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But Euprepia did not reappear, and Photinius spent the day in an agony of expectation, fearing that she had compromised herself by some imprudence. He gazed on the setting sun with uncontrollable impatience, knowing that it would shine on the Imperial banquet, where so much was to happen. Basil was in fact at that very moment seating himself among a brilliant assemblage.
The stupefaction of the Cardinals on discovering that the Holy Father had lost his hoof surpasses all description, and they went to their graves without having obtained the least insight into the mystery. The minister Photinius had fallen, to the joy of Constantinople.
"What was the impediment?" "The perverse opposition of the cupbearer. It is idle attempting anything of the kind as long as she is about the Emperor." "She!" exclaimed Photinius. "Don't you know that?" responded Eustathius, with an air and manner that plainly said, "You don't know much."
"My dear friend," said Photinius, venturing at this favourable moment on a question he had been dying to ask ever since he had been an inmate of the convent, "would you mind telling me in confidence, did you ever administer any potion of a deleterious nature to his Sacred Majesty?" "Never!" protested Eustathius, with fervour. "I tried once, to be sure, but it was no use."
"For example?" inquired Photinius, who had the best reason for confiding in the efficacy of a drag administered with dexterity and discretion. "Two people must be in the secret at least, if not three," replied Eustathius, "and cooks, as a rule, are a class of persons entirely unfit to be employed in affairs of State." "The Court physician," suggested Photinius.
"My grief is great," answered Photinius, "but my time is small. If I turn not every moment to account, I shall never be prime minister again. But all is over now. Thou wilt denounce me, of course. I will give thee a counsel. Say that thou didst arrive just as we were about to place the effigy of Basil before a slow fire, and melt it into a caldron of bubbling poison."
But long ere this Euprepia, dissolved in tears, her bosom torn by convulsive sobs, had become as inattentive to her parent's discourse as he had been to her interjections. Photinius at last remarked her distress: he was by no means a bad father. "Poor child," he said, "thy nerves are unstrung, and no wonder. It is a terrible risk to run.
This was about all that Photinius hoped to obtain, and he joyfully consented to his daughter's entering the Imperial court, exulting at having got in the thin end of the wedge. She was attached to the person of the Emperor's sister-in-law, the "Slayer of the Bulgarians" himself being a most determined bachelor. Time wore on.
The hoary statesman out of place would sell his daughter, his country, his soul, to regain it: yea, he would part with his skin and his senses, were it possible to hold office without them. I commiserate Photinius, whose faculties are clearly on the decline; the day has been when he would not have wasted his time sticking pins into a waxen figure.
Oh, father, father! what am I to do?" "Nothing romantic or sentimental, I trust, dear child," replied Photinius. "Torture me not, father. I came to thee for counsel." "And counsel shalt thou have, but it must be the issue of mature deliberation.
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