Chapter VII

After another day's journey over stones and thorny scrub-bush, Mount Nitria and her ranges walled out the southern horizon, while the Pyramids of Memphis showed small upon the east. The ascent grew more steep, then the ground sloped down and the camels entered the Natrûn Valley. Here _safsaf_ weed, tamarisk and thorn gave place to olives, vines and harvested fields, upon the drying straw of which, camels, black goats and numerous flocks of sheep were feeding. Presently the valley divided into two: at the bottom of one lay the salt lakes, at this time of the year but six in number. Beside the lakes dwelt colonies of salt-workers who cultivated fields of corn, vineyards and olive-trees along the banks of a waterless channel that had once, according to tradition, formed a branch of the Nile. In the bed of this vanished river, and where some of the lakes had dried up, huge bones of unknown creatures, encrusted with glittering saline crystals, projected from the salt-streaked mud. These, the Saracens said, were the remains of some terrible giants, sons of Eblis, Lord of the Djinni and master of the Afrits. Upon the further range of hills rose the temples, pylons, palaces and streets of Scete, an ancient city of the Egyptians, dedicated of old to the worship of Horus the hawk god. The suburbs to the east were inhabited by Greek and Copt salt-merchants, their families and their Libyan and negro labourers; but the magnificence of Scete lay abandoned to foxes, bats and owls.

The Saracen master of the camels believed this place to be the abode of evil Afrits, and pointing to some pillars of fine dust set whirling by a breeze that was blowing from the north-east across the deserted courtyards and huge empty squares:--

"See!" said Mafa Oabu to Hazaël, "how the Accursed Ones make sport here. Beyond those groves of columns topped with lotus-buds, within those vast palaces are halls where the Sons of Eblis sit on thrones, crowned and immovable with their stone hands resting upon their stony knees.... Women with the heads of cows, carrying the Moon between their horns, look down on them. Troops of _peris_ carrying flowers and ornaments, men with the heads of hawks, crocodiles, and other creatures are limned on the walls.... At night they come to life, descend and serve the Sons of Eblis, who between moonset and cockcrow are released from their bonds of stone. But all the rest of the time the place is but the playground of the Afrits. Evil is certain to befall us if we pause to look on them!"

Right and left of Scete, on the shoulders of the hills, were chapels and rows of cells, wrought by Christian monks and hermits with infinite patience of labour out of the Cyclopean rock. Lower down a stream of pure water descending a rocky gorge, made fruitful the fields and vegetable gardens, the olive-groves and date-palms cultivated by the Solitaries and the "communities with tireless industry and patience; and manured by loads of rich black mud, transported on the backs of asses and of men from the banks of the distant Nile.

Beyond these fields and gardens stretched the great Libyan Desert. To the south the massive battlemented walls of the Monastery of Scete, backed by the distant mountain of the Cow, rose from the summit of a flat-topped mound of red gravel covered with black pebbles.

Seen near, this place resembled a fortress with loopholes pierced in its Cyclopean masonry. An ancient bronze shield depended by two rusty chains from the wall beside the low doorway, through which the venerable Abbot Melittus, with three monks and two novices, had been led away to Alexandria to suffer for Christ: and a stone hammer hung below the shield: but it was not possible to reach the door, because two millstones had been rolled into the entrance before it by the monks: who had then re-entered the monastery by means of a rope let down from a window above the door.

"Beat upon the shield!" Hazaël signed to one of the Saracens. The heathen obeyed, but so long the monks within delayed in answering the summons, that the child, suffering from fatigue, and fevered by the recent bites of the innumerable winged insects that swarmed in the neighbourhood of the salt lakes, began to cry.

This innocent clamour evoked the apparition of a bearded monk at the window over the doorway. After anxious scrutiny and much questioning, the monk vanished. A pale beardless face now appeared at the aperture, and a weak but singularly distinct voice addressed Hazaël:

"O Jew of Alexandria!" it said, "we have now no Abbot of Scete, until our Chapter nominate a successor to Melittus, who hath been called, with certain of the brethren, to reign with Jesus Christ. But for the present, I who am called Paule, serve as Brother Superior. Tell me, therefore, what you seek of us?"

"Nothing for myself nor my companions, O monk!" said Hazaël roughly, "but lodging for the night and tendance for this child, who is weary with travel, and somewhat feverish. He is the only son of Philoremus Florens Fabius, late Prætor of the Taxes of Egypt in Alexandria, who--"

"Let down the basket with Brother Theodore!" interrupted the thin voice of Paule.

Then as a deep basket of osiers, containing a pleasant-faced young monk, was let down from the window by a rope worked by windlass and pulley:

"O Jew, give Brother Theodore the child of the servant of Christ, Philoremus," said the weak voice of Paule. "Happy is the hour that brings us our martyred brother's son!"

