Towards midnight, I went round the house to lock up, accompanied by my

second in command (Samuel, the footman), as usual. When all the doors

were made fast, except the side door that opened on the terrace, I sent

Samuel to bed, and stepped out for a breath of fresh air before I too

went to bed in my turn.

The night was still and close, and the moon was at the full in the

heavens. It was so silent out of doors, that I heard from time to time,

very faint and low, the fall of the sea, as the ground-swell heaved

it in on the sand-bank near the mouth of our little bay. As the house

stood, the terrace side was the dark side; but the broad moonlight

showed fair on the gravel walk that ran along the next side to the

terrace. Looking this way, after looking up at the sky, I saw the shadow

of a person in the moonlight thrown forward from behind the corner of

the house.

Being old and sly, I forbore to call out; but being also, unfortunately,

old and heavy, my feet betrayed me on the gravel. Before I could steal

suddenly round the corner, as I had proposed, I heard lighter feet

than mine--and more than one pair of them as I thought--retreating in

a hurry. By the time I had got to the corner, the trespassers, whoever

they were, had run into the shrubbery at the off side of the walk, and

were hidden from sight among the thick trees and bushes in that part of

the grounds. From the shrubbery, they could easily make their way, over

our fence into the road. If I had been forty years younger, I might have

had a chance of catching them before they got clear of our premises.

As it was, I went back to set a-going a younger pair of legs than mine.

Without disturbing anybody, Samuel and I got a couple of guns, and went

all round the house and through the shrubbery. Having made sure that

no persons were lurking about anywhere in our grounds, we turned back.

Passing over the walk where I had seen the shadow, I now noticed, for

the first time, a little bright object, lying on the clean gravel, under

the light of the moon. Picking the object up, I discovered it was a

small bottle, containing a thick sweet-smelling liquor, as black as ink.

I said nothing to Samuel. But, remembering what Penelope had told me

about the jugglers, and the pouring of the little pool of ink into the

palm of the boy's hand, I instantly suspected that I had disturbed the

three Indians, lurking about the house, and bent, in their heathenish

way, on discovering the whereabouts of the Diamond that night.




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