Page:Auerbach-Spinozanovel.djvu/184

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162
SPINOZA.

like a will-o'-the-wisp emerged from the darkness, but sank again without leaving trace or connection.

Baruch longed to be freed from the yoke which he had laid on himself by his dutiful visit to the Rabbi. It was done without his interference.

A Jewish colony was setting out for North Brazil. Rabbi Isaak Aboab joined it.

At sea, it was said, dolphins and sea-monsters surrounded the ship in which Rabbi Aboab was. All were in fear of death. Rabbi Aboab alone was tranquil. "Look! in these are the souls of the godless. Be still," he cried in a mighty voice over the floods; "have patience, yet longer ye must tarry, for the time is not yet come that will release you." He threw a parchment into the water and the monsters vanished.

The fair Sara did not live to see this miracle of her father's, which rumor spread so wide. She had shed many tears on taking leave of Baruch; she loved him secretly and passionately. She died on the passage out. When the exiles landed in North Brazil the first grave was dug in the newly won inheritance, and the fair, girlish corpse of the Cabbalist's daughter was buried therein. At her interment the Shophar was blown according to secret cabbalistic ordinances, a sign of the trumpet to be blown at the Resurrection of the dead. In a land never yet trodden by Jewish foot the trumpet