 CHAPTER III. 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 banks 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 high roads which ran along either bank. He carefully 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 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 sleuces and water wheels, their knots of palms and date trees, endless seemed that wear as some succession of bars of sand and banks of mud, every one like the one before it, every one dotted with the same line of logs and stones strewn along the water's edge which turned out as he approached them to be basking crocodiles and sleeping pelicans. His eye, wearied with a continual confinement and want of distance, longed for the boundless expanse of the desert, for the jagged outlines of those far-off hills which he had watched from boyhood rising mysteriously at morn out of the eastern sky and melting mysteriously into it again and even, beyond which dwells a whole world of wonders, elephants and dragons, satyrs and anthropophagy, eye and the phoenix itself. Tired and melancholy, his mind returned inward to prey on itself, and the last words of our seniors 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 saintship, 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 godly painted barge, oil-board of which armed men in uncouth and foreign dresses were chasing with barbaric shouts some large object in the water. In the boughs 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 stern, with a rudder in either hand, kept the boat's head continually towards the monster in spite of its sudden and frantic wheelings. And when it dashed madly across the stream, some twenty oars flashed through the water in pursuit. All was activity and excitement, and it was no wonder if Filaman's curiosity had tempted him to drift down almost a breast of the barge ere he described. Peeping from under a decorated awning in the after-part, some dozen pairs of languishing black eyes turned alternately to the game and to himself. The serpents, chattering and smiling with pretty little shrieks and shaking of glossy curls and gold necklaces, and fluttering of muslin dresses within a dozen yards of him. Blushing 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 cut side of him, and furious with pain, rushed straight at the unoffending canoe. The harpoon line became entangled around his body, and a moment, he and his frail bark were overturned and the monster, with his huge white tusks gaping wide, closed on him as he struggled in the stream. Luckily Filaman, contrary to the want of monks, was a bather and swam like a waterfowl, fear he had never known. Deaths 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 unevenged. 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 behind with stabs, which, though not deep, still died the waters with gore at every stroke. The barbarians shouted with delight. The hippopotamus turned furiously 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 broadside to the blow, the sinewy arm of the giant drove a harpoon through his heart, and with one convulsive shutter the huge blue mass turned over on its side and floated dead. Poor Filaman, he alone was silent amid the yells of triumph sorrowfully he swam around and round his little 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, and thought of the basilisk eyes. He might escape the crocodiles, but who could escape women? And he struck out valiantly for sure, 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 him, as a matter of course, to avail himself at once of their help, and could not conceive the cause of his reluctance. Filaman gazed with wonder on his strange hosts. Their pale complexions, globular heads in faces, high cheekbones, 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 bedisoned with classic jewels, brooches, and Roman coins strung like necklaces. Only the steersmen, who had come forward to wonder at the hippopotamus, and to help in dragging the unwieldy brute on board, seemed to keep genuine and unornamented the costume of his race. The white linen leggings, strapped with thongs of deerskin, the quilted leather kurus, the bears for cloak, 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 which they spoke was utterly unintelligible to Filaman, though it need not be so to us. A well-grown lad and a brave one, Wolfe, the son of Ovida, said the giant to the old hero of the bearskin cloak, and understands wearing skins in this furnace mouth of a climate, rather better than you do. I keep to the dress of my forefathers, Amarik the Amal. What did to sack Rome in may do to find Asgard in. The giant, who is decked out with helmet, kurus, and senatorial boots, and a sort of mongrel mixture of the Roman military and civil dress, his neck wreathed in a dozen gold chains, and every finger sparkling with jewels, turned away with an impatient sneer. Asgard, Asgard, if you were 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. Wolfe 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 tongue. Make a slave talk to him in it, not me. Here, some of you girls, Pelagia, you understand this fellow's talk. Ask him how far it is to Asgard. You must ask me more 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—what 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 feathers, and glittering with rubies and topazes, appeared such a vision as Philemon had never seen before. A woman of some two and twenty summers, formed in the most voluptuous mold of Grecian beauty, whose complexion showed every violet vein through its veil of luscious brown. Her little 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 Senga's robe, while her lower limbs were wrapped in a shawl of orange silk, embroidered with wreaths of shells and roses. Her dark hair lay carefully spread out upon the pillow, and a thousand ringlets entwined with golden jewels. Her languishing eyes blazed like diamonds from a cavern, under eyelids darkened