The Moonstone | Page 3

will have its vengeance yet on you and yours!" He spoke
those words, and fell dead on the floor.
Before I could stir in the matter, the men who had followed me across
the courtyard crowded in. My cousin rushed to meet them, like a
madman. "Clear the room!" he shouted to me, "and set a guard on the
door!" The men fell back as he threw himself on them with his torch
and his dagger. I put two sentinels of my own company, on whom I
could rely, to keep the door. Through the remainder of the night, I saw
no more of my cousin.
Early in the morning, the plunder still going on, General Baird
announced publicly by beat of drum, that any thief detected in the fact,
be he whom he might, should be hung. The provost-marshal was in
attendance, to prove that the General was in earnest; and in the throng
that followed the proclamation, Herncastle and I met again.
He held out his hand, as usual, and said, "Good morning."
I waited before I gave him my hand in return.
"Tell me first," I said, "how the Indian in the armoury met his death,
and what those last words meant, when he pointed to the dagger in your
hand."
"The Indian met his death, as I suppose, by a mortal wound," said
Herncastle. "What his last words meant I know no more than you do."
I looked at him narrowly. His frenzy of the previous day had all calmed
down. I determined to give him another chance.

"Is that all you have to tell me?" I asked.
He answered, "That is all."
I turned my back on him; and we have not spoken since.

IV
I beg it to be understood that what I write here about my cousin (unless
some necessity should arise for making it public) is for the information
of the family only. Herncastle has said nothing that can justify me in
speaking to our commanding officer. He has been taunted more than
once about the Diamond, by those who recollect his angry outbreak
before the assault; but, as may easily be imagined, his own
remembrance of the circumstances under which I surprised him in the
armoury has been enough to keep him silent. It is reported that he
means to exchange into another regiment, avowedly for the purpose of
separating himself from ME.
Whether this be true or not, I cannot prevail upon myself to become his
accuser--and I think with good reason. If I made the matter public, I
have no evidence but moral evidence to bring forward. I have not only
no proof that he killed the two men at the door; I cannot even declare
that he killed the third man inside--for I cannot say that my own eyes
saw the deed committed. It is true that I heard the dying Indian's words;
but if those words were pronounced to be the ravings of delirium, how
could I contradict the assertion from my own knowledge? Let our
relatives, on either side, form their own opinion on what I have written,
and decide for themselves whether the aversion I now feel towards this
man is well or ill founded.
Although I attach no sort of credit to the fantastic Indian legend of the
gem, I must acknowledge, before I conclude, that I am influenced by a
certain superstition of my own in this matter. It is my conviction, or my
delusion, no matter which, that crime brings its own fatality with it. I
am not only persuaded of Herncastle's guilt; I am even fanciful enough

to believe that he will live to regret it, if he keeps the Diamond; and
that others will live to regret taking it from him, if he gives the
Diamond away.

THE STORY

FIRST PERIOD
THE LOSS OF THE DIAMOND (1848)
The events related by GABRIEL BETTEREDGE, house-steward in the
service of JULIA, LADY VERINDER.

CHAPTER I
In the first part of ROBINSON CRUSOE, at page one hundred and
twenty-nine, you will find it thus written:
"Now I saw, though too late, the Folly of beginning a Work before we
count the Cost, and before we judge rightly of our own Strength to go
through with it."
Only yesterday, I opened my ROBINSON CRUSOE at that place. Only
this morning (May twenty-first, Eighteen hundred and fifty), came my
lady's nephew, Mr. Franklin Blake, and held a short conversation with
me, as follows:--
"Betteredge," says Mr. Franklin, "I have been to the lawyer's about
some family matters; and, among other things, we have been talking of
the loss of the Indian Diamond, in my aunt's house in Yorkshire, two
years since. Mr. Bruff thinks as I think, that the whole story ought, in