“It is impossible, impossible, impossible!” cried Orion, jumping up from
his writing-table. He thought of what he had done as a misfortune, and
not as a crime; he himself hardly knew how it had all come about. Yes,
there must be demons, evil, spiteful demons--and it was they who had led
him to so mad a deed.
Yesterday evening, after the buying of the hanging, he had yielded to
his mother’s request that he should escort the widow Susannah home. At
her house he had met her husband’s brother, a jovial old fellow named
Chrysippus; and when the conversation turned on the tapestry, and the
Mukaukas’ purpose of dedicating this work of art with all the gems
worked into it, to the Church, the old man had clasped his hands, fully
sharing Orion’s disapproval, and had exclaimed laughing “What, you
the son, and is not even a part of the precious stones to fall to your
share? Why Katharina? Just a little diamond, a tiny opal might well
add to the earthly happiness of the young, though the old must lay up
treasure in heaven.--Do not be a fool! The Church’s maw is full enough,
and really a mouthful is your due.”
And then they drank a good deal of fine wine, till at last the older man
had accompanied Orion home, to stretch his limbs in the cool night air.
A litter was carried behind him for him to return in, and all the way
he had continued to persuade the youth to induce his father not to fling
the whole treasure into the jaws of the Church, but to spare him a few
stones at least for a more pleasing use. They had laughed over it a good
deal, and Orion in his heart had thought Chrysippus very right, and
had remembered Heliodora, and her love of large, handsome gems, and the
keepsake he owed her. But that neither his father nor his mother would
remove a single stone, and that the whole hanging would be dedicated,
was beyond a doubt; at the same time, some of this superfluous splendor
was in fact his due as their son, and a prettier gift to Heliodora than
the large emerald could not be imagined. Yes--and she should have it!
How delighted she would be! He even thought of the chief idea for the
verses to accompany the gift.
He had the key of the tablinum, in which the work was lying, about his
person; and when, on his return, he found the servants still sitting
round the fire, he shut the door of the out-buildings while a feeling
came over him which he remembered having experienced last on occasions
when he and his brothers had robbed a forbidden fruit-tree. He was
on the point of giving up his mad project; and when, in the tablinum
itself, a horrible inward tremor again came over him he had actually
turned to retreat--but he remembered old Chrysippus and his prompts.
To turn and fly now would be cowardice. Heliodora must have the large
emerald, and with his verses; his father might give away all the rest as
he pleased. When he was kneeling in front of the work with his knife in
his hand, that sickening terror had come over him for the third time; if
the large emerald had not come off into his hand at the first effort he
would certainly have rolled the bale up again and have left the tablinum
clean-handed. But the evil demon had been at his elbow, had thrust
the gem into his hand, as it were, so that two cuts with the knife had
sufficed to displace it from its setting. It rolled into his hand and he
felt its noble weight; he cast aside all care, and had thought no more
with anything but pleasure of this splendid trick, which he would relate
to-morrow to old Chrysippus--of course under seal of secrecy.
But now, in the sober light of day, how different did this mad, rash
deed appear; how heavily had he already been punished; what consequences
might it not entail? His hatred of Paula grew every minute: she had
certainly seen all that had happened and would not hesitate to betray
him--that she had shown last night. War, as it were, was declared
between them, and he vowed to himself, with fire in his eyes, that he
would not shirk it! At the same time he could not deny that she had
never looked handsomer than when she stood, with hair half undone,
confronting him--threatening him. “It is to be love or hate between
us.” he muttered to himself. “No half-measures: and she has chosen hate!
Good! Hitherto I have only had to fight against men; but this bold,
hard, and scornful maiden, who rejects every gentle feeling, is no
despicable foe. She has me at bay. If she does her worst by me I will
return it in kind!--And who is the owner of the shoes? I have taken all
possible means to find him. Shameful, shameful! that I cannot hold up
my head to look boldly at my own face in the glass. Heliodora is a sweet
creature, an angel of kindness. She loved me truly; but this--this--Ah;
even for her, this is too great a sacrifice!”
He pressed his hand to his brow and flung himself on a divan. He might
well be weary, for he had not closed his eyes for more than thirty hours
and had already done much business that morning. He had given orders to
Sebek the house-steward and to the captain of the Egyptian guard to hunt
out the owner of the sandals by the aid of the dogs, and to cast him
into prison; next he had of his own accord--since his father generally
did not fall asleep till the morning and had not yet left his
room--tried to pacify the Arab merchant with regard to the mishap that
had befallen his head man under the governor’s roof; but with small
success.
