He was certainly surprised, but passed the gourd to her without further comment. She half averted her eyes, took it unhesitatingly, and tried to pitch it into the water. For its size, it was astonishingly light. Were it as heavy as she imagined, it must have dropped into the Solent several yards from the vessel. As it was, it flew unexpectedly high, struck a rope, and fell back on deck, whence it bounded, with the irregular bounce of a Rugby football, right into Warden’s hands again.
“That was a mad trick,” he said almost angrily.
“Oh, please, throw it away,” she pleaded.
“Throw away a rare and valuable curio! Why?”
“Because it will bring you nothing but ruin and misery. Can you not see its awful meaning? Throw it away, I implore you!”
“But that would be a crime, the act of a Vandal. It may be the chiefest treasure of a connoisseur’s collection. Would you have me ape some fanatic Mussulman hammering to atoms a statue by Phidias?”
“There is no beauty in that monstrous thing. It is—bewitched.”
“Oh really, Miss Dane—we are in England, in the twentieth century.”
He laughed indulgently, with the air of an elder brother who had forgiven her for an exhibition of pettish temper. He held out the calabash at arm’s length and viewed it critically. He saw immediately that the crown inside the ring was misplaced.
“Hello!” he muttered, “you did some damage, then!”