For a little while we sat before it in happy contemplation.  It was indeed for its own sake quite well worth having, that sturdy old chest.  Even in an antique shop I should have succumbed to it at once; how much more when we had dug it up ourselves from a wrecked sloop on a desert island, and knew all its bloody and delightful history.

At length, kneeling before it, I raised with an effort the heavy lid.

“Empty, of course—­no more brown bags.  But oh, Dugald, had ever a girl such a wonderful bride’s chest as this?  O—­oh!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, only there is a crack in the bottom, running all the way along where it joins the side.”

“Warped a bit, I suppose.  No matter, it can be easily repaired—­crack?  I say, lassie, look here!”

Under the pressure of Dugald’s fingers the floor of the chest was swinging upward on an invisible hinge.  Between it and the true bottom was a space of about three inches in depth.  It seemed to be filled with a layer of yellowed cotton-wool.

For a long moment we held our breath, gazing at each other with eyes which asked the same question.  Then Dugald lifted a corner of the sheet of cotton and plucked it away.

At once all the hues of the rainbow seemed to be flashing and sparkling before us.  Rubies were there like great drops of the blood that the chest and its treasure had wrung from the hearts of men; sapphires, mirroring the blue of the tropic sky; emeralds, green as the island verdure; pearls, white as the milk of the cocoanuts and softly luminous as the phosphorescent foam which broke on the beach in the darkness.  And there were diamonds that caught gleams of all the others’ beauty, and then mocked them with a matchless splendor.

Some of the stones lay loose upon their bed of cotton; others were in massive settings of curious old-time workmanship.  Every gem was of exceptional size and beauty, the pearls, I knew at once, were the rarest I had ever looked upon.  They were strung in a necklace, and had a very beautiful pendant of mingled pearls and diamonds.

There were nine heavy bracelets, all jewel-set; twenty-three rings, eight of them for the hand of a man.  Some of these rings contained the finest of the diamonds, except for three splendid unset stones.  There were numbers of elaborate old-fashioned earrings, two rope-like chains of gold adorned with jewels at intervals, and several jeweled lockets.  There was a solid gold snuff-box, engraved with a coat of arms and ornamented with seventeen fine emeralds.  There were, besides the three diamonds, eighty-two unset stones, among them, wrapped by itself in cotton, a ruby of extraordinary size and luster.  And there was a sort of coronet or tiara, sown all over with clear white brilliants.