d upon the neck, where
the ornaments were worn, I believe, by the ancients as symbols of
rank or command. These articles were composed of a series of rings
interlaced, some of them being embossed with rude but curious
designs.

I saw that we could not each of us have one of these, and here I
was again in a difficulty; but since the ingots of silver were of
about an equal weight, I took one of them myself and gave an
ornament to each of my companions. Hercus, however, would not agree
to this, and he showed, truly enough, that the ingots were worth no
more than their weight in metal; whereas the rings were of much
greater value, on account of being curious specimens of ancient
art. He therefore asked me to take a few of the coins in order to
make a fair division. The remaining coins, of which there was a
considerable quantity, were then counted and equally shared amongst
us.

We had now left one ingot of silver, one brooch, some odd fragments
of silver, and a small black stone which had a metal ring round it;
and the sharing of these cost more trouble than all the other
articles together. They were all, so far as we could judge, of
unequal values. The stone was considered worthless, except for the
little band of metal with which it was clasped. The brooch was only
about half the weight of the ingot, and it was not counted
precious, because already each of us had three like it, while the
small pile of silver fragments was not worth half the ingot
{i}. I thought I was acting very fairly when I suggested that
Hercus should have what remained, because, I said, if it had not
been for him we would have had nothing at all.

"'Deed you'll do nothing of the kind," objected Kinlay. "What for
should Hercus take all?"

"Well, well," I said, somewhat ruffled, I admit, at Tom's greed,
"you needn't be so sulky. Take you and divide the things. You'll
not do it any fairer."

But Tom saw a way of sharing the things which suited himself, if it
did not quite agree with my own views of fairness. To Willie he
gave the brooch, to Robbie he passed the pile of fragments; and now
he held the two remaining pieces, the ingot of silver and the
little black stone. We awaited with much interest his final
decision. With an unpleasant flash of his dark eyes he cast the
stone to my end of the rude table, and quietly thrust the bar of
silver with his other possessions into his capacious pockets.

I tried hard to check the words that rose to my li