Her righteous wrath was too deep for upbraidings. Slowly she rose; returned into the inner room; wrapped her cloak deliberately around her; and went silently away, with one look at the Jewess of solemn scorn and defiance.
‘Ah! I can afford a few sulky looks to-night!’ said the old woman to herself, with a smile, as she picked up from the floor the prize for which she had been plotting so long—Raphael’s half of the black agate.
‘I wonder whether she will miss it! Perhaps she will have no fancy for its company any longer, now that she has discovered what over-palpable archangels appear when she rubs it. But if she does try to recover it.... why—let her try her strength with mine—or, rather, with a Christian mob.’
And then, drawing from her bosom the other half of the talisman, she fitted the two pieces together again and again, fingering them over, and poring upon them with tear-brimming eyes, till she had satisfied herself that the fracture still fitted exactly; while she murmured to herself from time to time—‘Oh, that he were here! Oh, that he would return now—now! It may be too late to-morrow! Stay—I will go and consult the teraph; it may know where he is....’
And she departed to her incantations; while Hypatia threw herself upon her bed at home, and filled the chamber with a long, low wailing, as of a child in pain, until the dreary dawn broke on her shame and her despair. And then she rose, and rousing herself for one great effort, calmly prepared a last oration, in which she intended to bid farewell for ever to Alexandria and to the schools.
Philammon meanwhile was striding desperately up the main street which led towards the Serapeium. But he was not destined to arrive there as soon as he had hoped to do. For ere he had gone half a mile, behold a crowd advancing towards him blocking up the whole street.
The mass seemed endless. Thousands of torches flared above their heads, and from the heart of the procession rose a solemn chant, in which Philammon soon recognised a well-known Catholic hymn. He was half minded to turn up some by-street, and escape meeting them. But on attempting to do so, he found every avenue which he tried similarly blocked up by a tributary stream of people; and, almost ere he was aware, was entangled in the vanguard of the great column.
‘Let me pass!’ cried he in a voice of entreaty.
‘Pass, thou heathen?’
In vain he protested his Christianity.