“Have mercy on me, noble knight!” pleaded Isaac. “I am old, and poor, and helpless. It were unworthy to triumph over me. It is a poor deed to crush a worm.”
“Old thou mayst be,” replied the knight, “and feeble thou mayst be; but rich it is known thou art.”
“I swear to you, noble knight,” said Isaac, “by all which I believe and all which we believe in common—”
“Perjure not thyself,” interrupted the Norman, “and let not thy obstinacy seal thy doom, until thou hast seen and well considered the fate that awaits thee. This prison is no place for trifling. Prisoners ten thousand times more distinguished than thou have died within these walls, and their fate has never been known. But for thee is reserved a long and lingering death, to which theirs was luxury.”
He again made a signal for the slaves to approach and spoke to them apart in their own language; for he had been a crusader in Palestine, where, perhaps, he had learned his lesson of cruelty. The Saracens produced from their baskets a quantity of charcoal, a pair of bellows, and a flask of oil. While the one struck a light with a flint and steel, the other disposed the charcoal in the large rusty grate which we have already mentioned and exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red glow.
“Seest thou, Isaac,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “the range of iron bars above that glowing charcoal? On that warm couch thou shalt lie, stripped of thy clothes as if thou wert to rest on a bed of down. One of these slaves shall maintain the fire beneath thee, while the other shall anoint thy wretched limbs with oil, lest the roast should burn. Now choose betwixt such a scorching bed and the payment of a thousand pounds of silver; for, by the head of my father, thou hast no other [v]option.”
“It is impossible,” exclaimed the miserable Isaac; “it is impossible that your purpose can be real! The good God of nature never made a heart capable of exercising such cruelty!”
“Trust not to that, Isaac,” said Front-de-Boeuf; “it were a fatal error. Dost thou think that I who have seen a town sacked, in which thousands perished by sword, by flood, and by fire, will blench from my purpose for the outcries of a single wretch? Be wise, old man; discharge thyself of a portion of thy superfluous wealth; repay to the hands of a Christian a part of what thou hast acquired by [v]usury. Thy cunning may soon swell out once more thy shriveled purse, but neither leech nor medicine can restore thy scorched hide and flesh wert thou once stretched on these bars. Tell down thy [v]ransom, I say, and rejoice that at such a rate thou canst redeem thyself from a dungeon, the secrets of which few have returned to tell. I waste no more words with thee. Choose between thy [v]dross and thy flesh and blood, and as thou choosest so shall it be.”
“So may Abraham and all the fathers of our people assist me!” said Isaac; “I cannot make the choice because I have not the means of satisfying your [v]exorbitant demand!”
“Seize him and strip him, slaves,” said the knight.