T. W. Speight

“ 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?" ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”