portion of the ruins most attentively, but without success, for she had learned to be as wily as a fox, and had carefully secured the aperture, through which even her delicate form passed with difficulty. It would have touched a heart, retaining any degree of feeling, to see that young and beautiful woman within that damp and noisome excavation--so damp that cold and slimy reptiles clung to, and crept over, its floor and walls, while the blind worm nestled in the old apertures formed to admit a little air; and the foul toad, and still more disgusting eft, looked upon her, as they would say, "Thou art our sister." "And here," thought she, "must the only child of Manasseh Ben Israel array herself, to meet the gaze of the proud beauty who would not deign to notice the letter or the supplication of the despised Jewess; to meet the gaze of the cold stern English, and of the cruel man who points the finger of scorn against her he has destroyed. Yet I seek but justice, but to be acknowledged as his wife, in the open day and before an assembled people, and then he shall hear and see no more of the Rabbi's daughter! I will hide myself from the world, and look upon all mankind as I do upon him--with a bitter hatred!--Yet I was not always thus," she continued, as she clasped a jewel on her arm: "The bracelet is too wide for the shrunk flesh! Out, out upon thee, bauble! O that I could thus--and thus--and thus--trample into this black and slimy earth, every vestige of what I was, and have no more the power to think of what I am! Is this the happiness I looked for? Are these the feelings of my girlhood? My heart seems cold within me, cold to every thought but vengeance! Even the burden I carry--it is part of him, and with the groans that come in woman's travail I will mingle curses, deep and blasting, on its head. O that I could cast it from me! And yet--and yet it will be my own child!" And the feelings of the mother triumphed; for, at that thought, the Jewess wept, and tears are as balm to an overwrought mind, at once a relief and a consolation. Zillah wept, and was humanised. After a little time, she arrayed herself in befitting garments, but placed pistols within her bosom. Long before the appointed hour, and despite the watchfulness of Sir Willmott's spies, she was secreted near the ruined chapel adjoining Cecil Place. CHAPTER XIII. Hither, th' oppressed shall henceforth resort, Justice to crave and succour at your court, And then your Highness, not for ours alone, But for the world's Protector shall be known. WALLER _to the Protector_. It was past midnight when Manasseh Ben Israel, accompanied by Robin Hays, as his own servant, and disguised as we have seen him, arrived at Hampton Court. The night was murky, and the numerous turrets of the great monument of Wolsey's grandeur and ambition were seen but dimly through the thickened air, although looked upon with feelings of no ordinary interest by both Jew and servitor.