nd friend had gone from him
for ever. He felt as though his heart would break, and glancing around
through his tears at the two strange, rough-looking men upon whose
mercy the storm had cast him, his own fate seemed so dark and doubtful
that he almost wished that, like the major, he too was lying upon the
sands in the same quiet sleep.

The discovery of the major's death was a greater shock than the boy, in
his exhausted condition, could stand, and when, at the approach of the
men, he attempted to rise, faintness overcame him once more, and he
fell back unconscious.

When his senses returned, he found himself in a sort of bunk in one
corner of a large room containing a number of men, whose forms and
faces were made visible by the light from an immense wood-fire that
roared and crackled at the farther end of the room. There were at
least a score of these men, and, so far as he could make out, they were
all rough, shaggy, wild-looking fellows, like Ben and Evil-Eye. The
latter he could see plainly, sitting beside a table with a bottle
before him, from which he had just taken a deep draught.

The liquor apparently loosened his tongue, for glancing about him with
his single eye, whose fitful glare was frightful as the firelight
flashed upon it, he began to talk vigorously to those who were sitting
near him. At first Eric paid no attention to what he was saying, but
when Evil-Eye held up something for the others to admire, he leaned
forward curiously to see what it was. There was not sufficient light
for him to do this, but Evil-Eye came to his assistance by saying, in
an exultant tone,--

"There's a ring for you, my hearties. It'll bring a pot of money, I
wager you. And it ought to. I had trouble enough getting it."

"How was that?" inquired a man at his side.

"The thing wouldn't come off--stuck on tight. Had to chop off the
finger before I could get it," replied the ruffian, turning the ring
over so that the diamond which formed its centre might sparkle to the
best advantage for the benefit of his companions, not one of whom but
envied him his good luck in getting such a prize.

Eric now saw clearly enough what Evil-Eye was displaying. It was the
costly ring which Major Maunsell always wore upon the third finger of
his left hand, and whose beauty Eric had many a time admired, for it
held a diamond of unusual size and of the purest water, which the major
told him had been a sort of heirloom in the Maunsel