The end of March! Eight weeks off! Soon there would be but seven weeks--then six! And, all this time, the islanders toiled as they had toiled for years; they reckoned in years, while the strangers cast up Time's account in weeks and called them years.

Each day the brown men worked in the mines, piling gems into the vaults with a resoluteness that never faltered.
They were the sons of Martha.

The rubies of Mandalay and Mogok were rivalled by the takings of these indifferent stockholders in the great Japat corporation.

Nothing short of a ruby as large as the Tibet gem could have startled them out of their state of taciturnity.

Gems weighing ten and fifteen carats already had been taken from the "byon" in the wash, and yet inspired no exaltation.