r, but should leave you to settle it
with the Company as you choose; but my instructions were to deliver the
stone at Bombay, and I will undertake to do my part to the best of my
power. I have nothing of blame to say to you, but I must tell you plain
that I cannot have you longer about my ship; I do not wish to order you
to leave, but I will be vastly obliged to you if you can return to the
king's town without longer stay."

At this address Mr. Longways grew very red in the face. "Sir! sir!" he
cried, "do you dare to order me, an agent of the East India Company, to
leave one of that Company's own ships?"

"That," said I, "you must salt to suit your own taste."

"Very well!" cried he; "give me a receipt for the stone and I'll go,
though I tell you plain that the Company shall hear of the fashion in
which you have been pleased to treat me."

I made no further answer to his words, but sat down and wrote out the
receipt, specifying, however, the manner in which The Rose of Paradise
had been shown both to Captain Leach and to myself.

For a while Mr. Longways hotly refused to accept it in the form in which
it was writ; but finding that he could get no better, and that he would
either have to accept of it or retain the stone in his own keeping until
some further opportunity offered for consigning it to Bombay, he was
finally fain to take what he could get, whereupon he folded up the paper
and thrust it into his pocket, and then left the cabin with a vast show
of dignity, and without so much as looking at me or saying a word to me.

He and the chiefs got into the great canoe, and rowed away whence they
had come, and I saw no more of him until above a week afterwards, of
which I shall have more to say further on in my narration.

IV.

I did not go upon deck immediately after Mr. Longways had left the
cabin, but sat there concerned with a great multitude of thoughts, and
gazing absently at the box that held the treasure, and at the empty
glasses with the dregs of the wine in the bottom.

Just in front of me was a small looking-glass fastened against the port
side of the cabin in such position that by merely raising my eyes I
could see the cabin door from where I sat.

In the upper part of the door was a little window of two panes of glass,
which opened out under the overhang of the poop-deck.

Though I do not know what it was, something led me to glance up from
where I sat, and in the glass I saw Captain Leac