only lately come into the weaving-sheds after being employed for a long
time at needle work under two old women, widows of slaves. She had been
brought as an infant from Persia to Alexandria with her mother, by the
troops of Heraclius, after the conquest of Chosroes II.; and they had
been bought together for the Mukaukas. When her little one was but
thirteen the mother died under the yoke to which she was not born; the
child was a sweet little girl with a skin as white as the swan and thick
golden hair, which now shone with strange splendor in the firelight.
Orion had remarked her before his journey, and fascinated by the beauty
of the Persian girl, had wished to have her for his own. Servants and
officials, in unscrupulous collusion, had managed to transport her to a
country-house belonging to the Mukaukas on the other side of the Nile,
and there Orion had been able to visit her undisturbed as often as fancy
prompted him. The slave-girl, scarcely yet sixteen, ignorant and
unprotected, had not dared nor desired to resist her master's handsome
son, and when Orion had set out for Constantinople--heedless and weary
already of the girl who had nothing to give him but her beauty--Dame
Neforis found out her connection with her son and ordered the head
overseer to take care that the unhappy girl should not "ply her seductive
arts" any more. The man had carried out her instructions by condemning
the fair Persian, according to an ancient custom, to have her ears cut
off. After this cruel punishment the mutilated beauty sank into a state
of melancholy madness, and although the exorcists of the Church and other
thaumaturgists had vainly endeavored to expel the demon of madness, she
remained as before: a gentle, good-humored creature, quiet and diligent
at her work, under the women who had charge of her, and now in the common
work-shop. It was only when she was idle that her craziness became
evident, and of this the other girls took advantage for their own
amusement.