‘Conquered?’ cried Hypatia, springing from her seat.
‘Conquered, and utterly destroyed the emperor’s forces at Ostia. So says a messenger on whom I can depend. And even if the news should prove false, I can prevent the contrary report from spreading, or what is the use of being prefect? You demur? Do you not see that if we can keep the notion alive but a week our cause is won?’
‘How so?’
‘I have treated already with all the officers of the city, and every one of them has acted like a wise man, and given me a promise of help, conditional of course on Heraclian’s success, being as tired as I am of that priest-ridden court at Byzantium. Moreover, the stationaries are mine already. So are the soldiery all the way up the Nile. Ah! you have been fancying me idle for these four months, but—You forget that you yourself were the prize of my toil. Could I be a sluggard with that goal in sight?’
Hypatia shuddered, but was silent; and Orestes went on—
‘I have unladen several of the wheat-ships for enormous largesses of bread: though those rascally monks of Tabenne had nearly forestalled my benevolence, and I was forced to bribe a deacon or two, buy up the stock they had sent down, and retail it again as my own. It is really most officious of them to persist in feeding gratuitously half the poor of the city! What possible business have they with Alexandria?’
‘The wish for popularity, I presume.’
‘Just so; and then what hold can the government have on a set of rogues whose stomachs are filled without our help?’
‘Julian made the same complaint to the high priest of Galatia, in that priceless letter of his.’
‘Ah, you will set that all right, you know, shortly. Then again, I do not fear Cyril’s power just now. He has injured himself deeply, I am happy to say, in the opinion of the wealthy and educated, by expelling the Jews. And as for his mob, exactly at the right moment, the deities—there are no monks here, so I can attribute my blessings to the right source—have sent us such a boon as may put them into as good a humour as we need.’