As he collapsed within the pit, I made a step forward to the brink and looked.  He was now upon his hands and knees before the chest, bathing his hands in the gleaming heap of gems, catching them up in handfuls, and as they ran like sparkling rain through his fingers, muttering incoherently to himself and humming wild snatches of song.

“Colliver—­Simon Colliver!” I called.

He paid no attention, but went on tossing up the diamonds and rubies in his hands and watching them as they rattled down again upon the heap.

“Simon Colliver!”

I leapt down into the pit beside him, and laid my hand upon his shoulder.  He paused for a moment, and looked up with a vacant gleam in his deep eyes.

“Colliver, I have to speak a word with you.”

“Oh, yes, I know you.  Trenoweth, of course:  Ezekiel Trenoweth come back again after the treasure.  But you are too late, too late, too late!  You are dead now—­ha, ha! dead and rotting.

    “For his glittering eyes are the salt sea’s prize,
        And his fingers clutch the sand, my lads.

“Aha! his fingers clutch the sand.  Here’s pretty sand for you! sand of all colours; look, look, there’s a brave sparkle!” And again he ran the priceless shower through his fingers.

“Oh, yes,” he continued after a moment, looking up, “oh, yes, I know you—­Ezekiel Trenoweth, of course; or is it Amos, or Jasper?  No matter, you are all dead.  I killed the last of you last year—­no, last night; all dead.

    “And the devil has got his due, my lads!

“His due, his due!  Look at it! look again!  I had a skull just now.  John Railton’s skull, no eyes in it though,

    “For his glittering eyes are the salt sea’s—­

“Where is the skull?  Let me fit it with a bonny pair of eyes here—­ here they are, or here, look, here’s a pair that change colour when they move.  Where is the skull?  Give it me.  Oh, I forgot, I lost it.  Never mind, find it, find it.  Here’s plenty of eyes when you find it.  Or give it this big, red one.  Here’s a flaming, fiery eye!”

As he stretched out his hand over the Great Ruby, I caught him by the wrist.  But he was too quick for me, and with a sharp snarl and click of his teeth, had whipped his hand round to his back.

Then in a flash, as I grappled with him, he thrust me back with his left palm, and, with a sweep of his right, hurled the great jewel far out into the sea.  I saw it rise and curve in one long, sparkling arch of flame, then fall with a dropping line of fire down into the billows.  A splash—­a jet of light, and it was gone:—­gone perhaps to hide amid the rotting timbers of what was once the Belle Fortune, or among the bones of her drowned crew to watch with its blood-red tireless eye the extremity of its handiwork.  There, for aught I know, it lies to-day, and there, for aught I care, beneath the waters it shall treasure its infernal loveliness for ever.