questions, if he had been alone with Amru.

At first his host made enquiries as to his residence in Constantinople and
asked much about his father; and he seemed to take great interest in all
he heard till Obada interrupted Orion, in the midst of a sentence, with an
enquiry addressed to his superior. Amru hastily answered him in Arabic and
soon after gave a fresh turn to the conversation.

The Vekeel had asked why Amru allowed that Egyptian boy to chatter so much
before settling the matter about which he had sent for him, and his master
had replied that a man is best entertained when he has most opportunity
given him for hearing himself talk; that moreover the young man was
well-informed, and that all he had to say was interesting and important.

The Moslems drank nothing; Orion was served with capital wine, but he took
very little, and at length Amru began to speak of his father’s funeral,
alluding to the Patriarch’s hostility, and adding that he had talked with
him that morning and had been surprised at the marked antagonism he had
confessed towards his deceased fellow-believer, who seemed formerly to
have been his friend. Then Orion spoke out; he explained fully what the
reasons were that had moved the Patriarch to display such conspicuous and
far-reaching animosity towards his father. All that Benjamin cared for was
to stand clear in the eyes of Christendom of the reproach of having
abandoned a Christian land to conquerors who were what Christians termed
“infidels” and his aim at present was to put his father forward as the man
wholly and solely responsible for the supremacy of the Moslems in the
land.

“True, true; I understand,” Amru put in, and when the young man went on to
tell him that the final breach between the Patriarch and the Mukaukas
George had been about the convent of St. Cecilia, whose rights the prelate
had tried to abrogate by an illegal interpretation of certain ancient and
perfectly clear documents; the Arab exchanged rapid glances with the
Vekeel and then broke in:

“And you? Are you disposed to submit patiently to the blow struck at you
and at your parent’s worthy memory by this restless old man, who hates you
as he did your father before you?”

“Certainly not,” replied the youth proudly.

“That is right!” cried the general. “That is what I expected of you; but
tell me now, with what weapons you, a Christian, propose to defy this
shrewd and powerful man, in whose hands—as I know full well—you
have placed the weal and woe, not of your souls alone….”

“I do not know yet,” replied Orion, and as he met a glance of scorn from
the Vekeel, he looked down.

At this Amru rose, went closer to him, and said “And you will seek them in
vain, my young friend; nor, if you found them, could you use them. It is
easier to hit a woman, an eel, a soaring bird, than these supple, weak,
unarmed, robed creatures, who have love and peace on their tongues and use
their physical helplessness as a defence, aiming invisible but poisoned
darts at those they hate—at you first and foremost, Son of the
Mukaukas; I know it and I advise you: Be on your guard! If indeed manly
revenge for this slight on your father’s memory is dear to your heart you
can easily procure it—but only on one condition.”

“Show it me!” cried Orion with flaming eyes. “Become one of us.”

“That is what I came here for. My brain and my arm from this day forth are
at the service of the rulers of my country: yourself and our common master
the Khaliff.”

“Ya Salaam—that is well!” cried Amru, laying his hand on Orion’s
shoulder. “There is but one God, and yours is ours, too, for there is none
other but He! you will not have to sacrifice much in becoming a Moslem,
for we, too, count your lord Jesus as one of the prophets; and even you
must confess that the last and greatest of them is Mohammed, the true
prophet of God. Every man must acknowledge our lord Mohammed, who does not
wilfully shut his eyes to the events which have come about under his
government and in his name. Your own father admitted…”

“My father?”

“He was forced to admit that we are more zealous, more earnest, more
deeply possessed by our faith than you, his own fellow-believers.”

“I know it.”

“And when I told him that I had given orders that the desk for the reader
of the Koran in our new mosque should be discarded, because when he
stepped up to it he was uplifted above the other worshippers, the weary
Mukaukas was quite agitated with satisfaction and uttered a loud cry of
approbation. We Moslems—for that was what my commands implied—must
all be equal in the presence of God, the Eternal, the Almighty, the
All-merciful; their leader in prayer must not be raised above them, even
by a head; the teaching of the Prophet points the road to Paradise, to all
alike, we need no earthly guide to show us the way. It is our faith, our
righteousness, our good deeds that open or close the gates of heaven; not
a key in the hand of a priest. When you are one of us, no Benjamin can
embitter your happiness on earth, no Patriarch can abrogate your claims
and your father’s to eternal bliss. You have chosen well, boy! Your hand,
my convert to the true faith!”

And he held out his hand to Orion with glad excitement. But the young man
did not take it; he drew back a little and said rather uneasily:

“Do not misunderstand me, great Captain. Here is my hand, and I can know
no greater honor than that of grasping yours, of wielding my sword under
your command, of wearing it out in your service and in that of my lord the
Khaliff; but I cannot be untrue to my faith.”

“Then be crushed by Benjamin—you and all your people!” cried Armu,
disappointed and angry. He waved his hand with a gesture of disgust and
dismissal, and then turned to the Vekeel with a shrug, to answer the man’s
scornful exclamation.

Orion looked at them in dumb indecision; but he quickly collected himself,
and said in a tone of modest but urgent entreaty:

“Nay; hear me and do not reject my petition. It could only be to my
advantage to go over to you; and yet I can resist so great a temptation;
but for that very reason I shall keep faith with you as I do to my
religion.”

“Until the priests compel you to break it,” interrupted the Arab roughly.

“No, no!” cried Orion. “I know that Benjamin is my foe; but I have lost a
beloved parent, and I believe in a meeting beyond the grave.”

“So do I,” replied the Moslem. “And there is but one Paradise and one
Hell, as there is but one God.”

“What gives you this conviction?”

“My faith.”

“Then forgive me if I cling to mine, and hope to see my father once more
in that Heaven….”

“The heaven to which, as you fools believe, no souls but your own are
admitted! But supposing that it is open only to the immortal spirit of
Moslems and closed against Christians?—What do you know of that
Paradise? I know your sacred Scriptures—Is it described in them? But
the All-merciful allowed our Prophet to look in, and what he saw he has
described as though the Most High himself had guided his reed. The Moslem
knows what Heaven has to offer him,—but you? Your Hell, you do know;
your priests are more readier to curse than to bless. If one of you
deviates by one hair’s breadth from their teaching they thrust him out
forthwith to the abode of the damned.—Me and mine, the Greek
Christians, and—take my word for it boy—first and foremost you
and your father!”

“If only I were sure of finding him there!” cried Orion striking his
breast. “I really should not fear to follow him. I must meet him, must see
him again, were it in Hell itself!”

At these words the Vekeel burst into loud laughter, and when Amru reproved
him sharply the negro retorted and a vehement dialogue ensued.

Obada’s contumely had roused Orion’s wrath; he was longing, burning to
reduce this insolent antagonist to silence. However, he contained himself
by a supreme effort of will, till Amru turned to him once more and said in
a reserved tone, but not unkindly:

“This clear-sighted man has mentioned a suspicion which I myself had
already felt. A worldly-minded young Christian of your rank is not so
ready to give up earthly joys and happiness for the doubtful bliss of your
Paradise and when you do so and are prepared to forego all that a man
holds most dear: Honor, temporal possessions, a wide field of action, and
revenge on your enemies, to meet the spirit of the departed once more
after death, there must be some special reason in the background. Try to
compose yourself, and believe my assurances that I like you and that you
will find in me a zealous protector and a discreet friend if you will but
tell me candidly and fully what are the motives of your conduct. I myself
really desire that our interview should be fruitful of advantages on both
sides. So put your trust in a man so much your senior and your father’s
friend, and speak.”

“On no consideration in the presence of that man!” said Orion in a
tremulous voice. “Though he is supposed not to understand Greek, he
follows every word I say with malicious watchfulness; he dared to laugh at
me, he…”

“He is as discreet as he is brave, and my Vekeel,” interrupted Amru
reprovingly. “If you join us you will have to obey him; and remember this,
young man. I sent for you to impose conditions on you, not to have them
dictated to me. I grant you an audience as the ruler of this country, as
the Vicar of Omar, your Khaliff and mine.”

“Then I entreat you to dismiss me, for in the presence of that man my
heart and lips are sealed; I feel that he is my enemy.”

“Beware of his becoming so!” cried the governor, while Obada shrugged his
shoulders scornfully.

Orion understood this gesture, and although he again succeeded in keeping
cool he felt that he could no longer be sure of himself; he bowed low,
without paying any heed to the Vekeel, and begged Amru to excuse him for
the present.

Amru, who had not failed to observe Obada’s demeanor and who keenly
sympathized with what was going on in the young man’s mind, did not detain
him; but his manner changed once more; he again became the pressing host
and invited his guest, as it was growing late, to pass the night under his
roof. Orion politely declined, and when at length he quitted the room—without
deigning even to look at the Negro—Amru accompanied him into the
anteroom. There he grasped the young man’s hand, and said in a low voice
full of sincere and fatherly interest:

“Beware of the Negro; you let him perceive that you saw through him—it
was brave but rash. For my part I honestly wish you well.”

“I believe it, I know it,” replied Orion, on whose perturbed soul the
noble Arab’s warm, deep accents fell like balm. “And now we are alone I
will gladly confide in you. I, my Lord, I—my father—you knew
him. In cruel wrath, before he closed his eyes, he withdrew his blessing
from his only son.”

The memory of the most fearful hour of his life choked his voice for a
moment, but he soon went on: “One single act of criminal folly roused his
anger; but afterwards, in grief and penitence, I thought over my whole
life, and I saw how useless it had been; and now, when I came hither with
a heart full of glad expectancy to place all I have to offer of mind and
gifts at your disposal, I did so, my Lord, because I long to achieve great
and noble, and difficult or, if it might be, impossible deeds—to be
active, to be doing…”

Here he was interrupted by Amru, who said, laying his sinewy arm across
the youth’s shoulders:

“And because you long to let the spirit of your dead father, that
righteous man, see that a heedless act of youthful recklessness has not
made you unworthy of his blessing; because you hope by valiant deeds to
compel his wrath to turn to approval, his scorn to esteem…”

“Yes, yes, that is the thing, the very thing!” Orion broke in with fiery
enthusiasm; but the Arab eagerly signed to him to lower his voice, as
though to cheat some listener, and whispered hastily, but with warm
kindliness:

“And I, I will help you in this praiseworthy endeavor. Oh, how much you
remind me of the son of my heart who, like you, erred, and who was
permitted to atone for all, for more than all by dying like a hero for his
faith on the field of battle!—Count on me, and let your purpose
become deed. In me you have found a friend.—Now, go. You shall hear
from me before long. But, once more: Do not provoke the Negro; beware of
him; and the next time you meet him subdue your pride and make as though
you had never seen him before.”

He looked sadly at Orion, as though the sight of him revived some loved
image in his mind, kissed his brow, and as soon as the youth had left the
anteroom he hastily drew open the curtain that hung across the door into
the dining-room.—A few steps behind it stood the Vekeel, who was
arranging the straps of his sword-belt.

“Listener!” exclaimed the Arab with intense scorn, “you, a man of gifts, a
man of deeds! A hero in battle and in council; lion, serpent, and toad in
one! When will you cast out of your soul all that is contemptible and
base? Be what you have made yourself, not what you were; do not constantly
remind the man who helped you to rise that you were born of a slave!”

“My Lord!” began the Moor, and the whites of his rolling eyes were
ominously conspicuous in his black face. But Amru took the words out of
his mouth and went on in stern and determined reproof:

“You behaved to that noble youth like an idiot, like a buffoon at a fair,
like a madman.”

“To Hell with him!” cried Obada, “I hate the gilded upstart.”

“Envious wretch! Do not provoke him! Times change, and the day may come
when you will have reason to fear him.”

“Him?” shrieked the other. “I could crush the puppet like a fly! And he
shall live to know it.”

“Your turn first and then his!” said Amru. “To us he is the more important
of the two—yes, he, the up start, the puppet. Do you hear? Do you
understand? If you touch a hair of his head, it will cost you your nose
and ears! Never for an hour forget that you live—and ought not to
live—only so long as two pairs of lips are sealed. You know whose.
That clever head remains on your shoulders only as long as they choose.
Cling to it, man; you have only one to lose! It was necessary, my lord
Vekeel, to remind you of that once more!”

The Negro groaned like a wounded beast and sullenly panted out: “This is
the reward of past services; these are the thanks of Moslem to Moslem!—And
all for the sake of a Christian dog.”

“You have had thanks, and more than are your due,” replied Amru more
calmly. “You know what you pledged yourself to before I raised you to be
my Vekeel for the sake of your brains and your sword, and what I had to
overlook before I did so—not on your behalf, but for the great cause
of Islam. And, if you wish to remain where you are, you will do well to
sacrifice your wild ambition. If you cannot, I will send you back to the
army, and to-day rather than to-morrow; and if you carry it with too high
a hand you will find yourself at Medina in fetters, with your
death-warrant stuck in your girdle.”

The Negro again groaned sullenly; but his master was not to be checked.

“Why should you hate this youth? Why, a child could see through it! In the
son and heir of George you see the future Mukaukas, while you are
cherishing the insane wish to become the Mukaukas yourself.”

“And why should such a wish be insane?” cried the other in a harsh voice.
“Putting you out of the question, who is there here that is shrewder or
stronger than I?”

“No Moslem, perhaps. But neither you nor any other true believer will
succeed to the dead man’s office, but an Egyptian and a Christian.
Prudence requires it, and the Khaliff commands it.”

“And does he also command that this curled ape shall be left in possession
of his millions?”

“So that is what you covet, you greedy curmudgeon—that is it? Do not
all the crimes you have committed out of avarice weigh upon you heavily
enough? Gold, and yet more gold—that is the end, the foul end, of
all your desires. A fat morsel, no doubt: the Mukaukas’ estates, his
talents of gold, his gems, slaves, and horses; I admit that. But thank God
the All-merciful, we are not thieves and robbers!”

“And who was it that dug out the hidden millions from beneath the
reservoir of Peter the Egyptian, and who made him bite the dust?”

“I—I. But—as you know—only to send the money to Medina.
Peter had hidden it before we killed him. The Mukaukas and his son have
declared all their possessions to the uttermost dinar and hide of land;
they have faithfully paid the taxes, and consequently their property
belongs to them as our swords, our horses, our wives belong to you or me.
What will not your grasping spirit lead you to!—Take your hand from
your dagger!—Not a copper coin from them shall fall into your hungry
maw, so help me God! Do not again cast an evil eye on the Mukaukas’ son!
Do not try my patience too far, man, or else—Hold your head tight on
your shoulders or you will have to seek it at your feet; and what I say I
mean!—Now, good-night! To-morrow morning in the divan you are to
explain your scheme for the new distribution of the land; it will not suit
me in any way, and I shall have other projects to propose for discussion.”

With this the Arab turned his back on the Vekeel; but no sooner had the
door closed on him than Obada clenched his fist in fury at his lord and
master, who had hitherto said nothing of his having had purloined a
portion of the consignment of gold which Amru had charged him to escort to
Medina. Then he rushed up and down the room, snorting and foaming till
slaves came in to clear the tables.


CHAPTER XXV.

Orion made his way home under the moonlit and starry night. He held his
head high, and not since that evening on the water with Paula had he felt
so glad or so hopeful. On the other side of the bridge he did not at once
turn his horse’s head homewards; the fresh night air was so delightful,
his heart beat so high that he shrunk from the oppression of a room. Full
of renewed life, freed from a burden as it were, he made his way at a
round pace to the house that held his beloved, picturing to himself how
gladly she would welcome the news that he had found Amru ready to
encourage him in his projects, indeed, to be a fatherly friend.

The Arab general, whose lofty character, intellect, and rectitude his
father had esteemed highly, had impressed him, too, as the ideal of noble
manliness, and as he compared him with the highest officials and warriors
he had met at the Court of Byzantium he could not help smiling. By the
side of this dignified, but impetuous and warm-hearted man they appeared
like the old, rigid idols of his ancestors in comparison with the
freely-wrought works of Greek art. He could bless the memory of his father
for having freed the land from that degenerate race. Now, he felt, that
lost parent, whose image lived in his soul, was satisfied with him, and
this gave him a sense of happiness which he meant to cling to and enhance
by every thought and deed in the future. “Life is a function, a ministry,
and a duty!” this watchword, which had been given him by those beloved
lips, should keep him in the new path; and soon he hoped to feel sure of
himself, to be able to look back on such deeds of valor as would give him
a right in his own judgment to unite his lot to that of this noblest of
women.

Full of such thoughts as these, he made his way to the house of Rufinus.
The windows of the corner room on the upper floor were lighted up; two of
these windows looked out on the river and the quay. He did not know which
rooms were Paula’s, but he looked up at the late-burning light with a
vague feeling that it must be hers; a female figure which now appeared
framed in the opening, showed him that he was not mistaken; it was that of
Perpetua. The sound of hoofs had roused her curiosity, but she did not
seem to recognize him in the dim starlight.

He slowly rode past, and when he presently turned back and again looked
up, in the hope this time of seeing Paula, the place was vacant: however,
he perceived a tall dark shadow moving across from one side of the room to
the other, which could not be that of the nurse nor of her slender
mistress. It must indeed be that of a remarkably big man, and stopping to
gaze with anxious and unpleasant apprehension, he plainly recognized
Philippus.

It was past midnight. How could he account for his being with Paula at
this hour?—Was she ill?—Was this room hers after all?—Was
it merely by chance that the nurse was in Rufinus’ room with the
physician.

No. The woman whom he could now see pass across the window and go straight
up to the man, with outstretched hands, was Paula and none other. Isis
heart was already beating fast, and now a suspicion grew strong in him
which his vanity had hitherto held in check, though he had often seen the
friendly relations that subsisted between Paula and the leech.—Perhaps
it was a warmer feeling than friendship and guileless trust, which had led
her so unreservedly to claim this man’s protection and service. Could he
have won Paula’s heart—Paula’s love?

Was it conceivable!—But why not?

What was there against Philippus but his homely face and humble birth? And
how many a woman had he not seen set her heart on quite other things! The
physician was not more than five years his senior; and recalling the
expression in his eyes as he looked at Paula only that morning Orion felt
more and more uneasy.

Philippus loved Paula.—A trifling incident suddenly occurred to his
mind which made him certain on that point; he had only too much experience
in such matters. Yesterday, it had struck him that ever since his father’s
death—that was ever since Paula’s change of residence—Philippus
dressed more carefully than had been his wont. “Now this,” thought he, “is
a change that does not come over so serious a man unless it is caused by
love.”

A mingled torment of pain and rage shot through him as he again saw the
tall shadow cross the window. For the first time in his life he felt the
pangs of jealousy, which he had so often laughed at in his friends; but
was it not absurd to allow it to torture him; was he not sure, since that
morning’s meeting, quite sure of Paula? And Philippus! Even if he, Orion,
must retire into the background before a higher judge, in the eyes of a
woman he surely had the advantage!—But in spite of all this it
troubled him to know that the physician was with Paula at such an hour; he
angrily pulled his horse’s head round, and it was a pleasure to him to
feel the fiery creature, unused as it was to such rough treatment, turn
restive at it now. By the time he had gone a hundred steps from those
windows with their cursed glare, the horse was displaying all the temper
and vice that had been taken out of him as a foal. Orion had to fight a
pitched battle with his steed, and it was a relief to him to exercise his
power with curb and knee. In vain did the creature dance round and round;
in vain did he rear and plunge; the steady rider was his master; and it
was not till he had brought him to quietness and submission that Orion
drew breath and looked about him while he patted the horse’s smooth neck.

Close at hand, behind a low hedge, spread the thick, dark groves of
Susannah’s garden and between them the back of the house was visible,
being more brilliantly lighted than even Paula’s rooms. Three of the
windows showed lights; two were rather dim, however, the result probably
of one lamp only.

All this could not matter to him; nevertheless he remained gazing at the
roof of the colonnade which went round the house below the upper floor;
for, on the terrace it formed, leaning against a window-frame, stood a
small figure with her head thrust so far forth to listen that the light
shone through the curls that framed it. Katharina was trying to overhear a
dialogue between the Patriarch Benjamin—whose bearded and apostolic
head Orion could clearly recognize—and the priest John, an
insignificant looking little man, of whom, however, the deceased Mukaukas
had testified that he was far superior to old Plotinus the Bishop in
intellect and energy.

The young man could easily have watched Katharina’s every movement, but he
did not think it worth while. Nevertheless, as he rode on, the
water-wagtail’s little figure dwelt in his mind; not alone, however, for
that of Paula immediately rose by her side; and the smaller Katharina’s
seemed, the more ample and noble did the other appear. Every word he had
heard that day from Paula’s lips rushed to his remembrance, and the vivid
and lovely memory drove out all care. That woman, who only a few hours
since, had declared herself ready, with him, to hope all things, to
believe all things, and to accept his protection—that lordly maiden
whom he had been glad to bid fix her eye, with him, on the goal of his
future efforts, whose pure gaze could restrain his passion and impetuosity
as by a charm, and who yet granted him the right to strive to possess her—that
proud daughter of heroes, whom even his father would have clasped to his
heart as a daughter—was it possible that she should betray him like
some pleasure-seeking city beauty? Could she forget her dignity as a
woman?—No! and a thousand times no. To doubt her was to insult her—was
to wrong her and himself.

The physician loved her; but it certainly was not any warmer feeling than
friendship on her part that made her receive him at this late hour. The
shame would be his own, if he ever again allowed such base suspicion to
find place in his soul!

He breathed a deep sigh of relief. And when his servant, who had lingered
to pay the toll at the bridge, came up with him, Orion dismounted and
desired him to lead his horse home, for he himself wished to return on
foot, alone with his thoughts. He walked meditatively and slowly under the
sycamores, but he had not gone far when, on the other side of the deserted
road, he heard some one overtaking him with long, quick strides. He
recognized the leech Philippus at a glance and was glad, for this proved
to him how senseless and unjust his doubts had been, and how little ground
he had for regarding the physician as a rival; for indeed this man did not
look like a happy lover. He hurried on with his head bent, as though under
a heavy burthen, and clasped his hand to his forehead with a gesture of
despair. No, this nocturnal wanderer had left no hour of bliss behind him;
and if his demeanor was calculated to rouse any feeling it was not envy,
but pity.

Philippus did not heed Orion; absorbed in himself, he strode on, moaning
dully, as if in pain. For a few minutes he disappeared into a house whence
came loud cries of suffering, and when he came out again, he walked on,
shaking his head now and then, as a man who sees many things happen which
his understanding fails to account for.

The end of his walk was a large, palatial building. The stucco had fallen
off in places, and in the upper story the windows had been broken away
till their open ings were a world too wide. In former times this house had
accommodated the State officers of Finance for the province, and the
ground-floor rooms had been suitably and comfortably fitted up for the
Ideologos—the supreme controller of this department, who usually
resided at Alexandria, but who often spent some weeks at Memphis when on a
tour of inspection. But the Arabians had transferred the management of the
finances of the whole country to the new capital of Fostat on the other
shore of the river, and that of the monetary affairs of the decaying city
had been incorporated with the treasurer’s department of the Mukaukas’
household. The senate of the city had found the expense of this huge
building too heavy, and had been well content to let the lower rooms to
Philippus and his Egyptian friend, Horapollo.

The two men occupied different rooms, but the same slaves attended to
their common housekeeping and also waited on the physician’s assistant, a
modest and well-informed Alexandrian.

When Philippus entered his old friend’s lofty and spacious study he found
him still up, sitting before a great number of rolls of manuscript, and so
absorbed in his work that he did not notice his late-coming comrade till
the leech bid him good-evening. His only reply was an unintelligible
murmur, for some minutes longer the old man was lost in study; at last,
however, he looked up at Philippus, impatiently tossing an ivory
ruler-which he had been using to open and smooth the papyrus on to the
table; and at the same moment a dark bundle under it began to move—this
was the old man’s slave who had long been sleeping there.

Three lamps on the writing-table threw a bright light on the old man and
his surroundings, while the physician, who had thrown himself on a couch
in a corner of the large room, remained in the dark.

What startled the midnight student was his housemate’s unwonted silence;
it disturbed him as the cessation of the clatter of the wheel disturbs a
man who lives in a mill. He looked at his friend with surprised enquiry,
but Philippus was dumb, and the old man turned once more to his rolls of
manuscript. But he had lost the necessary concentration; his brown hand,
in which the blue veins stood out like cords, fidgeted with the scrolls
and the ivory rule, and his sunken lips, which had before been firmly
closed, were now twitching restlessly.

The man’s whole aspect was singular and not altogether pleasing: his lean
brown figure was bent with age, his thoroughly Egyptian face, with broad
cheekbones and outstanding ears, was seamed and wrinkled like oak-bark;
his scalp was bare of its last hair, and his face clean-shaved, but for a
few tufts of grey hair by way of beard, sprouting from the deep furrows on
his cheeks and chin, like reeds from the narrow bed of a brook; the razor
could not reach them there, and they gave him an untidy and uncared-for
appearance. His dress answered to his face—if indeed that could be
called dress which consisted of a linen apron and a white kerchief thrown
over his shoulders after sundown. Still, no one meeting him in the road
could have taken him for a beggar; for his linen was fine and as white as
snow, and his keen, far-seeing eyes, above which, exactly in the middle,
his bristly eyebrows grew strangely long and thick, shone and sparkled
with clear intelligence, firm self-reliance, and a repellent severity
which would no more have become an intending mendicant than the resolute
and often scornful expression which played about his lips. There was
nothing amiable, nothing prepossessing, nothing soft in this man’s face;
and those who knew what his life had been could not wonder that the years
had failed to sweeten his abrupt and contradictory acerbity or to
transmute them into that kindly forbearance which old men, remembering how
often they have stumbled and how many they have seen fall, sometimes find
pleasure in practising.

He had been born, eighty years before, in the lovely island of Philae,
beyond the cataract in the district of the temple of Isis, and under the
shadow of the only Egyptian sanctuary in which the heathen cultus was kept
up, and that publicly, as late as in his youth. Since Theodosius the
Great, one emperor and one Praefectus Augustalis after another had sent
foot-soldiers and cavalry above the falls to put an end to idolatry in the
beautiful isle; but they had always been routed or destroyed by the brave
Blemmyes who haunted the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea. These
restless nomad tribes acknowledged the Isis of Philae as their tutelary
goddess, and, by a very ancient agreement, the image of their patroness
was carried every year by her priests in a solemn procession to the
Blemmyes, and then remained for a few weeks in their keeping. Horapollo’s
father was the last of the horoscope readers, and his grandfather had been
the last high-priest of the Isis of Philae. His childhood had been passed
on the island but then a Byzantine legion had succeeded in beating the
Blemmyes, in investing the island, and in plundering and closing the
temple. The priests of Isis escaped the imperial raid and Horapollo had
spent all his early years with his father, his grandfather, and two
younger sisters, in constant peril and flight. His youthful spirit was
unremittingly fed with hatred of the persecutors, the cruel contemners and
exterminators of the faith of his forefathers; and this hatred rose to
irreconcilable bitterness after the massacre at Antioch where the imperial
soldiery fell upon all his family, and his grandfather and two innocent
sisters were murdered. These horrors were committed at the instigation of
the Bishop, who denounced the Egyptian strangers as idolaters, and to whom
the Roman prefect, a proud and haughty patrician, had readily lent the
support of an armed force. It was owing to the narrowest chance—or,
as the old man would have it, to the interposition of great Isis, that his
father had been so happy as to get away with him and the treasures he had
brought from the temple at Philae. Thus they had means to enable them to
travel farther under an assumed name, and they finally settled in
Alexandria. Here the persecuted youth changed his name, Horus, to its
Greek equivalent, and henceforth he was known at home and in the schools
as Apollo. He was highly gifted by nature, and availed himself with the
utmost zeal of the means of learning that abounded in Alexandria; he
labored indefatigably and dug deep into every field of Greek science,
gaining, under his father’s guidance, all the knowledge of Egyptian
horoscopy, which was not wholly lost even at this late period.

In the midst of the contentious Christian sects of the capital, both
father and son remained heathen and worshippers of Isis; and when the old
priest died at an advanced age, Horapollo moved to Memphis where he led
the quiet and secluded life of a student, mingling only now and then with
the astronomers, astrologers, and calendar-makers at the observatory, or
visiting the alchemists’ laboratories, where, even in Christian Egypt,
they still devoted themselves to attempts to transmute the baser into the
noble metals. Alchemists and star-readers alike soon detected the old
man’s superior knowledge, and in spite of his acrid and often
offensively-repellent demeanor, took counsel of him on difficult
questions. His fame had even reached the Arabs, and, when it was necessary
to find the exact direction towards Mecca for the prayer niche in Amru’s
new mosque, he was appealed to, and his decision was final.

Philippus had, some years since, been called to the old man’s bedside in
sickness, and being then a beginner and in no great request, he had given
the best of his time and powers to the case. Horapollo had been much
attracted by the young physician’s wide culture and earnest studiousness;
he had conceived a warm liking for him, the warmest perhaps that he had
ever felt for any fellow-human since the death of his own family. At last
the elder took the younger man into his heart with such overflowing
affection, that it seemed as though his spirit longed to make up now for
the stint of love it had hitherto shown. No father could have clung to his
son with more fervent devotion, and when a relapse once more brought him
to death’s door he took Philippus wholly into his confidence, unrolled
before his eyes the scroll of his inner and outer life from its
beginnings, and made him his heir on condition that he should abide by him
to the end.

Philippus, who, from the first, had felt a sympathetic attraction to this
venerable and talented man, agreed to the bargain; and when he
subsequently became associated with the old man in his studies, assisting
him from time to time, Horapollo desired that he would help him to
complete a work he hoped to finish before he died. It was a treatise on
hieroglyphic writing, and was to interpret the various signs so far as was
still possible, and make them intelligible to posterity.

The old man disliked writing anything but Egyptian, using Greek
unwillingly and clumsily, so he entrusted to his young friend the task of
rendering his explanations into that language. Thus the two men—so
different in age and character, but so closely allied in intellectual aims—led
a joint existence which was both pleasant and helpful to both, in spite of
the various eccentricities, the harshness and severity of the elder.

Horapollo lived after the manner of the early Egyptian priests, subjecting
himself to much ablution and shaving; eating little but bread, vegetables,
and poultry, and abstaining from pulse and the flesh of all beasts—not
merely of the prohibited animal, swine; wearing nothing but pure linen
clothing, and setting apart certain hours for the recitation of those
heathen forms of prayer whose magic power was to compel the gods to grant
the desires of those who thus appealed to them.

And if the old man had given his full confidence to Philippus, the leech,
on his part, had no secrets from him; or, if he withheld anything,
Horapollo, with wonderful acumen, was at once aware of it. Philippus had
often spoken of Paula to his parental friend, describing her charms with
all the fervor of a lover, but the old man was already prejudiced against
her, if only as the daughter of a patrician and a prefect. All who bore
these titles were to him objects of hatred, for a patrician and a prefect
had been guilty of the blood of those he had held most dear. The Governor
of Antioch, to be sure, had acted only under the orders of the bishop; but
old Horapollo, and his father before him, from the first had chosen to
throw all the blame on the prefect, for it afforded some satisfaction to
the descendant of an ancestral race of priests to be able to vent all his
wrathful spite on any one rather than on the minister of a god—be
that god who or what he might.

So when Philippus praised Paula’s dignified grandeur, her superior
elegance, the height of her stature or the loftiness of her mind, the old
man would bound up exclaiming: “Of course—of course!—Beware
boy, beware! You are disguising haughtiness, conceit, and arrogance under
noble names. The word ‘patrician’ includes everything we can conceive of
as most insolent and inhuman; and those apes in purple who disgrace the
Imperial throne pick out the worst of them, the most cold-hearted and
covetous, to make prefects of them. And as they are, so are their
children! Everything which they in their vainglory regard as ‘beneath
them’ they tread into the dust—and we—you and I, all who labor
with their hands in the service of the state—we, in their dull eyes,
are beneath them. Mark me, boy! To-day the governor’s daughter, the
patrician maiden, can smile at you because she needs you; tomorrow she
will cast you aside as I push away the old panther-skin which keeps my
feet warm in winter, as soon as the March days come!”

Nor was his aversion less for the son of the Mukaukas, whom, however, he
had never seen; when the leech had confessed to him how deep a grudge
against Orion dwelt in the heart of Paula, old Horapollo had chuckled
scornfully, and he exclaimed, as though he could read hearts and look into
the future—: “They snap at each other now, and in a day or two they
will kiss again! Hatred and love are the opposite ends of the same rod;
and how easily it is reversed!—Those two!—Like in blood is
like in kind;—such people attract each other as the lodestone tends
towards the iron and the iron towards the lodestone!”

But these and similar admonitions had produced little effect on the
physician’s sentiments; even Paula’s repulse of his ardent appeal after
she had moved to the house of Rufinus had failed to extinguish his hope of
winning her at last. This very morning, in the course of the discussion as
to the stewardship of her fortune, Paula had been ready and glad to accept
him as her Kyrios—her legal protector and representative; but he now
thought that he could perceive by various signs that his venerable friend
was right: that the rod had been reversed, and that aversion had been
transformed to love in the girl’s heart. The anguish of this discovery was
hard to bear. And yet Paula had never shown him such hearty warmth of
manner, never had she spoken to him in a voice so soft and so full of
feeling, as this evening in the garden. More cheerful and talkative than
usual, she had constantly turned to address him, while he had felt his
pain and torment of mind gradually eased, till in him too, sentiment had
blossomed anew, and his intellectual power had expanded. Never—so he
believed—had he expressed his thoughts better or more brilliantly
than in that hour. Nor had she withheld her approval; she had heartily
agreed with his views; and when, half an hour before midnight, he had gone
with her to visit his patients, rapturous hopes had sprung once more in
his breast. Ecstatically happy, like a man intoxicated, he had, by her own
desire, accompanied her into her sitting-room, and then—and
there….

Poor, disappointed man, sitting on the divan in a dark corner of the
spacious room! In his soul hitherto the intellect had alone made itself
heard, the voice of the heart had never been listened to.

How he had found his way home he never knew. All he remembered was that,
in the course of duty, he had gone into the house of a man whose wife—the
mother of several children—he had left at noon in a dying state;
that he had seen her a corpse, surrounded by loud but sincere mourners;
that he had gone on his way, weighed down by their grief and his own, and
that he had entered his friend’s rooms rather than his own, to feel safe
from himself. Life had no charm, no value for him now; still, he felt
ashamed to think that a woman could thus divert him from the fairest aims
of life, that he could allow her to destroy the peace of mind he needed to
enable him to carry out his calling in the spirit of his friend Rufinus.
He knew his house-mate well and felt that he would only pour vitriol into
his wounds, but it was best so. The old man had already often tried to
bring down Paula’s image from its high pedestal in his soul, but always in
vain; and even now he should not succeed. He would mar nothing, scatter
nothing to the winds, tread nothing in the dust but the burning passion,
the fevered longing for her, which had fired his blood ever since that
night when he had vanquished the raving Masdakite. That old sage by the
table, on whose stern, cold features the light fell so brightly, was the
very man to accomplish such a work of destruction, and Philippus awaited
his first words as a wounded man watches the surgeon heating the iron with
which to cauterize the sore.

Poor disappointed wretch, sorely in need of a healing hand!

He lay back on the divan, and saw how his friend leaned over his scroll as
if listening, and fidgeted up and down in his arm-chair.

It was clear that Horapollo was uneasy at Philippus’ long silence, and his
pointed eyebrows, raised high on his brow, plainly showed that he was
drawing his own conclusions from it—no doubt the right ones. The
peace must soon be broken, and Philippus awaited the attack. He was
prepared for the worst; but how could he bring himself to make his
torturer’s task easy for him. Thus many minutes slipped away; while the
leech was waiting for the old man to speak, Horapollo waited for
Philippus. However, the impatience and curiosity of the elder were
stronger than the young man’s craving for comfort; he suddenly laid down
the roll of manuscript, impatiently snatched up the ivory stick which he
had thrown aside, set his heavy seat at an angle with a shove of amazing
vigor for his age, turned full on Philippus, and asked him, in a loud
voice, pointing his ruler at him as if threatening him with it:

“So the play is out. A tragedy, of course!”

“Hardly, since I am still alive,” replied the other.

“But there is inward bleeding, and the wound is painful,” retorted the old
man. Then, after a short pause, he went on: “Those who will not listen
must feel! The fox was warned of the trap, but the bait was too tempting!
Yesterday there would still have been time to pull his foot out of the
spring, if only he had sincerely desired it; he knew the hunter’s guile.
Now the foe is down on the victim; he has not spared his weapons, and
there lies the prey dumb with pain and ignominy, cursing his own folly.—You
seem inclined for silence this evening. Shall I tell you just how it all
came about?”

“I know only too well,” said Philippus.

“While I, to be sure, can only imagine it!” growled the old man. “So long
as that patrician hussy needed the poor beast of burthen she could pet it
and throw barley and dates to it. Now she is rolling in gold and living
under a sheltering roof, and hey presto, the discarded protector is sent
to the right about in no time. This mistress of the hearts of our weak and
bondage-loving sex raises this rich Adonis to fill the place of the
hapless, overgrown leech, just as the sky lets the sun rise when the pale
moon sinks behind the hills. If that is not the fact give me the lie!”

“I only wish I could,” sighed Philippus. “You have seen rightly,
wonderfully rightly—and yet, as wrongly as possible.”

“Dark indeed!” said the old man quietly. “But I can see even in the dark.
The facts are certain, though you are still so blinded as not to see their
first cause. However, I am satisfied to know that your delusion has come
to so abrupt, and in my opinion so happy, an end. To its cause—a
woman, as usual—I am perfectly indifferent. Why should I needlessly
ascribe to her any worse sin than she had committed? If only for your sake
I will avoid doing so, for an honorable soul clings to those whom it sees
maligned. Still, it seems to me that it is for you to speak, not for me. I
should know you for a philosopher, without such persistent silence; and as
for myself, I am not altogether bereft of curiosity, in spite of my eighty
years.”

At this Philippus hastily rose and pacing the room while he spoke, or
pausing occasionally in front of the old man, he poured out with glowing
cheeks and eager gestures, the history of his hopes and sufferings—how
Paula had filled him with fresh confidence, and had invited him to her
rooms—only to show him her whole heart; she had been strongly moved,
surprised at herself, but unable and unwilling to conceal from him the
happiness that had come into her life. She had spoken to him, her best
friend, as a burthened soul pours itself out to a priest: had confessed
all that she had felt since the funeral of the deceased Mukaukas, and said
that she felt convinced now that Orion had come to a right mind again
after his great sin.

“And that there, was so much joy over him in heaven,” interrupted
Horapollo, “that she really could not delay doing her cast-off lover the
honor of inviting his sympathy!”

“On the contrary. It was with the utmost effort that she uttered all her
heart prompted her to tell; she had nothing to look for from me but
mockery, warning, and reproach, and yet she opened her heart to me.”

“But why? To what end?” shrieked the old man. “Shall I tell you. Because a
man who is a friend must still be half a lover, and a woman cannot bear to
give up even a quarter of one.”

“Not so!” exclaimed Philippus, indignantly interrupting him. “It was
because she esteems and values me,—because she regards me as a
brother, and—I am not a vain man—and could not bear—those
were her very words—to cheat me of my affection for even an hour! It
was noble, it was generous, worthy of her! And though every fibre of my
nature rebelled I found myself compelled to admire her sincerity, her true
friendship, her disregard of her own feelings, and her womanly tenderness!—Nay,
do not interrupt me again, do not laugh at me. It is no small matter for a
proud girl, conscious of her own dignity, to lay bare her heart’s weakness
to a man who, as she knows, loves her, as she did just now to me. She
called me her benefactor and said she would be a sister to me; and
whatever motive you—who hate her out of a habit of prejudice without
really knowing her—may choose to ascribe her conduct to, I—I
believe in her, and understand her.

“Could I refuse to grasp the hand she held out to me as she entreated me
with tears in her eyes to be still her friend, her protector, and her
Kyrios! And yet, and yet!—Where shall I find resolution enough to
ask of her who excites me to the height of passion no more than a kind
glance, a clasp of the hand, an intelligent interest in what I say? How am
I to preserve self-control, calmness, patience, when I see her in the arms
of that handsome young demi-god whom I scorned only yesterday as a
worthless scoundrel? What ice may cool the fire of this burning heart?
What spear can transfix the dragon of passion which rages here? I have
lived almost half my life without ever feeling or yearning for the love of
which the poets sing. I have never known anything of such feelings but
through the pangs of some friend whose weakness had roused my pity; and
now, when love has come upon me so late with all its irresistible force—has
subjugated me, cast me into bondage—how shall I, how can I get free?

“My faithful friend, you who call me your son, whom I am glad to hear
speak to me as ‘boy,’ and ‘child,’ who have taken the place of the father
I lost so young—there is but one issue: I must leave you and this
city—flee from her neighborhood—seek a new home far from her
with whom I could have been as happy as the Saints in bliss, and who has
made me more wretched than the damned in everlasting fire. Away, away! I
will go—I must go unless you, who can do so much, can teach me to
kill this passion or to transmute it into calm, brotherly regard.”

He stood still, close in front of the old man and hid his face in his
hands. At his favorite’s concluding words, Horapollo had started to his
feet with all the vigor of youth; he now snatched his hand down from his
face, and exclaimed in a voice hoarse with indignation and the deepest
concern:

“And you can say that in earnest? Can a sensible man like you have sunk so
deep in folly? Is it not enough that your own peace of mind should have
been sacrificed, flung at the feet of this—what can I call her?—Do
you understand at last why I warned you against the Patrician brood?—The
faith, gratitude, and love of a good man!—What does she care for
them? Unhook the whiting; away with him in the dust! Here comes a fine
large fish who perhaps may swallow the bait!—Do you want to ruin,
for her sake, and the sake of that rascally son of the governor, the
comfort and happiness of an old man’s last years when he has become
accustomed to love you, who so well deserve it, as his own son? Will you—an
energetic student, you—a man of powerful intellect, zealous in your
duty, and in favor with the gods—will you pine like a deserted
maiden or spring from the Leucadian rock like love-sick Sappho in the play
while the spectators shake with laughter? You must stay, Boy, you must
stay; and I will show you how a man must deal with a passion that
dishonors him.”

“Show me,” replied Philippus in a dull voice. “I ask no more. Do you
suppose that I am not myself ashamed of my own weakness? It ill beseems me
of all men, formed by fate for anything rather than to be a sighing and
rapturous lover. I will struggle with it, wrestle with it with all the
strength that is in me; but here, in Memphis, close to her and as her
Kyrios, I should be forced every day to see her, and day after day be
exposed to fresh and humiliating defeat! Here, constantly near her and
with her, the struggle must wear me out—I should perish, body and
soul. The same place, the same city, cannot hold her and me.”

“Then she must make way for you,” croaked Horus. Philippus raised his
bowed head and asked, in some surprise and with stern reproof:

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” replied the other airily. He shrugged his shoulders and went on
more gently: “Memphis has greater need of you than of the patrician
hussy.” Then he shook himself as if he were cold, struck his breast and
added: “All is turmoil here within; I can neither help nor advise you. Day
must soon be dawning in the east; we will try to sleep. A knot can often
be untied by daylight which by lamplight seems inextricable, and perhaps
on my sleepless couch the goddess may reveal to me the way I have promised
to show you. A little more lightness of heart would do neither of us any
harm.—Try to forget your own griefs in those of others; you see
enough of them every day. To wish you a good night would probably be waste
of words, but I may wish you a soothing one, You may count on my aid; but
you will not let me, a poor old man, hear another word about flight and
departure and the like, will you? No, no. I know you better, Philippus—you
will never treat your lonely old friend so!”

These were the tenderest words that the leech had ever heard from the old
man’s lips, and it comforted him when Horapollo pressed him to his heart
in a hasty embrace. He thought no more of the hint that it was Paula’s
part to make room for him. But the old man had spoken in all seriousness,
for, no sooner was he alone than he petulantly flung down the ivory ruler
on the table, and murmured, at first angrily and then scornfully, his eyes
sparkling the while:

“For this true heart, and to preserve myself and the world from losing
such a man, I would send a dozen such born hussies to Amentis—[The
Nether world of the ancient Egyptians.]—Hey, hey! My beauty! So this
noble leech is not good enough for the like of us; he may be tossed away
like a date-stone that we spit out? Well, every one to his taste; but how
would it be if old Horapollo taught us his value? Wait a bit, wait!—With
a definite aim before my eyes I have never yet failed to find my way—in
the realm of science, of course; but what is life—the life of the
sage but applied knowledge? And why should not old Horapollo, for once
before he dies, try what his brains can contrive to achieve in the busy
world of outside human existence? Pleasant as you may think it to be in
Memphis with your lover, fair heart-breaker, you will have to make way for
the plaything you have so lightly tossed aside! Aye, you certainly will,
depend upon that my beauty, depend upon that!—Here, Anubis!”

He gave the slave, who had fallen asleep again under the table, a kick
with his bare foot, and while Anubis lighted his master to his
sleeping-room, and helped him in his long and elaborate ablutions,
Horapollo never ceased muttering broken sentences and curses, or laughing
maliciously to himself.


BOOK 2.


CHAPTER I.

If Philippus found no sleep that night, neither did Orion. He no longer
doubted Paula, but his heart was full of longing to hear her say once more
that she loved him and him alone, and the yearning kept him awake. He
sprang from his bed at the first glimmer of dawn, glad that the night was
past, and started to cross the Nile in order to place half of Paula’s
fortune in the hands of Salech, the brother of Haschim the merchant.

In Memphis all was still silent, and all he saw in the old town struck him
as strangely worn-out, torpid, and decayed; it seemed only fit to be left
to ruin, while on the other side of the river, in the new town of Fostat,
on all hands busy, eager, new-born vitality met his eyes.

He involuntarily compared the old capital of the Pharaohs to a time-eaten
mummy, and Amru’s new city to a vigorous youth. Here every one was astir
and in brisk activity. The money-changer, who had risen, like all Moslems,
to perform his morning prayer, “as soon as a white thread could be
distinguished from a black one,” was already busy with his rolls of gold
and silver coin; and how quick, clear, and decisive the Arab was in
concluding his bargain with Orion and with Nilus, who had accompanied him!

Whichever way the young man turned, bright and flashing eyes met his gaze,
energetic, resolute, and enterprising faces; no bowed heads, no dull,
brooding looks, no gloomy resignation like those in his native town on the
other shore. Here, in Fostat, his blood flowed more swiftly; there,
existence was an oppressive burden. Everything attracted him to the Arabs!

The changer’s shop, like all those in the Sook or Bazaar of Fostat,
consisted of a wooden stall in which he sat with his assistants. On the
side open to the street he transacted business with his customers, who,
when the affair promised to be lengthy, were invited by the Arab to seat
themselves with him on his little platform.

Orion and Nilus had accepted such an invitation, and it happened that,
while they sat in treaty with Salech, visible to the passers-by, the
Vekeel Obada, who had so deeply stirred the wrath of the governor’s son on
the previous evening, came by, close to him. To Orion’s amazement he
greeted him with great amiability, and he, remembering Amru’s warning,
responded, though not without an effort, to his hated foe’s civility. When
Obada passed the stall a second and a third time, Orion felt that he was
watching him; however, it was quite possible that the Vekeel might also
have business with the money-changer and be waiting only for the
conclusion of his.

At any rate Orion ere long forgot the incident, for matters of more
pressing importance claimed his attention at home.

As often happens, the death of one man had changed everything in his house
so utterly as to make it unlike the same; though his removal had made it
neither richer nor poorer, and though his secluded presence of late had
scarcely had an appreciable influence. The rooms formerly so full of life
now seemed dead. Petitioners and suppliants no longer crowded the
anteroom, and all visits of condolence had, according to the ancient
custom, been received on the day after the funeral. The Lady Neforis had
ceased fussing and bustling, the clatter of her keys and her scolding were
no longer to be heard; she sat apart, either in her sleeping-room or the
cool hall with the fountain which had been her husband’s favorite room,
excepting when she was at church whither she went twice every day. She
returned from thence with the same weary, abstracted expression that she
took there, and any one seeing her lying on the divan which her husband
had formerly occupied, idly absorbed in gloomy thought, would hardly have
recognized her as the same woman who had but lately been so active and
managing. She did not exactly mourn or bewail her loss; indeed, she had no
tears for her grief, as though she had shed them all, once for all, during
the night after his death and burial. But she could not attain to that
state of sadness made sacred by memories with which consoling angels so
often mingle some drops of sweetness, after the first anguish is overpast.
She felt—she knew—that with her husband a portion of her own
being had been riven from her, but she could not yet perceive that this
last portion was nothing less than the very foundations of her whole moral
and social being.

Her father and her husband’s father had been the two leading men in
Memphis, nay, in all Egypt. She had given her hand and a heart full of
love to the son of Menas, a proud and happy woman. It was as one with her,
and not by himself alone, that he had risen to the highest dignity
attainable by a native Egyptian, and she had done everything that lay in
her power to uphold him in a position which many envied him, and in
filling it with dignity and effect. After many years of rare happiness
their grief at the loss of their murdered sons only bound the attached
couple more closely, and when her husband had fallen into bad health she
had gladly shared his seclusion, had devoted herself entirely to caring
for him, and divided all the doubts and anxieties which came upon him from
his political action. The consciousness of being not merely much but
everything to him, was her pride and her joy. Her dislike of Paula had its
rise, in the first instance, in the discovery that she, his wife, was no
longer indispensable to the sufferer when he had his fair young niece’s
company. And now?

At night, after long lying awake, when she woke from a snatch of uneasy
sleep, she involuntarily listened for the faint panting breath, but no
heart now throbbed by her side; and when she quitted her lonely couch at
dawn the coming day lay before her as a desert and treeless solitude. By
night, as by day, she constantly tried to call up the image of the dead,
but whenever her small imaginative power had succeeded in doing so—not
unfrequently at first—she had seen him as in the last moments of his
life, a curse on his only son on his trembling lips. This horrible
impression deprived her of the last consolation of the mourner: a
beautiful memory, while it destroyed her proud and glad satisfaction in
her only child. The youth, who had till now been her soul’s idol, was
stigmatized and branded in her eyes. She might not ignore the burden laid
on Orion by that most just man; instead of taking him to her heart with
double tenderness and softening or healing the fearful punishment
inflicted by his father, she could only pity him. When Orion came to see
her she would stroke his waving hair and, as she desired not to wound him
and make him even more unhappy than he must be already, she neither blamed
nor admonished him, and never reminded him of his father’s curse. And how
beggared was that frugal heart, accustomed to spend all its store of love
on so few objects—nay, chiefly on one alone who was now no more!

The happy voices of the children had always given her pleasure, so long as
they did not disturb her suffering husband; now, they too were silent. She
had withdrawn the sunshine of her narrow affection from her only
grandchild, who had hitherto held a place in it, for little Mary had had a
share in the horrors that had come upon her and Orion in her husband’s
last moments. Indeed, the bereaved woman’s excited fancy had firmly
conceived the mad notion that the child was the evil genius of the house
and the tool of Satan.

Neforis had, however, enjoyed some hours of greater ease during the last
two days. In the misery of wakefulness which was beginning to torture her
like an acute pain, she had suddenly recollected what relief from
sleeplessness her husband had been wont to find in the opium pillules, and
a box of the medicine, only just opened, was at hand. And was not she,
too, suffering unutterable wretchedness? Why should she neglect the remedy
which had so greatly mitigated her husband’s distress? It was said to have
a bad effect after long and frequent use, and she had often checked the
Mukaukas in taking it too freely; but could her sufferings be greater?
Would she not, indeed, be thankful to the drug if it should shorten her
miserable existence?

So she took the familiar remedy, at first hesitatingly and then more
freely; and on the second day again, with real pleasure and happy
expectancy, for it had not merely procured her a good night but had
brought her joy in the morning: The dead had appeared to her, and for the
first time not in the act of cursing, but as a young and happy man.

No one in the house knew what comfort the widow had had recourse to; the
physician and her son had been glad yesterday to find her more composed.

When Orion returned home, after concluding his business with the
money-changer at Fostat, he had to make his way through a crowd of people,
and found the court-yard full of men, and the guards and servants in the
greatest excitement. No less a personage than the Patriarch had arrived on
a visit, and was now in conference with Neforis. Sebek, the steward,
informed Orion that he had asked for him, and that his mother wished that
he should immediately join them and pay his respects to the very reverend
Father.

“She wished it?” asked the young man, as he tossed his riding-hat to a
slave, and he stood hesitating.

He was too much a son of his time, and the Church and her ministers had
exercised too marked influence on his education, for the great prelate’s
visit to be regarded otherwise than as a high honor. At the same time he
could not forget the insult done to his father’s vanes, nor the Arab
general’s warning to be on his guard against Benjamin’s enmity; and
perhaps, he said to himself, it might be better to avoid a meeting with
the powerful priest than to expose himself to the danger of losing his
self-control and finding fresh food for his wrath.

However, he had in fact no choice, for the patriarch just now came out of
the fountain-hall into the viridarium. The old man’s tall figure was not
bent, his snowy hair flowed in abundance round his proud head, and a white
beard fell in soft waves far down his breast. His fine eyes rested on the
young man with a keen glance, and though he had last seen Orion as a boy
he recognized him at once as the master of the house. While Orion bowed
low before him, the patriarch, in his deep, rich voice, addressed him with
cheerful dignity.

“All hail, son of my never-to-be-forgotten friend! The child I remember,
has, I see, grown to a fine man. I have devoted a short time to the
mother, and now I must say what is needful to the son.”

“In my father’s study,” Orion said to the steward; and he led the way with
the ceremonious politeness of a chamberlain of the imperial court.

The patriarch, as he followed him, signed to his escort to remain behind,
and as soon as the door was closed upon them, he went up to Orion and
exclaimed: “Again I greet you! This, then, is the descendant of the great
Menas, the son of Mukaukas George, the adored ruler of my flock at
Memphis, who held the first place among the gilded youth of Constantinople
in their gay whirl! A strange achievement for an Egyptian and a Christian!
But first of all, child, first give me your hand!” He held out his right
hand and Orion accepted it, but not without reserve, for he had suspected
a scornful ring in the patriarch’s address, and he could not help asking
himself whether this man honestly meant so well by him, that he could
address him thus paternally as “child” in all sincerity of heart? To
refuse his hand was, however, impossible; still, he found courage to
reply:

“I can but obey your desire, holy Father; but, at the same time, I do not
know whether it becomes the son to grasp the hand of the foe who was not
to be appeased even by Death, the reconciler—who grossly insulted
the father, the noblest of men, and, in him, the son too, at the grave
itself.”

The patriarch shook his head with a supercilious smile, and a hot thrill
shot through Orion as Benjamin laid his hand on his shoulder and said with
grave kindness:

“A Christian does not find it hard to forgive a sinner, an antagonist, an
enemy; and it is a joy to me to pardon the son who feels himself injured
through his lost father, blind and foolish as his indignation may be. Your
wrath can no more affect me, Child, than the Almighty in Heaven, and it
would not even be blameworthy, but that—and of this we must speak
presently—but that—well, I will be frank with you at once—but
that your manner clearly and unmistakably betrays what you lack to make
you a true Christian, and such a man as he must be who fills so
conspicuous a position in this land governed by infidels. You know what I
mean?”

The prelate let his hand slip from the young man’s shoulder, looking
enquiringly in his face; and when Orion, finding no reply ready, drew back
a step or two, the old man went on with growing excitement:

“It is humility, pious and submissive faith, that I find you lack, my
friend. Who, indeed, am I? But as the Vicar, the representative of Him
before whom we all are as worms in the dust, I must insist that every man
who calls himself a Christian, a Jacobite, shall submit to my will and
orders, without hesitation or doubt, as obediently and unresistingly as
though salvation or woe had fallen on him from above. What would become of
us, if individuals were to take upon themselves to defy me and walk in
their own way? In one miserable generation, and with the death of the
elders who had grown up as true Christians, the doctrine of the Saviour
would be extinct on the shores of the Nile, the crescent would rise in the
place of the Cross, and our cry would go up to Heaven for so many lost
souls. Learn, haughty youth, to bow humbly and submissively to the will of
the Most High and of His vicar on earth, and let me show you, from your
demeanor to myself especially, how far your own judgment is to be relied
on. You regard me as your father’s enemy?”

“Yes,” said Orion firmly.

“And I loved him as a brother!” replied the patriarch in a softer voice.
“How gladly would I have heaped his bier with palm branches of peace, such
as the Church alone can grow, wet with my own tears!”

“And yet,” cried Orion, “you denied to him, whom you call your friend,
what the Church does not refuse to thieves and murderers, if only they
desire forgiveness and have received absolution from a priest; and
that….”

“And that your father did!” interrupted the old man. “Peace be to him! He
is now, no doubt, gazing on the glory of the Lord. And nevertheless I
could forbid the priesthood here showing him honor at the grave.—Why?
For what urgent reason was such a prohibition spoken by a friend against a
friend?”

“Because you wished to brand him, in the eyes of the world, as the man who
lent his support to the unbelievers and helped them to victory,” said
Orion gloomily.

“How well the boy can read the thoughts of men!” exclaimed the prelate,
looking at the young man with approbation in which, however, there was
some irony and annoyance. “Very good. We will assume that my object was to
show the Christians of Memphis what fate awaits the man, who surrenders
his country to the enemy and walks hand-in-hand with unbelievers? And may
I not possibly have been right?”

“Do you suppose my father invited the Arabs?” interrupted the young man.

“No, Child,” replied the patriarch, “the enemy came of his own free will.”

“And you,” Orion went on, “after the Greeks had driven you into exile,
prophesied from the desert that they would come and overthrow the
Melchites, the Greek enemies of our faith, drive them out of the country.”

“It was revealed to me by the Lord!” replied the old man, bowing his head
reverently. “And yet other things were shown to me while I dwelt a devout
ascetic, mortifying my flesh under the scorching sun of the desert. Beware
my son, beware! Heed my warning, lest it should be fulfilled and the house
of Menas vanish like clouds swept before the wind.—Your father, I
know, regarded my prophecy as advice given by me to receive the infidels
as the instrument of the Almighty and to support them in driving the
Melchite oppressors out of the land.”

“Your prophecy,” replied Orion, “had, no doubt, a marked effect on my
father; and when the cause of the emperor and the Greeks was lost, your
opinion that the Melchites were unbelievers as much as the sons of Islam,
was of infinite comfort to him. For he, if any one—as you know—had
good reason to hate the sectarians who killed his two sons in their prime.
What followed, he did to rescue his and your unfortunate brethren and
dependants from destruction. Here, here in this desk, lies his answer to
the emperor’s accusations, as given to the Greek deputation who had speech
of him in this very room. He wrote it down as soon as they had left him.
Will you hear it?”

“I can guess its purport.”

“No, no!” cried the excited youth; he hastily opened his father’s desk,
laid his hand at once on the wax tablet, and exclaimed: “This was his
reply!” And he proceeded to read:

“These Arabs, few as they are, are stronger and more powerful than we with
all our numbers. One man of them is equal to a hundred of us, for they
rush on death and love it better than life. Each of them presses to the
front in battle, and they have no longing to return home and to their
families. For every Christian they kill they look for a great reward in
Heaven, and they say that the gates of Paradise open at once for those who
fall in the fight. They have not a wish in this world beyond the
satisfaction of their barest need of food and clothing. We, on the
contrary, love life and dread death;—how can we stand against them?
I tell you that I will not break the peace I have concluded with the
Arabs. …”

“And what is the upshot of all this reply?” interrupted the patriarch
shrugging his shoulders.

“That my father found himself compelled to conclude a peace, and that—but
read on.—That as a wise man he was forced to ally himself with the
foe.”

“The foe to whom he yielded more readily and paid much greater honor than
became him as a Christian!—Does not this discourse convey the idea
that the joys of Paradise solely and exclusively await our damned and
blood-thirsty oppressors?—And the Moslem Paradise! What is it but a
gulf of iniquity, in which they are to wallow in sensual delight? The
false prophet invented it to tempt his followers to force his lying creed,
by might of arms and in mad contempt of death, on nation after nation. Our
Lord, the Word made flesh, came down on earth to win hearts and souls by
the persuasive power of the living truth, one and eternal, which emanates
from Him as light proceeds from the sun; this Mohammed, on the contrary,
is a sword made flesh! For me, then, there is no choice but to submit to
superior strength; but I can still hate and loathe their accursed and
soul-destroying superstition.—And so I do, and so I shall, to the
last throb of this old heart, which only longs for rest, the sooner the
better….

“But you? And your father? Verily, verily, the man who, even for an
instant, ceases to hate unbelief or false doctrine has sinned for his
whole life on this side of the grave and beyond it; sinned against the
only true and saving faith and its divine Founder. Blasphemous and
flattering praise of the piety and moderation of our foes, the very
antichrist incarnate, who kill both body and soul.—With these your
father fouled his heart and tongue…”

“Fouled?” cried Orion and the blood tingled in his cheeks. “He kept his
heart and tongue alike pure and honorable; never did a false word pass his
lips. Justice, justice to all, even to his enemies, was the ruling
principle, the guiding clue of his blameless life; and the noblest of the
heathen Greeks admired the man who could so far triumph over himself as to
recognize what was fine and good in a foe.”

“And they were right,” replied the patriarch, “for they were not yet
acquainted with truth. In a worldly sense, even now, each of us may aim at
such magnanimity; but the man who forgives those who tamper with the
sacred truth, which is the bread, meat, and wine of the Christian’s soul,
sins against that truth; and, if he is a leader of men, he draws on those
who look up to him, and who are only too ready to follow his example, into
everlasting fire. Where your father ought to have been a recalcitrant
though conquered enemy, he became an ally; nay, so far as the leader of
the infidels was concerned, a friend—how many tears it cost me! And
our hapless people were forced to see this attitude of their chief, and
imitated it.—Forgive their seducer, Merciful God!—forming
their conduct on his. Thousands fell away from our saving faith and went
over to those, who in their eyes could not be reprobate, could not be
damned, since they saw them dwelling and working hand-in-hand with their
wise and righteous leader; and it was simply and solely to warn his
misguided people that I did not hesitate to wound my own heart, to raise
the voice of reproof at the grave of a dear friend, and to refuse the
honor and blessing of which his just and virtuous life rendered him more
worthy than thousands of others. I have spoken, and now your foolish anger
must be appeased; now you will grasp the hand held out to you by the
shepherd of the souls entrusted to him with an easy and willing heart.”

And again he offered his hand to Orion, who, however, again took it
doubtfully, and instead of looking the prelate in the face, cast down his
eyes in gloomy bewilderment. The patriarch appeared not to observe the
young man’s repulsion and clasped his hand warmly. Then he changed the
subject, speaking of the grieving widow, of the decadence of Memphis, of
Orion’s plans for the future, and finally of the gems dedicated to the
Church by the deceased Mukaukas. The dialogue had taken a calm,
conversational tone; the patriarch was sitting in the dead man’s
arm-chair, and there was nothing forced or unnatural in his asking, in the
course of discussing the jewels, what had become of the great emerald.

Orion replied, in the same tone, that this stone was not, strictly
speaking, any part of his father’s gift; but Benjamin expressed an
opposite opinion.

All the tortures Orion had endured since that luckless deed in the
tablinum revived in his soul during this discussion; however, it was some
small relief to him to perceive, that neither his mother nor Dame Susannah
seemed to have told the patriarch the guilt he had incurred by reason of
that gem. Susannah, of course, had said nothing of the incident in order
to avoid speaking of her daughter’s false evidence; still, this miserable
business might easily have come to the ears of the stern old man, and to
the guilty youth no sacrifice seemed too great to smother any enquiry for
the ill-fated jewel. He unhesitatingly explained that the emerald had
disappeared, but that he was quite ready to make good its value. Benjamin
might fix his own estimate, and name any sum he wished for some benevolent
purpose, and he, Orion, was ready to pay it to him on the spot.

The prelate, however, calmly persisted in his demand, enjoined Orion to
have a diligent search made for the gem, and declared that he regarded it
as the property of the Church. He added that, when his patience was at an
end, he should positively insist on its surrender and bring every means at
his disposal into play to procure it.

Orion had no choice but to say that he would prosecute his search for the
lost stone; but his acquiescence was sullen, as that of a man who accedes
to an unreasonable demand.

At first the patriarch took this coolly; but presently, when he rose to
take leave, his demeanor changed; he said, with stern solemnity:

“I know you now, Son of Mukaukas George, and I end as I began: The
humility of the Christian is far from you, you are ignorant of the power
and dignity of our Faith, you do not even know the vast love that animates
it, and the fervent longing to lead the straying sinner back to the path
of salvation.—Your admirable mother has told me, with tears in her
eyes, of the abyss over which you are standing. It is your desire to bind
yourself for life to a heretic, a Melchite—and there is another
thing which fills her pious mother’s heart with fears, which tortures it
as she thinks of you and your eternal welfare. She promised to confide
this to my ear in church, and I shall find leisure to consider of it on my
return home; but at any rate, and be it what it may, it cannot more
greatly imperil your soul than marriage with a Melchite.

“On what have you set your heart? On the mere joys of earth! You sue for
the hand of an unbeliever, the daughter of an unbelieving heretic; you go
over to Fostat—nay, hear me out—and place your brain and your
strong arm at the service of the infidels—it is but yesterday; but
I, I, the shepherd of my flock, will not suffer that he who is the highest
in rank, the richest in possessions, the most powerful by the mere dignity
of his name, shall pervert thousands of the Jacobite brethren. I have the
will and the power too, to close the sluice gates against such a disaster.
Obey me, or you shall rue it with tears of blood.”

The prelate paused, expecting to see Orion fall on his knees before him;
but the young man did nothing of the kind. He stood looking at him,
open-eyed and agitated, but undecided, and Benjamin went on with added
vehemence:

“I came to you to lift up my voice in protest, and I desire, I require, I
command you: sever all ties with the enemies of your nation and of your
faith, cast out your love for the Melchite Siren, who will seduce your
immortal part to inevitable perdition….”

