Hypatia — Ch 26: Miriam's Plot, pt 2 (2956 words)

The girls vanished accordingly, whispering and laughing; and Philammon found himself alone.

Although he was somewhat soothed by the old woman’s last speech, yet a sense of terror, of danger, of coming temptation, kept him standing sternly on his feet, looking warily round the chamber, lest a fresh siren should emerge from behind some curtain or heap of pillows.

On one side of the room he perceived a doorway, filled by a curtain of gauze, from behind which came the sound of whispering voices.

His fear, growing with the general excitement of his mind, rose into anger as he began to suspect some snare; and he faced round towards the curtain, and stood like a wild beast at bay, ready, with uplifted arm, for all evil spirits, male or female.

‘And he will show himself?

How shall I accost him?

’ whispered a well-known voice--could it be Hypatia’s?

And then the guttural Hebrew accent of the old woman answered-- ‘As you spoke of him this morning--’ ‘Oh!

I will tell him all, and he must--he must have mercy!

But he?

--so awful, so glorious!

--’ What the answer was, he could not hear but the next moment a sweet heavy scent, as of narcotic gums, filled the room--mutterings of incantations--and then a blaze of light, in which the curtain vanished, and disclosed to his astonished eyes, enveloped in a glory of luminous smoke, the hag standing by a tripod, and, kneeling by her, Hypatia herself, robed in pure white, glittering with diamonds and gold, her lips parted, her head thrown back, her arms stretched out in an agony of expectation.

In an instant, before he had time to stir, she had sprung through the blaze, and was kneeling at his feet.

‘Phoebus!

beautiful, glorious, ever young!

Hear me!

only a moment!

only this once!

’ Her drapery had caught fire from the tripod, but she did not heed it.

Philammon instinctively clasped her in his arms, and crushed it out, as she cried-- ‘Have mercy on me!

Tell me the secret!

I will obey thee!

I have no self--I am thy slave!

Kill me, if thou wilt: but speak!

’ The blaze sank into a soft, warm, mellow gleam, and beyond it what appeared?

The negro-woman, with one finger upon her lips, as with an imploring, all but despairing look, she held up to him her little crucifix.

He saw it.

What thoughts flashed through him, like the lightning bolt, at that blessed sign of infinite self-sacrifice, I say not; let those who know it judge for themselves.

But in another instant he had spurned from him the poor deluded maiden, whose idolatrous ecstasies he saw instantly were not meant for himself, and rushed desperately across the room, looking for an outlet.

He found a door in the darkness--a room-a window--and in another moment he had leapt twenty feet into the street, rolled over, bruised and bleeding, rose again like an Antaeus, with new strength, and darted off towards the archbishop’s house.

And poor Hypatia lay half senseless on the floor, with the Jewess watching her bitter tears--not merely of disappointment, but of utter shame.

For as Philammon fled she had recognised those well-known features; and the veil was lifted from her eyes, and the hope and the self-respect of Theon’s daughter were gone for ever.

Her righteous wrath was too deep for upbraidings.

Slowly she rose;

returned into the inner room; wrapped her cloak deliberately around her;

and went silently away, with one look at the Jewess of solemn scorn and defiance.

‘Ah!

I can afford a few sulky looks to-night!

’ said the old woman to herself, with a smile, as she picked up from the floor the prize for which she had been plotting so long--Raphael’s half of the black agate.

‘I wonder whether she will miss it!

Perhaps she will have no fancy for its company any longer, now that she has discovered what over-palpable archangels appear when she rubs it.

But if she does try to recover it....

why--let her try her strength with mine--or, rather, with a Christian mob.

’ And then, drawing from her bosom the other half of the talisman, she fitted the two pieces together again and again, fingering them over, and poring upon them with tear-brimming eyes, till she had satisfied herself that the fracture still fitted exactly; while she murmured to herself from time to time--‘Oh, that he were here!

Oh, that he would return now--now!

It may be too late to-morrow!

Stay--I will go and consult the teraph; it may know where he is....

’ And she departed to her incantations; while Hypatia threw herself upon her bed at home, and filled the chamber with a long, low wailing, as of a child in pain, until the dreary dawn broke on her shame and her despair.

And then she rose, and rousing herself for one great effort, calmly prepared a last oration, in which she intended to bid farewell for ever to Alexandria and to the schools.

Philammon meanwhile was striding desperately up the main street which led towards the Serapeium.

But he was not destined to arrive there as soon as he had hoped to do.

For ere he had gone half a mile, behold a crowd advancing towards him blocking up the whole street.

The mass seemed endless.

Thousands of torches flared above their heads, and from the heart of the procession rose a solemn chant, in which Philammon soon recognised a well-known Catholic hymn.

He was half minded to turn up some by-street, and escape meeting them.

