‘Well, it wouldn’t take five minutes.’
‘And heroes should show that they can forgive when an enemy is in distress.’
‘Very true! Like an Amal too!’ And the Amal sprang up and shouted to his men to follow him.
‘Good-bye, my pretty one. Why, Wulf,’ cried he, as he burst out into the court, ‘here’s our monk again! By Odin, you’re welcome, my handsome boy! come along and fight too, young fellow; what were those arms given you for?’
‘He is my man,’ said Wulf, laying his hand on Philammon’s shoulder, ‘and blood he shall taste.’ And out the three hurried, Philammon, in his present reckless mood, ready for anything.
‘Bring your whips. Never mind swords. Those rascals are not worth it,’ shouted the Amal, as he hurried down the passage brandishing his heavy thong, some ten feet in length, threw the gate open, and the next moment recoiled from a dense crush of people who surged in—and surged out again as rapidly as the Goth, with the combined force of his weight and arm, hewed his way straight through them, felling a wretch at every blow, and followed up by his terrible companions.
They were but just in time. The four white blood-horses were plunging and rolling over each other, and Orestes reeling in his chariot, with a stream of blood running down his face, and the hands of twenty wild monks clutching at him. ‘Monks again!’ thought Philammon and as he saw among them more than one hateful face, which he recollected in Cyril’s courtyard on that fatal night, a flush of fierce revenge ran through him.
‘Mercy!’ shrieked the miserable Prefect—‘I am a Christian! I swear that I am a Christian! the Bishop Atticus baptized me at Constantinople!’
‘Down with the butcher! down with the heathen tyrant, who refuses the adjuration on the Gospels rather than be reconciled to the patriarch! Tear him out of the chariot!’ yelled the monks.
The craven hound!’ said the Amal, stopping short, ‘I won’t help him!’ But in an instant Wulf rushed forward, and struck right and left; the monks recoiled, and Philammon, burning to prevent so shameful a scandal to the faith to which he still clung convulsively, sprang into the chariot and caught Orestes in his arms.