and a skin like paper, ere the priest stains it with his
black unguent--Ay, it is easy to guess why they send her to this lone
turret, whence a shriek could no more be heard than at the depth of
five hundred fathoms beneath the earth.--Thou wilt have owls for thy
neighbours, fair one; and their screams will be heard as far, and as
much regarded, as thine own. Outlandish, too," she said, marking the
dress and turban of Rebecca--"What country art thou of?--a Saracen?
or an Egyptian?--Why dost not answer?--thou canst weep, canst thou not
speak?"

"Be not angry, good mother," said Rebecca.

"Thou needst say no more," replied Urfried "men know a fox by the train,
and a Jewess by her tongue."

"For the sake of mercy," said Rebecca, "tell me what I am to expect as
the conclusion of the violence which hath dragged me hither! Is it
my life they seek, to atone for my religion? I will lay it down
cheerfully."

"Thy life, minion?" answered the sibyl; "what would taking thy life
pleasure them?--Trust me, thy life is in no peril. Such usage shalt thou
have as was once thought good enough for a noble Saxon maiden. And shall
a Jewess, like thee, repine because she hath no better? Look at me--I
was as young and twice as fair as thou, when Front-de-Boeuf, father of
this Reginald, and his Normans, stormed this castle. My father and his
seven sons defended their inheritance from story to story, from chamber
to chamber--There was not a room, not a step of the stair, that was not
slippery with their blood. They died--they died every man; and ere their
bodies were cold, and ere their blood was dried, I had become the prey
and the scorn of the conqueror!"

"Is there no help?--Are there no means of escape?" said
Rebecca--"Richly, richly would I requite thine aid."

"Think not of it," said the hag; "from hence there is no escape but
through the gates of death; and it is late, late," she added, shaking
her grey head, "ere these open to us--Yet it is comfort to think that we
leave behind us on earth those who shall be wretched as ourselves. Fare
thee well, Jewess!--Jew or Gentile, thy fate would be the same; for thou
hast to do with them that have neither scruple nor pity. Fare thee well,
I say. My thread is spun out--thy task is yet to begin."

"Stay! stay! for Heaven's sake!" said Rebecca; "stay, though it be to
curse and to revile me--thy presence is yet some protection."

"The presence of the mother of God were no protection," answere