Soon I had the mortar out of the joints, and the brick loose enough to prise it forward, by putting the edge of the hammer in the crack.  I lifted it clean out and put it in the bucket, to see later on, in case of need, if there was a hollow for anything to be hidden in; but never had occasion to look at it again, for there, behind the brick, was a little hole in the wall, and in the hole what I sought.  I had my fingers in the wall too quick for words, and brought out a little parchment bag, for all the world like those dried fish-eggs cast up on the beach that children call shepherds’ purses.  Now, shepherds’ purses are crisp, and crackle to the touch, and sometimes I have known a pebble get inside one and rattle like a pea in a drum; and this little bag that I pulled out was dry too, and crackling, and had something of the size of a small pebble that rattled in the inside of it.  Only I knew well that this was no pebble, and set to work to get it out.  But though the little bag was parched and dry, ’twas not so easily torn, and at last I struck off the corner of it with the sharp edge of my hammer against the bucket.  Then I shook it carefully, and out into my hand there dropped a pure crystal as big as a walnut.  I had never in my life seen a diamond, either large or small—­yet even if I had not known that Blackbeard had buried a diamond, and if we had not come hither of set purpose to find it, I should not have doubted that what I had in my hand was a diamond, and this of matchless size and brilliance.  It was cut into many facets, and though there was little or no light in the well save my candle, there seemed to be in this stone the light of a thousand fires that flashed out, sparkling red and blue and green, as I turned it between my fingers.  At first I could think of nothing else, neither how it got there, nor how I had come to find it, but only of it, the diamond, and that with such a prize Elzevir and I could live happily ever afterwards, and that I should be a rich man and able to go back to Moonfleet.  So I crouched down in the bottom of the bucket, being filled entirely with such thoughts, and turned it over and over again, wondering continually more and more to see the fiery light fly out of it.  I was, as it were, dazed by its brilliance, and by the possibilities of wealth that it contained, and had, perhaps, a desire to keep it to myself as long as might be; so that I thought nothing of the two who were waiting for me at the well-mouth, till I was suddenly called back by the harsh voice of the turnkey, crying as before—­

‘What are you doing? have you found nothing?’

‘Yes,’ I shouted back, ‘I have found the treasure; you can pull me up.’  The words were scarcely out of my mouth before the bucket began to move, and I went up a great deal faster than I had gone down.  Yet in that short journey other thoughts came to my mind, and I heard Grace’s voice again, sweet and grave, ’Have a care, have a care how you touch the treasure; it was evilly