Kadmiel halted, all black against the pale green sky beyond the wood—­a huge robed figure, like the Moses in the picture-Bible.

’I rose.  I went out, and as I shut the door on that House of Foolishness, the woman looked from the window and whispered, “I have prevailed on my husband to tell the King!” I answered:  “There is no need.  The Lord is with me.”

’In that hour the Lord gave me full understanding of all that I must do; and His Hand covered me in my ways.  First I went to London, to a physician of our people, who sold me certain drugs that I needed.  You shall see why.  Thence I went swiftly to Pevensey.  Men fought all around me, for there were neither rulers nor judges in the abominable 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 out, 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 out 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.