fine a stone, so strangely cut.

It was set in ruddy soft gold, worked and graven with exquisite art in
the semblance of a two-headed cobra; inside the band was an inscription
so worn and faint that Amber experienced some difficulty in deciphering
the word RAO (king) in Devanagari, flanked by swastikas. Aside from the
stone entirely, he speculated, the value of the ring as an antique
would have proven inestimable. As for the emerald itself, in its
original state, before cutting, it must have been worth the ransom of
an emperor; much had certainly been sacrificed to fashion it in its
present form. The cunning of a jewel-cutter whose art was lost before
Tyre and Nineveh upreared their heads must have been taxed by the task.
Its innumerable facets reproduced with wonderful fidelity a human
eyeball, unwinking, sleepless. In the enigmatic heart of its
impenetrable iris cold fire lived, cold passionless flames leaped and
died and leaped again like the sorcerous fire of a pythoness.

To gaze into its depths was like questioning the inscrutable green
heart of the sea. Fascinated, Amber felt his consciousness slip from
him as a mantle might slip from his shoulders; awake, staring wide-eyed
into the emerald eye, he forgot self, forgot the world, and dreamed,
dreamed curiously....

The crash of the door closing behind him brought him to the right-about
in a panic flutter. He glared stupidly for a time before comprehending
that Rutton and Doggott had returned. How long they had been absent he
had no means of reckoning; the interval might have been five minutes or
an hour in duration. The time since he had stooped to examine the ring
was as indefinite; but his back was aching and his thoughts were drowsy
and confused. He had a sensation as of being violently recalled to a