Nilus had performed his errand well, and Rufinus was forced to admit that
Orion had done his part and had planned the enterprise with so much care
and unselfishness that his personal assistance could be dispensed with.
Under these circumstances he scarcely owed the young man a grudge for
placing himself at the service of his Byzantine friends; still, his not
coming to the house disturbed and vexed him, less on his own account, or
that of the good cause, than for Paula's sake, for her feelings towards
Orion had remained no secret to him or his wife.
Dame Joanna, indeed, felt the young man's conduct more keenly than
Rufinus; she would have been glad to withhold her husband from the
enterprise, whose dangers now appeared to her frightened soul tenfold
greater than they were. But she knew that the Nile would flow backwards
before she could dissuade him from keeping his promise to the abbess, so
she forced herself to preserve at any rate outward composure.
Before Paula, Rufinus declared that Orion was fully justified and he
loudly praised the young man's liberality in providing the Nile-boat and
the vessel for the sea-voyage, and such admirable substitutes for
himself. Pulcheria was delighted with her father's undertaking; she only
longed to go with him and help him to save her dear nuns. The ship-
builder had brought with him, besides his sons, three other Greeks of the
orthodox confession, shipwrights like himself, who were out of work in
consequence of the low ebb of the Nile, which had greatly restricted the
navigation. Hence they were glad to put a hand to such a good work,
especially as it would be profitable, too, for Orion had provided the old
man with ample funds.
As the evening grew cooler after sundown Paula had got better. She did
not, indeed, know what to think of Orion's refusal to start. First she
was grieved, then she rejoiced; for it certainly preserved him from great
perils. In the early days after his return from Constantinople she had
heard his praise of the senator's kindness and hospitality, in which the
Mukaukas, who had pleasant memories of the capital, heartily joined. He
must, of course, be glad to be able to assist those friends, of all
others; and Nilus, who was respectfully devoted to her, had greeted her
from Orion with peculiar warmth. He would come to-morrow, no doubt; and
the oftener she repeated to herself his assertion that he had never
betrayed affectionate trust, the more earnestly she felt prompted, in
spite of the abbess' counsel, to abandon all hesitancy, to follow the
impulse of her heart, and to be his at once in full and happy confidence.
The waning moon had not yet risen, and the night was very dark when the
nuns set forth. The boat was too large to come close to the shore in the
present low state of the river, and the sisters, disguised as peasant-
women, had to be carried on board one by one from the convent garden.
Last of all the abbess was to be lifted over the shallow water, and the
old ship-builder held himself in readiness to perform this service.
Joanna, Pulcheria, Perpetua, and Eudoxia, who was also zealously
orthodox, were standing round as she gave Paula a parting kiss and
whispered: "God bless thee, child!--All now depends on you, and you must
be doubly careful to abide by your promise."
"I owe him, in the first place, friendly trust," was Paula's whispered
reply, and the abbess answered: But you owe yourself firmness and
caution." Rufinus was the last; his wife and daughter clung around him
still.
"Take example from that poor girl," cried the old man, clasping his wife
in his arms. "As sure as man is the standard of all things, all must go
well with me this time if everlasting Love is not napping. Till we meet
again, best of good women!--And, if ill befalls your stupid old husband,
always remember that he brought it upon himself in trying to save a
quarter of a hundred innocent women from the worst misfortunes. At any
rate I shall fall on the road I myself have chosen.--But why has
Philippus not come to take leave of me?"
Dame Joanna burst into tears: "That-that is so hard too! What has come
over him that he has deserted us, and just now of all times? Ah,
husband! If you love me, take Gibbus with you on the voyage."
"Yes, master, take me," the hunchbacked gardener interposed. "The Nile
will be rising again by the time we come back, and till then the flowers
can die without my help. I dreamt last night that you picked a rose from
the middle of my Bump. It stuck up there like the knob on the lid of a
pot. There is some meaning in it and, if you leave me at home, what is
the good of the rose--that is to say what good will you get out of me?"
"Well then, carry your strange flower-bed on board," said the old man
laughing. "Now, are you satisfied Joanna?"
