Michael looked at Potch.
"You get her, Potch," he said.
Potch put his hand to the top of the shelf where, in ah old tin, the great opal lay wrapped in wadding, with a few soft cloths about it. He put the tin on the table. Michael pushed the table toward the sofa on which Mr. Armitage was sitting. The old man leaned forward, his lips twitching, his eyes watering with eagerness. Potch's clumsy fingers fumbled with the wrappings; he spread the wadding on the table. The opal flashed black and shining between the rags and wadding as Potch put it on the table. Michael had lighted a candle and brought it alongside.
Dawe Armitage gaped at the stone with wide, dazed eyes.
"My!" he breathed; and again: "My!" Then: "She was worth it, Michael," fell from him in an awed exclamation.
He looked up, and the men saw tears of reverence and emotion in his eyes. He brushed them away and put out his hand to take the stone. He lifted the stone, gently and lovingly, as if it were alive and might be afraid at the approach of his wrinkled old hand. But it was not afraid, Potch's opal; it fluttered with delight in the hand of this old man, who was a devout lover, and rayed itself like a bird of paradise. Even to the men who had seen the stone before, it had a new and uncanny brilliance. It seemed to coquet with Dawe Armitage; to pour out its infinitesimal stars—-red, blue, green, gold, and amethyst—blazing, splintering, and coruscating to dazzle and bewilder him.
The men exclaimed as Mr. Armitage moved the opal. Then he put the stone down and mopped his forehead.
"Well," he said, "I reckon she's the God-damnedest piece of opal I've ever seen."
"She is that," Watty declared.
"What have you got on her, Michael?" Dawe Armitage queried.