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.

"You resolve, then, upon prosecuting vengeance on the Moors, at
whatsoever hazard of the broken faith of these Nazarenes?"

"Ay, the vapour of human blood hath risen unto heaven, and, collected
into thunder-clouds, hangs over the doomed and guilty city. And now,
Ximen, I have a new cause for hatred to the Moors: the flower that I have
reared and watched, the spoiler hath sought to pluck it from my hearth.
Leila--thou hast guarded her ill, Ximen; and, wert thou not endeared to
me by thy very malice and vices, the rising sun should have seen thy
trunk on the waters of the Darro."

"My lord," replied Ximen, "if thou, the wisest of our people, canst not
guard a maiden from love, how canst thou see crime in the dull eyes and
numbed senses of a miserable old man?"

The Israelite did not answer, nor seem to hear this deprecatory