In a small and ill-furnished upper room of a fortified country house, sat Synesius, the Bishop of Cyrene.
A goblet of wine stood beside him, on the table, but it was untasted. Slowly and sadly, by the light of a tiny lamp, he went on writing a verse or two, and then burying his face in his hand, while hot tears dropped between his fingers on the paper; till a servant entering, announced Raphael Aben-Ezra.
Synesius rose, with a gesture of surprise, and hurried towards the door. “No, ask him to come hither to me. To pass through those deserted rooms at night is more than I can bear.” And he waited for his guest at the chamber door, and as he entered, caught both his hands in his, and tried to speak; but his voice was choked within him.
“Do not speak,” said Raphael gently, leading him to his chair again. “I know all.”
“You know all? And are you, then, so unlike the rest of the world, that you alone have come to visit the bereaved and the deserted in his misery?”
“I am like the rest of the world, after all; for I came to you on my own selfish errand, to seek comfort. Would that I could give it instead! But the servants told me all, below.”
“And yet you persisted in seeing me, as if I could help you? Alas! I can help no one now. Here I am at last, utterly alone, utterly helpless. As I came from my mother’s womb, so shall I return again. My last child—my last and fairest—gone after the rest!—Thank God, that I have had even a day’s peace wherein to lay him by his mother and his brothers; though He alone knows how long the beloved graves may remain unrifled. Let it have been shame enough to sit here in my lonely tower and watch the ashes of my Spartan ancestors, the sons of Hercules himself, my glory and my pride, sinful fool that I was! cast to the winds by barbarian plunderers. … When wilt thou make an end, O Lord, and slay me?”
“And how did the poor boy die?” asked Raphael, in hope of soothing sorrow by enticing it to vent itself in words.
“The pestilence.—What other fate can we expect, who breathe an air tainted with corpses, and sit under a sky darkened with carrion birds? But I could endure even that, if I could work, if I could help. But to sit here, imprisoned now for months between these hateful towers; night after night to watch the sky, red with burning homesteads; day after day to have my ears ring with the shrieks of the dying and the captives—for they have begun now to murder every male down to the baby at the breast—and to feel myself utterly fettered, impotent, sitting here like some palsied idiot, waiting for my end! I long to rush out, and fall fighting, sword in hand: but I am their last, their only hope. The governors care nothing for our supplications. In vain have I memorialised Gennadius and Innocent, with what little eloquence my misery has not stunned in me. But there is no resolution, no unanimity left in the land. The soldiery are scattered in small garrisons, employed entirely in protecting the private property of their officers. The Ausurians defeat them piecemeal, and, armed with their spoils, actually have begun to beleaguer fortified towns; and now there is nothing left for us, but to pray that, like Ulysses, we may be devoured the last. What am I doing? I am selfishly pouring out my own sorrows, instead of listening to yours.”
“Nay, friend, you are talking of the sorrows of your country, not of your own. As for me, I have no sorrow—only a despair: which, being irremediable, may well wait. But you—oh, you must not stay here. Why not escape to Alexandria?”
“I will die at my post as I have lived, the father of my people. When the last ruin comes, and Cyrene itself is besieged, I shall return thither from my present outpost, and the conquerors shall find the bishop in his place before the altar. There I have offered for years the unbloody sacrifice to Him, who will perhaps require of me a bloody one, that so the sight of an altar polluted by the murder of His priest, may end the sum of Pentapolitan woe, and arouse Him to avenge His slaughtered sheep! There, we will talk no more of it. This, at least, I have left in my power, to make you welcome. And after supper you shall tell me what brings you hither.”
And the good bishop, calling his servant, set to work to show his guest such hospitality as the invaders had left in his power.
Raphael’s usual insight had not deserted him when, in his utter perplexity, he went, almost instinctively, straight to Synesius. The Bishop of Cyrene, to judge from the charming private letters which he has left, was one of those many-sided, volatile, restless men, who taste joy and sorrow, if not deeply or permanently, yet abundantly and passionately. He lived, as Raphael had told Orestes, in a whirlwind of good deeds, meddling and toiling for the mere pleasure of action; and as soon as there was nothing to be done, which, till lately, had happened seldom enough with him, paid the penalty for past excitement in fits of melancholy. A man of magniloquent and flowery style, not without a vein of self-conceit; yet withal of overflowing kindliness, racy humour, and unflinching courage, both physical and moral; with a very clear practical faculty, and a very muddy speculative one—though, of course, like the rest of the world, he was especially proud of his own weakest side, and professed the most passionate affection for philosophic meditation; while his detractors hinted, not without a show of reason, that he was far more of an adept in soldiering and dog-breaking than in the mysteries of the unseen world.
To him Raphael betook
