etters of protection and
recommendation from Amru, the senator had gained his purpose. He had
ransomed Narses, but not before the wretched man had toiled for some time
as a prisoner, first at the canal on the line of the old one constructed
by the Pharaohs, which was being restored under the Khaliff Omar, to
secure the speediest way of transporting grain from Egypt to Arabia and
afterwards in the rock-bound harbor of Aila. On the burning shores of the
Red Sea, under the fearful sun of those latitudes, Narses was condemned
to drag blocks of stone; many days had elapsed before his uncle could
trace him--and in what a state did Justinus find him at last!

A week before he could reach him, the ex-officer of cavalry had laid
himself down in the wretched sheds for the sick provided for the
laborers; his back still bore the scars of the blows by which the
overseer had spurred the waning strength of his exhausted and suffering
victim. The fine young soldier was a wreck, broken alike in heart and
body and sunk in melancholy. Justinus had hoped to take him home jubilant
to Martina, and he had only this ruin to show her, doomed to the grave.

The senator was glad, nevertheless, to have saved this much at any rate.
The sight of the sufferer touched him deeply, and the less Narses would
take or give, the more thankful was Justinus when he gave the faintest
sign of reviving interest.

In the course of this journey by land and water--and latterly as sharing
the senator's care of his nephew--Orion had become very dear to his old
friend; and at the risk of incurring his displeasure he had even
confessed the reasons that had prompted him to leave Memphis.

He never could cease to feel that everything good or lofty in himself was
Paula's alone; that her love ennobled and strengthened him; that to
desert her was to abandon himself. His trifling with Heliodora could but
divert him from the high aim he had set before himself. This aim he kept
constantly in view; his spirit hungered for peaceful days in which he
might act on the resolution he had formed in church and fulfil the task
set before him by the Arab governor.

The knowledge that he had inherited an enormous fortune now afforded him
no joy, for he was forced to confess to himself that but for this
superabundant wealth he might have been a very different man; and more
than once a vehement wish came over him to fling away all his possessions
and wrestle for peace of mind and the es