Katharina, meanwhile, did not go home at once to her mother; on the contrary, she went straight off to the Bishop of Memphis, to whom she divulged all she had learnt with regard to the inhabitants of the convent and the intended rescue.  The gentle Plotinus even had been roused to great wrath, and no sooner had she left him than he set out for Fostat to invoke the help of Amru, and—­finding him absent—­of his Vekeel to enable him to pursue the fugitive Melchite sisters.

When the water-wagtail was at home again and alone in her room, she said to herself, with calm satisfaction, that she had now contrived something which would spoil several days for Orion and for Paula, and that might prove even fatal, so far as she was concerned.

CHAPTER VIII.

Nilus had performed his errand well, and Rufinus was forced to admit that Orion had done his part and had planned the enterprise with so much care and unselfishness that his personal assistance could be dispensed with.  Under these circumstances he scarcely owed the young man a grudge for placing himself at the service of his Byzantine friends; still, his not coming to the house disturbed and vexed him, less on his own account, or that of the good cause, than for Paula’s sake, for her feelings towards Orion had remained no secret to him or his wife.

Dame Joanna, indeed, felt the young man’s conduct more keenly than Rufinus; she would have been glad to withhold her husband from the enterprise, whose dangers now appeared to her frightened soul tenfold greater than they were.  But she knew that the Nile would flow backwards before she could dissuade him from keeping his promise to the abbess, so she forced herself to preserve at any rate outward composure.

Before Paula, Rufinus declared that Orion was fully justified and he loudly praised the young man’s liberality in providing the Nile-boat and the vessel for the sea-voyage, and such admirable substitutes for himself.  Pulcheria was delighted with her father’s undertaking; she only longed to go with him and help him to save her dear nuns.  The ship-builder had brought with him, besides his sons, three other Greeks of the orthodox confession, shipwrights like himself, who were out of work in consequence of the low ebb of the Nile, which had greatly restricted the navigation.  Hence they were glad to put a hand to such a good work, especially as it would be profitable, too, for Orion had provided the old man with ample funds.

As the evening grew cooler after sundown Paula had got better.  She did not, indeed, know what to think of Orion’s refusal to start.  First she was grieved, then she rejoiced; for it certainly preserved him from great perils.  In the early days after his return from Constantinople she had heard his praise of the senator’s kindness and hospitality, in which the Mukaukas, who had pleasant memories of the capital, heartily joined.  He