Hypatia Part 23

'Ah!' said Raphael at last, glad of a pretext for breaking his own chain of painful thought, 'there is a vein of your land-salt. I suspect that you were all at the bottom of the sea once, and that the old Earth-shaker Neptune, tired of your bad ways, gave you a lift one morning, and set you up as dry land, in order to be rid of you.'

'It may really be so. They say that the Argonauts returned back through this country from the Southern Ocean, which must have been therefore far nearer us than it is now, and that they carried their mystic vessel over these very hills to the Syrtis. However, we have forgotten all about the sea thoroughly enough since that time. I well remember my first astonishment at the side of a galley in Alexandria, and the roar of laughter with which my fellow-students greeted my not unreasonable remark, that it looked very like a centipede.'

'And do you recollect, too, the argument which I had once with your steward about the pickled fish which I brought you from Egypt; and the way in which, when the jar was opened, the servants shrieked and ran right and left, declaring that the fish-bones were the spines of poisonous serpents?'

'The old fellow is as obstinate as ever, I a.s.sure you, in his disbelief in salt water. He torments me continually by asking me to tell him the story of my s.h.i.+pwreck, and does not believe me after all, though he has heard it a dozen times. "Sir," he said to me solemnly, after you were gone, "will that strange gentleman pretend to persuade me that anything eatable can come out of his great pond there at Alexandria, when every one can see that the best fountain in the country never breeds anything but frogs and leeches?"'

As he spoke they left the last field behind them, and entered upon a vast sheet of breezy down, speckled with shrubs and copse, and split here and there by rocky glens ending in fertile valleys once thick with farms and homesteads.

'Here,' cried Synesius, 'are our hunting-grounds. And now for one hour's forgetfulness, and the joys of the n.o.ble art. What could old Homer have been thinking of when he forgot to number it among the pursuits which are glorious to heroes, and make man ill.u.s.trious, and yet could laud in those very words the forum?'

'The forum?' said Raphael. 'I never saw it yet make men anything but rascals.'

'Brazen-faced rascals, my friend. I detest the whole breed of lawyers, and never meet one without turning him into ridicule; effeminate pettifoggers, who shudder at the very sight of roast venison, when they think of the dangers by which it has been procured. But it is a cowardly age, my friend--a cowardly age. Let us forget it, and ourselves.'

'And even philosophy and Hypatia?' said Raphael archly.

'I have done with philosophy. To fight like a Heracleid, and to die like a bishop, is all I have left--except Hypatia, the perfect, the wise! I tell you, friend, it is a comfort to me, even in my deepest misery, to recollect that the corrupt world yet holds one being so divine--'

And he was running on in one of his high-flown laudations of his idol, when Raphael checked him.

'I fear our common sympathy on that subject is rather weakened. I have begun to doubt her lately nearly as much as I doubt philosophy.'

'Not her virtue?

'No, friend; nor her beauty, nor her wisdom; simply her power of making me a better man. A selfish criterion, you will say. Be it so .... What a n.o.ble horse that is of yours!'

'He has been--he has been; but worn out now, like his master and his master's fortunes....'

'Not so, certainly, the colt on which you have done me the honour to mount me.'

'Ah, my poor boy's pet! .... You are the first person who has crossed him since--'

'Is he of your own breeding?' asked Raphael, trying to turn the conversation.

'A cross between that white Nisaean which you sent me, and one of my own mares.'

'Not a bad cross; though he keeps a little of the bull head and greyhound flank of your Africans.'

'So much the better, friend. Give me bone--bone and endurance for this rough down country. Your delicate Nisaeans are all very well for a few minutes over those flat sands of Egypt: but here you need a horse who will go forty miles a day over rough and smooth, and dine thankfully off thistles at night. Aha, poor little man!'--as a jerboa sprang up from a tuft of bushes at his feet--'I fear you must help to fill our soup-kettle in these hard times.'

And with a dexterous sweep of his long whip, the worthy bishop entangled the jerboas long legs, whisked him up to his saddle-bow, and delivered him to the groom and the game-bag.

'Kill him at once. Don't let him squeak, boy!--he cries too like a child....'

'Poor little wretch!' said Raphael. 'What more right, now, have we to eat him than he to eat us?'

'Eh? If he can eat us, let him try. How long have you joined the Manichees?'

'Have no fears on that score. But, as I told you, since my wonderful conversion by Bran, the dog, I have begun to hold dumb animals in respect, as probably quite as good as myself.'

'Then you need a further conversion, friend Raphael, and to learn what is the dignity of man; and when that arrives, you will learn to believe, with me, that the life of every beast upon the face of the earth would be a cheap price to pay in exchange for the life of the meanest human being.'

'Yes, if they be required for food: but really, to kill them for our amus.e.m.e.nt!'