Till this Orion had listened with bowed head and in silence to the
diatribe which the patriarch had hurled at him like a curse; but at this
point his whole being rose in revolt, all self-control forsook him, and he
interrupted the speaker in loud tones:

“Never, never, never will I do such a thing! Insult me as you will. What I
am, I will still be: a faithful son of the Church to which my fathers
belonged, and for which my brothers died. In all humility I acknowledge
Jesus Christ as my Lord. I believe in him, believe in the God-made-man who
died to save us, and who brought love into the world, and I will remain
unpersuaded and faithful to my own love. Never will I forsake her who has
been to me like a messenger from God, like a good angel to teach me how to
lay hold on what is earnest and noble in life-her whom my father, too,
held dear. Power, indeed, is yours. Demand of me anything reasonable, and
within my attainment, and I will try to force myself to obedience; but I
never can and never will be faithless to her, to prove my faith to you;
and as to the Arabs….”

“Enough!” exclaimed the prelate. “I am on my way to Upper Egypt. Make your
choice by my return. I give you till then to come to a right mind, to
think the matter over; and it is quite deliberately that I bid you to
forget the Melchite. That you, of all men, should marry a heretic would be
an abomination not to be borne. With regard to your alliance with the
Arabs, and whether it becomes you—being what you are—to take
service with them, we will discuss it at a future day. If, by the time I
return, you have thought better of the matter as regards your marriage—and
you are free to choose any Jacobite maiden—then I will speak to you
in a different tone. I will then offer you my friendship and support;
instead of the Church’s curse I will pronounce her blessing on you—the
pardon and grace of the Almighty, a smooth path to eternity and peace, and
the prospect of giving new joy to the aching heart of your sorrowing
mother. My last word is that you must and shall give up the woman from
whom you can look for nothing but perdition.”

“I cannot, and shall not, and I never will!” replied Orion firmly.

“Then I can, and shall, and will make you feel how heavily the curse falls
which, in the last resort, I shall not hesitate to pronounce upon you!”

“It is in your power,” said Orion. “But if you proceed to extremities with
me, you will drive me to seek the blessing for which my soul thirsts more
ardently than you, my lord, can imagine, and the salvation I crave, with
her whom you hold reprobate, and on the further side of the Nile.”

“I dare you!” cried the patriarch, quitting the room with a resolute step
and flaming cheeks.


CHAPTER II.

Orion was alone in the spacious room, feeling as though the whole world
were sinking into nothingness after the rack of storm and tempest. At
first he was merely conscious of having gone through a fearful experience,
which threatened to fling him far outside the sphere of everything he was
wont to reverence and hold sacred. For love and honor of his guardian
angel he had declared war to the patriarch, and that man’s power was as
great as his stature. Still, the image of Paula rose high and supreme
above that of the terrible old man, in Orion’s fancy, and his father, as
it seemed to him, was like an ally in the battle he was destined to wage
in his own strength.

The young man’s vivid imagination and excellent memory recapitulated every
word the prelate had uttered. The domineering old man, overflowing with
bigoted zeal, had played with him as a cat with a mouse. He had tried to
search his soul and sift him to the bottom before he attacked the subject
with which he ought to have begun, and concerning which he was fully
informed when he offered him his hand that first time—as cheerfully,
too, as though he had no serious grievance seething in his soul. Orion
resolved that he would cling fast to his faith without Benjamin’s
interposition, and not allow his hold on the two other Christian graces,
Hope and Love, to be weakened by his influence.

By some miracle his mother had not yet told the prelate of his father’s
curse, in spite of the anguish of her aching heart; and what a weapon
would not that have been in Benjamin’s hand. It was with the deepest pity
that he thought of that poor, grief-stricken woman, and the idea flashed
through his mind that the patriarch might have gone back to his mother to
accuse him and to urge her to further revelations.

Many minutes had passed since the patriarch had left him; Orion had
allowed his illustrious guest to depart unescorted, and this could not
fail to excite surprise. Such a breach of good manners, of the uncodified
laws of society, struck Orion, the son of a noble and ancient house, who
had drunk in his regard for them as it were with his mother’s milk, as an
indignity to himself; and to repair it he started up, hastily smoothing
down his tumbled hair, and hurried into the viridarium. His fears were
confirmed, for the patriarch’s following were standing in the
fountain-hall close to the exit; his mother, too, was there and Benjamin
was in the act of departure.

The old man accepted his offered escort with dignified affability, as if
nothing but what was pleasant had passed between him and Orion. As they
crossed the viridarium he asked his young host what was the name of some
rare flower, and counselled him to take care that shade-giving trees were
planted in abundance on his various estates. In the outer hall, on either
side of the door, was a statue: Truth and justice, two fine works by
Aristeas of Alexandria, who flourished in the time of the Emperor Hadrian.
Justice held the scales and sword, Truth was gazing into her mirror. As
the patriarch approached them, he said to the priest who walked by his
side: “Still here!” Then, standing still, he said, partly to Orion and
partly to his companion:

“Your father, I see, neglected my suggestion that these heathen images had
no place in any Christian house, and least of all in one attached, as this
is, to a public function. We, no doubt, know the meaning of the symbols
they bear; but how easily might the ordinary man, waiting here, mistake
the figure with the mirror for Vanity and that with the scales Venality:
‘Pay us what we ask,’ she might be saying, ‘or else your life is a
forfeit,’—so the sword would imply.”

He smiled and walked on, but added airily to Orion:

“When I come again—you know—I shall be pleased if my eye is no
longer offended by these mementos of an extinct idolatry.”

“Truth and justice!” replied Orion in a constrained voice. “They have
dwelt on this spot and ruled in this house for nearly five hundred years.”

“It would look better, and be more suitable,” retorted the patriarch, “if
you could say that of Him to whom alone the place of honor is due in a
Christian house; in His presence every virtue flourishes of itself. The
Christian should proscribe every image from his dwelling; at the door of
his heart only should he raise an image on the one hand of Faith and on
the other of Humility.”

By this time they had reached the court-yard, where Susannah’s chariot was
waiting. Orion helped the prelate into it, and when Benjamin offered him
his hand to kiss, in the presence of several hundred slaves and servants,
all on their knees, the young man lightly touched it with his lips. He
stood bowed low in reverence so long as the holy father remained visible,
in the attitude of blessing the crowd from the open side of the chariot;
then he hurried away to join his mother.

He expected to find her exhausted by the excitement of the patriarch’s
visit; but, in fact, she was more composed than he had seen her yet since
his father’s death. Her eyes indeed, commonly so sober in their
expression, were bright with a kind of rapture which puzzled Orion. Had
she been thinking of his father? Could the patriarch have succeeded in
inspiring her pious fervor to such a pitch, that it had carried her, so to
speak, out of herself?

She was dressed to go to church, and after expressing her delight at the
honor done to herself and her whole household by the prelate’s visit, she
invited Orion to accompany her. Though he had proposed devoting the next
few hours to a different purpose, the dutiful son at once acceded to this
wish; he helped her into her chariot, bid the driver go slowly, and seated
himself by her side.

As they drove along he asked her what she had told the patriarch, and her
replies might have reassured him but that she filled him with grave
anxiety on fresh grounds. Her mind seemed to have suffered under the
stress of grief. It was usually so clear, so judicious, so reasonable; and
now all she said was incoherent and not more than half intelligible.
Still, one thing he distinctly understood: that she had not confided to
the patriarch the fact of his father’s curse. The prelate must certainly
have censured the conduct of the deceased to her also and that had sealed
her lips. She complained to her son that Benjamin had never understood her
lost husband, and that she had felt compelled to repress her desire to
disclose everything to him. Nowhere but in church, in the very presence of
the Redeemer, could she bring herself to allow him to read her heart as it
were an open book. A voice had warned her that in the house of God alone,
could she find salvation for herself and her son; that voice she heard day
and night, and much as it pained her to grieve him he must hear it now—:
That voice never ceased to enjoin her to tear asunder his connection with
the Melchite maiden. Last evening it had seemed to her that it was her
eldest son, who had died for the Jacobite faith, that was speaking to her.
The voice had sounded like his, and it had warned her that the ancient
house of Menas must perish, if a Melchite should taint the pure blood of
their race. And Benjamin had confirmed her fears; he had come back to her
on purpose to beseech her to oppose Orion’s sinful affection for Thomas’
daughter with the utmost maternal authority, and, as the patriarch
expressed the same desire as the voice, it must be from God and she must
obey it.

Her old grudge against Paula had revived, and her very tones betrayed that
it grew stronger with every word she spoke which had any reference to the
girl.

At this Orion begged her to be calm, reminding her of the promise she had
made him by his father’s deathbed; and just as his mother was about to
reply in a tone of pitiful recrimination, the chariot stopped at the door
of the church. He did everything in his power to soothe her; his gentle
and tender tones comforted her, and she nodded to him more happily,
following him into the sanctuary.

Beyond the narthex—the vestibule of the church, where three
penitents were flaying their backs with scourges by the side of a small
marble fountain, and in full view of the crowd—they were forced to
part, as the women were divided from the men by a screen of finely-carved
woodwork.

As Neforis went to her place, she shook her bowed head: she was meditating
on the choice offered her by Orion, of yielding to the patriarch’s
commands or to her son’s wishes. How gladly would she have seen her son in
bright spirits again. But Benjamin had threatened her with the loss of all
the joys of Heaven, if she should agree to Orion’s alliance with the
heretic—and the joys of Heaven to her meant a meeting, a
recognition, for which she would willingly have sacrificed her son and
everything else that was dear to her heart.

Orion assisted at the service in the place reserved for the men of his
family, close to the hekel, or holy of holies, where the altar stood and
the priests performed their functions. A partition, covered with
ill-wrought images and a few gilt ornaments, divided it from the main body
of the church, and the whole edifice produced an impression that was
neither splendid nor particularly edifying. The basilica, which had once
been richly decorated, had been plundered by the Melchites in a fight
between them and the Jacobites, and the impoverished city had not been in
a position to restore the venerable church to anything approaching its
original splendor. Orion looked round him; but could see nothing
calculated to raise his devotion.

The congregation were required to stand all through the service; and as it
often was a very long business, not the women only, behind the screen, but
many of the men supported themselves like cripples on crutches. How
unpleasing, too, were the tones of the Egyptian chant, accompanied by the
frequent clang of a metal cymbal and mingled with the babble of chattering
men and women, checked only when the talk became a quarrel, by a priest
who loudly and vehemently shouted for silence from the hekel.

Generally the chanted liturgy constituted the whole function, unless the
Lord’s Supper was administered; but in these anxious times, for above a
week past, a priest or a monk preached a daily sermon. This began a short
while after the young man had taken his place, and it was with painful
feelings that he recognized, in the hollow-eyed and ragged monk who
mounted the pulpit, a priest whom he had seen more than once drunk to
imbecility, in Nesptah’s tavern, And the revolting creature, who thus
flaunted his dirty, dishevelled person even in the pulpit, thundered down
on the trembling congregation declarations that the delay in the rising of
the Nile was the consequence of their sins, and God’s punishment for their
evil deeds. Instead of comforting the terrified souls, or encouraging
their faith and bidding them hope for better times, he set before them in
burning words the punishment that awaited their wicked despondency.

God Almighty was plaguing them and the land with great heat; but this was
like the cool north wind at Advent-tide, as compared with the fierceness
of the furnace of hell which Satan was making hot for them. The scorching
sun on earth at any rate gave them daylight, but the flames of hell shed
no light, that the terrors might never cease of those whom the devil’s
myrmidons drove over the narrow bridge leading to his horrible realm,
goading them with spears and pitchforks, with heavy cudgelling or gnawing
of their flesh. In the anguish of death, and the crush by the way, mothers
trod down their infants and fathers their daughters; and when the damned
reached the spiked threshold of hell itself, a hideous and poisoned vapor
rose up to meet them, choking them, and yet giving them renewed strength
to feel fresh torments with increased keenness of every sense. Then the
devil’s shrieks of anguish, which shake the vault of hell, came thundering
on their ears; with hideous yells he snatched at them from the grate on
which he lay, crushed and squeezed them in his iron jaws like a bunch of
grapes, and swallowed them into his fiery maw; or else they were hung up
by their tongues by attendant friends in Satan’s fiery furnace, or dragged
alternately through ice and flames, and finally beaten to pieces on the
anvil of hell, or throttled and wrung with ropes and cloths.—As
compared with the torments they would suffer there, every present anxiety
was as the kiss of a lover. Mothers would hear the brain seething in their
infants’ skulls….

At this point of the monk’s grewsome discourse, Orion turned away with a
shudder. The curse with which the patriarch had threatened him recurred to
his mind; he could have fancied that the hot, stuffy, incense-laden air of
the church was full of flapping daws and hideous bats. Deadly horror crept
over him; but then, suddenly, the rebound came of youthful vigor, longing
for freedom and joy in living; a voice within cried out: “Away with
coercion and chains! Winged spirit, use your pinions! Down with the god of
terrors! He is not that Heavenly Father whose love embraces mankind.
Forward, leap up and be free! Trusting in your own strength, guided by
your own will, go boldly forth into the open sunshine of life! Be free, be
free!—Still, be not like a slave who is no sooner cut adrift and
left to himself than he falls a slave again to his own senses. No; but
striving unceasingly and of your own free will, in the sweat of your brow,
to reach the high goal, to work out to its fulfilment and fruition
everything that is best in your soul and mind. Yes—life is a
ministry…. I, like the disciples of the Stoa, will strive after all that
is known as virtue, with no other end in view than to practise it for its
own sake, because it is fair and gives unmixed joys. I will rely on myself
to seek the truth—and do what I feel to be right and good; this,
henceforth, shall be the lofty aim of my existence. To the two chief
desires of my heart—: atonement to my father and union with Paula, I
here add a third: the attainment of the loftiest goal that I may reach, by
valiant striving to get as near to it as my strength will allow. The road
thither is by Work; the guiding star I must keep before me that I may not
go astray is my Love!”

His cheeks were burning, and with a deep breath he looked about him as
though to find an adversary with whom he might measure his strength. The
horrible sermon was ended and the words of the chanting crowd fell on his
ear. “Lord, reward me not according to mine iniquities!” The load of his
own sin fell on his heart again, and his dying father’s curse; his proud
head drooped on his breast, and he said to himself that his burthen was
too heavy for him to venture on the bold flight for which he had but now
spread his wings. The ban was not yet lifted; he was not yet redeemed from
its crushing weight. But the mere word “redeemed” brought to his mind the
image of Him who took on Himself the sins of the world; and the more
deeply he contemplated the nature of the Saviour whom he had loved from
his childhood, the more surely he felt that it would be doing no violence
to the freedom of his own will, but rather be the fulfilment of a
long-felt desire, if he were to tell Jesus simply all that oppressed him;
that his love for Him, his faith in Him, had a saving power even for his
soul. He lifted up his eyes and heart to Him, and to Him, as to a trusted
friend, confided all that troubled and hindered him and besought His aid.

In loving Him, he and Paula were one, he knew, though they had not the
same idea of His nature.

Orion, as he meditated, thought out the points on which her views deviated
from his own: she believed that the divine and the human natures were
distinct in the person of Christ. And as he reflected on this creed, till
now so horrible in his eyes, he felt that the unique individuality of the
Saviour, shedding forth love and truth, came home to him more closely when
he pictured Him perfect and spotless, yet feeling as a man; walking among
men with all their joy in life in His heart, alive to every pang and
sorrow which can torture mortals, rejoicing with them, and taking upon
Himself unspeakable humiliation, suffering, and death, with a stricken,
bleeding, and yet self-devoting heart, for pure love of the wretched race
to which He could stoop from His glory. Yes, this Christ could be his
Redeemer too. The Almighty Lord had become his perfect and most loving
friend, his glorious, but lenient and tender brother, to whom he could
gladly give his whole heart, who understood everything, who was ready to
forgive everything—even all that was seething in his aching heart
which longed for purification—and all because He once had suffered
as a man suffers.

For the first time he, the Jacobite, dared to confess so much to himself;
and not solely for Paula’s sake. A violent clanging on a cracked metal
plate roused him from his meditations by its harsh clamor; the sacrament
of the Last Supper was about to be administered: the invariable conclusion
of the Jacobite service. The bishop came forth from behind the screen of
the inner sanctuary, poured some wine into a silver cup and crumbled into
it two little cakes stamped with the Coptic cross. Of this mixture he
first partook, and then gave it in a spoon to each member of the
congregation who came up to receive it. Orion approached after two elders
of the Church. Finally the priest rinsed out the cup, and drained the very
washings, that no drop of the saving liquid should be lost.

How high had Orion’s heart throbbed when, as a youth, he had been admitted
for the first time to this most sacred of all Christian privileges! He was
instructed in its deep and glorious symbolism, and had often felt the
purifying, saving, and refreshing effect of the sacrament, strengthening
him in all goodness, when he had partaken of it with his parents and
brothers. Hand-in-hand, they had gone home feeling as if newly robed in
body and soul and more closely bound together than before. And to-day,
insensible as he was to the repulsiveness of the forms of worship of his
confession he felt as though the bread and wine—the Flesh and Blood
of the Saviour—had sealed the bond he had silently entered into with
himself; as though the Lord had put forth an invisible hand to remove the
guilt and the curse that crushed him so sorely. Deep devotion fell on his
soul: his future life, he thought, should bring him nearer to God than
ever before, and be spent in loving, and in the more earnest, full, and
laborious exercise of the gifts Heaven had bestowed on him.


CHAPTER III.

Orion had dreaded the drive home with his mother, but after complaining to
him of Susannah’s conduct in having made a startling display of her
vexation in the women’s place behind the screen, she had leaned on him and
fallen fast asleep. Her head was on her son’s shoulder when they reached
home, and Orion’s anxiety for the mother he truly loved was enhanced when
he found it difficult to rouse her. He felt her stagger like a drunken
creature, and he led her not into the fountain-room but to her
bed-chamber, where she only begged to lie down; and hardly had she done so
when she was again overcome by sleep.

Orion now made his way to Gamaliel the jeweller, to purchase from him a
very large and costly diamond, plainly set, and the Israelite’s brother
undertook to deliver it to the fair widow at Constantinople, who was known
to him as one of his customers. Orion, in the jeweller’s sitting-room,
wrote a letter to his former mistress, in which he begged her in the most
urgent manner to accept the diamond, and in exchange to return to him the
emerald by a swift and trustworthy messenger, whom Simeon the goldsmith
would provide with everything needful.

After all this he went home hungry and weary, to the late midday meal
which he shared, as for many days past, with no one but Eudoxia, Mary’s
governess. The little girl was not yet allowed to leave her room, and of
this, for one reason, her instructress was glad, for a dinner alone with
the handsome youth brought extreme gratification to her mature heart. How
considerate was the wealthy and noble heir in desiring the slaves to offer
every dish to her first, how kind in listening to her stories of her young
days and of the illustrious houses in which she had formerly given
lessons! She would have died for him; but, as no opportunity offered for
such a sacrifice, at any rate she never omitted to point out to him the
most delicate morsels, and to supply his room with fresh flowers.

Besides this, however, she had devoted herself with the most admirable
unselfishness to her pupil, since the child had been ill and her
grandmother had turned against her, noticing, too, that Orion took a
tender and quite fatherly interest in his little niece. This morning the
young man had not had time to enquire for Mary, and Eudoxia’s report that
she seemed even more excited than on the day before disturbed him so
greatly, that he rose from table, in spite of Eudoxia’s protest, without
waiting till the end of the meal, to visit the little invalid.

It was with genuine anxiety that he mounted the stairs. His heart was
heavy over many things, and as he went towards the child’s room he said to
himself with a melancholy smile, that he, who had contemned many a
distinguished man and many a courted fair one at Constantinople because
they had fallen short of his lofty standard, had here no one but this
child who would be sure to understand him. Some minutes elapsed before his
knock was answered with the request to ‘come in,’ and he heard a hasty
bustle within. He found Mary lying, as the physician had ordered, on a
couch by the window, which was wide open and well-shaded; her couch was
surrounded by flowering plants and, on a little table in front of her,
were two large nosegays, one fading, the other quite fresh and
particularly beautiful.

How sadly the child had changed in these few days. The soft round cheeks
had disappeared, and the pretty little face had sunk into nothingness by
comparison with the wonderful, large eyes, which had gained in size and
brilliancy. Yesterday she had been free from fever and very pale, but
to-day her cheeks were crimson, and a twitching of her lips and of her
right shoulder, which had come on since the scene at the grandfather’s
deathbed, was so incessant that Orion sat down by her side in some alarm.

“Has your grandmother been to see you?” was his first question, but the
answer was a mournful shake of her head.

The blossoming plants were his own gift and so was the fading nosegay; the
other, fresher one had not come from him, so he enquired who was the
giver, and was not a little astonished to see his favorite’s confusion and
agitation at the question. There must be something special connected with
the posey, that was very evident, and the young man, who did not wish to
excite her sensitive nerves unnecessarily, but could not recall his words,
was wishing he had never spoken them, when the discovery of a feather fan
cut the knot of his difficulty; he took it up, exclaiming: “Hey—what
have we here?”

A deeper flush dyed Mary’s cheek, and raising her large eyes imploringly
to his face, she laid a finger on her lips. He nodded, as understanding
her, and said in a low voice:

“Katharina has been here? Susannah’s gardener ties up flowers like that.
The fan—when I knocked—she is here still perhaps?”

He had guessed rightly; Mary pointed dumbly to the door of the adjoining
room.

“But, in Heaven’s name, child,” Orion went on, in an undertone, “what does
she want here?”

“She came by stealth, in the boat,” whispered the child. “She sent Anubis
from the treasurer’s office to ask me if she might not come, she could not
do without me any longer, and she never did me any harm and so I said yes—and
then, when I knew it was your knock, whisk—off she went into the
bedroom.”

“And if your grandmother were to come across her?”

“Then—well, then I do not know what would become of me! But oh!
Orion, if you only knew how—how….” Two big tears rolled down her
cheeks and Orion understood her; he stroked her hair lovingly and said in
a whisper, glancing now and again at the door of the next room.

“But I came up on purpose to tell you something more about Paula. She
sends you her love, and she invites you to go to her and stay with her,
always. But you must keep it quite a secret and tell no one, not even
Eudoxia and Katharina; for I do not know myself how we can contrive to get
your grandmother’s consent. At any rate we must set to work very prudently
and cautiously, do you understand? I have only taken you into our
confidence that you may look forward to it and have something to be glad
of at night, when you are such a silly little thing as to keep your eyes
open like the hares, instead of sleeping like a good child. If things go
well, you may be with Paula to-morrow perhaps—think of that! I had
quite given up all hope of managing it at all; but now, just now—is
it not odd—just within these two minutes I suddenly said to myself:
‘It will come all right!’—So it must be done somehow.”

A flood of tears streamed down Mary’s burning cheeks but, freely as they
flowed, she did not sob and her bosom did not heave. Nor did she speak,
but such pure and fervent gratitude and joy shone from her glistening eyes
that Orion felt his own grow moist. He was glad to find some way of
concealing his emotion when Mary seized his hand and, pressing a long kiss
on it, wetted it with her tears.

“See!” he exclaimed. “All wet! as if I had just taken it out of the
fountain.”

But he said no more, for the bedroom door was suddenly thrown open and
Eudoxia’s high, thin voice was heard saying:

“But why make any fuss? Mary will be enchanted! Here, Child, here is your
long-lost friend! Such a surprise!” And the water-wagtail, pushed forward
by no gentle hand, appeared within the doorway. Eudoxia was as radiant as
though she had achieved some heroic deed; but she drew back a little when
she found that Orion was still in the room. The divided couple stood face
to face. What was done could not be undone; but, though he greeted her
with only a calm bow, and she fluttered her fan with abrupt little jerks
to conceal her embarrassment, nothing took place which could surprise the
bystander; indeed, Katharina’s pretty features assumed a defiant
expression when he enquired how the little white dog was, and she coldly
replied that she had had him chained up in the poultry-yard, for that the
patriarch, who was their guest, could not endure dogs.

“He honors a good many men with the same sentiments,” replied Orion, but
Katharina retorted, readily enough.

“When they deserve it.”

The dialogue went on in this key for some few minutes; but the young man
was not in the humor either to take the young girl’s pert stings or to
repay her in the same coin; he rose to go but, before he could take leave,
Katharina, observing from the window how low the sun was, cried: “Mercy on
me! how late it is—I must be off; I must not be absent at supper
time. My boat is lying close to yours in the fishing-cove. I only hope the
gate of the treasurer’s house is still open.”

Orion, too, looked at the sun and then remarked: “To-day is Sanutius.”

“I know,” said Katharina. “That is why Anubis was free at noon.”

“And for the same reason,” added Orion, “there is not a soul at work now
in the office.”

This was awkward. Not for worlds would she have been seen in the house;
and knowing, as she did from her games with Mary, every nook and corner of
it, she began to consider her position. Her delicate features assumed a
sinister expression quite new to Orion, which both displeased him and
roused his anxiety—not for himself but for Mary, who could certainly
get no good from such a companion as this. These visits must not be
repeated very often; he would not allude to the subject in the child’s
presence, but Katharina should at once have a hint. She could not get out
of the place without his assistance; so he intruded on her meditations to
inform her that he had the key of the office about him. Then he went to
see if the hall were empty, and led her at once to the treasurer’s office
through the various passages which connected it with the main buildings.
The office at this hour was as lonely as the grave, and when Orion found
himself standing with her, close to the door which opened on the road to
the harbor, and had already raised the key to unlock it, he paused and for
the first time broke the silence they had both preserved during their
unpleasant walk, saying:

“What brought you to see Mary, Katharina? Tell me honestly.” Her heart,
which had been beating high since she had found herself alone with him in
the silent and deserted house, began to throb wildly; a great terror, she
knew not of what, came over her.

“She had come to the house for several reasons, but one had outweighed all
the rest: Mary must be told that her young uncle and Paula were betrothed;
for she knew by experience that the child could keep nothing of importance
from her grandmother, and that Neforis had no love for Paula was an open
secret. As yet she certainly could know nothing of her son’s formal suit,
but if once she were informed of it she would do everything in her power—of
this Katharina had not a doubt—to keep Orion and Paula apart. So the
girl had told Mary that it was already reported that they were a betrothed
and happy pair, and that she herself had watched them making love in her
neighbor’s garden. To her great annoyance, however, Mary took this all
very coolly and without any special excitement.

“So, when Orion enquired of his companion what had brought her to the
governor’s house, she could only reply that she longed so desperately to
see little Mary.

“Of course,” said Orion. “But I must beg of you not to yield again to your
affectionate impulse. Your mother makes a public display of her grudge
against mine, and her ill-feeling will only be increased if she is told
that we are encouraging you to disregard her wishes. Perhaps you may, ere
long, have opportunities of seeing Mary more frequently; but, if that
should be the case, I must especially request you not to talk of things
that may agitate her. You have seen for yourself how excitable she is and
how fragile she looks. Her little heart, her too precocious brain and
feelings must have rest, must not be stirred and goaded by fresh
incitements such as you are in a position to apply. The patriarch is my
enemy, the enemy of our house, and you—I do not say it to offend you—you
overheard what he was saying last night, and probably gathered much
important information, some of which may concern me and my family.”

Katharina stood looking at her companion, as pale as death. He knew that
she had played the listener, and when, and where! The shock it gave her,
and the almost unendurable pang of feeling herself lowered in his eyes,
quite dazed her. She felt bewildered, offended, menaced; however, she
retained enough presence of mind to reply in a moment to her antagonist:

“Do not be alarmed! I will come no more. I should not have come at all, if
I could have foreseen…”

“That you would meet me?”

“Perhaps.—But do not flatter yourself too much on that account!—As
to my listening…. Well, yes; I was standing at the window. Inside the
room I could only half hear, and who does not want to hear what great men
have to say to each other? And, excepting your father, I have met none
such in Memphis since Memnon left the city. We women have inherited some
curiosity from our mother Eve; but we rarely indulge it so far as to hunt
for a necklace in our neighbor’s trunk! I have no luck as a criminal, my
dear Orion. Twice have I deserved the name. Thanks to the generous and
liberal use you made of my inexperience I sinned—sinned so deeply
that it has ruined my whole life; and now, again, in a more venial way;
but I was caught out, you see, in both cases.”

“Your taunts are merited,” said Orion sadly. “And yet, Child, we may both
thank Providence, which did not leave us to wander long on the wrong road.
Once already I have besought your forgiveness, and I do so now again. That
does not satisfy you I see—and I can hardly blame you. Perhaps you
will be better pleased, when I assure you once more that no sin was ever
more bitterly or cruelly punished than mine has been.”

“Indeed!” said Katharina with a drawl; then, with a flutter of her fan,
she went on airily: “And yet you look anything rather than crushed; and
have even succeeded in winning ‘the other’—Paula, if I am not
mistaken.”

“That will do!” said Orion decisively, and he raised the key to the lock.
Katharina, however, placed herself in his way, raised a threatening
finger, and exclaimed:

“So I should think!—Now I am certain. However, you are right with
your insolent ‘That will do!’ I do not care a rush for your love affairs;
still, there is one thing I should like to know, which concerns myself
alone; how could you see over our garden hedge? Anubis is scarcely a head
shorter than you are….”

“And you made him try?” interrupted Orion, who could not forbear smiling,
perceiving that his honestly meant gravity was thrown away on Katharina.
“Notwithstanding such a praiseworthy experiment, I may beg you to note for
future cases that what is true of him is not true of every one, and that,
besides foot-passengers, a tall man sometimes mounts a tall horse?”

“It was you, then, who rode by last night?”

“And who could not resist glancing up at your window.”

At these words she drew back in surprise, and her eyes lighted up, but
only for an instant; then, clenching the feathers of her fan in both
hands, she sharply asked:

“Is that in mockery?”

“Certainly not,” said Orion coolly; “for though you have reason enough to
be angry with me….”

“I, at any rate, have, so far given you none,” she petulantly broke in.
“No, I have not. It is I, and I alone, who have been insulted and
ill-used; you must confess that you owe me some amends, and that I have a
right to ask them.”

“Do so,” replied he. “I am yours to command.” She looked him straight in
the face.

“First of all,” she began, “have you told any one else that I was…”

“That you were listening? No—not a living soul.”

“And will you promise never to betray me?”

“Willingly. Now, what is the ‘secondly’ to this ‘first of all?’”

But there was no immediate answer; the water-wagtail evidently found it
difficult. However, she presently said, with downcast eyes:

“I want…. You will think me a greater fool than I am… nevertheless,
yes, I will ask you, though it will involve me in fresh humiliation.—I
want to know the truth; and if there is anything you hold sacred, before I
ask, you must swear by what is holiest to answer me, not as if I were a
silly girl, but as if I were the Supreme judge at the last day.—Do
you hear?”

“This is very solemn,” said Orion. “And you must allow me to observe that
there are some questions which do not concern us alone, and if yours is
such….”

“No, no,” replied Katharina, “what I mean concerns you and me alone.”

“Then I see no reason for refusing,” he said. “Still, I may ask you a
favor in return. It seems to me no less important than it did to you, to
know what a great man like the patriarch finds to talk about, and since I
place myself at your commands….”

“I thought,” said the girl with a smile, “that your first object would be
to discharge some small portion of your debt to me; however, I expect no
excessive magnanimity, and the little I heard is soon told. It cannot
matter much to you either—so I will agree to your wishes, and you,
in return, must promise….”

“To speak the whole truth.”

“As truly as you hope for forgiveness of your sins?”

“As truly as that.”

“That is well.”

“And what is it that you want to know?”

At this she shook her head, exclaiming uneasily:

“Nay, nay, not yet. It cannot be done so lightly. First let me speak; and
then open the door, and if I want to fly let me go without saying or
asking me another word.—Give me that chair; I must sit down.” And in
fact she seemed to need it; for some minutes she had looked very pale and
exhausted, and her hands trembled as she drew her handkerchief across her
face.

When she was seated she began her story; and while her words flowed on
quickly but without expression, as though she spoke mechanically, Orion
listened with eager interest, for what she had to tell struck him as
highly significant and important.

He had been watched by the patriarch’s orders. By midnight Benjamin had
already been informed of Orion’s visit to Fostat, and to the Arab general.
Nothing, however, had been said about it beyond a fear lest he had gone
thither with a view to abjuring the faith of his fathers and going over to
the Infidels. Far more important were the facts Orion gathered as to the
prelate’s negotiations with the Khaliff’s representative. Amru had urged a
reduction of the number of convents and of the monks and nuns who lived on
the bequests and gifts of the pious, busied in all kinds of handiwork
according to the rule of Pachomius, and enabled, by the fact of their
living at free quarters, to produce almost all the necessaries of life,
from the mats on the floors to the shoes worn by the citizens, at a much
lower price than the independent artisans, whether in town or country. The
great majority of these poor creatures were already ruined by such
competition, and Amru, seeing the Arab leather-workers, weavers,
ropemakers, and the rest, threatened with the same fate, had determined to
set himself firmly to restrict all this monastic work. The patriarch had
resisted stoutly and held out long, but at last he had been forced to
sacrifice almost half the convents for monks and nuns.

But nothing had been conceded without an equivalent; for Benjamin was well
aware of the immense difficulties which he, as chief of the Church, could
put in the way of the new government of the country. So it was left to him
to designate which convents should be suppressed, and he had, of course,
begun by laying hands on the few remaining Melchite retreats, among them
the Convent of St. Cecilia, next to the house of Rufinus. This
establishment was now to be closed within three days and to become the
property of the Jacobite Church; but it was to be done quite quietly, for
there was no small fear that now, when the delayed rising of the river was
causing a fever of anxiety in all minds, the impoverished populace of the
town might rise in defence of the wealthy sisterhood to whom they were
beholden for much benevolence and kind care.

Opposition from the town-senate was also to be looked for, since the
deceased Mukaukas had pronounced this measure unjust and detrimental to
the common welfare. The evicted orthodox nuns were to be taken into
various Jacobite convents as lay sisters similar cases had already been
known; but the abbess, whose superior intellect, high rank, and
far-reaching influence might, if she were left free to act, easily rouse
the prelates of the East to oppose Benjamin, was to be conveyed to a
remote convent in Ethiopia, whence no flight or return was possible.

Katharina’s report took but few minutes, and she gave it with apparent
indifference; what could the suppression of an orthodox cloister, and the
dispersion of its heretic sisterhood, matter to her, or to Orion, whose
brothers had fallen victims to Melchite fanaticism? Orion did not betray
his deep interest in all he heard, and when at length Katharina rose and
pointed feebly to the door, all she said, as though she were vexed at
having wasted so much time, was: “That, on the whole, is all.”

“All?” asked Orion unlocking the door.

“Certainly, all,” she repeated uneasily. “What I meant to ask—whether
I ever know it or not—it does not matter.—It would be better
perhaps-yes, that is all.—Let me go.”

But he did not obey her.

“Ask,” he said kindly. “I will answer you gladly.”

“Gladly?” she retorted, with an incredulous shrug. “In point of fact you
ought to feel uncomfortable whenever you see me; but things do not always
turn out as they ought, in Memphis or in the world; for what do you men
care what becomes of a poor girl like me? Do not imagine that I mean to
reproach you; God forbid! I do not even owe you a grudge. If anyone can
live such a thing down I can. Do not you think so? Everything is admirably
arranged for me; I cannot fail to do well. I am very rich, and not ugly,
and I shall have a hundred suitors yet. Oh, I am a most enviable creature!
I have had one lover already, and the next will be more faithful, at any
rate, and not throw me over so ruthlessly as the first.—Do not you
think so?”

“I hope so,” said Oriole gravely. “Bitter as the cup is that you offer me
to drink…”

“Well?”

“I can only repeat that I must even drink it, since the fault was mine.
Nothing would so truly gladden me as to be able to atone in some degree
for my sin against you.”

“Oh dear no!” she scornfully threw in. “Our hopes shall not be fixed so
high as that! All is at an end between us, and if you ever were anything
to me, you are nothing to me now—absolutely nothing. One hour in the
past we had in common; it was short indeed, but to me—would you
believe it?—a very great matter. It aged the young creature, whom
you, but yesterday, still regarded as a mere child—that much I know—with
amazing rapidity; aye, and made a worse woman of her than you can fancy.”

“That indeed would grieve me to the bottom of my soul,” replied Orion.
“There is, I know, no excuse for my conduct. Still, as you yourself know,
our mothers’ wish in the first instance…”

“Destined us for each other, you would say. Quite true!—And it was
all to please Dame Neforis that you put your arms round me, under the
acacias, and called me your own, your all, your darling, your rose-bud?
Was that—and this is exactly what I want to ask you, what I insist
on knowing—was that all a lie—or did you, at any rate, in that
brief moment, under the trees, love me with all your heart—love me
as now you love—I cannot name her—that other?—The truth,
Orion, the whole truth, on your oath!”

She had raised her voice and her eyes glowed with the excitement of
passion; and now, when she ceased speaking, their sparkling, glistening
enquiry plainly and unreservedly confessed that her heart still was his,
that she counted on his high-mindedness and expected him to say “yes.” Her
round arm lay closely pressed to her bosom, as though to keep its wild
heaving within bounds. Her delicate face had lost its pallor and seemed
bathed in a glow, now tender and now crimson. Her little mouth, which but
now had uttered such bitter words, was parted in a smile as if ready to
bestow a sweet reward for the consoling, saving answer, for which her
whole being yearned, and her eager eyes, shining through tears, did not
cease to entreat him so pathetically, so passionately! How bewitching an
image of helpless, love-sick, beseeching youth and grace.

“As you love that other,—on your oath.”—The words still rang
in the young man’s ear. All that was soft in his soul urged him to make
good the evil he had brought upon this fair, hapless young creature; but
those very words gave him strength to remain steadfast; and though he felt
himself appealed to for comfort and compassion, he could only stretch out
imploring hands, as though praying for help, and say:

“Ah Katharina, and you are as lovely, as charming now, as you were then;
but—much as you attracted me, the great love that fills a life can
come but once…. Forget what happened afterwards…. Put your question in
another form, alter it a little, and ask me again—or let me assure
you.”

But he had no time to say more; for, before he could atop her, she had
slipped past him and flown away like some swift wild thing into the road
and down to the fishing cove.


CHAPTER IV.

Orion stood alone gazing sadly after her. Was this his father’s curse—that
all who loved him must reap pain and grief in return?

He shivered; still, his youthful energy and powers of resistance were
strong enough to give him speedy mastery over these torturing reflections.
What opportunities lay before him of proving his prowess! Even while
Katharina was telling her story, the brave and strenuous youth had set
himself the problem of rescuing the cloistered sisters. The greater the
danger its solution might involve him in, the more impossible it seemed at
first sight, the more gladly, in his present mood, would he undertake it.
He stepped out into the road and closed the door behind him with a feeling
of combative energy.

It was growing dusk. Philippus must now be with Mary and, with the leech’s
aid, he was resolved to get the child away from his mother’s house. Not
till he felt that she was safe with Paula in Rufinus’ house, could he be
free to attempt the enterprise which floated before his eyes. On the
stairs he shouted to a slave:

“My chariot with the Persian trotting horse!” and a few minutes after he
entered the little girl’s room at the same time with a slave girl who
carried in a lamp. Neither Mary nor the physician observed him at first,
and he heard her say to Philippus, who sat holding her wrist between his
fingers.

“What is the matter with you this evening? Good heavens, how pale and
melancholy you look!” The lamplight fell full on his face. “Look here, I
have just made such a smart little man out of wax…”

She hoped to amuse the friend who was always so kind to her with this
comical work of art; but, as she leaned forward to reach it, she caught
sight of her uncle and exclaimed: “Philippus comes here to cure me, but he
looks as if he wanted a draught himself. Take care, or you will have to
drink that bitter brown stuff you sent yesterday; then you will know for
once how nasty it can be.” Though the child’s exclamation was well-meant,
neither of the men took any notice of it. They stood face to face in utter
silence and with only a formal greeting; for Orion, without Mary’s remark,
had been struck by the change that had come over the physician since
yesterday. Ignoring Orion’s presence, he asked the child a few brief
questions, begged Eudoxia to persevere in the same course of treatment,
and then hastily bid a general farewell to all present; Orion, however,
did not respond, but said, with an affectionate glance at the little
patient: “One word with you presently.”

This made Philippus turn to look at Mary and, as the eyes of the rivals
met, they knew that on one subject at any rate they thought and felt
alike. The leech already knew how tenderly the young man had taken to
Mary, and he followed him into the room which Orion now occupied, and
which, as Philippus was aware, had formerly been Paula’s.

“In the cause of duty,” he said to himself again and again, to keep
himself calm and enable him to gather at least the general sense of what
the handsome young fellow opposite to him was saying in his rich, pleasant
voice, and urging as a request with more warmth than the leech had given
him credit for. Philippus, of course, had heard of the grandmother’s
lamentable revulsion of feeling against her grandchild, and he thought
Orion’s wish to remove the little girl fully justified. But, on learning
that she was to be placed under Paula’s care, he seemed startled, and
gazed at the floor in such sullen gloom that the other easily guessed what
was going on in his mind. In fact, the physician suspected that the child
was to serve merely as an excuse for the more frequent meetings of the
lovers. Unable to bury this apprehension in his own breast he started to
his feet, and was about to put it into words, when Orion took the words
out of his mouth, saying modestly but frankly, with downcast eyes:

“I speak only for the child’s—for Mary’s sake. By my father’s
soul….”

But Philippus shook his head dismally, went up to his rival, and murmured
dully:

“For the sake of that child I am capable of doing or enduring a great
deal. She could not be better cared for than with Rufinus and Paula; but
if I could suppose,” and he raised his voice, while his eyes took a
sinister and threatening expression, “if I could suppose that her sacred
and suffering innocence were merely an excuse….”

“No, no,” said Orion urgently. “Again, on my sacred word, I assure you
that I have no aim in view but the child’s safety; and, as we have said so
much, I will not stick at a word more or less! Rufinus’ house is open to
you day and night, and I, if all turns out as I expect, shall ere long be
far from hence—from Memphis—from Paula. There is mischief
brewing—I dare say no more—an act of treachery; and I will try
to prevent it at the risk of my life. You, every one, shall no longer have
a right to think me capable of things which are as repulsive to my nature
as to yours. You and I, if I mistake not, strive for the same prize, and
so far are rivals; but why should the child therefor suffer? Forget it in
her presence, and that forgetting will, as you well know, enhance your
merit in her—her eyes.”

“My merit?” retorted the other scornfully. “Merit is not in the balance;
nothing but the gifts of blind Fortune—a nose, a chin, an eye,
anything in short—a crime as much as a deed of heroism—that
happens to make a deep impression on the wax of a girl’s soft heart. But
curse me,” and he shouted the words at Orion as if he were beside himself,
“if I know how we came to talk of such things! Has my folly gone running
through the streets, bare-bosomed, to display itself to the world at
large? How do you know what my feelings are? She, perhaps, has laughed
with you at her ridiculous lover?—Well, no matter. You know already,
or will know by to-morrow, which of us has won the cock-fight. You have
only to look at me! What woman ever broke her heart for such a
Thersites-face. Good-luck to the winner, and the other one—well,
since it must be so, farewell till to-morrow.”

He hastily made his way towards the door; Orion, however, detained him,
imploring him to set aside his ill-feeling—at any rate for the
present; assured him that Paula had not betrayed what his feelings were;
that, on the contrary, he himself, seeing him with her so late on the
previous night, had been consumed by jealousy, and entreated him to vent
his wrath on him in abusive words, if that could ease his heart, only, by
all that was good, not to withdraw his succor from that poor, innocent
child.

The physician’s humane heart was not proof against his prayer; and when at
length he prepared to depart, in the joyful and yet painful conviction
that his happier rival had become more worthy of the prize, he had agreed
that he would impress on Neforis, whose mind he suspected to be slightly
affected, that the air of the governor’s residence did not suit Mary, and
that she should place her in the care of a physician outside the town.

As soon as Philippus had quitted the house, Orion went to see Rufinus,
who, on his briefly assuring him that he had come on grave and important
business, begged him to accompany him to his private room. The young man,
however, detained him till he had made all clear with the women as to the
reception of little Mary.

“By degrees all the inhabitants of the residence will be transplanted into
our garden!” exclaimed Rufinus. “Well, I have no objection; and you, old
woman, what do you say to it?”

“I have none certainly,” replied his wife. “Besides, neither you nor I
have to decide in this case: the child is to be Paula’s guest.”

“I only wish she were here already,” said Paula, “for who can say whether
your mother, Orion—the air here is perilously Melchite.”

“Leave Philippus and me to settle that.—You should have seen how
pleased Mary was.”

Then, drawing Paula aside, he hastily added:

“Have I not hoped too much? Is your heart mine? Come what may, can I count
on you—on your love—?”

“Yes, Yes!” The words rushed up from the very bottom of her heart, and
Orion, with a sigh of relief, followed the old man, glad and comforted.

The study was lighted up, and there, without mentioning Katharina, he told
Rufinus of the patriarch’s scheme for dispersing the nuns of St. Cecilia.
What could he care for these Melchite sisters? But, since that consoling
hour in the church, he felt as though it were his duty to stand forth for
all that was right, and to do battle against everything that was base.
Besides, he knew how warmly and steadfastly his father had taken the part
of this very convent against the patriarch. Finally, he had heard how
strongly his beloved was attached to this retreat and its superior, so he
prepared himself gleefully to come forth a new man of deeds, and show his
prowess.

The old man listened with growing surprise and horror, and when Orion had
finished his story he rose, helplessly wringing his hands. Orion spoke to
him encouragingly, and told him that he had come, not merely to give the
terrible news, but to hold council with him as to how the innocent victims
might be rescued. At this the grey-headed philanthropist and wanderer
pricked up his ears; and as an old war horse, though harnessed to the
plough, when he hears the trumpet sound lifts his head and arches his neck
as proudly and nobly as of yore under his glittering trappings, so Rufinus
drew himself up, his old eyes sparkled, and he exclaimed with all the
enthusiasm and eagerness of youth:

“Very good, very good; I am with you; not merely as an adviser; no, no.
Head, and hand, and foot, from crown to heel! And as for you, young man—as
for you! I always saw the stuff that was in you in spite—in spite.—But,
as surely as man is the standard of all things, those who reach the
stronghold of virtue by a winding road are often better citizens than
those who are born in it.—It is growing late, but evensong will not
yet have begun and I shall still be able to see the abbess. Have you any
plan to propose?”

“Yes; the day after to-morrow at this hour….”

“And why not to-morrow?” interrupted the ardent old man.

“Because I have preparations to make which cannot be done in twelve hours
of daylight.”

“Good! Good!”

“The day after to-morrow at dusk, a large barge—not one of ours—will
be lying by the bank at the foot of the convent garden. I will escort the
sisters as far as Doomiat on the Lake. I will send on a mounted messenger
to-night, and I will charter a ship for the fugitives by the help of my
cousin Columella, the greatest ship-owner of that town. That will take
them over seas wherever the abbess may command.”

“Capital, splendid!” cried Rufinus enthusiastically. He took up his hat
and stick, and the radiant expression of his face changed to a very grave
one. He went up to the young man with solemn dignity, looked at him with
fatherly kindliness, and said:

“I know what woes befell your house through those of our confession, the
fellow-believers of these whom you propose to protect with so much
prudence and courage; and that, young man, is noble, nay, is truly great.
I find in you—you who were described to me as a man of the world and
not over-precise—for the first time that which I have sought in vain
for many years and in many lands, among the pious and virtuous: the spirit
of willing self-sacrifice to save an enemy of a different creed from
pressing peril.—But you are young, Orion, and I am old. You triumph
in the action only, I foresee the consequences. Do you know what lies
before you, if it should be discovered that you have covered the escape of
the prey whom the patriarch already sees in his net? Have you considered
that Benjamin, the most implacable and most powerful hater among the
Jacobites, will pursue you as his mortal foe with all the fearful means at
his command?”

“I have considered it,” replied Orion.

Rufinus laid his left hand on the young man’s shoulder, and his right hand
on his head, saying, “Then take with you, to begin with, an old man’s—a
father’s blessing.”

“Yes, a father’s,” repeated Orion softly. A happy thrill ran through his
body and soul, and he fell on the old man’s neck deeply moved.

For a minute they stood clasped in each other’s arms; then Rufinus freed
himself, and set out to seek the abbess. Orion returned to the women,
whose curiosity had been roused to a high pitch by seeing Rufinus
disappear through the gate leading to the convent-garden. Dame Joanna
could not sit still for excitement, and Pulcheria answered at random when
Orion and Paula, who had an infinity of things to say or whisper to each
other, now and then tried to draw her into the conversation. Once she
sighed deeply, and when her friend asked her: “What ails you, Child?” she
answered anxiously:

“Something serious must be going forward, I feel it. If only Philippus
were here!”

“But we are all safe and well, thank God!” observed Orion, and she quickly
replied:

“Yes indeed, the Lord be praised!” But she thought to herself:

“You think he is of no use but to heal the sick; but it is only when he is
here that everything goes right and happens for the best!”

Still, all felt that there was something unusual and ominous in the air,
and when the old man presently returned his face confirmed their
suspicions. He laid aside his hat and staff in speechless gravity; then he
put his arm affectionately round his wife and said:

“You will need all your courage and self-command once more, as you have
often done before, good wife; I have taken upon myself a serious duty.”

Joanna had turned very pale, and while she clung to her husband and begged
him to speak and not to torture her with suspense, her frail figure was
trembling, and bitter tears ran down her cheeks. She could guess that her
husband was once more going away from her and their child, in the service
and for the benefit of others, and she knew full well that she could not
prevent it. If she could, she never would have had the heart to interfere:
for she always understood him, and felt with him that something to take
him out of the narrow circle of home-life was indispensable to his
happiness.

He read her thoughts, and they gave him pain; but he was not to be
diverted from his purpose. The man who would try to heal every suffering
brute was accustomed to see those whom he loved best grieve on his
account. Marriage, he would say, ought not to hinder a man in following
his soul’s vocation; and he was fond of using this high-sounding name to
justify himself in his own and his wife’s eyes, in doing things to which
he was prompted only by restlessness and unsatisfied energy. Without this
he would, no doubt, have done his best for the imperilled sisterhood, but
it added to his enjoyment of the grand and dangerous rescue.

The wretched fate of the hapless nuns, and the thought of losing them as
near neighbors, grieved the women deeply, and the men saw many tears flow;
at the same time they had the satisfaction of finding them all three
firmly and equally determined to venture all, and to bid these whom they
loved venture all, to hinder the success of a deed which filled them with
horror and disgust.

Joanna spoke not a word of demur when Rufinus said that he intended to
accompany the fugitives; and when, with beaming looks, he went on to
praise Orion’s foresight and keen decisiveness, Paula flew to him proudly
and gladly, holding out both her hands. As for the young man, he felt as
though wings were growing from his shoulders, and this fateful evening was
one of the happiest of his life.

The superior had agreed to his scheme, and in some details had improved
upon it. Two lay sisters and one nun should remain behind. The two former
were to attend to the sick in the infirmary, to ring the bell and chant
the services as usual, that the escape of the rest might not be suspected;
and Joanna, Paula, and Pulcheria, were to assist them.

When, at a late hour, Orion was about to leave, Rufinus asked whether,
under these circumstances, it would be well to bring Mary to his house; he
himself doubted it. Joanna was of his opinion; Paula, on the contrary,
said that she believed it would be better to let the child run the risk of
a remote danger—hardly to be called danger, than to leave her to
pine away body and soul in her old home. Pulcheria supported her, but the
two girls were forced to yield to the decision of the elders.


CHAPTER V.

After that interview with Orion, Philippus hurried off through the town,
paying so little heed to the people he met and to the processions
besieging Heaven with loud psalms to let the Nile at last begin to rise,
that he ran up against more than one passer-by, and had many a word of
abuse shouted after him. He went into two or three houses, and neither his
patients nor their attendants could recognize, in this abrupt and hasty
visitor, the physician and friend who was usually so sympathetic to the
sufferer: who would speak with a cordiality that brought new life to his
heart, who would toss the children in the air, kiss one and nod merrily to
another. To-day their elders even felt shy and anxious in his presence.
For the first time he found the duty he loved a wearisome burthen; the
sick man was a tormenting spirit in league with the world against his
peace of mind. What possessed him, that he should feel such love of his
fellow-men as to deprive himself of all comfort in life and of his night’s
rest for their sake? Rufinus was right. In these times each man lived
solely to spite his neighbor, and he who could be most brazenly selfish,
looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, was the most certain to
get on in life. Fool that he was to let other folks’ woes destroy his
peace and hinder him in his scientific advancement!

Tormented by such bitter thoughts as these, he went into a neat little
house by the harbor where a worthy pilot lay dying, surrounded by his wife
and children; and there, at once, he was himself again, putting forth all
his knowledge and heartfelt kindliness, quitting the scene with a bleeding
heart and an empty purse; but no sooner was he out of doors than his
former mood closed in upon him with double gloom. The case was plain: Even
with the fixed determination not to sacrifice himself for others he could
not help doing it; the impulse was too strong for him. He could no more
help suffering with the sufferer, and giving the best he had to give with
no hope of a return, than the drunkard can help drinking. He was made to
be plundered; it was his fate!

With a drooping head he returned to his old friend’s work-room. Horapollo
was sitting, just as he had sat the night before, at his writing-table
with his scrolls and his three lamps, a slave below, snoring while he
awaited his master’s pleasure.

The leech’s pretty Greek greeting “Rejoice!” sounded rather like “May you
choke!” as he flung aside his upper garment; and to the old man’s answer
and anxious exclamation: “How badly you look, Philip!” he answered
crossly: “Like a man who deserves a kick rather than a welcome; a booby
who has submitted to have his nose pulled; a cur who has licked the hand
of the lout who has thrashed him!”

He threw himself on the divan and told Horapollo all that had passed
between him and Orion. “And the maddest part of it all,” he ended, “is
that I almost like the man; that he really seems to me to be on the high
road to become a capital fellow; and that I no longer feel inclined to
pitch him into a lime-kiln at the mere thought of his putting out a hand
to Paula. At the same time,” and he started to his feet, “even if I help
him to bring the poor little girl away from that demented old hag, I
cannot and will not continue to be her physician. There are plenty of
quacks about in this corpse of a town, and they may find one of them.

“You will continue to treat the child,” interrupted the old man quietly.

“To have my heart daily flogged with nettles!” exclaimed the leech, going
towards Horapollo with wild gesticulations. “And do you believe that I
have any desire to meet that young fellow’s sweetheart day after day,
often twice a day, that the barb may be twisted round and round in my
bleeding wound?”

“I expect a quite different result from your frequent meeting,” said the
other. “You will get accustomed to see her under the aspect which alone
she can hence forth bear to you: that of a handsome girl—there are
thousands such in Egypt,—and the betrothed of another.”

“Certainly, if my heart were like a hunting-dog that lies down the moment
it is bid,” said Philippus with a scornful laugh. “The end of it is that I
must go away, away from Memphis—away from this miserable world for
all I care! I?—Recover my peace of mind within reach of her? Alas,
for my blissful, lost peace!”

“And why not? To every man a thing is only as he conceives of it. Only
listen to me: I had finished a treatise on the old and new Calendars, and
my master desired me to deliver a lecture on it in the Museum—if the
school of pedants in Alexandria now deserves the name; but I did not wish
to do so because I knew that the presence of such a large and learned
audience would embarrass me. But my master advised me to imagine that my
hearers were not men, but mere cabbages. This gave me new light; I took
his advice, got over my shyness, and my speech flowed like oil.”

“A very good story,” said Philippus, “but I do not see….”

“The moral of it for you,” interrupted the old man, “is that you must
regard the supremely adorable lady of your love as one among a dozen
others—I will not say as a cabbage—as one with whom your heart
has no more concern. Put a little strength of will into it, and you will
succeed.”

“If a heart were a cipher, and if passion were calendar-making!…”
retorted Philippus. “You are a very wise man, and your manuscripts and
tables have stood like walls between you and passion.”

“Who can tell?” said Horapollo. “But at any rate, it never should have had
such power over me as to make me embitter the few remaining days under the
sun yet granted to my father and friend for the sake of a woman who
scorned my devotion. Will you promise me to talk no more nonsense about
flying from Memphis, or anything of the kind?”

“Teach me first to measure my strength of will.”

“Will you try, at any rate?”

“Yes, for your sake.”

“Will you promise to continue your treatment of that poor little girl,
whom I love dearly in spite of her forbears?”

“As long as I can endure the daily meeting with her—you know…”

“That, then, is a bargain.—Now, come and let us translate a few more
chapters.”

The friends sat at work together till a late hour, and when the old man
was alone again he reflected: “So long as he can be of use to the child he
will not go away, and by that time I shall have dug a pit for that damned
siren.”

Orion had his hands full of work for the next morning. Before it was light
he sent off two trustworthy messengers to Doomiat, giving each of them a
letter with instructions that a sailing vessel should be held in readiness
for the fugitives. One was to start three hours after the other, so that
the business in hand should not fail if either of them should come to
grief.

He then went out; first to the harbor, where he succeeded in hiring a
large, good Nile-boat from Doomiat, whose captain, a trustworthy and
experienced man, promised to keep their agreement a secret and to be
prepared to start by noon next day. Next, after taking council with
himself, he went to the treasurer’s office, and there, with the assistance
of Nilus, made his will, to be ratified and signed next morning in the
presence of a notary and witnesses. His mother, little Mary, and Paula
were to inherit the bulk of his property. He also bequeathed a
considerable sum as a legacy to the hospitals and orphan asylums, as well
as to the Church, to the end that they might pray for his soul; and a
legacy to Nilus “as the most just judge of his household.” Eudoxia, Mary’s
Greek governess, was not forgotten; and finally he commanded that all his
house-slaves should be liberated, and to the end that they might not
suffer from want he bequeathed to them one of his largest estates in Upper
Egypt, where they might settle and labor for their common good. He
increased the handsome sums already devised by his father to the freedmen
of his family.

This business occupied several hours. Nilus, who wrote while Orion
dictated, giving the document a legal form, was deeply touched by the
young man’s fore thought and kindness; for in truth, since his desecration
of the judgment-seat, he had given him up for a lost soul.

By Orion’s orders this will was to be opened after four weeks, in case he
should not have returned from a journey on which he proposed starting on
the morrow, and this injunction revealed to the faithful steward, who had
grown grey in the service, that the last scion of the house expected to
run considerable risk; however, he was too modest to ask any questions,
and his master did not take him into his confidence.

When, after all this, the two men went back into the anteroom, Anubis, the
young clerk and Katharina’s ally, was standing there. Nilus took no notice
of him, and while he, with tearful eyes, stooped to kiss the hand Orion
held out to him as he bid him come to take leave of him once more next
evening, Anubis, who had withdrawn respectfully to a little distance,
keeping his ears open, however, officiously opened the heavy iron-plated
door.

Orion was exhausted and hungry; he enquired for his mother, and hearing
that she had gone to lie down, he went into the dining-room to get some
food. Although breakfast had but just been served, Eudoxia was awaiting
him with evident impatience. Her heart was bursting with a great piece of
news, and as Orion entered, greeting her, she cried out:

“Have you heard? Do you know?” Then she began, encouraged by his curt
negative, to pour out to him how that Neforis, by the desire of the
physician who had lately been to see her, had decided on sending her,
Eudoxia, away with her granddaughter to enjoy better air under the roof of
a friend of the leech’s; they were to go this very day, or to-morrow at
latest.

Orion was disagreeably startled by this intelligence. He had not expected
that Philippus would come so early, and he himself had been the first to
promote a scheme which now no longer seemed advisable.

“How very provoking!” he muttered between his teeth, as a slave offered
him a roast fowl and asparagus.

“Is it not? And perhaps we shall have to go quite far into the country,”
said the Greek, with a languishing look, as she drew one of the long stems
between her teeth.

The words and the glance made Orion feel as if he grudged the old fool the
good food she was eating, and his voice was not particularly ingratiating
as he replied that town and country were all the same, the only point was
which would be best for the child. When he went on to say that he was
quitting home next evening, Eudoxia cried out, let a stick of asparagus
drop in her lap, and said despairingly: “Oh, then everything is at an
end!”

He, however, interposed reproachfully: “On the contrary, then your duty
begins; you must devote yourself wholly and exclusively to the child. You
know that her own grandmother is averse to her. Give her your best
affection, as you have already begun to do, be a mother to her; and if you
really are my well-wisher, show it in that way. For my part you will find
me grateful, and not in words alone. Go tomorrow to the treasurer’s
office; Nilus will give you the only thing by which I can at present prove
my gratitude. Do your best to cherish the child; I have taken care to
provide for your old age.”

He rose, cutting short the Greek’s profuse expressions of thanks, and
betook himself to his mother. She was still in her room; however, he now
sent word that he had come to see her, and she was ready to admit him,
having expected that he would come even sooner.

She was reclining, half-sitting, on a divan in her cool and shady bedroom,
and she at once told her son of her determination to follow the
physician’s advice and entrust the little girl to his friend. She spoke in
a tone of sleepy indifference; but as soon as Orion opposed her and begged
her to keep Mary at home, she grew more lively, and looking him wrathfully
in the face exclaimed: “Can you wish that? How can you ask me?” and she
went on in repining lamentation:

“Everything is changed nowadays. Old age no longer forgets; it is youth
that has a short memory. Your head has long been full of other things, but
I—I still remember who it was that made my lost dear one’s last
hours on earth a hell, even in view of the gates of Heaven!” Her breast
heaved with feeble, tearless sobs—a short, convulsive gasping, and
Orion did not dare contravene her wishes. He sought to soothe her with
loving words and, when she recovered herself, he told her that he proposed
to leave her for a short time to look after his estates, as the law
required, and this information gladdened her greatly. To be alone—solitary
and unobserved now seemed delightful. Those white pills did more for her,
raised her spirits better, than any human society. They brought her
dreams, sleeping or waking; dreams a thousand times more delightful than
her real, desolate existence. To give herself up to memory, to pray, to
dream, to picture herself in the other world among her beloved dead—and
besides that to eat and drink, which she was always ready to do very
freely—this was all she asked henceforth of life on earth.

When, to her further questions, Orion replied that he was going first to
the Delta, she expressed her regret, since, if he had gone to Upper Egypt,
he might have visited his sister-in-law, Mary’s mother, in her convent.
She sat up as she spoke, passed her hand across her forehead, and pointed
to a little table near the head of the couch, on which, by the side of a
cup with fruit syrup, phials, boxes, and other objects, lay a
writing-tablet and a letter-scroll. This she took up and handed to Orion,
saying:

“A letter from your sister-in-law. It came last evening and I began to
read it; but the first words are a complaint of your father, and that—you
know, just before going to sleep—I could not read any more; I could
not bear it! And to-day; first there was church, and then the physician
came with his request about the child; I have not yet found courage to
read the rest of it.—What can any letter bring to me but evil! Do
you know at all whence anything pleasant could come to me? But now: read
me the letter. Not that part again about your father; that I will keep
till presently for myself alone.”

Orion undid the roll, and with quivering lips glanced over the nun’s
accusations against his father. The wildest fanaticism breathed in every
line of this epistle from the martyr’s widow. She had found in the
cloister all she sought: she lived now, she said, in God alone and in the
Divine Saviour. She thought of her child, even, only as an alien, one of
God’s young creatures for whom it was a joy to pray. At the same time it
was her duty to care for the little one’s soul, and if it were not too
hard for her grandmother to part from her, she longed to see Mary once
more. She had lately been chosen abbess of her convent—and no one
could prevent her taking possession of the child; but she feared lest an
overwhelming natural affection might drag her back to the carnal world,
which she had for ever renounced, so she would have Mary brought up in a
neighboring nunnery, and led to Heavenly joys, not to earthly misery—to
be the wife of no sinful husband, but a pure bride of Christ.

Orion shuddered as he read and, when he laid the letter down, his mother
exclaimed:

“Perhaps she is right, perhaps it is already ordained that the child
should be sent to the convent, and not to the leech’s friend, and started
on the only path that leads to Heaven without danger or hindrance!”

But Orion said to himself that he would make it his duty to guard the
happy-hearted child from this fate, and he begged his mother to consider
that the first important point was to restore the little girl to health.
He now saw that she had been right. His father had always obeyed the
prescriptions of Philippus, and for that reason, if for no other, it would
be her duty to act by his advice.

Neforis, who for some time had been casting longing eyes at a small box by
her side, did not contradict him; and in the course of the afternoon Orion
conducted little Mary and her governess to the house of Rufinus, who,
notwithstanding the doubts he had expressed the day before, made them
heartily welcome.

When Mary was lying in her bed, close by the side of Paula’s, the child
threw her arms round the young girl’s neck as she leaned over her, and
laying her head on her bosom, felt herself in soft and warm security.
There, as one released from prison and bondage, she wept out her woes,
pouring all the grief of her deeply wounded child’s heart into that of her
friend.

Paula, however, heard Orion’s voice, and she longed to go down to her
lover, whom she had greeted but briefly on his arrival; still, she could
not bear to snatch the child from her bosom, to disturb her in her
newly-found happiness and leave her at this very moment! And yet, she must—she
must see him! Every impulse urged her towards him and, when Pulcheria came
into the room, she placed Mary’s hand in hers and said: “There, now make
friends and stay together like good children till I come back again and
have something nice to tell you. You are fond of Orion, little one, my
story shall be all about him.”

“He was obliged to go,” said Pulcheria, interrupting her. “Here is his
message on this tablet. He was almost dying of impatience, and when he
could wait no longer he wrote this for you.”

Paula took the tablet, with a cry of regret, and carried it to her room to
read. He had longed for their meeting as eagerly as herself, but at last
he could wait no longer. How differently—so he wrote—had he
hoped to end this day which must be devoted to the rescue of her friends.

Why, oh why had she allowed herself to be detained here? Why had she not
flown to him, at least for a few moments, to thank him for his kindness
and faithfulness, and to hear him confess publicly and aloud what he had
but murmured in her ear the day before? She returned to the little girl,
anxious and dissatisfied with herself.

Orion had in fact postponed his departure till the last moment; he thought
it necessary to give Amru due notice of his journey and of his rupture
with the patriarch. Of all the motives which could prompt him to aid the
nuns, revenge was that which the Arab could best understand.


CHAPTER VI.

As Orion rode across the bridge of boats to Fostat, the gladness that had
inspired him died away. Could not—ought not Paula to have spared him
a small part of the time she had devoted to the child? He had been left to
make the most of a kind grasp of the hand and a grateful look of welcome.
Would she not have flown to meet him, if the love of which she had assured
him yesterday were as fervent, as ardent as his own? Was the proud spirit
of this girl, who, as his mother said, was cold and unapproachable,
incapable of passionate, self-forgetting devotion? Was there no way of
lighting up in her the sacred fire which burnt in him? He was tormented by
many doubts and a bitter feeling of disappointment, and a crowd of
suspicions forced themselves upon him, which would never have troubled him
if only he had seen her once more, had heard her happy words of love, and
felt his lips consecrated by his mistress’ first kiss.

