The Syrian shook his head doubtfully and gave vent to a long-drawn whistle, and Perpetua clasped her hands exclaiming distressfully:  “Did I not say so?  She takes the fire lighted by shepherds at night to warm their hands for the rising sun—­the rattle of chariots for the thunders of the Almighty!—­Why, how many thousands have called themselves Paulus!  By all the Saints, child, I beseech you keep quiet, and do not try to weave a holiday-robe out of airy mist!  Be prepared for the worst; then you are armed against failure and preserve your right to hope!  Tell her, tell her, Hiram, what else the messenger said; it is nothing positive; everything is as uncertain as dust in the breeze.”

The freedman then explained that this Nabathaean was a trustworthy man, far better skilled in such errands than himself, for he understood both Syriac and Egyptian, Greek and Aramaic; and nevertheless he had failed to find out anything more about this hermit Paulus at Tor, where the monks of the monastery of the Transfiguration had a colony.  Subsequently, however, on the sea voyage to Holzum, he had been informed by some monks that there was a second Sinai.  The monastery there—­but here Perpetua again was the speaker, for the hapless stammerer’s brow was beaded with sweat—­the monastery at the foot of the peaked, heaven-kissing mountain, had been closed in consequence of the heresies of its inhabitants; but in the gorges of these great heights there were still many recluses, some in a small Coenobium, some in Lauras and separate caves, and among these perchance Paulus might be found.  This clue seemed a good one and she and Hiram had already made up their minds to follow it up; but the warrior monk was very possibly a stranger, and they had thought it would be cruel to expose her to so keen a disappointment.

Here Paula interrupted her, crying in joyful excitement: 

“And why should not something besides disappointment be my portion for once?  How could you have the heart to deprive me of the hope on which my poor heart still feeds?—­But I will not be robbed of it.  Your Paulus of Sinai is my lost father.  I feel it, I know it!  If I had not sold my pearls, the Nabathaean. . . .  But as it is.  When can you start, my good Hiram?”

“Not before a fort—­a fortnight at—­at—­at—­soonest,” said the man.  “I am in the governor’s service now, and the day after to-morrow is the great horse-fair at Niku.  The young master wants some stallions bought and there are our foals to. . . .”

“I will implore my uncle to-morrow, to spare you,” cried Paula.  “I will go on my knees to him.”

“He will not let him go,” said the nurse.  “Sebek the steward told him all about it from me before the hour of audience and tried to have Hiram released.”

“And he said . . . ?”

“The lady Neforis said it was all a mere will-o’-the-wisp, and my lord agreed with her.  Then your uncle forbade Sebek to betray the matter to you, and sent word to me that he would possibly send Hiram to Sinai when the horse-fair was over.  So take patience, sweetheart.  What are two weeks, or at most three—­and then. . . .”