The Moon Rock

by Arthur J. Rees

“They were diamonds, then?” said Charles curiously.

“Ay; they were diamonds right enough. Him—Turold—said they were diamonds as soon as he uncorked one of the bottles and poured a few into the palm of his hand. There was some rare big ones in one of the bottles—enough to have brought all those fools tumbling out of Africa if they’d know of them. From some papers they found on the chap Turold said he’d must a-been prospecting in nigh every part of the world.”

“How did he come to be buried there with his diamonds, in that lonely spot?” asked Charles wonderingly.

“He was a passenger, and died as we was passing the island. ‘Twas the skipper’s fancy to give him a land burial. But that doesn’t matter a dump—it’s outside the story.” He turned his eyes away from Charles.

Dusk had fallen before they finished their search, and Thalassa would not undertake the risk of threading the boat out from the tortuous reef passage in the darkness. They decided to camp on the island for the night, preferring the sulphur-impregnated air (“A lighted match would blaze and fizzle in it like a torch,” Thalassa declared) to the cramped discomfort of their little craft. They brought some food ashore, and made a flimsy sort of camp above high water, at the foot of the encircling walls of the crater. There they had their supper, and there, as they lounged smoking, Remington in an evil moment for himself suggested that they should sort the diamonds into three heaps—share and share alike. Robert Turold agreed, and they emptied the stones out of the bottles and leather bag into a single heap. Remington took one bottle and Robert Turold another; to Thalassa fell the empty bag. As the stones were sorted one was to be placed in each receptacle until the tally ran out.

It must have been a strange spectacle—so strange that it made a lasting impression on the least imaginative mind of the three, for he tried in his rude way to reproduce it on that Cornish beach after the lapse of thirty long years. He threw bits of rock on the sand to indicate the positions in which they had sat. From his description Charles pictured the scene adequately enough: the violet-black beach, exhaling sulphuric vapours, the yellow-grey volcanic rocks, the gurgling ebullitions of a geyser throwing off volumes of smoke high above them, and the faces of the three men (ruddy in the fire-glow, white in the moonlight) intent on the division of the heap of dull stones scattered on a flat rock between them. Thalassa remembered all these things; he remembered also how startled they were, the three of them, at the unexpected sound of a kind of throaty chuckle near by, and turned in affright to see a large bird regarding them from the shadow of the rocks—a sea bird with rounded wings, light-coloured plumage, and curiously staring eyes above a yellow beak. When it saw it was observed it vanished swiftly seaward in noiseless flight.

The division, commenced good-humouredly enough, soon developed the elements of a gamble between Robert Turold and Remington. They forgot Thalassa’s existence as they argued and disputed over the allotment of certain stones. The foot or so of flat rock became the circumference of their thoughts, ambitions, and passions—their world for the time being. In that sordid drama of greed Thalassa seemed to have comported himself with greater dignity than his two superiors by birth and education. He even took it upon himself to reason with them on their folly. Perhaps he knew from his own seamy experience of life what such things developed into. At all events, he urged his companions to defer the division until they returned to civilization and could get the spoils appraised by eyes expert in the knowledge of precious stones. But they would not listen, so, not liking the look of things, he withdrew a little distance off and watched them, leaning against a rock. That was his tacit admission (so Charles interpreted this action) that he was on Robert Turold’s side, and felt that his own interests were identical with those of the master mind. The two, left to themselves, wrangled more fiercely than ever. There were unpleasant taunts and mutual revilings. The listener by the rock learnt definitely what he had previously suspected—that there was bitter blood and bad feeling between the two men, buried for a time, but now revived with a savageness which revealed the hollowness of their supposed reconciliation. It was about a girl, some girl in England with whom they had both been in love. Thalassa gathered that Remington had left England as the favoured suitor. He had (in Thalassa’s words) “cut Turold out.”

Charles Turold could not forbear a faint exclamation of astonishment. His brain reeled in trying to imagine the austere figure of Robert Turold squabbling over a girl and some diamonds on a lonely island in the South Pacific. He was too amazed at the moment to see the implications of this part of the story.

“They went on snarling and showing their teeth, but not biting,” continued Thalassa, “sorting out the little stones all right, but quarrelling over the bigger. There was two—the biggest in the bunch by far—which they kept putting aside because they couldn’t agree about the sharing of them. At last it came about that there was only these two big ‘uns left, lying like two beans on the bit o’ rock, side by side. Before I could guess what was likely to happen Turold grabbed them up quick, and put them in his bottle. ‘These two are mine, Thalassa’s and mine,’ he said. ‘You’ve had your share, Remington.’ Remington sprang from the rock quick as a snake. ‘One’s mine,’ he said. But Turold was up as quick. ‘It’s not for you,’ he says, with his dark smile. ‘We’ll put it against the girl you filched from me, and call it an even deal. What does a happy lover want with diamonds?’ ‘Damn you!’ cries the other, and hit him in the face. They both went down, scuffling and panting in the sand. I stood where I was, for I weren’t going to come between them till I saw how it was going to be. Presently I could see that Remington was stronger, and that Turold was getting the worst of it. After a bit Turold called out, ‘Thalassa!’

“I ran down at that fast enough, and got out my knife as I went. They’d slipped down the sloping beach half-way to the sea, writhing like a couple of the blind-worms that I kept stepping on, going over and over so quick that I couldn’t do anything at first. But one of them was sobbing in his breath as though he was pretty well finished, and I guessed it was Turold. Then I saw Remington’s face on top, and before they could swing round again I got a good stroke in his neck where it gleamed white in the moonlight. The blood jumped out warm on my hand, and he rolled over so quick that I thought I had killed him. But as I stooped over him he was up like a flash, staggering up the steep beach, his feet plopping and sucking in the water underneath. Turold was on his feet by that time, breathing hard, getting back his breath. ‘After him—quick!’ he says to me, his face black with rage—‘he’s got the diamonds.’