e way of business; and if he did such a
foolish thing, he would be certain to do it with some houses of good
standing--if, indeed, anything can be taken as certain in the case of a
gentleman with such extraordinary fancies and plans as his."

"Thank you, Mr. Prendergast," Mark said, with a slight smile at the
lawyer's irritability; "that will be clearing the ground to a certain
extent. If that does not succeed, I think I shall go to India
myself, and shall there make similar inquiries at all the principal
establishments at Calcutta and Madras. Should I fail there, it seems to
me that the only remaining plan will be to find out from the military
authorities the place where my uncle's regiment was encamped on the
day--we have the date on which the jewels were given to him--and to
institute a minute search of all the old ruins within such a distance as
he might have reached within a day's ride."

"But you have no certainty that it was a ruin. He might have dug a hole
under his tent and have buried the things there; he might have taken a
shovel and buried them in a clump of bushes a quarter of a mile away.
The thing is more and more ridiculous the more you look at it."

"I see it is very difficult, sir, but one might narrow it down somewhat
if one discovered the spot. Probably there are still native officers in
the regiment who were there at the time. If so, they might possibly know
who was my uncle's servant at the time. The man may be a pensioner,
and in that case I might discover his address through the military
authorities, and I could find out from him whether my uncle often rode
out at night, what were his habits, and possibly where the tent stood,
and so on."

"Well," Mr. Prendergast said, "if you like to undertake a wild goose
chase of this sort it is your business, and not mine; but I consider
the idea is the most Utopian that I ever heard of. As to where the tent
stood, is it likely that a man would remember to within a hundred yards
where a tent stood fourteen years ago? Why, you might dig up acres and
acres of ground and not be sure then that you had hit upon the right
place."

"There is one other circumstance, Mr. Prendergast," Mark said quietly,
"that has to be taken into consideration, and which renders it
improbable that these diamonds were hidden anywhere by my uncle
himself at that time. He certainly spoke of the whole of this treasure
collectively. It is morally certain that he would not carry all th