Enter a servant ushering in PRINCE WILLIAM.

SERVANT.

His highness Prince of Meissen.

[Exit.]

SUSSKIND.

Welcome, Prince!

G.o.d bless thy going forth and coming in!

Sit at our table and accept the cup Of welcome which my daughter fills.

[LIEBHAID offers him wine.]

PRINCE WILLIAM (drinking).

To thee!

[All take their seats at the table.]

I heard disquieting news as I came hither.

The apparition in the Synagogue, The miracle of the message and the death.

Susskind von Orb, what think'st thou of these things?

SUSSKIND.

I think, sir, we are in the hand of G.o.d, I trust the Prince--your father and my friend.

PRINCE WILLIAM.

Trust no man! flee! I have not come to-night To little purpose. Your arch enemy, The Governor of Salza, Henry Schnetzen, Has won my father's ear. Since yester eve He stops at Eisenach, begging of the Prince The Jews' destruction.

SUSSKIND (calmly).

Schnetzen is my foe, I know it, but I know a talisman, Which at a word trans.m.u.tes his hate to love.

Liebhaid, my child, look cheerly. What is this?

Harm dare not touch thee; the oppressor's curse, Melts into blessing at thy sight.

LIEBHAID.

Not fear Plucks at my heart-strings, father, though the air Thickens with portents; 't is the thought of flight, But no--I follow thee.

PRINCE WILLIAM.

Thou shalt not miss The value of a hair from thy home treasures.

All that thou lovest, Liebhaid, goes with thee.

Knowest thou, Susskind, Schnetzen's cause of hate?

SUSSKIND.

'T is rooted in an ancient error, born During his feud with Landgrave Fritz the Bitten, Your Highness' grandsire--ten years--twenty--back.

Misled to think I had betrayed his castle, Who knew the secret tunnel to its courts, He has nursed a baseless grudge, whereat I smile, Sure to disarm him by the simple truth.

G.o.d grant me strength to utter it.

PRINCE WILLIAM.

You fancy The rancor of a bad heart slow distilled Through venomed years, so at a breath, dissolves.

O good old man, i' the world, not of the world!

Belike, himself forgets the doubtful core Of this still-curdling, petrifying ooze.

Truth? why truth glances from the callous ma.s.s, A spear against a rock. He hugs his hate, His bed-fellow, his daily, life-long comrade; Think you he has slept, ate, drank with it this while, Now to forego revenge on such slight cause As the revealed truth?

SUSSKIND.

You mistake my thought, Great-hearted Prince, and justly--for I speak In riddles, till G.o.d's time to make all clear.

When His day dawns, the blind shall see.

PRINCE WILLIAM.

Forgive me, If I, in wit and virtue your disciple, Seem to instruct my master. Accident Lifts me where I survey a broader field Than wise men stationed lower. I spy peril, Fierce flame invisible from the lesser peaks.

G.o.d's time is now. Delayed truth leaves a lie Triumphant. If you harbor any secret, Potent to force an ear that's locked to mercy, In G.o.d's name, now disbosom it.

SUSSKIND.

Kind Heaven!

Would that my people's safety were a.s.sured So is my child's! Where shall we turn? Where flee?

For all around us the Black Angel broods.

We step into the open jaws of death If we go hence.

PRINCE WILLIAM.

Better to fall beneath The hand of G.o.d, than be cut off by man.

SUSSKIND.

We are trapped, the springe is set. Not ignorantly I offered counsel in the Synagogue, Quelled panic with authoritative calm, But knowing, having weighed the opposing risks.

Our friends in Strasburg have been overmastered, The imperial voice is drowned, the papal arm Drops paralyzed--both, lifted for the truth; We can but front with brave eyes, brow erect, As is our wont, the fullness of our doom.

PRINCE WILLIAM.

Then Meissen's sword champions your desperate cause.

I take my stand here where my heart is fixed.

I love your daughter--if her love consent, I pray you, give me her to wife.

LIEBHAID.

Ah!

SUSSKIND.

Prince, Let not this Saxon skin, this hair's gold fleece, These Rhine-blue eyes mislead thee--she is alien.

To the heart's core a Jewess--prop of my house, Soul of my soul--and I? a despised Jew.