Book the First: THE SEEKING

I

Beautiful even with the trench and wall of Diocletian's comparatively recent siege scarring the orchards and vineyards of Lake Mareotis, splendid even though her broken canals and aqueducts had never been repaired, and part of her western quarter still displayed heaps of calcined ruins where had been temples, palaces and academies, Alexandria lay shimmering under the African sun. Between the turquoise of the Mediterranean on the north and west, the beryl green of the Delta on the east, and the flaming opal of the Desert south and again east of the Delta, the Queen city of the dead old Ptolemies, set about with vineyards, fair orchards and stately palm-groves stretching in a broad band of shade and fruitfulness from the Lake across the Desert, and fringing both sides of the Nilotic canal, well merited the title: "Queen Emerald of the Jewelled Girdle," bestowed upon her by the librarian who unloaded upon Posterity a geographical treatise in heroic verse.

The vintage of Egypt was in full swing, the figs and dates were being harvested. Swarms of wasps and hornets, armed with formidable stings, yellow-striped like the dreaded nomads of the south and eastern frontiers, greedily sucked the sugary juices of the ripe fruit. Flocks of fig-birds twittered amongst the branches, being like the date-pigeons, almost too gorged to fly. Half-naked, earth-brown or tawny-skinned native labourers, hybrids of mingled races, with heads close-shaven save for a topknot; dwellers in mud-hovels, drudges of the water-wheel, cut down the heavy grape-clusters with sickle-shaped copper knives.

Ebony, woolly-haired negroes in clean white breech-cloths, piled up the gathered fruit in tall baskets woven of reeds and lined with leaves. Copts with the rich reddish skins, the long eyes and boldly-curving profiles of Egyptian warriors and monarchs as represented on the walls of ancient temples of Libya and the Thebaïd, moved about in leather-girdled blue linen tunics and hide sandals, keeping account of the laden panniers, roped upon the backs of diminutive asses, and carried to the wine-presses as fast as they were filled. There would be a glut of the thin sweet drink that was exported in clay flagons with round bases; a vintage as disesteemed in the era of the last Queen Cleopatra by the wine-bibbing Alexandrians, as to-day under the joint sway of the Emperor Diocletian and his co-regent, the swineherd Maximianus.

The negroes sang as they set snares, and the fig-birds beloved of the epicurean fell by hundreds into the limed horse-hair traps. Greek, Egyptian and negro girls, laughing under garlands of hibiscus, periwinkle and tuberoses, coaxed the fat morsels out of the black men to carry home for a supper-treat; while acrobats, comic singers, sellers of cakes, drinks and sweetmeats, with strolling jugglers and jesters, and Jewish fortune-tellers of both sexes, assailed the workers and the merrymakers with importunities, and made harvest in their own way.

Despite the scars left by the siege of Diocletian,—whose clemency in stopping the pillage of the city was recalled by a bronze statue of the tyrant, placed on the summit of a column in the middle of the Serapium,—Alexandria was still not only mistress of her own huge trade in corn, but the port through which the European trade of India and Arabia passed.

The Great Port and its fellow basin of Eunostus were crowded with shipping both native and foreign, the quays were choked with merchandise of innumerable kinds, and thronged with men of all the world's known nations. The copper-hued Egyptian, the diamond-eyed, sharp-witted Greek, the olive-skinned, aquiline-featured Hebrew with his furred robe, high headdress, long beard and side-curls, jostled the supple Italian, the lively Gaul, the slow Boeotian, and the Ethiopian cloaked with leopard-skins, displaying ivory rings in his dark ears, and on his arms and fingers, and ivory suns and moons suspended from a thread of sacred knots upon his naked breast. Here merchants from the scarce-known Tsin State, south of Hind, pig-tailed, slant-eyed men in cartwheel hats of woven grass, embroidered silks and felt-soled shoes—again encountered, on this neutral soil of Egypt, their ancient enemy, the Tartar. Here also were Hindu Buddhist pilgrims wearing yellow robes, and carrying begging-bowls and armpit-crutches, Fire-worshippers in snowy white, and Persian merchants in long-sleeved caftans and tall lambskin headdresses. The nomad of the Desert—his black leather head-veil bound by thongs about his lean, brown temples, his great striped mantle of camel's hair cast about his painted nakedness, bartering spices and frankincense from Arabia Felix, for gold and silver jewellery and strings of pink and blue pearls from the eastern shores of the Red Sea to deck his womankind, rubbed shoulders with the Scythian, thick of tongue, solid of bone and heavy of shoulder, bow-legged with continual riding, his shaggy head protected by a cone-shaped cap of hairy horse-hide, his back cloaked, his feet shod, and his loins clouted with tanned horse-leather, which also covered his brass-nailed shield and sheathed his short iron sword. And among the slaves of many nations, staggering under great crates and bales between the quays and the warehouses, were seen huge semi-naked men with matted yellow hair, and blue or grey eyes; whose white skins were decorated with animals, birds and flowers traced in blue pigment, and upon whose limbs were soldered the heavy bronze anklet and armlet, with rings to accommodate a chain, often needed by the refractory slave.

"They are Britons," the Alexandrians would say, fanning themselves and smiling. "We have mercenaries of the race in our Tenth Legion, but these are dull fellows, too stupid to fight. What can you expect from a country that produces nothing but tin and oysters? Strong slaves and comely enough, but dangerous when goaded. And in captivity they never laugh!"

A charge which could not be laid to the accusers, for ground as they were to the earth beneath the iron heel of a despotic Roman government, the Alexandrians laughed in season and out. They made their successive rulers dread to provoke the onslaughts of their waspish ridicule. Wit was the point of the dagger that could find its way through a tyrant's harness, a venomed jest could make him writhe with much more safety to the community than the contents of the poison-phial dropped into the dish before its cover was put on, and the steward's clay seal affixed. They were tepid in their religion, vain, proud, boastful and spiteful, unstable in their friendships, languid in business, indifferent to reputation, fickle in friendship, furious in lust, unrelenting in vengeance, merciless in jealousy, cold in their natural affections, and faithless in love. They wrote no histories, but had a cultured taste in cookery, perfumes, dress, music and dancing; erotic poetry, and exotic vice; and on the stars of the theatre, of the Gymnasium and the Hippodrome, they lavished all the enthusiasm they possessed. The famous charioteer, the great singer or dancer, the comic actor whose jokes set the whole city in a roar; the unconquerable wrestler, or swordsman, or pugilist who happened to be the idol of the moment, daily walked surrounded by his admirers on the promontory of Lochias, or in the public gardens under the palm-groves, attired in the scarlet robes of the ultra-fashionable, loaded with jewelled necklaces, carrying in gem-encrusted fingers a golden-handled fan of flamingo or parrots' feathers, and wearing scented garlands on his crimped and perfumed hair. Banquets were given to famous fighting-cocks, which, perched at the right hand of the couch of the host, fed upon sesame from golden platters, and sipped distilled water from precious bowls of white and purple Murrhine spar.

Amidst the luxury and corruption of this city, whose roaring floods of traffic rolled between buildings marvellously diverse in their mingling of Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Semitic styles of architecture, the clash of creeds was never wanting, and ancient faiths and newer revelations struggled for supremacy. The glorious psalms of David, rising from the Synagogue, mingled with the shrill rattle of the sistrum, and the strains of the hymn addressed to Isis, the goddess of the Throned Moon. Serapis, lord of the under-world, was yet worshipped though the Serapium lay in ruins,—the Persian Mithra had his following, and the annual festival of Pan was celebrated in the temple—wrought in pink African granite to the semblance of a phallus, that dwarfed every other building in Alexandria save the Lighthouse of the Pharos, soaring four hundred feet above its base of Cyclopæan rock. And a purer and more radiant light than that of the Pharos burned in Alexandria, where the Mysteries of the Catholic Church of CHRIST were celebrated in temples converted from the service of the deities of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

The four hundred columns of the ruined Serapium overhung the quadrangle of thick-walled, buttressed stone buildings where the Christian Patriarch, his clergy, monks, deacons and aspirants were unpretendingly housed. Of his followers, religious and secular, thirty thousand mustered in Alexandria, whilst the lay helpers, organised in the vast Guild of the Parabolani, literally "those who expose themselves to danger" laboured by day and night amongst the miserable, the homeless, the famine-bitten and the fever-stricken, rotting in the purlieus, the prisons and the poorest quarters of the city, sufferers chiefly of Greek and Egyptian nationality, for the population of the teeming Jewish quarter were as always, charitable to their own. Thus Christian schools and orphanages were set up, supported and instructed; hospitals established, staffed and maintained; catechumens brought to the priests for instruction, and the dead buried with all decency by Christian men who went forth in the coarse habit of sackcloth, with the cowl that covered the entire face, and only showed the eyes.

The persecution of Maximianus, much more severe than that following the issue of the New Law of Diocletian, had now exposed the disgraceful practices of these besotted dupes. For weeks past the city had buzzed and stung like a veritable nest of hornets, poked into venomous life by the secret activities of Arius the Presbyter, the open malevolence of the Pagans, and the bitter enmity of the Jews.

The deceased Prefect of Egypt had been a ruler not favourably disposed towards the Christians. By his successor, Mettius Rufus, the savage Imperial edict was ruthlessly enforced.

Christian prelates, priests, monks, nuns, deaconesses and catechumens had been arrested, imprisoned, executed or tortured by the soldiers of the Third Egyptian Legion,—far more accustomed of late years to quelling street riots and displaying their glittering harness and handsome persons at military and civic spectacles, than to making wholesale battues of unarmed and unresisting men and women. Detachments of cohorts stationed throughout Libya were sent to raid the hermitages, monasteries and nunneries on the Nile banks and upon the borders of the Desert. At Mount Nitria and in Scete as at Scyras, they had made many captures; though at Tabenna in the Thebaïd, where the venerable Abbot Pachomius had gathered about him thirteen hundred followers, so stout a resistance was made by the monks, with staves, great stones and boiling pitch and water, that three maniples of soldiers of the Fourth Lusitanian Legion, compelled to abandon the siege, returned, to exhibit their wounds and burns to Perocles, the military prefect of Apollinopolis, entreating him with tears of rage, to send them back in sufficient force to wipe out the shame of defeat sustained at such abominable hands.