'Friend, when I was still a heathen, I recollect well how I used to haggle at that story of the cursing of the fig-tree; but when I learnt to know what man was, and that I had been all my life mistaking for a part of nature that race which was originally, and can be again, made in the likeness of G.o.d, then I began to see that it were well if every fig-tree upon earth were cursed, if the spirit of one man could be taught thereby a single lesson. And so I speak of these, my darling field-sports, on which I have not been ashamed, as you know, to write a book.'

'And a very charming one: yet you were still a pagan, recollect, when you wrote it.'

'I was; and then I followed the chase by mere nature and inclination. But now I know I have a right to follow it, because it gives me endurance, promptness, courage, self-control, as well as health and cheerfulness: and therefore--Ah! a fresh ostrich-track!'

And stopping short, Synesius began p.r.i.c.king slowly up the hillside.

'Back!' whispered he, at last. 'Quietly and silently. Lie down on your horse's neck, as I do, or the long-necked rogues may see you. They must be close to us over the brow. I know that favourite gra.s.sy slope of old. Round under yon hill, or they will get wind of us, and then farewell to them!'

And Synesius and his groom cantered on, hanging each to their horses' necks by an arm and a leg, in a way which Raphael endeavoured in vain to imitate.

Two or three minutes more of breathless silence brought them to the edge of the hill, where Synesius halted, peered down a moment, and then turned to Raphael, his face and limbs quivering with delight, as he held up two fingers, to denote the number of the birds.

'Out of arrow-range! Slip the dogs, Syphax!'

And in another minute Raphael found himself galloping headlong down the hill, while two magnificent ostriches, their outspread plumes waving in the bright breeze, their necks stooped almost to the ground, and their long legs flas.h.i.+ng out behind them, were sweeping away before the greyhounds at a pace which no mortal horse could have held for ten minutes.

'Baby that I am still!' cried Synesius, tears of excitement glittering in his eyes; .... while Raphael gave himself up to the joy, and forgot even Victoria, in the breathless rush over rock and bush, sandhill and watercourse.

'Take care of that dry torrent-bed! Hold up, old horse! This will not last two minutes more. They cannot hold their pace against this breeze .... Well tried, good dog, though you did miss him! Ah, that my boy were here! There--they double. Spread right and left, my children, and ride at them as they pa.s.s!'

And the ostriches, unable, as Synesius said, to keep their pace against the breeze, turned sharp on their pursuers, and beating the air with outspread wings, came down the wind again, at a rate even more wonderful than before.

'Ride at him, Raphael--ride at him, and turn him into those bushes!' cried Synesius, fitting an arrow to his bow.

Raphael obeyed, and the bird swerved into the low scrub; the well- trained horse leapt at him like a cat; and Raphael, who dare not trust his skill in archery, struck with his whip at the long neck as it struggled past him, and felled the n.o.ble quarry to the ground. He was in the act of springing down to secure his prize, when a shout from Synesius stopped him.

'Are you mad? He will kick out your heart! Let the dogs hold him!'

'Where is the other?' asked Raphael, panting.

'Where he ought to be. I have not missed a running shot for many a month.'

'Really, you rival the Emperor Commodus himself.'

'Ah! I tried his fancy of crescent-headed arrows once, and decapitated an ostrich or two tolerably: but they are only fit for the amphitheatre: they will not lie safely in the quiver on horseback, I find. But what is that?' And he pointed to a cloud of white dust, about a mile down the valley. 'A herd of antelopes? If so, G.o.d is indeed gracious to us! Come down--whatsoever they are, we have no time to lose.'

And collecting his scattered forces, Synesius pushed on rapidly towards the object which had attracted his attention.

'Antelopes!' cried one.

'Wild horses!' cried another.

'Tame ones, rather!' cried Synesius, with a gesture of wrath. 'I saw the flash of arms!'

'The Ausurians!' And a yell of rage rang from the whole troop.

'Will you follow me, children?'

'To death!' shouted they.

'I know it. Oh that I had seven hundred of you, as Abraham had! We would see then whether these scoundrels did not share, within a week, the fate of Chedorlaomer's.'

'Happy man, who can actually trust your own slaves!' said Raphael, as the party galloped on, tightening their girdles and getting ready their weapons.

'Slaves? If the law gives me the power of selling one or two of them who are not yet wise enough to be trusted to take care of themselves, it is a fact which both I and they have long forgotten. Their fathers grew gray at my father's table, and G.o.d grant that they may grow gray at mine! We eat together, work together, hunt together, fight together, jest together, and weep together. G.o.d help us all! for we have but one common weal. Now--do you make out the enemy, boys?'

'Ausurians, your Holiness. The same party who tried Myrsinitis last week. I know them by the helmets which they took from the Markmen.'

'And with whom are they fighting?'

