The wondrous tale of Alroy Author:Benjamin Disraeli Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART III. It was midnight. Alroy slept upon the couch : his sleep was troubled. Jabaster stood by his side motionless, and gazing intently upon his slumbering... more » guest. " The only hope of Israel," murmured the ca- balist, " my pupil and my prince ! I have long perceived in his young mind the seed of mighty deeds, and o'er his future life have often mused with a prophetic hope. The blood of David, the acred offspring of a solemn race. There is a magic in his flowing veins my science cannot reach. " When in my youth I raised our standard by oy native Tigris, and called our nation to restore their ark) why we were numerous, wealthy, potent ; we were a people then, and they flocked to it boldly. Did we lack counsel ? did we need a leader ? Who can aver Jabaster's brain or arm was ever wanting ? And yet the dream dissolved, (ta glorious vision. Oh ! when I struck down Marvan, and the caliph's camp flung its blazing shadow o'er the bloody river—ah ! then indeed I lived. Twenty years of vigil may gain a pardon 'hat I then forgot we lacked the chief ingredient in foe spell,—the blood that sleeps beside me. " I recall the glorious rapture of that sacred strife amid the rocks of Caucasus. A fugitive, a proscribed and outlawed wretch, whose life is common sport, and whom the vilest hind may slay without a bidding. I who would have been Messiah! " Burn thy books Jabaster ; break thy brazen tables ; forget thy lofty science, cabalist, and read the stars no longer(ll). But last night I stood upon the gulf which girds my dwelling : in one hand, I held my sacred talisman, that bears the name ineffable ; in the other, the mystic record of our holy race. I remembered that I had evoked spirits, that I had communed with the great departed, and that the glowing heavens were to me a natural...« less