Once more he embraced her and Pulcheria and, as a tear from his wife's
eyes dropped on his hand, he whispered in her ear: "You have been the
rose of my life; and without you Eden--Paradise itself can have no joys."
The boat pushed out into the middle of the stream and was soon hidden by
the darkness from the eyes of the women on the bank.
The convent bells were soon heard tolling after the fugitives: Paula and
Pulcheria were pulling them. There was not a breath of air; not enough
even to fill the small sail of the seaward-bound boat; but the rowers
pulled with all their might and the vessel glided northward. The captain
stood at the prow with his pole; sounding the current: his brother, no
less skilled, took the helm.--The shallowness of the water made
navigation very difficult, and those who knew the river best might easily
run aground on unexpected shoals or newly-formed mud-drifts. The moon
had scarcely risen when the boat was stranded at a short distance below
Fostat, and the men had to go overboard to push it off to an
accompaniment of loud singing which, as it were, welded their individual
wills and efforts into one. Thus it was floated off again; but such
delays were not unfrequent till they reached Letopolis, where the Nile
forks, and where they hoped to steal past the toll-takers unobserved.
Almost against their expectation, the large boat slipped through under
the heavy mist which rises from the waters before sunrise, and the
captain and crew, steering down the Phatmetic branch of the river with
renewed spirit, ascribed their success to the intercession of the pious
sisters.
By daylight it was easier to avoid the sand-banks; but how narrow was the
water-way-at this season usually overflowing! The beds of papyrus on the
banks now grew partly on dry land, and their rank green had faded to
straw-color. The shifting ooze of the shore had hardened to stone, and
the light west wind, which now rose and allowed of their hoisting the
sail, swept clouds of white dust before it. In many cases the soil was
deeply fissured and wide cracks ran across the black surface, yawning to
heaven for water like thirsty throats. The water-wheels stood idle, far
away from the stream, and the fields they were wont to irrigate looked
like the threshing floors on which the crops they bore should be threshed
out. The villages and palm-groves were shrouded in shimmering mist,
quivering heat, and dazzling yellow light; and the passer-by on the
raised dykes of the shore bent his head as he dragged his weary feet
through the deep dust.
The sun blazed pitilessly in the cloudless sky, down on land and river,
and on the fugitive nuns who had spread their white head-cloths above
them for an awning and sat in dull lethargy, awaiting what might he
before them.
The water-jar passed from hand to band; but the more they drank the more
acute was their discomfort, and their longing for some other refreshment.
At meal time the dishes were returned to the tiny cabin almost untouched.
The abbess and Rufinus tried to speak comfort to them; but in the
afternoon the superior herself was overpowered by the heat, and the air
in the little cabin, to which she retired, was even less tolerable stuffy
than on deck.
Thus passed a long day of torment, the hottest that even the men could
remember; and they on the whole suffered least from it, though they
toiled at the oar without ceasing and with wonderful endurance.
At length evening fell after those fearful midday hours; and as a cool
breeze rose shortly before sunset to fan their moist brows, the hapless
victims awoke to new energies. Their immediate torment had so crushed
them that, incapable of anticipating the future, they had ceased either
to fear or to hope; but now they could rejoice in thinking of the start
they had gained over their pursuers. They were hungry and enjoyed their
evening meal; the abbess made friends with the worthy ship-wright, and
began an eager conversation with Rufinus as to Paula and Orion: Her wish
that the young man should spend a time of probation did not at all please
Rufinus; with such a wife as Paula, he could not fail to be at all times
the noble fellow which his old friend held him to be in spite of his
having remained at home.
The hump-backed gardener made the younger nuns merry with his jests, and
after supper they all united in prayer.
Even the oarsmen had found new vigor and new life; and it was well that
few of the Greek sisters understood Egyptian, for the more jovial of them
started a song in praise of the charms of the maids they loved, which was
not composed for women's ears.
