As It Was in the Beginning

by Philip Verrill Mighels

It was not until he had brought two sharp-edged rocks to his needs that the collar was finally freed. Its weight and worth then amazed him. The band was fully two inches in width, with the edges curved up and turned under, in a simple and hammer-marked finish. It was all hand-wrought, each blow that the smith had struck with his tool being faintly recorded in the metal. The jewels—three sapphires, three rubies, and one diamond—were simply and solidly set with bands that barely clasped their bases. The rubies only were cabochon cut, the other stones gleaming with facets.

There was not a mark upon the collar's outer surface to show what was meant by its presence here in such extraordinary keeping. But Grenville presently bethought him to glance at the inner circumference. He was not in the least astonished, but he was a bit concerned, to discover a number of those mystic symbols, deeply graved in the gold, that had once been tattooed on the man sitting dead in the barque.

Here were the three hills, bounded by the water, and one with the tree on its summit, while on either side the cartouch appeared, bounded by crude drawings of the tiger. That the brute had been liberated here upon the island as a sort of sacred guardian of the cave that was mentioned by the writing found secreted with the map, Grenville could not, or did not, doubt. There was nothing more to be found engraved on the gold.

He finally slipped the heavy band about his own smooth, sun-tanned neck and went at the task of securing Elaine's promised robe. This toil was far more difficult than even his lack of proper appliances had led him to anticipate. Although he had sharpened his stub of a knife-blade to a very respectable cutting-edge, it was far too small for the business.

His doggedness and application were the assets on which he had most to count, and without them here he must have failed. As it was, he remained so long away that Elaine, who was up, was alarmed. And, when at last he appeared below with the heavy, striped skin across his shoulder, she started abruptly, till she saw he was not another tiger.

"I thought you might like to see the size of his hide," he said, as he brought it to the terrace, "before I take it down by the shore for tanning. I shall soak it a while in a mixture of brine and saltpeter. Both are highly preservative—-and the best the island affords."

"He was simply tremendous!" Elaine replied, when the skin had been spread on the rocks. "What have you got about your neck?"

"Oh, this?" said Grenville, removing the golden collar. "This is a symbol of royalty that his Bengal highness wore—your property now, as a trophy of the hunt."

She took it a little uncertainly as he held it forth in his hand.

"Why—it's gold!" she said. "These jewels—— The tiger was wearing this?"