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Serapis — Complete

by Georg Ebers · English · Gutenberg #5507 · 653,856 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Serapis — Complete

Author: Georg Ebers

Translator: Clara Bell


        
Release date: November 15, 2004 [eBook #5507]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5507

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SERAPIS — COMPLETE ***



Produced by David Widger





SERAPIS, Complete

By Georg Ebers


Translated from the German by Clara Bell




SERAPIS.




CHAPTER I.

The busy turmoil of the town had been hushed for some hours; the moon
and stars were keeping silent watch over Alexandria, and many of the
inhabitants were already in the land of dreams. It was deliciously
fresh--a truly gracious night; but, though peace reigned in the streets
and alleys, even now there was in this pause for rest a lack of the
soothing calm which refreshes and renews the spirit of man. For some few
weeks there had been an oppressive and fevered tension in the repose
of night. Every house and shop was closed as securely as though it were
done, not only to secure slumber against intrusion, but to protect life
and property from the spoiler; and instead of tones of jollity and mirth
the sleeping city echoed the heavy steps and ringing arms of soldiers.
Now and again, when the Roman word of command or the excited cry of some
sleepless monk broke the silence, shops and doors were cautiously opened
and an anxious face peered out, while belated wanderers shrunk into
gateways or under the black shadow of a wall as the watch came past. A
mysterious burden weighed on the Heart of the busy city and clicked its
pulses, as a nightmare oppresses the dreamer.

On this night of the year of our Lord 391, in a narrow street leading
from the commercial harbor known as Kibotus, an old man was slinking
along close to the houses. His clothes were plain but decent, and he
walked with his head bent forward looking anxiously on all sides; when
the patrol came by he shrank into the shadow; though he was no thief
he had his reasons for keeping out of the way of the soldiery, for the
inhabitants, whether natives or strangers, were forbidden to appear in
the streets after the harbor was closed for the night.

He stopped in front of a large house, whose long, windowless wall
extended from one side street to the next, and pausing before the great
gate, he read an inscription on which the light fell from a lamp above:
“The House of the Holy Martyr. His widow here offers shelter to all who
need it. He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.”

“At how much per cent I wonder?” mattered the old man and a satirical
smile curled his beardless lips. A heavy thud with the knocker rang
through the silent street, and after a few short questions from within
and equally curt replies from without, a small door was opened in the
great gate. The stranger was on the point of crossing the vestibule when
a human creature crept up to him on all fours, and clutched his ankle
with a strong hand, exclaiming in a hoarse voice: “As soon as the door
is shut--an entrance fee; for the poor, you know.”

The old man flung a copper piece to the gatekeeper who tried it, and
then, holding on to the rope by which he was tied to a post like a
watch-dog, he whined out “Not a drop to wet a Christian’s lips?”

“It has not rained for some time,” retorted the stranger, who proceeded
to open a second door which led into a vast court-yard open to the blue
vault of heaven. A few torches stuck against the pillars and a small
fire on the pavement added thin smoky, flickering light to the clear
glory of the stars, and the whole quadrangle was full of a heavy,
reeking atmosphere, compounded of smoke and the steam of hot food.

Even in the street the wanderer had heard the dull buzz and roar which
now met his ear as a loud medley of noises and voices, rising from
hundreds of men who were encamped in the wide space before him--in
groups or singly, sleeping and snoring, or quarrelling, eating, talking
and singing as they squatted on the ground which was strewn with straw.

The inn was full, and more than half of the humble guests were monks
who, during the last two days, had flowed into the city from every
Cenoby, Laura and hermitage in the desert, and from most of the
monasteries in the surrounding district--the ‘Nitriote Nome’. Some of
them had laid their heads close together for confidential whispering,
others squabbled loudly, and a large group in the northern angle of
the court had raised a psalm which mingled strangely with the “three,”
 “four,” “seven,” of the men who were playing ‘mora’, and the cry of
the cook inviting purchasers to his stall spread with meat, bread, and
onions.

At the end of the court furthest from the gateway there was a covered
way, on to which a row of doors opened leading to the rooms devoted to
families of women and children, each apartment being divided into two by
a curtain across the middle. The stranger made his way into one of these
rooms, where he was warmly welcomed by a young man, who was occupied in
cutting a Kopais reed into a mouth-piece for a double flute, and by a
tall matronly woman.

The new-comer’s name was Karnis and he was the head of a family of
wandering singers who had arrived in Alexandria only the day before
from Rome. His surroundings were poor and mean, for their ship had been
attacked off the African coast by a band of pirates, and though they
had saved their lives they had lost everything they possessed. The
young owner of the vessel, to whom he owed his safety, had procured him
admission to this Xenodochium,--[a refuge or inn]--kept by his mother
the Widow Mary; Karnis had, however, found it far from comfortable, and
had gone forth at noon to seek other quarters.

“All in vain!” said he, as he wiped the heat drops from his forehead.
“I have hunted Medius half the city through and found him at last at the
house of Posidonius the Magian, whose assistant he is. There was singing
behind a curtain--wretched rubbish; but there were some old airs too
with an accompaniment on the flutes, in the style of Olympus, and really
not so bad.

“Then spirits appeared. By Sirius a queer business altogether! Medius
is in the midst of it all. I arranged the chorus and sang with them a
little. All I got for it was a little dirty silver--there! But as for
a lodging--free quarters!--there are none to be found here for anything
above an owl; and then there is the edict--that cursed edict!”

During this speech the younger man had exchanged meaning glances
with his mother. He now interrupted Karnis, saying in a tone of
encouragement:

“Never mind, father; we have something good in view.”

“You have?” said the old man with an incredulous shrug, while his wife
served him with a small roast chicken, on a stool which did duty for a
table.

“Yes father, we!” the lad went on, laying aside his knife. “You know we
vowed an offering to Dionysus for our escape, since he himself once fell
into the hands of pirates, so we went at once to his temple. Mother knew
the way; and as we--she, I mean, and Dada and myself...”

“Heh! what is this?” interrupted Karnis, now for the first time noticing
the dish before him. “A fowl--when we are so miserably poor? A whole
fowl, and cooked with oil?” He spoke angrily, but his wife, laying her
hand on his shoulder, said soothingly:

“We shall soon earn it again. Never a sesterce was won by fretting.
Enjoy to-day’s gifts and the gods will provide for to-morrow.”

“Indeed?” asked Karnis in an altered key. “To be sure when a roast fowl
flies into one’s mouth instead of a pigeon.... But you are right as
usual, Herse, as usual, only--here am I battening like a senator while
you--I lay a wager you have drunk nothing but milk all day and eaten
nothing but bread and radishes. I thought so? Then the chicken must
pretend to be a pheasant and you, wife, will eat this leg. The girls
are gone to bed? Why here is some wine too! Fill up your cup, boy. A
libation to the God! Glory to Dionysus!” The two men poured the libation
on the floor and drank; then the father thrust his knife into the breast
of the bird and began his meal with a will, while Orpheus, the son, went
on with his story:

“Well, the temple of Dionysus was not to be found, for Bishop Theophilus
has had it destroyed; so to what divinity could we offer our wreath
and cake? Here in Egypt there is none but the great Mother Isis. Her
sanctuary is on the shore of Lake Mareotis and mother found it at once.
There she fell into conversation with a priestess who, as soon as she
learnt that my mother belonged to a family of musicians--though Dame
Herse was cautious in announcing this fact--and hoped to find employment
in Alexandria, led her away to a young lady who was closely veiled. This
lady,” Orpheus went on--he not only played the flute but took the higher
parts for a man’s voice and could also strike the lyre--“desired us to
go to her later at her own house, where she would speak with us. She
drove off in a fine carriage and we, of course followed her orders; Agne
was with us too. A splendid house! I never saw anything handsomer in
Rome or Antioch. We were kindly received, and with the lady there were
another very old lady and a tall grave man, a priest I should fancy or a
philosopher, or something of that kind.”

“Not some Christian trap?” asked Karnis suspiciously. “You do not know
this place, and since the edict...”

“Never fear, father! There were images of the gods in the halls
and corridors, and in the room where we were received by Gorgo, the
beautiful daughter of Porphyrius, there was an altar before an image of
Isis, quite freshly anointed.--This Porphyrius is a very rich merchant;
we learnt that afterwards, and many other things. The philosopher asked
us at once whether we were aware that Theodosius had lately promulgated
a new edict forbidding young maidens to appear in public as singers or
flute-players.”

“And did Agne hear that?” said the old man in a low voice as he pointed
to the curtain.

“No, she and Dada were in the garden on to which the room opened, and
mother explained at once that though Agne was a Christian she was a very
good girl, and that so long as she remained in our service she was bound
to sing with us whenever she was required. The philosopher exclaimed
at once: ‘The very thing!’ and they whispered together, and called the
girls and desired them to show what they could do.”

“And how did they perform?” asked the old man, who was growing excited.

“Dada warbled like a lark, and Agne--well you know how it always is. Her
voice sounded lovely but it was just as usual. You can guess how much
there is in her and how deep her feeling is but she never quite brings
it out. What has she to complain of with us? And yet whatever she sings
has that mournful, painful ring which even you can do nothing to alter.
However, she pleased them better than Dada did, for I noticed that Gorgo
and the gentleman glanced at each other and at her, and whispered a word
now and then which certainly referred to Ague. When they had sung two
songs the young lady came towards us and praised both the girls, and
asked whether we would undertake to learn something quite new. I told
her that my father was a great musician who could master the most
difficult things at the first hearing.”

“The most difficult! Hm... that depends,” said the old man. “Did she
show it you?”

“No; it is something in the style of Linus and she sang it to us.”

“The daughter of the rich Porphyrius sang for your entertainment?
Yours?” said Karnis laughing. “By Sirius! The world is turning upside
down. Now that girls are forbidden to perform to the gentlefolks, art is
being cultivated by the upper classes; it cannot be killed outright. For
the future the listeners will be paid to keep quiet and the singers pay
for the right of torturing their ears--our ears, our luckless ears will
be victimized.”

Orpheus smiled and shook his head; then, again dropping his knife, he
went on eagerly:

“But if you could only hear her! You would give your last copper piece
to hear her again.”

“Indeed!” muttered his father. “Well, there are very good teachers here.
Something by Linus did you say she sang?”

“Something of that kind; a lament for the dead of very great power:
‘Return, oh! return my beloved, came back--come home!’ that was the
burthen of it. And there was a passage which said: ‘Oh that each tear
had a voice and could join with me in calling thee!’ And how she sang
it, father! I do not think I ever in my life heard anything like it. Ask
mother. Even Dada’s eyes were full of tears.”

“Yes, it was beautiful,” the mother agreed. “I could not help wishing
that you were there.”

Karnis rose and paced the little room, waving his arms and muttering:

“Ah! so that is how it is! A friend of the Muses. We saved the large
lute--that is well. My chlamys has an ugly hole in it--if the girls were
not asleep... but the first thing to-morrow Ague.... Tell me, is she
handsome, tall?”

Herse had been watching her excitable husband with much satisfaction
and now answered his question: “Not a Hera--not a Muse--decidedly not.
Hardly above the middle height, slightly made, but not small, black
eyes, long lashes, dark straight eyebrows. I could hardly, like Orpheus,
call her beautiful...”

“Oh yes, mother.--Beautiful is a great word, and one my father has
taught me to use but rarely; but she--if she is not beautiful who
is?--when she raised her large dark eyes and threw back her head to
bring out her lament; tone after tone seemed to come from the bottom of
her heart and rise to the furthest height of heaven. Ah, if Agne could
learn to sing like that! ‘Throw your whole soul into your singing.’--You
have told her that again and again. Now, Gorgo can and does. And she
stood there as steady and as highly strung as a bow, every note came out
with the ring of an arrow and went straight to the heart, as clear and
pure as possible.”

“Be silent!” cried the old man covering his ears with his hands. “I
shall not close an eye till daylight, and then... Orpheus, take
that silver--take it all, I have no more--go early to market and buy
flowers--laurel branches, ivy, violets and roses. But no lotuses though
the market here is full of them; they are showy, boastful things with
no scent, I cannot bear them. We will go crowned to the Temple of the
Muses.”

“Buy away, buy all you want!” said Herse laughing, as she showed her
husband some bright gold pieces. “We got that to-day, and if all is
well....” Here she paused, pointed to the curtain, and went on again in
a lower tone: “It all depends of course, on Agne’s playing us no trick.”

“How so? Why? She is a good girl and I will...”

“No, no,” said Herse holding him back. “She does not know yet what the
business is. The lady wants her...”

“Well?”

“To sing in the Temple of Isis.”

Karnis colored. He was suddenly called from a lovely dream back to the
squalid reality. “In the Temple of Isis,” he said gloomily. “Agne? In
the face of all the people? And she knows nothing about it?”

“Nothing, father.”

“No? Well then, if that is the case... Agne, the Christian, in the
Temple of Isis--here, here, where Bishop Theophilus is destroying
all our sanctuaries and the monks outdo their master. Ah, children,
children, how pretty and round and bright a soap-bubble is, and how soon
it bursts. Do you know at all what it is that you are planning? If the
black flies smell it out and it becomes known, by the great Apollo!
we should have fared better at the hands of the pirates. And yet, and
yet.--Do you know at all how the girl...?”

“She wept at the lady’s singing,” interrupted Herse eagerly, “and,
silent as she generally is, on her way home she said: ‘To sing like
that! She is a happy girl!’”

Karnis looked up with renewed confidence.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “that is my Agne. Yes, yes, she truly loves her
divine art. She can sing, she will sing! We will venture it, if you, I,
all of us die for it!

“Herse, Orpheus, what have we to lose? Our gods, too, shall have their
martyrs. It is a poor life that has no excitement. Our art--why, all
I have ever had has been devoted to it. I make no boast of having
sacrificed everything, and if gold and lands were again to be mine I
would become a beggar once more for the sake of art: We have always held
the divine Muse sacred, but who can keep up a brave heart when he sees
her persecuted! She may only be worshipped in darkness in these days,
and the Queen of Gods and men shuns the light like a moth, a bat, an
owl. If we must die let it be with and for Her! Once more let pure and
perfect song rejoice this old heart, and if afterwards... My children,
we have no place in this dim, colorless world. While the Arts lived
there was Spring on the earth. Now they are condemned to death and it
is Winter. The leaves fall from all the trees, and we piping birds need
groves to sing in. How often already has Death laid his hand on our
shoulder, every breath we draw is a boon of mercy--the extra length
given in by the weaver, the hour of grace granted by the hangman to his
victim! Our lives are no longer our own, a borrowed purse with damaged
copper coins. The hard-hearted creditor has already bent his knuckles,
and when he knocks the time is up. Once more let us have one hour of
pure and perfect enjoyment, and then we will pay up capital and interest
when we must.”

“It cannot and will not be yet,” said Herse resolutely, but she wiped
her eyes with her hand. “If Agne sings even, so long as she does it
without coercion and of her own free-will no Bishop can punish us.”

“He cannot, he dare not!” cried the old man. “There are still laws and
judges.”

“And Gorgo’s family is influential as well as rich. Porphyrius has power
to protect us, and you do not yet know what a fancy he has taken to us.
Ask mother.”

“It is like a story,” Herse put in. “Before we left, the old lady--she
must be eighty or more--took me aside and asked me where we were
lodging. I told her at the Widow Mary’s and when she heard it she struck
her crutch on the floor. ‘Do you like the place?’ she asked. I told her
not at all, and said we could not possibly stop here.”

“Quite right!” cried Karnis. “The monks in the court-yard will kill us
as dead as rats if they hear us learning heathen hymns.”

“That is what I told her; but the old lady did not allow me to finish;
she drew me close to her and whispered, ‘only do as my granddaughter
wishes and you shall be safely housed and take this for the
present’--and she put her hand into the purse at her girdle, gave the
gold into my hand, and added loud enough for the others to hear: ‘Fifty
gold pieces out of my own pocket if Gorgo tells me that she is satisfied
with your performance.’”

“Fifty gold pieces!” cried Karnis clasping his hands. “That brightens
up the dull grey of existence. Fifty, then, are certain. If we sing six
times that makes a talent--[estimated in 1880 at $1100]--and that will
buy back our old vineyard at Leontium. I will repair the old Odeum--they
have made a cowhouse of it--and when we sing there the monks may come
and listen! You laugh? But you are simpletons--I should like to see who
will forbid my singing on my own land and in my own country. A talent of
gold!

“It is quite enough to pay on account, and I will not agree to any
bargain that will not give me the field-slaves and cattle. Castles in
the air, do you say? But just listen to me: We are sure you see of
a hundred gold pieces at least...” He had raised his voice in his
eagerness and while he spoke the curtains had been softly opened, and
the dull glimmer of the lamp which stood in front of Orpheus fell on a
head which was charming in spite of its disorder. A quantity of loose
fair hair curled in papers stuck up all over the round head and fell
over the forehead, the eyes were tired and still half shut, but the
little mouth was wide awake and laughing with the frank amusement of
light-hearted youth.

Karnis, without noticing the listener, had gone on with his visionary
hopes of regaining his estates by his next earnings, but at this point
the young girl, holding the curtain in her right hand, stretched out her
plump left arm and begged in a humble whine:

“Good father Karnis, give me a little of your wealth; five poor little
drachmae!”

The old man started; but he instantly recovered himself and answered
good-naturedly enough:

“Go back to bed, you little hussy. You ought to be asleep instead of
listening there!”

“Asleep?” said the girl. “While you are shouting like an orator against
the wind! Five drachmae, father. I stick to that. A new ribband for me
will cost one, and the same for Agne, two. Two I will spend on wine for
us all, and that makes the five.”

“That makes four--you are a great arithmetician to be sure!”

“Four?” said Dada, as much amazed as though the moon had fallen. “If
only I had a counting-frame. No, father, five I tell you--it is five.”

“No, child, four; and you shall have four,” replied her father. “Plutus
is at the door and to-morrow morning you shall both have garlands.”

“Yes, of violets, ivy and roses,” added Dame Herse. “Is Agne asleep?”

“As sound as the dead. She always sleeps soundly unless she lies wide
awake all the night through. But we were both so tired--and I am still.
It is a comfort to yawn. Do you see how I am sitting?”

“On the clothes-chest?” said Herse.

“Yes, and the curtain is not a strong back to the seat. Fortunately if I
fall asleep I shall drop forwards, not backwards.”

“But there is a bed for each of you,” said the mother, and giving the
girl a gentle push she followed her into the sleeping-alcove. In a few
minutes she came out again.

“That is just like Dada!” she exclaimed. “Little Papias had rolled off
the chest on which he was sleeping, so the good girl had put him into
her bed and was sitting on the chest herself, tired as she was.”

“She would do anything for that boy,” said Karnis. “But it is past
midnight. Come, Orpheus, let us make the bed!”

Three long hen-coops which stood piled against the wall were laid on
the ground and covered with mats; on these the tired men stretched their
limbs, but they could not sleep.

The little lamp was extinguished, and for an hour all was still in the
dark room. Then, suddenly, there was a loud commotion; some elastic
object flew against the wall with a loud flap, and Karnis, starting up,
called out: “Get out--monster!”

“What is it?” cried Herse who had also been startled, and the old man
replied angrily:

“Some daemon, some dog of a daemon is attacking me and giving me no
peace. Wait, you villain--there, perhaps that will settle you,” and he
flung his second sandal. Then, without heeding the rustling fall of some
object that he had hit by accident, he gasped out:

“The impudent fiend will not let me be. It knows that we need Agne’s
voice, and it keeps whispering, first in one ear and then in the other,
that I should threaten to sell her little brother if she refuses; but
I--I--strike a light, Orpheus!--She is a good girl and rather than do
such a thing...”

“The daemon has been close to me too,” said the son as he blew on the
spark he had struck.

“And to me too,” added Herse nervously. “It is only natural. There are
no images of the gods in this Christian hovel. Away, hateful serpent!
We are honest folks and will not agree to any vile baseness. Here is my
amulet, Karnis; if the daemon comes again you must turn it round--you
know how.”




CHAPTER II.

Early next morning the singers set out for the house of Porphyrius. The
party was not complete, however, for Dada had been forced to remain at
home. The shoes that the old man had flung to scare away the daemon had
caught in the girl’s dress which she had just washed, and had dragged
it down on to the earth; she had found it in the morning full of holes
burnt by the ashes into the damp material. Dada had no other presentable
garment, so, in spite of her indignant refusal and many tears, she had
to remain indoors with Papias. Agne’s anxious offers to stay in her
place with the little boy and to lend Dada her dress, both Karnis and
his wife had positively refused; and Dada had lent her aid--at first
silently though willingly and then with her usual merriment--in twining
garlands for the others and in dressing Agne’s smooth black plaits with
a wreath of ivy and violets.

