Hypatia — Ch 18: The Prefect Tested, pt 1 (2407 words)
CHAPTER XVIII: THE PREFECT TESTED
WHEN we lost sight of Philammon, his destiny had hurled him once more among his old friends the Goths, in search of two important elements of 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.
