“Why,” said the detective, “they cannot possibly desire to put you to death simply because you gazed upon their idol?”
“No.”
“Other Europeans beside you must have seen Jobu.”
“For that matter,” said the explorer, “I had two white men with me when I visited the infidel shrine.”
“You have not, then, finished your story,” remarked Burt.
“The part most interesting to me is to come,” said Stolburst.
“I am all attention.”
“In the eye of this idol,” continued the explorer, “was a diamond having, queer to say, a distinctively greenish tint. The stone is larger and certainly more valuable than the great British crown jewel. It is claimed I stole the jewel.”
“Did you?” asked the detective.
Stolburst changed color.