Book the First: THE SEEKING (continued 2)

Paule bent his small wrinkled head upon its fleshless neck, and answered placidly:

"Jew of Alexandria, marvellous is thy probity! Wilt thou accept at our hands shelter and nourishment?"

Hazaël glared at Paule with bloodshot eyes, and angrily answered:

"Monk of Scete! I require from you neither compliments, nor anything else. There is a spring beneath some date-palms a bowshot from your monastery. There I and my companions will encamp, unless the trees are yours?"

Paule smiled and said, shaking his bald head:

"Like the crystal water, the fruitful trees belong to none save Him Who made them. Rest there, and to-morrow at the second hour come to me for news of the child!"

That night, whilst the Saracens sacrificed a black-and-white goat in honour of their Moon goddess and to propitiate the Afrits of Scete, Hazaël went apart into a solitary place in the wilderness and prayed to the God of his forefather Abraham. All night he prayed, kneeling with his forehead lifted to the sky, or lying prone with his face in the dust of humiliation. Then, remembering that when Joseph the Zaphenath-Päanea was borne in the second chariot in the royal procession of Pharaoh, the precious images of the false gods of Egypt figured in these displays; and that Joseph, in exercising vigilance over the goods of Pharaoh, was obliged to watch over and faithfully preserve these idols, he rose up and shook the sand of the Desert from his beard and robe.

At the second hour of the day he went to the Monastery. The millstones had been removed from before the door, as for an honoured guest. He beat upon the shield. Bolts groaned in their grooves of stone, and the small but heavy gate swung back upon its hinges, showing a courtyard within a square wall, set about with small cells built of rough stones and roofed with reeds. Date-palms and fig-trees, with a few olives were growing in a grassy enclosure about a stone-curbed well, over which was a wheel with a windlass, chain and bucket. Upon the threshold of the gate was Paule, tall, emaciated and with strangely luminous eyes, standing surrounded by a group of other monks in similar coarse brown habits. The Sacrifice was over, the board was beaten to summon the brethren to the refectory, as Hazaël, frowning, stooped almost double to pass under the squat archway of the gate. But as he rose to his great height the boy Florens came running to him with so noticeable a return of health and vigour, that the Jew could not repress an exclamation of surprise. As Florens caught at his arm, and raised towards the swarthy lips a face all fresh and smiling, framed in fair locks on which light drops of pure water hung glittering, Hazaël asked, looking keenly into the clear eyes:

"What have these monks done to thee?"

The child frowned with an effort of recollection, and said, pulling at a silken cord that now hung about his neck:

"Abbot Paule has given me a silver medal, and also a new name. I am now called Mark!"

At which Hazaël, seeing that the medal bore the Image of the Crucified, and a reverse of the great Apostle of Christian Alexandria; and comprehending that the drops on those golden hairs were the lustral waters of baptism, thrust the boy violently from him. He turned red and said reproachfully:

"Why are you always angry with me now?"

That night the caravan left Scete. Travelling southwards they came before dawn to the camel-route running between the Oasis of Ammon and the Nile, and thenceforward followed it to the east.

Leaving the camels and the Saracens to await them at Memphis, the two Jews with the boy entered the sailing-vessel of some Coptish sailors, who for a certain sum conveyed them up the river to Tabenna. This place, the boatmen told the boy, was once Taben-Isi, the City of Isis. The religious house ruled by Abba Pachomius was built of great stones which had once formed part of the ancient temples. Thirteen hundred monks of the tonsure were under Pachomius in the Monastery of Tabenna; and in the mountains of that region were many other monasteries and nunneries, also seven thousand hermits, following their several Rules in their own cells, there waging war against the world, the flesh and Satan; or living in tombs and caves after the method of the Athlete of Christ.

"Who is the Athlete of Christ?" the child asked the boatmen.

The Copts looked at the Jews, and observing that Hazaël listened, they were troubled, because they were Christians. But Hazaël said to them:

"Speak without fear. As the Most High lives, I will not betray you! This is a Christian child, my master's son, I carry to the monks."

Then the boatmen told of the deeds of Christ's great servant, the Egyptian, who had been born of wealthy parents near Aphroditopolis, and upon their death inheriting their lands and wealth, had given all to the poor, crossed the River, and became a Solitary; living first in an empty tomb in a burial-place hewn by the ancients out of the mountain, being supplied by a peasant man who visited him, with bread, salt and water, weaving ropes of palm-leaves and sleeping on the bare ground.

"Here," said the master of the boat, "the Adversary appeared to this holy man tempting him; and devils, sent by the lord of devils, assailed him with execrations and blows, whilst apparitions continually beset him, in the shape of lions, wolves, hyænas, serpents and other reptiles—which he banished by the power of the Word. Then, still a young man, he went out alone into the Desert and there lived in a ruined temple that was in the mountains above Panopolis for more than twenty years. In time his fame drew all the monks that were then in Egypt, and great folks and the curious, and those who were sick."

"And," said the other Copt, "when the Saint would not show himself to them, they lifted the gate out of its hinges, threw themselves down on their faces, and supplicated: 'Man of God, come forth!' And when he came, he seemed to those that had known him, as young as when he had entered. His look converted, his touch healed, his speech was exceedingly wonderful. And in the might of the grace that was given them, the monks reared a great Monastery near Panopolis that they might live there in holiness and be ruled by this Blessed One. But sixteen years ago he withdrew himself by the Desert of Arabia into the upper fastnesses of the mountain called Derhor, leaving another to be their Abba and spiritual guide. Since when, all here is quiet, though of old, even to men passing in their vessels on the river, the sound of great tumult and hideous outcries used to come down from the rocky eyrie where this eagle of God had made his nest. In the time of the first Persecution of the Christians by the Emperor, he descended from his mountain and went down to Alexandria to minister to the Confessors in prison there. He wished, they say, for martyrdom, but it was denied him. This very year, before the grapes and mulberries were ripe—when the Roman soldiers came to Tabenna, and the monks withstood them with boiling pitch and scalding water—they had sight of the Saint again!"

"His white hair and beard clothed him," the master of the vessel continued, "like a fleece newly bleached. He stayed but a few hours with the monks at Tabenna. Then he came down to the banks of the river, made the Sign of the Cross, lifted up his arms and sang a psalm, both powerfully and sweetly:

We have no knowledge that any one ferried him over, and whether angels conveyed him we are not able to say! But almost immediately he was seen continuing his journey to Alexandria upon the further bank!"

Hazaël broke out, forgetting his profession of tolerance: "Surely you saw this Athlete, who in three strides can traverse the distance between the Red Sea and the Thebaïd, separate the waters with his staff like the Lawgiver of Israel, and pass dryshod through their midst! Or perhaps he walked on the surface like the Nazarene Prophet, who was skilled in theurgy, and did many wonderful things?"

The Copts were silent and exchanged glances. But now the Monastery of Tabenna appeared in the distance, seated upon the skirts of the mountains, amidst groves of palms and olives, reaching to the river's brink. A great cemetery was near it, with many tombs both old and recent. A boat rowed by Egyptians, carrying a bier, with a corpse swathed and bound with garlands of bay-leaves and myrtle, and surrounded by mourners, now crossed the bows of the sailing-vessel and pulled for the Tabenna shore. Monks in black robes, with a cross-bearer and a boy-novice carrying a thurible waited at the landing-steps to take charge of the body, which was that of a Christian desirous of being interred in the cemetery's consecrated earth. As with the chanting of a hymn, the bier was lifted from the boat and raised on the shoulders of four of the brethren, the vessel containing the Jews and the son of Philoremus, touched the land. The monks moved on, carrying the bier, the mourners followed, and the strangers brought up the rear.