The men were already washed, anointed and crowned with poplar and laurel
when a steward arrived from Porphyrius to bid them follow him to his
master’s house. But a small sacrifice was necessary, for the messenger
desired them to lay aside their wreaths, which would excite ill-feeling
among the monks, and certainly be snatched off by the Christian mob.
Karnis when he started was greatly disappointed, and as much depressed
as he had been triumphant and hopeful a short time before.

The monks, who had gathered outside the Xenodochium, glanced with
scowling suspicion at the party, who could not recover the good spirits
with which they had begun the day till they were fairly out of the
narrow, gloomy alleys, reeking with tar and salt fish, that adjoined the
harbor, and where they had to push their way through a dense throng.
The steward led the van with Herse, talking freely in reply to her
enquiries.

His master, he said, was one of the great merchants of the city, whose
wife had died twenty years since in giving birth to Gorgo. His two sons
were at present absent on their travels. The old lady who had been
so liberal in her treatment of the singers was Damia, the mother of
Porphyrius. She had a fine fortune of her own, and notwithstanding her
great age was still respected as the soul of business in the household,
and as a woman deeply versed in the mysterious sciences. Mary, the pious
Christian, who had founded the “House of the Holy Martyr,” was the
widow of Apelles, the brother of Porphyrius, but she had ceased all
intercourse with her husband’s family. This was but natural, as she was
at the head of the Christian women of Alexandria, while the household
of Porphyrius--though the master himself had been baptized--was as
thoroughly heathen as any in Alexandria.

Karnis heard nothing of all this, for he came last of the party. Orpheus
and Agne followed next to Herse and the steward, and after them came two
slaves, carrying the lutes and pipes. Agne walked with downcast eyes,
as if she desired to avoid seeing all that surrounded her, though when
Orpheus addressed her she shyly glanced up at him and answered briefly
and timidly. They presently came out of an obscure alley by the canal
connecting Kibotus with Lake Mareotis where the Nile-boats lay at
anchor. Karnis drew a deeper breath, for here the air was clear and
balmy; a light northerly breeze brought the refreshing fragrance of
the sea, and the slender palm-trees that bordered the canal threw long
shadows mingling with the massive shade of the sycamores. The road was
astir with busy groups, birds sang in the trees, and the old musician
drank in the exciting and aromatic atmosphere of the Egyptian Spring
with keen enjoyment.

As they reached the middle of the steep bridge across the canal he
involuntarily stood still, riveted by the view of the southwest. In his
excitement he threw up his arms, his eyes glistened with moisture and
with the enthusiasm of youth, and, as was always the case when his
emotions were stirred by some glorious work of God or man, an image rose
to his mind, all unbidden--the image of his eldest son, now dead, but
in life his closest and most sympathetic comrade. He felt as though
his hand could grasp the shoulder of that son, too early snatched away,
whose gifts had far transcended those of the surviving Orpheus--as
though he too could gaze with him on the grand scene that lay before
him.

On a platform of rocks and mighty masonry rose a structure of wonderful
magnificence and beauty, so brilliantly illuminated by the morning
sun that its noble proportions and gorgeous colors showed in dazzling
splendor and relief. Over the gilt dome bent the cloudless blue of the
African sky, and the polished hemisphere shone, as radiant as the sun
whose beams it reflected. Sloping planes for vehicles, and flights
of steps for pedestrians led up to the gates. The lower part of this
wonderful edifice--the great Temple of Serapis--was built to stand
forever, and the pillars of the vestibule supported a roof more fitted
to the majesty of the gods than to the insignificance of mortals;
priests and worshippers moved here like children among the trunks of
some gigantic forest. Round the cornice, in hundreds of niches, and on
every projection, all the gods of Olympus and all the heroes and sages
of Greece seemed to have met in conclave, and stood gazing down on the
world in gleaming brass or tinted marble. Every portion of the building
blazed with gold and vivid coloring; the painter’s hand had added life
to the marble groups in high relief that filled the pediments and the
smaller figures in the long row of metopes. All the population of a town
might have found refuge in the vast edifice and its effect on the mind
was like that of a harmonious symphony of adoration sung by a chorus of
giants.

“All hail! Great Serapis! I greet thee in joyful humility, thankful that
Thou hast granted to my old eyes to see Thy glorious and eternal temple
once again!” murmured Karnis in devout contemplation. Then, appealing
to his wife and son, he pointed in silence to the building. Presently,
however, as he watched Orpheus gazing in speechless delight at its
magnificent proportions he could not forbear.

“This,” he began with fervid enthusiasm, “is the stronghold of Serapis
the King of the Gods! A work for all time. Its youth has lasted five
hundred years, its future will extend to all eternity.--Aye, so it
is; and so long as it endures in all its glory the old gods cannot be
deposed!”

“No one will ever dare to touch a stone of it,” said the steward. “Every
child in Alexandria knows that the world will crumble into dust and
ashes if a finger is laid on that Temple, and the man who ventures to
touch the sacred image...”

“The god can protect himself!” interrupted the singer. “But you--you
Christian hypocrites who pretend to hate life and love death--if you
really long so vehemently for the end of all things, you have only to
fall upon this glorious structure.--Do that, do that--only do that!”

The old man shook his fist at the invisible foe and Herse echoed his
words:

“Aye, aye, only do that!” Then she added more calmly: “Well, if
everything comes to an end at once the enemies of the gods will die with
us; and there can be nothing terrible in perishing at the same time with
everything that is beautiful or dear to us.”

“Nevertheless,” said the steward, “the Bishop has put out his hand
to touch the sanctuary. But our noble Olympius would not suffer the
sacrilegious host to approach, and they had to retire with broken
heads. Serapis will not be mocked; he will stand though all else perish.
‘Eternity,’ the priest tells us, ‘is to him but as an instant, and while
millions of generations bloom and fade, he is still and forever the
same!’”

“Hail, all hail to the great god!” cried Orpheus with hands outstretched
towards the temple.

“Yea, hail! for everlasting glory shall be his!” repeated his father.
“Great is Serapis, and his house and his image shall last...”

“Till the next full moon!” said a passer-by in a tone of sinister
mockery, shaking his fist in the face, as it were, of the god. Orpheus
turned quickly to punish the prophet of evil; but he had disappeared in
the crowd and the tide of men had borne him onwards. “Till the next full
moon!” murmured Agne, who had shuddered at her companion’s rapturous
ejaculations, and she glanced uneasily at Orpheus; but by the time Herse
addressed her a minute or two later she had controlled the expression of
her features, and the matron’s heart was gladdened by her bright
smile. Nay, many a young Alexandrian, passing the group on foot or in a
carriage, looked at her a second time, for that smile lent a mysterious
charm to her pale, calm face. Nor had it faded away when they had
crossed the bridge and were nearing the shores of the lake, for an idea
once conceived lingered long in Agne’s mind; and as she walked on in
the bright glory of the morning’s sun her mind’s eye was fixed on a
nocturnal scene--on the full moon, high in the sky--on the overthrow
of the great idol and a glittering army among the marble ruins of the
Serapeum. Apostles and martyrs soared around, the Saviour sat enthroned
in glory and triumph, while angels, cradled on the clouds that were his
footstool, were singing beatific hymns which sounded clearly in her ear
above the many-voiced tumult of the quays. The vision did not vanish
till she was desired to get into the boat.

Herse was a native of Alexandria and Karnis had passed some of the best
years of his life there; but to Orpheus and Agne all was new, and even
the girl, when once she had escaped from the crowd and noise which
oppressed her, took an interest in the scene and asked a question now
and then. The younger man had not eyes enough to see all that claimed
his attention and admiration.

There were the great sluice-gates at the entrance to the canal that
joined the lake to the sea--there, in a separate dock, lay the splendid
imperial Nile-boats which served to keep up communication between the
garrison of Alexandria and the military stations on the river--there,
again, were the gaudy barges intended for the use of the ‘comes’, the
prefect and other high officials--and there merchant-vessels of every
size lay at anchor in countless number. Long trains of many-colored
sails swept over the rippling lake like flights of birds across a
cornfield, and every inch of the shore was covered with stores or
buildings. Far away to the south long trellices of vine covered the
slopes, broken by the silvery glaucous tones of the olive-groves, and
by clumps of towering palms whose crowns mingled to form a lofty canopy.
White walls, gaudily-painted temples and private villas gleamed among
the green, and the slanting rays of the low sun, shining on the drops
that fell from the never-resting wheels and buckets that irrigated the
land, turned them into showers of diamonds. These water-works, of the
most ingenious construction, many of them invented and contrived by
scientific engineers, were the weapons with which man had conquered
the desert that originally surrounded this lake, forcing it into green
fertility and productiveness of grain and fruit. Nay, the desert had,
for many centuries, here ceased to exist. Dionysus the generous, and the
kindly garden-gods had blest the toil of men, and yet, now, in many
a plot--in all which belonged to Christian owners--their altars lay
scattered and overthrown.

During the last thirty years much indeed was changed, and nothing to
the satisfaction of old Karnis; Herse, too, shook her head, and when
the rowers had pulled them about half-way across, she pointed to a broad
vacant spot on the bank where a new building was just rising above the
soil, and said sadly to her husband:

“Would you know that place again? Where is our dear old temple gone? The
temple of Dionysus.” Karnis started up so hastily that he almost upset
the boat, and their conductor was obliged to insist on his keeping
quiet; he obeyed but badly, however, for his arms were never still as he
broke out:

“And do you suppose that because we are in Egypt I can keep my living
body as still as one of your dead mummies? Let others keep still if they
can! I say it is shameful, disgraceful; a dove’s gall might rise at it!
That splendid building, the pride of the city and the delight of men’s
eyes, destroyed--swept away like dust from the road! Do you see? Do you
see, I say? Broken columns, marble capitals, here, there and everywhere
at the bottom of the lake--here a head and there a torso! Great
and noble masters formed those statues by the aid of the gods, and
they--they, small and ignoble as they are, have destroyed them by the
aid of evil daemons. They have annihilated and drowned works that were
worthy to live forever! And why? Shall I tell you? Because they shun
the Beautiful as an owl shuns light. Aye, they do! There is nothing they
hate or dread so much as beauty; wherever they find it, they deface and
destroy it, even if it is the work of the Divinity. I accuse them before
the Immortals--for where is the grove even, not the work of man but
the special work of Heaven itself? Where is our grove, with its cool
grottos, its primaeval trees, its shady nooks, and all the peace and
enjoyment of which it was as full as a ripe grape is full of sweet
juice?”

“It was cut down and rooted up,” replied the steward. “The emperor gave
the sanctuary over to Bishop Theophilus and he set to work at once to
destroy it. The temple was pulled down, the sacred vessels went into the
melting-pot, and the images were mutilated and insulted before they were
thrown into the lime-kiln. The place they are building now is to be a
Christian church. Oh! to think of the airy, beautiful colonnades that
once stood there, and then of the dingy barn that is to take their
place!”

“Why do the gods endure it? Has Zeus lost his thunderbolts?” cried
Orpheus clenching his hands, and paying no heed to Agne who sat pale and
sternly silent during this conversation.

“Nay, he only sleeps, to wake with awful power,” said the old man.
“See those blocks of marble and ruins under the waves. Swift work
is destruction! And men lost their wits and looked on at the crime,
flinging the delight of the gods into the water and the kiln. They were
wise, very wise; fishes and flames are dumb and cannot cry to heaven.
One barbarian, in one hour can destroy what it has taken the sublimest
souls years, centuries, to create. They glory in destruction and ruin
and they can no more build up again such a temple as stood there than
they can restore trees that have taken six hundred years to grow.
There--out there, Herse, in the hollow where those black fellows are
stirring mortar--they have given them shirts too, because they are
ashamed of the beauty of men’s bodies--that is where the grotto was
where we found your poor father.”

“The grotto?” repeated his wife, looking at the spot through her tears,
and thinking of the day when, as a girl, she had hurried to the feast
of Dionysus and sought her father in the temple. He had been famous as
a gem-cutter. In obedience to the time-honored tradition in Alexandria,
after intoxicating himself with new wine in honor of the god, he had
rushed out into the street to join the procession. The next morning he
had not returned; the afternoon passed and evening came and still he
did not appear, so his daughter had gone in search of him. Karnis was
at that time a young student and, as her father’s lodger, had rented the
best room in the house. He had met her going on her errand and had been
very ready to help her in the search; before long they had found the
old man in the ivy-grown grotto in the grove of Dionysus--motionless and
cold, as if struck by lightning. The bystanders believed that the god
had snatched him away in his intoxicated legion.

In this hour of sorrow Karnis had proved himself her friend, and a few
months after Herse had become his wife and gone with him to Tauromenium
in Sicily.

All this rose before her mind, and even Karnis sat gazing dumbly at the
waves; for every spot where some decisive change has occurred in our
lives has power to revive the past when we see it again after a long
absence. Thus they all sat in silence till Orpheus, touching his father,
pointed out the temple of Isis where he had met the fair Gorgo on the
previous day. The old man turned to look at the sanctuary which, as yet,
remained intact.

“A barbarous structure!” he said bitterly. “The art of the Egyptians
has long been numbered with the dead and the tiger hungers only for the
living!”

“Nay, it is not such a bad piece of work,” replied the steward, “but it
is out of their reach; for the ground on which it stands belongs to my
old mistress, and the law protects private property.--You must at your
leisure inspect the ship-yard here; it is perhaps the most extensive in
the world. The timber that is piled there--cedar of Lebanon, oak from
Pontus and heavy iron-wood from Ethiopia--is worth hundreds of talents.”

“And does all that belong to your master?”

“No; the owner is the grandson of a freedman, formerly in his family.
Now they are very rich and highly respected, and Master Clemens sits in
the Senate. There he is--that man in a white robe.”

“A Christian, I should imagine,” observed the singer.

“Very true;” replied the steward. “But what is good remains good, and
he is a worthy and excellent man notwithstanding. He keeps a tight
hand over the ship-yard here and over the others too by the harbor
of Eunostus. Only Clemens can never let other people have their own
opinions; in that he is just like the rest of them. Every slave he buys
must become a Christian and his sons are the same; even Constantine,
though he is an officer in the imperial army and as smart and clever a
soldier as lives.--As far as we are concerned we leave every man to his
own beliefs. Porphyrius makes no secret of his views and all the vessels
we use in the corn-trade are built by Christians.--But here we are.”

The boat stopped at a broad flight of marble steps which led from the
lake into the garden of Porphyrius’ house. Karnis as he walked through
the grounds felt himself at greater ease, for here the old gods were
at home; their statues gleamed among the dark clumps of evergreens, and
were mirrored in the clear tanks, while delicious perfumes were wafted
from the garlanded shrines and freshly anointed altars, to greet the
newcomers.




CHAPTER III.

The family of musicians were kindly received, but they were not
immediately called upon to perform, for as soon as Damia heard that the
pretty fair-haired child who had pleased her so much the day before
had been obliged to remain at home, she had one of her granddaughter’s
dresses brought out, and requested Herse to go back to fetch her. Some
slaves were to accompany Herse and transfer all her little property on
board a Nile-boat belonging to Porphyrius, which was lying at anchor
just off the ship-yard. In this large barge there were several cabins
which had often accommodated guests, and which would now serve very well
as a residence for Karnis and his party. Indeed, it was particularly
well suited for a family of musicians, for they could practise there
undisturbed, and Gorgo could at any time pay them a visit.

Herse went back to the Xenodochium with a lighter heart; her son also
returned to the city to replace a number of necessaries that had been
lost on board ship, and Karnis, rejoicing to be out of the monk-haunted
asylum had remained in the men’s room in the house of his new patron,
enjoying the good things which abounded there. He felt as though he was
here once more at home after years of exile. Here dwelt the spirit of
his fathers; here he found men who enjoyed life after his own fashion,
who could share his enthusiasms and his hatreds. He drank noble liquor
out of an elegantly carved onyx cup, all that he heard soothed his ears,
and all that he said met with entire sympathy. The future prospects of
his family, till now so uncertain, were hardly inferior to those which
his vivid imagination had painted the night before. And even if Fortune
should again desert him, the hours of present enjoyment should be
written down to the profit side of life, and remain a permanent gain at
any rate in memory.

The venerable Damia, her son Porphyrius, and the fair Gorgo were in
fact a trio such as are rarely met with. The master of the house, more
cautious than the women, was inclined to think that his mother and
daughter had been somewhat overhasty and imprudent in their advances and
he had at first received Karnis with considerable reserve; but after a
short interview he had convinced himself that the musician was a man of
unusual culture and superior stamp. The old lady had, from the first,
been predisposed in his favor, for she had read in the stars last night
that the day was to bring her a fortunate meeting. Her wish was law, and
Karnis could not help smiling when she addressed her son, whose hair
had long been grey and who looked fully competent to manage his own
household, as “my child,” not hesitating to scold and reprove him. Her
cathedra was a high arm-chair which she never quitted but to be
carried to her observatory on the roof of the house, where she kept her
astrological tablets and manuscripts. The only weakness about her was
in her feet; but strong, and willing arms were always at her disposal
to carry her about--to table, into her sleeping-room, and during the
daytime out to sunny spots in the garden. She was never so happy as when
Helios warmed her back with his rays, for her old blood needed it after
the long night-watches that she still would keep in her observatory.
Even during the hottest noon she would sit in the sun, with a large
green umbrella to shade her keen eyes, and those who desired to speak
with her might find shade as best they could. As she stood, much bent,
but propped on her ivory crutches, eagerly following every word of a
conversation, she looked as though she were prepared at any moment to
spring into the middle of it and interrupt the speaker. She always said
exactly what she meant without reserve or ruth; and throughout her long
life, as the mistress of great wealth, she had always been allowed to
have her own way. She asserted her rights even over her son, though
he was the centre of a web whose threads reached to the furthest
circumference of the known world. The peasants who tilled the earth by
the Upper and Lower Nile, the shepherds who kept their flocks in the
Arabian desert, in Syria, or on the Silphium meads of Cyrenaica, the
wood-cutters of Lebanon and Pontus, the mountaineers of Hispania and
Sardinia, the brokers, merchants, and skippers of every port on the
Mediterranean, were bound by these threads to the villa on the shore of
Mareotis, and felt the tie when the master there--docile as a boy to his
mother’s will--tightened or released his hold.

His possessions, even in his youth, had been so vast that their
increment could bring no added enjoyment to him or his family, and yet
their increase had become his life’s task. He strove for a higher sum to
figure on the annual balance sheet, as eagerly as an athlete strives
for a prize; and his mother not only inspected the account, but watched
every important undertaking with keen interest. When her son and his
colleagues doubted over some decision it was she who gave the casting
vote; but though her advice in most cases proved sound and profitable,
she herself ascribed this less to her own acumen and knowledge of the
world than to the hints she obtained from the stars and from magical
calculations. Her son did not follow her in these speculations, but
he rarely disputed the conclusions that she drew from her astrological
studies. While she was turning night into day he was glad to entertain
a few learned friends, for all the hours of leisure that he could snatch
from his pursuit of fortune, he devoted to philosophy, and the most
distinguished thinkers of Alexandria were happy to be received at
the hospitable table of so rich a patron. He was charmed to be called
“Callias,”

   [The noble Athenian family of Callias was famed for its wealth and
   splendor.]

and the heathen teachers at the schools of the Museum and Serapeum
regarded him as a faithful ally. It was known that he had been baptized,
but he never liked to hear the fact mentioned. He won all hearts by his
perfect modesty, but even more perhaps by a certain air of suffering
and melancholy which protected the wealthy merchant against the envy of
detractors.

In the course of her conversation with Karnis the old lady enquired
particularly as to the antecedent history of Agne, for if there had been
a stain on her character, or if she were by birth a slave, Gorgo could
not of course be seen with her in public, and in that case Karnis would
have to teach the lament of Isis to some freeborn singer. Karnis in
reply could only shrug his shoulders, and beg the ladies and Porphyrius
to judge for themselves when he should have related the young girl’s
story.

Three years since, he said, he had been staying at Antioch at the time
of a violent outbreak against the levying of certain taxes. There had
been much bloodshed, and he and his family had got out of the city
as quickly as they could. It was growing dusk when they turned into a
wayside inn, where they found Agne and her little brother captives to a
soldier. During the night the girl had crept up to the little boy’s bed,
and to comfort and lull him had begun to sing him a simple song. The
singer’s voice was so pure and pathetic that it had touched both him and
his wife and they had at once purchased the girl and her brother for a
small sum. He had simply paid what the soldier asked, not regarding the
children in the light of slaves; nor had he had any description of them
written out, though it was, no doubt, in his power to treat them as
slaves and to sell them again, since the sale had taken place before
witnesses who might still be found. He had afterwards learnt from the
girl that her parents were Christians and had settled in Antioch only
a few years previously; but she had no friends nor relatives there. Her
father, being a tax-collector in the service of the Emperor, had moved
about a great deal, but she remembered his having spoken of Augusta
Treviroruin in Belgica prima, as his native place.--[Now Trier or
Treves, on the Moselle.]

