"You shall hear," interrupted Mr. Colpster, rather impatiently. "Amyas, my ancestor, went to Mexico, but had no success there. Afterwards he went to Peru and there accumulated a fortune, with which he returned to England. He bought Beckleigh and a great deal of land, and so built up our family. When in Peru he saved an Inca princess from death, and out of gratitude she gave him a large emerald." Patricia uttered an exclamation. "Yes, the same emerald that was stolen from you on the night of the murder. It formerly belonged to the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, and passed, in the way I have related, into the possession of Amyas Colpster. Being a sacred stone, it was reported to have some strange influence, which brought luck to its possessor, and Amyas believed this, as while it remained in his possession and in the possession of the son who succeeded him, everything went well. The family increased in wealth and in favour with the reigning monarch. It remained for Bevis Colpster, towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, to throw away the luck which had been bestowed on his grandfather by the Inca princess." "Do you mean that he gave away the emerald?" "Yes. To gain a knighthood, he presented it to the Queen. From that time the fortunes of our family have decreased gradually, and now I have only about fifty acres of land, the old Hall, and one thousand a year well invested." "That doesn't seem to be absolute pauperism," said Patricia, with a smile. "It is poverty compared to what our family once possessed," said the old Squire petulantly. "Once we had wide lands and much money, and great influence in worldly affairs. All these things Bevis Colpster threw away for a knighthood which did him no good, for a title which did not even descend to his children. And our fortunes have dwindled since then, until we have only what I mention. But unless the emerald is recovered, what we now possess will also leave us, and our family will die out. Even as it is," he ended bitterly, "I have no son to succeed me." Patricia wondered at what she took to be superstition in so clever a man, but saw that he could not be argued out of his fancies. She therefore pretended to accept his beliefs as true, and asked a question. "What became of the emerald?" she inquired eagerly, for the family legend interested her. Colpster roused himself and his sunken eyes flashed keenly. "When Will Adams went to Japan, in 1597, as a pilot of Jacques Mahay's fleet, the Queen gave him the emerald to present to some potentate in the East." "To the Emperor of Japan?"