Tarass stepped into the room; the Jew was praying, his head covered with a tolerably dirty piece of linen, and he had just turned, in order to spit for the last time, according to the Jewish ritual, when his eyes suddenly met the figure of Boolba, who stood behind him. The two thousand ducats offered for Boolba's head rushed at once into the Jew's remembrance, but he felt ashamed of the thought, and endeavoured to get the better of this love of gold, which, like a worm, is always twining itself round every Jew's heart. "Harkee, Yankel!" said Tarass to the Jew, who began bowing to him, and warily shut the door behind him, in order that nobody should see them. "I saved thy life; the Zaporoghians would have torn thee to pieces like a dog--now thy turn is come, now thou must render me a service!" The Jew's face expressed some uneasiness: "What service? If it be such a service as one may render, why not render it?" "_No_ talking! Take me to Warsaw!" "To Warsaw? How so, to Warsaw?" said Yankel, with eyebrows and shoulders elevated in amazement. "No talking! Take me to Warsaw. Come what will, I must see him once more! I must say, be it but one word to him." "One word to whom?" "To him, to Ostap, to my son!" "Does not my lord know, then, that"-- "I know it, I know all. They have set a price of two thousand ducats upon my head. The fools, they did not even know its worth! I'll give five thousand ducats to thee. Here thou hast two thousand on the spot," and Boolba produced from his leathern bag two thousand ducats. "The rest when I come back." The Jew took at once a piece of linen and covered the ducats with it. "Fine coins, these! beautiful coins!" said he, turning a ducat in his fingers and trying it with his teeth. "Methinks the man from whom my lord took such fine ducats, did not live an hour more, but just leaped into the water and drowned himself, after having lost these magnificent ducats." "I would not have asked thee--I might perhaps have found my way to Warsaw by myself; but the cursed Poles may chance to recognise and seize me; I have no turn for contrivances, and you, Jews, you seem to have been made for them. You could cheat the devil himself; you know all kinds of such tricks, and this is the reason why I came to thee. The more so, as I could do nothing in Warsaw by myself. Go at once, put the horse to thy cart, and take me." "And does my lord think there is nothing more to be done than to put the horse to the cart and cry, 'Gee up,' and away? Does my lord think that he can be taken just as he is, without concealing his lordship?" "Well, then, conceal me, conceal me as thou knowest how; put me into an empty cask, if thou think it best." "And does my lord think that he can be concealed in an empty cask? Does my lord not consider that every one will think that there is brandy in the cask?" "Well, let them think so!"