Round the fountain stone benches had been arranged with tables of similar crude material, at which usually sat the Elders, who decided all disputes, regulated the market and governed this inner empire partly by the maxims of common sense and justice, partly by the laws prescribed by their sacred books, severe indeed and executed with rigour, without provoking a thought of appeal to the milder and often opposing Christian judicature.
But now this Sanhedrim was installed in its place of honour for a different purpose; to hear with outward complacency and inner abhorrence their ancient law denounced and its abolition or reform advocated. For this purpose a movable pulpit, which resembled a bronze caldron on a tripod, carried by four Jewish converts, was duly planted under the supreme direction of the companion friar of the pontifical delegate, who ordered its position reversed several times, ere it seemed to suit his fancy.
The delegate of the Pope himself, surrounded by the pontifical guards, was still kneeling in silent prayer, when a stranger, who had followed the procession from afar, entered the Ghetto, unremarked in the general tumult and ensconced himself out of observation in a dark doorway. From his point of vantage, Eckhardt had leisure to survey the whole pandemonium. On his left there rose an irregular pile of wood-work, built not without some pretentions to architecture, with quaint carvings and devices of birds and beasts on the exposed joints and window-frames, but in a state of ruinous decay. About midheight sloped a pent-house with a narrow balcony, supported like many of the other buildings by props of timber, set against it from the ground. The lower part of the house was closed and barred and had the appearance of having been forsaken for decades.
While, himself unseen Eckhardt surveyed every detail of his surroundings; the preparations for the sermon continued. Beyond the seats of the Elders was assembled the great mass of those who were to profit by the exhortation, remarkable for their long unkempt beards, their glittering eyes and their peculiar physiognomies.
Beyond the circle of these compelled neophytes a tumultuous mob struggled for the possession of every point, whence a view of the proceedings could be obtained, quarrelling, scoffing and buffeting the unresisting Jews, whose policy it was not to offer the least pretext for pillage and general massacre, which on these occasions hovered over their heads by a finer thread than that to which hung the sword of Damocles. Without expostulations they submitted to the rude swaying of the mob, to their blows and revilings, opposing to their tormentors a seemingly inexhaustible endurance. But the horror, anxiety, and rage which glowed in their bosoms were strongly reflected in their faces, peering through the smoky glare of innumerable torches, which they were compelled to exhibit at all the windows of their houses. Engaged in this office only now and then a woman appeared for a brief instant, for the most part withered and old, or veiled and muffled with more than Turkish scrupulousness.
At last the pulpit was duly hoisted and placed to the satisfaction of the attending friar. The Pope's delegate having concluded his prayer arose and two of the Elders advanced, to present him with a copy of the Old Testament, for from their own laws were they to be refuted. They offered it with a deep Oriental bend and the humble request, that the representative of his Holiness, their sovereign, would be pleased to deliver his message. The monk replied briefly that it was not the message of any earthly power which he was there to deliver and then mounted the pulpit by a ladder, which his humbler associate held for him. The attendant friar then sprinkled a lustration round the pulpit with a bunch of hyssop, which he had dipped in an urn of holy water. This he showered liberally upon the Elders who dared not resent it, and ground their teeth in impotent rage.
Strangely interested, as Eckhardt found himself in the scene about to be enacted, watching the rolling human sea under the dark blue night-sky, he found his own curiosity shared by a second personage, who had taken his position immediately below the door-way, in which he stood concealed. This worthy wore a large hat, slouched over his face, which gave him the appearance of a peasant from the marshes; but his dirty gray mantle and crooked staff denoted him a pilgrim. Of his features very little was to be seen, save his glittering minx-eyes. These he kept fixed on the balcony of the ruined house, which had also attracted Eckhardt's attention. At other times that worthy's gaze searched the shadows beneath the gloomy structure with something of mingled scrutiny and scorn.
"Surely this boasted steel-hearted knave of yours means to play us false? Where is the rogue? He keeps us waiting long."
These words, as Eckhardt perceived, were addressed to an individual, who, to judge from the mask he wore, did not wish to be recognized.
"Were it against the fiend, I would warrant him," answered a hushed voice. "But folks here have a great reverence for this holy man, who goes to comfort a plague-stricken patient more cheerfully than another visits his lady-love. And, if he needs must die, were it not wiser to venture the deed in some of the lonely places he haunts, than here in the midst of thousands?"