CHAPTER XIII.
Paula's report of the day's proceedings, of Orion's behavior, and ofthe results of the trial angered the leech beyond measure; he vehementlyapproved the girl's determination to quit this cave of robbers,this house of wickedness, of treachery, of imbecile judges and falsewitnesses, as soon as possible. But she had no opportunity for a quietconversation with him, for Philippus soon had his hands full in the careof the sufferers.
Rustem, the Masdakite, who till now had been lying unconscious, had beenroused from his lethargy by some change of treatment, and loudlycalled for his master Haschim. When the Arab did not appear, and it wasexplained to him that he could not hope to see him before the morning,the young giant sat up among his pillows, propping himself on hisarms set firmly against the couch behind him, looked about him with awandering gaze, and shook his big head like an aggrieved lion--but thathis thick mane of hair had been cut off--abusing the physician all thetime in his native tongue, and in a deep, rolling, bass voice that rangthrough the rooms though no one understood a word. Philippus, quiteundaunted, was trying to adjust the bandage over his wound, when Rustemsuddenly flung his arms round his body and tried with all his might, andwith foaming lips, to drag him down. He clung to his antagonist, roaringlike a wild beast; even now Philippus never for an instant lost hispresence of mind but desired the nun to fetch two strong slaves. TheSister hurried away, and Paula remained the eyewitness of a fearfulstruggle. The physician had twisted his ancles round those of thestalwart Persian, and putting forth a degree of strength which couldhardly have been looked for in a stooping student, tall and large-bonedas he was, he wrenched the Persian's hands from his hips, pressed hisfingers between those of Rustem, forced him back on to his pillows, sethis knees against the brazen frame of the couch, and so effectually heldhim down that he could not sit up again. Rustem exerted every muscleto shake off his opponent; but the leech was the stronger, for theMasdakite was weakened by fever and loss of blood. Paula watched thiscontest between intelligent force and the animal strength of a ravinggiant with a beating heart, trembling in every limb. She could not helpher friend, but she followed his every movement as she stood at the headof the bed; and as he held down the powerful creature before whom herfrail uncle had cowered in abject terror, she could not help admiringhis manly beauty; for his eyes sparkled with unwonted fire, and the meanchin seemed to lengthen with the frightful effort he was putting forth,and so to be brought into proportion with his wide forehead and the restof his features. Her spirit quaked for him; she fancied she couldsee something great and heroic in the man, in whom she had hithertodiscovered no merit but his superior intellect.
The struggle had lasted some minutes before Philip felt the man's armsgrow limp, and he called to Paula to bring him a sheet--a rope--whatnot--to bind the raving man. She flew into the next room, quitecollected; fetched her handkerchief, snatched off the silken girdle thatbound her waist, rushed back and helped the leech to tie the maniac'shands. She understood her friend's least word, or a movement of hisfinger; and when the slaves whom the nun had fetched came into the room,they found Rustem with his hands firmly bound, and had only toprevent him from leaping out of bed or throwing himself over the edge.Philippus, quite out of breath, explained to the slaves how they wereto act, and when he opened his medicine-chest Paula noticed that hisswollen, purple fingers were trembling. She took out the phial to whichhe pointed, mixed the draught according to his orders, and was notafraid to pour it between the teeth of the raving man, forcing them openwith the help of the slaves.
The soothing medicine calmed him in a few minutes, and the leech himselfcould presently wash the wound and apply a fresh dressing with thepractised aid of the Sister.
Meanwhile the crazy girl had been waked by the ravings of the Persian,and was anxiously enquiring if the dog--the dreadful dog--was there. Butshe soon allowed herself to be quieted by Paula, and she answered thequestions put to her so rationally and gently, that her nurse called thephysician who could confirm Paula in her hope that a favorable changehad taker place in her mental condition. Her words were melancholy andmild; and when Paula remarked on this Philippus observed:
"It is on the bed of sickness that we learn to know ourfellow-creatures. The frantic girl, who perhaps fell on the son of thishouse with murderous intent, now reveals her true, sweet nature. And asfor that poor fellow, he is a powerful creature, an honest one too; Iwould stake my ten fingers on it!"
"What makes you so sure of that?"
"Even in his delirium he did hot once scratch or bite, but only defendedhimself like a man.--Thank you, now, for your assistance. If you hadnot flung the cord round his hands, the game might have ended verydifferently."
"Surely not!" exclaimed Paula decidedly. "How strong you are, Philip. Ifeel quite alarmed!"