and deepened with black antimony. Her lips pouted of themselves, by habit or by nature, into a perpetual 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 Philemon, to the interpreter, turning his head away from those gleaming, 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 river comes from, Pelagia. Pelagia obeyed, and thereon followed a confusion worse confounded, composed of all the impossible wonders of that mythic fairyland with which Philemon 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 India? Where were they? He did not know. Nobody knew. It ran for 150 days' journey through deserts where nothing but flying serpents and satyrs lived, and the very lion's mains were burnt off by the heat. Good sporting there, at all events, among these dragons, quotes smid the son of Troll, armorer to the party, as good as thors when he caught Snake Midgard with the bullock's head, said Wolf. It turned to the east for 100 days' journey more, all around Arabia and India, among forests full of elephants and dog-headed women. Better and better, smid, growled Wolf, approvingly. Fresh beef cheap there, Prince Wolf, eh? Quote smid. I must look over the arrowheads. 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 remaining third from the country where the phoenix lived, and nobody knew where that was. And then there were the cataracts, and the inundations, and above the cataracts nothing but sandhills 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 Pelagio 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 Wolf, how should such a poor beast know anything about the matter? Why should he not know, as well as that ape of a Roman governor, asked smid? Oh, the monks know everything, said Pelagio. They go hundreds and thousands of miles up the river, and cross the deserts among fiends and monsters where anyone else would be eaten up, or go mad at once. 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 filament 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 Wolf. I never give any reasons, what's the use of being in a mall, and a son of Odin, if one has always got to be giving reasons like a rascally Roman lawyer. I say the governor looked like a liar, and I say this monk looks like an honest fellow, and I choose to believe him, and there is an end of it. Don't look so cross at me, Prince Wolf. I'm sure it's not my fault. I could only say what the monk told me, whispered poor Pallagia. Who looks cross at you, my queen? roared the Amal. Let me have him out here, and buy Thor's, Ham, or Isle. Who spoke to you, you stupid darling? answered Pallagia, who lived in hourly fear of thunderstorms. Who is going to be cross with anyone, 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 Wolf, if you are not good. Don't you see that the whole crew are expecting you to make them an oration? We're upon the Amal Rose. See you here, Wolf, the son of Oveda, and warriors all. If we want wealth, we shan't find it among the sandhills. If we want women, we shall find nothing prettier than these among dragons and devils. Don't look angry, Wolf. 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 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 certainly shall not up this road. As for fame and all that, though I've had enough, there's plenty to be got anywhere along the shores of that Mediterranean. Let's burn and plunder Alexandria. Forty of us Goths might kill down all these donkey riders in two days and hang up that lying prefect who sent us here on this fool's errand. Don't answer, Wolf. I knew he was humbugging us all along, but you 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'll warrant them. Get together an army and take Constantinople. I'll be Augustus and Palladia Augusta. You and Smid here, the two Caesars, and we'll make the monk the chief of the Unix, eh? Anything you like for a quiet life, but up this accursed kennel of hot water, I go no farther. Ask your girls, my heroes, and I'll ask mine. Women are all prophetesses, every one of them. When they're not harlots, growled Wolf to himself, I will go to the world's end with you, my king, said Palladia, but Alexandria is certainly pleasanter than this. Old Wolf spring up fiercely enough. Hear me, Amorek 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 Aseer, what was the bond between your fathers in 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 forever, and gave into his hands the kingdom of all the earth? And did we not keep our oath? Have we not held to the Amals? Did we not leave Adolf, because we could not follow Abalth, while there was an Amal to lead us? Have we not been true men to you, son of the Aseer? No man ever saw Wolf, the son of Oveda, fail friend or foe. Then why does his friend fail him? Why does his friend fail himself, if the bison bull lie down and wallow, what will the herd do for a leader? If the king Wolf lose the scent, how will the pack hold it? If the youngling 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 forth 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. Snatch while thou canst thy rest, sleeping by me. Can you answer that, Wolf? shouted a dozen voices. Hear the song of Asgard, warrior of the Goths. Did not Alaric the king love it well? Did I not sing it before him in the Palace of the Caesars, 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 turned back, like a lazy hound, and married the daughter of the Romans, whom Odin hates, and went northward again to Gaul. Did I not 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, warriors of the Goths. Not that song, roared the Amal, stopping his ears with both his hands. Will you drive us blood mad again, just as we are settling down into our sober senses, and finding out what our lives were given us for? Hear the song of Asgard. Onto Asgard, wolves of the Goths, shouted another, and a babble 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 us. Let us get our winds again before we start