"I am, indeed," said Rebecca, "sprung from a race whose courage was distinguished in the defence of their own land, but who warred not, even while yet a nation, save at the command of the Deity, or in defending their country from oppression. The sound of the trumpet wakes Judah no longer, and her despised children are now but the unresisting victims of hostile and military oppression. Well hast thou spoken, Sir Knight: until the God of Jacob shall raise up for His chosen people a second Gideon, or a new Maccabeus, it ill beseemeth the Jewish damsel to speak of battle or of war." The high-minded maiden concluded the argument in a tone of sorrow, which deeply expressed her sense of the degradation of her people, imbittered perhaps by the idea that Ivanhoe considered her as one not entitled to interfere in a case of honor, and incapable of entertaining or expressing sentiments of honor and generosity. "How little he knows this bosom," she said, "to imagine that cowardice or meanness of soul must needs be its guests, because I have censured the fantastic chivalry. Would to Heaven that the shedding of mine own blood, drop by drop, could redeem the captivity of Judah! Nay, would to God it could avail to set free my father, and this his benefactor, from the chains of the oppressor. The proud Christian should then see whether the daughter of God's chosen people dared not to die as bravely as the finest Nazarene maiden, that boasts her descent from some petty chieftain of the rude and frozen north!" She then looked toward the couch of the wounded knight. "He sleeps," she said; "nature exhausted by suffrance, and the waste of spirits, his wearied frame embraces the first moment of temporary relaxation to sink into slumber." She wrapped herself closely in her veil, and sat down at a distance from the couch of the wounded knight, with her back turned toward it, fortifying, or endeavoring to fortify, her mind against the impending evils. During the interval of quiet which followed the first success of the besiegers, while the one party was preparing to pursue their advantage and the other to strengthen their means of defence, the Templar and De Bracy held brief counsel together in the hall of the castle. "Where is Front-de-Boeuf?" said the latter, who had superintended the defence of the fortress on the other side; "men say he hath been slain." "He lives," said the Templar, coolly--"Lives as yet; but had he worn the bull's head of which he bears the name, [Footnote: _Front-de-Boeuf_ means _Bull's Head_.] and ten plates of iron to fence it withal, he must have gone down before yonder fatal axe. Yet a few hours, and Front-de- Boeuf is with his fathers--a powerful limb lopped off Prince John's enterprise." [Footnote: Prince John was scheming to usurp the throne of England while King Richard, his brother, was absent on one of the Crusades.]