VIII

Seen in the distance the great Monastery of Tabenna was not unlike an Egyptian temple set between the mountain's rocky knees. So great was it that the sight of its fortress-like exterior inspired astonishment. Without the house were fields, gardens and orchards, and the Monastery, built four-square, contained a cruciform Church, a huge refectory where all the monks ate together; a school, a library, and a vast warren of cells where the monks dwelt, illuminated by little windows looking on the inner courtyard. Seats were their beds, for their Rule prevented them from taking their rest lying down: they wore sandals of hemp, coarse habits of black wool with leather cinctures, and skull-caps without nap, worked with a purple cross. The Abbot Pachomius was so bowed with the weight of years, that the upper part of his body was bent into a half-circle, and his face looked out from the middle of his breast. So many and so deep were the furrows upon that countenance—Time might have used it as a sailing-chart. Yet so kindly a smile beautified its ugliness, that the boy went to the Abbot without fear. The faithfulness of Hazaël in carrying out so strictly the commands of his dead master, while he would not even permit himself to enter the Monastery filled Pachomius of Tabenna, as it had Paule of Scete, with admiration of the man.

He said, having received the message of the martyred Prætor from the Jew,—whom he received in the inner courtyard, under a giant baobab that towered above the lofty walls of the building:

"It shall be said of you, O Hazaël, son of Hazaël, paraphrasing the saying of the Master: 'You entered not in yourself, but him who would enter you hindered not!' Verily to one who hath proved himself so faithful in this matter, much shall be given by Him one day."

"All that I require," replied Hazaël, "is a writing acknowledging the delivery of the boy to your safe keeping, and the receipt of these valuable jewels which I now place in your hands. They are to defray the cost of Florens' living and instruction, and the accounts of the rent of the vineyards of Kir Saba, the boy's inheritance, I will render when once in every third year I visit him in this place."

"If it be the will of God, friend," interposed the Abbot gently, "for death spares not even the just."

"Should the Holy One, blessed be He! sever my cord and cause the vessel of my life to be shivered on the well-stones," returned Hazaël imperturbably, "a kinsman will discharge the duty in my stead. Or my son Levi when he attains the years of discretion. Or the son of Levi, possibly."

"By the time thy Levi's son was ripe enough to undertake the business," said Pachomius smiling, as he seated himself on a stone bench beneath the shadow of the great baobab, and stroked the fair hair of the boy who stood beside him; "this little Roman might be a father also!"

"He is to follow his desire, whether he wishes to become a monk or a soldier," returned the Jew, who had declined the Abbot's previous invitation to be seated on the stone bench under the towering baobab. He delivered his master's message concerning the black onyx, and continued: "And now give me this writing of acknowledgment, for I must go upon my way."

The Abbot drew from a leathern wallet at his girdle some squares of papyrus, and said as he took a writing-reed and an inkhorn from a shabby palm-wood case:

"Of eating meat I say to thee nothing. But wouldst thou depart without breaking bread or tasting wine in the house of the Master?"

Hazaël answered, drawing down his black brows and scowling at the Abbot:

"A Christian is a Christian, and a Jew is a Jew!"

Pachomius returned the smouldering fire of the glance with a look of mildness.

"The First of all the Christians was the greatest of all the Jews."

The dark face sneered, and the whites of the black eyes glittered as the strong teeth flashed under Hazaël's tangled beard. Pachomius added:

"Yet in the days of your youth, were you not nourished by a Christian?"

"In those days my master worshipped Jupiter and the other gods of the Romans," said the deep voice out of the thicket of tangled black curls. "If the camel that bore the beam that killed my father, Rab Shemuel, had belonged to a Pagan idolater, I would, in revenge of the mockery wherewith that camel-driver mocked my father, have hated the Pagans, as I hate Christians to this day!"

"So that is the bitter reason of thy virulence!"

Pachomius, seated on the stone bench, had finished the receipt in rounded Coptic writing, and scattered upon it a pinch of sand. He was now waving the square of papyrus gently in the air to dry it. Hazaël went on, standing upright in the sun-blaze, with his shortened shadow squatting like a negro at his feet:

"The reason! And from the cup of my bitterness since manhood came to me, many Christians have drunk death! Now it is clear to you why I accept no seat under a Christian roof, O Pachomius!"

The Abbot's mild eyes looked out of the midst of the many wrinkles, without resentment, only seeing the indomitable honesty of this man. The quiet voice said:

"You were Chief Secretary to Philoremus the Prætor of Taxes. It was easy for you ... I understand! Had you acquaintance with Arius the Heretic?" ...

The deep answer came:

"Monk, I know Arius the Presbyter. And I have aided that treacherous and ambitious priest to encompass his ends,—for the serving of my own, that were righteous in the eyes of Israel!"

"Was it then your aim to destroy your benefactor?"

The question shot like an arrow to the mark. A dark flush rose beneath the swarthy skin, and the mouth under the forest of black tangled hair underwent a grim convulsion.

"The Lord on High knoweth that it was not! For though I was well aware my master went secretly forth in a habit like that of the Parabolani, yet to mingle with the people in various disguises had ever been his secret whim. It was not until I returned from a journey into Palestine that—" he choked—"that I learned the Accusers had testified against him—that I found him a prisoner under guard beneath his own roof—with the seal of the Military Governor upon his door!"

Pachomius regarded the speaker with compassion. He said:

"It may not then be known to you that Arius accused the Prætor in a letter sent to the Prefect of Alexandria purporting to plead on behalf of Christians outlawed by Maximianus. 'For,' said he, 'O Mettius Rufus! if Christianity be a crime, first banish it from your public tribunals. How long is it since your Prætor of Taxes has administered oaths to the public without burning incense, and invoking the Sabine deity? The Prætor's Chief Secretary, Aben Hazaël, the Jew, might be able to throw light upon this question. Indeed, it was from him I gathered these interesting facts!'"

A strange sound issued from the twisted mouth of the hearer.

"O poisonous serpent! Unclean, slavering hound! ... And my master knew of this?"

"Knew, but would not believe that you could be guilty of treachery. Did not Philoremus receive you as cordially as of old?"

The blazing eyes under the fierce black brows were suddenly veiled with water. Hazaël stammered as the heavy drops fell and glittered on his beard:

"He opened his arms to me as a father! ... He trusted me with his flesh and blood, and all the State had left to him.... He never gave me to suspect by a word or even a sign.... Give me that paper you have in your hand, for I am in haste to begone from here. I have yet another errand to carry out for him!"

He struck his staff deep into the sand, took the papyrus, cleared his bleared vision with a sweep of his hairy wrist, and read the monk's receipt. Then he stowed it in a wallet hidden within the bosom of his robe, grasped his staff and looked round as though seeking for something. The boy, who had strayed some distance away during the conversation, was standing before a row of pens containing the pets of the Monastery. Some guinea-fowls, with knobs of horn upon their beaks, and blue fleshy lappets upon the sides of their heads; a large brown-and-white eagle, chained to a perch, who observed his surroundings with half-veiled, ruby-coloured eyes, and a pair of graceful gazelles, brought from the Arabian Desert, enraptured Florens:

"Can they be mine? ... Shall one of them be mine?" he asked breathlessly. Then as the shadow of Hazaël darkened the enclosure, and the Jew's hand closed upon his arm: "You took away the other," the child said with a quivering lip, "and told Ephraim to kill it for supper. But you cannot take away either of these, because they belong to the monks!"

"Even as you do, from this time forth," said Hazaël, with an attempt at pleasantry. "So send a kiss by me to my wife, whom you wept so much to part with—and another to the playmate Levi—and another to little Leah—whom you love best of all!"

