It was quite dark in Sirona’s cavern, fearfully dark, and the blacker
grew the night which shrouded her, the more her terror increased. From
time to time she shut her eyes as tightly as she could, for she fancied
she could see a crimson glare, and she longed for light in that hour
as a drowning man longs for the shore. Dark forebodings of every kind
oppressed her soul.
What if Paulus had abandoned her, and had left her to her fate? Or if
Polykarp should have been searching for her on the mountain in this
storm, and in the darkness should have fallen into some abyss, or have
been struck by the lightning? Suppose the mass of rock that overhung the
entrance to the cave should have been loosened in the storm, and should
fall, and bar her exit to the open air? Then she would be buried alive,
and she must perish alone, without seeing him whom she loved once more,
or telling him that she had not been unworthy of his trust in her.
Cruelly tormented by such thoughts as these, she dragged herself up and
felt her way out into the air and wind, for she could no longer hold out
in the gloomy solitude and fearful darkness. She had hardly reached the
mouth of the cave, when she heard steps approaching her lurking place,
and again she shrank back. Who was it that could venture in this
pitch-dark night to climb from rock to rock? Was it Paulus returning?
Was it he--was it Polykarp seeking her? She felt intoxicated; she
pressed her hands to her heart, and longed to cry out, but she dared
not, and her tongue refused its office. She listened with the tension of
terror to the sound of the steps which came straight towards her nearer
and nearer, then the wanderer perceived the faint gleam of her white
dress, and called out to her. It was Paulus.
She drew a deep breath of relief when she recognized his voice, and
answered his call.
“In such weather as this,” said the anchorite, “it is better to be
within than without, it seems to me, for it is not particularly pleasant
out here, so far as I have found.”
“But it has been frightful here inside the cave too,” Sirona answered,
“I have been so dreadfully frightened, I was so lonely in the horrible
darkness. If only I had had my little dog with me, it would at least
have been a living being.”
“I have made haste as well as I could,” interrupted Paulus. “The paths
are not so smooth here as the Kanopic road in Alexandria, and as I have
not three necks like Cerberus, who lies at the feet of Serapis, it would
have been wiser of me to return to you a little more leisurely. The
storm-bird has swallowed up all the stars as if they were flies, and
the poor old mountain is so grieved at it, that streams of tears are
everywhere flowing over his stony cheeks. It is wet even here. Now go
back into the cave, and let me lay this that I have got here for you in
my arms, in the dry passage. I bring you good news; to-morrow evening,
when it is growing dusk, we start. I have found out a vessel which
will convey us to Klysma, and from thence I myself will conduct you to
Alexandria. In the sheepskin here you will find the dress and veil of
an Amalekite woman, and if your traces are to be kept hidden from
Phoebicius, you must accommodate yourself to this disguise; for if the
people down there were to see you as I saw you to-day, they would think
that Aphrodite herself had risen from the sea, and the report of the
fair-haired beauty that had appeared among them would soon spread even
to the oasis.”
“But it seems to me that I am well hidden here,” replied Sirona. “I am
afraid of a sea-voyage, and even if we succeeded in reaching Alexandria
without impediment, still I do not know--”
“It shall be my business to provide for you there.” Paulus interrupted
with a decision that was almost boastful, and that somewhat disturbed
Sirona. “You know the fable of the ass in the lion’s skin, but there are
lions who wear the skin of an ass on their shoulders--or of a sheep,
it comes to the same thing. Yesterday you were speaking of the splendid
palaces of the citizens, and lauding the happiness of their owners. You
shall dwell in one of those marble houses, and rule it as its mistress,
and it shall be my care to procure you slaves, and litter-bearers, and
a carriage with four mules. Do not doubt my word, for I am promising
nothing that I cannot perform. The rain is ceasing, and I will try to
light a fire. You want nothing more to eat? Well then, I will wish you
good-night. The rest will all do to-morrow.”
Sirona had listened in astonishment to the anchorite’s promises.
How often had she envied those who possessed all that her strange
protector now promised her--and now it had not the smallest charm for
her; and, fully determined in any case not to follow Paulus, whom she
began to distrust, she replied, as she coldly returned his greeting,
“There are many hours yet before tomorrow evening in which we can
discuss everything.”
