WHEN we lost sight of Philammon, his destiny had hurled him once more among his old friends the Goths, in search of two important elements of human comfort, freedom and a sister. The former be found at once, in a large hall where sundry Goths were lounging and toping, into the nearest corner of which he shrank, and stood, his late terror and rage forgotten altogether in the one new and absorbing thought—His sister might be in that house!.... and yielding to so sweet a dream, he began fancying to himself which of all those gay maidens she might be who had become in one moment more dear, more great to him, than all things else in heaven or earth. That fair-haired, rounded Italian? That fierce, luscious, aquiline-faced Jewess? That delicate, swart, sidelong-eyed Copt? No. She was Athenian, like himself. That tall, lazy Greek girl, then, from beneath whose sleepy lids flashed, once an hour, sudden lightnings, revealing depths of thought and feeling uncultivated, perhaps even unsuspected, by their possessor. Her? Or that, her seeming sister? Or the next?.... Or—Was it Pelagia herself, most beautiful and most sinful of them all? Fearful thought! He blushed scarlet at the bare imagination: yet why, in his secret heart, was that the most pleasant hypothesis of them all? And suddenly flashed across him that observation of one of the girls on board the boat, on his likeness to Pelagia. Strange, that he had never recollected it before! It must be so! and yet on what a slender thread, woven of scattered hints and surmises, did that ‘must’ depend! He would be sane! he would wait; he would have patience. Patience, with a sister yet unfound, perhaps perishing? Impossible!
Suddenly the train of his thoughts was changed perforce:—
‘Come! come and see! There’s a fight in the streets,’ called one of the damsels down the stairs, at the highest pitch of her voice.
‘I shan’t go,’ yawned a huge fellow, who was lying on his back on a sofa.
‘Oh come up, my hero,’ said one of the girls. ‘Such a charming riot, and the Prefect himself in the middle of it! We have not had such a one in the street this month.’
‘The princes won’t let me knock any of these donkey-riders on the head, and seeing other people do it only makes me envious. Give me the wine-jug—curse the girl! she has run upstairs!’
The shouting and trampling came nearer; and in another minute Wulf came rapidly downstairs, through the hall into the harem-court, and into the presence of the Amal.
‘Prince—here is a chance for us. These rascally Greeks are murdering their Prefect under our very windows.’
‘The lying cur! Serve him right for cheating us. He has plenty of guards. Why can’t the fool take care of himself?’
‘They have all run away, and I saw some of them hiding among the mob. As I live, the man will be killed in five minutes more.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why should he, when we can save him and win his favour for ever? The men’s fingers are itching far a fight; it’s a bad plan not to give hounds blood now and then, or they lose the knack of hunting.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t take five minutes.’
‘And heroes should show that they can forgive when an enemy is in distress.’
‘Very true! Like an Amal too!’ And the Amal sprang up and shouted to his men to follow him.
‘Good-bye, my pretty one. Why, Wulf,’ cried he, as he burst out into the court, ‘here’s our monk again! By Odin, you’re welcome, my handsome boy! come along and fight too, young fellow; what were those arms given you for?’
‘He is my man,’ said Wulf, laying his hand on Philammon’s shoulder, ‘and blood he shall taste.’ And out the three hurried, Philammon, in his present reckless mood, ready for anything.
‘Bring your whips. Never mind swords. Those rascals are not worth it,’ shouted the Amal, as he hurried down the passage brandishing his heavy thong, some ten feet in length, threw the gate open, and the next moment recoiled from a dense crush of people who surged in—and surged out again as rapidly as the Goth, with the combined force of his weight and arm, hewed his way straight through them, felling a wretch at every blow, and followed up by his terrible companions.
They were but just in time. The four white blood-horses were plunging and rolling over each other, and Orestes reeling in his chariot, with a stream of blood running down his face, and the hands of twenty wild monks clutching at him. ‘Monks again!’ thought Philammon and as he saw among them more than one hateful face, which he recollected in Cyril’s courtyard on that fatal night, a flush of fierce revenge ran through him.
‘Mercy!’ shrieked the miserable Prefect—‘I am a Christian! I swear that I am a Christian! the Bishop Atticus baptized me at Constantinople!’
‘Down with the butcher! down with the heathen tyrant, who refuses the adjuration on the Gospels rather than be reconciled to the patriarch! Tear him out of the chariot!’ yelled the monks.
The craven hound!’ said the Amal, stopping short, ‘I won’t help him!’ But in an instant Wulf rushed forward, and struck right and left; the monks recoiled, and Philammon, burning to prevent so shameful a scandal to the faith to which he still clung convulsively, sprang into the chariot and caught Orestes in his arms.
‘You are safe, my lord; don’t struggle,’ whispered he, while the monks flew on him. A stone or two struck him, but they only quickened his determination, and in another moment the whistling of the whips round his head, and the yell and backward rush of the monks, told him that he was safe. He carried his burden safely within the doorway of Pelagia’s house, into the crowd of peeping and shrieking damsels, where twenty pairs of the prettiest hands in Alexandria seized on Orestes, and drew him into the court.
‘Like a second Hylas, carried off by the nymphs!’ simpered he, as he vanished into the harem, to reappear in five minutes, his head bound rip with silk handkerchiefs, and with as much of his usual impudence as he could muster.
‘Your Excellency—heroes all—I am your devoted slave. I owe you life itself; and more, the valour of your succour is only surpassed by the deliciousness of your cure. I would gladly undergo a second wound to enjoy a second time the services of such hands, and to see such feet busying themselves on my behalf.’
‘You wouldn’t have said that five minutes ago, quoth the Amal, looking at him very much as a bear might at a monkey.
‘Never mind the hands and feet, old fellow, they are none of yours!’ bluntly observed a voice from behind’ probably Smid’s, and a laugh ensued.
‘My saviours, my brothers!’ said Orestes, politely ignoring the laughter. ‘How can I repay you? Is there anything in which my office here enables me—I will not say to reward, for that would be a term beneath your dignity as free barbarians—but to gratify you?’
