The sea-captain went to London and there speedily fell in with the Jew, the third Fate. The name of this Fate was Khojeh Raphael, and his character was that of "a complete old scoundrel." He seems to have traveled all over Europe in his character of Jew and merchant and to have left a not altogether immaculate record of himself. Khojeh Raphael paid twelve thousand pounds ($60,000) for the stone and then in his turn set about hunting up a purchaser. But this proved no easy matter. The splendid Catharine of Russia, it is said, rejected it though fond of diamonds and not slow to spend money, because the price asked was too high for her. It remained for a subject to buy it and present it to her as a gift. This then is the history of the Orloff diamond in India according to the most trustworthy accounts. Having brought the diamond to Europe we no longer deal vaguely, but are instantly face to face with an exact date. "We learn from Amsterdam that Prince Orloff made but one day's stay in that city where he bought a very large brilliant for the Empress his sovereign, for which he paid to a Persian merchant the sum of 1,400,000 florins Dutch money." So says a gossipy letter dated January 2, 1776; and as further we are informed of the value of the "florins Dutch money" in English pennies, we learn that the price paid to the "complete old scoundrel" of a Khojeh Raphael was one hundred thousand pounds ($500,000). The Prince Orloff mentioned in the letter is no other than Gregory, the favorite of Catharine II., a man of such singular fortunes that a few words may well be spared to him. Orloff's grandfather first came into notice in an extraordinary manner. In 1698, when Peter the Great barely escaped assassination at the hands of his body-guard, the renowned Strelitz, he resolved to destroy the corps altogether. This he performed effectually by cutting off their heads by scores and hundreds. The Czar aided in this bloody work with his own hand and decapitated many of his mutinous soldiers on a big log of wood. One young fellow, Jan nicknamed Orell (eagle), annoyed at finding the severed head of a comrade exactly in the spot where he had decided to lay his own neck, kicked it aside with the remark, "If this is my place I want more room." The Czar, delighted with the congenial brutality of the observation, pardoned the soldier and gave him a post in his new regiment of guards.