een this Ferdinand, and his
proud queen; they are pledged to accord us rights and immunities we have
never known before in Europe."

"And they will not touch our traffic, our gains, our gold?"

"Out on thee!" cried the fiery Israelite, stamping on the ground. "I
would all the gold of earth were sunk into the everlasting pit! It is
this mean, and miserable, and loathsome leprosy of avarice, that gnaws
away from our whole race the heart, the soul, nay--the very form,
of man! Many a time, when I have seen the lordly features of the
descendants of Solomon and Joshua (features that stamp the nobility of
the eastern world born to mastery and command) sharpened and furrowed by
petty cares,--when I have looked upon the frame of the strong man bowed,
like a crawling reptile, to some huckstering bargainer of silks and
unguents,--and heard the voice, that should be raising the battle-cry,
smoothed into fawning accents of base fear, or yet baser hope,--I have
asked myself, if I am indeed of the blood of Israel! and thanked the
great Jehovah that he hath spared me at least the curse that hath
blasted my brotherhood into usurers and slaves"

Ximen prudently forbore an answer to enthusiasm which he neither shared
nor understood; but, after a brief silence, turned back the stream of
the conversation.

"You resolve, then, upon prosecuting vengeance on the Moors, at
whatsoever hazard of the broken faith of these Nazarenes?"

"Ay, the vapour of human blood hath risen unto heaven, and, collected
into thunder-clouds, hangs over the doomed and guilty city. And now,
Ximen, I have a new cause for hatred to the Moors: the flower that I
have reared and watched, the spoiler hath sought to pluck it from my
hearth. Leila--thou hast guarded her ill, Ximen; and, wert thou not
endeared to me by thy very malice and vices, the rising sun should have
seen thy trunk on the waters of the Darro."

"My lord," replied Ximen, "if thou, the wisest of our people, canst not
guard a maiden from love, how canst thou see crime in the dull eyes and
numbed senses of a miserable old man?"

The Israelite did not answer, nor seem to hear this deprecatory
remonstrance. He appeared rather occupied with his own thoughts; and,
speaking to himself, he muttered, "It must be so: the sacrifice is
hard--the danger great; but here, at least, it is more immediate. It
shall be done. Ximen," he continued, speaking aloud; "dost thou feel
assured that even mine own countrymen,