After the great excitement of the night Paula had thrown herself on her
bed with throbbing pulses. Sleep would not come to her, and so at rather
more than two hours after sunrise she went to the window to close the
shutters. As she did so she looked out, and she saw Hiram leap into a
boat and push the light bark from the shore. She dared neither signal
nor call to him; but when the faithful soul had reached open water he
looked back at her window, recognized her in her white morning dress
and flourished the oar high in the air. This could only mean that he
had fulfilled his commission and sold her jewel. Now he was going to the
other side to engage the Nabathaean.
When she had closed the shutters and darkened the room she again lay
down. Youth asserted its rights the weary girl fell into deep, dreamless
slumbers.
When she woke, with the heat drops on her forehead, the sun was nearly
at the meridian, only an hour till the Ariston would be served, the
Greek breakfast, the first meal in the morning, which the family eat
together as they also did the principal meal later in the clay. She had
never yet failed to appear, and her absence would excite remark.
The governor’s household, like that of every Egyptian of rank, was
conducted more on the Greek than the Egyptian plan; and this was the
case not merely as regarded the meals but in many other things, and
especially the language spoken. From the Mukaukas himself down to the
youngest member of the family, all spoke Greek among themselves, and
Coptic, the old native dialect, only to the servants. Nay, many borrowed
and foreign words had already crept into use in the Coptic.
The governor’s granddaughter, pretty little Mary, had learnt to speak
Greek fluently and correctly before she spoke Coptic, but when Paula
had first arrived she could not as yet write the beautiful language
of Greece with due accuracy. Paula loved children; she longed for some
occupation, and she had therefore volunteered to instruct the little
girl in the art. At first her hosts had seemed pleased that she should
render this service, but ere long the relation between the Lady Neforis
and her husband’s niece had taken the unpleasant aspect which it was
destined to retain. She had put a stop to the lessons, and the reason
she had assigned for this insulting step was that Paula had dictated to
her pupil long sentences out of her Orthodox Greek prayerbook. This, it
was true, she had done; but without the smallest concealment; and the
passages she had chosen had contained nothing but what must elevate the
soul of every Christian, of whatever confession.
The child had wept bitterly over her grandmother’s fiat, though Paula
had always taken the lessons quite seriously, for Mary loved her older
companion with all the enthusiasm of a half-grown girl--as a child
of ten really is in Egypt; her passionate little heart worshipped the
beautiful maiden who was in every respect so far above her, and Paula’s
arms had opened wide to embrace the child who brought sunshine into the
gloomy, chill atmosphere she breathed in her uncle’s house. But
Neforis regarded the child’s ardent love for her Melchite relation as
exaggerated and morbid, imperilling perhaps her religious faith; and she
fancied that under Paula’s influence Mary had transferred her affections
from her to the younger woman with added warmth. Nor was this idea
wholly fanciful; the child’s strong sense of justice could not bear to
see her friend misunderstood and slighted, often simply and entirely
misjudged and hardly blamed, so Mary felt it her duty, as far as in her
lay, to make up for her grandmother’s delinquencies in regard to the
guest who in the child’s eyes was perfection.
But Neforis was not the woman to put up with this demeanor in a child.
Mary was her granddaughter, the only child of her lost son, and no one
should come between them. So she forbid the little girl to go to Paula’s
room without an express message, and when a Greek teacher was engaged
for her, her instructions were that she should keep her pupil as much
as possible out of the Syrian damsel’s way. All this only fanned the
child’s vehement affection; and tenderly as her grandmother would
sometimes caress her--while Mary on her part never failed in dutiful
obedience--neither of them ever felt a true and steady warmth of heart
towards the other; and for this Paula was no doubt to blame, though
against her will and by her mere existence.
Often, indeed, and by a hundred covert hints Dame Neforis gave Paula to
understand that she it was who had alienated her grandchild; there
was nothing for it but to keep the child for whom she yearned, at a
distance, and only rarely reveal to her the abundance of her love. At
last her life was so full of grievance that she was hardly able to be
innocent with the innocent--a child with the child; Mary was not slow to
note this, and ascribed Paula’s altered manner to the suffering caused
by her grandmother’s severity.
Mary’s most frequent opportunities of speaking to her friend were
just before meals; for at that time no one was watching her, and her
grandmother had not forbidden her calling Paula to table. A visit to
her room was the child’s greatest delight--partly because it was
forbidden--but no less because Paula, up in her own room, was quite
different from what she seemed with the others, and because they could
there look at each other and kiss without interference, and say what
ever they pleased. There Mary could tell her as much as she dared of the
events in their little circle, but the lively and sometimes hoydenish
little girl was often withheld from confessing a misdemeanor, or even
an inoffensive piece of childishness, by sheer admiration for one who to
her appeared nobler, greater and loftier than other beings.