Finally the young man had indulged his desire to compose a few lines
addressed to the fair Heliodora--for there was no form of physical or
mental effort to which he was not trained. He had not lost the idea that
had occurred to him yesterday before his theft in the tablinum, and
to put it into verse was in his present mood an easy task. He wrote as
follows:
“‘Like liketh like’ saith the saw; and like to like is but fitting.
Yet, in the hardest of gems thy soft nature rejoices?
Nay, but if noble and rare, if its beauty is priceless,
Then, Heliodora, the stone is like thee--akin to thy beauty.
Thus let this emerald please thee;--and know that the fire
That fills it with light burns more fierce in the heart of thy
Friend.”
He penned the lines rapidly; and as he did so he felt, he knew not why,
an excited thrill, as though every word he threw off was a blow aimed
at Paula. Last night he had intended to send the costly jewel to
the handsome widow in a suitable setting; but now it would be madly
imprudent to order such a thing. He must send it away at once; he had
hastened to pack it up with the verses, with his own hand, and entrusted
it to Chusar, a horsedealer’s groom from Constantinople, who had
brought his Pannonian steeds to Memphis. He had himself seen off this
trustworthy messenger, who could speak no Egyptian and very little
Greek, and when his horse was lost to sight in the dust of the road
leading to Alexandria he had returned home in a calmer mood. Ships were
constantly putting to sea from that port for Constantinople, and Chusar
was enjoined to sail by the first that should be leaving. At least the
odious deed should not have been committed in vain; and yet he would
have given a year of his life if now he could but know that it had never
been done.
“Impossible!” and “Curse it!” were the words he had most frequently
repeated in the course of his retrospect during the past night and
morning. How he had had to rush and hurry under the broiling sun! and
the sense of being compelled to do so for mere concealment’s sake seemed
to him--who had never in his life before done anything that he could not
justify in the eyes of honest men--so humiliating, that it brought the
sweat to his burning brow. He--Orion--to dread discovery as a thief! It
was inconceivable, and he was afraid, positively afraid for the first
time since his boyhood. His fortunate star, which in the Capital
had shone on him so brightly and benevolently, seemed to have proved
faithless in this ruinous hole! What had that Persian girl taken into
her crazy head that she must rush upon him like some furious beast
of prey? He had been bound to her once, no doubt, by a transient
passion--and what youth of his age was blind to the charms of a pretty
slave-girl? She had been a lovely child, and it was a vexation, nay a
grief to him, that she should have been so shamefully punished. If she
should recover, and he could have prayed that she might, it would of
course be his part to provide for her--of course. To be just, he could
not but confess that she indeed had good reason to hate him: but Paula?
He had shown her nothing but kindness and yet how unhesitatingly, how
openly she had displayed her enmity. He could see her now with the
name “murderer” on her quivering lips; the word had stung him like a
lance-thrust. What a hideous, degrading and unjust accusation lay in
that exclamation! Should he submit to it unrevenged?
Was she as innocent as she was haughty and cold? What was she doing in
the viridarium at midnight?--For she must have been there before that
ill-starred dog flew at Mandane. An assignation with the owner of the
shoes his mother had found was out of the question, for they belonged to
some man about the stables. Love, thought he, for a wonder had nothing
to do with it; but as he came in he had noticed a man crossing the
court-yard who looked like Paula’s freedman, Hiram the trainer. Probably
she had arranged a meeting with her stammering friend in order--in
order?--Well, there was but one thing that seemed likely: She
was plotting to fly from his parents’ house and needed this man’s
assistance.
He had seen within a few hours of his return that his mother did not
make life sweet to the girl, and yet his father had very possibly
opposed her wish to seek another home. But why should she avoid and hate
him? In that expedition on the river and on their way home he could have
sworn that she loved him, and the remembrance of those hours brought her
near to him again, and wiped out his schemes of vengeance against her,
of punishment to be visited on her. Then he thought of little Katharina
whom his mother intended him to marry, and at the thought he laughed
softly to himself. In the Imperial gardens at Constantinople he had once
seen a strange Indian bird, with a tiny body and head and an immensely
long tail, shining like silver and mother of pearl. This was Katharina!
