"Answer, then: Are you he who delivered up to slaughter the two young men who perished by assassination, at La Verrière?"

"I am the man."

"Are you he who devoted to the Evil One our comrade, David Armstrong?"

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"Thou sayest it.

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Wretch! What fate may we expect for our friend?" "Death-cruel, bloody, and secret!"

"And have you left a spare life at home," burst in Nigel, that you come thus within our grasp?"

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Speak not to me of life! Speak not to me of home! Silence, young men, for I laugh at your threats, and defy your power! It is true, that but a little while ago I should have knelt at your feet, and implored your pity for my grey hairs. I should have hidden mine iniquity from you, as with a cloak, and have fenced it round about with lies and with oaths. I should have trembled at your voice; and when your eyes saw me, my marrow would have melted within my bones, and my blood would have become as water. I should have withered away before your face, and shrunk aside out of your path, creeping on my belly like a worm. In a word, I should have been, and seemed, that abject thing into which the laws of the ignorant and brutal Christians have converted the sacred people. And why? Because, even in the midst of obloquy and contempt, I had still something to live for some secret hope-some lonely consolation-some object for which to strive to dare-to suffer to lie to deceive-to lose earth-and to hazard heaven. I am now free. My gold is as dross in my eyes, for I have no child to inherit it. The savour of my life is gone, and I fear not death. I am a Jew no longer. Behold, I am a man!"

As Caleb spoke, his swarthy features seemed to be lighted up by the supernatural glare which shot from his eyes; his insignificant figure appeared to expand; and his action, open, bold, and picturesque, was invested with the wild dignity of despair. The knight and his comrades gazed in silence at this phenomenon; and it was not till the old man had finished, and a sinking of the chest given token that his physical energies were not equal to those of his spirit, that they turned eyes of inquiry and astonishment upon one another. Douglas, however, had a clue to the emotions of the Jew, which the others did not possess.

"I could pity you," said he, "but that you have no touch of pity yourself. Even natural affection, which in all

other men is so lovely, in you is nothing more than the meanest and most contracted selfishness. The whole world seems to pass away from your eyes with your own lost child—yet it does not cost you a shudder to give up to the assassin's knife the child of another!"

"Go to," said Caleb, hoarsely, "thy talk is foolishness; for thou talkest like a Gentile, forgetting that I am a Jew. Natural affection is the gift of Jehovah; and nowhere is the good seed more largely scattered than among the remnant of Israel. Pity! Is it of me thou demandest pity, whose life has been hunted like that of wild beast, from his earliest hour? whose blood has been scented after like a sweet smell, even from the womb? Ye drive us away with blows and curses, from all honourable employment, to trade in monies; and if, peradventure, a lust of gold arise in our hearts, ye cry, 'Avarice is the nature of the Jew!' Ye rob, beat, and insult us; ye tear the flesh from off our bones; ye burn us with fire; ye rend our children from our arms; and if in self-defence, or in vengeance, we shed but one drop of Christian blood, Behold!' ye cry, the Jew is a murderer from his mother's belly!' Away! thy words are emptiness. Can a man satisfy his hunger with the east wind?"

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"It is idle arguing," interposed Andrew; for the knight looked somewhat blank at a view of the case which was new in his day. 'He knows not, and will not know, that in persecuting his people we do what is appointed, even unconsciously to ourselves. But tell me, Jew, you who defend all things by the lex talionis, do you come hither to preach the doctrine to us, of express purpose that we may avenge the blood of our friend, by taking away from you a life which has now it seems become worthless in your eyes?"

"I come with no such purpose; but if ye demand, shall I not answer? If ye accuse, shall I not defend myself? And, my life having lost its savour, are ye surprised that I speak as one who hath no fear? Now, hearken, for I will show ye wherefore I am come. My daughter, whom I intrusted to the care of your comrade, never reached the homes of her kin. She is now-she-Hagar-my child— she is now there!" and his voice sunk to a whisper of inexpressible horror, while he pointed with his arm, as if unable to name the place.

"She has no concern," said Douglas, hastily, "in the danger of our comrade. Gilles de Retz, voluptuary though he be, will not defile himself with a Jewess; and Orosmandel is far more likely to protect than to injure her."

"Tell me not of Gilles de Retz-tell me not of Orosmandel-for there is one mightier than they at La Verrière! Never did he own superior on the earth. The great ones of the world are his servants, and the wise ones his tools. Where he is, there is he alone; moving and swaying all things by the power of the prince of hell, and doing diligently the work of that invisible spirit, of whom he is the agent and representative in the flesh. Now hearken: my daughter is in the power of that man, in the possession of that devil. Peradventure, ye think, because I am a Hebrew”— and a ghastly smile spread over the old man's face-"that it is my business now to save the golden casket, after the jewel hath been stolen? I say unto you, nevertheless, that I care no more for my daughter's life than for my own! Mine shall be the vengeance of Shechem, and of Absalom! and by this blade"-drawing as he spoke a long, straight knife from beneath his cloak-"shall Hagar be avenged, and David set free!"