The nuns chatted of those they had left behind, and many a one spoke of a
happy meeting at home once more; but an elderly nun put a stop to this,
saying that it was a sin to anticipate the ways of God's mercy, or, when
His help was still so sorely needed, to speak as though He had already
bestowed it. They could only tremble and pray, for they knew from
experience that a threatening disaster never turned to a good end unless
it had been expected with real dread.
Another one then began to speculate as to whether their pursuers could
overtake them on foot or on horseback, and as it seemed only too probable
that they could, their hearts sank again with anxiety. Ere long,
however, the moon rose; the objects that loomed on the banks and were
mirrored in the stream, were again clearly visible and lost their
terrors.
The lower down they sailed, the denser were the thickets of papyrus on
the shore. Thousands of birds were roosting there, but they were all
asleep; a "dark ness that might be felt" brooded over the silent land
scape. The image of the moon floated on the dark water, like a gigantic
lotos-flower below the smaller, fragrant lotos-blossoms that it out-did
in sheeny whiteness; the boat left a bright wake in its track, and every
stroke of the oar broke the blackness of the water, which reflected the
light in every drop. The moonlight played on the delicate tufts that
crowned the slender papyrus-stems, filmy mist, like diaphanous brocade of
violet and silver, veiled the trees; and owls that shun the day, flew
from one branch to another on noiseless, rhythmic wings.
The magic of the night fell on the souls of the nuns; they ceased
prattling; but when Sister Martha, the nightingale of the sisterhood,
began to sing a hymn the others followed her example. The sailors' songs
were hushed, and the psalms of the virgin sisters, imploring the
protection of the Almighty, seemed to float round the gliding boat as
softly as the light of the circling moon. For hours--and with increased
zeal as the comet rose in the sky--they gave themselves up to the
soothing and encouraging pleasure of singing; but one by one the voices
died away and their peaceful hymn was borne down the river to the sea, by
degrees more low, more weary, more dreamlike.
They sat looking in their laps, gazing in rapture up to heaven, or at the
dazzling ripples and the lotos flowers on the surface. No one thought of
the shore, not even the men, who had been lulled to sleep or daydreams by
the nuns' singing. The pilot's eyes were riveted on the channel--and
yet, as morning drew near, from time to time there was a twinkle, a flash
behind the reed-beds on the eastern bank, and now and then there was a
rustling and clatter there. Was it a jackal that had plunged into the
dense growth to surprise a brood of water-fowl; was it a hyena trampling
through the thicket?
The flashing, the rustling, the dull footfall on parched earth followed
the barge all through the night like a sinister, lurid, and muttering
shadow.
Suddenly the captain started and gazed eastwards.--What was that?
There was a herd of cattle feeding in a field beyond the reeds-two bulls
perhaps were sharpening their horns. The river was so low, and the banks
rose so high, that it was impossible to see over them. But at this
moment a shrill voice spoke his name, and then the hunchback whispered in
his ear:
"There--over there--it is glittering again.--I will bite off my own nose
if that is not--there, again. Merciful God! I am not mistaken.
Harness--and there, that is the neighing of a horse; I know the sound.
The east is growing grey. By all the saints, we are pursued!"
The captain looked eastwards with every sense alert, and after a few
minutes silence he said decidedly "Yes."
"Like a flight of quail for whom the fowler spreads his net," sighed the
gardener; but the boatman impatiently signed to him to be quiet, and
gazed cautiously on every side. Then he desired Gibbus to wake Rufinus
and the shipwrights, and to hide all the nuns in the cabin.
"They will be packed as close as the dates sent to Rome in boxes,"
muttered the gardener, as he went to call Rufinus. "Poor souls, their
saints may save them from suffocation; and as for me, on my faith, if it
were not that Dame Joanna was the very best creature on two legs, and if
I had not promised her to stick to the master, I would jump into the
water and try the hospitality of the flamingoes and storks in the reeds!
We must learn to condescend!"
While he was fulfilling his errand, the captain was exchanging a few
words with his brother at the helm. There was no bridge near, and that
was well. If the horsemen were indeed in pursuit of them, they must ride
through the water to reach them; and scarcely three stadia lower down,
the river grew wider and ran through a marshy tract of country; the only
channel was near the western bank, and horsemen attempting to get to it
ran the risk of foundering in the mud. If the boat could but get as far
as that reach, much would be gained.
