The Pride of the Peacock Read Online Free PDF Page A

me.
    “Opals!” 1 cried.
    “My name is Opal.”
    “Well, now, is it? Opal Clavering. It sounds very grand to me.”
    They never call me by it. I’m always Jessica. That’s rather ordinary after Opal, don’t you think? I often wonder why they gave me the name if they didn’t want to call me by it. “
    “You couldn’t have a prettier name,” he said. The reddish tinge in his cheeks deepened, and his eyes were a very bright blue. There’s nothing more beautiful than an opal. Don’t start talking to me about diamonds or rubies. “
    “I wasn’t going to.”
    “I can see you know better than to do that to an old gouger.”
    A what? “
    “An opal miner.”
    “What do you do? Tell me about it’ ” You smell out the land and you hope and you dream. Every miner dreams he’s going to find the most beautiful stones in the world. “
    “Where do you find them ?”
    “Well, there’s South Australia -Coober Pedy and Mooka Country, and there’s New South Wales and Queensland.”
    “You’re from Australia,” I said.
    That’s where I found opal, but I started out from the Old Country.
    Australia’s rich in opal. We haven’t scratched the surface of the land yet. Who’d have thought there was opal in Australia? You’can picture the excitement when they found it. Con you picture it? Some brumbies
    scratching the lan4 with their hoofs and . there’s opal. By God, what a findl In those days we thought they had to come from Hungary . never thought to look elsewhere. They’d mined them there for hundreds of years. That milky kind. Very pretty . but give me the black opals of Australia. “
    He paused and looked up at the sky. He was scarcely aware of me, I was sure. He was back in time, in space, miles away on the other side of the world, gouging-or whatever he called it-for his black opals.
    Diamonds . pah! ” he went on.
    “What’s a diamond? Cold fire, that’s what. White 1 Look at an opal…”
    How I should have loved to, but the next best thing was to listen to him.
    “Australian opals are the best,” he went on. They’re harder. They don’t splinter as easily as some. They’re lucky stones. Long ago people used to believe opals brought good fortune. Do you know Emperors and Nabobs used to wear them because they were said to protect them against attack? It used to be said that an opal could prevent your being poisoned by your enemies. Another story was that they cured blindness. What more can you ask than that? “
    Tsfothing,” I agreed heartily.
    “OcuJus Mundi. That’s what they’re called. Do you know what that means?8 I confessed that my education did not carry me so far.
    The Eye of the World,” he told me.
    “Wear it and you’ll never commit suidde.”
    “I’ve never had one, but I’ve never wanted to commit suicide.”
    “You’re too young. And you say Opal’s your name? And Jessica too. Do you know, I like that Jessie. Ifs friendly.”
    “At least it doesn’t make you think of a cure for blindness and a protection against the poison cup.”
    “Exactly,” he said, and we both burst into laughter.
    “Opals bring the gift of prophecy,” he went on.
    “So they used to say-prophecy and foresight.”
    He took a ring from his little finger and showed it to me. It was a-beautiful stone set in gold. I slipped it on my thumb, but even that was too small for it. I watched the light play on the stone. It was deep blue shot with red, yellow, and green lights. He held out his hand for the ring as though he were impatient that it should be too long out of his possession so I gave it back to him.
    “It’s beautiful; I said.
     
    “New South Wales … that’s where it comes from. I teB you this.
    Miss Jessie, there are going to be some big finds there one day . even bigger than we’ve had already. I won’t be in on it, though. ” He tapped the tartan rug.
    “Hazards of the business. Got to accept them, you know. Think of the rewards. I’ll never forget the day this happened. I