“Give it me—give it me!” she cried. “I am rich. I———”
“I do not sell my medicines,” Safti answered. “Those who use them must live near me, here in Tunis. When they are healed they give back to me the jewel that has saved them. But you—you live far off.”
With the swiftness of a woman the Princess saw that persuasion would be useless. Safti’s face looked hard as brown wood. She seemed to recover from her emotion, and said quietly:
“At least you will let me see the emerald?”
Safti went to a small bureau that stood at the back of the room, opened one of its drawers with a key which he drew from beneath his dingy robe, lifted a small silver box carefully out, returned to the Princess, and put the box into her hand.
“Open it,” he said.
She obeyed, and took out a very small and antique gold ring, in which was set a rather dull emerald. Safti drew it gently from her, and put it upon the forefinger of her left hand. It was so tiny that it would not pass beyond the joint of the finger, and it looked ugly and odd upon the Princess, who wore many beautiful rings. Now that she saw it she felt the superstition that had sprung from her terror dying within her. Safti, with his crooked eyes, must have read her thought in her face, for he said:
“The Princess is wrong. That medicine could cure her. The one who wears it for three months in each year can never be blind.”
Taking the emerald from her finger, he touched her two eyes with it, and it seemed to the Princess that, as he did so, the pain she felt in them withdrew. Her desire for the jewel instantly returned.
“Let me wear it,” she said, putting forth all her charm to soften the jewel doctor. “Let me take it with me to Russia. I will make you rich.”