horror need any ingenious embellishment. There are many books that
I, though a man of no great erudition, can remember, which gain much
of interest from the pertinent and appropriate comments with which
the writer has seen fit to illustrate any striking situation.
From such books an observing man may often draw the exactest rules
for the regulation of life and conduct, and their authors may
therefore be esteemed public benefactors. Among these I, Jasper
Trenoweth, can claim no place; yet I venture to think my history will
not altogether lack interest--and this for two reasons. It deals
with the last chapter (I pray Heaven it be the last) in the
adventures of a very remarkable gem--none other, in fact, than the
Great Ruby of Ceylon; and it lifts, at least in part, the veil which
for some years has hidden a certain mystery of the sea. For the
moral, it must be sought by the reader himself in the following
pages.

To make all clear, I must go back half a century, and begin with the
strange and unaccountable Will made in the year of Grace 1837 by my
grandfather, Amos Trenoweth, of Lantrig in the County of Cornwall.
The old farm-house of Lantrig, heritage and home of the Trenoweths as
far as tradition can reach, and Heaven knows how much longer, stands
some few miles N.W. of the Lizard, facing the Atlantic gales from
behind a scanty veil of tamarisks, on Pedn-glas, the northern point
of a small sandy cove, much haunted of old by smugglers, but now left
to the peaceful boats of the Polkimbra fishermen. In my
grandfather's time however, if tales be true, Ready-Money Cove saw
many a midnight cargo run, and many a prize of cognac and lace found
its way to the cellars and store-room of Lantrig. Nay, there is a
story (but for its truth I will not vouch) of a struggle between my
grandfather's lugger, the _Pride of Heart_, and a certain Revenue