“Well, his bewilderment ended in his becoming an apostle, as yours will.

I am glad we have had this conversation, and that we agree; I knew we

should. But now I wish to speak to you on business, and very grave. The

world assumes that, being the favored of Heaven, you are naturally and

necessarily a member of the Church. I, your late guardian, know that is

not the case, and sometimes I blame myself that it is not so. But I have

ever scrupulously refrained from attempting to control your convictions;

and the result has justified me. Heaven has directed your life, and I

have now to impart to you the most gratifying intelligence that can be

communicated by man, and that the Holy Father will to-morrow himself

receive you into the bosom of that Church of which he is the divine

head. Christendom will then hail you as its champion and regenerator,

and thus will be realized the divine dream with which you were inspired

in our morning walk in the park at Vauxe.”

CHAPTER 69 It was the darkest hour in Lothair’s life. He had become

acquainted with sorrow; he had experienced calamities physical and

moral. The death of Theodora had shaken him to the centre. It was

that first great grief which makes a man acquainted with his deepest

feelings, which detracts something from the buoyancy of the youngest

life, and dims, to a certain degree, the lustre of existence. But even

that bereavement was mitigated by distractions alike inevitable and

ennobling. The sternest and highest of all obligations, military duty,

claimed him with an unfaltering grasp, and the clarion sounded almost as

he closed her eyes. Then he went forth to struggle for a cause which at

least she believed to be just and sublime; and if his own convictions

on that head might be less assured or precise, still there was doubtless

much that was inspiring in the contest, and much dependent on the

success of himself and his comrades that tended to the elevation of man.

But, now, there was not a single circumstance to sustain his involved

and sinking life. A renegade—a renegade without conviction, without

necessity, in absolute violation of the pledge he had given to the

person he most honored and most loved, as he received her parting

spirit. And why was all this? and how was all this? What system of

sorcery had encompassed his existence? For he was spell-bound—as much

as any knight in fairy-tale whom malignant influences had robbed of his

valor and will and virtue. No sane person could credit, even comprehend,

his position. Had he the opportunity of stating it in a court of justice

to-morrow, he could only enter into a narrative which would decide

his lot as an insane being. The magical rites had been so gradual, so

subtle, so multifarious, all in appearance independent of each other,

though in reality scientifically combined, that, while the conspirators

had probably effected his ruin both in body and in soul, the only

charges he could make against them would be acts of exquisite charity,

tenderness, self-sacrifice, personal devotion, refined piety, and

religious sentiment of the most exalted character.

What was to be done? And could any thing be done? Could he escape? Where

from and where to? He was certain, and had been for some time, from many

circumstances, that he was watched. Could he hope that the vigilance

which observed all his movements would scruple to prevent any which

might be inconvenient? He felt assured that, to quit that palace alone,

was not in his power. And were it, whither could he go? To whom was he

to appeal? And about what was he to appeal? Should he appeal to the Holy

Father? There would be an opportunity for that to-morrow. To the College

of Cardinals, who had solemnized yesterday with gracious unction his

spiritual triumph? To those congenial spirits, the mild Assessor of the

Inquisition, or the president of the Propaganda, who was busied at

that moment in circulating throughout both the Americas, all Asia,

all Africa, all Australia, and parts of Europe, for the edification of

distant millions, the particulars of the miraculous scene in which he

was the principal actor? Should he throw himself on the protection of

the ambiguous minister of the British crown, and invoke his aid against

a conspiracy touching the rights, reason, and freedom of one of her

majesty’s subjects? He would probably find that functionary inditing a

private letter to the English Secretary of State, giving the minister

a graphic account of the rare doings of yesterday, and assuring the

minister, from his own personal and ocular experience, that a member

of one of the highest orders of the British peerage carried in the

procession a lighted taper after two angels with amaranthine flowers and

golden wings.

Lothair remained in his apartments; no one approached him. It was the

only day that the monsignore had not waited on him. Father Coleman was

equally reserved. Strange to say, not one of those agreeable and polite

gentlemen, fathers of the oratory, who talked about gems, torsos, and

excavations, and who always more or less attended his levee, troubled

him this morning. With that exquisite tact which pervades the

hierarchical circles of Rome, every one felt that Lothair, on the eve of

that event of his life which Providence had so long and so mysteriously

prepared, would wish to be undisturbed.

Restless, disquieted, revolving all the incidents of his last year,

trying, by terrible analysis, to ascertain how he ever could have got

into such a false position, and how he could yet possibly extricate

himself from it, not shrinking in many things from self-blame, and yet

not recognizing on his part such a degree of deviation from the standard

of right feeling, or even of commonsense, as would authorize such an

overthrow as that awaiting him—high rank and boundless wealth, a station

of duty and of honor, some gifts of Nature, and golden youth, and a

disposition that at least aspired, in the employment of these, accidents

of life and fortune, at something better than selfish gratification, all

smashed—the day drew on.

Drew on the day, and every hour it seemed his spirit was more lone

and dark. For the first time the thought of death occurred to him as a

relief from the perplexities of existence. How much better had he died

at Mentana! To this pass had arrived the cordial and brilliant Lord of

Muriel, who enjoyed and adorned life, and wished others to adorn and

to enjoy it; the individual whom, probably, were the majority of the

English people polled, they would have fixed upon as filling the most

enviable of all positions, and holding out a hope that he was not

unworthy of it. Born with every advantage that could command the

sympathies of his fellow-men, with a quick intelligence and a noble

disposition, here he was at one-and-twenty ready to welcome death,

perhaps even to devise it, as the only rescue from a doom of confusion,

degradation, and remorse.

He had thrown himself on a sofa, and had buried his face in his hands to

assist the abstraction which he demanded. There was not an incident of

his life that escaped the painful inquisition of his memory. He passed

his childhood once more in that stern Scotch home, that, after all, had

been so kind, and, as it would seem, so wise. The last words of counsel

and of warning from his uncle, expressed at Muriel, came back to him.

And yet there seemed a destiny throughout these transactions which was;

irresistible! The last words of Theodora, her look, even more solemn

than her tone, might have been breathed over a tripod, for they were a

prophecy, not a warning.

How long he had been absorbed in this passionate reverie he knew not

but when he looked up again it was night, and the moon had touched his

window. He rose and walked up and down the room, and then went into

the corridor. All was silent; not an attendant was visible; the sky was

clear and starry, and the moonlight fell on the tall, still cypresses in

the vast quadrangle.

Lothair leaned over the balustrade and gazed upon the moonlit fountains.

The change of scene, silent and yet not voiceless, and the softening

spell of the tranquillizing hour, were a relief to him. And after a time

he wandered about the corridors, and after a time he descended into the

court. The tall Swiss, in his grand uniform, was closing the gates which

had just released a visitor. Lothair motioned that he too wished to go

forth, and the Swiss obeyed him. The threshold was passed, and Lothair

found himself for the first time alone in Rome.

Utterly reckless, he cared not where he went or what might happen.

The streets were quite deserted, and he wandered about with a strange

curiosity, gratified as he sometimes encountered famous objects he had

read of, and yet the true character of which no reading ever realizes.

The moonlight becomes the proud palaces of Rome, their corniced and

balconied fronts rich with deep shadows in the blaze. Sometimes he

encountered an imperial column; sometimes he came to an arcadian square

flooded with light and resonant with the fall of statued fountains.

Emerging from a long, straggling street of convents and gardens, he

found himself in an open space full of antique ruins, and among them the

form of a colossal amphitheatre that he at once recognized.

It rose with its three tiers of arches and the huge wall that crowns

them, black and complete in the air; and not until Lothair had entered

it could he perceive the portion of the outer wall that was in ruins,

and now bathed with the silver light. Lothair was alone. In that

huge creation, once echoing with the shouts, and even the agonies, of

thousands, Lothair was alone.

He sat him down on a block of stone in that sublime and desolate arena,

and asked himself the secret spell of this Rome that had already so

agitated his young life, and probably was about critically to affect it.

Theodora lived for Rome and died for Rome. And the cardinal, born and

bred an English gentleman, with many hopes and honors, had renounced his

religion, and, it might be said, his country, for Rome. And for Rome,

to-morrow, Catesby would die without a pang, and sacrifice himself for

Rome, as his race for three hundred years had given, for the same cause,

honor and broad estates and unhesitating lives. And these very people

were influenced by different motives, and thought they were devoting

themselves to opposite ends. But still it was Rome—republican or

Caesarian, papal or pagan, it still was Rome.

Was it a breeze in a breezeless night that was sighing amid these ruins?

A pine-tree moved its head on a broken arch, and there was a stir

among the plants that hung on the ancient walls. It was a breeze in a

breezeless night that was sighing amid the ruins.

There was a tall crag of ancient building contiguous to the block

on which Lothair was seated, and which on his arrival he had noted,

although, long lost in reverie, he had not recently turned his glance in

that direction. He was roused from that reverie by the indefinite sense

of some change having occurred which often disturbs and terminates one’s

brooding thoughts. And looking round, he felt, he saw, he was no longer

alone. The moonbeams fell upon a figure that was observing him from the

crag of ruin that was near, and, as the light clustered and gathered

round the form, it became every moment more definite and distinct.

Lothair would have sprung forward, but he could only extend his arms: he

would have spoken, but his tongue was paralyzed.

“Lothair,” said a deep, sweet voice that never could be forgotten.

“I am here,” he at last replied.

“Remember!” and she threw upon him that glance, at once serene and

solemn, that had been her last, and was impressed indelibly upon his

heart of hearts.

Now, he could spring forward and throw himself at her feet, but alas!

as he reached her, the figure melted into the moonlight, and she was

gone—that divine Theodora, who, let us hope, returned at last to those

Elysian fields she so well deserved.

CHAPTER 70 “They have overdone it, Gertrude, with Lothair,” said Lord

Jerome to his wife. “I spoke to Monsignore Catesby about it some

time ago, but he would not listen to me; I had more confidence in the

cardinal and am disappointed; but a priest is ever too hot. His nervous

system has been tried too much.”

Lady St. Jerome still hoped the best, and believed in it. She was

prepared to accept the way Lothair was found senseless in the Coliseum

as a continuance of miraculous interpositions. He might have remained

there for a day or days, and never have been recognized when discovered.

How marvelously providential that Father Coleman should have been in the

vicinity, and tempted to visit the great ruin that very night!

Lord St. Jerome was devout, and easy in his temper. Priests and women

seemed to have no difficulty in managing him. But he was an English

gentleman, and there was at the bottom of his character a fund of

courage, firmness, and commonsense, that sometimes startled and

sometimes perplexed those who assumed that he could be easily

controlled. He was not satisfied with the condition of Lothair, “a peer

of England and my connection;” and he had not unlimited confidence

in those who had been hitherto consulted as to his state. There was a

celebrated English physician at that time visiting Rome, and Lord St.

Jerome, notwithstanding the multiform resistance of Monsignors Catesby,

insisted he should be called in to Lothair.

The English physician was one of those men who abhor priests, and do

not particularly admire ladies. The latter, in revenge, denounced his

manners as brutal, though they always sent for him, and were always

trying, though vainly, to pique him into sympathy. He rarely spoke,

but he listened to every one with entire patience. He sometimes asked a

question, but he never made a remark.

Lord St. Jerome had seen the physician alone before he visited the

Palazzo Agostini, and had talked to him freely about Lothair. The

physician saw at once that Lord St. Jerome was truthful, and that,

though his intelligence might be limited, it was pure and direct.

Appreciating Lord St. Jerome, that nobleman found the redoubtable doctor

not ungenial, and assured his wife that she would meet on the morrow

by no means so savage a being as she anticipated. She received him

accordingly, and in the presence of Monsignore Catesby. Never had she

exercised her distinguished powers of social rhetoric with more art

and fervor, and never apparently had they proved less productive of the

intended consequences. The physician said not a word, and merely bowed

when exhausted Nature consigned the luminous and impassioned Lady St.

