Ximen! the bitterest thought of all is, that the frenzy of one of our own
tribe has brought this desolation upon Israel."

"My lord speaks riddles," said Ximen, with well-feigned astonishment in
his glassy eyes.

"Why dost thou wind and turn, good Ximen?" said the Jew, shaking his
head; "thou knowest well what my words drive at. Thy master is the
pretended Almamen; and that recreant Israelite (if Israelite, indeed,
still be one who hath forsaken the customs and the forms of his
forefathers) is he who hath stirred up the Jews of Cordova and Guadix,
and whose folly hath brought upon us these dread things. Holy Abraham!
this Jew hath cost me more than fifty Nazarenes and a hundred Moors."

Ximen remained silent; and, the tongue of Elias being loosed by the
recollection of his sad loss, the latter continued: "At the first, when
the son of Issachar reappeared, and became a counsellor in the king's
court, I indeed, who had led him, then a child, to the synagogue--for old
Issachar was to me dear as a brother--recognised him by his eyes and
voice: but I exulted in his craft and concealment; I believed he would
work mighty things for his poor brethren, and would obtain, for his
father's friend, the supplying of the king's wives and concubines with
raiment and cloth of price. But years have passed: he hath not lightened
our burthens; and, by the madness that hath of late come over him,
heading the heathen armies, and drawing our brethren into danger and
death, he hath deserved the curse of the synagogue, and the wrath of our
whole race. I find, from our brethren who escaped the Inquisition by the
surrender of their substance, that his unskilful and frantic schemes were
the main pretext for the sufferings of the righteous under the Nazarene;
and, again, the same schemes bring on us the same oppression from the