The captain urged the men to put forth all their strength, and very soon
the boat was flying along under the western shore, and divided by an oozy
flat from the eastern bank. Day was breaking, and the sky was tinged red
as with blood--a sinister omen that this morning was destined to witness
bitter strife and gaping wounds.
The seed sown by Katharina was beginning to grow. At the bishop's
request the Vekeel had despatched a troop of horse in pursuit of the
nuns, with orders to bring the fugitives back to Memphis and take their
escort prisoners. As the boat had slipped by the toll watch unperceived,
the Arabs had been obliged to divide, so as to follow down each arm of
the Nile. Twelve horsemen had been told off to pursue the Phasmetic
branch; for by every calculation these must suffice for the capture of a
score or so of nuns, and a handful of sailors would scarcely dare to
attempt to defend themselves. The Vekeel had heard nothing of the
addition to the party of the ship-master and his sons.
The pursuers had set out at noon of the previous day, and had overtaken
the vessel about two hours before daylight. But their leader thought it
well to postpone the attack till after sunrise, lest any of the fugitives
should escape. He and his men were all Arabs, and though well acquainted
with the course of that branch of the river which they were to follow,
they were not familiar with its peculiarities.
As soon as the morning star was invisible, the Moslems performed their
devotions, and then rushed out of the papyrus-beds. Their leader, making
a speaking trumpet of his hand, shouted to the boat his orders to stop.
He was commissioned by the governor to bring it back to Fostat. And the
fugitives seemed disposed to obey, for the boat lay to. The captain had
recognized the speaker as the captain of the watch from Fostat, an
inexorable man; and now, for the first time, he clearly understood the
deadly peril of the enterprise. He was accustomed, no doubt, to evade
the commands of his superiors, but would no more have defied them than
have confronted Fate; and he at once declared that resistance was
madness, and that there was no alternative but to yield. Rufinus,
however, vehemently denied this; he pointed out to him that the same
punishment awaited him, whether he laid down his arms or defended
himself, and the old ship-wright eagerly exclaimed:
"We built this boat, and I know you of old, Setnau; You will not turn
Judas--and, if you do, you know that Christian blood will be shed on this
deck before we can show our teeth to those Infidels."
The captain, with all the extravagant excitability of his southern blood,
beat his forehead and his breast, bemoaned himself as a betrayed and
ruined man, and bewailed his wife and children. Rufinus, however, put an
end to his ravings. He had consulted with the abbess, and he put it
strongly to the unhappy man that he could, in any case, hope for no mercy
from the unbelievers; while, on Christian ground, he would easily find a
safe and comfortable refuge for himself and his family. The abbess would
undertake to give them all a passage on board the ship that was awaiting
her, and to set them on shore wherever he might choose.
Setnau thought of a brother living in Cyprus; still, for him it meant
sacrificing his house and garden at Doomiat, where, at this very hour,
fifty date-palms were ripening their fruit; it meant leaving the fine new
Nile-boat by which he and his family got their living; and as he
represented this to the old man, bitter tears rolled down his brown
cheeks. Rufinus explained to him that, if he should succeed in saving
the sisters, he might certainly claim some indemnification. He might
even calculate the value of his property, and not only would he have the
equivalent paid to him out of the convent treasure, now on board in heavy
coffers, but a handsome gift into the bargain.
Setnau exchanged a meaning glance with his brother, who was a single man,
and when it was also agreed that he, too, might embark on the sea-voyage
he shook hands with Rufinus on the bargain. Then, giving himself a
shake, as if he had thrown off something that cramped him, and sticking
his leather cap knowingly on one side of his shaven head, he drew himself
up to his full height and scornfully shouted back to the Arab--who had
before now treated him and other Egyptian natives with insolent
haughtiness--that if he wanted anything of him he might come and fetch
it.
