“None,” replied the Jew, with a sad smile. “I have already told you that the pirates detest us; that we are tolerated only because of our money-making powers, and the ease with which they can bleed us when they want gold. But I have some influence with others in the city who have power to move the Dey. There is one thing, however,” here the Jew glanced pointedly at Mariano, “in regard to which I would give you most earnest counsel, namely, that you should at once dismiss all idea of rebellion. It will be utterly unavailing. You may, like the caged lion, if you will, dash yourselves to death against your prison bars, but you cannot break them. Countless thousands of bold and brave spirits have attempted this plan, with no good result, in time past. The Turks are well acquainted with and quite prepared for it. Your only chance of mitigating the woes of your condition lies in submission.”
“It were better and nobler to die than to submit,” said Mariano gloomily.
“It were better and nobler to bow to the will of the Almighty than to commit suicide,” retorted Bacri, somewhat sternly. “It is selfishness and pride which induces us to seek deliverance from sorrow and suffering in death. There are men who have thought that truest nobility lay in choosing a life in the midst of suffering and woe for the purpose of alleviating it, and who have acted on their opinion. This lesson, however, is not so frequently learnt by us through precept as in the school of sorrow.”
Mariano felt abashed, yet at the same time rather nettled.
“Truly, then,” he said, with a glance at his blood-stained shirt, “it seems to me that I have at all events begun my lesson in the right school. However, I believe thou art right, Bacri, and I bear thee no ill-will for the rap thou didst bestow on my skull, which, luckily, is a thick one, else thy ponderous fist had split it from the cranium to the chin.”
“We had misjudged you, Bacri,” said Francisco, extending his hand, as the Jew rose to depart.
“We will lay your advice to heart; and we thank you, meanwhile, for coming to see us in this foul den, which I dislike less because of moisture and dirt—these being familiar to me—than because of the lively reptiles which hold their nightly revels in it.”
There was mingled humour and bitterness in Francisco’s tone, as he uttered this sentence, which he concluded with a heavy sigh. Immediately after, the rusty bolts of their prison-door grated harshly on their ears, and they listened sadly to the retreating footsteps of one whom they now esteemed their only friend, as they died away in the distance.