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

of a Gospel?—were these the fruits of Christ’s Spirit?.... And a whisper thrilled through the inmost depth of his soul—‘Is there a Gospel? Is there a Spirit of Christ? Would not their fruits be different from these?’

Faint, and low, and distant, was that whisper, like the mutter of an earthquake miles below the soil. And yet, like the earthquake-roll, it had in that one moment jarred every belief, and hope, and memory of his being each a hair’s-breadth from its place.... Only one hair’s-breadth. But that was enough; his whole inward and outward world changed shape, and cracked at every joint. What if it were to fall in pieces? His brain reeled with the thought. He doubted his own identity. The very light of heaven had altered its hue. Was the firm ground on which he stood after all no solid reality, but a fragile shell which covered—what?

The nightmare vanished, and he breathed once more. What a strange dream! The sun and the exertion must have made him giddy. He would forget all about it.

Weary with labour, and still wearier with thought, he returned that evening, longing and yet dreading to be permitted to speak with Hypatia. He half hoped at moments that Cyril might think him too weak for it; and the next, all his pride and daring, not to say his faith and hope, spurred him on. Might he but face the terrible enchantress, and rebuke her to her face! And yet so lovely, so noble as she looked! Could he speak to her, except in tones of gentle warning, pity, counsel, entreaty? Might he not convert her—save her? Glorious thought! to win such a soul to the true cause! To be able to show, as the firstfruits of his mission, the very champion of heathendom! It was worth while to have lived only to do that; and having done it, to die.

The archbishop’s lodgings, when he entered them, were in a state of ferment even greater than usual. Groups of monks, priests, parabolani, and citizens rich and poor, were banging about the courtyard, talking earnestly and angrily. A large party of monks fresh from Nitria, with ragged hair and beards, and the peculiar expression of countenance which fanatics of all creeds acquire, fierce and yet abject, self-conscious and yet ungoverned, silly and yet sly, with features coarsened and degraded by continual fasting and self-torture, prudishly shrouded from head to heel in their long ragged gowns, were gesticulating wildly and loudly, and calling on their more peaceable companions, in no measured terms, to revenge some insult offered to the Church.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Philammon of a quiet portly citizen, who stood looking up, with a most perplexed visage, at the windows of the patriarch’s apartments.

‘Don’t ask me; I have nothing to do with it. Why does not his holiness come out and speak to them? Blessed virgin, mother of God! that we were well through it all!—’

‘Coward!’ bawled a monk in his ear. ‘These shopkeepers care for nothing but seeing their stalls safe. Rather than lose a day’s custom, they would give the very churches to be plundered by the heathen!’

‘We do not want them!’ cried another. ‘We managed Dioscuros and his brother, and we can manage Orestes. What matter what answer he sends? The devil shall have his own!’

‘They ought to have been back two hours ago: they are murdered by this time.’

‘He would not dare to touch the archdeacon!’

‘He will dare anything. Cyril should never have sent them forth as lambs among wolves. What necessity was there for letting the prefect know that the Jews were gone? He would have found it out for himself fast enough, the next time he wanted to borrow money.’

‘What is all this about, reverend sir?’ asked Philammon of Peter the Reader, who made his appearance at that moment in the quadrangle, walking with great strides, like the soul of Agamemnon across the meads of Asphodel, and apparently beside himself with rage.

‘Ah! you here? You may go to-morrow, young fool! The patriarch can’t talk to you. Why should he? Some people have a great deal too much notice taken of them, in my opinion. Yes; you may go. If your head is not turned already, you may go and get it turned to-morrow. We shall see whether he who exalts himself is not abased, before all is over!’ And he was striding away, when Philammon, at the risk of an explosion, stopped him.

‘His holiness commanded me to see him, sir, before—’

Peter turned on him in a fury. ‘Fool! will you dare to intrude your fantastical dreams on him at such a moment as this?’

‘He commanded me to see him,’ said Philammon, with the true soldierlike discipline of a monk; ‘and see him I will in spite of any man. I believe in my heart you wish to keep me from his counsels and his blessing.’

Peter looked at him for a moment with a right wicked expression, and then, to the youth’s astonishment, struck him full in the face, and yelled for help.

If the blow had been given by Pambo in the Laura a week before, Philammon would have borne it. But from that man, and coming unexpectedly as the finishing stroke to all his disappointment and disgust, it was intolerable; and in an instant Peter’s long legs were sprawling on the pavement, while he bellowed like a bull for all the monks in Nitria.

A dozen lean brown hands were at Philammon’s throat as Peter rose. ‘Seize him! hold him!’ half blubbered he. ‘The traitor! the heretic! He holds communion with heathens!’

‘Down with him!’ ‘Cast him out! Carry him to the archbishop!’ while Philammon shook himself free, and Peter returned to the charge.

‘I call all good Catholics to witness! He has beaten an ecclesiastic in the courts of the Lord’s house, even in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem! And he was in Hypatia’s lecture-room this morning!’

A groan of pious horror rose. Philammon set his back against the wall.

‘His holiness the patriarch sent me.’

‘He confesses, he confesses! He deluded the piety of the patriarch into letting him go, under colour of converting her; and even now he wants to intrude on the sacred presence of Cyril, burning only with the carnal desire that he may meet the sorceress in her house to-morrow!’

‘Scandal!’ ‘Abomination in the holy place!’ and a rush at the poor youth took place.

His blood was thoroughly up. The respectable part of the crowd, as usual in such cases, prudently retreated, and left him to the mercy of the monks, with an eye to their own reputation for orthodoxy, not to mention their personal safety; and he had to help himself as he could. He looked round for a weapon. There was none. The ring of monks were baying at him like hounds round a bear: and though he might have been a match for any one of them singly, yet their sinewy limbs and determined faces warned him that against such odds the struggle would be desperate.

‘Let me leave this court in safety! God knows whether I am a heretic; and to Him I commit my cause! The holy patriarch shall know of your iniquity. I will not trouble you; I give you