Chapter XI: Part II: I (3)

Marcus pronounced the last words solemnly, and then suddenly slipped a hand behind his back and his face beamed.

"Are you perspiring!" asked Garguillus.

"Yes!" answered Ausonius, with a rapturous smile. "Rub, slave, rub!"

He lay down on the couch. The bath-slave fell to kneading the poor anæmic limbs, which had a deadly bluish tint.

From their porphyry niches the figures of ancient time looked down with scorn through the milky smoke.

Meanwhile at the cross-roads, outside the baths, a crowd was collecting.

At night Antioch glittered with thousands of lights, especially along the Syngon, which ran through the city for a distance of twenty-six stadia, with porticoes and colonnades thronged with shops throughout its length.

In the crowd, pleasantries about the Emperor ran from mouth to mouth. Street boys rushed about from group to group shouting satirical ditties. An old woman caught one of the little vagabonds, and, lifting his shirt, administered sound correction with the sole of her sandal.

"Take that! and that! to teach you to sing such disgraceful things!"

The urchin uttered piercing squeals.

Another, clambering on the back of a comrade, drew on the white wall with a piece of coal a long-bearded goat, crowned with the Imperial diadem, while a third wrote underneath in big letters, "This is the impious Julian!" and trying to make his voice formidable yelled--

"The butcher comes With a big, big knife!"

An old man in the long black ecclesiastical habit passing by, halted, listened to the boy, and cast up his eyes to heaven--

"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings proceedeth wisdom! Were we not better off under Cappa and Khi?"

"What do you mean by Cappa and Khi?"

"Don't you understand? The Greek letter Cappa (_K_) begins the name of Constantius, and Khi (_X_) is the initial of 'Christ.' I mean by that, that Constantius and Christ did no harm to the inhabitants of Antioch while the philosophers...."

"True, true! One was better off under Cappa and Khi!"

A drunken man, overhearing this colloquy, hawked the saying about the streets, and the pleasantry circulated through Antioch, and being manifestly absurd tickled the popular fancy.

A scene of still greater animation might have been witnessed in the tavern situated opposite the baths. This tavern belonged to the Armenian Syrax, who had long ago transferred his commercial undertakings from Cæsarea to Antioch. From bulging wine-skins and enormous jars, wine was pouring freely into tin cups. Here, as everywhere, the conversation turned on the Emperor's doings.

The little Syrian soldier Strombix, the same who had taken part in Julian's campaign against the barbarians in Gaul, was distinguishing himself by special eloquence. By his side lolled the faithful giant, his friend, the Sarmatian, Aragaris. Strombix felt as happy as a fish in water; he loved risings and rebellions better than anything in the world.

He was preparing to make a speech. An old rag-picker had just brought in a sensational piece of news--

"We're all doomed!... The Lord's hand is heavy on us.... Yesterday a neighbour of mine told me something which at first I refused to believe!"

"Tell us, good woman!"

"Well, it was at Gaza. The Pagans seized a convent. They made the nuns come out. They tied them to gallows in the market-place, beat 'em to death, and after rolling their warm bodies, all hacked to pieces, in grains of barley, threw 'em to the swine!"

"I saw myself," added a young weaver, "a Pagan at Hieropolis, who was eating the liver of a deacon!"

"What an abomination!" murmured the auditors crossing themselves.

With the help of Aragaris, Strombix clambered on to a table, which was still sticky with the spilth of wine, and striking an oratorical attitude, addressed the crowd, while Aragaris proudly contemplated his friend.

"Citizens," began Strombix; "how long shall we wait before we rebel? Don't you know that Julian has sworn, if he returns a conqueror from Persia, to gather together the holy defenders of the Church and throw them to beasts in the amphitheatre? To turn the porticoes of basilicas into granaries, and the churches into stables...."

A hump-backed old man, livid with fear, tumbled over on the tavern floor. It was the husband of the rag-picker, himself a glass-blower. Rising, he slapped his thigh despairingly, stared at the company, and faltered--

"Ah, what a situation!... And there are two hundred corpses in the wells and the aqueducts!"

"Where? What corpses?"

"Hush!... Hush!" murmured the glass-blower.

"They say that the renegade has long taken his auguries from the intestines of living men; and all this for his war against the Persians and his victory over the Christians!"

Overcome with satisfaction he muttered under his breath--

"Why, in the cellars of the palace at Antioch they've discovered chests full of human bones ... and in the city of Karra, near Edessa, the Christians have found, in a subterranean temple, the corpse of a woman hanging by her hair with her body slit open.... Julian wanted to inspect the liver of an infant for his cursed war."

"Eh? Gluturius! Is it true that human bones are found in the sewers? _You_ ought to know!" said a shoemaker, a confirmed sceptic.

Gluturius, the scavenger, who stood near the door, not venturing in because he smelt badly, being thus addressed, began, according to his custom, to smile and to blink his inflamed eyelids:

"No, worthy friends," he answered humbly. "Newborn infants are sometimes found there, or skeletons of asses and camels, but I never yet saw a corpse of man or woman."

When Strombix resumed his speech, the scavenger listened religiously, rubbing his bare leg against the door post.

"Brother men," cried the orator, with fiery indignation, "let us be revenged! Let us die like ancient Romans!"

"No use bursting _your_ lungs," grumbled the shoemaker. "When we get to that stage, you'll be the first to turn tail and let the others die!"

"You're a set of cowards," chimed in a painted woman, dressed in a poor and tawdry dress. She was a street-walker, nicknamed by her admirers the She-wolf. "Do you know," she went on wrathfully, "what the holy martyrs Macedonius, Theodulus, and Tertian replied to their executioners?"

"No, She-wolf, tell us."

