Donald Wandrei

“ He lowered the lamp closer to the heap, and the slumbering fire burst into a blaze of dark glory that flashed from center to center, from stone to stone, from facet to facet, kindling every jewel, melting and blending the shades into living splendor. He swayed the lamp back and forth above the horde, and all the emeralds began an innumerable winking and twinkling in little green tongues of fire that played across the gems, that flickered from every jewel, that leaped and danced as they poured forth all together their deep beauty. ”

“ The emeralds that had lain dark within the chest began to glow softly as the first rays of light fell upon them, and when the lamp was directly over the heap, those on the surface shone with a wondrous green fire, a fire that mingled the dark tones of the sea with the sinister duskiness that moves within the depths of absinthe, a radiance as of stars and phosphorus and polished jade all wrought into one color, glowing with a mystic and ineffable glow. ”

“ In the center of the room lay the body of the old man, curiously shriveled and shrunken. Beside it, on a table, lay an emerald, an emerald such as the eyes of man had never beheld, a great jewel of monstrous size. ”