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

‘What answer has he sent back, father?’ asked Hypatia, as Theon re-entered her chamber, after delivering that hapless letter to Philammon.

‘Insolent that he is! he tore it to fragments and tied forth without a word.’

‘Let him go, and desert us like the rest, in our calamity!’

‘At least, we have the jewels.’

‘The jewels? Let them be returned to their owner. Shall we defile ourselves by taking them as wages for anything—above all, for that which is unperformed?’

‘But, my child, they were given to us freely. He bade me keep them; and—and, to tell you the truth, I must keep them. After this unfortunate failure, be sure of it, every creditor we have will be clamouring for payment.’

‘Let them take our house and furniture, and sell us as slaves, then. Let them take all, provided we keep our virtue.’

‘Sell us as slaves? Are you mad?’

‘Not quite mad yet, father,’ answered she with a sad smile. ‘But how should we be worse than we are now, were we slaves? Raphael Aben-Ezra told me that he obeyed my precepts, when he went forth as a houseless beggar; and shall I not have courage to obey them myself, if the need come? The thought of his endurance has shamed my luxury for this many a month. After all, what does the philosopher require but bread and water, and the clear brook in which to wash away the daily stains of his earthly prison-house? Let what is fated come. Hypatia struggles with the stream no more!’

‘My daughter! And have you given up all hope? So soon disheartened! What! Is this paltry accident to sweep away the purposes of years? Orestes remains still faithful. His guards have orders to garrison the house for as long as we shall require them.’

‘Send them away, then. I have done no wrong, and I fear no punishment.’

‘You do not know the madness of the mob; they are shouting your name in the streets already, in company with Pelagia’s.’

Hypatia shuddered. Her name in company with Pelagia’s! And to this she had brought herself!

‘I have deserved it! I have sold myself to a lie and a disgrace! I have stooped to truckle, to intrigue! I have bound myself to a sordid trickster! Father! never mention his name to me again! I have leagued myself with the impure and the bloodthirsty, and I have my reward! No more politics for Hypatia from henceforth, my father; no more orations and lectures; no more pearls of Divine wisdom cast before swine. I have sinned in divulging the secrets of the Immortals to the mob. Let them follow their natures! Fool that I was, to fancy that my speech, my plots, could raise them above that which the gods had made them!’

‘Then you give up our lectures? Worse and worse! We shall be ruined utterly!’

‘We are ruined utterly already. Orestes? There is no help in him. I know the man too well, my father, not to know that he would give us up to-morrow to the fury of the Christians were his own base life—even his own baser office—in danger.’

‘Too true—too true! I fear,’ said the poor old man, wringing his hands in perplexity. ‘What will become of us,—of you, rather? What matter what happens to the useless old star-gazer? Let him die! To-day or next year is alike to him. But you, you! Let us escape by the canal. We may gather up enough, even without these jewels, which you refuse, to pay our voyage to Athens, and there we shall be safe with Plutarch; he will welcome you—all Athens will welcome you—we will collect a fresh school—and you shall be Queen of Athens, as you have been Queen of Alexandria!’

‘No, father. What I know, henceforth I will know for myself only. Hypatia will be from this day alone with the Immortal Gods!’

‘You will not leave me?’ cried the old man, terrified.

‘Never on earth!’ answered she, bursting into real human tears, and throwing herself on his bosom. ‘Never—never! father of my spirit as well as of my flesh!—the parent who has trained me, taught me, educated my soul from the cradle to use her wings!—the only human being who never misunderstood me—never thwarted me—never deceived me!’

‘My priceless child! And I have been the cause of your ruin!’

‘Not you!—a thousand times not you! I only am to blame! I tampered with worldly politics. I tempted you on to fancy that I could effect what I so rashly undertook. Do not accuse yourself unless you wish to break my heart! We can be happy together yet.—A palm-leaf hut in the desert, dates from the grove, and water from the spring—the monk dares be miserable alone in such a dwelling, and cannot we dare to be happy together in it?’

‘Then you will escape?’

‘Not to-day. It were base to flee before danger comes. We must hold out at our post to the last moment, even if we dare not die at it like heroes. And to-morrow I go to the lecture-room,—to the beloved Museum, for the last time, to take farewell of my pupils. Unworthy as they are, I owe it to myself and to philosophy to tell them why I leave them.’

‘It will be too dangerous—indeed it will!’

‘I could take the guards with me, then. And yet—no.... They shall never have occasion to impute fear to the philosopher. Let them see her go forth as usual on her errand, strong in the courage of innocence, secure in the protection of the gods. So, perhaps, some sacred awe, some suspicion of her divineness, may fall on them at last.’

‘I must go with you.’

‘No, I go alone. You might incur danger where I am safe. After all, I am a woman.... And, fierce as they are, they will not dare to harm me.’

The old man shook his head.

‘Look now,’ she said smilingly, laying her hands on his shoulders, and looking into his face.... ‘You tell me that I am beautiful, you know; and beauty will tame the lion. Do you not think that this face might disarm even a monk?’

And she laughed and blushed so sweetly, that the old man forgot his fears, as she intended that he should, and kissed her and went his way for the time being, to command all manner of hospitalities to the soldiers, whom he prudently determined to keep in his house as long as he could make them stay there; in pursuance of which wise purpose he contrived not to see a great deal of pleasant flirtation between his valiant defenders and Hypatia’s maids, who, by no means so prudish as their mistress, welcomed as a rare boon from heaven an afternoon’s chat with twenty tall men of war.

So they jested and laughed below, while old Theon, having brought out the very best old wine, and actually proposed in person, by way of mending