THE SACRED JEWEL 

by Unknown Author

Originally appeared in Feature Stories Magazine: Jungle Thrills issue 1 in 1950.

O'Hara had a growth of red Irish beard, for he had said at the start of our journey, "If you are bound to take this crazy job, Mac Laren, and it comes that we meet up with the devil, then I intend to go down with my colors flying!" 

I called the girl Duchess, because she had refused to give me her name, but had paid cash in advance for our supplies and had posted with the American consul in Paris, through the branch of the Bank of France at Loango, French Equatorial Africa, an escrow of money equal to the price I had demanded for my services. Even to the bank she had not divulged her name, but signed all papers under the pseudonym of Mlle X. 

Now in the afternoon, the canopy of vines stretching between the high trees lush in jungle green at the edge of the stream, became alive with the chatter of monkeys disturbed in their napping. The slow rhythm of Ngami's pole, dragging through the sluggish water between thrusts against the muddy bottom, seemed to be keeping time with the drowsy breathing of the Duchess, halfway forward in the dugout. 

The clumsy craft was wide enough to hold O'Hara and me side-by-side. Lazily watching the Duchess, I suddenly realized that until now I had not noticed her being so relaxed since our journey began. 

"She's beautiful," I whispered to O'Hara, "when she's not drawn up in a knot. Look at her now!" 

"B'gorra, you look yourself," said O'Hara with disgust. "Me, I'd be fer turnin' back! This is no job fer man or beast, truckin' a female into the wilds in search of a pool that might or mightn't be!" 

I rested my hand instinctively on the Winchester bridging the gun-wales of the dugout. "'The next stop's our last," I said, a little sadly in spite of myself. “Nobody knows that country beyond Ingoo. Not even you and I, O'Hara. If the jewel's not there, we'll take the Duchess back and our job is done." 

"And faith, we'll be lucky ever to return, now or later, Mac Laren.“ O'Hara, reaching into his shirt pocket, produced a plug of tobacco and bit off a chunk. "Of all foolishness, this bears anything you have ever laid hand to: One black we have left! Half our supplies are gone! Who knows when Ngami will take off and then, by the saints, nothing will save our necks!" 

I knew O'Hara spoke the truth. Ngami held prestige among the tribes of the jungle. And so far Ngami had been intensely loyal to us. But native superstition is a deeply rooted thing. How long his loyalty to us in the face of what seemed to him a blasphemy of sacred things, would be a matter about which we could only speculate and hope. 

The sacred emerald was heralded along the Congo and its tributaries as the bringer of good fortune in peace and in war. The spirits guarding its rumored brilliance alone would wreak untold vengeance on those who allowed it to be removed from its place of concealment. 

The location of the emerald was but a conjecture. No one ever had found its hiding place. Perhaps it did not even exist. That is what was so tantalizing about that whole trip, not even knowing whether or not we were chasing a treasure or a rainbow. But the rumors that traveled by word of native tongue had it that the emerald never was in one place, but was carried here and there by a strange god whose face was white as death itself, whose bared chest carried a sign of evil, a warning to those who would invade the sanctity of a blessed thing. 

The Duchess stirred, ever so slightly, in her sleep. I grasped O'Hara's arm. "Speak lower," I said. "This is her first untroubled sleep in over a month." 

O'Hara shrugged. He was hard bitten as he was staunch: I settled back and thought of that first meeting with the Duchess. I had sat with O'Hara in a bar in Matadi. It was sweltering. Men drank slowly. The whole room was dank with the odor of stale beer and perspiration. It was that breach of perfume, like the early morning of a spring in Paris, that drew my attention to the Duchess. She came, dressed in white and spotless linen, straight for my table. At first I thought she had mistaken me for someone else. But her voice, low, musical, spoke to me in English, touched with an accent of French, I judged, and used my name. 

"Mr. Mac Laren, I have been told you are an adventurous person, that for your price you will undertake any commission.” She paused then, looking at me steadily, appraising me, perhaps, and went on, “Even to finding the Sacred Emerald." 

I gasped. But in the end she had her way. Almost to O'Hara's and my severing of our long, rough-hewn friendship! 

I realized slowly, seeing her there as we rode the dugout that afternoon, that not be cause of the spirit of adventure, but because I at once had fallen deeply in love with her, had I consented to the perilous journey in search of the stone. And now realizing it, I feared for her lest something happen that would take her from me. 

It was late afternoon when we finally made shore and, having grounded our dugout, I began preparations for pitching camp. But the Duchess said, almost fiercely, it seemed, "No, we must go at once. We cannot waste, a moment of time." 

She seemed refreshed from her sleep, and more beautiful than ever. But there was in her eyes, something I could not fathom. Ngami and O'Hara had gone away, looking for a clearing. So, alone with the Duchess, I grasped her in my arms. "I cannot let you risk it, Duchess! I love you so! Tell me I may hope! Come back with me now!" 

She did not draw away, nor did she return my ardor. "If this fails, I will do whatever you would like," she answered. "But I must try...I must try this once more!" 

My heart was light as we set out for Ingoo, for there seemed to me no greater chance of finding the stone in Ingoo than there had been in all other places of search. 

When we walked into the village, cook-fires were burning. And then I heard the Duchess scream and saw her run forward. A ghost walked down the street through the shadows of dusk, a ghost—or was it a god?—with face white as death itself, whose chest carried a sign of evil. I looked closely: A Nazi swastika was branded there. An ugly scar. I imagined a scar of torture, cruel torture to loosen a captive's tongue.

The Duchess cried and laughed at once. “It had to be you! I knew it! The scar! The emerald—my father's dowry to you, my dear! Oh, Francois, how could you think I had collaborated! Did you not think, too, that I might have been of the UNDERGROUND? Coming home from prison you found me disgraced, but if you had but been patient! Soon the whole of Paris learned, and honored me!" 

Francois was crying like a child and the Duchess sat cross-legged on the ground, holding him in her arms, rocking back and forth. 

Whether there was another emerald than the one Francois carried I never learned. Rumor does not die in the jungle. It grows. 

I turned to O'Hara. "The Duchess has found her jewel," I said, adding with a singe of bitterness, "and I have lost mine!" 

"Glory be," replied O'Hara, "When do we start back?" 

END