All Katharina's sympathy with Heliodora had died finally in the course of
the past, moonless night. She had secretly accompanied her, with her
maid and an old deaf and dumb stable-slave, to a soothsayer--for there
still were many in Memphis, as well as magicians and alchemists; and this
woman had told the young widow that her line of life led to the greatest
happiness, and that even the wildest wishes of her heart would find
fulfilment. What those wishes were Katharina knew only too well; the
probability of their accomplishment had roused her fierce jealousy and
made her hate Heliodora.
Heliodora had gone to consult the sorceress in a simple but rich dress.
Her peplos was fastened on the shoulder, not by an ordinary gold pin, but
by a button which betrayed her taste for fine jewels, as it consisted of
a sapphire of remarkable size; this had at once caught the eye of the
witch, showing her that she had to deal with a woman of rank and wealth.
She had taken Katharina, who had come very plainly dressed, for her
companion or poor friend, so she had promised her no more than the
removal of certain hindrances, and a happy life at last, with a husband
no longer young and a large family of children.
The woman's business was evidently a paying one; the interior of her
house was conspicuously superior to the wretched hovels which surrounded
it, in the poorest and most squalid part of the town. Outside, indeed,
it differed little from its neighbors; in fact; it was intentionally
neglected, to mislead the authorities, for witchcraft and the practice of
magic arts were under the penalty of death. But the fittings of the
roofless centre-chamber in which she was wont to perform her incantations
and divinations argued no small outlay. On the walls were hangings with
occult figures; the pillars were painted with weird and grewsome
pictures; crucibles and cauldrons of various sizes were simmering over
braziers on little altars; on the shelves and tables stood cups, phials,
and vases, a wheel on which a wryneck hopped up and down, wax images of
men and women--some with needles through their hearts, a cage full of
bats, and glass jars containing spiders, frogs, leeches, beetles,
scorpions, centipedes and other foul creatures; and lengthways down the
room was stretched a short rope walk, used in a Thracian form of magic.
Perfumes and pungent vapors filled the air, and from behind a curtain
which hid the performers came a monotonous music of children's voices,
bells, and dull drumming.
Medea, so the wise woman was called, though scarcely past five and forty,
harmonized in appearance with this strange habitation, full as it was of
objects calculated to rouse repulsion, dread, and amazement. Her face
was pale, and her extraordinary height was increased by a mass of coal-
black hair, curled high over a comb at the very top of her head.
At the end of the first visit paid her by the two young women, who had
taken her by surprise, so that several things were lacking which on the
second occasion proved to be very effective in the exercise of her art,
she had made Heliodora promise to return in three days' time. The young
widow had kept her word, and had made her appearance punctually with
Katharina.
To be in Egypt, the land of sorcery and the magic arts, without putting
them to the test, was impossible. Even Martina allowed this, though she
did not care for such things for herself. She was content with her lot;
and if any change for the worse were in prospect she would rather not be
tormented beforehand by a wise prophet; nor was it better to be deluded
by a foolish one. Happiness as of Heaven itself she no longer craved; it
would only have disturbed her peace. But she was the last person to
think ill of the young, whose life still lay before them, if they longed
to look into futurity.
The fair widow and her companion crossed the sorceress' threshold in some
trepidation, and Katharina was the more agitated of the two; for this
afternoon she had seen Philippus leave the house of Rufinus, and not long
after some Arab officials had called there. Paula had come into the
garden shortly before sundown, her eyes red with weeping; and when, soon
after, Pulcheria and her mother had joined her there, Paula had thrown
herself on Joanna's neck, sobbing so bitterly that the mother and
daughter--"whose tears were near her eyes"--had both followed her
example. Something serious had occurred; but when she had gone to the
house to pick up further information, old Betta, who was particularly
snappish with her, had refused her admission quite rudely.
Then, on their way hither, she and Heliodora had had a painful adventure;
the chariot, lent by Neforis to convey them as far as the edge of the
necropolis, was stopped on the way by a troop of Arab horse, and they
were subjected to a catechism by the leader.
So they entered the house of "Medea of the curls," as the common people
called the witch, with uneasy and throbbing hearts; they were received,
however, with such servile politeness that they soon recovered
themselves, and even the timid Heliodora began to breathe freely again.
The sorceress knew this time who Katharina was, and paid more respectful
attention to the daughter of the wealthy widow.
The young crescent moon had risen, a circumstance which Medea declared
enabled her to see more clearly into the future than she could do at the
time of the Luna-negers as she called the moonless night. Her inward
vision had been held in typhornian darkness at the time of their first
visit, by the influence of some hostile power. She had felt this as soon
as they had quitted her, but to-day she saw clearer. Her mind's eye was
as clear as a silver mirror, she had purified it by three days' fasting
and not a mote could escape her sight.--"Help, ye children of Horapollo!
Help, Hapi and Ye three holy ones!"
"Oh, my beauties, my beauties!" she went on enthusiastically. "Hundreds
of great dames have proved my art, but such splendid fortunes I never
before saw crowding round any two heads as round yours. Do you hear how
the cauldrons of fortune are seething? The very lids lift! Amazing,
amazing."
