“But the rest of the poor fellow’s story is as clear as if he had written it,” I commented, musingly. “The Indians waited until he had reached the last boundary of their territory, and then put an arrow into his heart. Where he fell they left him, trusting the canoe would float down the stream and warn other whites not to venture too near.”
“Do you think that story is true?” enquired Uncle Naboth, with some asperity.
“Why not, Uncle?”
“It sounds fishy, to my notion.”
I drew the roll of bark we had taken from the pocket of the dead man and cut with my knife the thongs which bound it together. After removing the outer wrappers I found ten crystal pebbles in the center, which I handed around so that all could examine them with care. Only Uncle Naboth had seen rough diamonds before, but the grunts of the shrewd old trader told me at once that he recognized the value of these stones.
However, I looked up the acid test in one of my books in the stateroom, and was able to apply it in a satisfactory manner. We managed to crumble a portion of one stone and with the dust thus secured Duncan polished a small surface on another. They were diamonds, sure enough, very white in color and seemingly perfect specimens.
And all the while we were thus occupied the four of us were silently thinking. Each one, moreover, took the book and read with care the story for himself. The map was crude enough, but I stared at it so intently that every pencil mark was indelibly impressed upon my brain.
At dinner we were an unsociable party. Afterward we assembled on the deck. Uncle Naboth smoked his pipe instead of the big cigar, but said nothing. Ned put his face between his hands and resting his elbows upon his knees stared fixedly at the deck in meditative silence. Duncan Moit hung over the rail and gazed at the river as it murmured by.
I looked at my comrades and smiled at their absorption. This longing for treasure and sudden wealth is natural enough, and few men are able to escape it. I knew very well that all of us were pondering on a way to get at the diamonds Maurice Kleppisch had left secreted in the forest of San Blas. I may as well acknowledge that I was fully as covetous as the others, but a hearty fear of those strange Indians did much to lessen my desire to visit them.
The evening passed with scarcely a remark, and when we went to bed we were still thinking. Not of the wrecked ship, though, or how we should save the cargo and get ourselves into some civilized port. The reading of the dead man’s narrative had turned our thoughts entirely from our own mischance and inoculated us with a feverish desire to plunge into the same adventurous channels that had resulted so fatally in his own case.