At ten that night Johnny was still toiling up the trail. As he paused to drink deep of the cool night air, he caught the gleam of lightning and felt some seconds later the shudder of the mountain as the thunder came rolling in.
“Going to storm,” he told himself. “Wonder if we’ll make it?”
Dot too heard the thunder. She too wondered. Her wonder was of a different sort. She was still imprisoned. Doris had gone for aid. She had not returned—might not return until morning.
“And if it storms.” She shuddered anew at the thought. A severe tropical storm is not soon forgotten. Dot had passed through one. It had uprooted century old trees, brought great ships ashore to break them on the rocks and had changed the very aspect of the country.
That she might not lose her grip on her nerves, she began prowling around her prison. Nor did her search go unrewarded. Of a sudden, as she shot her light in a dark hole behind a rock, she gave forth a low cry of surprise and fear. It seemed to her that a single fiery red eye was gleaming up at her.
A second, a calmer look and she knew that she was gazing upon the largest, most beautiful stone she had yet discovered, a huge ruby set in a circle of gold.
“It’s the Queen’s Ruby,” she told herself, holding it up to the light. There is a legend that the black queen always wore at her throat a gleaming solitary ruby.
“If only some one would come,” she said to herself. “If they only would.”
The answer was a second roll of thunder.
* * * * * * * *