us, and saw him spread out and
hold up a roughly torn triangle of newspaper. She gave a cry at sight
of it. Across the top in thick black type ran the figures $20,000.

Chatworth pointed a stern forefinger. "What is it?" he said, though by
his tone he knew.

The Chinaman also pointed at it, but cautious and apologetic. "Twenty
thousand dollar. You likee twenty thousand dollar?" He waited a moment.
Then, with a glimmer as of returning sight, presented the alternative.
"You likee god?--little joss?--come so?" And with his finger he traced
in the air a curve of such delicate accuracy that the Englishman with an
exclamation made a step toward him. But the Chinaman did not move.
"Twenty thousand dollar," he stated. It sounded an impersonal statement,
but nevertheless it was quite evident this time to whom it applied.

The Englishman measured off his words slowly as if to an incomplete
understanding, which Flora was aware was all too miraculously quick.
"This little god, this ring--do you know where it is? Can you take me to
it?"

The goldsmith nodded emphatically at each word, but when all was said
he only reiterated, "Twenty thousand dollar."

Chatworth gave Flora an almost shamefaced glance, and she saw with a
curious twinge of jealousy that he was intensely excited. "Might as well
have a pot-shot at it," he said; and sitting down on the edge of the
fountain and taking out his check-book, rested it on his knee and wrote.
Then he rose; he held up the filled-in slip before the Chinaman's eyes.

"Here," he said, "twenty thousand dollars." He held the paper well out
of the little man's reach. "Now," he challenged, "tell me where it is?"

Into the goldsmith's eyes came a lightning flash of intelligence, such
as Flora remembered to have seen there when Farrell Wand, leaning on the
dusty counter, had bidden him go and bring something pretty. He seemed
to quiver a moment in indecision. Then he whipped his hand out of his
sleeve and held it forth palm upward. This time it was Chatworth who
cried out. The thing that lay on the goldsmith's palm Flora had never
seen, though once it had been described to her--"a bit of an old gold
heathen god, curled around himself, with his head of two yellow
sapphires and a big blue stone on top."

There it blazed at her, the jewel she had carried in her bosom, that she
had hidden in her pouch of gold, and that had vanished from it at the
touch of a magic hand, now cunningly restored to its r