At last came our jailer, one morning, and said that we must be brought up that day before the Geregt, which is their Court of Assize, to be tried for our crime.  So we were marched off to the court-house, in spite of sores and heavy irons, and were glad enough to see the daylight once more, and drink the open air, even though it should be to our death that we were walking; for the jailer said they were like to hang us for what we had done.  In the court-house our business was soon over, because there were many to speak against us, but none to plead our cause; and all being done in the Dutch language I understood nothing of it, except what Elzevir told me afterwards.

There was Mr. Aldobrand in his black gown and buckled shoes with tip-tilted heels, standing at a table and giving evidence:  How that one afternoon in August came two evil-looking English sailors to his house under pretence of selling a diamond, which turned out to be but a lump of glass:  and that having taken observation of all his dwelling, and more particularly the approaches to his business-room, they went their ways.  But later in the same day, or rather night, as he sat matching together certain diamonds for a coronet ordered by the most illustrious the Holy Roman Emperor, these same ill-favoured English sailors burst suddenly through shutters and window, and made forcible entry into his business-room.  There they furiously attacked him, wrenched the diamond from his hand, and beat him within an ace of his life.  But by the good Providence of God, and his own foresight, the window was fitted with a certain alarm, which rang bells in other parts of the house.  Thus his trusty servants were summoned, and after being themselves attacked and nearly overborne, succeeded at last in mastering these scurvy ruffians and handing them over to the law, from which Mr. Aldobrand claimed sovereign justice.

Thus much Elzevir explained to me afterwards, but at that time when that pretender spoke of the diamond as being his own, Elzevir cut in and said in open court that ’twas a lie, and that this precious stone was none other than the one that we had offered in the afternoon, when Aldobrand had said ’twas glass.  Then the diamond merchant laughed, and took from his purse our great diamond, which seemed to fill the place with light and dazzled half the court.  He turned it over in his hand, poising it in his palm like a great flourishing lamp of light, and asked if ’twas likely that two common sailor-men should hawk a stone like that.  Nay more, that the court might know what daring rogues they had to deal with, he pulled out from his pocket the quittance given him by Shalamof the Jew of Petersburg, for this same jewel, and showed it to the judge.  Whether ’twas a forged quittance or one for some other stone we knew not, but Elzevir spoke again, saying that the stone was ours and we had found it in England.  When Mr. Aldobrand laughed again, and held the jewel up once more:  were such pebbles, he asked, found on the shore by every squalid fisherman?  And the great diamond flashed as he put it back into his purse, and cried to me, ’Am I not queen of all the diamonds of the world?  Must I house with this base rascal?’ but I was powerless now to help.