THE KING DIAMOND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5739, 5 December 1896, Page 1

THE KING DIAMOND.

[By Cutcliffe Htne.] (Stroud Magazine.) Chapter T. " Speaking of pluck," said the purser of the Laconic " the bravest man, the very bravest I ever knew, was a thief." Mr Horrocks delivered himself of this statement during a momentary hush in the after-dinner chat of the smoke-room, and withdrew his eyes from the little, neat man with the Bloping shoulders who had just come in. He examined with interest the butt; of his cigar, and carefully licked an angle of leaf which threatened to come loose. Sir Randal Vereker (the hydraulic specialist), who had won ■the auction pool on the run that day, was standing coffee and liqueurs round ; and the purser, after telling tho attendant steward that his was a knmniel and cognac, stuck the cigar into the corner of his mouth, and jingled the keys in his trousers' pocket. Then he thrust, his heels out straight before him, and blew truncated cones of tobacco smoke at an incandescent lamp in the deok above. The general talk in the smoke-room did not go on. Mr Horrocks, as became his office, was a noted raconteur, and only Pitcairn continued his remarks on the silver question as affecting the export trade in Bradford manufactured goods. < Pitcairn had crossed to New York nine times in the Laconic already, and had a notion that he knew by heart all the purser's tales ; moreover, being in his capacity of drummer a most widely travelled man himself, he quite believed that his own remarks were thoroughly well worth listening to. "He stole the biggest diamond I ever saw," the purser remarked, meditatively, during one of Pitcairn's pauses for breath. "It was a stone that should have gone down into history on the rim of some Emperor's crown. But as far as I know, it never came up to the surface again after that fellow annexed it." " Probably broken up," suggested Vereker, " and sold in pieces." The purser looked down sharply. " How did you hear about it, Sir Eandal?" he asked, Vereker laughed. " I was only generalising," he said. " I haven't a notion of what you're talking about." " They christened it ' The King Diamond' out at Kimberley." " Never heard of it," said Sir Eandal. " I leave Lady Vereker to specialize in diamonds for the pair of us." " Now there you are again," said Pitcairn. " Diamonds are like silver — the price varies according to the quantity put on the market ; and as-things are situated at present; the nation^ are 'at the mercy of traders who've got -capital and brains enough to make corners. Now, if I had the managing of it " " You haven't," the purser cut in, acidly, " and you are never likely to have. You can handle diamonds in a tie-pin, but in bulk they'd just flummox you." ' ; " Oh, trot out your chestnut, old man," said Pitcairn. " Someone wake me if I snore." The smoke-room rustled itself into easy positions for listening, and the purser, after pretending for a minute or so to ignore the silence, suddenly.looked dorm and said, " Oh, you want the tale, do you ?" " For Heaven's sake go on man, and get it over," said Pitcairn. "Well," said the purser, "there's only one fellow in this smoke-room this yarn'll be a chestnut to, and he's new to the Laconic. It isn't a yarn I usually trot out for the benefit of passengers. It shows up one man as a specially fino sample of blessed fool, and he's a man I've a particular liking for, and he's sitting in my breeches this minute. I didn't always use to be in this Western Ocean trade. I started life at sea on the Cape run, and I'd worked up from the very bottom to being purser on the finest ship that went down there. It was a jolly snug berth, I can tell you, with lots of pickings ; and as this business with the King Diamond bundled me out of it> and left me to cool my heels about tho streets for a matter of twenty very lean months, it isn't a thing I chatter about through sheer' pride at being sacked." " Which line was that on ?" asked Pitcairn. " Never you mind," said the purser. "It was one of the two big ones, and you can toss up between them. But it was the popular line just then, because the other had had some accidents, and we were the popular ship. We were ram jam full, and the skipper had let his room to a Hatton Garden Jew for a hundred guineas for the run home, aud was bunking in the charthouse. We'd a record passenger list, and they were all very flush. Nothing was too expensive for them ; they always betted in cases of champagne ; and I guess the liquor profits alone on that run footed up to more than two thousand pounds. I tell you I felt very cock-a-hoop over it. I didn't see how the firm could avoid giving me a rise." Pitcairn began to hum " For he's a jolly good purser," but the smoke-room scowled him into silence. Amongst other things, we'd about a gallon and a half of diamonds en board, and that's a kind of freight which pays in a way