"Well, I've heard. At Myrrha, in Phrygia, three young men, Macedonius, Theodulus, and Tertian, had burst into a Greek temple by night, and smashed the idols to the glory of God. The proconsul Amachius had them seized, stretched them on dripping-pans, and ordered fires to be lighted under them. The three martyrs said: 'If you want to taste cooked flesh, Amachius, turn us over on the other side, that we may not be served up to you half-cooked!' and all three laughed and spat in the face of the proconsul. And everybody saw an angel come down out of heaven with three crowns! _You_ wouldn't have spoken so! You're too fearful for your skins.... It's heart-breaking, just to look at you!"

The She-wolf turned away in disgust.

Cries rose from the street.

"Perhaps they're breaking up idols?" suggested the shoemaker pleasantly.

"Forward, citizens! Follow me!" shouted Strombix, waving his arms; but he slipped on the table, and would have fallen had not Aragaris caught him.

Everybody rushed to the door. An enormous crowd was advancing down the principal street and, filling the narrow cross-roads, brought up before the baths.

"Old Pamva! Old Pamva!" the idlers were shouting. "He's come from the desert to help the people; to pull down the great, and to save the humble and poor!"

XI

The old man had a coarse face, with high cheek-bones, bearded to the eyes. A patched piece of sacking served him as inner robe, and a hooded sheep's skin as cloak or chlamys. For twenty years, Pamva had never washed himself, considering cleanliness sinful, and believing that a special fiend presided over any acts of care for the body. He dwelt in a fearful desert, the Berean, round Chalybon, to the east of Antioch, where serpents and scorpions swarmed at the bottom of the arid water-courses. His lodging was the deep sandy hollow of a dried-up well, called _coubba_ in Syriac, where he used to feed himself on five stalks a day of a sweet and flowery kind of reed. He had nearly died of starvation. His disciples descended to feed him by means of ropes. Then, during seven years, he lived on a half-measure of boiled lentils. His sight grew feeble; his skin became leprous and scurvy; he therefore added a little oil to his lentils, and accused himself of worship of the belly.

Pamva, learning from his disciples that the Emperor Julian, the fierce Anti-Christ, was persecuting the Christians, left his retreat and came to Antioch to strengthen weak-kneed believers--

"Listen! listen!... he's going to speak."

Pamva climbed the staircase of the baths and halted on a broad landing. His eyes glittered with condensed ire. He stretched out his arms, pointing out to the people palaces, pagan temples, baths, shops, courts of justice, all the monuments of Antioch.

"Not a stone of these shall remain! All shall crumble and disappear. The holy fire shall burn up the universe. The heavens, like a smouldering palace, shall sink away! That shall be the terrible judgment of Christ, the unimaginable spectacle. Whither shall I turn mine eyes, and what shall I wonder at, if it be not the groaning of kings, cast down into darkness? If it be not the terror of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, shivering in her nakedness before the Crucified? If it be not the flight of Jupiter, and all the Olympians, before the thunders of the Most High?... Triumph, ye martyrs, and rejoice, ye persecuted! See your judges, the Roman proconsuls, seized by more terrible flames than yours. Nor shall the syllogisms of Aristotle, nor the demonstrations of Plato save you, philosophers, hurled into hell! And, on that stage, their actors shall roar, as the heroes of Sophocles and Æschylus never roared before! And their rope-dancers, trust, me, shall dance a quicker step in that fire! And we, the poor and ignorant, shall rejoice and say to the strong, wise, and the haughty: Behold the Crucified, the son of the carpenter and the work-woman, the King of Judæa, crowned in purple and thorns! Behold the Sabbath-breaker, the Samaritan woman possessed of the devil! See Him, whom you led bound with cords into your prætorium, Him whose thirst you quenched with vinegar and hyssop! And we shall hear in answer weepings and gnashings of teeth. We shall laugh, our hearts overflowing with joy! Come, come, come, Lord Jesus!"

Gluturius, the cleanser of sewers, fell on his knees, and blinking his inflamed eyelids as if he saw Christ descending, stretched out his arms. The metal-founder clenched his fists, collected his forces like a bull ready to charge. And the livid-faced weaver, trembling in all his limbs, with an amazed smile was murmuring, "Lord, let me, too, suffer!"

The animal faces of beggars and sharpers expressed the mischievous triumph of the weak over the strong; of slaves over their masters. The She-wolf grinned in silence, and an insatiable thirst for vengeance twinkled in her drunken eyes.

Suddenly, the jingle of weapons and the heavy step of horses. The Roman legionaries of the night-watch wheeled round the corner of the road. At their head strode the prefect, Sallustius Secundus, a man with aquiline nose, open face, and a look of calmness and kindly intelligence. He wore the senatorial laticlave, and gave an impression of self-confidence and patrician nobleness. Above the distant Pantheon, erected by Antiochus Seleucus, slowly arose the great reddish moon, and its rays were glittering on shields and breastplates--

"Disperse, citizens!" said Sallustius, addressing the crowd. "By order of Augustus crowds are forbidden in the streets of Antioch by night."

The populace groaned and murmured. Street-boys whistled, and one audacious voice sang--

"Good-bye to the white cocks!
Good-bye to the white ox!
For Julian knocks them on the head
To feed his devils and the dead!"

There was a threatening clash of arms. The legionaries unsheathed their swords and prepared to charge. Old Pamva struck the marble flags with his staff, and shouted--

"Hail, gallant army of Satan! Hail, wise Roman dignitary! You'll probably remember the time when you burned us, when you taught us philosophy, and we prayed God to save your lost souls! Welcome to you!"

The legionaries gripped their swords, but the prefect with a gesture stopped them. He saw that the crowd was in his power.

