"They are those," he said, solemnly, "who have deliberately yielded it up to enter the service of the usurper; or those who, in base timidity, have cast it away in denying our King."
"And for such can it ever be recovered?" I said.
"For one such, as disloyal as any, it was," he answered. "He went out and wept bitterly; the King forgave him, and in time the treasure was restored to him, and he became one of our most glorious veterans."
"How is the jewel to be recovered if lost?" I asked.
"By going to the place where first it was found," he replied. "There, on the lonely beach, before daybreak, it must be sought, morning after morning, until the sun's first rays reveal it once more glittering among the shingle as at first. But the waiting is often longer than it was at first."
"Will you wear your jewel," I asked, "when the King comes, or when you go to join Him beyond the sea?"
"There," he replied, with an expression of rapturous joy, "we shall see the jewel on the King's heart. There we shall have no need of the hidden fountain, for the river of living waters flows there, bright as crystal; and no need of the magic glass, for the King is near; but the jewel will shine in that happy place on brow and breast for ever and ever."
And as I left the sea-shore and the old man, these words floated through my heart, as if they were echoes of his history, or his story an echo of them:—
"Be not ye, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance.
"Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you."