He was out of spirits, indeed out of temper, as he entered the Arab
general’s dwelling. In the anteroom he was met by rejected petitioners,
and he said to himself, with a bitter smile, that he had just been sent
about his business in the same unsatisfied mood—yes, sent about his
business—and by whom?

He was announced, and his spirits rose a little when he was at once
admitted and led past many, who were left waiting, into the Arab
governor’s presence-chamber. He was received with paternal warmth; and,
when Amru heard that Orion and the patriarch had come to high words, he
jumped up and holding out both his hands exclaimed:

“My right hand on that, my friend; come over to Islam, and with my left I
will appoint you your father’s successor, in the Khaliff’s name, in spite
of your youth. Away with hesitation! Clasp hands; at once, quickly! I
cannot bear to quit Egypt and know that there is no governor at Memphis!”

The blood tingled in the young man’s veins. His father’s successor! He,
the new Mukaukas! How it flattered his ambition, what a way to all
activity it opened out to him! It dazzled his vision, and moved him
strongly to grasp the right hand which his generous patron still held out
to him. But suddenly his excited fancy showed him the image of the
Redeemer with whom he had entered into a silent covenant in the church,
sadly averting his gentle face. At this he remembered what he had vowed;
at this he forgot all his grievance against Paula; he took the general’s
hand, indeed, but only to raise it to his lips as he thanked him with all
his heart. But then he implored him, with earnest, pleading urgency, not
to be wroth with him if he remained firm and clung to the faith of his
father and his ancestors. And Amru was not wroth, though it was with none
of the hearty interest with which he had at first welcomed him, that he
hastily warned Orion to be on his guard against the prelate, since, so
long as he remained a Christian, he had no power to protect him against
Benjamin.

When Orion went on to tell him that he was intending to travel for a short
time, and had, in fact, come to take leave of him, the Arab was much
annoyed. He, too, he said, must be going away and was starting within two
days for Medina.

“And in casting my eye on you,” he went on, “in spite of your youth, to
fill your father’s place, I took care to find a task for you which would
enable you to prove that I had not put too great confidence in you. But,
if you persist in your own opinions, I cannot possibly entrust so
important a post as the governorship of Memphis to a Christian so young as
you are; with the youthful Moslem I might have ventured on it.—However,
I will not deprive you of the enterprise which I had intended for you. If
you succeed in it, it will be a good thing for yourself, and I can, I
believe, turn it to the benefit of the whole province—for what could
take me from hence at this time, when my presence is so needful for a
hundred incomplete projects, but my anxiety for the good of this country—in
which I am but an alien, while you must love it as your native soil, the
home of your race?—I am going to Medina because the Khaliff, in this
letter, complains that I send too small a revenue into the treasury from
so rich a land as Egypt. And yet not a single dinar of your taxes finds
its way into my own coffers. I keep a hundred and fifty thousand laborers
at work to restore the canals and waterworks which my predecessors, the
blood-sucking Byzantines, neglected so disgracefully and left to fall to
ruin—I build, and plan, and sow seed for posterity to reap. All this
costs money. It swallows up the lion’s share of the revenue. And I am
making the journey, not merely to purge myself from reproach, but to
obtain Omar’s permission for the future to exact no extortionate payments,
but to consider only the true weal of the province. I am most unwilling to
go, for a thousand reasons; and you, young man, if you care for your
native land, ought…. Do you really love it and wish it well?”

“With all my soul!” cried Orion.

“Well then, at this time, if by any possibility you can arrange it so, you
ought to remain at home, and devote yourself heart and soul to the task I
have to propose to you. I hate postponements. Ride straight at the foe,
and do not canter up and down till you tire the horses! that is my
principle, and not in battle only. Take the moral to heart!—And you
will have no time to waste; what I require is no light matter: It is that
you should endeavor to sketch a new division of the districts, drawing on
your own knowledge of the country and its inhabitants, and using the
records and lists in the archives of your ancient government-offices, of
which your father has told me; you must have special regard to the
financial condition of each district. That the old mode of levying taxes
is unsatisfactory we find every day; you will have ample room for
improvements in every respect. Overthrow the existing arrangements, if you
consider it necessary. Other men have attempted to redistribute the
divisions and devise new modes of collecting the revenue. The best scheme
will have the preference; and you seem to me to be the man to win the
prize, and, with it, a wide and noble field of work in the future. It is
not a mere sense of tedium, or a longing for the pleasures of the capital
to which you are accustomed, that are tempting you to quit Memphis the
melancholy….”

“No, indeed, my Lord,” Orion assured him. “The duty I have in view does
not even profit me, and if I had not given my word I would throw myself,
heart and soul, into so grand a task, no later than to-morrow. That you
should expect me to solve so hard a problem is the most precious incense
ever offered me. If it is only to be worthy of your confidence, I will
return as soon as possible and put forth my utmost powers of intelligence
and prudence, of endurance and patriotism. I have always been a diligent
student; and it would be a shame indeed, if my experiences as a youth
could hinder the man from outdoing the school-boy.”

“That is right, well said!” replied Amru, holding out his hand. “Do your
best, and you shall have ample opportunity of proving your powers.—Take
my warnings to heart as regards the patriarch and the black Vekeel. I
unfortunately have no one who could fill his place except the worthy Kadi
Othman; but he is no soldier, and he cannot be spared from his post. Keep
out of Obada’s way, return soon, and may the All-merciful protect you….”

When Orion had recrossed the bridge on his way home, he saw a
gaily-dressed Nile-boat, such as now but rarely stopped at Memphis, lying
at anchor in the dock, and on the road he met two litters followed by
beasts of burden and a train of servants. The whole party had a brilliant
and wealthy appearance, and at any other time would have roused his
curiosity; but to-day he merely wondered for a moment who these new-comers
might be, and then continued to meditate on the task proposed to him by
Amru. From the bottom of his heart he cursed the hour in which he had
pledged himself to take the part of these strangers; for after such long
idleness he longed to be able to prove his powers. Suddenly, and as if by
a miracle, he saw the way opened before him which he had himself hoped to
tread, and now he was fettered and held back from an enterprise which he
felt he could carry out with success and benefit to his country, while it
attracted him as with a hundred lode-stones.

Next morning, when his will had been duly signed and witnessed, he called
the treasurer for an interview alone with him. He had made up his mind
that one person, at least, must be informed of the enterprise he had
planned, and that one could be no other than Nilus. So he begged him to
accompany him to the impluvium of his private residence; and several
office scribes who were present heard the invitation given. They did not,
however, allow themselves to be disturbed in their work; the youngest only—a
handsome lad of sixteen, an olive-complexioned Egyptian, with keen, eager
black eyes, who had listened sharply to every word spoken by the treasurer
and his master, quietly rose from his squatting posture as soon as they
had quitted the office, and, stole, unobserved into the anteroom. From
thence he flew up the ladder-like steps which led to the dovecote of which
he had the care, sprang on to the roof of the lower story, and crept flat
on his face till he was close to the edge of the large square opening
which gave light and air to the impluvium below. With a swift movement of
the hand he pushed back the awning which shaded it at midday, and listened
intently to the dialogue that went on below.

This listener was Anubis, the water-wagtail’s foster-brother; and he
seemed to be in no way behind his beloved mistress in the art of
listening; for no one could prick up his ears more sharply than Anubis. He
knew, too, what was to be his reward for exposing himself on a roof to the
shafts of the pitiless African sun, for Katharina, his adored play-fellow
and the mistress of his ardent boy’s heart, had promised him a sweet kiss,
if only he would bring her back some more exact news as to Orion’s
perilous journey. Anubis had told her, the evening before, all he had
heard in the anteroom to the office, but such general information had not
satisfied her. She must see clearly before her, must know exactly what was
going on, and she was not mistaken when she imagined that the reward she
had promised the lad would spur him to the utmost.

Anubis had not indeed expected to gain his end so soon, boldly as he dared
to hope; scarcely had he pushed aside the awning, when Orion began to
explain to Nilus all his plan and purpose.

When he had finished speaking, the boy did not wait to hear Nilus reply.
Intoxicated with his success, and the prospect of a guerdon which to him
included all the bliss of heaven, he crept back to the dovecote. But he
could not go back by the way by which he had come; for if one of the older
scribes should meet him in the anteroom, he would be condemned to return
to his work. He therefore wriggled along the ridge of the roof towards the
fishing-cove, got over it, and laid hold of a gutter pipe, intending to
slip down it; unfortunately it was old and rotten-rain was rare in Memphis—and
hardly had he trusted his body after his hands when the lead gave way. The
rash youth fell with the clattering fragments of the gutter from a height
of four men; a heavy thump on the pavement was followed by a loud cry, and
in a few minutes all the officials had heard that poor Anubis, nimble as
he was, had fallen from the roof while attending to his pets, and had
broken his leg.

The two men in the impluvium were not informed of the accident till some
time later, for strict orders had been given that they were not to be
disturbed.

Nilus had received his young master’s communication with growing
amazement, indignation, and horror. When Orion ended, the treasurer put
forth all the eloquence of a faithful heart, anxious for the safety of the
body and soul of the youth he loved, to dissuade him from a deed of daring
which could bring him nothing but misapprehension, disaster, and
persecution. Nilus was with all his soul a Jacobite; and the idea that his
young master was about to risk everything for a party of Melchite nuns,
and draw down upon himself the wrath and maledictions of the patriarch,
was more than he could bear.

His faithful friend’s warnings and entreaties did not leave Orion unmoved;
but he clung to his determination, representing to Nilus that he had
pledged his word to Rufinus, and could not now draw back, though he had
already lost all his pleasure in the enterprise. But it went against him
to leave the brave old man to face the danger alone—indeed, it was
out of the question.

Genuine anxiety is fertile in expedient; Orion had scarcely done speaking,
when Nilus had a proposal to make which seemed well calculated to dispel
the youth’s last objections. Melampus, the chief shipbuilder, was a Greek
and a zealous Melchite, though he no longer dared to confess his creed
openly. He and his sons, two bold and sturdy ships carpenters, had often
given proof of their daring, and Nilus had no doubt that they would be
more than willing to share in an expedition which had for its object the
rescue of so many pious fellow-believers. They might take Orion’s place,
and would be far more helpful to the old man than Orion himself.

Orion so far approved of this suggestion as to promise himself good aid
from the brave artisans, who were well known to him; and he was willing to
take them with him, though he would not give up his own share in the
business.

Nilus, though he adhered firmly to his objections, was at last reduced to
silence. However, Orion went with his anxious friend to the ship-yard; the
old ship-builder, a kind-hearted giant, was as ready and glad to undertake
the rescue of the Sisters as if each one was his own mother. It would be a
real treat to the youngsters to have a hand in such a job,—and he
was right, for when they were taken into confidence one flourished his
hatchet with enthusiasm, and the tether struck his horny fist against his
left palm as gleefully as though he were bidden to a dance.

Orion took boat at once with the three men, and was rowed to the house of
Rufinus, to whom he introduced them; the old man was entirely satisfied.

Orion remained with him after dismissing them. He had promised last
evening to breakfast with him, and the meal was waiting. Paula had gone,
about an hour since, to the convent, and Joanna expected her to return at
any moment. They began without her, however; the various dishes were
carried away, the meal was nearly ended-still she had not returned. Orion,
who had at first been able to conceal his disappointment, was now so
uneasy that his host could with difficulty extract brief and inadvertent
replies to his repeated questions. Rufinus himself was anxious; but just
as he rose to go in search of her, Pulcheria, who was at the window, saw
her coming, and joyfully exclaiming: “There she is!” ran out.

But now again minute after minute passed, a quarter of an hour grew to
half an hour, and still Orion was waiting in vain. Glad expectation had
long since turned to impatience, impatience to a feeling of injured
dignity, and this to annoyance and bitter vexation, when at last Pulcheria
came back instead of Paula, and begged him from Paula to join her in the
garden.

She had been detained too long at the convent. The terrible rumor had
scared the pious sisters out of their wonted peace and put them all into
confusion, like smoke blown into a bee-hive. The first thing was to pack
their most valuable possessions; and although Orion had expressly said
only a small number of cases and bags could be taken on board, one was for
dragging her prayer-desk, another a large picture of some saint, a third a
copper fish-kettle, and the fourth, fifth, and sixth the great reliquary
with the bones of Ammonius the Martyr, to which the chapel owed its
reputation for peculiar sanctity. To reduce this excess of baggage, the
abbess had been obliged to exert all her energy and authority, and many a
sister retired weeping over some dear but too bulky treasure.

The superior had therefore been unable to devote herself to Paula till
this portable property had been under review. Then the damsel had been
admitted to her parlor, a room furnished with rich and elegant simplicity,
and there she had been allowed to pour out her whole heart to warm and
sympathetic ears.

Any one who could have seen these two together might have thought that
this was a daughter in grief seeking counsel on her mother’s breast. In
her youth the grey-haired abbess must have been very like Thomas’
daughter; but the lofty and yet graceful mien of the younger woman had
changed in the matron to majestic and condescending dignity, and it was
impossible to guess from her defiantly set mouth that it had once been the
chief charm of her face.

As she listened to the girl’s outpourings the expression of her calm eyes
changed frequently; when her soul was fired by fanatical zeal they could
gleam brightly; but now she was listening to a variety of experiences, for
Paula regarded this interview as a solemn confession, and concealed
nothing from the friend who was both mother and priest-neither of what had
happened to her in external circumstances, nor of what had moved her heart
and mind ever since she had first entered the house of the Mtikaukas. Not
a corner of her soul did she leave unsearched; she neither concealed nor
palliated anything; and when she described her lover’s strenuous efforts
to apprehend the whole seriousness of life, her love and enthusiasm fairly
carried her away, making his image shine all the more brightly by
comparison with the brief, but dark shadow, that had fallen upon it. When
Paula had at last ended her confession, the superior had remained silent
for some time; then drawing the girl to her, she had affectionately asked
her:

“And now? Now, tell me truly, does not the passion that has such wonderful
power over you prompt and urge your inmost soul to yield—to fly to
the embrace of the man you love—to give all up for him and say:
‘Here I am—I am yours! Call a priest to bless our union!—Is it
not so—am I not right?’”

Paula, deeply blushing, bowed assent; but the old woman drew her head on
to her motherly bosom, and went on thoughtfully:

“I saw him drive past in his quadriga, and was reminded of many a noble
statue of the heathen Greeks. Beauty, rank, wealth, aye—and talents
and intellect—all that could ruin the heart of a Paula are his, and
she—I see it plainly—will give it to him gladly.”

And again the maiden bowed her head. The abbess sighed, and went on as
though she had with difficulty succeeded in submitting to the inevitable
“Then all warning would be in vain.—Still, he is not of our
confession, he….”

“But how highly he esteems it!” cried Paula. “That he proves by risking
his freedom and life for you and your household.”

“Say rather for you whom he loves,” replied the other. “But putting that
out of the question, it pains me deeply to think of Thomas’ daughter as
the wife of a Jacobite. You will not, I know, give him up; and the Father
of Love often leads true love to good ends by wonderful ways, even though
they are ways of error, passing through pitfalls and abysses.”

Paula fell on her neck to kiss her gratefully: but the abbess could only
allow the girl a few minutes to enjoy her happiness. She desired her to
sit down by her side, and holding Paula’s hand in both her own, she spoke
to her in a tone of calm deliberation. She and her sisterhood, she began
by saying, were deeply indebted to Orion. She had no dearer wish than that
Paula should find the greatest earthly happiness in her marriage; still,
it was her part to tender advice, and she dared not blind herself to the
dangers which threatened this happiness. She herself had a long life
behind her of varied experience, in which she had seen hundreds of young
men who had been given up as lost sinners by father and mother—lost
to the Church and to all goodness—and among these many a one, like
Saul, had had his journey to Damascus. A turning point had come to them,
and the outcast sons had become excellent and pious men.

Paula, as she listened, had drawn closer to the speaker, and her eyes
beamed with joy; but the elder woman shook her head, and her gaze grew
more devout and rapt, as she went on with deep solemnity:

“But then, my child, in all of these Grace had done its perfect work; the
miracle was accomplished which we term regeneration. They were still the
same men in the flesh and in the elements of their sensible nature, but
their relation to the world and to life was altogether new. All that they
had formerly thought desirable they could now hate; what they had deemed
important was now worthless, and the worthless precious in their eyes;
whereas they once referred everything to their own desires, they now
referred all to God and His will. Their impulses were the same as of old,
but they kept them within bounds by a never-sleeping consciousness that
they led, not to joys, but to everlasting punishment. These regenerate
souls learned to contemn the world, and instead of gazing down at the dust
their eyes were fixed upwards on Heaven. If either of them tottered, his
whole ‘new man’ prompted him to recover his balance before he fell to the
ground.—But Orion! Your lover? His guilt seems to have passed over
him; he hopes for reunion with God from a more meritorious life in the
world. Not only is his nature unaltered, but his attitude with regard to
life and to the joys it offers to the children of this world. Earthly love
is spurring him on to strive for what is noble and great and he earnestly
seeks to attain it; but he will fall over every stone that the devil casts
in his path, and find it hard to pick himself up again, for misfortune has
not led him to the new birth or the new life in God. Just such men have I
seen, numbers of times, relapsing into the sins they had escaped from.
Before we can entirely trust a man who has once—though but
once-wandered so far from God’s ways, while Grace has not yet worked
effectually in him, we shall do well to watch his dealings and course for
more than a few short days. If you still feel that you must follow the
dictates of your heart, at any rate do not fly into your lover’s open
arms, do not abandon to him the pure sanctuary of your body and soul, do
not be wholly his till he has been fully put to the proof.”

“But I believe in him entirely!” cried Paula, with a flood of tears.

“You believe because you love him,” replied the abbess.

“And because he deserves it.”

“And how long has he deserved it?”

“Was he not a splendid man before his fall?”

“And so was many a murderer. Most criminals become outcasts from society
in a single moment.”

“But society still accepts Orion.”

“Because he is the son of the Mukaukas.”

“And because he wins all hearts!”

“Even that of the Almighty?”

“Oh! Mother, Mother! why do you measure him by the standard of your own
sanctified soul? How few are the elect who find a share of the grace of
which you speak!”

“But those who have sinned like him must strive for it.”

“And he does so, Mother, in his way.”

“It is the wrong way; wrong for those who have sinned as he has. All he
strives for is worldly happiness.”

“No, no. He is firm in his faith in God and the Saviour. He is not a
liar.”

“And yet he thinks he may escape the penalty?”

“And does not the Lord pardon true repentance?—He has repented; and
how bitterly, how fearfully he has suffered!”

“Say rather that he has felt the stripes that his own sin brought upon
him.—There are more to come; and how will he take them? Temptation
lurks in every path, and how will he avoid it? As your mother, indeed it
is my duty to warn you: Keep your passion and yourself still under
control; continue to watch him, and grant him nothing—not the
smallest favor, as you are a maiden, before he…”

“Till when; how long am I to be so basely on my guard?” sobbed Paula. “Is
that love which trusts not and is not ready to share the lot even of the
backslider?”

“Yes, child, yes,” interrupted the old woman. “To suffer all things, to
endure all things, is the duty of true love, and therefore of yours; but
you must not allow the most indissoluble of all bonds to unite you to him
till the back-slider has learnt to walk firmly. Follow him step by step,
hold him up with faithful care, never despair of him if he seems other
than what you had hoped. Make it your duty, pious soul, to render him
worthy of grace—but do not be in a hurry to speak the final yes—do
not say it yet.”

Paula yielded, though unwillingly, to this last word of counsel; but, in
fact, Orion’s fault had filled the abbess with deep distrust. So great a
sinner, under the blight, too, of a father’s curse, ought, in her opinion,
to have retired from the world and besieged Heaven for grace and a new
birth, instead of seeking joys, such as she thought none but the most
blameless—and, those of her own confession—could deserve, in
union with so exceptional a creature as her beloved Paula. Indeed, having
herself found peace for her soul only in the cloister, after a stormy and
worldly youth, she would gladly have received the noble daughter of her
old friend as the Bride of Christ within those walls, to be, perhaps, her
successor as Mother Superior. She longed that her darling should be spared
the sufferings she had known through the ruthlessness of faithless men; so
she would not abate a jot of the tenor of her advice, or cease to impress
on Paula, firmly though lovingly, the necessity of following it. At last
Paula took leave of her, bound by a promise not to pledge herself
irrevocably to Orion till his return from Doomiat, and till the abbess had
informed her by letter what opinion she had formed of him in the course of
their flight.

The high-spirited girl had not shed so many tears, as in the course of
this interview, since the fatal affair at Abyla where she had lost her
father and brother; it was with a tear-stained face and aching head that
she had made her way back, under the scorching mid-day sun, to Rufinus’
house, where she sought her old nurse. Betta had earnestly entreated her
to lie down, and when Paula refused to hear of it she persuaded her at any
rate to bathe her head with water as cold as was procurable in this
terrific heat, and to have her hair carefully rearranged by her skilful
hand; for this had been her mother’s favorite remedy against headache.
When, at length, Paula and her lover stood face to face, in a shady spot
in the garden, they both looked embarrassed and estranged. He was pale,
and gazed at her with some annoyance; and her red eyes and knit brows, for
her brain was throbbing with piercing pain, did not tend to improve his
mood. It was her part to explain and excuse herself; and as he did not at
once address her after they had exchanged greetings, she said in a low
tone of urgent entreaty:

“Forgive me for coming so late. How long you must have been waiting! But
parting from my best friend, my second mother, agitated me so painfully—it
was so unspeakably sad.—I did not know how to hold up my head, it
ached so when I came home, and now—oh, I had hoped that we might
meet to-day so differently!”

“But even yesterday you had no time to spare for me,” he retorted
sullenly, “and this morning—you were present when Rufinus invited me—this
morning!—I am not exacting, and to you, good God! How could I be?—But
have we not to part, to bid each other farewell—perhaps for ever?
Why should you have given up so much time and strength to your friend,
that so scanty a remnant is left for the lover? That is an unfair
division.”

“How could I deny it?” she said with melancholy entreaty. “You are indeed
very right; but I could not leave the child last evening, as soon as she
came, and while she was weeping out all her sorrows; and if you only knew
how surprised and grieved I was—how my heart ached when, instead of
finding you, your note….”

“I was obliged to go to Amru,” interrupted Orion. “This undertaking
compels me to leave much behind, and I am no longer the freest of the
free, as I used to be. During this dreadful breakfast I have been sitting
on thorns. But let all that pass. I came hither with a heart high with
hope—and now?—You see, Paula, this enterprise tears me in two
in more ways than you can imagine, puts me into a more critical position,
and weighs more on my mind than you can think or know—I will explain
it all to you at another time—and to bear it all, to keep up the
spirit and happy energy that I need, I must be secure of the one thing for
which I could take far greater toil and danger as mere child’s play; I
must know….”

“You must know,” she interposed, “whether my heart is fully and wholly
open to your love….”

“And whether,” he added, with growing ardor, “in spite of the bitter
suffering that weighs on my wretched soul, I may hope to be happier than
the saints in bliss. O Paula, adored and only woman, may I….”

“You may,” she said clearly and fervently. “I love you, Orion, and shall
never, never cease to love you with my whole soul.”

He flew to her side, clasped both her hands as if beside himself, snatched
them to his lips regardless of the nearness of the house, whence ten pairs
of eyes might have seen him, and covered them with burning kisses, till
she drew them from him with the entreaty: “No, no; forbear, I entreat you.
No—not now.”

“Yes, now, at this very moment—or, if not, when?” he asked
vehemently. “But here, in this garden—you are right, this is no
place for two human beings so happy as we are. Come with me; come into the
house and lead the way to a spot where we may be unseen and unheard, alone
with each other and our happiness.”

“No, no, no!” she hastily put in, pressing her hand to her aching brow.
“Come with me to the bench under the sycamore; it is shady there, and you
can tell me everything, and hear once more how entirely love has taken
possession of me.”

He looked in her face, surprised and disappointed; but she turned towards
the sycamore and sat down beneath it. He slowly followed her. She signed
to him to take a seat by her side, but he stood up in front of her, saying
sadly and despondently.

“Always the same—always calm and cold. Is this fair, Paula? Is this
the overwhelming love of which you spoke? Is this your response to the
yearning cry of a passionately ardent heart? Is this all that love can
grant to love—that a betrothed owes to her lover on the very eve of
parting?”

At this she looked up at him, deeply distressed, and said in pathetically
urgent entreaty: “O Orion, Orion! Have I not told you, can you not see and
feel how much I love you? You must know and feel it; and if you do, be
content, I entreat. You, whom alone I love, be satisfied to know that this
heart is yours, that your Paula—your own Paula, for that indeed I am—will
think of nothing, care for nothing, pray and entreat Heaven for nothing
but you, yes you, my own, my all.”

“Then come, come with me,” he insisted, “and grant your betrothed the
rights that are his due.

“Nay, not my betrothed—not yet,” she besought him, with all the
fervor of her tortured soul. “In my veins too the blood flows warm with
yearning. Gladly would I fly to your arms and lay my head against yours,
but not to-day can I become your betrothed, not yet; I cannot, I dare
not!”

“And why not? Tell me, at any rate, why not,” he cried indignantly,
clenching his fist to his breast. “Why will you not be my bride, if indeed
it is true that you love me? Why have you invented this new and
intolerable torment?”

“Because prudence tells me,” she replied in a low, hurried voice, while
her bosom heaved painfully, as though she were afraid to hear her own
words; “because I see that the time is not yet come. Ah, Orion! you have
not yet learnt to bridle the desires and cravings that burn within you;
you have forgotten all too quickly what is past—what a mountain we
had to cross before we succeeded in finding each other, before I—for
I must say it, my dear one—before I could look you in the face
without anger and aversion. A strange and mysterious ordering has brought
it about; and you, too, have honestly done your best that everything
should be changed, that what was white should now be black, that the chill
north wind should turn to a hot southerly one. Thus poison turns to
healing, and a curse to a blessing. In this foolish heart of mine
passionate hatred has given way to no less fervent love. Still, I cannot
yet be your bride, your wife. Call it cowardice, call it selfish caution,
what you will. I call it prudence, and applaud it; though it cost my poor
eyes a thousand bitter tears before my heart and brain could consent to be
guided by the warning voice. Of one thing you may be fully assured: my
heart will never be another’s, come what may—it is yours with my
whole soul!—But I will not be your bride till I can say to you with
glad confidence, as well as with passionate love: ‘You have conquered—take
me, I am yours!’ Then you shall feel and confess that Paula’s love is not
less vehement, less ardent…. O God! Orion, learn to know and understand
me. You must—for my sake and your own, you must!—My head,
merciful Heaven, my head!”

She bowed her face and clasped her hands to her burning brow; Orion, pale
and shivering, laid his hand on her shoulder, and said in a harsh, forced
voice that had lost all its music: “The Esoterics impose severe trials on
their disciples before they admit them into the mysteries. And we are in
Egypt—but the difference is a wide one when the rule is applied to
love. How ever, all this is not from yourself. What you call prudence is
the voice of that nun!”

“It is the voice of reason,” replied Paula softly. “The yearning of my
heart had overpowered it, and I owe to my friend….”

“What do you owe her?” cried the young man furiously indignant. “You
should curse her, rather, for doing you so ill a turn, as I do at this
moment. What does she know of me? Has she ever heard a word from my lips?
If that despotic and casuistic recluse could have known what my heart and
soul are like, she would have advised you differently. Even as a childs’
confidence and love alone could influence me. Whatever my faults might be,
I never was false to kindness and trust.—And, so far as you are
concerned—you who are prudence and reason in person—blest in
your love, I should have cared only for your approbation. If I could have
overcome the last of your scruples, I should indeed have been proud and
happy!—I would have brought the sun and stars down from the sky for
you, and have laughed temptation to scorn!—But as it is—instead
of being raised I am lowered, a laughing-stock even in my own eyes. One
with you, I could have led the way on wings to the realms of light where
Perfection holds sway!—But as it is? What a task lies before me!—To
heat your frigid love to flaming point by good deeds, as though they were
olive-logs. A pretty task for a man—to put himself to the proof
before the woman he loves! It is a hideous and insulting torture which I
will not submit to, against which my whole inner man revolts, and which
you will and must forego—if indeed it is true that you love me!”

“I love you, oh! I love you,” she cried, beside herself, and seizing his
hands. “Perhaps you are right. I—my God what shall I do? Only do not
ask me yet, to speak the final yes or no. I cannot control myself to the
feeblest thought. You see, you see, how I am suffering!”

“Yes, I see it,” he replied, looking compassionately at her pale face and
drawn brow. “And if it must be so, I say: till this evening then. Try to
rest now, and take care of yourself.—But then….”

“Then, during the voyage, the flight, repeat to the abbess all you have
just said to me. She is a noble woman, and she, too, will learn to
understand and to love you, I am sure. She will retract the word I
know….”

“What word?”

“My word, given to her, that I would not be yours….”

“Till I had gone through the Esoteric tests?” exclaimed Orion with an
angry shrug. “Now go,—go and lie down. This hour, which should have
been the sweetest of our lives, a stranger has embittered and darkened.
You are not sure of yourself—nor I of myself. Anything more that we
could say now and here would lead to no good issue for either you or me.
Go and rest; sleep off your pain, and I—I will try to forget.—If
you could but see the turmoil in my soul!—But farewell till our
next, more friendly—I hardly dare trust myself to say our happier
meeting.”

He hastily turned away, but she called after him in sad lament: “Orion do
not forget—Orion, you know that I love you.”

But he did not hear; he buried on with his head bowed over his breast,
down to the road, without reentering Rufinus’ house.


CHAPTER VII.

When Orion reached home, wounded to the quick, he flung himself on a
divan. Paula had said that her heart was his indeed, but what a cool and
grudging love was this that would give nothing till it had insured its
future. And how could Paula have allowed a third person to come between
them, and rule her feelings and actions? She must have revealed to that
third person all that had previously passed between them—and it was
for this Melchite nun, his personal foe, that he was about to—it was
enough to drive him mad!—But he could not withdraw; he had pledged
himself to the brave old man to carry out this crazy enterprise. And in
the place of the lofty, noble mistress of his whole being, his fancy
pictured Paula as a tearful, vacillating, and cold-hearted woman.

There lay the maps and plans which he had desired Nilus to send in from
his room for his study of the task set him by Amru; as his eye fell upon
them, he struck his fist against the wall, started up, and ran like a
madman up and down the room which had been sacred to her peaceful life.

There stood her lute; he had freshly strung and tuned it. To calm himself
he drew it to him, took up the plectrum, and began to play. But it was a
poor instrument; she had been content with this wretched thing! He flung
it on the couch and took up his own, the gift of Heliodora. How sweetly,
how delightfully she had been wont to play it! Even now its strings gave
forth a glorious tone; by degrees he began to rejoice in his own playing,
and music soothed his excitement, as it had often done before. It was
grand and touching, though he several times struck the strings so
violently that their loud clanging and sighing and throbbing answered each
other like the wild wailing of a soul in torment.

Under this vehement usage the bridge of the lute suddenly snapped off with
a dull report; and at the same instant his secretary, who had been with
him at Constantinople, threw open the door in glad excitement, and began,
even before he had crossed the threshold:

“Only think, my lord! Here is a messenger come from the inn kept by
Sostratus with this tablet for you.—It is open, so I read it. Only
think! it is hardly credible! The Senator Justinus is here with his wife,
the noble Martina—here in Memphis, and they beg you to visit them at
once to speak of matters of importance. They came last night, the
messenger tells me, and now—what joy! Think of all the hospitality
you enjoyed in their house. Can we leave them in an inn? So long as
hospitality endures, it would be a crime!”

“Impossible, quite impossible!” cried Orion, who had cast aside the lute,
and was now reading the letter himself. “It is true indeed! his own
handwriting. And that immovable pair are in Egypt—in Memphis! By
Zeus!”—for this was still the favorite oath of the golden youth of
Alexandria and Constantinople, even in these Christian times.—“By
Zeus, I ought to receive them here like princes!—Wait!—of
course you must tell the messenger that I am coming at once—have the
four new Pannonians harnessed to the silver-plated chariot. I must go to
my mother; but there is time enough for that. Desire Sebek to have the
guest-chambers prepared for distinguished guests—those sick people
are out of them, thank God! Take my present room for them too; I will go
back to the old one. Of course they have a numerous suite. Set twenty or
thirty slaves to work. Everything must be ready in two hours at furthest.
The two sitting-rooms are particularly handsome, but where anything is
lacking, place everything in the house at Sebek’s command.—Justinus
in Egypt!—But make haste, man! Nay, stay! One thing more. Carry
these maps and scrolls—no; they are too heavy for you. Desire a
slave to fetch them, and take them to Rufinus; he must keep them till I
come. Tell him I meant to use them on the way—he knows.”

The secretary rushed off; Orion performed a rapid toilet and had his
mourning dress rearranged in fresh folds; then he went to his mother. She
had often heard of the cordial reception that her son, and her husband,
too, in former days, had met with in the senator’s house, and she took it
quite as a matter of course that the strangers’ rooms, and among them that
which had been Paula’s, should be prepared for the travellers; all she
asked was that it should be explained that she was suffering, so that she
might not have to trouble herself to entertain them.

She advised Orion to put off his journey and to devote himself to his
friends; but he explained that even their arrival must not delay him. He
had entire confidence in Sebek and the upper housekeeper, and the emperor
himself would remit the duties of hostess to a sick woman. Once, at any
rate, she would surely allow the illustrious guests to pay their respects
to her,—but even this Neforis refused It would be quite enough if
her visitors received messages and greetings daily in her name, with
offerings of choice fruit and flowers, and on the last day some costly
gift. Orion thought this proposal quite worthy of them both, and presently
drove off behind his Pannonians to the hostelry.

By the harbor he met the captain of the boat he had hired; to him he held
up two fingers, and the boatman signified by repeated nodding that he had
understood the meaning of this signal: “Be ready at two hours before
midnight.”

The sight of this weather-beaten pilot, and the prospect of making some
return to his noble friends for all their kindness, cheered Orion greatly;
and though he regretted being obliged to leave these guests of all others,
the perils that lay before him reasserted their charm. He could surely win
over the abbess in the course of the voyage, and Paula might be brought to
reason, perhaps, this very evening. Justinus and his wife were Melchites,
and he knew that both these friends—for whom he had a particular
regard—would be enchanted with his scheme if he took them into his
confidence.

The inn kept by Sostratus, a large, square building surrounding a spacious
court-yard, was the best and most frequented in the town. The eastern side
faced the road and the river, and contained the best rooms, in which, on
the previous night, the senator had established himself with his wife and
servants. The clatter of the quadriga drew Justinus to the window; as soon
as he recognized Orion he waved a table-napkin to him, shouting a hearty
“Welcome!” and then retired into the room again.

“Here he is!” he cried to his wife, who was lying on a couch in the
lightest permissible attire, and sipping fruit-syrup from time to time to
moisten her dry lips, while a boy fanned her for coolness.

“That is well indeed!” she exclaimed, and desired her maid to be quick,
very quick, and fetch her a wrap, but to be sure it was a thin one. Then,
turning to a very lovely young woman who had started to her feet at
Justinus’ first exclamation, she asked:

“Would you rather that he should find you here, my darling, or shall we
see him first, and tell him that we have brought you with us?”

“That will be best,” answered the other in a sweet voice, and she sighed
softly before she added: “What will he not think of me? We may grow older,
but folly—folly…”

“Grows with years?” laughed the matron. “Or do you think it decreases?—But
here he is.”

The younger woman hurried away by a side door, behind which she
disappeared. Martina looked after her, and pointing that way to direct her
husband’s glance, she observed: “She has left herself a chink. Good God!
Fancy being in love in such heat as this; what a hideous thought!”

At this moment the door was opened, and the heartiest greetings ensued. It
was evident that the meeting was as great a pleasure to the elderly pair
as to the young man. Justinus embraced him warmly, while the matron cried
out: “And a kiss for me too!” And when the youth immediately and heartily
gave it, she exclaimed with a groan:

“O man, and child of man, great Sesostris! How did your famous ancestor
ever achieve heroic deeds under such a sun as this? For my part I am fast
disappearing, melting away like butter; but what will a man not do for
love’s sake?—Syra, Syra; for God’s sake bring me something, however
small, that looks like a garment! How rational is the fashion of the
people of Africa whom we met with on our journey. If they have three
fingers’ breadth of cloth about them, they consider themselves elegantly
dressed.—But come, sit down—there, at my feet. A seat, Argos,
and some wine, and water in a damp clay pitcher, and cool like the last.
Husband, the boy seems to me handsomer than ever. But dear God! he is in
mourning, and how becoming it is! Poor boy, poor boy! Yes, we heard in
Alexandria.”

She wiped first her eyes and then her damp brow, and her husband added his
expressions of sympathy at the death of the Mukaukas.

They were a genial and comfortable couple, Justinus and his wife Martina.
Two beings who felt perfectly secure in their vast inherited wealth, and
who, both being of noble birth, never need make any display of dignity,
because they were sure of it in the eyes of high and low alike. They had
asserted their right to remain natural and human under the formalities of
the most elaborately ceremonious society; those who did not like the easy
tone adopted by them in their house might stay away. He, devoid of
ambition, a senator in virtue of his possessions and his name, never
caring to make any use of his adventitious dignity but that of procuring
good appointments for his favorite clients, or good places for his family
on any festive occasion, was a hospitable soul; the good friend of all his
friends, whose motto was “live and let live.” Martina, with a heart as
good as gold, had never made any pretensions to beauty, but had
nevertheless been much courted. This worthy couple had for many years
thought that nothing could be more delightful than a residence in the
capital, or at their beautiful villa on the Bosphorus, scorning to follow
the example of other rich and fashionable folks, and go to take baths or
make journeys. It was enough for them to be able to make others happy
under their roof; and there was never any lack of visitors, just because
those who were weary of bending their backs at the Byzantine Court, found
this unceremonious circle particularly restful.

Martina was especially fond of having young people about her, and
Heliodora, the widow of her nephew, had found comfort with her in her
trouble; it was in her house that Orion and Heliodora had met. The young
widow was a great favorite with the old couple, but higher in their esteem
even than she, had been the younger brother of her deceased husband. He
was to have been their heir; but they had mourned his death now two years;
for news had reached them that Narses, who had served in the Imperial army
as tribune of cavalry, had fallen in battle against the infidels. No one,
however, had ever brought a more exact report of his death; and at last
their indefatigable enquiries had resulted in their learning that he had
been taken prisoner by the Saracens and carried into slavery in Arabia.
This report received confirmation through the efforts of Orion and his
deceased father. Within a few hours of the young Egyptian’s departure,
they received a letter from the youth they had given up for lost, written
in trembling characters, in which he implored them to effect his
deliverance through Amru, the Arab governor of Egypt. The old people had
set forth at once on their pilgrimage, and Heliodora had done her part in
urging them to this step. Her passion for Orion, to whom, for more than a
year, her gentle heart had been wholly devoted, had increased every hour
since his departure. She had not concealed it from Martina, who thought it
no less than her duty to stand by the poor lovesick child; for Heliodora
had nursed her husband, the senator’s nephew, to the end, with touching
fidelity and care; and besides, Martina had given the young Egyptian—with
whom she was “quite in love herself”—every opportunity of paying his
addresses to the young widow.

They were a pair that seemed made for each other, and Martina delighted in
match-making. But in this case, though hearts had met, hands had not, and
finally it had been a real grief to Martina to hear Orion and Heliodora
called—and with good reason—a pair of lovers.

Once she had appealed in her genial way to the young man’s conscience, and
he had replied that his father, who was a Jacobite, would never consent to
his union with a woman of any other confession. At that time she had found
little to answer; but she had often thought if only she could make the
Mukaukas acquainted with Heliodora, he, whom she had known in the capital
as a young and handsome admirer of every charming woman, would certainly
capitulate.

Her favorite niece had indeed every grace that a father’s heart could
desire to attract the son. She was of good family, the widow of a man of
rank, rich, but just two and twenty, and beautiful enough to bewitch old
or young. A sweeter and gentler soul Martina had never known. Those large
dewy eyes-imploring eyes, she called them—might soften a stone, and
her fair waving hair was as soft as her nature. Add to this her full,
supple figure—and how perfectly she dressed, how exquisitely she
sang and struck the lute! It was not for nothing that she was courted by
every youth of rank in Constantinople—and if the old Mukaukas could
but hear her laugh! There was not a sound on earth more clear, more glad
than Heliodora’s laugh. She was not indeed remarkable for intellect, but
no one could call her a simpleton, and your very clever women were not to
every man’s taste.

So, when they were to travel to Egypt, Martina took it for granted that
Heliodora must go with them, and that the flirtation which had made her
favorite the talk of the town must, in Memphis, become courtship in
earnest. Then, when she heard at Alexandria that the Mukaukas was lately
dead, she regarded the game as won. Now they were in Memphis, Orion was
sitting before her, and the young man had invited her and her following of
above twenty persons to stay in his house. It was a foregone conclusion
that the travellers were to accept this bidding as prescribed by the laws
of hospitality, and preparations for the move were immediately set on
foot.

Justinus meanwhile explained what had brought them to Egypt, and begged
Orion’s assistance. The young man had known the senator’s nephew well as
one of the most brilliant and amiable youths of the capital, and he was
sincerely distressed to be forced to inform his friends that Amru, who
could easily have procured the release of Narses, was to start within two
days for Medina, while he himself was compelled to set out on a journey
that very evening, at an hour he could not name.

He saw how greatly this firmly-expressed determination agitated and
disturbed the old couple, and the senator’s urgency led him to tell them,
under the pledge of strict secrecy, what business it was that took him
away and what a perilous enterprise he had before him.

He began his story confident of his orthodox guests’ sympathy; but to his
amazement they both disapproved of the undertaking, and not, as they
declared, on his account only or for the sake of the help they had counted
on.

The senator reminded him that he was the natural chief of the Egyptian
population in Memphis, and that, by such a scheme, he was undermining his
influence with those whose leader he was by right and duty as his father’s
son. His ambition ought to make him aim at this leadership; and instead of
offering such a rebuff to the patriarch, it was his part to work with him—whose
power he greatly underrated—so as to make life tolerable to their
fellow-Christians in a land ruled by Moslems.

Paula’s name was not once mentioned; but Orion thought of her and remained
firm, though not without an inward struggle.

At the same time, to prove to his friends how sincerely he desired to
please them, he proposed that he and Justinus should immediately cross the
Nile to lay his application before the Khaliff’s vicar. A glance at the
sky showed him that it wanted still an hour and a half of sunset. His
swift horses would not need more than that time for the journey, and
during their absence the rest of the party could move from the inn. Carts
for the baggage were already in waiting below, and chariots had been
ordered to follow and convey his beloved guests to their new quarters.

The senator agreed to this proposal, and as the two men went off Martina
called after Orion.

“My senator must talk to you on the road, and if you can be brought to
reason you will find your reward waiting for you! Do not be saving of your
talents of gold, old man, till the general has promised to procure the
lad’s release.—And listen to me, Orion; give up your mad scheme.”

The sun had not wholly disappeared behind the Libyan range when the
snorting Pannonians, all flecked with foam, drove back into the court-yard
of the governor’s residence. The two men had unfortunately gained nothing;
for Amru was absent, reviewing the troops between Heliopolis and Onix, and
was not expected home till night or even next morning. The party had
removed from the inn and the senator’s white slaves were already mixing
with the black and brown ones of the establishment.

Martina was delighted with her new quarters, and with the beautiful
flowers—most of them new to her—with which the invalid
mistress of the house had had the two great reception-rooms garnished in
token of welcome; but the failure of Justinus’ visit to Fostat fell like
hoar-frost on her happy mood.

Orion, she asserted, ought to regard this stroke of ill-luck as a judgment
from God. It was the will of Heaven that he should give up his enterprise
and be content to make due preparations for a noble work which could be
carried through without him, in order to accomplish another, out of
friendship, which urgently needed his help. However, he again expressed
his regret that in spite of everything he must adhere to his purpose; and
when Martina asked him: “What, even if my reward is one that would
especially delight you?” he nodded regretfully. “Yes, even then.”

So she merely added, “Well, we shall see,” and went on impressively:
“Every one has some peculiarity which stamps his individuality and becomes
him well: in you it is amiability, my son. Such obstinacy does not suit
you; it is quite foreign to you, and is the very opposite to what I call
amiability. Be yourself, even in this instance.”

“That is to say weak and yielding, especially when a kind woman….”

“When old friends ask it,” she hastily put in; but almost before she had
finished she turned to her husband, exclaiming: “Good Heavens! come to the
window. Did you ever see such a glorious mingling of purple and gold in
the sky? It is as though the old pyramids and the whole land of Egypt were
in flames. But now, great Sesostris,”—the name she gave to Orion
when she was in a good humor with him, “it is time that you should see
what I have brought you. In the first place this trinket,” and she gave
him a costly bracelet of old Greek workmanship set with precious stones,
“and then—nay, no Thanks—and then—Well the object is
rather large, and besides—come with me.”

As she spoke she went from the reception-room into the anteroom, led the
way to the door of the room which had once been Paula’s, and then his own,
opened it a little way, peeped in, and then pushed Orion forward, saying
hastily: “There—do you see—there it is!”

By the window stood Heliodora. The bright radiance of the sinking sun
bathed her slender but round and graceful form, her “imploring” eyes
looked up at him with rapturous delight, and her white arms folded across
her bosom gave her the aspect of a saint, waiting with humble longing for
some miracle, in expectation of unutterable joys.

Martina’s eyes, too, were fixed on Orion; she saw how pale he turned at
seeing the young widow, she saw him start as though suddenly overcome by
some emotion—what, she could not guess—and shrink back from
the sunlit vision in the window. These were effects which the worthy
matron had not anticipated.

Never off the stage, thought she, had she seen a man so stricken by love;
for she could not suspect that to him it was as though a gulf had suddenly
yawned at his feet.

With a swiftness which no one could have looked for from her heavy and
bulky figure, Martina hastily returned to her husband, and even at the
door exclaimed: “It is all right, all has gone well! At the sight of her
he seemed thunderstruck! Mark my words: we shall have a wedding here by
the Nile.”

“My blessing on it,” replied Justinus. “But, wedding or no wedding, all I
care is that she should persuade that fine young fellow to give up his
crazy scheme. I saw how even the brown rascals in the Arab’s service bowed
down before him; and he will persuade the general, if any one can, to do
all in his power for Narses. He must not and shall not go! You impressed
it strongly on Heliodora….”

“That she should keep him?” laughed the matron. “I tell you, she will nail
him down if need be.”

“So much the better,” replied her husband. “But, wife, folks might say
that it was not quite seemly in you to force them together. Properly
speaking, you are as it were her female mentor, the motherly patroness.”

“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Martina. “At home they invited no witnesses to
look on at their meetings. The poor love-lorn souls must at any rate have
a chance of speaking to each other and rejoicing that they have met once
more. I will step in presently, and be the anxious, motherly friend. Tine,
Tine! And if it does not end in a wedding, I will make a pilgrimage to St.
Agatha, barefoot.”

“And I with only one shoe!” the senator declared, “for, everything in
reason—but the talk about Dora was at last beyond all bounds. It was
no longer possible to have them both together under the same roof. And you
yourself—no, seriously; go in to them.”

“Directly, directly.—But first look out of this window once more.
Oh, what a sun!—there, now it is too late. Only two minutes ago the
whole heaven was of the hue of my red Syrian cloak; and now it is all
dark!—The house and garden are beautiful, and everything is old and
handsome; just what I should have expected in the home of the rich
Mukaukas.”

“And I too,” replied Justinus. “But now, go. If they have come to an
understanding, Dora may certainly congratulate herself.”

“I should think so! But she need not be ashamed even of her villa, and
they must spend every summer there, I will manage that. If that poor, dear
fellow Narses does not escape with his life—for two years of slavery
are a serious matter—then I should be able….”

“To alter your will? Not a bad idea; but there is no hurry for that; and
now, you really must go.”

“Yes, yes, in a minute. Surely I may have time to speak.—I, for my
part, know of no one whom I would sooner put in the place of Narses….”

“Than Orion and Heliodora? Certainly, I have no objection; but now….”

“Well, perhaps it is wicked to think of a man who may still be alive as
numbered with the dead.—At any rate the poor boy cannot go back to
his legion….”

“On no consideration. But, Martina….”

“To-morrow morning Orion must urge our case on the Arab….”

“If he does not go away.”

“Will you bet that she fails to keep him.”

“I should be a fool for my pains,” laughed Justinus. “Do you ever pay me
when I win?—But now, joking apart, you must go and see what they are
about.”

And this time she obeyed. She would have won her bet; for Orion, who had
remained unmoved by his sister-in-law’s letter, by the warning voice of
the faith of his childhood, by the faithful council of his honest servant
Nilus, or by the senator’s convincing arguments—had yielded to
Heliodora’s sweet blandishments.

How ardently had her loving heart flamed up, when she saw him so deeply
agitated at the sight of her! With what touching devotion had she sunk
into his arms; how humbly-half faint with sweet sorrow and sweeter ecstasy—had
she fallen at his feet, and clasped his knees, and entreated him, with
eyes full of tears of adoring rapture, not to leave to-day, to wait only
till tomorrow, and then, if he would, to tread her in the dust. Now—now
when she had just found him again after being worn out with pining and
longing-to part now, to see him rush on an uncertain fate—it would
kill her, it would certainly be her death! And when he still had tried to
resist she had rushed into his arms, had stopped his lips with burning
kisses, and whispered in his ear all the flattering words of love he once
had held so dear.

Why had he never seriously tried to win her, why had he so soon forgotten
her? Because she, who could assert her dignity firmly enough with others,
had abandoned herself to him unresistingly after a few meetings, as if
befooled by some magician’s spell. The precious spoil so easily won had
soon lost its value in his eyes. But to-day the fire which had died out
blazed up again. Yes, this was the love he craved, he must have! To be
loved with entire and utter devotion, with a heart that thought only of
him and not of itself, that asked only for love in return for love, that
did not fence itself round with caution and invoke the aid of others for
protection against him. This lovely creature, all passion, who had taken
upon herself to endure the contumely of society, and pain and grief for
his sake, knowing too that he had abandoned her, and would never make her
his wife before God and men—she indeed knew what it was to love; and
he who was so often inclined to despair of himself felt his heart uplifted
at the thought that he was so precious in her eyes, nay—he would own
it—so idolized.

And how sweet, how purely womanly she was! Those imploring eyes—which
he had grown quite sick of in Constantinople, for they were as full of
pathetic entreaty when she merely begged him to hold her cloak for her as
when she appealed to his heart of hearts not to leave her—that
entrancing play of glances which had first bewitched him, came to him
to-day as something new and worked the old spell.

In this moment of tender reunion he had promised her at any rate to
consider whether he could not release himself from the pledge by which he
was bound; but hardly had he spoken the words when the memory of Paula
revived in his mind, and an inward voice cried out to him that she was a
being of nobler mould than this yielding, weak woman, abject before him—that
she symbolized his upward struggle, Heliodora his perdition.

At length he was able to tear himself from her embrace; and at the first
step out of this intoxication into real life again he looked about like
one roused from sleep, feeling as though it were by some mocking sport of
the devil himself that Paula’s room should have been the scene of this
meeting and of his weakness.

An enquiry from Heliodora, as to the fate of the little white dog that she
had given him as a remembrance, recalled to his mind that luckless emerald
which was to have been his return offering or antidoron. He evasively
replied that, remembering her love of rare gems, he had sent her a
remarkably fine stone about which he had a good deal to say; and she gave
such childlike and charming expression to her delight and gratitude, and
took such skilful advantage of his pleasure in her clinging tenderness, to
convince him of the necessity for remaining at home, that he himself began
to believe in it, and gave way. The more this conclusion suited his own
wishes the easier it became to find reasons for it: old Rufinus really did
not need him; and if he—Orion—had cause to be ashamed of his
vacillation, on the other hand he could comfort himself by reflecting that
it would be unkind and ungrateful to his good friends to leave them in the
lurch just when he could be of use to them. One pair of protecting arms
more or less could not matter to the nuns, while the captive Narses might
very probably perish before he could be rescued without his interest with
the Arab general.

It was high time to decide one way or the other.—Well, no; he ought
not to go away to-day!

That was settled!

Rufinus must at once be informed of his change of purpose. To sit down and
write at such a moment he felt was impossible: Nilus should go and speak
in his name; and he knew how gladly and zealously he would perform such an
errand.

Heliodora clapped her hands, and just as Martina knocked at the door the
pair came out into the anteroom: She, radiant with happiness, and so
graceful in her fashionable, costly, and well-chosen garb, so
royal-looking in spite of her no more than middle height, that even in the
capital she would have excited the admiration of the men and the envy of
the women: He, content, but with a thoughtful smile on his lips.

He had not yet closed the door when in the anteroom he perceived two
female figures, who had come in while Martina was knocking at her niece’s
door. These were Katharina and her waiting-maid.

Anubis had been brought to these rooms after his fall from the roof, and
notwithstanding the preparations that had been made for illustrious guests
Philippus could not be persuaded to allow his patient, for whom perfect
quiet was indispensable, to be moved to the lower floor.

The listener who had been so severely punished had with him his mother,
Katharina’s old nurse; the water-wagtail, with her maid, had accompanied
her to see the lad, for she was very anxious to assure herself whether her
foster-brother, before his tumble, had succeeded in hearing anything; but
the poor fellow was so weak and his pain so severe that she had not the
heart to torment him with questions. However, her Samaritan’s visit
brought her some reward, for to meet Orion coming out of Paula’s room with
so beautiful and elegant a woman was a thing worth opening her eyes to
see. She would have walked from home hither twice over only to see the
clothes and jewels of this heaven sent stranger. Such a being rarely
strayed to Memphis,—and might not this radiant and beautiful
creature be “the other” after all, and not Paula? Might not Orion have
been trifling with her rival as he had already trifled with her? They must
have had a rapturous meeting in that room; every feature of the fair
beauty’s saint-like face betrayed the fact. Oh, that Orion! She would have
liked to throttle him; and yet she was glad to think that there was
another besides herself—and she so elegant and lovely—whom he
had betrayed.

“He will stay!” Heliodora exclaimed as she came out of the room; and
Martina held out her hand to the young man, with a fervent: “God bless you
for that!”

She was delighted to see how happy her niece looked but the lively old
woman’s eyes were everywhere at once, and when she caught sight of
Katharina who had stood still with curiosity, she turned to her with a
friendly nod and said to Orion:

“Your sister? Or the little niece of whom you used to speak?”

Orion called Katharina and introduced her to his guests, and the girl
explained what had brought her hither; in such a sweet and pathetic manner—for
she was sincerely fond of her foster-brother and play-fellow—that
she quite charmed Martina and Heliodora, and the younger woman expressed a
hope that they might see her often. Indeed, when she was gone, Martina
exclaimed: “A charming little thing! As fresh and bright as a
newly-fledged bird, so brisk and pretty too—and how nicely she
prattles!”

“And the richest heiress in Memphis into the bargain,” added Orion. But,
noticing that on this Heliodora cast down her eyes with a troubled
expression, he went on with a laugh: “Our mothers destined us to marry
each other, but we are too ill-matched in size, and not exactly made for a
pair in other ways.”

Then, taking leave of them, he went to Nilus and informed him of his
decision. His request that the treasurer would make his excuses to
Rufinus, carry his greetings to Thomas’ daughter, and make the most of his
reasons for remaining behind, sent the good man almost beside himself for
joy; and he so far forgot his modest reserve as to embrace Orion as a son.

The young host sat with his visitors till nearly midnight: and when, on
the following morning, Martina first greeted her niece—who looked
peacefully happy though somewhat tired—she was able to tell her that
the two men had already gone across the Nile, and, she hoped, settled
everything with the Arab governor. Great was her disappointment when
presently Justinus and Orion came back to say that Amru, instead of
returning to Fostat from the review at Heliopolis, had gone straight to
Alexandria. He had engagements there for a few days, and would then start
for Medina.

The senator saw nothing for it but to follow him up, and Orion volunteered
to accompany him.

A faint attempt on Heliodora’s part to detain him met with a decisive,
nay, stern refusal. This journey was indeed sheer flight from his own
weakness and from the beautiful creature who could never be anything to
him.

Early in the day he had found time to write to Paula; but he had cast
aside more than one unfinished letter before he could find the right
words. He told her that he loved her and her alone; and as his stylus
marked the wax he felt, with horror of himself, that in fact his heart was
Paula’s, and his determination ripened to put an end once for all to his
connection with Heliodora, and not allow himself to see Paula again till
he had forever cut the tie that bound him to the young widow.

The two women went out to see the travellers start, and as they returned
to the house, hanging their heads like defeated warriors, in the vestibule
they met Katharina and her maid. Martina wanted to detain the little girl,
and to persuade her to go up to their rooms with them; but Katharina
refused, and appeared to be in a great hurry. She had just come from
seeing Anubis, who was in less pain to-day, and who had done his best to
tell her what he had overheard. That the flight was to be northwards he
was certain; but he had either misunderstood or forgotten the name of the
place whither the sisters were bound.

His mother and the nurse were dismissed from the room, and then the
water-wagtail in her gratitude had bent over him, had raised his pretty
face a little, and had given him two such sweet kisses that the poor boy
had been quite uneasy. But, when he was alone with his mother once more,
he had felt happier and happier, and the remembrance of the transient
rapture he had known had alleviated the pain he was suffering on
Katharina’s account.

Katharina, meanwhile, did not go home at once to her mother; on the
contrary, she went straight off to the Bishop of Memphis, to whom she
divulged all she had learnt with regard to the inhabitants of the convent
and the intended rescue. The gentle Plotinus even had been roused to great
wrath, and no sooner had she left him than he set out for Fostat to invoke
the help of Amru, and—finding him absent—of his Vekeel to
enable him to pursue the fugitive Melchite sisters.

When the water-wagtail was at home again and alone in her room, she said
to herself, with calm satisfaction, that she had now contrived something
which would spoil several days for Orion and for Paula, and that might
prove even fatal, so far as she was concerned.


CHAPTER VIII.

Nilus had performed his errand well, and Rufinus was forced to admit that
Orion had done his part and had planned the enterprise with so much care
and unselfishness that his personal assistance could be dispensed with.
Under these circumstances he scarcely owed the young man a grudge for
placing himself at the service of his Byzantine friends; still, his not
coming to the house disturbed and vexed him, less on his own account, or
that of the good cause, than for Paula’s sake, for her feelings towards
Orion had remained no secret to him or his wife.

Dame Joanna, indeed, felt the young man’s conduct more keenly than
Rufinus; she would have been glad to withhold her husband from the
enterprise, whose dangers now appeared to her frightened soul tenfold
greater than they were. But she knew that the Nile would flow backwards
before she could dissuade him from keeping his promise to the abbess, so
she forced herself to preserve at any rate outward composure.

Before Paula, Rufinus declared that Orion was fully justified and he
loudly praised the young man’s liberality in providing the Nile-boat and
the vessel for the sea-voyage, and such admirable substitutes for himself.
Pulcheria was delighted with her father’s undertaking; she only longed to
go with him and help him to save her dear nuns. The ship-builder had
brought with him, besides his sons, three other Greeks of the orthodox
confession, shipwrights like himself, who were out of work in consequence
of the low ebb of the Nile, which had greatly restricted the navigation.
Hence they were glad to put a hand to such a good work, especially as it
would be profitable, too, for Orion had provided the old man with ample
funds.

As the evening grew cooler after sundown Paula had got better. She did
not, indeed, know what to think of Orion’s refusal to start. First she was
grieved, then she rejoiced; for it certainly preserved him from great
perils. In the early days after his return from Constantinople she had
heard his praise of the senator’s kindness and hospitality, in which the
Mukaukas, who had pleasant memories of the capital, heartily joined. He
must, of course, be glad to be able to assist those friends, of all
others; and Nilus, who was respectfully devoted to her, had greeted her
from Orion with peculiar warmth. He would come to-morrow, no doubt; and
the oftener she repeated to herself his assertion that he had never
betrayed affectionate trust, the more earnestly she felt prompted, in
spite of the abbess’ counsel, to abandon all hesitancy, to follow the
impulse of her heart, and to be his at once in full and happy confidence.

The waning moon had not yet risen, and the night was very dark when the
nuns set forth. The boat was too large to come close to the shore in the
present low state of the river, and the sisters, disguised as
peasant-women, had to be carried on board one by one from the convent
garden. Last of all the abbess was to be lifted over the shallow water,
and the old ship-builder held himself in readiness to perform this
service. Joanna, Pulcheria, Perpetua, and Eudoxia, who was also zealously
orthodox, were standing round as she gave Paula a parting kiss and
whispered: “God bless thee, child!—All now depends on you, and you
must be doubly careful to abide by your promise.”

“I owe him, in the first place, friendly trust,” was Paula’s whispered
reply, and the abbess answered: “But you owe yourself firmness and
caution.” Rufinus was the last; his wife and daughter clung around him
still.

“Take example from that poor girl,” cried the old man, clasping his wife
in his arms. “As sure as man is the standard of all things, all must go
well with me this time if everlasting Love is not napping. Till we meet
again, best of good women!—And, if ill befalls your stupid old
husband, always remember that he brought it upon himself in trying to save
a quarter of a hundred innocent women from the worst misfortunes. At any
rate I shall fall on the road I myself have chosen.—But why has
Philippus not come to take leave of me?”

Dame Joanna burst into tears: “That-that is so hard too! What has come
over him that he has deserted us, and just now of all times? Ah, husband!
If you love me, take Gibbus with you on the voyage.”

“Yes, master, take me,” the hunchbacked gardener interposed. “The Nile
will be rising again by the time we come back, and till then the flowers
can die without my help. I dreamt last night that you picked a rose from
the middle of my Bump. It stuck up there like the knob on the lid of a
pot. There is some meaning in it and, if you leave me at home, what is the
good of the rose—that is to say what good will you get out of me?”

“Well then, carry your strange flower-bed on board,” said the old man
laughing. “Now, are you satisfied Joanna?”

Once more he embraced her and Pulcheria and, as a tear from his wife’s
eyes dropped on his hand, he whispered in her ear: “You have been the rose
of my life; and without you Eden—Paradise itself can have no joys.”

The boat pushed out into the middle of the stream and was soon hidden by
the darkness from the eyes of the women on the bank.

The convent bells were soon heard tolling after the fugitives: Paula and
Pulcheria were pulling them. There was not a breath of air; not enough
even to fill the small sail of the seaward-bound boat; but the rowers
pulled with all their might and the vessel glided northward. The captain
stood at the prow with his pole; sounding the current: his brother, no
less skilled, took the helm.—The shallowness of the water made
navigation very difficult, and those who knew the river best might easily
run aground on unexpected shoals or newly-formed mud-drifts. The moon had
scarcely risen when the boat was stranded at a short distance below
Fostat, and the men had to go overboard to push it off to an accompaniment
of loud singing which, as it were, welded their individual wills and
efforts into one. Thus it was floated off again; but such delays were not
unfrequent till they reached Letopolis, where the Nile forks, and where
they hoped to steal past the toll-takers unobserved. Almost against their
expectation, the large boat slipped through under the heavy mist which
rises from the waters before sunrise, and the captain and crew, steering
down the Phatmetic branch of the river with renewed spirit, ascribed their
success to the intercession of the pious sisters.

By daylight it was easier to avoid the sand-banks; but how narrow was the
water-way-at this season usually overflowing! The beds of papyrus on the
banks now grew partly on dry land, and their rank green had faded to
straw-color. The shifting ooze of the shore had hardened to stone, and the
light west wind, which now rose and allowed of their hoisting the sail,
swept clouds of white dust before it. In many cases the soil was deeply
fissured and wide cracks ran across the black surface, yawning to heaven
for water like thirsty throats. The water-wheels stood idle, far away from
the stream, and the fields they were wont to irrigate looked like the
threshing floors on which the crops they bore should be threshed out. The
villages and palm-groves were shrouded in shimmering mist, quivering heat,
and dazzling yellow light; and the passer-by on the raised dykes of the
shore bent his head as he dragged his weary feet through the deep dust.

The sun blazed pitilessly in the cloudless sky, down on land and river,
and on the fugitive nuns who had spread their white head-cloths above them
for an awning and sat in dull lethargy, awaiting what might he before
them.

The water-jar passed from hand to band; but the more they drank the more
acute was their discomfort, and their longing for some other refreshment.
At meal time the dishes were returned to the tiny cabin almost untouched.
The abbess and Rufinus tried to speak comfort to them; but in the
afternoon the superior herself was overpowered by the heat, and the air in
the little cabin, to which she retired, was even less tolerable stuffy
than on deck.

Thus passed a long day of torment, the hottest that even the men could
remember; and they on the whole suffered least from it, though they toiled
at the oar without ceasing and with wonderful endurance.

At length evening fell after those fearful midday hours; and as a cool
breeze rose shortly before sunset to fan their moist brows, the hapless
victims awoke to new energies. Their immediate torment had so crushed them
that, incapable of anticipating the future, they had ceased either to fear
or to hope; but now they could rejoice in thinking of the start they had
gained over their pursuers. They were hungry and enjoyed their evening
meal; the abbess made friends with the worthy ship-wright, and began an
eager conversation with Rufinus as to Paula and Orion: Her wish that the
young man should spend a time of probation did not at all please Rufinus;
with such a wife as Paula, he could not fail to be at all times the noble
fellow which his old friend held him to be in spite of his having remained
at home.

The hump-backed gardener made the younger nuns merry with his jests, and
after supper they all united in prayer.

Even the oarsmen had found new vigor and new life; and it was well that
few of the Greek sisters understood Egyptian, for the more jovial of them
started a song in praise of the charms of the maids they loved, which was
not composed for women’s ears.

The nuns chatted of those they had left behind, and many a one spoke of a
happy meeting at home once more; but an elderly nun put a stop to this,
saying that it was a sin to anticipate the ways of God’s mercy, or, when
His help was still so sorely needed, to speak as though He had already
bestowed it. They could only tremble and pray, for they knew from
experience that a threatening disaster never turned to a good end unless
it had been expected with real dread.

