Page:The Coming Race, etc - 1888.djvu/154

140 "Old man," said he, concluding the potation with a deep-drawn sigh, "fill to thyself—drink till thy veins feel young."

Ximen obeyed the mandate but imperfectly; the wine just touched his lips, and the goblet was put aside.

"Ximen," resumed the Israelite, "how many of our race have been butchered by the avarice of the Moorish kings, since first thou didst set foot within the city?"

"Three thousand the number was completed last winter, by the order of Jusef, the vizier; and their goods and coffers are transformed into shafts and cimeters, against the dogs of Galilee."

"Three thousand no more! three thousand only! I would the number had been tripled, for the interest is becoming due!"

"My brother, and my son, and my grandson, are among the number," said the old man, and his face grew yet more death-like.

"Their monuments shall be in hecatombs of their tyrants. They shall not, at least, call the Jews niggards in revenge."

"But pardon me, noble chief of a fallen people; thinkest thou we shall be less despoiled and trodden under foot by yon haughty and stiff-necked Nazarenes, than by the Arabian misbelievers?"

"Accursed, in truth, are both," returned the Hebrew; "but the one promise more fairly than the other. I have seen this Ferdinand, and his proud queen; they are pledged to accord us rights and immunities we have never known before in Europe."

"And they will not touch our traffic, our gains, our gold?"

"Out on thee!" cried the fiery Israelite, stamping on the ground.

"I would all the gold of earth were sunk into the everlasting pit! It is this mean, and miserable, and loathsome leprosy of avarice, that gnaws away from our whole race the heart, the soul, nay the very form, of man! Many a time, when I have seen the lordly features of the descendants of Solomon and Joshua (features that stamp the nobility of the eastern world born to mastery and command) sharpened and furrowed by petty cares, when I have looked upon the frame of the strong man bowed, like a crawling reptile, to some huckstering bargainer of silks and unguents, and heard the voice, that should be raising the battle-cry, smoothed into fawning accents of base fear, or yet baser hope, I have asked myself, if I am indeed of the blood of Israel! and thanked the great Jehovah, that he hath spared me, at least, the curse that hath blasted my brotherhood into usurers and slaves!"

Ximen prudently forbore an answer to enthusiasm which he neither shared nor understood; but, after a brief silence, turned back the stream of the conversation.