 CHAPTER 27 About ten o'clock the next morning, as Hypatia, worn out with sleepless sorrow, was trying to arrange her thoughts for the farewell-lector. Her favourite maid announced that a messenger from Sinesius waited below. A letter from Sinesius, 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 bested. 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 ladyship'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 the film an 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 be gone. My father, what, who is this, who are you bringing 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 Cynesius's letter. Hypatia trembled from head to foot at the unexpected apparition. Well, at least he could know nothing of last night and its disgrace. But not daring 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. Cynesius 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 amongst the things of which she has bereaved me. Before too she bereaved me of my children. Once in old times my Leesy and 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 everyone except myself, and 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 in 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 Nikaius and Philelaus, two noblyutes, 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. Footnote an authentic letter of Senecius to Hypatia, 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 solemn pity, which told her that he knew not all. Surely not all! Have you seen the Miriam, gasped she, rushing desperately at that which he most dreaded? Not yet. I arrived but one hour ago, and Hypatia's welfare is still more important to me than my own. My welfare it is gone. Some which the better. I never found mine till I lost it. What do you mean?" Hypatia lingered, yet without withdrawing his gaze, as if he had something of importance to say, which 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 drooped her eyes, an empress, that today I am ruined, to-morrow perhaps prescribed. Have you no speech for me but your old sarcasms and ambiguities?" 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 like the dying Julian, the Galilean has conquered. He never said it, it is a monkish columnly, but I say it, impossible, I say it, as your dying speech to true Raphael Aben Ezra then lives no more, but he may be born again, and died a philosophy that he may be born again into barbaric superstition, a worthy metham psychosis. Farewell, sir, and she rose to go. Hear me! Hear me patiently this once noble beloved Hypatia. One more sneer of yours, and I may become again the same case-hardened fiend which you knew me of old, to all at least but you. O do not think me ungrateful, forgetful! What do I not owe to you, whose pure and lofty words alone kept smoldering 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 fate 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 metal 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, skepticism, and in that lowest deep I found a lower depth, when I became skeptical of skepticism 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 without myself. I took her, the dog, from 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 the struggle to hide her own bewilderment, answered almost without knowing it, WEDDED LOVE? WEDDED LOVE? Is that, then, the paltry bait by which Raphael, Abe, and Ezra has been tempted to desert philosophy? Kevin 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, like 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. 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. Talk to me rather about yourself. What is this strange and sudden betrothal? What is it to do with Christianity? I had thought that it was rather by the glories of celibacy, gross and superstitious as their notions of it are, that the Galileans tempted their converts. So had I, my dearest lady, answered he, as, glad to turn the subject for a moment, and perhaps a little netled by her contemptuous tone, he resumed something of his old arch and careless manner. But there is no accounting 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 Sinesius, of course, that most incoherent and most benevolent of busy buddies, 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 abyssable matchmaker was Augustin of Hippo himself. Anything to bribe a convert, said Hypatia contemptuously, I assure you, no. He informed me, and her also, openly and uncivile enough, that he taught 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 life of celibacy, 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 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He replied by an encomium on virginity, in which I seemed to hear again the voice of Hipatia herself, and sneered as it inwardly, as she used to sneer at me. Really I was in no sneering mood at that moment, and whatsoever I may have felt inclined 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 folks so thoroughly excellent and to the point, that I could not help telling 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, Hipatia, I saw an expression 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 there now, be sure of it. But he turned the conversation instantly, like a well-bred gentleman as he is, by saying, with the sweetest smile, that though he had made us a solemn rule never to be party, to making up any marriage, yet in our case heaven had so plainly pointed us out for each other, et cetera, et cetera, that he could not refuse himself the pleasure, and ended by a blessing as kindly as ever came from the lips of man. You seem wonderfully taken with the sofist of hippo, said Hipatia impatiently, and forget perhaps, 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 Rayfield, somewhat proudly, I care little. 