Jerome to inevitable silence. Monsignore Catesby felt he was bound in

honor to make some diversion in her favor; repeat some of her unanswered

inquiries, and reiterate some of her unnoticed views; but the only

return he received was silence, without a bow, and then the physician

remarked, “I presume I can now see the patient.”

The English physician was alone with Lothair for some time, and then

he met in consultation the usual attendants. The result of all these

proceedings was that he returned to the saloon, in which he found Lord

and Lady St. Jerome, Monsignore Catesby, and Father Coleman, and he then

said: “My opinion is, that his lordship should quit Rome immediately,

and I think he had better return at once to his own country.”

All the efforts of the English Propaganda were now directed to prevent

the return of Lothair to his own country. The cardinal and Lady St.

Jerome, and the monsignore, and Father Coleman, all the beautiful young

countesses who had “gone over” to Rome, and all the spirited young

earls who had come over to bring their wives back, but had unfortunately

remained themselves, looked very serious, and spoke much in whispers.

Lord St. Jerome was firm that Lothair should immediately leave the city,

and find that change of scene and air which were declared by authority

to be indispensable for his health, both of mind and body. But his

return to England, at this moment, was an affair of serious difficulty.

He could not return unattended, and attended, too, by some intimate

and devoted friend. Besides, it was very doubtful whether Lothair had

strength remaining to bear so great an exertion, and at such a season

of the year—and he seemed disinclined to it himself. He also wished to

leave Rome, but he wished also in time to extend his travels. Amid these

difficulties, a Neapolitan duke, a great friend of Monsignore Catesby, a

gentleman who always had a friend in need, offered to the young English

noble, the interesting young Englishman so favored by Heaven, the use

of his villa on the coast of the remotest part of Sicily, near Syracuse.

Here was a solution of many difficulties: departure from Rome, change of

scene and air—sea air, too, particularly recommended—and almost the same

as a return to England, without an effort, for was it not an island,

only with a better climate, and a people with free institutions, or a

taste for them, which is the same?

The mode in which Lady St. Jerome and Monsignors Catesby consulted

Lord St. Jerome on the subject took the adroit but insidious form

of congratulating him on the entire and unexpected fulfilment of his

purpose. “Are we not fortunate?” exclaimed her ladyship, looking up

brightly in his face, and gently pressing one of his arms.

“Exactly everything your lordship required,” echoed Monsignore Catesby,

congratulating him by pressing the other.

The cardinal said to Lord St. Jerome, in the course of the morning, in

an easy way, and as if he were not thinking too much of the matter, “So,

you have got out of all your difficulties.”

Lord St. Jerome was not entirely satisfied, but he thought he had done

a great deal, and, to say the truth, the effort for him had not been

inconsiderable; and so the result was that Lothair, accompanied by

Monsignore Catesby and Father Coleman, travelled by easy stages, and

chiefly on horseback, through a delicious and romantic country, which

alone did Lothair a great deal of good, to the coast; crossed the

straits on a serene afternoon, visited Messina and Palermo, and finally

settled at their point of destination—the Villa Catalano.

Nothing could be more satisfactory than the monsignore’s bulletin,

announcing to his friends at Rome their ultimate arrangements. Three

weeks’ travel, air, horse exercise, the inspiration of the landscape

and the clime, had wonderfully restored Lothair, and they might entirely

count on his passing Holy Week at Rome, when all they had hoped and

prayed for would, by the blessing of the Holy Virgin, be accomplished.

CHAPTER 71 The terrace of the Villa Catalano, with its orange and palm

trees, looked upon a sea of lapiz lazuli, and rose from a shelving shore

of aloes and arbutus. The waters reflected the color of the sky, and all

the foliage was bedewed with the same violet light of morn which bathed

the softness of the distant mountains, and the undulating beauty of the

ever-varying coast.

Lothair was walking on the terrace, his favorite walk, for it was the

only occasion on which he ever found himself alone. Not that he had any

reason to complain of his companions. More complete ones could scarcely

be selected. Travel, which, they say, tries all tempers, had only proved

the engaging equanimity of Catesby, and had never disturbed the amiable

repose of his brother priest: and then they were so entertaining and so

instructive, as well as handy and experienced in all common things. The

monsignore had so much taste and feeling, and various knowledge; and as

for the reverend father, all the antiquaries they daily encountered

were mere children in his hands, who, without effort, could explain and

illustrate every scene and object, and spoke as if he had never given a

thought to any other theme than Sicily and Syracuse, the expedition

of Nicias, and the adventures of Agathocles. And yet, during all their

travels, Lothair felt that he never was alone. This was remarkable at

the great cities, such as Messina and Palermo, but it was a prevalent

habit in less-frequented places. There was a petty town near them, which

he had never visited alone, although he had made more than one attempt

with that view; and it was only on the terrace in the early morn, a spot

whence he could be observed from the villa, and which did not easily

communicate with the precipitous and surrounding scenery, that Lothair

would indulge that habit of introspection which he had pursued through

many a long ride, and which to him was a never-failing source of

interest and even excitement.

He wanted to ascertain the causes of what he deemed the failure of his

life, and of the dangers and discomfiture that were still impending

over him. Were these causes to be found in any peculiarity of his

disposition, or in the general inexperience and incompetence of youth?

The latter, he was now quite willing to believe, would lead their

possessors into any amount of disaster, but his ingenuous nature

hesitated before it accepted them as the self-complacent solution of his

present deplorable position.

Of a nature profound and inquisitive, though with a great fund of

reverence which had been developed by an ecclesiastical education,

Lothair now felt that he had started in life with an extravagant

appreciation of the influence of the religious principle on the conduct

of human affairs. With him, when heaven was so nigh, earth could not be

remembered; and yet experience showed that, so long as one was on

the earth, the incidents of this planet considerably controlled one’s

existence, both in behavior and in thought. All the world could not

retire to Mount Athos. It was clear, therefore, that there was a juster

conception of the relations between religion and life than that which he

had at first adopted.

Practically, Theodora had led, or was leading, him to this result; but

Theodora, though religious, did not bow before those altars to which

he for a moment had never been faithless. Theodora believed in

her immortality, and did not believe in death according to the

ecclesiastical interpretation. But her departure from the scene, and

the circumstances under which it had taken place, had unexpectedly and

violently restored the course of his life to its old bent. Shattered and

shorn, he was willing to believe that he was again entering the kingdom

of heaven, but found he was only under the gilded dome of a Jesuit’s

church, and woke to reality, from a scene of magical deceptions, with

a sad conviction that even cardinals and fathers of the Church were

inevitably influenced in this life by its interest and his passions.

But the incident of his life that most occupied—it might be said

engrossed—his meditation was the midnight apparition in the Coliseum.

Making every allowance that a candid nature and an ingenious mind

could suggest for explicatory circumstances; the tension of his nervous

system, which was then doubtless strained to its last point; the memory

of her death-scene, which always harrowed and haunted him; and that dark

collision between his promise and his life which then, after so many

efforts, appeared by some supernatural ordination to be about inevitably

to occur in that very Rome whose gigantic shades surrounded him; he

still could not resist the conviction that he had seen the form of

Theodora and had listened to her voice. Often the whole day, when they

were travelling, and his companions watched him on his saddle in silent

thought, his mind in reality was fixed on this single incident and he

was cross-examining his memory as some adroit and ruthless advocate

deals with the witness in the box, and tries to demonstrate his

infidelity or his weakness.

But whether it were indeed the apparition of his adored friend or a

distempered dream, Lothair not less recognized the warning as divine,

and the only conviction he had arrived at throughout his Sicilian

travels was a determination that, however tragical the cost, his promise

to Theodora should never be broken.

The beautiful terrace of the Villa Catalano overlooked a small bay to

which it descended by winding walks. The water was deep, and in any

other country the bay might have been turned to good account; but

bays abounded on this coast, and the people, with many harbors, had no

freights to occupy them. This morn, this violet morn, when the balm of

the soft breeze refreshed Lothair, and the splendor of the rising sun

began to throw a flashing line upon the azure waters, a few fishermen in

one of the country boats happened to come in, about to dry a net upon a

sunny bank. The boat was what is called a speronaro; an open boat worked

with oars, but with a lateen sail at the same time when the breeze

served.

Lothair admired the trim of the vessel, and got talking with the men as

they ate their bread and olives, and a small fish or two.

“And your lateen sail—?” continued Lothair.

“Is the best thing in the world, except in a white squall,” replied the

sailor, “and then every thing is queer in these seas with an open boat,

though I am not afraid of Santa Agnese, and that is her name. But I took

two English officers who came over here for sport and whose leave of

absence was out—I took them over in her to Malta, and did it in ten

hours. I believe it had never been done in an open boat before, but it

was neck or nothing with them.”

“And you saved them?”

“With the lateen up the whole way.”

“They owed you much, and I hope they paid you well.”

“I asked them ten ducats,” said the man, “and they paid me ten ducats.”

Lothair had his hand in his pocket all this time, feeling, but

imperceptibly, for his purse, and, when he had found it, feeling how it

was lined. He generally carried about him as much as Fortunatus.

“What are you going to do with yourselves this morning?” said Lothair.

“Well, not much; we thought of throwing the net, but we have had one

dip, and no great luck.”

“Are you inclined to give me a sail?”

“Certainly, signor.”

“Have you a mind to go to Malta?”

“That is business, signor.”

“Look here,” said Lothair, “here are ten ducats in this purse, and a

little more. I will give them to you if you will take me to Malta

at once; but, if you will start in a hundred seconds, before the sun

touches that rock, and the waves just beyond it are already bright, you

shall have ten more ducats when you reach the isle.”

“Step in, signor.”

From the nature of the course, which was not in the direction of the

open sea, for they had to double Cape Passaro, the speronaro was out of

the sight of the villa in a few minutes. They rowed only till they had

doubled the cape, and then set the lateen sail, the breeze being light,

but steady and favorable. They were soon in open sea, no land in sight.

“And, if a white squall does rise,” thought Lothair, “it will only

settle many difficulties.”

But no white squall came; every thing was favorable to their progress;

the wind the current, the courage, and spirit of the men, who liked the

adventure, and liked Lothair. Night came on, but they were as tender to

him as women, fed him with their least coarse food, and covered him with

a cloak made of stuff spun by their mothers and their sisters.

Lothair was slumbering when the patron of the boat roused him, and he

saw at hand many lights, and, in a few minutes, was in still water.

They were in one of the harbors of Malta, but not permitted to land at

midnight, and, when the morn arrived, the obstacles to the release of

Lothair were not easily removed. A speronaro, an open boat from Sicily,

of course with no papers to prove their point of departure—here were

materials for doubt and difficulty, of which the petty officers of the

port knew how to avail themselves. They might come from Barbary, from an

infected port; plague might be aboard, a question of quarantine. Lothair

observed that they were nearly alongside of a fine steam-yacht, English,

for it bore the cross of St. George; and, while on the quay, he and

the patron of the speronaro arguing with the officers of the port,

a gentleman from the yacht put ashore in a boat, of which the bright

equipment immediately attracted attention. The gentleman landed almost

close to the point where the controversy was carrying on. The excited

manner and voice of the Sicilian mariner could not escape notice. The

gentleman stopped and looked at the group, and then suddenly exclaimed:

“Good Heavens! my lord, can it be you?”

“Ah, Mr. Phoebus, you will help me!” said Lothair; and then he went up

to him and told him every thing. All difficulties, of course, vanished

before the presence of Mr. Phoebus, whom the officers of the port

evidently looked upon as a being beyond criticism and control.

“And now,” said Mr. Phoebus, “about your people and your baggage?”

