Then the pirates, taking counsel, agreed to run down the enemy; for our galley was a sharp-beaked Liburnian, while theirs was only a messenger trireme.' 'And you did it ?' 'Else had I not been here.

They were delivered into our hands, so that we struck them full in mid-length, and they sank like Pharaoh and his host.' 'So perish all the enemies of the nation!' cried Miriam.

'And now it is impossible, you say, for fresh news to arrive for these ten days ?' 'Impossible, the captain assured me, owing to the rising of the wind, and the signs of southerly storm.' 'Here, take this letter for the Chief Rabbi, and the blessing of a mother in Israel.

Thou Last played the man for thy people; and thou shalt go to the grave full of years and honours, with men-servants and maid-servants, gold and silver, children and children's children, with thy foot on the necks of heathens, and the blessing of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to eat of the goose which is fattening in the desert, and the Leviathan which lieth in the great sea, to be meat for all true Israelites at the last day.' And the Jew turned and went out, perhaps, in his simple fanaticism, the happiest man in Egypt at that moment.
He passed out through the ante-chamber, leering at the slave-girls, and scowling at Philammon; and the youth was ushered into the presence of Miriam.
She sat, coiled up like a snake on a divan writing busily in a tablet upon her knees while on the cushions beside her glittered splendid jewels, which she had been fingering over as a child might its toys.
She did not look up for a few minutes; and Philammon could not help, in spite of his impatience, looking round the little room and contrasting its dirty splendour, and heavy odour of wine, and food, and perfumes, with the sunny grace and cleanliness of Greek houses.

Against the wall stood presses and chests fretted with fantastic Oriental carving; illuminated rolls of parchment lay in heaps in a corner; a lamp of strange form hung from the ceiling, and shed a dim and lurid light upon an object which chilled the youth's blood for a moment--a bracket against the wall, on which, in a plate of gold, engraven with mystic signs, stood the mummy of an infant's head; one of those teraphim, from which, as Philammon knew, the sorcerers of the East professed to evoke oracular responses.
At last she looked up, and spoke in a shrill, harsh voice.