The screams of fainting women answered him from above, but impassively he urged his horse along the aisle that led to the Ark; its noisy hoofs trampled over every heart. Springing from his saddle he opened the little cupboard beneath the scrolls, and drew out a bottle, hideously red.
'What else, Excellency?' stoutly replied the _Shamash_, who had followed him.
A savage laugh broke from the officer's lips. 'Drink me a mouthful!'
As the _Shamash_ took the bottle, with a fearless shrug of the shoulders, every eye strained painfully towards him, save in the women's gallery, where many covered their faces with their hands. Every breath was held.
Keeping the same amused incredulous face, Red Judah gulped down a draught. But as the liquid met his palate a horrible distortion overcame his smile, his hands flew heavenwards. Dropping the bottle, and with a hoarse cry, 'Mercy, O God!' he fell before the Ark, foaming at the mouth. The red fluid spread in a vivid pool.
'Hear, O Israel!' A raucous cry of horror rose from all around, and was echoed more shrilly from above. Almighty Father! The Jew-haters had worked their fiendish trick. Now the men were become as the women, shrieking, wringing their hands, crying, '_Ai, vai!_' '_Gewalt!_' The Rabbi shook as with palsy. 'Satan! Satan!' chattered through his teeth.
But Ben Amram had moved at last, and was stooping over the scarlet stain.
'A soldier should know blood, Excellency!' the physician said quietly.
The officer's face relaxed into a faint smile.
'A soldier knows wine too,' he said, sniffing. And, indeed, the spicy reek of the Consecration wine was bewildering the nearer bystanders.
'Your Excellency frightened poor Judah into a fit,' said the physician, raising the beadle's head by its long red beard.
His Excellency shrugged his shoulders, sprang to his saddle, and cried a retreat. The Cossacks, unable to turn in the aisle, backed cumbrously with a manifold thudding and rearing and clanking, but ere the congregation had finished rubbing their eyes, the last conical hat and leaded knout had vanished, and only the tarry reek of their boots was left in proof of their actual passage. A deep silence hung for a moment like a heavy cloud, then it broke in a torrent of ejaculations.