for a weapon.
Eve, terribly excited, came from the pantry:
"He's gone!" she cried furiously. "He's in somebody's lumber-sledgewith a pair of horses and he's driving west like the devil!"
Stormont ran to the tap-room telephone, cranked it, and warned theconstabulary at Five Lakes.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, turning to Darragh, scarlet withmortification, "what a ghastly business! I never dreamed he was withinmiles of Clinch's! It's the most shameful thing that ever happened tome----"
"What could anybody do under that rifle?" said Eve hotly. "That beatwould have murdered the first person who stirred!"
Darragh, exasperated and dreadfully humiliated, looked miserably at hisbrand-new wife.
Eve and Stormont also looked at her. She had come forward from the rearof the stairway where Quintana had brutally driven her. Now she stoodwith one hand on the empty leather jewel case, looking at everybody outof pretty, bewildered eyes.
To Darragh, in a perplexed, unsteady voice: "Is it the same bandit whorobbed us before?"
"Yes; Quintana," he said wretchedly. Rage began to redden his features."Ricca," he said, "I promised I'd find your jewels. ... I promise youagain that I'll never drop this business until your gems -- and theFlaming Jewel -- are in your possession----"
"But, Jim----"
"I swear it!" he exclaimed violently. "I'm not such a stupid fool as Iseem----"
"Dear!" she protested excitedly, "you _have_ done what you promised. Mygems _are_ in my possession -- I believe----"
She caught up the emblazoned case, stripped out the first tray, then thesecond, and flung them aside. Then, searching with the delicate tip ofher forefinger in the empty case, she suddenly pressed the bottom hard,-- thumb, middle finger and little finger forming the three apexes of anequilateral triangle.
There came a clear, tiny sound like the ringing of the alarm in arepeating watch. Very gently the false bottom of the case detacheditself and came away in the palm of her hand.
And there, each embedded in its own shaped compartment of chamois, laythe Esthonian jewels -- the true ones -- deep hidden, always doublyguarded by two sets of perfect imitations lining the two visible traysabove.
And, in the centre, blazed the Erosite gem -- the magnificent FlamingJewel, a glory of living, blinding fire.
Nobody stirred or spoke. Darragh blinked at the crystalline blaze asthough stunned.
Then the young girl who had once been Her Serene Highness Theodorica,Grand Duchess of Esthonia, looked up at her brand-new husband andlaughed.
"Did you really suppose it was these that brought me across the ocean?Did you suppose it was a passion for these that filled my heart? Didyou think it was for these that I followed you?"
She laughed again, turned to Eve:
"_You_ understand. Tell him that if he had been in rags I would havefollowed him like a gypsy. ... They say there is gypsy blood in us. ...God knows. ... I think perhaps there is a little of it in all realwomen----" Still laughing she placed her hand lightly upon her heart --"In all women -- perhaps -- a Flaming Jewel imbedded here----"
Her eyes, tender and mocking, met his; she lifted the jewel-case, closedit, and placed it in his hands.
"Now," she said, "you have everything in your possession; and we aresafe -- we are quite safe, now, my jewels and I."
Then she went to Eve and rested both hands on her shoulders.
"Shall we put on our snow-shoes and go -- home?"
Stormont flung open the bullet-splintered door. Outside in the snow hedropped on both knees to buckle on Eve's snow-shoes.
Darragh was performing like office for his wife, and the State Trooper,being unobserved, took Eve's slim hands and kissed them, looking up ather where he was kneeling.
Her pale face blushed as it had that day in the woods on Owl Marsh, solong, so long ago, when this man's lips first touched her hands.
As their eyes met both remembered. Then she smiled at her lover withthe shy girl's soul of her gazing out at him through eyes as blue as thewild blind-gentians that grow among the ferns and mosses of Star Pond.
* * * * *
Far away in the northwestern forests Quintana still lashed his horsesthrough the primeval pines.
Triumphant, reckless, resourceful, dangerous, he felt that now nothingcould stop him, nothing bar his way to freedom.
Out of the wilderness lay his road and his destiny; out of it he mustwin his way, by strategy, by cunning, by violence -- creep out, lie hisway out, shoot his way out -- it scarcely mattered. He was going out!He was going back to life once more. Who could forbid him? Who stophim? Who deny him, now, when, in his pockets, he held all that was worthliving for -- the keys to power, to pleasure, -- the key to everythingon earth!
In fierce exultation he slapped the glass jewels in his pocket andlaughed aloud.
"The keys to the world!" he cried. "Let him stop me and take them whois better than I!" Then his long whip whistled and he cursed hishorses.
Then, of a sudden, close by in the snowy road ahead, he saw a StateTrooper on snow-shoes, -- saw the upflung arm warning him -- screamedcurses at his horses, flogged them forward to crush this thing to deaththat dared menace him -- this object that suddenly rose up out ofnowhere to snatch from him the keys of the world----
* * * * *
For a moment the State Trooper looked after the runaway horses. Therewas no use following; they'd have to run till they dropped.
Then he lowered the levelled rifle from his shoulder, looked grimly atthe limp thing which had tumbled from the sledge into the snowy road andwhich sprawled there crimsoning the spotless flakes that fell upon it.
* * * * *
THE END
The Flaming Jewel Page 39