Paula now understood what hung over her. It is Bishop John who had told
her, as gently as he could, and with every assurance that he still clung
to the hope that he could stop the hideous heathen abomination; but even
without this she would certainly have known what was impending, for large
crowds of people gathered every day under the prisonwalls, and loud cries
reached her, demanding to see the "Bride of the Nile."
Now and again shouts of "Hail!" came up to her; but when the demented
creatures had shrieked themselves hoarse, and in vain, they would abuse
her vilely. The cry for the "Bride" never ceased from morning till
night, and the head warder of the prison was glad that the bishop had
relieved him of the task of explaining to Paula the meaning of the
fateful word, whose significance she had repeatedly asked him.
At first this fresh and terrible peril had startled and shaken her;
but she did her utmost to cling to the hope held out by the bishop so
as to appear calm, and as far as possible cheerful, in her sick father's
presence. And in this she succeeded so long as it was day; but at night
she was a prey to agonizing terrors. Then, in fancy she saw herself
surrounded by a raging mob, dragged to the river and cast into a watery
grave before a thousand eyes. Then, prayer was of no avail, nor any
resolve or effort; not the tender messages that constantly reached her
from Orion, nor the songs he would sing for her in the brief moments of
leisure he allowed himself; not the bishop's words of comfort, nor the
visits of those she loved. The warder would admit her friends as often
as he was able; and among those who found their way to her cell were the
Senator Justinus and his wife.
By great good fortune Martina had quitted Susannah's house as soon as the
two slaves had fallen ill and she had heard that the physician pronounced
them to be sickening of the plague. She had returned to her rooms in the
inn kept by Sostratus, but her nephew Narses had remained with Katharina
and her mother. He was indeed intending to follow her with Heliodora;
but, by the time they were ready to set out, Susannah, too, had fallen a
victim to the pestilence and the authorities had forbidden all egress
from her house.
Heliodora might have succeeded in leaving in time, alone; but she would
not abandon her unfortunate brother-in-law; for he never felt easy but in
her presence, would allow no one else to wait on him, and would take
neither food nor drink unless they were offered him by her. Besides
this, the cavalry officer, once so stalwart, had in his weakness become
pathetically like her lost husband, and she knew that Narses had been the
first to love her, and that it was only for his brother's sake that he
had concealed his passion. Her motherly instincts found an outlet in the
care of the half-crushed, but not hopelessly lost man; and the desire to
drag him back to life kept her busy day and night, and made her regard
everything else as trivial and of secondary importance. Her life had
once more found a purpose; her efforts were for an attainable end, and
she devoted herself to him body and soul.
Her uncle had told her that Orion was bound to Paula by a supreme
passion.--This had been a painful blow, but the Syrian girl had impressed
her; she looked up to her, and it soothed her wounded self-esteem to
reflect that she had lost her lover to no inferior woman. Though her
longing for him still surged up in many a silent hour, she felt it an
injustice, a stint of love to her invalid charge.
So far as Katharina was concerned, next to her mother, Heliodora was the
object of her deepest anxiety. The least word of complaint from either
terrified her; and if Susannah sank on the divan exhausted by the heat,
or Heliodora had a headache after watching through the night by the sick
man, the girl would turn pale, her heart would beat painfully, she would
paint them in fancy stricken by the plague, with burning brows and the
horrible, fatal spots on their foreheads and cheeks; and whenever these
alarms pressed on the young criminal she felt the ominous weight on the
top of her head where the dead bishop's hand had rested.
The senator's wife had so completely changed in her demeanor to the
water-wagtail, since Paula's imprisonment, that to Katharina she was as a
living reproach, so she had no regret at seeing the worthy pair depart.
But scarcely had they left when misfortune took their place as an
unbidden guest.
The slave whose duty it was to heat the baths had reserved a portion of
the infected garments that had been given to him to burn; his son had
helped him, and Katharina's nurse, the mother of her foster-brother
Anubis, had come into direct contact with her immediately after her
return from the soothsayer's and from the bishop's. All three had caught
the disease. They had all three been removed to the hospital tents--the
slave and the nurse as corpses.
But had the fearful infection been taken away with them? If not, it
would be the turn next of those whom she herself had pushed into the arms
of the fell monster: First Heliodora, and then her mother! And she,
rightfully, ought to have fallen before them; and if the pestilence
should seize her and death should drag her down into the grave it would
be showing her mercy. She was still so young, and yet she hated life.
It had nothing in store for her but humiliation and disappointment,
arrows which, sent from the prison, pierced her to the heart, and a
torturing fear which never gave her any peace, day or night.