afresh. Wolf the Prince is like 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 these cataracts. We'll stop his old wife's tails 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 filaments throughout with the other. In a moment more would have been all over with him. For the first time in his life, filament fell to 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 combatants, but in vain. Not for worlds, a very fair match, and a very fair fight. Take your long legs back, Itho, or they will be over for you. That's right, my Smid, don't use the knife. They will be overboard in a moment. By all the valkyries that are down, and Smid, under most. There was no doubt of it, and in another moment, filament 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, conscious 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 honor, they could not on any account interfere, but merely console themselves for the loss of their comrade by flaying his conqueror alive, carving him into the blood eagle, or any other delicate ceremony which might serve as event for their sorrow and a comfort for the soul of the deceased. Smid rose with a bill in his hand, and looked round him, perhaps to see what was expected of him. He half lifted his weapon to strike. Filament, 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 Filament had done. Five minutes good fighting and no one killed. This is a shame, quote another. Blood we must see, and it had better be yours, master monk, than your betters. And therewith he rushed on poor Filament. 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 tuton. They rose altogether and turning Filament over on his back, deliberated by what death he should die. Filament quietly submitted. If submission have anything to do with that state of mind in which sheer astonishment and novelty have broken up all the custom of man's nature, till the strangest deeds and sufferings 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 anything and everything might happen to him. He who had promised never to look upon woman found himself by circumstances over which he had no control, amid a boat full of the most objectionable species of that most objectionable genus, and the utterly worst having happened, everything else which happened must be better than the worst. For the rest, he had gone 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, Amelric, Amelric, do not let them, I cannot bear it. The warriors of free men, my darling, and know what is proper, and what can a life of such a brute be to you? Before he could stop her, Pelagia had sprung from her cushions and thrown herself into the midst of the laughing ring of wild beasts. Spare him, spare him for my sake, shrieks she. Oh, my pretty lady, you mustn't interrupt warriors' sports. In an instant she had torn off her shawl and thrown it over Philoman, and as she stood, with all the outlines 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 saffron one. The gauze 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 back 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 Wolf, the son of Ovita. Go back, pretty woman. Men, I claim the boy. Smid, give him to me. He is your man. You could have killed him if you had chosen, and did not, and no one else shall. Give him us, Prince Wolf. 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's upset a warrior fairly 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? Filament, 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. 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 gripped sharply at first, and loosened his hand after a while because his blood is soon hot and soon cold. A brave man's grip grows firmer the longer he holds because the spirit of Odin comes upon him. I watched the boy's hands on my threat, 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 us as be rowed by us, and if we are to go back to a cow'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 Filament's hand, which he managed with such strength and skill that his late tormentors, who, in spite of an occasional inclination 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 torture 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 and shoving each other about with the fun and childish wonder of a party of schoolboys, till Smidt, who was the wit of the party, settled the comparative anatomy of the subject for them. Valhalla, I've figured out what he's most like, one of those big blue plums, which gave us all the stomach ache when we were encamped in the orchards above Ravenna. End of chapter three. Chapter four, part one of Hypatia. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by David Cole, Medway, Massachusetts. Hypatia by Charles Kingsley. Chapter four, Miriam, part one. One morning in the same week, Hypatia's favorite maid entered her chamber with a somewhat terrified face. The old US madam, the hag who has been watching so often lately under the wall opposite, she frightened us all out of our senses last evening by peeping in. We all said she had the evil eye if anyone 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 mistress of the gods can devise spirits and command them. Do you suppose that the favorite of Palace 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 returned 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 basilisk eye which it 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 Hypatia's face. Her countenance was haggen and bony, with broad, sharp cut lips, stamped with a strangely mingled expression of strength and sensuality. But the feature about her, which instantly fixed Hypatia's attention, and from which she could not in spite of herself with droid, 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's low obeisance presented it. From whom is this? Perhaps the letter itself will tell the beautiful lady, the fortunate lady, the discerning lady, answered she, in a falling, weedling tone. How should a poor old US know great folk's secrets? Great folks? Hypatia looked at the seal, which fixed a silk cord round the letter. It was a rest ease. 