Chapter IV: Part 4

The river was now full of life and motion. Every moment we met with boats descending the current, so independent of aid from sail or oar, that the sailors sat idly upon the deck as they shot along, singing or playing upon their double‐reeded pipes. Of these boats, the greater number came loaded with merchandise from Coptos,—some with those large emeralds, from the mine in the desert, whose colours, it is said, are brightest at the full of the moon, and some laden with frankincense from the acacia‐groves near the Red Sea. On the decks of others, that had been to the Golden Mountains beyond Syene, were heaped blocks and fragments of that sweet‐smelling wood, which the Green Nile of Nubia washes down in the season of the floods.

Our companions up the stream were far less numerous. Occasionally a boat, returning lightened from the fair of last night, with those high sails that catch every breeze from over the hills, shot past us;—while, now and then, we overtook one of those barges full of bees, that at this season of the year, are sent to colonise the gardens of the south, and take advantage of the first flowers after the inundation has passed away.

By these various objects we were, for a short time, enabled to divert the conversation from lighting and settling upon the one subject, round which it continually hovered. But the effort, as might be expected, was not long successful. As evening advanced, the whole scene became more solitary. We less frequently ventured to look upon each other, and our intervals of silence grew more long.

It was near sunset, when, in passing a small temple on the shore, whose porticoes were now full of the evening light, we saw, issuing from a thicket of acanthus near it, a train of young maids linked together in the dance by lotus‐stems, held at arms’ length between them. Their tresses were also wreathed with this emblem of the season, and such a profusion of the white flowers were twisted round their waists and arms, that they might have been taken, as they gracefully bounded along the bank, for Nymphs of the Nile, risen freshly from their gardens under the wave.

After looking for a few moments at this sacred dance, the maid turned away her eyes, with a look of pain, as if the remembrances it recalled were of no welcome nature. This momentary retrospect, this glimpse into the past, seemed to offer a sort of clue to the secret for which I panted;—and, gradually and delicately as my impatience would allow, I availed myself of it. Her frankness, however, saved me the embarrassment of much questioning. She even seemed to feel that the confidence I sought was due to me, and beyond the natural hesitation of maidenly modesty, not a shade of reserve or evasion appeared.

To attempt to repeat, in her own touching words, the simple story which she now related to me, would be like endeavouring to note down some strain of unpremeditated music, with those fugitive graces, those felicities of the moment, which no art can restore, as they first met the ear. From a feeling, too, of humility, she had omitted in her narrative some particulars relating to herself, which I afterwards learned;—while others, not less important, she but slightly passed over, from a fear of wounding the prejudices of her heathen hearer.

I shall, therefore, give her story, as the outline which she, herself, sketched was afterwards filled up by a pious and venerable hand,—far, far more worthy than mine of being associated with the memory of such purity.

STORY OF ALĒTHE.

“The mother of this maiden was the beautiful Theora of Alexandria, who, though a native of that city, was descended from Grecian parents. When very young, Theora was one of the seven maidens selected, to note down the discourses of the eloquent Origen, who, at that period, presided over the School of Alexandria, and was in all the fulness of his fame, both among Pagans and Christians. Endowed richly with the learning of both creeds, he brought the natural light of philosophy to elucidate the mysteries of faith, and was only proud of his knowledge of the wisdom of this world, inasmuch as it ministered to the triumph of divine truth.

“Though he had courted in vain the crown of martyrdom, it was held, throughout his life, suspended over his head, and in more than one persecution, he had evinced his readiness to die for that faith which he lived but to testify and adorn. On one of these occasions, his tormentors, having habited him like an Egyptian priest, placed him upon the steps of the Temple of Serapis, and commanded that he should, in the manner of the Pagan ministers, present palm‐branches to the multitude who went up to the shrine. But the courageous Christian disappointed their views. Holding forth the branches with an unshrinking hand, he cried aloud, ‘Come hither and take the branch, not of an Idol Temple, but of Christ.’

“So indefatigable was this learned Father in his studies, that, while composing his Commentary on the Scriptures, he was attended by seven scribes or notaries, who relieved each other in taking down the dictates of his eloquent tongue; while the same number of young females, selected for the beauty of their penmanship, were employed in arranging and transcribing the precious leaves.

“Among the scribes so selected, was the fair young Theora, whose parents, though attached to the Pagan worship, were not unwilling to profit by the accomplishments of their daughter, thus devoted to a task which they considered purely mechanical. To the maid herself, however, her task brought far other feelings and consequences. She read anxiously as she wrote, and the divine truths, so eloquently illustrated, found their way, by degrees, from the page to her heart. Deeply, too, as the written words affected her, the discourses from the lips of the great teacher himself, which she had frequent opportunities of hearing, sunk still more deeply into her mind. There was, at once, a sublimity and gentleness in his views of religion, which, to the tender hearts and lively imaginations of women, never failed to appeal with convincing power. Accordingly, the list of his female pupils was numerous; and the names of Barbara, Juliana, Heraïs, and others, bear honourable testimony to his influence over that sex.