which would surprise idiots who only know about the cost of sending shoddy across the Western Ocean." " Shoddy doesn't come from Bradford," said Pitcairn. " Shoddy is made — — " " Oh, kill that man, somebody," the smokeroom shouted, and once more the purser proceeded. " The diamonds were done up in little canvas bags (all barring the big stone, which had a special sealed case to itself), and as, of course, they weren't polished, they looked like so many rusty pebbles. The bags were put in a safe, and the safe was" under my bed-place. There was only one key to the safe, and that lived at the end of my watch chain. It was anxious work, being responsible for those gems, I can tell you, so long as we'd any land connection with South Africa ; but once we were clear, I felt pretty easy. There was an electric bell fitted up to the door of the safe, and if anybody meddled who didn't know how to unswitch it, there'd have been noise enough spread about to wake the ship. And besides, if anybody did loot the diamonds, what were they to do with them? Madeira and Southampton were the only places we touched, and if there was anything gone, you can bet your life no one would, have been allowed to quit the ship till we knew where it was. "Now, diamonds are all very well in their place, but too much diamonds in the conversation — especially when none of them happen to be yours — rather sour on one. And I can tell you the popular talk on that ship made me ill at times. There were only two topics for general conversation, and those were diamonds and their prices ; and when anyone wanted to be brilliantly original, he talked about the King Diamond, and drew pictures of it in lead pencil on the back of our wine-lists. I should think I must have heard the history of that infernal stone at least eighteen thousand times, counting all the variations : how a Kaffir found it in the bine clay ; how he swallowed it ; how they gave him medicine; how three 1.D.8. kopje-wallopers from Petticoat Lane were after it; how the proper owners safeguarded -it with guns and a six-ton burglar-proof box ; how half the white men in the Cape did obeisance to it through iron bars at half a guinea a head; how

syndicates wero formed to buy up tenth shares in tho gem; and all the rest of the degrading money-grubbing 1 rubbish. I might have admired that stone myself if I'd been given a fair chance, and even have worshipped it as a mild sort of god ; but the talk about it killed all my interest ; and if it hadn't been for the profit it was bringing the steamer as carrier, I should have gone very near hating it. And so, as things were, I was just driven into chumming with a man called Farren out of sheer disgust for everyone else on the passenger list. " I tell you straight that on any other trip this Farren was not a man I should have had anything more than a nod for. He was a little slip of a fellow with hockbottle shoulders and wandering eyes, and he'd some sort of missionary notions that I'd got no use for whatever. But he didn't talk diamonds ; thought they were sinful, or something ; and I tell you, after a spell with the others, that inaq's society used to come to me like a visit to the country. I'd tip him the wink, and he and I'd slip away from the rest, and go down to my room, and put up our heels and rest. He'd stretch himself out on the sofa, and I'd slip my shoes and lie on the bed and just listen while he talked arid preached. Times, I'd feel that grateful to him I almost wished he'd hand round the hat for a collection after he'd finished. " Well, gentlemen, things went on this way— diamonds, diamonds, diamonds, with short refreshing spells of Farren, till after we'd left Madeira, and had made half a day's steam towards home ; and then a queerish thing happened. We came across a steamer lying-to right in our track. "There's nothing in that, you'll say. Well, perhaps not, but wait a bit. This steamer, as soon as we drew abeam, made steam and bore away on our course, keeping parallel to us, about a quarter of a mile off, to port. It doesn't take much to interest people on a long- voyage liner, and youcan guess it wasn't long before most pairs of eyes aboard of us were turned on to the other steamer, especially as she happened to be a yacht. Who was she? — plenty of people were asking, and the answer to that was simple. She was Lord Raybury's yacht, a brand-new sixteen knotter. Her picture had been in all the illustrated papers, and two of our officers had seen her before she left the yard, so there was no mistake about that matter. But what was she up to ? No one could say, and our passengers made a regular industry out of bettinp over it. " We officers of the ship didn't worry our heads much about the matter. If you were to try and find out the why and -wherefore of all the queer things you see in the Wo Atl antics I guess you'd go .first grey and then bald, and then into a lunatic asylum