The Bride of the Nile — Volume 10 by Georg Ebers (most read books in the world of all time .txt) 📕

seeing the strong man shaken with sobs and learning the cause of his grief, respectfully withdrew; for the anguish of a son at the loss of his mother was sacred in their eyes. They regard the man who mourns for one he loves as stricken by the hand of the Almighty and hallowed by his touch and treat him with the reverence of pious awe.

Orion had not observed their absence, but Philippus at once took advantage of it to tell him, as briefly as possible, all that related to the escape of the nuns. He himself knew not yet of the burning of the palace, or of Paula's imprisonment; but he could tell the senator where he would find his wife and niece. So by the time he was bidden to mount and start once more Orion was informed of all that had happened.

It was with a drooping head, and sunk in melancholy thought that he rode on his way.

As for the residence!—whether the Arabs gave it back to him or not, what did he care?—but his mother, his mother! All she had been to him from his earliest years rose before his mind; in the deep woe of this parting he forgot the imminent danger and the dungeon that awaited him, and the intolerable insult to his rights; nay, even the image of the woman he loved paled by the side of that of the beloved dead. Perhaps he might not even gain permission to bury her!

The way lay through a parched tract of rocky desert, and the further they went the more intense was that wonderful flush in the west, till day broke behind the travellers and the glory of the sunrise quenched the vividness of its glow.

Another scorching day! The rocks by the wayside still threw long shadows on the sandy desert-road, when a party of Arab horsemen came from Fostat to meet the travellers, shouting the latest news to the prisoner's escort. It was evidently important; but Orion did not understand a word of what they said. Evil tidings fly fast, however; while the men were talking together, the dragoman rode up to him and told him that his home was burnt to the ground and half Memphis still in flames. Then came other newsbearers, on horseback and on dromedaries; and they met chariots and files of camels loaded with corn and Egyptian merchandise; and each and all shouted to the Arab escort reports of what was going on in Memphis, hoping to be the first to tell the homeward bound party.

How many times did Orion hear the story—and each time that a traveller began with: "Have you heard?" pointing westward, the wounds the first news had inflicted bled anew.

What lay beneath that mass of ashes? How much had the flames consumed that never could be replaced! Much that he had silently wished were possible had in fact been fulfilled—and so soon! Where now was the burthen of great wealth which had hung about his heels and hindered his running freely? And yet he did not, even now, feel free; the way was not yet open before him; he secretly mourned over the ruined house of his fathers and the wrecked home; a miserable sense of insecurity weighed him down. No father—no mother-no parental roof! For years he had been, in fact, perfectly independent, and yet he felt now like a pilot whose boat had lost its rudder.

Before him lay a prison, and the closing act of the great tragedy of which he himself had been the hero. Fate had fallen on his house, had marked it for destruction as erewhile that of Tantalus. It lay in ashes, and the victims were already many: two brothers, father, mother—and, far away from home, Rufinus too.

But whose was the guilt?

It was not his ancestors who had sinned; it could only be his own that had called down this ruin. But was there then such a power as the Destiny of the ancients—inexorable, iron Fate? Had he not repented and suffered, been reconciled to his Redeemer, and prepared himself to fight the hard fight? Perhaps he was indeed to be the hero of a tragedy; then he would show that it was not the blind Inevitable, but what a man can make of himself, and what he can do by the aid of the God of might, which determines his fate. If he must still succumb, it should only be after a valiant struggle and defense. He would battle fearlessly against every foe, would press onward in the path he had laid down for himself. His heart beat high once more; he felt as though he could see his father's example as a guiding star in the sky, so that he must be true to that whether to live or to die. And when he turned his eye earthwards again, still, even there, he had that which made it seem worth the cost of enduring the pangs of living and the brunt of the hardest battle: Paula and her love.

The nearer he approached Fostat, the more ardently his heart swelled with longing. Heaven must grant him to see her once more, once more to clasp her in his arms, before—the end!

It seemed to him that what he had gone through in these few hours must have removed and set aside everything that could part them. Now, he felt, he had strength to remain worthy of her; if Heliodora were to come in his way again he would now certainly, positively, regard and treat her only as a sister.

He was conducted at once to the house of the Kadi; but this official was at the Divan—the council, which his arch-foe, that black monster Obada, had called together.

After the labors of the past night the Negro had allowed himself only a few hours rest, and then had met the council, where he had not been slow to discover that he had as many enemies as there were members present.