When the physician came to transport the sick to the hospital in the
desert, he mentioned incidentally that the judges had condemned Paula to
death, and that the populace and senate, in spite of the new bishop's
prohibition, had determined to cast her into the river in accordance with
an ancient custom. Orion's fate was not to be decided till the following
day; but it would hardly be to his advantage in the eyes of his Jacobite
judges, that his betrothed was this Syrian Melchite.
At this Katharina was forced to support herself against her mother's arm-
chair to save herself from sinking on her knees; with tingling cheeks she
questioned the leech till he lost all patience and turned away much
annoyed at such excessive feminine curiosity.
Yes! "The other" was his betrothed before all the world; but only to
die! The blood rushed through her veins in a hot tide at the thought;
she could have laughed aloud and fallen on the neck of every one she met.
What she felt was hideous; malignant spite possessed her; but it gave her
rapture--delicious rapture--a flower of hell, but with splendid petals
and intoxicating perfume. But its splendor dazzled her and its fragrance
presently sickened her. Sheer horror of herself came over her, and yet
she could have shouted with joy each time that the thought flashed
through her brain: "The other must die!"
Her mother feared that her daughter, too, was about to fall ill, her eyes
glowed so strangely and she was so restless and nervously excitable.
Since Heliodora had taken the overwhelming news of Orion's betrothal to
Paula with astonishing though sorrowful calmness, to the hot-blooded girl
she was nothing, nobody, utterly unworthy of her notice.
To spite her she had committed a crime as like murder as one snake is
like another, and imperilled her own mother's life! It was enough to
drive her to despair, to make her scourge herself with rods!
When Susannah kissed her at parting for the night she complained of a
slight sore throat and of her lips, which she fancied must be swollen.
Katharina detained her, questioned her with a trembling voice, put the
lamp close to her, and held her breath while she examined her face, her
neck, and her arms for the dreadful spots. But none were to be seen and
her mother laughed at her terrors, called her a dutiful, anxious child,
and warned her not to be too full of fears, as they were supposed to
invite the disease.
All night the girl could not sleep. Her malicious triumph was past;
nothing but painful thoughts and grewsome images haunted her while awake,
and pursued her more persistently when she dozed. By dawn of day her
alarm for her mother was so great that she sprang out of bed and went to
her room; Susannah was sleeping so soundly that she did not even hear
her. Much relieved Katharina crept back to bed; but in the morning the
worst had happened: Susannah could no longer leave her bed; she was
feverish, and on her lips, the very lips which had kissed her child's
infected hair, there were indeed, between her nose and mouth, the first
terrible, unmistakable spots.
The leech came and confirmed the fact.--The house was closed and barred.
The physician and Susannah, who was still in full possession of her
senses, wished and insisted that Katharina should withdraw to the
gardener's house, but she refused with defiant obstinacy, saying she
would rather die with her mother than leave her.
Quite beside herself she threw herself on the sick woman, and kissed the
spots on her mouth to divert the poison into her own blood; but the
physician angrily pulled her away, and the sufferer reproved her with
tears in her eyes which spoke her fervent affection.
She was now allowed to nurse her mother. Two nuns came to her
assistance, and said, not only to the rich widow but behind her back,
that they had never seen so devoted and loving a daughter. Even Bishop
John, who did not shrink from entering the houses of the sick to give
them spiritual consolation, praised Katharina's conduct; and he, who had
hitherto regarded the water-wagtail as no more than a bright, restless
child, treated her with respect, talked to her as to a grown-up person,
and answered her questions--which for the most part referred to Paula--
gravely and fully.
The prelate, who was full of admiration for Thomas' daughter, told
Katharina how, to save her lover, she had taken a crime upon herself
which deprived her of every claim to mercy. The Syrian girl was only a
Melchite, but to take another's guilt, out of love, was treading indeed
in the footsteps of Christ, if ever anything was. At this Katharina
shrugged her shoulders, as though to say: "Do you think so much of that?
Could not I gladly have done the same?"
The priest saw this and admonished her kindly to be on her guard against
spiritual pride, though she had indeed earned the right to believe
herself capable of the sternest devotion, and did not cease to set an
example of filial and Christian love.
He departed; and Katharina, to whom every word in praise of her behavior
to her mother, whom her sin had brought to her death-bed, was a torturing
mockery, felt that she had deceived one more worthy soul. She did not,
to be sure, deserve to be charged with spiritual pride; for in this
silent chamber, where death stood on the threshold, she thought over all
the horrible things she had done, and told herself repeatedly that she
was the chief and most vile of sinners.
Many times she felt impelled to confide in another soul, to invite a
pitying eye to behold and share her inward suffering.
