“What is the matter with you this evening? Good heavens, how pale and

melancholy you look!” The lamplight fell full on his face. “Look here, I

have just made such a smart little man out of wax...”

She hoped to amuse the friend who was always so kind to her with this

comical work of art; but, as she leaned forward to reach it, she caught

sight of her uncle and exclaimed: “Philippus comes here to cure me, but

he looks as if he wanted a draught himself. Take care, or you will have

to drink that bitter brown stuff you sent yesterday; then you will

know for once how nasty it can be.” Though the child’s exclamation was

well-meant, neither of the men took any notice of it. They stood face

to face in utter silence and with only a formal greeting; for Orion,

without Mary’s remark, had been struck by the change that had come over

the physician since yesterday. Ignoring Orion’s presence, he asked the

child a few brief questions, begged Eudoxia to persevere in the same

course of treatment, and then hastily bid a general farewell to all

present; Orion, however, did not respond, but said, with an affectionate

glance at the little patient: “One word with you presently.”

This made Philippus turn to look at Mary and, as the eyes of the rivals

met, they knew that on one subject at any rate they thought and felt

alike. The leech already knew how tenderly the young man had taken to

Mary, and he followed him into the room which Orion now occupied, and

which, as Philippus was aware, had formerly been Paula’s.

“In the cause of duty,” he said to himself again and again, to keep

himself calm and enable him to gather at least the general sense of

what the handsome young fellow opposite to him was saying in his rich,

pleasant voice, and urging as a request with more warmth than the

leech had given him credit for. Philippus, of course, had heard of the

grandmother’s lamentable revulsion of feeling against her grandchild,

and he thought Orion’s wish to remove the little girl fully justified.

But, on learning that she was to be placed under Paula’s care, he seemed

startled, and gazed at the floor in such sullen gloom that the other

easily guessed what was going on in his mind. In fact, the physician

suspected that the child was to serve merely as an excuse for the more

frequent meetings of the lovers. Unable to bury this apprehension in his

own breast he started to his feet, and was about to put it into words,

when Orion took the words out of his mouth, saying modestly but frankly,

with downcast eyes:

“I speak only for the child’s--for Mary’s sake. By my father’s soul....”

But Philippus shook his head dismally, went up to his rival, and

murmured dully:

“For the sake of that child I am capable of doing or enduring a great

deal. She could not be better cared for than with Rufinus and Paula;

but if I could suppose,” and he raised his voice, while his eyes took a

sinister and threatening expression, “if I could suppose that her sacred

and suffering innocence were merely an excuse....”

“No, no,” said Orion urgently. “Again, on my sacred word, I assure you

that I have no aim in view but the child’s safety; and, as we have said

so much, I will not stick at a word more or less! Rufinus’ house is open

to you day and night, and I, if all turns out as I expect, shall ere

long be far from hence--from Memphis--from Paula. There is mischief

brewing--I dare say no more--an act of treachery; and I will try to

prevent it at the risk of my life. You, every one, shall no longer

have a right to think me capable of things which are as repulsive to

my nature as to yours. You and I, if I mistake not, strive for the same

prize, and so far are rivals; but why should the child therefor suffer?

Forget it in her presence, and that forgetting will, as you well know,

enhance your merit in her--her eyes.”

“My merit?” retorted the other scornfully. “Merit is not in the balance;

nothing but the gifts of blind Fortune--a nose, a chin, an eye, anything

in short--a crime as much as a deed of heroism--that happens to make a

deep impression on the wax of a girl’s soft heart. But curse me,” and he

shouted the words at Orion as if he were beside himself, “if I know how

we came to talk of such things! Has my folly gone running through the

streets, bare-bosomed, to display itself to the world at large? How do

you know what my feelings are? She, perhaps, has laughed with you at her

ridiculous lover?--Well, no matter. You know already, or will know by

to-morrow, which of us has won the cock-fight. You have only to look at

me! What woman ever broke her heart for such a Thersites-face. Good-luck

to the winner, and the other one--well, since it must be so, farewell

till to-morrow.”

He hastily made his way towards the door; Orion, however, detained him,

imploring him to set aside his ill-feeling--at any rate for the present;

assured him that Paula had not betrayed what his feelings were; that,

on the contrary, he himself, seeing him with her so late on the previous

night, had been consumed by jealousy, and entreated him to vent his

wrath on him in abusive words, if that could ease his heart, only, by

all that was good, not to withdraw his succor from that poor, innocent

child.

The physician’s humane heart was not proof against his prayer; and

when at length he prepared to depart, in the joyful and yet painful

conviction that his happier rival had become more worthy of the prize,

he had agreed that he would impress on Neforis, whose mind he suspected

to be slightly affected, that the air of the governor’s residence did

not suit Mary, and that she should place her in the care of a physician

outside the town.

As soon as Philippus had quitted the house, Orion went to see Rufinus,

who, on his briefly assuring him that he had come on grave and important

business, begged him to accompany him to his private room. The young

man, however, detained him till he had made all clear with the women as

to the reception of little Mary.

“By degrees all the inhabitants of the residence will be transplanted

into our garden!” exclaimed Rufinus. “Well, I have no objection; and

you, old woman, what do you say to it?”

“I have none certainly,” replied his wife. “Besides, neither you nor I

have to decide in this case: the child is to be Paula’s guest.”

“I only wish she were here already,” said Paula, “for who can say

whether your mother, Orion--the air here is perilously Melchite.”

“Leave Philippus and me to settle that.--You should have seen how

pleased Mary was.”

Then, drawing Paula aside, he hastily added:

“Have I not hoped too much? Is your heart mine? Come what may, can I

count on you--on your love--?”

“Yes, Yes!” The words rushed up from the very bottom of her heart, and

Orion, with a sigh of relief, followed the old man, glad and comforted.

The study was lighted up, and there, without mentioning Katharina, he

told Rufinus of the patriarch’s scheme for dispersing the nuns of St.

Cecilia. What could he care for these Melchite sisters? But, since that

consoling hour in the church, he felt as though it were his duty to

stand forth for all that was right, and to do battle against everything

that was base. Besides, he knew how warmly and steadfastly his father

had taken the part of this very convent against the patriarch. Finally,

he had heard how strongly his beloved was attached to this retreat and

its superior, so he prepared himself gleefully to come forth a new man

of deeds, and show his prowess.

The old man listened with growing surprise and horror, and when Orion

had finished his story he rose, helplessly wringing his hands. Orion

spoke to him encouragingly, and told him that he had come, not merely

to give the terrible news, but to hold council with him as to how

the innocent victims might be rescued. At this the grey-headed

philanthropist and wanderer pricked up his ears; and as an old war

horse, though harnessed to the plough, when he hears the trumpet sound

lifts his head and arches his neck as proudly and nobly as of yore

under his glittering trappings, so Rufinus drew himself up, his old

eyes sparkled, and he exclaimed with all the enthusiasm and eagerness of

youth:

“Very good, very good; I am with you; not merely as an adviser; no,

no. Head, and hand, and foot, from crown to heel! And as for you, young

man--as for you! I always saw the stuff that was in you in spite--in

spite.--But, as surely as man is the standard of all things, those

who reach the stronghold of virtue by a winding road are often better

citizens than those who are born in it.--It is growing late, but

evensong will not yet have begun and I shall still be able to see the

abbess. Have you any plan to propose?”

“Yes; the day after to-morrow at this hour....”

“And why not to-morrow?” interrupted the ardent old man.

“Because I have preparations to make which cannot be done in twelve

hours of daylight.”

“Good! Good!”

“The day after to-morrow at dusk, a large barge--not one of ours--will

be lying by the bank at the foot of the convent garden. I will escort

the sisters as far as Doomiat on the Lake. I will send on a mounted

messenger to-night, and I will charter a ship for the fugitives by the

help of my cousin Columella, the greatest ship-owner of that town. That

will take them over seas wherever the abbess may command.”

“Capital, splendid!” cried Rufinus enthusiastically. He took up his

hat and stick, and the radiant expression of his face changed to a very

grave one. He went up to the young man with solemn dignity, looked at

him with fatherly kindliness, and said:

“I know what woes befell your house through those of our confession,

the fellow-believers of these whom you propose to protect with so much

prudence and courage; and that, young man, is noble, nay, is truly

great. I find in you--you who were described to me as a man of the world

and not over-precise--for the first time that which I have sought in

vain for many years and in many lands, among the pious and virtuous: the

spirit of willing self-sacrifice to save an enemy of a different creed

from pressing peril.--But you are young, Orion, and I am old. You

triumph in the action only, I foresee the consequences. Do you know what

lies before you, if it should be discovered that you have covered the

escape of the prey whom the patriarch already sees in his net? Have you

considered that Benjamin, the most implacable and most powerful hater

among the Jacobites, will pursue you as his mortal foe with all the

fearful means at his command?”

“I have considered it,” replied Orion.

Rufinus laid his left hand on the young man’s shoulder, and his right

hand on his head, saying, “Then take with you, to begin with, an old

man’s--a father’s blessing.”

“Yes, a father’s,” repeated Orion softly. A happy thrill ran through his

body and soul, and he fell on the old man’s neck deeply moved.

For a minute they stood clasped in each other’s arms; then Rufinus freed

himself, and set out to seek the abbess. Orion returned to the women,

whose curiosity had been roused to a high pitch by seeing Rufinus

disappear through the gate leading to the convent-garden. Dame Joanna

could not sit still for excitement, and Pulcheria answered at random

when Orion and Paula, who had an infinity of things to say or whisper to

each other, now and then tried to draw her into the conversation.

Once she sighed deeply, and when her friend asked her: “What ails you,

Child?” she answered anxiously:

“Something serious must be going forward, I feel it. If only Philippus

were here!”

“But we are all safe and well, thank God!” observed Orion, and she

quickly replied:

“Yes indeed, the Lord be praised!” But she thought to herself:

“You think he is of no use but to heal the sick; but it is only when he

is here that everything goes right and happens for the best!”

Still, all felt that there was something unusual and ominous in the

air, and when the old man presently returned his face confirmed their

suspicions. He laid aside his hat and staff in speechless gravity; then

he put his arm affectionately round his wife and said:

“You will need all your courage and self-command once more, as you have

often done before, good wife; I have taken upon myself a serious duty.”

Joanna had turned very pale, and while she clung to her husband and

begged him to speak and not to torture her with suspense, her frail

figure was trembling, and bitter tears ran down her cheeks. She could

guess that her husband was once more going away from her and their

child, in the service and for the benefit of others, and she knew full

well that she could not prevent it. If she could, she never would have

had the heart to interfere: for she always understood him, and felt with

him that something to take him out of the narrow circle of home-life was

indispensable to his happiness.

He read her thoughts, and they gave him pain; but he was not to be

diverted from his purpose. The man who would try to heal every suffering

brute was accustomed to see those whom he loved best grieve on his

account. Marriage, he would say, ought not to hinder a man in following

his soul’s vocation; and he was fond of using this high-sounding name to

justify himself in his own and his wife’s eyes, in doing things to which

he was prompted only by restlessness and unsatisfied energy. Without

this he would, no doubt, have done his best for the imperilled

sisterhood, but it added to his enjoyment of the grand and dangerous

rescue.