Agne had witnessed the attack on her father’s house by the angry mob
who had killed her parents, their two slaves, and her elder brother. Her
father must certainly have been an official of some rank, and probably,
as it would seem, a Roman citizen, in which case--as Porphyrius
agreed--both the young girl and her little brother could legally claim
their freedom. The insurgents who had dragged the two children out into
the street had been driven off by the troops, and it was from them that
Karnis had rescued them. “And I have never regretted it,” added the old
musician, “for Agne is a sweet, gentle soul. Of her voice I need say
nothing, since you yourselves heard it yesterday.”

“And were quite delighted with it!” cried Gorgo. “If flowers could sing
it would be like that!”

“Well, well,” said Karnis. “She has a lovely voice--but she wants wings.
Something--what, I know not, keeps the violet rooted to the soil.”

“Christian scruples,” said the merchant, and Damia added:

“Let Eros touch her--that will loosen her tongue.”

“Eros, always Eros!” repeated Gorgo shrugging her shoulders. “Nay, love
means suffering--those who love drag a chain with them. To do the best
of which he is capable man needs only to be free, true, and in health.”

“That is a great deal, fair mistress,” replied Karnis eagerly. “With
these three gifts the best work is done. But as to Agne--what can be
further from freedom than a girl bound to service? her body, to be sure
is healthy, but her spirit suffers; she can get no peace for dread of
the Christian’s terrors: Sin, Repentance, and Hell....”

“Oh, we know how their life is ruined!” interrupted the old lady. “Was
it Agne who introduced you to Mary’s Asylum?”

“No, noble lady.”

“But how then--that prudent saint generally selects her guests, and
those that are not baptized...”

“She certainly sheltered heathens on this occasion.”

“I am much surprised. Tell me how it happened.”

“We were at Rome,” began Karnis, “and my patron there persuaded Marcus,
Mary’s son, to take us on board his ship at Ostia. We dropped anchor at
Cyrene, where the young master wanted to pick up his brother and bring
him also to Alexandria.”

“Then is Demetrius here?” asked Porphyrius.

“Yes, sir. He came on board at Cyrene. Hardly had we got fairly to
sea again when we saw two pirate ships. Our trireme was at once turned
round, but in our hurry to regain the harbor we stuck fast on a
sand bank; the boats were at once put out to save the passengers and
Cynegius, the consul...”

“Cynegius--on his way here!” exclaimed Porphyrius, much excited.

“He landed yesterday with us in the harbor of Eunostus. The secretaries
and officers of his suite filled one boat and Marcus and his brother
were getting into the other with their men. We, and others of the free
passengers, should have been left behind if Dada...”

“That pretty little blonde?” asked Damia.

“The very same. Marcus had taken a great fancy to her prattle and her
songs during the voyage--no nightingale can sing more clearly--and when
she begged and prayed him he gave way at once, and said: he would take
her in his boat. But the brave child declared that she would jump into
the sea before she would leave without us.”

“Well done!” cried the old lady, and Porphyrius added:

“That speaks well for her and for you.”

“So after all Marcus found room for us in the boat--for all of us, and
we got safely to land. A few days after we all came on in a troop-ship:
Cynegius, the two brothers and the rest, all safe and sound; and, as
we had lost everything we possessed, Marcus gave us a certificate which
procured our admission into his mother’s Xenodochium. And then the gods
brought me and mine under the notice of your noble daughter.”

“Then Cynegius is here, positively here?” asked Porphyrius once more.
Karnis assured him that he was, and the merchant, turning to his mother,
went on:

“And Olympius has not yet come home. It is always the same thing; he is
as rash as a boy. If they should take him! The roads are swarming with
monks. There is something astir. Bring out the chariot, Syrus, at once;
and tell Atlas to be ready to accompany me. Cynegius here!--Ha, ha! I
thank the gods!”

The last exclamation was addressed to a man who at this instant came
into the room, muffled up to the eyes. He threw off the hood of his
cloak and the wrapper that went round his throat, concealing his long
white beard, and as he did so he exclaimed with a gasp for breath:

“Here I am once more!--Cynegius is here and matters look serious my
friend.”

“You have been to the Museum?”

“Without any obstruction. I found them all assembled. Brave lads. They
are all for us and the gods. There are plenty of weapons. The Jews--[At
that time about two-fifths of the whole population.]--are not stirring,
Onias thinks he may vouch for that; and we must surely be a match for
the monks and the imperial cohorts.”

“If the gods only stand by us to-day and tomorrow,” replied Porphyrius
doubtfully.

“For ever, if only the country people do their duty!” cried the other.
“But who is this stranger?”

“The chief of the singers who were here yesterday,” replied Gorgo.

“Karnis, the son of Hiero of Tauromenium,” said the musician, bowing to
the stranger, whose stately figure and handsome, thoughtful head struck
him with admiration.

“Karnis of Tauromenium!” exclaimed the newcomer with glad surprise. “By
Hercules! a strange meeting. Your hand, your hand, old man. How many
years is it since we last emptied a wine-jar together at the house of
old Hippias? Seven lustres have turned our hair grey, but we still can
stand upright. Well, Karnis son of Hiero--and who am I?”

“Olympius--the great Olympius!” cried Karnis, eagerly grasping the
offered hand. “May all the gods bless this happy day!”

“All the gods?” repeated the philosopher. “Is that what you say? Then
you have not crawled under the yoke of the cross?”

“The world can rejoice only under the auspices of the gods!” cried
Karnis excitedly.

“And it shall rejoice still, we will save it from gloom!” added the
other with a flash of vehemence.

“The times are fateful. We must fight; and no longer over trifles; we
cannot now break each other’s heads over a quibble, or believe that the
whole world hangs on the question whether the instant of death is the
last minute of this life or the first of the next. No--what now remains
to be decided is whether the old gods shall be victorious, whether we
shall continue to live free and happy under the rule of the Immortals,
or whether we shall bow under the dismal doctrine of the carpenter’s
crucified son; we must fight for the highest hopes and aims of
humanity.”

“I know,” interrupted Karnis, “you have already done battle valiantly
for great Serapis. They wanted to lay hands on his sanctuary but you and
your disciples put them to rout. The rest got off scot-free...”

“But they have taught me the value of my head,” said Olympius laughing.
“Evagrius prices it at three talents. Why, you might buy a house with
the money and a modest man could live upon the interest. This worthy man
keeps me concealed here. We must talk over a few things, Porphyrius; and
you, Gorgo, do not forget the solemn festival of Isis. Now that Cynegius
is here it must be made as splendid as possible, and he must tell the
Emperor, who has sent him, what temper we Alexandrians are in. But where
is the dark maiden I saw yesterday?”

“In the garden,” replied Gorgo.

“She is to sing at the foot of the bier!” cried Olympius. “That must not
be altered.”

“If I can persuade her--she is a Christian,” said Karnis doubtfully.

“She must,” said the philosopher positively. “It will be a bad lookout
indeed for the logic and rhetoric of Alexandria if an old professor and
disputant cannot succeed in turning a young girl’s resolutions upside
down. Leave that to me. I shall find time for a chat with you by and
bye, friend Karnis. How in the world does it happen that you, who so
often have helped us with your father’s coin, have come down to be the
chief of a band of travelling musicians? You will have much to tell me,
my good friend; but even such important matters must give way to those
that are more pressing. One word with you, Porphyrius.”

Agne had been all this time awaiting Herse’s return in the colonnade
that ran along the garden-front of the house. She was glad to be alone,
and it was very comfortable to rest on the soft cushions under the
gilt-coffered ceiling of the arcade. At each end stood large shrubs
covered with bunches of violet-blue flowers and the spreading branches
cast a pleasant shade on the couch where she sat; the beautiful flowers,
which were strange to her, were delightfully fragrant, and from time
to time she helped herself to the refreshments which Gorgo herself had
brought out to her. All she saw, heard, and felt, was soothing to her
mind; never had she seen or tasted juicier peaches, richer bunches of
grapes, fresher almonds or more tempting cakes; on the shrubs in the
garden and on the grass-plots between the paths there was not a dead
leaf, not a dry stem, not the tiniest weed. The buds were swelling on
the tall trees, shrubs without end were covered with blossoms--white,
blue, yellow, and red--while, among the smooth, shining leaves of the
orange and lemon trees, gleamed the swelling fruit. On a round tank
close at hand some black swans were noiselessly tracing evanescent
circles and uttering their strange lament. The song of birds mingled
with the plash of fountains, and even the marble statues, for all that
they were dumb, seemed to be enjoying the sweet morning air and the stir
and voice of nature.

Yes, she could be happy here; as she peeled a peach and slowly
swallowed the soft fragrant mouthfuls, she laughed to remember the
hard ship’s-biscuit, of the two previous days’ fare. And it was Gorgo’s
privilege to revel in these good things day after day, year after year.
It was like living in Eden, in the perpetual spring of man’s first
blissful home on earth. There could be no suffering here; who could
cry here, who could be sorrowful, who could die?... Here a new train of
thought forced itself upon her. She was still so young, and yet she was
as familiar with the idea of death as she was with life; for whenever
she had happened to tell any minister of her creed that she was an
orphan and a slave, and deeply sad and sorrowful, the joys of eternity
in Paradise had always been described to her for her consolation, and it
was in hopes of Heaven that her visionary nature found such a modicum of
comfort as might suffice to keep the young artist-soul from despair. And
now it struck her that it must be hard, very hard to die, in the midst
of all this splendor. Living here must be a foretaste of the joys of
Paradise--and in the next world, among the angels of Heaven, in the
presence of the Saviour--would it not be a thousand times more beautiful
even than this? She shuddered, for, sojourning here, she was no longer
to be counted as one of the poor and humble sufferers to whom Christ had
promised the Kingdom of Heaven--here she was one of the rich, who had
nothing to hope for after death.

She pushed the peaches away with a feeling of oppression, and closed
her eyes that she might no longer see all these perishable splendors
and sinful works of the heathen, which pandered only to the senses. She
longed to remain miserable and poor on earth, that she might rejoin her
parents and dwell with them eternally.

To her it was not a belief but a certainty that her father and mother
were dwelling in Heaven, and she had often felt moved to pray that she
might die and be reunited to them; but she must not die yet, for her
little brother still needed her care. The kind souls whom she served
let him lack for nothing, it is true, that could conduce to his bodily
welfare; still, she could not appear before her parents without the
little one in her hand, and he would be lost eternally if his soul fell
into the power of the enemies of her faith. Her heart ached when she
reflected that Karnis, who was certainly not one of the reprobate and
whom she affectionately revered as a master in the art she loved--that
Herse, and the light-hearted Dada, and Orpheus even, must all be doomed
to perish eternally; and to save Orpheus she would willingly have
forfeited half the joys of Paradise. She saw that he was no less an
idolater than his parents; and yet, day by day, she prayed that his soul
might be saved, and she never ceased to hope for a miracle--that he too
might see a vision, like Paul, and confess the Saviour. She was so happy
when she was with him, and never happier than when it was her fortune to
sing with him, or to his admirable accompaniment on the lute. When she
could succeed in forgetting herself completely, and in giving utterance
by her lovely voice to all that was highest and best in her soul, he,
whose ear was no less sensitive and appreciative than his father’s,
would frankly express his approval, and in these moments life was indeed
fair and precious.

Music was the bond between her and Orpheus, and when her soul was
stirred she could feel and express herself in music. Song was the
language of her heart, and she had learnt by experience that it was
a language which even the heathen could both use and understand. The
Eternal Father himself must find joy in such a voice as Gorgo’s. She was
a heathen, and yet she had thrown into her song all that Agne herself
could feel when she lifted up her heart in passionate prayer. The
Christian--so she had often been taught--must have no part with the
idolaters; but it was God himself who had cast her on the hands of
Karnis, and the Church commanded that servants should obey their
masters. Singing seemed to her to be a language in itself, bestowed by
God on all living creatures, even on the birds, wherein to speak to Him;
so she allowed herself to look forward with pleasure to an opportunity
of mingling her own voice with that of the heathen lady.




CHAPTER IV.

Not long after Porphyrius and the philosopher had retired to a private
room Herse returned with Dada. Gorgo’s blue spangled dress, which Damia
had sent her, suited the girl to perfection; but she was quite out of
breath, and her hair was in disorder. Herse, too, looked agitated, her
face was red and she dragged little Papias, whose hand she held, rather
roughly at her heels.

Dada was evidently abashed; less by reason of the splendor that
surrounded her than because her foster-mother had strictly enjoined her
to be very quiet and mannerly in the presence of their patrons. She felt
shy and strange as she made her low courtesy to the old lady; but Damia
seemed to be pleased with the timid grace of her demeanor, for she
offered her her hand--an honor she usually conferred only on her
intimates, bid her stoop, and gave her a kiss, saying kindly: “You are
a good brave girl. Fidelity to your friends is pleasing in the sight of
the gods, and finds its reward even among men.”

Dada, obeying a happy impulse, threw herself on her knees before the old
woman, kissed her hands, and then, sitting on her heels, nestled at her
feet.

Gorgo, however, noticing Herse’s agitation, asked what had happened to
them. Some monks, Herse explained, had followed them on the road hither,
had snatched Dada’s lyre from the slave who was carrying it and pulled
the wreath out of her hair. Damia was furious as she heard it, and
trembled with rage as she railed at the wild hordes who disgraced and
desecrated Alexandria, the sacred home of the Muses; then she began to
speak once more of the young captain, Mary’s son, to whom the troupe of
singers owed their lives.

“Marcus,” said she, “is said to be a paragon of chastity. He races in
the hippodrome with all the gallants of the town and yet--if it is true
it is a miracle--he shuns women as though he were a priest already. His
mother is very anxious that he should become one; but he, by the grace
of Aphrodite, is the son of my handsome Appelles, who, if he had gazed
into those blue eyes all the way from Rome to Alexandria, would have
surrendered at mercy; but then he would also have conquered them--as
surely as I hope to live till autumn. You need not blush so, child.
After all, Marcus is a man like other men. Keep your eyes open, Dame
Herse!”

“Never fear!” cried Herse. “And I have need to keep them open I am
sorry to say. The young captain, who on board ship was so bashful and
retiring, as soon as he was on land altered his time. While we were away
this morning he crept into his own mother’s inn like a ferret, opened
the door of our room with the keys of which he has the command--it is
shameful!--and proposed to the girl to fly, to leave us--she is the
daughter of a dear sister of mine--and go with him; who but he knows
where!”

Damia struck the floor with her crutch and, interrupting the indignant
matron with a spiteful laugh, exclaimed:

“Ha, ha! The saintly Mary’s most saintly son! Such wonders do not happen
every day! Here, Dada--here; take this ring, it has been worn by a woman
who once was young and who has had many lovers. Close--come close, my
sweet child.”

Dada looked up at the old lady with puzzled eyes; Damia bent her head
close to the girl’s, and whispered, softly but vehemently in her ear:

“Only turn that milksop’s head, make him so madly and desperately in
love with you that he does not know which way to turn for delicious
torment. You can do it I know, and if you do--well, I make no promises;
but on the day when all Alexandria is talking of that woman’s son as
wandering out, night after night, to watch under the window of the fair
Dada, the heathen singer--when he drives you out in the face of day
and in his own chariot, down the Canopic Way and past his mother’s
door--then child, ask, claim whatever you will, and old Damia will not
refuse it.”

Then raising her head she added to the others:

“In the afternoon, my friends, you can take possession of your new
quarters. Go with them, Dada. By-and-bye we will find you a pretty room
in the tower. Come and see me very often, sweet one, and tell me all
your prettiest tales. When I am not too busy I shall always be glad to
see you, for you and I have a secret you know.”

The girl stood up, looking uneasily at the old woman; Damia nodded
knowingly, as much as to say that they quite understood each other and
again offered her hand to Dada; but Dada could not kiss it; she turned
and followed the others more gravely than usual.

Gorgo guessed what the old lady would be at with Dada; as soon as the
party of singers had taken leave she went up to her grandmother and said
reproachfully:

“That little fair thing will find no difficulty in making a fool of
Marcus; for my part I hardly know him, but why should he pay for his
mother’s sins against you? How can he help...”

“He cannot help it,” interrupted Damia with decisive abruptness. “He can
do nothing to save his mother, any more than you can help being a child
of twenty and bound to hold your tongue till your opinion is asked.”

       ...........................

The family of musicians had all met on board the barge which was lying
at anchor in the lake, off the ship-yard. Orpheus had just been an
eye-witness of the disturbance which prevailed throughout the city, and
the wild howls and cries that were audible in the distance confirmed his
report; but the waters of the lake were an unruffled mirror of blue,
the slaves in the ship-yard were at work as usual, and the cooing
turtle-doves flew from palm to palm.

No signs of troubled times were to be seen in the floating home of the
wanderers. The steward had provided for everything. There were rooms
and beds to spare in the vessel; the large deck-cabin was a comfortable
sitting-room, and from the little galley at the prow came a savory smell
of cooking and a cheerful clang of pots and pans.

“This is living!” exclaimed Karnis, stretching himself comfortably on a
divan. “This abode seems made on purpose for our noble selves! Sit down,
mother, make yourself at home. Here we are people of consequence, and
if it were only to make things pleasant for the slaves we must behave as
though we had never known people who take their meals squatted round an
earthen bowl, and clawing out the broken meat. Enjoy the gifts of the
present--who knows how long this golden hour may last! Ah, wife, it
reminds us of former times! It would be very pleasant to be like this,
side by side, and help ourselves from a table all our own to dainty
dishes which we had not assisted in cooking. For you, old woman, have
done everything with your own hands for so long, that you deserve to
have some one to wait on you for once.”

A little table was placed by each divan and covered with appetizing
food; the steward mixed some fine wine of the country with fresh, clear
water, Orpheus offered the libation, and Karnis spiced the meal with
jests and tales of his youth, of which he had been reminded by his
meeting with his old friend and comrade Olympius.

Dada interrupted him frequently, laughing more loudly and recklessly
than usual; she was in a fever of excitement and Herse did not fail to
remark it. The good woman was somewhat uneasy. The very fact that her
husband always gave himself up heart and soul to the influences of the
hour--though she was glad that he should enjoy this good fortune to the
utmost--made her look beyond the present into the future. She had seen
with her own eyes the tumult that was rife in Alexandria, and felt
that they had arrived at an inauspicious moment. If it should come to
a struggle between the Christians and the Heathen, Karnis, finding that
his old friend Olympius was the head of his party, would infallibly
seize the sword, and if, then, the victory remained with the Christians
no mercy would be shown to those who had fought for the old gods.
Gorgo’s wish that Agne should sing in the temple of Isis was another
source of anxiety; for if it came to that they might, only too probably,
be accused of perverting a Christian to heathen worship, and be
condemned to a severe penalty. All this had worn a very different aspect
yesterday when she had thought of Alexandria as the gay home of her
youth; but now she saw what a change had taken place in these thirty
years. The Church had risen on the ruins of the Temple, and monks had
forced the sacrificing priests into the background.

Karnis and his troupe were musicians of no ordinary stamp; still the
law concerning singing-girls might place him in peril, especially now
that--to make matters worse--a young Christian was paying court to his
pretty niece. What catastrophes might not be called down on his hapless
head if so influential a woman as Marcus’ mother Mary should come to
know of her son’s backsliding! Herse had long perceived how attractive
that little simpleton was to all men--old and young--and when one of the
lovers, of whom she had no lack, happened to take her fancy she was
apt to forget herself and play a too audacious game; but as soon as she
found she had gone too far and somewhat committed herself she would draw
back and meet him, if she could not avoid him, with repellent and even
unmannerly coldness. Again and again had Herse scolded and warned her,
but Dada always answered her reproofs by saying that she could not make
herself different from what she was, and Herse had never been able to
remain stern and severe in the face of the foolish excuses that Dada put
forward so convincingly.

