"Be not angry, good mother," said Rebecca.
"Thou needst say no more," replied Urfried "men know a fox by the train,
and a Jewess by her tongue."
"For the sake of mercy," said Rebecca, "tell me what I am to expect as
the conclusion of the violence which hath dragged me hither! Is it
my life they seek, to atone for my religion? I will lay it down
cheerfully."
"Thy life, minion?" answered the sibyl; "what would taking thy life
pleasure them?--Trust me, thy life is in no peril. Such usage shalt thou
have as was once thought good enough for a noble Saxon maiden. And shall
a Jewess, like thee, repine because she hath no better? Look at me--I
was as young and twice as fair as thou, when Front-de-Boeuf, father of
this Reginald, and his Normans, stormed this castle. My father and his
seven sons defended their inheritance from story to story, from chamber
to chamber--There was not a room, not a step of the stair, that was not
slippery with their blood. They died--they died every man; and ere their
bodies were cold, and ere their blood was dried, I had become the prey
and the scorn of the conqueror!"
"Is there no help?--Are there no means of escape?" said
Rebecca--"Richly, richly would I requite thine aid."
"Think not of it," said the hag; "from hence there is no escape but
through the gates of death; and it is late, late," she added, shaking
her grey head, "ere these open to us--Yet it is comfort to think that we
leave behind us on earth those who shall be wretched as ourselves. Fare
thee well, Jewess!--Jew or Gentile, thy fate would be the same; for thou
hast to do with them that have neither scruple nor pity. Fare thee well,
I say. My thread is spun out--thy task is yet to begin."
"Stay! stay! for Heaven's sake!" said Rebecca; "stay, though it be to
curse and to revile me--thy presence is yet some protection."
"The presence of the mother of God were no protection," answered the old
woman. "There she stands," pointing to a rude image of the Virgin Mary,
"see if she can avert the fate that awaits thee."
She left the room as she spoke, her features writhed into a sort of
sneering laugh, which made them seem even more hideous than their
habitual frown. She locked the door behind her, and Rebecca might hear
her curse every step for its steepness, as slowly and with difficulty
she descended the turret-stair.