"Philosopher's stone or not, something's up. The old boy took too good care of that box, and he's spending too much money, and he's got hold of too much hell afloat to be doing it for his health."
"You know w'at I t'ink?" smiled Perdosa. "He mak' di'mon's. He say dat."
The Nigger had entered one of his black, brooding moods from which these men expected oracles.
"Get him ches'," he muttered. "I see him full--full of di'mon's!"
They listened to him with vast respect, and were visibly impressed. So deep was the sense of awe that Handy Solomon unbent enough to whisper to me:
"I don't take any stock in the Nigger's talk ordinarily. He's a hell of a fool nigger. But when his eye looks like that, then you want to listen close. He sees things then. Lots of times he's seen things. Even last year--the Oyama--he told about her three days ahead. That's why we were so ready for her," he chuckled.
Nothing more developed for a long time except a savage fight between Pulz and Perdosa. I hunted sheep, fished, wandered about--always with an escort tired to death before he started. The thought came to me to kill this man and so to escape and make cause with the scientists. My common sense forbade me. I begin to think that common sense is a very foolish faculty indeed.
It taught me the obvious--that all this idle, vapouring talk was common enough among men of this class, so common that it would hardly justify a murder, would hardly explain an unwarranted intrusion on those who employed me. How would it look for me to go to them with these words in my mouth:
"The captain has taken to drinking to dull the monotony. The crew think you are an alchemist and are making diamonds. Their interest in this fact seemed to me excessive, so I killed one of them, and here I am."
"And who are you?" they could ask.