CHAPTER XLI
TREASURE
Broken bits of gold like the twigs from which jewelled fruit had been torn, spinels, peridots, star sapphires, slab-shaped emeralds, cinnamon stones, a black pearl shaped like a pear, diamonds, an enormous turquoise de la vieille roche sun-stricken, coloured, flashing, the treasure of Simon Serpente lay before Gaspard, other treasure there doubtless had been in coin and gold, but this was the cream of it, skimmed by Sagesse, selected no doubt during that calm behind which the sailor’s eye had seen the approaching hurricane.
Loot from the towns of Spanish South America, from ships plundered and scuttled, from women and from altars, all lay here in a confusion of colours. Some of these stones absolutely shouted of sacrilege, huge, and splendid, never could they have been worn as jewellery, except by emperors or by jewelled saints in the twilit and incense-laden air of some cathedral. Gaspard knew little of precious stones, but a child or a savage would have guessed the worth of this amazing collection of gems. For a moment after he had turned them out of the handkerchief, his breath came in gasps like the breath of a person dashed with cold water. He could not touch them for a moment, it was as though he were afraid of shattering an illusion. Then came the thought:
They are mine.
He curled his fingers, his lips drew back from his teeth, then he laughed.
They are mine.
He banged his right hand, palm down on the sand beside him, then he clapped his knees with both hands, then, stretching out his hand he seized a wine-coloured amethyst. It was the least valuable stone of the lot, but it was lovely and it lay in his palm like a little lake of colour. He felt its smoothness, turned it about, touched it with his tongue as if he wanted to taste its beauty as well as feel and see it.
It was his, all these things were his and as the thought came back to him he sprang to his feet and with the amethyst in his left hand and his right hand shading his eyes, he looked wildly around him.
Yes, he was alone, no one was watching him; no one was there to dispute his possession; the wind blew and the bay-cedar bushes bent before the wind, the sun shone, the sea burned blue and flashed beneath the sun. In all the island world there was no sign or sound of life save the flickering wings of the cormorants on the northern beach and occasionally their cries.
Loneliness no longer had terrors for him, the sight of a ship at this moment would have flung him into consternation. He, the man who had flung himself face downward in the tent weeping at the thought that it might be months before a ship sighted the island and took him off to begin his long journey back to Martinique and Marie, would, had he sighted a sail at this moment, have cursed it.