"The sibyls must have eyes like those!" and then aloud: "Arsinoë, do
you think that this work of yours will be understood?"
"What matters it, friend?" she answered, smiling gravely. Then she
added in a lower tone, as if communing with herself: "He will stretch
out His hands toward the world. He must be inexorable and terrible as
Mithra-Dionysus in all his strength and beauty; yet merciful and
humble...."
"What do you mean? is not that an impossible contradiction?"
"Who knows? For us, yes; but for the future...."
The sun was descending lower. Above him, on the horizon westward, a
storm-cloud was impending, and the last rays illumined the island with
a soft, almost melancholy, glow.
The shepherd lad and his companion approached Pan's altar to make
their evening sacrifice.
"Is it your belief, Arsinoë," continued Anatolius, "is it your faith
that unknown brothers of ours shall pick up the threads of our
existence, and, following the clue, go immeasurably farther than we?
Do you believe that all shall not perish in the barbaric gloom which
is sinking on Rome and Hellas? Ah, if that were so? If one could trust
the future...."
"Yes!" exclaimed Arsinoë, a prophetic gleam in her sombre eyes, "the
future is in us, in our madness and our anguish! Julian was right.
Content without glory, in silence, strangers to all, and solitary
among men, we must work out our work to the end. We must hide and
cherish the last, the utmost spark amongst the ashes of the altar,
that tribes and nations of the future may kindle from it new torches!
Where we finish they shall begin. Let Hellas die! Men shall dig up her
relics--unearth her divine fragments of marble, yea, over them shall
weep and pray! From our tombs shall the yellowed leaves of the books
we love be unsealed, and the ancient stories of Homer, the wisdom of
Plato, shall be spelt out slowly anew, as by little children. And with
Hellas, you and I shall live again!"
"And with us, revives the curse on us!" exclaimed Anatolius, "The
struggle between Olympus and Golgotha will begin over again!--Why? And
when shall that struggle end? Answer, sibyl, if thou canst!"
Arsinoë was silent, and her eyes fell. Then she glanced at Ammianus
and pointed to him--
"There is one who will answer you better than I. Like ours, his heart
is shared between Christ and Olympus, and yet he keeps the lucidity of
his soul."
Ammianus Marcellinus, putting aside the manuscript by Clement, had
been quietly listening to the discussion.
"In truth," said the Epicurean, addressing him, "we have now been
friends for more than four months, and yet I do not know whether you
are a Christian or a Hellenist?"
"Nor I myself," answered the young Ammianus frankly, with a blush.
"What? No torture of doubts? No suffering from the antagonism between
the Greek and the Christian doctrine?"
"No, my friend; I think that the two teachings in many points
agree...."
"But how--from what point of view--do you intend to write your account
of the Roman Empire? One of the two scales of the balance must sink
and the other rise?"
"Not consciously, I hope," answered the historian; "My aim is to be
just to both. Julian the Emperor I love, but even for him I shall be
impartial. No one shall know which side I join, any better than I know
myself...."
Anatolius had already proved the bravery, the chivalrous friendship of
Ammianus, and now he was daily discovering in him other qualities no
less rare.
"You are born to be a historian, Ammianus, to be the judge of our
passionate age, and to bring its warring philosophies, in some sort,
to a reconciliation!"
"I shall not be the first to do that," answered Ammianus. He rose to
his feet and pointing with enthusiasm to the parchment-rolls of the
great Christian master--
"All you suggest is already written here; and with far ampler powers
than mine. This is the _Patchwork_ of Clement of Alexandria, in which
he proves that the greatness of Rome and the philosophy of Hellas
paved the way for the teaching of Christ, and, by maxims and
numberless forecasts, made the first decided steps toward the earthly
kingdom of God. Plato is the forerunner of Jesus the Nazarene."
The last words, spoken with perfect simplicity, profoundly impressed
Anatolius. He seemed to remember the whole scene as from some previous
existence: the island flushed by that setting sun; the smell of tar on
board the galley; and the words of Ammianus. The vista of a new world
was momentarily opened to his mind.
Meanwhile the trireme was heading round the cape; the little wood of
cypress had almost disappeared behind the cliffs. Anatolius threw a
last look at the lad and girl before the altar of Pan. The girl was
pouring out the evening offering of goat's milk and honey; the boy
beginning to play on his reed-pipe. The thin blue smoke of sacrifice
could be seen rising above the wood after the human figures had
vanished and while the trireme made for open sea.
From the fore-part of the ship there came upon the silence a solemn
music; the old monks were chanting in unison their evening prayer....
But over the still water came faint and clear notes of another melody.
It was the little shepherd, piping his nocturnal hymn to Pan, the old
god of gaiety, of freedom and love.
Anatolius felt a thrill of wonder and surmise.
"_Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven_," the monks chanted.
The silvery notes of the shepherd's flute, floating high in the sky,
mingled with the words of the Christians.
The last beams faded from that happy islet, leaving it dull and
hueless in the midst of the sea. Both hymns ceased.
The wind blew sharply in the rigging and whipped up grey and white
waves. The straining galley-timbers creaked and groaned. Shadows
approached from the southward and the sea grew swiftly dark. Huge
clouds massed overhead, and from beyond the horizon came the first
long intermittent roll of thunder.
Night and Tempest, hand in hand, were striding on apace.