To-day the good woman could not quite make up her mind whether it
would be wiser to warn Dada against Marcus and desire her to repel any
advances he might attempt to make, or to let bygones be bygones. She
knew full well how a trifling incident gains importance when undue
emphasis is laid on it; she therefore had merely asked the girl what
secret she could have with old Damia and had accepted some evasive
subterfuge in reply, while, at the same time, she guessed the truth and
was quite determined not to remit her watchfulness. For a time, at any
rate, she thought she would let matters go their own way, and never
mention the young fellow’s name; but her husband spoilt this plan,
for with the eager jollity of a man very much at his ease after a good
dinner he called upon Dada to tell their the whole history of the young
Christian’s invasion in the morning. Dada at first was reticent, but the
old man’s communicative humor proved infectious and she presently told
her story:

“I was sitting alone with the poor little boy, like--well I do not know
what like--you must find a comparison for yourselves. I was comforting
myself with the reflection that the key was on the inside and the door
locked, for I was getting frightened as the monks began to sing in the
yard below, one part going off to the left, as it were, and the other
part to the right. Did you ever see two drunken men walking arm in arm,
and lurching first to one side and then to the other? You may laugh,
but by the nine Muses it was just like that. Then Papias grew tired and
cross and kept asking where Agne was, till at last he began to cry. When
I asked him what he was crying for, he said he had forgotten, I really
am patient--you must all allow that--I did not do anything to him, but,
just to give him something to play with, I took out the key, for there
was nothing else at hand that he could not break, and gave it to him and
told him to play a tune on it. This delighted him, and he really did it
quite prettily. Then I looked over my burnt dress and was horrified to
see how large the holes were, and it struck me that I might turn it,
because when you turn a thing the spots, you know, do not show.”

“You have invented that this very minute,” cried Orpheus laughing. “We
know you. If you can only turn the laugh against yourself...”

“No, really,” cried Dada, “the idea flew through my head like a bird
through a room; but I remembered at once that a hole burnt through shows
on both sides, so I threw the dress aside as past mending and sat down
on the low stool to peep through the wicket by the door out at the yard;
the singing had stopped and the silence frightened me almost as much.
Papias had stopped his piping too, and was sitting in the corner where
Orpheus sat to write his letter to Tauromenium.”

“I know,” said Orpheus, “the inkstand was there, that the steward of the
inn had lent us the day before.”

“Just so; and when mother came in, there he was, dipping his finger in
the ink, and painting his white dress--you can study the pattern at
your leisure.--But no not interrupt me.--Well, I was looking into the
court-yard; it was quite empty; all the monks were gone. Suddenly a tall
young man in a white dress with a beautiful sky-blue border appeared
through the great gate. The gate-keeper crawled after him very humbly as
far as his rope would allow and even the steward spoke to him with both
hands pressed to his breast as if he had a faithful heart on the right
side as well as the one on the left. This young man--it was our kind
friend Marcus, of course--crossed the court, taking a zigzag at first,
as a snipe flies, and then came towards our door. The steward and the
gate-keeper had both vanished.--Do you remember the young Goths whom
their father took to bathe in the Tiber last winter, when it was so
cold? And how they first stood on the brink and dipped their toes in,
and then ran away and when they came back again just wetted their heads
and chests? But they had to jump in at last when their father shouted
some barbaric words to them--I can see them now. Well, Marcus was
exactly like those boys; but at last he suddenly walked straight up to
our door and knocked.”

“He remembered your pretty face no doubt,” laughed Karnis.

“May be. However, I did not stir. I kept as still as a mouse, sitting on
my stool and watching him through the key-hole, till presently he called
out: ‘Is no one there?’ Then I forgot and answered: ‘They are all
out!’ Of course I had betrayed myself--but it is impossible to think of
everything at once. Oh! yes--you may laugh. And he smiled too--he is a
very handsome fellow--and desired me most pressingly to open the door
as he had something of the greatest importance to say to me. I said he
could talk very well through the gap at the top; that Pyramus and Thisbe
had even kissed through a chink in a wall. But he would not see the
joke; he got graver and more earnest, and insisted, saying that our
fate, his and mine, hung on that hour, and that not a soul must overhear
what he had to say. The top of the door was too high to whisper through,
so there was nothing for it but to ask Papias for the key; however, he
did not know where he had put it. I afterwards thought of asking him
what he had done with his flute and he fetched it then at once.--In
short, the key was nowhere to be found. I told Marcus this and he wrung
his hands with vexation; but in a few minutes the inn-steward, who must
have been hiding to listen behind a pillar, suddenly appeared as if he
had dropped from the skies, took a key out of his girdle, threw the door
wide open, and vanished as if the earth had swallowed him.

“There we stood, Marcus and I, face to face. He was quite agitated; I
really believe the poor fellow was trembling, and I did not feel very
confident; however, I asked him what it was that he wanted. Then he
recovered himself a little: ‘I wished,’--he began; so I went on:
‘Thou wishedst,’--and it might have gone on to the end: ‘he wished, we
wished’---and so forth, like the children at school at Rome, when we
were learning Greek; but, Papias came to the rescue, for he ran up to
Marcus and asked him to toss him up high, as he used to do on board
ship. Marcus did as he was asked, and then he suddenly broke out into
such a torrent of words that I was quite terrified. First he said so
many fine things that I quite expected a declaration of love, and was
trying to make up my mind whether I would laugh him out of it or
throw myself into his arms--for he really is a dear, good, handsome
fellow--and if you would like to know the truth I should have been very
willing to oblige him--to a certain extent. But he asked me nothing, and
from talking of me--listen to this Father Karnis--and saying that the
great Father in Heaven had granted me every good gift, he went on to
speak of you as a wicked, perverse and reprobate old heathen.”

“I will teach him!” exclaimed Karnis shaking his fist.

“Nay, but listen,” Dada went on. “He praised you and mother for a great
many things; but do you know what he says is wrong? He says you will
imperil my psyche--my soul, my immortal soul. As if I had ever heard of
any Psyche but the Psyche whom Eros loved!”

“That is quite another thing,” said Karnis very seriously. “In many
songs, you know, I have tried to make you uplift your soul to a higher
flight. You have learnt to sing, and there is no better school for a
woman’s soul than music and singing. If that conceited simpleton--why,
he is young enough to be my grandson--if he talks any such nonsense to
you again you may tell him from me...”

“You will tell him nothing,” cried Herse, “for we can have nothing
whatever to do with the Christian. You are my own sister’s child and I
desire and order you--do you hear--to keep out of his way, if he ever
tries to come near you again...”

“Who is likely to find us here?” said Dada. “Besides, he has no such
ideas and motives as you suppose. It is what he calls my soul that he
cares for and not myself; and he wanted to take me away, not to his own
house, but to some man who would be the physician of my soul, he said.
I am generally ready enough to laugh, but what he said was so impressive
and solemn, and so wonderfully earnest and startling that I could not
jest over it. At last I was more angry at his daring to speak to me in
such a way than any of you ever thought I could be, and that drove him
half mad. You came in, mother, just as the gentleman had fallen on his
knees to implore me to leave you.”

“And I gave him my mind on the subject,” retorted Herse with grim
satisfaction. “I let him know what I thought of him. He may talk about
the soul--what he is after is the girl. I know these Christians and I
know what the upshot will be. He will take advantage of the edict to
gain his ends, and then you will be separated from us and shut up in a
reformatory or a refuge or a cloister or whatever they call their dismal
prisons, and will learn more about your soul than you will care to know.
It will be all over then with singing, and laughter, and amusement. Now
you know the truth, and if you are wise you will keep out of his way
till we leave Alexandria; and that will be as soon as possible, if you
listen to reason, Karnis.”

She spoke with such earnest conviction that Dada remained silent with
downcast eyes, and Karnis sat up to think the matter over.

However, there was no time now for further reflection; the steward came
in and desired that he, with his son and Agne should go at once to Gorgo
to practise the lament of Isis.

This command did not include Herse and Dada, who remained on the barge.
Herse having plenty to occupy her in the lower rooms, Dada went on deck
and watched the others on their way to the house; then she sat looking
at the shipwrights at their work and tossed fruit and sweetmeats, the
remains of their dessert, for the children to catch who were playing on
the shore. Meanwhile she thought over Marcus’ startling speech, Damia’s
injunctions and Herse’s warnings.

At first it seemed to her that Herse might be right, but by degrees she
fell back into her old conviction that the young Christian could mean
no harm by her; and she felt as sure that he would find her out wherever
she might hide herself, as that it was her pretty and much-admired
little person that he sought to win, and not her soul--for what could
such an airy nothing as a soul profit a lover? How rapturously he had
described her charms, how candidly he had owned that her image was
always before him even in his dreams, that he could not and would not
give her up--nay, that he was ready to lay down his life to save her
soul. Only a man in love could speak like this and a man so desperately
in love can achieve whatever he will. On her way from the Xenodochium
to the house of Porphyrius she had passed him in his chariot, and had
admired the splendid horses which he turned and guided with perfect
skill and grace. He was scarcely three years older than herself; he was
eighteen--but in spite of his youth and simplicity he was not unmanly;
and there was something in him--something that compelled her to be
constantly thinking of him and asking herself what that something was.
Old Damia’s instructions troubled her; they took much of the charm from
her dream of being loved by Marcus, clasped in his arms, and driven
through the city in his chariot.

It was impossible--yes, quite impossible, she was sure--that they should
have parted forever; as she sat, thinking still of him and glancing from
time to time at the toiling carpenters, a boat pulled up at the landing
close to the barge out of which jumped an officer of the imperial guard.
Such a handsome man! with such a noble, powerful, sunburnt face, a
lightly waving black beard, and hair that fell from under his gold
helmet! The short-sword at his side showed him to be a tribune or
prefect of cavalry, and what gallant deeds must not this brilliant and
glittering young warrior have performed to have risen to such high rank
while still so young! He stood on the shore, looking all round, his
eyes met hers and she felt herself color; he seemed surprised to see her
there and greeted her respectfully with a military salute; then he went
on towards the unfinished hulk of a large ship whose bare curved ribs
one or two foremen were busily measuring with tape and rule.

An elderly man of dignified aspect was standing close by, who, as Dada
had already discovered, was the head of the ship-yard, and the warrior
hastened towards him. She heard him say: “Father,” and in the next
instant she saw the old man open his arms and the officer rush to
embrace him.

Dada never took her eyes off the couple who walked on, arm in arm and
talking eagerly, till they disappeared into a large house on the further
side of the dockyard.

“What a handsome man!” Dada repeated to herself, but while she waited to
see him return she gazed across the lake by which Marcus might find
his way to her. And as she lingered, idly dreaming, she involuntarily
compared the two men. There were fine soldiers in plenty in Rome,
and the ship-builder’s son was in no particular superior to a hundred
others; but such a man as Marcus she had never before seen--there could
hardly be such another in the world. The young guard was one fine
tree among a grove of fine trees; but Marcus had something peculiar
to himself, that distinguished him from the crowd, and which made him
exceptionally attractive and lovable. His image at length so completely
filled her mind that she forgot the handsome officer, and the shipmaster
and every one else.




CHAPTER V.

Karnis and his two companions were a long time away. Dada had almost
forgotten her wish to see the young soldier once more, and after playing
with little Papias for some time, as she might have played with a dog,
she began to feel dull and to think the quiet of the boat intolerable.
The sun was sinking when the absentees returned, but she at once
reminded Karnis that he had promised to take her for a walk and show her
Alexandria. Herse, however, forbid her going on such an expedition
till the following day. Dada, who was more irritable and fractious than
usual, burst into tears, flung the distaff that her foster-mother put
into her hand over the side of the ship, and declared between her sobs
that she was not a slave, that she would run away and find happiness
wherever it offered. In short she was so insubordinate that Herse
lost patience and scolded her severely. The girl sprang up, flung on a
handkerchief and in a moment would have crossed the plank to the shore;
Karnis, however, held her back.

“Why, child,” he said, “do you not see how tired I am?” The appeal had
its effect; Dada recovered her reason and tried to look up brightly, but
her eyes were still tearful and heavy and she could only creep away into
a corner and cry in silence. The old man’s heart was very soft towards
the girl; he would have been glad only to speak a few kind words to her
and smoothe down her hair; however, he made an effort, and whispering a
few words to his wife said he was ready, if Dada wished it, to take her
as far as the Canopic way and the Bruchium.

Dada laughed with delight, wiped away her tears, flung her arms round
the musician’s neck and kissed his brown cheeks, exclaiming:

“You are the best of them all! Make haste, and Agne shall come too; she
must see something of the city.”

But Agne preferred to remain on board, so Karnis and Dada set out
together. Orpheus followed them closely for, though the troops had
succeeded in quelling the uproar, the city was still in a state of
ferment. Closely veiled, and without any kind of adornment--on this
Herse had positively insisted--the girl, clinging to the old man’s arm,
made her way through the streets, asking questions about everything she
saw; and her spirits rose, and she was so full of droll suggestions that
Karnis soon forgot his fatigue and gave himself up to the enjoyment
of showing her the old scenes that he knew and the new beauties and
improvements.

In the Canopic way Dada was fairly beside herself with delight. Houses
like palaces stood arrayed on each side. Close to the buildings ran a
covered arcade, and down the centre of the roadway there was a broad
footpath shaded by sycamores. This fine avenue swarmed with pedestrians,
while on each side chariots, drawn by magnificent horses, hurried past,
and riders galloped up and down; at every step there was something new
and interesting to be seen.

Rome, even, could not boast of a handsomer street, and Dada expressed
her delight with frank eagerness; but Karnis did not echo her praises;
he was indignant at finding that the Christians had removed a fine
statue of the venerable Nile-god surrounded by the playful forms of his
infant children, which had formerly graced the fountain in the middle of
the avenue, and had also overthrown or mutilated the statues of Hermes
that had stood by the roadside. Orpheus sympathized in his wrath which
reached its climax when, on looking for two statues, of Demeter and of
Pallas Athene, of which Karnis had spoken to his son as decorating the
gateway of one of the finest houses in the city, they beheld instead,
mounted on the plinths, two coarsely-wrought images of the Lamb with its
Cross.

“Like two rats that have been caught under a stone!” cried the old
man. “And what is most shameful is that I would wager that they have
destroyed the statues which were the pride of the town and thrown them
on a rubbish heap. In my day this house belonged to a rich man
named Philippus. But stop--was not he the father of our hospitable
protector...”

“The steward spoke of Porphyrius as the son of Philippus,” Orpheus said.

“And Philippus was a corn merchant, too,” added Karnis. “Demeter was
figurative of a blessing on the harvest, for it was from that the house
derived its wealth, and Pallas Athene was patroness of the learning that
was encouraged by its owners. When I was a student here every wealthy
man belonged to some school of philosophy. The money-bag did not count
for everything. Heathen or Jew, whether engaged in business or enjoying
the revenues of an inherited fortune, a man was expected to be able to
talk of something besides the price of merchandise and the coming and
sailing of vessels.”

During this conversation Dada had withdrawn her hand from the old man’s
arm to raise her veil, for two men had gone up to the gate between the
images that had roused Karnis to wrath, and one of them, who at this
instant knocked at the door, was Mary’s son.

“Father, see, there he is!” cried Dada, as the door was opened, speaking
louder than was at all necessary to enable her companion to hear her;
the musician at once recognized Marcus, and turning to his son he said:

“Now we may be quite sure! Porphyrius and this young Christian’s father
were brothers. Philippus must have left his house to his eldest son who
is the one that is dead, and it now belongs no doubt to Mary, his widow.
I must admit, child, that you choose your adorers from respectable
families!”

“I should think so,” said the girl laughing. “And that is why he is so
proud. My fine gentleman has not even a glance to cast at us. Bang! the
door is shut. Come along, uncle!”

The young man in question entered the hall of his father’s house with
his companion and paused there to say in a tone of pressing entreaty:
“Only come and speak with my mother; you really must not leave like
this.”

“How else?” said the other roughly. “You stick to your way, I will go
mine. You can find a better steward for the estate--I go to-morrow.
May the earth open and swallow me up if I stay one hour longer than is
absolutely necessary in this demented place. And after all Mary is your
mother and not mine.”

“But she was your father’s wife,” retorted Marcus.

“Certainly, or you would not be my brother. But she--I have amply
repaid any kindness she ever did me by ten years of service. We do not
understand each other and we never shall.”

“Yes, yes, you will indeed. I have been in church and prayed--nay, do
not laugh--I prayed to the Lord that he would make it all work right and
He--well, you have been baptized and made one of His flock.”

“To my misfortune! You drive me frantic with your meek and mild ways,”
 cried the other passionately. “My own feet are strong enough for me to
stand on and my hand, though it is horny, can carry out what my brain
thinks right.”

“No, no, Demetrius, no. You see, you believe in the old gods...”

“Certainly,” said the other with increasing irritation. “You are merely
talking to the winds, and my time is precious. I must pack up my small
possessions, and for your sake I will say a few words of farewell when
I take the account-books to your mother. I have land enough belonging to
myself alone, at Arsinoe; I know my own business and am tired of letting
a woman meddle and mar it. Good-bye for the present, youngster. Tell
your mother I am coming; I shall be with her in just an hour.”

“Demetrius!” cried the lad trying once more to detain his brother; but
Demetrius freed himself with a powerful wrench and hurried across the
court-yard--gay with flowers and with a fountain in the middle--into
which the apartments of the family opened, his own among the number.

Marcus looked after him sadly; they differed too widely in thought and
feeling ever to understand each other completely, and when they stood
side by side no one would have imagined that they were the sons of one
father, for even in appearance they were strongly dissimilar. Marcus was
slight and delicate, Demetrius, on the contrary, broad-shouldered and
large-boned.

After this parting from his half-brother Marcus betook himself to the
women’s rooms where Mary, after superintending the spinning and other
work of the slave-girls, in the rooms at the back, was wont to sit
during the evening. He found his mother in eager conversation with a
Christian priest of advanced age, an imposing personage of gentle and
dignified aspect. The widow, though past forty, might still pass for
a handsome woman: it was from her that her son had inherited his tall,
thin figure with narrow shoulders and a slight stoop, his finely-cut
features, white skin and soft, flowing, raven-black hair. Their
resemblance was rendered all the more striking by the fact that each
wore a simple, narrow circlet of gold-round the head; nay it would have
seemed some unusual trick of Nature’s but that their eyes were quite
unlike. Hers were black, and their gaze was shrewd and sharp and
sometimes sternly hard; while the dreamy lustre of her son’s, which were
blue, lent his face an almost feminine softness.

She must have been discussing some grave questions with the old man,
for, as the young man entered the room, she colored slightly and her
long, taper fingers impatiently tapped the back of the couch on which
she was lounging.

Marcus kissed first the priest’s hand and then his mother’s, and,
after enquiring with filial anxiety after her health, informed her that
Demetrius would presently be coming to take leave of her.

“How condescending?” she said coldly. “You know reverend Father what it
is that I require of him and that he refuses. His peasants--always his
peasants! Now can you tell me why they, who must feel the influence and
power of their masters so much more directly than the lower class in
towns, they, whose weal or woe so obviously depends on the will of the
Most High, are so obstinately set against the Gospel of Salvation?”

“They cling to what they are used to,” replied the old man. “The seed
they sow bore fruit under the old gods; and as they cannot see nor
handle our Heavenly Father as they can their idols, and at the same
time have nothing better to hope for than a tenth or a twentieth of the
grain...”

“Yes, mine and thine--the miserable profit of this world!” sighed the
widow. “Oh! Demetrius can defend the idolatry of his favorites warmly
enough, never fear. If you can spare the time, good Father, stay and
help me to convince him.”

“I have already stayed too long,” replied the priest, “for the Bishop
has commanded my presence. I should like to speak to you, my dear
Marcus; to-morrow morning, early, will you come to me? The Lord be with
you, beloved!”

He rose, and as he gave Mary his hand she detained him a moment signing
to her son to leave them, and said in a low tone:

“Marcus must not suspect that I know of the error into which he has been
led; speak roundly to his conscience, and as to the girl, I will take
her in hand. Will it not be possible for Theophilus to grant me an
interview?”

“Hardly, at present,” replied the priest. “As you know, Cynegius is here
and the fate of the Bishop and of our cause hangs on the next few days.
Give up your ambitious desires I beseech you, daughter, for even if
Theophilus were to admit you I firmly believe, nay--do not be angry--I
can but hope that he would never give way on this point.”

“No?” said the widow looking down in some embarrassment; but when her
visitor was gone she lifted her head with a flash of wilful defiance.

She then made Marcus, who had on the previous day given her a full
account of his voyage from Rome, tell her all that had passed between
himself and Demetrius; she asked him how he liked his horse, whether he
hoped to win the approaching races, and generally what he had been doing
and was going to do. But it did not escape her notice that Marcus was
more reticent than usual and that he tried to bring the conversation
round to his voyage and to the guests in the Xenodochium; however, she
always stopped him, for she knew what he was aiming at and would not
listen to anything on that subject.

