Gentile, save for the advantage of our commerce."

"Speak not so, my dear father," replied Rebecca; "we may not indeed mix
with them in banquet and in jollity; but in wounds and in misery, the
Gentile becometh the Jew's brother."

"I would I knew what the Rabbi Jacob Ben Tudela would opine on it,"
replied Isaac;--"nevertheless, the good youth must not bleed to death.
Let Seth and Reuben bear him to Ashby."

"Nay, let them place him in my litter," said Rebecca; "I will mount one
of the palfreys."

"That were to expose thee to the gaze of those dogs of Ishmael and of
Edom," whispered Isaac, with a suspicious glance towards the crowd of
knights and squires. But Rebecca was already busied in carrying her
charitable purpose into effect, and listed not what he said, until
Isaac, seizing the sleeve of her mantle, again exclaimed, in a hurried
voice--"Beard of Aaron!--what if the youth perish!--if he die in our
custody, shall we not be held guilty of his blood, and be torn to pieces
by the multitude?"

"He will not die, my father," said Rebecca, gently extricating herself
from the grasp of Isaac "he will not die unless we abandon him; and if
so, we are indeed answerable for his blood to God and to man."

"Nay," said Isaac, releasing his hold, "it grieveth me as much to see
the drops of his blood, as if they were so many golden byzants from mine
own purse; and I well know, that the lessons of Miriam, daughter of the
Rabbi Manasses of Byzantium whose soul is in Paradise, have made thee
skilful in the art of healing, and that thou knowest the craft of herbs,
and the force of elixirs. Therefore, do as thy mind giveth thee--thou
art a good damsel, a blessing, and a crown, and a song of rejoicing unto
me and unto my house, and unto the people of my fathers."

The apprehensions of Isaac, however, were not ill founded; and the
generous and grateful benevolence of his daughter exposed her, on her
return to Ashby, to the unhallowed gaze of Brian de Bois-Guilbert. The
Templar twice passed and repassed them on the road, fixing his bold
and ardent look on the beautiful Jewess; and we have already seen the
consequences of the admiration which her charms excited when accident
threw her into the power of that unprincipled voluptuary.

Rebecca lost no time in causing the patient to be transported to their
temporary dwelling, and proceeded with her own hands to examine and
to bind up his wounds. The youngest reader of romances and romant