Sometimes these very large diamonds were harder to dispose of than smaller stones, since purchasers were so few. There were the millionaires of America—and the rajahs of India—and it would take the very biggest of either to make bids for our treasure, when we got it.
I didn’t say if we got it. I was determined that we should get it.
We had no lanterns with us: the light of the stars was enough for a good bushman, and I knew the cemetery track by heart. So do most men who have lived long in New Guinea.
I guessed where the diver must have been buried: there were not many suitable spots left. We stumbled along among the overgrown, neglected mounds, destitute of name or stone to mark them out one from another, and found what I was looking for—a new, bare grave. I think my heart was beating rather fast as I struck a match and looked, to make sure....
I dropped the match, and stamped on it.
“Marquis,” I said, “we’re done—” and my voice sounded strange in my own ears, as I spoke.
“They are before us?” cried the Marquis, going down on his knees by the grave. “A match!”
“No good,” I said, striking one, however, for a moment. “You see how the ground’s trampled—and the grave has certainly been dug up, and covered in very roughly afterward. We’ll open it, of course, but——”
“They would make a grave of a native roughly! They would trample about it!”
“Not on the top of it, Mark. When you’re burying a man, black or white, you don’t stamp over his head. No, you take my word for it, we’ve lost this trick. But even if we have, we’ve not lost the game. Remember, we’re on an island, and there isn’t a boat for another fortnight.”