第32章

The dispute between them began in Mr.Franklin being led--I forget how--to acknowledge that he had latterly slept very badly at night.Mr.Candy thereupon told him that his nerves were all out of order, and that he ought to go through a course of medicine immediately.Mr.Franklin replied that a course of medicine, and a course of groping in the dark, meant, in his estimation, one and the same thing.Mr.Candy, hitting back smartly, said that Mr.

Franklin himself was, constitutionally speaking, groping in the dark after sleep, and that nothing but medicine could help him to find it.Mr.Franklin, keeping the ball up on his side, said he had often heard of the blind leading the blind, and now, for the first time, he knew what it meant.In this way, they kept it going briskly, cut and thrust, till they both of them got hot--Mr.Candy, in particular, so completely losing his self-control, in defence of his profession, that my lady was obliged to interfere, and forbid the dispute to go on.This necessary act of authority put the last extinguisher on the spirits of the company.The talk spurted up again here and there, for a minute or two at a time; but there was a miserable lack of life and sparkle in it.The Devil (or the Diamond) possessed that dinner-party;and it was a relief to everybody when my mistress rose, and gave the ladies the signal to leave the gentlemen over their wine.

I had just ranged the decanters in a row before old Mr.Ablewhite (who represented the master of the house), when there came a sound from the terrace which startled me out of my company manners on the instant.Mr.

Franklin and I looked at each other; it was the sound of the Indian drum.

As I live by bread, here were the jugglers returning to us with the return of the Moonstone to the house!

As they rounded the corner of the terrace, and came in sight, I hobbled out to warn them off.But, as ill-luck would have it, the two Bouncers were beforehand with me.They whizzed out on to the terrace like a couple of sky-rockets, wild to see the Indians exhibit their tricks.The other ladies followed; the gentlemen came out on their side.Before you could say, `Lord bless us!' the rogues were making their salaams; and the Bouncers were kissing the pretty little boy.

Mr.Franklin got on one side of Miss Rachel, and I put myself behind her.If our suspicions were right, there she stood, innocent of all knowledge of the truth, showing the Indians the Diamond in the bosom of her dress!

I can't tell you what tricks they performed, or how they did it.What with the vexation about the dinner, and what with the provocation of the rogues coming back just in the nick of time to see the jewel with their own eyes, I own I lost my head.The first thing that I remember noticing was the sudden appearance on the scene of the Indian traveller, Mr.Murthwaite.

Skirting the half-circle in which the gentlefolks stood or sat, he came quietly behind the jugglers and spoke to them on a sudden in the language of their own country.

If he had pricked them with a bayonet, I doubt if the Indians could have started and turned on him with a more tigerish quickness than they did, on hearing the first words that passed his lips.The next moment they were bowing and salaaming to him in their most polite and snaky way.After a few words in the unknown tongue had passed on either side, Mr.Murthwaite withdrew as quietly as he had approached.The chief Indian, who acted as interpreter, thereupon wheeled about again towards the gentlefolks.I noticed that the fellow's coffee-coloured face had turned grey since Mr.Murthwaite had spoken to him.He bowed to my lady, and informed her that the exhibition was over.The Bouncers, indescribably disappointed, burst out with a loud `O!' directed against Mr.Murthwaite for stopping the performance.The chief Indian laid his hand humbly on his breast, and said a second time that the juggling was over.The little boy went round with the hat.The ladies withdrew to the drawing-room; and the gentlemen (excepting Mr.Franklin and Mr.Murthwaite) returned to their wine.I and the footman followed the Indians, and saw them safe off the premises.

Going back by way of the shrubbery, I smelt tobacco, and found Mr.Franklin and Mr.Murthwaite (the latter smoking a cheroot) walking slowly up and down among the trees.Mr.Franklin beckoned to me to join them.

`This,' says Mr.Franklin, presenting me to the great traveller, `is Gabriel Betteredge, the old servant and friend of our family of whom Ispoke to you just now.Tell him, if you please, what you have just told me.'

Mr.Murthwaite took his cheroot out of his mouth, and leaned in his weary way, against the trunk of a tree.

`Mr.Betteredge,' he began, `those three Indians are no more jugglers than you and I are.'

Here was a new surprise! I naturally asked the traveller if he had ever met with the Indians before.

`Never,' says Mr.Murthwaite; `but I know what Indian juggling really is.All you have seen to-night is a very bad and clumsy imitation of it.

Unless, after long experience, I am utterly mistaken, those men are high-caste Brahmins.I charged them with being disguised, and you saw how it told on them, clever as the Hindoo people are in concealing their feelings.

There is a mystery about their conduct that I can't explain.They have doubly sacrificed their caste--first, in crossing the sea; secondly, in disguising themselves as jugglers.In the land they live in that is a tremendous sacrifice to make.There must be some very serious motive at the bottom of it, and some justification of no ordinary kind to plead for them, in recovery of their caste, when they return to their own country.'

I was struck dumb.Mr.Murthwaite went on with his cheroot.Mr.Franklin, after what looked to me like a little private veering about between the different sides of his character, broke the silence as follows: