George the Greek was probably at the bottom of the matter.
But why George the Greek was at the bottom of the matter, we did not understand.
If George the Greek had known of the diamond, he would have got it away from Mo by fraud or force, long before our arrival in Samarai or Mo’s unlucky death. He would have got it, if he had had to cut the sorcerer to pieces, alive.
But if George the Greek did not know about the stone (and, indeed, his conduct on the jetty suggested that he did not), why should he dig the body up?
These conclusions seemed to point to the fact that George the Greek had not been in the matter, after all. But neither the Marquis nor I would accept that explanation—I am sure I do not know why. We said we felt he had been in it; and the Marquis proposed a visit to his store, to find out what we could.
In the hot, sleepy hours of the afternoon we went down to George’s little shanty, feeling more dispirited, now, than either of us would have cared to admit. The Marquis, I think, wouldn’t have danced the war-dance of the priests for an audience of a hundred pretty women. I wouldn’t have laughed at one of his upside-down proverbs for a case of iced champagne. The street was steaming with the peculiarly unpleasant heat that follows after a heavy shower in a high temperature, and the sea, under the westering sun, dazzled like a mirror flashed in one’s eyes by a mischievous boy.
The Marquis said, as far as I gathered, that “a feeling of sadness came o’er him that his heart could not resist,” and I said that I felt like chewed string.
Then happened something that put starch into both of us, as quickly as if the thermometer had dropped twenty degrees. We heard a row beginning.
“By gum, my friend, they fight somewhere; let’s go and see,” said the Marquis.
“It’s going to be the father of a row, I reckon,” said I, cheerfully. “Hurry up, or we’ll miss the best.” For the shouts and stamps that we had heard were rising into a chorus of yells, punctuated by crashes, and by shrill screams from one especial voice. It was not a woman’s voice, but it wasn’t exactly like the ordinary white man’s, and it had a shrewish quality in it that I seemed to recognize.