‘Give us three days’ pillage of the quarter!’ shouted some one.
‘Ah, true valour is apt to underrate obstacles; you forget your small numbers.’
‘I say,’ quoth the Amal—‘I say, take care, Prefect.—If you mean to tell me that we forty couldn’t cut all the throats in Alexandria in three days, and yours into the bargain, and keep your soldiers at bay all the time—’
‘Half of them would join us!’ cried some one. ‘They are half our own flesh and blood after all!’
‘Pardon me, my friends, I do not doubt it a moment. I know enough of the world never to have found a sheep-dog yet who would not, on occasion, help to make away with a little of the mutton which he guarded. Eh, my venerable sir?’ turning to Wulf with a knowing bow.
Wulf chuckled grimly, and said something to the Amal in German about being civil to guests.
‘You will pardon me, my heroic friends,’ said Orestes, ‘but, with your kind permission, I will observe that I am somewhat faint and disturbed by late occurrences. To trespass on your hospitality further would be an impertinence. If, therefore, I might send a slave to find some of my apparitors-’
‘No, by all the gods!’ roared the Amal, ‘you’re my guest now—my lady’s at least. And no one ever went out of my house sober yet if I could help it. Set the cooks to work, my men! The Prefect shall feast with us like an emperor, and we’ll send him home to-night as drunk as he can wish. Come along, your Excellency; we’re rough fellows, we Goths; but by the Valkyrs, no one can say that we neglect our guests!’
‘It is a sweet compulsion,’ said Orestes, as he went in.
‘Stop, by the bye! Didn’t one of you men catch a monk.?’
‘Here he is, prince, with his elbows safe behind him.’ And a tall, haggard, half-naked monk was dragged forward.
‘Capital! bring him in. His Excellency shall judge him while dinner’s cooking’ and Smid shall have the hanging of him. He hurt nobody in the scuffle; he was thinking of his dinner.’
‘Some rascal bit a piece out of my leg, and I tumbled down,’ grumbled Smid.
‘Well, pay out this fellow for it, then. Bring a chair, slaves! Here, your Highness, sit there and judge.’
‘Two chairs!’ said some one; ‘the Amal shan’t stand before the emperor himself.’
‘By all means, my dear friends. The Amal and I will act as the two Caesars, with divided empire. I presume we shall have little difference of opinion as to the hanging of this worthy.’
‘Hanging’s too quick for him.’
‘Just what I was about to remark—there are certain judicial formalities, considered generally to be conducive to the stability, if not necessary to the existence, of the Roman empire—’
‘I say, don’t talk so much,’ shouted a Goth, ‘If you want to have the hanging of him yourself, do. We thought we would save you trouble.’
‘Ah, my excellent friend, would you rob me of the delicate pleasure of revenge? I intend to spend at least four hours to-morrow in killing this pious martyr. He will have a good time to think, between the beginning and the end of the rack.’
‘Do you hear that, master monk?’ said Smid, chucking him under the chin, while the rest of the party seemed to think the whole business an excellent joke, and divided their ridicule openly enough between the Prefect and his victim.
‘The man of blood has said it. I am a martyr,’ answered the monk in a dogged voice.
‘You will take a good deal of time in becoming one.’
‘Death may be long, but glory is everlasting.’
‘True. I forgot that, and will save you the said glory, if I can help it, for a year or two. Who was it struck me with the stone?’
No answer.
‘Tell me, and the moment he is in my lictors’ hands I pardon you freely.’
The monk laughed. ‘Pardon? Pardon me eternal bliss, and the things unspeakable, which God has prepared for those who love Him? Tyrant and butcher! I struck thee, thou second Dioclesian—I hurled the stone—I, Ammonius. Would to heaven that it had smitten thee through, thou Sisera, like the nail of Jael the Kenite!’
‘Thanks, my friend. Heroes, you have a cellar for monks as well as for wine? I will trouble you with this hero’s psalm-singing tonight, and send my apparitors for him in the morning.’
‘If he begins howling when we are in bed, your men won’t find much of him left in the morning,’ said the Amal. ‘But here come the slaves, announcing dinner.’
‘Stay,’ said Orestes; ‘there is one more with whom I have an account to settle—that young philosopher there.’
‘Oh, he is coming in, too. He never was drunk in his life, I’ll warrant, poor fellow, and it’s high time for him to begin.’ And the Amal laid a good-natured bear’s paw on Philammon’s shoulder, who hung back in perplexity, and cast a piteous look towards Wulf.
Wulf answered it by a shake of the head which gave Philammon courage to stammer out a courteous refusal. The Amal swore an oath at him which made the cloister ring again, and with a quiet shove of his heavy hand, sent him staggering half across the court: but Wulf interposed.
‘The boy is mine, prince. He is no drunkard, and I will not let him become one. Would to heaven,’ added he, under his breath, ‘that I could say the same to some others. Send us out our supper here, when you are done. Half a sheep or so will do between us, and enough of the strongest to wash it down with. Smid knows my quantity.’
‘Why in heaven’s name are you not coming in?’
‘That mob will be trying to burst the gates again before two hours are out; and as some one must stand sentry, it may as well be a man who will not have his ears stopped up by wine and women’s kisses. The boy will stay with me.’
So the party went in, leaving Wulf and Philammon alone in the outer hall.
There the two sat for some half hour, casting stealthy glances at each other, and wondering perhaps, each of them vainly enough, what was going on in the opposite brain. Philammon, though his heart was full of his sister, could not help noticing the air of deep sadness which hung about the scarred and weather-beaten features of the old warrior. The grimness which he had remarked on their first meeting seemed to be now changed into a settled melancholy. The furrows round his mouth and eyes had become deeper and sharper. Some perpetual indignation seemed smouldering in the knitted brow and protruding upper lip. He sat there silent and motionless for some half hour, his chin resting on his hands, and they again upon the butt of his axe, apparently in deep thought, and listening with a silent sneer to the clinking of glasses and dishes within.
