“I discomfited the young man, Nathan—­I mightily discomfited him.  Ha! ha! ho!  Nathan, did you as I bade you?”

“Yes, master, I found the man, and I sent Samuel, who went hastily to him and cried out, ’Mr. Meadows is in the camp and wishes to speak to you.’  Master, he started up in wonder, and his whole face changed; without doubt he is the man you suspected.”

“Yes,” said Isaac, reflecting deeply.  “The man is Peter Crawley; and what does he here?  Some deep villainy lies at the bottom of this; but I will fathom it, ay, and thwart it, I swear by the God of Abraham.  Let me think awhile in my tent.  Sit you at the receipt of gold.”

The old man sat upon a divan in his tent, and pondered on all that had happened in the mine; above all, on the repeated attacks that had been made on that one tent.

He remembered, too, that George had said sorrowfully to him more than once:  “No letters for me, Mr. Levi, no letter again this month!” The shrewd old man tied these two threads together directly.

“All these things are one,” said Isaac Levi.

Thus pondering, and patiently following out his threads, the old man paced a mile down the camp to the post-office, for he had heard the postman’s horn, and he expected important letters from England, from his friend and agent at Farnborough, Old Cohen.

There were letters from England, but none in old Cohen’s hand.  He put them in his bosom with a disappointed look, and paced slowly, and deeply pondering, back toward his tent.  He was about half way, when, much to his surprise, a stone fell close to him.  He took, however, no notice, did not even accelerate his pace or look round; but the next moment a lump of clay struck him on the arm.  He turned round, quivering with rage at the insult, and then he saw a whole band of diggers behind him, who the moment he turned his face began to hoot and pelt him.

“Who got poor Walker drowned?  Ah! ah! ah!”

“Who refused to give evidence before Judge Lynch?” cried another, “Ah! ah! ah!”

There were clearly two parties in the mob.

“Down with the Jew—­the blood-sucker.  We do all the work, and he gets all the profit.  Ah! ah! ah!”

And a lump of clay struck that reverend head and almost stunned the poor old man.  He sunk upon his knees, and in a moment his coat was torn to shreds, but with unexpected activity he wriggled himself free and drew a dagger long, bright, and sharp as a needle.  His assailants recoiled a moment.  The next a voice was heard from behind, “Get on both sides of him at once!”

Isaac looked and saw Peter Crawley.  Then the old man trembled for his life, and cried, “Help! help!” and they hemmed him in and knocked his dagger out of his hand, and hustled and pommeled him, and would have torn him in pieces, but he slipped down, and two of them got in front and dragged him along the ground.

“To Walker’s pool,” cried brutus, putting himself at the head of those who followed.