ce, as of a shadow drawn before it. He
groped helplessly with his hand.

"Feel in my burnoose, Ernest. A bag--around my neck--open it!"

Saint-Prosper thrust his hand within the coat, shuddering at the
contact with the ebbing life's blood, and drew forth a leather bag
which he placed in the other's trembling fingers. With an effort,
breathing laboriously, and staring hard, as though striving to
penetrate a gathering film, the wounded man finally managed to display
the contents of the bag, emptying them in his palm, where they glinted
and gleamed in the sun's rays. Sapphires, of delicate blue; emeralds
with vitreous luster; opals of brilliant iridescence--but, above all,
a ruby of perfect color and extraordinary size, cut _en cabachon_, and
exhibiting a marvelous star of many rays; the ruby of Abd-el-Kader!

With a venal expression of delight, the gunner regarded the contents
of the bag, feeling the gems one by one. "The rarest stone--from the
Sagyin hills, Ernest!" he whispered, as his trembling fingers played
with the ruby.

But even as he fondled it, a great pain crossed his breast; he gripped
his shoulder tight with his free hand, clutching the precious stones
hard in his clenched fist. Thus he remained, how long the other never
knew, panting, growing paler, as the veins that carried life to his
heart were being slowly emptied.

His head dropped. "How dark!" he murmured. "Like a _m'chacha_ where
the hashish-smokers dream!"

The younger brother thought his energy was spent when he looked up
sharply.

"The lamp's out, you Devil Jew!" he cried. "The pipe, too--spawn of
hell!"

And he dropped back like stone, the gems falling from his hand, which
twitched spasmodically on the ground and then was still. Saint-Prosper
bent over him, but the heart, famished for nourishment, had ceased to
beat; the restless, wayward soul had fled from its tabernacle of dust.
Save for the stain on his breast and the fixedness of his eyes, he
might have been sleeping.

Mechanically the soldier gathered the sapphires, emeralds and other
gems--flashing testimony of that thankless past--and, leaning
against the wall, gazed afar to the snow-capped volcanoes. Even as he
looked, the vapors arose from the solfataras of the "smoking
mountain" and a vast shower of cinders and stones was thrown into the
air. Unnoticed passed the eruption before the gaze of Saint-Prosper,
whose mind in a torpor swept dully back to youth's roseate season,
rec