It may be, he recalls the day of his departure from Sura, in company with his young and beautiful wife, and his little son, and three other young and eminent rabbis, Rabbi _Sahamaria ben Elchanan_, Rabbi _Chuschiel_ and Rabbi _Nathan ben Isaac Kohen_, for the purpose of raising funds for the academy at Sura, which was then in its last throes. He is recalling, perhaps, the harrowing scene when they were taken captive along the Italian coast by the Spanish-Moorish pirate, Admiral _Ibn Rumachis_. His quivering lips and wrinkled brow and his suppressed cry of anguish betray his thinking of the evil designs which the pirate admiral carried in his foul heart against his young and beautiful wife; how she, the pious and innocent, preferring death to infamy, had asked him, concealing the motive: whether there is resurrection for those who perish in the sea; and how he, unsuspecting, answered in the affirmative, basing it upon Psalm lxviii: 23. "The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashon, _I will bring again from the depths of the sea_," how she, no sooner had the answer been given, plunged into the sea, and the raging billows swallowed his young and beautiful wife, the mother of his young and only child. Hence, his wrinkled brow and quivering lip and melancholy expression on the blessed Sabbath eve. No illuminated home awaits him. No wife that has cheerfully labored all day long to prepare for the festive reception of the Sabbath. No wife to greet him with her cheery smile, and with her wise and pure and holy converse to dispel the cares and worries of the week. No mother to press his child against her love-beating bosom and call him, too, "My own sweet child." His thoughts continue in their wandering. He recalls the day when he was sold as slave to Cordova; how he was ransomed by the Jewish community, though his quality and learning were unknown; how he entered, one day, the school for Talmud studies, over which Rabbi _Nathan_, "Dayan" of the Jews of Cordova, presided; how he, ashamed of his costume of sackcloth, seated himself in a corner, at a respectful distance from the disciples; how he, aroused, at last, by the false decisions of the ignorant Rabbi Nathan, forgetting in his excitement his humble state, and his costume of sackcloth, ventured to correct, with becoming modesty, the decisions rendered; how all eyes had turned towards the poor slave; how, to draw forth his learning, Rabbi Nathan entered into a debate with him, in which he evinced such profound scholarship that Rabbi Nathan exclaimed with enthusiastic admiration. "I am no longer Head of this School--Yon slave in sackcloth is my master, and I his disciple." His mind continues in its reveries. He recalls how he had been installed by acclamation as Head of the Jewish community; how he had gained the favor of Chasdai and of the Caliph; how his great school was founded and is flourishing now, and is the most famous in the Jewish literary world.