“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the alchemist suddenly, “up to heaven goes everything in fire and yet no gold is found anywhere. Johann Tring!” he looked about anxiously. “Where is Johann Tring? He answers me not. He is lost in the flames, the flames that came so red and purple when niter mixed with charcoal. Oho, Johann Tring! Come, Johann Tring, and see what I have carried this whole long night for you.” Throwing back the black robe, he held up the object that he had been concealing there, and at the same moment the sun, streaming in through the little window on the east side, fell full upon that object; fell upon it and made it sparkle like the myriad of dew diamonds shining upon a morning lawn new-mowed; sparkled like the thousand chandeliers in the King’s great hall in the palace on the Wawel Hill; sparkled like the rubies and emeralds that gleam in the Queen’s crown; sparkled like the wondrous thing that it was, all touched by the red rays of the morning sun—the Great Tarnov Crystal! “Now whence has that come?” shouted Pan Andrew so loudly that the sleepers in the next room awoke. “Where by all that is good and holy in the world have you found the gem which has been in my family for years and years, which all my ancestors and I have sworn to guard forever and to surrender to no person except to the King of Poland? How has it come into your hands after it was stolen from me, and my heart was nearly broken? Did you get it perhaps from that ruffian who has been captured by the King’s guards? Did you find it perhaps in the ruins of the town? Did you perchance——” The truth suddenly flashed upon him and he was speechless. [Illustration: _The Royal Palace of the Kings, Wawel Hill._] “It is an accursed thing,” cried out the alchemist suddenly, reeling in Jan Kanty’s arms as if he were gone faint. “There is blood upon it, and fire! It has lured princes and kings to their destruction! It has made men’s brains mad with lust for want of it! It has caused good men to steal, and evil men to kill. I will have none of it. I will have none of it, I say.” He was growing almost boisterous, yet there was something in this attack of madness that had much of reason and determination in it. “I will have no more of it,” he repeated, “and no more of Johann Tring.” At that he fell fainting to the floor. Jan Kanty raised him, and Elzbietka who had run out from the trumpeter’s room rushed to him and kissed and fondled his blackened hands. Pan Andrew picked up the Great Tarnov Crystal and held it at arm’s length with a smile. “Now may peace come upon us all,” he said, “for I may fulfill the oath that my family has taken and deliver this to the King. While the secret of its hiding place remained with me I might keep the crystal as long as I chose, but now that the secret is out, there is but one place where it may be guarded safely and that is in the palace of the King. Pan Kreutz is right. This jewel has already done too much harm in the world.”