This was an agreeable surprise to the Dutch merchant, who, being an honest man himself, believed everything I said, which, indeed, being all really and literally true, except the deficiency of my marriage, I spoke with such an unconcerned easiness, that it might plainly be seen that I had not guilt upon me, as the Jew suggested.
The Jew was confounded when he heard that I was the jeweller's wife. But, as I had raised his passion with saying he looked at me with the devil's face, he studied mischief in his heart, and answered, that should not serve my turn; so called the Dutchman out again, when he told him that he resolved to prosecute this matter farther.
There was one kind chance in this affair, which, indeed, was my deliverance, and that was, that the fool could not restrain his passion, but must let it fly to the Dutch merchant, to whom, when they withdrew a second time, as above, he told that he would bring a process against me for the murder, and that it should cost me dear for using him at that rate; and away he went, desiring the Dutch merchant to tell him when I would be there again. Had he suspected that the Dutchman would have communicated the particulars to me, he would never have been so foolish as to have mentioned that part to him. But the malice of his thoughts anticipated him, and the Dutch merchant was so good as to give me an account of his design, which, indeed, was wicked enough in its nature; but to me it would have been worse than otherwise it would to another, for, upon examination, I could not have proved myself to be the wife of the jeweller, so the suspicion might have been carried on with the better face; and then I should also have brought all his relations in England upon me, who, finding by the proceedings that I was not his wife, but a mistress, or, in English, a whore, would immediately have laid claim to the jewels, as I had owned them to be his.
This thought immediately rushed into my head, as soon as the Dutch merchant had told me what wicked things were in the head of that cursed Jew; and the villain (for so I must call him) convinced the Dutch merchant that he was in earnest by an expression which showed the rest of his design, and that was a plot to get the rest of the jewels into his hand.
When first he hinted to the Dutchman, that the jewels were such a man's (meaning my husband's), he made wonderful exclamations on account of their having been concealed so long. Where must they have lain? and what was the woman that brought them? And that she (meaning me) ought to be immediately apprehended, and put into the hands of justice. And this was the time that, as I said, he made such horrid gestures and looked at me so like a devil.
The merchant, hearing him talk at that rate, and seeing him in earnest, said to him, 'Hold your tongue a little; this is a thing of consequence. If it be so, let you and I go into the next room, and consider of it there'; and so they withdrew, and left me.
Here, as before, I was uneasy, and called him out, and, having heard how it was, gave him that answer, that I was his wife, or widow, which the malicious Jew said should not serve my turn. And then it was that the Dutchman called him out again; and in this time of his withdrawing, the merchant, finding, as above, that he was really in earnest, counterfeited a little to be of his mind, and entered into proposals with him for the thing itself.
In this they agreed to go to an advocate, or counsel, for directions how to proceed, and to meet again the next day, against which time the
