“Heaven forbid!” said Raphael, laughing.
“Don’t laugh. I cast your nativity last night, and I know you have no cause to laugh. A great danger hangs over you, and a deep temptation. And if you weather this storm, you may be chamberlain, prime minister, emperor, if you will. And you shall be—by the four archangels, you shall!”
And the old woman vanished down a by-lane, leaving Raphael utterly bewildered.
“Moses and the prophets! Does the old lady intend to marry me? What can there be in this very lazy and selfish personage who bears my name, to excite so romantic an affection? Well, Raphael Aben-Ezra, thou hast one more friend in the world beside Bran the mastiff; and therefore one more trouble—seeing that friends always expect a due return of affection and good offices and whatnot. I wonder whether the old lady has been getting into a scrape kidnapping, and wants my patronage to help her out of it. … Three-quarters of a mile of roasting sun between me and home! … I must hire a gig, or a litter, or something, off the next stand … with a driver who has been eating onions … and of course there is not a stand for the next half-mile. Oh, divine aether! as Prometheus has it, and ye swift-winged breezes (I wish there were any here), when will it all be over? Three-and-thirty years have I endured already of this Babel of knaves and fools; and with this abominable good health of mine, which won’t even help me with gout or indigestion, I am likely to have three-and-thirty years more of it. … I know nothing, and I care for nothing, and I expect nothing; and I actually can’t take the trouble to prick a hole in myself, and let the very small amount of wits out, to see something really worth seeing, and try its strength at something really worth doing—if, after all, the other side the grave does not turn out to be just as stupid as this one. … When will it be all over, and I in Abraham’s bosom—or anyone else’s, provided it be not a woman’s?”
V
A Day in Alexandria
In the meanwhile, Philammon, with his hosts, the Goths, had been slipping down the stream. Passing, one after another, world-old cities now dwindled to decaying towns, and numberless canal-mouths, now fast falling into ruin with the fields to which they ensured fertility, under the pressure of Roman extortion and misrule, they had entered one evening the mouth of the great canal of Alexandria, slid easily all night across the star-bespangled shadows of Lake Mareotis, and found themselves, when the next morning dawned, among the countless masts and noisy quays of the greatest seaport in the world. The motley crowd of foreigners, the hubbub of all dialects from the Crimea to Cadiz, the vast piles of merchandise, and heaps of wheat, lying unsheltered in that rainless air, the huge bulk of the corn-ships lading for Rome, whose tall sides rose story over story, like floating palaces, above the buildings of some inner dock—these sights, and a hundred more, made the young monk think that the world did not look at first sight a thing to be despised. In front of heaps of fruit, fresh from the market-boats, black groups of glossy negro slaves were basking and laughing on the quay, looking anxiously and coquettishly round in hopes of a purchaser; they evidently did not think the change from desert toil to city luxuries a change for the worse. Philammon turned away his eyes from beholding vanity; but only to meet fresh vanity wheresoever they fell. He felt crushed by the multitude of new objects, stunned by the din around; and scarcely recollected himself enough to seize the first opportunity of escaping from his dangerous companions.
“Holloa!” roared Smid the armourer, as he scrambled on to the steps of the slip; “you are not going to run away without bidding us goodbye?”
“Stop with me, boy!” said old Wulf. “I saved you; and you are my man.”
Philammon turned and hesitated.
“I am a monk, and God’s man.”
“You can be that anywhere. I will make you a warrior.”
“The weapons of my warfare are not of flesh and blood, but prayer and fasting,” answered poor Philammon, who felt already that he should have ten times more need of the said weapons in Alexandria than ever he had had in the desert. … “Let me go! I am not made for your life! I thank you, bless you! I will pray for you, sir! but let me go!”
“Curse the craven hound!” roared half a dozen voices. “Why did you not let us have our will with him, Prince Wulf? You might have expected such gratitude from a monk.”
“He owes me my share of the sport,” quoth Smid. “And here it is!” And a hatchet, thrown with practised aim, whistled right for Philammon’s head—he had just time to swerve, and the weapon struck and snapped against the granite wall behind.
“Well saved!” said Wulf coolly, while the sailors and market-women above yelled murder, and the customhouse officers, and other constables and catchpolls of the harbour, rushed to the place—and retired again quietly at the thunder of the Amal from the boat’s stern—
“Never mind, my good follows! we’re only Goths; and on a visit to the prefect, too.”
“Only Goths, my donkey-riding friends!” echoed Smid, and at that ominous name the whole posse comitatus tried to look unconcerned, and found suddenly that their presence was absolutely required in an opposite direction.
“Let him go,” said Wulf, as he stalked up the steps. “Let the boy go. I never set