All classes of society were sifted by a process which netted a number of suspects. Amongst the labourers in the vineyards, the toilers on the quays, in the thronged marts of commerce, as amongst the crowds at the baths, the lecture-halls, the theatre, the Gymnasium and the Hippodrome, moved close-lipped, silent men in plain clothing, with sharp, greedy ears and keen, observant eyes. These were called The Listeners, and carried in the sleeve short rods tipped with a gilt Roman Eagle, and the maw of that fierce and bloody bird was never satisfied. Apostasy was rewarded by temporary immunity. Obduracy merited what it received, in banishment to the mines, forfeiture of property, exile, slavery or torture to the death. Many persons accused, even before coming into Court, renounced the Faith and reverted to Paganism, or after imprisonment and some degree of torture, sacrificed, and were set free. Yet others escaped into Syria, where the law, though the same in effect, was less unmercifully carried out. But others who held public posts were fettered by their official duties, and even had it been possible, would have scorned to seek safety in flight.

In the case of certain men and women, wealthy or poor, highly placed or humble, the Voice that speaks to the destined martyr cried and would not be shut out. Thus the comic singer Metras whose impromptu verses were wont to set the whole city in a roar, the famous retiarius Apollos, conqueror in twenty battles against armed gladiators, and the aged historian Sinias, confessed themselves Christians and were dragged away to death.

Hesychius, the editor of the Septuagint, heard the call as he worked amongst the rolls of papyri in his study, and like others, he sustained the ordeal and claimed the crown and palm. And it came to the noble Roman, Philoremus Florens Fabius, Prætor of the taxes of Egypt, and a personal friend of the Prefect: Fabius, who sat daily in public as a judge in Alexandria, purple-robed, attended by lictors, librarii and commentarienses; surrounded by a guard of the Third Egyptian Legion; deciding all causes relative to the taxes, and administering the law....

II

The official and private dwelling of Philoremus Fabius was a handsome building of Roman architecture, situated in the fashionable Street of the Winds, south of the quadruple marble gateway that marked the junction of the city's four great thoroughfares; running east from the Canopic Gate, west from the Gate of the Necropolis; and respectively north and south from the Gates of the Sun, and of the Moon.

Before the gnomon of the sun-dial on the column of the Forum indicated the hour previous to noon-day, a traveller mounted on a large white mule, and followed by an attendant riding a dun-coloured animal, and leading another laden with baggage, reined out of the double stream of horse-drawn, carved, painted and gilded chariots conveying fashionables of both sexes; litters and chairs borne by slaves; burdened camels guided by negroes or Saracens; curled and scarlet-robed dandies walking with boon companions, fiery barbs bestridden by Roman officers; and little asses carrying Copts or Jews,—that ceaselessly traversed the Street of the Winds.

As the small hoofs of the mules slipped on the uneven flagstones before the mansion of the Prætor of Taxes, the man on the white mule uttered an involuntary cry. His eyes had fallen on a square plaque of bronze fixed on the wall beside the courtyard entrance, displaying the device of the Roman Imperial Eagle with the thunderbolt, above the name and official titles of the master of the house. A narrow strip of parchment some twelve inches long, secured by an official seal at either extremity, was pasted across the name of Philoremus Fabius and inscribed with the words;

"SUSPENDED FROM OFFICE UNDER SUSPICION OF CHRISTIANITY."

The seal was that of Lollius Maxius, governor of Alexandria, a personal friend of the official thus disgraced.

For a moment the rider of the white mule remained with open mouth and staring eyeballs, livid as a mask of yellow wax under the hood of his black riding-cloak of felted camel's hair. His strongly marked visage with its arched black eyebrows, large mobile black eyes and boldly curving profile, showed, like the face of his attendant, the characteristics of the Jewish race. Large rings set with beryls were in his ears, and massive bracelets of gold clasped his swarthy arms above the elbow; while his carefully curled hair was protected from the dust of travel by a square-shaped bag of fine black leather, embroidered with seed-pearls. He endeavoured to control his voice, but it shook as he said to his companion, in Hebrew:

"Now in the name of the God of our forefathers! ... Tell me, O Ezra, son of Ephraim! do I see the thing that is, or that which is not? It may be that the fever I suffered at Joppa still troubles my brain and heats my blood!"

His eyes had entreaty in them as he appealed to the other, and his pallor grew more livid as he heard the reply:

"Health is yours, O Hazaël, son of Hazaël, but misfortune has befallen our master. He is suspected of Christianity, and suspended from office under the Governor's seal."

"Some enemy hath done this thing!" said Hazaël fiercely. "Be the Mighty One blessed that I have speedily returned home! Hold the mule's rein while I knock upon these doors that were never shut till now in the face of Hazaël."

And hastily dismounting while Ezra held the stirrup, Hazaël plucked a metal-shod staff from a bucket-holster slung behind his saddle, and beat loudly upon the bronze doors fixed in a frame of square beams of yellow Numidian marble, until a metal bolt groaned in its grooves of stone, a leaf of the door moved inwards, and the black face of an Ethiopian slave peered out between the valves. White eyeballs and dazzling teeth flashed in the ebony visage:

"By Isis the Dog Star!" he jabbered in his bastard Græco Egyptian, "The Jew Hazaël has come back to us again!"

"Son of abomination, make way!" said Hazaël, violently thrusting back the door upon the astonished Ethiopian, and striding into the vestibule, over a square of mosaic let into the marble pavement, representing a black dog spotted with white, secured by a chain attached to a red leather collar, and displaying a formidable mouthful of teeth as in the act to bite. A second Ethiopian, liveried like the first in a green tunic with a broad girdle covered with plates of silver, stooped low in humble salutation, touching with his yellowish fingertips the booted feet of the Jew.

The walls of the vestibule, from either side of which opened a waiting-room for clients, were painted light red, divided into panels by a vertical ornament, a black caduceus wreathed with a vine. Along the base of either wall ran a broad bench of black walnut, on which sprawled or sat four unhelmed and ungirt Legionaries, of whom two slept on the shady side—for broad sunshine poured through the overhead opening—two were playing dice, with a flagon of Mareotic wine standing between them, from which one or the other drank a draught at every lucky throw—while two more stood on guard, rigid and immovable as statues of men in glittering cuirasses, on either side of the curtained portal leading to the atrium, a hall of some forty feet in length, paved with tesseræ of black and yellow marble, and centred with a square pool, in the midst of which a little fountain played. Yet two other Roman soldiers, with shield on arm and grounded javelins, kept ward outside the curtained entrance of the large apartment at the farther end. When the first two Legionaries with their drawn swords, made as though to prevent his passage, Hazaël said with cutting irony:

"The Prætor Philoremus Fabius labours beneath the displeasure of the Prefect, Mettius Rufus. Thus he is at present a prisoner beneath his own roof. But the Chief Secretary of the Prætor of the Taxes is also an official of the Roman Empire. Until I am deprived of this token of mine office"—he lifted the end of a heavy golden chain that peeped beneath his sheathed beard and lay upon his bosom—"I hold and use it. Lower your swords!"

And he thrust beneath the curtain of many-coloured Egyptian linen, and moved on to the doorway of the room that lay beyond. The guards at this point had overheard; and when Hazaël moved aside the end of his beard and pointed to the broad gold chain of office ending in his hairy bosom, they struck the butts of their javelins twice upon the pavement in salutation, and without a spoken word suffered him to pass.

And so the Jew stepped in, moving noiselessly as some creature of prey in his high black felt knee-boots soled with elephant's leather, and heeled with sections of the nails of the brute, powdered like his skin and garments with the vitreous dust of the Desert and stained with the sweat of the beasts that had carried him.

You saw him as he dropped his great cowled cloak, just within the threshold, to be a man not yet thirty; salient, strong and full of energy, with brawny limbs revealed by the short-sleeved tawny robe hitched mid-leg high by the girdle of hippopotamus-calf hide, that sustained, as well as a wallet and water-gourd, a pair of long sharp daggers and a formidable double-edged sword. From beneath the high, square, fur-trimmed cap that the cowl of the mantle had hidden, a bushy growth of night-black curls, soiled with travel and like the fringes of his tawny robe, tangled with thorns and prickly burrs, fell about his shoulders. He breathed quickly, as though he had been running; and in the stern, bold, swarthy face, and the intent wide gaze of the burning black eyes shadowed under beetling eyebrows, there was sorrow beyond mere words, and devotion too deep, and pure, and selfless to be passionate, as Hazaël after many months stood in the presence of his patron and friend.

The room, or rather hall, had been originally meant for a triclinium, but by reason of its imposing size and height, and the suitable elevation of the mosaic floor at its upper end, the Prætor of the Taxes had set apart the lengthy side-wing and the upper apartments for his private occupation, and transacted here such daily business as did not necessitate his appearance at the Forum. A frieze of lofty height depicted in brilliant hues on a white ground, the combats of the Greeks and Amazons; upon the raised platform at the upper end stood an ivory arm-chair, and a table of ebony inlaid with silver. Small statues of the twelve divinities of Rome, wrought in bronze, ivory or precious metal, adorned the top ledges of two ebony bookcases, set against the walls on the right and left hand, and filled with scrolls that were volumes of reference, and treatises upon Roman Law and Finance.

In the ivory chair sat a man of forty, in a white tunic bordered with a wide stripe of purple, plunged deep in the perusal of a small scroll of papyrus thickly inscribed in the clear rounded characters of Aramaic Greek. An oblong opening in the wall behind him, running from wall to wall of the court-room, gave a view, across an open loggia (where more Roman guards were posted), of the lawns, alleys and fountains of a well-kept garden-enclosure; so that the advantage of light from behind was for the Receiver General of Taxes hearing cases at his table, with the equally desirable boon of fresh air.

