Oriental pearls, some rosy, some lead-colored, others black. Those
who have at night seen a great rocket burst in the azure darkness of
the sky into thousands of colored lights, so bright that they make
the eternal stars look dim, can imagine the aspect the tray presented.

As if to increase the admiration of the beholders, Simoun took the
stones out with his tapering brown fingers, gloating over their
crystalline hardness, their luminous stream, as they poured from his
hands like drops of water reflecting the tints of the rainbow. The
reflections from so many facets, the thought of their great value,
fascinated the gaze of every one.

Cabesang Tales, who had approached out of curiosity, closed his eyes
and drew back hurriedly, as if to drive away an evil thought. Such
great riches were an insult to his misfortunes; that man had come there
to make an exhibition of his immense wealth on the very day that he,
Tales, for lack of money, for lack of protectors, had to abandon the
house raised by his own hands.

"Here you have two black diamonds, among the largest in existence,"
explained the jeweler. "They're very difficult to cut because they're
the very hardest. This somewhat rosy stone is also a diamond, as is
this green one that many take for an emerald. Quiroga the Chinaman
offered me six thousand pesos for it in order to present it to a very
influential lady, and yet it is not the green ones that are the most
valuable, but these blue ones."

He selected three stones of no great size, but thick and well-cut,
of a delicate azure tint.