CHAPTER IX.
Hermon had intended to add a few more touches to his Demeter, but he could not do it. Ledscha, her demand, and the resentment with which she had left him, were not to be driven from his mind.
There was no doubt that he must seek her if he was not to lose her, yet he reproached himself for having acted like a thoughtless fool when he proposed to divide the night between her and Daphne.
There was something offensive in the proposal to so proud a creature. He ought to have promised positively to come, and then left the banquet somewhat earlier. It would have been easy to apologize for his late arrival, and Ledscha would have had no cause to be angry with him.
Now she had, and her resentment awakened in him—though he certainly did not lack manly courage—an uncomfortable feeling closely allied to anxiety.
Angered by his own conduct, he asked himself whether he loved the barbarian, and could find no satisfactory answer.
At their first meeting he had felt that she was far superior to the other Biamite maidens, not only in beauty but in everything else. The very acerbity of her nature had seemed charming. To win this wonderful, pliant creature, slender as a cypress, whose independence merged into fierce obstinacy, had appeared to him worth any sacrifice; and having perceived in her an admirable model for his Arachne, he had also determined to brave the dangers which might easily arise for the Greek from a love affair with a Biamite girl, whose family was free and distinguished.
It had been easier for him to win her heart than he expected; yet at none of the meetings which she granted him had he rejoiced in the secret bond between them.
Hitherto her austere reserve had been invincible, and during the greater part of their interviews he had been compelled to exert all his influence to soothe, appease her, and atone for imprudent acts which he had committed.
True, she, too, had often allowed herself to display passionate tenderness, but always only to torture him with reproaches and demands inspired by her jealousy, suspicion, and wounded pride.
Yet her beauty, and the strong power of resistance which she offered to his wooing, exerted so bewitching a thrall over him that he had been led into conceding far too much, and making vows which he could not and did not desire to fulfil.
Love had usually been to him a richly flowing well-spring of gay delight, but this bond had plunged him from one vexation into another, one anxiety to another, and now that he had almost reached the goal of his wishes, he could not help fearing that he had transformed Ledscha’s love to hate.
Daphne was dear to him. He esteemed her highly, and owed her a great debt of gratitude. Yet in this hour he anathematized her unexpected journey to Tennis; for without it he would have obtained from Ledscha that very day what he desired, and could have returned to Alexandria with the certainty of finding her ready later to pose as the model for his Arachne.
Never could he find anywhere a more fitting one.
He had devoted himself with passionate love to his art, and even his enemies numbered him among its most promising disciples. Yet hither to he had not succeeded in obtaining a great and undisputed success. On the other hand, he had experienced what were termed failures in abundant measure.
The art to which he had gained entrance by so severe a struggle, and on whose soil he had laboured diligently enough, proved, so far as outward recognition was concerned, cruel to the enthusiastic disciple. Yet even now he would not have abandoned it at any price; the joy of creation compensated him richly for suffering and disappointment. Confidence in his own powers and the final triumph of his conviction had deserted him only occasionally, and for a few brief hours.
He was born for conflicts. What ill-success, what antagonism and difficulties he had encountered! Some day the laurel which had so long adorned the brow of Myrtilus must also grow green for him and the great talent whose possession he felt. With the Arachne—he was sure of this—he would compel even his opponents to accord him the recognition for which hitherto he had striven in vain.
While pacing restlessly up and down the spacious apartment, stopping from time to time before his work to fix his eyes angrily upon it, he thought of his friend’s Demeter, whose head also had Daphne’s features, who also bore in her hand a bundle of wheat, and even in attitude did not differ very widely from his own. And yet—eternal gods!—how thoroughly dissimilar the two were!
In the figure created by Myrtilus, supernatural dignity blended with the utmost womanly charm; in his, a pleasing head rested upon a body in whose formation he had used various models without striving to accomplish anything except to depart as far as possible from established custom, with which he was at variance.
Yet had he not found himself, nevertheless, compelled to follow the old rules? One arm was raised, the other hung down; the right foot was put forward, the left one back.
Exactly the same as in Myrtilus’s statue, and thousands of other figures of Demeter!
If he could have used the hammer and chisel, the thing might have become more powerful; but how many things he had had to consider in employing the accursed gold and ivory upon which Archias obstinately insisted!
This hammering, chipping, and filing told unfavourably upon his power and his aspiration toward grandeur.
This time the battle seemed to be lost.
It was fortunate that the conqueror was no other than Myrtilus. Often as he had gone astray in his young life, many as were the errors he had committed, not even the faintest shadow of an envious feeling concerning his friend’s more successful work had ever stained his soul.
