Skip to main content

Full text of "Hypatia : [or, New foes with an old face]"

See other formats 


This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 
to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 
publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 

We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 


at |http : //books . google . com/ 



' * -' 



• f 


n 







*' *^ well-grown lad and a brave one^ said the gtant,^* 

Page 36. 


\~^ ' < v* ■ * *"yjt*j 


mmm^ 



J!^' 




ik* 





'« "it-Aii ■-, 3ir?* . '*„4'Viii ^■"'5^ 


,.r.i.»; 9 


' ' -i '''/.rrv i;;..',' \:..'.<'/ ^''', ^lani 


^ 



r 


Hypatia 


By 


CUarUs Ki.^sUy 


Thomas Nelson and Sons 

London^ Edinburgh^ and New York 

igo3 


Uniform with this 
Volume. 


Cl)arles 
Kiiidstep's 

'WESTWARD HO!" 


ADQJAdZ 


CONTENTS. 


/. 

The Laura, 

I 

II. 

Th^ Dying World, 

13 

Ill 

TTie Goths, 

32 

IV, 

Miriam, 

. 46 

V, 

A Day in Alexandria, 

60 

VL 

The New Diogenes, 

. 85 

VIL 

Those by whom Offences Come, 

95 

VIIL 

The East Wind, ... 

III 

IX, 

The Snapping of the Bow, ... 

. 129 

X. 

The Interview, 

. 139 

XT. 

The Laura Again, 

• 151 

XII, 

The Bower of Acrasia, 

. 162 

XIII 

The Bottom of the Abyss, ... 

. 174 

XIV. 

The Rocks of the Sirens, 

. 198 

XV. 

Nephelococcugia, ... 

. 206 

XVI 

Venus and Pallas, 

. 216 

XVII 

A Stray Gleam, ... 

. 234 

XVIII 

The Prefect Tested, 

. 244 

X/X. 

J eivs against Christians, 

I a 

259 


vi 

CONTENTS 

XX, 

She Stoops to Conquer t 


XXI. 

The Squire-Bishop, 

...'^ 

XXII. 

Pandemonium, . . . 


XXIIL 

Nemesis, 


XXIV, 

Lost Lambs, 

:^ 

XXV. 

Seeking after a Sign, 


XXVI. 

Miriam's Plot, ... 


XXVII. 

The Prodigal's Return, 

.^ 

xxvin. 

Woman's Love, . . . 


XXIX. 

Nemesis, 


XXX. 

Every Man to His own 

Place, 


273 
299 

330 

347 
352 
372 
388 
404 

425 
433 
446 


HYPATIA; 

OR, 

NEW FOES WITH AN OLD FACE. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE LAURA* 


IN the four hundred and thirteenth year of the Christian 
era, some three hundred miles above Alexandria, 
the young monk Philammon was sitting on the edge of 
a low range of inland cUffs, crested with drifting sand. 
Behind him the desert sand -waste stretched, Hfeless, 
interminable, reflecting its lurid glare on the horizon 
of the cloudless vault of blue. At his feet the sand 
dripped and trickled in yellow rivulets, from crack to 
crack and ledge to ledge, or whirled past him in tiny 
jets of yellow smoke, before the fitful summer airs. Here 
and there, upon the face of the difis which walled in the 
opposite side of the narrow glen below, were cavernous 
tombs, huge old quarries, with obelisks and half-cut 
pillars, standing as the workmen had left them centuries 
before ; the sand was sHpping down and piling up around 
them, their heads were frosted with the arid snow ; 
everywhere was silence, desolation — the grave of a dead 
nation, in a dying land. And there he sat musing above 
it all, full of hfe and youth and health and beauty — a 
yoimg Apollo of the desert. His only clothing was a 
ragged sheepskin, bound with a leathern girdle. His 
long black locks, xmshom from childhood, waved and 


2 HYPATIA. 

glistened in the sun ; a rich dark down on cheek and 
chin showed the spring of healthful manhood ; his hard 
hands and sinewy sunburnt limbs told of labour and 
endurance ; his flashing eyes and beetling brow, of daring, 
fancy, passion, thought, which had no sphere of action 
in such a place. What did his glorious young humanity 
alone among the tombs ? 

So perhaps he too thought, as he passed his hand 
across his brow, as if to sweep away some gathering 
dream, and sighing, rose and wandered along the cliffs, 
peering downward at every point and cranny, in search 
of fuel for the monastery from whence he came. 

Simple as was the material which he sought, consisting 
chiefly of the low arid desert shrubs, with now and then 
a fragment of wood from some deserted quarry or ruin, 
it was becoming scarcer and scarcer round Abbot Pambo's 
Laura at Scetis ; and long before Philammon had col- 
lected his daily quantity, he had strayed farther from his 
home than he had ever been before. 

Suddenly, at a turn of the glen, he came upon a sight 
new to him ... a temple carven in the sandstone cliff ; 
and in front a smooth platform, strewn with beams and 
mouldering tools, and here and there a skull bleaching 
among the sand, perhaps of some workman slaughtered 
at his labour in one of the thousand wars of old. The 
abbot, his spiritual father — ^indeed, the only father whom 
he knew, for his earliest recollections were of the Laura 
and the old man's cell — ^had strictly forbidden him to 
enter, even to approach, any of those rehcs of ancient 
idolatry ; but a broad terrace-road led down to the plat- 
form from the table-land above : the plentiful supply of 
fuel was too tempting to be passed by. ... He would go 
down, gather a few sticks, and then return, to tell the 
abbot of the treasure which he had found, and consult 
him as to the propriety of revisiting it. 

So down he went, hardly daring to raise his eyes to 
the alluring iniquities of the painted imagery which, 
gaudy and crimson and blue, still blazed out upon the 
desolate solitude, uninjured by that rainless air. But 
he was young, and youth is curious ; and the devil, at 


HYPATIA. 3 

least in the fifth century, busy with young brains. Now 
Philammon believed most utterly in the devil, and night 
and day devoutly prayed to be dehvered from him ; so 
he crossed himself, and ejaculated, honestly enough, 
" Lord, turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity ! " 
. . . and looked nevertheless. . . . 

And who could have helped looking at those four colos- 
sal kings, who sat there grim and motionless, their huge 
hands laid upon their knees in everlasting self-assured 
repose, seeming to bear up the mountain on their stately 
heads ? A sense of awe, weakness, all but fear, came 
over him. He dare not stoop to take up the wood at his 
feet, their great stern eyes watched him so steadily. 

Round their knees and round their thrones were mystic 
characters engraven, symbol after symbol, Hne below 
line — the ancient wisdom of the Egj^tians, wherein 
Moses the man of God was learned of old — ^why should 
not he know it too ? What awful secrets might not be 
hidden there about the great world, past, present, and 
future, of which he knew only so small a speck ? Those 
kings who sat there, they had known it all ; their sharp 
lips seemed parting, ready to speak to him. . . . Oh that 
they would speak for once ! . . . and yet that grim sneer- 
ing smile, that seemed to look down on him from the 
heights of their power and wisdom, with calm contempt 
, . . him, the poor youth, picking up the leaving and 
rags of their past majesty. ... He dared look at them 
no more. » 

So he looked past them into the temple halls — ^into a 
lustrous abyss of cool green shade, deepening on and 
inward, pillar after pillar, vista after vista, into deepest 
night. And dimly through the gloom he could descry, 
on every wall and column, gorgeous arabesques, long 
lines of pictured story ; triumphs and labours ; rows of 
captives in foreign and fantastic dresses, leading strange 
animals, bearing the tributes of unknown lands ; rows of 
ladies at feasts, their heads crowned with garlands, the 
fragrant lotus-flower in every hand, while slaves brought 
wine and perfumes, and children sat upon their knees, 
and husbands by their side ; and dancing girls, in trans- 


4 HYPATIA, 

parent robes and golden girdles, tossed their tawny limbs 
wildly among the throng, . . . What was the meaning 
of it all ? Why had it all been ? Why had it gone on 
thus, the great world, century after century, millennium 
after millennium, eating and drinking, and marrying and 
giving in marriage, and knowing nothing better . . . how 
could they know anything better ? Their forefathers 
had lost the Hght ages and ages before they were bom, 
. . . And Christ had not come for ages and ages after 
they were dead. . . . How could they know ? , . , And 
yet they were all in hell . , , every one of them. lEvery 
one of these ladies who sat there, with her bushy locks, 
and garlands, and jewelled collars, and lotus-flowers, and 
gauzy dress, displaying all her slender limbs — ^who, per- 
haps, when she was alive, smiled so sweetly, and went 
so gaily, and had children, and friends, and never once 
thought of what was going to happen to her — ^what must 
happen to her, . . . She was in hell. , . . Burning for 
ever, and ever, and ever, there below his feet. He stared 
down on the rocky floor3. If he could but see through 
them . . , and the eye of faith could see through them 
. . , he should behold her writhing and twisting among 
the flickering flame, scorched, glowing ... in everlasting 
agony, such as the thought of enduring for a moment 
made him shudder. He had burnt his bands once, when 
a palm-leaf hut caught fire. . , . He recollected what 
that was like. . . , She was enduring ten thousand times 
more than that for ever. ... He should hear her shriek- 
ing in vain for a drop of water to cool her tongue. . . . 
He had never heard a human being shriek but once . , , 
a boy bathing on the opposite Nile bank, whom a croco- 
dile had dragged down . . . and that scream, faint and 
distant as it came across the mighty tide, had rung in- 
tolerable in his ears for days . . , and to think of all 
which echoed through those vaults of fire — for ever ! 
Was the thought bearable ! — ^was it possible ! Millions 
upon millions burning for ever for Adam's fall. . . . 
Could God be just in that ? . . . 

It was the temptation of a fiend \ He had entered 
the imhallowed precincts, where devils still lingered 


HYPATIA. 5 

about their ancient shrines ; he had let his eyes devour 
the abominations of the heathen, and given place to the 
devil. He would flee home to confess it all to his father. 
He would punish him as he deserved, pray for him, for- 
give him. And yet could he tell him all ? Could he, 
dare he confess to him the whole truth — the insatiable 
craving to know the mysteries of learning — to see the 
great roaring world of men, which had been growing up 
in him slowly, month after month, till now it had assumed 
this fearful shape ? He could stay no longer in the 
desert. This world which sent all souls to hell — was it 
as bad as monks declared it was ? It must be, else how 
could such be the fruit of it ? But it was too awful a 
thought to be taken on trust. No ; he must go and see. 

Filled with such fearful questionings, half inarticulate 
and vague, hke the thoughts of a child, the untutored 
youth went wandering on, till he reached the edge of the 
cHff below which lay his home. 

It lay pleasantly enough, that lonely Laura, or lane of 
rude Cyclopean cells, under the perpetual shadow of the 
southern wall of crags, amid its grove of ancient date- 
trees. A branching cavern in the cHff supplied the pur- 
poses of a chapel, a storehouse, and a hospital ; while on 
the sunny slope across the glen lay the common gardens 
of the brotherhood, green with millet, maize, and beans, 
among which a tiny streamlet, husbanded and guided 
with the most thrifty care, wandered down from the cHff 
foot, and spread perpetual verdure over the little plot 
which voluntary and fraternal labour had painfully re- 
deemed from the inroads of the all-devouring sand. For 
that garden, like everything else in the Laura, except 
each brother's seven feet of stone sleeping-hut, was the 
common property, and therefore the common care and 
joy of all. For the common good, as weU as for his own, 
each man had toiled up the glen with his palm-leaf basket 
of black mud from the river Nile, over whose broad 
sheet of silver the glen's mouth yawned abrupt. For the 
conunon good each man had swept the ledges clear of 
sand, and sown in the scanty artificial soil the harvest 
of which all were to share alike. To buy clothes, 


6 HYPATIA. 

books, and chapel furniture for the common necessities, 
education, and worship, each man sat, day after day, 
week after week, his mind full of high and heavenly 
thoughts, weaving the leaves of their little palm copse 
into baskets, which an aged monk exchanged for goods 
with the more prosperous and frequented monasteries of 
the opposite bank. Thither Philammon rowed the old 
man over, week by week, in a light canoe of papjnrus, 
and fished, as he sat waiting for him, for the common 
meal. A simple, happy, gentle life was that of the Laura, 
all portioned out by rules and methods, which were held 
hardly less sacred than those of the Scriptures, on which 
they were supposed (and not so wrongly either) to have 
been framed. Each man had food and raiment, shelter 
on earth, friends and counsellors, Hving trust in the con- 
tinual care of Almighty God ; and, blazing before his 
eyes by day and night, the hope of everlasting glory be- 
yond all poets' (keams. . . . And what more would 
man have had in those days ? Thither they had fled 
out of cities compared with which Paris is earnest and 
Gomorrha chaste — out of a rotten, infernal, dying world 
of tjnrants and slaves, hypocrites and wantons — to ponder 
undisturbed on duty and on judgment, on death and 
eternity, heaven and hell; to find a common creed, a 
common interest, a conmaon hope, common duties, pleas- 
ures, and sorrows. . . . True, they had many of them 
fled from the post where God had placed them, when 
they fled from man into the Thebaid waste. . . . What 
sort of post and what sort of an age they were from 
which those old monks fled we shall see, perhaps, before 
this tale is told out. 

" Thou art late, son," said the abbot, steadfastly 
working away at his palm basket, as Philammon ap- 
proached. 

" Fuel is scarce, and I was forced to go far." 
" A monk should not answer till he is questioned. I did 
not ask the reason. Where didst thou find that wood ? " 
" Before the temple, far up the glen." 
" The temple ! What didst thou see there ? " 
No answer. Pambo looked up with his keen black eye. 


HYPATIA. 7 

" Thou hast entered it, and lusted after its abomina- 
tions." 

" I— I did not enter ; but I looked " 

** And what didst thou see ? — ^women ? " 

Philammon was silent. 

" Have I not bidden you never to look on the face of 
women ? Are they not the firstfruits of the devil, the 
authors of all evil, the subtlest of all Satan's snares ? 
Are they not accursed for ever, for the deceit of their first 
mother, by whom sin entered into the world ? A woman 
first opened the gates of hell ; and, until this day, they 
are the portresses thereof. Unhappy boy ! What hast 
thou done ? " 

" They were but painted on the walls." 

** Ah ! " said the abbot, as if suddenly reheved from a 
heavy burden. " But how knewest thou them to be 
women, when thou hast never yet, unless thou Hest — 
which I beheve not of thee — seen the face of a daughter 
of Eve ? " 

'* Perhaps — ^perhaps," said Philammon, as if suddenly 
reheved by a new suggestion — " perhaps they were only 
devils. They must have been, I think, for liiey were so 
very beautiful." 

** Ah ! how knowest thou that devils are beauti- 
ful ? " 

'* I was launching the boat, a week ago, with Father 
Aufugus ; and on the bank, . . . not very near, . . . 
there were two creatures . . . with long hair, and striped 
all over the lower half of their bodies with black, and 
red, and yellow . . . and they were gathering flowers 
on the shore. Father Aufugus turned away ; but I . . . 
I could not help thinking them the most beautiful things 
that I had ever seen ... so I asked him why he turned 
away ; and he said that those were the same sort of 
devils which tempted the blessed St. Anthony. Then 
I recollected having heard it read aloud, how Satan 
tempted Anthony in the shape of a beautiful woman. 
. . . And so . . . and so . . . those figures on the wall 
were very hke . . . and I thought they might be . . ." 

And the poor boy, who considered that he was making 
id 


8 HYPATIA. 

confession of a deadly and shameful sin, blushed scarlet, 
and stammered, and at last stopped. 

" And thou thoughtest them beautiful ? O utter 
corruption of the flesh ! — O subtilty of Satan ! The 
Lord forgive thee, as I do, my poor child ; henceforth 
thou goest not beyond the garden walls." 

" Not beyond the walls ! Impossible ! I cannot ! 
If thou wert not my father, I would say I will not ! I 
must have Hberty I I must see for myself — I must judge 
for myself what this world is of which you all talk so 
bitterly. I long for no pomps and vanities. I will 
promise you this moment, if you will, never to re-enter 
a heathen temple — to hide my face in the dust whenever 
I approach a woman. But I must — I must see the world ; 
I must see the great mother church in Alexandria, and 
the patriarch, and his clergy. If they can serve God in 
the city, why not I ? I could do more for God there than 
here. . . . Not that I despise this work — not that I am 
ungrateful to you — oh, never, never that ! — ^but I pant 
for the battle. Let me go ! I am not discontented 
with you, but with myself. I know that obedience is 
noble ; but danger is nobler still. If you have seen the 
world, why shoiild not I ? If you have fled from it be- 
cause you found it too evil to live in, why should not I, 
and return to you here of my own wiQ, never to leave 
you ? . . . And yet Cyril and his clergy have not fled 
from it. . . . " 

Desperately and breathlessly did Philammon drive 
this speech out of his inmost heart ; and then waited, 
expecting the good abbot to strike him on the spot. If 
he had, the yoimg man would have submitted patiently ; 
so would any man, however venerable, in that monastery. 
Why not ? Duly, after long companionship, thought, 
and prayer, they had elected Pambo for their abbot — 
abba — father — the wisest, eldest hearted and headed of 
them ; if he was that, it was time that he should be obeyed. 
And obeyed he was, with a loyal, reasonable love, and 
yet with an implicit, soldier-like obedience, which many 
a king and conqueror might envy. Were they cowards 
and slaves ? The Roman legionaries should be good 


HYPATIA. 9 

judges on that point. : ; ; They used to say that no 
armed barbarian, Goth or Vandal, Moor or Spaniard, 
was so terrible as the unarmed monk of the Thebaid. 

Twice the old man Hfted his staff to strike ; twice he 
laid it down again ; and then, slowly rising, left Philam- 
mon kneeling there, and moved away deliberately, and 
with eyes fixed on the groimd, to the house of the brother 
Aufugus. 

Every one in the Laura honoured Aufugus. There 
was a mystery about him which heightened the charm 
of his surpassing sanctity, his childlike sweetness and 
humility. It was whispered— when the monks seldom 
and cautiously did whisper together in their lonely walks 
— ^that he had been once a great man ; that he had come 
from a great city— perhaps from Rome itself. And the 
simple monks were proud to think that they had 
among them a man who had seen Rome. At least, 
Abbot Pambo respected him. He was never beaten ; 
never even reproved — ^perhaps he never required It ; 
but still it was the meed of all ; and was not the abbot 
a little partial ? Yet, certainly, when Theophilus sent 
up a messenger from Alexandria, rousing every Laura 
with the news of the sack of Rome by Alaric, did not 
Pambo take him first to the cell of Aufugus, and sit with 
him there three whole hours in secret consultation, be- 
fore he told the awful story to the rest of the brother* 
hood ? And did not Aufugus himself give letters to the 
messenger, written with his own hand, containing, as was 
said, deep secrets of worldly pohcy, known only to him- 
self ? So, when the Httle lane of holy men, each peering 
stealthily over his plaiting work from the doorway of his 
sandstone cell, saw the abbot, after his unwonted passion, 
leave the culprit kneehng, and take his way toward the 
sage's dwelling, they judged that something strange and 
deHcate had befallen the common weal, and each wished, 
without envy, that he were as wise as the man whose 
coimsel was to solve the difiiculty. 

For an hour or more the abbot remained there, talking 
earnestly and low ; and then a solemn sound as of the 
two old men prajdng with sobs and tears ; and every 


lO HYPATIA. 

brother bowed his head, and whispered a hope that He 
whom they served might guide them for the good of the 
Laura, and of His Church, and of the great heathen world 
beyond ; and still Philammon knelt motionless, await- 
ing his sentence ; his heart filled— who can tell how ? 
" The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger 
intermeddleth not with its joy." So thought he as he 
knelt ; and so think I, too, knowing that in the pettiest 
character there are unfathomable depths, which the poet, 
all-seeing though he may pretend to be, can never analyze, 
but must only dimly guess at, and still more diinly 
sketch them by the actions which they beget. 

At last Pambo returned, deliberate, still, and slow as 
he had gone, and seating himself within his cell, spoke : — 

" And the youngest said. Father, give me the portion 
of goods that falleth to my share. . . . And he took his 
journey into a far country, and there wasted his sub- 
stance with riotous Hving. Thou shalt go, my son. But 
first come after me, and speak with Aufugus." 

Philammon, like every one else, loved Aufugus ; and 
when the abbot retired and left the two alone together, 
he felt no dread or shame about unburdening his whole 
heart to him. Long and passionately he spoke, in answer 
to the gentle questions of the old man, who, without the 
rigidity or pedantic solemnity of the monk, interrupted the 
youth, and let himself be interrupted in return, gracefully, 
genially, almost playfully. And yet there was a melancholy 
about his tone as he answered to the youth's appeal, — 

"TertuUian, Origen, Clement, Cyprian — 2dl these 
moved in the world ; all these and many more beside, 
whose names we honour, whose prayers we invoke, were 
learned in the wisdom of the heathen, and fought and 
laboured, unspotted, in the world ; and why not I ? 
Cyril the patriarch himself, was he not called from the 
caves of Nitria to sit on the throne of Alexandria ? " 

Slowly the old man lifted his hand, and putting back 
the thick locks of the kneeling youth, gazed, wit£ soft, 
pitying eyes, long and earnestly into his face. 

" And thou wouldst see the world, poor fool I and 
thou wouldst see the world ? " 


HYP ATI A. II 

" I would convert the world ! " 

" Thou must know it first. And shall I tell thee what 
that world is Hke, which seems to thee so easy to convert ? 
Here I sit, the poor unknown old monk, until I die, fasting 
and prajdng, if perhaps God will have mercy on my soul ; 
but little thou knowest how I have seen it. Little thou 
knowest, or thou wouldst be well content to rest here till 
the end. I was Arsenius. ... Ah ! vain old man that 
I am ! Thou hast never heard that name, at which once 
queens would whisper and grow pale. Vanitas vanitatum ! 
omnia vanitas! And yet he at whose frown half the 
world trembles has trembled himself at mine. I was 
the tutor of Arcadius." 

*' The Emperor of Byzantium ? " 

" Even so, my son, even so. There I saw the world 
which thou wouldst see. And what saw I ? Even what 
thou wilt see. Eunuchs the tyrants of their own sover- 
eigns. Bishops kissing the feet of parricides and harlots. 
Saints tearing saints in pieces for a word, while sinners 
cheer them on to the unnatural fight. Liars thanked 
for Ij^ng, h5^ocrites rejoicing in their hypocrisy. The 
many sold and butchered for the malice, the caprice, 
the vanity of the few. The plunderers of the poor plun- 
dered in their turn by worse devourers than themselves. 
Every attempt at reform the parent of worse scandals ; 
every mercy begetting fresh cruelties ; every persecutor 
silenced, only to enable others to persecute him in their 
turn ; every devil who is exorcised returning with seven 
others worse than himself ; falsehood and selfishness, 
spite and lust, confusion seven times confounded, Satan 
casting out Satan everywhere — from the emperor who 
wantons on his throne to the slave who blasphemes 
beneath Lis fetters." 

" If Satan cast out Satan, his kingdom shall not stand." 

" In the world to come. But in this world it shall 
stand and conquer, even worse and worse, until the end. 
These are the last days spoken of by the prophets, the 
beginning of woes such as never have been on the earth 
before — * On earth distress of nations with perplexity, 
men's hearts failing them for fear, and for the dread of 


12 HYPATIA. 

those things which are coming on the eaxtb," I have 
seen it long. Year after year I have watched them 
coming nearer and ever nearer in their course Hke the 
whirling sandstorms of the desert, which sweep past the 
caravan, and past again, and yet overwhelm it after all 
— that black flood of the northern barbarians. I fore- 
told it ; I prayed against it ; but, Uke Cassandra's of 
old, my prophecy and my prayers were alike imheard. 
My pupil spumed my warnings. The lusts of youth, 
the intrigues of courtiers, were stronger than the warning 
voice of God. Then I ceased to hope ; I ceased to pray 
for the glorious city, for I knew that her sentence was 
gone forth ; I saw her in the spirit, even as St. John saw 
her in the Revelation — her, and her sins, and her ruin. 
And I fled secretly at night, and buried myself here in 
the desert, to await the end of the world. Night and 
day I pray the Lord to accompUsh His elect, and to hasten 
His kingdom. Morning by morning I look up trembUng, 
and yet in hope, for the sign of the Son of man in heaven, 
when the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon 
into blood, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the 
skies pass away Hke a scroll, and the fountains of the nether 
fire burst up around our feet, and the end of all shall come. 
And thou wouldst go into the world from which I fled ? " 

'* If the harvest be at hand, the Lord needs labourers. 
If the times be awful, I should be doing awful things in 
them. Send me, and let that day find me, where I long 
to be, in the forefront of the battle of the Lord.'' 

** The Lord's voice be obeyed ! Thou shalt go. Here 
are letters to Cyril the patriarch. He wiU love thee for 
my sake ; and for thine own sake, too, I trust. Thou 
goest of our free will as well as thine own. The abbot 
and I have watched thee long, knowing that the Lord had 
need of such as thee elsewhere. We did but prove thee, 
to see by thy readiness to obey whether thou wert fit 
to rule. Go, and God be with thee. Covet no man's 
gold or silver. Neither eat flesh nor drink wine, but live 
as thou hast Hved — a Nazarite of the Lord. Fear not 
the face of man ; but look not on the face of woman. 
In an evil hour came they into the world, the mothers of 


HYPATIA. 13 

all mischiefs which I have seen under the sun. Come ; 
the abbot waits for us at the gate." 

With tears of surprise, joy, sorrow, almost of dread, 
Philammon hung back. 

" Nay — come. Why shouldst thou break thy breth- 
ren's hearts and ours by many leave-takings ? Bring 
from the storehouse a week's provision of dried dates and 
millet. The papyrus boat lies at the ferry ; thou shalt 
descend in it. The Lord will replace it for us when we 
need it. Speak with no man on the river except the 
monks of God. When thou hast gone five days' journey 
downward, ask for the mouth of the canal of Alexandria. 
Once in the city, any monk will guide thee to the arch- 
bishop. Send us news of thy welfare by some holy 
mouth. Come." 

Silently they paced together down the glen to the lonely 
beach of the great stream. Pambo was there already, 
his white hair glittering in the rising moon, as with slow 
and feeble arms he launched the light canoe. Philam- 
mon flung himself at the old men's feet, and besought, 
with many tears, their forgiveness and their blessing. 

" We have nothing to forgive. Follow thou thine 
inward call. If it be of the flesh, it will avenge itself ; 
if it be of the Spirit, who are we that we should fight 
against God ? Farewell." 

A few minutes more, and the youth and his canoe were 
lessening down the rapid stream in the golden summer 
twilight. Again a minute, and the swift southern night 
had fallen, and all was dark but the cold glare of the moon 
on the river, and on the rock-faces, and on the two old 
men, as they knelt upon the beach, and with their heads 
upon each other's snoulders, like two children, sobbed 
and prayed together for the lost darling of their age. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE DYING WORLD. 

In the upper story of a house in the Museum Street of 
Alexandria, built and fitted up on the old Athenian 


14 HYP ATT A. 

model, was a small room. It had been chosen by its 
occupant, not merely on account of its quiet ; for though 
it was tolerably out of hearing of the female slaves who 
worked, and chattered, and quarrelled under the cloisters 
of the women's court on the south side, yet it was ex- 
posed to the rattle of carriages and the voices of pas- 
sengers in the fashionable street below, and to strange 
bursts of roaring, squealing, and trumpeting, from the 
Menagerie, a short way off, on the opposite side of the 
street. The attraction of the situation lay, perhaps, 
in the view which it commanded over the waU of the 
Museum gardens, of flower-beds, shrubberies, fountains, 
statues, walks, and alcoves, which had echoed for nearly 
seven hundred years to the wisdom of the Alexandrian 
sages and poets. School after school, they had all walked, 
and taught and sung there, beneath the spreading planes 
and chestnuts, figs and palm trees. The place seemed 
fragrant with all the riches of Greek thought and song, 
since the days when Ptolemy Philadelphus walked there 
with Euclid and Theocritus, Callimachus and Lycophron. 

On the left of the garden stretched the lofty eastern 
front of the Museum itself, with its picture galleries, 
halls of statuary, dining-halls, and lecture-rooms ; one 
huge wing containing that famous library, founded by 
the father of Philadelphus, which held in the time of 
Seneca, even after the destruction of a great part of it 
in Caesar's siege, four hundred thousand manuscripts. 
There it towered up, the wonder of the world, its white 
roof bright against the rainless blue ; and beyond it, 
among the ridges and pediments of noble buildings, a 
broad ghmpse of the bright blue sea. 

The room was fitted up in the purest Greek style, not 
without an affectation of archaism, in the severe forms 
and subdued half-tints of the frescoes which ornamented 
the walls with scenes from the old myths of Athene. 
Yet the general effect, even under the blazing sun which 
poured in through the mosquito nets of the courtyard 
windows, was one of exquisite coolness, and cleanliness, 
and repose. The room had neither carpet nor fireplace ; 
and the only movables in it were a sofa-bed, a table, 


HYPATIA. 15 

and an arm-chair, all of such delicate and graceful forms 
as may be seen on ancient vases of a far earlier period 
than that whereof we write. But, most probably, had 
any of us entered that room that morning, we should 
not have been able to spare a look either for the furniture 
or the general effect, or the Museum gardens, or the 
sparkling Mediterranean beyond ; but we should have 
agreed that the room was quite rich enough for human 
eyes, for the sake of one treasure which it possessed, 
and beside which nothing was worth a moment's glance. 
For in the light arm-chair, reading a manuscript which 
lay on the table, sat a woman, of some five-and-twenty 
years, evidently the tutelary goddess of that little shrine, 
dressed in perfect keeping with the archaism of the 
chamber, in a simple old snow-white Ionic robe, falling 
to the feet and reaching to the throat, and of that pecul- 
iarly severe and graceful fashion in which the upper part 
of the dress falls downward again from the neck to the 
waist in a sort of cape, entirely hiding the outline of the 
bust, while it leaves the arms and the point of the shoul- 
ders bare. Her dress was entirely without ornament, 
except the two narrow purple stripes down the front, 
which marked her rank as a Roman citizen, the gold- 
embroidered shoes upon her feet, and the gold net, 
which looped back, from her forehead to her neck, hair 
the colour and gloss of which were hardly distinguish- 
able from that of the metal itself, such as Athene herself 
might have envied for tint, and mass, and ripple. Her 
features, arms, and hands were of the severest and 
grandest t5^e of old Greek beauty, at once showing 
everywhere the high development of the bones, and 
covering them with that firm, round, ripe outline, and 
waxy morbidezza of skin, which the old Greeks owed to 
their continual use not only of the bath and muscular 
exercise, but also of daily unguents. There might have 
seemed to us too much sadness in that clear gray eye ; too 
much self-conscious restraint in those sharp curved lips ; 
too much affectation in the studied severity of her posture 
as she read, copied, as it seemed, from some old vase or 
bas-relief. But the glorious grace and beauty of every 


1 6 HYPATIA. 

line of face and figure would have excused, even hidden 
those defects, and we should have only recognized the 
marked resemblance to the ideal portraits of Athene 
which adorned every panel of the walls. 

She has Hfted her eyes off her manuscript; she is 
looking out with kindling countenance over the gardens 
of the Museum ; her ripe curling Greek lips, such as we 
never see now, even among our own wives and sisters, 
open. She is talking to herself. Listen ! 

'* Yes. The statues there are broken. The libraries 
are plundered. The alcoves are silent. The oracles are 
dumb. And yet — ^who says that the old faith of heroes 
and sages is dead ? The beautiful can never die. If 
the gods have deserted their oracles, they have not de- 
serted the souls who aspire to them. If they have 
ceased to guide nations, they have not ceased to speak 
to their own elect. If they have cast off the vulgar herd, 
they have not cast off Hypatia. 

♦ * ♦ ♦ ♦ 

" Ay. To believe in the old creeds, while every one 
else is dropping away from them. ... To beheve in 
spite of disappointments. ... To hope against hope. 
... To show oneself superior to the herd, by seeing 
boundless depths of living glory in myths which have 
become dark and dead to them. ... To struggle to the 
last against the new and vulgar superstitions of a rotting 
age, for the faith of my forefathers, for the old gods, the old 
heroes, the old sages who gauged the mysteries of heaven 
and earth — and perhaps to conquer — at least to have my 
reward ! To be welcomed into the celestial ranks of 
the heroic — to rise to the inmiortal gods, to the ineffable 
powers, onward, upward ever, through ages and through 
eternities, till I find my home at last, and vanish in the 
glory of the Nameless and the Absolute One ! . . ." 

And her whole face flashed out into wild glory, and then 
sank again suddenly into a shudder of something like 
fear and disgust, as she saw, watching her from under 
the wall of the gardens opposite, a crooked, withered 
Jewish crone, dressed out in the most gorgeous and 
fantastic style of barbaric finery. 


HYPATIA. 17 

" Why does that old hag haunt me ? I see her every- 
where — till the last month at least — and here she is 
again ! I will ask the prefect to find out who she is, 
and get rid of her, before she fascinates me with that 
evil eye. Thank the gods, there she moves away ! 
FooHsh ! — fooHsh of me, a philosopher. I, to beHeve, 
against the authority of Porphyry himself, too, in evil 
eyes and magic ! But there is my father, pacing up and 
down in the Hbrary/' 

As she spoke, the old man entered from the next room. 
He was a Greek also, but of a more common and per- 
haps lower type ; dark and fiery, thin and graceful ; 
his delicate figure and cheeks, wasted by meditation, 
harmonized well with the staid and simple philosophic 
cloak which he wore as a sign of his profession. He 
paced impatiently up and down the chamber, while his 
keen, glittering eyes and restless gestures betokened 
intense inward thought. . . . 

..." I have it. ... No ; again it escapes — ^it con- 
tradicts itself. Miserable man that I am I If there is 
faith in Pythagoras, the symbol should be an expanding 
series of the powers of three ; and yet that accursed 
binary factor will introduce itself. Did not you work 
the sum out once, Hypatia ? " 

" Sit down, my dear father, and eat ; you have tasted 
no food yet this day." 

'' What do I care for food ! The inexpressible must 
be expressed ; the work must be done if it cost me the 
squaring of the circle. How can he whose sphere Ues 
above the stars stoop every moment to earth ? " 

" Ay," she answered, half bitterly, " and would that 
we could live without food, and imitate perfectly the 
immortal gods ! But while we are in this prison-house 
of matter, we must wear our chain — even wear it grace- 
fully, if we have the good taste — and make the base 
necessities of this body of shame symbolic of the diviner 
food of the reason. There is fruit, with lentils and rice, 
waiting for you in the next room ; and bread, unless 
you despise it too much." 

" The food of slaves ! " he answered. " Well, I will 


1 8 HYP ATI A. 

eat, and be ashamed of eating. Stay, did I tell you ? 
Six new pupils in the mathematical school this morning. 
It grows — ^it spreads ! We shall conquer yet ! " 

She sighed. " How do you know that they have not 
come to you, as Critias and Alcibiades did to Socrates, to 
leam a merely political and mundane virtue ? Strange 
that men should be content to grovel, and be men, when 
they might rise to the rank of gods ! Ah, my father ! 
That is my bitterest grief ! to see those who have been 
pretending in the morning lecture-room to worship every 
word of mine as an oracle, lounging in the afternoon 
roimd Pelagia's litter ; and then at night — for I know 
that they do it — the dice, and the wine, and worse. That 
Pallas herself should be conquered every day by Venus 
Pandemos ! That Pelagia should have more power than 
I ! Not that such a creature as that disturbs me — no 
created thing, I hope, can move my equanimity ; but 
if I could stoop to hate, I should hate her — hate 
her." 

And her voice took a tone which made it somewhat 
uncertain whether, in spite of all the lofty impassibility 
which she felt bound to possess, she did not hate Pelagia 
with a most human and mundane hatred. 

But at that moment the conversation was cut short by 
the hasty entrance of a slave girl, who, with fluttering 
voice, announced, — 

" His excellency, madam, the prefect ! His chariot 
has been at the gate for these five minutes, and he is 
now coming upstairs." 

" Foolish child ! " answered Hypatia, with some affecta- 
tion of indifference. " And why should that disturb me ? 
Let him enter." 

The door opened, and in came, preceded by the scent 
of half a dozen different perfumes, a florid, delicate- 
featured man, gorgeously dressed out in senatorial 
costume, his fingers and neck covered with jewels. 

" The representative of the Caesars honours himself 
by offering at the shrine of Athene Polias, and rejoices 
to see in her priestess as lovely a likeness as ever of the 
goddess whom she serves. , . . Don't betray me, but 


■"N 


HYPATIA. 19 

1 really cannot help talking sheer paganism whenever I 
find myself within the influence of your eyes." 

" Truth is mighty," said Hypatia, as she rose to greet 
him with a smile and a reverence. 

" Ah, so they say — Your excellent father has vanished. 
He is really too modest — honest, though — about his 
incapacity for state secrets. After all, you know, it was 
your Minervaship which I came to consult. How has 
this turbulent Alexandrian rascaldom been behaving 
itself in my absence ? " 

"The herd has been eating, and drinking, and marrying, 
as usual, I believe," answered H5^atia, in a languid tone. 

" And multiplying, I don't doubt. Well, there will 
be less loss to the empire if I have to crucify a dozen or 
two, as I positively will, the next riot. It is really a 
great comfort to a statesman that the masses are so well 
aware that they deserve hanging, and therefore so careful 
to prevent any danger of pubHc justice depopulating 
the province. But how go on the schools ? " 

Hypatia shook her head sadly. 

" Ah, boys will be boys. ... I plead guilty myself. 
Video meliora prohoque, deteriora seqtcor. You must 
not be hard on us. . . . Whether we obey you or not in 
private life, we do in public ; and if we enthrone you 
queen of Alexandria, you must allow your courtiers 
and bodyguards a few court Hcenses. Now don't sigh, 
or I shall be inconsolable. At all events, your worst 
rival has betaken herself to the wilderness, and gone to 
look for the city of the gods above the cataracts." 

'* Whom do you mean ? " asked Hj^patia, in a tone 
most unphilosophically eager. 

" Pelagia, of course. I met that prettiest and naughtiest 
of humanities half-way between here and Thebes, trans- 
formed into a perfect Andromache of chaste affection." 

" And to whom, pray ? " 

'* To a certain Gothic giant. What men those bar- 
barians do breed ! I was afraid of being crushed under 
the elephant's foot at every step I took with him ! " 

" What ! " asked Hypatia, " did your excellency con- 
descend to converse with such savages ? " 


20 HYPATIA. 

" To tell you the truth, he had some forty stout country- 
men of his with him, who might have been troublesome 
to a perplexed prefect ; not to mention that it is always 
as well to keep on good terms with these Goths. Really, 
after the sack of Rome, and Athens cleaned out like a 
beehive by wasps, things begin to look serious. And as 
for the great brute himself, he has rank enough in his 
way — ^boasts of his descent from some cannibal god or 
other ; really hardly deigned to speak to a paltry Roman 
governor, tUl his faithful and adoring bride interceded 
for me. Still, the fellow understood good living, and we 
celebrated our new treaty of friendship with noble liba- 
tions — but I must not talk about that to you. However, 
I got rid of them ; quoted all the geographical lies I had 
ever heard, and a great many more ; quickened their 
appetite for their fool's errand notably, and started them 
off again. So now the star of Venus is set, and that of 
Pallas in the ascendant. Wherefore tell me — ^what am 
I to do with Saint Firebrand ? " 

" Cyril ? " 

" Cyril." 

" Justice." 

" Ah, fairest Wisdom, don't mention that horrid word 
out of the lecture-room. In theory it is all very well ; 
but in poor imperfect earthly practice, a governor must 
be content with doing very much what comes to hand. 
In abstract justice, now, I ought to nail up Cyril, deacons, 
district visitors, and all, in a row, on the sandhills out- 
side. That is simple enough ; but, like a great many 
simple and excellent things, impossible." 

" You fear the people ? " 

" Well, my dear lady, and has not the villainous 
demagogue got the whole mob on his side ? Am I to 
have the Constantinople riots re-enacted here ? I really 
cannot face it ; I have not nerve for it ; perhaps I am 
too lazy. Be it so." 

Hypatia sighed. " Ah, that your excellency but saw 
the great duel which depends on you alone ! Do not 
fancy that the battle is merely between paganism and 
Christianity " 


HYPATIA. 21 

" Why, if it were, you know, I, as a Christian, under a 
Christian and sainted emperor, not to mention his august 
sister " 

" We understand," interrupted she, with an impatient 
wave of her beautiful hand. " Not even between them ; 
not even between philosophy and barbarism. The 
struggle is simply one between the aristocracy and the 
mob— between wealth, refinement, art, learning, all that 
makes a nation great, and the savage herd of child-breeders, 
below, the many ignoble, who were meant to labour for 
the noble few. Shall the Roman Emj^ire command or 
obey her own slaves ? is the question which you and Cyril 
have to battle out ; and the fight must be internecine." 

" I should not wonder if it became so, really," answered 
the prefect, with a shrug of his shoulders. " I expect 
every time I ride to have my brains knocked out by 
some mad monk." 

" Why not, in an age when, as has been well and 
often said, emperors and consulars crawl to the tombs of 
a tent-maker and a fisherman, and kiss the mouldy bones 
of the vilest slaves ? Why not, among a people whose 
God is the crucified son of a carpenter ? Why should 
learning, authority, antiquity, birth, rank, the system of 
empire which has been growing up, fed by the accumu- 
lated wisdom of ages — ^why, I say, should any of these 
things protect your life a moment from the fury of any 
beggar who believes that the Son of God died for him as 
much as for you, and that he is youj equal if not your 
superior in the sight of his low-bom and illiterate deity ! "* 

" My most eloquent philosopher, this may be — and per- 
haps is — all very true. I quite agree that there are very 
great practical inconveniences of this kind in the new — I 
mean the Catholic faith ; but the world is full of incon- 
veniences. The wise man does not quarrel with his creed 
for being disagreeable, any more than he does with his 
finger for aching : he cannot help it, and must make the 
best of a bad matter. Only tell me how to keep the peace." 

" And let philosophy be destroyed ? " 

•These are the arguments and the language which were commonly 
employed by Porphyry, Julian, and the other opponents of Christianity. 


22 HYP ATI A. 

" That it never will be, as long as Hypatia lives to 
illuminate the earth ; and, as far as I am concerned, I 
promise you a clear stage and — a great deal of favour ; 
as is proved by my visiting you publicly at this moment, 
before I have given audience to one of the four hundred 
bores, great and small, who are waiting in the tribunal 
to torment me. Do help me and advise me. What am 
I to do ? " 

" I have told you." 

" Ah, yes, as to general principles. But out of the 
lecture-room I prefer a practical expedient : for instance, 
Cyril writes to me here — ^plague on him ! he would not 
let me even have a week's hunting in peace — that there 
is a plot on the part of the Jews to murder all the Chris- 
tians. Here is the precious document ; do look at it, 
in pity. For aught I know or care, the plot may be an 
exactly opposite one, and the Christians intend to murder 
all the Jews. But I must take some notice of the letter.'* 

" I do not see that, your excellency." 

" Why, if anything did happen, after all, conceive the 
missives which would be sent flying ofl to Constantinople 
against me ! " 

" Let them go. If you are secure in the consciousness 
of innocence, what matter ? " 

" Consciousness of innocence ? I shall lose my pre- 
fecture ! " 

" Your danger would be just as great if you took notice 
of it. Whatever happened, you would be accused of 
favouring the Jews." 

" And really there might be some truth in the accusa- 
tion. How the finances of the province would go on 
without their kind assistance, I dare not think. If those 
Christians would but lend me their money, instead of 
building almshouses and hospitals with it, they might 
bum the Jews' quarter to-morrow, for aught I care. 
But now. . . ." 

" But now, you must absolutely take no notice of this 
letter. The very tone of it forbids you, for your own 
honour and the honour of the empire. Are you to treat 
with a man who talks of the masses of Alexandria as 


HYPATIA. 23 

* the flock whom the King of kings has committed to his 
rule and care ' ? Does your excellency, or this proud 
bishop, govern Alexandria ? " 

" Really, my dear lady, I have given up inquiring." 

" But he has not. He comes to you as a person pos- 
sessing an absolute authority over two-thirds of the 
population, which he does not scruple to hint to you is 
derived from a higher source than your own. The con- 
sequence is clear. If it be from a higher source than 
yours, of course it ought to control yours ; and you will 
confess that it ought to control it — you will acknowledge 
the root and ground of every extravagant claim which he 
makes, if you deign to reply." 

" But I must say something, or I shall be pelted in the 
streets. You philosophers, however raised above your 
own bodies you may be, must really not forget that we 
poor worldHngs have bones to be broken." 

" Then tell him, and by word of mouth merely, that as 
the information which he sends you comes from his private 
knowledge and concerns not him as bishop, but you as 
magistrate, you can only take it into consideration when 
he addresses you as a private person, lajdng a regular 
information at your tribunal." 

" Charming ! queen of diplomatists as well as philoso- 
phers ! I go to obey you. Ah ! why were you not 
Pulcheria ? No, for then Alexandria had been dark, 
and Orestes missed the supreme happiness of kissing a 
hand which Pallas, when she made you, must have bor- 
rowed from the workshop of Aphrodite." 

" Recollect that you are a Christian," answered Hy- 
patia, half smiling. 

So the prefect departed; and passing through the 
outer hall, which was already crowded with Hypatia's 
aristocratic pupils and visitors, bowed his way out past 
them and regained his chariot, chuckhng over the rebuff 
which he intended to administer to Cyril, and comforting 
himself with the only text of Scripture of the inspiration 
of which he was thoroughly convinced — " Sufficient for 
the day is the evil thereof." 

At tiie door was a crowd of chariots, slaves with their 


24 HYPATIA. 

masters' parasols, and the rabble of onlooking boys and 
market-folk, as usual in Alexandria then, as in all great 
cities since, who were staring at the prefect, and having 
their heads rapped by his guards, and wondering what 
sort of glorious personage Hypatia might be, and what 
sort of glorious house she must live in, to be fit company 
for the great governor of Alexandria. Not that there 
was not many a sulky and lowering face among the mob, 
for the great majority of them were Christians, and very 
seditious and turbulent politicians, as Alexandrians, 
" men of Macedonia," were bound to be ; and there was 
many a grumble among them, all but audible, at the 
prefect's going in state to the heathen woman's house — 
heathen sorceress, some pious old women called her — 
before he heard any poor soul's petition in the tribunal, 
or even said his prayers in church. 

Just as he was stepping into his curricle, a tall young 
man, as gorgeously bedizened as himself, lounged down 
the steps after him, and beckoned lazily to the black boy 
who carried his parasol. 

" Ah, Raphael Aben-Ezra ! my excellent friend, what 
propitious deity — ahem ! martyr — brings you to Alex- 
andria just as I want you ? Get up by my side, and let 
us have a chat on our way to the tnbunal.' 

The man addressed came slowly forward with an osten- 
tatiously low salutation, which could not hide, and indeed 
was not intended to hide, the contemptuous and lazy ex- 
pression of his face ; and asked in a drawling tone, — 

" And for what kind purpose does the representative 
of the Caesars bestow such an honour on the humblest of 
his, etc., etc. — your penetration will supply the rest." 

" Don't be frightened ; I am not going to borrow 
money of you," answered Orestes laughingly, as the Jew 
got into the curricle. 

" I am glad to hear it. Really one usurer in a family 
is enough. My father made the gold, and if I spend it, 
I consider that I do all that is required of a philosopher." 

" A charming team of white Nisaeans, is not this ? And 
only one gray hoof among all the four." 

" Yes . . . horses are a bore, I begin to find, Uke every- 


HYPATIA. 25 

thing else. Always failing sick, or running away, or 
breaking one's peace of mind in some way or other. Be- 
sides, I have been pestered out of my life there in Cyrene, 
by conunissions for dogs and horses and bows from that 
old Episcojjal Nimrod, Synesius/' 

" What, is the worthy man as Uvely as ever ? " 

" Lively ? He nearly drove me into a nervous fever 
in three days. Up at four in the morning, always in 
the most disgustingly good health and spirits, farming, 
coiursing, shooting, riding over hedge and ditch after 
rascally black robbers ; preaching, intriguing, borrow- 
ing money ; baptizing and excommunicating ; bullying 
that bully Andronicus ; comforting old women, and 
giving pretty girls dowries ; scribbling one half -hour on 
philosophy, and the next on farriery ; sitting up all night 
writing hynuis and drinking strong liquors ; off again on 
horseback at four the next morning ; and talking by the 
hour all the while about philosophic abstraction from the 
mimdane tempest. Heaven defend me from all two-legged 
whirlwinds ! By-the-bye, there was a fair daughter of 
my nation came back to Alexandria in the same ship with 
me, with a cargo that may suit your highness." 

'* There are a great many fair daughters of your nation 
who might suit me, without any cargo at all." 

" Ah, they have had good practice, the Httle fools, 
ever since the days of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. But 
I mean old Miriam — you know. She has been lending 
Synesius money to fight the black fellows with ; and 
really it was high time. They had burnt every home- 
stead for miles through the province. But the daring 
old girl must do a Httle business for herself ; so she went 
off, in the teeth of the barbarians, right away to the Atlas, 
bought all their lady prisoners, and some of their own 
sons and daughters, too, of them, for beads and old iron ; 
and has come back with as pretty a cargo of Lybian 
beauties as a prefect of good taste could wish to have the 
first choice of. You may thank me for that privilege." 

" After, of course, you had suited yourself, my cunning 
Raphael ? " 

" Not I. Women are bores, as Solomon found out long 


26 HYPATIA. 

ago. Did I never tell you ? I began, as he did, with the 
most select harem in Alexandria. But they quarrelled 
so that one day I went out, and sold them all but one, 
who was a Jewess — so there were objections on the 
part of the Rabbis. Then I tried one, as Solomon did ; 
but my * garden shut up,' and my ' sealed fountain ' 
wanted me to be always in love with her : so I went to the 
lawyers, allowed her a comfortable maintenance, and 
now I am as free as a monk, and shall be happy to give 
your excellency the benefit of any good taste or experi- 
ence which I may possess." 

" Thanks, worthy Jew. We are not yet as exalted as 
yourself, and will send for the old Erictho this very 
afternoon. Now Hsten a moment to base, earthly, and 
poHtical business. Cyril has written to me, to say that 
you Jews have plotted to mxirder all the Christians." 

" Well — ^why not ? I most heartily wish it were true, 
and think, on the whole, that it very probably is so." 

" By the immortal — saints, man ! you are not serious ? " 

" The four archangels forbid ! It is no concern of 
mine. All I say is, that my people are great fools, like 
the rest of the world ; and have, for aught I know or 
care, some such intention. They won't succeed, of course ; 
and that is all you have to care for. But if you think it 
worth the trouble — which I do not — I shall have to go 
to the synagogue on business in a week or so, and then 
I would ask some of the Rabbis." 

" Laziest of men ! — and I must answer Cyril this very 
day." 

" An additional reason for asking no questions of our 
people. Now you can honestly say that you know noth- 
mg about the matter." 

" Well, after aU, ignorance is a stronghold for poor 
statesmen. So you need not hurry yourself." 

" I assure your excellency I wiU not." 

" Ten days hence, or so, you know." 

" Exactly, after it is all over." 

" And can't be helped. What a comfort it is, now and 
then, that ' can't be helped I ' " 

" It is the root and marrow of all philosophy. Your 


HYPATIA. 27 

practical man, poor wretch, will try to help this and that, 
and torment his soul with ways and means, and pre- 
ventives and forestaUings ; your philosopher quietly 
says, It canH be helped. If it ought to be, it will be ; 
if it is, it ought to be. We did not make the world, and 
we are not responsible for it. — ^There is the sum and sub- 
stance of all true wisdom, and the epitome of all that has 
been said and written thereon from Philo the Jew to 
Hypatia the Gentile. By the way, here's Cyril coming 
down the steps of the Caesareum. A very handsome 
fellow, after aU, though he is looking as sulky as a bear." 

" With his cubs at his heels. What a scoundrelly 
visage that tall fellow — deacon, or reader, or whatever he 
is by his dress — ^has ! " 

*' There they are — ^whispering together. Heaven give 
them pleasant thoughts and pleasanter faces ! " 

" Amen ! " quoth Orestes, with a sneer ; and he would 
have said Amen in good earnest, had he been able to take 
the Hberty — ^which we shall — and listen to C5ml's answer 
to Peter, the tall reader. 

" From HjTpatia's, you say ? Why, he only returned 
to the city this morning." 

" I saw his four-in-hand standing at her door, as I 
came down the Museum Street hither, half an hour ago." 

" And twenty carriages besides, I don't doubt ? " 

" The street was blocked up with them. There ! 
Look roimd the corner now — chariots, Htters, slaves, and 
fops. When shall we see such a concourse as that where 
it ought to be ? " 

Cyril made no answer ; and Peter went on, " Where 
it ought to be, my father — in front of your door at the 
Serapeium ? " 

" The world, the flesh, and the devil know their own, 
Peter ; and as long as they have their own to go to, we 
cannot expect them to come to us." 

" But what if their own were taken out of the 
way ? " 

" They might come to us for want of better amuse- 
ment . . . devil and all. Well, if I could get a fair hold 
of the two first, I would take the third into the bargain, 


30 HYPATIA. 

state of embarrassment. How much better to sit down, 
hear all I have to say philosophically, Hke a true pupil of 
Hypatia, and not expect a man to tell you what he really 
does not know/' 

Orestes, after looking vainly round the room for a 
place to escape, had quietly subsided into his chair again ; 
and by the time that the slaves knocked at the door he 
had so far recovered his philosophy as to ask, not for the 
torturers, but for a page and wine. 

" Oh, you Jews ! " quoth he, trying to laugh off matters. 
" The same incarnate fiends that Titus found you ! " 

" The very same, my dear prefect. Now for this 
matter, which is really important — at least to Gentiles. 
Heraclian will certainly rebel. Synesius let out as much 
to me. He has fitted out an armament for Ostia, stopped 
his own wheat-ships, and is going to write to you to stop 
yours, and to starve out the Eternal City, Goths, senate, 
emperor, and all. Whether you will comply with his 
reasonable Httle request depends, of course, on yourself." 

" And that, again, very much on his plans." 

" Of course. You cannot be expected to — ^we will 
euphemize — ^unless it be made worth your while." 

Orestes sat buried in deep thought. 

" Of course not," said he at last, half unconsciously. 
And then, in sudden dread of having committed himself, 
he looked up fiercely at the Jew. 

" And how do I know that this is not some infernal 
trap of yours ? Tell me how you found out all this, or 
by Hercules (he had quite forgotten his Christianity by 
this time) — by Hercules and the Twelve Gods, I'll " 

" Don't use expressions unworthy of a philosopher. 
My source of information was very simple and very good. 
He has been negotiating a loan from the Rabbis at 
Carthage. They were either frightened, or loyal, or both, 
and hung back. He knew — as all wise governors know 
when they allow themselves time — ^that it is no use to 
bully a Jew, and applied to me. I never lend money — 
it is unphilosophical — but I introduced him to old 
Miriam, who dare do business with the devil himself ; 
and by that move, whether he has the money or not, I 


HYPATIA. 31 

cannot tell : but this I can tell, that we have his secret — 
and so have you now ; and if you want more information, 
the old woman, who enjoys an intrigue as much as she 
does Falemian, will get it you." 

" Well, you are a true friend, after all." 

" Of course I am. Now, is not this method of getting 
at the truth much easier and pleasanter than setting a 
couple of dirty negroes to pinch and pull me, and so 
making it a point of honour with me to tell you nothing 
but lies ? Here comes Ganymede with the wine, just in 
time to calm your nerves, and fill you with the spirit of 
divination. ... To the goddess of good counsels, my 
lord ? What wine this is 1 " 

" True S5nian — fire and honey ; fourteen years old 
next vintage, my Raphael. Out, Hypocorisma ! See 
that he is not listening. The impudent rascal ! I was 
humbugged into giving two thousand gold pieces for him 
two years ago, he was so pretty — they said he was only 
just rising liiirteen — and he has been the plague of my 
life ever since, and is beginning to want tiie barber 
already. Now, what is the count dreaming of ? " 

" His wages for killing Stilicho." 

" What, is it not enough to be Coimt of Africa ? " 

" I suppose he sets off against that his services during 
the last three years." 

" Well, he saved Africa." 

" And thereby Egypt also. And you too, as well as 
the emperor, may be considered as owing him some- 
what." 

" My good friend, my debts are far too numerous for 
me to think of paying any of them. But what wages 
does he want ? " 

" The purple." 

Orestes started, and then fell into thought. Raphael 
sat watching him a while. 

" Now, most noble lord, may I depart ? I have said 
all I have to say ; and unless I get home to luncheon at 
once, I shall hardly have time to find old Miriam for you, 
and get through our little affair with her before sunset." 

" Stay. What force has he ? " 


32 HYPATIA. 

" Forty thousand already, they say. And those 
Donatist ruf&ans are with him to a man, if he can but 
scrape together wherewith to change their bludgeons 
into good steel." 

" Well, go. . . . So. A hundred thousand might do 
it," said he, meditating, as Raphael bowed himself out. 
" He won't get them. I don't know, though ; the man 
has the head of a JuHus. Well, that fool Attalus talked 
of joining Egypt to the Western Empire. . . . Not such 
a bad thought either. Anything is better than being gov- 
erned by an idiot child and three canting nuns. I expect 
to be excommimicated every day for some offence against 
Pulcheria's prudery. . . . Heraclian emperor at Rome 
. . . and I lord and master on this side the sea . . . 
the Donatists pitted again fairly against the orthodox, to 
cut each other's throats in peace ... no more of Cyril's 
spying and tale-bearing to Constantinople. . . . Not 
such a bad dish of fare. . . . But then — ^it would take 
so much trouble I " 

With which words Orestes went into his third warm 
bath for that day. 


CHAPTER III. 

THE GOTHS. 

For two days the young monk held on, paddling and 
floating rapidly down the Nile stream, leaving city after 
city to right and left with longing eyes, and looking back 
to one villa after another, till the reaches of the bar3cs hid 
them from his sight, with many a yearning to know what 
sort of places those gay buildings and gardens would look 
like on a nearer view, and what sort of life the thousands 
led who crowded the busy quays, and walked and drove, 
in an endless stream, along the great highroads which 
ran along either bank. He carefiiQy avoided every boat 
that passed him, from the gilded barge of the wealthy 
landlord or merchant to the tiny raft buoyed up with 
empty jars, which was floating down to be sold at some 
market in the Delta. Here and there he met and hailed 


HYPATIA. 33 

a crew of monks, drawing their nets in a quiet bay, or 
passing along the great watery highway from monastery 
to monastery ; but all the news he received from them 
was, that the canal of Alexandria was still several days' 
journey below him. It seemed endless, that monotonous 
vista of the two high clay banks, with their sluices and 
water-wheels, their knots of palms and date- trees ; 
endless seemed that wearisome succession of bars of sand 
and banks of mud, every one Hke the one before it, every 
one dotted with the same Hne of logs and stones strewn 
along the water's edge, which turned out as he approached 
them to be basking crocodiles and sleeping peUcans. 
His eye, wearied with the continual confinement and 
want of distance, longed for the boundless expanse of 
the desert, for the jagged outHnes of those far-off hills, 
which he had watched from boyhood rising mysteriously 
at mom out of the eastern sky, and melting mysteriously 
into it again at even, beyond which dwelt a whole world 
of wonders, elephants and dragons, satyrs and anthro- 
pophagi, — ^ay, and the phoenix itself. Tired and melan- 
choly, his nund returned inward to prey on itself, and the 
last words of Arsenius rose again and again to his thoughts. 
" Was his call of the spirit or of the flesh ? " How should 
he test that problem ? He wished to see the world . . . 
that might be carnal. True ; but he wished to convert 
the world . . . was not that spiritual ? Was he not 
going on a noble errand ? . . . thirsting for toil, for saint- 
ship, for martyrdom itself, if it would but come and cut 
the Gordian knot of all temptations, and save him — ^for 
he dimly felt that it would save him — a whole sea of 
trouble in getting safe and triumphant out of that world 
into which he had not yet entered . . . and his heart 
shrank back from the untried homeless wilderness before 
him. But no ! the die was cast, and he must down and 
onward, whether in obedience to the spirit or the flesh. 
Oh for one hour of the quiet of that dear Laura and the 
old familiar faces ! 

At last a sudden turn of the bank brought him in sight 
of a gaudily-painted barge, on board of which armed men, 
in uncouth and foreign dresses, were chasing with barbaric 


34 HYPATIA. 

shouts some large object in the water. In the bows stood 
a man of gigantic stature, brandishing a harpoon in his 
right hand, and in his left holding the line of a second, 
the head of which was fixed in the huge purple sides of a 
hippopotamus, who foamed and wallowed a few yards 
down the stream. An old grizzled warrior at the stem, 
with a rudder in either hand, kept the boat's head con- 
tinually towards the monster, in spite of its sudden and 
frantic wheelings ; and when it dashed madly across the 
stream, some twenty oars flashed through tiie water in 
pursuit. All was activity and excitement ; and it was 
no wonder if Philammon's curiosity had tempted him to 
drift down almost abreast of the barge ere he descried, 
peeping from under a decorated awning in the after 
part, some dozen pair of languishing black eyes, turned 
alternately to the game and to himself. The serpents I — 
chattering and smiling, with pretty Httie shrieks and 
shaking of glossy curls and gold necklaces, and fluttering 
of mushn ch^esses, within a dozen yards of him ! Blush- 
ing scarlet, he knew not why, he seized his paddle, and 
tried to back out of the snare . . . but somehow his 
very efforts to escape those sparkling eyes diverted his 
attention from everything else. The hippopotamus had 
caught sight of him, and furious with pain, rushed straight 
at the unoffending canoe; the harpoon line became 
entangled round his body, and in a moment he and his 
frail bark were overturned, and the monster, with his 
huge white tusks gaping wide, close on him as he struggled 
in the stream. 

Luckily Philammon, contrary to the wont of monks, 
was a bather, and swam Uke a water-fowl : fear he had 
never known ; death from childhood had been to him, as 
to the other inmates of the Laura, a contemplation too 
perpetual to have any paralyzing terror in it, even then, 
when life seemed just about to open on him anew. But 
the monk was a man, and a young one, and had no 
intention of dying tamely or unavenged. In an instant 
he had freed himself from the line ; drawn the short knife 
which was his only weapon ; and diving suddenly, 
avoided the monster's rush, and attacked him from 


HYPATIA. 35 

behind with stabs, which, though not deep, still dyed the 
waters with gore at every stroke. The barbarians 
shouted with delight. The hippopotamus turned furi- 
ously against his new assailant, crushing, alas ! the 
empty canoe to fragments with a single snap of his 
enormous jaws. But the turn was fatal to him : the 
barge was close upon him, and as he presented his broad 
side to the blow, the sinewy arm of the giant drove a 
harpoon through his heart, and with one convulsive 
shudder the huge blue mass turned over on its side and. 
floated dead. 

Poor Philammon ! He alone was silent, amid the 
yells of triumph ; sorrowfully he swam round and round 
his httle paper wreck . ; . it would not have floated a 
mouse. Wistfully he eyed the distant banks, half 
minded to strike out for them and escape, . . . and 
thought of the crocodiles, ; .- . and paddled round again, 
. 7 . and thought of the basilisk eyes ; . ; . he might 
escape the crocodiles, but who could escape women ? 
; . . and he struck out valiantly for shore . ; . when 
he was brought to a sudden stop by finding the stem of 
the barge close on him, a noose thrown over him by some 
friendly barbarian, and himself hauled on board, amid 
the laughter, praise, astonishment, and grumbling of the 
good-natured crew, who had expected mm, as a matter 
of course, to avail himself at once of their help, and could 
not conceive the cause of his reluctance. 

Philammon gazed with wonder on his strange hosts, 
their pale complexions, globular heads and faces, high 
cheek-bones, tall and sturdy figures ; their red beards, 
and yellow hair knotted fantastically above the head ; 
their awkward dresses, half Roman or Egyptian, and half 
of foreign fur, soiled and stained in many a storm and 
fight, but tastelessly bedizened with classic jewels, 
brooches, and Roman coins, strung like necklaces. Only 
the steersman, who had come forward to wonder at the 
hippopotamus, and to help in dragging the unwieldy 
brute on board, seemed to keep genuine and unorna- 
mented the costume of his race — the white linen leggings, 
strapped with thongs of deerskin, the quilted leather- 


36 HYPATIA. 

ciurass, the bear's-fur cloaks the only ornaments of which 
were the fangs and claws of the beast itself, and a fringe 
of grizzled tufts, which looked but too like human hair. 
The language whidi they spoke was utterly unintelligible 
to Philammon, though it need not be so to us. 

" A well-grown lad and a brave one, WuH the son ai 
Ovida,'*^ said the giant to the old hero of the beaxskin 
cloak ; '' and understands wearing skins, in this furnace- 
mouth of a climate, rather better than you do." 

" I keep to the dress o£ my forefathers, Amalric the 
Amal. What did to sack Rome in may do to find 
Asgard in.'' 

The giant, who was decked oirt with helmet, cuirass, 
and senatorial boots, in a sort of mongrel mixture oi the 
Roman military and civil dress, his neck wreathed with 
a dozen gold chains^ and every finger sparkling with 
jewels, turned away with an impatient sneer. 

'' Asgard — Asgard ! If yon are in such a hurry to get 
to Asgard up this ditch in the sand, you had better ask 
the fellow how far it is thither.*' 

Wulf took him, quietly at his word, and addressed a 
question to the young monk, which he could only answer 
by a shake of the head. 

" Ask him in Greek, man.*' 

" Greek is a slave's toingue. Make a slave talk to him 
in it, not me." 

" Here — some of you girls ! — Pekgia ! you understand 
this fellow's talk.. Ask him how far it is to Asgard." 

" You must ask me moore civilly,^ my rough hero," 
replied a soft voice from underneath the awning. ** Beauty 
must be sued, and not commanded." 

*' Come^ then,, my olive-tree, my gazelle, my lotus- 
flower, my — v^saA was the last nonsense you taught 
me ? — and ask this wild man of the sands how far it is 
from these accursed endless rabbit-burrows to Asgard." 

The awning was raised, and lying luxuriously on a soft 
mattress^ fanned with peacock's feathers, and ghtter- 
ing with rabies and topazes^ appeared such a vision as 
Philammon had never seen before. 

A woman of seme two-and-twenty summers, formed 


HYPATIA. 37 

in the most voluptuous mould of Grecian beauty, whose 
complexion showed every violet vein through its veil 
of luscious brown. Her Httle bare feet, as they dimpled 
the cushions, were more perfect than Aphrodite's, softer 
than a swan's bosom. Every swell of her bust and arms 
showed through the thin gauze robe, while her lower 
limbs were wrapped in a shawl of orange sdlk, embroidered 
with wreaths of shells and roses. Her dark hair lay care- 
fully spread out upon the pillow, in a thousand ringlets 
entwined with gold and jewels ; her languishing eyes 
blazed like diamonds from a cavern, under eyeHds 
darkened and deepened with blax:k antimony ; her lips 
pouted of themselves, by habit or by nature, into a per- 
petual kiss ; slowly she raised one little lazy hand ; slowly 
the ripe lips opened ; and in most pure and melodious 
Attic she lisped her huge lover's question to the monk, 
and repeated it before the boy could shake off the spell, 
and answer . . . 

" Asgard ? What is Asgard ? " 

The beauty looked at the giant for further instructions. 

'* The City of the immortal Gods," interposed the old 
warrior, hastily and sternly, to the lady. 

*' The city of God is in heaven," said Philammon to 
the interpreter, turning his head away from those gleam- 
ing, luscious, searching glances. 

His answer was received with a general laugh by all 
except the leader, who shrugged his shoulders. 

** It may as well be up in the skies as up the Nile. We 
shall be just as likely, I believe, to reach it by flying as 
by rowing up this big ditch. — Ask him where the nver 
comes from, Pelagia." 

Pelagia obeyed . . . and thereon followed a confusion 
worse confounded, composed of all the impossible wonders 
of that mj^hic feiiryland with which Philammon had 
gorged himself from boyhood in his walks with the old 
monks, and of the equally trustworthy traditions which 
the Goths had picked up at Alexandria. There was 
nothing which that river did not do. It rose in the 
Caucasus. Where was the Caucasus ? He did not 
know. In Paradise — ^in Indian ^Ethiopia — ^in Ethiopian 


38 HYPATIA. 

India. Where were they ? He did not know ; nobody 
knew. It ran for a hundred and fifty days' journey 
through deserts where nothing but flpng serpents and 
satyrs Uved, and the very Uons' manes were burnt off by 
the heat. . . . 

" Good sporting there, at all events, among these 
dragons," quoth Smid the son of Troll, armourer to the 
party. 

" As good as Thor's when he caught Snake Midgard 
with the bullock's head," said Wulf. 

It turned to the east for a hundred days' journey more, 
all round Arabia and India, among forests full of elephants 
and dog-headed women. 

"Better and better, Smid!" growled Wulf approvingly. 

" Fresh beef cheap there. Prince Wulf, eh ? " quoth 
Smid ; " I must look over the arrow-heads." 

— ^To the mountains of the Hyperboreans, where there 
was eternal night, and the air was full of feathers. . . . 
That is, one-third of it came from thence, and another 
third came from the Southern ocean, over the Moon 
mountains, where no one had ever been, and the remain- 
ing third from the country where the phoenix lived, and 
nobody knew where that was. And then there were the 
cataracts, and the inundations — and — and — and above 
the cataracts nothing but sand-hills and ruins, as full 
of devils as they could hold . . . and as for Asgard, 
no one had ever heard of it . . . till every face grew 
longer and longer, as Pelagia went on interpreting and 
misinterpreting ; and at last the giant smote his hand 
upon his knee, and swore a great oath that Asgard might 
rot till the twilight of the gods before he went a step 
farther up the Nile. 

'' Curse the monk ! " growled Wulf. " How should 
such a poor beast know anj^hing about the matter ? " 

" Why should not he know as well as that ape of a 
Roman governor ? " asked Smid. 

" Oh, the monks know everything," said Pelagia. 
" They go hundreds and thousands of miles up the river, 
and cross the deserts among fiends and monsters, where 
any one else would be eaten up, or go mad at once." 


HYPATIA. 39 

" Ah, the dear holy men ! It's all by the sign of the 
blessed cross ! " exclaimed all the girls together, devoutly 
crossing themselves, while two or three of the most 
enthusiastic were half minded to go forward and kneel 
to Philanmion for his blessing ; but hesitated, their 
Gothic lovers being heathenishly stupid and prudish on 
such points. 

" Why should he not know as well as the prefect ? 
Well said, Smid ! I believe that prefect's quill-driver 
was humbugging us when he said Asgard was only ten 
days' sail up." 

" Why ? " asked Wulf. 

" I never give any reasons. What's the use of being 
an Amal and a son of Odin, if one has always to be 
giving reasons like a rascally Roman lawyer ? I say the 
governor looked Hke a liar ; and I say this monk looks 
like an honest fellow ; and I choose to believe him, and 
there's an end of it." 

" Don't look so cross at me, Prince Wulf. I'm sure 
it's not my fault ; I could only say what the monk told 
me," whispered poor Pelagia. 

*' Who looks cross at you, my queen ? " roared the 
Amal. " Let me have him out here, and by Thor's 
hammer, I'll " 

" Who spoke to you, you stupid darling ? " answered 
Pelagia, who lived in hourly fear of thunderstorms. 
*' Who is going to be cross with any one, except I with 
you, for mishearing and misunderstanding, and meddling, 
as you are always doing ? I shall do as I threatened, 
and run away with Prince Wulf, if you are not good. 
Don't you see that the whole crew are expecting you to 
make them an oration ? " 

Whereupon the Amal rose. 

" See you here, Wulf the son of Ovida, and warriors 
all ! If we want wealth, we shan't find it among the 
sand-hills. If we want women, we shall find nothing 
prettier than these among dragons and devils. Don't 
look angry, Wulf. You have no mind to marry one of 
those dog-headed girls the monk talked of, have you ? 
Well, then, we have money and women ; and if we want 


40 HYPATIA. 

sport, it's better sport killing men than killing beasts ; 
so we had better go where we shall find most of that game, 
which we cartainly shall not up this road. As for fame 
and all that, though Fve had enough, there's plenty to 
be got anywhere along the shores of that Mediterranean. 
Let's burn and plunder Alexandria r forty of us Goths 
might kill down all those donkey-riders in two days, and 
hang up that lying prefect who sent us here on this fool's 
errand. Don't answer, Wulf. I knew he was hum- 
bugging us all along, but 5rau were so open-mouthed to 
all he said, that I was bound to let my elders choose for 
me. Let's go back ; send over for any of the tribes ; 
send to Spain for those Vandals — they have had enough 
of Adolf by now,, curse him I — I'U warrant them ; get 
together an army, and take Constantinople. I'E be 
Augustus, and Pelagia, Augusta ; you and Smid here, 
the two Caesars ; and we'U make the monk the chief of 
the eunuchs, eh ? — anything you like for a qudet life ; 
but up this accursed kennel of hot water I go no farther. 
Ask your girls, my heroes, and I'U ask mine. Women 
are all prophetesses, every one of them." 

" When they are aot harlots," gro\ded Wulf to himself. 

'* I will go to the world's end with you, my king ! *' 
sighed Pelagia ; '' but Alexandria is certainly pleasanter 
than this." 

Old Wulf sprang up iercely enougtu 

'' Hear me, Amalric the Amal,^ son of Odin^ and heroes 
all ! When my fathers swore to be Odin's men, and gave 
up the kingdom to the holy Amals, the sons of the Msir, 
what was the bond between your fathers and mine ? 
Was it not that we should move and move, southward 
and southward ever, till we came back to Asgard, the 
city where Odin dwells for ever,, and gave imto his hands 
the kingdom of all the earth ? And did we oot keep our 
oath ? Have we not held to the Amals ? Did we not 
leave Adolf because we would not follow a Balth, while 
there was an Amal to lead us ? Have we not been true 
men to you, son of the ^Esir ? "* 

" No man ever saw Wulf, the son of Ovida, fail friend 
or foe." 


HYPATIA. 41 

*• Then why does his friend fail him ? Why does his 
friend fail himself ? If the bison-bull He down and 
wallow, what will the herd do for leader ? If the king- 
wolf lose the scent, how will the pack hold it ? If the 
Yngling forgets the song of Asgard, who will sing it to the 
heroes ? " 

" Sing it yourself, if you choose. Pelagia sings quite 
well enough for me." 

In an instant the cunning beauty caught at the hint, 
and poured iorih a soft, low, sleepy song : — 

■** Loose the sail, rest the oar, float away down, 
Fleeting and gliding by tower and town ; 
Life is so short at best ! snaitdh, while thou canst, lihy rest, 
Sleeping by me I '* 

" Can you answer that, Wulf ? " shouted a dozen 
voices. 

" Hear the song of Asgard, warriors of the Goths ! 
Did not Alaric the king love it well ? Did I not sing it 
before him in the palace of the Ceesars, till he swore, for 
all the Christian that he was, to go southward in search 
of the holy city ? And when he went to Valhalla, and 
the ships were wrecked off Sicily, and Adolf the Balth 
tamed back like a laey hound, and married the daughter 
of the Romans, whom Odin hates, and went northward 
again to Gaul, did not I sing you all the song of Asgard 
in Messina there, till you swore to follow the Amal through 
fire and water until we found the hall of Odin, and received 
the mead-cup from his own hand ? Hear it again, war- 
riors of the (ioths ! " 

" Not tiiat song ! " roared the Amal, stopping his ears 
with both his hajnds. " Will you drive us blood-mad 
again, jtst as we are settling down into our sober senses, 
and finding out what our hves were given us for ? " 

" Hear the song of Asgard ! On to Asgard, wolves of 
the Goths ! " shouted another; and a babel of voices arose. 

" Haven't we been fighting and marching these seven 
years ? " 

" Haven't we drunk blood enough to satisfy Odin ten 
times over ? If he wants us,, let him come himself and 
lead tB ! " 


42 IIYPATIA, 

" Let us get our winds again before we start afresh ! " 

*' Wulf the Prince is Uke his name, and never tires. 
He has a winter-wolf's legs under him ; that is no reason 
why we should have/' 

*' Haven't you heard what the monk says ? — ^we can 
never get over those cataracts." 

" We'll stop his old wives' tales for him, and then 
settle for ourselves," said Smid ; and springing from the 
thwart where he had been sitting, he caught up a bill with 
one hand, and seized Philammon's throat with the other 
; : . in a moment more it would have been all over 
with him. . . . 

For the first time in his life Philammon felt a hostile 
grip upon him, and a new sensation rushed through 
every nerve as he grappled with the warrior, clutched 
with his left hand the uplifted wrist, and with his right 
the girdle, and commenced, without any definite aim, 
a fierce struggle, which, strange to say, as it went on, 
grew absolutely pleasant. 

The women shrieked to their lovers to part the com- 
batants, but in vain. 

" Not for worlds ! A very fair match and a very fair 
fight I — ^Take your long legs back, Itho, or they will be 
over you ! — ^That's right, my Smid ; don't use the knife I 
— ^They will be overboard in a moment ! By all the 
Valkyrs, they are down, and Smid undermost ! " 

There was no doubt of it ; and in another moment 
Philammon would have wrenched the bill out of his 
opponent's hand, when, to the utter astonishment of the 
onlookers, he suddenly loosed his hold, shook himself 
free by one powerful wrench, and quietly retreated to his 
seat, conscience-stricken at the fearful thirst for blood 
which had suddenly boiled up within him as he felt his 
enemy under him. 

The onlookers were struck dumb with astonishment ; 
they had taken for granted that he would, as a matter 
of course, have used his right of splitting his vanquished 
opponent's skull — an event which they would of course 
have deeply deplored, but with which, as men of honour, 
they could not on any account interfere, but merely 


HYPATIA. 43 

console themselves for the loss of their comrade by flay- 
ing his conqueror ahve, " carving him into the blood- 
eagle/' or any other delicate ceremony which might serve 
as a vent for their sorrow and a comfort to the soul of the 
deceased. 

Smid rose, with the bill in his hand, and looked round 
him — perhaps to see what was expected of him. He 
half Ufted his weapon to strike. . ; . Philammon, seated, 
looked him calmly in the face. . . The old warrior's eye 
caught the bank, which was now receding rapidly past 
them ; and when he saw that they were really floating 
downwards again, without an effort to stem the stream, 
he put away his bill, and sat himself down deliberately 
in his place, astonishing the onlookers quite as much as 
Philammon had done. 

'* Five minutes* good fighting, and no one killed ! 
This is a shame ! " quoth another. *' Blood we must see, 
and it had better be yours, master monk, than your 
betters*," and therewith he rushed on poor Philammon. 

He spoke the heart of the crew ; the sleeping wolf in 
them had been awakened by the struggle, and blood they 
would have ; and not frantically, like Celts or Egyptians, 
but with the cool, humorous cruelty of the Teuton, they 
rose all together, and turning Philammon over on his back, 
deliberated by what death he should die. 

Philammon quietly submitted — if submission have 
anything to do with that state of mind in which sheer 
astonishment and novelty have broken up all the cus- 
tom of man's nature, till the strangest deeds and suffer- 
ings are taken as matters of course. His sudden escape 
from the Laura, the new world of thought and action 
into which he had been plunged, the new companions 
with whom he had fallen in, had driven him utterly 
from his moorings, and now anj^hing and everything 
might happen to him. He who had promised never to 
look on woman found himself, by circumstances over 
which he had no control, amid a boatful of the most 
objectionable species of that most objectionable genus ; 
and the utterly worst having happened, everj^hing else 
which happened must be better than the worst. For 

2a 


44 HYPATIA. 

the rest, he had gome forth to see the world — and this 
was one of the ways of it. So he made up his mind 
to see it, and be filled with the fruit of his own devices. 

And he would have been certainly filled with the same 
in five minutes more, in some shape too ugly to be 
mentioned ; but as even sinful women have hearts in 
them, Pelagia shrieked out, — 

'' Amalric ! Amalric ! do not let them ! I cannot 
bear it ! " 

** The warriors are free men, my darling, and know 
what is proper. And what can the life of such a brute 
be to you ? " 

Before he could stop her, Pelagia had spnmg from her 
cushions, and thrown herself into the midst of the laugh- 
ing ring of wild beasts. 

*' Spare him ! spare him for my sake ! " shrieked 
she. 

" Oh, my pretty lady ! you mustn't interrupt warriors:* 
sport 1 " 

In an instant she had torn off her shawl and thrown 
it over Philammon ; and as she stood, with all the out- 
lines of her beautiful limbs revealed through the thin 
robe of spangled gauze, — 

'' Let the man who dares, touch him beneath that 
shawl ! — though it be a saffe'on one ! " 

The Goths drew back. For Pelagia herself they had 
as little respect as the rest of the world had. But for a 
moment she was not the Messalina of Alexandria, but a 
woman ; and true to the old woman-worshipping instinct, 
they looked one and all at her flashing eyes, full of noble 
pity and indignation, as well as of mere woman's terror — 
and drew bade, and whispered together. 

Whether the good spirit or the evil one would conquer 
seemed for a moment doubtful, when Pelagia felt a heavy 
hand on her shoulder, and turning, saw Wulf the son of 
Ovida. 

*' Go back, pretty woman !-^Men, I claim the boy. — 
Smid, give him to me. HDe is your man. You could 
have killed him if yosu had chosen^ and did not ; and no 
one else shall." 


HYPATIA. 45 

" Give him us, Prince Wialf ; we have not seen blood 
for many a day ! " 

" You might have seen; rivers of it, if you had had the 
hearts to go onward. The boy is mine, and a brave boy. 
He has upset a warrior fairiy this day, and spared him ; 
and we will make a warrior of him in return.*' 

And he lifted up the prostrate monk. 

** You are my man now. Do you like fighting ? " 

Philammon, not understanding the language in which 
he was addressed, could only shake his head — though if 
he had known what its import was, he could hardly in 
honesty have said. No. 

** He shakes his head 1 He does not like it ! He is 
craven ! Let us have him ! " 

" I had killed kings when you were shooting frogs," 
cried Smid. '' Listen to me, my sons ! A coward grips 
sharply at first, and loosens his hand after a while, be- 
cause his blood is soon hot and soon cold. A brave man's 
gripe grows the firmer the longer he holds, because the 
spirit of Odin comes upon him. I watched the boy's 
hands on my throat ; and he will make a man ; and I 
will make him one. However, we may as well make him 
useful at once ; so give him an oar." 

" Well," answered his new protector, '* he can as well 
row as be rowed by us ; and if we are to go back to a 
caw's death and the pool of Hela, the quicker we go the 
better." 

And as the men settled themselves again to their oars, 
one was put into Philammon' s hand, which he managed 
with such strength and skill that his late tormentors, 
who, in spite of an occasional incHnation to robbery 
and murder, were thoroughly good-natured, honest 
fellows, clapped him on the back, and praised him as 
heartily as they had just now heartily intended to tor- 
ture him to death, and then went forward, as many of 
them as were not rowing, to examine the strange beast 
which they had just slaughtered, pawing him over from 
tusks to tail, putting their heads into his mouth, trying 
their knives on his hide, comparing him to all beasts, 
like and unlike, which they had ever seen, and laughing 


46 HYPATIA. 

and shoving each other about with the fun and childish 
wonder of a party of schoolboys; till Smid, who was 
the wit of the party, settled the comparative anatomy 
of the subject for them, — 

" ValhaUa I I've found out what he's most hke ! — 
One of those big blue plums which gave us all the 
stomach-ache when we were encamped in the orchards 
above Ravenna ! " 


CHAPTER IV. 

MIRIAM. 

One morning in the same week, Hj^atia's favourite 
maid entered her chamber with a somewhat terrified 
face. 

"The old Jewess, madam — the hag who has been 
watching so often lately under the wsdl opposite. She 
frightened us all out of our senses last evening by peep- 
ing in. We all said she had the evil eye, if any one 
ever had '' 

" Well, what of her ? " 

" She is below, madam, and will speak with you. 
Not that I care for her ; I have my amulet on. I 
hope you have ? " 

" Silly girl ! Those who have been initiated as I have 
in the mysteries of the gods, can defy spirits and com- 
mand them. Do you suppose that the favourite of 
Pallas Athene will condescend to charms and magic ? 
Send her up." 

The girl retreated, with a look half of awe, half of 
doubt, at the lofty pretensions of her mistress, and re- 
turned with old Miriam, keeping, however, prudently 
behind her, in order to test as little as possible the power 
of her own amulet by avoiding the basiUsk eye which 
had terrified her. 

Miriam came in, and advancing to the proud beauty, 
who remained seated, made an obeisance down to the 
very floor, without, however, taking her eyes for an 
instant off H)^atia's face. 


HYPATIA. 47 

Her countenance was haggard and bony, with broad 
sharp-cut lips, stamped with a strangely mingled ex- 
pression of strength and sensuahty. But the feature 
about her which instantly fixed Hypatia's attention, 
and from which she could not in spite of herself with- 
draw it, was the dry, glittering, coal-black eye which 
glared out from underneath the gray fringe of her swarthy 
brows, between black locks covered with gold coins. 
Hypatia could look at nothing but those eyes ; and 
she reddened, and grew all but unphilosophically angry, 
as she saw that the old woman intended her to look at 
them, and feel the strange power which she evidently 
wished them to exercise. 

After a moment's silence, Miriam drew a letter from 
her bosom, and with a second low obeisance presented it. 

*' From whom is this ? " 

" Perhaps the letter itself will tell the beautiful lady, 
the fortimate lady, the discerning lady," answered she, 
in a fawning, wheedling tone. " How should a poor old 
Jewess know great folks* secrets ? " 

" Great folks '' 

Hypoxia, looked at the seal which fixed a silk cord 
round the letter. It was Orestes's ; and so was the 
handwriting. . . . Strange that he should have chosen 
such a messenger ! What message could it be which 
required such secrecy ? 

She clapped her hands for the maid. " Let this 
woman wait in the anteroom." Miriam ghded out 
backwards, bowing as she went. As Hypatia looked 
up over the letter to see whether she was alone, she 
caught a last glance of that eye still fixed upon her, 
and an expression in Miriam's face which made her, 
she knew not why, shudder and turn chiU. 

" FooUsh that I am ! What can that witch be to 
me ? But now for the letter." 

'* To the most noble and most beautiful, the mistress 
of philosophy, beloved of Athene, her pupil and slave 
sends greeting." . . . 

*' My slave ! and no name mentioned ! " 

" There are those who consider that the favourite hen 


48 HYTATIA. 

of Honorius, which l>ears the name of the Imperial City, 
would thrive better under a new feed^ ; and the Count 
of Africa has been dispatched by himself and by the 
immortal gods to superintend for the present the poultry- 
yard of the Csesare — at least during tiie absence of Adolf 
and Placidia. There arc those also who consider that 
in his absence the Numidian ton might be prevailed on 
to become the yoke-fellow of the Egyptian crocodile; 
and a farm which, ploughed by such a pair, should ex- 
tend from the upper cataract to the Pillars of Hercules, 
might have charms even ior a philosopher. But while 
the ploughman is without a nymph, Arcadia is imperfect. 
What were Dionusos without his Ariadne, Ares without 
Aphrodite, Zeus without Hera ? Even Artemis has her 
Endymion ; Athene alone remains unwedded ; but only 
because Hephaestus was too rough a wooer. Such is not 
he who now offers to the representative of Athene the 
opportunity of sharing that v^ch may be with the help 
of her wisdom, which withoat her is impossible, ^wvavra 
(rvv€Touriv, Shall Eros, invincible for ages, be balked 
at last of the noblest game against which he ever drcw 
his bow ? " . . . 

If Hypatia's colovir had faded a moment before under 
the withering glance of the old Jewess, it rose again 
swiftly enough, as she rcad Hne after line of this strange 
epistle ; till at last, crushing it together in her hand, she 
rose and hurried into the adjoining Hbrary, where Theon 
sat over his books. 

" Father, do you know anything of tiiis ? Look what 
Orestes has dared to send me by the hands of some base 
Jewish witch ! " And she spread the letter before him, 
and stood impatient, her whole figure dilated with pride 
and anger, as the old man read it slowly and carefully, 
and then looked up, apparently not ill-pleased with the 
contents. 

" What, father ?*' asked she, haK reproachfully. " Do 
not you, too, feel the insult which has been put upon 
your daughter ? " 

" My dear child," with a puzzled look, " do you not 
see that he offers you *' 


HYPATIA. 49 

** I know what he offers me, father. The empire of 
Africa. ... I am to descend from the mountain heights 
of science, from the contemplation of the unchangeable 
and ineffaMe glories, into the foul fields and farmyards 
of earthly practical life, aitd become a drudge among 
poHtical chicanery, and the petty ambitions, and sins, 
and falsehoods of the earthly herd. . . . And the price 
which he offers me — ^me, the stainless — me, the virgin — 
me, the untamed — ^is — ^his hand 1 Pallas Athene ! dost 
thou not blush with thy child ? " 

" But, my child — my child — an empire " 

" Would the empire of the world restore my lost self- 
respect — my just pride ? Would it save my cheek from 
blushes every time I recollected that I bore the hateful 
and d^rading name of wife ? The property, the puppet 
of a man — ^submitting to his pleasure — bearing his chil- 
dren — wearing myself out with all the nauseous cares of 
wifehood — no longer able to glory in myself, pure and 
self-sustained, but forced by day and night to recollect 
that my very beauty is no longer the sacrament of 
Athene's love for me, but the j^aything of a man ; — and 
such a man as that ! Luxurious, frivolous, heartless — 
courting my society, as he has done for years, only to 
pick up and turn to his own base earthly uses the scraps 
which fail from the festal table of the gods ! I have 
encouraged him too much — vain fool that I have been ! 
No, I wrong myself I It was only — I thought — I thought 
that by his being seen at our doors, the cause of the 
immortal gods would gain honour and strength in the 
eyes of the multitude. ... I have tried to feed the 
altars of heaven with earthly fuel. . . . And this is my 
just reward ! I will write to him this moment ; return, by 
the fitting messenga: which he has sent> insult for insult I 

" In the name of Heaven, my daughter ! — ^for your 
father's sake ! — ^for my sake ! Hypatia I — my pride, my 
joy, my only hope ! — have pity on my gray hairs ! " 

And the poor did man flung himself at her feet, and 
clasped her knees imploringly. 

Tenderly she lifted him up, and wound her long arms 
round him, and laid his head on her white shoulder, and 


50 HYPATIA. 

her tears fell fast upon his gray hair ; but her lip was 
firm and determined. 

" Think of my pride — my glory in your glory ; think 
of me. . . . Not for myself ! You know I never cared 
for myself I " sobbed out the old man. " But to die 
seeing you empress ! " 

" UrQess I died first in childbed, father, .as many a 
woman dies who is weak enough to become a slave, and 
submit to tortures only fit for slaves." 

" But — but " said the old man, racking his be- 
wildered brains for some argument far enough removed 
from nature and common sense to have an effect on the 
beautiful fanatic — " but the cause of the gods ! What 
you might do for it ! . . . Remember Julian ! " 

Hypatia's arms dropped suddenly. Yes ; it was true ! 
The thought flashed across her mind with mingled de- 
Hght and terror. . . . Visions of her childhood rose swift 
and thick — temples — sacrifices — ^priesthoods — colleges — 
museimis ! What might she not do ? What might she 
not make Africa ? Give her ten years of power, and 
the hated name of Christian might be forgotten, and 
Athene Polias, colossal in ivory and gold, watching in 
calm triumph over the harbours of a heathen Alexandria. 
. . . But the price ! 

And she hid her face in her hands, and bursting into 
bitter tears walked slowly away into her own chamber, 
her whole body convulsed with the internal struggle. 

The old man looked after her, anxiously and per- 
plexed, and then followed, hesitating. She was sitting 
at the table, her face buried in her hands. He did not 
dare to disturb her. In addition to all the affection, 
the wisdom, the glorious beauty, on which his whole 
heart fed day by day, he believed her to be the possessor 
of those supernatural powers and favours to which she 
so boldly laid claim. And he stood watching her in the 
doorway, praying in his heart to all gods and demons, 
principalities and powers, from Athene down to his 
daughter's guardian spirit, to move a determination 
which he was too weak to gainsay, and yet too rational 
to approve. 


HYPATIA. SI 

At last the struggle was over, and she looked up, clear, 
calm, and glorious again. 

'* It shaU be. For the sake of the immortal gods — 
for the sake of art, and science, and learning, and philos- 
ophy. ... It shall be. If the gods demand a victim, 
here am I. If a second time in the history of the ages 
the Grecian fleet cannot sail forth, conquering and civil- 
izing, without the sacrifice of a virgin, I give my throat 
to the knife. Father, call me no more Hypatia : call 
me Iphigenia ! " 

** And me Agamemnon ? " asked the old man, attempt- 
ing a faint jest through his tears of joy. " I dare say 
you think me a very cruel father ; but " 

" Spare me, father — I have spared you." 

And she began to write her answer. 

" I have accepted his offer — conditionally, that is. 
And on whether he have courage or not to fulfil that 
condition depends — — Do not ask me what it is. While 
Cyril is leader of the Christian mob, it may be safer for 
you, my father, that you should be able to deny all 
knowledge of my answer. Be content. I have said 
this — that if he will do as I would have him do, I will 
do as you would have me do." 

" Have you not been too rash ? Have you not de- 
manded of him something which, for the sake of public 
opinion, he dare not grant openly, and yet which he 

may allow you to do for yourself when once " 

I have. If I am to be a victim, the sacrificing priest 
shall at least be a man, and not a coward and a time- 
server. If he beheves this Christian faith, let him de- 
fend it against me ; for either it or I shall perish. If 
he does not — as he does not — let him give up living in 
a he, and taking on his lips blasphemies against the 
immortals, from which his heart and reason revolt ! " 

And she clapped her hands again for the maid-servant, 
gave her the letter silently, shut the doors of her chamber, 
and tried to resume her Commentary on Plotinus. Alas ! 
what were all the wire-drawn dreams of metaphysics to 
her in that real and hmnan struggle of the heart ? What 
availed it to define the process by which individual souls 


52 HVPATIA. 

emanated from the universsd one, while her own soul 
had, singly and on its own responsibility, to decide so 
terrible an act of will ? or to write fine words with pen 
and ink about the immutability of the supreme Reason, 
while her own reason was left there to struggle for its 
life amid a roaring shoreless waste of doubts and dark- 
ness ? Oh, how grand, and clear, and logical it had aU 
looked half an hour ago ! And how irrefra^ably she 
had been deducing from it all, syllogism after syllogism, 
the non-existence of evil ! — ^how it was but a lower form 
of good, one of the countless products of the one great 
all-pervading mind which could not err or change, only 
so strange and recondite in its form as to excite an- 
tipathy in all minds but that of the philosopher, who 
learned to see the stem which connected the apparently 
bitter fruit with the perfect root from whence it sprang. 
Could she see the stem there ? — the connection between 
the pure and supreme Reason, and the hideous caresses 
of the debauched and cowardly Orestes ? was not that 
evil pure, unadulterate with any vein of good, past, 
present, or future ? . . . 

True, she might keep her spirit pure amid it all ; she 
might sacrifice the base body, and ennoble the soul by 
the self-sacrifice. . . . And yet, would not that increase 
the horror, the agony, the evil of it — to her, at least, 
most real evil, not to be explained away — and yet the 
gods required it ? Were they just, merciful in that ? 
Was it like them, to torture her, their last unshaken 
votary ? Did they require it ? Was it not required of 
them by some higher power, of whom they were only 
the emanations, the tools, the puppets ? — and required 
of that higher power by some still higher one — some 
nameless, absolute destiny of which Orestes and she, 
and aU heaven and earth, were but the victims* dragged 
along in an inevitable vortex, helpless, hc^ess, toward 
that for which each was meant ? — ^And she was meant 
for this ! The thought was unbearable ; it turned her 
giddy. No ! she would not I She would rebel ! Like 
Prometheus, she would dare destiny,, and brave its worst ! 
And she sprang up to rec2^ the letter. . . . Miriam was 


HYPATIA. 53; 

gone ; and she threw herself on the flocM*, and wept 
hitteriy. 

And her peace of mind would certainly not have been 
improved, could she have seen old Miriam hurry home 
with h^ letter to a dingy house in the Jews* quarter, 
where it was unsealed, read, and sealed up again witii 
such marvellous ^dll that no eye could have detected 
the char^ ; and finally, still less would she have been 
comforted could she have heard the conversation which 
was going on in a summer-room of Orestes' palace, be- 
tween that illustrious statesman and Raphael Aben-Ezra, 
who were lying on two divans opposite each other, 
whiUng away, by a throw or two of dice, the anxious 
moments which delayed her answer, 

** Trays again ! The devil is in you, Raphael ! " 

** I always thought he was,*' answered Raphael, sweep- 
ing up the gold pieces. . . . 

'' When will diat old witch be back ? " 

" When she has read through your letter and Hj^tia's 
answer/' 

" Read them ? " 

" Of coarse. You don't fancy she is going to be fool 
cnou^ to carry a message TOthout knowing what it is ? 
Don't be angry ; she won't tell. She would give one 
of those two grave-lights there, which she calls her eyes, 
to see the thing prosper." 

" Why ? " 

" Your excdierary will know when the letter comes. 
Here she is ; I hear steps m the cloister. Now, one bet 
before they enter. I give you two to one she asks you 
to turn pagan." 

" What in ? Negro-boys ? " 

" Anything you Uke." 

" Taken. Come in, slaves ! " 

And H3^pooodsma entered, pouting. 

*' That Jewish fury is outside with a letter, and has 
the impudence to say she wcm't let me bring it in ! " 

" Bring her in then. Quick ! " 

" I wcmder what I am here for, if people have secrets 
that I am not to know," grumbled the spoilt youth. 


54 HYPATIA. 

" Do you want a blue ribbon round those white sides 
of yours, you ntionkey ? " answered Orestes. " Because, 
if you do, the hippopotamus hide hangs ready outside." 

" Let us make him kneel down here for a couple of 
hours, and use him as a dice-board," said Raphael, " as 
you used to do to the girls in Armenia." 

" Ah, you recollect that ? — and how the barbarian 
papas used to grumble, till I had to crucify one or two, 
eh ? That was something Uke life ! I love those out- 
of-the-way stations, where nobody asks questions ; but 
here one might as well live among the monks in Nitria. 
Here comes Canidia ! Ah, the answer ? Hand it here, 
my queen of go-betweens ! " 

Orestes read it, and his countenance fell. 

" I have won ? " 

" Out of the room, slaves ! and no Ustening ! '* 

" I have won then ? " 

Orestes tossed the letter across to him, and Raphael 
read : — 

" The immortal gods accept no divided worship ; and 
he who would command the counsels of their prophetess 
must remember that they will vouchsafe to her no illu- 
mination till their lost honours be restored. If he who 
aspires to be the lord of Africa dare trample on the hate- 
ful cross, and restore the Caesareum to those for whose 
worship it was built — ^if he dare proclaim aloud with 
his lips, and in his deeds, that contempt for novel and 
barbarous superstitions which his taste and reason have 
already taught him, then he would prove himself one 
with whom it were a glory to labour, to dare, to die in 
a great cause. But till then " 

And so the letter ended. 

** What am I to do ? " 

" Take her at her word." 

" Good heavens ! I shaD be excommunicated ! And 
— and — ^what is to become of my soul ? " 

" What will become of it in any case, my most ex- 
cellent lord ? " answered Raphael blandly. 

" You mean — I know what you cursed Jews think 
will happen to every one but yourselves. But what 


HYPATIA. 55 

would the world say ? I an apostate ! And in the 
face of Cyril and the populace ! I daren't, I tell you ! " 

** No one asked your excellency to apostatize." 

*' Why, what ? What did you say just now ? " 

" I asked you to promise. It will not be the first 
time that promises before marriage have not exactly 
coincided with performance afterwards.'' 

'* I daren't — that is, I won't promise. I believe, now, 
this is some trap of your Jewish intrigue, just to make 
me commit myself against those Christians, whom you 
hate." 

" I assure you, I despise all mankind far too pro- 
foimdly to hate them. How disinterested my advice 
was when I proposed this match to you, you never 
will know; indeed, it would be boastful in me to tell 
you. But really you must make a Httle sacrifice to 
win this foolish girl. With all the depth and daring 
of her intellect to help you, you might be a match for 
Romans, Byzantines, and Goths at once. And as for 
beauty — ^why, there is one dimple inside that wrist, just 
at the setting on of the sweet Httle hand, worth all the 
other flesh and blood in Alexandria." 

" By Jove ! you admire her so much, I suspect you 
must be in love with her yourself. Why don't you 
marry her ? I'll make you my prime minister, and then 
we shall have the use of her wits without the trouble 
of her fancies. By the twelve gods I if you marry 
her and help me, I'll make you what you Hke ! " 

Raphael rose and bowed to the earth. 

** Your serene high-mightiness overwhelms me. But 
I assure you, that never having as yet cared for any 
one's interest but my own, I could not be expected, 
at my time of Hfe, to devote myself to that of another, 
even though it were to yours." 

" Candid ! " 

" Exactly so ; and moreover, whomsoever I may marry, 
will be practically, as well as theoretically, my private 
and pecuhar property. . . . You comprehend ? " 

'* Candid again." 

" Exactly so ; and waiving the third argument, that 


56 HYPATIA. 

she probably might not choose to marry me, I beg to 
remark that it would not be proper to allow the world 
to say that I, the subject, had a wiser and fairer wife 
than you, the ruler ; especially a. wife who had already 
refused that ruler's compHmentary offer." 

" By Jove ! and she has refused me in good earnest ! 
ril make her repent it ! I was a fool to ask her at all ! 
What's the use of having guards^ if one can't compel 
what one wants ? If fair means can't do it, foul shall ! 
I'll send for her this moment I " 

'* Most illustrious majesty, it will not succeed. You 
do not know that woman's determination. Scourges and 
red-hot pincers will not shake her, ahve ; and dead, 
she wiU be of no use whatsoever to* you, while she will 
be of great use to C}^." 

" How ? " 

" He will be most happy to make the whole story a 
handle against you, give out that she died a virgin- 
martyr, in defence of the most holy cathoUc and apostolic 
faith, get miracles worked at her tomb, and p^ your 
palace about your ears on the strength thereof." 

" Cyril will hear of it anyiiow : that's another dilemma 
into which you have brought me, you intriguing rascal ! 
Why, this girl will be boasting all over Alexandria that 
I have offered her marriage, and that she has done her- 
self the honour to refuse me I " 

" She will be much too wise to do anything of the 
kind. She has sense enough to know that if she did so, 
you would inform a Christian populace what conditions 
she offered you; and, with all her contempt for the 
burden of the flesh, she has no mind to be lightened 
of that pretty load by being torn in pieces by Christian 
monks — a very probable ending for her in any case, as 
she herself, in her melancholy moods, confesses I " 

" What will you have me do then ? " 

" Simply nothing. Let the prophetic sjHrit go out of 
her, as it will, in a day or two, and then — I know nothing 
of human nature if she does not bate a Httle of her own 
price. Depend on it, for all her ineffabihties, and im- 
passibihties, and all the rest of the seventh-heaven 


HYPATIA, 57 

moondbinc at which we p4ay here in Alexandria, a throne 
is far too pretty a bait for even Hypatia the Pythoness 
to refuse. Leave well alone is a good rule, but leave ill 
alone is a better. So now another bet before we part, 
and this time three to qdg. Do nothing either way, and 
she sends to you of her own accord before a month is 
out In Caucasian mules ? Done ? Be it so." 

** Well, you are the most charming counsellor for a 
poor perplexed devil of a prefect ! If I had but a private 
fortune like you, I could just take the money, and let 
the work do itself." 

** Which is the true method of successful government. 
Your slave bids you farewell. Do not forget our bet. 
You dine with me to-morrow ? *' 

And Raphael bowed himself out. 

As he left the parefect's door, he saw Miriam on the 
opposite side of the street, evidently watching for him. 
As soon as she saw him, she held on her own side, with- 
out appearing to notice him, till be turned a corner, and 
then crossing, caught him eagerly by the arm. 

