'Is Olinthus, thy co-mate in the prison as the trial.'
'What! he whom they call the Atheist? Is it the injustice of men that
hath taught thee to deny the providence of the gods?'
'Alas!' answered Olinthus: 'thou, not I, art the true Atheist, for thou
deniest the sole true God--the Unknown One--to whom thy Athenian fathers
erected an altar. It is in this hour that I know my God. He is with me
in the dungeon; His smile penetrates the darkness; on the eve of death
my heart whispers immortality, and earth recedes from me but to bring
the weary soul nearer unto heaven.'
'Tell me,' said Glaucus, abruptly, 'did I not hear thy name coupled with
that of Apaecides in my trial? Dost thou believe me guilty?'
'God alone reads the heart! but my suspicion rested not upon thee.'
'On whom then?'
'Thy accuser, Arbaces.'
'Ha! thou cheerest me: and wherefore?'
'Because I know the man's evil breast, and he had cause to fear him who
is now dead.'
With that, Olinthus proceeded to inform Glaucus of those details which
the reader already knows, the conversion of Apaecides, the plan they had
proposed for the detection of the impostures of the Egyptian upon the
youthful weakness of the proselyte. 'Therefore,' concluded Olinthus,
'had the deceased encountered Arbaces, reviled his treasons, and
threatened detection, the place, the hour, might have favored the wrath
of the Egyptian, and passion and craft alike dictated the fatal blow.'
'It must have been so!' cried Glaucus, joyfully. 'I am happy.'
'Yet what, O unfortunate! avails to thee now the discovery? Thou art
condemned and fated; and in thine innocence thou wilt perish.'
'But I shall know myself guiltless; and in my mysterious madness I had
fearful, though momentary, doubts. Yet tell me, man of a strange creed,
thinkest thou that for small errors, or for ancestral faults, we are for
ever abandoned and accursed by the powers above, whatever name thou
allottest to them?'
'God is just, and abandons not His creatures for their mere human
frailty. God is merciful, and curses none but the wicked who repent
not.'
'Yet it seemeth to me as if, in the divine anger, I had been smitten by
a sudden madness, a supernatural and solemn frenzy, wrought not by human
means.'
'There are demons on earth,' answered the Nazarene, fearfully, 'as well
as there are God and His Son in heaven; and since thou acknowledgest not
the last, the first may have had power over thee.'
Glaucus did not reply, and there was a silence for some minutes. At
length the Athenian said, in a changed, and soft, and half-hesitating
voice. 'Christian, believest thou, among the doctrines of thy creed,
that the dead live again--that they who have loved here are united
hereafter--that beyond the grave our good name shines pure from the
mortal mists that unjustly dim it in the gross-eyed world--and that the
streams which are divided by the desert and the rock meet in the solemn
Hades, and flow once more into one?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account