nets; both were exploding with laughter, as
they urged the performers to greater and yet greater exertions in
the dance. At the sight of strangers they paused in their music, and
simultaneously the dancers, with their victim, alighted gently on the
sward.

Breathless and half exhausted as was the Jew, he rushed with an effort
towards Servadac, and exclaimed in French, marked by a strong Teutonic
accent, "Oh, my lord governor, help me, help! These rascals defraud me
of my rights; they rob me; but, in the name of the God of Israel, I ask
you to see justice done!"

The captain glanced inquiringly towards Ben Zoof, and the orderly, by a
significant nod, made his master understand that he was to play the part
that was implied by the title. He took the cue, and promptly ordered
the Jew to hold his tongue at once. The man bowed his head in servile
submission, and folded his hands upon his breast.

Servadac surveyed him leisurely. He was a man of about fifty, but from
his appearance might well have been taken for at least ten years older.
Small and skinny, with eyes bright and cunning, a hooked nose, a short
yellow beard, unkempt hair, huge feet, and long bony hands, he presented
all the typical characteristics of the German Jew, the heartless, wily
usurer, the hardened miser and skinflint. As iron is attracted by the
magnet, so was this Shylock attracted by the sight of gold, nor would he
have hesitated to draw the life-blood of his creditors, if by such means
he could secure his claims.

His name was Isaac Hakkabut, and he was a native of Cologne. Nearly the
whole of his time, however, he informed Captain Servadac, had been spent
upon the sea, his real business being that of a merchant trading at all
the ports of the Mediterranean. A tartan, a small vessel of two hundred
tons burden, conveyed his entire stock of merchandise, and, to say the
truth, was a sort of floating emporium, conveying nearly every possible
article of commerce, from a lucifer match to the radiant fabrics of
Frankfort and Epinal. Without wife or children, and having no settled
home, Isaac Hakkabut lived almost entirely on board the _Hansa_, as he
had named his tartan; and engaging a mate, with a crew of three men, as
being adequate to work so light a craft, he cruised along the coasts of
Algeria, Tunis, Egypt, Turkey, and Greece, visiting, moreover, most of
the harbors of the Levant. Careful to be always well supplied with the
products in most general