'And turn Jews!' said the Guebre, with a sneer.
'Look at Scherirah,' said the Negro, grinning. 'If he is not kissing the sceptre of Solomon!'
'I wish to heaven he had only hung Alroy the first time he met him,' said Calidas.
'Sons of the Covenant!' exclaimed Alroy, 'the Lord hath delivered them into our hands. To-morrow eve we march to Hamadan!'
'It is written,' said Jabaster, opening a volume, '"Lo! I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake."
'"And it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians, an hundred four score and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold! they were all dead corpses."
'Now, as I was gazing upon the stars this morn, and reading the celestial alphabet known to the true Cabalist,[55] behold! the star of the house of David and seven other stars moved, and met together, and formed into a circle. And the word they formed was a mystery to me; but lo! I have opened the book, and each star is the initial letter of each line of the Targum that I have now read to you. Therefore the fate of Sennacherib is the fate of Hassan Subah!'
'_"Trust in him at all times, ye people; pour out your heart before him." god is a refuge for us. Selah!_'
At this moment a female form appeared on the very top of the amphitheatre, upon the slight remains of the upper most tier of which a solitary arch alone was left. The chorus instantly died away, every tongue was silent, every eye fixed. Hushed, mute, and immovable, even Kisloch and his companions were appalled as they gazed upon Esther the Prophetess.
Her eminent position, her imposing action, the flashing of her immense eyes, her beautiful but awful countenance, her black hair, that hung almost to her knees, and the white light of the moon, just rising over the opposite side of the amphitheatre, and which threw a silvery flash upon her form, and seemed to invest her with some miraculous emanation, while all beneath her was in deep gloom,-these circumstances combined to render her an object of universal interest and attention, while in a powerful but high voice she thus addressed them:
'They come, they come! But will they go? Lo! hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah! I hear their drum in the desert, and the voice of their trumpets is like the wind of eve, but a decree hath gone forth, and it says, that a mortal shall be more precious than fine gold, yea, a man than the rich ore of Ophir.