Chloe and Amelia Jane waited at dinner. Salome was absent doing other things. Strange things enough in that lonely place, far from towns and tramps. The woman was strong as a man, and she worked feverishly at her self-appointed task; piled packing-cases before the doors opening on the lower veranda, put heaps of some strange-smelling, dried herb on the verandas themselves. The top ones she never thought of, knowing nothing of Andria’s vision the night before. When she had finished her poor precautions she regarded them doubtfully enough. “Broad daylight, and I’d been sure dey was clean gone,” she groaned. “And here it’s night, and de wind risin’. Pray dey’s grit in ole Salome yet! But I ain’t knowing just what to do. Dey tells me red-haired white women is liars, and how do I know ’bout dis one! She kin trust me sure enough, but I ain’t trying no speriments on her.” Yet that very wind that was racking Salome’s nerves had set Andria’s at rest. There could be no prowling spies on a night like this; not even that strange being, whose leering, mocking face she scarcely dared remember, could be abroad in such a storm. The face had been barely human; animal greed and hatred had been in it, hungry fierceness in its glittering eyes as it grinned at her. She longed to go and pour out her story to Salome, but when she looked into the kitchen all was darkness. “Salome needn’t have deserted us!” she thought, like a hurt child, and then resolutely banished all fear of their great loneliness in the inclemency of the night. “Look out!” cried Beryl, as Andria returned to the drawing-room. “See what I’ve found. Isn’t it fun?” She had from somewhere unearthed a long ugly dagger, very fine and sharp. On the floor she had put a row of oranges, and with unerring aim was throwing the dagger at them. She never missed; each orange as it was struck was nailed to the floor. Andria took the dagger from the orange where it stood quivering. How sharp it was! She had fairly to drag it from the polished board. “Let me try!” and to her surprise, after the first failure, the thing was easy. Only the fear of breaking the new toy made her stop; she might have need of it. “I found some cards, too, and a book!” Beryl cried. “Such a funny old book. Listen!” She read aloud from a battered calf octavo: “‘As sure as the turquoise brings love and the amethyst repels it, so does the opal attract misfortune and the beryl bring bad dreams.’ There, the beryl’s me! What kind of a stone is it? I never saw one.” “It’s green,” said Andria absently; “pale-green; something the color of that wild kitten’s eyes.” “Then look here!” exclaimed Beryl excitedly. “Is this one? It was shut up in the book. Trust me to rummage round and find things.” She held up a tarnished gold ring, thin and old, set with a pale-green stone that glittered in the lamplight. Andria seized it. “It’s a beryl, certainly,” she said slowly. “I wonder whose it is!”