"You?" said the leech laughing. "On the contrary, you need never bealarmed again now that you have seen by chance that your champion is noweakling.--Pfooh! I shall be glad now of a little rest." She offeredhim her handkerchief, and while he thankfully used it to wipe hisbrow--controlling with much difficulty the impulse to press it to hislips, he added lightly:
"With such an assistant everything must go well. There is no merit inbeing strong; every one can be strong who comes into the world withhealthy blood and well-knit bones, who keeps all his limbs wellexercised, as I did in my youth, and who does not destroy hisinheritance by dissipated living.--However, I still feel the struggle inmy hands; but there is some good wine in the next room yet, and two orthree cups of it will do me good." They went together into the adjoiningroom where, by this time, most of the lamps were extinguished. Paulapoured out the wine, touched the goblet with her lips, and he emptied itat a draught; but he was not to be allowed to drink off a second, for hehad scarcely raised it, when they heard voices in the Masdakite's room,and Neforis came in. The governor's careful wife had not quitted herhusband's couch--even Rustem's storming had not induced her to leave herpost; but when she was informed by the slaves what had been going on,and that Paula was still up-stairs with the leech, she had come to thestrangers' rooms as soon as her husband could spare her to speak toPhilippus, to represent to Paula what the proprieties required, and tofind out what the strange noises could be which still seemed to fill thehouse--at this hour usually as silent as the grave. They proceeded fromthe sick-rooms, but also from Orion, who had just come in, and fromNilus the treasurer, who had been called by the former into his room,though the night was fast drawing on to morning. To the governor's wifeeverything seemed ominous at the close of this terrible day, marked inthe calendar as unlucky; so she made her way up-stairs, escorted by herhusband's night watcher, and holding in her hand a small reliquary towhich she ascribed the power of banning vile spirits.
She came into the sick-room swiftly and noiselessly, put the nun througha strict cross-examination with the fretful sharpness of a persondisturbed in her night's rest. Then she went into the sitting-room wherePhilippus was on the point of pledging Paula in his second cup of wine,while she stood before him with dishevelled hair and robe ungirt. Allthis was an offence against good manners such as she would not sufferin her house, and she stoutly ordered her husband's niece to go tobed. After all the offences that had been pardoned her this day--no,yesterday--she exclaimed, it would have been more becoming in the girlto examine herself in silence, in her own room, to exorcise the lyingspirits which had her in their power, and implore her Saviour forforgiveness, than to pretend to be nursing the sick while she wascarrying on, with a young man, an orgy which, as the Sister had justtold her, had lasted since mid-day.
Paula spoke not a word, though the color changed in her face more thanonce as she listened to this speech. But when Neforis finally pointed tothe door, she said, with all the cold pride she had at her command whenshe was the object of unworthy suspicions:
"Your aim is easily seen through. I should scorn to reply, but that youare the wife of the man who, till you set him against me, was glad tocall himself my friend and protector, and wh
o is also related to me. Asusual, you attribute to me an unworthy motive. In showing me the doorof this room consecrated by suffering, you are turning me out of yourhouse, which you and your son--for I must say it for once--have made ahell to me."
"I! And my--No! this is indeed--" exclaimed the matron in panting rage.She clasped her hands over her heaving bosom and her pale face was dyedcrimson, while her eyes flashed wrathful lightnings. "That is too much;a thousand times too much--a thousand times--do you hear?--And I--Icondescend to answer you! We picked her up in the street, and havetreated her like a daughter, spent enormous sums on her, and now...."
This was addressed to the leech rather than to Paula; but she took upthe gauntlet and replied in a tone of unqualified scorn:
"And now I plainly declare, as a woman of full age, free to dispose ofmyself, that to-morrow morning I leave this house with everything thatbelongs to me, even if I should go as a beggar;--this house, where Ihave been grossly insulted, where I and my faithful servant have beenfalsely condemned, and where he is even now about to be murdered."
"And where you have been dealt with far too mildly," Neforis shriekedat her audacious antagonist, "and preserved from sharing the fate of therobber you smuggled into the house. To save a criminal--it is unheardof:--you dared to accuse the son of your benefactor of being a corruptjudge."
"And so he is," exclaimed Paula furious. "And what is more, he hasinveigled the child whom you destine to be his wife into bearing falsewitness. More--much more could I say, but that, even if I did notrespect the mother, your husband has deserved that I should spare him."
"Spare him-spare!" cried Neforis contemptuously. "You--you will spareus! The accused will be merciful and spare the judge! But you shall bemade to speak;--aye, made to speak! And as to what you, a slanderer, cansay about false witness..."
"Your own granddaughter," interrupted the leech, "will be compelledto repeat it before all the world, noble lady, if you do not moderateyourself."
Neforis laughed hysterically.
"So that is the way the wind blows!" she exclaimed, quite besideherself. "The sick-room is a temple of Bacchus and Venus; and thisdisgraceful conduct is not enough, but you must conspire to heap shameand disgrace on this righteous house and its masters."
