Pambo rose, and bowed reverentially.
‘We have heard your good report, sir, as of one zealously affected in the cause of the Church Catholic. Will it please you to follow us to the cell of Aufugus?’
Peter stalked after them with a sufficiently important air to the little hut, and there taking from his bosom Cyril’s epistle, handed it to Arsenius, who sat long, reading and re-reading with a clouded brow, while Pambo watched him with simple awe, not daring to interrupt by a question lucubrations which he considered of unfathomable depth.
‘These are indeed the last days,’ said Arsenius at length, ‘spoken of by the prophet, when many shall run to and fro. So Heraclian has actually sailed for Italy?’
‘His armament was met on the high seas by Alexandrian merchantmen, three weeks ago.’
‘And Orestes hardens his heart more and more?’
‘Ay, Pharaoh that he is; or rather, the heathen woman hardens it for him.’
‘I always feared that woman above all the schools of the heathen,’ said Arsenius. ‘But the Count Heraclian, whom I always held for the wisest as well as the most righteous of men! Alas!—alas! what virtue will withstand, when ambition enters the heart!’
‘Fearful, truly,’ said Peter, ‘is that same lust of power: but for him, I have never trusted him since he began to be indulgent to those Donatists.’
‘Too true. So does one sin beget another.’