She herself a mere nothing; but then her tail! vast estates and immense
sums of money; and this--this was all his mother saw. But did he need
more than he had? How rich his father must be to spend so large a sum on
an offering to the Church as heedlessly as men give alms to a beggar.
Katharina--and Paula!
Yes, the little girl was a bright, brisk creature; but then Thomas’
daughter--what power there was in her eye, what majesty in her gait,
how--how--how enchanting her--her voice could be--her voice....
He was asleep, worn out by heat and fatigue; and in a dream he saw Paula
lying on a couch strewn with roses while all about her sounded wonderful
heart-ensnaring music; and the couch was not solid but blue water,
gently moving: he went towards her and suddenly a large black
eagle swooped down on him, flapped his wings in his face and when,
half-blinded, he put his hand to his eyes the bird pecked the roses as a
hen picks millet and barley. Then he was angry, rushed at the eagle, and
tried to clutch him with his hands; but his feet seemed rooted to the
ground, and the more he struggled to move freely the more firmly he was
dragged backwards. He fought like a madman against the hindering force,
and suddenly it released him. He was still under this impression when
he woke, streaming with perspiration, and opened his eyes. By his couch
stood his mother who had laid her hand on his feet to rouse him.
She looked pale and anxious and begged him to come quickly to his father
who was much disturbed, and wished to speak with him. Then she hurried
away.
While he hastily arranged his hair and had his shoes clasped he felt
vexed that, under the influence of that foolish dream, and still
half asleep, he had let his mother go before ascertaining what the
circumstances were that had given rise to his father’s anxiety. Had it
anything to do with the incidents of the past night? No.--If he had been
suspected his mother would have told him and warned him. It must refer
to something else. Perhaps the old merchant’s stalwart headman had died
of his wounds, and his father wished to send him--Orion--across the Nile
to the Arab viceroy to obtain forgiveness for the murder of a Moslem,
actually within the precincts of the governor’s house. This fatal blow
might indeed entail serious consequences; however, the matter might very
likely be quite other than this.
When he left his room the brooding heat that filled the house struck
him as peculiarly oppressive, and a painful feeling, closely resembling
shame, stole over him as he crossed the viridarium, and glanced at the
grass from which--thanks to Paula’s ill-meant warning--he had carefully
brushed away his foot-marks before daybreak. How cowardly, how base,
it all was The best of all in life: honor, self-respect, the proud
consciousness of being an honest man--all staked and all lost for
nothing at all! He could have slapped his own face or cried aloud like
a child that has broken its most treasured toy. But of what use was all
this? What was done could not be undone; and now he must keep his wits
about him so as to remain, in the eyes of others at least, what he had
always been, low as he had fallen in his own.
It was scorchingly hot in the enclosed garden-plot, surrounded by
buildings, and open to the sun; not a human creature was in sight;
the house seemed dead. The gaudy flag-staffs and trellis-work, and the
pillars of the verandah, which had all been newly painted in honor of
his return and were still wreathed with garlands, exhaled a smell, to
him quite sickening, of melting resin, drying varnish and faded flowers.
Though there was no breath of air the atmosphere quivered, as it seemed
from the fierce rays of the sun, which were reflected like arrows from
everything around him. The butterflies and dragonflies appeared to Orion
to move their wings more languidly as they hovered over the plants and
flowers, the very fountain danced up more lazily and not so high as
usual: everything about him was hot, sweltering, oppressive; and the man
who had always been so independent and looked up to, who for years had
been free to career through life uncontrolled, and guarded by every good
Genius now felt trammelled, hemmed in and harassed.
In his father’s cool fountain-room he could breathe more freely; but
only for a moment. The blood faded from his cheeks, and he had to make a
strong effort to greet his father calmly and in his usual manner; for in
front of the divan where the governor commonly reclined, lay the Persian
hanging, and close by stood his mother and the Arab merchant. Sebek, the
steward awaited his master’s orders, in the background in the attitude
of humility which was torture to his old back, but in which he was never
required to remain: Orion now signed to him to stand up:
The Arab’s mild features wore a look of extreme gravity, and deep
vexation could be read in his kindly eyes. As the young man entered he
bowed slightly; they had already met that morning. The Mukaukas, who was
lying deathly pale with colorless lips, scarcely opened his eyes at his
son’s greeting. It might have been thought that a bier was waiting in
the next room and that the mourners had assembled here.
