Chapter II.

"Chione!"

"Magas!"

"Have I found thee at last?"

"Alas!"

Chione covered her face with her hands, her bosom heaved, tears trickled through her fingers; it was no gladsome greeting that she bestowed on her lover, yet it was she who had sought this interview, or rather had given opportunity for it, even while pretending to hide herself, and to shun the meeting she sought.

"A whole year have you been invisible, my Chione; a whole year have I sought you in vain; and, now that we meet, you do not throw your-self into my arms for very joy; you turn away, and your eyes are filled with tears!"

"Alas!"

"You are not glad to see me, Chione; you have lost your love for me!"

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"Oh! would it were so, Magas! would that the sight of you did not move me thus; would I had never known you! Leave me, Magas!"

"Leave you now when, after a year's search, I have found you! Leave you! What is the meaning of this altered tone? Are you no longer Chione? Am I not Magas?"

"It is true," said Chione, in a very low voice; "it is true I am the slave Chione."

"The slave! O Chione! have I not promised you freedom if you but return my love? Last year did I not bid you become to me what Aspasia was to Pericles--my oracle, my inspirer, my divinity! and you left me; and now that your glowing charms have become endued even with a higher lustre; that your voice can at will enkindle each noble emotion while it thrills the soul with ecstasy, now your empire over me is all but overpowering."

"Yet you did not recognize me when I sang in the temple a week ago."

"Not at first; the theme was so strange; it troubled me. But at the first tone uttered in the grove I knew you; I felt that you, and you only, could cause such a thrill as then agitated my whole being. O Chione! you were ever to me as the tenth muse. Say what has caused your absence?"

"Did you heed the words of the last hymn?"

"No, no. How should I? I knew the voice, the voice of my own Chione, who had so long and so mysteriously disappeared, and I listened in the hope of discovering her retreat. I searched, but searched in vain; yet I felt sure it was to me she sang. Now tell me truly, did you not recognize me and address yourself to me?"

"Had you heard the words, you would not have asked that question."

"But I did not hear them. Even of the first I heard nothing distinctly, or at least, nothing that I could understand; of the last, not a word; only the _tones_, the tones of my Chione, singing as of yore to enchant me; it sounded like a wail for other days; a promise, perhaps, for happier ones to come."

"It was neither; it was an invitation to a higher life!"

"A higher life! Yes, a life of love with thee, my Chione. A life of that sublime love where Cupid does honor to the muses, and becomes himself the inspirer of sacred song. Yes, thou wilt not deny it, though, for these eight days past, thou hast kept me on the search for thee. Thou sawest me in the temple, and to me were thy songs directed. I am sure of it; for the serving maidens assured me 'twas a full year since thou hadst thyself ministered there, and none had seen thee since save the daughter of the philosopher of the day, save Lotis only! She acknowledged the lute accompaniment, and that it was thy voice it accompanied."

"The traitress!"

"Nay, she was hard pressed; she could scarcely avoid the avowal. But now, cease this dallying and confess the truth: was not thy song for me?"

But Chione answered no more. Perhaps she was asking that question of her own heart, and could not answer it. She leant against a tree in the grove in which they were standing and sobbed bitterly, but no reply issued from her lips. At this juncture a stately personage approached, whom Magas perceiving, saluted with the respect due to his evident dignity. Chione, with her veil gathered around her, had her features turned toward the tree, her agitation betraying itself, however, by slight convulsions of her frame. {673} The stranger paused, and looked from one to the other. Magas was evidently a stranger to him; but when, surprised at the sudden silence, the maiden for an instant changed her posture, and the stranger uttered, in amazement, the name Chione, she started, gazed distractedly, and, in an instant, fled from the spot like an arrow shot from a bow, so swiftly did she disappear.

Magas would have followed; but the stranger, speaking in a courteous tone, yet with an authority he dared not disobey, inquired: "Is that young damsel of your kindred, my son?"

"Not so, my lord," said Magas; "I knew her a year ago, when she ministered in the temple of the muses. Her ravishing voice then enkindled all hearts; but she disappeared suddenly, and to-day I first encounter her after a long absence."

"She is a slave, as perhaps you know already."

"She would adorn a diadem," fiercely rejoined Magas.

"I see how it is," softly rejoined the elder man; "beware, my son; set not your heart on one beyond your reach. Gold cannot purchase Chione. You will find others as fair, others who will serve you more readily in that very temple from which Chione has been taken. Pursue not one who belongs to another master."

