Hypatia Part 28

These last words were spoken with so marked a significance, that Hypatia, in spite of her disgust, found herself asking the hag what she meant. She made no answer for a few seconds, but remained looking steadily into her eyes with a glance of fire, before which even the proud Hypatia, as she had done once before, quailed utterly, so deep was the understanding, so dogged the purpose, so fearless the power, which burned within those withered and shrunken sockets.

'Shall the old witch call him up, the fair young Apollo, with the beauty-bloom upon his chin? He shall come! He shall come! I warrant him he must come, civilly enough, when old Miriam's finger is once held up.'

'To you? Apollo, the G.o.d of light, obey a Jewess?'

'A Jewess? And you a Greek?' almost yelled the old woman. 'And who are you who ask? And who are your G.o.ds, your heroes, your devils, you children of yesterday, compared with us? You, who were a set of half-naked savages squabbling about the siege of Troy, when our Solomon, amid splendours such as Rome and Constantinople never saw, was controlling demons and ghosts, angels and archangels, princ.i.p.alities and powers, by the ineffable name? What science have you that you have not stolen from the Egyptians and Chaldees? And what had the Egyptians which Moses did not teach them? And what have the Chaldees which Daniel did not teach them? What does the world know but from us, the fathers and the masters of magic--us, the lords of the inner secrets of the universe! Come, you Greek baby--as the priests in Egypt said of your forefathers, always children, craving for a new toy, and throwing it away next day--come to the fountainhead of all your paltry wisdom! Name what you will see, and you shall see it!'

Hypatia was cowed; for of one thing there was no doubt,--that the woman utterly believed her own words; and that was a state of mind of which she had seen so little, that it was no wonder if it acted on her with that overpowering sympathetic force, with which it generally does, and perhaps ought to, act on the human heart. Besides, her school had always looked to the ancient nations of the East for the primeval founts of inspiration, the mysterious lore of mightier races long gone by. Might she not have found it now?

The Jewess saw her advantage in a moment, and ran on, without giving her time to answer-- 'What sort shall it be, then? By gla.s.s and water, or by the moonlight on the wall, or by the sieve, or by the meal? By the cymbals, or by the stars? By the table of the twenty-four elements, by which the Empire was promised to Theodosius the Great, or by the sacred counters of the a.s.syrians, or by the sapphire of the Hecatic sphere? Shall I threaten, as the Egyptian priests used to do, to tear Osiris again in pieces, or to divulge the mysteries of Isis? I could do so, if I chose; for I know them all and more. Or shall I use the ineffable name on Solomon's seal, which we alone, of all the nations of the earth, know? No; it would be a pity to waste that upon a heathen. It shall be by the sacred wafer. Look here!--here they are, the wonder-working atomies! Eat no food this day, except one of these every three hours, and come to me to-night at the house of your porter, Eudaimon, bringing with you the black agate; and then--why then, what you have the heart to see, you shall see!'

Hypatia took the wafers, hesitating-- 'But what are they?'

'And you profess to explain Homer? Whom did I hear the other morning lecturing away so glibly on the nepenthe which Helen gave the heroes, to fill them with the spirit of joy and love; how it was an allegory of the inward inspiration which flows from spiritual beauty, and all that?--pretty enough, fair lady; but the question still remains, what was it? and I say it was this. Take it and try; and then confess, that while you can talk about Helen, I can act her; and know a little more about Homer than you do, after all.'

'I cannot believe you! Give me some sign of your power, or how can I trust you?'

'A sign?--A sign? Kneel down then there, with your face toward the north; you are over tall for the poor old cripple.'

'I? I never knelt to human being.'

'Then consider that you kneel to the handsome idol there, if you will--but kneel!'

And, constrained by that glittering eye, Hypatia knelt before her.

'Have you faith? Have you desire? Will you submit? Will you obey? Self-will and pride see nothing, know nothing. If you do not give up yourself, neither G.o.d nor devil will care to approach. Do you submit?'

'I do! I do!' cried poor Hypatia, in an agony of curiosity and self-distrust, while she felt her eye quailing and her limbs loosening more and more every moment under that intolerable fascination.

