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The Drums of Jeopardy by Harold MacGrath
page 8 of 361 (02%)
the pouch swiftly, as though he intended dashing it to the tiled
floor; but his arm sank gently. After all, he would be a fool to
destroy them. They were future bread and butter.

He would soon have their equivalent in money - money that would bring
back no terrible recollections.

Strange that every so often, despite the horror, he had to take them
out and gaze at them. He sat down upon the stool, spread a towel
across his knees, and opened the pouch. He drew out a roll of cotton
wool, which he unrolled across the towel. Flames! Blue flames, red,
yellow, violet, and green - precious stones, many of them with
histories that reached back into the dim centuries, histories of
murder and loot and envy. The young man had imagination - perhaps
too much of it. He saw the stones palpitating upon lovely white and
brown bosoms; he saw bloody and greedy hands, the red sack of towns;
he heard the screams of women and the raucous laughter of drunken
men. Murder and loot.

At the end of the cotton wool lay two emeralds about the size of
half dollars and half an inch in thickness, polished, and as vividly
green as a dragonfly in the sun, fit for the turban of Schariar,
spouse of Scheherazade.

Rodin would have seized upon the young man's attitude - the limp
body, the haggard face - hewn it out of marble and called it
Conscience. The possessor of the stones held this attitude for
three or four minutes. Then he rolled up the cotton wool, jammed
it into the pouch, which he hung to his neck by a thong, and sprang
to his feet. No more of this brooding; it was sapping his vitality;
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