"Who is her master now?" asked Magas impetuously.

"You must forgive me for not answering you," replied the sage; "in your present humor, it would but bring disorder to the state."

"One word," said Magas, springing forward so as to prevent the old man from departing; "one word Is it yourself?"

"It is not, my son," replied the other gently, as, slightly pushing by the young man, he left him with a passing salute.

Magas remained rooted to the spot, knitting his brows and gnashing his teeth with vexation. "So near the goal of all my hopes, and so suddenly foiled; but I will find her yet; and if gold will buy her, well! if not, why, other means must be tried."

......

It is no longer a grove yielding its pleasant shades in the sunny light of the beautiful climate of Greece; it is no longer the impassioned tone of Magas pouring the honeyed tones of flattering love into her ear; the slave is at the feet of her mistress, in the women's apartment of a small but elegantly adorned dwelling near unto the city, and again she is bathed in tears. Yet the voice in which she is addressed is more sorrowful than angry; the tones are rather those of a grieving mother than of an enraged mistress. But there was a decision, a firmness in the voice that told the lady was not to be trifled with.

"What is this I hear of thee, my poor child?"

"Forgive me, dearest lady, forgive me, Lady Damaris."

"It is not a question of personal offence, my Chione; thou hast injured thyself, not me. A year ago, thou didst put on Christ, and vow allegiance to the one true God. Wilt thou now forsake him, to follow thy own passion?"

"I have not forsaken Christ! I will never, never forsake him."

"No? then why dally with the tempter? why seek again what thou hast once abjured? When our holy bishop rescued thee from the service of the pagan altars, at thine own earnest entreaty, and brought thee here, to serve the Lord Jesus, didst thou not renounce paganism, its vices, its crimes, its _sweets_ as well as its _bitters?_"

"I renounce them still."

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"And yet thou goest to a pagan temple, to attract the notice of a young pagan noble, the enemy of our faith!"

"I went not for that purpose, madam, though it ended so. I went to see Lotis, as I told you; she was seeking instruction from me as of yore; you are aware she was my pupil in music."

"And you gave it her, by causing her to help you attract your former admirer; fie! Chione, your tale hangs not well together."

"Lady, believe me, I knew not of the presence of Magas, until I saw him there; I was not thinking of him, until he stood beside the pillar within which I was concealed. It was on a sudden impulse that I acted. Lotis was beside me with her lute; we were both effectually concealed within one of those hollow, vaulted recesses used for emitting the more mysterious sounds of the deities, and which are known to so few that I felt myself doubly secure, when the sight of him who could not see me caused a rush of blood to my head; I gave Lotis a signal, which she obeyed, as thinking, perhaps, I had again a part in the performance as I used to have, and I sang, not of the muse, save as a thing of the past."

"I know you cannot believe in paganism again, Chione," said the lady solemnly; "it is not your _head_ that is likely to be misled, at least not in the first instance. I fear your _passions_, not your understanding. The rush of blood was, methinks, to your heart, rather than to your head."

"Lady, I love my religion, or I should not have desired to leave the temple; I was honored there."

"Yes, Chione; and here you are not honored in a way that flatters your self-love; and that is why, after a year of trial, you seek the flattery of Magas, rather than the unimpassioned love of your Christian friends. Yet their love is less selfish, more sincere."

"It is cold, cold," muttered Chione. Aloud she said, "Madam, I dare assure you, my faith is as vivid now as it was a year ago."

"My poor child!" said the lady, laying her hand upon Chione's head, "go for to-night; another day, we will resume the subject. You are under the influence of passion at this moment; you know neither your own strength nor your own weakness; you scarcely know what you believe, what you doubt. Your passions are awakened, your self-love aroused, and perhaps wounded. These must be _subdued_; not by the exercise of the understanding, which is powerless against such formidable enemies; but by _faith_, which is the exercise of the _heart_ in God; for with the heart man believeth unto justice. [Footnote 58] If, as you say, your faith is as vivid now as it was a year ago, go and exercise it in prayer, and I too will pray with you, my poor child, that our hearts may be fashioned after the pattern shown us in the mount."

[Footnote 58: Rom. x. 10.]

