That evening was a hideous one in the palace of Orestes. His agonies
of disappointment, rage, and terror were at once so shameful and so
fearful, that none of his slaves dare approach him; and it was not till
late that his confidential secretary, the Chaldean eunuch, driven by
terror of the exasperated Catholics, ventured into the tiger’s den, and
represented to him the immediate necessity for action.
What could he do? He was committed--Cyril only knew how deeply. What
might not the wily archbishop have discovered? What might not he pretend
to have discovered? What accusations might he not send off on the spot
to the Byzantine Court?
‘Let the gates be guarded, and no one allowed to leave the city,’
suggested the Chaldee.
‘Keep in monks? as well keep in rats! No; we must send off a
counter-report, instantly.’
‘What shall I say, your Excellency?’ quoth the ready scribe, pulling out
pen and inkhorn from his sash.
‘What do I care? Any lie which comes to hand. What in the devil’s name
are you here for at all, but to invent a lie when I want one?’
‘True, most noble,’ and the worthy sat meekly down to his paper.... but
did not proceed rapidly.
‘I don’t see anything that would suit the emergency, unless I stated,
with your august leave, that Cyril, and not you, celebrated the
gladiatorial exhibition; which might hardly appear credible?’
Orestes burst out laughing, in spite of himself. The sleek Chaldee
smiled and purred in return. The victory was won; and Orestes, somewhat
more master of himself, began to turn his vulpine cunning to the one
absorbing question of the saving of his worthless neck.
‘No, that would be too good. Write, that we had discovered a plot on
Cyril’s part to incorporate the whole of the African churches (mind and
specify Carthage and Hippo) under his own jurisdiction, and to throw off
allegiance to the Patriarch of Constantinople, in case of Heraclian’s
success.’
The secretary purred delighted approval, and scribbled away now with
right good heart.
‘Heraclian’s success, your Excellency.’
‘We of course desired, by every means in our power, to gratify the
people of Alexandria, and, as was our duty, to excite by every lawful
method their loyalty toward the throne of the Caesars (never mind who
sat on it) at so critical a moment.’
‘So critical a moment....’
‘But as faithful Catholics, and abhorring even in the extremest need,
the sin of Uzzah, we dreaded to touch with the unsanctified hands
of laymen the consecrated ark of the Church, even though for its
preservation....’
‘Its preservation, your Excellency....’
‘We, therefore, as civil magistrates, felt bound to confine ourselves
to those means which were already allowed by law and custom to our
jurisdiction; and accordingly made use of those largesses, spectacles,
and public execution of rebels, which have unhappily appeared to his
holiness the patriarch (too ready, perhaps, to find a cause of complaint
against faithful adherents of the Byzantine See) to partake of the
nature of those gladiatorial exhibitions, which are equally abhorrent
to the spirit of the Catholic Church, and to the charity of the sainted
emperors by whose pious edicts they have been long since abolished.’
‘Your Excellency is indeed great.... but--pardon your slave’s remark--my
simplicity is of opinion that it may be asked why you did not inform the
Augusta Pulcheria of Cyril’s conspiracy?’
‘Say that we sent a messenger off three months ago, but that.... Make
something happen to him, stupid, and save me the trouble.’
‘Shall I kill him by Arabs in the neighbourhood of Palmyra, your
Excellency?’
‘Let me see.... No. They may make inquiries there. Drown him at sea.
Nobody can ask questions of the sharks.’
‘Foundered between Tyre and Crete, from which sad calamity only one man
escaped on a raft, and being picked tip, after three weeks’ exposure to
the fury of the elements, by a returning wheat-ship--By the bye, most
noble, what am I to say about those wheat-ships not having even sailed?’
‘Head of Augustus! I forgot them utterly. Say that--say that the plague
was making such ravages in the harbour quarter that we feared carrying
the infection to the seat of the empire; and let them sail to-morrow.’
The secretary’s face lengthened.
‘My fidelity is compelled to remark, even at the risk of your just
indignation, that half of them have been unloaded again for your
munificent largesses of the last two days.’
Orestes swore a great oath.
‘Oh, that the mob had but one throat, that I might give them an emetic!
Well, we must buy more corn, that’s all.’
