e, this terrible avenging scourge! Must I, then, again carry it
into this city, must my poor wretched brethren be the first to fall under
it--though already so miserable? Mercy, mercy! 'Onward!' And the
descendants of my sister--oh, pray, have mercy, mercy! 'Onward!' O Lord,
have pity on me! I can no longer keep my footing on the ground, the
spectre is dragging me over the brow of the hill; my course is as rapid
as the death-bearing wind that whistles in my track; I already approach
the walls of the city. Oh, mercy, Lord, mercy on the descendants of my
sister--spare them! do not compel me to be their executioner, and let
them triumph over their enemies. Onward, onward! The ground is fleeing
from under me; I am already at the city gate; oh, yet, Lord, yet there is
time; oh, have mercy on this slumbering city, that it may not even now
awaken with the lamentations of terror, of despair and death! O Lord, I
touch the threshold of the gate; verily Thou willest it so then. 'Tis
done--Paris! the scourge is in thy bosom! oh, cursed, cursed evermore am
I. Onward! on! on!"[34]
[34] In 1346, the celebrated Black Death ravaged the earth, presenting the
same symptoms as the cholera, and the same inexplicable phenomena as to
its progress and the results in its route. In 1660 a similar epidemic
decimated the world. It is well known that when the cholera first broke
out in Paris, it had taken a wide and unaccountable leap; and, also
memorable, a north-east wind prevailed during its utmost fierceness.
CHAPTER II.
THE DESCENDANTS OF THE WANDERING JEW.
That lonely wayfarer whom we have heard so plaintively urging to be
relieved of his gigantic burden of misery, spoke of "his sister's
descendants" being of all ranks, from the working man to the king's son.
They were seven in number, who had, in the year 1832, been led to Paris,
directly or indirectly, by a bronze medal which distinguished them from
others, bearing these words:-VICTIM of L. C. D. J. Pray for me!
-----PARIS, February the 13th, 1682.
IN PARIS, Rue St. Francois, No. 3, In a century and a half you will be.
February the 13th, 1832. -----PRAY FOR ME!
The son of the King of Mundi had lost his father and his domains in India
by the irresistible march of the English, and was but in title Prince
Djalma. Spite of attempts to make his departure from the East delayed
until after the period when he could have obeyed his medal's command, he
had reached France by the seco
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