While Marcus was restlessly wandering on the shore of Mareotis, dreaming
of Dada’s image and arranging speeches of persuasive eloquence by which
to touch her heart and appeal to her soul, silence had fallen on the
floating home of the singers. A light white mist, like a filmy veil--a
tissue of clouds and moonbeams--hung over the lake. Work was long since
over in the ship-yard, and the huge skeletons of the unfinished ships
threw weird and ghostly shadows on the silvered strand-forms like black
visions of crayfish, centipedes, or enormous spiders.
From the town there came not a sound; it lay in the silence of
intoxicated sleep. The Roman troops had cleared the streets, the lights
were dead in every house, and in all the alleys and squares; only the
moon shone over the roofs of Alexandria, while the blazing beacon of
the light-house on the north-eastern point of the island of Pharos shone
like a sun through the darkness.
In a large cabin in the stern of the vessel lay the two girls, on soft
woollen couches and covered with rugs. Agne was gazing wide-eyed into
the darkness; Dada had long been asleep, but she breathed painfully
and her rosy lips were puckered now and then as if she were in some
distress. She was dreaming of the infuriated mob who had snatched the
garland from her hair--she saw Marcus suddenly interfere to protect her
and rescue her from her persecutors--then she thought she had fallen off
the gangway that led from the land to the barge, and was in the water
while old Damia stood on the shore and laughed at her without trying
to help her. Night generally brought the child sound sleep or pleasant
dreams, but now one hideous face after another haunted her.
And yet the evening had brought her a great pleasure. Not long after
their return from their walk the steward had come down to the boat
and brought her a very beautiful dress, with greetings from his old
mistress; he had at the same time brought an Egyptian slave-woman, well
skilled in all the arts of the toilet, who was to wait upon her so long
as she remained in Alexandria. Dada had never owned such a lovely dress!
The under-robe was of soft sea-green bombyx silk, with a broad border,
delicately embroidered, of a garland of roses and buds. The peplos
was of the same color and decorated to match; costly clasps of mosaic,
representing full-blown roses and set in oval gold settings, fastened
it on the shoulders. In a separate case were a gold girdle, a bracelet,
also of gold, in the shape of a snake, a gold crescent with a rose,
like those on the shoulder-clasps, in its centre, and a metal mirror of
spotless lustre.
The slave, a middle-aged woman with a dark cunning face, had helped her
to put on this new garment; she had also insisted on dressing her hair,
and all the time had never ceased praising the charms that nature had
bestowed on her young mistress, with the zeal of a lover.
Agne had looked on smiling, good-naturedly handing the slave the pins
and ribbands she had needed, and sincerely rejoicing in her companion’s
beauty and delight.
At last Dada had made her appearance in the deckroom and was greeted by
many an Ah! and Oh! of admiration from the men of the party, including
Medius, the singer whom Karnis had met in the street. Even Herse, who
had received her quite disagreeably on her return from the city, could
not suppress a smile of kindly approval, though she shook her finger at
her saying:
“The old lady has set her heart on turning your head completely I see.
All that is very pretty, but all the good it will do will be to rouse
spiteful tongues. Remember, Dada, that you are my sister’s child; I
promise you I shall not forget it, and I shall keep my eye upon you.”
Orpheus made haste to light every lamp and taper, of which there were
plenty, for the barge was handsomely furnished, and when Dada was
plainly visible in the brilliant illumination Karnis exclaimed:
“You look like a senator’s daughter! Long live the Fair!”
She ran up to him and kissed him; but when Orpheus walked all round
her, examining the fineness of the tissue and the artistic finish of the
clasps, and even turned the snake above her round elbow, she sharply bid
him let her be.
