'You misunderstand me, old dog—or rather you pretend to, old fox. The boy's blood is here—it is kept in this very synagogue—and I have come for it.'
The Shamash laughed explosively. 'Oh, Excellency!'
The synagogue, hysterically tense, caught the contagion of glad relief. It rang with strange laughter.
'There is no blood in this synagogue, Excellency,' said the Rabbi, his eyes a-twinkle, 'save what runs in living veins.'
'We shall see. Produce that bottle beneath the Ark.'
'That!' The Shamash grinned—almost indecorously. 'That is the Consecration wine—red as my beard,' quoth he.
'Ha! ha! the red Consecration wine!' repeated the synagogue in a happy buzz, and from the women's gallery came the same glad murmur of mutual explanation.
'We shall see,' repeated the officer, with iron imperturbability, and the happy hum died into a cold heart-faintness, fraught with an almost incredulous apprehension of some devilish treachery, some mock discovery that would give the Ghetto over to the frenzies of fanatical creditors, nay, to the vengeance of the law.
The officer's voice rose again. 'Let no one leave the synagogue—man, woman, or child. Kill anyone who attempts to escape.'
The screams of fainting women answered him from above, but impassively he urged his horse along the aisle that led to the Ark; its noisy hoofs trampled over every heart. Springing from his saddle he opened the little cupboard beneath the scrolls, and drew out a bottle, hideously red.