Then, as the camel ridden by Hazaël knelt at a word from its Saracen driver, and the boy, whose tears had ceased to flow, willingly submitted to be taken in the arms of Brother Theodore; and even showed pleasure as the basket ascended with its burden through the air,--the Jew, unable to restrain his surprise that intelligence of the manner of the Prætor's death should have reached this distant place, motioned to the Superior that he wished to speak in private. And as the monks drew in the basket at the window, and Paule leaned out, the Jew asked:

"How can it be, O monk, that this was known to you?"

Paule looked down at him with luminous eyes, and answered:

"O faithful man! who for the sake of thine oath doest that which is abhorrent unto thee, didst thou not know that the great Saint, the Solitary of Derhor, rested here upon his way to Tabenna in the Thebaïd? Four days ago he left us, having seen in a vision the confession, the arrest and martyrdom by decapitation of the Prætor Philoremus Fabius!"

Hazaël said, striking his great metal-shod staff upon a millstone so violently that the sparks flew:

"Where now is this Saint of thine? Can a swift camel overtake one who seems to have not only the legs of the ostrich, but the eagle's wings? For I have a message for the man from my master!"

Paule asked, with his luminous eyes bent upon the contorted features of the Hebrew:

"Does the message concern the child?"

"Nay, monk, not so!" Hazaël answered, "for the boy is to be delivered to the Abbot of Tabenna with certain jewels which are to be sold for his keep." He added as great drops of sweat started again upon his cheeks and temples, and his eyebrows knotted like breeding snakes: "He is to be baptised and reared as a Christian. These were the Prætor's last commands!" His great voice leaped up from him like a hound unleashed. He roared, striking his staff upon the stone again. "But better he should die to-night and be gathered to his Pagan ancestors. Yea, better ten thousand times! Monk, do you hear?"

Paule bent his small wrinkled head upon its fleshless neck, and answered placidly:

"Jew of Alexandria, marvellous is thy probity! Wilt thou accept at our hands shelter and nourishment?"

Hazaël glared at Paule with bloodshot eyes, and angrily answered:

"Monk of Scete! I require from you neither compliments, nor anything else. There is a spring beneath some date-palms a bowshot from your monastery. There I and my companions will encamp, unless the trees are yours?"

Paule smiled and said, shaking his bald head:

"Like the crystal water, the fruitful trees belong to none save Him Who made them. Rest there, and to-morrow at the second hour come to me for news of the child!"

That night, whilst the Saracens sacrificed a black-and-white goat in honour of their Moon goddess and to propitiate the Afrits of Scete, Hazaël went apart into a solitary place in the wilderness and prayed to the God of his forefather Abraham. All night he prayed, kneeling with his forehead lifted to the sky, or lying prone with his face in the dust of humiliation. Then, remembering that when Joseph the Zaphenath-Päanea was borne in the second chariot in the royal procession of Pharaoh, the precious images of the false gods of Egypt figured in these displays; and that Joseph, in exercising vigilance over the goods of Pharaoh, was obliged to watch over and faithfully preserve these idols, he rose up and shook the sand of the Desert from his beard and robe.

At the second hour of the day he went to the Monastery. The millstones had been removed from before the door, as for an honoured guest. He beat upon the shield. Bolts groaned in their grooves of stone, and the small but heavy gate swung back upon its hinges, showing a courtyard within a square wall, set about with small cells built of rough stones and roofed with reeds. Date-palms and fig-trees, with a few olives were growing in a grassy enclosure about a stone-curbed well, over which was a wheel with a windlass, chain and bucket. Upon the threshold of the gate was Paule, tall, emaciated and with strangely luminous eyes, standing surrounded by a group of other monks in similar coarse brown habits. The Sacrifice was over, the board was beaten to summon the brethren to the refectory, as Hazaël, frowning, stooped almost double to pass under the squat archway of the gate. But as he rose to his great height the boy Florens came running to him with so noticeable a return of health and vigour, that the Jew could not repress an exclamation of surprise. As Florens caught at his arm, and raised towards the swarthy lips a face all fresh and smiling, framed in fair locks on which light drops of pure water hung glittering, Hazaël asked, looking keenly into the clear eyes:

"What have these monks done to thee?"

The child frowned with an effort of recollection, and said, pulling at a silken cord that now hung about his neck:

"Abbot Paule has given me a silver medal, and also a new name. I am now called Mark!"

At which Hazaël, seeing that the medal bore the Image of the Crucified, and a reverse of the great Apostle of Christian Alexandria; and comprehending that the drops on those golden hairs were the lustral waters of baptism, thrust the boy violently from him. He turned red and said reproachfully:

"Why are you always angry with me now?"

That night the caravan left Scete. Travelling southwards they came before dawn to the camel-route running between the Oasis of Ammon and the Nile, and thenceforward followed it to the east.