Another one then began to speculate as to whether their pursuers could
overtake them on foot or on horseback, and as it seemed only too probable
that they could, their hearts sank again with anxiety. Ere long, however,
the moon rose; the objects that loomed on the banks and were mirrored in
the stream, were again clearly visible and lost their terrors.

The lower down they sailed, the denser were the thickets of papyrus on the
shore. Thousands of birds were roosting there, but they were all asleep; a
“dark ness that might be felt” brooded over the silent land scape. The
image of the moon floated on the dark water, like a gigantic lotos-flower
below the smaller, fragrant lotos-blossoms that it out-did in sheeny
whiteness; the boat left a bright wake in its track, and every stroke of
the oar broke the blackness of the water, which reflected the light in
every drop. The moonlight played on the delicate tufts that crowned the
slender papyrus-stems, filmy mist, like diaphanous brocade of violet and
silver, veiled the trees; and owls that shun the day, flew from one branch
to another on noiseless, rhythmic wings.

The magic of the night fell on the souls of the nuns; they ceased
prattling; but when Sister Martha, the nightingale of the sisterhood,
began to sing a hymn the others followed her example. The sailors’ songs
were hushed, and the psalms of the virgin sisters, imploring the
protection of the Almighty, seemed to float round the gliding boat as
softly as the light of the circling moon. For hours—and with
increased zeal as the comet rose in the sky—they gave themselves up
to the soothing and encouraging pleasure of singing; but one by one the
voices died away and their peaceful hymn was borne down the river to the
sea, by degrees more low, more weary, more dreamlike.

They sat looking in their laps, gazing in rapture up to heaven, or at the
dazzling ripples and the lotos flowers on the surface. No one thought of
the shore, not even the men, who had been lulled to sleep or daydreams by
the nuns’ singing. The pilot’s eyes were riveted on the channel—and
yet, as morning drew near, from time to time there was a twinkle, a flash
behind the reed-beds on the eastern bank, and now and then there was a
rustling and clatter there. Was it a jackal that had plunged into the
dense growth to surprise a brood of water-fowl; was it a hyena trampling
through the thicket?

The flashing, the rustling, the dull footfall on parched earth followed
the barge all through the night like a sinister, lurid, and muttering
shadow.

Suddenly the captain started and gazed eastwards.—What was that?

There was a herd of cattle feeding in a field beyond the reeds-two bulls
perhaps were sharpening their horns. The river was so low, and the banks
rose so high, that it was impossible to see over them. But at this moment
a shrill voice spoke his name, and then the hunchback whispered in his
ear:

“There—over there—it is glittering again.—I will bite
off my own nose if that is not—there, again. Merciful God! I am not
mistaken. Harness—and there, that is the neighing of a horse; I know
the sound. The east is growing grey. By all the saints, we are pursued!”

The captain looked eastwards with every sense alert, and after a few
minutes silence he said decidedly “Yes.”

“Like a flight of quail for whom the fowler spreads his net,” sighed the
gardener; but the boatman impatiently signed to him to be quiet, and gazed
cautiously on every side. Then he desired Gibbus to wake Rufinus and the
shipwrights, and to hide all the nuns in the cabin.

“They will be packed as close as the dates sent to Rome in boxes,”
muttered the gardener, as he went to call Rufinus. “Poor souls, their
saints may save them from suffocation; and as for me, on my faith, if it
were not that Dame Joanna was the very best creature on two legs, and if I
had not promised her to stick to the master, I would jump into the water
and try the hospitality of the flamingoes and storks in the reeds! We must
learn to condescend!”

While he was fulfilling his errand, the captain was exchanging a few words
with his brother at the helm. There was no bridge near, and that was well.
If the horsemen were indeed in pursuit of them, they must ride through the
water to reach them; and scarcely three stadia lower down, the river grew
wider and ran through a marshy tract of country; the only channel was near
the western bank, and horsemen attempting to get to it ran the risk of
foundering in the mud. If the boat could but get as far as that reach,
much would be gained.

The captain urged the men to put forth all their strength, and very soon
the boat was flying along under the western shore, and divided by an oozy
flat from the eastern bank. Day was breaking, and the sky was tinged red
as with blood—a sinister omen that this morning was destined to
witness bitter strife and gaping wounds.

The seed sown by Katharina was beginning to grow. At the bishop’s request
the Vekeel had despatched a troop of horse in pursuit of the nuns, with
orders to bring the fugitives back to Memphis and take their escort
prisoners. As the boat had slipped by the toll watch unperceived, the
Arabs had been obliged to divide, so as to follow down each arm of the
Nile. Twelve horsemen had been told off to pursue the Phasmetic branch;
for by every calculation these must suffice for the capture of a score or
so of nuns, and a handful of sailors would scarcely dare to attempt to
defend themselves. The Vekeel had heard nothing of the addition to the
party of the ship-master and his sons.

The pursuers had set out at noon of the previous day, and had overtaken
the vessel about two hours before daylight. But their leader thought it
well to postpone the attack till after sunrise, lest any of the fugitives
should escape. He and his men were all Arabs, and though well acquainted
with the course of that branch of the river which they were to follow,
they were not familiar with its peculiarities.

As soon as the morning star was invisible, the Moslems performed their
devotions, and then rushed out of the papyrus-beds. Their leader, making a
speaking trumpet of his hand, shouted to the boat his orders to stop. He
was commissioned by the governor to bring it back to Fostat. And the
fugitives seemed disposed to obey, for the boat lay to. The captain had
recognized the speaker as the captain of the watch from Fostat, an
inexorable man; and now, for the first time, he clearly understood the
deadly peril of the enterprise. He was accustomed, no doubt, to evade the
commands of his superiors, but would no more have defied them than have
confronted Fate; and he at once declared that resistance was madness, and
that there was no alternative but to yield. Rufinus, however, vehemently
denied this; he pointed out to him that the same punishment awaited him,
whether he laid down his arms or defended himself, and the old ship-wright
eagerly exclaimed:

“We built this boat, and I know you of old, Setnau; You will not turn
Judas—and, if you do, you know that Christian blood will be shed on
this deck before we can show our teeth to those Infidels.”

The captain, with all the extravagant excitability of his southern blood,
beat his forehead and his breast, bemoaned himself as a betrayed and
ruined man, and bewailed his wife and children. Rufinus, however, put an
end to his ravings. He had consulted with the abbess, and he put it
strongly to the unhappy man that he could, in any case, hope for no mercy
from the unbelievers; while, on Christian ground, he would easily find a
safe and comfortable refuge for himself and his family. The abbess would
undertake to give them all a passage on board the ship that was awaiting
her, and to set them on shore wherever he might choose.

Setnau thought of a brother living in Cyprus; still, for him it meant
sacrificing his house and garden at Doomiat, where, at this very hour,
fifty date-palms were ripening their fruit; it meant leaving the fine new
Nile-boat by which he and his family got their living; and as he
represented this to the old man, bitter tears rolled down his brown
cheeks. Rufinus explained to him that, if he should succeed in saving the
sisters, he might certainly claim some indemnification. He might even
calculate the value of his property, and not only would he have the
equivalent paid to him out of the convent treasure, now on board in heavy
coffers, but a handsome gift into the bargain.

Setnau exchanged a meaning glance with his brother, who was a single man,
and when it was also agreed that he, too, might embark on the sea-voyage
he shook hands with Rufinus on the bargain. Then, giving himself a shake,
as if he had thrown off something that cramped him, and sticking his
leather cap knowingly on one side of his shaven head, he drew himself up
to his full height and scornfully shouted back to the Arab—who had
before now treated him and other Egyptian natives with insolent
haughtiness—that if he wanted anything of him he might come and
fetch it.

The Moslem’s patience was long since exhausted, and at this challenge he
signed to his followers and sprang first into the river; but the foremost
horses soon sank so deep in the ooze that further advance was evidently
impossible, and the signal to return was perforce given. In this manoeuvre
a refractory horse lost his footing, and his rider was choked in the mud.

On this, the men in the boat could see the foe holding council with lively
gesticulations, and the captain expressed his fears lest they should give
up all hope of capturing the boat, and ride forward to Doomiat to combine
with the Arab garrison to cut off their further flight. But he had not
reckoned on the warlike spirit of these men, who had overcome far greater
difficulties in twenty fights ere this. They were determined to seize the
boat, to take its freight prisoners, and have them duly punished.

Six horsemen, among them the leader of the party, were now seen to
dismount; they tied their horses up, and then proceeded to fell three tall
palms with their battle-axes; the other five went off southwards. These,
no doubt, were to ride round the morass, and ford the river at a favorable
spot so as to attack the vessel from the west, while the others tried to
reach it from the east with the aid of the palm-trunks.

On the right, or eastern shore, where the Arabs were constructing the
raft, spread solid ground-fields through which lay the road to Doomiat; on
the other shore, near which the boat was lying, the bog extended for a
long way. An interminable jungle of papyrus, sedge, and reeds, burnt
yellow by the heat of the sun and the extraordinary drought, covered
almost the whole of this parched and baked wilderness; and, when a stiff
morning breeze rose from the northeast, the captain was inspired with a
happy thought. The five men who had ridden forward would have to force
their way through the mass of scorched and dried up vegetation. If the
Christians could but set fire to it, on the further side of a canal which
must hinder their making a wide sweep to the north, the wind would carry
it towards the enemy; and, they would be fortunate if it did not stifle
them or compel them to jump into the river, where, when the flames reached
the morass, they must inevitably perish.

As soon as the helmsman’s keen eyes had made sure, from the mast-head,
that the Arabs had forded the river at a point to the south, they set fire
to several places and it roared and flared up immediately. The wind swept
it southwards, and with it clouds of pale grey smoke through which the
rising sun shot shafts of light. The flames writhed and darted over the
baked earth like gigantic yellow and orange lizards, here shooting
upwards, there creeping low. Almost colorless in the ardent daylight, they
greedily consumed everything they approached, and white ashes marked their
track. Their breath added to the heat of the advancing day; and though the
smoke was borne southwards by the wind, a few cloudlets came over to the
boat, choking the sisters and their deliverers.

A large vessel now came towards them from Doomiat and found the narrow
channel barred by the other one. The captain was related to Setnau, and
when Setnau shouted to him that they were engaged in a struggle with Arab
robbers, his friend followed his advice, turned the boat’s head with
considerable difficulty, and cast anchor at the nearest village to warn
other vessels southward bound not to get themselves involved in so
perilous an adventure. Any that were coming north would be checked by the
fire and smoke.

The six horsemen left on the eastern shore beheld the spreading blaze with
rage and dismay; however, they had by this time bound the palm-trunks
together, and were preparing by their aid to inflict condign punishment on
the refractory Christians. These, meanwhile, had not been idle. Every man
on board was armed, and one of the ship-wrights was sent on shore with a
sailor, to steal through the reeds, ford the river at a point lower down
and, as soon as the Arabs put out to the attack, to slaughter their
horses, or—if one of them should be left to go forward on the road
to Doomiat—to drag him from his steed.

The six men now laid hold of the slightly-constructed float, on which they
placed their bows and quivers; they pushed it before them, and it
supported them above the shallow water, while their feet only just touched
the oozy bottom. They were all thorough soldiers, true sons of the desert
and of their race—men whom nature seemed to have conceived as a
counterpart to the eagle, the master-piece of the winged creation.
Keen-eyed, strongly-knit though small-boned, bereft of every fibre of
superfluous flesh on their sinewy limbs, with bold brown faces and
sharply-cut features, suggesting the king of birds not merely by the
aquiline nose, they had also the eagle’s courage, thirst for blood, and
greed of victory.

Each held on to the raft by one lean, wiry arm, carrying on the other the
round bucklers on which the arrows that came whistling from the boat, fell
and stuck as soon as they were within shot. They ground their white teeth
with fury and nothing within ken escaped their bright hawk’s eyes. They
had come to fight, even if the boat had been defended by fifty Egyptian
soldiers instead of carrying a score or so of sailors and artisans. Their
brave hearts felt safe under their shirts of mail, and their ready,
fertile brains under their brazen helmets; and they marked the dull rattle
of the arrows against their metal shields with elation and contempt. To
deal death was the wish of their souls; to meet it caused them no dread;
for their glowing fancy painted an open Paradise where beautiful women
awaited them open-armed, and brimming goblets promised to satisfy every
desire.

Their keen ears heard their captain’s whispered commands; when they
reached the ship’s side, one caught hold of the sill of the cabin window,
their leader, as quick as thought, sprang on to his shoulders, and from
thence on to the deck, thrusting his lance through the body of a sailor
who tried to stop him with his axe. A second Arab was close at his heels;
two gleaming scimitars flashed in the sun, the shrill, guttural, savage
war-cry of the Moslems rent the air, and the captain fell, the first
victim to their blood-thirsty fury, with a deep cut across the face and
forehead; in a moment, however, a heavy spar sang through the air down on
the head of the Moslem leader and laid him low. The helmsman, the brother
of the fallen pilot, had wielded it with the might of the avenger.

A fearful din, increased by the shrieks and wailing of the nuns, now
filled the vessel. The second Arab dealt death on all sides with the
courage and strength of desperation, and three of his fellows managed to
climb up the boat’s side; but the last man was pushed back into the water.
By this time two of the shipwrights and five sailors had fallen. Rufinus
was kneeling by the captain, who was crying feebly for help, bleeding
profusely, though not mortally wounded. Setnau had spoken with much
anxiety of his wife and children, and Rufinus, hoping to save his life for
their sakes, was binding up the wounds, which were wide and deep, when
suddenly a sabre stroke came down on the back of his head and neck, and a
dark stream of blood rushed forth. But he, too, was soon avenged: the old
shipwright hewed down his foe with his heavy axe. On the eastern shore,
meanwhile, the men charged to kill the Arabs’ horses were doing their
work, so as to prevent any who might escape from returning to Fostat, or
riding forward to Doormat and reporting what had occurred.

On board silence now prevailed. All five Arabs were stretched on the deck,
and the insatiate boatmen were dealing a finishing stroke to those who
were only wounded. A sailor, who had taken refuge up a mast, could see how
the other five horsemen had plunged into the bog to avoid the fire and had
disappeared beneath the waters; so that none of the Moslems had escaped
alive—not even that one which Fate and romance love to save as a
bearer of the disastrous tidings.

By degrees the nuns ventured out on deck again.

Those who were skilled in tending the wounded gathered round them, and
opened their medicine cases; as they proceeded on their voyage, under the
guidance of the steersman, they had their hands full of work and the zeal
they gave to it mitigated the torment of the heat.

The bodies of the five Moslems and eight Christians—among these, two
of the Greek ship-wrights—were laid on the shore in groups apart, in
the neighborhood of a village; in the hand of one of them the abbess
placed a tablet with this inscription:

“These eight Christians met their death bravely fighting to defend a party
of pious and persecuted believers. Pray for them and bury them as well as
those who, in obedience to their duty and their commander, took their
lives.”

Rufinus, lying with his head on the gardener’s knee, and sheltered from
the sun under the abbess’ umbrella, presently recovered his senses;
looking about him he said to himself in a low voice, as he saw the captain
lying by his side:

“I, too, had a wife and a dear child at home, and yet—Ah! how this
aches! We may well do all we can to soothe such pain. The only reality
here below is not pleasure, it is pain, vulgar, physical pain; and though
my head burns and aches more than enough.—Water, a drink of water.—How
comfortable I could be at this moment with my Joanna, in our shady house.—But
yet, but yet—we must heal or save, it is all the same, any who need
it.—A drink—wine and water, if it is to be had, worthy
Mother!”

The abbess had it at hand; as she put the cup to his lips she spoke her
warm and effusive thanks, and many words of comfort; then she asked him
what she could do for him and his, when they should be in safety.

“Love them truly,” he said gently. “Pul will certainly never be quite
happy till she is in a convent. But she must not leave her mother—she
must stay with her; Joanna-Joanna….”

He repeated the name several times as if the sound pleased his ear and
heart. Then he shuddered again and again, and muttered to himself: “Brrr!—a
cold shiver runs all over me—it is of no use!—The cut in my
shoulder.—It is my head that hurts worst, but the other—it is
bad luck that it should have fallen on the left side. And yet, no; it is
best so; for if he—if it had damaged my right shoulder I could not
write, and I must—I must-before it is too late. A tablet and stylus;
quick, quick! And when I have written, good mother, close the tablet and
seal it—close and tight. Promise! Only one person may read it, he to
whom it must go.—Gibbus, do you hear, Gibbus?—It is for
Philippus the leech. Take it to him.—Your dream about a rose on your
hump, if I read rightly, means that peace and joy in Heaven blossom from
our misery on earth.—Yes, to Philippus. And listen my old school
friend Christodorus, a leech too, lives at Doomiat. Take my body to him—mind
me now? He is to pack it with sand which will preserve it, and have it
buried by the side of my mother at Alexandria. Joanna and the child—they
can come and visit me there. I have not much to leave; whatever that may
cost….”

“That is my affair, or the convent’s,” cried the abbess.

“Matters are not so bad as that,” said the old man smiling. “I can pay for
my own share of the business; your revenue belongs to the poor, noble
Mother.—You will find more than enough in this wallet, good Gibbus.
But now, quick, make haste—the tablets.”

When he had one in his hand, and a stylus for writing with, he thought for
some time, and then wrote with trembling fingers, though exerting all his
strength. How acutely he was suffering could be seen in his drawn mouth
and sad eyes, but he would not allow himself to be interrupted, often as
the abbess and the gardener entreated him to lay aside the stylus. At
last, with a deep sigh of relief, he closed the tablets, handed them to
the abbess, and said:

“There! Close it fast.—To Philippus the physician; into his own
hand: You hear, Gibbus?”

Here he fainted; but after they had bathed his forehead and wounds he came
to himself, and softly murmured: “I was dreaming of Joanna and the poor
child. They brought me a comic mask. What can that mean? That I have been
a fool all my life for thinking of other folks’ troubles and forgetting
myself and my own family? No, no, no! As surely as man is the standard of
all things—if it were so, then, then folly would be truth and right.—I,
I—my desire—the aim to which my life was devoted….”

He paused; then he suddenly raised himself, looked up with a bright light
in his eyes, and cried aloud with joy: “O Thou, most merciful Saviour!
Yes, yes—I see it all now. I thank thee—All that I strove for
and lived for, Thou, my Redeemer who art Love itself—Ah how good,
how comforting to think of that!—It is for this that Thou grantest
me to die!”

Again he lost consciousness; his head grew very hot, his breath came
hoarsely and his parched lips, though frequently moistened by careful
hands, could only murmur the names of those he loved best, and among them
that of Paula.

At about five hours after noon he fell back on the hunchback’s knees; he
had ceased to suffer. A happy smile lighted up his features, and in death
the old man’s calm face looked like that of a child.

The gardener felt as though he had lost his own father, and his lively
tongue remained speechless till he entered Doormat with the rescued
sisters, and proceeded to carry out his master’s last orders. The abbess’
ship took the wounded captain Setnau on board, with his wife, his
children, his brother the steersman, and the surviving ship-wrights.

At the very hour when Rufinus closed his eyes, the town-watch of Memphis,
led by Bishop Plotinus, appeared to claim the Melchite convent of St.
Cecilia, and all the possessions of the sisterhood, in the name of the
patriarch and the Jacobite church. Next morning the bishop set out for
Upper Egypt to make his report to the prelate.


CHAPTER IX.

Philippus started up from the divan on which he had been reclining at
breakfast with his old friend. Before Horapollo was a half-empty plate; he
had swallowed his meal less rapidly than his companion, and looked
disapprovingly at the leech, who drank off his wine and water as he stood,
whereas he generally would sit and enjoy it as he talked to the old man of
matters light or grave. To the elder this was always the pleasantest hour
of the day; but now Philippus would hardly allow himself more than just
time enough to eat, even at their principal evening meal.

Indeed, not he alone, but every physician in the city, had as much as he
could do with the utmost exertion. Nearly three weeks had elapsed since
the attack on the nuns, and the fearful heat had still gone on in
creasing. The river, instead of rising had sunk lower and lower; the
carrier-pigeons from Ethiopia, looked for day by day with growing anxiety
and excitement, brought no news of a rising stream even in the upper Nile,
and the shallow, stagnant and evil-smelling waters by the banks began to
be injurious, nay, fatal, to the health of the whole population.

Close to the shore, especially, the water had a reddish tinge, and the
usually sweet, pure fluid in the canals was full of strange vegetable
growths and other foreign bodies putrid and undrinkable. The common people
usually shirked the trouble of filtering it, and it was among them that
the greater number died of a mortal and infectious pestilence, till then
unknown. The number of victims swelled daily, and the approach of the
comet kept pace with the growing misery of the town. Every one connected
it with the intense heat of the season, with the delay in the inundation,
and the appearance of the sickness; and the leech and his friend often
argued about these matters, for Philippus would not admit that the meteor
had any influence on human affairs, while Horapollo believed that it had,
and supported his view by a long series of examples.

His antagonist would not accept them and asked for arguments; at the same
time he, like every one else, felt the influence of a vague dread of some
imminent and terrible disaster hanging over the earth and humanity at
large.

And, just as every heart in Memphis felt oppressed by such forebodings,
and by the weight of a calamity, which indeed no longer threatened them
but had actually come upon them, so the roads, the gardens, the palms and
sycamores by the way-side were covered by thick layers of dingy, choking
dust. The hedges of tamarisk and shrubs looked like decaying walls of
colorless, unburnt mud-bricks; even in the high-roads the wayfarer walked
in the midst of dense white clouds raised by his feet, and if a chariot,
or a horseman galloped down the scorching street, fine, grey sand at once
filled the air, compelling the foot-passengers to shut their eyes and
lips.

The town was so silent, so empty, so deserted! No one came out of doors
unless under pressure of business or piety. Every house was a furnace, and
even a bath brought no refreshment, for the water had long since ceased to
be cold. A disease had also attacked the ripening dates as they hung; they
dropped off in thousands from the heavy clusters under the beautiful
bending crown of leaves; and now for two days hundreds of dead fish had
been left on the banks. Even the scaly natives of the river were
plague-stricken; and the physician explained to his friend that this
brought the inhabitants a fresh danger; for who could clear the shores of
the dead fish?—And, in such heat, how soon they would become putrid!

The old man did not conceal from himself that it was hard, cruelly hard,
for the physician to follow his calling conscientiously at such a time;
but he knew his friend; he had seen him during months of pestilence two
years since—always brisk, decisive and gay, indeed inspired to
greater effort by the greater demands on him. What had so completely
altered him, had poisoned and vexed his soul as with a malignant spell? It
was not the almost superhuman sacrifices required by his duties;—it
came of the unfortunate infatuation of his heart, of which he could not
rid himself.

Philippus had kept his promise. He went every day to the house of Rufinus,
and every day he saw Paula; but, as a murdered body bleeds afresh in the
presence of the assassin, so every day the old pain revived when he was
forced to meet her and speak with her. The only cure for this particular
sufferer was to remove the cause of his pain: that is to say, to take
Paula away out of his path; and this the old man made his care and duty.

Little Mary and the other patients under Rufinus’ roof were on the way to
recovery; still there was much to cast gloomy shadows over this happy
termination. Joanna and Pulcheria were very anxious as to the fate of
Rufinus. No news had been received of him or of the sisters, and Philippus
was the vessel into which the forsaken wife and Pulcheria—who looked
up to him as to a kind, faithful, and all-powerful protecting
spirit-poured all their sorrows, cares, and fears. Their forebodings were
aggravated by the fact that three times Arab officials had come to the
house to enquire about the master and his continued absence. All that the
women told them was written down, and Dame Joanna, whose lips had never
yet uttered a lie, had found herself forced to give a false clue by saying
that her husband had gone to Alexandria on business, and might perhaps
have to proceed to Syria.—What could these enquiries forebode? Did
they not indicate that Rufinus’ complicity in the rescue of the nuns was
known at Fostat?

The authorities there were, in fact, better informed than the women could
suspect. But they kept their knowledge a secret, for it would never do to
let the oppressed people know that a handful of Egyptians had succeeded in
defeating a party of Arab soldiers; so the Memphites heard no more than a
dark rumor of what had occurred.

Philippus had known nothing of the old man’s purpose till he had gone too
far to be dissuaded; and it was misery to him now to reflect that his dear
old friend, and his whole household, might come to ruin for the sake of
the sisterhood who were nothing to them; for he had received private
information that there had been a skirmish between the Moslems and the
deliverers of the nuns, which had cost the lives of several combatants on
both sides.

And Paula! If only he could have seen her happy—But she was pale;
and that which robbed the young girl—healthy as she was in mind and
body—of her proud, frank, independent bearing was not the heat,
which tormented all creation, but a secret, devouring sorrow; and this
sorrow was the work of one alone—of him on whom she had set her
heart, and who made, ah! what a return, for the royal gift of her love.

Philippus had frequent business at the governor’s residence, and a
fortnight since he had plainly perceived what it was that had brought
Neforis into this strange state. She was taking the opium that her husband
had had, taking it in excessive quantities; and she could easily procure
more through some other physician. However, her piteous prayer that
Philippus would not abandon her to her fate had prevailed to induce him to
continue to see her, in the hope of possibly restricting her use of the
drug.

The senator’s wife, Martina, also required his visits to the palace. She
was not actually ill, but she suffered cruelly from the heat, and she had
always been wont to see her worthy old house-physician every day, to hear
all the latest gossip, and complain of her little ailments when anything
went wrong with her usually sound health. Philippus was indeed too much
overburdened to chatter, but his professional advice was good and helped
her to endure the fires of this pitiless sky. She liked this incisive,
shrewd, plain-spoken man—often indeed sharp and abrupt in his
freedom—and he appreciated her bright, natural ways. Now and then
Martina even succeeded in winning a smile from “Hermes Trismegistus,” who
was “generally as solemn as though there was no such thing on earth as a
jest,” and in spurring him to a rejoinder which showed that this dolorous
being had a particularly keen and ready wit.

Heliodora attracted him but little. There was, to be sure, an unmistakable
likeness in her “imploring eyes” to those of Pulcheria; but the girl’s
spoke fervent yearning for the grace and love of God, while the widow’s
expressed an eager desire for the admiration of the men she preferred. She
was a graceful creature beyond all question, but such softness, which
never even attempted to assert a purpose or an opinion, did not commend
itself to his determined nature; it annoyed him, when he had contradicted
her, to hear her repeat his last statement and take his side, as if she
were ashamed of her own silliness. Her society, indeed, did not seem to
satisfy the clever older woman, who at home, was accustomed to a
succession of visitors, and to whom the word “evening” was synonymous with
lively conversation and a large gathering. She spoke of the leech’s visits
as the oasis in the Egyptian desert, and little Katharina even she
regarded as a Godsend.

The water-wagtail was her daily visitant, and the girl’s gay and often
spiteful gossip helped to beguile her during this terrific heat.
Katharina’s mother made no difficulties; for Heliodora had gone to see her
in all her magnificence, and had offered her and her daughter hospitality,
some day, at Constantinople. They were very likely going thither; at any
rate they would not remain in Memphis, and then it would be a piece of
good fortune to be introduced to the society of the capital by such people
as their new acquaintances.

Martina thus heard a great deal about Paula; and though it was all adverse
and colored to her prejudice she would have liked to see the daughter of
the great and famous Thomas whom she had known; besides, after all she had
heard, she could fear nothing from Paula for her niece: uncommonly
handsome, but haughty, repellent, unamiable, and—like Heliodora
herself—of the orthodox sect.—What could tempt “great
Sesostris” to give her the preference?

Katharina herself proposed to Martina to make them acquainted; but nothing
would have induced Dame Martina to go out of her rooms, protected to the
utmost from the torrid sunshine, so she left it to Heliodora to pay the
visit and give her a report of the hero’s daughter. Heliodora had devoted
herself heart and soul to the little heiress, and humored her on many
points.

This was carried out. Katharina actually had the audacity to bring the
rivals together, even after she had reported to each all she knew of
Orion’s position with regard to the other. It was exquisite sport; still,
in one respect it did not fulfil her intentions, for Paula gave no sign of
suffering the agonies of jealousy which Katharina had hoped to excite in
her. Heliodora, on the other hand, came home depressed and uneasy; Paula
had received her coldly and with polite formality, and the young widow had
remained fully aware that so remarkable a woman might well cast her own
image in Orion’s heart into the shade, or supplant it altogether.

Like a wounded man who, in spite of the anguish, cannot resist touching
the wound to assure himself of its state, Heliodora went constantly to see
Katharina in order to watch her rival from the garden or to be taken to
call on her, though she was always very coldly received.

At first Katharina had pitied the young woman whose superior in
intelligence she knew herself to be; but a certain incident had
extinguished this feeling; she now simply hated her, and pricked her with
needle-thrusts whenever she had a chance. Paula seemed invulnerable; but
there was not a pang which Katharina would not gladly have given her to
whom she owed the deepest humiliation her young life had ever known. How
was it that Paula failed to regard Heliodora as a rival? She had reflected
that, if Orion had really returned the widow’s passion, he could not have
borne so long a separation. It was on purpose to avoid Heliodora, and to
remain faithful to what he was and must always be to Paula, that he had
gone with the senator, far from Memphis. Heliodora—her instinct
assured her—was the poor, forsaken woman with whom he had trifled at
Byzantium, and for whom he had committed that fatal theft of the emerald.
If Fate would but bring him home to her, and if she then yielded all he
asked—all her own soul urged her to grant, then she would be the
sole mistress and queen of his heart—she must be, she was sure of
it! And though, even as she thought of it, she bowed her head in care, it
was not from fear of losing him; it was only her anxiety about her father,
her good old friend, Rufinus, and his family, whom she had made so
entirely her own.

This was the state of affairs this morning, when to his old friend’s
vexation, Philippus had so hastily and silently drunk off his
after-breakfast draught; just as he set down the cup, the black
door-keeper announced that a hump-backed man wished to see his master at
once on important business.

“Important business!” repeated the leech. “Give me four more legs in
addition to my own two, or a machine to make time longer than it is, and
then I will take new patients-otherwise no! Tell the fellow….”

“No, not sick….” interrupted the negro. “Come long way. Gardener to
Greek man Rufinus.”

Philippus started: he could guess what this messenger had to say, and his
heart sank with dread as he desired that he might be shown in.

A glance at Gibbus told him what he had rightly feared. The poor fellow
was hardly recognizable. He was coated with dust from head to foot, and
this made him look like a grey-haired old man; his sandals hung to his
feet in strips; the sweat, pouring down his cheeks, had made gutters as it
were in the dust on his face, and his tears, as the physician held out his
hand to him, washed out other channels.

In reply to the leech’s anxious, long drawn “Dead?” he nodded silently;
and when Philippus, clasping his hands to his temples, cried out: “Dead!
My poor old Rufinus dead! But how, in Heaven’s name, did it happen? Speak,
man, speak!”—Gibbus pointed to the old philosopher and said: “Come
out then, with me, Master. No third person….”

Philippus, however, gave him to understand that Horapollo was his second
self; and the hunch-back went on to tell him what he had seen, and how his
beloved master had met his end. Horapollo sat listening in astonishment,
shaking his head disapprovingly, while the physician muttered curses. But
the bearer of evil tidings was not interrupted, and it was not till he had
ended that Philippus, with bowed head and tearful eyes, said:

“Poor, faithful old man; to think that he should die thus—he who
leaves behind him all that is best in life, while I—I….” And he
groaned aloud. The old man glanced at him with reproachful displeasure.

While the leech broke the seals of the tablets, which the abbess had
carefully closed, and began to read the contents, Horapollo asked the
gardener: “And the nuns? Did they all escape?”

“Yes, Master! on the morning after we reached Doomiat, a trireme took them
all out to sea.”

And the old man grumbled to himself: “The working bees killed and the
Drones saved!”

Gibbus, however, contradicted him, praising the laborious and useful life
of the sisters, in whose care he himself had once been.

Meanwhile Philippus had read his friend’s last letter. Greatly disturbed
by it he turned hither and thither, paced the room with long steps, and
finally paused in front of the gardener, exclaiming: “And what next? Who
is to tell them the news?”

“You,” replied Gibbus, raising his hands in entreaty.

“I-oh, of course, I!” growled the physician. “Whatever is difficult,
painful, intolerable, falls on my shoulders as a matter of course! But I
cannot—ought not—I will not do it. Had I any part or lot in
devising this mad expedition? You observe, Father?—What he, the
simpleton, brewed, I—I again am to drink. Fate has settled that!”

“It is hard, it is hard, child!” replied the old man. “Still, it is your
duty. Only consider—if that man, as he stands before us now, were to
appear before the women….”

But Philippus broke in: “No, no, that would not do! And you, Gibbus—this
very day there has been an Arab again to see Joanna; and if they were to
suspect that you had been with your master—for you look strangely.—No,
man; your devotion merits a better reward. They shall not catch you. I
release you from your service to the widow, and we—what do you say,
Father?—we will keep him here.”

“Right, very right,” said Horapollo. “The Nile must some day rise again.
Stay with us; I have long had a fancy to eat vegetables of my own
growing.”

But Gibbus firmly declined the offer, saying he wished to return to his
old mistress. When the physician again pointed out to him how great a
danger he was running into, and the old man desired to know his reasons,
the hunch-back exclaimed:

“I promised my master to stay with the women; and now, while in all the
household I am the only free man, shall I leave them unprotected to secure
my own miserable life? Sooner would I see a scimitar at my throat. When my
head is off the rascals are welcome to all that is left.”

The words came hollow and broken from his parched tongue, and as he spoke
the faithful fellow’s face changed. Even under the dust he turned pale,
and Philippus had to support him, for his feet refused their office. His
long tramp through the torrid heat had exhausted his strength; but a
draught of wine soon brought him to himself again and Horapollo ordered
the slave to lead him to the kitchen and desire the cook to take the best
care of him.

As soon as the friends were alone, the elder observed:

“That worthy, foolhardy, old child who is now dead, seems to have left you
some strange request. I could see that as you were reading.”

“There—take it!” replied Philippus; and again he walked up and down
the room, while Horapollo took the letter. Both faces of the tablets were
covered with irregular, up-and-down lines of writing to the following
effect:

The last words were separated and written all astray; the old man could
hardly make them out. He now sat looking, as Phillipus had done before,
sorely puzzled and undecided over this strange document.

“Well?” asked the leech at last.

“Aye-well?” repeated the other with a shrug. Then both again were silent;
till Horapollo rose, and taking his staff, also paced the room while he
murmured, half to himself and half to his younger friend “They are two
quiet, reasonable women. There are not many of that sort, I fancy. How the
little one helped me up from the low seat in the garden!” It was a
reminiscence that made him chuckle to himself; he stopped Philippus, who
was pacing at his side, by lightly patting his arm, exclaiming with
unwonted vivacity: “A man should be ready to try everything—the care
of women even, before he steps into the grave. And is it a fact that
neither of them is a scold or a chatter-box?”

“It is indeed.”

“And what ‘if’ or ‘but’ remains behind?” asked the old man. “Let us be
reckless for once, brother! If the whole business were not so diabolically
serious, it would be quite laughable. The young one for me and the old one
for you in our leisure hours, my son; better washed linen; clothes without
holes in them; no dust on our books; a pleasant ‘Rejoice’ every morning,
or at meal-times;—only look at the fruit on that dish! No better
than the oats they strew before horses. At the old man’s everything was as
nice as it used to be in my own home at Philae: Supper a little work of
art, a feast for the eye as well as the appetite! Pulcheria seems to
understand all that as well as my poor dead sister did. And then, when I
want to rise, such a kind, pretty little hand to help one up! I have long
hated this dwelling. Lime and dust fall from the ceiling in my bedroom,
and here there are wide gaps in the flooring-I stumbled over one yesterday—and
our niggardly landlords, the officials, say that if we want anything
repaired we may do it ourselves, that they have no money left for such
things. Now, under that worthy old man’s roof everything was in the best
order.” The philosopher chuckled aloud and rubbed his hands as he went on:
“Supposing we kick over the traces for once, Philip. Supposing we were to
carry out our friend’s dying wish? Merciful Isis! It would certainly be a
good action, and I have not many to boast of. But cautiously—what do
you say? We can always throw it up at a month’s notice.”

Then he grew grave again, shook his head, and said meditatively: “No, no;
such plans only disturb one’s peace of mind. A pleasant vision! But
scarcely feasible.”

“Not for the present, at any rate,” replied the leech.

“So long as Paula’s fate remains undecided, I beg you to let the matter
rest.”

The old man muttered a curse on her; then he said with a vicious, sharp
flash in his eyes: “That patrician viper! Every where in everything—she
spoils it all! But wait a while! I fancy she will soon be removed from our
path, and then…. No, even now, at the present time, I will not allow
that we should be deprived of what would embellish life, of doing a thing
which may turn the scale in my favor in the day of judgment. The wishes of
a dying man are sacred: So our fathers held it; and they were right. The
old man’s will must be done! Yes, yes, yes. It is settled. As soon as that
hindrance is removed, we will keep house with the two women. I have said;
and I mean it.”

At this point the gardener came in again, and the old man called out to
him:

“Listen, man. We shall live together after all; you shall hear more of
this later. Stay with my people till sundown, but you must keep your own
counsel, for they are all listeners and blabs. The physician here will now
take the melancholy tidings to the unfortunate widow, and then you can
talk it all over with her at night. Nothing startling must take place at
the house there; and with regard to your master, even his death must
remain a secret from every one but us and his family.”

The gardener knew full well how much depended on his silence; Philippus
tacitly agreed to the old man’s arrangement, but for the present he
avoided discussing the matter with the women. When, at length he set off
on his painful errand to the widow, Horapollo dismissed him saying:

“Courage, courage, my Son.—And as you pass by, just glance at our
little garden;—we grieved to see the fine old palm-tree perish; but
now a young and vigorous shoot is growing from the root.”

“It has been drooping since yesterday and will die away,” replied
Philippus shrugging his shoulders.

But the old man exclaimed: “Water it, Gibbus! the palm-tree must be
watered at once.”

“Aye, you have water at hand for that!” retorted the leech, but he added
bitterly as he reached the stairs, “If it were so in all cases!”

“Patience and good purpose will always win,” murmured the old man; and
when he was alone he growled on angrily: “Only be rid of that dry old
palm-tree—his past life in all its relations to that patrician hussy
Away with it, into the fire!—But how am I to get her? How can I
manage it?”

He threw himself back in his arm-chair, rubbing his forehead with the tips
of his fingers. He had come to no result when the negro requested an
audience for some visitors. These were the heads of the senate of Memphis,
who had come as a deputation to ask counsel of the old sage. He, if any
one, would find some means of averting or, at any rate, mitigating the
fearful calamity impending over the town and country, and against which
prayer, sacrifice, processions, and pilgrimages had proved abortive. They
were quite resolved to leave no means untried, not even if heathen magic
should be the last resource.


CHAPTER X.

All Katharina’s sympathy with Heliodora had died finally in the course of
the past, moonless night. She had secretly accompanied her, with her maid
and an old deaf and dumb stable-slave, to a soothsayer—for there
still were many in Memphis, as well as magicians and alchemists; and this
woman had told the young widow that her line of life led to the greatest
happiness, and that even the wildest wishes of her heart would find
fulfilment. What those wishes were Katharina knew only too well; the
probability of their accomplishment had roused her fierce jealousy and
made her hate Heliodora.

Heliodora had gone to consult the sorceress in a simple but rich dress.
Her peplos was fastened on the shoulder, not by an ordinary gold pin, but
by a button which betrayed her taste for fine jewels, as it consisted of a
sapphire of remarkable size; this had at once caught the eye of the witch,
showing her that she had to deal with a woman of rank and wealth. She had
taken Katharina, who had come very plainly dressed, for her companion or
poor friend, so she had promised her no more than the removal of certain
hindrances, and a happy life at last, with a husband no longer young and a
large family of children.

The woman’s business was evidently a paying one; the interior of her house
was conspicuously superior to the wretched hovels which surrounded it, in
the poorest and most squalid part of the town. Outside, indeed, it
differed little from its neighbors; in fact; it was intentionally
neglected, to mislead the authorities, for witchcraft and the practice of
magic arts were under the penalty of death. But the fittings of the
roofless centre-chamber in which she was wont to perform her incantations
and divinations argued no small outlay. On the walls were hangings with
occult figures; the pillars were painted with weird and grewsome pictures;
crucibles and cauldrons of various sizes were simmering over braziers on
little altars; on the shelves and tables stood cups, phials, and vases, a
wheel on which a wryneck hopped up and down, wax images of men and women—some
with needles through their hearts, a cage full of bats, and glass jars
containing spiders, frogs, leeches, beetles, scorpions, centipedes and
other foul creatures; and lengthways down the room was stretched a short
rope walk, used in a Thracian form of magic. Perfumes and pungent vapors
filled the air, and from behind a curtain which hid the performers came a
monotonous music of children’s voices, bells, and dull drumming.

Medea, so the wise woman was called, though scarcely past five and forty,
harmonized in appearance with this strange habitation, full as it was of
objects calculated to rouse repulsion, dread, and amazement. Her face was
pale, and her extraordinary height was increased by a mass of coal-black
hair, curled high over a comb at the very top of her head.

At the end of the first visit paid her by the two young women, who had
taken her by surprise, so that several things were lacking which on the
second occasion proved to be very effective in the exercise of her art,
she had made Heliodora promise to return in three days’ time. The young
widow had kept her word, and had made her appearance punctually with
Katharina.

To be in Egypt, the land of sorcery and the magic arts, without putting
them to the test, was impossible. Even Martina allowed this, though she
did not care for such things for herself. She was content with her lot;
and if any change for the worse were in prospect she would rather not be
tormented beforehand by a wise prophet; nor was it better to be deluded by
a foolish one. Happiness as of Heaven itself she no longer craved; it
would only have disturbed her peace. But she was the last person to think
ill of the young, whose life still lay before them, if they longed to look
into futurity.

The fair widow and her companion crossed the sorceress’ threshold in some
trepidation, and Katharina was the more agitated of the two; for this
afternoon she had seen Philippus leave the house of Rufinus, and not long
after some Arab officials had called there. Paula had come into the garden
shortly before sundown, her eyes red with weeping; and when, soon after,
Pulcheria and her mother had joined her there, Paula had thrown herself on
Joanna’s neck, sobbing so bitterly that the mother and daughter—“whose
tears were near her eyes”—had both followed her example. Something
serious had occurred; but when she had gone to the house to pick up
further information, old Betta, who was particularly snappish with her,
had refused her admission quite rudely.

Then, on their way hither, she and Heliodora had had a painful adventure;
the chariot, lent by Neforis to convey them as far as the edge of the
necropolis, was stopped on the way by a troop of Arab horse, and they were
subjected to a catechism by the leader.

So they entered the house of “Medea of the curls,” as the common people
called the witch, with uneasy and throbbing hearts; they were received,
however, with such servile politeness that they soon recovered themselves,
and even the timid Heliodora began to breathe freely again. The sorceress
knew this time who Katharina was, and paid more respectful attention to
the daughter of the wealthy widow.

The young crescent moon had risen, a circumstance which Medea declared
enabled her to see more clearly into the future than she could do at the
time of the Luna-negers as she called the moonless night. Her inward
vision had been held in typhornian darkness at the time of their first
visit, by the influence of some hostile power. She had felt this as soon
as they had quitted her, but to-day she saw clearer. Her mind’s eye was as
clear as a silver mirror, she had purified it by three days’ fasting and
not a mote could escape her sight.—“Help, ye children of Horapollo!
Help, Hapi and Ye three holy ones!”

“Oh, my beauties, my beauties!” she went on enthusiastically. “Hundreds of
great dames have proved my art, but such splendid fortunes I never before
saw crowding round any two heads as round yours. Do you hear how the
cauldrons of fortune are seething? The very lids lift! Amazing, amazing.”

She stretched out her hand towards the vessels as though conjuring them
and said solemnly: “Abundance of happiness; brimming over, brimming over!
Bursting storehouses! Zefa-oo Metramao. Return, return, to the right
levels, the right heights, the right depth, the right measure! Your Elle
Mei-Measurer, Leveller, require them, Techuti, require them, double Ibis!”

She made them both sit down on elegant seats in front of the boiling pots,
tied the “thread of Anubis” round the ring-finger of each, asked in a low
whisper between muttered words of incantation for a hair of each, and
after placing the hairs both in one cauldron she cried out with wild
vehemence, as though the weal or woe of her two visitors were involved in
the smallest omission:

“Press the finger with the thread of Anubis on your heart; fix your eyes
on the cauldron and the steam which rises to the spirits above, the
spirits of light, the great One on high!”

The two women obeyed the sorceress’ directions with beating hearts, while
she began spinning round on her toes with dizzy rapidity; her curls flew
out, and the magic wand in her extended hand described a large and
beautiful curve. Suddenly, and as if stricken by terror, she stopped her
whirl, and at the same instant the lamps went out and the only light was
from the stars and the twinkling coals under the cauldrons. The low music
died away, and a fresh strong perfume welled out from behind the curtain.

Medea fell on her knees, lifted up her hands to Heaven, threw her head so
far back that her whole face was turned up to the sky and her eyes gazed
straight up at the stars-an attitude only possible to so supple a spine.
In this torturing attitude she sang one invocation after another, to the
zenith of the blue vault over their heads, in a clear voice of fervent
appeal. Her body was thrown forward, her mass of hair no longer stood up
but was turned towards the two young women, who every moment expected that
the supplicant would be suffocated by the blood mounting to her head, and
fall backwards; but she sang and sang, while her white teeth glittered in
the starlight that fell straight upon her face. Presently, in the midst of
the torrent of demoniacal names and magic formulas that she sang and
warbled out, a piteous and terrifying sound came from behind the curtain
as of two persons gasping, sighing, and moaning: one voice seemed to be
that of a man oppressed by great anguish; the other was the
half-suffocated wailing of a suffering child. This soon became louder, and
at length a voice said in Egyptian: “Water, a drink of water.”

The woman started to her feet, exclaiming: “It is the cry of the poor and
oppressed who have been robbed to enrich those who have too much already;
the lament of those whom Fate has plundered to heap you with wealth enough
for hundreds.” As she spoke these words, in Greek and with much unction,
she turned to the curtain and added solemnly, but in Egyptian: “Give drink
to the thirsty; the happy ones will spare him a drop from their overflow.
Give the white drink to the wailing child-spirit, that he may be soothed
and quenched.—Play, music, and drown the lamentations of the spirits
in sorrow.”

Then, turning to Heliodora’s kettle she said sternly, as if in obedience
to some higher power:

“Seven gold pieces to complete the work,”—and while the young widow
drew out her purse the sorceress lighted the lamps, singing as she did so
and as she dropped the coin into the boiling fluid: “Pure, bright gold!
Sunlight buried in a mine! Holy Seven. Shashef, Shashef! Holy Seven, marry
and mingle—melt together!”

When this was done she poured out of the cauldron a steaming fluid as
black as ink, into a shallow saucer, called Heliodora to her side, and
told her what she could see in the mirror of its surface.

It was all fair, and gave none but delightful replies to the widow’s
questioning. And all the sorceress said tended to confirm the young
woman’s confidence in her magic art; she described Orion as exactly as
though she saw him indeed in the surface of the ink, and said he was
travelling with an older man. And lo! he was returning already; in the
bright mirror she could see Heliodora clasped in her lover’s arms; and now—it
was like a picture: A stranger—not the bishop of Memphis—laid
her hand in his and blessed their union before the altar in a vast and
magnificent cathedral.

Katharina, who had been chilled with apprehensions and a thrill of awe, as
she listened to Medea’s song, listened to every word with anxious
attention; what Medea said—how she described Orion—that was
more wonderful than anything else, beyond all she had believed possible.
And the cathedral in which the lovers were to be united was the church of
St. Sophia at Constantinople, of which she had heard so much.

A tight grip seemed to clutch her heart; still, eagerly as she listened to
Medea’s words, her sharp ears heard the doleful gasping and whimpering
behind the hanging; and this distressed and dismayed her; her breath came
short, and a deep, torturing sense of misfortune possessed her wholly. The
wailing child-spirit within, a portion of whose joys Medea said had been
allotted to her—nay, she had not robbed him, certainly not—for
who could be more wretched than she? It was only that beautiful,
languishing young creature who was so lavishly endowed by Fortune with
gifts enough and to spare for others without number. Oh! if she could but
have snatched them from her one after another, from the splendid ruby she
was wearing to-day, to Orion’s love!

She was pale and tremulous as she rose at the call of the sorceress, after
she also had offered seven gold pieces. She would gladly have purchased
annihilating curses to destroy her happier rival.

The black liquid in the saucer began to stir, and a sharply smelling vapor
rose from it; the witch blew this aside, and as soon as the murky fluid
was a little cool, and the surface was smooth and mirror-like, she asked
Katharina what she most desired to know. But the answer was checked on her
lips; a fearful thundering and roaring suddenly made the house shake;
Medea dropped the saucer with a piercing shriek, the contents splashed up,
and warm, sticky drops fell on the girl’s arms and dress. She was quite
overcome with the startling horror, and Heliodora, who could herself
scarcely stand, had to support her, for she tottered and would have
fallen.

The sorceress had vanished; a half-grown lad, a young man, and a very tall
Egyptian girl in scanty attire were rushing about the room. They flew
hither and thither, throwing all the vessels they could lay hands on into
an opening in the floor from which they had lifted a trap-door; pouring
water on the braziers and extinguishing the lights, while they drove the
two strangers into a corner of the hall, rating and abusing them. Then the
lads clambered like cats up to the opening in the roof, and sprang off and
away.

A shrill whistle rang through the house, and in moment Medea burst into
the room again, clutched the two trembling women by the shoulders, and
exclaimed: “For Christ’s sake, be merciful! My life is at stake Sorcery is
punishable by death. I have done my best for you. You came here—that
is what you must say—out of charity to nurse the sick.” She pushed
them both behind the hanging whence they still heard feeble groans, into a
low, stuffy room, and the over-grown girl slipped in behind them.

Here, on miserable couches, lay an old man shivering, and showing dark
spots on his bare breast and face: and a child of five, whose crimson
cheeks were burning with fever.

Heliodora felt as if she must suffocate in the plague stricken, heavy
atmosphere, and Katharina clung to her helplessly; but the soothsayer
pulled her away, saying: “Each to one bed: you to the child, and you—the
old man.”

Involuntarily they obeyed the woman who was panting with fright. The
water-wagtail, who never in her life thought of a sick person, turned very
sick and looked away from the sufferer; but the your widow, who had spent
many and many a night by the death-bed of a man she had loved, and who,
tender-hearted, had often tended her sick slaves with her own hand, looked
compassionately into the pretty, pain-stricken face of the child, and
wiped the dews from his clammy brow.

Katharina shuddered; but her attention was presently attracted to
something fresh; from the other side of the house came a clatter of
weapons, the door was pushed open, and the physician Philippus walked into
the room. He desired the night-watch, who were with him, to wait outside.
He had come by the command of the police authorities, to whose ears
information had been brought that there were persons sick of the plague in
the house of Medea, and that she, nevertheless, continued to receive
visitors. It had long been decided that she must be taken in the act of
sorcery, and warning had that day been given that she expected illustrious
company in the evening. The watch were to find her red-handed, so to
speak; the leech was to prove whether her house was indeed
plague-stricken; and in either case the senate wished to have the
sorceress safe in prison and at their mercy, though even Philippus had not
been taken into their confidence.

The visitors he had come upon were the last he had expected to find here.
He looked at them with a disapproving shake of the head, interrupted the
woman’s voluble asseverations that these noble ladies had come, out of
Christian charity, to comfort and help the sick, with a rough exclamation:
“A pack of lies!” and at once led the coerced sick nurses out of the
house. He then represented to them the fearful risk to which their folly
had exposed them, and insisted very positively on their returning home
and, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, taking a bath and putting
on fresh garments.

With trembling knees they found their way back to the chariot; but even
before it could start Heliodora had broken down in tears, while Katharina,
throwing herself back on the cushions, thought, as she glanced at her
weeping companion: “This is the beginning of the wonderful happiness she
was promised! It is to be hoped it may continue!”

It seemed indeed as though Katharina’s guardian spirit had overheard this
amiable wish; for, as the chariot drove past the guard-house into the
court-yard of the governor’s house, it was stopped by armed men with
brown, warlike faces, and they had to wait some minutes till an Arab
officer appeared to enquire who they were, and what they wanted. This they
explained in fear and trembling, and they then learnt that the Arab
government had that very evening taken possession of the residence. Orion
was accused of serious crimes, and his guests were to depart on the
following day.

Katharina, who was known to the interpreter, was allowed to go with
Heliodora to the senator’s wife; she might also use the chariot to return
home in, and if she pleased, take the Byzantines with her, for the palace
would be in the hands of the soldiery for the next few days.

The two young women held council. Katharina pressed her friend to come at
once to her mother’s house, for she felt certain that they were
plague-stricken, and how could they procure a bath in a house full of
soldiers? Heliodora could not and must not remain with Martina in this
condition, and the senator’s wife could follow her next day. Her mother,
she added, would be delighted to welcome so dear a guest.

The widow was passive, and when Martina had gladly consented to accept the
invitation of her “delivering angel,” the chariot carried them to
Susannah’s house. The widow had long been in bed, firmly convinced that
her daughter was asleep and dreaming in her own pretty room.

Katharina would not have her disturbed, and the bath-room was so far from
Susannah’s apartment that she slept on quietly while Katharina and her
guest purified themselves.


CHAPTER XI.

The inhabitants of the governor’s residence passed a fearful night.
Martina asked herself what sin she had committed that she, of all people,
should be picked out to witness such a disaster.

And where were her schemes of marriage now? Any movement in such heat was
indeed scarcely endurable; but she would have moved from one part of the
house to another a dozen times, and allowed herself to be tossed hither
and thither like a ball, if it could have enabled her to save her dear
“great Sesostris” from such hideous peril. And at the bottom of all this
was, no doubt, this wild, senseless business of the nuns.

And these Arabs! They simply helped themselves to whatever they fancied,
and were, of course, in a position to strip the son of the great Mukaukas
of all he possessed and reduce him to beggary. A pretty business this!

Heliodora, to be sure, had enough for both, and she and her husband would
not forget them in their will; but there was more than this in the balance
now: it was a matter of life and death.

A cold shudder ran through her at the thought; and her fears were only too
well founded: the black Arab who had come to parley with her, and had
finally allowed her to remain under this roof till next day, had told her
as much through the interpreter. A fearful, horrible, nameless
catastrophe! And that she should be in the midst of it and have to see it
all!

Then her husband, her poor Justinus! How hard this would fall on him! She
could not cease weeping; and before she fell asleep she prayed fervently
indeed, to the saints and the dear Mother of God, that they would bring
all to a happy issue. She closed her eyes on the thought: “What a
misfortune!” and she woke to it again early in the morning.

She, however, had known nothing of the worst horrors of that fatal night.

A troop of Arab soldiers had crossed the Nile at nightfall, some on foot
or on horseback and some in boats, led by Obada the Vekeel, and had
invested the governor’s residence. When they had fully assured themselves
that Orion was indeed absent they took Nilus prisoner. It was then Obada’s
business to inform the Mukaukas’ widow of what had happened, and to tell
her that she must quit the house next day. This must be done, because he
had views of his own as to what was to become of the venerable house of
the oldest family in the country.

Neforis was still up, and when the interpreter was announced as Obada’s
forerunner, she was in the fountain-room. He found her a good deal
excited; for, although she was incapable of any consecutive train of
thought and, when her mind was required to exert itself, her ideas only
came like lightning-flashes through her brain, she had observed that
something unusual was going on. Sebek and her maid had evaded her
enquiries, and would say no more than that Amru’s representative had come
to speak with the young master. It seemed to be something important,
perhaps some false accusation.

The interpreter now explained that Orion himself was accused of having
planned and aided an enterprise which had cost the lives of twelve Arab
soldiers; and, as she knew, any injury inflicted even on a single Moslem
by an Egyptian was punished by death and the confiscation of his goods.
Besides this, her son was accused of a robbery.

At the close of this communication, to which Neforis listened with a
vacant stare, horrified and at last almost crushed, the interpreter begged
that she would grant the Vekeel an audience.

“Not just yet—give me a few minutes,” said the widow, bringing out
the words with difficulty: first she must have recourse to her secret
specific. When she had done so, she expressed her readiness to see Obada.
Her son’s swarthy foe was anxious to appear a mild and magnanimous man in
her eyes, so it was with flattering servility and many smirking grins that
he communicated to her the necessity for her quitting the house in which
she had passed the longest and happiest half of her life, and no later
than next day.

To his announcement that her private fortune would remain untouched, and
that she would be at liberty to reside in Memphis or to go to her own
house in Alexandria, she indifferently replied that “she should see.”

She then enquired whether the Arabs had yet succeeded in capturing her
son.

“Not actually,” replied the Vekeel. “But we know where he is hiding, and
by to-morrow or the next day we shall lay hands on the unhappy young man.”

But, as he spoke, the widow detected a malicious gleam in his eyes to
which, so far, he had tried to give a sympathetic expression, and she went
on with a slight shake of the bead: “Then it is a case of life and death?”

“Compose yourself, noble lady,” was the reply. “Of death alone.”

Neforis looked up to heaven and for some minutes did not speak; then she
asked:

“And who has accused him of robbery?” “The head of his own Church….”

“Benjamin?” she murmured with a peculiar smile. Only yesterday she had
made her will in favor of the patriarch and the Church. “If Benjamin could
see that,” said she to herself, “he would change his views of you and your
people, and have prayers constantly said for us.”

As she spoke no more the Vekeel sat looking at her inquisitively and
somewhat at a loss, till at length she rose, and with no little dignity
dismissed him, remarking that now their business was at an end and she had
nothing further to say to him.

This closed the interview; and as the Vekeel quitted the fountain-room he
muttered to himself: “What a woman! Either she is possessed and her brain
is crazed, or she is of a rarely heroic pattern.”

Neforis was supported to her own room; when she was in bed she desired her
maid to bring a small box out of her chest and place it on the little
table containing medicines by the bead of the couch.

As soon as she was alone she took out two letters which George had written
to her before their marriage, and a poem which Orion had once addressed to
her; she tried to read them, but the words danced before her eyes, and she
was forced to lay them aside. She took up a little packet containing hair
cut from the heads of her sons after death, and a lock of her husband’s.
She gazed on these dear memorials with rapt tenderness, and now the poppy
juice began to take effect: the images of those departed ones rose clear
in her mind, and she was as near to them as though they were standing in
living actuality by her side.

Still holding the curls in her hand, she looked up into vacancy, trying to
apprehend clearly what had occurred within the last few hours and what lay
before her: She must leave this room, this ample couch, this house—all,
in short, that was bound up with the dearest memories of those she had
loved. She was to be forced to this—but did it beseem her to submit
to this Negro, this stranger in the house where she was mistress? She
shook her head with a scornful smile; then opening a glass phial, which
was still half-full of opium pillules, she placed a few on her tongue and
again gazed sky-wards.—Another face now looked down on her; she saw
the husband from whom not even death could divide her, and at his feet
their two murdered sons. Presently Orion seemed to rise out of the clouds,
as a diver comes up from the water, and make for the shore of the island
on which George and the other two seemed to be standing. His father opened
his arms to receive him and clasped him to his heart, while she herself—or
was it only her wraith—went to the others, who hurried forward to
greet her tenderly; and then her husband, too, met her, and she found rest
on his bosom.

For hours, and long before the incursion of the Arabs, she had been
feeling half stunned and her mind clouded; but now a delicious, slumberous
lethargy came over her, to which her whole being urged her to yield. But
every time her eyes closed, the thought of the morrow shot through her
brain, and finally, with a great effort, she sat up, took some water—which
was always close at hand—shook into it the remaining pillules in the
bottle, and drank it off to the very last drop.

Her hand was steady; the happy smile on her lips, and the eager expression
of her eyes, might have led a spectator to believe that she was thirsty
and had mixed herself a refreshing draught. She had no look of a desperate
creature laying violent hands on her own life; she felt no hesitancy, no
fear of death, no burthen of the guilt she was incurring—nothing but
ecstatic weariness and hope; blissful hope of a life without end, united
to those she loved.

Hardly had she swallowed the deadly draught when she shivered with a
sudden chill. Raising herself a little she called her maid, who was
sitting up in the adjoining room; and as the woman looked alarmed at her
mistress’s fixed stare, she stammered out: “A priest—quick—I
am dying.”

The woman flew off to the viridarium to call Sebek, who was standing in
front of the tablinum with the Vekeel; she told him what had happened, and
the Negro gave him leave to obey his dying mistress, escorting him as far
as the gate. Just outside, the steward met a deacon who had been giving
the blessing of the Church to a poor creature dying of the pestilence, and
in a few minutes they were standing by the widow’s bed.

The locks of her sons’ hair lay by her side; her hands were folded over a
crucifix; but her eyes, which had been fixed on the features of the
Saviour, had wandered from it and again gazed up to Heaven.

The priest spoke her name, but she mistook him for her son and murmured in
loving accents:

“Orion, poor, poor child! And you, Mary, my darling, my sweet little pet!
Your father—yes, dear boy, only come with me.—Your father is
kind again and forgives you. All those I loved are together now, and no
one—Who can part us? Husband—George, listen…”

The priest performed his office, but she paid no heed, still staring
upwards; her smiling lips continued to move, but no articulate sound came
from them. At last they were still, her eyelids fell, her hands dropped
the crucifix, a slight shiver ran through her limbs, which then relaxed,
and she opened her mouth as though to draw a deeper breath. But it closed
no more, and when the faithful steward pressed her lips together her face
was rigid and her heart had ceased to beat.

The honest man sobbed aloud; when he carried the melancholy news to the
Vekeel, Obada growled out a curse, and said to a subaltern officer who was
super-intending the loading of his camels with the treasures from the
tablinum:

“I meant to have treated that cursed old woman with conspicuous
generosity, and now she has played me this trick; and in Medina they will
lay her death at my door, unless…”

But here he broke off; and as he once more watched the loading of the
camels, he only thought to himself: “In playing for such high stake’s, a
few gold pieces more or less do not count. A few more heads must fall yet—the
handsome Egyptian first and foremost.—If the conspirators at Medina
only play their part! The fall of Omar means that of Amru, and that will
set everything right.”


CHAPTER XII.

Katharina slept little and rose very early, as was her habit, while
Heliodora was glad to sleep away the morning hours. In this scorching
season they were, to be sure, the pleasantest of the twenty-four, and the
water-wagtail usually found them so; but to-day, though a splendid Indian
flower had bloomed for the first time, and the head gardener pointed it
out to her with just pride, she could not enjoy it and be glad. It might
perish for aught she cared, and the whole world with it!

There was no one stirring yet in the next garden, but the tall leech
Philippus might be seen coming along the road to pay a visit to the women.

A few swift steps carried her to the gate, whence she called him. She must
entreat him to say nothing of her last night’s expedition; but before she
had time to prefer her request he had paused to tell her that the widow of
the Mukaukas, overcome by alarm and horror, had followed her husband to
the next world.

There had been a time when Katharina had been devoted to Neforis,
regarding her as a second mother; when the governor’s residence had seemed
to her the epitome of all that was great, venerable, and illustrious; and
when she had been proud and happy to be allowed to run in and out, and to
be loved like a child of the family. The tears that started to her eyes
were sincere, and it was a relief to her, too, to lay aside the gay and
defiantly happy mien which she wore as a mask, while all in her soul was
dark, wild, and desperate.

The physician understood her grief; he readily promised not to betray her
to any one, and did not blame her, though he again pointed out the danger
she had incurred and earnestly insisted that every article of clothing,
which she or Heliodora had worn, must be destroyed. The subtle germ of the
malady, he said, clung to everything; every fragment of stuff which had
been touched by the plague-stricken was especially fitted to carry the
infection and disseminate the disease. She listened to him in deep alarm,
but she could satisfy him on this point; everything she or her companion
had worn had been burnt in the bath-room furnace.

The physician went on; and she, heedless of the growing heat, wandered
restlessly about the grounds. Her heart beat with short, quick, painful
jerks; an invisible burthen weighed upon her and prevented her breathing
freely. A host of torturing thoughts haunted her unbidden; they were not
to be exorcised, and added to her misery: Neforis dead; the residence in
the hands of the Arabs; Orion bereft of his possessions and held guilty of
a capital crime.

And the peaceful house beyond the hedge—what trouble was hanging
over its white-haired master and his guileless wife and daughter? A storm
was gathering, she could see it approaching—and beyond it, like
another murky, death-dealing thunder-cloud, was the pestilence, the
fearful pestilence.

And it was she, a fragile, feeble girl—a volatile water-wagtail—who
had brought all these terrors down on them, who had opened the
sluice-gates through which ruin was now beginning to pour in on all around
her. She could see the flood surging, swelling—saw it lapping round
her own house, her own feet; drops of sweat bedewed her forehead and hands
from terror at the mere thought. And yet, and yet!—If she had really
had the power to bind calamity in the clouds, to turn the tide back into
its channel, she would not have done so! The uttermost that she longed
for, as the fruit of the seed she had sown and which she longed to see
ripen, had not yet come to pass—and to see that she would endure
anything, even death and parting from this deceitful, burning, unlovely
world.

Death awaited Orion; and before it overtook him he should know who had
sharpened the sword. Perhaps he might escape with his life; but the Arab
would not disgorge what he once had seized, and if that young and splendid
Croesus should come out of prison alive, but a beggar, then—then….
And as for Paula! As for Heliodora! For once her little hand had wrenched
the thunderbolts from Zeus’ eagle, and she would find one for them!

The sense of her terrible power, to which more than one victim had already
fallen, intoxicated her. She would drive Orion—Orion who had
betrayed her—into utter ruin and misery; she would see him a beggar
at her feet!—And this it was that gave her courage to do her worst;
this, and this alone. What she would do then, she herself knew not; that
lay as yet in the womb of the Future. She might take a fancy to do
something kind, compassionate, and tender.

By the time she went into the house again her fears and depression had
vanished; revived energy possessed her soul, and the little eavesdropper
and tale-bearer had become in this short hour a purposeful and terrible
woman, ready for any crime.

