Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 12, 1927 — page 139: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CONRAD THE SAXON. ‘““ A message of the greatest import,” an- swered the priest. ‘“‘ You came here as an exile, my son, and through no actual fault of your own. Now it is my happy duty to tell you that you may return in peace and safety to our native city.” ‘“ Impossible!” cried the young man, in- credulously. ‘‘ Bardas himself told me that there was no hope while the Emperor Basil lived. The emperor is not dead?” ‘The emperor lives, but in the short time that you have been absent, our teeming Roman life has not stood still. Nestorius, a scheming politician and a man of evil life, rashly conspired against the person and power of the emperor—even while he posed as one of the great Basil’s first counselors, and enjoyed the confidence of the Imperial court. I need not tell you that Nestorius is no more, for you know the ways of the emperor.” “ But, even so,’ said Conrad tensely, ‘“T can hardly see how the downfall and death of Nestorius could bring me liberty and reinstatement as a citizen. I talked too much—I was too much given to idle gossip, and a man who is denounced for seditious utterances is never pardoned.” ‘“ The ways of Basil the First are not the ways of his predecessors,” said the priest. ‘“ He is a simple man, while showing com- plexities of character beyond belief; he is simple when seeming most complex. I will spare you the horrible details of the punish- ment of Nestorius. Suffice it to say that Basil ordered for him a death more whimsi- cally ghastly than the executioners of mod- ern times have known. “Then, when the emperor.could do no more to the flesh of Nestorius, he cast about for other means of gratifying his en- during hate. He sought out the multitude of enemies that Nestorius had made for himself, and those that were languishing in prison he pardoned freely, no matter what crimes or offenses against the state they had committed. “The worthy Bardas, you may be sure, was active in behalf of all his friends who had suffered at the hands of Nestorius. Your name was brought before the em- peror’s council, and Bardas employed shrewd advocates to show that you were innocent of evil intent, and were at heart a loyal citizen. With a wave of the Im- perial hand, you and a hundred men like you were granted full pardon and rein- stated to all your rights as Roman citizens of the Eastern Empire.” ‘It is almost past belief!” gasped Con- rad. “If you yourself had not brought me the message, holy father, I should hardly dare give it full credence.” ‘Go back now to your native city, my son,” said the priest, “and you will find your old friends waiting to welcome you with glad hearts. Your estates, your city house and your villa, are restored to you by the Imperial decree—and Bardas bade ‘me say to you that a man is fortunate who comes to the notice of the emperor, even one who has been proscribed. “Tell Conrad to come quickly home,’ said Bardas to me, ‘and who knows what good fortune may not await him, while the emperor is in his present humor? Basil has elevated former enemies of his to high position, merely because his sympathies were transferred from one faction to an- other.’ ” ‘ Home!” Conrad breathed, with shining eyes. ‘‘ What magic there is in the word! I have been something of a wanderer, and I often belittled my native city. It is the weakness of youth to be blind to the charms of familiar things—often until it is too late to reclaim them. Indeed, I shall go home, if ships still cross the channel, and I shall tell Bardas, good father, how diligently you sought to carry out his instructions.” ‘““T, too, would go Home,” murmured the priest, bowing his head dejectedly for a mo- ment. “ What a wilderness it is, this Brit- ain! But we who are in the service of God, we have only one home—God’s heaven. When all is said, there is no earth- ly home for the man of spiritual things. “All these worldly things are part of our preparation, and if we set our hearts too much upon them, we suffer as we de- serve to do. My work is here, where I have been sent, and it only when I yield for a moment to the false emotions of my former state of ignorance, that I grow weak and foolish. : ‘But go you home, my son,’ he added, Gomichbooks 613 (E@)