within there years* time. And so we looked at the yacht, hanging always in the same place on our port beam, without worrying our heads particularly as to what her little game might be. But as I say, the passengers were different ; it was a brand-new interest to the lot of them. It was an A 1 topic to gamble on; and I tell you the talk in that smoke-room began to get interesting. We'd got some really imaginative and accomplished liars on our passenger-list that trip, and they were always ready to back up their talk with good, solid bets. " They became regularly amusing to listen to. Diamonds were not spoken of once after Lord Eaybury's yacht joined us ; and I began to think that our passengers could make themselves as nice and cheery a lot as any man might wanb to meet. I just let Farren slide. I'd got no use for any more of his sermon-and-water.talk; and the day after the yacht turned up, when he asked himself down to my room whilst I was making up some accounts after lunch, I let him know sharply enough that people who came in there had to wait for an invitation. A person like me doesn't chuni with cheap teetotalers of the Mr Farren type, who run up no wine bills and bring the steamer no profit, unless he's pretty hard up for a mate. But, mark you, that man was no fool; and he got round me two days later in a way I don't think anybody could conveniently have guessed at.' " From what turned out afterwards, I suppose he intended to play his little game directly after the yacht joined us, but the weather was a. bit dirty then, and it freshened up to a snoring breeze directly afterwards, which we carried with us all the road through the Bay. There was a big ugly head sea running which knocked a couple of knots off our pace, and the yacht i was making very wet weather of it, indeed. A careful skipper would have slowed her down, but her's didn't; he rammed her at it, and risked carrying everything away. He hung on exactly in his place, and our passengers betted Lord Eaybury himself was on board forcing the old man to drive her. " But when we rounded Ushant and opened out the Channel, the breeze left us and the sea -went down a bit, although it was still ugly enough. And that was the time Farren came on the carpet again ; and although, as I say, what he did got me the sack from the company, I'll own straight out that no man could have shown more real dare-devil, armour-plated pluck. " He came up to me in the port alleyway that day just after lunch, wobbling about on his feet like he always did when we were in a sea-way. " ' Mr Horrocks/ ho says, with his cheap, sickly grin, ' it's a long time since we had one of our chats together/ " ' 'Tis/ said I. ' I've been busy. I'm busy now. I'm very behind-hand with making up the ship's papers/ " ' Ah ! ' says he, ' you've been so taken up with this yacht business, that it's dragged you away from your work. It seems to have made a large amount of interest in the ship/ " ' Oh,' I said, ' that lot will bet on anyr thing/ '• He laughed in a weak sort of way. ' Well, purser/ says he, ' I hope yoti've feathered your own nest over the affair ? ' " ' I can't say I have/ said I, and began to move off towards my room. " ' Pity that/ says he, ' when if s so easy. " I turned round. ' How do you mean ? Could you make money out of it ?' "'Certainly I could, if I wished to; only, as you know, I consider it wrong to bet/ "'Then/ said I, a bit sarcastically, 'you must have information which nobody else on this ship has gof? " His eyes wangled over me with a look of surprise, and' * lurch sent hixa against a cabin door. /lie was a man who never found his sea-legs. ' And why shouldn't I liave ?' he says slowly. " ' Well, if it comes to that, how can you, of all people, know what the yacht is doing here?' " ' Never mind, Mr Horrocks, how I picked up the knowledge, but you can take it from me that I not only know who's on board, but I also know that yachfs exact business/ " ' That's an asset of value/ I said, and then stopped and considered a minute. « Is there any consideration that I could offer which would induce you to part with the knowledge ?' •"My dear Horrocks/ he said, 'if you want to know, of course I'll tell you freely enough. I'd have told you any time if you'd asked me. Only I don't think we've seen much of one another since the yacht's been in sight/ He had me there. " ' It's a bit of a long story/ he went on, ' but if you can wait a minute or so I'll tell it you now— if you think no one is