“Poor little lamb!” thought Philippus, as he went into Rufinus’ garden.
“That miserable man may have brought pangs enough to her little heart!”

His old friend’s garden-plot was deserted. Under the sycamore, however, he
perceived the figures of a very tall young man and a pretty woman,
delicate, fair-haired, and rather pale. The big young fellow was holding a
skein of wool on his huge, outstretched hands; the girl was winding it on
to a ball. These were Rustem the Masdakite and Mandane, both now recovered
from their injuries; the girl, indeed, had been restored to the new life
of a calm and understanding mind. Philippus had watched over this
wonderful resuscitation with intense interest and care. He ascribed it, in
the first instance, to the great loss of blood from the wound in her head;
and secondly, to the fresh air and perfect nursing she had had. All that
was now needful was to protect her against agitation and violent emotions.
In the Masdakite she had found a friend and a submissive adorer; and
Philippus could rejoice as he looked at the couple, for his skill had
indeed brought him nothing but credit.

His greeting to them was cheery and hearty, and in answer to his enquiry:
“How are you getting on?” Rustem replied, “As lively as a fish in water,”
adding, as he pointed to Mandane, “and I can say the same for my
fellow-countrywoman.”

“You are agreed then?” said the leech, and she nodded eager assent.

At this Philippus shook his finger at the man, exclaiming: “Do not get too
tightly entangled here, my friend. Who knows how soon Haschim may call you
away.”

Then, turning his back on the convalescents, he murmured to himself: “Here
again is something to cheer us in the midst of all this trouble-these two,
and little Mary.”

Rufinus, before starting on his journey, had sent back all the crippled
children he had had in his care to their various parents; thus the
anteroom was empty.

The women apparently were at breakfast in the dining-room. No, he was
mistaken; it was yet too early, and Pulcheria was still busy laying the
table. She did not notice him as he went in, for she was busy arranging
grapes, figs, pomegranates and sycamore-figs, a fruit resembling
mulberries in flavor which grow in clusters from the trunk of the
tree-between leaves, which the drought and heat of the past weeks had
turned almost yellow. The tempting heap was fast rising in an elegant
many-hued hemisphere; but her thoughts were not in her occupation, for
tears were coursing each other down her cheeks.

“Those tears are for her father,” thought the leech as he watched her from
the threshold. “Poor child!”—How often he had heard his old friend
call her so!

And till now he had never thought of her but as a child; but to-day he
must look at her with different eyes—her own father had enjoined it.
And in fact he gazed at her as though he beheld a miracle.

What had come over little Pulcheria?—How was it that he had never
noticed it before?—It was a well-grown maiden that he saw, moving
round, snowwhite arms; and he could have sworn that she had only thin,
childish arms, for she had thrown them round his neck many a time when she
had ridden up and down the garden on his back, calling him her fine horse.

How long ago was that? Ten years! She was now seventeen!

And how slender, and delicate, and white her hands were—those hands
for which her mother had often scolded her when, after building castles of
sand, she had sat down to table unwashed.

Now she was laying the grapes round the pomegranates, and he remembered
how Horapollo, only yesterday, had praised her dainty skill.

The windows were well screened, but a few sunbeams forced their way into
the room and fell on her red-gold hair. Even the fair Boeotians, whom he
had admired in his student-days at Athens, had no such glorious crown of
hair. That she had a sweet and pretty face he had always known; but now,
as she raised her eyes and first observed him, meeting his gaze with
maidenly embarrassment and sweet surprise, and yet with perfect welcome,
he felt himself color and he had to pause a moment to collect himself
before he could respond with something more than an ordinary greeting to
hers. The dialogue that flashed through his mind in that instant began
with sentences full of meaning. But all he said was:

“Yes, here I am,” which really did not deserve the hearty reply:

“Thank God for that!” nor the bewitching embarrassment of the explanation
that ensued: “on my mother’s account.”

Again he blushed; he, the man who had long since forgotten his youthful
shyness. He asked after Dame Joanna, and how she was bearing her trouble,
and then he said gravely: “I was the bearer of bad news yesterday, and
to-day again I have come like a bird of ill-omen.”

“You?” she said with a smile, and the simple word conveyed so sweet a
doubt of his capacity for bringing evil that he could not help saying to
himself that his friend, in leaving this child, this girl, to his care,
had bequeathed to him the best gift that one mortal can devise to another:
a dear, trustful, innocent daughter—or no, a younger sister—as
pure, as engaging, and as lovable as only the child of such parents could
be.

While he stood telling her of what had happened at the governor’s house,
he noted how deeply, for Paula’s and Mary’s sake, she took to heart the
widow’s death, though Neforis had been nothing to her; and he decided that
he would at once make Pulcheria’s mother acquainted with her dead
husband’s wishes.

All this did not supplant his old passion for Paula; far from it—that
tortured him still as deeply and hotly as ever. But at the same time he
was conscious of its evil influence; he knew that by cherishing it he was
doing himself harm—nay a real injury since it was not returned. He
knew that within reach of Paula, and condemned to live with her, he could
never recover his peace, but must suffer constant pangs. It was only away
from her, and yet under the same roof with Joanna and her daughter, that
he could ever hope to be a contented and happy man; but he dared not put
this thought into words.

Pulcheria detected that he had something in reserve, and feared lest he
should know of some new impending woe; however, on this head he could
reassure her, telling her that, on the contrary, he had something in his
mind which, so far at least as he was concerned, was a source of pleasure.
Her grieved and anxious spirit could indeed hardly believe him; and he
begged her not to lose all hope in better days, asking her if she had true
and entire trust in him.

She warmly replied that he must surely feel that she did; and now, as the
others came into the room, she nodded to her mother, whom she had already
seen quite early, and offering him her hand shook his heartily. This had
been a restful interval; but the sight of Paula, and the news he had to
give her, threw him back into his old depressed and miserable mood.

Little Mary, whose cheeks had recovered their roses and who looked quite
well again, threw her arms round Paula’s neck as she heard the evil
tidings; but Paula herself was calmer than he had expected. She turned
very pale at the first shock, but soon she could listen to him with
composure, and presently quite recovered her usual demeanor. Philippus, as
he watched her, had to control himself sternly, and as soon as possible he
took his leave.

It was as though he had been fated once more to see with agonizing
clearness what he had lost in her; she walked through life as though borne
up by lofty feeling, and a thoughtful radiance lent her noble features a
bewitching charm which grieved while it enchanted him.

Orion a prisoner, and all his possessions confiscated! The thought had
horrified her for a little while; but then it had come to her that this
was just as it should be—that what had at first looked like a
dreadful disaster had been sent to enable her love to cast off its husks,
to appear in all its loftiness and purity, and to give it, by the help of
the All-merciful, its true consecration.

She did not fear for his life, for he had told her and written to her that
Amru had been paternal in his kindness; and all that had occurred was, she
was sure, the work of the Vekeel, of whose odious and cruel character he
had given her a horrible picture that day when Rufinus had gone to warn
the abbess.

When Philippus had left his friends, he sighed deeply. How different he
had found these women from what he had expected. Yes, his old friend knew
men well!

From trifling details he had succeeded in forming a more accurate idea of
Pulcheria than the leech himself had gained in years of intimacy.
Horapollo had foreseen, too, that the danger which threatened the
Mukaukas’ son would fan Paula’s passions like a fresh breeze; and Joanna,
frail, ailing Joanna! she had behaved heroically under the loss of the
companion with whom she had lived for so many years in faithful love. He
could not help comparing her with the wretched Neforis; what was it that
enabled one to bear the equal loss with so much more dignity than the
other? Nothing but the presence of the tender-hearted Pulcheria, who
shared her sorrow with such beautiful resignation, such ready and complete
sympathy. This the governor’s widow had wholly lacked; and how happy were
they who could call such a heart their own! He walked through the garden
with his head bent, and looking neither to the right hand nor the left.

The Masdakite, who was still sitting with Mandane under the sycamore, as
indifferent to the torrid heat as she was, looked after him, and said with
a sigh as he pointed to him:

“There he goes. This is the first time he ever said a rude word to you or
to me: or did you not understand?”

“Oh yes,” said she in a low voice, looking down at her needlework.

They talked in Persian, for she had not forgotten the language which her
mother had spoken till her dying day.

Life is sometimes as strange as a fairy-tale; and the accident was indeed
wonderful which had brought these two beings, of all others, at the same
time to the sick room. His distant home was also hers, and he even knew
her uncle—her father’s brother—and her father’s sad history.

When the Greek army had taken possession of the province where they had
lived, the men had fled into the woods with their flocks and herds, while
the women and children took refuge in the fortress which defended the main
road. This had not long held out against the Byzantines, and the women,
among them Mandane with her mother, had been handed over to the soldiers
as precious booty. Her father had then joined the troops to rescue the
women, but he and his comrades had only lost their lives in the attempt.
To this day the valiant man’s end was a tale told in his native place, and
his property and valuable rose gardens now belonged to his younger
brother. So the two convalescents had plenty to talk about.

It was curious to note how clearly the memories of her childhood were
stamped on Mandane’s mind.

She had laid her wounded head on the pillow of sickness with a darkened
brain, and the new pain had lifted the veil from her mind as a storm
clears the oppressive atmosphere of a sultry summer’s day. She loved to
linger now among the scenes of her childhood—the time when she had a
mother.—Or she would talk of the present; all between was like a
night-sky black, and only lighted up by an awful comet and shining stars.
That comet was Orion. All she had enjoyed with him and suffered through
him she consigned to the period of her craziness; she had taught herself
to regard it all as part of the madness to which she had been a victim.
Her nature was not capable of cherishing hatred and she could feel no
animosity towards the Mukaukas’ son. She thought of him as of one who,
without evil intent, had done her great wrong; one whom she might not even
remember without running into peril.

“Then you mean to say,” the Masdakite began once more, “that you would
really miss me if Haschim sent for me?”

“Yes indeed, Rustem; I should be very sorry.”

“Oh!” said the other, passing his hand over his big head, on which the
dense mane of hair which had been shaved off was beginning to grow again.
“Well then, Mandane, in that case—I wanted to say it yesterday, but
I could not get it out.—Tell me: why would you be sorry if I were to
leave you?”

“Because—well, no one can have all their reasons ready; because you
have always been kind to me; and because you came from my country, and
talk Persian with me as my mother used.”

“Is that all?” said the man slowly, and he rubbed his forehead.

“No, no. Because—if once you go away, you will not be here.”

“Aye that is it; that is just the thing. And if you would be sorry for
that, then you must have liked being here—with me.”

“And why not? It has been very nice,” said the girl blushing and trying
not to meet his eyes.

“That it has—and that it is!” cried Rustem, striking his palm with
the other huge fist. “And that is why I must have it out; that is why, if
we have any sense, we two need never part.”

“But your master is sure to want you,” said she with growing confusion,
“and we cannot always remain a burthen on the kind folks here. I shall not
work at the loom again; but as I am now free, and have the scroll that
proves it, I must soon look about for some employment. And a strong,
healthy fellow like you cannot always be nursing yourself.”

“Nursing myself!” and he laughed gaily. “I will earn money, and enough for
three!”

“By your camels always, up and down the country?”

“I have done with that,” said he with a grin. “We will go back to our own
country; there I will buy a good piece of pasture land, for my eldest
brother has our little estate, and you may ask Haschim whether I
understand camel-breeding.”

“But Rustem, consider.”

“Consider! Think this, and think that! Where there’s a will there’s a way.
That is the upshot of it all. And if you mean to say that before you buy
you must have money, and that the best may come to grief, all I can tell
you is…. Can you read? No? nor I; but here in my pocket I have my
accounts in the master’s own hand. Eleven thousand, three hundred and
sixty drachmae were due to me for wages the last time we reckoned: all the
profit the master had set down to my credit since I led his caravan. He
has kept almost all of it for me; for food was allowed, and there was
almost always a bit of stuff for a garment to be found among the bales,
and I never was a sot. Eleven thousand, three hundred and sixty drachmae!
Hey, little one, that is the figure. And now what do you say? Can we buy
something with that? Yes or no?”

He looked at her triumphantly, and she eagerly replied: “Yes, yes indeed;
and in our country I think something worth having.”

“And we—you and I—we will begin a quite new life. I was
seventeen when I first set out with my master, and I was twenty-six last
midsummer. How many years wandering does that make?”

They both thought this over for some time; then Mandane said doubtfully

“If I am not mistaken it is eight.”

“I believe it is nine,” he exclaimed. “Let us see. Here, give me your
little paw! There, I begin with seventeen, that is where I started. First
your little-finger—what a mite of a thing, and then the rest.” He
took her right hand and counted off her fingers till he ended with the
last finger of the left. The result puzzled him; he shook his head,
saying: “There are ten fingers on both hands, sure enough, and yet it
cannot be ten years; it is nine at most I know.”

He began the counting, which he liked uncommonly, all over again; but with
the same result. Mandane said it was but nine, she had counted it up
herself; and he agreed, and declared that her little fingers must be
bewitched. And this game would have gone on still longer but that she
remembered that the seventeen must not be included at all, and that he
ought to begin with eighteen. Rustem could not immediately take this in,
and even when he admitted it he did not release her hand, but went on with
gay resolution:

“And you see, my girl, I mean to keep this little hand—you may pull
it away if you choose—but it is mine, and the pretty little maid,
and all that belongs to it. And I will take you and both your hands,
bewitched fingers and all, home with me. There they may weave and stitch
as much as you like; but as man and wife no one shall part us, and we will
lead a life such a life! The joys of Paradise shall be no better than a
rap on the skull with an olive-wood log in comparison!”

He tried to take her hand again, but she drew it away, saying in deep
confusion and without looking up: “No, Rustem. I was afraid yesterday that
it would come to this; but it can never, never be. I am grateful—oh!
so grateful; but no, it cannot be, and that must be the end of it. I can
never be your wife. Rustem.”

“No?” he asked with a scowl, and the veins swelled in his low forehead.
“Then you have been making a fool of me!—as to the gratitude you
talk of….”

He stood up in hot excitement; she laid her hand on his arm, drew him down
on to the seat again, and ventured to steal an imploring look into his
eyes, which never could long flash with anger. Then she said:

“How you break out! I shall really and truly be very grieved to part from
you; cannot you see that I am fond of you? But indeed, indeed it will
never do, I—oh! if only I might go back, home, and with you. Yes,
with you, as your wife. What a proud and happy thought! And how gladly
would I work for us both—for I am very handy and hard-working,
but…”

“But?” he repeated, and he put his big, sun-burnt face close to hers,
looking as if he could break her in pieces.

“But it cannot be, for your sake; it must not be, positively, certainly. I
will not make you so bad a return for all your kindness. What! have you
forgotten what I was, what I am? You, as a freeman, will soon have a nice
little estate at home, and may command respect and reverence from all; but
how different it would be if you had a wife like me at your heels—if
only from the fact that I was once a slave.”

“That is the history of it all!” he interrupted, and his brow cleared.
“That is what is troubling your dear little soul! But do you not know who
and what I am? Have I not told you what a Masdakite is?

We Masdakites believe, nay, we know, that all men are born equal, and that
this mad-cap world would be a better place if there were neither masters
nor servants; however, as things are, so they must remain. The great Lord
of Heaven will suffer it yet for a season; but sooner or later, perhaps
very soon, everything will be quite different, and it is our business to
make ready for the day of equality. Then Paradise will return on earth;
there will be none greater or less than another, but we shall all walk
hand-in-hand and stand by each other on an equal footing. Then shall war
and misery cease; for all that is fair and good on earth belongs to all
men in common; and then all men shall be as willing to give and to help
others, as they now are to seize and to oppress.—We have no marriage
bond like other people; but when a man loves a woman he says, ‘Will you be
mine?’ and if her heart consents she follows him home; and one may quit
the other if love grows cold. Still, no married couple, whether Christian
or Parsee, ever clung together more faithfully than my parents or my
grandparents; and we will do the same to the end, for our love will bind
us firmly together with strong cords that will last longer than our lives.—So
now you know the doctrine of our master Masdak; my father and grandfather
both followed it, and I was taught it by my mother when I was a little
child. All in our village were Masdakites; and there was not a slave in
the place; the land belonged to all in common and was tilled by all, and
the harvest was equally shared. However, they no longer receive strangers,
and I must seek for fellow-believers elsewhere. Still, a Masdakite I shall
always remain; and, if I were to take a slave for my wife, I should only
be acting on the precepts of the master and helping them on. But as for
you, the case does not apply to you, for you are the child of a brave
freeman, respected in all the land; our people will regard you as a
prisoner of war, not as a slave. They will look up to me as your
deliverer. And if I had found you, just as you are, the meanest of slaves
and keeping pigs, I would have put my hand in my wallet at once and have
bought your freedom and have carried you off home as my wife—and no
Masdakite who saw you would ever blame me. Now you know all about it, and
there, I hope, is an end of your coyness and mincing.”

Mandane, however, still would not yield; she looked at him with eyes that
entreated his pity, and pointed to her cropped ears.

Rustem shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. “Of course, that too, into the
bargain; You will not let me off any part of it! If it had been your eyes
now, you would not have been able to see, and no countryman can do with a
blind wife, so I should leave you where you are. But you, little one, have
hearing as sharp as a bird’s? And what bird—pretty little things—did
you ever see with ears, unless it were a bat or a nasty owl?—That is
all nonsense. Besides, who can see what you have lost now that Pulcheria
has brought your hair down so prettily? And do not you remember the
head-dress our women wear? You might have ears as long as a hare’s, and
what good would it do you?—no one could see them. Just as you are, a
lily grown like a cypress, you are ten times sweeter to look at than the
prettiest girl there, if she had three or even four ears. A girl with
three ears! Only think, Mandane, where could the third ear grow?”

How heartily he laughed, and how glad he was to have hit on this jest and
have turned off a subject which might so well be painful to her! But his
mirth failed of its effect, and only brought a silent smile to her lips.
Even this died quickly away, and in its place there came such a sad,
pathetic expression, as she hung her pretty head, that he could neither
carry on the joke nor reproach her sharply. He said compassionately, with
a little shake of the head:

“But you must not look like that, my pigeon: I cannot bear it. What is it
that is weighing on your little soul? Courage, courage, sweetheart, and
make a clean breast of it!—But no! Do not speak. I can spare you
that! I know, poor little darling—it is that old story of the
governor’s son.”

She nodded, and her eyes filled with tears; and he, with a loud sigh,
exclaimed: “I thought as much, I was right, poor child!”

He took her hand, and went on bravely:

“Yes, that has given me some bad hours, too, and a great deal to think
about; in fact, I came very near to leaving you alone and spoiling my own
happiness and yours too. But I came to my senses before it was too late.
Not on account of what Dame Joanna said the day before yesterday—though
what she says must be true, and she told me that all—you know what—was
at an end. No; my own sense told me this time; for I said to myself: Such
a motherless, helpless little thing, a slave, too, and as pretty as the
angels, her master’s son took a fancy to her, how could she defend
herself? And how cruelly the poor little soul was punished!—Yes,
little one, you may well weep! Why, my own eyes are full of tears. Well,
so it had to be and so it was. You and I and the Lord Almighty and the
Hosts of Heaven—who can do anything against us?—So you see
that even a poor fool like me can understand how it all came about; and I
do not accuse you, nor have I anything to forgive. It was just a dreadful
misfortune. But it has come to a good end, thank God I and I can forget it
entirely and for ever, if only you can say: ‘It is all over and done with
and buried like the dead!’”

Before he could hinder her, she snatched his hand, to her lips with
passionate affection and sobbed out:

“You are so good! Oh! Rustem, there is not another man on earth so good as
you are, and my mother will bless you for it. Do what you will with me!
And I declare to you, once for all that all that is past and gone, and
only to think of it gives me horror. And it was exactly as you say: my
mother dead, no one to warn me or protect me,—I was hardly sixteen,
a simple, ignorant creature, and he called me, and it all came over me
like a dream in my sleep; and when I awoke….”

“There we are,” he interrupted and he tried to laugh as he wiped his eyes.
“Both laid up with holes in our heads.—And when I am in my own
country I always think the prettiest time is just when the hard
winter-frost is over, and the snow melted, and all the flowers in the
valleys rush into bloom—and so I feel now, my little girl.
Everything will be well now, we shall be so wonderfully happy. The day
before yesterday, do you know, I still was not quite clear about it all.
Your trouble gave me no peace, and it went against the grain-well, you can
understand. But then, later, when I was lying in my room and the moon
shone down on my bed…” and a rapt expression came into his face that
strangely beautified his harsh features, “I could not help asking myself:
‘Although the moon went down into the sea this morning, does that prevent
its shining as brightly as ever to-night, and bringing a cooler breeze?’
And if a human soul has gone under in the same way, may it not rise up
again, bright and shining, when it has bathed and rested? And such a heart—of
course every man would like to have its love all to himself, but it may
have enough to give more than once. For, as I remembered, my mother,
though she loved me dearly, when another child came and yet another gave
them the best she had to give; and I was none the worse when she had my
youngest sister at the breast, nor was she when I was petted and kissed.
And it must be just the same with you. Thought I to myself: though she
once loved another man, she may still have a good share left for me!”

“Yes, indeed, Rustem!” she exclaimed, looking tearfully but gratefully
into his eyes. “All that is in me of love and tenderness is for you—for
you only.”

At this he joyfully exclaimed:

“All, that is indeed good hearing! That will do for me; that is what I
call a good morning’s work! I sat down under this tree a vagabond and a
wanderer, and I get up a future land-holder, with the sweetest little wife
in the world to keep house for me.”

They sat a long time under the shady foliage; he craved no more than to
gaze at her and, when he put the old questions asked by all lovers, to be
answered with lips and eyes, or merely a speechless nod. Her hands no
longer plied the needle, and the pair would have smiled in pity on any one
who should have complained of the intolerable heat of this scorching,
parching forenoon. A pair of turtle doves over their heads were less
indifferent to the sun’s rays than they, for the birds had closed their
eyes, and the head of the mother bird was resting languidly against the
dark collar round her mate’s neck.


CHAPTER XIII.

The Vekeel, like the Persian lovers, did not allow the heat of the day to
interfere with his plans. He regarded the governor’s house as his own; all
he found there aroused, not merely his avarice, but his interest. His
first object was to find some document which might justify his proceedings
against Orion and the sequestration of his estates, in the eyes of the
authorities at Medina.

Great schemes were brewing there; if the conspiracy against the Khaliff
Omar should succeed, he had little to fear; and the greater the sum he
could ere long forward to the new sovereign, the more surely he could
count on his patronage—a sum exceeding, if possible, the largest
which his predecessor had ever cast into the Khaliff’s treasury.

He went from room to room with the curiosity and avidity of a child,
touching everything, testing the softness of the pillows, peeping into
scrolls which he did not understand, tossing them aside, smelling at the
perfumes in the dead woman’s rooms, and the medicines she had used. He
showed his teeth with delight when he found in her trunks some costly
jewels and gold coins, stuck the finest of her diamond rings on his
finger, already covered with gems, and then eagerly searched every corner
of the rooms which Orion had occupied.

His interpreter, who could read Greek, had to translate every document he
found that did not contain verses. While he listened, he clawed and
strummed on the young man’s lyre and poured out the scented oil which
Orion had been wont to use to smear it over his beard. In front of the
bright silver mirror he could not cease from making faces.

To his great disgust he could find nothing among the hundred objects and
trifles that lay about to justify suspicion, till, just as he was leaving
the room, he noticed in a basket near the writing-table some discarded
tablets. He at once pointed them out to the interpreter and, though there
was but little to read on the Diptychon,—[Double writing-tablets,
which folded together]—it seemed important to the negro for it ran
as follows:

“Orion, the son of George, to Paula the daughter of Thomas!

“You have heard already that it is now impossible for me to assist in the
rescue of the nuns. But do not misunderstand me. Your noble, and only too
well-founded desire to lend succor to your fellow-believers would have
sufficed…”

From this point the words written on the wax were carefully effaced, and
hardly a letter was decipherable; indeed, there were so few lines that it
seemed as though the letter had never been ended-which was the fact.

Though it gave the Vekeel no inculpating evidence against Orion it pointed
to his connection with the guilty parties: Paula, doubtless, had been
concerned in the scheme which had cost the lives of so many brave Moslems.
The negro had learnt, through the money-changer at Fostat, that she was on
terms of close intimacy with the Mukaukas’ son and had entrusted her
property to his stewardship. They must both be accused as accomplices in
the deed, and the document proved Orion’s knowledge of it, at any rate.

Plotinus, the bishop, at whose instigation the fugitives had been chased,
could fill up what the damsel might choose to conceal.

He had started to follow the patriarch immediately after the pursuers had
set out, and had only returned from Upper Egypt early on the previous day.
On his arrival he had forwarded to the Vekeel two indictments brought
against Orion by the prelate: the first relating to the evasion of the
nuns; the other to the embezzlement of a costly emerald; the rightful
property of the church. These accusations were what had encouraged the
Negro to confiscate the young man’s estate, particularly as the bitter
tone of the patriarch’s document sufficiently proved that in him he had
found an ally.

Paula must next be placed in safe custody, and he had no doubt whatever
that her statement would incriminate Orion in some degree. He would gladly
have cross-examined her at once, but he had other matters in hand to-day.

The longest part of his task was ransacking the treasurer’s office; Nilus
himself had to conduct the search. Everything which he pointed out as a
legal document, title-deed, contract for purchase or sale, revenue account
or the like, was at once placed in oxcarts or on camels, with the large
sums of gold and silver coin, and carried across the river under a strong
escort. All the more antique deeds and the family archives, the Vekeel
left untouched. He was indeed an indefatigable man, for although these
details kept him busy the whole day, he allowed himself no rest nor did he
once ask for the refreshment of food or a cooling draught. As the day went
on he enquired again and again for the bishop, with increasing impatience
and irritation. It would have been his part to wait on the patriarch, but
who was Plotinus? Thin-skinned, like all up-starts in authority, he took
the bishop’s delay as an act of personal contumely. But the shepherd of
the flock at Memphis was not a haughty prelate, but a very humble and
pious minister. His superior, the patriarch, had entrusted him with an
important mission to Amru or his lieutenant, and yet he could let the
Vekeel wait in vain, and not even send him a message of explanation; in
the afternoon, however, his old housekeeper dispatched the acolyte who was
attached to his person to seek Philippus. Her master, a hale and vigorous
man, had gone to bed by broad day-light a few hours after his return home,
and had not again left it. He was hot and thirsty, and did not seem fully
conscious of where he was or of what was happening.

Plotinus had always maintained that prayer was the Christian’s best
medicine; still, as his poor body had become alarmingly heated the old
woman ventured to send for the physician; but the messenger came back
saying that Philippus was absent on a journey. This was in fact the case:
He had quitted Memphis in obedience to a letter from Haschim. The
merchant’s unfortunate son was not getting better. There seemed to be an
injury to some internal organ, which threatened his life. The anxious
father besought the leech, in whom he had the greatest confidence, to
hasten to Djidda, there to examine the sufferer and undertake the case. At
the same time he desired that Rustem should join him as soon as his health
would permit.

This letter—which ended with greetings to Paula, for whose father he
was making diligent search—agitated Philippus greatly. How could he
leave Memphis at a time of such famine and sickness?—And Dame Joanna
and her daughter!

On the other hand he was much drawn to get away on Paula’s account—away,
far away; and then how gladly would he do his best to save that fine old
man’s son. In spite of all this he would have remained, but that his old
friend, quite unexpectedly, took Haschim’s side of the question and
implored him to make the journey. He would make it his business and his
pleasure to take charge of the women in Rufinus’ house; Philip’s assistant
could fill his place at the bedside of many of the sick, and the rest
could die without him. Had not he himself said that there was no remedy
for the disease? Again, Philip had said not long since that there could be
no peace for him within reach of Paula: here was a favorable opportunity
for escape without attracting remark, and at the same time for doing a
work of the truest charity.

So Philippus had yielded, and had started on his journey with very mixed
feelings.

Horapollo did not devote any particular attention to his personal comfort;
but in one respect he took especial care of himself. He had great
difficulty in walking and, as he loved to breathe the fresh air at
sundown, and sometimes to study the stars at a late hour, he kept an ass
of the best and finest breed. He did not hesitate to pay a high price for
such a beast if it really answered his requirements; that is to say if it
were strong, surefooted, gentle, and light-colored. His father and
grandfather, priests of Isis, had always ridden white asses, and so he
would do the same.

During the last few sultry weeks he had rarely gone out of doors, and
to-day he waited till the hour before sunset before starting to keep his
promise.

Robed in snowy-white linen, with new sandals on his feet, freshly shaven,
and protected from the sun’s rays by a crisply curled, flowing wig, after
the manner of his fathers, as well as by an umbrella, he mounted his
beautiful white ass in the conviction that he had done his best for his
outer man, and set forth, followed by his black slave trotting on foot.

It was not yet dark when he stopped at the house of Rufinus. His heart had
not beat so high for many a day.

“I feel as if I had come courting,” said he, laughing at himself. “Well,
and I really am come to propose an alliance for the rest of my life!
Still, curiosity, one would think, might be shed with the hair and the
teeth!” However, it still clung to him, and he could not deny to himself
that he was very curious as to the person whom he hated, though he had
never seen her, simply because she was the daughter of a patrician and a
prefect, and had made his Philippus miserable. As he was dismounting, a
graceful young girl and an older woman, in very costly though simple
dresses, came through the garden. These must be the water-wagtail, and
Orion’s Byzantine guest.—How annoying! So many women at once!

Their presence here could only embarrass and disturb him—a lonely
student unused to the society of women. However, there was no help for it;
and the new-comers were not so bad after all.

Katharina was a very attractive, pretty little mouse, and even without her
millions much too good for the libertine Orion. The matron, who had a
kind, pleasant face, was exactly what Philippus had described her. But
then—and this spoilt all—in their presence he must not allude
to the death of Rufinus, so that he could not mention his proposed
arrangement. He had swallowed all that dust, and borne that heat for
nothing, and to-morrow he must ignominiously go through it all again!

The first people he met were a handsome young couple: Rustem and Mandane.
There could be no doubt as to their identity; so he went up to them and
gave Rustem the merchant’s message, offering in Philip’s name to advance
the money for the journey. But the Masdakite patted his sleeve, in which
he carried a good round sum in gold pieces, and exclaimed cheerily:

“It is all here, and enough for two travellers to the East.—My
little wife, by your leave; the time has come, little pigeon! Off we go,
homeward bound!”

The huge fellow shouted it out in his deep voice with such effervescent
contentment, and the pretty girl, as she looked up at him, was so glad, so
much in love, and so grateful, that it quite cheered the old man; and he,
who read an omen in every incident, accepted this meeting as of good
augury at his first entering the house which was probably to be his home.

His visit went on as well as it had begun, for he was welcomed very warmly
both by the widow and daughter of Rufinus. Pulcheria at once pushed
forward her father’s arm-chair and placed a pillow behind his back, and
she did it so quietly, so simply, and so amiably that it warmed his old
heart, and he said to himself that it would be almost too much of a good
thing to have such care given him every day and every hour.

He could not forbear from a kindly jest with the young girl over her
attentions, and Martina at once entered into the joke. She had seen him
coming on his fine ass; she praised the steed, and then refused to believe
that the rider was past eighty. His news of Philip’s departure was
regretted by all, and he was delighted to perceive that Pulcheria seemed
startled and presently shrank into the background. What a sweet, pure,
kind face the child had—and pretty withal; she must and should be
his little daughter; and all the while he was talking, or listening to
Katharina’s small jokes and a friendly catechism from Martina and Dame
Joanna, in his mind’s eye he saw Philippus and that dear little creature
as man and wife, surrounded by pretty children playing all about him.

He had come to comfort and to condole, and lo! he was having as pleasant
an hour as he had known in a long time.

He and the other visitors had been received in the vindarium, which was
now brightly lighted up, and now and then he glanced at the doors which
opened on this, the centre of the house, trying to imagine what the
different rooms should by-and-bye be used for.

But he heard a light step behind him; Martina rose, the water-wagtail
hurried to meet the new-comer, and there appeared on the scene the tall
figure of a girl dressed in mourning-robes. She greeted the matron with
distinguished dignity, cast a cordial glance of sympathetic intelligence
to Joanna and Pulcheria, and when the mistress of the house told her who
the old man was, she went up to him and held out her hand—a cool,
slender hand, as white as marble; the true patrician hand.

Yes, she was beautiful, wonderfully beautiful! He could hardly remember
ever to have seen her equal. A spotless masterpiece of the Creator’s hand,
made like some unapproachable goddess, to command the worship of subject
adorers; however, she must renounce all hope of his, for those marble
features, all the whiter by contrast with her black dress, had no
attraction for him. No warming glow shone in those proud eyes; and under
that lordly bosom beat no loving or lovable heart; he shivered at the
touch of her fingers, and her presence, he thought, had a chilling and
paralyzing influence on all the party.

This was, in fact, the case.

Paula had been sent for to see the senator’s wife and Katharina. Martina,
thought she, had come out of mere curiosity, and she had a preconceived
dislike to any one connected with Heliodora. She had lost her confidence
in the water-wagtail, for only two days ago the acolyte in personal
attendance on the bishop—and whose child Rufinus had cured of a lame
foot—had been to the house to warn Joanna against the girl.
Katharina, he told her, had a short while since betrayed to Plotinus some
important secret relating to her husband, and the bishop had immediately
gone over to Fostat. It was hard to believe such a thing of any friend,
still, the girl who, by her own confession, had been so ready to play the
part of spy in the neighboring garden, was the only person who would have
told the prelate what plan was in hand for the rescue of the sisters. The
acolyte’s positive statement, indeed, left no room for doubt.

It was not in Paula’s nature to think ill of others; but in this case her
candid spirit, incapable of falsehood, would not suffer her to be anything
but cool to the child; the more effusively Katharina clung to her, the
more icily Paula repelled her.

The old man saw this, and he concluded that this mien and demeanor were
natural to Paula at all times patrician haughtiness, cold-hearted
selfishness, the insolent and boundless pride of the race he loathed—noble
by birth alone—stood before him incarnate. He hated the whole class,
and he hated this specimen of the class; and his aversion increased
tenfold as he remembered what woe this cold siren had wrought for the son
of his affections and might bring on him if she should thwart his favorite
project. Sooner would he end his days in loneliness, parted even from
Philippus, than share his home, his table, and his daily life with this
woman, who could repel the sincerely-meant caresses of that pretty,
childlike, simple little Katharina with such frigid and supercilious
haughtiness. The mere sight of her at meals would embitter every mouthful;
only to hear her domineering tones in the next room would spoil his
pleasure in working; the touch of her cold hand as she bid him good-night
would destroy his night’s rest!

Here and now her presence was more than he could bear. It was an offense
to him, a challenge; and if ever he had wished to clear her out of his
path and the physician’s—by force, if need should be—the idea
wholly possessed him now.

Irritated and provoked, he took leave of all the others, carefully
avoiding a glance even at Paula, though, after he rose, she went up to him
on purpose to say a few pleasant words, and to assure him how highly she
esteemed his adopted son.

Pulcheria escorted him through the garden and he promised her to return on
the morrow, or the day after, and then she must take care that he found
her and her mother alone, for he had no fancy to allow Paula to thrust her
pride and airs under his nose a second time.

He angrily rejected Pulcheria’s attempts to take her friend’s part, and he
trotted home again, mumbling curses between his old lips.

Martina, meanwhile, had made friends with Paula in her genial, frank way.
She had met her parents in time past in Constantinople and spoke of them
with heart-felt warmth. This broke the ice between them, and when Martina
spoke of Orion—her ‘great Sesostris’—of the regard and
popularity he had enjoyed in Constantinople, and then, with due
recognition and sympathy, of his misfortune, Paula felt drawn towards her
indeed. Her reserve vanished entirely, and the conversation between the
new acquaintances became more and more eager, intimate, and delightful.

When they parted both felt that they could only gain by further
intercourse. Paula was called away at the very moment of leave-taking, and
left the room with warm expressions intended only for the matron: “Not
good-bye—we must meet again. But of course it is my part, as the
younger, to go to you!” And she was no sooner gone than Martina exclaimed:

“What a lovely creature! The worthy daughter of a noble father! And her
mother! O dame Joanna! A sweeter being has rarely graced this miserable
world; she was born to die young, she was only made to bloom and fade!”
Then, turning to Katharina, she went on: with kindly reproof. “Evil
tongues gave me a very false idea of this girl. ‘A silver kernel in a
golden shell,’ says the proverb, but in this case both alike are of gold.—Between
you two—good God!—But I know what has blinded your clear eyes,
poor little kitten. After all, we all see things as we wish to see them. I
would lay a wager, dame Joanna, that you are of my opinion in thinking the
fair Paula a perfectly noble creature. Aye, a noble creature; it is an
expressive word and God knows! How seldom is it a true one? It is one I am
little apt to use, but I know no other for such as she is, and on her it
is not ill-bestowed.”

“Indeed it is not!” answered Joanna with warm assent; but Martina sighed,
for she was thinking to herself! “Poor Heliodora! I cannot but confess
that Paula is the only match for my ‘great Sesostris.’ But what in
Heaven’s name will become of that poor, unfortunate, love-sick little
woman?”

All this flashed through her quick brain while Katharina was trying to
justify herself, and asserting that she fully recognised Paula’s great
qualities, but that she was proud, fearfully proud—she had given
Martina herself some evidence of that.

At this Pulcheria interposed in zealous defense of her friend. She,
however, had hardly begun to speak when she, too, was interrupted, for
men’s voices were heard in loud discussion in the vestibule, and Perpetua
suddenly rushed in with a terrified face, exclaiming, heedless of the
strangers: “Oh Dame Joanna! Here is another, dreadful misfortune! Those
Arab devils have come again, with an interpreter and a writer. And they
have been sent—Merciful Saviour, is it possible?—they have
brought a warrant to take away my poor dear child, to take her to prison—to
drag her all through the city on foot and throw her into prison.”

The faithful soul sobbed aloud and covered her face with her hands. Terror
fell upon them all; Joanna left the viridarium in speechless dismay, and
Martina exclaimed:

“What a horrible, vile country! Good God, they are even falling on us
women. Children, children—give me a seat, I feel quite ill.—In
prison! that beautiful, matchless creature dragged through the streets to
prison. If the warrant is all right she must go—she must! Not an
angel from heaven could save her. But that she should be marched through
the town, that noble and splendid creature, as if she were a common thief—it
is not to be borne. So much as one woman can do for another at any rate
shall be done, so long as I am here to stand on two feet!—Katharina,
child, do not you understand? Why do you stand gaping at me as if I were a
feathered ape? What do your fat horses eat oats for? What, you do not
understand me yet? Be off at once, this minute, and have the horses put in
the large closed chariot in which I came here, and bring it to the door.—Ah!
At last you see daylight; now, take to your heels and fly!”

And she clapped her hands as if she were driving hens off a garden-bed;
Katharina had no alternative but to obey.

Martina then felt for her purse, and when she had found it she added
confidently:

“Thank God! I can talk to these villains! This is a language,” and she
clinked the gold pieces, intelligible to all. “Come, where are the
rascals?”

The universal tongue had the desired effect. The chief of the guard
allowed it to persuade him to convey Paula to prison in the chariot, and
to promise that she should find decent accommodation there, while he also
granted old Betta the leave she insisted on with floods of tears, to share
the girl’s captivity.

Paula maintained her dignity and composure under this unexpected shock.
Only when it came to taking leave of Pulcheria and Mary, who clung to her
in frantic grief and begged to go with her and Betta to prison, she could
not restrain her tears.

The scribe had informed her that she was charged dy Bishop Plotinus with
having plotted the escape and flight of the nuns, and Joanna’s knees
trembled under her when Paula whispered in her ear:

“Beware of Katharina! No one else could have betrayed us; if she has also
revealed what Rufinus did for the sisters we must deny it, positively and
unflinchingly. Fear nothing: they will get not a word out of me.” Then she
added aloud: “I need not beg you to remember me lovingly; thanks to you
both—the warmest, deepest thanks for all…. You, Pul….” And she
clasped the mother and daughter to her bosom, while Mary, clinging to her,
hid her little face in her skirts, weeping bitterly…. “You, Dame Joanna,
took me in, a forlorn creature, and made me happy till Fate fell on us all—you
know, ah! you know too well.—The kindness you have shown to me show
now to my little Mary. And there is one thing more—here comes the
interpreter again!—A moment yet, I beg!—If the messenger
should return and bring news of my father or, my God! my God!—my
father himself, let me know, or bring him to me!—Or, if I am dead by
the time he comes, tell him that to find him, to see him once more, was my
heart’s dearest wish. And beg my father,” she breathed the words into
Joanna’s ear, “to love Orion as a son. And tell them both that I loved
them to the last, deeply, perfectly, beyond words!” Then she added aloud
as: she kissed each on her eyes and lips: “I love you and shall always
love you—you, Joanna, and you, my Pulcheria, and you, Mary, my
sweet, precious darling.”

At this the water-wagtail humed forward with outstretched arms, but Dame
Joanna put out a significantly warning hand; and they who were one in
heart clasped each other in a last embrace as though they were indeed but
one and no stranger could have any part in it.

Once more Katharina tried to approach Paula; but Martina, whose eyes
filled with tears as she looked on the parting, held her back by the
shoulder and whispered:

“Do not disturb them, child. Such hearts spontaneously attract those for
whom they yearn. I, old as I am, would gladly be worthy to be called.”

The interpreter now sternly insisted on starting. The three women parted;
but still the little girl held tightly to Paula, even when she went up to
the matron and kissed her with a natural impulse. Martina took her head
between her hands, kissed her fondly, and said in a voice she could
scarcely control: “God protect and keep you, child! I thank Him for having
brought us together. A soul so pure and clear as yours is not to be found
in the capital, but we still know how to be friends to our friends—at
any rate I and my husband do—and if Heaven but grants me the
opportunity you shall prove it. You never need feel alone in the world;
never, so long as Justinus and his wife are still in it. Remember that,
child; I mean it in solemn earnest.”

With this, she again embraced Paula, who as she went out to enter the
chariot also bestowed a farewell kiss on Eudoxia and Mandane, for they,
too, stood modestly weeping in the background; then she gave her hand to
the hump-backed gardener, and to the Masdakite, down whose cheeks tears
were rolling. At this moment Katharina stood in her path, seized her arm
in mortified excitement, and said insistently:

“And have you not a word for me?”

Paula freed herself from her clutch and said in a low voice: “I thank you
for lending me the chariot. As you know, it is taking me to prison, and I
fear it is your perfidy that has brought me to this. If I am wrong,
forgive me—if I am right, your punishment will hardly be lighter
than my fate. You are still young, Katharina; try to grow better.”

And with this she stepped into the chariot with old Betta, and the last
she saw was little Mary who threw herself sobbing into Joanna’s arms.


CHAPTER XIV.

Susannah had never particularly cared for Paula, but her fate shocked her
and moved her to pity. She must at once enquire whether it was not
possible to send her some better food than the ordinary prison-fare. That
was but Christian charity, and her daughter seemed to take her friend’s
misfortune much to heart. When she and Martina returned home she looked so
cast down and distracted that no stranger now would ever have dreamed of
comparing her with a brisk little bird.

Once more a poisoned arrow had struck her. Till now she had been wicked
only in her own eyes; now she was wicked in the eyes of another. Paula
knew it was she who had betrayed her. The traitoress had been met by
treachery. The woman she hated had a right to regard her as spiteful and
malignant, and for this she hated her more than ever.

Till now she had nowhere failed to find an affectionate greeting and
welcome; and to-day how coldly she had been repulsed—and not by
Paula alone, but also by Martina, who no doubt had noticed something, and
whose dry reserve had been quite intolerable to the girl.

It was all the old bishop’s fault; he had not kept his promise that her
tale-bearing should remain as secret as a confession. Indeed, he must have
deliberately revealed it, for no one but herself knew of the facts.
Perhaps he had even mentioned her name to the Arabs; in that case she
would have to bear witness before the judges, and then in what light would
she appear to Orion, to her mother, to Joanna and Martina?

She had not failed to understand that old Rufinus must have perished in
the expedition, and she was truly grieved. His wife and daughter had
always been kind neighbors to her; and she would not have willingly
brought sorrow on them. If she were called up to give evidence it might go
hard with them, and she wished no harm to any one but those who had
cheated her out of Orion’s love. This idea of standing before a court of
justice was the worst of all; this must be warded off at any cost.

Where could Bishop Plotinus be? He had returned to Memphis the day before,
and yet he had not been to see her mother, to whom he usually paid a daily
visit. This absence seemed to her ominous. Everything depended on her
reminding the old man of his promise as soon as possible; for if at the
trial next morning—which of course, he must attend—he should
happen to mention her name, the guards, the interpreter, and the scribe
would invade her home too and then-horror! She had given evidence once
already, and could never again go through all that had ensued.

But how was she to get at the bishop in the course of the night or early
to-morrow at latest?

The chariot had not yet returned, and if—it still wanted two hours
of midnight; yes—it must be done.

She began talking to her mother of the prelate’s absence; Susannah, too,
was uneasy about it, particularly since she had heard that the old man had
come home ill and that his servant had been out and about in search of a
physician. Katharina promptly proposed to go and see him: the horses were
still in harness, her nurse could accompany her. She really must go and
learn how her venerable friend was going on.

Susannah thought this very sweet; still, she said it was very late for
such a visit; however, her spoilt child had said that she “must” and the
answer was a foregone conclusion. Dame Susannah gave way; the nurse was
sent for, and as soon as the chariot came round Katharina flung her arms
round her mother’s neck, promising her not to stay long, and in a few
minutes the chariot stopped at the door of the bishop’s palace. She bid
the nurse wait for her and went alone into the vast, rambling house.

The spacious hall, lighted feebly by a single lamp, was silent and
deserted, even the door-keeper had left his post; however, she was
familiar with every step and turning, and went on through the impluvium
into the library where, at this hour, the bishop was wont to be found. But
it was dark, and her gentle call met with no reply. In the next room, to
which she timidly felt her way, a slave lay snoring; beside him were a
wine jar and a hand-lamp. The sight somewhat reassured her. Beyond was the
bishop’s bedroom, which she had never been into. A dim light gleamed
through the open door and she heard a low moaning and gasping. She called
the house-keeper by name once, twice; no answer. The sleeping slave did
not stir; but a familiar voice addressed her from the bedroom, groaning
rather than saying:

“Who is there? Is he come? Have you found him at last?”

The whole household had fled in fear of the pestilence; even the acolyte,
who had indeed a wife and children. The housekeeper had been forced to
leave the master to seek the physician, who had already been there once,
and the last remaining slave, a faithful, goodhearted, heedless sot, had
been left in charge; but he had brought a jar of wine up from the
unguarded cellar, had soon emptied it, and then, overcome by drink and the
heat of the night, he had fallen asleep.

Katharina at once spoke her name and the old man answered her, saying
kindly, but with difficulty: “Ah, it is you, you, my child!”

She took up the lamp and went close to the sick man. He put out his lean
arm to welcome her; but, as her approach brought the light near to him he
covered his eyes, crying out distressfully: “No, no; that hurts. Take away
the lamp.”

Katharina set it down on a low chest behind the head of the bed; then she
went up to the sufferer, gave him her mother’s message, and asked him how
he was and why he was left alone. He could only give incoherent answers
which he gasped out with great difficulty, bidding her go close to him for
he could not hear her distinctly. He was very ill, he told her—dying.
It was good of her to have come for she had always been his pet, his dear,
good little girl.

“And it was a happy impulse that brought you,” he added, “to receive an
old man’s blessing. I give it you with my whole heart.”

As he spoke he put forth his hand and she, following an instinctive
prompting, fell on her knees by the side of the couch.

He laid his burning right hand on her head and murmured some words of
blessing; she, however, scarcely heeded them, for his hand felt like lead
and its heat oppressed and distressed her dreadfully. It was a sincere
grief to her to see this true old friend of her childhood suffering thus—perhaps
indeed dying; at the same time she did not forget what had brought her
here—still, she dared not disturb him in this act of love. He gave
her his blessing—that was kind; but his mutterings did not come to
an end, the weight of the hot hand on her head grew heavier and heavier,
and at last became intolerable. She felt quite dazed, but with an effort
she collected her senses and then perceived that the old man had wandered
off from the usual formulas of blessing and was murmuring disconnected and
inarticulate words.

At this she raised the terrible, fevered hand, laid it on the bed, and was
about to ask him whether he had betrayed her to Benjamin, and if he had
mentioned her name, when—Merciful God! there on his cheeks were the
same livid spots that she had noticed on those of the plague stricken man
in Medea’s house. With a cry of horror she sprang up, snatched at the
lamp, held it over the sufferer, heedless of his cries of anguish, looked
into his face, and pulled away the weary hands with which he tried to
screen his eyes from the light. Then, having convinced herself that she
was not mistaken, she fled from room to room out into the hall.

Here she was met by the housekeeper, who took the lamp out of her hand and
was about to question her; but Katharina only screamed:

“The plague is in the house! Lock the doors!” and then rushed away, past
the leech who was coming in. With one bound she was in the chariot, and as
the horses started she wailed out to the nurse:

“The plague—they have the plague. Plotinus has taken the plague!”

The terrified woman tried to soothe her, assuring her that she must be
mistaken for such hellish fiends did not dare come near so holy a man. But
the girl vouchsafed no reply, merely desiring her to have a bath made
ready for her as soon as they should reach home.

She felt utterly shattered; on the spot where the old man’s
plague-stricken hand had rested she was conscious of a heavy, hateful
pressure, and when the chariot at length drove into their own garden
something warm and heavy-something she could not shake off, still seemed
to weigh on her brain.

The windows were all dark excepting one on the ground-floor, where a light
was still visible in the room inhabited by Heliodora. A diabolical thought
flashed through her over-excited and restless mind; without looking to the
right hand or the left she obeyed the impulse and went forward, just as
she was, into her friend’s sitting-room and then, lifting a curtain, on
into the bedroom. Heliodora was lying on her couch, still suffering from a
headache which had prevented her going to visit their neighbors; at first
she did not notice the late visitor who stood by her side and bid her good
evening.

A single lamp shed a dim light in the spacious room, and the young girl
had never thought their guest so lovely as she looked in that twilight. A
night wrapper of the thinnest material only half hid her beautiful limbs.
Round her flowing, fair hair, floated the subtle, hardly perceptible
perfume which always pervaded this favorite of fortune. Two heavy plaits
lay like sheeny snakes over her bosom and the white sheet. Her face was
turned upwards and was exquisitely calm and sweet; and as she lay
motionless and smiled up at Katharina, she looked like an angel wearied in
well-doing.

No man could resist the charms of this woman, and Orion had succumbed. By
her side was a lute, from which she brought the softest and most soothing
tones, and thus added to the witchery of her appearance.

Katharina’s whole being was in wild revolt; she did not know how she was
able to return Heliodora’s greeting, and to ask her how she could possibly
play the lute with a headache.

“Just gliding my fingers over the strings calms and refreshes my blood,”
she replied pleasantly. “But you, child, look as if you were suffering far
worse than I.—Did you come home in the chariot that drove up just
now?”

“Yes,” replied Katharina. “I have been to see our dear old bishop. He is
very ill, dying; he will soon be taken from us. Oh, what a fearful day!
First Orion’s mother, then Paula, and now this to crown all! Oh,
Heliodora, Heliodora!”

She fell on her knees by the bed and pressed her face against her pitying
friend’s bosom. Heliodora saw the tears which had risen with unaffected
feeling to the girl’s eyes; her tender soul was full of sympathy with the
sorrow of such a gladsome young creature, who had already had so much to
suffer, and she leaned over the child, kissing her affectionately on the
brow, and murmuring words of consolation. Katharina clung to her closely,
and pointing to the top of her head where that burning hand had pressed
it, she said: “There, kiss there: there is where the pain is worst!—Ah,
that is nice, that does me good.”

And, as the tender-hearted Heliodora’s fresh lips rested on the
plague-tainted hair, Katharina closed her eyes and felt as a gladiator
might who hitherto has only tried his weapons on the practising ground,
and now for the first time uses them in the arena to pierce his opponent’s
heart. She had a vision of herself as some one else, taller and stronger
than she was; aye, as Death itself, the destroyer, breathing herself into
her victim’s breast.

These feelings entirely possessed her as she knelt on the soft carpet, and
she did not notice that another woman was crossing it noiselessly to her
comforter’s bed-side, with a glance of intelligence at Heliodora. Just as
she exclaimed: “Another kiss there-it burns so dreadfully,” she felt two
hands on her temples and two lips, not Heliodora’s, were pressed on her
head.

She looked up in astonishment and saw the smiling face of her mother, who
had come after her to ask how the bishop was, and who wished to take her
share in soothing the pain of her darling.

How well her little surprise had succeeded!

But what came over the child? She started to her feet as if lightning had
struck her, as if an asp had stung her, looked horror-stricken into her
mother’s eyes, and then, as Susannah was on the point of clasping the
little head to her bosom once more to kiss the aching, the cursed spot,
Katharina pushed her away, flew, distracted, through the sitting-room into
the vestibule, and down the narrow steps leading to the bathroom.

Her mother looked after her, shaking her head in bewilderment. Then she
turned to Heliodora with a shrug, and said, as the tears filled her eyes:

“Poor, poor little thing! Too many troubles have come upon her at once.
Her life till lately was like a long, sunny day, and now the hail is
pelting her from all sides at once. She has bad news of the bishop, I
fear.”

“He is dying, she said,” replied the young widow with feeling.

“Our best and truest friend,” sobbed Susannah. “It is, it really is too
much. I often think that I must myself succumb, and as for her—hardly
more than a child!—And with what resignation she bears the heaviest
sorrows!—You, Heliodora, are far from knowing what she has gone
through; but you have no doubt seen how her only thought is to seem
bright, so as to cheer my heart. Not a sigh, not a complaint has passed
her lips. She submits like a saint to everything, without a murmur. But,
now that her clear old friend is stricken, she has lost her self-control
for the first time. She knows all that Plotinus has been to me.” And she
broke down into fresh sobbing. When she was a little calmer, she
apologised for her weakness and bid her fair guest good night.

Katharina, meanwhile, was taking a bath.

A bathroom was an indispensable adjunct to every wealthy Graeco-Egyptian
house, and her father had taken particular pains with its construction. It
consisted of two chambers, one for men and one for women; both fitted with
equal splendor.

White marble, yellow alabaster, purple porphyry on all sides; while the
pavement was of fine Byzantine mosaic on a gold ground. There were no
statues, as in the baths of the heathen; the walls were decorated with
bible texts in gold letters, and above the divan, which was covered with a
giraffe skin, there was a crucifix. On the middle panel of the coffered
ceiling was inscribed defiantly, in the Coptic language the first axiom of
the Jacobite creed: “We believe in the single, indivisible nature of
Christ Jesus.” And below this hung silver lamps.

The large bath had been filled immediately for Katharina, as the furnace
was heated every evening for the ladies of the house. As she was
undressing, her maid showed her a diseased date. The head gardener, had
brought it to her, for he had that afternoon, discovered that his palms,
too, had been attacked. But the woman soon regretted her loquacity, for
when she went on to say that Anchhor, the worthy shoemaker who, only the
day before yesterday, had brought home her pretty new sandals, had died of
the plague, Katharina scolded her sharply and bid her be silent. But as
the maid knelt before her to unfasten her sandals, Katharina herself took
up the story again, asking her whether the shoemaker’s pretty young wife
had also been attacked. The girl said that she was still alive, but that
the old mother-in-law and all the children had been shut into the house,
and even the shutters barred as soon as the corpse had been brought out.
The authorities had ordered that this should be done in every case, so
that the pestilence might not pervade the streets or be disseminated among
the healthy. Food and drink were handed to the captives through a wicket
in the door. Such regulations, she added, seemed particularly
well-considered and wise. But she would have done better to keep her
opinions to herself, for before she had done speaking Katharina gave her
an angry push with her foot. Then she desired her not to be sparing with
the ‘smegma’,—[A material like soap, but used in a soft state.]—and
to wash her hair as thoroughly as possible.

This was done; and Katharina herself rubbed her hands and arms with
passionate diligence. Then she had water poured over her head again and
again, till, when she desired the maid to desist, she had to lean
breathless and almost exhausted against the marble.

But in spite of smegma and water she still felt the pressure of the
burning hand on top of her head, and her heart seemed oppressed by some
invisible load of lead.

Her mother! oh, her mother! She had kissed her there, where the plague had
actually touched her, and in fancy she could hear her gasping and begging
for a drink of water like the dying wretches to whom her fate had led her.
And then—then came the servants of the senate and shut her into the
pestilential house with the sick; she saw the pest in mortal form, a cruel
and malignant witch; behind her, tall and threatening, stood her
inexorable companion Death, reaching out a bony hand and clutching her
mother, and then all who were in the house with her, and last of all,
herself.

Her arms dropped by her side: powerful and terrible as she had felt
herself this morning, she was now crushed by a sense of miserable and
impotent weakness. Her defiance had been addressed to a mortal, a frail,
tender woman; and God and Fate had put her in the front of the battle
instead of Heliodora. She shuddered at the thought.

As she went up from the bath-room, her mother met her in the hall and
said:

“What, still here, Child? How you startled me! And is it true? Is Plotinus
really ill of a complaint akin to the plague?”

“Worse than that, mother,” she replied sadly. “He has the plague; and I
remembered that a bath is the right thing when one has been in a
plague-stricken house; you, too, have kissed and touched me. Pray have the
fire lighted again, late as it is, and take a bath too.”

“But, Child,” Susannah began with a laugh; but Katharina gave her no peace
till she yielded, and promised to bathe in the men’s room, which had not
been used at all since the appearance of the epidemic. When Dame Susannah
found herself alone she smiled to herself in silent thankfulness, and in
the bath again she lifted up her heart and hands in prayer for her only
child, the loving daughter who cared for her so tenderly.

Katharina went to her own room, after ascertaining that the clothes she
had worn this evening had been sacrificed in the bath-furnace.

It was past midnight, but still she bid the maid sit up, and she did not
go to bed. She could not have found rest there. She was tempted to go out
on the balcony, and she sat down there on a rocking chair. The night was
sultry and still. Every house, every tree, every wall seemed to radiate
the heat it had absorbed during the day. Along the quay came a long
procession of pilgrims; this was followed by a funeral train and soon
after came another—both so shrouded in clouds of dust that the
torches of the followers looked like coals glimmering under ashes. Several
who had died of the pestilence, and whom it had been impossible to bury by
day, were being borne to the grave together. One of these funerals, so she
vaguely fancied, was Heliodora’s; the other her own perhaps—or her
mother’s—and she shivered at the thought. The long train wandered on
under its shroud of dust, and stood still when it reached the Necropolis;
then the sledge with the bier came back empty on red hot runners—but
she was not one of the mourners—she was imprisoned in the
pestiferous house. Then, when she was freed again—she saw it all
quite clearly—two heads had been cut off in the courtyard of the
Hall of justice: Orion’s and Paula’s—and she was left alone, quite
alone and forlorn. Her mother was lying by her father’s side under the
sand in the cemetery, and who was there to care for her, to be troubled
about her, to protect her? She was alone in the world like a tree without
roots, like a leaf blown out to sea, like an unfledged bird that has
fallen out of the nest.

Then, for the first time since that evening when she had borne false
witness, her memory reverted to all she had been taught at school and in
the church of the torments of hell, and she pictured the abode of the
damned, and the scorching, seething Lake of fire in which murderers,
heretics, false witnesses….

What was that?

Had hell indeed yawned, and were the flames soaring up to the sky through
the riven shell of the earth? Had the firmament opened to pour living fire
and black fumes on the northern part of the city?

She started up in dismay, her eyes fixed on the terrible sight. The whole
sky seemed to be in flames; a fiery furnace, with dense smoke and myriads
of shooting sparks, filled the whole space between earth and heaven. A
devouring conflagration was apparently about to annihilate the town, the
river, the starry vault itself; the metal heralds which usually called the
faithful to church lifted up their voices; the quiet road at her feet
suddenly swarmed with thousands of people; shrieks, yells and frantic
commands came up from below, and in the confusion of tongues she could
distinguish the words “Governor’s Palace”—“Arabs”—“Mukaukas”—“Orion”—“fire”—“Put
it out”—“Save it.”

At this moment the old head-gardener called up to her from the lotos-tank:
“The palace is in flames! And in this drought—God All-merciful save
the town!”

Her knees gave way; she put out her hands with a faint cry to feel for
some support, and two arms were thrown about her-the arms which she so
lately had pushed away: her mother’s: that mother who had bent over her
only child and inhaled death in a kiss on her plague-tainted hair.


CHAPTER XV.

The governor’s palace, the pride and glory of Memphis, the magnificent
home of the oldest and noblest family of the land—the last house
that had given birth to a race of native Egyptians held worthy, even by
the Greeks, to represent the emperor and uphold the highest dignity in the
world—the very citadel of native life, lay in ashes; and just as a
giant of the woods crushes and destroys in its fall many plants of humbler
growth, so the burning of the great house destroyed hundreds of smaller
dwellings.

This night’s work had torn the mast and rudder, and many a plank besides,
from that foundering vessel, the town of Memphis. It seemed indeed a
miracle that had saved the whole from being reduced to cinders; and for
this, next to God’s providence, they might thank the black incendiary
himself and his Arabs. The crime was committed with cool and shrewd
foresight, and carried through to the end. During his visitation
throughout the rambling buildings Obada had looked out for spots that
might suit his purpose, and two hours after sunset he had lighted fire
after fire with his own hand, in secret and undetected. The troops he
intended to employ later were waiting under arms at Fostat, and when the
fire broke out, first in the treasury and afterwards in three other places
in the palace, they were immediately marched across and very judiciously
employed.

All that was precious in this ancient home of a wealthy race, was conveyed
to a place of safety, even the numerous fine horses in the stables; and
the title-deeds of the estate, slaves, and so forth were already secured
at Fostat; still, the flames consumed vast quantities of treasures that
could never be replaced. Beautiful works of art, manuscripts and books
such as were only preserved here, old and splendid plants from every zone,
vessels and woven stuffs that had been the delight of connoisseurs—all
perished in heaps. But the incendiary regretted none of them, for all
possibility of proving how much that was precious had fallen into his
hands was buried under their ashes.

The worst that could happen to him now was to be deposed from office for
his too audacious proceedings. Of all the towns he had seen in the course
of the triumphant incursions of Islam none had attracted him so greatly as
Damascus, and he now had the means of spending the latter half of his life
there in luxurious enjoyment.

At the same time it was desirable to rescue as much as possible from the
flames; for it would have given his enemies a fatal hold upon him, if the
famous old city of Memphis should perish by his neglect. And he was a man
to give battle to the awful element.

Not another building fell a prey to it on the Nile quay; but a light
southerly breeze carried burning fragments to the northwest, and several
houses in the poorer quarter on the edge of the desert caught fire.
Thither the larger portion of those who could combat the flames and rescue
the inhabitants were at once directed; and here, as at the palace, he
acted on the principle of sacrificing whatever could not be saved entire.
Thus a whole quarter of the town was destroyed, hundreds of beggared
families lost all they possessed; and yet he, whose ruthless avarice had
cast so many into misery, was admired and lauded; for he was everywhere at
once: now by the river and now by the desert, always where the danger was
greatest, and where the presence of the leader was most needed. Here he
was seen in the very midst of the fire, there he swung the axe with his
own hand; now, mounted on horseback, he rode down the line where the dry
grass was to be torn up by the roots and soaked with water; now, on foot,
he directed the scanty jet from the pipes or, with Herculean strength,
flung back into the flames a beam which had fallen beyond the limits he
had set. His shrill voice sounded, as his huge height towered, above all
others; every eye was fixed on his black face and flashing eyes and teeth,
while his example carried away all his followers to imitate it. His shouts
of command made the scene of the fire like a battle-field; the Moslems, so
ably led, regardless of life as they were and ready to strain and exert
their strength to the utmost, wrought wonders in the name of their God and
His Prophet.

The Egyptians, too, did their best; but they felt themselves impotent by
comparison with what these Arabs did, and they hardly felt anything but
the disgrace of being over-mastered by them.

The light shone far across the country; even he whose splendid inheritance
was feeding the flames perceived, between midnight and dawn, a glow on the
distant western horizon which he was unable to account for.

He had been riding towards it for about half an hour when the caravan
halted at the last station but one, on the high road between Kolzum and
Babylon.

A considerable troop of horse soldiers dismounted at the same time, but
Orion had not summoned these to protect him; on the contrary, he was in
their charge and they were taking him, a prisoner, to Fostat. He had
quitted the chariot in which he had set out and had been made to mount a
dromedary; two horsemen armed to the teeth rode constantly at his side.
His fellow-travellers were allowed to remain in their chariot.

At the inn which they had now reached Justinus got out and desired his
companion, a pale-faced man who sat sunk into a heap, to do the same; but
with a weary shake of the head he declined to move.

“Are you in pain, Narses?” asked Justinus affectionately, and Narses
briefly replied in a husky voice: “All over,” and settled himself against
the cushion at the back of the chariot. He even refused the refreshments
brought out to him by the Senator’s servant and interpreter. He seemed
sunk in apathy and to crave nothing but peace.

This was the senator’s nephew.

With Orion’s help, and armed with letters of protection and recommendation
from Amru, the senator had gained his purpose. He had ransomed Narses, but
not before the wretched man had toiled for some time as a prisoner, first
at the canal on the line of the old one constructed by the Pharaohs, which
was being restored under the Khaliff Omar, to secure the speediest way of
transporting grain from Egypt to Arabia and afterwards in the rock-bound
harbor of Aila. On the burning shores of the Red Sea, under the fearful
sun of those latitudes, Narses was condemned to drag blocks of stone; many
days had elapsed before his uncle could trace him—and in what a
state did Justinus find him at last!

A week before he could reach him, the ex-officer of cavalry had laid
himself down in the wretched sheds for the sick provided for the laborers;
his back still bore the scars of the blows by which the overseer had
spurred the waning strength of his exhausted and suffering victim. The
fine young soldier was a wreck, broken alike in heart and body and sunk in
melancholy. Justinus had hoped to take him home jubilant to Martina, and
he had only this ruin to show her, doomed to the grave.

The senator was glad, nevertheless, to have saved this much at any rate.
The sight of the sufferer touched him deeply, and the less Narses would
take or give, the more thankful was Justinus when he gave the faintest
sign of reviving interest.

