On the following day Alexandria beheld a funeral ceremony as solemn, as magnificent, and as crowded as though a conquering hero were being entombed; it was that of the monk whom the bull had gored; the Bishop had proclaimed that by this attack on the abomination of desolation—­the blood-sacrifice of idolatry—­he had won an eternal crown in Paradise.

But now the black ravens crossed Damia’s vision once more, till presently a handsome young Greek gaily drove them off with his thyrsus.  His powerful and supple limbs shone with oil, applied in the gymnasium of Timagetes, the scene of his frequent triumphs in all the sports and exercises of the youthful Greeks.  His features and waving hair were those of her son Apelles; but suddenly his aspect changed:  he was an emaciated penitent, his knees bent under the weight of a heavy cross; his widow, Mary, had declared him a martyr to the cause of the crucified Jew and defamed his memory in the eyes of his own son and of all men.  Damia clenched her trembling hands.  Again those ravens came swirling round, flapping their wings wildly over the prostrate penitent.

Then her husband appeared to her, calmly indifferent to the birds of ill-omen.  He looked just as she remembered him many—­so many years ago, when he had come in smiling and said:  “The best stroke of business I ever did!  For a sprinkling of water I have secured the corn trade with Thessalonica and Constantinople; that is a hundred gold solidi for each drop.”

Yes, he had made a good bargain.  The profits of that day’s work were multiplied by tens, and water, nothing in the world but Nile water—­ Baptismal water the priest had called it—­had filled her son’s money-bags, too, and had turned their plot of land into broad estates; but it had been tacitly understood that this sprinkling of water established a claim for a return, and this both father and son had solemnly promised.  Its magic turned everything they touched to gold, but it brought a blight on the peace of the household.  One branch, which had grown up in the traditions of the old Macedonian stock, had separated from the other; and her husband’s great lie lay between them and the family still living in the Canopic way, like a wide ocean embittered with the salt of hatred.  That he had infused poison into his son’s life and compelled him, proud as he was, to forfeit the dignity of a free and high-minded man.  Though devoted in his heart to the old gods he had humbled himself, year after year, to bow the knee with the hated votaries of the Christian faith, and in their church, to their crucified Lord, and had publicly confessed Christ.  The water—­the terrible thaumaturgic stream—­clung to him more inseparably than the brand-mark on a slave’s arm.  It could neither be dried up nor wiped away; for if the false Christian, who was really a zealous heathen, had boldly confessed the Olympian gods and abjured the odious new faith, the gifts of the all-powerful water and all the possessions of their old family would be confiscated to the State and Church, and the children of Porphyrius, the grandchildren of the wealthy Damia, would be beggars.  And this—­all this—­for the sake of a crucified Jew.