ou wish to see Anton
Trendellsohn." Samuel Loth, her brother, then came up and readily
offered to take Ziska into the midst of the worshippers. Ziska would
have escaped now from the project could he have done so without remark;
but he was ashamed to seem afraid to enter the building, as the
girls seemed to make so light of his doing so. He therefore followed
Rebecca's brother, and in a minute or two was inside the narrow door.

The door was very low and narrow, and seemed to be choked up by men
with short white surplices, but nevertheless he found himself inside,
jammed among a crowd of Jews; and a sound of many voices, going
together in a sing-song wail or dirge, met his ears. His first impulse
was to take off his hat, but that was immediately replaced upon his
head, he knew not by whom; and then he observed that all within the
building were covered. His guide did not follow him, but whispered to
some one what it was that the stranger required. He could see that
those inside the building were all clothed in muslin shirts of
different lengths, and that it was filled with men, all of whom had
before them some sort of desk, from which they were reading, or rather
wailing out their litany. Though this was the chief synagogue in
Prague, and, as being the so-called oldest in Europe, is a building
of some consequence in the Jewish world, it was very small. There was
no ceiling, and the high-pitched roof, which had once probably been
coloured, and the walls, which had once certainly been white, were
black with the dirt of ages. In the centre there was a cage, as it
were, or iron grille, within which five or six old Jews were placed,
who seemed to wail louder than the others. Round the walls there was
a row of men inside stationary desks, and outside them another row,
before each of whom there was a small movable standing desk, on which
there was a portion of the law of Moses. There seemed to be no possible
way by which Ziska could advance, and he would have been glad to
retreat had retreat been possible. But first one Jew and then another
moved their desks for him, so that he was forced to advance, and some
among them pointed to the spot where Anton Trendellsohn was standing.
But as they pointed, and as they moved their desks to make a pathway,
they still sang and wailed continuously, never ceasing for an instant
in their long, loud, melancholy song of prayer. At the further end
there seemed to be some altar, in front of which