Then as the boy hung shyly back, estranged by recent harshness, he caught him roughly to his breast, kissed him, pricking his soft cheeks with the rough beard, and set him down again. The gazelles instantly absorbed him: Hazaël was completely forgotten: or else with the mimetic instinct of the child, Florens feigned forgetfulness.

Then the Jew looked round from his great height for the crooked little figure of the Abbot. Pachomius was standing under the wide-spreading branches of the baobab, with his crossed arms hidden by his wide, loose black sleeves, and his eyes closed as though in prayer. He opened them as suddenly as though he had been touched, and said, as though replying to a question of Hazaël's:

"He whom you design to seek out is in the inner fastness of Mount Attaka, below the dome called Derhor. Take a swift camel with bread, dates and water and a Saracen to guide thee and lead the beast. Follow the Desert to the North for the space of three days.... Climb the path over the Mountains and traverse the Great Valley of the Chariots of Pharaoh towards the rising of the sun. Cross the torrent-beds, and follow the pilgrim-way that leads north over the skirts of the mountains, the Gulf of Heroöpolis being upon thy right. Then pursue the pass that ascends to the west. This summit is the gate of the Outer Mountain, where thou wilt find a spring, with palms, a corn-patch and a garden-plot. This is the garden of the Athlete of Christ, who first broke the ground and tilled it, sowing lentils and vegetables. And though at first wild animals destroyed the crops when they came to drink water, he bade them cease from doing harm in the Name of the Lord! and the creatures obeyed the voice of His Saint. Take what you need of the growing things, they are there for the use of the Blessed One—and the comfort of those pilgrims who from near and far resort to him."

Hazaël saluted Pachomius and said:

"Of the water I shall drink, for the Most High caused it to spring in the midst of the wilderness. But of the vegetables I will not take, for the reason that you know. Farewell!"

"Stay!" said Pachomius with sudden, unexpected energy, "for I have more to say to thee, who art just and unjust, generous and revengeful, savage as a leopard, and faithful as a hound. Hear, thou that consumest the children of Christ in the flame of thy hatred for the man that killed thy father! If thou wouldst pierce the fastnesses of the Holy Mountain and attain speech with its Saint,—be not tempted to turn aside by the sight of gold or beauty! And forget not that to him who endures all things in patience, the Gate of Hope will open at last!"

"'The Gate of Hope!' Who spoke to thee—who has told thee?" Hazaël stammered, growing livid beneath his swarthy skin.

But the Abbot made no reply. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving, as in fervent but inaudible prayer. Some time had elapsed after the tall gaunt figure of the Jew had crossed the courtyard threshold, when the eyes of radiant light reopened in the brown mask of wrinkles, and the Abbot of Tabenna sighed, and rose upon his feet.

"O Keeper of the Secrets of Heaven, and Conqueror of Satan!" he said. "How clearly thy voice came to me but now, speaking at the inner ear. And Thou, O Lord my God! how marvellous are Thy dispensations! Thy Wisdom, how measureless, like the Eternity that sprang from It...."

He made the Sign of the Cross upon his brow, lips and breast, as the board was beaten that called the brethren to the church for recitation of the Second Office. Later he ascended the wall that made a fortress of the Monastery; and looked upon the wide Nile, flowing north-westwards between its borders of fertile land and the sterile sands of the desert, studded with perishing cities and the crumbling ruins of temples; mysterious labyrinths, petrified forests; banks of shells and seaweed, coral and bleached bones of monstrous creatures that bred in the primæval slime before the sea was separated from the land, and their Maker created Man.

The sun of early noon beat down relentlessly. Pulling his cowl over his bald skull and shading his eyes, the monk looked searchingly to the north. In the distance a mirage created a marvellous effect of blue lake, bordered by palaces embosomed in groves that were reflected in the shining depths. The broad stripe of yellow desert lying between the mirage and the habitations, monasteries, gardens and fields that lay about the ruins of the town and the Holy House of Tabenna showed some caravans approaching, but the monk paid no heed to them.

A moving speck, rapidly lessening in size upon the glaring yellow distance, he knew to be the camel ridden by Hazaël. A speck much smaller would be the camel-driver and guide. In three days, travelling at that rate of speed, they would reach the eastward-going track over the mountains, and descend into the valley of the Chariots of Pharaoh. Four days more would bring them to the Gate of the Outer Mountain and the spring of the Athlete of Christ.

"I obeyed," Pachomius thought, "the word of the Saint without question, the message coming to me from him who is the chosen messenger of God. Yet sinful as I am, I question now, and wonder. Why, O Holy One, didst thou but now command me to warn this relentless Jew—who like another Saul of Tarsus digs pits and traps for the destruction of Christians!—as though the stubborn enemy of Christ were to be tempted like a Christian Saint? Surely the Calumniator, knowing this man Hazaël for his own—will not trouble to ensnare him? Never have I encountered a soul more upright—or more remote from grace!"

A thrill Pachomius knew well, passed through his breast into his inner being. Not for the first time by many, a voice well-known, reduced by distance to a gossamer thread of infinite tenuity, spoke at the Abbot's inner ear.

"And if, even as that Saul who slew the Prophets, the Lord hath chosen such a man to be His servant, shall not the Judge of all the world do righteously? And if this man, blinded by pride and wrath, reject the offered grace—turn from the Light, and quit the threshold ere the Gate be opened—shall He Who planted in the human breast the soul—that is a spark of His Divinity—and dowered Man with Free Will that Man might choose Him!—shall He be blamed because His creature hurls back the gift into the Giver's Face?"

"I have erred!" said the Abbot, striking his breast—"O Lord, do Thou forgive thy silly servant!"

And all through the rest of that burning day, Pachomius knelt upon the wall of the Monastery of Tabenna, purging himself of sin by penance, and praying for Hazaël the Jew.

IX

At the spring of the oasis at the summit of the pass leading to the Outer Mountain, bronze-coloured doves, several oryx, and a herd of wild asses were drinking, greyish-red creatures these, white bellied, and marked by a broad black stripe down the back. The birds took wing, the beasts scattered over the plain at the approach of the camel and its two riders, who halted to water the animal and fill the goatskins, and take food and rest.

Bands of painted, naked Blemmyes, the fierce Ethiopian nomads of the south and eastern desert had shown themselves occasionally, but made no attempt to attack the travellers, whom they perhaps judged to be too poor to plunder, or too strong, fierce and well-armed to be despoiled without exacting tribute of life in return.

Before sunrise Hazaël and the Saracen camel-driver, who had agreed to guide him,—struck northwards through a rocky and difficult defile. This was the opening of the road that led to the inner fastnesses of Attaka, that stupendous mountain of pale red granite, streaked with limestone, and sometimes veined with porphyry, from whose summit, it was said, one could view the distant Mediterranean upon one hand; and upon the other look over to the Sinai ranges, across the Gulf of Heroöpolis, that widens into the Red Sea.

The region in which Hazaël now found himself was savage, bare and solitary. At the top of the defile the camel halted and knelt. The Jew dismounted and looked back. A crimson glow spread over the shining waters of the Gulf of Heroöpolis, and every object possessed two shadows; one cast by the sunrise and the other by the moon. The yellow plain of the desert, looking west, exhibited an illusory vista of cool blue waters, out of which rose little islands plumed with palm groves, reflected in the depths.

"Return," the Jew said to the guide, "and wait for me with the camel at the spring of the oasis. Yet first describe to me again, in number and device as I shall find them, the various signs by which pilgrims to the hermitage that is on Derhor, may find their way."

He listened as the guide spoke, storing these things in his strong memory. Here a column of porphyry set up; there a pile of oddly-shaped granite boulders; at the mouth of the defile an arrow scratched on a limestone rock with a lump of crystal; at the parting of ways a rude Cross fashioned of the pieces of a broken staff, and jammed between two great stones.

