ced to inform his friends that Amru, who
could easily have procured the release of Narses, was to start within
two days for Medina, while he himself was compelled to set out on a
journey that very evening, at an hour he could not name.

He saw how greatly this firmly-expressed determination agitated and
disturbed the old couple, and the senator's urgency led him to tell
them, under the pledge of strict secrecy, what business it was that took
him away and what a perilous enterprise he had before him.

He began his story confident of his orthodox guests' sympathy; but to
his amazement they both disapproved of the undertaking, and not, as
they declared, on his account only or for the sake of the help they had
counted on.

The senator reminded him that he was the natural chief of the Egyptian
population in Memphis, and that, by such a scheme, he was undermining
his influence with those whose leader he was by right and duty as his
father's son. His ambition ought to make him aim at this leadership; and
instead of offering such a rebuff to the patriarch, it was his part to
work with him--whose power he greatly underrated--so as to make life
tolerable to their fellow-Christians in a land ruled by Moslems.

Paula's name was not once mentioned; but Orion thought of her and
remained firm, though not without an inward struggle.

At the same time, to prove to his friends how sincerely he desired to
please them, he proposed that he and Justinus should immediately cross
the Nile to lay his application before the Khaliff's vicar. A glance at
the sky showed him that it wanted still an hour and a half of sunset.
His swift horses would not need more than that time for the journey,
and during their absence the rest of the party could move from the inn.
Carts for the baggage were already in waiting below, and chariots
had been ordered to follow and convey his beloved guests to their new
quarters.

The senator agreed to this proposal, and as the two men went off Martina
called after Orion.

"My senator must talk to you on the road, and if you can be brought to
reason you will find your reward waiting for you! Do not be saving of
your talents of gold, old man, till the general has promised to procure
the lad's release.--And listen to me, Orion; give up your mad scheme."

The sun had not wholly disappeared behind the Libyan range when
the snorting Pannonians, all flecked with foam, drove back into the
court-yard of the governor's res