At the inn which they had now reached Justinus got out and desired his companion, a pale-faced man who sat sunk into a heap, to do the same; but with a weary shake of the head he declined to move.

“Are you in pain, Narses?” asked Justinus affectionately, and Narses briefly replied in a husky voice:  “All over,” and settled himself against the cushion at the back of the chariot.  He even refused the refreshments brought out to him by the Senator’s servant and interpreter.  He seemed sunk in apathy and to crave nothing but peace.

This was the senator’s nephew.

With Orion’s help, and armed with letters of protection and recommendation from Amru, the senator had gained his purpose.  He had ransomed Narses, but not before the wretched man had toiled for some time as a prisoner, first at the canal on the line of the old one constructed by the Pharaohs, which was being restored under the Khaliff Omar, to secure the speediest way of transporting grain from Egypt to Arabia and afterwards in the rock-bound harbor of Aila.  On the burning shores of the Red Sea, under the fearful sun of those latitudes, Narses was condemned to drag blocks of stone; many days had elapsed before his uncle could trace him—­and in what a state did Justinus find him at last!

A week before he could reach him, the ex-officer of cavalry had laid himself down in the wretched sheds for the sick provided for the laborers; his back still bore the scars of the blows by which the overseer had spurred the waning strength of his exhausted and suffering victim.  The fine young soldier was a wreck, broken alike in heart and body and sunk in melancholy.  Justinus had hoped to take him home jubilant to Martina, and he had only this ruin to show her, doomed to the grave.

The senator was glad, nevertheless, to have saved this much at any rate.  The sight of the sufferer touched him deeply, and the less Narses would take or give, the more thankful was Justinus when he gave the faintest sign of reviving interest.

In the course of this journey by land and water—­and latterly as sharing the senator’s care of his nephew—­Orion had become very dear to his old friend; and at the risk of incurring his displeasure he had even confessed the reasons that had prompted him to leave Memphis.

He never could cease to feel that everything good or lofty in himself was Paula’s alone; that her love ennobled and strengthened him; that to desert her was to abandon himself.  His trifling with Heliodora could but divert him from the high aim he had set before himself.  This aim he kept constantly in view; his spirit hungered for peaceful days in which he might act on the resolution he had formed in church and fulfil the task set before him by the Arab governor.

The knowledge that he had inherited an enormous fortune now afforded him no joy, for he was forced to confess to himself that but for this superabundant wealth he might have been a very different man; and more than once a vehement wish came over him to fling away all his possessions and wrestle for peace of mind and the esteem of the best men by his own unaided powers.