Arachne — Complete

  CHAPTER XV.

  Hermon went, with Philippus and Thyone, on board the ship which was toconvey them through the new canal to Pelusium, where the old commandanthad to plan all sorts of measures. In the border fortress the artistwas again obliged to exercise patience, for no ship bound to Pergamus orLesbos could be found in the harbour. Philippus had as much work ashe could do, but all his arrangements were made when carrier dovesannounced that the surprise intended by the Gauls had been completelythwarted, and his son Eumedes was empowered to punish them.

  The admiral would take his fleet to the Sebennytic mouth of the Nile.

  Another dove came from King Ptolemy, and summoned the old general atonce to the capital. Philippus resolved to set off without delay and, asthe way led past that mouth of the Nile, met his son on the voyage.

  Hermon must accompany him and his wife to Alexandria, whence, withoutentering the city, he could sail for Pergamus; ships bound to all theports in the Mediterranean were always in one of the harbours of thecapital. A galley ready to weigh anchor was constantly at the disposalof the commandant of the fortress, and the next noon the noble pair,with Hermon and his faithful Bias, went on board the Galatea.

  The weather was dull, and gray clouds were sweeping across the sky overthe swift vessel, which hugged the coast, and, unless the wind shifted,would reach the narrow tongue of land pierced by the Sebennytic mouth ofthe Nile before sunrise.

  Though the general and his wife went to rest early, Hermon could notendure the close air of the cabin. Wrapped in his cloak he went on deck.The moon, almost full, was sailing in the sky, sometimes covered by darkclouds, sometimes leaving them behind. Like a swan emerging from theshadow of the thickets along the shore upon the pure bosom of thelake, it finally floated into the deep azure of the radiant firmament.Hermon's heart swelled.

  How he rejoiced that he was again permitted to behold the starry sky,and satiate his soul with the beauty of creation! What delight it gavehim that the eternal wanderers above were no longer soulless forms,that he again saw in the pure silver disk above friendly Selene, in therolling salt waves the kingdom of Poseidon! To-morrow, when the deepblue water was calm, he would greet the sea-god Glaucus, and when snowyfoam crowned the crests of the waves, white-armed Thetis. The wind wasno longer an empty sound to him; no, it, too, came from a deity. AllNature had regained a new, divine life. Doubtless he felt much nearer tohis childhood than before, but he was infinitely less distant from theeternal divinity. And all the forms, so full of meaning, which appearedto him from Nature, and from every powerful emotion of his own soul,were waiting to be represented by his art in the noblest of forms, thoseof human beings. There were few with whose nature he had not becomefamiliar in the darkness and solitude that once surrounded him.

  When he began to create again, he had only to summon them, and heawaited, with the suspense of the general who is in command of newtroops on the eve of battle, the success of his own work after the greattransformation which had taken place in him.

  What a stress and tumult!

  He had controlled it since the first hour when he regained his fullvision. He would fain have transformed the moon into the sun, the shipinto the studio, and begun to model.

  He knew, too, what he desired to create.

  He would model an Apollo trampling under foot the slain dragon ofdarkness.

  He would succeed in this work now. And as he looked up and saw Selenejust emerging again from the black cloud island, the thought entered hismind that it was a moonlight night like this when all the unspeakablyterrible misfortune occurred--which was now past.

  Yet neither the calm wanderer above nor a resentful woman had exposedhim to the persecution of Nemesis. In the stillness of the desert he hadperceived what had brought all this terrible suffering upon him; buthe would not repeat it to himself now, for he felt within his soul thepower to remain faithful to his best self in the future.

  With clear eyes he gazed keenly and blithely at the new life. Nothing,least of all, futile self-torturing regret for faults committed, shouldcloud the fair morning dawning anew for him, which summoned him toactive work, to gratitude and love.

  Uttering a sigh of relief, he paced the deck--now brilliantlyilluminated by silvery light--with long strides.

  The moon above his head reminded him of Ledscha. He was no longer angrywith her. The means by which she had intended to destroy him had beentransformed into a benefit, and while in the desert he had perceivedhow often man finally blesses, as the highest gain, what he at firstregarded as the most cruel affliction.