Just as Paula had finished putting up her hair, Mary, who would rush
like a whirlwind even into her grandmother’s presence, knocked humbly
at the door. She did not fly into Paula’s arms as she did into those of
Susannah or her daughter Katharina, but only kissed her white arm with
fervent devotion, and colored with happiness when Paula bent down to
her, pressed her lips to her brow and hair, and wiped her wet, glowing
cheeks. Then she took Mary’s head fondly between her hands and said:
“What is wrong with you, madcap?”
In fact the sweet little face was crimson, and her eyes swelled as if
she had been crying violently.
“It is so fearfully hot,” said Mary. “Eudoxia”--her Greek
governess--“says that Egypt in summer is a fiery furnace, a hell upon
earth. She is quite ill with the heat, and lies like a fish on the sand;
the only good thing about it is...”
“That she lets you run off and gives you no lessons?”
Mary nodded, but as no lecture followed the confession she put her head
on one side and looked up into Paula’s face with large roguish eyes.
“And yet you have been crying!--a great girl like you?”
“I--I crying?”
“Yes, crying. I can see it in your eyes. Now confess: what has
happened?”
“You will not scold me?”
“Certainly not.”
“Well then. At first it was fun, such fun you cannot think, and I do not
mind the heat; but when the great hunt had gone by I wanted to go to
my grand mother and I was not allowed. Do you know, something very
particular had been going on in the fountain-room; and as they all
came out again I crept behind Orion into the tablinum--there are such
wonderful things there, and I wanted just to frighten him a little; we
have often played games together before. At first he did not see me,
and as he was bending over the hanging, from which the gem was stolen--I
believe he was counting the stones in the faded old thing--I just jumped
on to his shoulder, and he was so frightened--I can tell you, awfully
frightened! And he turned upon me like a fighting-cock and--and he gave
me a box on the ear; such a slap, it is burning now--and all sorts of
colors danced before my eyes. He always used to be so nice and kind to
me, and to you, too, and so I used to be fond of him--he is my uncle
too--but a box on the ears, a slap such as the cook might give to the
turnspit--I am too big for that; that I will certainly not put up with
it! Since my last birthday all the slaves and upper servants, too, have
had to treat me as a lady and to bow down to me! And now!--it was just
here.--How dare he?” She began to cry again and sobbed out: “But that
was not all. He locked me into the dark tablinum and left--left me....”
her tears flowed faster and faster, “left me sitting there! It was so
horrible; and I might have been there now if I had not found a gold
plate; I seized my great-grandfather--I mean the silver image of Menas,
and hammered on it, and screamed Fire! Then Sebek heard me and fetched
Orion, and he let me out, and made such a fuss over me and kissed me.
But what is the good of that; my grandfather will be angry, for in my
terror I beat his father’s nose quite flat on the plate.”
Paula had listened, now amused and now grave, to the little girl’s
story; when she ceased, she once more wiped her eyes and said:
“Your uncle is a man, and you must not play with him as if he were a
child like yourself. The reminder you got was rather a hard one, no
doubt, but Orion tried to make up for it.--But the great hunt, what was
that?”
At this question Mary’s eyes suddenly sparkled again. In an instant all
her woes were forgotten, even her ancestor’s flattened nose, and with a
merry, hearty laugh she exclaimed:
“Oh! you should have seen it! You would have been amused too. They
wanted to catch the bad man who cut the emerald out of the hanging. He
had left his shoes and they had held them under the dogs’ noses and
then off they went! First they rushed here to the stairs; then to the
stables, then to the lodgings of one of the horse-trainers, and I kept
close behind, after the terriers and the other dogs. Then they stopped
to consider and at last they all ran out at the gate towards the town. I
ought not to have gone beyond the court-yard, but--do not be cross
with me--it was such fun!--Out they went, along Hapi Street, across the
square, and at last into the Goldsmith’s Street, and there the whole
pack plunged into Gamaliel’s shop--the Jew who is always so merry. While
he was talking to the others his wife gave me some apricot tartlets; we
do not have such good ones at home.”
“And did they find the man?” asked Paula, who had changed color
repeatedly during the child’s story.
“I do not know,” said Mary sadly. “They were not chasing any one in
particular. The dogs kept their noses to the ground, and we ran after
them.”