The wretched fate of the hapless nuns, and the thought of losing them

as near neighbors, grieved the women deeply, and the men saw many tears

flow; at the same time they had the satisfaction of finding them all

three firmly and equally determined to venture all, and to bid these

whom they loved venture all, to hinder the success of a deed which

filled them with horror and disgust.

Joanna spoke not a word of demur when Rufinus said that he intended to

accompany the fugitives; and when, with beaming looks, he went on

to praise Orion’s foresight and keen decisiveness, Paula flew to him

proudly and gladly, holding out both her hands. As for the young man, he

felt as though wings were growing from his shoulders, and this fateful

evening was one of the happiest of his life.

The superior had agreed to his scheme, and in some details had improved

upon it. Two lay sisters and one nun should remain behind. The two

former were to attend to the sick in the infirmary, to ring the bell and

chant the services as usual, that the escape of the rest might not be

suspected; and Joanna, Paula, and Pulcheria, were to assist them.

When, at a late hour, Orion was about to leave, Rufinus asked whether,

under these circumstances, it would be well to bring Mary to his

house; he himself doubted it. Joanna was of his opinion; Paula, on the

contrary, said that she believed it would be better to let the child run

the risk of a remote danger--hardly to be called danger, than to leave

her to pine away body and soul in her old home. Pulcheria supported her,

but the two girls were forced to yield to the decision of the elders.

CHAPTER V.

After that interview with Orion, Philippus hurried off through the

town, paying so little heed to the people he met and to the processions

besieging Heaven with loud psalms to let the Nile at last begin to rise,

that he ran up against more than one passer-by, and had many a word of

abuse shouted after him. He went into two or three houses, and neither

his patients nor their attendants could recognize, in this abrupt and

hasty visitor, the physician and friend who was usually so sympathetic

to the sufferer: who would speak with a cordiality that brought new life

to his heart, who would toss the children in the air, kiss one and nod

merrily to another. To-day their elders even felt shy and anxious in

his presence. For the first time he found the duty he loved a wearisome

burthen; the sick man was a tormenting spirit in league with the world

against his peace of mind. What possessed him, that he should feel such

love of his fellow-men as to deprive himself of all comfort in life and

of his night’s rest for their sake? Rufinus was right. In these times

each man lived solely to spite his neighbor, and he who could be most

brazenly selfish, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, was

the most certain to get on in life. Fool that he was to let other folks’

woes destroy his peace and hinder him in his scientific advancement!

Tormented by such bitter thoughts as these, he went into a neat little

house by the harbor where a worthy pilot lay dying, surrounded by his

wife and children; and there, at once, he was himself again, putting

forth all his knowledge and heartfelt kindliness, quitting the scene

with a bleeding heart and an empty purse; but no sooner was he out of

doors than his former mood closed in upon him with double gloom. The

case was plain: Even with the fixed determination not to sacrifice

himself for others he could not help doing it; the impulse was too

strong for him. He could no more help suffering with the sufferer,

and giving the best he had to give with no hope of a return, than the

drunkard can help drinking. He was made to be plundered; it was his

fate!

With a drooping head he returned to his old friend’s work-room.

Horapollo was sitting, just as he had sat the night before, at his

writing-table with his scrolls and his three lamps, a slave below,

snoring while he awaited his master’s pleasure.

The leech’s pretty Greek greeting “Rejoice!” sounded rather like “May

you choke!” as he flung aside his upper garment; and to the old man’s

answer and anxious exclamation: “How badly you look, Philip!” he

answered crossly: “Like a man who deserves a kick rather than a welcome;

a booby who has submitted to have his nose pulled; a cur who has licked

the hand of the lout who has thrashed him!”

He threw himself on the divan and told Horapollo all that had passed

between him and Orion. “And the maddest part of it all,” he ended, “is

that I almost like the man; that he really seems to me to be on the high

road to become a capital fellow; and that I no longer feel inclined to

pitch him into a lime-kiln at the mere thought of his putting out a hand

to Paula. At the same time,” and he started to his feet, “even if I help

him to bring the poor little girl away from that demented old hag, I

cannot and will not continue to be her physician. There are plenty of

quacks about in this corpse of a town, and they may find one of them.

“You will continue to treat the child,” interrupted the old man quietly.

“To have my heart daily flogged with nettles!” exclaimed the leech,

going towards Horapollo with wild gesticulations. “And do you believe

that I have any desire to meet that young fellow’s sweetheart day after

day, often twice a day, that the barb may be twisted round and round in

my bleeding wound?”

“I expect a quite different result from your frequent meeting,” said the

other. “You will get accustomed to see her under the aspect which alone

she can hence forth bear to you: that of a handsome girl--there are

thousands such in Egypt,--and the betrothed of another.”

“Certainly, if my heart were like a hunting-dog that lies down the

moment it is bid,” said Philippus with a scornful laugh. “The end of

it is that I must go away, away from Memphis--away from this miserable

world for all I care! I?--Recover my peace of mind within reach of her?

Alas, for my blissful, lost peace!”

“And why not? To every man a thing is only as he conceives of it. Only

listen to me: I had finished a treatise on the old and new Calendars,

and my master desired me to deliver a lecture on it in the Museum--if

the school of pedants in Alexandria now deserves the name; but I did

not wish to do so because I knew that the presence of such a large and

learned audience would embarrass me. But my master advised me to imagine

that my hearers were not men, but mere cabbages. This gave me new light;

I took his advice, got over my shyness, and my speech flowed like oil.”

“A very good story,” said Philippus, “but I do not see....”

“The moral of it for you,” interrupted the old man, “is that you must

regard the supremely adorable lady of your love as one among a dozen

others--I will not say as a cabbage--as one with whom your heart has

no more concern. Put a little strength of will into it, and you will

succeed.”

“If a heart were a cipher, and if passion were calendar-making!...”

retorted Philippus. “You are a very wise man, and your manuscripts and

tables have stood like walls between you and passion.”

“Who can tell?” said Horapollo. “But at any rate, it never should have

had such power over me as to make me embitter the few remaining days

under the sun yet granted to my father and friend for the sake of a

woman who scorned my devotion. Will you promise me to talk no more

nonsense about flying from Memphis, or anything of the kind?”

“Teach me first to measure my strength of will.”

“Will you try, at any rate?”

“Yes, for your sake.”

“Will you promise to continue your treatment of that poor little girl,

whom I love dearly in spite of her forbears?”

“As long as I can endure the daily meeting with her--you know...”

“That, then, is a bargain.--Now, come and let us translate a few more

chapters.”

The friends sat at work together till a late hour, and when the old man

was alone again he reflected: “So long as he can be of use to the child

he will not go away, and by that time I shall have dug a pit for that

damned siren.”

.........................

Orion had his hands full of work for the next morning. Before it was

light he sent off two trustworthy messengers to Doomiat, giving each of

them a letter with instructions that a sailing vessel should be held

in readiness for the fugitives. One was to start three hours after the

other, so that the business in hand should not fail if either of them

should come to grief.

He then went out; first to the harbor, where he succeeded in hiring a

large, good Nile-boat from Doomiat, whose captain, a trustworthy and

experienced man, promised to keep their agreement a secret and to be

prepared to start by noon next day. Next, after taking council with

himself, he went to the treasurer’s office, and there, with the

assistance of Nilus, made his will, to be ratified and signed next

morning in the presence of a notary and witnesses. His mother, little

Mary, and Paula were to inherit the bulk of his property. He also

bequeathed a considerable sum as a legacy to the hospitals and orphan

asylums, as well as to the Church, to the end that they might pray

for his soul; and a legacy to Nilus “as the most just judge of his

household.” Eudoxia, Mary’s Greek governess, was not forgotten; and

finally he commanded that all his house-slaves should be liberated, and

to the end that they might not suffer from want he bequeathed to them

one of his largest estates in Upper Egypt, where they might settle and

labor for their common good. He increased the handsome sums already

devised by his father to the freedmen of his family.

This business occupied several hours. Nilus, who wrote while Orion

dictated, giving the document a legal form, was deeply touched by

the young man’s fore thought and kindness; for in truth, since his

desecration of the judgment-seat, he had given him up for a lost soul.

By Orion’s orders this will was to be opened after four weeks, in case

he should not have returned from a journey on which he proposed starting

on the morrow, and this injunction revealed to the faithful steward, who

had grown grey in the service, that the last scion of the house

expected to run considerable risk; however, he was too modest to ask any

questions, and his master did not take him into his confidence.

When, after all this, the two men went back into the anteroom, Anubis,

the young clerk and Katharina’s ally, was standing there. Nilus took no

notice of him, and while he, with tearful eyes, stooped to kiss the hand

Orion held out to him as he bid him come to take leave of him once

more next evening, Anubis, who had withdrawn respectfully to a little

distance, keeping his ears open, however, officiously opened the heavy

iron-plated door.

Orion was exhausted and hungry; he enquired for his mother, and hearing

that she had gone to lie down, he went into the dining-room to get some

food. Although breakfast had but just been served, Eudoxia was awaiting

him with evident impatience. Her heart was bursting with a great piece

of news, and as Orion entered, greeting her, she cried out:

“Have you heard? Do you know?” Then she began, encouraged by his curt

negative, to pour out to him how that Neforis, by the desire of the

physician who had lately been to see her, had decided on sending her,

Eudoxia, away with her granddaughter to enjoy better air under the roof

of a friend of the leech’s; they were to go this very day, or to-morrow

at latest.

Orion was disagreeably startled by this intelligence. He had not

expected that Philippus would come so early, and he himself had been the

first to promote a scheme which now no longer seemed advisable.

“How very provoking!” he muttered between his teeth, as a slave offered

him a roast fowl and asparagus.

“Is it not? And perhaps we shall have to go quite far into the country,”

said the Greek, with a languishing look, as she drew one of the long

stems between her teeth.

The words and the glance made Orion feel as if he grudged the old

fool the good food she was eating, and his voice was not particularly

ingratiating as he replied that town and country were all the same, the

only point was which would be best for the child. When he went on to say

that he was quitting home next evening, Eudoxia cried out, let a

stick of asparagus drop in her lap, and said despairingly: “Oh, then

everything is at an end!”

He, however, interposed reproachfully: “On the contrary, then your duty

begins; you must devote yourself wholly and exclusively to the child.

You know that her own grandmother is averse to her. Give her your best

affection, as you have already begun to do, be a mother to her; and if

you really are my well-wisher, show it in that way. For my part you will

find me grateful, and not in words alone. Go tomorrow to the treasurer’s

office; Nilus will give you the only thing by which I can at present

prove my gratitude. Do your best to cherish the child; I have taken care

to provide for your old age.”

He rose, cutting short the Greek’s profuse expressions of thanks, and

betook himself to his mother. She was still in her room; however, he now

sent word that he had come to see her, and she was ready to admit him,

having expected that he would come even sooner.

