The Flaming Jewel

Quintana smiled palely as he thought of the coat and the gently-swaying bush -- of the red glare of Clinch's shot, of the death-echo of his own shot.

Then, uneasy, he drew out the morocco case and gazed at the two trays full of gems.

The jewels blazed in the firelight. He touched them, moved them about, picked up several and examined them, testing the unset edges against his upper lip as an expert tests jade.

But he couldn't tell; there was no knowing. He replaced them, closed the case, pocketed it. When he had a chance he could try boiling water for one sort of trick. He could scratch one or two. ... Sard would know. He wondered whether Sard got away, not concerned except selfishly. However, there were others in Paris whom he could trust -- at a price. ...

Quintana rested both elbows on his knees and framed his dark face between both bony hands.

What a chase Clinch had led him after the Flaming Jewel. And now Clinch lay dead in the forest -- faintly smiling. At what?

In a very low, passionless voice, Quintana cursed monotonously as he gazed into the fire. In Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, he cursed Clinch. After a little while he remembered Clinch's daughter, and he cursed her, elaborately, thoroughly, wishing her black mischance awake and asleep, living or dead.

Darragh, too, he remembered in his curses, and did not slight him. And the trooper, Stormont -- ah, he should have killed all of them when he had the chance. ... And those two Baltic Russians, also the girl duchess and her friend. Why on earth hadn't he made a clean job of it? Overcaution. A wary disinclination to stir up civilization by needless murder. But after all, old maxims, old beliefs, old truths are the best, God knows. The dead don't talk! And that's the wisest wisdom of all.

"If," murmured Quintana fervently, "God gives me further opportunity to acquire a little property to comfort me in my old age, I shall leave no gossiping fool to do me harm with his tongue. No! I kill.

"And though they raise a hue and cry, dead tongues can not wag and I save myse'f much annoyance in the end."

He leaned his back against the trunk of a massive pine.

Presently Quintana slept after his own fashion -- that is to say, looking closely at him one could discover a glimmer under his lowered eyelids. And he listened always in that kind of sleep. As though a shadowy part of him were detached from his body, and mounted to guard over it.