CHAPTER X

FOURTH NARRATIVE

FIFTH NARRATIVE

SIXTH NARRATIVE

I

II

III

IV

V

SEVENTH NARRATIVE

EIGHTH NARRATIVE

EPILOGUE

I

II

III

PROLOGUE

THE STORMING OF SERINGAPATAM (1799):

_(Extracted from a Family Paper.)_

I

I address these lines—written in India—to my relatives in England.

My object is to explain the motive which has induced me to refuse the

right hand of friendship to my cousin, John Herncastle. The reserve

which I have hitherto maintained in this matter has been misinterpreted

by members of my family whose good opinion I cannot consent to forfeit.

I request them to suspend their decision until they have read my

narrative. And I declare, on my word of honour, that what I am now

about to write is, strictly and literally, the truth.

The private difference between my cousin and me took its rise in a

great public event in which we were both concerned—the storming of

Seringapatam, under General Baird, on the 4th of May, 1799.

In order that the circumstances may be clearly understood, I must

revert for a moment to the period before the assault, and to the

stories current in our camp of the treasure in jewels and gold stored

up in the Palace of Seringapatam.

II

One of the wildest of these stories related to a Yellow Diamond—a

famous gem in the native annals of India.

The earliest known traditions describe the stone as having been set in

the forehead of the four-handed Indian god who typifies the Moon.

Partly from its peculiar colour, partly from a superstition which

represented it as feeling the influence of the deity whom it adorned,

and growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the

moon, it first gained the name by which it continues to be known in

India to this day—the name of THE MOONSTONE. A similar superstition was

once prevalent, as I have heard, in ancient Greece and Rome; not

applying, however (as in India), to a diamond devoted to the service of

a god, but to a semi-transparent stone of the inferior order of gems,

supposed to be affected by the lunar influences—the moon, in this

latter case also, giving the name by which the stone is still known to

collectors in our own time.

The adventures of the Yellow Diamond begin with the eleventh century of

the Christian era.

At that date, the Mohammedan conqueror, Mahmoud of Ghizni, crossed

India; seized on the holy city of Somnauth; and stripped of its

treasures the famous temple, which had stood for centuries—the shrine

of Hindoo pilgrimage, and the wonder of the Eastern world.

Of all the deities worshipped in the temple, the moon-god alone escaped

the rapacity of the conquering Mohammedans. Preserved by three

Brahmins, the inviolate deity, bearing the Yellow Diamond in its

forehead, was removed by night, and was transported to the second of

the sacred cities of India—the city of Benares.

Here, in a new shrine—in a hall inlaid with precious stones, under a

roof supported by pillars of gold—the moon-god was set up and

worshipped. Here, on the night when the shrine was completed, Vishnu

the Preserver appeared to the three Brahmins in a dream.

The deity breathed the breath of his divinity on the Diamond in the

forehead of the god. And the Brahmins knelt and hid their faces in

their robes. The deity commanded that the Moonstone should be watched,

from that time forth, by three priests in turn, night and day, to the

end of the generations of men. And the Brahmins heard, and bowed before

his will. The deity predicted certain disaster to the presumptuous

mortal who laid hands on the sacred gem, and to all of his house and

name who received it after him. And the Brahmins caused the prophecy to

be written over the gates of the shrine in letters of gold.

One age followed another—and still, generation after generation, the

successors of the three Brahmins watched their priceless Moonstone,

night and day. One age followed another until the first years of the

eighteenth Christian century saw the reign of Aurungzebe, Emperor of

the Moguls. At his command havoc and rapine were let loose once more

among the temples of the worship of Brahmah. The shrine of the

four-handed god was polluted by the slaughter of sacred animals; the

images of the deities were broken in pieces; and the Moonstone was

seized by an officer of rank in the army of Aurungzebe.

Powerless to recover their lost treasure by open force, the three

guardian priests followed and watched it in disguise. The generations

succeeded each other; the warrior who had committed the sacrilege

perished miserably; the Moonstone passed (carrying its curse with it)

from one lawless Mohammedan hand to another; and still, through all

chances and changes, the successors of the three guardian priests kept

their watch, waiting the day when the will of Vishnu the Preserver

should restore to them their sacred gem. Time rolled on from the first

to the last years of the eighteenth Christian century. The Diamond fell

into the possession of Tippoo, Sultan of Seringapatam, who caused it to

be placed as an ornament in the handle of a dagger, and who commanded

it to be kept among the choicest treasures of his armoury. Even then—in

the palace of the Sultan himself—the three guardian priests still kept

their watch in secret. There were three officers of Tippoo’s household,

strangers to the rest, who had won their master’s confidence by

conforming, or appearing to conform, to the Mussulman faith; and to

those three men report pointed as the three priests in disguise.

III

So, as told in our camp, ran the fanciful story of the Moonstone. It

made no serious impression on any of us except my cousin—whose love of

the marvellous induced him to believe it. On the night before the

assault on Seringapatam, he was absurdly angry with me, and with

others, for treating the whole thing as a fable. A foolish wrangle

followed; and Herncastle’s unlucky temper got the better of him. He

declared, in his boastful way, that we should see the Diamond on his

finger, if the English army took Seringapatam. The sally was saluted by

a roar of laughter, and there, as we all thought that night, the thing

ended.