The Moslem's patience was long since exhausted, and at this challenge he
signed to his followers and sprang first into the river; but the foremost
horses soon sank so deep in the ooze that further advance was evidently
impossible, and the signal to return was perforce given. In this
manoeuvre a refractory horse lost his footing, and his rider was choked
in the mud.
On this, the men in the boat could see the foe holding council with
lively gesticulations, and the captain expressed his fears lest they
should give up all hope of capturing the boat, and ride forward to
Doomiat to combine with the Arab garrison to cut off their further
flight. But he had not reckoned on the warlike spirit of these men,
who had overcome far greater difficulties in twenty fights ere this.
They were determined to seize the boat, to take its freight prisoners,
and have them duly punished.
Six horsemen, among them the leader of the party, were now seen to
dismount; they tied their horses up, and then proceeded to fell three
tall palms with their battle-axes; the other five went off southwards.
These, no doubt, were to ride round the morass, and ford the river at a
favorable spot so as to attack the vessel from the west, while the others
tried to reach it from the east with the aid of the palm-trunks.
On the right, or eastern shore, where the Arabs were constructing the
raft, spread solid ground-fields through which lay the road to Doomiat;
on the other shore, near which the boat was lying, the bog extended for a
long way. An interminable jungle of papyrus, sedge, and reeds, burnt
yellow by the heat of the sun and the extraordinary drought, covered
almost the whole of this parched and baked wilderness; and, when a stiff
morning breeze rose from the northeast, the captain was inspired with a
happy thought. The five men who had ridden forward would have to force
their way through the mass of scorched and dried up vegetation. If the
Christians could but set fire to it, on the further side of a canal which
must hinder their making a wide sweep to the north, the wind would carry
it towards the enemy; and, they would be fortunate if it did not stifle
them or compel them to jump into the river, where, when the flames
reached the morass, they must inevitably perish.
As soon as the helmsman's keen eyes had made sure, from the mast-head,
that the Arabs had forded the river at a point to the south, they set
fire to several places and it roared and flared up immediately. The wind
swept it southwards, and with it clouds of pale grey smoke through which
the rising sun shot shafts of light. The flames writhed and darted over
the baked earth like gigantic yellow and orange lizards, here shooting
upwards, there creeping low. Almost colorless in the ardent daylight,
they greedily consumed everything they approached, and white ashes marked
their track. Their breath added to the heat of the advancing day; and
though the smoke was borne southwards by the wind, a few cloudlets came
over to the boat, choking the sisters and their deliverers.
A large vessel now came towards them from Doomiat and found the narrow
channel barred by the other one. The captain was related to Setnau, and
when Setnau shouted to him that they were engaged in a struggle with Arab
robbers, his friend followed his advice, turned the boat's head with
considerable difficulty, and cast anchor at the nearest village to warn
other vessels southward bound not to get themselves involved in so
perillous an adventure. Any that were coming north would be checked by
the fire and smoke.
The six horsemen left on the eastern shore beheld the spreading blaze
with rage and dismay; however, they had by this time bound the palm-
trunks together, and were preparing by their aid to inflict condign
punishment on the refractory Christians. These, meanwhile, had not been
idle. Every man on board was armed, and one of the ship-wrights was sent
on shore with a sailor, to steal through the reeds, ford the river at a
point lower down and, as soon as the Arabs put out to the attack, to
slaughter their horses, or--if one of them should be left to go forward
on the road to Doomiat--to drag him from his steed.
The six men now laid hold of the slightly-constructed float, on which
they placed their bows and quivers; they pushed it before them, and it
supported them above the shallow water, while their feet only just
touched the oozy bottom. They were all thorough soldiers, true sons of
the desert and of their race--men whom nature seemed to have conceived
as a counterpart to the eagle, the master-piece of the winged creation.
Keen-eyed, strongly-knit though small-boned, bereft of every fibre of
superfluous flesh on their sinewy limbs, with bold brown faces and
sharply-cut features, suggesting the king of birds not merely by the
aquiline nose, they had also the eagle's courage, thirst for blood, and
greed of victory.