likely to overhear us, standing who*© tts are/ . ■ ■> "'Certainly not, Mr Farren/ said Ii x You come right along to my room and have a cigar. You won't drink ■whisky I know, but you shall have iced lemonade ia two shakes, if you care for that.' " Chapter 11. The purser of the Laconic ceased speaking, and scraped a match. When it was well alight he held the charred and of his cigar in the flame, and watched it with interest, "I ani afraid, " lie said, "that I am boring you gentlemen with all these preliminaries. I never could tell a tale well. Besides, there's one man iri this smoke-room who could finish this yarn much better than I can. He knows a lot o£ facts about it that I have, not even guessed at up to now." The eye 3of the smoke-room swung round till they all converged on Pitcairn, but thai? excellent person for once in his life looked slightly nonplussed. The purser came to his .rescue. He intimated that Pitcairn'a brain was quite unequal to guessing the sequel of the yarn, and again invited the only man who could finish it to do so in detail. We began to look at one another. with interest. It was occurring, to each of us that we must have struck up a shipboard acquaintance with some man who only a few years previously had been concerned in a very remarkable robbery. But' after a cursory survey had not shown anyone to appear obtrusively guilty (although f or some reason we few of us seemed tob© looking exactly at our best just then), a quaint feeling of restraint got hold of : us. Each man seemed to feel that it was vaguely insulting to look at his neighbour, and eyes glanced up towards the deck above, and the smoke mist thickened. But by degrees glances were lowered, and found a safe resting-place on the. person -of Mr Horrocks. It was Vereker who voiced the general wish. "I think, purser," he Said, "we shall have to bother you. You haveshown such power as a raconteur that the other man, whoever he may be, is evidently nervous of entering into competition." ' The purser grinned, ■ and bit the end from a fresh cigar. "Funny thing, Sir Eandal," said he, "but Farren was nervous too. When Favren came info ' my room that day I thought he would have fainted, and for a good ten minutes he sat there on my sofa with the colours going and coming from his face like limelight in a theatre. But I didn't hurry him or anything. I let hsm take his time, and sat on the bed and watched the yacht through my port-hole. She was there in her usual place, just abeam, with about a quarter of a mile of ugly-looking water between her and us, and I was conning over in my mind how I was going to make dividends out of her. "Farren roused me up by calling my name, and I tell you what 1 saw, when I turned round, fairly made me sweat. He was standing there with his back against the door, and one hand turning ' the key behind him. as I looked. Heb^jl a revolver in his other fist, with ihe second finger on the trigger, and it didn't require mush brains to see that, whatever else might be, he was no blooming amateur with a gun. He was looking sick enough still, but I give him credit, he came to the point like a man. "'Now 111 tell you, Mr Horrocks; what that yacht's there for,' he says. 'She's come to take away the King Diamond, and I'm here to carry it across to her. I'll trouble you to make use of that safe-key which hangs at the end of your watchchain.' " Well, I'll own freely I was took all of a heap. 'By heavens, Mr Farren,' I began to stammer out, 'this is piracy/ but -he cut me short. "' I quite agree with you,' he answerd, ' but we'll take all that for said. I've got no time for talk — and — it would annoy me very much to shoot you. I don*t like you for yourself, Horrocks, but you mentioned you have a wife and family in. London, and I've respect for them. Turn round, please. Thanks. Now you'll quite understand that my pistol is within a foot of your backbone, and if you force me to shoot you. I snail just take the key and help myself. Sol want you to clearly understand that you'll only lose your life if you are obstinate through any foolish notions of being faithful to your trust, and lose it quite uselessly. Kindly shift 'your bed-cLotheS on to the floor.' "I did it. "'Now switch off that infernal alarm bell which you bragged about, and open the safe.' "I did that too. ." • The King Diamond, please.' "I handed him the morocco case. I heard the two clicks as he opened and shut it to make sure the gem was all right, and then he ordered me to clasp my hands behind my neck, and go out of the cabin. ' I'll leave you your gallon and a half of other gems,' said he ; ' and you can swear that you defended them bravely, if you think that will' save your credit. Anyway, say what you choose : I will never contradict you. Now outside, please, quickly.' " I stepped into the alley-way, and the door slammed on my heels. I heard the bolt shoot in the lock, and I fancy it's to my credit that I didn't stay there gaping to think. I raced for the chart-house at top speed. The old man wasn't there. He'd gone on to the upper bridge. And away I went after him. . " I gave him my tale in twenty words, and instinctively we both looked towards tbe yacht. She had slowed down, and was edging in towards our track. Beyond a doubt, Farren had spoken truth ; she was there after the King Diamond, and he had signalled her out of my cabin port. " But what was to be the next move, we could not guess. The skipper rang ' stand by ' to the engine-room, and waited developments, with, his hand on the telegraph. •My Great Scot !' I heard him mutter, 'they're never going to have the cheek to board us ! They'll stove in half our plates f they try it on with this sea running/ " I reminded him that the yacht -had two knots more speed than we had. " ' I know that,' says the old man. 