"Goodness," she said, gripping his hand. "Were you as frightened as that on my account?... If I'd only known!... And yet, no": she went on. "Even if I had known, I should have made the experiment, so certain was I of the result."
"Well?" he said.
"Well, I read the device distinctly, and the date under it, which we couldn't make out—the 12th of July, 1921. We know now that the 12th of July of this year is the great day foretold so many years ago. But there's something better, I fancy."
She called Saint-Quentin to her and said some words to him in a low voice. Saint-Quentin ran to the caravan and a few minutes came out of it in his acrobat's tights. He stepped into the boat with Dorothy, who rowed it to the middle of the pool. He slipped quickly into the water and dived. Twice he came up to receive more exact instructions from Dorothy. At last, the third time he came up, he cried:
"Here it is, mummy!"
He tossed into the boat a somewhat heavy object. Dorothy snatched it up, examined it, and when they reached the bank, handed it to Raoul. It was a metal disc, of rusted iron or copper, of the size of a saucer, and convex—like an enormous watch. It must have been formed of two plates joined together, but the edges of these plates had been soldered together so that one could not open it.
Dorothy rubbed one of its faces and pointed out to Raoul with her finger the deeply engraved word: "Fortuna."
"I was not mistaken," she said, "and poor old Juliet Assire was speaking the truth, in speaking first of the river. During one of their last meetings the Baron must have thrown in here the gold medal in its metal case."
"But why?"
"Didn't you write to him from Roborey, after I left, to be on his guard?"