"What are you threatening us with, blockhead?" asked Pamva, addressing himself to Sallustius. "What can you do? All we want for vengeance is a black night and two or three torches. You fear the Alemanni and the Persians. We are more terrible than they. We are everywhere in the midst of you, inviolable, innumerable! We have no boundaries, no father-land; we recognise but one republic, the universal republic! Born but yesterday, already we are filling the world, filling your cities, your fortresses, your islands, city councils, camps, palaces, senates, forums! We leave you your temples!... And but for our humility, our fraternity, choosing rather to die than to slay, we should have blotted you out....

"We want neither sword nor fire! So many are we, that if we withdrew, you would perish. Your cities would become solitudes, you would be frightened at your own loneliness, at the silence of the universe! All life would stop, at that death-touch! Remember the Roman Empire exists only on sufferance, sustained by the mercy of us Christians!"

All eyes being fixed on Pamva no one perceived a man clothed in the old chlamys of a wandering philosopher, with a lean yellow face, curling hair, and long black beard, quickly coming through the lines of legionaries, who respectfully made way for him. He was followed by a few companions, and, leaning towards Sallustius, whispered--

"What are you waiting for?"

"They will perhaps disperse of themselves," responded Sallustius. "The Galileans have already too many martyrs for us to make any more of them. They fly towards death as bees to honey!"

But the man in the philosopher's robe advanced and cried out with a distinct voice, like a captain accustomed to command--

"Scatter the crowd. Seize the ringleaders!"

Everybody wheeled round, and in alarm shouted--

"Augustus! Augustus Julian!"

The soldiers charged with drawn swords. The old rag-picker was knocked down, struggling and shrieking under the feet of the legionaries. Many fled, and Strombix was the first to take advantage of the general confusion. Stones hurtled through the air. The metal-founder, defending old Pamva, hurled a large jagged flint at a legionary. It struck the She-wolf, who fell with a slight cry, covered with blood, and convinced that she was dying a martyr.

A legionary seized Gluturius; but the sewer-cleaner gave himself up so readily (the prospect of becoming an admired martyr appearing so enviable in comparison with his present occupation), and his rags gave off such a stink, that the disgusted soldier immediately released his prisoner.

In the midst of the crowd there was a market-gardener who had chanced by, leading an ass laden with cabbages. Mouth agape, he had listened to old Pamva from beginning to end. Noticing the danger, he now tried to flee, but his ass starkly refused. In vain was the beast belaboured. Buttressed against his forefeet, with ears lowered and tail lifted, it uttered a deafening series of brays, drowning in its triumphant stupidity the death-rattle of the dying, the oaths of the soldiery, and the prayers of Galileans.

Oribazius, who was among the companions of Julian, came up to the Emperor--

"Julian, what are you doing? Is it worthy of your wisdom?..."

The Emperor cast on him a stern look, and Oribazius was silent, not daring to finish his protest.

In the last few months Julian had not only changed but grown old. His worn face had the sad and terrible expression of those gnawed by some long and incurable malady, or absorbed in some fixed idea akin to madness. His powerful hands were unconsciously tearing to pieces a roll of papyrus. At last he said in a deep voice, with eyes kept steadily on Oribazius--

"Away! I know what I am doing.... With these scoundrels who have no faith in the gods, one cannot deal as with human beings. They must be destroyed like wild beasts. And for the matter of that, what harm would be done if a dozen Galileans were slain by the hand of the Hellenists?"

Oribazius mused--

"How like he is now, in his fury, to his cousin Constantius!"

Julian spoke to the crowd, and his voice appeared to himself even strange and terrible--

"By the grace of the gods I am still Emperor! Galileans, obey! You may mock at my beard and clothes, but not at the Roman law.... Remember, I am punishing you for rebellion and not for religion. Chain that rascal!"

With a shaking hand he pointed to Pamva, who was promptly seized by two fair-haired Batavians.

"Thou liest, atheist!" shouted Pamva triumphantly. "You are punishing us for our faith. Why do you not pardon me, as you did Maris the blind Chalcedonian? Where is now your philosophy? Have the times changed? Have you overshot your mark? Brothers, fear not the Roman Cæsar, but the Almighty God!"

The crowd gave up all idea of flight. All were infected by the fever of martyrdom. The Batavians and the Celts were startled by the sight of a mob rushing joyfully on death. Even children threw themseves on the swords and lances. Julian wished to stop the massacre. He was too late; the bees were making for the honey. He could only exclaim, in scorn and despair--

"Unhappy people! If life weighs on you, is it so difficult for you to shorten it for yourselves?"

And Pamva in bonds, lifted by sinewy arms, retorted with joy--

"Exterminate us, Roman, we shall multiply the more! The dungeon is our liberty; weakness, our strength: death, our victory!"

XII

At about five miles from Antioch, up the course of the river Orontes, stood the celebrated wood of Daphne, consecrated to Apollo. Therein a temple had been built, where every year the praises of the Sun-god were celebrated.

Julian, without saying anything of his intention quitted Antioch at the break of day. He wished to ascertain for himself whether the inhabitants remembered the ancient sacred feast. All along the road he mused of the solemnity, hoping to see lads and virgins going up the steps of the temple, clad in white as a symbol of purity and youth, the crowd of the faithful, the choirs, and the smoke of incense.