It was not till long after the slaves had lighted the three-branched
silver lamps that Demetrius appeared. His stepmother received him
kindly and began to talk on indifferent subjects; but he replied with
ill-disguised impatience, for he had not come to chatter and gossip. She
fully understood this; but it pleased her to check and provoke him and
she did it in a way which vividly reminded him of his early days, of the
desolation and unhappiness that had blighted his young life when this
woman had taken the place of his own tender gentle mother, and come
between him and his father. Day after day, in that bygone time, she
had received him just as she had this evening: with words that sounded
kindly, but with a cold, unloving heart. He knew that she had always
seen his boyish errors and petty faults in the worst light, attributing
them to bad propensities and innate wickedness, that she had injured him
in his father’s eyes by painting a distorted image of his disposition
and doings--and all these sins he could not forgive her. At the time of
his father’s assassination Demetrius was already grown to man’s estate,
and as the eldest son it would have been his right and duty to take
part with his uncle Porphyrius in the management of the business; but
he could not endure the idea of living in the same place with his
stepmother, so, having a pronounced taste for a country life, he left
the widow in possession of the house in the Canopic street, persuaded
his uncle to pay over his father’s share in the business in hard cash
and then had quitted Alexandria to take entire charge of the family
estates in Cyrenaica. In the course of a few years he had become an
admirable farmer; the landowners throughout the province were glad to
take his advice or follow his example, and the accounts which he
now laid on the table by the side of Mary’s couch--three goodly
rolls--proved by the irrefragable evidence of figures that he had
actually doubled their revenues from the estates of which he had been
the manager. He had earned his right to claim his independence, to
persist in his own determinations and to go his own way; he was animated
by the pride of an independent nature that recklessly breaks away from a
detested tie when it has means at command either to rest without anxiety
or to devote its energies to new enterprise.

When Demetrius had allowed his stepmother time enough for subjects in
which he took no interest, he laid his hand on the account-books and
abruptly observed that it was now time to talk seriously. He had already
explained to Marcus that he could no longer undertake to meet her
requirements; and as, with him, to decide was to act, he wished at once
to come to a decision as to whether he should continue to manage the
family estates in the way he thought proper, or should retire and
devote himself to the care of his own land. If Mary accepted the latter
alternative he would at once cancel their deed of agreement, but even
then he was very willing to stay on for a time in Cyrenaica, and put the
new steward, when she had appointed one, in the way of performing his
onerous duties. After that he would have nothing more to do with the
family estates. This was his last word; and whichever way she decided,
they might part without any final breach, which he was anxious to avoid
if only for the sake of Marcus.

Demetrius spoke gravely and calmly; still, the bitterness that filled
his soul imparted a flavor to his speech that did not escape the widow,
and she replied with some emphasis that she should be very sorry to
think that any motives personal to herself had led to his decision;
she owed much, very much, to his exertions and had great pleasure in
expressing her obligations. He was aware, of course, that the property
he had been managing had been purchased originally partly with her
fortune and partly out of her husband’s pocket, and that half of it was
therefore hers and half of it the property of Marcus and himself;
but that by her husband’s will the control and management were hers
absolutely. She had endeavored to carry out the intentions of her
deceased husband by entrusting the stewardship of the estate to
Demetrius while he was still quite young; under his care the income had
increased, and she had no doubt that in the future he might achieve even
greater results; at the same time, the misunderstandings that the whole
business had given rise to were not to be endured, and must positively
be put an end to, even if their income were to diminish by half.

“I,” she exclaimed, “am a Christian, with my whole heart and soul. I
have dedicated my body and life to the service of my Saviour. What shall
all the treasures of the world profit me if I lose my soul; and that,
which is my immortal part, must inevitably perish if I allow my pockets
to be filled by the toil of heathen peasants and slaves. I therefore
must insist--and on this point I will not yield a jot--that our slaves
in Cyrenaica, a flock of more than three thousand erring sheep, shall
either submit to be baptized or be removed to make way for Christians.”

“That is to say...” began Demetrius hastily.

“I have not yet done,” she interrupted. “So far as the peasants are
concerned who rent and farm our land they all, without exception--as you
said yesterday--are stiff-necked idolaters. We must give them time to
think it over, but the annual agreement will not be renewed with any who
will not pledge themselves to give up the old sacrifices and to worship
the Redeemer. If they submit they will be safe--in this world and
the next; if they refuse they must go, and the land must be let to
Christians in their stead.”

“Just as I change this seat for another!” said Demetrius with a laugh,
and lifting up a heavy bronze chair he flung it down again on the hard
mosaic pavement so that the floor shook.

Maria started violently.

“My body may tremble,” she said in great excitement, “but my soul
is firm when its everlasting bliss is at stake. I insist--and my
representative, whether he be you or another, must carry my orders into
effect without an hour’s delay--I insist that every heathen shrine,
every image of the field and garden-gods, every altar and sacred stone
which the heathens use for their idolatrous practices shall be pulled
down, overthrown, mutilated and destroyed. That is what I require and
insist on.”

“And that is what I will never consent to,” cried Demetrius in a voice
like low thunder. “I cannot and will not. These things have been held
precious and sacred to men for thousands of years and I cannot, will
not, blow them off the face of the earth, as you blow a feather off your
cloak. You may go and do it yourself; you may be able to achieve it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mary drawing herself up with a glance of
indignant protest.

“Yes--if any one can do it you can!” repeated Demetrius imperturbably.
“I went to-day to seek the images of our forefathers--the venerable
images that were clear to our infancy, the portraits of our fathers’
fathers and mothers, the founders of the honor of our race. And where
are they? They have gone with the protectors of our home, the pride
and ornament of this house--of the street, of the city--the Hermes and
Pallas Athene that you--you flung into the lime-kiln. Old Phabis told me
with tears in his eyes. Alas poor house that is robbed of its past, of
its glory, and of its patron deities!”

“I have placed it under a better safeguard,” replied Maria in a
tremulous voice, and she looked it Marcus with an appeal for sympathy.
“Now, for the last time, I ask you: Will you accede to my demands or
will you not?”

“I will not,” said Demetrius resolutely.

“Then I must find a new agent to manage the estates.”

“You will soon find one; but your land--which is our land too--will
become a desert. Poor land! If you destroy its shrines and sanctuaries
you will destroy its soul; for they are the soul of the land. The first
inhabitants gathered round the sanctuary, and on that sanctuary and the
gods that dwell there the peasant founds his hopes of increase on what
he sows and plants, and of prosperity for his wife and children and
cattle and all that he has. In destroying his shrines you ruin his
hopes, and with them all the joy of life. I know the peasant; he
believes that his labors must be vain if you deprive him of the gods
that make it thrive. He sows in hope, in the swelling of the grain he
sees the hand of the gods who claim his joyful thanksgiving after the
harvest is gathered in. You are depriving him of all that encourages and
uplifts and rejoices his soul when you ruin his shrines and altars!”

“But I give him other and better ones,” replied Mary.

“Take care then that they are such as he can appreciate,” said Demetrius
gravely. “Persuade him to love, to believe, to hope in the creed you
force upon him; but do not rob him of what he trusts in before he is
prepared to accept the substitute you offer him.--Now, let me go; we
are neither of us in the temper to make the best arrangements for the
future. One thing, at any rate, is certain: I have nothing more to do
with the estate.”




CHAPTER VI.

After leaving his stepmother Demetrius made good use of his time and
dictated a number of letters to his secretary, a slave he had brought
with him to Alexandria, for the use of the pen was to him unendurable
labor. The letters were on business, relating to his departure from
Cyrenaica and his purpose of managing his own estates for the future,
and when they lay before him, finished, rolled up and sealed, he felt
that he had come to a mile-stone on his road, a landmark in his life. He
paced the room in silence, trying to picture to himself the fate of
the slaves and peasants who, for so many years, had been his faithful
servants and fellow-laborers, whose confidence he had entirely won, and
many of whom he truly loved. But he could not conceive of their life,
their toil or their festivals, bereft of images, offerings, garlands,
and hymns of rejoicing. To him they were as children, forbidden to laugh
and play, and he could not help once more recurring to his boyhood and
the day of his going to school, when, instead of running and shouting in
his father’s sunny garden, he had been made to sit still and silent in
a dull class-room. And now had the whole world reached such a boundary
line in existence beyond which there was to be no more freedom and
careless joy--where a ceaseless struggle for higher things must begin
and never end?

If the Gospel were indeed true, and if all it promised could ever find
fulfilment, it might perhaps be prudent to admit the sinfulness of man
and to give up the joys and glories of this world to win the eternal
treasure that it described. Many a good and wise man whom he had
known--nay the Emperor, the great and learned Theodosius himself--was
devoted heart and soul to the Christian faith, and Demetrius knew
from his own experience that his mother’s creed, in which he had been
initiated as a boy and from which his father, after holding him at the
font had perverted him at an early age, offered great consolations and
enduring help to those whose existence was one of care, poverty,
and suffering. But his laborers and servants? They were healthy and
contented. What power on earth could induce them--a race that clung
devotedly to custom--to desert the faith of their fathers, and the
time-honored traditions to which they owed all the comforts and
pleasures of life, or to seek in a strange creed the aid which they
already believed that they possessed.

He did not repent of his determination; but he nevertheless said to
himself that, when once he was gone, Mary would proceed only too soon
on the work of extermination and destruction; and every temple on the
estate, every statue, every whispering grotto, every shrine and stone
anointed by pious hands, doomed now to perish, rose before his fancy.

Demetrius was accustomed to rise at cock-crow and go to bed at an early
hour, and he was on the point of retiring even before the usual time,
when Marcus came to his room and begged him to give him yet an hour.

“You are angry with my mother,” said the younger man with a look of
melancholy entreaty, “but you know there is nothing that she would not
sacrifice for the faith. And you can smile so bitterly! But only put
yourself in my place. Loving my mother as I do, it is acutely painful
to me to see another person--to see you whom I love, too, for you are
my friend and brother--to see you, I say, turn your back on her so
completely. My heart is heavy enough to-day I can tell you.”

“Poor boy!” said the countryman. “Yes, I am truly your friend, and am
anxious to remain so; you are not to blame in this business--and for
that matter, I am anything but cheerful. You have chosen to say: Down
with the shrines! Perish all those who do not think as we do! Still,
look at the thing as you will, in some cases certainly violence must
ensue--nay, if no blood is shed it will be a wonder! You sum up the
matter in one common term: The heathen peasants on the estate. My view
of it is totally different; I know these farmers and their wives and
children, each one by name and by sight. There is not one but is ready
to bid me good day and shake my hand or kiss my dress. Many a one has
come to me in tears and left me happy.--By the great Zeus! no one ever
accused me of being soft-hearted, but I could wish this day that I were
harder; and my blood turns to gall as I ask--What is all this for--to
what possible end?”

“For the sake and honor of the faith, Demetrius; for the eternal
salvation of our people.”

“Indeed!” retorted Demetrius with a drawl, “I know better. If that and
that alone were intended you would build churches and chapels and send
us worthy priests--Eusebius and the like--and would try to win men’s
hearts to your Lord by the love you are always talking so much about.
That was my advice to your mother, only this morning. I believe the end
might be attained by those means, among us as elsewhere; ultimately it
will, no doubt, be gained--but not to-day nor to-morrow. A peasant, when
he had become accustomed to the church and grasped a trust in the new
God, would of his own accord give up the old gods and their sanctuaries;
I could count you off a dozen such instances. That I could have looked
on at calmly, for I want only men’s arms and legs and do not ask for
their souls; but to burn down the old house before you have collected
wood and stone to build a new one I call wicked.--It is cruelty and
madness, and when so shrewd a woman as your mother is bent on carrying
through such a measure, come what may, there is something more behind
it.”

“You think she wants to get rid of you--you, Demetrius!” interrupted
Marcus eagerly. “But you are mistaken, you are altogether wrong. What
you have done for the estate...”

“Oh! as for that!” cried the other, “what has my work to do with all
this? Ere the year is out everything that can remind us of the heathen
gods is to be swept away from the hamlets and fields of the pious Mary.
That is what is intended! Then they will hurry off to the Bishop with
the great news and to crown one marvel with another, the reversion
will be secured of a martyr’s nimbus. And this is what all this zeal is
for--this and nothing else!”

“You are speaking of my mother, remember!” cried Marcus, looking at his
brother with a touching appeal in his eyes. Demetrius shook his shaggy
head and spoke more temperately as he went on:

“Yes, child, I had forgotten that--and I may be mistaken of course, for
I am no more than human. Here one thing follows so close on another, and
in this house I feel so battered and storm-tossed, that I hardly know
myself. But old Phabis tells me that steps are being seriously taken to
procure the title of Martyr for our father Apelles.”

“My mother is quite convinced that he died for the faith, and she loved
him devotedly...”

“Then it is so!” cried Demetrius, grinding his teeth and thumping his
fist down on the table. “The lies sown by one single man have produced
a deadly weed that is smothering this miserable house! You--to be sure,
what can you know of our father? I knew him; I have been present when
he and his friends, the philosophers, have laughed to scorn things
which not only you Christians but even pious heathen regard as sacred.
Lucretius was his evangelist, and the Cosmogony of that utter atheist
lay by his pillow and was his companion wherever he went.”

“He admired the heathen poets, but he was a Christian all the same,”
 replied Marcus.

“Neither more nor less than Porphyrius, our uncle, or myself,” retorted
his brother. “Since the day when our grandfather Philippus was baptized,
wealth and happiness have deserted this house. He gave up the old gods
solely that he might not lose the right of supplying the city and the
Emperor with corn, and became a Christian and made his sons Christians.
But he had us educated by his heathen friends, and though we passed for
Christians we were not so in fact. When it was absolutely necessary he
showed himself in church with us; but our daily life, our pleasures, our
pastimes were heathen, and when life began for us in earnest we offered
a bleeding sacrifice to the gods. It was impossible to retract honestly,
since a renegade Christian returning to the worship of the old gods is
incapacitated by law from making a will. You know this; and when you ask
me why I am content to live alone, without either wife or child--and I
love children, even those of other people--a solitary man dragging
out my days and nights joylessly enough--I tell you: I am openly and
honestly a worshipper of our old gods, and I will not go to church
because I scorn a lie. What should I do with children who, in
consequence of my retractation, must forfeit all I might leave them? It
was this question of inheritance only that induced my father to have us
baptized and to make a pretense of Christianity. He set out for Petra
with his Lucretius in his satchel--I packed it with my own hands into
his money-bag--to put in a claim to supply grain to the ‘Rock city.’
He was slain on his way home; most likely by his servant Anubis, who
certainly knew what money he had with him, and who vanished and left no
trace. Because--about the same time--a band of Saracens had fallen on
some Christian anchorites and travellers, in the district between Petra
and Aila, your mother chose to assume a right to call our father a
martyr! But she knew his opinions full well, I tell you, and shed many a
tear over them, too.--Now she has expended vast sums on church-building,
she has opened the Xenodochium and pours her money by lavish handfuls
clown the insatiable throats of monks and priests. To what end? To have
her husband recognized as a martyr. Hitherto her toil and money have
been wasted. In my estimation the Bishop is a perfectly detestable
tyrant, and if I know him at all he will take all she will give and
never grant her wish. Now she is preparing her great move, and hopes
to startle him into compliance by a new marvel. She thinks that, like
a juggler who turns a white egg black, she can turn a heathen district
into a Christian one by a twist of her finger. Well--so far as I am
concerned I will have nothing to do with the trick.”

During this harangue Marcus had alternately gazed at the floor and fixed
his large eyes in anguish on his brother’s face. For some minutes he
found nothing to reply, and he was evidently going through a bitter
mental struggle. Demetrius spoke no more, but arranged the sheets of
papyrus that strewed the table. At length Marcus, after a deep sigh,
broke out in a tone of fervent conviction and with a blissful smile that
lighted up his whole face:

“Poor mother! And others misunderstand her just as you do; I myself
was in danger of doubting her. But I think that now I understand her
perfectly. She loved my father so completely that she hopes now to win
for his immortal soul the grace which he, in the flesh, neglected to
strive after. He was baptized, so she longs to win, by her prayers and
oblations, the mercy of the Lord who is so ready to forgive. She herself
firmly believes in the martyrdom of her beloved dead, and if only the
Church will rank him among those who have died for Her, he will be
saved, and she will find him standing in the pure radiance of the realms
above, with open arms, overflowing with fervent love and gratitude, to
welcome the faithful helpmate who will have purged his soul. Yes, now I
quite understand; and from this day forth I will aid and second her; the
hardest task shall not be too hard, the best shall not be too good,
if only we may open the gates of Heaven to my poor father’s imperilled
soul.”

As he spoke his eye glistened with ecstatic light; his brother, too,
was touched, and to hide his emotion, he exclaimed, more recklessly and
sharply than was his wont:

“That will come all right, never fear, lad!” But he hastily wiped his
eyes with his hand, slapped Marcus on the shoulder, and added gaily: “It
is better to choke than to swallow down the thing you think right, and
it never hurt a man yet to make a clean breast of his feelings, even if
we do not quite agree we understand each other the better for it. I have
my way of thinking, you have yours; thus we each know what the other
means; but after the tragedy comes the satyr play, and we may as well
finish this agitating evening with an hour’s friendly chat.”

So saying Demetrius stretched himself on a divan and invited Marcus
to do the same, and in a few minutes their conversation had turned,
as usual, to the subject of horses. Marcus was full of praises of the
stallions his brother had bred for him, and which he had ridden that
very day round the Myssa--[The Myssa was the Meta, or turning-post]--in
the Hippodrome, and his brother added with no small complacency:

“They were all bred from the same sire and from the choicest mares. I
broke them in myself, and I only wish.... But why did you not come to
the stables this morning?”

“I could not,” replied Marcus coloring slightly. Then we will go
to-morrow to Nicopolis and I will show you how to get Megaera past the
Taraxippios.”--[The terror of the horses.]

“To-morrow?” said Marcus somewhat embarrassed. “In the morning I must go
to see Eusebius and then....”

“Well, then?”

“Then I must--I mean I should like....”

“What?”

“Well, to be sure I might, all the same.--But no, it is not to be
done--I have....”

“What, what?” cried Demetrius with increasing impatience: “My time is
limited and if you start the horses without knowing my way of managing
them they will certainly not do their best. As soon as the market begins
to fill we will set out. We shall need a few hours for the Hippodrome,
then we will dine with Damon, and before dark....”

“No, no,” replied Marcus, “to-morrow, certainly, I positively
cannot....”

“People who have nothing to do always lack time,” replied the other. “Is
to-morrow one of your festivals?”

“No, not that=-and Good Heavens! If only I could....”

“Could, could!” cried Demetrius angrily and standing close in front of
his brother with his arms folded. “Say out honestly: ‘I will not go,’ or
else, ‘my affairs are my own secret and I mean to keep it.’--But give me
no more of your silly equivocations.”

His vehemence increased the younger man’s embarrassment, and as he stood
trying to find an explanation which might come somewhat near the truth
and yet not betray him, Demetrius, who had stood watching him closely,
suddenly exclaimed:

“By Aphrodite, the daughter of the foam! it is a love affair--an
assignation.--Woman, woman, always woman!”

“An assignation!” cried Marcus shaking his head. “No indeed, no one
expects me; and yet--I had rather you should misunderstand me than think
that I had lied. Yes--I am going to seek a woman; and if I do not find
her to-morrow, if in the course of tomorrow I do not succeed in my
heart’s desire, she is lost--not only to me, though I cannot give up the
heavenly love for the sake of the earthly and fleshly--but to my Lord
and Saviour. It is the life--the everlasting life or death of one of
God’s loveliest creatures that hangs on to-morrow’s work.”

Demetrius was greatly astonished, and it was with an angry gesture of
impatience that he replied:

“Again you have overstepped the boundary within which we can possibly
understand each other. In my opinion you are hardly old enough to
undertake the salvation of the imperilled souls of pretty women. Take
care what you are about, youngster! It is safe enough to go into the
water with those who can swim, but those who sink are apt to draw you
down with them. You are a good-looking young fellow, you have money and
fine horses, and there are women enough who are only too ready to spread
their nets abroad...”

“What are you thinking of?” cried Marcus passionately. “It is I who am
the fisher--a fisher of souls, and so every true believer ought to be.
She--she is innocence and simplicity itself, in spite of her roguish
sauciness. But she has fallen into the hands of a reprobate heathen, and
here, where vice prowls about the city like a roaring lion, she will be
lost--lost, if I do not rescue her. Twice have I seen her in my dreams;
once close to the cavern of a raging dragon, and again on the edge of
a precipitous cliff, and each time an angel called out to me and bid me
save her from the jaws of the monster, and from falling into the abyss.
Since then I seem to see her constantly; at meals, when I am in company,
when I am driving,--and I always hear the warning voice of the angel.
And now I feel it a sacred duty to save her--a creature on whom the
Almighty has lavished every gift he ever bestowed on the daughters of
Eve--to lead her into the path of Salvation.”

