The unhappy Jew returned a feeble affirmative. "In these very scales shalt thou weigh me out," said the relentless baron, "a thousand silver pounds, after the just measure and weight of the Tower of London." "Holy Abraham!" returned the Jew, finding voice through the very extremity of his danger; "heard man ever such a demand? Who ever heard, even in a minstrel's tale, of such a sum as a thousand pounds of silver? What human eyes were ever blessed with the sight of so great a mass of treasure? Not within the walls of York, ransack my house and that of all my tribe, wilt thou find the [v]tithe of that huge sum of silver that thou speakest of." "I am reasonable," answered Front-de-Boeuf, "and if silver be scant, I refuse not gold. At the rate of a mark of gold for each six pounds of silver, thou shalt free thy unbelieving carcass from such punishment as thy heart has never even conceived in thy wildest imaginings." "Have mercy on me, noble knight!" pleaded Isaac. "I am old, and poor, and helpless. It were unworthy to triumph over me. It is a poor deed to crush a worm." "Old thou mayst be," replied the knight, "and feeble thou mayst be; but rich it is known thou art." "I swear to you, noble knight," said Isaac, "by all which I believe and all which we believe in common--" "Perjure not thyself," interrupted the Norman, "and let not thy obstinacy seal thy doom, until thou hast seen and well considered the fate that awaits thee. This prison is no place for trifling. Prisoners ten thousand times more distinguished than thou have died within these walls, and their fate has never been known. But for thee is reserved a long and lingering death, to which theirs was luxury." He again made a signal for the slaves to approach and spoke to them apart in their own language; for he had been a crusader in Palestine, where, perhaps, he had learned his lesson of cruelty. The Saracens produced from their baskets a quantity of charcoal, a pair of bellows, and a flask of oil. While the one struck a light with a flint and steel, the other disposed the charcoal in the large rusty grate which we have already mentioned and exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red glow. "Seest thou, Isaac," said Front-de-Boeuf, "the range of iron bars above that glowing charcoal? On that warm couch thou shalt lie, stripped of thy clothes as if thou wert to rest on a bed of down. One of these slaves shall maintain the fire beneath thee, while the other shall anoint thy wretched limbs with oil, lest the roast should burn. Now choose betwixt such a scorching bed and the payment of a thousand pounds of silver; for, by the head of my father, thou hast no other [v]option." "It is impossible," exclaimed the miserable Isaac; "it is impossible that your purpose can be real! The good God of nature never made a heart capable of exercising such cruelty!"