But it was not these that held St.George incredulous; it was the fire that glowed in their midst--a fire that leaped and trembled and blazed inextinguishable colour, smouldering, sparkling, tossing up a spray of strange light, lambent with those wizard hues of the pennons and streamers floating joyously from the dome of the Palace of the Litany--the fire from the subject hearts of a thousand jewels.

There could be no doubting what he saw.

There, flung on the table from the mouth of a carven casket and harbouring the captive light of ages gone, glittered what St.George knew would be the gems of the Hereditary Treasure of the kings of Yaque.
But for old Malakh to know where the jewels were--that was as amazing as was their discovery.

St.George, breathing hard in his corner, watched the long, fine hands of the old man trembling among the delicate tubes and spindles, lingering lovingly among the stones, touching among the necklaces and coronals of the dead queens whose dust lay not far away.

It was as if he were summoning and discarding something shining and imponderable, like words.