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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57296 ***
+
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+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+     1. Page scan source: The Internet Archive
+        https://archive.org/details/underlockkeystor03spei
+        (Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+UNDER LOCK AND KEY.
+---------
+VOL. III.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+UNDER LOCK AND KEY.
+
+
+A Story.
+
+
+
+
+BY
+T. W. SPEIGHT,
+AUTHOR OF "BROUGHT TO LIGHT," "FOOLISH MARGARET,"
+ETC.
+
+
+
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES.
+VOL. III.
+
+
+
+
+LONDON:
+TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
+1869.
+[_All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved_.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LONDON:
+SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
+COVENT GARDEN.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+OF
+THE THIRD VOLUME.
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+       I. THE THIRD REPORT CONTINUED.
+      II. GEORGE STRICKLAND'S QUEST.
+     III. AT THE "ROYAL GEORGE."
+      IV. A LITTLE DINNER FOR THREE.
+       V. CLEON REDIVIVUS.
+      VI. PASTILLE-BURNING.
+     VII. CHASING "LA BELLE ROSE."
+    VIII. THE CAVE OF ST. LAZARE.
+      IX. THE VERDICT OF MR. VERMUSEN.
+       X. HAUNTED.
+      XI. THE ARRIVAL OF THE DIAMOND AT DUPLEY WALLS.
+     XII. DE MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM.
+    XIII. THE DEPARTURE OF SIR JOHN POLLEXFEN.
+     XIV. THE TARN OF BEN DULAS.
+      XV. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+UNDER LOCK AND KEY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+THE THIRD REPORT CONTINUED.
+
+
+"Five minutes later, Captain Ducie and your hopeful son slunk out of
+Bon Repos like the thieves we were, and treading the gravelled pathway
+as carefully as two Indians on the war-trail might have done, we came
+presently to the margin of the starlit lake. There was no lack of
+boats at Bon Repos, and soon I was pulling over the quiet mere in the
+direction of Bowness. We managed to find the little pier without much
+difficulty. There we disembarked, and then chained up the boat and
+left it. By this time the first faint streaks of day were brightening
+in the east. There would be no train from Bowness for three or four
+hours. Captain Ducie's impatience could not brook such a delay. At his
+request I roused the people at one of the hotels. Even then we had to
+stand kicking our heels for half an hour before a conveyance and pair
+of horses could be got ready for us. But when we were once fairly
+under way, no grass was suffered to grow under our horses' feet. The
+captain's object was to catch one of the fast up trains at Oxenholme
+Junction, some fourteen miles away. This we succeeded in doing, with a
+quarter of an hour to spare. A portion of that quarter of an hour was
+occupied by me in sending a certain telegram to my respected _pater_.
+The day was still young when Captain Ducie and I alighted at
+Euston-square.
+
+"I did not know whether it was the captain's intention to give me my
+congé as soon as we should reach town, but I certainly knew that it
+was not my intention to part from him quite so readily. He had
+insisted on my travelling up in the same carriage with himself, and I
+had had the free run of his cognac and cigars. During the early part
+of the journey he had been silent and thoughtful, but by no means
+morose. As the morning advanced, however, his shoulder had begun to
+pain him greatly, and by the time we reached London I could see,
+although he uttered no complaint, that the agony was almost more than
+he could bear. Consequently, I was not surprised as I helped him to
+alight from the railway carriage, to hear him say:--
+
+"'Jasmin, my good fellow, I find that it will not do for me to part
+from you just yet. This confounded shoulder of mine seems as if it
+were going to make a nuisance of itself. You must order a cab and go
+with me. I will make your excuses to M. Platzoff.'
+
+"'Right you are, sir,' said I. 'Where shall I tell cabby to drive to?'
+
+"'To the Salisbury Hotel, Fleet-street.'
+
+"Captain Ducie was such an undoubted West-end swell that I was rather
+surprised to find him going east of Temple Bar. But my place was to
+obey, and not to question his behests.
+
+"'Get into the cab: I want to talk to you,' said he. 'On one or two
+points it will be requisite that I should take you into my
+confidence,' he began, as soon as we were out of the station. 'And I
+have less hesitation in doing this because, from what I have seen of
+you, I believe you to be a perfectly trustworthy and straightforward
+fellow.'
+
+"It is very kind of you to say so, sir,' I answered respectfully.
+
+"'Now, for certain reasons which I need not detail, I do not want my
+presence in London to be known to any one. I am going to an hotel
+where I have never been before, and where I am entirely unknown. While
+stopping at this hotel I shall pass under the name of Mr. Stonor, a
+country gentleman--let us say--of limited means, who is up in town for
+the furtherance of some business of a legal character. Can you
+remember Mr. Stonor from the country?'
+
+"'I shall not forget it, sir--you may trust me for that.'
+
+"'Yes, if I had not felt that I could trust you, I should not have
+brought you so far, nor have taken you so deeply into my confidence.'
+
+"Father! for the first time these dozen years your son blushed.
+
+
+"On reaching the hotel Mr. Stonor seemed to care little or nothing
+about the size or comfort of the rooms that were shown him. He was
+particular on one point only. That point was the fastening of his
+bedroom door.
+
+"After rejecting three or four rooms in succession he chose one that
+had a stouter lock than ordinary, and that could be reached only
+through another room. In this other room it was arranged that I should
+sleep, so that no one could obtain access to Mr. Stonor without first
+disturbing me.
+
+"Is not this another proof that I acted judiciously in leaving Bon
+Repos, and that Captain Ducie, above all men in the world, is the man
+I ought to stick to?
+
+"We had no sooner settled about the rooms than Captain Ducie was
+obliged to go to bed. He would not allow me to help him off with any
+other article of dress than his outer coat. Then he sent me for a
+doctor, and when the doctor and I got back he was in bed. The doctor
+pronounced the wound in his shoulder to be not a dangerous one, but
+one that would necessitate much care and attention. The captain was
+condemned to stay in bed for at least a week to come.
+
+"There is no occasion to weary you with too many details. A week--ten
+days, passed away and I still remained in attendance on Captain Ducie.
+For the first four or five days he did not progress much towards
+recovery. He was too fidgety, too anxious in his mind, to get well. I
+knew the form which his anxiety had taken when I saw how impatient he
+was each morning till he had got the newspaper in his fingers, and
+could be left alone to wade through it. At the end of an hour or so he
+would ring his bell, and would tell me with a weary look, to take
+'that cursed newspaper' away.
+
+"I was just as impatient for the newspaper as he was, and did not fail
+to submit its contents each morning to a most painstaking search.
+
+"After the sixth day there was a decided improvement in the condition
+of Captain Ducie, and from that date he progressed rapidly towards
+recovery. It was on the sixth day that my search through the newspaper
+was rewarded by finding a paragraph that interested me almost as much
+as it must have interested Captain Ducie. The paragraph in question
+was in the shape of an extract from _The Westmoreland Gazette_, and
+ran as under:--
+
+
+"'_The Dangers of Opium-smoking_.--We have to record the sudden death
+of M. Paul Platzoff, a Russian gentleman of fortune, who has resided
+for several years on the banks of Windermere. M. Platzoff was found
+dead in bed on the morning of Wednesday last. From the evidence given
+at the inquest it would appear that the unfortunate gentleman had been
+accustomed for years to a frequent indulgence in the pernicious
+habit of opium-smoking, and the medical testimony went to prove that
+he must have died while in one of those trances which make up the
+opium-smoker's elysium. At the same time, it is but just to observe
+that had not the post-mortem examination revealed the fact of there
+having been heart-disease of long standing, the mere fact of the
+deceased gentleman having been addicted to opium-smoking would not of
+itself have been sufficient to account for his sudden death.'
+
+
+"There are one or two facts to be noted in connexion with the
+foregoing account. In the first place, it is there stated that M.
+Platzoff was found dead in bed. When I saw him soon after midnight, he
+lay dead on the divan in the smoke-room. But it is possible, that the
+use of the word 'bed' in the newspaper account may be a mere verbal
+inaccuracy. In the second place, there is not a word said respecting
+Cleon. Now, had the valet disappeared precisely at the time of M.
+Platzoff's mysterious death, suspicion of some sort would have been
+sure to attach to him, and an inquiry would have been set on foot
+respecting his whereabouts. Such being the case, the natural
+conclusions to be derived from the facts as known to us would seem to
+be: First, that Cleon was not out of the way when the body was found,
+and that the statements made at the inquest as to the habits of the
+deceased were made by him, and by him alone. Secondly, if any fracas
+took place between Cleon and Captain Ducie on that fatal night, as
+there is every reason to suspect, the mulatto has not seen fit to make
+any public mention of it. Captain Ducie's name, in fact, does not seem
+to have been once mentioned in connexion with the affair, and if Cleon
+either knows or suspects that the captain has the Great Diamond in his
+possession, he has doubtless had good reasons of his own for keeping
+the knowledge to himself. That some curious underhand game has been
+played between him and the captain there cannot, I think, be any
+reasonable doubt.
+
+"As soon as I had read the paragraph above quoted, I took the
+newspaper up to Captain Ducie, and pointed out the lines to him as if
+I had accidentally come across them. I wanted to hear what he would
+have to say about the death of Platzoff.
+
+"'Some strange news here, sir, about M. Platzoff,' I said.
+Here is an account of----.'
+
+"He interrupted me with a wave of his hand. 'I have seen it, Jasmin, I
+have seen it, and terribly shocked I was to have such news of my
+friend. So strangely sudden, too! I always suspected that he would do
+himself an injury with that beastly drug which he would persist in
+smoking, but I never dreamed of anything so terrible as this. I
+suppose it will be requisite for you to go down to Bon Repos for a
+time, Jasmin. There will be your wages, and your luggage and things to
+look after. What articles of mine were left behind I make you a
+present of. I hope to be sufficiently recovered in the course of three
+or four days to be able to spare you, and I will of course pay your
+fare back to Westmoreland, and remunerate you for the time you have
+been in my service. For myself, I intend spending the next few months
+somewhere on the Continent.'
+
+"I replied that I was in no hurry to go down to Bon Repos; that,
+indeed, there was no particular necessity for me to go at all that the
+amount due to me for wages was very trifling, and that my clothes and
+other things would no doubt be forwarded by Cleon to any address I
+might choose to send him.
+
+"But the captain would not hear of this. I must go down to Bon Repos
+and look after my interests on the spot, he said; and he would arrange
+to spare me in a few days. His motive for taking such a special
+interest in my affairs was not difficult to discover. He wanted
+thoroughly to break the link between himself and me. By sending me
+down to Bon Repos he would secure two or three clear days in which to
+complete whatever arrangements he might think necessary, and would,
+besides, insure himself from being watched or spied upon by me. Not
+that he doubted my fidelity in the least, but it seemed to me that of
+late he had grown suspicious of everybody; and, in any case, he was
+desirous of severing even the faintest tie that connected him in any
+way with M. Platzoff and Bon Repos. Such, at least, was the conclusion
+at which I arrived in my own mind. But it may have been an erroneous
+one.
+
+"Although Captain Ducie was desirous of getting rid of me, I did not
+mean to lose sight of him quite so readily. Each day that passed over
+my head confirmed me more fully in my belief that he had the Great
+Mogul Diamond concealed somewhere about his person. I had no one
+strong positive bit of evidence on which to base such a belief. It was
+rather by the aggregation of a hundred minute points all tending one
+way that I was enabled to build up my suspicions into a certainty.
+
+"If he had made himself master of the Diamond, he had done so
+illegally. He had stolen the gem, and I should have felt no more
+compunction in dispossessing him of it than I should have felt in
+picking a sovereign out of the gutter. But the prospect of making the
+gem my own seemed even more remote now, if that were possible, than
+when I was at Bon Repos. Nothing went farther towards confirming my
+belief that the captain had the Diamond by him than the fact of his
+taking so many and such unusual precautions to insure himself against
+a surprise from any one either by day or night. As already stated, I
+slept in the room that opened immediately out of his, so that no one
+could reach him except by passing through my room. Then, he always
+slept with the door of his bedroom double locked, and with his face
+turned to the window, the blind pertaining to which was drawn to the
+top, leaving the view clear and unobstructed. In addition, Captain
+Ducie always kept a loaded revolver under his pillow, and I had heard
+too much of his skill with that weapon to doubt that he would make an
+efficient use of it should such a need ever arise. What chance, then,
+did there seem for ce pauvre Jacques ever being able to coax the
+Diamond out of the hands of this man, who had no more right to it than
+had the Grand Turk? Still, I put a good face on the matter, and would
+not allow myself to despair.
+
+"After the sixth day Captain Ducie improved rapidly. On the tenth day
+he said to me: 'This is the last day that I shall require your
+services. You had better arrange to start by the nine forty-five train
+to-morrow morning for Windermere.'
+
+"The captain was not the sort of man to whom one could say that one
+did not want to go to Windermere, that one had no intention of going
+there. The slightest opposition from an inferior in position only
+confirmed him the more obstinately in his own views. All, therefore,
+that I said was: I am entirely at your service, sir, to go or stay as
+may suit you best.' All the same, I had no intention of going.
+
+"What I intended was to bid farewell to Captain Ducie, take a cab to
+the station, go quietly in at one gate and out at another. But the
+captain spoiled this little plan next morning by announcing his
+intention of going with me to the station. He was evidently anxious to
+see with his own eyes that I really left London, and this of course
+only made me the not more determined to go. I had only a few minutes
+in which to make my arrangements. It was necessary that I should take
+some one at least partially into my confidence, and I could think of
+no one who would suit my purpose better than Dickson, the one-eyed
+night-porter at the hotel. He was fast asleep in bed at that hour of
+the morning, but I went up to his room and roused him. He was a
+quick-witted fellow enough where anything crooked was concerned, while
+in the simple straightforward matters of daily life he was often
+unaccountably stupid. His one eye gleamed brightly when I put half a
+sovereign into his hand, and told him what I wanted him to do for me.
+I left him fully satisfied that he would do it.
+
+"A cab was ordered, my modest portmanteau was tossed on to the roof,
+Captain Ducie was shut up inside, and with myself on the box beside
+the driver, away we rattled to Euston-square. The captain went himself
+and took a ticket for me to Windermere. He had already given me a
+handsome douceur in return for my services from the date of our
+leaving Bon Repos. He now saw me safely into the carriage, gave me my
+ticket, and nodded a kindly farewell. He did not move from his post on
+the platform till he saw the train fairly under way. So parted Captain
+Ducie and your unworthy son.
+
+"At Wolverton, which was the first station at which the train stopped,
+I got out and gave up my ticket, with a pretence to the railway people
+that I had unfortunately left some important papers in town and that I
+must go back by the first train. Back I went accordingly, and reached
+Euston station in less than five hours after I had left it.
+
+"My first object was to thoroughly disguise myself: no very difficult
+task to a person of my profession. My first visit was to the peruquier
+of the Royal Tabard. Here I was dispossessed of the charming little
+imperial which I had been cultivating for the last month or two, and
+from which I did not part without a pang of regret. Next, I had my
+hair cut very close, and was fitted with a jet-black wig that could be
+termed nothing less than a triumph of mind over matter. When my
+eyebrows had been dyed to match, and when I had purchased and put
+on a pair of cheap spectacles, and had arrayed myself in a suit of
+ultra-respectable black, I felt that I could defy the keen eyes of
+Captain Ducie with impunity. Having exchanged my portmanteau for one
+of a different size and colour, I took a cab, and drove boldly to the
+Salisbury Hotel. It was satisfactory to find that Dickson passed me
+without recognising me, and I shall never forget the puzzled look that
+came into the fellow's face when I took him on one side and asked him
+for news of the captain.
+
+"The captain had ordered his bill, Dickson told me when he had
+sufficiently recovered from his surprise, and had himself packed his
+own luggage, but without addressing it. A cab was to be in readiness
+for him at half-past eight that evening. I ordered a second cab to be
+in waiting for me at the corner of the street at the same hour.
+Meanwhile I kept carefully out of the captain's way.
+
+"At 8.35 p.m. my cab was following that of the captain down the
+Strand, and in a little while we both drew up at the Waterloo
+terminus. Ducie's luggage consisted of one large portmanteau only,
+which the cabman handed over to one of the porters.
+
+"'Where shall I label your luggage for, sir?' asked the man: it was
+too large to be taken into the carriage.
+
+"The captain hesitated for a moment, while the man waited with his
+paste-can in his hand.
+
+"'For Jersey,' he said at last.
+
+"'Right you are, sir,' said the man. 'Bill, a Jersey label.'
+
+"I went at once and secured a ticket for that charming little spot.
+
+"I did not lose sight of the captain till I saw him fairly seated in
+his carriage and locked up by the guard. I travelled down in the next
+compartment but one.
+
+"I need not detain you with any account of our journey by rail, nor of
+our after-voyage from Southampton to St. Helier.
+
+"The fact of my dating this communication from a Jersey hotel is a
+sufficient proof of my safe arrival. We reached here yesterday
+afternoon, the captain never suspecting for a moment that he had James
+Jasmin, his ex-valet, for a fellow-passenger. We are lodged at
+different hotels, but the one at which I am staying is so nearly
+opposite that of the captain, and has so excellent a view into the
+private sitting-room where he has taken up his quarters, that I see
+almost as much of him, both indoors and out, as I did during the time
+I acted as his valet. His reasons for coming here are best known to
+himself; but be they what they may, I do not feel inclined to alter my
+opinion one jot that he has brought the G. M. D. to this place with
+him.
+
+"Whether, after all this time and trouble, I am any nearer the object
+for the attainment of which you first engaged me, remains for you to
+judge. In any case, send me instructions; tell me what I am to do or
+attempt next. Or do what would be infinitely better--come here in
+person, and talk over the affair with
+
+     "Your affectionate son,
+
+          "James Madgin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+GEORGE STRICKLAND'S QUEST.
+
+
+The strange story told by Sister Agnes in her confession, when
+combined with her hinted suspicion that the account of Mr. Fairfax's
+death had no foundation in fact, opened up a series of questions
+which, under any circumstances, Janet would have felt herself
+incompetent to deal with alone. Major Strickland was the person of all
+others to whom she would have gone for counsel and assistance, even
+had no injunction been laid on her to that effect. That with him
+should be associated Father Spiridion, could only be another source of
+gratulation to Janet. She had learned to love and reverence the kindly
+old man before, but now that she knew him to have been her mother's
+constant friend and adviser through many years of trouble, he seemed
+to have a thousand more claims on her affection. Into his hands and
+those of Major Strickland she committed her cause without reservation,
+feeling and knowing that they would do the same by her as if she were
+a child of their own.
+
+It was in her relations towards Lady Pollexfen that Janet felt most
+the burden of the secret that had been laid upon her. To know that she
+was the granddaughter of that imperious old woman, and yet to be
+supposed not to be aware of the fact; to be able to walk down the
+long, dim picture gallery at Dupley-Walls, and say with a proud
+swelling of the heart, "These were my ancestors;" to look up from the
+garden at the gray old pile, and then away across the wide-stretching
+park, and hear the unbidden whisper at her heart, "This is my rightful
+home:"--in all this there was for Janet a strange sort of fascination
+which she could not overcome. But even had she not been bound by her
+promise to Sister Agnes not to reveal to Lady Pollexfen what had been
+told her, there was a sufficiency of stubborn pride in her composition
+to keep her from ever acquainting the mistress of Dupley Walls with
+her knowledge of a fact which that lady had persistently ignored for
+so many years. As simple Janet Holme she would go on till the end of
+the chapter, unless Lady Pollexfen should herself break the seal of
+silence and acknowledge her as the daughter of the woman she had so
+cruelly wronged.
+
+One of Major Strickland's first acts in his capacity of adviser to
+Miss Holme, was to ask permission to make a confidant of his nephew,
+Captain George, in all that related to his young ward's affairs. The
+request was granted as a matter of course. Had it been made in behalf
+of any other than George Strickland, it would have been at once
+acceded to, but with how much greater pleasure in his case, Janet
+herself could alone have told. Between Janet and Captain Strickland
+there had not been the remotest attempt at love-making in the common
+acceptation of the phrase; and yet, by one of Love's subtle
+intuitions, each read the other's heart, and knew of the sweet secret
+that lay hidden there. Any intentions that Captain George might have
+formed in his own mind as to the propriety, or necessity, of making
+mention of his love to her whom it most concerned, were put aside for
+the time being in consequence of the death of Sister Agnes. He only
+laid them aside for a little while, because, as far as he then knew,
+there was no relationship between Sister Agnes and Janet. But when he
+came to learn from his uncle, as he was not long in doing, that Miss
+Holme was the daughter of Sister Agnes and the granddaughter of Lady
+Pollexfen, he was obliged to thrust his intentions very far into the
+background, and it seemed doubtful to him whether they would not have
+to remain there for ever. The granddaughter of Lady Pollexfen was a
+very different person from Miss Janet Holme, with no prospects to
+speak of, and not a penny, beyond her quarter's salary, to call her
+own. To have wedded the Miss Holme he had supposed Janet to be, would
+have made the happiness of his life; but to propose to Miss Holme as
+he now knew her was a very different affair. Captain Strickland was a
+poor man, but his pride was equal to his poverty; and to marry Lady
+Pollexfen's granddaughter without Lady Pollexfen's consent was more
+than that pride would allow him to do. Happily, the future might
+reveal to him some plan, by means of which his love and his pride
+might be reconciled, and walk together hand in hand. Till that time
+should come, if come it ever did, his love should remain hidden and
+dumb.
+
+It was not till nearly a fortnight after the reading of Sister Agnes's
+Confession that any decision was arrived at by Major Strickland and
+Father Spiridion as to what steps, if any, should be taken with the
+view of unravelling the mystery in which the antecedents and fate of
+Mr. Fairfax were involved. The old soldier and the older priest, with
+Captain George to strengthen their consultations, met again and again,
+and discussed the question, as far as the data they had to go upon
+would allow of it, from every possible point of view. They all felt
+that underneath the veil which they longed and yet were half afraid to
+lift, might be hidden some disgraceful story, some dark mystery, which
+it were better that neither they nor any one should become acquainted
+with. For Janet never to know who her father really was, and to remain
+in doubt as to whether he were alive or dead, might be painful to her
+feelings as a daughter, but for her to learn the truth might be more
+painful still. From Janet no positive expression of opinion could be
+elicited. She would be guided, she said, entirely by the wishes of
+those to whom the affair had been submitted. If they decided that no
+action whatever had better be taken in the matter, she was quite
+content to let it rest where it did. If, on the other hand, an
+investigation were decided upon, she would not shrink from an
+exposition of the truth, however painful it might be.
+
+At length a definite course of action was resolved upon by the three
+gentlemen, and Major Strickland wrote to Janet by post:--
+
+
+"Meet me at the King's Oak to-morrow afternoon at three.
+
+"Bring with you the certificate and the miniature."
+
+
+Janet was there at the time appointed, and there she found the major
+and Captain George.
+
+"I have asked you to meet me here," said the major after the usual
+greetings were over, "to inform you that Father Spiridion and myself
+have decided that, with your permission, an investigation ought to be
+made into the circumstances connected with your mother's marriage, and
+the supposed death of your father. We think that it would be in
+accordance with your mother's secret wishes that such an investigation
+should be entered upon after her death, and we think that, in justice
+to yourself, the mystery, if mystery there be, should be cleared up
+and set at rest for ever."
+
+"You have my full and entire sanction to whatever plan of proceeding
+you may think most advisable," said Janet.
+
+"In that case," resumed the major, "George here shall start for
+Cumberland to-morrow morning, for it is there that our investigation
+must begin. Father Spiridion and I are both old men. George is young,
+active, and energetic, and imbued with a thorough zeal for the
+furtherance of your interests. Have you sufficient confidence in him
+to entrust your cause into his hands?"
+
+"My cause could not be in safer keeping," said Janet with a blush and
+a smile. "I already owe my life to Captain Strickland. To that
+obligation he is now about to add another. How shall I ever be able to
+repay him, and you, and dear Father Spiridion, the thousand kindnesses
+I have received at your hands? Indeed, and indeed, I never can repay
+you!"
+
+Janet's eyes as she ceased speaking went up shyly to those of Captain
+George. In the deep, earnest gaze of the young soldier she read
+something that caused her to tremble and blush for the second time,
+something that seemed to say, "There is one way, and one only, by
+which you can repay me."
+
+"Tut! tut! poverina mia," said the major, with a flourish of his
+malacca, "we are all three your bounden slaves, and never so happy as
+when we are fulfilling your behests. We will go back a part of the way
+with you, only we must not let her ladyship's lynx eyes see us
+together, or she will suspect that we are hatching some conspiracy.
+Last time you were at my house I had some difficulty in gaining her
+permission to allow you to come."
+
+Captain George offered Janet his arm. The major walked beside them,
+flourishing his cane, and talking on a score of different topics. So
+they went slowly through the sunlit park, back towards gray old Dupley
+Walls. George and Janet were mostly silent. What little they did say
+was nearly all addressed to the major: they scarcely spoke a word
+directly to each other. Still, strange to relate, they both afterwards
+declared to themselves that they had never had a more delightful walk
+in their lives.
+
+Early next morning Captain Strickland started for Cumberland. There
+was an unwonted feeling of sadness at his heart which he could not
+overcome. He knew that if his quest were successful in the way his
+uncle and Father Spiridion hoped it would be, he and Janet would in
+all probability be farther divided than they were now. That is to say,
+if Miss Holme's father should prove to have been a man of family, or
+simply a very rich man, it was not improbable that his relatives might
+wish to claim her, in which case she would be lost to him for ever;
+and even the consolation of seeing her occasionally, on which he could
+count so long as she remained at Dupley Walls, would be his no longer.
+Such thoughts as these, however, would have no deterrent effect on his
+actions. He was fully determined to do all that lay in his power to
+bring the task that had been laid upon him to a successful issue. It
+had been decided that should Captain Strickland's investigation bring
+to light any facts in connexion with her father, which it would be
+better for Janet's happiness and peace of mind that she should never
+know, such facts should be carefully withheld from her. Major
+Strickland and Father Spiridion reserved to themselves a certain
+discretionary power as to what should be told her, and what had better
+remain unsaid.
+
+Before Captain Strickland had been two hours in Whitehaven he had
+hunted out the little church where the marriage of Edmund Fairfax and
+Helena Holme Pollexfen had been solemnized twenty years before. He
+compared the certificate he had brought with him with the original
+entry in the register, and he found them to tally in every particular.
+He inquired here and there till he had ferreted out the daughter of
+the woman who had been pew-opener at the church a quarter of a century
+before, and had been one of the witnesses to the marriage; but the
+woman herself had been dead a dozen years.
+
+When he had got so far, Captain Strickland went back to his hotel and
+ordered a bed for the night. Whitehaven could furnish him with no
+further information. On the morrow he must go to Beckley. One
+important point had been proved: that the certificate in his
+possession was a bona fide copy of the register.
+
+As soon as breakfast was over next morning he took a post-chaise and
+was driven to Beckley. It was eleven miles away, but there was no
+difficulty in finding the place. Since the date of Miss Pollexfen's
+residence there, quite a little hamlet had sprung up close by in
+connexion with some extensive iron-ore works which had now been in
+operation for several years. Beckley Grange was now tenanted by the
+manager of these works. Miss Bellenden, the aunt with whom Miss
+Pollexfen had lived for so long a time, and from whose house she had
+run away to get married, had been dead these eighteen years. Captain
+Strickland was shown her tombstone in the village church.
