'The only hope of Israel,' murmured the Cabalist,' my pupil and my
prince! I have long perceived in his young mind the seed of mighty
deeds, and o'er his future life have often mused with a prophetic hope.
The blood of David, the sacred offspring of a solemn race. There is a
magic in his flowing veins my science cannot reach.
'When, in my youth, I raised our standard by my native Tigris, and
called our nation to restore their ark, why, we were numerous, wealthy,
potent; we were a people then, and they flocked to it boldly. Did we
lack counsel? Did we need a leader? Who can aver that Jabaster's brain
or arm was ever wanting? And yet the dream dissolved, the glorious
vision! Oh! when I struck down Marvan, and the Caliph's camp flung its
blazing shadow over the bloody river, ah! then indeed I lived. Twenty
years of vigil may gain a pardon that I then forgot we lacked the chief
ingredient in the spell, the blood that sleeps beside me.
'I recall the glorious rapture of that sacred strife amid the rocks of
Caucasus. A fugitive, a proscribed and outlawed wretch, whose life is
common sport, and whom the vilest hind may slay without a bidding. I,
who would have been Messiah!
'Burn thy books, Jabaster; break thy brazen tables; forget thy lofty
science, Cabalist, and read the stars no longer.
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