To the bishop above all, the most venerable priest she knew, she would
most readily have confessed everything and have submitted to any penance,
however severe, at his hands, but shame held her back; and even more did
another more urgent consideration. The prelate, she knew, would demand
of her that she should forsake her old life, root out from her soul the
old feelings and desires, and begin a new existence; but for this the
time had not yet come: her love was still an indispensable condition of
life, and her hatred was even more dear to her. When Paula's terrible
doom should indeed have overtaken her, and Katharina, her heart full of
those old feelings, had gloated over it; when she should have been able
to prove to Orion that her love was no less great and strong and self-
sacrificing than that of Thomas' daughter; when she should have compelled
him--as she would and must--to acknowledge that he had cruelly misprized
her and sinned against her; then, and not till then, would she make peace
with herself, with the Church, and with her Saviour. Nay, if need be,
she would take the veil and mourn away the rest of her young life as a
penitent, in a convent or a solitary rock-cell. But now--when Paula,
his betrothed, had done this great thing for him--to perish now, with her
love unseen, unknown, uncared for, perhaps forgotten by him, to retire
into herself and vanish from his ken--that was too much for human nature!
Sooner would she be lost forever; body and soul in everlasting perdition,
a prey to Satan and hell--in which she believed as firmly as in her own
existence.
So she went on nursing her mother, saw the red spots spread over the sick
woman's whole body--watched the fever that increased from day to day,
from hour to hour; listened with a mixture of horror and gladness--at
which she herself shuddered, though she fed her heart on it--to the
reports of the preparations for the sacrifice of the Bride of the Nile,
and to all the bishop could tell her of Paula, and her dying father, and
Orion. She trembled for little Mary, who had disappeared from the
neighboring garden, till she heard that the child had fled to escape the
cloister; each day she learnt that Heliodora, who had moved to the
gardener's house with her invalid, had as yet escaped the pestilence;
while in the prayers, which even now she never failed to offer up morning
and evening, she implored the Almighty and her patron saints to rescue
the young widow, to save her from causing the death of her own mother,
and to forgive her for having indirectly caused that of worthy old
Rufinus, who had always been so good to her, and of so many innocent
creatures by her treachery.
Thus the terrible days and nights of anguish passed by; and the captives
whom the girl's sins had brought to prison were happier than she, in
spite of the doom that threatened them.
The fate of his betrothed tortured Orion more than a hundred aching
wounds. Paula's terrible end was fast approaching, and his brain burned
at the mere thought. Now, as he was told by the warder, by the bishop,
and by Justinus, the day after to-morrow was fixed for the bridal of his
betrothed. In two days the bride, decked by base and mocking hands for
an atrocious and accursed farce, would be wreathed and wedded, not to
him, the bridegroom whom she loved, but to the Nile--the insensible,
death-dealing element. He rushed up and down his cell like a madman,
and tore his lute-strings when he tried to soothe his soul with music;
but then a calm, well-intentioned voice would come from the adjoining
room, exhorting him not to lose hope, to trust in God, not to forget his
duty and the task before him. And Orion would control himself
resolutely, pull himself together, and throw himself into his work again.
Day and night were alike to him. The senator had provided him with a
lamp and oil. When he was wearied out, he allowed himself no longer
sleep on his hard couch than human nature imperatively demanded; and as
soon as he had shaken it off he again became absorbed in maps and lists,
plied his pen, thought, sketched, calculated, and reflected. Then, if a
doubt arose in his mind or he could not trust his own memory and
judgment, he knocked at the wall, and his shrewd and experienced friend
was at all times ready to help him to the best of his knowledge and
opinion. The senator went to Arsinoe for him, to gain information as
to the seaboard from the archives preserved there; and so the work went
forward, approaching its end, strengthening and raising his sinking
spirit, bringing him the pleasures of success, and enabling him not
unfrequently to forget for hours that which otherwise might have brought
the bravest to despair.
The warder, the senator or his worthy wife, Dame Joanna or Eudoxia--who
twice had the pleasure of accompanying her--each time they visited him
had some message or note to carry to Paula, telling her how far his work
had progressed; and to her it was a consolation and heartfelt joy to be
able to follow him in his labors. And many a token of his love, esteem,
and admiration gave her courage, when even her brave heart began to
quail.
Ah! It was not alone her terror of a horrible death that tortured her
soul. Her father, whom she considered it her greatest joy in life to
have found again, was fading beyond all hope under her loving hands.
His poor wounded lungs refused its service. It was with great difficulty
that he could swallow a few drops of wine and mouthfuls of food; and in
these last days his clear mind had lain as it were under a shroud--
perhaps it was happier so, as she told herself and as her friends
said to comfort her.
He, too, had heard the cries of: "Hail to the Bride of the Nile!"
"Bring out the Bride!"
"Away with the Bride of the Nile!" Though he had no suspicion of their
meaning, they had haunted his thoughts incessantly during the last few
days; and the terrible, strange words had seemed to charm his fancy,
for to Paula's distress he would murmur them to himself tenderly or
thoughtfully as the case might be.
