Hypatia or New Foes with an Old Face Part 3

'There are a great many fair daughters of your nation who might suit me, without any cargo at all.'

'Ah, they have had good practice, the little fools, ever since the days of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. But I mean old Miriam-you know. She has been lending Synesius money to fight the black fellows with; and really it was high time. They had burnt every homestead for miles through the province. But the daring old girl must do a little business for herself; so she went off, in the teeth of the barbarians, right away to the Atlas, bought all their lady prisoners, and some of their own sons and daughters, too, of them, for beads and old iron; and has come back with as pretty a cargo of Lybian beauties as a prefect of good taste could wish to have the first choice of. You may thank me for that privilege.'

'After, of course, you had suited yourself, my cunning Raphael?'

'Not I. Women are bores, as Solomon found out long ago. Did I never tell you? I began, as he did, with the most select harem in Alexandria. But they quarrelled so, that one day I went out, and sold them all but one, who was a Jewess-so there were objections on the part of the Rabbis. Then I tried one, as Solomon did; but my "garden shut up," and my "sealed fountain" wanted me to be always in love with her, so I went to the lawyers, allowed her a comfortable maintenance, and now I am as free as a monk, and shall be happy to give your excellency the benefit of any good taste or experience which I may possess.'

'Thanks, worthy Jew. We are not yet as exalted as yourself, and will send for the old Erictho this very afternoon. Now listen a moment to base, earthly, and political business. Cyril has written to me, to say that you Jews have plotted to murder all the Christians.'

'Well-why not? I most heartily wish it were true, and think, on the whole, that it very probably is so.'

'By the immortal-saints, man! you are not serious?'

'The four archangels forbid! It is no concern of mine. All I say is, that my people are great fools, like the rest of the world; and have, for aught I know or care, some such intention. They won't succeed, of course; and that is all you have to care for. But if you think it worth the trouble-which I do not-I shall have to go to the synagogue on business in a week or so, and then I would ask some of the Rabbis.'

'Laziest of men!-and I must answer Cyril this very day.'

'An additional reason for asking no questions of our people. Now you can honestly say that you know nothing about the matter.'

'Well, after all, ignorance is a stronghold for poor statesmen. So you need not hurry yourself.'

'I a.s.sure your excellency I will not.'

'Ten days hence, or so, you know.'

'Exactly, after it is all over.'

'And can't be helped. What a comfort it is, now and then, that Can't be helped!'

'It is the root and marrow of all philosophy. Your practical man, poor wretch, will try to help this and that, and torment his soul with ways and means, and preventives and forestallings; your philosopher quietly says-It can't be helped. If it ought to be, it will be-if it is, it ought to be. We did not make the world, and we are not responsible for it.-There is the sum and substance of all true wisdom, and the epitome of all that has been said and written thereon from Philo the Jew to Hypatia the Gentile. By the way, here's Cyril coming down the steps of the Caesareum. A very handsome fellow, after all, though lie is looking as sulky as a bear.'

'With his cubs at his heels. What a scoundrelly visage that tall fellow-deacon, or reader, or whatever he is by his dress-has!'

'There they are-whispering together. Heaven give them pleasant thoughts and pleasanter faces!'

'Amen!' quoth Orestes, with a sneer: and he would have said Amen in good earnest, had he been able to take the liberty-which we shall-and listen to Cyril's answer to Peter, the tall reader.

'From Hypatia's, you say? Why, he only returned to the city this morning.'

'I saw his four-in-hand standing at her door, as I came down the Museum Street hither, half an hour ago.'

'And twenty carriages besides, I don't doubt?'

'The street was blocked up with them. There! Look round the corner now.-Chariots, litters, slaves, and fops.-When shall we see such a concourse as that where it ought to be?'

Cyril made no answer; and Peter went on-'Where it ought to be, my father-in front of your door at the Serapeium?'

'The world, the flesh, and the devil know their own, Peter: and as long as they have their own to go to, we cannot expect them to come to us.'

'But what if their own were taken out of the way?'