No clients thronged to the tribune to-day, vacant were the desks and chairs of his recorders and notaries; the scratch of the ink-filled reed upon the papyrus, the smell of wax tablets virgin of the stylus, the whispering of the clerks and accountants no longer came from the adjoining room....

How pleasantly quiet it was. The reader slightly shifted his feet, shod with cothurni of scarlet leather, ornamented with golden crescents at the instep, upon the dappled leopard-skins that spread beneath his chair. The skins covered a skilfully-concealed trap-door leading down into a strong vault underneath the tribune, where were stored vast sums in gold belonging to the State.

To the man reading and thinking in the ivory chair, and as yet unconscious of the witness on the threshold, the room held no other living creatures save himself and a late butterfly, with peacock wings of gorgeous beauty, that had fluttered in at the window, perhaps attracted by the garlands of wonderfully painted roses forming part of the decorations below the cornice of the wall. A moment the insect wavered to and fro beneath the cornice; mounted—sought to settle—realised the deceit, and would have flown back into the garden, to feast upon the nectar of Truth and Reality—had not a hawking swallow intervened.

There had been no swallows yesterday. To-day, the blue sky above the palms and figs and oleanders, the vine-wreathed sycamores and acacias of the gardens, was alive with the black and white specks of vitality, darting and wheeling, hovering and poising as though sporting with their own swift shadows; hunting their prey of flies, gnats and winged beetles with shrill squeaks of bird-delight—while under the tiled coping of a walled court with a westward aspect, nests were being built in the selfsame spots, from whence they had been dislodged by the gardener's pole earlier in the year.

The swallow's swoop and dart, more rapid than the eye might follow, captured the insect of the jewelled wings. But the man moved; and the startled bird darted upwards towards a brilliant square of blue sky framed in a gilded trellis covered with those deceptive roses, and no less false and treacherous a painted lure than they...

The infinitesimal tragedy was over in a moment. The arrow-like flight cleaved no waves of blue æther, but was arrested by a surface as hard as adamant. The bird dropped close to the foot of Philoremus. He reached down and took it up.

III

It was quite dead, a tiny corpse, a mere pinch of black and white feathers; with its prey—still feebly moving legs and antennae—yet held crosswise in the thorn-small, jet-black beak. What lesson would He Whose Divine teaching the Aramaic scroll of the Gospel of Matthew, the Evangelist, set forth,—have drawn from the desire of the insect for the flowers of delusion, the delirious rush of its swift-winged captor for illimitable space and aerial freedom—arrested by that killing crash against a tinted stone?

Poor tiny feathered migrant from—what wild northern homeland? That of the Alamanni, who built and garrisoned forts of mud and tree-boles on their Rhine frontiers; fierce red-haired giants, savage mercenaries of Rome, like the Gauls with their pointed brazen helmets and painted tunics, covered with cuirasses of leather strengthened with plates of iron, adorned with armlets, collars and bracelets of heavy virgin gold, and perched rather than seated on their high wooden saddles, girthed back on the hindquarters of great horses with cropped ears.... Or perhaps the bird came from the freezing steppes of Scythia, peopled by shaggy savages with flat noses, slant eyes, and hairy legs bowed from continually riding their shaggy little beasts. Or from Britain, a province of which country Philoremus had ruled as a pro-consul under Carausius, who, with piratical intentions of his own, had been sent by Maximianus, co-Emperor with Diocletian, to suppress the Saxon pirates and the yellow-haired rovers from Scandinavia.

The swallow, though fully fledged, was young. This must have been its first day in Egypt. How strange, to have crossed continents and seas for such an end! thought the Roman Prætor, and then his glance reverting to the scroll, found there a saying of the Master:

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and not one of them shall fall to the ground without your Father?"

What bearing had the words with reference to the dead swallow stiffening on his warm, living palm? What Divine purpose could be served by such a waste of effort? What wrong had the innocent creature done in hunting its insect food? He read on:

Perhaps the dead swallow had crossed the sea to bring this message to the disgraced public servant. With the thought a reviving warmth crept about his chilly heart. He looked downwards, slightly smiling, from his tribune to a bronze tripod altar placed upon a square of mosaic in the body of the hall. On either side of the altar a Roman sword and spear were planted upright. Upon the tripod stood a silver-gilt chafing-dish containing several sticks of smouldering charcoal. The dish rested upon a pan of pierced pottery, and near it were three small vessels respectively containing corn, wine and incense; also a bowl of lustral water in which was immersed a leafy olive-twig. A Latin inscription beneath the upper ledge of the tripod might thus be translated:

"O HOLY SABUS DIUS FIDIUS SEMIPATER, BE PROPITIOUS!"

It was the altar on which oaths were taken; solemnly reconsecrated to the Sabine deity on each recurring fifth of June. Perhaps if the thoughts behind the broad brow and the blue eyes of the ex-Prætor had been rendered into speech, they would have run thus:

"Yesterday at this hour I was wealthy, powerful and dreaded: To-day I am an outlaw without rights or possessions, waiting the summons to appear before the judges, who are as likely to condemn me to death by torture, as to send me to the mines or accord me banishment. And why has this happened? Answer, Ego of Philoremus! Because something within me revolts from even the semblance of worship offered to the deities of Rome. Revengeful, lustful, treacherous as Man; subject like him to base passions and earthly frailties; stained with unnatural crimes and vices, I know them to be demons; I will no more of them!"

"The Pythagorean teachings, the sugared theories of the Platonists, the philosophy of the Stoics, I have in turn swallowed and rejected in the reversed condition, as the owl deals with infant moles and mice! Vainly I have sought refuge in the Eleusinian Mysteries. If there were but one snake in the sacred basket of the priestess, what a nest of writhing cobras did I not find behind the Veil! Isis lured, and I sought her; after long weeks of trials and austerities I was conducted to the sanctuary. Initiate, O Mother and Queen of Harlots!—only to be again disillusioned! The religious cults of Syria and Asia Minor, the philosophical speculations of the Gymnosophists of Hind beckoned, and I followed, only to be again betrayed! Yet could I not have concealed my doubts and disgusts, made my convictions march with my interests? This Voice, speaking within my bosom, says emphatically No! Some change has taken place in me, some growth has germinated unnoticed, even as the fields of the Delta rush into life and verdure, when the garment of water is withdrawn from the land by the subsidence of the Nile. This is my right hand with the callosity upon the third joint of the third finger—that reminds me of the signet that is missing from it—the thick gold ring—set with a black onyx carved in intaglio with the head of the club-bearing Hercules,—that was a wedding gift from my wife. But the Me within me is changed—since yesterday—as though I had been touched by the living Hand that over three hundred years ago gave sight to the blind, cleansed the leper, and raised up the dead."

* * * * * * *

A deep voice broke upon the muttered soliloquy. It said in shaken accents:

"O my master!—" and broke off. For the light of joy that shone in the clear blue eyes that turned to him was almost too much for Hazaël's sick heart to bear. He crossed the hall in three long strides, bent his knee at the foot of the tribune, mounted its steps, and kissed with his bearded lips the hand that had worn the black onyx intaglio, even as its owner exclaimed:

"Hazaël! The man I most wanted. Welcome back, good friend, to this house that was my home!"

"Now may the Holy One be blessed and praised Who has led me back to Alexandria in time," responded Hazaël, "to serve my most gracious lord! Well has the Prophet said there is no man so virtuous that he shall escape calumny. Even Philoremus, I knew had enemies. But that does not explain—" he gulped,—"the suspension from office, the soldiers placed on guard over their own commander—or read the accursed riddle of those seals upon the door!"

"The answer is very simple, my excellent Hazaël," returned Philoremus with a quizzical smile. He rolled up and thrust the sacred scroll in the breast of his purple-bordered tunic, and motioned the Jew to seat himself on a stool beside his chair. "If suspension from office be public dishonour, at least it means a private leisure seldom enjoyed. Sit and let us talk, nobody will disturb us! I go before the Prefect of Alexandria to answer to mine accuser—but not before to-morrow at the sixth hour."

"Sir—in the name of the Holiest I conjure you to enlighten me! What is this accusation?" burst forth Hazaël. "Who is the accuser whose testimony hath such credit as to blacken so great a personage as yourself in the eyes of men?"

And as the hoarsely-spoken words escaped the Jew's mouth, that was parched with anguish even more than by the acrid dust of the deserts which he had traversed, Philoremus answered:

"It is said that I am a Christian and I may not deny it. For the man who hath accused me is none other than Myself!"

"Woe, woe!" cried the anguish-stricken Hebrew, tearing his beard and striving to rend the tough material of his garment, while great tears brimmed his under-eyelids and made furrows in his dusty face. He checked the violence of his grief, on seeing a slight shade of disgust pass over the delicate patrician features of the Roman, and smeared his tears roughly away with the back of a hairy hand. "Pardon!" he gasped. "Forgive me! ... Pray, tell me more!"

"First drink some of this wine!" said his master, filling a crystal goblet from a golden-lidded crystal flagon that stood upon the table conveniently at hand. "A Prætor suspended is as good as hanged—in the estimation of his slaves and freed-men," went on Philoremus whimsically, as the Jew gulped down the draught of which he stood in sore need: "and I make no doubt that my rascals have been robbing me—from the noon-hour of yesterday—when I received the mandate of Lollius Maxius, until this moment of thy return. Therefore art thou thrice welcome. For since the seals were placed, and my own guards set over me, I have brooded over the trapdoor of this vault that contains the half-year's tax-money of Egypt—like a hen sitting upon an addled egg."

"Yes, all through the night," he added, whimsically smiling at the indignant astonishment of Hazaël, "until this moment. Nor would the fellows bring me a meal—doubtless they have been too busy plundering me to feed me. A lump of cheese, a barley-cake and this flagon of Mareotic, I obtained through one of my Legionaries, who coaxed it out of the cook!" He added, as the breast of Hazaël heaved, and a hoarse sound like a sob escaped him: "Now you are come to take charge of the Egyptian tax-money, O excellent Hazaël! a weight is off my mind. By Hercules and the Twelve, I find it a relief! Come, be not so cast down!"