“And only to catch a man, who certainly had nothing whatever to do with
the theft.--Reflect a little, Mary. The shoes gave the dogs the scent
and they were set on to seize the man who had worn them, but whom no
judge had examined. The shoes were found in the hall; perhaps he had
dropped them by accident, or some one else may have carried them there.
Now think of yourself in the place of an innocent man, a Christian
like ourselves, hunted with a pack of dogs like a wild beast. Is it not
frightful? No good heart should laugh at such a thing!”
Paula spoke with such impressive gravity and deep sorrow, and her whole
manner betrayed such great and genuine distress that the child looked
tip at her anxiously, with tearful eyes, threw herself against her, and
hiding her face in Paula’s dress exclaimed: “I did not know that they
were hunting a poor man, and if it makes you so sad, I wish I had not
been there! But is it really and truly so bad? You are so often unhappy
when we others laugh!” She gazed into Paula’s face with wide, wondering
eyes through her tears, and Paula clasped her to her, kissed her fondly,
and replied with melancholy sweetness:
“I would gladly be as gay as you, but I have gone through so much to
sadden me. Laugh and be merry to your heart’s content; I am glad you
should. But with regard to the poor hunted man, I fear he is my father’s
freedman, the most faithful, honest soul! Did your exciting hunt drive
any one out of the goldsmith’s shop?”
Mary shook her head; then she asked:
“Is it Hiram, the stammerer, the trainer, that they are hunting?”
“I fear it is.”
“Yes, yes,” said the child. “Stay--oh, dear! it will grieve you again,
but I think--I think they said--the shoes belonged--but I did
not attend. However, they were talking of a groom--a freedman--a
stammerer....”
“Then they certainly are hunting down an innocent man,” cried Paula
with a deep sigh; and she sat down again in front of her toilet-table to
finish dressing. Her hands still moved mechanically, but she was lost in
thought; she answered the child vaguely, and let her rummage in her open
trunk till Mary pulled out the necklace that had been bereft of its gem,
and hung it round her neck. Just then there was a knock at the door and
Katharina, the widow Susannah’s little daughter, came into the room.
The young girl, to whom the governor’s wife wished to marry her tall son
scarcely reached to Paula’s shoulder, but she was plump and pleasant to
look upon; as neat as if she had just been taken out of a box, with a
fresh, merry lovable little face. When she laughed she showed a gleaming
row of small teeth, set rather wide apart, but as white as snow; and
her bright eyes beamed on the world as gladly as though they had nothing
that was not pleasing to look for, innocent mischief to dream of. She
too, tried to win Paula’s favor; but with none of Mary’s devoted and
unvarying enthusiasm. Often, to be sure, she would devote herself to
Paula with such stormy vehemence that the elder girl was forced to be
repellent; then, on the other hand, if she fancied her self slighted,
or treated more coolly than Mary, she would turn her back on Paula with
sulky jealousy, temper and pouting. It always was in Paula’s power to
put an end to the “Water-wagtails tantrums”--which generally had their
comic side--by a kind word or kiss; but without some such advances
Katharina was quite capable of indulging her humors to the utmost.
On the present occasion she flew into Paula’s arm, and when her friend
begged, more quietly than usual that she would allow her first to finish
dressing, she turned away without any display of touchiness and took
the necklace from Mary’s hand to put it on herself. It was of fine
workmanship, set with pearls, and took her fancy greatly; only the
empty medallion from which Hiram had removed the emerald with his knife
spoiled the whole effect. Still, it was a princely jewel, and when she
had also taken from the chest a large fan of ostrich feathers she showed
off to her play-fellow, with droll, stiff dignity, how the empress and
princesses at Court curtsied and bowed graciously to their inferiors. At
this they both laughed a great deal. When Paula had finished her toilet
and proceeded to take the necklace off Katharina, the empty setting,
which Hiram’s knife had bent, caught in the thin tissue of her dress.
Mary disengaged it, and Paula tossed the jewel back into the trunk.
While she was locking the box she asked Katharina whether she had met
Orion.
“Orion!” repeated the younger girl, in a tone which implied that
she alone had the right to enquire about him. “Yes, we came upstairs
together; he went to see the wounded man. Have you anything to say to
him?”
She crimsoned as she spoke and looked suspiciously at Paula, who simply
replied: “Perhaps,” and then added, as she hung the ribbon with the key
round her neck: “Now, you little girls, it is breakfast time; I am not
going down to-day.”
