A Romance of Two Worlds

The faces of those he addressed exhibited various emotions while he spoke--fear contending with a good deal of shame. The little Greek page stepped forward timidly.

"The master knows that I will never leave him," he murmured, and his large eyes were moist with tears.

Heliobas laid a gentle hand on the boy's dark curls, but said nothing. One of the four Armenians advanced, and with a graceful rapid gesture of his right hand, touched his head and breast.

"My lord will not surely dismiss US who desire to devote ourselves to his service? We are willing to follow my lord to the death if need be, for the sake of the love and honour we bear him."

Heliobas looked at him very kindly.

"I am richer in friends than I thought myself to be," he said quietly. "Stay then, by all means, Afra, you and your companions, since you have desired it. And you, my boy," he went on, addressing the tearful page, "think you that I would turn adrift an orphan, whom a dying mother trusted to my care? Nay, child, I am as much your servant as you are mine, so long as your love turns towards me."

For all answer the page kissed his hand in a sort of rapture, and flinging back his clustering hair from his classic brows, surveyed the domestics, who had taken their dismissal in silent acquiescence, with a pretty scorn.

"Go, all of you, scum of Paris!" he cried in his clear treble tones-- "you who know neither God nor devil! You will have your money--more than your share--what else seek you? You have served one of the noblest of men; and because he is so great and wise and true, you judge him a fiend! Oh, so like the people of Paris--they who pervert all things till they think good evil and evil good! Look you! you have worked for your wages; but I have worked for HIM--I would starve with him, I would die for him! For to me he is not fiend, but Angel!"

Overcome by his own feelings the boy again kissed his master's hand, and Heliobas gently bade him be silent. He himself looked round on the still motionless group of servants with an air of calm surprise.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked. "Consider yourselves dismissed, and at liberty to go where you please. Any one of you that chooses to apply to me for a character shall not lack the suitable recommendation. There is no more to say."