“To Theora the feeling, with which his discourses inspired her, was like a new soul,—a consciousness of spiritual existence, unfelt before. By the eloquence of the comment she was awakened into admiration of the text; and when, by the kindness of a Catechumen of the school, who had been struck by her innocent zeal, she, for the first time, became possessor of a copy of the Scriptures, she could not sleep for thinking of her sacred treasure. With a mixture of pleasure and fear she hid it from all eyes, and was like one who had received a divine guest under her roof, and felt fearful of betraying its divinity to the world.

“A heart so awake would have been easily secured to the faith, had her opportunities of hearing the sacred word continued. But circumstances arose to deprive her of this advantage. The mild Origen, long harassed and thwarted in his labours by the tyranny of the Bishop of Alexandria, Demetrius, was obliged to relinquish his school and fly from Egypt. The occupation of the fair scribe was, therefore, at an end: her intercourse with the followers of the new faith ceased; and the growing enthusiasm of her heart gave way to more worldly impressions.

“Love, among the rest, had its share in alienating her thoughts from religion. While still very young, she became the wife of a Greek adventurer, who had come to Egypt as a purchaser of that rich tapestry, in which the needles of Persia are rivalled by the looms of the Nile. Having taken his young bride to Memphis, which was still the great mart of this merchandise, he there, in the midst of his speculations, died,—leaving his widow on the point of becoming a mother, while, as yet, but in her nineteenth year.

“For single and unprotected females, it has been, at all times, a favourite resource, to seek admission into the service of some of those great temples, which absorb so much of the wealth and power of Egypt. In most of these institutions there exists an order of Priestesses, which, though not hereditary, like that of the Priests, is provided for by ample endowments, and confers that rank and station, with which, in a government so theocratic, Religion is sure to invest even her humblest handmaids. From the general policy of the Sacred College of Memphis, it may be concluded, that an accomplished female, like Theora, found but little difficulty in being chosen one of the Priestesses of Isis; and it was in the service of the subterranean shrines that her ministry chiefly lay.

“Here, a month or two after her admission, she gave birth to Alethe, who first opened her eyes among the unholy pomps and specious miracles of this mysterious region. Though Theora, as we have seen, had been diverted by other feelings from her first enthusiasm for the Christian faith, she had never wholly forgot the impression then made upon her. The sacred volume, which the pious Catechumen had given her, was still treasured with care; and, though she seldom opened its pages, there was an idea of sanctity associated with it in her memory, and often would she sit to look upon it with reverential pleasure, recalling the happiness she felt when it was first made her own.

“The leisure of her new retreat, and the lone melancholy of widowhood, led her still more frequently to indulge in such thoughts, and to recur to those consoling truths which she had heard in the school of Alexandria. She now began to peruse eagerly the sacred book, drinking deep of the fountain of which she before but tasted, and feeling—what thousands of mourners, since her, have felt—that Christianity is the true religion of the sorrowful.

“This study of her secret hours became still more dear to her, from the peril with which, at that period, it was attended, and the necessity she was under of concealing from those around her the precious light that had been kindled in her heart. Too timid to encounter the fierce persecution, which awaited all who were suspected of a leaning to Christianity, she continued to officiate in the pomps and ceremonies of the Temple;—though, often, with such remorse of soul, that she would pause, in the midst of the rites, and pray inwardly to God, that he would forgive this profanation of his Spirit.

“In the mean time her daughter, the young Alethe, grew up still lovelier than herself, and added, every hour, to her happiness and her fears. When arrived at a sufficient age, she was taught, like the other children of the priestesses, to take a share in the service and ceremonies of the shrines. The duty of some of these young servitors was to look after the flowers for the altar;—of others, to take care that the sacred vases were filled every day with fresh water from the Nile. The task of some was to preserve, in perfect polish, those silver images of the moon which the priests carried in processions; while others were, as we have seen, employed in feeding the consecrated animals, and in keeping their plumes and scales bright, for the admiring eyes of their worshippers.

“The office allotted to Alethe—the most honourable of these minor ministries—was to wait upon the sacred birds of the Moon, to feed them with those eggs from the Nile which they loved, and provide for their use that purest water, which alone these delicate birds will touch. This employment was the delight of her childish hours; and that ibis, which Alciphron (the Epicurean) saw her dance round in the Temple, was her favourite, of all the sacred flock, and had been daily fondled and fed by her from infancy.

“Music, as being one of the chief spells of this enchanted region, was an accomplishment required of all its ministrants; and the harp, the lyre, and the sacred flute, sounded nowhere so sweetly as that through these subterranean gardens. The chief object, indeed, in the education of the youth of the Temple, was to fit them, by every grace of art and nature, to give effect to the illusion of those shows and phantasms, in which the whole charm and secret of Initiation lay.

“Among the means employed to support the old system of superstition, against the infidelity and, still more, the new Faith that menaced it, was an increased display of splendour and marvels in those Mysteries for which Egypt has so long been celebrated. Of these ceremonies so many imitations had, under various names, been multiplied through Europe, that the parent superstition ran a risk of being eclipsed by its progeny; and, in order still to retain their rank of the first Priesthood in the world, those of Egypt found it necessary to continue still the best impostors.

“Accordingly, every contrivance that art could devise, or labour execute—every resource that the wonderful knowledge of the Priests, in pyrotechny, mechanics, and dioptrics, could command, was brought into action to heighten the effect of their Mysteries, and give an air of enchantment to every thing connected with them.

