for, as the legends of this wondrous gem rushed thick
upon their memory, they felt themselves marked out by fate and the
consciousness was fearful. Often, from childhood upward, they had seen
it shining like a distant star. And now that star was throwing its
intensest lustre on their hearts. They seemed changed to one another's
eyes, in the red brilliancy that flamed upon their cheeks, while it lent
the same fire to the lake, the rocks, and sky, and to the mists which
had rolled back before its power. But, with their next glance, they
beheld an object that drew their attention even from the mighty stone.
At the base of the cliff, directly beneath the Great Carbuncle, appeared
the figure of a man, with his arms extended in the act of climbing, and
his face turned upward, as if to drink the full gush of splendor. But he
stirred not, no more than if changed to marble.

'It is the Seeker,' whispered Hannah, convulsively grasping her
husband's arm. 'Matthew, he is dead.'

'The joy of success has killed him,' replied Matthew, trembling
violently. 'Or, perhaps, the very light of the Great Carbuncle was
death!'

'The Great Carbuncle,' cried a peevish voice behind them. 'The Great
Humbug! If you have found it, prithee point it out to me.'

They turned their heads, and there was the Cynic, with his prodigious
spectacles set carefully on his nose, staring now at the lake, now at
the rocks, now at the distant masses of vapor, now right at the Great
Carbuncle itself, yet seemingly as unconscious of its light as if
all the scattered clouds were condensed about his person. Though its
radiance actually threw the shadow of the unbeliever at his own feet,
as he turned his back upon the glorious jewel, he would not be convinced
that there was the least glimmer there.

'Where is your Great Humbug?' he repeated. 'I challenge you to make me
see it!'

'There,' said Matthew, incensed at such perverse blindness, and
turning the Cynic round towards the illuminated cliff. 'Take off those
abominable spectacles, and you cannot help seeing it!'

Now these colored spectacles probably darkened the Cynic's sight, in at
least as great a degree as the smoked glasses through which people gaze
at an eclipse. With resolute bravado, however, he snatched them from
his nose, and fixed a bold stare full upon the ruddy blaze of the
Great Carbuncle. But scarcely had he encountered it, when, with a deep,
shuddering groan, he dropped his head, and pressed b