She was reclining, half-sitting, on a divan in her cool and shady

bedroom, and she at once told her son of her determination to follow the

physician’s advice and entrust the little girl to his friend. She spoke

in a tone of sleepy indifference; but as soon as Orion opposed her and

begged her to keep Mary at home, she grew more lively, and looking him

wrathfully in the face exclaimed: “Can you wish that? How can you ask

me?” and she went on in repining lamentation:

“Everything is changed nowadays. Old age no longer forgets; it is youth

that has a short memory. Your head has long been full of other things,

but I--I still remember who it was that made my lost dear one’s last

hours on earth a hell, even in view of the gates of Heaven!” Her breast

heaved with feeble, tearless sobs--a short, convulsive gasping, and

Orion did not dare contravene her wishes. He sought to soothe her

with loving words and, when she recovered herself, he told her that he

proposed to leave her for a short time to look after his estates, as

the law required, and this information gladdened her greatly. To be

alone--solitary and unobserved now seemed delightful. Those white pills

did more for her, raised her spirits better, than any human society.

They brought her dreams, sleeping or waking; dreams a thousand times

more delightful than her real, desolate existence. To give herself up to

memory, to pray, to dream, to picture herself in the other world among

her beloved dead--and besides that to eat and drink, which she was

always ready to do very freely--this was all she asked henceforth of

life on earth.

When, to her further questions, Orion replied that he was going first

to the Delta, she expressed her regret, since, if he had gone to Upper

Egypt, he might have visited his sister-in-law, Mary’s mother, in her

convent. She sat up as she spoke, passed her hand across her forehead,

and pointed to a little table near the head of the couch, on which, by

the side of a cup with fruit syrup, phials, boxes, and other objects,

lay a writing-tablet and a letter-scroll. This she took up and handed to

Orion, saying:

“A letter from your sister-in-law. It came last evening and I began

to read it; but the first words are a complaint of your father, and

that--you know, just before going to sleep--I could not read any more;

I could not bear it! And to-day; first there was church, and then the

physician came with his request about the child; I have not yet found

courage to read the rest of it.--What can any letter bring to me but

evil! Do you know at all whence anything pleasant could come to me? But

now: read me the letter. Not that part again about your father; that I

will keep till presently for myself alone.”

Orion undid the roll, and with quivering lips glanced over the nun’s

accusations against his father. The wildest fanaticism breathed in

every line of this epistle from the martyr’s widow. She had found in the

cloister all she sought: she lived now, she said, in God alone and in

the Divine Saviour. She thought of her child, even, only as an alien,

one of God’s young creatures for whom it was a joy to pray. At the same

time it was her duty to care for the little one’s soul, and if it were

not too hard for her grandmother to part from her, she longed to see

Mary once more. She had lately been chosen abbess of her convent--and

no one could prevent her taking possession of the child; but she feared

lest an overwhelming natural affection might drag her back to the carnal

world, which she had for ever renounced, so she would have Mary brought

up in a neighboring nunnery, and led to Heavenly joys, not to earthly

misery--to be the wife of no sinful husband, but a pure bride of Christ.

Orion shuddered as he read and, when he laid the letter down, his mother

exclaimed:

“Perhaps she is right, perhaps it is already ordained that the child

should be sent to the convent, and not to the leech’s friend, and

started on the only path that leads to Heaven without danger or

hindrance!”

But Orion said to himself that he would make it his duty to guard the

happy-hearted child from this fate, and he begged his mother to consider

that the first important point was to restore the little girl to health.

He now saw that she had been right. His father had always obeyed the

prescriptions of Philippus, and for that reason, if for no other, it

would be her duty to act by his advice.

Neforis, who for some time had been casting longing eyes at a small box

by her side, did not contradict him; and in the course of the afternoon

Orion conducted little Mary and her governess to the house of Rufinus,

who, notwithstanding the doubts he had expressed the day before, made

them heartily welcome.

When Mary was lying in her bed, close by the side of Paula’s, the child

threw her arms round the young girl’s neck as she leaned over her, and

laying her head on her bosom, felt herself in soft and warm security.

There, as one released from prison and bondage, she wept out her woes,

pouring all the grief of her deeply wounded child’s heart into that of

her friend.

Paula, however, heard Orion’s voice, and she longed to go down to her

lover, whom she had greeted but briefly on his arrival; still, she

could not bear to snatch the child from her bosom, to disturb her in her

newly-found happiness and leave her at this very moment! And yet, she

must--she must see him! Every impulse urged her towards him and, when

Pulcheria came into the room, she placed Mary’s hand in hers and said:

“There, now make friends and stay together like good children till I

come back again and have something nice to tell you. You are fond of

Orion, little one, my story shall be all about him.”

“He was obliged to go,” said Pulcheria, interrupting her. “Here is his

message on this tablet. He was almost dying of impatience, and when he

could wait no longer he wrote this for you.”

Paula took the tablet, with a cry of regret, and carried it to her room

to read. He had longed for their meeting as eagerly as herself, but at

last he could wait no longer. How differently--so he wrote--had he hoped

to end this day which must be devoted to the rescue of her friends.

Why, oh why had she allowed herself to be detained here? Why had she not

flown to him, at least for a few moments, to thank him for his kindness

and faithfulness, and to hear him confess publicly and aloud what he had

but murmured in her ear the day before? She returned to the little girl,

anxious and dissatisfied with herself.

Orion had in fact postponed his departure till the last moment; he

thought it necessary to give Amru due notice of his journey and of his

rupture with the patriarch. Of all the motives which could prompt him to

aid the nuns, revenge was that which the Arab could best understand.

CHAPTER VI.

As Orion rode across the bridge of boats to Fostat, the gladness that

had inspired him died away. Could not--ought not Paula to have spared

him a small part of the time she had devoted to the child? He had been

left to make the most of a kind grasp of the hand and a grateful look of

welcome. Would she not have flown to meet him, if the love of which she

had assured him yesterday were as fervent, as ardent as his own? Was

the proud spirit of this girl, who, as his mother said, was cold and

unapproachable, incapable of passionate, self-forgetting devotion? Was

there no way of lighting up in her the sacred fire which burnt in him?

He was tormented by many doubts and a bitter feeling of disappointment,

and a crowd of suspicions forced themselves upon him, which would never

have troubled him if only he had seen her once more, had heard her happy

words of love, and felt his lips consecrated by his mistress’ first

kiss.

He was out of spirits, indeed out of temper, as he entered the Arab

general’s dwelling. In the anteroom he was met by rejected petitioners,

and he said to himself, with a bitter smile, that he had just been sent

about his business in the same unsatisfied mood--yes, sent about his

business--and by whom?

He was announced, and his spirits rose a little when he was at once

admitted and led past many, who were left waiting, into the Arab

governor’s presence-chamber. He was received with paternal warmth; and,

when Amru heard that Orion and the patriarch had come to high words, he

jumped up and holding out both his hands exclaimed:

“My right hand on that, my friend; come over to Islam, and with my left

I will appoint you your father’s successor, in the Khaliff’s name,

in spite of your youth. Away with hesitation! Clasp hands; at once,

quickly! I cannot bear to quit Egypt and know that there is no governor

at Memphis!”

The blood tingled in the young man’s veins. His father’s successor!

He, the new Mukaukas! How it flattered his ambition, what a way to all

activity it opened out to him! It dazzled his vision, and moved him

strongly to grasp the right hand which his generous patron still held

out to him. But suddenly his excited fancy showed him the image of the

Redeemer with whom he had entered into a silent covenant in the church,

sadly averting his gentle face. At this he remembered what he had vowed;

at this he forgot all his grievance against Paula; he took the general’s

hand, indeed, but only to raise it to his lips as he thanked him with

all his heart. But then he implored him, with earnest, pleading urgency,

not to be wroth with him if he remained firm and clung to the faith of

his father and his ancestors. And Amru was not wroth, though it was with

none of the hearty interest with which he had at first welcomed him,

that he hastily warned Orion to be on his guard against the prelate,

since, so long as he remained a Christian, he had no power to protect

him against Benjamin.

When Orion went on to tell him that he was intending to travel for a

short time, and had, in fact, come to take leave of him, the Arab was

much annoyed. He, too, he said, must be going away and was starting

within two days for Medina.

“And in casting my eye on you,” he went on, “in spite of your youth, to

fill your father’s place, I took care to find a task for you which would

enable you to prove that I had not put too great confidence in you.

But, if you persist in your own opinions, I cannot possibly entrust so

important a post as the governorship of Memphis to a Christian so

young as you are; with the youthful Moslem I might have ventured on

it.--However, I will not deprive you of the enterprise which I had

intended for you. If you succeed in it, it will be a good thing for

yourself, and I can, I believe, turn it to the benefit of the whole

province--for what could take me from hence at this time, when my

presence is so needful for a hundred incomplete projects, but my anxiety

for the good of this country--in which I am but an alien, while you

must love it as your native soil, the home of your race?--I am going to

Medina because the Khaliff, in this letter, complains that I send too

small a revenue into the treasury from so rich a land as Egypt. And yet

not a single dinar of your taxes finds its way into my own coffers. I

keep a hundred and fifty thousand laborers at work to restore the canals

and waterworks which my predecessors, the blood-sucking Byzantines,

neglected so disgracefully and left to fall to ruin--I build, and plan,

and sow seed for posterity to reap. All this costs money. It swallows up

the lion’s share of the revenue. And I am making the journey, not merely

to purge myself from reproach, but to obtain Omar’s permission for the

future to exact no extortionate payments, but to consider only the true

weal of the province. I am most unwilling to go, for a thousand reasons;

and you, young man, if you care for your native land, ought.... Do you

really love it and wish it well?”

“With all my soul!” cried Orion.

“Well then, at this time, if by any possibility you can arrange it so,

you ought to remain at home, and devote yourself heart and soul to the

task I have to propose to you. I hate postponements. Ride straight at

the foe, and do not canter up and down till you tire the horses! that is

my principle, and not in battle only. Take the moral to heart!--And you

will have no time to waste; what I require is no light matter: It is

that you should endeavor to sketch a new division of the districts,

drawing on your own knowledge of the country and its inhabitants,

and using the records and lists in the archives of your ancient

government-offices, of which your father has told me; you must have

special regard to the financial condition of each district. That the old

mode of levying taxes is unsatisfactory we find every day; you will have

ample room for improvements in every respect. Overthrow the existing

arrangements, if you consider it necessary. Other men have attempted

to redistribute the divisions and devise new modes of collecting the

revenue. The best scheme will have the preference; and you seem to me

to be the man to win the prize, and, with it, a wide and noble field of

work in the future. It is not a mere sense of tedium, or a longing

for the pleasures of the capital to which you are accustomed, that are

tempting you to quit Memphis the melancholy....”

“No, indeed, my Lord,” Orion assured him. “The duty I have in view does

not even profit me, and if I had not given my word I would throw myself,

heart and soul, into so grand a task, no later than to-morrow. That you

should expect me to solve so hard a problem is the most precious incense

ever offered me. If it is only to be worthy of your confidence, I

will return as soon as possible and put forth my utmost powers of

intelligence and prudence, of endurance and patriotism. I have

always been a diligent student; and it would be a shame indeed, if

my experiences as a youth could hinder the man from outdoing the

school-boy.”