She stretched out her hand towards the vessels as though conjuring them
and said solemnly: "Abundance of happiness; brimming over, brimming over!
Bursting storehouses! Zefa-oo Metramao. Return, return, to the right
levels, the right heights, the right depth, the right measure! Your Elle
Mei-Measurer, Leveller, require them, Techuti, require them, double
Ibis!"
She made them both sit down on elegant seats in front of the boiling
pots, tied the "thread of Anubis" round the ring-finger of each, asked in
a low whisper between muttered words of incantation for a hair of each,
and after placing the hairs both in one cauldron she cried out with wild
vehemence, as though the weal or woe of her two visitors were involved in
the smallest omission:
"Press the finger with the thread of Anubis on your heart; fix your eyes
on the cauldron and the steam which rises to the spirits above, the
spirits of light, the great One on high!"
The two women obeyed the sorceress' directions with beating hearts, while
she began spinning round on her toes with dizzy rapidity; her curls flew
out, and the magic wand in her extended hand described a large and
beautiful curve. Suddenly, and as if stricken by terror, she stopped her
whirl, and at the same instant the lamps went out and the only light was
from the stars and the twinkling coals under the cauldrons. The low
music died away, and a fresh strong perfume welled out from behind the
curtain.
Medea fell on her knees, lifted up her hands to Heaven, threw her head so
far back that her whole face was turned up to the sky and her eyes gazed
straight up at the stars-an attitude only possible to so supple a spine.
In this torturing attitude she sang one invocation after another, to the
zenith of the blue vault over their heads, in a clear voice of fervent
appeal. Her body was thrown forward, her mass of hair no longer stood up
but was turned towards the two young women, who every moment expected
that the supplicant would be suffocated by the blood mounting to her
head, and fall backwards; but she sang and sang, while her white teeth
glittered in the starlight that fell straight upon her face. Presently,
in the midst of the torrent of demoniacal names and magic formulas that
she sang and warbled out, a piteous and terrifying sound came from behind
the curtain as of two persons gasping, sighing, and moaning: one voice
seemed to be that of a man oppressed by great anguish; the other was the
half-suffocated wailing of a suffering child. This soon became louder,
and at length a voice said in Egyptian: "Water, a drink of water."
The woman started to her feet, exclaiming: "It is the cry of the poor and
oppressed who have been robbed to enrich those who have too much already;
the lament of those whom Fate has plundered to heap you with wealth
enough for hundreds." As she spoke these words, in Greek and with much
unction, she turned to the curtain and added solemnly, but in Egyptian:
"Give drink to the thirsty; the happy ones will spare him a drop from
their overflow. Give the white drink to the wailing child-spirit, that
he may be soothed and quenched.--Play, music, and drown the lamentations
of the spirits in sorrow."
Then, turning to Heliodora's kettle she said sternly, as if in obedience
to some higher power:
"Seven gold pieces to complete the work,"--and while the young widow drew
out her purse the sorceress lighted the lamps, singing as she did so and
as she dropped the coin into the boiling fluid: "Pure, bright gold!
Sunlight buried in a mine! Holy Seven. Shashef, Shashef! Holy Seven,
marry and mingle--melt together!"
When this was done she poured out of the cauldron a steaming fluid as
black as ink, into a shallow saucer, called Heliodora to her side, and
told her what she could see in the mirror of its surface.
It was all fair, and gave none but delightful replies to the widow's
questioning. And all the sorceress said tended to confirm the young
woman's confidence in her magic art; she described Orion as exactly as
though she saw him indeed in the surface of the ink, and said he was
travelling with an older man. And lo! he was returning already; in the
bright mirror she could see Heliodora clasped in her lover's arms; and
now--it was like a picture: A stranger--not the bishop of Memphis--laid
her hand in his and blessed their union before the altar in a vast and
magnificent cathedral.
Katharina, who had been chilled with apprehensions and a thrill of awe,
as she listened to Medea's song, listened to every word with anxious
attention; what Medea said--how she described Orion--that was more
wonderful than anything else, beyond all she had believed possible. And
the cathedral in which the lovers were to be united was the church of St.
Sophia at Constantinople, of which she had heard so much.
A tight grip seemed to clutch her heart; still, eagerly as she listened
to Medea's words, her sharp ears heard the doleful gasping and whimpering
behind the hanging; and this distressed and dismayed her; her breath came
short, and a deep, torturing sense of misfortune possessed her wholly.
The wailing child-spirit within, a portion of whose joys Medea said had
been allotted to her--nay, she had not robbed him, certainly not--for who
could be more wretched than she? It was only that beautiful, languishing
young creature who was so lavishly endowed by Fortune with gifts enough
and to spare for others without number. Oh! if she could but have
snatched them from her one after another, from the splendid ruby she was
wearing to-day, to Orion's love!
She was pale and tremulous as she rose at the call of the sorceress,
after she also had offered seven gold pieces. She would gladly have
purchased annihilating curses to destroy her happier rival.
