CHAPTER XVII.
It was quite dark in Sirona's cavern, fearfully dark, and the blackergrew the night which shrouded her, the more her terror increased. Fromtime to time she shut her eyes as tightly as she could, for she fanciedshe could see a crimson glare, and she longed for light in that houras a drowning man longs for the shore. Dark forebodings of every kindoppressed her soul.
What if Paulus had abandoned her, and had left her to her fate? Or ifPolykarp should have been searching for her on the mountain in thisstorm, and in the darkness should have fallen into some abyss, or havebeen struck by the lightning? Suppose the mass of rock that overhung theentrance to the cave should have been loosened in the storm, and shouldfall, and bar her exit to the open air? Then she would be buried alive,and she must perish alone, without seeing him whom she loved once more,or telling him that she had not been unworthy of his trust in her.
Cruelly tormented by such thoughts as these, she dragged herself up andfelt her way out into the air and wind, for she could no longer hold outin the gloomy solitude and fearful darkness. She had hardly reached themouth of the cave, when she heard steps approaching her lurking place,and again she shrank back. Who was it that could venture in thispitch-dark night to climb from rock to rock? Was it Paulus returning?Was it he--was it Polykarp seeking her? She felt intoxicated; shepressed her hands to her heart, and longed to cry out, but she darednot, and her tongue refused its office. She listened with the tension ofterror to the sound of the steps which came straight towards her nearerand nearer, then the wanderer perceived the faint gleam of her whitedress, and called out to her. It was Paulus.
She drew a deep breath of relief when she recognized his voice, andanswered his call.
"In such weather as this," said the anchorite, "it is better to bewithin than without, it seems to me, for it is not particularly pleasantout here, so far as I have found."
"But it has been frightful here inside the cave too," Sirona answered,"I have been so dreadfully frightened, I was so lonely in the horribledarkness. If only I had had my little dog with me, it would at leasthave been a living being."
"I have made haste as well as I could," interrupted Paulus. "The pathsare not so smooth here as the Kanopic road in Alexandria, and as I havenot three necks like Cerberus, who lies at the feet of Serapis, it wouldhave been wiser of me to return to you a little more leisurely. Thestorm-bird has swallowed up all the stars as if they were flies, andthe poor old mountain is so grieved at it, that streams of tears areeverywhere flowing over his stony cheeks. It is wet even here. Now goback into the cave, and let me lay this that I have got here for you inmy arms, in the dry passage. I bring you good news; to-morrow evening,when it is growing dusk, we start. I have found out a vessel whichwill convey us to Klysma, and from thence I myself will conduct you toAlexandria. In the sheepskin here you will find the dress and veil ofan Amalekite woman, and if your traces are to be kept hidden fromPhoebicius, you must accommodate yourself to this disguise; for if thepeople down there were to see you as I saw you to-day, they would thinkthat Aphrodite herself had risen from the sea, and the report of thefair-haired beauty that had appeared among them would soon spread evento the oasis."
"But it seems to me that I am well hidden here," replied Sirona. "I amafraid of a sea-voyage, and even if we succeeded in reaching Alexandriawithout impediment, still I do not know--"
"It shall be my business to provide for you there." Paulus interruptedwith a decision that was almost boastful, and that somewhat disturbedSirona. "You know the fable of the ass in the lion's skin, but there arelions who wear the skin of an ass on their shoulders--or of a sheep,it comes to the same thing. Yesterday you were speaking of the splendidpalaces of the citizens, and lauding the happiness of their owners. Youshall dwell in one of those marble houses, and rule it as its mistress,and it shall be my care to procure you slaves, and litter-bearers, anda carriage with four mules. Do not doubt my word, for I am promisingnothing that I cannot perform. The rain is ceasing, and I will try tolight a fire. You want nothing more to eat? Well then, I will wish yougood-night. The rest will all do to-morrow."
Sirona had listened in astonishment to the anchorite's promises.
How often had she envied those who possessed all that her strangeprotector now promised her--and now it had not the smallest charm forher; and, fully determined in any case not to follow Paulus, whom shebegan to distrust, she replied, as she coldly returned his greeting,"There are many hours yet before tomorrow evening in which we candiscuss everything."
