Louis Tracy - "Number Seventeen"

Richard Johnson - "An Address to the Inhabitants Of The Colonies, established in"

Walter Scott - "Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field"

John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1594"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
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Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Antonina

W >> Wilkie Collins >> Antonina




The priest and the soldier, calling to their companions behind to hurry
on, had now arrived opposite the temple steps, and saw confronting them
in the pale moonlight, from the eminence on which he stood, the weird
and solitary figure of Ulpius--the apparition of a Pagan in the gorgeous
robes of his priesthood, bidden back from the tombs to stay the hand of
the spoiler before the shrine of his gods.

The soldier dropped his weapon to the ground, and, trembling in every
limb, refused to proceed. But the priest, a tall, stern, emaciated man,
went on defenceless and undaunted. He signed himself solemnly with the
cross as he slowly ascended the steps; fixed his unflinching eyes on the
madman, who glared back on him in return; and called aloud in a harsh,
steady voice: 'Man or demon! in the name of Christ, whom thou deniest,
stand back!'

For an instant, as the priest approached him, the Pagan averted his eyes
and looked on the concourse of people and the armed soldiers rapidly
advancing. His fingers closed round the hilt of Goisvintha's knife,
which he had hitherto held loosely in his hand, as he exclaimed in low,
concentrated tones, 'Aha! the siege--the siege of Serapis!' The priest,
now standing on the same step with him, stretched out his arm to thrust
him back, and at that moment received the stroke of the knife. He
staggered, lifted his hand again to sign his forehead with the cross,
and, as he raised it, rolled back dead on the pavement of the street.

The soldier, standing motionless with superstitious terror a few feet
from the corpse, called to his companions for help. Hurling his bloody
weapon at them in defiance, as they ran in confusion to the base of the
temple steps, Ulpius entered the building, and locked and chained the
gates.

Then the assembled people thronging round the corpse of the priest,
heard the madman shouting in his frenzy, as if to a great body of
adherents round him, to pour down the molten lead and the scorching
sand; to hurl back every scaling ladder planted against the walls; to
massacre each prisoner who was seized mounting the ramparts to the
assault; and as they looked up to the building from the street, they saw
at intervals, through the bars of the closed gates, the figure of Ulpius
passing swift and shadowy, his arms extended, his long grey hair and
white robes streaming behind him, as he rushed round and round the
temple reiterating his wild Pagan war-cries as he went. The enfeebled,
superstitious populace trembled while they gazed--a spectre driven on a
whirlwind would not have been more terrible to their eyes.

But the priest among the crowd, roused to fury by the murder of one of
their own body, revived the courage of those around them. Even the
shouts of Ulpius were now overpowered by the sound of their voices,
raised to the highest pitch, promising heavenly and earthly rewards--
salvation, money, absolution, promotion--to all who would follow them up
the steps and burst their way into the temple. Animated by the words of
the priests, and growing gradually confident in their own numbers, the
boldest in the throng seized a piece of timber lying by the river side,
and using it as a battering-ram, assailed the gate. But they were
weakened with famine; they could gain little impetus, from the necessity
of ascending the temple steps to the attack; the iron quivered as they
struck it, but hinge and lock remained firm alike. They were preparing
to renew the attempt, when a tremendous shock--a crash as if the whole
heavy roof of the building had fallen in--drove them back in terror to
the street.

Recalled by the sight of the armed men, the priests and the attendant
crowd of people who were advancing to invade his sanctuary, to the days
when he had defended the great Temple of Serapis at Alexandria, against
enemies similar in appearance, though far superior in numbers; persuaded
in the revival of these, the most sanguinary visions of his insanity,
that he was still resisting the Christian fanatics, supported by his
adherents in his sacred fortress of former years, the Pagan displayed
none of his accustomed cunning and care in moving through the darkness
around him. He hurried hither and thither, encouraging his imaginary
followers, and glorying in his dreams of slaughter and success,
forgetful in his frenzy of all that the temple contained.