The black liquid in the saucer began to stir, and a sharply smelling
vapor rose from it; the witch blew this aside, and as soon as the murky
fluid was a little cool, and the surface was smooth and mirror-like, she
asked Katharina what she most desired to know. But the answer was
checked on her lips; a fearful thundering and roaring suddenly made the
house shake; Medea dropped the saucer with a piercing shriek, the
contents splashed up, and warm, sticky drops fell on the girl's arms and
dress. She was quite overcome with the startling horror, and Heliodora,
who could herself scarcely stand, had to support her, for she tottered
and would have fallen.
The sorceress had vanished; a half-grown lad, a young man, and a very
tall Egyptian girl in scanty attire were rushing about the room. They
flew hither and thither, throwing all the vessels they could lay hands on
into an opening in the floor from which they had lifted a trap-door;
pouring water on the braziers and extinguishing the lights, while they
drove the two strangers into a corner of the hall, rating and abusing
them. Then the lads clambered like cats up to the opening in the roof,
and sprang off and away.
A shrill whistle rang through the house, and in moment Medea burst into
the room again, clutched the two trembling women by the shoulders, and
exclaimed: "For Christ's sake, be merciful! My life is at stake Sorcery
is punishable by death. I have done my best for you. You came here--
that is what you must say--out of charity to nurse the sick." She pushed
them both behind the hanging whence they still heard feeble groans, into
a low, stuffy room, and the over-grown girl slipped in behind them.
Here, on miserable couches, lay an old man shivering, and showing dark
spots on his bare breast and face: and a child of five, whose crimson
cheeks were burning with fever.
Heliodora felt as if she must suffocate in the plague stricken, heavy
atmosphere, and Katharina clung to her helplessly; but the soothsayer
pulled her away, saying: "Each to one bed: you to the child, and you--
the old man."
Involuntarily they obeyed the woman who was panting with fright. The
water-wagtail, who never in her life thought of a sick person, turned
very sick and looked away from the sufferer; but the your widow, who had
spent many and many a night by the death-bed of a man she had loved, and
who, tender-hearted, had often tended her sick slaves with her own hand,
looked compassionately into the pretty, pain-stricken face of the child,
and wiped the dews from his clammy brow.
Katharina shuddered; but her attention was presently attracted to
something fresh; from the other side of the house came a clatter of
weapons, the door was pushed open, and the physician Philippus walked
into the room. He desired the night-watch, who were with him, to wait
outside. He had come by the command of the police authorities, to whose
ears information had been brought that there were persons sick of the
plague in the house of Medea, and that she, nevertheless, continued to
receive visitors. It had long been decided that she must be taken in the
act of sorcery, and warning had that day been given that she expected
illustrious company in the evening. The watch were to find her red-
handed, so to speak; the leech was to prove whether her house was indeed
plague-stricken; and in either case the senate wished to have the
sorceress safe in prison and at their mercy, though even Philippus had
not been taken into their confidence.
The visitors he had come upon were the last he had expected to find here.
He looked at them with a disapproving shake of the head, interrupted the
woman's voluble asseverations that these noble ladies had come, out of
Christian charity, to comfort and help the sick, with a rough
exclamation: "A pack of lies!" and at once led the coerced sick nurses
out of the house. He then represented to them the fearful risk to which
their folly had exposed them, and insisted very positively on their
returning home and, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, taking a
bath and putting on fresh garments.
With trembling knees they found their way back to the chariot; but even
before it could start Heliodora had broken down in tears, while
Katharina, throwing herself back on the cushions, thought, as she glanced
at her weeping companion: "This is the beginning of the wonderful
happiness she was promised! It is to be hoped it may continue!"
It seemed indeed as though Katharina's guardian spirit had overheard this
amiable wish; for, as the chariot drove past the guard-house into the
court-yard of the governor's house, it was stopped by armed men with
brown, warlike faces, and they had to wait some minutes till an Arab
officer appeared to enquire who they were, and what they wanted. This
they explained in fear and trembling, and they then learnt that the Arab
government had that very evening taken possession of the residence.
Orion was accused of serious crimes, and his guests were to depart on the
following day.
Katharina, who was known to the interpreter, was allowed to go with
Heliodora to the senator's wife; she might also use the chariot to return
home in, and if she pleased, take the Byzantines with her, for the palace
would be in the hands of the soldiery for the next few days.
The two young women held council. Katharina pressed her friend to come
at once to her mother's house, for she felt certain that they were
plague-stricken, and how could they procure a bath in a house full of
soldiers? Heliodora could not and must not remain with Martina in this
condition, and the senator's wife could follow her next day. Her mother,
she added, would be delighted to welcome so dear a guest.
The widow was passive, and when Martina had gladly consented to accept
the invitation of her "delivering angel," the chariot carried them to
Susannah's house. The widow had long been in bed, firmly convinced that
her daughter was asleep and dreaming in her own pretty room.
Katharina would not have her disturbed, and the bath-room was so far from
Susannah's apartment that she slept on quietly while Katharina and her
guest purified themselves.