“Here,” replied Front-de-B?uf—“here it must be delivered; weighed it must be—weighed and told down on this very dungeon floor. Thinkest thou I will part with thee until thy ransom is secure?”
“And what is to be my surety,” said the Jew, “that I shall be at liberty after this ransom is paid?”
“The word of a Norman noble, thou pawnbroking slave,” answered Front-de-B?uf—“the faith of a Norman nobleman, more pure than the gold and silver of thee and all thy tribe.”
“I crave pardon, noble lord,” said Isaac, timidly, “but wherefore should I rely wholly on the word of one who will trust nothing to mine?”
“Because thou canst not help it, Jew,” said the knight, sternly. “Wert thou now in thy treasure-chamber at York, and were I craving a loan of thy shekels, it would be thine to dictate the time of payment and the pledge of security. This is my treasure-chamber.
Here I have thee at advantage, nor will I again deign to repeat the terms on which I grant thee liberty.”
The Jew groaned deeply. “Grant me,” he said, “at least, with my own liberty, that of the companions with whom I travel. They scorned me as a Jew, yet they pitied my desolation, and because they tarried to aid me by the way a share of my evil hath come upon them; moreover, they may contribute in some sort to my ransom.”
“If thou meanest yonder Saxon churls,” said Front-de-B?uf, “their ransom will depend upon other terms than thine. Mind thine own concerns, Jew, I warn thee, and meddle not with those of others.”
“I am then,” said Isaac, “only to be set at liberty, together with mine wounded friend?”
“Shall I twice recommend it,” said Front-de-B?uf, “to a son of Israel, to meddle with his own concerns, and leave those of others alone? Since thou hast made thy choice, it remains but that thou payest down thy ransom, and that at a short day.”
“Yet hear me,” said the Jew, “for the sake of that very wealth which thou wouldst obtain at the expense of thy—” here he stopt short, afraid of irritating the savage Norman. But Front-de-Boeuf only laughed, and himself filled up the blank at which the Jew had hesitated. “At the expense of my conscience, thou wouldst say, Isaac; speak it out—I tell thee, I am reasonable. I can bear the reproaches of a loser, even when that loser is a Jew. Thou wert not so patient, Isaac, when thou didst invoke justice against Jacques Fitzdotterel, for calling thee a usurious blood-sucker, when thy exactions had devoured his patrimony.”
“I swear by the Talmud,” said the Jew, “that your valour has been misled in that matter. Fitzdotterel drew his poniard upon me in mine own chamber, because I craved him for mine own silver. The term of payment was due at the Passover.”
“I care not what he did,” said Front-de-B?uf, “the question is, when shall I have mine own?—when shall I have the shekels, Isaac?”
“Let my daughter Rebecca go forth to York,” answered Isaac, “with your safe-conduct, noble knight, and so soon as man and horse can return, the treasure—” here he groaned deeply, but added, after the pause of a few seconds—“the treasure shall be told down on this very floor.”
“Thy daughter!” said Front-de-B?uf, as if surprised, “by heavens, Isaac, I would I had known of this. I deemed that yonder black-browed girl had been thy concubine, and I gave her to be a handmaiden to Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, after the fashion of patriarchs and heroes of the days of old, who set us in these matters a wholesome example.”
The yell which Isaac raised at this unfeeling communication made the very vault to ring, and astounded the two Saracens so much that they let go their hold of the Jew. He availed himself of his enlargement to throw himself on the pavement and clasp the knees of Front-de-B?uf.
“Take all that you have asked,” said he, “Sir Knight; take ten times more—reduce me to ruin and to beggary, if thou wilt,—nay, pierce me with thy poniard, broil me on that furnace; but spare my daughter, deliver her in safety and honour. As thou art born of woman, spare the honour of a helpless maiden. She is the image of my deceased Rachael—she is the last of six pledges of her love. Will you deprive a widowed husband of his sole remaining comfort? Will you reduce a father to wish that his only living child were laid beside her dead mother, in the tomb of our fathers?”
“I would,” said the Norman, somewhat relenting, “that I had known of this before. I thought your race had loved nothing save their money-bags.”
“Think not so vilely of us, Jews though we be,” said Isaac, eager to improve the moment of apparent sympathy; “the hunted fox, the tortured wild-cat loves its young—the despised and persecuted race of Abraham love their children!”
“Be it so,” said Front-de-B?uf; “I will believe it in future, Isaac, for thy very sake. But it aids us not now; I cannot help what has happened, or what is to follow: my word is passed to my comrade in arms, nor would I break it for ten Jews and Jewesses to boot. Besides, why shouldst thou think evil is to come to the girl, even if she became Bois-Guilbert’s booty?”
“There will—there must!” exclaimed Isaac, wringing his hands in agony; “when did Templars breathe aught but cruelty to men and dishonour to women!”
“Dog of an infidel,” said Front-de-B?uf, with sparkling eyes, and not sorry, perhaps, to seize a pretext for working himself into a passion, “blaspheme not the Holy Order of the Temple of Zion, but take thought instead to pay me the ransom thou hast promised, or woe betide thy Jewish throat!”
“Robber and villain!” said the Jew, retorting the insults of his oppressor with passion, which, however impotent, he now found it impossible to bridle, “I will pay thee nothing—not one silver penny will I pay thee— unless my daughter is delivered to me in safety and honour!”
“Art thou in thy senses, Israelite?” said the Norman, sternly; “has thy flesh and blood a charm against heated iron and scalding oil?”
“I care not!” said the Jew, rendered desperate by paternal affection; “do thy worst. My daughter is my flesh and blood, dearer to me a thousand times than those limbs which thy cruelty threatens. No silver will I give thee, unless I were to pour it molten down thy avaricious throat; no, not a silver penny will I give thee, Nazarene, were it to save thee from the deep damnation thy whole life has merited! Take my life if thou wilt, and say the Jew, amidst his tortures, knew how to disappoint the Christian.”
“We shall see that,” said Front-de-B?uf; “for by the blessed rood, which is the abomination of thy accursed tribe, thou shalt feel the extremities of fire and steel! Strip him, slaves, and chain him down upon the bars.”
In spite of the feeble struggles of the old man, the Saracens had already torn from him his upper garment, and were proceeding totally to disrobe him, when the sound of a bugle, twice [thrice] winded without the castle, penetrated even to the recesses of the dungeon, and immediately after loud voices were heard calling for Sir Reginald Front-de-B?uf. Unwilling to be found engaged in his hellish occupation, the savage Baron gave the slaves a signal to restore Isaac’s garment, and quitting the dungeon with his attendants, he left the Jew to thank God for his own deliverance, or to lament over his daughter’s captivity and probable fate, as his personal or parental feelings might prove strongest.
CHAPTER XXIII
The apartment to which the Lady Rowena had been introduced was fitted up with some rude attempts at ornament and magnificence, and her being placed there might be considered as a peculiar mark of respect not offered to the other prisoners. But the wife of Front-de-B?uf, for whom it had been originally furnished, was long