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 anti-room. Miriam glided out backwards, bowing as she went. As Hypatia looked up over the letter, to see whether she was alone, she caught a last glimpse of that eye still fixed upon her. And an expression in Miriam's face, which made her, she knew not why, shudder and turn chill. Strange that I am, what can that which 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 of Honorius, which bears the name of the imperial city, would thrive better under a new feeder. The count of Africa has been dispatched by himself and by the immortal gods to superintend for the present the poultry-yard of the Caesars, at least during the absence of Adolf and Plechidia. There are those also who consider that in his absence the Numidian lion might be prevailed on to become the yoke-fellow of the Egyptian crocodile, and a farm which, plowed by such a pair, should expend from the upper catract to the pillars of Hercules, might have charms even for a philosopher. But while the plowman is without a nymph, Arcadia is imperfect. What was Dionysus without his Ariadne, Ares without Aphrodite, Zeus without Hera? Even Artemis had a endymion. Athens alone remains unwedded, but only because Hephaestus was too rough a were. Such is not he who now offers to the representative of Athene, the opportunity of sharing that which may be with the help of her wisdom, which without her is impossible. Shall Eros, invincible for ages, bevalked at last of the noblest game against which he ever drew his bow? If Hypatia's colour had faded a moment before under the withering glance of the old duess, it rose again swiftly enough, as she read lion after lion of this strange epistle, to that last crushing it together in her hand. She rose and hurried into the adjoining library, where Theon sat over his books. Father, do you know anything of this? Look what a rest he is, 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 half reproachfully, do you not too feel the insult which has been put upon your daughter? My dear child, with the puzzled look, do you not see that he offers you? 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 un-unchangeable and iniffable glories, into the foul fields and farmyards of earthly practical life, and become a drudge among political chicanery, and the petty ambitions and sins and forces of the earthly herd, the price which he offers me, me the stainless, me the virgin, me the untamed, is his hand. Palas 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 degrading name of wife, the property, the puppet of a man, submitting to his pleasure bearing his children, 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 plaything of a man. And such a man is 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 fall from the festal table of the gods. I have encouraged him too much, vain fool that I have been. No, I wronged myself. 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, returned by the fitting messenger which he has sent, insult for insult. In the name of heaven, my daughter! For your father's sake, for my sake, Hepatia, my pride, my joy, my only hope, have pity on my grey hairs, and the poor old 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 her tears fell fast upon his grey 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, sobbed out the old man. But to die seeing you impress, or unless I died first in child-bed 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 bewildered 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, Hepatia's arms dropped suddenly. Yes, it was true. The thought flashed across her mind with mingled delight and terror. Visions of her childhood rose swift and thick. Temple sacrifices priesthoods, colleges, museums. 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 Athenie Polias colossal in ivory and gold, watching in calm triumph over the harbors of a heeler than 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 an internal struggle. The old man looked after her, anxiously and perplexed, and then followed, hesitating. She was sitting at her 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 Athenie down to his daughter's guardian spirit, to move a determination, which he was too weak to gain say, and yet too rational to approve. At last the struggle was over, and she looked up, clear, calm and glorious again. It shall be, for the sake of the immortal gods, for the sake of art and science and learning and philosophy, 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 civilizing, without the sacrifice of a virgin, I give my throat to the knife. Father, call me no more Hypatia. Call me Ephigenia. And me Agamemnon, as the old man, attempting 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 fulfill 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 demanded 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 believes this Christian faith, let him defend 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 lie and taking on his lips blasphemous 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 patinas. Alas! What were all the wire-drawn dreams of metaphysics to her in that real and human struggle of the heart? What availed it define the process by which individual souls emanated from the universal 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, sureless waste of doubts and darkness? Oh, how grand and clear and logical it had all looked half an hour ago, and how irrefragibly 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 antipathy in all minds but that of the philosopher, who learned to see the stem which connected the apparently bitter fruit with the perfect root for whence it sprang. Could she see the stem there, the connection between the pure and supreme reason, and the hideous caresses of the deporched and cowardly arrestees, 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 that not 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 votery? 