+
+He had not expected to pick up much information that would be of use
+to him at Beckley; it can hardly therefore be said that he was
+disappointed at finding every trace, except the epitaph, of a past
+state of things so entirely swept away. There was not even an old
+servant to be found, with a memory that would stretch back for a
+quarter of a century, from whom he might have gathered some
+reminiscences of Miss Pollexfen's life at Beckley, such as would have
+had a special interest for Janet, although they might have had no
+bearing whatever on the case he, Captain George, had in hand.
+
+Sister Agnes, in her Confession, had made no mention by name of the
+particular village or place at which Mr. Fairfax was staying at the
+time he made her acquaintance. Consequently for Captain Strickland to
+have gone inquiring among all the villages in the district respecting
+a certain Mr. Fairfax who might or who might not have lived there for
+a few weeks some twenty years ago, would have been an almost hopeless
+task, and one that need not be resorted to till every other chance
+should have failed. The person called Captain Laut in the Confession,
+and he alone, if he were still alive, could clear up the mystery in a
+few words.
+
+The first point was, where to find Captain Laut. The second, whether,
+when found, he would tell all that he was wanted to tell.
+
+Captain Strickland left Whitehaven next day by express train for
+Loudon. The first thing he did after reaching town was to deposit his
+portmanteau at the station hotel and then take a Hansom to his old
+club, the Janus, where he was sure to meet several brothers in the
+profession of arms to whom he was well known. After dining he went to
+consult some files of Army Lists. In a List twenty years old he found
+the name of a Captain Laut as belonging to the two-hundred-and-fourth
+regiment, at that time in garrison at Portsmouth.
+
+Captain Strickland belonged to a younger generation of military men
+than that which had been in vogue at the Janus twenty years
+previously. But the father of one of his most particular friends was
+not only an old military man, but an old club man and bon vivant into
+the bargain--a man who knew something good or bad--generally the
+latter--about everybody of note for the last quarter of a century. To
+this gentleman went Captain George. After explaining that he wanted to
+find out whether Captain Laut, who, twenty years previously, had
+belonged to the two-hundred-and-fourth Foot, were still alive, and if
+so where he could be found--he asked the favour of the old soldier's
+advice and assistance.
+
+After turning the matter over in his mind for two or three minutes,
+the old gentleman said: "Put down on a slip of paper the particulars
+of what you want to know, and leave the case in my hands. You shall
+hear from me, one way or another, in the course of a few days."
+
+Three days passed away without bringing any news, but on the morning
+of the fourth Captain George found the following note at his club:
+
+
+"Major Gregson presents his compliments to Captain Strickland, and
+begs to inform him that Captain (afterwards Colonel) Lant, formerly of
+the two-hundred-and-fourth Foot, is still living. Colonel Lant's
+present residence is Higham Lodge, near Richmond, Surrey."
+
+
+Captain George suffered no grass to grow under his feet. That very
+afternoon he set out in quest of Higham Lodge. It was about two miles
+from Richmond, and he found it without difficulty. The footman who
+answered his ring told him that Colonel Lant was at home, but was only
+just recovering from a dangerous attack of gastric fever, and would
+hardly see any stranger at present. All the same, he would take
+Captain Strickland's card to his master.
+
+Presently he returned. Colonel Lant would see Captain Strickland. So
+George followed the footman across the hall and up the wide shallow
+staircase, and was ushered into the sick man's room.
+
+"Good morning, sir," said Colonel Lant--a white-haired sharp-featured
+man, with a brick-dust complexion that was somewhat toned down at
+present by illness--"a brother in arms is always welcome. Had you
+belonged to any other profession I had not seen you."
+
+"I must apologize for my intrusion," said Captain Strickland. "Had I
+been aware that you were ill I would have put off my visit till a
+future date. My errand, in fact, is entirely of a private nature, and
+is not so pressing but that it will stand over till another time. With
+your permission, I will call upon you again this day week or
+fortnight."
+
+"Not a bit of it, my boy, not a bit of it," said the colonel. "Now
+that you are here, we may as well cook your goose and have done with
+you. May I inquire as to the particular object which has brought you
+so far from town?"
+
+"My object was to ask you whether, once upon a time--say twenty years
+ago--you were acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Fairfax--Mr.
+Edmund Fairfax, to be precise?"
+
+The sick man coughed uneasily, raised himself on one elbow, and stared
+fixedly at his visitor. "And pray, sir, what may be your object in
+asking such a question?" he said at length.
+
+"That I will tell you presently," answered Captain George. "May I
+assume that you were acquainted with Mr. Edmund Fairfax?"
+
+"You may assume what the deuce you like, sir," answered the peppery
+colonel. "It seems to me that there is a great deal too much
+assumption about you. But go on. What are you driving at next?"
+
+"The Mr. Edmund Fairfax to whom I allude, was married at Whitehaven to
+a certain young lady, Miss Pollexfen by name. If I am rightly
+informed, you were a witness to that marriage. Mr. Fairfax and his
+wife went abroad. A year later, Mr. Fairfax was unfortunately drowned
+in one of the Swiss lakes. You were the bearer of the news of his
+death to his widow, who shortly after that event returned to England.
+I hope, sir, that you follow me thus far?"
+
+"Oh, I follow you easily enough, never fear!" replied the irascible
+old soldier. "You tell your tale as glibly as if you had learnt it by
+heart beforehand. But you have not done yet. When you have come to an
+end, I may, perhaps, question the truth of your statements in toto."
+
+"From the date of her arrival in England up to the time of her death,
+which event happened a few weeks ago, Mrs. Fairfax lived in the utmost
+seclusion--in fact, she lived under an assumed name. But, sir, she had
+a daughter. That daughter is now grown up, and is acquainted with her
+mother's story. It is as her advocate that I am here to-day."
+
+"A youthful Daniel come to judgment!" sneered the colonel. "Well, sir,
+granting for the sake of argument that there may be some slight
+residuum of truth in what you have just told me--what then? You have
+something still in the background."
+
+"Simply this, Colonel Lant. Mrs. Fairfax never knew, nor beyond a few
+questions put to you on a certain occasion did she ever seek to know,
+anything concerning the antecedents and social position of her
+husband. When once her husband was lost to her, all minor
+considerations were regarded with perfect indifference. But as
+respects Miss Fairfax, the case is very different. Those who have her
+interests most at heart--that is to say, my uncle, Major Strickland,
+and another old friend of Mrs. Fairfax, who is associated with him in
+this matter--are naturally anxious that Miss Fairfax should no longer
+be left in doubt as to her parentage and proper position in the world.
+I am their envoy to you. You alone can tell them where and how to look
+for that which they want to find."
+
+"And so pretty Mrs. Fairfax is dead," said the colonel after a pause.
+"Ay! ay! each of us must go in turn. I had a narrow squeak myself a
+few days ago, I can tell you. Sweet Mrs. Fairfax! and dead, you say?
+Twenty years have gone by since I saw her last; but I have often
+thought about her, and always as being young and pretty. I never could
+think of her as touched by Time's finger: as having grey hair, and
+wrinkles, and all that, you know. For ever sweet and young. I was half
+in love with her myself, and should have been wholly so had not
+Fairfax been beforehand with me. But she was far away too good for
+him, and for me too, for that matter. And now, dead!"
+
+Colonel Lant had wandered so far back into the past that he was near
+forgetting the presence of Captain Strickland. The latter sat without
+speaking. The sick man's half-conscious revelations were sufficient to
+prove that he was on the right track. At length the colonel came back
+with a sigh and a start to the practical present.
+
+"A daughter, did you not say--a grown-up daughter? Dear me! And in the
+interests of this daughter you want to know something about the
+antecedents and history of Ned Fairfax. Well! well! it was a bad piece
+of business, and some reparation is certainly due."
+
+"I tell you, sir, that some reparation is certainly due," re-asserted
+the colonel, in his most peppery style. "And I'll e'en make a clean
+breast of it while I've a chance of doing so--though, mind you,
+whether Ned Fairfax would approve of such a step on my part, is more
+than I can say. Probably he wouldn't. But that don't matter. If he
+knew I lay dying, he would not trouble himself to come twenty miles to
+see me. Then why should I study his interests so particularly? I may
+tell you, Captain What's-your-name, in confidence, mind, that when I
+lay here a few days ago, so ill that I was doubtful whether I should
+ever get round again, this very business of which we have been
+talking, and of which as yet you don't know all the particulars, stood
+out very black in my memory, and troubled my mind not a little. Now,
+I'm not going to die this time, but while I've the chance I'll rub out
+that little score, so that when my Black Monday really does come, it
+may not crop up against me for the second time, and stare me in the
+face with the ugly look of an unrepented wrong."
+
+Captain George sat without speaking. It was quite evident to him that
+Colonel Lant was one of those people who love to hear themselves talk,
+but who pay small regard to the wishes or opinions of others. Left to
+himself, the colonel would probably let fall more valuable information
+of his own accord than could be elicited from him by the keenest
+cross-examination.
+
+"An ugly piece of business!" resumed the colonel. "Many a time since
+then have I felt sorry that I allowed myself to be talked into doing
+what I did by Ned Fairfax's plausible tongue. For one thing, I owed
+him money at that time, and he might have made it hot for me had I
+refused to comply with his wishes. The marriage itself was all right
+and proper, but the story of the drowning in one of the Swiss lakes
+was a pure forgery. You may well look surprised. Ned Fairfax was no
+more drowned than I was: in fact, to my certain knowledge he was alive
+only three months ago."
+
+The colonel paused to refresh himself with a pinch of snuff, and then
+went on again. "When Edmund Fairfax married Miss Pollexfen, the fact
+of such a ceremony having taken place was most jealously guarded from
+all his people. His expectations at that juncture might be said to
+depend upon his remaining a bachelor. But he saw Miss Pollexfen and
+fell in love with her, and he was not a man to let anything thwart him
+in the gratification of his likes or dislikes. He married Miss
+Pollexfen and risked the future. All went well with the young couple
+for a year or more. They lived a quiet, secluded life, and were
+tolerably happy: not that Fairfax was a man who would have been happy
+for any length of time in the quiet trammels of domestic life. But he
+had not had time to get thoroughly tired before the thunder-cloud
+burst. He was summoned back to England by his uncle, to marry the
+young lady, a great heiress, who had been set down for him in the
+family programme. The predicament was an awkward one, but Fairfax was
+equal to the occasion. At that time he was close upon five-and-twenty
+years of age. He had spent one fortune already, and he was booked to
+come into another on his twenty-fifth birthday. He would come into
+another, that is, provided he were willing to change his name from
+Fairfax to that of the old lady, a distant relation, by whom the
+fortune was bequeathed. Fairfax had no foolish predilection for one
+name over another when there was money to be got by the change. His
+plan was to come to England, leaving his first wife abroad; to wait
+for the birthday which would at once give him a fortune and allow him
+to change his name; after that to marry the heiress with all
+convenient speed. The story of his death was cleverly concocted, and,
+with my assistance, as cleverly carried out. Mrs. Fairfax believed the
+story, and Ned knew her gentle nature too well to fear that she would
+ever make any inquiry as to his history or family, they being topics
+on which he had declined to enlighten her when he was supposed to be
+alive. The result of the plot as regards Mrs. Fairfax, you probably
+know better than I do. She accepted her fate, and disappeared from her
+husband's path, which was precisely what he wanted. The result as
+regarded Fairfax himself was something different from his
+expectations. He changed his name, and he came into his fortune, but
+his bride that was to have been, died two months before the day fixed
+for the wedding. Fairfax bore his loss with great equanimity. He
+smoked more cigars than before, and bought a commission in a marching
+regiment. A few months later he was ordered out to India. Before
+leaving Europe he set on foot a private inquiry, having for its object
+the discovery of the whereabouts of Mrs. Fairfax. But the inquiry
+elicited nothing beyond its own heavy expenses, and it is possible
+that Fairfax was quite as well pleased that it did not.
+
+"Well, sir, my friend Edmund proceeded to India, and there he remained
+for several years. He worked himself up to a captaincy, and he might
+have done exceedingly well had not the cursed spirit of gambling eaten
+into his very soul. But he was and is a born gambler, and will be so
+till the end of the chapter. He would gamble for the nails in his own
+coffin if he had nothing else to play for. His second fortune went as
+his first had gone. Just as he was on the verge of ruin some
+unpleasantness in connexion with a gambling transaction induced him to
+sell out and return to England. Since that time how he has contrived
+to live and appear like a gentleman is a problem best known to
+himself. And now, sir, I think I have told you all that it concerns
+you to know respecting my friend Mr. Edmund Fairfax."
+
+"All but one thing, Colonel Lant, and that a most essential one."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You state that Mr. Fairfax changed his name some time after his
+marriage with Miss Pollexfen. By what name is he now known?"
+
+"He is known as Captain Edmund Ducie, and his London address when I
+last heard from him was 2A, Tremaine-street, Piccadilly."
+
+These particulars were duly taken down by Captain Strickland in his
+pocket-book. It must be borne in mind that the name of Ducie sounded
+quite strange in his ears. He had never heard mention of the Great
+Mogul Diamond.
+
+"As I said before, I don't know whether my friend Fairfax, or rather
+Ducie, would altogether approve of my telling you so much of his
+history and private affairs," said the colonel; "but I don't care
+greatly whether he approves or does the other thing. I've eased my
+mind of a burden, the weight of which I have felt several times of
+late; and since there is a child, it is only right that she should
+know her father."
+
+After some further conversation, in the course of which he elicited
+from the old soldier sundry minor particulars having reference to his
+errand, Captain Strickland took his leave and returned to town.
+
+The day was still early, and George drove direct from the terminus to
+2A, Tremaine-street, Piccadilly. But Captain Ducie had removed from
+Tremaine-street nearly two years ago, and George was directed to a
+much humbler locality but no great distance away. Here the rooms were
+still held in Captain Ducie's name, so George was told, but the
+captain himself had not been seen there for nearly six months. The
+gentleman had better go down to the Piebalds, which used to be Captain
+Ducie's club, and there he might perhaps learn where the latter was
+now living. So spake the janitress, and to the Piebalds Captain
+Strickland repaired.
+
+Here Here he got what he wanted when the porter had "taken stock" of
+him, and had satisfied himself that he could not possibly be a dun.
+Captain Ducie's present address, he was told, was the Royal George
+Hotel, St. Helier, Jersey.
+
+That night's post took a long letter addressed to Major Strickland.
+George waited in London for an answer to it. One came sooner than he
+expected. It was in the shape of a telegram:--
+
+
+"Start for Jersey at once. I will write to you there by next post."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+AT THE "ROYAL GEORGE."
+
+
+On the sixth day after the arrival of Captain Ducie at St. Helier, the
+Weymouth boat brought over two passengers who had attracted more
+attention from their fellow-travellers than any other two people on
+board.
+
+The elder of the two was a white-haired venerable-looking gentleman
+who wore gold-rimmed spectacles and was richly dressed in furs. A cap
+made out of the skin of some wild animal, with the tail hanging
+down behind, fitted his head like a helmet, and gave him quite an
+un-English appearance.
+
+His companion was a very beautiful young woman of three or
+four-and-twenty, richly, but quietly attired: evidently his daughter.
+
+When, on the arrival of the boat, the luggage was fished out of the
+hold, several adventurous spirits pressed forward to read the label on
+the young lady's boxes. This was what rewarded their curiosity:--
+
+
+     MISS VAN LOAL,
+     Passenger to Jersey.
+
+
+"Drive to the 'Royal George,'" said the old gentleman as he and his
+daughter stepped into a fly on the pier, and several of the curious
+who had taken him for a foreigner were surprised to find that he spoke
+English like one to the manner born. But had any inhabitant of
+Tydsbury chanced to be on the pier that evening, he would have
+recognised in the foreign-looking gentleman and his superb daughter,
+two townsfolk of his own,--to wit, Mr. Solomon Madgin and his daughter
+Mirpah. With what object they had come so far from home, and under an
+assumed name, we shall presently learn.
+
+Captain Ducie, cigar in mouth, was lounging at the door of the "Royal
+George" when the fly drove up in which Mr. and Miss Van Loal were
+seated. Mirpah's beauty took his eye. He removed his cigar, stepped
+back a pace or two, and gazed. Mirpah's eyes met his. She had a
+presentiment that she saw before her the Captain Ducie of whom she had
+read so much in her brother's Reports from Bon Repos, and in whose
+possession the Great Mogul Diamond was said to be. Mirpah's eyes fell,
+a faint tinge of colour came into her cheek, and she and her father
+passed forward into the hotel.
+
+"By Jove!" was Captain Ducie's sole comment aloud. Then he pulled his
+hat farther over his brows, resumed his cigar, and lounged off towards
+the pier.
+
+This scene had been witnessed by a pale-faced, spectacled young man
+from a window of Button's Hotel on the other side of the way. As soon
+as Ducie had disappeared round the corner, this young man left his
+place of espionage, came out into the street, and crossed over
+to the "Royal George." Here he asked for and was conducted to the
+sitting-room of Mr. Van Loal, but he sent the waiter back and opened
+the door of the room himself.
+
+"My dear James!" "My dear brother!" were the exclamations that greeted
+his entrance.
+
+"Hush! not quite so loud, if you please," said cautious James with a
+warning finger in the air. Then, having carefully closed the door, he
+shook his father warmly by the hand, and turned to embrace his sister.
+Whereupon a long conversation ensued among the three which need not be
+detailed here.
+
+Instead of dining in his own room as he had hitherto done, Captain
+Ducie made his appearance at the table d'hôte this evening. He went
+down early, and there, just as if it had been pre-arranged that they
+should meet, he found Mr. Van Loal and his daughter.
+
+The evenings were growing rather chilly, and a small fire had been
+lighted. Mr. Van Loal, now stripped of his furs and appearing in
+ordinary evening dress, with the most expansive of shirt-fronts and
+the stiffest of white neckcloths, had got as near the fire as he well
+could, and was warming his thin white hands over the flickering blaze.
+
+Mirpah, with one elbow resting on the chimney-piece, was standing near
+him, looking, Ducie thought, even more beautiful in her black filmy
+evening dress than she had looked in her travelling costume. One thing
+Ducie could not help noticing--that on the hands both of father and
+daughter there glittered several very magnificent rings. Other
+jewellery they wore none.
+
+As Captain Ducie advanced up the room, Miss Van Loal crossed over to
+the other side to look at some stuffed birds. Accidentally or
+purposely she dropped her handkerchief. It had scarcely touched the
+ground before Captain Ducie had recovered it. With a smile and a bow
+he gave it back to its owner.
+
+The ice had been broken, and presently Mr. Van Loal and the captain
+were conversing easily and confidentially about the island, its
+scenery, its history, and its climate. Mirpah glided back to her
+father's side. She did not join in the conversation, but once or twice
+Ducie caught her eyes fixed on his face with an expression in them
+that was flattering to his vanity.
+
+When dinner was announced he did not fail to secure for himself the
+chair next to that of Mirpah. There was something about this dark-eyed
+beauty that took his fancy amazingly. His powers of fascination were
+in danger of growing rusty from disuse. He was glad that an
+opportunity had arisen which would allow him to prove, were it only
+for his own satisfaction, that his old prowess with the sex had not
+quite deserted him.
+
+Here was no fashionable young lady, the butterfly of a hundred
+drawing-rooms, to subdue; but something far more unconventional: a
+woman altogether unused to so-called fashionable life, as his critical
+glance had told him in a moment; but still an undoubted lady, and the
+possessor of a pair of the most unfathomable eyes that his own had
+ever gazed into. Therefore he sat down to the siege he had proposed to
+himself with an alacrity that was infinitely refreshing to him after
+his long severance from the delights of female society.
+
+Later on, Captain Ducie proposed a stroll along the pier. Mr. Van Loal
+and his daughter at once assented.
+
+The night was warm and a full moon was sailing through the sky. Faint
+strains of music came wafted from afar, and mingled with the plash of
+the incoming tide. Could anyone have questioned Captain Ducie on the
+point, he would have declared that his "spooning" days had come to an
+end twenty years before, and he would have believed his own statement.
+Men in love he was in the habit of regarding with good-natured
+cynicism as though they were in a state of temporary insanity
+superinduced by their own folly, and were not to be held accountable
+like ordinary mortals. But to-night, what with the moonlight, the
+music, the rhythmic beat of the waves on the sands; and the
+propinquity of Mirpah Van Loal, Captain Ducie felt the first delicious
+symptoms of a fever to which his blood had been a stranger for years.
+
+After he had parted for the night from Van Loal and his charming
+daughter, and was in the solitude of his own bedroom, he laughed aloud
+to think how very like a greenhorn who had fallen in love for the
+first time he had felt that evening. He recognised the feeling, and
+was contemptuous of himself even while revelling in the unaccustomed
+sweetness. It was a sweetness that waited on his dreams all the night
+long, and when he opened his eyes next morning he felt as though
+Time's finger had moved back the figures on the dial of his life, and
+that he was not only a boy in years again, but also--and that would
+have been the greater miracle of the two--once more a boy at heart.
+
+But he was a middle-aged cynic again the moment he put his foot out of
+bed. There is no disenchanter like the clear cold light of morning. It
+was not that he deemed Mirpah one whit less beautiful than she had
+seemed in his eyes the previous night. He was savage with himself for
+allowing any woman, however fascinating she might be, to touch his
+cold heart with the flame of a torch that for him had long been
+quenched in the waters of Lethe.
+
+Nevertheless, by the time he had discussed his breakfast, he was by no
+means sorry to remember that he had an engagement at eleven o'clock to
+drive Mr. Van Loal and his daughter to Grève-de-Lecq. It would really
+be a pleasant mode of spending the lazy autumn day, and he would take
+very good care that Mademoiselle Van Loal's witching eyes did not cast
+a spell round him for the second time.
+
+Forewarned is forearmed, and, after all his experience of the sex, it
+would be a pitiful tale indeed if he allowed himself to be entangled
+by any young lady, however charming she might be, of whom, as in the
+present case, he knew next to nothing.
+
+Having made this declaration to himself, he looked at his watch to see
+how near the time was to eleven.
+
+"Curious name, Van Loal," he muttered. "Is it Dutch? or Belgian? or
+what is it? It smacks of the Low Countries. The man who bears such a
+name ought never to drink anything weaker than Schiedam. In the
+present case, however, both the old boy and his daughter must be
+English, whatever their ancestors may have been: they speak without
+the slightest foreign accent. Mademoiselle talks about the old fellow
+having just retired from business. What business was he, I wonder?
+There is something cosmopolitan about him that makes it difficult to
+guess in hat particular line he has made his money. A few indirect
+questions may perhaps elicit the required information: not that it
+matters to me in anyway--not in the least."
+
+The day was a pleasant one. Captain Ducie drove Mr. Van Loal and, his
+daughter to some of the prettiest spots in the island. They had an al
+fresco luncheon in a sheltered corner of a lovely bay. After the meal
+was over, Mr. Van Loal wandered away to botanize by himself. Captain
+Ducie and Mirpah were left to entertain each other.
+
+Said the latter: "It is quite amusing to see papa so enthusiastic
+after rare ferns and mosses. It is a pursuit so totally opposed to the
+previous occupations of his life that on this lovely island, and amid
+such quiet scenes, I can almost imagine that he would gradually grow
+young again, as people in fairy tales are sometimes said to do, and
+that in this botanising freak we have the first indication of the
+change."
+
+"We cannot quite afford to have him changed into a young prince," said
+Ducie, "or else what would become of you? You would have to diminish
+into babyhood, and however pleasant a state that may be, I for one
+cannot wish you otherwise than as you are."
+
+"You must have graduated with honours in the art of paying
+compliments, Captain Ducie. Long study and the practice of many years
+have been needed to make you such an adept. I congratulate you on the
+result."
+
+Captain Ducie laughed. "A very fair hit," he said, "but in the present
+case totally undeserved. Had I been a young fellow of eighteen I
+should have blushed and fidgetted, and have thought you excessively
+cruel. But being an old fellow of forty or more, I can enjoy your
+retort while being myself the butt at which your shaft is aimed. It
+speaks well for the purity of Mr. Van Loal's conscience that in the
+intervals of a busy life, and one which has doubtless its own peculiar
+cares and anxieties, he can yet enjoy so refined an amusement as that
+of fern hunting."
+
+"That remark ought to elicit some information from her as to the old
+boy's métier," added Ducie under his breath. "Is he a retired grocer?
+or a sleeping partner in some old-established bank?"
+
+"Papa's life has indeed been a busy one," answered Mirpah, "but for
+the future, I hope that he will have ample opportunity to indulge in
+whatever mode of passing his time may suit his fancy best. With the
+real business of life, that is, with the money-making part of it, I
+trust that he has done for ever. What his occupation was you would
+never guess, Captain Ducie. Come, now, I will wager you half-a-dozen
+pairs of gloves that out of the same number of guesses you do not
+succeed in naming papa's business--and it was a business, and in no
+way connected with any of the learned professions."
+
+"Done!" exclaimed Ducie eagerly, holding out his hand to clench the
+bet. The tips of Miss Van Loal's fingers rested for an instant in his
+palm, and Ducie felt that he could well afford to lose.
+
+He was silent for a minute or two, pretending to think. In the end,
+his six guesses stood as follows: He guessed that Mr. Van Loal had
+been either a banker, or a stock-broker, or a brewer, or a drysalter,
+or an architect, or some sort of a contractor.
+
+"Lost!" cried Mirpah in high glee, when the sixth guess was
+proclaimed. "Papa was none of the things you have named. You, have not
+gone far enough a-field in your guesses: you have not sufficiently
+exercised your inventive faculties. No, Captain Ducie, my father was
+neither a banker, nor anything else that you have specified. _He was a
+Diamond Merchant_."
+
+Mirpah allowed these last words to slide from between her lips as
+quietly as though she were making the most commonplace statement in
+the world; but their effect upon Captain Ducie was apparently to
+paralyse his faculties for a few moments. All the colour left his
+face; his eyes, full of trouble and suspicion, sought those of Mirpah,
+anxious to read there whether or no she had any knowledge of his great
+secret--whether the stab she had given him was an intentional or an
+accidental one. Involuntarily his hand sought the folds of his
+waistcoat. He breathed again. His treasure was still there. In the
+dark luminous eyes of the beautiful girl before him he read no hint of
+any crafty secret, of any sinister design. It was nothing more, then,
+than a strange coincidence. He had been fooled by his own fears. Had
+this Van Loal and his daughter by some mysterious means become
+acquainted with his secret, and had they come to Jersey with any
+ulterior designs against himself, the fact that Van Loal had been a
+diamond merchant would have been something to conceal as undoubtedly
+provocative of suspicion. The very fact of such a statement having
+been made was his surest guarantee that he had nothing sinister to
+guard against. He had frightened himself with a shadow. The
+magnificent diamond rings worn by the old man and his daughter were at
+once accounted for.
+
+"I am afraid that you regret having made such a reckless wager," said
+Mirpah, with an arch look at the captain. "But, indeed, you ought to
+pay your forfeit, were it only for having guessed that poor papa had
+been a drysalter--whatever that may be. I suppose it has something to
+do with the curing of herrings or hams. A drysalter!" and Mirpah's
+clear laugh rang out across the sands.
+
+"I own the wager fairly lost," said Ducie, as he prepared to light a
+cigar, "and will cheerfully pay the forfeit. Had I guessed for a week
+it would still have been lost. I hardly knew that there were such
+people as professional diamond merchants in this country."
