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 learned 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-Bœuf, “the range of iron bars above that glowing charcoal?² 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-Bœuf, “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 further signal. The unhappy Jew eyed their countenances and that of Front-de-Bœuf, 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 tormentors 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-Bœuf, “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?”