CHAPTER XXXI.

DIONYSIUS.

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The great thoughts, which this occurrence would naturally have suggested to the noble heart of Fabiola, were suppressed, for a time, by the exigencies of the moment. Her first care was to stanch the flowing blood with whatever was nearest at hand. While she was engaged in this work, there was a general rush of servants towards her apartment. The stupid porter had begun to be uneasy at Fulvius’s long stay (the reader has now heard his real name), when he saw him dash out of the door like a maniac, and thought he perceived stains of blood upon his garment. He immediately gave the alarm to the entire household.

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.

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.

Strange, too, it proved, that he should not have ever allowed Eurotas to get possession of that family relic, but should, ever since he regained it, have kept it apart as a sacred thing; and when all else was being packed up, should have folded it up and put it in his breast. And now, in the act of drawing out his eastern dagger, he had plucked this out too, and both were found upon the floor.

Dionysius, immediately after dressing the wound, and administering proper restoratives, which brought back consciousness, desired the patient to be left perfectly quiet, to see as few persons as possible, so as to prevent excitement, and to go on with the treatment which he prescribed until midnight. “I will call,” he added, “very early in the morning, when I must see my patient alone.” He whispered a few words in her ear, which seemed to do her more good than all his medicines; for her countenance brightened into an angelic smile.

Fabiola had her placed in her own bed, and, allotting to her attendants the outward room, reserved to herself exclusively the privilege, as she deemed it, of nursing the servant, to whom a few months before she could hardly feel grateful for having tended her in fever. She had informed the others how the wound had been inflicted, concealing the relationship between her assailant and her deliverer.

Although herself exhausted and feverish, she would not leave the bedside of the patient; and when midnight was past, and no more remedies had to be administered, she sank to rest upon a low couch close to the bed. And now what were her thoughts, when, in the dim light of a sick room, she opened her mind and heart to them? They were simple and earnest. She saw at once the reality and truth of all that her servant had ever spoken to her. When she last conversed with her, the principles which she heard with delight, had appeared to her wholly beyond practice, beautiful theories, which could not be brought to action. When Miriam had described a sphere of virtue, wherein no approbation or reward of man was to be expected, but only the approving eye of God, she had admired the idea, which powerfully seized her generous mind; but she had rebelled against its becoming the constraining rule of hourly conduct. Yet, if the stroke under which she cast herself had proved fatal, as it might easily have done, where would have been her reward? What, then, could have been her motive but that very theory, as it seemed, of responsibility to an unseen power?

And when Miriam had discoursed of heroism in virtue as being its ordinary standard, how chimerical the principle had seemed! Yet here, without preparation, without forethought, without excitement, without glory,--nay, with marked desire of concealment, this slave had performed a deed of self-sacrifice, heroic in every way. From what could that result but from habitual heroism of virtue, ready at any hour to do what would ennoble forever a soldier’s name? She was no dreamer, then, no theorist, but a serious, real practiser of all that she taught. Could this be a philosophy? Oh, no, it must be a religion! the religion of Agnes and of Sebastian, to whom she considered Miriam every way equal. How she longed to converse with her again!

Early in the morning, according to his promise, the physician returned, and found his patient much improved. He desired to be left alone with her; when, having spread a linen cloth upon the table, and placed lighted tapers upon it, he drew from his bosom an embroidered scarf, and uncovered a golden box, the sacred contents of which she well knew. Approaching her he said:

“My dear child, as I promised you, I have now brought you not merely the truest remedy of every ailment, bodily and spiritual, but the very Physician Himself, who by His word alone restoreth all things,[215] whose touch opens the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, whose will cleanses lepers, the hem of whose garment sends forth virtue to cure all. Are you ready to receive Him?”

“With all my heart,” she replied, clasping her hands; “I long to possess Him whom alone I have loved, in whom I have believed, to whom my heart belongs.”

“Does no anger or indignation exist in your soul against him who has injured you? does any pride or vanity arise in your mind at the thought of what you have done? or are you conscious of any other fault requiring humble confession and absolution before receiving the sacred gift into your breast?”

“Full of imperfection and sin I know myself to be, venerable father; but I am not conscious of any knowing offence. I have had no need to forgive him to whom you allude; I love him too much for that, and would willingly give my life to save him. And of what have I to be proud, a poor servant, who have only obeyed my Lord’s commands?”

“Invite then, my child, this Lord into your house, that coming He may heal you, and fill you with His grace.”

Approaching the table, he took from it a particle of the Blessed Eucharist, in the form of unleavened bread, which, being dry, he moistened in water, and placed within her lips.[216] She closed them upon it, and remained for some time absorbed in contemplation.

And thus did the holy Dionysius discharge his twofold office of physician and priest, attributed to him on his tomb.