+
+"They form a small corporation, it is true, but by no means an
+unimportant one in their own estimation. The professed jewellers, the
+men who keep the magnificent shops, would be but poorly off without
+the diamond-dealers to fall back upon. We--the Van Loals--have been
+members of the guild for three centuries--not in England, but in
+Amsterdam, where our name is a name of honour. Papa was born there,
+but he came to England when he was a young man and married an English
+girl, and from that time he has lived in the country of his adoption.
+He has promised that next spring we shall visit Amsterdam together:
+then, for the first time, I shall see the land where my ancestors
+lived and died."
+
+Mr. Van Loal came up at this juncture, and the semi-confidential talk
+between Mirpah and Captain Ducie came to an end.
+
+At the table d'hôte that evening Ducie sat between father and
+daughter. He exerted himself to the utmost to make an agreeable
+impression on both of them. After dinner the two men had a smoke and a
+stroll on the pier. They were both men of the world, and had a score
+of topics in common on which they could talk fluently and well.
+Ducie's easy languid far niente style of looking at everything that
+did not impinge on his own personality formed a piquant contrast to
+the shrewd calculating matter-of-fact way of looking at the same
+subjects which distinguished the soi-disant Van Loal. They kept each
+other company till a late hour.
+
+When Ducie got to his own room he bolted the door and lighted a last
+cigar. He wanted to meditate quietly for half an hour. No man could be
+more clear-sighted than he was as regarded his own faults and follies
+in all cases where his conscience was not brought into question.
+To-night, he at once acknowledged to himself that he was more deeply
+in love with Mirpah Van Loal than he had thought ever to be with any
+woman again. He had sneered at himself, before setting out in the
+morning, for his infatuation of the previous night, but now the second
+night had come, and he was twice as much infatuated as before. He did
+not sneer at himself to-night, but he set himself critically to
+consider why he had fallen in love, and whither this new disturbing
+influence in his life was likely to lead him.
+
+But the why and the wherefore of the cases that have to be adjudicated
+before the tribunal of Love can seldom be argued coolly by either
+of the parties chiefly concerned. Their statements are sure to be
+ex-parte ones, their arguments to be coloured by personal feeling,
+while the philtre that is working in their blood obscures their logic
+and clouds their brains. In stating the case before himself, the first
+question Ducie asked was: "What is the particular charm about Miss Van
+Loal that has induced me to make such a fool of myself at my time of
+life?"
+
+"Well," he answered himself, leisurely puffing, with hands buried deep
+in pockets--"that there is a peculiar charm about Miss Van Loal is a
+fact which I, for one, cannot dispute. She does not belong to the
+monde, and never will belong to it, for which I like her none the
+worse. She is fresh and unconventional, and much better educated than
+most ladies of fashion. There is no mawkish sentimentality about her.
+She is not a boarding-school miss, but a woman, intelligent and full
+of clear, calm, good sense. Good-tempered too, unless I am greatly
+mistaken, and that goes for much with a man of my years. Lastly, she
+is very nice-looking; beautiful would not be too strong a word to
+apply in her case, and her beauty is of a kind one does not see every
+day. She is in good style, too, and with a little training would hold
+her own anywhere.
+
+"As to whither this new passion is leading me?--If at the end of
+another week I like Miss Van Loal as well as I like her now, I shall
+make her an offer of marriage. It is by no means certain that she will
+accept me, but should she do so I suppose my people will say that I
+have made a low marriage, and will cut me accordingly. Well, I should
+rather enjoy being cut under such circumstances. There's not one of
+the whole tribe that would give me another sovereign to save me from
+starving. Thanks to one little fact, I shall never again have occasion
+to ask them for a sovereign. Why, then, should I not marry Miss Van
+Loal? I have an idea that I could be happier with her as my wife than
+I have ever been before. I should no longer feel the sting of poverty.
+I could afford to live a life of thorough respectability, and I would
+never look on a card again. There are some lovely nooks on the
+continent, and--but, bah! why pursue the dream any farther? That it
+will prove to be anything more than a dream I dare scarcely hope."
+
+He rose and flung away the end of his cigar, and began to prepare for
+bed. "By what singular fatality does it happen that Mr. Van Loal, a
+dealer in diamonds, has been brought en rapport with me who hold in my
+possession one of the finest diamonds in the world? In any case, I
+have made his acquaintance most opportunely. Through his assistance I
+may be enabled to find a purchaser for my gem."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+A LITTLE DINNER FOR THREE.
+
+
+Two or three days passed quietly away without any particular incident
+that need be recorded here. Captain Ducie was much with the Van Loals.
+Each day they went on an excursion together, and on these occasions
+the Captain always acted the part of charioteer. As they were driving
+back into St. Helier one afternoon, said Ducie: "I have ventured to
+order a dinner for three in my rooms for this evening. May I hope that
+you and Miss Van Loal will honour me with your company?"
+
+"We will accept your invitation with pleasure," said the old man, "on
+condition that you dine with us to-morrow in return."
+
+"A condition that I shall be happy to comply with," answered Ducie. "I
+have something of a very rare and curious nature to show you after
+dinner: something respecting which I wish you to favour me with your
+opinion."
+
+"You may command my humble services in any way," answered Van Loal.
+
+At seven to the minute Mr. Van Loal, his daughter, and Captain Ducie,
+sat down to a well-served dinner in the sitting-room of the latter.
+Mirpah looked very lovely, but paler than ordinary. She seemed anxious
+and distraite, Ducie thought, and was more than usually silent during
+the progress of the meal. In the delicate curves of her mouth Ducie
+fancied that he detected a lurking sadness. He felt that he would have
+given much to fathom the cause of her unwonted melancholy. What if
+this incipient sadness were merely a symptom of dawning love? What if
+she were learning to regard him with some small portion of the same
+feeling that he had for her? Hope whispered faintly in his ear that
+such might possibly be the case, but he was not essentially a vain
+man, and with an impatient shrug he dismissed the seductive whisper,
+and turned his attention to other things. On one point his mind was
+quite made up. The very next opportunity that he should have of being
+alone with Mr. Van Loal he would ask that gentleman's permission to
+put a certain question to his daughter, and if anything might be
+augured from a man's manner, his request would meet with no unkind
+reception. The opportunity he sought would hardly be afforded him this
+evening. Captain Ducie's sitting-room would, on this occasion, have to
+fill the offices both of dining and drawing-room. There would be no
+occasion for Miss Van Loal to retire after the cloth should be drawn.
+The gentlemen might smoke their cigars on the balcony. What Captain
+Ducie had to say in private to Mr. Van Loal would very well keep till
+morning. He had something particular to say to Mr. Van Loal this
+evening, but it was something that did not preclude the presence of
+Mirpah. When the time drew near that he had fixed on in his own mind
+as the proper time for introducing this one special topic--about half
+an hour after the withdrawal of the cloth--he hardly knew in what
+terms to begin. He could think of no periphrastical opening by means
+of which he could introduce the all-important topic. In sheer despair
+of any readier mode he at length plunged boldly into the breach.
+
+"I have been informed, Mr. Van Loal, that you are a diamond merchant,"
+he said, "and that you have a wide knowledge of gems of various kinds,
+and can consequently form a trustworthy opinion as to the value of any
+that may be submitted for your inspection."
+
+"Well--yes--" said Van Loal with a slow dubious smile, "I am, or
+rather was, a dealer in diamonds, howsoever you may have ascertained
+that fact."
+
+"It was I who told Captain Ducie, papa," said Mirpah in her quiet
+clear tones.
+
+"Quite right, my love. I am not ashamed of my profession," answered
+the old man. Then turning to Ducie, he said: "Any information that I
+may be in possession of on the various subjects embraced by my
+experience I shall be most happy to afford you."
+
+"My object in introducing the topic is to ask you to do me the favour
+to appraise a certain Diamond which I have in my possession: to let me
+have your opinion as to its qualities, good or bad, together with an
+estimate of its probable value."
+
+Mr. Van Loal whistled under his breath. "Diamonds are very difficult
+things to appraise with any degree of correctness, especially where
+there is any particular feature about them, either in size, colour,
+water, or cutting, that separates them from the ordinary category of
+such things. Is the Diamond to which you refer an ordinary one? or has
+it any special features of its own?"
+
+"It has several special features, such as its size, its colour, and
+its extraordinary brilliance. But I will fetch it, and you shall
+examine it for yourself. Pardon my leaving you for one moment."
+
+With a smile and a bow Captain Ducie rose from his chair, crossed the
+floor, and disappeared within an inner room. Mr. Van Loal and his
+daughter exchanged glances full of meaning. The pallor deepened on
+Mirpah's cheek: she toyed nervously with her fan; and even the old
+man, ordinarily so calm and self-contained, looked anxious and brimful
+of nervous excitement. His fingers wandered frequently to his
+waistcoat, in one pocket of which there seemed to be some object of
+whose presence there he needed frequently to assure himself.
+
+Ducie returned after an absence of two minutes. He too seemed to have
+caught that contagion of nervous excitement which marked the demeanour
+of his two guests. Was he warned by some subtle instinct that one of
+the great crises of his life was at hand? Or was he merely a prey to
+that vulgar fear which all who practice the art of illegal
+conveyancing must or ought to feel when the proceeds of their
+nefarious deeds are submitted for the first time to the common light
+of day?
+
+"This is the gem which I am desirous of submitting for your
+inspection."
+
+He held out his right hand, and there on his open palm the Great Mogul
+Diamond sparkled and glowed, a chrysolite of pure green fire. An
+exclamation of surprise and delight burst simultaneously from the lips
+of Mirpah and her father.
+
+"In the whole course of my experience I have never seen anything to
+equal this," said Van Loal, as he donned his spectacles. "May I take
+it into my own fingers to examine?"
+
+"Certainly; I have brought it in order that you may do so."
+
+Speaking thus, Captain Ducie dropped the Diamond into the extended
+palm of the supposed dealer. Some inward qualm next moment made him
+half put out his hand as if he would have reclaimed the Diamond there
+and then. But the lean fingers of Van Loal had already closed over the
+gem, and Ducie's arm dropped aimlessly by his side.
+
+Mr. Van Loal rose from his seat and went close up to the lamp that he
+might examine the stone more minutely. There he was joined by Mirpah,
+whose curiosity quite equalled that of her father. They both stood
+gazing at it for full two minutes without speaking.
+
+"Wonderful! Magnificent!" exclaimed Mr. Van Loal at length. "Words
+fail me to express the admiration I feel at sight of so rare a gem.
+Can it be possible, Captain Ducie, that you are the fortunate
+possessor of such a treasure? I should think myself one of the most
+favoured of mortals did such a Diamond belong to me."
+
+"It is mine," answered Ducie, calmly and deliberately. "It has been in
+the possession of our family for two centuries. Originally it came
+from the Indies, and is said to have been worn by the great Aurungzebe
+himself."
+
+"If the Great Mogul never did wear it, he ought to have done so. Even
+among his remarkable treasures he can have possessed but few stones
+equal to this one. You can never be called a poor man, Captain Ducie,
+while you retain this in your possession. Mirpah, my child, what say
+you?"
+
+"What can I say, papa? I am not enthusiastic, as you know, nor given
+to indulge in notes of admiration. I can only say that in my poor
+experience I have never seen anything to equal it. Diamonds as large,
+or larger, I have seen several times, but they were all white, or of
+inferior water. I have never seen a green one at all comparable to
+this one either for size or brilliancy, and I think, papa, that even
+your wider experience will, in this respect, tally with mine."
+
+"Completely so," answered the old man. "I question whether, among all
+the crown jewels of Europe, there is a green diamond that can in any
+way match it, either for colour or brilliancy. Captain Ducie, your
+treasure is almost unique."
+
+"Can you furnish me with anything like an estimate of its probable
+value?"
+
+"I am doubtful whether I can. Were it an ordinary white diamond the
+value could be easily calculated when once the weight was known. But
+with a green diamond the case is very different. In addition to what
+its value would be as an ordinary diamond, it would command an extra
+or fancy price in the market, from the rarity of its colour in
+conjunction with its size. This additional value is a most difficult
+thing to gauge accurately. Even among professional dealers you would
+hardly find two who would name the same figure, or the same figure
+within a very wide margin, if called upon to estimate the worth of
+your green diamond."
+
+"Still," said Ducie, "I should like you to furnish me with some
+approximate estimate of its probable value."
+
+"What is its weight?"
+
+"Nearly eighty-five carats."
+
+"In that case you may estimate its value somewhere between one hundred
+and forty and two hundred thousand pounds."
+
+The Diamond had been passed on by Mr. Van Loal to his daughter for
+examination.
+
+"A gem fit for an empress to wear!" was Mirpah's remark as she handed
+the stone back to her father.
+
+"Observe the mode in which this Diamond is cut," said Van Loal. "It
+has been done in the Indies after a style which has been handed down
+from father to son for a thousand years. You should let it be operated
+upon by our Amsterdam cutters. They would turn it out at the end of
+six months, less in size it is true, but so greatly improved in every
+other respect, that you would hardly know it for the same gem. May I
+ask whether it is your intention to dispose of it by private treaty?"
+
+"It is my intention ultimately so to do," answered Ducie.
+
+"I suppose you have no objection to my trying the temper of your
+Diamond on the window?"
+
+"None whatever," said Ducie, with a shrug. "You may write your name on
+every pane in the hotel if you please."
+
+"That would indeed be a painful exhibition of vanity," replied Van
+Loal, with a weak attempt at a pun.
+
+Speaking thus, he rose from his seat, and crossed the floor, holding
+the Diamond between the thumb and finger of his right hand.
+
+Curtains of crimson damask draped the windows. One of these curtains
+Van Loal drew noisily aside. A second or two later those in the room
+could hear the slow scratching of the Diamond on the glass.
+
+Mirpah's cheek grew still paler as the sound met her ears.
+
+Just then Ducie was thinking as much of the beautiful girl before him
+as of the Diamond.
+
+"I hope you have not forgotten our engagement to visit Elizabeth
+Castle to-morrow," he said. "It will be low water at noon, and we an
+either walk across the sands to it or ride, as may seem best to you."
+
+"I have not forgotten," said Mirpah, softly, and from her eyes there
+shot a swift, half-sorrowful glance that thrilled him to the heart.
+
+"I must make my opportunity to-morrow and propose to her," he said to
+himself. "I never thought to love again, but I love Mirpah Van Loal,
+and will make her my wife if she will let me do so. Perhaps the future
+may have a quiet happiness in store for me, such as I never dreamed of
+in all the wild days that have come and gone since my father turned me
+out of doors, and I first thought myself a man. I begin to think there
+is something in life that I have altogether missed."
+
+This thought was working in his mind when Mr. Van Loal came back from
+the window still holding the Diamond between the thumb and finger of
+his right hand. He deposited it lightly in Ducie's palm.
+
+"A wonderful gem, my dear sir--a truly wonderful gem!" said the old
+man. "I envy you the possession of such a treasure. In all my
+experience I have never seen or heard of its equal. But you must allow
+me to say that I think it very unwise on your part to carry so
+valuable an item of property about with you on your travels. Let me
+recommend you to deposit it with your banker, or in some other safe
+custody, as soon as ever you get back to England; unless, indeed, you
+may wish to dispose of it, in which case allow me to offer my humble
+services as negotiator of the transaction for you."
+
+"No one on the island, save yourself and Miss Van Loal, is aware that
+I carry such an article about with me; consequently there is no fear
+of its being stolen. As it happens, I am desirous of disposing of the
+Diamond--in fact, I should have sold it some time ago had I known how
+to conduct such a transaction without running the risk of being
+egregiously duped. Your kind offer of your valuable services has
+disposed of that difficulty, and, with your permission, we will
+discuss the matter in extenso to-morrow."
+
+He had risen while speaking, and he now went away into the inner room,
+carrying the Diamond with him. As soon as his back was turned a quick
+meaning glance passed between father and daughter. There was a look of
+triumph in the eyes of Van Loal which told Mirpah that the object
+which had brought them all the way from their Midlandshire home had
+been successfully achieved.
+
+No word passed between the two, and Ducie came back in less than a
+minute. Conversation was resumed, and still the theme was diamonds and
+rare gems. As was only to be expected from one who called himself a
+dealer in such merchandise, Mr. Van Loal showed himself to be deeply
+versed in all matters relating to precious stones. Captain Ducie was
+greatly interested. The little company did not break up till a late
+hour.
+
+"At noon to-morrow. You will not forget?" said Ducie, as he held
+Mirpah's hand for a moment at the door of his room. She made him no
+answer in words, but again that strange half-sorrowful look shot from
+her eyes to his, and her soft hand clasped his in a way that it had
+never been betrayed into doing before. Then they parted. Captain
+Ducie's dreams that night were happy dreams.
+
+Mirpah Van Loal must either have forgotten her overnight promise to
+Captain Ducie, or have held it in small regard, seeing that she left
+St. Helier by the Southampton boat at six forty-five next morning. She
+was accompanied by her father, and by a clean-shaven young gentleman,
+dressed in black, who had been living a very secluded life for some
+time past at Button's Hotel.
+
+As the boat steamed slowly out of the harbour, Mirpah threw a last
+searching glance among the crowd with which the pier was lined. "Poor
+Captain Ducie!" she murmured half aloud. Her father who happened to be
+standing close by, peered up curiously into her face and saw that her
+eyes were wet. He did not speak, but moved further away, and left her
+to her own thoughts.
+
+They had an excellent passage, and Mirpah bore up bravely. Some time
+after leaving Guernsey, an English steamer bound for the Islands
+passed them a few hundred yards to leeward. The clean-shaven young
+gentleman in black was watching the stranger keenly through his glass
+when an expression of surprise burst from his lips. "What is it,
+James? What is it that you see, my boy?" asked Mr. Van Loal.
+
+"On yonder boat I see an old acquaintance of yours and mine."
+
+The old man took the glass and scanned the passing ship, the
+passengers of which were scanning the Southampton boat eagerly in
+return, and had their faces turned full towards it. The old man laid
+down the glass after a minute's silent observation.
+
+"James," he said in a solemn tone, "unless my eyes deceive me greatly,
+the mulatto, Cleon, is on board yonder ship."
+
+"You are right, father. Cleon _is_ on board that ship. He was not
+killed, then, after all, in his encounter with Captain Ducie."
+
+"Such a fellow as that takes a deal of killing. On one point we may be
+pretty sure: that by some means or other he has discovered Captain
+Ducie's whereabouts and is now on his track."
+
+"Wants his revenge, perhaps."
+
+"Wants to recover the Great Mogul Diamond, mayhap."
+
+Madgin Junior laughed. "He will hardly succeed in doing that, father.
+Mr. Van Loal has been in the field before him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+CLEON REDIVIVUS.
+
+When Madgin Junior averred that he saw Cleon, the mulatto servant of
+the late M. Platzoff, on board the steamer which would be due in
+Guernsey some two hours later, he stated no more than the truth. That
+dusky individual was there, looking as well as ever he had looked in
+his life; sprucely, even elegantly dressed; and having a watchful eye
+on his two small articles of luggage: a miniature portmanteau, and a
+tiny black leather bag. At Guernsey he quitted the steamer, and
+waiting on the pier till he saw it fairly under way again for the
+sister island, he entered at once into negotiations with some of the
+hardy boatmen generally to be found lounging about St. Peter's port.
+The result was that a pretty little skiff was brought round, into
+which Mr. Cleon and his luggage were carefully stowed, the whole being
+taken charge of by a couple of sailors who at once hoisted their sail
+and stood out in a straight line for Jersey. The wind was in their
+favour, but the tide was against them nearly the whole way, and it was
+quite dark before they got under the lee of the lighthouse and found
+themselves safely sheltered in the little harbour of St. Helier. It is
+quite possible that Mr. Cleon may have had some motive in not wishing
+to land by daylight, at all events he seemed in nowise dissatisfied by
+his late arrival, but paid his boatmen liberally and dismissed them.
+
+Skirting the head of the harbour cautiously, with his coat collar
+turned up and his hat well slouched over his eyes, Cleon entered the
+first low public-house to which he came and called for a glass of rum.
+A number of men, sailors chiefly, and loafers of various kinds, passed
+in and out while he stood at the bar, at each one of whom he glanced
+keenly. He waited nearly half an hour before he found the sort of face
+he wanted--one in which low cunning and intelligence were combined. He
+took the owner of this face aside and held a private parley with him
+for full ten minutes. Then the man went away and Mr. Cleon ordered a
+private room and some tea.
+
+He was still discussing his chop when the man got back.
+
+"Well--what news? Make your report," said the mulatto.
+
+"All right, captain," with a touch of his forelock. "Found out all you
+wanted to know, right slick away. Make you no error on that point. I
+promised to do it, and I done it. Oh, yes. There's no flies about what
+I'm going to tell you. Captain Ducie is stopping at the 'Royal
+George,' and has been stopping there for the last ten days. Up to last
+night most of his time was spent with an old gentleman and a young
+lady, father and daughter, of the name of Van Loal. But they went away
+by this morning's boat, and Captain Ducie has been mooning about all
+day, seeming as if he hardly knew what to do with himself. Just now he
+is up the town at one of the billiard saloons, and is not expected
+home before eleven."
+
+"You know all the billiard rooms in the town. Go and find out at which
+one of them Captain Ducie is engaged, and whether he is so fixed that
+he is likely to remain there for some time to come."
+
+In less than a quarter of an hour the man was back. "The Captain is
+playing pool with a lot more swells at Baxter's rooms, and seems well
+fixed for another hour to come."
+
+The mulatto had already paid his bill, and was ready for a start. "Now
+show me the 'Royal George' Hotel," said he.
+
+The hotel was pointed out and the man paid and dismissed. Cleon
+entered the hotel with the air of a proprietor, and asked to be shown
+a private sitting room. He was shown into one on the first floor. It
+was small but comfortable. He expressed himself as being perfectly
+satisfied with it, and then he ordered dinner.
+
+While the meal was being got ready, Mr. Cleon stated that he should
+like to see such bedrooms as were disengaged. He was rather
+fastidious, he added, in the choice of a bedroom, and should prefer
+making his own selection. He was very pleasant and jocular with the
+chambermaid who showed him round.
+
+In all there were five bedrooms in want of occupants, and Mr. Cleon
+was not satisfied till he had looked into each of them. "Come, now,"
+he said, after peeping into the fifth and last, "if I am rightly
+informed, you have a military gentleman stopping in the house, a
+Captain----."
+
+"Ducie," added the girl as the mulatto stopped as if in doubt.
+
+"Ah, that is the name. Captain Ducie. Now, soldiers generally know how
+to pick out the best quarters, and if I were to choose a bedroom on
+the same floor as the captain's I could hardly go far astray. Now, I
+dare say you could tell me the number of Captain Ducie's room?"
+
+"The captain's room is number fourteen. Number ten, the next room but
+three to it, is empty, and you can have it if you choose."
+
+"I engage number ten on the spot," said Mr. Cleon, emphatically.
+"See that the sheets are properly aired, and here are a couple of
+half-crowns for your trouble."
+
+Mr. Cleon ate his dinner in solitary state, and retired to his bedroom
+at an early hour. To his bedroom, but not to bed. After about five
+minutes his candle was put out. A minute or two later the door of his
+room was noiselessly opened, and showed him standing on the threshold,
+tall and black, like a spirit of evil in the dim starlight. After
+listening intently for a little while, he stole gently along the
+corridor from his own room to the door of number fourteen. This door
+he tried, and found that it yielded at once to his hand. He opened it
+a little way and peeped in. The room was dark and empty. Still
+listening, with every sense on the alert, he struck a noiseless match.
+The tiny flame, bright and clear, and lasting for about half a minute,
+was sufficient to enable him to photograph on his memory the position
+of every article of furniture in the room. It was also sufficient to
+enable him to note something of much greater importance: that there
+was not only a stout lock on the door of number fourteen; but that the
+door could be still further secured on the inside by means of a strong
+bolt. He smothered the malediction that rose to his lips when he saw
+this, and then he stole back to his own room with the look of a
+baffled wild beast on his face.
+
+Even now he did not go to bed, but sat waiting in the dark, with his
+door slightly ajar, for the coming of the tenant of number fourteen.
+Upwards of an hour passed away before he heard Captain Ducie's step on
+the stair. He seemed to draw back within himself as he heard it: to
+crouch as if getting ready for a spring. But the moment Captain Ducie
+entered number fourteen, Cleon was at the door of his own room and
+listening. He fell back a pace or two and shook his fist savagely in
+the air as he heard what he had felt almost sure he should hear. He
+heard Captain Ducie double lock the door of number fourteen, and then
+shoot home the brass bolt, as though still further to secure himself
+against intruders. The mulatto's sharp white teeth clashed together
+viciously as the sound met his ear.
+
+"Only wait!" he whispered down the dark corridor. Then he went in, and
+shut and locked the door of his own room.
+
+Next morning he ordered breakfast to be taken up to bed to him. He was
+very unwell, he said, and should not be able to leave his room all
+that day. But his illness, whatever it might be, did not seem to
+affect his appetite. Luncheon, and afterwards dinner, were sent up to
+him in due course. At nine o'clock he rang his bell and ordered a
+bottle of claret. At the same time he instructed the waiter that he
+should not want anything more till morning; and that he must on no
+account be disturbed till that time.
+
+He had been singularly uneasy and watchful all day, listening
+frequently, with his door slightly ajar, to the downstairs noises of
+the hotel, sometimes even venturing a few yards down the corridor when
+the house was more than usually quiet, but retreating quickly to his
+den at the slightest sound of an approaching footstep. Once he had
+even penetrated into Captain Ducie's room for a few seconds. "Ah,
+scélerat! I shall have you yet," he muttered, as he shut himself out
+of the room after his brief survey.
+
+Now that daylight had faded into dusk, and dusk had deepened into
+night, his proceedings were still more singular. After finishing his
+bottle of wine, he proceeded to take off his ordinary outer clothing,
+and in place of it to induct himself into a tight-fitting suit of some
+strong dark woven stuff that fitted him like a glove. Round his waist
+he buckled a belt of dull black leather, and into this belt he stuck a
+small sheathed dagger. Pendent from the belt was a tiny pouch made of
+the same material, into which he put some half dozen allumettes, and
+two small cones of some red material, each of them about four inches
+in height. This done, his toilette was finished. After a last glance
+round, he put out the candles, opened the door, and halted on the
+threshold for a moment or two to listen.
+
+The night was clear and unclouded, and through the staircase window
+the stars shone brightly in. The corridor was filled with their
+ghostly light. Midway in it stood the mulatto, black from head to
+foot, except for his two ferocious eyes that gleamed redly from under
+his heavy brows like danger signals pointing out the road to death. A
+pause of a few seconds and then he shut and locked the door of his
+room--locked it from the outside and put away the key in the tiny
+pouch by his side.
+
+The quiet starlight seemed to fall away from him affrighted as he
+moved down the dusky corridor. Now that the door was shut behind him
+he went on without hesitation or pause. He had only a few paces to go.
+On reaching the door of number fourteen, he turned the handle, went
+in, and closed the door softly behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+PASTILLE-BURNING.
