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He carried his burden safely within the doorway of Pelagia's house, into the crowd of peeping and shrieking damsels, where twenty pairs of the prettiest hands in Alexandria seized on Orestes, and drew him into the court.
It neared and grew.... A dark globe, ringed with rainbows.... What might it be? She dared not hope.... It came nearer, nearer, nearer, touched her.... The centre quivered, flickered, took form a face. A god's? No Pelagia's.
Philammon saw that it was his only chance, and did so; and in another minute he found himself rushing headlong into the archway of Pelagia's house, with a dozen monks at his heels. As luck would have it, the outer gates, at which the Goths had just entered, were still open; but the inner ones which led into the court beyond were fast. He tried them, but in vain.
Every street poured its tide of furious fanatics into the main river; and ere he could reach Pelagia's house the sun was set, and close behind him, echoed by ten thousand voices, was the cry of 'Down with all heathens! Root out all Arian Goths! Down with idolatrous wantons! Down with Pelagia Aphrodite! He hurried down the alley, to the tower door, where Wulf had promised to meet him.
The person at whom she pointed, a delicate-featured old man, with a venerable white beard, seemed to hear her; for he turned with a sudden start, and then, to Pelagia's astonishment, put his hands before his face, and burst convulsively into tears. 'What does he mean by behaving in that way? Bring him here to me this moment!
Then, as he heard his sister's name, in every tone of pity, contempt, and horror, mingle with their angry exclamations, he awoke from his dream, and, bursting through the mob, made straight for Pelagia's house. It was fast closed; and his repeated knocks at the gate brought only, after long waiting, a surly negro face to a little wicket.
Wulf was now no longer a phenomenon to be wondered at, but an instrument to be used. The broken hints which he had just given of discontent with Pelagia's presence inspired the boy with sudden hope, and cautiously he began to hint at the existence of persons who would be glad to remove her.
His guards have orders to garrison the house for as long as we shall require them. 'Send them away, then. I have done no wrong, and I fear no punishment. 'You do not know the madness of the mob; they are shouting your name in the streets already, in company with Pelagia's. Hypatia shuddered. Her name in company with Pelagia's! And to this she had brought herself! 'I have deserved it!
O Absalom, my son! would to God I had died for thee, my son! my son! The house which Pelagia and the Amal had hired after their return to Alexandria, was one of the most splendid in the city. They had been now living there three months or more, and in that time Pelagia's taste had supplied the little which it needed to convert it into a paradise of lazy luxury.
The great city roared without; Orestes plotted, and Cyril counterplotted, and the fate of a continent hung or seemed to hang trembling in the balance; but the turmoil of it no more troubled those lazy Titans within, than did the roll and rattle of the carriage-wheels disturb the parakeets and sunbirds which peopled, under an awning of gilded wire, the inner court of Pelagia's house.
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