Philammon felt too much respect, both for his age and his stately sadness, to break the silence. At last some louder burst of merriment than usual aroused him.
‘What do you call that?’ said he, speaking in Greek.
‘Folly and vanity.’
‘And what does she there—the Alruna—the prophet-woman, call it?’
‘Whom do you mean?’
‘Why, the Greek woman whom we went to hear talk this morning.’
‘Folly and vanity.’
‘Why can’t she cure that Roman hairdresser there of it, then?’
Philammon was silent—‘Why not, indeed!’
‘Do you think she could cure any one of it?’
‘Of what?’
‘Of getting drunk, and wasting their strength and their fame, and their hard-won treasures upon eating and drinking, and fine clothes, and bad women.’
‘She is most pure herself, and she preaches purity to all who hear her.’
‘Curse preaching. I have preached for these four months.’
‘Perhaps she may have some more winning arguments—perhaps—’
‘I know. Such a beautiful bit of flesh and blood as she is might get a hearing, when a grizzled old head-splitter like me was called a dotard. Eh? Well. It’s natural.’
A long silence.
‘She is a grand woman. I never saw such a one, and I have seen many. There was a prophetess once, lived in an island in the Weser-stream—and when a man saw her, even before she spoke a word, one longed to crawl to her feet on all fours, and say, “There, tread on me; I am not fit for you to wipe your feet upon.” And many a warrior did it.... Perhaps I may have done it myself, before now .... And this one is strangely like her. She would make a prince’s wife, now.’
Philammon started. What new feeling was it, which made him indignant at the notion?
‘Beauty? What’s body without soul? What’s beauty without wisdom? What’s beauty without chastity? Best! fool! wallowing in the mire which every hog has fouled!’
‘Like a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman who is without discretion.’
‘Who said that?’
‘Solomon, the king of Israel.’
‘I never heard of him. But he was a right Sagaman, whoever said it. And she is a pure maiden, that other one?’
‘Spotless as the’—blessed Virgin, Philammon was going to say—but checked himself. There were sad recollections about the words.
Wulf sat silent for a few minutes, while Philammon’s thoughts reverted at once to the new purpose for which alone life seemed worth having.... To find his sister! That one thought had in a few hours changed and matured the boy into the man. Hitherto he had been only the leaf before the wind, the puppet of every new impression; but now circumstance, which had been leading him along in such soft fetters for many a month, was become his deadly foe; and all his energy and cunning, all his little knowledge of man and of society, rose up sturdily and shrewdly to fight in this new cause. Wulf was now no longer a phenomenon to be wondered at, but an instrument to be used. The broken hints which he had just given of discontent with Pelagia’s presence inspired the boy with sudden hope, and cautiously he began to hint at the existence of persons who would be glad to remove her. Wulf caught at the notion, and replied to it with searching questions, till Philammon, finding plain speaking the better part of cunning, told him openly the whole events of the morning, and the mystery which Arsenius had half revealed, and then shuddered with mingled joy and horror, as Wulf, after ruminating over the matter for a weary five minutes, made answer—
‘And what if Pelagia herself were your sister?’
Philammon was bursting forth in some passionate answer, when the old man stopped him and went on slowly, looking him through and through—
‘Because, when a penniless young monk claims kin with a woman who is drinking out of the wine-cups of the Caesars, and filling a place for a share of which kings’ daughters have been thankful—and will be again before long—why then, though an old man may be too good-natured to call it all a lie at first sight, he can’t help supposing that the young monk has an eye to his own personal profit, eh?’
‘My profit?’ cried poor Philammon, starting up. ‘Good God! what object on earth can I have, but to rescue her from this infamy to purity and holiness?’
He had touched the wrong chord.
‘Infamy? you accursed Egyptian slave!’ cried the prince, starting up in his turn, red with passion, and clutching at the whip which hung over his head. ‘Infamy? As if she, and you too, ought not to consider yourselves blest in her being allowed to wash the feet of an Amal!’
‘Oh’ forgive me!’ said Philammon, terrified at the fruits of his own clumsiness. ‘But you forget—you forget, she is not married to him!’
‘Married to him? A freedwoman? No; thank Freya! he has not fallen as low as that, at least: and never shall, if I kill the witch with my own hands. A freedwoman!’
Poor Philammon! And he had been told but that morning that he was a slave. He hid his face in his hands, and burst into an agony of tears.
‘Come, come,’ said the testy warrior, softened at once. ‘Woman’s tears don’t matter, but somehow I never could bear to make a man cry. When you are cool, and have learnt common courtesy, we’ll talk more about this. So! Hush; enough is enough. Here comes the supper, and I am as hungry as Loke.’
And he commenced devouring like his namesake’ ‘the gray beast of the wood,’ and forcing, in his rough hospitable way, Philammon to devour also much against his will and stomach.
‘There. I feel happier now!’ quoth Wulf, at last. ‘There is nothing to be done in this accursed place but to eat. I get no fighting, no hunting. I hate women as they hate me. I don’t know anything indeed, that I don’t hate, except eating and singing. And now, what with those girls’ vile unmanly harps and flutes, no one cares to listen to a true rattling warsong. There they are at it now, with their caterwauling, squealing all together like a set of starlings on a foggy morning! We’ll have a song too, to drown the noise.’ And he burst out with a wild rich melody, acting, in uncouth gestures and a suppressed tone of voice, the scene which the words described—
An elk looked out of the pine forest He snuffed up east, he snuffed down west, Stealthy and still.
His mane and his horns were heavy with snow; I laid my arrow across my bow, Stealthy and still.
And then quickening his voice, as his whole face blazed up into fierce excitement—
The bow it rattled’ the arrow flew, It smote his blade-bones through and through, Hurrah!
I sprang at his throat like a wolf of the wood, And I warmed my hands in the smoking blood, Hurrah!
