“Teach me first to measure my strength of will.”

“Will you try, at any rate?”

“Yes, for your sake.”

“Will you promise to continue your treatment of that poor little girl, whom I love dearly in spite of her forbears?”

“As long as I can endure the daily meeting with her—­you know. . .”

“That, then, is a bargain.—­Now, come and let us translate a few more chapters.”

The friends sat at work together till a late hour, and when the old man was alone again he reflected:  “So long as he can be of use to the child he will not go away, and by that time I shall have dug a pit for that damned siren.”

.........................

Orion had his hands full of work for the next morning.  Before it was light he sent off two trustworthy messengers to Doomiat, giving each of them a letter with instructions that a sailing vessel should be held in readiness for the fugitives.  One was to start three hours after the other, so that the business in hand should not fail if either of them should come to grief.

He then went out; first to the harbor, where he succeeded in hiring a large, good Nile-boat from Doomiat, whose captain, a trustworthy and experienced man, promised to keep their agreement a secret and to be prepared to start by noon next day.  Next, after taking council with himself, he went to the treasurer’s office, and there, with the assistance of Nilus, made his will, to be ratified and signed next morning in the presence of a notary and witnesses.  His mother, little Mary, and Paula were to inherit the bulk of his property.  He also bequeathed a considerable sum as a legacy to the hospitals and orphan asylums, as well as to the Church, to the end that they might pray for his soul; and a legacy to Nilus “as the most just judge of his household.”  Eudoxia, Mary’s Greek governess, was not forgotten; and finally he commanded that all his house-slaves should be liberated, and to the end that they might not suffer from want he bequeathed to them one of his largest estates in Upper Egypt, where they might settle and labor for their common good.  He increased the handsome sums already devised by his father to the freedmen of his family.

This business occupied several hours.  Nilus, who wrote while Orion dictated, giving the document a legal form, was deeply touched by the young man’s fore thought and kindness; for in truth, since his desecration of the judgment-seat, he had given him up for a lost soul.

By Orion’s orders this will was to be opened after four weeks, in case he should not have returned from a journey on which he proposed starting on the morrow, and this injunction revealed to the faithful steward, who had grown grey in the service, that the last scion of the house expected to run considerable risk; however, he was too modest to ask any questions, and his master did not take him into his confidence.

When, after all this, the two men went back into the anteroom, Anubis, the young clerk and Katharina’s ally, was standing there.  Nilus took no notice of him, and while he, with tearful eyes, stooped to kiss the hand Orion held out to him as he bid him come to take leave of him once more next evening, Anubis, who had withdrawn respectfully to a little distance, keeping his ears open, however, officiously opened the heavy iron-plated door.