True, the fact that fate, in addition to such abundant gifts of mind and spirit, had also endowed the latter with great worldly possessions, while he, but for the generosity of his uncle Archias, must have starved, had often led Hermon to inveigh angrily against the injustice of the gods. Yet he did not grudge Myrtilus the wealth without which he could not imagine him, and which his invalid friend needed to continue successfully the struggle against the insidious disease inherited with the gold. And his sufferings! Hermon could not have endured keener pain had they been his own. He must even rejoice over the poor dear fellow’s victory; for if he, Hermon, succeeded with his Arachne as he hoped, it would make Myrtilus—he could swear to it—happier than his own triumph.
After these reflections, which again reminded him of the second appointment and of Ledscha, the sculptor turned away from his work and went to the window to look across at Pelican Island, where she must not await him in vain.
The boat which was to convey him over to it lay ready in the little flotilla, where a magnificently equipped galley had just been moored to the shore, undoubtedly the one that had brought the guests from Pelusium hither. The best thing he could do was to greet them at once, share the banquet with them, and, before the dessert was served, seek the beautiful woman whom his absence threatened to make his foe. And she was certainly justified in resenting it if, with cruel lack of consideration, he paid no heed to what had been prophesied for her on this night of the full moon.
For the first time compassion mingled with his feelings for Ledscha. If to avoid the fleeting censure of aristocratic friends he left in the lurch the simple barbarian maiden who loved him with ardent passion, it was no evidence of resolute strength of soul, but of pitiful, reprehensible weakness. No, no! He must take the nocturnal voyage in order not to grieve Ledscha.
Soon after the girl’s abrupt departure he dressed himself in festal garments for the banquet. It would flatter Ledscha also if he went to her in this attire and, with his figure drawn up to its full height, he walked toward the door to go to the Alexandrian’s tent.
But what did this mean? Myrtilus was standing before his Demeter, scanning it intently with his keen artist eyes. Hermon had not noticed his entrance, and did not disturb him now, but fixed his gaze upon his mobile features in intense expectation.
There were few of his fellow-artists whose opinion he valued as highly as that of this darling of the Muse.
At a slight shake of the head, which Hermon interpreted as disapproval, he clinched his teeth; but soon his lips relaxed and his breast heaved with a sigh of relief, for the sunny glance that Myrtilus bent upon the face of the goddess seemed to show Hermon that it aroused his approval, and, as if relieved from an oppressive nightmare, he approached his friend.
The latter turned toward him, exclaiming: “Daphne! As in the case of yonder bust, you have succeeded most perfectly with this dear face—only—”
“Only,” Hermon repeated slowly; “I am familiar with that evil word. Doubts knock at the door with it. Out with them honestly. I gave up my last hope of the prize yesterday while looking at your Demeter. Besides, careful scrutiny has just destroyed the last gleam of satisfaction with my own work. But if you like the head, what seem to you the greatest defects in the figure?”
“It has nothing to do with defects, which, with your rare ability, can scarcely exist,” replied the other, the faint pink flush in his beardless cheeks deepening to a more vivid hue. “It refers rather to the expression which you have given the divinity in yonder statue.” Here Myrtilus hesitated, and, turning so that he stood face to face with Hermon, asked frankly, “Did you ever seek the goddess and, when you found her, did you feel any supernatural power and beauty?”
“What a question!” exclaimed Hermon in astonishment. “A pupil of Straton, and go in search of beings and powers whose existence he denies! What my mother instilled into my heart I lost with my childhood, and you address your question only to the artist who holds his own ground, not to the boy. The power that calls creation to life, and maintains it, has for me long had nothing in common with those beings like mortals whom the multitude designates by the name of divinities.”
“I think differently,” replied Myrtilus. “While I numbered myself among the Epicureans, whose doctrine still possesses the greatest charm for me, I nevertheless shared the master’s opinion that it is insulting the gods to suppose that they will disturb their blissful repose for the sake of us insignificant mortals. Now my mind and my experience rebel against holding to this view, yet I believe with Epicurus, and with you, that the eternal laws of Nature bow to neither divine nor human will.”
“And yet,” said Hermon, “you expect me to trouble myself about those who are as powerless as myself!”
“I only wished that you might do so,” answered Myrtilus; “for they are not powerless to those who from the first assumed that they can do nothing in opposition to those changeless laws. The state, too, rules according to them, and the wise king who refrains from interfering with them in the smallest trifle can therefore wield the sceptre with mighty power. So, in my opinion, it is perfectly allowable to expect aid from the gods. But we will let that pass. A healthy man, full of exuberant vigour like yourself, rarely learns early what they can bestow in suffering and misfortune; yet where the great majority believe in them, he, too, will be unable to help forming some idea of them; nay, even you and I have experienced it. By a thousand phenomena they force themselves into the world which surrounds us and our emotional life. Epicurus, who denied their power, saw in them at least immortal beings who possess in stainless perfection everything which in mortals is disfigured by errors, weaknesses, and afflictions. To him they are the intensified, reflected image of our own nature, and I think we can do nothing wiser than to cling to that, because it shows us to what heights of beauty and power, intellect, goodness, and purity we may attain. To completely deny their existence would hardly be possible even for you, because their persons have found a place in your imagination. Since this is the case, it can only benefit you to recognise in them magnificent models, by whose means we artists, if we imitate, perfect, and model them, will create works far more sublime and beautiful than anything visible to our senses which we meet here beneath the sun.”
