Nay, they'd hear even
more than that; for in the course of his talk about the gem the Major
praised the ingenuity of the Asiatic artisan, whether Indian or Chinese,
and spoke of the hiding-place the two natives had contrived for the
diamond as an example of that sort of juggling skill in carving which is
found in perfection amongst the Japanese.

I thought this candour highly indiscreet: charged too with menace. A
matter gains in significance by mystery. The Jacks would think nothing
of a diamond being in the ship as a part of her cargo, which might
include a quantity of specie for all they knew. But some of them might
think more often about it than was at all desirable when they understood
it was stowed away under a plank, or was to be got by tapping about for
a hollow echo, or probing with the judgment of a carpenter when the
Major was on deck and the coast aft all clear.

We had been three weeks at sea; it was a roasting afternoon, though I
cannot exactly remember the situation of the ship. Our tacks were aboard
and the bowlines triced out, and the vessel was scarcely looking up to
her course, slightly heeling away from a fiery fanning of wind off the
starboard bow, with the sea trembling under the sun in white-hot needles
of broken light, and a narrow ribbon of wake glancing off into a hot
blue thickness that brought the horizon within a mile of us astern.

I had charge of the deck from twelve to four. For an hour past the
Major, cigar in mouth, had been stretched at his ease in a folding
chair; a book lay beside him on the skylight, but he scarcely glanced at
it. I had paused to address him once or twice, but he showed no
disposition to chat. Though he lay in the most easy lounging posture
imaginable, I observed a restless, singular expression in his face,
accentuated yet by the looks he incessantly directed out to sea, or
glances at the deck forward, or around at the helm, so far as he might
move his head without shifting his attitude. It was as though his mind
were in labour with some scheme. A man might so look whilst working out
the complicated plot of a play, or adjusting by the exertion of his
memory the intricacies of a novel piece of mechanism.

[Illustration: "STRETCHED AT HIS EASE IN A FOLDING CHAIR."]

On a sudden he started up and went below.

A few minutes after he had left the deck, Captain North came up from his
cabin, and for some while we paced the planks together. There was a
pleasant hush