Then, resting her left hand which held the reliquary on her hip, sheadded with hasty vehemence:
"So be it. Go away; go wherever you please! If I find you under thisroof to-morrow at noon, you thankless, wicked girl, I will have youturned out into the streets by the guard. I hate you--for once I willease my poor, tormented heart--I loathe you; your very existence isan offence to me and brings misfortune on me and on all of us; andbesides--besides, I should prefer to keep the emeralds we have left."
This last and cruelest taunt, which she had brought out against herbetter feelings, seemed to have relieved her soul of a hundred-weight ofcare; she drew a deep breath, and turning to Philippus, went on far morequietly and rationally:
"As for you, Philip, my husband needs you. You know well what we haveoffered you and you know George's liberal hand. Perhaps you will thinkbetter of it, and will learn to perceive..."
"I!..." said the leech with a lofty smile. "Do you really know me solittle? Your husband, I am ready to admit, stands high in my esteem, andwhen he wants me he will no doubt send for me. But never again will Icross this threshold uninvited, or enter a house where right is troddenunderfoot, where defenceless innocence is insulted and abandoned todespair.
"You may stare in astonishment! Your son has desecrated hisfather's judgment-seat, and the blood of guiltless Hiram is on hishead.--You--well, you may still cling to your emeralds. Paula will nottouch them; she is too high-souled to tell you who it is that you wouldindeed do well to lock up in the deepest dungeon-cell! What I have heardfrom your lips breaks every tie that time had knit between us. I donot demand that my friends should be wealthy, that they should have anyattractions or charm, any special gifts of mind or body; but we mustmeet on common ground: that of honorable feeling. That you did not bringinto the world, or you have lost it; and from this hour I am a strangerto you and never wish to see you again, excepting by the side of yourhusband when he requires me."
He spoke the last words with such immeasurable dignity that Neforiswas startled and bereft of all self-control. She had been treated as awretch worthy of utter scorn by a man beneath her in rank, but whom shealways regarded as one of the most honest, frank and pure-minded she hadever known; a man indispensable to her husband, because he knew how tomitigate his sufferings, and could restrain him from the abuse of hisnarcotic anodyne. He was the only physician of repute, far and wide. Shewas to be deprived of the services of this valuable ally, to whom littleMary and many of the household owed their lives, by this Syrian girl;and she herself, sure that she was a good and capable wife and mother,was to stand there like a thing despised and avoided by every honestman, through this evil genius of her house!
It was too much. Tortured by rage, vexation, and sincere distress, shesaid in a complaining voice, while the tears started to her eyes:
"But what is the meaning of all this? You, who know me, who have seenme ruling and caring for my family, you turn your back upon me in myown house and point the finger at me? Have I not always been a faithfulwife, nursing my husband for years and never leaving his sick-bed,never thinking of anything but how to ease his pain? I have lived likea recluse from sheer sense of duty and faithful lose, while other wives,who have less means than I, live in state and go to entertainments.--Andwhose slaves are better kept and more often freed than ours? Where isthe beggar so sure of an alms as in our house, where I, and I alone,uphold piety?--And now am I so fallen that the sun may not shine on me,and that a worthy man like you should withdraw his friendship all in amoment, and for the sake of this ungrateful, loveless creature--because,because, what did you call it--because the mind is wanting in me--orwhat did you call it that I must have before you...?"
"It is called feeling," interrupted the leech, who was sorry for theunhappy woman, in whom he knew there was much that was good. "Is theword quite new to you, my lady Neforis?--It is born with us; but a firmwill can elevate the least noble feeling, and the best that nature canbestow will deteriorate through self-indulgence. But, in the day ofjudgment, if I am not very much mistaken, it is not our acts but ourfeeling that will be weighed. It would ill-become me to blame you, butI may be allowed to pity you, for I see the disease in your soul which,like gangrene in the body..."
"What next!" cried Neforis.
"This disease," the physician calmly went on--"I mean hatred, should befar indeed from so pious a Christian. It has stolen into your heart likea thief in the night, has eaten you up, has made bad blood, and led youto treat this heavily-afflicted orphan as though you were to put stocksand stones in the path of a blind man to make him fall. If, as it wouldseem, my opinion still weighs with you a little, before Paula leavesyour house you will ask her pardon for the hatred with which you havepersecuted her for years, which has now led you to add an intolerableinsult--in which you yourself do not believe--to all the rest."
At this Paula, who had been watching the physician all through hisspeech, turned to Dame Neforis, and unclasped her hands which werelying in her lap, ready to shake hands with her uncle's wife if she onlyoffered hers, though she was still fully resolved to leave the house.
A terrible storm was raging in the lady's soul. She felt that she hadoften been unkind to Paula. That a painful doubt still obscured thequestion as to who had stolen the emerald she had unwillingly confessedbefore she had come up here. She knew that she would be doing herhusband a great service by inducing the girl to remain, and she wouldonly too gladly have kept the leech in the house;--but then how deeplyhad she, and her son, been humiliated by this haughty creature!