The old woman drew from her bosom a crystal, and placed the point against Hypatia's breast. A cold shiver ran through her .... The witch waved her hands mysteriously round her head, muttering from time to time, 'Down! down, proud spirit!' and then placed the tips of her skinny fingers on the victim's forehead. Gradually her eyelids became heavy; again and again she tried to raise them, and dropped them again before those fixed glaring eyes .... , and in another moment she lost consciousness....

When she awoke, she was kneeling in a distant part of the room, with dishevelled hair and garments. What was it so cold that she was clasping in her arms? The feet of the Apollo! The hag stood by her, chuckling to herself and clapping her hands.

'How came I here? What have I been doing?'

'Saying such pretty things!--paying the fair youth there such compliments, as he will not be rude enough to forget in his visit to-night. A charming prophetic trance you have had! Ah ha! you are not the only woman who is wiser asleep than awake! Well, you will make a very pretty Ca.s.sandra-or a Clytia, if you have the sense .... It lies with you, my fair lady. Are you satisfied now? Will you have any more signs? Shall the old Jewess blast those blue eyes blind to show that she knows more than the heathen?'

'Oh, I believe you--I believe,' cried the poor exhausted maiden. 'I will come; and yet--'

'Ah! yes! You had better settle first how he shall appear.'

'As he wills!--let him only come! only let me know that he is a G.o.d. Abamnon said that G.o.ds appeared in a clear, steady, unbearable light, amid a choir of all the lesser deities, archangels, princ.i.p.alities, and heroes, who derive their life from them.'

'Abamnon was an old fool, then. Do you think young Phoebus ran after Daphne with such a mob at his heels? or that Jove, when he swam up to Leda, headed a whole Nile-flock of ducks, and plover, and curlews? No, he shall come alone--to you alone; and then you may choose for yourself between Ca.s.sandra and Clytia .... Farewell. Do not forget your wafers, or the agate either, and talk with no one between now and sunset. And then--my pretty lady!'

And laughing to herself, the old hag glided from the room.

Hypatia sat trembling with shame and dread. She, as a disciple of the more purely spiritualistic school of Porphyry, had always looked with aversion, with all but contempt, on those theurgic arts which were so much lauded and employed by Iamblicus, Abamnon, and those who clung lovingly to the old priestly rites of Egypt and Chaldaea. They had seemed to her vulgar toys, tricks of legerdemain, suited only for the wonder of the mob .... She began to think of them with more favour now. How did she know that the vulgar did not require signs and wonders to make them believe? .... How, indeed? for did she not want such herself? And she opened Abamnon's famous letter to Porphyry, and read earnestly over, for the twentieth time, his subtle justification of magic, and felt it to be unanswerable. Magic? What was not magical? The whole universe, from the planets over her head to the meanest pebble at her feet, was utterly mysterious, ineffable, miraculous, influencing and influenced by affinities and repulsions as unexpected, as unfathomable, as those which, as Abamnon said, drew the G.o.ds towards those sounds, those objects, which, either in form, or colour, or chemical properties, were symbolic of, or akin to, themselves. What wonder in it, after all? Was not love and hatred, sympathy and antipathy, the law of the universe? Philosophers, when they gave mechanical explanations of natural phenomena, came no nearer to the real solution of them. The mysterious 'Why?' remained untouched .... All their a.n.a.lyses could only darken with big words the plain fact that the water hated the oil with which it refused to mix, the lime loved the acid which it eagerly received into itself, and, like a lover, grew warm with the rapture of affection. Why not? What right had we to deny sensation, emotion, to them, any more than to ourselves? Was not the same universal spirit stirring in them as in us? And was it not by virtue of that spirit that we thought, and felt, and loved?--Then why not they, as well as we? If the one spirit permeated all things, if its all-energising presence linked the flower with the crystal as well as with the demon and the G.o.d, must it not link together also the two extremes of the great chain of being? bind even the nameless One itself to the smallest creature which bore its creative impress? What greater miracle in the attraction of a G.o.d or an angel, by material incense, symbols, and spells, than in the attraction of one soul to another by the material sounds of the human voice? Was the affinity between spirit and matter implied in that, more miraculous than the affinity between the soul and the body?--than the retention of that soul within that body by the breathing of material air, the eating of material food? Or even, if the physicists were right, and the soul were but a material product or energy of the nerves, and the sole law of the universe the laws of matter, then was not magic even more probable, more rational? Was it not fair by every a.n.a.logy to suppose that there might be other, higher beings than ourselves, obedient to those laws, and therefore possible to be attracted, even as human beings were, by the baits of material sights and sounds? .... If spirit pervaded all things, then was magic probable; if nothing but matter had existence, magic was morally certain. All that remained in either case was the test of experience .... And had not that test been applied in every age, and a.s.serted to succeed? What more rational, more philosophic action than to try herself those methods and ceremonies which she was a.s.sured on every hand had never failed but through the ignorance or unfitness of the neophyte? .... Abamnon must be right .... She dared not think him wrong; for if this last hope failed, what was there left but to eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?

