Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/254

 trudging in front of me, remembered when that head had scarce a grizzle on it, and the back was straight as the massive, stubborn pillars in old Moonfleet church. What was it had brought us to this pitch? And then I called to mind a July evening, years ago, the twilight summer-house and a sweet, grave voice that said, "Have a care how you touch the treasure: it was evilly come by and will bring a curse with it." Ay, 'twas the diamond had done it all, and brought a blight upon my life, since that first night I spent in Moonfleet vault; and I cursed the stone, and Blackbeard and his lost Mohunes, and trudged on bearing their cognizance branded on my face.

We marched back to the Hague, and through that very street where Aldobrand dwelt, only the house was shut, and the boards that bore his name taken away; so it seemed that he had left the place or else was dead. Thus we reached the quays at last, and though I knew that I was leaving Europe and leaving all hope behind, yet 'twas a delight to smell the sea again and fill my nostrils with the keen salt air.