"I have not been yet able to gain speech with the chosen in Israel," replied Manasseh: "he hath been much from home on secret service for the good of his people."
Burrell exulted at this knowledge, and again protested his innocence in the strongest terms. Manasseh rose to depart. Burrell pressed him to remain; but the old man resolutely refused.
"I am about to go forth from your dwelling. If you have not been the seducer of my child, I crave your pardon in deep humility, and will do penance in sackcloth and ashes for having wrongfully accused you; but," he added, bitterly, "if you have wronged me, and devoted her soul to destruction, may the curse of the old Jew enter into your veins, and curdle the red blood to a hot and destroying poison!—may the flowers of the spring be to you scentless and revolting!—may the grass wither under your footsteps!—may the waters of the valley be even as molten lead unto your parched lips!—may——"
"Dog of an unbeliever!" exclaimed Burrell, whose temper could no longer brook the taunting curses of the old man, and whose coward spirit quailed beneath them, "hold thy foul tongue, lest I pluck it from between thy teeth. Had I been a circumcised Jew, and thou a Christian, I could not have listened with more humility; and this is the reward of my forbearance—curses deep and bitter as the waters of the Dead Sea."
"They cannot harm if thou art innocent. I have neither broken bread nor tasted salt within thy walls; and now I shake the dust from off my feet upon thy threshold. Thy words at first were of honey and the honey-comb, but now are they as gall. Others must deal with thee. The prayer of the bereaved father was as a tinkling cymbal in thine ears; but the curse—the curse knocked at thy heart, and it trembled. Others must deal with thee."
Manasseh Ben Israel repeated the curse with terrible energy; then shaking the dust from his sandals, he passed, and entered, with his attendant, the carriage that awaited him at the gate.
Burrell was convinced, and humbled by the conviction, that an irresistible impulse had compelled him to desert his sophistry, and stand forth in his real character before one who had the ear of the Protector, and whose religious persuasion had not prevented his advancement, or his being regarded as a man of extraordinary mental attainments, even in a country, the prejudices of which, always deeply-rooted, were at that time peculiarly directed against the Jews. This people were devoted in their attachment to Cromwell; and it was believed that they would not have scrupled to declare him the Messiah could they have traced his descent in any degree, however remote, to the dwellers in Judah. Manasseh had mixed so much with Christians, and had been treated by the Protector so completely as an equal, that he retained but little of the servility of tone or manner, and less of the cringing and submissive demeanour, that characterised his tribe; he therefore spoke boldly to Sir Willmott Burrell, after a burst of strong and bitter feeling. He knew himself protected by the ruler of England, and felt undaunted in the presence of one he could easily destroy; but then he was a father, and as such impelled by nature to adopt every expedient that might promote the disclosure of a secret on which almost his life depended, and which, he doubted not, was, in some shape or other, in the keeping of his wily opponent.
"A pretty scrape my villanies have brought me into!" thought Burrell, as he returned to his chamber: "the girl will come over—that stops a wedding. Suppose I were to take Zillah to wife—the old rascal would not give me a maravedi. Suppose, before I have secured Constance, Cromwell listens to the Rabbi's tale, he will forbid my marriage to please the accursed Jew, and I—may blow my brains out. Suppose I marry at once—But how? Lady Cecil not many weeks dead! I must manage it, however," he continued, pacing the apartment, while Robin, who had ascertained the impossibility of rousing the ill-governed menials from their state of hopeless debauchery, amused himself by counting the number of times the Master of Burrell walked up and down the room. At length, finding such dull watching wearisome, he ventured to enter, and inquire if he were to remain at Burrell House, or return to the Gull's Nest.
"Well thought on, Robin Hays," said the knight, as if roused, and not unpleasantly, from himself and his thoughts; "you will rest here to-night, and accompany me to Cecil Place on the morrow. See to these rioters, of whom I must rid my house."
"You had better do it, then, immediately," retorted Robin, "or they will save you trouble by ridding you of your house."