Wall, Martin clim up into the Lantern Tower, two hundred and thirteen feet high, for he said that he would wish to say that he had been there.
But Al Faizi wuz the most took up with lookin’ at the monuments in the Cathedral. They wuz beautiful in the extreme, and some on ’em wuz saints, some on ’em Archbishops, but the most on ’em wuz riz up to men who had made themselves famous by killin’ lots and lots of folks—some in England, some in Russia, and in India, and in Burmah, etc., etc., etc.
As I stood in front of them bloody records, and meditated that a common murderer, who had only killed one or two men, couldn’t never git a statute, but it wuz those that killed hundreds and thousands who had ’em built through foreign lands, and my own native country—as I wuz a-meditatin’ on this and a-considerin’ on how the more a man killed the higher his monument wuz riz up, and the nigher he wuz buried to saints, I see Al Faizi take out that little book with the cross on’t and write down quite a lot—what it wuz I d’no, but I presoom it wuz good writin’. His idees are congenial to mine, very.
And then another place where I see Al Faizi a-writin’ down quite a lot in that book of hisen wuz at Clifford’s Tower, in the castle enclosure, where two hundred Jews were masicreed in 1490. From what the guide said, I made out as follows: When the Crusaders got back from fightin’ the Infidels they wuz kinder mad to see that the Jews wuz better off than they wuz—had better clothes, more money, etc.—so they begun to kill ’em off.
There wuz so many fightin’ Christians the Jews couldn’t defend themselves, so they come to the castle with their wives and children. And all the soldiers in York come to help the Crusaders kill the Jews. And when the poor Jews found that they couldn’t stand it any longer, they did jest as the Rabbi told ’em.
They killed the wives and children that wuz left, to keep ’em from fallin’ into the hands of their persecutors, and sot fire to the castle, and then killed themselves, so’s they shouldn’t burn to death.
This massicre of these onoffending Jews by Christians wuz one of the most barbarous acts that ever took place on earth. Lots of folks now have their souls massicreed in the same way—out of envy and jealousy.
I d’no what Al Faizi writ in his book as he looked at this place where this dretful deed wuz done in the name of Religion. But his face wuz a sight to see as he writ—solemn and awful; not mad, but sunthin’ of the expression of the Avengin’ Angel, or as I mistrust he would look—dretful sorry, but sot, awful sot.
Wall, we went back to the tarvern and got a good dinner, and I laid down for a nap—I wuz clean used up.
When I waked up it wuz sunset, and Josiah sot by the little casement with the panes of glass about four inches big, a-readin’.