Each held on to the raft by one lean, wiry arm, carrying on the other the
round bucklers on which the arrows that came whistling from the boat,
fell and stuck as soon as they were within shot. They ground their white
teeth with fury and nothing within ken escaped their bright hawk's eyes.
They had come to fight, even if the boat had been defended by fifty
Egyptian soldiers instead of carrying a score or so of sailors and
artisans. Their brave hearts felt safe under their shirts of mail, and
their ready, fertile brains under their brazen helmets; and they marked
the dull rattle of the arrows against their metal shields with elation
and contempt. To deal death was the wish of their souls; to meet it
caused them no dread; for their glowing fancy painted an open Paradise
where beautiful women awaited them open-armed, and brimming goblets
promised to satisfy every desire.
Their keen ears heard their captain's whispered commands; when they
reached the ship's side, one caught hold of the sill of the cabin window,
their leader, as quick as thought, sprang on to his shoulders, and from
thence on to the deck, thrusting his lance through the body of a sailor
who tried to stop him with his axe. A second Arab was close at his
heels; two gleaming scimitars flashed in the sun, the shrill, guttural,
savage war-cry of the Moslems rent the air, and the captain fell, the
first victim to their blood-thirsty fury, with a deep cut across the face
and forehead; in a moment, however, a heavy spar sang through the air
down on the head of the Moslem leader and laid him low. The helmsman,
the brother of the fallen pilot, had wielded it with the might of the
avenger.
A fearful din, increased by the shrieks and wailing of the nuns, now
filled the vessel. The second Arab dealt death on all sides with the
courage and strength of desperation, and three of his fellows managed to
climb up the boat's side; but the last man was pushed back into the
water. By this time two of the shipwrights and five sailors had fallen.
Rufinus was kneeling by the captain, who was crying feebly for help,
bleeding profusely, though not mortally wounded. Setnau had spoken with
much anxiety of his wife and children, and Rufinus, hoping to save his
life for their sakes, was binding up the wounds, which were wide and
deep, when suddenly a sabre stroke came down on the back of his head and
neck, and a dark stream of blood rushed forth. But he, too, was soon
avenged: the old shipwright hewed down his foe with his heavy axe. On
the eastern shore, meanwhile, the men charged to kill the Arabs' horses
were doing their work, so as to prevent any who might escape from
returning to Fostat, or riding forward to Doormat and reporting what had
occurred.
On board silence now prevailed. All five Arabs were stretched on the
deck, and the insatiate boatmen were dealing a finishing stroke to those
who were only wounded. A sailor, who had taken refuge up a mast, could
see how the other five horsemen had plunged into the bog to avoid the
fire and had disappeared beneath the waters; so that none of the Moslems
had escaped alive--not even that one which Fate and romance love to save
as a bearer of the disastrous tidings.
By degrees the nuns ventured out on deck again.
Those who were skilled in tending the wounded gathered round them, and
opened their medicine cases; as they proceeded on their voyage, under the
guidance of the steersman, they had their hands full of work and the zeal
they gave to it mitigated the torment of the heat.
The bodies of the five Moslems and eight Christians--among these, two of
the Greek ship-wrights--were laid on the shore in groups apart, in the
neighborhood of a village; in the hand of one of them the abbess placed a
tablet with this inscription:
"These eight Christians met their death bravely fighting to defend a
party of pious and persecuted believers. Pray for them and bury them as
well as those who, in obedience to their duty and their commander, took
their lives."
Rufinus, lying with his head on the gardener's knee, and sheltered from
the sun under the abbess' umbrella, presently recovered his senses;
looking about him he said to himself in a low voice, as he saw the
captain lying by his side:
"I, too, had a wife and a dear child at home, and yet--Ah! how this
aches! We may well do all we can to soothe such pain. The only reality
here below is not pleasure, it is pain, vulgar, physical pain; and though
my head burns and aches more than enough.--Water, a drink of water.--How
comfortable I could be at this moment with my Joanna, in our shady house.
--But yet, but yet--we must heal or save, it is all the same, any who
need it.--A drink--wine and water, if it is to be had, worthy Mother!"
