before him, balancing it carefully, and a dozen times,
against some little weights of brass; and then he wrote with pen and ink
in a sheepskin book, and afterwards on a sheet of paper as though casting
up numbers. What would I not have given to see the figures that he wrote?
for was he not casting up the value of the jewel, and summing out the
profits he would make? After that he took the stone between finger and
thumb, holding it up before his eyes, and placing it now this way, now
that, so that the light might best fall on it. I could have cursed him
for the wondering love of that fair jewel that overspread his face; and
cursed him ten times more for the smile upon his lips, because I guessed
he laughed to think how he had duped two simple sailors that very
afternoon.

There was the diamond in his hands--our diamond, my diamond--in his
hands, and I but two yards from my own; only a flimsy veil of wood and
glass to keep me from the treasure he had basely stolen from us. Then I
felt Elzevir's hand upon my shoulder. 'Let us be going,' he said; 'a
minute more and he may come to put these shutters to, and find us here.
Let us be going. Diamonds are not for simple folk like us; this is an
evil stone, and brings a curse with it. Let us be going, John.'

But I shook off the kind hand roughly, forgetting how he had saved my
life, and nursed me for many weary weeks and stood by me through bad
and worse; for just now the man at the table rose and took out a little
iron box from a cupboard at the back of the room. I knew that he was
going to lock my treasure into it, and that I should see it no more.
But the great jewel lying lonely on the table flashed and sparkled in
the light of twenty candles, and called to me, 'Am I not queen of all
diamonds of the world? am I not your diamond? save me from the hands of
this scurvy robber.'

Then I hurled myself forward with all my weight full on the joining of
the window frames, and in a second crashed through the glass, and through
the wooden blind into the room behind.

The noise of splintered wood and glass had not died away before there was
a sound as of bells ringing all over the house, and the wires I had seen
in the afternoon dangled loose in front of my face. But I cared neither
for bells nor wires, for there lay the great jewel flashing before me.
The merchant had turned sharp round at the crash, and darted for the
diamond, crying 'Thieves! thieves! thieves!' He was nearer to it