Leaving the camels and the Saracens to await them at Memphis, the two Jews with the boy entered the sailing-vessel of some Coptish sailors, who for a certain sum conveyed them up the river to Tabenna. This place, the boatmen told the boy, was once Taben-Isi, the City of Isis. The religious house ruled by Abba Pachomius was built of great stones which had once formed part of the ancient temples. Thirteen hundred monks of the tonsure were under Pachomius in the Monastery of Tabenna; and in the mountains of that region were many other monasteries and nunneries, also seven thousand hermits, following their several Rules in their own cells, there waging war against the world, the flesh and Satan; or living in tombs and caves after the method of the Athlete of Christ.

"Who is the Athlete of Christ?" the child asked the boatmen.

The Copts looked at the Jews, and observing that Hazaël listened, they were troubled, because they were Christians. But Hazaël said to them:

"Speak without fear. As the Most High lives, I will not betray you! This is a Christian child, my master's son, I carry to the monks."

Then the boatmen told of the deeds of Christ's great servant, the Egyptian, who had been born of wealthy parents near Aphroditopolis, and upon their death inheriting their lands and wealth, had given all to the poor, crossed the River, and became a Solitary; living first in an empty tomb in a burial-place hewn by the ancients out of the mountain, being supplied by a peasant man who visited him, with bread, salt and water, weaving ropes of palm-leaves and sleeping on the bare ground.

"Here," said the master of the boat, "the Adversary appeared to this holy man tempting him; and devils, sent by the lord of devils, assailed him with execrations and blows, whilst apparitions continually beset him, in the shape of lions, wolves, hyænas, serpents and other reptiles--which he banished by the power of the Word. Then, still a young man, he went out alone into the Desert and there lived in a ruined temple that was in the mountains above Panopolis for more than twenty years. In time his fame drew all the monks that were then in Egypt, and great folks and the curious, and those who were sick."

"And," said the other Copt, "when the Saint would not show himself to them, they lifted the gate out of its hinges, threw themselves down on their faces, and supplicated: 'Man of God, come forth!' And when he came, he seemed to those that had known him, as young as when he had entered. His look converted, his touch healed, his speech was exceedingly wonderful. And in the might of the grace that was given them, the monks reared a great Monastery near Panopolis that they might live there in holiness and be ruled by this Blessed One. But sixteen years ago he withdrew himself by the Desert of Arabia into the upper fastnesses of the mountain called Derhor, leaving another to be their Abba and spiritual guide. Since when, all here is quiet, though of old, even to men passing in their vessels on the river, the sound of great tumult and hideous outcries used to come down from the rocky eyrie where this eagle of God had made his nest. In the time of the first Persecution of the Christians by the Emperor, he descended from his mountain and went down to Alexandria to minister to the Confessors in prison there. He wished, they say, for martyrdom, but it was denied him. This very year, before the grapes and mulberries were ripe--when the Roman soldiers came to Tabenna, and the monks withstood them with boiling pitch and scalding water--they had sight of the Saint again!"

"His white hair and beard clothed him," the master of the vessel continued, "like a fleece newly bleached. He stayed but a few hours with the monks at Tabenna. Then he came down to the banks of the river, made the Sign of the Cross, lifted up his arms and sang a psalm, both powerfully and sweetly:

'_Come and behold the works of God
Who turneth the sea into dry land!
In the river they shall pass on foot;
There shall we rejoice in Him._'

We have no knowledge that any one ferried him over, and whether angels conveyed him we are not able to say! But almost immediately he was seen continuing his journey to Alexandria upon the further bank!"

Hazaël broke out, forgetting his profession of tolerance: "Surely you saw this Athlete, who in three strides can traverse the distance between the Red Sea and the Thebaïd, separate the waters with his staff like the Lawgiver of Israel, and pass dryshod through their midst! Or perhaps he walked on the surface like the Nazarene Prophet, who was skilled in theurgy, and did many wonderful things?"

The Copts were silent and exchanged glances. But now the Monastery of Tabenna appeared in the distance, seated upon the skirts of the mountains, amidst groves of palms and olives, reaching to the river's brink. A great cemetery was near it, with many tombs both old and recent. A boat rowed by Egyptians, carrying a bier, with a corpse swathed and bound with garlands of bay-leaves and myrtle, and surrounded by mourners, now crossed the bows of the sailing-vessel and pulled for the Tabenna shore. Monks in black robes, with a cross-bearer and a boy-novice carrying a thurible waited at the landing-steps to take charge of the body, which was that of a Christian desirous of being interred in the cemetery's consecrated earth. As with the chanting of a hymn, the bier was lifted from the boat and raised on the shoulders of four of the brethren, the vessel containing the Jews and the son of Philoremus, touched the land. The monks moved on, carrying the bier, the mourners followed, and the strangers brought up the rear.