“I have neither servants nor clothes,” said Lothair, “and, if it had not

been for these good people, I should not have had food.”

CHAPTER 72 Phoebus, in his steam-yacht Pan, of considerable

admeasurement, and fitted up with every luxury and convenience that

science and experience could suggest, was on his way to an island which

he occasionally inhabited, near the Asian coast of the Ægean Sea, and

which he rented from the chief of his wife’s house, the Prince of Samos.

Mr. Phoebus, by his genius and fame, commanded a large income, and

he spent it freely and fully. There was nothing of which he more

disapproved than accumulation. It was a practice which led to sordid

habits, and was fatal to the beautiful. On the whole, he thought it more

odious even than debt, more permanently degrading. Mr. Phoebus liked

pomp and graceful ceremony, and he was of opinion that great artists

should lead a princely life, so that, in their manners and method of

existence, they might furnish models to mankind in general, and elevate

the tone and taste of nations.

Sometimes, when he observed a friend noticing with admiration, perhaps

with astonishment, the splendor or finish of his equipments, he would

say: “The world think I had a large fortune with Madame Phoebus. I had

nothing. I understand that a fortune, and no inconsiderable one, would

have been given had I chosen to ask for it. But I did not choose to

ask for it. I made Madame Phoebus my wife because she was the finest

specimen of the Aryan race that I was acquainted with, and I would have

no considerations mixed up with the high motive that influenced me.

My father-in-law Cantacuzene, whether from a feeling of gratitude or

remorse, is always making us magnificent presents. I like to receive

magnificent presents, but also to make them; and I presented him with a

picture which is the gem of his gallery, and which, if he ever part with

it, will in another generation be contended for by kings and peoples.

“On her last birthday we breakfasted with my father-in-law Cantacuzene,

and Madame Phoebus found in her napkin a check for five thousand pounds.

I expended it immediately in jewels for her personal use; for I wished

my father-in-law to understand that there are other princely families in

the world besides the Cantacuzenes.”

A friend once ventured inquiringly to suggest whether his way of

life might not be conducive to envy, and so disturb that serenity of

sentiment necessary to the complete life of an artist. But Mr. Phoebus

would not for a moment admit the soundness of the objection. “No,” he

said, “envy is a purely intellectual process. Splendor never excites

it; a man of splendor is looked upon always with favor—his appearance

exhilarates the heart of man. He is always popular. People wish to dine

with him, to borrow his money, but they do not envy him. If you want

to know what envy is, you should live among artists. You should hear

me lecture at the Academy. I have sometimes suddenly turned round and

caught countenances like that of the man who was waiting at the corner

of the street for Benvenuto Cellini, in order to assassinate the great

Florentine.”

It was impossible for Lothair in his present condition to have fallen

upon a more suitable companion than Mr. Phoebus. It is not merely

change of scene and air that we sometimes want, but a revolution in the

atmosphere of thought and feeling in which we live and breathe. Besides

his great intelligence and fancy, and his peculiar views on art and

man and affairs in general, which always interested their hearer, and

sometimes convinced, there was a general vivacity in Mr. Phoebus and a

vigorous sense of life, which were inspiriting to his companions. When

there was any thing to be done, great or small, Mr. Phoebus liked to do

it; and this, as he averred, from a sense of duty, since, if any thing

is to be done, it should be done in the best manner, and no one could do

it so well as Mr. Phoebus. He always acted as if he had been created

to be the oracle and model of the human race, but the oracle was never

pompous or solemn, and the model was always beaming with good-nature and

high spirits.

Mr. Phoebus liked Lothair. He liked youth, and good-looking youth; and

youth that was intelligent and engaging and well-mannered. He also liked

old men. But, between fifty and seventy, he saw little to approve of in

the dark sex. They had lost their good looks if they ever had any,

their wits were on the wane, and they were invariably selfish. When they

attained second childhood, the charm often returned. Age was frequently

beautiful, wisdom appeared like an aftermath, and the heart which seemed

dry and deadened suddenly put forth shoots of sympathy.

Mr. Phoebus postponed his voyage in order that Lothair might make his

preparations to become his guest in his island. “I cannot take you to a

banker,” said Mr. Phoebus, “for I have none; but I wish you would share

my purse. Nothing will ever induce me to use what they call paper money.

It is the worst thing that what they call civilization has produced;

neither hue nor shape, and yet a substitute for the richest color, and,

where the arts flourish, the finest forms.”

The telegraph which brought an order to the bankers at Malta to give an

unlimited credit to Lothair, rendered it unnecessary for our friend to

share what Mr. Phoebus called his purse, and yet he was glad to have the

opportunity of seeing it, as Mr. Phoebus one morning opened a chest in

his cabin and produced several velvet bags, one full of pearls, another

of rubies, others of Venetian sequins, Napoleons, and golden piastres.

“I like to look at them,” said Mr. Phoebus, “and find life more intense

when they are about my person. But bank-notes, so cold and thin—they

give me an ague.”

Madame Phoebus and her sister Euphrosyne welcomed Lothair in maritime

costumes which were absolutely bewitching; wondrous jackets with loops

of pearls, girdles defended by dirks with handles of turquoises, and

tilted hats that; while they screened their long eyelashes from the sun,

crowned the longer braids of their never-ending hair. Mr. Phoebus gave

banquets every day on board his yacht, attended by the chief personages

of the island, and the most agreeable officers of the garrison. They

dined upon deck, and it delighted him, with a surface of sang-froid, to

produce a repast which both in its material and its treatment was equal

to the refined festivals of Paris. Sometimes they had a dance; sometimes

in his barge, rowed by a crew in Venetian dresses, his guests glided on

the tranquil waters, under a starry sky, and listened to the exquisite

melodies of their hostess and her sister.

At length the day of departure arrived. It was bright, with a breeze

favorable to the sail and opportune for the occasion. For all the

officers of the garrison, and all beautiful Valetta itself, seemed

present in their yachts and barges to pay their last tribute of

admiration to the enchanting sisters and the all-accomplished owner of

the Pan. Placed on the galley of his yacht, Mr. Phoebus surveyed the

brilliant and animated scene with delight. “This is the way to conduct

life,” he said. “If, fortunately for them, I could have passed another

month among these people, I could have developed a feeling equal to the

old regattas of the Venetians.”

The gean isle occupied by Mr. Phoebus was of no inconsiderable

dimensions. A chain of mountains of white marble intersected it, covered

with forests of oak, though in parts precipitous and bare. The lowlands,

while they produced some good crops of grain, and even cotton and silk,

were chiefly clothed with fruit-trees—orange and lemon, and the fig,

the olive, and the vine. Sometimes the land was uncultivated, and was

principally covered with myrtles, of large size, and oleanders,

and arbutus, and thorny brooms. Here game abounded, while from the

mountain-forests the wolf sometimes descended, and spoiled and scared

the islanders.

On the sea-shore, yet not too near the wave, and on a sylvan declivity,

was along, pavilion-looking building, painted in white and arabesque.

It was backed by the forest, which had a park-like character from its

partial clearance, and which, after a convenient slip of even land,

ascended the steeper country and took the form of wooded hills, backed

in due time by still sylvan yet loftier elevations, and sometimes a

glittering peak.

“Welcome, my friend!” said Mr. Phoebus to Lothair. “Welcome to an Aryan

clime, an Aryan landscape, and an Aryan race! It will do you good after

your Semitic hallucinations.”

CHAPTER 73 Mr. Phoebus pursued a life in his island partly feudal,

partly Oriental, partly Venetian, and partly idiosyncratic. He had

a grand studio, where he could always find interesting occupation in

drawing every fine face and form in his dominions. Then he hunted,

and that was a remarkable scene. The ladies, looking like Diana or her

nymphs, were mounted on cream-colored Anatolian chargers, with golden

bells; while Mr. Phoebus himself, in green velvet and seven-leagued

boots, sounded a wondrous twisted horn, rife with all the inspiring

or directing notes of musical and learned venerie. His neighbors of

condition came mounted, but the field was by no means confined to

cavaliers. A vast crowd of men, in small caps and jackets and huge

white breeches, and armed with all the weapons of Palikari, handjars and

ataghans and silver-sheathed muskets of uncommon length and almost as

old as the battle of Lepanto, always rallied round his standard. The

equestrians caracoled about the park, and the horns sounded, and the

hounds bayed, and the men shouted, till the deer had all scudded away.

Then, by degrees, the hunters entered the forest, and the notes of

venerie became more faint and the shouts more distant. Then, for two or

three hours, all was silent, save the sound of an occasional shot or

the note of a stray hound, until the human stragglers began to reappear

emerging from the forest, and in due time the great body of the hunt,

and a gilded cart drawn by mules and carrying the prostrate forms

of fallow-deer and roebuck. None of the ceremonies of the chase were

omitted, and the crowd dispersed, refreshed by Samian wine, which Mr.

Phoebus was teaching them to make without resin, and which they quaffed

with shrugging shoulders.

“We must have a wolf-hunt for you,” said Euphrosyne to Lothair. “You

like excitement, I believe?”

“Well, I am rather inclined for repose at present, and I came here with

the hope of obtaining it.”

“Well, we are never idle here; in fact, that would be impossible with

Gaston. He has established here an academy of the fine arts, and also

revived the gymnasia; and my sister and myself have schools—only music

and dancing; Gaston does not approve of letters. The poor people have,

of course, their primary schools, with their priests, and Gaston does

not interfere with them, but he regrets their existence. He looks upon

reading and writing as very injurious to education.”

Sometimes reposing on divans, the sisters received the chief persons of

the isle, and regaled them with fruits and sweetmeats, and coffee and

sherbets, while Gaston’s chibouques and tobacco of Salonica were a

proverb. These meetings always ended with dance and song, replete,

according to Mr. Phoebus, with studies of Aryan life.

“I believe these islanders to be an unmixed race,” said Mr. Phoebus.

“The same form and visage prevails throughout; and very little changed

in any thing—even in their religion.”

“Unchanged in their religion!” said Lothair, with some astonishment.

“Yes; you will find it so. Their existence is easy; their wants are not

great, and their means of subsistence plentiful. They pass much of their

life in what is called amusement—and what is it? They make parties of

pleasure; they go in procession to a fountain or a grove. They dance and

eat fruit, and they return home singing songs. They have, in fact, been

performing unconsciously the religious ceremonies of their ancestors,

and which they pursue, and will forever, though they may have forgotten

the name of the dryad or the nymph who presides over their waters.”

“I should think their priests would guard them from these errors,” said

Lothair.

“The Greek priests, particularly in these Asian islands, are good sort

of people,” said Mr. Phoebus. “They marry and have generally large

families, often very beautiful. They have no sacerdotal feelings, for

they never can have any preferment; all the high posts in the Greek

Church being reserved for the monks, who study what is called theology.

The Greek parish priest is not at all Semitic; there is nothing to

counteract his Aryan tendencies. I have already raised the statue of

a nymph at one of their favorite springs and places of pleasant

pilgrimage, and I have a statue now in the island, still in its case,

which I contemplate installing in a famous grove of laurel not far off

and very much resorted to.”

“And what then?” inquired Lothair.

“Well, I have a conviction that among the great races the old creeds

will come back,” said Mr. Phoebus, “and it will be acknowledged that

true religion is the worship of the beautiful. For the beautiful cannot

be attained without virtue, if virtue consists, as I believe, in the

control of the passions, in the sentiment of repose, and the avoidance

in all things of excess.”

One night Lothair was walking home with the sisters from a village

festival where they had been much amused.

“You have had a great many adventures since we first met?” said Madame

Phoebus.

“Which makes it seem longer ago than it really is,” said Lothair.

“You count time by emotion, then?” said Euphrosyne.

“Well, it is a wonderful thing, however it be computed,” said Lothair.

