gone mad like the rest of the world. It wanted half an hour of the time
for her lecture. In the interval he might summon force enough to crush
all Alexandria. And turning suddenly, he darted out of the room and out
of the house.
"Stay here and stop her! Make a last appeal," cried he to Philammon,
with a gesture of grief. "Drag the horses' heads down, if you can! I
will be back in ten minutes." And he ran off for the nearest gate of
the Museum gardens.
On the other side of the gardens lay the courtyard of the palace. There
were gates in plenty communicating between them. If he could but see
Orestes, even alarm the guard in time!...
And he hurried through the walks and alcoves, now deserted by the
fearful citizens, to the nearest gate. It was fast and barricaded firmly
on the outside.
Terrified, he ran on to the next; it was barred also. He saw the reason
in a moment, and maddened as he saw it. The guards, careless about the
Museum, or reasonably fearing no danger from the Alexandrian populace
to the glory and wonder of their city, or perhaps wishing wisely enough
to concentrate their forces in the narrowest space, had contented
themselves with cutting off all communication with the gardens. At all
events, the doors leading from the Museum itself might be open. He
knew them, every one. He found an entrance, hurried through well-known
corridors to a postern through which he and Orestes had lounged a
hundred times. It was fast. He beat upon it; but no one answered. He
rushed on and tried another. No one answered there. Another--still
silence and despair!... He rushed up-stairs, hoping that from a window
above he might be able to call the guard. The prudent soldiers had
locked and barricaded the entrances to the upper floors of the whole
right wing, lest the palace court should be commanded from thence.
Whither now? Back--and whither then? And his breath failed him, his
throat was parched, his face burned as with the simoon wind, his legs
were trembling under him. His presence of mind, usually so perfect,
failed him utterly. He was baffled, netted. His brain, for the first
time in his life, began to reel. He could recollect nothing but that
something dreadful was to happen--and that he had to prevent it, and
could not.... Where was he now? In a little by-chamber. What was that
roar below?... A sea of weltering heads, thousands on thousands down
into the very beach; and from their innumerable throats one mighty
war-cry--"God, and the Mother of God!" Cyril's hounds were loose.... He
reeled from the window, and darted frantically away again ... whither,
he knew not, and never knew until his dying day.
Philammon saw Raphael rush across the streets into the Museum gardens.
His last words had been a command to stay where he was, and the boy
obeyed him, quietly ensconced himself behind a buttress, and sat coiled
up on the pavement ready for a desperate spring.
There Philammmon waited a full half-hour. It seemed to him hours, day,
years. And yet Raphael did not return; and yet no guards appeared.
What meant that black knot of men some two hundred yards off, hanging
about the mouth of the side street, just opposite the door which led to
her lecture-room? He moved to watch them; they had vanished. He lay down
again and waited.... There they were again. It was a suspicious post.
That street ran along the back of the Cæsareum, a favorite haunt of
monks, communicating by innumerable entries and back buildings with the
great church itself.... He knew that something terrible was at hand.
More than once he looked out from his hiding place--the knot of men were
still there; ... it seemed to have increased, to draw nearer. If they
found him, what would they not suspect? What did he care? He would die
for her if it came to that--not that it would come to that; but still he
must speak to her--he must warn her.
At last, a curricle, glittering with silver, rattled round the corner
and stopped opposite him. She must be coming now. The crowd had
vanished. Perhaps it was, after all, a fancy of his own. No; there
they were, peeping round the corner, close to the lecture-room--the
hell-hounds! A slave brought out an embroidered cushion, and then
Hypatia herself came forth, looking more glorious than ever; her lips
set in a sad, firm smile; her eyes uplifted, inquiring, eager, and yet
gentle, dimmed by some great inward awe, as if her soul were far away
aloft, and face to face with God.
In a moment he sprang up to her, caught her robe convulsively, threw
himself on his knees before her.
"Stop! Stay! You are going to destruction!"
Calmly she looked down upon him.
"Accomplice of witches! Would you make of Theon's daughter a traitor
like yourself?"
He sprang up, stepped back, and stood stupefied with shame and
despair....
