r them away, they
are expiating, in effigy, the abominations of their pride and cruelty
and lust. Who were lechers, they are without bodies; who were tyrants,
they are crowned never but with crowns of snow; who made themselves even
with the gods, they are by American visitors frequently mistaken for
the Twelve Apostles. It is but a little way down the road that the two
Bishops perished for their faith, and even now we do never pass the spot
without a tear for them. Yet how quickly they died in the flames! To
these Emperors, for whom none weeps, time will give no surcease. Surely,
it is sign of some grace in them that they rejoiced not, this bright
afternoon, in the evil that was to befall the city of their penance.

II

The sun streamed through the bay-window of a "best" bedroom in the
Warden's house, and glorified the pale crayon-portraits on the wall,
the dimity curtains, the old fresh chintz. He invaded the many trunks
which--all painted Z. D.--gaped, in various stages of excavation, around
the room. The doors of the huge wardrobe stood, like the doors of
Janus' temple in time of war, majestically open; and the sun seized this
opportunity of exploring the mahogany recesses. But the carpet, which
had faded under his immemorial visitations, was now almost ENTIRELY
hidden from him, hidden under layers of fair fine linen, layers of
silk, brocade, satin, chiffon, muslin. All the colours of the rainbow,
materialised by modistes, were there. Stacked on chairs were I know not
what of sachets, glove-cases, fan-cases. There were innumerable packages
in silver-paper and pink ribands. There was a pyramid of bandboxes.
There was a virgin forest of boot-trees. And rustling quickly hither and
thither, in and out of this profusion, with armfuls of finery, was an
obviously French maid. Alert, unerring, like a swallow she dipped and
darted. Nothing escaped her, and she never rested. She had the air of
the born unpacker--swift and firm, yet withal tender. Scarce had her
arms been laden but their loads were lying lightly between shelves or
tightly in drawers. To calculate, catch, distribute, seemed in her but a
single process. She was one of those who are born to make chaos cosmic.

Insomuch that ere the loud chapel-clock tolled another hour all the
trunks had been sent empty away. The carpet was unflecked by any scrap
of silver-paper. From the mantelpiece, photographs of Zuleika surveyed
the room with a possessive air. Zuleik