“The final scene of beatification—the Elysium, into which the Initiate was received,—formed, of course, the leading attraction of these ceremonies; and to render it captivating alike to the senses of the man of pleasure, and the imagination of the spiritualist, was the object to which the whole skill and attention of the Sacred College were devoted. By the influence of the Priests of Memphis over those of the other Temples they had succeeded in extending their subterranean frontier, both to the north and south, so as to include, within their ever‐lighted Paradise, some of the gardens excavated for the use of the other Twelve Shrines.

“The beauty of the young Alethe, the touching sweetness of her voice, and the sensibility that breathed throughout her every look and movement, rendered her a powerful auxiliary in such appeals to the imagination. She was, accordingly, from her childhood, selected from among her fair companions, as the most worthy representative of spiritual loveliness, in those pictures of Elysium—those scenes of another world—by which not only the fancy, but the reason, of the excited Aspirants was dazzled.

“To the innocent child herself these shows were pastime. But to Theora, who knew too well the imposition to which they were subservient, this profanation of all that she loved was a perpetual source of horror and remorse. Often would she—when Alethe stood smiling before her, arrayed, perhaps, as a spirit of the Elysian world,—turn away, with a shudder, from the happy child, almost fancying that she already saw the shadows of sin descending over that innocent brow, as she gazed on it.

“As the intellect of the young maid became more active and inquiring, the apprehensions and difficulties of the mother increased. Afraid to communicate her own precious secret, lest she should involve her child in the dangers that encompassed it, she yet felt it to be no less a cruelty than a crime to leave her wholly immersed in the darkness of Paganism. In this dilemma, the only resource that remained to her was to select, and disengage from the dross that surrounded them, those pure particles of truth which lie at the bottom of all religions;—those feelings, rather than doctrines, which God has never left his creatures without, and which, in all ages, have furnished, to those who sought it, some clue to his glory.

“The unity and perfect goodness of the Creator; the fall of the human soul into corruption; its struggles with the darkness of this world, and its final redemption and re‐ascent to the source of all spirit;—these natural solutions of the problem of our existence, these elementary grounds of all religion and virtue, which Theora had heard illustrated by her Christian teacher, lay also, she knew, veiled under the theology of Egypt; and to impress them, in all their abstract purity, upon the mind of her susceptible pupil, was, in default of more heavenly lights, her sole ambition and care.

“It was their habit, after devoting their mornings to the service of the Temple, to pass their evenings and nights in one of those small mansions above ground, allotted to some of the most favoured Priestesses, in the precincts of the Sacred College. Here, out of the reach of those gross superstitions, which pursued them, at every step, below, she endeavoured to inform, as far as she might, the mind of her beloved girl; and found it lean as naturally and instinctively to truth, as plants that have been long shut up in darkness will, when light is let in, incline themselves to its ray.

“Frequently, as they sat together on the terrace at night, contemplating that assembly of glorious stars, whose beauty first misled mankind into idolatry, she would explain to the young listener by what gradations it was that the worship, thus transferred from the Creator to the creature, sunk lower and lower in the scale of being, till man, at length, presumed to deify man, and by the most monstrous of inversions, heaven was made the mirror of earth, reflecting all its most earthly features.

“Even in the Temple itself, the anxious mother would endeavour to interpose her purer lessons among the idolatrous ceremonies in which they were engaged. When the favourite ibis of Alethe took its station on the shrine, and the young maiden was seen approaching, with all the gravity of worship, the very bird which she had played with but an hour before,—when the acacia‐bough, which she herself had plucked, seemed to acquire a sudden sacredness in her eyes, as soon as the priest had breathed on it,—on all such occasions Theora, though with fear and trembling, would venture to suggest to the youthful worshipper the distinction that should be drawn between the sensible object of adoration, and that spiritual, unseen Deity, of which it was but the remembrancer or type.

“With sorrow, however, she soon discovered that, in thus but partially enlightening a mind too ardent to be satisfied with such glimmerings, she only bewildered the heart that she meant to guide, and cut down the hope round which its faith twined, without substituting any other support in its place. As the beauty, too, of Alethe began to attract all eyes, new fears crowded upon the mother’s heart;—fears, in which she was but too much justified by the characters of some of those around her.

“In this sacred abode, as may easily be conceived, morality did not always go hand in hand with religion. The hypocritical and ambitious Orcus, who was, at this period, High Priest of Memphis, was a man, in every respect, qualified to preside over a system of such splendid fraud. He had reached that effective time of life, when enough of the warmth of youth remains to give animation to the counsels of age. But, in his instance, youth had only the baser passions to bequeath, while age but contributed a more refined maturity of mischief. The advantages of a faith appealing so wholly to the senses, were well understood by him; nor was he ignorant that the only way of making religion subservient to his own interests was by shaping it adroitly to the passions of others.

“The state of misery and remorse in which the mind of Theora was kept by the scenes, however veiled by hypocrisy, which she witnessed around her, became at length intolerable. No perils that the cause of truth could bring with it would be half so dreadful as this endurance of sinfulness and deceit. Her child was, as yet, pure and innocent;—but, without that sentinel of the soul, Religion, how long might she continue so?

