and talked on the first subjects that entered my
head. He was restless in his manner, inattentive, slightly flushed in
the face; wore a lofty manner, and being half a head taller than I,
glanced down at me from time to time in a condescending way. This
behaviour in him was what Captain North and I had agreed to call his
"injured air." He'd occasionally put it on to remind us that he was
affronted by the captain's insensibility to his loss, and that the
assistance of the police would be demanded on our arrival at Cape Town.

Presently looking down the skylight, I perceived the captain. Mackenzie
had charge of the watch. I descended the steps, and Captain North's
first words to me were:--

"It's no diamond!"

"What, then, is it?"

"A common piece of glass not worth a quarter of a farthing."

"What's it all about, then?" said I. "Upon my soul, there's nothing in
Euclid to beat it. Glass?"

"A little lump of common glass; a fragment of bull's-eye, perhaps."

"What's he hiding it for?"

"Because," said Captain North, in a soft voice, looking up and around,
"he's mad!"

"Just so!" said I. "That I'll swear to _now_, and I've been suspecting
it this fortnight past."

"He's under the spell of some sort of mania," continued the captain; "he
believes he's commissioned to present a diamond to the Queen; possibly
picked up a bit of stuff in the street that started the delusion, then
bought a case for it, and worked out the rest as we know."

"But why does he want to pretend that the stone was stolen from him?"

"He's been mastered by his own love for the diamond," he answered.
"That's how I reason it. Madness has made his affection for his
imaginary gem a passion in him."

"And so he robbed himself of it, you think, that he might keep it?"

"That's about it," said he.

After this I kept no further look-out upon the Major, nor would I ever
take an opportunity to enter his cabin to view for myself the piece of
glass as the captain described it, though curiosity was often hot in me.

We arrived at Table Bay in twenty-two days from the date of my seeing
the Major with the pistol in his hand. His manner had for a week before
been marked by an irritability that was often beyond his control. He had
talked snappishly and petulantly at table, contradicted aggressively,
and on two occasions gave Captain North the lie; but we had carefully
avoided noticing his manner, and acted as though he were still the high
bred, polish