“But we want you to help us recover the diamond.”
“Why!” ejaculated the dive-keeper; “have you lost it?”
“Yes.”
“And you say it is worth half a million dollars?”
“Far more than that, if anything,” answered Enoch. “It was stolen from a temple in Africa, where for centuries it was venerated by a rich and idolatrous people.”
Quick was not altogether illiterate. He had read of great diamonds being found in temples, and at other shrines, by travelers.
“You have seen the stone?” he said, after a pause.
“I’ve had it in my hand a thousand or more times.”
“You say it is lost?”
“Stolen, rather.”