is an instinct and means
warning. The psychic faculties are often the sentries of the
intellect, and when they sound alarm the reason begins to act,
although perhaps not consciously.

This was so with me. I began to bethink me where I was and by what
surrounded, and to wonder how I should fare in case I should be
attacked; and then the thought suddenly burst upon me, although
without any overt cause, that I was in danger. Prudence whispered: 'Be
still and make no sign,' and so I was still and made no sign, for I
knew that four cunning eyes were on me. 'Four eyes--if not more.' My
God, what a horrible thought! The whole shanty might be surrounded on
three sides with villains! I might be in the midst of a band of such
desperadoes as only half a century of periodic revolution can produce.

With a sense of danger my intellect and observation quickened, and I
grew more watchful than was my wont. I noticed that the old woman's
eyes were constantly wandering towards my hands. I looked at them too,
and saw the cause--my rings. On my left little finger I had a large
signet and on the right a good diamond.

I thought that if there was any danger my first care was to avert
suspicion. Accordingly I began to work the conversation round to
rag-picking--to the drains--of the things found there; and so by easy
stages to jewels. Then, seizing a favourable opportunity, I asked the
old woman if she knew anything of such things. She answered that she
did, a little. I held out my right hand, and, showing her the diamond,
asked her what she thought of that. She answered that her eyes were
bad, and stooped over my hand. I said as nonchalantly as I could:
'Pardon me! You will see better thus!' and taking it off handed it to
her. An unholy light came into her withered old face, as she touched
it. She stole one glance at me swift and keen as a flash of lightning.

She bent over the ring for a moment, her face quite concealed as
though examining it. The old man looked straight out of the front of
the shanty before him, at the same time fumbling in his pockets and
producing a screw of tobacco in a paper and a pipe, which he proceeded
to fill. I took advantage of the pause and the momentary rest from the
searching eyes on my face to look carefully round the place, now dim
and shadowy in the gloaming. There still lay all the heaps of varied
reeking foulness; there the terrible blood-stained axe leaning against
the wall in the right hand corner,