nders?"

As I faced around to the darkness of the gallery, she held aloft
something which, for the moment, I mistook for a great green snake
with lines of fire running from scale to scale and sparkling as she
waved it before me. I rolled over upon my elbow and stared. It was
a rope of emeralds.

She flung an end over one shoulder and looped it low over her breast;
then, passing the other end about her neck, she brought it forward
over the same shoulder and let it dangle. It reached almost to her
feet.

"Does it become me, little boy?" She made me a mock curtsey that set
the gems dancing with fire. "Come and choose, then!" She put out
both hands to the darkness by the wall, and a whole cascade of jewels
came sliding down and poured themselves with a rush about her feet
and across the floor of the gallery. She laughed and thrust her
hands again into the heap.

"All these I found--I myself--and carried up here from the darkness.
Take what you will, little boy, and run back to your ship.
Is it diamonds you will choose, or rubies, or--see here--this chain
of pearls? I do not like pearls, for my part; they mean sorrow.
But--see here, again!--there were boxes and boxes, all heaped to the
brim, and long robes sown all over with pearls. Take what you like--
_he_ will not know. He gives me diamonds sometimes. I adored them
in the old days, in opera. And he remembers and gives me a stone
from time to time, to keep me amused. I laugh to myself, then, when
I think of the store I keep, here in my bower. And he so clever!
But he does not guess. Ah, child, if I had had but these to wear
when I used to sing Eurydice!"

She held out two handfuls of diamonds, and began to sing in a high,
cracked voice, while she let them rain through her fingers.

"But listen!" I cried suddenly.

She ceased at once, and stood with her face half turned to the
darkness behind her, her arms rigid at her sides, the gems dropping
as her hand slowly unclasped them. Below, where the tunnel ran down
into darkness, a voice hailed--

"'Metta! Is that 'Metta?"

It was the voice of Dr. Beauregard. The poor creature gazed at me
helplessly and ran for the stairway. But her feet sank in the loose
heap of jewels; she stumbled; and, as she picked herself up, I saw
that she was too late; for already a light shone up from the tunnel
below, and before she could gain the exit the Doctor stood there,
lifting a torch, in the light of which I s