And with a shout that echoed and rang from wall to wall, and pealed away above the roofs, he leapt to his feet with a gesture and look of savage frenzy which made Philammon recoil. But the passion was gone in an instant, and Wulf sat down again chuckling to himself—
‘There—that is something like a warrior’s song. That makes the old blood spin along again! But this debauching furnace of a climate! no man can keep his muscle, or his courage, or his money, or anything else in it. May the gods curse the day when first I saw it!’
Philammon said nothing, but sat utterly aghast at an outbreak so unlike Wulf’s usual caustic reserve and stately self-restraint, and shuddering at the thought that it might be an instance of that daemoniac possession to which these barbarians were supposed by Christians and by Neo-Platonists to be peculiarly subject. But the horror was not yet at its height; for in another minute the doors of the women’s court flew open, and, attracted by Wulf’s shout, out poured the whole Bacchanalian crew, with Orestes, crowned with flowers, and led by the Amal and Pelagia, reeling in the midst, wine-cup in hand.
‘There is my philosopher, my preserver, my patron saint!’ hiccupped he. ‘Bring him to my arms, that I may encircle his lovely neck with pearls of India, and barbaric gold!’
‘For God’s sake let me escape!’ whispered he to Wulf, as the rout rushed upon him. Wulf opened the door in an instant, and he dashed through it. As he wen, the old man held out his hand—
‘Come and see me again, boy!—Me only. The old warrior will not hurt you!’
There was a kindly tone in the voice, a kindly light in the eye, which made Philammon promise to obey. He glanced one look back through the gateway as he fled, and just saw a wild whirl of Goths and girls, spinning madly round the court in the world-old Teutonic waltz; while, high above their heads, in the uplifted arms of the mighty Amal, was tossing the beautiful figure of Pelagia, tearing the garland from her floating hair to pelt the dancers with its roses. And that might be his sister! He hid his face and fled, and the gate shut out the revellers from his eyes; and it is high time that it should shut them out from ours also.
Some four hours more had passed. The revellers were sleeping off their wine, and the moon shining bright and cold across the court, when Wulf came out, carrying a heavy jar of wine, followed by Smid, a goblet in each hand.
‘Here, comrade, out into the middle, to catch a breath of night-air. Are all the fools asleep?’
‘Every mother’s son of them. Ah! this is refreshing after that room. What a pity it is that all men are not born with heads like ours!’
‘Very sad indeed,’ said Wulf, filling his goblet.
‘What a quantity of pleasure they lose in this life! There they are, snoring like hogs. Now, you and I are good to finish this jar, at least.’
‘And another after it, if our talk is not over by that time.’
‘Why, are you going to hold a council of war?’
‘That is as you take it. Now, look here, Smid. Whomsoever I cannot trust, I suppose I may trust you, eh?’
‘Well!’ quoth Smid surlily, putting down his goblet, ‘that is a strange question to ask of a man who has marched, and hungered, and plundered, and conquered, and been well beaten by your side for five-and-twenty years, through all lands between the Wesel and Alexandria!’
‘I am growing old, I suppose, and so I suspect every one. But hearken to me, for between wine and ill-temper out it must come. You saw that Alruna-woman?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well?’
‘Well?’
‘Why, did not you think she would make a wife for any man?’
‘Well?’
‘And why not for our Amal?’
‘That’s his concern as well as hers, and hers as well as ours.’
‘She? Ought she not to think herself only too much honoured by marrying a son of Odin? Is she going to be more dainty than Placidia?’
‘What was good enough for an emperor’s daughter must be good enough for her.’
‘Good enough? And Adolf only a Balt, while Amalric is a full-blooded Amal—Odin’s son by both sides?’
‘I don’t know whether she would understand that.’
‘Then we would make her. Why not carry her off, and marry her to the Amal whether she chose or not? She would be well content enough with him in a week, I will warrant.’
‘But there is Pelagia in the way.’
‘Put her out of the way, then.’
‘Impossible.’
‘It was this morning; a week hence it may not be. I heard a promise made to-night which will do it, if there be the spirit of a Goth left in the poor besotted lad whom we know of.’
‘Oh, he is all right at heart; never fear him. But what was the promise?’
‘I will not tell till it is claimed. I will not be the man to shame my own nation and the blood of the gods. But if that drunken Prefect recollects it—why let him recollect it. And what is more, the monk-boy who was here to-night—’
‘Ah, what a well-grown lad that is wasted!’
‘More than suspects—and if his story is true, I more than suspect too—that Pelagia is his sister.’
‘His sister! But what of that?’
‘He wants, of course, to carry her off and make a nun of her.’
‘You would not let him do such a thing to the poor child?’
‘If folks get in my way, Smid, they must go down. So much the worse for them: but old Wulf was never turned back yet by man or beast, and he will not be now.’
‘After all, it will serve the hussy right. But Amalric?’
‘Out of sight, out of mind.’
‘But they say the Prefect means to marry the girl.’
‘He? That scented ape? She would not be such a wretch.’
‘But he does intend; and she intends too. It is the talk of the whole town. We should have to put him out of the way first.’
‘Why not? Easy enough’ and a good riddance for Alexandria. Yet if we made away with him we should be forced to take the city too; and I doubt whether we have hands enough for that.’
‘The guards might join us. I will go down to the barracks and try them, if you choose’ to-morrow. I am a boon-companion with a good many of them already. But after all, Prince Wulf—of course you are always right; we all know that—but what’s the use of marrying this Hypatia to the Amal?’
‘Use?’ said Wulf, smiting down his goblet on the pavement. ‘Use? you purblind old hamster-rat, who think of nothing but filling your own cheek-pouches!—to give him a wife worthy of a hero, as he is, in spite of all—a wife who will make him sober instead of drunk, wise instead of a fool, daring instead of a sluggard—a wife who can command the rich people for us, and give us a hold here, which if once we get, let us see who will break it! Why, with those two ruling in Alexandria, we might be masters of Africa in three months. We’d send to Spain for the Wendels, to move on Carthage; we’d send up the Adriatic for the Longbeards to land in Pentapolis; we’d sweep the whole coast without losing a man’ now it is drained of troops by that fool Heraclian’s Roman expedition; make the Wendels and Longbeards shake hands here in Alexandria; draw lots for their shares of the coast’ and then—’
‘And then what?’
