e, a little bright object, lying on the clean gravel, under
the light of the moon. Picking the object up, I discovered it was a
small bottle, containing a thick sweet-smelling liquor, as black as ink.

I said nothing to Samuel. But, remembering what Penelope had told me
about the jugglers, and the pouring of the little pool of ink into the
palm of the boy's hand, I instantly suspected that I had disturbed the
three Indians, lurking about the house, and bent, in their heathenish
way, on discovering the whereabouts of the Diamond that night.

CHAPTER VIII

Here, for one moment, I find it necessary to call a halt.

On summoning up my own recollections--and on getting Penelope to help
me, by consulting her journal--I find that we may pass pretty rapidly
over the interval between Mr. Franklin Blake's arrival and Miss Rachel's
birthday. For the greater part of that time the days passed, and brought
nothing with them worth recording. With your good leave, then, and
with Penelope's help, I shall notice certain dates only in this place;
reserving to myself to tell the story day by day, once more, as soon as
we get to the time when the business of the Moonstone became the chief
business of everybody in our house.

This said, we may now go on again--beginning, of course, with the bottle
of sweet-smelling ink which I found on the gravel walk at night.

On the next morning (the morning of the twenty-sixth) I showed Mr.
Franklin this article of jugglery, and told him what I have already told
you. His opinion was, not only that the Indians had been lurking about
after the Diamond, but also that they were actually foolish enough to
believe in their own magic--meaning thereby the making of signs on a
boy's head, and the pouring of ink into a boy's hand, and then expecting
him to see persons and things beyond the reach of human vision. In our
country, as well as in the East, Mr. Franklin informed me, there are
people who practise this curious hocus-pocus (without the ink, however);
and who call it by a French name, signifying something like brightness
of sight. "Depend upon it," says Mr. Franklin, "the Indians took it for
granted that we should keep the Diamond here; and they brought their
clairvoyant boy to show them the way to it, if they succeeded in getting
into the house last night."

"Do you think they'll try again, sir?" I asked.

"It depends," says Mr. Franklin, "on what the boy can really do. If he
can see the Diam