While Paulus was with great difficulty rekindling the fire, she was oncemore alone, and again she began to be alarmed in the dark cavern.
She called the Alexandrian. "The darkness terrifies me so," she said."You still had some oil in the jug this morning; perhaps you may be ableto contrive a little lamp for me; it is so fearful to stay here in thedark."
Paulus at once took a shard, tore a strip from his tattered coat,twisted it together, and laid it for a wick in the greasy fluid, lightedit at the slowly reviving fire, and putting this more than simple lightin Sirona's hand, he said, "It will serve its purpose; in Alexandria Iwill see that you have lamps which give more light, and which are madeby a better artist."
Sirona placed the lamp in a hollow in the rocky wall at the head of herbed, and then lay down to rest. Light scares away wild beasts and feartoo from the resting-place of man, and it kept terrifying thoughts faraway from the Gaulish woman.
She contemplated her situation clearly and calmly, and quite decidedthat she would neither quit the cave, nor entrust herself to theanchorite, till she had once more seen and spoken to Polykarp. He nodoubt knew where to seek her, and certainly, she thought, he would bythis time have returned, if the storm and the starless night had notrendered it an impossibility to come up the mountain from the oasis.
"To-morrow I shall see him again, and then I will open my heart to him,and he shall read my soul like a book, and on every page, and in everyline he will find his own name. And I will tell him too that I haveprayed to his 'Good Shepherd,' and how much good it has done me, andthat I will be a Christian like his sister Marthana and his mother.Dorothea will be glad indeed when she hears it, and she at any ratecannot have thought that I was wicked, for she always loved me, and thechildren--the children--"
The bright crowd of merry faces came smiling in upon her fancy, and herthoughts passed insensibly into dreams; kindly sleep touched her heartwith its gentle hand, and its breath swept every shadow of trouble fromher soul. She slept, smiling and untroubled as a child whose eyes someguardian angel softly kisses, while her strange protector now turned theflickering wood on the damp hearth and with a reddening face blew up thedying charcoal-fire, and again walked restlessly up and down, and pausedeach time he passed the entrance to the cave, to throw a longing glanceat the light which shone out from Sirona's sleeping-room.
Since the moment when he had flung Polykarp to the ground, Paulus hadnot succeeded in recovering his self-command; not for a moment had heregretted the deed, for the reflection had never occurred to him, thata fall on the stony soil of the Sacred Mountain, which was as hard asiron, must hurt more than a fall on the' sand of the arena.
"The impudent fellow," thought he, "richly deserved what he got. Whogave him a better right over Sirona than he, Paulus himself, had--he whohad saved her life, and had taken it upon himself to protect her?" Hergreat beauty had charmed him from the first moment of their meeting, butno impure thought stirred his heart as he gazed at her with delight, andlistened with emotion to her childlike talk. It was the hot torrent ofPolykarp's words that had first thrown the spark into his soul, whichjealousy and the dread of having to abandon Sirona to another, had soonfanned into a consuming flame. He would not give up this woman, he wouldcontinue to care for her every need, she should owe everything to him,and to him only. And so, without reserve, he devoted himself body andsoul to the preparations for her flight. The hot breath of the storm,the thunder and lightning, torrents of rain, and blackness of nig
htcould not delay him, while he leaped from rock to rock, feeling hisway-soaked through, weary and in peril; he thought only of her, and ofhow he could most safely carry her to Alexandria, and then surroundher with all that could charm a woman's taste. Nothing--nothing did hedesire for himself, and all that he dreamed of and planned turned onlyand exclusively on the pleasure which he might afford her. When he hadprepared and lighted the lamp for her he saw her again, and was startledat the beauty of the face that the trembling flame revealed. He couldobserve her a few seconds only, and then she had vanished, and he mustremain alone in the darkness and the rain. He walked restlessly up anddown, and an agonizing longing once more to see her face lighted upby the pale flame, and the white arm that she had held out to take thelamp, grew more and more strong in him and accelerated the pulses ofhis throbbing heart. As often as he passed the cave, and observed theglimmer of light that came from her room, he felt prompted and urged toslip in, and to gaze on her once more. He never once thought of prayerand scourging, his old means of grace, he sought rather for a reasonthat might serve him as an excuse if he went in, and it struck him thatit was cold, and that a sheepskin was lying in the cavern. He wouldfetch it, in spite of his vow never to wear a sheepskin again; andsupposing he were thus enabled to see her, what next?
