Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley (pocket ebook reader .txt) 📖

Christian rose hastily to depart, touched with real remorse and shame at the horrors of which they had been the willing witnesses. The common people behind, having glutted their curiosity with all that there was to see, began openly to murmur at the cruelty and heathenry of it. Hypatia, utterly unnerved, hid her face in both her hands. Orestes alone rose with the crisis. Now, or never, was the time for action; and stepping forward, with his most graceful obeisance, waved his hand for silence, and began his well-studied oration.

‘Let me not, O men of Macedonia, suppose that you can be disturbed from that equanimity which befits politicians, by so light an accident as the caprice of a dancer. The spectacle which I have had the honour and delight of exhibiting to you—(Roars and applause from the liberated prisoners and the young gentlemen)—and on which it seemed to me you have deigned to look with not altogether unkindly eyes—(Fresh applause, in which the Christian mob, relenting, began to join)—is but a pleasant prelude to that more serious business for which I have drawn you here together. Other testimonials of my good intentions have not been wanting in the release of suffering innocence, and in the largess of food, the growth and natural property of Egypt, destined by your late tyrants to pamper the luxury of a distant court.... Why should I boast?—yet even now this head is weary, these limbs fail me, worn out in ceaseless efforts for your welfare, and in the perpetual administration of the strictest justice. For a time has come in which the Macedonian race, whose boast is the gorgeous city of Alexander, must rise again to the political pre-eminence which they held of old, and becoming once more the masters of one-third of the universe, be treated by their rulers as freemen, citizens, heroes, who have a right to choose and to employ their rulers—Rulers, did I say? Let us forget the word, and substitute in its place the more philosophic term of ministers. To be your minister—the servant of you all—To sacrifice myself, my leisure, health, life, if need be, to the one great object of securing the independence of Alexandria—This is my work, my hope, my glory—longed for through weary years: now for the first time possible by the fall of the late puppet Emperor of Rome. Men of Macedonia, remember that Honorius reigns no more! An African sits on the throne of the Caesars! Heraclian, by one decisive victory, has gained, by the favour of—of Heaven, the imperial purple; and a new era opens for the world. Let the conqueror of Rome balance his account with that Byzantine court, so long the incubus of our Trans-Mediterranean wealth and civilisation; and let a free, independent, and united Africa rally round the palaces and docks of Alexandria, and find there its natural centre of polity and of prosperity.’

A roar of hired applause interrupted him and not a few, half for the sake of his compliments and fine words, half from a natural wish to be on the right side—namely, the one which happened to be in the ascendant for the time being—joined.... The city authorities were on the point of crying, ‘Imperator Orestes,’ but thought better of it; and waited for some one else to cry first—being respectable. Whereon the Prefect of the Guards, being a man of some presence of mind, and also not in anywise respectable, pricked up the Prefect of the docks with the point of his dagger, and bade him, with a fearful threat, take care how he played traitor. The worthy burgher roared incontinently—whether with pain or patriotism; and the whole array of respectabilities—having found a Curtius who would leap into the gulf, joined in unanimous chorus, and saluted Orestes as Emperor; while Hypatia, amid the shouts of her aristocratic scholars, rose and knelt before him, writhing inwardly with shame and despair, and entreated him to accept that tutelage of Greek commerce, supremacy, and philosophy which was forced on him by the unanimous voice of an adoring people....

‘It is false!’ shouted a voice from the highest tiers, appropriated to the women of the lower classes, which made all turn their heads in bewilderment.

‘False! false! you are tricked! He is tricked! Heraclian was utterly routed at Ostia, and is fled to Carthage, with the emperor’s fleet in chase.’

‘She lies! Drag the beast down!’ cried Orestes, utterly thrown off his balance by the sudden check.

‘She? He! I, a monk, brought the news! Cyril has known it—every Jew in the Delta has known it, for a week past! So perish all the enemies of the Lord, caught in their own snare!’

And bursting desperately through the women who surrounded him, the monk vanished.

An awful silence fell on all who heard. For a minute every man looked in his neighbour’s face as if he longed to cut his throat, and get rid of one witness, at least, of his treason. And then arose a tumult, which Orestes in vain attempted to subdue. Whether the populace believed the monk’s words or not, they were panic-stricken at the mere possibility of their truth. Hoarse with denying, protesting, appealing, the would-be emperor had at last to summon his guards around him and Hypatia, and make his way out of the theatre as best he could; while the multitude melted away like snow before the rain, and poured out into the streets in eddying and roaring streams, to find every church placarded by Cyril with the particulars of Heraclian’s ruin.