A glance at Gibbus told him what he had rightly feared.  The poor fellow was hardly recognizable.  He was coated with dust from head to foot, and this made him look like a grey-haired old man; his sandals hung to his feet in strips; the sweat, pouring down his cheeks, had made gutters as it were in the dust on his face, and his tears, as the physician held out his hand to him, washed out other channels.

In reply to the leech’s anxious, long drawn “Dead?” he nodded silently; and when Philippus, clasping his hands to his temples, cried out:  “Dead!  My poor old Rufinus dead!  But how, in Heaven’s name, did it happen?  Speak, man, speak!”—­Gibbus pointed to the old philosopher and said:  “Come out then, with me, Master.  No third person. . . .”

Philippus, however, gave him to understand that Horapollo was his second self; and the hunch-back went on to tell him what he had seen, and how his beloved master had met his end.  Horapollo sat listening in astonishment, shaking his head disapprovingly, while the physician muttered curses.  But the bearer of evil tidings was not interrupted, and it was not till he had ended that Philippus, with bowed head and tearful eyes, said: 

“Poor, faithful old man; to think that he should die thus—­he who leaves behind him all that is best in life, while I—­I. . . .”  And he groaned aloud.  The old man glanced at him with reproachful displeasure.

While the leech broke the seals of the tablets, which the abbess had carefully closed, and began to read the contents, Horapollo asked the gardener:  “And the nuns?  Did they all escape?”

“Yes, Master! on the morning after we reached Doomiat, a trireme took them all out to sea.”

And the old man grumbled to himself:  “The working bees killed and the Drones saved!”

Gibbus, however, contradicted him, praising the laborious and useful life of the sisters, in whose care he himself had once been.

Meanwhile Philippus had read his friend’s last letter.  Greatly disturbed by it he turned hither and thither, paced the room with long steps, and finally paused in front of the gardener, exclaiming:  “And what next?  Who is to tell them the news?”

“You,” replied Gibbus, raising his hands in entreaty.

“I-oh, of course, I!” growled the physician.  “Whatever is difficult, painful, intolerable, falls on my shoulders as a matter of course!  But I cannot—­ought not—­I will not do it.  Had I any part or lot in devising this mad expedition?  You observe, Father?—­What he, the simpleton, brewed, I—­I again am to drink.  Fate has settled that!”

“It is hard, it is hard, child!” replied the old man.  “Still, it is your duty.  Only consider—­if that man, as he stands before us now, were to appear before the women. . . .”

But Philippus broke in:  “No, no, that would not do!  And you, Gibbus—­this very day there has been an Arab again to see Joanna; and if they were to suspect that you had been with your master—­for you look strangely.—­No, man; your devotion merits a better reward.  They shall not catch you.  I release you from your service to the widow, and we—­what do you say, Father?—­we will keep him here.”