The Bride of the Nile — Complete by Georg Ebers (best historical fiction books of all time txt) 📖

to inflict this penalty for the share he had taken in the rescue of the nuns; and the young man submitted willingly to a punishment which restored him and his bride to freedom, and enabled Amru to apply a larger proportion of the revenues of his native land for its own benefit.

The Khaliff Omar, however, never received these moneys, which constituted far more than half of Orion’s patrimony. The Prophet’s truest friend, the wise and powerful ruler, fell by the assassin’s hand, and the world now learnt that the Vekeel had been one of the chief conspirators and had been spurred on to the rashest extremes by his confidence of success.

Amru received the son of the Mukaukas as a father might; after examining the result of his labors he found it far superior to his own efforts in the same direction, and he charged Orion to carry out the new division of the country, which he confirmed excepting in a few details.

“Perform your duty and do your utmost in the future to go on as you have begun!” cried Amru; and the young man replied:

“In this bitter and yet happy interval I have become clear on many points.”

“And may I ask on what?” asked the governor. “I would gladly hear.”

“I have discovered, my lord,” replied Orion, “that there is no such thing as happiness or unhappiness in the sense men give to the words. Life appears to each of us as we ourselves paint it. Hard times which come into our lives from outside are often no more than a brief night from which a brighter day presently dawns—or the stab of a surgeon’s knife, which makes us sounder than before. What men call grief is, times without number, a path to greater ease; whereas the ordinary happiness of mankind flows, swiftly as running waters, down from that delightful sense of ease. Like a ship, which, when her rudder is lost, is more likely to ride out the storm on the high seas than near the sheltering coast, so a man who has lost himself may easily recover himself and his true happiness in the wildest turmoil of life, but rarely and with difficulty if his existence runs calmly on. All other blessings are comparatively worthless if we are not upheld by the consciousness of fulfilling the task of life in faithful earnest, and of cheerfully dealing with the problems it sets before us. The lost one was found as soon as he placed his whole being and faculties at the service of a higher duty, with God in his heart and before his eyes. I have learnt from my own experience, and from Paula’s good friends, to strive untiringly after what is right, and to find my own weal in that of others.

“The sense of lost liberty is hard to bear; but leave me love, and give me room and opportunity to prove my best powers in the service of the community, even in a prison—and though I cannot be perfectly happy, for that is impossible without freedom—I will be far happier than such an idle and useless spendthrift of time and abilities as I used to be among the dissipations of the capital.”

“Then enjoy the consciousness of duty well performed, with liberty and love,” replied the governor. “And believe me, my friend, your father in Paradise will no more grudge you all that is loveliest and best than I do. You are on the road where every curse is turned to blessing.”

The three marriages which Amru had promised to provide for, were celebrated with due splendor.

That of Orion and Paula was a day never to be forgotten by the gay world of Memphis. Bishop John performed the ceremony, and the young couple at once took possession of the beautiful house left them by Katharina, the real Bride of the Nile. If it could have been granted to her to read Paula’s and Orion’s hearts, and see how they held her in remembrance, she would have found that to them she was no longer the childish water-wagtail, and that they knew how to value the sacrifice of her young life.

Their first beloved guest, who went with them to their new home, was little Mary, and she remained their dearest companion till she married happily. The governess, Eudoxia, to whom also Orion offered an asylum, accompanied Mary to her own delightful home; and there at last Mary closed her old friend’s eyes, after the good woman had brought up her little ones, not like a hireling but as a true mother.

The Patriarch Benjamin, too, who was led by many considerations—and not least by Katharina’s will to remain on good terms with the son of the Mukaukas, was a visitor to the youthful pair. Neither he nor the Church ever had reason to repent his alliance with Orion; and when Paula presented her husband with a son, the prelate offered to be his sponsor, and named him George after his grandfather.

Orion’s son, too, inherited the office of Mukaukas, when he came to man’s estate, from his father who was appointed to it, but under a new Arab title, shortly after his marriage.

Ere long, however, Orion, as the highest Christian authority in his native land, had to change his place of residence and leave Memphis, which was doomed to ruin, for Alexandria. From thence his power extended over the whole Nile-valley, and he devoted himself to his charge with so much zeal, fidelity, justice, and prudence, that his name was remembered with veneration and affection by generations long after.

Paula was the pride and joy of his life, and they lived together in devoted union to an advanced age. He regarded it as one of the duties of his life, to care for the woman who had made him what he was from a lost and reprobate creature, and to fill every day of her life with joy. When he built his palace at Alexandria, he graced it with the inscription that had been engraved on Thomas’ ring: “God hath set the sweat of man’s brow before virtue.”

Philippus and his Pulcheria also found a new home in Alexandria. He had no long wooing to do; for when, on his return, the girl of whom he had thought constantly during his long journeying, met him for the first time in her mother’s house and held out both her hands with trustful warmth of welcome, he clasped her to him and would not release her till Joanna had given them her maternal blessing. The widow lived in the leech’s house with her children and grandchildren, and often visited her husband’s grave. At length she was laid to rest by him and his soft-hearted mother, in the cemetery of Alexandria.

Rustem, made a rich man by Orion, became a famous breeder of horses and camels in his own country, while Mandane ruled mildly but prudently over his possessions—which he never shared with others, though he remained a Masdakite till he died. The first daughter his wife bore him was named Mary, and the first boy Haschim; but she would not agree to Rustem’s proposal that the second should be called Orion; she preferred to give him the name of Rufinus, and his successors were Rustem and Philippus.

The senator and his wife were only too glad to quit Egypt. Martina, however, had the satisfaction of assisting at the marriage of her dear Heliodora on the shores of the Nile; not, indeed, to her “Great Sesostris,” but to her nephew Narses, who by the young widow’s devoted care was restored, if not to perfect vigor, at any rate to very endurable good health.

Paula’s wedding gift to her was