“It is this very superiority in sublimity and beauty which I, and those who pursue the same path with me, oppose,” replied Hermon. “Nature is sufficient for us. To take anything from her, mutilates; to add anything, disfigures her.”
“But not,” replied Myrtilus firmly, “when it is done only in a special sense, and within the limits of Nature, to which the gods also belong. The final task of art, fiercely as you and your few followers contend against it, lies in the disentanglement, enhancing, and ennobling of Nature. You, too, ought not to overlook it when you undertake to model a Demeter; for she is a goddess, no mortal like yourself. The rest or I ought rather to say the alteration which converts the mortal woman into the immortal one, the goddess—I miss, and with special regret, because you do not even deem it worth consideration.”
“That I shall never do,” retorted Hermon irritably, “so long as it is a changing chimera which presents itself differently to every mind.”
“Yet, should it really be a chimera, it is at any rate a sublime one,” Myrtilus protested, “and whoever among us artists wanders through Nature with open eyes and heart, and then examines his own soul, will find it worth while to attempt to give his ideal form.”
“Whatever stirs my breast during such walks, unless it is some unusual human being, I leave to the poet,” replied Hermon. “I should be satisfied with the Demeter yonder, and you, too, probably, if—entirely apart from that—I had only succeeded fully and entirely in making her an individual—that is, a clearly outlined, distinct personality. This, you have often told me, is just wherein I am usually most successful. But here, I admit, I am baffled. Demeter hovered before me as a kindly dispenser of good gifts, a faithful, loving wife. Daphne’s head expresses this; but in modelling the body I lost sight of the whole creation. While, for instance, in my fig-eater, every toe, every scrap of the tattered garments, belongs to the street urchin whom I wished to represent, in the goddess everything came by chance as the model suggested it, and you know that I used several. Had the Demeter from head to foot resembled Daphne, who has so much in common with our goddess, the statue would have been harmonious, complete, and you would perhaps have been the first to acknowledge it.”
“By no means,” Myrtilus eagerly interrupted. “What our statues of the gods are we two know best: a wooden block, covered with gold and sheets of ivory. But to tens of thousands the statue of the divinity must be much more. When they raise their hearts, eyes, hands to it in prayer, they must be possessed by the idea of the deity which animated us while creating it, and with which we, as it were, permeated it. If it shows them only a woman endowed with praiseworthy qualities—”
“Then,” interrupted Hermon, “the worshipper should thank the sculptor; for is it not more profitable to him to be encouraged by the statue to emulate the human virtues whose successful embodiment it shows him than to strive for the aid of the botchwork of human hands, which possesses as much or as little power as the wood, gold, and ivory that compose it? If the worshipper does not appeal to the statue, but to the goddess, I fear it will be no less futile. So I shall consider it no blemish if you see in my Demeter a mortal woman, and no goddess; nay, it reconciles me in some degree to her weaknesses, to which I by no means close my eyes. I, too—I confess it—often feel a great desire to give the power of imagination greater play, and I know the divinities in whom I have lost faith as well as any one; for I, too, was once a child, and few have ever prayed to them more fervently, but with the increasing impulse toward liberty came the perception: There are no gods, and whoever bows to the power of the immortals makes himself a slave. So what I banished from life I will also remove from art, and model nothing which might not meet me to-day or to-morrow.”
“Then, as an honest man, abstain altogether from making statues of the gods,” interrupted his friend.
“That was my intention long ago, as you are aware,” the other answered.
“You could not commit a worse robbery upon yourself,” cried Myrtilus. “I know you; nay, perhaps I see farther into your soul than you yourself. By ingenious fetters you force the mighty winged intellect to content itself within the narrow world of reality. But the time when you will yourself rend the bonds and find the divinity you have lost, will come, and then, with your mighty power once more free, you will outstrip most of us, and me also if I live to see it.”
Then he pressed his hand upon his rattling chest and walked slowly to the couch; but Hermon followed, helped him to lie down, and with affectionate solicitude arranged his pillows.
“It is nothing,” Myrtilus said soothingly, after a few minutes’ silence. “My undermined strength has been heavily taxed to-day. The Olympians know how calmly I await death. It ends all things. Nothing will be left of me except the ashes, to which you will reduce my body, and what you call ‘possession.’ But even this can no longer belong to me after death, because I shall then be no more, and the idea of possession requires a possessor. My estate, too, is now disposed of. I have just been to the notary, and sixteen witnesses—neither more nor less—have signed my will according to the custom of this ceremonious country. There, now, if you please, go before me, and let me stay here alone a little while. Remember me to Daphne and the Pelusinians. I will join you in an hour.”
