have lived long enough to feel that a rich caravan,
laden with the shawls of India and the stuffs of Samarcand, if not
exactly like dancing before the ark, is still a goodly sight. And our
hard-hearted rulers, with all their pride, can they subsist without us?
Still we wax rich. I have lived to see the haughty Caliph sink into a
slave viler far than Israel. And the victorious and voluptuous Seljuks,
even now they tremble at the dim mention of the distant name of Arslan.
Yet I, Bostenay, and the frail remnant of our scattered tribes, still
we exist, and still, thanks to our God! we prosper. But the age of power
has passed; it is by prudence now that we must flourish. The gibe and
jest, the curse, perchance the blow, Israel now must bear, and with a
calm or even smiling visage. What then? For every gibe and jest, for
every curse, I'll have a dirhem; and for every blow, let him look to it
who is my debtor, or wills to be so. But see, he comes, my nephew! His
grandsire was my friend. Methinks I look upon him now: the same Alroy
that was the partner of my boyish hours. And yet that fragile form and
girlish face but ill consort with the dark passions and the dangerous
fancies, which, I fear, lie hidden in that tender breast. Well, sir?'

'You want me, uncle?'

'What then? Uncles often want what nephews seldom offer.'

'I at least can refuse nothing; for I have naught to give.'

'You have a jewel which I greatly covet.' 'A jewel! See my chaplet! You
gave it me, my uncle; it is yours.'

'I thank you. Many a blazing ruby, many a soft and shadowy pearl, and
many an emerald glowing like a star in the far desert, I behold, my
child. They are choice stones, and yet I miss a jewel far more precious,
which, when I gave you this rich chaplet, David, I deemed you did
possess.' 'How do you call it, sir?' 'Obedience.'

'A word of doubtful import; for to obey, when duty is disgrace, is not a
virtue.'

'I see you read my thought. In a word, I sent for you to know, wherefore
you joined me not to-day in offering our--our----'

'Tribute.'

'Be it so: tribute. Why were you absent?' 'Because it was a tribute; I
pay none.' 'But that the dreary course of seventy winters has not erased
the memory of my boyish follies, David, I should esteem you mad. Think
you, because I am old, I am enamoured of disgrace, and love a house of
bondage? If life were a mere question between freedom and slavery, glory
and dishonour, all could decide. Trust me,