CHAPTER XXXI.
DIONYSIUS.
ΔΙΟΝΥCΙΟΥ[214]
ΙΑΤΡΟΥ
ΠΡΕCΒΥΤΕΡΟΥ
Fabiola by a gesture stopped the crowd at the door of her room, and desired only Euphrosyne and her Greek maid to enter. The latter, since the influence of the black slave had been removed, had attached herself most affectionately to Syra, as we must still call her, and had, with great docility, listened to her moral instructions. A slave was instantly despatched for the physician who had always been sent for by Syra in illness, Dionysius, who, as we have already observed, lived in the house of Agnes.
In the meantime Fabiola had been overjoyed at finding the blood cease to flow so rapidly, and still more at seeing her servant open her eyes upon her, though only for a moment. She would not have exchanged for any wealth the sweet smile which accompanied that look.
Cemetery of Callistus.
In a few minutes the kind physician arrived. He carefully examined the wound, and pronounced favorably on it for the present. The blow, as aimed, would have gone straight to Fabiola’s heart. But her loving servant, in spite of prohibition, had been hovering near her mistress during the whole day; never intruding, but anxious for any opportunity which might offer, of seconding those good impressions of grace, which the morning’s scenes could not fail to have produced. While in a neighboring room she heard violent tones which were too familiar to her ears; and hastened noiselessly round, and within the curtain which covered the door of Fabiola’s own apartment. She stood concealed in the dusk, on the very spot where Agnes had, a few months before, consoled her.
She had not been there long when the last struggle commenced. While the man was pushing her mistress backwards, she followed him close behind; and as he was lifting his arm, passed him, and threw her body over that of his victim. The blow descended, but misdirected, through the shock she gave his arm; and it fell upon her neck, where it inflicted a deep wound, checked, however, by encountering the collar-bone. We need not say what it cost her to make this sacrifice. Not the dread of pain, nor the fear of death could for a moment have deterred her; it was the horror of imprinting on her brother’s brow the mark of Cain, the making him doubly a fratricide, which deeply anguished her. But she had offered her life for her mistress. To have fought with the assassin, whose strength and agility she knew, would have been useless; to try to alarm the house before one fatal blow was struck was hopeless; and nothing remained but to accomplish her immolation, by substituting herself for the intended victim. Still she wished to spare her brother the consummation of his crime, and in doing so manifested to Fabiola their relationship and their real names.
In his blind fury he refused her credit; but the words, in their native tongue, which said, “Remember my scarf which you picked up here,” brought back to his memory so terrible a domestic tale, that had the earth opened a cavern in that moment before his feet, he would have leaped into it, to bury his remorse and shame.