‘Why, when we had settled Africa, I would call out a crew of picked heroes, and sail away south for Asgard—I’d try that Red Sea this time—and see Odin face to face, or die searching for him.’
‘Oh!’ groaned Smid. ‘And I suppose you would expect me to come too, instead of letting me stop halfway, and settle there among the dragons and elephants. Well, well, wise men are like moorlands—ride as far as you will on the sound ground, you are sure to come upon a soft place at last. However, I will go down to the guards to-morrow, if my head don’t ache.’
‘And I will see the boy about Pelagia. Drink to our plot!’
And the two old iron-heads drank on, till the stars paled out and the eastward shadows of the cloister vanished in the blaze of dawn.
THE little porter, after having carried Arsenius’s message to Miriam, had run back in search of Philammon and his foster-father; and not finding them, had spent the evening in such frantic rushings to and fro, as produced great doubts of his sanity among the people of the quarter. At last hunger sent him home to supper; at which meal he tried to find vent for his excited feelings in his favourite employment of beating his wife. Whereon Miriam’s two Syrian slave-girls, attracted by her screams, came to the rescue, threw a pail of water over him, and turned him out of doors. He, nothing discomfited, likened himself smilingly to Socrates conquered by Xantippe; and, philosophically yielding to circumstances, hopped about like a tame magpie for a couple of hours at the entrance of the alley, pouring forth a stream of light raillery on the passers-by, which several times endangered his personal safety; till at last Philammon, hurrying breathlessly home, rushed into his arms.
‘Hush! Hither with me! Your star still prospers. She calls for you.’
‘Who?’
‘Miriam herself. Be secret as the grave. You she will see and speak with. The message of Arsenius she rejected in language which it is unnecessary for philosophic lips to repeat. Come; but give her good words-as are fit to an enchantress who can stay the stars in their courses, and command the spirits of the third heaven.’
Philammon hurried home with Eudaimon. Little cared he now for Hypatia’s warning against Miriam.... Was he not in search of a sister?
‘So’ you wretch, you are back again!’ cried one of the girls, as they knocked at the outer door of Miriam’s apartments. ‘What do you mean by bringing young men here at this time of night?’
‘Better go down, and beg pardon of that poor wife of yours. She has been weeping and praying for you to her crucifix all the evening, you ungrateful little ape!’
‘Female superstitions—but I forgive her. Peace, barbarian women! I bring this youthful philosopher hither by your mistress’s own appointment.’
‘He must wait, then, in the ante-room. There is a gentleman with my mistress at present.’
So Philammon waited in a dark, dingy ante-room, luxuriously furnished with faded tapestry, and divans which lined the walls; and fretted and fidgeted, while the two girls watched him over their embroidery out of the corners of their eyes, and agreed that he was a very stupid person for showing no inclination to return their languishing glances.
In the meanwhile, Miriam, within, was listening, with a smile of grim delight, to a swarthy and weather-beaten young Jew.
‘I knew, mother in Israel, that all depended on my pace; and night and day I rode from Ostia toward Tarentum: but the messenger of the uncircumcised was better mounted than I; I therefore bribed a certain slave to lame his horse, and passed him by a whole stage on the second day. Nevertheless, by night the Philistine had caught me up again, the evil angels helping him; and my soul was mad within me.’
‘And what then, Jonadab Bar-Zebudah?’
‘I bethought me of Ehud, and of Joab also, when he was pursued by Asahel, and considered much of the lawfulness of the deed, not being a man of blood. Nevertheless, we were together in the darkness, and I smote him.’
Miriam clapped her hands.
‘Then putting on his clothes, and taking his letters and credentials, as was but reasonable, I passed myself off for the messenger of the emperor, and so rode the rest of that journey at the expense of the heathen; and I hereby return you the balance saved.’
‘Never mind the balance. Keep it, thou worthy son of Jacob. What next?’
‘When I came to Tarentum, I sailed in the galley which I had chartered from certain sea-robbers. Valiant men they were, nevertheless, and kept true faith with me. For when we had come halfway, rowing with all our might, behold another galley coming in our wake and about to pass us by, which I knew for an Alexandrian, as did the captain also, who assured me that she had come from hence to Brundusium with letters from Orestes.’
‘Well?’
‘It seemed to me both base to be passed, and more base to waste all the expense wherewith you and our elders had charged themselves; so I took counsel with the man of blood, offering him over and above our bargain, two hundred gold pieces of my own, which please to pay to my account with Rabbi Ezekiel, who lives by the watergate in Pelusium. Then the pirates, taking counsel, agreed to run down the enemy; for our galley was a sharp-beaked Liburnian, while theirs was only a messenger trireme.’
‘And you did it?’
‘Else had I not been here. They were delivered into our hands, so that we struck them full in mid-length, and they sank like Pharaoh and his host.’
‘So perish all the enemies of the nation!’ cried Miriam. ‘And now it is impossible, you say, for fresh news to arrive for these ten days?’
‘Impossible, the captain assured me, owing to the rising of the wind, and the signs of southerly storm.’
‘Here, take this letter for the Chief Rabbi, and the blessing of a mother in Israel. Thou Last played the man for thy people; and thou shalt go to the grave full of years and honours, with men-servants and maid-servants, gold and silver, children and children’s children, with thy foot on the necks of heathens, and the blessing of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to eat of the goose which is fattening in the desert, and the Leviathan which lieth in the great sea, to be meat for all true Israelites at the last day.’
And the Jew turned and went out, perhaps, in his simple fanaticism, the happiest man in Egypt at that moment.
He passed out through the ante-chamber, leering at the slave-girls, and scowling at Philammon; and the youth was ushered into the presence of Miriam.
