“What my dear master had said with his last breath about a diamond puzzled me.  I could only conclude that amongst his effects there must be some valuable stone of which he wished special care to be taken, and which he desired to be sent home to you, madam, in England.  I knew nothing of any such stone, and I considered it beyond my position to search for it among his luggage.  I decided that when I got to Chinapore I would give his message to the Colonel, and leave that gentleman to take such steps in the matter as he might think best.

“I had hardly settled all this in my mind when Rung Budruck came to me.  ‘The Russian sahib has gone:  I have something to tell you,’ he said, only he spoke in broken English.  ’Yesterday, just after the sahib Captain was dead, the Russian came back.  You had left the tent, and I was sitting on the ground behind the Captain’s big trunk, the lid of which was open.  I was sitting with my chin in my hand, very sad at heart, when the Russian came in.  He looked carefully round the tent.  Me he could not see, but I could see him through the opening between the hinges of the box.  What did he do?  He unfastened the bosom of the sahib Captain’s shirt, and then he drew over the Captain’s head the steel chain with the little gold box hanging to it that he always wore.  He opened the box, and saw there was that in it which he expected to find there.  Then he hid away both chain and box in one of his pockets, rebuttoned the dead man’s shirt, and left the tent.’  ’But you have not told me what there was in the box,’ I said.  He put the tips of his fingers together and smiled:  ‘In that box was the Great Hara Diamond!’

“Your ladyship, I was so startled when Rung said this that the wind of a bullet would have knocked me down.  A new light was all at once thrown on the Captain’s dying words.  ’But how do you know, Rung, that the box contained a diamond?’ I asked when I had partly got over my surprise.  He smiled again, with that strange slow smile which those fellows have.  ’It matters not how, but Rung knew that the diamond was there.  He had seen the Captain open the box, and take it out and look at it many a time when the Captain thought no one could see him.  He could have stolen it from him almost any night when he was asleep, but that was left for his friend to do.’  ‘Was the diamond you speak of a very valuable one?’ I asked.  ‘It was a green diamond of immense value,’ answered Rung; ’it was called The Great Hara because of its colour, and it was first worn by the terrible Aureng-Zebe himself, who had it set in the haft of his scimitar.’  ’But by what means did Captain Chillington become possessed of so valuable a stone?’ Said he, ’Two years ago, at the risk of his own life, he rescued the eldest son of the Rajah of Gondulpootra from a tiger who had carried away the child into the jungle.  The Rajah is one of the richest men in India, and he showed his gratitude by secretly presenting the Great Hara Diamond to the man who had saved the