“This thought at once decided her;—all other fears vanished before it. She resolved instantly to lay open to Alethe the whole secret of her soul; to make her, who was her only hope on earth, the sharer of all her hopes in heaven, and then fly with her, as soon as possible, from this unhallowed place, to the desert—to the mountains—to any place, however desolate, where God and the consciousness of innocence might be with them.

“The promptitude with which her young pupil caught from her the divine truths, was even beyond what she expected. It was like the lighting of one torch at another,—so prepared was Alethe’s mind for the illumination. Amply was the mother now repaid for all her misery, by this perfect communion of love and faith, and by the delight with which she saw her beloved child—like the young antelope, when first led by her dam to the well,—drink thirstily by her side, at the source of all life and truth.

“But such happiness was not long to last. The anxieties that Theora had suffered preyed upon her health. She felt her strength daily decline; and the thoughts of leaving, alone and unguarded in the world, that treasure which she had just devoted to heaven, gave her a feeling of despair which but hastened the ebb of life. Had she put in practice her resolution of flying from this place, her child might have been now beyond the reach of all she dreaded, and in the solitude of the wilderness would have found at least safety from wrong. But the very happiness she had felt in her new task diverted her from this project;—and it was now too late, for she was already dying.

“She concealed, however, her state from the tender and sanguine girl, who, though she saw the traces of disease on her mother’s cheek, little knew that they were the hastening footsteps of death, nor thought even of the possibility of losing what was so dear to her. Too soon, however, the moment of separation arrived; and while the anguish and dismay of Alethe were in proportion to the security in which she had indulged, Theora, too, felt, with bitter regret, that she had sacrificed to her fond consideration much precious time, and that there now remained but a few brief and painful moments, for the communication of all those wishes and instructions, on which the future destiny of the young orphan depended.

“She had, indeed, time for little more than to place the sacred volume solemnly in her hands, to implore that she would, at all risks, fly from this unholy place, and, pointing in the direction of the mountains of the Saïd, to name, with her last breath, the holy man, to whom, under heaven, she trusted for the protection and salvation of her child.

“The first violence of feeling to which Alethe gave way was succeeded by a fixed and tearless grief, which rendered her insensible, for some time, to the dangers of her situation. Her only comfort was in visiting that monumental chapel, where the beautiful remains of Theora lay. There, night after night, in contemplation of those placid features, and in prayers for the peace of the departed spirit, did she pass her lonely, and—sad as they were—happiest hours. Though the mystic emblems that decorated that chapel were but ill suited to the slumber of a Christian saint, there was one among them, the Cross, which, by a remarkable coincidence, is an emblem common alike to the Gentile and the Christian,—being, to the former, a shadowy type of that immortality, of which, to the latter, it is a substantial and assuring pledge.

“Nightly, upon this cross, which she had often seen her lost mother kiss, did she breathe forth a solemn and heartfelt vow, never to abandon the faith which that departed spirit had bequeathed to her. To such enthusiasm, indeed, did her heart at such moments rise, that, but for the last injunctions from those pallid lips, she would, at once, have avowed her perilous secret, and spoken out the words, ‘I am a Christian,’ among those benighted shrines!

“But the will of her, to whom she owed more than life, was to be obeyed. To escape from this haunt of superstition must now, she felt, be her first object; and, in devising the means of effecting it, her mind, day and night, was employed. It was with a loathing not to be concealed she now found herself compelled to resume her idolatrous services at the shrine. To some of the offices of Theora she succeeded, as is the custom, by inheritance; and in the performance of these—sanctified as they were in her eyes by the pure spirit she had seen engaged in them—there was a sort of melancholy pleasure in which her sorrow found relief. But the part she was again forced to take, in the scenic shows of the Mysteries, brought with it a sense of wrong and degradation which she could no longer bear.

“She had already formed, in her own mind, a plan of escape, in which her knowledge of all the windings of this subterranean realm gave her confidence, when the reception of Alciphron, as an Initiate, took place.

“From the first moment of the landing of that philosopher at Alexandria, he had become an object of suspicion and watchfulness to the inquisitorial Orcus, whom philosophy, in any shape, naturally alarmed, but to whom the sect over which the young Athenian presided was particularly obnoxious. The accomplishments of Alciphron, his popularity, wherever he went, and the freedom with which he indulged his wit at the expense of religion, was all faithfully reported to the High Priest by his spies, and stirred up within him no kindly feelings towards the stranger. In dealing with an infidel, such a personage as Orcus could know no alternative but that of either converting or destroying him; and though his spite, as a man, would have been more gratified by the latter proceeding, his pride, as a priest, led him to prefer the triumph of the former.

“The first descent of the Epicurean into the pyramid was speedily known, and the alarm immediately given to the Priests below. As soon as it was discovered that the young philosopher of Athens was the intruder, and that he still continued to linger round the pyramid, looking often and wistfully towards the portal, it was concluded that his curiosity would impel him to try a second descent; and Orcus, blessing the good chance which had thus brought the wild bird to his net, determined not to allow an opportunity so precious to be wasted.