The piece of work was only half unrolled, but Orion at once saw the spot
whence its crowning glory was now missing--the large emerald which, as
he alone could know, was on its way to Constantinople. His theft had
been discovered. How fearful, how fatal might the issue be!
“Courage, courage!” he said to himself. “Only preserve your presence
of mind. What profit is life with loss of honor? Keep your eyes open;
everything depends on that, Orion!”
He succeeded in hastily collecting his thoughts, and exclaimed in a
voice which lacked little of its usual eager cheerfulness:
“How dismal you all look! It is indeed a terrible disaster that the dog
should have handled the poor girl so roughly, and that our people should
have behaved so outrageously; but, as I told you this morning, worthy
Merchant, the guilty parties shall pay for it with their lives. My
father, I am sure, will agree that you should deal with them according
to your pleasure, and our leech Philippus, in spite of his youth, is
a perfect Hippocrates I can assure you! He will patch up the fine
fellow--your head-man I mean, and as to any question of compensation, my
father--well, you know he is no haggler.”
“I beg you not to add insult to the injury that I have suffered under
your roof,” interrupted Haschim. “No amount of money can buy off my
wrath over the spilt blood of a friend--and Rustem was my friend--a free
and valiant youth. As to the punishment of the guilty: on that I insist.
Blood cries for blood. That is our creed; and though yours, to be sure,
enjoins the contrary, so far as I know you act by the same rule as we.
All honor to your physician; but it goes to my heart, and raises my
gall to see such things take place in the house of the man to whom
the Khaliff has confided the weal or woe of Egyptian Christians. Your
boasted tolerance has led to the death of an honest though humble man
in a time of perfect peace--or at least maimed him for life. As to your
honesty, it would seem...”
“Who dares impugn it?” cried Orion.
“I, young man,” replied the merchant with the calm dignity of age.
“I, who sold this piece of work last evening, and find it this morning
robbed of its most precious ornament.”
“The great emerald has been cut from the hanging during the night.” Dame
Neforis explained. “You yourself went with the man who carried it to the
tablinum and saw it laid there.”
“And in the very cloth in which your people had wrapped it,” added
Orion. “Our good old Sebek there was with me. Who fetched away the bale
this morning; who brought it here and opened it?”
“Happily for us,” said the Arab, “it was your lady mother herself, with
that man--your steward if I mistake not--and your own slaves.”
“Why was it not left where it was?” asked Orion, giving vent to the
annoyance which at this moment he really felt.
“Because I had assured your father, and with good reason, that the
beauty of this splendid work and of the gems that decorate it show to
much greater advantage by daylight and in the sunshine than under the
lamps and torches.”
“And besides, your father wished to see his new purchase once more,”
Neforis broke in, “and to ask the merchant how the gems might be removed
without injury to the work itself. So I went to the tablinum myself with
Sebek.”
“But I had the key!” cried Orion putting his hand into the breast of his
robe.
“That I had forgotten,” replied his mother. “But unfortunately we did
not need it. The tablinum was open.”
“I locked it yesterday; you saw me do it, Sebek...”
“So I told the mistress,” replied the steward. “I perfectly recollect
hearing the snap of the strong lock.”
Orion shrugged his shoulders, and his mother went on:
“But the bronze doors must have been opened during the night with a
false key, or by some other means; for part of the hanging had been
pulled out of the wrapper, and when we looked closely we saw that the
large emerald had been wrenched out of the setting.”
“Shameful!” exclaimed Orion.
“Disgraceful!” added the governor, vehemently starting up. He had
fallen a prey to fearful unrest and horror: he thought that his Lord and
Saviour, to whom he had dedicated the precious jewel, regarded him as so
sinful and worthless that He would not accept the gift at his hands. But
perhaps it was only Satan striving to hinder him from approaching the
Most High with so noble an offering. At any rate, human cunning had been
at work, so he said with stern resolution:
“The matter shall be enquired into, and in the name of Jesus Christ,
to whom the stone already belongs, I will never rest nor cease till the
criminal is in my hands.”
