Gorgo sat by the bed of her apparently lifeless father, gazing fondly at
the worn and wax-like features, and listening to his breathing, now soft
and easy and again painful and convulsive, as it fluttered through his
nostrils. She held his cold damp hand tightly clasped, or stroked it
gently, or now and then, when his closed eyelids quivered, raised it
tenderly to her lips.
The room in which they were lay on one side of the hypostyle and behind
the right-hand--or western--colonnade; more forward, therefore, than
the veiled statue and to its left hand. The noise of the toilers at the
barricade and the crash of the blows of the battering-ram came up from
just below, and at each thud of the engine the senseless man started
convulsively and a look of intense pain crossed his face. But, though
it was indeed grievous to Gorgo to see her father suffering, though she
told herself again and again that, ere long, the sanctuary must fall
into the hands of the Christians, she felt safe, thankful and sheltered
up here, in her old friend’s half-lighted and barely-furnished room,
shut off, at any rate, from the frenzied wretches of whom she thought
only with loathing and fear.
She was wearied out with her night of unrest, but the agitation and
excitement she had gone through were still vividly present to her mind,
and even on the comfortable couch in her own snug room at home her
perturbed spirit would have prevented her sleeping. Her brain was still
in a ferment, and here, in comparative peace, she had time to think over
all she had gone through during the last few hours, and the catastrophes
that had befallen her grandmother and her father. She had exchanged but
few words with the physician, who was still unceasingly busy in trying
to restore his patient to consciousness, and who had assured her that he
had every hope of her father’s recovery.
But at length the girl looked up with an eager gaze and said, sadly
enough: “You said something about an antidote to poison, Apuleius? Then
my father tried to escape the final destruction by attempting to kill
himself.--Is it so?”
The leech looked at her keenly, and after confirming her suspicion and
explaining to her exactly how the fateful deed had been accomplished, he
went on:
“The storm had completely unnerved him--it unmanned us all--and yet that
was only the prelude to the tremendous doom which is hanging over
the universe. It is at hand; we can hear its approach; the stones are
yielding! the Christian’s engines are opening the way for it to enter!”
Apuleius spoke in a tone of sinister foreboding, and the falling stones
dislodged by the battering-ram thundered a solemn accompaniment to his
prophecy. Gorgo, turned pale; but it was not the physician’s ominous
speech that alarmed her, but the quaking of the walls of the room.
Still, the Serapeum was built for eternity; the ram might bring down a
wall, but it could not destroy or even shake the building itself.
Outside, the hubbub of fighting men grew louder and louder every minute,
and Apuleius, increasingly anxious, went to the door to listen. Gorgo
could see that his hands trembled! he--a man--was frightened, while
she felt no anxiety but for her suffering father! Through that breach
Constantine would enter--and where he commanded she was safe. As to
the destruction of the universe--she no longer believed in it. When the
physician turned round and saw her calmly and quietly wiping the cold
drops from the sick man’s brow, he said gloomily: “Of what use is it to
shut our eyes like the ostrich. They are fighting down there for life
or death--we had better prepare for the end. If they venture--and they
will--to lay a sacrilegious hand on the god, besiegers and besieged
alike--the whole world together, must perish.”
But Gorgo shook her head. “No, no,” she cried, with zealous confidence.
“No, Apuleius, Serapis is not what you believe him to be; for, if he
were, would he suffer his enemies to overthrow his temple and his image?
Why does he not, at this supreme moment, inspire his worshippers
with courage? I have seen the men--mere boys--and the women who have
assembled here to fight for him. They are nothing but drivellers and
triflers. If the master is like his men it serves him right if he is
overthrown; to weep for him would be waste of woe!”
“And can the daughter of Porphyrius say this?” exclaimed the leech.
“Yes, Apuleius, yes. After what I have seen, and heard, and endured this
night, I cannot speak otherwise. It was shameful, horrible, sickening;
I could rage at the mere thought of being supposed to be one of that
debased crew. It is disgrace and ignominy even to be named in the same
breath! A god who is served as this god has been is no god of mine! And
you--you are learned--a sage and a philosopher--how can you believe that
the God of the Christians when he has conquered and crippled yours, will
ever permit Serapis to destroy His world and the men He created?”
Apuleius drew himself up. “Are you then a Christian?” he asked swiftly
and sternly.
But Gorgo could not reply; she colored deeply and Apuleius vehemently
repeated his question: “Then you really are a Christian?”
She looked frankly in his face: “No,” she said, “I am not; but I wish I
were.”
The physician turned away with a shrug; but Gorgo drew a breath of
relief, feeling that her avowal had lifted a heavy burthen from her
soul. She hardly knew how the bold and momentous confession had got
itself spoken, but she felt that it was the only veracious answer to the
physician’s question.
They spoke no more; she was better pleased to remain silent, for her own
utterance had opened out to her a new land of promise--of feeling and of
thought.