While Paulus was with great difficulty rekindling the fire, she was once
more alone, and again she began to be alarmed in the dark cavern.
She called the Alexandrian. “The darkness terrifies me so,” she said.
“You still had some oil in the jug this morning; perhaps you may be able
to contrive a little lamp for me; it is so fearful to stay here in the
dark.”
Paulus at once took a shard, tore a strip from his tattered coat,
twisted it together, and laid it for a wick in the greasy fluid, lighted
it at the slowly reviving fire, and putting this more than simple light
in Sirona’s hand, he said, “It will serve its purpose; in Alexandria I
will see that you have lamps which give more light, and which are made
by a better artist.”
Sirona placed the lamp in a hollow in the rocky wall at the head of her
bed, and then lay down to rest. Light scares away wild beasts and fear
too from the resting-place of man, and it kept terrifying thoughts far
away from the Gaulish woman.
She contemplated her situation clearly and calmly, and quite decided
that she would neither quit the cave, nor entrust herself to the
anchorite, till she had once more seen and spoken to Polykarp. He no
doubt knew where to seek her, and certainly, she thought, he would by
this time have returned, if the storm and the starless night had not
rendered it an impossibility to come up the mountain from the oasis.
“To-morrow I shall see him again, and then I will open my heart to him,
and he shall read my soul like a book, and on every page, and in every
line he will find his own name. And I will tell him too that I have
prayed to his ‘Good Shepherd,’ and how much good it has done me, and
that I will be a Christian like his sister Marthana and his mother.
Dorothea will be glad indeed when she hears it, and she at any rate
cannot have thought that I was wicked, for she always loved me, and the
children--the children--”
The bright crowd of merry faces came smiling in upon her fancy, and her
thoughts passed insensibly into dreams; kindly sleep touched her heart
with its gentle hand, and its breath swept every shadow of trouble from
her soul. She slept, smiling and untroubled as a child whose eyes some
guardian angel softly kisses, while her strange protector now turned the
flickering wood on the damp hearth and with a reddening face blew up the
dying charcoal-fire, and again walked restlessly up and down, and paused
each time he passed the entrance to the cave, to throw a longing glance
at the light which shone out from Sirona’s sleeping-room.
Since the moment when he had flung Polykarp to the ground, Paulus had
not succeeded in recovering his self-command; not for a moment had he
regretted the deed, for the reflection had never occurred to him, that
a fall on the stony soil of the Sacred Mountain, which was as hard as
iron, must hurt more than a fall on the’ sand of the arena.
“The impudent fellow,” thought he, “richly deserved what he got. Who
gave him a better right over Sirona than he, Paulus himself, had--he who
had saved her life, and had taken it upon himself to protect her?” Her
great beauty had charmed him from the first moment of their meeting, but
no impure thought stirred his heart as he gazed at her with delight, and
listened with emotion to her childlike talk. It was the hot torrent of
Polykarp’s words that had first thrown the spark into his soul, which
jealousy and the dread of having to abandon Sirona to another, had soon
fanned into a consuming flame. He would not give up this woman, he would
continue to care for her every need, she should owe everything to him,
and to him only. And so, without reserve, he devoted himself body and
soul to the preparations for her flight. The hot breath of the storm,
the thunder and lightning, torrents of rain, and blackness of night
could not delay him, while he leaped from rock to rock, feeling his
way-soaked through, weary and in peril; he thought only of her, and of
how he could most safely carry her to Alexandria, and then surround
her with all that could charm a woman’s taste. Nothing--nothing did he
desire for himself, and all that he dreamed of and planned turned only
and exclusively on the pleasure which he might afford her. When he had
prepared and lighted the lamp for her he saw her again, and was startled
at the beauty of the face that the trembling flame revealed. He could
observe her a few seconds only, and then she had vanished, and he must
remain alone in the darkness and the rain. He walked restlessly up and
down, and an agonizing longing once more to see her face lighted up
by the pale flame, and the white arm that she had held out to take the
lamp, grew more and more strong in him and accelerated the pulses of
his throbbing heart. As often as he passed the cave, and observed the
glimmer of light that came from her room, he felt prompted and urged to
slip in, and to gaze on her once more. He never once thought of prayer
and scourging, his old means of grace, he sought rather for a reason
that might serve him as an excuse if he went in, and it struck him that
it was cold, and that a sheepskin was lying in the cavern. He would
fetch it, in spite of his vow never to wear a sheepskin again; and
supposing he were thus enabled to see her, what next?
