It was scorchingly hot in the enclosed garden-plot, surrounded by buildings, and open to the sun; not a human creature was in sight; the house seemed dead.  The gaudy flag-staffs and trellis-work, and the pillars of the verandah, which had all been newly painted in honor of his return and were still wreathed with garlands, exhaled a smell, to him quite sickening, of melting resin, drying varnish and faded flowers.  Though there was no breath of air the atmosphere quivered, as it seemed from the fierce rays of the sun, which were reflected like arrows from everything around him.  The butterflies and dragonflies appeared to Orion to move their wings more languidly as they hovered over the plants and flowers, the very fountain danced up more lazily and not so high as usual:  everything about him was hot, sweltering, oppressive; and the man who had always been so independent and looked up to, who for years had been free to career through life uncontrolled, and guarded by every good Genius now felt trammelled, hemmed in and harassed.

In his father’s cool fountain-room he could breathe more freely; but only for a moment.  The blood faded from his cheeks, and he had to make a strong effort to greet his father calmly and in his usual manner; for in front of the divan where the governor commonly reclined, lay the Persian hanging, and close by stood his mother and the Arab merchant.  Sebek, the steward awaited his master’s orders, in the background in the attitude of humility which was torture to his old back, but in which he was never required to remain:  Orion now signed to him to stand up: 

The Arab’s mild features wore a look of extreme gravity, and deep vexation could be read in his kindly eyes.  As the young man entered he bowed slightly; they had already met that morning.  The Mukaukas, who was lying deathly pale with colorless lips, scarcely opened his eyes at his son’s greeting.  It might have been thought that a bier was waiting in the next room and that the mourners had assembled here.

The piece of work was only half unrolled, but Orion at once saw the spot whence its crowning glory was now missing—­the large emerald which, as he alone could know, was on its way to Constantinople.  His theft had been discovered.  How fearful, how fatal might the issue be!

“Courage, courage!” he said to himself.  “Only preserve your presence of mind.  What profit is life with loss of honor?  Keep your eyes open; everything depends on that, Orion!”

He succeeded in hastily collecting his thoughts, and exclaimed in a voice which lacked little of its usual eager cheerfulness: 

“How dismal you all look!  It is indeed a terrible disaster that the dog should have handled the poor girl so roughly, and that our people should have behaved so outrageously; but, as I told you this morning, worthy Merchant, the guilty parties shall pay for it with their lives.  My father, I am sure, will agree that you should deal with them according to your pleasure, and our leech Philippus, in spite of his youth, is a perfect Hippocrates I can assure you!  He will patch up the fine fellow—­ your head-man I mean, and as to any question of compensation, my father —­well, you know he is no haggler.”