The men laughed. They were easy in their minds now that they understood they were to play a familiar game—only they grudged that they were to half accomplish it. If they caught a Jew let them squeeze and wring him out till not a drop of the golden syrup were left in him.
Noémi had, however, her own ideas in the matter. She justified her act to her conscience as a deed of necessity. It was a marvel that her conscience felt any scruple in the matter, as in the Middle Ages none hesitated to defraud a Jew, none considered that a son of Israel had any right to have meted out to him the like justice as to a Christian. Before the Cathedral gates at Toulouse every Good Friday a Jew had to present himself to have his ears boxed by the Bishop, and to acknowledge in his person on behalf of his race its guilt in having crucified the Messiah.
"Here!" said the girl, "tie up your horses and mine and lie in the scrub."
Before them, on the left hand of the track, rose the Devil's Table; a mound of earth had anciently covered it, but rain had washed away the earth from the capstone and showed the points of those blocks which upheld it. The slab was a singularly uncouth stone, with its flat old bed underneath, the upper surface uneven and dinted with cup-holes.
The routiers had not been long in hiding before the voice of Levi was heard, and the tramp of his ass.
"I thank you, good fellows. It was gracious of your master to lend me your escort, for, Heaven knows! I am too poor to need one. My ass is laden with lentils. You eat them in your fasting times, and when not fasting, eat pig. I cannot touch the unclean meat, and so eat lentils all the year. All my little moneys I carried with me have been expended in lentils for my wife Rachel and me. Ah! this must last us a long time. We are so poor, and lentils are so dear."
"You will give us something to drink your health, Levi," asked one of Tardes' men.
"Oh! certainly. Open both your hands and I will fill them with lentils. When Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in the palace of King Darius, they refused the meats from the King's table that they might eat lentils. And they grew fat! Oh! Father Abraham, so sleek that their faces shone, and all the young ladies ran after them. Open your hands and I will give you lentils, and all the fair maids of La Roque will admire you."
The men laughed. "Come, come, Jew, keep the pulse for yourself, and give us something more solid—money—and we will drink your health."
"Money!" exclaimed Levi; "as if I had money! Oh, Fathers of the Covenant! poor Levi with money!—that is a comical idea. You are jesting with me, and I like a jest."