When he had Stepped across the threshold, an inward voice warned himto return, and told him that he must be treading the path ofunrighteousness, for that he was stealing in on tiptoe like a thief; butthe excuse was ready at once. "That is for fear of waking her, if she isasleep."
And now all further reflection was silenced for he had already reachedthe spot where, at the end of the rocky passage, the cave widened intoher sleeping-room; there she lay on her hard couch, sunk in slumber andenchantingly fair.
A deep gloom reigned around, and the feeble light of the little lamplighted up only a small portion of the dismal chamber but the head,throat, and arms that it illuminated seemed to shine with a light oftheir own that enhanced and consecrated the light of the feeble flame.Paulus fell breathless on his knees, and fixed his eyes with growingeagerness on the graceful form of the sleeper.
Sirona was dreaming; her head, veiled in her golden hair, rested on ahigh pillow of herbs, and her delicately rosy face was turned up to thevault of the cave; her half-closed lips moved gently, and now she movedher bent arm and her white hand, on which the light of the lamp fell,and which rested half on her forehead and half on her shining hair.
"Is she saying anything?" asked Paulus of himself, and he pressed hisbrow against a projection of the rock as tightly as if he would stemthe rapid rush of his blood that it might not overwhelm his bewilderedbrain.
Again she moved her lips. Had she indeed spoken? Had she perhaps calledhim?
That could not be, for she still slept; but he wished to believe it--andhe would believe it, and he stole nearer to her and nearer, and bentover her, and listened--while his own strength failed him even to draw abreath--listened to the soft regular breathing that heaved her bosom. Nolonger master of himself he touched her white arm with his bearded lipsand she drew it back in her sleep, then his gaze fell on her parted lipsand the pearly teeth that shone between them, and a mad longing to kissthem came irresistibly over him. He bent trembling over her, and wason the point of gratifying his impulse when, as if startled by a suddenapparition, he drew back, and raised his eyes from the rosy lips to thehand that rested on the sleeper's brow.
The lamplight played on a golden ring on Sirona's finger, and shonebrightly on an onyx on which was engraved an image of Tyche, thetutelary goddess of Antioch, with a sphere upon her head, and bearingAmalthea's horn in her hand.
A new and strange emotion took possession of the anchorite at the sightof this stone. With trembling hands he felt in the breast of his torngarment, and presently drew forth a small iron crucifix and the ringthat he had taken from the cold hand of Hermas' mother. In the goldencirclet was set an onyx, on which precisely the same device was visibleas that on Sirona's hand. The string with its precious jewel fell fromhis grasp, he clutched his matted hair with both hands, groaned deeply,and repeated again and again, as though to crave forgiveness, the nameof "Magdalen."
Then he called Sirona in a loud voice, and as she awoke excessivelystartled, he asked her in urgent tones: "Who gave you that ring?"
"It was a present from Phoebicius," replied she. "He said he had had itgiven to him many years since in Antioch, and that it had been engravedby a great artist. But I do not want it any more, and if you like tohave it you may."
"Throw it away!" exclaimed Paulus, "it will bring you nothing butmisfortune." Then he collected himself, went out into the air with hishead sunk on his breast, and there, throwing himself down on the wetstones by the hearth, he cried out:
"Magdalen! dearest and purest! You, when you ceased to be Glycera,became a saintly martyr, and found the road to heaven; I too had my dayof Damascus--of revelation and conversion--and I dared to call myself bythe name of Paulus--and now--now?"
Plunged in despair he beat his forehead, groaning out, "All, all invain!"