She laughed, brightly.
“Are you then a seer, my cousin?” she asked.
The dwarf started, as if suddenly awakened, and his eyes lost their speculative gaze.
“Sometimes the vision comes to me,” he said; “how or why I know not. But always I see truly.”
Duncan Moit did not understand this dialogue, which had been conducted in the native tongue. He had been examining, with the appreciation of a skilled workman, the beautiful creations of the Indian goldsmith. But now our uneasy looks and the significant glances of Nux and Bryonia attracted his attention, and he turned to ask an explanation.
The princess evaded the subject, saying lightly that the dwarf had been trying to excuse himself for breaking the law and employing the forbidden gold in his decorations. I turned to Tcharn and again demanded:
“Show us the pebbles.”
At once he drew a basket woven of rushes from beneath a bench and turned out its contents on the top of the great table. A heap of stones was disclosed, the appearance of which at first disappointed me. They were of many shapes and sizes and had surfaces resembling ground glass. In the semi gloom of the bower and amid the shining gold tracery of its ornamentation the “pebbles” seemed uninteresting enough.
But Moit pounced upon the treasure with exclamations of wonder, examining them eagerly. Either the German or the arrow-maker had chipped some of them in places, and then the clear, sparkling brilliancy of the diamonds was fully demonstrated.
“They are magnificent!” cried the inventor. “I have never seen gems so pure in color or of such remarkable size and perfect form.”