WITH BRIGANDS 209

been murdered, and even said frankly that, hated as he was,
it was the most natural end for him to come to; but that
you should have done so was, he said, absurd. In the first
place, he did not think that you were alive; and in the
second, it was far more probable that you had been mur-
dered by Ben Soloman than that he should have been
murdered by you.

“However, even berore your letter came three or four
hours later, there seemed no longer any doubt that you had
killed the Jew. By that time there was quite an uproar
among his people. He was the leader of their commu-
nity, and had dealings with so many nobles that his influ-
ence was great; and although he was little liked, he was
regarded as an important person, and his loss was a very
heavy one to the Jewish community. A deputation went
to the governor, and we heard that troops would be at once
sent out to capture you and the band of brigands you had
joined. Mr. Ramsay told me that it was fortunate indeed
that you had not returned to the city. But no doubt he
has told you all that in the letter.”

“I feel quite another man, Stanislas,” Charlie said when
he had changed his garments. “Now I can read the
letter you brought me.” as

After expressing the great satisfaction he felt at the news
that Charlie was alive, Mr. Ramsay went on to say that
even were he well he could not return to Warsaw in the
present state of public feeling,

“Your story that you were attacked, grievously wounded,
and after being confined here for some days, carried away
and confined in the wood by order of Ben Soloman, and
that he visited you there, would be treated with derision.
The version given by the man who brought in the story of
the Jew’s death was that he himself was staying in the
cottage of a charcoal-burner, an acquaintance of his, and
that a party of brigands, of whom you were one, arrived