" Does the jEool dare ? " 

" Who dare what ? " 

" You know what I mean. Do you suppose old 
Miriam carries letters without taking care to know 
what is inside them ? Will he apostatize ? Tell me. 
I am secret as the grave ! " 

" The fool ha» found an old worm-eaten ra^ of con- 
science somewhere in the comer of his heart, and dare 
not." 

'' Curse the coward ! And such a plot as I had laid ! 
I would have swept every Christian dog out of Africa 
within the year. What is the man afraid of ? " 

" Hell-fire." 

** Why, he will go there in any case, the accursed 
Gentile ! " 

*' So I hinted to kbn, as delicately as I could ; but, 
like the rest of the world, be had a sort of partiality for 
getting thither by his own road*" 

" Coward ! And whom shall I get now ? Oh, if that 
Pelagia had as much cunning in her whole body as 


58 HYP ATI A. 

Hypatia has in her little finger, I'd seat her and her 
Goth upon the throne of the Caesars. But " 

" But she has five senses, and just enough wit to use 
them, eh ? '* 

" Don't laugh at her for that, the darling ! I do 
dehght in her, after all. It warms even my old blood 
to see how thoroughly she knows her business, and how 
she enjoys it, like a true daughter of Eve." 

" She has been your most successful pupil, certainly, 
mother. You may well be proud of her. 

The old hag chuckled to herself awhile; and then 
suddenly turning to Raphael, — 

*' See here ! I have a present for you," and she pulled 
out a magnificent ring. 

" Why, mother, you are always giving me presents. It 
was but a month ago you sent me this poisoned dagger.'* 

" Why not, eh ? — ^why not ? Why should not Jew 
give to J ew ? Take the old woman's ring I " 

" What a glorious opal ! " 

" Ah, that is an opal, indeed ! And the unspeakable 
name upon it; just Hke Solomon's own. Take it, I 
say ! Whosoever wears that need never fear fire, steel, 
poison, or woman's eye." 

** Your own included, eh ? " 

" Take it, I say ! " and Miriam caught his hand, and 
forced the ring on his finger. " There ! Now you're 
safe. And now call me mother again. I Hke it. I 
don't know why, but I like it. And, Raphael Aben- 
Ezra, don't laugh at me, and call me witch and hag,^ 
as you often do. I don't care about it from any one 
else ; I'm accustomed to it. But when you do it, I 
always long to stab you. That's why I gave you the 
dagger. I used to wear it ; and I was afraid I might 
be tempted to use it some day, when the thought came 
across me how handsome you'd look, and how quiet,^ 
when you were dead, and your soul up there so happy 
in Abraham's bosom, watching all the Gentiles irying 
and roasting for ever down below. Don't laugh at me, 
I say ; and don't thwart me ! I may make you the 
emperor's prime minister some day. I can if I choose." 


HYPATIA. 59 

" Heaven forbid ! " said Raphael, laughing. 

" Don't laugh. I cast your nativity last night, and I 
know you have no cause to laugh. A great danger 
hangs over you, and a deep temptation. And if you 
weather this storm, you may be chamberlain, prime 
minister, emperor, if you will. And you shall be — ^by 
the four archangels, you shall ! '* 

And the old woman vanished down a by-lane, leaving 
Raphael utterly bewildered. 

*' Moses and the prophets ! Does the old lady intend 
to marry me ? What can there be in this very lazy 
and selfish personage who bears my name, to excite so 
romantic an affection ? Well, Raphael Aben-Ezra, thou 
hast one more friend in the world besides Bran the mastiff ; 
and therefore one more trouble — seeing that friends al- 
wa}^ expect a due return of affection and good offices 
and what not. I wonder whether the old lady has been 
getting into a scrape kidnapping, and wants my patron- 
age to help her out of it. . . . Three-quarters of a mile 
of roasting sun between me and home ! . . . I must 
hire a gig, or a Utter, or something, off the next stand 
. . . with a driver who has been eating onions . . . 
and, of course, there is not a stand for the next half 
mile. Oh, divine aether ! as Prometheus has it, and ye 
swift-winged breezes (I wish there were any here), when 
will it all be over ? Three-and-thirty years have I en- 
dured already of this Babel of knaves and fools; and 
with this abominable good health of mine, which won't 
even help me with gout or indigestion, I am Ukely to 
have three-and-thirty years more of it. ... I know 
nothing, and I care for nothing, and I expect nothing ; 
and I actually can't take the trouble to prick a hole in 
myself, and let the very small amount of wits out, to 
see something really worth seeing, and try its strength 
at something really worth doing — if, after all, the other 
side of the grave does not turn out to be just as stupid 
as this one. . . . When will it be all over, and I in Abra- 
ham's bosom — or any one else's, provided it be not a 
woman's ? " 


60 HYPATIA. 

CHAPTER V. 

A DAY IN ALEXANDRIA. 

In the meamsdiile, Philammon, with his hosts, the Goths, 
hafd been slipping dovm the stream. Passing, one after 
another, world-old cities now dwindled to decaying 
towns, and numberless canal-mouths, now fast falling 
into ruin with the fields to which they ensuiied fertility, 
under the pressure of Roman extortion and misrule, 
they had entered one evening the mouth of the great 
canal of Alexandria, slid easily all night across the star- 
bespangled shadows of Lake Mareotis, and found them- 
seh^, when the next morning dawned, among the count- 
less masts and noisy quays of the greatest seaport in the 
world. The motley crowd of foreigners, the hubbub of 
all dialects from the Crimea to Cadiz, the vast piles of 
merchandise, and heaps of wheat, lying unsheltered in 
that rainless air, the huge bulk of the corn-ships lading 
for Rome, whose tall sides rose story over story, like 
floating palaces, above the buildings of some inner dock 
— these sights, and a hundred more, made the young 
monk tliink that the world did not Ick^ at first sight a 
thing to be despised. Im front of heaps of fruit, fresh 
from the market-boats, tiack groups of glossy negro 
slaves were basking and laughing on the quay, looking 
anxiously and coquettishly round in hopes of a pur- 
chaser : they evidently did not think the change from 
desert toil to dty luxuries a change for the worse. Phil- 
ammon turned away Ids eyes from beholding vanity ; 
but only to meet tresh vanity wheresoever they fell. 
He felt crushed by the multitucte of new objects, stunned 
by the din around ; and scarcely recollected himself 
enough to seize the first opportunity of escaping from 
his dangerous companions. 

*' Holloa ! '* roared Smid the armourer, as he scrambled 
on to the steps of the slip ; " you are not going to run 
away without bidding us good-bye ? " 

" Stop with me, boy ! " said old Wulf. " I saved 
vou, and you are my man." 


HYPATIA. 6 1 

Philammon turned and hesitated. 

" I am a monk, and God*s man/' 

'* You can be that anywhere. I will make you a 
warrior.'* 

*' The weapons of my warfare are not of flesh and 
blood, but prayer and fasting," answered poor Philam- 
mon, who fdt already that he should have ten times 
more need of the said weapons in Alexandria than ever 
he had had in the desert. ..." Let me go I I am not 
made for your life ! I thank you, bless you ! I will 
pray for you, sir I but let me go 1 " 

*' Curse the craven hound ! " roared half a dozen 
voices. " Why did you not let us have our will with 
him, Prince Wulf ? You might have expected such 
gratitude from a monk." 

** He owes me my share at the sport," quoth Smid. 
" And here it is ! " And a hatchet, thrown with prac- 
tised aim, whistled right for Philammon's head : he had 
just time to swerve, and the; weapon struck and snapped 
against the granite wall behind. 

" Well saved ! " said Wulf coolly, while the sailors 
and market-women above yelled murder, and the cus- 
tom-house officers, and other constables and catchpolls 
of the harbom*, rushed to the place — and retired again 
quietly at the thunder of the Amal from the boaf s 
stem, — 

** Never mind, my good fellows ! we're only Goths ; 
and on a visit to the prefect,, too." 

** Only Goths, my donkey-riding friends ! '* echoed 
Smid, and at that ominous name the whole posse comi- 
talus tried to look unconcerned, and found suddenly 
that their presence was absolutely required m an oppo- 
site direction. 

*' Let him go," said Wulf, as he stalked up the steps. 
** Let the boy go. I never set my heart on any man 
yet," he growled to himself in an under-voice, " but 
what he disappointed me ; and I must not expect naore 
from this fellow. Come, men, ashore, and get drunk ! " 

Philammon, of course, now that he had leave to go, 
longed to stay — at all events, he must go back ar- " 


62 HYPATIA. 

thank his hosts. He turned unwillingly to do so, as 
hastily as he could, and found Pelagia and her gigantic 
lover just entering a palanquin. With downcast eyes 
he approached the beautiful basilisk, and stammered 
out some commonplace ; and she, full of smiles, turned 
to him at once. 

" Tell us more about yourself before we part. You 
speak such beautiful Greek — true Athenian. It is quite 
delightful to hear one's own accent again. Were you 
ever at Athens ? '* 

" When I was a child ; I recollect — that is, I think " 

" What ? '* asked Pelagia eagerly. 

" A great house in Athens — and a great battle there 
— and coming to Egypt in a ship.'* 

" Heavens ! " said Pelagia, and paused, j ; ; " How 
strange ! Girls, who said he was like me ? " 

" I'm sure we meant no harm, if we did say it in a 
joke," pouted one of the attendants. 

" Like me ! — you must come and see us. I have 
something to say to you. .- ; . You must 1 " 

Philammon misinterpreted the intense interest of her 
tone, and if he did not shrink back, gave some involim- 
tary gesture of reluctance. Pelagia laughed aloud. 

" Don't be vain enough to suspect, foolish boy, but 
come 1 Do you think that I have nothing to talk about 
but nonsense ? Come and see me. It may be better 

for you. I live in " and she named a fashionable 

street, which Philammon, though he inwardly vowed not 
to accept the invitation, somehow could not help remem- 
bering. 

" Do leave the wild man, and come," growled the 
Amal from within the palanquin. " You are not going 
to turn nun, I hope ? " 

" Not while the first mai; I ever met in the world 
stays in it," answered Pelagia, as she skipped into the 
palanquin, taking care to show the most lovely white 
heel and ankle, and, like the Parthian, send a random 
arrow as she retreated. But the dart was lost on Phil- 
ammon, who had been already hustled away by the 
bevy of laughing attendants, amid baskets, dressing-cases, 


HYPATIA. 63 

and birdcages, and was fain to make his escape into the 
Babel round, and inquire his way to the patriarch's house. 

" Patriarch's house ? " answered the man whom he 
first addressed, a little, lean, swarthy fellow, with merry 
black eyes, who, with a basket of fruit at his feet, was 
simning himself on a baulk of timber, meditatively chew- 
ing the papyrus-cane, and examining the strangers with 
a look of absurd sagacity. " I know it ; without a 
doubt I know it; aJ& Alexandria has good reason to 
know it. Are you a monk ? " 

" Yes." 

'* Then ask your way of the monks ; you won't go far 
without finding one." 

" But I do not even know the right direction. What 
is your grudge against monks, my good man ? " 

*' Look here, my youth ; you seem too ingenuous for a 
monk. Don't flatter yourself that it will last. If you 
can wear the sheepskin, and haimt the churches here for 
a month, without learning to lie, and slander, and clap, 
and hoot, and perhaps play your part in a sedition-and- 
murder satyric drama — ^why, you are a better man than 
I take you for. I, sir, am a Greek and a philosopher ; 
though the whirlpool of matter may have, and indeed 
has, involved my ethereal spark in the body of a porter. 
Therefore, youth," continued the little man, startmg up 
upon his baulk like an excited monkey, and stretching 
out one oratorio paw, " I bear a treble hatred to the 
monkish tribe. First, as a man and a husband ; r . . 
for as for the smiles of beauty, or otherwise — such as I 
have, I have ; and the monks, if they had their wicked 
will, would leave neither men nor women in the world. 
Sir, they would exterminate the human race in a single 
generation, by a voluntary suicide ! Secondly, as a 
porter ; for if all men turned monks, nobody would be 
idle, and the profession of portering would be annihilated. 
Thirdly, sir, as a philosopher ; for as the false coin is 
odious to the true, so is the irrational and animal as- 
ceticism of the monk to the logical and methodic self- 
restraint of one who, like your humblest of philosopher^ 
aspires to a life according to the pure reason." 


64 HYPATIA. 

'' And pray," asked Philammon, half laughing, " who 
has been your tutor in phik>sophy ? " 

" The fountain of classic wisdom, Hypatia herself. 
As the ancient sage — ^the name is unimportant to a 
monk — pumped water nightly that he might study by 
day, so I, the guardian of doaks and parasols at the 
sacred doors of her lecture-room, imbibe celestial laiow- 
ledge. From my youth I feit in me a soul above the 
matter-entangled herd. She revealed to me the glorious 
fact that I am a spark of Divinity itself. A fallen star, 
I am, sir ! " continued he pensively, stroking his lean 
stomach, '' a fallen star 1 — ^fallen, if the dignity of pM- 
losophy will allow of the simile, among the hogs of the 
lower world — ^indeed, even into the hog-bucket itself. 
Well, after all, I will show ywi the way to the arch- 
bishop's. There is a philosophic pleasure in opening 
one's treasures to the modest young. Perhaps you will 
assist me by carr3ring this basket of fruit ? " And the 
little man jumped up, put his basket <on Fhilammon's 
head, and ib*otted off up a nei^bouring street, 

Philammon followed, half contemptuous, half wonder- 
ing at what this phiiosopliy might be, whidi could feed 
the self-conceit of anything so abject as his ragged httle 
apish guide ; but the novd roar and whirl of tbe street, 
the perpetual stream of busy faces, the line of currides, 
palanquins, laden asses, camels, elephants, whidi met 
and passed Mm, and squeezed him up steps and into 
doorways, as diey threaded thdr way through the great 
Moon-gate into the ample street beyond, drove every- 
thing from his mind but wondering curiosity, and a 
vague, hdpless dread of that great living wiiderness, 
more terrible than any dead wildemess of sand which 
he had left behind. Already he longed for the repose, 
the silence of the Laura — for faces which knew him and 
smiled upon him ; but it was too late to turn back now. 
His guide held on for more than a mile up the great 
main street, crossed in the centre of the dty, at rig^t 
angles, by one equally magnificent, at each end of which, 
miles away, appeared, dim and distant over the heads 
of the living stream of passengers, the yellow sand-hills 


HYPATIA. 65 

of the desert ; while at the end of the vista in front of 
them gleamed the blue harbour, through a network of 
countless masts. 

At last they reached the quay at the opposite end of 
the street ; and there burst on Philammon's astonished 
eyes a vast semicircle of blue sea, ringed with palaces 
and towers, . . > He stopped involuntarily ; and his 
little guide stopped also, and looked askance at the 
young monk, to watch the effect which that grand 
panorama should produce on him. 

** There ! — Behold our works ! Us Greeks I — ^us be- 
nighted heathens! Look at it, and feel yourself what 
you are — a very small, conceited,, ignorant young person, 
who fancies that your new religion gives you a right to 
despise every one else. Did Qiristians make all this ? 
Did Christians build that Pharos there on the lieft horn 
— ^wonder of the world ? Did Christians raise that mile- 
long mole which runs towards the land, with its two 
drawbridges, connecting the two ports ? Did Christians 
build this esplanade, or this gate of the Sum above our 
heads ? Or that Caesareum on ouar right here ? Look 
at those obelisks before it ! " Aiui he pointed upwards 
to those two world-famous ones, one of which still lies 
on its ancient site, as Cleopatra's Needle. " Look up ! 
look up, I say, and feel small — ^very small indeed I Did 
Christians raise them, or engrave them from base to 
paint with the wisdom of the ancients ? Did Christians 
build that Museum next to it, or design its statues and 
its frescoes — ^now, akisE re-echoing no more to the 
hummings of the Attic bee ? Did they pile up out of 
the waves that palace beyond it, or that Exchange ? or 
fill that Temple of Neptune with breathing brass and 
blushing marble ? Did they build that Timonium on 
the point, where Antony, worsted at Actium, forgot his 
shame in Qeopatra's arms ? Did they quarry out that 
island of Antirrhodus into a nest of docks, w cover 
those waters with the sails of every nation imder heaven ? 
Speak ! thou son of bats and moles — thou six feet of 
sand — thou mummy out of the cliff caverns I Can 
monks do works Hke these ? " 


65 HYPATIA. 

" Other men have laboured, and we have entered into 
their labours/' answered Philammon, trying to seem as 
unconcerned as he could. He was, indeed, too utterly 
astonished to be angry at anything. The overwhelming 
vastness, multiplicity, and magnificence of the whole 
scene ; the range of buildings, such as mother Earth 
never, perhaps, carried on her lap before or since; the 
extraordinary variety of form — the pure Doric and Ionic 
of the earlier Ptolemies, the barbaric and confused gor- 
geousness of the later Roman, and here and there an 
imitation of the grand elephantine style of old Egypt, its 
gaudy colours relieving, while they deepened, the effect 
of its massive and simple outlines ; the eternal repose 
of that great belt of stone contrasting with the restless 
ripple of the glittering harbour, and the busy sails which 
crowded out into the sea beyond, like white doves taking 
their flight into boundless space ; — all dazzled, over- 
powered, saddened him. ; ; . This was the world. . . . 
Was it not beautiful ? . . ; Must not the men who 
made all this have been — ^if not great . . . yet ... he 
knew not what ? Surely they had great souls and noble 
thoughts in them ! Surely there was something godlike 
in being able to create such things ! Not for themselves 
alone, too, but for a nation — for generations yet unborn. 
. . . And there was the sea . . . and beyond it nations 
of men innumerable. . ; ; His imagination was dizzy 
with thinking of them. . . . Were they all doomed — 
lost ? . . . Had God no love for them ? 

At last, recovering himself, he recollected his errand, 
and again asked his way to the archbishop's house. 

*' This way, O youthful nonentity ! '* answered the 
little man, leading the way round the great front of 
the Caesareum, at the foot of the obelisks. 

Philammon's eye fell on some new masonry in the 
pediment, ornamented with Christian symbols. 

'' How ? Is this a church ? " 

*' It is the Caesareum. It has become temporarily a 
church. The immortal gods have, for the time being, 
condescended to waive their rights ; but it is the Caesareum, 
nevertheless. This way ; down this street to the right. 


HYPATIA. 67 

There," said he, pointing to a doorway in the side of 
the Museum, " is the last haunt of the Muses — the 
lecture-room of Hypatia, the school of my imworthiness. 
. . . And here," stopping at the door of a splendid house 
on the opposite side of the street, ** is the residence of 
that blest favourite of Athene — Neith, as the barbarians 
of Eg5^t would denominate the goddess — we men of 
Macedonia retain the time-honoured Grecian nomencla- 
ture. . . . You may put down your basket." And he 
knocked at the door, and deUvering the fruit to a black 
porter, made a polite obeisance to Philammon, and 
seemed on the point of taking his departure. 

" But where is the archbishop's house ? " 

" Close to the Serapeium. You cannot miss the place : 
four hundred columns of marble, now ruined by Christian 
persecutors, stand on an eminence " 

" But how far off ? " 

" About three miles ; near the gate of the Moon." 

" Why, was not that the gate by which we entered 
the city on the other side ? " 

*' Exactly so ; you will know your way back, having 
already traversed it." 

Philammon checked a decidedly carnal inclination to 
seize the little fellow by the throat and knock his head 
against the waU, and contented himself by sa5dng, — 

" Then do you actually mean to say, you heathen 
villain, that you have taken me six or seven miles out 
of my road ? " 

" Good words, young man. If you do me harm, I 
call for help ; we are close to the Jews' quarter, and 
there are some thousands there who will swarm out like 
wasps on the chance of beating a monk to death. Yet 
that which I have done, I have done with good pur- 
pose. First, poHtically, or according to practical wisdom 
— in order that you, not I, might carry the basket. Next, 
philosophically, or according to the intuitions of the 
pure reason — in order that you might, by beholding 
the magnificence of that great civilization which your 
fellows wish to destroy, learn that you are an ass, and 
a tortoise, and a nonentity, and so beholding your- 


68 HYPATIA. 

self to be nothing, may be moved to become some- 
thing/' 

And he moved off. 

Philammon seized him by the collar of his ragged tunic, 
and held him in a grip from which the little man, though 
he twisted like an eel, could not escape. 

'* Peaceably, if you will ; if not, by main force. You 
shall go back with me, and show me every step of the 
way. It is a just penalty." 

** The philosopher conquers circumstances by sub- 
mitting to them. I go peaceably. Indeed, the base 
necessities of the hog-bucket side of existence compel 
me of themselves back to the Moon-gate^ for another 
early fruit job.*' 

So they went back together. 

Now why Philammon's thoughts should have been 
running on the next new specimen of womankind to 
whom he had been introduced, though only in name, 
let psychologists tell ; but certainly, after he had walked 
some half-mile in silence, he suddenly woke up, as out 
of many meditations, and asked, — 

'* But who is this Hypatia, of whom you talk so 
much ? '' 

'' Who is Hypatia, rustic ? The queen of Alexandria I 
In wit, Athene ; Hera in majesty ; in beauty, Aphro- 
dite ! " 

'* And who are they ? " asked Philammon. 

The porter stopped, surveyed him slowly from foot to 
head with an expression of boimdless pity and contempt, 
and was in the act of walking off in the ecstasy of his 
disdain, when he was brought to suddenly by Philam- 
mon's strong arm. 

'' Ah ! — I recollect. There is a compact. ; ; . Who 
is Athene ? The goddess, giver of wisdom. Hera, 
spouse of Zeus, queen of the Celestials. Aphrodite, 
mother of love. ; . . You are not expected to under- 
stand." 

Philammon did understand, however, so much as this, 
that H5^atia was a very unique and wonderful person 
in the mind of his Httle guide ; and therefore asked the 


HYPATIA. 69 

only further question by which he could as yet test any 
Alexandrian phenomenon, — 

" And is she a friend of the patriarch ? " 

The porter opened his eyes very wide, put his middle 
finger in a careful and complicated fashion between his 
fore and third fingers, and extending it playfully towards 
Philammon, performed therewith certain mysterious 
signals, the effect whereof being totally lost on him, the 
Httle man stopped, took another look at Philammon's 
stately figure, and answered, — 

*' Of the human race in general, my young friend. 
The philosopher must rise above the individual, to the 
contemplation of the universal. . . . Aha 1 — Here is 
something worth seeing, and the gates are open." And 
he stopped at the portal of a vast building. 

" Is this the patriarch's house ? ** 

*' The patriarch's tastes are more plebeian. He lives, 
they say, in two dirty little rooms — knowing what is fit 
for him. The patriarch's house ? Its antipodes, my 
young friend — that is, if such beings have a cosmic ex- 
istence, on which point Hypatia has her doubts. This 
is the temple of art and beauty ; the Delphic tripod of 
poetic inspiration ; the solace of the earthwom drudge ; 
in a word, the theatre ; which your patriarch, if he could, 
would convert to-morrow into a But the philos- 
opher must not revile. Ah ! I see the prefect's appar- 
itors at the gate. He is making the poHty, as we call 
it here; the dispositions; settling, in short, the bill of 
fare for the day, in compliance with the public palate. 
A facetious pantomime dances here on this day every 
week — admired by some, the Jews especially. To the 
more classic taste, many of his movements — his recoil, 
especially — are wanting in the true antique severity — 
might be called, periiaps, on the whole, indecent. Still the 
weary pilgrim must be amused. Let us step in and hear." 

But before Philammon could refuse, an uproar arose 
within, a rush outward of the mob, and inward of the 
prefect's apparitors. 

" It is false ! " shouted many voices. " A Jewish 
calumny ! The man is innocent ! " 


70 HYPATIA. 

" There is no more sedition in him than there is in me," 
roared a fat butcher, who looked as ready to fell a man 
as an ox. " He was always the first and the last to clap 
the holy patriarch at sermon." 

" Dear tender soul," whimpered a woman ; " and I 
said to him only this morning, why don't you flog my 
boys, Master Hierax ? how can you expect them to 
learn if they are not flogged ? And he said, he never 
could abide the sight of a rod, it made his back tingle 
so." 

" Which was plainly a prophecy ! " 

" And proves him innocent, for how could he prophesy 
if he was not one of the holy ones ? " 

" Monks, to the rescue ! Hierax, a Christian, is taken 
and tortured in the theatre ! " thimdered a wild hermit, 
his beard and hair streaming about his chest and shoulders. 

" Nitria ! Nitria ! For God and the mother of God, 
monks of Nitria ! Down with the Jewish slanderers ! 
Down with heathen tyrants ! " And the mob, reinforced 
as if by magic by hundreds from without, swept down 
the huge vaulted passage, carr5dng Philammon and the 
porter with them. 

" My friends," quoth the little man, trying to look 
philosophically calm, though he was fairly off his legs, 
and hanging between heaven and earth on the elbows 
of the bystanders, " whence this timiult ? " 

" The Jews got up a cry that Hierax wanted to raise 
a riot. Curse them and their sabbath, they are always 
rioting on Saturdays about this dancer of theirs, instead 
of working Hke honest Christians ! " 

" And rioting on Sunday instead. Ahem ! sectarian 
differences, which the philosopher " 

The rest of the sentence disappeared with the speaker, 
as a sudden opening of the mob let him drop, and buried 
him under innumerable legs. 

Philammon, furious at the notion of persecution, 
maddened by the cries around him, found himself burst- 
ing fiercely through the crowd, till he reached the front 
ranks, where tall gates of open ironwork barred all further 
progress, but left a full view of the tragedy which was 


HYPATIA. 71 

enacting within, where the poor innocent wretch, sus- 
pended from a gibbet, writhed and shrieked at every 
stroke of the hide whips of his tormentors. 

In vain Philammon and the monks around him knocked 
and beat at the gates ; they were only answered by 
laughter and taunts from the apparitors within, curses 
on the turbulent mob of Alexandria, with its patriarch, 
clergy, saints, and churches, and promises to each and 
all outside that their turn would come next ; while the 
piteous screams grew fainter and more faint, and at last, 
with a convulsive shudder, motion and suffermg ceased 
for ever in the poor mangled body. 

" They have killed him ! Martyred him ! Back to 
the archbishop ! To the patriarch's house ; he will 
avenge us ! " And as the horrible news, and the watch- 
word which followed it, passed outwards through the 
crowd, they wheeled round as one man, and poured 
through street after street towards Cyril's house ; while 
Philammon, beside himself with horror, rage, and pity, 
hurried onward with them. 

A tumultuous hour, or more, was passed in the street 
before he could gain entrance ; and then he was swept, 
along with the mob in which he had been fast wedged, 
through a dark low passage, and landed breathless in a 
quadrangle of mean and new buildings, overhung by the 
four hundred stately colimins of the ruined Serapeium. 
The grass was already growing on the ruined capitals 
and architraves. ; .- . Little did even its destroyers 
dream then that the day would come when one only of 
that four hundred would be left, as " Pompey's Pillar," 
to show what the men of old could think and do. 

Philammon at last escaped from the crowd, and putting 
the letter which he had carried in his bosom into the 
hands of one of the priests who was mixing with the mob, 
was beckoned by him into a corridor, and up a flight of 
stairs, and into a large, low, mean room ; and there, by 
virtue of the world-wide freemasonry which Christianity 
had, for the first time on earth, estabUshed, found him- 
self in five minutes awaiting the summons of the most 
powerful man south of the Mediterranean. 


Jl HYPATIA, 

A curtain hting across the door of the inner chamber, 
through which Philammon could hear plainly the steps 
of some one walking up and down hurriedly and fiercely. 

*' They will drive me to it ! " at last burst out a deep 
sonorous voice. " They will drive me to it. . . . Their 
blood be on their own head ! Is it not enough for them 
to blaspheme God and His church, to have the monopoly 
of all the cheating, fortune-telling, usury, sorcery, and 
coining of the city, but they must deHver my clergy into 
the hands of the tyrant ? *' 

" It was so even in the apostles' time," suggested a 
softer but far more unpleasant voice. 

" Then it shall be so no longer ! God has given me 
the power to stop them ; and God do so to me, and more 
also, if I do not use that power. To-morrow I sweep out 
this Augean stable of villainy, and leave not a Jew to 
blaspheme and cheat in Alexandria." 

" I am afraid such a judgment, however righteous, 
might offend his excellency." 

*' His excellency ! His tyranny ! Why does Orestes 
truckle to these circumcised, but because they lend money 
to him and to his creatures ? He would keep up a den 
of fiends in Alexandria if they would do as much for him ! 
And then to play them off against me and mine, to bring 
religion into contempt by setting the mob together by 
the ears, and to end with outrages like this ! Seditious ! 
Have they not cause enough ? The sooner I remove 
one of their temptations the better : let the other tempter 
beware, lest his judgment be at hand ! " 

" The prefect, your holiness ? " asked the other voice 
slyly. 

" Who spoke of the prefect ? Whosoever is a tyrant, 
and a murderer, and an oppressor of the poor, and a 
favourer of the philosophy which despises and enslaves 
the poor, should not he perish, though he be seven times 
a prefect ? " 

At this juncture Philammon, thinking perhaps that 
he had already heard too much, notified his presence by 
some slight noise, at which the secretary, as he seemed 
to be, hastily lifted the curtain, and somewhat sharply 


HYPATIA. 73 

demanded his business. The names of Pambo and 
Arsenius, however, seemed to pacify him at once ; and 
the trembling youth was ushered into the presence of 
him who in reality, though not in name, sat on the throne 
of the Pharaohs. 

Not, indeed, in their outward pomp. The furniture of 
the chamber was but a grade above that of the artisan's ; 
the dress of the great man was coarse and simple ; if 
personal vanity peeped out anywhere, it was in the careful 
arrangement of the bushy beard, and of the few curling 
locks which the tonsure had spared. But the height 
and majesty of his figure, the stem and massive beauty 
of his features, the flashing eye, curling lip, and project- 
ing brow — all marked him as one bom to command. 

As the youth entered, Cyril stopped short in his walk, 
and looking him through and through, with a glance 
which burnt upon his cheeks like fire, and made him all 
but wish the kindly earth would open and hide him, took 
the letters, read them, and then began, — 

*' Philammon — a Greek. You are said to have learned 
to obey. If so, you have also leamed to rule. Your 
father-abbot has transferred you to my tutelage. You 
are now to obey me.'* 

'' And I will.'' 

" Well said. Go to that window, then, and leap into 
the court." 

Phflammon walked to it, and opened it. The pave- 
ment was fully twenty feet below ; but his business was 
to obey, and not take measurements. There was a 
flower in a vase upon the sill. He quietly removed it, 
and in an instant more would have leapt for life or death, 
when Cyril's voice thundered " Stop ! " 

" The lad will pass, my Peter. I shall not be afraid 
now for the secrets which he may have overheard." 

Peter smiled assent, looking all the while as if he 
thought it a great pity that the young man had not been 
allowed to put tale-bearing out of his own power by 
breaking his neck. 

" You wish to see the world. Perhaps you have seen 
something of it to-day." 


74 HYPATIA, 

'* I saw the murder " 

" Then you saw what you came hither to see— what 
the world is, and what justice and mercy it can deal out. 
You would not disHke to see God's reprisals to man's 
tyranny ? ... Or to be a fellow-worker with God there- 
in, if I judge rightly by yoin* looks ? " 

*' I would avenge that man." 

" Ah ! my poor simple schoolmaster ! And his fate 
is the portent of portents to you now ! Stay awhile, till 
you have gone with Ezekiel into the inner chambers of 
the devil's temple, and you will see worse things than 
these — ^women weeping for Thammuz ; bemoaning the 
decay of an idolatry which they themselves disbelieve. — 
That, too, is on the Hst of Hercules' laboin-s, Peter mine." 

At this moment a deacon entered. ..." Your holi- 
ness, the rabbis of the accursed nation are below, at your 
summons. We brought them in through the back gate, 
for fear of " 

" Right, right. An accident to them might have 
ruined us. I shall not forget you. Bring them up. — 
Peter, take this youth, introduce him to the parabolani. 
. . . Who will be the best man for him to work under ? " 

" The brother Theopompus is especially sober and 
gentle." 

Cyril shook his head laughingly. ; . . " Go into the 
next room, my son. . . . No, Peter, put him under some 
fiery saint, some true Boanerges, who will talk him down, 
and work him to death, and show him the best and the 
worst of everything. Cleitophon will be the man. Now 
then, let me see my engagements : five minutes for these 
Jews — Orestes did not choose to frighten them, let us 
see whether €5^11 cannot ; then an hour to look over the 
hospital accounts ; an hour for the schools ; a half-hour 
for the reserved cases of distress ; and another half -hour 
for myself ; and then divine service. See that the boy 
is there. Do bring in every one in their turn, Peter mine. 
So much time goes in hunting for this man and that 
man . . . and life is too short for all that. Where are 
these Jews ? " and Cyril plunged into the latter half of 
his day's work with that untiring energy, self-sacrifice, 


HYP ATI A. 75 

and method which commanded for him, in spite of all 
suspicions of his violence, ambition, and intrigue, the 
loving awe and implicit obedience of several hundred 
thousand human beings. 

So Philammon went out with the parabolani, a sort ot 
organized guild of district visitors. . . . And in their 
company he saw that afternoon the dark side of that 
world, whereof the harbour panorama had been the bright 
one. In squalid misery, filth, profligacy, ignorance, 
ferocity, discontent, neglected in body, house, and soul, 
by the civil authorities, proving their existence only in 
aimless and sanguinary riots, there they starved and 
rotted, heap on heap, the masses of the old Greek popu- 
lation, close to the great food-exporting harbour of the 
world. Among these, fiercely perhaps, and fanatically, 
but still among them and for them, laboured those dis- 
trict visitors night and day. And so Philammon toiled 
away with them, carrying food and clothing, helping 
sick to the hospital and dead to the burial ; cleaning 
out the infected houses — for the fever was all but per- 
ennial in those quarters — and comforting the dying with 
the good news of forgiveness from above ; till the larger 
number had to return for evening service. He, however, 
was kept by his superior, watching at a sick-bedside, and 
it was late at night before he got home, and was reported 
to Peter the reader as having acquitted himself like " a 
man of God,'* as, indeed, without the least thought of 
doing anything noble or self-sacrificing, he had truly 
done, being a monk. And so he threw himself on a 
truckle-bed. in one of the many cells which opened off 
a long corridor, and fell fast asleep in a minute. 

He was just weltering about in a dreary dream- jumble 
of Goths dancing with district visitors, Pelagia as an 
angel with peacock's wings ; Hypatia, with horns and 
cloven feet, riding three hippopotami at once round the 
theatre ; Cyril standing at an open window, cursing 
frightfully, and pelting him with flower-pots ; and a 
similar self-sown after-crop of his day's impressions, — 
when he was awakened by the tramp of hurried feet 
in the street outside, and shouts, which gradually, as 

3^ 


y6 HYPATIA, 

he became conscicms, shaped themselves into cries of 
*' Alexander's church is on fire ! Help, good Christians \ 
Fire 1 Help ! '' 

Whereat he sat up in his truckle-bed, tried to recollect 
where he was, and having with some trouble succeeded, 
threw on his sheepskin, and jumped up to ask the news 
from the deacons and monks who were hurrying along 
the corridor outside. ** Yes, Alexander's church was 
on fire ; " and down the stairs they poured, across the 
courtyard, and out into the street, Peter's tall figure 
serving as a standard and a rallying-point. 

As they rushed out through the gateway, Philammon, 
dazzled by the sudden transition from the darkness 
within to the blaze of moonlight and starMght which 
flooded the street, and walls, and shining roofs, hung 
back a moment. That hesitation probably saved his 
life ; for in an instant he saw a dark figure spring out 
of the shadow, a long knife flashed across his eyes, and 
a priest next to him sank upon the pavement with a 
groan, while the assassin dashed off down the street, 
hotly pursued by monks and parabolani. 

Philammon, who ran like a desert ostrich, had soon 
outstripped all but Peter, when several more dark figures 
sprang out of doorways and corners and joined, or seem 
to join, the pursuit. Suddenly, however, after running 
a hundred yards, they drew up opposite the mouth of 
a side street ; the assassin stopped also. Peter, sus- 
pecting something wrong, slackened his pace, and caught 
Philammon's arm. 

" Do you see those fellows in the shadow ? " 

But, before Philammon could answer, some thirty or 
forty men, their daggers gleaming in the moonlight, 
moved out into the middle of the street, and received 
the fugitive into their ranks. What was the meaning 
of it ? Here was a pleasant taste of the waj's of the most 
Christian and civilized city of the Empire ! 

" Well," thought Philammon, " I have come out to 
see the world, and I seem, at this rate, to be likely to see 
enough of it." 

Peter turned at once, and fled as quickly as he had 


HYPATIA. 7J 

pursued ; while Philammon, considering discretion the 
better part of valour, followed, and they rejoined their 
party breathless. 

'' There is an armed mob at the end of the street." 

" Assassins \ '* '' Jews ! " "A conspiracy ! " Up rose 
a Babel of doubtful voices. The foe appeared in sight, 
advancing stealthily, and the whole party took to flight, 
led once more by Peter, who seemed determined to make 
free use, in behalf of his own safety, of the long legs 
which nature had given him. 

Philammon followed, sulkily and unwillingly, at a 
foot's pace ; but he had not gone a dozen yards when 
a pitiable voice at his feet called to him, — 

'' Help ! mercy ! Do not leave me here to be mur- 
dered ! I am a Christian — ^indeed I am a Christian ! " 

Philammon stooped, and lifted from the ground a 
comely negro woman, weeping, and shivering in a few 
tattered remnants of clothing. 

'' I ran out when they said the church was on fire,*' 
sobbed ihe poor creature, ''and the Jews beat andwounded 
me. They tore my shawl and tunic off me before I 
could get away from them ; and then our own people 
ran over me and trod me down. And now my husband 
will b^it me, if 1 ever %<^t home. Quick ! up this side 
street, or we shall be murdered 1 *' 

The armed men, whosoever they were, were close on 
them. There was no time to be lost, and Philammon, 
assuring her that he would not desert her, hurried her up 
the side street which she pointed out. But the pursuers 
had cau^t sight of them, and while the mass held on 
up the main street, three or four turned aside and gave 
chase. The poor negress could only limp along; and 
Philammon, unarmed, looked back, and saw the bright 
steel points gleaming in the moonhght, and made up his 
mind to die as a monk should. Nevertheless, youth is 
hopeful. One chance for life. He thrust the negress 
into a dark doorway, where her colour hid her well 
enough, and had just time to ensconce himself behind a 
pillar, when the foremost pursuer reached him. He held 
his breath in fearful suspense. Should he be seen ? He 


78 IIYPATIA. 

would not die without a struggle at least. No ! the 
fellow ran on, panting. But in a minute more, another 
came up, saw him suddenly, and sprang aside startled. 
That start saved Philammon. Quick as a cat, he leapt 
upon him, felled him to the earth with a single blow, tore 
the dagger from his hand, and sprang to his feet again 
just in time to strike his new weapon full into the third 
pursuer's face. The man put his hand to his head, and 
recoiled against a fellow-ruffian, who was close on his 
heels. Philammon, flushed with victory, took advantage 
of the confusion, and before the worthy pair could re- 
cover, dealt them half a dozen blows which, luckily for 
them, came from an unpractised hand, or the young monk 
might have had more than one life to answer for. As it 
was, they turned and limped off, cursing in an unknown 
tongue ; and Philammon found himself triumphant and 
alone, with the trembling negress and the prostrate 
ruffian, who, stunned by the blow and the fall, lay groan- 
ing on the pavement. 

It was all over in a minute. . . . The negress was 
kneeling under the gateway, pouring out her simple 
thanks to Heaven for this unexpected deliverance ; and 
Philammon was about to kneel too, when a thought 
struck him, and coolly despoiling the Jew of his shawl 
and sash, he handed them over to the poor negress, con- 
sidering them fairly enough as his own by right of con- 
quest. But, lo and behold! as she was overwhelming 
him with thanks, a fresh mob poured into the street 
from the upper end, and were close on them before they 
were aware. ... A flush of terror and despair, . . . 
and then a burst of joy, as, by mingled moonlight and 
torchlight, Philammon descried priestly robes, and in 
the forefront of the battle — there being no apparent 
danger — Peter the reader, who seemed to be anxious to 
prevent inquiry, by beginning to talk as fast as possible. 

'* Ah, boy ! Safe ? The saints be praised ! We gave 
you up for dead ! Whom have you here ? A prisoner ? 
And we have another. He ran right into our arms up 
the street, and the Lord deUvered him into our hand. 
He must have passed you." 


HYPATIA. 79 

*' So he did/' said Philammon, dragging up his cap- 
tive, " and here is his fellow-scoundrel.'* Whereon the 
two worthies were speedily tied together by the elbows ; 
and the party marched on once more in search of Alex- 
ander's church, and the supposed conflagration. 

Philammon looked round for the negress, but she had 
vanished. He was far too much ashamed of being known 
to have been alone with a woman to say anything about 
her. Yet he longed to see her again ; an interest, even 
something like an affection, had already sprung up in 
his heart toward the poor simple creature whom he had 
delivered from death. Instead of thinking her ungrateful 
for not staying to tell what he had done for her, he was 
thankful to her for having saved his blushes, by dis- 
appearing so opportunely. . . . And he longed to tell 

her so — to know if she was hurt — to O Philammon ! 

only four days from the Laura, and a whole regiment of 
women acquaintances already ! True, Providence having 
sent into the world about as many women as men, it may 
be difficult to keep out of their way altogether. Perhaps, 
too, Providence may have intended them to be of some 
use to that other sex, with whom it has so mixed them 
up. Don't argue, poor Philammon ; Alexander's church 
is on fire ! — forward ! 

And so they hurried on, a confused mass of monks and 
populace, with their hapless prisoners in the centre, who, 
hauled, cuffed, questioned, and cursed by twenty self- 
elected inquisitors at once, thought fit, either from Jewish 
obstinacy or sheer bewilderment, to give no account 
whatsoever of themselves. 

As they turned the comer of a street, the folding-doors 
of a large gateway rolled open ; a long line of glittering 
figures poured across the road, dropped their spear-butts 
on the pavement with a single rattle, and remained 
motionless. The front rank of the mob recoiled, and 
an awestruck whisper ran through them. ..." The 
Stationaries ! " 

'* Who are they ? " asked Philammon in a whisper. 

" The soldiers — the Roman soldiers," answered a 
whisperer to him. 


80 HYPATIA, 

Philammon, who was among the leaders, had recoiled 
too — he hardly knew why — at that stern apparition. Hi& 
next instinct was to press forward as close as he dared. . . . 
And these were Roman soldiers I — ^the conquerors of the 
world ! — the men whose name had thrilled him from his 
childhood with vague awe and admiration, dimly heard 
of up there in the lonely Laura. . . . Roman soldiers ! 
And here he was face to face with them at last I 

His curiosity received a sudden check, however, as he 
found his arm seized by an officer, as he took him to be 
from the gold ornaments on his helmet and cuirass, who 
lifted his vinestock threateningly over the young monk's 
head, and demanded, — 

*' What's all this about ? Why are you not quietly 
in your beds, you Alexandrian rascals ? " 

" Alexander's church is on fire,'* answered Philammon, 
thinking the shortest answer the wisest. 

" So much the better." 

" And the Jews are murdering the Christians." 

'* Fijght it out, then. — Turn in, men ; it's only a riot." 

And the steel-clad apparition suddenly flashed round, 
and vanished, trampHng and jingHng, into the dark 
jaws of the guard-house gate, while the stream, its tem- 
porary barrier removed, rushed on wilder than ever. 

Philammon hurried on too with them, not without a 
strange feehng of disappointment. *' Only a riot ! " 
Peter was chuckling to his brothers over their cleverness 
in " having kept the prisoners in the middle, and stopped 
the rascals' mouths till they were past the guard-housed' 
** A fine thing to boast of," thought Philammon, " in 
the face of the men who make and unmake kings and 
Caesars ! " " Only a riot! " He, and the corps of dis- 
trict visitors — ^whom he fancied the most august body 
on earth — and Alexander's church. Christians murdered 
by Jews, persecution of the Catholic faith, and all the 
rest of it, was simply, then, not worth the notice of those 
forty men, alone and secure in the sense of power and 
discipline among tens of thousands. ... He hated them, 
those soldiers. Was it because they were indifferent to 
the cause of which he was inclined to think himself a not 


HYPATIA, 8 1 

unimportant member, on the strength of his late Samsonic 
defeat of Jewish persecutors ? At least, he obeyed the 
little porter's advice, and '* felt very small indeed/' 

And he felt smaller still, being young and alive to 
ridicule, when, at some sudden ebb or flow, wave or 
wavelet of the Babel sea which weltered up and down 
every street, a shrill female voice informed them from 
an upper window that Alexander's church was not on 
fire at all ; that she had gone to the top of the house, as 
they might have gone, if they had not been fools, etc., 
etc. ; and that it " looked as safe and as ugly as ever ; " 
wherewith a brickbat or two having been sent up in 
answer, she shut the blinds, leaving them to halt, inquire, 
discorver gradually and piecemeal, after the method of 
mobs, they had been following the nature of mobs ; that 
no one had seen the church on fire, or seen any one else 
who had seen the same, or even seen any light in the sky 
in any quarter, or knew who raised the cry ; or — or — in 
short, Alexander's church was two miles off : if it was on 
fire, it was either burnt down or saved by this time ; if 
not, the night-air was, to say the least, chilly ; and, 
whether it was or not, there were ambuscades of Jews — 
Satan only knew how strong — in every street between 
them and it. . . : Might it not be better to secure their 
two prisoners, and then ask for further orders from the 
archbishop ? Wherewith, after the manner of mobs, 
they melted off the way they came, by twos and threes, 
till those of a contrary opinion began to find themselves 
left alone, and having a strong dislike to Jewish daggers, 
were fain to follow the stream. 

With a panic or two, a cry of " The Jews are on us I " 
and a general rush in every direction (in which one or 
two, seeking shelter from the awful nothing in neigh- 
tx)uring houses, were handed over to the watch as bur- 
glars, and sent to the quarries accordingly), they reached 
the Serapeium, and there found, of course, a counter- 
mob collected to inform them that they had been taken 
m — that Alexander's church had never been on fire at 
all — that the Jews had murdered a thousand Christians 
at least, though three dead bodies, including the poor 


82 HYPATIA. 

priest who lay in the house within, were all of the thou- 
sand who had yet been seen — and that the whole Jews' 
quarter was marching upon them. At which news it 
was considered advisable to retreat into the archbishop's 
house as quickly as possible, barricade the doors, and 
prepare for a siege — a work at which Philammon per- 
formed prodigies, tearing woodwork from the rooms and 
stones from the parapets, before it struck some of the 
more sober-minded that it was as well to wait for some 
more decided demonstration of attack before incurring 
so heavy a carpenter's bill of repairs. 

At last the heavy tramp of footsteps was heard coming 
down the street, and every window was crowded in an 
instant with eager heads ; while Peter rushed down- 
stairs to heat the large coppers, having some experience 
in the defensive virtues of boiling water. The bright 
moon glittered on a long line of helmets and cuirasses. 
Thank Heaven ! it was the soldiery. 

'' Are the Jews coming ? " ''Is the city quiet ? " 
'* Why did not you prevent this villainy ? " "A thou- 
sand citizens murdered while you have been snoring ! " 
— and a volley of similar ejaculations, greeted the soldiers 
as they passed, and were answered by a cool — *' To your 
perches, and sleep, you noisy chickens, or we'll set the 
coop on fire about your ears." 

A yell of defiance answered this polite speech, and the 
soldiery, who knew perfectly well that the unarmed 
ecclesiastics within were not to be trifled with, and had 
no ambition to die by coping-stones and hot water, went 
quietly on their way. 

All danger was now past ; and the cackling rose 
jubilant, louder than ever, and might have continued 
till daylight, had not a window in the courtyard been 
suddenly thrown open, and the awful voice of Cyril 
commanded silence. 

*' Every man sleep where he can. I shall want you 
at daybreak. The superiors of the parabolani are to 
come up to me with the two prisoners, and the men who 
took them." 

In a few minutes Philammon found himself, with some 


HYPATIA. 83 

twenty others, in the great man's presence : he was 
sitting at his desk, writing quietly small notes on slips 
of paper. 

*' Here is the youth who helped me to pursue the mur- 
derer, and having outrun me, was attacked by the pris- 
oners," said Peter. " My hands are clean from blood, 
I thank the Lord ! " 

" Three set on me with daggers," said Philammon 
apologetically, " and I was forced to take this one's 
dagger away, and beat off the two others with it." 

Cyril smiled, and shook his head. 

** Thou art a brave boy ; but hast thou not read, 
'If a man smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the 
other'?" 

'* I could not rim away, as Master Peter and the rest 
did." 

'* So you ran away, eh, my worthy friend ? " 

" Is it not written," asked Peter, in his blandest tone, 
" ' If they persecute you in one city, flee unto another ' ? " 

Cyril smiled again. *' And why could not you rim 
away, boy ? " 

Philammon blushed scarlet, but he dared not lie. 
" There was a — a poor black woman, wounded and 
trodden down, and I dared not leave her, for she told me 
she was a Christian." 

" Right, my son, right. I shall remember this. What 
was her name ? " 

" I did not hear it. — Stay, I think she said Judith." 

'* Ah ! the wife of the porter who stands at the lecture- 
room door, which God confound ! A devout woman, 
fuU of good works, and sorely ill-treated by her heathen 
husband. Peter, thou shalt go to her to-morrow with 
the physician, and see if she is in need of anything. — Boy, 
thou hast done well. Cjril never forgets. Now bring 
up those Jews. Their rabbis were with me two hours 
ago promising peace, and this is the way they have kept 
their promise. So be it. The wicked is snared in his 
own wickedness." 

The Jews were brought in, but kept a stubborn silence. 

" Your holiness perceives," said some one, " that they 


84 HYPATIA. 

have each of th^n rings of green palm-bark on their 
right hand/' 

" A very dangerous sign ! An evident conspiracy ! " 
commented Peter. 

'* Ah ! What does that mean, you rascals ? Answer 
me, as you value your lives." 

** You have no business with us ; we are Jews, and 
none of your people," said one sulkily. 

" None of my people ? You have murdered my 
people ! None of my people ? Every soul in Alexan- 
dria is mine, if the kingdom of God means anything ; 
and you shall find it out. I shall not argue with you, 
my good friends, any more than I did with your rabbis. 
Take these fellows away, Peter, and lock them up in the 
fuel-cellar, and see that they are guarded. If any man 
lets them go, his Hfe shall be for the life of them." 

And the two worthies were led out. 

*' Now, my brothers, here are your orders. You will 
divide these notes among yourselves, and distribute them 
to trusty and godly catholics in your districts. Wait 
one hour, till the city be quiet ; and then start, and raise 
the church. I must have thirty thousand men by sun- 
rise." 

" What for, your holiness ? " asked a dozen voices. 

" Read your notes. Whosoever will fight to-morrow 
tmder the banner of the Lord shall have free plunder of 
the Jews' quarter, outrage and murder only forbidden. 
As I have said it, God do so to me, and more also, if there 
be a Jew left in Alexandria by to-morrow at noon. Go." 

And the staff of orderlies filed out, thanking Heaven 
that they had a leader so prompt and valiant, and spent 
the next hour over the nail fire, eating millet cakes, 
drinking bad beer, Hkening Cyril to Barak, Gideon, 
Samson, Jephtha, Judas Maccabeus, and all the worthies 
of the Old Testament, and then started on their pacific 
^rand. 

Philammon was about to follow them, when Cyril 
stopped him. 

** Stay, my son ; you are young and rash, and do not 
jknow the city. Lie down here and sleep in the ante- 


HYPATTA. 85 

room. Three honrs hence the sun rises, and we go forth 
against the enemies of the Lord/* 

Philammon threw himself (m the floor in a comer and 
slimibered hke a child, till he was awakened in the gray 
dawn by one of the parabolani. 

" Up, boy f and see what we can do. Cyril goes down 
greater than Barak, the son of Abinoam, not with ten 
but with thirty thousand men at his feet ! " 

*' Ay, my brothers ! " said Cyril, as he passed pH-oudly 
out in full pontificals, with a gorgeous retinue of priests 
and deacons, *' the Catholic Church has her organiza- 
tion, her unity, her common cause,, her watchwords, 
such as the tyrants of the earth, in their weakness and 
their divisions, may envy and tremble at, but cannot 
imitate. Could Orestes raise, in three hours, thirty thou- 
sand men who would die for him ? " 

*' As we will for you I '* shouted many voices. 

" Say for the kingdom of God." And he passed out. 

And so- ended Philammon's first day in Alexandria. 


CHAPTER Vr. 

THE NEW DIOGENES. 

About five o^clock the next morning, Raphael Aben- 
Ezra was lying in bed, alternately yawning over a manu- 
script of Philo Judaeus, pulling the ears of his huge British 
mastiff, watching the sparkle of the fountain in the court 
outside, wondering when that lazy boy would come to 
tell him that the bath was warmed, and meditating, half 
aloud. . . . 

** Alas ! poor me t Here I am, back again — just at 
the point from which I started ! . ; . How am I to get 
free from that heathen Siren ? Plagues on her ! I shall 
end by falling in love with her. ... I don't know that 
I have not got a barb of the blind boy in me already. I 
felt absurdly glad the other day when that fool told me 
he dared not accept her modest offer. Ha ! ha ! A 
delicious joke it would have been to have seen Orestes 


86 HYPATIA. 

bowing down to stocks and stones, and Hypatia installed 
in the ruins of the Serapeium, as High Priestess of the 
Abomination of Desolation! . . . And now . . . Well, 
I call all heaven and earth to witness that I have fought 
valiantly. I have faced naughty little Eros like a man, 
rod in hand. What could a poor human being do more 
than try to marry her to some one else, in hopes of sick- 
ening himself of the whole matter ? Well, every moth 
has its candle, and every man his destiny. But the daring 
of the little fool ! What huge imaginations she has ! 
She might be another Zenobia, now, with Orestes as 
Odenatus, and Raphael Aben-Ezra to play the part of 
Longinus . . . and receive Longinus*s salary of axe oi 
poison. She don't care for me ; she would sacrifice me, 
or a thousand of me, the cold-blooded fanatical arch- 
angel that she is, to water with our blood the foundation 
of some new temple of cast rags and broken dolls . . . 
O Raphael Aben-Ezra, what a fool you are ! . . . You 
know you are going off as usual to her lecture, this very 
morning ! " 

At this crisis of his confessions the page entered, and 
announced, not the bath, but Miriam. 

The old woman, who, in virtue of her profession, had 
the private entry of all fashionable chambers in Alexan- 
dria, came in hurriedly, and instead of seating herself 
as usual for a gossip, remained standing, and motioned 
the boy out of the room. 

" Well, my sweet mother ? Sit. Ah ? I see ! — You 
rascal, you have brought in no wine for the lady. Don't 
you know her little ways yet ? " 

" Eos has got it at the door, of course,'* answered the 
boy, with a saucy air of offended virtue. 

** Out with you, imp of Satan ! " cried Miriam. '* This 
is no time for wine-bibbing. Raphael Aben-Ezra, why 
are you lying here ? Did you not receive a note last 
night ? " 

" A note ? So I did, but I was too sleepy to read it. 
There it lies. — Boy, bring it here. . : ; What's this ? A 
scrap out of Jeremiah ? ' Arise, and flee for thy life, 
for evil is determined against the whole house of Israel I * 


HYPATIA. 87 

— Does this come from the chief rabbi ; I always took 
the venerable father for a sober man. . . . Eh, Miriam ? " 

" Fool ! instead of laughing at the sacred words of 
the prophets, get up and obey them. I sent you the 
note." 

** Why can't I obey them in bed ? Here I am, reading 
hard at the Cabbala, or Philo — ^who is stupider still — 
and what more would you have ? " 

The old woman, unable to restrain her impatience, 
Hterally ran at him, gnashing her teeth, and, before he 
v/as aware, dragged him out of bed upon the floor, where 
he stood meekly wondering what would come next. 

" Many thanks, mother, for having saved me the one 
daily torture of life — getting out of bed by one's own 
exertion." 

*' Raphael Aben-Ezra ! are you so besotted with your 
philosophy and your heathenry, and your laziness, and 
3-our contempt for God and man, that you will see your 
nation given up for a prey, and your wealth plimdered 
by heathen dogs ? I tell you, Cyril has sworn that God 
shall do so to him, and more also, if there be a Jew left in 
Alexandria by to-morrow about this time." 

" So much the better for the Jews, then, if they are half 
as tired of this noisy pandemonium as I am. But how 
can I help it ? Am I Queen Esther, to go to Ahasuerus 
there in the prefect's palace, and get him to hold out the 
golden sceptre to me ? " 

'* Fool ! if you had read that note last night, you might 
have gone and saved us, and your name would have been 
handed down for ever from generation to generation as 
a second Mordecai." 

" My dear mother, Ahasuerus would have been either 
fast asleep or far too drunk to listen to me. Why did 
you not go yourself ? " 

'* Do you suppose that I would not have gone if I 
could ? Do you fancy me a sluggard like yourself ? At 
the risk of my life I have got hither in time, if there be 
time, to save you." 

" Well : shall I dress ? What can be done now ? " 

" Nothing ! The streets are blockaded by C3^'s mob. 


88 HYPATIA. 

There ! do you hear the shouts and screams ? They are 
attacking the farther part of the quarter already." 

'* What ! are they murdering them ? *' aaked Raphael, 
throwing on his pehsse. " Because, if it has really come 
to a practical joke of that kind, I shall have the greatest 
pleasure in emplo3Hing a counter-irritant. — Here, boy ! 
My sword and dagger ! Quick ! *' 

" No, the hypocrites ! No blood is to be shed, they 
say, if we make no resistance and let them pillage. 
Cyril and his monks are there, to prevent outrage, and 
so forth. . . . The angel of the Lord scatter them 1 " 

The conversation was interrupted by the rushing in 
of the whole household, in an agony of terror ; and 
Raphael, at last thoroughly roused, went to a window 
which looked into the street. The thoroughfare was 
full of scolding women and screaming children ; while 
men, old and young, looked on at the plunder of their 
property with true Jewish doggedness, too prudent to 
resist, but too manful to complain ; while furniture came 
flying out of every window, and from door after door 
poured a stream of rascality, carrying off money, jewels, 
silks, and all the treasures which Jewish usury had 
accumulated during many a generation. But unmoved 
amid the roaring sea of plunderers and plundered stood, 
scattered up and down, Cyril's spiritual pohce, enforcing, 
by a word, an obedience which the Roman soldiers could 
only have compelled by hard blows of the spear-butt. 
There was to be no outrage, and no outrage there was ; 
and more than once some man in priestly robes hurried 
through the crowd, leading by the hand, tenderly enough, 
a lost child in search of its parents. 

Raphael stood watching silently, while Miriam, who 
had followed him upstairs, paced the room in an ecstasy 
of rage, calling vainly to him to speak or act. 

'' Let me alone, mother," he said at last. " It will be 
fully ten minutes before they pay me a visit, and in the 
meantime what can one do better than watch the pro- 
gress of this, the little Exodus ? " 

" Not like that first one t Then we went forth with 
cymbals and songs to the Red Sea triumph ! Then we 


HYPATIA. 89 

borrowed, every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver, 
and jewels of gold, and raiment." 

" And now we pay them back again ; 7 ; . it is but 
fair, after all. We ought to have listened to Jeremiah 
a thousand years ago, and never gone back again, like 
fools, into a country to which we were so deeply in debt.'^ 

'* Accursed land ! " cried Miriam. *' In an evil hour 
our forefathers disobeyed the prophet ; and now we 
reap the harvest of our sins \ Our sons have forgotten 
the faith of their forefathers for the philosophy of the 
Gentiles, and fill their chambers " (with a contemptuous 
look round) '* with heathen imagery ; and our daughters 
are Look there ! " 

As she spoke, a beautiful giil rushed shrieking out of 
an adjoining house, followed by some half-drunk ruffian, 
who was clutching at the gold chains and trinkets with 
which she was profusely bedecked, after the fashion of 
Jewish women. The rascal had just seized with one 
hand her streaming black tresses, and with the other a 
heavy collar of gold, which was woimd round her throat, 
when a priest, stepping up, laid a quiet hand upon his 
shoulder. The fellow, too maddened to obey, turned, 
and struck back the restraining arm . : . and in an 
instant was felled to the earth by a young monk. . . . 

*' Touchest thou the Lord's anointed, sacrilegious 
wretch ? " cried the man of the desert, as the fellow 
dropped on the pavement, with his booty in his hand. 

The monk tore the gold necklace from his grasp, looked 
at it for a moment with childish wonder, as a savage might 
at some incomprehensible product of civilized industry, 
and then, spitting on it in contempt, dashed it on the 
ground, and trampled it into the mud. 

'* Follow the golden wedge of Achan, and the silver 
of Iscariot, thou root of all evil ! " And he rushed on, 
yelling, " Down with the circumcision ! Down with the 
blasphemers ! "—while the poor girl vanished among 
the crowd. 

Raphael watched him with a quaint thoughtful smile, 
while Miriam shrieked aloud at the destruction of the 
precious trumpery. 


90 HYPATIA. 

" The monk is right, mother. If those Christians go 
on upon that method, they must beat us. It has been 
our ruin from the first, our fancy for loading ourselves 
with the thick clay.'' 

" What will you do ? " cried Miriam, clutching him by 
the arm. 

*' What will you do ? " 

" I am safe. I have a boat waiting for me on the canal 
at the garden gate, and in Alexandria I stay ; no Chris- 
tian hoimd shall make old Miriam move a foot against 
her will. My jewels are all buried — ^my girls all sold ; 
save what you can, and come with me ! *' 

" My sweet mother, why so peculiarly solicitous about 
my welfare, above that of all the sons of Judah ? " 

" Because — because No, Til tell you that an- 
other time. But I loved your mother, and she Joved me. 
Come ! '' 

Raphael relapsed into silence for a few minutes, and 
watched the tumult below. 

" How those Christian priests keep their men in order t 
There is no use resisting destiny. They are the strong 
men of the time, after all, and the little Exodus must 
needs have its course. Miriam, daughter of Jonathan^—" 

*' I am no man's daughter ! I have neither father 
nor mother, husband nor Call me mother again ! " 

" Whatsoever I am to call you, there are jewels enough 
in that closet to buy half Alexandria. Take them. I 
am going." 

" With me ! " 

" Out into the wide world, my dear lady. I am bored 
with riches. That yoimg savage of a monk understood 
them better than we Jews do. I shall just make a virtue 
of necessity, and turn beggar." 

" Beggar ? " 

" Why not ? Don't argue. These scoundrels will 
make me one, whether I like or not; so forth I go. 
There will be few leave-takings. This brute of a dog is 
the only friend I have on earth ; and I love her, because 
she has the true old, dogged, spiteful, cunning, obstinate 
Maccabee spirit in her — of which if we had a spark left 


HYPATIA. 91 

in us just now, there would be no little Exodus ; — eh, 
Bran, my beauty ? " 

*' You can escape with me to the prefect's, and save 
the mass of your wealth." 

" Exactly what I don't want to do. I hate that pre- 
fect as I hate a dead camel, or the vulture who eats him. 
And to tell the truth, I am growing a great deal too fond 
of that heathen woman there " 

" What ! " shrieked the old woman—" Hypatia ? " 

" If you choose. At all events, the easiest way to cut 
the knot is to expatriate. I shall beg my passage on 
board the first ship to C5n*ene, and go and study life 
in Italy with Heraclian's expedition. Quick — ^take the 
jewels, and breed fresh troubles for yourself with them. 
I am going. My liberators are battering the outer door 
ahready." 

Miriam greedily tore out of the closet diamonds and 
pearls, rubies and emeralds, and concealed them among 
her ample robes. " Go ! go ! Escape from her ! I 
will hide your jewels ! " 

" Ay, hide them, as mother Earth does all things in 
that ail-embracing bosom. You will have doubled them 
before we meet again, no doubt. Farewell, mother ! " 

*' But not for ever, Raphael ! not for ever ! Promise 
me, in the name of the four archangels, that if you are 
in trouble or danger you will write to me, at the house 
of Eudaimon." 

" The Httle porter philosopher, who hangs about 
Hj^patia's lecture-room ? " 

** The same, the same. He will give me your letter, 
and I swear to you I will cross the mountains of Kaf 
to deliver you ! — I will pay you all back. By Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob I swear ! May my tongue cleave to 
the roof of my mouth, if I do not account to you for the 
last penny ! " 

" Don't commit yourself to rash promises, my dear 
lady. If I am bored with poverty, I can but borrow a 
few gold pieces of a rabbi and turn peddler. I really 
do not trust you to pay me back, so I shall not be dis- 
appointed if you do not. Why should I ? " 


92 HYPATIA, 

" Because — because — O God ! No — never mind ! 
You shall have all back. Spirit of Elias ! where is the 
black agate ? Why is it not among these ? — The 
broken half of the black agate talisman ! " 

Raphael turned pale. *' How did you know that I 
have a black agate ? " 

" How did I ? How did I not ? " cried she, clutching 
him by the arm. " Where is it ? All depends on that ! 
Fool ! " she went on, throwing him off from her at arm's- 
length, as a sudden suspicion stung her — " you have 
not given it to the heathen woman ? " 

" By the soul of my fathers, then, you mysterious old 
witch, who seem to know everything, that is exactly 
what I have done." 

Miriam clapped her hands together wildly. " Lost ! 
lost ! lost ! No ! I will have it, if I tear it out of her 
heart ! I will be avenged of her — the strange woman 
who flatters with her words, to whom the simple go in, 
and know not that the dead are there, and that her 
guests are in the depths of hell ! God do so to me, and 
more also, if she and her sorceries be on earth a twelve- 
month hence ! '* 

" Silence, Jezebel ! Heathen or none, she is as pure 
as the sunlight ! I only gave it her because she fancied 
the talisman upon it." 

" To enchant you with it, to your ruin ! " 

*' Brute of a slave-dealer ! you fancy every one as 
base as the poor wretches whom you buy and sell to 
shame, that you may make them as much the children 
of hell, if that be possible, as yourself ! " 

Miriam looked at him, her large black eyes widening 
and kindling. For an instant she felt for her poniard — 
and then burst into an agony of tears, hid her face in 
her withered hands, and rushed from the room, as a 
crash and shout below announced the bursting of the 
door. 

** There she goes with my jewels. And here come my 
guests, with the young monk at their head. — One rising 
when the other sets. A worthy pair of Dioscuri ! Come, 
Bran ! . ; : Boys ! Slaves ! Where are you ? Steal 


HYPATIA. 93 

every one what he can lay his hands on, and run for your 
lives through the back gate." 

The slaves had obeyed him already. He walked 
smiling downstairs through utter solitude, and in the 
front passage met face to face the mob of monks, coster- 
mongers and dock-workers, fishwives and beggars, who 
were thronging up the narrow entry, and bursting into 
the doors right and left ; and at their head, alas ! the 
young monk who had just trampled the necklace into 
the mud. . . no other, in fact, than Philammon. 

*' Welcome, my worthy guests ! Enter, I beseech you, 
and fulfil, in your own peculiar way, the precepts which 
bid you not be over-anxious for the good things of this 
life. . . . For eating and drinking, my kitchen and cellar 
are at your service. For clothing, if any illustrious per- 
sonage will do me the honour to change his holy rags 
with me, here are an Indian shawl-pelisse and a pair of 
silk trousers at his service. Perhaps you will accom- 
modate me, my handsome young captain, choragus of 
this new school of the prophets ? " 

Philammon, who was the person addressed, tried to 
push by him contemptuously. 

" Allow me, sir. I lead the way. This dagger is 
poisoned — 2l scratch and you are dead. This dog is of 
the true British breed ; if she seizes you, red-hot iron 
will not loose her, till she hears the bone crack. If 
any one will change clothes with me, all I have is at 
your service. If not, the first that stirs is a dead 
man." 

There was no mistaking the quiet, high-bred deter- 
mination of the speaker. Had he raged and blustered, 
Philammon could have met him on his own ground ; 
but there was an easy self-possessed disdain about him 
which utterly abashed the young monk, and abashed, 
too, the whole crowd of rascals at his heels. 

" 1*11 change clothes with you, you Jewish dog 1 *' 
roared a dirty fellow out of the mob. 

*' I am your eternal debtor. Let us step into this side 
room. Walk upstairs, my friends. Take care there, 
sir ! — That porcelain, whole, is worth three thousand 


94 HYPATIA. 

gold pieces ; broken, it is not worth three pence. I 
leave it to your good sense to treat it accordingly. Now 
then, my friend I " And in the midst of the raging 
vortex of plunderers, who were snatching up everything 
which they could carry away^ and breaking everything 
which they could not, he quietly divested himself of his 
finery, and put on the ragged cotton tunic, and battered 
straw hat, which the fellow handed over to him. 

Philammon, who had had from the first no mind to 
plunder, stood watching Raphael with dumb wonder; 
and a shudder of regret, he knew not why, passed through 
him as he saw the mob tearing down pictures and dash- 
ing statues to the ground. Heathen they were, doubt- 
less ; but still, the Nymphs and Venuses looked too 
lovely to be so brutally destroyed. . . . There was some- 
thing almost humanly pitiful in their poor broken arms 
and legs, as they lay about upon the pavement. ... He 
laughed at himself for the notion; but he could not 
laugh it away. 

Raphael seemed to think that he ought not to laugh 
it away ; for he pointed to the fragments, and with a 
quaint look at the young monk, — 

" Our nurses used to tell us, 

* If you can't make it, 
You ought not to break it.* " 

" I had no nurse," said Philammon. 

" Ah ! — that accounts — for this and other things. 
Well," he went on, with the most provoking good-nature, 
'* you are in a fair road, my handsome youth ; I wish you 
joy of your fellow-workmen, and of your apprenticeship 
in the noble art of monkery. Riot and pillage, shrieking 
women and houseless children in your twentieth summer, 
are the sure path to a saintship such as Paul of Tarsus, 
who, with all his eccentricities, was a gentleman, cer- 
tainly never contemplated. I have heard of Phoebus 
Apollo under many disguises, but this is the first time 
I ever saw him in the wolf's hide." 

'* Or in the lion's," said PhUammon, trying in his 
shame to make a fine speech. 


HYPATIA. 95 

" Like the ass in the fable. Farewell ! Stand out of 
the way, friends I 'Ware teeth and poison I " 

And he disappeared among the crowd, who made way 
respectfully enough for his dagger and his brindled 
companion. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THOSE BY WHOM OFFENCES COME. 

Philammon's heart smote him aU that day whenever he 
thought of his morning's work. Till then all Christians, 
monks above all, had been infaUible in his eyes ; all Jews 
and heathens insane and accursed. Moreover, meekness 
under insult, fortitude in calamity, the contempt of 
worldly comfort, the worship of poverty as a noble 
estate, were virtues which the Church CathoUc boasted 
as her peculiar heritage : on which side had the balance 
of those qualities inclined that morning ? The figure 
of Raphael, stalking out ragged and penniless into the 
wide world, haunted him, with its quiet self-assured 
smile. And there haunted him, too, another peculiarity 
in the man, which he had never before remarked in any 
one but Arsenius — that ease and grace, that courtesy 
and self-restraint, which made Raphael's rebukes rankle 
all the more keenly, because he felt that the rebuker 
was in some mysterious way superior to him, and saw 
through him, and could have won him over, or crushed 
him in argument or in intrigue — or in anything, perhaps, 
except mere brute force. Strange — that Raphael, of 
all men, should in those few moments have reminded 
him so much of Arsenius ; and that the very same quaU- 
ties which gave a peculiar charm to the latter should give 
a peculiar unloveliness to the former, and yet be, without 
a doubt, the same. What was it ? Was it rank which 
gave it ? Arsenius had been a great man, he knew — 
the companion of kings. And Raphael seemed rich. 
He had heard the mob crying out against the prefect 
for favouring him. Was it, then, famiharity with the 
great ones of the world which produced this manner and 


96 HYPATIA. 

tone ? It was a real strength, whether in Arsenius or 
in Raphael. He felt humbled before it — envied it. If 
it made Arsenius a more complete and more captivating 
person, why should it not do the same for him ? Why 
should not he, too, have his share of it ? 

Bringing with it such thoughts as these, the time ran 
on till noon, and the midday meal, and the afternoon's 
work, to which Philammon looked forward joyfully as 
a refuge from his own thoughts. 

He was sitting on his sheepskin upon a step, basking, 
like a true son of the desert, in a blaze of fiery simshine, 
which made the black stonework too hot to touch with 
the bare hand, watching the swallows as they threaded 
the columns of the Serapeium, and thinking how often 
he had dehghted in their air-dance as they turned and 
hawked up and down the dear old glen at Scetis. A 
crowd of citizens with causes, appeals, and petitions 
were passing in and out from the patriarch's audience- 
room. Peter and the archdeacon were waiting in the 
shade close by for the gathering of the parabolani, and 
talking over the morning's work in an earnest whisper, 
in which the names of Hypatia and Orestes were now 
and then audible. 

An old priest came up, and bowing reverently enough 
to the archdeacon, requested the help of one of the 
parabolani. He had a sailor's family, all fever-stricken, 
who must be removed to the hospital at once. 

The archdeacon looked at him, answered an ofE-hand 
" Veiy well," and went on with his talk. 

The priest, bowing lower than before, represented the 
immediate necessity for help. 

" It is very odd,' said Peter to the swallows in the Ser- 
apeium, '' that some people cannot obtain influence enough 
in their own parishes to get the simplest good works per- 
formed without tormenting his holiness the patriarch." 

The old priest mumbled some sort of excuse, and the 
archdeacon, without deigning a second look at him, said, 
" Find him a man, brother Peter. Anybody will do. 
What is that boy — Philammon — doing there ? Let him 
go with Master Hieracas." 


HYPATIA. 97 

Peter seemed not to receive the proposition favourably, 
and whispered something to the archdeacon. . . . 

'* No. I can spare none of the rest. Importunate 
persons must take their chance of being well served. 
Come — ^here are our brethren ; we will all go together." 

** The further together the better for the boy's sake/' 
grumbled Peter, loud enough for Philammon — perhaps 
for the old priest — to overhear him. 

So Philammon went out with them, and as he went 
questioned his companions meekly enough as to who 
Raphael was. 

** A friend of Hypatia ! *' — that name, too, haunted 
him ; and he began, as stealthily and indirectly as he 
could, to obtain information about her. There was no 
need for his caution, for the very mention of her name 
roused the whole party into a fiuy of execration. 

" May God confound her, siren, enchantress, dealer in 
spells and sorceries ! She is the strange woman of whom 
Solomon prophesied." 

" It is my opinion," said another, " that she is the 
forerunner of Antichrist." 

'* Perhaps the virgin of whom it is prophesied that he 
will be bom," suggested another. 

" Not that, I'll warrant her," said Peter, with a savage 
sneer. 

'* And is Raphael Aben-Ezra her pupil in philosophy ? " 
asked Philammon. 

" Her pupil in whatsoever she can find wherewith to 
delude men's souls," said the old priest. " The reality 
of philosophy has died long ago, but the great ones find 
it still worth their while to worship its shadow." 

" Some of them worship more than a shadow, when 
they haunt her house," said Peter. " Do you think 
Orestes goes thither only for philosophy ? " 

** We must not judge harsh judgments," said the old 
priest ; " Syiiesius of Cyrene is a holy man, and yet he 
loves Hypatia well." 

** He a holy man ? — and keeps a wife ! One who had 
the insolence to tell the blessed Theophilus himself that 
he would not be made bishop unless he were allowed to 


98 HYPATIA. 

remain with her; and despised the gift of the Holy 
Ghost in comparison of the carnal joys of wedlock, not 
knowing the Scriptures, which saith that those who are 
in the flesh cannot please God ! Well said Siricius of 
Rome of such men — ' Can the Holy Spirit of God dwell 
in other than holy bodies ? ' No wonder that such a 
one as Synesius grovels at the feet of Orestes's mistress ! " 

" Then she is profligate ? " asked Philammon. 

" She must be. Has a heathen faith and grace ? 
And without faith and grace, are not all our righteous- 
nesses as filthy rags ? What says St. Paul ? — ^That God 
has given them over to a reprobate mind, full of all 
injustice, uncleanness, covetousness, maliciousness — you 
know the catalogue, why do you ask me ? " 

''Alas! and is she this ? " 

" Alas ! And why alas ? How would the Gospel be 
glorified if heathens were holier than Christians ? It 
ought to be so, therefore it is so. If she seems to have 
virtues, they, being done without the grace of Christ, 
are only bedizened vices, cunning shams, the devil trans- 
formed into an angel of light. And as for chastity, the 
flower and crown of all virtues — ^whosoever says that 
she, being yet a heathen, has that, blasphemes the Holy 
Spirit, whose peculiar and highest gift it is, and is ana- 
thema maranatha for ever ! Amen ! " And Peter, 
devoutly crossing himself, turned angrily and contemp- 
tuously away from his young companion. 

Philammon was quite shrewd enough to see that 
assertion was not identical with proof. But Peter's 
argument of " it ought to be, therefore it is," is one which 
saves a great deal of trouble . . . and no doubt he had 
very good sources of information. So Philammon walked 
on, sad, he knew not why, at the new notion which he 
had formed of Hypatia, as a sort of awful sorceress- 
Messalina, whose den was foul with magic rites and ruined 
souls of men. And yet if that was all she had to teach, 
whence had her pupil Raphael learned titiat fortitude of 
his ? If philosophy had, as they said, utterly died out, 
then what was Raphael ? 

Just then Peter and the rest turned up a side street. 


HYPATIA. 99 

and Philammon and Hieracas were left to go on their 
joint errand together. They paced on for some way in 
silence, up one street and down another, till Philammon, 
fcH: want at anything better to say> asked where they were 
going. 

" Where I choose, at all events. No, young man ! If 
I, a priest, am to be insulted by archdeacons and readers, 
I won't be insulted by you.'* 

" I assure you I meant no harm." 

" Of course not ; you all learn the same trick, and the 
young ones catch it of the dd ones fast enough. Words 
smoother than butter, yet very swords." 

" You do not mean to complain of the archdeacon and 
his companions ? " said Philammon, who of course was 
boiling over with pugnacious respect for the body to 
which he belonged. 

No answer. 

" Why, sir, are they not among the most holy and 
devoted of men ? " 

'' Ab-— yes," said his companion, in a tone which 
sounded very Hke " Ah — no." 

" You do not think so ? " asked Philammon blimtly. 

" You are young, you are young. Wait a while till 
you have seen as much as I have. A degenerate age this, 
my son; not like the good old times, when men dared 
suffer and die for the faith. We are too prosperous now- 
adays ; and fine ladies walk about with Magdalens em- 
broidered on their silks, and gospek hanging round their 
necks. When I was young they died for that with which 
thev now bedizen themselves." 

But I was speaking of the parabolani." 

" Ah, there are a great many among them who have 
not much business where they are. Don't say I said so. 
But many a rich man puts his name on the hst of the 
guild just to get his exemption from taxes, and leaves 
the work to poor men like you. Rotten, rotten ! my 
son, and you will find it out. The preachers, now — 
people used to say — I know Abbot Isidore did — that I 
had as good a gift for expounding as any man in Pelusium; 
but since I came here, eleven years since, if you will 

4 


ICX) HYPATIA. 

believe it, I have never been asked to preach in my own 
parish church/' 

" You surely jest ! " 

''True, as I am a christened man. I know why — I 
know why : they are afraid of Isidore's men here. . . . 
Perhaps they may have caught the holy man's trick 
of plain speaking — and ears are dainty in Alexandria. 
And there are some in these parts, too, that have never 
forgiven him the part he took about those three villains, 
Maro, Zosimus, and Martinian, and a certain letter that 
came of it ; or another letter either, which we know of, 
about taking alms for the church from the gains of robbers 
and usurers. " Cyril never forgets." So he says to every 
one who does him a good turn. . . . And so he does to 
every one who he fancies has done him a bad one. So here 
am I slaving away, a subordinate priest, while such fellows 
as Peter the reader look down on me as their slave. 
But it's always so. There never was a bishop yet, except 
the blessed Augustine — ^would to Heaven I had taken my 
abbot's advice and gone to him at Hippo ! — ^who had 
not his flatterers and his tale-bearers, and generally the 
archdeacon at the head of them, ready to step into the 
bishop's place when he dies, over the heads of hard- 
working parish priests. But that is the way of the world. 
The sleekest and the oiUest, and the noisiest ; tlie man 
who can bring in most money to the charities, never mind 
whence or how ; the man who will take most of the bishop's 
work off his hands, and agree with him in everything 
he wants, and save him, by spying and eavesdropping, the 
trouble of using his own eyes, — that is the man to succeed 
in Alexandria, or Constantinople, or Rome itself. Look 
now : there are but seven deacons to this great city, and 
all its priests ; and they and the archdeacon are the 
masters of it and us. They and that Peter manage 
Cyril's work for him; and when Cyril makes the arch- 
deacon a bishop, he will make Peter archdeacon. . . . 
They have their reward, they have their reward; and 
so has Cyril, for that matter." 

" How ? " 

" Why, don't say I said it. But what do I care ? 


HYPATIA. lOI 

I have nothing to lose here, I'm sure. But they do say 
that there are two ways of promotion in Alexandria — one 
by deserving it, the other by pa5dng for it. That's all/' 

'' Impossible ! " 

*' Oh, of course, quite impossible. But all I know is 
just this, that when that fellow Martinian got back again 
into Pelusium, after being turned out by 9ie late bishop 
for a rogue and hj^ocrite as he was, and got the ear of 
this present bishop, and was appointed his steward, 
and ordained priest — I'd as soon have ordained that 
street dog — and plundered him and brought him to dis- 
grace — for I don't believe this bishop is a bad man, but 
those who use rogues must expect to be called rogues — 
and ground the poor to the earth, and tyrannized over 
the whole city so that no man's property, or reputation, 
scarcely their lives, were safe ; and after all, had the 
impudence, when he was called on for his accounts, to 
bring the church in as owing him money ; — I just know 
this, that he added to all his other shamelessness this, 
that he offered the patriarch a large sum of money to buy 
a bishopric of him. . . . And what do you think the 
patriarch answered ? " 

" Excommimicated the sacrilegious wretch, of course ! '* 

" Sent him a letter to say that if he dared to do such 
a thing again he should really be forced to expose him ! 
So the fellow, taking courage, brought his money himself 
the next time ; and all the world says that Cyril would 
have made him a bishop after all, if Abbot Isidore had 
not written to remonstrate." 

" He could not have known the man's character," said 
poor Philammon, hunting for an excuse. 

" The whole Delta was ringing with it. Isidore had 
written to him again and again." 

" Surely then his wish was to prevent scandal, and 
preserve the unity of the church in the eyes of the 
heathen." 

The old man laughed bitterly. 

'* Ah, the old story — of preventing scandals by retain- 
ing them, and fancying that sin is a less evil than a Httle 
noise ; as if the worst of all scandals was not the being 


I02 HYPATIA. 

discovered in hushing up a scandal. And as for unity, 
if you want that, you must go back to the good old times 
of Diocletian and Decius," 

" The persecutors ? " 

'* Ay, boy — to the times of persecution, when Chris- 
tians died like brothers, because they Uved Hke brothers. 
You will see very httle of that now, except in some Httle 
remote coimty bishopric, which no one ever hears of from 
year's end to year's end. But in the cities it is all one 
great fight for place and power. Every one is jealous 
of his neighbour. The priests are jealous of the deacons, 
and good cause they have. The county bishops are 
jealous of the metropolitan, and he is jealous of the 
North African bishops, and quite right he is. What 
business have they to set up for themselves, as if they 
were infallible ? It's a schism, I say — 2l complete 
schism. They are just as bad as their own Donatists. 
Did not the Council of Nice settle that the Metropolitan 
of Alexandria should have authority over Libya and 
PentapoHs, according to the ancient custom ? " 

" Of course he ought,'* said Philammon, jealous for the 
honour of his own patriarchate. 

" And the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople are 
jealous of our patriardi." 

" Of Cyril ? " 

" Of course, because he won't be at their beck and nod, 
and let them be lords and masters of Africa." 

" But surely these things can be settled by councils ? " 

" Councils ? Wait till you have been at one. The 
blessed Abbot Isidore used to say, that if he ever was a 
bishop — ^which he never will be, he is far too honest for 
that — ^he would never go near one of them ; for he never 
had seen one which did not call out every evil passion 
in men's hearts, and leave the question more confounded 
with words than they found it, even if the whole matter 
was not settled beforehand by some chamberlain, or 
eunuch, or cook sent from court, as if he were an anointed 
vessel of the Spirit, to settle the dogmas of the Holy 
Catholic Church." 

" Cook ? " 


HYPATIA. 103 

" Why^ Valens sent his chief cook to stop Basil of 
Caesarea from opposing the court doctrine. ... I tell 
you, the great battle in these cases is to get votes from 
courts, or to get to court yourself. Whai I was young, 
the Council of Antioch had to make a law to keep bishops 
from running off to Constantinople to intrigue, under 
pretence of pleading the cause of the orphan and widow. 
But what's the use of that, when every noisy and am- 
bitious man shifts and shifts, from one see to another, 
till he settles himself close to Rome or Byzantium, and 
gets the empercMr's ear, and plays into the hands of his 
courtiers ? " 

" Is it not written, ' Speak not evil of dignities ' ? '* 
said Philamm<»i, in his most sanctimonious tone. 

" Well, what of that ? I don't speak evil of dignities 
when I complain of the men who fiU them badly, do I ? " 

" I never heard that interpretation of the text before." 

" Very fikely not That's no reason why it should not 
be true and orthodox. You will socm hear a good many 
more things which are true enough — though whether 
they are orthodox or not, liie court cooks must settle. 
Of course, I am a disappointed, irreverent old grumbler. 
Of course, and of course, too, young men must needs buy 
their own experience, instead of taking old folks' at a gift. 
There^-use your own ey^, and judge for yourself. There 
you may see what sort of saints are bred by this plan 
of managing the Catholic Church. There comes one of 
them. Now 1 I say no more ! '* 

As he spoke, two tall negroes came up to them, and 
set down before the steps oi a large church which they 
were passing an object new to Philammon — a sedan-chair, 
the poles of which were inlaid with ivory and silver, 
and the upper part enclosed in rose-coloured silk curtains. 

** What is inside that cage ? " asked he of the old priest, 
as the negroes stood wiping the per^iration from their 
foreheads, and a smart slave-girl stepped forward, with 
a parasol and Uppers in her hand, and reverently lifted 
the lower edge of the curtain. 

'' A saint, I teU you ! " 

An embroidered shoe, with a large gold cross on the 


I04 HYPATIA. 

instep, was put forth delicately from beneath the curtain, 

and the kneeling maid put on the slipper over it. 

" There ! " whispered the old grumbler. " Not enough, 
you see, to use Christian men as beasts of burden — Abbot 
Isidore used to say — ay, and told Iron, the pleader, to 
his face, that he could not conceive how a man who 
loved Christ, and knew the grace which has made all 
men free, could keep a slave." 

" Nor can I,'' said Philanunon. 

" But we think otherwise, you see, in Alexandria here. 
We can't even walk up the steps of God's temple without 
an additional protection to our delicate feet." 

*' I had thought it was written, * Put off thy shoes from 
off thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy 
groimd.' " 

*' Ah ! there are a good many more things written 
which we do not find it convenient to recollect. — Look ! 
There is one of the pillars of the church — ^the richest and 
most pious lady in Alexandria." 

And forth stepped a figure, at which Philammon's eyes 
opened wider than they had done even at the sight of 
Pelagia. Whatever thoughts the rich and careless grace 
of her attire might have raised in his mind, it had cer- 
tainly not given his innate Greek good taste the inclina- 
tion to laugh and weep at once, which he felt at this 
specimen of the tasteless fashion of an artificial and decay- 
ing civihzation. Her gown was stuffed out behind in a 
fashion which provoked from the dirty boys who lay 
about the steps, gambling for pistachios on their fingers, 
the same comments with which St. Clement had up- 
braided from the pulpit the Alexandrian ladies of his day. 
The said gown of white silk was bedizened, from waist 
to ankle, with certain mysterious red and green figures 
at least a foot long, which Philammon gradually dis- 
covered to be a representation, in the very lowest and 
ugHest style of fallen art, of Dives and Lazarus ; while 
down her back hung, upon a bright blue shawl edged 
with embroidered crosses, Job sitting, potsherd in hand, 
surroimded by his three friends — a memorial, the old 
priest whispered, of a pilgrimage which she had taken 


HYPATIA. lOS 

a year or two before to Arabia, to see and kiss the 
identical dunghill on which the patriarch had sat. 

Round her neck himg, by one of half a dozen necklaces, 
a manuscript of the Gospels, gilt-edged and clasped with 
jewels ; the lofty diadem of pearis on her head carried in 
front a large gold cross ; while above and around it her 
hair, stiffened with pomatum, was frizzled out half a 
foot from a wilderness of plaits and curls, which must 
have cost some hapless slave-girl an hour's work, and 
perhaps more than one scolding, that very morning. 

Meekly, with simpering face and downcast eyes, and 
now and then a penitent sigh and shake of the head and 
pressure of her hand on her jewelled bosom, the fair 
penitent was proceeding up the steps, when she caught 
sight of the priest and the monk, and turning to them 
with an obeisance of the deepest humility, entreated to 
be allowed to kiss the hem of their garments. 

" You had far better, madam," said Philammon, 
bluntly enough, " kiss the hem of your own. You carry 
two lessons there which you do not seem to have learned 
yet." 

In an instant her face flashed up into pride and fury. 
" I asked for your blessing, and not for a sermon. I can 
have that when I Uke." 

" And such as you like," grumbled the old priest, as 
she swept up the steps, tossing some small coin to the 
ragged boys, and murmuring to herself, loud enough for 
Philammon's hearing, that she should certainly inform 
the confessor, and that she would not be insulted in the 
streets by savage monks. 

" Now she 'mil confess her sins inside — all but those 
which she has been showing off to us here outside, and beat 
her breast, and weep hke a very Magdalen ; and then 
the worthy man will comfort her with — " What a beau- 
tiful chain ! And what a shawl ! allow me to touch 
it ! How soft and dehcate this Indian wool ! Ah ! if 
you knew the debts which I have been compelled to 

incur in the service of the sanctuary ! " And then of 

course the answer will be, as, indeed, he expects it should, 
that if it can be of the least use in the service of the 


I06 HYPATIA. 

Temple, she, of course, will think it only too great an 
honour. . . . And he will keep the chain, and perhaps 
the shawl too. And she mil go home, believing that she 
has fulfilled to the very letter the command to break ofi 
her sins by almsgiving, and only sorry that the good 
priest happened to hit on that particular gewgaw I " 

" What," asked Philammon, *' dare she actually not 
refuse such importunity ? " 

" From a poor priest Uke me, stoutly enough ; but 
from a popular ecclesiastic Uke him. ... As Jerome says, 
in a letter of his I once saw, ladies think twice in such 
cases before they offend the city newsmonger. Have 
you anything more to say ? '* 

Philammon had nothing to say, and wisely held his 
peace, while the old gnmiWer ran on, — 

** Ah, boy, you have yet to learn city fashions ! When 
you are a little older, instead of speaking unpleasant 
truths to a fine lady with a cross on her forehead, you 
will be ready to run to the Pillars of Hercules at her beck 
and nod, for the sake of her disinterested help towards 
a fashionable pulpit, or perhaps a bishopric. The ladies 
settle that for us here." 

** The women ? " 

** The women, lad. Do you suppose that they heap 
priests and chin-ches with wealth for nothing ? They 
have their reward. Do you suppose that a preacher 
gets into the pulpit of that chiurch there, without looking 
anxiously, at the end of each peculiarly flowery sentence, 
to see whether her saintship there is clapping or not ? 
She, who has such a dehcate sense for ortho^xy, that 
she can scent out Novatianism or Origenism where no 
other mortal nose would suspect it. She who meets at 
her own house weekly all the richest and most pious 
women of the city, to settle our discipline for us, as the 
court cooks do our doctrine. She who has even, it is 
whispered, the ear of the Augusta Pulcheria herself, and 
sends monthly letters to her at Constantinople, and might 
give the patriarch himself some trouble if he crossed her 
holy will ! " 

" What I will Cyril truckle to such creatures ? " 


HYPATIA. 107 

" Cyril is a wise man in his generation — too wise, some 
say, for a child of the light But at least he knows there 
is no use fighting with those whom you cannot conquer ; 
and while he can get money out of these great ladies for 
his almshouses, and orphan-houses, and lodging-houses, 
and hospitals, and workshops, and all the rest of it — and 
in that, I will say for him, there is no man on earth equal 
to him but Ambrose of Milan and Basil of Caesarea — 
why, I dcm*t quarrel with him for making the best of a 
bad matter ; and a very bad matter it is, boy, and has 
been ever since emperors and courtiers have given up 
burning and crucifying us, and taken to patronizing and 
bribing us instead." 

I^ilammon walked on in silence by the old priest's 
side, stunned and sickened. ► • . " And this is what I 
have come out to see — creeds shaken in the wind, and 
men clothed in soft raiment, fit only for kings* palaces ! '* 
For this he had left the dear old Laura, and the simple 
305^ and friendships of childhood, and cast himself into 
a roaring whirlpool of labour and temptation ! This was 
the harmonious strength and unity of that Church 
Catholic, in which, as he had been taught from boyhood, 
there was but one God, one Faith, one Spirit. This was 
the indivisible body, " without spot or wrinkle, which, 
fitly joined together and compacted by that which every 
member supplied, according to the effectual and propor- 
tionate working of every part, increased the body, and 
enabled it to build itself up in love ! " He shuddered 
as the well-known words passed through his memory, 
and seemed to mock the base and chaotic reahty around 
him. He felt angry with the old man for having broken 
his dream ; he longed to believe that his complaints were 
only exaggerations of cynic peevishness, of selfish dis- 
appointment : and yet, had not Arsenius warned him ? 
Had he not foretold, word for word, what the youth 
would find — ^what he had found ? Then was Saint Paul's 
great idea an empty and an impossible dream ? No ! 
God's word could not fail ; the Church could not err. 
The fault could not be in her, but in her enemies ; not, 
as the old man said, in her too great prosperity, but in 

4a 


I08 HYPATIA. 

her slavery. And then the words which he had heard 
from Cyril at their first interview rose before him as the 
true explanation. How could the Church work fredy 
and healthily while she was crushed and fettered by the 
rulers of this world ? And how could they be anything 
but the tyrants and antichrists they were, while they 
were menaced and deluded by heathen philosophy, and 
vain systems of human wisdom ? If Orestes was the 
curse of the Alexandrian Church, then Hypatia was the 
curse of Orestes. On her head the true blame lay. She 
was the root of the evil. Who would extirpate it ? . . . 

Why should not he ? It might be dangerous ; yet, 
successful or imsuccessful, it must be glorious. The 
cause of Christianity wanted great examples. Might 
he not — and his young heart beat high at the thought — 
might he not, by some great act of daring, self-sacrifice, 
divine madness of faith, like David's of old, when he 
went out against the giant, awaken selfish and luxurious 
souls to a noble emulation, and recall to their minds, 
perhaps to their lives, the patterns of those martyrs who 
were the pride, the glory, the heirloom of Egypt ? And 
as figure after figure rose before his imagination, of 
simple men and weak women who had conquered temp- 
tation and shame, torture and death, to Hve for ever on 
the Hps of men, and take their seats among the patricians 
of the heavenly court, with brows glittenng through all 
eternities with the martyr's crown, his heart beat thick 
and fast, and he longed only for an opportunity to dare 
and die. 

And the longing begot the opportunity. For he had 
hardly rejoined his brother visitors when the absorbing 
thought took word again, and he began questioning them 
eagerly for more information about Hypatia. 

On that point, indeed, he obtained nothing but fresh 
invective ; but when his companions, after talking of 
the trimnph which the true faith had gained that morn- 
ing, went on to speak of the great overtiwow of paganism 
twenty years before, imder the patriarch Theophilus; 
of Olympiodorus and his mob, who held the Serapeium 
for many days by force of arms against the Christians^ 


HYPATIA. 109 

making sallies into the city, and torturing and murdering 
the prisoners whom they took ; of the martyrs who, 
among those very pillars which overhung their heads, 
had died in torments rather than sacrifice to Serapis ; 
and of the final victory, and the soldier who, in presence 
of the trembling mob, clove the great jaw of the colossal 
idol, and snapped for ever the spell of heathenism, 
Philammon's heart burned to distinguish himself like 
that soldier, and to wipe out his quiUms of conscience 
by some more unquestionable deed of Christian prowess. 
There were no idols now to break, but there was philoso- 
phy. " Why not carry war into the heart of the enemy's 
camp, and beard Satan in his very den ? Why does not 
some man of God go boldly into the lecture-room of the 
sorceress, and testify against her to her face ? " 

*' Do it yourself, if you dare," said Peter. " We have 
no wish to get our brains knocked out by all the profli- 
gate young gentlemen in the city." 

*' I will do it," said Philammon. 

** That is, if his holiness allows you to make such a foo] 
of yourself." 

*' Take care, sir, of your words. You revile the blessed 
martyrs, from St. Stephen to St. Telemachus, when you 
call such a deed foolishness." 

'' I shall most certainly inform his holiness of your 
insolence." 

" Do so," said Philammon, who, possessed with a new 
idea, wished for nothing more. And there the matter 
dropped for the time. 

« « * * « 

"The presumption of the young in this generation 
is growing insufferable," said Peter to his master that 
evening. 

" So much the better. They put their elders on their 
mettle in the race of good works. But who has been 
presuming to-day ? " 

'* That mad boy whom Pambo sent up from the deserts 
dared to offer himself as champion of the faith against 
Hypatia. He actually proposed to go into her lecture- 
room and argue with her to her face. What think you 


no HYPATIA. 

of that for a specimen of youthful modesty and self- 
distrust ? " 

Cyril was silent awhile, 

" What answer am I to have the honour of taking 
back ? A month's relegation to Nitria on bread and 
water ? You, I am sure, will not allow such things to go 
unpunished ; indeed, if they do, there is an end to all 
authority and discipline/' 

Cyril was still silent, whilst Peter's brow clouded fast. 
At last he answered, — 

" The cause wants martyrs. Send the boy to me." 

Peter went down with a shrug, and an expression of 
face which looked but too like envy, and ushered up the 
trembling youth, who dropped on his knees as soon as he 
entered. 

** So you wish to go into the heathen woman's lecture- 
room and defy her ? Have 3^u courage for it ? " 

" God will rive it me.*' 

'' You will be murdered by her pupils." 

" I can defend myself," said Philammon, with a par- 
donable glance downward at his sinewy limbs. *' And 
if not, ^at death more glorious than martyrdom ? " 

Cyril smiled genially enough. " Promise me two things." 

" Two thousand, if you will." 

^*Two are quite difficult enough to keep. Youth is 
rash in promises, and rasher in forgetting them. Promise 
me that, whatever happens, you will not strike the first 
blow." 

" I do." 

" Promise me again, that you will not argue with her." 

" What then ? " 

"' Contradict, denounce, defy. But give no reasons. 
If you do, you are lost. She is subtler than the serpent, 
skilled in all the tricks of logic, and you will become a 
laughing-stock, and run away in shame. Promise me." 

" I do." 

" Then go." 

" When ? " 

" The sooner the better. — At what hour does the 
accursed woman lecture to-morrow, Peter ? " 


HYPATIA. 1 1 1 

*' We saw her eoing to the Museum at nine this mom- 
mg. 

*' Then go at nine to-morrow. There is money foi 
you." 

" What is this for ? " asked Philammon, fingering 
cnriou^y the first coins which he ever had handled in his 
life. 

"To pay for your entrance. To the philosopher 
none enters without money. Not so to the Qiurch of 
God, open all day long to the beggar and the slave. If 
you convert her, well. And if not "... And he added 
to himself between his teeth, " And if not, well also — 
perhaps better." 

" Ay ! " said Peter bitterly, as he ushered Philamnion 
out. " Go up to Ramoth-Gilead, and prosper, young 
fool ! What evil spirit sent you here to feed the noble 
patriarch's only weakness ? " 

** What do you mean ? " asked Philammon, as fiercely 
as he dared. 

** The fancy that preachings^ and protestations, and 
martyrdoms can drive out the Canaanites, who can 
only be got rid of with the sword of the Lord and of 
Gideon. His uncle Theophilus knew that well enough. 
If he had not, Olympiodorus might have been master of 
Alexandria, and incense burning before Serapis to this 
day. Ay, go, and let her convert you ! Touch the 
accursed thing, like Achan, and see if you do not end by 
having it in your tent. Keep company with the daughters 
of Midian, and see if you do not join yourself to Baal- 
peor, and eat the offerings of the dead ! " 

And with this encouraging sentence, the two parted 
for the night. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE EAST WIND. 


As Hypatia went forth the next morning, in all her 
glory, with a crowd of philosophers and philosophasters, 
students, and fine gentlemen, following her in reverent 


112 HYPATIA. 

admiration across the street to her lecture-room, a ragged 
beggar-man, accompanied by a huge and villainous- 
looking dog, planted himself right before her, and ex- 
tending a cSrty hand whined for an alms. 

Hypatia, whose refined taste could never endure the 
sight, much less the contact, of anything squalid and 
degraded, recoiled a little, and bade the attendant slave 
get rid of the man with a coin. Several of the younger 
gentlemen, however, considered themselves adepts in 
that noble art of " upsetting " then in vogue in the 
African universities, to which we aU have reason enough 
to be thankful, seeing that it drove Saint Augustine from 
Carthage to Rome ; and they, in compUance with the 
usual fashion of tormenting any simple creature who 
came in their way by mystification and insult, commenced 
a series of personal witticisms, which the beggar bore 
^stoically enough. The coin was offered him, but he 
blandly put aside the hand of the giver, and keeping 
his place on the pavement, seemed incHned to dispute 
Hypatia's further passage. 

* What do you want ? Send the wretch and his 
frightful dog away, gentlemen ! " said the poor philoso- 
pher in some trepidation. 

" I know that dog," said one of them ; " it is Aben- 
Ezra's. Where did you find it before it was lost, you 
rascal ? " 

*' Where your mother found you when she palmed you 
off upon her goodman, my child — ^in the slave-market. 
Fair sibyl, have you already forgotten your humblest 
pupil, as these young dogs have, who are already trying to 
upset their master and instructor in the angeUc science 
of bullying ? " 

And the beggar, lifting his broad straw hat, disclosed 
the features of Raphael Aben-Ezra. Hypatia recoiled 
with a shriek of surprise. 

" Ah ! you are astonished. At what, I pray ? " 

" To see you, sir, thus ! " 

" Why, then ? You have been preaching to us all a 
long time the glory of abstraction from the allurements 
of sense. It augurs ill, surely, for your estimate either 


IIYPATIA. 113 

of your pupils or of your own eloquence, if you are so 
struck with consternation because one of them has 
actually at last obeyed you." 

" What is the meaning of this masquerade, most 
excellent sir ? " asked Hypatia and a dozen voices 
besides. 

" Ask Cyril. I am on my way to Italy, in the char- 
acter of the New Diogenes, to look, like him, for a man. 
When I have foimd one, I shall feel great pleasure in 
returning to acquaint you with the amazing news. Fare- 
well ! I wished to look once more at a certain countenance, 
though I have tiuned, as you see, cynic ; and intend 
henceforth to attend no teacher but my dog, who will 
luckily charge no fees for instruction : if she chd, I must 
go imtaught, for my ancestral wealth made itself wings 
yesterday morning. You are aware, doubtless, of the 
Plebiscitum against the Jews, which was carried into i 
effect under the auspices of a certain holy tribune of the 
people ? " 

" Infamous ! " 

" And dangerous, my dear lady. Success is inspirit- 
ing . . . and Theon's house is quite as easily sacked as 
the Jews' quarter. . . . Beware 1 " 

" Come, come, Aben-Ezra," cried the young men ; 
" you are far too good company for us to lose you for 
that rascally patriarch's fancy. We will make a sub- 
scription for you, eh ? And you shaU hve with each of 
us, month and month about. We shall quite lose the 
trick of joking without you." 

" Thank you, gentlemen. But really you have been 
my butts far too long for me to think of becoming yours. 
Madam, one word in private before I go." 