+
+
+Rarely had Captain Ducie felt in a pleasanter frame of mind than when
+he went down to breakfast in the course of the forenoon following the
+evening on which he had shown Mr. Van Loal and his daughter the Great
+Mogul Diamond. Several circumstances had combined to render him more
+than ordinarily cheerful. He had fully made up his mind to propose to
+Mirpah Van Loal that very day, and he felt little fear that his suit
+would be rejected. Once married, he would cut his old associations for
+ever, would probably leave England for several years, and in some
+remote spot would, with his lovely wife, lead a life such as one
+sometimes reads of in idylls and romances but rarely sees reduced to
+practice in this work-a-day world. Mr. Van Loal had appraised the
+Diamond at a very tolerable sum, and through his influence he would
+doubtless be able to dispose of it quietly, and in a way that would
+give rise to no suspicion as to the mode by which it had come into his
+possession. The proceeds of the sale, judiciously invested, would be
+productive of an annual income on which it would be possible to live
+in comfort wherever he might choose to pitch his tent. Lastly, all
+apprehension as to any results which might possibly have accrued to
+him from the sudden death of M. Platzoff, and the subsequent events at
+Bon Repos, had utterly died away. He had got by this time to feel as
+if the Diamond were as much his own as though it had been given to him
+or handed down to him as a family heirloom. If any uncomfortable
+thought connected with the death of Platzoff and his appropriation of
+the Diamond ever crossed his mind, it was dismissed with ignominy,
+like a poor relation, almost as soon as it made itself known. Captain
+Ducie was not a man to let his conscience trouble him whenever it
+wished to question him respecting any transaction the results of which
+had proved prosperous to himself. In such cases he bade it begone,
+turning it out by main force, and shutting the door in its face. But
+whenever it stole in and began to reproach him for his conduct in any
+little affair that in its results had proved disastrous either
+socially or pecuniarily, then did Edmund Ducie bow his head in all
+humility before the veiled monitress, and cry mea culpa, and bewail
+his naughtiness with many inward groans, and promise to amend his ways
+in time to come. But it may be doubted whether in the latter case his
+regret did not arise less from having done that which was wrong, than
+because the wrong had proved unsuccessful in compassing the ends for
+which it was done.
+
+Be that as it may, Captain Ducie's conscience did not seem to trouble
+him much as he came downstairs this pleasant autumn morning, humming
+an air from the Trovatore, and giving the last finishing touches to
+his filbert-shaped nails. He rang the bell for breakfast, and turned
+over, half contemptuously, the selection of newspapers on the side
+table.
+
+"Has Mr. Van Loal come down to breakfast yet, do you know?" he asked
+when the waiter re-entered the room.
+
+"I will ascertain, sir, and let you know."
+
+Two minutes later the waiter came back. "Mr. Van Loal, sir, and Miss
+Van Loal, left this morning by the Southampton boat."
+
+"What!" shouted Ducie, jumping to his feet as though he had been shot.
+
+The waiter repeated his statement.
+
+"Either you are crazy or you have been misinformed," said Ducie,
+contemptuously, as he quietly resumed his seat. "Go again, and
+ascertain the truth this time."
+
+Presently the waiter returned. "What I told you before, sir, is quite
+true. Mr. Van Loal and his daughter left this morning by the early
+boat."
+
+A horrible sickening dread took possession of Ducie. He staggered to
+his feet, his face like that of a corpse. Was it--was it possible that
+by some devil's trick the Diamond had been conjured from him? His hand
+went instinctively to the spot where he knew it ought to be. No--it
+was not gone. He could feel it there, just below his heart, in the
+little sealskin bag that hung from his neck by a steel chain. He had
+replaced it there after taking it from the fingers of Van Loal the
+preceding night, and he had not looked at it since.
+
+Greatly relieved, he turned to the waiter with a face that was still
+strangely white and contorted. "What you have just told me is almost
+incredible," he said, "in fact, I cannot believe it without further
+proof. Go and bring to me some one who was an eye-witness of the
+departure of Mr. and Miss Van Loal."
+
+The waiter went. Ducie was still unnerved, and he poured himself out a
+cup of coffee with a hand that trembled in spite of all his efforts to
+keep it still. But his appetite for breakfast was utterly gone.
+
+Then the waiter came back and ushered into the room, first, the young
+lady who kept the accounts of the establishment; secondly, the boots.
+The young lady advanced with charming self-possession, made her little
+curtsy, and broke the ice at once.
+
+"I am informed, sir, that you wish to have some particulars respecting
+the departure of Mr. and Miss Van Loal," she said. "They dined with
+you last evening in your own room, if I am not mistaken. Yes. Well,
+sir, about eleven o'clock, just as I was closing my books for the
+night, I was surprised by a visit from Mr. Van Loal. 'Oblige me by
+making out my little account,' said he; 'and include in it to-morrow's
+breakfast. I am recalled to England by important letters, and must go
+by the first boat. You will further oblige me by making no mention of
+my departure till after I am gone. I have several friends to whom I
+ought to say good-by, but I do not feel equal to the occasion, and
+wish to slip quietly away without saying a word.' Mr. Van Loal waited
+while I made out the account. Then he paid me and bade me good-night.
+When I got up this morning, I found that he and his daughter had gone
+by the early boat. James, here, took their luggage down to the pier
+and saw them start."
+
+"Did you with your own eyes see Mr. and Miss Van Loal start by the
+Southampton boat this morning?"
+
+"I did, sir. I was instructed to look after their luggage this
+morning. I took it down to the boat and saw the old gentleman and the
+young lady safe aboard. They went below deck at once, and two minutes
+later the steamer was off."
+
+"A very clear and conclusive narrative," said Ducie. "You are the man,
+I believe, who looks after the letters and attends to the post bag?"
+
+"I am, sir."
+
+"Were there any letters by the afternoon post yesterday for Mr. Van
+Loal?"
+
+"No, sir, not one. I can speak positively to that."
+
+Left alone, Captain Ducie sat down in a perfect maze of perplexity.
+That Van Loal and his daughter were gone he could no longer doubt. But
+why had they gone without a hint or word of farewell? They must have
+known at the time they were dining with him the previous evening that
+they were about to sail on the following morning, and yet they allowed
+him to plan and arrange for the day's excursion as though any thought
+of change were the last thing in their minds. And Mirpah, too--what of
+her? What of the woman whom it was his intention to have proposed to
+that very day? Had she merely been playing with him all along in order
+that she might jilt him at last? He could not understand the thing at
+all. He was mazed, utterly dumbfounded, like a man walking in a dream.
+The more he thought of the affair, the less comprehensible it seemed
+to him. His amour propre was terribly wounded. More intolerable than
+all else was the sense there was upon him of having been outwitted, of
+having in some mysterious way been made the victim of a plot with the
+beginning and ending of which he was utterly unacquainted. He had been
+hoodwinked--bamboozled--he felt sure of it: but how and for what
+purpose he was quite at a loss to fathom. His Diamond was perfectly
+safe; he had never gambled with Van Loal; whatever his looks might
+have conveyed, he had never spoken a word of love to Mirpah, so that
+it was impossible she could have taken offence with him on that score.
+What, then, was the meaning of it all? He rang the bell to inquire
+whether Mr. Van Loal had left no note, or message of any kind for him.
+None whatever, was the reply.
+
+"What a preposterous idiot I must have been," murmured Ducie, "to
+fancy that this woman whom I proposed to make my wife, cared for me
+the least bit in the world! She is like the rest of her sex--neither
+better nor worse. From highest to lowest they are false and
+fickle--every one."
+
+He spent a miserable day, wandering aimlessly about, he neither knew
+nor cared whither; nursing his wounds, and vainly striving to
+understand for what reason he had been struck so mercilessly and in
+the dark. A thousand times that day he cursed the name of Mirpah Van
+Loal. Once he paused in his pacing of the lonely sands, and not
+satisfied with the evidence of his fingers that the Diamond was safe
+in its sealskin pocket, he took it out of its hiding-place and gazed
+on it, and pressed it to his lips, even as M. Paul Platzoff had done
+in his time, and as, in all probability, hundreds had done before him.
+
+"Fool! after all my experience of life and the world, to believe in
+the chimera of woman's love!" he said bitterly to himself. "Man's only
+real friend in this world is money, or that which can command money.
+The rest is only a shadow on the wall, gone ere it can be clutched."
+
+He had been wandering about all day without food, and when night set
+in he felt nervous and dispirited.
+
+He made a pretence of eating his dinner as usual, but he sickened at
+his food and sought consolation in a double allowance of wine. Later
+on he strolled out with a cigar, and made his way to a certain
+billiard-room where he was not unknown. He was too nervous to touch a
+cue himself, but he found his excitement in betting on other men's
+play. After having lost five sovereigns he went back to his hotel.
+This was the night of Cleon's arrival at Jersey.
+
+His mood next day was one of sullen bitterness. It was a mood that,
+under other circumstances, might have incited him to do something
+desperate, were it only to find a safety-valve for his pent-up
+feelings. In such a mood, had he been on active service, and had the
+need arisen, he would have gloried in offering himself as the leader
+of some forlorn hope. In such a mood, had he been a burglar, it would
+have fared ill with any one who stood up in defence of that which he
+had made up his mind to take as his own. Happily, or unhappily, in
+such crises of everyday life we have no choice save to eat our own
+hearts, and drink our own tears, and wear the mask of comedy to the
+world, while hiding that other mask of tragedy under our robe, which
+we venture to don only when we are in secret and alone.
+
+Captain Ducie, behind the mask of comedy which he presented to the
+world, hid a heart that in a few short hours had become surcharged
+with gall, and that would never again, however long his life might be,
+be entirely free from bitterness. He felt like one of those savage
+caged creatures who, when they have nothing else to war against, will
+sometimes turn and rend themselves. He felt that he should like to do
+himself some bodily injury: to put his foot under the car of
+Juggernaut, had he been a Hindoo; or to have swung, with a hook
+through his loins, above the populace of some Indian fair.
+
+All day long he loafed about in this savage mood, smoking innumerable
+cigars and twisting the ends of his moustache viciously.
+
+He was only anxious for one thing, and that was for the arrival of the
+afternoon post. It is possible that he expected some line of
+explanation from Van Loal. If so, he was disappointed. That day's post
+brought him no letters.
+
+After dinner he joined a whist party in the coffee-room. Later on the
+quartette composing the party adjourned to a private-room upstairs.
+Captain Ducie was ordinarily an abstemious man, especially when cards
+were on the tapis, but to-night he was reckless and took more wine than
+was good for him. It was nearly one o'clock when the party broke up,
+and Captain Ducie never afterwards remembered how he reached his own
+room.
+
+That he reached his room in safety cannot be doubted, because he found
+himself safely in bed when he awoke next morning. But before that time
+arrived a strange scene had been enacted in Captain Ducie's bedroom.
+
+As before stated, it was nearly one o'clock when he reached his room,
+and five minutes after getting into bed he had fallen into a broken
+troubled sleep in which he enacted over again the varied incidents of
+the evening's play. After moaning and tossing about for more than an
+hour, he woke up, feeling parched from head to foot and with a pain
+across his forehead like a fiery hoop that seemed to be slowly
+shrivelling up his brain. He got out of bed and emptied the decanter
+on his dressing-table at a draught. Then he plunged his head into a
+large basin of water, and that revived him still more. His head still
+ached, but not so violently as before. He went back to bed, cursing
+his folly for having taken so much wine. The night-light was burning
+as usual--dim and ghostly; barely sufficient to light up the familiar
+features of the room--for Captain Ducie had a strange superstitious
+horror of sleeping in the dark. He lay on his back, with his hands
+clasped above his head and with shut eyes. Sleep did not come back to
+him at once. His imagination went wandering here and there into odd
+nooks and corners that it had not visited for years. By-and-by he slid
+into a state of semi-unconsciousness, in which, without entirely
+losing all knowledge of time and place--of the fact that he was lying
+there in bed with a beastly headache--he yet mixed up certain scenes
+and events from dreamland, interfusing the real and the imaginary in
+such a way that for the time being the line of demarcation between the
+two was utterly lost, and where one ended and the other began, he
+would just then have found it impossible to determine. He was playing
+cards with one of the huge stone images that guarded the gates of
+Memphis, and was yet at the same time conscious of being in bed. He
+could see the grotesque shadows thrown by the night-light on the wall,
+and he could hear the ticking of his watch in the little pocket a few
+inches above his head. In his game with the stone image, in whose eyes
+he seemed to read the garnered patience of many centuries, he was
+aware that unless he could succeed in trumping his adversary's trick
+with the five of clubs, the game would be irrevocably lost, and he,
+Ducie, would be condemned to be buried alive for five hundred years in
+the heart of the great Pyramid. The twentieth deal would be the last,
+and if the five of clubs were not forthcoming by that time, the game
+would be lost and the dread sentence would be carried into effect.
+
+Deal after deal went on, and still the five of clubs did not show
+itself. Even in the midst of his perturbation he heard and counted the
+strokes of a clock in the silent house. The clock struck three, and in
+the act of deliberating which card he should play next, Ducie remarked
+to himself that it still wanted two hours till daybreak.
+
+From minute to minute his perturbation increased. He did his best to
+maintain a calm front before his calm adversary. As he peered into
+those terrible eyes, he knew that he must expect no mercy if he failed
+in producing the magic card. Forgiveness and revenge were alike
+unknown to the inexorable being before him, who was the embodiment of
+Law, serene and passionless, neither to be hurried nor hindered,
+keeping ever to the simple white line traced out for its footsteps
+from the beginning of the world, and as utterly regardless of human
+joy or human sorrow, as of the grumbling of the earthquake or the
+fiery passion of the volcano.
+
+Slowly but surely the game went on. Ducie's adversary marked
+off every deal with a hieroglyph on a huge slate by his side.
+Fifteen--ten--five--the number of deals diminished one by one, and
+still the magic card was not forthcoming. Ducie went on playing with
+the quiet courage of despair. Five--four--three--two--one. The last
+deal had come but the five of clubs was still hidden in the pack. As
+he thought of the terrible fate before him his soul was utterly
+dismayed. Suddenly he heard a faint whisper in his ear: "Give me the
+Great Mogul Diamond and I will save you." "It is yours," he replied in
+the same tone. In a fainter whisper than before came the words: "Feel
+up your sleeve for the five of clubs."
+
+Ducie put his hand up his sleeve and drew forth the magic card. As he
+dashed it on the table, cards and image melted silently away, all but
+the great calm eyes, which seemed to recede slowly from him while
+gazing at him with an inexorable gentleness that awed him, and crushed
+out of him all expressions of joy at his escape.
+
+He had been conscious all this time of being in his own room at the
+Royal George, and without being thoroughly awake, this consciousness
+was still upon him when he found himself left alone. Was he really
+quite alone? he asked himself. Some voice had whispered in his ear
+only a minute ago, and a voice implied a bodily presence. But whose
+presence?
+
+He would doubtless know before long, when this unknown being would
+come forth to claim the great Diamond.
+
+Well, better part from the Diamond than be made a living mummy of, and
+be buried for five hundred years among dead kings and priests in the
+great pyramid.
+
+Was it Shakspeare who talked about "dusty death?" It did not matter.
+He had been saved from a dreadful fate, and a long peaceful sleep for
+one hundred and five hours, fifteen minutes, and ten seconds--neither
+more nor less--was needed to compensate him for the mental and bodily
+torture from which he had just escaped.
+
+Even while this fancy was simmering in his brain, he was aware of a
+strange, subtle odour which seemed to rise from the floor in faint,
+cloud-like waves, rising and spreading till every nook and cranny of
+the room was pervaded by it. It was a mist of perfume--a perfume far
+from unpleasant to inhale--heavy, yet pungent, odorous of the East,
+inclining to sleep and to visions of a passionless existence,
+undisturbed by all outward influences--such visions as must come to
+the strange beings whose most central thought is that of future
+absorption in the mystic godhead of the mighty Brahma.
+
+Empires might change and die, the world might split asunder and chaos
+rule again, it mattered not to him. Only to rest, to lie there for
+ever, self-absorbed, indifferent to all mundane matters--that was the
+utmost that he craved.
+
+The mist of perfume thickened, becoming from minute to minute denser
+and more penetrating. By this time it seemed to have permeated his
+whole being. It filled his lungs, it mingled with his blood, it
+saturated his brain; it glowed in him, a slumberous heat, from head to
+foot. The shadowy past of his life, the real present of his
+surroundings, grouped themselves in his brain like blurred
+photographs, which it was impossible for him to regard with anything
+more than a vague and impersonal interest. Nothing seemed real to him
+save the noiseless involved working of his own mind, working in and
+out like a shuttle with a fantastic thread of many colours, and with
+self for ever as the central figure.
+
+While his mind had been growing thus strangely active, his body had
+been slowly losing--or rather suspending--its vitality. Slowly and
+imperceptibly his limbs had grown utterly powerless and inert, till
+now, if a kingdom had been offered him, he could not have raised hand
+or foot two inches from the bed. Not that he had any desire to move
+hand, or foot, or head, or tongue; only to lie still for ever,
+thinking his own thoughts, weighing the universe in the balance of his
+own mind and finding it wanting. Grant him but that, ye powers of
+earth and air, and for the rest, the word "nihil" might be written,
+and all things come to an end.
+
+Suddenly through the mist of perfume that filled the room he saw, or
+seemed to see, a black and threatening figure rise from the floor
+close by his bedside.
+
+"Surely," he thought to himself, "this must be the presence belonging
+to the voice that whispered in my ear as I was playing cards with the
+Memphian image. He has come to claim his pledge--he has come for the
+Mogul Diamond."
+
+To him, just now, the Mogul Diamond was as valueless as a grain of
+sand. That black and threatening figure by his bedside might take it
+and welcome.
+
+"Strange," he thought, "that the minds of men should ever grow to such
+trifles."
+
+The power of despising others thoroughly, but without emotion, is one
+of the final products of pure intellect: and to that serene height he
+had now attained.
+
+The black figure bent over him. In one hand it held a dagger.
+
+Ducie felt no alarm. Such a human emotion as fear affected him not,
+nor quickened the equable pulses of his being.
+
+As the face pertaining to the figure bent nearer to his own, he
+recognised it as the face of Cleon the mulatto. Even then he was not
+surprised. The mulatto made as though he would have struck Ducie to
+the heart, but stopped the dagger when it was within an inch of his
+breast. He passed his other hand across his forehead, and seemed to
+stagger.
+
+Was it possible that the powerful odour was affecting him as it had
+affected his victim? He hurriedly replaced his dagger in its sheath,
+and putting his hand to Ducie's neck, as if he knew instinctively that
+such a thing was there, he felt for the chain from which was suspended
+the sealskin pouch that held the Diamond. He had no difficulty in
+finding the chain, nor the sachet, nor the Diamond. He extracted the
+great flashing gem from its hiding-place, even as Ducie had extracted
+it a few weeks before from the head of the Indian idol. He held it up
+between his eye and the night-lamp, and muttered a few guttural words
+to himself.
+
+Then for the second time he passed his hand across his forehead and
+staggered. As if warned that he had not a moment to spare, he stuffed
+the Diamond into his mouth, gave a last scowl at the helpless figure
+before him, and disappeared behind the curtains that fell round the
+head of the bed.
+
+Ducie was left alone.
+
+All that had just taken place had affected him no more than if he had
+witnessed it as a scene out of a play. The Great Diamond was gone, and
+not even a ripple disturbed the waveless serenity of his mind.
+
+But the subtle odour that had filled the room was slowly fading out,
+and as it grew fainter, so did the strange spell that had held Ducie
+captive begin to lose its power. His thoughts lost their crystalline
+clearness, becoming blurred and unwieldy. They no longer arranged
+themselves in proper sequence. Some of them became so cumbersome that
+they had to be dropped and left behind, while those that were more
+nimble strayed so far ahead as to be almost beyond recall. Then the
+nimble ones had to come back and try to pick up the unwieldy ones,
+till they all became jumbled together and lost their individuality.
+Finally, sleep came to the rescue and laid her mantle softly over
+them, and for a little while all was peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+CHASING LA BELLE ROSE.
+
+
+It was broad day when Captain Ducie awoke. Even before his eyes were
+open, or he was conscious of where he was, there was upon him the
+overwhelming sense of some great calamity.
+
+His gaze wandered round the familiar room, and as it did so, he asked
+himself what it was that had befallen him.
+
+Before he had time to consider the question, or even to answer it, a
+great shock went through his heart, and with a loud cry he sprang from
+his bed on to the floor.
+
+"The Diamond!"
+
+He felt for it. It was gone. Even before his fingers had time to touch
+the sealskin pouch his instinct told him that it was not there. He
+turned as white as a man at the point of death, and sank into a chair
+with a deep groan. His chin dropped on his breast, and two great tears
+rolled slowly from his eyes and fell to the ground.
+
+A disarrangement of the carpet attracted his eye. It had been turned
+back for the space of a yard or so, leaving the boards bare. On this
+bare patch was a tiny cone of white ash.
+
+Ducie's suspicions were aroused in a moment. He stooped and took up a
+pinch of the ash and smelt at it. It emitted a faint odour, similar to
+that more powerful odour which had overcome him so strangely in the
+course of the night.
+
+No recollection of his dream, or of that still more singular vision in
+which Cleon had acted so prominent a part, had touched his memory
+since waking. But now, by one of those peculiar mental processes with
+which all of us are familiar, although we may not be able to explain
+them, the faint perfume that still pervaded the ash he had taken up
+between his fingers brought vividly back to his recollection every
+scene, real and imaginary, in which he had acted a part during his
+sleeping hours.
+
+The five of clubs and his game of cards with the Memphian statue--he
+remembered that, and he at once put it aside as nothing more than a
+dream of a somewhat bizarre character. After that, the strange odour
+that filled his room, precisely similar to that of the ash in his
+hand; the sudden apparition of Cleon; the dagger, and the rape of the
+Diamond: were those things dreams or realities? Dreams, nothing but
+idle dreams, he should have replied at any other time, but with the
+sense of his irreparable loss eating into his very soul, he could only
+acknowledge that for him they made up a bitter reality.
+
+Cleon had been there in person, and had succeeded in stealing the
+Diamond.
+
+With a terrible string of imprecations on the mulatto's head, Ducie
+flung open the casement, and let in the sweet morning air. There were
+two more tiny cones of white ash, similar to the first, on other parts
+of the floor.
+
+"That fiend of a mulatto has obtained access to my room," muttered
+Ducie to himself. "The powerful odour which had such a strange effect
+upon me must have been emitted by the pastilles, the ashes of which
+are before me. The pastilles were doubtless compounded of some strong
+narcotics, probably of certain Oriental drugs with the qualities of
+which Cleon was acquainted. I have been the victim of an infernal
+plot."
+
+That Cleon had been there could not be doubted; but where was he now?
+Ducie halted in his troubled walk as this question put itself to him,
+and turned to examine the door. It was unbolted, but otherwise shut.
+His custom was to bolt it every night before getting into bed; but did
+he really bolt it last night? He could not recollect. Considering the
+state in which he was when he came to bed, was not the probability in
+favour of his having left it unfastened? In any case, that was now a
+point of little consequence. The Diamond was gone, and Cleon was
+doubtless gone with it. The mulatto was not such a fool as to remain
+in the neighbourhood of a man whom he had mortally offended,
+especially when his interests imperatively demanded that he should get
+safely away. Between him and Ducie the case was now one of life and
+death.
+
+A fresh thought struck him and he turned to look at his watch. It was
+a quarter past six. The Southampton boat did not sail till a quarter
+to seven. Was it not most probable that Cleon, calculating on his,
+Ducie's, not awaking till after that time, would attempt to leave the
+island by the early boat? It was most probable that he would do so.
+"But if he leaves Jersey, I leave it with him," murmured the captain.
+"I shall certainly kill him the first opportunity I have of doing so."
+
+Captain Ducie's window commanded a view of that end of the pier from
+which the steamer started. He could see a knot of passengers and their
+luggage already assembled. It was hardly likely that the mulatto would
+be one of the lot, still Ducie thought that he might as well satisfy
+himself on that point. On his dressing-table was a very powerful
+field-glass. Ducie took it up and directed it full on the clump of
+people at the end of the pier. His eye ranged over the component parts
+one by one, but no Cleon was to be seen. He was hardly disappointed,
+because he had not expected to find the mulatto there. Before putting
+down the glass, with an instinct that to him was like second nature,
+he swept the horizon of sky and sea with it. Elizabeth Castle and the
+whole expanse of St. Aubin's Bay were visible to him. The morning was
+clear--deceitfully clear--and Ducie's experienced eye told him that a
+change of weather was at hand. Coming back from the horizon his eye
+took in the features nearer home. One or two pair-oar boats were
+paddling lazily about just outside the harbour. Beyond them were three
+or four sailing boats with their white wings outspread to catch the
+light and fickle breeze which seemed this morning as if it could not
+make up its mind to blow steadily from one point for more than five
+minutes at a time. The outermost of the sailing boats was tacking out
+of the harbour with every inch of its tiny sails spread to catch the
+wind. In this boat were three men, two of them sailors, the third
+evidently a passenger, probably some visitor to the island going out
+on a fishing excursion. Such would have been Ducie's natural
+conclusion had he cared to think about the matter at all. The boat
+came for a moment within the range of his glass, and in that moment
+one of the three men turned his head as if to see what progress had
+been made from land. He turned his head and Ducie gave a start and a
+cry. The man who had looked back was none other than the mulatto.
+
+One more steady look at the boat and its occupants and then Captain
+Ducie went on dressing with all speed. He understood the case in a
+moment. Cleon would not venture to leave the island by the steamer,
+fearing, probably, that she might be boarded by Ducie before leaving.
+His plan had been to hire a smack to take him either to the French
+coast or to Guernsey, and had it not happened to be dead low water
+about the time he ought to have got away, and the boats to be all
+lying high and dry in the harbour, two facts which had probably never
+entered into his calculations, he would have been a dozen miles from
+St. Helier by this time, and might have set pursuit at defiance.
+
+In five minutes Captain Ducie was ready to start. His field-glass was
+slung over his shoulder. In one pocket of his gray shooting-jacket he
+carried a Colt's revolver, and in the other a flask containing brandy,
+and a few biscuits.
+
+"Unless I am greatly mistaken," muttered Ducie to himself as he made
+his way with rapid strides towards the basin, "my friend Martin's
+little _Demoiselle_ will outsail yonder clumsy craft on a light wind,
+in which case Mr. Cleon and I may have an earlier reckoning than he
+dreams of."
+
+Captain Ducie was fortunate enough to find his friend Martin smoking
+an early pipe by the edge of the basin, and watching his tiny craft
+with a loving eye as she curtsied lightly to the incoming tide. Martin
+was a handsome stalwart young fellow whose ancestors for five hundred
+years back had followed the same occupation in the same place. Ducie
+had employed him several times on fishing excursions, and the two were
+sufficiently well known to each other. His boat, _La Demoiselle_, was
+famed, in the hands of her master, as being one of the fleetest little
+craft on the island.
+
+A few words sufficed to let Martin understand what was required of
+him, and three minutes later the Demoiselle with outspread wings was
+skimming saucily over the crests of the tide in pursuit of the other
+boat, which Martin pronounced to be the _Belle Rose_. Martin's
+assistant had been left behind in order that the _Demoiselle_ might
+sail as lightly as possible, Ducie himself engaging to assist in
+working the little craft.
+
+_La Belle Rose_ had got a clear half-hour's start, and was working out
+nearly due south, that being her best tack for sailing as the wind
+then was. "She'll take a turn sou'east before another ten minutes is
+over," said Martin. "You see, sir, if she don't; and then she'll make
+straight for the Normandy coast."
