it so our informant says-that he had it 66 straits. The Queen, knowing such a fancy to it-so Well-yes," said Brudd, putting down the cutting; "but what about this Blood Drop Stone ! " "Here it is!" said Tom Roberts, with a sudden dramatic opening of the palm— "here it is!" - We all looked up in astonishment, and met the deep glowering eye of an enormous ruby in the landlord's hand. It was encircled in a plain gold rim about an inch wide and an eighth of an inch thick. An inscription, evidently of modern origin, was engraved on the nimbus-like setting. It ran above: "I AM THE BLOOD DROP STONE," and below, "BEWARE OF ME." "Now," said Tom, who, I could not help seeing, was greatly revelling in his dramatic opportunity, "I will tell you what I think: only think, mind you; God alone will ever know. John Wilkinson, that we always called John Pandy, because Pandy used to be the name of the little house where he lived, was the mate of some small steamer that used to go from Cardiff with coal. The Sweet William was the name on her yes, the Sweet William, -I remember them telling me well. And the captain of this of this Sweet William was Dick Parry. And he was the owner of her too. But John Pandy had some sort of share in the vessel. Neither Dick nor John were married, and when Dick got tired of carrying coals from Cardiff, he sold the Sweet William and bought that little house called Pandy, and bought also a little bit of land and started to farm it. But Dewks, these sailors they make more damage on a farm than anything else! That would be let me see- - 1896. The Regina was wrecked in the early spring of '97, just after these two had settled down. And it was them that found Mr Stanuel's body. I remember them claiming the five shillings reward for it. The same money soon came through my hands in the bar parlour afterwards. But as that paper you read says, no jewels were found on Mr Stanuel none whatever! "I think it was that very time that I said something to Dick about his ring. He always wore one just the very same exactly as the one you showed me. I asked him where he had it from, and he told me he had it from foreign parts when he was a lad. I took particular notice on the word Mizpah' too. It's like a gift for a man to put to his sweetheart, thinking on that the Lord will watch between the two of them. So I chaffed Dick about his ring. 'Dewks anwyl Captain bach,' I said. 'And what is come to your sweetheart now! Which way has your covenant gone to ? ' Dick had the laughable grave look of people who talk of the Bible when they are a bit gone in drink. He turned very solemn to me, and said, ‘If you knew your Bible as well as I do, you would understand that the old Mizpah was made between two men, and there wasn't a woman anywhere in it.' Then he turned round to John Pandy and put his glass up in the air with a The Lord shaking hand. watch between me and thee,' said he. John looked at him quite angry. There more froth comes up off you than off all Tom Roberts' beer,' says John." "Where did you get that cutting from?" said Brudd. "I had it off my wife's brother who is a lawyer in Liverpool-John Thomas Prythach is his name. I had it nailed up in the bar for a long time. All the worrld saw it. Well, now, this Dick Parry I'm telling you about went on a visit to Cardiff, at least so John Pandy said. Nobody ever troubled to make sureof course. And then we heard that he took pewmonia and died. That was last year. Now I will tell you what I think-only think, mind you, I having heard your story. think that these men had the jewels off that Stanuel, and sold all of them but this ruby. Sailors, specially Welsh ones, are very superstitious. I think they must have had some quarrel about it. What did they do? Well, I thinkGod forgive me if I talk wrong against the dead-but I think that John killed Dick, and to get rid of him he put him in that crack in the rock. No doubt he thought the birds would make a meal of him, and there'd be an end. He was a sailor, and he could get where no one else could. When you came here a month ago and put your tent right over the place where Dick was hid, and started to get men to lower you on ropes to look for birds' nests, John got worried "He was one of the men I hired to lower me," put in Warren. "And he insisted several times that the rock was very unsafe." "That's you!" said Tom. "That's you! Well, I think when he saw that you wouldn't go from there, he wasn't satisfied that his job on poor Dick was properly done. Now the flesh was gone, he wanted to get rid of the bones as well. What should he do for a sinker Why not one of those round iron balls you put to an old cow's leg to keep her from wandering? Isn't that what you saw roll out of the crack when you poked in your stick? And the weight of it made poor Dick jump out afterwards! When John seen two more of you coming on the cliff-top he got frightened. So no matter about the weather, he was at it last night with his sinker and his things. Nobody but God can ever tell what happened then. Either he slipped or, more likely by what you say, he went mad, having in mind what was printed on the ruby. Perhaps when the lightning came and showed him his mate all fallen to bits, and nothing that wasn't decayed except that ring with Mizpah on it, he thought of those words Dick had said in front of me in the bar parlour, and he felt that terrible lonely in the sight of Heaven that he jumped in. Anyway, Evan Williams and Hugh Morris had him when they went to get in their lobster-pots, and very battered he was too; we all said he'd fallen off the rocks. And the ruby was in this leather bag hanging round his neck by a little chain. I had it off the doctor, but I must give it back to him, as he says it must go up to London to the Crown. I should put it in the sea again if I was the king." When Tom Roberts was gone we remained silent. The stress of the night was beginning to tell on me. I felt alternate impulses of sleep and wakefulness to surge in my mind. My thoughts hovered in the borderland of dreams. I ceased to distinguish the real from the unreal, but still the strange events of the last twelve hours, like a short play stuffed with climax, paraded themselves before me time and time again. The man on the cliff, the thunderstorm, the voice from Nowhere, the awful creature with the death's head that had appeared to spring upon me, the three fingers and the ring, the drowned sailor, the monstrous malignant eye of the Blood Drop Stone that had glittered on me even as it had on kings and princes centuries ago. A hand touched me lightly on the shoulder and I came wide awake with a start. It was Cornelius P. Brudd. He spoke in a whisper, for Warren was fallen sound asleep. "With a note appended in our catalogue of an account of the inquest and the evidence given by Warren, Esq., B.A., that record would go like like hot cakes!" I felt a smouldering merriment somewhere in the neighbourhood of the cockles of my heart, and I said, "Mr Brudd, you are the only one of us that has got any sense. Will you see if you can find a Mrs Tom Roberts anywhere, and suggest to her bacon and eggs for three ?" AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY MISER. BY BERNARD DARWIN. ONE night in the autumn hoard was found in a corner of 1789 Mr Partis, a London lawyer, was staying in a tumbledown old country house in Berkshire, whither he had driven down from town in his carriage. If it had been a stormy night the rain would have kept him awake by splashing on to his face through a hole in the roof, while the windows, mended here and there with brown paper, rattled in their crazy frames. As it was, Mr Partis was fast asleep when, at about two o'clock, he was roused by the sound of bare feet on his bedroom floor. "Who's there?" he cried in some alarm. The feet came pattering towards his bed in the darkness, and a voice said very humbly and civilly, "Sir, my name is Elwes. I have been unfortunate enough to be robbed in this house, which I believe is mine, of all the money I have in the world-of five guineas and a half and half-a-crown." "Dear sir," replied Mr Partis, no doubt relieved that he was not to have his throat cut, "I hope you are mistaken; do not make yourself uneasy." "Oh no, no," returned the voice, "it's all true; and really, Mr Partis, with such a sum-I should have liked to see the end of it." A few days later this precious |