land. Yet when I walked
by them they cried out that I was one Ahasuerus, a Jew, condemned, as they
believe, to live for ever, and they fled from me everyways. Thus the Lord
saved me for my work, and at Pevensey I bought me a little boat and moored
it on the mud beneath the Marsh-gate of the Castle. That also God showed
me.'

He was as calm as though he were speaking of some stranger, and his voice
filled the little bare wood with rolling music.

'I cast'--his hand went to his breast, and again the strange jewel
gleamed--'I cast the drugs which I had prepared into the common well of the
Castle. Nay, I did no harm. The more we physicians know, the less do we
do. Only the fool says: "I dare." I caused a blotched and itching rash to
break out upon their skins, but I knew it would fade in fifteen days. I
did not stretch out my hand against their life. They in the Castle thought
it was the Plague, and they ran forth, taking with them their very dogs.

'A Christian physician, seeing that I was a Jew and a stranger, vowed that
I had brought the sickness from London. This is the one time I have ever
heard a Christian leech speak truth of any disease. Thereupon the people
beat me, but a merciful woman said: "Do not kill him now. Push him into
our Castle with his plague, and if, as he says, it will abate on the
fifteenth day, we can kill him then." Why not? They drove me across the
drawbridge of the Castle, and fled back to their booths. Thus I came to be
alone with the treasure.'

'But did you know this was all going to happen just right?' said Una.

'My Prophecy was that I should be a Lawgiver to a People of a strange land
and a hard speech. I knew I should not die. I washed my cuts. I found the
tide-well in the wall, and from Sabbath to Sabbath I dove and dug there in
that empty, Christian-smelling fortress. He! I spoiled the Egyptians! He!
If they had only known! I drew up many good loads of gold, which I loaded
by night into my boat. There had been gold-dust too, but that had been
washed away by the tides.'

'Didn't you ever wonder who had put it there?' said Dan, stealing a glance
at Puck's calm, dark face under the hood of his gown. Puck shook his head
and pursed his lips.

'Often; for the gold was new to me,' Kadmiel replied. 'I know the Golds. I
can judge them in the dark; but this was heavier and redder than any we
deal in. Perhaps it was the very gold of Parvaim. Eh, why not? It went to
my heart to heave it on to