ave seen them here, Reuben."

"Here?--do you say here?"

"Reuben, you sold them to me eighteen years ago."

"Sold them to you? Never. I don't remember it. Surely you must be
mistaken. I can never have dealt in things like these."

Reuben had taken the casket in his hands, and was pursing up his lips in
expressions of contempt.

Israel watched him closely. "Give them back to me," he said; "I can go
elsewhere. I have no time for wrangling."

Reuben's lip straightened instantly. "Wrangling? Who is wrangling,
brother? You are too impatient, Sidi."

"I am in haste," said Israel.

"Ah!"

There was an ominous silence, and then in a cold voice Reuben said,
"The things are well enough in their way. What do you wish me to do with
them?"

"To buy them," said Israel.

"_Buy_ them?"

"Yes."

"But I don't want them."

"Are they worth your money?--you don't want that either."

"Umph!"

A gleam of mockery passed over Reuben's face, and he proceeded to
examine the casket. One by one he trifled with the gems--the rich onyx,
the sapphire, the crystal, the coral, the pearl, the ruby, and the
topaz, and first he pushed them from him, and then he drew them back
again. And seeing them thus cheapened in Reuben's hairy fingers, the
precious jewels which had clasped his Ruth's soft wrist and her white
neck, Israel could scarcely hold back his hand from snatching them away.
But how can he that is poor answer him that is rich? So Israel put his
twitching hands behind him, remembering Naomi and the poor people of
Absalam, and when at length Reuben tendered him for the casket one half
what he had paid for it, he took the money in silence and went his way.

"Five hundred dollars--I can give no more," Reuben had said.

"Do you say five hundred--five?"

"Five--take it or leave it."

It was market morning, and the market-square as Israel passed through
was a busy and noisy place. The grocers squatted within their narrow
wooden boxes turned on their sides, one half of the lid propped up as a
shelter from the sun, the other half hung down as a counter, whereon lay
raisins and figs, and melons and dates. On the unpaved ground the bakers
crouched in irregular lines. They were women enveloped in monstrous
straw hats, with big round cakes of bread exposed for sale on rush mats
at their feet. Under arcades of dried leaves--made, like desert graves,
of upright poles and dry branches thrown across--the butchers lay at
their ease, flic