H5^atia leant forward, and speaking in Syriac, whis- 
pered hurriedly, — 

" O stay, sir, I beseech you ! You are the wisest of 
my pupils — ^perhaps my only true pupil. , . . My father 
will find some concealment for you from these wretches ; 
and if you need money, remember he is your debtor. 
We have never repaid you the gold which " 

" Fairest Muse, that was but my entrance-fee to 


1 14 HYPATIA. 

Parnassus. It is I who am in your debt ; and I have 
brought my arrears, in the form of this opal ring. As 
for shelter near you/' he went on, lowering his voice, 
and speaking like her in Syriac — '' Hypatia the Gentile 
is far too lovely for the peace of mind of Raphael the 
Jew." And he drew from his finger Miriam's ring and 
offered it. 

" Impossible ! " said Hypatia, blushing scarlet ; " I 
cannot accept it." 

" I beseech you. It is the last earthly burden I have, 
except this snail's prison of flesh and blood. My dagger 
will open a crack through that when it becomes intoler- 
able. But as I do not intend to leave my shell, if I can 
help it, except just when and how I choose, and as, if 
I take this ring with me, some of HeracHan's Circumr 
cellions will assuredly knock my brains out for the sake 
of it, I must entreat." 

" Never ! Can you not sell the ring, and escape to 
Synesius ? He will give you shelter." 

" The hospitable hurricane ! Shelter, yes ; but rest, 
none. As soon pitch my tent in the crater of .^tna. 
Why, he will be trying day and night to convert me to 
that eclectic farrago of his, which he calls philosophic 
Christianity. Well, if you will not have the ring, it is 
soon disposed of. We Easterns know how to be mag- 
nificent, and vanish as the lords of the worid ought" 

And he turned to the philosophic crowd. 

" Here, gentlemen of Alexandria ! Does any gay 
youth wish to pay his debts once and for all ? Behold 
the Rainbow of Solomon, an opal such as Alexandria 
never saw before, which would buy any one of you, and 
his Macedonian papa, and his Macedonian mamma , and 
his Macedonian sisters, and horses, and parrots, and 
peacocks, twice over, in any slave-market in the worid. 
Any gentleman who wishes to possess a jewel worth 
ten thousand gold pieces will only need to pick it out of 
the gutter into which I throw it Scramble for it, you 
young Phaedrias and PamphiHt There are Laides and 
Thaides enough about who will help you to spend it." 

And raising the jewel on high, he was in the act ol 


HYPATIA. 115 

tossing it into the street, when his arm was seized from 
behind, and the ring snatched from his hand. He turned 
fiercely enough, and saw behind him, her eyes flashing 
fury and contempt, old Miriam. 

Bran sprang at the old woman's throat in an instant, 
but recoiled again beiore the glare of her eye. Raphael 
called the dog off, and turning quietly to the disappointed 
spectators — 

" It is all right, my luckless friends. You must raise 
money for yoursdves, after all ; which, since the depar- 
ture of my nation, will be a somewhat more difficult 
matter than ever. The overruhng destinies, whom, as 
you all know so well when you are getting tipsy, not even 
philosophers can resist, have restored the Rainbow of 
Solomon to its original possessor. Farewell, Queen of 
Philosophy ! When I find the man, you shall hear of it 
Mother, I am coming with yofu for a friendly word before 
we part, though," he went on, laughing, as the two 
walked away together ; " it was a scurvy trick of you to 
balk one of The Nation of the exquisite pleasure of seeing 
those heathen dogs scrambling in the gutter for his 
bounty." 

Hypatia went on to the Museum, utterly bewildered 
by this strange meeting, and its still stranger end. She 
took care, nevertheless, to betray no sign of her deep 
interest till she found herself alone in her little waiting- 
room adjoining the lecture-hall ; and there, throwing 
herself into a diair, she sat and thought, till she found, 
to her surprise and anger, the tears trickhng down her 
cheeks. Not that her bosom held one spark of affection 
for Raphael, If there had ever been any danger of that, 
the wily Jew had himself taken care to ward it off, by 
the sneering and frivolous tone with which he quashed 
every approach to deep feeling, either in himseH or in 
others. As for his compliments to her beauty, she was 
far too much accustomed to such to be either pleased or 
displeased by them. Bnt she felt, as she said, that she 
had lost perhaps her only true pupil ; and more, perhaps 
h^ only true master. For siie saw clearly enough, that 
under that Siienus's mask was hidden a natiure capable 


Il6 HYPATIA. 

of — perhaps more than she dared think of. She had 
always felt him her superior in practical cunning ; and 
that morning had proved to her what she had long sus- 
pected, that he was possibly also her superior in that 
moral earnestness and strength of will for which she 
looked in vain among the enervated Greeks who sur- 
rounded her. And even in those matters in which he 
professed himself her pupil, she had long been alternately 
deUghted by finding that he alone, of aU her school, 
seemed thoroughly and instinctively to comprehend her 
every word, and chilled by the disagreeable suspicion 
that he was only playing with her, and her mathematics 
and geometry, and metaphysic and dialectic, like a fencer 
practising with foils, while he reserved his real strength 
for some object more worthy of him. More than once 
some paradox or question of his had shaken her neatest 
systems into a thousand cracks, and opened up ugly 
depths of doubt, even on the most seemingly palpable 
certainties ; or some half-jesting allusion to those Hebrew 
Scriptures, the quantity and quahty of his faith in which 
he would never confess, made her indignant at the notion 
that he considered himself in possession of a reserved 
ground of knowledge deeper and surer than her own, in 
which he did not deign to allow her to share. 

And yet she was irresistibly attracted to him. That 
deliberate and consistent luxury of his, from which she 
shrank, he had always boasted that he was able to put 
on and take off at will like a garment ; and now he seemed 
to have proved his words — to be a worthy rival of the 
great Stoics of old time. Could Zeno himself have asked 
more from frail humanity ? Moreover, Raphael had 
been of infinite practical use to her. He worked out, 
unasked, her mathematical problems ; he looked out 
authorities, kept her pupils in order by his bitter tongue, 
and drew fresh students to her lectures by the attractions 
of his wit, his arguments, and last, but not least, his 
unrivalled cook and cellar. Above all, he acted the part 
of a fierce and valiant watch-dog on her behalf, against 
the knots of clownish and often brutal sophists, the 
wrecks of the old Cynic, Stoic, and Academic schools, 


HYPATIA. 117 

who, with venom increasing, after the wont of parties, 
with their decrepitude, assailed the beautifully bespangled 
card-castle of Neo-Platonism, as an empty medley of all 
Greek philosophies with all Eastern superstitions. All 
such Phihstines had as yet dreaded the pen and tongue 
of Raphael, even more than those of the chivalrous 
Bishop of C5n:ene, though he certainly, to judge from 
certain of his letters, hated them as much as he could 
hate any human being, which was, after all, not very 
bitterly. 

But the visits of Ssmesius were few and far between ; 
the distance between Carthage and Alexandria, and the 
labour of his diocese, and, worse than aU, the growing 
difference in purpose between him and his beautiful 
teacher, made his protection all but valueless. And now 
Aben-Ezra was gone too, and with him were gone a 
thousand plans and hopes. To have converted him at 
last to a philosophic faith in the old gods ! To have made 
him her instrument for turning back the stream of human 
error ! . . . How often had that dream crossed her ! 
And now, who would take his place ? Athanasius ? 
Synesius in his good-nature might dignify him with the 
name of brother, but to her he was a powerless pedant, 
destined to die without having wrought any deliverance 
on the earth, as indeed the event proved. Plutarch of 
Athens ? He was superannuated. Syrianus ? A mere 
logician, twisting Aristotle to mean what she knew, and 
he ought to have known, Aristotle never meant. Her 
father ? A man of triangles and conic sections. How 
paltry they all looked by the side of the unfathomable 
Jew ! Spinners of charming cobwebs. . . . But would 
the flies condescend to be caught in them ? Builders 
of pretty houses. ... If people would but enter and 
Hve in them ! Preachers of superfine morality . . . which 
their admiring pupils never dreamt of practising. With- 
out her, she well knew, philosophy must die in Alexandria. 
And was it her wisdom — or other and more earthly 
charms of hers — which enabled her to keep it alive ? 
Sickening thought ! Oh that she were ugly, only to test 
the power of her doctrines I 


Il8 HYPATIA. 

Ho I The odds were fearful enough akeady ; she 
would be glad of any help, however earthly and carnal. 
But was not the work hopeless ? What she wanted 
was men who could act whUe she thought. And those 
were just the men whom she woxild find nowhere but — 
she knew it too well — ^m the hated Christian priesthood. 
And then that fearful Iphigenia sacrifice loomed in the 
distance as inevitable. The only hope of philosophy was 
in her despair I 

* « « * «^ 

She dashed away the tears, and proudly entered the 
lecture-hall, and ascended the tribune like a goddess, 
amid the shouts of her audience. . . . What did she care 
for them ? Would they do what she told them ? She 
was half through her lecture before she could recol- 
lect herself, and banish from her mind the thought of 
Raphael, And at that point we will take the lecture up. 
« « « « # 

"Truth? Where is truth but in the soul itself? 
FactSy objects, are but phantoms matter-woven — ghosts 
of this earthly night, at which the soul, sleeping here in 
the mire and clay of matter, shudders and names its own 
vague tremors sense and perception. Yet, even as our 
nightly dreams stir in us the suspicion of mysterious and 
immaterial presences, unfettered by the bonds of time 
and space, so do these waking dreams which we call sight 
and soimd. They are divine messengers, whom Zeus, 
pitying his children, even when he pent them in this 
prison-house of flesh, appointed to arouse in them dim 
recollections of that real wchtM of souls whence they came. 
Awakened once to them — seeing, through the veil of 
sense and fact, the spiritual truth of whidi they are but 
the accidental garment, concealing the very thing which 
they make palpable, the philosopher may neglect the fact 
for the doctrine, the shdl for the kernel, the body for the 
soul, of which it is but the symbol and the vehicle. What 
matter, then, to the philosopher whether tiiese names 
of men. Hector or Priam, Helen or AchiUes, were ever 
visible as phantoms of flesh and blood before the eyes of 
men ? What matter whether they spoke or thought as 


HYPATIA. 1 19 

he of Scios says they did ? What matter, even, whether 
he himself ever had earthly life ? The book is here — the 
word which men call his. Let the thoughts thereof have 
been at first whose they may, now they are mine. I have 
taken them to myself, and thought them to myself, and 
made them parts of my own soul. Nay, they were and 
ever will be parts of me ; for they, even as the poet was, 
even as I am, are but a part of the universal soul. What 
matter, then, what mydis grew up around those mighty 
thoughts of ancient seers ? Let others try to reconcile 
the Cyclic fragments, or vindicate the Catalogue of ships. 
What has the philosopher lost, though the former were 
proved to be contradictory and the latter interpolated ? 
The thoughts are there, and ours. Let us open our 
hearts lovingly to receive them, from whencesoever they 
may have come. As in men, so in books, the soul is all 
with which our souls must deal ; and the soul of the book 
is whatsoever beautiful, and true, and noble we can find 
in it. It matters not to us whether the poet was alto- 
gether conscious of the meanings which we can find in 
him. Consciously or unconsciously to him, the meanings 
must be there ; for were they not there to be seen, how 
could we see them ? There are those among the un- 
initiate vulgar — and those, too, who carry under the 
philosophic cloak hearts still iminitiate — ^who revile such 
interpretations as merely the sophistic and arbitrary 
sports of fancy. It Hes with them to show what Homer 
meant, if our spiritual meanings be absurd ; to tell the 
world why Homer is admirable, if that for which we hold 
him up to admiration does not exist in him. Will they 
say that the honour which he has enjoyed for ages was 
inspired by that which seems to be his first and hteral 
meaning ? And more, will they venture to impute that 
literal meaning to him ? Can they suppose that the divine 
soul of Homer could degrade itself to write of actual 
and physical feastings, and nuptials, and dances, actual 
nightly thefts of horses, actual fidehty of dogs and swine- 
herds, actusd intermarriages between deities and men ; or 
that it is this seeming vulgarity which has won for him 
from the wisest of every age the title of the father of 


120 IIYPATIA. 

poetry ? Degrading thought ! fit only for the coarse 
and sense-bound tribe who can appreciate nothing but 
what is palpable to sense and sight ! As soon believe 
the Christian Scriptures when they tell us of a deity who 
has hands and feet, eyes and ears, who condescends to 
command the patterns of furniture and cuhnary utensils, 
and is made perfect by being bom — disgusting thought ! 
— as the son of a village maiden, and defiling himself 
with the wants and sorrows of the lowest slaves ! " 

"It is false ! blasphemous ! The Scriptures cannot 
lie ! " cried a voice from the farther end of the room. 

It was Philammon's. He had been listening to the 
whole lecture, and yet not so much hstening as watch- 
ing, in bewilderment, the beauty of the speaker, the 
grace of her action, the melody of her voice, and last, 
but not least, the maze of her rhetoric, as it glittered 
before his mind's eye like a cobweb diamonded with dew. 
A sea of new thoughts and questions, if not of doubts, 
came rushing in at every sentence on his acute Greek 
intellect, all the more plentifully and irresistibly because 
his speculative faculty was as yet altogether waste and 
empty, undefended by any scientific culture from the 
inrushmg flood. For the first time in his life he 
found himself face to face with the root-questions of all 
thought—" What am I, and where ? " " What can I 
know ? " And in the half-terrified struggle with them, 
he had all but forgotten the purpose for which he entered 
the lecture-hall. He felt that he must break the spell. 
Was she not a heathen and a false prophetess ? Here 
was something tangible to attack ; and half in indigna- 
tion at the blasphemy, half in order to force himself into 
action, he had sprung up and spoken. 

A yell arose. " Turn the monk out ! " " Throw the 
rustic through the window ! *' cried a dozen young gentle- 
men. Several of the most vaUant began to scramble 
over the benches up to him ; and Philammon was con- 
gratulating himself on the near approach of a glorious 
martyrdom, when Hj^atia's voice, calm and silvery, 
stifled the tumult in a moment. 

" Let the youth listen, gentlemen. He is but a monk 


HYPATIA. 121 

and a plebeian, and knows no better; he has been 
taught thus. Let him sit here quietly, and perhaps we 
may be able to teach him otherwise." 

And without interrupting, even by a change of tone, 
the thread of her discourse, she continued : — 

*' Listen, then, to a passage from the sixth book of 
the Iliad, in which last night I seemed to see gUmpses 
of some mighty mystery. You know it well, yet I will 
read it to you ; the very soimd and pomp of tiiat great 
verse may tune our souls to a fit key for the reception 
of lofty wisdom. For well said Abamnon the Teacher, 
that ' the soul consisted first of harmony and rhythm, 
and ere it gave itself to the body had listened to the 
divine harmony. Therefore it is that when, after having 
come into a body, it hears such melodies as most pre- 
serve the divine footstep of harmony, it embraces such, 
and recollects from them that divine harmony, and is 
impelled to it, and finds its home in it, and shares of it 
as much as it can share.' " 

And therewith fell on Philammon's ear, for the first 
time, the mighty thunder-roll of Homer's verse : — 

** So spoke the stewardess ; but Hector rushed 
From the house, the same way back, down stately streets, 
Through the broad city, to the Scaian gates. 
Whereby he must go forth toward the plain. 
There, running toward him, came Andromache, 
His ample-dowered wife, Eetion's child — 
Eetion the great-hearted, he who dwelt 
In Theb^ under Placos, and the woods 
Of Placos, ruling over Kilic men. 
His daughter wedded Hector brazen-helmed, 
And met him then ; and with her came a maid. 
Who bore in arms a playful-hearted babe 
An infant still, akin to some fair star, 
Only and well-loved child of Hector's house, 
Whom he had named Scamandrios, but the rest 
Astyanax, because his sire alone 
Upheld the weal of Ilion the holy. 
He smiled in silence, looking on his child : 
But she stood close to him, with many tears ; 
And hung upon his hand, and spoke, and called him* 

* My hero, thy great heart will wear thee out 5 
Thou pitiest not thine infant child, nor me 
The hapless, soon to be thy widow 5 


122 HYPATIA. 

The Greeks will slay thee, falling" one and all 

Upon thee. But to me were sweeter far, 

Having lost thee, to die : no cheer to me 

Will come thenceforth, if thou shouldst meet thy fatei 

Woes only : mother have I none, nor sire. 

For that my sire divine Achilles slew. 

And wasted utterly the pleasant homes 

Of KiJic folk in Theb^ lofty- viralled, 

And slew Eetion with the sword I yet spared 

To strip the dead : awe kept his soul from that. 

Therefore he burnt him in his graven arms, 

And heaped a mound above him ; and around 

The damsels of the ^Egis-holding Zeus, 

The nymphs who haunt the upland, planted elms. 

And seven brothers bred with me in the halls, 

All in one day went down to Hades there ; 

For all of them swift-foot Achilles slew 

Beside the lazy kinc and snow-white sheep. 

And her, my mother, who of late was queen 

Beneath the woods of Placos, he brought here 

Among his other spoils ; yet set her free 

Again, receiving ransom rich and great. 

But Artemis, whose bow is all her joy. 

Smote her to death within her father's halls. 

Hector ! so thou art lather to me now, 

Mother, and brother, and husband fair and strong ! 

come now, pity me, and stay thou here 
Upon the tower, nor make thy child an orphan 
And me thy wife a widow. Range the men 
Here by the fig-tree, where the city lies 
Lowest, and where the wall can well be scaled ; 
For here three times the best have tried the assault 
Round either Ajax, and Idomeneus, 

And round the Atridai both, and Tydeus' son, 

Whether some cunning seer taught them craft. 

Or their own spirit stirred and drove them on.* 

Then spake tall Hector, with the glancing helm s 

' All this I too have watched, my wife ; yet much 

1 hold in dread the scorn of Trojan men 
And Trojan women with their trailing shawUj 
If, like a coward, I should skulk from war. 
Besides, I have no lust to stay ; I have learnt 
Aye to be bold, and lead the van of fight, 

To win my father, and myself, a name. 
For well I know, at heart and in my thought, 
The day will come when Ilios the holy 
Sliall lie in heaps, and Priam, and the folk 
Of ashen-speared Priam, perish all. 
But yet no woe to come to Trojan men, 


HYPATIA. 123 

Nor even to Hecabe, nor Priam king, 

Nor to my brothers, who shall roll in dust. 

Many and fair, beneath the strokes of foes. 

So moves me, as doth thine, when thou shalt go 

Weepmg, led off by some brass-harnessed Greek, 

Robbed of the daylight of thy liberty, 

To weave in Argos at another's kxxm. 

Or bear the water of Messeis home. 

Or H)rpeEeia, with unseemly toils. 

While heavy doom constrains thee, and perchance 

The folk may say, who see thy tears run down, 
* This was the wife of Hector, best in fig^t 

At Ilium, of horse^^ming Trojan men." 

So will they say perchance ; while unto thee 

Now grief will come, for such a husband's loss. 

Who might have warded off the day of thrall. 

But may the soil be heaped above my corpse 

Before I hear thy shridc and see thy shame 1 ' 

He spoke, and stretched his arms to take the child 5 

But back the child upon his nurse's breast 

Shrank crying, frightened at his father's looks, 

Fearing the liass and crost of horse's hair 

Which waved above the helmet terribly. 

Then out ihat father dear and mother laughed^ 

And glorious Hector took the helmet off, 

And laid it gleaming on the ground, and kissed 

His darling child, and danced him in his arms ; 

And spoke in prayer to Zeus, and all the gods : 
' Zeu, smd ye other gods, O grant that this 

My child, like me, may grow the champion here 

As good in strength, ana rule with might in Troy 

That men may say, ** The boy is better far 

Than was his sire," when he returns from war, 

Beariiig a gory harness, having slain 

A foeman, and his mother's heart rejoice.* 

Thus saying, on the hands of his dear wife 

He laid the child ; and she received him back 

in fragrant bosom, amilmg through her tears." * 


*The above lines are not meant as a "translation," but as a humble 
attempt to give the literal sense in some sort of metre. It would be an 
act of arrogance even to aim at success where Pope and Chapman failed. 
It is simply, I believe, impossiblie to render Homer into Engli^ verse ; 
because, for one reason among many, it is impossible to preserve the 

S»mp of sound which invests with grandeur his most common words, 
ow can any skill represent the rhythm of Homeric Greek in a lan- 
guage which — to take the first verse which comes to hand — transforms 
"boos megaloio boei^n,** into "great ox*s hide"? 


124 HYPATIA. 

" Such is the myth. Do you fancy that in it Homer 
meant to hand down to the admiration of ages such 
earthly commonplaces as a mother's brute affection and 
the terrors of an infant ? Surely the deeper insight of 
the philosopher may be allowed, without the reproach 
of fancifulness, to see in it the adumbration of some 
deeper mystery ! 

" The elect soul, for instance — ^is not its name Asty- 
anax, king of the city ; by the fact of its ethereal parent- 
age, the leader and lord of all around it, though it knows 
it not ? A child as yet, it lies upon the fragrant bosom 
of its mother Nature, the nurse and yet the enemy of 
man — ^Andromache, as the poet well names her, because 
she fights with that being, when grown to man's estate, 
whom as a child she nourished. Fair is she, yet un- 
wise ; pampering us, after the fashion of mothers, with 
weak indulgences ; fearing to send us forth into the 
great realities of speculation, there to forget her in the 
pursuit of glory, she would have us while away oiir 
prime within the harem, and play for ever round her 
knees. And has not the elect soul a father, too, whom 
it knows not ? Hector, he who is without — ^unconfined, 
unconditioned by Nature, yet its husband ? — the all- 
pervading, plastic Soul, informing, organizing, whom men 
call Zeus the lawgiver, JEther the fire, Osiris the Ufe- 
giver ; whom here the poet has set forth as the defender 
of the mystic city, the defender of harmony, and order, 
and beauty throughout the universe ? Apart sits his great 
father — Priam, the first of existences, father of many sons, 
the Absolute Reason; unseen, tremendous, immovable, 
in distant glory ; yet himself amenable to that abysmal 
unity which Homer calls Fate, the source of all which is, 
yet m Itself Nothing, without predicate, unnameable. 

" From It and for It the universal Soul thrills through 
the whole Creation, doing the behests of that Reason 
from which it overflowed, unwillingly, into the storm 
and crowd of material appearances ; warring with the 
brute forces of gross matter, crushing all which is foul 
and dissonant to itself, and clasping to its bosom the 
beautiful, and all wherein it discovers its own reflex; 


HYPATIA. 125 

impressing on it its signature, reproducing from it its 
own likeness, whether star, or daemon, or soul of the 
elect; — and yet, as the poet hints in anthropomorphic 
language, haunted all the while by a sadness — ^weighed 
down amid all its labours by the sense of a fate — by the 
thought of that First One from whom the Soul is origin- 
ally descended ; from whom it, and its Father the Reason 
before it, parted themselves when they dared to think 
and act, and assert their own free will. 

" And in the meanwhile, alas ! Hector, the father, 
fights around, while his children sleep and feed; and 
he is away in the wars, and they know him not — know 
not that they the individuals are but parts of him the 
universal. And yet at moments — oh ! thrice blessed 
they whose celestial parentage has made such moments 
part of their appointed destiny — at moments flashes 
on the human child the intuition of the unutterable 
secret. In the spangled glory of the summer night 
— ^in the roar of the Nile flood, sweeping down fertility 
in every wave — ^in the awful depths of the temple shrine 
— ^in the wild melodies of old Orphic singers, or before 
the images of those gods of whose perfect beauty the 
divine theosophists of Greece caught a fleeting shadow, 
and with the sudden might of artistic ecstasy smote it, 
as by an enchanter's wand, into an eternal sleep of snowy 
stone — ^in these there flashes on the inner eye a vision 
beautiful and terrible, of a force, an energy, a soul, an 
idea, one and yet millionfold, rushing through all created 
things, Hke the wind across a lyre, thrilUng the strings 
into celestial harmony — one hfe-blood through the million 
veins of the universe, from one great unseen heart, whose 
thunderous pulses the mind hears far away, beating for 
ever in the abysmal soUtude, beyond the heavens and 
the galaxies, beyond the spaces and the times, them- 
selves but veins and runnels from its all- teeming sea. 

" Happy, thrice happy ! they who once have dared, 
even though breathless, blinded with tears of awful joy, 
struck down upon their knees in utter helplessness, as 
they feel themselves but dead leaves in the wind which 
sweeps the universe — ^happy they who have dared to 


126 HYPATIA. 

gaze, if but for an instant, on the terror of that glorious 
pageant ; who have not, Uke the young Astyanax, clung 
shrieking to the breast of mother Nature, scared by the 
heaven-wide flash of Hector's arms and the gHtter of 
his rainbow crest ! Happy, thrice happy I even though 
their eyeballs, blasted by excess of light, wither to ashes 
in their sockets! — Were it not a noble end to have 
seen Zeus, and die hke Semele, burnt up by his glory ? 
Happy, thrice happy ! though their mind reel from tbe 
divine intoxication, and the hogs of Circe call them hence- 
forth madmen and enthusiasts. Enthusiasts they are ; 
for Deity is in them, and they in It. For the time, this 
burden of individuality vanishes, and recognizing them- 
selves as portions of the universal Soul, they rise up- 
ward, through and beyond that Reason from whence 
the soul proceeds, to the fount of all — the ineffable and 
Supreme One — and seeing It, become by that act portions 
of Its essence. They speak no more, but It speaks in 
them ; and their whole being, transnrated by that glori- 
ous sunlight into whose rays they have dared, like the 
eagle, to gaze without shrinking, becomes a harmonious 
vehicle for the words of Deity, and passive itself, utters 
the secrets of the immortal gods I What wonder if to 
the brute mass they seem as dreamers ? Be it so. . . . 
Smile if you will. But ask me not to teach you things 
unspeakable, above all sciences, which the word-battie 
of dialectk, the discursive struggles of reason, can never 
reach, but which must be seen only, and when seen con- 
fessed to be unspeakable. Hence, thou dispute: of the 
Academy ! — Whence, thou sneering Cynic I— hence, thou 
sense-worshipping Stoic, who fanciest that the soul is to 
derive her knowledge from those material appearances 

which ^e herself creates ! . . . hence ; and yet no ; 

stay and sneer if you will. It is but a httle time — a few 
days longer in this prison-house of our degradation, and 
each thing shall return to its own fountain ; the blood- 
drop to the abysmal heart, and the water to the river, 
and the river to the shining sea ; and the dewdrop \diich 
fell from heaven shall rise to heaven again, shaking off 
the dust-grains which weighed it down, thawed from the 


HYPATIA. 127 

earth-frost which chained it here to herb and sward, 
upward and upward ever through stars and suns, through 
gods, and through the parents of the gods, purer and 
purer through successive Hves, till it enters The Nothing, 
which is The All, and finds its home at last." . . . 

And the speaker stopped suddenly, her eyes glistening 
with tears, her whole figure trembling and dilating with 
rapture. She remained for a moment motionless, gazing 
earnestly at her audience, as if in hopes of exciting in 
them some kindred glow; and then recovering herself, 
added in a more tender tone, not quite unmixed with 
sadness, — 

" Go now, my pupils. Hypatia has no more for you 
to-day. Go now, and ^>are her at least — ^woman as she 
is after all — the shame of finding that she has given you 
too much, and Hfted the veil of Isis before eyes which are 
not enough purified to behold the glory of the goddess. 
Farewell ! " 

She ended; and Philammon, the monient that the 
spell of her voice was taken off him, sprang up, and 
hurried out through the corridor into the street. . . . 

So beautiful ! So calm and merciful to him ! So en- 
thusiastic towards all which was noble ! Had not she 
too spoken of the unseen world, of the hope of inamor- 
tality, of the conquest of the spirit over the flesh, just 
as a Christian might have done ? Was the gulf between 
them so infinite ? If so, why had her aspirations awak- 
ened echoes in his own heart — echoes, too, just such as 
the prayers and lessons of the Laura used to awaken ? 
If the fruit was so like, must not the root be like also ? 
. . . Could that be a counterfeit ? That a minister of 
Satan in the robes of an angel of light ? Light, at least, 
it was : purity, simphcity, courage, earnestness, tender- 
ness, flashed out from eye. Up, gesture. ... A heathen, 
who disbeHeved ? . . . What was the meaning of it all ? 

But the finishing stroke yet remained which was to 
complete the utter confusion of his mind. For before 
he had gone fifty yards up the street, his little friend of 
the fruit-basket, whom he had not seen since he vanished 
under the feet of the mob in the gateway of the theatre. 


128 HYPATIA. 

clutched him by the arm, and btirst forth, breathless 
with running, — 

" The — ^gods — ^heap their favours — on those who — who 
least deserve them ! Rash and insolent rustic ! And 
this is the reward of thy madness ! " 

" Off with you ! " said Philammon, who had no mind 
at the moment to renew his acquaintance with the Uttle 
porter. But the guardian of parasols kept a firm hold 
on his sheepskin. 

" Fool ! Hypatia herself commands ! Yes, you will 
see her, have speech with her ! while I — I the illuminated 
— I the appreciating — I the obedient — I the adoring — 
who for these three years past have grovelled in the 
kennel, that the hem of her garment might touch the 
tip of my little finger — I — I — I " 

" What do you want, madman ? '* 

" She calls for thee, insensate wretch ! Theon sent 
me — breathless at once with running and with envy. Go ! 
favourite of the unjust gods ! " 

" Who is Theon ? '' 

'' Her father, ignorant ! He commands thee to be at 
her house — ^here — opposite — to-morrow at the third hour. 
Hear and obey ! There ! they are coming out of the 
Museum, and all the parasols will get wrong ! Oh, 
miserable me ! " 

And tlie poor little fellow rushed back again, while 
Philanunon, at his wits' end between dread and longing, 
started off, and ran the whole way home to the Sera- 
peium, regardless of carriages, elephants, and foot- 
passengers ; and having been knocked down by a surly 
porter, and left a piece of his sheepskin between the 
teeth of a spiteful camel — neither of which insults he 
had time to resent — arrived at the archbishop's house, 
foimd Peter the reader, and tremblingly begged an 
audience from Cyril. 


HYPATIA. 129 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE SNAPPING OF THE BOW. 

Cyril heard Philammon's story and Hypatia's message 
with a qiiiet smile, and then dismissed the youth to an 
afternoon of labour in the city, commanding him to men- 
tion no word of what had happened, and to come to him 
that evening and receive his order when he should have 
had time to think over the matter. So forth Philammon 
went with his companions, through lanes and alleys 
hideous with filth and poverty, compulsory idleness and 
native sin. Fearfully real and practical it all was ; but 
he saw it all dimly as in a dream. Before his eyes one 
face was shining ; in his ears one silvery voice was ring- 
ing. ..." He is a monk, and knows no better." . . . 
True ! And how should he know better ? How could 
he tell how much more there was to know, in that great 
new universe, in such a cranny whereof his hfe had till 
now been passed ? He had heard but one side already. 
What if there were two sides ? Had he not a right — 
that is, was it not proper, fair, prudent, that he should 
hear both, and then judge ? 

Cyril had hardly, perhaps, done wisely for the youth 
in sending him out about the practical drudgery of 
benevolence, before deciding for him what was his duty 
with regard to Hypatia's invitation. He had not calcu- 
lated on the new thoughts which were tormenting the 
young monk ; perhaps they would have been unintelli- 
gible to him had he known of them. Cyril had been 
bred up imder the most stem dogmatic training, in those 
vast monastic estabhshments which had arisen amid the 
neighbouring saltpetre quarries of Nitria, where thou- 
sands toiled in voluntary poverty and starvation at vast 
bakeries, dyeries, brickfields, tailors' shops, carpenters' 
yards, and expended the profits of their labotu", not on 
themselves, for they had need of nothing, but on churches, 
hospitals, and alms. Educated in that world of practical 
industrial production as well as of rehgious exercise, 
which by its proximity to the great city accustomed 


I30 HYPATTA. 

monks to that world which they despised ; entangled 
from boyhood in the intrigues of his fierce and ambitious 
uncle Theophilus, Cyril had succeeded him in the patri- 
archate of Alexandria without having felt a doubt, and 
stood free to throw his fiery energy and clear practical 
intellect into the cause of the Church without scruple, 
even, where necessary, without pity. How could such 
a man sympathize with the poor boy of twenty, suddenly 
dragged forth from the quiet cavern-shadow of the Laura 
into the full blaze and roar of the world's noonday ? 
He, too, was cloister-bred. But th« busy and fanatic 
atmosphere of Nitria, where every nerve of soul and 
body was kept on a hfelong artificial strain, without 
rest, without simplicity, without human affection, was 
utterly antipodal to the government of the remote and 
needy, though no less industrious, commonwealths of 
Ccenobites which dotted the lonely mountain-glens, fair 
up into the heart of the Nubian desert. In such a one 
Philammon had recdved, from a venerable man, a 
mother's sympathy as well as a father's care ; and now 
he yearned for the encouragement of a gentle voice, for 
the greeting of a kindly eye, and was lonely and sick at 
heart. . . . And still Hypatia's voice haunted his ears, 
Hke a strain of music, and would not die away. That 
lofty enthusiasm, so sweet and modest in its grandeur 
—that tone of pity — ^in one so lovely it could not be 
called contempt — ^for the manyj that delicious phan- 
tom of being an elect spirit . . . unlike the crowd. . . . 
" And am I altogether like the crowd ? " said Philammon 
to himself, as he staggered along under the weight of 
a groaning fever patient. " Can there be fo\md no fitter 
work for me than this, which any porter from the quay 
might do as well ? Am I not somewhat wasted on svtch 
toil as this ? Have I not an intellect, a taste, a reason ? 
I could appreciate what she said. — ^Why should not my 
faculties be educated ? Why am I only to be ^ut out 
from knowledge ? There is a Christian Gnosis as well 
as a heathen one. What was permissible to Clement " 
— ^he had nearly said to Origen, but checked himself on 
the edge of heresy — " is surely lawful for me I Is not 


HYPATIA. 131 

my very craving for knowledge a sign that I am capable 
of it ? Siirely my sphere is the study rather than the 
street ! " 

And then his fellow-labourers — ^he could not deny it 
to himself — began to grow less venerable in his eyes. 
Let him try as he might to forget the old priest's grum- 
blings and detractions, the fact was before him. The 
men were coarse, fierce, noisy ... so different from 
her? Their talk seemed mere gossip — scandalous too, 
and hard-judging, most of it ; about that man's private 
ambition, and that woman's proud looks ; and who had 
stayed for the Eucharist the Sunday before, and who 
had gone out after the sermon ; and how the majority 
who did not stay could possibly dare to go, and how 
the minority who did not go could possibly dare to 
stay, . , . Endless suspicions, aaeers, complaints . . . 
what did they care for the eternal glories and the beatific 
vision ? Their one test for all men and things, from the 
patriardi to the prefect, seemed to be — did he or it 
advance the cause of the Qiurch ? — ^which Philammon 
soon discovered to mean their own cause, their influence, 
their self-^orification. And the poor boy, as his faculty 
for fault-finding quickened under the influence of theirs, 
seemed to see under the humble stock-phrases in wiiich 
they talked of their labours of love and the future re- 
ward of their present humiliations, a deep and hardly- 
hidden pride, a taiih in their own infallibiUty, a con- 
temptuous impatience of every man, however venerable, 
who differed from tiieir party on any, the sUghtest, 
matter. They spoke with sneers of Augustine's Latiniz- 
ing tendencies, and with open execrations of Chrysostom 
as the vilest and most impious of schismatics ; and, for 
aught Philammon knew, they were right enough. But 
when they talked of wars and desolation past and im- 
pending, without a word of pity for the slain and ruined, 
as a just judgment of Heaven upon heretics and heathens ; 
when they argued over the awful struggle for power 
which, as he gathered from their words, was even then 
pending between the Emperor and the Count of Africa, 
as if it contained but one question of interest to them 

5 


132 HYPATIA. 

— would Cyril, and they as his bodyguard, gain or lose 
power in Alexandria ? — and lastly, when at some mention 
of Orestes, and of Hypatia as his counsellor, they broke 
out into open imprecations of God's curse, and comforted 
themselves with the prospect of everlasting torment for 
both, he shuddered, and asked himself involuntarily — 
Were these the ministers of a Gospel ? — were these the 
fruits of Christ's Spirit ? . . . And a whisper thrilled 
through the inmost depth of his soul — " Is there a 
Gospel ? Is there a Spirit of Christ ? Would not their 
fruits be different from these ? " 

Faint, and low, and distant was that whisper, like 
the mutter of an earthquake miles below the soil. And 
yet, Hke the earthquake-roll, it had in that one moment 
jarredv every beUef, and hope, and memory of his being 
each a hairbreadth from its place. . . . Only one hair- 
breadth. But that was enough ; his whole inward and 
outward world changed shape, and cracked at every 
joint. What if it were to fall in pieces ? His brain 
reeled with the thought. He doubted his own identity. 
The very light of heaven had altered its hue. Was the 
firm ground on which he stood after all no sohd reality, 
but a fragile shell which covered — ^what ? 

The nightmare vanished, and he breathed once more. 
What a strange dream ! The sun and the exertion must 
have made him giddy. He would forget all about it. 

Weary with labour, and still wearier with thought, 
he returned that evening, longing and yet dreading to 
be permitted to speak with Hypatia. He half hoped 
at moments that Cjnil might think him too weak for 
it ; and the next, all his pride and daring, not to say 
his faith and hope, spurred him on. Might he but face 
the terrible enchantress, and rebuke her to her face ! 
And yet so lovely, so noble as she looked ! Could he 
speak to her, except in tones of gentle warning, pity, 
counsel, entreaty? Might he not convert her — ^save her ? 
Glorious thought ! to win such a soul to the true cause ! 
to be able to show, as the firstfruits of his mission, the 
very champion of heathendom ! It was worth while to 
have lived only to do that ; and having done it, to die. 


HYP ATI A. 133 

The archbishop's lodgings, when he entered them, 
were in a state of ferment even greater than usual. 
Groups of monks, priests, parabolani, and citizens rich 
and poor, were hanging about the courtyard, talking 
earnestly and angrily. A large party of monks fresh 
from Nitria, with ragged hair and beards, and the pecu- 
liar expression of countenance which fanatics of all creeds 
acquire, fierce and yet abject, self-conscious and yet 
ungovemed, silly and yet sly, with features coarsened 
and degraded by continual fasting and self-torture, 
prudishly shrouded from head to heel in their long 
ragged gowns, were gesticulating wildly and loudly, and 
calling on their more peaceable companions, in no 
measured terms, to revenge some insult offered to the 
Church. 

" What is the matter ? " asked Philanunon of a quiet 
portly citizen, who stood looking up, with a most per- 
plexed visage, at the windows of the patriarch's apart- 
ments. 

" Don't ask me ; I have nothing to do with it. Why 
does not his holiness come out and speak to them? 
Blessed Virgin, mother of God! that we were well 
through it all ! " 

" Coward ! " bawled a monk in his ear. " These shop- 
keepers care for nothing but seeing their stalls safe. 
Rather than lose a day's custom, they would give the 
very churches to be plimdered by the heathen ! " 

" We do not want them ! ' cried another. " We 
managed Dioscuros and his brother, and we can man- 
age Orestes. What matter what answer he sends ? The 
devil shall have his own ! " 

" They ought to have been back two hours ago ; they 
are murdered by this time." 

" He would not dare to touch the archdeacon ! " 

" He will dare anything. C3nil should never have 
sent them forth as lambs among wolves. What necessity 
was there for letting the prefect know that the Jews were 
gone ? He would have found it out for himself fast 
enough, the next time he wanted to borrow money." 

" What is all this about, reverend sir ? " asked Phil- 


134 HYPATIA. 

ammon of Peter the reader, who made his appearance 
at that moment in the quadrangle, walking with great 
strides, Mke the soul of Agamemnon across Qae meads of 
Asphodely and apparently beside himself with rage. 

" Ah ! you here ? You. may go to-morrow, young 
fool [ The patriarch can't talk to you. Why should 
he ? Some people have a great deal too much notice 
taken of them, in my opinion. Yes, you may go. If 
your head is not turned already, you may go and get 
it turned to-morrow. We shall see whether he who 
exalts himself is not abased, before all is over 1 " And 
he was striding away, when Philammon, at the risk of 
an explosion, stopped him. 

" His holiness conunanded me to see him,.sir, before " 

Peter turned on him in a fury. '' Fool ! wiQ you dare 
to intrude your fantastical dreajiK on him at such a 
moment, as this ? " 

'' He commanded me to see him," said Philammon, 
with the true soldier-like discipline of a monk ; " and 
see him I will in spite of any man. I believe in my 
heart you wish to keep me from his counsels and h^ 
blessing/* 

Peter looked at him for a moment with a ri^t wicked 
expression,, and theai,. to the youth's astonishment, struck 
him full in the face, and ydkd for help. 

If the blow had been givQi by Pambo in the Lainra 
a week before, Philammon would have borne it. But 
from that man, and coming unexpectedly as the finish- 
ing stroke to all his disappointment and disgust,^ it was 
intolerable ; and in. an instant Peter's long legs wrare 
sprawling on the pavement, while he bellowed Hke a 
bull for all the monks in Nitria. 

A dozen lean brown hands were at PhilammcKi's throat 
as Peter rose. 

'[ Seize him I hcid him ! " half blubbered he. " The 
traitor ! the heretic I He holds Gommunicai with 
heathens ! " 

"Down with hhnt" "Cast him out!" "Carry 
him to the archbishop ! " while Philammon shook him- 
self free, and Peter returned to the charge. 


HYPATIA. 135 

" I call all good Catholics to witness ! He has beaten 
an ecclesiastic in the courts of the Lord's house, even 
in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem 1 And he was in 
Hypatia's lecture-room this morning 1 " 

A groan of pious horror rose, Philammon set his back 
against the wall. 

" His holiness the patriarch sent me.'* 

" He confesses, he confesses ! He deluded the piety 
of the patriarch into letting him go, under ookmr of 
converting her ; and evea ncrw be wants to intrude on 
the sacred presence of Cyril, burning only with carnal 
desire that he may meet the sorceress in her house to- 
morrow ! " 

" Scandal ! " " Abomination in the holy plat^e 1 " and 
a rush at the poor youth took i^ace. 

His blood was thoroughly up. The re^jectable part of 
the crowd, as usual in such cases, prudently retreated, and 
left him to I3ie mercy of the monks, with an eye to their 
own reputation for orthodoxy, not to mention their 
personal safety ; and he had to help himself as he could. 
He looked round for a weapon. There was none. The 
ring of monks were bayii^ at him like hounds round a 
bear ; and though he might have been a match for any 
one of them singly, yet their sinewy Umbs and deter- 
mined faces warned him ihzit against such odds the 
struggle would be desperate, 

" Let me leave this court in safety ! God knows 
whether I am a heretic; and to Him I commit my 
cause ! The holy patriarch shall know of your iniquity. 
I will not trouble 3^; I give 5^u leave to call me 
heretic, or heathen, if you wall, if I cross this threshold 
till Cyril himself sends for me iKick to shame you." 

And he turned, and forced his way to the gate, amid 
a yell of deri^on which brought every drop of blood 
in his body into his cheeks. Twice, as he went down 
the vaulted passage, a rush was made on him from 
behind; but the soberer of his persecutors checked it. 
Yet he could not leave them, jroung and hot-headed as 
he was, without one last word, and on the threshold he 
turned. 


136 HYPATIA. 

" You ! who call yourselves the disciples of the Lord, 
and are more like the demoniacs who abode day and 
night in the tombs, crying and cutting themselves with 
stones " 

In an instant they rushed upon him ; and, luckily for 
him, rushed also into the arms of a party of ecclesiastics, 
who were hurrying inwards from the street with faces 
of blank terror. 

" He has refused ! " shouted the foremost. " He de- 
clares war against the Church of God ! " 

" my friends ! " panted the archdeacon, " we are 
escaped like the bird out of the snare of the fowler. 
The tyrant kept us waiting two hours at his palace 
gates, and then sent lictors out upon us, with rods and 
axes, telling us that they were the only message which 
he had for robbers and rioters." 

" Back to the patriarch ! " and the whole mob streamed 

in again, leaving Philanunon alone in the street and 

in the world. 

Whither now ? 

He strode on in his wrath some hundred yards or 
more before he asked himself that question. And when 
he asked it, he found himself in no humotu: to answer 
it. He was adrift, and blown out of harbotu: upon a 
shoreless sea, in utter darkness ; all heaven and earth 
were nothing to him. He was alone in the blindness 
of anger. 

Gradually one fixed idea, as a light-tower, began to 
glimmer through the storm. ... To see Hj^atia, and 
convert her. He had the patriarch's leave for that. 
That must be right. That would justify him — ^bring 
him back, perhaps, in a triumph more glorious than 
any Caesar's, leading captive, in the fetters of the Gospel, 
the Queen of Heathendom. Yes, tliere was that left for 
which to live. 

His passion cooled down gradually as he wandered 
on in the fading evening light, up one street and down 
another, till he had utterly lost his way. What matter ? 
He should find that lecture-room to-morrow at least. 
At last he foimd himself in a broad avenue, which he 


HYPATIA. 137 

seemed to know. Was that the Sun-gate in the dis- 
tance ? He sauntered carelessly down it, and found 
himself at last on the great Esplanade, whither the 
little porter had taken him three days before. He was 
close then to the Museum, and to her house. Destiny 
had led him, unconsciously, towards the scene of his 
enterprise. It was a good omen ; he would go thither 
at once. He might sleep upon her doorstep as well as 
upon any other. Perhaps he might catch a glimpse of 
her going out or coming in, even at that late hour. It 
might be well to accustom himself to the sight of her. 
There would be the less chance of his being abashed 
to-morrow before those sorceress eyes. And moreover, 
to tell the truth, his self-dependence, and his self-will 
too, crushed, or rather laid to sleep, by the discipline 
of the Laura, had started into wild life, and gave him 
a mysterious pleasure, which he had not felt since he 
was a disobedient little boy, of doing what he chose, 
right or wrong, simply because he chose it. Such 
moments come to every free-willed creature. Happy 
are those who have not, Hke poor Philammon, been 
kept by a hotbed cultivation from knowing how to face 
them ! But he had yet to learn, or rather his tutors 
had to learn, that the sure path toward willing obedience 
and manful self-restraint lies not through slavery, but 
through liberty. 

He was not certain which was Hypatia's house, but 
the door of the Museum he could not forget. So there 
he sat himself down under the garden wall, soothed by 
the cool night, and the holy silence, and the rich per- 
fume of the thousand foreign flowers which filled the 
air with enervating balm. There he sat and watched, 
and watched, and watched in vain for some glimpse of 
his one object. Which of the houses was hers ? Which 
was the window of her chamber ? Did it look into the 
street ? What business had his fancy with women's 
chambers ? . . . But that one open window, with the 
lamp burning bright inside — ^he could not help looking 
up to it — he could not help fancying — ^hoping. He even 
moved a few yards to see better the bright interior of 


138 HYPATIA. 

the roonu High up as it was, he could still discern 
shelves of books — pictures on the walls. Was that a 
voice ? Yes ! a woman's voice — reading aloud in metre 
— ^was plainly distinguishable in the dead stillness of the 
night, which did not even awaken a whisper in the trees 
above his head. He stood, spellbound by curiosity. 

Suddenly the voice ceased, and a woman's figure came 
forward to the window, and stood motionless, gazing 
upward at the spangled stax-world overhead, and seem- 
ing to drink in the glory, and the silence, and the rich 
perfume. . . . Could it be she ? Every pulse in his 
body throbbed madly. . . . Could it be ? What was 
she doing ? He could not distinguish the features, but 
the full blaze of the Eastern moon showed him an up- 
turned brow, between a golden stream of glittering tresses 
which hid her whole figure, except the white hands 
clasped upon her bosom. . . . Was she prajdng ? were 
these her midnight sorceries ? . . . 

And still his heart throbbed and throbbed, till he 
almost fancied she must bear its noisy beat — and still 
she stood motionless, gazing upon the sky, like some 
exquisite chryselephantine statue, all ivory and gold. 
And bdiind her, round the bright room within, paint- 
ing, books, a whok world of unknown science and beauty 
. . . and she the priestess of it all . ; . inviting him 
to learn of her and be wise ! It was a temptation I He 
would flee from it ! — Fo<^ that he was ! — and it might 
not be she after all 1 

He made some sudden movemient. She looked down, 
saw him, and shutting the blind, vanished for the night. 
In vain, now that the temptation had departed, he sat 
and waited for its reappearance, half cursing himself for 
having broken the spdl. But the chamber was dark 
and silent henceforth; and Philammon, wearied out, 
found himself soon wandering back to the Laura in 
q^iiet dreams, beneath the balmy, semi-tropic night. 


HYPATIA. 139 

CHAPTER X. 

THE INTERVIEW. 

Philammon was aroused from his slumbers at sunrise 
the next morning by the attendants who came in to 
sweep out the lecture-rooms, and wandered, disconso- 
lately enough, up and down the street ; longing for, and 
yet dreading, the three weary hours to be over which 
must pass before he would be admitted to Hypatia. But 
he had tasted no food since noon the day before ; he had 
had but three hours' sleep the previous night, and had 
been working, running, and fighting for two whole days 
without a moment's peace of body or mind. Sick with 
hunger and fatigue, and aching from head to foot with 
his hard night's rest on the granite-flags, he felt as 
unable as man could well do to collect his thoughts or 
brace his nerves for the coming interview. How to get 
food he could not guess ; but having two hands, he 
might at least earn a coin by carrying a load : so he 
went down to the Esplanade in search of work. Of 
that, alas! there was none. So he sat down upon the 
parapet of the quay, and watched the shoals of sardines 
which played in and out over the marble steps below, 
and wondered at the strange crabs and sea-locusts which 
crawled up and down the face of the masonry, a few 
feet below the surface, scrambling for bits of offal, and 
making occasional fruitless dashes at the nimble Httle 
silver arrows which played round them. And at last 
his whole soul, too tired to think of anything else, be- 
came absorbed in a mighty struggle between two great 
crabs, who held on stoutly, each by a claw, to his re- 
spective bunch of seaweed, while with the others they 
tugged, one at the head and the other at the tail of a 
dead fish. Which would conquer ? . . .- Ay, which ? 
And for five minutes Philammon was alone in the world 
with the two strugghng heroes. . . . Might not. they be 
emblematic ? Might not the upper one typify Cyril ?— 
the lower one Hypatia ? — and the dead fish between, 
himself ? . ; ; But at last the deadlock was suddenly 

5^ 


I40 HYPATIA. 

ended — the fish parted in the middle; and the typical 
Hypatia and Cyril, losing hold of their respective sea- 
weeds by the jerk, tumbled down, each with its half- 
fish, and vanished head over heels into the blue depths 
in so undignified a manner that Philanmion burst into 
a shout of laughter. 

'' What's the joke ? " asked a well-known voice be- 
hind him, and a hand patted him familiarly on the 
back. He looked round, and saw the little porter, his 
head crowned with a full basket of figs, grapes, and 
water-melons, on which the poor youth cast a longing 
eye. *' Well, my young friend, and why are you not 
at church ? Look at all the saints pouring into the 
Caesareum there, behind you." 

Philammon answered sulkily enough something in- 
articulate. 

" Ho, ho ! Quarrelled with the successor of the apostles 
already ? Has my prophecy come true, and the strong 
meat of pious riot and plunder proved too highly spiced 
for your young palate ? Eh ? " 

Poor Philammon ! Angry with himself for feeling that 
the porter was right ; shrinking from the notion of ex- 
posing the failings of his fellow-Christians ; shrinking still 
more from making such a jackanapes his confidant ; and 
yet yearning in his loneliness to open his heart to some 
one, he dropped out, hint by hint, word by word, the 
events of the past evening, and finished by a request to 
be put in the way of earning his breakfast. 

" Earning your breakfast ! Shall the favourite of the 
gods — shall the guest of Hypatia — earn his breakfast, 
while I have an obol to share with him ? Base thought ! 
Youth ! I have wronged you. Unphilosophically I 
allowed, yesterday morning, envy to ruffle the ocean of 
my intellect. We are now friends and brothers, in 
hatred to the monastic tribe." 

" I do not hate them, I tell you," said Philammon. 
" But these Nitrian savages " 

" Are the perfect examples of monkery, and you hate 
them ; and therefore, all greaters containing the less, 
you hate all less monastic monks — I have not heard 


HYPATIA. 141 

logic lectures in vain. Now, up The sea wooes our 
dusty limbs ; Nereids and Tritons, charging no cruel 
coin, call us to Nature's baths. At home a mighty sheat- 
fish smokes upon the festive board; beer crowns the 
horn, and onions deck the dish: come then, my guest 
and brother ! " 

Philammon swallowed certain scruples about becoming 
the guest of a heathen, seeing that otherwise there seemed 
no chance of having an5i:hing else to swallow ; and after 
a refreshing plunge in the sea, followed the hospitable 
little fellow to Hypatia's door, where he dropped his 
daily load of fruit, and then into a narrow by-street, 
to the ground-floor of a huge block of lodgings, with 
a common staircase, swarming with children, cats, and 
chickens ; and was ushered by his host into a Httle 
room, where the savoury smell of broiling fish revived 
Philammon's heart. 

" Judith ! Judith ! where lingerest thou ? Marble of 
Pentelicus ! foam-flake of the wine-dark main ! lily of 
the Mareotic lake ! You accursed black Andromeda, if 
you don't bring the breakfast this moment. Til cut you 
in two ! " 

The inner door opened, and in bustled, trembhng, her 
hands full of dishes, a tall Uthe negress, dressed in true 
negro fashion, in a snow-white cotton shift, a scarlet 
cotton petticoat, and a bright yellow turban of the same, 
making a light in that dark place which would have 
served as a landmark a mile off. She put the dishes 
down, and the porter majestically waved Philammon to 
a stool ; while she retreated, and stood humbly waiting 
on her lord and master, who did not deign to intro- 
duce to his guest the black beauty which composed his 
whole seragUo. . ; . But, indeed, such an act of courtesy 
would have been needless ; for the first morsel of fish 
was hardly safe in poor Philammon's mouth, when the 
negress rushed upon him, caught him by the head, and 
covered him with rapturous kisses. 

Up jiunped the little man with a yell, brandishing a 
loiife in one hand and a leek in the other ; while Phil- 
ammon, scarcely less scandalized, jumped up too, and 


142 HYPATIA. 

shook himself free of the lady, who, finding it impossible 
to vent her feelings further on his head, instantly changed 
her tactics, and, wallowing on the floor, began frantically 
kissing his feet. 

" What is this ? before my face ! Up, shameless 
baggage, or thou diest the death ! " and the porter pulled 
her up upon her knees. 

"It is the monk, the young man I told you of, who 
saved me from the Jews the other night ! What good 
angel sent him here that I might thank him ? " cried 
the poor creature, while the tears ran down her black 
shining face. 

" I am that good angel," said the porter, with a look 
of intense self-satisfaction. " Rise, daughter of Erebus ; 
thou art pardoned, being but a female. What sa}^ the 
poet ? — 

* Woman is passion's slave, while rightful lord 
O'er her and passion, rules the nobler male.' 

Youth [ to my arms ! Truly say the philosophers that 
the universe is magical in itself, and by mysterious sym- 
pathies links like to like. The prophetic instinct of thy 
future benefits towards me drew me to thee as by an 
invisible warp, hawser, or chain-cable, from the moment 
I beheld thee. Thou wert a kindred spirit, my brother, 
though thou knewest it not. Therefore I do not praise 
thee — no, nor thank thee in the least, though thou hast 
preserved for me the one palm which shadows my weary 
steps, the single lotus-flower (in this case black, not 
white) which blooms for me above the mud-stained 
ocean wastes of the Hylic Borboros. That which thou 
hast done, thou hast done by instinct — ^by divine com- 
pulsion ; thou couldst no more help it than thou canst 
help eating that fish, and art no more to be praised for it." 

" Thank you," said Philammon. 

" Comprehend me. Our theory in the schools for 
such cases is this — has been so at least for the last six 
months — similar particles, from one original source, exist 
in you and me. Similar causes produce similar effects ; 
our attractions, antipathies, impulses, are therefore, in 


HYPATIA. T43 

similar circumstances, absolutely the same ; and there- 
fore you did the other night exactly what I should have 
done in your case/* 

Philammon thought the latter part of the theory open 
to question, but he had by no means stopped eating when 
he rose, and his mouth was much too full of fish to argue. 

" And therefore," continued the Uttle man, " we are 
to consider oiurselves henceforth as one soul in two 
bodies. You may have the best of the corporeal part 
of the division . . . yet it is the soul which makes the 
person. You may trust me, I shall not disdain my 
brotherhood. If any one insults you henceforth, you 
have but to call me ; and if I be within hearing, why, 
by this right arm " 

And he attempted a pat on Philammon's head, which, as 
there was a head and shoulder's difference between them, 
might on the whole have been considered, from a theatric 
point of view, as a failure. Whereon the little man seized 
the calabash of beer, and filling therewith a cow*s horn, 
his thumb on the small end, raised it high in the air. 

" To the Tenth Muse, and to your interview with her ! " 

And removing his thumb, he sent a steady jet into 
his open mouth, and having drained the horn without 
drawing breath, Ucked his Ups, handed it to Philanunon, 
and flew ravenously upon the fish and onions. 

Philammon, to whom the whole was supremely absurd, 
had no invocation to make, but one which he felt too 
sacred for his present temper of mind ; so he attempted 
to imitate the little man's feat, and, of course, poured 
the beer into his eyes, and up his nose, and in his bosom, 
and finally choked himself black in the face, while his 
host observed smilingly, — 

** Aha, rustic ! unacquainted with the ancient and 
classical customs preserved in this centre of civilization 
by the descendants of Alexander's heroes ? — Judith, 
clear the table. Now to the sanctuary of the Muses ! " 

Philanmion rose, and finished his meal by a monkish 
grace. A gentle and reverent '* Amen " rose from the 
other end of the room. It was the negress. She saw 
him look up at her, dropped her eyes modestly, and 


144 HYPATIA. 

bustled away with the remnants, while Philammon and 

his host started for Hypatia's lecture-room. 

" Your wife is a Christian ? '' asked he when they were 
outside the door. 

'' Ahem ! The barbaric mind is prone to super- 
stition. Yet she is, being but a woman and a negress, 
a good soul, and thrifty, though requiring, Uke all lower 
animals, occasional chastisement. I married her on 
philosophic grounds. A wife was necessary to me for 
several reasons ; but mindful that the philosopher should 
subjugate the material appetite, and rise above the 
swinish desires of the flesh, even when his nature re- 
quires him to satisfy them, I purposed to make pleasure 
as unpleasant as possible. I had the choice of several 
cripples — their parents, of ancient Macedonian family 
like myself, were by no means adverse ; but I required 
a housekeeper, with whose duties the want of an arm or 
a leg might have interfered." 

" Why did you not marry a scold ? " asked Philammon. 

" Pertinently observed ; and indeed the example of 
Socrates rose luminous more than once before my imagi- 
nation. But philosophic calm, my dear youth, and the 
peaceful contemplation of the ineffable ? I could not 
relinquish these luxuries. So having, by the bounty of 
Hypatia and her pupils, saved a small sum, I went out, 
bought me a negress, and hired six rooms in the block 
we have just left, where I let lodgings to young students 
of the Divine Philosophy." 

'* Have you any lodgers now ? " 

" Ahem ! Certain rooms are occupied by a lady of 
rank. The philosopher will, above all things, abstain 

from babbling. To bridle the tongue is to But 

there is a closet at your service ; and for the hall of re- 
ception, which you have just left — are you not a kindred 
and fraternal spark ? We can combine our meals, as 
our souls are already united." 

Philammon thanked him heartily for the offer, though 
he shrank from accepting it ; and in ten minutes more 
found himself at the door of the very house which he had 
been watching the night before. It was she, then, whom 


HYPATIA. 14s 

he had seen ! ; . ; He was handed over by a black porter 
to a smart slave-girl, who guided him up, through cloisters 
and corridors, to the large Ubrary, where five or six young 
men were sitting, busily engaged, imder Theon's superin- 
tendence, in copying manuscripts and drawing geometric 
diagrams. 

Philammon gazed curiously at these symbols of a 
science unknown to him, and wondered whether the day 
would ever come when he too would understand their 
mysteries ; but his eyes fell again as he saw the youths 
staring at his ragged sheepskin and matted locks with 
undisguised contempt. He could hardly collect himself 
enough to obey the summons of the venerable old man, 
as he beckoned him silently out of the room, and led him, 
with the titters of the young students ringing in his ears, 
through the door by which he had entered, and along a 
gallery, till he stopped and knocked humbly at a door. 
. . . She must be within ! . . : Now ! . . ; At last ! 
. . . His knees knocked together under him. His heart 
sank and sank into abysses ! Poor wretch ! ... He 
was half minded once to escape and dash into the street. 
. . . But was it not his one hope, his one object ? . . . 
But why did not the old man speak ? If he would but 
have said something ! ... If he would have only looked 
cross, contemptuous ! . . : But with the same impressive 
gravity, as of a man upon a business in which he had no 
voice, and wished it to be understood that he had none, 
the old man silently opened the door, and Philammon 
followed . . ; There she was I looking more glorious 
than ever ; more than when glowing with the enthusiasm 
of her own eloquence ; more than when transfigured last 
night in golden tresses and glittering moonbeams. There 
she sat, without moving a finger, as the two entered. 
She greeted her father with a smile, which made up for 
all her seeming want of courtesy to him, and then fixed 
her large ^ay eyes full on Philammon. 

" Here is the youth, my daughter. It was your wish, 
you know ; and I always beUeve that you know best '* 

Another smile put an end to this speech, and the old 
man retreated humbly toward another door, with a some- 


146 HYPATIA. 

what anxious visage, and then lingering and looking back, 
his hand upon the latch, — 

''If you require any one, you know, you have only to 
call ; we shall be all in the library." 

Another smile ; and the old man disappeared, leaving 
the two alone. 

Philammon stood trembling, choking, his eyes fixed 
on the floor. Where were all the fine things he had 
conned over for the occasion ? He dared not look up 
at that face, lest it should drive them out of his head. 
And yet the more he kept his eyes turned from the face, 
the more he was conscious of it, conscious that it was 
watching him ; and the more all the fine words were, 
by that very knowledge, driven out of his head. . . . 
When would she speak ? Perhaps she wished him to 
speak first. It was her duty to begin, for she had sent 
for him. . . . But still she kept silence, and sat scanning 
him intently from head to foot, herself as motionless as 
a statue ; her hands folded together before her, over the 
manuscript which lay upon her knee. If there was a 
blush on her cheek at her own daring, his eyes swam too 
much to notice it. 

When would the intolerable suspense end ? She was, 
perhaps, as unwilling to speak as he. But some one 
must strike the first blow ; and, as often happens, the 
weaker party, impelled by sheer fear, struck it, and broke 
the silence in a tone half indignant, half apologetic — 

" You sent for me hither 1 " 

" I did. It seemed to me, as I watched you during my 
lecture, both before and after you were rude enough to 
interrupt me, that your offence was one of mere youthful 
ignorance. It seemed to me that your countenance be- 
spoke a nobler nature than that which the gods are 
usually pleased to bestow upon monks. That I may now 
ascertain whether or not my surmises were correct, 1 
ask you for what purpose are you come hither ? " 

Philammon hailed the question as a godsend. Now 
for his message ! And yet he faltered as he answered, 
with a desperate effort, " To rebuke you for your 
sins." 


HYPATIA. 147 

" ]\iy sins ! What sins ? " she asked, as she looked up 
with a stately, slow surprise in those large gray eyes, 
before which his own glance sank abashed, he knew not 
why. What sins ? — He knew not. Did she look like a 
Messalina ? But was she not a heathen and a sorceress ? 
— And yet he blushed, and stammered, and hung down 
his head, as, shrinking at the sound of his own words, 
he replied, — 

" The foul sorceries — and profligacy worse than sor- 
ceries, in which, they say " He could get no further ; 

for he looked up again and saw an awful quiet smile upon 
that face. His words had raised no blush upon the marble 
cheek. 

** They say ! The bigots and slanderers ; wild beasts 
of the desert, and fanatic intriguers, who, in the words 
of Him they call their master, compass heaven and earth 
to make one proselyte, and when they have found him, 
make him twofold more the child of hell than themselves. 
Go — I forgive you. You are young, and know not yet 
the mystery of the world. Science will teach you some 
day that the outward frame is the sacrament of the soul's 
inward beauty. Such a soul I had fancied your face 
expressed; but I was mistaken. Foul hearts alone 
harbour such foul suspicions, and fancy others to be what 
they know they might become themselves. Go I Do 

I look like ? The very tapering of these fingers, if 

you could read their sjmibolism, would give your dream 
the lie." And she flashed full on him, like sun-rays 
from a mirror, the full radiance of her glorious counte- 
nance. 

Alas, poor Philammon ! where were thy eloquent 
arguments, thy orthodox theories then ? Proudly he 
struggled with his own man's heart of flesh, and tried to 
turn his eyes away; the magnet might as well struggle 
to escape from the spell of the north. In a moment, he 
knew not how, utter shame, remorse, longing for forgive- 
ness, swept over him, and crushed him down ; and he 
found himself on his knees before her, in abject and broken 
syllables entreating pardon. 

** Go — I forgive you. But know before you go, that 


148 HYPATIA, 

the celestial milk which fell from Here's bosom, bleaching 
the plant which it touched to everlasting whiteness, was 
not more taintless than the soul of Theon's daughter." 

He looked up in her face as he knelt before her. Un- 
erring instinct told him that her words were true. He 
was a monk, accustomed to believe animal sin to be 
the deadUest and worst of all sins — ^indeed, " the great 
offence *' itself, beside which all others were compara- 
tively venial : where there was physical purity, must not 
all other virtues follow in its wake ? All other failings 
were invisible under the dazzling veil of that great love- 
liness ; and in his self-abasement he went on, — 

" O do not spurn me ! — do not drive me away ! I 
have neither friend, home, nor teacher. I fled last night 
from the men of my own faith, maddened by bitter insult 
and injustice — disappointed and disgusted with their fero- 
city, narrowness, ignorance. I dare not, I cannot, I will 
not return to the obscurity and the dullness of a Thebaid 
Laura. I have a thousand doubts to solve, a thousand 
questions to ask, about that great ancient world of which 
I know nothing — of whose mysteries, they say, you alone 
possess the key ! I am a Christian ; but I thirst for 
knowledge. . . .- I do not promise to believe you — I 
do not promise to obey you ; but let me hear ! Teach 
me what you know, that I may compare it with what I 
know. ... If , indeed " (and he shuddered as he spoke 
the words) " I do know anything ! " 

*' Have you forgotten the epithets which you used to 
me just now ? " 

" No, no ! But do you forget them ; they were put 
into my mouth. I — I did not believe them when I said 
them. It was agony to me ; but I did it, as I thought, 
for your sake — to save you. O say that I may come 
and hear you again ! Only from a distance — in the very 
farthest comer of your lecture-room. I will be silent ; 
you shall never see me. But your words yesterday awoke 
in me — ^no, not doubts ; but still I must, I must hear 
more, or be as miserable and homeless inwardly as I am 
in my outward circumstances ! '* And he looked up 
imploringly for consent. 


HYPATIA. 149 

*' Rise. This passion and that attitude are fitting 
neither for you nor me." 

And as Philammon rose, she rose also, went into the 
library to her father, and in a few minutes returned with 
him. 

" Come with me, young man," said he, laying his hand 
kindly enough on Philammon's shoulder. . . . "The 
rest of this matter you and I can settle ; " and Philam- 
mon followed him, not daring to look back at Hypatia, 
while the whole room swam before his eyes. 

'* So — so I hear you have been sa57ing rude things to 
my daughter. Well, she has forgiven you " 

*' Has she ? " asked the young monk, with an eager 
start. 

** Ah ! you may well look astonished. But I forgive 
you too. It is lucky for you, however, that I did not 
hear you, or else, old man as I am, I can't say what I 
might not have done. Ah ! you little know, you Httle 
know what she is ! " — and the old pedant's eyes kindled 
with loving pride. " May the gods give you some day 
such a daughter ! — that is, if you learn to deserve it — 
as virtuous as she is wise, as wise as she is beautiful. 
Truly they have repaid me for my labours in their service. 
Look, young man ! little as you merit it, here is a pledge 
of your forgiveness, such as the richest and noblest in 
Alexandria are glad to purchase with many an ounce of 
gold — a ticket of free admission to all her lectures hence- 
forth I Now go ; you have been favoured beyond your 
deserts, and should learn that the philosopher can prac- ^ 
tise what the Christian only preaches, and return good 
for evil." And he put into Philammon's hand a slip of 
paper, and bid one of the secretaries show him to the" 
outer door. 

The youths looked up at him from their writing as he 
passed, with faces of surprise and awe, and evidently 
thinking no more about the absurdity of his sheepskin 
and his tanned complexion ; and he went out with a 
stunned, confused feeKng, as of one who, by a desperate 
leap, has plimged into a new world. He tried to feel 
content ; but he dared not. All before him was anxiety, 


150 HYPATTA. 

uncertainty. He had cut himself adrift ; he was on the 
great stream. Whither would it lead him ? Well — 
was it not the great stream ? Had not all mankind, for 
all the ages, been floating on it ? Or was it but a desert- 
river, dwindling away beneath the fiery sun, destined to 
lose itself a few miles on among the arid sands ? Were 
Arsenius and the faith of his childhood right ? And was 
the Old World coming speedily to its death-throe, and 
the Kingdom of God at hand ? Or was Cyril right, and 
the Church Catholic appointed to spread, and conquer, 
and destroy, and rebuild, till the kingdoms of this world 
had become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ ! If 
so, what use in this old knowledge which he craved ? 
And yet, if the day of the destruction of all things were 
at hand, and the times destined to become worse and 
not better till the end — how could that be ? . . . 

" What news ? " asked the little porter, who had been 
waiting for him at the door all the while. " What news, 
O favourite of the gods ! '* 

*' I will lodge with you, and labour with yoti. Ask me 
no more at present. I am — I am *' 

'* Those who descended into the Cave of Trophonius, 
and beheld the unspeakable, remained astonished for 
three days, my young friend — and so will you ! " And 
they went forth together to earn their bread. 

But what is Hypatia doing all this while, upon that 
cloudy Olympus, where she sits enshrined far above the 
noise and struggle of man and his work-day world ? 

She is sitting again, with her manuscripts open before 
her ; but she is thinking of the young monk, not of them. 

" Beautiful as Antinous ! . . ; Rather as the young 
Phoebus himself, fresh glowing from the slaughter of 
the Python. Why should not he, too, become a slayer of 
Pythons, and loathsome monsters, bred from the mud of 
sense and matter ? So bold and earnest ! I can forgive 
him those words for the very fact of his having dared, 
here in my father's house, to say them to me. . . : And 
yet so tender, so open to repentance and noble shame ! — 
That is no plebeian by birth ; patrician blood surely 
flows in those veins ; it shows out in every attitude, 


HrPATIA. 151 

every tone, every motion of the hand and Hp. He cannot 
be one of the herd. Who ever knew one of them crave 
after knowledge for its own sake ! . . . And I have longed 
so for one real pupil ! I have longed so to find one such 
man, among the effeminate, selfish triflers who pretend 
to listen to me. I thought I had found one — and the 
moment that I had lost him, behold, I find another ; and 
that a fresher, purer, simpler nature than ever RaphaeFs 
was at its best. By all the laws of physiognomy — ^by all 
the s57mbohsm of gesture and voice and complexion — 
by the instinct of my own heart, that young monk might 
be the instrument, the ready, vaKant, obedient instru- 
ment, for carrying out all my dreams. If I could but 
train him into a Longinus, I could dare to play the part 
of a Zenobia, with him as counsellor. . . . x\nd for my 
Odenatus — Orestes ? Horrible ! " 

She covered her face with her hand a minute. '* No ! " 
she said, dashing away the tears — " that — and anything 
— and everything for the cause of philosophy and the 
gods 1 " 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE LAURA AGAIN. 

Not a sound, not a moving object, broke the utter still- 
ness of the glen of Scetis. The shadows of the crags, 
though pahng every moment before the spreading dawn, 
still shrouded all the gorge in gloom. A winding line of 
haze slept above the course of the rivulet. The plumes 
of the palm-trees hung motionless, as if awaiting in 
resignation the breathless blaze of the approaching day. 
At length, among the green ridges of the monastery garden, 
two gray figures rose from their knees, and began, with 
slow and feeble strokes, to break the silence by the clatter 
of their hoes among the pebbles. 

'* These beans grow wonderfully, brother Aufugus. 
We shall be able to sow our second crop, by God's bless- 
ing, a week earlier than we did last year." 

The person addressed returned no answer; and his 


154 HYPATIA. 

Arsenius looked up at him inquiringly. Pamto 
smiled. 

" Thou knowest that, like many holy men of old, I am 
no scholar, and knew not even the Greek tongue, till thou, 
out of thy brotherly kindness, taughtest it to me. But hast 
thou never heard what Anthony said to a certain pagan 
who reproached him with his ignorance of books ? 
* Which is first,' he asked, ' spirit, or letter ? — Spirit, sayest 
thou ? Then know, the healthy spirit needs no letters. 
My book is the whole creation, lying open before me, 
wherein I can read, whensoever I please, the word of God.' " 

" Dost thou not undervalue learning, my friend ? " 

*' I am old among monks, and have seen much of their 
ways ; and among them my simplicity seems to have 
seen this — many a man wearing himself with study, and 
tormenting his soul as to whether he believed rightly 
this doctrine and that, while he knew not with Solomon 
that in much learning is much sorrow, and that while he 
was puzzling at the letter of God's message, the spirit of 
it was going fast and faster out of him." 

" And how didst thou know that of such a man ? " 

" By seeing him become a more and more learned 
theologian, and more and more zealous for the letter of 
orthodoxy ; and yet less and less loving and merciful — 
less and less full of trust in God, and of hopeful thoughts 
for himself and for his brethren, till he seemed to have 
darkened his whole soul with disputations, which breed 
only strife, and to have forgotten utterly the message 
which is written in that book wherewith the blessed 
Anthony was content." 

" Of what message dost thou speak ? *' 

'* Look," said the old abbot, stretching his hand to- 
ward the eastern desert, " and judge, like a wise man, 
for thyself." 

As he spoke, a long arrow of level Hght flashed down 
the gorge from crag to crag, awakening every crack and 
slab to vividness and Hfe. The great crimson sun rose 
swiftly through the dim night-mist of the desert, and as 
he poured his glory down the glen, the haze rose in threads 
and plumes, and vanished, leaving the stream to sparkle 


HYPATIA. 1 55 

round the rocks, like the living, twinkling eye of the whole 
scene. Swallows flashed by hundreds out of the chffs, 
and began their air-dance for the day ; the jerboa hopped 
stealthfly homeward on his stilts from his stolen meal 
in the monastery garden ; the brown sand-lizards under- 
neath the stones c^ned one eyelid each, and having 
satisfied themselves that it was day, dragged their 
bloated bodies and whiplike tails out into the most burn- 
ing patch of gravel which they could find, and nestling 
together as a further protectictti against ccdd, fell fast 
asleep again ; the buzzard, wlio considered himself lord 
of the valley, awoke with a long querulous bark, and 
rising aloft in two or three vast rings, to stretdi hiimself 
after his night*s sleep, hung motionless, watching every 
lark which chirruped on the cHffs ; while from Sie far- 
off Nile below, the awakening croak of pelicans, tiie clang 
of geese, the whistle of the godwit and curlew, came ring- 
ing up the windings of the ^en ; and last of all the voices 
of the monks rose chanting a morning hymn to some wild 
Eastern air, and a new day had begun in Scetis, like 
those which went befcHe, and those which were to follow 
after, week after week, year after year, of toil and prayer 
as quiet as its sleep. 

" What does that teach thee, Aufugus, my friend ? " 

Arsenius was silent. 

" To me it teaches this : that God is light, and in Him 
is no darkness at all. That in His presence is life, and 
fullness of joy for evermore. That He is the giver, who 
dehghts in His own bounty ; the lover, whose mercy is 
over aD His works — and why not over thee, too, O thou 
of little faith ? Look at those thousand birds — ^and 
without our Father not one of them shall fall to the ground ; 
and art thou not of more vahie than many sparrows, thou 
for whom God sent His Son to die ? . . . Ah, my friend, 
we must loc^ out and around to see what Godf is like. 
It is when we persist in ttiming our eyes inward, and 
prying curiously over our owi? imperfections, that we 
team to make a God after our own image, and fancy that 
oin* own darkness and hardness ol heart are the patterns 
of His light and love." 


156 . HYPATIA. 

*' Thou speakest rather as a philosopher than as a 
penitent CathoHc. For me, I feel that I want to look 
more, and not less, inward. Deeper self-examination, 
completer abstraction, than I can attain even here, are 
what I crave for. I long — forgive me, my friend — ^but 
I long more and more, daily, for the solitary Hfe. This 
earth is accursed by man's sin : the less we see of it, it 
seems to me, the better." 

" I may speak as a philosopher, or as a heathen, for 
aught I know, yet it seems to me that, as they say, the 
half-loaf is better than none ; that the wise man will 
make the best of what he has, and throw away no lesson 
because the book is somewhat torn and soiled. The earth 
teaches me thus far already. Shall I shut my eyes to 
those invisible things of God which are clearly manifested 
by the things which are made, because some day they 
will be more clearly manifested than now ? But as for 
more abstraction, are we so worldly here in Scetis ? " 

" Nay, my friend, each man has surely his vocation, 
and for each some pecuHar method of life is more edify- 
ing than another. In my case, the habits of mind which 
I acquired in the world will cling to me in spite of myself 
even here. I cannot help watching the doings of others, 
studying their characters, planning and plotting for 
them, trying to prognosticate their future fate. Not a 
word, not a gesture of this our Httle family, but turns 
away my mind from the one thing needful." 

" And do you fancy that the anchorite in his cell has 
fewer distractions ? " 

" What can he have but the supply of the mere neces- 
sary wants of Hfe ? and them, even, he may abridge to 
the gathering of a few roots and herbs. Men have lived 
like the beasts already, that they might at the same time 
live like the angels — and why should not I also ? " 

" And thou art the wise man of the world — the student 
of the hearts of others — the anatomizer of thine own ? 
Hast thou not found out that, besides a craving stomach, 
man carries with him a corrupt heart ? Many a man I 
have seen who, in his haste to fly from the fiends \vithout 
him. has forgotten to close the door of his heart against 


HYPATIA. 157 

worse fiends who were ready to harbour within him. 
Many a monk, friend, changes his place, but not the 
anguish of his soul. I have known those who, driven 
to feed on their own thoughts in soHtude, have desperately 
cast themselves from cHffs or ripped up their own bodies, 
in the longing to escape from thoughts from which one 
companion, one kindly voice, might have delivered them. 
I have known those, too, who have been so puffed up by 
those very penances which were meant to humble them, 
that they have despised all means of grace, as though 
they were already perfect, and refusing even the Holy 
Eucharist, have lived in self-glorving dreams and visions 
suggested by the evil spirits. One such I knew, who, 
in the madness of his pride, refused to be counselled by 
any mortal man — saying that he would call no man 
master : and what befell him ? He who used to pride 
himself on wandering a day's journey into the desert 
without food or drink, who boasted that he could sustain 
life for three months at a time only on wild herbs and 
the Blessed Bread, seized with an inward fire, fled from 
his cell back to the theatres, the circus, and the taverns, 
and ended his miserable days in desperate gluttony, 
holding all things to be but phantasms, denying his own 
existence, and that of God Himself." 

Arsenius shook his head. 

'* Be it so. But my case is different. I have yet more 
to confess, my friend. Day by day I am more and more 
haunted by the remembrance of that world from which 
I fled. I know that if I returned I should feel no 
pleasure in those pomps which, even while I battened 
on them, I despised. Can I hear any more the voice of 
singing men and singing women, or discern any longer 
what I eat or what I drink ? And yet — the palaces 
of those seven hills, their statesmen and their generals, 
their intrigues, their falls, and their triumphs— for they 
might rise and conquer yet I — for no moment are they 
out of my imagination — no moment in which they are 
not tempting me back to them, Hke a moth to the candle 
which has already scorched him, with a dreadful spell, 
which I must at last obey, wretch that I am, against my 


158 HYPATIA. 

own will, or break by fleeing into some outer des^t, 
from whence return wUl be impossible ! '* 

Pambo smiled. 

" Again, I say, this is the worldly-wise man, the seardi^ 
of hearts ! And he wcnild fain flee from the Httle Laura, 
which does turn his thoughts at times from such vain 
dreams, to a solitude where he will be utterly unaMe to 
escape those dreams. Well, friend ! — and what if thou 
art troubled at times by anxieties and schemes for this 
brother and for that ? Better to be anxious ior others 
than only for thyself. Better to have something to love, 
even something to weep over, than to become in some 
lonely cavern thine own world — perhaps, as rmc^Le than 
one whom I have known, thine own God." 

" Do you know what you are saying ? *' asked Arsenius 
in a startled tone. 

" I say, that by fleeing into solitude a man cuts himself 
off fram all which makes a Christian man — from law, 
obedience, fellow-help, self^acrifioe — from the commun- 
ion of saints itselL'* 

" How then ? " 

" How canst thou hold communion with those toward 
whom thou canst show no love ? And how canst thou 
show thy love but by works of love ? " 

" I can, at least, pray day and night for all mankind. 
Has that no place — or rather, has it not the mightiest 
place — ^in the conununion of saints ? " 

" He who cannot pray for his brothers whom he does 
see, and whose sins and temptations he knows, will pray 
but dully, my friend Aufugus, for his brothers whom 
he does not see, or for anything else. And he who will 
not labour for his brothers, the same will soon cease to 
pray for them, or love them either. And th^i, what is 
written ? — ' If a man love not his brother whom he hath 
seen, how will he love God whom he hath not seen ? ' " 

" Again, I say, do you know whither your argument 
leads ? " 

" I am a plain man, and know nothing about argu- 
ments. If a thing be true, let it lead where it will, for 
it leads where God wiUs." 


HYPATIA. 159 

** But at this rate it were better for a man to take a 
wife, and have children, and mix himself up in all the 
turmoil of carnal affections, in order to have as many 
as possible to love, and fear fcgr, and woiic for/' 

Pambo was silent for a while. 

*' I am a monk and no logician; biit this I say, that 
thou leavest not the Laura for the desert with my good- 
will. I would rather, had I my wish, see thy wisdom 
installed somewhere nearer fhe metropolis — at Troe or 
Canopus, for example — ^where thou mightest be at hand 
to fight the Lord^s battles. Why wert thou taught 
worldly wisdom, but to use it for the good of the Church ? 
It is enough. Let us go.'* 

And the two old men walked homeward across the 
valley, Httle guessing the practical answer which was 
ready for their argument in Abbot Pambo's cell, in the 
shape of a tall and grim eccleaastic, who was busily satis- 
fying his hunger with dates and millet, and by no means 
refusing the palm- wine, the sole delicacy of the monas- 
tery, which had been brought forth only in honour of a 
guest. 

The stately and courtly hospitality of Eastern manners, 
as well as the self-restraining kindliness of monastic 
Christianity, forbade the abbot to interrupt the stranger ; 
and it was not till he had fimsiied a hearty meal that 
Pambo asked his name and errand. 

" My unworthiness is called Peter the reader. I 
come from Cyril, with letters and messages to the brother 
Aufugus." 

Pambo rose and bowed reverentially. 

** We have heard 3^our good report, ^, as of one zeal- 
ously affected in the cause of the Church Catholic. Will 
it please you to follow us to the cell of Aufugus ? " 

Peter stalked after them with a sufficiently important 
air to the httle hut, and there taking from his bosom 
Cyril's epistle, handed it to Arsenius, who sat long, read- 
ing and re-reading with a clouded brow, while Pambo 
watched him with simple awe, not daring to interrupt 
by a question lucubrations which be considered of un- 
fathomable depth. 


l6o HYPATL\. 

" These axe indeed the last days," said Arsenius at 
length, " spoken of by the prophet, when many shall run 
to and fro. So HeracHan has actually sailed for Italy ? " 

" His armament was met on the high seas by Alexan- 
drian merchantmen, three weeks ago." 

" And Orestes hardens his heart more and more ? " 

"Ay, Pharaoh that he is — or rather, the heathen 
woman hardens it for him." 

" I always feared that woman above all the schools of 
the heathen," said Arsenius. " But the Count Heraclian, 
whom I always held for the wisest as well as the most 
righteous of men ! Alas ! — alas ! what virtue will with- 
stand when ambition enters the heart ! " 

" Fearful, truly," said Peter, *' is that same lust of 
power ; but for him, I have never trusted him since he 
began to be indulgent to those Donatists." 

" Too true. So does one sin beget another." 

" And I consider that indulgence to sinners is the worst 
of all sins whatsoever." 

" Not of all, surely, reverend sir ? " said Pambo humbly. 
But Peter, taking no notice of the interruption, went on 
to Arsenius, — 

'* And now, what answer am I to bear back from your 
wisdom to his holiness ? " 

'' Let me see — ^let me see. He might — ^it needs con- 
sideration — I ought to know more of the state of parties. 
He has, of course, communicated with the African bishops, 
and tried to unite them with him ? " 

"Two months ago. But the stiff-necked schismatics 
are still jealous of him, and hold aloof." 

" Schismatics is too harsh a term, my friend. But 
has he sent to Constantinople ? " 

" He needs a messenger accustomed to courts. It 
was possible, he thought, that your experience might 
undertake the mission." 

" Me ? Who am I ? Alas I alas ! fresh temptations 
daily. Let him send by the hand of whom he will. . . . 
And yet — were I — at least in Alexandria — I might ad- 
vise from day to day. ... I should certainly see my 
way clearer. . • . And unforeseen chances might arise. 


HYPATIA. l6l 

too. . . . Pambo, my friend, thinkest thou that it 
would be sinful to obey the holy patriarch ? " 

" Aha ! " said Pambo, laughing, " and thou art he who 
was for fleeing into the desert an hour agone ! And now, 
when once thou smellest the battle afar off, thou art 
pawing in the valley, Hke the old war-horse. Go, and 
God be with thee ! Thou wilt be none the worse for it. 
Thou art too old to fall in love, too poor to buy a bishopric, 
and too righteous to have one given thee/' 

" Art thou in earnest ? " 

" What did I say to thee in the garden ? Go, and 
see our son, and send me news of him.'* 

'' Ah ! shame on my worldly-mindedness ! I had for- 
gotten all this time to inquire for him. How is the 
youth, reverend sir ? " 

*' Whom do you mean ? ** 

" Philammon, our spiritual son, whom we sent down 
to you three months ago," said Pambo. '' Risen to honour 
he is, by this time, I doubt not ? " 

" He ? He is gone ! " 

'' Gone ? " 

" Ay, the wretch, with the curse of Judas on him. He 
had not been with us three days before he beat me openly 
in the patriarch's court, cast off the Christian faith, and 
fled away to the heathen woman H57patia, of whom he 
is enamoured." 

The two old men looked at each other with blank and 
horror-stricken faces. 

*' Enamoured of Hypatia ? *' said Arsenius at last. 

" It is impossible ! " sobbed Pambo. " The boy must 
have been treated harshly, unjustly ? Some one has 
wronged him, and he was accustomed only to kindness, 
and so could not bear it. Cruel men that you are, and 
unfaithful stewards. The Lord will require the child's 
blood at your hands ! " 

** Ay," said Peter, rising fiercely, " that is the world's 
justice ! Blame me, blame the patriarch, blame any and 
every one but the sinner. As if a hot head and a hotter 
heart were not enough to explain it all ! — as if a young 
fool had never before been bewitched by a fair face I " 


l62 HYPATIA. 

'' O my friends, my friends!" cried Arsenius, "why 
revile each other without cause ? I, I only am to blame. 
I advised you, Pambo ! — I sent him — I ought to have 
known — ^what was I doing, old worldling that I am, to 
thrust the poor innocent forth into the temptations of 
Babylon ? This comes of all my schemings and my 
plottings ! And now his blood will be on my head — as 
if I had not sins enough to bear already, I must go and 
add this over and above all, to sell my own Joseph, the 
son of my old age, to the Midianites ! Here, I will go 
with you — now — at once — I will not rest till I find him, 
clasp his knees till he pities my gray hairs I Let Hera- 
clian and Orestes go their way for aught I care — I will 
find him, I say. O Absalom, my son I would God 1 
had died for thee, my son ! my son ! *' 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE BOWER OF ACRASIA. 

The house which Pelagia and the Amal had hired after 
their return to Alexandria was one of the most splendid 
in the city. They had been now living there three 
months or more, and in that time Pelagians taste had 
supplied the little which it needed to convert it into a 
paradise of lazy luxury. She herself was wealthy ; and 
her Gothic guests, overburdened with Roman spoils, 
the very use of which they could not understand, freely 
allowed her and her nymphs to throw away for them the 
treasures which they had won in many a fearful fight. 
What matter ? If they had enough to eat, and more 
than enough to drink, how could the useless surplus of 
their riches be better spent than in keeping their ladies 
in good-humour ? . . . And when it was all gone . . . 
they would go somewhere cm: other — ^^^iio cared whither ? 
— and win more. The whole world was before them wait- 
ing to be plundered, and they would fulfil their mission, 
whensoever it suited them. In the ntieantime they were 
in no hurry. Egypt furnished in profusion every sort 


HYPATIA. 163 

of food which could gratify palates far more nice than 
theirs. And as for wine — few of them went to bed 
sober from one week's end to another. Could the souls 
of warriors have more, even in the halls of Valhalla ? " 

So thought the party who occupied the inner court of 
the house, one blazing afternoon in the same week in 
which Cyril's messenger had so rudely broken in on the 
repose of the Scetis. 

Their repose, at least, was still untouched. The great 
city roared without ; Orestes plotted, and C5nil counter- 
plotted, and the fate of a continent hung — or seemed to 
hang — ^trembling in the balance ; but the turmoil of it all 
no more troubled those lazy Titans within, than did the 
roll and rattle of the carriage-wheels disturb the para- 
keets and sunbirds which peopled, under an awning of 
gilded wire, the inner court of Pelagia's house. Why 
should they fret themselves with it all ? What was 
every fresh riot, execution, conspiracy, bankruptcy, but 
a sign — ^that the fruit was growing ripe for the plucking ? 
Even Heraclian's rebellion, and Orestes's suspected con- 
spiracy, were to the younger and coarser Goths a sort of 
child's play, at which they could look on and laugh and 
bet, from morning till night ; while to the more cunning 
heads, such as Wulf and Smid, they were but signs of the 
general rottenness — new cracks in those great walls over 
which they intended, with a simple and boyish conscious- 
ness of power, to mount to victory when they chose. 

And in the meantime, till the right opening offered, 
what was there better than to eat, drink, and sleep ? 
And certainly they had chosen a charming retreat in 
which to fulfil that lofty mission. Colunms of purple 
and green porphyry, among which gleamed the white 
limbs of delicate statues, surrounded a basin of water, 
fed by a perpetual jet, which sprinkled with cool spray 
the leaves of the oranges and mimosas, mingling its 
murmurs with the warWings of the tropic birds which 
nestled among the branches. 

On one side of the fountain, under the shade of a broad- 
leaved palmetto, lay the Amal's mighty Umbs, stretched 
out on cushions, his yellow hair crowned with vine-leaves, 

6 


1 64 HYPATIA. 

his hand grasping a golden cup, which had been won from 
Indian rajahs by Parthian Chosroos, from Chosroos by 
Roman generals, from Roman generals by the heroes of 
sheepskin and horsehide ; while Pelagia, by the side of 
the sleepy Hercules-Dionysos, lay leaning over the brink 
of the fountain, lazily dipping her fingers into the water, 
and basking, Hke the gnats which hovered over its sur- 
face, in the mere pleasure of existence. 

On the opposite brink of the basin, tended each by a 
dark-eyed Hebe, who filled the wine-cups, and helped 
now and then to empty them, lay the especial friends 
and companions in arms of the Amal, Goderic the son 
of Ermenric, and Agilmund the son of Cniva, who both, 
like the Amal, boasted a descent from gods; and last, 
but not least, that most important and all but sacred 
personage, Smid the son of Troll, reverenced for cunning 
beyond the sons of men; for not only could he make 
and mend all matters, from a pontoon bridge to a gold 
bracelet, shoe horses and doctor them, charm all diseases 
out of man and beast, carve rimes, interpret war-omens, 
foretell weather, raise the winds, and, finally, conquer in 
the battle of mead-horns all except Wiilf the son of Ovida ; 
but he had actually, during a sojourn among the half- 
civilized Mcesogoths, picked up a fair share of Latin and 
Greek, and a rough knowledge of reading and writing. 

A few yards o§. lay old Wulf upon his back, his knees 
in the air, his hands crossed behind his head, keeping up, 
even in his sleep, a half-conscious comment of growls on 
the following intellectual conversation : — 

*' Noble wine this, is it not ? *' 

" Perfect Who bought it for us ? " 

" Old Miriam bought it, at some great tax-farmer's 
sale. The fellow was bankrupt, and Miriam said she got 
it for the half what it was worth.*' 

" Serve the penny-turning rascal right. The old 
vixen-fox took care, Fll warrant her, to get her profit 
out of the bargain." 

" Never mind if she did. We can afford to pay like 
men, if we earn like men.'' 

" We shan't afford it long, at this rate," growled Wulf. 


HYPATIA. 165 

" Theri we'll go and earn more. I am tired of doing 
nothing." 

" People need not do notbing, unless they choose/' 
said Goderic. " Wulf and I had coursing fit for a king 
the other morning on the sand-hillsw I had had no 
appetite for a week before, and I have been as ^aarp-set 
as a Danube pike ever since." 

" Coursing ? What, with those long--legged brush- 
tailed brutes, like a fox upon stilts, which the prefect 
cozened you into bu3^g." 

" All I can say is^ that we put up a herd of those — 
what do you call them here— deer with goats* horns ? " 

" Antelopes ? " 

" That's it — and the curs ran into them as a ^fckon 
does into a skein of ducks. Wulf and I galloped and 
galloped over those accursed sand-hcapa tiil the horses 
stuck fast ; and when they got their wind again, we 
found each pair of dogs with sl deer down between ihem 
— and what can man want more,, if he cannot get fight- 
ing ? You ate them, so yoa need not sneer." 

" Well, dogs are the only things worth having,, then, 
that this Alexandria does produce." 

" Except fair ladies I " put in one of the girls. 

" Of course. I'll except the women. But the men.—" 

" The what ? I have not seen amansince I came here, 
excjept a dock-worker or two — ^priests and fine gentle- 
men they are all,, and yon don't call them men, surely ? " 

" What on earth do they do, besides riding donkeys ?" 

" Philosophize^ they say." 

"What's that ?" 

" Tm sure I don't know ; some sort of slave's quill- 
driving, I suppose." 

" Pelagia, do you know what philosojAizing is ? '* 

" No— and I don't care." 

" I do," quoth Agibnund, with a look of superior 
wisdom ; " I saw a philosopher the other day." 

" And what sort of thing was it ? " 

" I'll tell you. I was walking down the great street 
there, going to the harbour; and I saw a cro\^ of boys — 
men they call them here — going into a large doorway. 


1 66 HYPATIA. 

So I asked one of them what was doing, and the fellow, 
instead of answering me, pointed at my legs, and set all 
the other monkeys laughing. So I boxed his ears, and 
he tumbled down." 

" They all do so here, if you box their ears," said the 
Amal meditatively, as if he had hit upon a great induct- 
ive law. 

" Ah," said Pelagia, looking up with her most winning 
smile, " they are not such giants as you, who make a 
poor little woman feel like a gazelle in a lion's paw ! " 

*' Well — ^it struck me that, as I spoke in Gothic, the 
boy might not have understood me, being a Greek. So 
I walked in at the door, to save questions, and see for 
myself. And there a fellow held out his hand — I suppose 
for money. So I gave him two or three gold pieces, and 
a box on the ear, at which he tumbled down, of course, 
but seemed very well satisfied. So I walked in." 

*' And what did you see ? " 

" A great hall, large enough for a thousand heroes, 
full of these Egyptian rascals scribbHng with pencils on 
tablets. And at the farther end of it the most beautiful 
woman I ever saw — ^with right fair hair and blue eyes, 
talking, talking — I could not understand it ; but the 
donkey-riders seemed to think it very fine, for they 
went on looking first at her, and then at their tablets, 
gaping like frogs in drought. And, certainly, she looked 
as fair as the sxm, and talked like an Alnma-wife. Not 
that I knew what it was about, but one can see somehow, 
you know. So I fell asleep ; and when I woke, and 
came out, I met some one who understood me, and he 
told me that it was the famous maiden, the great philos- 
opher: And that's what I know about philosophy." 

" She was very much wasted then, on such soft- 
handed starvelings. Why don't she marry some hero ? " 

" Because there are none here to marry," said Pelagia, 
" except some who are fast netted, I fancy, already." 

" But what do they talk about, and teU people to do, 
these philosophers, Pelagia ? " 

" Oh, they don't tell any one to do anything — at least, 
if they do, nobody ever does it, as far as I can see ; but 


HYPATIA. 167 

they talk about suns and stars, and right and wrong, 
and ghosts and spirits, and that sort of thing ; and 
about not enjoying oneself too much. Not that I ever 
saw that they were any happier than any one else." 

" She must have been an Alruna-maiden," said Wulf, 
half to himself. 

" She is a very conceited creature, and I hate her," 
said Pelagia. 

" I believe you," said Wulf. 

" What is an Alnma-maiden ? " asked one of the girls. 

" Something as like you as a salmon is like a horse- 
leech. — Heroes, will you hear a saga ? " 

" If it is a cool one," said Agilmund — '* about ice, and 
pine-trees, and snowstorms. I shall be roasted brown 
in three days more." 

" Oh," said the Amal, " that we were on the Alps 
again for only two hours, sliding down those snow-slopes 
on our shields, with the sleet whisthng about our ears ! 
That was sport ! " 

*' To those who could keep their seat," said Goderic. 
" Who went head over heels into a glacier-crack, and 
was dug out of fifty feet of snow, and had to be put inside 
a fresh-killed horse before he could be brought to life ? " 

" Not you, surely," said Pelagia. " Oh, you wonder- 
ful creature ! what things you have done and suffered ! " 

" Well," said the Amal, with a look of stolid self-satis- 
faction, ** I suppose I have seen a good deal in my time, 
eh?" 

" Yes, my Hercules, you have gone through your 
twelve labours, and saved your poor little Hesione after 
them all, when she was chained to the rock, for the ugly 
sea-monsters to eat ; and she will cherish you, and keep 
you out of scrapes now, for her own sake ; " and Pelagia 
threw her arms round the great bull-neck, and drew it 
down to her. 

'* Will you hear my saga ? " said Wulf impatiently. 

" Of course we will," said the Amal ; " anything to 
pass the time." 

'* But let it be about snow," said Agilmund. 

" Not about Alruna- wives ? " 


l58 HYPATIA. 

"About them, too," said Goderic; "my mother was 
one, so I must needs stand up for them." 

"She was, boy. Do 3rou be her son. — ^Now hear, 
Wolves of the Goths 1 " 

And the old man took up his little lute, or as he would 
probably have called it, " fidel," and began chanting to 
his own ajccompaniment 

" Over the camp fires 
Drank I with heroes, 
Under the Dcmau bank 
Warm in the SBow-trench| 
Sagamen heard I there, 
Men of the Longbeards, 
Cunning and ancient, 
Honey-sweet-voiced. 
Scaring the wolf-cub, 
Scaring the horn-owl out. 
Shaking the snow-wreaths 
Down from the pine-boughs, 
Up to the star-roof 
Rang out their song. 
Singing how Winil men 
Over tne icefloes 
Sledging from Scanland <mi 
Came unto Scoring ; 
Singing of Gambara 
Freya's beloved. 
Mother of Ayo, 
Mother of Ibor. 
Singing of Wendel men, 
Ambri and Assi ; 
How to the Winilfolk 
Went they with wax- words — 
• Few are ye, strangers. 
And many are we ; 
Pay us now toU and fee, 
Clothyarn, and rings, and beeves ; 
Else at the raven's meal 
Bide the sharp bill's doom.* 

** Clutching the dwarfs' work then. 
Clutching the bullock's shell, 
Girding gray iron on. 
Forth fared the Winils all, 
Fared the Alruna's sons, 
A)ro and Ibor. 
Mad of heart stalked they : 


HYPATIA. 169 

Loud wept the women all, 
Loud the Alruna-wife ; 
Sore was their need. 

** Out of the morning land, 

Over the snowdrifts, 

Beautiful Freya came, 

Tripping to Scoring. 

White were the moorlands, 

And frozen before her ; 

But green were the moorlands. 

And blooming behind her, 

Out of her golden locks 

Shaking the spring flowers, 

Out of her garments 

Shaking the south wind. 

Around in the birches 

Awaking the throstles. 

And making chaste housewives all 

Long for their heroes home, 

Loving and love-giving, 

Came she to Scoring. 

Game unto Gambara^ 

Wisest of Valas — 
* Vala, why weepest thou? 

Far in the wide-blue, 

High up in the Elfin-home, 

Heard I thy weeping.' 

Stop not my weeping, 

Till one can fight seven> 

Sons have I, heroes tall, 

First in the sword-play ; 

This day at the Wendels' hands 

Eagles must tear them ; 

WMle their mothers, thrall-weary. 

Must grind for the Wendels.' 

' Wept the Alruna-wife ; 

Kissed her fair Freya — 
^ Far off in the morning land 

High in Valhalla, 

A window stands open. 

Its sill is the snow-pealcs. 

Its posts are the waterspouts 

Storm rack its lintel, 

Gold cloud-flakes above it 

Are piled for the roofinrc. 

Far up to the Elfin-home, 

High in the wide-blue. 


it € 


I70 HYPATIA. 

Smiles out each morning thence 

Odin AUfather ; 

From under the cloud -eaves, 

Smiles out on the heroes, 

Smiles out on chaste housewives all, 

Smiles on the brood-mares, 

Smiles on the smith's work : 

And theirs is the sword-luck, 

With them is the glory — 

So Odin hath sworn it — 

Who first in the morning 

Shall meet him and greet him. 

" Still the Alruna wept— 
' Who then shall greet him? 
Women alone are here i 
Far on the moorlands 
Behind the war-lindens, 
In vain for the bill's doom 
Watch Winil heroes all. 
One against seven.' 

'* Sweetly the Queen laughed— 

* Hear tiou my counsel now : 
Take to thee cunning. 
Beloved of Freya. 

Take thou thy women-folk. 

Maidens and wives : 

Over your ankles 

Lace on the white war-hose ; 

Over your bosoms 

Link up the hard mail-nets ; 

Over your lips 

Plait long tresses with cunning ;— 

So war-beasts full bearded 

King Odin shall deem you, 

When off the gray sea-beach 

At sunrise ye greet him.' 

'* Night's son was driving 
His golden-haired horses up ; 
Over the Eastern firths 
Hi^h flashed their manes. 
Smiled from the cloud-eaves out 
AUfather Odin, 
Waiting the battle-sport : 
Freya stood by him. 

* Who are these heroes tall^ 
Lusty-limbed Longbeards? 
Over the swans' bath 


HYPATIA. 171 

"Why cry they to me ? 
Bones should be crashing fast, 
Wolves should be full-fed, 
Where'er such, mad-hearted. 
Swing hands in the sword-play.' 

** Sweetly laughed Freya — 

* A name thou hast given them — 
Shames neither thee nor them, 
Well can they wear it. 

Give them the victory. 
First have they greeted thee ; 
Give them the victory, 
Yokefellow mine ! 
Maidens and wives are these — 
Wives of the Winils ; 
Few are their heroes 
And far on the war-road, 
So over the swans* bath 
They cry unto thee.' 

*• Royally laughed he then ; 
Dear was that craft to him, 
Odin Allfather, 
Shaking the clouds. 

* Cunning are women all. 
Bold and importunate ! 
Longbeards their name shall be, 
Ravens shall thank them : 
Where the women are heroes, 
What must the men be like ? 
Theirs is the victory ; 

No need of me I'"* 

** There ! " said Wulf, when the song was ended ; " is 
that cool enough for you ? " 

" Rather too cool ; eh, Pelagia ? " said the Amal, 
laughing. 