Medius, a man of the age of Karnis who had formerly been his intimate
companion, never took his eyes off the girl, and whispered to the
old musician that Dada would easily carry off the palm for beauty in
Alexandria, and that with such a jewel in his keeping he might recover
wealth and position and by quite honest means. At his suggestion she
then assumed a variety of attitudes; she stood as Hebe, offering nectar
to the gods--as Nausicae, listening to the tale of Odysseus--and as
Sappho, singing to her lyre. The girl was delighted at all this, and
when Medius, who kept close to her, tried to persuade her to perform
in a similar manner in the magical representations at the house of
Posidonius, before a select company of spectators, she clapped her hands
exclaiming:
“You took me all round the city, father, and as your reward I should
like to earn back your pretty vineyards, I should stand like this, you
know, and like this--to be stared at. I only hope I might not be seized
with a sudden impulse to make a face at the audience. But if they did
not come too close I really might...”
“You could do no better than to play the parts that Posidonius might
give you,” interrupted Medius. “His audiences like to see good daemons,
the kindly protecting spirits, and so forth. You would have to appear
among clouds behind a transparent veil, and the people would hail you
with acclamations or even raise their hands in adoration.”
All this seemed to Dada perfectly delightful, and she was on the point
of giving her hand to Medius in token of agreement, when her eye caught
the anxious gaze of the young Christian girl who stood before her with
a deep flush on her face. Agne seemed to be blushing for her. The color
rushed to her own cheeks, and shortly saying: “No--after all, I think
not,” she turned her back on the old man and threw herself on the
cushions close to where the wine-jug was standing. Medius now began to
besiege Karnis and Herse with arguments, but they refused all his
offers as they intended quitting Alexandria in a few days, so he had
no alternative but to submit. Still, he did not altogether throw up the
game, and to win Dada’s consent, at any rate, he made her laugh with
a variety of comical pranks and showed her some ingenious conjuring
tricks, and ere long their floating home echoed with merriment, with the
clinking of wine-cups and with songs, in which even Agne was obliged to
take part. Medius did not leave till near midnight and Herse then sent
them all to bed.
As soon as the slave had undressed her young mistress and left the girls
alone, Dada threw herself into the arms of Agne who was on the point
of getting into bed, and kissed her vehemently, exclaiming: “You are
much--so much better than I! How is that you always know what is right?”
Then she lay down; but before she fell asleep she once more spoke to
Agne: “Marcus will find us out, I am certain,” she said, “and I should
really like to know what he has to say to me.”
In a few minutes sleep had sealed her eyes, but the Christian girl lay
awake; her thoughts would not rest, and Sleep, who the night before had
taken her to his heart, to-night would not come near her pillow; so much
to agitate and disturb her soul had taken place during the day.
She had often before now been a silent spectator of the wild rejoicings
of the musician’s family, and she had always thought of these
light-hearted creatures as spendthrifts who waste all their substance
in a few days to linger afterwards through years of privation and
repentance. Troubled, as she could not fail to be, as to the eternal
salvation of these lost souls, though happy in her own faith, she had
constantly turned for peace to her Saviour and always found it; but
to-night it was not so, for a new and unexpected temptation had sprung
up for her in the house of Porphyrius.
She had heard Gorgo sing again, and joined her own voice with hers.
Dirges, yearning hymns, passionate outpourings in praise of the mighty
and beautiful divinity had filled her ear and stirred her soul with an
ecstatic thrill, although she knew that they, were the composition
of heathen poets and had first been sung to the harmony of lutes by
reprobate idolaters. And yet, and yet they had touched her heart, and
moved her soul to rapture, and filled her eyes with tears.
She could not but confess to herself that she could have given no
purer, sweeter, or loftier expression to her own woes, thankfulness,
aspirations, and hopes of ever lasting life and glory, than this gifted
creature had given to the utterance of her idolatry. Surprise, unrest,
nay, some little jealousy had been mingled with her delight at Gorgo’s
singing. How was it that this heathen could feel and utter emotions
which she had always conceived of as the special privilege of the
Christian, and, for her own part, had never felt so fervently as in
the hours when she had drawn closest to her Lord? Were not her own
sentiments the true and right ones; had her intercourse with these
heathens tainted her?
This doubt disturbed her greatly; it must be based on something more
than mere self-torture, for she had not once thought of asking to whom
the two-part hymn, with its tender appeal, was addressed, when Karnis
had first gone through it with her alone; nor even subsequently, when
she had sung it with Gorgo--timidly at first, more boldly the second
time, and finally without a mistake, but carried completely away by the
beauty and passion of the emotions it expressed.