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 arrestees in she and all heaven and earth were but the victims, dragged along in inevitable vortex, helpless, hopeless, toward that which each was meant, and she was meant for this. The thought was unbearable, it turned her giddy. No, she would not, she would rebel. Like Prometheus, she would dare destiny and brave the worst. And she sprang up to recall the letter. Miriam was gone. And she threw herself on the floor and wept bitterly. End of Chapter 4, Part 1. Chapter 4, Part 2 of Hepatia. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by David Cole, Medway, Massachusetts. Hepatia by Charles Kingsley. Chapter 4, Miriam, Part 2. And her peace of mind would certainly not have been improved. Could she have seen old Miriam hurry home with her letter to a dingy house in the juice-quarter, where it was unsealed, red, and sealed up again, with such marvellous skill that no eye could have detected the change? And finally, still less which she had been comforted, could she have heard the conversation which was going on in a summer room of a resty's palace, between that illustrious statesman and Raphael Abba Ezra, who were lying on two divans opposite each other, wiling away by a throw or two of dice, the anxious moments which delayed her answer. Trace again, the devil is in you, Raphael. I always thought he was, answered Raphael, sweeping up the gold pieces. When will that old witch be back, when she has read through your letter and Hepatia's answer? Read them? Of course. You don't fancy she is going to be fool enough to carry a message, without knowing what it is. Don't be angry, she won't tell. You would give one of those two grave-lights there, which she calls her eyes, to see the thing prosper. Why? Your Excellency will know when the letter comes. Here she is. I hear steps in 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 like, taken, come in slaves. And Hypochorisma entered, pouting. That Jewish fury is outside with the letter, and has the impudence to say she won't let me bring it in. Bring her in, then, quick. I wonder what I am here for, if people have secrets that I am not to know. Grumble the spoiled youth. Do you want a blue ribbon round those white sides of yours, you monkey, 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 he used to do to the girls in Armenia. Ah, you recollect that, and how the barbarian poppers used to grumble, till I had to crucify one or two, eh. That was something like life. I love those out-of-the-way stations where nobody asks questions, but here one might as well live among the monks in Nittria. Here comes Candida. 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 are no listening. 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 councils of their prophetess must remember that they will vouch safe to her no illumination, till their lost honors be restored. If he who aspires to be the Lord of Africa, dare trample on the hateful cross, and restore the cesarium 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 labor, to dare to die in a great cause, but till then, and so the letter ended. What am I to do? Take her at a word. Good heavens, I shall be excommunicated, and what is to become of my soul. What will it become of it in any case, my most excellent Lord, said Raphael Blandly? You mean I know what you cursed Jews think will happen to every one but yourselves, but what would the world say, I an apostate, and in the face of Cyril and the populace, I dared not I tell you. No one asked your excellency to apostasize. 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 didn'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 profoundly to hate them. How disinterested my advice was, when I propose this match to you, you never will know. Indeed it would be boastful in me to tell you. But really you must make a little sacrifice to win this foolish girl. With all the depths and daring of our 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 little hand, worth all the other flesh and blood in Alexandria. Bye, 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, if you marry her and help me, I'll make you what you like. 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 life to devote myself to that of another, even though it were to yours, candid, exactly so. And moreover, whosoever I may marry will be practically, as well as theoretically, my private and peculiar property you comprehend. Candid again? Exactly so. And waving the third argument, that 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 complimentary offer. My jove! And she has refused me in good earnest. I'll make her repent it. I was a fool to ask her at all. What's the use of having gods if one can't compel what one wants? If fair means can't do it, foul shall. I'll send for her this moment. Most illustrious majesty, it will not succeed. You do not know that woman's determination. Stories and red-hot pincers will not shake her alive, and did she will be of no use whatsoever to you, while she will be of great use to Cyril, how? He will be most happy to make the whole story a handle against you. Give out that she died a virgin martyr in defense of the most holy Catholic and apostolic faith. Get miracles worked at her tomb, and pull your palace about your ears on the strength thereof. Cyril will hear of it anyhow. 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 herself the honor to refuse me? 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 condition 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. What will you have me do, then? Simply nothing. Let the prophetic spirit go out of her, as it will, in a day or two, and then. I know nothing of human nature if she does not bait a little of her own price. Depend on it, for all her ineffabilities and impassibilities, and all the rest of the seventh heaven moonshine, at which we play here in Alexandria, a throne is far too pretty a bait for even Hippity of the Pythonest refuse. If 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 one. 