The bat-eared man was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s gone to breakfast before they start,” I said, turning back toward the native quarters. Just as plainly as if he were before my eyes, I could see the little Papuan, with his woolly head and cramped, crooked figure, striding along with the price of a kingdom a-swing about his greasy neck, in a rude locket of grass—the treasure that would assuredly glitter in the crown of a queen, or shine upon the turban of some rich Indian rajah, within a few brief months.
For, whether the Marquis and I secured it or whether we did not, the destiny of the Sorcerer’s Stone was fixed by this time. It had passed too near civilization to escape. Its track of blood and terror—the track of every great diamond—was opening out before it. What had the Marquis said in Kata-Kata—“First blood for the diamond: I wonder who shall be the next?”
The next had been the sorcerer himself. And the next after that?...
The man was not in the quarters; none of the boys was there. The remains of their meal were scattered about the ground. It seemed that for some reason or other the boats were going early today.
“The jetty, and look sharp!” I said.
We looked as sharp as we could, but the Gertrude was off before we got half-way down the street. Others of the fleet preceded her; one remained behind.
“Come on, Marky,” I said. “We’ll go with the fleet today. We’re curious to see the pearling, you know.”
“I have seen it many confounded times in other countries, and I am quite fatigued of it,” declared the Marquis. “Always one gets some ugly shells, and one does not find no pearls, and they tell one foolish stories, and there is gin, and one goes home.”
“Well, you’re going to see it some more,” I said.