The Jew choked out with difficulty:

"To find you accused—proscribed—perhaps ruined—suffocates me with indignation!"

"The Gymnosophists," said the ex-Prætor, "who dwelt upon a mountain in Ethiopia nearly two thousand years ago, and are said to dwell there still, would have asked you why you are disturbed at this intelligence? 'Your patron,' they would say, 'who enjoyed the semblance of Happiness for many years, is now to undergo the appearance of Misfortune.' Happiness and Misfortune being equally Illusions, why on earth are you mopping your eyes?"

He drew a perfumed handkerchief of fine Egyptian byssus from a gold-embroidered wallet of gazelle-leather that hung at his girdle, and said with a smile as he tossed it to Hazaël: "Waste no more time in tears for one who sees no cause. We may thank the banquet the Prefect gives to-night for this opportunity for conversation. May he bring as fierce an appetite to his tunny pickled with oysters, his stuffed and roasted sucking-pig and larded quails and ortolans as I brought to bear on my barley-cake and goat's cheese. Come, my good fellow, own the truth! Did you never yet suspect me of coquetting with Christianity? Think! ... Not even when I have gone secretly forth in a sackcloth gown and cowled mask,—plague or fever having broken out in the purlieus of the city—or in a time of scarcity, when famine pinched the poor?"

The Jew shook his shaggy head.

"Whatever I saw was seen and forgotten, not being intended for these eyes. What presumption had it not been, had I ventured to question the movements of my patron; who might, the noble lady his wife being long dead, have entered without grievous sin into some union of the temporary kind. Besides, you forget, O most excellent! that day now fifteen years past, when a certain Roman officer of high rank, disguised as a Frankish traveller, sought adventure in the Jewish quarter of Alexandria."

"I have not forgotten!" Philoremus chuckled. "We had received intimation the previous year that the Jews of Alexandria were prospering exceedingly. Marriages at the synagogues constantly took place. Births—yours is a prolific race!—inevitably followed each union. Immigrations from Ethiopia and the towns of the Upper Nile continually swelled the population.... Trade flourished. Money-bags grew fat,—and the coins, being put to usury, bred like maggots. Yet no Jew was other than poor—when it came to paying the tax."

"Most excellent, I have observed it!" acquiesced Hazaël gravely, wondering that his patron could so forget the present peril in these memories of the past:

"Therefore, O Hazaël! I came disguised into Jewry with the laudable desire to find out for myself the condition of the miserable and oppressed race. It was a Feast Day, and the narrow and winding streets were foul, and stank exceedingly. But wreaths of anemones and violets ornamented the windows, while fat and soot from myriads of twinkling lamps, shed dubious blessings on the heads of the passers-by. Within each house were displayed rich curtains and costly carpets from the looms of Persia and Babylon. The goodwives spread their tables with finest Egyptian linen cloths, and dishes and cups of silver—indeed—I will not take oath that some were not of gold! Rich jewels twinkled in their ears, and decked their wigs and bosoms, and maidens of Israel were among them, gazelle-eyed, ivory-skinned, beautiful as the virgin daughter of Demeter.... Frown not, Hazaël, for even when my blood was young I knew how to respect the virtue of the women of Israel! Later, when I turned about to retrace my steps, I saw an exceedingly unwashed urchin peering in with longing eyes at a window I had quitted a moment previously. No Jewish maid was the object of the young Hazaël's admiration. On the meagrely-spread table were a dish of lentils dressed in oil and a common crockery wine-jug; some bread cakes, and a large flank of tunny in a red pottery dish, swimming in vinegar."

A spark of amusement kindled in the gloomy eyes of Hazaël. The Roman went on:

"Perhaps that Jewish urchin might have reached twelve years. He was small for his age, filthy exceedingly, and meagre. And he hugged his lean stomach, droning a kind of song with the burden: 'I wish!—I wish!' ... 'And what dost thou wish?' I asked, coming up unseen behind him...."

The stern lips under Hazaël's matted beard were parted now in laughter. He said with a flash of strong white teeth showing in his dark face:

"And I answered: 'I wish it were Sabbath all the week long!—or that I had a stomach like a camel's!' And you asked 'Why?' and I answered, 'Because on Feasts and Sabbaths I may eat my fill at the tables of the Chosen, while on other days I fight with dogs upon the quays for the scraps thrown us by sailors and foreigners. Thus I am empty six days in a week of days, and full to bursting on the Seventh!' Then you, my lord, said to me,—I can hear your voice this moment, 'Come with me, Hazaël, small descendant of Abraham, and thou shalt eat thy fill of lawful food, every day!' And so your greatness took me thence, and placed me in the household of a Jew who served as scribe to you,—and stooped to ask my common, sordid story. And I told thee how, having reached my twelfth year—my good father being a Rab, an interpreter of the sacred books and a pleader before the Courts of my people in the town of Acanthon upon the Lower Nile,—was brought home dead, having been struck upon the forehead by a beam of cedar borne upon the back of a camel led by a Copt.... And that my mother, being a poor widow, had married a cousin of my father. And—that I had found truth in the saying that the breath of a stepfather chills the broth. My broth was not only cold, but salted overmuch with the tears of many beatings. Wherefore I ran away from the village where we dwelt; and begged my way to Alexandria. That was in the third month Sivan, and it was well into the seventh month, even Tishri, before I found," he gulped, "a friend!"

"And I," said the ex-Prætor, "the most faithful and discreet of servants, if a little too peppery of temper at times for the comfort of my freedmen and slaves. You developed with years a genius for the calling of the scribe, akin to that of Cæsar for the command of armies. The most disorderly rabble of ciphers that ever disgraced the pages of a ledger were transformed beneath the hand of Hazaël into legions worthy of Rome! The advancement for which you thank me came as the reward of your own labours. My disgrace cannot blight you,—my fall cannot bring you toppling. All Alexandria knows my Chief Secretary to be an orthodox Jew and devout Christian-hater! In how many of the old street-riots between the Chosen and the monks of Alexandria,—hast thou not played the warrior to the tune of cracked crowns and broken shin-bones, with that great staff of thine?"

"It is true!" A rush of scarlet invaded the Jew's bearded face, dyeing his forehead and injecting the whites of his eyes. He dropped his head upon his breast and stammered:

"It is verily true! Ever since my father—on whom be Peace!—taught me to stammer Shema I have abominated the Christians. Since his death, and mine oath, I have rejoiced with the rest of the Chosen at the revival of persecution, little dreaming that—"

He broke off, convulsed by a shudder that shook him from head to foot. Then he nerved himself, with an effort that brought sweat-drops starting upon his cheeks, and temples and forehead, for a final appeal. "O my loved patron!" he entreated, "hear me! Break the abominable spell that has—I know not how—constrained you to embrace a religion only fitted for unlearned fishermen, common criminals, slaves or unfortunate persons, publicans and sinners—"

"A Prætor of Taxes is a publican, I imagine!..." the Roman official suggested.

"Even," returned Hazaël, "as Leviathan among the lizards, and the Lantern of the Pharos beside a farthing candle or a glow-worm's light. Shall one so illustrious as yourself bow down to the deity that came out of—Galilee? The son of Joseph the carpenter, speaking Aramæan,—who called himself, in the madness of delusion or the blasphemy of possession—the Son of the Most Holy One, the Lord Who is God! Who preached the sordid creed of poverty, humility and love; love not only to kindred and friends, but to enemies, betrayers, traducers, murderers! Who was abandoned in disgust by those who had followed him, and died a shameful death upon the cross!"

Said the Roman, looking out across the loggia at the blue sky and the darting swallows:

"When the white-robed flamens of Jupiter Capitolinus, standing upon the steps of the portico of the temple, bid the Romans come and celebrate the mysteries of their god, they cry, 'All ye that are pure of heart and clean of hands, come to the sacrifice!' Yet Jupiter is neither a pure nor a particularly clean god. And when the white-robed priestesses of Ceres bear the round basket through the streets of Alexandria, do they not scream like so many peahens? 'Sinners, away, or keep eyes on the ground! Only the Worthy may dare to approach us!' Yet those who participate in the Eleusinian mysteries do not return worthier than they went!"

He poured out a little wine, drank, and said as he set down the emptied goblet:

"When that young wolf in the Christian fold, the evil presbyter Arius, gave me the password and the sign, that disguised in the sackcloth robe and masked cowl of the Parabolani, I might mingle with them in the meetings of their sodalities and penetrate even to the house of the Christian Patriarch—the wretch little knew what a burning curiosity was veiled by my expressed desire for his rascally aid. For the Master to Whom the glory of the world was a transitory spectacle—the Teacher Who revealed Himself to the poor and the humble, and opened His Heart as a Gate of Hope to the sinful and despised—discovers in His teaching such absolute unworldliness as to make it starry clear that He came from beyond the stars...."

The ex-Prætor was silent, but his heart added:

"O Divine Man, if only I had known Thee! O Son of God! Who could take upon Thee the burden of our earthliness!—but to have heard Thy Voice! but to have seen Thy Face! Perhaps an hour may come—not too far distant—"

And so wonderful a radiance shone upon the brow and in the eyes of the speaker, despite the ravages of sleeplessness and anxiety, that Hazaël was stricken dumb.

IV

Suddenly the Jew winced as though stung, exclaiming:

"How could I have forgotten? Your son, Florens?"

"Florens is well," said the Roman, "and in safety. Not here," he answered to Hazaël's look, "but at your own house, in the care of your excellent wife. To whom else should I entrust my most valued possession? Florens is not yet a Christian, but I would have him one. This, should I die, is my last command to you. Let me hear you say that I shall be obeyed!"

Hazaël wrung his hands and cried in anguish:

"O, my master! as God lives I swear that I will obey you faithfully! Were the boy to be dedicated to the Evil One, it should be done though I were damned for it!"