** Ay," went on the old man, bitterly enough, " such 
were your mothers, and such were your sisters ; and 
such your wives must be, if you intend to last much 
longer on the face of the earth — ^women who care for 
something better than good eating, strong drinking, and 
soft lying." 

* This punning legend may be seen in Paul Wamefrid's G€sta Lango- 
bardorum. The metre and language are intended as imitations of those 
of the earlier Eddaic poems. 

6a 


1/2 HYPATIA. 

" All very true, Prince Wulf/' said Agilmund, " but 
I don't like the saga after all. It was a great deal too 
like what Pelagia here says those philosophers talk 
about — bright and wrong, and that sort of thing." 

" I donH doubt it." 

" Now I Hke a really good saga, about gods and giants, 
and the fire kingdoms and the snow kingdoms, and the 
Msir making men and women out of two sticks, and aU 
that." 

" Ay," said the Amal, " something like nothing one 
ever saw in one's life, all stark mad and topsy-turvy, 
like one's dreams when one has been drunk ; something 
grand which you cannot understand, but which sets you 
thinking over it all the morning after." 

" Well," said Goderic, " my mother was an Alrima- 
woman, so I will not be the bird to foul its own nest. 
But I like to hear about wild beasts and ghosts, ogres, 
and fire-drakes, and nicors — something that one could 
kill if one had a chance, as one's fathers had." 

" Your fathers would never have killed nicors," said 
Wulf, " if they had been " 

" Like us — I know," said the Amal. " Now tell me, 
prince — ^you are old enough to be our father — and did 
you ever see a nicor ? " 

" My brother saw one, in the Northern sea, three 
fathoms long, with the body of a bison-buU, and the head 
of a cat, and the beard of a man, and tusks an ell long, 
lying down on its breast, watching for the fishermen ; 
and he struck it with an arrow, so that it fled to the 
bottom of the sea, and never came up again." 

" What is a nicor, Agilmund ? " asked one of the girls, 

" A sea-devil who eats sailors. There used to be plenty 
of them where our fathers came from, and ogres too, who 
came out of the fens into the hall at night, when the 
warriors were sleeping, to suck their blood and steal 
along, and steal along, and jump upon you — so 1 " 

Pelagia, during the saga, had remained looking into 
the fountain, and playing with the water-drops, in 
assumed indifference. Perhaps it was to hide bummg 
blushes, and something very like two hot tears, which 


HYPATIA. 173 

fell unobserved into the ripple. Now she looked up 
suddenly. 

" And of course you have killed some of these dreadful 
creatures, Amalric ? " 

" I never had such good luck, darling. Our fore- 
fathers were in such a hurry with them, that by the time 
we were bom there was hardly one left*' 

" Ay, they were men," growled Wulf. 

" As for me," went on the Amal, " the biggest thing I 
ever killed was a snake in the Donau fens. How long 
was he, prince ? You had time to see, for you sat eating 
your dinner and looking on, while he was trying to crack 
my bones." 

" Four fathom," answered Wulf. 

" With a wild bull lying by him, which he had just 
killed. I spoilt his dinner, eh, Wulf ? " 

" Yes," said the old grumbler, mollified, " that was a 
right good fight." 

** Why don't you make a saga about it, then, instead of 
about right and wrong, and such things ? " 

" Because I am turned philosopher. I shall go and 
hear that Alruna-maiden this afternoon." 

*' Well said. Let us go too, yoimg men. It will pass 
the time, at all events." 

*' Oh no ! no ! no ! do not ! you shall not ! " almost 
shrieked Pelagia. 

" Why not, then, pretty one ? " 

'* She is a witch — she — I will never love you again if 
you dare to go. Your only reason is that Agilmund's 
report of her beauty." 

" So ? You are afraid of my Hking her golden locks 
better than your black ones ? " 

" 1 ? Afraid ? " and she leapt up, panting with pretty 
rage. " Come, we will go too — at once — and brave this 
nun, who fancies herself too wise to speak to a woman 
and too pure to love a man ! Look out my jewels ! 
Saddle my white mule ! We will go royally. We will 
not be ashamed of Cupid's livery, my girls — saffron shawl 
and all ! Come, and let us see whether saucy Aphrodite 
is not a match after all for Pallas Athene and her owl 1 " 


174 HYPATIA. 

And she darted out of the cloister. 

The three younger men burst into a roar of laughter, 
while Wulf looked with grim approval. 

" So you want to go and hear the philosopher, prince ? " 
said Smid. 

" Wheresoever a holy and a wise woman speaks, a 
warrior need not be ashamed of Ustening. Did not 
Alaric bid us spare the nuns in Rome, comrade ? And 
though I am no Christian as he was, I thought it no 
shame for Odin's man to take their blessing; npr will 
I to take this one's, Smid, son of Troll." ^jJ^ *. 



CHAPTER XIII. ^ ^s"^ 

THE BOTTOM OF THE ABYSS; 

Here am I, at last ! " said Raphael Aben-Ezra to him- 
self. " Fairly and safely landed at the very bottom 
of the bottomless ; disporting myself on the firm floor 
of the primeval nothing, and finding my new element, 
like bo5rs when they begin to swim, not so impracticable 
after aU. No man, angel, or demon can this day cast it 
in my teeth that I am weak enough to believe or dis- 
beUeve any phenomenon or theory in or concerning 
heaven or earth ; or even that any such heaven, earth, 
phenomena, or theories exist — or otherwise. ... I trust 
that is a sufficiently exhaustive statement of my opinions? 
... I am certainly not dogmatic enough to deny — or 
to assert either — that there are sensations ; ; . f ar too 
numerous for comfort . . . but as for proceeding any 
further, by induction, deduction, analysis, or synthesis, 
I utterly decline the office of Arachne, and will spin no 
more cobwebs out of my own inside — ^if I have any. 
Sensations ? What are they but parts of oneself — if one 
has a self ! What put this child's fancy into one's head, 
that there is anything outside of one which produces 
them ? You have exactly similar feelings in your 
dreams, and you know that there is no reahty corre- 
sponding to tiiem — No, you don't ! How dare you be 


HYPATIA. 17s 

dogmatic enough to afi&rm that ? Why should not your 
(jreamsjbe as real as y our waking thoughts ? Why should 
not your dreams be tne reality, and your waking thoughts 
the dream ? What matter which ? 

" What matter indeed ? Here have I been staring 
for years — unless that, too, is a dream, which it very 
probably is — at every moimtebank * ism ' which ever 
tumbled and capered on the philosophic tight-rope ; 
and they are every one of them dead dolls, wooden, 
worked with wires, which are feiitiones principii, . . 
Each philosopher begs the question in hand, and then 
marches forward, as brave as a triumph, and prides him- 
self — on proving it all afterwards. No wonder that his 
theory fits the imiverse, when he has first clipped the 
universe to fit his theory. Have I not tried my hand 
at many a one — ^starting, too, no one can deny, with the 
very minimum of clipping. . ; . for I suppose one cannot 
begin lower than at simple ' I am I ' . . . unless — 
which is equally demonstrable — at ' I am not I.' I 
recollect — or dream — that I offered that sweet dream 
Hypatia, to deduce all things in heaven and earth, from 
the Astronomies of Hipparchus to the number of plumes 
in an archangel's wing, from that one simple proposition, 
if she would but write me out a demonstration of it first, 
as some sort of vov otw for the apex of my inverted 
pyramid. But she disdained. . . . Pe ople are apt t o 
disdain what they know they cannot d O ..." It was an 
axiom,' it was, like one and one making two.' . . . 
Ho w cross the sweet dream was at. my jelling he r that I 
(nCnoExQnsLdet^&ai^ a^^ jeitber^and that, one 

t hing and oneJJbJng seeming to usto be t^Q things^ wa3 
no more proof that ffiey reaflyjver§„twOj^^ 
htindred~ang""s &ty-five, ^h ah a man seeming to be an 
h'dnest man proved him not to be a rogue i and at my 
asking heir, moreover, when she appealed to universal 
exper ience, how sh e provedjhatlhe coiiibihed folly of aD 
f oo ls'resul ted in wisdom ! 

"^^ 1 am I ' an axiom, indeed ! What right have I to 
say that I am not any one else ? How do I know it ? 
How do I know that there is any one else for me not to 


176 . HYPATIA. 

be ? 1 1, or rather something, feel a number of sensations, 
longings, thoughts, fancies — the great devil take them 
all — fresh ones every moment, and each at war tooth and 
nail with all the rest ; and then, on the strength of this 
infinite multiplicity and contradiction, of which alone I 
am aware, I am to be illogical enough to stand up and 
say, ' I by myself I,' and swear stoutly that I am one 
thing, when all I am conscious of is the devil only 
knows how many things. Of all quaint deductions from 
experience, that is the quaintest i\ Would it not be more 
philosophical to conclude that I, who never saw or felt 
or heard this which I call myself, am what I have seen, 
heard, and felt — and no more and no less — ^that sensation 
which I call that horse, that dead man, that jackass, 
those forty thousand two-legged jackasses who appear 
to be running for their lives l^low there, having got hold 
of this same notion of their being one thing each — as I 
choose to fancy in my foolish habit of imputing to them 
the same disease of thought which I find in myself — 
crucify the word ! — ^The folly of my ancestors — ^if I ever 
had any — prevents my having any better expression, 
. . .Avhy should I not be all I feel — ^that si^, those 
clouos — ^the whole universe ?) Hercules ! what a creative 
genius my sensorium must bel I'll take to writing 
poetry — a mock-epic, in seventy-two books, entitled 
' The Universe ; or, Raphael Aben-Ezra,' and take 
Homer's Margites for my model. Homer's ? Mine 1 
Why must not the Margites, like everything else, have 
been a sensation of my own ? Hypatia used to say 
Homer's poetry was a part of her . . . only she could 
not prove it . . ; but I have proved that the Margites 
is a part of me . . : not that I believe my own proof — 
scepticism forbid ! Oh, would to heaven that the said 
whole disagreeable universe were annihilated, if it were 
only just to settle by fair experiment whether any of 
master ' I ' remained when they were gone ! Buzzard 
and dogmatist ! And how do you know that that would 
settle it ? And if it did— why need it be settled ? . . . 

** I dare say there is an answer pat for all this. I could 
write a pretty one myself in half an hour. But then I 


HYPATIA. 177 

should not believe it : ; . nor the rejoinder to that . . . 
nor the demurrer to that again. ... So ... I am 
both sleepy and hungry ... or rather, sleepiness and 
hunger are me. Which is it ? Heigh-ho . . ." and 
Raphael finished his meditation by a mighty yawn. 

This hopeful oration was delivered in a fitting lecture- 
room. Between the bare walls of a doleful fire-scarred 
tower in the Campagna of Rome, standing upon a knoll 
of dry brown grass, ringed with a few grim pines, blasted 
and black with smoke — ^there sat Raphael Aben-Ezra, 
working out the last formula of the great world problem 
— '* G iven Sel f • to fin d God." Through the doorless 
stone archway he could see a long vista of the plain 
below, covered with broken trees, trampled crops, smok- 
ing villas, and all the ugly scars of recent war, far onward 
to the quiet purple mountains and the silver sea, towards 
which struggled, far in the distance, long dark lines of 
moving specks, flowing together, breaking up, stopping 
short, recoiling back to surge forward by some fresh 
channel, while now and then a ghtter of keen white sparks 
ran through the dense black masses. . . . The Count of 
Africa had thrown for the empire of the world — and lost. 

" Brave old Sun ! " said Raphael, " how merrily he 
flashes off the sword-blades yonder, and never cares that 
every tiny sparkle brings a death-shriek after it I Why 
should he ? It is no concern of his. Astrologers are 
fools. His business is to shine ; and on the whole, he 
is one of my few satisfactory sensations. How now ? 
This is questionably pleasant I " 

As he spoke, a column of troops came marching across 
the field, straight towards his retreat. 

'' If these new sensations of mine find me here, they 
will infaUibly produce in me a new sensation, which will 
render all further ones impossible. ; : . Well ? What 
kinder thing could they do for me ? . : . Ay — but how 
do I know that they would do it ? What possible proof 
is there that if a two-legged phantasm pokes a hard 
iron-gray phantasm in among my sensations, those sensa- 
tions will be my last ? Is the fact of my turning pale, 
and lying still, and being in a day or two converted into 


1 78 HYPATIA. 

crows' flesh, any reason why I should not feel ? And 
how do I know that would happen ? It seems to happen 
to certain sensations of my eyeball — or something else — 
who cares ? which I call soldiers ; but what possible 
analogy can there be between what seems to happen 
to those single sensations called soldiers, and what may 
or may not really happen to all my sensations put 
together, which I call me ? Should I bear apples if a 
phantasm seemed to come and plant me ? Then why 
should I die if another phantasm seemed to come and 
poke me in the ribs ? 

" Still I don't intend to deny it .... I am no dogma- 
tist. Positively the phantasms are marching straight for 
my tower ! Well, it may be safer to nm away, on the 
chance. But as for losing feeling," continued he, rising 
and cranmiing a few mouldy crusts into his wallet, 
" that, Hke everything else, is past proof. Why — if now, 
when I have some sort of excuse for fancying myself one 
thing in one place, I am driven mad with the number 
of my sensations, what will it be when I am eaten, and 
turned to dust, and imdeniably many things in many 
places. . . . Will not the sensations be multiplied by — 
unbearable ! I would swear at the thought, if I had any- 
thing to swear by ! To be transmuted into the sensoria 
of forty different nasty carrion crows, besides two or three 
foxes, and a large black beetle ! I'll run away, just like 
anybody else ... if anybody existed. Come, Bran I 
***** 

" Bran ! where are you, unlucky inseparable sensation 
of mine ? Picking up a dinner already off these dead 
soldiers ? Well, the pity is that this foolish contradic- 
tory taste of mine, while it makes me hungry, forbids 
me to follow your example. Why am I to take lessons 
from my soldier-phantasms, and not from my canine 
one ? Illogical ! Bran ! Bran I " and he went out and 
whistled in vain for the dog. 

" Bran ! imhappy phantom, who will not vanish by 
night or day, lying on my chest even in dreams ; and 
who would not even let me vanish, and solve the problem 
— though I don't believe there is any — ^why did you drag 


IIYPATIA. 179 

me out of the sea there at Ostia ? Why did you not let 
me become a whole shoal of crabs ? How did you know, 
or I either, that they may not be very jolly fellows, and 
not in the least troubled with philosophic doubts ? . . . 
But perhaps there were no crabs, but only phantasms 
of crabs. . . . And, on the other hand, if the crab- 
phantasms give jolly sensations, why should not the crow- 
phantasms ? So whichever way it tmns out, no matter ; 
and I may as well wait here, and seem to become crows, 
as I certainly shall do. — Bran ! . . . Why should I wait 
for her ? What pleasure can it be to me to have the 
feeling of a four-legged, brindled, lop-eared, toad-mouthed 
thing always between what seem to be my legs ? There 
she is ! Where have you been, madam ? Don't you see 
I am in marching order, with staff and wallet ready 
shouldered ? Come ! " 

But the dog, looking up in his face as only dogs can 
look, ran towards the back of the ruin, and up to him 
again, and back again, until he followed her. 

" What's this ? Here is a new sensation with a ven- 
geance I O storm and cloud of material appearances, 
were there not enough of you already, that you must add 
to your number these also ? Bran ! Bran ! Could you 
find no other day in the year but this, whereon to present 
my ears with the squeals of — one — two — three — nine 
blind puppies ? " 

Bran answered by rushing into the hole where her new 
family lay tumbling and squalling, bringing out one in 
her mouth, and laying it at his feet. 

" Needless, I assure you. I am perfectly aware of the 
state of the case already. What ! another ? Silly old 
thing ! do you fancy, as the fine ladies do, that burdening 
the world with noisy Ukenesses of your precious self is a 
thing of which to be proud ? Why, she's bringing out 
the whole litter ! : ; . What was I thinking of last ? 
Ah — the argument was self -contradictory, was it, because 
I could not argue without using the very terms which I 
repudiated. Well. . . . And — ^why should it not be 
contradictory ? Why not ? One must face that too, 
after all. Why should not a thing be true and false also ? 


1 82 HYPATIA. 

From Armenian reminiscences I should have fancied 
myself as free from such tender weakness as any of 
my Canaanite-slaying ancestors. . ; . And yet, by some 
mere spirit of contradiction, I couldn't kill that fellow, 
exactly because he asked me to do it. . . . There is 
more in that than will fit into the great inverted p5n:amid 
of 'I am I.' . . . Never mind, let me get the dog's 
lessons by heart first. What next, Bran ? Ah ! Coi2d 
one believe the transformation ? Why, this is the very 
trim villa which I passed yesterday morning, with the 
garden-chairs standing among the flower-beds, just as 
the young ladies had left them, and the peacocks and 
silver pheasants running about, wondering why their 
pretty mistresses did not come to feed them. And here 
is a trampled mass of wreck and corruption for the girls 
to find when they venture back from Rome, and com- 
plain how horrible war is for breaking down all their 
shrubs, and how cruel soldiers must be to kill and cook 
all their poor, dear, tame turtle-doves ! Why not ? Why 
should they lament over other things — ^which they can 
just as little mend — and which perhaps need no more 
mending ? Ah ! there lies a gallant fellow underneath 
that fruit-tree ! " 

Raphael walked up to a ring of dead, in the midst of 
which lay, half-sitting against the trunk of the tree, a 
tall and noble ojHicer in the first bloom of manhood. 
His casque and armour, gorgeously inlaid with gold, 
were hewn and battered by a hundred blows ; his 
shield was cloven through and through, his sword broken 
in the stiffened hand which grasped it still. Cut off from 
his troop, he had made his last stand beneath the tree, 
knee-deep in the gay summer flowers ; and there he lay, 
bestrewn, as if by some mockery — or pity — of mother 
Nature, with faded roses, and golden fruit, shaken from 
off the boughs in that last deadly struggle. Raphael 
stood and watched him with a sad sneer. 

" Well ! you have sold your fancied personality dear ! 
How many dead men ? . . . Nine . ; . Eleven ! Con- 
ceited fellow ! Who told you that your one Ufe was 
worth the eleven which you have taken ? " 


HYPATIA. 183 

Bran went up to the corpse — perhaps from its sitting 
posture fancying it still living — smelt the cold cheek, 
and recoiled with a mournful whine. 

" Eh ? That is the right way to look at the phe- 
nomenon, is it ? Well, after all, I am sorry for you . . . 
almost hke you. ; . . All your wounds in front, as a 
man's should be. Poor fop ! Lais and Thais will never 
curl those dainty ringlets for you again ! What is that 
bas-relief upon your shield ? — Venus receiving Psyche 
into the abode of the gods ! . : . Ah ! you have foimd 
out all about Psyche's wings by this time. . . . How do 
I know that ? And yet, why am I, in spite of my 
common sense — ^if I have any — talking to you as you, 
and liking you, and pitying you, if you are nothing now, 
and probably never were anytlung ? Bran ! What 
right had you to pity him without giving your reasons 
in due form, as Hypatia would have done ? Forgive 
me, sir, however — ^whether you exist or not, I cannot 
leave that collar round your neck for these camp-wolves 
to convert into strong Uquor." 

And as he spoke, he bent down, and detached, gently 
enough, a magnificent necklace. 

'* Not for myself, I assure you. Like At6's golden 
apple, it shall go to the fairest. Here, Bran ! " 

And he wreathed the jewels round the neck of the 
mastiff, who, evidently exalted in her own eyes by the 
burden, leaped and barked forward again, taking, appar- 
ently as a matter of course, the road back towards Ostia, 
by which they had come thither from the sea. And as he 
followed, careless where he went, he continued talking 
to himself aloud after the manner of restless, self -discon- 
tented men. 

..." And then man talks big about his dignity, and 
his intellect, and his heavenly parentage, and his aspira- 
tions after the unseen, and the beautiful, and the infinite 
— and everything else unUke himself. How can he prove 
it ? Why, these poor blackguards lying about are very 
fair specimens of humanity. And how much have they 
been bothered since they were bom with aspirations after 
an5^hing infinite, except infinite sour wine ? To eat, to 


1 84 HYPATIA. 

drink ; to destroy a certain number of their species ; to 
reproduce a certain number of the same, two-thirds of 
whom will die in infancy, a dead waste of pain to their 
mothers and of expense to their putative sires .• ; . and 

then what says Solomon ? What befalls them befalls 

beasts. As one dies, so dies the other ; so that they 
have all one breath, and a man has no pre-eminence 
over a beast ; for all is vanity. All go to one place ; all 
are of the dust, and turn to dust again. Who knows 
that the breath of man goes upward, and that the 
breath of the beast goes downward to the earth ? Who, 
indeed, my most wise ancestor ? Not I, certainly. 
Raphael Aben-Ezra, how art thou better than a beast ? 
What pre-eminence hast thou, not merely over this dog, 
but over the fleas whom thou so wantonly cursest ? 
Man must painfully win house, clothes, fire. ... A 
pretty proof of his wisdom, when every flea has the wit 
to make my blanket, without any labour of his own, 
lodge him a great deal better than it lodges me ! Man 
makes clothes, and the fleas live in them. , ; • Which is 
the wiser of the two ? . 7 ; 

" Ah, but — man is fallen. 7 : ; Well — and the flea is 
not. So much better he than the man ; for he is what he 
was intended to be, and so fulfils the very definition of 
virtue ; . . which no one can say of us of the red-ochre 
vein. And even if the old myth be true, and the man 
only fell because he was set to do higher work than the 
flea, what does that prove — but that he could not do it ? 

" But his arts and his sciences ? . . . Apage ! The 
very sound of those grown-children's rattles turns me 
sick. ; . . One conceited ass in a generation increasing 
labour and sorrow, and dying after all even as the fool 
dies, and ten million brutes and slaves, just where their 
forefathers were, and where their children will be after 
them, to the end of the farce. ; ; . The thing that has 
been, \t i s that w hich slyall be ; and tEere fi jio ne w thing 
^nder the sun . . : : 

*" And as for your palaces, and cities, and temples . . ; 
look at this Campagna, and jud^. Flea- bites go down 
after a while — and so do they. Wliat are they but the 


HYPATIA. 185 

bu mps wh ich we human fle as make in the old_ea_rth's 
^n ? . ; . MaEeThem ? We_only cause themt^gfleas 
cause flea -bites. . . . What are all the worksgrTnalT 
Imt a sort of cutaneous disorder in this unhfialthy'parfh- 
hjde, and we a race of larger fleas, running about amonjs ; 
its fur, which we call trees ?~" Why should not the earth 
be an animal ? How do I know it is not ? Because it 
is too big ? Bah ! What is big, and what is Httle ? 
Because it has not the shape of one ? . ; . Look into a 
fisherman's net, and see what forms are there ! Because 
it does not speak ? . . . Perhaps it has nothing to say, 
being too busy. Perhaps it can talk no more sense than 
we. , . . I n/bot h cases it shows its wisdom by hold ing 
its tongue . Because it moves in one necessary direction ? 
; . . How do I know that it does ? How can I tell that 
it is not flirting with all the seven spheres at once, at this 
moment ? But if it d oes — so much the wiser of it, if 
that be the best direction for it. Oh, what a base satire 
on ourselves and our notions of the fair and fitting, tq say 


V* 


that a thing cannot be ahve and rational, just because it ^ 
goes steadily on upon its o wn ro a d, instead of skipping - 
and scrambling fantastically up a n d down without methods ^ 
or order, like us and the fleas, from the cradle to the^rave.[ x 
Besid es, iTyou^gra n T^w rtFtfe rest oTjlp^o^ ' % 

ye less noble than we,"T)ecause they are our parasites^ ^ 
&^n you are bound to grant that we are less noble than '; 
t bg earth, b ecause we a re its pa rasites. . . . P ositively , 1 
jtTooks mbre^proBa^^ anything I have seen fo r ^ 

many a day. . ; ; And, by-the'-By ey whv should no j "^ 
^rtnquakes, and 5 oo3s, an d pesti lences be only just so J" 
many 'ways which the cunning old brute earth has 61 
scratching herself when the human fleas and their palace 
and city bites get too troublesome ? '' 

At a turn of the road he was aroused from this pro- 
fitable meditation by a shriek, the shrillness of which told 
him that it was a woman's. He looked up, and saw 
close to him, among the smouldering ruins of a farm- 
house, two ruffians driving before them a young girl, 
with her hands tied behind her, while the poor creature 
was looking back piteously after something among the 


1 86 HYPATIA. 

ruins, and struggling in vain, bound as she was, to escape 
from her captors and return. 

" Conduct unjustifiable in any fleas — eh, Bran ? How 
do I know that, though ? Why should it not be a piece 
of excellent fortune for her, if she had but the equa- 
nimity to see it ? Why — ^what will happen to her ? She 
will be taken to Rome, and sold as a slave. . . . And 
in spite of a few discomforts in the transfer, and the 
prejudice which some persons have against standing an 
hour on the catasta to be handled from head to foot in 
the minimum of clothing, she will most probably end in 
being far better housed, fed, bedizened, and pampered 
to her heart's desire, than ninety-nine out of a hundred 
of her sister fleas ... till she begins to grow old . . . 
which she must do in any case. . . . And if she have not 
contrived to wheedle her master out of her liberty, and to 
make up a pretty little purse of savings, by that time — 
why, it is her own fault. Eh, Bran ? " 

But Bran by no means agreed with his view of the 
case ; for after watching the two ruffians, with her head 
stuck on one side, for a minute or two, she suddenly and 
silently, after the manner of mastiffs, sprang upon them, 
and dragged one to the ground. 

" Oh ! that is the * fit and beautiful,' in this case, as 
they say in Alexandria, is it ? Well — I obey. You are 
at least a more practical teacher than ever Hypatia was. 
Heaven grant that there may be no more of them in the 
ruins ! " 

And rushing on the second plunderer, he laid him dead 
with a blow of his dagger, and then turned to the first, 
whom Bran was holding down by' the throat. 

'* Mercy, mercy 1 " shrieked the wretch. ** Life ! only 
Ufe ! " 

" There was a fellow half a mile back begging me to 
kill him : with which of you two am I to agree ? for you 
can't both be right." 

" Life ! Only fife ! " 

" A carnal appetite, which man must learn to conquer," 
said Raphael, as he raised the poniard. ... In a moment 
it was over, and Bran and he rose. Where was the girl ? 


HYPATIA. 187 

She had rushed back to the ruins, whither Raphael 
followed her ; while Bran ran to the puppies, which he 
had laid upon a stone, and commenced her maternal cares. 

" What do you want, my poor girl ? " asked he in 
Latin. " I will not hurt you." 

" My father ! My father ! " 

He imtied her bruised and swollen wrists ; and without 
stopping to thank him, she ran to a heap of fallen stones 
and beams, and began digging wildly with all her Uttle 
strength, breathlessly calling *' Father ! " 

" Such is the gratitude of flea to flea ! What is there, 
now, in the mere fact of being accustomed to call another 
person father, and not master, or slave, which should 
produce such passion as that ? . . . Brute habit ! . . . 
What services can the said man render, or have rendered, 

which make him worth Here is Bran ! . . . What 

do you think of that, my female philosopher ? " 

Bran sat down and watched too. The poor girl's 
tender hands were bleeding from the stones, while her 
golden tresses rolled down over her eyes, and entangled 
in her impatient fingers ; but still she worked frantically. 
Bran seemed suddenly to comprehend the case, rushed to 
the rescue, and began digging too with all her might. 

Raphael rose with a shrug, and joined in the work. 
***** 

" Hang these brute instincts ! They make one very 
hot. What was that ? " 

A feeble moan rose from under the stones. A human 
limb was uncovered. The girl threw herself on the place, 
shrieking her father's name. Raphael put her gently 
back, and exerting his whole strength, drew out of the 
ruins a stalwart elderly man, in the dress of an officer of 
high rank. 

He still breathed. The girl Hfted up his head and 
covered him with wild kisses. Raphael looked round for 
water ; found a spring and a broken sherd, and bathed 
the wounded man's temples till he opened his eyes and 
showed signs of returning life. 

The girl still sat by him, fondling her recovered treas- 
ure, and bathing the grizzled face in holy tears. 


1 88 HYPATIA. 

*' It is no business of mine/' said Raphael. " Come, 
Bran ! " 

The girl sprang up, threw herself at his feet, kissed his 
hands, called him her saviour, her deliverer, sent by God. 

'* Not in the least, my child. You must thank my 
teacher the dog, not me/' 

And she took him at his word, and threw her soft arms 
round Bran's neck ; and Bran understood it, and wagged 
her tail, and licked the gentle face lovingly. 

'* Intolerably absurd, all this ! " said RaphaeL " I 
must be going. Bran." 

** You will not leave us ? You surely wiU not leave 
an old man to die here ? " 

'* Why not ? What better thing could happen to 
him ? " 

" Nothing," murmured the ojSicer, who had not spoken 
before. 

'' Ah, God ! he is my father ! " 

" WeU ? " 

'' He is my father I " 

" Well ? " 

*' You must save him ! You shall, I say ! " And she 
seized Raphael's arm in the imperiousness of her passion. 

He shrugged his shoulders, but felt, he knew not why, 
marvellously inclined to obey her. 

" I may as well do this as anything else, having noth- 
ing else to do. Whither now, sir ? " 

'' Whither you wiU. Oiir troops are disgraced, our 
eagles taken. We are your prisoners by right of war. 
We follow you." 

" Oh, my fortune ! A new responsibility ! Why 
cannot I stir without live animals, from fleas upwards, 
attaching themselves to me ? Is it not enough to have 
nine bhnd puppies at my back, and an old brute at my 
heels, who will persist in saving my life, that I must be 
burdened over and above with a respectable elderly 
rebel and his daughter ? Why am I not allowed by fate 
to care for nobody but myself ? Sir, I give you both 
your freedom. The world is wide enough for us all. I 
really ask no ransom." 


HYPATIA. 189 

" You seem philosophically disposed, my friend." 

*' I ? KesLven forbid ! I have gone right through 
that slougli, and come out sheer on the other side. For 
sweeping the last lingering taint of it out of me, I have 
to thank, not sulphur and exorcisms, but your soldiers 
and their moming*s work. Philosophy is superfluous in 
a world where all are fools." 

" Do you include yourself under that title ? " 

'* Most certainly, my best sir. Don't fancy that I 
make any exceptions. If I can in any way prove my 
folly to you, I will do it." 
. '* Then help me and my daughter to Ostia." 

'* A very fair instance. Well — ^my dog happens to be 
going that way ; and after all, you seem to have a 
sufl&cient share of human imbedhty to be a very fit com- 
panion for me. I hope, though, you do not set up for 
a wise man ! " 

'* God knows — ^no ! Am I not of Heraclian's army ? " 

" True ; and the young lady here made herself so great 
a fool about you, that she actually infected the very dog." 

*' So we three fools will forth together." 

" And the greatest one, as usual, must help the rest. 
But I have nine puppies in my family already. How 
am I to carry you and them ? " 

" I will take them," said the girl ; and Bran, after 
looking on at the transfer with a somewhat dubious face, 
seemed to satisfy herself that all was right, and put her 
head contentedly under the girl's hand. 

*' Eh ? You trust her, Bran ? " said Raphael, in an 
undertone. " I must really emancipate myself from 
your instructions if you require a similar simphcity in me. 
Stay ! there wanders a mule without a rider ; we may as 
well press him into the service." 

He caught the mule, lifted the wounded man into the 
saddle, and the cavalcade set forth, turning out of the 
highroad into a by-lane, which the officer, who seemed 
to know the country thoroughly, assured him would lead 
them to Ostia by an imfrequented route, 

" If we arrive there before sundown, we are saved," 
said he. 


igo HYPATiA. 

" And in the meantime," answered Raphael, " be- 
tween the dog and this dagger, which, as I take care to 
inform all comers, is deUcately poisoned, we may keep 
ourselves clear of marauders. And yet, what a meddling 
fool I am ! *' he went on to himself. " What possible 
interest can I have in this uncircumcised rebel ? The 
least evil is, that if we are taken, which we most probably 
shall be, I shall be crucified for helping him to escape. 
But even if we get safe off — ^here is a fresh tie between me 
and those very brother fleas, to be rid of whom I have 
chosen beggary and starvation. Who knows where it 
may end ? Pooh ! The man is like other men. He is 
certain, before the day is over, to prove ungrateftJ, or 
attempt the mountebank-heroic, or give me some other 
excuse for bidding him good-evening. And in the mean- 
time there is something quaint in the fact of finding so 
sober a respectability, with a young daughter too, abroad 
on this fool's errand, which really makes me curious 
to discover with what variety of flea I am to class 
him.'' 

But while Aben-Ezra was talking to himself about the 
father, he could not help somehow thinking about the 
daughter. Again and again he found himself looking at 
her. She was undeniably most beautiful. Her features 
were not so regularly perfect as Hypatia's, nor her 
stature so commanding ; but her face shone with a clear 
and joyful determination, and with a tender and modest 
thoughtfulness, such as he had never beheld before 
united in one countenance ; and as she stepped along, 
firmly and lightly, by her father's side, looping up her 
scattered tresses as she went, laughing at the struggles 
of her noisy burden, and looking up with raptiu-e at her 
father's gradually brightening face, Raphael could not 
help stealing glance after glance, and was surprised to 
find them returned with a bright, honest, smiUng gratitude 
which met him full-eyed, as free from prudery as it was 
from coquetry. ..." A lady she is," said he to himself ; 
*' but evidently no city one. There is nature — or some- 
thing else, there, pure and unadulterated, without any of 
man's additions or beautifications." And as he looked, 


HYPATIA. 191 

he began to feel it a pleasure such as his weary heart had 
not known for many a year, simply to watch her. , . . 

" Positively there is a fooHsh enjoyment after all in 
making other fleas smile. . . Ass that I am ! As if I 
had not drunk all that ditch-water cup to the dregs years 
ago ! " 

They went on for some time in silence, till the officer, 
turning to him, — 

*' And may I ask you, my quaint preserver, whom I 
would have thanked before but for this fooHsh faintness, 
which is now going off, what and who you are ? " 

** A flea, sir — a flea — ^nothing more." 

" But a patrician flea, surely, to judge by your language 
and manners ? " 

'* Not that exactly. True, I have been rich, as the 
saying is ; I may be rich again, they tell me, when I am 
fool enough to choose." 

'* Oh, it we were but rich ! " sighed the girl. 

" You would be very unhappy, my dear yoimg lady. 
Believe a flea who has tried the experiment thoroughly." 

** Ah ! but we could ransom my brother ! And now 
we can find no money till we get back to Africa." 

'* And none then," said the officer, in a low voice. 
** You forget, my poor child, that I mortgaged the whole 
estate to raise my legion. We must not shrink from 
looking at things as they are." 

" Ah ! and he is prisoner ! he will be sold for a slave — 
perhaps — ah ! perhaps crucified, for he is not a Roman I 
Oh, he will be crucified ! " and she burst into an agony 
of weeping. . . . Suddenly she dashed away her tears 
and looked up clear and bright once more. "No I for- 
gave me, father ! God will protect His own ! " 

" My dear young lady," said Raphael, " if you really 
dislike such a prospect for your brother, and are in want 
of a few dirty coins wherewith to prevent it, perhaps I 
may be able to find you them in Ostia." 

She looked at him incredulously, as her eye glanced 
x>ver his rags, and then, blushing, begged his pardon for 
her imspoken thoughts. 

** Well, as you choose to suppose. But my dog has 


192 HYP ATI A. 

been so civil to you already, that perhaps she may have 
no objection to make you a present of that necklace of 
hers. I will go to the Rabbis, and we will make all right ; 
so don't cry. I hate crying ; and the puppies are quite 
chorus enough for the present tragedy." 

" The Rabbis ? Are you a Jew ? '' asked the officer. 

" Yes, sir, a Jew. And you, I presume, a Christian : 
perhaps you may have scruples about receiving — ^your 
sect has generally none about taking — from one of our 
stubborn and unbelieving race. Don't be frightened, 
though, for your conscience ; I assure you I am no more 
a Jew at heart than I am a Christian." 

" God help you then ! " 

*' Some one, or something, has helped me a great deal 
too much, for three-and-thirty years of pampering. But, 
pardon me, that was a strange speech for a Christian." 

** You must be a good Jew, sir, before you can be a good 
Christian." 

" Possibly. I intend to be neither — ^nor a good pagan 
either. My dear sir, let us drop the subject. It is beyond 
me. If I can be as good a brute animal as my dog there 
— it being first demonstrated that it is good to be good — 
I shall be very well content." 

The officer looked down on him with a stately, loving 
sorrow. Raphael caught his eye, and fdt that he was in 
the presence of no common man. 

" I must take care what I say here, I suspect, or I shall 
be entangled shortly in a regular Socratic dialc^e. . . 
And now, sir, may I return your question, and ask who 
and what are you ? I really have no intention of giving 
you up to any Caesar, Antiochus, Tiglath-Pileser, or other 
flea-devouring flea. . . . They will fatten well enough 
without yoinr blood. So I only ask as a student of the 
great nothing-in-general, which men call the imiverse." 

" I was prefect of a legion this morning. What I am 
now, you know as well as I." 

" Just what I do not. I am in deep wonder at seeing 
your hilarity, when, by all flea-analogies, you ought to 
be either behowling your fate Hke Achilles on the shores 
of Styx, or pretending to grin and bear it, as I was 


HYPATIA. 193 

taught to do when I played at Stoicism. You are not 
of that sect certainly, for you confessed yourself a fool 
just now." 

'* And it would be long, would it not, before you made 
one of them do as much } Well, be it so. A fool I am ; 
yet, if God helps us as far as Ostia, why should I not be 
cheerful ? '' 

*' Why should you ? " 

" What better thing can happen to a fool than that 
God should teach him that he is one, when he fancied 
himself the wisest of the wise ? Listen to me, sir. Four 
months ago I was blessed with health, honour, lands, 
friends — all for which the heart of man could wish. And 
if, for an insane ambition, I have chosen to risk all those, 
against the solemn warnings of the truest friend and 
the wisest saint who treads this earth of God's — should 
I not rejoice to have it proved to me, even by such a 
lesson as this, that the friend who never deceived me 
before was right in this case too ; and that the God 
who has checked and turned me for forty years of wild 
toil and warfare, whenever I dared to do what was right 
in the sight of my own eyes, has not forgotten me yet, 
or given up the thankless task of my education ? " 

** And who, pray, is this peerless friend ? " 

'* Augustine of Hippo.'' 

" Humph ! It had been better for the world in 
general if the great dialectician had exerted his powers 
of persuasion on HeracHan himself." 

'* He did so, but in vain." 

" I don't doubt it. I know the sleek Count well 
enough to judge what effect a sermon would have upon 
that smooth vulpine determination of his. . , . An 
instrument in the hands of God, my dear brother, . . . 
We must obey His call, even to the death,' etc. etc." 
And Raphael laughed bitterly. 

'* You know the Count ? " 

" As well, sir, as I care to know any man." 

'* I am sorry for your eyesight, then, sir," said the 
prefect severely, " if it has been able to discern no more 
than that in so august a character." 


194 HYP ATI A. 

" My dear sir, I do not doubt his excellence — ^nay, his 
inspiration. How well he divined the perfectly fit 
moment for stabbing his old comrade Stihcho ! But 
really, as two men of the world, we must be aware by 
this time that every man has his price/' . . . 

" Oh, hush I hush 1 " whispered the girl. " You can- 
not guess how you pain him. He worships the Count. 
It was not ambition, as he pretends, but merely loyalty 
to him, which brought him here against his will." 

" My dear madam, forgive me. For your sake I am 
silent." . . . 

" For her sake ! A pretty speech for me ! What 
next ? " said he to himself. " Ah, Bran, Bran, this is 
all your fault ! " 

" For my sake ! Oh, why not for your own sake ? 
How sad to hear one — one hke you, only sneering and 
speaking evil ! " 

" Why then ? If fools are fools, and one can safely 
call them so, why not do it ? " 

" Ah, if God was merciful enough to send down His 
own Son to die for them, should we not be merciful 
enough not to judge their faihngs harshly ! " 

" My dear yoimg lady, spare a worn-out philosopher 
any new anthropologic theories. We really must push 
on a Uttle faster, if we intend to reach Ostia to-night." 

But, for some reason or other, Raphael sneered no 
more for a full half-hour. 

Long, however, ere they reached Ostia the night had 
fallen, and their situation began to be more than 
questionably safe. Now and then a wolf, sHnking across 
the road towards his ghastly feast, glided hke a lank 
ghost out of the darkness, and into it again, answering 
Bran's growl by a gleam of his white teeth. Then the 
voices of some marauding party rang coarse and loud 
through the still night, and made them hesitate and 
stop awhile. And at last, worst of all, the measured 
tramp of an imperial column began to roll Hke distant 
thunder along the plain below. They were advancing 
upon Ostia ! What if they arrived there before the 
routed army could rally, and defend themselves long 


HYPATIA. 195 

enough to re-embark ! . . . What if — a thousand ugly 
possibilities began to crowd up. 

" Suppose we found the gates of Ostia shut, and the 
ImperiaHsts bivouacked outside ? " said Raphael half to 
himself. 

" God would protect His own," answered the girl ; 
and Raphael had no heart to rob her of her hope, though 
he looked upon their chances of escape as growing smaller 
and smaller every moment. The poor girl was weary ; 
the mule weary also ; and as they crawled along, at a 
pace which made it certain that the fast-passing column 
would be at Ostia an hour before them, to join the van- 
guard of the pursuers, and aid them in investing the 
town, she had to lean again and again on Raphael's 
arm. Her shoes, imfitted for so rough a journey, had 
been long since torn off, and her tender feet were mark- 
ing every step with blood. Raphael knew it by her 
faltering gait; and remarked, too, that neither sigh 
nor murmur passed her Ups. But as for helping her, 
he could not ; and began to curse the fancy which had 
led him to eschew even sandals as imworfhy the self- 
dependence of a Cynic. 

And so they crawled along, while Raphael and the 
prefect, each guessing the terrible thoughts of the other, 
were thankful for the darkness which hid their despair- 
ing countenances from the yoimg girl ; she, on the other 
hand, chatting cheerfully, almost laughingly, to her silent 
father. 

At last the poor girl stepped on some stone more sharp 
than usual, and, with a sudden writhe and shriek, sank 
to the groimd. Raphael Ufted her up, and she tried to 
proceed, but sank down again. . . . What was to be 
done ? 

" I expected this," said the prefect, in a slow, stately 
voice. Hear me, sir ! Jew, Christian, or philosopher, 
God seems to have bestowed on you a heart which I can 
trust. To your care I commit tiiis girl — your property, 
like me, by right of war. Moimt her upon this mule. 
Hasten with her — ^where you will — for God will be there 
also. And may He so deal with you as you deal with her 

7 


196 HYPATIA. 

henceforth. An old and disgraced soldier can do no 
more than die." 

And he made aa effort to dismount ; but fainting 
from his wounds, sank upon the neck of the muk. 
Raphael and his daughter caught him in their arms. 

"Father! Father! Impossible! Cruel! Oh— do 
you think that I would have followed you hither from 
Africa, against your own entreaties, to desert you now ? " 

" My daughter, I command ! " 

The girl remained firm and Bilent. 

" How long have you learned to disobey me ? Lift 
the old disgraced man down, «ir, and leave him to die 
in the right place — on the battlefield where his general 
set him/^ 

The girl sank down on the road in an agony of weep- 
ing. " I must help myself, I see,'' said her fatha:, 
dropping to the ^ound. "Authority vanishes before 
old age ajod humiliation. Victoria ! has your father 
no sins U> answer for already, that you will send him 
before his God with your blood too upon his head ? " 

Still the ^rl sat weeping on the ground ; while Raphael, 
utterly at his wits' end, tried hard to persuade himself 
that it was no concern of his. 

" I am at the service of either or of both, for life or 
death; only be so good as to settle it quickly. . . . 
Hell ! here it is settled for us, with a vengeance ! " 

And as he spoke, the tramp and jingle of horsemen 
rang along the lane, approaching rapidly. 

In an instant Victoria had sprung to her feet^— weak- 
ness and pain had vanished. 

" There is one chance — one chance for him ! Lift Mm 
over the bank, sir ! Lift him over, while I run forward 
and meet them. My death will delay them long enough 
for you to save him ! " 

" Death ? " cried Raphad, seizing her by the arm. 
" If that were all " 

" God will protect His own," answered she calmly, 
laying her finger on her lips ; and then breaking from 
his grasp in the strength of her .heroism, vanished into 
the night. 


HYPATIA. 197 

Her father tried to foflow her, but fell on his face, 
groaning-. Raphael Hfted him,, strove to drag him up 
the steep bank ; but his knees knocked together — b. 
faint sweat seemed to midt every hmb.. . .. .. There was 

a pause, which seemed ages long Nearer and nearer 

came the trampling. .... A sudden glieam. of the moon 
nevealed Victoria standing with, outspread arms, right 
before the horses* heads, A heavenly ^ory: seemed to 
batiie her from head to foot ... or was it tears spark- 
Hng in his own. eyes ? . ► . Then the grate and jar of 
the horse-hoofs on the road, as they pulled, up suddenly. 
... He tinned: his- face away and shut his eyes* . ,. , 

" What are you ? '' thundered a voice; 

" Victoria, the daughter of Majoricus the prefect." 

The voice was low, but yet so clear and calm that 
every syllable rang through Aben-Effl:a*s tingling ears. . . . 

A shout — a shriek — tiie confused murmur of many 
voices. ... He looked i^, in spite of himself: a. horse- 
man had sprung to the ground, and clasped Victoria in 
his arms. The human heart, of flesh, adeep to many a 
year, leaped into mad Hfe within his breast,^ and draw- 
ing his dagger he rushed into the throng. 

"Villains! Hell-hounds l, I will balk youL She 
shall die first ! " 

And ihe bright blade gleamed over Victoria's head. 
... He was struck down — blinded — halfrstunned — but 
rose again with the energy of maxiness. ... What was 
this ? Soft arms around him. . . . Victoria's ! 

"Save him I spare him L He saved us I Sir! it is 
my brother I We are safe! Gh, spare the dog! It 
saved my father ! " 

"We have mistaken each other, indeed, sir!" said 
a gay young tribune, in a voice trembling with joy. 
*' Where is my father ? " 

" Fifty yards behind. Down, Bran ! Quiet! O Solo- 
mon, mine ancestor, whv did you not prevent me making 
such an egregious fool of myself ? Why, I shall be 
forced, in self-justification, to carry through. Ihe farce ! " 

Thare is no use telling what foUowed during the next 
five minutes, at the end of which time Raphael foimd him- 


198 HYP ATI A. 

self astride of a goodly war-horse, by the side of the 
young tribune, who carried Victoria before him. Two 
soldiers in the meantime were supporting the prefect on 
his mule, and convincing that stubborn bearer of burdens 
that it was not quite so unable to trot as it had fancied, 
by the combined arguments of a drench of wine and 
two sword-points, while they heaped their general with 
blessings, and kissed his hands and feet. 

" Your father's soldiers seem to consider themselves 
m debt to him — not, surely, for taking them where they 
could best run away ? '' 

" Ah, poor fellows ! " said the tribune ; " we have had 
as real a panic among us as I ever read of in Arrian or Poly- 
bius. But he has been a father rather than a general to 
them. It is not often that, out of a routed army, twenty 
gallant men will volunteer to ride back into the enemy's 
ranks, on the chance of an old man's breathing still." 

" Then you knew where to find us ? " said Victoria. 

" Some of them knew. And he himself showed us this 
very by-road yesterday, when we took up our groimd, 
and told us it might be of service on occasion ; and so 
it has been." 

" But they told me that you were taken prisoner. 
Oh, the torture I have suffered for you ! " 

" Silly child ! Did you fancy my father's son would 
be taken aUve ? I and the first troop got away over 
the garden walls, and cut our way out into the plain, 
three hours ago." 

" Did I not tell you," said Victoria, leaning towards 
Raphael, '* that God would protect His own ? " 

" You did," answered he ; and fell into a long and 
silent meditation. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE ROCKS OF THE SIRENS. 

These four months had been busy and eventful enough 
to Hypatia and to Philammon ; yet the events and the 
business were of so gradual and uniform a tenor, that it 


IIYPATIA. 199 

is as well to pass quickly over them, and show what 
had happened principally by its effects. 

The robust and fiery desert-lad was now metamor- 
phosed into the pale and thoughtful student, oppressed 
with the weight of careful thought and weary memory. 
But those remembrances were all recent ones. With his 
entrance into Hypatia's lecture-room, and into the fairy 
realms of Greek thought, a new life had begun for him ; 
and the Laura, and Pambo, and Arsenius seemed dim 
phantoms from some antenatal existence, which faded day 
by day before the inrush of new and startUng knowledge. 

But though the friends and scenes of his childhood 
had faDen back so swiftly into the far horizon, he was 
not lonely. His heart found a lovelier if not a healthier 
home than it had ever known before. For during those 
four peaceful and busy months of study there had sprung 
up between Hypatia and the beautiful boy one of those 
pure and yet passionate friendships — call them rather, 
with St. Augustine, by the sacred name of love — ^which, 
fair and holy as they are when they Unk youth to youth, 
or girl to girl, reach their full perfection only between 
man and woman. The imselfish adoration with which 
a maiden may bow down before some strong and holy 
priest, or with which an enthusiastic boy may cUng to 
the wise and tender matron, who, amid the turmoil of 
the world, and the pride of beauty, and the cares of 
wifehood, bends down to him with counsel and encour- 
agement — earth knows no fairer bonds than these, save 
wedded love itself. And that second relation, motherly 
rather than sisterly, had bound Philammon with a golden 
chain to the wondrous maid of Alexandria. 

From the commencement of his attendance in her 
lecture-room she had suited her discourses to what she 
fancied were his especial spiritual needs ; and many a 
glance of the eye towards him, on any peculiarly im- 
portant sentence, set the poor boy*s heart beating at 
that sign that the words were meant for him. But 
before a month was past, won by the intense attention 
with which he watched for every utterance of hers, she 
had persuaded her father to give him a place in the 


200 HYPATIA. 

library as one of his pupils, among the youths who wece 
employed there daily in transcrihmg, as well as in study- 
ing, the authors then in fashion. 

She saw him at first hut seldom— rmore seldom than 
she would iiave wished ; but she dreaded the rtongue 
of scandal, heathen as well as Christian, and contented 
herself with inquiring daily from .her father about the 
progress of the boy. And wlien at times she entered 
for a moment the hbrary, where he sat writing, or p>a3sed 
him on her way to the Museum^ a look was interchanged, 
on her part of most gracious approval, and on his of 
adoring gratitude, whidi was enough for both. Her q>ell 
was working surely ; and she was ±00 confident in her 
own cause and her own powers to wish to hurry that 
transformation for which she so fondly hoped. 

" He must begin at the beginning,*' thought she to 
herself. " Mathematics and the Parmenides are enough 
for him as yet. Without a training in the Uheral sciences 
he cannot gain a faith worthy ^of those gods to whom 
some day I shall present him ; and I should find his Chris- 
tian ignorance and fanaticism transferred, whole and rude, 
to the service of those gods whose shrine is unapproach- 
able save to the spiritiial man, who has passed th^o^gh 
tiie successive vestibules of science and philosophy." 

But soon, attracted herself, as much as wishing to 
attract him, she ^employed him in copying jnanuscripts 
for her own use. She sent back his themes and deda- 
mations, corrected with her own hand.; and PMammon 
laid them by in his Httle garret at Eudaimon's house as 
precious badges of honour, after exhibiting them to the 
reverential and envious gage of the Httle porter. So lie 
toiled on, early and late, counting himself well paid for 
a week's intense -exertion by a single smile or word of 
approbation, and went home to pour out his soul to 
his host on the one inexhaustible theme which they had 
in comcmon — Hypatia and her perfections. He would 
have raved often enough on the same subject to his 
fellow-pupils.; but he shrank not only from their artificial 
city maimers, but also from their morahty, for suspect- 
bg which he saw but too good cause. He longed to go 


HYPATIA. 20I 

out into the streets, to proclaim to the whole world the 
treasnre which he had found, and call on all to come 
and share it with him* For there was no jealousy in 
that pure love of hi». Gould he have seen her lavishing 
on thousands far greater favours than she had conferred 
on him, he would have rejoiced in the thought that 
there were so many more blest beings upon earth, and 
have loved them ail and every one as brothers for having 
deserved her notice. H<er very beauty, when his first 
flush of wonder was pajst^ he ceased to mention — ceased 
even to think of it. Of course she must be beautiful. 
It vras her right— tlte natural complement of her other 
graces ; but it was to- him! only what the mother's smile 
is to the infant, the s«mlight to the skylark, the moun- 
tain breeze to the hunter^— an inspiring element, on 
which he fed unconsciously: Or%7 when he doubted for 
a moment some especially starthng or fancifui- assertion 
did he become really aware? c^ the great loveliness of her 
who m^adie it; and then hiia^ heart silenced his judgment 
with the tbor^ht — Could any but true words come out 
of those perfect lips^?— any but royal thoughts take 
shape within that queenly heaxi ? ^ , • Pbor fool ! Yet 
was it not natural enough ? 

Then, gradually, a®> sIms passed: the- boy, poring over 
his book, in somie alcove of the Museum gardiems, she 
would invite him by a glance to join the knot of loungers 
and questioners who (Angled about her and her father, 
and faaicied themselves to be reproducing the days of 
the Athenian sages- amid the groves of another Academusv 
Sometimes, even^ she had beckoned him to her side as 
she sat in some retired srh&ar; attended only by her 
father ; and there some passing observation, earnest and 
personal; however lofty and measured, made- hina aware; 
as it was intendied to do, that she* had a deeper interest 
in him, a Hveiier sympathy for him, than for the many— 
that he was in her eyes not merely a pupil, to be in- 
structed, but a soul whoMi ^e desired to educate. And 
those delicious gleams- o£ sunlight grew* more freqt^nt 
and more protracted ; for by each she satisfied herself 
more and more that she had not mistaken cither his 


202 HYPATIA. 

powers or his susceptibilities ; and in each, whether in 
public or in private, Philammon seemed to bear himself 
more worthily. For over and above the natural ease 
and dignity which accompanies physical beauty, and 
the modesty, self-restraint, and deep earnestness which 
he had acquired under the discipline of the Laura, his 
Greek character was developing itself in all its quick- 
ness, subtlety, and versatility, until he seemed to H5^atia 
some young Titan, by the side of the flippant, hasty, 
and insincere talkers who made up her chosen circle. 

But man can no more live upon Platonic love than 
on the more proHfic species of that common ailment; 
and for the first month Philammon would have gone 
hungry to his couch full many a night, to He awake from 
baser causes than philosophic meditation, had it not been 
for his magnanimous host, who never lost heart for a 
moment, either about himself, or any other human being. 
As for Philammon's going out with him to earn his 
bread, he would not hear of it. Did he suppose that 
he could meet any of those monkish rascals in the street 
without being knocked down and carried off by main 
force ? And besides there was a sort of impiety in 
allowing so hopeful a student to neglect the " Divine 
Ineffable " in order to supply the base necessities of 
the teeth. So he should pay no rent for his lodgings — 
positively none ; and as for eatables — ^why, he must 
himself work a Httle harder in order to cater for both. 
Had not all his neighbours their Utters of children to 
provide for, while he, thanks to the immortals, had been 
far too wise to burden the earth with animals who would 
add to the ugliness of their father the Tartarean hue of 
their mother ? And after all, Philammon could pay him 
back when he became a great sophist, and made money, 
as, of course, he would some day or other ; and in the 
meantime something might turn up— things were always 
turning up for those whom the gods favoured ; and 
besides, he had fully ascertained that on the day on 
which he first met Philammon, the planets were favour- 
able, the Mercury being in something or other, he forgot 
what, with Hehos, which portended for Philammon, in 


HYPATIA. 203 

his opinion, a similar career with that of the glorious 
and devout Emperor Julian. 

Philammon winced somewhat at the hint, which 
seemed to have an ugly verisimiUtude in it ; but still, 
philosophy he must leam, and bread he must eat, so 
he submitted. 

But one evening, a few days after he had been ad- 
mitted as Theon's pupil, he found, much to his astonish- 
ment, lying on the table in his garret, an undeniable 
guttering gold piece. He took it down to the porter 
the next morning, and begged him to discover the owner 
of the lost coin, and return it duly. But what was his 
surprise when the little man, amid endless capers and 
gesticulations, informed him with an air of mystery that 
it was anything but lost, that his arrears of rent had 
been paid for him, and that, by the boimty of the upper 
powers, a fresh piece of coin would be forthcoming every 
month ! In vain Philammon demanded to know who 
was his benefactor. Eudaimon resolutely kept the secret, 
and imprecated a whole Tartarus of unnecessary curses 
on his wife if she allowed her female garrulity — ^though 
the poor creature seemed never to open her lips from 
morning till night — to betray so great a mystery. 

Who was the imknown friend ? There was but one 
person who could have done it. . . . And yet he dared 
not — the thought was too dehghtful — think it was she. 
It must have been her father. The old man had asked 
him more than once about the state of his purse. True, 
he had always returned evasive answers ; but the kind 
old man must have divined the truth. Ought he not — 
must he not — go and thank him ? No ; perhaps it was 
more courteous to say nothing. If he — she — for, of 
course, she had permitted, perhaps advised, the gift — 
had intended him to thank them, would they have so 
carefully concealed their own generosity ? ... Be it 
so, then. But how would he not repay them for it ! 
How delightful to be in her debt for anything — for 
everything ! Would that he could have the enjoyment 
of owing her existence itself ! 

So he took the coin, bought unto himself a cloak of 

70 


204 HYPATIA. 

the most philosophic fashion, and went his way, such 

as it was, rejoicing. 

But his faith in Christianity ? What had become of 
that? 

What usually happens in such cases. It was not dead ; 
but nevertheless, it had fallen fast asleep for the time 
being. He did not disbeUeve it — ^he would have been 
shocked to hear such a thing asserted of him ; but he 
happened to be busy believing something else — geometry, 
conic sections, cosmogonies, psychologies, and what not. 
And so it befell that he had not just then time to beHeve 
in Christianity. He recollected at times its existence ; 
but even then he neither afi&rmed nor denied it. When 
he had solved the great questions — those which Hypatia 
set forth as the roots of all knowledge — ^how the world 
was made, and what was the origin of evil, and what 
his own personality was, and — that being settled — 
whether he had one, with a few other preliminary matters, 
then it would be time to return, with his enlarged light, 
to the study of Christianity ; and if, of course, Chris- 
tianity should be found to be at variance with that 
enlarged light, as Hypatia seemed to think . . . Why, 
then — What then ? ... He would not think about such 
disagreeable possibilities. Sufficient for the day was the 
evil thereof. Possibilities ? It was impossible. . . . 
Philosophy could not mislead. Had not Hypatia de- 
fined it as man*s search after the unseen ? And if he 
found the unseen by it, did it not come to just the same 
thing as if the unseen had revealed itself to him ? And 
he must find it — ^for logic and mathematics could not 
err. If every step was correct, the conclusion must be 
correct also ; so he must end, after all, in the right path 
— that is, of course, supposing Christianity to be the 
right path — and return to fight the Church's battles with 
the sword which he had wrested from Goliath the PhiUs- 
tine. , . • But he had not won the sword yet ; and in 
the meanwhile learning was weary work, and sufiicient 
for the day was the good, as well as the evil, thereof. 

So, enabled by his gold coin each month to devote 
himself entirely to study, he became very much what 


HYPATIA. 205 

Peter would have coarsely termed a heathen. At first, 
indeed, he slipped into the Christian churches from a 
habit of conscience. But habits soon grow sleepy ; the 
fear of discovery and recapture made his attendance 
more and more of a labour. And keeping himself apart 
as much as possible from the congregation as a lonely 
and secret worshipper, he soon foimd himself as separate 
from them in heart as in daily life. He felt that they, 
and even more than they, those flowery and bombastic ! 
pulpit rhetoricians who were paid for their sermons by ; 
the clapping and cheering of ttie congregation, were not ■ 
thinking of, longing after, the same things as himself. 
Besides, he never spoke to a Christian — ^for the negress 
at his lodgings seemed to avoid him, whether from 
modesty or terror he could not tell — and cut off thus 
from the outward " communion of saints," he found 
himself fast parting away from the inward one. So he 
went no more to church, and looked the other way, he 
hardly knew why, whenever he passed the Csesareum; 
and Cyril, and all his mighty organization, became to 
him another world, with which he had even less to do 
than with those planets over his head, whose mysterious 
movements, and S5miboHsms, and influences Hypatia's 
lectures on astronomy were just opening before his be- 
wildered imagination. 

Hj^atia watched all this with growing self-satisfaction, 
and fed herself with the dream that through Philammon 
she might see her wildest hopes reaUzed. After the 
manner of women, she crowned him, in her own imagina- 
tion, with all powers and excellences which she would 
have wished him to possess, as well as with those which 
he actually manifested, tHl Philammon would have been 
as much astonished as self-glorified could he have seen 
the idealized caricature of himself which the sweet en- 
thusiast had painted for her private enjoyment. They 
were blissful months those to poor Hypatia. Orestes, 
fcMT some reason or other, had neglected to urge his suit, 
and the Iphigenia-sacrifice had retired mercifully into 
the background. Perhaps she should be able now to 
accomphsh all without it. And yet — ^it was so long to 


206 HYPATIA. 

wait ! Years might pass before Philammon's education 
was matured, and with them golden opportunities which 
might never recur again. 

*' Ah ! '* she sighed at times, '* that Julian had Hved 
a generation later — that I coiild have brought all my 
hard-earned treasures to the feet of the poet of the sun, 
and cried, ' Take me ! — hero, warrior, statesman, sage, 
priest of the god of light ! Take thy slave ! Command 
her — send her — to martyrdom, if thou wilt ! ' A pretty 
price would that have been wherewith to buy the honour 
of being the meanest of thy apostles, the fellow-labourer 
of lamblichus, Maximus, Libanius, and the choir of sages 
who upheld the throne of the last true Caesar 1 " 


CHAPTER XV. 

NEPHELOCOCCUGIA. 

Hypatia had always avoided carefully discussing with 
Philammon any of those points on which she differed 
from his former faith. She was content to let the divine 
light of philosophy penetrate by its own power and educe 
its own conclusions. But one day, at the very time at 
which this history reopens, she was tempted to speak 
more openly to her pupil than she yet had done. Her 
father had introduced him, a few days before, to a new 
work of hers on mathematics ; and the delighted and 
adoring look with which the boy welcomed her, as he 
met her in the Museum gardens, pardonably tempted 
her curiosity to inquire what miracles her own wisdom 
might have already worked. She stopped in her walk, 
and motioned her father to begin a conversation with 
Philammon. 

" Well," asked the old man, with an encouraging 
smile, '* and how does our pupil like his new '* 

** You mean my conic sections, father ? It is hardly 
fair to expect an unbiassed answer in my presence." 

" Why so ? " said Philammon. " Why should I not 
tell you, as well as all the world, the fresh and wonderful 


HYPATIA. 207 

field of thought which they have opened to me in a few 
short hours ? " 

" What then ? " asked Hypatia, smiling, as if she 
knew what the answer would be. " In what does my 
commentary differ from the original text of ApoUonius, 
on which I have so faithfully based it ? " 

" Oh, as much as a living body differs from a dead 
one. Instead of mere dry disquisitions on the properties 
of lines and curves, I found a mine of poetry and theology. 
Every dull mathematical formula seemed transfigured, as 
if by a miracle, into the S5mibol of some deep and noble 
principle of the unseen world.*' 

" And do you think that he of Perga did not see as 
much ? or that we can pretend to surpass, in depth of 
insight, the sages of the elder world ? Be sure that they, 
like the poets, meant only spiritual things, even when they 
seem to talk only of physical ones, and concealed heaven 
under an earthly garb, only to hide it from the eyes of 
the. profane ; while we, in these degenerate days, must 
interpret and display each detail to the dull ears of men." 

" Do you think, my yoimg friend," asked Theon, 
" that mathematics can be valuable to the philosopher 
otherwise than as vehicles of spiritual truth ? Are we 
to study numbers merely that we may be able to keep 
accounts ; or as Pythagoras did, in order to deduce 
from their laws the ideas by which the universe, man, 
Divinity itself, consists ? " 

" That seems to me certainly to be the nobler purpose." 

" Or conic sections, that we may know better how to 
construct machinery ; or rather to devise from them 
symbols of the relations of Deity to its various emana- 
tions ? " 

'* You use your dialectic like Socrates himself, my 
father," said Hypatia. 

" If I do, it is only for a temporary purpose. I should 
be sorry to accustom Philammon to suppose that the 
essence of philosophy was to be found in those minute 
investigations of words and analyses of notions, which 
seem to constitute Plato's chief power in the eyes of 
those who, like the Christian sophist Augustine, worship 


208 HYPATIA. 

his ktter while they neglect his spirit ; not seeing that 
those dialogues, which they fancy the shrine itself, are 
but vestibules " 

*' Say rather veils, father." 

" Veils, indeed, which were intended to baffle the rude 
gaze of the carnal-minded ; but still vestibules, through 
which the enlightened soul might be led up to the inner 
sanctuary, to the Hesperid gardens and golden fruit of 
the Timaeiis and the oracles. ; ? ; And for m5rself, were 
but those two books left, I care not whether every other 
writing in the world perished to-morrow." * 

" You must except Homer, father." 

" Yes, for the herd. . : ; But of what use would he 
be to them without some spiritual commentary ? " 

" He would tell them as little, perhaps, as the circle 
tells to the carpenter who draws one with his com- 
passes." 

" And what is the meaning of the circle ? " asked 
Philammon. 

" It may have infinite meanings, like every other 
natural phenomenon, and deeper meanings in propor- 
tion to the exaltation of the soul which beholds it. But, 
consider, is it not, as the one perfect figure, the very 
symbol of the totality of the spiritual world ; which, 
Hke it, is invisible, except at its circumference, where 
it is limited by the dead, gross phenomena of sensuous 
matter ! And even as the circle takes its origin from 
one centre, itself unseen — a point, as EucUd defines it, 
whereof neither parts nor magnitude can be predicated 
— 4oes not the world of spirits revolve roimd one abysmal 
being, unseen and indefinable — ^in itself, as I have so 
often preached, nothing, for it is conceivable only by 
the negation of all properties, even of those of reason, 
virtue, force ; and yet, like the centre of the circle, the 
cause of all other existences ? " 

'* I see," said Philammon ; for the moment, certainly, 
the said abysmal Deity struck him as a somewhat chill 
and barren notion . ; ; but that might be caused only 

*This astounding speech Is usually attributed to Proclus, Hypatia's 
"great" successor. 


HYPATIA. 209 

by the dullness of his own spiritual perceptions. At all 
events, if it was a logical conclusion, it must be right. 

** Let that be enough for the present. Hereafter you 
may be — I fancy that I know you well enough to pro- 
phesy that you will be — able to recognize in the equi- 
lateral triangle inscribed within the circle, and touching 
it only with its angles, the three supra-sensual principles 
of existence, which are contained in Deity as it manifests 
itself in the physical universe, coinciding with its utmost 
limits, and yet, like it, dependent on that imseen central 
One which none dare name." 

" Ah ! " said poor Philammon, blushing scarlet at the 
sense of his own dullness, " I am, indeed, not worthy 
to have such wisdom wasted upon my imperfect appre- 
hension. . . . But, if I may dare to ask . . . does not 
Apollonius regard the circle, like all other curves, as 
not depending primarily on its own centre for its ex- 
istence, but as generated by the section of any cone b}^ 
a plane at right angles to its axis ? '* 

*' But must we not draw, or at least conceive a circle, 
in order to produce that cone ? And is not the axis of 
that cone determined by the centre of that circle ? " 

Philammon stood rebuked. 

'* Do not be ashamed ; you have only, unwittingly, 
laid open another and perhaps as deep a symbol. Can 
you guess what it is ? " 

Philammon puzzled in vain. 

" Does it not show you this ? — ^that, as every con- 
ceivable right section of the cone discloses the circle, so 
in all which is fair and symmetric you will discover 
Deity, if you but analyze it in a right and symmetric 
direction ? " 

" Beautiful ! " said Philammon, while the old man 
added, — 

** And does it not show us, too, how the one perfect 
and original philosophy may be discovered in all great 
writers, if we have but that scientific knowledge which 
will enable us to extract it ? " 

*' True, my father ; but just now I wish Philammon, 
by such thoughts as I have suggested, to rise to that 


2IO HYPATIA, 

higher and more spiritual insight into Nature, which 
reveals her to us as instinct throughout — all fair and 
noble forms of her at least — ^with Deity itself ; to make 
him feel that it is not enough to say, with the Christians, 
that God has made the world, if we make that very 
assertion an excuse for beUeving that His presence has 
been ever since withdrawn from it." 

" Christians, I think, would hardly say that," said 
Philammon. 

" Not in words. But, in fact, they regard Deity as 
the maker of a dead machine, which, once made, will 
move of itself thenceforth, and repudiate as heretics 
every philosophic thinker, whether Gnostic or Platonist, 
who, unsatisfied with so dead, barren, and sordid a con- 
ception of the glorious all, wishes to honour the Deity 
by acknowledging His universal presence, and to believe, 
honestly, the assertion of their own Scriptures, that He 
lives and moves and has His being in the imiverse." 

Philanmion gently suggested that the passage in ques- 
tion was worded somewhat differently in the Scripture. 

" True. But if the one be true, its converse will be 
true also. If the universe Hves and moves, and has its 
being in Him, must He not necessarily pervade all 
things ? " 

" Why ? Forgive my dullness, and explain." 

'* Because, if He did not pervade all things, those 
things which He did not pervade would be as it were 
interstices in His being, and, in so far, without Him." 

" True, but still they would be within His circum- 
ference." 

*' Well argued. But yet they would not live in Him, 
but in themselves. To live in Him they must be per- 
vaded by His life. Do you think it possible — do you 
think it even reverent — ^to affirm that there can be any- 
thing within the infinite glory of Deity which has the 
power of excluding from the space which it occupies 
that very being from which it draws its worth, and 
which must have originally pervaded that thing, in 
order to bestow on it its organization and its life ? Does 
He retire, after creating, from the spaces which He occu- 


HYP ATI A, 211 

pied during creation, reduced to the base necessity of 
making room for His own universe, and endure the 
suffering — ^for the analogy of all material nature tells 
us that it is suffering — of a foreign body, like a thorn 
within the flesh, subsisting within His own substance ? 
Rather beUeve that His wisdom and splendour, like a 
subtle and piercing fire, insinuates itself eternally with 
resistless force through every organized atom, and that 
were it withdrawn but for an instant from the netal of 
the meanest flower, gross matter, and the deaa chaos 
from which it was formed, would be all which would 
remain of its loveliness. . . . 

" Yes," she went on, after the method of her school, 
which preferred, like most decaying ones, harangues to 
dialectic, and synthesis to induction. . . . ** Look at 
yon lotus-flower, rising like Aphrodite from the wave 
in which it has slept throughout the night, and saluting, 
with bending swan-neck, that sun which it will follow 
lovingly aroimd the sky. Is there no more there than 
brute matter, pipes and fibres, colour and shape, and 
the meaningless life-in-death which men call vegetation ? 
Those old Egyptian priests knew better, who could see 
in the number and the form of those ivory petals and 
golden stamina, in that mysterious daily birth out of 
the wave, in that nightly baptism, from which it rises 
each morning reborn to a new life, the signs of some 
divine idea, some mysterious law, common to the flower 
itself, to the white-robed priestess who held it in the 
temple rites, and to the goddess to whom they both were 
consecrated. . . . The flower of Isis ! ... Ah ! — ^well. 
Nature has her sad symbols, as well as her fair ones. 
And in proportion as a misguided nation has forgotten 
the worship of her to whom they owed their greatness, 
for novel and barbaric superstitions, so has her sacred 
flower grown rarer and more rare, till now — ^fit emblem 
of the worship over which it used to shed its perfume — 
it is only to be found in gardens such as these — a curi- 
osity to the vulgar, and, to such as me, a lingering monu- 
ment of wisdom and of glory passed away." 

Philammon, it may be seen, was far advanced by this 


212 HYPATIA. 

time; for he bore the allusions to Isis without the 
slightest shudder. Nay, he dared even to ofier con- 
solation to the beautiful mourner. 

" The philosopher," he said, " will hardly lament the 
loss of a mere outward idolatry. For if, as you seem 
to think, there was a root of spiritual truth in the 
symbolism of nature, that cannot die. And thus the 
lotus-flower must still retain its meaning, as long as its 
species exists on earth." 

" Idolatry ! " answered she, with a smile. " My pupil 
must not repeat to me that worn-out Christian calumny. 
Into whatsoever low superstitions the pious vulgar may 
have fallen, it is the Christians now, and not the heathens, 
who are idolaters. They who ascribe miraculous power 
to dead men's bones, who make temples of charnel- 
houses, and bow before the images of the meanest of 
mankind, have surely no right to accuse of idolatry 
the Greek or the Egyptian, who embodies in a form of 
S5miboHc beauty ideas beyond the reach of words ! 

*' Idolatry ? Do I worship the Pharos when I gaze 
at it, as I do for hours, with loving awe, as the token 
to me of the all-conquering might of Hellas ? Do I 
worship the roll on which Homer's words are written, 
when I welcome with delight the celestial truths which 
it unfolds to me, and even prize and love the material 
book for the sake of the message which it brings ? Do 
you fancy that any but the vulgar worship the image 
itself, or dream that it can help or hear them ? Does 
the lover mistake his mistress's picture for the living, 
speaking reality ? We worship the idea of which the 
image is the symbol. Will you blame us because we 
use that symbol to represent the idea to our own affec- 
tions and emotions instead of leaving it a barren notion, 
a vague imagination of our own intellect ? " 

" Then," asked Philammon, with a faltering voice, 
yet unable to restrain his curiosity, " then you do rever- 
ence the heathen gods ? " 

Why Hypatia should have felt this question a sore 
one puzzled Philammon ; but she evidently did feel it 
as such, for she answered haughtily enough,— 


HYPATIA. 213 

" If Cyril had asked me that question, I should have 
disdained to answer. To you I will tell, that before I 
can answer your question you must learn what those 
whom you call heathen gods are. The vulgar, or rather 
those who find it their interest to calumniate the vulgar 
for the sake of confounding philosophers with them, 
may fancy them mere human beings, subject like man 
to the sufferings of pain and love, to the limitations of 
personahty. We, on the other hand, have been taught 
by the primeval philosophers of Greece, by the priests 
of ancient Egypt and the sages of Babylon, to recognize 
in them the universal powers of nature, those children 
of the all-quickening spirit, which are but various ema- 
nations of the one primeval unity — ^say rather, various \ 
phases of that unity, as it has been variously conceived 
according to the differences of climate and race, by the 
wise of different nations. And thus, in our eyes, he 
who reverences the many, worships by that very act, 
with the highest and fullest adoration, the one of whose 
perfection they are the partial antitypes — ^perfect each 
in themselves, but each the image of only one of its 
perfections." 

" Why, then," said Philammon, much relieved by 
this explanation, ** do you so dislike Christianity ? May 
it not be one of the many methods " 

'* Because," she answered, interrupting him impatiently, 
*' because it denies itself to be one of those many methods, 
and stakes its existence on the denial ; because it arro- 
gates to itself the exclusive revelation of the Divine, and 
cannot see, in its self-conceit, that its own doctrines dis- 
prove that assumption by their similarity to those of 
all creeds. There is not a dogma of the Galileans which 
may not be found, under some form or other, in some 
of those very reHgions from which it pretends to disdain 
borrowing." 

*' Except," said Theon, " its exaltation of all which is 
human and low-bom, illiterate, and levelling." 

" Except that But look ! here comes some one 

whom I cannot — do not choose to meet. Turn this way 
— quick I " 


214 HYPATIA. 

And Hypatia, turning pale as death, drew her father 
with unphilosophic haste down a side-walk. 

'' Yes," she went on to herself, as soon as she had 
recovered her equanimity. " Were this Galilean super- 
stition content to take its place humbly among the other 
'religiones licitas' of the empire, one might tolerate it 
well enough, as an anthropomorphic adumbration of 
divine things fitted for the base and toiling herd — 
perhaps peculiarly fitted, because peculiarly flattering 
to them. But now " 

" There is Miriam again," said Philammon, '* right 
before us ! " 

" Miriam ? " asked Hypatia severely. " You know 
her then ? How is that ? " 

" She lodges at Eudaimon's house, as I do," answered 
Philammon frankly. *' Not that I ever interchanged, 
or wish to interchange, a word with so base a creature.'* 

" Do not ! I charge you I " said Hypatia, almost im- 
ploringly. But there was now no way of avoiding her, 
and perforce Hj^atia and her tormentress met face to face. 

'* One word ! one moment, beautiful lady," began the 
old woman, with a slavish obeisance. " Nay, do not 
push by so cruelly. I have — see what I have for you ! " 
and she held out with a mysterious air " The Rainbow 
of Solomon." 

" Ah ! I knew you would stop a moment — not for 
the ring's sake, of course, nor even for the sake of one 
who once offered it to you. — ^Ah ! and where is he now ? 
Dead of love, perhaps ! At least, here is his last token 
to the fairest one, the cruel one. . . . Well, perhaps she 
is right. ... To be an empress — an empress ! . . . Far 
finer than anything the poor Jew could have offered. 
. . . But still. . . . An empress need not be above hear- 
ing her subject's petition. . . ." 

All this was uttered rapidly, and in a wheedling under- 
tone, with a continual snaky writhing of her whole body, 
except her eye, which seemed, in the intense fixity of 
its glare, to act as a fulcrum for all her limbs ; and from 
that eye, as long as it kept its mysterious hold, there 
was no escp.ping. 


HYPATIA. 215 

*' What do you mean ? What have I to do with this 
ring ? " asked Hypatia, half frightened. 

'* He who owned it once, offers it to you now. You 
recollect a little black agate — a paltry thing. . : , If 
you have not thrown it away, as you most likely have, 
he wishes to redeem it with this opal ... a gem surely 
more fit for such a hand as that." 

" He gave me the agate, and I shall keep it." 

" But this opal — ^worth, oh, worth ten thousand gold 
pieces — ^in exchange for that paltry broken thing not 
worth one ? " 

" I am not a dealer, like you, and have not yet learned 
to value things by their money price. If that agate 
had been worth money, I would never have accepted it." 

" Take the ring, take it, my darling," whispered Theon 
impatiently ; '* it will pay all our debts." 

Ah, that it will — pay them all," answered the old 
woman, who seemed to have mysteriously overheard him. 

" What ! — my father ! Womd you too counsel me to 
be so mercenary ? — My good woman," she went on, turning 
to Miriam, " I cannot expect you to imderstand the rea- 
son of my refusal. You and I have a different standard 
of worth. But for the sake of the tahsman engraven on 
that agate, if for no other reason, I cannot give it up.^ 

" Ah ! for the sake of the talisman ! That is wise, 
now ! That is noble ! Like a philosopher ! Oh, I will 
not say a word more. Let the beautiful prophetess 
keep the agate, and take the opal too ; for see, there is 
a charm on it also ! — ^the name by which Solomon com- 
pelled the demons to do his bidding. Look ! What 
might you not do now if vou knew how to use that ! To 
have great glorious angels, with six wings each, bowing 
at your feet whensoever you called them, and saying, 
* Here am I, mistress ; send me.' Only look at it ! " 

Hypatia took the tempting bait, and examined it with 
more curiosity than she would have wished to confess ; 
while the old woman went on, — 

'* But the wise lady knows how to use the black agate, 
of course ? Aben-Ezra told her that, did he not ? " 

Hypatia blushed somewhat; she was ashamed to 


2l6 HYP ATI A. 

confess that Aben-Ezra had not revealed the secret to 
her, probably not believing that there was any, and that 
the talisman had been to her only a curious plaything, 
of which she liked to beheve one day that it might pos- 
sibly have some occult virtue, and the next day to laugh 
at the notion as unphilosophical and barbaric ; so she 
answered, rather severely, liiat her secrets were her own 
property. 

" Ah, then ! she knows it all — the fortunate lady ! 
And the talisman has told her whether Heraclian has 
lost or won Rome by this time, and whether she is to 
be the mother of a new dynasty of Ptolemies, or to die 
a virgin, which the Four Angels avert ! And surely she 
has had the great demon come to her already, when she 
rubbed the flat side, has she not ? " 

'' Go, foohsh woman ! I am not hke you, the dupe of 
childish superstitions." 

" Childish superstitions ! Ha ! ha I ha ! " said the 
old woman, as she turned to go, with obeisances more 
lowly than ever. " And she has not seen the Angels yet ! 
. ; . Ah well ! perhaps some day, when she wants to 
know how to use the tahsman, the beautiful lady will 
condescend to let the poor old Jewess show her the way." 

And Miriam disappeared down an alley, and plunged 
into the thickest shrubberies, while the three ckeamers 
went on their way. 

Little thought Hypatia that the moment the dd 
woman had found herself alone, she had dashed herself 
down on the turf, roUing and biting at the leaves like an 
infuriated wild beast. ..." I will have it yet I I will 
have it, if I tear out her heart with it I " 


CHAPTER XVI, 

VENUS AND PALLAS. 


As Hypatia was passing across to her lecture-room that 
afternoon, she was stopped midway by a procession of 
some twenty Goths and damsels, headed by Pelagia 


HYPATIA. 217 

herself, in all her glory of jewels, shawls, and snow-white 
mule ; while by her side rode the Amal, his long legs, 
like those of Gang-Rolf the Norseman, all but touching 
the ground, as he crushed down with his weight a delicate 
little barb, the best substitute to be found in Alexandria 
for the huge black chargers of his native land. 

On they came, followed by a wondering and admiring 
mob, straight to the door of the Museum, and stopping, 
began to dismount, while their slaves took charge of the 
mules and horses. 

There was no escape for Hypatia — ^pride forbade her 
to follow her own maidenly instinct, and to recoil among 
the crowd behind her ; and in another moment the Amal 
had lifted Pelagia from her mule, and the rival beauties 
of Alexandria stood, for the first time in their Hves, face 
to face. 

" May Athene befriend you this day, Hypatia," said 
Pelagia, with her sweetest smile. " I have brought my 
guards to hear somewhat of your wisdom this afternoon. 
I am anxious to know whether you can teach them any- 
thing more worth listening to than the foolish little 
songs which Aphrodite taught me, when she raised me 
from the sea-foam, as she rose herself, and named me 
Pelagia." 

Hypatia drew herself up to her stateUest height, and 
returned no answer. 

" I think my bodyguard will well bear comparison 
with yours. At least fiiey are princes and the descend- 
ants of deities. So it is but fitting that they should enter 
before your provincials. Will you show them the way ? " 

No answer. 

" Then I must do it myself. Come, Amal ! " and she 
swept up the steps, followed by the Goths, who put the 
Alexandrians aside right and left, as if they had been 
children. 

" Ah ! treacherous wanton that you axe I " cried a 
young man's voice out of the murmuring crowd. " After 
having plundered us of every coin out of which you could 
dupe us, here you are squsmdering our patrimonies on 
barbarians ! " 


21 8 HYPATIA. 

" Give us back our presents, Pelagia," cried another, 
" and you are welcome to your herd of wild bulls ! " 

" And I will ! " cried she, stopping suddenly ; and 
clutching at her chains and bracelets, she was on the 
point of dashing them among the astonished crowd — 

" There ! take your gifts ! Pelagia and her girls scom 
to be debtors to boys, while they are worshipped by men 
Hke these ! " 

But the Amal, who, luckily for the students, had not 
understood a word of this conversation, seized her arm, 
asking if she were mad. 

** No, no ! '* panted she, inarticulate with passion. 
" Give me gold — every coin you have. These wretches 
are twitting me with what they gave me before — ^before 
— O Amal, you understand me ? *' And she clung im- 
ploringly to his arm. 

" Oh ! Heroes ! each of you throw his purse among 
these fellows ! They say that we and our ladies are living 
on their spoils ! " And he tossed his purse among the 
crowd. 

In an instant every Goth had followed his example; 
more than one following it up by dashing a bracelet or 
necklace into the face of some hapless philosophaster. 

" I have no lady, my young friends," said old Wulf, in 
good enough Greek, **and owe you nothing; so I shall 
keep my money, as you might have kept yours — and as 
you might too, old Smid, if you had been as wise as I.** 
. '* Don't be stingy, prince, for the honour of the Goths," 
said Smid, laughing. 

**If I take in gold I pay in iron," answered Wulf, 
drawing half out of its sheath the huge broad blade, at 
the ominous brown stains on which the studentry re- 
coiled; and the whole party swept into the empty 
lecture-room, and seated themselves at their ease in the 
front ranks. 

Poor Hypatia ! At first she determined not to lecture 
— then to send for Orestes — then to call on her students 
to defend the sanctity of the Museum; but pride, as 
well as prudence, advised her better. To retreat would 
be to confess herself conquered — to disgi'ace philosophy 


HYPATIA. 219 

— to lose her hold on the minds of all waverers. No ! 
she would go on and brave everything, insults, even 
violence; and with trembhng limbs and a pale cheek, 
she moimted the tribune and began. 

To her surprise and deUght, however, her barbarian 
auditors were perfectly well behaved. Pelagia, in childish 
good-humour at her triumph, and perhaps, too, deter- 
mined to show her contempt for her adversary by giving 
her every chance, enforced silence and attention, and 
checked the tittering of the girls, for a full half-hour. 
But at the end of that time the heavy breathing of the 
slumbering Amal, who had been twice awoke by her, 
resounded unchecked through the lecture-room, and 
deepened into a snore ; for Pelagia herself was as fast 
asleep as he. But now another censor took upon himself 
the office of keeping order. Old Wulf , from the moment 
Hypatia had beg\m, had never taken his eyes off her 
face ; and again and again the maiden's weak heart had 
been cheered, as she saw the smile of sturdy intelligence 
and honest satisfaction which twinkled over that scarred 
and bristly visage ; while every now and then the gray- 
beard wagged approval, imtil she found herself, long 
before the end of the oration, addressing herself straight 
to her new admirer. 

At last it was over, and the students behind, who had 
sat meekly through it all, without the sHghtest wish to 
*' upset ** the intruders, who had so thoroughly upset 
them, rose hurriedly, glad enough to get safe out of so 
dangerous a neighbourhood. But to their astonishment, 
as well as to that of Hypatia, old Wulf rose also, and 
stumbhng along to the foot of the tribune, pulled out his 
purse, and laid it at Hypatia's feet. 

** What is this ? *' asked she, half terrified at the 
approach of a figure more rugged and barbaric than she 
had ever beheld before. 

'* My fee for what I have heard to-day. You are a 
right noble maiden, and may Freya send you a hus- 
band worthy of you, and make you the mother of 
kings ! " 

And Wulf retired with his party. 


220 h:v:patia. 

Open homage to her rival, before her very face! 
Pelagia felt quite inclined to hate old Wulf. 

But at least he was the only traitor. The rest of the 
Goths agreed unanimously that Hypatia was a very 
foolish person, who was wasting her youth and beauty 
in talking to donkey-riders; and Pelagia. remounted 
her mule, and the Goths their horses, for a triumphal 
procession homeward. 

And yet her heart was sad^. even in her triumph. 
Right and wrong were ideas as unknown to her as they 
were to hundreds of thousands in her day. As far as 
her own consciousness was concerned, ^le was as desti- 
tute of a soul as the mule on which she rode. Gifted 
by nature with boimdless frdic and good-humour, wit 
and cunning, her Greek taste for the physically beautiful 
and graceful developed by long training, until ^e had 
become, without a rivals the most perfect pantbmime, 
dancer, and musician who* catered foe the luxurious tastes 
of the Alexandrian theatres,, she had lived since her child- 
hood only for enjoyment and vanity^ and* wished km nothr 
ing more. But her new af6ection, or rather worship, 
for the huge manhood of ber Gothic lover had awoke in 
her a new object — to keep him? — ^to live for. him. — to 
follow him to the ends of the earth,, even if he tired of 
her, ill-used her, despised her.. Aiid slowly,, day by 
day, Wulf s sneers had awakened in her a diead that 
perhaps- the Amal might despise her, . .. . Why, she 
could not guess : but ^at: sort oi women were those 
Alrunas of whom Wulf sang; at whom even the Amal 
and his- men spoke with reverence,, as something nobler, 
not only than her, but even, tiian: themselves'? And 
what was it which Wulf had recognized ha Htypatia which 
had bowed the stern and coaise old warrior before her 
in that public homage ? .... It wa^ not difficult to say 
what. . . . But why should that make Hypatia or any one 
else attractive ? . ... And thef poor httle child of nature 
gazed in deep bewilderment at x crowd of new questions, 
as a butterfly might at ih& pa^ of the book on which it 
has settled, and was sad and discontented — not with her- 
self, for was she not Pelagia the p^ect ?^— but. with 


HYPATIA. 221 

these strange fancies ivhich came into other people's 
heads. Why should not every one be as happy as they 
coiild ? And who knew better than she how to be happy, 
and to make loilieis happy ? . . . 

" Look a± that old moiik standing on the pavement, 
Amalric! Why does he stare so at me? Tell him io 
go away." 

The parson jECt whom she pointed, a delicate-ifeatured 
old man, with a venerable ^^te beard, seemed to 'hear 
her ; ior he turned with a sudden start, and then, to 
Pelagia's astonishment, put his hands before his face, 
and burst convulsively into lears. 

""What does Ihe mean by ibdhaving in thaft way? 
Bring himJheic ix) ime this moment! il will know!*' 
cried she, petulantly catching ai the new object, in 
order to escape from her own ifiaou^ts. 

In .a .moment a Golh liad led up tiie weeper, who came 
without demur to the side of Peilagia's mule. 

*' Why were you so rude as to burst out crying m my 
face ? ** asked she petulantly. 

The old jnan looked iip sadly and tenderly, and an- 
swered in a low voice, :meant asSty for her ear, — 

** And how can 1 help weeping, when I see anything 
as beautiful as you are destined to the flames of hell for 
ever ? " 

'* The flames of hell! " said Pelagia, with a shudder. 
" What ior ? " 

" Do you .not know ? ** .asked ?the 'Old man, with a look 
of sad suqpadse. "jHave you -feoigotten what you are ? ** 

"I? I3ievfirlmrta:fly!" 

** Why do you look so tserrified, my darHng ?— What 
have you been sajdng to her, you old villain? " and the 
Amal raised his whip. 

" Dhi do not strike him. — Come, come io-morrow, 
and tell me wha± you mean." 

*' No, we will have no monks within oin: doors, frighten- 
ing silly women. — Off, sirrah ! and thank the lady that 
you have escaped with a whole skin." And the Amal 
caught the bridle of Pelagia's maale, and pushed iorward, 
leaving the old man gazing sadly after them. 


222 HYPATIA. 

But the beautiful sinner was evidently not the object 
which had brought the old monk of the desert into a 
neighbourhood so strange and ungenial to his habits; 
for, recovering himself in a few moments, he hurried on 
to the door of the Museum, and there planted himself, 
scanning earnestly the faces of the passers-out, and 
meeting, of course, with his due share of student ribaldry. 

" Well, old cat, and what mouse are you on the watch 
for, at the hole's mouth here ? " 

" Just come inside, and see whether the mice will not 
singe your whiskers for you. . . ." 

" Here is my mouse, gentlemen," answered the old 
monk, with a bow and a smile, as he laid his hand on 
Philammon's arm, and presented to his astonished eyes the 
delicate features and high retreating forehead of Arsenius. 

" My father I " cried the boy, in the first impulse of 
affectionate recognition ; and then — ^he had expected 
some such meeting all along, but now that it was come 
at last he turned pale as death. The students saw his 
emotion. 

" Hands off, old Heautontimoroumenos ! He belongs 
to our guild now! Monks have no more business with 
sons than with wives. Shall we hustle him for you, 
Philammon ? *' 

" Take care how you show off, gentlemen ; the Goths 
are not yet out of hearing ! " answered Philammon, who 
was learning fast how to give a smart answer ; and then, 
fearing the temper of the young dandies, and shrinking 
from the notion of any insult to one so reverend and so 
beloved as Arsenius, he drew the old man gently away, 
and walked up the street with him in silence, oreading 
what was coming. 

" And are these your friends ? " 

" Heaven forbid ! I have nothing in common with 
such animals but flesh and blood, and a seat in the lecture- 
room ! *' 

" Of the heathen woman ? '* 

Philammon, after the fashion of young men in fear, 
rushed desperately into the subject himself, just because 
he dreaded Arsenius's entering on it quietly. 


HYPATIA. 223 

" Yes, of the heathen woman. Of course you have 
seen Cyril before you came hither ? " 

'* I have, and '' 

" And," went on Philammon, interrupting him, " you 
have been told every he which prurience, stupidity, and 
revenge can invent : — that I have trampled on the cross 
— sacrificed to all the deities in the pantheon — and prob- 
ably" — and he blushed scarlet — "that that purest and 
hohest of beings — ^who, if she were not what people call a 
pagan, would be, and deserves to be, worshipped as the 
queen of saints — that she — and I '' and he stopped. 

" Have I said that I beheved what I may have heard ? " 

" No ; and therefore, as they are all simple and sheer 
falsehoods, there is no more to be said on the subject. 
Not that I shall not be dehghted to answer any question 
of yours, my dearest father " 

** Have I asked any, my child ? " 

** No ; so we may as well change the subject for the 
present." And he began overwhelming the old man 
with inquiries about himself, Pambo, and each and all 
of the inhabitants of the Laura ; to which Arsenius, to 
the boy's infinite rehef, answered cordially and minutely, 
and even vouchsafed a smile at some jest of Philammon's 
on the contrast between the monks of Nitria and those 
of Scetis. 

Arsenius was too wise not to see well enough what all 
this flippancy meant, and too wise, also, not to know 
that Philammon's version was probably quite as near 
the truth as Peter's and Cyril's ; but for reasons of his 
own, merely replied by an affectionate look, and a com- 
pliment to Philammon's growth. 

" And yet you seem thin and pale, my boy." 

" Study," said Philammon, " study. One cannot 
bum the midnight oil without paying some penalty for 
it. . . . However, I am richly repaid aheady ; I shall 
be more so hereafter." 

" Let us hope so. But who are those Goths whom I 
passed in the streets just now ? " 

" Ah ! my father," said Philammon, glad in his heart 
of any excuse to turn the conversation, and yet half 


224 HYPATIA. 

uneasy and suspicious at Arsenius^s evident determination 
to avoid the very object of his visit. " it must have 
been you, then, whom I saw stop and speak to Pelagia 
at the farther end of the street; What words could you 
possibly have had wherewith, to hcHiour such a creature ?" 

"God knows. Some secret sympathy touched ray 
heart.- . . . Alas I pooor child t But how came you. to 
know her ? " 

" All Alexandria knows* the shamdess abomination," 
interrupted a voice at their elbow — ^none otiier than that 
of the little porter, who had been dogging^ and watching 
the pair the whole way^ and could no Ibnger restrain his 
longing to meddle. "And wdl. had it been lor many a 
rich young man had old Miriam never brought her over, 
in an evil day, from Athens hithen" 

" Miriam ? " 

" Yes, monk ; a name not unknown, I am' tdd. in 
palaces as well as in slave^markete.*' 

" An evil-eyed old Jewess ? " 

"A Jewess she is,, as her name might have informed 
you ;: and as for her* eyes, I consider them, or used to 
do so, of course- — ^fbr her injured nation have been long 
expelled from Alexandria, hy youx* fanatic tribe — ^as 
altogetha: divine and demoniac, let the base imagina- 
tion of monks call them what it likes." 

" But how did you know this Pelagia, my son ? She 
is no fit company for such as you." 

Philammon told, honestly enough, the story of his 
Nile journey, and Feikgia's invitation ta him* 

** You did not surely accept it ? " 

" Heaven forbid that Hypatia's scholar should so 
degrade himself ! ** 

Arsenius shook his head sadly. 

** You would not have had me go ? ** 

*' No, boy. But how long hast thou' learned to call 
thyself Hypatia's scholar ? or to caU it a degradation to 
visit the most sinful, if liioa mightest thereby bring back 
a lost lamb to the Good Shepherd ? Nevertheless, thou 
art too young for such employment — and she meant to 
tempt thee doubtless." 


HVPATIA. 225 

" I do not think it. She iseemed struck by my talking 
Athenian Greek, and having come from Athens." 

" And how long since she came from Athens ? " said 
Arsenius, after a pause. " Who knows ? " 

" Just after it was sacked by the barbarians/' said the 
little porter, who, beginning to suspect a mystery, was 
peaking and peering like an excited parrot. " The old 
dame brought her hither among a cargo of captive boys 
and girls." 

" The time agrees. . . . Can this Miriam be found ? " 

" A sapient and coiurteous question for a monk to ask ! 
Do you not know that Cyril has expelled all Jews four 
naoirths ago ? ** 

*' True, true- . , . Alas ! " said the old man to himself, 
" Jiow little the rulers of this worid guess their own power ! 
They move a finger carelessly, and forget that that finger 
may crudi to death hundreds whose names they never 
heard— rand every soul of them as precious in God's sight 
as C3nil's own." 

'* What is the matter, my father 7 " asked Philammon. 
" You seem deeply moved about this woman. , . ." 

" And she is Miriam's slave ? " 

" Her freedwoman this four years past," said the porter. 
** The good lady — for reasons doubtless excellent in them- 
selves, though not altogether patent to the philosophic 
mind — thought good to turn her loose on the Alexan- 
driaji republic, to seek what she mi^rt devour." 

" God help her ! And you are certain that Miriam is 
not in Alexandria ? " 

The Httle porter turned very red, and Philammon 
did so likewise; but he remembered his promise, and 
kept it 

** You both know something of her, I can see. You 
cannot deceive an old statesman, sir ! " — turning to the 
little porter with a look of authority — "poor monk though 
he be now. If you think fitting to tell me what you know, 
I promise you that neither she nor you shall be losers 
by your confidence in me. If not, I shall find means to 
discover." 

Both stood silent. 


226 HYPATIA. 

" Philammon, my son ! and art thou too in league 
against — ^no, not against me ; against thyself, poor mis- 
guided boy ? ** 

" Against myself ? " 

*' Yes — I have said it. But unless you will trust me, 
I cannot trust you.*' 

" I have promised." 

" And I, sir statesman, or monk, or both, or neither, 
have sworn by the immortal gods ! " said the porter, 
looking very big. 

Arsenius paused. 

** There are those who hold that an oath by an idol, 
being nothing, is of itself void. I do not agree with 
them. If thou thinkest it sin to break thine oath, to 
thee it is sin. And for thee, my poor child, thy promise 
is sacred, were it made to Iscariot himself. But hear 
me. Can either of you, by asking this woman, be so 
far absolved as to give me speech of her ? Tell her — 
that is, if she be in Alexandria, which God grant — all 
that has passed between us here, and tell her, on the 
solemn oath of a Christian, that Arsenius, whose name 
she knows well, will neither injure nor betray her. Will 
you do this ? *' 

'* Arsenius ? *' said the little porter, with a look of 
mingled awe and pity. 

The old man smiled. " Arsenius, who was once called 
the Father of the Emperors. Even she will trust that 
name.'* 

" I will go this moment, sir ; I will fly ! " and off rushed 
the little porter. 

" The Httle fellow forgets," said Arsenius, with a smile, 
*' to how much he has confessed already, and how easy 
it were now to trace him to the old hag's lair. . . . Phil- 
ammon, my son ... I have many tears to weep over 
thee ; but they must wait awhile, I have thee safe now," 
and the old man clutched his arm. "Thou wilt not 
leave thy poor old father ? Thou wilt not desert me 
for the heathen woman ? " 

" I will stay with you, T promise you, indeed ! if — 
if you will not say unjust things of her." 


JIYPATIA. 227 

" I will speak evil of no one, accuse/no one, butmyself. 
I will not say one harsh word to thee, my poor boy. 
But listen now ! Thou knowest that thou earnest from 
Athens. Knowest thou that it was I who brought .thee 
hither ? " 

"Yx)u?" 

"rl, my son; hut 'when. I : brought thee to the rLaura, it 
seemed nght^that thou, as theison of a. noble. gentleman, 
shouldst !hear f nothing of it. But tell rme.: dost thou 
recollect father or mother, .br<)ther or sister, or anything 
of thy home in Athens ? " 

" Thanks be to God! But, Philammon, if thou hadst 
had a sister — ^hush ! And if— I only say if " 

"A sister ! '* tinterrupted Philammon. "Pelagia ? " 

" Godiorbid, my son ! (But a sister thou hadfit onee — 
some three years older than thee ihe seemed." 

"'What! did you know her ?" 

"M Jsaw.her but'once^-Knn onersadxiay. ^Pxaor .children 
both;! I will mot sadden yau <by 'teUing you .where and 
how." 

"And why did you n(Jt bring iher hither with me ? 
You surely had not the heart to part us." 

"Ah, my son, what righthadan old monk iwith a fair 
young girl? And, indeed, ev^i had I had the courage, 
it would have been impossible. There were others, richer 
than I, to whose covetousness her youth and beauty 
seemed arprecious^prize. When I saw hertlaat, she was 
in company with an ancient Jewess. rHeaven gr-ant that 
this Miriam may prove to be the ' one ! " 

" And I have a sister ! "gasped f Philammon, .his eyes 
bmrsting with tears. " We must find her ! You will help 
me! — ^now — this moment! There is»nothing elseto be 
thought of, spoken of, done, henceforth, till-sheis found!" 

" Ah, my son, my son ! Better, abetter, perhaps, to 
leave.her.in the hands of God ! What if -she were dead ? 
To discover that would but be to discover needless sorrow. 
And what' if— ^God grant that itbe not so ! -she. had only 
a name to Hve, and were dead, worse them dead, in sinfiu 
pleasure—" 

8 


228 HYPATIA. 

" We would save her, or die trying to save her ! Is 
it not enough for me that she is my sister ? *' 

Arsenius shook his head. He httle knew the strange 
new Hght and warmth which his words had poured in 
upon the young heart beside him. ..." 4 sister ! " 
What mysterious virtue was there in that simple word, 
which made Philammon's brain reel and his heart throb 
madly ? A sister ! Not merely a friend, an equal, a 
helpmate, given by God Himself, for loving whom none, 
not even a monk, could blame him. Not merely some- 
thing dehcate, weak, beautiful — for of course she must 
be beautiful — ^whom he might cherish, guide, support, 
deliver, die for, and find death dehcious. Yes — all that, 
and more than that, lay in the sacred word. For those 
divided and partial notions had flitted across his mind 
loo rapidly to stir such passion as moved him now ; even 
the hint of her sin and danger had been heard heedlessly, 
if heard at all. It was the word itself which bore its 
own message, its own spell to the heart of the fatherless 
and motherless foundling, as he faced for the first time 
the deep, everlasting, divine reahty of kindred. ... A 
sister I of his own flesh and blood — ^bom of the same 
father, the same mother — ^his, his, for ever ! How 
hollow and fleeting seemed all ** spiritual sonships," 
" spiritual daughterhoods,'* inventions of the changing 
fancy, the wayward will of man ! Arsenius — Pambo — 
ay, Hypatia herself — ^what were they to him now ? Here 
was a real relationship. ... A sister I What else was 
worth caring for upon earth ? 

" And she was at Athens when Pelagia was,*' he cried 
at last — " perhaps knew her — ^let us go to Pelagia her- 
self ! " 

*' Heaven forbid ! " said Arsenius. " We must wait 
at least till Miriam's answer comes." 

" I can show you her house at least in the meanwhile, 
and you can go in yourself when you will. I do not ask 
to enter. Come ! I feel certain that my finding her 
is in some way boimd up with Pelagia. Had I not met 
her on the Nile, had you not met her in the street, I 
might never have heard that I had a sister. And if she 


HYPATIA. 229 

went with Miriam, Pelagia must know her — ^she may be 
in that very house at this moment ! *' 

Arsenius had his reasons for suspecting that Philam- 
mon was but too right. But he contented himself with 
yielding to the boy's excitement, and set off with him 
m the direction of the dancer's house. 

They were within a few yards of the gate, when hurried 
footsteps behind them, and voices calling them by name, 
made them turn ; and behold, evidently to the disgust 
of Arsenius as much as of Philammon himself, Peter the 
reader and a large party of monks ! 

Philammon's first impulse was to escape. Arsenius 
himself caught him by the arm, and seemed inclined to 
hurry on. 