“Instantly, the whole of that wonderful machinery, by which the phantasms and illusions of Initiation are produced, were put in active preparation throughout that subterranean realm; and the increased stir and watchfulness excited among its inmates, by this more than ordinary display of all the resources of priestcraft, rendered the accomplishment of Alethe’s design, at such a moment, peculiarly difficult. Wholly ignorant of the share which had fallen to herself in attracting the young philosopher down to this region, she but heard of him vaguely, as the Chief of a great Grecian sect, who had been led, by either curiosity or accident, to expose himself to the first trials of Initiation, and whom the priests, she saw, were endeavouring to ensnare in their toils, by every art and skill with which their science of darkness had gifted them.

“To her mind, the image of a philosopher, such as Alciphron had been represented to her, came associated with ideas of age and reverence; and, more than once, the possibility of his being made instrumental to her deliverance flashed a hope across her heart in which she could not help indulging. Often had she been told by Theora of the many Gentile sages, who had laid their wisdom down humbly at the foot of the Cross; and though this Initiate, she feared, could hardly be among the number, yet the rumours which she had gathered from the servants of the Temple, of his undisguised contempt for the errors of heathenism, led her to hope she might find tolerance, if not sympathy, in her appeal to him.

“Nor was it solely with a view to her own chance of deliverance that she thus connected him in her thoughts with the plan which she meditated. The look of proud and self‐gratulating malice, with which the High Priest had mentioned this ‘infidel,’ as he styled him, when instructing her in the scene she was to enact before the philosopher in the valley, but too plainly informed her of the destiny that hung over him. She knew how many were the hapless candidates for Initiation, who had been doomed to a durance worse than that of the grave, for but a word, a whisper breathed against the sacred absurdities which they witnessed; and it was evident to her that the venerable Greek (for such her fancy represented Alciphron) was no less interested in escaping from this region than herself.

“Her own resolution was, at all events, fixed. That visionary scene, in which she had appeared before Alciphron,—little knowing how ardent were the heart and imagination, over which her beauty, at that moment, shed its whole influence,—was, she solemnly resolved, the very last unholy service, that superstition or imposture should ever command of her.

“On the following night the Aspirant was to watch in the Great Temple of Isis. Such an opportunity of approaching and addressing him might never come again. Should he, from compassion for her situation, or a sense of the danger of his own, consent to lend his aid to her flight, most gladly would she accept it,—assured that no danger or treachery she might risk could be half so dreadful as those she left behind. Should he, on the contrary, refuse, her determination was equally fixed—to trust to that God, who watches over the innocent, and go forth alone.

“To reach the island in Lake Mœris was her first object, and there occurred luckily, at this time, a mode of accomplishing it, by which the difficulty and dangers of the attempt would be, in a great degree, diminished. The day of the annual visitation of the High Priest to the Place of Weeping—as that island in the centre of the lake is called—was now fast approaching; and Alethe well knew that the self‐moving car, by which the High Priest and one of the Hierophants are conveyed to the chambers under the lake, stood waiting in readiness. By availing herself of this expedient, she would gain the double advantage both of facilitating her own flight and retarding the speed of her pursuers.

“Having paid a last visit to the tomb of her beloved mother, and wept there, long and passionately, till her heart almost failed in the struggle,—having paused, too, to give a kiss to her favourite ibis, which, though too much a Christian to worship, she was still child enough to love,—with a trembling step she went early to the Sanctuary, and hid herself in one of the recesses of the Shrine. Her intention was to steal out from thence to Alciphron, while it was yet dark, and before the illumination of the great Statue behind the Veils had begun. But her fears delayed her till it was almost too late;—already was the image lighted up, and still she remained trembling in her hiding place.

“In a few minutes more the mighty Veils would have been withdrawn, and the glories of that scene of enchantment laid open,—when, at length, summoning up courage, and taking advantage of a momentary absence of those employed in the preparations of this splendid mockery, she stole from under the Veil and found her way, through the gloom, to the Epicurean. There was then no time for explanation;—she had but to trust to the simple words, ‘Follow, and be silent;’ and the implicit readiness with which she found them obeyed filled her with no less surprise than the philosopher himself felt in hearing them.

“In a second or two they were on their way through the subterranean windings, leaving the ministers of Isis to waste their splendours on vacancy, through a long series of miracles and visions which they now exhibited,—unconscious that he, whom they took such pains to dazzle, was already, under the guidance of the young Christian, removed beyond the reach of their spells.”

CHAP. XIV.

Such was the story, of which this innocent girl gave me, in her own touching language, the outline.

The sun was just rising as she finished her narrative. Fearful of encountering the expression of those feelings with which, she could not but observe, I was affected by her recital, scarcely had she concluded the last sentence, when, rising abruptly from her seat, she hurried into the pavilion, leaving me with the words already crowding for utterance to my lips.

Oppressed by the various emotions, thus sent back upon my heart, I lay down on the deck in a state of agitation, that defied even the most distant approaches of sleep. While every word she had uttered, every feeling she expressed, but ministered new fuel to that flame within me, to describe which, passion is too weak a word, there was also much of her recital that disheartened, that alarmed me. To find a Christian thus under the garb of a Memphian Priestess, was a discovery that, had my heart been less deeply interested, would but have more powerfully stimulated my imagination and pride. But, when I recollected the austerity of the faith she had embraced,—the tender and sacred tie, associated with it in her memory, and the devotion of woman’s heart to objects thus consecrated,—her very perfections but widened the distance between us, and all that most kindled my passion at the same time chilled my hopes.

