must have wrenched it off in using the lever. Let's have a look at what
it's made of."

Accordingly, at the foot of the cliff we searched about among the loose
stones.

"Here you are, Jack! We've done it at last! We're made men!"

I turned round, and there was Tom radiant with delight, and with the
little corner of black rock in his hand. At first sight it seemed to
be merely a chip from the cliff; but near the base there was projecting
from it an object which Tom was now exultingly pointing out. It
looked at first something like a glass eye; but there was a depth and
brilliancy about it such as glass never exhibited. There was no mistake
this time; we had certainly got possession of a jewel of great value;
and with light hearts we turned from the valley, bearing away with us
the "fiend" which had so long reigned there.

There, sir; I've spun my story out too long, and tired you perhaps.
You see, when I get talking of those rough old days, I kind of see the
little cabin again, and the brook beside it, and the bush around, and
seem to hear Tom's honest voice once more. There's little for me to say
now. We prospered on the gem. Tom Donahue, as you know, has set up
here, and is well known about town. I have done well, farming and
ostrich-raising in Africa. We set old Dick Wharton up in business, and
he is one of our nearest neighbours. If you should ever be coming up our
way, sir, you'll not forget to ask for Jack Turnbull--Jack Turnbull of
Sasassa Farm.

LONG ODDS, By H. Rider Haggard

The story which is narrated in the following pages came to me from the
lips of my old friend Allan Quatermain, or Hunter Quatermain, as we used
to call him in South Africa. He told it to me one evening when I was
stopping with him at the place he bought in Yorkshire. Shortly after
that, the death of his only son so unsettled him that he immediately
left England, accompanied by two companions, his old fellow-voyagers,
Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, and has now utterly vanished into the
dark heart of Africa. He is persuaded that a white people, of which he
has heard rumours all his life, exists somewhere on the highlands in the
vast, still unexplored interior, and his great ambition is to find them
before he dies. This is the wild quest upon which he and his companions
have departed, and from which I shrewdly suspect they never will return.
One letter only have I received from the old gentleman, dated from a
mission station