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Or the next?.... Or Was it Pelagia herself, most beautiful and most sinful of them all? Fearful thought! He blushed scarlet at the bare imagination: yet why, in his secret heart, was that the most pleasant hypothesis of them all? And suddenly flashed across him that observation of one of the girls on board the boat, on his likeness to Pelagia. Strange, that he had never recollected it before!
As Hypatia was passing across to her lecture-room that afternoon, she was stopped midway by a procession of some twenty Goths and damsels, headed by Pelagia herself, in all her glory of jewels, shawls, and snow-white mule; while by her side rode the Amal, his long legs, like those of Gang-Rolf the Norseman, all but touching the ground, as he crushed down with his weight a delicate little barb, the best substitute to be found in Alexandria for the huge black chargers of his native land.
Five minutes more, and Wulf was gazing over the broken parapet, at the head of twenty terrified spectators, male and female, whom Pelagia's shriek had summoned. He alone suspected that Philammon had been there; and shuddering at the thought of what might have happened, he kept his secret. But all knew that Pelagia had been on the tower; all had seen the Amal go up thither. Where were they now?
There was no escape for Hypatia; pride forbade her to follow her own maidenly instinct, and to recoil among the crowd behind her; and in another moment the Amal had lifted Pelagia from her mule, and the rival beauties of Alexandria stood, for the first time in their lives, face to face. 'May Athene befriend you this day, Hypatia! said Pelagia with her sweetest smile.
'Hist! what is that tramp upon the stairs? At this moment heavy footsteps were heard ascending the stairs.... All three stopped aghast: Philammon, because he thought the visitors were monks in search of him; Miriam, because she thought they were Orestes's guards in search of her; and Pelagia, from vague dread of anything and everything.... 'Have you an inner room? asked the Jewess. 'None.
And she sprang from the platform into his arms, and then, covering her face with both her hands, sank down among the bloodstained sand. A yell ran along the vast circle. Philammon was hurried away by the attendants, and Pelagia, her face still hidden by her hands, walked slowly away and vanished among the palms at the back of the stage.
If Pelagia were a baptized woman, what was before her but unceasing penance? Before her, as before him, a life of cold and hunger, groans and tears, loneliness and hideous soul-sickening uncertainty. Life was a dungeon for them both henceforth. Be it so! There was nothing else to believe in. No other rock of hope in earth or heaven.
And what can the life of such a brute be to you? Before he could stop her, Pelagia had sprung from her cushions, and thrown herself into the midst of the laughing ring of wild beasts. 'Spare him! spare him for my sake! shrieked she. 'Oh, my pretty lady! you mustn't interrupt warriors' sport!
'No! said Pelagia, looking up. 'No love-potions! No poisons! 'Poisons, little fool! Do you doubt the old woman's skill? Do you think I shall make him lose his wits, as Callisphyra did to her lover last year, because she would trust to old Megaera's drugs, instead of coming to me! 'No! No drugs; no magic! He must love me really, or not at all!
Pelagia and Sophronia, both canonised, the first of these precipitated herself with her mother and sisters into the river to avoid being forced by some soldiers, and the last also killed herself to avoid being ravished by the Emperor Maxentius.
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