“And in the name of Allah and the Prophet,” added the Arab, “I will
aid thee, if I have to appeal for help to the great chief Amru, the
Khaliff’s representative in this country.--A word was spoken here just
now that I cannot and will not forget. And the tone you have chosen to
adopt, young man, seems to spring from the same fount: the old fox, you
think, put a false gem of impossible size into the hanging, and has had
it stolen that his fraud may not be detected when a jeweller examines
the work by daylight. This is too much! I am an honest man, Sirs, and I
am fain to add a rich one; and the man who tries to cast a stain on the
character I have borne through a long life shall learn, to his ruing,
that old Haschim has greater and more powerful friends to back him than
you may care to meet!”
As he uttered this threat the merchant’s eyes glistened through tears;
it grieved him to be unjustly suspected and to be forced to express
himself so hardly to the Mukaukas for whom he felt both reverence and
pity. It was clear from the tone of his speech that he was in fact a
determined and a powerful personage, and Orion interrupted him with the
eager enquiry: “Who has dared to think so basely of you?”
“Your own mother, I regret to say,” replied the Moslem sadly, with an
oriental shrug of distress and annoyance--his shoulders up to his ears.
“Forget it, I beg of you,” said the governor. “God knows women have
softer hearts than men, and yet they more readily incline to think evil
of their fellow-creatures, and particularly of the enemies of their
faith. On the other hand they are more sensitive to kindness. A woman’s
hair is long and her wits short, says the saw.”
“You have plenty to say against us women!” retorted Neforis. “But
scold away--scold if it is a comfort to you!” But she added, while she
affectionately turned her husband’s pillows and gave him another of
his white pillules: “I will submit to the worst to-day for I am in the
wrong. I have already asked your pardon, worthy Haschim, and I do so
again, with all my heart.”
As she spoke, she went up to the Arab and held out her hand; he took it,
but lightly, however, and quickly released it, saying:
“I do not find it hard to forgive. But I find it impossible, here or
anywhere, to let so much as a grain of dust rest on my bright good name.
I shall follow up this affair, turning neither to the right hand nor to
the left.--And now, one question: Is the dog that guarded the tablinum a
watchful, savage beast?”
“How savage he is he unfortunately proved on the person of the poor
Persian slave; and his watchfulness is known to all the household,”
cried Orion.
“But I would beg you, worthy merchant,” said Neforis, “and in the name
of all present, to give us the help of your experience. I myself--wait a
little wait: in spite of her long hair and her short wits a woman often
has a happy idea. I, probably, was the first to come on the robber’s
track. It is clear that he must belong to the household since the dog
did not attack him. Paula, who was so wonderfully quick in coming to the
rescue of the Persian, is of course not to be thought of...”
Here her husband interrupted her with an angry exclamation: “Leave the
girl quite out of the question wife!”
“As if I supposed her to be the thief!” retorted Neforis indignantly,
and she shrugged her shoulders as Orion, in mild reproach, also cried:
“Mother! consider...” and the merchant asked:
“Do you mean the young girl from whom I had to take such hard words last
night?--Well, then, I will stake my whole fortune on her innocence. That
beautiful, passionate creature is incapable of any underhand dealings.”
“Passionate!” Neforis smiled. “Her heart is as cold and as hard as the
lost emerald; we have proved that by experience.”
“Nevertheless,” said Orion, “she is incapable of baseness.”
“How zealous men can be for a pair of fine eyes!” interrupted his
mother. “But I have not the most remote suspicion of her; I have
something quite different in my mind. A pair of man’s shoes were found
lying by the wounded girl. Did you do what my lord Orion ordered,
Sebek?”
“At once, Mistress,” replied the steward, “and I have been expecting the
captain of the watch for some time; for Psamtik....”
But here he was interrupted: the officer in question, who for more than
twenty years had commanded the Mukaukas’ guard of honor, was shown
into the room; after answering a few preliminary enquiries he began his
report in a voice so loud that it hurt the governor, and his wife was
obliged to request the soldier to speak more gently.
The bloodhounds and terriers had been let out after being allowed to
smell at the shoes, and a couple of them had soon found their way to the
side-door where Hiram had waited for Paula. There they paused, sniffing
about on all sides, and had then jumped up a few steps.
“And those stairs lead to Paula’s room,” observed Neforis with a shrug.
