It was something like a catseye, this jewel; but the outside was perfectly white, the interior was peculiarly greenish, and right in the centre was a spot of dazzling red like a speck of living blood. The general effect was one of a baleful fascination, repellent and at the same time invincibly attractive; and as I looked, I shuddered, yet could not turn my eyes away.
"That's the way it serves me," said the Second, who was observing. "I hate the thing, and yet I can't throw it away. And ever since I've had it, it's brought nothing but bad luck.
"I was on the Sardanapalus when I had the stone first; we were caught in a monsoon in the Indian Ocean, and had to put in at Point de Galle an absolute wreck. My next ship was the Golden Horn; the cargo caught fire off Pernambuco, and we were taken off by one of the Brazilian Royal Mails. This'll be third trip; and I shall not live to finish it. I only hope you others'll get through all right."
"How did you come by it?" I asked, beginning, I confess, to feel a little uneasy.
"It was a rum go," answered the Second, "and I don't much like talking about it. But," he added after a moment's reflection, "I'll tell you, in case anything happens to me there." And he nodded ahead, where lay Singapore.
"The last time I was there," he went on, "I ran amuck. It was one of Libby's liners I was in, and you know what they are. Rations according to the Act, and as much rum as you can put on a mosquito's left eyelid. So when I went ashore with a couple of dollars I'd subbed from the skipper, I didn't want much to upset me. A bottle of Hamburg square-face soon did the trick; and before I knew where I was I found myself half-seas over.
"It was in one of those shanties back of the garrison barracks where I'd got the stuff; in the daytime respectable merchants' depôts, at night half grog-shop and half opium-den. The long, low, narrow room was divided into two by strips of bamboo matting; I was in the front part at a sort of rude table, alone with my square-face; the back was filled with a crowd of Parsees, squatting in a circle, and gabbling. Between us was a hole for the ladder that went to the cellar, whence came the oppressing fumes of opium; and at the back of the inner room was a door in the wooden wall, opening on a staircase that led to the apartments above.
"I remember all that distinctly; but I don't remember much else. Alone with the noise and smoke and the intoxicating smell of the East that lay all around me, and stupefied by the atmosphere no less than by drink, I must have rested long in a sort of dream.
"I seemed to wake and shiver, and, sitting up, saw the dawn rising in flames of gold. On the floor were people sleeping. I tried to stand up, but felt languid and oppressed, and I sank in my seat, and would have gone to sleep again.