As he pursued his wild course round and round the altar of idols, his
robe became entangled, and was torn by the projecting substances at one
corner of it. The whole overhanging mass tottered at the moment, but
did not yet fall. A few of the smaller idols, however, at the outside
dropped to the ground, and with them an image of Serapis, which they
happened partially to support--a heavy monstrous figure, carved life-
size in wood, and studded with gold, silver, and precious stones--fell
at the Pagan's feet. But this was all--the outer materials of the
perilous structure had been detached only at one point; the pile itself
still remained in its place.

The madman seized the image of Serapis in his arms, and passed blindly
onward with it through the passage in the partition into the recess
beyond. At that instant the shock of the first attack on the gates
resounded through the building. Shouting, as he heard it, 'A sally! a
sally! men of the Temple, the gods and the high priest lead you on!' and
still holding the idol before him, he rushed straight forward to the
entrance, and struck in violent collision against the backward part of
the pile.

The ill-balanced, top-heavy mass of images and furniture of many temples
swayed, parted, and fell over against the gates and the wall on either
side of them. Maimed and bleeding, struck down by the lower part of the
pile, as it was forced back against the partition when the upper part
fell, the fury of Ulpius was but increased by the crashing ruin around
him. He struggled up again into an erect position; mounted on the top
of the fallen mass--now spread out at the sides over the floor of the
building, but confined at one end by the partition, and at the other by
the opposite wall and the gates--and still clasping the image of Serapis
in his arms, called louder and louder to 'the men of the Temple' to
mount with him the highest ramparts and pour down on the besiegers the
molten lead!

The priests were again the first men to approach the gates of the
building after the shock that had been heard within it. The struggle
for the possession of the temple had assumed to them the character of a
holy warfare against heathenism and magic--a sacred conflict to be
sustained by the Church, for the sake of her servant who had fallen a
martyr at the outset of the strife. Strong in their fanatical boldness,
they advanced with one accord close to the gates. Some of the smaller
images of the fallen pile had been forced through the bars, behind which
appeared the great idols, the broken masses of furniture, the long robes
and costly hangings, all locked together in every wild variety of
position--a chaos of distorted objects heaped up by an earthquake!
Above and further inward, the lower part of the Pagan's robe was faintly
discernible through the upper interstices in the gate, as he stood,
commanding, on the summit of his prostrate altar, with his idol in his
arms.

The priests felt an instant conviction of certain triumph when they
discerned the cause of the shock that had been heard within the temple.
One of their number snatched up a small image that had fallen through to
the pavement where he stood, and holding it before the people below,
exclaimed exultingly--

'Children of the Church! the mystery is revealed! Idols more precious
than this lie by hundreds on the floor of the temple! It is no demon,
but a man, one man, who still defies us within!--a robber who would
defraud the Romans of the ransom of their lives!--the pillage of many
temples is around him. Remember now, that the nearer we came to this
place the fewer were the spoils of idolatry that we gathered in; the
treasure which is yours, the treasure which is to free you from the
famine, has been seized by the assassin of our holy brother; it is there
scattered at his feet! To the gates! To the gates again! Absolution
for all their sins to the men who burst in the gates!'

Again the mass of timber was taken up; again the gates were assailed;
and again they stood firm--they were now strengthened, barricaded by the
fallen pile. It seemed hopeless to attempt to break them down without a
reinforcement of men, without employing against them the heaviest
missiles, the strongest engines of war.


The people gave vent to a cry of fury as they heard from the temple the
hollow laughter of the madman triumphing in their defeat. The words of
the priest, in allaying their superstitious fears, had aroused the
deadly passions that superstition brings forth. A few among the throng
hurried to the nearest guard-house for assistance, but the greater part
pressed closely round the temple--some pouring forth impotent
execrations against the robber of the public spoil, some joining the
priests in calling on him to yield. But the clamour lasted not long; it
was suddenly and strangely stilled by the voice of one man in the crowd,
calling loudly to the rest to fire the temple!

The words were hardly spoken ere they were repeated triumphantly on all
sides. 'Fire the temple!' cried the people ferociously. 'Burn it over
the robber's head! A furnace--a furnace! to melt down the gold and
silver ready to our hands! Fire the temple! Fire the temple!'

