“He blasphemes!” muttered the monk. “Prince, beware! you know not what you do.”
The prince lingered, and then, as if aware that he must yield, gathered his cloak round him, and left the tent without reply.
Pale and trembling,--with fears no less felt, perhaps, though more vague and perplexed, than those from which she had just been delivered,--Leila stood before the monk.
“Be seated, daughter of the faithless,” said Torquemada, “we would converse with thee: and, as thou valuest--I say not thy soul, for, alas! of that precious treasure thou art not conscious--but mark me, woman! as thou prizest the safety of those delicate limbs, and that wanton beauty, answer truly what I shall ask thee. The man who brought thee hither--is he, in truth, thy father?”
“Alas!” answered Leila, almost fainting with terror at this rude and menacing address, “he is, in truth, mine only parent.”
“Hem! he never prays--a noticeable fact. But of what sect, what creed, does he profess himself?”
“Nay, there be means that may wring from thee an answer. Maiden, be not so stubborn; speak! thinkest thou he serves the temple of the Mohammedan?”
“No! oh, no!” answered poor Leila, eagerly, deeming that her reply, in this, at least, would be acceptable. “He disowns, he scorns, he abhors, the Moorish faith,--even,” she added, “with too fierce a zeal.”
“Thou dost not share that zeal, then? Well, worships he in secret after the Christian rites?”
“I understand thy silence. And in what belief, maiden, wert thou reared beneath his roof?”
“I know not what it is called among men,” answered Leila, with firmness, “but it is the faith of the ONE GOD, who protects His chosen, and shall avenge their wrongs--the God who made earth and heaven; and who, in an idolatrous and benighted world, transmitted the knowledge of Himself and His holy laws, from age to age, through the channel of one solitary people, in the plains of Palestine, and by the waters of the Hebron.”
“And in that faith thou wert trained, maiden, by thy father?” said the Dominican, calmly. “I am satisfied. Rest here, in peace: we may meet again, soon.”
The last words were spoken with a soft and tranquil smile--a smile in which glazing eyes and agonising hearts had often beheld the ghastly omen of the torture and the stake.