Demetrius had listened to his brother’s enthusiastic speech with growing
anxiety, but he merely shrugged his shoulders and said:

“I almost envy you your acquaintance with this favorite of the gods; but
you might, it seems to me, postpone the work of salvation. You were away
from Alexandria for half a year, and if she could hold out so long as
that...”

“Do not speak so; you ought not to speak so!” cried Marcus, pressing
his hand on his heart as though in physical pain. “But I have no time to
lose, for I must at once find out where the old singer has taken her. I
am not so inexperienced as you seem to think. He has brought her here to
trade in her beauty, and enrich himself. Why, you, too, saw her on
board ship; I, as you know, had arranged for them to be taken in at my
mother’s Xenodochium.”

“Whom?” asked Demetrius folding his hands.

“The singers whom I brought with me from Ostia. And now they have
disappeared from thence, and Dada...”

“Dada!” cried Demetrius, bursting into a loud laugh without heeding
Marcus who stepped up to him, crimson with rage. “Dada! that little fair
puss! You see her day and night and an angel calls upon you to save that
child’s merry soul? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, boy! Why, what
shall I wager now? I will stake this roll of gold that I could make her
come with me to-morrow--with me, a hard-featured countryman, freckled
all over like a plover’s egg, where my clothes do not protect my skin,
and with hair on end like the top of a broom--yes, that she will follow
me to Arsinoe or wherever I choose to bid her. Let the hussy go, you
simple innocent. Such a Soul as hers is of small account even in a less
exclusive Heaven than yours is.”

“Take back those words!” cried Marcus, beside himself and clenching
his fist. “But that is just like you! Your impure eyes and heart defile
purity itself, and see spots even in the sun. Nothing is too bad for a
‘singing girl,’ I know. But that is just the marrow of the matter; it is
from that very curse that I mean to save her. If you can accuse her
of anything, speak; if not, and if you do not want to appear a base
slanderer in my eyes, take back the words you have just spoken!”

“Oh! I take them back of course,” said Demetrius indifferently. “I know
nothing of your beauty beyond what she has herself said to me and you
and Cynegius and his Secretaries--with her pretty, saucy eyes. But the
language of the eye, they say, is not always to be depended on; so take
it as unsaid. And, if I understood you rightly, you do not even know
where the singers are hiding? If you have no objection, I will help you
to seek them out.”

“That is as you please,” answered Marcus hotly. “All your mockery will
not prevent my doing my duty.”

“Very right, very right,” said his brother. “Perhaps this damsel is
unlike all the other singing-girls with whom I used so often to spend
a jolly evening in my younger days. Once, at Barca, I saw a white
raven--but perhaps after all it was only a dove. Your opinion, in this
case, is at any rate better founded than mine, for I never thought twice
about the girl and you did.--But it is late; till to-morrow, Marcus.”

The brothers parted for the night, but when Demetrius found himself
alone he walked up and down the room, shaking his head doubtfully.
Presently, when his body-slave came in to pack for him, he called out
crossly:

“Let that alone--I shall stay in Alexandria a few days longer.”

Marcus could not go to bed; his brother’s scorn had shaken his soul
to the foundations. An inward voice told him that his more experienced
senior might be right, but at the same time he hated and contemned
himself for listening to its warnings at all. The curse that rested on
Dada was that of her position; she herself was pure--as pure as a lily,
as pure as the heart of a child, as pure as the blue of her eyes and
the ring of her voice. He would obey the angel’s behest! He could and he
must save her!

In the greatest excitement he went out of the house, through the great
gate, into the Canopic way, and walked on. As he was about to turn down
a side street to go to the lake he found the road stopped by soldiers,
for this street led past the prefect’s house where Cynegius, the
Emperor’s emissary, was staying; he had come, it was said, to close the
Temples, and the excited populace had gathered outside the building,
during the afternoon, to signify their indignant disapprobation. At
sundown an armed force had been called out and had dispersed the crowd;
but it was by another road that the young Christian at length made his
way to the shore.




CHAPTER VII.

While Marcus was restlessly wandering on the shore of Mareotis, dreaming
of Dada’s image and arranging speeches of persuasive eloquence by which
to touch her heart and appeal to her soul, silence had fallen on the
floating home of the singers. A light white mist, like a filmy veil--a
tissue of clouds and moonbeams--hung over the lake. Work was long since
over in the ship-yard, and the huge skeletons of the unfinished ships
threw weird and ghostly shadows on the silvered strand-forms like black
visions of crayfish, centipedes, or enormous spiders.

From the town there came not a sound; it lay in the silence of
intoxicated sleep. The Roman troops had cleared the streets, the lights
were dead in every house, and in all the alleys and squares; only the
moon shone over the roofs of Alexandria, while the blazing beacon of
the light-house on the north-eastern point of the island of Pharos shone
like a sun through the darkness.

In a large cabin in the stern of the vessel lay the two girls, on soft
woollen couches and covered with rugs. Agne was gazing wide-eyed into
the darkness; Dada had long been asleep, but she breathed painfully
and her rosy lips were puckered now and then as if she were in some
distress. She was dreaming of the infuriated mob who had snatched the
garland from her hair--she saw Marcus suddenly interfere to protect her
and rescue her from her persecutors--then she thought she had fallen off
the gangway that led from the land to the barge, and was in the water
while old Damia stood on the shore and laughed at her without trying
to help her. Night generally brought the child sound sleep or pleasant
dreams, but now one hideous face after another haunted her.

And yet the evening had brought her a great pleasure. Not long after
their return from their walk the steward had come down to the boat
and brought her a very beautiful dress, with greetings from his old
mistress; he had at the same time brought an Egyptian slave-woman, well
skilled in all the arts of the toilet, who was to wait upon her so long
as she remained in Alexandria. Dada had never owned such a lovely dress!
The under-robe was of soft sea-green bombyx silk, with a broad border,
delicately embroidered, of a garland of roses and buds. The peplos
was of the same color and decorated to match; costly clasps of mosaic,
representing full-blown roses and set in oval gold settings, fastened
it on the shoulders. In a separate case were a gold girdle, a bracelet,
also of gold, in the shape of a snake, a gold crescent with a rose,
like those on the shoulder-clasps, in its centre, and a metal mirror of
spotless lustre.

The slave, a middle-aged woman with a dark cunning face, had helped her
to put on this new garment; she had also insisted on dressing her hair,
and all the time had never ceased praising the charms that nature had
bestowed on her young mistress, with the zeal of a lover.

Agne had looked on smiling, good-naturedly handing the slave the pins
and ribbands she had needed, and sincerely rejoicing in her companion’s
beauty and delight.

At last Dada had made her appearance in the deckroom and was greeted by
many an Ah! and Oh! of admiration from the men of the party, including
Medius, the singer whom Karnis had met in the street. Even Herse, who
had received her quite disagreeably on her return from the city, could
not suppress a smile of kindly approval, though she shook her finger at
her saying:

“The old lady has set her heart on turning your head completely I see.
All that is very pretty, but all the good it will do will be to rouse
spiteful tongues. Remember, Dada, that you are my sister’s child; I
promise you I shall not forget it, and I shall keep my eye upon you.”

Orpheus made haste to light every lamp and taper, of which there were
plenty, for the barge was handsomely furnished, and when Dada was
plainly visible in the brilliant illumination Karnis exclaimed:

“You look like a senator’s daughter! Long live the Fair!”

She ran up to him and kissed him; but when Orpheus walked all round
her, examining the fineness of the tissue and the artistic finish of the
clasps, and even turned the snake above her round elbow, she sharply bid
him let her be.

Medius, a man of the age of Karnis who had formerly been his intimate
companion, never took his eyes off the girl, and whispered to the
old musician that Dada would easily carry off the palm for beauty in
Alexandria, and that with such a jewel in his keeping he might recover
wealth and position and by quite honest means. At his suggestion she
then assumed a variety of attitudes; she stood as Hebe, offering nectar
to the gods--as Nausicae, listening to the tale of Odysseus--and as
Sappho, singing to her lyre. The girl was delighted at all this, and
when Medius, who kept close to her, tried to persuade her to perform
in a similar manner in the magical representations at the house of
Posidonius, before a select company of spectators, she clapped her hands
exclaiming:

“You took me all round the city, father, and as your reward I should
like to earn back your pretty vineyards, I should stand like this, you
know, and like this--to be stared at. I only hope I might not be seized
with a sudden impulse to make a face at the audience. But if they did
not come too close I really might...”

“You could do no better than to play the parts that Posidonius might
give you,” interrupted Medius. “His audiences like to see good daemons,
the kindly protecting spirits, and so forth. You would have to appear
among clouds behind a transparent veil, and the people would hail you
with acclamations or even raise their hands in adoration.”

All this seemed to Dada perfectly delightful, and she was on the point
of giving her hand to Medius in token of agreement, when her eye caught
the anxious gaze of the young Christian girl who stood before her with
a deep flush on her face. Agne seemed to be blushing for her. The color
rushed to her own cheeks, and shortly saying: “No--after all, I think
not,” she turned her back on the old man and threw herself on the
cushions close to where the wine-jug was standing. Medius now began to
besiege Karnis and Herse with arguments, but they refused all his
offers as they intended quitting Alexandria in a few days, so he had
no alternative but to submit. Still, he did not altogether throw up the
game, and to win Dada’s consent, at any rate, he made her laugh with
a variety of comical pranks and showed her some ingenious conjuring
tricks, and ere long their floating home echoed with merriment, with the
clinking of wine-cups and with songs, in which even Agne was obliged to
take part. Medius did not leave till near midnight and Herse then sent
them all to bed.

As soon as the slave had undressed her young mistress and left the girls
alone, Dada threw herself into the arms of Agne who was on the point
of getting into bed, and kissed her vehemently, exclaiming: “You are
much--so much better than I! How is that you always know what is right?”

Then she lay down; but before she fell asleep she once more spoke to
Agne: “Marcus will find us out, I am certain,” she said, “and I should
really like to know what he has to say to me.”

In a few minutes sleep had sealed her eyes, but the Christian girl lay
awake; her thoughts would not rest, and Sleep, who the night before had
taken her to his heart, to-night would not come near her pillow; so much
to agitate and disturb her soul had taken place during the day.

She had often before now been a silent spectator of the wild rejoicings
of the musician’s family, and she had always thought of these
light-hearted creatures as spendthrifts who waste all their substance
in a few days to linger afterwards through years of privation and
repentance. Troubled, as she could not fail to be, as to the eternal
salvation of these lost souls, though happy in her own faith, she had
constantly turned for peace to her Saviour and always found it; but
to-night it was not so, for a new and unexpected temptation had sprung
up for her in the house of Porphyrius.

She had heard Gorgo sing again, and joined her own voice with hers.
Dirges, yearning hymns, passionate outpourings in praise of the mighty
and beautiful divinity had filled her ear and stirred her soul with an
ecstatic thrill, although she knew that they, were the composition
of heathen poets and had first been sung to the harmony of lutes by
reprobate idolaters. And yet, and yet they had touched her heart, and
moved her soul to rapture, and filled her eyes with tears.

She could not but confess to herself that she could have given no
purer, sweeter, or loftier expression to her own woes, thankfulness,
aspirations, and hopes of ever lasting life and glory, than this gifted
creature had given to the utterance of her idolatry. Surprise, unrest,
nay, some little jealousy had been mingled with her delight at Gorgo’s
singing. How was it that this heathen could feel and utter emotions
which she had always conceived of as the special privilege of the
Christian, and, for her own part, had never felt so fervently as in
the hours when she had drawn closest to her Lord? Were not her own
sentiments the true and right ones; had her intercourse with these
heathens tainted her?

This doubt disturbed her greatly; it must be based on something more
than mere self-torture, for she had not once thought of asking to whom
the two-part hymn, with its tender appeal, was addressed, when Karnis
had first gone through it with her alone; nor even subsequently, when
she had sung it with Gorgo--timidly at first, more boldly the second
time, and finally without a mistake, but carried completely away by the
beauty and passion of the emotions it expressed.

She knew now, for Karnis himself had told her. It was the Lament of
Isis for her--lost husband and brother--oh that horrible heathen
confusion!--The departed Osiris. The wailing widow, who called on him
to return with “the silent speech of tears,” was that queen of the
idolater’s devils whose shameful worship her father had often spoke of
with horror. Still, this dirge was so true and noble, so penetrated with
fervent, agonized grief, that it had gone to her heart. The sorrowing
Mother of God, Mary herself, might thus have besought the resurrection
of her Son; just thus must the “God-like maid”--as she was called in the
Arian confession of her father--have uttered her grief, her prayers, and
her longings.

But it was all a heathen delusion, all the trickery and jugglery of the
Devil, though she had failed to see through it, and had given herself up
to it, heart and soul. Nay, worse! for after she had learnt that Gorgo
was to represent Isis and she herself Nephthys, the sister of the divine
pair, she had opposed the suggestion but feebly, even though she knew
that they were to sing the hymn together in the Temple of Isis; and when
Gorgo had clasped her in her arms with sisterly kindness, begging her
not to spoil her plans but to oblige her in this, she had not repulsed
the tempter with firm decision, but merely asked for time to think it
over.

How indeed could she have found the heart to refuse the noble girl,
whose beauty and voice had so struck and fascinated her, when she flung
her arms round her neck, looked into her eyes and earnestly besought
her:

“Do it for my sake, to please me. I do not ask you to do anything
wicked. Pure song is acceptable to every god. Think of your lament, if
you like, as being for your own god who suffered on the cross. But I
like singing with you so much; say yes. Do not refuse, for my sake!”

She had thrown her arms so gladly, so much too gladly round the heathen
lady--for she had a loving heart and no one else had ever made it a
return in kind--and clinging closely to her she had said:

“As you will; I will do whatever you like.”

Then Orpheus, too, had urged her to oblige Gorgo, and himself, and all
of them; and it had seemed almost impossible to refuse the first request
that the modest youth--to whom she would willingly have granted anything
and everything--had ever made. Still, she had held back; and in her
anxious bewilderment, not daring to think or act, she had tried every
form of excuse and postponement. She would probably have been awkward
enough about this, but Gorgo was content to press her no further, and
when, after leaving the house, she had summoned up courage to refuse to
enter the Temple of Isis, Karnis had only said: “Be thankful that this
gifted lady, the favorite of the Muses, should think you worthy to sing
with her. We will see about the rest by-and-bye.”

Now, in the watches of the sleepless night, she saw clearly the abyss
above which she was standing. She, like Judas, was on the point of
betraying her Saviour; not indeed for money, but in obedience to the
transient sound of an earthly voice, for the pleasure of exercising
her art, to indulge a hastily-formed liking; nay, perhaps because it
satisfied her childish vanity to find herself put on an equality with a
lady of rank and wealth, and matched with a singer who had roused Karnis
and Orpheus to such ardent admiration.

She was an enigma to herself; while passages out of the Bible crowded on
her memory to reproach her conscience.

There lay Dada’s embroidered dress. Worn for the first time this day, in
a month it would be unpresentably shabby and then, ere long, flung aside
as past wearing. Like this--just like this--was every earthly pleasure,
every joy of this brief existence. Alas, she certainly was not happy
here in Karnis’ sense of the word; but in the other world there were
joys eternal, and she had only to deny herself the petty enjoyments of
this life to secure unfailing and everlasting happiness in the next.
There she would find an endless flow of all her soul could desire,
there perhaps she might be allowed to cool the lips of Gorgo, as Lazarus
cooled those of the rich man.

She was quite clear now what her answer would be to-morrow, and, firmly
resolved not to allow herself to think of singing in the Temple of Isis,
she at last fell asleep just as the light began to dawn in the east. She
did not wake till late, and it was with downcast eyes and set lips that
she went with Karnis and Orpheus to the house of Porphyrius.




CHAPTER VIII.

When the steward went to summons the musicians to his master’s house he
had again had no bidding for Dada, and she was very indignant at being
left behind. “That old cornsack’s daughter,” she said, “was full of her
airs, and would have nothing to say to them excepting to make use of
them for her own purposes!” If she had not been afraid of being thought
intrusive she would have acted on old Damia’s invitation to visit her
frequently, and have made her appearance, in defiance of Gorgo, dropping
like a shooting-star into the midst of their practising. It never
occurred to her to fancy that the young lady had any personal dislike
to her, for, though she might be ignored and forgotten, who had ever had
any but a kind word for her. At the same time she assumed the right of
feeling that “she could not bear” the haughty Gorgo, and as the party
set out she exclaimed to Agne, “Well, you need not kill her for me, but
at any rate, I send her no greeting; it is a shame that I should be left
to mope alone with Herse. Do not be surprised if you find me turned to a
stark, brown mummy--for we are in Egypt, you know, the land of mummies.
I bequeath my old dress to you, my dear, for I know you would never
put on the new one. If you bewail me as you ought I will visit you in a
dream, and put a sugarplum in your mouth--a cake of ambrosia such as the
gods eat. You are not even leaving me Papias to tease!”

For in fact Agne’s little brother, dressed in a clean garment, was to be
taken to Gorgo who had expressed a wish to see him.

When they had all left the ship Dada soon betrayed how superficial her
indignation had been; for, presently spying through the window of the
cabin the young cavalry officer’s grey-bearded father, she sprang up
the narrow steps--barefoot as she was accustomed to be when at home--and
threw herself on a cushion to lean over the gunwale of the upper deck,
which was shaded by a canvas awning, to watch the ship-yard and the
shore-path. Before she had begun to weary of this occupation the
waiting-slave, who had been up to the house to put various matters in
order, came back to the vessel, and squatting down at her feet was
ready to give her all the information she chose to require. Dada’s
first questions naturally related to Gorgo. The young mistress, said
the slave, had already dismissed many suitors, the sons of the greatest
families of Alexandria, and if her suspicions--those of Sachepris, the
slave--were well founded, all for the sake of the old shipbuilder’s
son, whom she had known from childhood and who was now an officer in
the Imperial guard. However, as she opined, this attachment could hardly
lead to marriage, since Constantine was a zealous Christian and his
family were immeasurably beneath that of Porphyrius in rank; and though
he had distinguished himself greatly and risen to the grade of Prefect,
Damia, who on all occasions had the casting-vote, had quite other views
for her granddaughter.

All this excited Dada’s sympathies to the highest pitch, but she
listened with even greater attention when her gossip began to speak of
Marcus, his mother, and his brother. In this the Egyptian slave was the
tool of old Damia. She had counted on being questioned about the young
Christian, and as soon as Dada mentioned his name she shuffled on her
knees close up to the girl, laid her hand gently on her arm and
looking up into her eyes with a meaning flash, she whispered in broken
Greek--and hastily, for Herse was bustling about the deck: “Such a
pretty mistress, such a young mistress as you, and kept here like
a slave! If the young mistress only chose she could easily--quite
easily--have as good a lover as our Gorgo, and better; so pretty and so
young! And I know some one who would dress the pretty mistress in red
gold and pale pearls and bright jewels, if sweet Dada only said the
word.”

“And why should sweet Dada not say the word?” echoed the girl gaily.
“Who is it that has so many nice things and all for me? You--I shall
never remember your name if I live to be as old as Damia....”

“Sachepris, Sachepris is my name,” said the woman, “but call me anything
else you like. The lover I mean is the son of the rich Christian, Mary.
A handsome man, my lord Marcus; and he has horses, such fine horses, and
more gold pieces than the pebbles on the shore there. Sachepris knows
that he has sent out slaves to look for the pretty mistress. Send him a
token--write to my lord Marcus.”

“Write?” laughed Dada. “Girls learn other things in my country; but if
I could--shall I tell you something? I would not write him a line. Those
who want me may seek me!”

“He is seeking, he is trying to find the pretty mistress,” declared the
woman; “he is full of you, quite full of you, and if I dared....”

“Well?”

“I would go and say to my lord Marcus, quite in a secret....”

“Well, what? Speak out, woman.”

“First I would tell him where the pretty mistress is hidden; and then
say that he might hope once--this evening perhaps--he is not far off, he
is quite near this... over there; do you see that little white house? It
is a tavern and the host is a freedman attached to the lady Damia, and
for money he would shut his shop up for a day, for a night, for many
days.--Well, and then I would say--shall I tell you all? My lord Marcus
is there, waiting for his pretty mistress, and has brought her dresses
that would make the rose-garment look a rag. You would have gold too, as
much gold as heart can wish. I can take you there, and he will meet you
with open arms.”