“But they were on a false scent,” the officer eagerly added. “The
little toads might have thrown suspicion on an innocent person. The
curs immediately after rushed into the stables, and ran up and down like
Satan after a lost soul. The pack had soon pulled down the boy--the son
of the freedman who came here from Damascus with the daughter of the
great Thomas--and they went quite mad in his father’s room: Heaven and
earth! what a howling and barking and yelping. They poked their noses
into every old rag, and now we knew where the hole in the wine-skin
was.--I am sorry for the man. He stammered horribly, but as a trainer,
and in all that has to do with horses, all honor to him!--The shoes are
Hiram’s as surely as my eyes are in my head; but we have not caught him
yet. He is across the river, for a boat is missing and where it had been
lying the dogs began again. Unless the unbelievers over there give him
shelter we are certain to have him.”
“Then we know who is the criminal!” cried Orion, with a sigh as deep as
though some great burden were lifted from his soul. Then he went on in a
commanding tone--and his voice rang so fiercely that the color which had
mounted to his cheeks could hardly be due to satisfaction at this last
good news....
“As it is not yet two hours after noon, send all your men out to search
for him and deliver him up. My father will give you a warrant, and the
Arabs on the other shore will assist you. Perhaps the thief may fall
into our hands even sooner and with him the emerald, unless the rogue
has succeeded in hiding it or selling it.” Then his voice sank, and he
added in a tone of regret. “It is a pity as concerns the man, we had
not one in our stables who knew more about horses! Fresh proof of your
maxim, mother: if you want to be well served you must buy rascals!”
“Strictly speaking,” said Neforis meditatively, “Hiram is not one of our
people. He was a freedman of Thomas’ and came here with his daughter.
Every one speaks highly of his skill in the stable; but for this robbery
we might have kept him for the rest of his life still, if the girl had
ever taken it into her head to leave us and to take him with her, we
could not have detained him.--You may say what you will, and abuse me
and mock me; I have none of what you call imagination; I see things
simply as they are: but there must be some understanding between that
girl and the thief.”
“You are not to say another word of such monstrous nonsense!” exclaimed
her husband; and he would have said more, but that at that moment the
groom of the chambers announced that Gamaliel, the Jewish goldsmith,
begged an audience. The man had come to give information with regard to
the fate of the lost emerald.
At this statement Orion changed color, and he turned away from the
merchant as the slave admitted the same Israelite who had been sitting
over the fire with the head-servants. He at once plunged into his story,
telling it in his peculiar light-hearted style. He was so rich that the
loss he might suffer did not trouble him enough to spoil his good-humor,
and so honest that it was a pleasure to him to restore the stolen
property to its rightful owner. Early that morning, so he told them,
Hiram the groom had been to him to offer him a wonderfully large and
splendid emerald for sale. The freedman had assured him that the stone
was part of the property left by the famous Thomas, his former master.
It had decorated the head-stall of the horse which the hero of Damascus
had last ridden, and it had come to him with the steed.
“I offered him what I thought fair,” the Jew went on, “and paid him two
thousand drachmae on account; the remainder he begged me to take charge
of for the present. To this I agreed, but ere long a fly began to hum
suspicion in my ear. Then the police rushed through the town with the
bloodhounds. Good Heavens, what a barking! The creatures yelped as if
they would bark my poor house down, like the trumpets round the walls of
Jericho--you know. ‘What is the matter now,’ I asked of the dog-keepers,
and behold! my suspicions about the emerald were justified; so here, my
lord Governor, I have brought you the stone, and as every suckling
in Memphis hears from its nurse--unless it is deaf--what a just man
Mukaukas George is, you will no doubt make good to me what I advanced
to that stammering scoundrel. And you will have the best of the bargain,
noble Sir; for I make no demand for interest or even maintenance for the
two hours during which it was mine.”
“Give me the stone!” interrupted the Arab, who was annoyed by the Jew’s
jesting tone; he snatched the emerald from him, weighed it in his hand,
put it close to his eyes, held it far off, tapped it with a small hammer
that he took out of his breast-pocket, slipped it into its place in the
work, examining it keenly, suspiciously, and at last with satisfaction.
During all this, Orion had more than once turned pale, and the sweat
broke out on his handsome, pale face. Had a miracle been wrought here?
