Page:The Black Cat v01no07 (1896-04).pdf/27

Rh "Well, Mitchell and I were practical, first of all. As soon as we had recovered from our amazement we made a thorough search of the cave. Finding nothing more, however, we took ourselves and our precious burdens to the camp, and that very night we started for San Francisco."

"And the stones proved really sapphires?" said Leighton.

"Sapphires! I should say so. The leading jewelers to whom we showed a few specimens upon our arrival in San Francisco, two days later, pronounced them gems of the first water, and gladly paid us twenty thousand dollars for sixty of the smaller stones. Upon parting company we divided the sapphires equally between us, and since then I have visited every capital of Europe, in each of which the stones have been pronounced flawless."

"And that's how you struck it rich?"

"Yes, but so far I have converted less than half of them into money. The remainder I have placed in the casket in a New York safe deposit vault, but the skull—"

As he spoke he gestured toward an ebony cabinet just above his head. There, behind a glass door, stood a huge skull, whose lidless blue eyes, looking out toward the distant city, seemed to pierce every obstacle between itself and the casket of sapphires over which it still kept watch and ward.