The road was difficult; from the rocky Berean hills a gusty burning wind came down. The atmosphere was laden with the bitter smell of burnt wood, and thick with a bluish fog which spread itself over the deep gorge of Mount Kazia. Harassing dust filled eyes and throat, and crackled between the teeth of the traveller. The very sun through the smoky vapour seemed red and sickly. But hardly had the Emperor penetrated into the wood of Daphne than fragrant coolness surrounded him. It was difficult to believe that such a corner of Paradise could be found at a few paces from the scorching road. The wood was twenty-four stadia in circumference, and perpetual twilight reigned in its almost impenetrable alleys of gigantic laurels, planted centuries before. The Emperor was surprised at the solitariness of the wood--no worshippers, no victims, no incense, nor any preparation for the solemn feast-day. Thinking that the people must be assembled near the temple, he pushed on farther. At every step the wood became more lonely. It was as untroubled by any sound as an abandoned cemetery. Birds were few, the shadow of the laurel-grove being too thick, and no song of theirs was heard. A grasshopper began his shrill cry in the grass, and quickly ceased, as if startled at his own voice. Insects alone were humming faintly in a slender ray of sunlight, but ventured not to quit its beam for the neighbouring gloom. Sometimes Julian pushed his path along wider alleys, bordered with titanic walls of weird cypress, casting shade dark as a moonless night. Here and there subterranean waters made the moss spongy. Streams ran everywhere, chill as melted snow, but silently, with no tinkling ripples, as if muted by the melancholy of that enchanted wood. In one nook, a rift in the rock, clear drops were falling slowly, glittering, one by one. But moss stifled the sound of their fall, and they sank away like the tears of an unspoken love.

There were broad glens of wild narcissus, many lilies, and even butterflies. But these were dark-winged and not gay-coloured, for the sun-rays filtered through the thick laurel became almost lunar-pale, and pensive as if fallen through the smoke of a funeral torch. It was as though Phoebus had grown faint and inconsolable after the final loss of Daphne. And she, remaining, overcast and shadowy under the most burning kisses of the god, here kept impenetrable coolness and bloom under her branches for ever.

Everywhere in that wood reigned the abandonment, the tender melancholy of the god who loved in vain.

Already in sight, and dazzling through the cypresses, shone the columns and pediments of the temple raised in the time of Seleucus Nicator. But not a worshipper yet had Julian encountered. At last he saw a child of twelve years old, on a path overgrown with wild hyacinth. His dark eyes shone strangely brilliant in his finely cut pale face. Golden hair fell in curls on his slender neck, and his blue-veined temples were transparent as the petals of a flower grown in the shade.

"Do you know, child, where are the sacrificers and the people?" Julian asked.

The child made no answer, as if he had not understood the question.

"Listen, little one, can you not lead me to the priest of Apollo?"

He shook his head, smiling.

"Why will you not answer me?"

Then the boy put a finger to his lips and then to both his ears, and shook his head gravely this time.

Julian thought--

"This must be a deaf-mute."

The child looked shyly askance at the Emperor, who grew almost fearful in the silent twilight of the deserted wood in the company of the elf, who stared at him fixedly and haughtily as a little god.

Suddenly, he pointed out to Julian an old man, clothed in a patched and tattered tunic; Julian immediately recognised a temple priest. The weak and broken old man stumbled along in drunken fashion, laughing and mumbling to himself as he went. He was red-nosed and completely bald except for a fringe of downy grey hair. His watery and short-sighted eyes had an expression of childlike benevolence. He was carrying a large basket.

"The priest of Apollo?" asked Julian.

"I am he. I am called Gorgius. What do you want, good man?"

"Can you direct me to the high-priest of this temple and the people worshipping here?"

Gorgius made no answer at first, but put his panier on the ground. Then he rubbed his bald pate and, standing with arms akimbo, held his head on one side winking mischievously with his left eye.

"And why am _I_ not the high-priest of Apollo?" he asked, "and what worshippers do you mean, my son?... May the Olympians protect you."

He smelt strongly of wine. Julian thought his behaviour indecent and prepared to administer a rebuke--

"You seem to be drunk, old man."

Gorgius, in no wise perturbed, continued to rub the back of his neck.

"Drunk? I don't think so. But I may have tossed off five cups or so, for the sake of the celebrations; and as to that, I drink more through sorrow than merriment. Yes, my son, may the Olympians have you in their keeping!... Who are you? By your dress perhaps a wandering philosopher, or a professor from the schools of Antioch?"

The Emperor smiled and nodded his head in acquiescence. He wished to make the priest talk freely.

"You have hit it. I am a teacher."

"Christian?"

"No, Hellenist."

"Ah, that's good. There are many others of your way of thinking who hang about this neighbourhood."

"You have not yet answered me as to where the people are: whether many victims have been sent from Antioch; whether the choirs are ready."

"Victims? Small thanks for victims," said the old man, laughing and stumbling so violently that he nearly tumbled down. "Many's the long year, my brother, since we saw that kind of thing!... Since the time of Constantine...." Gorgius snapped his fingers despairingly and whistled. "It is all over--done for!... Phut!... Men have forgotten the gods. Not only have we no victims, but we don't even get a handful of wheat to cook a cake; not a grain of incense, not a drop of oil for the lamps.... There's nothing for it but to go to bed and die!... Yes, my son! may the Olympians protect you!... The monks have taken everything!... and they fight each other; they're rolling in fat.... Our tale is told.... Ah! bad times these. And you say 'Don't drink!' But it's hard not to drink when one suffers. If I didn't drink a bit I should have hanged myself long ago."

"And no one has come from Antioch for this great feast day?" asked Julian.

"None but you, my son. I am the priest, you are the people! We will together offer the victim to the god."

"You have just told me that you received no victims!"

Gorgius rubbed the back of his neck, grinning--

"We received none from others, but there is my own offering. Weve eaten little for three days, Hepherion and I, to save the necessary money. Look!"

He raised the lid of the basket. A tethered goose slid out its head, cackling and trying to escape.

"Ha, ha, ha! is not that a victim?" asked the old man proudly. "Although it isn't a fat young goose it is nevertheless a sacred bird! Apollo ought to be glad of it just now. The gods consider geese a delicacy."

"Have you long dwelt in this temple?" questioned Julian.