"Swear to me by your gods," said the Jew when the idolater had ended his recital, "that you have named these marks in the order in which they come!"

"By the Face of Truth!" swore the camel-driver, who was a wild and savage-looking object, with tangled hair smeared with rancid butter; grotesquely painted of face and body; hung about with charms and wearing a waist-cloth of gaudy colours under his mantle of camel-hair. "I have not lied! Follow these directions and you will return to find me waiting for you with the heggin. Yet pay me now the sum agreed, in case you lose your purse upon your way!"

Hazaël reluctantly paid down half, and set out upon his solitary journey.

The steep defile being ascended, the first sign was recognised in the shape of a rude pillar of porphyritic rock. This passed, the surface of the ground began to be more gently inclined. Heat radiated from the huge pinkish-granite boulders that almost scorched the flesh. The ground was covered with blocks of this stone, between which showed the arid yellow soil of the desert. A scrubby bush with black stems set with long white thorns, also tufts of seeding wild garlic and a spiny red-fleshed wild cucumber, bitter exceedingly, with wild fig-trees, grew between the granite rocks. Wild goats with great horns walked upon the verge of towering precipices and bounded from ledge to ledge. White eagles and huge ravens screamed or croaked from inaccessible eyries. The defile being passed, the rocks sank down. Barely a dry weed relieved the barren aridity. The yellow gravelly ground began to billow upwards, and into the troughs of these billows the sun poured down like molten brass.

Climbing over one of these extraordinary ridges, the Jew made an astonishing discovery. It was a dish or charger, circular as a Gaulish buckler, wrought with the victories of forgotten kings, and of the purest gold. The love of the Semite for this precious metal,—of which were carved the lions that adorned the throne of Solomon,—plates of which covered the Temple built by Herod,—and of which the Vine above its chief entrance was gloriously made,—caused Hazaël's sight to dim and his powerful frame to tremble. Such a mass of gold, all his by the right of discovery! ... He threw himself upon the treasure with such eagerness that his foot slipped upon a rolling pebble. He fell—and the gourd water-bottle he carried at his girdle was smashed into bits.

Moments passed before he grasped the full extent of his misfortune. With all his strength he could barely lift the massy charger, which might have contained a wild-deer or a calf roasted whole. Sweat streamed from him, and a raging thirst was aggravated by his efforts. He moistened his throat with a few drops of water left in a fragment of the bottle, covered the golden dish with sand, and marked the place with three stones. Then he rose up and strode onwards. Another defile presented itself before him,—not leading upwards but bending to the north.

To the south another opened, floored with huge granite slabs, frowned on by precipices. At its mouth on the left side was a conical mound of rounded black stones. Night rushed down before Hazaël had decided which of these forbidding roads it would be best to follow. That indicated by the mound looked the worst.... He was beginning to doubt the honesty of the camel-driver. If the hermitage beneath the summit of Derhor was to be reached, he must trust to his own good wits.

He chose the northern defile, and presently—with the rising moon—came into a wide valley walled in by sheer cliff-faces of limestone. At its eastern side rose a precipice of coal-black stone, down which appeared to flow a foaming waterfall. This appearance was caused by snow-white quartz, issuing like a solid torrent from a point high above, and flowing down into the rocky valley. There was no way out of this trap but the way by which Hazaël had come in. With his agony of thirst increased tenfold by the unreal show of water, he lifted his arms above his head and savagely cursed the deceptive flow. And as the echoes of his deep voice resounded from the precipitous walls of the valley, he turned about sharply—for a high whinnying laugh had answered from behind him—and the clatter of hoofs, light and small as an ass's or goat's, followed—galloping over the pavement of broken stone....

"Who laughed there?" the Jew cried, but no human voice answered, and the moon was veiled behind a light cloud that afforded no hope of rain. When the planet looked forth, no sign appeared of the supposed ass and his laughing rider; and Hazaël, suppressing the desire to bestow another curse upon the cheating torrent, made the two benedictions, and repeated the Shema for the first night-watch,—fortifying himself against the attacks of evil spirits within an iron wall of prayer. Then he painfully retraced his steps through the defile previously traversed,—munching the dates he carried in his wallet,—as the dried bread without saliva to moisten it could not be swallowed without pain. And as he went, he slept by snatches,—often wakened from one of these dozes by tripping amongst boulders, or jagged sharp-edged stones.

Walking still with indomitable determination, he had just repeated the prayer for the third night-watch, when he stepped into daylight across the edge of dawn. A dazzling play of colour was smitten by the sunrise from the wilderness of stone beneath and about him. Broad veins of purple and greenish-white porphyry, with red granite, and yellow and black limestone, with outcroppings of snowy quartz, streaked the towering sides of the defile: the stones and gravel beneath his great travelling boots of hippo-hide,—whose heels of elephant-nail kept him from slipping,—was composed of fragments of these. Looking about he came to the conclusion that in sleep, or during an interval of darkness, he had turned aside into another path. This led steeply up, and up,—the vari-coloured rocks closing in until a mere streak of fierce blue sky between the walls at the tops of the defile showed where egress might be obtained. To delay here was to die. Therefore Hazaël determined to go on.

Now, as he toiled upwards under the increasing torture of the sunrays, delusions born of thirst and weariness began to haunt his path. The faces of his wife Miriam, of Levi his first-born son and of his little daughter Leah,—rose up before him in the vivid hues of life. His dead master; the child Florens, or Mark as he must now be called; the monk Paule and the Abbot of Tabenna, moved with him among the scorching stones, on which the lizard rarely basked; and between which a few dry bushes lived without visible nourishment. Through a strange roaring in his ears he distinguished the voices of these phantoms. Sometimes he answered them without ceasing to walk.

He retained by this time barely the semblance of humanity. His eyes beneath the beetling brows were red as those of the captive eagle of Tabenna: and his long hair, and curling beard, uncombed; tangled with burrs; soaked with sweat, and clotted with the dust with which his ragged garments were covered, had the appearance of a wig carved in stone. Blood flowed from cuts upon his gaunt sun-blackened limbs—sustained when he had fallen. He realised that without water he could not now live long. Should there be dew that night, he might find sufficient relief by licking the stones, to endure forty-eight hours longer. Did no dew fall, he might possibly survive yet another day. What grieved him most was, that as the news of his death could not reach Alexandria for a long time after the return of Ephraim by way of the Libyan Desert with Mafa Oabu and the Saracens; his son Levi—who had already begun to study the Mishnah—would not say Kaddish for his father for many moons to come. And the thought of the anguish of his widowed Miriam would have moistened his parched eyelids, had in their dry and gritty channels one single tear remained....

Stumbling amidst boulders, striding from stone to stone, falling, dragging himself to his feet, and staggering on again, the recurrent image of Miriam tormented him more sorely. The fancy that at the top of the pass—where the rocks approached each other so nearly—her well-loved figure would appear with that square of blue sky behind it, became conviction. He bounded on, obsessed by the idea....

"Miriam! My loved one! ..."

He breathed like a beast roaring. His parched gullet and dried-up lungs would barely admit the air. He was bruised from head to foot and wounded in many places; but beyond that square of burning blue he would find—he knew it—home.... Home,—where he was welcomed as a King on each return from a journey,—the rooms festively adorned even as on the Sabbath! the table spread with fair linen, rich porcelain and costly plate,—the dishes such as he loved best; the thin sweet Mareotic wine cooled exquisitely in snow....

"Miriam.... My wife! I come!"

He heard a sweet voice singing.... He was nearing the square of burning blue framed in the porphyritic rock when a waft of perfume came to him, and a figure filled the frame.