“For my part, I do not think that it ought to be counted at all,” said

Madame Phoebus; “and there is nothing to me so detestable in Europe as

the quantity of clocks and watches.”

“Do you use a watch, my lord?” asked Euphrosyne, in a tone which always

seemed to Lothair one of mocking artlessness.

“I believe I never wound it up when I had one,” said Lothair.

“But you make such good use of your time,” said Madame Phoebus, “you do

not require watches.”

“I am glad to hear I make good use of my time,” said Lothair, “but a

little surprised.”

“But you are so good, so religious,” said Madame Phoebus. “That is a

great thing; especially for one so young.”

“Hem!” said Lothair.

“That must have been a beautiful procession at Rome,” said Euphrosyne.

“I was rather a spectator of it than an actor in it,” said Lothair, with

some seriousness. “It is too long a tale to enter into, but my part in

those proceedings was entirely misrepresented.”

“I believe that nothing in the newspapers is ever true,” said Madame

Phoebus.

“And that is why they are so popular,” added Euphrosyne; “the taste of

the age being so decidedly for fiction.”

“Is it true that you escaped from a convent to Malta?” said Madame

Phoebus.

“Not quite,” said Lothair, “but true enough for conversations.”

“As confidential as the present, I suppose?” said Euphrosyne.

“Yes, when we are grave, as we are inclined to be now,” said Lothair.

“Then, you have been fighting a good deal,” said Madame Phoebus.

“You are putting me on a court-martial, Madame Phoebus,” said Lothair.

“But we do not know on which side you were,” said Euphrosyne.

“That is matter of history,” said Lothair, “and that, you know, is

always doubtful.”

“Well, I do not like fighting,” said Madame Phoebus, “and for my part I

never could find out that it did an good.”

“And what do you like?” said Lothair. “Tell me how would you pass your

life?”

“Well, much as I do. I do not know that I want any change, except I

think I should like it to be always summer.”

“And I would have perpetual spring,” said Euphrosyne.

“But, summer or spring, what would be your favorite pursuit?”

“Well, dancing is very nice,” said Madame Phoebus.

“But we cannot always, be dancing,” said Lothair.

“Then we would sing,” said Euphrosyne.

“But the time comes when one can neither dance nor sing,” said Lothair.

“Oh, then we become part of the audience,” said Madame Phoebus, “the

people for whose amusement everybody labors.”

“And enjoy power without responsibility,” said Euphrosyne, “detect false

notes and mark awkward gestures. How can any one doubt of Providence

with such a system of constant compensation!”

There was something in the society of these two sisters that Lothair

began to find highly attractive. Their extraordinary beauty, their

genuine and unflagging gayety, their thorough enjoyment of existence,

and the variety of resources with which they made life amusing and

graceful, all contributed to captivate him. They had, too, a great love

and knowledge both of art and nature, and insensibly they weaned Lothair

from that habit of introspection which, though natural to him, he

had too much indulged, and taught him to find sources of interest and

delight in external objects. He was beginning to feel happy in this

islands and wishing that his life might never change, when one day Mr.

Phoebus informed them that the Prince Agathonides, the eldest son of

the Prince of Samos, would arrive from Constantinople in a few days,

and would pay them a visit. “He will come with some retinue,” said Mr.

Phoebus, “but I trust we shall be able by our reception to show that the

Cantacuzenes are not the only princely family in the world.”

Mr. Phoebus was confident in his resources in this respect, for his

yacht’s crew in their Venetian dresses could always furnish a guard of

honor which no Grecian prince or Turkish pacha could easily rival. When

the eventful day arrived, he was quite equal to the occasion. The yacht

was dressed in every part with the streaming colors of all nations, the

banner of Gaston Phoebus waved from his pavilion, the guard of honor

kept the ground, but the population of the isle were present in numbers

and in their most showy costume, and a battery of ancient Turkish guns

fired a salute without an accident.

The Prince Agathonides was a youth, good looking and dressed in a

splendid Palikar costume, though his manners were quite European, being

an attach to the Turkish embassy at Vienna. He had with him a sort of

governor, a secretary, servants in Mamlouk dresses, pipe-bearers, and

grooms, there being some horses as presents from his father to Mr.

Phoebus, and some rarely-embroidered kerchiefs and choice perfumes and

Persian greyhounds for the ladies.

‘The arrival of the young prince was the signal for a series of

entertainments on the island. First of all, Mr. Phoebus resolved to give

a dinner in the Frank style, to prove to Agathonides that there were

other members of the Cantacuzene family besides himself who comprehended

a first-rate Frank dinner. The chief people of the island were invited

to this banquet. They drank the choicest grapes of France and Germany,

were stuffed with truffles, and sat on little cane chairs. But one might

detect in their countenances how they sighed for their easy divans,

their simple dishes, and their resinous wine. Then there was a

wolf-hunt, and other sport; a great day of gymnasia, many dances and

much music; in fact, there were choruses all over the island, and every

night was a serenade.

Why such general joy? Because it was understood that the heir-apparent

of the isle, their future sovereign, had in fact arrived to make his bow

to the beautiful Euphrosyne, as though he saw her for the first time.

CHAPTER 74 Very shortly after his arrival at Malta, Mr. Phoebus had

spoken to Lothair about Theodora. It appeared that Lucien Campian,

though severely wounded, had escaped with Garibaldi after the battle of

Mentana into the Italian territories. Here they were at once arrested,

but not severely detained, and Colonel Campian took the first

opportunity of revisiting England, where, after settling his affairs, he

had returned to his native country, from which he had been separated

for many years. Mr. Phoebus during the interval had seen a great deal

of him, and the colonel departed for America under the impression that

Lothair had been among the slain at the final struggle.

“Campian is one of the beat men I over knew,” said Phoebus. “He was a

remarkable instance of energy combined with softness of disposition. In

my opinion, however, he ought never to have visited Europe: he was made

to clear the backwoods, and govern man by the power of his hatchet and

the mildness of his words. He was fighting for freedom all his life,

yet slavery made and slavery destroyed him. Among all the freaks of Fate

nothing is more surprising than that this Transatlantic planter should

have been ordained to be the husband of a divine being—a true Hellenic

goddess, who in the good days would have been worshipped in this

country, and have inspired her race to actions of grace, wisdom, and

beauty.”

“I greatly esteem him,” said Lothair “and I shall write to him

directly.”

“Except by Campian, who spoke probably about you to no one save myself,”

continued Phoebus, “your name has never been mentioned with reference to

those strange transactions. Once there was a sort of rumor that you had

met with some mishap, but these things were contradicted and explained,

and then forgotten: and people were all out of town. I believe that

Cardinal Grandison communicated with your man of business, and between

them every thing was kept quiet, until this portentous account of your

doings at Rome, which transpired after we left England and which met us

at Malta.”

“I have written to my man of business about that,” said Lothair, “but

I think it will tax all his ingenuity to explain, or to mystify it as

successfully as he did the preceding adventures. At any rate, he will

not have the assistance of my lord cardinal.”

“Theodora was a remarkable woman on many accounts,” said Mr. Phoebus,

“but particularly on this, that, although one of the most beautiful

women that ever existed, she was adored by beautiful women. My wife

adored her; Euphrosyne, who has no enthusiasm, adored her; the Princess

of Tivoli, the most capricious being probably that ever existed, adored;

and always adored, Theodora. I think it must have been that there was

on her part a total absence of vanity, and this the more strange in

one whose vocation in her earlier life had been to attract and live

on popular applause; but I have seen her quit theatres ringing with

admiration and enter her carriage with the serenity of a Phidian muse.”

“I adored her,” said Lothair, “but I never could quite solve her

character. Perhaps it was too rich and deep far rapid comprehension.”

“We shall never perhaps see her like again,” said Mr. Phoebus. “It was a

rare combination, peculiar to the Tyrrhenian sea. I am satisfied that we

must go there to find the pure Hellenic blood, and from thence it got to

Rome.”

“We may not see her like again, but we may see her again,” said Lothair;

“and sometimes I think she is always hovering over me.”

In this vein, when they were alone, they were frequently speaking of

the departed, and one day—it was before the arrival of Prince

Agathonides—Mr. Phoebus said to Lothair: “We will ride this morning to

what we call the grove of Daphne. It is a real laurel-grove. Some of the

trees must be immemorial, and deserve to have been sacred, if once

they were not so. In their huge, grotesque forms you would not easily

recognize your polished friends of Europe, so trim and glossy and

shrub-like. The people are very fond of this grove, and make frequent

processions there. Once a year they must be headed by their priest.

No one knows why, nor has he the slightest idea of the reason of the

various ceremonies which he that day performs. But we know, and some day

he or his successors will equally understand them. Yes, if I remain here

long enough—and I sometimes think I will never again quit the isle—I

shall expect some fine summer night, when there is that rich stillness

which the whispering waves only render more intense, to hear a voice

of music on the mountains declaring that the god Pan has returned to

earth.”

It was a picturesque ride, as every ride was on this island, skirting

the sylvan hills with the sea glimmering in the distance. Lothair was

pleased with the approaches to the sacred grove: now and then a single

tree with gray branches and a green head, then a great spread of

underwood, all laurel, and then spontaneous plantations of young trees.

“There was always a vacant space in the centre of the grove,” said Mr.

Phoebus, “once sadly overrun with wild shrubs, but I have cleared it and

restored the genius of the spot. See!”

They entered the sacred circle and beheld a statue raised on a porphyry

pedestal. The light fell with magical effect on the face of the statue.

It was the statue of Theodora, the placing of which in the pavilion

of Belmont Mr. Phoebus was superintending when Lothair first made his

acquaintance.

CHAPTER 75 The Prince Agathonides seemed quite to monopolize the

attention of Madame Phoebus and her sister. This was not very

unreasonable, considering that he was their visitor, the future chief

of their house, and had brought them so many embroidered

pocket-handkerchiefs, choice scents, and fancy dogs. But Lothair thought

it quite disgusting, nor could he conceive what they saw in him, what

they were talking about or laughing about, for, so far as he had been

able to form any opinion on the subject, the prince was a shallow-pated

coxcomb without a single quality to charm any woman of sense and spirit.

Lothair began to consider how he could pursue his travels, where he

should go to, and, when that was settled, how he should get there.

Just at this moment of perplexity, as is often the case, something

occurred which no one could foresee, but which, like every event,

removed some difficulties and introduced others.

There arrived at the island a dispatch forwarded to Mr. Phoebus by

the Russian ambassador at Constantinople, who had received it from

his colleague at London. This dispatch contained a proposition to

Mr. Phoebus to repair to the court of St. Petersburg, and accept

appointments of high distinction and emolument. Without in any way

restricting the independent pursuit of his profession, he was offered

a large salary, the post of court painter, and the presidency of the

Academy of Fine Arts. Of such moment did the Russian Government deem the

official presence of this illustrious artist in their country, that

it was intimated, if the arrangement could be effected, its conclusion

might be celebrated by conferring on Mr. Phoebus a patent of nobility

and a decoration of a high class. The dispatch contained a private

letter from an exalted member of the imperial family, who had had the

high and gratifying distinction of making Mr. Phoebus’s acquaintance

in London, personally pressing the acceptance by him of the general

proposition, assuring him of cordial welcome and support, and informing

Mr. Phoebus that what was particularly desired at this moment was a

series of paintings illustrative of some of the most memorable scenes

in the Holy Land and especially the arrival of the pilgrims of the Greek

rite at Jerusalem. As for this purpose he would probably like to visit

Palestine, the whole of the autumn or even a longer period was placed at

his disposal; so that, enriched with all necessary drawings and studies,

he might achieve his more elaborate performances in Russia at his

leisure and with every advantage.

Considering that the great objects in life with Mr. Phoebus were to live

in an Aryan country, amid an Aryan race, and produce works which should

revive for the benefit of human nature Aryan creeds, a proposition to

pass some of the prime years of his life among the Mongolian race, and

at the same time devote his pencil to the celebration Semitic subjects,

was startling.