Were we left to each other, as on this silent river, in this undisturbed communion of thoughts and feelings, I knew too well, I thought, both her sex’s nature and my own, to feel a doubt that love would ultimately triumph. But the severity of the guardianship to which I must resign her,—some monk of the desert, some stern Solitary,—the influence such a monitor would gain over her mind, and the horror with which, ere long, she would be taught to regard the reprobate infidel on whom she now smiled,—in all this prospect I saw nothing but despair. After a few short hours, my happiness would be at an end, and such a dark chasm open between our fates, as must sever them, far as earth is from heaven, asunder.

It was true, she was now wholly in my power. I feared no witnesses but those of earth, and the solitude of the desert was at hand. But though I acknowledged not a heaven, I worshipped her who was, to me, its type and substitute. If, at any moment, a single thought of wrong or deceit, towards a creature so sacred, arose in my mind, one look from her innocent eyes averted the sacrilege. Even passion itself felt a holy fear in her presence,—like the flame trembling in the breeze of the sanctuary,—and Love, pure Love, stood in place of Religion.

As long as I knew not her story, I might indulge, at least, in dreams of the future. But, now—what hope, what prospect remained? My sole chance of happiness lay in the feeble hope of beguiling away her thoughts from the plan which she meditated; of weaning her, by persuasion, from that austere faith, which I had before hated and now feared, and of—attaching her, perhaps, alone and unlinked as she was in the world, to my own fortunes for ever!

In the agitation of these thoughts, I had started from my resting‐place, and continued to pace up and down, under a burning sun, till, exhausted both by thought and feeling, I sunk down, amid its blaze, into a sleep, which, to my fevered brain, seemed a sleep of fire.

On awaking, I found the veil of Alethe laid carefully over my brow, while she, herself, sat near me, under the shadow of the sail, looking anxiously at that leaf, which her mother had given her, and apparently employed in comparing its outlines with the course of the river and the forms of the rocky hills by which we passed. She looked pale and troubled, and rose eagerly to meet me, as if she had long and impatiently waited for my waking.

Her heart, it was plain, had been disturbed from its security, and was beginning to take alarm at its own feelings. But, though vaguely conscious of the peril to which she was exposed, her reliance, as is usually the case, increased with her danger, and on me, far more than on herself, did she depend for saving her from it. To reach, as soon as possible, her asylum in the desert, was now the urgent object of her entreaties and wishes; and the self‐reproach she expressed at having permitted her thoughts to be diverted, for a single moment, from this sacred purpose, not only revealed the truth, that she had forgotten it, but betrayed even a glimmering consciousness of the cause.

Her sleep, she said, had been broken by ill‐omened dreams. Every moment the shade of her mother had stood before her, rebuking her, with mournful looks, for her delay, and pointing, as she had done in death, to the eastern hills. Bursting into tears at this accusing recollection, she hastily placed the leaf, which she had been examining, in my hands, and implored that I would ascertain, without a moment’s delay, what portion of our voyage was still unperformed, and in what space of time we might hope to accomplish it.

I had, still less than herself, taken note of either place or distance; and, had we been left to glide on in this dream of happiness, should never have thought of pausing to ask where it would end. But such confidence, I felt, was too sacred to be deceived. Reluctant as I was, naturally, to enter on an inquiry, which might so soon dissipate even my last hope, her wish was sufficient to supersede even the selfishness of love, and on the instant I proceeded to obey her will.

There is, on the eastern bank of the Nile, to the north of Antinöe, a high and steep rock, impending over the flood, which for ages, from a prodigy connected with it, has borne the name of the Mountain of the Birds. Yearly, it is said, at a certain season and hour, large flocks of birds assemble in the ravine, of which this rocky mountain forms one of the sides, and are there observed to go through the mysterious ceremony of inserting each its beak into a particular cleft of the rock, till the cleft closes upon one of their number, when the rest, taking wing, leave the selected victim to die.

Through the ravine where this charm—for such the multitude consider it—is worked, there ran, in ancient times, a canal from the Nile, to some great and forgotten city that now lies buried in the desert. To a short distance from the river this canal still exists, but, soon after having passed through the defile, its scanty waters disappear altogether, and are lost under the sands.

It was in the neighbourhood of this place, as I could collect from the delineations on the leaf,—where a flight of birds represented the name of the mountain,—that the dwelling of the Solitary, to whom Alethe was bequeathed, lay. Imperfect as was my knowledge of the geography of Egypt, it at once struck me, that we had long since left this mountain behind; and, on inquiring of our boatmen, I found my conjecture confirmed. We had, indeed, passed it, as appeared, on the preceding night; and, as the wind had, ever since, blown strongly from the north, and the sun was already declining towards the horizon, we must now be, at least, an ordinary day’s sail to the southward of the spot.

