Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley (pocket ebook reader .txt) 📖
- Author: Charles Kingsley
Book online «Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley (pocket ebook reader .txt) 📖». Author Charles Kingsley
And as he spoke, the tramp and jingle of horsemen rang along the lane, approaching rapidly.
In an instant Victoria had sprung to her feet—weakness and pain had vanished.
‘There is one chance—one chance for him! Lift over the bank, sir! Lift over, while I run forward and meet them. My death will delay them long enough for you to save him!’
‘Death?’ cried Raphael, seizing her by the arm. ‘If that were all—’
‘God will protect His own,’ answered she calmly, laying her finger on her lips; and then breaking from his grasp in the strength of her heroism, vanished into the night.
Her father tried to follow her, but fell on his face, groaning. Raphael lifted him, strove to drag up the steep bank: but his knees knocked together; a faint sweat seemed to melt every limb.... There was a pause, which secured ages long.... Nearer and nearer came the trampling.... A sudden gleam of the moon revealed Victoria standing with outspread arms, right before the horses’ heads. A heavenly glory seemed to bathe her from head to foot.... or was it tears sparkling in his own eyes?.... Then the grate and jar of the horse-hoofs on the road, as they pulled up suddenly.... He turned his face away and shut his eyes....
‘What are you?’ thundered a voice.
‘Victoria, the daughter of Majoricus the Prefect.’
The voice was low, but yet so clear and calm, that every syllable rang through Aben-Ezra’s tingling ears....
A shout—a shriek—the confused murmur of many voices.... He looked up, in spite of himself-a horseman had sprung to the ground, and clasped Victoria in his arms. The human heart of flesh, asleep for many a year, leaped into mad life within his breast, and drawing his dagger, he rushed into the throng—
‘Villains! Hellhounds! I will balk you! She shall die first!’
And the bright blade gleamed over Victoria’s head.... He was struck down—blinded—half-stunned—but rose again with the energy of madness.... What was this? Soft arms around him.... Victoria’s!
‘Save him! spare him! He saved us! Sir! It is my brother! We are safe! Oh, spare the dog! It saved my father!’
‘We have mistaken each other, indeed, sir!’ said a gay young Tribune, in a voice trembling with joy. ‘Where is my father?’
‘Fifty yards behind. Down, Bran! Quiet! O Solomon, mine ancestor, why did you not prevent me making such an egregious fool of myself? Why, I shall be forced, in self-justification, to carry through the farce!’
There is no use telling what followed during the next five minutes, at the end of which time Raphael found himself astride of a goodly war-horse, by the side of the young Tribune, who carried Victoria before him. Two soldiers in the meantime were supporting the Prefect on his mule, and convincing that stubborn bearer of burdens that it was not quite so unable to trot as it had fancied, by the combined arguments of a drench of wine and two sword-points, while they heaped their general with blessings, and kissed his hands and feet.
‘Your father’s soldiers seem to consider themselves in debt to him: not, surely, for taking them where they could best run away?’
‘Ah, poor fellows!’ said the Tribune; ‘we have had as real a panic among us as I ever read of in Arrian or Polybius. But he has been a father rather than a general to them. It is not often that, out of a routed army, twenty gallant men will volunteer to ride back into the enemy’s ranks, on the chance of an old man’s breathing still.’
‘Then you knew where to find us?’ said Victoria.
‘Some of them knew. And he himself showed us this very by-road yesterday, when we took up our ground, and told us it might be of service on occasion—and so it has been.’
‘But they told me that you were taken prisoner. Oh, the torture I have suffered for you!’
‘Silly child! Did you fancy my father’s son would be taken alive? I and the first troop got away over the garden walls, and cut our way out into the plain, three hours ago.’
‘Did I not tell you,’ said Victoria, leaning toward Raphael, ‘that God would protect His own?’
‘You did,’ answered he; and fell into a long and silent meditation.
CHAPTER XIV: THE ROCKS OF THE SIRENS
THESE four months had been busy and eventful enough to Hypatia and to Philammon; yet the events and the business were of so gradual and uniform a tenor, that it is as well to pass quickly over them, and show what had happened principally by its effects.
The robust and fiery desert-lad was now metamorphosed into the pale and thoughtful student, oppressed with the weight of careful thought and weary memory. But those remembrances were all recent ones. With his entrance into Hypatia’s lecture-room, and into the fairy realms of Greek thought, a new life had begun for him; and the Laura, and Pambo, and Arsenius, seemed dim phantoms from some antenatal existence, which faded day by day before the inrush of new and startling knowledge.
But though the friends and scenes of his childhood had fallen back so swiftly into the far horizon, he was not lonely. His heart found a lovelier, if not a healthier home, than it had ever known before. For during those four peaceful and busy months of study there had sprung up between Hypatia and the beautiful boy one of those pure and yet passionate friendships—call them rather, with St. Augustine, by the sacred name of love—which, fair and holy as they are when they link youth to youth, or girl to girl, reach their full perfection only between man and woman. The unselfish adoration with which a maiden may bow down before some strong and holy priest, or with which an enthusiastic boy may cling to the wise and tender matron, who, amid the turmoil of the world, and the pride of beauty, and the cares of wifehood, bends down to with counsel and encouragement—earth knows no fairer bonds than these, save wedded love itself. And that second relation, motherly rather than sisterly, had bound Philammon with a golden chain to the wondrous maid of Alexandria.
From the commencement of his attendance in her lecture-room she had suited her discourses to what she fancied were his especial spiritual needs; and many a glance of the eye towards him, on any peculiarly important sentence, set the poor boy’s heart beating at that sign that the words were meant for him. But before a month was past, won by the intense attention with which he watched for every utterance of hers, she had persuaded her father to give a place in the library as one of his pupils, among the youths who were employed there daily in transcribing, as well as in studying, the authors then in fashion.
She saw him at first but seldom—more seldom than she would have wished; but she dreaded the tongue of scandal, heathen as
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