“Concerning my betrothed?”

“Alas! yes, my lord.”

“Then I know it already,” replied the young man; and after exchanging a few words with his master with reference to the old man’s atrocious proposal, Nilus went on: 

“My prison-mate tells me, too, that while he was in custody in the guard-house the Arabs were speaking of a messenger from the governor announcing his arrival at Medina, and also that he intended making only a short stay there.  So we may expect his return before long.”

“Then he will have started long before the Kadi’s messenger can have arrived and laid the petition for pardon before the Khaliff!—­We have no hope but in Amru; if only we could send information to him on his way...”

“He would certainly not tarry in Upper Egypt, but hasten his journey, or send on a plenipotentiary,” said the voice on the other side of the wall.  “If we had but a trusty man to despatch!  Our people are scattered to the four winds, and to hunt them up now. . . .”

At this Mary’s childish tones broke in with:  “I can find a messenger.”

“You?  What are you thinking of, child?” said Orion.  She did not heed his remonstrance, but went on eagerly, quite sure of her own meaning: 

“He shall be told everything, everything!  Ought he to know what I heard about your share in the flight of the sisters?”

“No, no; on no account!” cried Nilus and his master both at once; and Mary understood that her proposition was accepted.  She clapped her hands, and exclaimed full of enterprise and with glowing cheeks: 

“The messenger shall start to-morrow; rely on me.  I can do it as well as the greatest.  And now tell me exactly the road he is to take.  To make sure, write the names of the stages on my little tablet.—­But wait, I must rub it smooth.”

“What is this on the wax?” asked Orion.  “A large heart with squares all over it.—­And that means?”

“Oh! mere nonsense,” said the child somewhat abashed.  “It was only to show how my heart was divided among the persons I love.  A whole half of it belongs to Paula, this quarter is yours; but there, there, there,” and at each word she prodded the wax with the stylus, “that is where I had kept a little corner for old Horapollo.  He had better not come in my way again!”

Her nimble fingers smoothed the wax, and over the effaced heart—­ a child’s whim—­Orion wrote things on which the lives of two human beings depended.  He did so with sincere confidence in his little ally’s adroitness and fidelity.  Early next morning she was to receive a letter to be conveyed to Amru by the messengers.

“But a rapid journey costs money, and Amru always chooses the road by the mountains and Berenice,” observed the treasurer.  “If we put together our last gold pieces they will hardly suffice.”

“Keep them, you will want them here,” said the little girl.  “And yet—­ there are my pearls, to be sure, and my mother’s jewels—­at the same time. . . .”