The Guru looked at the eager faces of the boys. He then pondered for a long time. At last he said—"The Alakà of our religion is believed to be the abode or the heaven of the Gandharva on Mount Meru. The Gandharva is the being who knows and reveals the secrets of nature and divine truth, and prepares the holy soma juice for the gods." He again paused to think. "Your northern Princess Alca is the same as our Alakà, the abode of the Gandharva of wisdom and truth, the depository of the secrets of nature. You do well to love her. Pray then to the cloud and it will take your message." The boys knelt down, praying long and fervently to the cloud to take their message. It was that they were well, that they had never forgotten her words, that they would return to her. The Guru assured them that they had not prayed in vain. They had never felt so happy since they parted from the Princess at Aldby.
Not many days afterwards they bade farewell to the Guru, who had become warmly attached to them; for Monas had completed his arrangements, the bales were ready, and they started on their return journey to Barugaza. The boys had offered their old friend a gold ring as a keepsake, which he declined. But when he saw them for the last time he gave them a small parcel as an offering for their Princess. "It contains," he said, "a very precious gum called bdellium, translucent and fragrant. It is a trifle by which to remember me." "We shall never forget you, dear Guru," exclaimed Coelred; and Porlor declared that "Bdellium" should be their watchword and the watchword of their friends for evermore. Soon Ujjayani and the Guru, Barugaza and its busy ghât, were but memories. The north–east wind was taking their little vessel homewards again across the Erythraean Sea.
One night, as old Monas sat aft by the steering oar, with Coelred and Porlor near him, he asked the boys what they had been told by the Guru. Porlor was full of his praises, and repeated the stories of Krishna and of the Pandus; but something held the brothers back from mentioning the Cloud Messenger to the aged pilot. They declared that the Guru was the wisest, the most learned, and the most religious man in the world, and that he was beloved by God. "The strange and incomprehensible questions over which others quarrel for days and years, the Guru sees through and settles with a word. He is generous, and says that all men, more or less, are in the right way." Monas shook his head. "My friend Govinda," he said, "is learned and good. It grieves me to the heart that he will assuredly be burnt in hell fire for ever and ever. Yet that must be his fate, for he is unsound on all points of doctrine." It was on the tip of Coelred's tongue to say he would go where the Guru went; but he checked himself, for the boys loved old Monas, and made it a point not to anger or annoy him. "Beware," he continued, "how you allow plausible falsehoods to sink into your hearts. You are very young and will be surrounded by dangers. May the Lord watch over you!"
On another night Monas explained their position to his young friends. "Thanks to Prince Athanagild," he said, "you are very rich. Your property consists of small bales easily carried but of great value, and of gold coins and gems. The crew will be amply recompensed by a present of the vessel and a generous distribution of money. We will land at Berenike, to which port the voyage is much shorter than to Myos Hormos. There camels can be procured, and the journey to the Nile will occupy three days. I will accompany you to Alexandria and see you embarked for Antioch. For myself I need nothing. I go to the cell of my old master, who must now be dead, where I shall end my days happily, in prayer and in the contemplation of the true nature of the incarnate Word. Your destiny is very different. I am on the verge of the grave. You are entering upon life. You are brave and true. May the blessing of God be with you!"
It was very grateful to the old pilot to receive the warm thanks of his young friends, knowing how true and genuine they were; and the voyage passed pleasantly. The plans of Monas were admirably arranged. The crew was satisfied, the journey across the desert and the voyage down the Nile were performed without accident, and when Coelred and Porlor left Alexandria in the vessel that was to convey them to the port of Antioch, the last thing they saw was the white cloth with which old Monas waved his farewell from the Pharos.
CHAPTER VI
IRAN
Sivel was a very intelligent and quick–witted boy, and he rapidly learnt all his companions could teach him in the treasury office at Antioch and in the mint. He was able to read and write, and had even tried his hand on the dies for stamping coins. The decadence of art had been very rapid since the days of Gallienus. All attempts at portraiture on the coins had disappeared, though there was still a head, and an angel with orb and cross on the reverse. It was not beyond the powers of a clever boy like Sivel to tool the inscriptions, and even to copy the rough effigy of the good Emperor. Not a few of the rude letters traced on Byzantine money of this period are the work of our English boy: