Harry was standing close under the lamp as he took off the covering, and remained there a moment, holding in his hand the gorgeous jewel, and looking at it with a curiously fixed attention, unconscious of the others. Then he handed it to his uncle.
"Tell me about it; what is it, Uncle Francis?" he asked; and involuntarily, as the old man took it, he glanced at the picture of Francis, second baron, who in the portrait held, beyond a doubt, the same treasure that they were now examining.
Mr. Francis did not at once reply, but handled the cup for a little while in silence, with awe and solemnity in his attitude and expression. As he turned it this way and that in his grasp, jewel after jewel caught the light and shone refracted in points of brilliant colour on his face. The burnished band on which was engraved the circling of the text cut a yellow line of reflection across his nose and cheeks, which remained steady, but over the rest of his face gleams of living colour shone and passed; and now as a ruby, now an emerald, sent their direct rays into his eyes, they would seem lit inside by a gleam of red or green. At length he looked up.
"Hear what the thing says of itself," he said. "I will read it you."
Then, turning the cup till he had found the beginning of the text, he read slowly, the cup revolving to the words:
"When the Luck of the Vails is lost, Fear not fire nor rain nor frost; When the Luck is found again, Fear both fire and frost and rain."
"Very pretty," said Geoffrey, with a critical air, but Mr. Francis made no reply. His eyes were still fixed on the jewel.
"This? The cup?" he said. "It is what I have read to you. It is the Luck of the Vails."
Geoffrey laughed. "You've got it, Harry, anyhow," he said, "for weal or woe. How does it run? Fear fire and frost and rain. Take care of yourself, old man, and don't smoke in bed, and don't skate over deep water."
Mr. Francis turned to him quickly, with a sudden recovery of his briskness.
"You and I would risk all that, would we not, Geoffrey," he said, "to have found such a beautiful thing?--Yes, Harry, I see you have noticed it. There it is in old Francis's hand in the picture. Where else should it be if not there? Whether he made it or not I can't tell you, but that is its first appearance, as far as we know."