LITMIR.BIZ

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before he had finished speaking.

      “Oh, if it’s only true!” Ricky stared up like one hypnotized. “Then we’ll be rich and—”

      “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” Val reminded her, but he didn’t think that she heard him.

      Then Rupert was back with the ladder. He climbed up, leaving the three of them clustered about its foot.

      “Nothing here but two stone studs to hold the Luck in place,” he said a moment later.

      “Why not try pressing those?” suggested Charity.

      “All right, here goes.” He placed his thumbs in the corners of the niche and threw his weight upon them.

      “Nothing happened.” Ricky’s voice was deep with disappointment.

      “Look!” Val pointed over her shoulder.

      To the left of the fireplace were five panels of oak, to balance those on the other side about the door of the unused drawing-room. The center one of these now gaped open, showing a dark cavity.

      “It worked!” Ricky was already heading for the opening.

      There behind the paneling was a shallow closet which ran the full length of the five panels. It was filled with a collection of bags and small chests, a collection which appeared much larger when it lay in the gloom within than when they dragged it out. Then, when they had time to examine it carefully, they discovered that their booty consisted of two small wooden boxes or chests, one fancifully carved and evidently intended for jewels, the other plain but locked; a felt bag and another of canvas, and a package hurriedly done up in cloth. Rupert spread it all out on the floor.

      “Well,” he hesitated, “where shall we begin?”

      “Charity thought about how to open it, and it was her cat that found us the clue—let her choose,” Val suggested.

      “Good,” agreed Rupert. “And what’s your choice, m’lady?”

      “What woman could resist this?” She laid her hand upon the jewel box.

      “Then that it is.” He reached for it.

      It opened readily enough to show a shallow tray divided into compartments, all of them empty.

      “Sold again,” Val commented dryly.

      Carefully Rupert lifted out the top tray to disclose another on which rested three small leather bags. He loosened the draw-string of the nearest and shook out into his palm a pair of earrings of a quaint pattern in twisted gold set with dull red stones. Charity pronounced them garnets. Though they were not of great value, they were precious in Ricky’s eyes, and even Charity exclaimed over them.

      The second bag yielded a carnelian seal on a wide chain of gold mesh, the sort of ornament a dandy wore dangling from his watch pocket in the days of the Regency. And the third bag contained a cross of silver, blackened by time, set with amethysts. This was accompanied by a chain of the same dull metal.

      Putting these into the girls’ hands, Rupert lifted the second tray to lay bare the bottom of the chest. Here again were several small bags. There was another cross, this time of jet inlaid with gold and attached to a short necklace of jet beads; a wide bracelet of coral and turquoise which was crudely made and might have been native work of some sort. Then there was a tiny jewel-set bottle, about which, Ricky declared, there still lingered some faint trace of the fragrance it had once held. And most interesting to Charity was a fan, the sticks carved of ivory so intricately that they resembled lacework stiffened into slender ribs. The covering between them was fashioned of layers of silk painted with a scene of the bayou country, with the moss-grown oaks and encroaching swamp all carefully depicted.

      Charity declared that she had never seen its equal and that some great artist must have decorated the dainty trifle. She closed it carefully and slipped it back into its covering, and Rupert took out the last of the bags. From its depths rolled a ring.

      It was plain enough, a simple band of gold so deep in shade as to be almost red. Nearly an inch in width, there was no ornamentation of any sort on its broad, smooth surface.

      “Do you know what this is?” Rupert turned the circlet around in his fingers.

      “No.” Ricky was still dangling the earrings before her eyes.

      “It is the wedding-ring of the Bride of the Luck.”

      “What!” Val leaned forward to look down at the plain circle of gold.

      Even Ricky gave her brother her full attention now. Rupert turned to Charity.

      “You probably know the story of our Luck?” he asked.

      She nodded.

      “When the Luck was brought from Palestine, it was decided that it must be given into the hands of a guardian who would be responsible for it with his or her life. Because the men of the house were always at war during those troublesome times, the guardianship went to the eldest daughter if she were a maiden. By high and solemn ceremony she was married to the Luck in the chapel of Lorne. And she was the Bride of the Luck until death or a unanimous consent from the family released her. Nor could she marry a mortal husband during the time she wore this.” He touched the ring he held.

      “This must be very old. It’s the red gold which came into Ireland and England before the Romans conquered the land. Perhaps this was found in some old barrow on Lorne lands. But it no longer means anything without the Luck.”

      He held it out to Ricky. “By tradition this is yours.”

      She shook her head. “I don’t think I want that, Rupert. It’s too old—too strange. Now these,” she held up the earrings, “you can understand. The girls who wore them were like me, and they wore them because they were pretty. But that—” she looked at the Bride’s ring with distaste—“that must have been a burden to its wearer. Didn’t you tell us once of the Lady Iseult, who killed herself when they would not release her from her vows to the Luck? I don’t want to wear that, ever.”

      “Very well.” He dropped it back into its bag. “We’ll send it to LeFleur for safe-keeping. Any scruples about the rest of this stuff?”

      “Of course not! And none of it is worth much. May I keep it?”

      “If you wish. Now let’s see what is in here.” He drew the second box toward him and forced it open.

      “Money!” Charity was staring at it with wide eyes.

      Within, in neat bundles, lay packages of paper notes. Even Rupert was shaken from his calm as he reached for one. Outside of a bank none of them had ever seen such a display of wealth. But after he studied the top note, the master of Pirate’s Haven laughed thinly.

      “This may be worth ten cents to some collector if we’re lucky—”

      “Rupert! That’s real money,” began Ricky.

      But Val, too, had seen the print. “Confederate money, child. As useless now as our pretty oil stock. I told you that things always turn out wrong in this house. If we do find treasure, it’s worthless. How much is there, anyway?”

      Rupert picked up a slip of paper tucked under the tape fastening the first bundle. “This says thirty-five thousand—profit from a blockade runner’s trip.”

      “Thirty-five thousand! Well, I think that that is just too much,” Ricky said defiantly. “Why didn’t they get paid in real money?”

      “Being loyal to the South, the Ralestones probably would not take what you call ‘real money,’” replied Charity.

      “It’s nice to know how wealthy we once were,” Val observed. “What are you going to do with that wall-paper, Rupert?”

      “Oh, chuck it in my desk. I’ll get someone to look it over; there might be a collector’s item among these bills. Now let’s have the joker out of this bundle.” He

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