  How distinctly the image of the Biamite again stood before his agitatedsoul!

  Had he not loved her once?

  Or how had it happened that, though his heart was Daphne's, and hersalone, he had felt wounded and insulted when his Bias, who was leaningover the railing of the deck yonder, gazing at the glittering waves, hadinformed him that Ledscha had been accompanied in her flight from herunloved husband by the Gaul whose life he, Hermon, had saved? Was thisdue to jealousy or merely wounded vanity at being supplanted in a heartwhich he firmly believed belonged, though only in bitter hate, solely tohim?

  She certainly had not forgotten him, and while the remembrance of herblended with the yearning for Daphne which never left him, he sat downand gazed out into the darkness till his head drooped on his breast.

  Then a dream showed the Biamite to the slumbering man, yet no longer inthe guise of a woman, but as the spider Arachne. She increased beforehis eyes to an enormous size and alighted upon the pharos erected bySostratus. Uninjured by the flames of the lighthouse, above which shehovered, she wove a net of endlessly long gray threads over the wholecity of Alexandria, with its temples, palaces, and halls, harbours andships, until Daphne suddenly appeared with a light step and quietly cutone after the other.

  Suddenly a shrill whistle aroused him. It was the signal of theflute-player to relieve the rowers.

  A faint yellow line was now tingeing the eastern horizon of the gray,cloudy sky. At his left extended the flat, dull-brown coast line, whichseemed to be lower than the turbid waves of the restless sea. The coldmorning wind was blowing light mists over the absolutely barren shore.Not a tree, not a bush, not a human dwelling was to be seen in thisdreary wilderness. Wherever the eye turned, there was nothing but sandand water, which united at the edge of the land. Long lines of surfpoured over the arid desert, and, as if repelled by the desolation ofthis strand, returned to the wide sea whence they came.

  The shrill screams of the sea-gulls behind the ship, and the hoarse,hungry croaking of the ravens on the shore blended with the roaring ofthe waves. Hermon shuddered at this scene. Shivering, he wrapped hiscloak closer around him, yet he did not go to the protecting cabin, butfollowed the nauarch, who pointed out to him the numerous vessels which,in a wide curve, surrounded the place where the Sebennytic arm of theNile pierced the tongue of land to empty into the sea.

  The experienced seaman did not know what ships were doing there, but itwas hardly anything good; for ravens in a countless multitude were to beseen on the shore and all moved toward the left.

  Philippus's appearance on deck interrupted the nauarch. He anxiouslyshowed the birds to the old hero also, and the latter's only reply was,"Watch the helm and sails!"

  Yonder squadron, Philippus said to the artist, was a part of his son'sfleet; what brought it there was a mystery to him too.

  After the early meal, the galley of Eumedes approached his father'strireme. Two other galleys, not much inferior in size, were behind, andprobably fifty smaller vessels were moving about the mouth of the Nileand the whole dreary tongue of land.

  All belonged to the royal war fleet, and the deck of every one wascrowded with armed soldiers.

  On one a forest of lances bristled in the murky air, and upon itssouthward side a row of archers, each man holding his bow in his hand,stood shoulder to shoulder.

  At what mark were their arrows to be aimed? The men on board the Galateasaw it distinctly, for the shore
was swarming with human figures, herestanding crowded closely together, like horses attacked by a pack ofwolves; yonder running, singly or in groups, toward the sea or into theland. Dark spots on the light sand marked the places where others hadthrown themselves on the ground, or, kneeling, stretched out their armsas if in defence.

  Who were the people who populated this usually uninhabited, inhospitableplace so densely and in so strange a manner?

  This could not be distinguished from the Galatea with the naked eye,but Philippus thought that they were the Gauls whose punishment had beenintrusted to his son, and it soon proved that the old general was right;for just as the Galatea was approaching the shore, a band of twenty orthirty men plunged into the sea. They were Gauls. The light complexionsand fair and red bristling hair showed this--Philippus knew them, andHermon remembered the hordes of men who had rushed past him on the rideto Tennis.