CHAPTER XXVI.

: MIRIAM'S PLOT.

He who has worshipped a woman, even against his will and conscience, knows well how storm may follow storm, and earthquake earthquake, before his idol be utterly overthrown. And so Philammon found that evening, as he sat pondering over the strange chances of the day; for, as he pondered, his old feelings towards Hypatia began, in spite of the struggles of his conscience and reason, to revive within him. Not only pure love of her great loveliness, the righteous instinct which bids us welcome and honour beauty, whether in man or woman, as something of real worth--divine, heavenly, ay, though we know not how, in a most deep sense eternal; which makes our reason give the lie to all merely logical and sentimental maunderings of moralists about 'the fleeting hues of this our painted clay'; telling men, as the old Hebrew Scriptures tell them, that physical beauty is the deepest of all spiritual symbols; and that though beauty without discretion be the jewel of gold in the swine's snout, yet the jewel of gold it is still, the sacrament of an inward beauty, which ought to be, perhaps hereafter may be, fulfilled in spirit and in truth. Not only this, which whispered to him--and who shall say that the whisper was of the earth, or of the lower world?--'She is too beautiful to be utterly evil'; but the very defect in her creed which he had just discovered, drew him towards her again. She had no Gospel for the Magdalene, because she was a Pagan .... That, then, was the fault of her Paganism, not of herself. She felt for Pelagia. but even if she had not, was not that, too, the fault of her Paganism? And for that Paganism who was to be blamed? She? .... Was he the man to affirm that? Had he not seen scandals, stupidities, brutalities, enough to shake even his faith, educated a Christian? How much more excuse for her, more delicate, more acute, more lofty than he; the child, too of a heathen father? Her perfections, were they not her own?--her defects, those of her circ.u.mstances? .... And had she not welcomed him, guarded him, taught him, honoured him? .... Could he turn against her? above all now in her distress--perhaps her danger? Was he not bound to her, if by nothing else, by grat.i.tude? Was not he, of all men, bound to believe that all she required to make her perfect was conversion to the true faith? .... And that first dream of converting her arose almost as bright as ever .... Then he was checked by the thought of his first utter failure .... At least, if he could not convert her, he could love her, pray for her .... No, he could not even do that; for to whom could he pray? He had to repent, to be forgiven, to humble himself by penitence, perhaps for years, ere he could hope to be heard even for himself, much less for another .... And so backwards and forwards swayed his hope and purpose, till he was roused from his meditation by the voice of the little porter summoning him to his evening meal; and recollecting, for the first time, that he had tasted no food that day, he went down, half-unwillingly, and ate.

But as he, the porter, and his negro wife were sitting silently and sadly enough together, Miriam came in, apparently in high good humour, and lingered a moment on her way to her own apartments upstairs.

'Eh? At supper? And nothing but lentils and water-melons, when the flesh-pots of Egypt have been famous any time these two thousand years. Ah! but times are changed since then! .... You have worn out the old Hebrew hints, you miserable Gentiles, you, and got a Caesar instead of a Joseph! Hist, you hussies!' cried she to the girls upstairs, clapping her hands loudly. 'Here! bring us down one of those roast chickens, and a bottle of the wine of wines--the wine with the green seal, you careless daughters of Midian, you, with your wits running on the men, I'll warrant, every minute I've been out of the house! Ah, you'll smart for it some day--you'll smart for it some day, you daughters of Adam's first wife!'

Down came, by the hands of one of the Syrian slave-girls, the fowl and the wine.

