The Annam Jewel

EARLY BIRD BOOKS

FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY

BE THE FIRST TO KNOW—

NEW DEALS HATCH EVERY DAY!

The Annam Jewel

Patricia Wentworth

PROLOGUE

I

The Jewel lay upon the shrine. Darkness covered it, the darkness of absolute night.

James Waring stood with his back against the rock, and felt, as the slow minutes passed, that this gloom was like a weight pressing down upon him with a steady and relentless force. Since he had entered the cavern he had seen nothing, heard nothing. The silence was as dreadful as the dark. Not once, but many times, his hand sought and closed upon the candle and the matches which lay in his coat pocket; but each time the hand withdrew again, and he told himself fiercely what kind of a fool he would be if now, on the very brink of an undreamed-of success, he were to yield to panic and jeopardize everything.

He shut his eyes. One kind of darkness was like another if one's eyes were shut. Standing thus, motionless, almost rigid, he forced his mind back over the details of his journey. How long ago since he had left the ship? He found that the ability to gauge time was gone, lost in this vastness, this blackness, this silence. There it was; one came back to it, one could not escape. Yet they said that the mind was free.

He made another effort. Henderson and Dale—when had they discovered that he had given them the slip? The girl had drugged their liquor. He wondered if they would guess. The girl—he thought with a little flicker of scorn of the abject terror in her eyes when she realized how much she had betrayed. Well, if he got the Jewel, he would make a point of rewarding her handsomely. He began to think of how it might be done. Not till some months had passed, lest she should be exposed to suspicion. Just for a moment he saw her eyes, wide, startled, full of terror. Little fool, who would hurt her?

He began to reckon up the time that had passed since he had parted from her at the entrance to the hidden way. It must have taken him half an hour to crawl inch by inch along the slippery downward incline. He still thought with a leaping heart of the moment when his hands went out over the edge and found nothing. It must have been five minutes before he had nerved himself to stand upright on the brink of that unseen precipice, and feel for the rope which she had said was there. Then the descent of the rocky face—if the rope were to give I Heaven knew how long it had been hanging there; it felt dry and brittle. Sometimes his foot slipped on worn, shallow steps, and all his weight was on the cord. He tingled now as he thought of it. The descent must have taken him twenty minutes. How long ago since he had slipped from the last step on to the rocky floor of the cavern and waked those echoes which he remembered, shuddering? He could not tell. It seemed so long that time was meaningless. How much longer must he wait? After all, why wait? What was it the girl had said? “The way must be trodden in darkness, and in darkness the seeker must wait.” The whole thing was nonsense. Of course she believed it, and to pacify her he had promised; but, after all … His hand went into his pocket for the twentieth time.

He was about to draw out a match when the astonishing thing began to happen.

He stood arrested, the match half in, half out of the box. Very far away—or so it seemed to him—the blackness, that dense velvety blackness, had turned grey. The darkness was thinning away; it was like seeing water poured into ink. In the middle of the greyness there appeared a jagged line enclosing an irregular circle.

James Waring understood that this was an opening, a window in the rock, letting in the growing light of dawn. He looked away, and could see nothing. Then, fascinated, he looked back at the light and watched it grow.

Long ago his fingers had snapped in two the match which they had held, but he continued to grip the fragile splinter without the least consciousness of what he was doing.

The greyness became light, and the light focussed into a ray. The ray came to rest on the Jewel.

James Waring took a step forward and drew a long sobbing breath.

There was a pillar of rough stone, unwrought. It was about four feet high and a foot across. James Waring stood a stone's throw from it, and saw it in the light of the ray. There was something upon it like a carved lotus, and in the centre of the lotus, raised above the petals, was the Jewel.

It was true then—true or else he was dreaming now. He had not really believed what the girl had whispered to him, her breath caught by terror; but it was true. He saw the Jewel, the only one in the world. He saw what no white man had ever seen before the sacred thing which only the eyes of the purified might behold.

The Jewel shone in the ray. He saw the sapphire blue, the fiery crimson, the green-like flame, and the inmost golden heart. Exultation swelled in him. He was not afraid of the echoes now. He strode forward, and suddenly those echoes woke into hideous life. The dark corners of the cavern rang as if to the beating of brazen gongs.

James Waring saw a movement of many figures. A thrown dagger flashed through the ray and went singing past his ear. He whipped out his revolver and fired, and the rock walls gave back the sound of the shot, magnified beyond endurance. He fired again as his left hand closed on the Jewel. Then something caught him by the ankle, and he went down, fighting like a wild beast that is trapped.

