here
was pain, and angry death grinned in his eyes, as in an utterly changed,
ice-cold, keen voice he said:

"Senor Rabbi, you know me. Well, then, you know also who I am. And if
the fox knows that I belong to the blood of the lion, let him beware and
not bring his fox-beard into danger of death, nor provoke my anger. Only
he who feels like the lion can understand his weakness."

"Oh, I understand it well," answered the Rabbi, and a melancholy
seriousness came over his brow. "I understand it well, how the proud
lion, out of pride, casts aside his princely coat and goes about
disguised in the scaly armor of the crocodile, because it is the fashion
to be a grinning, cunning, greedy crocodile! What can you expect the
lesser beasts to be when the lion denies his nature? But beware, Don
Isaac, _thou_ wert not made for the element of the crocodile. For
water--thou knowest well what I mean--is thy evil fortune, and thou
shalt drown. Water is not thy element; the weakest trout can live in it
better than the king of the forest. Hast thou forgotten how the current
of the Tagus was about to draw thee under--?"

Bursting into loud laughter, Don Isaac suddenly threw his arms round the
Rabbi's neck, covered his mouth with kisses, leapt with jingling spurs
high into the air, so that the passing Jews shrank back in alarm, and in
his own natural hearty and joyous voice cried--

"Truly thou art Abraham of Bacharach! And it was a good joke, and more
than that, a friendly act, when thou, in Toledo, didst leap from the
Alcantara bridge into the water, and grasp by the hair thy friend, who
could drink better than he could swim, and drew him to dry land. I came
very near making a really deep investigation as to whether there is
actually gold in the bed of the Tagus, and whether the Romans were right
in calling it the golden river. I assure you that I shiver even now at
the mere thought of that water-party."

Saying this the Spaniard made a gesture as if he were shaking water
from his garments. The countenance of the Rabbi expressed great joy as
he again and again pressed his friend's hand, saying every time--

"I am indeed glad."

"And so, indeed, am I," answered the other. "It is seven years now since
we met, and when we parted I was as yet a mere greenhorn, and thou--thou
wert already a staid and serious man. But whatever became of the
beautiful Dona who in those days cost thee so many sighs, which thou
didst accompany with the lute