“I shall say nothing to Madame Phoebus until the prince has gone,” he

remarked to Lothair; “he will go the day after to-morrow. I do not know

what they may offer to make me—probably only a baron, perhaps a count.

But you know in Russia a man may become a prince, and I certainly should

like those Cantacuzenes to feel that after all their daughter is a

princess with no thanks to them. The climate is detestable, but one owes

much to one’s profession. Art would be honored at a great, perhaps the

greatest, court. There would not be a fellow at his easel in the

streets about Fitzroy Square who would not be prouder. I wonder what

the decoration will be? ‘Of a high class’—vague. It might be Alexander

Newsky. You know you have a right, whatever your decoration, to have

it expressed, of course at your own expense, in brilliants. I confess I

have my weaknesses. I should like to get over to the Academy dinner—one

can do any thing in these days of railroads—and dine with the R. A’s in

my ribbon and the star of the Alexander Newsky in brilliants. I think

every academician would feel elevated. What I detest are their Semitic

subjects—nothing but drapery. They cover even their heads in those

scorching climes. Can any one make any thing of a caravan of pilgrims?

To be sure, they say no one can draw a camel. If I went to Jerusalem, a

camel would at last be drawn. There is something in that. We must think

over these things, and when the prince has gone talk it over with

Madame Phoebus. I wish you all to come to a wise decision, without the

slightest reference to my individual tastes or, it may be, prejudices.”

The result of all this was that Mr. Phoebus, without absolutely

committing himself, favorably entertained the general proposition of the

Russian court; while, with respect to their particular object in art, he

agreed to visit Palestine and execute at least one work for his imperial

friend and patron. He counted on reaching Jerusalem before the Easter

pilgrims returned to their homes.

“If they would make me a prince at once, and give me the Alexander

Newsky in brilliants, it might be worth thinking of,” he said to

Lothair.

The ladies, though they loved their isle, were quite delighted with

the thought of going to Jerusalem. Madame Phoebus knew a Russian

grand-duchess who had boasted to her that she had been both to Jerusalem

and Torquay, and Madame Phoebus had felt quite ashamed that she had been

to neither.

“I suppose you will feel quite at home there,” said Euphrosyne to

Lothair.

“No; I never was there.”

“No; but you know all about those places and people—holy places and holy

persons. The Blessed Virgin did not, I believe, appear to you. It was to

a young lady, was it not? We were asking each other last night who the

young lady could be.”

CHAPTER 76 Time, which changes every thing, is changing even the

traditionary appearance of forlorn Jerusalem. Not that its mien, after

all, was ever very sad. Its airy site, its splendid mosque, its vast

monasteries, the bright material of which the whole city is built, its

cupolaed houses of freestone, and above all the towers and gates and

battlements of its lofty and complete walls, always rendered it a

handsome city. Jerusalem has not been sacked so often or so recently as

the other two great ancient cities, Rome and Athens. Its vicinage was

never more desolate than the Campagna, or the state of Attica and the

Morea in 1830.

The battle-field of western Asia from the days of the Assyrian kings

to those of Mehemet Ali, Palestine endured the same devastation as in

modern times has been the doom of Flanders and the Milanese; but the

years of havoc in the Low Countries and Lombardy must be counted in

Palestine by centuries. Yet the wide plains of the Holy Land, Sharon,

and Shechem, and Esdraelon, have recovered; they are as fertile and as

fair as in old days; it is the hill-culture that has been destroyed, and

that is the culture on which Jerusalem mainly depended. Its hills were

terraced gardens, vineyards, and groves of olive-trees. And here it

is that we find renovation. The terraces are again ascending the stony

heights, and the eye is frequently gladdened with young plantations.

Fruit-trees, the peach and the pomegranate, the almond and the fig,

offer gracious groups; and the true children of the land, the vine and

the olive, are again exulting in their native soil.

There is one spot, however, which has been neglected, and yet the one

that should have been the first remembered, as it has been the most

rudely wasted. Blessed be the hand which plants trees upon Olivet!

Blessed be the hand that builds gardens about Sion!

The most remarkable creation, however, in modern Jerusalem is the

Russian settlement which within a few years has risen on the elevated

ground on the western side of the city. The Latin, the Greek, and the

Armenian Churches had for centuries possessed enclosed establishments

in the city, which, under the name of monasteries, provided shelter

and protection for hundreds—it might be said even thousands—of pilgrims

belonging to their respective rites. The great scale, therefore, on

which Russia secured hospitality for her subjects was not in reality

so remarkable as the fact that it seemed to indicate a settled

determination to separate the Muscovite Church altogether from the

Greek, and throw off what little dependence is still acknowledged on the

Patriarchate of Constantinople. Whatever the motive, the design has been

accomplished on a large scale. The Russian buildings, all well defended,

are a caravanserai, a cathedral, a citadel. The consular flag crowns the

height and indicates the office of administration; priests and monks are

permanent inhabitants, and a whole caravan of Muscovite pilgrim and the

trades on which they depend can be accommodated within the precinct.

Mr. Phoebus, his family and suite, were to be the guests of the Russian

consul, and every preparation was made to insure the celebrated

painter a becoming reception. Frequent telegrams had duly impressed the

representative of all the Russias in the Holy Land with the importance

of his impending visitor. Even the qualified and strictly provisional

acceptance of the Russian proposition by Mr. Phoebus had agitated the

wires of Europe scarcely less than a suggested conference.

“An artist should always remember what he owes to posterity and his

profession,” said Mr. Phoebus to Lothair, as they were walking the deck,

“even if you can distinguish between them, which I doubt, for it is only

by a sense of the beautiful that the human family can be sustained

in Its proper place in the scale of creation, and the sense of the

beautiful is a result of the study of the fine arts. It would be

something to sow the seeds of organic change in the Mongolian type, but

I am nor sanguine of success. There is no original fund of aptitude to

act upon. The most ancient of existing communities is Turanian, and yet,

though they could invent gunpowder and the mariner’s compass, they never

could understand perspective.—Man ahead there! tell Madame Phoebus to

come on deck for the first sight of Mount Lebanon.”

When the Pan entered the port of Joppa they observed another English

yacht in those waters; but, before they could speculate on its owner,

they were involved in all the complications of landing. On the quay, the

Russian vice-consul was in attendance with horses and mules, and

donkeys handsomer than either. The ladies were delighted with the vast

orange-gardens of Joppa, which Madame Phoebus said realized quite her

idea of the Holy Land.

“I was prepared for milk and honey,” said Euphrosyne, “but this is too

delightful,” as she travelled through lanes of date-bearing palm-trees,

and sniffed with her almond-shaped nostrils the all-pervading fragrance.

They passed the night at Arimathea, a pretty village surrounded

with gardens enclosed with hedges of prickly pear. Here they found

hospitality, in an old convent, but all the comforts of Europe and many

of the refinements of Asia had been forwarded for their accommodations.

“It is a great homage to art,” said Mr. Phoebus, as he scattered his

gold like a great seigneur of Gascony.

The next day, two miles from Jerusalem, the consul met them with a

cavalcade, and the ladies assured their host that they were not at all

wearied with their journey, but were quite prepared, in due time, to

join his dinner-party, which he was most anxious they should attend, as

he had “two English lords” who had arrived, and whom he had invited

to meet them. They were all curious to know their names, though that,

unfortunately, the consul could not tell them, but he had sent to the

English consulate to have them written down. All he could assure them

was, that they were real English lords, not travelling English lords,

but in sober earnestness great personages.

Mr. Phoebus was highly gratified. He was pleased with his reception.

There was nothing he liked much more than a procession. He was also a

sincere admirer of the aristocracy of his country. “On the whole,”

he would say, “they most resemble the old Hellenic race; excelling in

athletic sports, speaking no other language than their own, and never

reading.”

“Your fault,” he would sometimes say to Lothair, “and the cause of many

of your sorrows, is the habit of mental introspection. Man is born to

observe, but if he falls into psychology he observes nothing, and then

he is astonished that life has no charms for him, or that, never seizing

the occasion, his career is a failure. No, sir, it is the eye that must

be occupied and cultivated; no one knows the capacity of the eye who has

not developed it, or the visions of beauty and delight and inexhaustible

interest which it commands. To a man who observes, life is as different

as the existence of a dreaming psychologist is to that of the animals of

the field.”

“I fear,” said Lothair, “that I have at length found out the truth, and

that I am a dreaming psychologist.”

“You are young and not irremediably lost,” said Mr. Phoebus.

“Fortunately, you have received the admirable though partial education

of your class. You are a good shot, you can ride, you can row, you can

swim. That imperfect secretion of the brain which is called thought has

not yet bowed your frame. You have not had time to read much. Give it up

altogether. The conversation of a woman like Theodora is worth all the

libraries in the world. If it were only for her sake, I should wish

to save you, but I wish to do it for your own. Yes, profit by the vast

though calamitous experience which you have gained in a short time. We

may know a great deal about our bodies, we can know very little about

our minds.”

The “real English lords” turned out to be Bertram and St. Aldegonde,

returning from Nubia. They had left England about the same time as

Lothair, and had paired together on the Irish Church till Easter, with a

sort of secret hope on the part of St. Aldegonde that they might neither

of them reappear in the House of Commons again until the Irish Church

were either saved or subverted. Holy Week had long passed, and they were

at Jerusalem, not quite so near the House of Commons as the Reform

Club or the Carlton, but still St. Aldegonde had mentioned that he

was beginning to be bored with Jerusalem, and Bertram counted on their

immediate departure when they accepted the invitation to dine with the

Russian consul.

Lothair was unaffectedly delighted to meet Bertram, and glad to see

St. Aldegonde, but he was a little nervous and embarrassed as to the

probable tone of his reception by them. But their manner relieved him in

an instant, for he saw they knew nothing of his adventures.

“Well,” said St. Aldegonde, “what have you been doing with yourself

since we last met? I wish you had come with us, and had a shot at a

crocodile.”

Bertram told Lothair in the course of the evening that he found letters

at Cairo from Corisande, on his return, in which there was a good deal

about Lothair, and which had made him rather uneasy. “That there was a

rumor you had been badly wounded, and some other things,” and Bertram

looked him full in the face; “but I dare say not a word of truth.”

“I was never better in my life,” said Lothair, “and I have been in

Sicily and in Greece. However, we will talk over all this another time.”

The dinner at the consulate was one of the most successful banquets that

was ever given, if to please your guests be the test of good fortune in

such enterprises. St. Aldegonde was perfectly charmed with the Phoebus

family; he did not know which to admire most—the great artist, who was

in remarkable spirits to-day, considering he was in a Semitic country,

or his radiant wife, or his brilliant sister-in-law. St. Aldegonde took

an early opportunity of informing Bertram that if he liked to go over

and vote for the Irish Church he would release him from his pair

with the greatest pleasure, but for his part he had not the slightest

intention of leaving Jerusalem at present. Strange to say, Bertram

received this intimation without a murmur. He was not so loud in his

admiration of the Phoebus family as St. Aldegonde, but there is a silent

sentiment sometimes more expressive than the noisiest applause, and

more dangerous. Bertram had sat next to Euphrosyne, and was entirely

spell-bound.

The consul’s wife, a hostess not unworthy of such guests, had

entertained her friends in the European style. The dinner-hour was not

late, and the gentlemen who attended the ladies from the dinner-table

were allowed to remain some time in the saloon. Lothair talked much to

the consul’s wife, by whose side sat Madame Phoebus. St. Aldegonde was

always on his legs, distracted by the rival attractions of that lady and

her husband. More remote, Bertram whispered to Euphrosyne, who answered

him with laughing eyes.

