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352 THE VARANGIAN. [Act m.
HEREWARD.
A brother ? I
Disown thy fellowship, and marvel how
Thou ever shouldst have been a brother made.
It is as if the bloody wolf had sought
To sleep in friendship with the folded flock.
BEN-ZADOC.
T have not always been what thou hast found me.
There was a time when no blood-guiltiness
My soul had stained, when I was kind and gentle ;
But the foul wrongs, the insults, and the tortures
Which from the Iberian Christians I endured
I and my nation, made this heart to burn.
Like Tophet's nether fires, for wild revenge
Revenge on every false, unfeeling Christian.
HEREWARD.
Well, thou, Ben-Zadoc, now shalt mercy find.
And from a Christian. I life will
thy spare,
And all the lives of those who kneel before me :
But for the hapless captives
in thy tents,
Thou shalt no further drag them, they are free.
Arid now thy wealth, thy merchandise, thy stores
Of ill-got plunder, all shall be resigned,
Given back to those whom thy land-pirate hordes
Have cruelly despoiled.
BEN-ZADOC.
O God of Isaac and of Jacob, all ?
What, all my wealth ?
HEREWARD.
All, save three hundred marks, with which
By lawful merchandise thou mayst obtain
The honest means of life.