X

A woman, but not Miriam. He stared at her blankly. He strove to speak, but his stiff tongue only clicked against his dry palate. His mouth gaped. He drank her in with long pants, veritably as though her beauty had been the luscious wine of Ephesus, chilled with Mount Hermon's snow.

She was draped in a robe of fine Egyptian byssus with crimson and purple borders, fastened about her rounded hips, and drawn over her beautiful bronze-tinted shoulders and bosom in many transparent folds. From beneath an Egyptian headdress of enamelled guinea-fowl's feathers her rich hair, plaited with gold wire strung with orient pearls and other jewels, fell down in broad bands on either side of her small face of purest oval, from which piercing glances were launched as arrows under eyebrows like ebony bows. Her wide silken trousers were red as the heart of a cut pomegranate; yet shot with green and purple in the folds. Her tiny sandals were of white leather, ornamented with golden studs.

"O Isis! Mother of the Dog Star!" ...

She veiled herself at the sight of the stranger. The rich amber and crimson tints of her cheeks and lips, glowing through the diaphanous covering, suggested ripe nectarines in a dish of frosted crystal. Her long eyes, under their jetty brows, were luminous and beryl-green. The voice that issued from her scarlet lips was as the cooing of doves in the sycamores; as the gurgling of waters from the heart of a mossy hill, as she continued: shading her face with an amber-handled fan of red flamingo-feathers, and rocking with her quickened breaths the heavy necklace of huge pearls suspending an emerald talisman between her swelling breasts....

"Pardon, my lord! but you appeared so suddenly! And O, the gods!—being a woman unprotected—and this so wild and terrible a place—"

Hazaël knew that his aspect must be terrifying. But the perfume of roses that exhaled from the fair woman mounted to his brain in waves of dizziness. Hush! Again the doves were cooing:

"I am the wife of an Egyptian noble. We live across the Bay, at Arsinoë, but pass the vintage-months in our summer palace at Aënus. And—my lord is stricken in years and yet desires posterity!—" There was a dancing gleam of mockery in the sleepy beryl eyes. "We have visited the shrine of the god at Pannias, but alas!—without remedy. So my lord commanded me, poor me!—to seek out the dwelling of this Christian hermit, offer him rich gifts, and ask him to pray for us to The Crucified.... Indeed, to be rich and without heirs is sad for the poor old man, is it not? Yet am I to blame for this?" She reared her little head upon the rounded throat, and the beryl eyes blazed angrily. "No, by Hathor! My lord Makrisi has been young and handsome; even, dear stranger—" the feathers of her fan softly touched the cheek of Hazaël,—"as thou thyself! ... Now is he a withered branch. And"—she shrugged—"would even the fields of Egypt bring forth their abundance, without the fertilising waters of the Nile? ..."

Insensibly he had approached, his long, heavy footsteps setting the loose stones of the steep pathway sliding downwards. His bloodshot eyes were at the level of her scarlet lips, between which rows of milk-white teeth were gleaming; his bearded mouth was dangerously near the wooing fragrance of her bosom. She sighed, and warm sweet fragrance assailed his expanding nostrils, and caressed his parched temples and cheeks. And the heat of the morning sun was like the downward draught of a white-hot smelting furnace. And the dazzling blue above and behind her seemed to burn in azure flame....

"O speak again! ... Do not cease!" he heard himself croaking, as though the cool, sweet, gurgling voice had power to quench the thirst with which he burned. She laughed beautifully; and said, pointing with her fan to a great reed pannier with a carrying-strap, set within the shadow of a deep cleft or cave in the face of the porphyry rock:

"See how this surly Saint has treated me, a Princess of the house of Schabak! Look upon this basket of purple figs, and black grapes bursting with honeyed ripeness! and green melons with scarlet flesh dripping with cloying golden juice.... By Phthah! the weight is as much as my black slave Zet can bear, and this man would not even open the door of the ruined temple under the shadow of the dome of Derhor, where he dwells with the Lili and the Lilith—the bat and the screech-owl—and the great white eagles, and the falcons of the rock—or answer me a word. So I wept, I was so angered, and Zet wept also,—for to carry the pannier down the mountain was abominable to him. And when we heard you coming he set it down and ran away. And for this he shall be beaten with rods until the blood runs, when we return home. Why do you look at me so strangely, O Satrap? for I see by your mien that you are governor of a province, in Assyria or Persia possibly? Am I less fair than the women of your country? Have I no beauty in your sight?"

Hazaël answered in his thirst-cracked voice, with reddened eyes devouring her:

"O Princess! Even in dreams I have never beheld a woman to compare with thee! But—but—I am wedded. A fountain springs in the courtyard of my house, and a fruitful vine shadows my threshold; and as apples of gold in a network of silver, precious unto me is the love of my wife!"

He reeled as he spoke and clouds passed before his eyes as though the steam of the blood boiling in his veins had rushed into his brain-pan. Blindly he sought to push them away. And a soft small hand closed on his huge wrist, and his arm became powerless and fell across her shoulder. He swayed like a giant palm-tree whose trunk is sawn through. And with astonishing strength the Princess supported him, saying in that voice like the gurgle of cool waters:

"Thou art famished. Men unfed ever talk of virtue. There are other things in the pannier besides figs and melons and grapes. Rolls of Egyptian flour, white as snow and light as foam-flakes; and roasted quails in peppered jelly, wrapped in fresh green leaves. And meat-balls with spices, cheese-cakes and saffron-curds, and bottles of cool Nile water and also a flask or two of yellow Theban wine. Let us go into yonder cave and eat and drink together. When thou art refreshed, we will talk, or if thou wouldst—sleep!"

And the movement of her lips in framing such words as "eat," "drink" and "together," had infinite allurement, but less than "refreshed" and "sleep." Her utterance of these bewitched and bewildered. Hazaël felt as one smothering in roses, or sinking in the embrace of perfumed arms upon a bosom smooth and cool as silk. And realising in a flash his desperate predicament:

"O Lord my GOD!" he cried aloud, "look upon my shame and see my sorrow! From the evil impulse, from the evil companion: from Satan the Destroyer and from judgment, do Thou in Thy Mercy deliver me!"

Whereupon the Princess Schabak with a burst of high, whinnying laughter, skipped backwards,—and nimbly as a mountain goat—leaped upon a ledge of rock jutting from the cliff-face high above the level of the astonished Israelite's head. At the same time the pannier in the cave fell over and burst open, disgorging a cataract of repulsive creatures; vipers with horns, chameleons with popping eyes, lizards, tarantulas, scorpions and huge brown bats,—which flying round and round in the dazzling sunshine beat about Hazaël's ears with their leathery, hooked wings and entangled themselves in his hair. Deafened, appalled, exhausted and choked with thirst, heat and stench, he fell down swooning,—fortunately for his reason!—within the shadow of the cave....

When he revived, the rocky gorge was filled with the crimson of the sunset. The blazing heat had abated somewhat, the fresh smell of water came to his nostrils, and he groaned and opened his eyes. Then he cried out in thankfulness to God, Who had sent him water in his extremity,—for at the very back of the cave a thread of wet showed on the wall above a natural basin in the rock bordered with delicate black-stemmed green ferns, that contained a draught or two. As the cool liquid flowed down his dried throat; life revived in him newly. He ate of his bread, soaking it, and also took some dates.

Then he found his staff, went up the pass, and squeezed through the narrow aperture. The path now became little more than a goat-walk upon the barren mountain's flank.