II

James Waring opened his eyes. Everything had happened long ago, very long ago. He opened his eyes and saw the sunlight. It hung like a dazzling curtain across the mouth of the little cave. He was in the cave, lying on sand. The cave was in shadow. Outside he could see sun-flooded air a-quiver with heat. He shut his eyes. A long time passed. When he opened them again he saw the man.

The sun had crept round a little, and the light fell upon the man, bathing him from head to foot. He sat cross-legged; his hands were hidden in his robe; his eyes were downcast; his head was shaven. His skin was of the colour and consistency of very old parchment; there were no lines upon it, and it had a certain strange transparency.

James Waring shut his eyes again. He did not sleep or wake, but remained, as it were, at a fixed point between the two states. At last something shocked him into full consciousness. He did not know what it was. He only knew that he was awake, alive, and that his whole being was tingling as if from some sudden blow.

The man was still there. The sunlight now streamed right into the cave. The man's eyes were resting upon him. They were queer, mild eyes, of the nondescript colour of mist.

James Waring spoke, and his voice sounded very strange to him.

“Where am I? What are you going to do to me?” he said.

The mild eyes dwelt upon him. James Waring spoke again, and as he spoke he got upon his feet.

“You can't keep me here,” he said. He strode to the mouth of the cave and saw the cliff fall sheer and trackless. There were rice fields far below, green as slips of emerald, green as the flame of the Jewel.

For the first time, he remembered the Jewel, the glory of it in the ray, the cold, hard feel of it in his hand. With a quick movement his fingers slipped into that inner pocket, and felt again the coldness and the hard, smooth contour. Was it possible?

With a jerk he had it out. His pulses drummed. The Jewel lay in his open palm.

He had forgotten the man until he met those misty eyes. They looked at him, not at the Jewel. Then a voice said, speaking slowly with a pause between each word:

“Is it well?”

He started. Of course he had yet to get away with it. Then he laughed aloud. What was an old man? It would be easy enough to dispose of him—and, miracle of miracles, they had left him his revolver.

He advanced threateningly.

“Show me the way out,” he said.

The eyes did not waver from his. Something checked him. The voice went on speaking.

“Look upon the Jewel,” it said; and Waring looked. The thing dazzled him. The greatness, the glory of his success dazzled him.

The voice said:

“The blue is the Celestial Heaven; the red is the Elemental Fire; the green is the Living Earth; and the gold at the heart of it is the Ray of Wisdom. Are these things to be taken by violence? Look upon the Jewel and tell me this, O violent man.”

“The Jewel is mine,” said James Waring.

“Take it and go,” said the voice. “Thou hast betrayed, and thou hast slain. Is the Jewel thine?”

“It is mine,” said James Waring.

The man rose slowly to his feet. There was a coil of rope in a recess. He fastened it carefully to an iron hook, and moved to the mouth of the cave. Waring followed him.

CHAPTER I

The wind drove the rain against the nursery window. It came in gusts, drove against the panes with a splash, and then withdrew, leaving them drenched. The nursery floor was covered with green oilcloth, very old, very shabby, very much stained. The fire had gone out.

Rose Ellen, eight years old, sat cross-legged on the hearth-rug. Her eyes were screwed up tightly, her fat little hands quivered as she pressed them against her ears. All the bricks, all the toys, and all the nursery books were also on the floor.

Peter, aged twelve, had constructed an admirable gallows with the bricks. This occupied the centre of the floor, and against it, in a huddled attitude, there was propped that luckless criminal, Laura Augusta Belladonna, commonly known as Augustabel, and dear beyond words to the lacerated heart of Rose Ellen. The books had been built into a grandstand with three tiers, and all the remaining dolls and toys had been accommodated with seats from which a commanding view of the impending execution could be obtained. There was a bear without a head, a mutilated donkey, a jack-in-the-box with a broken neck, and a monkey with a scarlet coat and a permanent grin. There was also Maria, the wax doll, who appeared to have swooned.

Immediately opposite the gallows sat Peter Waring in an upright chair with twisted arms. He wore a scarlet flannel dressing-gown, and was endeavouring to balance a square of black cloth upon the top of his head. “Hanged by the neck until you are dead,” he was repeating with unction. The criminal appeared unmoved, but Rose Ellen gave a wriggle and a sniff.