have been shame enough to sit here in my lonely tower and watch the
ashes of my Spartan ancestors, the sons of Hercules himself, my glory
and my pride, sinful fool that I was! cast to the winds by barbarian
plunderers.... When wilt thou make an end, O Lord, and slay me?'

'And how did the poor boy die?' asked Raphael, in hope of soothing
sorrow by enticing it to vent itself in words.

'The pestilence.--What other fate can we expect, who breathe an air
tainted with corpses, and sit under a sky darkened with carrion birds?
But I could endure even that, if I could work, if I could help. But to
sit here, imprisoned now for months between these hateful towers; night
after night to watch the sky, red with burning homesteads; day after day
to have my ears ring with the shrieks of the dying and the captives--for
they have begun now to murder every male down to the baby at the
breast--and to feel myself utterly fettered, impotent, sitting here like
some palsied idiot, waiting for my end! I long to rush out, and fall
fighting, sword in hand: but I am their last, their only hope.
The governors care nothing for our supplications. In vain have I
memorialised Gennadius and Innocent, with what little eloquence my
misery has not stunned in me. But there is no resolution, no unanimity
left in the land. The soldiery are scattered in small garrisons,
employed entirely in protecting the private property of their officers.
The Ausurians defeat them piecemeal, and, armed with their spoils,
actually have begun to beleaguer fortified towns; and now there is
nothing left for us, but to pray that, like Ulysses, we may be devoured
the last. What am I doing? I am selfishly pouring out my own sorrows,
instead of listening to yours.'

'Nay, friend, you are talking of the sorrows of your country, not of
your own. As for me, I have no sorrow--only a despair: which, being
irremediable, may well wait. But you--oh, you must not stay here. Why
not escape to Alexandria?'

'I will die at my post as I have lived, the father of my people. When
the last ruin comes, and Cyrene itself is besieged, I shall return
thither from my present outpost, and the conquerors shall find the
bishop in his place before the altar. There I have offered for years the
unbloody sacrifice to Him, who will perhaps require of me a bloody one,
that so the sight of an altar polluted by the murder of His priest,
may end the sum of Pentapolitan woe, and arouse Him to avenge His
slaugh