CHAPTER IV

"It was before the war. Many strange things have happened in the world

before the Boche broke loose with his dream of 'Deutschland ueber Alles.'

I had been to Melville Island trying to match a pearl for the Devonshire

necklace, and I went from the pearl fisheries to New Zealand, led there

by rumours of the discovery of some wonderful black pearls. It was,

however, a wild-goose chase. These rumours generally are. One of the

experts of the New Zealand Fishery Department had been exploring the

Haurakai Gulf, and returned to Auckland with a number of black pearls,

which he had found in an oyster-bed on one of the Barrier Islands. He

thought his fortune was made, though, being a fishery expert, he ought

to have known better. They were black pearls right enough, but they came

from edible oysters, and were valueless as jewels--not worth a shilling

each.

"I put up at the Royal hotel, Auckland, waiting for a ship to take me

back to England. I had arranged to return round the Cape, to look at a

parcel of diamonds which were expected to arrive at Capetown from the

fields in about six weeks' time. The day before I was due to sail, a

rough-looking man named Moynglass, a miner, came to the hotel to see me.

He had heard of me as a mining expert, and he had a business proposition

which he wanted to place before me.

"He told me he and four others had just returned to Auckland after

putting in six weeks among the volcanic beaches of the North Island,

searching--'fossicking,' he called it--for fine gold. These black sand

volcanic beaches are common in parts of New Zealand. The black sand is

derived from the crystals of magnetic iron, and there is frequently a

fair amount of fine gold mingled with them. By the continued action of

the surf the heavier materials, gold, and ironstone sand, are mingled

together between high and low water mark, and what appears as a stratum

of black sand is found on the surface or buried under the ordinary sand.

The gold is usually very fine, and the trouble of sifting and collecting

it is great. A man works for wages, and hard-earned wages at that, who

goes in for this kind of mining. But your true miner is ever an

adventurer and a gambler, and gold thus won is dearer to his heart than

gold which might be earned with less effort and more regularity in the

form of sovereigns. You see, there is always the chance of a big find.

"Moynglass and his party had met with fair success along the beaches,

but they wanted more than that. Moynglass was anxious to trace the fine

gold to its source, and find a fortune. He believed, like most miners,

that this fine gold is carried along the beds of the larger rivers and

distributed by the action of the sea along the different beaches where

it is found. His theory was that if the drift of the gold sands could be

traced to their source, a great quartz reef would be found which would

make the discoverers wealthy men. But he and his mates knew nothing

about geology, and they wanted somebody to go with them who could chart

the course, and lead them to the launching point of the gold.

"I had heard this theory before, and was not impressed by it. I should

probably have turned down Moynglass's proposition if, in the course of

his conversation, he had not produced a sample of ruby quartz from his

pocket and showed it to me. He said he had found it while exploring one

of the rivers of the Urewera country. I examined the quartz attentively.

It was emery rock, and imbedded in the pale green mass were ruby

crystals, and true Oriental rubies at that. I realized the valuable

nature of the discovery, and questioned the man closely as to where he

had obtained the ruby rock, but he became instantly suspicious, and

guarded in his replies. If I joined his party--well and good: he would

show me the spot, and we would share and share alike, but he would tell

me nothing otherwise.

"I decided to go, and the terms were agreed upon. We set out from

Auckland, the five of us, a week later. We went by coastal steamer to a

little port in the Bay of Plenty, and there we plunged into the Urewera

Mountains. My companions thought of nothing but the search for the

source of the golden sands, but I was interested only in the ruby rock.

There lay the fortune, if I could find it. I carried the specimen of

corundum in my waistcoat pocket.

"The river we were ascending to its source was called the Araheoa. It

was a rushing, noisy torrent, winding along a deep and narrow gorge,

which in places almost met overhead. Some patches of olivine and

serpentine encouraged me to think that we should find a heavy belt of

the rock somewhere along the upper part of the valley, but my hopes were

not realized. Day after day passed, and I found no more of it. When my

companions washed the sands of likely stretches of river beach for fine

gold, I examined the waste for corundum crystals, but I found no signs

of them.

"We followed the river until we reached an inaccessible mountain gorge

which seemed to bar our further progress. But, by diverting our course

some miles to the northward, we were able to ascend to the upper reaches

of the river, and, here, to my delight, I found the banks and rapids

studded with great green masses of olivine rocks.

"I was anxious to examine these rocks, which extended up the mountain

side, and my companions agreed with me that it was advisable to leave

the bed of the river for the spur of the mountains where the river

apparently took its rise. We crossed the stream, and commenced a gradual

but oblique ascent of the spur. But after climbing for some hours we

found our further progress stopped by a wide and deep gully, a sinister

place, full of masses of dark green rocks. At the foot of one of the

largest of these rocks we came across a large hole descending almost

perpendicularly into the earth.