In the course of this journey by land and water—and latterly as
sharing the senator’s care of his nephew—Orion had become very dear
to his old friend; and at the risk of incurring his displeasure he had
even confessed the reasons that had prompted him to leave Memphis.

He never could cease to feel that everything good or lofty in himself was
Paula’s alone; that her love ennobled and strengthened him; that to desert
her was to abandon himself. His trifling with Heliodora could but divert
him from the high aim he had set before himself. This aim he kept
constantly in view; his spirit hungered for peaceful days in which he
might act on the resolution he had formed in church and fulfil the task
set before him by the Arab governor.

The knowledge that he had inherited an enormous fortune now afforded him
no joy, for he was forced to confess to himself that but for this
superabundant wealth he might have been a very different man; and more
than once a vehement wish came over him to fling away all his possessions
and wrestle for peace of mind and the esteem of the best men by his own
unaided powers.

The senator had taken his confession as it was meant: if Thomas’ daughter
was indeed what Orion described her there could be but small hope for his
beautiful favorite. He and Martina must e’en make their way home again
with two adopted dear ones, and it must be the care of the old folks to
comfort the young ones instead of the young succoring the old as was
natural. And in spite of everything Orion had won on his affections, for
every day, every hour he was struck by some new quality, some greater
trait than he had looked for in the young man.

Torches were flaring in the inn-yard where, under a palm-thatched roof
supported on poles and covering a square space in the middle, benches
stood for the guests to rest. Here Justinus and Orion again met for a few
minutes’ conversation.

His warders were also seated near them; they did not let Orion out of
their sight even while they ate their meal of mutton, bread, onions, and
dates. The senator’s servants brought some food from the chariot, and just
as Justinus and Orion had begun their attack on it, a tall man came into
the yard and made his way to the benches. This was Philippus, pausing on
his road to Djidda. He had learnt, even before coming in, whom he would
find here, a prisoner; and the Arabs, to whom the leech was known, allowed
him to join the pair, though at the same time they came a little nearer,
and their leader understood Greek.

Philippus was anything rather than cordially disposed towards Orion;
still, he knew what peril hung over the youth, and how sad a loss he had
suffered. His conscience bid him do all he could to prove helpful in the
trial that awaited him in the matter of the expedition in which Rufinus
had perished. He was the bearer, too, of sad news which the Arabs must
necessarily hear. Orion was indeed furious when he heard of the seizure
and occupation of the governor’s residence; still, he believed that Amru
would insist on restitution; but on hearing of his mother’s death he broke
down completely. Even the Arabs, seeing the strong man shaken with sobs
and learning the cause of his grief, respectfully withdrew; for the
anguish of a son at the loss of his mother was sacred in their eyes. They
regard the man who mourns for one he loves as stricken by the hand of the
Almighty and hallowed by his touch and treat him with the reverence of
pious awe.

Orion had not observed their absence, but Philippus at once took advantage
of it to tell him, as briefly as possible, all that related to the escape
of the nuns. He himself knew not yet of the burning of the palace, or of
Paula’s imprisonment; but he could tell the senator where he would find
his wife and niece. So by the time he was bidden to mount and start once
more Orion was informed of all that had happened.

It was with a drooping head, and sunk in melancholy thought that he rode
on his way.

As for the residence!—whether the Arabs gave it back to him or not,
what did he care?—but his mother, his mother! All she had been to
him from his earliest years rose before his mind; in the deep woe of this
parting he forgot the imminent danger and the dungeon that awaited him,
and the intolerable insult to his rights; nay, even the image of the woman
he loved paled by the side of that of the beloved dead. Perhaps he might
not even gain permission to bury her!

The way lay through a parched tract of rocky desert, and the further they
went the more intense was that wonderful flush in the west, till day broke
behind the travellers and the glory of the sunrise quenched the vividness
of its glow.

Another scorching day! The rocks by the wayside still threw long shadows
on the sandy desert-road, when a party of Arab horsemen came from Fostat
to meet the travellers, shouting the latest news to the prisoner’s escort.
It was evidently important; but Orion did not understand a word of what
they said. Evil tidings fly fast, however; while the men were talking
together, the dragoman rode up to him and told him that his home was burnt
to the ground and half Memphis still in flames. Then came other
newsbearers, on horseback and on dromedaries; and they met chariots and
files of camels loaded with corn and Egyptian merchandise; and each and
all shouted to the Arab escort reports of what was going on in Memphis,
hoping to be the first to tell the homeward bound party.

How many times did Orion hear the story—and each time that a
traveller began with: “Have you heard?” pointing westward, the wounds the
first news had inflicted bled anew.

What lay beneath that mass of ashes? How much had the flames consumed that
never could be replaced! Much that he had silently wished were possible
had in fact been fulfilled—and so soon! Where now was the burthen of
great wealth which had hung about his heels and hindered his running
freely? And yet he did not, even now, feel free; the way was not yet open
before him; he secretly mourned over the ruined house of his fathers and
the wrecked home; a miserable sense of insecurity weighed him down. No
father—no mother-no parental roof! For years he had been, in fact,
perfectly independent, and yet he felt now like a pilot whose boat had
lost its rudder.

Before him lay a prison, and the closing act of the great tragedy of which
he himself had been the hero. Fate had fallen on his house, had marked it
for destruction as erewhile that of Tantalus. It lay in ashes, and the
victims were already many: two brothers, father, mother—and, far
away from home, Rufinus too.

But whose was the guilt?

It was not his ancestors who had sinned; it could only be his own that had
called down this ruin. But was there then such a power as the Destiny of
the ancients—inexorable, iron Fate? Had he not repented and
suffered, been reconciled to his Redeemer, and prepared himself to fight
the hard fight? Perhaps he was indeed to be the hero of a tragedy; then he
would show that it was not the blind Inevitable, but what a man can make
of himself, and what he can do by the aid of the God of might, which
determines his fate. If he must still succumb, it should only be after a
valiant struggle and defense. He would battle fearlessly against every
foe, would press onward in the path he had laid down for himself. His
heart beat high once more; he felt as though he could see his father’s
example as a guiding star in the sky, so that he must be true to that
whether to live or to die. And when he turned his eye earthwards again,
still, even there, he had that which made it seem worth the cost of
enduring the pangs of living and the brunt of the hardest battle: Paula
and her love.

The nearer he approached Fostat, the more ardently his heart swelled with
longing. Heaven must grant him to see her once more, once more to clasp
her in his arms, before—the end!

It seemed to him that what he had gone through in these few hours must
have removed and set aside everything that could part them. Now, he felt,
he had strength to remain worthy of her; if Heliodora were to come in his
way again he would now certainly, positively, regard and treat her only as
a sister.

He was conducted at once to the house of the Kadi; but this official was
at the Divan—the council, which his arch-foe, that black monster
Obada, had called together.

After the labors of the past night the Negro had allowed himself only a
few hours rest, and then had met the council, where he had not been slow
to discover that he had as many enemies as there were members present.

His most determined opponents were the Kadi Othman, the head of the Courts
of justice and administration, and Khalid the governor of the exchequer.
Neither of them hesitated to express his opinion; and indeed, no one
present at this meeting would have suspected for a moment that most of the
members had, in their peaceful youth, guarded flocks as shepherds on the
mountains, led caravans across the desert, or managed some small trade. In
the contests of tribe against tribe they had found opportunities for
practice in the use of weapons, and for steeling their courage; but where
had they learnt to choose their words with so much care, and emphasize
them with gestures of such natural grace that any Greek orator would have
admired them? It was only when the indignant orator “thundered and
lightened” and was carried away by the heat of passion that he forgot his
dignified moderation, and then how grandly voice, eye, and action helped
each other! And never, even under the highest excitement, was purity of
language overlooked. These men, of whom very few could read and write, had
at their command all the most effective verses of their poets having
thousands of lines stored in their minds.

The discussion to-day dealt with the social aspects of an ancient
civilization, unknown but a few years since to the warlike children of the
desert, and yet how ably had the four overseers of public buildings the
comptrollers of the markets, of the irrigation works, and of the mills,
achieved their ends. These bright and untarnished spirits were equal to
the hardest task and capable of carrying it through with energy, acumen,
and success.

And the sons of these men who had passed through no school were already
well-fitted and invited to give new splendor to cities in their decline,
and new life to the learning of the countries they had subdued. Everything
in this council revealed talent, vitality, and ardor; and Obada, who had
been a slave, found it by no means easy to uphold his pre-eminence among
these assertive scions of free and respectable families.

The Kadi spoke frankly and fearlessly against his recent proceedings,
declaring in the name of every member of the Divan, that they disclaimed
all responsibility for what had been done, and that it rested on the
Vekeel alone. Obada was very ready to accept it; and he announced with
such fiery eloquence his determination to give shelter at Fostat to the
natives whom the conflagration had left roofless, he was so fair-spoken,
and he had shown his great qualities in so clear a light during the past
night, that they agreed to postpone their attainder and await the reply
from Medina to the complaints they had forwarded. Discipline, indeed,
required that they should submit; and many a man who would have flown to
meet death on the field as a bride, quailed before the terrible adventurer
who would not shrink from the most hideous deeds.

Obada had won by hard fighting. No one could prove a theft against him of
so much as a single drachma; but he nevertheless had to take many a rough
word, and with one consent the assembly refused him the deference justly
due to the governor’s representative.

Bitterly indignant, he remained till the very last in the council-chamber,
no one staying with him, not even his own subalterns, to speak a soothing
word in praise of the power and eloquence of his address, while the same
cursed wretches would, under similar circumstances, have buzzed round Amru
like swarming bees, and have escorted him home like curs wagging their
tails. He ascribed the contumely and opposition he met with to their
prejudice, as haughty, free-born men against his birth, and not to any
fault of his own, and yet he looked down on them all, feeling himself the
superior of each by himself; if the blow in Medina were successful, he
would pick out his victims, and then….

His dreams of vengeance were abruptly broken by a messenger, covered with
dust from head to foot; he brought good news: Orion was taken and safely
bestowed in the Kadi’s house.

“And why not in mine?” asked Obada in peremptory tones. “Who is the
governor’s representative here. Othman or I? Take the prisoner to my
house.”

And he forthwith went home. But instead of the prisoner there presently
appeared before him an official of the Kadi’s household, who informed him,
from his master, that as the Khaliff had constituted Othman supreme judge
in Egypt this matter was in his hands; if Obada wished to see the prisoner
he might go to the Kadi’s residence, or visit him later in the town prison
of Memphis, whither Orion would presently be transferred.

He rushed off, raging, to his enemy’s house, but his stormy fury was met
by the placidity of a calm and judicial mind. Othman was a man between
forty and fifty years old, but his soft, black beard was already turning
grey; his noble dark face bore the stamp of a lofty, high-bred soul, and a
keen but temperate spirit shone in his eyes. There was something serene
and clear in his whole person; he was a man to bear the burthen of life’s
vicissitudes with dignity, while he had set himself the task of saving
others from them so far as in him lay.

The patriarch’s complaints had come also to the Kadi’s knowledge, and he,
too, was minded to exact retribution for the massacre of the Moslem
soldiers; but the punishment should fall on none but the guilty. He would
have been sorry to believe that Orion was one of them, for he had esteemed
his father as a brave man and a just judge, and had taken many a word of
good advice from the experienced Egyptian.

The scene between him and the infuriated Vekeel was a painful one even for
the attendants who stood round; and Orion, who heard Obada’s raging from
the adjoining room, could gather from it some idea of the relentless
hatred with which his negro enemy would persecute him.

However, as after the wildest storm the sea ebbs in ripples so even this
tempest came to a more peaceful conclusion. The Kadi represented to the
Vekeel what an unheard-of thing it would be, and in what a disgraceful
light it would set Moslem justice if one of the noblest families in the
country—to whose head, too, the cause of Islam owed so much—were
robbed of its possessions on mere suspicion. To this the Vekeel replied
that there were definite accusations brought by the head of the native
Church, and that nothing had been robbed, but merely confiscated and
placed in security. As to what Allah had thought fit to destroy by fire,
no one could be held answerable for that. There was no “mere suspicion” in
the case, for he himself had in his possession a document which amply
proved that Paula, Orion’s beloved, had been the instigator of the crime
which had cost the lives of twelve of the true believers.—The girl
herself had been taken into custody yesterday. He would cross-examine her
himself, too, in spite of all the Kadis in the world; for though Othman
might choose to let any number of Moslems be murdered by these dogs of
Christians he, Obada, would not overlook it; and if he did, by tomorrow
morning the thousand Egyptians who were digging the canal would have
killed with their shovels the three Moslems who kept guard over them.

At this, Othman assured the Vekeel that he was no less anxious to punish
the miscreants, but that he must first make sure of their identity, and
that, in accordance with the law, justly and without fear of man or blind
hatred, with due caution and justice. He, as judge, was no less averse to
letting off the guilty than he was to punishing the innocent; so the
enquiry must be allowed to proceed quietly. If Obada wished to examine
Paula he, the Kadi, had no objection; to preside over the court and to
direct the trial was his business, and that he would not abdicate even for
the Khaliff himself so long as Omar thought him worthy to hold his office.

To all this Obada had no choice but to agree, though with an ill-grace;
and as the Vekeel wished to see Orion, the young man was called in. The
huge negro looked at him from head to foot like a slave he proposed to
buy; and, when Othman went to the door and so could not see him, he could
not resist the malicious impulse: he glanced significantly at the
prisoner, and drew his forefinger sharply and quickly across his black
throat as though to divide the head from the trunk. Then he contemptuously
turned his back on the youth.


CHAPTER XVI.

In the course of the afternoon the Vekeel rode across to the prison in
Memphis. He expected to find the bishop there, but instead he was met with
the news that Plotinus was dead of the pestilence.

This was a malignant stroke of fate; for with the bishop perished the
witness who could have betrayed to him the scheme plotted for the rescue
of the nuns.—But no! The patriarch, too, no doubt, knew all.

Still, of what use was that at this moment? He had no time to lose, and
Benjamin could hardly be expected to return within three weeks.

Obada had met Paula’s father in the battle-field by Damascus, and it had
often roused his ire to know that this hero’s name was held famous even
among the Moslems. His envious soul grudged even to the greatest that pure
honor which friend and foe alike are ready to pay; he did not believe in
it, and regarded the man to whom it was given as a time-serving hypocrite.

And as he hated the father so he did the daughter, though he had never
seen her. Orion’s fate was sealed in his mind; and before his death he
should suffer more acutely through the execution of Paula, whether she
denied or owned her guilt. He might perhaps succeed in making her confess,
so he desired that she should at once be brought into the judge’s
council-room; but he failed completely in his attempt, though he promised
her, through the interpreter, the greatest leniency if she admitted her
guilt and threatened her with an agonizing death if she refused to do so.
His prisoner, indeed, was not at all what he had expected, and the calm
pride with which she denied every accusation greatly impressed the upstart
slave. At first he tried to supplement the interpreter by shouting words
of broken Greek, or intimidating her by glaring looks whose efficacy he
had often proved on his subordinates but without the least success; and
then he had her informed that he possessed a document which placed her
guilt beyond doubt. Even this did not shake her; she only begged to see
it. He replied that she would know all about it soon enough, and he
accompanied the interpreter’s repetition of the answer with threatening
gestures.

He had met with shrewd and influential women among his own people; he had
seen brave ones go forth to battle, and share the perils of a religious
war, with even wilder and more blood-thirsty defiance of death than the
soldiers themselves; but these had all been wives and mothers, and
whenever he had seen them break out of the domestic circle, beyond which
no maiden could ever venture, it was because they were under the dominion
of some passionate impulse and a burning partisanship for husband or son,
family or tribe. The women of his nation lived for the most part in modest
retirement, and none but those who were carried away by some violent
emotion infringed the custom.

But this girl! There she stood, immovably calm, like a warrior at the head
of his tribe. There was something in her mien that quelled him, and at the
same time roused to the utmost his desire to make her feel his power and
to crush her pride. She was as much taller than the women of his nation as
he was taller than any other captain in the Moslem army; prompted by
curiosity, he went close up to her to measure her height by his own, and
passed his hand through the air from his swarthy throat to touch the crown
of her head; and the depth of loathing with which she shrank from him did
not escape his notice. The blood mounted to his head; he desired the
interpreter to inform her that she was to hope for no mercy, and inwardly
devoted her to a cruel death.

Pale, but prepared to meet the worst, Paula returned to the squalid room
she occupied with her faithful Betta.

Her arrival at the prison had been terrible. The guards had seemed
disposed to place her in a room filled with a number of male and female
criminals, whence the rattle of their chains and a frantic uproar of
coarse voices met her ear; however, the interpreter and the captain of the
town-watch had taken charge of her, prompted by Martina’s promise of a
handsome reward if they could go to her next morning with a report that
Paula had been decently accommodated.

The warder’s mother-in-law, too, had taken her under her protection. This
woman was the inn-keeper’s wife from the riverside inn of Nesptah, and she
at once recognized Paula as the handsome damsel who had refreshed herself
there after the evening on the river with Orion, and whom she had supposed
to be his betrothed. She happened to be visiting her daughter, the
keeper’s wife, and induced her to do what she could to be agreeable to
Paula. So she and Betta were lodged in a separate cell, and her gold coin
proved acceptable to the man, who did his utmost to mitigate her lot.
Indeed, Pulcheria had even been allowed to visit her and to bring her the
last roses that the drought had left in the garden.

Susannah had carried out her purpose of sending her food and fruit; but
they remained in the outer room, and the messenger was desired to explain
that no more were to be sent, for that she was supplied with all she
needed.

Confident in her sense of innocence, she had looked forward calmly to her
fate building her hopes on the much lauded justice of the Arab judges. But
it was not they, it would seem, who were to decide it, but that black
monster Orion’s foe; crushed by the sense of impotence against the
arbitrary despotism of the ruthless villain, whose victim she must be, she
sat sunk in gloomy apathy, and hardly heard the old nurse’s words of
encouragement.

She did not fear death; but to die without having seen her father once
more, without saying and proving to Orion that she was his alone, wholly
his and for ever—that was too hard to bear.

While she was wringing her hands, in a state verging on despair, the man
who had ruined the happiness, the peace, and the fortunes of so many of
his fellow-creatures was cantering through the streets of Memphis, mounted
on the finest horse in Orion’s stable, and firmly determined to make his
defiant prisoner feel his power. When he reached the great market-place in
the quarter known as Ta-anch he was forced to bring his steed to a quieter
pace, for in front of the Curia—the senatehouse—an immense
gathering of people had collected. The Vekeel forced his way through them
with cruel indifference. He knew what they wanted and paid no heed to
them. The hapless crowd had for some time past met here daily, demanding
from the authorities some succor in their fearful need. Processions and
pilgrimages had had no result yesterday, so to-day they besieged the
Curia. But could the senate make the Nile rise, or stay the pestilence, or
prevent the dates dropping from the palm-trees? Could they help, when
Heaven denied its aid?

These were the questions which the authorities had already put at least
ten times to the shrieking multitude from the balcony of the town hall,
and each time the crowd had yelled in reply: “Yes—yes. You must!—it
is your duty; you take the taxes, and you are put there to take care of
us!”

Even yesterday the distracted creatures had been wholly unmanageable and
had thrown stones at the building: to-day, after the fearful conflagration
and the death of their bishop, they had assembled in vast numbers, more
furious and more desperate than ever. The senators sat trembling on their
antique seats of gilt ivory, the relics of departed splendor imitated from
those of the Roman senators, looking at each other and shrugging their
shoulders while they listened to a letter which had just reached them from
the hadi. This document required them, in conformity with Obada’s
determination, to make known to the populace, by public proclamation and
declaration, that any citizen whose house had been destroyed by the fire
of the past night would be granted ground and building materials without
payment, at Fostat across the Nile, where he might found a new home
provided he would settle there and embrace Islam.

This degrading offer must be announced: no discussion or recalcitrancy
could help that.

And what could they, for their part, do for the complaining crowd?

The plague was snatching them away; the vegetables, which constituted half
their food at this season, were dried up; the river, their palatable and
refreshing drink, was poisoned; the dates, their chief luxury, ripened
only to be rejected with loathing. Then there was the comet in the sky, no
hope of a harvest—even of a single ear, for months to come. The
bishop dead, all confidence lost in the intercessions of the Church, God’s
mercy extinct as it would seem, withdrawn from the land under infidel
rule!

And they on whose help the populace counted,—poor, weak men,
councillors of no counsel, liable from hour to hour to be called to follow
those who had succumbed to the plague, and who had but just quitted their
vacant seats in obedience to the fateful word.

Yesterday each one had felt convinced that their necessity and misery had
reached its height, and yet in the course of the night it had redoubled
for many. Their self-dependence was exhausted; but there still was one
sage in the city who might perhaps find some new way, suggest some new
means of saving the people from despair.

Stones were again flying down through the open roof, and the members of
the council started up from their ivory seats and sought shelter behind
the marble piers and columns. A wild turmoil came up from the market-place
to the terror-stricken Fathers of the city, and the mob was hammering with
fists and clubs on the heavy doors of the Curia. Happily they were plated
with bronze and fastened with strong iron bolts, but they might fly open
at any moment and then the furious mob would storm into the hall.

But what was that?

For a moment the roar and yelling ceased, and then began again, but in a
much milder form. Instead of frenzied curses and imprecations shouts now
rose of “Hail, hail!” mixed with appeals: “Help us, save us, give us
council. Long live the sage!” “Help us with your magic, Father!” “You know
the secrets and the wisdom of the ancients!” “Save us, Save us! Show those
money-bags, those cheats in the Curia the way to help us!”

At this the president of the town-council ventured forth from his refuge
behind the statue of Trajan—the only image that the priesthood had
spared—and to climb a ladder which was used for lighting the hanging
lamps, so as to peep out of the high window.

He saw an old man in shining white linen robes, riding on a fine white ass
through the crowd which reverently made way for him. The lictors of the
town marched before him with their fasces, on to which they had tied palm
branches in token of a friendly embassy. Looking further he could see that
behind the old man came a slave, besides the one who drove his ass,
carrying a quantity of manuscript scrolls. This raised his hopes, for the
scrolls looked very old and yellow, and no doubt contained a store of
wisdom; nay, probably magic formulas and effectual charms.

With a loud exclamation of “Here he comes!” the senator descended the
ladder; in a few minutes the door was opened with a rattling of iron
bolts, and it was with a sigh of relief that they saw the old man come in
and none attempt to follow him.

When Horapollo entered the council-chamber he found the senators sitting
on their ivory chairs with as much dignified calm as though the meeting
had been uninterrupted; but at a sign from the president they all rose to
receive the old man, and he returned their greeting with reserve, as
homage due to him. He also accepted the raised seat, which the president
quitted in his honor while he himself took one of the ordinary chairs at
his side.

The negotiation began at once, and was not disturbed by the crowd, though
still from the market-place there came a ceaseless roar, like the breaking
of distant waves and the buzzing of thousands of swarming bees.

The sage began modestly, saying that he, in his simplicity, could not but
despair of finding any help where so many wise men had failed; he was
experienced only in the lore and mysteries of the Fathers, and he had come
thither merely to tell the council what they had considered advisable in
such cases, and to suggest that their example should be followed.

He spoke low but fluently, and a murmur of approval followed; then, when
the president went on to speak of the low state of the Nile as the root of
all the evil, the old man interrupted him, begging them to begin by
considering the particular difficulties which they might attack by their
own efforts.

The pestilence was in possession of the city; he had just come through the
quarter that had been destroyed by the fire, and had seen above fifty sick
deprived of all care and reduced to destitution. Here something could be
done; here was a way of showing the angry populace that their advisers and
leaders were not sitting with their hands in their laps.

A councillor then proposed that the convent of St. Cecilia, or the now
deserted and dilapidated odeum should be given up to them; but Horapollo
objected explaining very clearly that such a crowd of sick in the midst of
the city would be highly dangerous to the healthy citizens. This opinion
was shared by his friend Philippus, who had indeed commended the plan he
had to propose as the only right one. Whither had their forefathers
transported, not merely their beneficent institutions, but their vast
temples and tomb-buildings which covered so much space? Always to the
desert outside the town. Arrianus had even written these verses on the
gigantic sphinx near the Pyramids.

“The gods erewhile created these far-shining forms, wisely sparing the
fields and fertile corn-bearing plain.”

The moderns had forgotten thus to spare the arable land, and they had also
neglected to make good use of the desert. The dead and plague-stricken
must not be allowed to endanger the living; they must therefore be lodged
away from the town, in the Necropolis in the desert.

“But we cannot let them be under the broiling sun,” cried the president.

“Still less,” added another, “can we build a house for them in a day.”

To this Horapollo replied:

“And who would be so foolish as to ask you to do either? But there are
linen and posts to be had in Memphis. Have some large tents pitched in the
Necropolis, and all who fall sick of the pestilence removed there at the
expense of the city and tended under their shade. Appoint three or four of
your number to carry this into execution and there will be a shelter for
the roofless sick in a few hours. How many boatmen and shipwrights are
standing idle on the quays! Call them together and in an hour they will be
at work.”

This suggestion was approved. A linen-merchant present exclaimed: “I can
supply what is needed,” and another who dealt in the same wares, and
exported this famous Egyptian manufacture to remote places, also put in a
word, desiring that his house might have the order as he could sell
cheaper. This squabble might have absorbed the attention of the meeting
till it rose, and perhaps have been renewed the next day, if Horapollo’s
proposal that they should divide the commission equally had not been
hastily adopted.

The populace hailed the announcement that tents would be erected for the
sick in the desert, with applause from a thousand voices. The deputies
chosen to superintend the task set to work at once, and by night the most
destitute were safe under the first large hospital tent.

The old man settled some other important questions in the same way, always
appealing to the lore of the ancients.

At length he spoke of the chief subject, and he did so with great caution
and tact.

All the events of the last few weeks, he said, pointed to the conclusion
that Heaven was wroth with the hapless land of their fathers. As a sign of
their anger the Immortals had sent the comet, that terrible star whose
ominous splendor was increasing daily. To make the Nile rise was not in
the power of men; but the ancients—and here his audience listened
with bated breath—the ancients had been more intimately familiar
with the mysterious powers that rule the life of Nature than men in the
later times, whether priests or laymen. In those days every servant of the
Most High had been a naturalist and a student, and when Egypt had been
visited by such a calamity as that of this year, a sacrifice had been
offered—a precious victim against which all mankind, nay and all his
own feelings revolted; still, this sacrifice had never failed of its
effect, no, never. Here was the evidence—and he pointed to the
manuscripts in his lap.

The councillors had begun to be restless in their seats, and first the
president and then the others, one after another, exclaimed and asked:

“But the victim?”

“What did they sacrifice?”

“What about the victim?”

“Allow me to say no more about it till another time,” said the old man.
“What good could it do to tell you that now? The first thing is to find
the thing that is acceptable to the gods.”

“What is it?”

“Speak—do not keep us on the rack!” was shouted on all sides; but he
remained inexorable, promising only to call the council together when the
right time should come and desiring that the president would proclaim from
the balcony that Horapollo knew of a sacrifice which would cause the Nile
at last to rise. As soon as the right victim could be found, the people
should be invited to give their consent. In the time of their forefathers
it had never failed of its effect, so men, women, and children might go
home in all confidence, and await the future with new and well-founded
hopes.

And this announcement, with which the president mingled his praises of the
venerable Horapollo, had a powerful effect. The crowd hallooed with glee,
as though they had found new life. “Hail, hail!” was shouted again and
again, and it was addressed, not merely to the old man who had promised
them deliverance, but also to the Fathers of the city, who felt as if a
fearful load had fallen from their souls.

The old man’s scheme was, to be sure, not pious nor rightly Christian; but
had the power of the Church been in any way effectual? And this having
failed they must of their own accord have had recourse to means held
reprobate by the priesthood. Magic and the black arts were genuinely
Egyptian; and when faith had no power, these asserted themselves and
superstition claimed its own. Though Medea had been taken by surprise and
imprisoned, this had not been done to satisfy the law, but with a view to
secretly utilizing her occult science for the benefit of the community. In
such dire need no means were too base; and though the old man himself was
horrified at those he proposed he was sure of public approbation if only
they had the desired result. If only they could avert the calamity the sin
could be expiated, and the Almighty was so merciful!

The bishop had a seat and voice in the council, but Fate itself had saved
them from the dilemma of having to meet his remonstrances.

When Horapollo went out into the market-place he was received with
acclamations, and as much gratitude as though he had already achieved the
deliverance of the people and country.

What had he done?—Whether the work he had set going were to fail or
to succeed he could not remain in Memphis, for in either case he would
never have peace again. But that did not daunt him; it would certainly be
very good for the two women to be removed from the perilous neighborhood
of the Arab capital, and he was firmly determined to take them away with
him. For his dear Philip, too, nothing could be better than a
transplantation into other soil.

At the house of Rufinus he now learnt the fate that had fallen on Paula.

She was out the way, at any rate for the present; still, if she should be
released to-morrow or the day after, or even a month hence, she would be
as great a hindrance as ever. His plots against her must therefore be
carried out. His own isolation provoked him, and what a satisfaction it
would be if only he should succeed in stirring up the Egyptian Christians
to the heathen deed to which he was endeavoring to prompt them.

If Paula should be condemned to death by the Arabs, the execution of the
scheme would be greatly promoted; and now the first point was to ensure
the favor of the black Vekeel, for everything depended on his consent.

Joanna and Pulcheria thought him more good-humored and amiable than they
had ever known him; his proposal that he and Philippus should join their
household was hailed with delight even by little Mary, and the women
conducted him all over the house, supporting his steps with affectionate
care. All he saw there pleased him beyond measure. Such neatness and
comfort could only exist where there was a woman’s eye to direct and watch
over everything. The rooms on the ground floor, which had been the
master’s, should be his, and the corresponding wing on the other side
could be made ready for Philippus. The dining-room, the large
ante-chamber, and the viridarium would be common ground, and the upper
story was large enough for the women and any guests. He would move in as
soon as he had settled some business he had in hand.

It must be something of a pleasant nature, for as the old man spoke of it
his sunken lips mumbled with satisfaction, while his sparkling eyes seemed
to say to Pulcheria: “And I have something good in store for you, too,
dear child.”


CHAPTER XVII.

Paula passed a fearful night in the small, frightfully hot prison-cell in
which she and Betta were shut up. She could not sleep, and when once she
succeeded in closing her eyes she was roused by the yells and clanking
chains of the captives in the common prison and the heavy step of another
sufferer who paced the room overhead, even more restless than herself.

Poor fellow-victim! Was it a tortured conscience that drove him hither and
thither, or was he as innocent as she was, and was it longing, love, and
anxiety that bereft him of sleep?

He was no vulgar criminal. There was no room for those in this part of the
building; and at midnight, when the noise in the large hall was suddenly
silenced, soft sounds of the lute came down to her from his cell, and only
a master could strike the strings with such skill.

She cared nothing for the stranger; but she was grateful for his gift of
music, for it diverted her thoughts from herself, and she listened with
growing interest. Glad of an excuse for rising from her hard, hot bed, she
sprang up and placed herself close to the one window, an opening barred
with iron. But then the music ceased and a conversation began between the
warder and her fellow-prisoner.

What voice was that? Did she deceive herself, or hear rightly?

Her heart stood still while she listened; and now every doubt was
silenced: It was Orion, and none other, whom she heard speaking in the
room above. Then the warder spoke his name; they were talking of her
deceased uncle; and now, as if in obedience to some sign, they lowered
their voices. She heard whispering but could not distinguish what was
said. At length parting words were uttered in louder tones, the door of
the cell was locked and the prisoner approached his window.

At this she pressed her face close to the heated iron bars, looked
upwards, listened a moment and, as nothing was stirring, she said, first
softly, and then rather louder: “Orion, Orion!”

And, from above, her name was spoken in reply. She greeted him and asked
how and when he had come hither; but he interrupted her at the first words
with a decisive: “Silence!” adding in a moment, “Look out!”

She listened in expectancy; the minutes crept on at a snail’s pace to a
full half hour before he at last said: “Now!” And, in a few moments, she
held in her hand a written scroll that he let down to her by a lutestring
weighted with a scrap of wood.

She had neither light nor fire, and the night was moonless. So she called
up “Dark!” and immediately added, as he had done: “Look out.”

She then tied to the string the two best roses of those Pulcheria had
brought her, and at her glad “Now!” they floated up.

He expressed his thanks in a few low chords overflowing with yearning and
passion; then all was still, for the warder had forbidden him to sing or
play at night and he dared not risk losing the man’s favor.

Paula laid down again with Orion’s letter in her hand, and when she felt
slumber stealing upon her, she pushed it under her pillow and ere long was
sleeping on it. When they both woke, soon after sunrise, they had been
dreaming of each other and gladly hailed the return of day.

How furious Orion had felt when the prison door closed upon him! He longed
to wrench the iron bars from the window and kick down or force the door;
and there is no more humiliating and enraging feeling for a man than that
of finding himself shut up like a wild beast, cut off from the world to
which he belongs and which he needs, both to give him all that makes life
worth having, and to receive such good as he can do and give.

Yesterday their dungeon had seemed a foretaste of hell, they had each been
on the verge of despair; to-day what different feelings animated them!
Orion had been the victim of blow on blow from Fate—Paula had looked
forward to his return with an anxious and aching heart; to-day how calm
were their souls, though both stood in peril of death.

The legend tells us that St. Cecilia, who was led away to the rack from
her marriage feast, even in the midst of the torments of martyrdom,
listened in ecstasy to heavenly music and sweet echoes of the organ; and
how many have had the same experience! In the extremity of anguish and
danger they find greater joys than in the midst of splendor, ease and the
intoxicating pleasures of life; for what we call happiness is the constant
guest of those who have within reach that for which their souls most
ardently long, irrespective of place and outward circumstances.

So these two in their prison were what they had not been for a long time:
full of heartfelt bliss; Paula with his letter, which he had begun at the
Kadi’s house, and in which he poured out his whole soul to her; Orion in
the possession of her roses, on which he feasted his eyes and heart, and
which lay before him while he wrote the following lines, which the
kindhearted warder willingly transmitted to her:

And when had Paula ever felt happier than at the moment when this offering
from her lover, this humble prison-flower, first reached her.

Old Betta could not hear the verses too often, and cried with joy, not at
the poem, but at the wonderful change it had produced in her darling.
Paula was now the radiant being that she had been at home on the Lebanon;
and when she appeared before the assembled judges in the hall of justice
they gazed at her in amazement, for never had a woman on her trial for
life or death stood in their presence with eyes so full of happiness. And
yet she was in evil straits. The just and clement Kadi, himself the loving
father of daughters, felt a pang at his heart as he noted the delusive
confidence which so evidently filled the soul of this noble maiden.

Yes, she was in evil straits: a crushing piece of evidence was in their
hands, and the constitution of the court—which was in strict
conformity with the law must in itself be unfavorable to her. Her case was
to be tried by an equal number of Egyptians and of Arabs. The Moslems were
included because by her co-operation, Arabs had been slain; while Paula,
as a Christian and a resident in Memphis, came under the jurisdiction of
the Egyptians.

The Kadi presided, and experience had taught him that the Jacobite members
of the bench of judges kept the sentence of death in their sleeves when
the accused was of the Melchite confession. What had especially prejudiced
them against this beautiful creature he knew not; but he easily discovered
that they were hostile to the accused, and if they should utter the
verdict “guilty”, and only two Arabs should echo it, the girl’s fate was
sealed.

And what was the declaration which that whiterobed old man among the
witnesses desired to make—the venerable and learned Horapollo? The
glances he cast at Paula augured her no good.

It was so oppressively, so insufferably hot in the hall! Each one felt the
crushing influence, and in spite of the importance of the occasion, the
proceedings every now and then came to a stand-still and then were hurried
on again with unseemly haste.

The prisoner herself seemed happily to be quite fresh and not affected by
the sultriness of the day. It had cost her small effort to adhere to her
statement that she had had no share in the escape of the sisters, when
catechised by the ruffianly negro; but she found it hard to defy Othman’s
benevolent questioning. However, there was no choice, and she succeeded in
proving that she had never quitted Memphis nor the house of Rufinus at the
time when the Arab warriors met their death between Athribis and Doomiat.
The Kadi endeavored to turn this to account for her advantage and Obada,
who had found much to whisper over with his grey-headed neighbor on the
bench reserved for witnesses, let him talk; but no sooner had he ended
than the Vekeel rose and laid before the judges the note he had found in
Orion’s room.

It was undoubtedly in the young man’s handwriting and addressed to Paula,
and the final words: “But do not misunderstand me. Your noble, and only
too well-founded desire to lend succor to your fellow-believers would have
sufficed….” could not fail to make a deep impression. When the Kadi
questioned Paula, however, she replied with perfect truth that this
document was absolutely unknown to her; at the same time she did not deny
that the sisters of St. Cecilia, who were of her own confession, had
always had her warmest wishes, and that she had hoped they might succeed
in asserting their rights in opposition to the patriarch.

The deceased Mukaukas, and the Jacobite members of the town-council even,
had shared these feelings and the Arabs had never interfered with the
pious sicknurses.

The calm conciseness with which she made these statements had a favorable
effect, on her Moslem judges especially, and the Kadi began to have some
hopes for her; he desired that Orion should be called as being best able
to account for the meaning of the letter he had written but never sent.

On this the young man appeared, and though he and Paula did their utmost
to preserve a suitable demeanor, every one could see the violent agitation
they felt at meeting each other in such a situation. Horapollo never took
his eyes off Orion, whom he now saw for the first time, and his features
put on a darkening and menacing expression.

The young man acknowledged that he had written the letter in question, but
he and Paula alike referred it to the danger with which the sisterhood had
long been threatened from the patriarch’s hostility. The assistance which,
in that document, he had refused he would have afforded readily and
zealously at a later and fit season, and he could have counted on the aid
of the Arab governor Amru, who, as he would himself confirm, shared the
views of the Mukaukas George as to the nuns’ rights.

At this the old sage murmured loud enough to be heard: “Clever, very
clever!” and the Vekeel laughed aloud, exclaiming:

“I call that a cunning way of lengthening your days! Be on your guard, my
lords. These two are partners in the game and are intimately allied. I
have proof of that in my own hands. That youngster takes as good care of
the damsel’s fortune as though it were his own already, and what is
more….”

Here Paula broke in. She did not know what the malicious man was going to
say, but it was something insulting beyond a doubt. And there stood Orion,
just as she had pictured him in moments of tender remembrance; she felt
his eye resting on her in ecstasy. To go up to him, to tell him all she
was feeling in this critical struggle for life or death, seemed
impossible; but as the Vekeel began to disclose to their judges matters
which concerned only herself and her lover, every impulse prompted her to
interpose and, in this fateful hour, to do her friend such service as she
once, like a coward, had shrank from. So with eager emotion, her eyes
flashing, she interrupted the negro “Stop!” she cried, “you are wasting
words and trouble. What you are trying to prove by subtlety I am proud and
glad to declare. Hear it, all of you. The son of the Mukaukas is my
betrothed!”

At the same time her eye sought to meet Orion’s. And thus, in the very
extremity of danger, they enjoyed a solemn moment of the purest, deepest
happiness. Paula’s eyes were moist with grateful tenderness, when Orion
exclaimed:

“You have heard from her own lips what makes the greatest bliss of my
life. The noble daughter of Thomas is my promised bride!”

There was a murmur among the Jacobite judges. ‘Till this moment several of
them, oppressed by the heat, had sat dreaming with their heads sunk on
their breasts, but now they were suddenly as wide-awake and alert as
though a jet of cold water had been turned on to them, and one cried out:
“And your father, young man? You have forgotten him in a hurry! What would
he have said to such a disgrace to his blood as your marriage to a
Melchite, the daughter of those who caused your two brothers to be
murdered? Oh! if the dead could….”

“He blessed our union on his death-bed,” Orion put in.

“Did he, indeed?” asked another Jacobite with sarcastic scorn. “Then the
patriarch was in the right when he refused to let the priests follow his
corpse. That I should live to be witness to such crimes!”

But such words fell on the ears of the enraptured pair like the chirping
of crickets. They felt, they cared for nothing but what this blissful
moment had brought them, and never suspected that Paula’s glad avowal had
sealed her death-warrant.

The wrath of the Jacobite faction now hastened the end. The prosecutor, an
Arab, now represented how many Moslems had lost their lives in the affair
of the nuns, and once more read Orion’s letter. His Christian colleagues
tried to prove that this document could only refer to the flight, so
ingeniously plotted, of the sisters; and now something quite new and
unlooked-for occurred, which gave a fresh turn to the proceedings: the old
man interrupted the Kadi to make a statement. At this Paula’s confidence
rose again for the last speaker had somewhat shaken it. She felt sure that
the tried friend and adoptive father of her faithful Philippus would take
her part.

But what was this?

The old man seemed to measure her height in a glance which struck to her
heart with its fierce enmity, and then he said deliberately:

“On the morning of the nuns’ flight the accused, Paula, went to the
convent and there tolled the bell. Contradict me if you can, proud
prefect’s daughter; but I warn you beforehand, that in that case, I shall
be compelled to bring forward fresh charges.”

At this the horror-stricken girl pictured to herself the widow and
daughter of Rufinus at her side on the condemned bench before the judges,
and felt that denial would drag her friends to destruction with her; with
quivering lips she confirmed the old man’s statement.

“And why did you toll the bell?” asked the Kadi.

“To help them,” replied Paula. “They are my fellow-believers, and I love
them.”

“She was the originator of the treasonable and bloody scheme,” cried the
Vekeel, “and did it for no other purpose than to cheat us, the rulers of
this country.”

The Kadi however signed to him to be silent and bid the Jacobite counsel
for the accused speak next. He had seen her early in the day, and came
forward in the Egyptian manner with a written defence in his hand; but it
was a dull formal performance and produced no effect; though the Kadi did
his utmost to give prominence to every point that might help to justify
her, she was pronounced guilty.

Still, could her crime be held worthy of death? It was amply proved that
she had had a hand in the rescue of the nuns; but it was no less clear
that she had been far enough away from the sisters and their defenders
when the struggle with the Arabs took place. And she was a woman, and how
pardonable it seemed in a pious maiden that she should help the
fellow-believers whom she loved to evade persecution.

All this Othman pointed out in eloquent words, repeatedly and sternly
silencing the Vekeel when he sought to argue in favor of the sentence of
death; and the humane persuasiveness of the lenient judge won the hearts
of most of the Moslems.

Paula’s appearance had a powerful effect, too, and not less the
circumstance that their noblest and bravest foe had been the father of the
accused.

When at length it was put to the vote the extraordinary result was that
all her fellow Christians—the Jacobites—without exception
demanded her death, while of the infidels on the judges’ bench only one
supported this severe meed of punishment.

Sentence was pronounced, and as the Vekeel Obada passed close to Orion—who
was led back to his cell pale and hardly master of himself—he said,
mocking him in broken Greek: “It will be your turn to-morrow, Son of the
Mukaukas!”

Orion’s lips framed the retort: “And yours, too, some day, Son of a
Slave!”—but Paula was standing opposite, and to avoid infuriating
her foe he was able to do what he never could have done else: to let the
Vekeel and Horapollo pass on without a word in reply.

As soon as the door was closed on this couple, Othman nodded approvingly
at Orion and said:

“Rightly and wisely done, my friend! The eagle should never forget that he
must not use his pinions in a cage as he does between the desert and the
sky.”

He signed to the guards to lead him away, and stood apart while the young
man looked and waived an adieu to his betrothed.

Finally the Kadi went up to Paula, whose heroic composure as she heard the
sentence of death had filled him with admiration.

“The court has decided against you, noble maiden,” he said. “But its
verdict can he overruled by the clemency of our Sovereign Lord the Khaliff
and the mercy of God the compassionate. Do you pray to Him—I and a
few friends will appeal to the Khaliff.”

He disclaimed her gratitude, and when she, too, had been led away he
added, in the figurative language of his nation, to the friends who were
waiting for him:

“My heart aches! To have to pronounce such a verdict oppressed me like a
load; but to have an Obada for a fellow Moslem and be bound to obey him—there
is no heavier lot on earth!”


CHAPTER XVIII.

The mysterious old sage had no sooner left the judgment-hall with the
Vekeel than he begged for a private interview. Obada did not hesitate to
turn the keeper of the prison, with his wife and infant, out of his room,
and there he listened while Horapollo informed him of the fate to which he
destined the condemned girl. The old man’s scheme certainly found favor
with the Negro; still, it seemed to him in many respects so daring that,
but for an equivalent service which Horapollo was in a position to offer
Obada, he would scarcely have succeeded in obtaining his consent.

All the Vekeel aimed at was to make it very certain that Orion had had a
hand in the flight of the nuns, and chance had placed a document in the
old man’s hands which seemed to set this beyond a doubt.

He had effected his removal to the widow’s dwelling in the cool hours of
early morning. He had taken with him, in the first instance, only the most
valuable and important of his manuscripts, and as he was placing these in
a small desk—the very same which Rufinus had left for Paula’s use—Horapollo
found in it the note which the youth had hastily written when, after
waiting in vain for Paula as she sat with little Mary, he had at last been
obliged to depart and take leave of Amru. This wax-tablet, on which the
writing was much defaced and partly illegible, could not fail to convince
the judges of Orion’s guilt, and the production of this piece of evidence
enabled the old man to extort Obada’s consent to his proposal as to the
mode of Paula’s death. When they finally left the warder’s room, the Negro
once more turned to the keeper of the prison and told him with a snort, as
he pointed to his pretty wife and the child at her breast, that they
should all three die if he allowed Orion to quit his cell for so much as
an instant.

He then swung himself on to his horse, while Horapollo rode off to the
Curia to desire the president of the council to call a meeting for that
evening; then he betook himself to his new quarters.

There he found his room carefully shaded, and as cool as was possible in
such heat. The floor had been sprinkled with water, flowers stood wherever
there was room for them, and all his properties in scrolls and other
matters had found places in chests or on shelves. There was not a speck of
dust to be seen, and a sweet pervading perfume greeted his sensitive
nostrils.

What a good exchange he had made! He rubbed his withered hands with
satisfaction as he seated himself in his accustomed chair, and when Mary
came to call him to dinner, it was a pleasure to him to jest with her.

Pulcheria must lead him through the viridarium into the dining-room; he
enjoyed his meal, and his cross, wrinkled old face lighted up amazingly as
he glanced round at his feminine associates; only Eudoxia was absent,
confined to her room by some slight ailment. He had something pleasant to
say to each; he frankly compared his former circumstances with his present
position, without disguising his heartfelt thankfulness; then, with a
merry glance at Pulcheria, he described how delightful it would be when
Philippus should come home to make the party complete—a true and
perfect star: for every Egyptian star must have five rays. The ancients
had never painted one otherwise nor graven it in stone; nay, they had used
it as the symbol for the number five.

At this Mary exclaimed: “But then I hope—I hope we shall make a
six-rayed star; for by that time poor Paula may be with us again!”

“God grant it!” sighed Dame Joanna. Pulcheria, however, asked the old man
what was wrong with him, for his face had suddenly clouded. His
cheerfulness had vanished, his tufted eyebrows were raised, and his
pinched lips seemed unwilling to part, when at length he reluctantly said:

“Nothing—nothing is wrong…. At the same time; once for all—I
loathe that name.”

“Paula?” cried the child in astonishment. “Oh! but if you knew…”

“I know more than enough,” interrupted the old man. “I love you all—all;
my old heart expands as I sit in your midst; I am comfortable here, I feel
kindly towards you, I am grateful to you; every little attention you show
me does me good; for it comes from your hearts: if I could repay you soon
and abundantly—I should grow young again with joy. You may believe
me, as I can see indeed that you do. And yet,” and again his brows went
up, “and yet, when I hear that name, and when you try to win me over to
that woman, or if you should even go so far as to assail my ears with her
praises—then, much as it would grieve me, I would go back again to
the place where I came from.”

“Why, Horapollo, what are you saying?” cried Joanna, much distressed.

“I say,” the old man went on, “I say that in her everything is
concentrated which I most hate and contemn in her class. I say that she
bears in her bosom a cold and treacherous heart; that she blights my days
and my nights; in short, that I would rather be condemned to live under
the same roof with clammy reptiles and cold-blooded snakes than…”

“Than with her, with Paula?” Mary broke in. The eager little thing sprang
to her feet, her eyes flashed lightnings and her voice quivered with rage,
as she exclaimed: “And you not only say it but mean it? Is it possible?”

“Not only possible, but positive, sweetheart,” replied the old man,
putting out his hand to take hers, but she shrank back, exclaiming
vehemently:

“I will not be your sweetheart, if you speak so of her! A man as old as
you are ought to be just. You do not know her at all, and what you say
about her heart…”

“Gently, gently, child,” the widow put in; and Horapollo answered with
peculiar emphasis.

“That heart, my little whirlwind!—it would be well for us all if we
could forget it, forget it for good or for evil. She has been tried
to-day, and that heart is sentenced to cease beating.”

“Sentenced! Merciful Heaven!” shrieked Pulcheria, and as she started up
her mother cried out:

“For God’s sake do not jest about such things, it is a sin.—Is it
true?—Is it possible? Those wretches, those… I see in your face it
is true; they have condemned Paula.”

“As you say,” replied Horapollo calmly. “The girl is to be executed.”

“And you only tell us now?” wept Pulcheria, while Mary broke out:

“And yet you have been able to jest and laugh, and you—I hate you!
And if you were not such a helpless, old, old man…” But here Joanna
again silenced the child, and she asked between her sobs:

“Executed?—Will they cut off her head? And is there no mercy for her
who was as far away from that luckless fight as we were—for her, a
girl, and the daughter of Thomas?”

To which the old man replied:

“Wait a while, only wait! Heaven has perhaps chosen her for great ends.
She may be destined to save a whole country and nation from destruction by
her death. It is even possible…”

“Speak out plainly; you make me shudder with your oracular hints,” cried
the widow; but he only shrugged his shoulders and said coolly:

“What we foresee is not yet known. Heaven alone can decide in such a case.
It will be well for us all—for me, for her, for Pulcheria, and even
our absent Philip, if the divinity selects her as its instrument. But who
can see into darkness? If it is any comfort to you, Joanna, I can inform
you that the soft-hearted Kadi and his Arab colleagues, out of sheer
hatred of the Vekeel, who is immeasurably their superior in talent and
strength of will, will do everything in their power….” “To save her?”
exclaimed the widow.

“To-morrow they will hold council and decide whether to send a messenger
to Medina to implore pardon for her,” Horapollo went on with a horrible
smile. “The day after they will discuss who the messenger is to be, and
before he can reach Arabia fate will have overtaken the prisoner. The
Vekeel Obada moves faster than they do, and the power lies in his hands so
long as Amru is absent from Egypt. He, they say, perfectly dotes on the
Mukaukas’ son, and for his sake—who knows? Paula as his betrothed.”

“His betrothed?”

“He called her by that name before the judges, and congratulated himself
on his promised bride.”

“Paula and Orion!” cried Pulcheria, jubilant in the midst of her tears,
and clapping her hands for joy.

“A pair indeed!” said the old man. “You may well rejoice, my girl! Feeble
hearts as you all are, respect the experience of the aged, and bless Fate
if it should lame the horse of the Kadi’s messenger!—However, you
will not listen to anything oracular, so it will be better to talk of
something else.”

“No, no,” cried Joanna. “What can we think of but her and her fate? Oh,
Horapollo, I do not know you in this mood. What has that poor soul done to
you, persecuted as she is by the hardest fate—that noble creature
who is so dear to us all? And do you forget that the judges who have
sentenced her will now proceed to enquire what Rufinus, and we all of
us…”

“What you had to do with that mad scheme of rescue?” interrupted
Horapollo. “I will make it my business to prevent that. So long as this
old brain is able to think, and this mouth to speak, not a hair of your
heads shall be hurt.”

“We are grateful to you,” said Joanna. “But, if you have such power, set
to work—you know how dear Paula is to us all, how highly your friend
Philip esteems her—use your power to save her.”

“I have no power, and refuse to have any,” retorted the old man harshly.

“But Horapollo, Horapollo!—Come here, children!—We were to
find in you a second father—so you promised. Then prove that those
were no empty words, and be entreated by us.”

The old man drew a deep breath; he rose to his feet with such vigor as he
could command, a bright, sharply-defined patch of color tinged each pale
cheek, and he exclaimed in husky tones:

“Not another word! No attempt to move me, not a cry of lamentation!
Enough, and a thousand times too much, of that already. You have heard me,
and I now say again—me or Paula, Paula or me. Come what may in the
future, if you cannot so far control yourselves as never to mention her in
my presence, I—no, I do not swear, but when I have said a thing I
keep to it—I will go back to my old den and drag out life the richer
by a disappointment—or die, as my ruling goddess shall please.”

With this he left the room, and little Mary raised her clenched right fist
and shook it after him, exclaiming: “Then let him go, hard-hearted,
unjust, old scarecrow! Oh, if only I were a man!” And she burst out crying
aloud. Heedless of the widow’s reproof, she went on quite beside herself:
“Oh, there is no one more wicked than he is, Dame Joanna! He wants to see
her die, he wishes her to be dead; I know it, he even wishes it! Did you
hear him, Pul, he would be glad if the messenger’s horse went lame before
he could save her? And now she is my Orion’s betrothed—I always
meant them for each other—and they want to kill him, too, but they
shall not, if there is still a God of justice in heaven! Oh if I—if
I…” Her voice failed her, choked with sobs. When she had somewhat
recovered she implored Pulcheria and her mother to take her to see Paula,
and as they shared her wish they prepared to start for the prison before
it should grow dark.

The nearer they went to the market-place, which they must cross, the more
crowded were the streets. Every one was going the same way; the throng
almost carried the women with it; yet, from the market came, as it were, a
contrary torrent of shouts and shrieks from a myriad of human throats.
Dame Joanna was terrified in the press by the uproarious doings in the
market, and she would gladly have turned back with the girls, or have made
her way through by-streets, but the tide bore her on, and it would have
been easier to swim against a swollen mountain stream than to return home.
Thus they soon reached the square, but there they were brought to a
standstill in the crush.

The widow’s terrors now increased. It was dreadful to be kept fast with
the young people in such a mob. Pulcheria clung closely to her, and when
she bid Mary take her hand the child, who thoroughly enjoyed the
adventure, exclaimed: “Only look, Mother Joanna, there is our Rustem. He
is taller than any one.”

“If only he were by our side!” sighed the widow. At this the little girl
snatched away her hand, made her way with the nimbleness of a squirrel
through the mass of men, and soon had reached the Masdakite. Rustem had
not yet quitted Memphis, for the first caravan, which he and his little
wife were to join, was not to start for a few days. The worthy Persian and
Mary were very good friends; as soon as he heard that his benefactress was
alarmed he pushed his way to her, with the child, and the widow breathed
more freely when he offered to remain near her and protect her.

Meanwhile the yelling and shouting were louder than ever. Every face,
every eye was turned to the Curia, in the evident expectation of something
great and strange taking place there.

“What is it?” asked Mary, pulling at Rustem’s coat. The giant said
nothing, but he stooped, and to her delight, a moment later she had her
feet on his arms, which he folded across his chest, and was settling
herself on his broad shoulder whence she could survey men and things as
from a tower. Joanna laid her hand in some tremor on the child’s little
feet, but Mary called down to her: “Mother—Pulcheria—I am
quite sure our old Horapollo’s white ass is standing in front of the
Curia, and they are putting a garland round the beast’s neck—a
garland of olive.”

At this moment the blare of a tuba rang out from the Senate-house across
the square, through the suffocatingly hot, quivering air; a sudden silence
fell and spread till, when a man opened his mouth to shout or to speak, a
neighbor gave him a shove and bid him hold his tongue. At this the widow
held Mary’s ankles more tightly, asking, while she wiped the drops from
her brow:

“What is going on?” and the child answered quickly, never taking her eyes
off the scene:

“Look, look up at the balcony of the Curia; there stands the chief of the
Senate—Alexander the dyer of purple—he often used to come to
see my grandfather, and grandmother could not bear his wife. And by his
side—do you not see who the man is close by him?

“It is old Horapollo. He is taking the laurel-crown off his wig!—Alexander
is going to speak.”

She was interrupted by another trumpet call, and immediately after a loud,
manly voice was heard from the Curia, while the silence was so profound
that even the widow and her daughter lost very little of the speech which
followed:

“Fellow-citizens, Memphites, and comrades in misfortune,” the president
began in slow, ringing tones, “you know what the sufferings are which we
all share. There is not a woe that has not befallen us, and even worse
loom before us.”

The crowd expressed their agreement by a fearful outcry, but they were
reduced to silence by the sound of the tuba, and the speaker went on:

“We, the Senate, the fathers of the city, whom you have entrusted with the
care of your persons and your welfare…”

At this point he was interrupted by wild yells, and cries could be
distinguished of: “Then take care of us—do your duty!”

“Money bags!”

“Keep your pledge!”

“Save us from destruction!”

The trumpet call, however, again silenced them, and the speaker went on,
almost beside himself with vehement excitement.

“Hearken! Do not interrupt me! The dearth and misery fall on our heads as
much as on yours. My own wife and son died of the plague last night!”

At this only a low murmur ran through the crowd, and it died away of its
own accord as the dignified old man on the balcony wiped his eyes and went
on:

“If there is a single man among you who can prove us guilty of neglect—a
man, woman, or child—let him accuse us before God, before our new
ruler the Khaliff, and yourselves, the citizens of Memphis; but not now,
my fellow-sufferers, not now! At this time cease your cries and
lamentations; now when rescue is in sight. Listen to me, and let us know
what you feel with regard to the last and uttermost means of deliverance
which I now come to propose to you.”

“Silence! Hear him! Down with the noisy ones!” was heard on all sides, and
the orator went on:

“We, as Christians, in the first instance addressed ourselves to our
Father in Heaven, to our one and only divine Redeemer, and to His Holy
Church to aid us; and I ask you: Has there been any lack of prayers,
processions, pilgrimages, and pious gifts? No, no, my beloved
fellow-citizens! Each one be my witness—certainly not! But Heaven
has remained blind and deaf and dumb in sight of our need, yea as though
paralyzed. And yet no; not indeed paralyzed, for it has been powerful and
swift to move only to heap new woes upon us. Not a thing that human
foresight and prudence could devise or execute has remained untried.

“The time-honored arts of the magicians, sorcerers, and diviners, which
aforetime have often availed to break the powers of evil spirits, have
proved no less delusive and ineffectual. So then we remembered our
glorious forefathers and ancestors, and we recollected that a man lives in
our midst who knew many things which we others have lost sight of in the
lapse of years. He has made the wisdom of our forefathers his own in the
course of a long life of laborious days and nights. He has the key to the
writing and the secrets of the ancients, and he has communicated to us the
means of deliverance to which they resorted, when they suffered from such
afflictions as have befallen us in these dreadful days; and this venerable
man at my side, the wise and truthful Horapollo, will acquaint us with it.
You see the antique scrolls in his hand: They teach us the wonders it
wrought in times past.”

Here the speaker was interrupted by a cry of: “Hail Horapollo, the
Deliverer!” and thousands took it up and expressed their satisfaction and
gratitude by loud shouting.

The old man bowed modestly, pointed to his narrow chest and toothless
mouth and then to the head of the Council as the man who had undertaken to
transmit his opinion to the populace; so Alexander went on:

“Great favors, my friends and fellow-citizens, must be purchased by great
gifts. The ancients knew this, and when the river—on which, as we
know only too well, the weal or woe of this land solely depends—refused
to rise, and its low ebb brought evils of many kinds upon its banks, they
offered in sacrifice the thing they deemed most noble of all the earth has
to show a pure and beautiful maiden.

“It is just as we expected: you are horrified! I hear your murmur, I see
your horror-stricken faces; how can a Christian fail to be shocked at the
thought of such a victim? But is it indeed so extraordinary? Have we ever
wholly given up everything of the kind? Which of us does not entreat Saint
Orion, either at home or under the guidance of the priests in church,
whenever he craves a gift from our splendid river; and this very year as
usual, on the Night of Dropping, did we not cast into the waters a little
box containing a human finger.

“This lesser offering takes the place of the greater and more precious
sacrifice of the heathen; it has been offered, and its necessity has never
at any time been questioned; even the severest and holiest luminaries of
the Church—Antonius and Athanasius, Theophilus and Cyrillus had
nothing to say against it, and year after year it has been thrown into the
waters under their very eyes.

“A finger in a box! What a miserable exchange for the fairest and purest
that God has allowed to move on earth among men. Can we wonder if the
Almighty has at last disdained and rejected the wretched substitute, and
claims once more for His Nile that which was formerly given? But where is
the mother, where is the father, you will ask, who, in our selfish days,
is so penetrated with love for his country, his province, his native town,
that he will dedicate his virgin daughter to perish in the waters for the
common good? What daughter of our nation is ready of her own free will to
die for the salvation of others?

“But be not afraid. Have no fears for the growing maiden, the very apple
of your eye, in your women’s rooms. Fear not for your granddaughters,
sisters, playfellows and betrothed: From the earliest ages a stringent law
forbade the sacrifice of Egyptian blood; strangers were to perish, or
those who worshipped other gods than those in Egypt.

“The same law, citizens and fellow-believers, is incumbent on us. And mark
me well, all of you! Would it not seem as though Fate desired to help us
to bring to our blessed Nile the offering which for so many centuries has
been withheld? The river claims it; and, as if by a miracle, it has been
brought to our hand. For a crime which does not taint her purity our
judges have to-day condemned to death a beautiful and spotless maiden—a
stranger, and at the same time a Greek and a heretic Melchite.

“This stirs you, this fills your souls with joyful thankfulness; I see it!
Then make ready for thy bridal, noble stream, Benefactor of our land and
nation! The virgin, the bride that thou hast longed for, we deck for thee,
we lead to thine embrace—she shall be Thine!

“And you, Memphites, citizens and fellow-sufferers,” and the orator leaned
far over the parapet towards the crowd, “when I ask you for your
suffrages, when I appeal to you in the name of the senate, and of this
venerable sage….”

But here he was interrupted by the triumphant shout of the assembled
multitude; a thousand voices went up in a mighty, heaven-rending cry:

“To the Nile with her—the maiden to the Nile!”

“Marry the Melchite to the river! Bring wreaths for the bride of the Nile,
bring flowers for her marriage.”

“Let us abide by the teaching of our fathers!”

“Hail to the councillor! Hail to the sage, Horapollo! Hail to our chief
Senator!”

These were the glad and enthusiastic shouts that rose in loud confusion;
and it was only on the north side, where the money-changers’ tables now
stood deserted-for gold and silver had long since been placed in safety—that
a sinister murmur of dissent was heard. The little girl in the Persian’s
arms had long since been breathing hard and deep. She thought she knew
whom that fiend up there had his eye upon for his cursed heathen
sacrifice; and as Mary bent down to Dame Joanna to see whether she shared
her hideous suspicion, she perceived that her eyes and Pulcheria’s were
full of tears.—That was enough; she asked no questions, for a new
act in the drama claimed her attention.

Close to the money-changer’s stalls a hand was lifted on high, holding a
crucifix, and the child could see it steadily progressing through the
crowd towards the Curia. Every one made way for the sacred symbol and the
bearer of it; and to Mary’s fancy the throng parted on each side of the
advancing image of the Redeemer, as the waters of the Red Sea had parted
at the approach of the people of God. The murmurs in that part of the
square grew louder; the acclamations of the populace waxed fainter; every
voice seemed to fail, and presently a frail figure in bishop’s robes,
small but rigidly dignified, was seen to mount the steps and finally
disappear within the portals of the Curia.

The turmoil sank like an ebbing wave to a low, enquiring mutter, and even
this died away when the diminutive personage, who looked the taller,
however, for the crucifix which he still held, came out on the balcony,
approached the parapet, and stretched forth the arm that held the image
above the heads of the foremost rows of the people.

At this Horapollo stepped up to Alexander, his eyes flashing with rage,
and demanded that the intruder should be forbidden to speak; but the
commanding eye of the new-comer rested on the dyer, who bowed his head and
allowed him to proceed. Nor did one of the senators dare to hinder him,
for every one recognized him as the zealous, learned, and determined
priest who had, since yesterday, filled the place of the deceased bishop.

Their new pastor began, addressing his flock in as loud a voice as he
could command:

“Look on this Cross and hearken to its minister! You languish for the
blessing of Christ, and you follow after heathen abominations. The
superstitious triumph, through which I have struggled to reach you, will
be turned to howls of anguish if you stop your ears and are deaf to the
words of salvation.

“Yea, you may murmur! You will not reduce me to silence, for Truth speaks
in me and can never be dumb. I say to each of you that knows it not: The
staff of the departed Plotinus has been placed in my hands. I would fain
bear it with gentleness and mercy; but, if I must, I will wield it as a
sword and a scourge till your wounds bleed and your bruises ache.

“Behold in my right hand the image of your Redeemer! I hold it up as a
wall between you and the heathen abomination which you hail with joy in
your blindness.

“Ye are accursed and apostate. Lift up your hearts, and look at Him who
died on the cross to save you. Verily He will not let him perish who
believeth in Him; but you! where is your faith? Because it is night ye
lament and cry: The Light is dead!’ Because ye are sick ye say: ‘The
physician cannot heal!’

“What are these blasphemies that I hear: ‘The Lord and His Church are
powerless! Magic, enchantments, and heathen abominations may save us.’—But,
inasmuch as ye trust not in the true Saviour and Redeemer, but in heathen
wickedness, magic, and enchantments, punishment shall be heaped on
punishment; and so it will be,—I see it coming—till ye are
choked in the mud and seek with groans the only Hand that is able to save.

“That whereby the blinded sons of men hope to escape from the evil, that,
and that only, is the source of their sufferings and I stand here to stay
that spring and dig a channel for its overflow.

“Children of Moloch ye try to be and I hope to make you Christians again.
But the maiden whom your fury would cast into the abyss of the river is
under the merciful protection of the supreme Church, for the death of her
body will bring death to your souls. Saint Orion turns from you with
horror! Away from the hapless victim! Away, I say, with your accursed
desires and sacrilegious hands!”

“And sit with them in our laps and wring them in prayer till they ache,
while want and the plague snatch away those that are left!” interrupted
the old man’s voice, thin and feeble, but audible at a considerable
distance, and from the market-place thousands proclaimed their approval by
loud shouts.

