“And it is very certain, Senor, that your uncle is one,” suddenly exclaimed the Rabbi, who had calmly witnessed this scene; and with a merry, quizzical glance, he added, “And I myself will vouch that Don Isaac Abarbanel, nephew of the great Rabbi, is sprung from the best blood of Israel, if not from the royal race of David!”

The chain of the sword rattled under the Spaniard’s cloak, his cheeks became deadly white, his upper lip twitched as with scorn in which there was pain, and angry death grinned in his eyes, as in an utterly changed, ice-cold, keen voice he said: 

“Senor Rabbi, you know me.  Well, then, you know also who I am.  And if the fox knows that I belong to the blood of the lion, let him beware and not bring his fox-beard into danger of death, nor provoke my anger.  Only he who feels like the lion can understand his weakness.”

“Oh, I understand it well,” answered the Rabbi, and a melancholy seriousness came over his brow.  “I understand it well, how the proud lion, out of pride, casts aside his princely coat and goes about disguised in the scaly armor of the crocodile, because it is the fashion to be a grinning, cunning, greedy crocodile!  What can you expect the lesser beasts to be when the lion denies his nature?  But beware, Don Isaac, thou wert not made for the element of the crocodile.  For water—­thou knowest well what I mean—­is thy evil fortune, and thou shalt drown.  Water is not thy element; the weakest trout can live in it better than the king of the forest.  Hast thou forgotten how the current of the Tagus was about to draw thee under—?”

Bursting into loud laughter, Don Isaac suddenly threw his arms round the Rabbi’s neck, covered his mouth with kisses, leapt with jingling spurs high into the air, so that the passing Jews shrank back in alarm, and in his own natural hearty and joyous voice cried—­

“Truly thou art Abraham of Bacharach!  And it was a good joke, and more than that, a friendly act, when thou, in Toledo, didst leap from the Alcantara bridge into the water, and grasp by the hair thy friend, who could drink better than he could swim, and drew him to dry land.  I came very near making a really deep investigation as to whether there is actually gold in the bed of the Tagus, and whether the Romans were right in calling it the golden river.  I assure you that I shiver even now at the mere thought of that water-party.”

Saying this the Spaniard made a gesture as if he were shaking water from his garments.  The countenance of the Rabbi expressed great joy as he again and again pressed his friend’s hand, saying every time—­

“I am indeed glad.”

“And so, indeed, am I,” answered the other.  “It is seven years now since we met, and when we parted I was as yet a mere greenhorn, and thou—­thou wert already a staid and serious man.  But whatever became of the beautiful Dona who in those days cost thee so many sighs, which thou didst accompany with the lute?”