“That is right, well said!” replied Amru, holding out his hand. “Do your

best, and you shall have ample opportunity of proving your powers.--Take

my warnings to heart as regards the patriarch and the black Vekeel. I

unfortunately have no one who could fill his place except the worthy

Kadi Othman; but he is no soldier, and he cannot be spared from his

post. Keep out of Obada’s way, return soon, and may the All-merciful

protect you....”

When Orion had recrossed the bridge on his way home, he saw a

gaily-dressed Nile-boat, such as now but rarely stopped at Memphis,

lying at anchor in the dock, and on the road he met two litters followed

by beasts of burden and a train of servants. The whole party had a

brilliant and wealthy appearance, and at any other time would have

roused his curiosity; but to-day he merely wondered for a moment who

these new-comers might be, and then continued to meditate on the task

proposed to him by Amru. From the bottom of his heart he cursed the hour

in which he had pledged himself to take the part of these strangers;

for after such long idleness he longed to be able to prove his powers.

Suddenly, and as if by a miracle, he saw the way opened before him which

he had himself hoped to tread, and now he was fettered and held back

from an enterprise which he felt he could carry out with success

and benefit to his country, while it attracted him as with a hundred

lode-stones.

Next morning, when his will had been duly signed and witnessed, he

called the treasurer for an interview alone with him. He had made up his

mind that one person, at least, must be informed of the enterprise he

had planned, and that one could be no other than Nilus. So he begged him

to accompany him to the impluvium of his private residence; and several

office scribes who were present heard the invitation given. They did

not, however, allow themselves to be disturbed in their work; the

youngest only--a handsome lad of sixteen, an olive-complexioned

Egyptian, with keen, eager black eyes, who had listened sharply to

every word spoken by the treasurer and his master, quietly rose from his

squatting posture as soon as they had quitted the office, and, stole,

unobserved into the anteroom. From thence he flew up the ladder-like

steps which led to the dovecote of which he had the care, sprang on

to the roof of the lower story, and crept flat on his face till he was

close to the edge of the large square opening which gave light and air

to the impluvium below. With a swift movement of the hand he pushed

back the awning which shaded it at midday, and listened intently to the

dialogue that went on below.

This listener was Anubis, the water-wagtail’s foster-brother; and

he seemed to be in no way behind his beloved mistress in the art of

listening; for no one could prick up his ears more sharply than Anubis.

He knew, too, what was to be his reward for exposing himself on a roof

to the shafts of the pitiless African sun, for Katharina, his adored

play-fellow and the mistress of his ardent boy’s heart, had promised him

a sweet kiss, if only he would bring her back some more exact news as to

Orion’s perilous journey. Anubis had told her, the evening before, all

he had heard in the anteroom to the office, but such general information

had not satisfied her. She must see clearly before her, must know

exactly what was going on, and she was not mistaken when she imagined

that the reward she had promised the lad would spur him to the utmost.

Anubis had not indeed expected to gain his end so soon, boldly as he

dared to hope; scarcely had he pushed aside the awning, when Orion began

to explain to Nilus all his plan and purpose.

When he had finished speaking, the boy did not wait to hear Nilus reply.

Intoxicated with his success, and the prospect of a guerdon which to him

included all the bliss of heaven, he crept back to the dovecote. But

he could not go back by the way by which he had come; for if one of the

older scribes should meet him in the anteroom, he would be condemned to

return to his work. He therefore wriggled along the ridge of the roof

towards the fishing-cove, got over it, and laid hold of a gutter pipe,

intending to slip down it; unfortunately it was old and rotten-rain was

rare in Memphis--and hardly had he trusted his body after his hands when

the lead gave way. The rash youth fell with the clattering fragments of

the gutter from a height of four men; a heavy thump on the pavement was

followed by a loud cry, and in a few minutes all the officials had

heard that poor Anubis, nimble as he was, had fallen from the roof while

attending to his pets, and had broken his leg.

The two men in the impluvium were not informed of the accident till some

time later, for strict orders had been given that they were not to be

disturbed.

Nilus had received his young master’s communication with growing

amazement, indignation, and horror. When Orion ended, the treasurer put

forth all the eloquence of a faithful heart, anxious for the safety of

the body and soul of the youth he loved, to dissuade him from a deed of

daring which could bring him nothing but misapprehension, disaster, and

persecution. Nilus was with all his soul a Jacobite; and the idea that

his young master was about to risk everything for a party of Melchite

nuns, and draw down upon himself the wrath and maledictions of the

patriarch, was more than he could bear.

His faithful friend’s warnings and entreaties did not leave Orion

unmoved; but he clung to his determination, representing to Nilus that

he had pledged his word to Rufinus, and could not now draw back, though

he had already lost all his pleasure in the enterprise. But it went

against him to leave the brave old man to face the danger alone--indeed,

it was out of the question.

Genuine anxiety is fertile in expedient; Orion had scarcely done

speaking, when Nilus had a proposal to make which seemed well calculated

to dispel the youth’s last objections. Melampus, the chief shipbuilder,

was a Greek and a zealous Melchite, though he no longer dared to confess

his creed openly. He and his sons, two bold and sturdy ships carpenters,

had often given proof of their daring, and Nilus had no doubt that they

would be more than willing to share in an expedition which had for its

object the rescue of so many pious fellow-believers. They might take

Orion’s place, and would be far more helpful to the old man than Orion

himself.

Orion so far approved of this suggestion as to promise himself good aid

from the brave artisans, who were well known to him; and he was willing

to take them with him, though he would not give up his own share in the

business.

Nilus, though he adhered firmly to his objections, was at last

reduced to silence. However, Orion went with his anxious friend to the

ship-yard; the old ship-builder, a kind-hearted giant, was as ready and

glad to undertake the rescue of the Sisters as if each one was his own

mother. It would be a real treat to the youngsters to have a hand in

such a job,--and he was right, for when they were taken into confidence

one flourished his hatchet with enthusiasm, and the tether struck his

horny fist against his left palm as gleefully as though he were bidden

to a dance.

Orion took boat at once with the three men, and was rowed to the

house of Rufinus, to whom he introduced them; the old man was entirely

satisfied.

Orion remained with him after dismissing them. He had promised last

evening to breakfast with him, and the meal was waiting. Paula had gone,

about an hour since, to the convent, and Joanna expected her to return

at any moment. They began without her, however; the various dishes were

carried away, the meal was nearly ended-still she had not returned.

Orion, who had at first been able to conceal his disappointment, was

now so uneasy that his host could with difficulty extract brief and

inadvertent replies to his repeated questions. Rufinus himself was

anxious; but just as he rose to go in search of her, Pulcheria, who was

at the window, saw her coming, and joyfully exclaiming: “There she is!”

ran out.

But now again minute after minute passed, a quarter of an hour grew to

half an hour, and still Orion was waiting in vain. Glad expectation

had long since turned to impatience, impatience to a feeling of injured

dignity, and this to annoyance and bitter vexation, when at last

Pulcheria came back instead of Paula, and begged him from Paula to join

her in the garden.

She had been detained too long at the convent. The terrible rumor had

scared the pious sisters out of their wonted peace and put them all into

confusion, like smoke blown into a bee-hive. The first thing was to pack

their most valuable possessions; and although Orion had expressly said

only a small number of cases and bags could be taken on board, one was

for dragging her prayer-desk, another a large picture of some saint, a

third a copper fish-kettle, and the fourth, fifth, and sixth the great

reliquary with the bones of Ammonius the Martyr, to which the chapel

owed its reputation for peculiar sanctity. To reduce this excess

of baggage, the abbess had been obliged to exert all her energy and

authority, and many a sister retired weeping over some dear but too

bulky treasure.

The superior had therefore been unable to devote herself to Paula till

this portable property had been under review. Then the damsel had

been admitted to her parlor, a room furnished with rich and elegant

simplicity, and there she had been allowed to pour out her whole heart

to warm and sympathetic ears.

Any one who could have seen these two together might have thought that

this was a daughter in grief seeking counsel on her mother’s breast.

In her youth the grey-haired abbess must have been very like Thomas’

daughter; but the lofty and yet graceful mien of the younger woman had

changed in the matron to majestic and condescending dignity, and it was

impossible to guess from her defiantly set mouth that it had once been

the chief charm of her face.

As she listened to the girl’s outpourings the expression of her calm

eyes changed frequently; when her soul was fired by fanatical zeal

they could gleam brightly; but now she was listening to a variety of

experiences, for Paula regarded this interview as a solemn confession,

and concealed nothing from the friend who was both mother and

priest-neither of what had happened to her in external circumstances,

nor of what had moved her heart and mind ever since she had first

entered the house of the Mtikaukas. Not a corner of her soul did she

leave unsearched; she neither concealed nor palliated anything; and

when she described her lover’s strenuous efforts to apprehend the whole

seriousness of life, her love and enthusiasm fairly carried her away,

making his image shine all the more brightly by comparison with the

brief, but dark shadow, that had fallen upon it. When Paula had at last

ended her confession, the superior had remained silent for some time;

then drawing the girl to her, she had affectionately asked her:

“And now? Now, tell me truly, does not the passion that has such

wonderful power over you prompt and urge your inmost soul to yield--to

fly to the embrace of the man you love--to give all up for him and say:

‘Here I am--I am yours! Call a priest to bless our union!--Is it not

so--am I not right?’”

Paula, deeply blushing, bowed assent; but the old woman drew her head on

to her motherly bosom, and went on thoughtfully:

“I saw him drive past in his quadriga, and was reminded of many a noble

statue of the heathen Greeks. Beauty, rank, wealth, aye--and talents and

intellect--all that could ruin the heart of a Paula are his, and she--I

see it plainly--will give it to him gladly.”

And again the maiden bowed her head. The abbess sighed, and went on as

though she had with difficulty succeeded in submitting to the inevitable

“Then all warning would be in vain.--Still, he is not of our confession,

he....”

“But how highly he esteems it!” cried Paula. “That he proves by risking

his freedom and life for you and your household.”

“Say rather for you whom he loves,” replied the other. “But putting that

out of the question, it pains me deeply to think of Thomas’ daughter

as the wife of a Jacobite. You will not, I know, give him up; and the

Father of Love often leads true love to good ends by wonderful ways,

even though they are ways of error, passing through pitfalls and

abysses.”

Paula fell on her neck to kiss her gratefully: but the abbess could only

allow the girl a few minutes to enjoy her happiness. She desired her

to sit down by her side, and holding Paula’s hand in both her own, she

spoke to her in a tone of calm deliberation. She and her sisterhood, she

began by saying, were deeply indebted to Orion. She had no dearer

wish than that Paula should find the greatest earthly happiness in her

marriage; still, it was her part to tender advice, and she dared not

blind herself to the dangers which threatened this happiness. She

herself had a long life behind her of varied experience, in which she

had seen hundreds of young men who had been given up as lost sinners

by father and mother--lost to the Church and to all goodness--and among

these many a one, like Saul, had had his journey to Damascus. A turning

point had come to them, and the outcast sons had become excellent and

pious men.

