“Aren’t you afraid the sapphire may be stolen?” asked Mrs. Morrison, fascinated by the blazing beauty of the jewel. “I should think a thief would risk a great deal to get it.”
Ched Ramar smiled significantly.
“Any thief who thinks he can get it, is welcome to try,” he said, with great confidence. “This Buddha is able to take care of itself and of everything it possesses. You remember what I said just now—that it is supposed to be endowed with strange powers. But let me show you something else. I am rather proud of this room. It contains the finest specimens in my collection of antiques.”
He went to a table in a distant corner, and came back, carrying a very small gold idol in his long fingers. The image was exquisitely wrought, and so much soul had the artist put into his work that, from certain angles, the diminutive god seemed actually to be alive.
“What a beautiful thing!” ejaculated Clarice, as she bent nearer to the idol. “And what wonderful eyes!”
There were eyes in the sockets, and they seemed to goggle and stare as one looked into the gold face. Everybody examined the image separately, as it was passed from hand to hand, but it was only Nick Carter who noted that the colored iris of each eye was an exact duplicate, in tone and shape, of those belonging to the grave East Indian student who called himself Ched Ramar.
Clarice, more than any of the others, seemed to be[Pg 13] taken with the beauty of the golden idol. She stood, holding it in her hands and gazing in silent admiration, as if she were fascinated.
“Miss Bentham seems to like my poor specimen. Will she honor me by accepting it?”
“Why, I—I—don’t think I should,” she protested, making as if she would put it down. “It is too valuable. It would be too much. I really couldn’t take such a priceless——”
“What’s that?” asked Mrs. Morrison, turning from some other images she had been looking at on a table near her. “What did you say, Clarice?”