Alroy | Page 3

bade you wonder? Begone, sir! How long are you to idle here?
Away!
'They wonder he went not up with the tribute to-day. Ay! surely, a
common talk. This boy will be our ruin, a prudent hand to wield our
shattered sceptre. I have observed him from his infancy; he should have
lived in Babylon. The old Alroy blood flows in his veins, a stiff-necked
race. When I was a youth, his grandsire was my friend; I had some
fancies then myself. Dreams, dreams! we have fallen on evil days, and
yet we prosper. I have lived long enough to feel that a rich caravan,
laden with the shawls of India and the stuffs of Samarcand, if not
exactly like dancing before the ark, is still a goodly sight. And our
hard-hearted rulers, with all their pride, can they subsist without us?
Still we wax rich. I have lived to see the haughty Caliph sink into a
slave viler far than Israel. And the victorious and voluptuous Seljuks,
even now they tremble at the dim mention of the distant name of
Arslan. Yet I, Bostenay, and the frail remnant of our scattered tribes,
still we exist, and still, thanks to our God! we prosper. But the age of

power has passed; it is by prudence now that we must flourish. The
gibe and jest, the curse, perchance the blow, Israel now must bear, and
with a calm or even smiling visage. What then? For every gibe and jest,
for every curse, I'll have a dirhem; and for every blow, let him look to it
who is my debtor, or wills to be so. But see, he comes, my nephew! His
grandsire was my friend. Methinks I look upon him now: the same
Alroy that was the partner of my boyish hours. And yet that fragile
form and girlish face but ill consort with the dark passions and the
dangerous fancies, which, I fear, lie hidden in that tender breast. Well,
sir?'
'You want me, uncle?'
'What then? Uncles often want what nephews seldom offer.'
'I at least can refuse nothing; for I have naught to give.'
'You have a jewel which I greatly covet.' 'A jewel! See my chaplet!
You gave it me, my uncle; it is yours.'
'I thank you. Many a blazing ruby, many a soft and shadowy pearl, and
many an emerald glowing like a star in the far desert, I behold, my
child. They are choice stones, and yet I miss a jewel far more precious,
which, when I gave you this rich chaplet, David, I deemed you did
possess.' 'How do you call it, sir?' 'Obedience.'
'A word of doubtful import; for to obey, when duty is disgrace, is not a
virtue.'
'I see you read my thought. In a word, I sent for you to know,
wherefore you joined me not to-day in offering our--our----'
'Tribute.'
'Be it so: tribute. Why were you absent?' 'Because it was a tribute; I pay
none.' 'But that the dreary course of seventy winters has not erased the
memory of my boyish follies, David, I should esteem you mad. Think
you, because I am old, I am enamoured of disgrace, and love a house of

bondage? If life were a mere question between freedom and slavery,
glory and dishonour, all could decide. Trust me, there needs but little
spirit to be a moody patriot in a sullen home, and vent your heroic
spleen upon your fellow-sufferers, whose sufferings you cannot remedy.
But of such stuff your race were ever made. Such deliverers ever
abounded in the house of Alroy. And what has been the result? I found
you and your sister orphan infants, your sceptre broken, and your tribes
dispersed. The tribute, which now at least we pay like princes, was then
exacted with the scourge and offered in chains. I collected our scattered
people, I re-established our ancient throne, and this day, which you
look upon as a day of humiliation and of mourning, is rightly
considered by all a day of triumph and of feasting; for, has it not
proved in the very teeth of the Ishmaelites, that the sceptre has not yet
departed from Jacob?'
'I pray you, uncle, speak not of these things. I would not willingly
forget you are my kinsman, and a kind one. Let there not be strife
between us. What my feelings are is nothing. They are my own: I
cannot change them. And for my ancestors, if they pondered much, and
achieved little, why then 'twould seem our pedigree is pure, and I am
their true son. At least one was a hero.'
'Ah! the great Alroy; you may well be proud of such an ancestor.'
'I am ashamed, uncle, ashamed, ashamed.'
'His sceptre still exists. At least, I have not