"For forty years and perhaps longer...."

"Is this your son?" asked Julian, pointing to Hepherion, who was staring at him as if he were trying to follow the conversation.

"No. I have neither relatives nor friends. Hepherion helps me at the hours for sacrifice."

"Who are his father and mother?"

"I do not know the father and I strongly suspect that no one knows who he is. But his mother was the great sibyl Diotima, who long lived in this temple. She would never speak nor raise her veil before men. She was chaste as a vestal. When she brought this child into the world we were all astonished, and at a loss what to think ... but a learned centenarian, a magian told us...."

Gorgius, with a mysterious air, put his hand before his mouth and muttered in Julian's ear as if he feared the child could catch his words--

"The hierophant told us that he was no son of man, but a god come down by night to the sibyl while she was asleep within the temple! See how beautiful he is!"

"A deaf-mute son of a god?" murmured the Emperor, surprised.

"In times like ours if the son of the god and of the sibyl were not a deaf-mute he would die of grief," answered Gorgius. "See how thin and pale he is already!"

"Who knows," said Julian, with a sad smile, "but that you are right, old man. In our days it is well for a prophet to be a deaf-mute."

Suddenly the child approached Julian and looking at him fixedly, seized his hand and kissed it. A thrill ran through Julian.

"My son," said the old man, gravely, "may the Olympians shield you; you must be a good man. That child never kisses the evil nor the impious, and he flees from the monks as from the plague. I think he sees and understands more than either of us but can utter nothing. I've often surprised him sitting before the statue of Apollo for hours, gazing at him with joy as if he were talking with the god."

The face of Hepherion grew dark and he went away.

Gorgius smote his head and said--

"I am wasting time in gossip. The sun is up; the sacrifice must be performed. Come!"

"Wait," said the Emperor. "I wished to ask you something more. Have you ever heard that the Emperor Julian desired to restore to honour the worship of the old gods?"

"Yes, but ... what can _he_ do, poor man? He will not succeed. I tell you--all's over!"

"Have you faith in the gods?" asked Julian. "Can the Olympians quit us so for ever?"

The old man sighed, and hanging his head--

"My son, you're young; although there are white hairs shining in your dark locks, and furrows on your brow already. But in the days when my hair was black and young girls used to look at me with favour, I remember sailing in a ship, near Thessalonica, and seeing Mount Olympus. Its base and its girdle melted into blue, and its snowy summit seemed hanging in the air, dominating sky and sea, golden and inaccessible. I mused 'Behold the dwelling of the gods!' and I was full of emotion. But on this same ship there was a scoffing old man who called himself an Epicurean. He pointed out Mount Olympus, and said to me: 'My friend, travellers have long ago climbed Olympus, and they saw that it was an ordinary mountain, like other mountains, on which there was nothing but snow, ice and stones!' And those words sank so deep into my heart that I shall remember them all my life."

The Emperor smiled--

"Old man, your faith is childish. Suppose there were no Olympus--why should not the gods exist above, in the kingdom of the eternal Ideas, in the realm of the soul's light?"

Gorgius hung his head lower yet--

"Yes, yes, yes!... but ... nevertheless all is over. Olympus is deserted."

Julian gazed at him, surprised.

"You see," continued Gorgius, "the earth breeds nowadays only hard men or weak men. The gods can only laugh at them, or grow wrath with them. They are not worth destroying. They will perish of themselves by sickness, debauchery, or decline. The gods are grown weary and they have departed!"

"And do you think, Gorgius, that the human race must disappear?"

The priest shook his bald head--

"Ah, ah, ah! The earth is in pain. The rivers flow more slowly; the flowers in spring have not their old fragrance. An ancient fisherman lately told me that one can see Etna no longer as we used to do. The air has become thicker and darker, the sun is waxing weak; the end of the world is near...."

"Tell me, Gorgius, can you remember better times?"

The old man brightened up, and his eyes shone.

"When I first came here in the first years of the reign of Constantine," he said joyfully, "grand festivals were celebrated every year in honour of Apollo. What numbers of lads and virgins used to come to this holy wood! How the moon used to shine! How exquisite the smell of the cypresses! How the nightingales used to sing! And when their chant ceased, the air would tremble with nocturnal kisses and sighings of love, as with the beatings of invisible wings."

Gorgius was silent and plunged in thought.

At that moment the sound of church-singing came from behind the trees.

"What is that?" asked Julian.

"The monks," answered the priest. "Monks praying over a dead Galilean."

"What, a Galilean in the wood sacred to Apollo?'"

"Yes; they call him the martyr Babylas. Ten years ago the brother of the Emperor Julian, Cæsar Gallus, transferred the bones of this Babylas from Antioch into this wood, and had a superb sarcophagus made for him. From that day the oracle ceased. The temple was sullied and the god departed."

"What sacrilege!" exclaimed the Emperor indignantly.

"That year the virgin sibyl Diotima gave birth to a deaf-mute child, a bad omen. Only one sacred spring was left us and did not dry up, the spring called Tears of the Sun ... over there, where the child is now sitting...."

Julian turned round. The boy was sitting in front of the mossy rock, motionless, and in his open palm receiving the falling drops. Julian almost imagined he saw two transparent wings trembling behind the divinely beautiful child. So sad, so pale, so enchanting his look, that the Emperor mused--

"He must be Eros, the little god of love, dying in our century of Galilean moroseness, and in his hand receiving the last drops, the last tears of love, tears of the god over Daphne, over the vanished beauty of Daphne!"

The deaf-mute remained motionless, and a great black velvety butterfly alighted on his head. He neither saw it, nor stirred. Like a malign shadow the butterfly opened and shut its wings, while the Tears of the Sun dropped, one by one, into the hand of Hepherion. Louder and louder in the distance rose funereal psalms.