CHAPTER X.
“When the moon is over Pelican Island.” How often Ledscha had repeated this sentence to herself while Hermon was detained by Daphne and her Pelusinian guests!
When she entered the boat after nightfall she exclaimed hopefully, sure of her cause, “When the moon is over Pelican Island he will come.”
Her goal was quickly reached in the skiff; the place selected for the nocturnal meeting was a familiar one to her.
The pirates had remained absent from it quite two years. Formerly they had often visited the spot to conceal their arms and booty on the densely wooded island. The large papyrus thicket on the shore also hid boats from spying eyes, and near the spot where Ledscha landed was a grassy seat which looked like an ordinary resting place, but beneath it the corsairs had built a long, walled passage, that led to the other side of the island, and had enabled many a fugitive to vanish from the sight of pursuers, as though the earth had swallowed them.
“When the moon is over the island,” Ledscha repeated after she had waited more than an hour.
The time had not yet come; the expanse of water lay before her motionless, in hue a dull, leaden gray, and only the dimly illumined air and a glimmering radiance along the edges of the waves that washed the island showed that the moon was already brightening the night.
When its full orb floated above the island Hermon, too, would appear, and the happiness which had been predicted to Ledscha would begin.
Happiness?
A bitter smile hovered around her delicately cut lips as she repeated the word.
Hitherto no feeling was more distant from her; for when love and longing began to stir in her heart, it seemed as though a hideous spider was weaving its web about her, and vague fears, painful memories, and in their train fierce hate would force glad expectation into the shadow.
Yet she yearned with passionate fervour to see Hermon again, and when he was once there all must be well between them. The prediction of old Tabus, who ruled as mistress over so many demons, could not deceive.
After Ledscha had so lately reminded the lover who so vehemently roused her jealous wrath what this night of the full moon meant to her, she could rely upon his appearance in spite of everything.
Various matters undoubtedly held him firmly enough in Tennis—she admitted this to herself after she grew calmer—but he had promised to come; he would surely enter the boat, and she—she would submit to share the night with the Hellene.
Her whole being longed for the bliss awaiting her, and it could come from no one save the man whose lips would seek hers when the moon rose over the Pelican Island.
How tardily and sluggishly the cow-headed goddess who bore the silver orb between her horns rose to-night! how slowly the time passed, yet she did not move forward more certainly that the man whom Ledscha expected must arrive.
Of the possibility of his non-appearance she would not think; but when the fear that she was perhaps looking for him in vain assailed her, the blood crimsoned her face as if she felt the shame of a humiliating insult. Yet why should she make the period of waiting more torturing than it was already?
Surely he must come!
Sometimes she rested on the grassy seat and gazed across the dull gray surface of the water into the distance; sometimes she walked to and fro, stopping at every turn to look across at Tennis and the bright torches and lights which surrounded the Alexandrian’s tent.
So one quarter of an hour after another passed away.
A light breeze rose, and gradually the tops of the rushes began to shine, and the leafage before, beside, and above her to glitter in the silvery light.
The water was no longer calm, but furrowed by countless little ripples, on whose crests the rays from above played, sparkling and flashing restlessly. A web of shimmering silvery radiance covered the edges of every island, and suddenly the brilliant full moon was reflected in argent lustre like a magnificent quivering column upon the surface of the water, now rippled by the evening breeze.
The time during which Ledscha could repeat “When the moon is over Pelican Island” was past; already its course had led it beyond.
The island lay behind it, and it continued its pilgrimage before the young girl’s eyes.
The glittering column of light upon the water proved that she was not mistaken; the time which she had appointed for Hermon had already expired.
The moon in calm majesty sailed farther and farther onward in its course, and with it minute after minute elapsed, until they became a half hour, then a whole one.
“How long is it since the moon was over Pelican Island?” was the question which now pressed itself upon her again and again, and to which she found an answer at every glance upward, for she had learned to estimate time by the position of the stars.
Rarely was the silence of the night interrupted by the call of a human being or the barking of a dog from the city, or even the hooting of an owl at a still greater distance; but the farther the moon moved on above her the fiercer grew the uproar in Ledscha’s proud, cruelly wronged soul. She felt offended, scorned, insulted, and at the same time defrauded of the happiness which this night of the full moon contained for her. Or had the demons who promised happiness meant something else in their prediction than Hermon’s love? Was she to owe the bliss they had foretold to hate and pitiless retribution?
When the midnight hour had nearly arrived she prepared to depart, but after she had already set her foot on the edge of the boat she returned to the grassy seat. She would wait a little longer yet. Then there would be nothing which could give Hermon a right to consideration; then she might let loose upon him the avenging powers at her command.