The abbess had it at hand; as she put the cup to his lips she spoke her
warm and effusive thanks, and many words of comfort; then she asked him
what she could do for him and his, when they should be in safety.
"Love them truly," he said gently. "Pul will certainly never be quite
happy till she is in a convent. But she must not leave her mother--she
must stay with her; Joanna-Joanna. . . ."
He repeated the name several times as if the sound pleased his ear and
heart. Then he shuddered again and again, and muttered to himself:
"Brrr!--a cold shiver runs all over me--it is of no use!--The cut in my
shoulder.--It is my head that hurts worst, but the other--it is bad luck
that it should have fallen on the left side. And yet, no; it is best so;
for if he--if it had damaged my right shoulder I could not write, and
I must--I must-before it is too late. A tablet and stylus; quick, quick!
And when I have written, good mother, close the tablet and seal it--close
and tight. Promise! Only one person may read it, he to whom it must go.
--Gibbus, do you hear, Gibbus?--It is for Philippus the leech. Take it
to him.--Your dream about a rose on your hump, if I read rightly, means
that peace and joy in Heaven blossom from our misery on earth.--Yes, to
Philippus. And listen my old school friend Christodorus, a leech too,
lives at Doomiat. Take my body to him--mind me now? He is to pack it
with sand which will preserve it, and have it buried by the side of my
mother at Alexandria. Joanna and the child--they can come and visit me
there. I have not much to leave; whatever that may cost. . . ."
"That is my affair, or the convent's," cried the abbess.
"Matters are not so bad as that," said the old man smiling. "I can pay
for my own share of the business; your revenue belongs to the poor, noble
Mother.--You will find more than enough in this wallet, good Gibbus. But
now, quick, make haste--the tablets."
When he had one in his hand, and a stylus for writing with, he thought
for some time, and then wrote with trembling fingers, though exerting all
his strength. How acutely he was suffering could be seen in his drawn
mouth and sad eyes, but he would not allow himself to be interrupted,
often as the abbess and the gardener entreated him to lay aside the
stylus. At last, with a deep sigh of relief, he closed the tablets,
handed them to the abbess, and said:
"There! Close it fast.--To Philippus the physician; into his own hand:
You hear, Gibbus?"
Here he fainted; but after they had bathed his forehead and wounds he
came to himself, and softly murmured: "I was dreaming of Joanna and the
poor child. They brought me a comic mask. What can that mean? That I
have been a fool all my life for thinking of other folks' troubles and
forgetting myself and my own family? No, no, no! As surely as man is
the standard of all things--if it were so, then, then folly would be
truth and right.--I, I--my desire--the aim to which my life was
devoted......"
He paused; then he suddenly raised himself, looked up with a bright light
in his eyes, and cried aloud with joy: "O Thou, most merciful Saviour!
Yes, yes--I see it all now. I thank thee--All that I strove for and
lived for, Thou, my Redeemer who art Love itself--Ah how good, how
comforting to think of that!--It is for this that Thou grantest me
to die!"
Again he lost consciousness; his head grew very hot, his breath came
hoarsely and his parched lips, though frequently moistened by careful
hands, could only murmur the names of those he loved best, and among them
that of Paula.
At about five hours after noon he fell back on the hunchback's knees; he
had ceased to suffer. A happy smile lighted up his features, and in
death the old man's calm face looked like that of a child.
The gardener felt as though he had lost his own father, and his lively
tongue remained speechless till he entered Doormat with the rescued
sisters, and proceeded to carry out his master's last orders. The
abbess' ship took the wounded captain Setnau on board, with his wife, his
children, his brother the steersman, and the surviving ship-wrights.
At the very hour when Rufinus closed his eyes, the town-watch of Memphis,
led by Bishop Plotinus, appeared to claim the Melchite convent of St.
Cecilia, and all the possessions of the sisterhood, in the name of the
patriarch and the Jacobite church. Next morning the bishop set out for
Upper Egypt to make his report to the prelate.
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He was made to be plundered
Old age no longer forgets; it is youth that has a short memory