Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/43



An hour later his wife found Barnard lying insensible near the shattered fragments of his granite receiver, with his nerveless hands open and empty. The reaction had been too much for his overworked and wearied frame, and he had fainted from excitement. We could not find any traces of the diamond dust in the plebian clay of Sacramento, where it had fallen, and no human eye but Barnard's ever saw it. That was enough, however, and he was from that day strung with a vigor and determination which had never before been his, even when he had been first inspired with the mysterious revelations which had since urged him onward in his search for the diamond. Some of his plain-speaking acquaintances thought that they ought to undeceive him by telling him that what he took to be diamond dust was only pulverized feldspar from the shattered granite. He laughed at the suggestion, and remained fixed in the belief that he had seen and handled minute diamonds which he had made. From that day certain compassionate people shook their heads sadly and said: " Dr. Barnard is as crazy as a loon."

There were others, however, who would not forsake the good doctor, and now that his own and his wife's property had been greatly diminished by his expensive experiments, and his income was far below what it had been, were ready to encourage the hopeful enthusiast in science with substantial aid. He was always particular to insist that all such loans were only temporary, and that the lenders should share in the first benefits of his grand success. So, with their own subscriptions his friends eked out Barnard's dwindling funds, and he went on with preparations for a trial on a larger scale than any heretofore attempted, in which he was confident of success. It is not worth while to go into details, but enough to say that a considerable sum was spent in building and equipping a large iron globe which was bored and charged, after the manner of the block

of granite, and a galvanic shock communicated to the contents of the interior from an immense battery which Barnard himself had constructed. The machine was carted off mysteriously one night to a lonely plain several miles from the city, and was fired by the doctor next day. I met him as he alighted from his buggy on his return; he threw his arms around me and trembled as he said, "I have it! I have it!" He showed a rough pebble, about the size of a large pea, brown in its coating, but emitting on one side, where he had rudely chipped off the crust, a duJl, yellow gleam. The diamond, if such it was, 'passed from hand to hand, and set the town by the ears; not a few said that it was a base invention, and others stoutly maintained that Dr. Barnard was too honest to im-. pose upon others, and too deeply versed in science to be imposed upon. The globe had been hopelessly fissured by the shock, and it required the united labors of Barnard and his friends for several hours to clear out the bore of the machine so as to reacl. the crusted stone that slept within. After dividing the town into two distinct factions, the: stone was sent to Antwerp to be cut and tested. Ten months passed away and it came back, a straw-colored diamond, with a whitish flaw in it, dull and smoky enough, but a diamond, nevertheless. There were stories of letters having been written from California to. buy an opinion from the Antwerp lapidary, and some went so far as to say that Barnard had never sent the stone which had been taken from the iron globe, and even that no such stone had ever been found there, but had been: dexterousiy produced at the right moment by Dr. Barnard. So the question remained unsettled, and the story cf the Antwerp Diamond was the subject for a standing joke for many months thereafter.

The events which I have hastily recounted were stretched over eight or