His most determined opponents were the Kadi Othman, the head of the Courts of justice and administration, and Khalid the governor of the exchequer. Neither of them hesitated to express his opinion; and indeed, no one present at this meeting would have suspected for a moment that most of the members had, in their peaceful youth, guarded flocks as shepherds on the mountains, led caravans across the desert, or managed some small trade. In the contests of tribe against tribe they had found opportunities for practice in the use of weapons, and for steeling their courage; but where had they learnt to choose their words with so much care, and emphasize them with gestures of such natural grace that any Greek orator would have admired them? It was only when the indignant orator "thundered and lightened" and was carried away by the heat of passion that he forgot his dignified moderation, and then how grandly voice, eye, and action helped each other! And never, even under the highest excitement, was purity of language overlooked. These men, of whom very few could read and write, had at their command all the most effective verses of their poets having thousands of lines stored in their minds.

The discussion to-day dealt with the social aspects of an ancient civilization, unknown but a few years since to the warlike children of the desert, and yet how ably had the four overseers of public buildings the comptrollers of the markets, of the irrigation works, and of the mills, achieved their ends. These bright and untarnished spirits were equal to the hardest task and capable of carrying it through with energy, acumen, and success.

And the sons of these men who had passed through no school were already well-fitted and invited to give new splendor to cities in their decline, and new life to the learning of the countries they had subdued. Everything in this council revealed talent, vitality, and ardor; and Obada, who had been a slave, found it by no means easy to uphold his pre-eminence among these assertive scions of free and respectable families.

The Kadi spoke frankly and fearlessly against his recent proceedings, declaring in the name of every member of the Divan, that they disclaimed all responsibility for what had been done, and that it rested on the Vekeel alone. Obada was very ready to accept it; and he announced with such fiery eloquence his determination to give shelter at Fostat to the natives whom the conflagration had left roofless, he was so fair-spoken, and he had shown his great qualities in so clear a light during the past night, that they agreed to postpone their attainder and await the reply from Medina to the complaints they had forwarded. Discipline, indeed, required that they should submit; and many a man who would have flown to meet death on the field as a bride, quailed before the terrible adventurer who would not shrink from the most hideous deeds.

Obada had won by hard fighting. No one could prove a theft against him of so much as a single drachma; but he nevertheless had to take many a rough word, and with one consent the assembly refused him the deference justly due to the governor's representative.

Bitterly indignant, he remained till the very last in the council- chamber, no one staying with him, not even his own subalterns, to speak a soothing word in praise of the power and eloquence of his address, while the same cursed wretches would, under similar circumstances, have buzzed round Amru like swarming bees, and have escorted him home like curs wagging their tails. He ascribed the contumely and opposition he met with to their prejudice, as haughty, free-born men against his birth, and not to any fault of his own, and yet he looked down on them all, feeling himself the superior of each by himself; if the blow in Medina were successful, he would pick out his victims, and then….

His dreams of vengeance were abruptly broken by a messenger, covered with dust from head to foot; he brought good news: Orion was taken and safely bestowed in the Kadi's house.

"And why not in mine?" asked Obada in peremptory tones. "Who is the governor's representative here. Othman or I? Take the prisoner to my house."

And he forthwith went home. But instead of the prisoner there presently appeared before him an official of the Kadi's household, who informed him, from his master, that as the Khaliff had constituted Othman supreme judge in Egypt this matter was in his hands; if Obada wished to see the prisoner he might go to the Kadi's residence, or visit him later in the town prison of Memphis, whither Orion would presently be transferred.

He rushed off, raging, to his enemy's house, but his stormy fury was met by the placidity of a calm and judicial mind. Othman was a man between forty and fifty years old, but his soft, black beard was already turning grey; his noble dark face bore the stamp of a lofty, high-bred soul, and a keen but temperate spirit shone in his eyes. There was something serene and clear in his whole person; he was a man to bear the burthen of life's vicissitudes with dignity, while he had set himself the task of saving others from them so far as in him lay.

The patriarch's complaints had come also to the Kadi's knowledge, and he, too, was minded to exact retribution for the massacre of the Moslem soldiers; but the punishment should fall on none but the guilty. He would have been sorry to believe that Orion was one of them, for he had esteemed his father as a brave man and a just judge, and had taken many a word of good advice from the experienced Egyptian.

The scene between him and the infuriated Vekeel was a painful one even for the attendants who stood round; and Orion, who heard Obada's raging from the adjoining room, could gather from it some idea of the relentless hatred with which his negro enemy would persecute him.

However, as after the wildest storm the sea ebbs in ripples so even this tempest came to a more peaceful conclusion. The Kadi represented to the Vekeel what an unheard-of thing it would be, and in what a disgraceful light it would set Moslem justice if one of the noblest families in the country—to whose head, too, the cause of Islam owed so much—were robbed of its possessions on mere suspicion.