Hypatia or New Foes with an Old Face Part 26

'Do you include yourself under that t.i.tle?'

'Most certainly, my best sir. Don't fancy that I make any exceptions. If I can in any way prove my folly to you, I will do it.'

'Then help me and my daughter to Ostia.'

'A very fair instance. Well-my dog happens to be going that way; and after all, you seem to have a sufficient share of human imbecility to be a very fit companion for me. I hope, though, you do not set up for a wise man!'

'G.o.d knows-no! Am I not of Heraclian's army?'

'True; and the young lady here made herself so great a fool about you, that she actually infected the very dog.'

'So we three fools will forth together.'

'And the greatest one, as usual, must help the rest. But I have nine puppies in my family already. How am I to carry you and them?'

'I will take them,' said the girl; and Bran, after looking on at the transfer with a somewhat dubious face, seemed to satisfy herself that all was right, and put her head contentedly under the girl's hand.

'Eh? You trust her, Bran?' said Raphael, in an undertone. 'I must really emanc.i.p.ate myself from your instructions if you require a similar simplicity in me. Stay! there wanders a mule without a rider; we may as well press into the service.'

He caught the mule, lifted the wounded man into the saddle, and the cavalcade set forth, turning out of the highroad into a by-lane, which the officer, who seemed to know the country thoroughly, a.s.sured would lead them to Ostia by an unfrequented route.

'If we arrive there before sundown, we are saved,' said he.

'And in the meantime,' answered Raphael, 'between the dog and this dagger, which, as I take care to inform all comers, is delicately poisoned, we may keep ourselves clear of marauders. And yet, what a meddling fool I am!' he went on to himself. 'What possible interest can I have in this uncirc.u.mcised rebel! The least evil is, that if we are taken, which we most probably shall be, I shall be crucified for helping to escape. But even if we get safe off-here is a fresh tie between me and those very brother fleas, to be rid of whom I have chosen beggary and starvation. Who knows where it may end? Pooh! The man is like other men. He is certain, before the day is over, to prove ungrateful, or attempt the mountebank-heroic, or give me some other excuse for bidding good-evening. And in the meantime there is something quaint in the fact of finding so sober a respectability, with a young daughter too, abroad on this fool's errand, which really makes me curious to discover with what variety of flea I am to cla.s.s him.'

But while Aben-Ezra was talking to himself about the father, he could not help, somehow, thinking about the daughter. Again and again he found himself looking at her. She was, undeniably, most beautiful. Her features were not as regularly perfect as Hypatia's, nor her stature so commanding; but her face shone with a clear and joyful determination, and with a tender and modest thoughtfulness, such as he had never beheld before united in one countenance; and as she stepped along, firmly and lightly, by her father's side, looping up her scattered tresses as she went, laughing at the struggles of her noisy burden, and looking up with rapture at her father's gradually brightening face, Raphael could not help stealing glance after glance, and was surprised to find them returned with a bright, honest, smiling grat.i.tude, which met full-eyed, as free from prudery as it was from coquetry.... 'A lady she is,' said he to himself; 'but evidently no city one. There is nature-or something else, there, pure and unadulterated, without any of man's additions or beautifications.' And as he looked, he began to feel it a pleasure such as his weary heart had not known for many a year, simply to watch her....

'Positively there is a foolish enjoyment after all in making other fleas smile.... a.s.s that I am! As if I had not drunk all that ditch-water cup to the dregs years ago!'

They went on for some time in silence, till the officer, turning to him-

'And may I ask you, my quaint preserver, whom I would have thanked before but for this foolish faintness, which is now going off, what and who you are?'

'A flea, sir-a flea-nothing more.'

'But a patrician flea, surely, to judge by your language and manners?'

'Not that exactly. True, I have been rich, as the saying is; I may be rich again, they tell me, when I am fool enough to choose.'

'Oh if we were but rich!' sighed the girl.

'You would be very unhappy, my dear young lady. Believe a flea who has tried the experiment thoroughly.'

'Ah! but we could ransom my brother! and now we can find no money till we get back to Africa.'

'And none then,' said the officer, in a low voice. 'You forget, my poor child, that I mortgaged the whole estate to raise my legion. We must not shrink from looking at things as they are.'

