I
not say so? She takes the fire lighted by shepherds at night to warm
their hands for the rising sun--the rattle of chariots for the thunders
of the Almighty!--Why, how many thousands have called themselves Paulus!
By all the Saints, child, I beseech you keep quiet, and do not try to
weave a holiday-robe out of airy mist! Be prepared for the worst; then
you are armed against failure and preserve your right to hope! Tell her,
tell her, Hiram, what else the messenger said; it is nothing positive;
everything is as uncertain as dust in the breeze."

The freedman then explained that this Nabathaean was a trustworthy man,
far better skilled in such errands than himself, for he understood both
Syriac and Egyptian, Greek and Aramaic; and nevertheless he had failed to
find out anything more about this hermit Paulus at Tor, where the monks
of the monastery of the Transfiguration had a colony. Subsequently,
however, on the sea voyage to Holzum, he had been informed by some monks
that there was a second Sinai. The monastery there--but here Perpetua
again was the speaker, for the hapless stammerer's brow was beaded with
sweat--the monastery at the foot of the peaked, heaven-kissing mountain,
had been closed in consequence of the heresies of its inhabitants; but in
the gorges of these great heights there were still many recluses, some in
a small Coenobium, some in Lauras and separate caves, and among these
perchance Paulus might be found. This clue seemed a good one and she and
Hiram had already made up their minds to follow it up; but the warrior
monk was very possibly a stranger, and they had thought it would be cruel
to expose her to so keen a disappointment.

Here Paula interrupted her, crying in joyful excitement:

"And why should not something besides disappointment be my portion for
once? How could you have the heart to deprive me of the hope on which my
poor heart still feeds?--But I will not be robbed of it. Your Paulus of
Sinai is my lost father. I feel it, I know it! If I had not sold my
pearls, the Nabathaean. . . . But as it is. When can you start, my good
Hiram?"

"Not before a fort--a fortnight at--at--at--soonest," said the man. "I am
in the governor's service now, and the day after to-morrow is the great
horse-fair at Niku. The young master wants some stallions bought and
there are our foals to. . . ."

"I will implore my uncle to-morrow, to spare you," cried Paula. "I will
go on my knees to him."

"He will