is Peeping-Tom scheme was at all to my
taste, albeit my own proposal; but the truth is, the Major's telling us
that someone had stolen his diamond made all who lived aft hotly eager
to find out whether he spoke the truth or not; for, if he had been
really robbed of the stone, then suspicion properly rested upon the
officers and the steward, which was an _infernal_ consideration:
dishonouring and inflaming enough to drive one to seek a remedy in even
a baser device than that of secretly keeping watch on a man in his
bedroom. Then, again, the captain told me that the Major, whilst they
talked when the carpenter was at work making the hole, had said he would
give notice of his loss to the police at Cape Town (at which place we
were to touch), and declared he'd take care no man went ashore--from
Captain North himself down to the youngest apprentice--till every
individual, every sea-chest, every locker, drawer, shelf and box, bunk,
bracket and crevice had been searched by qualified rummagers.

[Illustration: "THE CARPENTER THEN WENT TO WORK."]

On this the day of the theft, nothing more was said about the diamond:
that is, after the captain had emphatically informed Major Hood that he
meant to take no steps whatever in the matter. I had expected to find
the Major sullen and silent at dinner; he was not, indeed, so talkative
as usual, but no man watching and hearing him would have supposed so
heavy a loss as that of a stone worth fifteen thousand pounds, the gift
of an Eastern potentate to the Queen of England, was weighing upon his
spirits.

It is with reluctance I tell you that, after dinner that day, when he
went to his cabin, I softly withdrew the plug and watched him. I blushed
whilst thus acting, yet I was determined, for my own sake and for the
sake of my shipmates, to persevere. I spied nothing noticeable saving
this: he sat in a folding chair and smoked, but every now and again he
withdrew his cigar from his mouth and talked to it with a singular
smile. It was a smile of cunning, that worked like some baleful, magical
spirit in the fine high breeding of his features; changing his looks
just as a painter of incomparable skill might colour a noble, familiar
face into a diabolical expression, amazing those who knew it only in its
honest and manly beauty. I had never seen that wild, grinning
countenance on him before, and it was rendered the more remarkable by
the movement of his lips whilst he talked to himself, but i