The people would not believe it. The nurse spread a rumor that the crafty abbot had hidden Tamara. Forgetting godly fear and fearing Kaiours’s wrath, she insulted and cursed him. The boy servants, among whom there were many Mahometans, searched the whole monastery, all the surrounding woods and bushes, and not finding Tamara anywhere, they killed the holy old man and burned down the monastery. The ancient building stood in flames, also the stone enclosure, many a hundred year old tree, the huge library, in fact all the scanty good of the images. Alone the church and the lily into which Tamara had been transformed were spared.
Upon hearing of what had occurred, Kaiours and Plinii hastened to the spot. In the church there was nobody, everything else represented a field of coal and ashes. Tamara was nowhere to be found. Only in the midst of all these ashes there grew a splendid, fresh, fragrant white lily.
Plinii was the first to approach her and began to cry. Kaiours followed him and was very much startled. He noticed that when Plinii’s tears fell on the coal surrounding the lily, her tender leaves grew quite yellow from jealousy; on the other hand when they dripped into the lily she grew red from joy.
“Tamara, is it thou we see?” asked the father.
Just at that moment there came up a little breeze and Kaiours and Plinii heard distinctly as though the leaves spoke:
“It is I, father!”
The inconsolable father could not stand the loss of his daughter and immediately died from grief, but poor Plinii cried so much and so long and so fervently prayed to God that he might be united with Tamara, that in the end the Lord transformed him to rain. I have heard that in bygone times whenever a dryness set in the inhabitants of the surrounding villages hastened to the abandoned church, around which lilies always grew in abundance, and picked whole baskets of them. They scattered the fragrant harvest in the fields and gardens and the young maidens sang Tamara’s song. The lovely melodious composition was as fragrant and clean as the dear flower which they glorified. This song, indeed, is Tamara’s very prayer, showing all her childish faith in God’s almightiness. It ends with an invocation of Plinii, who, they say, always appears in the form of a warm, beneficial rain. I heard even that these lilies preserved a rare capacity, viz., sometimes to grow red, sometimes yellow, and our maidens thus concluded that these flowers could tell one’s fortune. Each maiden notices one flower and after the rain goes to look for it. Is the lily yellow, the young girl entertains great fears as to the fidelity of her lover; is it red, she never doubts his attachment to her. Whether this quaint custom still prevails I don’t know. I am always sorry when some such tradition becomes forgotten! In our ancient legends there was so much of the truthful, honorable and elevated that these circumstances alone rendered them most instructive.