Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/146

scarce! Comprenez vous? He's like a tiger with that confounded gem."

I promised to remain perfectly still. Then he lowered the gas, and cautiously opened the door.

I saw a broadly-built man with dusky face, long matted hair, and a thick neck, upon which the skin folded itself in great ridges. Over his shoulders a blanket was thrown. He was fondling and patting a smooth, oval object, the size and shape of a cocoa-nut, but the colour was the colour of gold. When the door opened he grabbed the casket to his chest, and, by a rapid movement of his broad shoulders, concealed the shining object beneath the blanket. That was all I saw of the Raja of Pepperthala, but I never forgot the sight. His ancestors may, or may not have been, bullies and bastards, but this poor tamed creature had in his time been king of broad lands, with power to save or kill, and in his hands the keys of palaces, and temples, and vaults heaped high with treasure.

Kettle closed the door. He was quite pale.

"You have seen him," he whispered, "and I'm sure you ought to be infernally obliged to me; and, my boy, you've also seen the case which contains the blessed stone. Oh, don't ask me anything further! This Desire of the Nations, as they call it, is driving me mad, absit omen. I'll just tell you one thing," he said, mysteriously, "and you may repeat it to whoever gets hold of the blooming stone—caveat emptor. That's what I say. Good night."

The adventures of the day had given me material for quite a pretty little article. I walked briskly up Constitution Hill, arranging the paragraphs in my mind, thence into Hyde Park, and by the time I had travelled as far as the Marble Arch, and back again to Hyde Park Corner, the article was clamouring to bewritten.