Hypatia - Charles Kingsley (best books to read for students txt) 📗

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 passed 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 pass us by, which I knew for an Alexandrian, as did the captain also, who assured me that she had come from hence to Brundusium with letters from Orestes.’

‘Well?’

‘It seemed to me both base to be passed, 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 assured 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 passed 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. Arsenius 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 Arsenius 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!’

‘You would, would you? And if I brought you to her, what then! What if she were Pelagia herself, what then? She is happy enough now, and rich enough. Could you make her happier or richer?’

‘Can you ask? I must—I will—reclaim her from the infamy in which I am sure she lives.’

‘Ah ha, sir monk! I expected as much. I know, none knows better, what those fine words mean. The burnt child dreads the fire; but the burnt old woman quenches it, you will find. Now listen. I do not say that you shall not see her—I do not say that Pelagia herself is not the woman whom you seek—but—you are in my power. Don’t frown and pout. I can deliver you as a slave to Arsenius when I choose. One word from me to Orestes, and you are in fetters as a fugitive.’

‘I will escape!’ cried he fiercely.

‘Escape me?’—She laughed, pointing to the teraph—‘Me, who, if you fled beyond Kaf, or dived to the depths of the ocean, could make these dead lips confess where you were, and command demons to bear you back to me upon their wings! Escape me! Better to obey me, and see your sister.’

Philammon shuddered, and submitted. The spell of the woman’s eye, the terror of her words, which he half believed, and the agony of longing, conquered him, and he gasped out—

‘I will obey you—only—only—’

‘Only you are not quite a man yet, but half a monk still, eh? I must know that before I help you, my pretty boy. Are you a monk still, or a man?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Ah, ha, ha!’ laughed she shrilly. ‘And these Christian dogs don’t know what a man means? Are you a monk, then? leaving the man alone, as above your understanding.’

‘I?—I am a student of philosophy.’

‘But no man?’

‘I am a man, I suppose.’

‘I don’t; if you had been, you would have been making love like a man to that heathen woman many a month ago.’

‘I—to her?’

‘Yes, I-to her!‘Said Miriam, coarsely imitating his tone of shocked humility. ‘I, the poor penniless boy-scholar, to her, the great, rich, wise, worshipped she-philosopher, who holds the sacred keys of the inner shrine of the east wind—and just because I am a man, and the handsomest man in Alexandria, and she a woman, and the vainest woman in Alexandria; and therefore I am stronger than she, and can twist her round my finger, and bring her to her knees at my feet when I like, as soon I open my eyes, and discover that I am a man. Eh, boy! Did she ever teach you that among her mathematics and metaphysics, and gods and goddesses?’

Philammon stood blushing scarlet. The sweet poison had entered, and every vein glowed with it for the first time in his life. Miriam saw her advantage.

‘There, there—don’t be frightened at your new lesson. After all, I liked you from the first moment I saw you, and asked the teraph about you, and I got an answer—such an answer! You shall know it some day. At all events, it set the poor old soft-hearted Jewess on throwing away her money. Did you ever guess from whom your monthly gold piece came?’

Philammon started, and Miriam burst into loud, shrill laughter.

‘From Hypatia, I’ll warrant! From the fair Greek woman, of course— vain child that you are—never thinking of the poor old Jewess.’

‘And did you? did you?’ gasped Philammon.

‘Have I to thank you, then, for that strange generosity?’

‘Not to thank me, but to obey me; for mind, I can prove your debt to me, every obol, and claim it if I choose. But don’t fear; I won’t be hard on you, just because you are in my power. I hate every one who is not so. As soon as I have a hold on them, I begin to love them. Old folks, like children, are fond of their own playthings.’

‘And I am yours, then?’ said Philammon fiercely.

‘You are indeed, my beautiful boy,’ answered she, looking up with so insinuating a smile that he could not be angry. ‘After all, I know how to toss my balls gently—and for these forty years I have only lived to make young folks happy; so you need not be afraid of the poor soft-hearted old woman. Now—you saved Orestes’s life yesterday.’

‘How did you find out that?’

‘I? I know everything. I know what the swallows say when they pass each other on the wing, and what the fishes think of in the summer sea. You, too, will be able to guess some day, without the teraph’s help. But in the mean time you must enter Orestes’s service. Why?- What are you hesitating about? Do you not know that you are high in his favour? He will make you secretary—raise you to be chamberlain some day, if you know how to make good use of your fortune.’

Philammon stood in astonished silence; and at last—

‘Servant to that man? What care I for him or his honours? Why do you tantalise me thus? I have no wish on earth but to see my sister!’

‘You will be far more likely to see her if you belong to the court of a great officer—perhaps more than an officer—than if you remain a penniless monk. Not that I believe you. Your only wish on earth, eh? Do you not care, then, ever to see the fair Hypatia again?’

‘I? Why should I not see her? Am I not her pupil?’

‘She will not have pupils much longer, my child. If you wish to hear her wisdom—and much good may it do you—you must go for it henceforth