" No ! " thought the youth, " am I not a free man, 
and a philosopher ? " And facing round, he awaited 
the enemy. 

" Ah, young apostate ! So you have found him, rever- 
end and ill-used sir. Praised be Heaven for this rapid 
success 1 " 

" My good friend," asked Arsenius, in a trembling 
voice, " what brings you here ? " 

" Heaven forbid that I should have allowed your 
sanctity and age to go forth without some guard against 
the insults and violence of this wretched youth and his 
profligate companions. We have been following you 
afar off all the morning, with hearts full of filial 
soHcitude." 

" Many thanks ; but indeed your kindness has been 
superfluous. My son here, from whom I have met with 
nothing but affection, and whom, indeed, I believe far 
more innocent than report declared him, is about to 
return peaceably with me. — ^Are you not, Philammon ? " 

" Alas ! my father," said Philammon, with an effort, 
" how can I find courage to say it ? but I cannot return 
with you." 

" Cannot return ? " 

" I vowed that I would never again cross that threshold 
till '' 

" And Cyril does. He bade me, indeed he bade me, 


assure you. that he wauid receive you back as a son, and 
forgive and forget all the past" 

" Forgive and forget? That is my part — not his. 
Will he right me s^ainst that, tyrant and his crew ? Will 
he proclaim, me openly tt) be an innocent and persecuted 
man, unjustly beaten and driv^i: forth for obeying his 
own commands ? Till he dxies that, I shall not forget 
that I am a. free man," 

" A free; man ! " said Peter, with an unpleasant smile ; 
" that ronains to be proved^ my gay youth, and will 
need more evidence than liiat smart philosophic dbak: 
and those well-curled locks which you have adopted 
since I saw you last.." 

" Remains to be proved ? " 

Axsenius made an imploring- gesture to Peter to be 
silent. 

** Nay, sir. As I foretold to you, this one way alone 
remains ; the blame of it, ii there be blame, must rest 
on the unhappy youth whose perversity renders it 
necessary." 

" For God's sake, spare me t " cried the odd man, 
dragging Peter aside, while Philammon stood, astoni^ied, 
divided between indignation and vague dreads 

'' Did I not teU you: again and again that I never could 
bring^ myself to call a Christiam man 'my slave ? And 
him, above all, my spiritual son ? " 

" And, most reverend sir, whose zeal is only surpassed 
by your tenderness and mercy, did not the holy patriarch 
assure you that your scruples were groundless ? Do you 
think liiat either he or I can have less horror than you 
have of slavery in itself ? Heaven forbid ! But when 
an immortal soul is at stake — when a lost lamb is to be 
brought back to the fold — surely you may employ ihe 
autiiority which the law gives you for the salvation of 
that precious charge committed to you ? What could 
be more conclusive than his holiness's argument' this 
morning ? ' Christians are bound to obey the laws of 
this world for conscience' sake, even though, in the ab- 
stract, they may disapprove of them, and deny their 
authority. Then, by parity of reasoning, it must be 


HYPATIA. 231 

lawful for them to take the advantage which those same 
laws ofEer them, when by so doing the glory jof God may 
be ^vanced.' " 

Arsenius still iiing back, with eyes brimming with 
■tears ; but Philanmion himself put -an end to the parley. 

** What is the meaning of all this ? Ace you, too, m 
a conspiracy against me ? Speak, Arsenius ! " 

*' This is tiie meaning of it, blinded sinner ! " cried 
Peter — " that you are by law the slave of Arsenius, 
Jawfully bought with his money in .the city of Ravenna ; 
.and that iie has :tiie .power, and, as I trust, for the -sake 
of your salvation, the will also, to compel vyou to accom- 
.pany him." 

Philammon recoiled across the pavement, with eyes 
flashing defiance. A slave ! The Hght of heaven grew 
black to .him. . . . Oh, that Jiypatia might never know 
his shame! Yet it was impossible — too dreadful to 
be true. . . . 

** You lie ! " almost jdirieked he. " I am the son of a 
noblfi citizen of Athens. Arsenius told me so, but this 
moment, with his own lips! " 

" Ay, but he bought you— thought you in the public 
market ; and. he can pr0V;e it ! " 

"Hear me— iiear me, .my son ! " cried the old man, 
.springing towards him. Philammon, in his fury, mis- 
took the gesture and thrust him .fiercely back. 

** Your son ! — ^your slave ! ;Do not msult the name of 
son by applying it to me. Yes, sir ; yoiu: slave in body, 
but not m soul I Ay, seize imeH— drag home the .fugitive 
— rscourge him — brand him— rchain him in the mill, if 
you can.; but even for that the free lieart has a remedy. 
if you will not let me Hve as a philosopher, you shall see 
me die like one ! " 

** Seize the fellow, my brethren I " cried Peter, while 
Arsenius, .utterly unable to restrain either party, hid his 
face and wept. 

"Wretches!" cried the boy, "you shall never take 
me ahve, while I have teeth or nails left. Treat me as 
a brute beast, and I will defend myself as such ! " 

'* Out .of the way there, rascals ! Place for the prefect \ 


232 HYPATIA. 

What are you squabbling about here, you immannerly 
monks ? " shouted peremptory voices from behind. 

The crowd parted, and msclosed the apparitors of 
Orestes, who followed in his robes of ofi&ce. 

A sudden hope flashed before Philammon, and in an 
instant he had burst through the mob, and was clinging 
to the prefect's chariot. 

" I am a freeborn Athenian, whom these monks wish 
to kidnap back into slavery ! I claim your protection ! " 

" And you shall have it, right or wrong, my handsome 
fellow. By Heaven, you are much too good-looking to 
be made a monk of ! What do you mean, you villains, 
by attempting to kidnap free men ? Is it not enough 
for you to lock up every mad girl whom you can dupe, 
but you must " 

" His master is here present, your excellency, who will 
swear to the purchase.'' 

" Or to anything else for the glory of God. Out of the 
way ! And take care, you tall scoundrel, that I do not 
get a handle against you. You have been one of my 
marked men for many a month. Off ! " 

" His master demands the rights of the law as a Roman 
citizen," said Peter, pushing forward Arsenius. 

" If he be a Roman citizen, let him come and make 
his claim at the tribime to-morrow, in legal form. But 
I would have you remember, ancient sir, that I shall 
require you to prove your citizenship before we proceed 
to the question of purchase." 

" The law does not demand that," quoth Peter. 

" Knock that fellow down, apparitor ! " Whereat 
Peter vanished, and an ominous growl rose from the 
mob of monks. 

** What am I to do, most noble sir ? " said Philammon. 

" Whatever you like, till the third hour to-morrow — 
if you are fool enough to appear at the tribime. If you 
will take my advice, you will knock down these fellows 
right and left, and run for your life." And Orestes 
drove on. 

Philammon saw that it was his only chance, and did 
so; and in another minute he found himself rushing 


HYPATIA. 233 

headlong into the archway of Pelagia's house, with a 
dozen monks at his heels. 

As luck would have it, the outer gates, at which the 
Goths had just entered, were still open ; but the inner 
ones which led into the court beyond were fast. He 
tried them, but in vain. There was an open door in 
the wall on his right. He rushed through it, into a long 
range of stables, and into the arms of Wulf and Smid, 
who were unsaddling and feeding, like true warriors, 
their own horses. 

" Souls of my fathers ! " shouted Smid, " here's our 
young monk come back ! What brings you here head 
over heels in this way, young ctirly-pate ? " 

" Save me from those wretches ! " pointing to the 
monks, who were peeping into the doorway. 

Wulf seemed to understand it all in a moment ; for, 
snatching up a heavy whip, he rushed at the foe, and 
with a few tremendous strokes cleared the doorway, 
and shut-to the door. 

Philammon was going to explain and thank, but Smid 
stopped his mouth. 

Never mind, young one, you are our guest now. 
Come in, and you shall be as welcome as ever. See what 
comes of running away from us at first." 

" You do not seem to have benefited much by leaving 
me for the monks," said old Wulf. " Come in by the 
inner door. — ^Smid ! go and turn those monks out of the 
gateway." 

But the mob, after battering the door for a few min- 
utes, had yielded to the agonized entreaties of Peter, who 
assured them that if those incarnate fiends once broke 
out upon them, they would not leave a Christian alive 
in Alexandria. So it was agreed to leave a few to 
watch for Philammon's coming out ; and the rest, balked 
of their prey, turned the tide of their wrath against the 
prefect, and, rejoined the mass of their party, who were 
still hanging round his chariot, ready for mischief. 

In vain flie hapless shepherd of the people attempted 
to drive on. The apparitors were frightened, and hung 
back ; and without their help it was impossible to force 


234^ HYPATIA. 

the horses through the mass of tossing armsj and beards' 
in front. The matter was evidently growing: serious. 

" The bitterest ruffians in all Nitria, yourexcellcaicy," 
whispered one of the guards, with- a. pale face ;: " and 
two hundred of them' at the least: The very same set, 
I will be sworn, who nearly murdered Dioscuros.* 

"If you willinot aQow me to proceed, mv holy brethren/' 
said Orestesj trying to look coUoited, perhaps it will 
not be contrary to the canons of the Church>if :L turjo^'back.. 
Leave the horses* heads alone. Why, in Godis. name, 
what do you want ? " 

"Do you: fancy we' have forgotten Hieracas ?" cried 
a voice from the rear, and' at that name yell^ upon yell 
aroscj till, the mob, gaining coureqge from its own. noise, 
burst out into open threats?. " Revenge for the? blessed 
martyr Hieracas ! " " Revenge for the wrongSc ai. the 
Church!" "Down with the friend of heathens, Jews, 
and barbarians ! " " Down with the- favourite of 
Hypatia ! '* " Tyrant ! " " Butcher ! " 

And the last epithet so smote the delicate fancy of the 
crowd, that a general cry arose of " Kill: the butdier ! *' 
and one furious monk attempted tO' clamber into the 
chariot; An apparitor tore him down^. and was dragged 
to the ground in his turn. The monks closed* iir. The 
guardSj finding' the enemy number ten to their one^ threw 
down their weapons in av panic, and vaniifed; and in. 
another minute the hopesof Hypatia and. tiie- gods- would, 
have been lost for ever, and Alexandria robbed of the 
blessing- of' being ruled by tiie- most finished: gentleman 
southeof the Mediterranean, had it notbeen fortmexpected. 
succour, of which it will be 'time enough, considering: who 
and what is in danger, to speak in a future chapter^ 


CHAPTER XVIi: 

A. STRAY. GLEAM;, 

The last blue headland: of Sardiiria was fading' fast on 
the north-west horizon; and a- steady, breeze bore before 
it' innumerable ships, the wrecks of Heraclian^s> arma- 


HYPATIA, 235 

ment, plunging and tossing impatiently in their desper- 
ate homeward race towards the coast of Africa. Far and 
wide, under a sky of cloudless blue, the white sails glit- 
tered on the guttering sea, as gaily now, above their loads 
of shame and disappointment, terror and pain, as when, 
but one short month before, they bore with them only 
wild hopes and gallant daring. Who can calculate the 
sum of misery in that hapless flight ?. . . And yet it 
was but one, and that one of the least known and most 
trivial, of the tragedies of that age of woe ; one petty 
death-spasm among the unmmibered throes which were 
shaking to dissolution the Babylon of the West. Her 
time had come. Even as Saint John beheld her in his 
vision, by agony after agony, she was rotting to her well- 
earned doom. T5n:annizing it luxuriously over all na- 
tions, she had sat upon the mystic beast — building her 
power on the brute animal appetites of her dupes and 
slaves ; but she had duped herself even more than them. 
She was finding out by bitter lessons that it was " to the 
beast," and not to her, that her vassal kings of the earth 
had been giving their power and strength; and the 
ferocity and lust which she had pampered so cunningly 
in them, had become her curse and her destruction. . . . 
Drunk with the blood of the saints ; bhnded by her own 
conceit and jealousy to the fact that she had been crush- 
ing and extirpating out of her empire for centuries past 
all that was noble, purifying, regenerative, divine, she 
sat impotent and doting, the prey of every fresh ad- 
venturer, the slave of her own slaves. , . . "And the 
kings of the earth, who had sinned with her, hated 
the harlot, and made her desolate and naked, and de- 
voured her flesh, and burned her with fire. For God 
had put into their hearts to fulfil His will, and to 
agree, and to give their kingdom to th^ beast, imtil the 
words of God should be fulfilled." , . . Everywhere 
sensuality, division, hatred, treachery, cruelty, uncer- 
tainty, terror ; . ; . the vials of God^s wrath potired out. 
" Where was to be the end of it all ? " asked every man 
of his neighbour, generation after generation ; and re- 
ceived for answer only, " It is better to die than to hve." 

8a 


236 HYPATIA. 

And yet in one ship out of that sad fleet there was 
peace — peace amid shame and terror — amid the groans 
of the wounded, and the sighs of the starving — amid all 
but blank despair. The great triremes and quinqueremes 
rushed onward past the lagging transports, careless, in 
the mad race for safety, that tiiey were leaving the greater 
number of their comrades defenceless in the rear of the 
flight ; but from one httle fishing-craft alone no base 
entreaties, no bitter execrations greeted the passing 
flash and roll of their mighty oars. One after another, 
day by day, they came rushing up out of the northern 
offing, each Hke a huge hundred-footed dragon, panting 
and quivering, as if with terror, at every loud pulse of 
its oars, hurling the wild water right and left with the 
mighty share of its beak, while from the bows some gorgon 
or chimaera, elephant or boar, stared out with brazen 
eyes towards the coast of Africa, as if it too, like the human 
beings which it carried, was dead to every care but that 
of dastard flight. Past they rushed, one after another ; 
and off the poop some shouting voice chilled all hearts 
for a moment, with the fearful news that the emperor's 
NeapoHtan fleet was in full chase. . . . And the soldiers 
on board that Httle vessel looked silently and stead- 
fastly into the silent, steadfast face of the old pre- 
fect, and Victoria saw him shudder, and turn his eyes 
away — and stood up among the rough fighting men, 
like a goddess, and cried aloud that '* the Lord would 
protect His own;" and they beHeved her, and were 
still ; till many days and many ships were past, and 
the Httle fishing-craft, outstripped even by the trans- 
ports and merchantmen, as it strained and crawled 
along before its single square sail, was left alone upon 
the sea. 

And where was Raphael Aben-Ezra ? 

He was sitting, with Bran's head between his knees, 
at the door of a temporary awning in the vessel's stern, 
which shielded the wounded men from sun and spray ; 
and as he sat he could hear from within the tent the gentle 
voices of Victoria and her brother, as they tended the 
sick like ministering angels, or read to them words of 


HYPATIA. 237 

divine hope and comfort — ^in which his homeless heart 
felt that he had no share. . . . 

" As I Uve, I would change places now with any one 
of those poor mangled ruffians, to have that voice speak- 
ing such words to me . . . and to believe them." . . . 
And he went on perusing the manuscript which he held 
in his hand. 

« « « « « 

" Well ! " he sighed to himself after a while, " at least 
it is the most complimentary, not to say hopeful, view 
of our destinies with which I have met since I threw away 
my nurse's behef that the seed of David was fated to 
conquer the whole earth, and set up a second Roman 
Empire at Jerusalem, only worse than the present one 
in tiiat the devils of superstition and bigotry would be 
added to those of tj^anny and rapine." 

A hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice asked, 
" And what may this so hopeful view be ? " 

" Ah ! my dear general ! " said Raphael, looking up. 
*' I have a poor bill of fare whereon to exercise my 
culinary powers this morning. Had it not beeii for that 
shark which was so luckily deluded last night, I should ) 
have been reduced to the necessity of stewing my friend 
the fat decurion's big boots." 

" They would have been savoury enough, I will war- 
rant, after they had. passed under yotir magical hand." 

" It is a comfort, certainly, to find that after all one 
did learn something useful in Alexandria ! So I will 
even go forward at once, and employ my artistic skill." 

" Tell me first what it was about which I heard you 
just now soliloquizing, as so hopeful a view of some 
matter or other." 

" Honestly — ^if you will neither betray me to your son 
and daughter, nor consider me as having in any wise 
committed myself — ^it was Paul of Tarsus* notion of the 
history and destinies of otir stiff-necked nation. See 
what your daughter has persuaded me into reading ! " 
And he held up a manuscript of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

" It is execrable Greek. But it is sound philosophy, 
I cannot deny. He knows Plato better than all the 


238 HYPATU. 

ladies and gentlemen in Alexandria put together, if my 
opinion on the point be worth having." 

" I am a plain soldier, and no judge on that point, sir. 
He may or may not know Plato, but I am right sure 
that he knows God." 

'' Not too fast," said Raphael, with a smile. " You 
do not know, perhaps, that I have spent the last ten 
years of my life among men who professed the same 
knowledge ? " 

" Augustine, too, spent the best ten years of his life 
among such, and yet he is now combating the very 
errors which he once taught." 

'* Having found, he fancies, something better ! " 

*' Having found it, most truly. But you must talk 
to him yourself, and argue the matter over with one who 
can argue. To me such questions are an unknown land." 

" Well . . . Perhaps I may be tempted to do even 
that. At least a thoroughly converted philosopher — for 
poor dear Synesius is half heathen still, I often fancy, 
and hankers after the wisdom of the Egyptian — ^will 
be a curious sight ; and to talk with so famous and so 
learned a man would always be a pleasure, but to argue 
with him, or any other human being, none whatsoever." 

" Why, then ? " 

" My dear sir, I am sick of syllogisms, and probabilities, 
and pros and contras. What do I care if, on weighing 
both sides, the nineteen pounds weight of questionable 
arguments against are overbalanced by the twenty 
pounds weight of equally questionable arguments for ? 
Do you not see that my behef of the victorious proposi- 
tion will be proportioned to the one overbalancing pound 
only, while the whole other nineteen will go for nothing ? " 

'' I really do not." 

'* Happy are you, then. I do, from many a sad ex- 
perience. No, my worthy sir. I want a faith past 
arguments ; one which, whether I can prove it or not to 
the satisfaction of the lawyers, I believe to my own 
satisfaction, and act on it as undoubtingly and unreason- 
ingly as I do upon my own newly-rediscovered personal 
identity. I don't want to possess a faith. I want a faith 


HYPATIA. 239 

which will possess me. And if I ever arrived at such a 
one, believe me, it would be by some such practical 
demonstration as this very tent has given me." 

'' This tent ? '' n 

" Yes, sir, this tent ; within which I have seen you 
and your children lead a life of deeds as new to me the 
Jew as they would be to Hypatia the Gentile. I have 
watched you for many a day, and not in vain. When 
I saw you, an experienced officer, encumber your flight 
with wounded men, I was only surprised. But since I 
have seen you and your daughter, and, strangest of all, 
your gay young Alcibiades of a son, starving yourselves 
to feed those poor ruffians — ^performing for them, day and 
night, the offices of menial slaves — comforting them, as 
no man ever comforted me — blaming no one but your- 
selves, caring for every one but yourselves, sacrificing 
nothing but yourselves ; and all this without hope of 
fame or reward, or dream of appeasing the wrath of 
any god or goddess, but simply because you thought it 
right. . . • When I saw that, sir, and more which I 
have seen ; and when, reading in this book here, I found 
most unexpectedly those very grand moral rules which 
you were practising, seeming to spring unconsciously, 
as natural results, from the great thoughts, true or false, 
which had preceded them ; then, sir, I began to suspect 
that the creed which could produce such deeds as I have 
watched within the last few days, might have on its side 
not merely a slight preponderance of probabilities, but 
what we Jews used once to call, when we beheved in it 
— or in anything — the mighty power of God." 

And as he spoke, he looked into the prefect's face with 
the look of a man wrestling in some deadly struggle ; so 
intense and terrible was the earnestness of his eye that 
even the old soldier shrank before it. 

" And therefore," he went on, " therefore, sir, beware 
of yoiu: own actions, and of your children's. If, by any 
folly or baseness, such as I have seen in every human 
being whom I ever met as yet upon this accursed stage 
of fools, you shall crush my new-budding hope that there 
is something somewhere which will make me what I know 


240 HYPATIA. 

that I ought to be, and can be — if you shall crush that, I 
say, by any misdoing of yours, you had better have been 
the murderer of my firstborn ; with such a hate — a hate 
which Jews alone can feel — ^will I hate you and yours/* 

" God help us and strengthen us ! " said the old 
warrior in a tone of noble himiility. 

" And now," said Raphael, glad to change the subject, 
after this unwonted outburst, " we must once more seri- 
ously consider whether it is wise to hold on our present 
course. If you return to Carthage, or to Hippo " 

" I shall be beheaded." 

" Most assuredly. And how much soever you may 
consider such an event a gain to yourself, yet for the sake 
of your son and your daughter " 

*' My dear sir," interrupted the prefect, " you mean 
kindly. But do not, do not tempt me. By the count's 
side I have fought for thirty years, and by his side I will 
die, as I deserve." 

" Victorius ! Victoria ! " cried Raphael, " help me ! 
Your father," he went on, as they came out from the 
tent, '* is still decided on losing his own head, and throw- 
ing away ours, by going to Carthage." 

'' For my sake — for our sakes — father ! " cried Victoria, 
clinging to him. 

'' And for my sake, also, most excellent sir," said 
Raphael, smiling quietly. " I have no wish to be so 
uncourteous as to urge any help which I may have seemed 
to afford you. But I hope that you will recollect that I 
have a life to lose, and that it is hardly fair of you to 
imperil it as you intend to do. If you could help or save 
Heraclian, I should be dumb at once. But now, for a 
mere point of honour to destroy fifty good soldiers, who 
know not their right hand from their left — shall I ask 
their opinion ? " 

'' Will you raise a mutiny against me, sir ? " asked the 
old man sternly. 

" Why not mutiny against Philip drunk, in behalf of 
Philip sober ? But really, I will obey you . . . only 
you must obey us. . . . What is Hesiod's definition of 
the man who will neither counsel himself nor be coun- 


HYPATIA. 241 

selled by his friends ? . ; . Have you no trusty acquaint- 
ances in Cyrenaica, for instance ? " 

The prefect was silent. 

" O hear us, my father ! Why not go to Euodius ? 
He is your old comrade — a well-wisher, too, to this . . ■. 
this expedition. . . . And recollect, Augustine must be 
there now. He was about to sail for Berenice, in order 
to consult Synesius and the PentapoHtan bishops, when 
we left Carthage." 

And at the name of Augustine the old man paused. 

" Augustine will be there — true. And this our friend 
must meet him. And thus at least I should have his 
advice. If he thinks it my duty to return to Carthage, 
I can but do so, after all. But the soldiers ! " 

" Excellent sir,*' said Raphael, '* Synesius and the 
Pentapolitan landlords — ^who can hardly call their lives 
their own, thanks to the Moors — ^will be glad enough to 
feed and pay them, or any other brave fellows with arms 
in their hands, at this moment. And my friend Victorius 
here, will enjoy, I do not doubt, a Uttle wild campaign- 
ing against marauding blackamoors." 

The old man bowed silently. The battle was won. 

The young tribune, who had been watching his father's 
face with the most intense anxiety, caught at the gesture, 
and hurrying forward, announced the change of plan to 
the soldiery. It was greeted with a shout of joy, and in 
another five minutes the sails were about, the rudder 
shifted, and the ship on her way towards the western 
point of Sicily, before a steady north-west breeze. 

'* Ah ! " cried Victoria, dehghted. " And now you 
will see Augustine ! You must promise me to talk to 
him ! " 

'* This, at least, I will promise, that whatsoever the 
great sophist shall be pleased to say, shall meet with a 
patient hearing from a brother sophist. Do not be angry 
at the term. Recollect that I am somewhat tired, like 
my ancestor Solomon, of wisdom and wise men, having 
fotmd it only too Uke madness and folly. And you 
cannot surely expect me to beUeve in man, while I do not 
yet believe in God ? " 


242 HYPATIA, 

Victoria sighed, " I will not believe you. Why al- 
ways pretend to be worse than you are ? " 

" That kind souls like you may be spared the pain of 
finding me worse than I seem, . . . There, let us say no 
more, except that I heartily wish that you would hate 
me!" 

" Shall I try ? '' 

*' That must be my work, I fear, not yours. However, 
I shall give you good cause enough before long, doubt it 
not." 

Victoria sighed again, and retired into the tent to 
nurse the sick. 

*' And now, sir," said the prefect, turning to Raphael 
and his son, *' do not mistake me. I may have been 
weak, as worn-out and hopeless men are wont to be ; 
but do not think of me as one who has yielded to adversity 
in fear for his own safety. As God hears me, I desire 
nothing better than to die ; and I only turn out of my 
course on the understanding that if Augustine so advise, 
my children hold me free to return to Carthage and meet 
my fate. All I pray for is, that my Hfe may be spared 
until I can place my dear child in the safe shelter of a 
nunnery." 

'' A nunnery ? " 

*' Yes, indeed ; I have intended ever since her birth 
to dedicate her to the service of God. And in such times 
as these, what better lot for a defenceless girl ? " 

'' Pardon me ! " said Raphael, " but I am too dull to 
comprehend what benefit or pleasure your Deity will 
derive from the celibacy of your daughter. . , . Except, 
indeed, on one supposition, which, as I have some faint 
remnants of reverence and decency reawakening in me 
just now, I must leave to be uttered only by the pure 
lips of sexless priests." 

'* You forget, sir, that you are speaking to a Christian." 

" I assure you, no ! I had certainly been forgetting 
it till the last two minutes, in your very pleasant and 
rational society. There is no danger henceforth of my 
making so silly a mistake." 

" Sir ! " said the prefect, reddening at the undisguised 


HYPATIA. 243 

contempt of Raphael's manner. ..." When you know 
a Httle more of St. Paul's Epistles, you will cease to 
insult the opinions and feelings of those who obey them 
by sacrificing their most precious treasures to God." 

" Oh, it is Paul of Tarsus, then, who gives you the 
advice 1 I thank you for informing me of the fact, for it 
will save me the trouble of any future study of his works. 
Allow me, therefore, to return by your hands this manu- 
script of his, with many thanks from me, to that daughter 
of yours by whose perpetual imprisonment you intend to 
give pleasure to your Deity. Henceforth the less com- 
munication which passes between me and any member 
of your family the better." And he turned away. 

" But, my dear sir ! " said the honest soldier, really 
chagrined, " you must not ! — ^we owe you too much, 
and love you too well, to part thus for the caprice of a 
moment. If any word of mine has offended you — forget 
it, and forgive me, I beseech you ! " and he caught both 
Raphael's hands in his own. 

*' My very dear sir," answered the Jew quietly, " let 
me ask the same forgiveness of you ; and believe me, for 
the sake of past pleasant passages, I shall not forget my 
promise about the mortgage. . ; ; But — ^here we must 
part. To tell you the truth, I half an hour ago was 
fearfully near becoming neither more nor less than a 
Christian. I had actually deluded m5^self into the fancy 
that the Deity of the GaHleans might be, after all, the 
God of our old Hebrew forefathers-— of Adam and Eve, 
of Abraham and David, and of the rest who believed that 
children and the fruit of the womb were a hejritage and 
gift which cometh of the Lord ; and that Paul was right 
— ^actually right — ^in his theory that the Church was the 
development and fulfilment of our old national polity. 
V ; ; I must thank you for opening my eyes to a mistake 
which, had I not been besotted for the moment, every 
monk and nun would have contradicted by the mere fact 
of their existence, and reserve my nascent faith for some 
Deity who takes no delight in seeing his creatures stultify 
the primary laws of their being. Farewell \ " 

And while the prefect stood petrified with astonish- 


244 HYPATIA. 

ment, he retired to the farther extremity of the deck, 

muttering to himself, — 

" Did I not know all along that this gleam was too 
sudden and too bright to last ? Did I not know that he, 
too, would prove himself like all the rest — an ass ? . . . 
Fool ! to have looked for common sense on such an earth 
as this ! . . : Back to chaos again, Raphael Aben-Ezra, 
and spin ropes of sand to the end of the farce ! " 

And mixing with the soldiers, he exchanged no word 
with the prefect and his children, till they reached the 
port of Berenice ; and then putting the necklace into 
Victoria's hands, vanished among the crowds upon the 
quay, no one knew whither. 


CHAPTER XVIII; 

THE PREFECT TESTED. 

When we lost sight of Philammon, his destiny had 
hurled him once more among his old friends the 
Goths, in search of two important elements of hu- 
man comfort, freedom and a sister. The former he 
found at once, in a large hall where sundry Goths were 
lounging and toping, into the nearest comer of which he 
shrank, and stood, his late terror and rage forgotten 
altogether in the one new and absorbing thought — his 
sister might be in that house ! . .• . and yielding to so 
sweet a dream, he began iancying to himself which of all 
those gay maidens she might be who had become in one 
moment more dear, more great to him, than all things 
else in heaven or earth. That fair-haired, roimded 
Italian ? That fierce, luscious, aquiline-faced Jewess ? 
That delicate, swart, sidelong-eyed Copt ? No. She was 
Athenian, like himself. That tall, lazy Greek girl, 
then, from beneath whose sleepy, lids flashed, once an 
hour, sudden lightnings, reveahng depths of thought 
and feeling unciStivated, perhaps even unsuspected, by 
their possessor ? Her ? Or that, her seeming sister ? 
Or the next ? . ; . Or — ^was it Pelagia herself, most 


HYPATIA. 245 

beautiful and most sinful of them all ? Fearful thought ! 
He blushed scarlet at the bare imagination; yet why, 
in his secret heart, was that the most pleasant hypothesis 
of them all ? And suddenly flashed across him that 
observation of one of the girls on board the boat, on his 
likeness to Pelagia. Strange, that he had never recol- 
lected it before ! It must be so ! and yet on what a 
slender thread, woven of scattered hints and surmises, 
did that " must " depend ! He would be sane ; he would 
wait ; he would have patience. Patience ! with a sister 
yet imfound, perhaps perishing ? Impossible ! 

Suddenly the train of his thoughts was changed per- 
force : — 

" Come ! come and see ! There's a fight in the streets," 
called out one of the damsels down the stairs, at the 
highest pitch of her voice. 

" I shan't go," yawmed a huge fellow, who was lying 
on his back on a sofa. 

*' O come up, my hero," said one of the girls. ** Such a 
charming riot, and the prefect himself in the middle of it ! 
We have not had such a one in the street this month." 

" The princes won't let me knock any of these donkey- 
riders on the head, and seeing other people do it only 
makes me envious. Give me the wine- jug — curse the 
girl, she's run upstairs ! " 

The shouting and trampling came nearer ; and in 
another minute Wulf came rapidly downstairs, through 
the hall into the harem court, and into the presence of 
the Amal. 

" Prince, here is a chance for us. These rascally 
Greeks are murdering their prefect under our very 
windows." 

*' The lying cur ! Serve him right for cheating us. 
He has plenty of guards. Why can't the fool take care 
of himself ? " 

*'They have all run away, and I saw some of them 
hiding among the mob. As I live, the man will be 
killed in five minutes more." 

'' Why not ? " 

" WTiy should he, when we can save him and win his 


246 HYPATIA. 

favour for ever ? The men's fingers are itching for a 
fight ; it's a bad plan not to give hounds blood now and 
then, or they lose the knack of hunting." 

'' Well, it wouldn't take five minutes." 

" And heroes should show that they can forgive when 
an enemy is in distress." 

" Very true ! Like an Amal too ! " And the Amal 
sprang up and shouted to his men to follow him. 

*' Good-bye, my pretty one. — ^Why, Wulf," cried he, 
as he burst out into the court, '* here's our monk again ! 
By Odin, you're welcome, my handsome boy ! Come 
along and fight too, young fellow ; what were those arms 
given you f or ? " 

" He is my man," said Wulf, laying his hand on Phil- 
ammon's shoulder, " and blood he shall taste." And 
out the three hurried, Philammon, in his present reckless 
mood, ready for anything. 

" Bring your whips. Never mind swords. Those 
rascals are not worth it," shouted the Amal, as he hurried 
down the passage brandishing his heavy thong, some ten 
feet in length, threw the gate open, and the next moment 
recoiled from a dense crush of people who surged in — 
and surged out again as rapidly as the Goth, with the 
combined force of his weight and arm, hewed his way 
straight through them, felling a wretch at every blow, 
and followed up by his terrible companions. 

They were but just in time. The four white blood- 
horses were plunging and roUing over each other, and 
Orestes was reeling in his chariot, with a stream of blood 
running down his face, and the hands of twenty wild 
monks clutching at him. " Monks again ! " thought 
Philammon ; and as he saw among them more than one 
hateful face, which he recollected in Cyril's courtyard 
on that fatal night, a flush of fierce revenge ran through 
him. 

'' Mercy ! " shrieked the miserable prefect — " I am a 
Christian ! I swear that I am a Christian ! the Bishop 
Atticus baptized me at Constantinople ! " 

" Down with the butcher ! down with the heathen 
t5a'ant, who refuses the adjuration on the Gospels rather 


HYPATIA. 247 

than be reconciled to the patriarch ! Tear him out of the 
chariot ! " yelled the monks. 

'* The craven hound ! " said the Amal, stopping short, 
" I won't help him ! " But in an instant Wulf rushed 
forward and struck right and left. The monks recoiled ; 
and Philammon, burning to prevent so shameful a scandal 
to the faith to which he still clung convulsively, sprang 
into the chariot and caught Orestes in his arms. 

" You are safe, my lord ; don't struggle," whispered 
he, while the monks flew on him. A stone or two struck 
him, but they only quickened his determination, and in 
another moment the whistling of the whips round his 
head, and the yell and backward rush of the monks, 
told him that he was safe. He carried his burden safely 
within the doorway of Pelagia's house, into the crowd of 
peeping and shrieking damsels, where twenty pairs of the 
prettiest hands in Alexandria seized on Orestes, and drew 
him into the court. 

" Like a second Hylas, carried off by the nymphs ! " 
simpered he, as he vanished into the harem, to reappear 
in five minutes, his head bound up with silk handkerchiefs, 
and with as much of his usual impudence as he could 
muster. 

** Your excellency — heroes all — I am your devoted 
slave ! I owe you life itself ; and more, the valour of 
your succour is only surpassed by the deliciousness of 
your cure. I would gladly imdergo a second wound to 
enjoy a second time the services of such hands, and to 
see such feet busying themselves on my behalf." 

" You wouldn't have said that five minutes ago," quoth 
the Amal, looking at him very much as a bear might at a 
monkey. 

" Never mind the hands and feet, old fellow, they are 
none of yours ! " bluntly observed a voice from behind, 
probably Smid's, and a laugh ensued. 

" My saviours, my brothers ! " said Orestes, politely 
ignoring the laughter. " How can I repay you ? Is 
there anything in which my office here enables me — I 
will not say to reward, for that would be a term beneath 
your dignity as free barbarians — but to gratify you ? " 


248 HYPATIA. 

" Give us three days' pillage of the quarter ! " shouted 
some one. 

" Ah, true valour is apt to underrate obstacles ; you 
forget your small numbers." 

" I say," quoth the Amal — ** I say, take care, prefect. 
If you mean to tell me that we forty couldn't cut all the 
throats in Alexandria in three days, and yours into the 
bargain, and keep your soldiers at bay all the time " 

" Half of them would join us ! " cried some one. 
** They are half our own flesh and blood after all ! " 

" Pardon me, my friends, I do not doubt it a moment. 
I know enough of the world never to have found a sheep- 
dog yet who would not, on occasion, help to make away 
with a little of the mutton which he guarded. Eh, my 
venerable sir ? " turning to Wulf with a knowing bow. 

Wulf chuckled grimly, and said something to the Amal 
in German about being civil to guests. 

" You will pardon me, my heroic friends," said Orestes, 
" but, with your kind permission, I will observe that I 
am somewhat faint and disturbed by late occurrences. 
To trespass on your hospitality further would be an 
impertinence. If, therefore, I might send a slave to find 
some of my apparitors " 

" No, by all the gods ! " roared the Amal, " you're my 
guest now — my lady's at least. And no one ever went 
out of my house sober yet if I could help it. Set the 
cooks to work, my men ! The prefect shall feast with us 
like an emperor, and we'll send him home to-night as 
drimk as he can wish. Come along, your excellency ; 
we're rough fellows, we Goths, but by the Valkyrs, no 
one can say that we neglect our guests ! " 

" It is a sweet compulsion," said Orestes, as he went 
in. 

" Stop, by-the-bye ! Didn't one of you men catch a 
monk ? " 

" Here he is, prince, with his elbows safe behind him." 
And a tall, haggard, half-naked monk was dragged 
forward. 

"Capital! bring him in. His excellency shall judge 
him while dinner's cooking, and Smid shall have the 


HYPATIA. 249 

hanging of him. He hurt nobody in the scuffle ; he was 
thinking of his dinner." 

" Some rascal bit a piece out of my leg, and I tumbled 
down," gnmibled Smid. 

'* Well, pay out this fellow for it, then. Bring a chair, 
slaves ! Here, your highness, sit there and judge." 

" Two chairs ! " said some one ; " the Amal shan't 
stand before the emperor himself." 

" By all means, my dear friends. The Amal and I 
will act as the two Caesars, with divided empire. I pre- 
sume we shall have little difference of opinion as to the 
hanging of this worthy." 

" Hanging's too quick for him." 

" Just what I was about to remark — there are certain 
judicial formalities, considered generally to be conducive 
to the stability, if not necessary to the existence, of the 
Roman empire " 

" I say, don't talk so much," shouted a Goth ; " if you 
want to have the hanging of him yourself, do. We 
thought we would save you trouble." 

" Ah, my excellent friend, would you rob me of the 
delicate pleasure of revenge ? I intend to spend at least 
four hours to-morrow in killing this pious martyr. He 
will have a good time to thiuK, between the beginning 
and the end of the rack." 

" Do you hear that, master monk ? " said Smid, chuck- 
ing him under the chin, while the rest of the party seemed 
to think the whole business an excellent joke, and 
divided their ridicule openly enough between the prefect 
and his victim. 

" The man of blood has said it. I am a martyr," 
answered the monk in a dogged voice. 

" You will take a good deal of time in becoming one." 

*' Death may be long, but glory is everlasting." 

*' True. I forgot that, and will save you the said glory, 
if I can help it, for a year or two. Who was it struck me 
with the stone ? " 

No answer. 

" Tell me, and the moment he is in my lictors' hands 
I pardon you freely." 


250 HYPATIA. 

The monk laughed. " Pardon ? Pardon me eternal 
bliss, and the things unspeakable, which God has pre- 
pared for those who love Him ? Tyrant and butcher 1 
I struck thee, thou second Diocletian — I hurled the stone 
— I, Ammonius. Would to Heaven that it had smitten 
thee through, thou Sisera, like the nail of Jael the Kenite 1 " 

** Thanks, my friend. — Heroes, you have a cellar for 
monks as well as for wine ? I will trouble you with this 
hero's psalm-singing to-night, and send my apparitors 
for him in the morning." 

** If he begins howhng when we are in bed, your men 
won't find much of him left in the morning," said the 
Amal. " But here come the slaves, announcing dinner." 

'* Stay," said Orestes ; '* there is one more with whom 
I have an account to settle — that young philosopher 
there." 

** Oh, he is coming in too. He never was drunk in his 
life, ril warrant, poor fellow, and it's high time for him to 
begin." And the Amal laid a good-natured bear's paw 
on Philammon's shoulder, who hung back in perplexity, 
and cast a piteous look towards Wulf . 

Wulf answered it by a shake of the head which gave 
Philammon courage to stammer out a courteous refusal. 
The Amal swore an oath at him which made the cloister 
ring again, and with a quiet shove of his heavy hand 
sent him staggering half across the court ; but Wulf 
interposed. 

" The boy is mine, prince. He is no dnmkard, and I 
will not let him become one. Would to Heaven," added 
he, under his breath, " that I could say the same to some 
others. Send us out our supper here, when you are done. 
Half a sheep or so will do between us, and enough of 
the strongest to wash it down with. Smid knows my 
quantity." 

" Why in Heaven's name are you not coming in ? " 

'* That mob will be trying to burst the gates again 
before two hours are out ; and as some one must stand 
sentry, it may as well be a man who will not have his ears 
stopped up by wine and women's kisses. The boy will 
stay with me." 


HYPATIA. 2 5 1' 

So the party went' in, leaving. Wulf and Philammon 
alone in the outer hall. 

There the two sat for some: half -hour, casting, stealthy 
glances at each other, and wondering perhaps? each: of 
them vainly; enou^^ what was going on: in the opposite 
brain: Philammonj though' his h^art' was full of hia sister, 
could not hel|) noticing the. airr of deep sadness which 
hung about the scarred and weather-beaten features of 
the old warrior. The grimness which he had remarked 
on their' first meeting: seemed to be now changed' into a 
settled melancholy. The furrows round his mouth; and' 
eyes hadJ become deeper and sharper. Some perpetual 
indignation seemed smotddering in: the knitted. brow and 
protruding' upper lip; He: sat there silent and motion* 
less for some half^hour, hi& chin nesthig on his hands-, and! 
they again upon the butt of: his axe, apparently in deep 
thought; and listening with; a silfent! sneer to. the clinking 
of glasses and dishes, within. 

Philammon- felti too. much, respect,, both, for his age 
and his stately sadness, to break: the silence; At last 
some louder burst of merriment than usual: aroused 
him. 

** WTiat do you call that ?" said he, speaking in Gneeki 

" Folly and vanity." 

** A^nd^what does she there — the Alrunar— the: prophet- 
woman, call it ? '* 

'* Whom do you mean ? '* 

" Why, the Greek woman whom we went to hear talk 
this morning:" 

" Folly and vanity,"- 

'* Why can't she cure that Roman hairdresser there 
of it; then ? " 

Philammon was silient^— •' Why not, indeed.? " 

" Do you think she could cure any one of it ?: " 

"Of what?" 

" Of getting' drunk, and wasting their strength and 
their fame, and their hard-won treasures* upon eating 
and drinking, andifine clothes, and badj women." 

*' She- is most pure herself, and she.preaches purity to 
all who hear her." 


254 HYEATIA. 

fruits of his own clumsiness. " But you forget — ^you 
forget she is not. married to iiim ! " 

** Married to him? A fESEdwoman? 'No; thank 
Freya ! he has not fallen .so low <bs ihat, at least — and 
never shall, if I kill the witch wth my own hands. A 
freedwoman ! " 

Poor Philammon ! And iie liad been told but that 
morning that he was a slave. !He hid his face in his 
hands, .and burst into an agony of tears. 

**'CQme, come/' said the testy warrior, softened at 
once. '* Woman^s tears don't matter, but somehow I 
never could bear to make a man cry. When you are 
cool, and have learnt common courtesy, we'll talk more 
about all this. So ! Hush ; ^enough is enough. Here 
comes the supper, and I am as hungry as 'Loke.*^' 

And he commenced devouring like his namesake, " the 
gray beast of the wood," and forcing, in his rough, hos- 
pitable way, Philammon to devour also, much against 
his will and stomach. 

"There. I feel happier new !*' quoth Wulf at last. 
" There is nothing to be done in this accursed place but 
to eat. I get no fighting, no hmiting. I hate women 
as they 'hate me. I don't know anything, indeed, that 
I don't hate, except eating and singing. And now, what 
with those girls* vile tmmanly harps and flutes, tio one 
cares to listen to a true rattling war-song. There they 
are at it now, with their caterwauhng, squealing all 
together like a set of starlings on a foggy morning I 
We'll have a song too, to drown the noise." And he 
burst out with a wild rich melody, acting, in uncouth 
gestures and a suppressed tone of voice, the scene which 
the words described : — 

'** An elk looked out of the pine forest ; 
He snuffed up east, he snuffed down west, 
^Stealthy and itill. 
** His mane and his horns wrece heavywith snow.; 
I laid my arrow across n>y bow, 

Stealthy and still." 

And then quickening his voicQ, as his ^whole face 'blazed 
up into fierce excitement : — 


HYPATTA, 255 

•* The bow it rattled, tRe aaix)w flew^, 
It smote his Uadcrbonos through and through^. 
Hurrah ! 
** I sprang at his throat like a wolf of the wood,. 
And I warmed' my hands in the smoking blood, 
Hurrah !" 

And with a shout that echoed and rang from wall to wall, 
and pealed away above the roofs^ he Leapt to/his Jeet witk 
a gesture and look of savage, frenzy which made Fhilam? 
men recoil. But the passion was gone in an inst«rt„and: 
Wulf sat down a^in chuckling to. himself, — 

*' There, that is something hke a warrior's song. That 
makes the old blood spin along again ! But. this de- 
bauching furnace of a climate ! no man can keep hisi 
muscle, or his courage, or his money,, or anything: else in 
it. May the gods curse the day when first I saw it ! '* 

Philammon said nothing, but sat utterly aghast, ajt an 
outbreak so. imlike Wulf s usual caustic reserve and. 
stately self-restraint, and shuddering at the thought that: 
it might be an instance of that demoniac possession to 
which these barbarians were supposed by Christians and 
by Neo-Platonists to be peculiarly subject. But the 
horror was not yet at its height ; for in another nrimite 
the doors of the women's court flew open, and, attracted 
by Wulf's shout, out poured the whole bacchanalian 
crew, with Orestes, crowned with flowers, and led by the 
Amal and Pelagia, reeling in the midst, wine-cup in 
hand. 

" There is my philosopher, my preserver, my patron 
saint ! '* hiccoughed he. " Bring him to my arms, that 
I may encircle his lovely neck with pearls of India. and 
barbaric gold ! '* 

'' For God's sake let me. escape ! " whispered he to 
Wulf, as the rout rushed upon him. Wulf opened the. 
door in an instant, and he dashed through it. As he went^ 
the old man held out his hand — 

" Come and see me again, boy ! — me only. The old 
warrior will not hurt you ! " 

There was a kindly tone in the voice, a kindly light in 
the eye, which made Philammon promise to obey. He 


258 -HYPATIA. 

" You would not let him do such a thing to -the poor 
child?" 

" If folks get in my way, Smid, they must go down. So 
much the worse for them ; but old Wulf was never turned 
back yet by man or beast, and he 'will not be now." 

" After all, it will serve the husBy right. But Amahic ? " 

" Out of sight, out of mind." 

"But'they say the prefect-means to man^y tbe^l." 

" He ? That scented ape? She would not be such 
a wretch." 

"But he does intend ; and sheiritends-too. >It is the 
talk of the whole town. We should itarve to putihim out 
of the way first." 

" Why ^not ? Easy enough, and a good riddance for 
Alexandria. Yet if we made away with him, we shotdd 
be'forced to take the city too ; aiuil doubt whether we 
-have hands -enough for th^t." 

" The guards might join us. I will go (down to the 
barracks : and try them, '■ if you t choose, to-morrow. I am 
a boon-companion with a good many of liiem already. 
But after all. Prince Wulf-^f course you Jare always 
right; we all know that— ^but what's 'the cuse' of :marry- 
ing this Hypatia to the Amal ? " 

"Use?" said Wdlf, smiting down his igoblet on the 
pavement. " Use ? you purblind oM vhamster^Tat, who 
think of nothing but filling your own cheek^pou^chses ! — 
to give him a wife worthy of a hero, as he is in spite of all 
— a wife » who will make him Briber instead Off drunk, wise 
instead of a fool, daring instead of :u 'sluggard-^a * wife 
who can command* the rich people for us, and:give us a 
hold here, which if once wieiget,let us see' who will break 
it ! Why, with those two iruling in Aliexandria, we 
might be masters of Africain three moiiths. We'd send 
to Spain for the Wendels, to move on -Carthage ; we'd 
send up the Adriatic for the' Longbeards to land in^ Pent a- 
poUs ; we'd sweep the Whole coast without losing a man, 
now it is drained of troops by ^tiiat >fool ^Heraclian's 
Roman expedition ; make the Wendds and Jjangbeards 
shake hands ^here in Alexandria ; draw ^lots ioi their 
shares of the coast, and then " 


HYPATIA. 259 

" And then what ? " 

*' Why, when we had settled Africa, I would call out a 
crew of picked heroes, and sail away south for Asgard — 
I'd try that Red Sea this time — and see Odin face to face, 
or die searching for him.*' 

** Oh I " groaned Smid. " And I suppose you would 
expect me to come too, instead of letting me stop half- 
way, and settle there among the dragons and elephants. 
Well, well, wise men are like moorlands — ^ride as far as 
you. will on the sound ground, yon are sure to come upon 
a soft place at last. However, I will go down to the 
guards to-morrow, if my head don't ache." 

" And I will see the boy about Pelagia. Drink to our 
plot ! " 

And the two old iron-heads drank on, till the stars 
paled out and the eastward shadows of the cloister 
vanished in the blaze of dawn. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

JEWS AGAINST CHRISTIANS. 

The little porter, after having carried Arsenius's message 
to Miriam, had run back in search of Philammon and his 
foster-father ; and not finding them, had spent the even- 
ing in such frantic rushings to and fro as produced great 
doubts of his sanity among the people of the quarter. 
At last hunger sent him home to supper, at \rfiich meal 
he tried to fmd vent for his excited feelings in his favourite 
employment of beating his wife; whereupon Miriam's 
two Syrian slave-girls, attracted by her screams, came 
to the rescue, threw a pail of water over him, and turned 
him out of doors. He, nothing discomfited, likened 
himself smilingly to Socrates conquered by Xantippe ; 
and, philosophically yielding to circumstances, hopped 
about like a tame magpie for a couple of hours at the 
entrance of the alley, pouring forth a stream of light 
raillwy on the passers-by, which several times endangered 
his personal safety; till at last Philammon, hurrying 
breathlessly home, rushed into his arms* 

9 


26o HYPATIA. 

*' Hush ! Hither with me ! Your star still prospers. 
She calls for you.*' 

" Who ? " 

" Miriam herself. Be secret as the grave. You she 
will see and speak with. The message of Arsenius she 
rejected in language which it is imnecessary for philo- 
sophic lips to repeat. Come ; but give her good words — 
as are fit to an enchantress who can stay the stars in their 
courses, and command the spirits of the third heaven." 

Philammon hurried home with Eudaimon. Little cared 
he now for Hypatia*s warning against Miriam. . . . Was 
he not in search of a sister ? 

** So, you wretch, you are back again ! " cried one of 
the girls, as they knocked at the outer door of Miriam's 
apartments. '* What do you mean by bringing young 
men here at this time of night ? " 

'' Better go down, and beg pardon of that poor wife of 
yours. She has been weeping and praying for you to her 
crucifix all the evening, you ungrateful httle ape ! " 

*' Female superstitions — but I forgive her. . . . Peace, 
barbarian women ! I bring this youthful philosopher 
hither by your mistress's own appointment." 

** He must wait, then, in the anteroom. There is a 
gentleman with my mistress at present." 

So Philammon waited in a dark, dingy anteroom, 
luxuriously furnished with faded tapestry, and divans 
which Uned the walls ; and fretted and fidgeted, while 
the two girls watched him over their embroidery out of 
the comers of their eyes, and agreed that he was a very 
stupid person for showing no incUnation to return their 
languishing glances. 

In the meanwhile Miriam, within, was listening, with 
a smile of grim delight, to a swarthy and weather-beaten 
young Jew. 

" I knew, mother in Israel, that all depended on my 
pace, and night and day I rode from Ostia toward 
Tarentum, but the messenger of the uncircumcised was 
better mounted than I. I therefore bribed a certain 
slave to lame his horse, and passed him by a whole stage 
on the second day. Nevertheless, by night the Philis- 


HYPATIA. 261 

tine had caught me up again, the evil angels helping 
him ; and my soul was mad within me." 

" And what then, Jonadab Bar-Zebudah ? " 

" I bethought me of Ehud, and of Joab also, when he 
was pursued by Asahel, and considered much of the law- 
fulness of the deed, not being a man of blood. Neverthe- 
less, we were together in the darkness, and I smote him.'* 

Miriam clapped her hands. 

'' Then putting on his clothes, and taking his letters 
and credentials, as was but reasonable, I passed myself 
off for the messenger of the emperor, and so rode the 
rest of that journey at the expense of the heathen ; and 
I hereby return you the balance saved." 

" Never mind the balance. Keep it, thou worthy son 
of Jacob. What next ? " 

" When I came to Tarentum, I sailed in the galley 
which I had chartered from certain sea-robbers. Valiant 
men they were, nevertheless, and kept true faith with 
me. For when we had come half-way, rowing with all 
our might, behold another galley coming in our wake 
and about to pass us by, which I knew for an Alexan- 
drian, as did the captain also, who assured me that she 
had come from hence to Brundusium with letters from 
Orestes." 

" Well ? " 

*' It seemed to me both base to be passed, and more 
base to waste all the expense wherewith you and our 
elders had charged themselves ; so I took counsel with 
the man of blood, offering him, over and above our 
bargain, two hundred gold pieces of my own, which 
please to pay to my account with Rabbi Ezekiel, who 
lives by the water-gate in Pelusium. Then the pirates, 
taking counsel, agreed to run down the enemy ; for our 
gdley was a sharp-beaked Libumian, while theirs was 
only a messenger-trireme." 

'^Andyoudidit?" 

" Else had I not been here. They were delivered into 
our hands, so that we struck them full in mid-length, 
and they sank hke Pharaoh and his host." 

" So perish all the enemies of the nation ! " cried 


262 HYPATIA. 

Miriam. '* And now it is impossible, you say, for fresh 
news to arrive for these ten days ? *' 

*' Impossible, the captain assured me, owing to the 
rising of the wind, and the signs of southeriy steam." 

" Here, take this letta: for the Chief Rabbi, and the 
blessing of a mother in Israel. Thou hast played the 
man for thy people ; and thou shalt go to the grave full 
of years and honours, with men-servants and maid- 
servants, gold and silver, children and children's chil- 
dren, with thy foot on the necks of heathens, and the 
blessing of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to eat of the 
goose which is fattening in ihe desert, and the leviathan 
which Heth in the great sea, to be meat for all true 
Israehtes at the last day." 

And the Jew turned and went out, perhaps, in his 
simple fanaticism, the happiest man in Egypt at that 
moment. 

He passed out through the ante-chamber, leering at 
the slave-girls, and scowling at Philammon ; and the 
youth was ushered into the presence of Miriam. 

She sat, coiled up Uke a snake on a divan writing 
busily in a tablet upon her knees, while on the cushions 
beside her glittered splendid jewels, which she had been 
fingering over as a child might its toys. She did not 
look up for a few minutes ; and Philanmion could not 
help, in spite of his impatience, looking roimd the Httle 
room and contrasting its dirty splendour, and heavy 
odour of wine, and food, and perfumes, with the sunny 
grace and cleanliness of Greek houses. Against the walls 
stood presses and chests fretted with fantastic Oriental 
carving ; illuminated rolls of parchment lay in heaps in 
a comer ; a lamp of strange form hung from the ceiUng, 
and shed a dim and lurid light upon an object whi(3i 
chilled the youth's blood for a moment — a bracket 
against the wall, on which, in a plate of gold engraven 
with mystic signs, stood the mummy of an infant's head, 
one of those teraphim from whidi, as Philanmion knew, 
the sorcerers of the East professed to evoke oracular 
responses. 

At last she looked up, and spoke in a shrill, harsh voice. 


HYPATIA. 263 

** Well, my fair boy, and \^at do you want with the 
poor old proscribed Jewess ? Have you coveted yet 
any of the pretty things which she has had the wit to 
make her slave-demons save from the Christian robbers ? " 

Philammon*s tale was soon told. The old woman 
listened, watching him intently with her burning eye ; 
and then answered slowly^ — 

'* Well, and what if you are a slave ? " 

" Am I one, then ? — am I ? " 

" Of course you are. Arsenius spoke truth. I saw 
him buy you at Raveima, just fifteen years ago. I 
bought your sister at the same time. She is two-and- 
twenty now. You were four years younger than she, 
I should say." 

" O heavens ! and you know my sister still ! Is she 
Pelagia ? " 

" You were a pretty boy," went on the hag, apparently 
not hearing him. ** If I had thought you were going to 
grow up as beautiful and as clever as you are, I would 
have bought you mjrself. The Goths were just march- 
ing, and Arsenius gave only eighteen gold fwyeces for you 
— or twenty — I am growing old, and forget everything, 
I think. But there would have been the expense of 
your education, and your sister cost me in training — oh, 
what sums ? Not that she was not worth the money — 
no, no, the darling ! " 

" And you know where she is ? Oh, tell me — in the 
name of mercy tell me I " 

*' Why, then ? " 

*' Why, then ? Have you not the heart of a kuman 
being in you ? Is she not my sister ? " 

" Well ? You have done very well for fifteen years 
without your sister — ^why can you not do as wdl now ? 
You don't recollect her — ^you don't love her." 

" Not love her ? I would die for her — die for you if 
you will but help me to see her 1 " 

" You would, would you ? And if I brought you to 
her, what then ? What if she were Pelagia herself, what 
then ? She is happy enough now, and rich enough. 
Could you make her happier or richer ? " 


264 HYPATIA. 

**Can you ask? I must — I will — ^reclaim her from 
the infamy in which I am sure she lives." 

" Ah ha, sir monk ! I expected as much. I know, 
none knows better, what those fine words mean. The 
burnt child dreads the fire ; but the burnt old woman 
quenches it, you will find. Now Hsten. I do not say 
that you shall not see her — I do not say that Pelagia 
herself is not the woman whom you seek — but — you are 
in my power. Don't frown and pout. I can deliver 
you as a slave to Arsenius when I choose. One word 
from me to Orestes, and you are in fetters as a fugitive." 

" I will escape ! " cried he fiercely. 

'* Escape me ? " — she laughed, pointing to the teraph — 
" me, who, if you fled beyond Kaf, or dived to the depths 
of the ocean, could make these dead Ups confess where 
you were, and command demons to bear you back to 
me upon their wings I Escape me ! Better to obey me, 
and see your sister." 

Philammon shuddered, and submitted. The spell of 
the woman's eye, the terror of her words, which he half 
beheved, and the agony of longing, conquered him, and 
he gasped out, — 

" I will obey you— only — only " 

" Only you are not quite a man yet, but half a monk 
still, eh ? I must know that before I help you, my 
pretty boy. Are you a monk still, or a man ? " 

" What do you mean ? " 

" Ah, ha, ha ! " laughed she shrilly. " And these 
Christian dogs don't know what a man means ? Are 
you a monk, then ? leaving the man alone, as above 
your understanding." 

" I ? — I am a student of philosophy." 

" But no man ? " 

" I am a man, I suppose." 

** I don't ; if you had been, you would have been 
making love like a man to that heathen woman many 
a month ago." 

" I— to her ? " 

" Yes, I — to her I " said Miriam, coarsely imitating 
his tone of shocked humihty. " I, the poor penniless 


HYPATIA. 265 

boy-scholar, to her, the great, rich, wise, worshipped 
she-philosopher, who holds the sacred keys of the inner 
shrine of the east wind — ^and just because I am a man, and 
the handsomest man in Alexandria, and she a woman, 
and the vainest woman in Alexandria, and therefore I am 
stronger than she, and can twist her roimd my finger, 
and bring her to her knees at my feet when I like, as 
soon as I open my eyes and discover that I am a man. 
Eh, boy? Did she ever teach you that among her 
mathematics and metaphysics, and gods and goddesses ? "^ 

Philammon stood blushing scarlet. The sweet poison 
had entered, and every vein glowed with it for the first 
time in his life. Miriam saw her advantage. 

" There, there — don't be frightened at your new lesson. 
After all, I liked you from the first moment I saw you,. 
and asked the teraph about you, and I got an answer 
— such an answer! You shall know it some day. At 
all events, it set the poor old soft-hearted Jewess on 
throwing away her money. Did you ever guess from 
whom your monthly gold piece came ? " 

Philammon started, and Miriam burst into loud, shrill 
laughter. 

" From Hypatia, I'll warrant ! From the fair Greek 
woman, of course — ^vain child that you are — never think- 
ing of the poor old Jewess." 

*' And did you ? did you ? " gasped Philammon. 
" Have I to thank you, then, for that strange generosity ? " 

*' Not to thank me, but to obey me ; for mind, I can 
prove your debt to me, every pbol, and claim it if I 
choose. But don't fear ; I won't be hard on you, just 
because you are in my power. I hate every one who is 
not so. As soon as I have a hold on them, I begin to 
love them. Old folks, Hke children, are fond of their 
own playthings." 

" And I am yours, then ? " said Philammon fiercely. 

" You are indeed, my beautiful boy," answered she, 
looking up with so insinuating a smile that he could not 
be angry. " After all, I know how to toss my balls 
gently — and for these forty years I have only hved to 
make young folks happy ; so you need not be afraid 


266 HYPATIA. 

of the poor soft-hearted old woman. Now — ^you saved 
Orestes's life yesterday." 

" How did you find out that ? " 

" I ? I know everything, I know what tiie swallows 
say when they pass each other on the wing, and what 
the fishes think of in the summer sea. You, too, will 
be able to guess some day, without the teraph's help. 
But in the meantime you must enter Orestes's service. 
Why ? — ^what are you hesitating about ? Do you not 
know that you are high in his favour ? He w&l make 
you secretary — praise you to be chamberlain some day, 
if you know how to make good use of your fortune.'* 

Philammon stood in astonished silence, and at last, — 

** Servant to that man ? What care I for him or his 
honours ? Why do you tantalize me thus ? I have no 
wish on earth but to see my sister ! *' 

" You will be far more likely to see her if you belong 
to the court of a great officer — perhaps more than an 
officer — than if you remain a penniless monk. Not that 
I believe you. Your only wish on earth, eh ? Do you 
not care, then, ever to see the fair Hypatia again ? " 

" I ? Why should I not see her ? Am I not her pupil ? *' 

" She will not have pupils much longer, my child. 
If you wish to hear her wisdom — and much good may it 
do you — you must go for it henceforth somewhat nearer 
to Orestes's palace than the lecture-room is. Ah I you 
start. Have I found you an argument now? No — ask 
no questions. I explain nothing to morfe. But take 
these letters ; to-morrow morning at the third hour go 
to Orestes's palace, and ask for his secretary, Ethan the 
Chaldee. Say boldly that you bring important news 
of state ; and then follow your star : it is a fairer one 
than you fancy. Go ! obey me, or you see no sister." 

Philammon felt himself trapped ; but, after all, what 
might not this strange woman do for him ? It seemed, 
if not his only path, still his nearest path to Pelagia ; 
and in the meanwhile he was in the hag's power, and 
he must submit to his fate ; so he took the letters and 
went out. 

" And so you think that you are going to have her ? " 


HYPATIA. 267 

ckuckled Miriam to hersdf , when Philammc«i went out. 
" To make a penitent of b«:, eh ? — a nun^ or a she- 
hermit; to set her to appease your God by crawhng 
on all fours among the mummies for twenty years, with 
a chain round her neck and a dog at her aiiie, fancying 
herself all the while the bride of the Nazarene ? And 
you think that old Miriam is going to give h&r up to 
you for that ? No, no„ sir monk ! Better she were 
dead ! . . . Follow yxnir dainty bait ! — follow it, as the 
donkey does the grass whkh his driver offers him, always 
an inch from his nose. . . . You in my power ! — and 
Orestes in my power! ... I must negotiate that new 
loan to-morrow, i suppose. • . . I shall never be paid. 
The dog will ruin me, after all ! How nrndi is it, now ? 
Let me see." . . . And she began fumbling in her 
escritoire,, over bonds and notes of hand. " I shall 
never be paid ; but power ! — to have power ! To see 
those heathen slaves and Christian hoxmds plotting and 
vapouring, and fancying themselves the masters of the 
world, and never dreaming that we are pulling the strings, 
and that they are our puppets, i — ^we, the clnldren of the 
promises — ^we^ The Nation — ^we, the seed of Abraham 1 
Poor fools 1 I could almost pity them, as I think of 
their faces iidien Messiah comes, and they find out who 
were the true lords of the world, after all I ... He must 
be Emperor of the South, though, that Orestes ; he 
must, tiiough I have to lend him Raphael's jeweb to 
make him so. For he must marry the Greek woman. 
He shall. She hates him,, of course. ... So much the 
deeper revenge for mc. And she loves that monk. I 
saw it in her eyes there in the garden. So much the 
better for me too. He will dangle wiUingLy enough at 
Orestes's heels for the sake of being near h«r — ^poor 
fool I We will make him secretary, or chamberlain. He 
has wit enough for it, they say, ot for anything. So 
Orestes and he shall be the two jaws of my pincers to 
squeeze what I want out of that Greek Jezebel. . . . 
And then, then for the black agate I " 

Was the end of her speech a bathos ? Perhaps not ; 
for as she spoke the last word, she drew from her bosom, 

ga 


268 HYPATIA. 

where it hung round her neck by a chain, a broken talis- 
man, exactly similar to the one which she coveted so 
fiercely, and looked at it long and lovingly — ^kissed it — 
wept over it — spoke to it — fondled it in her arms as a 
mother would a child — murmured over it snatches of 
lullabies ; and her grim, withered features grew softer, 
purer, grander, and rose ennobled, for a moment, to 
their long-lost might-have-been, to that personal ideal 
which every soul brings with it into the world, which 
shines, dim and potential, in the face of every sleeping 
babe, before it has been scarred, and distorted, and en- 
crusted in the long tragedy of life. Sorceress she was, 
pander and slave-dealer, steeped to the hps in falsehood, 
ferocity, and avarice ; yet that paltry stone brought 
home to her some thought, true, spiritual, impalpable, 
unmarketable, before which all her treasures and ^ her 
ambition were as worthless in her own eyes as they were 
in the eyes of the angels of God. 

But httle did Miriam think that at the same moment 
a brawny, clownish monk was standing in Cyril's private 
chamber, and, indulged with the special honour of a cup 
of good wine in the patriarch's very presence, was telling 
to him and Arsenius the following history : — 

" So I, finding that the Jews had chartered this 
pirate-ship, went to the master thereof, and finding 
favour in his eyes, hired myself to row therein, being 
sure, from what I had overheard from the Jews, that 
she was destined to bring the news to Alexandria as 
quickly as possible. Therefore, fulfilling the work which 
his Hohness had entrusted to my incapacity, I em- 
barked, and rowed continually among the rest ; and 
being unskilled in such labour, received many curses 
and stripes in the cause of the church — the which I 
trust are laid to my account hereafter. Moreover, Satan 
entered into me, desiring to slay me, and almost tore me 
asunder, so that I vomited much, and loathed all manner 
of meat. Nevertheless, I rowed on vaHantly, being such 
as I am, vomiting continually, till the heathens were 
moved with wonder, and forbore to beat me, giving me 
strong liquors in pity ; wherefore I rowed all the more 


HYPATIA. 269 

valiantly day and night, trusting that by my unworthi- 
ness the cause of the Catholic Church might be in some 
slight wise assisted." 

" And so it is," quoth Cjnil. *' Why do you not sit 
down, man ? " 

" Pardon me," quoth the monk, with a piteous gesture ; 
*' of sitting, as of all carnal pleasure, cometh satiety at the 
last." 

" And now," said Cyril, " what reward am I to give 
you for your good service ? " 

" It is reward enough to know that I have done good 
service. Nevertheless, if the holy patriarch be so in- 
clined without reason, there is an ancient Christian, my 
mother according to the flesh " 

" Come to me to-morrow, and she shall be well seen 
to. And mind — ^look to it, if I make you not a deacon 
of the city when I promote Peter." 

The monk kissed his superior's hand and withdrew. 
Cyril turned to Arsenius, betrayed for once into geniahty 
by his delight, and smiting his thigh, — 

" We have beaten the heathen for once, eh ? " And 
then, in the usual artificial tone of an ecclesiastic, " And 
what would my father recommend in furtherance of the 
advantage so mercifully thrown into our hand ? " 

Arsenius was silent. 

*' I," went on Cyril, " should be inclined to announce 
the news this very night in my sermon." 

Arsenius shook his head. 

" Why not ? why not ? " asked C5n:il impatiently. 

*' Better to keep it secret till others tell it. Reserved 
knowledge is always reserved strength ; and if the man, 
as I hope he does not, intends evil to the church, let 
him commit himself before you use your knowledge 
against him. True, you may have a scruple of con- 
science as to the lawfulness of allowing a sin which you 
might prevent. To me it seems that the sin lies in the 
wiU rather than in the deed, and that sometimes — I 
only say sometimes — ^it may be a means of saving the 
sinner to allow his root of iniquity to bear fruit, and fill 
him with his own devices." 


270 HYPATIA. 

" Dangerous doctrine, my i^ther.'* 

'' Like all sound doctrine — a savour of life or of deatli, 
according as it is received. I have not said it to the mul- 
titude, but to a discerning brother. And even politically 
speaking — ^let him commit himself, if he be really plotting 
rebellion, and then speak, and smile his Babel tower." 

'' You think, then, that he does not know of Heraclian's 
defeat already ?" 

" If he does, he will keep it secret from the people ; 
and our chances of turning them suddenly will be nearly 
the same," 

^' Good. After all, the existence of the Catholic Chundi 
in Alexandria depends on this struggle, and it is well to 
be wary. Be it so. It is wdl for me that I have you 
ior an adviser," 

And thus Cyril, usually the most impatient -and in- 
tractable of plotters, gave in, as wise men should, to a 
wiser man tlmi himsdf , and made up his mind to keep 
the secret, and to command Hie monk to keep it also. 

Philammon, after a sleepless ni^t, and a wdcome 
visit to the put^c batiia, which the Roman tyranny, 
wiser in its generation than modern liberty, provided 
so liberally for its victims, set forth to the prefect's 
palace, and gave his message; but Orestes, who had 
been of late astonishing the Alexandrian public by an 
unwonted display of alacrity, was already in tte adjoin- 
ing basilica. Thither the youth was conducted by an 
apparitor, and led up the centre of the enormous hall, 
gorgeous with frescoes and coloured marbles, and sur- 
rounded by aisles and galleries, in which the inferior 
magistrates were hearing causes, and doing sudi justice 
as the comphcated technicalities of Roman law chose 
to mete out. Through a crowd of anxious loungers the 
youth passed to Hie apse of the upper end, in which the 
prefect's throne stood empty, and then turned into a 
side chamber, where he found himsdf alone with the 
secretary, a portly Chaldee eunuch, with a sleek paie 
face, small pig's eyes, and an enormous turban. The 
man of pen and paper took the letter, opened it with 
solemn dehberation, and then, springing to his feet. 


HYPATIA. 271 

darted out of the room m most uiKiignififid haste, leaving 
Philammon to wait and wonder. In half an hour he 
retiimed, his little eyes growing big with some great idea. 

" Yottth I your star is in the ascendant ; you are the 
fortunate bearer of fcfftunate news I His excellency him- 
self commands your presence." And the two went out. 

In another chamber, the door of wluda was guarded 
by armed men, Orestes was walking up and down in 
high excitement, looking somewhat the worse for the 
events of the past night, and making occasional appeals 
to a gold goblet which stood cm liie tabte. 

" Ha I No other thaa ray preserver himself ! Boy, 
I will make yoitr fortune. Miriam: says that you wirh 
to enter my service/* 

Philammon, not knowimg what to say, thought the 
best answer would be to bow as low as he could. 

" Ah, ha I Graceful,^ but not quite according to eti- 
qtiette. You will sooo teach him, eh, secretary > Now 
to business. Hand me the lootes to sign and seal To 
the prefect of the stationaries *' 

" Here, your excellency." 

** To the prefect of the com market — ^how many 
wheat-ships have you cffdered to be unladen ? " 

** Two, your excelkncy." 

" Well, that will be largess enough for the time being. 
To the defended of the plebs — ^the devil break his neck ! " 

" He may be trusted, most noble ; he is bitterly 
jealous of Cyril's influence. And, moreover, he owes 
my insignificance much money." 

*' Good ! Now the notes to the jail-masters, about 
the gladiators." 

** Here, your excellency." 

*' To Hypatia. No; I will honour my bride elect with 
my own illustrious presence. As I Hve, here is a morn- 
ing's wOTk for a man with a racking headache ! " 

" Your excellency has the strength of seven. May 
you hve for ever 1 " 

And really Orestes's power of getting through busi- 
ness, when he chose, was surpdcsing enough. A cold 
head and a colder heart make many ^ngs easy. 


272 HYPATIA, 

But Philammon's whole soul was fixed on those 
words. " His bride elect I " . . . Was it that Miriam's 
hints of the day before had raised some selfish vision, 
or was it pity and horror at such a fate for her — for his 
idol ? But he passed five minutes in a dream, from 
which he was awakened by the sound of another and 
still dearer name. 

" And now for Pelagia. We can but try." 

" Your excellency might offend the Goth." 

" Curse the GolJi ! He shall have his choice of all 
the beauties in Alexandria, and be Count of Pentapolis 
it he likes. But a spectacle I must have, and no one 
but Pelagia can dance Venus Anadyomene." 

Philammon's blood rushed to his heart, and then 
back again to his brow, as he reeled with horror and 
shame. 

*' The people will be mad with joy to see her on the 
stage once more. Little they thought, the brutes, how 
I was plotting for their amusement, even when as drunk 
as Silenus." 

" Your nobility only fives for the good of your slaves." 

" Here, boy ! So fair a lady requires a fair messenger. 
You shall enter on my service at once, and carry this 
letter to Pelagia. Why ? — ^why do you not come and 
take it ? " 

" To Pelagia ? " gasped the youth. " In the theatre ? 
Publicly ? Venus Anadyomene ? " 

"Yes, fool I Were you, too^ drunk last night after 
all ? " 

" She is my sister ! " 

** Well, and what of that ? Not that I befieve you, 
you villain ! So ! " said Orestes, who comprehended the 
matter in an instant. " Apparitors ! " 

The door opened, and the guard appeared. 

" Here is a good boy who is inclined to make a fool 
of himself. Keep him out of harm's way for a few days. 
But don't hurt him; for, after all, he saved my life 
yesterday, when you scoundrels ran away." 

And, without further ado, the iiapless youth was 
collared, and led down a vaulted passage into the guard- 


HYPATIA. 273 

room, amid the jeers of the guard, who seemed only to 
owe him a grudge for his yesterday's prowess, and 
showed great alacrity in fitting him with a heavy set 
of irons ; which done, he was thrust head foremost into 
a cell of the prison, locked in, and left to his meditations. 


CHAPTER XX. 

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. 

" But, fairest Hypatia, conceive yourself struck in the 
face by a great stone, several hundred howling wretches 
leaping up at you like wild beasts — two minutes more, 
and you are torn hmb from Hmb. What would even 
you do in such a case ? " 

" Let them tear me hmb from limb, and die as I have 
Uved.'* 

" Ah, but When it came to fact, and death was 

staring you in the face ? " 

" And why should man fear death ? " 

" Ahem ! No, not death, of course, but the act of 
dying. That may be, surely, under such circumstances, 
to say the least, disagreeable. If our ideal, Julian the 
Great, found a httle dissimulation necessary, and was 
even a better Christian than I have ever pretended to 
be, till he found himself able to throw off the mask, why 
should not I ? Consider me as a lower being than your- 
self — one of the herd, if you will ; but a penitent member 
thereof, who comes to make the fullest possible repara- 
tion, by doing any desperate deed on which you may 
choose to put him, and prove myself as able and willing, 
if once I have the power, as JuHan himself." 

Such was the conversation which passed between 
Hypatia and Orestes half an hour after Philammon had 
taken possession of his new abode. 

Hypatia looked at the prefect with calm penetration, 
not unmixed with scorn and fear. 

" And pray what has produced this sudden change in 
your excellency's earnestness ? For four months your 


274 HYPATIA. 

promises liave been lying fallow." She did not confess 
how glad she wonld have been at heart to see them 
Ipng fallow still. 

" Because This morning I have news, which I 

tell to you the first as a compliment. We will take care 
that all Alexandria knows it before sundown. Heraclian 
has conquered." 

" Conquered ? " cried Hypatia, springing from her seat. 

" Conquered, and utterly destroyed the emperor's 
forces at Ostia. So says a messenger on whom I can 
depend. And even if the news should prove false, I can 
prevent the contrary report from spreading, or what is 
the use of being prefect ? You demur ? Do yoa not 
see that if we can keep the notion alive but a wedc oor 
cause is won ? "" 

" How so ? " 

"I have treated alrea^ with aM the officers of tbe 
city, and every one of them has acted like a wise man, 
and given me a promise of help, conditional of course 
on Heraclian's success, being as tired as I am of that 
priest-ridden court at Byzantium. Moreover, the station- 
aries are mine already. So are the soldiery all the way 
up the Nile. Ah ! you have been fancying me idle for 
these four months, but You forget that you your- 
self were the prize of my toil. Could I be a sluggard 
with that goal in sight ? " 

Hypatia shuddered, but was silent ; and Orestes went 
on, — 

" I have unladen several of the wheat-ships for enor- 
mous largesses of bread : though those rascally monks 
of Tabenne had nearly forestalled my benevolence, and 
I was farced to bribe a deacon or two, buy up the stodc 
they had sent down, and retail it again as my own. It 
is really most offtcious of them to persist in feeding 
gratuitously half the poor of the city ! What possiWe 
business have they with Alexaiidria ? 

" The wish for popularity, I presume." 

" Just so ; and then what hold can the government 
have on a set of rogues whose stomachs are filled without 
our help ? " 


HYPATIA. 275 

^' Julian made the same complaint to the high priest 
of Galatia in that priceless letter of his." 

** Ah, you will set that all right, you know, shortly. 
Tlien again, I do not fear Cyril's power just now. He 
has injured himself deeply, I am ha4>py to say, in the 
opinion of the we^thy and educated, by expelling the 
Jews. And as for his mob, eicactly at the right moment, 
the deities — ^there are no monks here, so I can attribute my 
blessings to the right source — ^have sent us sudi a boon as 
may put them into as good a hiamour as we need." 

" And what is that ? " asbed Hypatia. 

^ A white elephant.^' 

''A white elephant ?"" 

^' Yes," he answered, mistaking or ignoring the tone 
of her answer, *' A real, live, white elephant — a thing 
which has not been seen in Alexandria for a hundred 
years 1 It was passing through with two tame tigers, 
as a present to the boy at Byzantium, from some hun- 
dred-wived kinglet of the Hyperborean Taprobane, or 
other no-man's-land in the far East. I took the liberty 
of la5^g an embargo on them, and, after a little argu- 
mentation and a few hints of torture, elephant and 
tigers are at our service/' 

•'* And of what service are they to be ? '* 

** My dearest madam Conceive. : . . How are we 

to win the mob without a show .^ ; ; : When were there 
more than two ways of gaining dther the whole or part 
of the Roman Empire — by force of arms or force of trum- 
pery ? Can even you invent a third ? The former is 
unpleasantly exciting, and hardly practicable just now. 
The latter remains, and, thanks to the white elephant, 
may be triumphantly succe^nL I have to exhibit 
something every week. The people are getting tired of 
that pantomime; and since the Jews were dnven out 
the fellow has grown stupid and lazy, having lost the 
more enthusiastic half of his spectators. As for horse- 
racing, they are sick of it. , • . Now, suppose we an- 
nounce, for the earliest possible day — a spectacle — ^such 
a spectacle as never was seen before in this generation. 
You and I — I as exhibitor, you as representative — for 


276 HYPATIA. 

the time being only — of the Vestals of old — sit side by 
side. ; . . Some worthy friend has his instructions, when 
the people are beside themselves with rapture, to cry, 
* Long live Orestes Caesar ! * . ; . Another reminds them 
of Heraclian's victory ; another couples your name with 
mine . . . the people applaud . . . some Mark Antony 
steps forward, salutes me as Imperator, Augustus — ^what 
you will — the cry is taken up — I refuse as meekly as 
Julius Caesar himself — am compelled, blushing, to accept 
the honour — I rise, make an oration about the future 
independence of the southern continent — ^union of Africa 
and Egypt — the empire no longer to be divided into 
Eastern and Western, but Northern and Southern. Shouts 
of applause, at two drachmas per man, shake the skies. 
Everybody believes that everybody else approves, and 
follows the lead . . . and the thing is won.'* 

*' And pray," asked Hypatia, crushing down her con- 
tempt and despair, " how is this to bear on the worship 
of the gods ? '* 

'' Why . ; . why ; : ; if you thought that people's 
minds were sufficiently prepared, you might rise in your 
turn and make an oration — you can conceive one. Set 
forth how these spectacles, formerly the glory of the 
empire, had withered under Galilaean superstition. ; . . 
How the only path toward the full enjoyment of eye 
and ear was a frank return to those deities from whose 
worship they originally sprang, and connected with 
which they could alone be enjoyed in their perfection. 
. . . But I need not teach you how to do that which 
you have so often taught me; so now to consider our 
spectacle, which, next to the largess, is the most im- 
portant part of our plans. I ought to have exhibited 
to them the monk who so nearly killed me yesterday. 
That would indeed have been a triumph of the laws 
over Christianity. He and the wild beasts might have 
given the people ten minutes' amusement. But wrath 
conquered prudence, and the fellow has been crucified 
these two hours. Suppose, then, we had a little exhibi- 
tion of gladiators. They are forbidden by law, certainly." 

" Thank Heaven, they are ! " 


HYPATIA. 277 

" But do you not see that is the very reason why we, 
to assert our own independence, should employ them ? " 

*' No 1 they are gone. Let them never reappear to 
disgrace the earth." 

** My dear lady, you must not in your present char- 
acter say that in public, lest Cyril should be imperti- 
nent enough to remind you that Christian emperors and 
bishops put them down." 

Hypatia bit her hp, and was silent. 

" Well, I do not wish to urge anything unpleasant to 
you, : . . If we could but contrive a few martyrdoms — 
but I really fear we must wait a year or two longer, in 
the present state of public opinion, before we can attempt 
that." 

" Wait ? wait for ever I Did not Julian — and he 
must be our model — forbid the persecution of the Gali- 
Iseans, considering them sufficiently punished by their j 
ov^oi atheism and self-tormenting superstition ? " / 

" Another small error of that great man. He should 
have recollected that for three hundred years nothing, 
not even the gladiators themselves, had been foimd to 
put the mob in such good humour as to see a few 
Christians, especially young and handsome women, 
burned ahve, or thrown to the hons." 

Hypatia bit her lip once more. "I can hear no more of 
this, sir. You forget that you are speaking to a woman." 

" Most supreme wisdom," answered Orestes, in his 
blandest tone, " you cannot suppose that I wish to pain 
your ears. But allow me to observe, as a general theorem, 
that if one wishes to effect any purpose, it is necessary 
to use the means ; and on the whole, those which have 
been tested by four hundred years' experience will be 
the safest. I speak as a plain, practical statesman ; but 
surely your philosophy will not dissent ? " 

Hypatia looked down in painful thought. What could 
she answer ? Was it not too true ? and had not Orestes 
fact and experience on his side ? 

** Well, if you must — but I cannot have gladiators. 
Why not a — one of those battles with wild beasts ? 
They are disgusting enough, but still they are less in- 


28o HYP ATI A. 

forgot one half of Juvenal's great dictum about ' Panem 
and Circenses/ as the absolute and overruling necessities 
of rulers. He tried to give the people the bread without 
the games. . . . And what thanks he received for his 
enormous munificence, let himself and the good folks 
of Antioch tell. You just quoted his Misopogon " 

" Ay — the lament of a man too pure for his age.*' 

" Exactly so. He should rather have been content 
to keep his purity to himself, and have gone to Antioch 
not merely as a philosophic high priest, with a beard 
of questionable cleanliness, to offer sacrifices to a god in 
whom — forgive me — nobody in Antioch had believed for 
many a year. If he had made his entrance with ten 
thousand gladiators, and our white elephant, built a 
theatre of ivory and glass in Daphnae, and proclaimed 
games in honour of the Sun, or of any other member of 
the Pantheon '* 

" He would have acted unworthily of a philosopher." 

" But instead of that one priest draggling up, poor 
devil, through the wet grass to the deserted altar with 
his solitary goose under his arm, he would have had 
every goose in Antioch — forgive my stealing a pun from 
Aristophanes — ^running open-mouthed to worship any 
god, known or unknown, and to see the sights.*' 

" Well,'* said Hypatia, yielding perforce to Orestes's 
cutting arguments. " Let us then restore the ancient 
glories of the Greek drama. Let us give them a trilogy 
of iEschylus or Sophocles." 

'' Too calm, my dear madam. The Eumenides might 
do certainl}^ or Philoctetes, if we could but put Philoc- 
tetes to real pain, and make the spectators sure that he 
was yelling in good earnest." 

'' Disgusting ! " 

" But necessary, like many disgusting things." 

" Why not try the Prometheus ? " 

" A magnificent field for stage effect, certainly. What 
with those ocean n57mphs in their winged chariot, and 
Ocean on his griffin. . . . But I should hardly think it safe 
to reintroduce Zeus and Hermes to the people under the 
somewhat ugly light in which iEschylus exhibits them." 


HYPATIA. 281 

" I forgot that," said Hypatia. " The Orestean trilogy 
will be best, after all/' 

** Best ? perfect — divine ! Ah, that it were to be my 
fate to go down to posterity as the happy man who once 
more revived iEschylus's masterpieces on a Grecian stage ! 

But Is there not — begging the pardon of the great 

tragedian — ^too much reserve in the Agamemnon for our 
modern taste ? If we could have the bath scene repre- 
sented on the stage, and an Agamemnon who could be 
really killed — though I would not insist on that, because 
a good actor might make it a reason for refusing the 
part — but still the murder ought to take place in pubhc." 

*' Shocking ! an outrage on all the laws of the drama. 
Does not even the Roman Horace lay down as a rule 
the — Nee pueros coram populo Medea trucidet ? " 

*' Fairest and wisest, I am as willing a pupil of the 
dear old Epicurean as any man living — even to the 
furnishing of my chamber ; of which fact the Empress 
of Africa may some day assure herself. But we are not 
now discussing the art of poetry, but the art of reign- 
ing ; and, after all, while Horace was sitting in his easy- 
chair, giving his countrymen good advice, a private man, 
who knew somewhat better than he what the mass ad- 
mired, was exhibiting forty thousand gladiators at his 
mother's funeral.'* 

** But the canon has its foundation in the eternal laws 
of beauty. It has been accepted and observ^ed." 

'* Not by the people for whom it was written. The 
learned Hypatia has surely not forgotten that within 
sixty years after the Ars Poetica was written, Annaeus 
Seneca, or whosoever wrote that very bad tragedy called 
the Medea, found it so necessary that she should, in 
despite of Horace, kill her children before the people, 
that he actually made her do it ! " 

Hypatia was still silent — foiled at every point, while 
Orestes ran on with provoking glibness. 

" And consider, too, even if we dare alter iEschylus a 
little, we could find no one to act him." 

" Ah, true ! fallen, fallen days ! " 

^' And really, after all, omitting the questionable com- 


282 HYPATIA. 

pliment to me, as candidate for a certain dignity, ol 
having my namesake kill his mother, and then be hunted 
over the stage by furies " 

" But Apollo vindicates and purifies him at last. 
What a noble occasion that last scene would give for 
winning thena back to their old reverence for the god ! " 

" True ; but at present the majority of spectators will 
believe more strongly in the horrors of matricide and 
furies than in Apollo's power to dispense therewith. So 
that, I fear, must be one of your labours of the future." 

'' And it shall be," said Hjrpatia. But she did not 
speak cheerfully. 

'* Do you not think, moreover," went on the tempter, 
** that those old tragedies might give somewhat too gloomy 
a notion of those deities whom we wish to reintroduce 
— I beg pardon, to rehonour ? The history of the house 
of Atreus is hardly more cheerful, in spite of its beauty, 
than one of C3^'s sermons on the day of judgment, and 
the Tartarus prepared for hapless rich people." 

** Well," said Hypatia, more and more -hstlessly, '* it 
might be more prudent to show them first the fairer 
and more graceful side of the old myths. Certainly the 
great age of Athenian tragedy had its playful reverse 
in the old comedy." 

" And in certain Dionysiac sports and processions 
which shall be nameless, in order to awaken a proper 
devotion for the gods in those who might not be able 
to appreciate ^Eschylus and Sophocles." 

*' You would not reintroduce them ? " 

" Pallas forbid I but give as fair a substitute ior them •> 
as we can." 

" And are we to degrade ourselves because the masses 
are degraded ? " 

" Not in the least. For my own part, this whole 
busiciess, hke the catering for the weekly pantomimes, 
is as great a bore to me as it could have been to Juhan 
himself. But, my dearest madam — ' Panem and Cir- 
censes ' — they must be put into good humour ; and 
there is but one way — ^by ' the lust of the flesh, and 
the lust of Iki e5''e, and the pride of hfe/ as a certain 


HYPATTA, 283 

Galflaean correctly defines the time-honoured Roman 
method" 

" Put them into good humour ? I wish to lustrate 
them afresh for the service of the gods. If we must 
have comic representations, we can only have them 
conjoined to tragedy, which, as Aristotle defines it, will 
purify their affections by pity and terror." ^ 

Orestes smiled. 

*' I certainly can have no objection to so good a pur- 
pose. But do you not think that the battle between 
th€ gladiators and the Libyans will have done that 
sufficiently beforehand ? I can conceive nothing more 
fit for that end, unless it be Nero's method of sending 
his guards among the spectators themselves, and throw- 
ing them down to the wild beasts in the arena. How 
thorotighly purified by pity and terror must every 
worthy shopkeeper have been, when he sat uncertain 
whether he might not follow his fat wife into the claws 
of the nearest Hon ! " 

" You are pleased to be witty, sir," said Hypatia, 
hardly able to conceal her disgust. 

** My dearest bride elect, I only meant the most harm- 
less of reductiones ad absurdum of an abstract canon of 
Aristotle, with which I, who am a Platonist after my 
mistress's model, do not happen to agree. But do, I 
beseech you, be ruled, not by me, but by your own 
wisdom. You cannot bring the people to appreciate 
your designs at the first sight. You are too wise, too 
pure, too lofty, too far-sighted for them. And therefore 
you must get power to compel them. JuHan, after all, 
found it necessary to compel : if he haxi lived seven years 
more, he would have found it necessary to persecute." 

*' The gods forbid that — ^that such a necessity should 
ever arise here." 

** The only way to avoid it, believe me, is to allure 
and to indulge. After all, it is for their good." 

*' True," sighed Hypatia. *' Have your way, sir." 

" Believe me, you shall have jrours in turn. I ask 
you to be ruled by me now, only that you may be in a 
position to rule me and Africa hereafter." 


284 HYPATIA. 

" And such an Africa ! Well, if they are bom low and 
earthly, they must, I suppose, be treated as such ; and 
the fault of such a necessity is Nature's, and not ours. 
Yet it is most degrading ! But still, if the only method 
by which the philosophic few can assume their rights, 
as the divinely-appointed rulers of the world, is by in- 
dulging those lower beings whom they govern for their 
good — ^why, be it so. It is no worse necessity than many 
another which the servant of the gods must endure in 
days like these." 

" Ah,'* said Orestes, refusing to hear the sigh, or to see 
the bitterness of the lip which accompanied the speech, 
" now Hypatia is herself again, and my counsellor, and 
giver of deep and celestial reasons for all things at which 
poor I can only snatch and guess by vulpine cunning. 
So now for our lighter entertainment. What shall it 
be?'* 

" What you will, provided it be not, as most such are, 
unfit for the eyes of modest women. I have no skill in 
catering for folly." 

'' A pantomime then ? We may make that as grand 
and as significant as we will, and expend too on it all oiir 
treasures in the way of gewgaws and wild beasts." 

" As you like." 

" Just consider, too, what a scope for mythologic 
learning a pantomime affords. Why not have a triumph 
of some deity ? Could I commit myself more boldly to 
the service of the gods ! Now — ^who shall it be ? " 

" Pallas — unless, as I suppose, she is too modest and 
too sober for your Alexandrians." 

" Yes — it does not seem to me that she would be 
appreciated — at all events for the present. Why not try 
Aphrodite ? Christians as well as pagans will thoroughly 
understand her ; and I know no one who would not 
degrade the virgin goddess by representing her, except 
a certain lady, who has already, I hope, consented to sit 
in that very character, by the side of her too much hon- 
oured slave ; and one Pallas is enough at a time in any 
theatre." 

Hypatia shuddered. He took it all for granted, then — 


HYPATIA. 285 

and claimed her conditional promise to the uttermost; 
Was there no escape ? She longed to spring up and rush 
away, into the streets, into the desert — anything to break 
the hideous net which she had wound around herself. 
And yet — ^was it not the cause of the gods — the one 
object of her Hfe ? And after all, if he the hateful was to 
be her emperor, she at least was to be an empress, and 
do what she would ; and half in irony, and half in the 
attempt to hurl herself perforce into that which she knew 
that she must go through, and forget misery in activity, 
she answered as cheerfxilly as she could, — 

" Then, my goddess, thou must wait the pleasure of 
these base ones ! At least the young Apollo will have 
charms even for them." 

" Ah, but who will represent him ? This puny gen- 
eration does not produce such figures as Pylades and 
Bathyllus — except among those Goths. Besides, Apollo 
must have golden hair ; and our Greek race has inter- 
mixed itself so shamefully with these Egyptians that 
our stage-troop is as dark as Andromeda, and we should 
have to apply again to those accursed Goths, who have 
nearly " (with a bow) " all the beauty, and nearly all the 
money and the power, and will, I suspect, have the rest 
of it before I am safe out of this wicked world, because 
they have not nearly, but quite, all the courage. Now — 
shall we ask a Goth to dance Apollo ? for we can get 
no one else." 

Hypatia smiled in spite of herself at the notion. " That 
would be too shameful. I must forgo the god of Hght 
himself, if I am to see him in the person of a clumsy 
barbarian." 

*' Then why not try my despised and rejected Aph- 
rodite ? Suppose we had her triumph, finishing with a 
dance of Venus Anadyomene. Surely that is a graceful 
myth enough." 

" As a myth ; but on the stage in reahty ? " 

" Not worse than what this Christian city has been 
looking at for many a year. We shall not run any 
danger of corrupting morality, be sure." 

Hypatia blushed. 


286 HYPATIA. 

" Then you must not ask for my help." 

" Or for your presence at the spectacle ? For that, be 
sure, is a necessary point. You are too great a person, 
my dearest madam, in the ej^s of these good folks to be 
allowed to absent yourself on such an occasion. If my 
little stratagem succeeds, it will be half owing to the fact 
of the people knowing that in crowning me they crown 
Hypatia. . . . Come now — do you not see that as you must 
needs be present at their harmless scrap of mythology, 
taken from the authentic and undoubted histories of 
those very gods whose worship we intend to restore, 
you will consult your own comfort most in agreeing to 
it cheerfully, and in lending me your wisdom towards 
arranging it ? Just conceive now, a triimiph of Aph- 
rodite, entering preceded by wild beasts led in chains by 
Cupids, the white elephant and all — ^what a field for the 
plastic art ! You might have a thousand groupings, dis- 
persions, regroupings, in as perfect bas-relief style as 
those of any Sophoclean drama. Allow me only to take 
this paper and pen " 

And he began sketching rs^idly group after group. 

" Not so ugly, surely ? " 

" They are very beautiful, I cannot deny," said poor 
Hypatia. 

" Ah, sweetest empress 1 you forget sometimes diat I, 
too, world-worm as I am, am a Greek, with as intense a 
love of the beautiful as even you yourself have. Do not 
fancy that every violation of correct taste does not tor- 
ture me as keenly as it does you. Some day, I hope, 
you will have learned to pity and to excuse the wretched 
compromise between that which ought to be and that 
which can be, in which we hapless statesmen must struggle 
on, half-stunted, and whoUy misunderstood. Ah, well ! 
Look, now, at these faims and dryads among the shrubs 
upon the stage, pausing in startled wonder at the first 
blast of music which proclaims the exit of the goddess 
from her temple.'* 

'* The temple ? Why, where are j^u going to ex- 
hibit ? " 

" In the Theatre, of course. Where else pantomimes ? " 


HYPATIA. 287 

" But will the spectators have tune to move all the 
way from the Amphitheatre after that — those " 

** The Amphitheatre ? We shall exhibit the Libyans, 
too, in the Theatre." 

'* Combats in the Theatre sacred to Dionusos ? " 

** My dear lady '' — penitently — '' I know it is an offence 
against all the laws of the drama/' 

'* Oh, worse than that ! Consider what an impiety 
toward the god, to desecrate his altar with bloodshed ? *' 

'* Fairest devotee, recollect that, after all, I may fairly 
borrow Dionusos's altar in this my extreme need ; for 
I saved its very existence for him, by preventing the 
magistrates from filling up the whole orchestra with 
benches for the patricians, after the barbarous Roman 
fashion. And besides, what possible sort of representa- 
tion, or misrepresentation, has not been exhibited in 
every theatre of the empire for the last four hundred 
years ? Have we not had tumblers, conjurers, allegories, 
martyrdoms, marriages, elephants on the tight-rope, 
learned horses, and learned asses too, if we may trust 
Apuleius of Madaura ; with a good many other spec- 
tacles of which we must not speak in the presence of a 
vestal ? It is an age of execrable taste, and we must act 
accordingly.*' 

*' Ah ! ** answered Hypatia ; " the first step in the 
downward career of the drama began when the suc- 
cessors of Alexander dared to profane theatres which had 
re-echoed the choruses of Sophocles and Euripides by 
degrading the altar of Dionusos into a stage for panto- 
mimes ! '* 

'* Which your pure mind must, doubtless, consider not 
so very much better than a little fighting. But, after 
all, the Ptolemies could not do otherwise. You can only 
have Sophoclean dramas in a Sophoclean age, and theirs 
was no more of one than ours is, and so the drama died 
a natural death ; and when that happens to man or thing, 
you may weep over it if you will, but you must, after afl, 
bury it, and get something else in its place — except, of 
course, the worship of the gods." 

'* I am glad that you except that, at least," said 


288 HYPATIA. 

Hypatia, somewhat bitterly. " But why not use the 
Amphitheatre for both spectacles ? " 

" What can I do ? I am over head and ears in debt 
already; and the Amphitheatre is half in ruins, thanks 
to that fanatic edict of the late emperor's against gladi- 
ators. There is no time or money for repairing it ; and 
besides, how pitiful a poor hundred of combatants will 
look in an arena built to hold two thousand ! Consider, 
my dearest lady, in what fallen times we hve ! " 

" I do, indeed ! " said Hypatia. " But I will not see 
the altar polluted by blood. It is the desecration which 
it has undergone already which has provoked the god to 
withdraw the poetic inspiration.'* 

" I do not doubt the fact. Some curse from Heaven, 
certainly, has fallen on our poets, to judge by their 
exceeding badness. Indeed, I am incHned to attribute 
the insane vagaries of the water-drinking monks and 
nuns, Hke those of the Argive women, to the same celestial 
anger. But I will see that the sanctity of the altar is 
preserved, by confining the combat to the stage. And as 
for the pantomime which will follow, if you would only 
fall in with my fancy of the triumph of Aphrodite, 
Dionusos would hardly refuse his altar for the glorifica- 
tion of his own lady-love." 

" Ah — that myth is a late and in my opinion a de- 
graded one." 

" Be it so ; but recollect that another myth makes 
her, and not without reason, the mother of all Uving 
beings. Be sure that Dionusos will have no objection, 
or any other god either, to allow her to make her children 
feel her conquering might ; for they all know well enough 
that if we can once get her well worshipped here, all 
Olympus will follow in her train." 

" That was spoken of the celestial Aphrodite, whose 
symbol is the tortoise, the emblem of domestic modesty 
and chastity — ^not of that baser Pandemic one." 

" Then we will take care to make the people aware of 
whom they are admiring by exhibiting in the triumph 
whole legions of tortoises ; and you yourself shall write 
the chant, while I will see that the chorus is worthy of 


HYPATIA. 289 

what it has to sing. No mere squeaking double flute and 
a pair of boys, but a whole army of cyclops and graces, 
with such trebles and such bass- voices ! It shall make 
Cyril's ears tingle in his palace ! " 

'* The chant ! A noble office for me, truly ! That is 
the very part of the absurd spectacle to which you used 
to say tiie people never dreamed of attending. All which 
is worth settling you seem to have settled for yourself 
before you deigned to consult me." 

'* I said so ? Surely you must mistake. But if any 
hired poetaster's chant do pass unheeded, what has that 
to do with Hypatia's eloquence and science, glowing with 
the treble inspiration of Athene, Phoebus, and Dionusos ? 
And as for having arranged beforehand — my adorable 
mistress, what more delicate compHment could I have 
paid you ? " 

** I cannot say that it seems to me to be one." 

" How ? After saving you every trouble which I 
coiild, and racking my overburdened wits for stage 
effects and properties, have I not brought hither the 
darUng children of my own brain, and laid them down 
ruthlessly, for Hfe or death, before the judgment-seat of 
your lofty and unsparing criticism ? " 

Hypatia felt herself tricked ; but there was no escape 
now. 

'* And who, pray, is to disgrace herself and me, as 
Venus Anadyomene ? " 

'* Ah ! that is the most exquisite article in all my bill 
of fare ! What if the kind gods have enabled me to 
exact a promise from — ^whom, think you ? " 

'* What care I ? How can I tell ? " asked Hypatia, 
who suspected and dreaded that she could tell. 

'* Pelagia herself ! " 

Hypatia rose angrily. 

'* This, sir, at least, is too much ! It was not enough 
for you, it seems, to claim, or rather to take for granted, 
so imperiously, so mercilessly, a conditional promise — 
weakly, weakly made, in the vain hope that you would 
help forward aspirations of mine which you have let lie 
fallow for months — ^in which I do not beheve that you 


290 HYPATIA. 

sympathize now ! It was not enough for you to declare 
yourself publicly yesterday a Christian, and to come 
hither this morning to flatter me into the beUef that you 
will dare, ten days hence, to restore the worship of the 
gods whom you have abjured ! It was not enough to 
plan without me all those movements in which you 
told me I was to be your fellow-counsellor — the very 
condition which you yourself offered 1 It was not 
enough for you to command me to sit in that theatre, 
as your bait, your puppet, your victim, blushing and 
shuddering at sights uniit for the eyes of gods and men : 
but, over and above all this, I must assist in the renewed 
triumph of a woman who has laughed down my teaching, 
seduced away my scholars, braved me in my very lecture- 
room — who for four years has done more than even Cyril 
himself to destroy aU the virtue and truth which I have 
toiled to sow — and toiled in vain ! O beloved gods ! 
where will end the tortures through which your martyr 
must witness for you to a fallen race ? " 

And in spite of all her pride, and of Orestes's presence, 
her eyes filled with scalding tears. 

Orestes's eyes had sunk before the vehemence of her 
just passion ; but as she added the last sentence in a 
softer and sadder tone, he raised them again, with a look 
of sorrow and entreaty as his heart whispered, — 

" Fool ! — fanatic ! But she is too beautiful ! Win 
her I must and will ! " 

"Ah! dearest, noblest Hypatia! what have I done? 
Unthinking fool that I was ! In the wish to save you 
trouble — ^in the hope that I could show you, by the apt- 
ness of my own plans, that my practical statesmanship 
was not altogether an unworthy helpmate for your loftier 
wisdom — wretch that I am, I have offended you; and 
I have ruined the cause of those very gods for whom, I 
swear, I am as ready to sacrifice myself as ever you can 
be!" 

The last sentence had the effect which it was meant to 
have. 

" Ruined the cause of the gods ? " asked she, in a 
startled tone. 


HYPATIA. 291 

" Is it not ruined without your help ? And what am 
I to understand from your words but that — ^hapless man 
that I am ! — you leave me and them henceforth to our 
own imassisted strength ? " 

" The unassisted strength of the gods is omnipotence." 

" Be it so. But — ^why is Cyril, and not Hj^atia, 
master of the masses of Alexandria this day ? Why but 
because he and his have fought, and suffered, and died too, 
many a himdred of them, for their god, onmipotent as 
they beUeve him to be ? Why are the old gods forgotten, 
my fairest logician ? — for forgotten they are." 

Hypatia trembled from head to foot, and Orestes went 
on more blandly than ever. 

" I will not ask an answer to that question of mine. 
All I entreat is forgiveness for — ^what for I know not ; 
but I have siimed, and that is enough for me. What if 
I have been too confident — too hasty ? Are you not the 
prize for which I strain ? And will not the preciousness 
of the victor's wreath excuse some impatience in the 
struggle for it ? Hypatia has forgotten who and what 
the gods have made her — ^she has not even consulted 
her own mirror, when she blames one of her innumerable 
adorers for a forwardness which ought to be rather im- 
puted to him as a virtue." 

