as the property of the Church. He added that, when his patience was at
an end, he should positively insist on its surrender and bring every
means at his disposal into play to procure it.

Orion had no choice but to say that he would prosecute his search for the
lost stone; but his acquiescence was sullen, as that of a man who accedes
to an unreasonable demand.

At first the patriarch took this coolly; but presently, when he rose to
take leave, his demeanor changed; he said, with stern solemnity:

"I know you now, Son of Mukaukas George, and I end as I began:
The humility of the Christian is far from you, you are ignorant of the
power and dignity of our Faith, you do not even know the vast love that
animates it, and the fervent longing to lead the straying sinner back to
the path of salvation.--Your admirable mother has told me, with tears in
her eyes, of the abyss over which you are standing. It is your desire to
bind yourself for life to a heretic, a Melchite--and there is another
thing which fills her pious mother's heart with fears, which tortures it
as she thinks of you and your eternal welfare. She promised to confide
this to my ear in church, and I shall find leisure to consider of it on
my return home; but at any rate, and be it what it may, it cannot more
greatly imperil your soul than marriage with a Melchite.

"On what have you set your heart? On the mere joys of earth! You sue
for the hand of an unbeliever, the daughter of an unbelieving heretic;
you go over to Fostat--nay, hear me out--and place your brain and your
strong arm at the service of the infidels--it is but yesterday; but I,
I, the shepherd of my flock, will not suffer that he who is the highest
in rank, the richest in possessions, the most powerful by the mere