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Page 80
'A great gathering of Barons (to most of whom we had lent money) came to
Bury, and there, after much talk and a thousand runnings-about, they
made a roll of the New Laws that they would force on the King. If he
swore to keep those Laws, they would allow him a little money. That was
the King's God--Money--to waste. They showed us the roll of the New
Laws. Why not? We had lent them money. We knew all their counsels--we
Jews shivering behind our doors in Bury.' He threw out his hands
suddenly. 'We did not seek to be paid _all_ in money. We sought
Power--Power--Power! That is _our_ God in our captivity. Power to use!
'I said to Elias: "These New Laws are good. Lend no more money to the
King: so long as he has money he will lie and slay the people."
'"Nay," said Elias. "I know this people. They are madly cruel. Better
one King than a thousand butchers. I have lent a little money to the
Barons, or they would torture us, but my most I will lend to the King.
He hath promised me a place near him at Court, where my wife and I shall
be safe."
'"But if the King be made to keep these New Laws," I said, "the land
will have peace, and our trade will grow. If we lend he will fight
again."
'"Who made thee a Lawgiver in England?" said Elias. "I know this people.
Let the dogs tear one another! I will lend the King ten thousand pieces
of gold, and he can fight the Barons at his pleasure."
'"There are not two thousand pieces of gold in all England this summer,"
I said, for I kept the accounts, and I knew how the earth's gold
moved--that wonderful underground river. Elias barred home the windows,
and, his hands about his mouth, he told me how, when he was trading with
small wares in a French ship, he had come to the Castle of Pevensey.'
'Oh!' said Dan. 'Pevensey again!' and looked at Una, who nodded and
skipped.
'There, after they had scattered his pack up and down the Great Hall,
some young knights carried him to an upper room, and dropped him into a
well in a wall, that rose and fell with the tide. They called him
Joseph, and threw torches at his wet head. Why not?'
'Why, of course!' cried Dan. 'Didn't you know it was----' Puck held up
his hand to stop him, and Kadmiel, who never noticed, went on.
'When the tide dropped he thought he stood on old armour, but feeling
with his toes, he raked up bar on bar of soft gold. Some wicked treasure
of the old days put away, and the secret cut off by the sword. I have
heard the like before.'
'So have we,' Una whispered. 'But it wasn't wicked a bit.'
'Elias took a little of the stuff with him, and thrice yearly he would
return to Pevensey as a chapman, selling at no price or profit, till
they suffered him to sleep in the empty room, where he would plumb and
grope, and steal away a few bars. The great store of it still remained,
and by long brooding he had come to look on it as his own. Yet when we
thought how we should lift and convey it, we saw no way. This was before
the Word of the Lord had come to me. A walled fortress possessed by
Normans; in the midst a forty-foot tide-well out of which to remove
secretly many horse-loads of gold! Hopeless! So Elias wept. Adah, his
wife, wept too. She had hoped to stand beside the Queen's Christian
tiring-maids at Court when the King should give them that place at Court
which he had promised. Why not? She was born in England--an odious
woman.
'The present evil to us was that Elias, out of his strong folly, had, as
it were, promised the King that he would arm him with more gold.
Wherefore the King in his camp stopped his ears against the Barons and
the people. Wherefore men died daily. Adah so desired her place at
Court, she besought Elias to tell the King where the treasure lay, that
the King might take it by force, and--they would trust in his gratitude.
Why not? This Elias refused to do, for he looked on the gold as his own.
They quarrelled, and they wept at the evening meal, and late in the
night came one Langton--a priest, almost learned--to borrow more money
for the Barons. Elias and Adah went to their chamber.'
Kadmiel laughed scornfully in his beard. The shots across the valley
stopped as the shooting party changed their ground for the last beat.
'So it was I, not Elias,' he went on quietly, 'that made terms with
Langton touching the fortieth of the New Laws.'
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