“No, not sick:  but miserable.”  And he explained to her, as well as he could, what had passed.  “But,” said he, “I would not mind the loss of the diamonds now, if I was only sure he was alive.  I think most of poor, poor Mrs. Falcon.”

While Ucatella pondered this, but with one eye of demure curiosity on the coronet he was making, he told her it was for her—­he had not forgot her at the mines.

“These stones,” said he, “are not valued there; but see how glorious they are!”

In a few minutes he had finished the coronet, and gave it her.  She uttered a chuckle of delight, and with instinctive art, bound it, in a turn of her hand, about her brow; and then Staines himself was struck dumb with amazement.  The carbuncles gathered from those mines look like rubies, so full of fire are they, and of enormous size.  The chaplet had twelve great carbuncles in the centre, and went off by gradations into smaller garnets by the thousand.  They flashed their blood-red flames in the African sun, and the head of Ucatella, grand before, became the head of the Sphinx, encircled with a coronet of fire.  She bestowed a look of rapturous gratitude on Staines, and then glided away, like the stately Juno, to admire herself in the nearest glass like any other coquette, black, brown, yellow, copper, or white.

That very day, towards sunset, she burst upon Staines quite suddenly, with her coronet gleaming on her magnificent head, and her eyes like coals of fire, and under her magnificent arm, hard as a rock, a boy kicking and struggling in vain.  She was furiously excited, and, for the first time, showed signs of the savage in the whites of her eyes, which seemed to turn the glorious pupils into semicircles.  She clutched Staines by the shoulder with her left hand, and swept along with the pair, like dark Fate, or as potent justice sweeps away a pair of culprits, and carried them to the little window, and cried “Open—­open!”

Dick Dale was at dinner; Phoebe lying down.  Dick got up, rather crossly, and threw open the window.  “What is up now?” said he crossly:  he was like two or three more Englishmen—­hated to be bothered at dinner-time.

“Dar,” screamed Ucatella, setting down Tim, but holding him tight by the shoulder; “now you tell what you see that night, you lilly Kafir trash; if you not tell, I kill you dead;” and she showed the whites of her eyes, like a wild beast.

Tim, thoroughly alarmed, quivered out that he had seen lilly master ride up to the gate one bright night, and look in, and Tim thought he was going in:  but he changed his mind, and galloped away that way; and the monkey pointed south.

“And why couldn’t you tell us this before?” questioned Dick.

“Me mind de sheep,” said Tim apologetically.  “Me not mind de lilly master:  jackals not eat him.”

“You no more sense dan a sheep yourself,” said Ucatella loftily.

“No, no:  God bless you both,” cried poor Phoebe:  “now I know the worst:”  and a great burst of tears relieved her suffering heart.