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 Hipatia. 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, haves scornfully. Yes, indeed, you recollect my last words, when we parted there below a few months ago. Hipatia 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 heavensend warning. I told you that, like theogenes, 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. Hipatia 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 God, Hipatia, a God made up of our own intellectual notions, a rather of negations of them, of infinity and eternity, and invisibility and impossibility, and why not of immortality too, Hipatia? For I recollect we used to agree that it was a carnal degrading of the supreme one, to predicate of him so merely human a thing as virtue. Hipatia 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 seek 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 use 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 something 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. Why, why did you not tell me this? Because I was a beast, Hypatia, 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. You would be merciful to me as 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 sneering feignance was gone, imploring tenderness and endearnessness beamed from his whole countenance. The chrysalis 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'd a subtle, he'd a mocker, he'd a lucy and a valyxandria. 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 tartarouss. She looked again into his bright, clear, fearless face, and was ashamed of her own calamity. And if this was the end of him, of Sinesias, of Augustine, of Laird and Unlearned, Goth and Roman, the great flood would have its way then. Could she alone fight against it? She could. Could she submit, she? Her will should stand firm, her reason free, to the last, to the death of need be, and yet last night, last night, at last she spoke without looking up. And what of 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 along under 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 Judea of old, but, as you yourself will agree, in Christian Alexandria at this moment, at, do you remember, Hypatia, bonds, and discourage, 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 remember, and Augustine himself will 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, rave ill, I should are at the blast for me. 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 his own glory? But you ascent 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 ascent to it? Of course, it is Plato's. But do you ascent merely because it is written in the book called Plato's, or because your reason tells you 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 out-hand tropos, 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 manifest his righteousness to the world. The only method for him, according to Plato, would be Glaucons, of columnary and persecution, the scourge and the cross. What words are these, Raphael? Will scourges and crosses for an eternal and spiritual idea? Did you ever yet, Hypatia, consider it leisure what the archetype of man might be like? Hypatia started, as is a new thought, and confessed as every neoplatonist would have done, that she had never done so. And yet our master, Plato, made 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 fateful platonists enough here to fore, my dearest tutor. Perhaps, being philosophers, and somewhat of Pharisees to boot, we began all our lucubrations as we did our prayers, by thanking God that we were not as other men were, and so misread another passage in the Republic which we used in pleasant old days to be fond of quoting. What was that as, Hypatia, who became more and more interested in 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, one 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 little more on the archetype of man as man, before we meddled with a part of that archetype, the archetype of the philosopher? Surely it would have been the easier course, for there are more men than philosophers, 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 neoplatonist 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 us 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 archetype, 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 to fishermen of Galilee, where he said that he in whose image man is made was made flesh, and dwelt with him bodily there by the lakeside at Tiberius, and that he beheld his glory to glory as of the only begotten of the fodder. That last question is a very different one. God made flesh, my reason revolts at it. Old Homer's reason did not. CHAPTER 27 THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN Hypatia started, for she recollected her yesterday's cravings after those old palpable and human deities, and go on, she cried eagerly. Tell me, 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 arrive its existence immediately from him? Yes. But a man is one willing person, unlike 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. Who is son, Raphael? Why not of Zeus, father of gods and men? For we agreed that it. We would 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 yes, as Raphael declared to his dying day, of hope and joy? Well, Hypatia, a 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 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, Hypatia. We have gone up too far into the abyss. And so they both were silent for a while, and Raphael thought solemn thoughts about Victoria, and about ancient signs of Isaels, which were to him nonetheless 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 also, as a token that, in spite of all his baseness, 