Amos Goodhare was the first to recover from the sort of stupefaction into which the sight of their royal plunder had thrown the three confederates. “Well, boys,” he said, “I think we may rest on our laurels a little while after this feat. It would take an expert in jewels, which I don’t profess to be, to tell you what value we have there. But here is a diamond in this,” and he took up the diadem, “which cannot, I should think, be worth less than five thousand pounds. While this crown,” and he laid his hand upon the other and still more magnificent prize, “ought to bring us in enough to live in modest comfort for the remainder of our lives.” “Well, there can’t be much of them left to run at the rate we’re going on,” moaned Sep, who was altogether unhinged by the life of enforced abstinence he had led for the last few days under Goodhare’s supervision, by the risks of the morning, and by the still greater risks in the disposal of the jewels which he knew would fall to his share. “Sep, you’re out of sorts. Drink a health to the Honorable Charles Cenarth, keeper of the regalia, and may he come half as easily out of this scrape as we have done!” He went to the little rickety sideboard, and, taking out a decanter and glasses, filled three bumpers, and pushed one over to Sep, who emptied part of the spirit into another tumbler, and drank the rest, diluted with two-thirds of water. “Now, to the health of the Honorable----” began Goodhare again. But Sep interrupted him. Glancing restlessly round the room, he laid his hand on the elder man’s arm, and whispered hoarsely: “Don’t. Its unlucky.” “And instead of spending our time drinking healths we’d better be deciding what to do with these dangerous little toys, now we’ve got them,” suggested Rees drily. “As long as they remain in their present form the sight of them by an outsider might expose our motives to misconstruction.” The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the door burst open, and the landlady, a rheumatic old woman in a rusty black cap, entered with only that perfunctory knock which is more like a fall against the door in the act of opening it, than a respectful request for permission to enter. Mrs. Williamson was quite taken aback at the sight of the treasures on the table. Luckily for them, the confederates also were so utterly overwhelmed by this unexpected surprise, that no one of them made so much as an instinctive movement as if to hide the jewels. After a few moments’ dead pause, during which the old woman remained blinking at the gems, and the three men felt as if the handcuffs were already on their wrists, Mrs. Williamson, with a short laugh, put all their fears to flight with half a dozen words. “Well, I never,” she said. “What finery to be sure!”