Then his servants were commanded to raise and lower the window-curtains alternately.
These shifting contra-lights put a strange life into the gems; they not only scintillated, they breathed.

Or, perhaps the pyramid would be of emeralds; and he would peer into their cool green depths as he might have peered into the sea.
He kept these treasures in an ornamented iron-chest, old, battered, of simple mechanism.

It had been his father's and his father's father's; it had been in the family since the days of the Peacock Throne, and most of the jewels besides.

Night and day the chest was guarded.

It lay upon an ancient Ispahan rug, in the center of the bedroom, which no hotel servant was permitted to enter.