+
+"Martin," said Captain Ducie impressively, "on board yonder boat is a
+man who has robbed me of that which was of more importance to me than
+all else in the world."
+
+"Master!" exclaimed Martin, in surprise.
+
+"What I say is true. Now, listen. I want my revenge--as you would want
+yours were you in my place--eh?"
+
+Martin nodded his head gravely, and drew a knife in pantomime.
+
+"Consequently," resumed Ducie, "I want you to catch _La Belle Rose_.
+She has got a long start. Can you come up with her?"
+
+"Master, I will try. The _Demoiselle_ has never failed me yet when
+I've put her to the proof, and I don't think she will fail me to-day.
+We must steer more easterly, and not as if we were following the other
+boat; and then when she tacks, as she must do soon, we shall have
+gained a full half mile on her."
+
+Ducie was steering, and he saw that by following the sailor's advice,
+the _Demoiselle_ would cut off a large slice of the angle which must
+necessarily be made by the _Belle Rose_ before she could touch the
+nearest part of the French coast. Besides which, such a course would
+divert suspicion from their real intentions, and in a stern chase that
+goes for something.
+
+Ducie lighted a cigar, and passed his flask forward to the young
+sailor. "We shall have rain and more wind, sir, before the day is
+three hours older," said the latter.
+
+"So much the better," answered Ducie, quietly. "A gloomy deed should
+have a gloomy day. Martin! either the man in yonder boat or I will
+never see another sunrise. Perhaps neither of us may."
+
+The young sailor gave his companion a look that was not unmixed with
+admiration. There was something that touched his wild notions of
+Justice in the idea of a man being his own Avenger.
+
+Captain Ducie really meant what he said. He was thoroughly impressed
+with the belief that either for himself or Cleon that would be the
+last of earthly days. There was an element of gloom at the bottom of
+his nature--a dark abyss that had never been thoroughly sounded till a
+few hours ago. But the loss of his Diamond, preceded as it was by the
+unaccountable desertion of Mirpah Van Loal--Love and Fortune both gone
+in a few short hours--had served to raise a demon in his soul of which
+he had heretofore been thoroughly master. Now it mastered him, and he
+gave himself up to it without a struggle. But the grand calm of a
+thoroughbred Englishman did not desert him even now. The young sailor
+discerned no change in him from the Captain Ducie who had gone out
+fishing but four days before, save, perhaps, that his eyebrows seemed
+to come down a shade lower, and that the eyes themselves were a shade
+darker, and that his voice was somewhat graver than common. Otherwise
+there was no outward sign to tell of the change within, and yet Jean
+Martin had an instinctive sense that he had a desperate man aboard his
+tiny craft--one determined to carry out his own will to the end,
+however terrible that end might be.
+
+Captain Ducie sat in the stern and steered the _Demoiselle_, taking
+the word occasionally from Jean Martin. His glass was beside him, and
+now and then he took a peep at the chase. The different tacks on which
+the two boats were steering would have seemed, in a landsman's eye, to
+be hopelessly widening the distance between them, but when the _Belle
+Rose_ suddenly yawed round and began to steer nearly due east of her
+previous course, Ducie saw the wisdom of Martin's advice. The two
+boats had, so to speak, been sailing down the opposite sides of a
+triangle. The Belle Rose had completed her side, and having turned the
+corner, was now sailing along the line of the base. But before she
+could reach the opposite end of the base, she would be intercepted by
+the _Demoiselle_.
+
+Up to this time the progress of the _Demoiselle_. seemed to have been
+unheeded by the people in the _Belle Rose_. But as soon as it became
+evident to those in the latter that the two boats were rapidly
+nearing, and must in a few minutes cross each other's line within
+speaking distance, a slight commotion was visible on board the _Belle
+Rose_. Suddenly Martin, who had Ducie's glass to his eye, cried out,
+"They are getting suspicious of us. They are taking stock of us
+through their glasses--and--no--yes, by the nightcap of St. Jaques!
+there's a black man on board the _Belle Rose!_"
+
+"He is the man of whom I am in pursuit," said Ducie, from the stern.
+Then he added:
+
+"Keep your eye on them, Martin. Watch every movement, and tell me all
+you see."
+
+"They have not seen your face yet, master, and they seem easier in
+their minds. But the black man keeps his glass to his eye. Ah, thief!
+scélérat! Jean Martin would like to have his fingers round your
+throat! Do you wish me to run close up to the _Belle Rose_, master? In
+five minutes you may, if you like, have you black hound in your grip."
+
+"Come you to the tiller now, Martin, and steer to within twenty yards
+of the _Belle Rose_, but no nearer unless I tell you."
+
+So the two men changed places, and Ducie went forward with the glass
+in his hand. Cleon on his side was watching every movement on board
+the _Demoiselle_. Up to the present time the person of Captain Ducie
+had been in great part hidden by the sail, but now that he came
+forward he was plainly visible. The moment Cleon's glass showed him
+that stern pale face, he fell back on his seat with an exclamation of
+terror, and seemed for a moment or two like one utterly paralysed. But
+the mulatto was by no means deficient in a sort of dogged animal
+courage, and the extremity of his peril left him no time for anything
+but immediate action. The two boats were now within fifty yards of
+each other, the _Demoiselle_ bearing down like an arrow on the track
+of the _Belle Rose_. The mulatto took one more peep through his glass
+at Ducie. In the hand of the latter was an ugly-looking revolver.
+
+Cleon could not doubt for what purpose it was intended, and he was
+too well acquainted with Ducie's undoubted skill with the weapon,
+having seen him practice with it several times at Bon Repos, not to
+know that his chance of life would hang on the merest thread if Ducie
+were once to pull the trigger. One look at the revolver was
+sufficient. Cleon spoke to the man at the tiller. The course of the
+boat was at once altered. The sail lost its wind, flapped for a moment
+or two against the mast like the broken wing of a bird, then caught
+the breeze on the opposite tack, and the Belle Rose coming sharply
+round through the hissing water turned her nose nearly due west and
+began to retrace the way she had come. Captain Ducie smiled grimly.
+"If the cur thinks to escape me by going back to St. Helier and
+claiming the protection of the law, he will find himself mistaken. I
+will shoot him through the heart the moment his foot touches the
+pier."
+
+Straight as a hawk after its quarry the _Demoiselle_ at once followed
+up in the wake of the other boat. The _Demoiselle_ had still some
+canvas to spare, and had she spread it, could easily have come up with
+the _Belle Rose_. But it was not Ducie's aim to do so.
+
+Somewhat to Ducie's surprise, the _Belle Rose_ instead of turning
+northward and so making for the harbour of St. Helier, kept on her
+westerly course, and shot clean past the entrance, and so kept on till
+Elizabeth Castle was passed on the right, and both the boats found
+themselves skirting the outer edge of St. Aubin's Bay and Normont
+Point could be seen stretching out a rocky hand as if to bar their
+way. Ducie was puzzled, but said nothing. Could it be the mulatto's
+intention to skirt the western side of the island and make for
+Guernsey? But he would be no better off there than at Jersey. He,
+Ducie, would follow him to the very gates of Perdition.
+
+Martin's prediction had been verified. By this time the morning had
+clouded over, the wind was freshening, and a light drizzling rain had
+begun to fall. It would be no pleasant voyage, truly, on such a day to
+cross the thirty miles of broken water between the two islands, and in
+so frail a craft. But what the _Belle Rose_ dared do, that also dared
+the _Demoiselle_.
+
+Normont Point was quickly passed, and soon St. Brelade's romantic Bay
+opened into view. Martin still steered, and Ducie still crouched like
+a wary sentinel in the fore part of the boat. The mulatto was no
+longer to be seen. He had probably stretched himself out at the bottom
+of the boat, dreading lest Ducie might take it into his head to fire.
+Why Ducie had not already fired was probably a source of surprise to
+him.
+
+La Moye Point which shuts in St. Brelade's Bay on the west, was neared
+and passed, and there, no great distance away, were the dread Corbière
+rocks wading out into the sea to entrap unwary mariners, smitten by
+the great waves and shrouding themselves in clouds of showy spray. And
+now the head of the _Belle Rose_ was turned northward, as if she were
+about to make for the shore. Ducie saw that the mulatto was about to
+take one of two courses: either to run full on the beach and so try to
+lose his pursuer among the rocks and caves which abound on that part
+of the island or else to run his boat through some of the narrow and
+dangerous passages between the Corbières, on the chance of the
+_Demoiselle_ not venturing to follow, and so gain sufficient headway
+by means of the short cut to render further pursuit hopeless. Ducie
+smiled to himself to think how futile the mulatto's efforts would be
+in either case.
+
+It soon appeared that the hunted man had decided to take to the land
+as affording the best chance of escape. Close by was a small sandy
+nook that was sheltered between two protruding spurs of rock from the
+full swing of the tide. Into this tiny cove the _Belle Rose_ shot with
+furled sail, and before her keel had fairly touched the sand, the
+mulatto was out of the boat and scrambling up the shelving beach with
+the agility of a tiger cat. He just passed out of sight behind a
+broken fragment of rock as the _Demoiselle_ shot round the spur and
+followed the _Belle Rose_ into the little bay. Ducie pressed two
+sovereigns into the palm of Jean Martin and then leaped ashore.
+Cleon's footprints were plainly visible in the soft sand, and he
+followed them up with the instinct of a bloodhound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE CAVE OF ST. LAZARE.
+
+
+Captain Ducie had one immense advantage over the man of whom he was in
+pursuit: he knew the Island thoroughly, having lived on it for several
+years when a boy at school. With that portion of it especially which
+stretches from St. Brelade on the south to Greve-de-Lecq on the north,
+he was intimately acquainted. Without much exaggeration it might be
+said that he knew every yard of the ground. Accordingly, when he had
+tracked the footprints of the mulatto to a point where the sandy beach
+ended and the shelving rock began, he troubled himself no further
+about them, but climbing straight up the face of the cliff with an
+agility that few men of his years could have imitated, he neither
+halted nor looked back till he had reached a small overhanging bluff
+that commanded the entire range of the precipice up which he had just
+clambered. This range of rock was only about a hundred yards in
+extent, and was shut in at the opposite end by another bluff which
+stretched out so far that its foot was already covered by the
+advancing tide.
+
+From the smaller bluff, which Ducie had chosen as his eyrie, he could
+see every living thing larger than a rat that might move either along
+the sands or attempt to climb the rock. At the foot of this rock where
+it touched the sands there were several fissures large enough for two
+or three men to hide in. In addition to these there was a still larger
+opening known as the Cave of St. Lazare. Now, it was quite evident to
+Ducie that the mulatto must be in hiding either in one of the minor
+fissures or in the cave itself, so that all he had to do was to wait
+patiently till Cleon should choose to quit his lair.
+
+It is true that he might have gone down to the sands and have sought
+an encounter with the mulatto at close quarters. But he had an ugly
+recollection of Cleon's skill with the knife; besides which he had
+something of that feeling which induces a cat to play with a mouse
+before finally putting it out of its misery. So he crept forward on
+his hands and knees over the wet grass to the edge of the bluff, and
+there ensconced himself behind a thick clump of brushwood whence he
+could see, without being seen, everything that might transpire on the
+sands.
+
+His first care was to satisfy himself as to the condition of his
+revolver. When he had made his mind easy on that score, he took a pull
+at his brandy flask and munched a biscuit, but still keeping a wary
+watch for the faintest movement below.
+
+The _Demoiselle_ and the Belle Rose had disappeared already, those in
+charge of them being intent on getting back to St. Helier as quickly
+as possible, for the weather was threatening. A drizzling rain was
+still falling, and Ducie was by no means sorry that such was the case:
+no prying tourists would think of visiting the cave on such a day.
+
+The grim Corbière  rocks were lashing themselves with whips of spray,
+like monks doing penance, and a heavy tide was rolling rapidly in. The
+strip of sand at the foot of the rocks was growing narrower from
+minute to minute, and soon the whole of it would be hidden.
+
+"He must come out of his den before long, if he does not wish to be
+drowned like a rat in its hole," muttered Ducie to himself as he
+marked the creaming billows frothing up almost to the foot of the
+rock. "I shall not have long to wait."
+
+In fact, only two courses were left open to the mulatto: either to
+show himself and climb the rock under cover of Ducie's revolver, or
+else to remain in hiding till the tide swept up and drowned him. From
+Ducie's post of vantage the narrow entrance to the cave--so narrow
+that only one person could enter at a time--was clearly visible.
+
+The advancing tide had completely swallowed up the strip of sand and
+was licking the foot of the precipice before the slightest sign of
+human life was discernible below. Ducie crouching behind the bushes,
+with his hand on his revolver, and every nerve in his body on the
+alert, watched and waited in silence. The first thing that he saw was
+a yellow claw protruded from the interior of the cave. This claw
+grasped the edge of the rock, and next moment a yellow face was pushed
+out, the two terror-stricken bloodshot eyes of which roved frantically
+around as in search of some unseen foe. But there was nothing to be
+seen save the inrushing tide, the barren rock above and around, and a
+clump of brushwood on the cliff bending before the wind. Apparently
+reassured, he crept wholly out of hiding, and after another cautious
+look round, he turned his face to the cliff and began to climb. But he
+had not made more than two steps upward when the sudden ping of a
+pistol smote his ear, and the same instant a bullet struck the rock
+about two feet above his head, breaking off some fragments which
+rattled down into the sea. The mulatto gave utterance to a wild yell
+of terror, and loosing his foothold, he slipped back into the water
+which now reached up to his knees. Another moment and he had
+disappeared within the cave. Better run the risk of being drowned than
+again put himself in the way of that terrible revolver. It is doubtful
+whether he was aware that every high tide completely filled up the
+cavern. He may have thought that by climbing on to some of the higher
+ledges inside he would be safe till the subsidence of the water, by
+which time his enemy might probably be tired of waiting for him, or
+salvation might come in the shape of help from others. In any case, to
+venture outside the cave was certain death; to stop inside may have
+seemed to afford some chance of ultimate escape. But Ducie was well
+aware that to stop inside was certain death. When firing his revolver,
+his intention had been to frighten Cleon back into hiding, not to
+wound or kill him. It would be so much pleasanter if Cleon would allow
+himself to be quietly drowned in the cave, instead of compelling him,
+Ducie, to put a bullet through his head. There might be people foolish
+enough to construe such a transaction as the one last named into
+wilful murder. The former could be put down as nothing more than an
+ugly accident.
+
+So Ducie watched and waited, fully determined that by one mode or the
+other Cleon should that day come by his death. The tide rose higher
+and higher, but no yellow horror-stricken face was seen again outside
+the entrance to the cave. Then Ducie knew what would happen within. By
+and bye the green lips of the waves kissed the roof of the doorway.
+Then Ducie knew that all was over, and that he had only to wait for
+the subsidence of the tide. He finished the brandy in his flask, and
+lighted a cigar, and waited.
+
+It was considerably past mid-day before the water was low enough for
+him to venture into the cave. When he did venture in the water came up
+to his waist. He waded slowly in, grasping the slippery rock carefully
+at each step that he took. He knew what he should find inside, and for
+the first time a feeling of awe crept over him. At length he stood in
+the middle of the cave and ventured to look round. A dim green light
+pervaded the place, too faint to discern anything that might be there.
+Ducie was not unprepared for such an emergency. He had brought with
+him a small box of the wax matches he sometimes used for lighting his
+cigar. He struck one of these on the bottom of the box and held it
+aloft. It burned for a minute, and that minute served to show him a
+black shapeless heap of humanity lodged high up on one of the ledges
+of rock. To that spot the mulatto had climbed in the vain hope of
+escaping the ever-rising tide.
+
+There was another ledge close to the one on which the body lay. On to
+this ledge Ducie climbed, and by kneeling on one knee and leaning over
+he could touch the dead man. He wanted to ascertain whether he had the
+Great Mogul Diamond hidden anywhere about his person.
+
+"What if he has swallowed it? What if he has thrown it into the sea?"
+Ducie asked himself. Then his hand touched the dead man's cheek, and
+he shuddered from head to foot.
+
+He paused for a moment or two, and with an intense effort steadied his
+nerves to go through the task he had set himself to do. It was gone
+through carefully and thoroughly, but the Diamond was nowhere to be
+found. At length Ducie paused in sheer despair.
+
+"He has evidently made away with the Diamond when he found that he
+could not escape, and so has carried his revenge beyond the grave,"
+muttered Ducie.
+
+Suddenly a thought struck him. Once more he bent over the dead man,
+and with both hands wrenched open his mouth. Another instant, and he
+had found the Diamond hidden away under the tongue that would never
+speak more.
+
+Strong man though he was, the revulsion of feeling was almost more
+than he could bear. Tears of joy came into his eyes. He needed a
+minute or two to recover himself. As soon as his heart began to beat
+more calmly, he wrapped the Diamond in his handkerchief and stuffed
+the whole into an inner pocket of his waistcoat. Then he leaped down
+on to the sandy floor of the cave, and leaving the dead man on his
+rocky bed, he waded out by the way he had come; and having breasted
+the hill, he set out at a sharp pace across the moorland on his way to
+St. Helier. His clothes had been soaked through and through in the
+course of the day, but just now he was not in a frame of mind to give
+any thought to such a trifle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+THE VERDICT OF MR. VERMUSEN.
+
+
+Captain Ducie had a long wet walk back to his hotel, and by the time
+he reached it he felt thoroughly exhausted. He had a bath, and dined,
+and spent a quiet evening in the smoke-room, with no company save that
+of his own thoughts.
+
+There was a deep underglow of satisfaction in his heart at recovering
+the Diamond, but there was one pressing question that required his
+immediate decision.
+
+The body of the mulatto would in all probability be found on the
+morrow, or, at the latest, in the course of the following day.
+Although there could be little doubt that his death would be set down
+to pure accident, still an inquiry would be set on foot as to his
+name, position in life, &c., and the affair would be a nine days'
+wonder in the little island. The boatmen would naturally state that
+he, Captain Ducie, had been seen in the mulatto's company only a few
+hours before he came by his death; justice, in the persons of a
+coroner and twelve jurymen, would take cognizance of the affair; and
+he would be called upon to state the reason of his persistent pursuit
+of the mulatto, and what passed between them after landing at the bay
+of St. Lazare. Such an inquiry would be distasteful to him in every
+way, and it seemed to him that the wisest thing he could do would be
+to start for England by the morning steamer. He would spend a couple
+of days in London, and then set out for Paris.
+
+Once in the French capital, he must look out for some means of
+disposing of his Diamond. That was a negotiation which could not much
+longer be delayed.
+
+His available funds were within a few sovereigns of being exhausted,
+and all his well-to-do friends had turned their backs on him long ago.
+But all his well-to-do friends might go hang. For the future he should
+be independent of them and their charity.
+
+He should take up his permanent residence abroad: continental life was
+so much freer and more sociable than our cold-blooded insular mode of
+wearing out existence.
+
+He was still very sore on the subject of Mirpah Van Loal, and he would
+be so for some time to come. He winced mentally whenever her image
+crossed his mind. His self-love had been terribly wounded by her
+desertion of him; but beyond that there was an element of mystery
+about the sudden disappearance of herself and her father that puzzled
+him exceedingly.
+
+Change of scene might be beneficial to him in more senses than one: he
+had better get away from the island as soon as possible.
+
+He called for his bill and settled it, so that it might not delay his
+departure in the morning, after which his balance of ready money was
+reduced to a trifle. He must raise a few sovereigns on his watch when
+he got to London, otherwise he would hardly have sufficient to take
+him across the Channel.
+
+As the clock struck ten, he took his bed-candle and went upstairs. He
+put back the Diamond in the place from which it had been taken by the
+mulatto--that is to say, in the sealskin pouch that hung by a steel
+chain round his neck.
+
+Before getting into bed he did not fail to subject his room to a
+careful examination, nor to satisfy himself as to the security of his
+door. He was terribly tired, and in five minutes after putting his
+head on the pillow he was soundly asleep.
+
+He awoke all in a moment.
+
+The night-lamp in his room, burning dim and low, just served to show
+that all was still dark outside. He awoke all in a moment, with the
+terribly vivid sensation of a cold wet hand laid heavily across his
+mouth. He started up in bed with a shudder that shook him from head to
+foot. He expected to see something near him--what, he could not have
+told.
+
+The sight of the familiar features of his own room swept away his
+fright at once, but he could not quite so readily get over the
+sensation of sickness and disgust, which affected him as deeply as if
+the hand had been a real one. His lips felt dry and parched, and he
+put out his tongue to wet them.
+
+Again he shuddered. His lips tasted of salt water--tasted as if he had
+been drinking seawater, and had allowed the salt to dry on them. The
+hand that had been laid across his face was cold and wet, and smelled
+of the sea.
+
+He leaped out of bed, feeling utterly upset. On looking at his watch
+he found that it was just four o'clock. There would be no daylight for
+another hour.
+
+"Serve me right for eating that lobster," he said. "A man at my time
+of life has no business with suppers of any kind. If people will
+trifle with their digestive organs, they must expect to suffer for
+their folly."
+
+He did not get into bed again, not caring to risk a repetition of that
+terrible sensation. Instead, he wrapped himself in a warm overcoat,
+selected a comfortable chair, lighted his meerschaum, and smoked away
+till day had fairly broken, and it was time to wash and dress in
+readiness for the steamer.
+
+He was turning over some toilet appurtenances when his eye caught the
+corner of a letter protruding from under the looking-glass. He drew it
+out and found that it was addressed to himself, and that it bore the
+London post-mark. It had doubtless been laid on the table with the
+view of catching his eye, and then by some accident had got slipped
+under the glass. He opened it with some curiosity, saw that it was in
+a man's writing, and then glanced at the signature before beginning to
+read it.
+
+The colour mounted into his cheek as he read the signature, "Solomon
+Van Loal," and with eager curiosity he turned back to the beginning.
+
+The letter began without either date or address, and ran as under:--
+
+
+"Sir,--The most cunning people are apt to deceive themselves at times,
+and few people are so easily gulled, when their suspicions are not
+aroused, as those who make a point of preying upon others. You, sir,
+in your own person, afford a conspicuous example of the truth of the
+above remarks.
+
+"In extreme cases, where, for instance, a great wrong has to be
+righted, it sometimes becomes necessary to fight Fraud with its own
+weapons. If it is smitten, shall it cry out? if it is outwitted and
+compelled to disgorge its ill-gotten gains, shall it make a noise in
+the market-place? Let it rather fold its cloak decently about its
+head, and go on its way in silence, thankful that its shoulders have
+escaped the whip of justice for a little while longer.
+
+"I speak in no unmeaning parables, Captain Ducie. More underlies my
+words than may at first sight appear. If you do not understand my
+meaning when you read this, you will not long remain in ignorance of
+it.
+
+"One word of warning in conclusion. Much of that which you believe to
+be locked up in your own bosom is known to me in all its details.
+There are certain episodes, having reference to your sojourn at Bon
+Repos, which you would hardly care to have made public. Take the
+advice of him who writes this letter, and keep a discreet tongue in
+your head, otherwise you will make an implacable enemy of one who can
+work you more harm than you are aware of, and who now signs himself,
+
+"Yours as you may prove to deserve it,
+
+     "SOLOMON VAN LOAL."
+
+
+"What, in the fiend's name, does it all mean?" asked Captain Ducie,
+when he had read to the end of the letter. "Is the man mad, or am I
+drunk?" His face was very white, but then was an ugly frown on it, as
+he sat staring at the letter as if he could hardly believe it to be
+anything more than a foolish hoax. "By heaven! if I had the writer of
+it here I would twist his neck, old as he is!"
+
+Then he read the letter carefully through again, weighing it sentence
+by sentence. When he had done, he put it back into its envelope, and
+looked up with quite a frightened expression in his eyes.
+
+"What does the old fool mean by 'fighting Fraud with its own weapons?'
+and by 'compelling me to disgorge my ill-gotten gains?' In what way
+has he 'gulled' me? He has taken nothing of mine, unless----"
+
+He was too sick at heart to finish the sentence even to himself, but
+with a hand that trembled like that of an old man, he drew forth his
+sealskin sachet, opened it, and took out of it the Great Mogul
+Diamond. He took it out with the thumb and forefinger of his right
+hand, and laid it on the palm of his left. There it rested, lustrous,
+glowing, unmatchable, absorbing the purest rays of the morning into
+itself, and then flinging them back intensified a thousandfold. The
+colour came back to Captain Ducie's cheek, his heart resumed its
+equable beating, and nothing save an almost imperceptible trembling of
+the hand betrayed the crisis of feeling through which he had just
+passed.
+
+"What a precious idiot I must be to allow myself to be frightened
+by the riddles of an old ass like Van Loal! The fellow must be
+crazy. No doubt he felt an attack coming on, and that was the reason
+why he left so abruptly. And so enough of him. Not even for the fair
+Mirpah's sake could I tolerate a lunatic father-in-law. Ah! my
+beauty," apostrophising the Diamond, "so long as I have you, or the
+worth of you, what care I how the world wags? You are my only true
+consolation--my only real friend! Come, _amigo mio_, let you and I,
+for the benefit and information of such persons as may tenant this
+chamber in time to come, write down Mr. Solomon Van Loal as an ass. On
+the middle pane of the middle window, in prominent letters, we will
+write him down an ass."
+
+The conceit pleased him, and he crossed the floor with the Diamond in
+his hands, and a malicious smile on his lips, to work out his poor
+morsel of revenge. He selected the spot with care, right in the centre
+of the middle pane. He gave a preliminary flourish with his hand, and
+was about to make the first stroke, but paused. "I'll put my initials,
+E.D., under it," he said, and the malicious smile deepened as he
+spoke, "so that if the old rascal ever comes here again he may know to
+whom he is indebted for his brief immortality."
+
+Then he gave his arm a second flourish, and essayed the first stroke.
+
+With one of the facets of the Diamond he made the first curve of the
+letter S. But no mark followed.
+
+Again he essayed to make the stroke, and again the glass remained as
+free from scratch or mark as if he had striven to write on it with a
+common quill. A mist came over his eyes, and he sank, half fainting,
+into the nearest chair.
+
+"Ruined! irretrievably ruined!" he cried aloud in a voice of utter
+anguish. "That consummate villain has stolen the real Diamond, and has
+left me a worthless imitation in its place! Now--now I understand his
+letter. Now I understand why I was befooled by his daughter."
+
+The worthless gem had dropped from his fingers, and lay unheeded on
+the floor. He sat staring at it with lacklustre eyes for a full
+half-hour. All his patience, his ingenuity, his underhand working--the
+death of Platzoff, the stealing of the Diamond, the murder of
+Cleon--had ended in this, that he had been outwitted by one more
+cunning than himself. And could he complain that he had been otherwise
+than rightly punished for what he had done? But he did not complain.
+Hope had died out utterly in his heart; and when that is the case with
+any one, he is beyond vain repinings. The future? He dared not look at
+it. The dull, dead present was quite as much as his brain could dwell
+on just now.
