And, as the Lord
of hosts liveth, their prey wouldst thou have been, and a prey unto
their iron and steel, were it not for the shelter of the roof of
Adonijah to-night.”

“I took some of the food he offered me, crossing myself at every
mouthful, and drank the wine, which the feverish thirst of terror and
anxiety made me swallow like water, but not without an internal prayer
that it might not be converted into some deleterious and diabolical
poison. The Jew Adonijah observed me with increasing compassion and
contempt.--“What,” said he, “appals thee? Were I possessed of the powers
the superstition of thy sect ascribes to me, might I not make thee a
banquet for fiends, instead of offering thee food? Might I not bring
from the caverns of the earth the voices of those that “peep and
mutter,” instead of speaking unto thee with the voice of man? Thou art
in my power, yet have I no power or will to hurt thee. And dost thou,
who art escaped from the dungeons of the Inquisition, look as one that
feareth on the things that thou seest around thee, the furniture of the
cell of a secluded leach? Within this apartment I have passed the term
of sixty years, and dost thou shudder to visit it for a moment? These be
the skeletons of bodies, but in the den thou hast escaped from were the
skeletons of perished souls. Here are relics of the wrecks or the
caprices of nature, but thou art come from where the cruelty of man,
permanent and persevering, unrelenting and unmitigated, hath never
failed to leave the proofs of its power in abortive intellects, crippled
frames, distorted creeds, and ossified hearts. Moreover, there are
around thee parchments and charts scrawled as it were with the blood of
man, but, were it even so, could a thousand such volumes cause such
terror to the human eye, as a page of the history of thy prison, written
as it is in blood, drawn, not from the frozen veins of the dead, but
from the bursting hearts of the living. Eat, Nazarene, there is no
poison in thy food,--drink, there is no drug in thy cup. Darest thou
promise thyself that in the prison of the Inquisition, or even in the
cells of the Jesuits? Eat and drink without fear in the vault, even in
the vault of Adonijah the Jew. If thou daredst to have done so in the
dwellings of the Nazarenes, I had never beheld thee here. Hast thou
fed?” he added, and I bowed. “Hast thou drank of the cup I gave thee?”
my torturing thirst returned, and I gave him back the cup. He smiled,
but the smile of age,--the smile of lips over which more than an hundred
years have passed, has an expression more repulsive and hideous than can
be deemed; it is never the smile of pleasure,--it is a _frown of the
mouth_, and I shrunk before its grim wrinkles, as the Jew Adonijah
added, “If thou hast eat and drank, it is time for thee to rest. Come to
thy bed, it may be harder than they have given thee in thy prison, but
behold it shall be safer. Come and rest thee there, it may be that the
adversary and the enemy shall not there find thee out.”

“I followed him through passages so devious and intricate, that,
bewildered as I was with the events of the night, they forced on my
memory the well-known fact, that in Madrid the Jews have subterranean
passages to each other’s habitations, which have hitherto baffled all
the industry of the Inquisition. I slept that night, or rather day, (for
the sun had risen), on a pallet laid on the floor of a room, small,
lofty, and matted half-way up the walls. One narrow and grated window
admitted the light of the sun, that arose after that eventful night; and
amid the sweet sound of bells, and the still sweeter of human life,
awake and in motion around me, I sunk into a slumber that was unbroken
even by a dream, till the day was closing; or, in the language of
Adonijah, “till the shadows of the evening were upon the face of all the
earth.”




CHAPTER XIV. Unde iratos deos timent, qui sic propitios merentur? SENECA. “When I awoke, he was standing by my pallet. “Arise,” said he, “eat and
drink, that thy strength may return unto thee.” He pointed to a small
table as he spoke, which was covered with food of the plainest kind, and
dressed with the utmost simplicity. Yet he seemed to think an apology
was necessary for the indulgence of this temperate fare. “I myself,”
said he, “eat not the flesh of any animal, save on the new moons and the
feasts, yet the days of the years of my life have been one hundred and
seven; sixty of which have been passed in the chamber where thou sawest
me. Rarely do I ascend to the upper chamber of this house, save on
occasions like this, or peradventure to pray, with my window open
towards the east, for the turning away wrath from Jacob, and the turning
again the captivity of Zion. Well saith the ethnic leach,

    “Aer exclusus confert ad longevitatem.”

“Such hath been my life, as I tell thee. The light of heaven hath been
hidden from mine eyes, and the voice of man is as the voice of a
stranger in mine ears, save those of some of mine own nation, who weep
for the affliction of Israel; yet the silver cord is not loosed, nor the
golden bowl broken; and though mine eye be waxing dim, my natural force
is not abated.” (As he spoke, my eyes hung in reverence on the hoary
majesty of his patriarchal figure, and I felt as if I beheld an embodied
representation of the old law in all its stern simplicity--the unbending
grandeur, and primeval antiquity.) “Hast thou eaten, and art full? Arise, then, and follow me.”

“We descended to the vault, where I found the lamp was always burning. And Adonijah, pointing to the parchments that lay on the table, said,
“This is the matter wherein I need thy help; the collection and
transcription whereof hath been the labour of more than half a life,
prolonged beyond the bounds allotted to mortality; but,” pointing to his
sunk and blood-shot eyes, “those that look out of the windows begin to
be darkened, and I feel that I need help from the quick hand and clear
eye of youth. Wherefore, it being certified unto me by our brother, that
thou wert a youth who couldst handle the pen of a scribe, and, moreover,
wast in need of a city of refuge, and a strong wall of defence, against
the laying-in-wait of thy brethren round about thee, I was willing that
thou shouldst come under my roof, and eat of such things as I set before
thee, and such as thy soul desireth, excepting only the abominable
things forbidden in the law of the prophet; and shouldst, moreover,
receive wages as an hired servant.”

“You will perhaps smile, Sir; but even in my wretched situation, I felt
a slight but painful flush tinge my cheek, at the thought of a
Christian, and a peer of Spain, becoming the amanuensis of a Jew for
hire.