"Thanks, my friend!" said the father, with moisture showing in his bright blue eyes. Silently a hand-grip was exchanged between the ex-Prætor and his Chief Secretary. Then the former resumed:

"Further attend. I shall pass from the tribunal of the Prefect to the Hall of the Judges. Should the decision of the Court be that I suffer the extreme penalty, take Florens secretly to the Monastery of Tabenna, in the Upper Thebaïd. Some time will pass before the Prefect of the Stationaries of Apollinopolis sends another force to attack that wasp's nest! You have heard how sturdy a defence they maintained during the recent siege! The tribune in command of three maniples was compelled to withdraw his soldiers. Though at the Monastery of Mount Nitria, and that of Scete, and at Scyras, as at Aphroditopolis, raids were effected without opposition. Melittus, Abbot of Scete, was brought to the tribunal three days ago. He was condemned to be beaten to death with rods. Three of the five monks who were in bonds with Melittus went to the torture. Two novices they sent to the mines, in consideration of their youth. I myself was in the Hall of the Question, sitting on the high seat with the judges commissioned by the Prefect of Egypt. And as Melittus and his monks were brought forward to be sentenced, each one looked up to the right of the Catasta* with a brightened face, and smiled. For He was there!"

Hazaël started, so full of awe was the ending of the sentence.

"Do you—you do not mean that you beheld in a vision Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified?"

"Not He!" The ex-Prætor bent his head reverently. "Not the Lord, but one who in visions has often seen Him. The Egyptian, called the Athlete of Christ, the Saint who founded the Monastery of Tabenna which stands between Diopolis and Tentyra on the eastern bank of the Nile. For this house, now under the rule of the venerable Abbot Pachomius, was built upon the ruins of a tomb or temple of the bygone people, where the Saint, to enjoy contemplation of things Divine, lived in solitude as a hermit for twenty years. Now his eyrie is upon a high mountain looking towards the fastnesses of Sinai and the Red Sea. Once, he came down—during the persecution of Diocletian, and travelled to Alexandria with the chain-gangs of Christians, being brought to the city to confess their Faith and die. No man laid a hand on him, though he went in and out of the prisons freely, bringing clothes and food and medicine; tending the sick and comforting the wretched, preaching and exhorting openly, showing himself in the Courts under the eyes of the judges, as though he would have said, 'If ye seek me, come and take me; here I am, here I am!'"

"I have heard of this hermit," Hazaël assented. "He was protected by some great person. That is what was said at the time."

"Then the people of Alexandria spoke truth for once. He was protected by the greatest of all Persons."

Hazaël's face was as a stone mask. He said:

"And so Christ's Athlete shows himself again.... Will he escape this time, I wonder?"

Said the Roman, not observing or perhaps ignoring a peculiarity in the Jew's look and tone:

"He followed the captive monks from Nitria, not only to bear witness to Christ in the prisons and churches, but to confute and crush the heresy of Arius. Each day in the Hall of the Judges he stood up upon the left of the Catasta, wrapped in a white linen cloth reaching from his ankles to his middle, and mantled with the snowy fleece of his long hair and beard. He leaned upon a staff topped with the Cross, and as the doomed were led away he blessed them, crying in a voice that vibrated through the building like the sound of a silver gong: 'Blessed are ye, called by Divine Grace to testify to the Lord, even Christ Jesus! On with a good courage! for to you He holdeth open the Gate of Hope!' None laid a finger on him. But the Chief Judge, in whose full view the Athlete stood, called a lictor and said to him softly: 'Command that man in my name to withdraw himself from the Court!' And the Athlete, hearing this, cried in that voice of silvery sweetness; 'I go from this place, O unjust judge! not at thy command, but because I have discharged the errand of my Lord. My way leads through the Libyan Desert to Scete in Nitria, and from the White Monastery of Aphroditopolis to Tabenna; and from thence I return through the Desert of Arabia to mine abode. Who would overtake me let him follow; who would find me let him seek me in the ruins of the Pagan temple that stands above the Limestone Torrent, under the crown of the mountain that is called Derhor, standing between the Arabian Desert and the Gulf of Heroöpolis, looking across the Wilderness of El Ka to the Mount of Sinai!"

"And he departed?"

"He went out from the midst of us, no man daring to touch even his garment, and I returned somewhat late, to find some tax-gatherers of the Onophites waiting to pay gathered gold into the Treasury of the State. And to these I must administer the oath, first covering my head with the lustrated woollen cap, sprinkling incense on the coals and invoking the Sabine deity.... And, as has been my wont of late, I refrained from doing these things.... Then a man in mean clothes rose up and pointed to me, and cried out: 'Question! Question! Is an oath made before a Roman Prætor valid and binding, when the usage and wont of the sacred ceremonial are scamped after a fashion like this? Dip the olive-twig! Purify the wool with the consecrated element! ... Throw the incense on the coals, therewith invoking Dius Fidius! Or else confess that thou, Philoremus Fabius, art a worshipper of Christ!' Then—I do not quite know what came over me. I threw the cap upon the floor, and said to all present: 'You have heard the Accuser! Now hear me! I am a Christian man!'"

The Jew groaned:

"Madness. Possession! A casting away of reputation, honour, and it may be, very existence! ... And for what? ... You have never renounced the gods of Rome! ... You have never been baptised by a Christian priest, or broken," he spat, "consecrated bread, or drunk wine at one of their accursed love-feasts! You have only mingled among them unseen, in the robe and cowl of the Parabolani. Idly listened to a sermon or two—helped to carry one plague-bit to the hospital.... Listen! ... All may yet be well! ... Only consent to write plainly, stating these facts to His Excellency Lollius Maxius, and to the Prefect Mettius Rufus, and entrust both letters to me.... Upon my head and my son's head be it if you find me fail you! Hasten, O Master! Every moment of delay lessens the chance of averting ruin. For the sake of the boy Florens do this—if you will not for your own!"

"My good Hazaël," the Roman said, as the Secretary thrust tablets and stylus upon him, and drew forward his vacated chair, urging him to sit down. "To my shame be it said, I have already appealed to the friendship of the Prefect, though not in such pusillanimous terms as these you suggest. Until this moment I have waited for an answer in vain. As for the boy, these white hairs that have appeared upon my temples since yesterday, testify to the anxiety I suffer upon his account. Being a child of tender years, you might claim of the State in his name some portion of my confiscated property. But in this case he will be placed under a Roman guardian, and reared in the worship of the gods of Rome. Better be still! Now tell me while there is time, what of your errand to Ælia Capitolina? Did you discover Annius Jovius Priscus, the Senator, guardian of my late wife's property? And does her inheritance, the ancient Israelitish fortress, once given by King Solomon to Balkis, Queen of Sheba, yet stand among the vineyards near Joppa, or has Kirjath-Saba resolved itself into a mountain of disjointed stone?"

The Jew drew a folded skin of parchment from his bosom and gave it to the Roman as he answered:

"I found the man you bade me seek, in the city that was once Jerusalem! As for the tower of Kirjath-Saba, it stands as though fresh wars might yet rage and beat upon its ruggedness, and new nations arise and flourish and pass, yet leave it there unharmed. Here, sent to thee by the Senator Priscus, are the writings made when the Tower with the land about it, was conferred upon the Tribune Justus Martius of the Tenth Roman Legion, by decree of the Emperor Vespasian, on the tenth day of the month of August, in the second year of his reign."

Philoremus murmured, scanning the faded ink characters upon the sheepskin:

"Justus Martius, ancestor of my wife, led a party of Roman Legionaries with scaling-ladders in the siege of Titus against Antonia. He found a breach in the fortress-wall, got through and killed—"

Hazaël nodded grimly:

"Ay, killed the Jewish sentries, and slew the rest of the defenders. That was the beginning of the Massacre and the Destruction—to which that of Nebuchadnezzar the Assyrian, was as a passing shower to the fury of a storm. With this deed I have to deliver back to you the signet ring with the head of Hercules, cut in intaglio upon a black agate, that I carried with me into Palestine; and also my pack-mule's burden of two thousand sestertia, in good aurei of Hadrian, at 30 to the pound of gold; and with the money a message from Priscus."

"Keep the black onyx intaglio in memory of me. The fellow ring—the same head cut in relief—is in the coffer with my dear wife's jewels. Worn by her from her marriage until her death, it will be a precious legacy for Florens. Give it him when he shall have reached the age of nineteen. Take the parchment also and keep it in trust for my son, and the mule-load of money, for I have no need of these." As the sheep-skin vanished under the Jew's upper garment, "Give me now," said the Roman, "the message of Annius Priscus."

"It was: 'Tell the husband of my departed ward to find another steward to husband her vineyards of Kir Saba and receive the grape-money from the wine-presser, for I weary of the dust and glare of Palestine, and desire to end my days in my native city of Rome.'" The Jew added: "I found Priscus setting forth with his household and slaves to take ship for Rome at Joppa. Had I arrived at a later hour, my journey had been in vain. Wherefore, thanking the Most High, Who had aided me in the execution of my lord's business, I accepted the invitation of the Senator to accompany him as far as Lydda, now known as Diospolis; from whence I went to Kirjath-Saba, two days' journey by road. There gushes forth to water the green plains of Sharon a river of fattening for the vineyards that stand about the Tower. Six hundred schaeni of land, I judged, measuring roughly by the eye. The two thousand sestertia I received represent but a tithe of the value of the yearly gathering, judging by the fruit that yet hung upon the vines."

"Old men are easily duped by smooth-tongued stewards."

"The rogue at Kir Saba is a Phœnician, and slippery as an adder. Yet will he not lose the stiffness of his back-muscles and haunches until he shall have sacrificed a goose or two to his goddess Tanit, and caused a slave to rub him with the grease."

A spark of amusement twinkled in the tired eyes of the Roman.

"You beat him?"

"My staff has an affinity with the backs of robbers that may not be denied. This one, by virtue of the authority bestowed on me, I summarily deprived of his office; replacing the thief with one Simeon, a Jew of Joppa, a faithful man and, moreover, a kinsman of mine own."

"That is well if you judge it well. And now let us speak no more of money. My son and his future are safe in your true hands."

