Page:Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter, Volume 1.djvu/160

152 Merchants, and to Thieves. He drove a great trade in spiceries and herbs with the Venetians, from which he had acquired much wealth; and he disdained no branch of business whereby anything was to be made. This worthy Israelite, who for money and money’s worth, stood ready, without investigating moral tendencies, for any sort of deed, the trusty Squire had prevailed on, by a jewel from the casket of the Princess, to undertake the transport of the Count, whose rank and intention were not concealed from him, with three servants, to a Venetian ship that was loading at Alexandria; but it had prudently been hidden from him, that in the course of this contraband transaction, he must smuggle out his master’s daughter. On first inspecting his cargo, the figure of the fair youth struck him somewhat; but he thought no ill of it, and took him for a page of the Count’s. Ere long the report of the Princess Melechsala’s disappearance sounded over all the city: then Adullam’s eyes were opened; deadly terror took possession of his heart, so that his gray beard began to stir, and he wished with all his soul that his hands had been free of this perilous concern. But now it was too late; his own safety required him to summon all his cunning, and conduct this breakneck business to a happy end. In the first place, he laid his subterranean lodgers under rigorous quarantine; and then, after the sharpest of the search was over, the hope of finding the Princess considerably faded, and the zeal in seeking for her cooled, he packed the whole caravan neatly up in four bales of herbs, put them on board a Nile-boat, and sent them with a proper invoice, under God’s guidance, safe and sound to Alexandria; where, so soon as the Venetian had gained the open sea, they were liberated, all and sundry, from their strait confinement in the herb-sacks.

Whether the celestial body-guard, with diamond shields and flaming swords, posted on a gorgeous train of clouds, did follow the swift ship, could not now, as they were invisible, be properly substantiated in a court of justice; yet there are not wanting symptoms in the matter which might lead to some such conjec-