No one could see. Fighting they certainly were: but their victims were beyond them, and the party galloped on.

'That was a smart business at Myrsinitis. The Ausurians appeared while the people were at morning prayers. The soldiers, of course, ran for their lives, and hid in the caverns, leaving the matter to the priests.'

'If they were of your presbytery, I doubt not they proved themselves worthy of their diocesan.'

'Ah, if all my priests were but like them! or my people either!' said Synesius, chatting quietly in full gallop, like a true son of the saddle. 'They offered up prayers for victory, sallied out at the head of the peasants, and met the Moors in a narrow pa.s.s. There their hearts failed them a little. Faustus, the deacon, makes them a speech; charges the leader of the robbers, like young David, with a stone, beats his brains out therewith, strips him in true Homeric fas.h.i.+on, and routs the Ausurians with their leader's sword; returns and erects a trophy in due cla.s.sic form, and saves the whole valley.'

'You should make him archdeacon.'

'I would send him and his townsfolk round the province, if I could, crowned with laurel, and proclaim before them at every market-place, "These are men of G.o.d." With whom can those Ausurians be dealing? Peasants would have been all killed long ago, and soldiers would have run away long ago. It is truly a portent in this country to see a fight last ten minutes. Who can they be? I see them now, and hewing away like men too. They are all on foot but two; and we have not a cohort of infantry left for many a mile round.'

'I know who they are!' cried Raphael, suddenly striking spurs into his horse. 'I will swear to that armour among a thousand. And there is a litter in the midst of them. On! and fight, men, if you ever fought in your lives!'

'Softly!' cried Synesius. 'Trust an old soldier, and perhaps--alas! that he should have to say it--the best left in this wretched country. Round by the hollow, and take the barbarians suddenly in flank. They will not see us then till we are within twenty paces of them. Aha! you have a thing or two to learn yet, Aben-Ezra.'

And chuckling at the prospect of action, the gallant bishop wheeled his little troop and in five minutes more dashed out of the copse with a shout and a flight of arrows, and rushed into the thickest of the fight.

One cavalry skirmish must be very like another. A crash of horses, a flas.h.i.+ng of sword-blades, five minutes of blind confusion, and then those who have not been knocked out of their saddles by their neighbours' knees, and have not cut off their own horses' heads instead of their enemies', find themselves, they know not how, either running away or being run away from--not one blow in ten having taken effect on either side. And even so Raphael, having made vain attempts to cut down several Moors, found himself standing on his head in an altogether undignified posture, among innumerable horses' legs, in all possible frantic motions. To avoid one was to get in the way of another; so he philosophically sat still, speculating on the sensation of having his brains kicked out, till the cloud of legs vanished, and he found himself kneeling abjectly opposite the nose of a mule, on whose back sat, utterly unmoved, a tall and reverend man, in episcopal costume. The stranger, instead of bursting out laughing, as Raphael did, solemnly lifted his hand, and gave him his blessing. The Jew sprang to his feet, heedless of all such courtesies, and, looking round, saw the Ausurians galloping off up the hill in scattered groups, and Synesius standing close by him, wiping a b.l.o.o.d.y sword.

'Is the litter safe'?' were his first words.

'Safe; and so are all. I gave you up for killed when I saw you run through with that lance.

'Run through? I am as sound in the hide as a crocodile, said Raphael, laughing.

'Probably the fellow took the b.u.t.t instead of the point, in his hurry. So goes a cavalry scuffle. I saw you hit three or four fellows running with the flat of your sword.'

Ah, that explains,' said Raphael, why, I thought myself once the best swordsman on the Armenian frontier....'

'I suspect that you were thinking of some one besides the Moors,' said Synesius, archly pointing to the litter; and Raphael, for the first time for many a year, blushed like a boy of fifteen, and then turned haughtily away, and remounted his horse, saying, 'Clumsy fool that I was!'

'Thank G.o.d rather that you have been kept from the shedding of blood,' said the stranger bishop, in a soft, deliberate voice, with a peculiarly clear and delicate enunciation. 'If G.o.d have given us the victory, why grudge His having spared any other of His creatures besides ourselves?'

'Because there are so many the more of them left to ravish, burn, and slay,' answered Synesius. 'Nevertheless, I am not going to argue with Augustine.'

Augustine! Raphael looked intently at the man, a tall, delicate- featured personage, with a lofty and narrow forehead, scarred like his cheeks with the deep furrows of many a doubt and woe. Resolve, gentle but unbending, was expressed in his thin close-set lips and his clear quiet eye; but the calm of his mighty countenance was the calm of a worn-out volcano, over which centuries must pa.s.s before the earthquake-rents be filled with kindly soil, and the cinder- slopes grow gay with gra.s.s and flowers. The Jew's thoughts, however, were soon turned into another channel by the hearty embraces of Majoricus and his son.

