The inhabitants of the governor's residence passed a fearful night.
Martina asked herself what sin she had committed that she, of all people,
should be picked out to witness such a disaster.
And where were her schemes of marriage now? Any movement in such heat
was indeed scarcely endurable; but she would have moved from one part of
the house to another a dozen times, and allowed herself to be tossed
hither and thither like a ball, if it could have enabled her to save her
dear "great Sesostris" from such hideous peril. And at the bottom of all
this was, no doubt, this wild, senseless business of the nuns.
And these Arabs! They simply helped themselves to whatever they fancied,
and were, of course, in a position to strip the son of the great Mukaukas
of all he possessed and reduce him to beggary. A pretty business this!
Heliodora, to be sure, had enough for both, and she and her husband
would not forget them in their will; but there was more than this in
the balance now: it was a matter of life and death.
A cold shudder ran through her at the thought; and her fears were only
too well founded: the black Arab who had come to parley with her, and had
finally allowed her to remain under this roof till next day, had told her
as much through the interpreter. A fearful, horrible, nameless
catastrophe! And that she should be in the midst of it and have
to see it all!
Then her husband, her poor Justinus! How hard this would fall on him!
She could not cease weeping; and before she fell asleep she prayed
fervently indeed, to the saints and the dear Mother of God, that they
would bring all to a happy issue. She closed her eyes on the thought:
"What a misfortune!" and she woke to it again early in the morning.
She, however, had known nothing of the worst horrors of that fatal night.
A troop of Arab soldiers had crossed the Nile at nightfall, some on foot
or on horseback and some in boats, led by Obada the Vekeel, and had
invested the governor's residence. When they had fully assured
themselves that Orion was indeed absent they took Nilus prisoner.
It was then Obada's business to inform the Mukaukas' widow of what had
happened, and to tell her that she must quit the house next day. This
must be done, because he had views of his own as to what was to become of
the venerable house of the oldest family in the country.
Neforis was still up, and when the interpreter was announced as Obada's
forerunner, she was in the fountain-room. He found her a good deal
excited; for, although she was incapable of any consecutive train of
thought and, when her mind was required to exert itself, her ideas only
came like lightning-flashes through her brain, she had observed that
something unusual was going on. Sebek and her maid had evaded her
enquiries, and would say no more than that Amru's representative had come
to speak with the young master. It seemed to be something important,
perhaps some false accusation.
The interpreter now explained that Orion himself was accused of having
planned and aided an enterprise which had cost the lives of twelve Arab
soldiers; and, as she knew, any injury inflicted even on a single Moslem
by an Egyptian was punished by death and the confiscation of his goods.
Besides this, her son was accused of a robbery.
At the close of this communication, to which Neforis listened with a
vacant stare, horrified and at last almost crushed, the interpreter
begged that she would grant the Vekeel an audience.
"Not just yet--give me a few minutes," said the widow, bringing out the
words with difficulty: first she must have recourse to her secret
specific. When she had done so, she expressed her readiness to see
Obada. Her son's swarthy foe was anxious to appear a mild and
magnanimous man in her eyes, so it was with flattering servility and many
smirking grins that he communicated to her the necessity for her quitting
the house in which she had passed the longest and happiest half of her
life, and no later than next day.
To his announcement that her private fortune would remain untouched, and
that she would be at liberty to reside in Memphis or to go to her own
house in Alexandria, she indifferently replied that "she should see."
She then enquired whether the Arabs had yet succeeded in capturing her
son.
"Not actually," replied the Vekeel. "But we know where he is hiding,
and by to-morrow or the next day we shall lay hands on the unhappy young
man."
But, as he spoke, the widow detected a malicious gleam in his eyes to
which, so far, he had tried to give a sympathetic expression, and she
went on with a slight shake of the bead: "Then it is a case of life and
death?"
"Compose yourself, noble lady," was the reply. "Of death alone."
Neforis looked up to heaven and for some minutes did not speak; then she
asked:
"And who has accused him of robbery?" "The head of his own Church....."
"Benjamin?" she murmured with a peculiar smile. Only yesterday she had
made her will in favor of the patriarch and the Church. "If Benjamin
could see that," said she to herself, "he would change his views of you
and your people, and have prayers constantly said for us."
As she spoke no more the Vekeel sat looking at her inquisitively and
somewhat at a loss, till at length she rose, and with no little dignity
dismissed him, remarking that now their business was at an end and she
had nothing further to say to him.
This closed the interview; and as the Vekeel quitted the fountain-room he
muttered to himself: "What a woman! Either she is possessed and her
brain is crazed, or she is of a rarely heroic pattern."