Paula, as she listened, had drawn closer to the speaker, and her eyes

beamed with joy; but the elder woman shook her head, and her gaze grew

more devout and rapt, as she went on with deep solemnity:

“But then, my child, in all of these Grace had done its perfect work;

the miracle was accomplished which we term regeneration. They were still

the same men in the flesh and in the elements of their sensible nature,

but their relation to the world and to life was altogether new. All that

they had formerly thought desirable they could now hate; what they had

deemed important was now worthless, and the worthless precious in their

eyes; whereas they once referred everything to their own desires, they

now referred all to God and His will. Their impulses were the same as of

old, but they kept them within bounds by a never-sleeping consciousness

that they led, not to joys, but to everlasting punishment. These

regenerate souls learned to contemn the world, and instead of gazing

down at the dust their eyes were fixed upwards on Heaven. If either of

them tottered, his whole ‘new man’ prompted him to recover his balance

before he fell to the ground.--But Orion! Your lover? His guilt seems

to have passed over him; he hopes for reunion with God from a more

meritorious life in the world. Not only is his nature unaltered, but his

attitude with regard to life and to the joys it offers to the children

of this world. Earthly love is spurring him on to strive for what is

noble and great and he earnestly seeks to attain it; but he will fall

over every stone that the devil casts in his path, and find it hard to

pick himself up again, for misfortune has not led him to the new birth

or the new life in God. Just such men have I seen, numbers of times,

relapsing into the sins they had escaped from. Before we can entirely

trust a man who has once--though but once-wandered so far from God’s

ways, while Grace has not yet worked effectually in him, we shall do

well to watch his dealings and course for more than a few short days. If

you still feel that you must follow the dictates of your heart, at any

rate do not fly into your lover’s open arms, do not abandon to him the

pure sanctuary of your body and soul, do not be wholly his till he has

been fully put to the proof.”

“But I believe in him entirely!” cried Paula, with a flood of tears.

“You believe because you love him,” replied the abbess.

“And because he deserves it.”

“And how long has he deserved it?”

“Was he not a splendid man before his fall?”

“And so was many a murderer. Most criminals become outcasts from society

in a single moment.”

“But society still accepts Orion.”

“Because he is the son of the Mukaukas.”

“And because he wins all hearts!”

“Even that of the Almighty?”

“Oh! Mother, Mother! why do you measure him by the standard of your own

sanctified soul? How few are the elect who find a share of the grace of

which you speak!”

“But those who have sinned like him must strive for it.”

“And he does so, Mother, in his way.”

“It is the wrong way; wrong for those who have sinned as he has. All he

strives for is worldly happiness.”

“No, no. He is firm in his faith in God and the Saviour. He is not a

liar.”

“And yet he thinks he may escape the penalty?”

“And does not the Lord pardon true repentance?--He has repented; and how

bitterly, how fearfully he has suffered!”

“Say rather that he has felt the stripes that his own sin brought upon

him.--There are more to come; and how will he take them? Temptation

lurks in every path, and how will he avoid it? As your mother, indeed

it is my duty to warn you: Keep your passion and yourself still under

control; continue to watch him, and grant him nothing--not the smallest

favor, as you are a maiden, before he...”

“Till when; how long am I to be so basely on my guard?” sobbed Paula.

“Is that love which trusts not and is not ready to share the lot even of

the backslider?”

“Yes, child, yes,” interrupted the old woman. “To suffer all things, to

endure all things, is the duty of true love, and therefore of yours; but

you must not allow the most indissoluble of all bonds to unite you to

him till the back-slider has learnt to walk firmly. Follow him step by

step, hold him up with faithful care, never despair of him if he seems

other than what you had hoped. Make it your duty, pious soul, to render

him worthy of grace--but do not be in a hurry to speak the final yes--do

not say it yet.”

Paula yielded, though unwillingly, to this last word of counsel; but, in

fact, Orion’s fault had filled the abbess with deep distrust. So great

a sinner, under the blight, too, of a father’s curse, ought, in her

opinion, to have retired from the world and besieged Heaven for grace

and a new birth, instead of seeking joys, such as she thought none but

the most blameless--and, those of her own confession--could deserve,

in union with so exceptional a creature as her beloved Paula. Indeed,

having herself found peace for her soul only in the cloister, after

a stormy and worldly youth, she would gladly have received the noble

daughter of her old friend as the Bride of Christ within those walls,

to be, perhaps, her successor as Mother Superior. She longed that

her darling should be spared the sufferings she had known through the

ruthlessness of faithless men; so she would not abate a jot of the tenor

of her advice, or cease to impress on Paula, firmly though lovingly, the

necessity of following it. At last Paula took leave of her, bound by a

promise not to pledge herself irrevocably to Orion till his return from

Doomiat, and till the abbess had informed her by letter what opinion she

had formed of him in the course of their flight.

The high-spirited girl had not shed so many tears, as in the course of

this interview, since the fatal affair at Abyla where she had lost her

father and brother; it was with a tear-stained face and aching head that

she had made her way back, under the scorching mid-day sun, to Rufinus’

house, where she sought her old nurse. Betta had earnestly entreated her

to lie down, and when Paula refused to hear of it she persuaded her at

any rate to bathe her head with water as cold as was procurable in this

terrific heat, and to have her hair carefully rearranged by her skilful

hand; for this had been her mother’s favorite remedy against headache.

When, at length, Paula and her lover stood face to face, in a shady spot

in the garden, they both looked embarrassed and estranged. He was pale,

and gazed at her with some annoyance; and her red eyes and knit brows,

for her brain was throbbing with piercing pain, did not tend to improve

his mood. It was her part to explain and excuse herself; and as he did

not at once address her after they had exchanged greetings, she said in

a low tone of urgent entreaty:

“Forgive me for coming so late. How long you must have been waiting!

But parting from my best friend, my second mother, agitated me so

painfully--it was so unspeakably sad.--I did not know how to hold up

my head, it ached so when I came home, and now--oh, I had hoped that we

might meet to-day so differently!”

“But even yesterday you had no time to spare for me,” he retorted

sullenly, “and this morning--you were present when Rufinus invited

me--this morning!--I am not exacting, and to you, good God! How could

I be?--But have we not to part, to bid each other farewell--perhaps for

ever? Why should you have given up so much time and strength to your

friend, that so scanty a remnant is left for the lover? That is an

unfair division.”

“How could I deny it?” she said with melancholy entreaty. “You are

indeed very right; but I could not leave the child last evening, as soon

as she came, and while she was weeping out all her sorrows; and if you

only knew how surprised and grieved I was--how my heart ached when,

instead of finding you, your note....”

“I was obliged to go to Amru,” interrupted Orion. “This undertaking

compels me to leave much behind, and I am no longer the freest of

the free, as I used to be. During this dreadful breakfast I have been

sitting on thorns. But let all that pass. I came hither with a heart

high with hope--and now?--You see, Paula, this enterprise tears me in

two in more ways than you can imagine, puts me into a more critical

position, and weighs more on my mind than you can think or know--I will

explain it all to you at another time--and to bear it all, to keep up

the spirit and happy energy that I need, I must be secure of the one

thing for which I could take far greater toil and danger as mere child’s

play; I must know....”

“You must know,” she interposed, “whether my heart is fully and wholly

open to your love....”

“And whether,” he added, with growing ardor, “in spite of the bitter

suffering that weighs on my wretched soul, I may hope to be happier than

the saints in bliss. O Paula, adored and only woman, may I....”

“You may,” she said clearly and fervently. “I love you, Orion, and shall

never, never cease to love you with my whole soul.”

He flew to her side, clasped both her hands as if beside himself,

snatched them to his lips regardless of the nearness of the house,

whence ten pairs of eyes might have seen him, and covered them with

burning kisses, till she drew them from him with the entreaty: “No, no;

forbear, I entreat you. No--not now.”

“Yes, now, at this very moment--or, if not, when?” he asked vehemently.

“But here, in this garden--you are right, this is no place for two human

beings so happy as we are. Come with me; come into the house and lead

the way to a spot where we may be unseen and unheard, alone with each

other and our happiness.”

“No, no, no!” she hastily put in, pressing her hand to her aching brow.

“Come with me to the bench under the sycamore; it is shady there, and

you can tell me everything, and hear once more how entirely love has

taken possession of me.”

He looked in her face, surprised and disappointed; but she turned

towards the sycamore and sat down beneath it. He slowly followed her.

She signed to him to take a seat by her side, but he stood up in front

of her, saying sadly and despondently.

“Always the same--always calm and cold. Is this fair, Paula? Is this

the overwhelming love of which you spoke? Is this your response to the

yearning cry of a passionately ardent heart? Is this all that love can

grant to love--that a betrothed owes to her lover on the very eve of

parting?”

At this she looked up at him, deeply distressed, and said in

pathetically urgent entreaty: “O Orion, Orion! Have I not told you, can

you not see and feel how much I love you? You must know and feel it; and

if you do, be content, I entreat. You, whom alone I love, be satisfied

to know that this heart is yours, that your Paula--your own Paula, for

that indeed I am--will think of nothing, care for nothing, pray and

entreat Heaven for nothing but you, yes you, my own, my all.”

“Then come, come with me,” he insisted, “and grant your betrothed the

rights that are his due.

“Nay, not my betrothed--not yet,” she besought him, with all the

fervor of her tortured soul. “In my veins too the blood flows warm with

yearning. Gladly would I fly to your arms and lay my head against yours,

but not to-day can I become your betrothed, not yet; I cannot, I dare

not!”

“And why not? Tell me, at any rate, why not,” he cried indignantly,

clenching his fist to his breast. “Why will you not be my bride, if

indeed it is true that you love me? Why have you invented this new and

intolerable torment?”

“Because prudence tells me,” she replied in a low, hurried voice, while

her bosom heaved painfully, as though she were afraid to hear her own

words; “because I see that the time is not yet come. Ah, Orion! you have

not yet learnt to bridle the desires and cravings that burn within you;

you have forgotten all too quickly what is past--what a mountain we had

to cross before we succeeded in finding each other, before I--for I must

say it, my dear one--before I could look you in the face without anger

and aversion. A strange and mysterious ordering has brought it about;

and you, too, have honestly done your best that everything should be

changed, that what was white should now be black, that the chill north

wind should turn to a hot southerly one. Thus poison turns to healing,

and a curse to a blessing. In this foolish heart of mine passionate

hatred has given way to no less fervent love. Still, I cannot yet be

your bride, your wife. Call it cowardice, call it selfish caution, what

you will. I call it prudence, and applaud it; though it cost my poor

eyes a thousand bitter tears before my heart and brain could consent to

be guided by the warning voice. Of one thing you may be fully assured:

my heart will never be another’s, come what may--it is yours with my

whole soul!--But I will not be your bride till I can say to you

with glad confidence, as well as with passionate love: ‘You have

conquered--take me, I am yours!’ Then you shall feel and confess that

Paula’s love is not less vehement, less ardent.... O God! Orion, learn

to know and understand me. You must--for my sake and your own, you

must!--My head, merciful Heaven, my head!”

She bowed her face and clasped her hands to her burning brow; Orion,

pale and shivering, laid his hand on her shoulder, and said in a harsh,

forced voice that had lost all its music: “The Esoterics impose severe

trials on their disciples before they admit them into the mysteries.