Poor Chione! the tenth muse! with every pulse palpitating to the inspirations of poetical and musical genius--a genius which in her panted for expression, and nourished itself at the shrine of self-love. Poor Chione! bred an orphan in the temple of the muses; gifted with more than ordinary powers of mind, which had been cultivated even by the residence which had been hers from infancy; endowed with grace, beauty, and intelligence; fostered by the praises of Magas, who, from being the patron of the beautiful and interesting child, had become the admirer of the still and ever increasing loveliness of the maiden. {675} Poor Chione! The truths of Christianity unfolded to her by Merion, her uncle, also a slave, at a time when her understanding was about to reject the mockeries of a worship beautiful and fanciful indeed, but sustained by no interior power, appealing to no standard on which she could rely unhesitatingly, had taken hold of her imagination, had captivated her by their beauty, their coherence, their consistency. They were the realization of her fondest dreams, the filling up of the most beautiful pictures that her fancy had ever painted; they were a logical appeal to her understanding; and because they were all these, she adopted them, not beginning to comprehend the _interior_ spirit, not fathoming even to the first degree, the mystery of the cross, _that stumbling-block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks._ [Footnote 59] Chione's understanding was Christ's, and her imagination also, because the metaphysical propositions of the apostle met her approval, and the poetry and imagery of the church claimed her admiration; but her _heart_ seemed still untouched, her thoughts still centred in herself, her loves and her hatreds still found their source in human passion. She judged all things as yet by a mere outward, human standard; and the tragic scenes recounted in the Gospels but moved her in the same manner, though in a higher degree, as would a tragedy of Sophocles or Euripides. They excited her feelings to admiration, nay to adoration; but for the regulation of the dispositions of her heart, they were not yet brought into play.

[Footnote 59: I Cor. i. 23.]

In fact, she was disappointed in religion, although she did not confess her disappointment even to herself. Up to the time she had become a Christian, all things had ministered to her self-love. When, yielding to the preaching of Merion, (for such it was, although addressed to so limited an audience,) she had besought his intercession to be removed from a place where, as her years increased, her beauty and position as a slave exposed her to danger, she had counted on _being appreciated_ by the society which she entered; and as she had heard of many slaves having been set free by the Christians on account of the esteem in which they were held, she, fancying herself a very superior being to the generality of slaves, (her beauty, grace, and genius having ever called forth such unqualified admiration,) could not but deem that she should soon be accounted well worthy of such an advantage. When, then, she found herself at the age of sixteen, secluded in the household of the Lady Damaris, treated kindly, but not specially indulged; when she saw that her mistress, far from deeming her a prodigy, seemed to find in her serious failings needing correction, and that a probation was deemed necessary ere allowing her to profess the faith; she was more hurt than she permitted to appear: and the seclusion to which she had committed herself, when requesting to be transferred from the muses' temple to the silence and retirement practised by the household of the Lady Damaris, weighed upon her spirit, for it gave no scope to the love of display which excited her genius to pleasurable expression. Her intellectual convictions, indeed, remained unchanged, but her heart sought other interests than those around her; and when it appeared that one after another of the slaves attached to the lady received their freedom, according as they demonstrated to the satisfaction of their mistress that they were likely to make a good use of it, but that no hint was ever given to herself that she might expect a like boon, she began to wax impatient, to tax her mistress with partiality, and finally to raise the question whether she had not a right to free herself from tyranny. {676} Tyranny! The only restraint exercised in her regard was such as a tender mother's vigilance would deem necessary. She saw not that, at her years, the protection of the Lady Damaris was the greatest benefit this world could give her, accompanied as it was by genuine kindness, and an earnest desire to cultivate her heart and her understanding in the right direction.

Freedom! exterior, freedom for a girl of sixteen! this became her dream by night, her exclusive idea by day, and in acting upon the idea, she often violated the rules the noble and charitable lady had laid down for the regulation of her household.

On an occasion of this kind it was that she had visited the muses' temple, saying to herself that it was to give instruction to her former companion, whom she so much desired to meet again. There the sight of Magas had brought back all the flatteries and self-exulting thoughts of former days. She had then refrained from making herself known, for--a slave! and the noble Magas!--her heart revolted at the thought of what such a connection must be! A year ago she had fled from it; her pride had sustained her then; she had called it her virtue. Now she felt the need of his praises; now she longed for his sweet flatteries; the voice of truth had been too harsh for her self-love. She needed adulation, passionate adoration. Would Magas give it her? She had heard his exclamation recognizing her voice: from her hiding-place she had seen the zeal with which he had sought her; and eight days afterward, by dint of watching, she had contrived to meet him as if by accident, as we have seen; and what was to be the result?