But on attempting to do so, he found every avenue which he tried similarly blocked up by a tributary stream of people; and, almost ere he was aware, was entangled in the vanguard of the great column.

‘Let me pass!

’ cried he in a voice of entreaty.

‘Pass, thou heathen?

’ In vain he protested his Christianity.

‘Origenist, Donatist, heretic!

Whither should a good Catholic be going to-night, save to the Caesareum?

’ ‘My friends, my friends, I have no business at the Caesareum!

’ cried he, in utter despair.

‘I am on my way to seek a private interview with the patriarch, on matters of importance.

’ ‘Oh, liar!

who pretends to be known to the patriarch, and yet is ignorant that this night he visits at the Caesareum the most sacred corpse of the martyr Ammonius!

’ ‘What!

Is Cyril with you?

’ ‘He and all his clergy.

’ ‘Better so; better in public,’ said Philammon to himself; and, turning, he joined the crowd.

Onward, with chant and dirge, they swept out through the Sun-gate, upon the harbour esplanade, and wheeled to the right along the quay, while the torchlight bathed in a red glare the great front of the Caesareum, and the tall obelisks before it, and the masts of the thousand ships which lay in the harbour on their left; and last, but not least, before the huge dim mass of the palace which bounded the esplanade in front, a long line of glittering helmets and cuirasses, behind a barrier of cables which stretched from the shore to the corner of the museum.

There was a sudden halt; a low ominous growl; and then the mob pressed onward from behind, surged up almost to the barrier.

The soldiers dropped the points of their lances, and stood firm.

Again the mob recoiled; again surged forward.

Fierce cries arose; some of the boldest stooped to pick up stones: but, luckily, the pavement was too firm for them....

Another moment, and the whole soldiery of Alexandria would have been fighting for life and death against fifty thousand Christians....

But Cyril had not forgotten his generalship.

Reckless as that night’s events proved him to be about arousing the passions of his subjects, he was yet far too wary to risk the odium and the danger of a night attack, which, even if successful, would have cost the lives of hundreds.

He knew well enough the numbers and the courage of the enemy, and the certainty that, in case of a collision, no quarter would be given or accepted on either side....

Beside, if a battle must take place--and that, of course, must happen sooner or later--it must not happen in his presence and under his sanction.

He was in the right now, and Orestes in the wrong; and in the right he would keep--at least till his express to Byzantium should have returned, and Orestes was either proscribed or superseded.

So looking forward to some such chance as this, the wary prelate had schooled his aides-de-camp, the deacons of the city, and went on his way up the steps of the Caesareum, knowing that they could be trusted to keep the peace outside.

And they did their work well.

Before a blow had been struck, or even an insult passed on either side, they had burst through the front rank of the mob, and by stout threats of excommunication, enjoined not only peace, but absolute silence until the sacred ceremony which was about to take place should be completed; and enforced their commands by marching up and down like sentries between the hostile ranks for the next weary two hours, till the very soldiers broke out into expressions of admiration, and the tribune of the cohort, who ad no great objection, but also no great wish, fight, paid them a high-flown compliment on their laudable endeavours to maintain public order, and received the somewhat ambiguous reply, that the ‘weapons of their warfare were not carnal, that they wrestled not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers,’....

an answer which the tribune, being now somewhat sleepy, thought it best to leave unexplained.

In the meanwhile, there had passed up the steps of the Temple a gorgeous line of priests, among whom glittered, more gorgeous than all, the stately figure of the pontiff.

They were followed close by thousands of monks, not only from Alexandria and Nitria, but from all the adjoining towns and monasteries.

And as Philammon, unable for some half hour more to force his way into the church, watched their endless stream, he could well believe the boast which he had so often heard in Alexandria, that one half of the population of Egypt was at that moment in ‘religious orders.

’ After the monks, the laity began to enter but even then so vast was the crowd, and so dense the crush upon the steps, that before he could force his way into the church, Cyril’s sermon had begun.

...............

--‘What went ye out for to see?

A man clothed in soft raiment?

Nay, such are in kings’ palaces, and in the palaces of prefects who would needs be emperors, and cast away the Lord’s bonds from them--of whom it is written, that He that sitteth in the heavens laugheth them to scorn, and taketh the wicked in their own snare, and maketh the devices of princes of none effect.

Ay, in king’s palaces, and in theatres too, where the rich of this world, poor in faith, deny their covenant, and defile their baptismal robes that they may do honour to the devourers of the earth.

Woe to them who think that they may partake of the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils.

Woe to them who will praise with the same mouth Aphrodite the fiend, and her of whom it is written that He was born of a pure Virgin.

Let such be excommunicate from the cup of the Lord, and from the congregation of the Lord, till they have purged away their sins by penance and by almsgiving.