Neforis was supported to her own room; when she was in bed she desired
her maid to bring a small box out of her chest and place it on the little
table containing medicines by the bead of the couch.
As soon as she was alone she took out two letters which George had
written to her before their marriage, and a poem which Orion had once
addressed to her; she tried to read them, but the words danced before her
eyes, and she was forced to lay them aside. She took up a little packet
containing hair cut from the heads of her sons after death, and a lock of
her husband's. She gazed on these dear memorials with rapt tenderness,
and now the poppy juice began to take effect: the images of those
departed ones rose clear in her mind, and she was as near to them as
though they were standing in living actuality by her side.
Still holding the curls in her hand, she looked up into vacancy, trying
to apprehend clearly what had occurred within the last few hours and what
lay before her: She must leave this room, this ample couch, this house--
all, in short, that was bound up with the dearest memories of those she
had loved. She was to be forced to this--but did it beseem her to submit
to this Negro, this stranger in the house where she was mistress? She
shook her head with a scornful smile; then opening a glass phial, which
was still half-full of opium pillules, she placed a few on her tongue and
again gazed sky-wards.--Another face now looked down on her; she saw the
husband from whom not even death could divide her, and at his feet their
two murdered sons. Presently Orion seemed to rise out of the clouds, as
a diver comes up from the water, and make for the shore of the island on
which George and the other two seemed to be standing. His father opened
his arms to receive him and clasped him to his heart, while she herself
--or was it only her wraith--went to the others, who hurried forward to
greet her tenderly; and then her husband, too, met her, and she found
rest on his bosom.
For hours, and long before the incursion of the Arabs, she had been
feeling half stunned and her mind clouded; but now a delicious,
slumberous lethargy came over her, to which her whole being urged her to
yield. But every time her eyes closed, the thought of the morrow shot
through her brain, and finally, with a great effort, she sat up, took
some water--which was always close at hand--shook into it the remaining
pillules in the bottle, and drank it off to the very last drop.
Her hand was steady; the happy smile on her lips, and the eager
expression of her eyes, might have led a spectator to believe that she
was thirsty and had mixed herself a refreshing draught. She had no look
of a desperate creature laying violent hands on her own life; she felt no
hesitancy, no fear of death, no burthen of the guilt she was incurring--
nothing but ecstatic weariness and hope; blissful hope of a life without
end, united to those she loved.
Hardly had she swallowed the deadly draught when she shivered with a
sudden chill. Raising herself a little she called her maid, who was
sitting up in the adjoining room; and as the woman looked alarmed at her
mistress's fixed stare, she stammered out: "A priest--quick--I am dying."
The woman flew off to the viridarium to call Sebek, who was standing in
front of the tablinum with the Vekeel; she told him what had happened,
and the Negro gave him leave to obey his dying mistress, escorting him as
far as the gate. Just outside, the steward met a deacon who had been
giving the blessing of the Church to a poor creature dying of the
pestilence, and in a few minutes they were standing by the widow's bed.
The locks of her sons' hair lay by her side; her hands were folded over a
crucifix; but her eyes, which had been fixed on the features of the
Saviour, had wandered from it and again gazed up to Heaven.
The priest spoke her name, but she mistook him for her son and murmured
in loving accents:
"Orion, poor, poor child! And you, Mary, my darling, my sweet little
pet! Your father--yes, dear boy, only come with me.--Your father is kind
again and forgives you. All those I loved are together now, and no one--
Who can part us? Husband--George, listen. . ."
The priest performed his office, but she paid no heed, still staring
upwards; her smiling lips continued to move, but no articulate sound came
from them. At last they were still, her eyelids fell, her hands dropped
the crucifix, a slight shiver ran through her limbs, which then relaxed,
and she opened her mouth as though to draw a deeper breath. But it
closed no more, and when the faithful steward pressed her lips together
her face was rigid and her heart had ceased to beat.
The honest man sobbed aloud; when he carried the melancholy news to the
Vekeel, Obada growled out a curse, and said to a subaltern officer who
was super-intending the loading of his camels with the treasures from the
tablinum:
"I meant to have treated that cursed old woman with conspicuous
generosity, and now she has played me this trick; and in Medina they
will lay her death at my door, unless. . ."
But here he broke off; and as he once more watched the loading of the
camels, he only thought to himself: "In playing for such high stake's, a
few gold pieces more or less do not count. A few more heads must fall
yet--the handsome Egyptian first and foremost.--If the conspirators at
Medina only play their part! The fall of Omar means that of Amru, and
that will set everything right."