The Princess and the Jewel Doctor | Page 3

fever wear a topaz, and he arose from bed and walked happily in the street."
"And with an emerald," interrupted the Princess; "have you not preserved sight with an emerald? They told me so."
Safti's expression suddenly became grim and suspicious.
"Who said that?" he asked sharply.
"Abdul. Is it true? Can it be true?"
Her cheeks were flushed. She spoke almost with violence, laying her hand upon his arm. Safti seemed to stare hard into the corners of the little room. Perhaps he was really looking at the Princess. At length he said: "It is true."
"I will give any price you ask for it," said the Princess.
"You!" said Safti. "But you--"
Suddenly he lifted his lean hands, took the face of the Princess between them quite gently, and turned it towards the small window. She had begun to tremble. Holding her soft cheeks with his brown fingers, Safti remained motionless for a long time, during which it seemed to the Princess that he was looking away from her at some distant object. She watched his frightful and surreptitious eyes, that never told the truth, she heard the distant Arab's everlasting song, and her dream became a nightmare. At last Safti dropped his hands and said:
"It may be that some day you will need my emerald."
The Princess felt as if at that moment a bullet entered her heart.
"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."
Safti shook his head.
"The Princess may wear it here, in Tunis," he replied. "Not elsewhere."
She began to temporise, hoping to conquer his resistance later.
"I may take it with me now?" she asked.
"At a fee."
"I will pay it."
The jewel doctor went to the door, and called in Abdul. Five minutes later the Princess passed the singing Arab at the corner of the street, Rue Ben-Ziad. She had signed a paper pledging herself to return the emerald to Safti at the end of forty-eight hours, and to pay 125 francs for her possession of it during that time. And she wore the emerald on the forefinger of her left hand.
On the following morning Madame de Rosnikoff said to the Princess:
"I hate Tunis. It has an evil climate. The tea here is too strong, and I feel sure the drains are bad. Last night I was feverish. I am always feverish when I am near bad drains."
The Princess, who had slept well, and had waked with no pain in her eyes, answered these complaints cheerily, made the Countess some tea that was really weak, and drove her out in the sunshine to see Carthage. The Countess did not see it, because there is no longer a Carthage. She went to bed that night in a bad humour, and again complained of drains the next morning. This time the Princess did not heed her, for she was thinking of the hour when she must return the emerald to Safti.
"What an ugly ring that is," said the old Countess. "Where did you