She sat, coiled up like a snake on a divan writing busily in a tablet upon her knees while on the cushions beside her glittered splendid jewels, which she had been fingering over as a child might its toys. She did not look up for a few minutes; and Philammon could not help, in spite of his impatience, looking round the little room and contrasting its dirty splendour, and heavy odour of wine, and food, and perfumes, with the sunny grace and cleanliness of Greek houses. Against the wall stood presses and chests fretted with fantastic Oriental carving; illuminated rolls of parchment lay in heaps in a corner; a lamp of strange form hung from the ceiling, and shed a dim and lurid light upon an object which chilled the youth’s blood for a moment—a bracket against the wall, on which, in a plate of gold, engraven with mystic signs, stood the mummy of an infant’s head; one of those teraphim, from which, as Philammon knew, the sorcerers of the East professed to evoke oracular responses.
At last she looked up, and spoke in a shrill, harsh voice. ‘Well, my fair boy, and what do you want with the poor old proscribed Jewess? Have you coveted yet any of the pretty things which she has had the wit to make her slave-demons save from the Christian robbers?’
Philammon’s tale was soon told. The old woman listened, watching him intently with her burning eye; and then answered slowly—
‘Well, and what if you are a slave?’
‘Am I one, then? Am I?’
‘Of course you are. Arsenius spoke truth. I saw him buy you at Ravenna, just fifteen years ago. I bought your sister at the same time. She is two-and-twenty now. You were four years younger than her, I should say.’
‘Oh heavens! and you know my sister still! Is she Pelagia?’
‘You were a pretty boy,’ went on the hag, apparently not hearing him. ‘If I had thought you were going to grow up as beautiful and as clever as you are, I would have bought you myself. The Goths were just marching, and Arsenius gave only eighteen gold pieces for you—or twenty—I am growing old, and forget everything, I think. But there would have been the expense of your education, and your sister cost me in training—oh what sums? Not that she was not worth the money—no, no, the darling!’
‘And you know where she is? Oh tell me—in the name of mercy tell me!’
‘Why, then?’
‘Why, then? Have you not the heart of a human being in you? Is she not my sister?’
‘Well? You have done very well for fifteen years without your sister—why can you not do as well now? You don’t recollect her—you don’t love her.’
‘Not love her? I would die for her—die for you if you will but help me to see her!’
‘You would, would you? And if I brought you to her, what then! What if she were Pelagia herself, what then? She is happy enough now, and rich enough. Could you make her happier or richer?’
‘Can you ask? I must—I will—reclaim her from the infamy in which I am sure she lives.’
‘Ah ha, sir monk! I expected as much. I know, none knows better, what those fine words mean. The burnt child dreads the fire; but the burnt old woman quenches it, you will find. Now listen. I do not say that you shall not see her—I do not say that Pelagia herself is not the woman whom you seek—but—you are in my power. Don’t frown and pout. I can deliver you as a slave to Arsenius when I choose. One word from me to Orestes, and you are in fetters as a fugitive.’
‘I will escape!’ cried he fiercely.
‘Escape me?’—She laughed, pointing to the teraph—‘Me, who, if you fled beyond Kaf, or dived to the depths of the ocean, could make these dead lips confess where you were, and command demons to bear you back to me upon their wings! Escape me! Better to obey me, and see your sister.’
Philammon shuddered, and submitted. The spell of the woman’s eye, the terror of her words, which he half believed, and the agony of longing, conquered him, and he gasped out—
‘I will obey you—only—only—’
‘Only you are not quite a man yet, but half a monk still, eh? I must know that before I help you, my pretty boy. Are you a monk still, or a man?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Ah, ha, ha!’ laughed she shrilly. ‘And these Christian dogs don’t know what a man means? Are you a monk, then? leaving the man alone, as above your understanding.’
‘I?—I am a student of philosophy.’
‘But no man?’
‘I am a man, I suppose.’
‘I don’t; if you had been, you would have been making love like a man to that heathen woman many a month ago.’
‘I—to her?’
‘Yes, I-to her!’ Said Miriam, coarsely imitating his tone of shocked humility. ‘I, the poor penniless boy-scholar, to her, the great, rich, wise, worshipped she-philosopher, who holds the sacred keys of the inner shrine of the east wind—and just because I am a man, and the handsomest man in Alexandria, and she a woman, and the vainest woman in Alexandria; and therefore I am stronger than she, and can twist her round my finger, and bring her to her knees at my feet when I like, as soon I open my eyes, and discover that I am a man. Eh, boy! Did she ever teach you that among her mathematics and metaphysics, and gods and goddesses?’
Philammon stood blushing scarlet. The sweet poison had entered, and every vein glowed with it for the first time in his life. Miriam saw her advantage.
‘There, there—don’t be frightened at your new lesson. After all, I liked you from the first moment I saw you, and asked the teraph about you, and I got an answer—such an answer! You shall know it some day. At all events, it set the poor old soft-hearted Jewess on throwing away her money. Did you ever guess from whom your monthly gold piece came?’
Philammon started, and Miriam burst into loud, shrill laughter.
‘From Hypatia, I’ll warrant! From the fair Greek woman, of course—vain child that you are—never thinking of the poor old Jewess.’
‘And did you? did you?’ gasped Philammon.
‘Have I to thank you, then, for that strange generosity?’
‘Not to thank me, but to obey me; for mind, I can prove your debt to me, every obol, and claim it if I choose. But don’t fear; I won’t be hard on you, just because you are in my power. I hate every one who is not so. As soon as I have a hold on them, I begin to love them. Old folks, like children, are fond of their own playthings.’
‘And I am yours, then?’ said Philammon fiercely.
‘You are indeed, my beautiful boy,’ answered she, looking up with so insinuating a smile that he could not be angry. ‘After all, I know how to toss my balls gently—and for these forty years I have only lived to make young folks happy; so you need not be afraid of the poor soft-hearted old woman. Now—you saved Orestes’s life yesterday.’
‘How did you find out that?’
