“You are the victims of a cruel fraud; and I of an unparalleled and wicked trick, intended to bring me to ruin!—­Look at that man at the stake.  Does he look like a robber?  A more honest and faithful servant never earned his freedom, and the gratitude Hiram owed to his master, my father, he has discharged to the daughter for whose sake he quitted his home, his wife and child.  He followed me, an orphan, here into a strange land.—­But that matters not to you.—­Still, if you will hear the truth, the strict and whole. . . .”

“Speak!” Orion put in; but she went on, addressing herself exclusively to Nilus, and his peers, and ignoring him completely: 

“Your president, the son of the Mukaukas, knows that, instead of the accused, I might, if I chose, be the accuser.  But I scorn it—­for love of his father, and because I am more high-minded than he.  He will understand!—­With regard to this particular emerald Hiram, my freedman, took it out of its setting last evening, under my eyes, with his knife; other persons besides us, thank God! have seen the setting, empty, on the chain to which it belonged.  This afternoon it was still in the place to which some criminal hand afterwards found access, and attached that gem instead.  That I have just now seen for the first time—­I swear it by Christ’s wounds.  It is an exquisite work.  Only a very rich man—­the richest man here, can give away such a treasure, for whatever purpose he may have in view—­to destroy an enemy let us say.—­Gamaliel,” and she turned to the Jew—­“At what sum would you value that onyx?”

The Israelite asked to see the gem once more; he turned it about, and then said with a grin:  “Well, fair lady, if my black hen laid me little things like that I would feed it on cakes from Arsinoe and oysters from Canopus.  The stone is worth a landed estate, and though I am not a rich man, I would pay down two talents for it at any moment, even if I had to borrow the money.”

This statement could not fail to make a great impression on the judges.  Orion, however, exclaimed:  “Wonders on wonders mark this eventful day!  The prodigal generosity which had become an empty name has revived again among us!  Some lavish demon has turned a worthless plate of gold into a costly gem.—­And may I ask who it was that saw the empty setting hanging to your chain?” Paula was in danger of forgetting even that last reserve she had imposed on herself; she answered with trembling accents: 

“Apparently your confederates or you yourself did.  You, and you alone, have any cause. . . .”

But he would not allow her to proceed.  He abruptly interrupted her, exclaiming:  “This is really too much!  Oh, that you were a man!  How far your generosity reaches I have already seen.  Even hatred, the bitterest hostility. . . .”

“They would have every right to ruin you completely!” she cried, roused to the utmost.  “And if I were to charge you with the most horrible crime. . . .”