And Orestes stole meekly such a glance of adoration, 
that Hj^atia blushed, and turned her face away. . . . 
After all, she was woman. . . . And she was a fanatic. 
. . . And she was to be an empress. . . . And Orestes's 
voice was as melodious and lus manner as graceful as 
ever charmed the heart of woman. 

** But Pelagia ? " she said, at last, recovering herself. 

*' Would that I had never seen the creature ! But, 
after all, I really fancied that in doing what I have done 
I should gratify you." 

'*Me?" 

" Surely if revenge be sweet, as they say, it could 
hardly find a more delicate satisfaction than m degrada- 
tion of one who " 

" Revenge, sir ? Do you dream that I am capable of 
so base a passion ? " 


292 HYPATIA. 

" I ? Pallas forbid ! " said Orestes, finding himself 
on the wrong path again. " But recollect that the 
allowing this spectacle to take place might rid you for 
ever of an unpleasant — I will not say hvdlj' 

"How, then?" 

** Will not her reappearance on the stage, after all her 
proud professions of contempt for it, do something to- 
wards reducing her in the eyes of this scandalous Httle 
town to her true and native level ? She wiD hardly dare 
thenceforth to go about parading herself as the consort 
of a god-descended hero, or thrusting herself unbidden 
into Hypatia*s presence, as if she were the daughter of 
a consul/' 

" But I cannot — I cannot allow it even to her. After 
all, Orestes^ she is a woman. And can I, philosopher as 
I am, help to degrade her even one step lower than she 
lies already ? " 

Hypatia had all but said " a woman even as I am ; " 
but Neo-Platonic philosophy taught her better, and she 
checked the hasty assertion of anything like a common 
sex or common humanity between two beings so anti- 
podal. 

" Ah," rejoined Orestes, " that unlucky word degrade I 
Unthinking that I was, to use it, forgetting that she her- 
self will be no more degraded in her own eyes, or any 
one's else, by hearing again, the plaudits of those ' dear 
Macedonians,' on whose breath she has hved for years, 
than a peacock when he displays his train. Unbounded 
vanity and self-conceit are not unpleasant passions, 
after all, for their victim. After all, she is what she is, 
and her being so is no fault of yoiu's. Oh, it must be ! 
indeed it must ! " 

Poor Hypatia ! The bait was too delicate, the tempter 
too wily ; and yet she was ashamed to speak aloud the 
philosophic dogma which flashed a ray of comfort and 
resignation through her mind, and reminded her that 
after all there was no harm in allowing lower natures to 
develop themselves freely in that direction which Nature 
had appointed for them, and in which only they could 
fulfil the laws of their being, as necessary varieties in the 


HYPATM. 293 

manifold whole of the universe. So she cut the interview 
short with, — 

*' If it must be, then, .... I will now retire and write 
the ode. Only, I refuse to have any cmnnranication 
whatsoever with — I am ashamed of even mentioning her 
name. I will send the ode to yon, and she must adapt 
her dance to it as best she can. By her taste, or fancy 
rather, I will not be ruled." 

" And I," said Orestes, with a profusion of thanks, 
" wdll retire to rack my faculties over the ' dispositions.' 
On this day week we exhibit — and conquer I Farewell, 
queen of wisdom ! Your philosophy never shows to 
better advantage than when you thus wisely and grace- 
fully subordinate that which is beautiful in itself to that 
which is beautiful relatively and practically." 

He departed; and Hypatia, half dreading her own 
thoughts, sat down at once to labour at the ode. Cer- 
tainly it was a magnificent subject What etymologies, 
cosmogonies, allegories, myths, symbolisms, between all 
heaven and earth, might she not introduce — ^if she could 
but banish that figure of Pelagia dancing to it aU, which 
would not be banished, but hovered, like a spectre, in the 
background of all her imaginations. She became quite 
angry, first with Pelagia, then with herself, for being 
weak enough to think of her. Was it not positive de- 
filement of her mind to be hamited by the image of so 
defiled a being ? She would purify her thoughts by 
prayer and meditation. But to whom of all the gods 
should she address herself ? To her chosen favourite, 
Athene ? — she who had promised to be present at that 
spectacle ? Oh^ how we^ she had been to yield 1 And 
yet she had been snared into it. Snared — there was no 
doubt of it — by the very man whom she had fancied 
that she could guide and mould to her own purposes. 
He had guided and moulded her now against her self- 
respect, her compassion, her innate sense of right. Al- 
ready she was his tool. True, she had submitted to be 
so for a great purpose. But suppose she had to submit 
again hereafter — always henceforth ? And what made 
the thought more poignant was her knowledge that he 


296 HYPATIA. 

new portent ; and in another half-hotir a servant entered, 
breathlessly, to inform the shepherd of people that his 
victim was lying in state in the centre of the nave, a 
martyr duly canonized — Anmionius now no more, but 
henceforth Thaumasius the wonderful, on whose heroic 
virtues and more heroic faithfulness unto the death, 
Cyril was already descanting from the pulpit, amid 
thunders of applause at every allusion to Sisera at the 
brook Kishon, Sennacherib in the house of Nisroch, and 
the rest of the princes of this world who come to nought. 

Here was a storm ! To order a cohort to enter the 
church and bring away the body was easy enough ; to 
make them do it in the face of certain death, not so easy. 
Besides, it was too early yet for so desperate a move as 
would be involved m the violation of a church. ... So 
Orestes added this fresh item to the long colunm of 
accounts which he intended to settle with the patriarch ; 
cursed for half an hour in the name of all divinities, saints, 
and martyrs, Christian and pagan ; and wrote off a 
lamentable history of hfe wrongs and sufferings to the 
very Byzantine court against which he was about to 
rebel, in the comfortable assurance that Cyril had sent, 
by the same post, a cormter-statement,. contradicting* 
it in every particular. ; : ; Never mind. ; . . In case 
he failed in rebelling, it was as well ta be able to prove 
his allegiance up to the latest possible date; and the 
more completely the two statements contradicted each 
other, the longer it would take to sift the truth out of 
them, and thus so much time was gained, and so much 
the more chance, meantime, of a new leaf being turned 
over in that Sibylline oracle of politicians — the Chapter 
of Accidents. And for the time being he would make 
a pathetic appeal to respectabiUty and moderation in 
general, of which Alexandria, wherein some hundred 
thousand tradesmen and merchants bad property to lose, 
possessed a goodly share. 

Respectability responded promptly to the appeal, 
and loyal addresses and deputations of condolence flowed 
in from every quarter, expressing the extreme sorrow 
with which the citizens had bdbeld the late distmrbances 


HYPATIA. 297 

of civil order, and the contempt which had been so un- 
fortunately evinced for the constituted authorities ; but 
taking, nevertheless, the liberty to remark that, while 
the extreme danger to property which might ensue from 
the further exasperation of certain classes prevented 
their taking those active steps on the side of tranquillity 
to which their feelings inclined them, the known piety 
and wisdom of their este^ned patriarch made it pre- 
sumptuous in them to offer any opinion on his present 
conduct, beyond the expression of their firm belief that 
he had been unfortunatdy misinformed as to those senti- 
ments of affection and respect which his excellency the 
prefect was well known to entertain towards him. They 
ventured, therefore, to express a himible hope that, by 
some mutual compromise, to define which would be an 
unwarrantable intrusion on their part, a happy recon- 
ciliation would be effected, and the stability of law, 
property, and the Catholic faith ensured. : 7 ; All which 
Orestes heard with blandest smiles, while his heart was 
black with curses ; and Cyril answered by a very violent 
though a very true and practical harangue on the text, 
" How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
kingdom of heaven." 

So respectabihty and moderation met with their usual 
hapless fate, and soundly cursed by both parties, in the 
vain attempt to please both, wisely left the upper powers 
to settle their own affairs, and went home to their desks 
and counters, and did a very brisk business all that week 
on the strength of the approaching festival. One hapless 
innkeeper only tried to carry out in practice the principles 
which the deputation from his guild had so eloquently 
advocated ; and being convicted of giving away bread in 
the morning to the Nitrian monks, and wme in the even- 
ing to the prefect's guards, had his tavern gutted and 
his head broken by a joint plebiscitum of both the parties 
whom he had concihated, who afterwards fought a little 
together, and then, luckily for the general peace, mutu- 
ally ran away from each other. 

Cyril in the meanwhile, though he was doing a foolish 
thing, was doing it wisely enough. Orestes might curse. 


298 HYPATIA. 

and respectability might deplore, those nightly sermons 
which shook the mighty arcades of the Caesareum, but 
they could not answer them. C5n:il was right, and knew 
that he was right. Orestes was a scoundrel, hateful to 
God and to the enemies of God. The middle classes 
were lukewarm, covetous cowards ; the whole system of 
government was a swindle and an injustice ; all men's 
hearts were mad with crying, " Lord, how long ? " The 
fierce bishop had only to thunder forth text on text, 
from every book of Scripture, old and new, in order to 
array on his side, not merely the common sense and right 
feeUng, but the bigotry ana ferocity, of the masses. 

In vain did the good Arsenius represent to him not 
only the scandal but the imrighteousness of his new 
canonization. " I must have fuel, my good father," was 
his answer, " wherewith to keep alight the flame of zeal. 
If I am to be silent as to Heraclian's defeat, I must give 
them some other irritant, which will put them in a proper 
temper to act on that defeat when they are told of it. 
If they hate Orestes, does he not deserve it ? Even if he 
is not altogether as much in the wrong in this particular 
case as they fancy he is, are there not a thousand other 
crimes of his which deserve their abhorrence even more ? 
At all events, he must proclaim the empire, as you your- 
self say, or we shall have no handle against him. He will 
not dare to proclaim it if he knows that we are aware ot 
the truth. And if we are to keep the truth in reserve, 
we must have something else to serve meanwhile as a 
substitute for it." 

And poor Arsenius submitted with a sigh, as he saw 
Cyril making a fresh step in that alluring path of evil- 
doing that good might come, which led lum in after- 
years into many a fearful sin, and left his name disgraced, 
perhaps for ever, in the judgment of generations, who 
know as Httle of the pandemonium against which he 
fought, as they do of the intense belief which sustained 
him in his warfare, and who have therefore neither 
understanding nor pardon for the occasional outrages 
and errors of a man no worse, even if no better, than 
themselves. 



IIYPATIA. 299 

CHAPTER XXI. 

"^ ~ THESQUIR E-B I S H O P. 

In a small and ill-furnished upper room of a fortified 
country house sat Synesius, the Bishop of Cyrene. 

A goblet of wine stood beside him, on the table, but it 
was untasted. Slowljr and sadly, by the light of a tiny 
lamp, he went on writing a verse or two, and then bury- 
ing his face in his hand, while hot tears dropped between 
his fingers on the paper, till a servant entering, announced 
Raphael Aben-Ezra. 

Synesius rose with a gesture of surprise, and hurried 
towards the door. " No, ask him to come hither to me. 
To pass through those deserted rooms at night is more 
than I can bear.*' And he waited for his guest at the 
chamber door, and as he entered caught both his hands 
in his, and tried to speak ; but his voice was choked 
within him. 

'* Do not speak," said Raphael gently, leading him to 
his chair again. *' I know all." 

'* You know all ? And are you, then, so unlike the 
rest of the world, that you alone have come to visit the 
bereaved and the deserted in his misery ? " 

** I am like the rest of the world, after all ; for I came 
to you on my own selfish errand, to seek comfort. Would 
that I could give it instead ! But the servants told me 
all, below." 

" And yet you persisted in seeing me, as if I could 
help you ? Alas ! I can help no one now. Here I am 
at last, utterly alone, utterly helpless. As I came from 
my mother's womb, so shall I return again. My last 
child — ^my last and fairest — gone after the rest ! Thank 
God, that I have had even a day's peace wherein to lay 
him by his mother and his brothers — though He alone 
knows how long the beloved graves may remain imrifled. 
Let it have been shame enough to sit here in my lonely 
tower and watch the ashes of my Spartan ancestors, 
the sons of Hercules himself, my glory and my pride, 
sinful fool that I was ! cast to the winds by barbarian 


300 HYPATIA. 

plunderers. . . . When wilt thou make an end, O Lord, 
and slay me ? " 

" And how did the poor boy die ? " asked Raphael, 
in hope of soothing sorrow by enticing it to vent itself in 
words. 

" The pestilence. What other fate can we expect 
who breathe an air tainted with corpses, and sit under a 
sky darkened with carrion birds ? But I could endure 
even that, if I could work, if I could help. But to sit 
here, imprisoned now ior months between these hateful 
towers ; night after night to watch the sky, red with 
burning homesteads ; day after day to have my ears 
ring with the shrieks of the dying and the captives — for 
they have begim now to murder every male down to the 
baby at the breast — and to feel myself utterly fettered, 
impotent, sitting here like some palsied idiot, waiting 
for my end ! I long to rush out, and fall fighting, sword 
in hand ; but I am their last, their only hope. The gov- 
ernors care nothing for our supplications. In vain have 
I memorialized Gennadius ana Innocent, with what little 
eloquence my misery has not stunned in me. But there 
is no resolution, no unanimity left in the land. The 
soldiery are scattered in small garrisons, employed en- 
tirely in protecting the private property of their officers. 
The Ausurians defeat them piecemeal, and, armed with 
their spoils, actually have begun to beleaguer fortified 
towns ; and now there is nothing left for us but to pray 
that, like Ulysses, we may be devoured the last. What 
am I doing ? I am selfishly pouring out my own sorrows, 
instead of listening to yours.** 

" Nay, friend, yoa are talking of the sorrows of your 
country, not of your own. As for me, I have no sorrow 
-—only a despair : which, being irremediable, may weD 
wait. But you — oh^ you must not stay here. Why not 
escape to Atexandria ? "^ 

'' I will die at my post as I have lived, the father of my 
people. When the last ruin comes, and Cyrene itself is 
besieged, I shall return thither from my present outpost, 
and the conqueror shall find the bishop in his place before 
the altar. There I have offered few years the unbloody 


HYPATIA. 301 

sacrifice to Hhn who will perhaps require of me a bloody 
one, that so the sight of an altar polhitoi by the murder 
of His priest may «nd the sum of Pentapolitan woe, and 
arouse Him to avenge His slaughtered sheep ! There, 
we wiU talk no more of it. This, at least, I have left 
in my power, to make you wdcome. And after supper 
you shall t^ell me what brings you hither." 

And the good Irishop, cafiing his servant, set to work 
to show his guest suda hospitality as the invaders had 
left in his power. 

RaptiaeFs usual insight had not deserted him when, 
in his utter perplexity, he went, almost instinctively, 
straight to Synesius. The Bishop of C5^ene, to judge 
from the -charming private letters which he has left, was 
one of those many-sided, volatile, restless men, who taste 
joy and sorrow, H not deeply or permanently, yet abun- 
dantly and passionately. He lived, as Raphael had told 
Orestes, in a whirlwind of good deeds, meddling and 
toiling for the mere pleasure of action ; and as soon as 
there was nothing to be done, which, till lately, had 
happened seldom enough with him, paid the penalty 
lor past excitement in fits of melancholy. A man of 
magniloquent and flowery style, not without a vein of 
self-conceit; yet withal of overflowing kindliness, racy 
humour, and unflinching courage, both physical and 
moral ; with a very clear practical faculty, and a very 
muddy speculative one — though, of course, fike the rest 
of the world, he was especially proud of his own weakest 
side, and professed the most passionate affection for 
philosophic meditation ; while his detractors hinted, not 
without a show of reason, that he was far more of an 
adept in soldiering and dog-breaking than in the mj^- 
teries of the unseen world. 

To him Raphael betook himself, he hardly knew why ; 
certainly not for philosophic consolation ; perhaps be- 
cause Synesius was, as Raphael used to say, the only 
Christian from whom he had ever heard a hearty laugh ; 
perhaps because he had some wayward hope, unconfessed 
even to himself, that he might meet at Synesius's house 
the very companions from whom he had just fled. He 


302 HYPATIA. 

was fluttering round Victoria's new and strange brilliance, 
like a moth round the candle, as he confessed, after 
supper, to his host ; and now he was come hither, on the 
chance of being able to singe his wings once more. 

Not that his confession was extracted without much 
trouble to the good old man, who, seeing at once that 
Raphael had some weight upon his mind, which he longed 
to tell, and yet was either too suspicious or too proud to 
tell, set himself to ferret out the secret, and forgot all his 
sorrows for the time as soon as he found a human being 
to whom he might do good. But Raphael was inex- 
plicably wayward and unlike himself. All his smooth 
and shallow persiflage, even his shrewd satiric humour, 
had vanished. He seemed parched by some inward 
fever ; restless, moody, abrupt, even peevish ; and 
Synesius's curiosity rose with his disappointment, as 
Raphael went on obstinately declining to consult the 
very physician before whom he had presented himself as 
patient. 

" And what can you do for me, if I did tell you ? " 

" Then allow me, my very dear friend, to ask this. 
As you deny having visited me on my own account, on 
what account did you visit me ? " 

" Can you ask ? To enjoy the society of the most 
finished gentleman of FentapoHs.'* 

" And was that worth a week's journey in perpetual 
danger of death ? '' 

*' As for danger of death, that weighs little with a man 
who is careless of life. And as for the week's journey, 
I had a dream one night, on my way, which made me 
question whether I were wise in troubling a Christian 
bishop with any thoughts or questions which relate 
merely to poor human beings like myself, who marry 
and are given in marriage." 

" You forget, friend, that you are speaking to one who 
has married, and loved — and lost." 

" I did not. But you see how rude I am growing. I 
am no fit company for you, or any man. I believe I 
shall end by turning robber-chief, and heading a party 
of Ausurians." 


HYPATIA. 303 

" But," said the patient Synesius, " you have forgotten 
your dream all this while.'* 

" Forgotten ! I did not promise to tell it you, did I ? " 

" No ; but as it seems to have contained some sort of 
accusation against my capacity, do you not think it but 
fair to tell the accused what it was ? " 

Raphael smiled. 

** Well, then. . . . Suppose I had dreamt this : — ^that 
a philosopher, an academic, and a beUever in nothing 
and in no man, had met at Berenice certain rabbis of the 
Jews, and heard them reading and expoimding a certain 
book of Solomon — the Song of Songs. You, as a learned 
man, know into what sort of trumpery allegory they 
would contrive to twist it — ^how the bride's eyes were to 
mean the scribes who were full of wisdom, as the pools of 
Heshbon were of water ; and her stature spreading like 
a palm-tree, the priests who spread out their hands 
when blessing the people ; and the left hand which should 
be tmder her head, the Tephilim which these old pedants 
wore on their left wrists ; and the right hand which 
should hold her, the Mezuzah which they fixed on the 
right side of their doors to keep off devils ; and so 
forth." 

" I have heard such silly Cabbalisms, certainly." 

" You have ? Then suppose that I went on, and saw 
in my dream how this same academic and unbeUever, 
being himself also a Hebrew of the Hebrews, snatched 
the roll out of the rabbis' hands, and told them that they 
were a party of fools for trying to set forth what the book 
might possibly mean, before they had found out what 
it really did mean ; and that they could only find out that 
by looking honestly at the plain words to see what Solomon 
meant by it. And then, suppose that this same apostate 
Jew, this member of the S5magogue of Satan, in his carnal 
and lawless imaginations, had waxed eloquent with the 
eloquence of devfls, and told them that the book set forth, 
to those who had eyes to see, how Solomon the great 
king, with his threescore queens and fourscore con- 
cubines, and virgins without number, forgets all his 
seraglio and his luxury in pure and noble love for the 


304 HYPATIA- 

undefUed, who is but one; and how, as his eyes are 
opened to see that God made the one man for the one 
woman, and the one woman to the one man, even as it 
was in the garden of Eden^ so aH his heart and thoughts 
become pure,, and gentle, and simple ; how the song of 
the birds, and the scent of the grapes, and the spicy 
southern gales, and all the simple coimtry plieasures of 
the glens of Lebanon, which he shares with 1ms own vine- 
dressers and slaves, become more precious in his eyes 
than all his palaces and artificial pomp; and the man 
feels that he is in harmony, for the first time m his life, 
with the universe of God and with the: mystery of the 
seasons ; that within him, as weE as witJaiout him, the 
winter is past, and the rain is over and gone ; the flowers 
appear on the earth, and the voice of the turtle is heard 
in the land. , , • And suppose I saw in my dream how 
the rabbis, when they heard those wicked words, stopped 
their ears with one acccrd, and ran upon that son of 
Belial and cast him out, because he blasphemed their 
sacred books by his carnal interpretations. And suppose 
— I only say suppose — that I saw in my dream how the 
poor man said in his heart, ' I wiH go to the Christians. 
They acknowledge the sacredness of this same book ; 
and they say that their God tat^t tliem tha.t ' in the 
beginning God made man, male and female.' Perhaps 
they will tell me wi^ther this Somg of Songs does not, 
as it seems to me to do, show tbe passage upwards from 
brutal pol5rgamy to tiiat monogamy which they so 
solemnly command, and agree with me that it is be- 
cause the song preaches this that it has a right to take 
its place among the holy writings ? ' You, as a Chris- 
tian bishop, sht^d know what answer such a man woi^ 
receive. . • . You are silent ? Then I will teU you what 
answer be seemed to receive in my dream : ' O blas- 
phemoos and carnal man, who pcrvertest Holy Scripture 
into a cloak for thine own licentiousness, as if it spoke 
of man's base and sensual afiections, know that this book 
is to be spiritually interpreted of the marriagje between 
the soul and its Creator, and that it is from this very book 
that the CathoUc Churdi derives her strongest arguments 


HYPATIA. 30s 

in favour of holy virginity and the glories of a ceHbate 
life/ " 

Synesius was still siknt. 

" And what do yon think I saw in my dream that that 
man did when he found these Qiristians enforcing, as a 
necessary article of practice as well as of faith, a baseless 
and bombastic metaphor, borrowed from that very 
Neo-Platonism out of which he had just fled for his life ? 
He cursed the day he was bom, and the hour in which 
his father was told, ' Thou hast gotten a man-child,' and 
said, ' Philosophers, Jews, and Christians, farewell for 
ever and a day ! The clearest words of your most sacred 
books mean anything or nothing, as the case may suit 
your fancies, and there is neither truth nor reason under 
the sun. What better is there for a man than to follow 
the example of his people, and to turn usurer, and 
money-getter, and cajoler of fools in his turn, even as his 
father was before him ? * *' 

Synesius remained awhile in deep thought, and at last — 

" And yet you came to me ? " 

" I did, because you have loved and married ; because 
you have stood out manfully against this strange modem 
insanity, and refused to give up, when you were made a 
bishop, the wife whom God had given you. You, I 
thought, could solve the riddle for me, if any man* 
could." 

" Alas, friend ! I have begun to distrust, of late, my 
power of solving riddles. After all, why should they be 
solved ? What matters one more mystery in a world 
of mysteries ? ' If thou marry, thou hast not sinned,' 
are St. Paul's own words ; and let them be enough for us. 
Do not ask me to argue with you, but to help you. In- 
stead of puzzling me with deep questions, and tempting 
me to set up my private judgment, as I have done too 
often already, against the opinion of the Church, tell me 
your story, and test my sympathy rather than my intellect. 
I shall feel with you and work for you, doubt not, even 
though I am imable to explain to myself why I do it." 

" Then you cannot solve my riddle ? " 

*' Let me help you," said Synesius with a sweet smile. 


306 HYPATIA. 

" to solve it for yourself. You need not try to deceive 
me. You have a love, an undefiled, who is but one. 
When you possess her, you will be able to judge better 
whether your interpretation of the Song is the true one ; 
and if you still thmk that it is, Synesius, at least, will 
have no quarrel against you. He has always claimed 
for himself the right of philosophizing in private, and he 
will allow the same liberty to you, whether the mob do 
or not." 

" Then you agree with me ? Of course you do ! '* 

"Is it fair to ask me whether I accept a novel inter- 
pretation, which I have only heard five minutes ago, 
delivered in a somewhat hasty and rhetorical form ? " 

" You are shirking the question," said Raphael 
peevishly. 

" And what if I am ? Tell me, point-blank, most self- 
tormenting of men, can I help you in practice, even 
though I choose to leave you to yourself in speculation ? " 

" Well, then, if you will have my story, take it, and 
judge for yourself of Christian common sense." 

And hurriedly, as if ashamed of his own confession, 
and yet compelled, in spite of himself, to unbosom it, he 
told Synesius all, from his first meeting with Victoria to 
his escape from her at Berenice. 

The good bishop, to Aben-Ezra's surprise, seemed to 
treat the whole matter as infinitely amusing. He 
chuckled, smote his hand on his thigh, and nodded 
approval at every pause — perhaps to give the speaker 
courage — ^perhaps because he really thou^t that Raphael's 
prospects were considerably less desperate than he 
fancied. . : . 

" If you laugh at me, Synesius, I am silent. It is 
quite enough to endure the humiliation of telling you 
that I am — confound it ! — like any boy of sixteen." 

" Laugh at you ? — ^with you, you mean. A convent ? 
Pooh, pooh ! The old prefect has enough sense, I will 
warrant him, not to refuse a good match for his child." 

" You forget that I have not the honour of being a 
Christian." 

** Then we'll make you one. You won't let me convert 


HYPATIA. 307 

you, I know ; you always used to gibe and jeer at my 
philosophy. But Augustine comes to-morrow." 

" Augustine ? " 

" He does indeed ; and we must be off by daybreak, 
with all the armed men we can muster, to meet and escort 
him, and to hunt, of course, going and coming ; for we 
have had no food this fortnight but what our own dogs 
and bows have furnished us. He shall take you in hand, 
and cure you of all your Judaism in a week ; and then 
just leave the rest to me — I will manage it somehow or 
other. It is sure to come right. No ; do not be bashful. 
It will be real amusement to a poor wretch who can find 
nothing else to do — Heigho ! And as for lying under 
an obligation to me, why, we can square that by your 
lending me three or four thousand gold pieces — Heaven 
knows I want them ! — on the certainty of never seeing 
them again." 

Raphael could not help laughing in his turn. 

" S5mesius is himself still, I see, and not unworthy 
of his ancestor Hercules; and though he shrinks from 
cleansing the Augean stable of my soul, paws like the 
war-horse in the valley at the hope of undertaking any 
lesser labours in my behalf. But, my dear, generous 
bishop, this matter is more serious, and I, the subject of 
it, have become more serious also, than you fancy. Con- 
sider : by the uncorrupt honour of your Spartan fore- 
fathers, Agis, Brasidas, and the rest of them, don't you 
think that you are, in your hasty kindness, tempting me 
to behave in a way which they would have called some- 
what rascally ? " 

" How then, my dear man ! You have a very honour- 
able and praiseworthy desire, and I am willing to help 
you to compass it." 

" Do you think that I have not cast about before now 
for more than one method of compassing it for myself ? 
My good man, I have been tempted a dozen times al- 
ready to turn Christian ; but there has risen up in me 
the strangest fancy about conscience and honour. . . . 
I never was scrupulous before. Heaven knows — I am not 
over-scrupulous now — except about her. I cannot d'«- 


308 HYPATIA. 

semble before her. I dare not look in her face when I 
had a lie in my right hand. . ; 7 She looks through one 
— into one — like a clear-eyed awful goddess. . ; . I never 
was ashamed in my Hfe till my eyes met hers. . . ." 

" But if you really became a Christian ? '* 

" I cannot. I should suspect my own motives. Here 
is anothei' of these absurd soul-anatomizing scruples 
which have risen up in me. I shoiUd suspect that I had 
changed my creed because I wished to change it — that 
if I was not deceiving her I was deceiving myself. If I 
had not loved her, it might have been different ; but 
now — just because I do love her, I will not, I dare not, 
listen to Augustine's arguments, or my own thoughts on 
the matter." 

" Most wayward of men I " cried Synesius, half peev- 
ishly, " you seem to take some perverse pleasure in throw- 
ing yourself into the waves again, the instant you have 
climbed a rock of refuge I " 

" Pleasure ? Is there any pleasure in feding oneself 
at death-grips with the devil ? I had given up believing 
in him for many a year. . . . And behold, the moment 
that I awaken to anything noble and right, I find the old 
serpent alive and strong at my throat ! No wonder that 
I suspect him, you, myself — I, who have been tempted, 
every hour in the last week, temptations to become a 
devil. Ay," he went on, raising his voice, as all the fire 
of his intense Eastern nature flashed from his black eyes, 
'* to be a devil ! From my childhood till now never have 
I known what it was to desire and not to possess. It is 
not often that I have had to trouble any poor Naboth 
for his vineyard ; but when I have taken a fancy to it, 
Naboth has always found it wiser to give way. And 
now. . ; . Do you fancy that I have not had a dozen 
helhsh plots flashing across me in the last week ? Look 
here ! This is the mortgage of her father's whole estate. 
I bought it — ^whether by the instigation of Satan or of God 
— of a banker in Berenice, the very day I left them ; and 
now they, and every straw whidb they possess, are in my 
power. I can ruin them — sell them as slaves — ^betray 
them to death as rebels ; and last, but not least, caniK^t 


HYPATIA. 309 

I hire a dozen worthy men to carry her oH, and cut the 
Gordian knot most simply and smnmarily ? And yet I 
dare not. I must be pure to approach the pure, and 
righteoos to kiss the feet at the righteous. Whence 
came this new conscience to nae i know not, but come it 
has; and I dare no more do a base thing toward her 
than I dare toward a God, if there be one. This very 
mortgage — I hate it, curse it, now that I possess it — the 
tempting devil J " 

" Bum it," said Synesius quietly. 

** Perhaps i may — at kast, used it never shall be. 
Comp^ her ? I am too proud, or too honourable, or 
something or other, even to soihcit her. She must come* 
to me — ^tefl me with her own lips that she loves me, 
that she will take me, and make me worthy of her. She 
must have mercy on me, of her own free will, or — let 
her pine and die in tiiat accursed prison ; and then a 
scratch with the trusty old dagger for her father, and 
another for myself, will save him from any more super- 
stitions, and me from any more philosophic doubts, for 
a few aeons of ages, till we start again in new hves — he, 
I suppose, as a jackass, and I as a baboon. What 
matter ? but unless I possess her by fair means, God 
do so to me, and more also, if I attempt base ones ! " 

*• God be with you, my son, in the noble warfare I " 
said Synesius, his eyes filBng with kindly tears. 

" It is DO noble warfare at all. It is a base coward 
fear, in one who never before feared man or devil, and 
is now fallen low enough to be afraid of a helpless girl ! " 

" Not so," cried Synesius, in his turn ; " it is a noble 
and a holy fear. You fear her goodness. Could you 
see her goodness, much Jess fear it, were there not a 
I>ivin€ hght within you which showed you what, and 
how awful, goodness was ? Tell me no more, Ra^phael 
Aben-Ezra, that you do not fear God ; for he who fears 
Virtue, fears Him whose Mkeness Virtue is. Go on — go 
on, ... Be brave, and His strength will be made 
manifest in your weakness." 

«• 4f- « # # 

It was late that night before Synesius compelled his 


3IO HYPATIA. 

guest to retire, after having warned him not to disturb 
himself if he heard the alarm-bell ring, as the house 
was well garrisoned, and having set the water-clock by 
which he and his servants measured their respective 
watches. And then the good bishop, having disposed 
his sentinels, took his station on the top of his tower, 
close by the warning-bell ; and as he looked out over 
the broad lands of his forefathers, and prayed that their 
desolation might come to an end at last, he did not 
forget to pray for the desolation of the guest who slept 
below, a happier and more healthy slumber than he had 
known for many a week. For before Raphael lay down 
that night he had torn to shreds Majoricus's mortgage, 
and felt a lighter and a better man as he saw the cun- 
ning temptation consuming scrap by scrap in the lamp- 
flame. And then, wearied out by fatigue of body and 
mind, he forgot Synesius, Victoria, and the rest, and 
seemed to himself to wander all night among the vine- 
clad glens of Lebanon, amid the gardens of lilies, and 
the beds of spices ; while shepherds' music lured him 
on and on, and girlish voices, chanting the mystic idyll 
of his mighty ancestor, rang soft and fitful through his 
weary brain. 

« « « « # 

Before sunrise the next morning, Raphael was faring 
forth gallantly, well armed and mounted, by Synesius's 
side, followed by four or five brace of tall brush-tailed 
greyhounds, and by the faithful Bran, whose lop-ears and 
heavy jaws, unique in that land of prick-ears and fox- 
noses, formed the absorbing subject oi conversation 
among some twenty smart retainers, who, armed to the 
teeth for chase and war, rode behind the bishop on half- 
starved, raw-boned horses, inured by desert training and 
bad times to do the maximum of work upon the minimum 
of food. 

For the first few miles they rode in silence, through 
ruined villages and desolated farms, from which here and 
there a single inhabitant peeped forth fearfully, to pour 
his tale of woe into the ears of the hapless bishop, and 
then, instead of asking alms from him, to entreat his 


HYP ATI A. 311 

acceptance of some paltry remnant of grain or poultry, 
which had escaped the hands of the marauders ; and as 
they clung to his hands, and blessed him as their only 
hope and stay, poor Synesius heard patiently again and 
again the same purposeless tale of woe, and mingled his 
tears with theirs, and then spurred his horse on impa- 
tiently, as if to escape from the sight of misery which 
he could not relieve ; while a voice in Raphael's heart 
seemed to ask him, '* Why was thy wealth given to thee, 
but that thou mightest dry, if but for a day, such tears 
as these ? " 

And he fell into a meditation which was not without 
its fruit in due season, but which lasted till they had left 
the enclosed country, and were climbing the slopes of 
the low, rolHng hills over which lay the road from the 
distant sea. But as they left the signs of war behind 
them, the volatile temper of the good bishop began to 
rise. He petted his hounds, chatted to his men, dis- 
coursed on the most probable quarter for finding game, 
and exhorted them cheerfully enough to play the man, 
as their chance of having anything to eat at night de- 
pended entirely on their prowess during the day. 

" Ah ! " said Raphael at last, glad of a pretext for 
breaking his own chain of painful thought, " there is a 
vein of your land-salt. I suspect that you were all at 
the bottom of the sea once, and that the old Earth- 
shaker Neptune, tired of your bad ways, gave you a lift 
one morning, and set you up as dry land, in order to be 
rid of you." 

" It may really be so. They say that the Argonauts 
returned back through this country from the Southern 
Ocean, which must have been therefore far nearer us than 
it is now, and that they carried their mystic vessel over 
these very hills to the S5n:tis. However, we have for- 
gotten all about the sea thoroughly enough since that 
time. I well remember my first astonishment at the 
sight of a galley in Alexandria, and the roar of laughter 
with which my fellow-students greeted my not unreason- 
able remark that it looked very like a centipede." 

** And do you recollect, too, the argument which I had 


314 HYPATIA. 

" Poor little wretch ! " said Raphael. " What more 
right, now, have we to eat him than he to eat us ? " 

*' Eh ? If he can eat us, let him try. How long have 
you joined the Manichees ? " 

'' Have no fears on that score. But, as I told you, 
since my wonderful conversion by Bran, the dog, I have 
begun to hold dumb animals in respect, as probably quite 
as good as myself." 

" Then you need a further conversion, friend Raphael, 
and to learn what is the dignity of man ; and when that 
arrives, you will learn to believe, with me, that the life 
of every beast upon the face of the earth would be a 
cheap price to pay in exchange for the life of the meanest 
human being." 

** Yes, if they be required for food ; but really, to kill 
them for our amusement ! '* 

*' Friend, when I was still a heathen I recollect well 
how I used to haggle at that story of the cursing of the 
fig-tree ; but when I learned to know what man was, and 
that I had been all my life mistaking for a part of nature 
that race which was originally, and can be again, made 
in the likeness of God, then I began to see that it were 
well if every fig-tree upon earth were cursed, if the spirit 
of one man could be taught thereby a single lesson. And 
so I speak of these, my darling field-sports, on which I 
have not been ashamed, as you know, to write a 
book." 

*' And a very charming one. Yet you were still a 
pagan, recollect, when you wrote it." 

*' I was ; and then I followed the chase by mere nature 
and inclination. But now I know I have a right to 
follow it, because it gives me endurance, promptness, 
courage, self-control, as well as health and cheerfulness ; 
and therefore Ah ! a fresh ostrich-track ! " 

And stopping short, Synesius began pricking slowly up 
the hillside. 

" Back ! " whispered he, at last. " Quietly and 
silently. Lie down on your horse's neck, as 1 do, or the 
long-necked rogues may see you. They must be close 
to us over the brow. I know that favourite grassy slope 


HYPATIA. 315 

of old. Round under yon hill, or they will get wind of 
us, and then farewell to them ! " 

And Synesius and his groom cantered on, hanging each 
to their horses' necks by an arm and a leg, in a way 
which Raphael endeavoured in vain to imitate. 

Two or three minutes more of breathless silence 
brought them to the edge of the hill, where Synesius 
halted, peered down a moment, and then turned to 
Raphael, his face and limbs quivering with deHght, as 
he held up two fingers, to denote the number of the birds. 

" Out of arrow-range ! Slip the dogs, Syphax ! " 

And in another minute Raphael found himself gallop- 
ing headlong down the hill, while two magnificent ostriches, 
their outspread plumes waving in the bright breeze, their 
necks stooped almost to the grotmd, and their long legs 
flashing out behind them, were sweeping away before 
the greyhounds at a pace which no mortal horse could 
have held for ten minutes. 

" Baby that I am still ! " cried Synesius, tears of ex- 
citement glittering in his eyes ; . . . while Raphael gave 
himself up to the joy, and forgot even Victoria in the 
breathless rush over rock and bush, sandhill and water- 
coTirse. 

" Take care of that dry torrent-bed ! Hold up, old 
horse ! This will not last two minutes more. They 
cannot hold their pace against this breeze. . . . Well 
tried, good dog, though you did miss him I Ah, that 
my boy were here I There — they double. Spread right 
and left, my children, and ride at them as they pass ! " 

And the ostriches, unable, as Synesius said, to keep 
their pace against the breeze, turned sharp on their pur- 
suers, and beating the air with outspread wings, came 
down the wind again, at a rate even more wonderful than 
before. 

" Ride at him, Raphael — ride at him, and turn him 
into those bushes ! " cried Synesius, fitting an arrow to 
his bow. 

Raphael obeyed, and the bird swerved into the low 
scrub. The well-trained horse leapt at him like a cat ; 
and Raphael, who dared not trust his skill in archery, 


3l6 HYPATIA. 

Struck with his whip at the long neck as it struggled past 
him, and felled the noble quarry to the ground. He 
was in the act of springing down to secure his prize, 
when a shout from Synesius stopped him. 

*' Are you mad ? He will kick out your heart ! Let 
the dogs hold him ! '* 

" Where is the other ? '* asked Raphael, panting. 

" Where he ought to be. I have not missed a running 
shot for many a month." 

" Really, you rival the Emperor Conunodus himself." 

" Ah ! I tried his fancy of crescent-headed arrows once, 
and decapitated an ostrich or two tolerably. But they 
are only fit for the amphitheatre ; they will not lie safely 
in the quiver on horseback, I find. But what is that ? " 
And he pointed to a cloud of white dust about a mile 
down the valley. " A herd of antelopes ? If so, God is 
indeed gracious to us ! Come down — ^whatsoever they 
are, we have no time to lose." 

And collecting his scattered forces, S5mesius pushed 
on rapidly towards the object which had attracted his 
attention. 

" Antelopes ! " cried one. 

" Wild horses ! " cried another. 

" Tame ones, rather ! " cried Sjmesius, with a gesture 
of wrath. " I saw the flash of Eirms ! " 

" The Ausurians ! " And a yell of rage rang from the 
whole troop. 

" Will you follow me, children ? " 

" To death ! " shouted they. 

" I know it. Oh that I had seven hundred of you, as 
Abraham had ! We would see then whether these 
scoundrels did not share, mthin a week, the fate of 
Chedorlaomer's." 

" Happy man, who can actually trust your own 
slaves ! " said Raphael, as the party galloped on, tight- 
ening their girdles and getting ready their weapons. 

" Slaves ? If the law gives me the power of selling 
one or two of them who are not yet wise enough to be 
trusted to take care of themselves, it is a fact which both 
I and they have long forgotten. Their fathers grew 


HYPATIA. 317 

gray at my father's table, and God grant that they may 
grow gray at mine ! We eat together, work together, 
hunt together, fight together, jest together, and weep 
together. God help us all I for we have but one common 
weal. Now — do you make out the enemy, boys ? " 

*' Ausurians, your holiness. The same party who 
tried Myrsinitis last week. I know them by the helmets 
which they took from the Markmen." 

" And with whom are they fighting ? " 

No one could see. Fighting they certainly were ; but 
their victims were beyond them, and the party galloped 
on. 

" That was a smart business at Myrsinitis. The 
Ausurians appeared while the people were at morning 
prayers. The soldiers, of course, ran for their hves, and 
hid in the caverns, leaving the matter to the priests." 

" If they were of your presbytery, I doubt not they 
proved themselves worthy of their cfiocesan." 

" Ah, if all my priests were but like them ! or my 
people either ! " said Synesius,^ chatting quietly in fuU 
gallop, like a true son of the saddle. *' They o&ered up 
jMiuyers for victory, sallied out at the head of the peasants, 
and met the Moors in a narrow pass. There their hearts 
failed them a little. Faustus, the deacon, makes them 
a speech ; charges the leader of the robbers, like young 
David, with a stone, beats his brains out therewith, strips 
him in true Homeric fashion, and routs the Ausurians 
with tneir kader's sword ; returns, and erects a trophy 
in due classic form, and saves the whole valley." 

" You should make him archdeacon." 

" I would send him and his townsfolk round the 
province, if I could, crowned with laurel, and proclaim 
before them at every market-place, ' These are men of 
God.' With T?«diom can those Ausurians be dealing ? 
Peasants would have been all kiEed long ago, and soldiers 
would have run away long ago. It is truly a portent in 
this country to see a fight last ten minutes. Who can 
they be ? I see them now, and hewing away Hke men 
too. They are all on foot but two, and we have not a 
cohort of infantry left for many a mile round." 


3l8 HYPATIA. 

" I know who they are ! " cried Raphael, suddenly 
striking spurs into his horse. " I will swear to that 
armour among a thousand. And there is a Utter in the 
midst of them. On ! and fight, men, if you ever fought 
in your lives ! " 

" Softly ! " cried S5aiesius. " Trust an old soldier, 
and perhaps — alas ! that he should have to say it — the 
best left in this wretched country. Round by the hollow 
and take the barbarians suddenly in flank. They will 
not see us then till we are within twenty paces of them. 
Aha ! you have a thing or two to learn yet, Aben- 
Ezra." 

And chuckling at the prospect of action, the gallant 
bishop wheeled his little troop, and in five minutes more 
dashed out of the copse with a shout and a flight of arrows, 
and rushed into the thickest of the fight. 

One cavalry skirmish must be very like another. A 
crash of horses, a flashing of sword-blades, five minutes 
of blind confusion, and then those who have not been 
knocked out of their saddles by their neighbours' knees, 
and have not cut off their own horses' heads instead of 
their enemies', find themselves, they know not how, either 
running away, or being run away from — ^not one blow 
in ten having taken effect on either side. And even so 
Raphael, having made vain attempts to cut down 
several Moors, found himself standing on his head in 
an altogether undignified posture, among innumerable 
horses' legs, in all possible frantic motions. To avoid one 
was to get in the way of another ; so he philosophically 
sat still, speculating on the sensation of having his brains 
kicked out, till the cloud of legs vanished, and he found 
himself kneeling abjectly opposite the nose of a mule, on 
whose back sat, utterly unmoved, a tall and reverend 
man, in episcopal costume. The stranger, instead of 
bursting out laughing, as Raphael did, solemnly lifted 
his hand and gave him his blessing. The Jew sprang 
to his feet, heedless of all such courtesies, and looking 
round saw the Ausurians galloping off up the hill in 
scattered groups, and Synesius standing close by him, 
wiping a bloody sword. 


HYPATIA. 319 

" Is the litter safe ? " were his first words. 

" Safe ; and so are all. I gave you up for killed when 
I saw you run through with that lance." 

" Run through ? I am as soimd in the hide as a 
crocodile," said Raphael, laughing. 

" Probably the fellow took the butt instead of the 
point, in his hurry. So goes a cavalry scuffle. I saw 
you hit three or four fellows running with the fiat of 
your sword." 

" Ah, that explains," said Raphael ; " why, I thought 
myself once the best swordsman on the Armenian 
frontier. . . ." 

** I suspect that you were thinking of some one besides 
the Moors," said Synesius archly, pointing to the litter ; 
and Raphael, for the first time for many a year, blushed 
like a boy of fifteen, and then turned haughtily away, 
and remounted his horse, saying, " Clumsy fool that I 
was ! " 

*' Thank God rather that you have been kept from the 
shedding of blood," said the stranger bishop, in a soft, 
deliberate voice, with a peculiarly clear and delicate 
enunciation. " If God has given us the victory, why 
grudge His having spared any other of His creatures 
besides ourselves ? " 

*' Because there are so many the more of them left 
to ravish, bum, and slay," answered Synesius. " Never- 
theless, I am not going to argue with Augustine." 

Augustine ! Raphael looked intently at the man, a 
tall, deHcate-featured personage, with a lofty and narrow 
forehead scarred like his cheeks with the deep furrows 
of many a doubt and woe. Resolve, gentle but un- 
bending, was expressed in his thin, close-set lips and his 
clear, quiet eye ; but the calm of his mighty countenance 
was the calm of a worn-out volcano, over which centuries 
must pass before the earthquake-rents be filled with 
kindly soil, and the cinder-slopes grow gay with grass 
and flowers. The Jew's thoughts, however, were soon 
turned into another channel by the hearty embraces of 
Majoricus and his son. 

*' We have caught you again, you truant ! " said the 


320 HYPATIA. 

young tribune ; " yau could not escape us, you see, 
after all/' 

" Rather," said the father, " we owe him a second debt 
of gratitude for a second deliverance. We were right 
hard bestead when you rode up." 

" Oh, he brings nothing but good with him whenever 
he appears ; and then he pretends to be a bird of ill 
omen," said the light-hearted tribune, putting his 
armour to rights. 

Raphael was in his secret heart not sorry to find that 
his old friends bore him no gru(%e for his caprice ; but 
all he answered was, — 

" Pray thank any one but me ; I have, as usual, 
proved myself a fool. But what brings you here, like 
gods e machina? It is contrary to all probabilities. 
One would not admit so astounding an incident, even 
in the modern drama." 

*' Contrary to none whatsoever, my friend. We found 
Augustine at Berenice, in act to set off to Synesius. 
We — one of us, that is — were certain that you would be 
found with him ; and we decided on acting as Augustine's 
guard, for none of the dastard garrison dared stir out." 

" One of us," thought Raphael — " which one ? " And, 
conquering his pride, he asked, as carelessly as he could, 
for Victoria. 

" She is there in the litter, poor child 1 " said her father 
in a serious tone. 

" Surely not Ul ? " 

" Alas ! either the overwrought excitement of months 
of heroism broke down when she found us safe at last, 

or some stroke from God . . . Who can tell what 

I may not have deserved ? — ^But she has been utterly 
prostrate in body and mind ever since we parted from 
you at Berenice." 

The blunt soldier little guessed the meaning of his own 
words. But Raphael, as he heard, felt a pang shoot 
through his heart, too keen for him to discern whether 
it sprang from joy or from despair. 

" Come," cried the cheerful voice of S5mesius, " come, 
Aben-Ezra ; you have knelt for Augustine's blessing 


HYPATIA. 321 

already, and now you must enter into the fruition of it. 
Come, you two philosophers must know each other. 
Most holy, I entreat you to preach to this friend of mine, 
at once the wisest and the foohshest of men." 

'* Only the latter," said Raphael ; " but open to any 
speech of Augustine's, at least when we are safe home, 
and game enough for Synesius's new guests killed." 

And turning away, he rode silent and sullen by the 
side of his companions, who began at once to consult to- 
gether as to the plans of Majoricus and his soldiers. 

In spite of himself, Raphael soon became interested in 
Augustine's conversation. He entered into the subject 
of Cyrenian misrule and ruin as heartily and shrewdly 
as any man of the world ; and when all the rest were at 
a loss, the prompt practical hint which cleared up the 
difficulty was certain to come from him. It was by his 
advice that Majoricus had brought his soldierj?^ hither ; 
it was his proposal that they should be employed for a 
fixed period in defending these remote southern bound- 
aries of the province ; he cb^dsed the impetuosity of 
Synesius, cheered the despair of Majoricus, appealed to 
the honour and the Chnstianity of the soldiers, and 
seemed to have a word — and that the right word—for 
every man ; and after a while, Aben-Ezra quite forgot 
the stiffness and deliberation of bis manner, and the 
quaint use of Scripture texts in far-fetched illustrations 
of every opinion which he propounded. It had seemed 
at first a mere affectation ; but the arguments which it 
was employed to enforce were in themselves so moderate 
and so rational, that Raphael began to feel, little by 
little, that his apparent pedantry was only the result of 
a wish to refer every matter, even the most vulgar, to 
some deep and divine rule of right and wrong. 

*' But you forget all this while, my friends," said 
Majoricus at last, " the danger which you incur by shelter- 
ing proclaimed rebels." 

** The King of kings has forgiven your rebellion, in 
that while He has punished you by the loss of your lands 
and honours. He has given you your life for a prey in this 
city of refuge. It remains for you to bring forth worthy 


322 IIYPATIA. 

fruits of penitence ; of which I know none better than 
those which John the Baptist commanded to the soldiery 
of old, ' Do no violence to any man, and be content with 
your wages.' " 

" As for rebels and rebellion," said Synesius, " they 
are matters unknown among us ; for where there is no 
king, there can be no rebeUion. Whosoever will help us 
against Ausurians is loyal in our eyes. And as for our 
political creed, it is simple enough — ^namely, that the 
emperor never dies, and that his name is Agamemnon, 
who fought at Troy ; which any of my grooms will 
prove to you syllogistically enough to satisfy Augustine 
himself. As thus — 

" Agamemnon was the greatest and the best of kings. 

*' The emperor is the greatest and the best of kings. 

*' Therefore, Agamemnon is the emperor, and con- 
versely." 

" It had been well," said Augustine, with a grave 
smile, " if some of our friends had held the same doctrine, 
even at the expense of their logic." 

" Or if," answered S5mesius, " they believed with us 
that the emperor's chamberlain is a clever old man, with 
a bald head like my own, Ulysses by name, who was 
rewarded with the prefecture of all lands north of the 
Mediterranean, for putting out the Cyclop's eye two 
years ago. However, enough of this. But you see, you 
are not in any extreme danger of informers and in- 
triguers. . : . The real difficulty is, how you will be able 
to obey Augustine, by being content with your wages ; 
for," lowering his voice, " you will get Hterally none." 

" It will be as much as we deserve," said the young 
tribune ; " but my fellows have a trick of eating " 

" They are welcome, then, to all deer and ostriches 
which they can catch. But I am not only penniless, but 
reduced myself to live, like the Laestrygons, on meat and 
nothing else, all crops and stocks for miles round being 
either burnt or carried off." 

" E nihilo nihil!** said Augustine, having nothing else 
to say. But here Raphael woke up on a sudden with — 

*' Did the Pentapolitan wheat-ships go to Rome ? " 


HYPATIA. 323 

" No ; Orestes stopped them when he stopped the 
Alexandrian convoy." 

" Then the Jews have the wheat, trust them for it ; 
and what they have I have. There are certain moneys 
of mine lying at interest in the seaports, which* will set 
that matter to rights for a month or two. Do you find 
an escort to-morrow, and I will find wheat." 

" But, most generous of friends, I can neither repay 
you interest nor principal." 

"Be it so. I have spent so much money during the 
last thirty years in doing nothing but evil, that it is hard 
if I may not at last spend a Httle in doing good. — Unless 
his holiness of Hippo thinks it wrong for you to accept 
the goodwill of an infidel ? " 

'* Which of these three," said Augustine, " was neigh- 
bour to him who fell among thieves, but he who had 
mercy on him ? Verily, my friend Raphael Aben-Ezra, 
thou art not far from the kingdom of God." 

" Of which God ? " asked Raphael slyly. 

" Of the God of thy forefather Abraham, whom thou 
shalt hear us worship this evening, if He will. — Synesius, 
have you a church wherein I can perform the evening 
service, and give a word of exhortation to these my 
chUdren ? " 

S5mesius sighed. " There is a ruin, which was last 
month a church." 

** And is one still. Man did not place there the 
presence of God, and man cannot expel it." 

And so, sending out hunting-parties right and left in 
chase of everything which had animal Hfe, and picking 
up before nightfall a tolerably abimdant supply of game, 
they went homewards, where Victoria was entrusted to 
the care of Synesius's old stev/ardess, and the soldiery 
were marched straight into the church ; while Synesius's 
servants, to whom the Latin service would have been 
uninteUigible, busied themselves in cooking the still 
warm game. 

Strangely enough it sounded to Raphael that evening 
to hear, among those smoke-grimed pillars and fallen 
rafters, the grand old Hebrew psalms of his nation ring 

II 


324 HYPATIA. 

aloft, to th« very chants, too, which were said by the 
rabbis to have been used in the Temple worship oi Jeni- 
salem. . . . They, and the invocations, thanksgivings, 
blessings^ the very outward ceremonial itself, were all 
Hebraic, redolent oi the thoughts, the wor<^ of his own 
ancestors. That lesson from, the book ol Proverbs, which 
Augustine's deacon was reading in Latin — the blood ol 
the man who wrote these woiSs was flowing in Aben- 
Ezra's veins. . . . Was it a mistake, a hypocrisy ? 
or were they indeed worshipping, as- they fancied, the 
Ancient One who spoke face to face with his forefathers, 
the Archetype of man, the friend of Abraham and of 
Isradt ? 

And now the sermon began; and as Augustine stood 
for a moment in prayer in front oi the rained altar, every 
furrow in his worn face lit up by a ray of moonlight 
which streamed! m tbrowgh the broken rool, Raphael 
waited impatiently for his speeck What wouki he, the 
refined dialectician, tlie ancient teacher of heathen 
rhetoric^ the courtly suad karaed student, the ascetic 
cehibate and theosopher, hacve to say to those coarse 
war-worn soldiers, Thracians and Markmen, Gauls and 
Belgiaos^ who sat watching there, with those sad earnest 
faces ? What one thought or feeling in common co^Ad 
there be between Augustine and his congregation ? 

At last, after signing himself with the cross, he began. 
The sabjiect was one of the psalms which had just been 
read — a battle psalmp, concerning Moab- and Amalek, 
and the oM border ware of Palestiiae. Wha?t would he 
make of that ?^ 

He seemed to* start laraely enoi:^h, in spite of the 
exqmscte grace of his voice, amd^ manner, and language, 
and the epigrammatic terseness'^ ol every sentence. He 
spent some mimites over the inscri'ption' of the psa&n — 
allegorized it — n»ade it mesm something which it never 
did mean in the writer'^s miod, and which it, as Raphael 
well knew, never could mean, for his interpretation was 
founded om a sheer mistpansliation. He punned on Ihe 
Latin ve»sioai — derived the meannrg of Hebrew words 
from Latin eliymotogies. . . . And as he went on with 


HYEATIA. 325 

die psalm itsdi, the common sense of David seemed ta 
evaporate in mysticism. The most fantastic and far- 
fetched ilhistrations, drawn from the commonest objects, 
alternated with mysteriotis theosophic dogma. Where 
was that learning lor which he was so famed ? Where 
was that reverence for the old Hebrew Scriptures which 
he professed ? He was treating David as ill as Hypatia 
used to treat Homer — ^worse even than old Phik) did, 
when in the home life of the old patriarchs, and in the 
mighty acts of Moses and Joshua, he could find nothing 
but spiritual allegories herewith to pamper the private 
experiences of the secluded theosophist. And Raphael 
felt very much inclined to get up and go away, and still 
more inclined to say, with a snile, in his haste, " All men 
are liars.*' . . . 

And yet, what an ilhistration that last one was ! Na 
mere fancy, but a real, deep glance into the working of 
the material universe, as symboHc of the spiritual and 
unseen one ; and not drawn, as Hypatia' s were, exclu- 
sively from some sublime or portentous phenomenon, 
but from some dog, or kettle, or fishwife, with a homely 
insight worthy of old Socrates himself. How personal 
he was becoming, too I ... No long bursts of declama- 
tion, but dramatic dialogue and interrogation, by-hints, 
and unexpected hits at one and the other most common- 
place soldier's failing. . . ; And yet each pithy rebuke 
was put in a imiversal, comprehensive form, which 
maude Raphael himself wince — ^which might, he thought, 
have made any man, or woman either, wince in like 
manner. Well, whether or not Augustine knew truths 
for all men, he at least knew sins for all men, and for 
himself as well as his hearers. There was no denying 
that. He was a real man, right or wrong. What he 
rebiiked in others, he had felt in himself, and fought it 
to the death-grip, as the flash and quiver of that worn 
face proclaimed. , . . But yet, why were the Edomites, 
by an utterly mistaken pun on their name, to signify 
one sort of sin, and the Ammonites another, and the 
Amalekites another ? What had that to do with the 
old psalm ? What had it to do with the present auditory ? 


326 HYPATIA. 

Was not this the wildest and lowest form of that unreal, 
subtilizing, mystic pedantry of which he had sickened 
long ago in Hypatia's lecture-room, till he fled to Bran, 
the dog, for honest practical realities ? 

No. . . . Gradually, as Augustine's hints became more 
practical and pointed, Raphael saw that there was in his 
mind a most real and organic connection, true or false, 
in what seemed at first mere arbitrary allegory. Amalek- 
ites, personal sins, Ausurian robbers and ravishers, were 
to him only so many different forms of one and the same 
evil. He who helped any of them fought against the 
righteous God, he who fought against them fought for 
that God; but he must conquer the Amalekites within 
if he expected to conquer^ the Amalekites without. 
Could the legionaries permanently 4)ut down the lust 
and greed around them, while their own hearts were 
enslaved to lust and greed withii^ ? Would they not be 
helping it by example, while they pretended to crush it 
by sword-strokes ? Was it not a mockery, a hypocrisy ? 
Could God's blessing be on it ? Could they restore unity 
and peace to the country while there was neither unity nor 
peace within them ? What had produced the helpless- 
ness of the people, the imbecility of the miUtary, but 
inward helplessness, inward weakness ? They were weak 
against Moors, because they were weak against enemies 
more deadly than Moors. How could they fight for God 
outwardly, while they were fighting against Him in- 
wardly ? He would not go forth with their hosts. How 
could He, when He was not among their hosts ? He, 
a spirit, must dwell in their spirits. . . . And then the 
shout of a king would be among them, and one of them 
should chase a thousand. ... Or if not — if both people 
and soldiers required still further chastening and hum- 
bling — ^what matter, provided that they were chastened 
and himibled ? What matter if their faces were con- 
foimded, if they were thereby driven to seek His Name, 
who alone was the Truth, the Light, and the Life ? 
What if they were slain ? Let them have conquered 
the inward enemies, what matter to them if the outward 
enemies seemed to prevail for a moment ? They should 


HYPATIA. 327 

be recompensed at the resurrection of the just, when 
death was swallowed up in victory. It would be seen 
then who had really conquered in the eyes of the just 
God — they, God's ministers, the defenders of peace and 
justice, or the Ausurians, the enemies thereof. . . . And 
then, by some quaintest turn of fancy, he introduced a 
word of pity and hope even for the wild Moorish robbers. 
It might be good for them to have succeeded thus far ; 
they might learn from their Christian captives, purified 
by affliction, truths which those captives had forgotten 
in prosperity. And, again, it might be good for them, 
as well as for Christians, to be confounded and made like 
chaff before the wind, that so they too might learn His 
Name. . . . And so on, through and in spite of all con- 
ceits, allegories, overstrained interpretations, Augustine 
went on, evolving from the Psalms and from the past, and 
from the future, the assertion of a Living, Present God, 
the eternal enemy of discord, injustice, and evil, the 
eternal helper and deliverer of those who were enslaved 
and crushed thereby in soul or body. ... It was all 
most strange to Raphael. . . . Strange in its utter un- 
likeness to any teaching, Platonist or Hebrew, which he 
had ever heard before ; and stranger still in its agreement 
with those teachings — in the instinctive ease with which 
it seemed to unite and justify them all by the talisman 
of some one idea — and what that might be his Jewish 
prejudices could not prevent his seeing, and yet would 
not allow him to acknowledge. But, howsoever he 
might redden with Hebrew pride ; howsoever he might 
long to persuade himself that Augustine was building up 
a sound and right practical structure on the foundation 
of a sheer lie ; he could not help watching, at first with 
envy, and then with honest pleasure, the faces of the 
rough soldiers, as they gradually lightened up into fixed 
attention, into cheerful and solemn resolve. 

" What wonder ? " said Raphael to himself, " what 
wonder, after all ? He has been speaking to these wild 
beasts as to sages and saints ; he has been telling them 
that God is as much with them as with prophets 
and psalmists. ... I wonder if Hypatia, with all her 


328 HYPATIA. 

beauty, gouH ha^^e icmched their hearts as he has 
^one ? " 

And when Raphael rose at the end of this strange 
discourse, he felt more like an old Hebrew thaai he had 
done since he sat upon his nurse's knee, and heard 
legends about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. What 
if Augustine were right after all ? What if the Jehovah 
of the old Script^ires were not merely the national patron 
oi the children of Abraham, as lie rabbis held; not 
merely, as Philo held, the Divine Wisdom which inspired 
a few elect sages, e\'^€n among the heathen ; but the Lord 
of the whole earth and of the nations thereof ? — And 
suddenly, for the first time in his hfe, passages from the 
Psalms and prophets flashed across him, which seemed 
to assert this. What else did that whole book of Daniel 
and the history of Nebuchadnezxar mean — ^if not that ? 
Pliilosophic latitudinarianism had long ago cured him of 
the rabbinical notion of the Babylonian conqueror as 
an incarnate fiend, devoted to Tof^t, like Sennacherib 
before him. He had long in private admired the man 
as a magnificent human character, a faker one, in his 
eyes, than either Akxander or JuHus Caesar. . . . ^Hiat 
if Augustine had given him a hint which might justify 
his admiration ? . . . But more. . . . What if Augustine 
were right in going even farther than Philo and Hypatia ? 
What if this same Jehovah, Wisdom, T^gos, call Him 
what they might, w^e actuadly the God of the spirits 
as well as of the bodies of all flesh ? What if He was as 
near — Augustine said that He was — ^to the hearts of those 
wild Markmen, Gauls, Thradans, as to Augustine's own 
heart ? What if He were — Augustine said He was — 
yearning after, enlightening, leauding home to Himself, 
the souls of the poorest, the most brutal, the most sin- 
ful ? — ^What if He loved man as man, and not merely one 
favoured race or one f avooied class of minds ? . . . And 
in the light of that hypothesis, that strange story of the 
Cross of Calvary seemed not so impossible after all. . . . 
But then, cehbacy and asceticism, utterly non-human as 
they were, what had they to do with the theory of a 
human God ? 


HYPATIA. 329 

And filled with many questionings, Raphael was not 
sorry to have the matter l^rought to an issue that very 
evening in Synesius's sitting-room. Majoricus, in his 
blunt, soldierlike way, set Raphael and Augustine at 
each other without circumlocution ; and Raphael, after 
trying to smile and pooh^pocA away the subject, was 
tempted to make a jest <oq a seemuag fallacious conceit 
of Augustine's — toand it mcce difficult than he thought 
to trip up the serious aad wary logician, lost his temper 
a little — -a sign, perhaps, of returning l^alth in a sceptic 
— and soon found ten&elf fighting desperately, with 
Synesius backing him, apparently for the mere pleasure 
of seeing a battfe, and Maj<mcus makii^ him more and 
more cross by the impHcit dogmatic faith with which he 
hewed at one Gordian kaaot aiter another, till Augustine 
had to save himself from his friends by tripping iJok good 
prefect gently up, and leaving him miles l^hind the 
dispdrtants, who argtied on and on, till broad daylight 
shone in, and the ^ght of the desolaticMi below recalled 
an parties to more materia weapons, and a sterner 
warfare. 

But little thou^t R^xhael Aben-Ezra, as he sat there, 
calling up every resource of his wit and learning, in the 
hope, half malicious, half bc^estly cautious, of upsetting 
the sage of HippK), and forgetting all heaven ajnd earth in 
the delight of twittle with his peers, that in a neighbour- 
ing chamber, her teinder limbs outspread upon the floor, 
her face buried in her dishevelled locks^ lay Victoria, 
wrestling all night long for him in prayer and bitter 
tears, as the murmur of busy voices reached her eager 
ears, longing in vain to catch the sense of words on 
which hung now her hopes and bhss — how utterly and 
entirdy she had never yet confessed to herself, though 
she dared confess it to that So© of man to whom she 
prayed, as to One who felt with tenderness and insight 
beyond that of a brother, a father, even of a mother^ 
for her maiden's blushes and her maiden's woes. 


332 HYPATIA. 

the philosopher. What did she there ? But the boy's 
eager eyes, accustomed but too well to note every light 
and shade of feeling which crossed that face, saw in a 
moment how wan and haggard was its expression. She 
wore a look of constraint, of half-terrified self-resolve, as 
of a martyr : and yet not an undoubting martyr ; for 
as Orestes turned his head at the stir of Philammon's 
intrusion, and flashing with anger at the sight, motioned 
him fiercely back, Hypatia turned too, and as her eyes 
met her pupil's she blushed crimson, and started, and 
seemed in act to motion him back also ; and then, 
recollecting herself, whispered something to Orestes which 
quieted his wrath, and composed herself, or rather sank 
into her place again, as one who was determined to abide 
the worst. 

A knot of gay young gentlemen, Philammon's fellow- 
students, pulled him down among them, with welcome 
and laughter ; and before he could collect his thoughts, 
the curtain in front of the stage had fallen, and the 
sport began. 

The scene represented a background of desert moim- 
tains, and on the stage itself, before a group of tem- 
porary huts, stood huddling together the black Libyan 
p.'isoners, some fifty men, women, and children, be- 
dizened with gaudy feathers and girdles of tasselled 
leather, brandishing their spears and targets, and glaring 
out with white eyes on the strange scene before them, 
in childish awe and wonder. 

Along the front of the stage a wattled battlement had 
been erected, while below, the hyposcenium had been 
painted to represent rocks, thus completing the rough 
imitation of a village among the Libyan hills. 

Amid breathless silence, a herald advanced, and pro- 
claimed that these were prisoners taken in arms against 
the Roman senate and people, and therefore worthy of 
inmaediate death ; but that the prefect, in his exceeding 
clemency toward them, and especial anxiety to afford 
the greatest possible amusement to the obedient and 
loyal citizens of Alexandria, had determined, instead of 
giving them at once to the beasts, to allow them to fight 


HYPATIA. 333 

for their lives, promising to the survivors a free pardon 
if they acquitted themselves valiantly. 

The poor wretches on the stage, when this proclamation 
was translated to them, sQt up a barbaric yell of joy, and 
brandi^ed their spears and targets more j&ercely than ever. 

But their joy was short. The trumpets sounded the 
attack. A body of gladiators, equal in number to the 
savages, marched out from one of the two great side 
passages, made their obeisance to the applauding spec- 
tators, and planting thdr scaling-ladders against the 
front of the stage, mounted to the attack. 

The Libyans fought like tigers ; yet from the first, 
Hypatia, and Philammon also, could see that their 
promised chance of hfe was a mere mockery. Their 
light darts and naked Hmbs were no match for the 
heavy swords and complete armour of their brutal assail- 
ants, who endured carelessly a storm of blows and 
thrusts on heads and faces protected by visored helmets. 
Yet so fierce was the valour of the Libyans, that even 
they recoiled twice, and twice the scaling-ladders were 
hurled down again, while more than one gladiator lay 
below, rolling in the death-agony. 

And then burst forth the sleeping devil in the hearts 
of that great brutalized multitude. Yell upon yell of 
savage triumph, and stiU more savage disappointment, 
rang from every tier of that vast ring of seats, at each 
blow and parry, ondaught and repulse ; and Philammon 
saw with horror and surprise that luxury, refinement, 
philosophic culture itself, were no safeguards against the 
infection of bloodthirstiness. Gay and dehcate ladies, 
whom he had seen three days before simpering delight 
at Hypatia's heavenward aspirations, and some, too 
whom he seemed to recollect in Christian churches, 
sprang from their seats, waved their hands and hand- 
kerchiefs, and clapped and shouted to the gladiators. 
For, alas ! there was no doubt as to which side the 
favour of the spectators inclined. With taunts, jeers, 
applause, entreaties, the hired ruffians were urged on 
to their work of blood. The poOT wretches heard no 
voice raised in their favour ; nothing but contempt. 


334 HYPATIA. 

hatred, eager lust of blood, glared from those thousands 
of pitiless eyes ; and, broken-hearted, despairing, they 
flagged and drew back one by one. A shout of triumph 
greeted the gladiators as they climbed over the battle- 
ment and gamed a footing on the stage. The wretched 
blacks broke up, and fled wildly from comer to comer, 
looking vainly lor an outlet. . . . 

And then began a butchery. . . . Some fifty men, 
women, and children were cooped together in that 
narrow space. ... And yet Hypatia's countenance did 
not falter. Why should it ? What were their numbers 
beside the thousands who had perished year by year for 
centuries, by that and far worse deaths, in the amphi- 
theatres of that empire, for that faith which she was 
vowed to re-establish. It was part of the great system, 
and she must endure it. 

Not that she did not feel; for she, too, was woman, 
and her heart, raised far above the brutal excitement 
of the multitude, lay calmly open to the most poignant 
stings of pity. Again and again she was in the act to 
entreat mercy for some shrieking woman or struggling 
child ; but before her lips could shape the words, the 
blow had fallen, or the wretch was whirled away from 
her sight in the dense, undistinguishable mass of slayers 
and slain. Yes, she had begun, and she must foUow 
to the end. . . . And, after all, what were the lives of 
those few semi-brutes, returning thus a few years earlier 
to the clay from which they sprang, compared with the 
regeneration of a world ? . . . And it would be over in 
a few minutes more, and that black writhing heap be 
still for ever, and the curtain fall. . . . And then for 
Venus Anadyomene, and art, and joy, and peace, and 
the graceful wisdom and beauty of the old Greek art, 
calming and civiHzing all hearts, and softening them into 
pure devotion for the immortal myths, the immortal 
deities, who had inspired their forefathers in the glorious 
days of old. . . . But still the black heap writhed ; and 
she looked away, up, down, and roimd, everywhere, to 
avoid the sickening sight ; and her eye caught Philam- 
mon's gazing at her with looks of horror and disgust. 


HYPATIA. 335 

... A thrill of shame rushed through her heart, and 
blushing scarlet, she sank her head, and whispered to 
Orestes, — 
" Have mercy ! — ^spare the rest ! " 
" Nay, fairest vestal ! The mob has tasted blood, and 
they must have their fill of it, or they will turn on us for 
aught I know. Nothing so dangerous as to check a brute, 
whether he be horse, dog, or man, when once his spirit 
is up. Ha ! there is a fugitive ! How well the little 
rascal nms ! " 

As he spoke, a boy, the only survivor, leaped from 

the stage, and rushed across the orchestra toward them, 

foDowed by a rough cur-dog. 

" You shall have this youth, if he reaches us." 

Hypatia watched breathless. The boy had just arrived 

at the altar in the centre of the orchestra, when he saw 

a gladiator close upon him. The ruffian's arm was raised 

to strike, when, to the astonishment of the whole theatre, 

boy and dog turned valiantly to bay, and leaping on 

the gladiator, dragged him between them to the ground. 

The triumph was momentary. The uplifted hands, the 

shout of " Spare him I " came too late. The man, as 

he lay, buried his sword in the slender body of the child, 

and then rising, walked coolly back to the side passages, 

while the poor cur stood over the httle corpse, Hcking its 

hands and face, and making the whole building ring with 

his doleful cries. The attendants entered, and striking 

their hooks into corpse after corpse, dragged them out of 

sight, marking their path by long red furrows in the 

sand ; while the dog followed, imtil his inauspicious 

bowlings died away down distant passages. 

Philammon felt sick and giddy, and half rose to 
escape. But Pelagia ! ... No ; he must sit it out, and 
see the worst, if worse than this was possible. He 
looked round. The people were coolly sipping wine and 
eating cakes, while they chatted admirably about the 
beauty of the great curtain, which had fallen and hidden 
the stage, and represented, on a grotmd of deep-blue 
sea, Europa carried by the bull across the Bosphorus, 
while Nereids and Tritons played around. 


33^ HYPATIA. 

A single flute within the curtain began to send forth 
luscious strains, deadened and distant, as if through far- 
off glens and woodlands ; and from the side passages 
issued three Graces, led by Peitho, the goddess of per- 
suasion, bearing a herald's staff in her hand. She ad- 
vanced to the altar in the centre of the orchestra, and 
informed the spectators that, during the absence of Ares 
in aid of a certain great mihtary expedition, which was 
Portly to decide the diadem of Rome, and the hberty, 
and prosperity, and supremacy of Egypt and Alexandria, 
Aphrodite had returned to her lawful allegiance, and 
submitted for the time being to the commands of her 
husband, Hephaestus ; that he, as the deity of artificers, 
felt a peculiar interest in the welfare of the city of Alex- 
andria, the workshop of the world, and had, as a sign 
of his especial favour, prevailed upon his fair spouse to 
exhibit, for this once, her beauties to the assembled 
populace, and, in the unspoken poetry of motion, to 
represent to them the emotions with which, as she arose 
new-bom from the sea, she first surveyed that fair ex- 
panse of heaven and earth of which she now reigned 
undisputed queen. 

A shout of rapturous applause greeted this announce- 
ment, and forthwith limped from the opposite shp the 
lame deity himself, hammer and pincers on shoulder, 
followed by a train of gigantic C3^1ops, who bore on 
their shoulders various pieces of gilded metal work. 

Hephaestus, who was intended to supply the comic 
element in the vast pantomimic pageant, shambled for- 
ward with studied uncouthness, amid roars of laughter ; 
surveyed the altar with ludicrous contempt ; raised his 
mighty hammer, shivered it to pieces with a single blow, 
and beckoned to his attendants to carry off the frag- 
ments, and replace it with something more fitting for 
his august spouse. 

With wonderful quickness the metal open-work was 
put in its place, and fitted together, forming a frame of 
coral branches intermingled with dolphins, Nereids, and 
Tritons. Four gigantic Cyclops then approached, stag- 
gering under the weight of a circular slab of green marble, 


HYPATIA. 337 

polished to a perfect mirror, which they placed on the 
framework. The Graces wreathed its circumference with 
garlands of seaweed, shells, and corallines, and the mimic 
sea was complete. 

Peitho and the Graces retired a few steps, and grouped 
themselves with the Cyclops, whose grimed and brawny 
limbs, and hideous one-eyed masks, threw out in strik- 
ing contrast the dehcate hue and grace of the beautiful 
maiden figures ; while Hephaestus turned toward the 
curtain, and seemed to await impatiently the forth- 
coming of the goddess. 

Every Up was breathless with expectation as the flutes 
swelled louder and nearer ; h(^ms and cymbals took up 
the harmony ; and, to a triimiphant bvirst of music, the 
curtain rose, and a amultaneous shout of delight burst 
from ten thousand voices. 

The scene behind represented a magnificent temple, 
half hidden in an artificial wood of tropic trees and 
shrubs which filled the stage. Fauns and Dryads peeped 
laughing from among their stems, and gorgeous birds, 
tethered by xmseen threads, fluttered and sang among 
their branches. In the centre an overarching avenue of 
palms led from the temjde doors to the front of the 
stage, from which the mimic battlements had disap- 
peared, and had been replaced, in those few moments, 
by a broad slope of smooth greensward, leading down 
into the orchestra, and fringed with myrtles, roses, 
apple-trees, poppies, and crimson hyacinths, stained 
with the life-blood of Adonis. 

The folding doors of the temple opened slowly, the 
crash of instruments resounded from within, and, pre- 
ceded by the musicians, came forth the triumph of 
Aphrodite, and passed down the slope, and round the 
outer ring of the orchestra. 

A splendid car, drawn by white oxen, bore the rarest 
and gaudiest of foreign flowers and fruits, which young 
girls, dressed as Hours and Seasons, strewed in front of 
the procession and among the spectators. 

A long line of beautifiJ youths and maidens, crovmed 
with garlands, and robed in scarfs of purple gauze. 


338 HYPATIA. 

followed by two and two. Each pair carried or led a 
pair of wild animals, captives of the conquering might of 
Beauty. 

Foremost were borne, on the wrists of the actors, the 
birds especially sacred to the goddess — doves and sparrows, 
wrynecks and swallows ; and a pair of gigantic Indian 
tortoises, each ridden by a lovely nymph, showed that 
Orestes had not forgotten one wish, at least, of his in- 
tended bride. 

Then followed strange birds from India — parakeets, 
peacocks, pheasants silver and golden ; bustards and 
ostriches. The latter, bestridden each by a tiny cupid, 
were led on in golden leashes, followed by antelopes and 
oryxes, elks from beyond the Danube, four-horned rams 
from the isles of the Hyperborean Ocean, and the strange 
hybrid of the Libyan hills, beheved by all spectators to 
be half-bull, half -horse. And then a murmur of delighted 
awe ran through the theatre, as bears and leopards, lions 
and tigers, fettered in heavy chains of gold, and made 
gentle for the occasion by narcotics, paced sedately down 
the slope, obedient to their beautiful guides ; while 
behind them, the unwieldy bulk of two double-homed 
rhinoceroses, from the far south, was overtopped by 
the long slender necks and large soft eyes of a pair of 
giraffes, such as had not been seen in Alexandria for 
more than fifty years. 

A cry arose of " Orestes ! Orestes ! Health to the 
illustrious prefect ! Thanks for his boimty 1 " And a 
hired voice or two among the crowd cried, " Hail to 
Orestes ! Hail, Emperor of Africa ! " . . . But there 
was no response. 

" The rose is still in the bud," simpered Orestes to 
Hypatia. He rose, beckoned and bowed the crowd into 
silence ; and then, after a short pantomimic exhibition 
of rapturous gratitude and humihty, pointed triumph- 
antly to the palm avenue, among the shadows of whach 
appeared the wonder of the day — the huge tusks and 
trunk of the white elephant himself. 

There it was at last ! Not a doubt of it ! A real 
elephant, and yet as white as snow. Sight never seen 


HYPATIA. 339 

before in Alexandria — never to be seen again ! " Oh, 
thrice blest men of Macedonia ! " shouted some worthy 
on high, " the gods are bountiful to you this day ! " 
And £dl mouths and eyes confirmed the opinion, as they 
opened wider and yet wider to drink in the inexhaustible 
joy and glory. 

On he paced solemnly, while the whole theatre re- 
sounded to his heavy tread, and the Fauns and Dryads 
fled in terror. A choir of nymphs swung round him 
hand in hand, and sang, as they danced along, the con- 
quering might of Beauty, the tamer of beasts and men 
and deities. Skirmishing parties of Httle winged cupids 
spread themselves over the orchestra, from left to right, 
and pelted the spectators with perfumed comfits, shot 
among them from their tiny bows arrows of fragrant 
sandal-wood, or swung smoking censers, which loaded 
the air with intoxicating odours. 

The procession came on down the slope, and the elephant 
approached the spectators ; his tusks were wreathed 
with roses and myrtles ; his ears were pierced with 
splendid earrings, a jewelled frontlet hung between his 
eyes ; Eros himself, a lovely winged boy, sat on his 
neck, and guided him with the point of a golden arrow. 
But what precious thing was it which that shell-formed 
car upon his back contained ? The goddess 1 Pelagia 
Aphrodite herself ? 

Yes ; whiter than the snow-white elephant, more rosy 
than the pink-tipped shell in which she lay, among 
crimson cushions and silver gauze, there shone the goddess, 
thrilling all hearts with those deHcious smiles, and glances 
of the bashful playful eyes, and grateful wavings of her 
tiny hand, as the whole theatre rose with one accord, 
ana ten thousand eyes were concentrated on the im- 
equalled loveliness beneath them. 

Twice the procession passed round the whole circum- 
ference of the orchestra, and then returning from the 
foot of the slope towards the central group around 
Hephaestus, deployed right and left in front of the stage. 
The lions and tigers were led away into the side pas- 
sages; the youths and maidens combined themselves 


340 HYPATIA. 

with the gentler animals into groups lessening gradually 
from the centre to the wings, and stood expectant ; while 
the elephant came forward, and knelt behind the plat- 
f ornir destined for the goddess. 

The valves of the shell closed. The Graces imloosed 
the fastenings of the car. The elephant turned his 
trunk over his back, and, guided by the soft hands of the 
girls, grasped the shell, and lifting it high in air, de- 
posited it on the steps at the back of the platform. 

Hephaestus limped forward, and, with his most un- 
couth gestures, signified the delight which he had in 
bestowing such a sight upon his faithful artisans of 
Alexandria, and the unspeakable enjo5maent which they 
were to expect from the mystic dance of the goddess ; 
and then retired, leaving the Graces to advance in front 
of the platform, and with their arms twined round each 
other, begin Hypatia's song of invocation. 

As the first strophe died away, the valves of the shell 
reopened, and discovered Aphrodite crouching on one 
knee within. She raised her head, and gazed aroimd the 
vast circle of seats. A mild surprise was on her coun- 
tenance, which quick^ied into delighted wonder, and 
bashfulness struggling with the sense of new enjoyment 
and new powers. She glanced downward at herself, 
and smiled, astonished at her own loveliness ; then up- 
ward at the sky, and seemed ready, with an awful 
joy, to spring up into the boundless void. Her whole 
figure dilated ; she seemed to drink in strengtii from 
every object which met her in the great imiverse around ; 
and slowly, from among the shdls and seaweeds, she 
rose to her full height, the mystic cestus glittering round 
her waist in deep festoons of emeralds and pearls, and 
stepped forward upon the marble sea-floor, wringing the 
dripping perfume from her locks, as Aphrodite rose of 
old. 

For the first minute the crowd was too breathless with 
pleasure to think of applause. But the goddess seemed 
to require due homage ; and when she folded h^ arms 
across her bosom, and stood motionless for an instant, 
as if to demand the worship of the universe, every tongue 


HYPATIA. 341 

was loosed, and a thunderclap of " Aphrodite ! " rang 
out across the roofs of Alexandria, and startled Cyril in 
his chamber at the Serapeiimi, and weary muleteers on 
distant sand-hills, and dozing mariners far out at sea. 

And then began a miracle of art such as was only 
possible among a people of the free and exquisite physical 
training, and the delicate cesthetic perception, of those 
old Greeks, even in their most fallen days — a dance, in 
which every motion was a word, and rest as eloquent as 
motion ; in which every attitude was a fresh motive for 
a sculptor of the purest schod, and the highest physical 
activity was manifested, not as in the coarser comic 
pantomimes, in fantastic bounds and unnatural distor- 
tions, but in perpetual delicate modulations of a stately 
and self-restraining grace. The artist was for the mo- 
ment transformed into the goddess. The theatre, and 
Alexandria, and the gorgeous pageant beyond, had 
vanished from her imagination, aiid tiierefore from the 
imagination of the spectators, under the constraining 
inspiration of her art, and they and she alike saw nothing 
but the lonely sea around Cythera, and the goddess hover- 
ing above its emerald mirror, raying forth on sea, and 
air, and shore, beauty, and joy, and love. . . . 

Philanunon's eyes were bursting from his head with 
shame and horror ; and yet he could not hate her, not 
even despise her. He would have done so had there 
been the faintest trace of human feeling in her counte- 
nance to prove that some germ of moral sense lingered 
within ; but even the faint t^ush and the downcast eye 
with which she had entered the theatre were gone, and 
the only expression on her face was that of intense en- 
joyment of her own activity and skill, and satisfied 
vanity, as of a petted child. . . . Was she accountable ? 
A reasonable soul, capable of right or wrong at all ? 
He hoped not. ... He would trust not. * , . And still 
Pelagia danced on ; and for a M^ole age of agony he 
could see nothing in heaven or earth but the bewQdering 
m3ize of those white feet as they twinkled over their 
white image in the marble mirror. • . • At last it was 
over. Every Hmb suddenly collapsed, and she stood 


342 HYPATIA. 

drooping in soft self-satisfied fatigue, awaiting the burst 
of applause which rang through Philanmion's ears, pro- 
claiming to heaven and earth, as with a ndghty trumpet- 
blast, his sister's shame. 

The elephant rose, and moved forward to the side of 
the slabs. His back was covered with crimson cushions, 
on which it seemed Aphrodite was to return without 
her shell. She folded her arms across her bosom, and 
stood smiling, as the elephant gently wreathed his trunk 
around her waist, and Hfted her slowly from the slab in 
act to place her on his back. . . . 

The Httle feet, cHnging half fearfully together, had 
just risen from the marble. The elephant started, 
dropped his delicate burden heavily on the slab, looked 
down, raised his forefoot, and throwing his trunk into 
the air gave a shrill scream of terror and disgust. . . . 

The foot was red with blood — the young boy's blood 
— ^which was soaking and bubbhng up through the fresh 
sand where the elephant had trodden, in a round, dark 
purple spot. . . . 

Philammon could bear no more. Another moment 
and he had hurled down through the dense mass of 
spectators, clearing rank after rank of seats by the sheer 
strength of madness, leaped the balustrade into the 
orchestra below, and rushed across the space to the 
foot of the platform, 

" Pelagia ! Sister ! My sister ! Have mercy on me ! 
on yourself ! I will hide you ! save you ! and we will 
flee together out of this infernal place — this world of 
devils ! I am your brother ! Come ! " 

She looked at him one moment with wide, wild 
eyes The truth flashed on her 

" Brother ! " 

And she sprang from the platform into his arms. . . . 
A vision of a lofty window in Athens, looking out over 
far oHve-yards and gardens, and the bright roofs and 
basins of the Piraeus, and the broad blue sea, with the 
purple peaks of iEgina beyond all. . . . And a dark- 
eyed boy, with his arm around her neck, pointed laugh- 
ing to the twinkling masts in the far harbour, and called 


ttYPATIA. 343 

her sister. . . . The dead soul woke within her; and 
with a wild cry she recoiled from him in an agony of 
shame, and covering her face with both her hands, sank 
down among the bloodstained sand. 

A yeU, as of all hell broke loose, rang along that vast 
circle, — 

'' Down with him ! " " Away with him ! '' " Crucify 
the slave ! " " Give the barbarian to the beasts ! " 
" To the beasts with him, noble prefect ! " A crowd of 
attendants rushed upon him, and many of the spectators 
sprang from their seats, and were on the point of leap- 
ing down into the orchestra. 

Philammon turned upon them Uke a lion at bay, 
and clear and loud his voice rose through the roar of the 
multitude, — 

" Ay ! murder me as the Romans murdered Saint 
Telemachus ! Slaves as besotted and accursed as your 
besotted and accursed tyrants I Lower than the beasts 
whom you employ as your butchers ! Murder and lust 
go hHy hand in hand, and the throne of my sister's 
shame is well built on the blood of innocents ! Let my 
death end the devil's sacrifice, and fill up the cup of 
yotir iniquity ! " 

" To the beasts ! " " Make the elephant trample him 
to powder ! " 

And the huge brute, goaded on by the attendants, 
rushed on the youth, while Eros leaped from his neck 
and fled weeping up the slope. 

He caught Philammon in his trunk and raised him 
high in air. For an instant the great bellowing ocean 
of heads spun round and round. He tried to breathe 

one prayer, and shut his eyes Pelagia's voice rang 

sweet and clear, even in the shrillness of intense agony, — 

" Spare him ! He is my brother ! Forgive him, men 
of Macedonia ! For Pelagia's sake — your Pelagia ! One 
boon — only this one ! " 

And she stretched her arms imploringly toward the 
spectators, and then clasping the huge knees of the 
elephant, called madly to it in terms of passionate en- 
treaty and endearment. 


344 HYPATIA. 

The men wavered. The brute did not. Quietly he 
lowered his trunk, and set down Philammon on his 
feel The monk was saved. Breathless and dizzy, he 
found himself hurried away by the attendants, dragged 
through dark passages, and hurled out into the street, 
with curses, warnings, and congratulations, which fell on 
an unheeding ear. 

But Pelagia kept her face still hidden in her hands, 
and rising, walked slowly back, crushed by the weight 
of some tremendous awe, across the orchestra and up 
the slope, and vanished among the palms and oleanders, 
regardless of the applause and entreaties, and jeers, and 
threats, and curses, of that great multitude of sinful 
slaves. 

For a moment all Orestes's spells seemed broken by 
this unexpected catastrophe. A cloud, whether of dis- 
gust or of disappointment, hung upon every brow. More 
than one Christian rose hastily to depart, touched with 
real remorse and shame at the horrors of which they had 
been the wiUing witnesses. The common people behind, 
having glutted their curiosity with all that there was to 
see, began openly to murmur at the cruelty and heathenry 
of it. Hypatia, utterly unnerved, hid her face in both 
her hands. Orestes alone rose with the crisis. Now 
or never was the time for action ; and stepping for- 
ward, with his most graceful obeisance, waved his hand 
for silence, and began his well-studied oration : — 

" Let me not, O men of Macedonia, suppose that you 
can be disturbed from that equanimity which befits poU- 
ticians, by so Hght an accident as the caprice of a dancer. 
The spectacle which I have had the honom: and delight 
of exhibiting to you — (Roars and applause from the 
liberated prisoners and the j^img gentlemen) — and on 
which it seemed to me you have deigned to look with 
not altogether unkindly eyes — (Fresh applause, in which 
the Christian mob, relenting, began to join) — ^is but a 
pleasant prelude to that more serious business for which 
I have drawn you here together. Other testimonies of 
my good intentions have not been wanting in the release 
of suffering innocence, and in the largess of food, the 


HYPATIA. 345 

growth and natural property of Egypt, destined by your 
kte tyrants to pamper the luxury of a distant court. 
. . . Why should I boast ? — yet even now this head is 
weary, these limbs fail me, worn out in ceaseless efforts 
for your welfare, and in the perpetual administration of 
the strictest justice. For a time has come in which the 
Macedonian race, whose boast is the gorgeous city of 
Alexander, must rise again to that pohtical pre-eminence 
which they held of old, and becoming once more the 
masters of one-third of the universe, be treated by their 
rulers as freemen, citizens, heroes, who have a right to 
choose and to employ their rulers. Rulers, did I say ? 
Let us forget the word, and substitute in its place the 
more philosophic term of ministers. To be yom: minister, 
the servant of you all — to sacrifice myself, my leisure, 
headth, Hfe, if need be, to the one great object of securing 
the independence of Alexandriar^this is my work, my 
hope, my glory — ^longed for through weary years ; now 
for the first time possible by the fall of the late puppet 
Emperor of Rome. Men of Macedonia, remember that 
Honorius reigns no more. An African sits on the throne 
of the Caesars. Heraclian, by one decisive victcwry, has 
gained, by the favour of— of Heaven, the imperial 
purple ; and a new era opens for the world. Let the 
conqueror of Rome balance his account with that By- 
zantine court, so long the incubus of our trans-Mediter- 
ranean wealth and civilization ; and let a free, inde- 
pendent, and imited Africa rally round the palaces and 
docks of Alexandria, and find there its natural centre 
of polity and of prosperity." 

A roar of hired applause interrupted him; and not 
a few, half for the sake of his compliments and fine 
words, half from a natural wish to be on the right side 
— 0amely, the one which happened to be in the ascend- 
ant for ^e time being — joined. . . . The city authorities 
were on the point of crying, " Imperator Orestes," but 
thought better of it, and waited for some one else to 
cry first — being respectable. Whereon the prefect of the 
giiards, being a man of some presence of mind, and also 
not in anywise respectable, pricked up the prefect of 


346 HYPATIA. 

the docks with the point of his dagger, and bade him, 
with a fearful threat, take care how he played traitor. 
The worthy burgher roared incontinently — ^whether with 
pain or patriotism — ^and the whole array of respect- 
abihties, having fotmd a Curtius who would leap into 
the gulf, joined in unanimous chorus, and saluted Orestes 
as emperor ; while Hypatia, amid the shouts of her 
aristocratic scholars, rose and knelt before him, writhing 
inwardly with shame and despair, and entreated him to 
accept that tutelage of Greek commerce, supremacy, 
and philosophy which was forced on him by the unani- 
mous voice of an adoring people. . . . 

" It is false ! " shouted a voice from the highest tiers, 
appropriated to the women of the lower classes, which 
made all turn their heads in bewilderment. 

" False ! false ! you are tricked ! He is tricked ! 
Heraclian was utterly routed at Ostia, and is fled to 
Carthage, with the emperor's fleet in chase." 

" She lies ! Drag the beast down ! " cried Orestes, 
utterly thrown ofl his balance by the sudden check. 

" She ? He ! I, a monk, brought the news ! Cyrii 
has known it, every Jew in the Delta has known it, for 
a week past ! So perish all the enemies of the Lord, 
caught in their own snare ! " 

And bursting desperately through the women who 
surrounded him, the monk vanished. 

An awful silence fell on all who heard. For a minute 
every man looked in his neighbour's face as if he longed 
to cut his throat, and get rid of one witness, at least, of 
his treason. And then arose a tumult, which Orestes in 
vain attempted to subdue. Whether the populace be- 
lieved the monk's words or not, they were panic-stricken 
at the mere possibility of their truth. Hoarse with deny- 
ing, protesting, appealing, the would-be emperor had at 
last to summon his guar<£ around him and Hypatia, and 
make his way out of the theatre as best he could ; while 
the multitude melted away like snow before the rain, and 
poured out into the streets in eddying and roaring streams, 
to find every church placarded by Cyril with the particu- 
lars of Heraclian's ruin. 


HYPATIA. 347 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

NEMESIS. 

That evening was a hideous one in the palace of Orestes. 
His agonies of disappointment, rage, and terror were at 
once so shameftQ and so fearful that none of his slaves 
dare approach him, and it was not till late that his 
confidential secretary, the Chaldean eunuch, driven by 
terror of the exasperated Catholics, ventured into the 
tiger's den, and represented to him the immediate 
necessity for action. 

What could he do ? He was committed — Cyril only 
knew how deeply. What might not the wily archbishop 
have discovered ? What might he not pretend to have 
discovered ? What accusations might he not send off on 
the spot to the Byzantine Court ? 

" Let the gates be guarded, and no one allowed to 
leave the city," suggested the Chaldee. 

" Keep in monks ? As well keep in rats ! No ; we 
must send off a counter-report instantly." 

" What shall I say, your excellency ? " quoth the 
ready scribe, pulling out pen and inkhom from his 
sash. 

" What do I care ? Any lie which comes to hand. 
What in the devil's name are you here for at all, but 
to invent a lie when I want one ? " 

" True, most noble," and the worthy sat meekly down 
to his paper . . . but did not proceed rapidly. 

" I don't see anything that would suit the emergency, 
unless I stated, with your august leave, that Cyril, and 
not you, celebrated tiie glachatorial exhibition, which 
might hardly appear credible ? " 

Orestes burst out laughing, in spite of himself. The 
sleek Chaldee smiled and purred in return. The victory 
was won ; and Orestes, somewhat more master of him- 
self, began to turn his vulpine cunning to the one ab- 
sorbing question of the saving of his worthless neck. 

" No, that would be too good. Write, that we had 
discovered a plot on Cyril's part to incorporate the 


34^ HYPATIA. j 

whole of the African churches (mind and specify Carthage 
and Hippo) under his own jurisdiction, and to throw 
off allegiance to the Patriarch of Constantinople, in case 
of Heraclian*s success." 

The secretary purred delighted approval, and scribbled 
away now with nght good heart. 

'* Heraclian's success, your excellency," 

'* We, of course, desired, by every means in our power, 
to gratify the people of Alexandria, and, as was our duty, 
to excite by every lawful method their loyalty toward 
the throne of the Caesars (never mind who sat on it) at 
so critical a moment." 

'' So critical a moment. , . , " 

'*But as faithful Catholics, ajcid abhorring, even in 
the extremest need, the sin of Vzzsh, we dreaded to 
touch with the unsanctified bands of laymen the con- 
secrated ark of the Church, even though for its preserva- 
tion. , . . " 

" Its preservation, your excellency. ..." 

" We, therefore, as civil naagistrates, felt bound to 
confine ourselves to those means which were already 
allowed by law and custom to our jurisdiction ; and 
accordingly made use of those largesses, spectacles, and 
public execution of rebels, which have unhappily appeared 
to his holiness the patriarch (too ready, perhaps, to find 
a cause of complaint against faithful adherents of the 
Byzantine See) to partake of the nature of those gladia- 
torial exhibitions which axe equally abhorrent to the 
spirit of the Catholic Church, and to the charity of the 
sainted emperors by whose pious edicts they have been 
long since abolishedl" 

'* Yom: excellency is indeed great « . . but— pardon 
your slave's remark — ^my simplicity is of opinion that 
it may be asked why you did not inform the Augusta 
Pulcheria of Cyril's conspiracy ? " 

" Say that we sent a niessenger off three months ago, 
but that . . . Make something happen to him, stupid, 
and save me the trouble." 

" Shall I kill him by Arabs in the neighbourhood of 
Palmyra, your excellency ? " 


HYPATIA. 349 

"Let me see. . . . No. They may make inquiries 
there. Drown him at sea. Nobody can ask questions 
of the sharks." 

" Foundered between Tyre and Crete, from which sad 
calamity only one man escaped on a raft, and being 
picked up, sftter three weeks' exposure to the fury of 

the elements, by a returning wheat-ship By-the- 

bye, most noble, what am I to say about those wheat- 
^ps not havii^ even sailed ? " 

**Head of Augustus! I forgot them utterly. Say 
that — ^say that the plague was making such ravages in the 
harbour quarter thai we feared tbeir carrying the infection 
to the seat of the empire] and let them sail to-morrow." 
The secretary's face lengthened. 

*^ My fidelity is competed to remark, even at the risk 
of your just indignation, that half of them have been 
imloaded again for jrour munificeiat largesses of the last 
two days." 
Orestes swore a great oaliu 

" Oh that the mob had but one throat, that I might 
give them an emetic I Wdl, we must buy more com, 
that's all/' 
The secretary's face grew longer still. 

" The Jews, most ac^just *' 

" What of them ? " yelled the hapless prefect. " Have 
they been forestalling ? '^ 

My assiduity has discovered this afternoon that they 
have been buying up and exporting all the provisions 
which they could obtain." 

'* Scoundrels ! Then they must have known of Hera- 
chan's failure I " 

" Your sagacity has, I fear, divined the truth. They 
have been betting largely against his success for the last 
week, both in Canopus and Pelusrunu" 

" For the last week ! Then Miriam betrayed me 
knowingly ! " And Orcstea broke forth again into a 
paroxysm of fury. 

" Here — call the tribune of the guard ! A hundred 
gold pieces to the man who brings me the witch alive ! " 
" She will never be taken alive." 


3 so HYPATIA. 

" Dead, then — ^in any way ! Go, you Chaldee hound ! 
what are you hesitating about ? " 

" Most noble lord," said the secretary, prostrating 
liimself upon the floor, and kissing his master's feet in 
an agony of fear . • . " Remember, that if you touch 
one Jew you touch all ! Remember the bonds ! re- 
member the — the — ^your own most august reputation, 
in short." 

" Get up, brute, and don't grovel there, but tell me 
what you mean, like a human being. If old Miriam is 
once dead, her bonds die with her, don't they ? " 

" Alas, my lord, you do not know the customs of that 
accursed folk. They have a damnable practice of treat- 
ing every member of their nation as a brother, and 
helping each freely and faithfully without reward; 
whereby they are enabled to plunder all the rest of the 
world, and thrive themselves, from the least to the 
greatest. Don't fancy that your bonds are in Miriam's 
hands. They have been transferred months ago. Your 
real creditors may be in Carthage, or, Rome, or Byzan- 
tium, and they will attack you from thence ; while all 
that you would find if you seized the old witch's property 
would be papers, useless to you, belonging to Jews all 
over the empire, who would rise as one man in defence 
of their money. I assure you, it is a net without a 
bound. If you touch one you touch all. . . . And be- 
sides, my diligence, expecting some such command, has 
already taken the liberty of making inquiries as to 
Miriam's place of abode ; but it appears, I am sorry to 
say, utterly unknown to any of your excellency's servants." 

" You he ! " said Orestes. ..." I would much sooner 
believe that you have been warning the hag to keep out 
of the way." 

Orestes had spoken, for that once in his life, the exact 
truth. 

The secretary, who had his own private dealings with 
Miriam, felt every particular atom of his skin shudder 
at those words; and had he had hair on his head, it 
would certainly have betrayed him by standing visibly 
on end. But as he was, luckily for him, close shaven, 


HYPATIA, 351 

his turban remained in its proper place, as he meekly 
replied, — 

*' Alas ! a faithftd servant can feel no keener woe 
than the causeless suspicion of that sun before whose 
ra3rs he daily prostrates his " 

" Confound your periphrases ! Do you know where 
she is ? ** 

*' No ! '* cried the wretched secretary, driven to the 
he direct at last, and confirmed the negation with such 
a string of oaths that Orestes stopped his volubility 
with a kick, borrowed of him, under threat of torture, 
a thousand gold pieces as largess to the soldiery, and 
ended by concentrating the stationaries roimd his own 
palace, for the double purpose of protecting himself in 
case of a riot, and of increasing the chances of the said 
riot by leaving the distant quarters of the city without 
pohce. 

" If Cyril would but make a fool of himself, now that 
he is in the full-blown pride of victory — ^the rascal ! — 
about that Ammonius, or about Hypatia, or anything 
else, and give me a real handle against him ! After all, 
trutii works better than lying now and then. Oh that I 
could poison him! But one can't bribe those ecclesi- 
astics ; and as for the dagger, one could not hire a man 
to be torn in pieces by monks. No ; I must just sit still 
and see what Fortime's dice may turn up. Well, your 
pedants like Aristides or Epaminondas — thank Heaven, 
the race of them has died out long ago ! — might call this no 
very creditable piece of provincial legislation ; but, after 
all, it is about as good as any now going, or likely to 
be going till the world's end, and one can't be expected 
to strike out a new path. I shall stick to the wisdom 
of my predecessors, and — oh that Cyril may make a 
fool of himself to-night ! " 

And 0)^11 did make a fool of himself that night, for 
the first and last time in his life, and suffers for it, as 
wise men are wont to do when they err, to this very day 
and hour; but how much Orestes gained by his foe's 
false move cannot be decided till the end of this story — 
perhaps not even then. 



HYPATIA. 
CHAPTER XXIV. 

LOST LAMBS. 


^ 


And Philammon ? 

For a long while he stood in the street outside the 
theatre, too much maddened to determine on any course 
of action ; and, ere he had recovered his self-possession, 
the crowd began to pour from every outlet, and filling 
the street, swept him away in its stream. 

Then, as he heard his sistar's name, in every tooie of 
pity, contempt, and horror, mingle with their angry 
exclamations, he awoke irom bis dream, and, bursting 
through the mob, made straight lor Pelagia's house. 

It was fast closed, and his repeated knocks at the 
gate brought only, after long waiting, a surly negro face 
to a Httle wicket. 

He asked eagerly and instinctively fior Pelagia: of 
course she had not yet returned. For Wulf : he was 
not within. And then he took his station close to the 
gateway, while his heart beat loud with hope and dread. 

At last the Goths appeared, forcing liieir way tiirough 
the mob in a close column. There were no litters with 
them. Where, then, were Pelagia and her girls ? Where, 
too, was the hated figure of the Amal ? and Wulf, and 
Smid ? The men came on, led by Goderic and Agil- 
mund, with folded arms, knitted brows, downcast eyes : a 
stem disgust, not immingled with shame, on every coun- 
tenance, told Philammon afresh of his sister's infamy. 

Goderic passed him close, and Philammon summoned 
up courage to ask for Wiilf. • • • Pelagia he had not 
courage to name. 

** Out, Greek hound ! we have seen enough of your 
accursed race to-day ! What ? are you trying to follow 
us in ? " And the young man's sword flashed from its 
sheath so swiftly that Philammon had but just time 
enough to spring back into liie street, and wait there, 
in an agony of disappointment and anxiety, as the gates 
slid together again, and the house was as silent as before. 


