The Flaming Jewel

There was something else lying there in the weeds, -- a flat, muddy, shoeless shape sprawling grotesquely in the foggy starlight.

One hand clutched a hunting knife; the other a packet.

Stormont drew the packet from the stiff fingers, then turned the body over, and, flashing his electric torch, examined the ratty visage -- what remained of it -- for his pistol bullet had crashed through from ear to cheek-bone, almost obliterating the trap-robber's features.

* * * * *

Stormont came slowly into Eve's room and laid the packet on the sheet beside her.

"Now," he said, "there is no reason for you to lie awake any longer. I'll fix you up for the night."

Deftly he unbandaged, bathed, dressed, and rebandaged her slim white feet -- little wounded feet so lovely, so exquisite that his hand trembled as he touched them.

"They're doing fine," he said cheerily. "You've half a degree of fever and I'm going to give you something to drink before you go to sleep----"

He poured out a glass of water, dissolved two tablets, supported her shoulders while she drank in a dazed way, looking always at him over the glass.

"Now," he said, "go to sleep. I'll b on the job outside your door until your daddy arrives."

"How did you get back dad's money?" she asked in an odd, emotionless way as though too weary for further surprises.

"I'll tell you in the morning."

"Did you kill him? I didn't hear your pistol."

"I'll tell you all about it in the morning. Good night, Eve."

As he bent over her, she looked up into his eyes and put both arms around his neck.

It was her first kiss given to any man, except Mike Clinch.

After Stormont had gone out and closed the door, she lay very still for a long while.

Then, instinctively, she touched her lips with her fingers; and, at that contact, a blush clothed her from brow to ankle.

The Flaming Jewel in its morocco casket under her pillow burned with no purer fire than the enchanted flame glowing in the virgin heart of Eve Strayer of Clinch's Dump.

Thus they lay together, two lovely flaming jewels burning softly, steadily through the misty splendour of the night.

Under a million stars, Death sprawled in squalor among the trampled weeds. Under the same high stars dark mountains waited; and there was a silvery sound of waters stirring somewhere in the mist.