Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley

  CHAPTER XXIII: NEMESIS

  That evening was a hideous one in the palace of Orestes. His agoniesof disappointment, rage, and terror were at once so shameful and sofearful, that none of his slaves dare approach him; and it was not tilllate that his confidential secretary, the Chaldean eunuch, driven byterror of the exasperated Catholics, ventured into the tiger's den, andrepresented to him the immediate necessity for action.

  What could he do? He was committed--Cyril only knew how deeply. Whatmight not the wily archbishop have discovered? What might not he pretendto have discovered? What accusations might he not send off on the spotto the Byzantine Court?

  'Let the gates be guarded, and no one allowed to leave the city,'suggested the Chaldee.

  'Keep in monks? as well keep in rats! No; we must send off acounter-report, instantly.'

  'What shall I say, your Excellency?' quoth the ready scribe, pulling outpen and inkhorn from his sash.

  'What do I care? Any lie which comes to hand. What in the devil's nameare you here for at all, but to invent a lie when I want one?'

  'True, most noble,' and the worthy sat meekly down to his paper.... butdid not proceed rapidly.

  'I don't see anything that would suit the emergency, unless I stated,with your august leave, that Cyril, and not you, celebrated thegladiatorial exhibition; which might hardly appear credible?'

  Orestes burst out laughing, in spite of himself. The sleek Chaldeesmiled and purred in return. The victory was won; and Orestes, somewhatmore master of himself, began to turn his vulpine cunning to the oneabsorbing question of the saving of his worthless neck.

  'No, that would be too good. Write, that we had discovered a plot onCyril's part to incorporate the whole of the African churches (mind andspecify Carthage and Hippo) under his own jurisdiction, and to throw offallegiance to the Patriarch of Constantinople, in case of Heraclian'ssuccess.'

  The secretary purred delighted approval, and scribbled away now withright good heart.

  'Heraclian's success, your Excellency.'

  'We of course desired, by every means in our power, to gratify thepeople of Alexandria, and, as was our duty, to excite by every lawfulmethod their loyalty toward the throne of the Caesars (never mind whosat on it) at so critical a moment.'

  'So critical a moment....'

  'But as faithful Catholics, and abhorring even in the extremest need,the sin of Uzzah, we dreaded to touch with the unsanctified handsof laymen the consecrated ark of the Church, even though for itspreservation....'

  'Its preservation, your Excellency....'

  'We, therefore, as civil magistrates, felt bound to confine ourselvesto those means which were already allowed by law and custom to ourjurisdiction; and accordingly made use of those largesses, spectacles,and public execution of rebels, which have unhappily appeared to hisholiness the patriarch (too ready, perhaps, to find a cause of complaintagainst faithful adherents of the Byzantine See) to partake of thenature of those gladiatorial exhibitions, which are equally abhorrentto the spirit of the Catholic Church, and to the charity of the saintedemperors by whose pious edicts they have been long since abolished.'

  'Your Excellency is indeed great.... but--pardon your slave's remark--mysimplicity is of opinion that it may be asked why you did not inform theAugusta Pulcheria of Cyril's conspiracy?'

  'Say that we sent a messenger off three months ago, but that.... Makesomething happen to him, stupid, and save me the trouble.'

  'Shall I kill him by Arabs in the neighbourhood of Palmyra, yourExcellency?'

  'Let me see.... No. They may make inquiries there. Drown him at sea.Nobody can ask questions of the sharks.'

  'Foundered between Tyre and Crete, from which sad calamity only one manescaped on a raft, and being picked tip, after three weeks' exposure tothe fury of the elements, by a returning wheat-ship--By the bye, mostnoble, what am I to say about those wheat-ships not having even sailed?'

  'Head of Augustus! I forgot them utterly. Say that--say that the plaguewas making such ravages in the harbour quarter that we feared carryingthe infection to the seat of the empire; and let them sail to-morrow.'

  The secretary's face lengthened.

  'My fidelity is compelled to remark, even at the risk of your justindignation, that half of them have been unloaded again for yourmunificent largesses of the last two days.'

  Orestes swore a great oath.

  'Oh, that the mob had but one throat, that I might give them an emetic!Well, we must buy more corn, that's all.'

