Colonel Thorndyke's Secret

by G. A. Henty

“And yet, in spite of all that, these things were stolen,” Millicent said. “How on earth did they do it? I should have sewn them up in my pockets inside my dress.”

“I sewed them up in the waistband of my trousers, Millicent, and yet they managed, in spite of us, to steal them. And now I must begin by telling you the whole history of those diamonds, and you will understand why I thought it necessary to take a strong party with me.”

He then told them, repeating the history the Colonel had given his father of the diamonds, and the conviction that he had, that he had been followed by Hindoos, and the instructions he had given for the disposal of the bracelet.

“As you know,” he said, “nothing happened to confirm my uncle's belief that there were men over here in search of the diamonds during my father's life, but since then I have come to the same conclusion that he had, and felt positive that I was being constantly followed wherever I went. As soon as I heard where the treasure was I began to take every precaution in my power. I avoided going to the bank after my first visit there, and, as you know, would not bring the things for you to look at. I got Dick Chetwynd to go there, open the case, and take out these diamonds. He did not bring them away with him, but fetched them from there the morning we started. He went down and took the passage for us both at the shipping office, and the pugilists and the detectives each took passages for themselves, so that I hoped, however closely I was followed, they would not learn that I was taking them to Amsterdam.”

“It was very wrong, Mark; very wrong indeed,” Millicent broke in. “You had no right to run such a terrible risk; it would have been better for you to have taken the diamonds and thrown them into the Thames.”

“That would not have improved matters,” he said; “the Indians would not have known that I had got rid of them, and would have continued their efforts to find them, and I should always have been in danger instead of getting it over once for all. However, I did not think that there was any danger, going over as I did, with two of the best prize fighters in England, to say nothing of the detectives, who were the men who were with me when I caught Bastow. The only danger was that I might be stabbed; but, as they would know, it was no use their stabbing me unless they could search me quietly, and that they could not do unless I was alone and in some lonely neighborhood, and I had made up my mind not to stir out unless the whole party were with me. I found out, when we got on board that in spite of all the precautions I had taken, they had discovered that I was going to sail for Amsterdam, which they could only have done by following Dick as well as myself. There was a dark faced foreign sailor, who, I had no doubt, was a Hindoo, already on board, and I saw another in a boat watching us start; this was unpleasant, but as I felt sure that they could not have known that I had with me detectives and pugilists, I still felt that they would be able to do nothing when I got to Amsterdam.”

Then he told them the whole story of the attack, of his being carried away, and of his unexpected release; of the search that had been made for him and the arrest of eighteen of his assailants. Millicent grew pale as he continued, and burst into tears when she heard of his being a prisoner in the hands of the Hindoos.

“I shall never let you go out of my sight again, Mark!” she exclaimed when he had finished. “It was bad enough before when you were searching for that man here, and I used to be terribly anxious; but that was nothing to this.”

“Well, there is an end of it now, Millicent; the men have got the diamonds, and will soon be on their way to India, if they have not started already.”

“Nasty things!” she said; “I shall never like diamonds again: they will always remind me of the terrible danger that you have run. Isn't it extraordinary that for twenty years four or five men should be spending their lives waiting for a chance of getting them back!”