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 meaning which they did in the eyes of the converted Jew, awakened for the first time in his life to know the meaning 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 those 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 reveled for years, cosmogenies, emanations, affinities, symbolisms, hierarchies, abysses, eternities, and the rest of us, though she could not rest in them, not even believe in them, though they had vanished into thin air at her most utter need. Yet they were too pretty to be lost sight of forever, and, struggling against a 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 all 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 ought 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 refused to give up the beautiful, the sublime, the heavenly? What if Raphael, Abe, and Ezra, at least, had never found them till now? Recollect what I said just now. What if our old, beautiful, and sublime, and heavenly, had been the shearest 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 bodily 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, religious or other, but a world of righteous or unrighteous persons? What if I had discovered that one law of the spiritual world, in which all others were contained, was righteousness, and that disharmony of that law, which we called unspirituality, was not being vulgar, or clumsy, or ill-taught, or unimaginative, 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, I, 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 on shrinking, for duty's sake, 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 commands, and only to be performed alright by the help of the same spirit by which He rules the universe? That righteousness was to love, to help, to suffer for, if need be to die for, those who, in themselves, seemed fissured to arouse no feelings 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 it 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, I, 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 mathematical demonstration to prove to me that when a child was in danger his father saved him, neither do I hear. My reason, my heart, every faculty of me accept this stupid sensuous experience which I find deceiving me every moment, which cannot even prove to me my own existence, except that story of Calvary as the most natural, most probable, most necessary avertly 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 A. Ben Ezra has deserted the method of the severe dialectician for that of the eloquent lover. Not altogether, said he, smiling in return, for suppose that I had said to myself, we Platonists agree that the sight of God is the highest good. Hypatia once more shouldered at last night's recollections. 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 righteousness 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 forever free from any suspicion of selfish interest or weakness of endurance. Am I deserting the dialectic 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 gracious 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 philosophy, 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 little good before I die, having done much evil. To farm, plant, and build, and rescue a little corner of Ormwood's ert, as the Persians would say, out of the dominion of Ahriman. To fight Osurian robbers, feed Thracian mercenaries, save a few widows from starvation, 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 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 whore, bring whore, I must see her. 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. O, Raphael A. Ben 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, Sinesias, implores her himself, the hope which I need from him. And over and above it all, you, et too, Brute, why not fold my mantle round me, like Julius of old, and die? Raphael stood looking sadly at her, as her whole face sank into utter prostration. Yes, come, the Galilean, 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 I 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 word sound to him strangely pregnant, all but ominous? He almost fancied that not he, but some third person, had spoken him. 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. Ah! my young caraphaeus of pious plunderers, what do you want with me? Philaman, for it was he, looked at him in instant, and recognized him. Save her! For the love of God save her! Whom? Hypatia! How long has her salvation been important to you, my good friend? For God sakes it, Philaman, go back and warn 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, had Ray Phil, who saw that the boy was in earnest, come in with me, and speak to her father. No, not in that house, never in 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 maid, and she returned, no answer. Ray Phil 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 me her story, if there is reason in it, I will bear your message myself, of what is she to be warned? Of a plot, I know that there is a plot, against her among the monks and parable Annie. As I lay in bed this morning in Arseneus's room, they thought I was asleep. Arseneus, 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. 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? Philharmon 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 me in something devilish. 