Pagina 665 van 1116

Meanwhile the girl went in to the Jew and said to him, "At the

door are a man and a woman with a sick child and they have given

me a quarter dinar for thee, that thou mayest go down and look at

the little one and prescribe for it." As soon as the Jew saw the

quarter dinar he rejoiced and rose quickly in his greed of gain

and went forth hurriedly in the dark; but hardly had he made a

step when he stumbled on the corpse and threw it over, when it

rolled to the bottom of the staircase. So he cried out to the

girl to hurry up with the light, and she brought it, whereupon he

went down and examining the Hunchback found that he was stone

dead. So he cried out, "O for Esdras![FN#499] O for Moses! O for

Aaron! O for Joshua, son of Nun! O the Ten Commandments! I have

stumbled against the sick one and he hath fallen downstairs and

he is dead! How shall I get this man I have killed out of my

house?