"We lit our lamps and descended. After some scrambling we found

ourselves on a landing-place, from which another low passage of an

easier gradient led into a large cave in the solid rock.

"The surface underneath our feet was covered with a dust so fine that it

slipped from beneath us like sand, and rose in thick clouds about us.

The cave was high enough to walk upright in, and seemed to run a great

distance, with many lateral passages and smaller recesses off the

principal chamber. Moynglass entered one of these passages and

disappeared from view. A few moments afterwards we heard him, in a very

excited voice, calling us to follow him.

"We proceeded stooping, in Indian file, down the passage, and found

Moynglass in a smaller cave at the end of it, staring intently at

something which was at first difficult to see in the gloom. Then, by the

light of our lamps, we made out a sapling sticking up between two rocks,

with a withered human hand impaled on it by a rusty sheath knife.

"As I was examining it, one of my companions, who had been exploring the

cave, gave a cry of astonishment which caused me to look round. In a

corner of the cave, revealed by his lamp, lay two skeletons side by

side. The hand of one skeleton was missing, and in the eye of the other

there gleamed a large uncut ruby. We examined the skeletons and searched

the cave, but found nothing to throw any light on the mystery or reveal

any clue of identity. There was not a vestige of food or clothing around

the remains, and not a scrap of writing--only the two crumbling

skeletons, the sapling, the sheath knife, and the ruby.

"What had brought about such a tragedy in the dim recesses of that

prehistoric cave? Who could say? Perhaps the men had been prospecting

together, and one had found the ruby and hidden in the cave, where his

companion had found him and cut off his right hand with some primitive

idea of making his vengeance fit the crime. Then, perhaps, they had been

unable to escape from the cave, and had died together of thirst and

hunger. But what is the use of speculating? The secret must ever remain

hidden in the cave where the skeletons still lie."

Musard stopped abruptly, and sat staring straight in front of him. His

strange eyes had a fixed look, as if gazing into the distance. His brown

hand rested lightly on the white tablecloth, and the great ruby on his

little finger gleamed fitfully in the light.

"You haven't told us all the story yet," said Phil Heredith quietly.

The other looked doubtfully at the ring of intent faces regarding him.

"I left that part untold for a good reason," he admitted. "It is--well,

I thought it a little bit too horrible to relate."

"Oh, do tell us," said the lady journalist enthusiastically. "We are all

dying to hear it. It is such an unusual and exciting story that it would

be cruel to leave us in suspense about the end."

"Very well, then," said Musard, as the other ladies chorused their

approval. "We left the cave, and Moynglass, who considered himself the

leader of the expedition, put the ruby in his pocket. That night we

camped at a wild desolate spot, not far from the edge of a cliff about

two hundred feet high, at the foot of which the bitter sulphurous waters

of the river flowed into a chasm. In the morning we found Moynglass

lying dead in his blanket, with the rusty sheath knife he had brought

away from the cave sticking in his breast. The ruby was gone, and, so,

also, was the eldest member of our party--an elderly dark-faced Irishman

named Doyne, who, the previous day, had angrily disputed Moynglass's

right to carry the ruby.

"We searched for Doyne all that day, but could find no trace of him. The

next day we tracked across a glacier-like expanse littered with large

blocks of sandstone. It was a grim spot. A horrible, stony, treeless

waste which might have been the birthplace of the earth and the scene of

Creation--a tableland between great mountains, full of masses of

rhodonite contorted into grotesque shapes of stone images; a place where

our lightest whispers came shouting back out of the profound stillness

from the huge castellated black rocks bristling on the edge of a

precipice which slit the valley from end to end.

"It was there we found Doyne, staggering along the lip of the gorge. He

had gone mad in the solitude, and was wandering along bareheaded,

tossing his arms in the air as he walked. When I saw him I thought of

Cain trying to escape from the wrath of God after killing Abel. He saw

us as soon as we saw him, and started to run. We set out in pursuit, but

he fled with great speed, leaping from rock to rock like a mountain

goat. He was getting away from us when he slipped and fell into the

chasm with a loud cry. We found a path down the precipice and descended,

and discovered him at the foot, battered to death, with the ruby

clutched in his hand. That ended the expedition. The others insisted on

returning to the coast without delay, and when we arrived there they

gladly sold their shares in the ruby to me."

There was rather a long silence when the explorer had finished his

narration. The long hand of the clock on the mantelpiece was creeping

past the half-hour, but the circle round the dining-room table had been

so enthralled by the story that nobody had noted the passage of time.

"What a ghastly adventure, Mr. Musard!" began one of the ladies, with a

mirthless little laugh. "Did you never discover anything more about the

two dead men in the cave?"

