given him
yesterday by old Horapollo, describing it as a document addressed to
Paula and desiring the Kadi to examine it. The heat had effaced much of
what had been written on the wax, but most of the words could still be
deciphered. The venerable Horapollo had already made them out, and was
quite ready to read to the judges all that the accused--who by his own
account, was a spotless dove--had written in his innocence and
truthfulness for his fair one. He signed to the old man and helped him as
he rose with difficulty, but the Kadi begged him to wait, made himself
acquainted with the contents of the letter by the help of the
interpreter, and when the man had, with much pains, fulfilled his task,
he turned, not to Horapollo, but to Obada, and asked whence this document
had come.

"From Paula's desk," replied the Vekeel. "My old friend found it there."
He pointed to Horapollo, who confirmed his statement by a nod of assent.

The Kadi rose, went up to the girl, whose cheeks were pale with
indignation, and asked whether she recognized the tablets as her
property; Paula, after convincing herself, replied with a flaming glance
of scorn and aversion at Horapollo: "Yes, my lord. It is mine. That base
old man has taken it with atrocious meanness from among my things." For
an instant her voice failed her; then, turning to the judges, she
exclaimed:

"If there is one among you to whom helplessness and innocence are sacred
and malice and cunning odious, I beg him to go to Rufinus' wife, over
whose threshold this man has crept like a ferret into a dovecote, for no
other end but to tread hospitable kindness in the dust, to rifle her home
and make use of whatever might serve his vile purpose--to go, I say, and
warn the lonely woman against this treacherous spy and thief."

At this the old man, gasping and inarticulate, raised his withered arm;
the Christian judges whispered together, but at cross-purposes, while the
Jew fidgeted his round little person on the bench, drumming incessantly
with his fingers on his breast, and trying to meet Orion's or Paula's eye
and to make her understand that he was the man who would warn Joanna. But
a thump from the Vekeel's fist, that came down on his shoulder unawares,
reduced him to sitting still; and while he sat rubbing the place with
subdued sounds of pain, not daring to reproach the all-powerful negro for
his violence, the Kadi gave the tablets to Horapollo and bid him read the
letter.

B