slept in a corner of the stable amongst the domestic
animals, and there Ahmes came to her every night secretly.

He gently approached the mat on which she lay, and sat down on his
heels, his legs bent and his body straight--a position hereditary to his
race. His face and his body, which was clothed in black, were invisible
in the darkness; but his big white eyes shone out, and there came from
them a light like a ray of dawn through the chinks of a door. He spoke
in a husky, monotonous tone, with a slight nasal twang that gave it
the soft melody of music heard at night in the streets. Sometimes the
breathing of an ass, or the soft lowing of an ox, accompanied, like a
chorus of invisible spirits, the voice of the slave as he recited the
gospels. His words flowed gently in the darkness, which they filled
with zeal, mercy, and hope; and the neophyte, her hand in that of Ahmes,
lulled by the monotonous sounds, and the vague visions in her mind,
slept calm and smiling, amid the harmonies of the dark night and the
holy mysteries, gazed down on by a star, which twinkled between the
joists of the stable-roof.

The initiation lasted a whole year, till the time when the Christians
joyfully celebrate the festival of Easter. One night in the holy week,
Thais, who was already asleep on her mat, felt herself lifted by the
slave, whose eyes gleamed with a strange light. He was clad, not as
usual in a pair of torn drawers, but in a long white cloak, beneath
which he pressed the child, whispering to her--

"Come, my soul! Come, light of my eyes! Come, little sweetheart! Come
and be clad in the baptismal robes!"

He carried the child pressed to his breast. Frightened and yet curious,
Thais, her head out of the cloak, threw her arms round her friend's
neck, and he ran with her through the darkness. They went down narrow,
black alleys; they passed through the Jews' quarter; they skirted a
cemetery, where the osprey uttered its dismal cry; they traversed an
open space, passing under crosses on which hung the bodies of victims,
and on the arms of the crosses the ravens clacked their beaks. Thais
hid her head in the slave's breast. She did not dare to peep out all
the rest of the way. Soon it seemed to her that she was going down under
ground. When she reopened her eyes she found herself in a narrow cave,
lighted by resin torches, on the walls of which were painted standing
figures, which seemed to move and live in the flickering glare of t