“Real?”
“Real!” he screamed. “They’re priceless! unique! They’re offerings which the faithful have made to me, the Great Joss. They come from men and women who are the greatest and the richest in the land. Do you think they would dare to offer me imitations? If they were guilty of such sacrilege I would destroy them root and branch. And they know it!” The creature snarled like some great cat. “I know something of stones, and I tell you you won’t find finer gems in any jeweller’s shop in London—nor any as fine.” He waved his arms. “You won’t match the things you see here in all Europe—not in kings’ palaces nor in national museums. I know, and I tell you. If all the things you see in this place were put up in a London auction room for sale to-morrow, they’d fetch more than a million pounds—down on the nail! I swear they would! If you’ll take me with you to England to-night—me and my daughter here; this is my daughter, Susan. She’s her father’s only child.” The irony of it! My stars! A shudder went all over me as I thought of her being connected by ties of blood with such an object. “If you’ll give the pair of us ship-room, and all these things—they’re all my property, every pin’s worth, all offerings to the Great Joss—you and your crew shall have half of everything you see. That shall be in payment of our passage.”
Half!
My mouth watered. His appraisement of the value of the things I saw about me went to all intents and purposes unheeded. Divide his figures by twenty. Say their worth was £50,000. Half of that, even after I, and Luke, and Rudd, and the rest of them had had their pickings—and out of a venture of this sort pickings there would have to be—the remnant would still leave a handsome profit for the owners. I knew the kind of men with whom I had to deal. Only give them a sufficient profit, I need not fear being placed in their black books. However it might have come. And then there was half that collection of gems—I would have that too. And half the gold dust. Ye whales and little fishes! this might yet turn out the most profitable voyage I’d ever made.
Yet I easily perceived that there might be breakers ahead.
“You say that all these things are yours?”
“Every one—every speck of gold dust. All! all! I am the only Great Joss; they have been given to me.”
“Then, in that case, there will be no difficulty in removing them.”
The response came brusquely enough, and to the point.
“That’s where you’re a fool. Do you suppose I’d share the plunder if there weren’t? If it was known that I was going to make myself scarce, let alone hooking off with this lot of goods, there’d be hell to pay. I haven’t stayed here all this time because I wanted; I had to. They made of me the thing you see; cut me to pieces; boiled, burned, and baked me; skinned me alive. Then they dipped me in a paint-pot and made of me a god. The next thing they’ll make of me’ll be a corpse; I can’t stand being pulled about with red-hot pincers like I used to. There’s a hundred adjectived priests about this adjectived show. They all want to have a finger in my pie. When I had a word with Luke here, and arranged with him to have a word with you, I sent the whole damned pack off miracle working at a place half-a-dozen miles away from here. We’ll have to be cleared off before they’re back or there’ll be fighting; they can fight! And the man who falls into their hands alive before they’ve done with him will curse his mother for ever having borne him.”