One of the messengers was a young Arab from the other side of the river, who handed to Philippus a letter from the merchant Haschim.  The old man informed him that, in consequence of a bad fall his eldest son had had, he was forced to start at once for Djiddah on the Red Sea.  He begged the physician to take every care of his caravan-leader, to whom he was much attached, to remove him when he thought fit from the governor’s house, and to nurse him till he was well, in some quiet retreat.  He would bear in mind the commission given him by the daughter of the illustrious Thomas.  He sent with this letter a purse well-filled with gold pieces.

The other messenger was to take the leech back again in the light chariot with the fast horses to the suffering Mukaukas.  He at once obeyed the summons, and the steeds, which the driver did not spare, soon carried him back to the governor’s house.

A glance at his patient told him that this was the beginning of the end; still, faithful to his principle of never abandoning hope till the heart of the sufferer had ceased to beat, he raised the senseless man, heedless of Orion, who was on his knees by his father’s pillow, signed to the deaconess in attendance, an experienced nurse, and laid cool, wet cloths on the head and neck of the sufferer, who was stricken with apoplexy.  Then he bled him.

Presently the Mukaukas wearily opened his eyes, turned uneasily from side to side, and recognizing his kneeling son and his wife, bathed in tears, he murmured, almost inarticulately, for his paralyzed tongue no longer did his will:  “Two pillules, Philip!”

The physician unhesitatingly acceded to the request of the dying man, who again closed his eyes; but only to reopen them, and to say, with the same difficulty, but with perfect consciousness:  “The end is at hand!  The blessing of the Church—­Orion, the Bishop.”

The young man hastened out of the room to fetch the prelate, who was waiting in the viridarium with two deacons, an exorcist, and a sacristan bearing the sacred vessels.

The governor listened in devout composure to the service of the last sacrament, looked on at the ceremonies performed by the exorcist as, with waving of hands and pious ejaculations he banned the evil spirits and cast out from the dying man the devil that might have part in him; but he could no longer swallow the bread which, in the Jacobite rite, was administered soaked in the wine.  Orion took the holy elements for him, and the dying man, with a smile, murmured to his son: 

“God be with thee, my son!  The Lord, it seems, denies me His precious Blood—­and yet—­let me try once more.”

This time he succeeded in swallowing the wine and a few crumbs of bread; and the bishop Ptolimus, a gentle old man of a beautiful and dignified presence, spoke comfort to him, and asked him whether he felt that he was dying penitent and in perfect faith in the mercy of his Lord and Saviour, and whether he repented of his sins and forgave his enemies.