news that the Emperor's Neapolitan fleet
was in full chase.... And the soldiers on board that little vessel
looked silently and steadfastly into the silent steadfast face of the
old Prefect, and Victoria saw him shudder, and turn his eyes away--and
stood up among the rough fighting men, like a goddess, and cried aloud
that 'the Lord would protect His own'; and they believed her, and
were still; till many days and many ships were passed, and the little
fishing-craft, outstripped even by the transports and merchantmen, as it
strained and crawled along before its single square-sail, was left alone
upon the sea.

And where was Raphael Aben-Ezra?

He was sitting, with Bran's head between his knees, at the door of a
temporary awning in the vessel's stern, which shielded the wounded men
from sun and spray; and as he sat he could hear from within the tent the
gentle voices of Victoria and her brother, as they tended the sick like
ministering angels, or read to them words of divine hope and comfort-in
which his homeless heart felt that he had no share....

'As I live, I would change places now with any one of those poor mangled
ruffians to have that voice speaking such words to me....and to believe
them.'.... And he went on perusing the manuscript which he held in his
hand. ...............

'Well!' he sighed to himself after a while 'at least it is the most
complimentary, not to say hopeful, view of our destinies with which I
have met since I threw away my curse's belief that the seed of David was
fated to conquer the whole earth, and set up a second Roman Empire
at Jerusalem, only worse than the present one, in that the devils of
superstition and bigotry would be added to those of tyranny and rapine.'

A hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice asked' 'And what may this
so hopeful view be?'

'Ah! my dear General!' said Raphael, looking up. 'I have a poor bill
of fare whereon to exercise my culinary powers this morning. Had it not
been for that shark who was so luckily deluded last night, I should have
been reduced to the necessity of stewing my friend the fat decurion's
big boots.'

'They would have been savoury enough, I will warrant, after they had
passed under your magical hand.'

'It is a comfort, certainly, to find that after all one did learn
something useful in Alexandria! So I will even go forward at once, and
employ my artistic skill.'

'Tell me first what it was about which I heard you just now
soliloqu