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 a 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 he on 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 with her. Imbecile old idiot! And he hastily wrote on his tablet, do not despise the young monk's warning. I believe him to speak the truth, as you love yourself and your 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 ex-communication 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 was thrown into the amphitheater. Where at a maid, boxed his ears for talking of such a thing, and then by way of mending it, declared that she knew for certain that a 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 idolaters? And yet, who could help liking them to 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 fate 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 a 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 philosopher dared less than the fanatic. If my gods are gods, then they will 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 like 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. Quim deus voot perdere, cried he to Philharmon, with a gesture of grief. Stay here and stop her. Make a last appeal. Drag the horse's 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 arresteus, even alarmed the guard in time. And he hurried through the walks and alcoves, now deserted by the fearful citizens, to the nearest gate. It was fast, and barricaded firmly on the outside. Terrified, 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, are reasonably fearing no danger from the Alexandrian populace to the glory and wonder of their city, or perhaps swishing 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 ensemble 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 civilization. He found an entrance, hurried through well-known corridors to a posturon, through which he and the arresteus had launched a hundred times, their lips full of bad words, their hearts of worst thoughts, gathered in those records of the fair wickedness of old. It was fast. He bet upon it, but no one answered. He rushed on and tried another. No one answered there, another, still silence and despair. He rushed upstairs, 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. Wither now, back, and whittler then, back round endless galleries, vaulted halls, staircases, doorways, some fast, some open, up and down, trying this way and that, losing himself at wiles in that enormous silent labyrinth. And his breath failed him, his throat was perched, his face burned as with the sumoom 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 forever and forever before the dreamer, narrowing, closing in on him, choking him? Was it a dream? Was he doomed to wander forever and forever in some palace of the dead, to expiate the sin which he had learned and done therein? His brain, for the first time in his life, began to reel. He could recollect nothing but that something dreadful was to happen, and that he had to prevent it, and could not. Where was he now, in the little by-chamber? He had talked with her there a hundred times, looking out over the pharaohs and the blue Mediterranean. What was at roar below, a sea of weltering yelling heads, thousands and thousands, down to the very beach, and from their innumerable throats one mighty war cry, God and the mother of God! Cyril's hounds were loose. He reeled from the window, and darted frantically away again, whither he knew not, and never knew, until his dying day. Good Philemon, sufficient for the chapter, as for the day, is the evil thereof. 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 apartment. 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 herself who might aspire to the honour of reigning favourite. What mattered to her? Whispers, snares 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, 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 a large wind-sail, which served in all Alexandrian houses the double purpose of a shelter from the sun and a ventilator for the rooms below. And her eye roved carelessly over that endless sea of roofs and towers and masts and glittering canals and gliding boats. But she saw none of them, nothing but one beloved face, lost, lost forever. 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 her head rose cautiously above the parapet. It was Miriam's. Casting a careful look round, Pelagia went forward. What could the old woman want with her? Miriam made interrogative signs, which Pelagia understood as asking her whether she was alone, and the moment 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've watched her all day. They refused me admittance below. Beware of wolf, of everyone. Do not stir from your chamber. There is a plot to carry you off to-night, and give you up to your brother at 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 would 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 midday hours. As she approached the door, she heard loud voices within. His? Yes, but wolves also. Her heart failed her, and she stopped a moment to listen. She heard Hypatia's name, a mad curiosity. She crouched down at the clock, and hearkened to every word. She will not accept me, wolf. If she will not, she shall go farther and fair 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 life is not worth that. It's a pity that we have not brought her hither already. It is, but we could not. We must not break with the restess till the palace is in our hands. And will it ever be in our hands, friend? Certain. We were round at every peak at 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. Hold in. 