During this conversation Seti maintained an unbroken silence—his arms folded, his face impassive, but his eyes as watchful as eagles’. He seemed to be hearing as well as seeing with those ancient eyes of his that never once left the face of Aleph.
They both rose at the same time—Seti saying that he would walk along with the young man and point out the Diapleuston in passing.
The Alabarch courteously escorted them through the now vacant rooms to the door; saying to Aleph, as he parted, “Remember—at the third hour to-morrow. Come half an hour earlier.”
Turning into the street of Canopus, and going westward under the colonnade, they soon came to a corner on which stood an imposing structure of white marble. As Aleph glanced down the side street he saw that the length of the structure was immense: as he passed to the front he saw that its breadth was nearly as great. A central part raised on a lofty pediment, surmounted by a gilded dome, and supported in front and on either hand by immense monolith columns, was surrounded on all visible sides at a little distance by low marble cloisters—save where a broad flight of steps led up from the street to the great doors. From the wide platform at the top the great columns rose in elaborately wrought clusters, each supporting an ornate capital, architrave, frieze, and cornice; while, behind, the whole front was alive with spirited sculpture in relief of the Feast of Tabernacles.
I must not forget to add that at one angle the low cloisters swelled into a graceful and lofty tower that ended in a parapet.
“From behind that parapet,” said Seti, pointing, “are sounded the seventy silver trumpets that summon the Jews to their worship; for here is the Diapleuston to which you have been invited.”
They passed on to another crossing.
“Let us turn down this street,” said the Egyptian. “It is less crowded than the thoroughfare, and equally direct for both of us, as I learn that you are staying for the present near where we landed yesterday. Besides, I wish to stop for a few moments with the sick woman. I am afraid of these Alexandrian leeches. Once in every five or ten years they get a new fashion of treating diseases and call it science.”
They turned south and soon came to a humble house, where Seti knocked. The door was opened by a shiftless looking Greek who, on request, pointed to a door within which the sick woman could be found. On entering, they found her on a rude bed, supported almost in a sitting posture by the daughter of Alexander, who sat behind her. She was a woman of middle age, very emaciated, eyes closed, lips parted, chest laboriously heaving, apparently unconscious.
“Oh, grandfather, I feared you would not come,” exclaimed the maiden in a subdued voice, “feared you would be too late,—I am afraid you are too late. The leech says that nothing more can be done”—and the tears dropped fast from the lovely eyes.