The secretary’s face grew longer still.
‘The Jews, most August--’
‘What of them?’ yelled the hapless Prefect. ‘Have they been
forestalling?’
‘My assiduity has discovered this afternoon that they have been buying
up and exporting all the provisions which they could obtain.’
‘Scoundrels! Then they must have known of Heraclian’s failure!’
‘Your sagacity has, I fear, divined the truth. They have been betting
largely against his success for the last week, both in Canopus and
Pelusium.’
‘For the last week! Then Miriam betrayed me knowingly!’ And Orestes
broke forth again into a paroxysm of fury.
‘Here--call the tribune of the guard! A hundred gold pieces to the man
who brings me the witch alive!’
‘She will never be taken alive.’
‘Dead, then--in any way! Go, you Chaldee hound! what are you hesitating
about?’
‘Most noble lord,’ said the secretary, prostrating himself upon the
floor, and kissing his master’s feet in an agony of fear....
‘Remember, that if you touch one Jew you touch all! Remember the bonds!
remember the--the--your own most august reputation, in short.’
‘Get up, brute, and don’t grovel there, but tell me what you mean, like
a human being. If old Miriam is once dead, her bonds die with her, don’t
they?’
‘Alas, my lord, you do not know the customs of that accursed folk. They
have a damnable practice of treating every member of their nation as a
brother, and helping each freely and faithfully without reward; whereby
they are enabled to plunder all the rest of the world, and thrive
themselves, from the least to the greatest. Don’t fancy that your bonds
are in Miriam’s hands. They have been transferred months ago. Your
real creditors may be in Carthage, or Rome, or Byzantium, and they will
attack you from thence; while all that you would find if you seized the
old witch’s property, would be papers, useless to you, belonging to
Jews all over the empire, who would rise as one man in defence of their
money. I assure you, it is a net without a bound. If you touch one you
touch all.... And besides, my diligence, expecting some such command,
has already taken the liberty of making inquiries as to Miriam’s place
of abode; but it appears, I am sorry to say, utterly unknown to any of
your Excellency’s servants.’
‘You lie!’ said Orestes.... ‘I would much sooner believe that you have
been warning the hag to keep out of the way.’
Orestes had spoken, for that once in his life, the exact truth.
The secretary, who had his own private dealings with Miriam, felt every
particular atom of his skin shudder at those words; and had he had hair
on his head, it would certainly have betrayed him by standing visibly on
end. But as he was, luckily for him, close shaven, his turban remained
in its proper place, as he meekly replied-- ‘Alas! a faithful servant can
feel no keener woe than the causeless suspicion of that sun before whose
rays he daily prostrates his--’
‘Confound your periphrases! Do you know where she is?’
‘No!’ cried the wretched secretary, driven to the lie direct at last;
and confirmed the negation with such a string of oaths, that Orestes
stopped his volubility with a kick, borrowed of him, under threat of
torture, a thousand gold pieces as largess to the soldiery, and ended
by concentrating the stationaries round his own palace, for the double
purpose of protecting himself in case of a riot, and of increasing the
chances of the said riot, by leaving the distant quarters of the city
without police.
‘If Cyril would but make a fool of himself, now that he is in the
full-blown pride of victory--the rascal!--about that Ammonius, or about
Hypatia, or anything else, and give me a real handle against him! After
all, truth works better than lying now and then. Oh, that I could poison
him! But one can’t bribe those ecclesiastics; and as for the dagger, one
could not hire a man to be torn in pieces by monks. No; I must just sit
still, and see what Fortune’s dice may turn up. Well, your pedants like
Aristides or Epaminondas--thank Heaven, the race of them has died
out long ago!--might call this no very creditable piece of provincial
legislation; but after all, it is about as good as any now going, or
likely to be going till the world’s end; and one can’t be expected to
strike out a new path. I shall stick to the wisdom of my predecessors,
and--oh, that Cyril may make a fool of himself to-night!’
And Cyril did make a fool of himself that night, for the first and last
time in his life; and suffers for it, as wise men are wont to do when
they err, to this very day and hour: but how much Orestes gained by his
foe’s false move cannot be decided till the end of this story; perhaps
not even then.