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 counselor 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 prefect's door, he saw Miriam on the opposite side of the street, evidently watching for him. And as soon as she saw him, she held on her own side, without appearing to notice him, till he turned a corner, and then crossing, caught him eagerly by the arm. Does the fool 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 apostasize? Tell me, I am secret as the grave. The fool has found an old, worm-eaten rag of conscience somewhere in the corner 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? Hellfire! Why he will go there in any case the accursed Gentile! So I hinted to him, as directly as I could. But like the rest of the world, he has a sort of partiality for getting thither by his own road. Coward! And whom shall I get now? Oh, if that Pallagia had as much cunning in her old body as Hypatia has in her little finger! I'd seat her and her goth upon the throne of the Caesars. But she has five senses and just enough wit to use them, eh? And laugh at her for that, the darling. I do delight 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 a while, and then suddenly turning to Raphael. See here, I have a present for you, and she pulled out a magnificent ring. Why, mother, you were always giving me presents. It was but a month ago you sent me this poison dagger. Why not, eh? Why not? Why should not you give to Jew? Take the old woman's ring. What a glorious opal! Ah, that is an opal indeed, and the unspeakable name upon it, just like Solomon's own. Take it, I say. Whosoever wears that never need fear, fire, steel, poison, or women'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 like it. I don't know why, but I like it. And Raphael Avan Ezra. Don't laugh at me and call me witch and hag, as you often do. I don't care about it from anyone 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 look and how quiet. And you were dead, and your soul up there so happy in Abraham's bosom, watching all the Gentiles frying 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. 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 in 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, even Ezra, now has one more friend in the world, besides Bran the Mastiff, and therefore one more trouble, seeing that friends always expect a due return of affection and good offices and what not. I wonder whether the old lady has been getting into a scraped kidnapping, and once my patronage 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 litter 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 ether, as Prometheus had it, and ye swift-wing breezes, I wish there any here. When would it all be over? Three and thirty years have I endured 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 likely 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 on 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 and Abraham's bosom, or any one else's, provided it be not a woman's? End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 Part 1 of Hippathia. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Recording by Paul Huckabee. Hippathia by Charles Kingsley. Chapter 5 A Day in Alexandria. Part 1. In the meanwhile, Philemon, with his hosts, the Goths, had been slipping down 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 ensured fertility, under the pressure of Roman extortion and misrule. They had entered one evening the mouth of the great canal of Alexandria, and slid easily all night across the star-bespangled shadows of Lake Mariotis, and found themselves, when the next morning dawned, among the countless masts and noisy keys 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 think that the world did not look at first sight a thing to be despised. In front of heaps of fruit, fresh from the market boats, black groups of glossy negro slaves were basking and laughing on the key, looking anxiously and caquettishly round in hopes of a purchaser. They evidently did not think the change from desert toil to city luxuries a change for the worse. Philharmon turned away his eyes from beholding vanity, but only to meet fresh vanity where so ever they fell. He felt crushed by the multitude of new objects, stunned by the din around, and scarcely recollected himself enough to seize the first opportunity of escaping from his dangerous companions. HALOA! roared Smid the Armourer, as he scrambled on to the steps of the slip. You are not going to run away without bidding us goodbye. Stop with me, boy, said old wolf. I saved you and you are my man. Philharmon 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 Philharmon, who felt 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 am not made for your life. I thank you. Bless you. I will pray for you, sir, but let me go. Cursed the craven hound, roared half a dozen voices. Why did you not let us have our will with him, Prince Wolf? You might have expected such gratitude from a monk. He owes me my share of the sport, quotes Smid. And here it is, and a hatchet was thrown with practised aim, whistling right for Philharmon's head. He had just time to swerve, and the weapons struck and snapped against the granite wall behind. Well saved, said Wolf Cooley, while the sailors and market women above yelled murder, and the custom house officers, and the other constables, and catch poles of the harbour, rushed to the place, and retired again quietly at the thunder of Ramal from the boat's stern. 