'By gum ! this is a regular Robinson Crusoe piracy bxisiness. And the worst of it is, if they come on board here, with a dozen rifles, we've nothing that can stop them from just helping themselves to what they fancy.' He ran his eye round the horizon. There was a Hamburg- American boat away astern of us, and a couple of steam colliers and half-a-dozen old wind-jammers on one side or the other, but not such a thing as a cruiser in sight, of course, just because we -wanted one. ' That yaclitf s toeen run »wajr with,' says he, 'that's what's the matter with her. This isn't a sort of game a man like Lord Eaybury would play.' "'She's slowing down, sir/ says L ' She's dropping astern of us/ and I was going to say something else, when a regular stream of yells broke out from our passen^ gers, who were all leaning over the port rail to see what this yacht they had been betting about so industriously was up '"'Man overboard! There he is! By Jove, he's sunk! No, there he is again ! Throw a lifebuoy, someone ! Its Farren: that little missionary man, Farren ! He iumped out through a port : just squeezed out head first ! He was sucked dawn under the propeller! He's got an arm cutoff! He liaro't : lie's holding on to a cork belt •with tLat arm he isn't swimming with ! He isn't swimming at all: he can't swim! Look at the way he's clawine about!" "The mate on watch had got a 'whistle between his teeth before you could say 'knife/ ' Port lifeboat/ he should. ' Tumble aft the crew '—and thenled the way himself,

and went for the awning lashing 3 with his knife. He left the bridge to the old man, and the old man rang off the engines; Bat a. big steamer like ours carries way, and we weren't prepared, and the yacht ■was. They'd slowed down close by Farren, and their boat was in the water before ours had left davits, and I guesß they had picked bfni up and got him on board and j their boat run np again before ours was half-way to where the life-buoys floated. "There was nothing for it; W9 were just helpless ; and we had to see that yacht starboard her helm and steam away ! for the open sea, with Farren, and the j King Diamond, and my character, and all our poor old steambostf 3 blooming credit stowed away under her hatches. • The only thing- . we could dp -was to- go on to Southampton, and report. But we didn't much expect to recover the; Sing Diamond again. A man that couldn't swim, and who had the pluck to drop head first out of a port into a heavy sea, and risk being chawed up by the propeller, wasn't the sort to give up a plum once he'd got his fingers over it. And that is about what happened. "The yacht had been run away with. She was all ready for sea, and victualled for a long cruise, when up comes a chap with a letter, forged, of course, written by Lord Bay bury to the skipper, and telling him to accept bearer's orders in every particular. The chap, who was Farren's partner, met our steamer with him on board by arrangement at sea, and stood by and waited for a, signal. He-picked Farren up precious near drowned, but with the morocco case all right in his pocket, and then they shoved across for the Mexican Gulf. When the yacht's skipper objected, he wa3 shown Lord Baybury's letter; and finally, when coal ran oat, and they found themselves in the Florida Channel, Farren and his friend rowed off in a boat, saying they would arrange about Tebnnkering, and naturally enough didn't turn up again ; and the yacht after drifting three days helplessly under canvas an the Gulf Stream, was picked up by a tramp and towed into Norfolk, Virginia. "The whole thing was about aa disgustingly simple as a man could want when you knew how it had been done ; and the company, who hadn't watched the way it had been worked up to, said the robbery might have been prevented. It was no use my talking. The blame thing had leaked into the papers, and somebody had got to be a scapegoat, and here was I close and handy. I guess they wouldn't have been human if they hadn't sacked me." " And the Liverpool New York run would have missed its best purser," said Prbcairn. " Old fellow, here's yourmost excellent and honoured health! But did the fools of police never stumble upon your Farren man?" "Not they," said Horrocks. "So far as I know, the fellow's never come *up to the surface— till now." ' r Whatf-s this?' said Pitcaarn. "D'you really mean jbo say he's in this^-smokirtg-room right now 7* "That's what I mean," said the purser. " I suppose he's been-sick or sorry orsomething before ; but, anyway, this is his first appearance on tm'3 ship'; so he's been under the surface now for exactly five years and one month ; and — perhaps he may have something to-explain." The purser lit his new cigar, and no one spoke. The onlysonn'ds were the noises of the ship and the faint clash of the seas outside. The purser got his cigar in full blast and looked at the glowing tip meditatively. "Dundas is the name he's shipped under here," he observed at last. "Pity for some people, isn't it, that they can't change a face as handily as they can alter a signature/ "I beg your pardon," said the little, quiet man with sloping-shoulders who &at next to Vekeker, "but you apparently mean me, purser. My name's Dundas, and through sea-sickness this 13 my first appearance in thiscroom. Did I annex this celebrated gem;?" "You did," said Horrocks,*grimly. " Well," said the small man, " I appear to be more fortunate than 1 thought, and far more fond of the salt water. What do you-think, Vereker ? Just five years, and a month ago, I think-yousaid, purser 7" Sir Bandal Vereker did not answer at once; he lay back first and laughed till tears ran down the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. 'Bnfc-at last he sobered down and got his voice again, and, said he, "Purser, I'm afraid you've got the wrong pig by the ear this time. Five years ago from now, Mr Duadaswa&second secretary in the British Embassy at Pekin. I was doing work at Shanghai then, and saw him constantly. In fact, I've known him all my life." The purser said " Oh J"*and looked both red and foolish. Dundas, however, had some more to add on the subject. " Your man Farren," he said, "is evidently very much like me in personal appearance ?" "Or I shouldn't have tumbled into main-rig such a mistake," said the purser. "Precisely. Well, just before I came here, I happened to be in Shanghai, and a doctor I knew there told me they'd got my double in hospital. Out of curiosity, I went to see him, and I nrastsay the pair of us were as much alike as two — cr — hockbottles. It wasn?ta flattering find, because the other poor fellow was clean mad. He'd a lump of rough crystal, almost as big as a pigeon's egg, which he fancied was a diamond that everybody was trying to steal from him. Curious-shaped crystal it was, top, with markings like three accurate concentric circles indented in one end." "My great Scot !" said the purser, " and a cross just round the corner from the other end? Long-shaped, was it, with a bit of a: faint yellow smudge down one aide?" " That's the thing/ said Dundas. " Why, man !" shouted the purser, "if s the King .Diamond itself you're talking about. There couldn't be another like it." . "But I tell you it was no diamond at all. It was only some sort of crystal that was not hard enough to scratch glass, and no man that was sane would have taken it for anything else when he came to handle it" " Whew I" said the purser, and mopped a J moist forehead with his pocket-hand- j kerchief. I " Did you ever have the gem you were talking of in your fingers?" asked Vereker. " Come to think of it, I never did," the purser admitted. "It was sealed before me, and then delivered into my charge, and I gave a receipt." • ' " Then, if an outsider might form a theory," said Yereker, "the real stone was stolen somewhere at the Cape, and a forgery sent home so that the theft might not be discovered till as late an hour as possible. How those thieves out there must haye chuckled- when they heard of Farren -and Co. coming, exmacliind, to help play their game." "Christopher Moses [' said the purser, thoughtfully. " You're-iight, Sir Bandal. That's the, game, for a thousand; And where's ;that -stone now, by any chance?" " Ah, there you axe asking me too much," gaid Vereker. "But I shouldn't say it waa broken up. When it had officially ceased to exist, it could be very easily smuggled out of the Cape; and once it got carted away to the East, there would be heaps of purchasers ready to buy and hold their tongues for a little discount. A Shab, or an Indian Bajah, never cares about a big diamond's history so long aa he gets it snugly into his treasury. Very likely,, to hazard another guess, it was brought home in your own steamer, not many yards away f rom its togus cousin. That would have been the safest way to dispose-of it." The purser sighed. "Well," he said, *' I shall give an official report of this to my old company, for the sake of helping to dear my own ticket. And they can act how they please. But if thakstone were mine, I gueas I'd Bell my present interest in it for juat two fingers of whisky." Pitcairn struck a bell, and the smokeroom steward caane towards him. "^pM^»,"'hesaid7' r What'll everybody have ? It&iny shout : Lfine myself drinks round for interrupting. I thought-it was narely- we -wegefcgoing to

have. I'd no idea the purser was going to pixt his foot in it so deliriously with Mr Dundas."