She believed him guilty then!... It was the will of God!
The plumes of the horses were waving far down the street before he
recovered himself, and rushed after her, shouting he knew not what.
It was too late! A dark wave of men rushed from the ambuscade, surged
up round the car, ... swept forward.... She had disappeared, and, as
Philammon followed breathless, the horses galloped past him madly
homeward with the empty carriage.
Whither were they dragging her? To the Cæsareum, the church of God
Himself? Impossible! Why thither of all places of the earth? Why did
the mob, increasing momentarily by hundreds, pour down upon the beach,
and return brandishing flints, shells, fragments of pottery?
She was upon the church steps before he caught them up, invisible among
the crowd; but he could track her by the fragments of her dress.
Where were her gay pupils now? Alas! they had barricaded themselves
shamefully in the Museum at the first rush which swept her from the
door of the lecture-room. Cowards! He would save her.
And he struggled in vain to pierce the dense mass of parabolani and
monks, who, mingled with the fish-wives and dock workers, leaped and
yelled around their victim. But what he could not do another and a
weaker did--even the little porter. Furiously--no one knew how or
whence--he burst up, as if from the ground in the thickest of the crowd,
with knife, teeth and nails, like a venomous wild-cat, tearing his way
toward his idol. Alas! he was torn down himself, rolled over the steps,
and lay there half dead in an agony of weeping, as Philammon sprang up
past him into the church.
Yes! On into the church itself! Into the cool, dim shadow, with its
fretted pillars, and lowering domes, and candles, and incense, and
blazing altar, and great pictures looking down from the walls athwart
the gorgeous gloom. And right in front, above the altar, the colossal
Christ, watching unmoved from off the wall, his right hand raised to
give a blessing--or a curse!
On, up the nave, fresh shreds of her dress strewing the holy
pavement--up the chancel steps themselves--up to the altar--right
underneath the great, still Christ; and there even those hell-hounds
paused....
She shook herself free from her tormentors, and, springing back, rose
for one moment to her full height, naked, snow-white against the dusky
mass around--shame and indignation in those wide, clear eyes, but not
a stain of fear. With one hand she clasped her golden locks around her,
the other long, white arm was stretched upward toward the great, still
Christ, appealing--and who dare say, in vain?--from man to God. Her
lips were opened to speak; but the words that should have come from them
reached God's ear alone; for in an instant Peter struck her down, the
dark mass closed over her again, ... and then wail on wail, long, wild,
ear-piercing, rang along the vaulted roofs, and thrilled like the
trumpet of avenging angels through Philammon's ears.
Crushed against a pillar, unable to move in the dense mass, he pressed
his hands over his ears. He could not shut out those shrieks! When would
they end? What in the name of the God of mercy were they doing? Tearing
her piecemeal? Yes, and worse than that. And still the shrieks rang
on, and still the great Christ looked down on Philammon with that calm,
intolerable eye, and would not turn away. And over his head was written
in the rainbow, "I am the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever!" The
same as he was in Judæa of old, Philammon? Then what are these, and in
whose temple? And he covered his face with his hands and longed to die.
It was over. The shrieks had died away into moans; the moans to silence.
"Death Stands Above Me."
Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear;
Of this strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.
--_Walter Savage Landor_.
The Tournament
BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.
(_Arranged by Maude Herndon._)
[The scene from Ivanhoe is of the description of the grand
tournament, held by Prince John Lockland, at Ashby, in which
Robin Hood, under the disguise of Locksley, wins the prize for
his skill in archery.]
The sound of the trumpets soon recalled those spectators who had already
begun to leave the field; and proclamation was made that Prince John,
suddenly called by high and peremptory public duties, held himself
obliged to discontinue the entertainments of the morrow's festival.
Nevertheless, that, unwilling so many good yeomen should depart without
a trial of skill, he was pleased to appoint them, before leaving the
ground, to execute the competition of archery intended for the morrow.
To the best archer a prize was to be awarded, being a bugle-horn,
mounted with silver, and a silken baldric richly ornamented with a
medallion of St. Hubert, the patron of sylvan sport.
