the young couple's project in regard to this wondrous and invaluable
stone, with which the greatest monarch on earth might have been proud
to adorn his palace. Especially the man with spectacles, who had
sneered at all the company in turn, now twisted his visage into such
an expression of ill-natured mirth that Matthew asked him rather
peevishly what he himself meant to do with the Great Carbuncle.

"The Great Carbuncle!" answered the cynic, with ineffable scorn. "Why,
you blockhead, there is no such thing in _rerum naturâ_. I have
come three thousand miles, and am resolved to set my foot on every
peak of these mountains and poke my head into every chasm for the sole
purpose of demonstrating to the satisfaction of any man one whit less
an ass than thyself that the Great Carbuncle is all a humbug."

Vain and foolish were the motives that had brought most of the
adventurers to the Crystal Hills, but none so vain, so foolish, and so
impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious spectacles. He
was one of those wretched and evil men whose yearnings are downward to
the darkness instead of heavenward, and who, could they but extinguish
the lights which God hath kindled for us, would count the midnight
gloom their chiefest glory.

As the cynic spoke several of the party were startled by a gleam of
red splendor that showed the huge shapes of the surrounding mountains
and the rock-bestrewn bed of the turbulent river, with an illumination
unlike that of their fire, on the trunks and black boughs of the
forest-trees. They listened for the roll of thunder, but heard
nothing, and were glad that the tempest came not near them. The
stars--those dial-points of heaven--now warned the adventurers to
close their eyes on the blazing logs and open them in dreams to the