of escape.

Oh! oh! He again heard footsteps, but this time they were slower, more
heavy. The white and black forms of two inquisitors appeared, emerging
from the obscurity beyond. They were conversing in low tones, and
seemed to be discussing some important subject, for they were
gesticulating vehemently.

At this spectacle Rabbi Aser Abarbanel closed his eyes: his heart beat
so violently that it almost suffocated him; his rags were damp with the
cold sweat of agony; he lay motionless by the wall, his mouth wide
open, under the rays of a lamp, praying to the God of David.

Just opposite to him the two inquisitors paused under the light of the
lamp--doubtless owing to some accident due to the course of their
argument. One, while listening to his companion, gazed at the rabbi!
And, beneath the look--whose absence of expression the hapless man did
not at first notice--he fancied he again felt the burning pincers
scorch his flesh, he was to be once more a living wound. Fainting,
breathless, with fluttering eyelids, he shivered at the touch of the
monk's floating robe. But--strange yet natural fact--the inquisitor's
gaze was evidently that of a man deeply absorbed in his intended reply,
engrossed by what he was hearing; his eyes were fixed--and seemed to
look at the Jew _without seeing him_.

In fact, after the lapse of a few minutes, the two gloomy figures
slowly pursued their way, still conversing in low tones, toward the
place whence the prisoner had come; HE HAD NOT BEEN SEEN! Amid the
horrible confusion of the rabbi's thoughts, the idea darted through
his brain: "Can I be already dead that they did not see me?" A hideous
impression roused him from his lethargy: in looking at the wall
against which his face was pressed, he imagined he beheld two fierce
eyes watching him! He flung his head back in a sudden frenzy of
fright, his hair fairly bristling! Yet, no! No. His hand groped over
the stones: it was the _reflection_ of the inquisitor's eyes, still
retained in his own, which had been refracted from two spots on the
wall.

Forward! He must hasten toward that goal which he fancied (absurdly, no
doubt) to be deliverance, toward the darkness from which he was now
barely thirty paces distant. He pressed forward faster on his knees,
his hands, at full length, dragging himself painfully along, and soon
entered the dark portion of this terrible corridor.

Suddenly the poor wretch felt a gust of cold air on the hands re