ell as to that
of Hypatia, old Wulf rose also, and stumbling along to the foot of the
tribune, pulled out his purse, and laid it at Hypatia's feet.

'What is this?' asked she, half terrified at the approach of a figure
more rugged and barbaric than she had ever beheld before.

'My fee for what I have heard to-day. You are a right noble maiden, and
may Freya send you a husband worthy of you, and make you the mother of
kings!'

And Wulf retired with his party.

Open homage to her rival, before her very face! Pelagia felt quite
inclined to hate old Wulf.

But at least he was the only traitor. The rest of the Goths agreed
unanimously that Hypatia was a very foolish person, who was wasting her
youth and beauty in talking to donkey-riders; and Pelagia remounted her
mule, and the Goths their horses, for a triumphal procession homeward.

And yet her heart was sad, even in her triumph. Right and wrong were
ideas as unknown to her as they were to hundreds of thousands in her
day. As far as her own consciousness was concerned, she was as destitute
of a soul as the mule on which she rode. Gifted by nature with boundless
frolic and good-humour, wit and cunning, her Greek taste for the
physically beautiful and graceful developed by long training, until she
had become, without a rival, the most perfect pantomime, dancer,
and musician who catered for the luxurious tastes of the Alexandrian
theatres, she had lived since her childhood only for enjoyment and
vanity, and wished for nothing more. But her new affection, or rather
worship, for the huge manhood of her Gothic lover had awoke in her a new
object--to keep him--to live for him--to follow him to the ends of the
earth, even if he tired of her, ill-used her, despised her. And slowly,
day by day, Wulf's sneers bad awakened in her a dread that perhaps the
Amal might despise her.... Why, she could not guess: but what sort of
women were those Alrunas of whom Wulf sang, of whom even the Amal and
his men spoke with reverence, as something nobler, not only than her,
but even than themselves? And what was it which Wulf had recognised in
Hypatia which had bowed the stern and coarse old warrior before her in
that public homage?.... it was not difficult to say what.... But why
should that make Hypatia or any one else attractive? And the poor
little child of nature gazed in deep bewilderment at a crowd of new
questions, as a butterfly might at the pages of the book on which it has
settled