Here Antis broke in, screaming out, “It is false! It is false!”
Aleph fixed on him eyes that blazed calmly into his for a moment, and then said sternly, “You know it is true, you ruffian. It is written in your face for everybody to see. And everybody sees it. If you want to be taken for anything less than a desperado, wear a mask over your tell-tale face. So do not interrupt me again;” and he gave him another look so full of insight and authority and menace, and at the same time of a certain pitying wonder (as the man who walks easily finds it hard to realize that anybody else is lame, so the good man finds it hard to understand how anybody can be a villain), that he dropped his eyes, grew pale and red by turns, and made no further attempt to speak.
Aleph resumed, turning again to the captain: “I was saying that I would show you grave reason for thinking this man a desperado of the worst kind; that he is a robber and murderer by profession; that if put in possession of this house he will make it a den of thieves and murderers. He is strongly suspected of designs on the life of his sick wife, who for some days has been in a critical condition, and whom he has long abused. It is for such reasons that her friends have excluded him from the house. Do you suppose that your principals, if responsibly informed of these facts, would persist in wishing you to hand over these premises and the sick woman to such a man?”
“I admit,” answered the officer, “that if you can show that he is such a dangerous character, and that putting him in possession will endanger the public as well as the sick woman, or even can show that this is so in the opinion of responsible parties, I ought to return and report the fact to my superiors. Who are the persons who make these charges?”
“His wife, supported by Seti, the Egyptian high-priest, the lady Rachel, daughter of the Alabarch, and myself, a member of the University.”
The captain had for some time appeared uneasy. He now folded his arms, shifted repeatedly from one foot to another, fumbled aimlessly with the short sword at his side. Aleph watched him narrowly; and at length said with a grave irony of tone:
“Perhaps you do not consider Seti and the Alabarch as responsible parties!”
But immediately changing his tone and raising his voice, he added, “I call to witness both those before me in the street and those behind me in the house” (half turning as he spoke, he became aware that he had already been followed into the passage by all his friends), “that I have repeatedly informed this officer that this house has been occupied by parties whose responsibility it were absurd to question, for the sole purpose of preventing its becoming a danger to life and a public nuisance, and that if he puts it into the possession of this man he will, in their opinion, imperil the lives and property of the people of Alexandria. I wish you all to distinctly notice this. Take notice, also, that we do not propose to resist the law—only to retain possession till the law can be properly informed of facts that were unknown to it at the time its order was given. And so our very moderate request is that this officer return to headquarters, report what he has heard, and ask for new instructions. If the officials then repeat their order, it will be with full knowledge of the responsibility they are incurring, and they can properly be held to account for all the consequences: and this must be a very serious account unless the laws and public opinion of Alexandria differ very considerably from those of Heaven.”
“It is he of the Diapleuston!” cried a voice from the street. “Give him a cheer!”