s
to follow it up; but the warrior monk was very possibly a stranger,
and they had thought it would be cruel to expose her to so keen a
disappointment.

Here Paula interrupted her, crying in joyful excitement:

"And why should not something besides disappointment be my portion for
once? How could you have the heart to deprive me of the hope on which my
poor heart still feeds?--But I will not be robbed of it. Your Paulus
of Sinai is my lost father. I feel it, I know it! If I had not sold my
pearls, the Nabathaean.... But as it is. When can you start, my good
Hiram?"

"Not before a fort--a fortnight at--at--at--soonest," said the man. "I
am in the governor's service now, and the day after to-morrow is the
great horse-fair at Niku. The young master wants some stallions bought
and there are our foals to...."

"I will implore my uncle to-morrow, to spare you," cried Paula. "I will
go on my knees to him."

"He will not let him go," said the nurse. "Sebek the steward told him
all about it from me before the hour of audience and tried to have Hiram
released."

"And he said...?"

"The lady Neforis said it was all a mere will-o'-the-wisp, and my lord
agreed with her. Then your uncle forbade Sebek to betray the matter to
you, and sent word to me that he would possibly send Hiram to Sinai
when the horse-fair was over. So take patience, sweetheart. What are two
weeks, or at most three--and then...."

"But I shall die before then!" cried Paula. "The Nabathaean, you say, is
here and willing to go."

"Yes, Mistress."

"Then we will secure him," said Paula resolutely. Perpetua, however, who
must have discussed the matter fully with her fellow-countryman, shook
her head mournfully and said: "He asks too much for us!"

She then explained that the man, being such a good linguist, had already
been offered an engagement to conduct a caravan to Ctesiphon. This
would be a year's pay to him, and he was not inclined to break off his
negotiations with the merchant Hanno and search the deserts of Arabia
Petraea for less than two thousand drachmae.

"Two thousand drachmae!" echoed Paula, looking down in distress
and confusion; but she presently looked up and exclaimed with angry
determination: "How dare they keep from me that which is my own? If my
uncle refuses what I have to ask, and will ask, then the inevitable must
happen, though for his sake it will grieve me; I must put my affairs in
the hands of the judges."

"The judges?