"I have not been yet able to gain speech with the chosen in Israel,"
replied Manasseh: "he hath been much from home on secret service for the
good of his people."
Burrell exulted at this knowledge, and again protested his innocence in
the strongest terms. Manasseh rose to depart. Burrell pressed him to
remain; but the old man resolutely refused.
"I am about to go forth from your dwelling. If you have not been the
seducer of my child, I crave your pardon in deep humility, and will do
penance in sackcloth and ashes for having wrongfully accused you; but,"
he added, bitterly, "if you have wronged me, and devoted her soul to
destruction, may the curse of the old Jew enter into your veins, and
curdle the red blood to a hot and destroying poison!--may the flowers of
the spring be to you scentless and revolting!--may the grass wither
under your footsteps!--may the waters of the valley be even as molten
lead unto your parched lips!--may----"
"Dog of an unbeliever!" exclaimed Burrell, whose temper could no longer
brook the taunting curses of the old man, and whose coward spirit
quailed beneath them, "hold thy foul tongue, lest I pluck it from
between thy teeth. Had I been a circumcised Jew, and thou a Christian, I
could not have listened with more humility; and this is the reward of my
forbearance--curses deep and bitter as the waters of the Dead Sea."
"They cannot harm if thou art innocent. I have neither broken bread nor
tasted salt within thy walls; and now I shake the dust from off my feet
upon thy threshold. Thy words at first were of honey and the honey-comb,
but now are they as gall. Others must deal with thee. The prayer of the
bereaved father was as a tinkling cymbal in thine ears; but the
curse--the curse knocked at thy heart, and it trembled. Others must deal
with thee."
Manasseh Ben Israel repeated the curse with terrible energy; then
shaking the dust from his sandals, he passed, and entered, with his
attendant, the carriage that awaited him at the gate.
Burrell was convinced, and humbled by the conviction, that an
irresistible impulse had compelled him to desert his sophistry, and
stand forth in his real character before one who had the ear of the
Protector, and whose religious persuasion had not prevented his
advancement, or his being regarded as a man of extraordinary mental
attainments, even in a country, the prejudices of which, always
deeply-rooted, were at that time peculiarly directed against the Jews.
This people were devoted in their attachment to Cromwell; and it was
believed that they would not have scrupled to declare him the Messiah
could they have traced his descent in any degree, however remote, to the
dwellers in Judah. Manasseh had mixed so much with Christians, and had
been treated by the Protector so completely as an equal, that he
retained but little of the servility of tone or manner, and less of the
cringing and submissive demeanour, that characterised his tribe; he
therefore spoke boldly to Sir Willmott Burrell, after a burst of strong
and bitter feeling. He knew himself protected by the ruler of England,
and felt undaunted in the presence of one he could easily destroy; but
then he was a father, and as such impelled by nature to adopt every
expedient that might promote the disclosure of a secret on which almost
his life depended, and which, he doubted not, was, in some shape or
other, in the keeping of his wily opponent.