At this discovery, I own, my heart felt a joy which I could with difficulty conceal. It seemed to me as if fortune was conspiring with love, and, by thus delaying the moment of our separation, afforded me at least a chance of happiness. Her look, too, and manner, when informed of our mistake, rather encouraged than chilled this secret hope. In the first moment of astonishment, her eyes opened upon me with a suddenness of splendour, under which I felt my own wink, as if lightning had crossed them. But she again, as suddenly, let their lids fall, and, after a quiver of her lip, which showed the conflict of feeling within, crossed her arms upon her bosom, and looked silently down upon the deck;—her whole countenance sinking into an expression, sad, but resigned, as if she felt, with me, that fate was on the side of wrong, and saw Love already stealing between her soul and heaven.

I was not slow in availing myself of what I fancied to be the irresolution of her mind. But, fearful of exciting alarm by any appeal to tenderer feelings, I but addressed myself to her imagination, and to that love of novelty, which is for ever fresh in the youthful breast. We were now approaching that region of wonders, Thebes. “In a day or two,” said I, “we shall see, towering above the waters, the colossal Avenue of Sphinxes, and the bright Obelisks of the Sun. We shall visit the plain of Memnon, and those mighty statues, that fling their shadows at sunrise over the Libyan hills. We shall hear the image of the Son of the Morning answering to the first touch of light. From thence, in a few hours, a breeze like this will transport us to those sunny islands near the cataracts; there, to wander, among the sacred palm‐groves of Philæ, or sit, at noon‐tide hour, in those cool alcoves, which the waterfall of Syene shadows under its arch. Oh, who, with such scenes of loveliness within reach, would turn coldly away to the bleak desert, and leave this fair world, with all its enchantments, shining behind them, unseen and unenjoyed? At least,”—I added, tenderly taking her by the hand,—“at least, let a few more days be stolen from the dreary fate to which thou hast devoted thyself, and then——”

She had heard but the last few words;—the rest had been lost upon her. Startled by the tone of tenderness, into which, in spite of all my resolves, my voice had softened, she looked for an instant in my face, with passionate earnestness;—then, dropping upon her knees with her clasped hands upraised, exclaimed—“Tempt me not, in the name of God I implore thee, tempt me not to swerve from my sacred duty. Oh, take me instantly to that desert mountain, and I will bless thee for ever.”

This appeal, I felt, _could not_ be resisted,—though my heart were to break for it. Having silently expressed my assent to her prayer, by a pressure of her hand as I raised her from the deck, I hastened, as we were still in full career for the south, to give orders that our sail should be instantly lowered, and not a moment lost in retracing our course.

In proceeding, however, to give these directions, it, for the first time, occurred to me, that, as I had hired this yacht in the neighbourhood of Memphis, where it was probable that the flight of the young fugitive would be most vigilantly tracked, we should act imprudently in betraying to the boatmen the place of her retreat;—and the present seemed the most favourable opportunity of evading such a danger. Desiring, therefore, that we should be landed at a small village on the shore, under pretence of paying a visit to some shrine in the neighbourhood, I there dismissed our barge, and was relieved from fear of further observation, by seeing it again set sail, and resume its course fleetly up the current.

From the boats of all descriptions that lay idle beside the bank, I now selected one, which, in every respect, suited my purpose,—being, in its shape and accommodations, a miniature of our former vessel, but so small and light as to be manageable by myself alone, and, with the advantage of the current, requiring little more than a hand to steer it. This boat I succeeded, without much difficulty, in purchasing, and, after a short delay, we were again afloat down the current;—the sun just then sinking, in conscious glory, over his own golden shrines in the Libyan waste.

The evening was more calm and lovely than any that yet had smiled upon our voyage; and, as we left the bank, there came soothingly over our ears a strain of sweet, rustic melody from the shore. It was the voice of a young Nubian girl, whom we saw kneeling on the bank before an acacia, and singing, while her companions stood round, the wild song of invocation, which, in her country, they address to that enchanted tree:—

“Oh! Abyssinian tree,
We pray, we pray, to thee;
By the glow of thy golden fruit,
And the violet hue of thy flower,
And the greeting mute
Of thy bough’s salute
To the stranger who seeks thy bower.(6)

II.

“Oh! Abyssinian tree,
How the traveller blesses thee,
When the night no moon allows,
And the sun‐set hour is near,
And thou bend’st thy boughs
To kiss his brows,
Saying, ‘Come rest thee here.’
Oh! Abyssinian tree,
Thus bow thy head to me!”

In the burden of this song the companions of the young Nubian joined; and we heard the words, “Oh! Abyssinian tree,” dying away on the breeze, long after the whole group had been lost to our eyes.

Whether, in this new arrangement which I had made for our voyage, any motive, besides those which I professed, had a share, I can scarcely, even myself, so bewildered were my feelings, determine. But no sooner had the current borne us away from all human dwellings, and we were alone on the waters, with not a soul near, than I felt how closely such solitude draws hearts together, and how much more we seemed to belong to each other, than when there were eyes around.

The same feeling, but without the same sense of its danger, was manifest in every look and word of Alethe. The consciousness of the one great effort she had made appeared to have satisfied her heart on the score of duty,—while the devotedness with which she saw I attended to her every wish, was felt with all that gratitude which, in woman, is the day‐spring of love. She was, therefore, happy, innocently happy; and the confiding, and even affectionate, unreserve of her manner, while it rendered my trust more sacred, made it also far more difficult.

