sisterhood had long been threatened from the patriarch's hostility. The
assistance which, in that document, he had refused he would have afforded
readily and zealously at a later and fit season, and he could have
counted on the aid of the Arab governor Amru, who, as he would himself
confirm, shared the views of the Mukaukas George as to the nuns' rights.

At this the old sage murmured loud enough to be heard: "Clever, very
clever!" and the Vekeel laughed aloud, exclaiming:

"I call that a cunning way of lengthening your days! Be on your guard,
my lords. These two are partners in the game and are intimately allied.
I have proof of that in my own hands. That youngster takes as good care
of the damsel's fortune as though it were his own already, and what is
more. . . ."

Here Paula broke in. She did not know what the malicious man was going
to say, but it was something insulting beyond a doubt. And there stood
Orion, just as she had pictured him in moments of tender remembrance; she
felt his eye resting on her in ecstasy. To go up to him, to tell him all
she was feeling in this critical struggle for life or death, seemed
impossible; but as the Vekeel began to disclose to their judges matters
which concerned only herself and her lover, every impulse prompted her to
interpose and, in this fateful hour, to do her friend such service as she
once, like a coward, had shrank from. So with eager emotion, her eyes
flashing, she interrupted the negro "Stop!" she cried, "you are wasting
words and trouble. What you are trying to prove by subtlety I am proud
and glad to declare. Hear it, all of you. The son of the Mukaukas is my
betrothed!"

At the same time her eye sought to meet Orion's. And thus, in the very