More than thirty yeomen at first presented themselves as competitors,
but when the archers understood with whom they were to be matched,
upwards to twenty withdrew themselves from the contest, unwilling to
encounter the dishonor of almost certain defeat.
The diminished list of competitors for sylvan fame still amounted to
eight. Prince John stepped from his royal seat to view the persons of
these chosen yeomen. He looked for the object of his resentment, whom
he observed standing on the same spot, and with the same composed
countenance which he had exhibited upon the preceding day.
"Fellow," said Prince John, "I guessed by thy insolent babble thou wert
no true lover of the long-bow, and I see thou darest not adventure thy
skill among such merry-men as stand yonder."
"Under favor, sir," replied the yeomen, "I have another reason for
refraining to shoot, besides the fearing discomfiture and disgrace."
"And what is thy other reason?" said Prince John.
"Because I know not if these yeomen and I are used to shoot at the same
marks; and because, moreover, I know not how your Grace might relish the
winning of a third prize by one who has unwillingly fallen under your
displeasure."
"What is thy name, yeoman?"
"Locksley," answered the yeoman.
"Then Locksley," said Prince John, "thou shalt shoot in thy turn, when
these yeomen have displayed their skill. If thou carriest the prize,
I will add to it twenty nobles; but if thou losest it, thou shalt
be stript of thy Lincoln green, and scourged out of the lists with
bowstrings, for a wordy and insolent braggart, and if thou refusest my
fair proffer, the Provost of the lists shall cut thy bowstring, break
thy bow and arrows, and expel thee from the presence as a faint-hearted
craven."
"This is no fair chance you put on me, proud Prince, to compel me to
peril myself against the best archers of Leicester and Staffordshire,
under the penalty of infamy if they should overshoot me. Nevertheless,
I will obey your pleasure."
A target was placed at the upper end of the southern avenue which led
to the lists. The contending archers took their station in turn, at the
bottom of the southern access; the distance between that station and the
mark allowing full distance for what was called a shot at rovers. The
archers, having previously determined by lot their order of precedence,
were to shoot each three shafts in succession.
One by one the archers, stepping forward, delivered their shafts
yeomanlike and bravely. Of twenty-four arrows, shot in succession, ten
were fixed in the target, and the others ranged so near it, that,
considering the distance of the mark, it was accounted good archery.
Of the ten shafts which hit the target, two within the inner ring were
shot by Hubert.
"Now, Locksley," said Prince John, "wilt thou try conclusions with
Hubert, or wilt thou yield up bow, baldric, and quiver, to the Provost
of the sports?"
"Sith it be no better, I am content to try my fortune; on condition that
when I have shot two shafts at yonder mark of Hubert's, he shall be
bound to shoot one at that which I propose."
"That is but fair," answered Prince John, "and it shall not be refused
thee. If thou beat this braggart, Hubert, I will fill the bugle with
silver pennies for thee."
The former target was now removed, and a fresh one of the same size
placed in its room. Hubert took his aim with great deliberation, long
measuring the distance with his eye, while he held in his hand his
bended bow, with the arrow placed on the string. At length he made a
step forward, and raising the bow at the full stretch of his left arm,
till the centre or grasping place was nigh level with his face, he
drew his bow-string to his ear. The arrow whistled through the air,
and lighted within the inner ring of the target, but not exactly in
the centre.
"You have not allowed for the wind, Hubert, or that had been a better
shot."
So saying, Locksley stept to the appointed station, and shot his arrow
as carelessly in appearance as if he had not even looked at the mark. He
was speaking almost at the instant that the shaft left the bow-string,
yet it alighted in the target two inches nearer to the white spot which
marked the centre, than that of Hubert.
"By the light of heaven!" said Prince John to Hubert, "and thou suffer
that runagate knave to overcome thee, thou art worthy of the gallows!"
"Shoot, knave, and shoot thy best, or it shall be the worse for thee!"
Thus exhorted, Hubert resumed his place, and not neglecting the caution
which he had received from his adversary, he made the necessary
allowance for a very light air of wind, which had just arisen, and
shot so successfully that his arrow alighted in the very centre of the
target.