HYPATIA. 353 

For a miserable hour he waited^ while the mob thicks 
ened instead of flowing away, and the scattered groups 
ol chatterers began to fofm themselves into masses, and 
parade the streets with ^<mts of " Down with the 
hcatbett ! " " Down with the idolaters I " *' Vengeance 
on all blaspheming harlots ! '* 

At last tiie st«uiy tramp o£ legionaries,, and in the 
midst of the ghttering Hjics ol asmed men— oh, joy !— 
a string of litteirs. 

He sprang forward,, an^i called Pclagia's name again 
and again. Once he fancied be- heard an answer, but 
the soldiers thrust Mm back. 

'' She is safe here, y^^foiag fool,, and has seen and been 
seen quite enough to-day already. Back ! *' 

" Let me speak to her ! " 

** That is her bosinesB* Oars; isi now to see bar home 
safe-" 

" Let mfi go in with yon, I beseedn ! " 

*• If you want to go in, knock for yomrself when we are 
gone. If you have any business m the house they will 
open> to 5roti, I suppose. Out, yow interfering puppy I " 

And a blow of the «peai-butt in his chest sent him 
rolling back into the midcfle of the street,, while the 
soldiers^ having delivered up their charge,, returned with 
the same stolM indifferenee^ In vain Philammon, re^ 
tnraing, knocked at th© gatei Curses and threats from 
the negro weire att the aaiswer which he received ; and 
at last,, wearied into desperatk)n, he wandered away, up 
one street and down another, strugghng in vain to form 
some plan of action for himself, until tbe^ sun was- set. 

Weaniy he went homewards at last* Once the thought 
ol Miriam, crossed his mindL It wae^ a disguBtmg alterskay 
tive to ask help oA h«r^ the very anthor o^ 1^ sisdier's 
shanK ; but yet she at least conM. obtain for hini a si^it 
o£ Pelatgis^she had promdsed & nradou But theis — 
the coDdttion wlxich/ she had appendnd to her he^ I To 
see his sister^ and 5ret to leave her as she was ^-*Horrible 
contradiction ! But could he not employ Miriam tor 
his owa ends ? — onotwit her ?— deceive her ?^for it 
came to that. The temptation was intense, bat it 


3S6 HYPATIA. 

all ! When I and liie girls began to practise, all the old 
feelings came back — the love of being admired, and 
applauded, and cheered ; and dancing is so delicious ! — 
so deUcious to feel liiat you are doing anything beautiful 
perfectly, and better than every one else ! , . . And he 
saw that I liked it, and despised me for it. . . . And, 
deceitful ! — ^he little guessed how much of the pains 
which I took were taken to please him, to do my best 
before him, to win admiration, only that I might take 
it home and liirow it all at his beloved feet, and make 
the world say once more, ' She has all Alexandria to 
worship her, and yet she cares for liiat one Goth more 

than for ' But he deceived me, true man that he 

is ! He wished to enjoy my smiles to the last moment, 
and then to cast me off when I had once given him an 
excuse. . . . Too cowardly to upbraid me, he let me ruin 
^myself, to save him the trouble of ruining me. O men, 
men ! all alike ! They love us for their own sakes, and 
we love them for love's sake. We live by love, we die 
for love ; and yet we never find it, but only selfishness 
dressed up in love's mask. . . . And then we take up 
with that, poor, fond, self-blinded creatures that we are ! 
^ — and in spite of the poisoned hearts around us, persuade 
ourselves that our latest asp's egg, at least, will hatch 
into a dove, and that though all men are faithless, our 
own tyrant can never change, for he is more than man ! " 

** But he has deceived you ! You have foimd out your 
mistake. Leave him, then, as he deserves ! " 

Pelagia looked up, with something of a tender smile. 
*' Poor darling ! Little do you know of love ! " 

Philammon, utterly bewildered by this newest and 
strangest phase of human passion, could only gasp out, — 

" But do you not love me too, my sister ? " 

" Do I not love you ? But not as I love him ! Oh, 
hush, hush, hush ! — ^you cannot understand yet ! " And 
Pelagia hid her face in her hands, while convulsive 
shudderings ran through every limb. . . . 

'* I must do it ! I must ! I will dare everything, 
stoop to everything for love's sake I Go to her ! — to the 
wise woman ! — to Hypatia I She loves you ! I know 


HYPATIA. 357 

that she loves you ! She will hear you, though she will 
not me ! " 

" Hypatia ? Do you not know that she was sitting 
there unmoved at — in the theatre ? *' 

'* She was forced ! Orestes compelled her ! Miriam 
told me so. And I saw it in her face. As I passed be- 
neath her, I looked up ; and she was as pale as ivory, 
trembhng in every hmb. There was a dark hollow round 
her eyes — she had been weeping, I saw. And I sneered 
in my mad self-conceit, and said, * She looks as if she 
was going to be crucified, not married ! ' . . . But now, 
now ! — Oh, go to her ! Tell her that I will give her all 
I have — ^jewels, money, dresses, house ! Tell her that 
I — I — entreat her pardon, that I will crawl to her feet 
myself and ask it, if she requires ! — Only let her teach me 
— ^teach me to be wise and good, and honoured and 
respected, as she is ! Ask her to tell a poor broken-hearted 
woman -her secret. She can make old Wulf, and him,^ 
and Orestes even, and the magistrates, respect her. . . . 
Ask her to teach me how to be Uke her, and to make him 
respect me again, and I will give her all — all I " 

PhUammon hesitated. Something within warned him,. , 
as the Daemon used to warn Socrates, that his errand ' 
would be bootless. He thought of the theatre, and of 
that firm, compressed Up; and forgot the hollow eye of 
misery which accompanied it, in his wrath against his 
lately-worshipped idol. 

" Oh, go ! go ! I tell you it was against her will. She 
felt for me — I saw it — O God ! — ^when I did not feel for 
myself ! And I hated her, because she seemed to despise 
me in my fool's triumph ! She cannot despise me now 
in my misery. ... Go ! Go I or you wiQ drive me to 
the agony of going myself." 

There was but one thing to be done. 

** You will wait, then, here ? Y^u will not leave me 
again ? " 

" Yes. But you must be quick ! If he finds out that 
I am away, he may fancy . . . Ah, heaven ! let him kill 
me, but never let him be jealous of me ! Go now ! this 
moment ! Take this as an earnest — ^the cestus which I 


35S HYPATIA. 

were there. Horrid thing ! I hate the sight of it ! But 
I brought it with me on purpose, or I would have thrown 
it into the cauaL There ; say it is an earnest — only an 
earnest — of what I will give iher I " 

In ten minutes more Phflanimon was in Hj^tia's 
hall. The household ^seemed &ill of terror and dkturb- 
ancfi ; the hall was full of ^soldiers. At last Hypatia's 
:feivourite maid passed, and knew him. Her mistress 
could not speak with any one. Where was Theon, then ? 
He, too, had shu* hinisdf up. Never mind. Philam- 
mon must, would speak wth him. And :he pleaded so 
passicmatdy aiKi so isweetly fliat the .soft-hearted damsd, 
unable do resist so handscone a suppliant, undertoc^ his 
erramj, and led .him .up to the hbreary, where Theon, pale 
as death, was pacing to and ito, .appanently half b^de 
himself with terror, 

Philammon's (breathless message fdl .at first upon 
unheeding ears. 

" A new pupil, sir { Is ithis la iihne for pupak, when 
my house, my daughter's life, is not safe ? Wretch 
that I am ! And have I led hsr into the snare ? I, with 
my A^ain ambition and covetousness ! O my child ! my 
child ! my one treasure.1 Oh, the idoulde cnrad .whidb 
will light upon me, if " 

'* She asks for but one interview." 

"With my daughter, sir? Pels^a! Will you insult 
me ? Do you suppose, even if her own pity should so 
far tempt her to degrade herself, that I could allow her 
so to contaminate her purity ? " 

** Your terror, sir, excuses your rudeness.*' 

" Rudeness, sir ? the rudeness lies in your intruding 
on us at such a moment ! " 

" Then this, perhaps, may, in your eyes at least, excuse 
me in my turn." And Philammon held out the cestus. 
" You are a better judge of its value than I. But I am 
commissioned to say, tiiat it is only an earnest of what 
she will give willingly and at once, even to the half of 
her wealtii, for the honour of becoming your daughter's 
pupil." And he laid the jewelled girdle on the table. 

The old man halted in his walk. The emeralds and 


HYPATIA. 359 

pearis shone like the galaxy^ He looked at them ; and 
walked on again rocare siowly. ► ^ . What might be their 
value ? What might it not be? At least, they would 
pay all his debts. . . : And after hovering to and fro for 
another minute before the bait, he turned to Philammon. 
" If you will promise to mention the thing to no one " 

" I will promise." 

" And in case my dau^iter^ as I have-a right to; expect, 
shall refuse " 

" Let her keep the) jewds; TJieir owner has lefflcned, 
thank God,^ to despise said hate ^maul Let ho: keep 
the jewels—and my corse t Far God do so to me, aaad 
more also, if I ever see her: face again! " 

The old man had myt heard the latter part of Phdlam- 
moa's speechv He had saaed lus bait as greedily as a 
crocodile, and hurded o£l. with it into Hypatia's chamber, 
while Philammon stoc«d expectant — possessed with a 
new and. fearful doitfit^ " Etegradc herself ! " " Con- 
taimnate * her ptirityl"^ If that notibn were t©- be the 
fruit of aH her philj^phy ? If selfishness^ pride, Pharisa- 
ism were all its o«tconie ? Why^— had. thsy not b^rt its 
outcome already ? When had he seem her helpii^,, even 
pitying, the poor, the outcast ? Whera had he heard 
from her one word of real gympaithy for the scHTowing, 
for the sinM ? , . . He was stfll kist ini thought whim 
Thecm re-entered^ bringing^ a lett^, 

**'From ffypatia ia her meU-beloved pupiL 

" I pity you — how should I not > And more, I thank 
you. for this your request,, for it i^ows me that my un- 
willing presence at tiie hideous pageant of to-day has 
not afienated from roe a soul of. which I had cherished 
the noblest hopes, for which I had sketched out the 
loftiest destiny. But how ^lall I say it ? Ask yourself 
whether a changes — a^^parently^ iflaapcesit^^ — must not 
take ptee in her for ^^iomi you pkad,. before she and I 
can meet. I am not so inhtniKWi as to? Idame ycm iar 
having asked me • I d©) ncit eveu blame her for bemg 
what she is. She- does but fic^law her nature ; wh0 can ' 
be angry with her, if destiny have informed so fair an 


e 


360 HYPATIA. 

animal with a too gross and earthly spirit ? Why weep 
over her ? Dust she is, and unto dust she will return : 
while you, to whom a more divine spark was allotted at 
your birth, must rise, and imrepining leave below you 
one only connected with you by the unreal and fleeting 
bonds of fleshly kin." 

^ Philammon crushed the letter together in his hand, 
pf^ and strode from the house without a word. 
.^ ^Jhe philosopher had no gospel, then, for the harlot ?— 
'T no WOTQ for the sinner, the degraded ? Destiny forsooth ! 
She was to follow her destiny, and be base, miserable, 
self-condemned. She was to crush the voice of conscience 
and reason, as often as it awoke within her, and compel 
herself to believe that she was bound to be that which 
she knew herself bound not to be. She was to shut her 
eyes to that present palpable misery which was preach- 
ing to her, with the voice of God Hmiself, that the wages 
of sin are death. Dust she was, and unto dust she will 
return ! Oh, glorious hope for her, for him, who felt as 
if an eternity of bliss would be worthless if it parted him 
from his new-found treasure! Dust she was, and unto 

I dust she must return ! 

Hapless Hj^atia ! If she must needs misapply, after 
the fashion of her school, a text or two here and there 
from the Hebrew Scriptures, what suicidal fantasy set 
her on quoting that one ? For now, upon Philammon's 
memory flashed up in letters of light old words forgotten 
for months; and ere he was aware, he found himself 
repeating aloud and passionately, " I beUeve in the for- 
giveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life 
everlasting," . . . and then clear and fair arose before 
him the vision of the God-man, as He lay at meat in the 
Pharisee's house ; and of her who washed His feet with 
tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. . . . 
And from the depths of his agonized heart arose the 
prayer, " Blessed Magdalene, intercede for her ! " 

So high he could rise but not beyond. For the notion 
of that God-man was receding fast to more and more 
awful abysmal heights, in the minds of a generation who 


HYPATIA. 361 

were forgetting His love in His power, and practically 
losing sight of His humanity in their eager doctrinal 
assertion of His divinity. And Philammon's heart re- 
echoed the spirit of his age, when he felt that for an apos- 
tate like himself it were presimiptuous to entreat for any 
light or help from the fountain-head itself. He who had 
denied his Lord, he who had voluntarily cut himself off 
from the conmiunion of the Catholic Church — ^how could 
he restore himself ? How could he appease the wrath of 
Him who died on the cross, save by years of bitter sup- 
plication and self-pimishment ? . . . 

" Fool ! Vain and ambitious fool that I have been ! 
For this I threw away the faith of my childhood! For 
this I listened to words at which I shuddered; crushed 
down my own doubts and disgusts; tried to persuade 
myself that I could reconcile them with Christianity — 
that I could make a lie fit into the truth I For this I 
puffed myself up in the vain hope of becoming not as 
other men are — superior, forsooth, to my kind ! It was 
not enough for me to be a man made in the image of God ; 
but I must needs become a god myself, knowing good 
ajid evil. — ^And here is the end! I call upon my fine 
philosophy to help me once, in one real practical human 
struggle ; and it folds its arms and sits serene and silent, 
smilmg upon my misery ! O fool, fool ! thou art filled 
with the fruit of thy own devices ! Back to the old faith ! 
Home again, thou wanderer ! And yet how home ? Are 
not the gates shut against me ? Perhaps against her too. 
. . . What if she, like me, were a baptized Christian ? " 

Terrible and all but hopeless that thought flashed across 
him, as in the first revulsion of his conscience he plunged 
utterly and implicitly back again into the faith of his 
childhood, and all the dark and cruel theories popular in 
his day rose up before him in all their terrors. In the 
innocent simplicity of the Laura he had never felt their 
force ; but he felt them now. If Pelagia were a baptized 
woman, what was before her but unceasing penance ? — 
before her, as before him, a life of cold and hunger, 
groans and tears, loneliness and hideous, soul-sickening 
imcertainty ? Life was a dungeon for them both hence- 


'^2 HYPATIA. 

forth. Be it so ! There was nothii^ else to believe in. 
No other rock of hope in earth or heaven. That at least 
promised a posaLMity of ibrgiveaaess, of aanendment, of 
virtue;, of reward — ay, of everlasting bliss aaad glory; 
and even if she missed of that, better if or htsr the cell .in 
the 'desert than a life of selficontentod impxirity! If 
that latter were her destiny^ as Hypatia said, she should 
at least die fighting against it, defying it, cursing it! 
Betta: virtue with hell than sin with heaven! And 
Hypatia had not even promised her a heaven. The 
resurrection of the flesh was too caimal a notion for her 
refined and lofty creed. And so, his four months' 4ream 
swept away in a moment, te hurried back to his chamber 
with one £xed thought before him — the desert; a -cell 
for Belagia, another for himself. There they would repent, 
and pray, and mourn ouit life side by side, if perhaps God 
would have mercy i^on their souls. Yet — ^perhaps, she 
mig^t not have been baptized after all. And then she 
was safe. Like other converts froim p^aniam, she 
might .become a catechumen, and go on to baptism, 
where Ihe mystic water would wa^ away in a moment 
alh the past, and she would b^;in life afresh, in the spot- 
less robes of innocence. Yet he had been baptized, he 
knew from Arsenius, be£we he .1^ Athens ; and she was 
older than he. It was all but impossible : yet he would 
hope ; and rteeathless with anxi^y and excitement, he 
ran up the narrow stairs and found Miriam standing out- 
side, her hand upon the bolt, apparently inclined to 
dispute his passage. 

" Is she still withha ? " 

" What if she be ? " 

*' Let me pass into my own i©om.'" 

" Yours ? Who has been paying the rent for you 
these tour months past ? You \ What can you say to 
her ? What can you do for her ? Young pedant, you 
must be in love yourself befcare you can hdp poor crea- 
tures who are in love ! " 

But Philammon pu^ed past her -so !fi«cely that the 
old woman was forced \o give way, and with a sinister 
smile she followed him into the chamber. 


HYPATIA. 365 

Pelagia sprang towards her brothen 

"Will sTie ?— will she see me ? " 

" Let «s tdiXk no more of her, my betoved," said Phil- 
ammon, laying his hands gently on her trembling shoul- 
ders, and locking -earnestly into her eyes. ..." Better 
that we two should work out cnir ddiveiance for our- 
selves, without the help of strangars. You can trust 
me?" 

" You ? And can 3«)u hdp me ? Will you teach 
me ? " 

" Yes, but not here. . . . We must escape — Nay, 
hear me, one moment 1 dearest sister, bear mei Are 
you so happy here that ycm can concdve of no better 
place ? And — and, O God 5 that it may not be true 
after all ! — ^but is tW« not a hell hereafter ? " 

Pelagia covered her face with her hands. "The old 
monk warned me of it 1 " 

" Oh, take his wamii;^. , . .^ And Phalanmion was 
bursting forth with some svich words about the lake of 
fire and brimstone as he had been accustomed to hear 
from Pambo and Arsenius, when Pelagia interrupted 
him, — 

"" O Miriam ! is it true ? Is it possible ? What will 
hecome of me ? *' almost shrieked the poor child. 

" What if it were true ? Let him tell you how he will 
save you from it," answered Miriam quietly. 

" Will not the gospel 'save her frcan it, unbelievii^ 
Jew ? Do not contradict me 1 I can save her." 

"If she does what?*" 

" Can she not repent ? Can she not mortify these 
base affections ? Can she not be foiigiven ? O my 
Pelagia! forgive me for having dreamai one moment 
that I could make you a philosopher, when you may be 
a saint of God, a ** 

He stopped short suxldenly, as the thoi^ht about 
baptism ikshed across him, and in a faltering voice asked, 
•" Are you baptized ? " 

" Baptized ? ** asked she, hardly understanding the 
term. 

" Yes — ^by the bi^iop — ^in the churdi." 
12 a 


364 HYPATIA. 

" Ah," she said, " I remember now. . . . When I was 
four or five years old. ... A tank, and women undress- 
ing .. . And I was bathed too, and an old man dipped 
my head under the water three times. ... I have for- 
gotten what it aU meant — ^it was so long ago. I wore a 
white dress, I know, afterwards." 

Philammon recoiled with a groan. 

" Unhappy child ! May God have mercy on you ! " 

" Will He not forgive me, then ? You have forgiven 
me. He ? — ^He must be more good even than you.— 
Why not ? " 

'* He forgave you then, freely, when you were baptized ; 
and there is no second pardon unless *' 

" Unless I leave my love ! " shrieked Pelagia. 

" When the Lord forgave the blessed Magdalene freely, 
and told her that her faith had saved her, did she live 
on in sin, or even in the pleasures of this world ? No ! 
though God hsid forgiven her, she could not forgive her- 
self. She fled forth into the desert, and there, naked and 
barefoot, clothed only with her hair, and feeding on the 
herb of the field, she stayed fasting and praying till her 
dying day, never seeing the face of man, but visited and 
comforted by angels and archangels. And if she, she 
who never fell again, needed that long penance to work 
out her own salvation — O Pelagia, what will not God 
require of you, who have broken your baptismal vows, 
and defiled the white robes, which the tears of penance 
only can wash clean once more ? " 

But I did not know ! I did not ask to be baptized ! 
Cruel, cruel parents, to bring me to it ! And God ! Oh, 
why did He forgive me so soon ? And to go into the 
deserts ! I dare not ! I cannot ! See me, how deUcate 
and tender I am ! I should die of hunger and cold ! I 
should go mad with fear and loneliness! O broliier, 
brother, is this the gospel of the Christians ? I came to 
you to be taught how to be wise, and good, and respected, 
and you tell me that all I can do is to live this horrible 
life of torture here, on the chance of escaping torture for 
ever ! And how do I know tiiat I shall escape it ? 
How do I know that I shall make myself miserable enough ? 


HYPATIA. 365 

How do I know that He will forgive me after all ? — Is 
this true, Miriam ? Tell me, or I shall go mad." 

*' Yes," said Miriam, with a quiet sneer. " This is 
the gospel and good news of salvation, according to the 
doctrine of the Nazarenes." 

" I will go with you ! " cried Philammon. " I will go ! 
I will never leave you! I have my own sins to wash 
away ! Happy for me if I ever do it ! And I will build 
you a cell near mine, and kind men will teach us, and we 
will pray together night and morning, for ourselves and 
for each other, and weep out our weary lives together — " 

" Better end them here, at once ! " said Pelagia, with a 
gesture of despair, and dashed herself down on the floor. 

Philammon was about to lift her up, when Miriam 
caught him by the arm, and in a hurried whisper — " Are 
you mad ? Will you ruin your own purpose ? Why 
did you tell her this ? Why did you not wait — give her 
hope — ^time to collect herself — time to wean herself from 
her lover, instead of terrifying and disgusting her at the 
outset, as you have done ? Have you a man's heart in 
you ? No word of comfort for that poor creature, nothing 
but hell, hell, hell. See to your own chance of hell first ! 
It is greater than you fancy ! " 

" It cannot be greater than I fancy." 

" Then see to it. For her, poor darling ! — ^why, even 
we Jews, who know that all you Gentiles are doomed to 
Gehenna alike, have some sort of hope for such a poor 
untaught creature as that." 

*' And why is she untaught ? Wretch that you are I 
You have had the training of her ! You brought her up 
to sin and shame I You drove from her recollection the 
faith in which she was baptized ! " 

" So much the better for her, if the recollection of it 
is to make her no happier than it does already. Better 
to wake imexpectedly in Gehenna when you die, than to 
endure over and above the dread of it here. And as for 
leaving her untaught, on your own showing she has been 
taught too much already. Wiser it would be in you to 
curse your parents for having had her baptized, than me 
for giving her ten years' pleasure before she goes to the 


366 HYPATIA. 

pit of Tophet. Come now, don't be angry with me. 
The old Jewess is your friend, revile her as you will. She 
shall marry this Goth." 

'' An Arian heretic I " 

" She shall convert him and make a Catholic of him, 
if you hke. At all events, if you wish to win her, you 
must win her my way. You have had your chance, and 
spoiled it. Let me have mine. — Pelagia, darling ! Up, 
and be a woman ! We will find a philtre downstairs to 
give that ungrateful man, that shall make him more 
mad about you, before a day is over, than ever you 
were about him." 

'* No ! " said Pelagia, looking up. " No love-potions I 
No poisons ! " 

" Poisons, little fool I Do you doubt the old woman's 
skill ? Do you think I shall make him lose his wits, as 
Callisphyra did to her lover last year, because she would 
trust to old Megaera's drugs instead of coming to me i " 

'* No I No drugs ; no magic 1 He must love me 
really, or not at all ! He must love me for myself, be- 
cause I am worth loving, because he honours, worships 
me — or let me die. I, whose boast was, even when I 
was basest, that I never needed such mean tricks, but 
conquered hke Aphrodite, a queen in my own right ! I 
have been my own love-charm : when I cease to be that, 
let me die ! " 

" One as mad as the other 1 " cried Miriam, in utter 
perplexity. *' Hist 1 what is that tramp upon the 
stairs ? '; 

At this moment heavy footsteps were heard ascending 
the stairs. ... All three stopped aghast : Philammon, 
because he thought the visitors were monks in search of 
him ; Miriam because she thought they were Orestes's 
guards in search of her ; and Pdagia, from vague dread 
of anything and everything. . . . 

" Have you an inner room ? " asked the Jewess. 

" None." 

The old woman set her lips firmly, and drew her dagger. 
Pelagia wrapped her face in her cloak, and stood trem- 
bhng, bowed down, as ii expecting another blow. The 


HYPATIA. 367 

door opened, and in walked neither monks nor guards, 
but Wulf and Smid. 

" Heyday, young monk ! " cried the latter worthy, 
with a loud laugh — '* veils here too, eh ? At your old 
trade, my worthy portress of hell-gate ? Well, walk 
out now ; we have a little business with this young 
gentleman," 

And slipping past the unsuspecting Goths, Pelagia and 
Miriam hurried downstairs. 

" The J^ung one, at least, seems a little ashamed of 
her errand . . . Now, Wulf, speak low ; and I will see 
that no one is listening at the door/* 

Philammon faced his imexpected visitors with a look 
of angry inquiry. What right had they, or any man, to 
intrude at such a moment on his misery and disgrace ? 
. . . But he was disarmed the next instant by old Wulf, 
who advanced to him, and looking him fully in the face 
with an expression which there was no mistaking, held 
out his broad, brown hand. 

Philammon grasped it, and then covering his face with 
his hands burst into tears. 

" You did right You are a brave boy. If you had 
died, no man need have been ashamed to die your death.*' 

" You were there, then ? " sobbed Philammon. 

^ We were.*' 

"And what is more," said Smid, as the poor boy 
writhed at the admission, ** we were mightily minded, 
some of us, to have leapt down to you and cut you a pas- 
sage out. One man, at least, whom I know of, felt his 
old blood as hot for the minute as a four-year-old*s. 
The foul curs ! And to hoot her, after all ! Oh that I 
may have one good hour's hewing at them before I die ! " 

" And you shall ! " said Wulf. — '* Boy, you wish to get 
this sister of yours into your power ? " 

" It is hopeless — hopeless ! She will never leave her — 
the Amal." 

" Are you so sure of that ? " 

" She told me so with her own lips not ten minutes ago. 
That was she who went out as you entered." 

A curse of astonislmient and regret burst from Smid. 


368 HYPATIA. 

" Had I but known her ! By the soul of my fathers, 
she should have found that it was easier to come here 
than to go home again ! " 

" Hush, Smid ! Better as it is. — Boy, if I put her into 
your power, dare you carry her off ? " 

Phuammon hesitated one moment. 

" What I dare you know already. But it would be 
an unlawful thing, surely, to use violence." 

" Settle your philosopher's doubts for yourself. I 
have made my offer. I should have thought that a man 
in his senses could give but one answer, much more a 
mad monk." 

'* You forget the money matters, prince," said Smid, 
with a smile. 

" I do not. But I don't think the boy so mean as to 
hesitate on that account." 

" He may as well know, however, that we promise to 
send all her tnunpery after her, even to the Amal's 
presents. As for the house, we won't trouble her to lend 
it us longer than we can help. We intend shortly to 
move into more extensive premises, and open business 
on a grander scale, as the shopkeepers say, — eh, 
prince ? " 

*' Her money ? — that money ? God forgive her ! " 
answered Philammon. " Do you fancy me base enough 
to touch it ? But I am resolved. Tell me what to do, 
and I will do it." 

*' You know the lane which runs down to the canal, 
under the left wall of the house ? " 

" Yes." 

" And a door in the comer tower, close to the landing- 
place ? " 

" I do." 

" Be there, with a dozen stout monks, to-morrow, an 
hour after sundown, and take what we give you. After 
that, the concern is yours, not ours." 

" Monks ? " said Philammon. " I am at open feud 
with the whole order." 

" Make friends with them, then," shortly suggested 
Smid. 


HYPATIA. 369 

Philammon writhed inwardly. " It makes no differ- 
ence to you, I presume, whom I bring ? " 

" No more than it does whether or not you pitch her 
into the canal, and put a hurdle over her when you have 
got her," answered Smid ; " which is what a Goth would 
do, if he were in your place." 

*' Do not vex the poor lad, friend. If he thinks he 
can mend her instead of punishing her, in Freya's name 
let him try. You will be there, then ? And mind, I 
like you. I liked you when you faced that great river- 
hog. I like you better now than ever, for you have 
spoken to-day like a Sagaman, and dared like a hero. 
Therefore mind : if you do not bring a good guard to- 
morrow night, your Ufe will not be safe. The whole 
city is out in the streets ; and Odin alone knows what 
will be done, and who will be alive, eight-and-forty hours 
hence. Mind you ! — ^The mob may do strange things, 
and they may see still stranger things done. If you once 
find yourself safe back here, stay where you are, if you 
value her life or your own. And — ^if you are wise, let 
the men whom you bring with you be monks, though it 
cost your proud stomach " 

" That's not fair, prince I You are telling too much ! " 
interrupted Smid ; while Philammon gulped down the 
said proud stomach, and answered, " Be it so ! " 

" I have won my bet, Smid," said the old man, chuck- 
ling, as the two tramped out into the street, to the sur- 
prise and fear of all the neighbours, while the children 
clapped their hands, and the street dogs felt it their duty 
to bark lustily, at the strange figures of their unwonted 
visitors. 

" No play, no pay, Wulf. We shall see to-morrow." 

*' I knew that he would stand the trial — I knew he was 
right at heart." 

'* At all events, there is no fear of his ill-using the poor 
thing, if he loves her well enough to go down on his knees 
to his sworn foes for her." 

'* I don't know that," answered Wulf, with a shake 
of the head. " These monks, I hear, fancy that their 
God likes them the better the more miserable they are : 


370 HYTATTA. 

SO perhaps they may fancy that He will like them all the 
more, the more miserable they make other peopte. How- 
ever, it*s no concern of ours." 

'* We have quite enough of our own to see ta just now. 
But mind, no play, no pay." 

" Of course not. How the streets are/ fillmg J We 
shall not be able to see the guards to-night, if this mob 
thickens much more." 

*' We shall have enough to do to hold our own, perhaps. 
Do you hear what they are crying there ? ' Down with 
all heathens! Down with barbarians!' That means 
us, you know." 

" Do you fancy no one understands Greek but your- 
self ? Let them come. ... It may give us an excuse. 
; ; . And we can hold the house a week." 

" But how can we get speedi of the guards ? " 
" We will slip round, by water. And, after all, deeds 
will win them better than talk. They will be forced to 
fight on the same side as we, and mo&t j»x>bably be glad 
of our help ; for if the mob attacks any one, it will begin 
with the prefect." 

*' And then Curse their shouting \ Let the 

soldiers once find our Amal at their head, and they will 
be ready to go with him a mile, where they meant to go 
a yard." 

" The Goths will, and the Markmen, and those Dacians, 
and Thracians, or whatever the Romans call them. But 
I hardly trust the Huns." 

'* The curse of heaven on their pudding faces and pigs* 
eyes ! There will be no love tost between us. But 
there are not twenty of them scattered in different 
troops. One af us can thrash three of them, and they 
will be sure to side with the winning party. Besides, 
plimder, plunder, comrade ! When did you know a Hun 
turn back from that, even if he were only on the scent 
of a lump of tallow ? " 

'* As for the Gauls and Latins," . . . went on Wuh 
meditatively^ " they belong to any man who can pay 
them." . . . 

" Which we can do, like all wise generals, one penny 


HYPATIA. 571 

out oi our own pocket, aiKi nine out of the enemy's. 
And the Amal is stanch ? " 

" Stanch as his own hounds, now there is something 
to be done on the spot. His heart was in the right place 
after all. I knew it all along. But he could never in 
his life see four-and-twenty hours before him. Even 
now, if that Pelagia gets him under her spell again, he 
may throw down his sword and fall as fast asleep as 
ever.'* 

'' Never fear ; we have settled her destiny for her, as 
far as that is concerned.. Look at the mob befcare the 
do<M- ! We must get in by the postern-gate.'* 

" Get in by the sewer, Hke a rat ! I go my own way. 
Draw, old hammer ajEid toaags. 1 or run away ! ** 

" Not this time.'* And sword in hand, the two marched 
into the heart of the crowd,, who- gave way before them 
like a flock of sheept. 

'* They know their intended shepherds already/* said 
Smid. But at that moment the crowd,, seeing them about 
to enter the house, raised a yell of " Goths ! heathens ! 
barbarians I " and a rush from behind took place. 

'* If you win have it, then ! " said Wulf. And the 
two long bright blades flashed round and round their 
heads, redder and redder every time they swung aloft. 
. . . The old men nev^ even checked their steady walk, 
and knocking at the gate, went in,, leaving more than one 
lifeless corpse at the entrance. 

'* We have put the coal in the thatch now, with a 
vengeance," said Snotid, as they wiped their swords in- 
side. 

" We have. Get me out a boat and half a dozen men, 
and I and Goderic will go raxmd by the canal to the 
palace, and settle a thing or two with the guards." 

" Why should not the Amal go, and offer our help 
himself to the prefect ? " 

" What ? Would you have him after that turn against 
the hound ? For troth and honour's sake, he must keep 
quiet in the matter." 

*' He will have no objection to keep quiet — ^trust him 
for that I But don't forget Sagaman Moneybag, the 


372 HYPATIA. 

best of all orators," called Smid laughingly after him, 
as he went off to man the boat. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

SEEKING AFTER A SIGN. 

" What answer has he sent back, father ? " asked Hy- 
patia, as Theon re-entered her chamber, after delivering 
that hapless letter to Philammon. 

" Insolent that he is ! he tore it to fragments, and fled 
forth without a word/' 

'* Let him go, and desert us like the rest, in our calam- 
ity ! '' 

" At least we have the jewels/' 

" The jewels ? Let them be returned to their owner. 
Shall we defile ourselves by taking them as wages for 
anything — above all, for that which is unperformed ? " 

" But, my child, they were given to us freely. He 
bade me keep them ; and — and, to tell you the truth, 
I must keep them. After this unfortunate failure, be 
sure of it every creditor we have will be clamouring for 
payment.'' 

'* Let them take our house and furniture, and sell us 
as slaves, then. Let them take all, provided we keep our 
virtue." 

'* Sell us as slaves ? Are you mad ? " 

" Not quite mad yet, father," answered she with a sad 
smile; " But how should we be worse than we are now 
were we slaves ? Raphael Aben-Ezra told me that he 
obeyed my precepts, when he went forth as a houseless 
beggar ; and shafl I not have courage to obey them my- 
self, if the need come ? The thought of his endurance 
has shamed my luxury for this many a month. After 
all, what does the philosopher require but bread and 
water, and the clear brook in which to wash away the 
daily stains of his earthly prison-house ? Let what is 
fated come. Hypatia struggles with the stream no 
more I " 


HYPATIA. 373 

" My daughter ! And have you given up all hope ? 
So soon disheartened ! What I Is this paltry accident 
to sweep away the purposes of years ? Orestes remains 
still faithful. His guards have orders to garrison the 
house for as long as we shall require them." 

" Send them away, then. I have done no wrong, and 
I fear no punishment." 

" You do not know the madness of the mob ; they are 
shouting your name in the streets already, in company 
with Pelagians." 

H5^atia shuddered. Her name in company with 
Pelagia's ! And to this she had brought herself ! 

*' I have deserved it ! I have sold myself to a lie 
and a disgrace ! I have stooped to truckle, to intrigue ! 
I have bound myself to a sordid trickster I Father I 
never mention his name to me again ! I have leagued 
myself with the impure and the bloodthirsty, and I have 
my reward ! No more poUtics for Hypatia from hence- 
forth, my father ; no more orations and lectures ; no 
more pearls of Divine wisdom cast before swine. I have 
sinned in divulging the secrets of the immortals to the 
mob. Let them follow their natures ! Fool that I was, 
to fancy that my speech, my plots, could raise them 
above that which the gods had made them ! " 

" Then you give up our lectures ? Worse and worse ! 
We shall be ruined utterly." 

" We are ruined utterly already. Orestes ? There is 
no help in him. I know the man too well, my father, 
not to know that he would give us up to-morrow to the 
fury of the Christians were his own base hfe — even his 
own baser office — ^in danger." 

" Too true — too true, I fear ! " said the poor old man, 
wringing his hands in perplexity. " What will become 
of us — of you, rather ? What matter what happens to 
the useless old star-gazer ? Let him die ! To-day or 
next year is alike to him. But you — ^you ! Let us escape 
by the canal. We may gather up enough, even without 
these jewels, which you refuse, to pay our voyage to 
Athens, and there we shall be safe with Plutarch. He 
will welcome you — all Athens will welcome you — ^we will 


374 HYPATIA. 

collect a fresh school — and you shall be Queen of Athens, 

as you have been Queen of Alexandria ! "* 

" No, father. What I know, henceforth I will loiow 
for myself only. Hypatia will be from this day alone 
with the immortal gods \ '* 

" You will not leave me ? " cried the old man, terrified. 

" Never on earth ! '* answered she, bursting into real 
human tears, and throwing herself on his bosom. " Never 
— never I father of my spirit as well as of my flesh ! — the 
parent who has trained me, taught me, educated my soul 
from the cradle to use her wings ! — ^the only human being 
who never misunderstood me — never thwarted me — 
never deceived me ! " 

'* My priceless child ! And I have been the cause of 
your ruin ! " 

*' Not you ! — a thousand times not ji^u 1 I only am 
to blame ! I tampered with worldly politics. I tempted 
you on to fancy that I could effect what I so rashly 
undertook. Do not accuse yourself unless you wdsh to 
break my heart 1 We can be happy together yet. — ^A 
palm-leaf hut in the desert, dates from the grove, and 
water from the spring — the monk dares be miserable 
alone in such a dweihng, and cannot we dare to be happj^ 
together in it ?'* 

'' Then you will escape ? " 

" Not to-day. It were base to flee before danger 
comes- We must hold out at our post to the last mo- 
ment, even if we dare not die at it like heroes. And 
to-naorrow I go to the lecture-room — to the beloved 
Museum, for the last time, to take farewell of my pupils. 
Unworthy as they are, I owe it to myself and to philos- 
ophy to tell them why I leave them." 

" It will be too dangerous — ^indeed it will ! " 

" I could take the guards with me, then. And yet — 
no. . ; . They shall never have occasion to impute fear 
to the philosopher. Let them see her go forth as usual 
on her errand, strong in the courage of innocence, secure 
in the protection of the gods. So, perhaps, some sacred 
awe, some suspicion of her cUvineness, may fall on them 
at last." 


HYFATIA. 375 

** I mu&t go with you." 

'* No^ I go alone. You might incttr danger wh^e I 
am safe. After all, I am a woman. . . . And, fierce as 
they are, they will not dare to harm me." 

The old man shook his head. 

'* Look now," she said smilingly, laying her hands on 
bis shoulders, and looking into his face. . . . *' You tell 
me that I am beautiful, you know ; and beauty will 
tame the lion. Do you mot think that this face might 
disarm even a monk ? " 

And she laughed and. blushed so sweetly that the old 
man forgot his fears, as she intended that he should, 
and kissed her, and went his way for the time being, to 
cx)inmand all manner of hospitalities to the soldiers, 
Avhom he prudently detennined to keep in his house as 
long as he could make them stay there ; in pursuance 
of which wise purpose he contrived not to see a great 
deal af pleasant flirtation between his vaHant defenders 
and Hypatia's maids, who,, by no means so prudish as 
their mistress, welcomed as a rare boon from heaven an 
afternoon's chat with twenty tall men of war. 

So they jested and laughed below,, while old Theon, 
having brought out the very best old wine, and actually 
proposed in person, by way of mending mattery the 
health of the Emperor of Africa, locked himself into the 
library, and comforted his troubled soul with a tcragh 
problem of astronomy, which had been haunting^ him 
the whole day, even in the theatre itself. Btit Hypatia 
sat still in her chamber, her face buried in her hands, 
her heart fuU oi many thoughtsy her eyes of tears. She 
had smiled away her father's fears ; she could not smile 
away her own. 

She felt, she hardly knew why, but she felt as clearly 
as if a god had proclaimed it to her bodily ears, that the 
crisis of her life was come ; that her pohtical and active 
career was over, and that she must now be content to be 
for herself, and in herself alone, allc that she was, or m^t 
become. The world might be regenerated, but not in 
her day ; the gods restored, but not by her. It was a 
fearful discovery — and yet hardly a discovery. Hfer 


3/6 HYPATIA. 

heart had told her for years that she was hoping against 
hope — that she was struggling against a stream too 
mighty for her. And now the moment had come -when 
she must either be swept helpless down the current, or, 
by one desperate effort, win firm land, and let the tide 
roll on its own way henceforth. . . . Its own way ? . . . 
Not the way of the gods, at least ; for it was sweeping 
their names from off the earth. What if they did not 
care to be known ? What if they were weary of worship 
and reverence from mortal men, and, self-sufl&cing in 
their own perfect bliss, recked nothing for the weal or 
woe of earth ? Must it not be so ? Had she not proof 
of it in everything which she beheld ? What did Isis 
care for her Alexandria ? What did Athene care for her 
Athens ? . . . And yet Homer and Hesiod, and those old 
Orphic singers, were of another mind. . . . Whence got 
they that strange fancy of gods counselling, warring, inter- 
marrying, with mankind, as with some kindred tribe ? 

" Zeus, father of gods and men." . . . Those were 
words of hope and comfort. . : : But were they true ? 
Father of men ? Impossible ! — not father of Pelagia, 
surely. Not father of the base, the foul, the ignorant. 
. . . Father of heroic souls, only, the poets must have 
meant. ; . . But where were the heroic souls now ? 
Was she one ? If so, why was she deserted by the upper 
powers in her utter need ? Was the heroic race indeed 
extinct ? Was she merely assimiing, in her self-conceit, 
an honour to which she had no claim ? Or was it all 
a dream of these old singers ? Had they, as some bold 
philosophers had said, invented gods in their own like- 
ness, and palmed off on the awe and admiration of men 
their own fair phantoms ? ... It must be so. If there 
were gods, to know them was the highest bliss of man. 
Then would they not teach men of themselves, unveil 
their own loveliness to a chosen few, even for the sake 
of their own honour, if not, as she had dreamed once, 
from love to those who bore a kindred flame to theirs ? 
. . ; What if there were no gods ? What if the stream 
of fate, which was sweeping away their names, were the 
only real power ? What if that old P}Trhonic notion 


HYPATIA. 377 

were the true solution of the problem of the universe ? 
What if there were no centre, no order, no rest, no goal — 
but only a perpetual flux, a down-rushing change ? And 
before her dizzying brain and heart arose that awful 
vision of Lucretius, of the homeless universe falling, 
falling, falling, for ever from nowhence toward no- 
whither, through the unending ages, by causeless and 
unceasing gravitation, while the changes and efforts of 
all mortal things were but the jostling of the dust-atoms 
amid the everlasting storm. . . . 

It could not be ! There was a truth, a virtue, a 
beauty, a nobleness, which could never change, but 
vi^hich were absolute, the same for ever. The God- 
given instinct of her woman's heart rebelled against her 
intellect, and, in the name of God, denied its he. . . . 
Yes — there was virtue, beauty. . . , And yet — ^might 
not they, too, be accidents of that enchantment, which 
man caUs mortal life ; temporary and mutable accidents 
of consciousness; brilliant sparks, struck out by the 
clashing of the dust-atoms ? Who could tell ? 

There were those once who could tell. Did not 
Plotinus speak of a direct mystic intuition of the Deity, 
an enthusiasm without passion, a still intoxication of 
the soul, in which she rose above life, thought, reason, 
herself, to that which she contemplated, the absolute 
and first One, and united herself with that One, or, 
rather, became aware of that union which had existed 
from the first moment in which she emanated from the 
One ? Six times in a life of sixty years had Plotinus 
risen to that height of mystic union, and known himself 
to be a part of God. Once had Porph5n:y attained the 
same glory. H5^atia, though often attempting, had 
never yet succeeded in attaining to any distinct vision of 
3l being external to herself ; though practice, a firm will, 
and a powerful imagination had long since made her 
an adept in producing, almost at will, that mysterious 
trance which was the preliminary step to supernatural 
vision. But her delight in the brilliant, and, as she 
held, divine imaginations, in which at such times she 
revelled, had been always checked and chilled by the 


378 HYPATIA. 

knowledge that, in such matters, iaiiindreds inferior to 
her in intellect and in learning — .ay, saddest of all, 
Christian monks and mnns, boasted themselves her 
eqiaafe — indeed, if their own account <d their visions was 
to be believedi, her ;su$)eriors — by the same methods 
which she employed. For by cehbacy, rigorous fasts, 
perfect bodily <g[uiescence, and intense contemplation of 
one thought, they, too, pr^ended to be able to rise above 
the body into the heavenly regions, and to behold things 
unspeakable, which neverthdess, like most other un- 
speakable things, contrived to be most carefully detailed 
and noised abroad. . . . And it was with a half feeling 
of shame that "^e prepared herself that afternoon ior 
one more, perhaps one last attempt, to scale the heavens, 
as she recollected how many an illiterate monk and nun, 
from Constantinople to tiie Thebaid, was probably em- 
ployed at that moment exactly as she was. Still, the 
attempt must be made. In that terrible abyss of xioubt 
she must have something palpable, xeal — something be- 
yond her own thoughts, and hopes., aaad speculations, 
whereon to rest her weary faith, her weary heart. . . . 
Perhaps this time, at least, in her extremest need, a god 
might vouchsafe some glimpse of his own beauty. : r t 
Athene might pity at last. ,- 7 ^ Or, if not Athene, some 
archetype, angel, daemon. ? ; : And then she shuddered 
at the thought of those evU and deceiving spirits, whose 
delight it was to delude and tempt the votaries of the 
fgods, in the forms of angels of light. But even in the 
face of that danger she miust make the trial once again. 
Was she not pin*e and spotless as Athene's self ? Would 
not Tier innate purity enable her to disoem, by an in- 
stiaactive antipathy, those foul beings beneath the fairest 
mask ? At least, she must make the trial. . . . 

And so, with a look of intense humility, she began to 
lay aside her jewels and her upper robes. Then, baring 
her bosom and her feet, and shaking her golden tresses 
loose, she laid herself down tiixm the couch, crossed hei 
hands upon her breast, and, with upturned ecstatic eyes, 
waited for that which might bcrfalL 

There she lay, hour after hour, as her eye gradually 


HYPATIA. 379 

kindled, her boeom iheaved, her breath came fast : but 
there was no more si^ of life in those straight, still 
limbs and listless feet aad hands, than in Pygmalion's 
ivory bride before she bloomed into human flesh and 
blood. The sun sank .towards his vest ; the roar oi the 
city grew louder ' and louder without ; the soldiers 
revelled and laughed betow: but every sound passed 
through unconscious ears, and went its way unheeded. 
Faith, hope, reason itself, were staked upon the result 
of that daring eMort to scale the highest heaven. And, 
by one continuoms effort af her practised will, which 
reached its highest virtue, as mystics bM., m its own 
suicide, she chained down her senses from every sight 
and sound, and even her mind &om 'every thought, and 
lay utterly seM-resigned, selftemptied, till consciousness 
of time and place l^d vanished, and dw seemed to her- 
seJI alone in the abyss. 

She dared not reflect, she dared not hope, ^e <dared 
J:^oi rejoice, lest she shoiuJd break the spelL 7 ; . Again 
and .again had «he broken it at this very point, by :SQme 
sudden and tumultuotus yielding to hier own joy or awe ; 
but now her will held fiim. - . . She did not feel her own 
limbs, hear her own breath. ; . . A light, bright mist, an 
endless network of glittering films, coming, goings uniting, 
resolving themselves, was .above her and around her. ; . .. 
Was she in the body or .oat of the .body .? i . ,: 

The network fa^ed into an abyss of still, clear li^t. 
. . . A stiH, warm Jiitmosphere was around her, thrilling 
through and through her. -. .: .. She breathed the iight, 
and floated in it, ^as a ma^ m the midday beam. ■•: z . 
And fitili her -will held Jxm. 

* « » » * 

Far away, miles, and «ons, and abysses away, through 
the interminabJe depths jof glory, a dark and shadowy 
spot. It neared and gpew. ; ; . A dark globe, ringed 
with rainbows. 7 ; . What might it be ? She dared 
not hope. 7 .7 , It caaaae nearea:, nearer, nearer — ^touched 
her. . . . The centre qimrned, flickered, took form — 
a face. ... A god's ? No — Belagia's, 


38o HYPATIA. 

Beautiful, sad, craving, reproachful, indignant, awful. 
, . . Hypatia could bear no more, and sprang to her 
feet with a shriek, to experience in its full bitterness the 
fearful revulsion of the mystic, when the human reason 
and will which he has spurned reassert their God-given 
rights, and after the intoxication of the imagination 
come its prostration and collapse. 

And this, then, was the answer of the gods ! The 
phantom of her whom she had despised, exposed, spumed 
from her ! " No, not their answer — the answer of my 
own soul ! Fool that I have been ! I have been exert- 
ing my will most while I pretended to resign it most ! 
I have been the slave of every mental desire^ while I 
tried to trample on them ! What if that network of 
light, that blaze, that globe of darkness, have been, like 
the face of Pelagia, the phantoms of my own imagination 
— ay, even of my own senses ? What if I have mistaken 
for Deity my own self ? What if I have been my own 
light, my own abyss ? . . . Am I not my own abyss, 
my own light — my own darkness ? " And she smiled 
bitterly as she said it, and throwing herself again upon 
the couch, buried her head in her hands, exhausted 
equally in body and in mind. 

At last she rose, and sat, careless of her dishevelled 
locks, gazing out into vacancy. " Oh for a sign, for a 
token ! Oh for the golden days of which the poets sang, 
when gods walked among men, fought by their side as 
friends ! And yet . ; . are those old stories credible, 
pious, even modest ? Does not my heart revolt from 
them ? Who has shared more than I in Plato's contempt 
for the foul deeds, the degrading transformations, which 
Homer imputes to the gods of Greece ? Must I believe 
them now ? Must I stoop to think that gods, who live 
in a region above all sense, will deign to make themselves 
palpable to those senses of ours which are whole aeons 
of existence below them ? Degrade themselves to the 
base accidents of matter ? Yes ! That, rather than 
nothing ! ... Be it even so. Better, better, better, to 
believe that Ares fled shrieking and wounded from a 
mortal man — better to believe m Zeus's adulteries and 


HYPATIA. 381 

Hermes's thefts — than to beUeve that gods have never 
spoken face to face with men ! Let me think, lest I go 
mad, that beings from that imseen world for which I 
hunger have appeared, and held commimion with man> 
kind, such as no reason nor sense could doubt — even 
though those beings were more capricious and baser 
than ourselves ! Is there, after all, an unseen world ? 
Oh for a sign, a sign ! " 

Haggard and dizzy, she wandered into her " chamber 
of the gods," a collection of antiquities, which she kept 
there rather as matters of taste than of worship. All 
around her they looked out into vacancy with their 
white, soulless eyeballs, their dead, motionless beauty, 
those cold dreams of the buried generations. Oh that 
they could speak, and set her heart at rest ! At the 
lower end of the room stood a Pallas, completely armed 
with aegis, spear, and helmet, a gem of Athenian sculp- 
ture which she had bought from some merchants after 
the sack of Athens by the Goths. There it stood severely 
fair ; but the right hand, alas ! was gone, and there the 
maimed arm remained extended, as if in sad mockery of 
the faith of which the body remained, while the power 
was dead and vanished. 

She gazed long and passionately on the image of her 
favourite goddess, the ideal to which she had longed for 
years to assimilate herself, till — was it a dream ? was 
it a frolic of the dying simlight ? or did those lips really 
bend themselves into a smile ? 

Impossible ! No, not impossible. Had not, only a 
few years before, the image of Hecate smiled on a philos- 
opher ? Were there not stories of moving images, and 
winking pictures, and all the material miracles by which 
a dying faith strives desperately, not to deceive others, 
but to persuade itself of its own sanity ? It had been 
— ^it might be — ^it was ! 

No ! there the lips were, as they had been from the 
beginning, closed upon each other in that stony self- 
collected calm which was only not a sneer. The wonder, 
if it was one, had passed. And now — did her eyes play 
her false, or were the snakes roimd that Medusa's heac^ 


382 HYFATIA. 

upon the shield all writhing, grinning; glaring at her with 
stony eyes, longing to stiffen h» with terror into their 
o\vn likeness ? 

No ! that, too, passed. Would that even it had 
stayed, for it would have been a sign of life. She looked 
up at the face once more ; bfft in vain^ — the stone was 
stone, and ere she was aware shie found herself clasping 
passionately the knees of the marble. 

" Atitene I Pallas r Adored F Ever Virgin r Ab- 
solute' reason, springing unbegotten from the Nameless 
One ! Hear me ! Athene !! Have mercy on me ! 
Speak,, if it be to curse me I Thou wha alone wieldest 
the' hghtmngs of thy father, wield them to strike me 
dead, if thou wilt ; caily dto^ soraediing' 1= — something to 
prove thine own existence — something to make me siu::e 
that anything exists^ besides this gross miserable matter 
and! my miserable- soml, I stand alone ixt the centre of 
the unwerse ! I fall and siieken down the abyss of 
ignorance, and dotibt, and boundlfess blank and dark- 
ness 1 have mercy ! I know that thou art not 
this 1 Thou art everywhere and in all things ! But I 
know that this is a form which, pleases thee, which sym- 
boHzes thy nobleness ! I know that thou hast deigned 

to speak to those who Oh t what do If know ? 

Nothing' r nothing ! nothing ! " 

And she clung there, b^iewihg-witb scailding tears the 
cold feet of the image, while there was neither sign, nor 
voice, nor any that answered. 

On a sudden ^e was startled by a rustling near, and 
looking round, saw close behind her the old Jewess. 

" Cry aloud ! " hissed the hag, in. a tone of bitter 
scorn — '^^ cry aloud, for she is a goddess. Either die 
is talking, or pursuing, or she is; on a journey ; or perhaps 
she has grown old; as we all ^haD do; some day, my 
pretty lady, and is too cross- and \sLzy to stir.. What I 
her naughty doll will, not speak to her, will it not ? 
or even open its eyess because liue wires are grown 
msfey? Well, we wiM find a aew doll for her, if she 
chooses." 

" Begone, hag I What do youi mean by intruding 


itYPATIA. 383 

here ? " said Hypatia, spriBgingiap ; but the old woman 
went on cooUy, — 

" Why not tiy the iair young gentleman over there ? " 
pointing to a copy of the Apollo which we call Belvedere. 
— "What is his nanae? Old imaids are always cross 
and jealous, you know. Bttt he— he could not be cruel 
to such a sweet fact as that. Try the fair young lad ! 
Or, perhaps, if you are ba^ful^ the old Jewess mi^t try 
him for you ? " 

These last woards were .spoken mth so marked a sig- 
nificance that Hypatia, in .spite of her disgust, iofond 
herself asking the hag what she meant. She made no 
answer for a few seconds, but remained looking srteadily 
into her eyes with a ^laiice loi fire, before which even 
the proud Hypatia, as she had done once before, quailed 
utterly, so deep was the understanding, so dogged the 
purpose, so iearless the power, twhich burned within 
those withered and sunken socketE. 

" Shall the old witch .caD him up, the fair ^yoimg 
Apollo, with the beauty-blocttn upon his chin P He 
shaU come I He shall come 1 I warrant him he must 
come, civilly enough, when odd .Miriam's finger is once 
held up." 

" To yau .? Apollo, the god of light, obey a Jewess ? " 

" A Jewess ? And you a Greek ? " almost yelled the 
old woman. " And who are you who ask ? And who 
are your gods, your heroes, your devils, you children of 
yesterday compared with us ? You, who were a set of 
half-naked savages squabbling about the siege of Troy 
when our Solomon, amid splendoius such as Rome and 
Constantinople never saw, was controlling demons and 
ghosts, angels and archangels, principahties and powers, 
by the ineffable name? What science have you that 
you have not stolen from the Egyptians and Chaldees ? 
And what had the Egj^tians winch Moses did not teach 
them ? And what have the Chaldees which Daniel did 
not teach them ? What does the world know but from 
us, the fathers and the masters of magic — us, the lords 
of the inner secrets of the universe I Come, you Greek 
baby — as the priests in Egypt said of your forefathers. 


384 HYPATIA. 

always children, craving for a new toy, and throwing it 
away next day — come to the fountain-head of all your 
paltry wisdom I Name what you will see, and you shall 
see it ! " 

Hypatia was cowed, for of one thing there was no 
doubt — that the woman utterly believed her own words ; 
and that was a state of mind of which she had seen so 
little that it was no wonder if it acted on her with that 
overpowering sympathetic force with which it generally 
does, and perhaps ought to, act on the himian heart. 
Besides, her school had always looked to the ancient 
nations of the East for the primeval founts of inspiration, 
the mysterious lore of mightier races long gone by. 
Might she not have found it now ? 

The Jewess saw her advantage in a moment, and ran 
on, without giving her time to answer, — 

" What sort shall it be, then ? By glass and water, 
or by the moonlight on the wall, or by the sieve, or by 
the meal ? By the cymbals, or by the stars ? By the 
table of the twenty-four elements, by which the Empire 
was promised to Theodosius the Great, or by the sacred 
counters of the Assyrians, or by the sapphire of the 
Hecatic sphere ? Shall I threaten, as the Egyptian 
priests used to do, to tear Osiris again in pieces, or to 
divulge the mysteries of Isis ? I could do so, if I chose ; 
for I know them all and more. Or shall I use the in- 
effable name on Solomon's seal, which we alone, of all 
the nations of the earth, know ? No ; it would be a 
pity to waste that upon a heathen. It shall be by the 
sacred wafer. Look here ! — here they are, the wonder- 
working atomies 1 Eat no food this day, except one of 
these every three hours, and come to me to-night at 
the house of your porter Eudaimon, bringing with you 
the black agate ; and then — ^why then, what you have 
the heart to see, you shall see ! " 

Hypatia took the wafers, hesitating. 

" But what are they ? " 

" And you profess to explain Homer ? Whom did I 
hear the other morning lecturing away so glibly on the 
nepenthe which Helen gave the heroes, to fill them with 


HYPATIA. 385 

the spirit of joy and love ; how it was an allegory of the 
inward inspiration which flows from spiritual beauty, 
and all that ? — pretty enough, fair lady ; but the question 
still remains, what was it ? and I say it was this. Take 
it and try ; and then confess, that while you can talk 
about Helen, I can act her, and know a little more about 
Homer than you do, after all." 

" I cannot believe you ! Give me some sign of your 
power, or how can I trust you ? " 

" A sign ? — a sign ? Kneel down then there, with 
your face toward the north ; you are over-tall for the 
poor old cripple." 

'* I ? I never knelt to human being." 

" Then consider that you kneel to the handsome idol 
there, if you will — but kneel ! " 

And, constrained by that gUttering eye, Hypatia knelt 
before her. 

" Have you faith ? Have you desire ? Will you sub- 
mit ? Will you obey ? Self-will and pride see nothing, 
know nothing. If you do not give up yourself, neither 
God nor devil will care to approach. Do you submit ? " 

" I do ! I do ! " cried poor Hypatia, in an agony of 
curiosity and self-distrust, while she felt her eye quaOing 
and her limbs loosening more and more every moment 
under that intolerable fascination. 

The old woman drew from her bosom a crystal, and 
placed the point against Hypatia's breast. A cold shiver 
ran through her. . . . The witch waved her hands 
mysteriously round her head, muttering from time to 
time, " Down ! down, proud spirit 1 " and then placed 
the tips of her skinny fingers on the victim's forehead. 
Gradually her eyelids became heavy ; again and again 
she tried to raise them, and dropped them again before 
those fixed, glaring eyes . . . and in another moment 
she lost consciousness. . . . 

When she awoke, she was kneeling in a distant part 
of the room, with dishevelled hair and garments. What 
was it so cold that she was clasping in her arms ? The 
feet of the Apollo ! The hag stood by her, chuckling 
to herself and clapping her hands. 


386 HYPATIA. 

" How came I here ? What have I been doing ? " 

" Saying such pretty things I — paying the fair youth 
there such comphments as he will not be rude enough 
to forget in his visit to-night. A charming prophetic 
trance you have had J Ah ha ! you a^e not the only 
woman who is wiser asleep than awake ! Well, you will 
make a very pretty Cassandra — or a Clytia^ if you have 
the sense. ... It lies with you!, my fair lady. Are you 
satisfied now ? Will you have any more signs ? Shall 
the old Jewess blast those bkre eye^ blind to show that 
she knows more than the heathen ? " 

" Oh, I believe you — I believe," cried the poor ex- 
hausted maiden. " I will come ; and yet " 

" Ah ! yes I You had better settle first how he shall 
appear." 

" As he wins I — ^let him 0(My come ! only let me know 
that he is a god. Abamnon said that gods appeared in 
a dear,, steacfy, unbearable light, amid a choir of all the 
lesser deities, archangels^ prindpaUties, atfid heroes, who 
derive their Hfe from them." 

" Abamnon was an oM fool, then. Do yotr think 
young Phoebus rajx after Daphne with such a mob at his 
heels ? or that Jove, when m swam ttp to Leda, headed 
a whole Nile-flock of ducks, and plover, aiKj curlews? 
No, he shall come alone — to you alone ; and then j^u 
may choose for yourself between Cassandra and Clytia. 
. . , Farewell. Do not forget your wafers, or the agate 
either, and talk with no one between now and sunset. 
And then — my pretty lady I " 

And laughing to hersdi, the old hag gUded from the 
room. 

Hypatia sat trembling with shame and dread. She, 
as a disciple of the more purely spiritttalistic school of 
"Forphyry, had always looked with aversion, with all but 
contempt, on those theurgic arts which were so much 
lauded and employed by lamblicus, Abamnon, and those 
who clung tovin^ to the old priestly rites of Egypt and 
Chaldaea. They had seemed to her vulgar toys, tricks 
of legerdemain, suited only for the wonder of the mofc. 
. . . She began to think erf them with more favour now. 


HYPATIA. 387 

How did she know that the vulgar did not require signs 
and wonders to make them beUeve ? . . . How, indeed ? 
for did she not want such herself ? And she opened 
Abanmon's famous letter to Porphyry, and read earnestly 
over, for the twentieth time, his subtle justification of 
magic, and felt it to be unanswerable. Magic ? What 
was not magical ? The whole universe, from the planets 
over her head to the meanest pebble at her feet, was 
utterly mysterious, ineffable, miraculous, influencing and 
influenced by aflinities and repulsions as unexpected, as 
unfathomable, as those which, as Abamnon said, drew 
the gods towards those sounds, those objects, which, 
either in form, or colour, or diemical properties, were 
symbohc of, or akin to, themselves. What wonder in 
it, after all ? Was not love and hatred, sympathy and 
antipathy, the law of the universe ? Philosophers, when 
they gave mechanical explanations of natural phenomena, 
came no nearer to the real solution of them. The mysteri- 
ous** why?" remained untouched. . . . All their analyses 
could only darken with big words the plain fact that the 
water hated the oil with which it refused to mix — the 
lime loved the acid, which it eagerly received into itself, 
and, like a lover, grew warm with the rapture of affection. 
Why not ? What right had we to deny sensation, 
emotion, to them, any more than to ourselves ? Was 
not the same universal spirit stirring in them as in us ? 
And was it not by virtue of that spirit that we thought, 
and felt, and loved ? — ^Then why not they, as well as 
we ? If the one spirit permeated all things, if its all- 
energizing presence linked the flower with the crystal as 
well as with the demon and the god, must it not link 
together also the two extremes of the great chain of 
being ? bind even the nameless One itself to the smallest 
creature which bore its creative impress ? What greater 
miracle in the attraction of a god or an angel, by material 
incense, symbols, and spells, than in the attraction of 
one soul to another by the material sounds of the human 
voice ? Was the affinity between spirit and matter im- 
plied in that more miraculous than the affinity between 
the soul and the body ? — ^than the retention of that soul 

13 


388 HYPATIA. 

within that body by the breathing of material air, the 
.eating of material food ? Or even, if the physicists were 
right, and the soul were but a material product or energy 
of the nerves, and the sole law of the universe the laws 
of matter, then was not magic even more probable, more 
rational ? Was it not fair by every analogy to suppose 
that there might be other, higher beings than ourselves, 
obedient to those laws, and therefore possible to be 
attracted, even as human beings were, by the baits of 
material sights and sounds ? ... If spirit pervaded all 
things, then was magic probable ; if nothing but matter 
had existence, magic was morally certain. All that 
remained in either case was the test of experience. . . . 
And had not that test been appUed in every age, and 
asserted to succeed ? What more rational, more philo- 
sophic action than to try herself those methods and 
ceremonies which she was assured on every hand had 
never failed but through the ignorance or unfitness of 
the neophyte ? . . . Abamnon must be right. . . . She 
dared not think him wrong ; for if this last hope failed, 
what was there left but to eat and drink, for to-morrow 
we die ? 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

MIRIAM'S PLOT. 

He who has worshipped a woman, even against his will 
and conscience, knows well how storm may follow storm, 
and earthquake earthquake, before his idol be utterly 
overthrown. And so Philammon foimd that evening, 
as he sat pondering over the strange chances of the day ; 
for, as he pondered, his old feeUngs towards Hypatia 
began, in spite of the struggles of his conscience and 
reason, to revive within him. Not only pure love of her 
great loveliness, the righteous instinct which bids us 
welcome and honour beauty, whether in man or woman, 
as something of real worth— divine, heavenly, ay, 
though we know not how, in a most deep sense eternal ; 
which makes our reason give the lie to all merely logical 


HYPATIA. 389 

and sentimental maunderings of moralists about " the 
fleeting hues of this our painted clay ; " telling men, as 
the old Hebrew Scriptures tell them, that physical 
beauty is the deepest of all spiritual symbols, and 
that though beauty without discretion be the jewel of 
gold in the swine's snout, yet the jewel of gold it is still, 
the sacrament of an inward beauty, which ought to be, 
perhaps hereafter may be, fulfilled in spirit and in truth. 
Not only this, which whispered to him — and who shall 
say that the whisper was of the earth, or of the lower 
world ? — " She is too beautiful to be utterly evil ; " 
but the very defect in her creed which he had just 
discovered chrew him towards her again. She had no 
gospel for the Magdalene, because she was a pagan. . . . 
That, then, was the fault of her paganism, not of herself. 
She had felt for Pelagia ; but even if she had not, was 
not that, too, the fault of her paganism ? And for that 
paganism who was to be blamed ? She ? . : . Was 
ne the man to affirm that ? Had he not seen scandals, 
stupidities, brutalities, enough to shake even his faith, 
educated a Christian ? How much more excuse for her, 
more delicate, more acute, more lofty than he ; the child, 
too, of a heathen father ? Her perfections, were they 
not her own ? — ^her defects, those of her circumstances ? 
. . . And had she not welcomed him, guarded him, 
taught him, honoured him ? . . . Could he turn against 
her ? — above all now in her distress — perhaps her 
danger ? Was he not bound to her, if by nothing else, 
by gratitude ? Was not he, of all men, bound to believe 
that all she required to make her perfect was conversion 
to the true faith ? . . . And that first dream of convert- 
ing her arose almost as bright as ever. . . . Then he 
was checked by the thought of his first utter failure. 
... At least, if he could not convert her, he could love 
her, pray for her. . . . No, he could not even do that ; 
for to whom could he pray ? He had to repent, to be 
forgiven, to humble himself by penitence, perhaps for 
years, ere he could hope to be heard even for himself, 
much less for another. . . . And so backwards and for- 
wards swayed his hope and purpose, till he was roused 


390 IIYPATIA. 

from his meditation by the voice of the little porter 
summoning him to his evening meal ; and recollecting, 
for the first time, that he had tasted no food that day, 
he went down, half unwillingly, and ate. 

But as he, the porter, and his negro wife were sitting 
silently and sadly enough together, Miriam came in, 
apparently in high good humour, and lingered a moment 
on her way to her own apartments upstairs. 

'* Eh ? At supper ? And nothing but lentils and 
water-melons, wl^n the fieshpots of Egypt have been 
famous any time these two thousand years. Ah ! but 
times are changed since then I . . . You have worn out 
the old Hebrew hints, you miserable Gentiles, you, and 
got a Caesar instead of a Joseph ! — ^Hist, you hussies ! " 
cried she to the girls upstairs, clapping her hands loudly. 
'' Here ! bring us down one of those roast chickens, and 
a bottle of the wine of wines — the wine with the green 
seal, you careless daughters of Midian, you, with your 
wits rimning on the men, VR warrant, every minute 
IVe been out of the house ! Ah, you'll smart for it 
some day — you'll smart for it some day, you daughters 
of Adam's first wife I " 

Down came, by the hands of one of the Syrian slave- 
girls, the fowl and the wine. 

" There, now ; we'll all sup together. Wine, that 
maketh glad the heart of man ! — Youth, you were a 
monk once, so you have read all about that, eh ? and 
about the best wine which goes down sweetly, causing 
the lips of them that are asleep to speak. And rare 
wine it was, I warrant, which the blessed Solomon had 
in his little country cellar up there in Lebanon. We'll 
try if this is not a very fair substitute for it, though. 
Come, my little man-monkey, drink, and forget your 
sorrow ! You shall be temple-sweeper to Beelzebub yet, 
I promise you. Look at it there, creaming and curdling, 
the darUng ! purring like a cat at the very thought of 
touching human Hps I As sweet as honey, as strong as 
fire, as clear as amber I Drink, ye children of Gehenna ; 
and make good use of the little time that is left yon 
between this and the unquenchable fire I " 


HYPATIA. 391 

And tossing a cup of it down her own throat, as if it 
had been water, she watched her companions with a 
meaning look as they drank. 

The httle porter followed her example gallantly. 
Philammon looked, and longed, and sipped blushingly 
and bashfully, and tried to fancy that he did not care 
for it ; and sipped again, being willing enough to forget 
his sorrow also for a moment. The negress refused with 
fear and trembling — " She had a vow on her." 

" Satan possess you and your vow ! Drink, you coal 
out of Tophet ! Do you think it is poisoned ? — you, 
the only creature in the world that I should not enjoy 
ill-using, because every one else ill-uses you already 
without my help ! Drink, I say, or I'll turn you pea- 
green from head to foot ! " 

The negress put the cup to her lips, and contrived, 
for her own reasons, to spill the contents unobserved. 

" A very fine lecture that of the Lady Hypatia's the 
other morning, on Helen's nepenthe," quoth the little 
porter, growing philosophic as the wine fumes rose. 
** Such a power of extracting the cold water of philosophy 
out of the bottomless pit of Mythus, I never did hear. 
Did you ever, my Philammonidion ? " 

'* Aha ! she and I were talking about that half an hour 
ago," said Miriam. 

" What ! have you seen her ? " asked Philammon, 
with a flutter of the heart. 

'* If you mean, did she mention you ? — why, then, 
yes!" 

'' How ?— how ? " 

" Talked of a young Phoebus Apollo — ^without men- 
tioning names, certainly, but in the most sensible, and 
practical, and hopeful way — the wisest speech that I 
have heard from her this twelvemonth." 

Philammon blushed scarlet. 

'* And that," thought he, *' in spite of what passed this 
morning I — Why, what is the matter with our host ? " 

'* He has taken Solomon's advice, and forgotten his 
sorrow." 

And so, indeed, he had ; for he was sleeping sweeth^ 


392 HYPATIA. 

with open lack-lustre eyes, and a maudlin smile at the 
ceiling; while the negress, with her head fallen on her 
chest, seemed equally imconscious of their presence. 

** We'll see," quoth Miriam, and taking up the lamp 
she held the flame unceremoniously to the arm of each 
of them ; but neither winced nor stirred. 

" Surely your wine is not drugged ? " said Philammon, 
in trepidation. 

" Why not ? What has made them beasts may 
make us angels. You seem none the less lively for it ! 
Do I ? " 

" But drugged wine ? " 

" Why not ? The same who made wine made poppy 
juice. Both will make man happy. Why not use 
both ? " 

" It is poison ! " 

" It is the nepenthe, as I told Hypatia, whereof she 
was twaddling mysticism this morning. Drink, child, 
drink ! I have no mind to put you to sleep to-night ! 
I want to make a man of you — or rather, to see whether 
you are one ! " 

And she drained another cup, and then went on, half 
talking to herself, — 

" Ay, it is poison ; and music is poison ; and woman 
is poison, according to the new creed, pagan and Chris- 
tian ; and wine will be poison, and meat will be poison, 
some day, and we shall have a world full of mad Nebu- 
chadnezzars, eating grass Uke oxen. It is poisonous, and 
brutal, and devilish, to be a man, and not a monk, and 
an eunuch, and a dry branch. You are all in the same 
lie. Christians and philosophers, Cyril and H5q)atia ! 

Don't interrupt me, but drink, young fool ! Ay, 

and the only man who keeps his manhood, the only man 
who is not ashamed to be what God has made him, is 
your Jew. You will find yourselves in want of him after 
all, some day, you besotted Gentiles, to bring you back 
to common sense and common manhood — in want of 
him and his grand old books, which you despise while 
you make idols of them, about Abraham, and Jacob, and 
Moses, and David, and Solomon, whom you call saints. 


HYPATIA. 393 

you miserable hypocrites, though they did what you are 
too dainty to do, and had their wives and their children, 
and thanked God for a beautiful woman, as Adam did 
before them, and their sons do after them — (Drink, I say) 
— and believed that God had really made the world, and 
not the devil, and had given them the lordship over it, 
as you will find out to your cost some day ! " 

Philammon heard, and could not answer ; and on she 
rambled : — 

'* And music, too ! Our priests were not afraid of 
sackbut and psaltery, dulcimer and trumpet, in the house 
of the Lord ; for they knew who had given them the 
cunning to make them. Our prophets were not afraid 
of calling for music when they wished to prophesy, and 
letting it soften and raise their souls, and open and 
quicken them till they saw into the inner harmony of 
things, and beheld the future in the present ; for they 
knew who made the melody and harmony, and made 
them the outward symbols of the inward song which 
runs through sun and stars, storm and tempest, fulfiUing 
His word : in that these sham philosophers the heathen 
are wiser than those Christian monks. Try it ! — try it ! 
Come with me ! Leave these sleepers here, and come to 
my rooms. You long to be as wise as Solomon. Then get 
at wisdom as Solomon did, and give your heart first to 
know folly and madness. . . . You have read the Book 
of the Preacher ? " 

Poor Philammon ! He was no longer master of him- 
self. The arguments — ^the wine — the terrible spell of 
the old woman's voice and eye, and the strong, over- 
powering will which showed out through them, ckagged 
him along in spite of himself. As if in a dream, he 
followed her up the stairs. 

'* There, throw away that stupid, ugly, shapeless 
philosopher's cloak. So ! You have on the white tunic 
I gave you ? And now you look as a human being should. 
And you have been to the baths to-day ? Well — you 
have the comfort of feeling now like other people, and 
having that alabaster skin as white as it was created, 
instead of being tanned like a brute's hide. Drink, I 


394 HYPATIA. 

say ! Ay, what was that face, that figure, made for ? 
Bring a mirror here, hussy ! There, look in that and 
judge for yourself ? Were those ripe lips rounded for 
nothing ? Why were those eyes set in your head, and 
made to sparkle bright as jewels, sweet as mountain 
honey ? Why were those curls laid ready for soft fingers 
to twine themselves among them, and look all the whiter 
among the glossy black knots ? Judge for yourself ! " 

Alas ! poor Philammon ! 

" And after all," thought he, " is it not true, as well as 
pleasant ? " 

*' Sing to the poor boy, girls ! — ^sing to him, and teach 
him for the first time in his little ignorant life the old 
road to inspiration 1 " 

One of the slave-girls sat down on the divan, and took 
up a double flute ; while the other rose, and accompany- 
ing the plaintive, dreamy air with a slow dance, and 
dehcate tinklings of her silver armlets and anklets, and 
the sistrum which she held aloft, she floated gracefully 
round and round the floor and sang : — 

** Wliy were we bom, but for bliss? 

Why are we ripe, but to fall ? 
Dream not that duty can bar thee from beauty, 
Like water and sunshine, the heirloom of all. 

" Lips were made only to kiss ; 

Hands were made only to toy ; 
Eyes were made only to lure on the lonely, 
The k)nging, the lovmg, and drown them in joy ! ** 

Alas, for poor Philammon! And yet no The very 
,[ poison brought with it its own antidote, and shaking off 
^ by one strong effort of will the spell of the music and the 
wine, he sprang to his feet. . . . 

" Never ! If love means no more than that — if it is 
c- to be a mere delicate self-indulgence, worse than the 
^ brute's, because it requires the prostration of nobler 
faculties, and a selfishness the more huge in proportion 
to the greatness of the soul which is crushed inward by 
it — then I will have none of it ! I have had my dream — 
yes 1 but it was of one who should be at once my teacher 


HYPATIA. 395 

and my pupil, my debtor and my queen — ^who should 
lean on me, and yet support me — supply my defects, 
although with lesser light, as the old moon fills up the 
circle of the new — labour with me side by side in some 
great work — rising with me for ever as 1 rose : and this 
is the base substitute ! Never ! " 

Whether or not this was unconsciously forced into 
words by the vehemence of his passion, or whether the 
old Jewess heard, or pretended to hear, a footstep coming 
up the stair, she at all events sprang instantly to her 
feet. 

" Hist ! Silence, girls ! I hear a visitor. What mad 
maiden has come to beg a love-charm of the poor old 
witch at this time of night ? Or have the Christian 
bloodhoimds tracked the old lioness of Judah to her den 
at last ? Weai see ! " 

And she drew a dagger from her girdle, and stepped 
boldly to the door. 

As she went out she turned. 

'* So, my brave young Apollo, you do not admire 
simple woman ? You must have something more 
learned, and intellectual, and spiritual, and so forth. I 
wonder whether Eve, when she came to Adam in the 
garden, brought with her a certificate of proficiency in 
the seven sciences ? Well, well — like must after like. 
Perhaps we shall be able to suit you after all. — Vanish, 
daughters of Midian ! " 

The girls vanished accordingly, whispering and laugh- 
ing, and Philammon found himself alone. Although he 
was somewhat soothed by the old woman's last speech, 
yet a sense of terror, of danger, of coming temptation, 
kept him standing sternly on his feet, looking warily 
round the chamber, lest a fresh siren should emerge from 
behind some curtain or heap of pillows. 

On one side of the room he perceived a doorway, 
filled by a curtain of gauze, from behind which came the 
sound of whispering voices. His fear, growing with the 
general excitement of his mind, rose into anger as he 
began to suspect some snare; and he faced round to- 
wards the curtain, and stood like a wild beast at bay. 


396 HYPATIA. 

ready, with uplifted arm, for all evil spirits, male or 

female. 

" And he will show himself ? How shall I accost 
him ? " whispered a well-known voice — could it be 
Hypatia*s ? And then the guttural Hebrew accent of 
the old woman answered, — 

" As you spoke of him this morning " 

" Oh ! I will tell him all, and he must — ^he must have 
mercy ! But he ?— so awfxil, so glorious ! " 

What the answer was he could not hear, but the 
next moment a sweet, heavy scent, as of narcotic gums, 
filled the room — mutterings of incantations — and then 
a blaze of Hght, in which the curtain vanished, and dis- 
closed to his astonished eyes, enveloped in a glory of 
limiinous smoke, the hag standing by a tripod, and, 
kneeling by her, Hypatia herself, robed in pure white, 
glittering with diamonds and gold, her lips parted, her 
head thrown back, her arms stretched out in an agony 
of expectation. 

In an instant, before he had time to stir, she had 
sprung through the blaze, and was kneeling at his feet. 

" Phoebus ! beautiful, glorious, ever young ! Hear 
me ! only a moment ! only this once ! " 

Her drapery had caught fire from the tripod, but she 
did not heed it. Philammon instinctively clasped her 
in his arms, and crushed it out, as she cried, — 

" Have mercy on me ! Tell me the secret ! I will 
obey thee ! I have no self — I am thy slave ! Kill me, 
if thou wilt, but speak ! " 

The blaze sank into a soft, warm, mellow gleam, and 
beyond it what appeared ? 

The negro woman, with one finger upon her lips, as 
with an imploring, all but despairing look, she held up to 
him her little crucifix. 

He saw it. What thoughts flashed through him, like 
the lightning-bolt, at that blessed sign of infinite self- 
sacrifice, I say not ; let those who know it judge for 
themselves. But in another instant he had spumed 
from him the poor deluded maiden, whose idolatrous 
ecstasies he saw instantly were not meant for himself, 


HYPATIA. 397 

and rushed desperately across the room, looking for an 
outlet. 

He found a door in the darkness — a room — a window — 
and in another moment he had leapt twenty feet into 
the street, rolled over, bruised and bleeding, rose again 
like an Antaeus, with new strength, and darted off to- 
wards the archbishop's house. 

And poor Hypatia lay half senseless on the floor, with 
the Jewess watching her bitter tears — ^not merely of 
disappointment, but of utter shame. For as Philanunon 
fled she had recognized those well-known features ; and 
the veil was lifted from her eyes, and the hope and the 
self-respect of Theon's daughter were gone for ever. 

Her righteous wrath was too deep for upbraidings. 
Slowly she rose, returned into the inner room, wrapped 
her cloak deUberately .around her, and went silently 
away, with one look at the Jewess of solemn scorn and 
defiance. 

" Ah I I can afford a few sulky looks to-night ! '* said 
the old woman to herself, with a smile, as she picked up 
from the floor the prize for which she had been plotting 
so long — Raphael's half of the black agate. 

" I wonder whether she will miss it ! Perhaps she 
will have no fancy for its company any longer, now 
that she has discovered what over-palpable archangels 
appear when she rubs it. But if she does try to re- 
cover it . . . why — ^let her try her strength with mine 
— or, rather, with a Christian mob. 

And then, drawing from her bosom the other half of 
the talisman, she fitted the two pieces together again 
and again, fingering them over, and poring upon them 
with tear-brimming eyes, till she had satisfied herself 
that the fracture still fitted exactly ; while she mur- 
mured to herself from time to time — " Oh that he were 
here ! Oh that he would return now — now ! It may 
be too late to-morrow I Stay — I will go and consult 
the teraph ; it may know where he is. . . ." 

And she departed to her incantations ; while Hypatia 
threw herself upon her bed at home, and filled the 
chamber with a long, low wailing, as of a child in pain, 


398 HYPATIA- 

until the dreary dawn broke on her shame and her 
despair. And then she rose, and rousing herself for one 
great eiffort, calmly prepared a last oration, in which she 
intended to bid farewell for ever to Alexandria and to 
the schools. 

Philammon meanwhile was striding desperately up the 
main street which led towards the Serapeium. But he 
was not destined to arrive there as soon as he had hoped 
to do ; for ere he had gone half a mile, behold a crowd 
advancing towards him, blocking up the whole street. 

The mass seemed endless. Thousands of torches flared 
above their heads, and from the heart of the procession 
rose a solemn chant, in which Philammon soon recog- 
nized a well-known Catholic hymn. He was half minded 
to turn up some by-street, and escape meeting them. 
But on attempting to do so, he found every avenue 
which he tried similarly blocked up by a tributary stream 
of people, and, almost ere he was aware, was entangled 
in the vanguard of the great column. 

*' Let me pass ! *' cried he in a voice of entreaty. 

" Pass, thou heathen ? '' 

In vain he protested his Christianity. 

" Origenist, Donatist, heretic ! Whither should a good 
CathoUc be going to-night save to the Caesareum ? " 

" My friends, my friends, I have no business at the 
Caesareum ! " cried he, in utter despair. " I am on my 
way to seek a private interview with the patriarch, on 
matters of importance." 

" O liar ! who pretends to be known to the patriarch, 
and yet is ignorant that this night he visits at the 
Caesareum the most sacred corpse of the martyr Am- 
monius ! " 

'* What ! Is Cyril with you ? " 

" He and all his clergy." 

" Better so — better in public," said Philammon to 
himself ; and, turning, he joined the crowd. 

Onward, with chant and dirge, they swept out through 
the Sun-gate, upon the harbour esplanade, and wheeled 
to the right along the quay ; while the torchUght bathed 
in a red glare the great front of the Caesareum, and the 


IIYPATIA. 399 

tall obelisks before it, and the masts of the thousand 
ships which lay in the harbour on their left, and last, 
but not least, before the huge dim mass of the palace 
which bounded the esplanade in front, a long line of 
glittering helmets and cuirasses, behind a barrier of 
cables which stretched from the shore to the corner of 
the Museum. 

There was a sudden halt — a low, ominous growl ; and 
then the mob, pressed onward from behind, surged up 
almost to the barrier. The soldiers dropped the points 
of their lances, and stood firm. Again the mob recoiled ; 
again surged forward. Fierce cries arose ; some of the 
boldest stooped to pick up stones, but, luckily, the 
pavement was too firm for them. . . . Another moment, 
and the whole soldiery of Alexandria would have been 
fighting for Ufe and death against fifty thousand Chris- 
tians. . . . 

But Cyril had not forgotten his generalship. Reckless 
as that night's events proved him to be about arousing 
the passions of his subjects, he was yet far too wary to 
risk the odium and the danger of a night attack, which, 
even if successful, would have cost the Hves of hundreds. 
He knew well enough the numbers and the courage of 
the enemy, and the certainty that, in case of a collision, 
no quarter would be given or accepted on either side. 
. . . Besides, if a battle must take place — and that, of 
course, must happen sooner or later — ^it must not happen 
in his presence and under his sanction. He was in the 
right now, and Orestes in the wrong ; and in the right 
he would keep — at least till his express to Byzantium 
should have returned, and Orestes was either proscribed 
or superseded. So looking forward to some such chance 
as this, the wary prelate had schooled his aides-de-camp, 
the deacons of the city, and went on his way up the 
steps of the Caesareum, knowing that they could be 
trusted to keep the peace outside. 

And they did their work well. Before a blow had 
been struck, or even an insult passed on either side, 
they had burst through the front rank of the mob, and 
by stout threats of excommunication, enjoined not only 


4CX) HYPATIA. 

peace, but absolute silence until the sacred ceremony 
which was about to take place should be completed; 
and enforced their commands by marching up and down 
like sentries between the hostile ranks for the next 
weary two hours, till the very soldiers broke out into 
expressions of admiration, and the tribune of the cohort, 
who had no great objection, but also no great wish, to 
fight, paid them a high-flown compHment on their laud- 
able endeavours to maintain pubHc order, and received 
the somewhat ambiguous reply, that the " weapons of 
their warfare were not carnal ; that they wrestled not 
against flesh and blood, but against principaUties and 
powers,'* — an answer which the tribxme, being now some- 
what sleepy, thought it best to leave unexplained. 

In the meanwhile there had passed up the steps of 
the Temple a gorgeous line of priests, among whom 
glittered, more gorgeous than all, the stately figure of 
the pontiff. They were followed close by thousands of 
monks, not only from Alexandria and Nitria, but from 
all the adjoining towns and monasteries. And as Phil- 
ammon, unable for some half-hour more to force his 
way into the church, watched their endless stream, he 
could well believe the boast which he had so often heard 
in Alexandria, that one-half of the population of Egypt 
was at that moment in " religious orders." 

After the monks, the laity began to enter ; but even 
then so vast was the crowd, and so dense the crush upon 
the steps, that before he could force his way into the 
church Cjnirs sermon had begun. 

« « « « « 

'* What went ye out for to see ? A man clothed in 
soft raiment ? Nay, such are in king's palaces, and in 
the palaces of prefects who would needs be emperors, 
and cast away the Lord's bonds from them — of whom 
it is written that He that sitteth in the heavens laugheth 
them to scorn, and taketh the wicked in their own snare, 
and maketh the devices of princes of none effect. Ay, 
in king's palaces, and in theatres too, where the rich of 
this world, poor in faith, deny their covenant and defile 
their baptismal robes that they may do honour to the 


HYPATIA. 401 

devourers of the earth. Woe to them who think that 
they may partake of the cup of the Lord and the cup 
of devils ! Woe to them who will praise with the same 
mouth Aphrodite the fiend, and her of whom it is written 
that He was bom of a pure Virgin. Let such be ex- 
conununicate from the cup of the Lord, and from the 
congregation of the Lord, till they have purged away 
their sins by penance and by almsgiving. But for you, 
ye poor of this world, rich in faith, you whom the rich 
despise, hale before the judgment seats, and blaspheme 
that holy name whereby ye are called — ^what went ye 
out into the wilderness to see ? A prophet ? Ay, and 
more than a prophet — a, martyr ! More than a prophet, 
more than a king, more than a prefect : whose theatre 
was the sands of the desert, whose throne was the cross, 
whose crown was bestowed, not by heathen philosophers 
and daughters of Satan, deceiving men with the works 
of their fathers, but by angels and archangels — a crown 
of glory, the victor's laurel, which grows for ever in the 
paradise of the highest heaven. Call him no more 
Ammonius, call him Thaumasius, wonderful ! Wonder- 
ful in his poverty, wonderful in his zeal, wonderful in 
his faith, wonderful in his fortitude, wonderful in his 
death, most wonderful in the manner of that death. 
O thrice blessed, who has merited the honour of the 
cross itself ! What can follow, but that one so honoured 
in the flesh should also be honoured in the Ufe which 
he now lives, and that from the virtue of these thrice- 
holy limbs the leper should be cleansed, the dumb 
should speak, the very dead be raised ? Yes ; it were 
impiety to doubt it. Consecrated by the cross, this 
flesh shall not only rest in hope but work in power. 
Approach, and be healed ! Approach, and see the glory 
of the saints, the glory of the poor. Approach, and 
learn that that which man despises, God hath highly 
esteemed ; that that which man rejects, God accepts ; 
that that which man punishes, God rewards. Approach, 
and see how God hath chosen the foolish things of this 
world to confound the wise, and the weak things of this 
world to confound the strong. Man abhors the cross : 


402 HYPATIA. 

the Son of God condescended to endure it ! Man tram- 
ples on the poor : the Son of God hath not where to lay 
His head. Man passes by the sick as useless : the Son 
of God chooses them to be partakers of His sufferings, 
that the glory of God may be made manifest in them. 
Man curses the publican, while he employs him to fill his 
coffers with the plunder of the poor : the Son of God 
calls him from the receipt of custom to be an apostle, 
higher than the kings of the earth. Man casts away the 
harlot like a faded flower, when he has tempted her to 
become the slave of sin for a season ; and the Son of 
God calls her, the defiled, the despised, the forsaken, to 
Himself, accepts her tears, blesses her offering, and de- 
clares that her sins are forgiven, for she hath loved 
much, while to whom little is forgiven the same loveth 
little. . . ." 

Philammon heard no more. With the passionate and 
impulsive nature of a Greek fanatic he burst forward 
through the crowd, towards the steps which led to the 
choir, and above which, in front of the altar, stood the 
corpse of Ammonius, enclosed in a coffin of glass, be- 
neath a gorgeous canopy ; and never stopping till he 
found himself in front of Cjnirs pulpit, he threw himself 
upon his face upon the pavement, spread out his arms 
in the form of a cross, and lay silent and motionless 
before the feet of the multitude. 

There was a sudden whisper and rustle in the congre- 
gation ; but Cyril, after a moment's pause, went on, — 

" Man, in his pride and self-sufficiency, despises humili- 
ation, and penance, and the broken and the contrite 
heart, and tells thee that only as long as thou doest 
well unto thyself will he speak well of thee : the Son 
of God says that he that humbleth himself, even as this 
our penitent brother, he it is who shall be exalted — ^he 
it is of whom it is written that his father saw him afar 
off, and ran to meet him, and bade put the best robe on 
him, and a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and 
make merry and be glad with the choir of angels who 
rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. Arise, my son, 
whosoever thou art, and go in peace for this night. 


HYPATIA. 403 

remembering that he who said, * My belly cleaveth unto 
the pavement/ hath also said, * Rejoice not against me, 
Satan, mine enemy, for when I fall I shall arise ! ' *' 

A thunderclap of applause, surely as pardonable as 
any an Alexandrian church ever heard, followed this 
dexterous, and yet most righteous, turn of the patriarch's 
oratory ; but Philammon raised himself slowly ard fear- 
fully to his knees, and blushing scarlet endured the gaze 
of ten thousand eyes. 

Suddenly, from beside the pulpit, an old man sprang 
forward, and clasped him round the neck. It was 
Arsenius. 

'' My son ! my son ! " sobbed he, almost aloud. 

'* Slave, as well as son, if you will 1 " whispered Phil- 
ammon. " One boon from the patriarch, and then home 
to the Laura for ever ! " 

*' Oh, twice-blest night," rolled on above the deep, rich 
voice of Cyril, " which beholds at once the coronation 
of a martyr and the conversion of a sinner ; which in- 
creases at the same time the ranks of the Church triumph- 
ant and of the Church militant ; and pierces celestial 
essences with a twofold rapture of thanksgiving, as they 
welcome on high a victorious, and on earth a repentant, 
brother ! " 

And at a sign from Cyril, Peter the reader stepped 
forward, and led away, gently enough, the two weepers, 
who were welcomed as they passed by the blessings, and 
prayers, and tears even of those fierce fanatics of Nitria. 
Nay, Peter himself, as he turned to leave them together 
in the sacristy, held out his hand to Philammon. 

" I ask your forgiveness," said the poor boy, who 
plunged eagerly and with a sort of delight into any 
and every self-abasement. 

" And I accord it," quoth Peter ; and returned to 
the church, looking, and probably feeling, in a far more 
pleasant mood than usual. 



HYPATIA. 
CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE prodigal's RETURN. 

About ten o'clock the next morning, as Hypatia, worn 
out with sleepless sorrow, was trying to arrange her 
thoughts for the farewell lecture, her favourite maid 
announced that a messenger from Synesius waited below. 
A letter from Synesius ? A gleam of hope flashed across 
her mind. From him, surely, might come something of 
comfort, of advice. Ah ! if he only knew how sorely 
she was bestead ! 

" Let him send up his letter." 

'* He refuses to deliver it to any one but yourself. 
And I think," added the damsel, who had, to tell the 
truth, at that moment in her purse a substantial reason 
for so thinking, *' I think it might be worth your lady- 
ship's while to see him." 

Hypatia shook her head impatiently. 

" He seems to know you well, madam, though he 
refuses to tell his name ; but he bade me put you in 
mind of a black agate — I cannot tell what he meant — 
of a black agate, and a spirit which was to appear when 
you rubbed it." 

Hypatia turned pale as death. Was it Philammon 
again ? She felt for the talisman — ^it was gone ! She 
must have lost it last night in Miriam's chamber. Now 
she saw the true purpose of the old hag's plot . . . 
deceived, tricked, doubly tricked ! And what new plot 
was this ? 

*' Tell him to leave the letter, and begone . . . My 
father ? What ? Who is this ? Whom are you bring- 
ing to me at such a moment ? " 

And as she spoke Theon ushered into the chamber 
no other than Raphael Aben-Ezra, and then retired. 

He advanced slowly towards her, and falling on one 
knee placed in her hand Synesius's letter. 

Hypatia trembled from head to foot at the unex- 
pected apparition. . . . Well ; at least he could know 
nothing of last night and its disgrace. But not daring 


HYPATIA. 405 

to look him in the face, she took the letter and opened 
it. . . . If she had hoped for comfort from it, her hope 
was not realized. 

" Synesius to the Philosopher : 

" Even if Fortune cannot take from me all things, yet 
what she can take she will. And yet of two things, at 
least, she shall not rob me — to prefer that which is best, 
and to succour the oppressed. Heaven forbid that she 
should overpower my judgment, as well as the rest of 
me ! Therefore I do hate injustice ; for that I can do : 
and my will is to stop it. But the power to do so is 
among the things of which she has bereaved me — before, 
too, she bereaved me of my children. . . . 

* Once, in old times, Milesian men were strong.' 

And there was a time when I, too, was a comfort to my 
friends, and when you used to call me a blessing to 
every one except myself, as I squandered for the benefit 
of others the favour with which the great regarded me. 
. . . My hands they were — then. . . . But now I am 
left desolate of all — unless you have any power. For 
you and virtue I count among those good things of 
which none can deprive me. But you always have 
power, and will have it, surely, now — using it as nobly 
as you do. 

" As for Nicaeus and Philolaus, two noble youths, and 
kinsmen of my own, let it be the business of all who 
honour you, both private men and magistrates, to see 
that they return possessors of their just rights.*' * 

'* Of all who honour me ! " said she, with a bitter 
sigh ; and then looked up quickly at Raphael, as if 
fearful of having betrayed herself. She turned deadly 
pale. In his eyes was a look of solenm pity, which told 
her that he knew — not all ? — surely not all ? 

" Have you seen the — Miriam ? " gasped she, rushing 
desperately at that which she most dreaded. 

'* Not yet. I arrived but one hour ago ; and Hypa- 

* An authentic letter of Synesius to Hypatia. 


406 HYPATIA. 

tia's welfare is still more important to me than my 
own/' 

" My welfare ? It is gone ! " 

** So much the better. I never found mine till 1 
lost it." 

" What do you mean ? " 

Raphael lingered, yet without withdrawing his gaze, 
as if he had something of importance to say w^hich he 
longed and yet feared to utter. At last, — 

*' At least, you will confess that I am better dressed 
than when we met last. I have returned, you see, like 
a certain demoniac of Gadara, about whom we used to 
argue, clothed — and perhaps also in my right mind. 
. . . God knows ! " 

" Raphael ! are you come here to mock me ? You 
know — you cannot have been here an hour without 
knowing — that but yesterday I dreamed of being " — 
and she dropped her eyes — *' an empress ; that to-day 
I am ruined ; to-morrow, perhaps, proscribed. Have 
you no speech for me but your old sarcasms and am- 
biguities ? *' 

Raphael stood silent and motionless. 

" Why do you not speak ? What is the meaning of 
this sad, earnest look, so different from your former 
self ? . . . You have something strange to tell me ! *' 

" I have,'* said he, speaking very slowly. " What — 
what would Hypatia answer if, after all, Aben-Ezra said, 
Uke the dying Julian, * The Galilean has conquered ' ? " 

*' Julian never said it 1 It is a monkish calumny." 

'' But I say it." 

" Impossible ! " 

" I say it I " 

" As your dying speech ? The true Raphael Aben- 
Ezra, then, Hves no more ! " 

** But he may be bom again." 

** And die to philosophy, that he may be born again 
into barbaric superstition ! O worthy metempsychosis ! 
Farewell, sir ! " And she rose to go. 

" Hear me ! — hear me patiently this once, noble, 
beloved Hypatia ! One more sneer of yours, and I 


HYPATIA. 407 

may become again the same case-hardened fiend which 
you knew me of old — to all, at least, but you. Oh, do 
not think me imgrateful, forgetful ! What do I not 
owe to you, whose pure and lofty words alone kept 
smouldering in me the dim remembrance that there 
was a Right, a Truth, an unseen world of spirits, after 
whose pattern man should aspire to live ? " 

She paused, and listened in wonder. What faith had 
she of her own ? She would at least hear what he had 
found. . . . 

" Hypatia, I am older than you — ^wiser than you, if 
wisdom be the fruit of the tree of knowledge. You 
know but one side of the medal, Hypatia, and the fairer ; 
I have seen its reverse as well as its obverse. Through 
every form of human thought, of human action, of 
human sin and folly, have I been wandering for years, 
and found no rest — as little in wisdom as in folly, in 
spiritual dreams as in sensual brutality. I could not 
rest in your Platonism — I will tell you why hereafter. 
I went on to Stoicism, Epicurism, Cynicism, Scepticism, 
and in that lowest deep I found a lower depth, when I 
became sceptical of Scepticism itself." 

** There is a lower deep still," thought Hypatia to 
herself, as she recollected last night's magic ; but she 
did not speak. 

*' Then in utter abasement I confessed myself lower 
than the brutes, who had a law, and obeyed it, while I 
was my own lawless God, devil, harpy, whirlwind. . . . 
I needed even my own dog to awaken in me the brute 
consciousness of my own existence, or of anything with- 
out myself. I took her, the dog, for my teacher, and 
obeyed her, for she was wiser than I. And she led me 
back — the poor dumb beast — ^like a God-sent and God- 
obeying angel, to human nature, to mercy, to self- 
sacrifice, to belief, to worship — to pure and wedded love." 

Hypatia started. . . . And in tiie struggle to hide her 
own bewilderment, answered almost without knowing it, — 

" Wedded love ? . . . Wedded love ? Is that, then, 
the paltry bait by which Raphael Aben-Ezra has been 
tempted to desert philosophy ? " 


408 HYPATIA. 

" Thank Heaven ! " said Raphael to himself, " she 
does not care for me, then ! If she had, pride would 
have kept her from that sneer." " Yes, my dear lady,*' 
answered he aloud, '* to desert philosophy, to search 
after wisdom ; because wisdom itself had sought for 
me, and found me. But, indeed, I had hoped that you 
would have approved of my following your example 
for once in my life, and resolving, Hke you, to enter 
into the estate of wedlock.'* 

" Do not sneer at me ! " cried she, in her turn, looking 
up at him with shame and horror, which made him 
repent of uttering the words. " If you do not know — 
you will soon, too soon! Never mention that hateful 
dream to me, if you wish to have speech of me more 1 ** 

A pang of remorse shot through Raphael's heart. 
Who but he himself had plotted that evil marriage ? 
But she gave him no opportunity of answering her, 
and went on hurriedly, — 

*' Speak to me rather about yourself. What is this 
strange and sudden betrothal ? What has it to do with 
Christianity ? I had thought that it was rather by the 
glories of cehbacy — gross and superstitious as their 
notions of it are — that the Galilaeans tempted their 
converts." 

" So had I, my dearest lady," answered he, as, glad 
to turn the subject for a moment, and perhaps a little 
nettled by her contemptuous tone, he resumed some- 
thing of his old arch and careless manner. " But — 
there is no accoimting for man's agreeable inconsistencies 
— one morning I found myself, to my astonishment, 
seized by two bishops, and betrothed, whether I chose 
or not, to a young lady who but a few days before had 
been destined for a nunnery." 

" Two bishops ? " 

** I speak simple truth. The one was Synesius, of 
course. That most incoherent and most benevolent of 
busybodies chose to betray me behind my back; but 
I will not trouble you with that part of my story. The 
real wonder is that the other episcopal match-maker was 
Augustine of Hippo himself I " 


HYPATIA. 409 

" Anything to bribe a convert," said Hypatia con- 
temptuously. 

" I assure you, no. He informed me, and her also, 
openly and uncivilly enough, that he thought us very much 
to be pitied for so great a fall. . . . But as we neither 
of us seemed to have any call for the higher Hfe of ceU- 
bacy, he could not press it on us. . . . We should have 
trouble in the flesh. But if we married we had not 
sinned. To which I answered that my humility was 
quite content to sit in the very lowest ranks, with Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob. . . , He replied by an encomiimi 
on virginity, in which I seemed to hear again the voice 
of Hypatia herself." 

** And sneered at it inwardly, as you used to sneer 
at me." 

" Really I was in no sneering mood at that moment ; 
and whatsoever I may have felt incUned to reply, he 
was kind enough to say for me and himself the next 
minute." 

" What do you mean ? " 

" He went on, to my utter astonishment, by such a 
eulogium on wedlock as I never heard from Jew or 
heathen, and ended by advice to young married folk so 
thoroughly excellent and to the point, that I could not 
help teUing him, when he stopped, what a pity I thought 
it that he had not himself married, and made some 
good woman happy by putting his own recipes into 
practice. . . . And at that, Hypatia, I saw an expres- 
sion on his face which made me wish for the moment 
that I had bitten out this impudent tongue of mine, 
before I so rashly touched some deep old wound. . . . 
That man has wept bitter tears ere now, be sure of it. 
. . . But he turned the conversation instantly, Hke a 
well-bred gentleman as he is, by saying, with the sweetest 
smile, that though he had made it a solemn rule never 
to be a party to making up any marriage, yet in our case 
Heaven had so plainly pointed us out for each other, 
etc., etc., that he could not refuse himself the pleasure 
. . . and ended by a blessing as kindly as ever came 
from the lips of man." 


4IO HYP ATI A. 

*' You seem wonderfully taken with the sophist of 
Hippo/' said Hypatia impatiently ; " and forget, per- 
haps, that his opinions, especially when, as you confess, 
they are utterly inconsistent with themselves, are not 
quite as important to me as they seem to have become 
to you/' 

" Whether he be consistent or not about marriage," 
said Raphael, somewhat proudly, " I care Httle. I went 
to him to tell me, not about the relation of the sexes, 
on which point I am probably as good a judge as he — 
but about God ; and on that subject he told me enough 
to bring me back to Alexandria, that I might undo, if 
possible, somewhat of the wrong which I have done to 
Hypatia.'* 

*' What wrong have you done me ? . : : You are 
silent ? Be sure, at least, that whatsoever it may be, 
you will not wipe it out by trying to make a proselyte 
of me ! " 

" Be not too sure of that. I have found too great 
a treasure not to wish to share it with Theon's 
daughter." 