'There, now; we'll all sup together. Wine, that maketh glad the heart of man!--Youth, you were a monk once, so you have read all about that, eh? and about the best wine which goes down sweetly, causing the lips of them that are asleep to speak. And rare wine it was, I warrant, which the blessed Solomon had in his little country cellar up there in Lebanon. We'll try if this is not a very fair subst.i.tute for it, though. Come, my little man-monkey, drink, and forget your sorrow! You shall be temple-sweeper to Beelzebub yet, I promise you. Look at it there, creaming and curdling, the darling! purring like a cat at the very thought of touching human lips! As sweet as honey, as strong as fire, as clear as amber! Drink, ye children of Gehenna; and make good use of the little time that is left you between this and the unquenchable fire!'

And tossing a cup of it down her own throat, as if it had been water, she watched her companions with a meaning look, as they drank.

The little porter followed her example gallantly. Philammon looked, and longed, and sipped blushingly and bashfully, and tried to fancy that he did not care for it; and sipped again, being willing enough to forget his sorrow also for a moment; the negress refused with fear and trembling--'She had a vow on her.'

'Satan possess you and your vow! Drink, you coal out of Tophet! Do you think it is poisoned? You, the only creature in the world that I should not enjoy ill-using, because every one else ill-uses you already without my help! Drink, I say, or I'll turn you pea-green from head to foot!'

The negress put the cup to her lips, and contrived, for her own reasons, to spill the contents un.o.bserved.

'A very fine lecture that of the Lady Hypatia's the other morning, on Helen's nepenthe,' quoth the little porter, growing philosophic as the wine-fumes rose. 'Such a power of extracting the cold water of philosophy out of the bottomless pit of Mythus, I never did hear. Did you ever, my Philammonidion?'

'Aha! she and I were talking about that half an hour ago,' said Miriam.

'What! have you seen her?' asked Philammon, with a flutter of the heart.

'If you mean, did she mention you,--why, then, yes!'

'How?--how?'

'Talked of a young Phoebus Apollo--without mentioning names, certainly, but in the most sensible, and practical, and hopeful way- -the wisest speech that I have heard from her this twelvemonth.'

Philammon blushed scarlet.

'And that,' thought he, in spite of what pa.s.sed this morning!--Why' what is the matter with our host?'

'He has taken Solomon's advice, and forgotten his sorrow.'

And so, indeed, he had; for he was sleeping sweetly, with open lack- l.u.s.tre eyes, and a maudlin smile at the ceiling; while the negress, with her head fallen on her chest, seemed equally unconscious of their presence.

'We'll see,' quoth Miriam; and taking up the lamp, she held the flame unceremoniously to the arm of each of them; but neither winced nor stirred.

'Surely your wine is not drugged?' said Philammon, in trepidation.

'Why not? What has made them beasts, may make us angels. You seem none the less lively for it! Do I?'

'But drugged wine?'

'Why not? The same who made wine made poppy-juice. Both will make man happy. Why not use both?'

'It is poison!'

'It is the nepenthe, as I told Hypatia, whereof she was twaddling mysticism this morning. Drink, child, drink! I have no mind to put you to sleep to-night! I want to make a man of you, or rather, to see whether you are one!'

And she drained another cup, and then went on, half talking to herself-- 'Ay, it is poison; and music is poison; and woman is poison, according to the new creed, Pagan and Christian; and wine will be poison, and meat will be poison, some day; and we shall have a world full of mad Nebuchadnezzars, eating gra.s.s like oxen. It is poisonous, and brutal, and devilish, to be a man, and not a monk, and an eunuch, and a dry branch. You are all in the same lie, Christians and philosophers, Cyril and Hypatia! Don't interrupt me, but drink, young fool!--Ay, and the only man who keeps his manhood, the only man who is not ashamed to be what G.o.d has made him, is your Jew. You will find yourselves in want of him after all, some day, you besotted Gentiles, to bring you back to common sense and common manhood.--In want of him and his grand old books, which you despise while you make idols of them, about Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Solomon, whom you call saints, you miserable hypocrites, though they did what you are too dainty to do, and had their wives and their children, and thanked G.o.d for a beautiful woman, as Adam did before them, and their sons do after them--Drink, I say--and believed that G.o.d had really made the world, and not the devil, and had given them the lordship over it, as you will find out to your cost some day.'