"A Hubert! a Hubert!" shouted the populace, more interested in a known
person than in a stranger.
"Thou canst not mend that shot, Locksley," said the Prince with an
insulting smile.
"I will notch his shaft for him, however," replied Locksley.
And letting fly his arrow with a little more precaution than before, it
lighted right upon that of his competitor, which it split to shivers.
"This must be the devil, and no man of flesh and blood," whispered the
yeomen to each other; "such archery was never seen since a bow was first
bent in Britain."
"And now," said Locksley, "I will crave your Grace's permission to plant
such a mark as is used in the North Country; and welcome every brave
yeoman who shall try a shot at it to win a smile from the bonny lass he
loves best."
He then turned to leave the lists, but returned almost instantly with
a willow wand about six feet in length, perfectly straight, and rather
thicker than a man's thumb. He began to peel this with great composure,
observing at the same time that to ask a good woodsman to shoot at a
target so broad as had hitherto been used, was to put shame upon his
skill. "A child of seven years old might hit yonder target with a
headless shaft, but," added he, walking deliberately to the other end
of the lists, and, sticking the willow wand upright in the ground, "he
that hits that rod five-score yards, I call him an archer fit to bear
both bow and quiver before a king, and it were the stout King Richard
himself."
"My grandsire," said Hubert, "drew a good bow at the battle of Hastings,
and never shot at such a mark in his life--and neither will I. I might
as well shoot at the edge of our parson's whittle, or at a wheat straw,
or at a sunbeam, as at a twinkling white streak which I can hardly see."
"Cowardly dog!" said Prince John. "Sirrah Locksley, do thou shoot; but,
if thou hittest such a mark, I will say thou art the first man ever did
so. Howe'er it be, thou shalt not crow over us with a mere show of
superior skill."
"I will do my best, no man can do more."
So saying, he again bent his bow, but on the present occasion looked
with attention to his weapon, and changed the string, which he thought
was no longer truly round, having been a little frayed by the two former
shots. He then took his aim with some deliberation, and the multitude
awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer vindicated their
opinion of his skill; his arrow split the willow rod against which it
was aimed. A jubilee of acclamations followed; and even Prince John, in
admiration of Locksley's skill, lost for an instant his dislike to his
person. "These twenty nobles," he said, "which, with the bugle, thou
hast fairly won, are thine own; we will make them fifty, if thou wilt
take livery and service with us as a yeoman of our body guard, and be
near to our person. For never did so strong a hand bend a bow, or so
true an eye direct a shaft."
"Pardon me, noble Prince," said Locksley, "but I have vowed, that if
ever I take service, it should be with your royal brother, King Richard.
These twenty nobles I leave to Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave
a bow as his grandsire did at Hastings. Had his modesty not refused the
trial, he would have hit the wand as well as I."
Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the bounty of the
stranger; and Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, mixed
with the crowd, and was seen no more.
A Plea for the Old Year[F]
BY LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
I see the smiling New Year climb the heights--
The clouds, his heralds, turn the sky to rose,
And flush the whiteness of the winter snows,
Till Earth is glad with Life and Life's delight.
The weary Old Year died when died the night,
And this newcomer, proud with triumph, shows
His radiant face, and each glad subject knows
The welcome monarch, born to rule aright.
Yet there are graves far off that no man tends,
Where lie the vanished loves and hopes and fears,
The dreams that grew to be our hearts' best friends,
The smiles, and, dearer than the smiles, the tears--
These were that Old Year's gifts, whom none defends,
Now his strong Conqueror, the New, appears.
[F] Copyright, 1899, by Little, Brown & Co. (Reprinted by permission.)
Fagin's Last Day
(From Oliver Twist.)
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
[It will be remembered that Fagin was leader of a band of
thieves, and that little Oliver Twist had once been held in the
Jew's school for educating criminals. Through the influence of
Mr. Brownlow and some friends the kidnapped boy was rescued and
the Jew brought to justice.]
