now set myself to the task of recovering my jewel.
It is here, and I shall find it. Life against life--and which is the
best life, mine or this accursed Ishmaelite's? If need be, I will do
murder--I, with this withered hand--so that I get back the heritage
which is mine.

'To-day, when I thought he was wandering in the park, I stole into his
room, locking the door on the inside. I trembled exceedingly, knowing
that his eyes are in every place. I ransacked the chamber, dived among
his clothes, but found no stone. One singular thing in a drawer I saw:
a long, white beard, and a wig of long and snow-white hair. As I passed
out of the chamber, lo, he stood face to face with me at the door in
the passage. My heart gave one bound, and then seemed wholly to cease
its travail. Oh, I must be sick unto death, weaker than a bruised reed!
When I woke from my swoon he was supporting me in his arms. "Now," he
said, grinning down at me, "now you have at last delivered all into my
hands." He left me, and I saw him go into his room and lock the door
upon himself. What is it I have delivered into the madman's hands?

'_July 1_.--Life against life--and his, the young, the stalwart, rather
than mine, the mouldering, the sere. I love life. Not _yet_ am I ready
to weigh anchor, and reeve halliard, and turn my prow over the watery
paths of the wine-brown Deeps. Oh no. Not yet. Let _him_ die. Many and
many are the days in which I shall yet see the light, walk, think. I am
averse to end the number of my years: there is even a feeling in me at
times that this worn body shall never, never taste of death. The
chalice predicts indeed that I and my house shall end when the stone is
lost--a mere fiction _at first_, an idler's dream _then_, but
now--now--that the prophecy has stood so long a part of the reality of
things, and a fact among facts--no longer fiction, but Adamant, stern
as the very word of God. Do I not feel hourly since it has gone how the
surges of life ebb, ebb ever lower in my heart? Nay, nay, but there is
hope. I have here beside me an Arab blade of subtle Damascene steel,
insinuous to pierce and to hew, with which in a street of Bethlehem I
saw a Syrian's head cleft open--a gallant stroke! The edges of this I
have made bright and white for a nuptial of blood.

'_July 2_.--I spent the whole of the last night in searching every nook
and crack of the house, using a powerful magnifying lens. At times I
thought Ul-Jabal was watching me