Part 5

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?"

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

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

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

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

Paule smiled and said, shaking his bald head:

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

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

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

"What have these monks done to thee?"

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

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

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

"Why are you always angry with me now?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'_Come and behold the works of God Who turneth the sea into dry land! In the river they shall pass on foot; There shall we rejoice in Him._'

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

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

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

VIII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The deep answer came:

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

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

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

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

Pachomius regarded the speaker with compassion. He said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hazaël saluted Pachomius and said:

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