of my house, I vow by the name of my bright lady-love, I would endure ten years' captivity to fight one day by that good knight's side in such a quarrel as this!"

Alas!" said Rebecca, leaving her station at the window, and approaching the couch of the wounded knight, "this impatient yearning after action, this struggling with and repining at your present weakness, will not fail to injure your returning health. How couldst thou hope to inflict wounds on others ere that be healed which thou thyself hast received?”

"Rebecca," he replied, "thou knowest not how impossible it is for one trained to actions of chivalry to remain passive as a priest or a woman when they are acting deeds of honor around him. The love of battle is the food upon which we live, the dust of the mêlée1 is the breath of our nostrils. We live not, we wish not to live, longer than while we are victorious and renowned. Such, maiden, are the laws of chivalry, to which we are sworn, and to which we offer all that we hold dear."

"Alas!" said the fair Jewess, "and what is it, valiant knight, save an offering of sacrifice to a demon of vainglory, and a passing through the fire to Moloch ?2 What remains to you as the prize of all the blood you have spilled, of all the travail and pain you have endured, of all the tears which your deeds have caused, when death hath broken the strong man's spear, and overtaken the speed of his war-horse?"

"What remains?" cried Ivanhoe. "Glory, maiden, glory, which gilds our sepulcher, and embalms our name."

"Glory?" continued Rebecca. "Alas! is the rusted mail which hangs as a hatchment3 over the champion's dim and moldering tomb, is the defaced sculpture of the inscription which the ignorant monk can hardly read to the inquiring pilgrim,— are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice of every kindly affec

1 Hand-to-hand fight; the tumult of confused combat.

2 The fire-god worshiped by Ammonites with human sacrifices.

3 A tablet, usually lozenge-shaped or square, displaying the arms of a dead person, and set over the tomb.

tion, for a life spent miserably that ye may make others miserable?"

"By the soul of Hereward!"1 replied the knight impatiently, "thou speakest, maiden, of thou knowest not what. Thou wouldst quench the pure light of chivalry, which alone distinguishes the noble from the base, the gentle knight from the churl and the savage; which rates our life far, far beneath the pitch of our honor, raises us victorious over pain, toil, and suffering, and teaches us to fear no evil but disgrace. Thou art no Christian, Rebecca; and to thee are unknown those high feelings which swell the bosom of a noble maiden when her lover hath done some deed of emprise which sanctions his flame. Chivalry! Why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection, the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant. Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword."

"I am indeed," said Rebecca, "sprung from a race whose courage was distinguished in the defense of their own land, but who warred not, even while yet a nation, save at the command of the Deity, or in defending their country from oppression. The sound of the trumpet wakes Judah no longer, and her despised children are now but the unresisting victims of hostile and military oppression. Well hast thou spoken, Sir Knight. Until the God of Jacob shall raise up for his chosen people a second Gideon2 or a new Maccabeus,3 it ill beseemeth the Jewish damsel to speak of battle or of war."

1 A traditional outlaw who flourished from about 1070; the son of Leofric, Lord of Bourne, in Lincolnshire, chief of a band of insurgent outlaws who, holding together in the Isle of Ely, made stubborn resistance against William.

2 A great and renowned judge of Israel, B.C. 1362-22. He was the fifth judge in Israel (see Judges vi.-ix.).

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3 The surname of Judas Maccabeus (Hebrew, Makkab, a hammer "), a celebrated Jewish leader. His family and descendants also had the name Maccabees (see Book of Maccabees in the Apocrypha).

The high-minded maiden concluded the argument in a tone of sorrow, which deeply expressed her sense of the degradation of her people, embittered perhaps by the idea that Ivanhoe considered her as one not entitled to interfere in a case of honor, and incapable of entertaining or expressing sentiments of honor and generosity.

"How little he knows this bosom," she said, “to imagine that cowardice or meanness of soul must needs be its guests, because I have censured the fantastic chivalry of the Nazarenes! Would to Heaven that the shedding of mine own blood drop by drop could redeem the captivity of Judah! Nay, would to God it could avail to set free my father, and this his benefactor, from the chains of the oppressor! The proud Christian should then see whether the daughter of God's chosen people dared not to die as bravely as the vainest Nazarene maiden, that boasts her descent from some petty chieftain of the rude and frozen north!"

