It was one of those spring nights which, to be sure, are mild and starry enough, yet which inspire the soul with strange, uncanny feelings.  There was something funereal in the odor of the flowers, the birds chirped spitefully and at the same time apprehensively, the moon cast malicious yellow stripes of light over the dark murmuring stream, the lofty banks of the Rhine looked like vague, threatening giants’ heads.  The watchman on the tower of Castle Strahleck blew a melancholy blast, and with it rang in jarring discord the funeral bell of Saint Werner’s.

Beautiful Sara still had the silver basin in her right hand, while the Rabbi held her left, and she felt that his fingers were ice-cold, and that his arm was trembling; but still she went on with him in silence, perhaps because she had become accustomed to obey her husband blindly and unquestioningly—­perhaps, too, because her lips were mute with fear and anxiety.

Below Castle Sonneck, opposite Lorch, about the place where the hamlet of Nieder Rheinbach now lies, there rises a cliff which arches out over the Rhine bank.  The Rabbi ascended this with his wife, looked around on every side, and gazed on the stars.  Trembling and shivering, as with the pain of death, Beautiful Sara looked at his pale face, which seemed ghastly in the moonlight, and seemed to express by turns pain, terror, piety, and rage.  But when the Rabbi suddenly snatched from her hands the silver basin and threw it far out into the Rhine, she could no longer endure the agony of uncertainty, and crying out “Schadai, be merciful!” threw herself at his feet and conjured him to explain the dark mystery.

At first unable to speak, the Rabbi moved his lips without uttering a sound; but finally he cried, “Dost thou see the Angel of Death?  There below he sweeps over Bacharach.  But we have escaped his sword.  God be praised!” Then, in a voice still trembling with excitement, he told her that, while he was happily and comfortably singing the Agade, he happened to glance under the table, and saw at his feet the bloody corpse of a little child.  “Then I knew,” continued the Rabbi, “that our two guests were not of the community of Israel, but of the army of the godless, who had plotted to bring that corpse into the house by stealth so as to accuse us of child-murder, and stir up the people to plunder and murder us.  Had I given a sign that I saw through that work of darkness I should have brought destruction on the instant down upon me and mine, and only by craft did I save our lives.  Praised be God!  Grieve not, Beautiful Sara.  Our relatives and friends shall also be saved; it was only my blood which the wretches wanted.  I have escaped them, and they will be satisfied with my silver and gold.  Come with me, Beautiful Sara, to another land.  We will leave misfortune behind us, and so that it may not follow us I have thrown to it the silver ewer, the last of my possessions, as an offering.  The God of our fathers will not forsake us.  Come down, thou art weary.  There is Dumb William standing by his boat; he will row us up the Rhine.”