found thy match. If I enter the lists with my spear in rest, think not any human
consideration shall prevent my putting forth my strength; and think then upon
thine own fate - to die the dreadful death of the worst of criminals - to be
consumed upon a blazing pile - dispersed to the elements of which our strange
forms are so mystically composed - not a relic left of that graceful frame, from
which we could say this lived and moved! - Rebecca, it is not in woman to
sustain this prospect - thou wilt yield to my suit.«
    »Bois-Guilbert,« answered the Jewess, »thou knowest not the heart of woman,
or hast only conversed with those who are lost to her best feelings. I tell
thee, proud Templar, that not in thy fiercest battles hast thou displayed more
of thy vaunted courage, than has been shown by a woman when called upon to
suffer by affection or duty. I am myself a woman, tenderly nurtured, naturally
fearful of danger, and impatient of pain - yet when we enter those fatal lists,
thou to fight and I to suffer, I feel the strong assurance within me, that my
courage shall mount higher than thine. Farewell - I waste no more words on thee;
the time that remains on earth to the daughter of Jacob must be otherwise spent
- she must seek the Comforter, who may hide his face from his people, but who
ever opens his ear to the cry of those who seek him in sincerity and in truth.«
    »We part then thus?« said the Templar after a short pause; »would to Heaven
we had never met, or that thou hadst been noble in birth and Christian in faith!
- Nay, by Heaven! when I gaze on thee, and think when and how we are next to
meet, I could even wish myself one of thine own degraded nation; my hand
conversant with ingots and shekels, instead of spear and shield; my head bent
down before each petty noble, and my look only terrible to the shivering and
bankrupt debtor - this could I wish, Rebecca, to be near to thee in life, and to
escape the fearful share I must have in thy death.«
    »Thou hast spoken the Jew,« said Rebecca, »as the persecution of such as
thou art has made him. Heaven in ire has driven him from his country, but
industry has opened to him the only road to power and to influence which
oppression has left unbarred. Read the ancient history of the people of God, and
tell me if those