'We have caught you again, you truant!' said the young Tribune; 'you could not escape us, you see, after all.'

'Rather,' said the father, 'we owe him a second debt of grat.i.tude for a second deliverance. We were right hard bested when you rode up.'

'Oh, he brings nothing but good with him whenever he appears; and then he pretends to be a bird of ill-omen,' said the light-hearted Tribune, putting his armour to rights.

Raphael was in his secret heart not sorry to find that his old friends bore him no grudge for his caprice; but all he answered was- - 'Pray thank any one but me; I have, as usual, proved myself a fool. But what brings you here, like G.o.ds e Machina? It is contrary to all probabilities. One would not admit so astounding an incident, even in the modern drama.'

'Contrary to none whatsoever, my friend. We found Augustine at Berenice, in act to set off to Synesius: we--one of us, that is-- were certain that you would be found with him; and we decided on acting as Augustine's guard, for none of the dastard garrison dare stir out.'

'One of us,' thought Raphael,--'which one?' And, conquering his pride, he asked, as carelessly as he could, for Victoria.

'She is there in the litter, poor child!' said her father in a serious tone.

'Surely not ill?'

'Alas! either the overwrought excitement of months of heroism broke down when she found us safe at last' or some stroke from G.o.d-- .... Who can tell what I may not have deserved?--But she has been utterly prostrate in body and mind, ever since we parted from you at Berenice.'

The blunt soldier little guessed the meaning of his own words. But Raphael, as he heard, felt a pang shoot through his heart, too keen for him to discern whether it sprang from joy or from despair.

'Come,' cried the cheerful voice of Synesius, 'come, Aben-Ezra; you have knelt for Augustine's blessing already, and now you must enter into the fruition of it. Come, you two philosophers must know each other. Most holy, I entreat you to preach to this friend of mine, at once the wisest and the foolishest of men.'

'Only the latter,' said Raphael; 'but open to any speech of Augustine's, at least when we are safe home, and game enough for Synesius's new guests killed.'

And turning away, he rode silent and sullen by the side of his companions, who began at once to consult together as to the plans of Majoricus and his soldiers.

In spite of himself, Raphael soon became interested in Augustine's conversation. He entered into the subject of Cyrenian misrule and ruin as heartily and shrewdly as any man of the world; and when all the rest were at a loss, the prompt practical hint which cleared up the difficulty was certain to come from him. It was by his advice that Majoricus had brought his soldiery hither; it was his proposal that they should be employed for a fixed period in defending these remote southern boundaries of the province; he checked the impetuosity of Synesius, cheered the despair of Majoricus, appealed to the honour and the Christianity of the soldiers, and seemed to have a word--and that the right word--for every man; and after a while, Aben-Ezra quite forgot the stiffness and deliberation of his manner, and the quaint use of Scripture texts in far-fetched ill.u.s.trations of every opinion which he propounded. It had seemed at first a mere affectation; but the arguments which it was employed to enforce were in themselves so moderate and so rational that Raphael began to feel, little by little, that his apparent pedantry was only the result of a wish to refer every matter, even the most vulgar, to some deep and divine rule of right and wrong.

'But you forget all this while, my friends,' said Majoricus at last, 'the danger which you incur by sheltering proclaimed rebels.'

'The King of kings has forgiven your rebellion, in that while He has punished you by the loss of your lands and honours, He has given you your life for a prey in this city of refuge. It remains for you to bring forth worthy fruits of penitence; of which I know none better than those which John the Baptist commanded to the soldiery of old, "Do no violence to any man, and be content with your wages."'

'As for rebels and rebellion,' said Synesius, 'they are matters unknown among as; for where there is no king there can be no rebellion. Whosoever will help us against Ausurians is loyal in our eyes. And as for our political creed, it is simple enough--namely, that the emperor never dies, and that his name is Agamemnon, who fought at Troy; which any of my grooms will prove to you syllogistically enough to satisfy Augustine himself. As thus-- 'Agamemnon was the greatest and the best of kings.

'The emperor is the greatest and the best of kings.

'Therefore, Agamemnon is the emperor, and conversely.'

'It had been well,' said Augustine, with a grave smile, 'if some of our friends had held the same doctrine, even at the expense of their logic.'

'Or if,' answered Synesius, 'they believed with us, that the emperor's chamberlain is a clever old man, with a bald head like my own, Ulysses by name, who was rewarded with the prefecture of all lands north of the Mediterranean, for putting out the Cyclop's eye two years ago. However, enough of this. But you see, you are not in any extreme danger of informers and intriguers .... The real difficulty is, how you will be able to obey Augustine, by being content with your wages. For,' lowering his voice, 'you will get literally none.'

'It will be as much as we deserve,' said the young Tribune: 'but my fellows have a trick of eating--'