Ledscha again gazed over the calm landscape, but in the wild tumult of her heart she no longer distinguished the details upon which her eyes rested. Doubtless she saw the light mists hovering like ghosts, or the restless shades of the unburied dead, over the shining expanse before her, and the filmy vapours that veiled the brightness of the stars, but she had ceased to question the heavenly bodies about the time.
What did she care for the progress of the hours, since the constellation of Charles’s Wain showed her that it was past midnight?
The moon no longer stood forth in sharp outlines against the deep azure of the vaulted sky, but, robbed of its radiance, floated in a circle of dimly illumined mists.
Not only the feelings which stirred Ledscha’s soul, but the scene around her, had gained a totally different aspect.
Since every hope of the happiness awaiting her was destroyed, she no longer sought to palliate the wrongs Hermon had inflicted upon her. While dwelling on them, she by no means forgot the trivial purpose for which the artist intended to use her charms; and when she again gazed up at the slightly-clouded sky, the shrouded moon no longer reminded her of the silver orb between the horns of Astarte.
She did not ask herself how the transformation had occurred, but in its place, high above her head, hung a huge gray spider. Its gigantic limbs extended over the whole firmament, and seemed striving to clutch and stifle the world beneath. The enormous monster was weaving its gray net over Tennis, and all the islands in the water, the Pelican Island, and she herself upon the seat of turf, and held them all prisoned in it.
It was a horrible vision, fraught with terrors which, even when she shut her eyes in order to escape it, showed very little change.
Assailed by anxious fears, Ledscha started up, and a few seconds later was urging her boat with steady strokes toward the Owl’s Nest.
Even now lights were still shining from the Alexandrian’s tent through the sultry, veiled night.
There seemed to be no waking life on the pirates’ island. Even old Tabus had probably put out the fire and gone to sleep, for deathlike silence and deep darkness surrounded it.
Had Hanno, who agreed to meet her here after midnight, also failed to come? Had the pirate learned, like the Greek, to break his promise?
Only half conscious what she was doing, she left the boat; but her slender foot had scarcely touched the land when a tall figure emerged from the thicket near the shore and approached her through the darkness.
“Hanno!” she exclaimed, as if relieved from a burden, and the young pirate repeated “Hanno” as if the name was the watchword of the night.
Her own name, uttered in a tone of intense yearning, followed. Not another syllable accompanied it, but the expression with which it fell upon her ear revealed so plainly what the young pirate felt for and expected from her that, in spite of the darkness which concealed her, she felt her face flush.
Then he tried to clasp her hand, and she dared not withdraw it from the man whom she had chosen for her tool. So she unresistingly permitted him to hold her right hand while he whispered his desire to take the place of the fallen Abus and make her his wife.
Ledscha, in hurried, embarrassed tones, answered that she appreciated the honour of his suit, but before she gave full consent she must discuss an important matter with him.
Then Hanno begged her to go out on the water.
His father and his brother Labaja were sitting in the house by the fire with his grandmother. They had learned, in following the trade of piracy, to hide the glimmer of lights. The old people had approved his choice, but the conversation in the dwelling would soon be over, and then the opportunity of seeing each other alone would be at an end.
Without uttering a word in reply, Ledscha stepped back into the boat, but Hanno plied the oars with the utmost caution and guided the skiff without the slightest sound away from the island to an open part of the water far distant from any shore.
Here he took in the oars and asked her to speak. They had no cause to fear being overheard, for the surrounding mists merely subdued the light of the full moon, and no other boat could have approached them unobserved.
The few night birds, sweeping swiftly on their strong pinions from one island to another, flew past them like flitting shadows. One hawk only, in search of nocturnal booty, circled around the motionless skiff, and sometimes, with expanded wings, swooped down close to the couple who were talking together so eagerly; but both spoke so low that it would have been impossible, even for the bird’s keen hearing, to follow the course of their consultation. Merely a few louder words and exclamations reached the height where it hovered.
The young pirate himself was obliged to listen with the most strained attention while Ledscha, in low whispers, accused the Greek sculptor of having basely wronged and deceived her; but the curse with which Hanno received this acknowledgment reached even the bird circling around the boat, and it seemed as if it wished to express its approval to the corsair, for this time its fierce croak, as it suddenly swooped down to the surface of the water behind the boat, sounded shrilly through the silent night. But it soon soared again, and now Ledscha’s declaration that she would become Hanno’s bride only on condition that he would aid her to punish the Hellenic traitor also reached him.
Then came the words “valuable booty,” “slight risk,” “thanks and reward.”
The girl’s whispered allusion to two colossal statues made of pure gold and genuine ivory was followed by a laugh of disagreeable meaning from the pirate.
