This was Ducie’s temptation.  It shook him inwardly as a reed is shaken by the wind.  Outwardly he was his ordinary quiet, impassive self, only gazing with eyes that gleamed on the gleaming gem, which shone like a new-fallen star on the forehead of that hideous image.

The spell was broken by Platzoff, who, going up to the idol, and passing his hand through an orifice at the back of the skull, took the Diamond out of its resting-place, close behind the hole in the forehead, through which it was seen from the front.  With thumb and forefinger he took it daintily out, and going back to Ducie dropped it into the outstretched palm of the latter.

Ducie turned the Diamond over and over, and held it up before the light between his forefinger and thumb, and tried the weight of it on his palm.  It was in the simple form of a table diamond, with only sixteen facets in all, and was just as it had left the fingers of some Indian cutter, who could say how many centuries ago!  It glowed with a green fire, deep, yet tender, that flashed through its facets and smote the duller lamplight with sparkles of intense brilliancy.  This, then, was the wondrous gem which for reign after reign was said to have been regarded as their choicest possession by the great lords of Hyderabad.  Ducie seemed to be examining it most closely; but, in truth, at that very moment he was debating in his own mind the terrible question of murder or no murder, and scarcely saw the stone itself at all.

“Ami, you do not seem to admire my Diamond!” said the Russian presently, with a touch of pathos in his voice.

Ducie pressed the Diamond back into Platzoff’s hands.  “I admire it so much,” said he, “that I cannot enter into any commonplace terms of admiration.  I will talk to you to-morrow respecting it.  At present I lack fitting words.”

The Russian took back the stone, pressed it to his lips, and then went and replaced it in the forehead of the idol.

“Who is your friend there?” said Ducie, with a desperate attempt to wrench his thoughts away from that all-absorbing temptation.

“I am not sufficiently learned in Hindu mythology to tell you his name with certainty,” answered Platzoff.  “I take him to be no less a personage than Vishnu.  He is seated upon the folds of the snake Jesha, whose seven heads bend over him to afford him shade.  In one hand he holds a spray of the sacred lotus.  He is certainly hideous enough to be a very great personage.  Do you know, my dear Ducie,” went on Platzoff, “I have a very curious theory with regard to that Hindu gentleman, whoever he may be.  Many years ago he was worshipped in some great Eastern temple, and had priests and acolytes without number to attend to his wants; and then, as now, the great Diamond shone in his forehead.  By some mischance the Diamond was lost or stolen—­in any case, he was dispossessed of it.  From that moment he was an unhappy idol.  He derived pleasure