y same set, I will be sworn, who nearly murdered Dioscuros.'

'If you will not allow me to proceed, my holy brethren,' said Orestes,
trying to look collected, 'perhaps it will not be contrary to the canons
of the Church if I turn back. Leave the horses' heads alone. Why, in
God's name, what do you want?'

'Do you fancy we have forgotten Hieracas?' cried a voice from the rear;
and at that name, yell upon yell arose, till the mob, gaining courage
from its own noise, burst out into open threats. 'Revenge for the
blessed martyr Hieracas!' 'Revenge for the wrongs of the Church!' 'Down
with the friend of Heathens, Jews, and Barbarians!' 'Down with the
favourite of Hypatia!' 'Tyrant!' 'Butcher!' And the last epithet so
smote the delicate fancy of the crowd, that a general cry arose of
'Kill the butcher!' and one furious monk attempted to clamber into the
chariot. An apparitor tore him down, and was dragged to the ground in
his turn. The monks closed in. The guards, finding the enemy number ten
to their one, threw down their weapons in a panic, and vanished; and in
another minute the hopes of Hypatia and the gods would have been lost
for ever, and Alexandria robbed of the blessing of being ruled by the
most finished gentleman south of the Mediterranean, had it not been for
unexpected succour; of which it will be time enough, considering who and
what is in danger, to speak in a future chapter.

CHAPTER XVII: A STRAY GLEAM

THE last blue headland of Sardinia was fading fast on the north-west
horizon, and a steady breeze bore before it innumerable ships, the
wrecks of Heraclian's armament, plunging and tossing impatiently in
their desperate homeward race toward the coast of Africa. Far and
wide, under a sky of cloudless blue, the white sails glittered on
the glittering sea, as gaily now, above their loads of shame and
disappointment terror and pain, as when, but one short month before,
they bore with them only wild hopes and gallant daring. Who can
calculate the sum of misery in that hapless flight?.... And yet it
was but one, and that one of the least known and most trivial, of the
tragedies of that age of woe; one petty death-spasm among the unnumbered
throes which were shaking to dissolution the Babylon of the West. Her
time had come. Even as Saint John beheld her in his vision, by agony
after agony, she was rotting to her well-earned doom. Tyrannising
it luxuriously over all nations, she had sat upon the mystic
beast