At last he raised his deep voice to ask whether Ledscha, if the venture in which he would willingly risk his life were successful, would accompany him on board the Hydra, the good ship whose command his father intrusted to him. The firm “Yes” with which she answered, and her indignant exclamation as she repulsed Hanno’s premature attempt at tenderness, might have been heard by the hawk even at a greater distance.
Then the pirate’s promised bride lowered her voice again, and did not raise her tones until she saw in imagination the fulfilment of the judgment which she was calling down upon the man who had torn her heart with such pitiless cruelty.
Was this the happiness predicted for her on the night of the full moon? It might be, and, radiant with secret joy, her eyes sparkling and her bosom heaving as if her foot was already on the breast of the fallen foe, she assured Hanno that the gold and the ivory should belong to him, and to him alone; but not until he had delivered the base traitor to her alive, and left his punishment in her hands, would she be ready to go with him wherever he wished—not until then, and not one moment earlier.
The pirate, with a proud “I’ll capture him!” consented to this condition; but Ledscha, in hurried words, now described how she had planned the attack, while the corsair, at her bidding, plied the oars so as to bring the boat nearer to the scene of the assault.
The vulture followed the skiff; but when it stopped opposite to the large white building, one side of which was washed by the waves, Ledscha pointed to the windows of Hermon’s studio, exclaiming hoarsely to the young pirate: “You will seize him there—the Greek with the long, soft black beard, and the slender figure, I mean. Then you will bind and gag him, but, you hear, without killing him, for I can only inflict what he deserves upon the living man. I am not bargaining for a dead one.”
Just at that instant the bird of prey, with a shrill, greedy cry, as if it were invited to a delicious banquet, flew far away into the distance and did not return. It flew toward the left; the girl noticed it, and her heavy black eyebrows, which already met, contracted still more. The direction taken by the bird, which soon vanished in the darkness of the night, indicated approaching misfortune; but she was here only to sow destruction, and the more terrible growth it attained the better!
With an acuteness which aroused the admiration of the young corsair, who was trained to similar plots, she explained hers.
That they must wait until after the departure of the Alexandrian with her numerous train, and for the first dark night, was a matter of course.
One signal was to notify Hanno to hold himself in readiness, another to inform him that every one in the white house had gone to rest, and that Hermon was there too. The pirates were to enter the black-bearded Greek’s studio. While some were shattering his statues to carry away in sacks the gold and ivory which they contained, others were to force their way into Myrtilus’s workroom, which was on the opposite side of the house. There they would find the second statue; but this they must spare, because, on account of the great fame of its creator, it was more valuable than the other. The fair-haired artist was ill, and it would be no difficult matter to take him alive, even if he should put himself on the defensive. Hermon, on the contrary, was a strong fellow, and to bind him without injuring him severely would require both strength and skill. Yet it must be done, for only in case Hanno succeeded in delivering both sculptors to her alive would she consider herself—she could not repeat it often enough—bound to fulfil what she had promised him.
With the exception of the two artists, only Myrtilus’s servant, the old doorkeeper, and Bias, Hermon’s slave, remained during the night in the house which was to be attacked, and Hanno would undertake the assault with twenty-five sturdy fellows whom he commanded on the Hydra if his brother Labaja consented to share in the assault, this force could be considerably increased.
To take the old corsair into their confidence now would not be advisable, for, on account of his mother’s near presence, he would scarcely consent to enter into the peril. Should the venture fail, everything would be over; but if it succeeded, the old man could only praise the courage and skill with which it had been executed.
Nothing was to be feared from the coast guard, for since Abus’s death the authorities believed that piracy had vanished from these waters, and the ships commanded by Satabus and his sons had been admitted from Pontus into the Tanite arm of the Nile as trading vessels.
CHAPTER XI.
While Hanno was discussing these considerations, he rowed the boat past the landing place from which the “garden” with the Alexandrian’s tent could be seen.
The third hour after midnight had begun. Smoking flames were still rising from the pitch pans and blazing torches, and long rows of lanterns also illumined the broad space.
It was as light as day in the vicinity of the tent, and Biamite huntsmen and traders were moving to and fro among the slaves and attendants as though it was market time.
“Your father, too,” Hanno remarked in his awkward fashion, “will scarcely make life hard for us. We shall probably find him in Pontus. He is getting a cargo of wood for Egypt there. We have had dealings with him a long time. He thought highly of Abus, and I, too, have already been useful to him. There were handsome young fellows on the Pontine coast, and we captured them. At the peril of our lives we took them to the mart. He may even risk it in Alexandria. So the old man makes over to him a large number of these youths, and often a girl into the bargain, and he does it far too cheaply. One might envy him the profit—if it were not your father! When you are once my wife, I’ll make a special contract with him about the slaves. And, besides, since the last great capture, in which the old man allowed me a share of my own, I, too, need not complain of poverty. I shall be ready for the dowry. Do you want to know what you are worth to me?”
