‘You have? Then take them with you, and escape, and remember Lot’s wife. Eudaimon, come with me. You must lead me to your house, to the lodging of Miriam the Jewess. Do not deny! I know that she is there. For the sake of her who is gone I will hold you harmless, ay, reward you richly, if you prove faithful. Rise!’
Eudaimon, who knew Raphael’s face well, rose and led the way trembling; and Philammon was left alone.
They never met again. But Philammon knew that he had been in the presence of a stronger man than himself, and of one who hated even more bitterly than he himself that deed at which the very sun, it seemed, ought to have veiled his face. And his words, ‘Arise, and flee for thy life,’ uttered as they were with the stern self-command and writhing lip of compressed agony, rang through his ears like the trump of doom. Yes, he would flee. He had gone forth to see the world, and he had seen it. Arsenius was in the right after all. Home to the desert! But first he would go himself, alone, to Pelagia, and implore her once more to flee with him. Beast, fool, that he had been to try to win her by force—by the help of such as these! God’s kingdom was not a kingdom of fanatics yelling for a doctrine, but of willing, loving, obedient hearts. If he could not win her heart, her will, he would go alone, and die praying for her.
He sprang from the steps of the Caesareum, and turned up the street of the Museum. Alas! it was one roaring sea of heads! They were sacking Theon’s house—the house of so many memories! Perhaps the poor old man too had perished! Still—his sister! He must save her and flee. And he turned up a side street and tried to make his way onward.
Alas again! the whole of the dock-quarter was up and out. 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. It was half open, and in the dusk he could see a figure standing in the doorway. He sprang up the steps, and found, not Wulf, but Miriam.
‘Let me pass!’
‘Wherefore?’
He made no answer, and tried to push past her.
‘Fool, fool, fool!’ whispered the hag, holding the door against him with all her strength. ‘Where are your fellow-kidnappers? Where are your band of monks?’