, as if impatient for the charge. The men grew
death-pale, the women wrung their hands.

'_Ai, vai!_' they moaned. 'Woe! woe!'

'What boy? What blood?' said the _Shamash_, undaunted.

'Don't palter, you rascal! You know well that a Christian child has
disappeared.'

The aged Rabbi, stimulated by the _Shamash_, uplifted a quavering
voice.

'The child will be found of a surety--if, indeed, it is lost,' he
added with bitter sarcasm. 'And surely your Excellency cannot require
the boy's blood at our hands ere your Excellency knows it is indeed
spilt.'

'You misunderstand me, old dog--or rather you pretend to, old fox. The
boy's blood is here--it is kept in this very synagogue--and I have
come for it.'

The _Shamash_ laughed explosively. 'Oh, Excellency!'

The synagogue, hysterically tense, caught the contagion of glad
relief. It rang with strange laughter.

'There is no blood in this synagogue, Excellency,' said the Rabbi, his
eyes a-twinkle, 'save what runs in living veins.'

'We shall see. Produce that bottle beneath the Ark.'

'That!' The _Shamash_ grinned--almost indecorously. 'That is the
Consecration wine--red as my beard,' quoth he.

'Ha! ha! the red Consecration wine!' repeated the synagogue in a happy
buzz, and from the women's gallery came the same glad murmur of mutual
explanation.

'We shall see,' repeated the officer, with iron imperturbability, and
the happy hum died into a cold heart-faintness, fraught with an almost
incredulous apprehension of some devilish treachery, some mock
discovery that would give the Ghetto over to the frenzies of fanatical
creditors, nay, to the vengeance of the law.

The officer's voice rose again. 'Let no one leave the synagogue--man,
woman, or child. Kill anyone who attempts to escape.'

The screams of fainting women answered him from above, but impassively
he urged his horse along the aisle that led to the Ark; its noisy
hoofs trampled over every heart. Springing from his saddle he opened
the little cupboard beneath the scrolls, and drew out a bottle,
hideously red.

'Consecration wine, eh?' he said grimly.

'What else, Excellency?' stoutly replied the _Shamash_, who had
followed him.

A savage laugh broke from the officer's lips. 'Drink me a mouthful!'

As the _Shamash_ took the bottle, with a fearless shrug of the
shoulders, every eye strained painfully towards him, save in the
women's gallery, where many covered their faces with their hands.
Every bre