'Hal,' he said, 'do you know why I have shown you this? It _must_,
MUST be buried with me at my death; and there is no one upon whose
energy, truth, courage, and strength of will I can rely as I can upon
yours. You must give me your word, Hal, that you will see it and this
casket containing her letters buried with me.'
I hesitated to become a party to such an undertaking as this. It
savoured of superstition, I thought. Now, having at that very time
abandoned all the superstitions and all the mystical readings of the
universe which as a child I had inherited from ancestors, Romany and
English, having at that very time begun to take a delight in the
wonderful revelations of modern science, my attitude towards
superstition--towards all super-naturalism--oscillated between anger
and simple contempt.
'But,' I said, 'you surely will not have this beautiful old cross
buried?' And as I looked at it, and the light fell upon it, there
came from it strange flashes of fire, showing with what extraordinary
skill the rubies and diamonds had been adjusted so that their facets
should catch and concentrate the rays of the moon.
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