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 cometatus tried to look unconcerned, and found suddenly that their presence was absolutely required in an opposite direction. Let him go, said Wolf, 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 more from this fellow. Come men ashore, and get drunk. Philharmon, of course, now that he had leave to go, longed to stay. At all events, he must go back and 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. 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. Philemon misinterpreted the intense interest of her tone, and if he did not shrink back gave some involuntary gesture of reluctance. Pelagia laughed aloud. Don't be vain enough to suspect foolish boy, but come. 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 Philemon, very inwardly bowed, not to accept the invitation, somehow could not help remembering. Do leave the wild man, and come, growled the Amal from within the palanquin. You are not going to turn none, I hope. Not while the first man 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 Philemon, who had been already hustled away by the bevy of laughing attendants amid baskets, dressing cases, and bird cages, and was feigned 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 sunning himself on a ball of timber, meditatively chewing the papyrus cane, and examining the strangers with a look of absurd sagacity. I know it, without a doubt I know it. All 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 haunt 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 satiric 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, starting up upon his bulk, like an excited monkey, and stretching out one oratorio poor. I bear a treble hatred to the monkish tribe. First, as a man and a husband. 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 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 aestheticism of the monk, to the logical and methodic self-restraint of one who, like your humblest of philosophers, aspires to a life according to the pure reason. And pray, as Philharmon half laughing, who has been your tutor in philosophy. The fountom of classic wisdom, Hepatia herself. As the ancient sage, the name is unimportant to a monk, pumped water nightly that he might study my day, so I, the guardian of cloaks and parasols, at the sacred doors of her lecture room, imbide celestial knowledge. From my youth, I felt in me a soul above the matter entangled heard. 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, fallen if the dignity of philosophy 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 you the way to the archbishops. There is a philosophic pleasure in opening one's treasures to the modest young. Perhaps you will assist me by carrying this basket of fruit. And the little man jumped up, put his basket on Philharmon's head, and trotted off up a neighbouring street. Philharmon followed, half contemptuous, half wondering at what this philosophy might be, which could feed the self-conceit of anything so abject as this ragged little apish guide. But the novel roar on world of the street, the perpetual stream of busy faces, the line of curacles, plankwins, laden asses, camels, elephants, which met and passed him, and squeezed him up steps and into doorways, as they threaded their way through the great moon gate into the ample street beyond, drove everything from his mind but wondering curiosity, and a vague helpless dread of that great living wilderness, more terrible than any dead wilderness 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 city, at right 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 sandhills 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 key at the opposite end of the street, and there burst upon Philharmon's astonished eyes, a vast semi-circle of blue sea, ringed with palaces and towers. He stopped involuntarily and has his little guide stopped also, and looked to scant at the young monk to watch the effect which that grand panorama should produce on him. There, behold our works, as Greeks, as benighted 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 everyone else. Did Christians make all this? Did Christians build that pharaohs there on the left horn? Wonder of the world! Did Christians raise that mile-long mould which runs towards the land with its two drawbridges connecting the two ports? Did Christians build this earth-blanade or this gate of the sun above our heads? Or that caesarean on our right here? Look at those obelisks before it. He pointed upwards to those two world-famous ones, one of which still lies on its ancient site as clear patches' needle. Look up, look up, I say, and feel small, very small indeed. Did Christians raise them or engrave them from base to point with the wisdom of the ancients? Did Christians build that museum next to it or design its statues and its frescoes? Now, alas, 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, worst at an actium, forgot his shame in Cleopatra's arms? Did they quarry out that island of Anterodus into a nest of docks or cover those waters with sails of every nation under heaven? Speak thou son of bats and moles, thou six feet of sand, thou mummy out of the cliff caverns. Can monks do works like these? Other men have laboured, and we have entered into their labours, answered Philemon, 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 early Atolomies, the barbaric and confused gorgeousness of the later Roman, and here and there an imitation of the grand Elephantine style of Old Egypt, with 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, overpowered, 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, a youthful non-entity answered the little man, leading the way round the great front of the Caesarean at the foot of the obelisks. Philemon's eye fell on some new masonry on the pediment, ornamented with Christian symbols. How? Is this a church? It is the Caesarean. It has become temporarily a church. The immortal gods have, full of time being, condescended to waive their rights. But it is the Caesarean nevertheless. This way, down this street to the right. There, he said, pointing to a doorway in the side of the museum, is the last haunt of the muses, the lecture room of Hepatia, the school of my unworthiness. And there, stopping at the door of a splendid house on the opposite side of the street, is the residence of that blessed favourite of Athene, Neath, as the barbarians of Egypt would denominate the goddess. We men of Macedonia retain the time-honoured Gritian nomenclature. You may put down your basket, and he knocked at the door, and delivering the fruit to a black porter, made a plight of basins to Philemon, and seemed on the point of taking his departure. But where is the Archbishop's house? Close to the Serapaeum. You cannot miss the place. 