“Come with me then,” said I; “for I always carry some of my less valuable trinkets about with me, as the least cumbrous mode of taking money.” Leaving the landlord in the sitting-room, I passed into my chamber, and speedily re-entered with a handsome emerald ring upon my finger, and a ruby brooch of great size in my breast.
The Jew's eyes were lit up with a lustre only inferior to that of the gems as he saw them, and in a voice tremulous with eagerness he said, “Will your Excellency dispose of these?”
“Yes,” said I, carelessly; “there are others also, which I am determined to turn into cash. What value would you put upon this ring?”
“Five hundred crowns, Señhor, if it be really as pure as it seems.”
“If that be your valuation, friend,” rejoined I, “I would be a purchaser, not a seller, in this city. That gem cost me six thousand piastres! To be sure, something of the price must be laid to the charge of historical associations. It was the present of the Sultan Al Hadgid ak Meerun-ak-Roon to the Empress Matilda.”
“Six thousand piastres!” echoed the Jew, whose astonishment stopped short at the sum, without any regard for the great names I had hurled at him.
“I believe I may have paid a trifle too much,” said I, smiling; “the Prince of Syracuse thought it dear! But then here is a much more valuable stone, which only cost as much;” and, so saying, I took from my pocket an immense emerald, which had once formed the ornament of a dagger.
“Ah, Dios! that is fine,” said the Jew, as he held it between him and the light; “and, were it not for the flaw, would be a rare prize!”
“Were it not for the flaw, friend,” said I, “it would still be where it stood for upwards of eight hundred years,—in the royal crown of Hungary, in the 'Schatzkammer' of Presburg. The Emperor Joseph had it mounted in his own poignard; from his hands it reached the Caltons of Auersberg; and then, at the value of six thousand piastres, by a wager, came into my own.”
“And at what price would you now dispose of it?” asked he, timidly.