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 gall is ready. I've been working like a horse at them all the morning as you would let me do nothing else. And Godric 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 goth he can muster. If the palace is attacked first, he is to give us the signal, and we are to pack up and row round 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 under 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 Smith, and let him beat the armourer if he can. A very good thought, said Wolfe, and came out instantly for the purpose of putting it in practice. Pelagia had just timed her retreat into a joining doorway, but she had heard enough, and as Wolfe 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. Wolfe stood silent, utterly discomfited by this unexpected submission, where he had expected patulent 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 him, 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! Wolfe was silent. What have I done but love him? What could I wish but to make him happy? I was rich enough, praised and pethered, 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 Wolfe! Wolfe 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, and laughing stuck to these Greek dogs, when he might have been their conqueror, their king, foolish 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 Ptolemy's, 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 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, she almost shrieked. No, no, not with wretched, ignorant, polluted me. I see. Oh, God, I see it all. And this is why you want him to marry her, her... She could not utter the dreaded name. Wolfe could not trust himself to speak, but he bowed his head in acquiescence. Yes, I will go, up into the desert, with Philharmon, and he 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 a promise. And then she sprang again to Wolfe with a sudden shudder. I cannot, Wolfe. I cannot leave him. I shall go mad if I do. Do not be angry. I will promise anything. Take any oath you like. If you 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 anyone, and you shall tell him that I am gone, dead, if you will. Only let me stay, and I will wear rags and grind in the mill. And 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 I shall soon grow old and ugly with grief, and though be no more danger then, dear Wolfe, will there, from this accursed face of mine. Only promise me that. There he is calling 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. And she sank down again on the floor, as Wolfe went out, murmuring to himself. Poor child, poor child, well for thee this day, if thou were dead, and at the bottom of Heela. 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 life, vain fool that I was, that everyone 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. Oh, how could I believe them, till his own lips had said it? Intolerable, 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 Epic Harris, who hung herself in the litter, and Leana, who bit out her tongue, less a torture should drive them to betray their lovers? There used to be a statue of Leana, 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, she was a, ah, but she dared die for the man she loved. I, but God despises me too, and elates me, he will send me to eternal fire. Fulamon said so, though he was my brother. The old monk said so, though he wept as he said it. The flames of hell forever! Oh, not forever! Great, dreadful God, not forever! Indeed, I did not know. No one taught me about right and wrong, and I never knew that I'd been baptized. Indeed, I never knew. And it was so pleasant, so pleasant to be happy, and praised, and loved, and to see happy faces round me. How could I help it? The birds there, who are singing in the darling, beloved court, they do what they like, and I would not angry with them for being happy. And I will not be more cruel to me than to them, great God. For what did I know more than they? Thou hast made the beautiful sunshine, and the pleasant, pleasant world, and the flowers, and the birds. Thou would not send me to burn for ever and ever? Will not a hundred years be punishment enough? Or a thousand? Oh, God, it's not this punishment enough already to have to leave him, just as a beginning to long to be good and to be worthy of him. Oh, have mercy, mercy, mercy, and let me go after I've 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 sunshine 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 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. And at that thought, a long, wild cry of misery broke from my lips, and rang through the house. Hurtly, she fastened the sword upright to the foot of the bed, and tore open her chinic. Here, under this widowed 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, hit her face on her hands, and cowered down. What is it? cried he, lifting 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. Hepathe, 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. I will not ask her. Where is my sword? Soul of Odin. Why is it fastened here? I was going to do not be angry. They told me that I'd better die, and the Amal stood the thunderstruck for a moment. Oh, do not strike me again. Send me to the mill. Kill me now with your own hand. Anything but another blow. A blow? Noble woman, cried the Amal, clasping her in his arms. The storm was passed, and Pelagia had been nestling to that beloved heart, cooling like a happy dove for many a minute before the Amal aroused himself and her. Now, quick! We have not a moment to lose. Up to the tower, where you'll be safe, and then to show these curds what comes of snarling round the wild wolves then. End of Chapter 28. Chapter 29, Part 1 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 Nadine Gertboulez, Hypatia by Charles Kingsley, Chapter 29, Nemesis, Part 1. And was the Amal's news true then? Philaman saw Raphael rush across the street into the museum gardens. His last words had been a command to stay where he was, and the boy obeyed him. The black porter who led Raphael out told him somewhat insolently that his mistress would see no one and receive no messages, but he had made up his mind, complained 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 