Hypatia or New Foes with an Old Face Part 38

'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.

CHAPTER XIX: JEWS AGAINST CHRISTIANS

THE little porter, after having carried a.r.s.enius'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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.sers-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 a.r.s.enius 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 superst.i.tions-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 uncirc.u.mcised was better mounted than I; I therefore bribed a certain slave to lame his horse, and pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s us by, which I knew for an Alexandrian, as did the captain also, who a.s.sured me that she had come from hence to Brundusium with letters from Orestes.'

'Well?'

'It seemed to me both base to be pa.s.sed, 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 a.s.sured 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 pa.s.sed 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. a.r.s.enius 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 a.r.s.enius 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!'