"Take my tongs," replied the Jew. "Dip yonder! It will be your only Christmas gift."
"Peace to thee on earth and good-will to thee from men!" answered the outcast.
The preacher raised the long-handled rakes, spread the handles, and dropped them into the Sound. They gave from the bottom a dull, ringing tingle along their shafts. He strove to lift them with their weight of oysters, but his famished strength was insufficient.
"I am very weak and faint," he said. "Oh, help me, for the pity of God!"
The Jew came to his relief doggedly. The Jew was a powerful, bow-legged man, but with all his strength he could scarcely raise the burden.
"By Abraham!" he muttered, "they are oysters of lead. They will neither let go nor rise."
He finally rolled upon the deck a single object. It broke apart as it fell. The moonlight, released by his humped shadow, fell upon something sparkling, at which he leaped with a sudden thirst, and cried:
"Gold! Jewels! They are mine."
It was an iron casket, old and rusty, that he had raised. Within it, partly rusted to the case, the precious lustre to which he had devoted his life flashed out to the o'erspread arch of night, sown thick with star-dust. A furious strength was added to his body. He broke the object from the casket and held it up to eyes of increased wonder and awe. Then, with an oath, he would have plunged it back into the sea.
The outcast preacher interposed.