Sinang turned up her nose and made a grimace of childish depreciation,
while Capitan Basilio, with all his love for antiquity, could not
restrain an exclamation of disappointment.

"It's a magnificent jewel, well-preserved, almost two thousand
years old."

"Pshaw!" Sinang made haste to exclaim, to prevent her father's falling
into temptation.

"Fool!" he chided her, after overcoming his first disappointment. "How
do you know but that to this necklace is due the present condition
of the world? With this Cleopatra may have captivated Caesar, Mark
Antony! This has heard the burning declarations of love from the
greatest warriors of their time, it has listened to speeches in the
purest and most elegant Latin, and yet you would want to wear it!"

"I? I wouldn't give three pesos for it."

"You could give twenty, silly," said Capitana Tika in a judicial
tone. "The gold is good and melted down would serve for other jewelry."

"This is a ring that must have belonged to Sulla," continued Simoun,
exhibiting a heavy ring of solid gold with a seal on it.

"With that he must have signed the death-wrarrants during his
dictatorship!" exclaimed Capitan Basilio, pale with emotion. He
examined it and tried to decipher the seal, but though he turned
it over and over he did not understand paleography, so he could not