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The Bride of the Nile — Complete

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Title: The Bride of the Nile — Complete

Author: Georg Ebers

Translator: Clara Bell


        
Release date: November 15, 2004 [eBook #5529]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5529

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRIDE OF THE NILE — COMPLETE ***



Produced by David Widger





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.

                       GEORG EBERS.
   October 1st, 1886.





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.

   [Kyrios: The woman’s legal proxy, who represented her in courts of
   justice. His presence gave her equal rights with a man in the eyes
   of the Law.]

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:

   “‘Like liketh like’ saith the saw; and like to like is but fitting.
   Yet, in the hardest of gems thy soft nature rejoices?
   Nay, but if noble and rare, if its beauty is priceless,
   Then, Heliodora, the stone is like thee--akin to thy beauty.
   Thus let this emerald please thee;--and know that the fire
   That fills it with light burns more fierce in the heart of thy
                              Friend.”

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 e

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