he gave me another
whiff of that incomparable perfume, and I felt my taut nerves
steady. Not untruthfully had the Coptic physician claimed magic
qualities for that perfume.

Mr. Jelnik said gently: "Had you been other than you are, I would
not have dared call you to my aid to-night. But when I discovered
the real thief--and she Jessamine Hynds--I could not bear that any
other eyes than yours should see her as she is. And--I want you to
be with me when I find the jewels."

The jewels? I blinked at him. Immersed in the tragedy of the woman
Jessamine, her piteous fate had put all thought of everything save
herself out of my mind.

"Shooba hid them, between a night and a morning. Shooba brought her
here, between a night and a morning. Where should the jewels be but
here?"

At his words the grim and mocking ghost of that terrible old
African, who had been whipped for falling into trances, and who had
so tragically revenged himself and his slighted mistress, seemed to
rise behind all that remained of her.

"Yes, he would put them where she could keep watch over them. Why
should she come here, make her way through those dreadful passages,
save for that? Think of her stealing out of her room in the dead of
night, coming alive to what she knew was her tomb, shutting that
door upon herself--" I looked at the tarnished cup, and hoped that
the witch doctor's potion had given her a speedy sleep. I looked at
the blackened candelabrum, and wondered whether that candle had gone
out before she had, or whether her head had fallen upon her arm, and
she had died wide-eyed in the black, black dark. The cold grue shook
me again, and I beat my hands together for terror and pity.

"Do not think of that!" said Mr. Jelnik. "Death rectifies human
wrongs, and all of them have long, long since been healed of their
hurts. Come, let us find the jewels. We are losing time."

We opened the cabinets first. They held papers that had been
precious in their day--old deeds, old charters and grants, with the
king's seals and the signatures of the Lords Proprietors upon them;
correspondence, a casual glance at which showed Revolutionary
activities--a hanging matter once, but harmless enough now; a box of
foreign coins, all gold; a charge, in medieval Latin, on fine
parchment, which exquisitely illuminated initial letters; a plain
silver chalice and a patten; some threadbare robes and regalia, and
a gavel; a most carefully done chart of the Hynds fam