h, and
trembling in every limb. "What is the matter with you?"--"We are
ruined." "Ruined, how?"--"Ruined, I tell you, beyond all
help."--"Explain."--"One moment, until I have recovered from my
fright."--"Come, then, recover yourself," says the Jew.... "A
traitor has informed against us before the Holy Inquisition, you as
a Jew, me as a renegade, an infamous renegade...." Mark how the
traitor does not blush to use the most odious expressions. It needs
more courage than you may suppose to call one's self by one's right
name; you do not know what an effort it costs to come to that.

_I._--No, I daresay not. But "the infamous renegade----"

_He._--He is false, but his falsity is adroit enough. The Jew takes
fright, tears his beard, rolls on the ground, sees the officers at
his door, sees himself clad in the _Sanbenito_, sees his
_auto-da-fe_ all made ready. "My friend," he cries, "my good,
tender friend, my only friend, what is to be done?"

"What is to be done? Why show ourselves, affect the greatest
security, go about our business just as we usually do. The
procedure of the tribunal is secret but slow; we must take
advantage of its delays to sell all you have. I will hire a boat,
or I will have it hired by a third person--that will be best; in it
we will deposit your fortune, for it is your fortune that they are
most anxious to get at; and then we will go, you and I, and seek
under another sky the freedom of serving our God, and following in
security the law of Abraham and our own consciences. The important
point in our present dangerous situation is to do nothing
imprudent."

No sooner said than done. The vessel is hired, victualled, and
manned, the Jew's fortune put on board; on the morrow, at dawn,
they are to sail, they are free to sup gaily and to sleep in all
security; on the morrow they escape their prosecutors. In the
night, the renegade gets up, despoils the Jew of his portfolio, his
purse, his jewels, goes on board, and sails away. And you think
that this is all? Good: you are not awake to it. Now when they told
me the story, I divined at once what I have not told you, in order
to try your sagacity. You were quite right to be an honest man; you
would never have made more than a fifth-rate scoundrel. Up to this
point the renega