A vast prospect spread about and beneath him, upon the right hand of the desert and the Nile beyond it:—with the islands, cities, gardens, palm-groves, temples; the distant cataracts, and the ranges of sandstone and syenite beyond the towns on the Libyan bank. Looking to the east his eye embraced Mount Serbal and the terrible splendour of Sinai, the Tih Mountains and Desert of Sin. Nearer, he looked down upon the Gulf of Heroöpolis,—the town at its mouth, and the city of Clysma upon the plain of the promontory, with the Wilderness of Etnam, and the Arabian Desert beyond.... North to Syria, bordered with the blue fillet of the Mediterranean, his glance ranged; and then with a cool breath fanning his brow, and stirring in the folds of his garments, he lifted up his eyes—and beheld the immense round summit of Mount Derhor, gleaming—white as though hoary with innumerable ages, touched with the fading rose of the sunset and crowned with the evening star. A vast tract of snow-white limestone, not level, but tilted at a steep angle, traversed with innumerable waved ridges, crevices and fissures and resembling a petrified cataract, spread between the traveller and the base of the stupendous dome. An irregular building, like a Pagan tomb or temple, partly in ruins, could be seen upon the dome's eastern side.

Desolation. Not a grass-blade, not a bush, nor tuft of wormwood found nourishment enough to sustain life in all that arid region. Yet here the Athlete of Christ had lived since he quitted Tabenna; eating every third day of dried bread—of which a store was left for him at the oasis every six months—moistening the flint-hard cakes with water fetched from the spring in a heavy stone jar. When the water in the jar came to an end too soon, according to the monks of Tabenna and the Coptish boatmen, the Blessed One would eat the snow if it were winter; or gather the dew,—soaking it up with linen rags, or that porous fungus that much resembles sponge. And these he would suck, to quench the thirst that tormented him, nor would he, were this relief withheld, descend the mountain to fetch more water, until the arrival of the appointed day.

Night fell. So close together and so deep were the fissures in the limestone, that Hazaël determined not to attempt to reach the hermitage until the rising of the moon. So he waited, seated upon a boulder; a strange, wild figure, dishevelled, scarred and bleeding; with battered weapons, and robes dusty and ragged; burning with impatience to do his errand and return to the oasis whilst strength remained to him....

Suddenly the Mount from its base to its summit was girt with sheaves of towering flame of strange and marvellous colours. At the same moment a tumult broke forth of indescribable and hellish violence. Awful voices thundered opprobrium, or wakened the echoes of the precipices and chasms with shouts of hideous laughter, answered by other invisible beings from the fissures in the plain.

"Filthy monk! Scourge of the desert! Master of wild asses! ... Preacher to lizards! ... Awaken! Rise and get you gone out of this place!" ...

"Ah! ... Ah!" ... other unseen beings wailed in chorus: "Shall we never be rid of thee, thou Dweller on the Threshold? Begone! Depart from us! ... Were not the desolate places given to us, and the lands wherein no water flows?" ...

A frightful voice bellowed:

"Drive him forth! Assault him! Torment him with serpents! Worry him with jackals and wild dogs! Borrow the beaks and claws of eagles! Bid the lions devour him! Or if the wild creatures refuse, send against him from the Shrine of Pan another furious Satyr! ... Beleaguer him with phantoms in myriads of forms!"

And dancing fires girt the dome, playing over the moveless waters of the stony cataract, and pale figures of wraith-like mistiness, and dark shapes of mountainous stature seemed to surround and hem it in. And suddenly these appearances sank down and vanished before the terror-stricken sight of Hazaël: with groans, and yells, and blasphemies that caused the hair to stiffen upon his head, and cold sweat to bathe his limbs.

A flood of brilliance dazzled his eyes. From the violet-purple vault of the sky, in which the hosts of heaven were now gleaming, a ray of Light, of indescribable whiteness and luminosity descended, seeming to pierce the roof of the ruined temple beneath Derhor's giant dome. And Hazaël heard the sound of a harp masterfully played, and a man's deep voice singing:

When the psalm ceased the column of light faded into a mild bluish radiance that lingered still above the dwelling of the Saint. Such absolute stillness reigned that the sigh of the night-breeze, and the groan of a metal bolt in grooves of stone, came to Hazaël across the distance. A door swung inwards; a light—not supernatural, but that of a palm-torch,—shone across the threshold, and a voice, strong and mellow as that of a young man, cried down across the steep expanse of sinister shadows:

"O man of Alexandria, seeking here a sinner!—draw near if you desire to, and do not be afraid!"

Hearing, Hazaël rose from the rock he sat on, and cried back in a tone of wrath:

"I am not afraid, O Athlete of Christ!—if it be you who speak to me! But wisdom counsels not to ascend this steep of perilous abysses—at least until the rising of the moon!"

Before his voice had ceased to echo amongst the stony waves of the tilted sea of shadows, the strong melodious voice of the solitary called back:

"The crevices are deep, and strange things abide in them!—and there is peril as you say. Yet if in the Name of the Crucified you struck out boldly among these solid waters, nothing of harm would come to you. For neither earthly dangers nor the malevolence of devils, have terrors for one armed with the Might of the Cross."

Hazaël shouted back, with a dinning at his ear-drums:

"The Eternal One, who brought the Chosen forth of this land of Egypt,—will guide me safely to thy door! For it is written that He does not forsake the righteous. Have I not in the strength of mine uprightness this day prevailed against a Succuba? Lo! before me the accursed demon fled, showing feet like the split hoofs of goats."

The voice replied melodiously across the distance:

"Blessed and glorified be He Who delivered thee! Glorified and blessed be Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son! Glorified and blessed be the Paraclete, the Comforter! Praised, blessed and magnified be the Holy Trinity, One in Three! Amen!"

Panting with defiance Hazaël thundered:

"The Lord is One! He is holy and His Name is holy, and the Holy Ones praise Him every day! Selah! Blessed art Thou, Jehovah, the Shield of Abraham! And blessed is he who even as Rabba Jehudah, called the righteous, can lift up both his hands to heaven, affirming that not one of the ten fingers upon them, is guilty of breaking the law of God!"

He ceased, and the voice of the hermit answered, saying:

"Nay!—but a thousand times more blessed is he, who,—not daring to lift a finger,—falls down prostrate before his Master, crying: 'Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner!' For it is written that He pitieth the humble, and turns away His face from the arrogant."

Now the moon, in her last quarter, rose from over the Red Sea. The limestone cataract, illuminated, took on a milky whiteness, in which the innumerable cracks and chasms showed like wavy bands of black. Hazaël grasped his staff and strode upwards, confident that within so many minutes he would be pounding at the ascetic's doors. But a dark cloud, not often seen save in the rainy season, suddenly veiled the lustre of the planet, and the Jew found himself standing in pitchy darkness, upon an ascending ridge between two deep chasms, unable to advance, or to retrace his steps.

Suddenly a gust of wind rushed down a cleft in the mountains, dragging at Hazaël's garments as though with invisible hands. A jagged double flash of violet lightning followed. Dazzled, the Jew trod upon a pebble of limestone; fell—and still retaining his grip upon his staff, found himself sliding towards the brink of the abyss upon his left hand. A deafening peal of thunder preceded a flash still more vivid, which illuminated the depths beneath. With starting eyes Hazaël beheld at the bottom of the gulf—which seemed about to swallow him—the monstrous putrefying body of a creature part-human and part-animal. And the thought of tumbling down to wallow in the Satyr's corruption, and share one tomb with the shag-thighed offspring of unnatural and hideous lust, wrought on the brain of the man so that he shrieked in desperation:

"Save me, O man of Christ!—I perish!"

And heard the voice of the hermit answer calmly:

"Man cannot save, but only Christ!"

Upon which, as the lightning hissed and crackled about him like flights of spears steeped in burning pitch and naphtha, and feeling his strength about to fail, Hazaël groaned out:

"Then pray to thy Christ to deliver me!"