*' A treasure ? " said she, half scornfully. 

" Yes, indeed. You recollect my last words, when 
we parted there below a few months ago ? " 

Hypatia was silent. One terrible possibility at which 
he had hinted flashed across her memory for the first 
time since ; . . . but she spurned proudly from her the 
heaven-sent warning. 

" I told you that, like Diogenes, I went forth to seek 
a man. Did I not promise you, that when I had found 
one you should be the first to hear of him ? And I have 
found a man." 

Hypatia waved her beautiful hand. " I know whom 
you would say . . . that crucified one. Be it so. I 
want not a man, but a god." 

*' What sort of a god, Hypatia ? A god made up of 
our own intellectual notions, or rather of negations of 
them — of infinity and eternity, and invisibihty, and im- 
passibility — and why not of immortality, too, Hypatia ? 
For I recollect we used to agree that it was a carnal 


HYP ATI A. 41 1 

degrading of the Supreme One to predicate of Him so 
merely human a thing as virtue." 

Hypatia was silent. 

" Now I have always had a sort of fancy that what we 
wanted, as the first predicate of our Absolute One, was 
that He was to be not merely an infinite God — ^whatever 
that meant, which I suspect we did not always see quite 
clearly — or an eternal one, or an omnipotent one, or 
even merely a one God at all — none of which predicates, 
I fear, did we understand more clearly than the first — 
but that He must be a righteous God : or rather, as we 
used sometimes to say, that He was to have no predicate 
— ^righteousness itself. And all along I could not help 
remembering that my old sacred Hebrew books told me 
of such a one ; and feeling that they might have some- 
thing to tell me which '* 

'* Which I did not tell you ! And this, then, caused 
your air of reserve, and of sly superiority over the woman 
whom you mocked by calling her your pupil ! I little 
suspected you of so truly Jewish a jealousy 1 Why, oh 
why, did you not tell me this ? '* 

** Because I was a beast, Hj^atia, and had all but 
forgotten what this righteousness was like ; and was 
afraid to find out, lest it should condemn me. Because 
I was a devil, Hypatia, and hated righteousness, and 
neither wished to see you righteous, nor God righteous 
either, because then you would both have been unlike 
myself. God be merciful to me a sinner ! " 

She looked up in his face. The man was changed as 
if by miracle — and yet not changed. There was the 
"same gallant consciousness of power, the same subtle 
and humorous twinkle in those strong ripe Jewish 
features and those glittering eyes ; and yet every line 
in his face was softened, sweetened ; the mask of sneer- 
ing faineance was gone — ^imploring tenderness and ear- 
nestness beamed from his whole countenance. The 
chrysaHs case had fallen off and disclosed the butterfly 
within. She sat looking at him, and passed her hand 
across her eyes, as if to try whether the apparition would 
not vanish. He, the subtle 1 — he, the mocker ! — he, the 


412 HYPATIA 

Lucian of Alexandria I — ^he whose depth and power had 
awed her, even in his most polluted days. ; . . And this 
was the end of him. . . . 

'* It is a freak of cowardly superstition. . . . Those 
Christians have been frightening him about his sins and 
their Tartarus." 

She looked again into his bright, clear, fearless face, and 
was ashamed of her own calumny. And this was the 
end of him — of Synesius — of Augustine — of learned and 
unlearned, Goth and Roman. . . . The great flood would 
have its way, then. . . . Could she alone fight against it ? 

She could ! Would she submit ? — She ? Her will 
should stand firm, her reason free, to the last — to the 
death if need be. . . . And yet last night ! — ^last night ! 

At last she spoke, without looking up. 

" And what if you have found a man in that crucified 
one ? Have you found in him a God also ? " 

" Does Hypatia recollect Glaucon's definition of the 
perfectly righteous man ? . . . How, without being guilty 
of one unrighteous act, he must labour his life long imder 
the imputation of being utterly unrighteous, in order 
that his disinterestedness may be thoroughly tested, and 
by proceeding in such a course, arrive inevitably, as 
Glaucon says, not only in Athens of old, or in Judaea of 
old, but, as you yourself will agree, in Christian Alex- 
andria at this moment, at — do you remember, Hypatia ? 
— ^bonds, and the scourge, and lastly, at the cross itself. 
... If Plato's idea of the righteous man be a crucified 
one, why may not mine also ? If, as we both — and old 
Bishop Clemens, too — as good a Platonist as we, re- 
member — and Augustine himself, would agree, Plato in 
speaking those strange words, spoke not of himself, but 
by the Spirit of God, why should not others have spoken 
by the same Spirit when they spoke the same words ? " 

" A crucified man. . . . Yes. But a crucified God, 
Raphael ! I shudder at the blasphemy." 

"So do my poor dear fellow-countrymen. Are they 
the more righteous in their daily doings, Hypatia, on 
account of their fancied reverence for the glory of One 
who probably knows best how to preserve and manifest 


HYP ATI A. 413 

His own glory ? But you assent to the definition ? 
Take care ! " said he, with one of his arch smiles, " I 
have been fighting with Augustine, and have become of 
late a terrible dialectician. Do you assent to it ? " 

" Of course ; it is Plato's." 

** But do you assent merely because it is written m 
the book called Plato's, or because your reason tells you 
that it is true ? . . . You will not tell me. Tell me 
this, then, at least. Is not the perfectly righteous man 
the highest specimen of men ? " 

" Surely," said she half carelessly, but not unwilling, 
like a philosopher and a Greek, as a matter of course, 
to embark in anything like a word-battle, and to shut 
out sadder thoughts for a moment. 

" Then must not the Autanthropos, the archetypal 
and ideal man, who is more perfect than any individual 
specimen, be perfectly righteous also ? " 

'' Yes." 

" Suppose, then, for the sake of one of those pleasant 
old games of ours, an argument, that he wished to mani- 
fest his righteousness to the world. . . . The only method 
for him, according to Plato, would be Glaucon's, of 
calumny and persecution, the scourge and the cross ? " 

** What words are these, Raphael ? Material scourges 
and crosses for an eternal and spiritual idea ? " 

'* Did you ever yet, Hypatia, consider at leisure what 
the archetype of man might be like ? " 

Hypatia started, as at a new thought, and confessed 
— as every Neo-Platonist would have done — that she 
had never done so. 

" And yet oru* master, Plato, bade us believe that 
there was a substantial archetype of each thing, from 
a flower to a nation, eternal in the heavens. Perhaps 
we have not been faithful Platonists enough heretofore, 
my dearest tutor. Perhaps, being philosophers, and 
somewhat of Pharisees to boot, we began all our lucu- 
brations as we did our prayers, by thanking God that 
we were not as other men were ; and so misread an- 
other passage in the * Republic,' which we used in 
pleasant old days to be fond of quoting." 


414 HYP ATI A. 

** What was that ? " asked Hypatia, who became more 
and more interested every moment. 

" That philosophers were men." 

" Are you mocking me ? Plato defines the philosopher 
as the man who seeks after the objects of knowledge, 
while others seek after those of opinion." 

" And most truly. But what if, in our eagerness to 
assert that wherein the philosopher differed from other 
men, we had overlooked that in which he resembled 
other men, and so forgot that, after all, man was a 
genus whereof the philosopher was only a species ? " 

Hypatia sighed. 

" Do you not think, then, that as the greater contains 
the less, and the archetype of the genus that of the 
species, we should have been wiser if we had speculated 
a httle more on the archetype of man as man, before we 
meddled with a part of that archetype — the archetype 
of the philosopher ? . . . Certainly it would have been 
the easier course; for there are more men than philos- 
ophers, Hypatia, and every man is a real man, and 
a fair subject for examination, while every philosopher 
is not a real philosopher — our friends the Academics, 
for instance, and even a Neo-Platonist or two whom 
we know. You seem impatient. Shall I cease ? " 

'* You mistook the cause of my impatience," answered 
she, looking up at him with her great sad eyes. " Go on." 

" Now — for I am going to be terribly scholastic — ^is 
it not the very definition of man that he is, alone of 
all known things, a spirit temporarily united to an 
animal body ? " 

** Enchanted in it, as in a dungeon, rather," said she, 
sighing. 

** Be it so if you will. But — must we not say that 
the archetype — the very man — that if he is the arche- 
type, he too will be, or must have been, once at least, 
temporarily enchanted into an animal body ? . . . You 
are silent. I will not press you. . . . only ask you to 
consider at your leisure whether Plato may not justify' 
somewhat from the charge of absurdity the fisherman of 
Galilee, where he said that He in whose image man is 


HYPATIA. 415 

made was made flesh, and dwelt with him bodily there 
by the lake-side at Tiberias, and that he beheld His 
glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father/' 

*' That last question is a very different one. God 
made flesh ! My reason revolts at it/' 

" Old Homer's reason did not/' 

Hypatia started, for she recollected her yesterday's 
cravings after those old, palpable, and human deities. 
And — " Go on," she cried eagerly. 

** Tell m€, then — this archetype of man, if it exists 
anywhere, it must exist eternally in the mind of God ? 
At least, Plato would have so said ? " 

'' Yes." 

" And derive its existence inmiediately from Him ? " 

'' Yes." 

" But a man is one willing person, unUke to all others." 

" Yes." 

" Then this archetype must be such." 

** I suppose so." 

*' But possessing the faculties and properties of all 
men in their highest perfection/' 

'' Of course." 

*' How sweetly and obediently my late teacher becomes 
my pupil ! " 

Hypatia looked at him with her eyes full of tears. 

** I never taught you anything, Raphael." 

" You taught me most, beloved lady, when you least 
thought of it. But tell me one thing more. Is it not the 
property of every man to be a son ? For you can conceive 
of a man as not being a father, but not as not being a son." 

" Be it so." 

" Then this archetype must be a son also." 

" Whose son, Raphael ? " 

" Why not of ' Zeus, father of gods and men ' ? For 
we agreed that it — ^we will call it he, now, having agreed 
that it is a person — could owe its existence to none but 
God Himself." 

*' And what then ? " said Hypatia, fixing those glorious 
eyes full on his face, in an agony of doubt, but yet, as 
Raphael declared to his dying day, of hope and joy. 


4l6 IIYPATIA. 

*' Well, Hypatia, and must not a son be of the same 
species as his father ? * Eagles/ says the poet, * do not 
beget doves/ Is the word son anything but an empty 
and false metaphor, unless the son be the perfect and 
equal likeness of his father ? " 

" Heroes beget sons worse than themselves, says the 
poet/' 

** We are not talking now of men as they are, whom 
Homer*s Zeus calls the most wretched of all the beasts 
of the field ; we are talking — are we not ? — of a perfect 
and archetypal Son, and a perfect and archetypal Father, 
in a perfect and eternal world, wherein is neither growth, 
decay, nor change ; and of a perfect and archetypal 
generation, of which the only definition can be that like 
begets its perfect like ? . . . You are silent. Be so, Hy- 
patia. . , . We have gone up too far into the abysses. . . ." 

And so they both were silent for a while. And RaphaeJ 
thought solemn thoughts about Victoria, and about 
ancient signs of Isaiah's, which were to him none the 
less prophecies concerning The Man whom he had 
found, because he prayed and trusted that the same 
signs might be repeated to himself, and a child given 
to him aJso, as a token that, in spite of all his base- 
ness, " God was with him." 

But he was a Jew, and a man ; Hypatia was a Greek, 
and a woman — and for that matter, so were the men of 
her school. To her, the relations and duties of common 
humanity shone with none of the awful and divine mean- 
ing which they did in the eyes of the converted Jew, 
awakened for the first time in his life to know the mean- 
ing of his own scriptures, and become an Israelite indeed. 
And Raphael's dialectic, too, though it might silence 
her, could not convince her. Her creed, like thosa^of 
her fellow-philosophers, was one of the fancy and the 
religious sentiment, rather than of the reason and the 
moral sense. All the brilliant cloud-world in which she 
had revelled for years — cosmogonies, emanations, afiini- 
ties, symbolisms, hierarchies, abysses, eternities, and the 
rest of it — though she could not rest in them, not even 
believe in them — though they had vanished into thin 


HYPATIA. 417 

air at her most utter need — yet — they were too pretty 
to be lost sight of for ever ; and, struggling against the 
growing conviction of her reason, she answered at last, — 

" And you would have me give up, as you seem to 
have done, the sublime, the beautiful, the heavenly, for 
a dry and barren chain of dialectic — in which, for aught 
I know — for after all, Raphael, I cannot cope with you 
— I am a woman — a weak woman ! " ■ 

And she covered her face with her hands. 

*' For aught you know, what ? " asked Raphael gently. 

" You may have made the worse appear the better 
reason." 

'* So said Aristophanes of Socrates. But hear me once 
more, beloved Hypatia. You refuse to give up the 
beautiful, the sublime, the heavenly ? What if Raphael 
Aben-Ezra, at least, had never found them till now ? 
Recollect what I said just now — ^what if our old Beauti- 
ful, and Sublime, and Heavenly had been the sheerest 
materialism, notions spun by our own brains out of the 
impressions of pleasant things, and high things, and low 
things, and awful things, which we had seen with our 
bodUy eyes ? What if I had discovered that the spiritual 
is not the intellectual, but the moral; and that the 
spiritual world is not, as we used to make it, a world 
of our own intellectual abstractions, or of our own 
physical emotions, rehgious or other, but a world of 
righteous or unrighteous persons ? What if I had dis- 
covered that one law of the spiritual world, in which all 
others were contained, was righteousness ; and that dis- 
harmony with that law, which we called unspirituality, 
was not being vulgar, or clumsy, or ill-taught, or un- 
imaginative, or dull, but simply being unrighteous ? 
What if I had discovered that righteousness, and it 
alone, was the beautiful righteousness, the sublime, the 
heavenly, the Godlike — ay, God Himself ? And what 
if it had dawned on me, as by a great sunrise, what that 
righteousness was like ? What if I had seen a human 
being, a woman, too, a young weak girl, showing forth 
the glory and the beauty of God ? — showing me that 
the beautiful was to mingle unshrinking, for duty's sake. 


41 8 HYPATIA. 

with all that is most foul and loathsome ; that the 
sublime was to stoop to the most menial offices, the most 
outwardly-degrading self-denials ; that to be heavenly 
was to know that the commonest relations, the most 
vulgar duties, of earth, were God's conamands, and only 
to be performed aright by the help of the same spirit I 
by which He rules the universe ; that righteousness was I 
to love, to help, to suffer for — if need be, to die for— 
those who, in themselves, seem fitted to arouse no feel- . 
ings except indignation and disgust ? What if, for the ' 
first time — I trust not for the last time — ^in my life, I saw 
this vision ; and at the sight of it my eyes were opened, 
and I knew it for the likeness and the glory of God ? 
What if I, a Platonist, like John of Galilee and Paul 
of Tarsus, yet, like them, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, 
had confessed to myself— If the creature can love thus, 
how much more its archetype ? If weak woman can 
endure thus, how much more a Son of God ? If for the 
good of others, man has strength to sacrifice himself in 
part, God will have strength to sacrifice Himself utterly. 
If He has not done it, He will do it : or He will be less 
beautiful, less sublime, less heavenly, less righteous than 
my poor conception of Him — ay, than this weak 
playful girl ! Why should I not believe those who tell 
me that He has done it already ? What if their evidence 
be, after all, only probability ? I do not want mathe- 
matical demonstration to prove to me that when a child 
was in danger his father saved him ; neither do I here. 
My reason, my heart, every faculty of me, except this 
stupid sensuous experience, which I find deceiving me 
every moment, which cannot even prove to me my own 
existence, accepts that story of Calvary as the most 
natural, most probable, most necessary of earthly events, 
assuming only that God is a righteous Person, and not 
some dream of an all-pervading necessary spirit — nonsense 
which, in its very terms, confesses its own materialism." 

Hypatia answered with a forced smile. 

'* Raphael Aben-Ezra has deserted the method of the 
severe dialectician for that of the eloquent lover.*' 

" Not altogether,'* said he, smiling in return. '* For 


HYPATIA. 419 

suppose that I had said to myself, We Platonists agree 
that the sight of God is the highest good.*' 

Hypatia once more shuddered at last night's recollec- 
tions. 

" And if He be righteous, and righteousness be — as 
I know it to be — identical with love, then He will desire 
that highest good for men far more than they can desire 
it for themselves. . . . Then He will desire to show 
Himself and His own righteousness to them. . . . Will 
you make answer, dearest Hypatia, or shall I ? ... or 
does your silence give consent ? At least let me go on 
to say this, that if God do desire to show His righteous- 
ness to men. His only perfect method, according to Plato, 
will be that of calumny, persecution, the scourge, and 
the cross, that so He, like Glaucon's righteous man, may 
remain for ever free from any suspicion of selfish interest, 
or weakness of endurance. . . . Am I deserting the dia- 
lectic method now, Hypatia ? . . . You are still silent ? 
You will not hear me, I see. ... At some future day the 
philosopher may condescend to lend a kinder ear to the 
words of her greatest debtor . : . Or, rather, she may 
condescend to hear, in her own heart, the voice of that 
Archetypal Man, who has been loving her, guiding her, 
heaping her with every perfection of body and of mind, 
inspiring her with all pure and noble longings, and only 
asks of her to listen to her own reason, her own philos- 
ophy, when they proclaim Him as the giver of them, and 
to impart them freely and humbly, as He has imparted 
them to her, to the poor, and the brutish, and the sinful, 
whom He loves as well as He loves her. . . . Farewell ! " 

*' Stay ! " said she, springing up ; " whither are you 
going ? " 

** To do a Httle good before I die, having done much 
evil. To farm, plant, and build, and rescue a little comer 
of Ormuzd's earth, as the Persians would say, out of the 
dominion of Ahriman. To fight Ausurian robbers, feed 
Thracian mercenaries, save a few widows from starva- 
tion, and a few orphans from slavery. . . . Perhaps to 
leave behind me a son of David's line, who will be a better 
Jew, because a better Christian, than his father. . . . We 

14 


# 


420 HYPATIA. 

shall have trouble in the flesh, Augustine tells us. . . . 
But, as I answered him, I really have had so little thereof 
yet, that my fair share may probably be rather a useful 
education than otherwise. Farewell ! '* 

" Stay ! " said she. " Come again ! — again ! And 
her. . . . Bring her. ... I must see her I She must 
be noble indeed to be worthy of you." 

" She is many a hundred miles away." 

'* Ah ! Perhaps she might have taught something to 
me — me, the philosopher ! You need not have feared 
me. ... I have no heart to make converts now. . . . 

Raphael Aben-Ezra, why break the bruised reed ? 
My plans are scattered to the winds, my pupils worthless, 
my fair name tarnished, my conscience heavy with the 
thought of my own cruelty. ... If you do not know 
all, you will know it but too soon. . . . My last hope, 
Synesius, implores for himself the hope which I need 
from him. . . . And, over and above it all. . . . You ! 
, , , Et tu. Brute ! Why not fold my mantle round 
me, like Jtdius of old, and die I " 

Raphael stood looking sadly at her, as her whole face 
sank into utter prostration. 

* « * * * 

" Yes, come. . . . The Galilaean. ... If He conquers 
strong men, can the weak maid resist Him ? Come soon. 
. . . This afternoon. . . . My heart is breaking fast." 

*' At the eighth hour this afternoon ? " 

" Yes. ... At noon I lecture . . . take my farewell, 
rather, for ever of the schools. . . . Gods ! What have 

1 to say ? . . . And tell me about Him of Nazareth. 
Farewell." 

" Farewell, beloved lady ! At the ninth hour you shall 
hear of Him of Nazareth." 

Why did his own words sound to him strangely pregnant, 
all but ominous ? He almost fancied that not he but 
some third person had spoken them. He kissed Hypatia's 
hand — it was as cold as ice ; and his heart, too, in spite 
of all his bliss, felt cold and heavy, as he left the room. 

As he went down the steps into the street, a young man 
sprang from behind one of the pillars, and seized his arm. 


HYPATIA. 421 

** Aha ! my young Coryphaeus of pious plunderers ! 
What do you want with me ? " 

Philammon, for it was he, looked at him an instant, 
and recognized him. 

** Save her ! For the love of God, save her I '* 

" Whom ? " 

" Hypatia ! " 

" How long has her salvation been important to you, 
my good friend ? *' 

'* For God's sake," said Philammon, " go back and 
^vaxn her ! She will hear you — you are rich — you used 
to be her friend — I know you — I have heard of you. . . . 
Oh, if you ever cared for her — ^if you ever felt for her a 
thousandth part of what I feel — go in and warn her not 
to stir from home ! " 

" I must hear more of this," said Raphael, who saw 
that the boy was in earnest. " Come in with me, and 
speak to her father." 

" No ! not into that house ! — never into that house 
again ! Do not ask me why, but go yourself. She will 
not hear me. Did you — did you prevent her from 
listening ? " 

" What do you mean ? " 

*' I have been here — ages ! I sent a note in by her 
niaid, and she returned no answer." 

Raphael recollected then, for the first time, a note 
which he had seen brought to her during the conversation. 

" I saw her receive a note. She tossed it away. Tell 
nie your story. If there is reason in it, I will bear your 
niessage myself. Of what is she to be warned ? " 

** Of a plot — I know that there is a plot — against 
her among the monks and Parabolani. As I lay in bed 
this morning in Arsenius's room — they thought I was 
asleep " 

" Arsenius ? Has that venerable fanatic, then, gone 
the way of all monastic flesh and turned persecutor ? " 

" God forbid ! I heard him beseeching Peter the 
reader to refrain from something, I cannot tell what ; but 
I caught her name ... I heard Peter say, *She that 
hindereth will hinder till she be taken out of the way.' 


422 nypATiA. 

And when he went out into the passage I heard him 
say to another, * That thou doest, do quickly !...'" 

*' These are slender grounds, my friend." 

" Ah, you do not know of what those men are capable." 

" Do I not ? Where did you and I meet last ? " 

Philammon blushed, and burst forth again. " That 
was enough for me. I know the hatred which they bear 
her, the crimes which they attribute to her. Her house 
would have been attacked last night had it not been 
for Cyril. . . . And I knew Peter's tone. He spoke too 
gently and softly not to mean something deviUsh. I 
watched all the morning for an opportunity of escape, 
and here I am ! Will you take my message, or see her — " 

" What ? " 

" God only knows, and the devil whom they worship 
instead of God." 

Raphael hurried back into the house — " Could he see 
Hypatia ? " She had shut herself up in her private room, 
strictly commanding that no visitor should be admitted. 
. . . ** Where was Theon, then ? " He had gone out 
by the canal gate half an hour before, with a bundle of 
mathematical papers under his arm, no one knew whither. 
..." Imbecile old idiot ! " and he hastily wrote on his 
tablet,— 

** Do not despise the young monk's warning. I be- 
lieve him to speak the truth. As you love yourself and 
yotu father, Hypatia, stir not out to-day." 

He bribed a maid to take the message upstairs, and 
passed his time in the hall in warning the servants. But 
they would not believe him. It was true the shops were 
shut in some quarters, and the Museum gardens empty ; 
people were a little frightened after yesterday. But 
Cyril, they had heard for certain, had threatened excom- 
munication only last night to any Christian who broke 
the peace ; and there had not been a monk to be seen 
in the streets the whole morning. And as for any harm 
happening to their mistress — ^impossible ! " The very 
wild beasts would not tear her," said the huge negro 
porter, " if she were thrown into the amphitheatre." 

Whereat a maid boxed his ears for talking of such a 


HYPATIA. 423 

thing ; and then, by way of mending it, declared that 
she knew for certain that her mistress could turn aside 
the lightning, and call legions of spirits to fight for her 
with a nod. . . . What was to be done with such idol- 
aters ? And yet who could help liking them the better 
for it ? 

At last the answer came down, in the old graceful, 
studied, self-conscious handwriting : — 

" It is a strange way of persuading me to your new 
faith, to bid me beware, on the very first day of your 
preaching, of the wickedness of those who believe it. I 
thank you ; but your affection for me makes you timorous. 
I dread nothing. They will not dare. Did they dare 
now, they would have dared long ago. As for that 
youth — to obey or to believe his word, even to seem aware 
of his existence, were shame to me henceforth. Because 
he is insolent enough to warn me, therefore I will go. 
Fear not for me. You would not wish me, for the first 
time in my life, to fear for myself. I must follow my 
destiny. I must speak the words which I have to speak. 
Above all, I must let no Christian say that the philos- 
opher dared less than the fanatic. If my Gods are Gods, 
then will they protect me ; and if not, let your God prove 
His rule as seems to Him good." 

Raphael tore the letter to fragments. . . . The guards, 
at least, were not gone mad Uke the rest of the world. 
It wanted half an hour of the time of her lecture. In 
the interval he might summon force enough to crush all 
Alexandria. And turning suddenly, he darted out of 
the room and out of the house. 

" Quern Deus vult perdere *' cried he to Philam- 

mon, with a gesture of grief. " Stay here and stop her I 
— make a last appeal ! Drag the horses' heads down, 
if you can ! I will be back in ten minutes." And he ran 
off for the nearest gate of the Museum gardens. 

On the other side of the gardens lay the courtyard of 
the palace. There were gates in plenty communicating 
between them. If he could but see Orestes, even alarm 
the guard in time 1 . . . 

And he hurried through the walks and alcoves, now 


424 HYPATIA. 

deserted by the fearful citizens, to the nearest gate. It 

was fast, and barricaded firmly on the outside. 

Terrijaed, he ran on to the next ; it was barred also. 
He saw the reason in a moment, and maddened as he 
saw it. The guards, careless about the Museum, or 
reasonably fearing no danger from the Alexandrian 
populace to the glory and wonder of their city, or per- 
haps wishing wisely enough to concentrate their forces 
in the narrowest space, had contented themselves with 
cutting off all communication with the gardens, and so 
converting the lofty partition-wall into the outer enceinte 
of their marble citadel. At all events, the doors leading 
from the Museum itself might be open. He knew them 
every one, every hall, passage, statue, picture, almost 
every book in that vast treasure-house of ancient civi- 
lization. He found an entrance — hurried through well- 
known corridors to a postern through which he and 
Orestes had lounged a hundred times, their lips full of 
bad words, their hearts of worse thoughts, gathered in 
those records of the fair wickedness of old. ... It was 
fast. He beat upon it ; but no one answered. He rushed 
on, and tried another. No one answered there. An- 
other — still silence and despair ! ... He rushed up- 
stairs, hoping that from the windows above he might 
be able to call to the guard. The prudent soldiers had 
locked and barricaded the entrances to the upper floors 
of the whole right wing, lest the palace court should be 
commanded from thence. Whither now ? Back — and 
whither then ? Back, round endless galleries, vaulted 
halls, staircases, doorways, some fast, some open, up 
and down, trying this way and that, losing himself at 
whiles in that enormous silent labyrinth. And his breath 
failed him, his throat was parched, his face burned as with 
the simoom wind, his legs were trembling under him. 
His presence of mind, usually so perfect, failed him utterly. 
He was baffled, netted ; there was a spell upon him. Was 
it a dream ? Was it all one of those hideous nightmares 
of endless pillars beyond pillars, stairs above stairs, 
rooms within rooms, changing, shifting, lengthening out 
for ever and for ever before the dreamer, narrowing, 


HYPATIA. 425 

closing in on him, choking him ? Was it a dream ? 
Was he doomed to wander for ever and for ever in some 
palace of the dead, to expiate the sin which he had learnt 
and done therein ? His brain, for the first time in his 
life, began to reel. He could recollect nothing but that 
somethmg dreadful was to happen — and that he had to 
prevent it, and could not. . . . Where was he now ? 
In a little by-chamber. ... He had talked with her 
there a hundred times, looking out over the Pharos and 
the blue Mediterranean. . . . What was that roar below ? 
A sea of weltering yelling heads, thousands on thousands, 
down to the very beach ; and from their innumerable 
throats one mighty war-cry, " God, and the mother of 
God ! " CyhVs hounds were loose. ... He reeled from 
the window, and darted frantically away again . . . 
whither, he knew not, and never knew until his dying 
.day. 

And Philammon ? . . . Sufficient for the chapter, as 
for the day, is the evil thereof. 


CHAPTER XXVin. 

woman's love. 

Pelagia had passed that night alone in sleepless sorrow, 
which was not diminished by her finding herself the next 
morning palpably a prisoner in her own house. Her 
girls told her that they had orders — they would not say 
from whom — to prevent her leaving her own apartments ; 
and though some of them made the announcement with 
sighs and tears of condolence, yet more than one, she 
could see, was well-inclined to make her feel that her 
power was over, and that there were others besides her- 
self who might aspire to the honour of reigning favourite. 
What matter to her ? Whispers, sneers, and saucy 
answers fell on her ear unheeded. She had one idol, and 
she had lost it ; one power, and it had failed her. In 
the heaven above, and in the earth beneath, was neither 
peace, nor help, nor hope ; nothing but black, blank, 


426 HYPATIA. 

stupid terror and despair. The little weak infant soul, 
which had just awakened in her, had been crushed and 
stunned in its very birth-hour ; and instinctively she 
crept away to the roof of the tower where her apartments 
were, to sit and weep alone. 

There she sat, hour after hour, beneath the shade of 
the large windsail which served in all Alexandrian houses 
the double purpose of a shelter from the sim and a ven- 
tilator for the rooms below ; and her eye roved carelessly 
over that endless sea of roofs and towers, and masts, and 
glittering canals, and ghding boats ; but she saw none 
of them — nothing but one beloved face, lost, lost for 
ever. 

At last a low whistle roused her from her dream. She 
looked up. Across the narrow lane, from one of the 
embrasures of the opposite house-parapet, bright eyes 
were peering at her. She moved angrily to escape them. 

The whistle was repeated, and a head rose cautiously 
above the parapet. ... It was Miriam's. Casting a 
careful look around, Pelagia went forward. What could 
the old woman want with her ? 

Miriam made interrogative signs, which Pelagia under- 
stood as asking her whether she was alone ; and the mo- 
ment that an answer in the negative was returned, Miriam 
rose, tossed over to her feet a letter weighted with a pebble, 
and then vanished again. 

" I have watched here all day ! They refused me 
admittance below. Beware of Wulf, of every one. Do 
not stir from your chamber. There is a plot to carry 
you off to-night, and give you up to your brother the 
monk. You are betrayed ; be brave ! " 

Pelagia read it with blanching cheek and staring eyes, 
and took, at least, the last part of Miriam's advice. For, 
walking down the stair, she passed proudly through her 
own rooms, and commanding back the girls who woxild 
have stayed her, with a voice and gesture at which they 
quailed, went straight down, the letter in her hand, to 
the apartment where the Amal usually spent his mid- 
day hours. 

As she approached the door, she heard loud voices 


HYPATIA. 427 

within. . . . His! — ^yes ; but Wulfs also. Her heart 
failed her, and she stopped a moment to listen. . . . She 
heard Hypatia's name ; and mad with curiosity, crouched 
down at the lock and hearkened to every word. 

" She vidll not accept me, Wulf." 

** If she will not, she shall go farther and fare worse. 
Besides, I tell you, she is hard run. It is her last chance, 
and she will jump at it. The Christians are mad with 
her ; if a storm blows up, her hfe is not worth — that l " 

" It is a pity that we have not brought her hither al- 
ready." 

** It is ; but we could not. We must not break with 
Orestes till the palace is in our hands." 

'* And will it ever be in our hands, my friend ? " 

" Certain. We were round at every piquet last night, 
and the very notion of an Amal's heading them made 
them so eager that we had to bribe them to be quiet 
rather than to rise." 

*' Odin ! I wish I were among them now ! " 

" Wait till the city rises. If the day pass over without 
a riot, I know nothing. The treasure is all on board, is 
it not ? " 

" Yes, and the galleys ready. I have been working 
like a horse at them all the morning, as you would let me 
do nothing else. And Goderic will not be back from the 
palace, you say, till nightfall ! " 

"If we are attacked first, we are to throw up a fire- 
signal to him, and he is to come off hither with what 
Goths he can muster. If the palace is attacked first, 
he is to give us the signal, and we are to pack up and row 
roimd thither. And in the meanwhile he is to make 
that hound of a Greek prefect as drunk as he can." 

'* The Greek will see him imder the table. He has 
drugs, I know, as all these Roman rascals have, to sober 
him when he likes ; and then he sets to work and drinks 
again. Send off old Smid, and let him beat the armourer 
if he can." 

** A very good thought," said Wulf, and came out 
instantiy for the purpose of putting it in practice. 

Pelagia had just time to retreat into an adjoining 
14a 


428 HYPATIA. 

doorway. But she had heard enough; and as Wulf 
passed, she sprang to him and caught him by the arm. 

" Oh, come in hither ! Speak to me one moment ; 
for mercy's sake speak to me ! " and she drew him, half 
against his will, into the chamber, and throwing herself 
at his feet, broke out into a childlike wail. 

Wulf stood silent, utterly discomfited by this unex- 
pected submission, where he had expected petulant and 
artful resistance. He almost felt guilty and ashamed, 
as he looked down into that beautiful imploring face, 
convulsed with simple sorrow, as of a child for a broken 
toy. ... At last she spoke. 

" Oh, what have I done — ^what have I done ? Why 
must you take him from me ? What have I done but 
love lum, honour him, worship him ? I know you love 
him ; and I love you for it. I do indeed ! But you — 
what is your love to mine ? Oh, I would die for him — 
be torn in pieces for him — now, this moment ! . . ." 

Wulf was silent. 

" What have I done but love him ? What could I 
wish but to make him happy ? I was rich enough, 
praised, and petted ; . . . and then he came, . . . 
glorious as he is, like a god among men — ^among apes 
rather — and I worshipped him : was I wrong in that ? 
I gave up all for him: was I wrong in that? I gave 
him myself : what could I do more ? He condescended 
to like me — he the hero ! Could I help submitting ? 
I loved him : could I help loving him ? Did I wrong 
him in that ? Cruel, cruel Wulf ! . . ." 

Wulf was forced to be stern, or he would have melted 
at once. 

" And what was your love worth to him ? What has 
it done for him ? It has made him a sot, an idler, a 
laughing-stock to these Greek dogs, when he might have 
been their conqueror, their king. FooUsh woman, who 
cannot see that your love has been his bane, his ruin ! 
he who ought by now to have been sitting upon the 
throne of the Ptolemies, the lord of all south of the 
Mediterranean — as he shall be still ! " 

Pelagia looked up at him wide-eyed, as if her mind was 


HYPATIA. 429 

taking in slowly some vast new thought, under the weight 
of which it reeled already. Then she rose slowly. 

" And he might be Emperor of Africa ? " 

" And he shall be ; but not " 

" Not with me I " she almost shrieked. " No ! not 
with wretched, ignorant, polluted me ! I see — O God, 
I see it all 1 And this is why you want him to marry 
her— her " 

She could not utter the dreaded name. 

Wulf could not trust himself to speak, but he bowed 
his head in acquiescence. 

•le « » « * 

" Yes — I will go — up into the desert — ^with Philam- 
mon — and you shall never hear of me again. And I will 
be a nun, and pray for him, that he may be a great king, 
and conquer all the world. You will tell him why I 
went away, will you not ? Yes, I will go, — now, at 
once " 

She turned away hurriedly, as if to act upon her promise, 
and then she sprang again to Wulf with a sudden shudder. 

" I cannot, Wulf ! — I cannot leave him ! I shall go 
mad if I do ! Do not be angry ; — I will promise any- 
thing — take any oath you hke, if you will only let me 
stay here. Only as a slave — as anything — ^if I may but 
look at him sometimes. No — not even that — ^but to be 
under the same roof with him, only — oh, let me be but 
a slave in the kitchen ! I will make over all I have to 
him — to you — to any one I And you shall tell him that 
I am gone, dead, if you will. Only let me stay I And I 
will wear rags and grind in the mill. . . . Even that will 
be delicious, to know that he is eating the bread which I 
have made ! And if I ever dare speak to him — even 
to come near him — let the steward hang me up by the 
wrists, and whip me, like the slave which I deserve to 
be ! . . . And then shall I soon grow old and ugly with 
grief, and there will be no more danger then, dear Wulf, 
will there, from this accursed face of mine ? Only promise 

me that, and There ! he is caUing you ! Don't let 

him come in and see me ! — I cannot bear it ! Go to him, 
quick, and tell him all. — No, don't tell him yet. . . ." 

14 b 


430 HYPATIA. 

And she sank down again on the floor, as Wtilf went 
out murmuring to himself, — 

" Poor child ! poor child ! well for thee this day if 
thou wert dead and at the bottom of Hela ! " 

And Pelagia heard what he said. 

Gradually, amid sobs and tears, and stormy confusion 
of impossible hopes and projects, those words took root 
in her mind, and spread, till they filled her whole heart 
and brain. 

" Well for me if I were dead ? " 

And she rose slowly. 

" Well for me if I were dead ? And why not ? Then 
it would indeed be all settled. There would be no more 
danger from poor little Pelagia then. ..." 

She went slowly, firmly, proudly into the well-known 
chamber. . . . She threw herself upon the bed, and 
covered the pillow with kisses. Her eye fell on the Amal's 
sword, which hung across the bed's-head, after the custom 
of Gothic warriors. She seized it, and took it down, 
shuddering. 

** Yes ! . . . Let it be with this, if it must be. And it 
must be. I cannot bear it ! Anything but shame ! To 
have fancied all my hfe — ^vain fool that I was ! — that 
every one loved and admired me, and to find that they 
were despising me, hating me, all along ! Those students 
at the lecture-room door told me I was despised. The old 
monk told me so. Fool that I was ! I forgot it next 
day ! For he — ^he loved me still ! — ^Ah — ^how could I 
believe them, till his own lips had said it ? . . . Intoler- 
able ! . . . And yet women as bad as I am have been 
honoured — ^when they were dead. What was that song 
which I used to sing about Epicharis, who hung herself 
in the litter, and Leaina, who bit out her tongue, lest the 
torture shoiild drive them to betray their lovers ? There 
used to be a statue of Leaina, they say, at Athens — 
a lioness without a tongue. . . . And whenever I sang 
the song, the theatre used to rise, and shout, and call 
them noble and blessed. ... I never could tell why 
then ; but I know now ! — I know now ! Perhaps they 
may call me noble, after all. At least, they may say, 


HYPATIA. 431 

* She was a — a — but she dare die for the man she loved ! ' 
. . . Ay, but God despises me too, and hates me. He 
will send me to eternal fire. Philammon said so — 
though he was my brother. The old monk said so — 
though he wept as he said it. . . . The flames of hell 
for ever ! Oh, not for ever ! Great, dreadful God ! 
Not for ever ! Indeed, I did not know ! No one taught 
nie about right and wrong, and I never knew that I had 
been baptized — ^indeed, 1 never knew! And it was so 
pleasant — so pleasant to be happy, and praised, and 
loved, and to see happy faces roimd me. How could I 
help it ? The birds there who are singing in the darling, 
beloved court, they do what they like, and Thou art not 
angry with them for being happy ! And Thou wilt not be 
more cruel to me than to them, great God ; for what did 
I know more than they ? Thou who hast made the beau- 
tiful sunshine, and the pleasant, pleasant world, and the 
flowers, and the birds — ^Thou wilt not send me to bum 
for ever and ever ? Will not a hundred years be punish- 
ment enough — or a thousand ? O God ! is not this pun- 
ishment enough already — to have to leave him, just as — 
just as I am beginning to long to be good, and to be 
worthy of him ? . . . O have mercy — mercy — mercy — 
and let me go after I have been punished enough ! 
Why may I not turn into a bird, or even a worm, and 
come back again out of that horrible place, to see the 
sun shine, and the flowers grow once more ? Oh, am I 
not punishing myself already ? Will not this help to 
atone ? . . . Yes, I will die ! — ^and perhaps so God may 
pity me ! " 

And with trembling hands she drew the sword from 
its sheath and covered the blade with kisses. 

" Yes — on this sword — ^with which he won his battles. 
That is right — ^his to the last ! How keen and cold it 
looks ! Will it be very painful ? . . . No — I will not 
try the point, or my heart might fail me. I will fall on 
it at once : let it hurt me as it may, it will be too late to 
draw back then. And after all it is his sword. It will 
not have the heart to torture me much. And yet he 
struck me himself this morning." 


432 HYPATIA. 

And at that thought a long, wild cry of misery broke 
from her hps and rang through the house. Hurriedly 
she fastened the sword upright to the foot of the bed, 
and tore open her timic. ..." Here — ^under this wid- 
owed bosom, where his head will never lie again ! There 
are footsteps in the passage ! Quick, Pelagia ! Now *' 

And she threw up her arms wildly, in act to fall. . . . 

" It is his step ! And he will find me, and never know 
that it is for him I die ! " 

The Amal tried the door. It was fast. With a single 
blow he burst it open, and demanded, — 

** What was that shriek ? What is the meaning of 
this ? Pelagia ! " 

Pelagia, like a child caught playing with a forbidden 
toy, hid her face in her hands and cowered down. 

** What is it ? '' cried he, hfting her. 

But she burst from his arms. 

*' No, no ! — ^never more ! I am not worthy of you ! 
Let me die, wretch that I am ! I can only drag you 
down. You must be a king. You must marry her — 
the wise woman ! " 

" Hypatia ! She is dead ! " 

*' Dead ? " shrieked Pelagia. 

" Murdered, an hour ago, by those Christian devils." 

Pelagia put her hands over her eyes, and burst into 
tears. Were they of pity or of joy ? . . . She did not 
ask herself, and we will not ask her. 

" Where is my sword ? Soul of Odin ! why is it fast- 
ened here ? " 

" I was going to — Do not be angry ! . . . They 
told me that I had better die, and " 

The Amal stood thunderstruck for a moment. 

" O do not strike me again ! Send me to the mill. 
Kill me now with your own hand ! Anything but an- 
other blow ! " 

" A blow ? — Noble woman ! " cried the Amal, clasping 
her in his arms. 

The storm was past ; and Pelagia had been nestling 
to that beloved heart, cooing like a happy dove, for many 
a minute before the Amal aroused himself and her. , , , 


HYPATIA. 433 

" Now ! — quick ! We have not a moment to lose. 
Up to the tower, where you will be safe ; and then to 
show these curs what comes of snarhng round the wild 
wolves' den ! " 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

NEMESIS. 

And was the Amal's news true, then ? 

Philammon saw Raphael rush across the street into 
the Museum gardens. His last words had been a com- 
mand to stay where he was, and the boy obeyed him. 
The black porter who let Raphael out told him somewhat 
insolently that his mistress would see no one and re- 
ceive no messages ; but he had made up his mind — com- 
plained of the sun, quietly ensconced himself behind a 
buttress, and sat coiled up on the pavement, ready for a 
desperate spring. The slave stared at him ; but he was 
accustomed to the vagaries of philosophers, and thank- 
ing the gods that he was not bom in that station of hfe, 
retired to his porter's cell, and forgot the whole matter. 

There Philammon waited a full half-hour. It seemed 
to him hours, days, years. And yet Raphael did not 
return, and yet no guards appeared. Was the strange 
Jew a traitor ? Impossible ! His face had shown a des- 
perate earnestness of terror as intense as Philammon's 
own. . . . Yet why did he not return ? 

Perhaps he had f oimd out that the streets were clear — 
their mutual fears groundless. . . . What meant that 
black knot of men some two hundred yards off, hanging 
about the mouth of the side street, just opposite the door 
which led to her lecture-room ? He moved to watch 
them : they had vanished. He lay down again and 
waited. . . . There they were again. It was a sus- 
picious post. That street ran along the back of the 
Caesareum, a favourite haunt of monks, communicating 
by innumerable entries and back buildings with the 
great church itself. . . . And yet, why should there not 
be a knot of monks there ? What more common 


434 HYPATIA. 

every street of Alexandria ? He tried to laugh away 
his own fears. And yet they ripened, by the very in- 
tensity of thinking on them, into certainty. He knew 
that something terrible was at hand. More than once 
he looked out from his hiding-place — the knot of men 
was still there ; ... it seemed to have increased, to 
draw nearer. If they found him, what would they not 
suspect ? What did he care ? He would die for her, 
if it came to that : not that it could come to that ; but 
still he must speak to her — ^he must warn her. Passenger 
after passenger, carriage after carriage passed along the 
street ; student after student entered the lecture-room : 
but he never saw them, not though they passed him 
close. The sun rose higher and higher, and turned his 
whole blaze upon the corner where Philammon crouched, 
till the pavement scorched like hot iron, and his eyes 
were dazzled by the bhnding glare : but he never heeded 
it. His whole heart, and sense, and sight were riveted 
upon that well-known door, expecting it to open. . . . 

At last a curricle, gUttering with silver, rattled round 
the comer and stopped opposite him. She must be 
coming now. The crowd had vanished. Perhaps it was, 
after all, a fancy of his own. No ; there they were, 
peeping round the corner, close to the lecture-room — 
the hell-hounds ! A slave brought out an embroidered 
cushion; and then Hypatia herself came forth, looking 
more glorious than ever, her hps set in a sad firm smile, 
her eyes uphfted, inquiring, eager, and yet gentle, dimmed 
by some great inward awe, as if her soul was far away 
aloft, and face to face with God. 

In a moment he sprang up to her, caught her robe con- 
vulsively, threw himself on his knees before her, — 

" Stop ! Stay ! You are going to destruction I *' 

Calmly she looked down upon him. 

" Accomplice of witches ! would you make of Theon's 
daughter a traitor hke yourself ? '* 

He sprang up, stepped back, and stood stupefied with 
shame and despair. . . . 

She believed him guilty, then ! . , , It was the will 
of God 1 


HYPATIA. 435 

The plumes of the horses were waving far down the 
street before he recovered himself and rushed after her, 
shouting he knew not what. 

It was too late ! A dark wave of men rushed from the 
ambuscade, surged up round the car . , . swept forward 
. . . she had disappeared ! And as Philammon fol- 
lowed breathless, the horses galloped past him madly 
homeward with the empty carriage. 

Whither were they dragging her ? To the Caesareum, 
the church of God Himself ? Impossible ! Why thither 
of all places on the earth ? Why did the mob, increasing 
momentarily by hundreds, pour down upon the beach, 
and return brandishing flints, shells, fragments of pot- 
tery ? 

She was upon the church steps before he caught them 
up, invisible among the crowd ; but he could track her 
by the fragments of her dress. 

Where were her gay pupils now ? Alas ! they had 
barricaded themselves shamefully in the Museum, at 
the first rush which swept her from the door of the lecture- 
room. Cowards ! he would save her ! 

And he struggled in vain to pierce the dense mass of 
Parabolani and monks, who, mingled with the fishwives 
and dock-workers, leaped and yelled around their victim. 
But what he could not do another and a weaker did — 
even the httle porter. Furiously — ^no one knew how or 
whence — he burst up as if from the ground in the thickest 
of the crowd, with knife, teeth, and nails, like a venomous 
wild-cat, tearing his way towards his idol. Alas ! he 
was torn down himself, rolled over the steps, and lay 
there half dead in an agony of weeping, as Philammon 
sprang up past him into the church. 

Yes. On into the church itself ! Into the cool dim 
shadow, with its fretted pillars, and lowering domes, and 
candles, and incense, and blazing altar, and great pictures 
looking from the walls athwart the gorgeous gloom ; and 
right in front, above the altar, the colossal Christ watch- 
ing unmoved from off the waU, His right hand raised to 
give a blessing — or a curse ? 

On, up the nave, fresh shreds of her dress strewing ^^-^ 


436 HYPATIA. 

holy pavement — up the chancel steps themselves — up 
to the altar — ^right underneath the great still Christ : 
and there even those hell-hounds paused. . . . 

She shook herself free from her tormentors, and spring- 
ing back rose for one moment to her full height, naked, 
snow-white against the dusky mass around — ^shame and 
indignation in those wide clear eyes, but not a stain of 
fear. With one hand she clasped her golden locks aroimd 
her ; the other long white arm was stretched upward to- 
ward the great still Christ, appealing — and who dare say 
in vain ? — from man to God. Her Hps were opened to 
speak ; but the words that should have come from them 
reached God's ear alone, for in an instant Peter struck 
her down, the dark mass closed over her again. . . and 
then wail on wail, long, wild, ear-piercing, rang along 
the vaulted roofs, and thrilled hke the trumpet of aveng- 
ing angels through Philammon's ears. 

Crushed against a pillar, unable to move in the dense 
mass, he pressed his hands over his ears. He could not 
shut out those shrieks ! When would they end ? What 
in the name of the God of mercy were they doing ? Tear- 
ing her piecemeal ? Yes ; and worse than that. And 
still the shrieks rang on, and still the great Christ looked 
down on Philammon with that calm, intolerable eye, and 
would not turn away. And over His head was written 
in the rainbow, " I am the same yesterday, to-day, and 
for ever ! " The same as He was in Judea of old, Phil- 
anmion ? Then what are these, and in whose temple ? 
And he covered his face with his hands, and longed to 
die. 

It was over. The shrieks had died away into moans ; 
the moans to silence. How long had he been there ? 
An hour, or an eternity ? Thank God it was over ! 
For her sake — but for theirs ? But they thought not 
of that as a new cry rose through the dome. 

" To the Cinaron ! Burn the bones to ashes ! Scatter 
them into the sea ! " . . . And the mob poured past 
him again. . . . 

He turned to flee, but once outside the church he sank 
exhausted, and lay upon the steps, watching with stupid 


HYPATIA. 437 

horror the glaring of the fire, and the mob, who leaped and 
yelled like demons round their Moloch sacrifice. 

A hand grasped his arm. He looked up ; it was the 
porter. 

" And this, young butcher, is the Catholic and apostoHc 
church ? '' 

'* No ! Eudaimon, it is the church of the devils of 
hell ! *' And gathering himself up, he sat upon the steps 
and buried his head within his hands. He would have 
given life itself for the power of weeping, but his eyes and 
brain were hot and dry as the desert. 

Eudaimon looked at him awhile. The shock had 
sobered the poor fop for once. 

" I did what I could to die with her I " said he. 

*' I did what I could to save her ! " answered Phil- 
ammon. 

** I know it. Forgive the words which I just spoke. 
Did we not both love her ? " 

And the Httle wretch sat down by Philammon's side, 
and as the blood dripped from his wounds upon the 
pavement, broke out into a bitter agony of human tears. 

There are times when the very intensity of our misery 
is a boon, and kindly stuns us till we are unable to torture 
ourselves by thought. And so it was with Philammon 
then. He sat there, he knew not how long. 

** She is with the gods," said Eudaimon at last. 

** She is with the God of gods,'* answered Philanmion ; 
and they both were silent again. 

Suddenly a commanding voice aroused them. They 
looked up, and saw before them Raphael Aben-Ezra. 

He was pale as death, but calm as death. One look 
into his face told them that he knew all. 

'* Young monk," he said, between his closed teeth, 
** you seem to have loved her ? " 

Philanmion looked up, but could not speak. 

"Then arise, and flee for your life into the farthest 
comer of the desert, ere the doom of Sodom and Gomorrha 
fall upon this accursed city. Have you father, mother, 
brother, sister — ay, cat, dog, or bird for which you care, 
within its walls ? " 


438 HYPATIA. 

Philammon started, for he recollected Pelagia. . . . 
That evening, so Cyril had promised, twenty trusty 
monks were to have gone with him to seize her. 

" You have ? Then take them with you, and escape, 
and remember Lot's wife. Eudaimon, come with me. 
You must lead me to your house, to the lodging of Miriam 
the Jewess. Do not deny ! I know that she is there. 
For the sake of her who is gone I will hold you harmless, 
ay, reward you richly, if you prove faithful. Rise ! " 

Eudaimon, who knew Raphael's face well, rose and 
led the way trembhng ; and Philammon was left alone. 

They never met again. But Philammon knew that he 
had been in the presence of a stronger man than himself, 
and of one who hated even more bitterly than he himself 
that deed at which the very sun, it seemed, ought to 
have veiled his face. And his words, " Arise, and flee 
for thy Hfe," uttered as they were with the stem self- 
command and writhing Up of compressed agony, rang 
through his ears like the trump of doom. Yes, he would 
flee. He had gone forth to see the world, and he had 
seen it. Arsenius was in the right after all. Home to 
the desert ! But first he would go himself, alone, to 
Pelagia, and implore her once more to flee with him. 
Beast, fool, that he had been to try to win her by force — 
by the help of such as these ! God's kingdom was not a 
kingdom of fanatics yelling for a doctrine, but of willing, 
loving, obedient hearts. If he could not win her heart, 
her will, he would go alone, and die praying for her. 

He sprang from the steps of the Caesareum, and turned 
up the street of the Museum. Alas I it was one roaring 
sea of heads. They were sacking Theon's house — the 
house of so many memories ! Perhaps the poof old man 
too had perished. Still — ^his sister ! He must save her 
and flee. And he turned up a side street and tried to 
make his way onward. 

Alas again ! the whole of the dock-quarter was up and 
out. Every street poured its tide of furious fanatics into 
the main river, and ere he could reach Pelagia's house 
the sun was set, and close behind him, echoed by ten 
thousand voices, was the cry of " Down with all heathens ! 


HYPATIA. 439 

Root out all Arian Goths ! Down with idolatrous wan- 
tons ! Down with Pelagia Aphrodite ! " 

He hurried down the alley, to the tower door, where 
Wulf had promised to meet him. It was half open, and 
in the dusk he could see a figure standing in the doorway. 
He sprang up the steps, and found, not Wulf, but Miriam. 

" Let me pass ! " 

" Wherefore ? " 

He made no answer, and tried to push past her. 

" Fool, fool, fool ! *' whispered the hag, holding the door 
against him with all her strength. "Where are your 
fellow-kidnappers ? Where are your band of monks ? " 

Philammon started back. How had she discovered 
his plan ? 

" Ay — where are they ? Besotted boy ! Have you 
not seen enough of monkery this afternoon, that you 
must try still to make that poor girl even such a one as 
yourselves ? Ay, you may root out your own human 
natures if you will, and make yourselves devils in trying 
to become angels; but woman she is, and woman she shafl 
live or die ! " 

" Let me pass ! " cried Philammon furiously. 

*' Raise your voice, and I raise mine, and then your 
life is not worth a moment's purchase. Fool, do you 
think I speak as a Jewess ? I speak as a woman — as a 
nun ! I was a nun once, madman — the iron entered into 
my soul ! God do so to me, and more also, if it ever enter 
into another soul while I can prevent it 1 You shall not 
have her ! I will strangle her with my own hand first ! " 
And turning from him, she darted up the winding stair. 

He followed ; but the intense passion of the old hag 
hurled her onward with the strengtii and speed of a young 
Maenad, Once Philammon was near passing her; but 
he recollected that he did not know his way, and con- 
tented himself with keeping close behind, and making 
the fugitive his guide. 

Stair after stair she fled upward, till she turned sud- 
denly into a chamber door. Philammon paused. A few 
feet above him the open sky showed at the stair-head. 
They were close then to the roof. One moment more. 


440 HYPATIA. 

and the hag darted out of the room again, and turned to 
flee upward still. Philammon caught her by the arm, 
hurled her back into the empty chamber, shut the door 
"upon her, and with a few bounds gained the roof, and 
met Pelagia face to face. 

" Come ! '* gasped he breathlessly. " Now is the mo- 
ment ! Come, while they are all below ! " and he seized 
her hand. 

But Pelagia only recoiled. 

" No, no,'' whispered she in answer, " I cannot, cannot 
— ^he has forgiven me all, all 1 and I am his for ever ! 
And now, just as he is in danger, when he may be wounded 
— ah, heaven ! would you have me do anything so base 
as to desert him ? " 

" Pelagia, Pelagia, darling sister ! " cried Philammon, 
in an agonized voice, " think of the doom of sin ! Think 
of the pains of hell ! " 

*' I have thought of them this day, and I do not beUeve 
you. No — I do not ! God is not so cruel as you say. 
And if He were — to lose my love, that is hell 1 Let me 
burn hereafter, if I do but keep him now ! " 

Philammon stood stupefied and shuddering. All his 
own early doubts flashed across him Hke a thunderbolt, 
when in the temple-cave he had seen those painted ladies 
at tlieir revels, and shuddered, and asked himself, were 
they burning for ever and ever ? 

*' Come ! " gasped he once again, and throwing him- 
self on his knees before her, covered her hands with kisses, 
wildly entreating ; but in vain. 

" What is this ? " thundered a voice, not Miriam's, 
but the Amal's. He was unarmed, but he rushed straight 
upon Philammon. 

" Do not harm him ! " shrieked Pelagia ; " he is my 
brother — my brother of whom I told you ! *' 

" What does he here ? " cried the Amal, who instantly 
divined the truth. 

Pelagia was silent. 

" I wish to deliver my sister, a Christian, from the sinful 
embraces of an Arian heretic ; and dehver her I will, or 
die!" 


HYPATIA. 441 

" An Arian ? " laughed the Amal. " Say a heathen 
at once, and tell the truth, young fool ! Will you go 
with him, Pelagia, and turn nun in the sand-heaps ? " 

Pelagia sprang towards her lover. Philammon caught 
her by the arm for one last despairing appeal ; and in a 
moment, neither knew how, the Goth and the Greek 
were locked in deadly struggle, while Pelagia stood in 
silent horror, knowing that a call for help would bring 
instant death to her brother. 

It was over in a few seconds. The Goth Hfted Phil- 
ammon Hke a baby in his arms, and bearing him to the 
parapet, attempted to hurl him into the canal below. 
But the active Greek had wound himself like a snake 
around him, and held him by the throat with the strength 
of despair. Twice they rolled and tottered on the para- 
pet, and twice recoiled. A third fearful lunge — the earthen 
wall gave way, and down to the dark depths, locked in 
each other's arms, fell Goth and Greek. 

Pelagia rushed to the brink, and gazed downward into 
the gloom, dumb and dry-eyed with horror. Twice they 
turned over together in mid-air. . . . The foot of the 
tower, as was usual in Egypt, sloped outwards towards 
the water. They must strike upon that — and then ! 
... It seemed an eternity ere they touched the masonry. 
. . . The Amal was imdermost. . . . She saw his fair 
floating locks dash against the cruel stone. His grasp 
suddenly loosened, his hmbs collapsed ; two distinct 
plunges broke the dark, sullen water ; and then all was 
still but the awakened ripple, lapping angrily against 
the wall. 

Pelagia gazed down one moment more, and then, with 
a shriek which rang along roof and river, she turned, and 
fled down the stairs and out into the night. 

Five minutes afterwards, Philammon, dripping, bruised, 
and bleeding, was crawling up the water-steps at the 
lower end of the lane. A woman rushed from the pos- 
tern door, and stood on the quay edge, gazing with clasped 
hands into the canal. The moon fell full on her face. It 
was Pelagia. She saw him, knew him, and recoiled. 

" Sister ! — my sister ! Forgive me ! " 


442 HYPATIA. 

" Murderer ! " she shrieked, and dashing aside his out- 
spread hands, fled wildly up the passage. 

The way was blocked with bales of merchandise ; but 
the dancer bounded over them hke a deer, while Phil- 
ammon, half stunned by his fall, and blinded by his 
dripping locks, stumbled, fell, and lay, unable to rise. 
She held on for a few yards towards the torch-Ht mob, 
which was surging and roaring in the main street above, 
then turned suddenly into a side alley, and vanished; 
while Philammon lay groaning upon the pavement, 
without a purpose or a hope upon earth. 

Five minutes more, and Wulf was gazing over the broken 
parapet, at the head of twenty terrified spectators, male 
and female, whom Pelagia's shriek had summoned. 

He alone suspected that Philammon had been there, 
and shuddering at the thought of what might have 
happened, he kept his secret. 

But all knew that Pelagia had been on the tower; 
all had seen the Amal go up thither. Where were they 
now ? And why was the Httle postern gate found open, 
and shut only just in time to prevent the entrance of 
the mob ? 

Wulf stood, revolving in a brain but too well practised 
in such cases all possible contingencies of death and 
horror. At last — 

** A rope and a hght, Smid ! " he almost whispered. 

They were brought, and Wulf, resisting all the en- 
treaties of the younger men to allow them to go on the 
perilous search, lowered himself through the breach. 

He was about two-thirds down, when he shook the 
rope, and called in a stifled voice to those above, — 

" Haul up. I have seen enough." 

Breathless with curiosity and fear, they hauled him 
up. He stood among them for a few moments, silent, 
as if stunned by the weight of some enormous woe. 

" Is he dead ? " 

'* Odin has taken his son home, wolves of the Goths ! " 
And he held out his right hand to the awestruck ring, 
and burst into an agony of weeping, ... A clotted 
txess of long fair hair lay in his palm. 


HYPATIA. 443 

It was snatched — handed from man to man. . . . 
One after another recognized the beloved golden locks. 
And then, to the utter astonishment of the girls who 
stood round, the great simple hearts, too brave to be 
ashamed of tears, broke out and wailed like children. . . » 
Their Amal ! Their heavenly man ! Odin's own son, 
their joy, and pride, and glory ! Their " Kingdom of 
heaven,'* as his name declared him, who was all that 
each wished to be, and more, and yet belonged to them, 
bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh ! Ah, it is bitter 
to all true human hearts to be robbed of their ideal, even 
though that ideal be that of a mere wild bull and soulless 
gladiator. . . . 

At last Smid spoke, — 

" Heroes, this is Odin's doom ; and the All-father is 
just. Had we listened to Prince Wulf four months ago, 
this had never been. We have been cowards and slug- 
gards, and Odin is angry with his children. Let us 
swear to be Prince Wulf s men, and follow him to-morrow 
where he will ! " 

Wulf grasped his outstretched hand lovingly. 

** No, Smid, son of Troll ! These words are not yours 
to speak. Agilmund son of Cniva, Goderic son of 
Ermenric, you are Baits, and to you the succession 
appertains. Draw lots here which of you shall be our 
chieftain." 

*' No ! no ! Wulf ! " cried both the youths at once. 
" You are the hero ! you are the Sagaman ! We are 
not worthy ; we have been cowards and sluggards, like 
the rest. Wolves of the Goths, follow the Wolf, even 
though he lead you to the land of the giants ! " 

A roar of applause followed. 

" Lift him on the shield," cried Goderic, tearing off 
his buckler. "Lift him on the shield! Hail, Wulf 
king ! Wulf, king of Egypt ! " 

And the rest of the Goths, attracted by the noise, 
rushed up the tower-stairs in time to join in the mighty 
shout of " Wulf, king of Egypt ! " — as careless of the 
vast multitude which yelled and surged without as boys 
are of the snow against the window-pane. 


444 HYPATIA. 

*' No ! " said Wulf solemnly, as he stood on the up- 
lifted shield. "If I be indeed your king, and ye my 
men, wolves of the Goths, to-morrow we will go forth 
of this place, hated of Odin, rank with the innocent 
blood of the Alruna maid. Back to Adolf ; back to our 
own people ! Will you go ? '* 

'* Back to Adolf ! " shouted the men. 

" You will not leave us to be murdered ? " cried one 
of the girls. *' The mob are breaking the gates already ! " 

*' Silence, silly one ! Men — ^we have one thing to do. 
The Amal must not go to the Valhalla without fair 
attendance." 

" Not the poor girls ? " said Agilmund, who took for 
granted that Wulf would wish to celebrate the Amal's 
funeral in true Gothic fashion by a slaughter of slaves. 

" No. . . . One of them I saw behave this very after- 
noon worthy of a Vala. And they, too — they may make 
heroes' wives after all yet. . . . Women are better than 
I fancied, even the worst of them. No. Go down, 
heroes, and throw the gates open ; and call in the Greek 
hounds to the funeral supper of a son of Odin." 

*' Throw the gates open ? " 

" Yes. Goderic, take a dozen men, and be ready in 
the east hall — ^Agilmund, go with a dozen to the west 
side of the court — there in the kitchen ; and wait till 
you hear my war-cry. — Smid and the rest of you, come 
with me through the stables close to the gate — as silent 
as Hela." 

And they went down — to meet, full on the stairs 
below, old Miriam. 

Breathless and exhausted by her exertion, she had 
fallen heavily before Philammon's strong arm ; and lying 
half stunned for a while, recovered just in time to meet 
her doom. 

She knew that it was come, and faced it like herself. 

"Take the witch!" said Wulf slowly— " take the 
corrupter of heroes — the cause of all our sorrows ! " 

Miriam looked at him with a quiet smile. 

" The witch is accustomed long ago to hear fools lay 
on her the consequences of their own lust and laziness." 


HYPATIA. 445 

" Hew her down, Smid, son of Troll, that she may pass 
the Amal's soul and gladden it on her way to Nifiheim." 

Smid did it ; but so terrible were the eyes which glared 
upon him from those sunken sockets, that his sight was 
dazzled. The axe turned aside, and struck her shoulder. 
She reeled, but did not fall. 

** It is enough,*' she said quietly. 

" The accursed Grendel's daughter numbed my arm ! " 
said Smid. " Let her go ! No man shall say that I 
struck a woman twice." 

" Nidhogg waits for her, soon or late," answered Wulf. 

And Miriam, coolly folding her shawl around her, 
turned and walked steadily down the stair ; while all 
men breathed more freely, as if delivered from some 
accursed and supernatural spell. 

'' And now," said Wulf, ** to your posts, and venge- 
ance ! " 

The mob had weltered and howled ineffectually 
around the house for some half-hour. But the lofty 
walls, opening on the street only by a few narrow windows 
in the higher stories, rendered it an impregnable fortress. 
Suddenly, the iron gates were drawn back, disclosing to 
the front rank the court, glaring empty and silent and 
ghastly in the moonlight. For an instant they recoiled, 
with a vague horror and dread of treachery ; but the 
mass behind pressed them onward, and in swept the 
murderers of Hypatia, till the court was full of choking 
wretches, surging against the walls and pillars in aimless 
fury. And then, from imder the archway on each side, 
rushed a body of tall armed men, driving back all in- 
comers more ; the gates slid together again upon their 
grooves, and the wild beasts of Alexandria were trapped 
at last. 

And then began a murder -grim and great. From 
three different doors issued a line of Goths, whose helmets 
and mail-shirts made them invulnerable to the clumsy 
weapons of the mob, and began hewing their way right 
through the living mass, helpless from their close-packed 
array. True, they were but as one to ten ; but what are 
ten curs before one lion ? . . . And the moon rose high**" 


446 HYPATIA. 

and higher, staring down ghastly and unmoved upon that 
doomed court of the furies, and still the bills and swords 
hewed on and on, and the Goths drew the corpses, as 
they found room, towards a dark pile in the midst, 
where old Wulf sat upon a heap of slain, singing the 
praises of the Amal and the glories of Valhalla, while 
the shrieks of his lute rose shrill above the shrieks of 
the flying and the wounded, and its wild waltz- time 
danced and rollicked on swifter and swifter as the old 
singer maddened, in awful mockery of the terror and 
agony around. 

And so, by men and purposes which recked not of her, 
as is the wont of Providence, was the blood of Hypatia 
avenged in part that night. 

In part only. For Peter the reader, and his especial 
associates, were safe in sanctuary at the Csesareum, 
chnging to the altar. Terrified at the storm which they 
had raised, and fearing the consequences of an attack 
upon the palace, they had left the mob to run riot at its 
will, and escaped the swords of the Goths to be reserved 
for the more awful punishment of impunity. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

EVERY MAN TO HIS OWN PLACE. 

It was near midnight. Raphael had been sitting some 
three hours in Miriam's inner chamber, waiting in vain 
for her return. To recover, if possible, his ancestral 
wealth; to convey it, without a day's delay, to Cyrene; 
and, if possible, to persuade the poor old Jewess to ac- 
company him, and there to soothe, to guide, perhaps to 
convert her, was his next purpose : at all events, with 
or without his wealth, to flee from that accursed city. 
And he counted impatiently the slow hours and minutes 
which detained him in an atmosphere which seemed 
reeking with innocent blood, black with the lowering 
curse of an avenging God. More than once, unable to 
bear the thought, he rose to depart, and leave his wealth 


HYPATIA. 447 

behind ; but he was checked again by the thought of his 
own past hfe. How had he added his own sin to the 
great heap of Alexandrian wickedness ! How had he 
tempted others, pampered others in evil ! Good God ! 
how had he not only done evil with all his might, but had 
had pleasure in those who did the same ! And now, now 
he was reaping the fruit of his own devices. For years 
past, merely to please his lust of power, his misanthropic 
scorn, he had been making that wicked Orestes wickeder 
than he was even by his own base will and nature ; and 
his puppet had avenged itself upon him ! He, he had 
prompted him to ask Hypatia's hand. ... He had laid, 
half in sport, half in envy of her excellence, that foul 
plot against the only human being whom he loved . . . 
and he had destroyed her ! He, and not Peter, was the 
murderer of Hypatia ! True, he had never meant her 
death. ... No ; but had he not meant for her worse 
than death ? He had never foreseen. . . . No ; but only 
because he did not choose to foresee. He had chosen 
to be a god ; to kill and to make alive by his own will 
and law : and behold, he had become a devil by that 
very act. Who can — and who dare, even if he could — 
withdraw the sacred veil from those bitter agonies of 
inward shame and self-reproach, made all the more in- 
tense by his clear and undoubting knowledge that he 
was forgiven ? What dread of punishment, what blank 
despair, could have pierced that great heart so deeply 
as did the thought that the God whom he had hated and 
defied had returned him good for evil, and rewarded him 
not according to his iniquities ? That discovery, as 
Ezekiel of old had warned his forefathers, filled up the 
cup of his self-loathing. ... To have found at last the 
hated and dreaded name of God : and found that it 
was Love ! ... To possess Victoria, a hving, human 
likeness, however imperfect, of that God ; and to possess 
in her a home, a duty, a purpose, a fresh clear life of 
righteous labour, perhaps of final victory. . . . That 
was hi§ punishment ; that was the brand of Cain upon 
his forehead : and he felt it greater than he could bear. 
But at least there was one thing to be done. Where 


448 HYPATIA. 

he had sinned, there he must make amends ; not as a 
propitiation, not even as a restitution ; but simply as a 
confession of the truth which he had found. And as his 
purpose shaped itself, he longed and prayed that Miriam 
might return, and make it possible. 

And Miriam did return. He heard her pass slowly 
through the outer room, learn from the girls who was 
within, order them out of the apartments, close the outer 
door upon them ; at last she entered, and said quietly,— 

*' Welcome ! I have expected you. You could not 
surprise old Miriam. The teraph told me last night that 
you would be here. . . .*' 

Did she see the smile of incredulity upon Raphael's 
face, or was it some sudden pang of conscience which 
made her cry out, — 

"... No! I did not! I never expected you! I am 
a liar, a miserable old liar, who cannot speak the truth 
even if I try ! Only look kind ! Smile at me, Raphael ! 
— Raphael come back at last to his poor, miserable, 
villainous old mother ! Smile on me but once, my beauti- 
ful, my son ! my son ! '* 

And springing to him, she clasped him in her arms. 

" Your son ? " 

" Yes, my son ! Safe at last ! Mine at last ! I can 
prove it now ! The son of my womb, though not the 
son of my vows ! " And she laughed hysterically. " My 
child, my heir, for whom I have toiled and hoarded for 
three-and-thirty years ! Quick ! here are my keys. In 
that cabinet are all my papers — all I have is yours. 
Your jewels are safe — ^buried with mine. The negro 
woman, Eudaimon's wife, knows where. I made her 
swear secrecy upon her Httle wooden idol, and. Christian 
as she is, she has been honest. Make her rich for hfe. 
She hid your poor old mother, and kept her safe to see 
her boy come home. But give nothing to her little 
husband ; he is a bad fellow, and beats her. — Go, quick ! 
take your riches, and away ! . . . No ; stay one moment 
— ^just one Httle moment — that the poor old wretch may 
feast her eyes with the sight of her darling once more 
before she dies ! " 


HYPATIA. 449 

" Before you die ? Your son ? God of my fathers, 
what is the meaning of all this, Miriam ? This morning 
I was the son of Ezra the merchant of Antioch ! " 

'* His son and heir, his son and heir ! He knew all at 
last. We told him on his death-bed ! I swear that we 
told him, and he adopted you ! " 

*'We! Who?" 

" His wife and I. He craved for a child, the old miser, 
and we gave him one — a better one than ever came of his 
family. But he loved you, accepted you, though he did 
know all. He was afraid of being laughed at after he 
was dead — ^afraid of having it known that he was child- 
less, the old dotard ! No ; he was right — true Jew in 
that, after all ! " 

" Who was my father, then ? " interrupted Raphael, 
in utter bewilderment. 

The old woman laughed a laugh so long and wild that 
Raphael shuddered. 

*' Sit down at your mother's feet. Sit down . . . just 
to please the poor old thing ! Even if you do not believe 
her, just play at being her child, her darling, for a minute 
before she dies ; and she will tell you all . . . perhaps 
there is time yet ! " 

And he sat down. ..." What if this incarnation of 
all wickedness were really my mother ? . . . And yet — 
why should I shrink thus proudly from the notion ? Am 
I so pure myself as to deserve a purer source ? " . . , 
And the old woman laid her hand fondly on his head, 
and her skinny fingers played with his soft locks, as she 
spoke hurriedly and thick. 

" Of the house of Jesse, of the seed of Solomon ; not 
a rabbi from Babylon to Rome dare deny that ! A 
king's daughter I am, and a king's heart I had, and 
have, hke Solomon's own, my son ! . . . A kingly 
heart. ... It made me dread and scorn to be a slave, 
a plaything, a soulless doll, such as Jewish women are 
condemned to be by their tyrants, the men. I craved 
for wisdom, renown, power — power — power ! and my 
nation refused them to me ; because, forsooth, I was a 
woman ! So I left them. I went to the Christian 


4SO HYPATIA, 

priests. . . . They gave me what I asked. . , . They 
gave me more. . . . They pampered my woman's 
vanity, my pride, my self-will, my scorn of wedded 
bondage, and bade me be a saint, the judge of angels 
and archangels, the bride of God ! Liars ! liars ! And 
so — ^if you laugh, you kill me, Raphael — ^and so Miriam, 
the daughter of Jonathan — Miriam, of the house of 
David — Miriam, the descendant of Ruth and Rachab, 
of Rachel and Sara, became a Christian mm, and shut 
herself up to see visions and dream dreams, and fattened 
her own mad self-conceit upon the impious fancy that 
she was the spouse of the Nazarene, Joshua Bar-Joseph, 

whom she called Jehovah Ishi Silence ! If you stop 

me a moment, it may be too late. I hear them calling 
me already ; and I made them promise not to take me 
before I had told all to my son — the son of my shame ! " 

" Who calls you ? " asked Raphael ; but after one 
strong shudder she ran on, unheeding, — 

" But they lied, Hed, lied ! I found them out that 
day. ... Do not look up at me, and I will tell you all. 
There was a riot — a fight between the Christian devils 
and the heathen devils — and the convent was sacked, 
Raphael, my son — sacked ! . . . Then I found out 
their blasphemy. . . . O God ! I shrieked to Him, 
Raphael ! I called on Him to rend His heavens and 
come down — to pour out His thimderbolts upon them — 
to cleave the earth and devour them — to save the 
wretched, helpless girl who adored Him — ^who had given 
up father, mother, kinsfolk, wealth, the Hght of heaven, 
womanhood itself, for Him — ^who worshipped, meditated 
over Him, dreamed of Him night and day. . . . And, 
Raphael, He did not hear me ... He did not hear 
me ! . . . did not hear me ! . . . And then I knew it all 
for a He ! a he ! " 

" And you knew it for what it is ! " cried Raphael 
through his sobs, as he thought of Victoria, and felt 
every vein burning with righteous wrath. 

— *' There was no mistaking that test, was there ? . . . 
For nine months I was mad. And then your voice, my 
baby, my joy, my pride — that brought me to myself 


HYPATIA. 451 

once more ! And I shook off the dust of my feet against 
those GaHlaean priests, and went back to my own nation, 
where God had set me from the beginning. I made them 
— ^the rabbis, my father, my Ian — I made them all 
receive me. They could not stand before my eye. I 
can make people do what I will, Raphael ! I could — 
I could make you emperor now, if I had but time left. 
I went back. I palmed you off on Ezra as his son, I and 
his wife, and made him beheve that you had been bom 
to him while he was in Byzantium. . . . And then — 
to hve for you ! And I did Uve for you. For you I 
travelled from India to Britain, seeking wealth. For 
you I toiled, hoarded, Ued, intrigued, won money by 
every means, no matter how base — ^for was it not for 
. you ? And I have conquered ! You are the richest 
Jew south of the Mediterranean — you, my son ! And 
you deserve your wealth. You have your mother's 
soul in you, my boy ! I watched you, gloried in you — 
in your cunning, your daring, your learning, your con- 
tempt for these Gentile hounds. You felt the royal 
blood of Solomon within you ! You felt that you were 
a young lion of Judah, and they the jackals who followed 
to feed upon your leavings ! And now, now ! Your 
only danger is past ! The cunning woman is gone — 
the sorceress who tried to take my yoimg lion in her 
pitfall, and has fallen into the midst of it herself ; and 
he is safe, and returned to take the nations for a prey, 
and grind their bones to powder, as it is written, ' He 
couched like a Hon, he lay down like a honess's whelp, 
and who dare rouse him up ? ' " 

" Stop ! " said Raphael, " I must speak I Mother ! 
I must ! As you love me, as you expect me to love you, 
answer ! Had you a hand in her death ? Speak ! " 

" Did I not tell you that I was no more a Christian ? 
Had I remained one — who can tell what I might not have 
done ? All I, the Jewess, dared do was — Fool that I am ! 
I have forgotten aJl this time the proof — the proof " 

" I need no proof, mother. Your words are enough," 
said Raphael, as he clasped her hand between his own 
and pressed it to his burning forehead. But the old 

15 


454 HYPATIA. 

manner, which bespoke, as he well knew, reproof more 
severe than all open upbraidings. So looking down, 
not without something like a blush, he ran his eye hastily 
over the paper, and then said, in his blandest tone, — 

" My brother will forgive me for remarking that, while 
I acknowledge his perfect right to dispose of his charities 
as he will, it is somewhat startling to me, as Metropolitan 
of Egypt, to find not only the Abbot Isidore of Pelusium, 
but tiie secular Defender of the Plebs, a civil ofl&cer, 
implicated, too, in the late conspiracy, associated with 
me as co-trustees." 

" I have taken the advice of more than one Christian 
bishop on the matter. I acknowledge your authority 
by my presence here. If the Scriptures say rightly, the 
civil magistrates are as much God's ministers as you, 
and I am therefore bound to acknowledge their authority 
alsOi I should have preferred associating the prefect 
with you in the trust ; but as your dissensions with the 
present occupant of that post might have crippled my 
scheme, I have named the Defender of the Plebs, and 
have already put into his hands a copy of this docinnent. 
Another copy has been sent to Isidore, who is empowered 
to receive all moneys from my Jewish bankers in Pel- 
usium." 

** You doubt, then, either my ability or my honesty ? " 
said Cjnil, who was becoming somewhat nettled. 

" If your holiness dislikes my offer, it is easy to omit 
your name in the deed. One word more. If you deliver 
up to justice the murderers of my friend Hypatia, I 
double my bequest on the spot." 

Cyril burst out instantly, — 

'* Thy money perish with thee ! Do you presume 'to 
bribe me into delivering up my children to the tyrant ? " 

" I offer to give you the means of showing more mercy, 
provided that you will first do simple justice." 

" Justice ? " cried Cjril. " Justice ? If it be just 
that Peter should die, sir, see first whether it was not 
just that Hypatia should die. Not that I compassed 
it. As I live, I would have given my own right hand 
that this had not happened ! But now that it is done^ 


HYPATIA. 455 

let those who talk of justice look first in which scale of 
the balance it hes I Do you fancy, sir, that the people 
do not know their enemies from their friends ? Do you 
fancy that they are to sit with folded hands, while a 
pedant makes common cause with a profligate, to drag 
them back again into the very black gulf of outer dark- 
ness, ignorance, brutal lust, grinding slavery, from which 
the Son of God died to free them, from which they are 
painfully and slowly struggling upward to the light of 
day ? You, sir, if you be a Christian catechmnen, should 
know for yourself what would have been the fate of 
Alexandria had the devil's plot of two days since suc- 
ceeded. What if the people struck too fiercely ? They 
struck in the right place. What if they have given the 
reins to passions fit only for heathens ? Recollect the 
centuries of heathendom which bred those passions in 
them, and blame not my teaching, but the teaching of 
their forefathers. That very Peter. . . . What if he 
have for once given place to the devil, and avenged where 
he should have forgiven ? Has he no memories which 
may excuse him for fancying, in a just paroxysm of 
dread, that idolatry and falsehood must be crushed at 
any risk ? — ^He who coimts back for now three hundred 
years, in persecution after persecution, martyrs, sir ! 
martyrs — ^if you know what that word implies^-of his 
own blood and kin ; who, when he was but a seven years' 
boy, saw his own father made a sightless cripple to this 
day, and his elder sister, a consecrated nun, devoured 
alive by swine in the open streets, at the hands of those 
who supported the very philosophy, the very godSji 
which Hypatia attempted yesterday to restore. God 
shall judge such a man ; not I, nor you ! " 

'* Let God judge him, then, by delivering him to God's 
minister." 

" God's minister ? That heathen and apostate prefect ? 
When he has expiated his apostasy by penance, and 
returned publicly to the bosom of the Church, it will be 
time enough to obey him ; till then he is the minister 
of none but the devil. And no ecclesiastic shall suffer 
at the tribunal of an infidel. Holy Writ forbids us to go 

15^ 


4S6 HYPATI.V. 

to law before the unjust. Let the world say of me what 
it will ; I defy it and its rulers. I have to establish the 
kingdom of God in this city, and do it I will, knowing 
that other foundation can no man lay than that which 
is laid, which is Christ." 

" Wherefore you proceed to lay it afresh. A curious 
method of proving that it is laid already." 

" What do you mean ? " asked Cyril angrily. 

" Simply that God's kingdom, if it exist at all, must 
be a sort of kingdom, considering who is The King of it, 
which would have estabhshed itself without your help 
some time since ; probably, indeed, if the scriptures of 
my Jewish forefathers are to be beheved, before the 
foundation of the worid ; and that your business was 
to believe that God was King of Alexandria, and had 
put the Roman law there to crucify all murderers, ecclesi- 
astics included, and that crucified they must be accord- 
ingly, as high as Haman himself." 

'* I will hear no more of this, sir ! I am responsible to 
God alone, and not to you. Let it be enough that by 
virtue of the authority committed to me, I shall cut off 
these men from the Church of God, by solemn excom- 
munication, for three years to come." 

" They are not cut off, then, it seems, as yet ? " 

** I tell you, sir, that I shall cut them off 1 Do you come 
here to doubt my word ? " 

" Not in the least, most august sir. But I should 
have fancied that, according to my carnal notions of God's 
Kingdom and The Church, they had cut off themselves 
most effectually already, from the moment when they 
cast away the Spirit of God, and took to themselves the 
spirit of murder and cruelty, and that all which your 
most just and laudable excommimication could effect 
would be to inform the public of that fact. However, 
farewell ! My money shall be forthcoming in due time, 
and that is the most important matter between us at 
this moment. As for your client Peter and his fellows, 
perhaps the most fearful punishment which can befall 
them is to go on as they have begun. I only hope that 
you will not follow in the same direction." 


HYPATIA. 457 

" I ? '' cried Cyril, trembling with rage. 

'* Really I wish your holiness well when 1 say so. If 
my notions seem to you somewhat secular, yours — for- 
give me — ^seem to me somewhat atheistic ; and I advise 
you honestly to take care lest while you are busy trying 
to estabhsh God's kingdom, you forget what it is like, 
by shutting your eyes to those of its laws which are 
estabhshed ateady. I have no doubt that with youi 
holiness^s great powers you will succeed in estabhshing 
something. My only dread is, that when it is estab- 
lished, you should discover to your horror that it is the 
devil's kingdom and not God's." 

And without waiting for an answer Raphael bowed 
himself out of the august presence, and saihng for Bere- 
nice that very day, with Eudaimon and his negro wife, 
went to his own place, there to labour and to succour, 
a sad and stem, and yet a loving and a much-loved man, 
for many a year to come. 

And now we will leave Alexandria also, and taking a 
forward leap of some twenty years, see how all other 
persons mentioned in this history went, Ukewise, each 
to his own place. 

« « « « « 

A Httle more than twenty years after, the wisest and 
holiest man in the East was writing of Cyril, just de- 
ceased : — 

*' His death made those who survived him J05^ul, 
but it grieved most probably the dead ; and there is 
cause to fear, lest, finding his presence too troublesome, 
they should send him back to us. . : . May it come to 
pass, by your prayers, that he may obtain mercy and 
forgiveness, that the immeasurable grace of God may 
prevail over his wickedness ! . ; ." 

So wrote Theodoret in days when men had not yet 
intercalated into Holy Writ that line of an obscure 
modem hjonn, which proclaims to man the good news 
that '* There is no repentance in the grave." Let that 
be as it may, Cjnil has gone to his own place. What 
that place is in history is but too well known ; what it 
is in the sight of Him unto whom all live for ever, is n'" 


458 HYPATIA. 

concern of ours. May He whose mercy is over all His 
works have mercy upon all, whether orthodox or un- 
orthodox, Papist or l4otestant, who, like €5^:11, begin by 
lying for the cause of truth, and setting off upon that 
evil road, arrive surely, with the scribes and Pharisees of 
old, sooner or later at their own place ! 

True, he and his monks had conquered ; but Hypatia 
did not die unavenged. In the hour of that unrighteous 
victory, the Church of Alexandria received a deadly 
wound. It had admitted and sanctioned those habits 
of doing evil that good may come, of pious intrigue, and 
at last of open persecution, which are certain to creep in 
wheresoever men attempt to set up a merely religious 
empire, independent of human relationships and civil 
laws; to "establish," in short, a "theocracy," and by 
that very act confess their secret disbelief that God is 
ruling already. And the Egj^tian Church grew, year by 
year, more lawless and inhuman. Freed from enemies 
without, and from the union which fear compels, it 
turned its ferocity inward, to prey on its own vitals, and 
to tear itself in pieces by a voluntary suicide, with mutual 
anathemas and exclusions, till it ended as a mere chaos 
of idolatrous sects, persecuting each other for meta- 
physical propositions, which, true or false, were equally 
heretical in their mouths, because they used them only 
as watchwords of division. Orthodox or unorthodox, 
they knew not God, for they knew neither righteousness, 
nor love, nor peace. . . . They " hated their brethren, 
and walked on still in darkness, not knowing whither 
they were going "... till Amrou and his Mohamme- 
dans appeared ; and whether they discovered the fact or 
not, they went to their own place. . . . 

'* Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding 
small ; 
Though He stands and waits with patience, with exactness grinds He 

And so found, in due time, the philosophers as well as 
the ecclesiastics of Alexandria. 

Twenty years after Hypatia's death, philosophy was 
flickering down to the very socket. Hypatia's murder 


HYPATIA. 459 

was its deathblow. In language tremendous and un- 
mistakable, philosophers had been informed that man- 
kind had done with them ; that they had been weighed 
in the balances, and found wanting ; that if they had no 
better gospel than that to preach, they must make way 
for those who had. And they did make way. We hear 
little or nothing of them or their wisdom henceforth, 
except at Athens, where Produs, Marinus, Isidore, and 
others kept up '* the golden chain of the Platonic suc- 
cession," and descended deeper and deeper, one after 
the other, into the realms of confusion — confusion of 
the material with the spiritual, of the subject with the 
object, the moral with the intellectual ; self-consistent 
in one thing only — ^namely, in their exclusive Pharisaism ; 
utterly unable to proclaim any good news for man as 
man, or even to conceive of the possibility of such, and 
gradually looking with more and more complacency on 
all superstitions which did not involve that one idea, 
which alone they hated — ^namely, the Incarnation ; crav- 
ing after signs and wonders, dabbling in magic, astrology, 
and barbarian fetishisms ; bemoaning the fallen age, and 
barking querulously at every form of human thought 
except their own ; writing pompous biographies, full of 
bad Greek, worse taste, and still worse miracles. . . . 

" That last drear mood 
Of envious sloth, and proud decrepitude ; 
No faith, no art, no king, no priest, no God ; 
While round the freezing founts of life in snarling ring, 
Crouch'd on the bareworn sod. 
Babbling about the unretuming spring, 
And whining for dead gods, who cannot save, 
The toothless systems shiver to their grave." 

The last scene of their tragedy was not without a touch 
of pathos. ... In the year 529 Justinian finally closed, 
by imperial edict, the schools of Athens. They had 
nothing more to tell the world, but what the world had 
yawned over a thousand times before : why should they 
break the blessed silence by any more such noises? 
The philosophers felt so themselves. They had no mind 
to be mart>TS, for they had nothing for which to testify. 


460 HYPATIA. 

They had no message for mankind, and mankind no 
interest for them. All that was left for them was to 
take care of their own souls ; and fancying that they saw 
something like Plato's ideal republic in the pure mono- 
theism of the Guebres, their philosophic emperor the 
Khozroo, and his holy caste of magi, seven of them set off 
to Persia, to forget the hateful existence of Christianity 
in that realized ideal. Alas for the facts ! The purest 
monotheism, they discovered, was perfectly compatible 
with bigotry and ferocity, luxury and tyranny, serails 
and bowstrings, incestuous marriages, and corpses ex- 
posed to the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air ; 
and in reasonable fear for their own necks, the last seven 
sages of Greece returned home weary-hearted, into the 
Christian Empire from which they had fled, fully contented 
with the permission, which the Khozroo had obtained 
for them from Justinian, to hold their peace, and die 
among decent people. So among decent people they 
died, leaving behind them, as their last legacy to man- 
kind, Simplicius's Commentaries on Epictetus's En- 
chiridiony an essay on the art of egotism, by obeying 
which whosoever list may become as perfect a Pharisee 
as ever darkened the earth of God. Peace be to their 
ashes ! . . . They are gone to their own place. 

» 4f- * * * 

Wulf , too, had gone to his own place, wheresoever that 
may be. He died in Spain, full of years and honours, 
at the court of Adolf and Placidia, having resigned his 
sovereignty into the hands of his lawful chieftain, and 
having lived long enough to see Goderic and his younger 
companions in arms settled with their Alexandrian 
brides upon the sunny slopes from which they had ex- 
pelled the Vandals and the Suevi, to be the ancestors 
of " bluest-blooded " Castilian nobles. Wulf died, as he 
had lived, a heathen. Placidia, who loved him well, as 
she loved all righteous and noble souls, had succeeded 
once in persuading him to accept baptism. Adolf him- 
self acted as one of his sponsors ; and the old warrior 
was in the act of stepping into the font, when he turned 
suddenly to the bishop, and asked where were the souls 


HYPATIA. 461 

of his heathen ancestors ? "In hell," replied the worthy 
prelate. Wulf drew back from the font, and threw his 
bearskin cloak around him. ..." He would prefer, if 
Adolf had no objection, to go to his own people." * 
And so he died unbaptized, and went to his own place. 

Victoria was still aUve and busy ; but Augustine's 
warning had come true — she had found trouble in the 
flesh. The day of the Lord had come, and Vandal 
tyrants were now the masters of the fair corn-lands of 
Africa. Her father and brother were lying by the side 
of Raphael Aben-Ezra, beneath the ruined waUs of 
Hippo, slain, long years before, in the vain attempt to 
deliver their country from the invading swarms. But 
they had died the death of heroes, and Victoria was con- 
tent. And it was whispered, among the downtrodden 
CathoUcs, who clung to her as an angel of mercy, that 
she too had endured strange misery and disgrace ; that 
her delicate limbs bore the scars of fearful tortures ; that 
a room in her house, into which none ever entered but 
herself, contained a young boy's grave ; and that she 
passed long nights of prayer upon the spot where lay 
her only child, martyred by the hands of Arian perse- 
cutors. Nay, some of the few who, having dared to face 
that fearful storm, had survived its fury, asserted that 
she herself, amid her own shame and agony, had cheered 
the shrinking boy on to his glorious death. But though 
she had found trouble in the flesh, her spirit knew none. 
Clear-eyed and joyful as when she walked by her father's 
side on the field of Ostia, she went to and fro among the 
victims of Vandal rapine and persecution, spending upon 
the maimed, the sick, the ruined, the small remnants of 
her former wealth, and winning, by her purity and her 
piety, the reverence and favour even of the barbarian 
conquerors. She had her work to do, and she did it, and 
was content ; and in good time she also went to her own 
place. 

Abbot Pambo, as well as Arsenius, had been dead 
several years. The abbot's place was filled, by his own 
d5dng command, by a hermit from the neighbouring 

* A feet. 


462 HYPATIA. 

deserts, who had made himself famous for many miles 
roimd by his extraordinary austerities, his ceaseless 
prayers, his loving wisdom, and, it was rumoured, by 
vanous cures which could only be attributed to miraculous 
powers. While still in the prime of his manhood, he 
was dragged, against his own entreaties, from a lofty 
cranny of the cliffs to preside over the Laura of Scetis, 
and ordained a deacon at the advice of Pambo, by the 
bishop of the diocese, who, three years afterwards, took 
on himself to command him to enter the priesthood. 
The elder monks considered it an indignity to be ruled 
by so young a man ; but the monastery throve and grew 
rapidly under his government. His sweetness, patience, 
and humility, and above all his marvellous xmderstand- 
ing of the doubts and temptations of his own generation, 
soon drew around him all whose sensitiveness or way- 
wardness had made them unmanageable in the neigh- 
bouring monasteries. As to David in the mountains, 
so to him, every one who was discontented, and every 
one who was oppressed, gathered themselves. The neigh- 
bouring abbots were at first incUned to shrink from him, 
as one who ate and drank with publicans and sinners ; 
but they held their peace when they saw those whom 
they had driven out as reprobates labouring peacefully 
and cheerfully xmder Philammon. The elder generation 
of Scetis, too, saw with some horror the new influx of 
sinners ; but their abbot had but one answer to their 
remonstrances — " Those who are whole need not a 
physician, but those who are sick." 

Never was the young abbot heard to speak harshly of 
any human being. " When thou hast tried in vain for 
seven years," he used to say, *' to convert a sinner, then 
only wilt thou have a right to suspect him of being a 
worse man than thyself." That there is a seed of good 
in all men, a Divine Word and Spirit striving with all 
men, a gospel and good news which would turn the hearts 
of all men, if abbots and priests could but preach it 
aright, was his favourite doctrine, and one which he used 
to defend, when, at rare intervals, he allowed himself to 
discuss any subject from the writings of his favourite 


HYPATIA. 463 

theologian, Clement of Alexandria. Above all, he 
stopped, by stem rebuke, any attempt to revile either 
heretics or heathens. ** On the Catholic Church alone," 
he used to say, " lies the blame of all heresy and unbelief ; 
for if she were blit for one day that which she ought to 
be, the world would be converted before nightfall." To 
one class of sins, indeed, he was inexorable, all but 
ferocious — to the sins, namely, of religious persons. In 
proportion to any man's reputation for orthodoxy and 
sanctity, Philammon's judgment of him was stem and 
pitiless. More than once events proved him to have 
been unjust. When he saw himself to be so, none could 
confess his mistake more frankly, or humiliate himself 
for it more bitterly ; but from his rule he never swerved, 
and the Pharisees of the Nile dreaded and avoided him, 
as much as the publicans and sinners loved and followed 
him. 

One thing only in his conduct gave some handle for 
scandal among the just persons who needed no repent- 
ance. It was well known that in his most solemn de- 
votions, on those long nights of imceasing prayer and 
self-discipline which won him a reputation for superhuman 
sanctity, there mingled always with his prayers the names 
of two women. And when some worthy elder, taking 
courage from his years, dared to hint kindly to him that 
such conduct caused some scandal to the weaker brethren, 
** It is true," answered he. ** Tell my brethren that I 
pray nightly for two women, both of them young, both 
of them beautiful, both of them beloved by me more 
than I love my own soul ; and tell them, moreover, that 
one of the two was a harlot, and the other a heathen." 
The old monk laid his hand on his mouth, and retired. 

The remainder of his history it seems better to extract 
from an unpublished fragment of the Hagiologia Nilotica 
of Graidiocolosyrtus Tabenniticus, the greater part of 
which valuable work was destroyed at the taking of 
Alexandria under Amrou, a.d. 640. 

" Now when the said abbot had ruled the monastery 
of Scetis seven years with imcommon prudence, resplen- 
dent in virtue and in miracles, it befell that one momirip 


464 HYPATIA, 

he was late for the divine office. Whereupon a certain 
ancient brother, who was also a deacon, being s«nt to 
ascertain the cause of so imwonted a defection, found 
the holy man extended upon the floor of his cell, like 
Balaam in the flesh, though far differing from him in the 
spirit, having fallen into a trance, but having his eyes 
open ; who, not daring to arouse him, sat by him until 
the hour of noon, judging rightly that something from 
heaven had befallen him. And at that hour the saint 
arising without astonishment, said, * Brother, make 
ready for me the divine elements, that I may consecrate 
them.' And he asking the reason wherefore, the saint 
replied, ' That I may partake thereof with all my brethren 
ere I depart hence. For know assuredly that, within 
the seventh day, I shall migrate to the celestial man- 
sions. For this night stood by me in a dream those 
two women whom I love and for whom I pray, the 
one clothed in a white the other in a ruby-coloured gar- 
ment, and holding each other by the hand ; who said 
to me, " That life after death is not such a one as you 
fancy; come, therefore, and behold with us what it 
is like.*' ' Troubled at which words, the deacon went 
forth ; yet on account not only of holy obedience, but 
also of the sanctity of the blessed abbot, did not hesitate 
to prepare according to his command the divine elements ; 
which the abbot having consecrated, distributed among 
his brethren, reserving only a portion of the most holy 
bread and wine ; and then, having bestowed on them all 
the kiss of peace, he took the paten and chalice in his 
hands, and went forth from the monastery towards the 
desert ; whom the whole fraternity followed weeping, 
as knowing that they should see his face no more. But 
he, having arrived at the foot of a certain mountain, 
stopped, and blessing them, commanded them that they 
should follow him no further, and dismissed them with 
these words : * As ye have been loved, so love. As ye 
have been judged, so judge. As ye have been forgiven, 
so forgive.' And so ascending, was taken away from 
thefr eyes. Now they, returning astonished, watched 
three days with prayer and fasting ; but at last the eldest 


HYPATIA. 465 

brother, being ashamed, like Elisha before the entreaties 
of Elijah's disciples, sent two of the young men to seek 
their master. 

" To whom befell a thing noteworthy and full of 
miracles. For ascending the same mountain where they 
had left the abbot, they met with a certain Moorish 
people, not averse to the Christian verity, who declared 
that certain days before a priest had passed by them, 
bearing a paten and chalice, and blessing them in silence, 
proceeded across the desert in the direction of the cave 
of the holy Amma. 

" And they, inquiring who this Amma might be, the 
Moors answered that some twenty years ago there had 
arrived in those mountains a woman more beautiful 
than had ever before been seen in that region, dressed 
in rich garments ; who, after a short sojourn among their 
tribe, having distributed among them the jewels which 
she wore, had embraced the eremitic life, and sojourned 
upon the highest peak of a neighbouring mountain ; 
till, her garments failing her, she became invisible to 
mankind, saving to a few women of the tribe, who went 
up from time to time to carry her offerings of fruit and 
meal, and to ask the blessing of her prayers. To whom 
she rarely appeared, veiled down to her feet in black hair 
of exceeding length and splendour. 

" Hearing these things, the two brethren doubted 
for a while ; but at last, determining to proceed, arrived 
at simset upon the summit of the said mountain. 

" Where, behold, a great miracle. For above an open 
grave, freshly dug in the sand, a cloud of vultures and 
obscene birds hovered, whom two lions, fiercely con- 
tending, drove away with their talons, as if from some 
sacred deposit therein enshrined. Towards whom the 
two brethren, fortif5dng themselves with the sign of the 
holy cross, ascended. Whereupon the lions, as having 
fulfilled the term of their guardianship, retired, and left 
to the brethren a sight which they beheld with astonish- 
ment, and not without tears. 

'* For in the open grave lay the body of Philammon 
the abbot ; and by his side, wrapped in his cloak, the 


466 HYPATIA. 

corpse of a woman of exceeding beauty, such as the 
Moors had described. Whom embracing straitly, as a 
brother a sister, and joining his lips to hers, he had ren- 
dered up his soul to God ; not without bestowing on 
her, as it seemed, the most holy sacrament, for by the 
graveside stood the paten and the chalice emptied of 
their divine contents. 

" Having beheld which things awhile in silence, they 
considered that the right understanding of such matters 
pertained to the judgment seat above, and was unneces- 
sary to be comprehended by men consecrated to God. 
Whereupon, filling in the grave with all haste, they re- 
turned weeping to the Laura, and declared to them the 
strange things which they had beheld, and whereof I the 
writer, having collected these facts from sacrosanct and 
most trustworthy mouths, can only say that wisdom is 
justified of all her children. 

" Now, before they returned, one of the brethren, 
searching the cave wherein the holy woman dwelt, found 
there neither food, furniture, nor other matters, saving 
one bracelet of gold, of large size and strange workman- 
ship, engraven with foreign characters which no one 
coiSd decipher. The which bracelet, being taken home 
to the Laura of Scetis, and there dedicated in the chapel 
to the memory of the holy Amma, proved beyond aD 
doubt the sanctity of its former possessor by the miracles 
which its virtue worked ; the fame whereof spreading 
abroad throughout the whole Thebaid, drew innimier- 
able crowds of suppliants to that holy relic. But it came 
to pass, after the Vandalic persecution wherewith Huneric 
and Genseric the king devastated Africa, and enriched 
the Catholic Church with innumerable martjrrs, that 
certain wandering barbarians of the VandaUc race, im- 
bued with the Arian pravity, and made insolent by 
success, boiled over from the parts of Mauritania into 
the Thebaid region ; who plimdering and burning all 
monasteries, and insulting the consecrated virgins, at 
last arrived even at the monastery of Scetis, where they 
not only, according to their impious custom, defiled the 
altar, and carried off the sacred vessels, but also bore 


HYPATIA. 467 

away that most holy relic, the chief glory of the Laura 
— namely, the bracelet of the holy Amma, impiously pre- 
tending that it had belonged to a warrior of their tribe — 
and thus expounded the writing thereon engraven — 

* For Amalric Amal's Son Smid Troll's Son Made Me.' 

Wherein whether they spoke truth or not, yet their 
sacrilege did not remain impunished; for attempting 
to return homeward toward tiie sea by way of the Nile^ 
they were set upon, while weighed down with wine and 
sleep, by the country people, and to a man miserably 
des6*oyed. But the pious folk, restoring the holy gold 
to its pristine sanctuary, were not unrewarded ; for since 
that day it grows glorious with ever fresh miracles — as 
of blind restored to sight, paralytics to strength, demoni- 
acs to sanity — to the honour of the orthodox Cathohc 
Church, and of its ever-blessed saints." 

4f- 4f- 4f- 4f- 4f- 

So be it. Pelagia and Philanmion, like the rest, went 
to their own place ; to the only place where such in such 
days could find rest — to the desert and the hermit's cell, 
and then forward into that fairy land of legend and 
miracle, wherein all saintly lives were destined to be 
enveloped for many a century thenceforth. 

And now, readers, fareweU. I have shown you New 
Foes under an old face — your own likenesses in toga and 
tunic, instead of coat and bonnet. One word before we 
part. The same devil who tempted these old Egyptians, 
tempts you. The same God who would have saved these 
old Egyptians if they had willed, will save you, if you 
will. Their sins are yours, their errors yoiu-s, their doom 
yours, their deliverance yours. There is nothing new 
under the sun. The thing which has been, it is that which 
shall be. Let him that is without sin among you cast the 
first stone, whether at Hypatia or Pelagia, Miriam or 
Raphael, Cyril or Philammon. 

THE END. 


/' ,/3 1/yj,- 




<?/ 


STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 

CECIL H. GREEN LIBRARY 

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305-6004 

(415) 723-1493 

All books may be recalled after 7 days 

_ DATE DUE 


2^ j/;;i4^5Tj.. 


r J 


280 MAJ^idtSII 


I Pfi 4042 .H9 1903 CI 

p Hyp«tle, 

Stanford University Libraries 

"~ '"^iiiiiiiihiiiifiiiitiiMiiitii 



_. Ill 

3 6105 035 353 452 
DATE DUE 


STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305-6004 


« 




-> 


* -'J 


I