Her lover henceforth was no longer her enemy; and as the tumult of the
struggle by the breach fell on her ear, she could think with joy of
his victorious arms. She felt that this was the purer, the nobler, the
better cause; and she rejoiced in the love of which he had spoken as the
support and the stay of their future life together--as sheltering them
like a tower of strength and a mighty refuge. Compared with that love
all that she had hitherto held dear or indispensable as gracing life,
now seemed vain and worthless; and as she looked at her father’s still
face, and remembered how he had lived and what he had suffered, she
applied those words of Paul which Constantine had spoken at their
meeting after his return, to him, too; and her heart overflowed with
affection towards her hapless parent. She knew full well the meaning of
the deep lines that marked his lips and brow; for Porphyrius had never
made any secret of his distress and vexation whenever he found himself
compelled to confess a creed in which he did not honestly believe. This
great falsehood and constant duplicity, this divided allegiance to two
masters, had poisoned the existence of a man by nature truthful; and
Gorgo knew for whose sake and for what reasons he had subjected himself
to this moral martyrdom. It was a lesson to her to see him lying
there, and his look of anguish warned her to become, heart and soul,
a Christian as she felt prompted. She would confess Christ for love’s
sake-aye, for love’s sake; for in this hour the thing she saw most
clearly in the faith which she purposed to adopt, and of which
Constantine had so often spoken to her with affectionate enthusiasm, was
Everlasting Love.
Never in her life had she felt so much at peace, so open to all that was
good and beautiful; and yet, outside, the strife grew louder and more
furious; the Imperial tuba sounded above the battle-cry of the heathen,
and the uproar of the struggle came nearer and nearer.
The battering-ram had made a large breach in the southern wall, and,
protected by their shed, the heavy-armed infantry of the twenty-second
legion had forced their way up; but many a veteran had paid for his
rashness with his life, for the storming party had been met by a perfect
shower of arrows and javelins. Still, the great shield had turned many a
spear, and many an arrow had glanced harmless from the brazen armor and
helmets; the men that had escaped pressed onwards, while fresh ranks
of soldiers made their way in, over the bodies of the fallen. The
well-drilled foe came creeping up to the barricade on their knees, and
protected by bronze bucklers, while others, in the rear, flung lances
and arrows over their heads at the besieged. A few of the heathen fell,
and the sight of their blood had a wonderful effect on their comrades.
Rage surged up in the breasts of the most timid, and fear vanished
before the passion for revenge; cowardice turned to martial ardor, and
philosophers and artists thirsted for blood. The red glare of strife
danced before the eyes of the veriest book-worm; fired by the terrible
impulse to kill, to subdue, to destroy the foe, they fought desperately
and blindly, staking their lives on the issue.
Karnis, that zealous votary of the Muses, stood with Orpheus, on the
very top of the barricade throwing lance after lance, while he sang at
the top of his voice snatches of the verses of Tyrtaeus, in the teeth,
as it were, of the foe who were crowding through the breach; the sweat
streamed from his bald head and his eye flashed fire. By his side stood
his son, sending swift arrows from an enormous bow. The heavy curls of
his hair had come unbound and fell over his flushed face. When he hit
one of the Imperial soldiers his father applauded him eagerly; then,
collecting all his strength, flung another lance, chanting a hexameter
or a verse of an ode. Herse crouched half hidden behind a sacrificial
stone which lay at the top of the hastily-constructed rampart, and
handed weapons to the combatants as they needed them. Her dress was torn
and blood-stained, her grey hair had come loose from the ribbands and
crescent that should have confined it; the worthy matron had become a
Megaera and shrieked to the men: “Kill the dogs! Stand steady! Spare
never a Christian!”
But the little garrison needed no incitement; the fevered zeal which
possessed them wholly, seconded their thirst for blood and doubled their
strength.
An arrow, shot by Orpheus, had just glanced over the breastplate and
into the throat of a centurion who had already set foot on the lowest
step, when Karnis suddenly dropped the spear he was preparing to fling
and fell without a cry. A Roman lance had hit him, and he lay transfixed
by the side of a living purple fount, like a rock in the surf from which
a sapling has sprung. Orpheus saw his father’s life-blood flowing and
fell on his knees by his side; but the old man pointed to the bow that
his son had cast aside and murmured eagerly: “Leave me--let me be. What
does it matter about me? Fight--for the gods--I say. For the gods! Go
on, aim truly!”
But the lad would not leave the dying man, and seeing how deeply the
spear had struck to the old man’s heart he groaned aloud, throwing up
his arms in despair. Then an arrow hit his shoulder, another pierced
his neck, and he, too, fell gasping for breath. Karnis saw him drop, and
painfully raised himself a little to help him; but it was too much
for him; he could only clench his fist in helpless fury and chant,
half-singing, half-speaking, as loud he was able, Electra’s curse:
“This my last prayer, ye gods, do not disdain!
For them turn day to night and joy to pain!”