Suddenly from behind the cypresses came the sound of voices disputing--

"Augustus is there."

"Why should he go alone to Daphne?"

"Why not? to-day is the great festival of Apollo. See, there he is ... Julian, we have sought you since the morning!"

They were Greek sophists, men of science and rhetoricians, habitual companions of the Emperor, and with them the Neo-Platonist Priscus of Epirus, the bilious sceptic Julius Mauricus, the wise Sallustius Secundus, and the celebrated orator Libanius.

Julian vouchsafed them not the least attention.

"What's the matter?" murmured Julius to Priscus.

"He must be displeased that there has been no preparation for the feast! We have not sent a single offering...."

Julian addressed the former Christian rhetorician, now the high-priest of Astarte, Hekobolis--

"Go into the neighbouring chapel, and inform the Galileans praying there of my will. Let them come here."

Hekobolis went.

Gorgius, still holding his basket, stood petrified, with eyes and mouth wide open. He rubbed his bald head. Had he not drunk too much? It must all be a dream! But when he remembered all he had said about Julian and the god to the pretended professor, a cold sweat broke out on his forehead, his legs trembled, and he fell on his knees--

"Pardon, Cæsar! Forget my words!"

One of the philosophers wished to thrust away the old man; but Julian stopped him--

"Do not insult the sacrificial priest. Rise, Gorgius, there is my hand; fear nothing. So long as I live, none shall do harm to you or to your little lad. You and I both came for the festival, both love the old gods. We will be friends and rejoice together at this feast of the Sun!"

The psalms had meantime ceased. Frightened monks appeared coming up the alley of cypresses, deacons and superiors still in the sacerdotal dress and led by Hekobolis. The arch-priest, a fat man with a shining red face, walked swaying from side to side, much out of breath and wiping his brow. He saluted Augustus profoundly, reaching one finger to the ground, and said in a pleasant bass voice--

"May the humane Augustus pardon his unworthy servants!"

He bowed lower yet, and two novices skilfully assisted him to rise again. One of them had forgotten to put away the censer, from which the incense was escaping in thin fillets of smoke.

At the sight of the monks Hepherion fled. Julian said--

"Galileans, I order you to rid the sacred wood of Apollo of the relics of your co-religionist. We do not desire to use force against you, but if our will is not carried out, I must myself see that Helios is delivered from such sacrilege. I shall send here my soldiers, who will disinter the bones, burn them, and scatter the ashes to the winds."

The arch-priest coughed, and finally said in a humble tone--

"Most merciful Cæsar, that is hard on us, for these relics have long rested here, in a place blessed by the will of Cæsar Gallus. But as it is a matter beyond our jurisdiction, we are forced to refer it to the bishop."

A murmur ran through the crowd; an urchin hidden in a laurel bush shouted--

"The butcher comes With a big, big knife!"

But he received such a buffet that he fled, howling.

The arch-priest, feeling that decency obliged him to defend the relics, coughed again and began--

"If it pleases your High Wisdom to give this order on account of the idol..." he quickly corrected himself.

"Of the Hellenic god, Helios...."

The Emperor's eyes sparkled with rage.

"The 'idol,'" he interrupted, "'idol' is your word. For what imbeciles do you take us, if you think that we worship the matter that represents our gods, metal, stone, or wood. All your preachers preach this, but it is a lie. We worship not these things, but the soul, the living soul of beauty in these models of the purest human beauty. It is not we, the idolaters, but you--you, who devour each other like wild beasts for the sake of an iota; you, who kiss the rotten bones of criminals punished for breaking the Roman laws; you, who call the fratricide Constantius an 'Eternal Holiness!' To deify the splendid sculptures of Phidias, which breathe Olympian beauty and goodness, is that less reasonable than to bow before two crossed beams of wood, a shameful instrument of torture? Must one blush for you, pity you, or hate you? It is the pitch of mad degradation for our country, to see sons of the Hellenes, who read Plato and Homer, rushing to an outcast tribe, a tribe almost blotted out by Vespasian and Titus, in order to deify a dead man!... And you still dare to accuse us of idolatry!"

The arch-priest imperturbably stroked his long beard, and looking at Julian askance, wiped the perspiration from his glistening forehead.

Then the Emperor said to Priscus the philosopher--

"My friend, accomplish the Delian mysteries with which you are familiar. We must purify the Temple of Apollo. He will return to his dwelling, and once we have taken away the stone which seals the spring, the oracle will speak again."

The arch-priest terminated the interview with a deep bow and the same obsequious manner, in which an invincible tenacity could be felt--

"Let your will be done, Cæsar. We are the children, you are the father; but there is no power above the power of God."

"Oh, you hypocrites, I know your obedience and your humility! Your humility is the serpent's fang! Why not struggle against me at least like men?"

Julian turned round to depart, when a little old man and woman issued from the crowd and prostrated themselves at his feet. They were poorly but cleanly dressed, and bore a surprising resemblance to each other, reminding him of Philemon and Baucis.

"Protect us, just Cæsar," whispered the old man. "We have a little house near Antioch at the foot of the Stavrinus. We've lived there twenty years, and now the town-senators, the decurions, are come...." The old man clasped his hands despairingly, and the old woman, imitating him, did the same.

"The decurions come and say, 'This house does not belong to you!'--'What--the Lord be with you--we've been here twenty years!'--'Yes; but you had no right. The land belongs to the temple of the god Æsculapius, and your house is built with the temple-stones. It must return to Æsculapius.' What does this mean?... Have mercy, all-powerful Augustus!"

The two old people, with their clear and childlike faces, were kneeling before him, and weeping, kissed his feet.

Julian perceived an amber cross on the woman's neck.

"Are you Christians?" he asked, his brow growing sombre.