And we are in Egypt--but the difference is a wide one when the rule is

applied to love. How ever, all this is not from yourself. What you call

prudence is the voice of that nun!”

“It is the voice of reason,” replied Paula softly. “The yearning of my

heart had overpowered it, and I owe to my friend....”

“What do you owe her?” cried the young man furiously indignant. “You

should curse her, rather, for doing you so ill a turn, as I do at this

moment. What does she know of me? Has she ever heard a word from my

lips? If that despotic and casuistic recluse could have known what my

heart and soul are like, she would have advised you differently. Even

as a childs’ confidence and love alone could influence me. Whatever my

faults might be, I never was false to kindness and trust.--And, so far

as you are concerned--you who are prudence and reason in person--blest

in your love, I should have cared only for your approbation. If I could

have overcome the last of your scruples, I should indeed have been proud

and happy!--I would have brought the sun and stars down from the sky

for you, and have laughed temptation to scorn!--But as it is--instead

of being raised I am lowered, a laughing-stock even in my own eyes. One

with you, I could have led the way on wings to the realms of light where

Perfection holds sway!--But as it is? What a task lies before me!--To

heat your frigid love to flaming point by good deeds, as though they

were olive-logs. A pretty task for a man--to put himself to the proof

before the woman he loves! It is a hideous and insulting torture which I

will not submit to, against which my whole inner man revolts, and which

you will and must forego--if indeed it is true that you love me!”

“I love you, oh! I love you,” she cried, beside herself, and seizing his

hands. “Perhaps you are right. I--my God what shall I do? Only do not

ask me yet, to speak the final yes or no. I cannot control myself to the

feeblest thought. You see, you see, how I am suffering!”

“Yes, I see it,” he replied, looking compassionately at her pale face

and drawn brow. “And if it must be so, I say: till this evening then.

Try to rest now, and take care of yourself.--But then....”

“Then, during the voyage, the flight, repeat to the abbess all you

have just said to me. She is a noble woman, and she, too, will learn to

understand and to love you, I am sure. She will retract the word I

know....”

“What word?”

“My word, given to her, that I would not be yours....”

“Till I had gone through the Esoteric tests?” exclaimed Orion with an

angry shrug. “Now go,--go and lie down. This hour, which should have

been the sweetest of our lives, a stranger has embittered and darkened.

You are not sure of yourself--nor I of myself. Anything more that we

could say now and here would lead to no good issue for either you or me.

Go and rest; sleep off your pain, and I--I will try to forget.--If you

could but see the turmoil in my soul!--But farewell till our next, more

friendly--I hardly dare trust myself to say our happier meeting.”

He hastily turned away, but she called after him in sad lament: “Orion

do not forget--Orion, you know that I love you.”

But he did not hear; he buried on with his head bowed over his breast,

down to the road, without reentering Rufinus’ house.

CHAPTER VII.

When Orion reached home, wounded to the quick, he flung himself on a

divan. Paula had said that her heart was his indeed, but what a cool and

grudging love was this that would give nothing till it had insured its

future. And how could Paula have allowed a third person to come between

them, and rule her feelings and actions? She must have revealed to that

third person all that had previously passed between them--and it was for

this Melchite nun, his personal foe, that he was about to--it was enough

to drive him mad!--But he could not withdraw; he had pledged himself to

the brave old man to carry out this crazy enterprise. And in the place

of the lofty, noble mistress of his whole being, his fancy pictured

Paula as a tearful, vacillating, and cold-hearted woman.

There lay the maps and plans which he had desired Nilus to send in from

his room for his study of the task set him by Amru; as his eye fell upon

them, he struck his fist against the wall, started up, and ran like a

madman up and down the room which had been sacred to her peaceful life.

There stood her lute; he had freshly strung and tuned it. To calm

himself he drew it to him, took up the plectrum, and began to play. But

it was a poor instrument; she had been content with this wretched thing!

He flung it on the couch and took up his own, the gift of Heliodora.

How sweetly, how delightfully she had been wont to play it! Even now its

strings gave forth a glorious tone; by degrees he began to rejoice in

his own playing, and music soothed his excitement, as it had often done

before. It was grand and touching, though he several times struck the

strings so violently that their loud clanging and sighing and throbbing

answered each other like the wild wailing of a soul in torment.

Under this vehement usage the bridge of the lute suddenly snapped off

with a dull report; and at the same instant his secretary, who had been

with him at Constantinople, threw open the door in glad excitement, and

began, even before he had crossed the threshold:

“Only think, my lord! Here is a messenger come from the inn kept by

Sostratus with this tablet for you.--It is open, so I read it. Only

think! it is hardly credible! The Senator Justinus is here with his

wife, the noble Martina--here in Memphis, and they beg you to visit them

at once to speak of matters of importance. They came last night, the

messenger tells me, and now--what joy! Think of all the hospitality

you enjoyed in their house. Can we leave them in an inn? So long as

hospitality endures, it would be a crime!”

“Impossible, quite impossible!” cried Orion, who had cast aside the

lute, and was now reading the letter himself. “It is true indeed! his

own handwriting. And that immovable pair are in Egypt--in Memphis! By

Zeus!”--for this was still the favorite oath of the golden youth of

Alexandria and Constantinople, even in these Christian times.--“By Zeus,

I ought to receive them here like princes!--Wait!--of course you

must tell the messenger that I am coming at once--have the four new

Pannonians harnessed to the silver-plated chariot. I must go to my

mother; but there is time enough for that. Desire Sebek to have the

guest-chambers prepared for distinguished guests--those sick people are

out of them, thank God! Take my present room for them too; I will go

back to the old one. Of course they have a numerous suite. Set twenty

or thirty slaves to work. Everything must be ready in two hours at

furthest. The two sitting-rooms are particularly handsome, but

where anything is lacking, place everything in the house at Sebek’s

command.--Justinus in Egypt!--But make haste, man! Nay, stay! One thing

more. Carry these maps and scrolls--no; they are too heavy for you.

Desire a slave to fetch them, and take them to Rufinus; he must keep

them till I come. Tell him I meant to use them on the way--he knows.”

The secretary rushed off; Orion performed a rapid toilet and had his

mourning dress rearranged in fresh folds; then he went to his mother.

She had often heard of the cordial reception that her son, and her

husband, too, in former days, had met with in the senator’s house, and

she took it quite as a matter of course that the strangers’ rooms,

and among them that which had been Paula’s, should be prepared for the

travellers; all she asked was that it should be explained that she was

suffering, so that she might not have to trouble herself to entertain

them.

She advised Orion to put off his journey and to devote himself to his

friends; but he explained that even their arrival must not delay him.

He had entire confidence in Sebek and the upper housekeeper, and the

emperor himself would remit the duties of hostess to a sick woman. Once,

at any rate, she would surely allow the illustrious guests to pay their

respects to her,--but even this Neforis refused It would be quite enough

if her visitors received messages and greetings daily in her name, with

offerings of choice fruit and flowers, and on the last day some costly

gift. Orion thought this proposal quite worthy of them both, and

presently drove off behind his Pannonians to the hostelry.

By the harbor he met the captain of the boat he had hired; to him he

held up two fingers, and the boatman signified by repeated nodding that

he had understood the meaning of this signal: “Be ready at two hours

before midnight.”

The sight of this weather-beaten pilot, and the prospect of making

some return to his noble friends for all their kindness, cheered Orion

greatly; and though he regretted being obliged to leave these guests of

all others, the perils that lay before him reasserted their charm. He

could surely win over the abbess in the course of the voyage, and Paula

might be brought to reason, perhaps, this very evening. Justinus and his

wife were Melchites, and he knew that both these friends--for whom he

had a particular regard--would be enchanted with his scheme if he took

them into his confidence.

The inn kept by Sostratus, a large, square building surrounding a

spacious court-yard, was the best and most frequented in the town. The

eastern side faced the road and the river, and contained the best rooms,

in which, on the previous night, the senator had established himself

with his wife and servants. The clatter of the quadriga drew Justinus

to the window; as soon as he recognized Orion he waved a table-napkin to

him, shouting a hearty “Welcome!” and then retired into the room again.

“Here he is!” he cried to his wife, who was lying on a couch in the

lightest permissible attire, and sipping fruit-syrup from time to time

to moisten her dry lips, while a boy fanned her for coolness.

“That is well indeed!” she exclaimed, and desired her maid to be quick,

very quick, and fetch her a wrap, but to be sure it was a thin one.

Then, turning to a very lovely young woman who had started to her feet

at Justinus’ first exclamation, she asked:

“Would you rather that he should find you here, my darling, or shall we

see him first, and tell him that we have brought you with us?”

“That will be best,” answered the other in a sweet voice, and she sighed

softly before she added: “What will he not think of me? We may grow

older, but folly--folly...”

“Grows with years?” laughed the matron. “Or do you think it

decreases?--But here he is.”

The younger woman hurried away by a side door, behind which she

disappeared. Martina looked after her, and pointing that way to direct

her husband’s glance, she observed: “She has left herself a chink. Good

God! Fancy being in love in such heat as this; what a hideous thought!”

At this moment the door was opened, and the heartiest greetings ensued.

It was evident that the meeting was as great a pleasure to the elderly

pair as to the young man. Justinus embraced him warmly, while the matron

cried out: “And a kiss for me too!” And when the youth immediately and

heartily gave it, she exclaimed with a groan:

“O man, and child of man, great Sesostris! How did your famous ancestor

ever achieve heroic deeds under such a sun as this? For my part I am

fast disappearing, melting away like butter; but what will a man not do

for love’s sake?--Syra, Syra; for God’s sake bring me something, however

small, that looks like a garment! How rational is the fashion of the

people of Africa whom we met with on our journey. If they have three

fingers’ breadth of cloth about them, they consider themselves elegantly

dressed.--But come, sit down--there, at my feet. A seat, Argos, and some

wine, and water in a damp clay pitcher, and cool like the last.

Husband, the boy seems to me handsomer than ever. But dear God! he is in

mourning, and how becoming it is! Poor boy, poor boy! Yes, we heard in

Alexandria.”

She wiped first her eyes and then her damp brow, and her husband added

his expressions of sympathy at the death of the Mukaukas.

They were a genial and comfortable couple, Justinus and his wife

Martina. Two beings who felt perfectly secure in their vast inherited

wealth, and who, both being of noble birth, never need make any display

of dignity, because they were sure of it in the eyes of high and low

alike. They had asserted their right to remain natural and human under

the formalities of the most elaborately ceremonious society; those who

did not like the easy tone adopted by them in their house might stay

away. He, devoid of ambition, a senator in virtue of his possessions and

his name, never caring to make any use of his adventitious dignity but

that of procuring good appointments for his favorite clients, or good

places for his family on any festive occasion, was a hospitable soul;

the good friend of all his friends, whose motto was “live and let live.”

Martina, with a heart as good as gold, had never made any pretensions to

beauty, but had nevertheless been much courted. This worthy couple had

for many years thought that nothing could be more delightful than a

residence in the capital, or at their beautiful villa on the Bosphorus,

scorning to follow the example of other rich and fashionable folks, and

go to take baths or make journeys. It was enough for them to be able

to make others happy under their roof; and there was never any lack of

visitors, just because those who were weary of bending their backs

at the Byzantine Court, found this unceremonious circle particularly

restful.