Let me now take you on to the day of the assault.

My cousin and I were separated at the outset. I never saw him when we

forded the river; when we planted the English flag in the first breach;

when we crossed the ditch beyond; and, fighting every inch of our way,

entered the town. It was only at dusk, when the place was ours, and

after General Baird himself had found the dead body of Tippoo under a

heap of the slain, that Herncastle and I met.

We were each attached to a party sent out by the general’s orders to

prevent the plunder and confusion which followed our conquest. The

camp-followers committed deplorable excesses; and, worse still, the

soldiers found their way, by an unguarded door, into the treasury of the

Palace, and loaded themselves with gold and jewels. It was in the court

outside the treasury that my cousin and I met, to enforce the laws of

discipline on our own soldiers. Herncastle’s fiery temper had been, as

I could plainly see, exasperated to a kind of frenzy by the terrible

slaughter through which we had passed. He was very unfit, in my

opinion, to perform the duty that had been entrusted to him.

There was riot and confusion enough in the treasury, but no violence

that I saw. The men (if I may use such an expression) disgraced

themselves good-humouredly. All sorts of rough jests and catchwords

were bandied about among them; and the story of the Diamond turned up

again unexpectedly, in the form of a mischievous joke. “Who’s got the

Moonstone?” was the rallying cry which perpetually caused the

plundering, as soon as it was stopped in one place, to break out in

another. While I was still vainly trying to establish order, I heard a

frightful yelling on the other side of the courtyard, and at once ran

towards the cries, in dread of finding some new outbreak of the pillage

in that direction.

I got to an open door, and saw the bodies of two Indians (by their

dress, as I guessed, officers of the palace) lying across the entrance,

dead.

A cry inside hurried me into a room, which appeared to serve as an

armoury. A third Indian, mortally wounded, was sinking at the feet of a

man whose back was towards me. The man turned at the instant when I

came in, and I saw John Herncastle, with a torch in one hand, and a

dagger dripping with blood in the other. A stone, set like a pommel, in

the end of the dagger’s handle, flashed in the torchlight, as he turned

on me, like a gleam of fire. The dying Indian sank to his knees,

pointed to the dagger in Herncastle’s hand, and said, in his native

language—“The Moonstone will have its vengeance yet on you and yours!”

He spoke those words, and fell dead on the floor.

Before I could stir in the matter, the men who had followed me across

the courtyard crowded in. My cousin rushed to meet them, like a madman.

“Clear the room!” he shouted to me, “and set a guard on the door!” The

men fell back as he threw himself on them with his torch and his

dagger. I put two sentinels of my own company, on whom I could rely, to

keep the door. Through the remainder of the night, I saw no more of my

cousin.

Early in the morning, the plunder still going on, General Baird

announced publicly by beat of drum, that any thief detected in the

fact, be he whom he might, should be hung. The provost-marshal was in

attendance, to prove that the General was in earnest; and in the throng

that followed the proclamation, Herncastle and I met again.

He held out his hand, as usual, and said, “Good morning.”

I waited before I gave him my hand in return.

“Tell me first,” I said, “how the Indian in the armoury met his death,

and what those last words meant, when he pointed to the dagger in your

hand.”

“The Indian met his death, as I suppose, by a mortal wound,” said

Herncastle. “What his last words meant I know no more than you do.”

I looked at him narrowly. His frenzy of the previous day had all calmed

down. I determined to give him another chance.

“Is that all you have to tell me?” I asked.

He answered, “That is all.”

I turned my back on him; and we have not spoken since.

IV

I beg it to be understood that what I write here about my cousin

(unless some necessity should arise for making it public) is for the

information of the family only. Herncastle has said nothing that can

justify me in speaking to our commanding officer. He has been taunted

more than once about the Diamond, by those who recollect his angry

outbreak before the assault; but, as may easily be imagined, his own

remembrance of the circumstances under which I surprised him in the

armoury has been enough to keep him silent. It is reported that he

means to exchange into another regiment, avowedly for the purpose of

separating himself from _me_.

Whether this be true or not, I cannot prevail upon myself to become his

accuser—and I think with good reason. If I made the matter public, I

have no evidence but moral evidence to bring forward. I have not only

no proof that he killed the two men at the door; I cannot even declare

that he killed the third man inside—for I cannot say that my own eyes

saw the deed committed. It is true that I heard the dying Indian’s

words; but if those words were pronounced to be the ravings of

delirium, how could I contradict the assertion from my own knowledge?

Let our relatives, on either side, form their own opinion on what I

have written, and decide for themselves whether the aversion I now feel

towards this man is well or ill founded.

Although I attach no sort of credit to the fantastic Indian legend of

the gem, I must acknowledge, before I conclude, that I am influenced by

a certain superstition of my own in this matter. It is my conviction,

or my delusion, no matter which, that crime brings its own fatality

with it. I am not only persuaded of Herncastle’s guilt; I am even

fanciful enough to believe that he will live to regret it, if he keeps

the Diamond; and that others will live to regret taking it from him, if

he gives the Diamond away.

THE STORY

FIRST PERIOD

THE LOSS OF THE DIAMOND (1848)

_The Events related by Gabriel Betteredge, house-steward in the service

of Julia, Lady Verinder._