having been, all his life long, a right-minded, just man could not
fortify him against this terror; there was but one thing which could
raise his quelled spirit: the white pillules which had long been as
indispensable to him as air and water. The kind-hearted old bishop of
Memphis, Plotinus, and his clergy had forgiveness for all; the Patriarch
Benjamin, on the contrary, had treated him as a reprobate sentenced to
eternal damnation, though at the time of this prelate's exile in the
desert he had hailed the Arabs as their deliverers from the tyranny of
the Melchites, and though George had principally contributed to his
recall and reinstatement, and had therefore counted on his support. And,
although the Mukaukas could clearly see through the secondary motives
which influenced the Patriarch, he nevertheless believed that Benjamin's
office as Shepherd of souls gave him power to close the Gates of Heaven
against any sheep in his flock.

The more firmly the Arabs took root in his land, the wiser their rule,
and the, more numerous the Egyptian converts from the Cross to the
Crescent, the greater he deemed his guilt; and when, after the
accomplishment of his work of vengeance--his double treason as the Greeks
called it--instead of the wrath of God, everything fell to his lot which
men call happiness and the favors of fortune, the superstitious man
feared lest this was the wages of the Devil, into whose clutches his
hasty compact with the Moslems had driven so many Christian souls.

He had unexpectedly fallen heir to two vast estates, and his excavators
in the Necropolis had found more gold in the old heathen tombs than all
the others put together. The Moslem Khaliff and his viceroy had left him
in office and shown him friendship and respect; the bulaites--[Town
councillors]--of the town had given him the cognomen of "the Just" by
acclamation of the whole municipality; his lands had never yielded