hich even the grace of God
seems unable to ameliorate, the Sepoy, with the easy poise and balance
of intonation and phrase which had served as such facile vehicles for
the previous instalments, began:

"When the bewildered prince realized the meaning of the worthless heap
in the recess, and calculated, with familiar appraisement, the immense
loss represented by the senseless substitution, he stood for a moment
destitute of all dignity and as impotent as the meanest of his
household.

"His thin, fine lips, which usually held such firm partnership and
divided his words with such cynical scission, relaxed separately into
the inane lines of superstitious fear, and the luster of his restless
eyes seemed to have degenerated into that surrounding dullness of sickly
white which would have provided the impressionable Lal Lu with an easy
fortitude to deny the approaches of this semi-potentate.

"The next instant, like the doubled blade of Toledo steel, the prince
recoiled to his lithe stature, and the customary brightness of his eyes
returned shadowed with a degree of crafty reflection.

"One by one, lest a stray gem might be collected with the worthless
debris, like the crew of Ulysses clinging to the sheep of the Cyclops,
Prince Otondo removed the pebbles which intruded their sordid presence
in this scintillant treasure-trove like a motley of base subjects in an
assemblage of the nobility.

"When the last of these worthless objects had been cleared from the
recess, the prince closed the panel, and seating himself before the
rayless heap, surrendered himself to moody reflection, like a disabled
enthusiast confronted by his disillusions.

"How did these pebbles reach this hiding place?

"In asking himself the question, the prince had absolute assurance that
it was impossible for any one to enter his sleeping-apartment without
his knowledge.

"The puzzled man also recollected, with a shudder, which he alone could
explain, that he had taken radical means of making it impossible for the
artisan who had contrived the hidden treasury to reveal its existence.

"He was positive, too, when he had retired the night before, that his
jewels were undisturbed.

"Why just this exchange of a handful?

"For what reason had not double the quantity been removed? Nay, why not
all, since it was possible to abstract a portion?

"At this question the eerie iteration of the merchant returned to his
mind:

"'Pebbles for diamonds!'

"A