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The brilliant blue water sparkles under the hot sun, or adds one more tint to the exquisite hues which make of the sky one vast, gleaming fire-opal on those marvelous "white nights" when darkness never descends to a depth beyond the point where it leaves all objects with natural forms and colors, and only spiritualizes them with the gentle vagueness of a translucent veil.
"We have nothing out here but trinkets." "Trinkets! Do you call that fire-opal a trinket? Better let me take it into town, anyway. I'm Irish enough to be superstitious about opals." "That's nonsense." "Maybe." "Oh, well; if the thought of having it around makes you nervous, I'll give it to you. The Crawfords and Mr. Forbes are coming down this afternoon. You must be home again before dinner.
All the atmosphere swam with changing colours, such as come and go in the heart of a fire-opal. Very beautiful must have been the city of Mansourah, named after murdered Sultan el Mansour, the Victorious, who built its vast fortifications, its mosques and vanished palaces, its caravanserais and baths, in the seven years when he was besieging Tlemcen.
The sun dipped behind the encircling hills; the west blazed with the lambent flame of fire-opal; the wonderful translucent blue of the sky shaded suddenly to deep purple lanced by great shafts of mauve and amethyst light, and in the east stars popped out; the hills shone like huge, crude gems sapphire, jade, jasper, malachite, chalcedony their valleys swimming with mists of mother-of-pearl.... And it was night, the hills dark and still, the sky a deeper purple and opaque, the ruddy fires of wayfarers on the roadside leaping clear and bright.
She could see it far up, glowing as red as her fire-opal in the light of the embers. But presently she came to a huge heap of stones, piled in a slope against the wall of the cavern. On these she climbed, and soon recovered the level of the thread only however to find, the next moment, that it vanished through the heap of stones, and left her standing on it, with her face to the solid rock.
She hesitated a moment, standing before him, the hood of her capote, with its rich purple, dropping from the fluttering yellow hair that the moonlight deepened into gold, and the fire-opal clasp rising and falling with her breath, like an imprisoned flame. He touched her hand, still warm and soft, with his own, which was icy.
The Egyptians had had it, hot and bright as the sun on the desert; we know that the Greeks made their Parian marble glow in rainbow tints; Moorish architecture was nothing if not colorful, and the Venice Ruskin loved was fairly iridescent a thing of fire-opal and pearl.
But ship that girl east as soon as you can." "Why?" McClintock put a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Because she's a fire-opal, and to the world at large they bring bad luck." "Rot! Mac, what do you suppose the natives used to call her? The Dawn Pearl!" McClintock wagged his Scotch head negatively. He knew what he knew.
Whether he was opal-mad or not, it is clear that persons who visit this place are very apt to become monomaniacs upon the subject of this beautiful gem. Our party expended considerable sums for these precious stones, cut and uncut, during the brief period of our visit. The choicest of these specimens is the true fire-opal, which in brilliancy and iridescence excels all others.
'What a beautiful ring! said Irene. 'What is the stone called? 'It is a fire-opal. 'Please, am I to keep it? 'Always. 'Oh, thank you, grandmother! It's prettier than anything I ever saw, except those of all colours-in your Please, is that your crown? 'Yes, it is my crown. The stone in your ring is of the same sort only not so good. It has only red, but mine have all colours, you see.
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