A horrid look of agony passed over Gregorio’s face, but he remained silent and motionless.  The watchers saw that he understood and that a tempest of wrath and pain surged within the lifeless body.  They stooped down and carried him downstairs and across the road to the Penny-farthing Shop.  The Jew’s touch burned Gregorio like hot embers, but he could not shake himself free.  When he was laid on a bed in a room above the bar, through the floor of which rose discordant sounds of revelry, Amos left them.  Madam Marx flung herself on the bed beside him and wept.

Two days later Gregorio sat, at sunset, by Madam Marx’s side, on the threshold of the cafe.  He had recovered speech and use of limbs.  With wrathful eloquence he had told his companion the history of the terrible night, and now sat weaving plots in his maddened brain.

Replying to his assertion that Amos was responsible, Madam Marx said: 

“Don’t be too impetuous, Gregorio.  Search cunningly before you strike.  Maybe your wife knows something.”

“My wife!  Not she; she is with her Englishman.  Amos has stolen the boy, and you know it as well as I do.  Didn’t he tell you he wanted the child?  I met him that night, and he told me if I did not pay I had only myself to blame for the trouble that would fall on me.”

“Come, come, Gregorio, cheer up!” said the woman; for the Greek, with head resting on his hands, was sobbing violently.

“I tell you, all I cared for in life is taken from me.  But I will have my revenge, that I tell you too.”

For a while they sat silent, looking into the street.  At last Gregorio spoke: 

“My wife has not returned since that night, has she?”

“I have not seen her.”

“Well, I must see her; she can leave the Englishman now.”

Madam Marx laughed a little, but said nothing.

“There is Ahmed,” cried Gregorio, as a blue-clad figure passed on the other side of the street.  He beckoned to the Arab, who came across at his summons.

“You seem troubled,” he said, as he looked into the Greek’s face; and Gregorio retold the terrible story.

“You know nothing of all this?” he added, suspiciously, as his narrative ended.

“Nothing.”

“My God! it is so awful I thought all the world knew of it.  You often nursed and played with the boy?”

“Ay, and fed him.  We Arabs love children, even Christian children, and I will help you if I can.”

“Why should Amos want the boy?” asked Madam Marx, as she put coffee and tobacco before the guests.

“Because I owe him money, and he knew the loss of my son would be the deadliest revenge.  He will make my son a Jew, a beastly Jew.  By God, he shall not, he shall not!”

“We must find him and save him,” said the woman.

“He will never be a Jew.  That is not what Amos wants your son for; there are plenty of Jews.”  Ahmed spoke quietly.