‘I? I know everything. I know what the swallows say when they pass each other on the wing, and what the fishes think of in the summer sea. You, too, will be able to guess some day, without the teraph’s help. But in the mean time you must enter Orestes’s service. Why?-What are you hesitating about? Do you not know that you are high in his favour? He will make you secretary—raise you to be chamberlain some day, if you know how to make good use of your fortune.’
Philammon stood in astonished silence; and at last—
‘Servant to that man? What care I for him or his honours? Why do you tantalise me thus? I have no wish on earth but to see my sister!’
‘You will be far more likely to see her if you belong to the court of a great officer—perhaps more than an officer—than if you remain a penniless monk. Not that I believe you. Your only wish on earth, eh? Do you not care, then, ever to see the fair Hypatia again?’
‘I? Why should I not see her? Am I not her pupil?’
‘She will not have pupils much longer, my child. If you wish to hear her wisdom—and much good may it do you—you must go for it henceforth somewhat nearer to Orestes’s palace than the lecture-room is. Ah! you start. Have I found you an argument now? No—ask no questions. I explain nothing to monks. But take these letters; to-morrow morning at the third hour go to Orestes’s palace, and ask for his secretary, Ethan the Chaldee. Say boldly that you bring important news of state; and then follow your star: it is a fairer one than you fancy. Go! obey me, or you see no sister.’
Philammon felt himself trapped; but, after all, what might not this strange woman do for him? It seemed, if not his only path, still his nearest path to Pelagia; and in the meanwhile he was in the hag’s power, and he must submit to his fate; so he took the letters and went out.
‘And so you think that you are going to have her?’ chuckled Miriam to herself, when Philammon went out. ‘To make a penitent of her, eh?—a nun, or a she-hermit; to set her to appease your God by crawling on all fours among the mummies for twenty years, with a chain round her neck and a clog at her ankle, fancying herself all the while the bride of the Nazarene? And you think that old Miriam is going to give her up to you for that? No, no, sir monk! Better she were dead!.... Follow your dainty bait!—follow it, as the donkey does the grass which his driver offers him, always an inch from his nose.... You in my power!—and Orestes in my power!.... I must negotiate that new loan to-morrow, I suppose.... I shall never be paid. The dog will ruin me, after all! How much is it, now? Let me see.’.... And she began fumbling in her escritoire, over bonds and notes of hand. ‘I shall never be paid: but power!—to have power! To see those heathen slaves and Christian hounds plotting and vapouring, and fancying themselves the masters of the world, and never dreaming that we are pulling the strings, and that they are our puppets!—we, the children of the promises—we, The Nation—we, the seed of Abraham! Poor fools! I could almost pity them, as I think of their faces when Messiah comes, and they find out who were the true lords of the world, after all!....He must be the Emperor of the South, though, that Orestes; he must, though I have to lend him Raphael’s jewels to make him so. For he must marry the Greek woman. He shall. She hates him, of course.... So much the deeper revenge for me. And she loves that monk. I saw it in her eyes there in the garden. So much the better for me, too. He will dangle willingly enough at Orestes’s heels for the sake of being near her—poor fool! We will make him secretary, or chamberlain. He has wit enough for it, they say, or for anything. So Orestes and he shall be the two jaws of my pincers, to squeeze what I want out of that Greek Jezebel.. And then, then for the black agate!’
Was the end of her speech a bathos? Perhaps not; for as she spoke the last word, she drew from her bosom, where it hung round her neck by a chain, a broken talisman, exactly similar to the one which she coveted so fiercely, and looked at it long and lovingly—kissed it—wept over it—spoke to it—fondled it in her arms as a mother would a child—murmured over it snatches of lullabies; and her grim, withered features grew softer, purer, grander; and rose ennobled, for a moment, to their long-lost might-have-been, to that personal ideal which every soul brings with it into the world, which shines, dim and potential, in the face of every sleeping babe, before it has been scarred, and distorted, and encrusted in the long tragedy of life. Sorceress she was, pander and slave-dealer, steeped to the lips in falsehood, ferocity, and avarice; yet that paltry stone brought home to her some thought, true, spiritual, impalpable, unmarketable, before which all her treasures and all her ambition were as worthless in her own eyes as they were in the eyes of the angels of God.
But little did Miriam think that at the same moment a brawny, clownish monk was standing in Cyril’s private chamber, and, indulged with the special honour of a cup of good wine in the patriarch’s very presence, was telling to him and Arsenius the following history—
‘So I, finding that the Jews had chartered this pirate-ship, went to the master thereof, and finding favour in his eyes, hired myself to row therein, being sure, from what I had overheard from the Jews, that she was destined to bring the news to Alexandria as quickly as possible. Therefore, fulfilling the work which his Holiness had entrusted to my incapacity, I embarked, and rowed continually among the rest; and being unskilled in such labour, received many curses and stripes in the cause of the Church—the which I trust are laid to my account hereafter. Moreover, Satan entered into me, desiring to slay me, and almost tore me asunder, so that I vomited much, and loathed all manner of meat. Nevertheless, I rowed on valiantly, being such as I am, vomiting continually, till the heathens were moved with wonder, and forbore to beat me, giving me strong liquors in pity; wherefore I rowed all the more valiantly day and night, trusting that by my unworthiness the cause of the Catholic Church might be in some slight wise assisted.’
‘And so it is,’ quoth Cyril. ‘Why do you not sit down, man?’
‘Pardon me,’ quoth the monk, with a piteous gesture; ‘of sitting, as of all carnal pleasure, cometh satiety at the last.’
‘And now’ said Cyril, ‘what reward am I to give you for your good service?’
‘It is reward enough to know that I have done good service. Nevertheless if the holy patriarch be so inclined without reason, there is an ancient Christian, my mother according to the flesh—’
‘Come to me to-morrow, and she shall be well seen to. And mind—look to it, if I make you not a deacon of the city when I promote Peter.’
The monk kissed his superior’s hand and withdrew. Cyril turned to Arsenius, betrayed for once into geniality by his delight, and smiting his thigh—
‘We have beaten the heathen for once, eh?’ And then, in the usual artificial tone of an ecclesiastic—‘And what would my father recommend in furtherance of the advantage so mercifully thrown into our hand?’