"Your son's father were also safe, were he to follow the counsels of his servant," said the Jew with a passionate eagerness. "But consent to exchange clothes,—giving me your purple-edged prætexta—taking this travel-soiled robe of mine, this girdle, sword and dagger—this parchment deed and this purse of money—and topping all with my mantle of camel's hair! ... Let me sit here, covering my head and arms as one that weeps, with the folds of this, your mantle!" He caught up a fur-trimmed hooded outer garment of crimson that lay upon a neighbouring chair. "Pass the guards!—in your disguise the thing may be done, I swear it! Hasten to my house. Give to my wife a written line from me—here are inkhorn, reed and paper—and she will deal with you faithfully even as myself. Consent! Accept!"

"The sacrifice of your life for mine! A thousand times No!" said the ex-Prætor, sternly.

Hazaël urged in a low, fierce voice, illustrating his speech with rapid gestures towards the window; pointing to the helmed head, muscular brown neck and powerful shoulders of the Legionary posted in the loggia beyond.

"My life will be in no peril. I swear to you I will but make sure that you have passed out safely, before I leap upon the guard there, stab one—strangle the other—and escape. Once in the Jews' Quarter I am safe as you will be. By a hundred avenues known to none but the Chosen we can escape from Alexandria. Only consent—"

But the Roman was firm in his refusal.

"Ah, you wish to die, it is clear to me!" exclaimed Hazaël. "The thirst for death consumes you even as those other Christians, who think the heavens will open amidst their tortures and the Crucified appear, surrounded by the Shekinah; and extending His nail-pierced hands to them; whilst hovering angels offer them the martyr's crown!"

"You forget, I am not even baptised," said the Roman. "I have not received the instruction of a catechumen. I have abjured the gods of Rome without knowing whether Christ will accept me.... And yet—and yet—"

His calmness made the Jew shudder. He looked from the window with a glance that sought above the palm-trees and acacias, the blue sky, crossed and recrossed by the airy dance of the swallows, and said with a smile:

"And yet I have never experienced such wondrous peace of mind. An ichor runs in my veins that is clear as crystal, cool as snow and yet glowing as the fire of sunset.... Never have I tasted in my life a joy so deep as this!"

"He is mad!" groaned Hazaël in his anguished heart. But the ex-Prætor was again speaking:

"Listen, most dear and faithful friend! ... Should that thing happen which means that I am not quite rejected, being permitted to die for the faith of Christ,—take my boy, secretly as I have said, to the Abbot of Tabenna, and explain that I wish Florens to be baptised and reared in the Christian faith." He went on as the Jew's face again darkened, and his eyes once more dilated with horror, "Should Florens shrink from the life of a monk, let him be a soldier, like the father who sends him his blessing. Deposit my wife's jewels with the Abbot of Tabenna,—to be sold for the boy's benefit—all save the fellow-ring to the signet I have given you—which is to be Florens' when he is of age. Tell him that the Hercules must stand for manliness and valour; the knotted club for Truth and Honesty; and the lion's skin for the wisdom that cloaks itself against the malice of the world in the experience of trials overpast."

"I will remember!" the Jew said sullenly. "Have I all your instructions? ..."

"There is but one thing more!" the Roman returned, speaking low and hurriedly. "The boy being left with the Abbot at the Monastery of Tabenna, I entreat you to return by way of the Arabian Desert, seek out the hermitage of Christ's Athlete upon Mount Derhor and deliver to the Blessed One a message from me. Say to the Saint: 'I bring greetings from Philoremus Fabius, once Prætor of the Taxes of Egypt in Alexandria. Without having formally embraced Christ, or received the waters of baptism, this man has testified to the Faith and died!' ... Further, say: 'He entreats thee to pray that his sins may be forgiven. And that for him also the Hand that was pierced may open the Gate of Hope!'..." He added, visibly paling as the distant sound of a trumpet broke upon his utterance, "All is now said. And it is well, for that is the trumpet-call of the Prefect's Bodyguard. My examination takes place before the banquet, it may be! Well, well! I have no envy of the flower-crowned guest whose place should have been mine!"

Again the trumpet shrilled, and the two men sat in silence, as the rhythmical tread of wooden-soled, heavy-nailed sandals falling on the pavement of the street drew nearer,—grew louder until the solid walls vibrated: and then—as a harsh voice, echoed by other voices, was heard to issue some military command—stopped dead. The curtain at the portal bellied inwards with the draught from the opening of the house-door: and as the harsh voice issued another command, the regular tramp of the wooden, iron-nailed shoes of the soldiers wakened the echoes of the outer vestibule. The Jew caught his breath, and the Roman, frowning, laid a hand upon his sinewy arm:

"No demonstration of anger," he said sternly, "I forbid it! And now, for this world, my son—for as one I have loved you!—Farewell!"

"And O farewell, my kindest friend!—my generous protector!" stammered Hazaël, with tears raining down his bearded cheeks as they hurriedly embraced. "May the God of Israel so deal with me and mine as I deal with your son! ... They come!"

The trampling iron-shod footsteps halted at the threshold. The metal rings shrieked on the rod as a brawny, red-haired arm, partly sheathed in glittering brass, thrust the heavy curtains back.... Sunlight flashed from naked steel, and the gilded plates of armour. A Roman officer of the Bodyguard stepped into the room.

V

In consideration of great services rendered to the Empire, the ex-Prætor of the Egyptian Taxes was beheaded without torture. The body, exposed upon the public execution-ground according to the law, mysteriously disappeared. It was whispered that it had been spirited away by persons with Christian leanings, and secretly buried in the crypt of some unknown church.

For three days following the death of his patron, the house of Hazaël was strictly closed.... The Jew, with hair and beard sprinkled with ashes, mourned, sitting on the floor in a coarse black tunic, rent at the hem; and observing silence, ate bread and drank water once a day at the sunset hour. He even said Kaddish for his dead benefactor, though an act so presumptuous would have scandalised the Rabbinate. On the fourth day he rose: washed and reclothed himself, and returned to his family as though nothing had transpired. But on a day following the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, the large white mule on which Hazaël made his journeys, with the beast that usually carried his attendant Ephraim, stood waiting with the pack-mule at the Chief Secretary's door.

A long basket of woven osiers now being brought out by Ephraim and another servant, and carefully strapped upon the burden of necessaries carried by the pack-mule, the Chief Secretary, armed as before, and in the plain travelling garb that he had worn previously, bade farewell to his wife and family; thrust his mighty bronze-shod staff once more into its leathern bucket; and rode out of the City of the Pharos with his small following, by the Gate of the Moon.

A flat-bottomed boat paddled by four negroes, conveyed both men and beasts across the vineyard-fringed Lake of Mareotis, and for some miles south-eastwards along the Canal of Alexandria, between palm-groves, gardens, orchards and the estates of wealthy Greeks, Egyptians and Roman officials. Above Andron, the ancient city fast falling through Roman misrule into neglect and dilapidation, the party landed; Hazaël gave money to the master of the rowers, received his salutations, and the four negroes, reversing their positions, soon conveyed the boat away.

Then the Jew, no longer hiding the anxiety that had devoured him, leaped with fierce energy upon the pack-mule, unstrapped the heavy osier basket and with the aid of Ephraim, carefully lowered it to the ground. With shaking hands he unfastened the lid of the pannier, and as the smiling but bewildered face of a boy of twelve years old looked up at him, with blue eyes blinking in the sudden glare of the sun:

"Now thanks be to the Holy One that all is well with thee!" he stammered. "Not a word, not a movement—your father's true son! See now—this pad from under thy head, my hands beneath thy armpits. Leap—and fresh as a salmon from the British Thamesis—a sturgeon from the Hyperborean Ocean, or a lamprey from Lake Moeris—out you come!"

He hugged the boy against his breast with almost womanly tenderness, and running his hands rapidly over the slight body, assured himself that all was well. Then mounting Florens before the saddle of his own mule, and followed by Ephraim with the other animals; the Secretary, following a southward-running road that crossed some ripening cotton-fields, presently drew the rein, and looked back at Ephraim, saying:

"The idolaters are true to their word. See, there are their tents and camels!"

And he pointed to where low black tents were pitched upon a stretch of scrubby ground lying between the crop-land and the reddish-coloured desert, upon which camels eagerly grazed upon withered vetch and wiry grasses; while a small band of Saracens crouched round a small fire, wrapped in capacious mantles woven of white wool and black camel's hair, their loaded staves beside them, and sharp broad-bladed spears planted haft downwards in the ground near by.

The Saracens rose, seeing men on beasts coming, seized their staves and plucked forth their spears. Then, comprehending who it was that approached, their demeanour altered, and they received the Jew with respect.

"I am Mafa Oabu," said the eldest of the company. "If evil come to thee, or those who are thy companions, I pay to him whom thou knowest, with my life and the lives of my sons!"

He touched himself with the right hand upon the breast and brow, and laid his hands in the hands of Hazaël, as also did the men of his following. Three young camels were chosen for the travellers to ride. Two others were loaded with the water-skins, provisions, fodder, and baggage. Mafa Oabu mounted one of the pack-animals. Two strong young men, marching with the caravan, would ride by turns upon the other, the old Saracen said, when either of them required rest. As for the mules, they remained in the keeping of the Saracens, to be reclaimed upon the return of the travellers. The price of the journey, not to be paid until then, was to be one hundred silver sestertii a day for each of the five camels; fifty sestertii for Mafa Oabu, and a gift for each of the young men.

The departure was accompanied by shrill ululating cries made by the women of the Saracens, who kept veiled their faces, painted like their naked bodies with green and scarlet fishes, serpents and the signs of the Zodiac, and smeared their hair with butter. Then the caravan struck southwards into the Nitrian Desert. That night they encamped under a grove of palm-trees, near a Roman well hollowed in the living rock, amidst the bellowings of the camels, which purposely had not been watered before the start.