It was only, however, on subjects unconnected with our situation or fate, that she yielded to such interchange of thought, or that her voice ventured to answer mine. The moment I alluded to the destiny that awaited us, all her cheerfulness fled, and she became saddened and silent. When I described to her the beauty of my own native land—its founts of inspiration and fields of glory—her eyes sparkled with sympathy, and sometimes even softened into fondness. But when I ventured to whisper, that, in that glorious country, a life full of love and liberty awaited her; when I proceeded to contrast the adoration and bliss she might command, with the gloomy austerities of the life to which she was hastening,—it was like the coming of a sudden cloud over a summer sky. Her head sunk, as she listened;—I waited in vain for an answer; and when, half playfully reproaching her for this silence, I stooped to take her hand, I could feel the warm tears fast falling over it.

But even this—little hope as it held out—was happiness. Though it foreboded that I should lose her, it also whispered that I was loved. Like that lake, in the Land of Roses(7), whose waters are half sweet, half bitter, I felt my fate to be a compound of bliss and pain,—but the very pain well worth all ordinary bliss.

And thus did the hours of that night pass along; while every moment shortened our happy dream, and the current seemed to flow with a swifter pace than any that ever yet hurried to the sea. Not a feature of the whole scene but is, at this moment, freshly in my memory;—the broken star‐light on the water;—the rippling sound of the boat, as, without oar or sail, it went, like a thing of enchantment, down the stream;—the scented fire, burning beside us on the deck, and, oh, that face, on which its light fell, still revealing, as it turned, some new charm, some blush or look, more beautiful than the last.

Often, while I sat gazing, forgetful of all else in this world, our boat, left wholly to itself, would drive from its course, and, bearing us to the bank, get entangled in the water‐flowers, or be caught in some eddy, ere I perceived where we were. Once, too, when the rustling of my oar among the flowers had startled away from the bank some wild antelopes, that had stolen, at that still hour, to drink of the Nile, what an emblem I thought it of the young heart beside me,—tasting, for the first time, of hope and love, and so soon, alas, to be scared from their sweetness for ever!

CHAP. XV.

The night was now far advanced;—the bend of our course towards the left, and the closing in of the eastern hills upon the river, gave warning of our approach to the hermit’s dwelling. Every minute now seemed like the last of existence; and I felt a sinking of despair at my heart, which would have been intolerable, had not a resolution that suddenly, and as if by inspiration, occurred to me, presented a glimpse of hope which, in some degree, calmed my feelings.

Much as I had, all my life, despised hypocrisy,—the very sect I had embraced being chiefly recommended to me by the war which they waged on the cant of all others,—it was, nevertheless, in hypocrisy that I now scrupled not to take refuge from, what I dreaded more than shame or death, my separation from Alethe. In my despair, I adopted the humiliating plan—deeply humiliating as I felt it to be, even amid the joy with which I welcomed it—of offering myself to this hermit, as a convert to his faith, and thus becoming the fellow‐disciple of Alethe under his care!

From the moment I resolved upon this plan, my spirit felt lightened. Though having fully before my eyes the labyrinth of imposture into which it would lead me, I thought of nothing but the chance of our being still together;—in this hope, all pride, all philosophy was forgotten, and every thing seemed tolerable, but the prospect of losing her.

Thus resolved, it was with somewhat less reluctant feelings, that I now undertook, at the anxious desire of Alethe, to ascertain the site of that well‐known mountain, in the neighbourhood of which the dwelling of the anchoret lay. We had already passed one or two stupendous rocks, which stood, detached, like fortresses, over the river’s brink, and which, in some degree, corresponded with the description on the leaf. So little was there of life now stirring along the shores, that I had begun almost to despair of any assistance from inquiry, when, on looking to the western bank, I saw a boatman among the sedges, towing his small boat, with some difficulty, up the current. Hailing him, as we passed, I asked, “Where stands the Mountain of the Birds?”—and he had hardly time to answer, pointing above our heads, “There,” when we perceived that we were just then entering into the shadow, which this mighty rock flings across the whole of the flood.

In a few moments we had reached the mouth of the ravine, of which the Mountain of the Birds forms one of the sides, and through which the scanty canal from the Nile flows. At the sight of this chasm, in some of whose gloomy recesses—if we had rightly interpreted the leaf—the dwelling of the Solitary lay, our voices, at once, sunk into a low whisper, while Alethe looked round upon me with a superstitious fearfulness, as if doubtful whether I had not already disappeared from her side. A quick movement, however, of her hand towards the ravine, told too plainly that her purpose was still unchanged. With my oars, therefore, checking the career of our boat, I succeeded, after no small exertion, in turning it out of the current of the river, and steering into this bleak and stagnant canal.

Our transition from life and bloom to the very depth of desolation, was immediate. While the water and one side of the ravine lay buried in shadow, the white, skeleton‐like crags of the other stood aloft in the pale glare of moonlight. The sluggish stream through which we moved, yielded sullenly to the oar, and the shriek of a few water‐birds, which we had roused from their fastnesses, was succeeded by a silence, so dead and awful, that our lips seemed afraid to disturb it by a breath; and half‐ whispered exclamations, “How dreary!”—“How dismal!”—were almost the only words exchanged between us.