A Thorny Path — Complete by Georg Ebers (howl and other poems txt) 📖

frightened; but then she exclaimed with delight from the very bottom of her faithful heart, “The gods be praised!” and from the moment when he could storm, she always declared, Heron’s recovery began. ........................

The sun was setting when Andreas made his way to Zeno’s house—a long, white-washed building.

The road led through a palm-grove on the Christian’s estate. His anxiety to see the beloved sufferers urged him forward so quickly that he presently overtook another man who was walking in the same direction in the cool of the evening. This was Ptolemaeus, the physician.

He greeted Andreas with cheerful kindness, and the freedman knew what he meant when, without waiting to be asked, he said:

“We are out of the wood now; the fever has passed away. The delirious fancies have left her, and since noon she has slept. When I quitted her an hour ago she was sleeping soundly and quietly. Till now the shaken soul has been living in a dream; but now that the fever has passed away, she will soon be herself again. As yet she has recognized no one; neither Agatha nor the lady Euryale; not even Diodoros, whom I allowed to look at her yesterday for a moment. We have taken her away from the large house in the garden, on account of the children, to the little villa opposite the place of worship. It is quiet there, and the air blows in on her through the open veranda. The Empress herself could not wish for a better sick-room. And the care Agatha takes of her! You are right to hasten. The last glimmer of sunshine is extinct, and divine service will soon begin. I am satisfied with Diodoros too; youth is a soil on which the physician reaps easy laurels. What will it not heal and strengthen! Only when the soul is so deeply shaken, as with Melissa and her brother, matters go more slowly, even with the young. However, as I said, we are past the crisis.”

“God be praised!” said Andreas. “Such news makes me young again. I could run like a boy.” They now entered the well-kept gardens which lay behind Zeno’s house. Noble clumps of tall old trees rose above the green grass plots and splendid shrubs. Round a dancing fountain were carefully kept beds of beautiful flowers. The garden ended at a palm-grove, which cast its shade on Zeno’s little private place of worship—an open plot inclosed by tamarisk hedges like walls. The little villa in which Melissa lay was in a bower of verdure, and the veranda with the wide door through which the bed of the sufferer had been carried in, stood open in the cool evening to the garden, the palm-grove, and the place of worship with its garland, as it were, of fragile tamarisk boughs.

Agatha was keeping watch by Melissa; but as the last of the figures, great and small, who could be seen moving across the garden, all in the same direction, disappeared behind the tamarisk screen, the young Christian looked lovingly down at her friend’s pale and all too delicate face, touched her forehead lightly with her lips, and whispered to the sleeper, as though she could hear her voice:

“I am only going to pray for you and your brother.”

And she went out.

A few moments later the brazen gong was heard—muffled out of regard for the sick—which announced the hour of prayer to the little congregation. It had sounded every evening without disturbing the sufferer, but to-night it roused her from her slumbers.

She looked about her in bewilderment and tried to rise, but she was too weak to lift herself. Terror, blood, Diodoros wounded, Andreas, the ass on which she had ridden that night, were the images which first crowded on her awakening spirit in bewildering confusion. She had heard that piercing ring of smitten brass in the Serapeum. Was she still there? Had she only dreamed of that night-ride with her wounded lover? Perhaps she had lost consciousness in the mystic chambers, and the clang of the gong had roused her.

And she shuddered. In her terror she dared not open her eyes for fear of seeing on all hands the hideous images on the walls and ceiling. Merciful gods! If her flight from the Serapeum and the rescue of Diodoros by Andreas had really been but a dream, then the door might open at any moment, and the Egyptian Zminis or his men might come in to drag her before that dreadful Caesar.

She had half recovered consciousness several times, and as these thoughts had come over her, her returning lucidity had vanished and a fresh attack of fever had shaken her. But this time her head seemed clearer; the cloud and humming had left her which had impeded the use of her ears and eyes.

Her brain too had recovered its faculties. As soon as she tried to think, her restored intelligence told her that if she were indeed still in the Serapeum and the door should open, the lady Euryale might come in to speak courage to her and take her in her motherly arms, and—And she suddenly recollected the promise which had come to her from the Scriptures of the Christians. It stood before her soul in perfect clearness that she had found a loving comforter in the Saviour; she remembered how gladly she had declared to the lady Euryale that the fullness of time had now indeed come to her, and that she had no more fervent wish than to become a fellow-believer with her kind friend—a baptized Christian. And all the while she felt as though light were spreading in her and around her, and the vision she had last seen when she lost consciousness rose again before her inward eye. Again she saw the Redeemer as He had stood before her at the end of her ride, stretching out His arms to her in the darkness, inviting her, who was weary and heavy laden, to be refreshed by him. A glow of thankfulness warmed her heart, and she closed her eyes once more.

But she did not sleep; and while she lay fully conscious, with her hands on her bosom as it rose and fell regularly with her deep breathing, thinking of the loving Teacher, of the Christians, and of all the glorious promises she had read in the Sermon on the Mount, and which were addressed to her too, she could fancy that her head rested on Euryale’s shoulder, while she saw the form of the Saviour robed in light and beckoning to her.

Her whole frame was wrapped in pleasant languor. Just so had she felt once before-she remembered it well—and she remembered when it was. She had felt just as she did now after her lover had for the first time clasped her to his heart, when, as night came on, she had sat by his side on the marble bench, while the Christian procession passed. She had taken the chanting train for the wandering souls of the dead and—how strange! No—she was not mistaken. She heard at this moment the selfsame strain which they had then sung so joyfully, in spite of its solemn mode. She did know when it had begun, but again it filled her with a bitter-sweet sense of pity. Only it struck deeper now than before, for she knew now that it applied to all human beings, since they were all the children of the same kind Father, and her own brethren and sisters.

But whence did the wonderful music proceed—Was she—and a shock of alarm thrilled her at the thought—was she numbered with the dead? Had her heart ceased to beat when the Saviour had taken her in His arms after her ride through blood and darkness, when all had grown dim to her senses? Was she now in the abode of