Many times the idea occurred to her that she might put an end to her life
before the worst should befall, before she became a spectacle for a whole
nation, to be jeered at and made a delightful and exciting show to rouse
their cruelty or their compassion. But dared she do it? Dared she defy
the Most High, the Lord in whom she put her trust, into whose hand she
commended herself in a thousand dumb but fervent prayers.
No. To the very last she would trust and hope. And wonderful to say!
Each time she had reached the very limits of her powers of endurance,
feeling she could certainly bear no more and must succumb, something came
to her to revive her faith or her courage: a message would be brought her
from Orion, or Dame Joanna or Pulcheria came to see her; the bishop
sought an interview, or her father's mind rallied and he could speak to
her in beautiful and stimulating words. Often the warder would announce
the senator and his wife, and their vigorous and healthy minds always hit
on the very thing she needed. Martina, particularly, with her subtle
motherly instinct, always understood whatever was agitating her; and
once she showed her a letter from Heliodora, in which she spoke of the
calmness she had won through nursing their dear invalid, and said how
thankful she was to see the reward of her care and toil. Narses was
already quite another man, and she could know no higher task than that of
reconciling the hapless man to life, nay, of making it dear to him again.
She no longer thought of Orion but as she might of a beautiful song she
once had heard in a delightful hour.
Thus time passed, even for the imprisoned maiden, till only two nights
remained before St. Serapis' day when the fearful marriage was to be
solemnized.
It was evening when the bishop came to visit Paula. He regarded it as
his duty to tell her that the execution of her sentence was fixed for the
day after to-morrow. He should hope and believe till the last, but his
own power over the misguided mob was gone from him. In any case, and if
the worst should befall, he would be at her side to protect her by the
dignity of his office. He had come now, so as to give her time to
prepare her self in every respect. The care of her noble father till his
last hour on earth he would take upon himself as a dear and sacred duty.
Though she had believed herself surely prepared long since for the worst,
this news fell on her like a thunderbolt. What lay before her seemed so
monstrous, so unexampled, that it was impossible that she ever could look
forward to it firmly and calmly.
For a long time she could not help clinging desperately to her faithful
Betta, and it was only by degrees that she so far recovered herself as to
be able to speak to the bishop, and thank him. He, however, could only
lament his inability to earn her fullest gratitude, for the patriarch's
reply to his complaint of those who promised rescue to the people by the
instrumentality of a heathen abomination--a document on which he had
founded his highest hopes for her--had had a different result from that
which he had expected. The patriarch, to be sure, condemned the
abominable sacrifice, but he did it in a way which lacked the force
necessary to terrify and discourage the misled mob. However, he would
try what effect it might have on the people, and a number of scribes were
at work to make copies of it in the course of the night. These would be
sent to the Senators next morning, posted up in the market-place and
public buildings, and distributed to the people; but he feared all this
would have no effect.
"Then help me to prepare for death," said Paula gloomily. "You are not
a priest of my confession, but no church has a more worthy minister.
If you can absolve me in the name of your Redeemer, mine will pardon me.
We look at Him, it is true, with different eyes, but He is the Saviour of
us both, nevertheless." A contradictory reply struggled for utterance in
the strict Jacobite's mind, but at such a moment he felt he must repress
it; he only answered:
"Speak, daughter, I am listening."
And she poured forth all her soul, as though he had been a priest of her
own creed, and his eyes grew moist as he heard this confession of a pure
and loving heart, yearning for all that was highest and best. He
promised her the mercy of the Redeemer, and when he had ended with
"Amen," and blessed her, he looked down at the ground for some minutes
and presently said, "Follow me, Child."
"Whither?" she asked in surprise; for she thought that her last hour had
already come, and that he was about to lead her away to the place of
execution, or to her watery, ever-flowing tomb; but he smiled as he
replied: "No, child. To-day I have only the pleasing duty of blessing
your betrothal before God; if only you will promise not to estrange your
husband from the faith of his fathers--for what will not a man sacrifice
to win the love of a woman.--You promise? Then I will take you to your
Orion."
He rapped on the door of the cell, and when the warder had opened it he
whispered his orders; Paula followed him silently and with blushing
cheeks, and in a few minutes she was clasped to her lover's breast while,
for the first time--and perhaps the last--their lips met in a kiss.
The prelate gave them a few minutes together; when he had blessed them
both and solemnized their betrothal, he led her back to her cell.
However, she had hardly time to thank him out of the fulness of her
overflowing heart, when a town-watchman came to fetch him to see
Susannah; her last hour was at hand, if not already past. John at once
went with the messenger, and Paula drew a deep breath as she saw him
depart. Then she threw herself on to her nurse's shoulders, crying:
"Now, come what may! Nothing can divide us; not even death!"