knocked at the first of the sickrooms and entered it as
softly as the door was opened by a nursing-sister from the convent of
St. Katharine. Orion, whom she was seeking, had been there, but had just
left.

In this first room lay the leader of the caravan; in that beyond was the
crazy Persian. In a sitting-room adjoining the first room, which,
being intended for guests of distinction, was furnished with royal
magnificence, sat two men in earnest conversation: the Arab merchant and
Philippus the physician, a young man of little more than thirty, tall
and bony, in a dress of clean but very coarse stuff without any kind
of adornment. He had a shrewd, pale face, out of which a pair of
bright black eyes shone benevolently but with keen vivacity. His large
cheek-bones were much too prominent; the lower part of his face was
small, ugly and, as it were, compressed, while his high broad forehead
crowned the whole and stamped it as that of a thinker, as a fine cupola
may crown an insignificant and homely structure.

This man, devoid of charm, though his strongly-characterized
individuality made it difficult to overlook him even in the midst of a
distinguished circle, had been conversing eagerly with the Arab, who,
in the course of their two-days' acquaintance, had inspired him with a
regard which was fully reciprocated. At last Orion had been the theme of
their discourse, and the physician, a restless toiler who could not like
any man whose life was one of idle enjoyment, though he did full justice
to his brilliant gifts and well-applied studies, had judged him far more
hardly than the older man. To the leech all forms of human life were
sacred, and in his eyes everything that could injure the body or soul of
a man was worthy of destruction. He knew all that Orion had brought upon
the hapless Mandane, and how lightly he had trifled with the hearts of
other women; in his eyes this made him a mischievous and criminal member
of society. He regarded life as an obligation to be discharged by work
alone, of whatever kind, if only it were a benefit to society as a
whole. And such youths as Orion not only did not recognize this, but
used the whole and the parts also for base and selfish ends. The old
Moslem, on the contrary, viewed life as a dream whose fairest portion,
the time of youth, each one should enjoy with alert senses, and only
take care that at the waking which must come with death he might hope to
find admission into Paradise