It would have touched a heart, retaining any degree of feeling, to see
that young and beautiful woman within that damp and noisome
excavation--so damp that cold and slimy reptiles clung to, and crept
over, its floor and walls, while the blind worm nestled in the old
apertures formed to admit a little air; and the foul toad, and still
more disgusting eft, looked upon her, as they would say, "Thou art our
sister."
"And here," thought she, "must the only child of Manasseh Ben Israel
array herself, to meet the gaze of the proud beauty who would not deign
to notice the letter or the supplication of the despised Jewess; to meet
the gaze of the cold stern English, and of the cruel man who points the
finger of scorn against her he has destroyed. Yet I seek but justice,
but to be acknowledged as his wife, in the open day and before an
assembled people, and then he shall hear and see no more of the Rabbi's
daughter! I will hide myself from the world, and look upon all mankind
as I do upon him--with a bitter hatred!--Yet I was not always thus," she
continued, as she clasped a jewel on her arm: "The bracelet is too wide
for the shrunk flesh! Out, out upon thee, bauble! O that I could
thus--and thus--and thus--trample into this black and slimy earth, every
vestige of what I was, and have no more the power to think of what I am!
Is this the happiness I looked for? Are these the feelings of my
girlhood? My heart seems cold within me, cold to every thought but
vengeance! Even the burden I carry--it is part of him, and with the
groans that come in woman's travail I will mingle curses, deep and
blasting, on its head. O that I could cast it from me! And yet--and yet
it will be my own child!" And the feelings of the mother triumphed; for,
at that thought, the Jewess wept, and tears are as balm to an
overwrought mind, at once a relief and a consolation. Zillah wept, and
was humanised. After a little time, she arrayed herself in befitting
garments, but placed pistols within her bosom. Long before the appointed
hour, and despite the watchfulness of Sir Willmott's spies, she was
secreted near the ruined chapel adjoining Cecil Place.