'Ah! and he is prisoner! he will be sold for a slave-perhaps-ah! perhaps crucified, for he is not a Roman! Oh, he will be crucified!' and she burst into an agony of weeping....Suddenly she dashed away her tears and looked up clear and bright once more.

'No! forgive me, father! G.o.d will protect His own!'

'My dear young lady,' said Raphael, 'if you really dislike such a prospect for your brother, and are in want of a few dirty coins wherewith to prevent it, perhaps I may be able to find you them in Ostia.'

She looked at incredulously, as her eye glanced over his rags, and then, blushing, begged his pardon for her unspoken thoughts.

'Well, as you choose to suppose. But my dog has been so civil to you already, that perhaps she may have no objection to make you a present of that necklace of hers. I will go to the Rabbis, and we will make all right; so don't cry. I hate crying; and the puppies are quite chorus enough for the present tragedy.'

'The Rabbis? Are you a Jew?' asked the officer.

'Yes, sir, a Jew. And you, I presume, a Christian: perhaps you may have scruples about receiving-your sect has generally none about taking-from one of our stubborn and unbelieving race. Don't be frightened, though, for your conscience; I a.s.sure you I am no more a Jew at heart than I am a Christian.'

'G.o.d help you then!'

'Some one, or something, has helped me a great deal too much, for three-and-thirty years of pampering. But, pardon me, that was a strange speech for a Christian.'

'You must be a good Jew, sir, before you can be a good Christian.'

'Possibly. I intend to be neither-nor a good Pagan either. My dear sir, let us drop the subject. It is beyond me. If I can be as good a brute animal as my dog there-it being first demonstrated that it is good to be good-I shall be very well content.'

The officer looked down on with a stately, loving sorrow. Raphael caught his eye, and felt that he was in the presence of no common man.

'I must take care what I say here, I suspect, or I shall be entangled shortly in a regular Socratic dialogue.... And now, sir, may I return your question, and ask who and what are you? I really have no intention of giving you up to any Caesar, Antiochus, Tiglath-Pileser, or other flea-devouring flea.... They will fatten well enough without your blood. So I only ask as a student of the great nothing-in-general, which men call the universe.'

'I was prefect of a legion this morning. What I am now, you know as well as I.'

'Just what I do not. I am in deep wonder at seeing your hilarity, when, by all flea-a.n.a.logies, you ought to be either be howling your fate like Achilles on the sh.o.r.es of Styx, or pretending to grin and bear it, as I was taught to do when I played at Stoicism. You are not of that sect certainly, for you confessed yourself a fool just now.'

'And it would be long, would it not, before you made one of them do as much? Well, be it so. A fool I am; yet, if G.o.d helps us as far as Ostia, why should I not be cheerful?'

'Why should you?'

'What better thing can happen to a fool, than that G.o.d should teach that he is one, when he fancied himself the wisest of the wise? Listen to me, sir. Four mouths ago I was blessed with health, honour, lands, friends-all for which the heart of man could wish. And if, for an insane ambition, I have chosen to risk all those, against the solemn warnings of the truest friend, and the wisest saint who treads this earth of G.o.d's-should I not rejoice to have it proved to me, even by such a lesson as this, that the friend who never deceived me before was right in this case too; and that the G.o.d who has checked and turned me for forty years of wild toil and warfare, whenever I dared to do what was right in the sight of my own eyes, has not forgotten me yet, or given up the thankless task of my education?'

'And who, pray, is this peerless friend?'

'Augustine of Hippo.'

'Humph! It had been better for the world in general, if the great dialectician had exerted his powers of persuasion on Heraclian himself.'

'He did so, but in vain.'

'I don't doubt it. I know the sleek Count well enough to judge what effect a sermon would have upon that smooth vulpine determination of his.... "An instrument in the hands of G.o.d, my dear brother.... We must obey His call, even to the death," etc. etc.' And Raphael laughed bitterly.

'You know the Count?'

'As well, sir, as I care to know any man.'

'I am sorry for your eyesight, then, sir,' said the Prefect severely, 'if it has been able to discern no more than that in so august a character.'