thanking the gods that he was not born in that station of life, retired to his porter's cell and forgot the whole matter. There Philaman awaited 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 desperate earnestness of terror, as intense as Philaman's own. Yet why did he not return? Perhaps he had found 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 suspicious post. That street ran along the back of the Caesareum, a favorite hound 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 in every street of Alexandria? He tried to laugh away his own fears. And yet they ripened, by the very intensity 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 were 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 Philemon crouched, till the pavement scorched like hot iron, and his eyes were dazzled by the blinding 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 curicle, glittering with silver, rattled round the corner 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 hellhounds. A slave brought out an embroidered cushion, and then Hypatia herself came forth, looking more glorious than ever. Her lips set in a sad firm smile, her eyes uplifted, 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, cut her robe conversively, threw himself on his knees before her. Stop! Stay! You are going to destruction! Calmly she looked down upon him. A complice of witches! Would you make of Theon's daughter a traitor like yourself? He sprang up, stepped back, and stood stupefied, with shame and despair. She believed him guilty then. It was the will of God. 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 ambush gate, surged up round the car, swept forward. She had disappeared. And as filament followed breathless, the horses galloped past him madly, homeward with the empty carriage. With her were they dragging her. To the caesarium the church of God himself? Impossible! Why thither of all places of the earth? Why did the mob increasing momentarily by hundreds? Pour down upon the beach, and return brandishing flints, shells, fragments of pottery? She was upon the church steps before he caught them up, invisible among the crowd. But he could drag 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 dance mass of paraboliny and monks, who, mingled with the fishwives and duck workers, leaped and yelled around their victim. But what he could not do another in a weaker did, even the little porter. Furiously, no one knew how or whence, he burst up as if from the ground in the thickest of the ground, with knife, teeth and nails like a venomous wildcat, 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 Philharmon 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, with what the gorgeous gloom. And right in front, above the altar, the colossal Christ, watching unmoved from off the wall, his right hand raised to give a blessing, or a curse. On, up the nave, fresh shreds of her dress, stirring the holy pavement, up the chancel steps themselves, up to the altar, right underneath the great still Christ, and there even those hellhounds posed. She shook herself free from her tormentors, and, springing 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 around her. The other, long white arm, was stretched upward, toward the great still Christ appealing, and who dare say in vain, from man to God. Her lips were open 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, like the trumpet of avenging angels, through filament's ears. Crushed against the pillar, unable to move in the dance 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? Tearing her piecemeal? Yes, and worse than that. And still the shrieks rang on, and still the great Christ looked down on filament with that calm, intolerable eye, and would not turn away. And over his head was written in the rainbow, I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. The same as he was in Judea of old filament? 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 moons, the moons 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 sinneron, 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 horror the glaring of the fire, and the mob who leaped and yelled like demons round their mollock sacrifice. A hand grasped his arm, he looked up, it was the porter. And this, young Butcher, is the Catholic and Apostolic Church? No, you demon, 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. You demon looked at him awhile. The shock had subbed the poor fob for once. I did what I could to die with her, said he. I did what I could to save her, answered Philharmon. I know it. Forgive the words which I just spoke. Did we not both love her? And the little wretch sat down by Philharmon'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 Philharmon then. He sat there, he knew not how long. She is with the gods, said you demon at last. She is with the god of gods, answered Philharmon, and they both were silent again. Suddenly a commanding voice aroused them. They looked up, and so before them Raphael Ibn Esra. 