that I would
die a thousand martyrdoms for your sake, as you are, and if you were a
thousand times worse than you are! Your wrong, your right, your truth,
your falsehood, you yourself are swallowed up in the love I bear you! I
love you always, and I will say it, and say it again--ah, your eyes! I
love them, too! Take me into them, Unorna--whether in hate or love--but
in love--yes--love--Unorna--golden Unorna!"

With the cry on his lips--the name he had given her in other days--he
made one mad step forwards, throwing out his arms as though to clasp
her to him. But it was too late. Even while he had been speaking her
mysterious influence had overpowered him, as he had known that it would,
when she so pleased.

She caught his two hands in the air, and pressed him back and held him
against the tall slab. The whole pitilessness of her nature gleamed like
a cold light in her white face.

"There was a martyr of your race once," she said in cruel tones. "His
name was Simon Abeles. You talk of martyrdom! You shall know what it
means--though it be too good for you, who spy upon the woman whom you
say you love."

The hectic flush of passion sank from Israel Kafka's cheek. Rigid,
with outstretched arms and bent head, he stood against the ancient
gravestone. Above him, as though raised to heaven in silent
supplication, were the sculptured hands that marked the last
resting-place of a Kohn.

"You shall know now," said Unorna. "You shall suffer indeed."

CHAPTER XV[*]

[*] The deeds here described were done in Prague on the
twenty-first day of February in the year 1694. Lazarus and
his accomplice Levi Kurtzhandel, or Brevimanus, or "the
short-handed," were betrayed by their own people. Lazarus
hanged himself in prison, and Levi suffered death by the
wheel--repentant, it is said, and himself baptized. A full
account of the trial, written in Latin, was printed, and a
copy of it may be seen in the State Museum in Prague. The
body of Simon Abeles was exhumed and rests in the Teyn
Kirche, in the chapel on the left of the high altar. The
slight extension of certain scenes not fully described in
the Latin volume will be pardoned in a work of fiction.

Unorna's voice sank from the tone of anger to a lower pitch. She spoke
quietly and very distinctly as though to impress every word upon the ear
of the man who was in her power. The Wanderer listened, too, scarcely
compr