So dark, so still, so quiet. No sign anywhere of movement.
Stay! up yonder where the steps might begin, a twinkling light. Was it some other bereaved woman coming to place her remembrance on the water's edge--or was it the messenger? By heaven! it bore to the left--just a twinkling light, no more. Birbal held his breath. And now, grown nearer, the faint circle of radiance showed a hand holding a little platter of offerings, and on the wrist a fold not of white but red drapery.
By all that was holy, Âtma Devi! Then she was at the bottom of it, after all!
The next minute he and his slaves were surrounding her and the dark figure of William Leedes, who had risen from the large flat stone where he had been waiting.
She stood quite still, apparently not much surprised, and her eyes met Birbal's without fear.
"Yea, kill me when I have fulfilled my errand," she said quietly, "but not till then. I have sworn to give it to none but the jeweller. Is he here?"
"Take it from her, sir jeweller," came the quick order. "I can settle with her afterward."
There was a pause as Âtma Devi appraised the Feringhi's strange dress, then from amongst the little pile of uncooked grain upon the platter of the dead, produced the diamond. It shone with a faint lambent glow in the flickering light of the oil lamp. A sigh of satisfaction came from Birbal, but William Leedes bent closer to look at what he held and his face as he raised his head showed ghastly gray.
"It also is false, master," he faltered. "See yonder is the scratch my tool made on it----"
"False," Birbal stood transfixed, feeling, even amidst his stupefaction, a quick sense of relief that after all he had made no mistake. "False," he echoed, and turned on Âtma Devi. She also stood surprised, so surprised that Birbal realised in an instant that she was innocent of all complicity in whatever had brought about this astounding revelation. So without a word, he drew out the other false gem which he had brought with him, and laid it beside its marrow on the jeweller's palm.