‘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 pass. 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 fashion, and routs the Ausurians with their leader’s sword; returns and erects a trophy in due classic 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 God.” 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 flashing 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 bloody 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.