“Answer it to our lord, then, old housefiend,” said the man, and retired; leaving Rebecca in company with the old woman, upon whose presence she had been thus unwillingly forced.
“What devil’s deed have they now in the wind?” said the old hag, murmuring to herself, yet from time to time casting a sidelong and malignant glance at Rebecca; “but it is easy to guess—Bright eyes, black locks, and a skin like paper, ere the priest stains it with his black unguent—Ay, it is easy to guess why they send her to this lone turret, whence a shriek could no more be heard than at the depth of five hundred fathoms beneath the earth.—Thou wilt have owls for thy neighbours, fair one; and their screams will be heard as far, and as much regarded, as thine own. Outlandish, too,” she said, marking the dress and turban of Rebecca—“What country art thou of?—a Saracen? or an Egyptian ?—Why dost not answer?—thou canst weep, canst thou not speak?”
“Be not angry, good mother,” said Rebecca.
“Thou needst say no more,” replied Urfried; “men know a fox by the train, and a Jewess by her tongue.”
“For the sake of mercy,” said Rebecca, “tell me what I am to expect as the conclusion of the violence which hath dragged me hither! Is it my life they seek, to atone for my religion? I will lay it down cheerfully.”
“Thy life, minion?” answered the sibyl; “what would taking thy life pleasure them?—Trust me, thy life is in no peril. Such usage shalt thou have as was once thought good enough for a noble Saxon maiden. And shall a Jewess, like thee, repine because she hath no better? Look at me—I was as young and twice as fair as thou, when Front-de-Boeuf, father of this Reginald, and his Normans, stormed this castle. My father and his seven sons defended their inheritance from story to story, from chamber to chamber—There was not a room, not a step of the stair, that was not