"Yes."

"I should like to grant your prayer ... but how is it to be done? The land belongs to the god.... Nevertheless, your property shall be paid for."

"No, no," cried out the old people, "we're rooted there by all our habits. We don't ask for money. But there everything is ours; we know every blade of grass...."

"There everything is ours," repeated the old woman like an echo. "The vine, the chickens, the cow, the olives, the pigs--everything is ours. And there's the step too, on which in the evening we have warmed our old bones in the sun, side by side, for these twenty years."

The Emperor, without listening, turned toward the startled crowd--

"Latterly the Galileans have overwhelmed me with demands for the return of lands belonging to the churches, and the Valentinians accuse the Arians of having robbed them of their properties. To cut short dispute I have given half of those lands to the Gallic warriors and the other half to the Imperial Treasury; and I am decided to act similarly in future. By what right, you ask? But is it not more easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? You glorify poverty, Galileans? Why murmur against me? In taking property which you yourselves have taken from your brother-heretics, or from Olympian temples, I am only restoring you to wholesome poverty and the narrow way into the heavenly kingdom."

An evil smile curled his lips.

"We're injured unjustly," groaned the two old people.

"Well, suffer the injustice!" answered Julian. "You should rejoice in persecution. What are these sufferings to eternal bliss?"

The old man, unprepared for this deduction, stammered in dismay, as a forlorn hope--

"We are your faithful slaves, Augustus. My son serves on the military staff, in a distant fortress of the Roman frontier, and his superior officers think well of him...."

"Is he also a Christian?" interrupted Julian.

"Yes," sighed the old man, and was immediately dismayed at the avowal.

"You have done well to warn me. As proved enemies of the Roman Augustus, Christians must not henceforth occupy high Imperial office, above all in the army. I am more of your Master's opinion than you are yourselves. How should disciples of Jesus do justice according to the Roman law, when He has said, '_Judge not, and ye shall not be judged_'? How should Christians rightly defend the Empire by the sword, when they were taught by Him '_He who shall take up the sword shall perish by the sword_'; and again, '_Resist not evil_'? Therefore, for the safety of your souls, we shall withdraw Christians from the law and from the army of Rome; that helpless, and disarmed, and free from frivolous earthliness, they may reach the kingdom of heaven!"

Smiling inwardly, and so robbing his hatred of still greater bitterness, the Emperor strode rapidly toward the Temple of Apollo.

The old people stretched their arms after him, sobbing--

"Cæsar, we did it unwittingly! Take our house, our land, all that we have, but have pity on our son!"

The philosophers wished to enter the temple, but the Emperor waved them back--

"I came to the festival alone. I alone will offer the sacrifice!"

"Let us go in," he added, addressing Gorgius.

"Close the doors, and let none of the unconsecrated enter...."

And the doors were shut in the faces of his philosopher friends.

"'Unconsecrated?' How do you like that?" asked Garguillus moodily.

Libanius stood sulking in silence.

Mauricus, with a mysterious air, dragged his friends into a corner of the portico, and touching his forehead with a finger murmured--

"Do you understand?"

All were dumbfounded.

"Is it possible?"

Mauricus began to reckon--

"First, pallor, feverish appearance, disordered hair, irregular step, incoherent speeches; second, excessive harshness and nervousness; third, this stupid war against the Persians!... By Pallas, it clearly means madness!"

The friends drew closer, and began to tell each other all sorts of anecdotes. Sallustius, who held aloof, contemplated the group with a bitter smile.

Within the temple Julian found Hepherion, who brightened on seeing him, and several times during the rite gazed into the Emperor's face, as if the two had some secret in common. Shining in the sunlight, the colossal statue of Apollo stood in the midst of the temple, its body ivory and its garments golden, like those of the Zeus by Phidias at Olympia. The god, stooping slightly, was pouring the nectar of his cup to the Earth-Mother, praying her to restore him Daphne.

A slight cloud passed above the temple. Shadows ran over the time-yellowed ivory. It seemed to Julian that the god benignly stooped still lower, to receive the offering of the last adorers--the weak priest, the apostate Emperor, and the deaf-mute son of the sibyl.

"This is my reward," thought Julian. "I wish for no other glory, nor guerdon, O Apollo! I thank thee for the curses of the crowd; and for thy grace, in making me live and die alone, like thyself! There, where the populace prays, there is no god! Thou art here, in this sanctuary profaned. O god, scorned by mankind, now art thou far more beautiful than of old when they adored thee! On the day marked for me by the Fates, let me be joined again to thee, O Radiant One! Let me die in thee, Sun, as the fire of the last offering dies in thy rays!"

So prayed the Emperor, tears streaming down his cheeks, and one by one the drops of the victim's blood fell like tears on the half-consumed embers.

XIII

A profound obscurity enveloped the wood of Daphne on all sides. A hot wind was hunting the clouds along. For days not a drop of rain had fallen on the cracked and arid earth. The laurels were shaking their black branches to heaven. The low roar of the cypresses in their titanic alleys was like the murmur of a crowd of angry old men.

Two persons were gliding cautiously through the shadow towards the Temple of Apollo. The smaller, who had green eyes like a cat, saw clearly through the night, and was leading the more stalwart by the hand.

"Oh! oh! you scoundrel! we shall break our necks in some ditch!"

"There is no ditch here! What are you afraid of? Since you adopted the new religion you've become a regular old woman!"

"An old woman!... When I used to hunt the bear my heart had never a throb the quicker! But here ... this isn't a job like that!... We shall swing for it, side by side, on the same gallows, my boy."

"Nonsense! Be quiet, you great fool!"

The small man again began dragging along the bigger, who carried an enormous truss of hay and a pickaxe.

They arrived at a postern door of the temple.

