'Tell me all about it. Tell me this instant.'

'I have told you all I know,' quoth Raphael, quietly seating himself
on a sofa, and playing with a jewelled dagger. 'I thought, of
course, that you were in the secret, or I should have said nothing.
It's no business of mine, you know.'

Orestes, like most weak and luxurious men, Romans especially, had a
wild-beast vein in him--and it burst forth.

'Hell and the furies! You insolent provincial slave--you will carry
these liberties of yours too far! Do you know who I am, you
accursed Jew? Tell me the whole truth, or, by the head of the
emperor, I'll twist it out of you with red-hot pincers!'

Raphael's countenance assumed a dogged expression, which showed that
the old Jewish blood still heat true, under all its affected shell
of Neo-Platonist nonchalance; and there was a quiet unpleasant
earnest in his smile, as he answered--

'Then, my dear governor, you will be the first man on earth who ever
yet forced a Jew to say or do what he did not choose.'

'We'll see!' yelled Orestes. 'Here, slaves!' And he clapped his
hands loudly.

'Calm yourself, your excellency,' quoth Raphael, rising. 'The door
is locked; the mosquito net is across the window; and this dagger is
poisoned. If anything happens to me, you will offend all the Jew