“What, this evening?” cried Dada, and the blue veins swelled on her
white forehead. “You hateful, brown serpent! Did Gorgo teach you such
things as this? It is horrible, disgraceful, sickening!”

So base a proposal was the last thing she would ever have expected from
Marcus--of all men in the world, Marcus, whom she had imagined so good
and pure! She could not believe it; and as her glance met the cunning
glitter of the Egyptian’s eyes her own sparkled keenly, and she
exclaimed with a vehemence and decision which her attendant had never
suspected in her:

“It is deceit and falsehood from beginning to end! Go, woman, I will
hear no more of it. Why should Marcus have come to you since yesterday
if he does not know where I am? You are silent--you will not say?... Oh!
I understand it all. He--I know he would never have ventured it. But
it is your ‘noble lady Damia’--that old woman, who has told you what to
say. You are her echo, and as for Marcus.... Confess, confess at once,
you witch....”

“Sachepris is only a poor slave,” said the woman raising her hands in
entreaty. “Sachepris can only obey, and if the pretty mistress were to
tell my lady Damia...”

“It was she then who sent for me to go to the little tavern?”

The woman nodded. “And Marcus?”

“If the pretty mistress had consented...”

“Well?”

“Then--but Great Isis! if you tell of me!”

“I will not tell; go on.”

“I should have gone to my lord Marcus and invited him, from you...”

“It is shameful!” interrupted Dada, and a shudder ran through her slight
frame. “How cruel, how horrible it is! You--you will stay here till the
others come home and then you will go home to the old woman. I thank
the gods, I have two hands and need no maid to wait upon me! But look
there--what is the meaning of that? That pretty litter has stopped and
there is an old man signing to you.”

“It is the widow Mary’s house steward,” whined the woman, while Dada
turned pale, wondering what a messenger from Marcus’ mother could want
here.

Herse, who had kept a watchful eye on the landing-plank, on Dada’s
account, had also seen the approach of the widow’s messenger and
suspected a love-message from Marcus; but she was utterly astounded when
the old man politely but imperiously desired her--Herse to get into the
litter which would convey her to his mistress’s house. Was this a trap?
Did he merely want to tempt her from the vessel so as to clear the way
for his young master? No--for he handed her a tablet on which there was
a written message, and she, an Alexandrian, had been well educated and
could read:

“Mary, the widow of Apelles, to the wife of Karnis, the singer.” And
then followed the same urgent request as she had already received by
word of mouth. To reassure herself entirely she called the slave-woman
aside, and asked her whether Phabis was indeed a trust worthy servant
of the widow’s. Evidently there was no treason to be apprehended and she
must obey the invitation, though it disturbed her greatly; but she was a
cautious woman, with not only her heart but her brains and tongue in the
right place, and she at once made up her mind what must be done under
the circumstances. While she gave a few decorative touches to her person
she handed the tablet to the waiting-woman, whom she had taken into her
own room, and desired her to carry it at once to her husband, and tell
him whither she had gone, and to beg him to return without delay to take
care of Dada. But what if her husband and son could not come away? The
girl would be left quite alone, and then... The picture rose before
her anxious mind of Marcus appearing on the scene and tempting Dada
on shore--of her niece stealing away by herself even, if the young
Christian failed to discover her present residence--loitering alone
along the Canopic way or the Bruclumn, where, at noon, all that was most
disreputable in Alexandria was to be seen at this time of year--she saw,
shuddered, considered--and suddenly thought of an expedient which
seemed to promise an issue from the difficulty. It was nothing new and a
favorite trick among the Egyptians; she had seen is turned to account
by a lame tailor at whose house her father had lodged, when he had to
go out to his customers and leave his young negress wife alone at home.
Dada was lying barefoot on the deck: Herse would hide her shoes.

She hastily acted on this idea, locking up not only Dada’s sandals, but
also Agne’s and her own, in the trunk they had saved; a glance at the
slave’s feet assured her that hers could be of no use.

“Not if fire were to break out,” thought she, “would my Dada be seen in
the streets with those preposterous things on her pretty little feet.”

When this was done Herse breathed more freely, and as she took leave of
her niece, feeling perhaps that she owed her some little reparation, she
said in an unusually kind tone:

“Good bye, child. Try to amuse yourself while I am gone. There is plenty
to look at here, and the others will soon be back again. If the city is
fairly quiet this evening we will all go out together, to Canopus, to
eat oysters. Good bye till we meet again, my pet!” She kissed the child,
who looked up at her in astonishment, for her adopted mother was not
usually lavish of such endearments.

Before long Dada was alone, cooling herself with her new fan and eating
sweetmeats; but she could not cease thinking of the shameful treachery
planned by old Damia, and while she rejoiced to reflect that she had not
fallen into the net, and had seen through the plot, her wrath against
the wicked old woman and Gorgo--whom she could not help including--burnt
within her. Meanwhile she looked about her, expecting to see Marcus, or
perhaps the young officer. Finding it impossible to think any evil of
the young Christian, and having already trusted him so far, her fancy
dwelt on him with particular pleasure; but she was curious, too, about
the prefect, the early love of the proud merchant’s daughter.

Time went on; the sun was high in the heavens, she was tired of staring,
wondering and thinking, and, yawning wearily, she began to consider
whether she would make herself comfortable for a nap, or go down
stairs and fill up the time by dressing herself up in her new garments.
However, before she could do either, the slave returned from her errand
to the house, and a few moments after she espied the young officer
crossing the ship-yard towards the lake; she sat up, set the crescent
straight that she wore in her hair, and waved her fan in a graceful
greeting.

The cavalry prefect, who knew that, of old, the barge was often used by
Porphyrius’ guests, though he did not happen to have heard who were its
present occupants--bowed, with military politeness and precision, to the
pretty girl lounging on the deck. Dada returned the greeting; but this
seemed likely to be the end of their acquaintance, for the soldier
walked on without turning round. He looked handsomer even than he
had seemed the day before; his hair was freshly oiled and curled, his
scale-armor gleamed as brightly, and his crimson tunic was as new and
rich as if he were going at once to guard the Imperial throne. The
merchant’s daughter had good taste, but her friend looked no less
haughty than herself. Dada longed to make his acquaintance and find out
whether he really had no eyes for any one but Gorgo. To discover that it
was not so, little as she cared about him personally, would have given
her infinite satisfaction, and she decided that she must put him to the
test. But there was no time to lose, so, as it would hardly do to call
after him, she obeyed a sudden impulse, flung overboard the handsome fan
which had been in her possession but one day, and gave a little cry in
which alarm and regret were most skilfully and naturally expressed.

This had the wished-for effect. The officer turned round, his eyes met
hers, and Dada leaned far over the boat’s side pointing to the water and
exclaiming:

“It is in the water--it has fallen into the lake!--my fan!”

The officer again bowed slightly; then he walked from the path down to
the water’s edge, while Dada went on more quietly:

“There, close there! Oh, if only you would!...

“I am so fond of the fan, it is so pretty. Do you see, it is quite
obliging? it is floating towards you!” Constantine had soon secured the
fan, and shook it to dry it as he went across the plank to the vessel.
Dada joyfully received it, stroked the feathers smooth, and warmly
thanked its preserver, while he assured her that he only wished he could
have rendered her some greater service. He was then about to retire with
a bow no less distant than before, but he found himself unexpectedly
detained by the Egyptian slave who, placing herself in his way, kissed
the hem of his tunic and exclaimed:

“What joy for my lord your father and the lady your mother, and for poor
Sachepris! My lord Constantine at home again!”

“Yes, at home at last,” said the soldier in a deep pleasant voice. “Your
old mistress is still hale and hearty? That is well. I am on my way to
the others.”

“They know that you have come,” replied the slave. “Glad, they are all
glad. They asked if my lord Constantine forgot old friends.”

“Never, not one!”

“How long now since my lord Constantine went away--two, three years, and
just the same. Only a cut over the eyes--may the hand wither that gave
the blow!”

Dada had already observed a broad scar which marked the soldier’s brow
as high up as she could see it for the helmet, and she broke in:

“How can you men like to slash and kill each other? Just think, if that
cut had been only a finger’s breadth lower--you would have lost your
eyes, and oh! it is better to be dead than blind. When all the world is
bright not to be able to see it; what must that be! The whole earth in
darkness so that you see nothing--no one; neither the sky, nor the lake,
nor the boat, nor even me.”

“That would indeed be a pity,” said the prefect with a laugh and a
shrug.

“A pity!” exclaimed Dada. “As if it were nothing at all! I should find
something else to say than that. It gives me a shudder only to think of
being blind. How dreadfully dull life can be with one’s eyes open! so
what must it be when they are of no use and one cannot even look about
one. Do you know that you have done me not one service only, but two at
once?”

“I?” said the officer.

“Yes, you. But the second is not yet complete. Sit down awhile, I
beg--there is a seat. You know it is a fatal omen if a visitor does not
sit down before he leaves.--That is well.--And now, may I ask you: do
you take off your helmet when you go into battle? No.--Then how could a
swordcut hurt your forehead?”

“In a hand to hand scuffle,” said the young man, “everything gets out of
place. One man knocked my helmet off and another gave me this cut in my
face.”

“Where did it happen?”

“On the Savus, where we defeated Maximus.”

“And had you this same helmet on?”

“Certainly.”

“Oh! pray let me look at it! I can still see the dent in the metal; how
heavy such a thing must be to wear!”

Constantine took off his helmet with resigned politeness and put it into
her hands. She weighed it, thought it fearfully heavy, and then lifted
it up to put it on her own fair curls; but this did not seem to please
her new acquaintance, and saying rather shortly: “Allow me--” he took it
from her, set it on his head and rose.

But Dada pointed eagerly to the seat.

“No, no,” she said, “I have not yet had enough of your second kindness.
I was on the point of death from sheer tedium; then you came, just in
time; and if you want to carry out your work of mercy you must tell me
something about the battle where you were wounded, and who took care of
you afterwards, and whether the women of Pannonia are really as handsome
as they are said to be...”

“I am sorry to say that I have not time,” interrupted the officer.
“Sachepris here is far better qualified to amuse you than I; some years
since, at any rate, she lead a wonderful store of tales. I wish you a
pleasant day!”

And with this farewell greeting, Constantine left the vessel, nor did he
once look back at it or its pretty inhabitant as he made his way towards
the house of Porphyrius.

Dada as she gazed after him colored with vexation; again she had done
a thing that Herse and--which she regretted still more--that Agne would
certainly disapprove of. The stranger whom she had tried to draw into a
flirtation was a really chivalrous man. Gorgo might be proud of such a
lover; and if now, he were to go to her and tell her, probably with
some annoyance, how provokingly he had been delayed by that pert little
singing-girl, it would be all her own fault. She felt as though there
were something in her which forced her to seem much worse than she
really was, and wished to be. Agne, Marcus, the young soldier--nay,
even Gorgo, were loftier and nobler than she or her people, and she
was conscious for the first time that the dangers from which Marcus had
longed to protect her were not the offspring of his fancy. She could not
have found a name for them, but she understood that she was whirled and
tossed through life from one thing to another, like a leaf before the
wind, bereft of every stay or holdfast, defenceless even against the
foolish vagaries of her own nature. Everyone, thought the girl to
herself, distrusted and suspected her, and, solely because she was one
of a family of singers, dared to insult and dishonor her. A strange
spite against Fate, against her uncle and aunt, against herself even,
surged up in her, and with it a vague longing for another and a better
life.

Thus meditating she looked down into the water, not noticing what was
going on around her, till the slave-woman, addressing her by name,
pointed to a carriage drawn up at the side of the road that divided the
grove of the Temple of Isis from the ship-yard, and which the Egyptian
believed that she recognized as belonging to Marcus. Dada started up and
ran off to the cabin to fetch her shoes, but everything in the shape of
a sandal had vanished, and Herse had been wise when she had looked
at those of the Egyptian, for Dada did the same and would not have
hesitated to borrow them if they had been a little less dirty and
clumsy.

Herse, no doubt, had played her this trick, and it was easy to guess
why! It was only to divert her suspicions that the false woman had
been so affectionate at parting. It was cheating, treachery-cruel and
shameful! She, who had always submitted like a lamb--but this was too
much--this she could not bear--this!... The slave-woman now followed
her to desire her to come up on deck; a new visitor had appeared on the
scene, an old acquaintance and fellow-voyager: Demetrius, Marcus’ elder
brother.

At any other time she would have made him gladly welcome, as a companion
and comfort in her solitude; but he had chosen an evil hour for his
visit and his proposals, as the girl’s red cheeks and tearful eyes at
once told him.

He had come to fetch her, cost him what it might, and to carry her away
to his country-home, near Arsinoe on the coast. It was not that he had
any mad desire to make her his own, but that he thought it his most
urgent duty to preserve his inexperienced brother from the danger into
which his foolish passion for the little singing-girl was certain
to plunge him. A purse full of gold, and a necklace of turquoise and
diamonds, which he had purchased from a jeweller in the Jews’ quarter
for a sum for which he had often sold a ship-load of corn or a whole
cellar full of wine or oil, were to supplement his proposals; and he
went straight to the point, asking the girl simply and plainly to leave
her friends and accompany him to Arsinoe. When she asked him, in much
astonishment, “What to do there?” he told her he wanted a cheerful
companion; he had taken a fancy to her saucy little nose, and though he
could not flatter himself that he had ever found favor in her eyes he
had brought something with him which she would certainly like, and
which might help him to win her kindness. He was not niggardly, and if
this--and this--and he displayed the sparkling necklace and laid the
purse on her pillow--could please her she might regard them as an
earnest of more, as much more as she chose, for his pockets were deep.

Dada did not interrupt him, for the growing indignation with which she
heard him took away her breath. This fresh humiliation was beyond the
bounds of endurance; and when at last she recovered her powers of speech
and action, she flung the purse off the divan, and as it fell clattering
on the floor, she kicked it away as far as possible, as though it were
plague-tainted. Then, standing upright in front of her suitor, she
exclaimed:

“Shame upon you all! You thought that because I am a poor girl, a
singing-girl, and because you have filthy gold.... Your brother Marcus
would never have done such a thing, I am very sure!... And you, a horrid
peasant!... If you ever dare set foot on this vessel again, Karnis and
Orpheus shall drive you away as if you were a thief or an assassin!
Eternal Gods! what is it that I have done, that everyone thinks I must
be wicked? Eternal Gods....”

And she burst into loud spasmodic sobs and vanished down the steps that
led below.

Demetrius called after her in soothing words and tones, but she would
not listen. Then he sent down the slave to beg Dada to grant him a
hearing, but the only answer he received was an order to quit the barge
at once.

He obeyed, and as he picked up the purse he thought to himself:

“I may buy ship and vineyard back again; but I would send four more
after those if I could undo this luckless deed. If I were a better and
a worthier man, I might not so easily give others credit for being evil
and unworthy.”




CHAPTER IX.

The town of Alexandria was stirred to its very foundations. From dawn
till night every centre of public traffic and intercourse was the scene
of hostile meetings between Christians and heathen, with frequent frays
and bloodshed, only stopped by the intervention of the soldiery.
Still, as we see that the trivial round of daily tasks is necessarily
fulfilled, even when the hand of Fate lies heaviest on a household,
and that children cannot forego their play even when their father is
stretched on his death-bed, so the minor interests of individual lives
pursued their course, even in the midst of the general agitation and
peril.

The current of trade and of public business was, of course, checked at
many points, but they never came to a stand-still. The physician visited
the sick, the convalescent made his first attempt, leaning on a friendly
arm, to walk from his bedroom to the “viridarium,” and alms were given
and received. Hatred was abroad and rampant, but love held its own,
strengthening old ties and forming new ones. Terror and grief weighed
on thousands of hearts, while some tried to make a profit out of
the prevailing anxiety, and others--many others--went forth, as
light-hearted as ever, in pursuit of pleasure and amusement.

Horses were ridden and driven in the Hippodrome, and feasts were held
in the pleasure-houses of Canopus, with music and noisy mirth; in the
public gardens round the Paneum cock-fighting and quail-fighting were as
popular as ever, and eager was the betting in new gold or humble
copper. Thus may we see a child, safe on the roof of its father’s house,
floating its toy boat on the flood that has drowned them all out; thus
might a boy fly his gaudy kite in the face of a gathering storm; thus
does the miser, on whom death has already laid its bony hand, count his
hoarded coin; thus thoughtless youth dances over the heaving soil at the
very foot of a volcano. What do these care for the common weal? Each
has his separate life and personal interests. What he himself needs or
desires--the greatest or the least--is to him more important and more
absorbing than the requirements of the vast organism in which he is no
more than a drop of blood or the hair of an eyelash.

Olympius was still in concealment in the house of Porphyrius--Olympius,
whose mind and will had formerly had such imperious hold on the fate
of the city, and to whose nod above half of the inhabitants were still
obedient. Porphyrius and his family shared his views and regarded
themselves as his confederates; but, even among them, the minor details
of life claimed their place, and Gorgo, who entered into the struggle
for the triumph of the old gods, gave but a half-hearted attention to
the great cause to which she was enthusiastically devoted, because a
companion of her childhood, to whose attentions she had every claim,
delayed his visit longer than was kind.

She had performed her ‘Isis’ lament the day before with all her heart
and soul, and had urgently claimed Agne’s assistance; but to-day, though
she had been singing again and well, she had stopped to listen whenever
she heard a door open in the adjoining room or voices in the garden,
and had sung altogether with so much less feeling and energy than before
that Karnis longed to reprove her sharply enough. This, however, would
have been too indiscreet, so he could only express his annoyance by
saying to his son, in a loud whisper:

“The most remarkable gifts, you see, and the highest abilities are of no
avail so long as Art and Life are not one and the same--so long as Art
is not the Alpha and Omega of existence, but merely an amusement or a
decoration.”

Agne had been true to herself, and had modestly but steadfastly declared
that she could not possibly enter the temple of Isis, and her refusal
had been accepted quite calmly, and without any argument or controversy.
She had not been able to refuse Gorgo’s request that she would repeat
to-day the rehearsal she had gone through yesterday, since, to all
appearance, her cooperation at the festival had been altogether given
up. How could the girl guess that the venerable philosopher, who had
listened with breathless admiration to their joint performance, had
taken upon himself to dissipate her doubts and persuade her into
compliance?

Olympius laid the greatest stress on Agne’s assistance, for every
one who clung to the worship of the old gods was to assemble in the
sanctuary of Isis; and the more brilliant and splendid the ceremony
could be made the more would that enthusiasm be fired which, only too
soon, would be put to crucial proof. On quitting the temple the crowd of
worshippers, all in holiday garb, were to pass in front of the Prefect’s
residence, and if only they could effect this great march through the
city in the right frame of mind, it might confidently be expected
that every one who was not avowedly Jew or Christian, would join
the procession. It would thus become a demonstration of overwhelming
magnitude and Cynegius, the Emperor’s representative, could not fail to
see what the feeling was of the majority of the towns folk, and what it
was to drive matters to extremes and lay hands on the chief temples of
such a city.

To Olympius the orator, grown grey in the exercise of logic and
eloquence, it seemed but a small matter to confute the foolish doubts
of a wilful girl. He would sweep her arguments to the winds as the
storm drives the clouds before it; and any one who had seen the two
together--the fine old man with the face and front of Zeus, with
his thoughtful brow and broad chest, who could pour forth a flood of
eloquence fascinatingly persuasive or convincingly powerful, and the
modest, timid girl--could not have doubted on which side the victory
must be.

To-day, for the first time, Olympius had found leisure for a prolonged
interview with his old friend Karnis, and while the girls were in
the garden, amusing little Papias by showing him the swans and tame
gazelles, the philosopher had made enquiries as to the Christian girl’s
history and then had heard a full account of the old musician’s past
life. Karnis felt it as a great favor that his old friend, famous now
for his learning--the leader of his fellow-thinkers in the second city
of the world, the high-priest of Serapis, to whose superior intellect
he himself had bowed even in their student days--should remember his
insignificant person and allow him to give him the history of the
vicissitudes which had reduced him--the learned son of a wealthy
house--to the position of a wandering singer.

Olympius had been his friend at the time when Karnis, on leaving
college, instead of devoting himself to business and accounts, as his
father wished, had thrown himself into the study of music, and at once
distinguished himself as a singer, lute-player and leader of heathen
choirs. Karnis was in Alexandria when the news reached him of his
father’s death. Before quitting the city he married Herse, who was
beneath him alike in birth and in fortune, and who accompanied him
on his return to Tauromenium in Sicily, where he found himself the
possessor of an inheritance of which the extent and importance greatly
astonished him.

