s voice of an adoring people....

'It is false!' shouted a voice from the highest tiers, appropriated
to the women of the lower classes, which made all turn their heads in
bewilderment.

'False! false! you are tricked! He is tricked! Heraclian was utterly
routed at Ostia, and is fled to Carthage, with the emperor's fleet in
chase.'

'She lies! Drag the beast down!' cried Orestes, utterly thrown off his
balance by the sudden check.

'She? He! I, a monk, brought the news! Cyril has known it--every Jew in
the Delta has known it, for a week past! So perish all the enemies of
the Lord, caught in their own snare!'

And bursting desperately through the women who surrounded him, the monk
vanished.

An awful silence fell on all who heard. For a minute every man looked in
his neighbour's face as if he longed to cut his throat, and get rid of
one witness, at least, of his treason. And then arose a tumult, which
Orestes in vain attempted to subdue. Whether the populace believed the
monk's words or not, they were panic-stricken at the mere possibility
of their truth. Hoarse with denying, protesting, appealing, the would-be
emperor had at last to summon his guards around him and Hypatia, and
make his way out of the theatre as best he could; while the multitude
melted away like snow before the rain, and poured out into the streets
in eddying and roaring streams, to find every church placarded by Cyril
with the particulars of Heraclian's ruin.

CHAPTER XXIII: NEMESIS

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 co