The president of the senate had listened with a penitent mien and bowed
head, but now he recovered his presence of mind and exclaimed indignantly:

“The people die, the town and country are going to ruin, plague and
horrors rise up from the river. Show us some other way of escape, or let
us trust to our forefathers and try this last means.”

But the little man drew himself up more stiffly, pointed with his left
hand to the crucifix, and cried with unmoved composure:

“Believe, hope, and pray!”

“Perhaps you think that no evil is come upon us!” cried Alexander. “You,
to be sure, have seen no wife with glazing eyes, no child struggling for
breath….” And a fresh tumult came up from below, wilder and louder than
ever. Each one whose home or beasts had been blighted by death, whose
gardens and fields had perished of drought, whose dates had dropped one by
one from the trees, lifted up his voice and shrieked:

“The victim, the victim!”

“To the river with the maiden!”

“All hail to our deliverer, the wise Horapollo!” But others shouted
against them:

“Let us remain Christians! Hail to Bishop John!”

“Think of our souls!”

The prelate made an effort once more to rivet the attention of the
populace, and failing in this he turned to the senators and the
trumpeters, whom at length he succeeded in persuading to blow again and
again, and more loudly through their brazen tuba. But the call produced no
effect, for in the market square groups had formed on opposite sides, and
blows and wrestling threatened to end in a sanguinary street-riot.

The women succeeded in getting away from the scene of action under the
protection of the Masdakite, before the Arab cavalry rode across to
separate the combatants; but in the Curia Bishop John explained to the
Fathers that he would make every effort to prevent this inhuman and
unchristian sacrifice of a young girl, even though she was a Melchite and
under sentence of death. This very day a carrier pigeon should be
dispatched to the patriarch in Upper Egypt, and bring back his decision.

When, on this, Horapollo replied that the Khaliff’s representative here
had signified his consent to the proceedings, and that even against the
will of the clergy the misery of the people must be put an end to, the
Bishop broke out vehemently and threatened all who had first suggested
this hideous scheme with the anathema of the Church. But Horapollo
retorted again with flaming eloquence, the desperate Senators took his
part, and the Bishop left the Curia in the highest wrath.


CHAPTER XIX.

Few things could be more intolerable to the gentle and retiring widow than
such a riot of the people. The unchained passion, the tumult, and all the
vulgar accessories that surrounded her there grieved her tender nature;
all through the old man’s speech she had felt nothing but the desire to
escape, but as soon as she had acquired the certainty that Paula was the
hapless being whom her terrible house-mate was preparing to hand over to
the superstition of the mob, she thought no more of getting home, but
waited in the crush till at length she and the two children could be
conducted by Rustem to the prison, though the way thither was through the
most crowded streets.

Had the nameless horrors that hung over Paula already found their way to
her ears through the prisonwalls, or might it yet be her privilege to be
able to prepare the girl for the worst, and to comfort the victim who must
already have been driven to the verge of desperation by the sentence of
death?

On the previous day the chief warder had acceded without demur to her wish
to see Paula, for the Kadi had enjoined him to show her and Orion all
possible courtesy, but the Vekeel’s threats made him now refuse to admit
Dame Joanna. However, while he was talking with her, his infant son
stretched out his arms to Pulcheria, who had played with him the day
before in her sweet way, and she now took him up and kissed him, thus
bringing a kindly feeling to three hearts at once; and most of all to that
of the child’s mother who immediately interested herself for them, and
persuaded her husband to oblige them once more.

Pretty Emau had always waited on the mirthful Orion, under the palms by
her father’s inn, more gladly than on most other guests; and her husband
who, after the manner of the Egyptians, was docile to his better half
though till now he had not been quite free from jealousy, was even more
ready to serve his benefactor’s son since hearing that he was betrothed to
the fair Paula.

There was a great uproar in the large common prison to-day, as usual when
the judges had passed sentence of death on any criminal, and the women
shuddered as the miserable wretches hallooed and bellowed. Many a shriek
came up, of which it was hard to say whether it was the expression of wild
defiance or of bitter jesting, and no more suitable accompaniment could be
conceived to this terrific riot than the clank of chains.

When the women reached Paula’s cell their hearts throbbed painfully, for
within the door which the warder unlocked anguish and despair must dwell.

The prisoner was standing at the window, pressing her brow against the
iron bars and listening to the lute played by her lover, which sounded,
amid the turmoil of the other prisoners, like a bell above the roar of
thunder and the storm. By the bed sat Betta on a low stool, asleep with
the distaff in her lap; and neither she nor her mistress heeded the
entrance of the visitors. A miserable lamp lighted the squalid room.

Mary would have flown to her friend, but Joanna held her back and called
Paula tenderly by name in a low voice. But Paula did not hear; her soul
was no doubt absorbed in anguish and the terror of death. The widow now
raised her voice, and the ill-fated girl turned round; then, with a little
cry of joy, she hastened to meet the faithful creatures who could find her
even in prison, and clasped first the widow, then Pulcheria, then the
child in a tender embrace. Joanna put her hands fondly round her face to
kiss it, and to see how far fear and affliction had altered her lovely
features, and a faint cry of astonishment escaped her, for she was
looking, not at a grief and terror-stricken face, but a glad and calm one,
and a pair of large eyes looked brightly and gratefully into hers.

Had she not been told then what was hanging over her? Nay—for she at
once asked whether they had heard that she was condemned to die. And she
went on to tell them how things had gone with her at her trial, and how
her good Philip’s friend and foster-father had suddenly and inexplicably
become her bitterest foe.

At this the others could not check their tears; it was Paula who had to
comfort and soothe them, by telling them that she had found a paternal
friend in the Kadi who had promised to intercede for her with the Khaliff.

Dame Joanna could scarcely take it all in. This girl and her heroic
demeanor, in the face of such disaster, seemed to her miraculous. Her
trust was beautiful; but how easily might it be deceived! how insecure was
the ground in which she had cast the anchor of hope.

Even little Mary seemed more troubled than her friend, and threw herself
sobbing on her bosom. And Paula returned her fondness, and tried to
mollify Pulcheria as to the disgraceful conduct of their old housemate,
and smiled kindly at the widow when she asked where she had found such
composure in the face of so much misfortune, saying that it was from her
example that she had learnt resignation to the worst that could befall
her. Even in this dark hour she found more to be thankful for than to
lament over; indeed, it had brought her a glorious joy. And this for the
first time reminded Joanna and the girls that she was now betrothed, and
again she was clasped in their loving arms.

Just then the warder rapped; Paula rose thoughtfully, and exclaimed in a
low voice: “I have something to send to Orion that I dare not entrust to a
stranger: but now, now I have you, my Mary, and you shall take it to him.”

As she spoke she took out the emerald, gave it to the little girl, and
charged her to deliver it to her uncle as soon as they should be alone
together. In the little note which she had wrapped around it she implored
her lover to regard it as his own property, and to use it to satisfy the
claims of the Church.

The man was easily induced to take Mary to her uncle; and how happily she
ran on before him up to Orion’s cell, how great was his joy at seeing her
again, how gratefully he pressed the emerald to his lips! But when she
exclaimed that her prophecy had been fulfilled, and that Paula, was now
his, his brow was knit as he replied, with gloomy regret, that though he
had won the woman he loved, it was only to lose her again.

“But the Kadi is your friend and will gain pardon from the Khaliff!” cried
the child.

“But then another enemy suddenly starts up: Horapollo!”

“Oh, our old man!” and the child ground her teeth. “If you did but know,
Orion!—And to think that I must live under the same roof with him!”

“You!” asked the young man.

“Yes, I. And Pulcheria, and Mother Joanna,” and Mary went on to tell him
how the old man had come to live with them and Orion could guess from
various indications that she was concealing some important fact; so he
pressed her to keep nothing from him, till the child could not at last
evade telling him all she had seen and heard.

At this he lost all caution and self-control. Quite beside himself he
called aloud the name of his beloved, invoking in passionate tones the
return of the Governor Amru, the only man who could help them in this
crisis. His sole hope was in him. He had shown himself a real father to
him, and had set him a difficult but a noble task.

“Into which you have plunged over head and ears!” cried the child.

“I thought it all out while on my journey,” replied Orion. “I tried
yesterday to write out a first sketch of it, but I lacked what I most
wanted: maps and lists. Nilus had put them all up together; I was to have
taken them with me on the voyage with the nuns, and I ordered that they
should be carried to the house of Rufinus….”

“That they should come to us?” interrupted the child with sparkling eyes.
“Oh, they are all there! I saw the documents myself, when the chest was
cleared out for old Horapollo, and to-morrow, quite early to-morrow, you
shall have them.” Orion kissed her brow with glad haste; then, striking
the wall of his cell with his fist, he waited till something had been
withdrawn with a grating sound on the other side, and exclaimed:

“Good news, Nilus! The plans and lists are found: I shall have them
to-morrow!”

“That is well!” replied the treasurer’s thin voice from the adjoining
room. “We shall need something to comfort us! A prisoner has just been
brought in for having attacked an Arab horseman in a riot in the market
square. He tells me some dreadful news.”

“Concerning my betrothed?”

“Alas! yes, my lord.”

“Then I know it already,” replied the young man; and after exchanging a
few words with his master with reference to the old man’s atrocious
proposal, Nilus went on:

“My prison-mate tells me, too, that while he was in custody in the
guard-house the Arabs were speaking of a messenger from the governor
announcing his arrival at Medina, and also that he intended making only a
short stay there. So we may expect his return before long.”

“Then he will have started long before the Kadi’s messenger can have
arrived and laid the petition for pardon before the Khaliff!—We have
no hope but in Amru; if only we could send information to him on his
way….”

“He would certainly not tarry in Upper Egypt, but hasten his journey, or
send on a plenipotentiary,” said the voice on the other side of the wall.
“If we had but a trusty man to despatch! Our people are scattered to the
four winds, and to hunt them up now….”

At this Mary’s childish tones broke in with: “I can find a messenger.”

“You? What are you thinking of, child?” said Orion. She did not heed his
remonstrance, but went on eagerly, quite sure of her own meaning:

“He shall be told everything, everything! Ought he to know what I heard
about your share in the flight of the sisters?”

“No, no; on no account!” cried Nilus and his master both at once; and Mary
understood that her proposition was accepted. She clapped her hands, and
exclaimed full of enterprise and with glowing cheeks:

“The messenger shall start to-morrow; rely on me. I can do it as well as
the greatest. And now tell me exactly the road he is to take. To make
sure, write the names of the stages on my little tablet.—But wait, I
must rub it smooth.”

“What is this on the wax?” asked Orion. “A large heart with squares all
over it.—And that means?”

“Oh! mere nonsense,” said the child somewhat abashed. “It was only to show
how my heart was divided among the persons I love. A whole half of it
belongs to Paula, this quarter is yours; but there, there, there,” and at
each word she prodded the wax with the stylus, “that is where I had kept a
little corner for old Horapollo. He had better not come in my way again!”

Her nimble fingers smoothed the wax, and over the effaced heart—a
child’s whim—Orion wrote things on which the lives of two human
beings depended. He did so with sincere confidence in his little ally’s
adroitness and fidelity. Early next morning she was to receive a letter to
be conveyed to Amru by the messengers.

“But a rapid journey costs money, and Amru always chooses the road by the
mountains and Berenice,” observed the treasurer. “If we put together our
last gold pieces they will hardly suffice.”

“Keep them, you will want them here,” said the little girl. “And yet—there
are my pearls, to be sure, and my mother’s jewels—at the same
time….”

“You ought never to part from such things, you heart of gold!” cried
Orion.

“Oh yes, yes! What do I want with them? But Dame Joanna has my mother’s
things in her keeping.”

“And you are afraid to ask her for them?” asked the young man. He appealed
to Nilus, and when the treasurer had calculated the cost, Orion took off a
costly sapphire ring, which he gave to Mary, charging her to hand it to
Joanna. Gamaliel, the Jew, would lend her as much as she would require on
this gem. Mary joyfully took possession of the ring; but presently, when
the warder appeared to fetch her, her satisfaction suddenly turned to no
less vehement grief, and she took leave of Orion as if they were parting
for ever.

In the passage leading to Paula’s cell the man suddenly stood still: some
one was approaching up the stairs.—If it should be the black Vekeel,
and he should find visitors in the prison at so late an hour!

But no. Two lamps were borne in front of the new-comers, and by their
light the warder recognized John, the new Bishop of Memphis, who had often
been here before now to console prisoners.

He had come to-night prompted by his desire to see the condemned Melchite.
Mary’s dress and demeanor betrayed at once that she could not belong to
any official employed here; and, as soon as he had learnt who she was, he
whispered to his companion, an aged deacon who always accompanied him when
he visited a female prisoner: “We find her here!” And when he had
ascertained with whom the child had come hither at so late an hour, he
turned again to his colleague and added in a low voice:

“The wife and daughter of Rufinus! Just so: I have long had my eye on
these Greeks. In church once or twice every year!—Melchites in
disguise! Allied with this Melchite! And this is the school in which the
Mukaukas’ granddaughter is growing up! An abominable trick! Benjamin
judged rightly, as he always did!” Then, in a subdued voice, he asked:

“Shall we take her away with us at once?” But, as the deacon made
objections, he hastily replied: “You are right; for the present it is
enough that we know where she is to be found.”

The warder meanwhile had opened Paula’s cell; before the bishop went in he
spoke a few kind words to the child, asking her whether she did not long
to see her mother; and when Mary replied: “Very often!” he stroked her
hair with his bony hand and said:

“So I thought.—You have a pretty name, child, and you, like your
mother, will perhaps ere long dedicate your life to the Blessed among
women, whose name you bear.” And, holding the little girl by the hand, he
entered the cell. While Paula looked in amazement at the prelate who came
so late a visitor, Joanna and Pulcheria recognized him as the brave
ecclesiastic who had so valiantly opposed the old sage and the misled
populace, and they bowed with deep reverence. This the bishop observed,
and came to the conclusion that these Greeks perhaps after all belonged to
his Church. At any rate, the child might safely be left in their care a
few days longer.

After he had exchanged a few cordial words with them the widow prepared to
withdraw, and was about to take leave when he went up to her and announced
that he would pay her a visit the next day or the day after; that he
wished to speak with her of matters involving the happiness of one who was
dear to them both, and Dame Joanna, believing that he referred to Paula,
whispered:

“She has no idea as yet of the terrible fate the people have in store for
her. If possible, spare her the fearful truth before she sleeps this
night.”

“If possible,” repeated the prelate. Then, as Mary kissed his hand before
leaving, he drew her to him and said: “Like the Infant Christ, every
Christian child is the Mother’s. You, Mary, are chosen before thousands!
The Lord took your father to himself as a martyr; your mother has
dedicated herself to Heaven. Your road is marked out for you, child,
reflect on this. To-morrow-no, the day after, I will see you and guide you
in the new path.”

At these words Joanna turned pale. She now understood what the bishop’s
purpose was in calling on her. At the bottom of the stairs, she threw her
arms round the child and asked her in—a low voice: “Do you pine for
the cloister—do you wish to go away from us like your mother, to
think of nothing but saving your soul, to live a nun in the holy seclusion
which Pulcheria has described to you so often?”

But this the child positively denied; and as Joanna’s head drooped
anxiously and sadly, Mary looked up brightly and exclaimed: “Never fear,
Mother dear! Things will have altered greatly by the day after tomorrow.
Let the bishop come! I shall be a match for him!—Oh! you do not know
me yet. I have been like a lamb among you through all this misfortune and
serious trouble; but there is something more in me than that. You will be
quite astonished!”

“Nay, nay. Remain what you are,” the widow said.

“Always and ever full of love for you and Pul. But I am a grand and
trusted person now! I have something very important to do for Orion
to-morrow. Something—Rustem will go with me.—Important, very
important, Mother Joanna. But what it is I must not tell—not even
you!”

Here she was interrupted, for the heavy prison door opened for their exit.

It was many hours before it was again unlocked to let out the bishop, so
long was he detained talking to Paula in her cell.

To his enquiry as to whether she was an orthodox Greek, or as the common
people called it, a Melchite, she replied that she was the latter; adding
that, if he had come with a view to perverting her from the confession of
her forefathers, his visit was thrown away; at the same time she
reverenced him as a Christian and a priest; as a learned man, and the
friend whom her deceased uncle had esteemed above every other minister of
his confession; she was gladly ready to disclose to him all that lay on
her soul in the face of death. He looked into the pure, calm face; and
though, at her first declaration, he had felt prompted to threaten her
with the hideous end which he had but just done his utmost to avert, he
now remembered the Greek widow’s request and bound himself to keep
silence.

He allowed her to talk till midnight, giving him the whole history of all
she had known of joy and sorrow in the course of her young life; his keen
insight searched her soul, his pious heart rose to meet the strength and
courage of hers; and when he quitted her, as he walked home with the
deacon, the first words with which he broke a long silence were:

“While you were asleep, God vouchsafed me an edifying hour through that
heretic child of earth.”


CHAPTER XX.

When the door in the tall prison-wall was closed behind the women, Joanna
made her way through streets still sultry under the silence of the night,
Rustem following with the child.

The giant’s good heart was devoted to Mary, and he often passed his huge
hand over his eyes while she told him all that the scene they had
witnessed meant, and the fearful end that threatened Paula. He broke in
now and again, giving utterance to his grief and wrath in strange, natural
sounds; for he looked up to his beautiful sick nurse as to a superior
being, and Mandane, too, had often remarked that they could never forget
all that the noble maiden had done for them.

“If only,” Rustem cried at length, clenching his powerful fist, “If only I
could—they should see…” and the child looked up with shrewd,
imploring eyes, exclaiming eagerly:

“But you could, Rustem, you could!”

“I?” asked Rustem in surprise, and he shook his head doubtfully.

“Yes, you, Rustem; you of all men. We were talking over something in the
prison, and if only you were ready and willing to help us in the matter.”

“Willing!” laughed the worthy fellow striking his heart; and he went on in
his strangely-broken Greek, which was, however, quite intelligible: “I
would give hair and skin for the noble lady. You have only to speak out.”

The child clung to the big man with both hands and drew him to her saying:
“We knew you had a grate ful heart. But you see…” and she interrupted
herself to ask in an altered voice:

“Do you believe in a God? or stay—do you know what a sacred oath is?
Can you swear solemnly? Yes, yes…” and drawing herself up as tall as
possible she went on very seriously: “Swear by your bride Mandane—as
truly as you believe that she loves you….”

“But, sweet soul….”

“Swear that you will never betray to a living soul what I am going to say—not
even to Mother Joanna and Pulcheria; no, nor even to your Mandane, unless
you find you cannot help it and she gives her sacred word….”

“What is it? You quite frighten me! What am I to swear?”

“Not to reveal what I am now going to tell you.”

“Yes, yes, little Mistress; I can promise you that.” Mary sighed, a
long-drawn “Ah…!” and told him that a trustworthy messenger must be
found to go forth to meet Amru, so as to be in time to save Paula. Then
came the question whether he knew the road over the hills from Babylon to
the ancient town of Berenice; and when he replied that he had lately
travelled that way, and that it was the shortest road to the sea for
Djidda and Medina, she repeated her satisfied “Ah!” took his hand, and
went on with coaxing but emphatic entreaty while she played with his big
fingers: “And now, best and kindest Rustem, in all Memphis there is but
one really trusty messenger; but he, you see, is betrothed, and so he
would rather get married and go home with his bride than help us to save
the life of poor Paula.”

“The cur!” growled the Persian.

At this Mary laughed out: “Yes, the cur!” and went on gaily: “But you are
abusing yourself, you stupid Rustem. You, you are the messenger I mean,
the only faithful and trustworthy one far or near. You, you must meet the
governor….”

“I!” said the man, and he stood still with amazement; but Mary pulled him
onward, saying: “But come on, or the others will notice something.—Yes,
you, you must….”

“But child, child,” interrupted Rustem lamentably,

“I must go back to my master; and you see, common right and justice….”

“You do not choose to leave your sweetheart; not even if the kind creature
who watched over you day and night should die for it—die the most
cruel and horrible death! You were ready enough to call that other, as you
supposed, a cur—that other whom no one nursed till he was well
again; but as for yourself….”

“Have patience then! Hear me, little Mistress!” Rustem broke in again, and
pulled away his hand. “I am quite willing to wait and Mandane must just
submit. But one man is not good for all tasks. To ride, or guide a train
of merchandise, to keep the cameldrivers in order, to pitch a camp—-all
that I can do; but to parley with grand folks, to go straight up to such a
man as the great chief Amru with prayers and supplications—all that,
you see, sweetheart—even if it were to save my own father, that
would be….”

“But who asks you to do all that?” said the child. “You may stand as mute
as a fish: it will be your companion’s business to do the talking.”

“There is to be another one then? But, great Masdak! I hope that will be
enough at any rate!”

“Why will you constantly interrupt me?” the little girl put in. “Listen
first and raise objections after wards. The second messenger—now
open your ears wide—it is I, I myself;—but if you stand still
again, you will really betray me. The long and short of it is, that as
surely as I mean to save Paula, I mean to go forth to meet Amru, and if
you refuse to go with me I will set out alone and try whether Gibbus the
hunchback….”

Rustem had needed some time to collect his senses after this stupendous
surprise, but now he exclaimed: “You—you—to Berenice, and over
the mountains….”

“Yes, over the mountains,” she repeated, “and if need be, through the
clouds.”

“But such a thing was never heard of, never heard of on this earth!” the
Persian remonstrated. “A girl, a little lady like you—a messenger,
and all alone with a clumsy fellow like me. No, no, no!”

“And again no, and a hundred times over no!” cried the child merrily. “The
little lady will stop at home and you will take a boy with you—a boy
called Marius, not Mary.”

“A boy! But I thought.—It is enough to puzzle one….”

“A boy who is a girl and a boy in one,” laughed Mary. “But if you must
have it in plain words: I shall dress up as a boy to go with you;
to-morrow when we set out you will see, you will take me for my own
brother.”

“Your own brother! With a little face like yours! Then the most impossible
things will become possible,” cried Rustem laughing, and he looked down
good humoredly at the little girl. But suddenly the preposterousness of
her scheme rose again before his mind, and he exclaimed half-frantically:
“But then my master!—It will not do—It will never do!”

“It is for his sake that you will do us this service,” said Mary
confidently. “He is Paula’s friend and protector; and when he hears what
you have done for her he will praise you, while if you leave us in the
lurch I am quite sure…”

“Well?”

“That he will say: ‘I thought Rustem was a shrewder man and had a better
heart.’”

“You really think he will say that?”

“As surely as our house stands before us!—Well, we have no time for
any more discussion, so it is settled: we start together. Let me find you
in the garden early to-morrow morning. You must tell your Mandane that you
are called away by important business.”

“And Dame Joanna?” asked the Persian, and his voice was grave and anxious
as he went on: “The thing I like least, child, is that you should not ask
her, and take her into your confidence.”

“But she will hear all about it, only not immediately,” replied Mary. “And
the day after to-morrow, when she knows what I have gone off for and that
you are with me, she will praise us and bless us; yes, she will, as surely
as I hope that the Almighty will succor us in our journey!”

At these words, which evidently came from the very depths of her heart,
the Masdakite’s resistance altogether gave way—just in time, for
their walk was at an end, and they both felt as though the long distance
had been covered by quite a few steps. They had passed close to several
groups of noisy and quarrelsome citizens, and many a funeral train had
borne the plague-stricken dead to the grave by torchlight under their very
eyes, but they had heeded none of these things.

It was not till they reached the garden-gate that they observed what was
going on around them. There they found the gardener and all the household,
anxiously watching for the return of their belated mistress. Eudoxia too
was waiting for them with some alarm. In the house they were met by
Horapollo, but Joanna and Pulcheria returned his greeting with a cold bow,
while Mary purposely turned her back on him. The old man shrugged his
shoulders with regretful annoyance, and in the solitude of his own room he
muttered to himself:

“Oh, that woman! She will be the ruin even of the peaceful days I hoped to
enjoy during the short remainder of my life!”

The widow and her daughter for some time sat talking of Mary. She had bid
them good-night as devotedly and tenderly as though they were parting for
life. Poor child! She had forebodings of the terrible fate to which the
bishop, and perhaps her own mother had predestined her.

But Mary did not look as if she were going to meet misfortune; Eudoxia,
who slept by her side, was rejoiced on the contrary at seeing her so gay;
only she was surprised to see the child, who usually fell asleep as soon
as her little head was on the pillow, lying awake so long this evening.
The elderly Greek, who suffered from a variety of little ailments and
always went to sleep late, could not help watching the little girl’s
movements.

What was that? Between midnight and dawn Mary sprang from her bed, threw
on her clothes, and stole into the next room with the night-lamp in her
hand. Presently a brighter light shone through the door-way. She must have
lighted a lamp,-and presently, hearing the door of the sitting-room
opened, Eudoxia rose and noiselessly watched her. Mary immediately
returned, carrying a boy’s clothes—a suit, in point of fact, which
Pulcheria and Eudoxia had lately been making as a Sunday garb—for
the lame gardener’s boy. The child smilingly tried on the little blue
tunic; then, after tossing the clothes into a chest, she sat down at the
table to write. But she seemed to have set herself some hard task; for now
she looked down at the papyrus and rubbed her forehead, and now she gazed
thoughtfully into vacancy. She had written a few sentences when she
started up, called Eudoxia by name, and went towards the sleeping-room.

Eudoxia went forward to meet her; Mary threw herself into her arms, and
before her governess could ask any questions she told her that she had
been chosen to accomplish a great and important action. She had been
intending to wake her, to make her her confidant and to ask her advice.

How sweet and genuine it all sounded, and how charmingly confused she
seemed in spite of the ardent zeal that inspired her!

Eudoxia’s heart went forth to her; the words of reproof died on her lips,
and for the first time she felt as though the orphaned child were her own;
as though their joy and grief were one; as though she, who all her life
long had thought only of herself and her own advantage, and who had
regarded her care of Mary as a mere return in kind for a salary and home,
were ready and willing to sacrifice herself and her last coin for this
child. So, when the little girl now threw her arms round Eudoxia’s neck,
imploring her not to betray her, but, on the contrary, to help her in the
good work which aimed at nothing less than the rescue of Paula and
Orion-the imperilled victims of Fate, her dry eyes sparkled through tears;
she kissed Mary’s burning cheeks once more and called her her own dear,
dear little daughter. This gave the child courage; with tragical dignity,
which brought a smile to the governess’ lips, she took Eudoxia’s bible
from the desk, and said, fixing her beseeching gaze on the Greek’s face:

“Swear!—nay, you must be quite grave, for nothing can be more solemn—swear
not to tell a soul, not even Mother Joanna, what I want to confess to
you.”

Eudoxia promised, but she would take no oath. “Yea, yea, and nay, nay,”
was the oath of the Christian by the law of the Lord; but Mary clung to
her, stroked her thin cheeks, and at last declared she could not say a
word unless Eudoxia yielded. In such an hour the Greek could not resist
this tender coaxing; she allowed Mary to take possession of her hand and
lay it on the Bible; and when once this was done Eudoxia gave way, and
with much head shaking repeated the oath that her pupil dictated, though
much against her will.

After this the governess threw herself on the divan, as if exhausted and
shocked at her own weakness; and the little girl took advantage of her
victory, seating herself at her feet, and telling her all she knew about
Paula and the perils that threatened her and Orion; and she was artful
enough to give special prominence to Orion’s danger, having long since
observed how high he stood in Eudoxia’s good graces. So far Eudoxia had
not ceased stroking her hair, while she assented to everything that was
said; but when she heard that Mary proposed to undertake the embassy to
Amru herself, she started to her feet in horror, and declared most
positively that she would never, never consent to such rashness, to such
fatal folly.

Mary now brought to bear her utmost resources of persuasion and flattery.
There was no other fit messenger to be found, and the lives of Orion and
Paula were at stake. Was a ride across the mountains such a tremendous
matter after all? How well she knew how to manage a beast, and how little
she suffered from the heat! Had she not ridden more than once from Memphis
to their estates by the seaboard? And faithful Rustem would be always with
her, and the road over the mountains was the safest in all the country,
with frequent stations for the accommodation of travellers. Then, if they
found Amru, she could give a more complete report than any other living
soul.

But Eudoxia was not to be shaken; though she admitted that Mary’s project
was not so entirely crazy as it had at first appeared.

At this the little girl began again; after reminding Eudoxia once more of
her oath, she went on to tell her of the doom she herself hoped to escape
by setting out on her errand. She told Eudoxia of her meeting with the
bishop, and that even Joanna was uneasy as to her future fate. Ah! that
life within walls under lock and key seemed to her so frightful—and
she pictured her terrors, her love of freedom and of a busy, useful,
active life among men and her friends, and her hope that the great
general, Amru, would defend her against every one if once she could place
herself under his protection—painting it all so vividly, so
passionately, and so pathetically, that the governess was softened.

She clasped her hands over her eyes, which were streaming with tears, and
exclaimed: “It is horrible, unheard-of—still, perhaps it is the best
thing to do. Well, go to meet the governor,—ride off, ride off!”

And when the sweet, warm-hearted, joyous creature clang round her neck she
was glad of her own weakness: this fair, fresh, and blooming bud of
humanity should not pine in confinement and seclusion; she should find and
give happiness, to her own joy and that of all good souls, and unfold to a
full and perfect flower. And Eudoxia knew the widow well; she knew that
Joanna would by-and-bye understand why she helped the child to escape the
greatest peril that can hang over a human soul: that of living in
perpetual conflict with itself in the effort to become something totally
different from what, by natural gifts and inclinations, it is intended to
be.

With a sigh of anguish Eudoxia reflected what she herself, forced by cruel
fate and lacking freedom and pleasurable ease, had become, from an ardent
and generous young creature; and she, the narrow-hearted teacher, could
make allowances for the strange, adventurous yearning of a child, where a
larger souled woman might have derided, and blamed and repressed it.

When it was daylight Eudoxia fulfilled the offices she commonly left to
the maid: she arranged Mary’s hair, talking to her and listening the
while, as though in this night the child had developed into a woman. Then
she went into the garden with her, and hardly let her out of her sight.

At breakfast Joanna and Pulcheria wondered at her singular behavior, but
it did not displease them, and Marv was radiant with contentment.

The widow made no objection to allowing the child to go into the city to
execute her uncle’s mysterious commission. Rustem was with her; and
whatever it was that made the child so happy must certainly be right and
unobjectionable. Orion’s maps and lists were sent to the prison early in
the day, and before the child set out with her stalwart escort Gibbus had
returned with the prisoner’s letter to the Arab governor.

On their way it was agreed that Mary should join Rustem at dusk at the
riverside inn of Nesptah. In these clays of famine and death beasts of
burthen of every description were easily procurable, as well as attendants
and guides; and the Masdakite, who was experienced in such matters,
thought it best to purchase none but swift dromedaries and to carry only a
light tent for the “little mistress!”

At the door of Gamaliel’s shop Mary bid him wait; the jovial goldsmith
welcomed her with genuine pleasure….

What had befallen the house of the Mukaukas! Fire had destroyed the
dwelling-place of justice, like the Egyptian cities to whom the prophet
had announced a similar fate a thousand years since.

Gamaliel knew in what peril Orion stood, and the fate that hung over the
noble maiden who had once given him the costliest of gems, and afterwards
entrusted to him a portion of her fortune.

To see any member of his patron’s family alive and well rejoiced his
heart. He asked Mary one sympathizing question after another, and his wife
wanted to give her some of her good apricot tarts; but the little girl
begged Gamaliel to grant her at once a private interview, so the jeweller
led her into his little work-shop, bidding her trust him entirely, for
whatever a grandchild of Mukaukas George might ask of him it was granted
beforehand.

Blushing with confusion she took Orion’s ring out of its wrapper, offered
it to the Jew, and desired him to give her whatever was right.

She looked enquiringly into his face with her bright eyes, in full
confidence that the kind-hearted man would at once pay her down gold coins
and to spare; but he did not even take the ring out of her hand. He merely
glanced at it, and said gravely:

“Nay, my little maid, we do not do business with children.”

“But I want the money, Gamaliel,” she urged. “I must have it.”

“Must?” he repeated with a smile. “Well, must is a nail that drives
through wood, no doubt; but if it hits iron it is apt to bend. Not that I
am so hard as that; but money, money, money! And whose money do you mean,
little maid? If you want money of mine to spend in bread, or in cakes,
which is more likely, I will shut my eyes and put my hand boldly into my
wallet; but, if I am not mistaken, you are well provided for by Rufinus
the Greek, in whose house there is no lack of anything; and I have a nice
round sum in my own keeping which your grandfather placed in my hands at
interest two years since, with a remark that it was a legacy to you from
your godmother, and the papers stand in your name; so your necessity looks
very like what other folks would call ease.”

“Necessity! I am in no necessity,” Mary broke in. “But I want the money
all the same; and if I have some of my own, and you perhaps have it there
in your box, give me as much of it as I want.”

“As much as you want?” laughed the jeweller. “Not so fast, little maid.
Before such matters can be settled here in Egypt we must have plenty of
time, and papyrus and ink, a grand law court, sixteen witnesses, a
Kyrios…”

“Well then, buy the ring! You are such a good, kind man Gamaliel. Just to
please me. Why, you yourself do not really think that I want to buy
cakes!”

“No. But in these hard times, when so many are starving, a soft heart may
be moved to other follies.”

“No indeed! Do buy the ring; and if you will do me this favor…”

“Old Gamaliel will be both a rogue and a simpleton!—Have you
forgotten the emerald? I bought that, and a pretty piece of business that
was! I can have nothing to say to the ring, my little maid.” Mary withdrew
her hand, and the grief and disappointment expressed by her large, tearful
eyes were so bitter and touching, that the Jew paused, and then went on
seriously and heartily:

“I would sooner give my own old head to be an anvil than distress you,
sweet child; and Adonai! I do not mean to say—why should I—that
you should ever leave old Gamaliel without money. He has plenty, and
though he is always ready to take, he is ready to give, too, when it is
meet and fitting. I cannot buy the ring, to be sure, but do not be
down-hearted and look me well in the face, little maid. It is much to ask,
and I have handsomer things in my stores, but if you see anything in it
that gives you confidence, speak out and whisper to the man of whom even
your grandfather had some good opinion: ‘I want so much, and what is more—how
did you put it?—what is more, I must have it.’”

Mary did see something in the Jew’s merry round face that inspired her
with trust, and in her childlike belief in the sanctity of an oath she
made a third person—a believer too, in a third form of religion—swear
not to betray her secret, only marvelling that the administering of the
oath, in which she had now had some practice, should be so easy. Even
grown-up people will sometimes buy another’s dearest secret for a light
asseveration. And when she had thus ensured the Israelite’s silence, she
confided to him that she was charged by Orion to send out a messenger to
meet Amru, that he and Paula might be reprieved in time. The goldsmith
listened attentively, and even before she had ended he was busying himself
with an iron chest built into the wall, and interrupted her to ask! “How
much?”

She named the sum that Nilus had suggested, and hardly had she finished
her story when the Jew, who kept the trick by which he opened the chest a
secret even from his wife, exclaimed:

“Now, go and look out of the window, you wonder among envoys and
money-borrowers, and if you see nothing in the courtyard, then fancy to
yourself that a man is standing there who looks like old Gamaliel, and who
puts his hand on your head and gives you a good kiss. And you may fancy
him, too, as saying to himself: ‘God in Heaven! if only my little
daughter, my Ruth may be such another as little Mary, grandchild of the
just Mukaukas!’”

And as he spoke, the vivacious but stout man, who had dropped on his
knees, rose panting, left the lid of his strong box open, hurried up to
the child, who had been standing at the window all the while, and bending
over her from behind pressed a kiss on her curly head, saying with a
laugh: “There, little pickpocket, that is my interest. But look out still,
till I call you again.” He nimbly trotted back on his short little legs,
wiping his eyes; took from the strong box a little bag of gold, which
contained rather more than the desired sum, locked the chest again,
looking at Mary with a mixture of suspicion and hearty approbation; then
at last he called her to him. He emptied the money-bag before her, counted
out the sum she needed, put the remainder of the coins into his girdle,
and handed the bag to the little girl requesting her to count his
“advance”, back into it, while he, with a cunning smile, quitted the room.

He presently returned and she had finished her task, but she timidly
observed: “One gold piece is wanting.” At this he clasped his hands over
his breast and raised his eyes to Heaven exclaiming: “My God! what a
child. There is the solidus, child; and you may take my word for it as a
man of experience: whatever you undertake will prosper. You know what you
are about; and when you are grown up and a suitor comes he will go to a
good market. And now sign your name here. You are not of age, to be sure,
and the receipt is worth no more than any other note scribbled with ink—however,
it is according to rule.”

Mary took the pen, but she first hastily glanced through what Gamaliel had
written; the Jew broke out in fresh enthusiasm:

“A girl—a mere child! And she reads, and considers, and makes all
sure before she will sign! God bless thee, Child!—And here come the
tarts, and you can taste them before…. Just Heaven! a mere child, and
such important business!”


CHAPTER XXI.

While Rustem, to whom Mary had entrusted the jeweller’s gold, was making
his preparations for their journey with all the care of a practised guide,
and while Mary was comforting her governess and Mandane, to whom she
explained that Rustem’s journey was to save Paula’s life, a fresh trial
was going forward in the Court of Justice.

This time Orion was the accused. He had scarcely begun to study the maps
and lists he required for his undertaking when he was bidden to appear
before his judges.

The members composing the Court were the same as yesterday. Among the
witnesses were Paula and the new bishop, as well as Gamaliel, who had been
sent for soon after Mary had left him.

The prosecutor accused the son of the Mukaukas of having made away, in
defiance of the patriarch’s injunction, with a costly emerald bequeathed
to the Church by his father.

Orion had determined to conduct his own defence; he recapitulated
everything that he had told the prelate in self-justification in his
father’s private room, and then added, that to put a speedy end to this
odious affair he was now prepared to restore the stone, and he placed it
at the disposal of his judges. He handed Paula’s emerald to the Kadi who
presented it to the bishop. John, however, did not seem satisfied; he
referred to the written testimony of the widow Susannah, who had been
present when the deceased Mukaukas had designated all the jewels in the
Persian hanging as included in his gift to the Church. This was in Orion’s
presence so he was still under suspicion of a fraud; and it was difficult
to determine whether the fine gem now lying on the table before them were
indeed the same to which the Church laid claim.

All this was urged with excessive vehemence and bore the stamp of a
hostile purpose.

Obedience and conviction alike prompted the zealous prelate to this
demeanor, for the same carrier-pigeon which had brought from the patriarch
his appointment to the bishopric required him to insist on Orion’s
punishment, for he was a thorn in the flesh of the Jacobite church, a
tainted sheep who might infect the rest of the flock. If the young man
should offer an emerald it was therefore to be closely examined, to see
whether it were the original stone or a substitute.

On these grounds the bishop had expressed his doubts, and though they gave
rise to an indignant murmur among the judges, the Kadi so far admitted the
prelate’s suspicions as to explain that last evening a letter had reached
him from his uncle at Djidda, Haschim the merchant, in which mention was
made of the emerald. His son happened to have weighed that stone, without
his knowledge, before he started for Egypt, and Othman had here a note of
its exact weight. The Jew Gamaliel had been desired to attend with his
balances, and could at once use them to satisfy the bishop.

The jeweller immediately proceeded to do so, and old Horapollo, who was an
expert in such matters, went close up to him, and watched him narrowly.

It was in feverish anxiety, and more eagerly than any other bystander,
that Paula and Orion kept their eyes fixed on the Jew’s hands and lips;
after weighing it once, he did so a second time. Old Horapollo himself
weighed it a third time, with a keen eye though his hands trembled a
little; all three experiments gave the same result: this gem was heavier
by a few grains of doura than that which the merchant’s son had weighed,
and yet the Jew declared that there was no purer, clearer, or finer
emerald in the world than this.

Orion breathed more freely, and the question arose among the judges as to
whether the young Arab might have failed in precision, or an exchange had
in fact been effected. This was difficult to imagine, since in that case
the accused would have given himself the loss, and the Church the
advantage.

The bishop, an honest man, now said that the patriarch’s suspicions had
certainly led him too far in this instance, and after this he spoke no
more.

All through this enquiry the Vekeel had kept silence, but the defiant
gaze, assured of triumph, which he fixed on Paula and Orion alternately,
augured the worst.

When the prosecutor next accused the young man of complicity in the much
discussed escape of the nuns Orion again asserted his innocence, pointing
out that during the fatal contest between the Arabs and the champions of
the sisters, he had been with the Arab governor, as Amru himself could
testify. By an act of unparalleled despotism, he had been deprived of his
estates and his freedom on mere false suspicion, and he put his trust in
the first instance in a just sentence from his judges and, failing that,
he threw himself on the protection and satisfaction of his sovereign lord
the Khaliff.

As he spoke his eyes flashed flames at the Vekeel; but the negro still
preserved his self-control, and this doubled the alarm of those who wished
the youth well.

It was clear from all this that Obada felt sure that he had the noose well
around his victim’s neck, and why he thought so, soon became evident; for
Orion had hardly finished his defence when he rose, and with a malicious
grin, handed to the Kadi the little tablet given him yesterday by old
Horapollo, describing it as a document addressed to Paula and desiring the
Kadi to examine it. The heat had effaced much of what had been written on
the wax, but most of the words could still be deciphered. The venerable
Horapollo had already made them out, and was quite ready to read to the
judges all that the accused—who by his own account, was a spotless
dove—had written in his innocence and truthfulness for his fair one.
He signed to the old man and helped him as he rose with difficulty, but
the Kadi begged him to wait, made himself acquainted with the contents of
the letter by the help of the interpreter, and when the man had, with much
pains, fulfilled his task, he turned, not to Horapollo, but to Obada, and
asked whence this document had come.

“From Paula’s desk,” replied the Vekeel. “My old friend found it there.”
He pointed to Horapollo, who confirmed his statement by a nod of assent.

The Kadi rose, went up to the girl, whose cheeks were pale with
indignation, and asked whether she recognized the tablets as her property;
Paula, after convincing herself, replied with a flaming glance of scorn
and aversion at Horapollo: “Yes, my lord. It is mine. That base old man
has taken it with atrocious meanness from among my things.” For an instant
her voice failed her; then, turning to the judges, she exclaimed:

“If there is one among you to whom helplessness and innocence are sacred
and malice and cunning odious, I beg him to go to Rufinus’ wife, over
whose threshold this man has crept like a ferret into a dovecote, for no
other end but to tread hospitable kindness in the dust, to rifle her home
and make use of whatever might serve his vile purpose—to go, I say,
and warn the lonely woman against this treacherous spy and thief.”

At this the old man, gasping and inarticulate, raised his withered arm;
the Christian judges whispered together, but at cross-purposes, while the
Jew fidgeted his round little person on the bench, drumming incessantly
with his fingers on his breast, and trying to meet Orion’s or Paula’s eye
and to make her understand that he was the man who would warn Joanna. But
a thump from the Vekeel’s fist, that came down on his shoulder unawares,
reduced him to sitting still; and while he sat rubbing the place with
subdued sounds of pain, not daring to reproach the all-powerful negro for
his violence, the Kadi gave the tablets to Horapollo and bid him read the
letter.

But the terrible accusation cast at him by the hated Patrician maiden,
ascribing his removal to Rufinus house to a motive which, in truth, had
been far from his, had so enraged and agitated him that his old lungs, at
all times feeble, refused their office. This woman had done him a fresh
wrong, for he had gone to live with the widow from the kindest impulse;
only an accident had thrown this document in his way. And yet it would not
fail to be reported to Joanna in the course of the day that he had gone to
her house as a spy, and there would be an end to the pleasant life of
which he had dreamed—nay, even Philippus might perhaps quarrel with
him.

And all, all through this woman.

He could not utter a word but, as he sank back on the seat, a glance so
full of hatred, so dark with malignant fury, fell on Paula that she
shuddered, and told herself that this man was ready to die himself if only
he could drag her down too.

The interpreter now began to read Orion’s letter and to translate it for
the Arabs; and while he blundered through it, declaring that not a letter
could be plainly made out, she recovered her self-control and, before the
interpreter had done his task, a gleam as of sunshine lighted up her pure
features. Some great, lofty, and rapturous thought must have flashed
through her brain, and it was evident that she had seized it and was
feeding on it.

Orion, sitting opposite to her, noticed this; still, he did not understand
what her beseeching gaze had to say to him, what it asked of him as she
pressed her hand on her breast, and looked into his eyes with such urgent
entreaty that it went to his very heart.

The interpreter ceased; but what he had read had had a great effect on the
judges. The Kadi’s benevolent face expressed extreme apprehension, and the
contents of the letter were indeed such as to cause it. It ran as follows:

“After waiting for you a long time in vain, I must at last make up my mind
to go; and how much I still had to say to you. A written farewell.”

Here a few lines were effaced, and then came the—fatal and quite
legible conclusion:

“How far otherwise I had dreamed of ending this day, which has been for
the most part spent in preparations for the flight of the Sisters; and I
have found a pleasure in doing all that lay in my power for those kind and
innocent, unjustly persecuted nuns. We must hope for the best for them;
and for ourselves we must look to-morrow for an undisturbed interview and
a parting which may leave us memories on which we can live for a long
time. The noble governor Amru is, among the Arabs, such another as he whom
we mourn was among the Egyptians…” Here the letter ended; not quite
three lines were wanting to conclude it.

The Kadi held the tablets for a few minutes in his hand; then looking up
again at the assembly, who were waiting in great suspense, he began: “Even
if the accused was not one of those who raised their hands in mutiny
against our armed troops, it is nevertheless indisputable, after what has
just been read, that he not only knew of the escape of the nuns, but aided
them to the utmost.—When did you receive this communication, noble
maiden?”

At this Paula clasped her hands tightly and replied with a slightly bent
head and her eyes fixed on the ground.

“When did I receive it?—Never; for I wrote it myself. The writing is
mine.”

“Yours?” said the Kadi in amazement. “It is from me to Orion,” replied
Paula.

“From you to him? How then comes it in your desk?”

“In a very simple way,” she explained, still looking down. “After writing
the letter to my betrothed I threw it in with the other tablets as soon as
I had no need for it; for he himself came, and there was no necessity for
his reading what could be better said by word of mouth.”

As she spoke a peculiar smile passed over her lips and a loud murmur ran
through the room. Orion looked first at the girl and then at the Kadi in
growing bewilderment; but the Negro started up, struck his fist on the
table, making it shake, and roared out:

“An atrocious fabrication! Which of you can allow yourself to be taken in
by a woman’s guile?” Horapollo, who had recovered himself by this time,
laughed hoarsely and maliciously; the judges looked at each other much
puzzled; but when the Vekeel went on raging the Kadi interrupted him, and
desired that Orion might speak, for he had twice tried to make himself
heard. Now, with scarlet cheeks and a choking utterance, he said:

“No, Othman—no, no indeed, my lords. Do not believe her. Not she,
but I—I wrote the letter that….”

But Paula broke in:

“He? Do you not feel that all he wants is to save me, and so he takes my
guilt on himself? It is his generosity, his love for me! Do not, do not
believe him! Do not allow yourselves to be deceived by him.”

“I? No, it is she, it is she,” Orion again asserted; but, before he could
say more, Paula declared with a flashing glance that it was a poor sort of
love which sacrificed itself out of false generosity. And as, at the same
time, she again pressed her hand to her bosom with pathetic entreaty, he
was suddenly silent, and casting his eyes up to heaven, he sank back on
the prisoners’ bench, deeply affected.

Paula joyfully went on:

“He has thought better of it, and given up his crazy attempt to take my
guilt on himself. You see, Othman, you all see, worthy men.—Let me
atone for what I did to help the poor nuns.”

“Have your way!” shrieked the old man; but the Negro cried out:

“A hellish tissue of lies, an unheard-of deception! But in spite of the
shield a woman holds before you, I have my foot on your neck, treacherous
wretch! Is it credible—I ask you, judges—that a finished
letter should be found, after weeks had elapsed, in the hands of the
writer and not those of the person to whom it was addressed?”

The Kadi shrugged his shoulders and replied with calm dignity:

“Consider, Obada, that we are condemning this damsel on the evidence of a
letter which was found in possession, not of the person to whom it was
addressed, but of the writer. This document gave rise to no doubts in your
mind. The judge should mete out equal measure to all, Obada.”

The aptness of these words, spoken in a dogmatic tone, aroused the
approval of the Arabs, and the Jew could not restrain himself from
exclaiming: “Capital!” but no sooner had it escaped him than he shrank as
quick as lightning out of the Vekeel’s reach; and Obada hardly heard him,
for he did not allow himself to be interrupted by the Kadi but went on to
explain in wrathful words what a disgrace it was to them, as men and
judges, to have dust cast in their eyes by a woman, and allow themselves
to be molified by the arts of a pair of love-stricken fools; and how
desirable it must be in the eyes of every Moslem to guard the security of
life and bring the severest punishment on the instigator of a sanguinary
revolt against the champions of the Khaliff’s power.

His eloquent and stormy address was not without effect; still, the
Christians, who ascribed every form of evil to the Melchite girl, would
have been satisfied with her death and have been ready to forgive the son
of the Mukaukas this crime—supposing him to have committed it. And
it was after the judges had agreed that it was impossible to decide by
whom the letter on the tablet had been written, and there had been a great
deal of argument on both sides, that the real discussion began.

It was long before the assembly could agree, and all the while Orion sat
now looking as though he had already been condemned to a cruel death, and
now exchanging glances with Paula, while he pressed his hand to his heart
as though to keep it from bursting. He perfectly understood her, and her
magnanimity upheld him. He had indeed persuaded himself to accept her
self-sacrifice, but he was fully determined that if she must die he would
follow her to the grave. “Non dolet,”—[It does not hurt]—Arria
cried to her lover Paetus, as she thrust the knife into her heart that she
might die before him; and the words rang in his ear; but he said to
himself that Paula would very likely be pardoned, and that then he would
be free and have a whole lifetime in which to thank her.

At last—at last. The Kadi announced the verdict: It was impossible
to find Orion worthy of death, and equally so to give up all belief in his
guilt; the court therefore declared itself inadequate to pronounce a
sentence, and left it to be decided by the Khaliff or by his
representative in Egypt, Amru. The court only went so far as to rule that
the prisoner was to be kept in close confinement, so that he might be
within reach of the hand of justice, if the supreme decision should be
“guilty!”

When the Kadi said that the matter was to be referred to the Khaliff or
his representative, the Vekeel cried out:

“I—I am Omar’s vicar!” but a disapproving murmur from the judges, as
with one voice, rejected his pretensions, and at a proposal of the Kadi it
was resolved that the young man should be protected against any arbitrary
attack on the part of the Vekeel by a double guard; for many grave
accusations against Obada were already on their way to Medina. The negro
quitted the court, mad with rage, and concocting fresh indictments against
Paula with the old man.

When Paula returned to her cell old Betta thought that she must have been
pardoned; for how glad, how proud, how full of spirit she entered it! The
worst peril was diverted from her lover, and she and her love had saved
him!

She gave herself up for lost; but whatever fate might have in store for
her, life lay open before him; he would have time to prove his splendid
powers, and that he would do so, as she would have him do it, she felt
certain.

She had not ended telling her nurse of the judges’ decision, when the
warder announced the Kadi. In a minute or two he made his appearance; she
expressed her thanks, and he warmly assured her that he regarded the
disgrace of being perhaps a beguiled judge as a favor of Fortune; then he
turned the conversation on the real object of his visit.

In the letter, he began, which he had received the evening before from his
uncle Haschim, there was a great deal about her. She had quite won the old
merchant’s heart, and the enquiries for her father which he had set on
foot….

Here she interrupted him saying: “Oh, my lord; is the wish, the prayer of
my life to be granted?”

“Your father, the noble Thomas, before whom even the Moslem bows, has
been…” and then Othman went on to tell her that the hero of Damascus had
in fact retired to Sinai and had been living there as a hermit. But she
must not indulge in premature rejoicing, for the messengers had found him
ill, consumed by disease arising from his wounded lungs, and almost at
death’s door. His days were numbered….

“And I, I am a prisoner,” groaned the girl. “Held fast, helpless, robbed
of all means of flying to his arms!”

He again bid her be calm, and went on to tell her: in his soft, composed
manner, that two days since a Nabathaean had come to him and had asked
him, as the chief administrator of justice in Egypt, whether an old foe of
the Moslems, a general who had fought in the service of the emperor and
the cross against the Khaliff and the crescent, and who was now sick,
weary, and broken, might venture on Egyptian soil without fear of being
seized by the Arab authorities; and when he, Othman, had learnt that this
man was no other than Thomas, the hero of Damascus, he had promised him
his life and freedom, promised them gladly, as he felt assured his
sovereign the Khaliff would desire.

So this very day her father had reached Fostat, and the Kadi had received
him as a guest into his house. Thomas, indeed, stood on the brink of the
grave; but he was inspirited and sustained by the hope of seeing his
daughter. It had been falsely reported to him that she had perished in the
massacre at Abyla and he had already mourned her fate.

It was now his duty to fulfil the wish of a dying man, and he had ordered
the prison servants to prepare the room adjoining Paula’s cell with
furniture which was on the way from his house. The door between the two
would be opened for her.

“And I shall see him again, have him again to live with—to close his
eyes, perhaps to die with him!” cried Paula; and, seizing the good man’s
hand, she kissed it gratefully.

The Moslem’s eyes filled with tears as he bid her not to thank him, but
God the All-merciful; and before the sun went down the head of the doomed
daughter was resting on the breast of the weary hero who was so near his
end, though his unimpaired mind and tender heart rejoiced in their reunion
as fully and deeply as did his beloved and only child. A new and
unutterable joy came to Paula in the gloom of her prison; and that same
day the warder carried a letter from her to Orion, conveying her father’s
greetings; and, as he read the fervent blessing, he felt as though an
invisible hand had released him for ever from the curse his own father had
laid upon him. A wonderful glad sense of peace came over him with power
and pleasure in work, and he gave his brains and pen no rest till morning
was growing grey.


CHAPTER XXII.

Horapollo made his way home to his new quarters from the court of justice
with knit and gloomy brows. As he passed Susannah’s garden hedge he saw a
knot of people gathered together and pointing out furtively to the
handsome residence beyond.

They, like a hundred other groups he had passed, hailed him with words of
welcome, thanks, and encouragement and, as he bowed to them slightly, his
eyes followed the direction of their terrified gaze and he started; above
the great garden gates hung the black tablet; a warning that looked like a
mark of disgrace, crying out to the passer-by: “Avoid this threshold! Here
rages the destroying pestilence!”

The old man had a horror of everything that might remind him of death, and
a cold shiver ran through him. To live so near to a focus of the disease
was most alarming and dangerous! How had it invaded this, the healthiest
part of the town, which the last raging epidemic had spared?

An officer of the town-council, whom he called to him, told him that two
slaves, father and son, whose duty it was to take charge of the baths in
the widow’s house, had been first attacked, but they had been carried
quietly away in the night to the new tents for the sick; to-day, however,
the widow herself had fallen ill. To prevent the spread of the infection,
the plot of ground was now guarded on all sides.

“Be strict, be sharp; not a rat must creep out!” cried the old man as he
rode on.

He was later than he had been yesterday; supper must be ready. After a
short rest he was preparing to join the family at their meal, washing and
dressing with the help of his servant, when a lame slave-girl came into
his room and placed a tray covered with steaming dishes on the low table
by the divan.

What was the meaning of this? Before he could ask, he was informed that
for the future the women wished to eat by themselves; he would be served
in his own room.

At this a bright patch of red colored his cheeks; after brief reflection
he cried to his servant. “My ass!” and added to the girl: “Where is your
mistress?”

“In the viridarium with Gamaliel the goldsmith; but they are going to
supper immediately.”

“And without their guest? I understand!” muttered the old man, taking up
his hat and marching past the maid out of the room. In the hall he met
Gamaliel, to whom a slave-girl was handing his stick. Horapollo could
guess that the Jew had come only to warn the women against him and,
without vouchsafing him a glance, he went into the dining-room. There he
found Pulchena and Mary kneeling in tears by the side of Joanna, who was
weeping too.

He guessed for whom were these lamentations, and prompted by the wish to
prove the falsity of the accusation that charged him with having entered
the house as a spy, he spoke to the widow. She shuddered as he entered,
and she now pointed to the door with an outstretched finger; when he
nevertheless stood still and was about to make his defence, she
interrupted him loudly and urgently: “No, no, my lord! This house is
henceforth closed against you! You yourself have broken every tie that
bound us! Do not any longer disturb our peace! Go back to the place you
came from.”

At this the old man made one more attempt to speak; but the widow rose,
and saying: “Come, my children,” she hastily withdrew with the girls into
the adjoining room, and closed the door.

Horapollo was left alone on the threshold.

Old as he was, in all his life he had never suffered such an insult; but
he did not lay it to the score of those who had shown him the door, but to
the already long one of the Syrian girl; as he rode back to his own home
on his white ass, he stopped several times to speak to the passers-by.

During the following day or two he heeded not the heat of the weather, nor
his own need of rest for his body, and quiet occupation for his mind;
morning, noon and night he was riding about the streets stirring up the
people, and setting forth in insinuating speeches that they must perish
miserably if they rejected the only means of deliverance which he had
pointed out to them. He was present at every meeting of the Senate, and
his inflammatory eloquence kept the town council on his side, and
nullified the efforts of the bishop, while he pressed them to fix the day
of the marriage of the Nile with his bride.

He knew the Egyptians and their passion for the intoxicating joys of a
splendid ceremonial. This festival: the wedding of the Bride of the Nile
to her mighty and unresting spouse, on whom the weal or woe of the land
depended, was to be as a flowery oasis in the waste of dearth and
desolation. He recalled every detail of the reminiscences of his childhood
as to the processions in Honor of Isis, and the festivals dedicated to her
and her triad; every record of his own experience and that of former
generations; all he had read in books of the great pilgrimages and dramas
of heathen Egypt—and he described it all in his speeches, painted it
in glowing colors to the Senate and the mob, and counselled the
authorities to reproduce it all with unparalleled splendor on the occasion
of this marriage.

Every man in whose veins flowed Egyptian blood listened to him
attentively, took pleasure in his projects, and was quite ready to do his
utmost to enhance the glories of this ceremonial, in which every one was
to take part either active or passive. Thousands were ruined, but there
was yet enough and to spare for this marriage feast, and the Senate did
not hesitate to raise a fresh loan.

“Destruction or Deliverance!” was the watch-word Horapollo had given the
Memphites. If everything came to ruin their hoarded talents would be lost
too; if, on the other hand, the sacrifice produced its result, if the Nile
should bless its children with renewed prosperity, what need the town or
country care for a few thousand drachmae more or less?

So the day was fixed!

Not quite two weeks after Paula’s trial, on the day of Saint Serapis the
miraculous, saving, auspicious ceremonial was to take place. And how
glowing was the picture given of the Bride’s beauty by the old man, and by
the judges and officials who had seen her! How brightly old Horapollo’s
eyes would flash with hate as he described it! The eyes of love could not
be more radiant.

All that this patrician hussy had done to aggrieve him—she should
expiate it all, and his triumph meant woe, not only to that one woman, but
to the Christian faith which he hated!

Bishop John, however, had not been idle meanwhile. Immediately after his
interference with the popular vote he had despatched a letter by a
carrier-pigeon to the patriarch in Upper Egypt, and Benjamin’s reply would
no doubt give him powers for still more vigorous measures. In church,
before the Senate, and even in the highways, he and his clergy did their
utmost to combat the atrocious project of the authorities and the
populace, but the zeal which was stirred up by old Horapollo soon broke
into brighter flames than the conservatism, orthodoxy and breadth of view
which the ecclesiastics did their utmost to fan. The wind blew with equal
force from both quarters, but on one side it blew on smoldering fuel, and
on the other on overflowing and flaming stores. Famine and despair had
undermined faith, and weakened discipline; even the mightiest weapons of
the Church—Cursing and blessing—were powerless. A floating
beam was held out to sinking men, and they would no longer wait for the
life-boat that was approaching to rescue them, with strong hands at the
oars and a trusty pilot at the helm.

Horapollo went no more to the widow’s home. A few hours after she had
shown him the door, his slaves came and fetched away the various things he
had carried there with him. His body servant at the same time brought a
large sealed phial and a letter to Dame Joanna, as follows:

“It is wrong to judge a man without hearing his defence. This you have
done; but I owe you no grudge. Philippus, on his return, will perhaps pick
up the ends of the tie and join again what you have this day cut. I send
you a portion of the remedy he left with me at parting to use against the
plague in case of need. Its good effects have been tested within the last
few days. May the sickness which has fallen on your neighbors, spare you
and yours.”

Joanna was much pleased with this letter but, when she had read it aloud,
little Mary exclaimed:

“If any one should fall ill he shall not take a drop of that mixture! I
tell you he only wants to poison us!”

Joanna, however, maintained that the old man was not bad hearted in spite
of his unaccountable hatred of Paula; and Pulcheria declared that it must
be so, if only because Philip esteemed him so highly. If only he were
here, everything would have been different and have turned out well.

Mary remained with the mother and daughter till it grew dark; her chatter
always led them back to Paula; and when, in the afternoon, the Nabathaean
messenger came to them, and told them from their captive friend that he
had brought her father home to her, the women once more began to hope, and
Mary could allow herself to give free expression to her fond love before
she quitted them, without exciting their suspicions.

At length she said she must go to her lessons with Eudoxia; she had a hard
task before her and they must think of her and wish her good success. She
threw her arms first round the widow’s neck and then round Pulcheria’s;
and, as the tears would start to her eyes, she asked them if she were not
indeed a silly childish thing—but they were to think of her all the
same and never to forget her.

She met the governess in her own room; Eudoxia cut off the fine, soft
curls, shedding her first tears over them; and those tears flowed faster
as she placed round Mary’s neck a little reliquary containing a lock from
the sheep-skin of St. John the Baptist, which had belonged to her own
mother. It was very dear and sacred to her, and she had never before
parted from it, but now it was to protect the child and bring her
happiness—great happiness.

Had it brought her such happiness?—Not much, in truth; and yet she
believed in the saving and beneficent influence of the relic.

At last Mary stood before her with short hair and in a boy’s dress; and
what a sweet and lovely little fellow it was; Eudoxia could not weary of
looking at him. But Mary was too pretty, too frail for a boy; and Eudoxia
advised her to pull her broad travelling hat low over her eyes as soon as
she came in sight of men, or else to darken her color.

Gamaliel, who had in fact come to warn Dame Joanna against Horapollo, had
kept them informed of the progress of this day’s sitting, and Paula’s
conduct to save her lover had increased Mary’s admiration for her. When
she should confront Amru she could answer him on every head, so she felt
equipped at all points as she stole through the garden with Eudoxia, and
down to the quay.

When she had passed the gateway she once more kissed her hand to the house
she loved and its inmates; then, pointing with a sigh to the neighboring
garden, she said:

“Poor Katharina! she is a prisoner now.—Do you know, Eudoxia, I am
still very fond of her, and when I think that she may take the plague, and
die but no!—Tell Mother Joanna and Pulcheria to be kind to her.
To-morrow, after breakfast, give them my letter; and this evening, if they
get anxious, you can only quiet them by saying you know all and that it is
of no use to fret about me. You will set it all right and not allow them
to grieve.”

As they passed a Jacobite chapel that stood open, she begged Eudoxia to
wait for her and fell on her knees before the crucifix. In a few minutes
she came out again, bright and invigorated and, as they passed the last
houses in the town, she exclaimed:

“Is it not wicked, Eudoxia? I am leaving those I love dearly, very dearly,
and yet I feel as glad as a bird escaping from its cage. Good Heaven! Only
to think of the ride by night through the desert and over the hills, a
swift beast under me, and over my head no ceiling but the blue sky and
countless stars! Onward and still onward to a glorious end, left entirely
to myself and entrusted with an important task like a grownup person! Is
it not splendid? And by God’s help—and if I find the governor and
succeed in touching his heart…. Now, confess, Eudoxia, can there be a
happier girl in the whole wide world?”

They found the Masdakite at Nesptah’s inn with some capital dromedaries
and the necessary drivers and attendants. The Greek governess gave her
pupil much good advice, and added her “maternal” blessing with her whole
heart. Rustem lifted the child on to the dromedary, carefully settling her
in the saddle, and the little caravan set out. Mary waved repeated adieux
to her old governess and newly-found friend, and Eudoxia was still gazing
after her long after she had vanished in the darkness.

Then she made her way home, at first weeping silently with bowed head, but
afterwards tearless, upright, and with a confident step. She was in
unusually good spirits, her heart beat higher than it had done for years;
she felt uplifted by the sense of relief from a burthensome duty, and of
freedom to act independently on the dictates of her own intelligence. She
would assert herself, she would show the others that she had acted
rightly; and when at supper-time Mary was missing, and had not returned
even at bed-time, there was much to do to soothe and comfort them, and
much misconstruction to endure; but she took it all patiently, and it was
a consolation to her to bear such annoyance for her little favorite.

Next morning, when she had delivered Mary’s letter to Dame Joanna, her
love and endurance were put to still severer proof; indeed, the
meek-tempered widow allowed herself to be carried away to such an outbreak
as hitherto would undoubtedly have led Eudoxia to request her dismissal,
with sharp recrimination; but she took it all calmly.

It was not till noon-day—when the bishop made his appearance to
carry the child off to the convent, and was highly wrathful at Mary’s
disappearance, threatening the widow, and declaring that he would search
the whole country through for the little girl and find her at last, that
Eudoxia felt that the moment of her triumph had come. She quietly allowed
the bishop to depart, and then only did she send her last and best shaft
at Joanna by informing her that she had in fact encouraged the child in
her exploit on purpose to save her from the cloister. Her newly-found
motherly feeling made her eloquent, and with a result that she had almost
ceased to hope for: the warm-hearted little woman, who had hurt her with
such cruel words, threw her arms round Eudoxia’s tall, meagre figure, put
up her face to kiss her, called her a brave, clever girl, and begged her
forgiveness for all she had said and done the day before.

So, when the Greek went to bed, she felt as if her life had turned
backwards and she had grown more like the happy young creature she had
once been with her sisters in her parents’ house.


CHAPTER XXIII.

