'Eat,' David,' said Scherirah.
'I will eat bread,' answered Alroy.
'What! have you had so much meat lately that you will refuse this
delicate gazelle that I brought down this morning with my own lance?
'Tis food for a caliph.'
'I pray you give me bread.'
'Oh! bread if you like. But that a man should prefer bread to meat, and
such meat as this, 'tis miraculous.'
'A thousand thanks, good Scherirah; but with our people the flesh of the
gazelle is forbidden. It is unclean. Its foot is _cloven_.'
'I have heard of these things,' replied Scherirah, with a thoughtful
air. 'My mother was a Jewess, and my father was a Kourd. Whichever be
right, I hope to be saved.'
'There is but one God, and Mahomed is his prophet!' exclaimed Kisloch;
'though I drink wine. Your health, Hebrew.'
'I will join you,' said to the third robber. 'My father was a Guebre,
and sacrificed his property to his faith; and the consequence is, his
son has got neither.'
'As for me,' said a fourth robber, of very dark complexion and
singularly small bright eyes, 'I am an Indian, and I believe in the
great golden figure with carbuncle eyes, in the temple of Delhi.'
'I have no religion,' said a tall negro in a red turban, grinning with
his white teeth; 'they have none in my country; but if I had heard of
your God before, Calidas, I would have believed in him.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72