At a certain hour, the consul, attended by his male guests, crossing a

court, proceeded to his divan, a lofty and capacious chamber painted in

fresco, and with no furniture except the low but broad raised seat that

surrounded the room. Here, when they were seated, an equal number of

attendants—Arabs in Arab dress, blue gowns, and red slippers, and red

caps—entered, each proffering a long pipe of cherry or jasmine wood.

Then, in a short time, guests dropped in, and pipes and coffee were

immediately brought to them. Any person who had been formally presented

to the consul had this privilege, without any further invitation. The

society often found in these consular divans in the more remote places

of the East—Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem—is often extremely entertaining

and instructive. Celebrated travellers, distinguished men of science,

artists, adventurers who ultimately turn out to be heroes, eccentric

characters of all kinds, are here encountered, and give the fruits of

their original or experienced observation without reserve.

“It is the smoking-room over again,” whispered St. Aldegonde to Lothair,

“only in England one is so glad to get away from the women, but here I

must say I should have liked to remain behind.”

An individual in a Syrian dress, fawn-colored robes girdled with a rich

shawl, and a white turban, entered. He made his salute with grace and

dignity to the consul, touching his forehead, his lip, and his heart,

and took his seat with the air of one not unaccustomed to be received,

playing, until he received his chibouque, with a chaplet of beads.

“That is a good-looking fellow, Lothair,” said St. Aldegonde; “or is it

the dress that turns them out such swells? I feel quite a lout by some

of these fellows.”

“I think he would be good-looking in any dress,” said Lothair. “A

remarkable countenance.”

It was an oval visage, with features in harmony with that form; large

dark-brown eyes and lashes, and brows delicately but completely defined;

no hair upon the face except a beard, full but not long. He seemed about

the same age as Mr. Phoebus, and his complexion, though pale, was clear

and fair.

The conversation, after some rambling, had got upon the Suez Canal. Mr.

Phoebus did not care for the political or the commercial consequences of

that great enterprise, but he was glad that a natural division should

be established between the greater races and the Ethiopian. It might not

lead to any considerable result, but it asserted a principle. He looked

upon that trench as a protest.

“But would you place the Nilotic family in the Ethiopian race?” inquired

the Syrian in a voice commanding from its deep sweetness.

“I would certainly. They were Cushim, and that means negroes.”

The Syrian did not agree with Mr. Phoebus; he stated his views firmly

and, clearly, but without urging them. He thought that we must look to

the Pelasgi as the colonizing race that had peopled and produced Egypt.

The mention of the Pelasgi fired Mr. Phoebus to even unusual

eloquence. He denounced the Pelasgi as a barbarous race: men of gloomy

superstitions, who, had it not been for the Hellenes, might have fatally

arrested the human development. The triumph of the Hellenes was the

triumph of the beautiful, and all that is great and good in life was

owing to their victory.

“It is difficult to ascertain what is great in life,” said the Syrian,

“because nations differ on the subject and ages. Some, for example,

consider war to be a great thing, others condemn it. I remember also

when patriotism was a boast, and now it is a controversy. But it is not

so difficult to ascertain what is good. For man has in his own being

some guide to such knowledge, and divine aid to acquire it has not

been wanting to him. For my part I could not maintain that the Hellenic

system led to virtue.”

The conversation was assuming an ardent character when the consul, as a

diplomatist, turned the channel. Mr. Phoebus had vindicated the Hellenic

religion, the Syrian, with a terse protest against the religion of

Nature, however idealized, as tending to the corruption of man, had let

the question die away, and the Divan were discussing dromedaries,

and dancing-girls, and sherbet made of pomegranate, which the consul

recommended and ordered to be produced. Some of the guests retired, and

among them the Syrian with the same salute and the same graceful dignity

as had distinguished his entrance.

“Who is that man?” said Mr. Phoebus. “I met him at Rome ten years ago.

Baron Mecklenburg brought him to me to paint for my great picture of St.

John, which is in the gallery of Munich. He said in his way—you remember

his way—that he would bring me a face of Paradise.”

“I cannot exactly tell you his name,” said the consul. “Prince Galitzin

brought him here, and thought highly of him. I believe he is one of the

old Syrian families in the mountain; but whether he be a Maronite or a

Druse, or any thing else, I really cannot say. Now try the sherbet.”

CHAPTER 77 There are few things finer than the morning view of Jerusalem

from the Mount of Olives. The fresh and golden light falls on a

walled city with turrets and towers and frequent gates: the houses of

freestone, with terraced or oval roofs, sparkle in the sun, while the

cupolaed pile of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the vast monasteries,

and the broad steep of Sion crowned with the tower of David, vary the

monotony of the general masses of building. But the glory of the scene

is the Mosque of Omar as it rises on its broad platform of marble from

the deep ravine of Kedron, with its magnificent dome high in the air,

its arches and gardened courts, and its ornaments glittering amid the

cedar, the cypress, and the palm.

Reclining on Olivet, Lothair, alone and in charmed abstraction, gazed on

the wondrous scene. Since his arrival at Jerusalem he lived much apart,

nor had he found difficulty in effecting this isolation. Mr. Phoebus had

already established a studio on a considerable scale, and was engaged

in making sketches of pilgrims and monks, tall donkeys of Bethlehem with

starry fronts, in which he much delighted, and grave Jellaheen sheiks,

who were hanging about the convents in the hopes of obtaining a convoy

to the Dead Sea. As for St. Aldegonde and Bertram, they passed their

lives at the Russian consulate, or with its most charming inhabitants.

This morning, with the consul and his wife and the matchless sisters, as

St. Aldegonde always termed them, they had gone on an excursion to the

Convent of the Nativity. Dinner usually reassembled all the party, and

then the Divan followed.

“I say, Bertram,” said St. Aldegonde, “what a lucky thing we paired and

went to Nubia! I rejoice in the Divan, and yet, somehow, I cannot bear

leaving those women. If the matchless sisters would only smoke, by Jove

they would be perfect!”

“I should not like Euphrosyne to smoke,” said Bertram.

A person approached Lothair by the pathway from Bethany. It was the

Syrian gentleman whom he had met at the consulate. As he was passing

Lothair, he saluted him with the grace which had been before remarked,

and Lothair, who was by nature courteous, and even inclined a little

to ceremony in his manners, especially with those with whom he was not

intimate, immediately rose, as he would not receive such a deputation in

a reclining posture.

“Let me not disturb you,” said the stranger, “or, if we must be on equal

terms, let me also be seated, for this is a view that never palls.”

“It is perhaps familiar to you,” said Lothair, “but with me, only a

pilgrim, its effect is fascinating, almost overwhelming.”

“The view of Jerusalem never becomes familiar,” said the Syrian, “for

its associations are so transcendent, so various, so inexhaustible, that

the mind can never anticipate its course of thought and feeling, when

one sits, as we do now, on this immortal mount.”

“I presume you live here?” said Lothair.

“Not exactly,” said his companion. “I have recently built a house

without the walls, and I have planted my hill with fruit-trees, and

made vineyards and olive-grounds, but I have done this as much—perhaps

more—to set an example, which, I am glad, to say, has been followed,

as for my own convenience or pleasure. My home is in the north of

Palestine, on the other side of, Jordan, beyond the Sea of Galilee. My

family has dwelt there from time immemorial; but they always loved this

city, and have a legend that they dwelt occasionally within its walls,

even in the days when Titus from that hill looked down upon the temple.”

“I have often wished to visit the Sea of Galilee,” said Lothair.

“Well, you have now an opportunity,” said the Syrian; “the north of

Palestine, though it has no topical splendor, has much variety and a

peculiar natural charm. The burst and brightness of spring have not yet

quite vanished: you would find our plains radiant with wild-flowers, and

our hills green with young crops; and, though we cannot rival Lebanon,

we have forest glades among our famous hills that, when once seen, are

remembered.”

“But there is something to me more interesting than the splendor of

tropical scenery,” said Lothair, “even if Galilee could offer it. I wish

to visit the cradle of my faith.”

“And you would do wisely,” said the Syrian, “for there is no doubt the

spiritual nature of man is developed in this land.”

“And yet there are persons at the present day who doubt—even deny—the

spiritual nature of man,” said Lothair. “I do not, I could not—there are

reasons why I could not.”

“There are some things I know, and some things I believe,” said the

Syrian. “I know that I have a soul, and I believe that it is immortal.”

“It is science that, by demonstrating the insignificance of this

globe in the vast scale of creation, has led to this infidelity,” said

Lothair.

“Science may prove the insignificance of this globe in the scale of

creation,” said the stranger, “but it cannot prove the insignificance of

man. What is the earth compared with the sun? a molehill by a mountain;

yet the inhabitants of this earth can discover the elements of which

the great orb consists, and will probably ere long ascertain all the

conditions of its being. Nay, the human mind can penetrate far beyond

the sun. There is no relation, therefore, between the faculties of man

and the scale in creation of the planet which he inhabits.”

“I was glad to hear you assert the other night the spiritual nature of

man in opposition to Mr. Phoebus.”

“Ah! Mr. Phoebus!” said the stranger, with a smile. “He is an old

acquaintance of mine. And I must say he is very consistent—except in

paying a visit to Jerusalem. That does surprise me. He said to me the

other night the same things as he said to me at Rome many years ago. He

would revive the worship of Nature. The deities whom he so eloquently

describes and so exquisitely delineates are the ideal personifications

of the most eminent human qualities, and chiefly the physical. Physical

beauty is his standard of excellence, and he has a fanciful theory that

moral order would be the consequence of the worship of physical beauty,

for without moral order he holds physical beauty cannot be maintained.

But the answer to Mr. Phoebus is, that his system has been tried and

has failed, and under conditions more favorable than are likely to

exist again; the worship of Nature ended in the degradation of the human

race.”

“But Mr. Phoebus cannot really believe in Apollo and Venus,” said

Lothair. “These are phrases. He is, I suppose, what is called a

Pantheist.”

“No doubt the Olympus of Mr. Phoebus is the creation of his easel,”

replied the Syrian. “I should not, however, describe him as a Pantheist,

whose creed requires more abstraction than Mr. Phoebus, the worshipper

of nature, would tolerate. His school never care to pursue any

investigation which cannot be followed by the eye—and the worship of

the beautiful always ends in an orgy. As for Pantheism, it is Atheism in

domino. The belief in a Creator who is unconscious of creating is more

monstrous than any dogma of any of the Churches in this city, and we

have them all here.”

“But there are people now who tell you that there never was any

Creation, and therefore there never could have been a Creator,” said

Lothair.

“And which is now advanced with the confidences of novelty,” said the

Syrian, “though all of it has been urged, and vainly urged, thousands of

years ago. There must be design, or all we see would be without sense,

and I do not believe in the unmeaning. As for the natural forces to

which all creation is now attributed, we know they are unconscious,

while consciousness is as inevitable a portion of our existence as the

eye or the hand. The conscious cannot be derived from the unconscious.

Man is divine.”

“I wish I could assure myself of the personality of the Creator,” said

Lothair. “I cling to that, but they say it is unphilosophical.”

“In what sense?” asked the Syrian. “Is it more unphilosophical to

believe in a personal God, omnipotent and omniscient, than in natural

forces unconscious and irresistible? Is it unphilosophical to combine

power with intelligence? Goethe, a Spinozist who did not believe in

Spinoza, said that he could bring his mind to the conception that in the

centre of space we might meet with a monad of pure intelligence. What

may be the centre of space I leave to the daedal imagination of the

author of ‘Faust;’ but a monad of pure intelligence—is that more

philosophical than the truth, first revealed to man amid these

everlasting hills,” said the Syrian, “that God made man in His own

image?”

“I have often found in that assurance a source of sublime consolation,”

said Lothair.