She then looked towards the couch of the wounded knight. "He sleeps," she said. "Nature exhausted by sufferance and the waste of spirits, his wearied frame embraces the first moment of temporary relaxation to sink into slumber. Alas! is it a crime that I should look upon him, when it may be for the last time; when yet but a short space, and those fair features will be no longer animated by the bold and buoyant spirit which forsakes them not even in sleep; when the nostrils shall be distended, the mouth agape, the eyes fixed and bloodshot; and when the proud and noble knight may be trodden on by the lowest caitiff of this accursed castle, yet stir not when the heel is lifted up against him? And my father! O my father! evil is it with his daughter, when his gray hairs are not remembered because of the golden locks of youth! What know I but that these evils are the messengers of Jehovah's wrath to the unnatural child who thinks of a stranger's captivity before a parent's; who forgets the desolation of Judah, and looks upon the comeliness of a Gentile and a stranger? But I will tear this folly from my heart, though every fiber bleed as I rend it away!”

She wrapped herself closely in her veil, and sat down at a distance from the couch of the wounded knight, with her back turned towards it, fortifying, or endeavoring to fortify, her mind, not only against the impending evils from without, but also against those treacherous feelings which assailed her from within.

DURING

CHAPTER XXX.

URING the interval of quiet which followed the first success of the besiegers, while the one party was preparing to pursue their advantage, and the other to strengthen their means of defense, the Templar and De Bracy held brief council together in the hall of the castle.

"Where is Front-de-Boeuf ?" said the latter, who had superintended the defense of the fortress on the other side. "Men say he hath been slain."

"He lives,” said the Templar coolly—"lives as yet; but had he worn the bull's head of which he bears the name, and ten plates of iron to fence it withal, he must have gone down before yonder fatal ax. Yet a few hours, and Front-de-Bœuf is with his fathers, a powerful limb lopped off Prince John's enterprise."

"And a brave addition to the kingdom of Satan," said De Bracy. "This comes of reviling saints and angels, and ordering images of holy things and holy men to be flung down on the heads of these rascaille yeomen."

"Go to, thou art a fool!" said the Templar. "Thy superstition is upon a level with Front-de-Bouf's want of faith: neither of you can render a reason for your belief or unbelief."

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'Benedicite, Sir Templar," replied De Bracy, “I pray you to keep better rule with your tongue when I am the theme of it. By the Mother of Heaven! I am a better Christian man than thou and thy fellowship; for the bruit1 goeth shrewdly out, that

1 Rumor; report.

the most holy Order of the Temple of Zion nurseth not a few heretics within its bosom, and that Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert is of the number."

"Care not for such reports," said the Templar; "but let us think of making good the castle. How fought these villain yeomen on thy side?"

"Like fiends incarnate," said De Bracy. "They swarmed close up to the walls, headed, as I think, by the knave who won the prize at the archery, for I knew his horn and baldric. And this is old Fitzurse's boasted policy, encouraging these malapert1 knaves to rebel against us! Had I not been armed in proof, the villain had marked me down seven times with as little remorse as if I had been a buck in season. He told every rivet on my armor with a cloth-yard shaft, that rapped against my ribs with as little compunction as if my bones had been of iron. But that I wore a shirt of Spanish mail under my plate coat, I had been fairly sped." 2

"But you maintained your post?" said the Templar. "We lost the outwork on our part."

"That is a shrewd loss," said De Bracy. "The knaves will find cover there to assault the castle more closely, and may, if not well watched, gain some unguarded corner of a tower, or some forgotten window, and so break in upon us. Our numbers are too few for the defenses of every point, and the men complain that they can nowhere show themselves but they are the mark for as many arrows as a parish-butt3 on a holiday even. Front-de-Bœuf is dying, too, so we shall receive no more aid from his bull's head and brutal strength.-How think you, Sir Brian? Were we not better make a virtue of necessity, and compound with the rogues by delivering up our prisoners?"

How?" exclaimed the Templar. "Deliver up our prisoners, and stand an object alike of ridicule and execration, as the doughty warriors who dared by a night attack to possess them

1 Impudent.

2 Undone; made an end of.

3 A target for archery practice put up in a churchyard.