'They might come to us for want of better amus.e.m.e.nt.... devil and all. Well-if I could get a fair hold of the two first, I would take the third into the bargain, and see what could be done with him. But never, while these lecture-rooms last-these Egyptian chambers of imagery-these theatres of Satan, where the devil transforms himself into an angel of light, and apes Christian virtue, and bedizens his ministers like ministers of righteousness, as long as that lecture-room stands and the great and the powerful flock to it, to learn excuses for their own tyrannies and atheisms, so long will the kingdom of G.o.d be trampled under foot in Alexandria; so long will the princes of this world, with their gladiators, and parasites, and money-lenders, be masters here, and not the bishops and priests of the living G.o.d.'

It was now Peter's turn to be silent; and as the two, with their little knot of district-visitors behind them, walk moodily along the great esplanade which overlooked the harbour, and then vanish suddenly up some dingy alley into the crowded misery of the sailors' quarter, we will leave them to go about their errand of mercy, and, like fashionable people, keep to the grand parade, and listen again to our two fashionable friends in the carved and gilded curricle with four white blood-horses.

'A fine sparkling breeze outside the Pharos, Raphael-fair for the wheat-ships too.'

'Are they gone yet?

'Yes-why? I sent the first fleet off three days ago; and the rest are clearing outwards to-day.'

'Oh!-ah-so!-Then you have not heard from Heraclian?'

'Heraclian? What the-blessed saints has the Count of Africa to do with my wheat-ships?'

'Oh, nothing. It's no business of mine. Only he is going to rebel .... But here we are at your door.'

'To what?' asked Orestes, in a horrified tone.

'To rebel, and attack Rome.'

'Good G.o.ds-G.o.d, I mean. A fresh bore! Come in, and tell a poor miserable slave of a governor-speak low, for Heaven's sake!-I hope these rascally grooms haven't overheard you.'

'Easy to throw them into the ca.n.a.l, if they have,' quoth Raphael, as he walked coolly through hall and corridor after the perturbed governor.

Poor Orestes never stopped till he reached a little chamber of the inner court, beckoned the Jew in after him, locked the door, threw himself into an arm-chair, put his hands on his knees, and sat, bending forward, staring into Raphael's face with a ludicrous terror and perplexity.

'Tell me all about it. Tell me this instant.'

'I have told you all I know,' quoth Raphael, quietly seating himself on a sofa, and playing with a jewelled dagger. 'I thought, of course, that you were in the secret, or I should have said nothing. It's no business of mine, you know.'

Orestes, like most weak and luxurious men, Romans especially, had a wild-beast vein in him-and it burst forth.

'h.e.l.l and the furies! You insolent provincial slave-you will carry these liberties of yours too far! Do you know who I am, you accursed Jew? Tell me the whole truth, or, by the head of the emperor, I'll twist it out of you with red-hot pincers!'

Raphael's countenance a.s.sumed a dogged expression, which showed that the old Jewish blood still heat true, under all its affected sh.e.l.l of Neo-Platonist nonchalance; and there was a quiet unpleasant earnest in his smile, as he answered-

'Then, my dear governor, you will be the first man on earth who ever yet forced a Jew to say or do what he did not choose.'

'We'll see!' yelled Orestes. 'Here, slaves!' And he clapped his hands loudly.

'Calm yourself, your excellency,' quoth Raphael, rising. 'The door is locked; the mosquito net is across the window; and this dagger is poisoned. If anything happens to me, you will offend all the Jew money-lenders, and die in about three days in a great deal of pain, having missed our a.s.signation with old Miriam, lost your pleasantest companion, and left your own finances and those of the prefecture in a considerable state of embarra.s.sment. How much better to sit down, hear all I have to say philosophically, like a true pupil of Hypatia, and not expect a man to tell you what he really does not know.'

Orestes, after looking vainly round the room for a place to escape, had quietly subsided into his chair again; and by the time that the slaves knocked at the door he had so far recovered his philosophy as to ask, not for the torturers, but for a page and wine.

'Oh, you Jews!' quoth he, trying to laugh off matters. 'The same incarnate fiends that t.i.tus found you!'

'The very same, my dear prefect. Now for this matter, which is really important-at least to Gentiles. Heraclian will certainly rebel. Synesius let out as much to me. He has fitted out an armament for Ostia, stopped his own wheat-ships, and is going to write to you to stop yours, and to starve out the Eternal City, Goths, senate, emperor, and all. Whether you will comply with his reasonable little request depends of course on yourself.'