He sat down on a stone bench opposite the door, which served for a seat
and bedstead, and casting his bloodshot eyes upon the ground, tried
to collect his thoughts. After a while he began to remember a few
disjointed fragments of what the judge had said, though it had seemed
to him, at the time, that he could not hear a word. These gradually fell
into their proper places, and by degrees suggested more; so that in a
little time he had the whole almost as it was delivered. To be hanged
by the neck till he was dead--that was the end--to be hanged by the neck
till he was dead!
As it came on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known
who had died upon the scaffold, some of them through his means. They
rose up in such quick succession that he could hardly count them. He
had seen some of them die--and had joked, too, because they died with
prayers upon their lips. With what a rattling noise the drop went down,
and how suddenly they changed, from strong and vigorous men to dangling
heaps of clothes!
Some of them might have inhabited that very cell--sat upon that very
spot. It was very dark; why didn't they bring a light? The cell had been
built for many years. Scores of men must have passed their last hours
there. It was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead bodies--the cap,
the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew, even beneath that
hideous veil. Light, light!
At length, when his hands were raw with beating against the heavy door
and walls, two men appeared--one bearing a candle, which he thrust into
an iron candlestick fixed against the wall; the other dragging in a
mattress on which to pass the night, for the prisoner was to be left
alone no more.
Then came night--dark, dismal, silent night. Other watchers are glad to
hear the church clock strike, for they tell of life and coming day. To
the Jew they brought despair. The boom of every iron bell came laden
with the one, deep, hollow sound--death! What availed the noise and
bustle of cheerful morning which penetrated even there to him? It was
another form of knell, with mockery added to the warning.
The day passed off. Day? There was no day. It was gone as soon as come;
and night came on again--night so long, and yet so short; long in its
dreadful silence, and short in its fleeting hours. At one time he raved
and blasphemed, and at another howled and tore his hair. Venerable men
of his own persuasion had come to pray beside him, but he had driven
them away with curses. They renewed their charitable efforts, and he
beat them off.
Saturday night. He had only one night more to live. And as he thought
of this the day broke--Sunday.
It was not until the night of this last awful day that a withering sense
of his helpless, desperate state came in its full intensity upon his
blighted soul; not that he had ever held any defined or positive hope
of mercy, but that he had never been able to consider more than the dim
probability of dying so soon. He had spoken little to either two men,
who relieved each other in their attendance upon him; and they, for
their parts, made no effort to rouse his attention. He had sat there
awake, but dreaming. Now, he started up every minute, and with gasping
mouth and burning skin, hurried to and fro in such a paroxysm of fear
and wrath that even they--used to such sights--recoiled from him with
horror. He grew so terrible, at last, in all the tortures of his evil
conscience, that one man could not bear to sit there, eyeing him alone,
and so the two kept watch together.
He cowed down upon his stone bed, and thought of the past. He had been
wounded with some missiles from the crowd on the day of his capture,
and his head was bandaged with a linen cloth. His red hair hung down
upon his bloodless face; his beard was torn, and twisted into knots; his
eyes shone with a terrible light; his unwashed flesh crackled with the
fever that burnt him up. Eight--nine--ten. If it was not a trick to
frighten him, and those were the real hours treading on each other's
heels, where would he be, when they came round again? Eleven! Another
struck, before the voice of the previous hour had ceased to vibrate. At
eight he would be the only mourner in his own funeral train; at eleven--
Those dreadful walls of Newgate, which have hidden so much misery and
such unspeakable anguish, not only from the eyes, but, too often and too
long, from the thoughts of men, never held so dread a spectacle as that.
The few who lingered as they passed, and wondered what the man was doing
who was to be hung to-morrow, would have slept but ill that night if
they could have seen him.
From early in the evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two
and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate and inquired, with
anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received. These being
answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to
clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from
which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built,
and walking with unwilling steps away, turned back to conjure up the
scene. By degrees they fell off, one by one; and, for an hour in the
dead of night, the street was left to solitude and darkness.
The space before the prison was cleared, and a few strong barriers,
painted black, had been already thrown across the road to break the
pressure of the expected crowd, when Mr. Brownlow and Oliver appeared at
the wicket, and presented an order of admission to the prisoner, signed
by one of the sheriffs. They were immediately admitted into the lodge.