e
took a Moorish town, it was remarked, that he went anxiously into the
Jewish quarter, and inquired amongst the Hebrews, who were in great
numbers in Spain, for Rebecca, the daughter of Isaac. Many Jews,
according to his wont, he ransomed, and created so much scandal by this
proceeding, and by the manifest favor which he showed to the people of
that nation, that the Master of Saint Jago remonstrated with him, and
it is probable he would have been cast into the Inquisition and
roasted, but that his prodigious valor and success against the Moors
counterbalanced his heretical partiality for the children of Jacob.

It chanced that the good knight was present at the siege of Xixona
in Andalusia, entering the breach first, according to his wont, and
slaying, with his own hand, the Moorish lieutenant of the town, and
several hundred more of its unbelieving defenders. He had very nearly
done for the Alfaqui, or governor--a veteran warrior with a crooked
scimitar and a beard as white as snow--but a couple of hundred of the
Alfaqui's bodyguard flung themselves between Ivanhoe and their chief,
and the old fellow escaped with his life, leaving a handful of his beard
in the grasp of the English knight. The strictly military business being
done, and such of the garrison as did not escape put, as by right, to
the sword, the good knight, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, took no further part
in the proceedings of the conquerors of that ill-fated place. A scene
of horrible massacre and frightful reprisals ensued, and the Christian
warriors, hot with victory and flushed with slaughter, were, it is to be
feared, as savage in their hour of triumph as ever their heathen enemies
had been.

Among the most violent and least scrupulous was the ferocious Knight of
Saint Jago, Don Beltran de Cuchilla y Trabuco y Espada y Espelon.
Raging through the vanquished city like a demon, he slaughtered
indiscriminately all those infidels of both sexes whose wealth did not
tempt him to a ransom, or whose beauty did not reserve them for more
frightful calamities than death. The slaughter over, Don Beltran took
up his quarters in the Albaycen, where the Alfaqui had lived who had so
narrowly escaped the sword of Ivanhoe; but the wealth, the treasure,
the slaves, and the family of the fugitive chieftain, were left in
possession of the conqueror of Xixona. Among the treasures, Don Beltran
recognized with a savage joy the coat-armors and ornaments of many brave
and unfo