Page:Ivanhoe (1820 Volume 3).pdf/217

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

ments of honour are not less fantastic, Rebecca, than thine are; but we know alike how to die for them."

"Unhappy man!" said the Jewess; "and art thou condemned to expose thy life for principles, of which thy sober judgment does not acknowledge the solidity? Surely this is a parting with your treasure for that which is not bread—but deem not so of me. Thy resolution may fluctuate on the wild and changeful billows of human opinion, but mine is anchored on the Rock of ages."

"Silence, maiden," answered the Templar; "such discourse now avails but little—thou art condemned to die not a sudden and easy death, such as misery chuses, and despair allows, but a slow, wretched, protracted course of torture, suited to what the diabolical bigotry of these men calls thy crime."

"And to whom—if such my fate—to whom do I owe this?" said Rebecca; "surely only to him, who, for a most selfish and brutal cause, dragged me hither, and who now, for some unknown purpose of his own, strives to exaggerate the wretched fate to which he exposed me."