"Here, use the pick!" muttered the little man, groping with his hands for cracks in the stone. "And you can cut the cross-timbers with the axe...."

Suddenly there came a cry, like the complaint of a sick child. The tall man trembled in all his limbs--

"What is it?"

"The Demon!" exclaimed the little one, his eyes staring with affright, clutching at the clothes of his companion--

"You won't desert me, old fellow?"

"It's an owl!... Well, he can plume himself on having scared us!"

The enormous night-bird, startled from his nest, flew away with a sobbing cry.

"Let's give it up," said the tall man. "That will never kindle."

"Why not? The wood's rotten, dry as tinder in the sun, and all worm-eaten.... A single spark will do. Come, work along!"

And the little man shoved the taller.

"Now, push the straw into the hole!... more, more, for the glory of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!"

"Why are you fidgeting about like an eel?" said the tall man, in annoyance. "And what is there to laugh at?"

"Ha, ha, ha! What? The angels of heaven must be rejoicing.... Only remember, uncle, if we're taken, don't deny what we've done. We'll have a pretty little blaze!... Here, take the flint and steel!"

"Go to the devil!" answered the other. "You sha'n't tempt me, cursed little snake! Pah! Kindle yourself!"

"Ah, you're crying off..." and trembling with rage the little man seized the big man by the beard.

"I'll be the first to denounce you; I shall be believed...."

"Leave me alone, damn you. Give me the flint.... I've had enough of this."

The sparks sprang out. The smaller man, for greater comfort, or to complete his resemblance to a young snake, laid himself flat on his stomach. Thin tongues of flame ran through the straw, which had been soaked in pitch. Thick smoke arose. A mass of flame shone ruddily on the distressed face of the giant Aragaris, and the monkey-like visage of the little Syrian, Strombix, who began leaping and laughing like one drunk or mad--

"We'll destroy it all, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Ho! ho! ho! A pretty little blaze, eh!"

There was something ferocious in his destructive glee.

Aragaris, pointing to the darkness, muttered--

"Don't you hear something?"

Not a soul was in the wood, but the incendiaries, in the roaring of the wind and the moaning of the cypresses, imagined that they heard voices.

Aragaris began to run.

"Take me on your shoulders, comrade! You've long legs."

Aragaris halted; Strombix sprang on the shoulders of the Sarmatian like a squirrel, and they fled away. The little Syrian dug his knees into his companion's ribs, and put his arms round his neck to avoid falling. In spite of his fear he laughed and shouted with joy. The pair gained the open field. Between the clouds, the moon in its last quarter was shining, and the wind roared harshly. Strombix on the giant's shoulders seemed an evil spirit riding his victim to hell. The idea in fact suddenly struck Aragaris that the Demon, in the shape of a great cat, was hunting him along with his claws to the abyss. The giant made desperate bounds to shake off his burden. The hair bristled on his head, and he yelled with terror. The black, double figure of the pair running, stooped towards the dry, hard earth, over the withered fields, was silhouetted against the pale horizon.

* * * * *

At the same hour, in his chamber in the palace at Antioch, Julian was having a secret interview with the prefect Sallustius Secundus--

"Where shall we obtain, well-beloved Cæsar, the necessary food for such an army?"

"I'll send to Sicily, to Egypt, to Apulia, in all directions where the harvests are abundant," answered the Emperor. "I can answer for it that there will be food enough...."

"And money?" asked Sallustius. "Would it not be better to postpone this campaign till next year? Wait a little?"

Julian strode up and down the room. Suddenly he halted before the other man.

"Wait!" he exclaimed angrily. "One would say the word was a kind of pass-word, it is repeated to me so often!... Wait? As if it were possible to wait now, to weigh, vacillate, hesitate! Are the Galileans waiting? Understand, Senator, I must achieve the impossible; I must return from Persia great and terrible ... or not return at all. No more conciliations, or half measures, are possible!... Why speak of reason? Did the Macedonian Alexander conquer the world by reason--the beardless young man who, with a mere handful of soldiers, went to fight the monarchs of Asia? Was he not mad, in the sight of reasonable men like you? What gave him victory?"

"I do not know," responded the prefect evasively. "I suppose the valour of the hero...."

"No," exclaimed Julian. "The gods! Understand, Sallustius, the Olympians can grant me the same grace, and a greater still, if it please them. I will cross the world from east to west, like the great Macedonian, like the god Dionysus. When I come back victorious from Asia we shall see what the Christians have to say, whether they will mock at the sword of the Roman Emperor as they mock at the plain robe of the philosopher."

His eyes seemed glittering with madness; and Sallustius, seeing that further objection was useless, said nothing. But when Julian began to walk up and down, the prefect shook his head and deep pity was expressed in the kindly gaze of the old man.

"The army must be ready to march," continued Julian. "I desire it, do you hear? I will have no excuses nor delays. Arsaces, the Armenian king, has promised help. There is bread. What more is lacking? I must know that I can at any moment set out against the Persians. On this depends not only my glory, but the safety of the Roman Empire and the victory of the gods against the Galileans!..."

The warm wind, blowing into the chamber, agitated the three flames of the lampadary. A shooting-star scored the dark blue night-sky and vanished. Julian saw it, and was strangely thrilled.

Outside the door voices were heard. Someone knocked.

"Who is there? Come in!" said the Emperor.

They were his philosopher friends. Libanius, at their head, seemed more emphatic and sullen than usual.

"What is your desire?" asked Julian coldly.

Libanius knelt, still retaining his arrogant air--

"Let me depart, Augustus. I can no longer endure life at your Court. My patience is exhausted. Every day there is some new insult to put up with...." and he spoke at length of rewards, the moneys received by him no longer, of ingratitude in view of his services, and the splendid panegyrics with which he had glorified Cæsar.