But for you, ye poor of this world, rich in faith, you whom the rich despise, hale before the judgment seats, and blaspheme that holy name whereby ye are called--what went ye out into the wilderness to see?

A prophet?

--Ay, and more than a prophet--a martyr!

More than a prophet, more than a king, more than a prefect whose theatre was the sands of the desert, whose throne was the cross, whose crown was bestowed, not by heathen philosophers and daughters of Satan, deceiving men with the works of their fathers, but by angels and archangels; a crown of glory, the victor’s laurel, which grows for ever in the paradise of the highest heaven.

Call him no more Ammonius, call him Thaumasius, wonderful!

Wonderful in his poverty, wonderful in his zeal, wonderful in his faith, wonderful in his fortitude, wonderful in his death, most wonderful in the manner of that death.

Oh thrice blessed, who has merited the honour of the cross itself!

What can follow, but that one so honoured in the flesh should also be honoured in the life which he now lives, and that from the virtue of these thrice-holy limbs the leper should be cleansed, the dumb should speak, the very dead be raised?

Yes; it were impiety to doubt it.

Consecrated by the cross, this flesh shall not only rest in hope but work in power.

Approach, and be healed!

Approach, and see the glory of the saints, the glory of the poor.

Approach, and learn that that which man despises, God hath highly esteemed; that that which man rejects, God accepts; that that which man punishes, God rewards.

Approach, and see how God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and the weak things of this world to confound the strong.

Man abhors the cross: The Son of God condescended to endure it!

Man tramples on the poor: The Son of God hath not where to lay His head.

Man passes by the sick as useless: The Son of God chooses them to be partakers of His sufferings, that the glory of God may be made manifest in them.

Man curses the publican, while he employs him to fill his coffers with the plunder of the poor: The Son of God calls him from the receipt of custom to be an apostle, higher than the kings of the earth.

Man casts away the harlot like a faded flower, when he has tempted her to become the slave of sin for a season; and the Son of God calls her, the defiled, the despised, the forsaken, to Himself, accepts her tears, blesses her offering, and declares that her sins are forgiven, for she hath loved much; while to whom little is forgiven the same loveth little....

’ Philammon heard no more.

With the passionate and impulsive nature of a Greek fanatic, he burst forward through the crowd, towards the steps which led to the choir, and above which, in front of the altar, stood the corpse of Ammonius, enclosed in a coffin of glass, beneath a gorgeous canopy; and never stopping till he found himself in front of Cyril’s pulpit, he threw himself upon his face upon the pavement, spread out his arms in the form of a cross, and lay silent and motionless before the feet of the multitude.

There was a sudden whisper and rustle in the congregation: but Cyril, after a moment’s pause, went on-- ‘Man, in his pride and self-sufficiency, despises humiliation, and penance, and the broken and the contrite heart; and tells thee that only as long as thou doest well unto thyself will he speak well of thee: the Son of God says that he that humbleth himself, even as this our penitent brother, he it is who shall be exalted.

He it is of whom it is written that his father saw him afar off, and ran to meet him, and bade put the best robe on him, and a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and make merry and be glad with the choir of angels who rejoice over one sinner that repenteth.

Arise, my son, whoso-ever thou art; and go in peace for this night, remembering that he who said, “My belly cleaveth unto the pavement,” hath also said, “Rejoice not against me, Satan, mine enemy, for when I fall I shall arise!

”’ A thunder-clap of applause, surely as pardonable as any an Alexandrian church ever heard, followed this dexterous, and yet most righteous, turn of the patriarch’s oratory: but Philammon raised himself slowly and fearfully to his knees, and blushing scarlet endured the gaze of ten thousand eyes.

Suddenly, from beside the pulpit, an old man sprang forward, and clasped him round the neck.

It was Arsenius.

‘My son!

my son!

’ sobbed he, almost aloud.

‘Slave, as well as son, if you will!

’ whispered Philammon.

‘One boon from the patriarch; and then home to the Laura for ever!

’ ‘Oh, twice-blest night,’ rolled on above the deep rich voice of Cyril, ‘which beholds at once the coronation of a martyr and the conversion of a sinner; which increases at the same time the ranks of the church triumphant, and of the church militant; and pierces celestial essences with a twofold rapture of thanksgiving, as they welcome on high a victorious, and on earth a repentant, brother!

’ And at a sign from Cyril, Peter the Reader stepped forward, and led away, gently enough, the two weepers, who were welcomed as they passed by the blessings, and prayers, and tears even of those fierce fanatics of Nitria.

Nay, Peter himself, as he turned to leave them together in the sacristy, held out his hand to Philammon.

‘I ask your forgiveness,’ said the poor boy, who plunged eagerly and with a sort of delight into any and every self-abasement.

‘And I accord it,’ quoth Peter; and returned to the church, looking, and probably feeling, in a far more pleasant mood than usual.