In spite of himself, Raphael soon became interested in Augustine’s conversation. He entered into the subject of Cyrenian misrule and ruin as heartily and shrewdly as any man of the world; and when all the rest were at a loss, the prompt practical hint which cleared up the difficulty was certain to come from him. It was by his advice that Majoricus had brought his soldiery hither; it was his proposal that they should be employed for a fixed period in defending these remote southern boundaries of the province; he checked the impetuosity of Synesius, cheered the despair of Majoricus, appealed to the honour and the Christianity of the soldiers, and seemed to have a word—and that the right word—for every man; and after a while, Aben-Ezra quite forgot the stiffness and deliberation of his manner, and the quaint use of Scripture texts in far-fetched illustrations of every opinion which he propounded. It had seemed at first a mere affectation; but the arguments which it was employed to enforce were in themselves so moderate and so rational that Raphael began to feel, little by little, that his apparent pedantry was only the result of a wish to refer every matter, even the most vulgar, to some deep and divine rule of right and wrong.
‘But you forget all this while, my friends,’ said Majoricus at last, ‘the danger which you incur by sheltering proclaimed rebels.’
‘The King of kings has forgiven your rebellion, in that while He has punished you by the loss of your lands and honours, He has given you your life for a prey in this city of refuge. It remains for you to bring forth worthy fruits of penitence; of which I know none better than those which John the Baptist commanded to the soldiery of old, “Do no violence to any man, and be content with your wages.”’
‘As for rebels and rebellion,’ said Synesius, ‘they are matters unknown among as; for where there is no king there can be no rebellion. Whosoever will help us against Ausurians is loyal in our eyes. And as for our political creed, it is simple enough—namely, that the emperor never dies, and that his name is Agamemnon, who fought at Troy; which any of my grooms will prove to you syllogistically enough to satisfy Augustine himself. As thus—
‘Agamemnon was the greatest and the best of kings.
‘The emperor is the greatest and the best of kings.
‘Therefore, Agamemnon is the emperor, and conversely.’
‘It had been well,’ said Augustine, with a grave smile, ‘if some of our friends had held the same doctrine, even at the expense of their logic.’
‘Or if,’ answered Synesius, ‘they believed with us, that the emperor’s chamberlain is a clever old man, with a bald head like my own, Ulysses by name, who was rewarded with the prefecture of all lands north of the Mediterranean, for putting out the Cyclop’s eye two years ago. However, enough of this. But you see, you are not in any extreme danger of informers and intriguers.... The real difficulty is, how you will be able to obey Augustine, by being content with your wages. For,’ lowering his voice, ‘you will get literally none.’
‘It will be as much as we deserve,’ said the young Tribune: ‘but my fellows have a trick of eating—’