At Alexandria he had been far better acquainted with the theatre than
with the Museum or the school of the Serapeum; nay, as an amateur, he
had often sung in the chorus there and acted as deputy for the regular
leader. The theatre in his native town of Tauromenium had also been a
famous one of old, but, at the time of his return, it had sunk to a very
low ebb. Most of the inhabitants of the beautiful city nestling at
the foot off Etna, had been converted to Christianity; among them the
wealthy citizens at whose cost the plays had been performed and the
chorus maintained. Small entertainments were still frequently given,
but the singers and actors had fallen off, and in that fine and spacious
theatre nothing was ever done at all worthy of its past glories. This
Karnis deeply regretted, and with his wonted energy and vigor he soon
managed to win the interest of those of his fellow-citizens who remained
faithful to the old gods and had still some feeling for the music and
poetry of the ancient Greeks, in his plans for their revival.

His purpose was to make the theatre the centre of a reaction against the
influence of the Christians, by vieing with the Church in its efforts
to win back the renegade heathen and confirming the faithful in
their adhesion. The Greeks of Tauromenium should be reminded from the
stage-boards of the might of the old gods and the glories of their past.
To this end it was needful to restore the ruined theatre, and Karnis,
after advancing the greater part of the money required, was entrusted
with the management. He devoted himself zealously to the task, and
soon was so successful that the plays at Tauromenium, and the musical
performances in its Odeum, attracted the citizens in crowds, and were
talked of far and wide. Such success was of course only purchased at
a heavy cost, and in spite of Herse’s warnings, Karnis would never
hesitate when the object in view was the preservation or advancement of
his great work.

Thus passed twenty years; then there came a day when his fine fortune
was exhausted, and a time when the Christian congregation strained every
nerve to deal a death-blow to the abomination of desolation in their
midst. Again and again, and with increasing frequency, there were
sanguinary riots between the Christians who forced their way into the
theatre and the heathen audience, till at last a decree of the Emperor
Theodosius prohibited the performance of heathen plays or music.

Now, the theatre at Tauromenium, for which Karnis had either given or
advanced his whole inheritance, had ceased to exist, and the usurers
who, when his own fortune was spent, had lent him moneys on the security
of the theatre itself--while it still flourished--or on his personal
security, seized his house and lands and would have cast him into the
debtor’s prison if he had not escaped that last disgrace by flight. Some
good friends had rescued his family and helped them to follow him, and
when they rejoined him he had begun his wanderings as a singer. Many
a time had life proved miserable enough; still, he had always remained
true to his art and to the gods of Olympus.

Olympius had listened to his narrative with many tokens of sympathy and
agreement, and when Karnis, with tears in his eyes, brought his story
to a close, the philosopher laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder and
drawing him towards him, exclaimed:

“Well done, my brave old comrade! We will both be faithful to the same
good cause! You have made sacrifices for it as I have; and we need not
despair yet. If we triumph here our friends in a thousand towns will
begin to look up. The reading of the stars last night, and the auguries
drawn from this morning’s victims, portend great changes. What is down
to the ground to-day may float high in the air to-morrow. All the signs
indicate: ‘A fall to the Greatest;’ and what can be greater than Rome,
the old tyrant queen of the nations? The immediate future, it is true,
can hardly bring the final crash, but it is fraught with important
consequences to us. I dreamed of the fall of the Caesars, and of a great
Greek Empire risen from the ruins, powerful and brilliant under the
special protection of the gods of Olympus; and each one of us must
labor to bring about the realization of this dream. You have set a noble
example of devotion and self-sacrifice, and I thank you in the name of
all those who feel with us--nay, in the name of the gods themselves whom
I serve! The first thing to be done now is to avert the blow which the
Bishop intends shall strike us by the hand of Cynegius--it has already
fallen on the magnificent sanctuary of the Apamaean Zeus. If the
ambassador retires without having gained his purpose the balance will
be greatly--enormously, in our favor, and it will cease to be a folly to
believe in the success of our cause.”

“Ah! teach us to hope once more,” cried the musician. “That in itself is
half the victory; still, I cannot see how this delay...”

“It would give us time, and that is what we want,” replied Olympius.
“Everything is in preparation, but nothing is ready. Alexandria, Athens,
Antioch, and Neapolis are to be the centres of the outbreak. The great
Libanius is not a man of action, and even he approves of our scheme. No
less a man than Florentin has undertaken to recruit for our cause among
the heathen officers in the army. Messala, and the great Gothic captains
Fraiut and Generid are ready to fight for the old gods. Our army will
not lack leaders...”

“Our army!” exclaimed Karnis in surprise. “Is the matter so far
advanced?”

“I mean the army of the future,” cried Olympius enthusiastically. “It
does not count a man as yet, but is already distributed into several
legions. The vigor of mind and body--our learned youth on one hand and
strong-armed peasantry on the other--form the nucleus of our force.
Maximus could collect, in the utmost haste, the army which deprived
Gratian of his throne and life, and was within a Hair-breadth of
overthrowing Theodosius; and what was he but an ambitious rebel, and
what tempted his followers but their hopes of a share in the booty? But
we--we enlist them in the name of the loftiest ideas and warmest desires
of the human heart, and, as the prize of victory, we show them the
ancient faith with freedom of thought--the ancient loveliness of life.
The beings whom the Christians can win over--a patch-work medley of
loathsome Barbarians--let them wear out their lives as they choose!
We are Greeks--the thinking brain, the subtle and sentient soul of the
world. The polity, the empire, that we shall found on the overthrow
of Theodosius and of Rome shall be Hellenic, purely Hellenic. The old
national spirit, which made the Greeks omnipotent against the millions
of Darius and Xerxes, shall live again, and we will keep the Barbarians
at a distance as a Patrician forbids his inferiors to count themselves
as belonging to his illustrious house. The Greek gods, Greek heroism,
Greek art and Greek learning, under our rule shall rise from the
dust--all the more promptly for the stringent oppression under which
their indomitable spirit has so long languished.”

“You speak to my heart!” cried Karnis. “My old blood flows more swiftly
already, and if I only had a thousand talents left to give...”

“You would stake them on the future Greek Empire,” said Olympius
eagerly. “And we have adherents without number who feel as you do,
my trusty friend. We shall succeed--as the great Julian would have
succeeded but for the assassins who laid him low at so early an age; for
Rome...”

“Rome is still powerful.”

“Rome is a colossus built up of a thousand blocks; but among them a
hundred and more be but loosely in their places, and are ready to drop
away from the body of the foul monster--sooner rather than later. Our
shout alone will shake them down, and they will fall on our side, we may
choose the best for our own use. Ere long--a few months only--the hosts
will gather in the champaign country at the foot of Vesuvius, by land
and by sea; Rome will open its gates wide to us who bring her back her
old gods; the Senate will proclaim the emperor deposed and the Republic
restored. Theodosius will come out against us. But the Idea for which
we go forth to fight will hover before us, will stir the hearts of those
soldiers and officers who would gladly--ah! how gladly-sacrifice to the
Olympian gods and who only kiss the wounds of the crucified Jew under
compulsion. They will desert from the labarum, which Constantine carried
to victory, to our standards; and those standards are all there, ready
for use; they have been made in this city and are lying hidden in the
house of Apollodorus. Heaven-sent daemons showed them in a vision to my
disciple Ammonius, when he was full of the divinity and lost in ecstasy,
and I have had them made from his instructions.”

“And what do they represent?”

“The bust of Serapis with the ‘modius’ on his head. It is framed in a
circle with the signs of the zodiac and the images of the great Olympian
deities. We have given our god the head of Zeus, and the corn-measure
on his head is emblematic of the blessing that the husbandman hopes for.
The zodiac promises us a good star, and the figures representing it
are not the common emblems, but each deeply significant. The Twins,
for instance, are the mariner’s divinities, Castor and Pollux; Hercules
stands by the Lion whom he has subdued; and the Fishes are dolphins,
which love music. In the Scales, one holds the cross high in the air
while the other is weighed down by Apollo’s laurel-wreath and the bolts
of Zeus; in short, our standard displays everything that is most dear
to the soul of a Greek or that fills him with devotion. Above all, Nike
hovers with the crown of victory. If only fitting leaders are to be
found at the centres of the movement, these standards will at once be
sent out, and with them arms for the country-folk. A place of meeting
has already been selected in each province, the pass-word will be given,
and a day fixed for a general rising.”

“And they will flock round you!” interrupted Karnis, “and--I, my son,
will not be absent. Oh glorious, happy, and triumphant day! Gladly will
I die if only I may first live to see the smoking offerings sending up
their fragrance to the gods before the open doors of every temple in
Greece; see the young men and maidens dancing in rapt enthusiasm to the
sound of lutes and pipes, and joining their voices in the chorus! Then
light will shine once more on the world, then life will once more mean
joy, and death a departure from a scene of bliss.”

“Aye, and thus shall it be!” cried Olympius, fired by this eager
exposition of his own excitement, and he wrung the musician’s hand.
“We will restore life to the Greeks and teach them to scorn death as of
yore. Let the Christians, the Barbarians, make life miserable and seek
joy in death, if they list! But the girls have ceased singing. There
is still much to be done to-day, and first of all I must confute the
objections of your recalcitrant pupil.”

“You will not find it an easy task,” said Karnis. “Reason is a feeble
weapon in contending with a woman.”

“Not always,” replied the philosopher. “But you must know how to use it.
Leave me to deal with the child. There are really no singing-women left
here; we have tried three, but they were all vulgar and ill taught. This
girl, when she sings with Gorgo, has a voice that will go to the heart
of the audience. What we want is to fire the crowd with enthusiasm, and
she will help us to do it.”

“Well, well. But you, Olympius, you who are the very soul of the
revulsion we hope for, you must not be present at the festival. Indeed,
sheltered as you are under Porphyrius’ roof, there is a price on your
head, and this house swarms with slaves, who all know you; if one of
them, tempted by filthy lucre...”

“They will not betray me,” smiled the philosopher. “They know that their
aged mistress, Damia, and I myself command the daemons of the upper
and lower spheres, and that at a sign from her or from me they would
instantly perish; and even if there were an Ephialtes among them, a
spring through that loop-hole would save me. Be easy, my friend. Oracles
and stars alike foretell me death from another cause than the treason of
a slave.”




CHAPTER X.

Olympius followed Agne into the garden where he found her sitting by the
marble margin of a small pool, giving her little brother pieces of bread
to feed the swans with. He greeted her kindly and, taking up the child,
showed him a ball which rose and fell on the jet of water from the
fountain. Papias was not at all frightened by the big man with his white
beard, for a bright and kindly gleam shone in his eyes, and his voice
was soft and attractive as he asked him whether he had such another ball
and could toss it as cleverly as the fountain did.

Papias said: “No,” and Olympius, turning to Agne, went on:

“You should get him a ball. There is no better plaything, for play ought
to consist in pleasant exertion which is in itself its object and gain.
Play is the toil of a little child; and a ball, which he can throw and
run after or catch, trains his eye, gives exercise to his limbs and
includes a double moral which men of every age and position should act
upon: To look down on the earth and keep his gaze on the heavens.”

Agne nodded agreement and thanks, while Olympius set the child down
and bid him run away to the paddock where some tame gazelles were kept.
Then, going straight to the point, he said:

“I hear you have declined to sing in the temple of Isis; you have been
taught to regard the goddess to whom many good men turn in faith and
confidence, as a monster of iniquity, but, tell me, do you know what she
embodies?”

“No,” replied Agne looking down; but she hastily rose from her seat and
added with some spirit: “And I do not want to know, for I am a Christian
and your gods are not mine.”

“Well, well; your beliefs, of course, differ from ours in many points:
still, I fancy that you and I have much in common. We belong to those
who have learnt to ‘look upwards’--there goes the ball, up again!--and
who find comfort in doing so. Do you know that many men believe that the
universe was formed by concurrence of mechanical processes and is still
slowly developing, that there is no divinity whose love and power guard,
guide and lend grace to the lives of men?”

“Oh! yes, I have been obliged to hear many such blasphemous things in
Rome!”

“And they ran off you like water off the silvery sheen of that swan’s
plumage as he dips and raises his neck. Those who deny a God are, in
your estimation, foolish or perhaps abominable?”

“I pity them, with all my heart.”

“And with very good reason. You are an orphan and what its parents are
to a child the divinity is to every member of the human race. In this
Gorgo, and I, and many others whom you call heathen, feel exactly as you
do; but you--have you ever asked yourself why and how it is that you, to
whom life has been so bitter, have such a perfect conviction that there
is a benevolent divinity who rules the world and your own fate to kindly
ends? Why, in short, do you believe in a God?”

“I?” said Ague, looking puzzled, but straight into his face. “How could
anything exist without God? You ask such strange questions. All I can
see was created by our Father in Heaven.”

“But there are men born blind who nevertheless believe in Him.”

“They feel Him just as I see Him.”

“Nay you should say: ‘As I believe that I see and feel Him.’ But I, for
my part, think that the intellect has a right to test what the soul only
divines, and that it must be a real happiness to see this divination
proved by well-founded arguments, and thus transformed to certainty. Did
you ever hear of Plato, the philosopher?”

“Yes, Karnis often speaks of him when he and Orpheus are discussing
things which I do not understand.”

“Well, Plato, by his intellect, worked out the proof of the problem
which our feelings alone are so capable of apprehending rightly. Listen
to me: If you stand on a spit of land at the entrance to a harbor and
see a ship in the distance sailing towards you--a ship which carefully
avoids the rocks, and makes straight for the shelter of the port--are
you not justified in concluding that there is, on board that ship, a man
who guides and steers it? Certainly. You not only may, but must infer
that it is directed by a pilot. And if you look up at the sky and
contemplate the well-ordered courses of the stars--when you see how
everything on earth, great and small, obeys eternal laws and unerringly
tends to certain preordained ends and issues, you may and must infer the
existence of a ruling hand. Whose then but that of the Great Pilot of
the universe--the Almighty Godhead.--Do you like my illustration?”

“Very much. But it only proves what I knew before.”

“Nevertheless, you must, I think, be pleased to find it so beautifully
expressed.”

“Certainly.”

“And must admire the wise man who thought out the comparison.
Yes?--Well, that man again was one of those whom you call heathen, who
believed as we believe, and who at the same time worked out the evidence
of the foundations of his faith for you as well as himself. And we,
the later disciples of Plato--[Known as the school of the
Neo-Platonists]--have gone even further than our master, and in many
respects are much nearer to you Christians than you perhaps suspect.
You see at once, of course, that we are no more inclined than you
to conceive of the existence of the world and the destiny of man as
independent of a God? However, I dare say you still think that your
divinity and ours are as far asunder as the east from the west. But can
you tell me where any difference lies?”

“I do not know,” said Ague uneasily. “I am only an ignorant girl; and
who can learn the names even of all your gods?”

“Very true,” said Olympius. “There is great Serapis, whose temple
you saw yesterday; there is Apollo, to whom Karnis prefers to offer
sacrifice; there is Isis the bountiful, and her sister Nephthys, whose
lament you and my young friend sing together so thrillingly; and besides
these there are more immortals than I could name while Gorgo--who is
leading your little brother to the lake out there--walked ten times from
the shore to us and back; and yet--and yet my child, your God is ours
and ours is yours.”

“No, no, He is not, indeed!” cried Agne with increasing alarm.

“But listen,” Olympius went on, with the same kind urgency but with
extreme dignity, “and answer my questions simply and honestly. We are
agreed, are we not?--that we perceive the divinity in the works of his
creation, and even in his workings in our own souls. Then which are the
phenomena of nature in which you discern Him as especially near to you?
You are silent. I see, you have outlived your school-days and do not
choose to answer to an uninvited catechism. And yet the things I wish
you to name are lovely in themselves and dear to your heart; and if only
you did not keep your soft lips so firmly closed, but would give me the
answer I ask for, you would remember much that is grand and beautiful.
You would speak of the pale light of dawn, the tender flush that tinges
the clouds as the glowing day-star rises from the waves, of the splendor
of the sun-as glorious as truth and as warm as divine love. You would
say: In the myriad blossoms that open to the morning, in the dew that
bathes them and covers them with diamonds, in the ripening ears in the
field, in the swelling fruit on the trees--in all these I see the mercy
and wisdom of the divinity. I feel his infinite greatness as I gaze on
the wide expanse of deep blue sea; it comes home to me at night when I
lift my eyes to the skies and see the sparkling hosts of stars roll over
my head. Who created that countless multitude, who guides them so that
they glide past in glorious harmony, and rise and set, accurately timed
to minutes and seconds, silent but full of meaning, immeasurably distant
and yet closely linked with the fate of individual men?--All this bears
witness to the existence of a God, and as you contemplate it and
admire it with thankful emotion, you feel yourself drawn near to the
Omnipotent. Aye, and even if you were deaf and blind, and lay bound and
fettered in the gloom of a closely-shut cavern, you still could feel if
love and pity and hope touched your heart. Rejoice then, child! for the
immortals have endowed you with good gifts, and granted you sound senses
by which to enjoy the beauty of creation. You exercise an art which
binds you to the divinity like a bridge; when you give utterance to your
whole soul in song that divinity itself speaks through you, and when you
hear noble music its voice appeals to your ear. All round you and within
you, you can recognize its power just as we feel it--everywhere and at
all times.

“And this incomprehensible, infinite, unfettered, bountiful and
infallibly wise Power, which penetrates and permeates the life of the
universe as it does the hearts of men, though called by different names
in different lands, is the same to every race, wherever it may dwell,
whatever its language or its beliefs. You Christians call him the
Heavenly Father, we give him the name of the Primal One. To you, too,
your God speaks in the surging seas, the waving corn, the pure light of
day; you, too, regard music which enchants your heart, and love which
draws man to man, as his gifts; and we go only a step further, giving a
special name to each phenomenon of nature, and each lofty emotion of
the soul in which we recognize the direct influence of the Most High;
calling the sea Poseidon, the corn-field Demeter, the charm of music
Apollo, and the rapture of love Eros. When you see us offering sacrifice
at the foot of a marble image you must not suppose that the lifeless,
perishable stone is the object of our adoration. The god does not
descend to inform the statue; but the statue is made after the Idea
figured forth by the divinity it is intended to represent; and through
that Idea the image is as intimately connected with the Godhead, as,
by the bond of Soul, everything else that is manifest to our senses is
connected with the phenomena of the supersensuous World. But this is
beyond you; it will be enough for you if I assure you that the statue of
Demeter, with the sheaf in her arms, is only intended to remind us to be
grateful to the Divinity for our daily bread--a hymn of praise to Apollo
expresses our thanks to the Primal One for the wings of music and song,
on which our soul is borne upwards till it feels the very presence of
the Most High. These are names, mere names that divide us; but if
you were called anything else than Agne--Ismene, for instance, or
Eudoxia--would you be at all different from what you are?--There you
see--no, stay where you are--you must listen while I tell you that
Isis, the much--maligned Isis, is nothing and represents nothing but the
kindly influences of the Divinity, on nature and on human life. What she
embodies to us is the abstraction which you call the loving-kindness of
the Father, revealed in his manifold gifts, wherever we turn our eyes.
The image of Isis reminds us of the lavish bounties of the Creator,
just as you are reminded by the cross, the fish, and the lamb, of your
Redeemer. Isis is the earth from whose maternal bosom the creative
God brings forth food and comfort for man and beast; she is the tender
yearning which He implants in the hearts of the lover and the beloved
one; she is the bond of affection which unites husband and wife, brother
and sister, which is rapture to the mother with a child at her breast
and makes her ready and able for any sacrifice for the darling she has
brought into the world. She shines, a star in the midnight sky, giving
comfort to the sorrowing heart; she, who has languished in grief, pours
balm into the wounded souls of the desolate and bereaved, and gives
health and refreshment to the suffering. When nature pines in winter
cold or in summer drought and lacks power to revive, when the sun is
darkened, when lies and evil instincts alienate the soul from its pure
first cause, then Isis uplifts her complaint, calling on her husband,
Osiris, to return, to take her once more in his arms and fill her with
new powers, to show the benevolence of God once more to the earth and
to us men. You have learnt that lament; and when you sing it at her
festival, picture yourself as standing with the Mother of Sorrows--the
mother of your crucified divinity, by his open grave, and cry to your
God that he may let him rise from the dead.”

Olympius spoke the last words with excited enthusiasm as though he were
certain of the young girl’s consent; but the effect was not what he
counted on; for Agne, who had listened to him, so far, with increasing
agitation, setting herself against his arguments like a bird under
the fascinating glare of the snake’s eye, at this last address seemed
suddenly to shake off the spell of his seductive eloquence as the leaves
drop from the crown of a tree shaken by the blast; the ideas of her
Saviour and of the hymn she was to sing were utterly irreconcilable
in her mind; she remembered the struggle she had fought out during the
night, and the determ

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