Arsenius was silent.
‘I,’ went on Cyril, ‘should be inclined to announce the news this very night, in my sermon.’
Arsenius shook his head.
‘Why not? why not?’ asked Cyril impatiently.
‘Better to keep it secret till others tell it. Reserved knowledge is always reserved strength; and if the man, as I hope he does not, intends evil to the Church, let him commit himself before you use your knowledge against him. True, you may have a scruple of conscience as to the lawfulness of allowing a sin which you might prevent. To me it seems that the sin lies in the will rather than in the deed, and that sometimes—I only say sometimes—it may be a means of saving the sinner to allow his root of iniquity to bear fruit, and fill him with his own devices.’
‘Dangerous doctrine, my father.’
‘Like all sound doctrine—a savour of life or of death, according as it is received. I have not said it to the multitude, but to a discerning brother. And even politically speaking—let him commit himself, if he be really plotting rebellion, and then speak, and smite his Babel tower.’
‘You think, then, that he does not know of Heraclian’s defeat already?’
‘If he does, he will keep it secret from the people; and our chances of turning them suddenly will be nearly the same.’
‘Good. After all, the existence of the Catholic Church in Alexandria depends on this struggle, and it is well to be wary. Be it so. It is well for me that I have you for an adviser.’
And thus Cyril, usually the most impatient and intractable of plotters, gave in, as wise men should, to a wiser man than himself, and made up his mind to keep the secret, and to command the monk to keep it also.
Philammon, after a sleepless night, and a welcome visit to the public baths, which the Roman tyranny, wiser in its generation than modern liberty, provided so liberally for its victims, set forth to the Prefect’s palace, and gave his message; but Orestes, who had been of late astonishing the Alexandrian public by an unwonted display of alacrity, was already in the adjoining Basilica. Thither the youth was conducted by an apparitor, and led up the centre of the enormous hall, gorgeous with frescoes and coloured marbles, and surrounded by aisles and galleries, in which the inferior magistrates were hearing causes, and doing such justice as the complicated technicalities of Roman law chose to mete out. Through a crowd of anxious loungers the youth passed to the apse of the upper end, in which the Prefect’s throne stood empty, and then turned into aside chamber, where he found himself alone with the secretary, a portly Chaldee eunuch, with a sleek pale face, small pig’s eyes, and an enormous turban. The man of pen and paper took the letter, opened it with solemn deliberation, and then, springing to his feet, darted out of the room in most undignified haste, leaving Philammon to wait and wonder. In half an hour he returned, his little eyes growing big with some great idea.
‘Youth! your star is in the ascendant; you are the fortunate bearer of fortunate news! His Excellency himself commands your presence.’ And the two went out.
In another chamber, the door of which was guarded by armed men, Orestes was walking up and down in high excitement, looking somewhat the worse for the events of the past night, and making occasional appeals to a gold goblet which stood on the table.
‘Ha! No other than my preserver himself! Boy, I will make your fortune. Miriam says that you wish to enter my service.’
Philammon, not knowing what to say, thought the best answer would be to bow as low as he could.
‘Ah, ha! Graceful, but not quite according to etiquette. You will soon teach him, eh, Secretary? Now to business. Hand me the notes to sign and seal. To the Prefect of the Stationaries—’
‘Here, your Excellency.’
‘To the Prefect of the Corn market—how many wheat-ships have you ordered to be unladen?’
‘Two, your Excellency.’
‘Well, that will be largess enough for the time being. To the Defender of the Plebs—the devil break his neck!’
‘He may be trusted, most noble; he is bitterly jealous of Cyril’s influence. And moreover, he owes my insignificance much money.’
‘Good! Now the notes to the Gaol-masters, about the gladiators.’
‘Here, your Excellency.’
‘To Hypatia. No. I will honour my bride elect with my own illustrious presence. As I live, here is a morning’s work for a man with a racking headache!’
‘Your Excellency has the strength of seven. May you live for ever!’
And really, Orestes’s power of getting through business, when he chose, was surprising enough. A cold head and a colder heart make many things easy.
But Philammon’s whole soul was fixed on those words. ‘His bride elect!’.... Was it that Miriam’s hints of the day before had raised some selfish vision, or was it pity and horror at such a fate for her—for his idol?—But he passed five minutes in a dream, from which he was awakened by the sound of another and still dearer name.
‘And now, for Pelagia. We can but try.’
‘Your Excellency might offend the Goth.’
‘Curse the Goth! He shall have his choice of all the beauties in Alexandria, and be count of Pentapolis if he likes. But a spectacle I must have; and no one but Pelagia can dance Venus Anadyomene.’
Philammon’s blood rushed to his heart, and then back again to his brow, as he reeled with horror and shame.
‘The people will be mad with joy to see her on the stage once more. Little they thought, the brutes, how I was plotting for their amusement, even when as drunk as Silenus.’
‘Your nobility only lives for the good of your slaves.’
‘Here, boy! So fair a lady requires a fair messenger. You shall enter on my service at once, and carry this letter to Pelagia. Why?—why do you not come and take it?’
‘To Pelagia?’ gasped the youth. ‘In the theatre? Publicly? Venus Anadyomene?’
‘Yes, fool! Were you, too, drunk last night after all?’
‘She is my sister!’
‘Well, and what of that? Not that I believe you, you villain! So!’ said Orestes, who comprehended the matter in an instant. ‘Apparitors!’
The door opened, and the guard appeared.
‘Here is a good boy who is inclined to make a fool of himself. Keep him out of harm’s way for a few days. But don’t hurt him; for, after all, he saved my life yesterday, when you scoundrels ran away.’
And, without further ado, the hapless youth was collared, and led down a vaulted passage into the guard-room, amid the jeers of the guard, who seemed only to owe him a grudge for his yesterday’s prowess, and showed great alacrity in fitting him with a heavy set of irons; which done, he was thrust head foremost into a cell of the prison, locked in and left to his meditations.