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. Philharmon looked up, but could not speak. Then arise and flee for your life into the farthest corner of the desert, hear the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah fall upon this accursed city. Have your father, mother, brother, sister, eye, cat, dog, or bird for which you care, within its walls? Philharmon 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. You demon, come with me. You must lead me to your house, to the lodging of Mary Am the Jewess. Do not deny. I know that she is there. For the sake of her who is gone I will hold your harmless eye, reward you richly if you prove faithful. Rise. You demon, who knew Raphael's face well, rose and led the way trembling, and Philharmon was left alone. They never met again, but Philharmon 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 Son, it seemed, owed to have failed his face. And his words, arise and flee for their life, uttered as they were with the stern self-command, and writhing lip 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 full 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 cesarium, and turned up the street of the museum. Alas! it was one roaring sea of heads. They were siking Theon's house, the house of so many memories. Perhaps the bald 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 dark 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, root out all Aryan goth, down with idolatrous wantons, down with Pelagia Aphrodite. He hurried down the alley to the tower door, where Wolf 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 Wolf, but Miriam. Let me pass. Where for? He made no answer and tried to push past her. For, for, for, whispered the hag, holding the door against him with all her strength. Where are you fellow kidnappers? Where are you band of monks? Philamon started back. How had she discovered his plan? Hi, where are they, besotted boy? Have you not seen enough of Mancrey this afternoon that you must try still to make that poor girl even such a one as yourselves? Aye, you may root out your own human nature if you will, and make yourself devils in trying to become angels. But woman she is, and woman she shall live or die. Let me pass. Cryed Philamon 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 when I can prevent it, 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 strength and speed of a young manid. Once Philamon was near passing her, but he recollected that he did not know his way and contented himself with keeping clothes behind, and making the fugitive his guide. End of Chapter 29, Part 1 Chapter 29, Part 2 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 Nathine Godboulet, Hypatia by Charles Kingsley, Chapter 29, Nemesis, Part 2 Stair after stair he fled upward till she turned suddenly into a chamber door. Philamon passed. A few feet above him the open sky showed at the stairhead. They were close then to the roof. One moment more, and the hag darted out of the room again and turned to flee upward still. Philamon quote 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 moment. Come, while they are all below. And he seized her hand. But Pelagia only recalled. No, no, whispered she in answer. I cannot, cannot. He has forgiven me all, all, and I am his forever. And now, just as he is in danger, when he may be wounded, heaven, would you have me do anything so paces to desert him? Pelagia, Pelagia, darling sister, cried Philamon 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 believe you. No, I do not. God is not so cruel as you say, and if he were, to lose my love, that is hell. Let me burn hereafter, if I do but keep him now. Philamon stood stupefied and shuddering. All his own early doubts flashed across him like a thunderbolt. When in the temple cave he had seen those painted ladies at their revels, and shuddered, and asked himself, Were they burning forever and ever? Come, gasped he once again, and throwing himself on his knees before her, covered her hands with kisses, widely entreating, but in vain. What is this? thundered a voice, not Miriam's, but Diamel's. He was unarmed, but he rushed straight upon Philamon. Do not harm him, shrieked Pelagia. He is my brother, my brother, whom I told you. What does he hear? cried Diamel, who instantly defined the truth. Pelagia was silent. I wished to deliver my sister, a Christian, from the sinful embraces of an Aryan heretic, and deliver her I will, or die. An Aryan! laughed Diamel, say a heathen at once and tell the truth, young fool. Will you go with him, Pelagia, and turn none in the sand heaps? Pelagia sprang towards her lover. Philamon caught her by the arm for one last desperate 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 lived at Philamon like 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 parapet, and twice recalled. A third fearful lunge, the earthen wall gave way, and down to the dark depth, 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 emel was undermost. She saw his fair floating locks dash against the cruel stone. His grasp suddenly loosened, his limbs collapsed. Two distinct plungers broke the dark cell and 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, filament, dripping, bruised, and bleeding, was crawling up the water-steps at the lower end of the lane. A woman rushed from the pasta-door and stood on the quay-age, 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. Madra! She shrieked and, dashing aside his outspread hands, fled wildly up the passage. The way was blocked with bays of merchandise, but the denser bounded over them like a deer, while filament, half stunned by his fall, and blinded by his stripping locks, stumbled, fell, and lay, unable to rise. She held on for a few yards, towards the torchlit mob, which was surging and roaring in the main street above, then turned suddenly into a side alley and vanished, while filament lay groaning upon the pavement, without a purpose or a hope upon earth. Five minutes more, and wolf 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 filament 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 ML go up thither. Where were they now? And why was the little post on gate found open, and shut only just in time to prevent the entrance of the mob? Wolf stood, revolving in a brain, but two were practiced in such cases, all possible contingencies of death and horror. At last, her rope and a light smid, he almost whispered. They were brute, and wolf, resisting all the entreaties of the younger men to allow them to go on the parade of search, lowered himself through the breach. He was about two-thirds down, when he shook the rope, and called in a stiffled voice to those above, HALL UP! I have seen enough. Breathless with curiosity and fear, they hold him up. He stood among them for a few moments, silent, as if stunned by the weight of some enormous womb. Is he dead? Odin has taken his son home, wolves of the goth, and he held out his right hand to the ostrac ring, and burst into a nagony of weeping. A clotted dress of long fair hair lay in his palm. 