I was too young and ignorant of the ways and wiles of the world, to suspect that this priest had been all along in collusion with Magistus, and was to share with him in the plunder of the orphans of his friend.
The words of my father rang in my ear and continually haunted my mind: “He is a thief and robber, and addicted to magic.”
I asked my uncle one day, in a very quiet manner, his opinion of magic.
He looked at me severely and answered:
“What are the words of Moses on the subject? Listen: ‘A man or a woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death. They shall stone them with stones.’ ”
This did not convince me that my father was in error.
Months passed; and a gradual and saddening change was creeping over our life and its surroundings. I had detected no robbery, no magical practices; but I had no faith in my uncle. Cautious and reticent as he was, he could not conceal some of the ugly points of his charac[pg 35]ter. He was violent and cruel in his dealings with his slaves. He was addicted to falsehood, and in both opinion and practice was destitute of charity. His strict observance of the ceremonial law and his intense ritualism, could not conceal from me the fact that his heart was wholly untouched by the spiritualizing influences of true religion.
He ceased after a while to take us to see our aunt. Our teachers in various branches were not re-engaged, or were dismissed. Education came to a stand-still. Company was excluded from our house. His own was opened at night to suspicious characters. By bribing one of his servants one dark night, I obtained admission to his courtyard, and discovered, by muffled sounds of music and dancing, that a bacchanalian revelry was going on underground. He sometimes betrayed the next day, in his face and manner, the effect of these midnight orgies.
In the mean time my beautiful sisters pined, neglected and sorrowful. Magistus rarely visited them; and when he did, he was guilty of coarse familiarities which shocked and repelled them. I summoned courage, boy as I was, on one of these occasions to reproach him bitterly for these things; for neglecting our education, our dress, our manners, our comforts; and for falling himself into habits which would certainly lead to the ruin of us all. He stared at me insolently, and said that I had better get my father’s friend Caiaphas to revise his guardianship.
Like a man who sits helpless in a boat without oars, gliding down a swift current, and hears the far-off but inevitable cataract, I contemplated the dark future that [pg 36]awaited us. I grieved for my sisters more than for myself. We had just been mourning together one day over our sad fate, when Magistus came into the room. He had held a long private interview that morning with a strange man of gigantic size and very coarse manners, whose appearance, as he entered the guest-chamber, excited my gravest suspicions.