Water-skins brought by the Jews being filled by Ephraim, that the pure element might not be contaminated by the touch of idolaters, the Saracens filled their own, and drew water for the camels, which was given the thirsty beasts in a pitch-smeared skin trough. Mafa Oabu took no share in these labours, but prostrating himself upon the sand with his forehead towards the setting sun, remained absorbed in silent adoration. The Jews washed, gave thanks and ate; sharing with the child the bread, eggs, figs and dried fish they had brought with them; drinking a little wine diluted with water, and keeping their own side of the fire. The Saracens washed down their sparing diet of dried bread, dates and sheeps'-milk cheese with a drink of charred corn, crushed, and boiled in water mingled with honey, which they sipped from the shells of young tortoises, showing their white teeth in smiles at the hearty appetite displayed by the child. Yet while the novelty of all about him pleased and excited Florens, he would pause in the midst of a mouthful to ask Hazaël:

"When we reach where we are going, shall we find my father there?"

"If the Almighty so wills!" was the Jew's invariable answer. The young Saracens, whose names were Marduk and Belias, pitched a black tent to shelter the travellers, when sleeping, from the rays of the new moon. Small, marvellously bright and silvery, it hung high in the south, rivalling the blue radiance of Jupiter, the evening star.... In the north-west the Pharos of Alexandria blazed on the horizon at intervals of an instant. Hazaël looked at the distant splendour of the city, and muttered, as he thought of his benefactor murdered there:

"But for the Chosen, and my Miriam and my children, who dwell in the shadow of thy painted temples like to doves among the rocks, I could wish that fire and brimstone might descend from Heaven and consume thee utterly, thou thrice accursed Harlot of the Sea!"

For in the bosom of the Jew, who had witnessed massacres of Christians without a sentiment of pity or horror, the commission of that single crime had caused a strange revulsion. Before he lay down, he looked at the boy, who wearied, was soundly sleeping; and a heavy tear dropped from his stern eyes upon the woollen covering he held back. Then he replaced it over the tossed curls and the flushed face of the sleeper, commended himself to the Almighty care, and stretched himself upon the ground beside Florens.

Rising to repeat the Shema for the first night-watch, he stepped outside the tent to leave to Ephraim, who had also wakened, the freedom of solitude which intensifies prayer. The young Saracens slept beside the pink embers of the fire, enveloped in their mantles of camel's hair. Mafa Oabu did not sleep, but sat apart, alert and wakeful; spear at hand and staff in readiness; his sling lying beside him, with a supply of rounded stones.

Placing ten small pebbles in front of him, he reckoned that ten days must pass before the arrival of the caravan at Memphis. Adding ten more for the return-journey, he surrounded each of the twenty pebbles with five hundred grains of maize, reckoning up his gains by the light of the moon and of the fire—which he often fed with dead wood and dried camel's-dung—regularly discovering to his chagrin that he had not added the sum due for his own labours, and must begin once more. When the stars began to pale towards the dawn, he ceased, and prostrated himself, rising to find Hazaël standing near.

"What do you worship?" the Jew asked him.

"We pray," said Mafa Oabu, "to the Great and Lesser Lights, to the starry Hosts of Heaven and to the Djinns and Afrits both good and evil, that eavesdrop at the celestial gates and thereby learn much of the divine plans of Allah, the Eternal, the Creator of All. The brilliant lights that sometimes shoot across the sky are in fact these beings, driven by the Angels from the celestial threshold, whence their master Iblis, the Peacock of the Angels, was banished when he rebelled against Allah. We also reverence as the holiest thing from Kaf to Kaf, the pure white stone that fell with our father Adam from the Garden of Paradise. It is now no longer white, having wept so much for the sins of the world, and silver bands prevent it from bursting. It is imbedded in the wall of the Kaaba, the Holy House containing more than three hundred and fifty images, built and carved by Seth, son of Adam, and washed away by the Deluge. Later, Ishmael, guided by the Archangel Gabriel, discovered the marvellous stone, buried in the mud left by the retreating waters, and made new images in place of those lost. We call the period at which these events occurred, The Time of Ignorance. You, my lord, being of the People of the Book, the Sons of Isaac, look back with ourselves—the People of the Desert who are the Children of Ishmael—to Abraham, our common ancestor."

"So it is said," observed Hazaël, unwilling to offend the master of the caravan, while he turned aside to spit upon the sand, making a mental act abjuring kinship with idolaters, condemned by the Almighty to burn forever in hell.

VI

Keeping to the south, they passed that day through some long-neglected orchards, lying upon the outskirts of a town almost in ruins, sparsely inhabited by a degraded population of mingled Greek, Egyptian and Libyan blood. Satyrs and fauns in the fig-groves pelted them with ripe fruit in return for a volley of stones thrown by the Saracens.

"What are they?" asked Florens of Hazaël, puzzled at the sight of these strange semi-human beings, sprung from the iniquities of forgotten peoples; covered with hide, and having horses' ears and tails, or goatish horns and hairy legs, ending in cloven hoofs. But Hazaël muffled the child's eyes and dragged him roughly away.

The groves of the dying city left behind, the ground became rugged, bare and stony. That night the camels grazed upon the safsaf weed, after the next they might have to rely upon the fodder they carried. A milky mirage made the scrub-bushes of the distant plain appear as tall as sycamores. Passing through them, they barely reached the knees of the Saracens who went on foot. White snails covered them, glistening like some strange pale fruit amidst their foliage. These the young Saracens gathered and threw into a bag with salt. Thus purged, they explained, these snails were excellent eating either roasted in the ashes or stewed.

On their left as they travelled, a pearly haze tinged with jade-green signified the vegetation of the banks of the Nile. Ranges of low hills in the south were vested in violet, and palest primrose. The sun smote fiercely, yet when the shadows of men and beasts were shortest, the children of the Desert, as though enlivened by the burning atmosphere, quickened their steps and those of the camels and even began to sing. They passed through part of a petrified forest, the thickest trunks of the stone trees being of the girth of a man's thigh. A herd of gazelle broke from covert, Mafa Oabu slung a stone after them, and a doe followed by a young fawn fell with a broken leg. A Saracen slit the throat of the mother, and would have killed the fawn also, had not the boy Florens begged with tears that the little creature should be given into his care.

"It will die," said Hazaël, "without milk to nourish it!" And he signed to Ephraim, who took charge of the little creature, meaning to slaughter it after the ritual of his people, so that it might lawfully be used for food.

They passed Saracen grave-mounds and trains of camels, and rested at another well where were more camel-trains being loaded with iron vessels of water to carry into the Desert to the military outposts. Near the well was a fortress garrisoned by Roman legionaries. Roman officers driving chariots hailed the Jew, with whom they seemed acquainted, to ask the news from Alexandria. The moon rose early, and rode high before the caravan, as the blood-red disc of the sun sank into the invisible western sea. A mist rose from the burning ground about the legs of the Saracens and the camels, so that they seemed to wade through the waters of an opaque milky lake. That night the Saracens ate the meat of the doe-gazelle roasted on sticks before the fire, and drank boiled broth. And Ephraim killed the fawn, and dressed the meat in the Jewish way, saving the delicate dappled skin to make a belt and hanging purse for Florens. But even the promise of the belt did not pacify the boy.

"I would have reared it and tamed it too," he said, changing colour: "You are cruel!" Nor would he taste of the flesh of the fawn, nor had Hazaël, in concern for the boy's distress, any great appetite for Ephraim's cookery.

Dew did not drench the tents that night, nor soak the heavy striped mantles worn by the three Saracens. The breath of the Desert filled the lungs, the sun poured down like molten brass, the hard red ground ascended under the feet, and travelling became difficult, owing to ridges of petrified coral and banks of fossil shells and sponges. Urged by the whistling of the Saracens the camels exerted themselves painfully. This haste was of necessity, as the water began to thicken and grow murky in the goatskins. That night they rested three hours and travelled instead of sleeping. Before dawn they found the track they pursued wind among low broken hills, rising to jagged bluffs and full of yawning chasms. When the day broke, they perceived on looking back, these low hills magnified by a mirage to a towering range of mountains. Florens cried out in wonder. But the old Saracen made signs that the boy should be silent, as Djinni, Afrits and phantoms of the Desert inhabited the chasms, and resented the presence of beings of the human race. Skeletons of camels, and the mummy-dry bodies of men were found upon the track they followed. Mafa Oabu said that these were the remains of travellers who had offended the Djinns.

Now they descended a steep ravine, the sides of which were clothed with petrified forests. The pass ended in desert, the hot reddish expanse of which, was broken by the glittering shield-shaped basin of a lake. This lake was salt, the Saracens explained by gestures, and the travellers, who sickened at the stench and taste of the putrid water in the goatskins, moistened their cracked lips with a few drops, and turned away their parching eyes from the tormenting sight.

At the bottom of the defile appeared now the white tents of a Roman outpost, the eagled standard set up under a little wooden penthouse, close to the quarters of the officer in command. A square wall of rocks enclosed the encampment, which was protected by an encircling trench. Not far off were seen camels feeding, and the low black tents of a tribe of nomads, of mingled Ethiopian and Arab race.

Now soldiers approached bringing water to the travellers, yellow and muddy and full of the larvae of flies. Filtered through a cloth, they drank of it eagerly. The soldiers were fever-smitten, and covered with scabs and swellings, from the stings of poisonous insects which swarmed amidst the herbage on the borders of the salt lake. Red fruit grew on tall thorny bushes, a thin fodder-grass showed with the safsaf upon the arid dunes. Springs of the brackish water were to be found here, by digging holes of six feet deep in the sandy gravel. Wild-duck haunted the lake-borders; those of the Roman soldiers who were bowmen, habitually shot the birds for a change of food. That night a black-and-white lamb, purchased by the Jew Hazaël from the camp of the Ethiopians, was sacrificed to the moon, and eaten by Mafa Oabu and his men.

They filled the water-skins with the turbid fluid, and left the Roman outpost by the salt lake on the following night. The heat grew fiercer towards daybreak. Waves of burning reddish gravel rose about them to the height of the head of a man. Mingled with the gravel were yellow crystals, perfectly spherical and glittering in the moonlight. The boy begged to be allowed to dismount and gather these stones, which the Saracens collected for the adornment of their women. To pacify Florens the Jew bought a handful or so from the young men.

