With much hesitation and reserve she consented to be silent as long as he kept his promise. It was for his fathers sake, rather than his own, that she would so far become his accomplice: at the same time everything else was at an end between them, and she should bless the hour which might see her severed from him and his for ever.
The end of her speech was in a strangely hard and repellent tone; she felt she must adopt it to disguise how deeply she was touched by his unhappiness and by the extinction of the sunshine in him which had once warmed her own heart too with bliss. To him it seemed that an icy rigor breathed in her wordsbitter contempt and hostile revulsion. He had some difficulty in keeping himself from breaking out again in violent wrath. He was almost sorry that he had trusted her with his secret and begged her for mercy, instead of leaving things to run their course, and if it had come to the worst, dragging her to perdition with him. Sooner would he forfeit honor and peace than humble himself again before this pitiless and cold-hearted foe. At this moment he really hated her, and only wished it were possible to fight her, to break her pride, to see her vanquished and crying for quarter at his feet. It was with a great effortwith tingling cheeks and constrained utterance that he said:
Severance from you is indeed best for us all.Be ready: the judges will send for you soon.
Very well, she replied. I will be silent; you have only to provide for the Syrians safety. You have given me your word.
And so long as you keep yours I will keep mine. Or else the words would come from his quivering lipsor else war to the knife!
War to the knife! she echoed with flashing eyes. But one thing more. I have proof that the emerald which Hiram sold belonged to me. By all the saintsproof!
So much the better for you, he said. Woe to us both, if you force me to forget that you are a woman!
And he left the room with a rapid step.
CHAPTER XII
Orion went down stairs scowling and clenching his fists. His heart ached to bursting.
What had he done, what had befallen him? That a woman should dare to treat him so!a woman whom he had deigned to lovethe loveliest and noblest of women; but at the same time the haughtiest, most vengeful, and most hateful.
He had once read this maxim: When a man has committed a base action, if only one other knows of it he carries the death-warrant of his peace in the bosom of his garment. He felt the full weight of this sentence; and the otherthe one who knewwas Paula, the woman of all others whom he most wished should look up to him. But yesterday it had been a vision of heaven on earth to dream of holding her in his arms and calling her his; now he had but one wish: that he could humble and punish her. Oh, that his hands should be tied, that he should be dependent on her mercy like a condemned criminal! It was inconceivableintolerable!
But she should be taught to know him. He had passed through life hitherto as white as a swan; if this luckless hour and this woman made him appear as a vulture, it was not his fault, it was hers. She should soon see which was the stronger of the two. He would punish her in every way in which a woman can be punished, even if the way to it led through crime and misery! He was not afraid that the leech bad won her affections, for he knew, with strange certainty that, in spite of the hostility she displayed, her heart was his and his alone. The gold coin called love, said he to himself, has two faces: tender devotion and bitter aversion; just now she is showing me the latter. But, however different the image and superscription may be on the two sides, if you ring it, it always gives out the same tone; and I can hear it even in her most insulting words.
When the family met at table he made Paulas excuses; he himself ate only a few mouthfuls, for the judges had assembled some time since and were waiting for him.
The right of life and death had been placed in the hands of the ancestors of the Mukaukas, powerful princes of provinces; they had certainly wielded it even in the dynasty of Psammitichus, whose power had been put to a terrible end by Cambyses the Persian. And still the Uraeus snakethe asp whose bite caused almost instant death, reared its head as the time-honored emblem of this privilege, by the side of St. George the Dragon-slayer, over the palaces of the Mukaukas at Memphis, and at Lykopolis in Upper Egypt. And in both these places the head of the family retained the right of arbitrary judgment and capital punishment over the retainers of his house and the inhabitants of the district he governed, after Justinian first, and then the Emperor Heraclius, had confirmed them in their old prerogative. The chivalrous St. George was placed between the snakes so as to replace a heathen symbol by a Christian one. Formerly indeed the knight himself had had the head of a sparrow-hawk: that is to say of the god Horus, who had overthrown the evil-spirit, Seth-Typhon, to avenge his father; but about two centuries since the heathen crocodile-destroyer had been transformed into the Christian conqueror of the dragon.
After the Arab conquest the Moslems had left all ancient customs and rights undisturbed, including those of the Mukaukas.
The court which assembled to sit in judgment on all cases concerning the adherents of the house consisted of the higher officials of the governors establishment. The Mukaukas himself was president, and his grown-up son was his natural deputy. During Orions absence, Nilus, the head of the exchequer, a shrewd and judicious Egyptian, had generally represented his invalid master; but on the present occasion Orion was appointed to take his place, and to preside over the assembly.
The governors son hastened to his fathers bedroom to beg him to lend him his ring as a token of the authority transferred to him; the Mukaukas had willingly allowed him to take it off his finger, and had enjoined him to exercise relentless severity. Generally he inclined to leniency; but breaking into a house was punishable with death, and in this instance it was but right to show no mercy, out of deference to the Arab merchant. But Orion, mindful of his covenant with Paula, begged his father to give him full discretion. The old Moslem was a just man, who would agree to a mitigated sentence under the circumstances; besides, the culprit was not in strict fact a member of the household, but in the service of a relation.
The Mukaukas applauded his sons moderation and judgment. If only he had been in rather better health he himself would have had the pleasure of being present at the sitting, to see him fulfil for the first time so important a function, worthy of his birth and position.
Orion kissed his fathers hand with heart-felt but melancholy emotion, for this praise from the man he so truly loved was a keen pleasure; and yet he felt that it was of ill-omen that his duties as judge, of which he knew the sacred solemnity, should be thusthus begun.
It was in a softened mood, sunk in thought as to how he could best save Hiram and leave Paulas name altogether out of the matter, that he went to the hall of justice; and there he found the nurse Perpetua in eager discussion with Nilus.
The old woman was quite beside herself. In the clatter of her loom she had heard nothing of what had been going on till a few minutes ago; now she was ready to swear to the luckless Hirams innocence. The stone he had sold had belonged to his young mistress, and thank God there was no lack of evidence of the fact; the setting of the emerald was lying safe and sound in Paulas trunk. Happily she had had an opportunity of speaking to her; and that she, the daughter of Thomas, should be brought before the tribunal, like a citizens daughter or slave-girl, was unheard of, shameful!