As it did, fever increased over the possibility of finding a lost cache of priceless gems. Television talk-show hosts interviewed panels of cartographers, gemologists, and professional treasure hunters. Late-night comedians made one joke after another about dead mapmakers in bogs. Printers of antique maps could not keep up with demand. Ruby prices soared. Tourists stood in long lines to view the remains of Johannes Cellarius, now on display at the University of Hamburg medical school. Thursday’s noontime sun seemed to linger over Scandinavia. Urged, finally, by the afternoon shadows, it ponderously moved on. Near Bergen, Norway, a fisherman blew on his chapped hands, then steered his boat away from the fog-drenched fjords and out to sea. He reflected on the glory days of his people, when fishermen-warriors set out in razor-thin vessels to loot any conspicuously accumulated wealth they could find. The lost Tavernier stones constituted just such booty. They awakened a spirit in the fisherman that had been dormant in his people for a thousand years.
