‘When I came to Tarentum, I sailed in the galley which I had chartered from certain sea-robbers. Valiant men they were, nevertheless, and kept true faith with me. For when we had come halfway, rowing with all our might, behold another galley coming in our wake and about to pass us by, which I knew for an Alexandrian, as did the captain also, who assured me that she had come from hence to Brundusium with letters from Orestes.’
‘Well?’
‘It seemed to me both base to be passed, and more base to waste all the expense wherewith you and our elders had charged themselves; so I took counsel with the man of blood, offering him over and above our bargain, two hundred gold pieces of my own, which please to pay to my account with Rabbi Ezekiel, who lives by the watergate in Pelusium. Then the pirates, taking counsel, agreed to run down the enemy; for our galley was a sharp-beaked Liburnian, while theirs was only a messenger trireme.’
‘And you did it?’
‘Else had I not been here. They were delivered into our hands, so that we struck them full in mid-length, and they sank like Pharaoh and his host.’
‘So perish all the enemies of the nation!’ cried Miriam. ‘And now it is impossible, you say, for fresh news to arrive for these ten days?’
‘Impossible, the captain assured me, owing to the rising of the wind, and the signs of southerly storm.’
‘Here, take this letter for the Chief Rabbi, and the blessing of a mother in Israel. Thou Last played the man for thy people; and thou shalt go to the grave full of years and honours, with men-servants and maid-servants, gold and silver, children and children’s children, with thy foot on the necks of heathens, and the blessing of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to eat of the goose which is fattening in the desert, and the Leviathan which lieth in the great sea, to be meat for all true Israelites at the last day.’
And the Jew turned and went out, perhaps, in his simple fanaticism, the happiest man in Egypt at that moment.
He passed out through the ante-chamber, leering at the slave-girls, and scowling at Philammon; and the youth was ushered into the presence of Miriam.