400 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. Philemon checked a decidedly carnal inclination to seize the little fellow by the throat, and knock his head against the wall, and contented himself by saying, 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' quarters, 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 purpose. First, politically, or according to practical wisdom, in order that you, not I, might carry the basket. Next, philosophically, or according to the intuitions of pure reason, in order that you might by beholding the magnificence of that great civilisation which your fellows wish to destroy, learn that you are an ass, and a tortoise, and a non-entity, and so beholding yourself to be nothing, may be moved to become something. And he moved off. Philemon seized him by the collar of his ragged tunic, and held him in a grip, from which the little man, though he twisted like a needle, 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 submitting to them. I go peaceably. Indeed, the base necessities of the hog-bucket side of existence compel me of themselves back to the Moongate for another early fruit job. So they went back together. Now why Philemon's thoughts should have been running on the next new specimen of womankind to which 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 a patia rustic? The queen of Alexandria, in wit, Athene. Here in Her Majesty, in beauty, after a deity. And who are they, as Philemon? The porter stopped, surveyed him slowly from foot to head with an expression of boundless pity and contempt, and was in the act of walking off in the ecstasy of his disdain, when he was brought to suddenly by Philemon's strong arm. Ah, I recollect, there is a compact. Who is Athene? The goddess, giver of wisdom. Hero? Spouse of Zeus. Queen of the Celestials. After a deity? Mother of love. You are not expected to understand. Philemon did understand, however, so much as this. That Hypatia was a very unique and wonderful person in the mind of this little guide, and therefore asked the 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 Philemon, performed therewith certain mysterious signals, the effect whereof being totally lost on him. The little man stopped, took another look at Philemon'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, here is something worth seeing. 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. It's antipodes, my young friend. That is, if such beings have a cosmic existence, on which point Patia has her doubts. This is the temple of art and beauty, the Delphic tripod of poetic inspiration, the solace of the earthworm drudge. In a word, the theater, which your patriarch, if he could, would convert tomorrow into a, but the philosopher must not revile. Ah, I see the prefects of paratists at the gate. He is making the polity, as we call it here, the dispositions. Settling, in short, the bill of fare for the day, in compliance with the public palette. A facetious pantomime dancers here in 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, perhaps, on the whole, indecent. Still, the wary pilgrim must be amused. Let us step in and hear, but before Philharmon could refuse, an opera arose within, a rush outward of the mob, and inward of the prefects of paratists. It is false, shouted many voices, a Jewish columnly, the man is innocent. 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 Hyrax? 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, Hyrax, a Christian, is taken and tortured in the theatre, thundered a wild hermit, with his beard and hair streaming about his chest and shoulders. Netriah, Netriah, for God and the mother of God, monks of Netriah, down with the Jewish slanderers, down with the heathen tyrants, and the mob reinforced as if by magic, by hundreds from without, swept down the huge vaulted passage, carrying Philharmon and the porter with them. My friends, quote 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 is tumult? The Jews got to precry that Hyrax wanted to raise a riot, curse them and their Sabbath. They're always writing on Saturdays about this dancer of theirs, instead of working like on his Christians, and writing on Sunday instead, 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. Philharmon, furious at the notion of persecution, maddened by the cries around him, found himself bursting 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 enacting within, where the poor innocent wretch, suspended from a gibbet, writhed and shrieked at every stroke of the hide-whips of his tormentors. In vain, Philharmon and the monks around him knocked and beat at the gates. They were only answered by laughter and taunts from the apparatus 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 suffering ceased forever 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 watchword 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 Philharmon, 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 400 stately columns of the ruined syrupyum. The grass was already growing on the ruined capitals and architraves. Little did even its destroyer's dream then that the day would come when only one of that 400 would be left, as Pompey's pillar, to show what the men of old could think and do. End of chapter five, part one.