She knew now, for Karnis himself had told her. It was the Lament of
Isis for her--lost husband and brother--oh that horrible heathen
confusion!--The departed Osiris. The wailing widow, who called on him
to return with “the silent speech of tears,” was that queen of the
idolater’s devils whose shameful worship her father had often spoke of
with horror. Still, this dirge was so true and noble, so penetrated with
fervent, agonized grief, that it had gone to her heart. The sorrowing
Mother of God, Mary herself, might thus have besought the resurrection
of her Son; just thus must the “God-like maid”--as she was called in the
Arian confession of her father--have uttered her grief, her prayers, and
her longings.
But it was all a heathen delusion, all the trickery and jugglery of the
Devil, though she had failed to see through it, and had given herself up
to it, heart and soul. Nay, worse! for after she had learnt that Gorgo
was to represent Isis and she herself Nephthys, the sister of the divine
pair, she had opposed the suggestion but feebly, even though she knew
that they were to sing the hymn together in the Temple of Isis; and when
Gorgo had clasped her in her arms with sisterly kindness, begging her
not to spoil her plans but to oblige her in this, she had not repulsed
the tempter with firm decision, but merely asked for time to think it
over.
How indeed could she have found the heart to refuse the noble girl,
whose beauty and voice had so struck and fascinated her, when she flung
her arms round her neck, looked into her eyes and earnestly besought
her:
“Do it for my sake, to please me. I do not ask you to do anything
wicked. Pure song is acceptable to every god. Think of your lament, if
you like, as being for your own god who suffered on the cross. But I
like singing with you so much; say yes. Do not refuse, for my sake!”
She had thrown her arms so gladly, so much too gladly round the heathen
lady--for she had a loving heart and no one else had ever made it a
return in kind--and clinging closely to her she had said:
“As you will; I will do whatever you like.”
Then Orpheus, too, had urged her to oblige Gorgo, and himself, and all
of them; and it had seemed almost impossible to refuse the first request
that the modest youth--to whom she would willingly have granted anything
and everything--had ever made. Still, she had held back; and in her
anxious bewilderment, not daring to think or act, she had tried every
form of excuse and postponement. She would probably have been awkward
enough about this, but Gorgo was content to press her no further, and
when, after leaving the house, she had summoned up courage to refuse to
enter the Temple of Isis, Karnis had only said: “Be thankful that this
gifted lady, the favorite of the Muses, should think you worthy to sing
with her. We will see about the rest by-and-bye.”
Now, in the watches of the sleepless night, she saw clearly the abyss
above which she was standing. She, like Judas, was on the point of
betraying her Saviour; not indeed for money, but in obedience to the
transient sound of an earthly voice, for the pleasure of exercising
her art, to indulge a hastily-formed liking; nay, perhaps because it
satisfied her childish vanity to find herself put on an equality with a
lady of rank and wealth, and matched with a singer who had roused Karnis
and Orpheus to such ardent admiration.
She was an enigma to herself; while passages out of the Bible crowded on
her memory to reproach her conscience.
There lay Dada’s embroidered dress. Worn for the first time this day, in
a month it would be unpresentably shabby and then, ere long, flung aside
as past wearing. Like this--just like this--was every earthly pleasure,
every joy of this brief existence. Alas, she certainly was not happy
here in Karnis’ sense of the word; but in the other world there were
joys eternal, and she had only to deny herself the petty enjoyments of
this life to secure unfailing and everlasting happiness in the next.
There she would find an endless flow of all her soul could desire,
there perhaps she might be allowed to cool the lips of Gorgo, as Lazarus
cooled those of the rich man.
She was quite clear now what her answer would be to-morrow, and, firmly
resolved not to allow herself to think of singing in the Temple of Isis,
she at last fell asleep just as the light began to dawn in the east. She
did not wake till late, and it was with downcast eyes and set lips that
she went with Karnis and Orpheus to the house of Porphyrius.