They crossed a low range of broken hills, and at noon saw Mount Nitria and a mirage of two salt lakes. Pied birds of grey-and-white with long tails, appeared towards evening, feeding on minute winged insects that rose from the burning sand, and signalling to each other with sharp, whistling calls. Jackals howled during the hours of rest, and, looking back when they had quitted the place of their encampment, they saw it alive with these foul creatures of prey.

Now the ground became paved with slabs of shining mica. Bushes of wormwood, tamarisks and thorny shrubs with red fruit, eatable by men and greedily devoured by camels, grew in the friable red soil at the base of stony cliffs. Herds of gazelle grazed here. Hills shaped like cones with broken tops rose up on either side of them. Towering rocks of black basalt looked like giant Ethiopians menacing the caravan with uplifted clubs and spears. The full moon rose in radiance whilst the sun was sinking over the unseen western ocean, amid splendours of amber, topaz and ruby, sapphire and emerald.

They marched before day. The Libyan sun had never burned with fiercer intensity. For fear that the boy would swoon and fall from his camel, Hazaël transferred him to his own. The young Saracens ran by the wearied beasts, whistling to them to march in line,—singing songs and jesting clumsily to distract the thoughts of the wearied travellers. Hazaël said within himself:

"When upon the hump of an accursed camel I fry alive in the sun of Libya, shall I be solaced because a cricket chirps at the doorway of mine ear?" Yet he pretended to listen with pleasure, and bade the exhausted child take notice how the shadows of the Saracens gambolled beside them like black monkeys on the rocks. But the boy, feverish from the bites of the swarms of flies beside the salt lake, or sickened by the muddy water, drooped more and more. Sometimes he revived sufficiently to reiterate:

"Shall we really find my father when we reach the journey's end?"

Or he would vary the question by asking:

"Shall I have thy son Levi and thy little Leah to play with there?"

To which the Jew, tender as a woman, and fearful of increasing the child's distemper by thwarting him, would reply:

"If God willed it, thy father would be waiting to receive thee. If the All Highest commanded, thy playmates would be there also. All things are disposed and directed by the Almighty."

"Where is He?" the child asked. Hazaël answered:

"He is at the zenith and at the nadir. He encompasses the world with His fingers, and takes up His abode in the hearts of holy and pious men."

"May a little boy see Him? Shall I see Him?" the child queried.

And Hazaël answered, groaning in spirit at the thought of the eternal burnings destined for the soul of this innocent, who must be reared in the heresy of Christianity:

"The Cherubim gaze perpetually on Him, and know no weariness!"

The child seated on the pad before him, felt the heaving of his breast, turned in his supporting arms, and looked up into his gloomy countenance. Then, seeing the black brows, knotted over the bloodshot eyes, the strange convulsion that twisted the mouth, and the haggard temples and hollow cheeks bedabbled with sweat, Florens grew pale and stared at him in fear.

"Are you angry?" he faltered, and Hazaël forced his brows to unbend, and his lips to smile as he answered:

"Perhaps, but not with thee!"

"That is well," returned the boy, "for I would have you love me as much as you love Levi and little Leah!"

"Then be content," said Hazaël's deep voice, "for even as these do I love thee!"

Yet as he answered in gentle words, the spirit of some dark forefather who served Canaanitish idols with bloody rites ages before the Lawgiver received the Divine revelation upon the holy Mountain of God—tempted Hazaël to pluck away the sinewy arms that sustained the child in front of him—and let him fall to certain death upon the stones beneath the camel's feet.

VII

After another day's journey over stones and thorny scrub-bush, Mount Nitria and her ranges walled out the southern horizon, while the Pyramids of Memphis showed small upon the east. The ascent grew more steep, then the ground sloped down and the camels entered the Natrûn Valley. Here safsaf weed, tamarisk and thorn gave place to olives, vines and harvested fields, upon the drying straw of which, camels, black goats and numerous flocks of sheep were feeding. Presently the valley divided into two: at the bottom of one lay the salt lakes, at this time of the year but six in number. Beside the lakes dwelt colonies of salt-workers who cultivated fields of corn, vineyards and olive-trees along the banks of a waterless channel that had once, according to tradition, formed a branch of the Nile. In the bed of this vanished river, and where some of the lakes had dried up, huge bones of unknown creatures, encrusted with glittering saline crystals, projected from the salt-streaked mud. These, the Saracens said, were the remains of some terrible giants, sons of Eblis, Lord of the Djinni and master of the Afrits. Upon the further range of hills rose the temples, pylons, palaces and streets of Scete, an ancient city of the Egyptians, dedicated of old to the worship of Horus the hawk god. The suburbs to the east were inhabited by Greek and Copt salt-merchants, their families and their Libyan and negro labourers; but the magnificence of Scete lay abandoned to foxes, bats and owls.

The Saracen master of the camels believed this place to be the abode of evil Afrits, and pointing to some pillars of fine dust set whirling by a breeze that was blowing from the north-east across the deserted courtyards and huge empty squares:—

"See!" said Mafa Oabu to Hazaël, "how the Accursed Ones make sport here. Beyond those groves of columns topped with lotus-buds, within those vast palaces are halls where the Sons of Eblis sit on thrones, crowned and immovable with their stone hands resting upon their stony knees.... Women with the heads of cows, carrying the Moon between their horns, look down on them. Troops of peris carrying flowers and ornaments, men with the heads of hawks, crocodiles, and other creatures are limned on the walls.... At night they come to life, descend and serve the Sons of Eblis, who between moonset and cockcrow are released from their bonds of stone. But all the rest of the time the place is but the playground of the Afrits. Evil is certain to befall us if we pause to look on them!"

Right and left of Scete, on the shoulders of the hills, were chapels and rows of cells, wrought by Christian monks and hermits with infinite patience of labour out of the Cyclopean rock. Lower down a stream of pure water descending a rocky gorge, made fruitful the fields and vegetable gardens, the olive-groves and date-palms cultivated by the Solitaries and the "communities with tireless industry and patience; and manured by loads of rich black mud, transported on the backs of asses and of men from the banks of the distant Nile.

Beyond these fields and gardens stretched the great Libyan Desert. To the south the massive battlemented walls of the Monastery of Scete, backed by the distant mountain of the Cow, rose from the summit of a flat-topped mound of red gravel covered with black pebbles.

Seen near, this place resembled a fortress with loopholes pierced in its Cyclopean masonry. An ancient bronze shield depended by two rusty chains from the wall beside the low doorway, through which the venerable Abbot Melittus, with three monks and two novices, had been led away to Alexandria to suffer for Christ: and a stone hammer hung below the shield: but it was not possible to reach the door, because two millstones had been rolled into the entrance before it by the monks: who had then re-entered the monastery by means of a rope let down from a window above the door.

"Beat upon the shield!" Hazaël signed to one of the Saracens. The heathen obeyed, but so long the monks within delayed in answering the summons, that the child, suffering from fatigue, and fevered by the recent bites of the innumerable winged insects that swarmed in the neighbourhood of the salt lakes, began to cry.

This innocent clamour evoked the apparition of a bearded monk at the window over the doorway. After anxious scrutiny and much questioning, the monk vanished. A pale beardless face now appeared at the aperture, and a weak but singularly distinct voice addressed Hazaël:

"O Jew of Alexandria!" it said, "we have now no Abbot of Scete, until our Chapter nominate a successor to Melittus, who hath been called, with certain of the brethren, to reign with Jesus Christ. But for the present, I who am called Paule, serve as Brother Superior. Tell me, therefore, what you seek of us?"

"Nothing for myself nor my companions, O monk!" said Hazaël roughly, "but lodging for the night and tendance for this child, who is weary with travel, and somewhat feverish. He is the only son of Philoremus Florens Fabius, late Prætor of the Taxes of Egypt in Alexandria, who—"

"Let down the basket with Brother Theodore!" interrupted the thin voice of Paule.

Then as a deep basket of osiers, containing a pleasant-faced young monk, was let down from the window by a rope worked by windlass and pulley:

"O Jew, give Brother Theodore the child of the servant of Christ, Philoremus," said the weak voice of Paule. "Happy is the hour that brings us our martyred brother's son!"

Then, as the camel ridden by Hazaël knelt at a word from its Saracen driver, and the boy, whose tears had ceased to flow, willingly submitted to be taken in the arms of Brother Theodore; and even showed pleasure as the basket ascended with its burden through the air,—the Jew, unable to restrain his surprise that intelligence of the manner of the Prætor's death should have reached this distant place, motioned to the Superior that he wished to speak in private. And as the monks drew in the basket at the window, and Paule leaned out, the Jew asked:

"How can it be, O monk, that this was known to you?"

Paule looked down at him with luminous eyes, and answered:

"O faithful man! who for the sake of thine oath doest that which is abhorrent unto thee, didst thou not know that the great Saint, the Solitary of Derhor, rested here upon his way to Tabenna in the Thebaïd? Four days ago he left us, having seen in a vision the confession, the arrest and martyrdom by decapitation of the Prætor Philoremus Fabius!"

Hazaël said, striking his great metal-shod staff upon a millstone so violently that the sparks flew:

"Where now is this Saint of thine? Can a swift camel overtake one who seems to have not only the legs of the ostrich, but the eagle's wings? For I have a message for the man from my master!"

Paule asked, with his luminous eyes bent upon the contorted features of the Hebrew:

"Does the message concern the child?"

"Nay, monk, not so!" Hazaël answered, "for the boy is to be delivered to the Abbot of Tabenna with certain jewels which are to be sold for his keep." He added as great drops of sweat started again upon his cheeks and temples, and his eyebrows knotted like breeding snakes: "He is to be baptised and reared as a Christian. These were the Prætor's last commands!" His great voice leaped up from him like a hound unleashed. He roared, striking his staff upon the stone again. "But better he should die to-night and be gathered to his Pagan ancestors. Yea, better ten thousand times! Monk, do you hear?"