And hearing no answer out of the distance, he resigned himself to despair. But from some source unknown, strength suddenly flowed back into him. His brain cleared, and by a sudden muscular effort he was enabled to draw back his body, rise—and stand upon his feet....

"Thanks,—thanks!" he stammered out, as though to the owner of some hand that had plucked him from peril. Then, in sudden anger, he dug his teeth into his lower lip.

The storm had passed. The calm light of the moon irradiated the immovable cataract of limestone: the Jew traversed the remaining distance safely, and stood before the door of the recluse.

XI

The lotus stems of the pillars had been once crowned by the sculptured heads of long-eyed women. These had in course of ages, by some convulsion of Nature or by the hands of man, been broken off. Their shattered fragments lay scattered near, and the stone beams supporting the roof rested upon the stems crookedly. The door-lintel supported a slab still displaying the winged orb of Ammon Ra. But through the symbol of the Sun had been roughly but deeply chiselled the Sign of the Crucified.

Hazaël knocked upon the heavy doors. Of massive cedar-wood strengthened with bronze plates, they would have resisted the assault of a catapult. The melodious voice said from within:

"If thou that knockest art a being of the Pit, begone unto thy master, Satan! But if thou art a son of man, state thy business and be brief."

And Hazaël cried:

"I am no phantom of the Pit, but the man who but now spoke to thee! Verily, as the God of Israel liveth, I speak truth, and mean no harm! Now open the door, O Athlete of Christ!—for I have a message for thee. But first thou must give me water to drink, for my tongue is stiff with thirst."

Upon which the voice said from within:

"Upon the threshold at thy feet in a wooden bowl, is water."

Hazaël groped with his hands, for the shadow of the wide lintel shrouded the portal in blackness; found the bowl, full to the brim; gave thanks, and swallowed the contents at one long draught. The Athlete's voice spoke again as the Jew replaced the empty bowl, inverted, on the threshold:

"Jew of Alexandria, it had been wiser to have saved some of the water. For until the sun sets again, in fulfilment of my Rule which I have taken on me, I neither open the cell door; nor—unless in prayer to God—or in holy songs glorifying Him, or in prophecies inspired of Him—utter one single word, unless He bids!"

With a fierce surge of anger, overpowering his previous sensations of awe, Hazaël struck his fist upon the solid cedar. He kicked it with his heavy boots of hippo-hide, and beat upon it with his metal-shod staff. No sound issued from within, in answer to entreaties or objurgations. Worn out at length, the Jew sat down upon the threshold. But then the suspicion budded that there might be a rearward door of egress, and he dragged himself to his feet and made the circuit of the place.

In vain his toil. No opening presented itself, except a chink one might barely have thrust a hand through.... Stooping and looking through this orifice he obtained a glimpse of the interior of the dwelling, which was filled with a pale, bluish light.

By this light could be distinguished the figure of the aged Christian ascetic, tall, and so emaciated by fasting and watching as to resemble a skeleton clothed with brown skin. A coarse white cloth which formed his outdoor habit had been laid aside, and clad only in a sleeveless vest of haircloth, he stood bolt upright, with joined uplifted hands, and eyes closed in recollection, in a stone niche built on the left side of the door of the cell; which contained nothing further beyond a mat of woven palm-leaves, a stone water-pot lying on its side empty, and a sickle, possibly used by its owner for cutting leaves and reeds.

There was something so grand and imposing about the venerable figure, with its white hair hanging upon its shoulders like a mantle, and its snowy beard reaching far below the waist, that violent words seemed profanation, and Hazaël remained dumb. The impulse to depart without delay was urgent, when on drawing back his head and standing erect, he became aware that the mysterious ray of celestial radiance, sign of the intimate and wonderful communion between this pure and fiery soul and the Divine Spirit from Whom all souls have emanated, had again descended from the heavens upon the dwelling of the Saint. Venturing again to look in, he found the cell irradiated, and felt a mysterious shock traverse him; realising that the eyes of the Saint had opened, and were gazing upon him from their ambush of white hairs. And they were the fiery eyes of a lion, and the radiant eyes of a child, and the eyes of a man who has seen and talked with Angels, so that it was not possible to support unmoved their scrutiny. Yet they were mild, kind and beneficent; and meeting the eyes that peered at him through the aperture, the old man thrice nodded his head. As who should say:

"Although my Rule prohibits me from speaking, it does not forbid me to listen. Say what is in thy mind, and return to the dwellings of men!"

And Hazaël cried to the anchorite through the wallhole:

"O Athlete of Christ!—I am a Jew, and from the bottom of my soul I hate and loathe the Christians, but thou art a just and virtuous man! Now hear my tale!"

The ascetic nodded as though replying:

"Say on, thou hater of Christians! but be not over tedious. For all my time I need for prayer."

And Hazaël cried:

"Listen then! My youth was spent at the town of Acanthon on Lower Nile, my father being a Rab, an interpreter of the Scriptures, and a pleader before the Courts. Small was his wealth, yet great his name, being descended in the male line from Ben-Hadad, King of Damascus, and in his veins on the female side flowed the Royal Blood of Israel. And one day he was carried home to our house dead!—having been struck upon the forehead by a beam of cedar carried through the Lentil Market on the back of a camel led by a Copt. And the bystanders told me concerning the Copt;—that seeing my father fallen and the blood from the wound covering his head, the camel-driver mocked him, crying: 'Which wouldst thou rather have, O Rab? The beam thou hast in thine eye now, or a mote? Answer!' And child as I was, I took an oath to be revenged for that man's hard-heartedness on all Christians. And to this day I have faithfully kept that oath."

He paused for breath and the recluse now answered:

"I know it, O Hazaël! Thou hast been a very scourge of Satan to the Servants of the Lord!"

And Hazaël cried back:

"Hear again, O Athlete of Christ! My mother married again, and my step-father was cruel, and I fled from the beatings and the evil words, to Alexandria. Awhile I hung about the quays, living on stray scraps thrown me there, and in the Jews Quarter, and then I met a noble man, a Roman in the Public Service,—who took me into his household, and fed and sheltered me. I grew up under his roof, and presently became his steward, and zealously I served him, using my power when I might, to keep that oath of mine. And knowing not that my patron had secretly become a Christian,—I brought upon him Ruin, Dishonour, Imprisonment and Death. Dost thou hear?"

The hermit returned mildly:

"Unhappy man, I hear thee. Thine excuse must be, thou hadst no thought of evil towards thy friend!"

"No thought, God He knows! And whether my patron suspected the truth, that I know not. But to the very last—he loved and trusted me! And when he had suffered the penalty of decapitation for his faith—torture being spared him in consideration of great services rendered to the Empire,—I stole his body secretly under cover of night. In the crypt of a deserted church it was reverently burned to ashes. These I placed in an urn—and swore an oath upon the urn in the name of the God of Israel,—that I and my sons and my sons' sons,—while there remains a living male of the blood of Hazaël—will be Keeper of the Ashes and Guardians of their Shrine! And I from the Abode of Shadows, the Lord Most High permitting!—will stretch forth mine hand upon those that descend from me—and counsel them aright! And when the last male of the race hath served and passed,—the debt shall be paid—and I cleansed of blood-guilt towards the man who was my friend!"

"The prayer being made from a repentant heart, hath reached the Throne of the Highest. Is that all thou hast to say, O Jew?"

Hazaël cried angrily to the anchorite through the wall-hole:

"Not so! For I have taken this journey to bring thee a message from my master, the noble Philoremus Fabius, late Prætor of the Taxes of Egypt at Alexandria, who is now amongst the Shades."

From the tangled ambush of his snow-white hair, fixing his radiant eyes upon the fierce eyes glaring through the wall-hole, the Athlete of Christ demanded:

"Was the man baptised a Christian?"

