the rule of Pachomius, and
enabled, by the fact of their living at free quarters, to produce almost
all the necessaries of life, from the mats on the floors to the shoes
worn by the citizens, at a much lower price than the independent
artisans, whether in town or country. The great majority of these poor
creatures were already ruined by such competition, and Amru, seeing the
Arab leather-workers, weavers, ropemakers, and the rest, threatened with
the same fate, had determined to set himself firmly to restrict all this
monastic work. The patriarch had resisted stoutly and held out long,
but at last he had been forced to sacrifice almost half the convents for
monks and nuns.

But nothing had been conceded without an equivalent; for Benjamin was
well aware of the immense difficulties which he, as chief of the Church,
could put in the way of the new government of the country. So it was
left to him to designate which convents should be suppressed, and he
had, of course, begun by laying hands on the few remaining Melchite
retreats, among them the Convent of St. Cecilia, next to the house of
Rufinus. This establishment was now to be closed within three days and
to become the property of the Jacobite Church; but it was to be done
quite quietly, for there was no small fear that now, when the delayed
rising of the river was causing a fever of anxiety in all minds, the
impoverished populace of the town might rise in defence of the wealthy
sisterhood to whom they were beholden for much benevolence and kind
care.

Opposition from the town-senate was also to be looked for, since the
deceased Mukaukas had pronounced this measure unjust and detrimental
to the common welfare. The evicted orthodox nuns were to be taken into
various Jacobite convents as lay sisters similar cases had already
been known; but the abbess, whose superior intellect, high rank, and
far-reaching influence might, if she were left free to act, easily rouse
the prelates of the East to oppose Benjamin, was to be conveyed to a
remote convent in Ethiopia, whence no flight or return was possible.

Katharina's report took but few minutes, and she gave it with apparent
indifference; what could the suppression of an orthodox cloister, and
the dispersion of its heretic sisterhood, matter to her, or to Orion,
whose brothers had fallen victims to Melchite fanaticism? Orion did not
betray his deep interest in all he heard, and when at length Katharina
rose and pointed feeb