[Illustration: "MY SON, BE OF GOOD CHEER!" (_A Torture by Hope._)] _A Torture by Hope._ FROM THE FRENCH OF VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM. [COUNT VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM, who lives at Paris, where he edits the _Revue des Lettres et des Arts_, is one of several living French writers who have made a special study of short stories. He is a highly original writer, and, although as yet quite unknown to English readers, an extremely powerful one. Many of his stories are such as could have been written by no one but himself; but probably he approaches more nearly to Edgar Allan Poe than to any other English author.] Below the vaults of the _Official_ of Saragossa one nightfall long ago, the venerable Pedro Arbuez d'Espila, sixth Prior of the Dominicans of Segovia, third Grand Inquisitor of Spain--followed by a _fra redemptor_ (master-torturer), and preceded by two familiars of the Holy Office holding lanterns--descended towards a secret dungeon. The lock of a massive door creaked; they entered a stifling _in pace_, where the little light that came from above revealed an instrument of torture blackened with blood, a chafing-dish, and a pitcher. Fastened to the wall by heavy iron rings, on a mass of filthy straw, secured by fetters, an iron circlet about his neck, sat a man in rags: it was impossible to guess at his age. This prisoner was no other than Rabbi Aser Abarbanel, a Jew of Aragon, who, on an accusation of usury and pitiless contempt of the poor, had for more than a year undergone daily torture. In spite of all, "his blind obstinacy being as tough as his skin," he had refused to abjure. Proud of his descent and his ancestors--for all Jews worthy of the name are jealous of their race--he was descended, according to the Talmud, from Othoniel, and consequently from Ipsiboe, wife of this last Judge of Israel, a circumstance which had sustained his courage under the severest of the incessant tortures. It was, then, with tears in his eyes at the thought that so stedfast a soul was excluded from salvation, that the venerable Pedro Arbuez d'Espila, approaching the quivering Rabbi, pronounced the following words:--