+
+He rose after a while and picked up the Diamond; and going to the
+window, he again essayed with one facet after another to make even the
+faintest scratch on the glass. But his latter efforts were as futile
+as his first had been. Then the thought struck him, and it was a
+thought that sent a brief glow of hope to his heart, that there might,
+perhaps, be something peculiar in the cutting of the Diamond which
+precluded it from marking the window; that its angles might be too
+much rounded, or something of that sort. The only way by which he
+could satisfy himself whether he had been duped or no--whether the
+Diamond was a real or an imitation one--was to take it to some one
+thoroughly conversant with such things, and obtain his verdict
+thereon. Even while this thought was in his mind, it came into
+his memory that he had seen a quaint little shop, in a certain
+out-of-the-way street in St. Helier, with this legend painted over the
+window: _H. Vermusen, Lapidary, and Dealer in Precious Stones_. He
+remembered it from thinking at the time that he might, perchance, call
+some day on Mr. Vermusen, and show him the Diamond.
+
+To this man he would at once go. These alternations of hope and fear
+were killing him. He would put off his departure from the island till
+to-morrow. Even if Cleon's body had been already found, it would take
+more than another day to so complete the chain of evidence as to bring
+home the fact that he, Ducie, had been in any way concerned in the
+mulatto's death. He was safe for another twenty-four hours.
+
+He looked at his watch. Time had flown rapidly. It was now a quarter
+past six. Would the lapidary's shop be open at that early hour?
+Hardly. He would finish dressing, and go out on to the sands, and
+there wait till the clock should strike eight.
+
+As the church clock struck eight, Captain Ducie opened the door of Mr.
+Vermusen's shop. Mr. Vermusen himself came out of a dark inner den to
+wait upon his early visitor. A spectacled, high-nosed old gentleman,
+in a black velvet skull-cap, and a faded velvet dressing-gown.
+
+"In what can I have the pleasure of serving you, sir?" he asked with a
+slow rubbing of his lean hands and a sharp glance over his spectacles
+at Captain Ducie's pale haughty face.
+
+Ducie had thoroughly made up his mind during his solitary walk along
+the sands to bear whatever the diamond-merchant might have to tell
+him, whether it were good news or bad, without any outward tokens
+either of elation or dismay. When, therefore, he answered Mr.
+Vermusen's question his voice was even more low and equable than
+usual, but he could not altogether hide the anxiety that lurked in his
+eyes.
+
+"You are a lapidary and dealer in precious stones, I believe?" Mr.
+Vermusen bowed.
+
+"I have here an object--a something--the value of which I wish to
+ascertain. It was found a few days ago by a sister of mine at the
+bottom of an old oak chest that had not been opened for quite forty
+years. The chest was full of old family papers--leases, title deeds,
+what not--none of which had been needed for a very long time. Having
+occasion, however, to look for some missing document, the chest was
+emptied, and, as already said, this article was found at the bottom.
+My sister has sent it to me with the view of ascertaining its value."
+
+While speaking, the thumb and finger of his right-hand had been
+inserted in his waistcoat pocket. They now brought out the Great Mogul
+Diamond (or its imitation) and dropped it gently into the skinny palm
+of the old lapidary. A low sigh which he could not repress told with
+what anxiety Captain Ducie awaited the verdict of Mr. Vermusen.
+
+Grave and immovable as a judge, the diamond-dealer received the
+glittering gem in his palm. A moment he looked at it through his
+spectacles; then by a gentle up and down movement of his hand he
+seemed to be testing its weight as in comparison with its size. Then
+he fixed a small microscope in his eye and surveyed the facets
+carefully through it. Then he put it in his mouth and rolled his
+tongue round it three or four times. Lastly, he put it into a pair of
+tiny brass scales and weighed it. Then he looked up and spoke.
+
+"Paste, sir--paste," was all he said.
+
+There was a chair close by where Captain Ducie was standing. He sank
+into it, as it seemed without any volition on his part. For a few
+moments he did not speak. Then he said very quietly: "You are quite
+sure that it is nothing more than paste?"
+
+The old lapidary's thick white eyebrows went up in quiet disdain. "I
+am not in the habit, sir, of making assertions which I cannot maintain
+by proof," he said, drily. "With your permission, and by the aid of
+this little file, I will prove to you in a still more effectual way
+that I have stated nothing more than a simple fact."
+
+"Thanks. No. I ask your pardon for seeming to doubt your word. I am
+satisfied." He paused, and Mr. Vermusen looked as if he thought the
+interview ought to end there. But presently Captain Ducie spoke again.
+
+"I presume that you are a dealer in all sorts of gems, both real and
+factitious. Have you any objection to purchase this one of me at your
+own price?"
+
+"Such a purchase would be of no use whatever to me. Your gem is too
+large for setting either as a genuine stone or an imitation one, and
+to break it up would be to render it still more worthless than it is
+now. I must decline to purchase it at any price."
+
+Captain Ducie put the glittering impostor back into his pocket. Then
+he rose, lifted his hat, bade Mr. Vermusen a courteous good-morning,
+and so quitted the shop without another word.
+
+When he got into the street he hesitated for a moment or two which way
+he should turn. But all ways were now alike to him. Instinctively he
+took the road leading to the sea.
+
+As he reached the bottom of the street a heavy broad-wheeled waggon
+laden with stone was on the point of turning the corner. A sudden
+impulse came into his mind, and he acted on it without giving himself
+time for a second thought. He took the Diamond out of his pocket,
+stooped down, and placed it full in the track of the waggon wheel.
+With indrawn breath and tense muscles he stood watching the ponderous
+wheel roll slowly forward. One more turn, and the Diamond was hidden
+for ever. A faint crunching noise, a tiny heap of glittering dust, and
+all was over. With a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, Captain Ducie
+went his way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+HAUNTED.
+
+
+For full three hours Captain Ducie wandered by the lonely shore. A
+train of wild and incoherent thoughts, like torn fragments of cloud in
+a windy sky, chased each other brokenly across his mind. One thought
+alone--to which all the rest were subsidiary--found a permanent
+resting-place in his mind, shutting in the horizon of his life on
+every side as with a sombre pall. It was the thought--or rather, the
+knowledge,--that he was irretrievably ruined.
+
+In the common parlance of the world he had been "ruined" twice before.
+But on both those occasions he had had something to fall back upon:
+rich relations, powerful friends; a windfall, on one occasion, from a
+wealthy aunt who happened to die just at the time when her cash was
+most needed; and under all, at the bottom of the casket, had lain
+youth and hope. But now! Well: his relations were hopelessly
+alienated; one by one his powerful friends had all turned their backs
+on him; his character, like an old piece of electro-plate, would have
+looked all the brighter for a little polishing: he was without money,
+without youth, without hope. Work he could not, and to beg he was
+ashamed. Such being the case, what was there left for him but to throw
+up the sponge, cry quits, and go under as soon as possible?
+
+The clear bright morning had settled down into a raw drizzling day.
+Captain Ducie paced the sands for full three hours, heedless of the
+wet and cold. Then he went into the town and pawned his watch for ten
+sovereigns. Thence he wandered back to the hotel. He could not eat,
+but the power of drinking was still left him. He had a fire lighted in
+his bedroom, and ordered up a bottle of cognac. He was ill, not only
+mentally but bodily. He was suffering from the reaction consequent on
+the excitement of the last few days. But it was more than any common
+reaction, it was the dull dead apathy of one who sees himself
+hopelessly cut off from all that makes life worth the having. In
+addition to this, as the day went on, he began to suffer from the
+first symptoms of a sort of low fever brought on by the severe cold he
+had caught during his many hours' exposure on the cliffs while hunting
+down the mulatto. His head ached, his eyes throbbed, all his pulses
+seemed to be on fire. But to deaden the still more weary ache at his
+heart he kept on resorting every now and again to the bottle of cognac
+by his bedside. For he had gone to bed as soon as his fire was
+lighted, and there he lay all through the dreary afternoon and the
+still drearier evening, and till far into the night, tossing and
+turning from side to side, courting the sleep that would not come.
+
+But it came to him at last. He had counted the weary chimes one
+after another till now midnight was here. In the act of counting the
+twelve strokes as they were doled out slowly one by one from some
+near-at-hand church, he sank off quietly to sleep, and for a little
+while both head and heart were at rest.
+
+He had slept for some two hours or more when suddenly he started up in
+bed with precisely the same sensation that had awakened him the night
+before--the sensation of a cold wet hand pressed heavily across his
+mouth and nostrils so as utterly to stop his breathing. As before, he
+woke up in the most extreme terror, and with great drops of agony on
+his brow. Instinctively he put out his tongue and passed it across his
+lip. Again he fancied that he could detect upon them the taste of
+seawater. For him, that night, there was no more sleep.
+
+The fever still held him like a burning vice. He lay tossing and
+groaning in its hot embrace, looking ever with impatient eyes for the
+dawn that was so long in coming. It came at last, as all things come
+in their turn. Then Captain Ducie rose, washed and dressed. Despite
+his illness, he was thoroughly bent on quitting the island by that
+morning's boat. He hungered to be back in England, in London, among
+the busy haunts of men. The terrible Hand which had broken his sleep
+for two nights in succession would hardly follow him into the heart of
+London. There he would lie by till he was better mentally and bodily,
+and could afford to face the gloomy future with some degree of manly
+fortitude. He had known fellows as utterly bankrupt and ruined as he
+was, who had yet managed to survive their difficulties, seeming,
+indeed, to float none the less gaily along the stream of life,
+although they might not have a sovereign to call their own. He had
+relations rich and many, who had one and all declared that if he were
+begging his bread they would turn him empty from their doors; but now
+that the grim reality was so near, when begging his bread would soon
+be his only portion unless help were granted him by some one, they
+would surely concert together, and, were it only for the sake of the
+family credit, would arrange amongst themselves a life pittance for
+him, on which, in some quiet Continental nook where there was good
+scenery and good society, he might vegetate not unpleasantly for the
+remainder of his days.
+
+He went down to breakfast, but could not touch a morsel, although he
+had not tasted food since the day before yesterday. A close carriage
+took himself and his luggage to the steamer. The morning was cold,
+wet, and stormy, with a nasty cross sea. He was not displeased to find
+that very few passengers were going over. He wanted to be as much
+alone as possible. The fever that had parched him up all night had now
+been succeeded by a chill that made his teeth chatter, and caused him
+to tremble in every limb. He went below deck and lay down in a berth
+and got the steward to heap a lot of wraps about him, and to bring him
+some hot brandy, but for a long time he felt as if he should never be
+warm again. All his life he had been a good sailor, he never
+remembered having been seasick. But to-day the boat had hardly got
+clear of the harbour before he was attacked. By the time the steamer
+reached Guernsey he had little or no power of volition left in him. He
+beckoned to his friend the steward. "Let me be put ashore here," he
+whispered. "I will wait for fairer weather before going on."
+
+So he was carried ashore by three or four stalwart sailors, and
+deposited in a fly, and driven off to the hotel "Pomme d'Or." He was
+exceedingly ill, and he went off to bed at once. The people at the
+hotel wanted to have a doctor called in, but he would not hear of such
+a thing. It was only that confounded _mal-de-mer_, he said, and he
+should be better in the morning.
+
+But he was not better in the morning. If anything, rather worse.
+
+Again he was woke up in the middle of the night by feeling a wet hand
+laid across his mouth. This persistent disturbance of his sleep,
+together with the very want of sleep itself, was beginning to tell
+upon his nerves. When was the terrible persecution to end?
+
+The sensation was so horrible as utterly to banish sleep for the time
+being, and again he lay tossing to and fro, waiting with impatient
+eyes for the dawn. About eight he rose and made a show of eating some
+breakfast. After breakfast he sat in his easy-chair before the fire,
+and while thus sitting he felt a sweet drowsiness steal through all
+his limbs. It was broad daylight now, and with the darkness some
+portion of the fear inspired by the Hand had vanished. He could almost
+afford to smile at his fright of the last three nights. In any case,
+he let the drowsiness have its way, and so in three minutes more he
+was fast asleep before the fire.
+
+But he had not been more than ten minutes asleep when he was disturbed
+in precisely the same way that he had been disturbed before. And, if
+his senses did not deceive him, he heard the echo of a low malignant
+laugh close at the back of his chair. He stared round half expecting
+to see he knew not what. But every nook and corner of the room was
+plainly visible. There was no one there but himself. He shuddered from
+head to foot, and sank back in his chair, and burst into tears.
+
+To-day the weather was even stormier than yesterday: a higher wind,
+more rain. He was not hurried for time, and to cross either to
+Southampton or Weymouth in the condition in which he then was, would
+be sheer madness. He would have medical advice while thus laid up in
+ordinary at the "Pomme d'Or," and would get cured of his cold, and
+have an opium mixture to make him sleep, and would wait for fairer
+weather and a gentler sea before attempting to continue his voyage. If
+he could only recover the lost tone of his nerves, he felt thoroughly
+convinced that he should never more be haunted by that nightmare Hand.
+
+Captain Ducie had always held the whole tribe of doctors in
+abhorrence. He had not been under the hands of one of the brotherhood
+for more than twenty years, and nothing could have been more strongly
+indicative of the state to which he was now reduced, than the fact of
+his determining of his own free will to call in medical advice. He
+was, in very truth, wretchedly ill, thoroughly woe-begone.
+
+The doctor came, saw him, listened to what he had to say, and
+prescribed. Ducie entered into no details as to the mode in which his
+sleep was broken. He merely said that he was unable to get his proper
+rest in consequence of being so frequently troubled with nightmare,
+and he begged of the doctor to provide him with a powerful opiate.
+Medicine came: two bottles: one for the improvement of his cold, the
+second to be taken just before getting into bed.
+
+Ducie spent a doleful day enough. He had no heart left to read either
+a newspaper or a magazine, and the very thought of a cigar turned him
+sick. This latter he regarded as a very bad sign. "When a fellow gets
+past his smoke, he's not of much account in this world," he said to
+himself with a sigh. Still, he did not fail to derive some grains of
+comfort from the hope that with the assistance of his friend the
+doctor he should succeed in cheating that terrible nightmare which
+seemed bent on slowly pressing his life out an inch at a time.
+
+He waited with desperate patience without any further attempt at sleep
+till he heard the people below stairs shutting up the hotel for the
+night. Then he got into bed, and marking off, with his forefinger on
+the bottle, a dose and a half of the draught, he swallowed it more
+gratefully than he had ever swallowed the choicest wine, and then lay
+down.
+
+Hardly, as it seemed to him, had his head touched the pillow before a
+delicious languor stole through all his limbs, and with a half turn
+over to the other side, he was gone.
+
+He was gone, and in a deeper sleep, probably, than he had ever been in
+before. But it was a sleep that did not last above an hour. At the end
+of that time it was broken precisely as it had been broken before.
+Only, this time, as if on account of his being so soundly asleep and
+therefore more difficult to arouse, he seemed closer to the point of
+actual suffocation than he had been before. He gasped for breath, and
+gurgled in his throat, and the veins of his forehead stood out thick
+and blue as though the circulation were on the point of being
+violently stopped for ever. Again his returning senses seemed to catch
+the sound of a low mocking laugh, and again there was the taste of
+saltwater on his lips.
+
+His terror this time on awaking was, if such a thing were possible,
+more extreme than it had ever been before, inasmuch as he felt that he
+had been closer to the verge of death. "Another half-minute, and I
+should have been gone past recovery," he said to himself as he
+wiped the great drops of agony off his brow. "Devil!" he muttered
+aloud--"yellow-skinned son of the bottomless pit, so this is your
+revenge, is it?" There was a sort of stony despair in his set
+colourless face, but a wild, almost insane defiance lashed from the
+hollow caverns of his eyes. "You may win the day, perhaps: I cannot
+help that," he cried. "But the victory shall be in my fashion--not in
+yours!"
+
+From that moment he seemed to accept the fate which he saw looming
+before him as a foregone conclusion from which it was impossible to
+escape.
+
+Unconsciously to himself, perhaps, he was somewhat of a fatalist in
+his ideas: the maxim, that "What is to be, must be," was one that was
+often in his mind if seldom on his lips. He felt like one of those
+doomed beings whose tragic woes the Greek dramatists loved to sing; he
+was pursued by a shadowy Nemesis, from whose relentless grasp there
+was no escape. He could only bow his head in silence and submit.
+
+He got out of bed and made himself some chocolate, and sat brooding
+over the fire for the remainder of the night.
+
+Two or three times he fell off into a broken doze, which lasted for
+only a few minutes each time, and each time his brief slumber was
+broken by the menace rather than the reality of the terrible Hand.
+
+The access of terror through which he had passed early in the night
+had the effect of rendering him comparatively callous to these minor
+visitations. Still they all had their effect in helping to wear him
+out, both in body and mind.
+
+After breakfast--which with him was a mere pretence of a meal--he
+ordered up pens, ink, and paper, and sat down to write.
+
+With a few intervals of rest he kept on writing through the day, and
+did not finish till an hour after candles had been brought up. He put
+what he had written into two different envelopes, which he sealed up
+and addressed. Then he burned several old letters which lay at the
+bottom of his despatch box, and, lastly, he took a long, brown, silky
+ringlet, which he had not looked at for years, from its resting-place
+in a tiny satin-lined case, and after pressing it passionately two or
+three times to his lips, he dropped that too into the fire. After that
+he sat for a full hour gazing with sorrowful eyes into the smouldering
+embers without stirring a limb.
+
+The doctor had called about noon, whereupon Ducie had assured him that
+he had passed an excellent night, and felt himself very much better
+than on the previous day.
+
+The medico looked rather dubious, but could not get over his patient's
+assurances that he was rapidly improving. Indeed, to-night, after he
+rose from his seat by the fire and began to pace his room, there was a
+brightness in his eyes, and an amount of energy in his manner, that
+might have deceived an inexperienced person into thinking that the
+morrow would find him perfectly recovered.
+
+A little later on he took a bath and perfumed himself, and ordered up
+a choice supper, of which he partook with more appetite than he had
+shown for several days past. Then he began to prepare for bed.
+
+But before retiring for the night, he dived deep into his portmanteau
+and fished up from its depths a long, thin Damascus dagger of blue
+steel, with an inlaid haft. He wiped it carefully and felt its point,
+smiling cynically the while, and then he laid it on the little table
+by his bedside.
+
+He was soon asleep, but only to be awakened a couple of hours later,
+as he had been awakened before, by the pressure of a cold wet Hand
+across his mouth and nostrils, and by feeling that he was on the verge
+of suffocation. It took him two or three minutes to recover his
+equanimity. Then he got out of bed, put on his dressing-gown, lighted
+the candles, and wheeled an easy-chair up to the fire.
+
+The wind was roaring down the chimneys of the hotel and shaking the
+windows, and he could hear the heavy dashing of the sea against the
+granite walls of the pier.
+
+A wild, eerie night--a night on which the spirits of the dead might
+easily be supposed to come forth and wander round the places they had
+loved best on earth.
+
+Captain Ducie drew the little table close up to his easy-chair, and
+then sat down before the fire and rested his feet on the fender. On
+the table were a bottle of cognac, a wineglass, and the "bare
+bodkin." with the inlaid haft.
+
+
+         *         *          *          *         *         *
+
+
+It may be recollected that after George Strickland obtained Captain
+Ducie's address from the porter at the Piebalds Club, he telegraphed
+to Major Strickland at Tydsbury. The reply to his message was a
+request that he would proceed to Jersey without delay, and there, if
+possible, bring his search to a definite conclusion.
+
+On reaching St. Helier, he went at once to the "Royal George," and
+inquired for Captain Ducie. In reply he was told that Captain Ducie
+had left by the Southampton boat four days previously. George was
+excessively chagrined, for he had quite made up his mind that he
+should find Ducie at St. Helier. All that he could now do was to go
+back to London and there wait till a fresh address should be sent by
+Ducie to the Piebalds, and then follow him up from that point. So he
+stayed that night at the "Royal George," and started for England by
+next morning's steamer.
+
+He was standing on the bridge of the steamer, gazing on what looked
+like a bank of cloud in the distance, but which someone had told him
+was Guernsey, when the captain and one of the passengers came up and
+halted close by him. They were talking earnestly together, and George
+heard the name of Captain Ducie twice mentioned by the captain. He
+moved away out of earshot till the two men separated. Then he went up
+to the captain. "I accidentally heard you mention the name of Captain
+Ducie," he said. "May I ask whether you are acquainted with that
+gentleman, and whether you can tell me his present address?"
+
+"I am not acquainted with the gentleman in question," said the
+captain, "but I can tell you his present address. If you choose to
+inquire at the Pomme d'Or,' in St. Peter's, you will find him lying
+there, stark dead, stabbed to the heart by his own hand."
+
+George was inexpressibly shocked. In answer to his question, the
+captain supplied him with these further particulars: Ducie had been
+stopping at the "Pomme d'Or" for the last two or three days, very much
+out of health. He had been seen by a doctor, who had pronounced him to
+be suffering from a species of low fever, brought on through having
+contracted a severe cold; his nerves, too, seemed to be very much
+shaken and out of order. There seemed nothing, however, but what a few
+days' rest, with due attention to the doctor's prescriptions, would
+have set right. Yesterday morning, on being called, there was no
+answer, and on the door being forced, Ducie was found dead, having
+evidently stabbed himself some time in the night with a small dagger
+that was found on the ground not far away.
+
+George landed at Guernsey, and hurried up to the "Pomme d'Or," where
+every particular which the captain had given him was confirmed. It was
+clearly proved that the act must have been premeditated, seeing that
+the uppermost thing in the dead man's writing-desk was a slip of
+paper, on which was written a request that in case of anything
+happening to himself his cousin, the Honourable Egerton Dacre, should
+at once be communicated with. This request had been complied with
+before George reached the hotel, so he made up his mind to await the
+arrival of Mr. Dacre, and detail to him the circumstances which had
+led to his taking such an interest in the fate of Captain Ducie.
+
+The Hon. Mr. Dacre arrived in due course, and after the funeral was
+over George introduced himself, and told his story. "It is just the
+sort of thing Ned would be likely to do," said Mr. Dacre; "to contract
+a secret marriage, and afterwards to separate from his wife. I am,
+however, pleased to find that the lady to whom he gave his name came
+of so excellent a family. As regards his daughter, I know of no reason
+why she should not be received as such by all of us. I am sure my
+mother will be delighted to find that Ned has left a child whom she
+may acknowledge without a blush. Of course you are aware that Ducie
+has died as poor as a rat, so that in the way of worldly goods the
+young lady must not expect anything from our side of the house, unless
+she be in want of a home, in which case we will gladly welcome her. I
+must, however, lay the whole case before Ned's elder brother, with
+whom, as being the head of that branch of the family, the settlement
+of all future details must rest."
+
+Such were the tidings that Captain George Strickland took back with
+him to Tydsbury.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+THE ARRIVAL OF THE DIAMOND AT DUPLEY WALLS.
+
+
+Mr. Solomon Madgin had not failed to inform Lady Pollexfen from time
+to time of the progress that was being made in the attempt to recover
+the Great Mogul Diamond. This he had done without entering into any
+minute details of the case, of which, indeed, her ladyship cared to
+hear nothing. It was enough for her to be told every few days that Mr.
+Madgin still held the clue in his fingers, and that each step which he
+took would, to the best of his belief, bring him so much nearer the
+object the attainment of which they both had so deeply at heart.
+
+Lady Pollexfen had of course been apprised that Mr. Madgin's presence
+in Jersey was needed for the furtherance of their scheme; but when he
+had been gone a week and no news of any kind had been received from
+him, she began to grow not only impatient, but uneasy lest Mr. Madgin
+should in any way have come to grief. She could neither eat nor sleep
+as she was wont to do, but wandered aimlessly up and down the great
+empty rooms at Dupley Walls, leaning on Janet's arm, and either
+muttering to herself about people who had long been dead, or
+complaining querulously that Mr. Madgin, the man whom she had trusted
+above all others, had also failed her in her time of need.
+
+To Janet that was indeed a season of heart-weariness. She had not had
+time to recover from the crushing blow which her mother's death had
+inflicted upon her. Many a time she woke up in the night and found
+herself in tears, for not even in sleep could she forget the loss of
+her whom she had learned to love so dearly, while still ignorant of
+the tie that bound them so closely together.
+
+With nerves unstrung, and a heart that was ill at ease, it is not to
+be wondered at that even from the very quest which George Strickland
+had gone upon her mind seemed to draw in and gather to itself certain
+premonitions, vague and faint, of further unhappiness to come. She
+longed for and yet dreaded the coming of each post. Major Strickland
+sometimes wrote to her, and any morsel of news was precious to her
+that had any reference, however remote, to Captain George. And yet she
+never opened one of the major's notes without trembling lest it might
+contain some news of a hitherto unknown father who might, perchance,
+come and claim her, and take her away for ever from a spot which her
+mother's memory made sacred to her, and from those faithful friends to
+whom her young affections clung so tenaciously.
+
+Janet's life at Dupley Walls was one of which few people would have
+envied her. From the date of Sister Agnes's death, Lady Pollexfen had
+grown more exacting in her requirements, more capricious in her moods,
+more difficult to please than she had ever been before. There was a
+terrible wakefulness about her. What sleep she had was intermittent
+and of short duration; and Janet herself never got to bed without
+being wearied out both in body and spirit with her long attendance on
+the strange old woman. Often, when she had not been asleep more than a
+couple of hours, Lady Pollexfen's bell would ring violently, and then
+Janet had to rise and dress herself and hasten to the old woman's
+room, to find that she was wanted to read aloud, or, it might be, to
+play écarté, while her ladyship sat up in bed with a gay Indian shawl
+thrown round her shoulders, her withered face bent keenly over her
+cards, and an occasional hollow chuckle issuing from her lips. At the
+end of a couple of hours or so she would go off to sleep almost as
+suddenly as if she were an automaton whose eyes were made to shut at
+the touch of a spring. Then Janet would creep back shivering to bed,
+only to begin another day's dreary round a few hours later.
+
+During the last few weeks Lady Pollexfen had seemed as if she could
+scarcely bear to let Janet out of her sight. Not that she was in any
+way more affectionate towards her than she had ever been. Her manner
+was still as hard, her tongue was still as caustic as of old. But she
+seemed now as if she could not bear to be alone: as if constant
+companionship with Janet's fresh and sweet young nature were needed to
+keep alive the slowly decaying embers of her life. Be that as it may,
+Janet's time was so fully occupied that it was all she could do to
+steal one short hour out of the twenty-four for a solitary ramble in
+the park: but without such a walk she felt that she should soon have
+broken down under the exactions of her life at Dupley Walls. A visit
+to Major Strickland at Tydsbury was now entirely out of the question.
+As already stated, the post now and then brought her a brief note from
+him. As the tenor of these notes was invariably affectionate and
+reassuring, they were cherished by her as the chiefest grains of
+comfort by which the dreary passage of time was brightened at Dupley
+Walls.
+
+As previous chapters have already told us, George Strickland was still
+busy with his quest at the very time that Mr. Madgin was on his way
+back to Dupley Walls with the Great Mogul Diamond in his possession.
+Consequently, Captain Ducie was still among the living, and George
+Strickland had not yet left London in search of him, when on a certain
+morning a telegram sent by Mr. Madgin from Southampton was brought to
+Lady Pollexfen, it was brief and to the purpose:--
+
+
+"Thoroughly successful. The Great Mogul is travelling with me. His
+Highness will reach Dupley Walls to-morrow."
+
+
+Lady Pollexfen was sitting up in bed drinking her chocolate when the
+message was taken in to her. She requested Janet to read it aloud. The
+cup and saucer dropped from her fingers as Janet read. She turned
+quite white and faint, and for a minute or two was unable to speak.
+After smelling awhile at her salts she revived, and asked Janet to
+read the message a second time.