Should she humble herself to her, a woman so much younger, offer herhand, make....
At this moment they heard the tinkle of the silver bowl, into which herhusband threw a little ball when he wanted he
r. His pale, suffering facerose before her inward eye, she could hear him asking for his opponentat draughts, she could see his sad, reproachful gaze when she told himto-morrow that she, Neforis, had driven his niece, the daughter of thenoble Thomas, out of the house--, with a swift impulse she went towardsPaula, grasping the reliquary in her left hand and holding out herright, and said in a low voice.
"Shake hands, girl. I often ought to have behaved differently to you;but why have you never in the smallest thing sought my love? God is mywitness that at first I was fully disposed to regard you as a daughter,but you--well, let it pass. I am sorry now that I should--if I havedistressed you."
At the first words Paula had placed her hand in that of Neforis. Herswas as cold as marble, the elder woman's was hot and moist; it seemed asthough their hands were typical of the repugnance of their hearts.They both felt it so, and their clasp was but a brief one. When Paulawithdrew hers, she preserved her composure better than the governor'swife, and said quite calmly, though her cheeks were burning:
"Then we will try to part without any ill-will, and I thank you forhaving made that possible. To-morrow morning I hope I may be permittedto take leave of my uncle in peace, for I love him; and of little Mary."
"But you need not go now! On the contrary, I urgently request you tostay," Neforis eagerly put in.
"George will not let you leave. You yourself know how fond he is ofyou."
"He has often been as a father to me," said Paula, and even her eyesshone through tears. "I would gladly have stayed with him till the end.Still, it is fixed--I must go."
"And if your uncle adds his entreaties to mine?"
"It will be in vain."
Neforis took the maiden's hand in her own again, and tried with genuineanxiety to persuade her,--but Paula was firm. She adhered to herdetermination to leave the governor's house in the morning.
"But where will you find a suitable house?" cried Neforis. "A residencethat will be fit for you?"
"That shall be my business," replied the physician. "Believe me, noblelady, it would be best for all that Paula should seek another home. Butit is to be hoped that she may decide on remaining in Memphis."
At this Neforis exclaimed:
"Here, with us, is her natural home!--Perhaps God may turn your heartfor your uncle's sake, and we may begin a new and happier life." Paula'sonly reply was a shake of the head; but Neforis did not see it the metaltinkle sounded for the third time, and it was her duty to respond to itscall.
As soon as she had left the room Paula drew a deep breath, exclaiming:
"O God! O God! How hard it was to refrain from flinging in her teeth thecrime her wicked son.... No, no; nothing should have made me do that.But I cannot tell you how the mere sight of that woman angers me, howlight-hearted I feel since I have broken down the bridge that connectedme with this house and with Memphis."
"With Memphis?" asked Philippus.
"Yes," said Paula gladly. "I go away--away from hence, out of thevicinity of this woman and her son!--Whither? Oh! back to Syria, or toGreece--every road is the right one, if it only takes me away from thisplace."
"And I, your friend?" asked Philippus.
"I shall bear the remembrance of you in a grateful heart."
The physician smiled, as though something had happened just as heexpected; after a moment's reflection he said:
"And where can the Nabathaean find you, if indeed he discovers yourfather in the hermit of Sinai?"
The question startled and surprised Paula, and Philippus now adducedevery argument to convince her that it was necessary that she shouldremain in the City of the Pyramids. In the first place she must liberateher nurse--in this he could promise to help her--and everything he saidwas so judicious in its bearing on the circumstances that had to bereckoned with, and the facts actual or possible, that she was astonishedat the practical good sense of this man, with whom she had generallytalked only of matters apart from this world. Finally she yielded,chiefly for the sake of her father and Perpetua; but partly in the hopeof still enjoying his society. She would remain in Memphis, at any ratefor the present, under the roof of a friend of the physician's--longknown to her by report--a Melchite like herself, and there await thefurther development of her fate.
To be away from Orion and never, never to see him again was herheartfelt wish. All places were the same to her where she had no fear ofmeeting him. She hated him; still she knew that her heart would have nopeace so long as such a meeting was possible. Still, she longed to freeherself from a desire to see what his further career would be, whichcame over her again and again with overwhelming and terrible power. Forthat reason, and for that only, she longed to go far, far away, and shewas hardly satisfied by the leech's assurance that her new protectorwould be able to keep away all visitors whom she might not wish toreceive. And he himself, he added, would make it his business to standbetween her and all intruders the moment she sent for him.
They did not part till the sun was rising above the eastern hills; asthey separated Paula said:
"So this morning a new life begins for me, which I can well imaginewill, by your help, be pleasanter than that which is past."
And Philippus replied with happy emotion: "The new life for me beganyesterday."