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 hordes, too brave to be ashamed of tears, broke out and wailed like children. There 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. Ha! it is bitter to all true human hearts to be robbed of their ideal, even though that ideal be that of a mere wild boar and soulless gladiator. At last Smid spoke, Heroes, this is Odin's doom, and your father is just. Had we listened to Prince Wolf four months ago, this had never been. We have been cowards and sluggards, and Odin is angry with his children. Let us swear to be Prince Wolf's men and follow him tomorrow, where he will. Wolf grasped his outstretched hand lovingly. No, Smid, son of Troll, these words are not yours to speak. Agilmun, son of Kniva, Godarik, son of Ermenrik, you are Bolts, and to you the succession appertains. Trollots here, which of you shall be achieved in? No, no, Wolf! cried both the youth at once. You are the hero, you are the Sangamen. We are not worthy. We have been cowards and sluggards like the rest. Wolves of the goth 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 Godarik, tearing off his percler. Lift him on the shield, hail Wolf King, Wolf King of Egypt! And the rest of the goth, attracted by the noise, rushed up the tower stairs in time to join in the mighty shout of Wolf King of Egypt, as careless of the vast multitude which she held and searched without, as boys are of the snow against the wind of pain. No, said Wolves suddenly, as he stood on the uplifted shield. If I be indeed your king, and ye my man, Wolves of the goth, tomorrow we will go forth of this place, hated of Odin, rank with the innocent blood of the Orona maid. Back to Adolf, back to our own people. Well, 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 ML must not go to the Valhalla without fair attendance. Not the poor girls, said Agilmund, who took for granted that Wolves would wish to celebrate the ML's funeral in true Gothic fashion by a slaughter of slaves. No, one of them I so behave this very afternoon worthy of a Valhalla, 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 through the gates open, and call in the Greek hounds to the funeral supper of the son of Odin. Through the gates open? Yes, Godaric, 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. Smith and the rest of you, come with me through the stables close to the gate, as silent as healer. And they went down, to meet, full on the stairs below, old Miriam. Breathless and exhausted by her exertion, she had fallen heavily before Philharmon's strong arm, and lying half-sturned for a while, recovered just in time to meet her doom. She knew that it was to come, and faced it like herself. Take the witch, said Wolf slowly. Take the corrupta of heroes, the cause of all our sorrows. Miriam looked at him with a quiet smile. The witch is accustomed long ago to hear full slay on her the consequences of their own lust and laziness. Who her down, Smith, son of troll, that she may pass the immense soul and gladden it on her way to Nephilim? Smith did it, but so terrible were the eyes which glared upon him from those sucking sockets that his sight was dazzled. The aches turned aside, and struck her shoulder. She reeled, but did not fall. It is enough, she said quietly. The accursed grandchild's daughter numbed my arm, said Smith. Let her go! No man shall say that I struck a woman twice. Need hug waits for her, soon or late, and said Wolf. And Miriam, coolly folding her shoulder round 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 Wolf, to your posts and vengeance. The mob had weltered and howled ineffectually around their 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 gasny 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 murderous of Hypatia, till the court was full of choking wretches, surging against the walls and pillars in aimless fury. And then, from under the archway on each side, rushed a body of tall armed men, driving back all income as 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 goth, whose helmets and mails shirts made them invulnerable to the clumsy weapons of the mob, and began hooing 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 curves before one lion? And the moon rose higher and higher, staring down ghastly and unmoved upon that doomed court of the furies, and still the bills and swords hood on and on, and the goth drew the corpses, as they found room towards a dark pile in the midst, where old wolves sat upon a heap of slain, singing the praises of the ML, and the glories of Valhalla, while the shrieks of his loot rose shrilled above the shrieks of the flying and the wounded, and its wild waltz-time danced and rollig down swifter and swifter, as the old singer maddened, in awful mockery of the terror and agony around. And so, by men and purposes which wrecked not of her, as is the wound of Providence, was the blood of Hypatia avenged in part that night. In part only, for Peter the Reader, and his special associates, were safe in sanctuary at the cesarium, clinging 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 escape the swords of the goth to be reserved for the more awful punishment of impunity.