Serapis — Complete by Georg Ebers (red seas under red skies TXT) 📕

xml:space="preserve"> “Fate seeks the coward out at home, He dies unwept, unknown to fame, While by the hero’s honored tomb Our grandsons’ grandsons shall proclaim: ‘In the great conflict’s fiercest hour He stood unmoved, our shield and tower.’”

It was here, at the wide opening into the square, that the collision took place: on one side the handsome youths, crowned with garlands, with their noble Greek type of heads, thoughtful brows, perfumed curls, and anointed limbs exercised in the gymnasium—on the other the sinister fanatics in sheep-skin, ascetic visionaries grown grey in fasting, scourging, and self-denial.

The monks now prepared to meet the onset of the young enthusiasts who were fighting for freedom of thought and enquiry, for Art and Beauty. Each side was defending what it felt to be the highest Good, each was equally in earnest as to its convictions, both fought for something dearer and more precious than this earthly span of existence. But the philosophers’ party had swords; the monks’ sole weapon was the scourge, and they were accustomed to ply that, not on each other but on their own rebellious flesh. A wild and disorderly struggle began with swingeing blows on both sides; prayers and psalms mingling with the battle-song of the heathen. Here a monk fell wounded, there one lay dead, there again lay a fine and delicate-looking youth, felled by the heavy fist of a recluse. A hermit wrestled hand to hand with a young philosopher who, only yesterday had delivered his first lecture on the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus to an interested audience.

And in the midst of this mad struggle stood Agne with her little brother, who clung closely to her skirts and was too terrified to shed a tear or utter a cry. The girl was resolutely calm, but she was too utterly terror-stricken even to pray. Fear, absorbing fear had stunned her thoughts; it overmastered her like some acute physical pain which began in her heart and penetrated every fibre of her frame.

Even while the Imperial message was being read she had been too frightened to take it all in; and now she simply shut her eyes tight and hardly understood what was going on around her, till a new and different noise sounded close in her ears: the clatter of hoofs, blare of trumpets and shouts and screams. At last the tumult died away and, when she ventured to open her eyes and look about her, the place all round her was as clear as though it had been swept by invisible hands; here and there lay a dead body and there still was a dense crowd in the street leading to the Caesareum, but even that was dispersing and retreating before the advance of a mounted force.

She breathed freely once more, and released the child’s head from the skirt of her dress in which he had wrapped and buried it. The end of her alarms was not yet come, however, for a troop of the young heathen came flying across the square in wild retreat before a division of the heavy cavalry, which had intervened to part the combatants.

The fugitives came straight towards her; again she closed her eyes tightly, expecting every instant to find herself under the horses’ feet. Then one of the runaways knocked down Papias, and she could bear no more; her senses deserted her, her knees failed under her, she lost consciousness, and with a dull groan she fell on the dusty pavement. Close to her, as she lay, rushed the pursued and the pursuers—and at last, how long after she knew not, when she recovered her senses she felt as if she were floating in the air, and presently perceived that a soldier had her in his arms and was carrying her like a child.

Fresh alarms and fresh shame overwhelmed the poor girl; she tried to free herself and found him quite ready to set her down. When she was once more on her feet and felt that she could stand she glanced wildly round her with sudden recollection, and then uttered a hoarse cry, for her mouth and tongue were parched:

“Christ Jesus! Where is my brother?” She pushed back her hair with a desperate gesture, pressing her hands to her temples and peering all round her with a look of fevered misery.

She was still in the square and close to the door of the Prefect’s house; a man on horseback, in all probability her preserver’s servant, was following them, leading his master’s horse. On the pavement lay wounded men groaning with pain; the street of the Caesareum was lined with a double row of footsoldiers of Papias no sign!

Again she called him, and with such deep anguish in her voice, which was harsh and shrill with terror, that the young officer looked at her with extreme compassion.

“Papias, Papias—my little brother! O God my Saviour!—where, where is the child?”

“We will have him sought for,” said the soldier whose voice was gentle and kind. “You are too young and pretty—what brought you into this crowd and amid such an uproar?”

She colored deeply and looking down answered low and hurriedly: “I was going to see the Bishop.”

“You chose an evil hour,” replied Constantine, for it was he who had found her lying on the pavement and who had thought it only an act of mercy not to trust so young and fair a girl to the protection of his followers. “You may thank God that you have got off so cheaply. Now, I must return to my men. You know where the Bishop lives? Yes, here. And with regard to your little brother.... Stay; do you live in Alexandria?” “No, my lord.”

“But you have some relation or friend whom you lodge with?”

“No, my lord. I am... I have... I told you, I only want to see my lord the Bishop.”

“Very strange! Well, take care of yourself. My time is not my own; but by-and-bye, in a very short time, I will speak to the city watchmen; how old is the boy?”

“Nearly six.”

“And with black hair like yours?”

“No, my lord—fair hair,” and as she spoke the tears started to her eyes. “He has light curly hair and a sweet, pretty little face.”

The prefect smiled and nodded. “And if they find him,” he went on, “Papias, you say, is his name where is he to be taken?”

“I do not know, my lord, for—and yet! Oh! my head aches, I cannot think—if only I knew.... If they find him he must come here—here to my lord the Bishop.”

“To Theophilus?” said Constantine in surprise. “Yes, yes—to him,” she said hastily. “Or—stay—to the gate-keeper at the Bishop’s palace.”

“Well, that is less aristocratic, but perhaps it is more to the purpose,” said the officer; and with a sign to his servant, he twisted his hand in his horse’s mane, leaped into the saddle, waved her a farewell, and rejoined his men without paying any heed to her thanks.