Ivanhoe by Walter Scott (world best books to read .TXT) 📖

mass of treasure?---Not within the

walls of York, ransack my house and that of all my tribe, wilt

thou find the tithe of that huge sum of silver that thou speakest

of.”

“I am reasonable,” answered Front-de-Boeuf, “and if silver be

scant, I refuse not gold. At the rate of a mark of gold for each

six pounds of silver, thou shalt free thy unbelieving carcass

from such punishment as thy heart has never even conceived.”

“Have mercy on me, noble knight!” exclaimed Isaac; “I am old, and

poor, and helpless. It were unworthy to triumph over me---It is

a poor deed to crush a worm.”

“Old thou mayst be,” replied the knight; “more shame to their

folly who have suffered thee to grow grey in usury and knavery

---Feeble thou mayst be, for when had a Jew either heart or hand

---But rich it is well known thou art.”

“I swear to you, noble knight,” said the Jew “by all which I

believe, and by all which we believe in common------”

“Perjure not thyself,” said the Norman, interrupting him, “and

let not thine obstinacy seal thy doom, until thou hast seen and

well considered the fate that awaits thee. Think not I speak to

thee only to excite thy terror, and practise on the base

cowardice thou hast derived from thy tribe. I swear to thee by

that which thou dost NOT believe, by the gospel which our church

teaches, and by the keys which are given her to bind and to

loose, that my purpose is deep and peremptory. This dungeon is

no place for trifling. Prisoners ten thousand times more

distinguished than thou have died within these walls, and their

fate hath never been known! But for thee is reserved a long and

lingering death, to which theirs were luxury.”

He again made a signal for the slaves to approach, and spoke to

them apart, in their own language; for he also had been in

Palestine, where perhaps, he had learnt his lesson of cruelty.

The Saracens produced from their baskets a quantity of charcoal,

a pair of bellows, and a flask of oil. While the one struck a

light with a flint and steel, the other disposed the charcoal in

the large rusty grate which we have already mentioned, and

exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red glow.

“Seest thou, Isaac,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “the range of iron bars

above the glowing charcoal?*---

Note E. The range of iron bars above that glowing charcoal

on that warm couch thou shalt lie, stripped of thy clothes as if

thou wert to rest on a bed of down. One of these slaves shall

maintain the fire beneath thee, while the other shall anoint thy

wretched limbs with oil, lest the roast should burn.---Now,

choose betwixt such a scorching bed and the payment of a thousand

pounds of silver; for, by the head of my father, thou hast no

other option.”

“It is impossible,” exclaimed the miserable Jew---“it is

impossible that your purpose can be real! The good God of nature

never made a heart capable of exercising such cruelty!”

“Trust not to that, Isaac,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “it were a fatal

error. Dost thou think that I, who have seen a town sacked, in

which thousands of my Christian countrymen perished by sword, by

flood, and by fire, will blench from my purpose for the outcries

or screams of one single wretched Jew?---or thinkest thou that

these swarthy slaves, who have neither law, country, nor

conscience, but their master’s will---who use the poison, or the

stake, or the poniard, or the cord, at his slightest wink

---thinkest thou that THEY will have mercy, who do not even

understand the language in which it is asked?---Be wise, old man;

discharge thyself of a portion of thy superfluous wealth; repay

to the hands of a Christian a part of what thou hast acquired by

the usury thou hast practised on those of his religion. Thy

cunning may soon swell out once more thy shrivelled purse, but

neither leech nor medicine can restore thy scorched hide and

flesh wert thou once stretched on these bars. Tell down thy

ransom, I say, and rejoice that at such rate thou canst redeem

thee from a dungeon, the secrets of which few have returned to

tell. I waste no more words with thee---choose between thy dross

and thy flesh and blood, and as thou choosest, so shall it be.”

“So may Abraham, Jacob, and all the fathers of our people assist

me,” said Isaac, “I cannot make the choice, because I have not

the means of satisfying your exorbitant demand!”

“Seize him and strip him, slaves,” said the knight, “and let the

fathers of his race assist him if they can.”

The assistants, taking their directions more from the Baron’s eye

and his hand than his tongue, once more stepped forward, laid

hands on the unfortunate Isaac, plucked him up from the ground,

and, holding him between them, waited the hard-hearted Baron’s

farther signal. The unhappy Jew eyed their countenances and that

of Front-de-Boeuf, in hope of discovering some symptoms of

relenting; but that of the Baron exhibited the same cold,

half-sullen, half-sarcastic smile which had been the prelude to

his cruelty; and the savage eyes of the Saracens, rolling

gloomily under their dark brows, acquiring a yet more sinister

expression by the whiteness of the circle which surrounds the

pupil, evinced rather the secret pleasure which they expected

from the approaching scene, than any reluctance to be its

directors or agents. The Jew then looked at the glowing furnace,

over which he was presently to be stretched, and seeing no chance

of his tormentor’s relenting, his resolution gave way.

“I will pay,” he said, “the thousand pounds of silver---That is,”

he added, after a moment’s pause, “I will pay it with the help of

my brethren; for I must beg as a mendicant at the door of our

synagogue ere I make up so unheard-of a sum.---When and where

must it be delivered?”

“Here,” replied Front-de-Boeuf, “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 pawn-broking slave,” answered

Front-de-Boeuf; “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-Boeuf,

“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-Boeuf, “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-Boeuf; “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-Boeuf, 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-Boeuf.

“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 Rachel, 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

moneybags.”

“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 wildcat loves its young---the despised and persecuted

race of Abraham love their children!”

“Be it so,” said Front-de-Boeuf; “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-Boeuf, 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