“Thou art a mad knave,” said the Captain, “but thy plan transcends!⁠—Here, Jew, step forth⁠—Look at that holy Father Aymer, Prior of the rich Abbey of Jorvaulx, and tell us at what ransom we should hold him?⁠—Thou knowest the income of his convent, I warrant thee.”

“O, assuredly,” said Isaac. “I have trafficked with the good fathers, and bought wheat and barley, and fruits of the earth, and also much wool. O, it is a rich abbey-stede, and they do live upon the fat, and drink the sweet wines upon the lees, these good fathers of Jorvaulx. Ah, if an outcast like me had such a home to go to, and such incomings by the year and by the month, I would pay much gold and silver to redeem my captivity.”

“Hound of a Jew!” exclaimed the Prior, “no one knows better than thy own cursed self, that our holy house of God is indebted for the finishing of our chancel⁠—”

“And for the storing of your cellars in the last season with the due allowance of Gascon wine,” interrupted the Jew; “but that⁠—that is small matters.”

“Hear the infidel dog!” said the churchman; “he jangles as if our holy community did come under debts for the wines we have a license to drink, propter necessitatem, et ad frigus depellendum . The circumcised villain blasphemeth the holy church, and Christian men listen and rebuke him not!”

“All this helps nothing,” said the leader.⁠—“Isaac, pronounce what he may pay, without flaying both hide and hair.”

“An six hundred crowns,” said Isaac, “the good Prior might well pay to your honoured valours, and never sit less soft in his stall.”

“Six hundred crowns,” said the leader, gravely; “I am contented⁠—thou hast well spoken, Isaac⁠—six hundred crowns.⁠—It is a sentence, Sir Prior.”

“A sentence!⁠—a sentence!” exclaimed the band; “Solomon had not done it better.”

“Thou hearest thy doom, Prior,” said the leader.