Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/244

 me from the treasure he had basely stolen from us. Then I felt Elzevir's hand upon my shoulder. "Let us be going," he said; "a minute more and he may come to put these shutters to, and find us here. Let us be going. Diamonds are not for simple folk like us. This is an evil stone, and brings a curse with it. Let us be going, John."

But I shook off the kind hand roughly, forgetting how he had saved my life, and nursed me for many weary weeks, and stood by me through bad and worse; for just now the man at the table rose and took out a little iron box from a cupboard at the back of the room. I knew that he was going to lock my treasure into it, and that I should see it no more. But the great jewel lying lonely on the table flashed and sparkled in the light of twenty candles, and called to me, "Am I not queen of all diamonds of the world? Am I not your diamond? Save me from the hands of this scurvy robber."

Then I hurled myself forward with all my weight full on the joining of the window-frames, and in a second crashed through the glass, and through the wooden blind, into the room behind.

The noise of splintered wood and glass had not died away before there was a sound as of bells ringing all over the house, and the wires I had seen in the afternoon dangled loose in front of my face. But I cared neither for bells nor wires, for there lay the great jewel flashing before me. The merchant had turned sharp round at the crash, and darted for the diamond, crying, "Thieves! thieves! thieves!" He was nearer to it than I, and as I dashed forward our hands met across the table, with