waiting for him:

"My heart aches! To have to pronounce such a verdict oppressed me like a
load; but to have an Obada for a fellow Moslem and be bound to obey him--
there is no heavier lot on earth!"




CHAPTER XVIII.

The mysterious old sage had no sooner left the judgment-hall with the
Vekeel than he begged for a private interview. Obada did not hesitate to
turn the keeper of the prison, with his wife and infant, out of his room,
and there he listened while Horapollo informed him of the fate to which
he destined the condemned girl. The old man's scheme certainly found
favor with the Negro; still, it seemed to him in many respects so daring
that, but for an equivalent service which Horapollo was in a position to
offer Obada, he would scarcely have succeeded in obtaining his consent.

All the Vekeel aimed at was to make it very certain that Orion had had a
hand in the flight of the nuns, and chance had placed a document in the
old man's hands which seemed to set this beyond a doubt.

He had effected his removal to the widow's dwelling in the cool hours of
early morning. He had taken with him, in the first instance, only the
most valuable and important of his manuscripts, and as he was placing
these in a small desk--the very same which Rufinus had left for Paula's
use--Horapollo found in it the note which the youth had hastily written
when, after waiting in vain for Paula as she sat with little Mary, he had