Hazaël answered roughly:

"Have I not said to thee but now,—that without having formally embraced the Faith of the Crucified, or received the waters of baptism,—Philoremus testified to Christianity, and suffered the penalty. Melittus, Abbot of Scete, Peter, the Patriarch of Alexandria, the monks Philip, Ammon and Geta, Theodore and Pæsius and others, underwent death by torture on the same day. In consideration of his great services to Rome, Philoremus suffered only decapitation by the sword. And I am commanded of him to entreat thee to pray that his sins may be forgiven. And that for him the Hand that was pierced may open the Gate of Hope! Dost thou comprehend? Hast thou heard distinctly?"

The head of the Saint inclined in assent.

"And—thou wilt pray as he desired?"

"Ay, if thou consent to forgive the Copt who slew the Rab thy father many years ago. For I declare to thee by the light that is vouchsafed me, that the blow from the beam was given unwittingly; and those who told thee that the man mocked, lied. And cease from saying and working evil against the Church of Christ. For dear to the Lord are His servants!"

And the Jew, struggling with himself, promised; and then cried:

"Tell me, O holy man! what is this Gate of Hope? ... Shall my master be admitted? ... Or—hath he already entered therein? ... I know that thou hast power to vanquish devils, and canst see beyond the Three Veils that baffle human vision. Therefore, answer me, I pray!"

The aged hands stiffened in the attitude of supplication. The eyes of the Saint looked upwards, seeming to pierce through the roof of stone, from which great bats hung in clusters, into Infinite Immensity. Moments passed and Hazaël waited. But when an hour had gone by:

"Wilt thou not speak?" he cried angrily.

There was no answer. Looking more narrowly he could not observe that the breast of the rigid upright figure lifted or sank with the natural act of respiration. He found himself shuddering with terror lest the anchorite should be dead. The weight of vast solitudes peopled only by eagles, bats and diabolical phantoms descended upon him crushingly. And in the voice of a suppliant he entreated:

"In the name of the Most High, give me a sign that thou livest!"

The hands fell apart. The upturned eyes quivered. A long sigh heaved the wide emaciated chest, and the great prominent ribs of the fleshless brown body, tenanted by the fiery soul of the great Athlete of Christ. Without otherwise stirring he reached down, seized a small harp from its place in the niche behind him, poised it upon his breast, swept the strings with his fleshless hands; and chanted in the powerfully melodious voice that had thundered upon the ears of the Jew down the cataract of limestone:

The singer ceased as dawn whitened the eastern sky, and the dome of Mount Derhor was reddened by the first rays of the sun. The harp, clutched in his rigid hands, still vibrated with the last chords struck upon it. But the Saint was once more rapt in contemplation, from which neither appeals nor threats could rouse him. Boiling with indignation at what he had heard, Hazaël shook the dust from his garments, and set off with rapid strides down the crevassed limestone slope.

He returned by the path round the shoulder of the precipice, and through the narrow cleft into the pass where he had suffered temptation of the demon; found some water yet remaining in the cave's tiny hollow, and, eating his last dates as he went, emerged at length from the porphyry ravine upon the desert plain upon whose burning soil he had discovered the charger of gold, saying to himself:

"I will hurry forward to the oasis of the spring,—fasten the camel to a tree there, and bring the Saracen back to assist me. It cannot be meant that so much treasure should be abandoned to serve no useful end! It should realise when sold, at least ten thousand talents. Half of this money belongs to the Athlete, seeing that his dwelling is in the mountain. With the rest I shall enrich myself, and return with my household to Palestine!"

But when he arrived once more in sight of the spot where he had found the treasure, he found there, gathered about it, a horde of savage Blemmyes from the Red Sea wilderness, who periodically penetrated the fastnesses of Derhor by some of the eastern defiles. Enraged at seeing these naked, painted heathens hoisting the mass of gold upon their shoulders, amidst shrill ululations of joy from the fierce, hawk-eyed women who accompanied them, the Jew swung his great staff high, shouting:

"Restore the spoil that another found before you, ye abominable ones!" and charged the Blemmyes, scattering them with tremendous blows.

But the savage idolaters only dispersed like jackals or vultures scared from a carcass, to gather again at a distance; and from thence discharged stones from their slings so skilfully that Hazaël was wounded and beaten to the ground. Then overpowering him, the barbarians strongly bound his wrists and ankles, and drawing them apart, secured each limb to a stake, driven deep into the soil.

Then, concluding that all men returning from the Inner Mountain must needs be Christian pilgrims, the chief of the band set his foot upon the breast of the Israelite and—speaking in bastard Greek—and brandishing his spear with menacing gestures—commanded him forthwith to blaspheme Christ, and abjure the Faith—or die amidst tortures unspeakable.

Upon which Hazaël shouted furiously:

"You ignorant rabble! I am a devout Jew, and will never accept the Nazarite Prophet as Messiah! and I have even brought persecution upon those who worship Him! Nevertheless, for love of Him my master Philoremus Fabius suffered death at Alexandria, and in His name the Saint of Derhor performs marvellous works. And I have sworn before the God of my fathers henceforth to abstain from speaking or doing evil against Christ's servants: yet I am not a Christian, and never will be!"

But the Blemmyes clustered about him like bees, stinging and pricking him with their sharp spear-points, and the savage women, reaching between the legs of the men, prodded him with thorns and tore his flesh with sharpened stones, so that there was not a whole patch upon his body, that was all gory red from head to foot. And they jabbered at him to blaspheme, urging incessantly:

"Execrate Christ and thou art free!"

He whom they tortured shouting lustily:

"Ye vultures of the Desert, I will not!"

Then, failing to work their will, they made upon his body a fire of dried camel's dung, and took the gold and went away.

While to the tortured Jew, dying amidst horrible agonies, it seemed that he saw his master Philoremus, joyful and smiling, standing near a Young Man apparelled in white, and of sublime and radiant visage, who extended towards the sufferer His beautiful wounded Hands.... And amidst a great Light and many voices, One Voice spoke, saying words inconceivably wonderful.... And the bands of mortality were peeled from Hazaël's vision, and his spirit passed beyond the Veil of the Unknown.

* * * * * * *

In the same hour the Abbot Pachomius at Tabenna, being in prayer at the conclusion of the morning Sacrifice, received a revelation and cried out:

"Lord! do Thou multiply Thy mercies upon the Jew Hazaël Hazaël, who rejecting the Gospel of the New Testament, hath yet died for Thee!"

And sending a messenger to the quayside where the faithful Ephraim waited aboard the vessel with the Coptish sailors, the Abbot warned the servant of Hazaël that evil had come to him.... Then Ephraim went forth into the desert with a strong party of armed Saracens on swift camels, and traversing the Valley of the Chariots, and climbing the pass north of the oasis of the spring, reached the place where the Blemmyes had put the Jew to death. The head, limbs and extremities, though scorched and shrivelled, remained unconsumed. The charred trunk had burst asunder, and within the hoops of the great blackened ribs, the indomitable heart of the just steward lay amidst grey ashes; all red, like a newly-quenched coal. Upon one of the dried-up hands hung a tarnished signet-ring that the Blemmyes had not noticed,—or had feared to meddle with, lest it might be a talisman.

It was the signet with the black onyx, given by the Roman Philoremus Fabius to Hazaël.... And Ephraim, taking the ring from the dead hand, scraped a shallow grave in the hot sandy gravel; buried the remains, and made above the spot a great pile of stones.

Then he journeyed back to Alexandria, carrying the news and the ring, and goods of Hazaël; and Miriam and little Leah wept sorely; and the boy Levi said Kaddish for the dead.