One side of it was thickly coated
with vermilion paint.
"Where did this come from?" I asked in an agitated voice.
"From the floor of the crater. Is it _really_ an emerald?"
I lifted my head and stared at the girl incredulously.
"It happened this way," she said excitedly. "Father was painting a
picture up there by the edge of the crater. He left his palette on the
grass to go to the bungalow for some more tubes of colour. While he was
in the house, hunting for the colours which he wanted, I stepped out on
the veranda, and I saw some crows alight near the palette and begin
to stalk about in the grass. One bird walked right over his wet palette;
I stepped out and waved my sun-bonnet to frighten him off, but he had
both feet in a sticky mass of Chinese vermilion, and for a moment was
unable to free himself.
"I almost caught him, but he flapped away over the edge of the crater,
high above the wall of vapour, sailed down onto the crater floor, and
alighted.
"But his feet bothered him; he kept hopping about on the bottom of the
crater, half running, half flying; and finally he took wing and rose up
over the hill.
"As he flew above me, and while I was looking up at his vermilion feet,
something dropped from his claws and nearly struck me.
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