a man oppressed by great
anguish; the other was the half-suffocated wailing of a suffering child.
This soon became louder, and at length a voice said in Egyptian: "Water,
a drink of water."

The woman started to her feet, exclaiming: "It is the cry of the poor
and oppressed who have been robbed to enrich those who have too much
already; the lament of those whom Fate has plundered to heap you with
wealth enough for hundreds." As she spoke these words, in Greek and
with much unction, she turned to the curtain and added solemnly, but in
Egyptian: "Give drink to the thirsty; the happy ones will spare him
a drop from their overflow. Give the white drink to the wailing
child-spirit, that he may be soothed and quenched.--Play, music, and
drown the lamentations of the spirits in sorrow."

Then, turning to Heliodora's kettle she said sternly, as if in obedience
to some higher power:

"Seven gold pieces to complete the work,"--and while the young widow
drew out her purse the sorceress lighted the lamps, singing as she did
so and as she dropped the coin into the boiling fluid: "Pure, bright
gold! Sunlight buried in a mine! Holy Seven. Shashef, Shashef! Holy
Seven, marry and mingle--melt together!"

When this was done she poured out of the cauldron a steaming fluid as
black as ink, into a shallow saucer, called Heliodora to her side, and
told her what she could see in the mirror of its surface.

It was all fair, and gave none but delightful replies to the widow's
questioning. And all the sorceress said tended to confirm the young
woman's confidence in her magic art; she described Orion as exactly as
though she saw him indeed in the surface of the ink, and said he was
travelling with an older man. And lo! he was returning already; in the
bright mirror she could see Heliodora clasped in her lover's arms; and
now--it was like a picture: A stranger--not the bishop of Memphis--laid
her hand in his and blessed their union before the altar in a vast and
magnificent cathedral.

Katharina, who had been chilled with apprehensions and a thrill of awe,
as she listened to Medea's song, listened to every word with anxious
attention; what Medea said--how she described Orion--that was more
wonderful than anything else, beyond all she had believed possible. And
the cathedral in which the lovers were to be united was the church of
St. Sophia at Constantinople, of which she had heard so much.

A tight grip seemed to clutch her heart; still, e