Somebody over in Europe had worked on it long and lovingly.

Now as the Galician gently rubbed and polished and turned the ring this way and that, the light revealed crude tiny figures, a man and a woman under a tree.

And was that a vine or a serpent?
They studied it long and absorbedly.
At home, up in his bedroom, Roger opened a safe which stood in one corner, took out a large shallow tray and sat down with it by his lamp.

A strange array of rings was there, small and delicate, huge, bizarre; great signet rings and poison rings, love tokens, charms and amulets, rings which had been worn by wives, by mistresses, by favorite slaves and by young girls in convents; rings with the Madonna and rings with many other saints graven on large heavy stones; rings French and Russian, Polish, Italian, Spanish, Syrian.

Some were many centuries old.