ter. The kind-hearted old bishop of Memphis,
Plotinus, and his clergy had forgiveness for all; the Patriarch
Benjamin, on the contrary, had treated him as a reprobate sentenced to
eternal damnation, though at the time of this prelate's exile in the
desert he had hailed the Arabs as their deliverers from the tyranny
of the Melchites, and though George had principally contributed to his
recall and reinstatement, and had therefore counted on his support. And,
although the Mukaukas could clearly see through the secondary motives
which influenced the Patriarch, he nevertheless believed that Benjamin's
office as Shepherd of souls gave him power to close the Gates of Heaven
against any sheep in his flock.

The more firmly the Arabs took root in his land, the wiser their rule,
and the more numerous the Egyptian converts from the Cross to the
Crescent, the greater he deemed his guilt; and when, after the
accomplishment of his work of vengeance--his double treason as the
Greeks called it--instead of the wrath of God, everything fell to
his lot which men call happiness and the favors of fortune, the
superstitious man feared lest this was the wages of the Devil, into
whose clutches his hasty compact with the Moslems had driven so many
Christian souls.

He had unexpectedly fallen heir to two vast estates, and his excavators
in the Necropolis had found more gold in the old heathen tombs than all
the others put together. The Moslem Khaliff and his viceroy had left
him in office and shown him friendship and respect; the bulaites--[Town
councillors]--of the town had given him the cognomen of "the Just"
by acclamation of the whole municipality; his lands had never yielded
greater revenues; he received letters from his son's widow in her
convent full of happiness over the new and higher aims in life that she
had found; his grandchild, her daughter, was a creature whose bright
and lovely blossoming was a joy even to strangers; his son's frequent
epistles from Constantinople assured him that he was making progress in
all respects; and he did not forget his parents; for he was never weary
of reporting to them, of his own free impulse, every pleasure he enjoyed
and every success he won.

Thus even in a foreign land he had lived with the father and mother who
to him were all that was noblest and dearest.

And Paula! Though his wife could not feel warmly towards her the old man
regarded her presence in the house as a happy dispensation to w