  But the watchers were allowed only a short time for observation; briefshouts of command rang from the ships near them, long bows were raisedin the air, and one after another of the light-hued forms in the waterthrew up its arms, sprang up, or sank motionless into the waves aroundthem, which were dyed with a crimson stain.

  The artist shuddered; the gray-haired general covered his head with hiscloak, and the Lady Thyone followed his example, uttering her son's namein a tone of loud lamentation.

  The nauarch pointed to the black birds in the air and close above theshore and the water; but the shout, "A boat from the admiral's galley!"soon attracted the attention of the voyagers on the Galatea in a newdirection.

  Thirty powerful rowers were urging the long, narrow boat toward them.Sometimes raised high on the crest of a mountain wave, sometimes sinkinginto the hollow, it completed its trip, and Eumedes mounted a swingingrope ladder to the Galatea's deck as nimbly as a boy.

  Here the young commander of the fleet hastened toward his parents. Hismother sobbed aloud at his anything but cheerful greeting; Philippussaid mournfully, "I have heard nothing yet, but I know all."

  "Father," replied the admiral, and raising the helmet from his head,covered with brown curls, he added mournfully: "First as to these menhere. It will teach you to understand the other terrible things. YourUncle Archias's house was destroyed; yonder men were the criminals."

  "In the capital!" Philippus exclaimed furiously, and Hermon cried in noless vehement excitement: "How did my uncle get the ill will of thesemonsters? But as the vengeance is in your hands, they will atone forthis breach of the peace!"

  "Severely, perhaps too severely," replied Eumedes gloomily, andPhilippus asked his son how this evil deed could have happened, and thepurport of the King's command.

  The admiral related what had occurred in the capital since his departurefrom Pithom.

  The four thousand Gauls who had been sent by King Antiochus to theEgyptian army as auxiliary troops against Cyrene refused, beforereaching Paraetonium, on the western frontier of the Egyptian kingdom,to obey their Greek commanders. As they tried to force them to continuetheir march, the barbarians left them bound in the road. Theyspared their lives, but rushed with loud shouts of exultation towardAlexandria, which was close at hand.

  They had learned that the city was almost stripped of troops, and themost savage instinct urged them toward the wealthy capital.

  Without encountering any resistance, they broke through the necropolisinto Alexandria, crossed the Draco canal, and marched past theunfinished Temple of Serapis through the Rhakotis. At the Canopic Waythey turned eastward and rushed through this main artery of traffictill, in the Brucheium, they hastened in a northerly direction towardthe sea.

  South of the Theatre of Dionysus they halted. One division turned towardthe market-place, another toward the royal palaces.

  Until they reached the Brucheium the hordes, so eager for booty, hadrefrained from plunder and pillage.

  Their whole strength was to be reserved, as the examination proved, forthe attack upon the royal palaces. Several people who were thoroughlyfamiliar with Alexandria had acted as guides.

  The instigator of the mutiny was said to be a Gallic captain who hadtaken part in the surprise of Delphi, but, having ventured to punishdisobedient soldiers, he was killed. A bridge-builder from the ranks,and his wife, who was not of Gallic blood, had taken his place.

  This woman, a resolute and obstinate but rarely beautiful creature, whenthe division that was to attack the royal palaces was marching past thehouse which Hermon had occupied as the heir of Myrtilus, pressed forwardherself across the threshold, to order the mutineers who followed her todestroy and steal whatever came in their way. The bridge-builder went tothe market-place, and in pillaging the wealthy merchants' housesbegan with Archias's. Meanwhile it was set on fire and, with the largewarehouses adjoining it, was burned to the foundation walls.

  But the robbers were to obtain no permanent success, either in themarket-place or in Myrtilus's house, which was diagonally oppositeto the palaestra; for General Satyrus, at the first tidings of theirapproach, had collected all the troops at his disposal and the crews ofseveral war galleys, and imprisoned the division in the market-placeas though in a mouse-trap. The bands to which the woman belonged wereforced by the cavalry into the palaestra and the neighbouring Maander,and kept there until Eumedes brought re-enforcements and compelled theGauls to surrender.

