sadly averting his gentle face. At this he remembered what he had vowed;
at this he forgot all his grievance against Paula; he took the general's
hand, indeed, but only to raise it to his lips as he thanked him with all
his heart. But then he implored him, with earnest, pleading urgency, not
to be wroth with him if he remained firm and clung to the faith of his
father and his ancestors. And Amru was not wroth, though it was with
none of the hearty interest with which he had at first welcomed him, that
he hastily warned Orion to be on his guard against the prelate, since, so
long as he remained a Christian, he had no power to protect him against
Benjamin.

When Orion went on to tell him that he was intending to travel for a
short time, and had, in fact, come to take leave of him, the Arab was
much annoyed. He, too, he said, must be going away and was starting
within two days for Medina.

"And in casting my eye on you," he went on, "in spite of your youth, to
fill your father's place, I took care to find a task for you which would
enable you to prove that I had not put too great confidence in you. But,
if you persist in your own opinions, I cannot possibly entrust so
important a post as the governorship of Memphis to a Christian so young
as you are; with the youthful Moslem I might have ventured on it.--
However, I will not deprive you of the enterprise which I had intended
for you. If you succeed in it, it will be a good thing for yourself, and
I can, I believe, turn it to the benefit of the whole province--for what
could take me from hence at this time, when my presence is so needful for
a hundred incomplete projects, but my anxiety for the good of this
country--in which I am but an alien, while you must love it as your
native soil, the home of your race?--I am going to Medina because the
Khaliff, in this letter, complains that I send too small a revenue into