Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face, Charles Kingsley [thriller novels to read TXT] 📗

mad? Will you ruin your own purpose? Why did you tell her this? Why did you not wait—give her hope—time to collect herself—time to wean herself from her lover, instead of terrifying and disgusting her at the outset, as you have done? Have you a man’s heart in you? No word of comfort for that poor creature, nothing but hell, hell, hell—See to your own chance of hell first! It is greater than you fancy!’

‘It cannot be greater than I fancy!’

‘Then see to it. For her, poor darling!—why, even we Jews, who know that all you Gentiles are doomed to Gehenna alike, have some sort of hope for such a poor untaught creature as that.’

‘And why is she untaught? Wretch that you are. You have had the training of her! You brought her up to sin and shame! You drove from her recollection the faith in which she was baptized!’

‘So much the better for her, if the recollection of it is to make her no happier than it does already. Better to wake unexpectedly in Gehenna when you die, than to endure over and above the dread of it here. And as for leaving her untaught, on your own showing she has been taught too much already. Wiser it would be in you to curse your parents for having had her baptized, than me for giving her ten years’ pleasure before she goes to the pit of Tophet. Come now, don’t be angry with me. The old Jewess is your friend, revile her as you will. She shall marry this Goth.’

‘An Arian heretic!’

‘She shall convert him and make a Catholic of him, if you like. At all events, if you wish to win her, you must win her my way. You have had your chance, and spoiled it. Let me have mine. Pelagia, darling! Up, and be a woman! We will find a philtre downstairs to give that ungrateful man, that shall make him more mad about you, before a day is over, than ever you were about him.’

‘No!’ said Pelagia, looking up. ‘No love-potions! No poisons!’

‘Poisons, little fool! Do you doubt the old woman’s skill? Do you think I shall make him lose his wits, as Callisphyra did to her lover last year, because she would trust to old Megaera’s drugs, instead of coming to me!’

‘No! No drugs; no magic! He must love me really, or not at all! He must love me for myself, because I am worth loving, because he honours, worships me, or let me die. I, whose boast was, even when I was basest, that I never needed such mean tricks, but conquered like Aphrodite, a queen in my own right! I have been my own love-charm: when I cease to be that, let me die!’

‘One as mad as the other!’ cried Miriam, in utter perplexity. ‘Hist! what is that tramp upon the stairs?’

At this moment heavy footsteps were heard ascending the stairs.... All three stopped aghast: Philammon, because he thought the visitors were monks in search of him; Miriam, because she thought they were Orestes’s guards in search of her; and Pelagia, from vague dread of anything and everything....

‘Have you an inner room?’ asked the Jewess.

‘None.’

The old woman set her lips firmly, and drew her dagger. Pelagia wrapped her face in her cloak, and stood trembling, bowed down, as if expecting another blow. The door opened, and in walked, neither monks nor guard, but Wulf and Smid.

‘Heyday, young monk!’ cried the latter worthy, with a loud laugh—‘Veils here, too, eh? At your old trade, my worthy portress of hell-gate? Well, walk out now; we have a little business with this young gentleman.’

And slipping past the unsuspecting Goths, Pelagia and Miriam hurried downstairs.

‘The young one, at least, seems a little ashamed of her errand.... Now, Wulf, speak low; and I will see that no one is listening at the door.’

Philammon faced his unexpected visitors with a look of angry inquiry. What right had they, or any man, to intrude at such a moment on his misery and disgrace?.... But he was disarmed the next instant by old Wulf, who advanced to him, and looking him fully in the face with an expression which there was no mistaking, held out his broad, brown hand.

Philammon grasped it, and then covering his face with his hands, burst into tears.

‘You did right. You are a brave boy. If you had died, no man need have been ashamed to die your death.’

‘You were there, then?’ sobbed Philammon.

‘We were.’

‘And what is more,’ said Smid, as the poor boy writhed at the admission, ‘we were mightily minded, some of us, to have leapt down to you and cut you a passage out. One man, at least, whom I know of, felt his old blood as hot for the minute as a four-year-old’s. The foul curs! And to hoot her, after all! Oh that I may have one good hour’s hewing at them before I die!’

‘And you shall!’ said Wulf. ‘Boy, you wish to get this sister of yours into your power?’

‘It is hopeless—hopeless! She will never leave her—the Amal.’

‘Are you so sure of that?’

‘She told me so with her own lips not ten minutes ago. That was she who went out as you entered!’

A curse of astonishment and regret burst from Smid....

‘Had I but known her! By the soul of my fathers, she should have found that it was easier to come here than to go home again!’

‘Hush, Smid! Better as it is. Boy, if I put her into your power, dare you carry her off?’

Philammon hesitated one moment.

‘What I dare you know already. But it would be an unlawful thing, surely, to use violence.’

‘Settle your philosopher’s doubts for yourself. I have made my offer. I should have thought that a man in his senses could give but one answer, much more a mad monk.’

‘You forget the money matters, prince,’ said Smid, with a smile.

‘I do not. But I don’t think the boy so mean as to hesitate on that account.’

‘He may as well know, however, that we promise to send all her trumpery after her, even to the Amal’s presents. As for the house, we won’t trouble her to lend it us longer than we can help. We intend shortly to move into more extensive premises, and open business on a grander scale, as the shopkeepers say,—eh, prince?’

‘Her money?—That money? God forgive her!’ answered Philammon. ‘Do you fancy me base enough to touch it? But I am resolved. Tell me what to do, and I will do it.’

‘You know the lane which runs down to the canal, under the left wall of the house?’