But Ledscha’s attention was attracted by other things, and even after Hanno, with proud conceit, repeated his momentous question, he waited in vain for a reply.
Then he perceived that the girl was gazing at the brilliantly lighted square as if spellbound, and now he himself saw before the tent a shed with a canopied roof, and beneath it cushioned couches, on which several Greeks—men and women—were half sitting, half lying, watching with eager attention the spectacle which a slender young Hellenic woman was presenting to them.
The tall man with the magnificent black beard, who seemed fairly devouring her with his eyes, must be the sculptor whom Ledscha commanded him to capture.
To the rude pirate the Greek girl, who in a light, half-transparent bombyx robe, was exhibiting herself to the eyes of the men upon a pedestal draped with cloths, seemed bold and shameless.
Behind her stood two female attendants, holding soft white garments ready, and a handsome Pontine boy with black, waving locks, who gazed up at her waiting for her signs.
“Nearer,” Ledscha ordered the pirate in a stifled voice, and he rowed the boat noiselessly under the shadow of a willow on the bank. But the skiff had scarcely been brought to a stop there when an elderly matron, who shared the couch of an old Macedonian man of a distinguished, soldierly appearance, called the name “Niobe.”
The Hellene on the pedestal took a cloth from the hand of one of the female attendants, and beckoned to the boy, who obediently drew through his girdle the short blue chiton which hung only to his knees, and sprang upon the platform.
There the Greek girl manipulated in some way the red tresses piled high upon her head, and confined above the brow by a costly gold diadem, flung the white linen fabric which the young slave handed to her over her head, wound her arm around the shoulders of the raven-locked boy, and drew him toward her with passionate tenderness. At the same time she raised the end of the linen drapery with her left hand, spreading it over him like a protecting canopy.
The mobile features which had just smiled so radiantly expressed mortal terror, and the pirate, to whom even the name “Niobe” was unfamiliar, looked around him for the terrible danger threatening the innocent child, from which the woman on the pedestal was protecting it with loving devotion.
The mortal terror of a mother robbed by a higher power of her child could scarcely be more vividly depicted, and yet haughty defiance hovered around her slightly pouting lips; the uplifted hands seemed not only anxiously to defend, but also to defy an invisible foe with powerless anger.
The pirate’s eyes rested on this spectacle as if spellbound, and the man who in Pontus had dragged hundreds of young creatures—boys and girls—on his ship to sell them into slavery, never thinking of the tears which he thereby caused in huts and mansions, clinched his rough hand to attack the base wretch who was robbing the poor mother of her lovely darling.
But just as Hanno was rising to look around him for the invisible evildoer, the loud shouts of many voices startled him. He glanced toward the pedestal; but now, instead of the hapless mother, he found there the bold woman whom he had previously seen, as radiant as if some great piece of good fortune had befallen her, bowing and waving her hand to the other Greeks, who were thanking her with loud applause.
The sorely threatened boy, bowing merrily, sprang to the ground; but Hanno put his hand on Ledscha’s arm, and in great perplexity whispered, “What did that mean?”
“Hush!” said the girl softly, stretching her slender neck toward the illuminated square, for the performer had remained standing upon the pedestal, and Chrysilla, Daphne’s companion, sat erect on her couch, exclaiming, “If it is agreeable to you, beautiful Althea, show us Nike crowning the victor.”
Even the Biamite’s keen ear could not catch the reply and the purport of the rapid conversation which followed; but she guessed the point in question when the young men who were present rose hastily, rushed toward the pedestal, loosed the wreaths from their heads, and offered them to the Greek girl whom Chrysilla had just called “beautiful Althea.”
Four Hellenic officers in the strong military force under Philippus, the commandant of the “Key of Egypt,” as Pelusium was justly called, had accompanied the old Macedonian general to visit his friend Archias’s daughter at Tennis; but Althea rejected their garlands with an explanation which seemed to satisfy them.
Ledscha could not hear what she said, but when only Hermon and Myrtilus still stood with their wreaths of flowers opposite the “beautiful Althea,” and she glanced hesitatingly from one to the other, as if she found the choice difficult, and then drew from her finger a sparkling ring, the Biamite detected the swift look of understanding which Hermon exchanged with her.
The girl’s heart began to throb faster, and, with the keen premonition of a jealous soul, she recognised in Althea her rival and foe.
Now there was no doubt of it; now, as the actress, skilled in every wile, hid the hand holding the ring, as well as the other empty one, behind her back, she would know how to manage so that she could use the garland which Hermon handed her.
Ledscha’s foreboding was instantly fulfilled, for when Althea held out her little tightly clinched fist to the artists and asked Myrtilus to choose, the hand to which he pointed and she then opened was empty, and she took from the other the ring, which she displayed with well-feigned regret to the spectators.
