Somebody produced scissors and the stitches were cut.

Within the linen was a necklace of beautiful red stones, oval-shaped like amber beads and of the size of a robin's egg.

They were roughly polished and threaded on what I recognized at once to be hair from an elephant's tail.

From certain indications I judged these stones, which might have been spinels or carbuncles, or even rubies, to be very ancient.

Possibly they had once hung round the neck of some lady in old Egypt.