+
+"That good Madgin!" she exclaimed. "What a thing it is to be served
+faithfully!" Then turning to Janet: "See, child, what can be
+accomplished by intelligence and perseverance!" she cried. "When
+Sergeant Nicholas came here and told his story, how hopeless it seemed
+to expect that my poor boy's Diamond would ever be recovered for me:
+and yet, behold, it is here, and the wicked are brought to confusion!"
+
+During the whole of that day her ladyship was very much elated, and
+correspondingly gracious and good-tempered towards Janet. In the
+afternoon they drove to Tydsbury, and there her ladyship was pleased
+to buy a set of bog-oak ornaments for Miss Holme: an almost
+unprecedented piece of liberality on the part of the mistress of
+Dupley Walls.
+
+Late the same night came a message from Mr. Madgin stating that he
+should be at Dupley Walls at ten o'clock the following morning.
+
+By that hour next morning her ladyship was up and dressed, ready to
+receive company. Had Lady Pollexfen been going to a dinner party at
+Langley Castle she could not have been got up more elaborately than
+she was on the present occasion. Her choicest coiffure, her stiffest
+silk, her most ancient lace, her largest diamonds, together with an
+extra streak of rouge and an extra touch of the powder-puff, had all
+been employed to dignify and render memorable the approaching
+ceremonial. Her ladyship was too much excited to partake of breakfast,
+but when everything was ready she called for a small glass of curaçoa
+and cream, and then taking Janet's arm, and supported on the other
+side by her gold-headed malacca, she descended the shallow staircase
+with slow and stately steps, and reached the great hall just as the
+clocks were striking ten.
+
+She knew that Mr. Madgin was punctuality itself. She had reached the
+centre of the hall as the clocks ceased striking, and the same instant
+there was a loud knocking at the grand entrance. Mr. Madgin's fine
+instinct had told him that on this occasion, if never again, he must
+enter Dupley Walls as if he were a visitor of state, and not by the
+modest side-door through which his entrances and exits had heretofore
+been made. One of the two faded servitors in faded livery whom Lady
+Pollexfen still retained flung wide the door. Mr. Madgin in his Sunday
+suit of black, with white neckcloth and gold-rimmed eyeglass dangling
+across his waistcoat, advanced slowly into the hall, removed his hat
+and bowed profoundly. Lady Pollexfen, on her side, made her most
+stately and elaborate curtsey. Mr. Madgin came forward; Lady Pollexfen
+advanced a step or two and held out her hand. Mr. Madgin carried the
+lean and ancient fingers respectfully to his lips.
+
+"I return from fulfilling your ladyship's behests," he said. "I also
+bring with me a trifling memento of my journey, of which I humbly
+request your ladyship's acceptance."
+
+Speaking thus Mr. Madgin produced from one of his pockets a tiny
+casket of imitation Byzantine workmanship which he had bought while
+passing through London. Touching a spring, the lid flew open, and
+there, on a cushion of white satin, lay the glittering source of so
+many hopes and fears, of so much happiness and misery--the Great Mogul
+Diamond.
+
+For a moment or two Lady Pollexfen stood perfectly still, eyeing the
+glittering bauble, without speaking. Breathing a little faster than
+she was wont, she at length put forth a trembling hand and received
+the casket and its contents from Mr. Madgin.
+
+"Follow me," she said in a voice that was shaken by emotion. Then she
+turned, and discarding for once the assistance of Janet's arm, and
+carrying the open casket before her, she began to retrace her way
+slowly and painfully towards her own apartments. Miss Holme and Mr.
+Madgin followed at a respectful distance.
+
+On reaching her private sitting-room Lady Pollexfen sat down in her
+high-backed chair of carved oak, and motioned to Mr. Madgin first to
+shut the door, and next to take a seat.
+
+"Mr. Madgin," said her ladyship after a few moments, "any formula of
+thanks which I could put into words would be totally inadequate to
+express my feelings towards you for the great service you have just
+done me. I can only say that you are no longer my servant but my
+friend."
+
+"Madam, I am overwhelmed by the honour you have just conferred upon
+me," answered Mr. Madgin, as he rose, laid his hand on his heart and
+bowed. "Such a recognition of my humble merits is far beyond my
+deserts."
+
+"Mr. Madgin," resumed Lady Pollexfen in her most stately manner, "if
+you will honour me by accepting my friendship, it is yours."
+
+"Too much honour, really," murmured Mr. Madgin in a distressed voice.
+
+Lady Pollexfen waved her arm, as if that portion of the subject were
+beyond the pale of further discussion. "At the same time, Mr. Madgin,"
+she resumed, "you must not for one moment imagine that I wish you to
+forego the least portion of that pecuniary reward which was promised
+you when you first took in hand the remarkable inquiry which you have
+this day brought to such a successful issue. I have here, ready made
+out and signed, a cheque for the sum agreed on. I am quite aware that
+to a man of your noble and disinterested character the mere pecuniary
+part of the affair will seem of small account in comparison with that
+other gift which I have just conferred upon you."
+
+Mr. Madgin's face had brightened wonderfully during the last minute or
+two. With his hand he mechanically smoothed the gray hair across his
+forehead before he answered. "What a remarkable knowledge of character
+your ladyship displays," he said deferentially. "How well you
+understand the disposition of Solomon Madgin. Money does indeed seem
+dross when weighed against the golden gift of friendship." He coughed
+slightly behind his hand, and looked a little anxiously at her
+ladyship.
+
+"Take the cheque, Mr. Madgin," she said as she handed him the magic
+slip of paper. "You must come and dine with me to-morrow. At the same
+time bring me an account of the expenses incurred by you over this
+affair, and a second cheque shall at once be given you for the
+amount."
+
+Mr. Madgin was nearly overcome, and could only murmur a few indistinct
+words in reply.
+
+"Perchance, Solomon Madgin, you look upon me as nothing better than a
+mercenary old woman." Mr. Madgin vehemently disclaimed any such idea.
+"But I tell you," resumed Lady Pollexfen, with emphasis, "that I value
+this magnificent gem less, infinitely less, for its pecuniary value,
+than because I know it to be a true and veritable relic of my dear
+dead son. His fingers have held it; his eyes have looked on it; it was
+in his keeping when he died; it was his parting gift to me, his
+mother, who held him in her heart of hearts as dearer to her than all
+else the world could offer. In that fact lay the root of my strong
+desire to possess this stone. And now that I have it I can hold it but
+for a little while. Soon the day will come, when---- But why pursue
+the dreary suggestion any further? Enough for the day is the evil
+thereof. Let the morrow take care of itself. And now, again thanks,
+and then good morning. To-morrow you will dine with me."
+
+"One word before I go," said Mr. Madgin as he rose. "May I venture to
+express a hope that it is not your ladyship's intention to retain so
+valuable a gem in your personal possession? Think of the risk you run
+of its being lost or stolen. Let me entreat you, that without any
+unnecessary delay your ladyship will give it into the custody either
+of your banker, or of some other person who has the means and the will
+to keep it safely."
+
+"There is sense in what you say, Solomon Madgin, but I cannot persuade
+myself to part from my dear boy's relic almost as soon as it has come
+into my hands. For the present I shall certainly retain it in my own
+custody. I will take very good care not to lose it, and as for its
+being stolen, there is no one save yourself and Miss Holme who knows
+that I have such an article in my possession. And I think I can trust
+both of you to keep my secret."
+
+Mr. Madgin saw that it would be impolitic to urge the point any
+further at present; so, after bidding her ladyship a respectful
+farewell, he withdrew without further remark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+DE MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM.
+
+
+Lady Pollexfen was obliged to go to bed almost immediately after the
+departure of Mr. Madgin from Dupley Walls. Now that the long-coveted
+gem was in her possession, the excitement that had upheld her during
+the ardour of pursuit at once died out, leaving her utterly prostrate
+and to all appearance half-a-dozen years older than when she rose in
+the morning. The reaction was too much for her enfeebled health, and
+she lay in bed all that day and all the following day, speaking little
+to any one, but often talking disconnectedly to herself, and seeming
+sometimes as though she were addressing imaginary persons by her
+bedside. During the whole of this time she held the Diamond, now in
+one hand, now in the other, often gazing at it, sometimes kissing it
+and talking to it as though it could understand everything she said.
+
+But whatever might be the mental hallucinations of Lady Pollexfen at
+this time, her perception of the real events that were happening round
+her, and her criticism of those in attendance on her, were in no
+degree impaired. She had never exacted more attention from Miss Holme:
+had never been more difficult to please. She would not allow her
+invitation to Mr. Madgin to be countermanded. That gentleman,
+accordingly, dined in solitary state in the great saloon, waited on by
+the solemn butler, and treated in every respect as a guest of
+distinction. Her ladyship sent down her compliments by Miss Holme,
+with an expression of regret at her inability to join Mr. Madgin at
+table. The next day she was somewhat better, and the day following
+that she was up and about again, wandering restlessly to and fro
+through the stately but silent rooms, or on to the warm south terrace
+for a few minutes in the middle of the day. But it seemed to Janet
+that the old woman's arm rested more heavily on hers than it was wont
+to do, that she walked more slowly, and had to halt more frequently to
+rest. That strange wakefulness which would not allow her to sleep
+except by fits and starts, was still upon her. She had caused Janet's
+bed to be removed into a corner of her own large room, so that Janet
+might be more immediately within call. Many were the nights that Janet
+never got into bed at all, but had to satisfy herself with flying
+snatches of sleep in a large armchair by her ladyship's bedside.
+Sometimes Lady Pollexfen would lie awake for two or three hours in the
+middle of the night with wide-open eyes fixed solemnly on the canopy
+over her head, requiring no attendance, and never speaking except when
+she perceived signs of drowsiness in Janet, who was stationed where
+she could be seen by a mere turn of the eyes. Then would her
+ladyship's voice ring out clear and sharp: "Miss Holme! Miss Holme the
+devil is behind you, about to cut off your hair with a pair of
+shears." Or perhaps, "Miss Holme! Miss Holme! there is a large grey
+rat staring at you out of the corner. Do make haste and frighten him
+away."
+
+Janet had neither seen nor heard anything of Major Strickland for more
+than a week. Her fears were beginning to overmaster her. She had a
+prevision that there was ill news in store for her. Would the errand
+on which George Strickland was gone bring her happiness or misery? was
+the question which she was continually putting to herself. Had she a
+father alive? and if alive, would he prove to be a friend--a
+protector? Or, would he prove to be one whom she could neither love
+nor reverence?--one who by his conduct to her mother had shown of what
+falsehood and treachery his heart was compact? Hard and dreary as was
+her life at Dupley Walls since the death of Sister Agnes, it was still
+redeemed by occasional flying gleams of sunshine--sunshine which left
+some portion of its warmth in her heart after its brightness had
+passed away. What she dreaded was that George Strickland's quest might
+so result as to deprive her of even this consolation; that it might
+result in proving her to be the daughter of some ruined and disgraced
+man who would claim her as his own, and sever with a merciless hand
+all those sweet tendrils of love and friendship from which her heart's
+sole nourishment was derived. At length the suspense grew intolerable.
+She wrote and despatched a brief note to Major Strickland, begging
+earnestly for news of some kind. This note crossed the major on the
+road, who was on his way that very morning to Dupley Walls with the
+view of telling Janet the news, or such portions of it as he might
+deem advisable, with which his nephew had reached home over night.
+
+So jealous and exacting had Lady Pollexfen become of late, that the
+major could not go boldly into the house and ask to see Miss Holme. To
+have done so would have entirely defeated the object of his visit, and
+would have simply resulted in making Janet for the time being a closer
+prisoner than ever. But the major was diplomatic. Making his way
+through the side entrance to Dolly Dance's room, he contrived to get a
+whispered message delivered to Miss Holme; but even then he had to
+wait upwards of two hours before Janet could steal away for a few
+minutes to listen to what he had to say.
+
+The story which George Strickland had to tell after his return from
+Jersey was a far more surprising one than the major had expected to
+hear. Many of its details were of too painful a nature ever to be
+communicated to Janet.
+
+How could it benefit any one to tell the dead man's daughter that her
+father had been a gambler and a roué, and that he had ended a
+disgraceful career by committing suicide? Why pain a tender heart by
+such details? It would be pained sufficiently to know that the father
+it had hoped to find had only been found when it was too late for him
+to look upon his daughter in this world--too late even to know that
+there was a creature so near akin to him in existence. Therefore, as
+he walked slowly through the park on his way to Dupley Walls, the
+major conned over and over the story he had made up his mind to tell,
+and it was a story which he needed to repeat many times to himself
+before telling it aloud, for the old soldier was a bad hand at
+concealments of any kind.
+
+Janet's tears came the moment she set eyes on Major Strickland. She
+was worn out with anxiety and the long vigils she had had to keep of
+late. The major drew her towards him and kissed her tenderly on the
+forehead. Then her sobs came unrestrainedly, and for a little while
+she could not give utterance to a word. The major placed her in a
+chair and sat down beside her, and gazed at her with anxious eyes,
+rubbing one of her hands tenderly between his own withered palms, till
+Janet had in some degree recovered her serenity.
+
+"George reached home last night from his journey," the major ventured
+to say at last.
+
+Janet's heart began to beat hurriedly. She looked up into the major's
+eyes, and read something there that turned her cheek even paler than
+it was before.
+
+"You have some bad news to tell me," she said in a low voice, while
+her hand squeezed that of the major tightly.
+
+"My poor child! you have neither a mother nor a father," said the
+major, with a returning pressure of the hand.
+
+Janet sighed.
+
+"I am no poorer off than I imagined myself to be," she said quietly.
+
+"I have not told you all. Unknown to you, unknown to your mother, your
+father has been alive all these years. He was living at the time your
+mother died, and had not our search for him been delayed so long after
+that event, he would have learnt that he had a daughter grown up to
+woman's estate whom he had never seen, and who had never seen him. But
+when George found him he was deaf to all earthly sounds. Poverina mia,
+your father died nine days ago."
+
+On Janet's face, as the major said those words, came a look of pain
+and bewilderment pitiful to see.
+
+"Poor, poor papa!" she murmured. "Only two short weeks ago, and I
+might have seen him and spoken to him, and have told him how dearly I
+would love him. If we had but known! If we had but known!"
+
+She was crying quietly and pitifully by this time, in a way that made
+the old soldier's heart ache to witness.
+
+"Great heaven! what a treasure that man missed when he missed the love
+of this dear child," said the major to himself.
+
+"You must please tell me all about it," said Janet after a little
+while. "What you have just stated seems so utterly strange to me, that
+at present I can hardly realize the fact that I have not really been
+the fatherless girl I have all along believed myself to be. Ah! dear
+Major Strickland, how much I owe to you and other kind friends! Had it
+not been for your efforts in my behalf, I should never have known what
+you have told me to-day."
+
+"It would perhaps have been as well for your peace of mind if you
+never had known it."
+
+"Indeed, dear Major Strickland, you must not say that. The truth can
+never injure us. But now you will tell me, will you not, all that you
+know or have heard respecting this father whom I shall never see on
+earth?"
+
+But it was not the major's intention to tell Janet all that he knew
+respecting Captain Ducie. The story he did tell her was a mild version
+of the one that had been told him.
+
+He could not conceal from her the fact that Captain Ducie had
+purposely abandoned his wife, nor that he had led her to believe that
+he had been drowned in order that the tie between them might be more
+completely severed. But he softened both circumstances in the telling,
+and made as many excuses for the dead man as if he had been a brother
+of his own.
+
+On Captain Ducie's after-career he dwelt lightly and tenderly,
+contriving to leave on Janet's mind the impression that her father had
+been more sinned against than sinning.
+
+Finally, he altogether suppressed the fact of Ducie's suicide, and
+left Janet to suppose, that although her father's death had been a
+sudden one, it had proceeded from causes that were natural and
+entirely beyond his own control. What information he had gathered
+respecting Captain Ducie's relatives and connexions he left to be told
+at some future time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE DEPARTURE OF SIR JOHN POLLEXFEN.
+
+
+But now the day was drawing near which had been fixed by Sir John
+Pollexfen in his will as that on which his body should be committed to
+the vault where the bones of several generations of his ancestors
+already reposed. Sir John would soon have been dead twenty years. On
+the twentieth anniversary of his decease, his body would leave Dupley
+Walls for ever.
+
+That this day had long been looked forward to by Lady Pollexfen, Janet
+was well aware.
+
+The fierce old woman had often declared that not till the dead body of
+her husband should be removed from Dupley Walls, would the curse that
+had rested on the house from the day of his death be lifted off it,
+and rendered powerless for further harm.
+
+In one of the galleries was a portrait of Sir John, which during the
+last twelve months had been visited daily by Lady Pollexfen. Every
+time she visited it, she made a practice of sticking a pin through
+some part of the figure, and leaving it there.
+
+"One day less, Sir John, before the worms claim you as their own," was
+her usual remark on these occasions.
+
+And then she would nod her head and jeer at the painted semblance of
+her dead husband.
+
+"We shall have quite a little jubilee the day you leave us, by which
+you may judge how grieved we shall be to part from you. Another pin.
+Oh! that you could feel them, and that I could thus repay you in part
+for some of the thousands of heart-aches you caused me when you were
+alive!"
+
+After she began to recover from the state of mental and bodily
+prostration into which she had sunk when no longer sustained by the
+excitement consequent on the search for the Diamond, she was not long
+before she was about again, apparently as well and strong as she had
+been for the last year or two. But to Janet it seemed that much of her
+strength was factitious, and that it did not arise from any real
+improvement in her health, but rather from the necessity which seemed
+to sit so heavily upon her of being up and doing on the day of Sir
+John's departure. To be lying weak and ill in bed on such a day would
+have seemed like an acknowledgment of regret for the departure of her
+husband to which her proud spirit could by no means submit.
+
+She spoke nothing but the truth when she said that she so thoroughly
+detested the memory of the man, that it would be a day of jubilee for
+her when his body was borne out of her sight for ever.
+
+She was probably influenced in her determination by another reason,
+but one which she would have been slow to acknowledge even to herself.
+
+Her mind was powerfully impressed with the idea, that not only was the
+lifeless body of her husband under the roof of Dupley Walls, but that
+the house was haunted by his incorporeal presence; that, in fact, his
+spirit was doomed to wander unrestingly in and about the old house so
+long as his body--in accordance with his own foolish wish--remained
+unburied and unsanctified by the rites of Christian sepulture.
+
+Hence the strange habit into which she had fallen of addressing her
+husband as though he were standing, an invisible presence, close by
+her elbow, and was cognizant of all she said.
+
+It could not be other than a source of satisfaction to Janet to know
+that her midnight visits to the Black Room were so soon to come to an
+end. The duty she had there to perform was one which not even the
+custom of years could have rendered otherwise than distasteful to her.
+She never could quite conquer the superstitious thrill which touched
+her from head to foot every time she opened the door of the dreaded
+room. She never could quite get over the feeling that an unseen pair
+of eyes was watching her from behind the funereal drapery that clothed
+the walls. She could never descend the stairs on her way back to the
+habitable regions of the house without a nervous shiver at the thought
+that perhaps some shadowy hand was being put forth to clutch her from
+behind, Janet could not, therefore, be otherwise than pleased to think
+that the silent tenant of Dupley Walls would so soon have to find
+another and a more permanent home.
+
+Lady Pollexfen had named the date a month beforehand which was fixed
+for the removal of Sir John.
+
+At length the last midnight arrived. Janet had been reading to her
+ladyship, and when the clock pointed to five minutes to twelve she
+shut the book and rose to go.
+
+"I will go with you to-night," said her ladyship, who to all
+appearance had been dozing for the last half hour, although Janet had
+not on that account been allowed to lay down her book.
+
+So arm-in-arm the two went slowly up the long staircases with many a
+halt to gather breath. At length the door of the Black Room was
+reached and opened. Preceded by her ladyship Janet went in. While she
+went about her customary duty, Lady Pollexfen stood sternly erect,
+resting her crossed hands on the head of her cane, and gazing with
+hard unmoved countenance on the coffin of her dead husband.
+
+Janet in her twilight walk through the garden a few hours previously
+had found a couple of late roses. These she had plucked and had
+fastened them into the bosom of her dress: she now took them out of
+her dress, and laid them reverently on the coffin.
+
+"What are you about, child?" cried Lady Pollexfen in her most
+imperious tones. "Flowers are not for such as he. Take them away. For
+him you should bring the deadly nightshade and hemlock, and all plants
+that are hurtful to human life. There are some men, child, that, like
+the fatal upas tree, have power to blight and poison all who come
+within their influence. Such a man was he who is nailed up in that
+box. He blighted my life; he poisoned my son's life, and drove him
+abroad to die in a strange land; he withered the lives of my two
+daughters, and not content with the evil which he did while living, he
+left his dead body as a curse that should haunt my life for twenty
+wretched years. That term is now at an end, and after to-morrow I
+shall grow twenty years younger, feeling and knowing that neither in
+time nor in eternity will his baneful presence ever haunt me again."
+
+Suddenly she clutched Janet by the arm, and drew the girl closer to
+her. "He is there!" she said--"there, behind the black curtains,
+watching me, listening to every word that I say--as he used to watch
+and listen when he was alive. There is the same meanness, the same low
+trickery about him now that he is dead that marked him when he was
+living. He often visits me--often talks to me--and although he will
+not acknowledge it, I know that when once his body shall be laid in
+the vault at Dene Folly, I shall have seen and spoken with him for the
+last time. To-night, child, you must sit by my bedside all night long,
+and read aloud from some godly book. Then he will have no power to
+come near me or harm me. But you must not go to sleep nor cease your
+reading till you see the first streaks of daylight in the east: after
+that we are safe. I said he was there. See how yonder curtain stirs
+and flutters. He will not show himself because you are here. It is
+only I, I who was his miserable wife for twenty-three long years, that
+he cares to torment. But come. Let us tarry here no longer. This is
+his last night, thank heaven! beneath the roof of Dupley Walls."
+
+They went downstairs together as they had come, arm-in-arm, her
+ladyship shaking her head and mumbling to herself all the way as she
+went. Then she got into bed, and Janet sat by her side all night,
+reading aloud from a "godly book," while the old woman lay without
+stirring, with wide-staring solemn eyes that seemed to be gazing on
+some far-away picture, the subject of which was known to herself
+alone.
+
+To Mr. Madgin was entrusted the charge of conveying the body of Sir
+John Pollexfen to its final resting-place at Dene Folly, forty miles
+away; and Mr. Madgin was to be the sole "mourner" on the occasion. So
+Lady Pollexfen willed it. The body was to leave Dupley Walls at
+midnight, and be conveyed to the nearest railway station. After a
+journey of thirty miles by rail it would be met by another hearse and
+mourning-coach by means of which the third and last stage of the
+journey would be accomplished.
+
+At a quarter to twelve precisely a hearse and mourning-coach drew up
+before the main entrance to Dupley Walls. The door was thrown open,
+and Mr. Madgin--solemn, dignified--glided in, followed by a number of
+familiars in black. Still led by Mr. Madgin, they trooped up the grand
+staircase like so many birds of evil omen hastening to some unholy
+feast. Not long were they away. Presently they reappeared, carrying on
+their shoulders the burden for which they had come. Slowly and
+carefully they descended the stairs, and were just crossing the hall
+on their way out, when an imperious voice commanded, them to halt.
+
+There, in the opposite gallery, stood the weird figure of Lady
+Pollexfen, her palsied head working awfully, her skinny hands
+trembling with nervous excitement, and the gems on her fingers
+scintillating in the lamplight. She was attired in her bridal dress of
+white satin and lace--a dress which she had not worn for forty-three
+years. Her black wig was gaily trimmed with flowers and scraps of
+lace, and in one hand she carried a large bouquet. A foot or two
+behind her stood Miss Holme.
+
+She had commanded the bearers to halt, and they now stood gazing with
+wonder on this strange apparition. "In that shell lies the body of my
+husband, Sir John Pollexfen," she began, speaking in clear high-bred
+tones that could be plainly heard by everyone there. "He died twenty
+years ago this very day. When he died, there was not even one eye to
+weep for him, or one heart to mourn for him. All who had known him
+were glad that they should never see him more. By a most unholy will
+he devised that his body should be kept unburied for the space of
+twenty years, and that under whatever roof I might choose to reside he
+also should there find a resting-place for the time being; the dead
+and the living were, in fact, to keep each other company all that
+time. Should I fail in carrying out his commands, the whole of the
+property left thus conditionally to me, was to pass away to others. I
+have carried out his commands; but here, to-night, in presence of you
+strangers, and with my eyes fixed for the last time on that coffin, I
+say to you, deliberately and solemnly: Would that I had never been
+born rather than have married that man! Would that I had died on my
+wedding-day rather than have had children to call him father! Would
+that I had died on the day that he died rather than have undertaken
+the burden which his wicked commands laid on my shoulders! I hate
+myself because I bear his name. I hate this house because it has
+sheltered him. Take his wretched body away out of my sight for ever!"
+
+The procession moved slowly forward across the hall, and out through
+the great door. A minute or two later, and hearse and coach set out on
+their midnight journey through the park. Then the great door was shut
+and locked by the solemn butler; and the same moment Lady Pollexfen
+staggered, and would have fallen to the ground had not Janet sprung
+forward in time to catch her as she fell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE TARN OF BEN DULAS.
+
+
+Lady Pollexfen recovered sooner than might have been expected from the
+fainting fit into which she had fallen just as the hearse containing
+the body of Sir John Pollexfen moved away from Dupley Walls. She was
+very wakeful and restless all night, talking much, sometimes to Janet,
+sometimes to herself. Soon after daybreak she turned suddenly to
+Janet.
+
+"I have decided to travel," she said. "A change will do me good. I
+have been confined to Dupley Walls for so many years that I almost
+forget what the outside world is like. This Indian summer will last a
+few days longer, and we will take advantage of it. We will go, in the
+first place, to North Wales, which I have not visited since I was
+eighteen. As soon as we are tired of Wales we will set out for London,
+and after a few days there we will take wing for the South of France
+and there winter. Yes, we will start at once,--this very day. Order my
+boxes to be packed, and ascertain at what hour this afternoon there is
+a train that stops at Tydsbury by which we can get on to Chester."
+
+"If your ladyship will allow me to make a suggestion," said Janet.
+
+"I will not allow anything of the kind," answered Lady Pollexfen.
+
+"Considering the state of your ladyship's health, I think it highly
+advisable that you see Dr. Jones and obtain his sanction before
+undertaking so arduous a journey."
+
+"And pray, Mademoiselle Coasseuse, who gave you power to dictate under
+this roof? It is mine to command, and yours to obey. Carry out the
+instructions I have given you, and trouble yourself not at all about
+my health, which was never better than it is this morning."
+
+That night Lady Pollexfen and Miss Holme slept at Chester. Next
+morning they took train for Bangor, at which place they designed to
+stay for a few days.
+
+Lady Pollexfen's opinion that a change of air would prove beneficial
+to her seemed to be borne out by the result. It was almost as if she
+had taken a fresh lease of life. Her appetite improved, her strength
+increased, her vivacity was unfailing. Day and night Janet was her
+constant attendant. Had not Janet's constitution been of the best, and
+had she not been full of energy and spirit, she must have broken down
+under the ordeal which at this time she had to undergo. Besides having
+the entire personal charge of Lady Pollexfen, the whole of the
+travelling arrangements (they had three servants with them) were under
+her supervision and control. Each evening she had to furnish her
+ladyship with a detailed account of the day's expenditure, and had to
+be admonished that this charge was excessive, or that one unnecessary,
+and be querulously scolded if the dinner happened to be bad, or the
+beds uncomfortable; or be asked to explain why she, Lady Pollexfen,
+had been dragged to the "Crown Hotel," when anyone with an atom of
+common sense might have seen that the "Red Lion" over the way would
+have been both more economical and more comfortable to stay at. Later
+on came the long weary readings aloud--readings which were often
+prolonged till far into the small hours.