  The King sent from Memphis the order to take the vanquished men tothe tongue of land where they now were, and could easily be imprisonedbetween the sea and the Sebennytic inland lake. They were guilty ofdeath to the last man, and starvation was to perform the executioner'soffice upon them.

  He, Eumedes, the admiral concluded, was in the King's service, and mustdo what his commander in chief ordered.

  "Duty," sighed Philippus; "yet what a punishment!"

  He held out his hand to his son as he spoke, but the Lady Thyone shookher head mournfully, saying: "There are four thousand over yonder; andthe philosopher and historian on the throne, the admirable art criticwho bestows upon his capital and Egypt all the gifts of peace, whounderstands how to guard and develop it better than any one else--yetwhat influence the gloomy powers exert upon him!"

  Here she hesitated, and went on in a low whisper: "The blood of twobrothers stains his hand and his conscience. The oldest, to whomthe throne would have belonged, he exiled. And our friend, DemetriusPhalereus, his father's noble councillor! Because you, Philippus,interceded for him--though you were in a position of command, becausePtolemy knows your ability--you were sent to distant Pelusium, and therewe should be still--"

  "Guard your tongue, wife!" interrupted the old general in a toneof grave rebuke. "The vipers on the crowns of Upper and Lower Egyptsymbolize the King's swift power over life and death. To the Egyptiansthe Philadelphi, Ptolemy and Arsinoe, are gods, and what cause have weto reproach them except that they use their omnipotence?"

  "And, mother," Eumedes eagerly added, "do not the royal pair on thethrone merely follow the example of far greater ones among the immortalgods? When the very Gauls who are devoted to death yonder, greedy forbooty, attacked Delphi, four years ago, it was the august brother andsister, Apollo and Artemis, who sent them to Hades with their arrows,while Zeus hurled his thunderbolts at them and ordered heavy bouldersto fall upon them from the shaken mountains. Many of the men over therefled from destruction at Delphi. Unconverted, they added new crimesto the old ones, but now retribution will overtake them. The worse thecrime, the more bloody the vengeance.

  "Even the last must die, as my sovereign commands; only I shalldetermine the mode of death according to my own judgment, and at thesame time, mother, feel sure of your approval. Instead of lingeringstarvation, I shall use swift arrows. Now you know what you were obligedto learn. It would be wise, mother, for you to leave this abode ofmisery. Duty summons me to my ship." He held out his hand to his parentsand Hermon as he spoke, but the latter clasped it firmly, exclaiming ina tone of passionate emotion, "What is the name of the woman to whom,though she is not of their race, the lawles
s barbarians yielded?"

  "Ledscha," replied the admiral.

  Hermon started as if stung by a scorpion, and asked, "Where is she?"

  "On my ship," was the reply, "if she has not yet been taken ashore withthe others."

  "To be killed with the pitiable band there?" cried Thyone angrily,looking her son reproachfully in the face.

  "No, mother," replied Eumedes. "She will be taken to the others underthe escort of trustworthy men in order, perhaps, to induce her to speak.It must be ascertained whether there were accomplices in the attack onthe royal palaces, and lastly whence the woman comes."

  "I can tell you that myself," replied Hermon. "Allow me to accompanyyou. I must see and speak to her."

  "The Arachne of Tennis?" asked Thyone. Hermon's mute nod of assentanswered the question, but she exclaimed: "The unhappy woman, who calleddown the wrath of Nemesis upon you, and who has now herself fallen aprey to the avenging goddess. What do you want from her?"

  Hermon bent down to his old friend and whispered, "To lighten herterrible fate, if it is in my power."

  "Go, then," replied the matron, and turned to her son, saying, "LetHermon tell you how deeply this woman has influenced his life, and, whenher turn comes, think of your mother."

  "She is a woman," replied Eumedes, "and the King's mandate only commandsme to punish men. Besides, I promised her indulgence if she would make aconfession."

  "And she?" asked Hermon.

  "Neither by threats nor promises," answered the admiral, "can thissinister, beautiful creature be induced to speak."

  "Certainly not," said the artist, and a smile of satisfaction flittedover his face.