“It is the charter of the nobility of man,” said the Syrian, “one of the

divine dogmas revealed in this land; not the invention of councils, not

one of which was held on this sacred soil, confused assemblies first

got together by the Greeks, and then by barbarous nations in barbarous

times.”

“Yet the divine land no longer tells us divine things,” said Lothair.

“It may or it may not have fulfilled its destiny,” said the Syrian. “‘In

my Father’s house are many mansions,’ and by the various families of

nations the designs of the Creator are accomplished. God works by races,

and one was appointed in due season and after many developments to

reveal and expound in this land the spiritual nature of man. The Aryan

and the Semite are of the same blood and origin, but when they quitted

their central land they were ordained to follow opposite courses. Each

division of the great race has developed one portion of the double

nature of humanity, till, after all their wanderings, they met again,

and, represented by their two choicest families, the Hellenes and the

Hebrews, brought together the treasures of their accumulated wisdom, and

secured the civilization of man.”

“Those among whom I have lived of late,” said Lothair, “have taught me

to trust much in councils, and to believe that without them there could

be no foundation for the Church. I observe you do not speak in that

vein, though, like myself, you find solace in those dogmas which

recognize the relations between the created and the Creator.”

“There can be no religion without that recognition,” said the Syrian,

“and no creed can possibly be devised without such a recognition that

would satisfy man. Why we are here, whence we come, whither we go—these

are questions which man is organically framed and forced to ask himself,

and that would not be the case if they could not be answered. As for

churches depending on councils, the first council was held more than

three centuries after the Sermon on the Mount. We Syrians had churches

in the interval: no one can deny that. I bow before the Divine decree

that swept them away from Antioch to Jerusalem, but I am not yet

prepared to transfer my spiritual allegiance to Italian popes and Greek

patriarchs. We believe that our family were among the first followers of

Jesus, and that we then held lands in Bashan which we hold now. We had

a gospel once in our district where there was some allusion to this, and

being written by neighbors, and probably at the time, I dare say it

was accurate, but the Western Churches declared our gospel was not

authentic, though why I cannot tell, and they succeeded in extirpating

it. It was not an additional reason why we should enter into their fold.

So I am content to dwell in Galilee and trace the footsteps of my Divine

Master, musing over His life and pregnant sayings amid the mounts He

sanctified and the waters He loved so well.”

The sun was now rising in the heavens, and the hour had arrived when it

became expedient to seek the shade. Lothair and the Syrian rose at the

same time.

“I shall not easily forget our conversation on the Mount of Olives,”

said Lothair, “and I would ask you to add to this kindness by permitting

me, before I leave Jerusalem, to pay my respects to you under your

roof.”

“Peace be with you!” said the Syrian. “I live without the gate of

Damascus, on a hill which you will easily recognize, and my name is

PARACLETE.”

CHAPTER 78 Time passed very agreeably to St. Aldegonde and Bertram at

Jerusalem, for it was passed entirely at the Russian consulate, or with

its interesting and charming inmates, who were always making excursions,

or, as they styled them, pilgrimages. They saw little of Lothair, who

would willingly have conversed with his friend on many topics, but his

friend was almost always engaged, and, if by some chance they succeeded

in finding themselves alone, Bertram appeared to be always preoccupied.

One day he said to Lothair: “I tell you what, old fellow, if you want

to know all about what has happened at home, I will give you Corisande’s

letters. They are a sort of journal which she promised to keep for me,

and they will tell you every thing. I found an immense packet of them on

our return from Cairo, and I meant to have read them here; but I do not

know how it is—I suppose there is so much to be seen here—but I never

seem to have a moment to myself. I have got an engagement now to the

consulate. We are going to Elisha’s Fountain to-day. Why do not you

come?”

“Well, I am engaged too,” said Lothair. “I have settled to go to the

Tombs of the Kings to-day, with Signor Paraclete, and I cannot well get

off; but remember the letters.”

The box of letters arrived at Lothair’s rooms in due season, and their

perusal deeply interested him. In their pages, alike earnest and lively,

and a picture of a mind of high intelligence adorned with fancy

and feeling, the name of Lothair frequently appeared, and sometimes

accompanied with expressions that made his heart beat. All the rumors

of his adventures, as they gradually arrived in England, generally

distorted, were duly chronicled, and sometimes with comments, which

intimated the interest they occasioned to the correspondent of Bertram.

More than once she could not refrain from reproaching her brother for

having left his friend so much to himself. “Of all your friends,” she

said, “the one who always most interested me, and seemed most worthy of

your affection.” And then she deplored the absolute ruin of Lothair, for

such she deemed his entrance into the Roman Church.

“I was right in my appreciation of that woman, though I was utterly

inexperienced in life,” thought Lothair. “If her mother had only favored

my views two years ago, affairs would have been different. Would they

have been better? Can they be worse? But I have gained experience.

Certainly; and paid for it with my heart’s blood. And might I not have

gained experience tranquilly, in the discharge of the duties of my

position at home—dear home? Perhaps not. And suppose I never had gained

experience, I still might have been happy? And what am I now? Most lone

and sad. So lone and sad that nothing but the magical influence of the

scene around me saves me from an overwhelming despondency.”

Lothair passed his life chiefly with Paraclete, and, a few weeks after

their first acquaintance, they left Jerusalem together for Galilee.

The month of May had disappeared, and June was advancing. Bertram and

Saint Aldegonde no longer talked about their pair, and their engagements

in the House of Commons. There seemed a tacit understanding between

them to avoid the subject; remarkable on the part of Bertram, for he had

always been urgent on his brother-in-law to fulfil their parliamentary

obligation.

The party at the Russian consulate had gone on a grand expedition to the

Dead Sea, and had been absent for many days from Jerusalem. They were

conveyed by one of the sheiks of the Jordan valley. It was a most

successful expedition—constant adventure, novel objects and habits, all

the spell of a romantic life. The ladies were delighted with the scenery

of the Jordan valley, and the gentlemen had good sport; St. Aldegonde

had killed a wild-boar, and Bertram an ibex, whose horns were preserved

for Brentham. Mr. Phoebus intensely studied the camel and its habits. He

persuaded himself that the ship of the desert entirely understood him.

“But it is always so,” he added. “There is no animal that in a week does

not perfectly comprehend me. Had I time and could give myself up to it,

I have no doubt I could make them speak. Nature has endowed me, so far

as dumb animals are concerned, with a peculiar mesmeric power.”

At last this happy caravan was again within sight of the walls of

Jerusalem.

“I should like to have remained in the valley of the Jordan forever,”

said St. Aldegonde.

“And so should I,” whispered Bertram to Euphrosyne, “with the same

companions.”

When they had returned to the consulate, they found the post from

England had arrived during their absence. There were dispatches for all.

It is an agitating moment—that arrival of letters in a distant land.

Lord St. Aldegonde seemed much disturbed when he tore open and perused

his. His countenance became clouded; he dashed his hand through his

dishevelled locks; he pouted; and then he said to Bertram, “Come to my

room.”

“Anything wrong at home?”

“Not at home,” said St. Aldegonde. “Bertha is all right. But a most

infernal letter from Glyn—most insolent. If I do return I will vote

against them. But I will not return. I have made up my mind to that.

People are so selfish,” exclaimed St. Aldegonde, with indignation. “They

never think of any thing but themselves.”

“Show me his letter,” said Bertram. “I have got a letter too; it is from

the duke.”

The letter of the Opposition whip did not deserve the epithets ascribed

to it by St. Aldegonde. It was urgent and courteously peremptory; but,

considering the circumstances of the case, by no means too absolute.

Paired to Easter by great indulgence, St. Aldegonde was passing

Whitsuntide at Jerusalem. The parliamentary position was critical, and

the future of the Opposition seemed to depend on the majority by which

their resolutions on the Irish Church were sent up to the House of

Lords.

“Well,” said Bertram. “I see nothing to complain of in that letter.

Except a little more urgency, it is almost the same language as reached

us at Cairo, and then you said Glyn was a capital fellow, and seemed

quite pleased.”

“Yes, because I hated Egypt,” said St. Aldegonde. “I hated the pyramids,

and I was disappointed with the dancing-girls; and it seemed to me

that, if it had not been for the whip, we never should have been able to

escape. But things are very different now.”

“Yes, they are,” said Bertram, in a melancholy tone.

“You do not think of returning?” said St. Aldegonde.

“Instantly,” replied Bertram. “I have a letter from the duke which is

peremptory. The county is dissatisfied with my absence. And mine is

a queer constituency; very numerous and several large towns; the

popularity of my family gained me the seat, not their absolute

influence.”

“My constituents never trouble me,” said St. Aldegonde.

“You have none,” said Bertram.

“Well, if I were member for a metropolitan district I would not budge.

And I little thought you would have deserted me.”

“Ah!” sighed Bertram. “You’re discontented, because your amusements are

interrupted. But think of my position, torn from a woman whom I adore.”

“Well, you know you must have left her sooner or later,” urged St.

Aldegonde.

“Why?” asked Bertram.

“You know what Lothair told us. She is engaged to her cousin the Prince

of Samos, and—”

“If I had only the Prince of Samos to deal with, I should care little,”

said Bertram.

“Why, what do you mean?”

“That Euphrosyne is mine, if my family will sanction our union, but not

otherwise.”

St. Aldegonde gave a long whistle, and he added, “I wish Bertha were

here. She is the only person I know who has a head.”

“You see, my dear Granville, while you are talking of your little

disappointments, I am involved in awful difficulties.”

“You are sure about the Palace of Samos?”

“Clear your head of that. There is no engagement of any kind between

him and Euphrosyne. The visit to the island was only a preliminary

ceremony—just to show himself. No doubt the father wishes the alliance;

nor is there any reason to suppose that it would be disagreeable to the

son; but, I repeat it—no engagement exists.”

“If I were not your brother-in-law, I should have been very glad to have

married Euphrosyne myself,” said St. Aldegonde.

“Yes, but what am I to do?” asked Bertram, rather impatiently.

“It will not do to write to Brentham,” said St. Aldegonde, gravely;

“that I see clearly.” Then, after musing a while, he added: “I am vexed

to leave our friends here and shall miss them sadly. They are the most

agreeable people I ever knew. I never enjoyed myself so much. But we

must think of nothing but your affairs. We must return instantly. The

whip will be an excuse, but the real business will be Euphrosyne. I

should delight in having her for a sister-in-law, but the affair will

require management. We can make short work of getting home: steam to

Marseilles, leave the yacht there, and take the railroad. I have half

a mind to telegraph to Bertha to meet us there. She would be of great

use.”

CHAPTER 79 Lothair was delighted with Galilee, and particularly with the

blue waters of its lake slumbering beneath the surrounding hills. Of all

its once pleasant towns, Tiberias alone remains, and that in ruins

from a recent earthquake. But where are Chorazin, and Bethsaida, and

Capernaum? A group of hovels and an ancient tower still bear the magic

name of Magdala, and all around are green mounts and gentle slopes, the

scenes of miracles that softened the heart of man, and of sermons that

never tire his ear. Dreams passed over Lothair of settling forever

on the shores of these waters, and of reproducing all their vanished

happiness: rebuilding their memorable cities, reviving their fisheries,

cultivating the plain of Gennesaret and the country of the Gadarenes,

and making researches in this cradle of pure and primitive Christianity.

The heritage of Paraclete was among the oaks of Bashan, a lofty land,

rising suddenly from the Jordan valley, verdant and well watered, and

clothed in many parts with forest; there the host of Lothair resided

among his lands and people, and himself dwelt in a stone and castellated

building, a portion of which was of immemorial antiquity, and where he

could rally his forces and defend himself in case of the irruption and

invasion of the desert tribes. And here one morn arrived a messenger

from Jerusalem summoning Lothair back to that city, in consequence of

the intended departure of his friends.

The call was urgent, and was obeyed immediately with that promptitude

which the manners of the East, requiring no preparation, admit.