+
+To Janet's surprise--although one could hardly be surprised at
+anything so eccentric a person might choose to do--Lady Pollexfen
+brought the Great Mogul Diamond with her on her travels. It was a most
+injudicious thing to do, and much of Janet's time and attention were
+taken up in seeing that her ladyship neither lost the precious gem nor
+had it stolen from her. This was a duty that came in a little while to
+weigh so heavily on Janet that she could not get her thoughts away
+from the Diamond even when asleep, but would start up in bed fancying
+she heard stealthy footsteps crossing the floor, or that someone
+outside was trying the door of her ladyship's room.
+
+In the daytime Lady Pollexfen carelessly carried the Diamond in a
+small leather satchel that she wore buckled round her waist. At night
+it was either laid under her pillow, or else held tightly in her hand
+while she slept. Once or twice Janet ventured gently to expostulate,
+but was immediately silenced, and told to keep her observations to
+herself for the future.
+
+As Lady Pollexfen told Janet, she had not been in North Wales since
+she was eighteen years old. Now that she had come back to it in her
+old age her intention was to revisit each scene that was hallowed in
+her memory as having been in some way connected with her first visit.
+
+What it was that made this first visit to Wales one of the happiest
+recollections of an unhappy life, Janet could not quite make out; but
+that the recollection was a happy one there could be no doubt. Lady
+Pollexfen said nothing directly to Janet which would throw any light
+on the point; but she was continually muttering to herself, with a
+happy smile on her face, and mentioning the names of the places they
+had visited, or were about to visit, in connexion with the names of
+people that Janet had never heard of before.
+
+From Bangor they went to several places, some of them on the sea
+coast, some of them in the interior, but seldom stopping longer than a
+day in each. One evening when Janet went to her ladyship to obtain the
+next day's route, said the latter: "To-morrow we will go to Ben Dulas.
+If the place is like what it used to be, the accommodation is limited,
+consequently the servants may as well await our return here. Order an
+open carriage for nine to-morrow morning. We shall be one night away."
+
+By a few minutes past nine next morning Lady Pollexfen and Miss Holme
+were on their way to Ben Dulas. The road was a rugged one, winding and
+ascending through a picturesque and hilly country for nearly a dozen
+miles. Habitations of any kind were few and far between, and the last
+mile or two of their journey was through the wildest and most desolate
+tract of country that Janet had ever seen. Their road lay at the
+bottom of a narrow valley, but of a valley that stood high above the
+level of the sea. On both sides they were shut in by grey precipitous
+rocks that towered far above them, and which here and there were riven
+and smitten as if by some terrible throe of Nature in ages long gone
+by. At length this narrow valley debouched on to a small grassy
+plateau about a mile in circumference, which, in its turn, was shut in
+by hills still higher than those which had formed the walls of the
+valley. At the upper end of this plateau stood a grim moss-grown old
+building of considerable size, half farm house, half country inn. At
+this place they halted, and in answer to Janet's enquiries were told
+in broken English that they could be accommodated for the night.
+
+Lady Pollexfen was in high good humour. "This place is changed the
+least of any that I remember as a girl," she said. "It might only have
+been yesterday that I was here, for any difference that I can discern.
+Ah! what a happy time it was. But let us rest and have luncheon, and
+after that we will go and see the tarn of Ben Dulas."
+
+So, when luncheon was over, and her ladyship was sufficiently rested,
+Janet rang the bell and, as instructed, asked for a guide to the tarn.
+The guide, who was indeed the landlord of the house, was ready in five
+minutes, and after waiting till her ladyship was duly shawled for the
+excursion, they set out, Lady Pollexfen and Janet being each mounted
+on a small sure-footed pony, while the guide trudged along on foot.
+The road they took was a gloomy and narrow defile that wound
+precipitously up among the further hills. It was scarcely wide enough
+for four pedestrians to walk along it shoulder to shoulder. Here and
+there the rocks on either hand overhung the road, so that a mere
+ribbon of sky could be seen between them. Here and there the road
+wound under rude archways that had been hewn out of the rock in years
+long gone by. The profound silence was broken only by the clatter of
+their ponies' hoofs on the flinty roadway. Anything so desolate and
+lonely Janet had never seen. After journeying thus for a mile and a
+half they reached a small circular opening among the hills, in the
+middle of which, like a table of black steel, spread the darkling
+waters of Ben Dulas tarn.
+
+"You can come for us in an hour," said Lady Pollexfen to the guide as
+she and Janet dismounted.
+
+"Give me your arm, child," added her ladyship. Then they walked slowly
+down to the margin of the tarn, which was set about with thick coarse
+rushes, and seated themselves on two large boulders, as round and
+smooth as if they had been worn by the action of the waves for a
+thousand years.
+
+The place was wild and desolate in the extreme. On every side it was
+shut in by great hills, bare, treeless, solemn--giants who for
+unnumbered ages had stood there with furrowed brows as if guarding the
+entrance to some holy place.
+
+Janet had brought her sketching apparatus with her, but she sat
+without attempting to make use of it, overcome by the solemnity of the
+scene. When Lady Pollexfen spoke, the interruption was almost a
+relief.
+
+"I daresay you have wondered, Miss Holme, what can be my motive for
+dragging you and myself about, with such apparent caprice, during the
+last fortnight. Not, indeed, that your wonder would be a matter of any
+moment either to me or to any one else," added her ladyship,
+ungraciously.
+
+"And yet my madness, if you like to term it such, has not been without
+a method. The only idyl with which my life was ever beautified was
+enacted among the scenes which you and I have lately visited together.
+And at this spot, at this gloomy tarn of Ben Dulas, was enacted the
+crowning scene of all. On this very spot I first heard the sweet
+whisper of love, and from one whom I loved passionately in return,
+although my pride would not let me avow it. Yes, here, by the marge of
+this Avernian lake, he told me that he loved me, that I was the star
+of his life, and that if I would only wait for him and promise to be
+his, he would carve for himself a name and a fortune that I should not
+be ashamed to share. I was young and handsome then, rich and admired,
+and I smiled Graham coldly down, although my heart was burning towards
+him. He went his way and I went mine. He went out as an explorer to
+the wilds of Africa, and was never heard of more. For me, I married a
+man rich and well-born, but whom I hated; and I gradually became
+the--well, the wretched being you see me now."
+
+Her ladyship ceased. What could Janet say--what answer could she make
+to so strange a confession? Probably none was required. In any case,
+Janet sat without speaking, gazing with melancholy eyes into the black
+depths of the tarn. Lady Pollexfen, too, was silent. Janet glanced at
+her face. All its lines were fixed and stern. Her eyes seemed bent on
+the tops of the opposite hills, but they saw nothing unless it were
+some vision of inner things--some bit of salvage rescued by memory
+from the wreck-strewn shores of the past.
+
+They sat thus a long time without speaking, and were only disturbed at
+last by the approach of their guide with the ponies. In silence they
+rode back to the hotel.
+
+All that evening Lady Pollexfen's thoughts seemed more abstracted than
+usual--farther away from the people and things immediately surrounding
+her. Still, she seemed cheerful and in good spirits, and, after
+partaking of a light supper, she retired about ten o'clock. Janet sat
+with her till midnight, reading aloud Beckford's "Vathek." At twelve
+she was dismissed, and at once went to her own room, which was
+immediately adjoining that of her ladyship, the door of communication
+between the two rooms being kept open all night, so that Janet might
+be within hearing in case she were called.
+
+Janet went off at once into the sound healthy sleep of the young.
+
+The first grey light of dawn was just penetrating through the blinds
+when she awoke. The instant she opened her eyes she jumped out of bed,
+under the vivid impression that Lady Pollexfen had called her. The
+well-known tones seemed ringing in her ears as she hurried out of her
+own room into that of her ladyship.
+
+Without giving a single look round, she at once hurried to the
+bedside, and drew back the curtain with a gentle hand.
+
+The light as yet was so faint and dim, that for a moment or two she
+did not realize the fact that the bed was without an occupant. She
+looked and looked, but no one was there.
+
+Then she gazed round with startled eyes, half expecting to see Lady
+Pollexfen sitting in the easy-chair by the window. But she was not in
+the easy-chair by the window, nor in any of the other chairs, nor in
+the room at all, as Janet quickly ascertained.
+
+It sent a shock to Janet's heart to see standing wide open the door
+which led into the corridor, and thence by a flight of stairs to the
+lower parts of the house.
+
+Whither could her ladyship have gone? and what could be her motive for
+going at all? That she had been deceived in thinking she had been
+called, she now felt convinced. It was not the first time she had
+dreamt such a thing, although the impression had never been stamped so
+vividly on her brain before.
+
+On instituting a more systematic search, she found that her ladyship
+must have completely dressed herself before leaving the room. Her
+bonnet had not been taken, but a grey waterproof cloak with a large
+hood was missing.
+
+In five minutes from the time of her first awaking, Janet was equipped
+ready to start in search of Lady Pollexfen.
+
+Had her ladyship been ten years younger, and in tolerable health, such
+a vagary could have concerned no one but herself. But she was so old
+and infirm, so subject to fits of prostration after any sudden
+excitement, that Janet could not but feel most seriously alarmed by
+her unaccountable absence. Hurrying downstairs, she found that there
+were no signs of anyone belonging to the household having yet arisen.
+But the front door was unfastened and ajar. She opened it and passed
+out. The morning was brightening rapidly. The tops of the hills stood
+out clear and sharp against the intense blue of the sky, but here and
+there the lower spurs were still wrapped in mist. Janet looked
+anxiously around, but nowhere was there a soul to be seen. What should
+she do? Whither should she look for Lady Pollexfen?
+
+These questions were still in her mind when she heard a heavy footstep
+descending the stairs inside the house. It was the landlord, their
+guide of the previous day, who was rising thus early. Janet was on the
+point of appealing to him, but he spoke first.
+
+"Your mistress must be a queer old lady," he said, with a strong Welsh
+accent, "to be up this hour of the morning, and rambling over the
+hills all by herself. I saw her a while ago from my bedroom window
+trotting along as comfortable as possible, and as if she had known the
+way from a child."
+
+"In which direction was she going?" asked Janet, eagerly.
+
+"Why, the road that we went yesterday; the road that leads to Ben
+Dulas tarn."
+
+"Her ladyship is too weak and ill to come back on foot, and alone,"
+said Janet. "I will hasten after her, and do you get out the ponies
+and follow as quickly as possible. I will engage that you shall be
+well remunerated for your trouble."
+
+"In that case, miss, I'm at your service. I wont be five minutes
+behind you. A strange old lady, to be sure!"
+
+Janet hurried off without another word, taking the narrow defile that
+led to the tarn. She ran with winged feet, and eyes that never swerved
+from their forward gaze. There was a vague sense of the beauty of the
+morning upon her, but her brain took in no distinct impressions of the
+time or the place.
+
+At length she surmounted the last rise in the rocky road, and there
+before her lay the gloomy valley, peopled with dim shadows and fleecy
+fragments of mist. There, too, lay the steel-black waters of the
+lonely tarn.
+
+Janet's eyes roving eagerly about rested before long on a dark
+huddled-up figure close to the margin of the lake. Anyone less
+sharp-sighted might have taken it for one of the grey boulder stones
+of which several were scattered about. But Janet was not deceived. She
+ran forward with a little cry, and stooping over the recumbent figure,
+tried to raise it in her arms. But she quickly found that this was
+beyond her strength. Lady Pollexfen could give her no assistance. She
+had been stricken with paralysis, and the use of her left side was
+entirely gone. Janet, however, contrived to raise her ladyship's head
+and shoulders so that they rested against her knee, and thus she
+awaited the arrival of the old guide.
+
+"Is that you, child?" said Lady Pollexfen in a voice strangely broken
+and altered, as Janet tried to lift her up. "If it had not been for
+you I think I should have been dead long ago; but now I know that my
+time is drawing near."
+
+She spoke again with her head resting on Janet's knee. "Was it a token
+that came to me just as day was beginning to break? Or what was it? I
+cannot tell. I only know that when I woke up it was with Graham's
+voice sounding in my ears--I told you about Graham yesterday--as
+plainly as ever I heard the voice of anyone. I rose and dressed, and
+still the voice called me, seeming as if it came from a long distance
+and yet sounding quite close at hand, if you can understand such a
+thing. These were the words it said: 'Come! come! I am in trouble. You
+alone can give me ease. Come! and bring with you the Great Mogul
+Diamond.' These words were repeated over and over again, and each time
+my heart answered back: 'I am coming, dear love, I am coming.' Guided
+by the sound of the voice, I followed it down the staircase and out of
+the house, and along the rocky defile until I reached the edge of the
+tarn. All the way the voice kept close before me, and I followed it
+without question or doubt. Only to hear those never-forgotten tones
+was to make me feel young and strong and a girl at heart again. When I
+reached the edge of the lake, my heart said, although I question
+whether the words framed themselves aloud on my lips--'How are you in
+trouble, Graham? And in what way can I help you?' 'I am a prisoner in
+the hands of the demon of this lake,' said the voice. 'He will keep me
+for a thousand years unless I shall be ransomed by one who loves me.'
+'I love you, Graham. Tell me how I can ransom you,' I said. Then came
+the voice. 'Fling into the middle of the lake the rarest thing you
+have, and I shall be held captive no longer.' Then I knew why I had
+been told to bring the Great Mogul Diamond with me. 'Because of the
+love I have for you, your bidding shall be done,' I said. With that I
+kissed the Diamond once for the sake of my dead son, and then I flung
+it with all my strength into the middle of the tarn. The moment the
+stone touched the water there fell upon my ear a strain of music so
+exquisitely sweet and joyful that I felt at once that Graham had been
+set free. And then I remember nothing more till I felt your arms round
+me trying to lift me up."
+
+All this was spoken brokenly and with evident pain.
+
+Janet was much shocked. "Are you sure, dear Lady Pollexfen, that you
+really threw the Diamond into the water?" she asked.
+
+"As sure as ever I was of anything in my life," she answered. "Yes,
+the Diamond is gone, but I do not regret it. Had Graham said,
+'Sacrifice your life to set me free,' I should have done it."
+
+At this moment the guide came up with the two ponies. Janet explained
+to him as much as it was requisite that he should know. Then, between
+them, and with the aid of one of the ponies, they contrived to carry
+her ladyship slowly back to the inn. The local doctor was immediately
+sent for, and Janet despatched a telegram to Chester for the best
+medical aid that city could afford. Another telegram summoned Major
+Strickland and Mr. Madgin. The local doctor looked upon Lady
+Pollexfen's case as a hopeless one from the first, and the greater
+authority when he came merely confirmed that opinion, although they
+both agreed in thinking she might possibly linger on for several
+months to come.
+
+But Lady Pollexfen was saved from that. Her life gradually sank out
+and died, as a lamp dies, for lack of fuel. She was unconscious before
+the major and Mr. Madgin could reach Ben Dulas, and a few hours later
+she breathed her last.
+
+Her last conscious words were addressed to Janet. "Child," she said,
+speaking in a thick troubled whisper, "I have been unjust to you, and
+now I regret it. I was too proud to let my love for you be seen, but
+you have been to me as the apple of my eye. You are my granddaughter,
+and Dupley Walls will be yours when I am gone. I have been unjust to
+you--I say it again. Kiss me once, Janet, and tell me that you forgive
+me. Perhaps we shall meet again where no clouds intervene. Then you
+will know how truly I have loved you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
+
+
+Mr. Madgin was more like a madman than any reasonable being when Janet
+told him what had become of the Diamond. His first idea was to have it
+dived for in the same way that pearl oysters are obtained. But suppose
+the diver found it and hid it under his tongue, and came to the
+surface empty-handed? Then Mr. Madgin decided that he would employ a
+diving-bell, in which he and some man conversant with that peculiar
+business would go down together, and together they would search the
+bottom of the lake. But farther inquiry elicited the fact that the
+tarn was far too deep to allow of either of Mr. Madgin's plans being
+put in operation. The country people averred that it had no bottom, or
+that if it had a bottom it was at such an extreme depth, that no
+soundings ever taken would succeed in reaching it. This Mr. Madgin
+declared to be all humbug, and at once proceeded to test the depth of
+the tarn with such rude appliances as he could command in that
+out-of-the-way spot. But with all Mr. Madgin's efforts he could not
+succeed in finding the bottom, and in so far the opinion of the
+country people proved to be correct. But Mr. Madgin was a man not
+easily defeated. He went up to London, only to reappear at Ben Dulas
+three days later with a couple of men and an apparatus nearly similar
+to that used for taking deep-sea soundings. With this apparatus the
+bottom of the tarn was at last found, but at a very great depth. After
+careful soundings over nearly the whole surface, and repeated careful
+examinations of the greased leaden cup, sent down for the purpose of
+obtaining specimens of the bottom, the chief of the two men in charge
+of the apparatus gave it as his opinion that the entire under-water
+area was thickly covered with large boulders, similar to those which
+lined the margin of the tarn, and that consequently any small object
+which might sink to the bottom would almost be sure to find its way
+between the interstices of the stones, and would so be lost beyond any
+possible recovery from above. Reluctantly, and with a sad heart, Mr.
+Madgin at length gave orders to discontinue an attempt which had
+become so evidently hopeless. There, in the unsunned depths of the
+tarn of Ben Dulas, the Great Mogul Diamond still lies, and will
+doubtless continue to lie through ages yet unborn, till Time, working
+through one of his mighty cycles, shall again bring it to light, to
+shine, perchance, on the breast of some king, the foundations of whose
+empire are not yet laid, and for whom not even tradition shall have
+preserved the name of Aurengzebe the Great.
+
+If it was a great surprise to Major Strickland, and such it
+undoubtedly was, to be told the story of the Mogul Diamond, so far as
+it was known to Mr. Madgin, it was an equal surprise to the latter to
+find that Miss Holme was Lady Pollexfen's granddaughter, and the
+future mistress of Dupley Walls. He had never taken much notice of the
+quiet, pale young lady whom, since the illness and death of Sister
+Agnes, he had seen in attendance on Lady Pollexfen. He had a vague
+recollection of having been told by someone that Miss Holme was a very
+distant connexion of the family, but as it was a matter that seemed to
+have no bearing on his interests, he had never troubled himself
+further about it. But, behold, by one of those kaleidoscopic changes
+which occur oftener in real life than most people imagine, this
+mild-eyed young lady had stepped into the position of his mistress, a
+mistress in whose power it lay to deprive him at one stroke of
+two-thirds of his income--by severing the connexion which had existed
+for so many years between himself and Dupley Walls. Mr. Madgin was
+excessively chagrined to think that he had not had sufficient
+foresight to discern the aureole of coming greatness on the brow of
+Miss Holme. Like a wise man, he at once determined that nothing should
+be lacking on his part to make himself an indispensable item of the
+new _régime_.
+
+Lady Pollexfen's body was conveyed to Dupley Walls, and there
+buried--in accordance with her own written request--in the little
+church at the east end of the park. After the funeral her will was
+read aloud in the presence of all whom it concerned by Mr. Boulton,
+the family lawyer. Major Strickland was named as one executor, a
+certain Dr. Schofield, of London, was the other. With the exception of
+a few trifling legacies, "My granddaughter, Janet Fairfax, commonly
+known as Janet Holme," was made sole legatee. In addition to the
+mansion and estate of Dupley Walls, with sundry farms appertaining
+thereto, and a considerable quantity of house property in the parish
+of Tydsbury, the income of which in the aggregate amounted to about
+two thousand pounds a year; in addition to all this, Janet came in for
+Lady Pollexfen's accumulated savings during the last twenty years of
+her life. These savings, which were invested in scrip and shares of
+various kinds, amounted to the very comfortable sum of eighteen
+thousand pounds. Janet was placed under the sole guardianship of Major
+Strickland till she should reach the age of twenty-one. Meanwhile a
+liberal annual income was set aside for her use.
+
+Dupley Walls being far too large for Janet's modest requirements, was
+shut up and left in charge of a couple of trusted servants, with Mr.
+Madgin to look after the whole. A pretty cottage _ornée_ on the banks
+of the Thames, a few miles from London, was taken, and thither Janet
+went to live with Major Strickland and Aunt Felicité--a quaint,
+tender-hearted old lady, whom Janet had long ago learned to love
+dearly. Captain George Strickland was in lodgings in Bloomsbury, that
+he might be near the Museum. His "Narrative of Personal Adventure in
+India" was finished, and on the eve of publication. He was now engaged
+on a "Treatise on Fortification," and he spent a considerable part of
+his time in the Museum reading-room. He dined at the cottage once a
+week; but otherwise its inmates saw little or nothing of him. Janet
+appreciated his delicacy, knowing well that it was on her account that
+he was not a more frequent visitor. She said nothing, but bided her
+time. No word of love had been spoken between Captain George and Janet
+when the latter was known to the world as a poor dependent of Lady
+Pollexfen, although both had felt intuitively how dear they were each
+to the other, and George had only waited for a favourable opportunity
+to press his suit. But now that Janet had become a person of wealth
+and consideration, George's pride fought with his love, and chained it
+down, and commanded it to be dumb for ever.
+
+In his intercourse with Janet since she had come to live at the
+cottage, he was the Captain George of old times--but with a
+difference. His manner toward her was more guarded and ceremonious
+than of old; there was perhaps a shade more of deference, and just a
+touch of that quiet coldness which men who are at once proud and shy
+often put on when they are in the company of those whom they deem
+their superiors in station. Janet smiled to herself and bided her
+time.
+
+That time came about four months after Lady Pollexfen's death. On
+coming to the cottage one evening, Captain Strickland brought with him
+the news of his approaching departure from England. In the interests
+of the book on which he was engaged he was going to visit personally
+all the great fortifications of Europe. The time was mid-winter, and
+both his uncle and Janet endeavoured to persuade him to put off his
+contemplated journey till spring; but George was good-naturedly
+obdurate and would not give way to their wishes. The major's sister
+was not at home that evening, and later on the major himself was
+called downstairs on business. Janet and Captain George were left to
+their own devices. He was seated at the table absently turning over a
+book of photographs which he had seen a hundred times already; she was
+seated on an easy-chair near the fire, toying in an idle mood with a
+curious Chinese fan. Neither of them spoke for full five minutes after
+the major had left the room. Janet was the first to break a silence
+that was becoming oppressive.
+
+"Then you have really decided to start next week?" she said, looking
+shyly at Captain Strickland over the top of her fan.
+
+"Yes--really decided," replied George. "I can get no further with my
+book till I have personally visited the places I wish to describe. Why
+rest here in idleness, waiting for pleasant weather? My uncle himself
+would be the first to scorn doing such a thing were the case his own."
+
+Another pause and then another question in a voice hardly above a
+whisper. "Do you travel alone?"
+
+"Alone? Yes. Where should I find anyone who would care to be my
+companion on such an erratic tour?"
+
+Another pause. Then shyly but distinctly: "You might ask me to
+accompany you."
+
+Captain Strickland gave a great start, and a sudden light leapt to his
+eyes as he turned them on Janet. Her blushing cheeks were hidden by
+her fan, but over the top of it his eyes met hers, and in them he read
+something that love interpreted for him aright. In another moment he
+was on his knees by her side and smothering her hand with kisses.
+
+As Janet afterwards explained to the Major: "You see, George would not
+propose to me. My money frightened him; so I was obliged to exercise
+the privilege which Leap Year gives our sex, and propose to him; and
+when once the ice was broken, I found him not at all shy."
+
+The marriage did not take place till after the expiration of Janet's
+year of mourning. Then they went abroad, and did not return to England
+till Janet was turned one-and-twenty. Since that time Dupley Walls has
+been their home. The Major lives with them, and enjoys a green and
+hearty old age.
+
+Janet has long known that it was her singular likeness to a younger
+sister of Lady Pollexfen, to whom the Major, when a young man, was
+engaged to be married, that made so deep an impression on the old
+soldier when he saw her first, and that first endeared her to his
+heart.
+
+Janet's relatives on her father's side were not slow in making
+advances to her when they discovered that she was Lady Pollexfen's
+heiress. Janet responded graciously enough, but she was not long in
+discovering that the new circle of connexions into which she had been
+introduced, was one in which she should never feel thoroughly at home.
+It was too worldly and too fast in every way to please Janet's simple
+tastes. Her new relations would gladly have taken her in hand with the
+view of educating her up to their standard, and would have found her
+some horseracing, gambling scion of the house for a husband. But any
+such pleasant family arrangement was rendered null and void by the
+simple fact of Janet choosing a husband for herself in the person of
+penniless Captain Strickland. Still they could not afford to give
+Janet up entirely. They find Dupley Walls a convenient visiting house
+during the dull season, and bashfulness being a quality unknown to any
+of the tribe, they do not fail, when there, to make themselves
+thoroughly at home. Janet bears the infliction with much sweetness.
+She says that you cannot have aristocratic connexions without paying
+for the privilege in one shape or another.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to state that Mr. Madgin's position at Dupley
+Walls was in no wise affected by the death of Lady Pollexfen. Janet is
+too fond of the old man to curtail even one of his privileges or
+emoluments; nor does she forget his great services in connexion with
+the recovery of the Diamond. Neither Mr. Madgin nor Captain Strickland
+has ever ventured to tell Janet that the man who stole the Diamond
+from M. Platzoff, and from whom it was afterwards recovered by means
+of a clever ruse, was none other than her own father. That is a
+passage of family history of which she still remains happily ignorant.
+
+Madgin Junior is rising in his profession. He has a lucrative
+engagement at one of the West-end theatres. His rendering of the
+character of Doxy in the grand sensation drama of _From Belgravia to
+Newgate_ was highly spoken of by the press, and vociferously applauded
+by the pit. Madgin Junior being of a sanguine temperament, sees no
+reason why he should not in the course of time develope into a "star"
+of the first magnitude.
+
+Mirpah the superb still remains unmarried, and will in all probability
+so remain till the end of the chapter. Several individuals have
+expressed a desire to take her for better or worse; but in each case
+Mirpah seemed to see the "worse" so clearly, and the "better" so
+indistinctly, that she declined the offers one and all. It is probable
+that no one so nearly touched her heart as Captain Ducie.
+
+"Only think," she will sometimes say to her father, "had I been so
+minded, I might now have been stepmother to the present mistress of
+Dupley Walls!"
+
+She still keeps her father's books and accounts, and as years creep
+over Mr. Madgin, so do Mirpah's labours increase. In those labours and
+in the hoarding of money, Mirpah Madgin, to all appearance, finds the
+great happiness of her life.
+
+Lady Pollexfen did not forget Sergeant Nicholas in her will. A
+comfortable annuity was settled on the old man. He resides in
+Tydsbury, and not unfrequently of an evening he goes to smoke a pipe
+with Mr. Madgin. At these meetings we may be certain that over and
+over again, in all its details, one or the other of them often tells
+the strange story of the Great Mogul Diamond.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Under Lock and Key, Volume III (of 3), by 
+T. W. Speight
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57296 ***