Paula now understood what hung over her. It is Bishop John who had told
her, as gently as he could, and with every assurance that he still clung
to the hope that he could stop the hideous heathen abomination; but even
without this she would certainly have known what was impending, for large
crowds of people gathered every day under the prisonwalls, and loud cries
reached her, demanding to see the “Bride of the Nile.”

Now and again shouts of “Hail!” came up to her; but when the demented
creatures had shrieked themselves hoarse, and in vain, they would abuse
her vilely. The cry for the “Bride” never ceased from morning till night,
and the head warder of the prison was glad that the bishop had relieved
him of the task of explaining to Paula the meaning of the fateful word,
whose significance she had repeatedly asked him.

At first this fresh and terrible peril had startled and shaken her; but
she did her utmost to cling to the hope held out by the bishop so as to
appear calm, and as far as possible cheerful, in her sick father’s
presence. And in this she succeeded so long as it was day; but at night
she was a prey to agonizing terrors. Then, in fancy she saw herself
surrounded by a raging mob, dragged to the river and cast into a watery
grave before a thousand eyes. Then, prayer was of no avail, nor any
resolve or effort; not the tender messages that constantly reached her
from Orion, nor the songs he would sing for her in the brief moments of
leisure he allowed himself; not the bishop’s words of comfort, nor the
visits of those she loved. The warder would admit her friends as often as
he was able; and among those who found their way to her cell were the
Senator Justinus and his wife.

By great good fortune Martina had quitted Susannah’s house as soon as the
two slaves had fallen ill and she had heard that the physician pronounced
them to be sickening of the plague. She had returned to her rooms in the
inn kept by Sostratus, but her nephew Narses had remained with Katharina
and her mother. He was indeed intending to follow her with Heliodora; but,
by the time they were ready to set out, Susannah, too, had fallen a victim
to the pestilence and the authorities had forbidden all egress from her
house.

Heliodora might have succeeded in leaving in time, alone; but she would
not abandon her unfortunate brother-in-law; for he never felt easy but in
her presence, would allow no one else to wait on him, and would take
neither food nor drink unless they were offered him by her. Besides this,
the cavalry officer, once so stalwart, had in his weakness become
pathetically like her lost husband, and she knew that Narses had been the
first to love her, and that it was only for his brother’s sake that he had
concealed his passion. Her motherly instincts found an outlet in the care
of the half-crushed, but not hopelessly lost man; and the desire to drag
him back to life kept her busy day and night, and made her regard
everything else as trivial and of secondary importance. Her life had once
more found a purpose; her efforts were for an attainable end, and she
devoted herself to him body and soul.

Her uncle had told her that Orion was bound to Paula by a supreme passion.—This
had been a painful blow, but the Syrian girl had impressed her; she looked
up to her, and it soothed her wounded self-esteem to reflect that she had
lost her lover to no inferior woman. Though her longing for him still
surged up in many a silent hour, she felt it an injustice, a stint of love
to her invalid charge.

So far as Katharina was concerned, next to her mother, Heliodora was the
object of her deepest anxiety. The least word of complaint from either
terrified her; and if Susannah sank on the divan exhausted by the heat, or
Heliodora had a headache after watching through the night by the sick man,
the girl would turn pale, her heart would beat painfully, she would paint
them in fancy stricken by the plague, with burning brows and the horrible,
fatal spots on their foreheads and cheeks; and whenever these alarms
pressed on the young criminal she felt the ominous weight on the top of
her head where the dead bishop’s hand had rested.

The senator’s wife had so completely changed in her demeanor to the
water-wagtail, since Paula’s imprisonment, that to Katharina she was as a
living reproach, so she had no regret at seeing the worthy pair depart.
But scarcely had they left when misfortune took their place as an unbidden
guest.

The slave whose duty it was to heat the baths had reserved a portion of
the infected garments that had been given to him to burn; his son had
helped him, and Katharina’s nurse, the mother of her foster-brother
Anubis, had come into direct contact with her immediately after her return
from the soothsayer’s and from the bishop’s. All three had caught the
disease. They had all three been removed to the hospital tents—the
slave and the nurse as corpses.

But had the fearful infection been taken away with them? If not, it would
be the turn next of those whom she herself had pushed into the arms of the
fell monster: First Heliodora, and then her mother! And she, rightfully,
ought to have fallen before them; and if the pestilence should seize her
and death should drag her down into the grave it would be showing her
mercy. She was still so young, and yet she hated life. It had nothing in
store for her but humiliation and disappointment, arrows which, sent from
the prison, pierced her to the heart, and a torturing fear which never
gave her any peace, day or night.

When the physician came to transport the sick to the hospital in the
desert, he mentioned incidentally that the judges had condemned Paula to
death, and that the populace and senate, in spite of the new bishop’s
prohibition, had determined to cast her into the river in accordance with
an ancient custom. Orion’s fate was not to be decided till the following
day; but it would hardly be to his advantage in the eyes of his Jacobite
judges, that his betrothed was this Syrian Melchite.

At this Katharina was forced to support herself against her mother’s
arm-chair to save herself from sinking on her knees; with tingling cheeks
she questioned the leech till he lost all patience and turned away much
annoyed at such excessive feminine curiosity.

Yes! “The other” was his betrothed before all the world; but only to die!
The blood rushed through her veins in a hot tide at the thought; she could
have laughed aloud and fallen on the neck of every one she met. What she
felt was hideous; malignant spite possessed her; but it gave her rapture—delicious
rapture—a flower of hell, but with splendid petals and intoxicating
perfume. But its splendor dazzled her and its fragrance presently sickened
her. Sheer horror of herself came over her, and yet she could have shouted
with joy each time that the thought flashed through her brain: “The other
must die!”

Her mother feared that her daughter, too, was about to fall ill, her eyes
glowed so strangely and she was so restless and nervously excitable.

Since Heliodora had taken the overwhelming news of Orion’s betrothal to
Paula with astonishing though sorrowful calmness, to the hot-blooded girl
she was nothing, nobody, utterly unworthy of her notice.

To spite her she had committed a crime as like murder as one snake is like
another, and imperilled her own mother’s life! It was enough to drive her
to despair, to make her scourge herself with rods!

When Susannah kissed her at parting for the night she complained of a
slight sore throat and of her lips, which she fancied must be swollen.
Katharina detained her, questioned her with a trembling voice, put the
lamp close to her, and held her breath while she examined her face, her
neck, and her arms for the dreadful spots. But none were to be seen and
her mother laughed at her terrors, called her a dutiful, anxious child,
and warned her not to be too full of fears, as they were supposed to
invite the disease.

All night the girl could not sleep. Her malicious triumph was past;
nothing but painful thoughts and grewsome images haunted her while awake,
and pursued her more persistently when she dozed. By dawn of day her alarm
for her mother was so great that she sprang out of bed and went to her
room; Susannah was sleeping so soundly that she did not even hear her.
Much relieved Katharina crept back to bed; but in the morning the worst
had happened: Susannah could no longer leave her bed; she was feverish,
and on her lips, the very lips which had kissed her child’s infected hair,
there were indeed, between her nose and mouth, the first terrible,
unmistakable spots.

The leech came and confirmed the fact.—The house was closed and
barred.

The physician and Susannah, who was still in full possession of her
senses, wished and insisted that Katharina should withdraw to the
gardener’s house, but she refused with defiant obstinacy, saying she would
rather die with her mother than leave her.

Quite beside herself she threw herself on the sick woman, and kissed the
spots on her mouth to divert the poison into her own blood; but the
physician angrily pulled her away, and the sufferer reproved her with
tears in her eyes which spoke her fervent affection.

She was now allowed to nurse her mother. Two nuns came to her assistance,
and said, not only to the rich widow but behind her back, that they had
never seen so devoted and loving a daughter. Even Bishop John, who did not
shrink from entering the houses of the sick to give them spiritual
consolation, praised Katharina’s conduct; and he, who had hitherto
regarded the water-wagtail as no more than a bright, restless child,
treated her with respect, talked to her as to a grown-up person, and
answered her questions—which for the most part referred to Paula—gravely
and fully.

The prelate, who was full of admiration for Thomas’ daughter, told
Katharina how, to save her lover, she had taken a crime upon herself which
deprived her of every claim to mercy. The Syrian girl was only a Melchite,
but to take another’s guilt, out of love, was treading indeed in the
footsteps of Christ, if ever anything was. At this Katharina shrugged her
shoulders, as though to say: “Do you think so much of that? Could not I
gladly have done the same?”

The priest saw this and admonished her kindly to be on her guard against
spiritual pride, though she had indeed earned the right to believe herself
capable of the sternest devotion, and did not cease to set an example of
filial and Christian love.

He departed; and Katharina, to whom every word in praise of her behavior
to her mother, whom her sin had brought to her death-bed, was a torturing
mockery, felt that she had deceived one more worthy soul. She did not, to
be sure, deserve to be charged with spiritual pride; for in this silent
chamber, where death stood on the threshold, she thought over all the
horrible things she had done, and told herself repeatedly that she was the
chief and most vile of sinners.

Many times she felt impelled to confide in another soul, to invite a
pitying eye to behold and share her inward suffering.

To the bishop above all, the most venerable priest she knew, she would
most readily have confessed everything and have submitted to any penance,
however severe, at his hands, but shame held her back; and even more did
another more urgent consideration. The prelate, she knew, would demand of
her that she should forsake her old life, root out from her soul the old
feelings and desires, and begin a new existence; but for this the time had
not yet come: her love was still an indispensable condition of life, and
her hatred was even more dear to her. When Paula’s terrible doom should
indeed have overtaken her, and Katharina, her heart full of those old
feelings, had gloated over it; when she should have been able to prove to
Orion that her love was no less great and strong and self-sacrificing than
that of Thomas’ daughter; when she should have compelled him—as she
would and must—to acknowledge that he had cruelly misprized her and
sinned against her; then, and not till then, would she make peace with
herself, with the Church, and with her Saviour. Nay, if need be, she would
take the veil and mourn away the rest of her young life as a penitent, in
a convent or a solitary rock-cell. But now—when Paula, his
betrothed, had done this great thing for him—to perish now, with her
love unseen, unknown, uncared for, perhaps forgotten by him, to retire
into herself and vanish from his ken—that was too much for human
nature! Sooner would she be lost forever; body and soul in everlasting
perdition, a prey to Satan and hell—in which she believed as firmly
as in her own existence.

So she went on nursing her mother, saw the red spots spread over the sick
woman’s whole body—watched the fever that increased from day to day,
from hour to hour; listened with a mixture of horror and gladness—at
which she herself shuddered, though she fed her heart on it—to the
reports of the preparations for the sacrifice of the Bride of the Nile,
and to all the bishop could tell her of Paula, and her dying father, and
Orion. She trembled for little Mary, who had disappeared from the
neighboring garden, till she heard that the child had fled to escape the
cloister; each day she learnt that Heliodora, who had moved to the
gardener’s house with her invalid, had as yet escaped the pestilence;
while in the prayers, which even now she never failed to offer up morning
and evening, she implored the Almighty and her patron saints to rescue the
young widow, to save her from causing the death of her own mother, and to
forgive her for having indirectly caused that of worthy old Rufinus, who
had always been so good to her, and of so many innocent creatures by her
treachery.

Thus the terrible days and nights of anguish passed by; and the captives
whom the girl’s sins had brought to prison were happier than she, in spite
of the doom that threatened them.

The fate of his betrothed tortured Orion more than a hundred aching
wounds. Paula’s terrible end was fast approaching, and his brain burned at
the mere thought. Now, as he was told by the warder, by the bishop, and by
Justinus, the day after to-morrow was fixed for the bridal of his
betrothed. In two days the bride, decked by base and mocking hands for an
atrocious and accursed farce, would be wreathed and wedded, not to him,
the bridegroom whom she loved, but to the Nile—the insensible,
death-dealing element. He rushed up and down his cell like a madman, and
tore his lute-strings when he tried to soothe his soul with music; but
then a calm, well-intentioned voice would come from the adjoining room,
exhorting him not to lose hope, to trust in God, not to forget his duty
and the task before him. And Orion would control himself resolutely, pull
himself together, and throw himself into his work again.

Day and night were alike to him. The senator had provided him with a lamp
and oil. When he was wearied out, he allowed himself no longer sleep on
his hard couch than human nature imperatively demanded; and as soon as he
had shaken it off he again became absorbed in maps and lists, plied his
pen, thought, sketched, calculated, and reflected. Then, if a doubt arose
in his mind or he could not trust his own memory and judgment, he knocked
at the wall, and his shrewd and experienced friend was at all times ready
to help him to the best of his knowledge and opinion. The senator went to
Arsinoe for him, to gain information as to the seaboard from the archives
preserved there; and so the work went forward, approaching its end,
strengthening and raising his sinking spirit, bringing him the pleasures
of success, and enabling him not unfrequently to forget for hours that
which otherwise might have brought the bravest to despair.

The warder, the senator or his worthy wife, Dame Joanna or Eudoxia—who
twice had the pleasure of accompanying her—each time they visited
him had some message or note to carry to Paula, telling her how far his
work had progressed; and to her it was a consolation and heartfelt joy to
be able to follow him in his labors. And many a token of his love, esteem,
and admiration gave her courage, when even her brave heart began to quail.

Ah! It was not alone her terror of a horrible death that tortured her
soul. Her father, whom she considered it her greatest joy in life to have
found again, was fading beyond all hope under her loving hands. His poor
wounded lungs refused its service. It was with great difficulty that he
could swallow a few drops of wine and mouthfuls of food; and in these last
days his clear mind had lain as it were under a shroud—perhaps it
was happier so, as she told herself and as her friends said to comfort
her.

He, too, had heard the cries of: “Hail to the Bride of the Nile!”

“Bring out the Bride!”

“Away with the Bride of the Nile!” Though he had no suspicion of their
meaning, they had haunted his thoughts incessantly during the last few
days; and the terrible, strange words had seemed to charm his fancy, for
to Paula’s distress he would murmur them to himself tenderly or
thoughtfully as the case might be.

Many times the idea occurred to her that she might put an end to her life
before the worst should befall, before she became a spectacle for a whole
nation, to be jeered at and made a delightful and exciting show to rouse
their cruelty or their compassion. But dared she do it? Dared she defy the
Most High, the Lord in whom she put her trust, into whose hand she
commended herself in a thousand dumb but fervent prayers.

No. To the very last she would trust and hope. And wonderful to say! Each
time she had reached the very limits of her powers of endurance, feeling
she could certainly bear no more and must succumb, something came to her
to revive her faith or her courage: a message would be brought her from
Orion, or Dame Joanna or Pulcheria came to see her; the bishop sought an
interview, or her father’s mind rallied and he could speak to her in
beautiful and stimulating words. Often the warder would announce the
senator and his wife, and their vigorous and healthy minds always hit on
the very thing she needed. Martina, particularly, with her subtle motherly
instinct, always understood whatever was agitating her; and once she
showed her a letter from Heliodora, in which she spoke of the calmness she
had won through nursing their dear invalid, and said how thankful she was
to see the reward of her care and toil. Narses was already quite another
man, and she could know no higher task than that of reconciling the
hapless man to life, nay, of making it dear to him again. She no longer
thought of Orion but as she might of a beautiful song she once had heard
in a delightful hour.

Thus time passed, even for the imprisoned maiden, till only two nights
remained before St. Serapis’ day when the fearful marriage was to be
solemnized.

It was evening when the bishop came to visit Paula. He regarded it as his
duty to tell her that the execution of her sentence was fixed for the day
after to-morrow. He should hope and believe till the last, but his own
power over the misguided mob was gone from him. In any case, and if the
worst should befall, he would be at her side to protect her by the dignity
of his office. He had come now, so as to give her time to prepare her self
in every respect. The care of her noble father till his last hour on earth
he would take upon himself as a dear and sacred duty.

Though she had believed herself surely prepared long since for the worst,
this news fell on her like a thunderbolt. What lay before her seemed so
monstrous, so unexampled, that it was impossible that she ever could look
forward to it firmly and calmly.

For a long time she could not help clinging desperately to her faithful
Betta, and it was only by degrees that she so far recovered herself as to
be able to speak to the bishop, and thank him. He, however, could only
lament his inability to earn her fullest gratitude, for the patriarch’s
reply to his complaint of those who promised rescue to the people by the
instrumentality of a heathen abomination—a document on which he had
founded his highest hopes for her—had had a different result from
that which he had expected. The patriarch, to be sure, condemned the
abominable sacrifice, but he did it in a way which lacked the force
necessary to terrify and discourage the misled mob. However, he would try
what effect it might have on the people, and a number of scribes were at
work to make copies of it in the course of the night. These would be sent
to the Senators next morning, posted up in the market-place and public
buildings, and distributed to the people; but he feared all this would
have no effect.

“Then help me to prepare for death,” said Paula gloomily. “You are not a
priest of my confession, but no church has a more worthy minister. If you
can absolve me in the name of your Redeemer, mine will pardon me. We look
at Him, it is true, with different eyes, but He is the Saviour of us both,
nevertheless.” A contradictory reply struggled for utterance in the strict
Jacobite’s mind, but at such a moment he felt he must repress it; he only
answered:

“Speak, daughter, I am listening.”

And she poured forth all her soul, as though he had been a priest of her
own creed, and his eyes grew moist as he heard this confession of a pure
and loving heart, yearning for all that was highest and best. He promised
her the mercy of the Redeemer, and when he had ended with “Amen,” and
blessed her, he looked down at the ground for some minutes and presently
said, “Follow me, Child.”

“Whither?” she asked in surprise; for she thought that her last hour had
already come, and that he was about to lead her away to the place of
execution, or to her watery, ever-flowing tomb; but he smiled as he
replied: “No, child. To-day I have only the pleasing duty of blessing your
betrothal before God; if only you will promise not to estrange your
husband from the faith of his fathers—for what will not a man
sacrifice to win the love of a woman.—You promise? Then I will take
you to your Orion.”

He rapped on the door of the cell, and when the warder had opened it he
whispered his orders; Paula followed him silently and with blushing
cheeks, and in a few minutes she was clasped to her lover’s breast while,
for the first time—and perhaps the last—their lips met in a
kiss.

The prelate gave them a few minutes together; when he had blessed them
both and solemnized their betrothal, he led her back to her cell. However,
she had hardly time to thank him out of the fulness of her overflowing
heart, when a town-watchman came to fetch him to see Susannah; her last
hour was at hand, if not already past. John at once went with the
messenger, and Paula drew a deep breath as she saw him depart. Then she
threw herself on to her nurse’s shoulders, crying:

“Now, come what may! Nothing can divide us; not even death!”


CHAPTER XXIV.

The bishop was too late. He found the widow Susannah a corpse; standing at
the head of the bed was little Katharina, as pale as death, speechless,
tearless, utterly annihilated. He kindly tried to cheer her, and to speak
words of comfort; but she pushed him away, tore herself from him, and
before he could stop her, she had fled out of the room.

Poor child! He had seen many a loving daughter mourning for her mother,
but never such grief as this. Here, thought he, were two human souls all
in all to each other, and hence this overwhelming sorrow.

Katharina had escaped to her own room, had thrown herself on the couch—cowering
so close that no one entering the room would have taken the
undistinguishable heap for a human being, a grown up, passionately
suffering girl.

It was very hot, and yet a cold shiver ran through her slender frame. Was
she now attacked by the pestilence? No; it would be too merciful of Fate
to take such pity on her woes.

The mother was dead, dragged to the grave by her own daughter. The disease
had first shown itself on her lips; and how many times had the physician
expressed his surprise at the plague having broken out in this healthy
quarter of the town, and in a house kept so scrupulously clean. She knew
at whose bidding the avenging angel had entered there, and whose criminal
guile had trifled with him. The words “murdered your mother” haunted her,
and she remembered the law of the ancients which refused to prescribe a
punishment for the killing of parents, because they considered such a
monstrous deed impossible.

A scornful smile curled her lip. Laws! Principles! Was there one that she
had not defied? She had contemned God, meddled with magic, borne false
witness, committed murder—and as to the one law with promise, which,
if Philippus was right, was exactly the same in the code of her
forefathers as on the tables of Moses, how had she kept that? Her own
mother was no more, and by her act!

All through this frightful retrospect she had never ceased to shiver and,
as this was becoming unendurable, she took to walking up and down and
seeking excuses for her sinful doings: It was not her mother, but
Heliodora whom she had wished to kill; why had malicious Fate…?

Here she was interrupted, for the young widow, who had heard the sad news,
sought her out to comfort her and offer her services. She spoke to the
girl with real affection; but her sweet, low tones reminded Katharina of
that evening after the old bishop’s death; and when Heliodora put out her
arm to draw her to her, she shrank from her, begging her in a dry, hoarse
voice, not to touch her for her clothes were infected. She wanted no
comfort; all she asked was to be left alone—quite alone—nothing
more. The words were hard and unkind, and as the door closed on the young
woman Katharina’s eyes glared after her.

Why had this doom passed over Heliodora’s head and demanded the sacrifice
of one whose loss she could never cease to mourn?

This brought her mother vividly to her mind. She flew back to her
death-bed and fell on her knees—but even there she could not bear to
stay long, so she wandered into the garden and visited every spot where
she and her mother had been together. But there were such strange
crackings in the shrubs, and the trees and bushes cast such uncanny
shadows that she hailed daybreak as a deliverance.

She was on her way back to the house when her foster-brother Anubis came
limping to meet her. Poor fellow! She had made a cripple of him, too, and
his mother had died through her fault.

The lad spoke to her, giving expression to his sympathy, and she accepted
it; but she said such strange things, and answered him so utterly at
random, that he began to fear that grief had turned her brain. She went on
to ask him point-blank how much money she now had, and as he happened to
know approximately, he could tell her; she clasped her hands, for how
could any one human being who was not a king possess such enormous wealth!
Finally she enquired whether he knew how a will should be drawn up, and
that, too, he answered affirmatively.

She made him describe it all, and then he added that the signature must be
made valid by those of two witnesses; but she, he added, was too young to
be thinking of making her will.

“Why?” said she. “Is Paula much older than I am?”

“And the day after to-morrow,” the boy went on, “she is to be cast into
the Nile. All the people call her the Bride of the Nile.”

At this that hideous, malignant smile again curled her lips, but she
hastily suppressed it and walked straight on into the house. At the door
he timidly asked her whether he might once more look on his mistress; but
she was obliged to forbid it for fear of infection. However, he proudly
replied: “What you do not fear, has no terrors for me,” and he followed
her to the side of the bed where the corpse now lay washed and in fine
array; and when he saw Katharina kiss the dead woman’s hand he, too, as
soon as she looked away, pressed his lips on the place hers had touched.
Then he sat down by the bed and remained there till she sent him away.

Before noon the bishop arrived to perform the last rites. He found the
body surrounded by beautiful flowers. Katharina had been out in the garden
again and had cut all the rarest and finest; and though she had allowed
the gardener to carry the basket for her, she would not have him help her
in gathering them. The feeling that she was doing something for her mother
had been a comfort to her; still, by day everything about her seemed even
more intolerable than by night. Everything looked so large, so coarse, so
insistent, so menacing, and reminded her at every step of some injustice
or some deed of which she was ashamed. Every eye, she fancied, must see
through her; and now and then it seemed as though the pillars of the great
banqueting-hall, where her mother still lay, were tottering, and the
ceiling about to fall in and crush her.

She answered the bishop’s questions absently and often quite at random,
and the old man supposed that she was stunned by her great sorrow; so to
give her thoughts a new direction he began telling her about Paula, and
believing that Katharina was fond of her, he confided to her that he had
taken Paula, the day before, to Orion’s cell, and consecrated their
betrothal.

At this her face was convulsed in a manner that alarmed the bishop; a
fearful tumult raged in her soul, her bosom rose and fell spasmodically,
and all she could utter was the question: “But they will sacrifice her all
the same?”

The bishop thought he understood. She was horror stricken by the idea of
the sudden, cruel end that hung over the young bride, and he replied
sadly; “I shall not be able to restrain the wretches; still, no means
shall remain untried. The patriarch’s rescript, condemning this mad crime,
shall be made public to-day, and I will read and expound it at the Curia,
and try to give it keener emphasis.—Would you like to read it?”

As she eagerly assented, the prelate signed to the acolyte who had waited
on him with the holy vessels, and he produced from a packet a written
sheet which he handed to Katharina. As soon as she was alone she read the
patriarch’s epistle; at first superficially, then more carefully, and at
last in deep attention and growing interest, stirred by it to strange
thoughts, till at length her eyes flashed and her breath came fast, as
though this paper referred to herself, and could seal her fate for life.

When the bearers came in to fetch away the body she was still sitting
there, gazing as if spell-bound at the papyrus; but she sprang up, shook
herself, and then bid farewell to the cold rigid form of the mother on
whose warm heart she had so often rested, and to whom she had been the
dearest thing on earth—and even then the solace of tears was denied
her.

She no longer suffered the deep remorse that had tormented her; for she
felt now that her intercourse with her last mother had not been put an end
to by death; that after a short parting they would meet again—soon
perhaps, perhaps even to-morrow—meet for a fulness of speech, an
outpouring of the heart, a revelation of all the past more open and
unreserved than could ever be between mortal beings, even between mother
and daughter. And when she who was sleeping there, blind, deaf, and
senseless, should awake again, up there, with eyes clearer than those of
men below, and the ears and senses of a spiritual being to see and hear
and judge all she had known and done, all she had felt and made others
feel—then, she told herself, her mother might perhaps blame her and
punish her more than she had ever done on earth, but she would also clasp
her more closely to her heart and comfort her more earnestly.

She whispered gently in her ear as if she were still alive: “Wait awhile,
only wait: I shall come soon and tell you everything!”

And then she kissed her so passionately and recklessly that the nuns were
shocked and dragged her away, ordering the bearers to close the coffin.
They obeyed, and when the wooden lid fell over the sleeping form, shutting
it in with a slam, and hiding it from the girl’s sight, the barrier gave
way which had hitherto restrained her tears and she began to weep
bitterly; now, too, the feeling that she had indeed lost her mother took
complete possession of her—the sense of being an orphan and alone,
quite alone in the wide world.

She saw and heard no more of what took place round the beloved dead; for
when she took her hands from her face streaming with tears, the house of
the rich widow no longer sheltered its mistress; her remains had been
borne away to the nearest mortuary. The law forbade its being any longer
kept within doors, but did not allow of its being buried till night fell.
The child might not follow her own mother to the cemetery.

With a drooping head Katharina withdrew to her room and there stood
looking out into the garden. It all was hers now; she was mistress of it
all and of much besides, as free and unfettered to command as hitherto she
had been over the birds, her little dog, or the jewels that lay on her
toilet-table. She could make hundreds happy with a word, a wave of the
hand—but not herself. She had never felt so grown-up, independent,
womanly, nay powerful, and at the same time so unutterably wretched and
helpless as she felt in this hour.

What did she care for all these vanities? They could not suffice to check
one sigh of disappointed yearning.

She had parted from her mother with a promise; the fervent longing that
filled her soul was never still; and now the patriarch’s letter had given
her a hint as to how she might fulfil the one and silence the other. She
hastily took the document up again, and read it through once more.

Its instructions were precise to stop the proceedings of the misguided
Memphites with stern promptitude. It explained that the death of the
Christ Jesus, who shed His blood to redeem the world, had satisfied the
need for a human victim. Throughout the wide realms which the Cross
overshadowed with blessing human sacrifice must therefore be accounted a
useless and accursed abomination. It went on to point out how the heathen
had devised their gods in the image of weak, sinful, earthly beings, and
chosen victims in accordance with this idea. “But our God,” it said, “is
as high above men as the Spirit is above the flesh, and the sacrifice He
demands is not of the flesh, but of the spirit. Will He not turn away in
wrath and sorrow from the blinded Christians of Memphis who, in their
straits, feel and are about to act like the cruel and foolish heathen?
They take for their victim a heretic and a stranger, deeming that that
will diminish the abomination in the eyes of the Lord; but it moves Him to
loathing all the same, for no human blood may stain the pure and sacred
altars of our mild faith, which gives life and not death.

“Ask your blind and misguided flock, my brother: Can the Father of Love
feel joy at the sight of one of His children, even an erring one,
suffocated in the waters to the honor of the Most High, while struggling,
and cursing her executioners?

“If, indeed, there were a pure maiden, possessed with the blessed
intoxication of the love of God, who was ready to follow the example of
Him who redeemed man by His death, to fling herself into the waters while
she cried to Heaven with her dying breath: ‘Take me and my innocence as an
offering, O Lord! Release my people from their extremity!’—that
would be a victim indeed; and perchance, the Lord might say: ‘I will
accept it; but the will alone is enough. No child of mine may cast away
the life that I have lent her as the most sacred and precious of gifts.’”

The letter ended with pious exhortations to the community.

Then a maiden who should voluntarily sacrifice herself in the river to
save the people in their need would be a victim pleasing in the sight of
the Lord—so said the Man of God, through whose mouth the Most High
spoke. And this opinion, this hint, was to Katharina like a distaff from
which she spun a lengthening thread to warp to the loom and weave from it
a tangible tissue.

She would be the maiden whom the patriarch had imagined—the real,
true Bride of the Nile, inspired to cast off her young life to save her
people in their need. In this there was expiation such as Heaven might
accept; this would release her from the burthen of life that weighed upon
her, and would reunite her to her mother; in this way she could show her
lover and the bishop and all the world the immensity of her
self-sacrifice, which was in nothing behind that of “the other”—the
much-vaunted daughter of Thomas! She would do the great deed before
Paula’s eyes, in sight of all the people. But Orion must know whose image
she bore in her heart and for whose sake she made that leap from blooming
life into a watery grave.

Oh! it was wonderful, splendid! Would she not thus compel him inevitably
to remember her whenever he should think of Paula? Yes, she would force
him to allow her image to dwell in his soul, inseparable from that
“other;” and would not such an unparalleled act add such height to her
figure, that it would be equal to that of her Syrian rival in the
estimation of all men—even in his?

She now began to long for the supreme moment. Her vain little heart
laughed in anticipation of the delight of being seen, praised and admired
by all. Tomorrow she, her little self, would tower above all the world;
and the more she felt the oppressive heat of the scorching day, the more
delicious it seemed to look forward to finding rest from the torments of
life in the cool element.

She saw no difficulties in the way of her achievement; she was mistress
now, and her slaves and servants must obey her orders. At the same time
she remembered, too, to protect her large possessions from falling into
the hands of relations for whom she did not care; with a firm hand she
drew up a will in which she bequeathed part of her fortune to her uncle
Chrysippus, small portions to her foster-brother Anubis, and to Rufinus’
widow, to whom she owed reparation for great wrong; then the larger half,
and she owned many millions, she bequeathed to her dear friend Orion, whom
she freely forgave, and who, she hoped, would see that even in the little
“water-wagtail” there had been room for some greatness. She begged him
also to take her house, since she had not been altogether guiltless of the
destruction of the home of his fathers.

The condition she attached to this bequest showed the same keen, alert
spirit that had guided her through life.

She knew that the patriarch’s indignation might be fatal to the young man,
so to serve as a mediator, and at the same time to ensure for herself the
prayers of the Church, which she desired, she enjoined Orion to bestow the
greater part of his inheritance on the patriarch for the Church and for
benevolent purposes. But not at once, not for ten years, and in
instalments of which Orion himself was to determine the proportion. In the
event of his dying within the next three years all his claims were to be
transferred to her uncle Chrysippus. She added a request to the Church, to
which she belonged with her whole heart, that every year on her saint’s
day and her mother’s they should be prayed for in every church in the
land. A chapel was to be erected on the scene of her self-immolation, and
if the patriarch thought her worthy of the honor, it was to bear the name
of the Chapel of Susannah and Katharina.

She gave all her slaves their freedom and devised legacies to all the
officials of her household.

As she sat for long hours of serious meditation, drawing up this last
will, she smiled frequently with satisfaction. Then she copied it out
fair, and finally called the physician and all the free servants in the
house to witness her signature.

Though no one had suspected the “water-wagtail” of such forethought, it
was no matter of surprise that the young heiress, shut up in the
plague-stricken house, should dispose of her estates, and before
night-fall the physician brought Alexander, the chief of the Senate, to
the garden gate by her desire, and there they spoke to each other without
opening it. He was an old friend of her father’s, and since the death of
the Mukaukas, had been her guardian; he now agreed to stand as her Kyrios,
and as such he ratified her will and the signature, though she would not
allow him to read the document.

Finally she went to the slaves quarters, from whence a few more sufferers
had been removed to the Necropolis, and desired her boatman to get the
holiday barge in readiness early in the morning, as she purposed seeing
the ceremonial from the river. She gave particular orders to the gardener
as to how it was to be decorated, and what flowers he was to cut for her
personal adornment.

She went to bed far less excited than she had been the night before, and
before she had ended her evening prayer, slumber overtook her weary brain.

When she awoke at sunrise, the large and splendid boat, which her father
had had built at great cost in Alexandria, was manned and ready to put
out. No one interfered to prevent her embarking with Anubis and a few
female servants, for all the guards who had surrounded the house till
yesterday had been withdrawn to do duty at the great ceremonial of the
marriage and sacrifice, since a popular tumult was not unlikely to arise.


CHAPTER XXV.

A great number of persons had collected during the night on the quay near
Nesptah’s inn. The crowd was increasing every minute, and in spite of the
intense heat, not a Memphite could bear to stop within doors, Men, women
and children were flocking to the scene of the festival; they came in
thousands from the neighboring towns, hamlets and villages, to witness the
unprecedented sacrifice which was to put an end to the misery of the land.
Who had ever heard of such a marriage? What a privilege, what a happiness,
to be so fortunate as to see it!

The senate had not been idle and had done all in their power to surround
it with magnificence and to enable as many as possible to enjoy the
pageant, which had been planned with a lavish hand and liberal
munificence.

Round the cove by Nesptah’s inn a semi-circular wooden stand had been
constructed, on which thousands found seats or standing-room. Stalls
furnished with hangings were erected in the middle of the tribune for the
authorities and their families as well as for the leading Arab officials,
and arm-chairs were placed in them for the Vekeel, for the Kadi, for the
head of the senate, for old Horapollo and also for the Christian
priesthood, though it was well known that they would not be present at the
ceremony.

The lower classes, who could not afford to pay for admission to these
seats, had established themselves on the banks of the river; wandering
dealers had followed them, and wherever the crowd was densest they had
displayed their wares—light refreshments or solid food—on
two-wheeled trucks, or on little carpets spread on the ground. In the
tribune itself the cries of the water-sellers were incessant as they
offered filtered Nile water and fruit syrups for sale.

The parched tops of the palms, where turtle doves, lapwings and
sparrow-hawks were wont to perch, were crowded with the vagabond boys of
the town, who whiled away the time by pulling the withered and diseased
dates from the great clumps and flinging them down on the bystanders
below, till the guard took aim at them with their arrows and stopped the
game.

The centre of attraction to all eyes was a wooden platform or pontoon,
built far out into the stream; from thence the bride was to be flung into
the watery embrace of the expectant bridegroom. Here the masters of the
ceremonies had put forth their best efforts, and it was magnificently
decorated with hangings and handkerchiefs, palm-leaves and flags; with
heavy garlands of tamarisk and willow, mingled with bright blossoms of the
lotos and mallow, lilies and roses; with devices emblematic of the
province, and other gilt ornaments. Only the furthest end of it was
unadorned and without even a railing, that there might be nothing to
intercept the view of the “marriage.”

Three hours before noon none were absent but those whose places were
secured, and ere long curiosity brought them also to the spot. The
town-watch found it required all their efforts to keep the front ranks of
the people from being pushed into the river by those behind; indeed, this
accident could not be everywhere guarded against; but, thanks to the
shallow state of the water, no one was the worse. But the cries of those
who were in danger nevertheless drowned the music of the bands performing
on raised platforms and the shouts of applause which rose on all sides to
hail Horapollo—who was here, there, everywhere on his white ass as
brisk as a lad—or to greet some leading official.

And now and again loud cries of anguish were heard, or the closely-packed
throng parted with exclamations of horror. A citizen had had a sunstroke,
or had been seized by the plague. Then the fugitives dragged others away
with them; screaming mothers trying to save their little ones from the
crush on one hand and the contagion on the other, oversetting one dealer’s
truck, smashing the eggs and cakes of another. A whole party were pushed
into a deep but half-dried up water-course; the guardians of the peace
flourished their staves, yelling and making their victims yell in their
efforts to restore order—but all this hardly affected the vast body
of spectators, and suddenly peace reigned, the confusion subsided, the
shrieks were silenced. Those who were doomed might fall or die, be crushed
or plague-stricken. Trumpet calls and singing were heard approaching from
the town: the procession, the Bridal procession was coming! Not a man but
would have perished rather than be deprived of seeing a single act of this
stupendous drama.

Those Arabs—what fools they were! Besides the Vekeel only three of
their magnates were present, and those men whom no one knew. Even the Kadi
was nowhere to be seen; and he must have forbidden the Moslem women to
come, for not a single veiled beauty of the harem was visible. Not one
Egyptian woman would have failed to appear if the plague had not kept so
many imprisoned in their houses. Such a thing would never be seen again;
this day’s doings would be a tale to tell to future great-grandchildren!

The music and singing came nearer and nearer; and it did not indeed sound
as if it were escorting a hapless creature to a fearful end. Blast after
blast rang out from the trumpets, filling the air with festive defiance;
cheerful bridal songs came nearer and nearer to the listeners, the shrill
chorus of boys and maidens sounding above the deeper and stronger chant of
youths and men of all ages; flutes piped a gay invitation to gladness; the
dull roar of drums muttered like the distant waves in time to a march,
broken by the clang of cymbals and the tinkle of bells hung around
tambourines held high by girlish hands which struck, rattled and waved
them above their flowing curls; lute players discoursed sweet music on the
strings; and as this vast tide of mingled tones came closer, behind it
there was still more music and more song.

To the ear the procession seemed endless, and the eye soon confirmed the
impression.

All were listening, gazing, watching to see the Bride and her escort.
Every eye seemed compelled to turn in the same direction; and presently
there came: first the trumpeters on spirited horses, and these ranged
themselves on each side of the road by the shore leading to the scene of
the “marriage.” In front of them the choir of women took their stand to
the left and, on the right, the men who had marched after them. All alike
were arrayed in light sea-green garments, and loaded with lotos-flowers.
The women’s hair, twined with white blossoms, flowed over their shoulders;
the men carried bunches of papyrus and reeds;—they represented river
gods that had risen from the stream.

Then came boys and bearded men, in white robes, with panther-skins on
their shoulders, as the heathen priests had been wont to wear them. They
were headed by two old men with long white beards, one holding a silver
cup and the other a golden one, ready to fling them into the waves as a
first offering, according to the practise of their forefathers, as
Horapollo had described and ordered it. These went on to the pontoon, to
its farthest end, and took their place on one side of the platform whence
the Bride was to be cast into the river. Behind them came a large troop of
flute-players and drummers, followed by fifty maidens holding tambourines,
and fifty men all dressed and carrying emblems as followers of Dionysus,
or Osiris-Bacchus, who had been worshipped here in the time of the Romans;
with these came the drunken Silenus, goathoofed Satyrs and Pan, with his
reed-pipes, all riding grey asses strangely bedaubed with yellow.

Then followed giraffes, elephants, ostriches, antelopes, gazelles; even
some tamed lions and panthers were led past the wondering crowd; for this
had been done in the famous procession in honor of the second Ptolemy,
described by Callixenus of Rhodes.

Next came a large car drawn by twelve black horses, and on it a symbolical
group of Famine and Pestilence overthrown; they were surrounded by
shrieking black children, with pointed wings on their shoulders and horns
on their foreheads, bound to stakes to represent the hosts of hell—a
performance which they tried to make at once ghastly and droll.

On another car the Goddess of the Inundation was to be seen. She sat amid
sheaves, fruits, and garlands of vine; while round her were groups of
children with apples and corn, pomegranates and bunches of dates,
wine-jars and cups in their hands.

Presently there appeared in a large shell, as though lounging in a bath,
the goddess of health; she was drawn by eight snow-white horses, and held
in one hand a golden goblet and in the other a caduceus. After her came
the river-god Nile, the bridegroom of the marriage, studied from the
famous statue carried away from Alexandria by the Romans: a splendid and
mighty bearded man, resting against an urn. Sixteen naked children—the
sixteen ells that the river must rise for its overflow to bless the land—played
round his herculean form, and a bridal wreath of lotos-flowers crowned his
flowing locks. This car, which was decorated with crocodiles, sheaves,
dates, grapes, and shells, was hailed with shouts of enthusiasm; it was
escorted by old men in the costume of the heathen priesthood.

Behind this came more music and singers, with a troop of young men and
maidens led by lute-players singing. These too were dressed as the genie,
and nymphs of the river and were the groomsmen and bridesmaids in
attendance on the betrothed.

The longer the procession lasted and the nearer the looked-for victim
approached, the more eagerly attent were the gazing multitude.

When this group of youths and maidens had gone by, there was hardly a
sound to be heard in the tribune and among the crowd. No one felt the
fierce heat of the sun, no one heeded the thirst that parched every
tongue; all eyes were bent in one direction; only the black Vekeel, whose
colossal form towered up where he stood, occasionally sent a sinister and
anxious glance towards the town. He expected to see smoke rising from the
quarter near the prison, and suddenly his lips parted and he displayed his
dazzlingly white teeth in a scornful laugh. That which he looked for had
come to pass; the little grey cloud which he discerned grew blacker, and
then, in the heart of it, rose a crimson glow which did not take its color
from the sun. But of all those thousands he was the only one who looked
behind him and observed it.

The bride’s attendants had by this time taken their station on the
pontoon; here came another band of youths with panther skins on their
shoulders; and now—at last, at last—a car came swaying along,
drawn by eight coal-black oxen dressed with green ostrich-feathers and
water-plants.

The car was shaded by a tall canopy, supported by four poles, against
which leaned four men in the robes of the heathen priesthood; this awning
was lavishly decorated with wreaths of lotos and reeds, and fenced about
with papyrus, bulrushes, tall grasses and blossoming river-weeds. Beneath
it sat the queen of the festival—the Bride of the Nile.

Robed in white and closely veiled, she was quite motionless. Her long,
thick brown hair fell over her shoulders; at her feet lay a wreath, and
rare rose-colored lotos-flowers were strewn on the car.

The bishop had been sitting at her side, the first Christian priest,
certainly, of all the swarms of monks and ecclesiastics in Memphis, who
had ever appeared at such a scene of heathen abomination. He was now
standing, looking down at the crowd with a deeply knit brow and menacing
gaze. What good had come of the penitential sermons in all the churches,
of his and his vicar’s warnings and threats? In spite of all remonstrance
he had mounted the car with the condemned victim, after administering the
last consolations to her soul. It might cost him his life, but he would
keep his promise.

In her hand Paula held two roses: one was Orion’s last greeting delivered
by Martina; the other Pulcheria had brought her early in the morning.
Yesterday, in a lucid moment, her dying father had given her his fondest
blessing, little knowing what hung over her; to-day he had not come to
himself, and had neither noticed nor returned her parting kiss. Quite
unconscious, he had been moved from the prison out of doors and to the
house of Rufinus. Dame Joanna would not forego the privilege of giving him
a resting-place and taking care of him till the end.

Orion’s last note was placed in Paula’s hands just before she set out; it
informed her that his task was now successfully ended. He had been told
that it was to-morrow, and not to-day, that the hideous act would be
accomplished; and it was a consolation to her to know that he was spared
the agony of following her in fancy in her fearful progress.

She had allowed the women who came to clothe her in bridal array to
perform their task; among them was Emau, the chief warder’s wife, and her
overflowing compassion had done Paula good. But even in the prison-yard
she had felt it unendurable to exhibit herself decked in her bridal
wreaths to the gaping multitude; she had torn them from her and thrown
them on the ground.

How long—how interminably long—had the road to the river
appeared; but she had never raised her eyes to look at the curious crowd,
never ceased lifting up her heart in prayer; and when her proud blood
boiled, or despair had almost taken possession of her, she had grasped the
bishop’s hand and he had never wearied of encouraging her and exhorting
her to cling to love and faith, and not even yet abandon all hope.

Thus they at last reached the pontoon at whose further end life would
begin for her in another world. The shouts of the crowd were as loud, as
triumphant, as expectant as ever; music and singing mingled with the roar
of thousands of spectators; she allowed herself to be lifted from the car
as though she were stunned, and followed the young men and maidens who
formed the bridal train, and in alternate choruses sang the finest nuptial
song of Sappho the fair Lesbian.

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.

The maid who fastened the flowers on her bosom could feel her mistress’s
heart beating under her hand, and the lotos-blossoms which drooped from
her shoulder rose and fell as though they were already rocking on the
waves of the Nile. Her lips, too, never ceased moving, and her cheeks were
as pale as death.

“What is she going to do?” her attendants asked each other.

Her mother dead only yesterday, and now she chose to be present at this
ceremonial, desiring the steersman to run close to the platform and keep
near to it, where all the world could see her. But she evidently wished to
display herself to the people in all her finery and be admired, for she
presently went up on the roof of the deck-house. And she looked lovely, as
lovely as a guileless angel, as she mounted the steps with childlike
diffidence-timidly, but with wide open eyes, as though something grand was
awaiting her there—something she had long yearned for with her whole
heart.

Anubis had to help her up the last steps, for her knees gave way; but once
at the top she sent him down again to remain below with the others, as she
wished to be alone. The lad was accustomed to obey; and Katharina now
stepped on a seat close to the side of the boat, turned to Paula, whom she
was now rapidly approaching, and held out to her and the bishop two tall
lily-stems covered with splendid blossoms. At the very moment when the
farrier was measuring by eye the distance between the platform and the
barge, and had judged it impossible to cast the Bride into the stream till
the vessel had moved on, Katharina cried out:

“Reverend Father John—and all of you! Take me, me and not the
daughter of Thomas! It is I, not she—I am the true Bride of the
Nile. Of my own free will—hear me, John!—of my own free will I
am ready to give my life for my hapless land and the misery of the people,
and the patriarch said that such a sacrifice as mine would be acceptable
to Heaven. Farewell! Pray for me!—Lord have mercy upon me! Mother,
dear Mother, I am coming to you!”

Then she called to the steersman: “Put out from the platform!” and as soon
as a few strokes of the oars had carried the barge into the deeper channel
she stepped nimbly on to the edge of the bulwark, dropped the lilies into
the river, and then with a smile, her head gracefully bent on one side and
her skirt modestly held round her, she slipped into the water.

The waves closed over her; but she was a good swimmer and could not help
coming once to the surface. Her expression was that of a bather enjoying
the cool fresh water that laved and gurgled round her. Perhaps the wild
storm of applause, the mingled cries of horror, compassion and
thanksgiving that went up from the assembled thousands once more reached
her ear—but she dived head foremost to rise no more.

The “River-God,” a good-hearted man, who in his daily life could never
have let a fellow-creature drown under his very eyes, forgot his part,
released Paula, and sprang after Katharina, as did Anubis and a few
boatmen; but they could not reach her, and the boy, who found swimming
difficult with his crippled leg followed the girl to whom his young heart
was wholly devoted to a watery death.

Her speech had reached no ears but those to whom it was addressed; but
before she was lost in the waters Bishop John turned to the people, took
Paula’s hand—and she felt free once more when her terrible
bridegroom had deserted her—and holding up the Crucifix which hung
at his girdle he shouted loudly:

“Behold the desires of our holy Father Benjamin, by whom God himself
speaks to you, have met with fulfilment. A pure and noble Jacobite maiden,
of her own free and beautiful impulse, has sacrificed herself after the
example of the Saviour, for the sufferings of her nation, before your
eyes. This one,” and he drew Paula to him, “this one is free; the Nile has
had his victim!”

But almost before he had done speaking—before the people could
proclaim their vote—Horapollo had rushed at him and interrupted him.
He had dismounted from his ass during the earlier part of the proceedings,
and, not to let his prey escape, he now came between Paula and the bishop,
grasped her dress and cried to the chorus of youths:

“Come on—at once! One of you take the part of the Nile-God—into
the river with the Bride!” The bishop however forced himself between the
speaker and the girl to protect her. But Horapollo flew into a fury and
rushed at the prelate to snatch away the image of the Saviour, while John
exclaimed in a voice of ominous thunder: “Anathema!”

This word of fear roused the Christian blood in the Egyptians; the
sacrilegious attempt stirred the zeal which they had proved in many a
struggle, and which had only been kept under by an effort during these
times of trouble: the leader of the choir dragged the old man away and
took part with the bishop. Others followed his example, while several, on
the contrary, sided with old Horapollo who clung tightly to Paula,
preferring to die himself rather than allow her to escape his hatred and
vengeance.

At this moment the clang of bells was heard from the town with a terrific
and unaccountable uproar, and a young man was seen forcing his way through
the throng, a naked sword in his hand, and in spite of his torn garments,
his wild hair, and his blackened face, he was at once recognized as Orion.
Every one made way for him, for he rushed on like a madman; as he reached
the pontoon and took in at a glance what was going forward there, he
sprang past the mummers with mighty leaps to the platform, pushing aside
sundry groups of fighting champions; and before the principal actors were
aware of his presence, he had snatched Paula from the old man’s clutch,
and called her by her name. She sank on his breast half-fainting with
terror, surprise and unspeakable rapture, and he clasped her to him with
his left arm, while the flashing sword in his right hand and his flaming
looks warned all bystanders that it would be as wise to attack a lioness
defending her young as to defy this desperate man, who was prepared to
face death with the woman he loved.

His push had sent Horapollo tottering to some distance; and when the old
man had pulled himself together, to throw himself once more on his victim,
he found himself the centre of a fight. A wild troop had followed Orion
and beset the struggling mob, whom they presently drove over the edge of
the pontoon into the river, and with them Horapollo. Most of these saved
themselves by swimming, but the old man sank, and nothing more was seen of
him but his clenched fist, which rose in menace for some minutes above the
waters.

Meanwhile the Vekeel had become aware of what was going forward on the
platform; he leaped in fury from his seat to restore order, intending to
seize Orion whom he fancied he had seen, or, if necessary to cut him down
with his own hand.

But a vast multitude stopped his progress, for a fearful horde of released
prisoners with Orion at their head had come rushing down to the scene of
the festival yelling: “Fire! the prison is burning, the town is in
flames!”

Every one who could run fled at once to Memphis to save his house, his
possessions and those dear to him. Like a flock of doves scared by the
scream of a hawk, like autumn leaves driven before the wind, the multitude
dispersed. They hurried back to the town in wild tumult and inextricable
confusion, jumping into the festal cars, cutting loose the horses from
that of the goddess of health, to mount them and ride home, overthrowing
everything that stood in their way and dragging back the Vekeel who was
striving, sword in hand, to get to the pontoon.

The smoke and flames of the city were rising every moment, and acted like
magic in spurring the flying crowd to reach their homes in time. But,
before Obada had succeeded in his efforts, the pushing throng were once
more brought to a standstill; horses were heard approaching. Dense masses
of dust hid them and their riders; but it was certainly an armed troop
that was coming clattering onwards, for flashing gleams were seen here and
there through the dull clouds that shrouded them, the reflection of the
sun’s bright rays from polished and glittering helmets, breast-plates, and
sabres.

Now they were visible even where the Vekeel was. Foremost rode the Kadi,
and just as he came up with Obada he sprang from the saddle on to the
wooden structure, and with a loud cry of: “Free-saved!” in which all the
joy of his heart found utterance, he stretched out both his hands to
Paula, who was advancing towards the shore clinging closely to Orion.

Othman did not observe the Vekeel, who was but a few paces distant. The
words “Free!” “Saved!” from the supreme judge, gave the negro to
understand that a pardon must have arrived for his youthful foe, and this
of course implied the condemnation of his own proceedings. All his hopes
were wrecked, for this meant that Omar still ruled and that the attempt on
the Khaliff’s life had failed. Dismissal, punishment or death must be his
doom, when Amru should return. Still, he would not succumb till the
instrument of his ruin had preceded him to the grave. Taking the Kadi by
surprise he thrust him aside, and prepared to deal a fearful blow that
should fell Orion before he himself should fall. But the captain of the
body-guard, who had followed Othman, had watched his movements: Swift as
lightning he rose in his saddle and swung his cimeter, which cut deep into
the Vekeel’s neck. With a hideous curse Obada let his arm drop, and fell
struggling for his last breath at the feet of the newly united couple.

The populace afterwards declared that his blood was not red like that of
other men, but black like his skin and his soul. They had good cause to
curse his memory, for his villainy had reduced more than half Memphis to
ashes that day, and brought the city to beggary.

He had hired two venial wretches to set fire to the prison while the
festival was proceeding, with a view to suffocating Orion in his cell; but
the gang were detected and all the prisoners were released in time. Thus
the young man had been able to reach the scene of the ceremonial at the
head of his fellow-captives. The fire, however, had gained the upper hand
in the deserted town. It had spread from house to house along the
sun-scorched streets, and next day nothing remained of the city of the
Pyramids but the road along the shore, and a few wretched alleys. The
ancient Capital of the Pharaohs was reduced to a village, and the
houseless residents moved across to the eastern bank, to people as Moslems
the newly-founded town of Fostat, or sought a home on Christian territory.

Among the houses that had escaped was that of Rufinus, and thither the
Kadi escorted Orion and Paula. It was to serve as their prison till the
return of Amru, and there they spent delightful days in the society of
their friends, and there Thomas was so happy as to clasp his children to
his heart once more, and bless them before he died.

A few minutes before the Kadi had reached the scene of the festival two
carrier pigeons had arrived, each bearing the Arab governor’s commands
that the sacrifice of Paula was at any rate to be stopped, and her life
spared till his return. He also reserved the right of deciding Orion’s
fate.

Mary and Rustem had met Amru at Berenice, on the Egyptian coast of the Red
Sea. This decaying sea-port was connected with Medina by a pigeon-post,
and in reply to his viceroy’s enquiry with reference to the victim about
to be offered by the despairing Egyptians to the Nile, Omar had sent a
reply which had been immediately forwarded to the Kadi.

The burning of their town had brought new and fearful suffering on the
stricken Memphites, and notwithstanding Katharina’s death the Nile still
did not rise. The Kadi therefore once more summoned a meeting of all the
inhabitants from both sides of the river, three days after the interrupted
marriage-festival. It was held under the palms by Nesptah’s inn, and there
he proclaimed to the multitude, Moslem and Christian, by means of the Arab
herald and Egyptian interpreter, what the Khaliff commanded him to
declare, namely: that God, the One, the All-merciful, scorned human
sacrifice. In this firm conviction he, Omar, would beseech Allah the
Compassionate, and he sent a letter which was to be cast into the river in
his name.

And this letter was addressed:

“To the River of Egypt.” And its contents were as follows:

“If thou, O River, flowest of thyself, then swell not; but if it be God,
the One, the Compassionate, that maketh thee to flow, then we entreat the
All-merciful that he will bid thee rise!”

“That which is not of God,” wrote Amru in the letter which enclosed
Omar’s, “what shall it profit men? But all things created are by Him, and
so is your noble river. The Most High will hearken to Omar’s prayers and
ours, and I therefore command that all of you—Moslems, Christians,
and Jews, shall gather together in the Mosque on the other side of the
Nile which I have built to the glory of the All-merciful, and that you
there lift up your souls in one great common prayer, to the end that God
may hear you and take pity on your sufferings!”

And the Kadi bid all the people to go across the Nile and they obeyed his
bidding. Bishop John called on his clergy and marched at their head,
leading the Christians; the priests and elders of the Jews led their
people next to the Jacobites; and side by side with these the Moslems
gathered in the magnificent pillared sanctuary of Amru, where the three
congregations of different creeds lifted up, their hearts and eyes and
voices to the pitying Father in Heaven.

And this very Mosque of Amru has more than once been the scene of the same
sublime spectacle; even within the lifetime and before the eyes of the
narrator of this tale have Moslems, Christians, and Jews united there in
one pious prayer, which must have been acceptable indeed in the ears of
the Lord.

Not long after the letter from the Khaliff Omar had been cast into the
Nile, and the prayer of the united assembly had gone up to Heaven from the
Mosque of Armu, a pigeon came in announcing a sudden rise in the waters at
the cataracts; and after some still anxious but hopeful days of patience,
the Nile swelled higher and yet higher, overflowed its banks, and gave the
laborer a right to look forward to a rich harvest; and then, when a heavy
storm of rain had laid the choking dust, the plague, too, disappeared.

Just when the river was beginning to rise perceptibly Amru returned;
bringing in his train little Mary and Rustem, Philippus the leech and
Haschim, who had joined the governor’s caravan at Djidda.

In the course of their journey they received news of all that had been
happening at Memphis, and when the travellers were approaching their last
night-quarters, and the Pyramids were already in sight, the governor said
to little Mary:

“What do you say little one? Do we not owe the Memphites the treat of a
splendid marriage festival?”

“No, my lord, two,” replied the child.

“How is that?” laughed Amru, “You are too young and do not count yet, and
I know no other maiden in Memphis whose wedding I should care to provide
for.”

“But there is a man towards whom you feel most kindly, and who lives as
lonely as a recluse. I should like to see him married, and at the same
time as Orion and Paula. I mean our good friend Philippus.”

“The physician? And is he still unwed?” asked Amru in surprise; for no
Moslem of the leech’s age and position could remain unmarried without
exposing himself to the contempt of his fellow-believers. “He is a widower
then!”

“No,” replied Mary. “He has never yet found a wife to suit him; but I know
one created on purpose for him by God himself!”

“You little Khatbe!”—[A professional go-between]—cried the
governor. “Well, settle the matter, and it shall be no fault of mine if
the second wedding lacks magnificence.”

“And we will have a third!” interrupted the child, clapping her hands and
laughing. “My worthy escort Rustem….

“The colossus! Why, child, to you all things are possible! Have you found
a wife for him too?”

“No, he found Mandane for himself without my help.”

“It is the same thing!” cried the governor jovially. “I will provide for
her. But that must satisfy you, or else all those unbelievers whom we are
settling here will drive us Moslem Arabs out of the land.”

The great man had often held such discourse as this with the child since
she had entered his tent at Berenice, there to lay before him the case of
the couple she loved, and for whom she had taken on herself great risk and
hardship; she had pleaded so eloquently, so kindly, and with such fervent
and pathetic words, that Amru had at once made up his mind to grant her
everything that lay in his power. Mary had done him a service, too, by
bringing him the information she could give him, for it enabled him to
avert perils which threatened the interests of the Crescent, and also to
save the children of two men he honored—the son of the Mukaukas, and
the daughter of Thomas—from imminent danger.

He found, on his return home, that the Vekeel’s crimes far exceeded his
worst fears. Obada’s proceedings had begun to undermine that respect for
Arab rule and Moslem justice which Amru had done his utmost to secure. It
was only by a miracle that Orion had escaped his plots, for he had three
times sent assassins to the prison, and it was entirely owing to the
watchful care of pretty Emau’s husband that the youth had been able to
save himself in the fire. Obada had done all this to clear out of his path
the hated man whose statements and impeachments might ruin him. The wretch
had met a less ignominious death than his judges would have granted him.
The wealth found hoarded in his dwelling was sent to Medina; and even
Orion was forced to see the vast sums of which the Negro had plundered his
treasury, appropriated by the Arabs. The Arab governor thought it only
right to inflict this penalty for the share he had taken in the rescue of
the nuns; and the young man submitted willingly to a punishment which
restored him and his bride to freedom, and enabled Amru to apply a larger
proportion of the revenues of his native land for its own benefit.

The Khaliff Omar, however, never received these moneys, which constituted
far more than half of Orion’s patrimony. The Prophet’s truest friend, the
wise and powerful ruler, fell by the assassin’s hand, and the world now
learnt that the Vekeel had been one of the chief conspirators and had been
spurred on to the rashest extremes by his confidence of success.

Amru received the son of the Mukaukas as a father might; after examining
the result of his labors he found it far superior to his own efforts in
the same direction, and he charged Orion to carry out the new division of
the country, which he confirmed excepting in a few details.

“Perform your duty and do your utmost in the future to go on as you have
begun!” cried Amru; and the young man replied:

“In this bitter and yet happy interval I have become clear on many
points.”

“And may I ask on what?” asked the governor. “I would gladly hear.”

“I have discovered, my lord,” replied Orion, “that there is no such thing
as happiness or unhappiness in the sense men give to the words. Life
appears to each of us as we ourselves paint it. Hard times which come into
our lives from outside are often no more than a brief night from which a
brighter day presently dawns—or the stab of a surgeon’s knife, which
makes us sounder than before. What men call grief is, times without
number, a path to greater ease; whereas the ordinary happiness of mankind
flows, swiftly as running waters, down from that delightful sense of ease.
Like a ship, which, when her rudder is lost, is more likely to ride out
the storm on the high seas than near the sheltering coast, so a man who
has lost himself may easily recover himself and his true happiness in the
wildest turmoil of life, but rarely and with difficulty if his existence
runs calmly on. All other blessings are comparatively worthless if we are
not upheld by the consciousness of fulfilling the task of life in faithful
earnest, and of cheerfully dealing with the problems it sets before us.
The lost one was found as soon as he placed his whole being and faculties
at the service of a higher duty, with God in his heart and before his
eyes. I have learnt from my own experience, and from Paula’s good friends,
to strive untiringly after what is right, and to find my own weal in that
of others.

“The sense of lost liberty is hard to bear; but leave me love, and give me
room and opportunity to prove my best powers in the service of the
community, even in a prison—and though I cannot be perfectly happy,
for that is impossible without freedom—I will be far happier than
such an idle and useless spendthrift of time and abilities as I used to be
among the dissipations of the capital.”

“Then enjoy the consciousness of duty well performed, with liberty and
love,” replied the governor. “And believe me, my friend, your father in
Paradise will no more grudge you all that is loveliest and best than I do.
You are on the road where every curse is turned to blessing.”

The three marriages which Amru had promised to provide for, were
celebrated with due splendor.

That of Orion and Paula was a day never to be forgotten by the gay world
of Memphis. Bishop John performed the ceremony, and the young couple at
once took possession of the beautiful house left them by Katharina, the
real Bride of the Nile. If it could have been granted to her to read
Paula’s and Orion’s hearts, and see how they held her in remembrance, she
would have found that to them she was no longer the childish
water-wagtail, and that they knew how to value the sacrifice of her young
life.

Their first beloved guest, who went with them to their new home, was
little Mary, and she remained their dearest companion till she married
happily. The governess, Eudoxia, to whom also Orion offered an asylum,
accompanied Mary to her own delightful home; and there at last Mary closed
her old friend’s eyes, after the good woman had brought up her little
ones, not like a hireling but as a true mother.

The Patriarch Benjamin, too, who was led by many considerations—and
not least by Katharina’s will to remain on good terms with the son of the
Mukaukas, was a visitor to the youthful pair. Neither he nor the Church
ever had reason to repent his alliance with Orion; and when Paula
presented her husband with a son, the prelate offered to be his sponsor,
and named him George after his grandfather.

Orion’s son, too, inherited the office of Mukaukas, when he came to man’s
estate, from his father who was appointed to it, but under a new Arab
title, shortly after his marriage.

Ere long, however, Orion, as the highest Christian authority in his native
land, had to change his place of residence and leave Memphis, which was
doomed to ruin, for Alexandria. From thence his power extended over the
whole Nile-valley, and he devoted himself to his charge with so much zeal,
fidelity, justice, and prudence, that his name was remembered with
veneration and affection by generations long after.

Paula was the pride and joy of his life, and they lived together in
devoted union to an advanced age. He regarded it as one of the duties of
his life, to care for the woman who had made him what he was from a lost
and reprobate creature, and to fill every day of her life with joy. When
he built his palace at Alexandria, he graced it with the inscription that
had been engraved on Thomas’ ring: “God hath set the sweat of man’s brow
before virtue.”

Philippus and his Pulcheria also found a new home in Alexandria. He had no
long wooing to do; for when, on his return, the girl of whom he had
thought constantly during his long journeying, met him for the first time
in her mother’s house and held out both her hands with trustful warmth of
welcome, he clasped her to him and would not release her till Joanna had
given them her maternal blessing. The widow lived in the leech’s house
with her children and grandchildren, and often visited her husband’s
grave. At length she was laid to rest by him and his soft-hearted mother,
in the cemetery of Alexandria.

Rustem, made a rich man by Orion, became a famous breeder of horses and
camels in his own country, while Mandane ruled mildly but prudently over
his possessions—which he never shared with others, though he
remained a Masdakite till he died. The first daughter his wife bore him
was named Mary, and the first boy Haschim; but she would not agree to
Rustem’s proposal that the second should be called Orion; she preferred to
give him the name of Rufinus, and his successors were Rustem and
Philippus.

The senator and his wife were only too glad to quit Egypt. Martina,
however, had the satisfaction of assisting at the marriage of her dear
Heliodora on the shores of the Nile; not, indeed, to her “Great
Sesostris,” but to her nephew Narses, who by the young widow’s devoted
care was restored, if not to perfect vigor, at any rate to very endurable
good health.

Paula’s wedding gift to her was the great emerald, which had meanwhile
been brought back again to Memphis. Justinus and Martina always remained
on terms of cordial friendship with the young Mukaukas and his wife: Nilus
lived long after to perform his duties with industry and judgment; and
whenever Haschim came to Alexandria there was a contest between Orion and
Philippus, for neither would yield him to the other. But Philip could no
longer envy his former rival the wife he had won. He had not, indeed,
ceased to admire her; but at the same time he would say: “My comfortable
little Pulcheria has not her match; our rooms would be too small for
Paula, but they suit my golden-haired girl best.”

He remained unselfishly devoted to his work till the end, and, when he saw
Orion wearing himself out in energetic toil, he would often say: “He knows
now what life demands, and acts accordingly; and that is why he grows no
older, and his laugh is as winning and gay as ever. It is an honor to be
called friend by a woman who like the Bride of the Nile. saved herself
from certain death, and a man who, like the young Mukaukas, has freed
himself from the heaviest of all curses.”

To this day the Bride of the Nile is not forgotten. Before the river
begins to rise on the Night of Dropping the inhabitants of the town of
Cairo, which grew up after the ruin of Memphis, on the eastern shore by
the side of Fostat, erect a figure of clay, representing a maiden form,
which they call Aroosa or the Bride.

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