“Oh, dear!” cried Mary disappointed, “my grandfather is ailing and
grandmother will stay with him; so if you do not come I shall have to
sit alone with Eudoxia; for Katharina’s chariot is waiting and she must
go home at once. Oh! do come. Just to please me; you do not know how
odious Eudoxia can be when it is so hot.”
“Yes, do go down,” urged Katharina. “What will you do up hereby
yourself? And this evening mother and I will come again.”
“Very well,” said Paula. “But first I must go to see the invalids.”
“May I go with you?” asked the Water wagtail, coaxingly stroking Paula’s
arm. But Mary clapped her hands, exclaiming:
“She only wants to go to Orion--she is so fond of him....”
Katharina put her hand over the child’s mouth, but Paula, with quickened
breath, explained that she had very serious matters to discuss with
Orion; so Katharina, turning her back on her with a hasty gesture
of defiance, sulkily went down stairs, while Mary slipped down the
bannister rail. Not many days since, Katharina, who was but just
sixteen, would gladly have followed her example.
Paula meanwhile knocked at the first of the sickrooms and entered it as
softly as the door was opened by a nursing-sister from the convent of
St. Katharine. Orion, whom she was seeking, had been there, but had just
left.
In this first room lay the leader of the caravan; in that beyond was the
crazy Persian. In a sitting-room adjoining the first room, which,
being intended for guests of distinction, was furnished with royal
magnificence, sat two men in earnest conversation: the Arab merchant and
Philippus the physician, a young man of little more than thirty, tall
and bony, in a dress of clean but very coarse stuff without any kind
of adornment. He had a shrewd, pale face, out of which a pair of
bright black eyes shone benevolently but with keen vivacity. His large
cheek-bones were much too prominent; the lower part of his face was
small, ugly and, as it were, compressed, while his high broad forehead
crowned the whole and stamped it as that of a thinker, as a fine cupola
may crown an insignificant and homely structure.
This man, devoid of charm, though his strongly-characterized
individuality made it difficult to overlook him even in the midst of a
distinguished circle, had been conversing eagerly with the Arab, who,
in the course of their two-days’ acquaintance, had inspired him with a
regard which was fully reciprocated. At last Orion had been the theme of
their discourse, and the physician, a restless toiler who could not like
any man whose life was one of idle enjoyment, though he did full justice
to his brilliant gifts and well-applied studies, had judged him far more
hardly than the older man. To the leech all forms of human life were
sacred, and in his eyes everything that could injure the body or soul of
a man was worthy of destruction. He knew all that Orion had brought upon
the hapless Mandane, and how lightly he had trifled with the hearts of
other women; in his eyes this made him a mischievous and criminal member
of society. He regarded life as an obligation to be discharged by work
alone, of whatever kind, if only it were a benefit to society as a
whole. And such youths as Orion not only did not recognize this, but
used the whole and the parts also for base and selfish ends. The old
Moslem, on the contrary, viewed life as a dream whose fairest portion,
the time of youth, each one should enjoy with alert senses, and only
take care that at the waking which must come with death he might hope to
find admission into Paradise. How little could man do against the iron
force of fate! That could not be forefended by hard work; there was
nothing for it but to take up a right attitude, and to confront and meet
it with dignity. The bark of Orion’s existence lacked ballast; in fine
weather it drifted wherever the breeze carried it, He himself had taken
care to equip it well; and if only the chances of life should freight it
heavily--very heavily, and fling it on the rocks, then Orion might show
who and what he was; he, Haschim, firmly believed that his character
would prove itself admirable. It was in the hour of shipwreck that a man
showed his worth.
Here the physician interrupted him to prove that it was not Fate, as
imagined by Moslems, but man himself who guided the bark of life--but at
this moment Paula looked into the room, and he broke off. The merchant
bowed profoundly, Philippus respectfully, but with more embarrassment
than might have been expected from the general confidence of his manner.
For some years he had been a daily visitor in the governor’s house, and
after carefully ignoring Paula on her first arrival, since Dame Neforis
had taken to treating her so coolly he drew her out whenever he had the
opportunity. Her conversations with him had now become dear and even
necessary to her, though at first his dry, cutting tone had displeased
her, and he had often driven her into a corner in a way that was hard
to bear. They kept her mind alert in a circle which never busied itself
with anything but the trivial details of family life in the decayed
city, or with dogmatic polemics--for the Mukaukas seldom or never took
part in the gossip of the women.
