“All right; if you think it is, I don’t. I’ll take over your share and welcome.”
“No, I don’t desire that.” The color was coming back to his face. “If it must be, it shall. Tell me all you think.”
“Come for a walk round the island, and we’ll talk,” I said, leading off by the big Calophyllum tree that bears such fine nuts. We didn’t say much till we were away at the back of the island, where we had strolled the night before. It looked fine there: the view was like the back-cloth to the scene of “The Pirate’s Island” in a melodrama, and the arcade of palms was cool and green in the glare of the afternoon.
We talked, walking up and down. I did not want to go back to the town side until we had finished our plan of campaign, for Samarai, like all tiny island towns, is full of ears. The Marquis, I must say, came out rather well here; he had a good, clear head of his own, when it wasn’t temporarily thrown out of business by one of his three fads, and, as there was no dancing, no sorcery, and nothing with a petticoat, grass or silken, in this affair, he was quite sensible.
“First it is to discover,” he said, “whether any one has found out about the stone. What do you think?”
“No knowing,” I said, “but I think not, on the whole. Mo had only been here a few days, and unless he was actually doing magic, he wouldn’t have been opening up his bag. You know he was shy of that, anyhow.”
“Point one: It was probably not discovered that he had the stone. Point two: Had he taken the stone with him when he dived?”
“Again, no knowing. But I reckon he did. There’d be room on his chest below the corselet—that’s the breastplate thing that extends over the diver’s shoulders and chest, to keep off water pressure. And, if he didn’t know what a diamond was, he certainly valued the thing a lot, for his sorcery work. And the captain says he usually took some charm to keep him safe.”
“Good. Point three: How shall we do this sacrilege, since it is convented that we do it?”
“We’ll have to wait a few days, till the nights are dark all through—there’s an hour or two of moonlight just now—go over to the cemetery island in a canoe by ourselves, and do what we have to do. Makes you creep, doesn’t it?”