Philammon heard, and could not answer; and on she rambled.

'And music, too? Our priests were not afraid of sackbut and psaltery, dulcimer and trumpet, in the house of the Lord; for they knew who had given them the cunning to make them. Our prophets were not afraid of calling for music, when they wished to prophesy, and letting it soften and raise their souls, and open and quicken them till they saw into the inner harmony of things, and beheld the future in the present; for they knew who made the melody and harmony, and made them the outward symbols of the inward song which runs through sun and stars, storm and tempest, fulfilling his word-- in that these sham philosophers the heathen are wiser than those Christian monks. Try it!--try it! Come with me! Leave these sleepers here, and come to my rooms. You long to be as wise as Solomon. Then get at wisdom as Solomon did, and give your heart first to know folly and madness .... You have read the Book of the Preacher?'

Poor Philammon! He was no longer master of himself. The arguments --the wine--the terrible spell of the old woman's voice and eye, and the strong overpowering will which showed out through them, dragged him along in spite of himself. As if in a dream, he followed her up the stairs.

'There, throw away that stupid, ugly, shapeless philosopher's cloak. So! You have on the white tunic I gave you? And now you look as a human being should. And you have been to the baths to-day? Well-- you have the comfort of feeling now like other people, and having that alabaster skin as white as it was created, instead of being tanned like a brute's hide. Drink, I say! Ay--what was that face, that figure, made for? Bring a mirror here, hussy! There, look in that and judge for yourself? Were those lips rounded for nothing? Why were those eyes set in your head, and made to sparkle bright as jewels, sweet as mountain honey? Why were those curls laid ready for soft fingers to twine themselves among them, and look all the whiter among the glossy black knots? Judge for yourself!'

Alas! poor Philammon!

'And after all,' thought he, 'is it not true, as well as pleasant?'

'Sing to the poor boy, girls!--sing to him! and teach him for the first time in his little ignorant life, the old road to inspiration!'

One of the slave-girls sat down on the divan, and took up a double flute; while the other rose, and accompanying the plaintive dreamy air with a slow dance, and delicate twinklings of her silver armlets and anklets, and the sistrum which she held aloft, she floated gracefully round and round the floor and sang-- Why were we born but for bliss? Why are we ripe, but to fall? Dream not that duty can bar thee from beauty, Like water and sunshine, the heirloom of all.

Lips were made only to kiss; Hands were made only to toy; Eyes were made only to lure on the lonely, The longing, the loving, and drown them in joy!

Alas, for poor Philammon! And yet no! The very poison brought with it its own anti-dote; and, shaking off by one strong effort of will the spell of the music and the wine, he sprang to his feet....

'Never! If love means no more than that--if it is to be a mere delicate self-indulgence, worse than the brute's, because it requires the prostration of n.o.bler faculties, and a selfishness the more huge in proportion to the greatness of the soul which is crushed inward by it--then I will have none of it! I have had my dream--yes! but it was of one who should be at once my teacher and my pupil, my debtor and my queen--who should lean on me, and yet support me--supply my defects, although with lesser light, as the old moon fills up the circle of the new--labour with me side by side in some great work--rising with me for ever as I rose: and this is the base subst.i.tute! Never!'

Whether or not this was unconsciously forced into words by the vehemence of his pa.s.sion, or whether the old Jewess heard, or pretended to hear, a footstep coming up the stair, she at all events sprang instantly to her feet.

'Hist! Silence, girls! I hear a visitor. What mad maiden has come to beg a love-charm of the poor old witch at this time of night? Or have the Christian bloodhounds tracked the old lioness of Judah to her den at last? We'll see!'

And she drew a dagger from her girdle, and stepped boldly to the door. As she went out she turned-- 'So! my brave young Apollo! You do not admire simple woman? You must have something more learned and intellectual and spiritual, and so forth. I wonder whether Eve, when she came to Adam in the garden, brought with her a certificate of proficiency in the seven sciences? Well, well--like must after like. Perhaps we shall be able to suit you after all. Vanish, daughters of Midian!'

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-br.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.s!'cried he in a voice of entreaty.

'Pa.s.s, 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.'