Paraclete accompanied his guest. They had to cross the Jordan, and then

to trace their way till they reached the southern limit of the plain

of Esdraelon, from whence they counted on the following day to reach

Jerusalem. While they were encamped on this spot, a body of Turkish

soldiery seized all their horses, which were required, they said, by the

Pacha of Damascus, who was proceeding to Jerusalem, attending a great

Turkish general, who was on a mission to examine the means of defence

of Palestine on the Egyptian side. This was very vexatious, but one

of those incidents of Eastern life against which it is impossible to

contend; so Lothair and Paraclete were obliged to take refuge in their

pipes beneath a huge and solitary sycamore-tree, awaiting the arrival of

the Ottoman magnificoes.

They came at last, a considerable force of cavalry, then mules and

barbarous carriages with the harem, all the riders and inmates enveloped

in what appeared to be winding-sheets, white and shapeless; about them

eunuchs and servants. The staff of the pachas followed, preceding the

grandees who closed the march, mounted on Anatolian chargers.

Paraclete and Lothair had been obliged to leave the grateful shade of

the sycamore-tree, as the spot had been fixed on by the commander of the

advanced guard for the resting-place of the pachas. They were standing

aside and watching the progress of the procession, and contemplating the

earliest opportunity of representing their grievances to high authority,

when the Turkish general, or the seraskier, as the Syrians inaccurately

styled him, suddenly reined in his steed, and said, in a loud voice,

“Captain Muriel!”

Lothair recognized the well-known voice of his commanding officer in

the Apennine, and advanced to him with a military salute. “I must

first congratulate you on being alive, which I hardly hoped,” said the

general. “Then let me know why you are here.”

And Lothair told him.

“Well, you shall have back your horses,” said the general; “and I will

escort you to El Khuds. In the mean time you must be our guest;” and he

presented him to the Pacha of Damascus with some form. “You and I have

bivouacked in the open air before this, and not in so bland a clime.”

Beneath the shade of the patriarchal sycamore, the general narrated to

Lothair his adventures since they were fellow-combatants on the fatal

field of Mentana.

“When all was over,” continued the general, “I fled with Garibaldi, and

gained the Italian frontier at Terrni. Here we were of course arrested

by the authorities, but not very maliciously. I escaped one morning, and

got among the mountains in the neighborhood of our old camp. I had to

wander about these parts for some time, for the Papalini were in the

vicinity, and there was danger. It was a hard time; but I found a

friend now and then among the country people, though they are dreadfully

superstitious. At last I got to the shore, and induced an honest fellow

to put to sea in an open boat, on the chance of something turning up. It

did, in the shape of a brigantine from Elba bound for Corfu. Here I

was sure to find friends, for the brotherhood are strong in the Ionian

Isles. And I began to look about for business. The Greeks made me some

offers, but their schemes were all vanity, worse than the Irish. You

remember our Fenian squabble? From something that transpired, I had made

up my mind, so soon as I was well equipped, to go to Turkey. I had had

some transactions with the house of Cantacuzene, through the kindness of

our dear friend whom we will never forget, but will never mention; and

through them I became acquainted with the Prince of Samos, who is the

chief of their house. He is in the entire confidence of Aali Pacha. I

soon found out that there was real business on the carpet. The Ottoman

army, after many trials and vicissitudes, is now in good case; and the

Porte has resolved to stand no more nonsense either in this direction—”

and the general gave a significant glance—“or in any other. But they

wanted a general; they wanted a man who knew his business. I am not a

Garibaldi, you know, and never pretended to be. I have no genius, or

volcanic fire, or that sort of thing; but I do presume to say, with

fair troops, paid with tolerable regularity, a battery or two of rifled

cannon, and a well-organized commissariat, I am not afraid of meeting

any captain of my acquaintance, whatever his land or language. The Turks

are a brave people, and there is nothing in their system, political or

religious, which jars with my convictions. In the army, which is all

that I much care for, there is the career of merit, and I can promote

any able man that I recognize. As for their religion, they are tolerant

and exact nothing from me; and if I had any religion except Madre

Natura, I am not sure I would not prefer Islamism; which is at least

simple, and as little sacerdotal as any organized creed can be. The

Porte made me a liberal offer, and I accepted it. It so happened that,

the moment I entered their service, I was wanted. They had a difficulty

on their Dalmatian frontier; I settled it in a way they liked. And now I

am sent here with full powers, and am a pacha of the highest class, and

with a prospect of some warm work. I do not know what your views are,

but, if you would like a little more soldiering, I will put you on my

staff; and, for aught I know, we may find your winter-quarters at Grand

Cairo—they say a pleasant place for such a season.”

“My soldiering has not been very fortunate,” said Lothair; “and I am not

quite as great an admirer of the Turks as you are, general. My mind is

rather on the pursuits of peace, and twenty hours ago I had a dream of

settling on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.”

“Whatever you do,” said the general, “give up dreams.”

“I think you may be right in that,” said Lothair, with half a sigh.

“Action may not always be happiness,” said the general; “but there is

no happiness without action. If you will not fight the Egyptians, were I

you, I would return home and plunge into affairs. That was a fine castle

of yours I visited one morning; a man who lives in such a place must be

able to find a great deal to do.”

“I almost wish I were there, with you for my companion,” said Lothair.

“The wheel may turn,” said the general; “but I begin to think I shall

not see much of Europe again. I have given it some of my best years and

best blood; and, if I had assisted in establishing the Roman republic,

I should not have lived in vain; but the old imposture seems to me

stronger than ever. I have got ten good years in me yet; and, if I

be well supported and in luck, for, after all, every thing depends on

fortune, and manage to put a couple of hundred thousand men in perfect

discipline, I may find some consolation for not blowing up St. Peter’s,

and may do something for the freedom of mankind on the banks of the

Danube.”

CHAPTER 80 Mrs. Putney Giles, in full toilet, was standing before the

mantel-piece of her drawing-room in Hyde Park Gardens, and watching,

with some anxiety, the clock that rested on it. It was the dinner-hour,

and Mr. Putney Giles, particular in such matters, had not returned. No

one looked forward to his dinner, and a chat with his wife, with greater

zest than Mr. Putney Giles; and he deserved the gratification which

both incidents afforded him, for he fairly earned it. Full of news and

bustle, brimful of importance and prosperity, sunshiny and successful,

his daily return home—which, with many, perhaps most, men, is a process

lugubriously monotonous—was in Hyde Park Gardens, even to Apollonia,

who possessed many means of amusement and occupation, a source ever of

interest and excitement.

To-day too, particularly, for their great client, friend, and patron,

Lothair, had arrived last night, from the Continent, at Muriel House,

and had directed Mr. Putney Giles to be in attendance on him on the

afternoon of this day.

Muriel House was a family mansion in the Green Park. It was built of

hewn stone, during the last century—a Palladian edifice, for a time much

neglected, but now restored and duly prepared for the reception of its

lord and master by the same combined energy and taste which had proved

so satisfactory and successful at Muriel Towers.

It was a long room, the front saloon at Hyde Park Gardens, and the door

was as remote as possible from the mantel-piece. It opened suddenly, but

only the panting face of Mr. Putney Giles was seen, as he poured forth

in hurried words: “My dear, dreadfully late, but I can dress in five

minutes. I only opened the door in passing, to tell you that I have seen

our great friend; wonderful man! but I will tell you all at dinner, or

after. It was not he who kept me, but the Duke of Brecon. The duke has

been with me two hours. I had a good mind to bring him home to dinner,

and give him a bottle of my ‘48. They like that sort of thing, but it

will keep,” and the head vanished.

The Duke of Brecon would not have dined ill, had he honored this

household. It is a pleasant thing to see an opulent and prosperous man

of business, sanguine and full of health, and a little overworked, at

that royal meal, dinner. How he enjoys his soup! And how curious in his

fish! How critical in his entrée, and how nice in his Welsh mutton! His

exhausted brain rallies under the glass of dry sherry, and he realizes

all his dreams with the aid of claret that has the true flavor of the

violet.

“And now, my dear Apollonia,” said Mr. Putney Giles, when the servants

had retired, and he turned his chair and played with a new nut from the

Brazils, “about our great friend. Well, I was there at two o’clock, and

found him at breakfast. Indeed, he said that, had he not given me an

appointment, he thought he should not have risen at all. So delighted

he was to find himself again in an English bed. Well, he told me every

thing that had happened. I never knew a man so unreserved, and so

different from what he was when I first knew him, for he never much

cared then to talk about himself. But no egotism, nothing of that sort

of thing—all his mistakes, all his blunders, as he called them. He told

me every thing, that I might thoroughly understand his position, and

that he might judge whether the steps I had taken in reference to it

were adequate.”

“I suppose about his religion,” said Apollonia. “What is he, after all?”

“As sound as you are. But you are right; that was the point on which he

was most anxious. He wrote, you know, to me from Malta, when the

account of his conversion first appeared, to take all necessary steps to

contradict the announcement, and counteract its consequences. He gave me

carte blanche, and was anxious to know precisely what I had done. I

told him that a mere contradiction, anonymous, or from a third person,

however unqualified its language, would have no effect in the face of

a detailed narrative, like that in all the papers, of his walking in

procession and holding a lighted taper, and all that sort of thing. What

I did was this. I commenced building, by his direction, two new churches

on his estate, and announced in the local journals, copied in London,

that he would be present at the consecration of both. I subscribed, in

his name, and largely, to all the diocesan societies, gave a thousand

pounds to the Bishop of London’s fund, and accepted for him the office

of steward, for this year, for the Sons of the Clergy. Then, when the

public feeling was ripe, relieved from all its anxieties, and beginning

to get indignant at the calumnies that had been so freely circulated,

the time for paragraphs had arrived, and one appeared stating that

a discovery had taken place of the means by which an unfounded and

preposterous account of the conversion of a distinguished young English

nobleman at Rome had been invented and circulated, and would probably

furnish the occasion for an action for libel. And now his return and

appearance at the Chapel Royal, next Sunday, will clinch the whole

business.”

“And he was satisfied?”

“Most satisfied; a little anxious whether his personal friends,

and particularly the Brentham family, were assured of the truth. He

travelled home with the duke’s son and Lord St. Aldegonde, but they came

from remote parts, and their news from home was not very recent.”

“And how does he look?”

“Very well; never saw him look better. He is handsomer than he was. But

he is changed. I could not conceive in a year that any one could be so

changed. He was young for his years; he is now old for his years. He

was, in fact, a boy; he is now a man; and yet it is only a year. He said

it seemed to him ten.”

“He has been through a fiery furnace,” said Apollonia.

“Well, he has borne it well,” said Mr. Giles. “It is worth while serving

such a client, so cordial, so frank, and yet so full of thought. He

says he does not in the least regret all the money he has wasted. Had he

remained at home, it would have gone to building a cathedral.”

“And a popish one!” said Apollonia. “I cannot agree with him,” she

continued, “that his Italian campaign was a waste of money. It will bear

fruit. We shall still see the end of the ‘abomination of desolation.’”

“Very likely,” said Mr. Giles; “but I trust my client will have no more

to do with such questions either way.”

“And did he ask after his friends?” said Apollonia.

“Very much: he asked after you. I think he went through all the guests

at Muriel Towers except the poor Campians. He spoke, to me about the

colonel, to whom it appears he has written; but Theodora he never

mentioned, except by some periphrasis, some allusion to a great sorrow,

or to some dear friend whom he had lost. He seems a little embarrassed

about the St. Jeromes, and said more than once that he owed his life to

Miss Arundel. He dwelt a good deal upon this. He asked also a great deal

about the Brentham family. They seem the people whom he most affects.

When I told him of Lady Corisande’s approaching union with the Duke of

Brecon, I did not think he half liked it.”

“But is it settled?”