When he had Stepped across the threshold, an inward voice warned him
to return, and told him that he must be treading the path of
unrighteousness, for that he was stealing in on tiptoe like a thief; but
the excuse was ready at once. “That is for fear of waking her, if she is
asleep.”
And now all further reflection was silenced for he had already reached
the spot where, at the end of the rocky passage, the cave widened into
her sleeping-room; there she lay on her hard couch, sunk in slumber and
enchantingly fair.
A deep gloom reigned around, and the feeble light of the little lamp
lighted up only a small portion of the dismal chamber but the head,
throat, and arms that it illuminated seemed to shine with a light of
their own that enhanced and consecrated the light of the feeble flame.
Paulus fell breathless on his knees, and fixed his eyes with growing
eagerness on the graceful form of the sleeper.
Sirona was dreaming; her head, veiled in her golden hair, rested on a
high pillow of herbs, and her delicately rosy face was turned up to the
vault of the cave; her half-closed lips moved gently, and now she moved
her bent arm and her white hand, on which the light of the lamp fell,
and which rested half on her forehead and half on her shining hair.
“Is she saying anything?” asked Paulus of himself, and he pressed his
brow against a projection of the rock as tightly as if he would stem
the rapid rush of his blood that it might not overwhelm his bewildered
brain.
Again she moved her lips. Had she indeed spoken? Had she perhaps called
him?
That could not be, for she still slept; but he wished to believe it--and
he would believe it, and he stole nearer to her and nearer, and bent
over her, and listened--while his own strength failed him even to draw a
breath--listened to the soft regular breathing that heaved her bosom. No
longer master of himself he touched her white arm with his bearded lips
and she drew it back in her sleep, then his gaze fell on her parted lips
and the pearly teeth that shone between them, and a mad longing to kiss
them came irresistibly over him. He bent trembling over her, and was
on the point of gratifying his impulse when, as if startled by a sudden
apparition, he drew back, and raised his eyes from the rosy lips to the
hand that rested on the sleeper’s brow.
The lamplight played on a golden ring on Sirona’s finger, and shone
brightly on an onyx on which was engraved an image of Tyche, the
tutelary goddess of Antioch, with a sphere upon her head, and bearing
Amalthea’s horn in her hand.
A new and strange emotion took possession of the anchorite at the sight
of this stone. With trembling hands he felt in the breast of his torn
garment, and presently drew forth a small iron crucifix and the ring
that he had taken from the cold hand of Hermas’ mother. In the golden
circlet was set an onyx, on which precisely the same device was visible
as that on Sirona’s hand. The string with its precious jewel fell from
his grasp, he clutched his matted hair with both hands, groaned deeply,
and repeated again and again, as though to crave forgiveness, the name
of “Magdalen.”
Then he called Sirona in a loud voice, and as she awoke excessively
startled, he asked her in urgent tones: “Who gave you that ring?”
“It was a present from Phoebicius,” replied she. “He said he had had it
given to him many years since in Antioch, and that it had been engraved
by a great artist. But I do not want it any more, and if you like to
have it you may.”
“Throw it away!” exclaimed Paulus, “it will bring you nothing but
misfortune.” Then he collected himself, went out into the air with his
head sunk on his breast, and there, throwing himself down on the wet
stones by the hearth, he cried out:
“Magdalen! dearest and purest! You, when you ceased to be Glycera,
became a saintly martyr, and found the road to heaven; I too had my day
of Damascus--of revelation and conversion--and I dared to call myself by
the name of Paulus--and now--now?”
Plunged in despair he beat his forehead, groaning out, “All, all in
vain!”