Those who were most active among the crowd (which was now greatly
increased by stragglers from all parts of the city) entered the houses
behind them, and returned in a few minutes with every inflammable
substance that they could collect in their hands. A heap of fuel, two
or three feet in height, was raised against the gates immediately, and
soldiers and people pressed forward with torches to light it. But the
priest who had before spoken waved them back. 'Wait!' he cried; 'the
fate of his body is with the people, but the fate of his soul is with
the Church!'

Then, turning to the temple, he called solemnly and sternly to the
madman, 'Thy hour is come! repent, confess, and save thy soul!'

'Slay on! slay on!' answered the raving voice from within. 'Slay, till
not a Christian is left! Victory! Serapis! See, they drop from our
walls!--they writhe bleeding on the earth beneath us! There is no
worship but the worship of the gods! Slay! Slay on!'

'Light!' cried the priest. 'His damnation be on his own head!
Anathema! Maranatha! Let him die accursed!'

The dry fuel was fired at once at all points--it was an anticipation of
an 'Auto da Fe', a burning of a heretic, in the fifth century! As the
flames rose, the people fell back and watched their rapid progress. The
priests, standing before them in a line, stretched out their hands in
denunciation against the temple, and repeated together the awful
excommunication service of the Roman Church.

*****

The fire at the gates had communicated with the idols inside. It was no
longer on his prostrate altar, but on his funeral pile that Ulpius now
stood; and the image that he clasped was the stake to which he was
bound. A red glare, dull at first, was now brightening and brightening
below him; flames, quick and noiseless, rose and fell, and rose again,
at different points, illuminating the interior of the temple with fitful
and changing light. The grim, swarthy forms of the idols seemed to sway
and writhe like living things in torment, as fire and smoke alternately
displayed and concealed them. A deadly stillness now overspread the
face and form of the Pagan, as he looked down steadfastly on the deities
of his worship engendering his destruction beneath him. His cheek--the
cheek which had rested in boyhood on his mother's bosom--was pressed
against the gilded breast of the god Serapis, his taskmaster in life--
his pillow in death!

'I rise! I rise to the world of light, with my deities whom I have
served!' he murmured; 'the brightness of their presence is like a
flaming fire; the smoke of their breath pours forth around me like the
smoke of incense! I minister in the Temples of the Clouds; and the
glory of eternal sunlight shines round me while I adore! I rise! I
rise!'

The smoke whirled in black volumes over his head; the fierce voice of
the fast-spreading fire roared on him; the flames leapt up at his feet--
his robes kindled, burst into radiant light, as the pile yawned and
opened under him.

*****


Time had passed. The strife between the Temple and the Church was
ended. The priests and the people had formed a wider circle round the
devoted building; all that was inflammable in it had been burnt; smoke
and flame now burst only at intervals through the gates, and gradually
both ceased to appear. Then the crowd approached nearer to the temple,
and felt the heat of the furnace they had kindled, as they looked in.

The iron gates were red hot--from the great mass behind (still glowing
bright in some places, and heaving and quivering with its own heat) a
thin, transparent vapour rose slowly to the stone roof of the building,
now blackened with smoke. The priests looked eagerly for the corpse of
the Pagan; they saw two dark, charred objects closely united together,
lying in a chasm of ashes near the gate, at a spot where the fire had
already exhausted itself, but it was impossible to discern which was the
man and which was the idol.

The necessity of providing means for entering the temple had not been
forgotten while the flames were raging. Proper implements for forcing
open the gates were now at hand, and already the mob began to dip their
buckets in the Tiber, and pour water wherever any traces of the fire
remained. Soon all obstacles were removed; the soldiers crowded into the
building with spades in their hands, trampled on the black, watery mire
of cinders which covered what had once been the altar of idols, and
throwing out into the street the refuse ashes and the stone images which
had remained unconsumed, dug in what was left, as in a new mine, for the
gold and silver which the fire could not destroy.

The Pagan had lived with his idols, had perished with his idols!--and
now where they were cast away, there he was cast away with them. The
soldiers, as they dug into fragments the black ruins of his altar,
mingled him in fragments with it! The people, as they cast the refuse
thrown out to them into the river, cast what remained of him with what
remained of his gods! And when the temple was deserted, when the
citizens had borne off all the treasure they could collect, when nothing
but a few heaps of dust was left of all that had been burnt, the night-
wind blew away before it the ashes of Ulpius with the ashes of the
deities that Ulpius had served!


