“Get out of Britain as fast as may be,” said Claudius, “and take this maiden as your daughter. Make for the coast, and board a ship which is to cross to Gaul; here are nine gold pieces for thy pouch.”
“But my daughter, my Rachel!” moaned the old man. “Wilt thou give her body burial—burial, not heathenish burning? Vow, young man.”
“If possible, I will have her body thrown into a hole, if you deem that to be a higher fate than burning; but I do not promise. And now I must be gone. Take two hours’ rest, and then away before day dawns. You know these parts.”
“Ay, but too well,” the old man said. “This hard rugged Britain, and its rough people. I would that I had never been tempted by the thought of goodly merchandise to cross the sea—the angry sea—and suffer thereby the bitter loss of all I count dear!”
“I dare say you have managed to get together a few pearls. I mind hearing of some of your race who carried off the biggest pearls from the river on which Londinium is built, and in conducting the barter with the Britons for their masters,[B] well filled their own pouches, as I dare to say yours is filled. Now I must away. Ebba, remember I have fulfilled my vow at the risk of my life; and if ever you see the fair Hyacintha commend me to her with these words, ‘I have kept my vow, and when she makes prayers to the goddess in the temple where her presence lingers, bid her remember Claudius.’”
When Claudius was gone the Jew carefully stowed away the coins in his pouch, and drew from it some dried fruit and a small vial of mead. Then he said,
“Daughter, for I am to call thee daughter in place of her who is in Abraham’s bosom—better there than in this cold world; come and eat, before we go on our way.”
At first Anna refused to eat and drink, but then she remembered the words of Agatha:—
“It may be that the Lord has work for thee to do for Him, and He spares thy life to do it.”
After a pause, therefore, she roused herself, and in the dim light which the waning moon shed through the aperture, she saw the Jew’s face—a face lined with furrows, and giving the appearance of a very old man, while, in truth, Ezra was scarcely sixty. Poor Anna felt that she need not fear the old man, and as she saw tears coursing each other down his cheeks she drew nearer to him.