But the heavy infantry, who by this time were crowding through the
breach, neither heard nor heeded his curse. He lost consciousness and
did not recover it till Herse, after lifting up her son and propping him
against a plinth, pressed a cloth against the stump of the lance
still remaining in the wound to staunch the swiftly flowing blood, and
sprinkled his brow with wine. He felt her warm tears on his face, and as
he looked up into her kind, faithful eyes, brimming over with tears of
sympathy and regret, his heart melted to tenderness. All the happiest
hours of the life they had spent together crowded on his memory; he
answered her glance with a loving and grateful gaze and painfully held
out his hand. Herse pressed it to her lips, weeping bitterly; but he
smiled up at her, nodding his head and repeating again and again the
line from Lucian: “Be comforted: you, too, must soon follow.”
“Yes, yes--I shall follow soon,” she repeated with sobs. “Without you,
without either of you, without the gods--what would become of me here.”
And she turned to her son who, fully conscious, had followed every word
and every gesture of his parents and tried himself to say something. But
the arrow in his neck choked his breath, and it was such agony to speak
that he could only say hoarsely: “Father mother!” But these poor words
were full of deep love and gratitude, and Karnis and Herse understood
all he longed to express.
Tears choked the poor woman’s utterance so that neither of the three
could say another word, but they were at any rate close together, and
could look lovingly in each other’s eyes. Thus passed some few minutes
of peace for them, in spite of the blare of trumpets, and shrieks and
butchery; but Herse’s kerchief was dyed and soaked with her husband’s
blood, and the old man’s eyes were glazed and staring as they wandered
feebly on the scene, as though to get a last general picture of the
world in which they had always sought to see only what was fair.
Suddenly they remained fixed on the face of a statue of Apollo, which
had been flung on to the barricade; and the longer they dwelt on the
beautiful countenance of the god the more they sparkled with a clear
transfigured gleam. Once more, with a final effort, he raised his heavy
hand and pointed to the sun-crowned head of the immortal youth while he
softly murmured:
“He--he--all that was fair in existence--Orpheus, Herse--we owe it all
to him. He dies with us.--They--the enemy--in conquering us conquer
thee! They dream of a Paradise beyond death; but where thou reignest, O
Phoebus, there is bliss even on earth! They boast that they love death
and hate life; and when they are the victors they will destroy lute and
pipe, nay, if they could, would exterminate beauty and extinguish
the sun. This beautiful happy world they would have dark, gloomy,
melancholy, hideous; thy kingdom, great Phoebus, is sunny, joyful and
bright...!” Here his strength failed him; but presently he rallied once
more and went on, with eager eyes: “We crave for light, for music,
lutes and pipes--for perfumed flowers on careless brows--we--hold me
up Herse--and thou, heal me, O Phoebus Apollo!--Hail, all hail! I thank
thee--thou hast accepted much from me and hast given me all! Come, thou
joy of my soul! Come in thy glorious chariot, attended by Muses and
Hours! See, Orpheus, Herse--do you see Him coming?”
He pointed with a confident gesture to the distance; and his anxious
eyes followed the indication of his hand; he raised himself a little
by a last supreme effort; but instantly fell back; his head sank on
the bosom of his faithful partner and a stream of blood flowed from
his quivering lips. The votary of the Muses was dead; and a few minutes
after Orpheus, too, fell senseless.
War-cries and trumpet-calls rang and echoed through the Serapeum. The
battle was now a hand-to-hand fight; the besiegers had surmounted
the barricade and stood face to face with the heathen. Herse saw them
coming; she snatched the dart from her husband’s wound, and fired by
hatred and a wild thirst for vengeance, she rushed upon the besiegers
with frantic and helpless fury, cursing them loudly. She met the death
she craved; a javelin struck her and she fell close to her husband and
son. Her death struggle was a short one; she had only time and strength
to extend a hand to lay on each before she herself was a corpse.
The battle raged round the heap of dead; the Imperial troops drove the
garrison backwards into the temple-halls, and the plan of attack which
had been agreed upon at a council of war held in the palace of
the Comes, was carried out, point by point, with cool courage and
irresistible force. A few maniples pursued the fugitives into the main
entrance hall, helped them to force the gates open, and then drove them
down the slope and steps, over the stones that had been heaped up for
protection, and into the very arms of the division placed in front of
the temple. These at once surrounded them and took them prisoners, as
the hunter traps the game that rushes down upon him when driven by the
dogs and beaters. Foremost to fly were the women from the rotunda, who
were welcomed with acclamations by the soldiers.
But those who now tried to defend themselves found no quarter. Berenice
had picked up a sword that was lying on the ground and had opened a vein
with the point of it; her body, bathed in blood, was found at the foot
of the statue of justice.
No sooner had the Christians mastered the barricade than a few maniples
had been sent up to the roof, and the defenders had been compelled to
surrender or to throw themselves from the parapet. Old Memnon, who had
been fighting against his Imperial master and could hope for no mercy,
sprang at once into the gulf below, and others followed his example; for
the end of all things was now close at hand, and to the nobler souls to
die voluntarily in battle for great Serapis seemed finer and worthier
than to languish in the enemy’s chains.