CHAPTER 27. THE VIGIL OF HOPE.

A new prospect now opens before us. The rough paths through which we
have hitherto threaded our way grow smoother as we approach their close.
Rome, so long dark and gloomy to our view, brightens at length like a
landscape when the rain is past and the first rays of returning sunlight
stream through the parting clouds. Some days have elapsed, and in those
days the temples have yielded all their wealth; the conquered Romans
have bribed the triumphant barbarians to mercy; the ransom of the fallen
city has been paid.

The Gothic army is still encamped round the walls, but the gates are
opened, markets for food are established in the suburbs, boats appear on
the river and waggons on the highroads, laden with provisions, and
proceeding towards Rome. All the hidden treasure kept back by the
citizens is now bartered for food; the merchants who hold the market
reap a rich harvest of spoil, but the hungry are filled, the weak are
revived, every one is content.

It is the end of the second day since the free sale of provisions and
the liberty of egress from the city have been permitted by the Goths.
The gates are closed for the night, and the people are quietly
returning, laden with their supplies of food, to their homes. Their
eyes no longer encounter the terrible traces of the march of pestilence
and famine through every street; the corpses have been removed, and the
sick are watched and sheltered. Rome is cleansed from her pollutions,
and the virtues of household life begin to revive wherever they once
existed. Death has thinned every family, but the survivors again
assemble together in the social hall. Even the veriest criminals, the
lowest outcasts of the population, are united harmlessly for a while in
the general participation of the first benefits of peace.


To follow the citizens to their homes; to trace in their thoughts,
words, and action the effect on them of their deliverance from the
horrors of the blockade; to contemplate in the people of a whole city,
now recovering as it were from a deep swoon, the varying forms of the
first reviving symptoms in all classes, in good and bad, rich and poor--
would afford matter enough in itself for a romance of searching human
interest, for a drama of the passions, moving absorbingly through
strange, intricate, and contrasted scenes. But another employment than
this now claims our care. It is to an individual, and not to a divided
source of interest, that our attention turns; we relinquish all
observations on the general mass of the populace to revert to Numerian
and Antonina alone--to penetrate once more into the little dwelling on
the Pincian Hill.

The apartment where the father and daughter had suffered the pangs of
famine together during the period of the blockade, presented an
appearance far different from that which it had displayed on the
occasion when they had last occupied it. The formerly bare walls were
now covered with rich, thick hangings; and the simple couch and scanty
table of other days had been exchanged for whatever was most luxurious
and complete in the household furniture of the age. At one end of the
room three women, attended by a little girl, were engaged in preparing
some dishes of fruit and vegetables; at the other, two men were occupied
in low, earnest conversation, occasionally looking round anxiously to a
couch placed against the third side of the apartment, on which Antonina
lay extended, while Numerian watched by her in silence. The point of
Goisvintha's knife had struck deep, but, as yet, the fatal purpose of
the assassination had failed.

The girl's eyes were closed; her lips were parted in the languor of
suffering; one of her hands lay listless on her father's knee. A slight
expression of pain, melancholy in its very slightness, appeared on her
pale face, and occasionally a long-drawn, quivering breath escaped her--
nature's last touching utterance of its own feebleness! The old man, as
he sat by her side, fixed on her a wistful, inquiring glance. Sometimes
he raised his hand, and gently and mechanically moved to and fro the
long locks of her hair, as they spread over the head of the couch; but
he never turned to communicate with the other persons in the room--he
sat as if he saw nothing save his daughter's figure stretched before
him, and heard nothing save the faint, fluttering sound of her
breathing, close at his ear.

It was now dark, and one lamp hanging from the ceiling threw a soft
equal light over the room. The different persons occupying it presented
but little evidence of health and strength in their countenances, to
contrast them in appearance with the wounded girl; all had undergone the
wasting visitation of the famine, and all were pale and languid, like
her. A strange, indescribable harmony prevailed over the scene. Even
the calmness of absorbing expectation and trembling hope, expressed in
the demeanour of Numerian, seemed reflected in the actions of those
around him, in the quietness with which the women pursued their
employment, in the lower and lower whispers in which the men continued
their conversation. There was something pervading the air of the whole
apartment that conveyed a sense of the solemn, unworldly stillness which
we attach to the abstract idea of religion.