The leech never talked of daily events, but expressed his views as to
other and graver subjects in life, or in books with which they were both
familiar; and he had the art of eliciting replies from her which he met
with wit and acumen. By degrees she had become accustomed to his bold
mode of thought, sometimes, it is true, too recklessly expressed; and
the gifted girl now preferred a discussion with him to any other form of
conversation, recognizing that a childlike and supremely unselfish soul
animated this thoughtful reservoir of all knowledge. Almost everything
she did displeased her uncle’s wife, and so, of course, did her familiar
intercourse with this man, whose appearance certainly had in it nothing
to attract a young girl.--The physician to a family of rank was there to
keep its members in good health, and it was unbecoming in one of them
to converse with him on intimate terms as an equal. She reproached
Paula--whose pride she was constantly blaming--for her unseemly
condescension to Philippus; but what chiefly annoyed her was that Paula
took up many a half-hour which otherwise Philippus would have devoted
to her husband; and in him and his health her life and thoughts were
centred.
The Arab at once recognized his foe of the previous evening; but they
soon came to a friendly understanding--Paula confessing her folly in
holding a single and kindly-disposed man answerable for the crimes of a
whole nation. Haschim replied that a right-minded spirit always came
to a just conclusion at last; and then the conversation turned on her
father, and the physician explained to the Arab that she was resolved
never to weary of seeking the missing man.
“Nay, it is the sole aim and end of my life,” cried the girl.
“A great mistake, in my opinion,” said the leech. But the merchant
differed: there were things, he said, too precious to be given up for
lost, even when the hope of finding them seemed as feeble and thin as a
rotten reed.
“That is what I feel!” cried Paula. “And how can you think differently,
Philip? Have I not heard from your own lips that you never give up all
hope of a sick man till death has put an end to it? Well, and I cling to
mine--more than ever now, and I feel that I am right. My last thought,
my last coin shall be spent in the search for my father, even without my
uncle and his wife, and in spite of their prohibition.”
“But in such a task a young girl can hardly do without a man’s succor,”
said the merchant. “I wander a great deal about the world, I speak with
many foreigners from distant lands, and if you will do me the honor,
pray regard me as your coadjutor, and allow me to help you in seeking
for the lost hero.”
“Thanks--I fervently thank you!” cried Paula, grasping the Moslem’s hand
with hearty pleasure. “Wherever you go bear my lost father in mind; I am
but a poor, lonely girl, but if you find him...”
“Then you will know that even among the Moslems there are men...”
“Men who are ready to show compassion and to succor friendless women!”
interrupted Paula.
“And with good success, by the blessing of the Almighty,” replied the
Arab. “As soon as I find a clue you shall hear from me; now, however,
I must go across the Nile to see Amru the great general; I go in all
confidence for I know that my poor, brave Rustem is in good hands,
friend Philippus. My first enquiries shall be made in Fostat, rely upon
that, my daughter.”
“I do indeed,” said Paula with pleased emotion. “When shall we meet
again?”
“To-morrow, or the morning after at latest.”
The young girl went up to him and whispered: “We have just heard of a
clue; indeed, I hope my messenger is already on his way. Have you time
to hear about it now?”
“I ought long since to have been on the other shore; so not to-day, but
to-morrow I hope.” The Arab shook hands with her and the physician, and
hastily took his leave.
Paula stood still, thinking. Then it struck her that Hiram was now on
the further side of the Nile, within the jurisdiction of the Arab ruler,
and that the merchant could perhaps intercede for him, if she were to
tell him all she knew. She felt the fullest confidence in the old man,
whose kind and sympathetic face was still visible to her mind’s eye,
and without paying any further heed to the physician she went quickly
towards the door of the sick-room. A crucifix hung close by, and the nun
had fallen on her knees before it, praying for her infidel patient, and
beseeching the Good Shepherd to have mercy on the sheep that was not
of His fold. Paula did not venture to disturb the worshipper, who was
kneeling just in the narrow passage; so some minutes elapsed before the
leech, observing her uneasiness, came out of the larger room, touched
the nun on the shoulder, and said in a low voice of genuine kindness:
“One moment, good Sister. Your pious intercession will be heard--but
this damsel is in haste.” The nun rose at once and made way, sending a
wrathful glance after Paula as she hurried down the stairs.
At the door of the court-yard she looked out and about for the Arab, but
in vain. Then she enquired of a slave who told her that the merchant’s
horse had waited for him at the gate a long time, that he had just come
galloping out, and by this time must have reached the bridge of boats
which connected Memphis with the island of Rodah and, beyond the island,
with the fort of Babylon and the new town of Fostat.