Then Hermon knelt before her, and, as he offered Althea his wreath, his dark eyes gazed so ardently into the blue ones of the red-haired Greek-like Queen Arsinoe, she was of Thracian descent—that Ledscha was now positively certain she knew for whose sake her lover had so basely betrayed her.
How she hated this bold woman!
Yet she was forced to keep quiet, and pressed her lips tightly together as Althea seized the white sheet and with marvellous celerity wound it about her until it fell in exquisite folds like a long robe.
Surprise, curiosity, and a pleasant sense of satisfaction in seeing what seemed to her a shameless display withdrawn from her lover’s eyes, rendered it easier for Ledscha to maintain her composure; yet she felt the blood throbbing in her temples as Hermon remained kneeling before the Hellene, gazing intently into her expressive face.
Was it not too narrow wholly to please the man who had known how to praise her own beauty so passionately? Did not the outlines of Althea’s figure, which the bombyx robe only partially concealed, lack roundness even more than her own?
And yet! As soon as Althea had transformed the sheet into a robe, and held the wreath above him, Hermon’s gaze rested on hers as though enraptured, while from her bright blue eyes a flood of ardent admiration poured upon the man for whom she held the victor’s wreath.
This was done with the upper portion of her body bending very far forward. The slender figure was poised on one foot; the other, covered to the ankle with the long robe, hovered in the air. Had not the wings which, as Nike, belonged to her been lacking, every one would have been convinced that she was flying—that she had just descended from the heights of Olympus to crown the kneeling victor. Not only her hand, her gaze and her every feature awarded the prize to the man at her feet.
There was no doubt that, if Nike herself came to the earth to make the best man happy with the noblest of crowns, the spectacle would be a similar one.
And Hermon! No garlanded victor could look up to the gracious divinity more joyously, more completely enthralled by grateful rapture.
The applause which now rang out more and more loudly was certainly not undeserved, but it pierced Ledscha’s soul like a mockery, like the bitterest scorn.
Hanno, on the contrary, seemed to consider the scene scarcely worth looking at. Something more powerful was required to stir him. He was particularly averse to all exhibitions. The utmost which his relatives could induce the quiet, reserved man to do when they ventured into the great seaports was to attend the animal fights and the games of the athletes. He felt thoroughly happy only when at sea, on board of his good ship. His best pleasure was to gaze up at the stars on calm nights, guide the helm, and meanwhile dream—of late most gladly of making the beautiful girl who had seemed to him worthy of his brave brother Abus, his own wife.
In the secluded monotony of his life as a scar over memory had exalted Ledscha into the most desirable of all women, and the slaughtered Abus into the greatest of heroes.
To win the love of this much-praised maiden seemed to Hanno peerless happiness, and the young corsair felt that he was worthy of it; for on the high seas, when a superior foe was to be opposed by force and stratagem, when a ship was to be boarded and death spread over her deck, he had proved himself a man of unflinching courage.
His suit had progressed more easily than he expected. His father would rejoice, and his heart exulted at the thought of encountering a serious peril for the girl he loved. His whole existence was a venture of life, and, had he had ten to lose, they would not have been too dear a price to him to win Ledscha.
While Althea, as the goddess of Victory, held the wreath aloft, and loud applause hailed her, Hanno was thinking of the treasures which he had garnered since his father had allowed him a share of the booty, and of the future.
When he had accumulated ten talents of gold he would give up piracy, like Abus, and carry on his own ships wood and slaves from Pontus to Egypt, and textiles from Tennis, arms and other manufactured articles from Alexandria to the Pontine cities. In this way Ledscha’s father had become a rich man, and he would also, not for his own sake—he needed little—but to make life sweet for his wife, surround her with splendour and luxury, and adorn her beautiful person with costly jewels. Many a stolen ornament was already lying in the safe hiding place that even his brother Labaja did not know.
At last the shouts died away, and as the stopping of the clattering wheel wakes the miller, so the stillness on the shore roused Hanno from his dream.
What was it that Ledscha saw there so fascinating that she did not even hear his low call? His father and Labaja had undoubtedly left his grandmother’s house long ago, and were looking for him in vain.
Yes, he was right; the old pirate’s shrill whistle reached his ear from the Owl’s Nest, and he was accustomed to obedience.
So, lightly touching Ledscha on the shoulder, he whispered that he must return to the island at once. His father would be rejoiced if she went with him.
“To-morrow,” she answered in a tone of resolute denial. Then, reminding him once more of the meaning of the signals she had promised to give, she waved her hand to him, sprang swiftly past him to the prow of the boat, caught an overhanging bough of the willow on the shore, and, as she had learned during the games of her childhood, swung herself as lightly as a bird into the thicket at the water’s edge, which concealed her from every eye.