How could this gem, which was surely on its way to Alexandria, have
found its way into the Jew’s hands? Or could Chusar have opened the
little packet and have sold the emerald to Hiram, and through him to
the jeweller? He must get to the bottom of it, and while the Arab
was examining the gem he went up to Gamaliel and asked him: “Are you
positively certain--it is a matter of freedom or the dungeon--certain
that you had this stone from Hiram the Syrian and from no one else? I
mean, is the man so well-known to you that no mistake is possible?”
“God preserve us!” exclaimed the Jew drawing back a step from Orion, who
was gazing at him with a sinister light in his eyes. “How can my lord
doubt it? Your respected father has known me these thirty years, and do
you suppose that I--I do not know the Syrian? Why, who in Memphis can
stammer to compare with him? And has he not killed half my children
with your wild young horses?--Half killed every one of my children I
mean--half killed them, I say, with fright. They are all still alive and
well, God preserve them, but none the better for your horsebreaker; for
fresh air is good for children and my little Rebecca would stop indoors
till he was at home again for fear of his terrifying pranks.”
“Well, well!” Orion broke in. “And at what hour did he bring you the
emerald for sale? Exactly. Now, recollect: when was it? You surely must
remember.”
“Adonai! How should I?” said the Jew. “But wait, Sir, perhaps I may be
able to tell you. In this hot weather we are up before sunrise; then we
said our prayers and had our morning broth; then....”
“Senseless chatter!” urged Orion. But Gamaliel went on without allowing
himself to be checked. “Then little Ruth jumped into my lap to pull out
the white hairs that will grow under my nose and, just as the child was
doing it and I cried out: ‘Oh, you hurt me!’ the sun fell upon the earth
bank on which I was sitting.”
“And at what time does it reach the bank?” cried the young man.
“Exactly two hours after sunrise,” replied the Jew, “at this time of
year. Do me the honor of a visit tomorrow morning; you will not regret
it, for I can show you some beautiful, exquisite things--and you can
watch the shadow yourself.”
“Two hours after sunrise,” murmured Orion to himself, and then with
fresh qualms he reflected that it was fully four hours later when he
had given the packet to Chusar. It was impossible to doubt the Jew’s
statement. The man was rich, honest and content: he did not lie. The
jewel Orion had sent away and that purchased from Hiram could not in any
case be identical. But how could all this be explained? It was enough
to turn his brain. And not to dare to speak when mere silence was
falsehood--falsehood to his father and mother!--If only the hapless
stammerer might escape! If he were caught; then--then merciful Heaven!
But no; it was not to be thought of.--On, then, on; and if it came to
the worst the honor of a hundred stablemen could not outweigh that of
one Orion; horrible as it was, the man must be sacrificed. He would see
that his life was spared and that he was soon set at liberty!
The Arab meanwhile had concluded his examination; still he was not
perfectly satisfied. Orion longed to interpose; for if the merchant
expressed no doubts and acknowledged the recovered gem to be the stolen
one, much would be gained; so he turned to him again and said: “May I
ask you to show me the emerald once more? It is quite impossible, do you
think, that a second should be found to match it?”
“That is too much to assert,” said the Arab gravely. “This stone
resembles that on the hanging to a hair; and yet it has a little
inequality which I do not remember noticing on it. It is true I had
never seen it out of the setting, and this little boss may have been
turned towards the stuff, and yet, and yet.--Tell me, goldsmith, did the
thief give you the emerald bare--unset?”
“As bare as Adam and Eve before they ate the apple,” said the Jew.
“That is a pity--a great pity!--And still I fancy that the stone in
the work was a trifle longer. In such a case it is almost folly and
perversity to doubt, and yet I feel--and yet I ask myself: Is this
really the stone that formed that bud?”
“But Heaven bless us!” cried Orion, “the twin of such an unique gem
would surely not drop from the skies and at the same moment into one and
the same house. Let us be glad that the lost sheep has come back to us.
Now, I will lock it into this iron casket, Father, and as soon as the
robber is caught you send for me: do you understand, Psamtik?” He nodded
to his parents, offered his hand to the Arab, and that in a way which
could not fail to satisfy any one, so that even the old man was won
over; and then he left the room.
The merchant’s honor was saved; still his conscientious soul was
disturbed by a doubt that he could not away with. He was about to take
leave but the Mukaukas was so buried in pillows, and kept his eyes
so closely shut, that no one could detect whether he were sleeping
or waking; so the Arab, not wishing to disturb him, withdrew without
speaking.