h a dropping line of fire down into the
billows. A splash--a jet of light, and it was gone:--gone perhaps to
hide amid the rotting timbers of what was once the _Belle Fortune_,
or among the bones of her drowned crew to watch with its blood-red
tireless eye the extremity of its handiwork. There, for aught I
know, it lies to-day, and there, for aught I care, beneath the waters
it shall treasure its infernal loveliness for ever.

Into its red heart I have looked once, and this was what I read:--of
treachery, lust and rapine; of battle and murder and sudden death; of
midnight outcries, and poison in the guest-cup; of a curse that said,
"Even as the Heart of the Ruby is Blood and its Eyes a Flaming Fire,
so shall it be for them that would possess it: Fire shall be their
portion, and Blood their inheritance for ever." Of that quest and
that curse we were the two survivors. And what were we, that night,
as we stood upon the sands with that last hellish glitter still
dancing in our eyes? The one, a lonely and broken man; the other--

I turned to look at Colliver. He was huddled against the pit's side,
with his dark eyes gazing wistfully up at me. In their shining
depths there lurked no more sanity than in the heart of the Great
Ruby. As I looked, I knew him to be a hopeless madman, and knew also
that my revenge had slipped from me for ever.

We were still standing so when a soft wave came stealing up the beach
and flung the lip of its foam over the pit's edge into the chest.
I turned round. The tide was rising fast, and in a minute or so
would be upon us. Catching Colliver by the shoulder, I pointed and
tried to make him understand; but the maniac had again fallen to
playing with the jewels. I shook him; he did not stir, only sat
there jabbering and singing. And now wave after wave came splashing
over us, soaking us through, and hissing in phosphorescent pools
among the gems.

There was no time to be lost. I tore the madman back, stamped down
the lid, locked it, and took out the key; then caught Colliver in my
arms and heaved him bodily out of the trench. Jumping out beside
him, I caught up the spade and shovelled back the wet sand as fast as
I could, until the tide drove us back. Colliver stood quite tamely
beside me all this while and watched the treasure disappearing from
his view; only every now and then he would chatter a few wild words,
and with that break off again in vacant wonder at my work.

When