  The secretary's face grew longer still.

  'The Jews, most August--'

  'What of them?' yelled the hapless Prefect. 'Have they beenforestalling?'

  'My assiduity has discovered this afternoon that they have been buyingup and exporting all the provisions which they could obtain.'

  'Scoundrels! Then they must have known of Heraclian's failure!'

  'Your sagacity has, I fear, divined the truth. They have been bettinglargely against his success for the last week, both in Canopus andPelusium.'

  'For the last week! Then Miriam betrayed me knowingly!' And Orestesbroke forth again into a paroxysm of fury.

  'Here--call the tribune of the guard! A hundred gold pieces to the manwho brings me the witch alive!'

  'She will never be taken alive.'

  'Dead, then--in any way! Go, you Chaldee hound! what are you hesitatingabout?'

  'Most noble lord,' said the secretary, prostrating himself upon thefloor, and kissing his master's feet in an agony of fear....

  'Remember, that if you touch one Jew you touch all! Remember the bonds!remember the--the--your own most august reputation, in short.'

  'Get up, brute, and don't grovel there, but tell me what you mean, likea human being. If old Miriam is once dead, her bonds die with her, don'tthey?'

  'Alas, my lord, you do not know the customs of that accursed folk. Theyhave a damnable practice of treating every member of their nation as abrother, and helping each freely and faithfully without reward; wherebythey are enabled to plunder all the rest of the world, and thrivethemselves, from the least to the greatest. Don't fancy that your bondsare in Miriam's hands. They have been transferred months ago. Yourreal creditors may be in Carthage, or Rome, or Byzantium, and they willattack you from thence; while all that you would find if you seized theold witch's property, would be papers, useless to you, belonging toJews all over the empire, who would rise as one man in defence of theirmoney. I assure you, it is a net without a bound. If you touch one youtouch all.... And besides, my diligence, expecting some such command,has already taken the liberty of making inquiries as to Miriam's placeof abode; but it appears, I am sorry to say, utterly unknown to any ofyour Excellency's servants.'

  'You lie!' said Orestes.... 'I would much sooner believe that you havebeen warning the hag to keep out of the way.'

  Orestes had spoken, for that once in his life, the exact truth.

  The secretary, who had his own private dealings with Miriam, felt everyparticular atom of his skin shudder at those words; and had he had hairon his head, it would certainly have betrayed him by standing visibly onend. But as he was, luckily for him, close shaven, his turban remainedin its proper place, as he meekly replied-- 'Alas! a faithful servant canfeel no keener woe than the causeless suspicion of that sun before whoserays he daily prostrates his--'

  'Confound your periphrases! Do you know where she is?'

  'No!' cried the wretched secretary, driven to the lie direct at last;and confirmed the negation with such a string of oaths, that Orestesstopped his volubility with a kick, borrowed of him, under threat oftorture, a thousand gold pieces as largess to the soldiery, and endedby concentrating the stationaries round his own palace, for the doublepurpose of protecting himself in case of a riot, and of increasing thechances of the said riot, by leaving the distant quarters of the citywithout police.

  'If Cyril would but make a fool of himself, now that he is in thefull-blown pride of victory--the rascal!--about that Ammonius, or aboutHypatia, or
anything else, and give me a real handle against him! Afterall, truth works better than lying now and then. Oh, that I could poisonhim! But one can't bribe those ecclesiastics; and as for the dagger, onecould not hire a man to be torn in pieces by monks. No; I must just sitstill, and see what Fortune's dice may turn up. Well, your pedants likeAristides or Epaminondas--thank Heaven, the race of them has diedout long ago!--might call this no very creditable piece of provinciallegislation; but after all, it is about as good as any now going, orlikely to be going till the world's end; and one can't be expected tostrike out a new path. I shall stick to the wisdom of my predecessors,and--oh, that Cyril may make a fool of himself to-night!'

  And Cyril did make a fool of himself that night, for the first and lasttime in his life; and suffers for it, as wise men are wont to do whenthey err, to this very day and hour: but how much Orestes gained by hisfoe's false move cannot be decided till the end of this story; perhapsnot even then.