ion of horror and cruelty. Front-de-Boeuf
himself opened the scene by addressing his ill-fated captive.

"Most accursed dog," he said, awakening with his deep and sullen voice
the echoes of the dungeon vault, "seest thou these scales?"

The unhappy Jew returned a feeble affirmative.

"In these very scales shalt thou weigh me out," said the relentless
baron, "a thousand silver pounds, after the just measure and weight of
the Tower of London."

"Holy Abraham!" returned the Jew, finding voice through the very
extremity of his danger; "heard man ever such a demand? Who ever heard,
even in a minstrel's tale, of such a sum as a thousand pounds of silver?
What human eyes were ever blessed with the sight of so great a mass of
treasure? Not within the walls of York, ransack my house and that of all
my tribe, wilt thou find the [v]tithe of that huge sum of silver that
thou speakest of."

"I am reasonable," answered Front-de-Boeuf, "and if silver be scant, I
refuse not gold. At the rate of a mark of gold for each six pounds of
silver, thou shalt free thy unbelieving carcass from such punishment as
thy heart has never even conceived in thy wildest imaginings."

"Have mercy on me, noble knight!" pleaded Isaac. "I am old, and poor,
and helpless. It were unworthy to triumph over me. It is a poor deed to
crush a worm."

"Old thou mayst be," replied the knight, "and feeble thou mayst be; but
rich it is known thou art."

"I swear to you, noble knight," said Isaac, "by all which I believe and
all which we believe in common--"

"Perjure not thyself," interrupted the Norman, "and let not thy
obstinacy seal thy doom, until thou hast seen and well considered the
fate that awaits thee. This prison is no place for trifling. Prisoners
ten thousand times more distinguished than thou have died within these
walls, and their fate has never been known. But for thee is reserved a
long and lingering death, to which theirs was luxury."

He again made a signal for the slaves to approach and spoke to them
apart in their own language; for he had been a crusader in Palestine,
where, perhaps, he had learned his lesson of cruelty. The Saracens
produced from their baskets a quantity of charcoal, a pair of bellows,
and a flask of oil. While the one struck a light with a flint and steel,
the other disposed the charcoal in the large rusty grate which we have
already mentioned and exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red
glow.

"Seest thou,