o were the true lords of
the world, after all!....He must be the Emperor of the South, though,
that Orestes; he must, though I have to lend him Raphael's jewels to
make him so. For he must marry the Greek woman. He shall. She hates
him, of course.... So much the deeper revenge for me. And she loves that
monk. I saw it in her eyes there in the garden. So much the better for
me, too. He will dangle willingly enough at Orestes's heels for the
sake of being near her--poor fool! We will make him secretary, or
chamberlain. He has wit enough for it, they say, or for anything. So
Orestes and he shall be the two jaws of my pincers, to squeeze what I
want out of that Greek Jezebel.. And then, then for the black agate!'

Was the end of her speech a bathos? Perhaps not; for as she spoke the
last word, she drew from her bosom, where it hung round her neck by a
chain, a broken talisman, exactly similar to the one which she coveted
so fiercely, and looked at it long and lovingly--kissed it--wept
over it--spoke to it--fondled it in her arms as a mother would a
child--murmured over it snatches of lullabies; and her grim, withered
features grew softer, purer, grander; and rose ennobled, for a moment,
to their long-lost might-have-been, to that personal ideal which every
soul brings with it into the world, which shines, dim and potential,
in the face of every sleeping babe, before it has been scarred, and
distorted, and encrusted in the long tragedy of life. Sorceress she was,
pander and slave-dealer, steeped to the lips in falsehood, ferocity, and
avarice; yet that paltry stone brought home to her some thought, true,
spiritual, impalpable, unmarketable, before which all her treasures and
all her ambition were as worthless in her own eyes as they were in the
eyes of the angels of God.

But little did Miriam think that at the same moment a brawny, clownish
monk was standing in Cyril's private chamber, and, indulged with the
special honour of a cup of good wine in the patriarch's very presence,
was telling to him and Arsenius the following history--

'So I, finding that the Jews had chartered this pirate-ship, went to
the master thereof, and finding favour in his eyes, hired myself to row
therein, being sure, from what I had overheard from the Jews, that she
was destined to bring the news to Alexandria as quickly as possible.
Therefore, fulfilling the work which his Holiness had entrusted to my
incapacity, I embarked, and rowed continuall