ittle momentary jerks and an ever decreasing
resistance until it finally let go its hold of the bottom altogether and
came to the surface securely entangled with the hook. Upon its
emergence from the water Harry gazed at his catch in astonishment; he
had expected to see the water-logged branch of a tree, a bunch of weed,
or something of that sort, but as it dangled, dripping with sandy ooze
in the last rays of the setting sun, certain ruddy-yellow gleams that
flashed from it told its finder that he had fished up something metallic
from the bottom of the lake. The next moment Escombe was busily engaged
in disentangling his find from the fish hook, but long ere he had
succeeded in doing so the young man had made the interesting discovery
that he had been fortunate enough to retrieve a most remarkable jewel,
in the form of a gold and emerald collar, from the depths of the lake.
Methodical even in the midst of his excitement at having made so
valuable a find, the young Englishman carefully disentangled his hook
and line from the jewel, neatly wound up the former, and then proceeded
patiently to wash away from the latter the ooze with which it was
thickly coated, having done which he found himself in possession of an
ornament so massive in material and so elaborate and unique in
workmanship that he felt certain it must be worth quite a little fortune
to any curio collector. It was, or appeared to be, a collar or
necklace, a trifle over two feet in length, the ends united by a massive
ring supporting a medallion. The links, so to speak, of the necklace
consisted of twelve magnificent emeralds, each engraved upon one side
with certain cabalistic characters, the meaning of which Escombe could
not guess at, and upon the other with a symbol which was easily
identifiable as that of the sun; these emeralds were massively set--
framed would be almost the more appropriate word--in most elaborately
sculptured gold, and joined together by heavy gold links also very
elaborately cut. The pendant was likewise composed of a superb emerald
of fully three inches diameter set in a gold frame, chiselled to
represent the rays of the sun, the emerald itself being engraved with
the representation of a human face, which, oddly enough, Harry
recognised, even at the first glance, to be extraordinarily,
astoundingly like his own. This was a find worth having, the young man
told himself, and might prove worth several hundreds of pounds if
judicio