The Jew paused for some moments; during which he looked eagerly into the eyes of the three young men, one after the other.

"Now tell me," continued he, "what will ye dare for the sake of your comrade? What will ye hazard for his life? A piece of gold, or an ounce of blood? How many hours, how many days, will ye sacrifice to his need?"

"We have but little gold," replied Douglas, "and we weigh not our blood by the ounce; yet have we a life apiece of our own, which we will gladly put in jeopardy for David. As for time, that belongs to life, and must therefore go into the bargain.”

"It is well-excellently well. Now, this will ye do for the sake of your comrade. As for the Hebrew woman, I know that she is even as a scorn and a laughter in your eyes; yet, nevertheless, she must not dwell abroad in the world, to be a reproach to her mother's womb. Ye must also swear unto me, that ye will surely bring her forth with David, and deliver her into the hands of Rabbi Solomon, the son of Jacob, of this city."

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For what purpose?" demanded Douglas, with interest. "It concerneth thee not. Yet will I answer, that in his house will Hagar sit down for the rest of her years, with her garments rent, and with dust upon her head."

"It may not be as you fear. I will not dare not believe it." The old man shook his head; his face being yet paler than before; and notwithstanding the efforts of his spirit, he appeared ready to faint.

"Sit down," said Nigel, pressing him down upon a bench by main force, "and tell us, when you take breath, what your plan, and how we are to assist in it."

is

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Fear not for my weakness," replied Caleb; "I know of a drug which, when the time cometh, will give me the strength of a lion, for the brief space I shall require it. One of you, the boldest and wisest, must enter within the walls of La Verrière, and hold communication with David of the nature I shall show. He must bring back unto me certain answers to my message; and on receiving these answers, he shall deliver unto the young man a paper which will teach him how to escape when a fitting moment arriveth. The rest of my plan I shall declare after the return of the envoy."

"Till we hear that plan," said Douglas, "we shall enter into no compact. So far as you have now required, however, you may depend upon our assistance; for it was already determined that one of us should go to the château upon espial. For myself, I still think, as I have told my friends, that the question should be brought to the arbitrement of arms; and unless circumstances of extreme emergence occur, I shall require of you to defer your attempt till I have first tried my fortune with Prelati in the field." The Jew rose up in astonishment.

"Art thou mad?" said he "Didst thou ever feel the weight of that arm thou wouldst challenge to open war?" "I can only answer for the fingers," said Douglas; "but they are every whit as good as my own."

"Young man! young man! If thou hast aught to bind thee to the world!-if thou hast any comfort left, even in the midst of poverty and terror-if thy glory hath not been turned into shame, thy hope into despair-if thy only child hath not been reft away from thee, and cast forth into reproach and dishonour-strive not, as man striveth against man, with Prelati!"

"If he is a man," said Douglas, "he may be conquered by the arm of a man; if he is devil, he may be subdued by the aid of the Holy Spirit. But in the mean time, this

unprofitable talk. Andrew will visit you to-morrow morning, and then set forth on his mission of espial; and on his return we five shall meet again."

On this understanding they parted.

CHAPTER XXI.

DAVID, in the mean time, unconscious of the exertions that were to be made in his behalf, felt himself dependant on his own energies, which he accordingly called up with proportionate force.

During the day-time he was busily engaged in preparing, under the directions of Orosmandel, certain chemical combinations, with the nature and powers of which he was unacquainted. Among other things he concocted a drug, in a fluid state, chiefly composed of the expressed juice of two Indian plants, which he had seen before, the potamantis, and the gelatophyllis. Their properties, he remembered, were mentioned by Pliny; but he knew that, when united, their operation was somewhat similar to that of the nepenthes of Homer, given by Helen to Telemachus.

When the student, however, was directed to mingle among other things, with the sap of the latter plant, a liquid extracted from the grains of the datura (used in the last century, if not in the present, for infamous purposes, by the Portuguese of Goa), he substituted, unobserved, a less equivocal article. He was aware, even while he did so, that the composition might be beneficial, although some of the parts individually were dangerous to virtue; but Orosmandel was waiting at the moment to receive the mixture in a small golden phial, and he had no time for reflection. Some other drinks received so considerable an admixture of myrrh, that David, who possessed a general knowledge of the common drugs, was convinced that they must produce a certain degree of stupefaction.

"It was out of compassion," said he, "that they offered our Lord wine mingled with myrrh, when he was expiring in the torments of the cross. I pray Heaven that these brewings may be intended for as good a purpose!"

Besides potions of various kinds, valuable as it appeared from the minuteness of the quantity, there were other compositions on a greater scale, the component parts of which were almost all of a mineral nature. Some of them were phosphoric substances; and some partook so decidedly of the character of gunpowder, and were produced in such lage quantities, that David concluded the supply for the defence of the castle to be manufactured by Orosmandel.

It was in vain, however, to reason on the uses of these things; for as yet he was treated merely as a subordi.