Of the two men cautiously talking together, one was the patrician,
Vetranio; the other, a celebrated physician of Rome.

Both the countenance and manner of the senator gave melancholy proof
that the orgie at his palace had altered him for the rest of his life.
He looked what he was, a man changed for ever in constitution and
character. A fixed expression of anxiety and gloom appeared in his
eyes; his emaciated face was occasionally distorted by a nervous,
involuntary contraction of the muscles; it was evident that the
paralysing effect of the debauch which had destroyed his companions
would remain with him to the end of his existence. No remnant of his
careless self-possession, his easy, patrician affability, appeared in
his manner, as he now listened to his companion's conversation; years
seemed to have been added to his life since he had headed the table at
'The Banquet of Famine'.


'Yes,' said the physician, a cold, calm man, who spoke much, but
pronounced all his words with emphatic deliberation,--'Yes, as I have
already told you, the wound in itself was not mortal. If the blade of
the knife had entered near the centre of the neck, she must have died
when she was struck. But it passed outwards and backwards; the large
vessels escaped, and no vital part has been touched.'

'And yet you persist in declaring that you doubt her recovery!'
exclaimed Vetranio, in low, mournful tones.

'I do,' pursued the physician. 'She must have been exhausted in mind
and body when she received the blow--I have watched her carefully; I
know it! There is nothing of the natural health and strength of youth
to oppose the effects of the wound. I have seen the old die from
injuries that the young recover, because life in them was losing its
powers of resistance; she is in the position of the old!'

'They have died before me, and she will die before me! I shall lose
all--all!' sighed Vetranio bitterly to himself.

'The resources of our art are exhausted,' continued the other; 'nothing
remains but to watch carefully and wait patiently. The chances of life
or death will be decided in a few hours; they are equally balanced now.'

'I shall lose all!--all!' repeated the senator mournfully, as if he
heeded not the last words.

'If she dies,' said the physician, speaking in warmer tones, for he was
struck with pity, in spite of himself, at the spectacle of Vetranio's
utter dejection, 'if she dies, you can at least remember that all that
could be done to secure her life has been done by you. Her father,
helpless in his lethargy and his age, was fitted only to sit and watch
her, as he has sat and watched her day after day; but you have spared
nothing, forgotten nothing. Whatever I have asked for, that you have
provided; the hangings round the room, and the couch that she lies on,
are yours; the first fresh supplies of nourishment from the newly-opened
markets were brought here from you; I told you that she was thinking
incessantly of what she had suffered, that it was necessary to preserve
her against her own recollections, that the presence of women about her
might do good, that a child appearing sometimes in the room might soothe
her fancy, might make her look at what was passing, instead of thinking
of what had passed--you found them, and sent them! I have seen parents
less anxious for their children, lovers for their mistresses, than you
for this girl.'

'My destiny is with her,' interrupted Vetranio, looking round
superstitiously to the frail form on the couch. 'I know nothing of the
mysteries that the Christians call their "Faith", but I believe now in
the soul; I believe that one soul contains the fate of another, and that
her soul contains the fate of mine!'

The physician shook his head derisively. His calling had determined his
philosophy--he was as ardent a materialist as Epicurus himself.

'Listen,' said Vetranio; 'since I first saw her, a change came over my
whole being; it was as if her life was mingled with mine! I had no
influence over her, save an influence for ill: I loved her, and she was
driven defenceless from her home! I sent my slaves to search Rome night
and day; I exerted all my power, I lavished my wealth to discover her;
and, for the first time in this one effort, I failed in what I had
undertaken. I felt that through me she was lost--dead! Days passed on;
life weighed weary on me; the famine came. You know in what way I
determined that my career should close; the rumour of the Banquet of
Famine reached you as it reached others!'

'It did,' replied the physician. 'And I see before me in your face,' he
added, after a momentary pause, 'the havoc which that ill-omened banquet
has worked. My friend, be advised!--abandon for ever the turmoil of
your Roman palace, and breathe in tranquillity the air of a country
home. The strength you once had is gone never to return--if you would
yet live, husband what is still left.'