“Of course I mean jewels,” replied Mrs. Hand, with some asperity. “I’ve never told you anything about them--young people get their heads turned with such things--but I have every one of the stones that belonged to my aunt, Keturah Hawkins, Captain Hawkins’s wife; and I also have the stones that belong in settings in the curios and things in our parlour. There’s quite a lot of them, and if I weren’t used to a hard pillow I daresay I’d not be able to sleep a wink.” “Oh, Aunt, may I see them?” “I suppose you may, though it’s a lot of trouble to get them out. It’s risky, too, for some of the littler ones might roll away and get lost,” commented Mrs. Hand. After breakfast she brought out her pillow and exposed the contents to the two men and the girl. John Smiley had seen the jewels, though not for many years. Ho Ha knew of their existence, but had never seen them and had supposed them secreted in Blue Port. To Mermaid their very existence was a revelation, and their beauty a greater one. All kinds of jewels seemed to be represented, and there were also Eastern stones which none of the four could name. Sapphires were especially abundant, very large ones, of darkest blue. They had been Keturah Hawkins’s favourites, but Mermaid worshipped the emeralds which she knew she could have worn in her hair, and the diamonds which would have been no more brilliant than her blue eyes. There were wonderful pearls which needed to be worn to regain their finest lustre, and there were rubies of as dark a hue as the blood that must have been shed for them. The majority of the gems were loose; the pearls were roped, however, and there were a few bracelets and other simple ornaments. All the settings were old and Eastern, suggestive of bare arms and bare necks--bare ankles, too. At least one of the ornaments was an anklet, they conjectured. Where Captain Hawkins had got them Keturah Hand was unable to say. He had, she supposed, picked them up at various times and in many places. He had visited, in his career, every port from Bombay to Tientsin; Ceylon, Madagascar, and South Africa; Peru he had touched at more than once. And he had sometimes done business by barter. After they had admired the jewels Keturah, with Mermaid’s help, checked them off on a list she had and restored them to their hiding place. The next night, after they had spent the day on the bay in Cap’n Smiley’s small sailboat, pillow and all were gone. XVIII The loss of the jewels affected Keturah Hand strangely. At first it made her ill, but soon she was not only well, but better than she had been for a long time. She declared herself actually relieved, in a sense, to be rid of the stones. They had been a constant worriment for years. Now she did not have the care and anxiety of them--and she knew they were in safe hands. “Any one who steals them is going to take pretty good care of them,” she declared. “And I think I know who stole them, and why.”