And in his vanity he showed his hearers a gold ring, with a gem of some value, which he owed to the liberality of his young master.  “From that day forth,” he eagerly went on, “the names of Orion and Heliodora were in every mouth, and how often have I seen men quite beside themselves over the beauty of this divine pair.  In the Circus, in the theatre, or sailing about the Bosphorus—­they were to be seen everywhere together; and through the hideous, bloody struggle for the throne they lived in a Paradise of their own.  He often took her out in his chariot; or she took him in hers.”

“Such a woman has horses too?” asked the head groom contemptuously.

“A woman!” cried the secretary.  “A lady of rank!—­She has none but bright chestnuts; large horses of Armenian breed, and small, swift beasts from the island of Sardinia, which fly on with the chariot, four abreast, like hunted foxes.  Her horses are always decked with flowers and ribbons fluttering from the gold harness, and the grooms know how to drive them too!—­Well, every one thought that our young lord and the handsome widow would marry; and it was a terrible blow to the hapless Heliodora when nothing came of it—­she looks like a saint and is as soft as a kitten.  I was by when they parted, and she shed such bitter tears it was pitiable to see.  Still, she could not be angry with her idol, poor, gentle, tender kitten.  She even gave him her lap-dog for a keepsake—­that little silky thing you have seen here.  And take my word for it, that was a true love-token, for her heart was as much set on that little beast as if it had been her favorite child.  And he felt the parting too, felt it deeply; however, I am his confidential secretary, and it would never do for me to tell tales out of school.  He clasped the little dog to his heart as he bid her farewell, and he promised her to send some keepsake in return which should show her how precious her love had been—­and it will be no trifle, that any one may swear who knows my master.  You, Gamaliel, I daresay he has been to you about it by this time.”

The man thus addressed—­the same to whom Hiram was to offer Paula’s emerald—­was a rich Alexandrian of a happy turn of mind; as soon as the incursion of the Saracens had made Alexandria an unsafe residence, so that the majority of his fellow Israelites had fled from the great port, he had found his way to Memphis, where he could count on the protection of his patron, the Mukaukas George.

He shook his grizzled curls at this question, but he presently whispered in the secretary’s ear.  “We have the very thing he wants.  You bring me the cow and you shall have a calf—­and a calf with twelve legs too.  Is it a bargain?”

“Twelve per cent on the profits?  Done!” replied the secretary in the same tone, with a sly smile of intelligence.