Page:The Coming Race, etc - 1888.djvu/200

186 "Hold, priest!" cried Almamen, impetuously, "thou didst name my child. Do I hear aright? Placed under the sacred charge of a king and a belted knight, has she—oh! answer me, I implore thee been—insulted by the licentious addresses of one of that king's own lineage? Answer! I am a Jew—but I am a father, and a man."

"This pretended passion deceives us not," said the Dominican (who, himself cut off from the ties of life, knew nothing of their power). "Reply to the question put to thee: name thy accomplices."

"I have told thee all. Thou hast refused to answer me. I scorn and defy thee: my lips are closed."

The grand inquisitor glanced to his brethren, and raised his hand. His assistants whispered each other; one of them rose, and disappeared behind the canvas at the back of the tent. Presently the hangings were withdrawn; and the prisoner beheld an interior chamber, hung with various instruments, the nature of which was betrayed by their very shape; while, by the rack, placed in the centre of that dreary chamber, stood a tall and grisly figure, his arms bare, his eyes bent, as by an instinct, on the prisoner.

Almamen gazed at these dread preparations with an unflinching aspect. The guards at the entrance of the tent approached: they struck off the fetters from his feet and hands; they led him towards the appointed place of torture.

Suddenly the Israelite paused.

"Priest," said he, in a more humble accent than he had yet assumed, "the tidings that thou didst communicate to me, respecting the sole daughter of my house and love, bewildered and confused me for the moment. Suffer me but for a single moment to recollect my senses, and I will answer without compulsion all thou mayst ask. Permit thy questions to be repeated."

The Dominican, whose cruelty to others seemed to himself sanctioned by his own insensibility to fear, and contempt for bodily pain, smiled with bitter scorn at the apparent vacillation and weakness of the prisoner : but, as he delighted not in torture, merely for torture's sake, he motioned to the guards to release the Israelite; and replied in a voice unnaturally mild and kindly, considering the circumstances of the scene,—

"Prisoner, could we save thee from pain, even by the anguish of our own flesh and sinews, Heaven is our judge that we would willingly undergo the torture which, with grief and sorrow, we ordained to thee. Pause—take breath—collect thyself. Three minutes shalt thou have to consider what course to adopt ere we repeat the question. But then beware how thou triflest with our indulgence."