Martina was especially fond of having young people about her, and

Heliodora, the widow of her nephew, had found comfort with her in her

trouble; it was in her house that Orion and Heliodora had met. The young

widow was a great favorite with the old couple, but higher in their

esteem even than she, had been the younger brother of her deceased

husband. He was to have been their heir; but they had mourned his death

now two years; for news had reached them that Narses, who had served in

the Imperial army as tribune of cavalry, had fallen in battle against

the infidels. No one, however, had ever brought a more exact report of

his death; and at last their indefatigable enquiries had resulted in

their learning that he had been taken prisoner by the Saracens and

carried into slavery in Arabia. This report received confirmation

through the efforts of Orion and his deceased father. Within a few hours

of the young Egyptian’s departure, they received a letter from the youth

they had given up for lost, written in trembling characters, in which he

implored them to effect his deliverance through Amru, the Arab governor

of Egypt. The old people had set forth at once on their pilgrimage, and

Heliodora had done her part in urging them to this step. Her passion for

Orion, to whom, for more than a year, her gentle heart had been wholly

devoted, had increased every hour since his departure. She had not

concealed it from Martina, who thought it no less than her duty to stand

by the poor lovesick child; for Heliodora had nursed her husband, the

senator’s nephew, to the end, with touching fidelity and care; and

besides, Martina had given the young Egyptian--with whom she was “quite

in love herself”--every opportunity of paying his addresses to the young

widow.

They were a pair that seemed made for each other, and Martina delighted

in match-making. But in this case, though hearts had met, hands had

not, and finally it had been a real grief to Martina to hear Orion and

Heliodora called--and with good reason--a pair of lovers.

Once she had appealed in her genial way to the young man’s conscience,

and he had replied that his father, who was a Jacobite, would never

consent to his union with a woman of any other confession. At that time

she had found little to answer; but she had often thought if only she

could make the Mukaukas acquainted with Heliodora, he, whom she had

known in the capital as a young and handsome admirer of every charming

woman, would certainly capitulate.

Her favorite niece had indeed every grace that a father’s heart could

desire to attract the son. She was of good family, the widow of a man of

rank, rich, but just two and twenty, and beautiful enough to bewitch

old or young. A sweeter and gentler soul Martina had never known. Those

large dewy eyes-imploring eyes, she called them--might soften a stone,

and her fair waving hair was as soft as her nature. Add to this her

full, supple figure--and how perfectly she dressed, how exquisitely she

sang and struck the lute! It was not for nothing that she was courted by

every youth of rank in Constantinople--and if the old Mukaukas could

but hear her laugh! There was not a sound on earth more clear, more glad

than Heliodora’s laugh. She was not indeed remarkable for intellect, but

no one could call her a simpleton, and your very clever women were not

to every man’s taste.

So, when they were to travel to Egypt, Martina took it for granted that

Heliodora must go with them, and that the flirtation which had made

her favorite the talk of the town must, in Memphis, become courtship in

earnest. Then, when she heard at Alexandria that the Mukaukas was lately

dead, she regarded the game as won. Now they were in Memphis, Orion was

sitting before her, and the young man had invited her and her following

of above twenty persons to stay in his house. It was a foregone

conclusion that the travellers were to accept this bidding as prescribed

by the laws of hospitality, and preparations for the move were

immediately set on foot.

Justinus meanwhile explained what had brought them to Egypt, and begged

Orion’s assistance. The young man had known the senator’s nephew well as

one of the most brilliant and amiable youths of the capital, and he was

sincerely distressed to be forced to inform his friends that Amru, who

could easily have procured the release of Narses, was to start within

two days for Medina, while he himself was compelled to set out on a

journey that very evening, at an hour he could not name.

He saw how greatly this firmly-expressed determination agitated and

disturbed the old couple, and the senator’s urgency led him to tell

them, under the pledge of strict secrecy, what business it was that took

him away and what a perilous enterprise he had before him.

He began his story confident of his orthodox guests’ sympathy; but to

his amazement they both disapproved of the undertaking, and not, as

they declared, on his account only or for the sake of the help they had

counted on.

The senator reminded him that he was the natural chief of the Egyptian

population in Memphis, and that, by such a scheme, he was undermining

his influence with those whose leader he was by right and duty as his

father’s son. His ambition ought to make him aim at this leadership; and

instead of offering such a rebuff to the patriarch, it was his part to

work with him--whose power he greatly underrated--so as to make life

tolerable to their fellow-Christians in a land ruled by Moslems.

Paula’s name was not once mentioned; but Orion thought of her and

remained firm, though not without an inward struggle.

At the same time, to prove to his friends how sincerely he desired to

please them, he proposed that he and Justinus should immediately cross

the Nile to lay his application before the Khaliff’s vicar. A glance at

the sky showed him that it wanted still an hour and a half of sunset.

His swift horses would not need more than that time for the journey,

and during their absence the rest of the party could move from the inn.

Carts for the baggage were already in waiting below, and chariots

had been ordered to follow and convey his beloved guests to their new

quarters.

The senator agreed to this proposal, and as the two men went off Martina

called after Orion.

“My senator must talk to you on the road, and if you can be brought to

reason you will find your reward waiting for you! Do not be saving of

your talents of gold, old man, till the general has promised to procure

the lad’s release.--And listen to me, Orion; give up your mad scheme.”

The sun had not wholly disappeared behind the Libyan range when

the snorting Pannonians, all flecked with foam, drove back into the

court-yard of the governor’s residence. The two men had unfortunately

gained nothing; for Amru was absent, reviewing the troops between

Heliopolis and Onix, and was not expected home till night or even next

morning. The party had removed from the inn and the senator’s white

slaves were already mixing with the black and brown ones of the

establishment.

Martina was delighted with her new quarters, and with the beautiful

flowers--most of them new to her--with which the invalid mistress of

the house had had the two great reception-rooms garnished in token

of welcome; but the failure of Justinus’ visit to Fostat fell like

hoar-frost on her happy mood.

Orion, she asserted, ought to regard this stroke of ill-luck as a

judgment from God. It was the will of Heaven that he should give up

his enterprise and be content to make due preparations for a noble

work which could be carried through without him, in order to accomplish

another, out of friendship, which urgently needed his help. However, he

again expressed his regret that in spite of everything he must adhere to

his purpose; and when Martina asked him: “What, even if my reward is one

that would especially delight you?” he nodded regretfully. “Yes, even

then.”

So she merely added, “Well, we shall see,” and went on impressively:

“Every one has some peculiarity which stamps his individuality and

becomes him well: in you it is amiability, my son. Such obstinacy does

not suit you; it is quite foreign to you, and is the very opposite to

what I call amiability. Be yourself, even in this instance.”

“That is to say weak and yielding, especially when a kind woman....”

“When old friends ask it,” she hastily put in; but almost before she had

finished she turned to her husband, exclaiming: “Good Heavens! come to

the window. Did you ever see such a glorious mingling of purple and gold

in the sky? It is as though the old pyramids and the whole land of Egypt

were in flames. But now, great Sesostris,”--the name she gave to Orion

when she was in a good humor with him, “it is time that you should see

what I have brought you. In the first place this trinket,” and she gave

him a costly bracelet of old Greek workmanship set with precious stones,

“and then--nay, no Thanks--and then--Well the object is rather large,

and besides--come with me.”

As she spoke she went from the reception-room into the anteroom, led the

way to the door of the room which had once been Paula’s, and then his

own, opened it a little way, peeped in, and then pushed Orion forward,

saying hastily: “There--do you see--there it is!”

By the window stood Heliodora. The bright radiance of the sinking sun

bathed her slender but round and graceful form, her “imploring” eyes

looked up at him with rapturous delight, and her white arms folded

across her bosom gave her the aspect of a saint, waiting with humble

longing for some miracle, in expectation of unutterable joys.

Martina’s eyes, too, were fixed on Orion; she saw how pale he turned at

seeing the young widow, she saw him start as though suddenly overcome by

some emotion--what, she could not guess--and shrink back from the sunlit

vision in the window. These were effects which the worthy matron had not

anticipated.

Never off the stage, thought she, had she seen a man so stricken by

love; for she could not suspect that to him it was as though a gulf had

suddenly yawned at his feet.

With a swiftness which no one could have looked for from her heavy and

bulky figure, Martina hastily returned to her husband, and even at the

door exclaimed: “It is all right, all has gone well! At the sight of her

he seemed thunderstruck! Mark my words: we shall have a wedding here by

the Nile.”

“My blessing on it,” replied Justinus. “But, wedding or no wedding, all

I care is that she should persuade that fine young fellow to give up

his crazy scheme. I saw how even the brown rascals in the Arab’s service

bowed down before him; and he will persuade the general, if any one can,

to do all in his power for Narses. He must not and shall not go! You

impressed it strongly on Heliodora....”

“That she should keep him?” laughed the matron. “I tell you, she will

nail him down if need be.”

“So much the better,” replied her husband. “But, wife, folks might say

that it was not quite seemly in you to force them together. Properly

speaking, you are as it were her female mentor, the motherly patroness.”

“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Martina. “At home they invited no witnesses

to look on at their meetings. The poor love-lorn souls must at any rate

have a chance of speaking to each other and rejoicing that they have

met once more. I will step in presently, and be the anxious, motherly

friend. Tine, Tine! And if it does not end in a wedding, I will make a

pilgrimage to St. Agatha, barefoot.”

“And I with only one shoe!” the senator declared, “for, everything in

reason--but the talk about Dora was at last beyond all bounds. It was no

longer possible to have them both together under the same roof. And you

yourself--no, seriously; go in to them.”

“Directly, directly.--But first look out of this window once more. Oh,

what a sun!--there, now it is too late. Only two minutes ago the

whole heaven was of the hue of my red Syrian cloak; and now it is all

dark!--The house and garden are beautiful, and everything is old and

handsome; just what I should have expected in the home of the rich

Mukaukas.”

“And I too,” replied Justinus. “But now, go. If they have come to an

understanding, Dora may certainly congratulate herself.”

“I should think so! But she need not be ashamed even of her villa, and

they must spend every summer there, I will manage that. If that poor,

dear fellow Narses does not escape with his life--for two years of

slavery are a serious matter--then I should be able....”

“To alter your will? Not a bad idea; but there is no hurry for that; and

now, you really must go.”

“Yes, yes, in a minute. Surely I may have time to speak.--I, for my

part, know of no one whom I would sooner put in the place of Narses....”

“Than Orion and Heliodora? Certainly, I have no objection; but now....”

“Well, perhaps it is wicked to think of a man who may still be alive as

numbered with the dead.--At any rate the poor boy cannot go back to his

legion....”

“On no consideration. But, Martina....”

“To-morrow morning Orion must urge our case on the Arab....”

“If he does not go away.”

“Will you bet that she fails to keep him.”

“I should be a fool for my pains,” laughed Justinus. “Do you ever pay

me when I win?--But now, joking apart, you must go and see what they are

about.”

