e.

"It is she!" said Simla, in great emotion: "let us draw near, and press
her hands to our heart."

These last words reached the ears of the unhappy prisoner, and forgetful
of the many watchful eyes and ears around her, she exclaimed in a sad
and piercing voice: "Mother, O mother! come, and witness my repentance!"

Haim Hachuel and his wife flew instantly to the dismal grating of the
dungeon. They grasped the hands of their unhappy daughter, and she also
seizing those of her parents, bathed them with her tears, so that for a
moment neither could utter a word.

"Dear daughter," said they at length to her, "what do you propose to do?
Are you resolved to embrace the law of Mahomet?"

"Never, my parents!" she answered, "I regard these sufferings as
chastenings from Heaven for my sins; when I meditate upon them, methinks
I hear a voice within me, saying, 'Thou didst fail in the duty of an
obedient child; behold now, and suffer the consequence of thy
transgression.'"

Scarcely had Sol concluded, when the clashing of iron bolts apprised her
parents that some one was approaching this abode of bitterness. Quickly,
therefore, did they disengage their hands, and promising to return the
following evening, plunged in the deepest grief they reluctantly quitted
the place, lest they should be discovered, and deprived of what was now
their only consolation. They were not mistaken; the person that opened
the door of the cell proved to be the woman in charge of the prison, who
came to acquaint the beautiful Sol of the governor's order, that she
should be cut off from all intercourse with her friends, and treated
with yet greater severity and harshness.

Unmoved, she listened to this cruel mandate of the tyrannical governor,
and, raising her eyes to heaven, only uttered these words, "I revere, O
Lord, thy heavenly decrees!" The Mahometan departed in some emotion, and
the young Jewess, kneeling, addressed herself to loftier contemplations.

Haim Hachuel and his wife spent a night of most torturing suspense. On
their return from the Mazmorra, they told every thing to their son,
Ysajar; who, going immediately to the prison, with some difficulty
gained over the jailer, a Moorish woman, by offering her gifts,--and at
length succeeded in obtaining her good offices for his unfortunate
sister, and permission to communicate with her through the narrow
grating of her cell, under cover of the night. Having obtained this by a
heavy golden b