seeing their stalls safe. Rather than lose a day's custom, they
would give the very churches to be plundered by the heathen!'

'We do not want them!' cried another. 'We managed Dioscuros and his
brother, and we can manage Orestes. What matter what answer he sends?
The devil shall have his own!'

'They ought to have been back two hours ago: they are murdered by this
time.'

'He would not dare to touch the archdeacon!'

'He will dare anything. Cyril should never have sent them forth as lambs
among wolves. What necessity was there for letting the prefect know that
the Jews were gone? He would have found it out for himself fast enough,
the next time he wanted to borrow money.'

'What is all this about, reverend sir?' asked Philammon of Peter the
Reader, who made his appearance at that moment in the quadrangle,
walking with great strides, like the soul of Agamemnon across the meads
of Asphodel, and apparently beside himself with rage.

'Ah! you here? You may go to-morrow, young fool! The patriarch can't
talk to you. Why should he? Some people have a great deal too much
notice taken of them, in my opinion. Yes; you may go. If your head is
not turned already, you may go and get it turned to-morrow. We shall see
whether he who exalts himself is not abased, before all is over!' And he
was striding away, when Philammon, at the risk of an explosion, stopped
him.

'His holiness commanded me to see him, sir, before--'

Peter turned on him in a fury. 'Fool! will you dare to intrude your
fantastical dreams on him at such a moment as this?'

'He commanded me to see him,' said Philammon, with the true soldierlike
discipline of a monk; 'and see him I will in spite of any man. I believe
in my heart you wish to keep me from his counsels and his blessing.'

Peter looked at him for a moment with a right wicked expression, and
then, to the youth's astonishment, struck him full in the face, and
yelled for help.

If the blow had been given by Pambo in the Laura a week before,
Philammon would have borne it. But from that man, and coming
unexpectedly as the finishing stroke to all his disappointment and
disgust, it was intolerable; and in an instant Peter's long legs were
sprawling on the pavement, while he bellowed like a bull for all the
monks in Nitria.

A dozen lean brown hands were at Philammon's throat as Peter rose.
'Seize him! hold him!' half blubbered he. 'The traitor! the heretic! He
holds communion with heathens!'

'Do