And this time she obeyed. She would have won her bet; for Orion, who had

remained unmoved by his sister-in-law’s letter, by the warning voice

of the faith of his childhood, by the faithful council of his honest

servant Nilus, or by the senator’s convincing arguments--had yielded to

Heliodora’s sweet blandishments.

How ardently had her loving heart flamed up, when she saw him so deeply

agitated at the sight of her! With what touching devotion had she sunk

into his arms; how humbly-half faint with sweet sorrow and sweeter

ecstasy--had she fallen at his feet, and clasped his knees, and

entreated him, with eyes full of tears of adoring rapture, not to leave

to-day, to wait only till tomorrow, and then, if he would, to tread her

in the dust. Now--now when she had just found him again after being worn

out with pining and longing-to part now, to see him rush on an uncertain

fate--it would kill her, it would certainly be her death! And when he

still had tried to resist she had rushed into his arms, had stopped his

lips with burning kisses, and whispered in his ear all the flattering

words of love he once had held so dear.

Why had he never seriously tried to win her, why had he so soon

forgotten her? Because she, who could assert her dignity firmly enough

with others, had abandoned herself to him unresistingly after a few

meetings, as if befooled by some magician’s spell. The precious spoil

so easily won had soon lost its value in his eyes. But to-day the fire

which had died out blazed up again. Yes, this was the love he craved, he

must have! To be loved with entire and utter devotion, with a heart

that thought only of him and not of itself, that asked only for love in

return for love, that did not fence itself round with caution and invoke

the aid of others for protection against him. This lovely creature, all

passion, who had taken upon herself to endure the contumely of society,

and pain and grief for his sake, knowing too that he had abandoned her,

and would never make her his wife before God and men--she indeed knew

what it was to love; and he who was so often inclined to despair of

himself felt his heart uplifted at the thought that he was so precious

in her eyes, nay--he would own it--so idolized.

And how sweet, how purely womanly she was! Those imploring eyes--which

he had grown quite sick of in Constantinople, for they were as full of

pathetic entreaty when she merely begged him to hold her cloak for

her as when she appealed to his heart of hearts not to leave her--that

entrancing play of glances which had first bewitched him, came to him

to-day as something new and worked the old spell.

In this moment of tender reunion he had promised her at any rate to

consider whether he could not release himself from the pledge by which

he was bound; but hardly had he spoken the words when the memory of

Paula revived in his mind, and an inward voice cried out to him that

she was a being of nobler mould than this yielding, weak woman, abject

before him--that she symbolized his upward struggle, Heliodora his

perdition.

At length he was able to tear himself from her embrace; and at the first

step out of this intoxication into real life again he looked about like

one roused from sleep, feeling as though it were by some mocking sport

of the devil himself that Paula’s room should have been the scene of

this meeting and of his weakness.

An enquiry from Heliodora, as to the fate of the little white dog that

she had given him as a remembrance, recalled to his mind that luckless

emerald which was to have been his return offering or antidoron. He

evasively replied that, remembering her love of rare gems, he had sent

her a remarkably fine stone about which he had a good deal to say;

and she gave such childlike and charming expression to her delight

and gratitude, and took such skilful advantage of his pleasure in her

clinging tenderness, to convince him of the necessity for remaining at

home, that he himself began to believe in it, and gave way. The more

this conclusion suited his own wishes the easier it became to

find reasons for it: old Rufinus really did not need him; and if

he--Orion--had cause to be ashamed of his vacillation, on the other

hand he could comfort himself by reflecting that it would be unkind and

ungrateful to his good friends to leave them in the lurch just when he

could be of use to them. One pair of protecting arms more or less could

not matter to the nuns, while the captive Narses might very probably

perish before he could be rescued without his interest with the Arab

general.

It was high time to decide one way or the other.--Well, no; he ought not

to go away to-day!

That was settled!

Rufinus must at once be informed of his change of purpose. To sit down

and write at such a moment he felt was impossible: Nilus should go and

speak in his name; and he knew how gladly and zealously he would perform

such an errand.

Heliodora clapped her hands, and just as Martina knocked at the door

the pair came out into the anteroom: She, radiant with happiness, and

so graceful in her fashionable, costly, and well-chosen garb, so

royal-looking in spite of her no more than middle height, that even in

the capital she would have excited the admiration of the men and the

envy of the women: He, content, but with a thoughtful smile on his lips.

He had not yet closed the door when in the anteroom he perceived two

female figures, who had come in while Martina was knocking at her

niece’s door. These were Katharina and her waiting-maid.

Anubis had been brought to these rooms after his fall from the roof,

and notwithstanding the preparations that had been made for illustrious

guests Philippus could not be persuaded to allow his patient, for whom

perfect quiet was indispensable, to be moved to the lower floor.

The listener who had been so severely punished had with him his mother,

Katharina’s old nurse; the water-wagtail, with her maid, had accompanied

her to see the lad, for she was very anxious to assure herself whether

her foster-brother, before his tumble, had succeeded in hearing

anything; but the poor fellow was so weak and his pain so severe that

she had not the heart to torment him with questions. However, her

Samaritan’s visit brought her some reward, for to meet Orion coming out

of Paula’s room with so beautiful and elegant a woman was a thing worth

opening her eyes to see. She would have walked from home hither twice

over only to see the clothes and jewels of this heaven sent stranger.

Such a being rarely strayed to Memphis,--and might not this radiant and

beautiful creature be “the other” after all, and not Paula? Might not

Orion have been trifling with her rival as he had already trifled with

her? They must have had a rapturous meeting in that room; every feature

of the fair beauty’s saint-like face betrayed the fact. Oh, that Orion!

She would have liked to throttle him; and yet she was glad to think that

there was another besides herself--and she so elegant and lovely--whom

he had betrayed.

“He will stay!” Heliodora exclaimed as she came out of the room; and

Martina held out her hand to the young man, with a fervent: “God bless

you for that!”

She was delighted to see how happy her niece looked but the lively

old woman’s eyes were everywhere at once, and when she caught sight of

Katharina who had stood still with curiosity, she turned to her with a

friendly nod and said to Orion:

“Your sister? Or the little niece of whom you used to speak?”

Orion called Katharina and introduced her to his guests, and the girl

explained what had brought her hither; in such a sweet and pathetic

manner--for she was sincerely fond of her foster-brother and

play-fellow--that she quite charmed Martina and Heliodora, and the

younger woman expressed a hope that they might see her often. Indeed,

when she was gone, Martina exclaimed: “A charming little thing! As fresh

and bright as a newly-fledged bird, so brisk and pretty too--and how

nicely she prattles!”

“And the richest heiress in Memphis into the bargain,” added Orion.

But, noticing that on this Heliodora cast down her eyes with a troubled

expression, he went on with a laugh: “Our mothers destined us to marry

each other, but we are too ill-matched in size, and not exactly made for

a pair in other ways.”

Then, taking leave of them, he went to Nilus and informed him of his

decision. His request that the treasurer would make his excuses to

Rufinus, carry his greetings to Thomas’ daughter, and make the most

of his reasons for remaining behind, sent the good man almost beside

himself for joy; and he so far forgot his modest reserve as to embrace

Orion as a son.

The young host sat with his visitors till nearly midnight: and when,

on the following morning, Martina first greeted her niece--who looked

peacefully happy though somewhat tired--she was able to tell her that

the two men had already gone across the Nile, and, she hoped, settled

everything with the Arab governor. Great was her disappointment when

presently Justinus and Orion came back to say that Amru, instead of

returning to Fostat from the review at Heliopolis, had gone straight

to Alexandria. He had engagements there for a few days, and would then

start for Medina.

The senator saw nothing for it but to follow him up, and Orion

volunteered to accompany him.

A faint attempt on Heliodora’s part to detain him met with a decisive,

nay, stern refusal. This journey was indeed sheer flight from his own

weakness and from the beautiful creature who could never be anything to

him.

Early in the day he had found time to write to Paula; but he had cast

aside more than one unfinished letter before he could find the right

words. He told her that he loved her and her alone; and as his stylus

marked the wax he felt, with horror of himself, that in fact his heart

was Paula’s, and his determination ripened to put an end once for all to

his connection with Heliodora, and not allow himself to see Paula again

till he had forever cut the tie that bound him to the young widow.

The two women went out to see the travellers start, and as they returned

to the house, hanging their heads like defeated warriors, in the

vestibule they met Katharina and her maid. Martina wanted to detain the

little girl, and to persuade her to go up to their rooms with them; but

Katharina refused, and appeared to be in a great hurry. She had just

come from seeing Anubis, who was in less pain to-day, and who had done

his best to tell her what he had overheard. That the flight was to be

northwards he was certain; but he had either misunderstood or forgotten

the name of the place whither the sisters were bound.

His mother and the nurse were dismissed from the room, and then the

water-wagtail in her gratitude had bent over him, had raised his pretty

face a little, and had given him two such sweet kisses that the poor boy

had been quite uneasy. But, when he was alone with his mother once more,

he had felt happier and happier, and the remembrance of the transient

rapture he had known had alleviated the pain he was suffering on

Katharina’s account.

Katharina, meanwhile, did not go home at once to her mother; on the

contrary, she went straight off to the Bishop of Memphis, to whom

she divulged all she had learnt with regard to the inhabitants of the

convent and the intended rescue. The gentle Plotinus even had been

roused to great wrath, and no sooner had she left him than he set out

for Fostat to invoke the help of Amru, and--finding him absent--of his

Vekeel to enable him to pursue the fugitive Melchite sisters.

When the water-wagtail was at home again and alone in her room, she said

to herself, with calm satisfaction, that she had now contrived something

which would spoil several days for Orion and for Paula, and that might

prove even fatal, so far as she was concerned.

CHAPTER VIII.

Nilus had performed his errand well, and Rufinus was forced to admit

that Orion had done his part and had planned the enterprise with so much

care and unselfishness that his personal assistance could be dispensed

with. Under these circumstances he scarcely owed the young man a grudge

for placing himself at the service of his Byzantine friends; still,

his not coming to the house disturbed and vexed him, less on his own

account, or that of the good cause, than for Paula’s sake, for her

feelings towards Orion had remained no secret to him or his wife.

Dame Joanna, indeed, felt the young man’s conduct more keenly than

Rufinus; she would have been glad to withhold her husband from the

enterprise, whose dangers now appeared to her frightened soul tenfold

greater than they were. But she knew that the Nile would flow backwards

before she could dissuade him from keeping his promise to the abbess, so

she forced herself to preserve at any rate outward composure.

Before Paula, Rufinus declared that Orion was fully justified and he

loudly praised the young man’s liberality in providing the Nile-boat

and the vessel for the sea-voyage, and such admirable substitutes for

himself. Pulcheria was delighted with her father’s undertaking; she

only longed to go with him and help him to save her dear nuns. The

ship-builder had brought with him, besides his sons, three other Greeks

of the orthodox confession, shipwrights like himself, who were out

of work in consequence of the low ebb of the Nile, which had greatly

restricted the navigation. Hence they were glad to put a hand to such

a good work, especially as it would be profitable, too, for Orion had

provided the old man with ample funds.