"_Mais, nom de Dieu!_ Ah, the pigs--ah, the sacred pigs!" Disjointed words from the others--cries, oaths, jubilations--filled the low-arched chamber, mingling in the stuffy air with lamp-smoke and the dull scent of blood and dust and sweat.
Wheezing breath, wordless cries, grunts, strange laughter sounded.
And, withal, the major's hands and arms in one of the pits made a dry, slithering slide and click as he kneaded, worked, and stirred the gems, dredged up fistfuls and let them rain down crepitantly, again.
The sight was one very hard to grasp with any concrete understanding, harder still to render in cold words.

At first, it gave only a confused impression of colors, like those in some vivid Oriental rug.

The details escaped observation; and these changed, too, as the swaying of the lamps, in excited hands, shifted position.
A shimmer of unearthly light played over the pits, like the thin, colored flames at the edge of a driftwood fire.

Soft, opalescent gleams were blent with prismatic blues, greens, crimsons.

Melting violets were stabbed through by hard yellows and penetrant purples.
And here an orange flash vied with a delicate old rose; there a rich carnation sparkled beside a misty gray, like fading clouds along the dim horizons of fairyland.
The Master murmured: "It's true, then--partly true.