her knees by
his side, covering his cold, slender hand with kisses, as joyful as
though this determination had relieved her of a heavy burden of dread:
"Our souls, our souls, George! For such a gift--only wait--you will be
forgiven all, and recover your lost peace!"

The governor shrugged his shoulders and said nothing; the hanging was
rolled up and locked into the tablinum by Orion; then the Mukaukas bid
the chamberlain show the Arab and his followers to quarters for the
night.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Abandon to the young the things we ourselves used most to enjoy
Spoilt to begin with by their mothers, and then all the women
Talk of the wolf and you see his tail
Temples of the old gods were used as quarries
Women are indeed the rock ahead in this young fellow's life

THE BRIDE OF THE NILE

By Georg Ebers

Volume 2.

CHAPTER VI.

Pangs of soul and doubtings of conscience had, in fact, prompted the
governor to purchase the hanging and he therefore might have been glad if
it had cost him still dearer. The greater the gift the better founded his
hope of grace and favor from the recipient! And he had grounds for being
uneasy and for asking himself whether he had acted rightly. Revenge was
no Christian virtue, but to let the evil done to him by the Melchites go
unpunished when the opportunity offered for crushing them was more than
he could bring himself to. Nay, what father whose two bright young sons
had been murdered, but would have done as he did? That fearful blow had
struck him in a vital spot. Since that day he had felt himself slowly
dying; and that sense of weakness, those desperate tremors, the
discomforts and suffering which blighted every hour of his life, were
also to be set down to the account of the Melchite tyrants.

His waning powers had indeed only been kept up by his original vigor and
his burning thirst for revenge, and fate had allowed him to quench it in
a way which, as time went on, seemed too absolute to his peace-loving
nature. Though not indeed by his act, still with his complicity he saw
the Byzantine Empire bereft of the rich province which Caesar had
entrusted to his rule, saw the Greeks and everything that bore the name
of Melchite driven out of Egypt with ignominy--though he would gladly
have prevented it--in many places slain like dogs by the furious populace
who hailed the Moslems as their deliverers.

Thus all the evil he had i