“Orion, the son of George, to Paula the daughter of Thomas!

“You have heard already that it is now impossible for me to assist in the rescue of the nuns.  But do not misunderstand me.  Your noble, and only too well-founded desire to lend succor to your fellow-believers would have sufficed. . .”

From this point the words written on the wax were carefully effaced, and hardly a letter was decipherable; indeed, there were so few lines that it seemed as though the letter had never been ended-which was the fact.

Though it gave the Vekeel no inculpating evidence against Orion it pointed to his connection with the guilty parties:  Paula, doubtless, had been concerned in the scheme which had cost the lives of so many brave Moslems.  The negro had learnt, through the money-changer at Fostat, that she was on terms of close intimacy with the Mukaukas’ son and had entrusted her property to his stewardship.  They must both be accused as accomplices in the deed, and the document proved Orion’s knowledge of it, at any rate.

Plotinus, the bishop, at whose instigation the fugitives had been chased, could fill up what the damsel might choose to conceal.

He had started to follow the patriarch immediately after the pursuers had set out, and had only returned from Upper Egypt early on the previous day.  On his arrival he had forwarded to the Vekeel two indictments brought against Orion by the prelate:  the first relating to the evasion of the nuns; the other to the embezzlement of a costly emerald; the rightful property of the church.  These accusations were what had encouraged the Negro to confiscate the young man’s estate, particularly as the bitter tone of the patriarch’s document sufficiently proved that in him he had found an ally.

Paula must next be placed in safe custody, and he had no doubt whatever that her statement would incriminate Orion in some degree.  He would gladly have cross-examined her at once, but he had other matters in hand to-day.

The longest part of his task was ransacking the treasurer’s office; Nilus himself had to conduct the search.  Everything which he pointed out as a legal document, title-deed, contract for purchase or sale, revenue account or the like, was at once placed in oxcarts or on camels, with the large sums of gold and silver coin, and carried across the river under a strong escort.  All the more antique deeds and the family archives, the Vekeel left untouched.  He was indeed an indefatigable man, for although these details kept him busy the whole day, he allowed himself no rest nor did he once ask for the refreshment of food or a cooling draught.  As the day went on he enquired again and again for the bishop, with increasing impatience and irritation.  It would have been his part to wait on the patriarch, but who was Plotinus?  Thin-skinned, like all up-starts in authority, he took the bishop’s delay as an act of personal contumely.  But the shepherd of the flock at Memphis