n
their sockets. "I shall be killed for them if I keep them much longer,
and I won't be hurried into my grave. I'll take my own time."

"There is no one here," I said, "and no one in sight except Cathcart,
smoking in the veranda, and I can only see his legs, so he can't see
us."

He seemed to recover himself, and laughed. I had never liked his laugh,
especially when, as had often happened, it had been directed against
myself; but I liked it still less now.

"See here!" he repeated, chuckling; and he turned the bag inside out
upon the table.

Such jewels I had never seen. They fell like cut flame upon the marble
table--green and red and burning white. A large diamond rolled and fell
upon the floor. I picked it up and put it back among the confused blaze
of precious stones, too much astonished for a moment to speak.

"Beautiful! aren't they?" the old man chuckled, passing his wasted hands
over them. "You won't match that necklace in any jeweller's in England.
I tore it off an old she-devil of a Rhanee's neck after the Mutiny, and
got a bite in the arm for my trouble. But she'll tell no tales. He! he!
he! I don't mind saying now how I got them. I am a humble Christian, now
I am so near heaven--eh, Middleton? He! he! You don't like to contradict
me. Look at those emeralds. The hasp is broken, but it makes a pretty
bracelet. I don't think I'll tell you how the hasp got broken--little
accident as the lady who wore it gave it to me. Rather brown, isn't it,
on one side? but it will come off. No, you need not be afraid of
touching it, it isn't wet. He! he! And this crescent. Look at those
diamonds. A duchess would be proud of them. I had them from a private
soldier. I gave him two rupees for them. Dear me! how the sight of them
brings back old times. But I won't leave them out any longer. We must
put them away--put them away." And the glittering mass was gathered up
and shovelled back into the old brown bag. He looked into it once with
hungry eyes, and then he pulled the string and pushed it over to me.
"Take it," he said. "Put it away now. Put it away," he repeated, as I
hesitated.

I put the bag into my pocket. He gave a long sigh as he watched it
disappear.

"Now what you have got to do with that bag," he said, a moment
afterwards, "is to take it to Ralph Danvers, the second son of Sir
George Danvers, of Stoke Moreton, in D----shire. Sir George has got two
sons. I have never seen him or his sons, but I don't mean the