"No," replied Musard. "As I said, there were no papers or any clue to

throw light on their identity. The skeletons must have lain there for

many years, for the bones were crumbling into decay."

"You have never revisited the spot?" asked Sir Philip.

"I was in the Ureweras two years later with a Maori guide, investigating

copper deposits for the New Zealand Government, but I did not go back to

the valley."

"Would it not have been possible to give the poor things--the skeletons,

I mean--Christian burial?" Mrs. Spicer asked timidly.

"It was impossible to dig a grave in the solid rock. Besides, they have

a sepulchre of Nature's which will outlast any human grave," replied

Musard.

"The thing that puzzles me is how the ruby got into the skeleton's eye,"

remarked the lady journalist musingly. "If that was the skeleton of the

man who killed the other for stealing the ruby, who placed the ruby

where you found it? Obviously, he could not have done it himself, for it

must have been put there after death. Who, then, could it have been?"

"I have no idea," said Musard, in a tone which suggested that he did not

care to discuss the subject further.

"May I look at the ring?" Miss Garton asked.

Musard drew it off his finger and handed it to her in silence. The

others wanted to see it, so it was passed from hand to hand round the

table, to the accompaniment of many admiring comments on the size and

beauty of the stone. One of the young officers, with an air of much

interest, asked Musard whether he thought there were other rubies like

it to be found near the spot.

"Hardly in that form," replied Musard. "It is a puzzle to me how the men

who found the ruby managed to get it out of the ruby rock and partially

polish it. They had no tools or instruments of any kind--at least, we

found none in the cave. Undoubtedly there are rubies in that part of the

world. It was near the valley that Moynglass found his sample of

corundum, with a ruby crystal in it. On our way back, at the head of the

valley, I came across a belt of magnesian rocks charged with ores of

copper and iron, and probably containing the matrix of ruby crystals."

"I wonder you wear the thing," said the chubby-faced youth of the Flying

Corps, handing the ring across the table to the explorer.

"Why not?" asked Musard.

"Well, I wouldn't care to wear a ring found in a skeleton's head. I

should expect the old bus to flop to the ground while I was doing a

stunt, if I had a thing like that on my finger. Aren't you frightened of

being haunted by the original owner?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Musard indifferently. "There's a horrible

history attached to most jewels, if it comes to that. I am not

superstitious." He replaced the ring on his finger, and added

thoughtfully: "I suppose many people would regard it in that light--as a

grim sort of relic. Certainly, I shall never forget the valley of rocks

where we found it. It was the strangest place I have ever seen--a 'waste

howling wilderness.' And sometimes I fancy I can still hear the cry

Doyne gave as he slipped or jumped from one of the black rocks into

space. I remember how it came ringing back from the cliffs a hundred

times repeated. It was--"

He broke off suddenly, as a scream pealed through the moat-house--a wild

shrill cry, which, coming from somewhere overhead, seemed to fill the

dining-room with the shuddering, despairing intensity of its appeal. It

was the shriek of a woman in terror.

The ladies at the dinner table regarded one another with frightened eyes

and blanched faces.

"What was that?" several of them whispered together.

"It came from Violet's room! My God, what has happened?" exclaimed Phil.

He sprang to his feet in agitation and pushed back his chair. His face

was white, his mouth drawn, and he fumbled at his throat with a shaking

hand, as though the pressure of his collar impeded his breathing. Musard

rose from the table and walked to where the young man was standing.

"Don't get upset needlessly, Phil," he said soothingly, placing a hand

on his shoulder.

Sir Philip had also risen from his seat, and for the briefest possible

space the three men stood thus, facing each other, as if uncertain how

to act. Then the tense silence of the dining-room was broken by the loud

report of a fire-arm.

"Let me go!" cried Phil shrilly, shaking off Musard's arm. He turned and

limped rapidly towards the door, and as he did so his infirmity of body

was apparent. One of his legs was several inches shorter than the other,

and he wore a high boot.

Musard reached the door before him in a few rapid strides, and Sir

Philip came hurrying after his son. The rest of the male guests

followed, flocking towards the door in a body.

The first sight that Musard's eye fell upon as he passed through the

doorway was the figure of Miss Heredith, rapidly descending the

staircase. By the hall light he could see that her face was pale and

agitated. She walked swiftly up to her old friend, and laid a trembling

hand on his arm.

"Oh, Vincent, I was just coming for you--something terrible must have

happened!" she began, in a broken, sobbing voice. "I was going upstairs

to my room, when I heard the scream, and then the shot. They must have

come from Violet's room. Will you go up and see, Vincent?"

Musard did not wait for her concluding words. He was already mounting

the staircase, taking two or three of the broad shallow stairs in his

stride. Phil hobbled after him, and Sir Philip and some of the guests

straggled up in their wake.