Here, for one moment, I find it necessary to call a halt.

On summoning up my own recollections--and on getting Penelope to help

me, by consulting her journal--I find that we may pass pretty rapidly

over the interval between Mr. Franklin Blake's arrival and Miss Rachel's

birthday. For the greater part of that time the days passed, and brought

nothing with them worth recording. With your good leave, then, and

with Penelope's help, I shall notice certain dates only in this place;

reserving to myself to tell the story day by day, once more, as soon as

we get to the time when the business of the Moonstone became the chief

business of everybody in our house.

This said, we may now go on again--beginning, of course, with the bottle

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of sweet-smelling ink which I found on the gravel walk at night.

On the next morning (the morning of the twenty-sixth) I showed Mr.

Franklin this article of jugglery, and told him what I have already told

you. His opinion was, not only that the Indians had been lurking about

after the Diamond, but also that they were actually foolish enough to

believe in their own magic--meaning thereby the making of signs on a

boy's head, and the pouring of ink into a boy's hand, and then expecting

him to see persons and things beyond the reach of human vision. In our

country, as well as in the East, Mr. Franklin informed me, there are

people who practise this curious hocus-pocus (without the ink, however);

and who call it by a French name, signifying something like brightness

of sight. "Depend upon it," says Mr. Franklin, "the Indians took it for

granted that we should keep the Diamond here; and they brought their

clairvoyant boy to show them the way to it, if they succeeded in getting

into the house last night."

"Do you think they'll try again, sir?" I asked.

"It depends," says Mr. Franklin, "on what the boy can really do. If he

can see the Diamond through the iron safe of the bank at Frizinghall, we

shall be troubled with no more visits from the Indians for the present.

If he can't, we shall have another chance of catching them in the

shrubbery, before many more nights are over our heads."

I waited pretty confidently for that latter chance; but, strange to

relate, it never came.

Whether the jugglers heard, in the town, of Mr. Franklin having been

seen at the bank, and drew their conclusions accordingly; or whether the

boy really did see the Diamond where the Diamond was now lodged (which

I, for one, flatly disbelieve); or whether, after all, it was a mere

effect of chance, this at any rate is the plain truth--not the ghost

of an Indian came near the house again, through the weeks that passed

before Miss Rachel's birthday. The jugglers remained in and about the

town plying their trade; and Mr. Franklin and I remained waiting to see

what might happen, and resolute not to put the rogues on their guard

by showing our suspicions of them too soon. With this report of the

proceedings on either side, ends all that I have to say about the

Indians for the present.




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