had not read Robinson Crusoe since I was a child.
"For the Lord's sake, sir," he whispered to me,
"tell us when it will begin to work."

"Not before midnight," I whispered back.
"Say nothing, and sit still."

Betteredge dropped to the lowest depth of
familiarity with me, without a struggle to save
himself. He answered me by a wink!

Looking next towards Mr. Blake, I found
him as restless as ever in his bed; fretfully
wondering why the influence of the laudanum had
not begun to assert itself yet. To tell him, in
his present humour, that the more he fidgetted
and wondered, the longer he would delay the
result for which we were now waiting, would
have been simply useless. The wiser course to
take was to dismiss the idea of the opium from
his mind, by leading him insensibly to think of
something else.

With this view, I encouraged him to talk to
me; contriving so to direct the conversation, on
my side, as to lead it back again to the subject
which had engaged us earlier in the evening
—the subject of the Diamond. I took care to
revert to those portions of the story of the
Moonstone, which related to the transport of it
from London to Yorkshire; to the risk which
Mr. Blake had run in removing it from the
bank at Frizinghall; and to the unexpected
appearance of the Indians at the house, on the
evening of the birthday. And I purposely
assumed, in referring to these events, to have
misunderstood much of what Mr. Blake himself
had told me a few hours since. In this way, I
set him talking on the subject with which it
was now vitally important to fill his mind—
without allowing him to suspect that I was
making him talk for a purpose. Little by little,
he became so interested in putting me right
that he forgot to fidget in the bed. His mind
was far away from the question of the opium,
at the all-important time when his eyes first told
me that the opium was beginning to lay its hold
on his brain.

I looked at my watch. It wanted five
minutes to twelve, when the premonitory
symptoms of the working of the laudanum first
showed themselves to me.

At this time, no unpractised eyes would
have detected any change in him. But, as the
minutes of the new morning wore away, the
swiftly-subtle progress of the influence began
to show itself more plainly. The sublime
intoxication of opium gleamed in his eyes; the
dew of a stealthy perspiration began to glisten
on his face. In five minutes more, the talk
which he still kept up with me, failed in
coherence. He held steadily to the subject of the
Diamond; but he ceased to complete his
sentences. A little later the sentences dropped to
single words. Then, there was an interval of
silence. Then, he sat up in bed. Then, still busy
with the subject of the Diamond, he began to
talk again—not to me, but to himself. That
change told me that the first stage in the experiment
was reached. The stimulant influence of
the opium had got him.

The time, now, was twenty-three minutes past
twelve. The next half hour, at most, would
decide the question of whether he would, or
would not, get up from his bed, and leave the
room.

In the breathless interest of watching him—
in the unutterable triumph of seeing the first
result of the experiment declare itself in the
manner, and nearly at the time, which I had
anticipated—I had utterly forgotten the two
companions of my night vigil. Looking towards
them now, I saw the Law (as represented by
Mr. Bruff's papers) lying unheeded on the floor.
Mr. Bruff himself was looking eagerly through
a crevice left in the imperfectly-drawn curtains
of the bed. And Betteredge, oblivious of all
respect for social distinctions, was peeping over
Mr. Bruff's shoulder.

They both started back, on finding that I
was looking at them, like two boys caught out
by their schoolmaster in a fault. I signed to
them to take off their boots quietly, as I was.
taking off mine. If Mr. Blake gave us the
chance of following him, it was vitally necessary
to follow him without noise.

Ten minutes passed—and nothing happened.
Then, he suddenly threw the bed clothes off
him. He put one leg out of bed. He waited.

"I wish I had never taken it out of the
bank," he said to himself. "It was safe in the
bank."

My heart throbbed fast; the pulses at my
temples beat furiously. The doubt about the
safety of the Diamond was, once more, the
dominant impression in his brain! On that one
pivot, the whole success of the experiment
turned. The prospect thus suddenly opened
before me, was too much for my shattered nerves.
I was obliged to look away from him—or I
should have lost my self-control.

There was another interval of silence.

When I could trust myself to look back at
him, he was out of his bed, standing erect at the
side of it. The pupils of his eyes were now
contracted; his eyeballs gleamed in the light of
the candle as he moved his head slowly to and
fro. He was thinking; he was doubting—he
spoke again.

"How do I know?" he said. "The Indians
may be hidden in the house?"

He stopped, and walked slowly to the other
end of the room. He turned—waited—came
back to the bed.

"It's not even locked up," he went on.
It's in the drawer of her cabinet. And the
drawer doesn't lock."

He sat down on the side of the bed.
"Anybody might take it," he said.

He rose again restlessly, and reiterated his
first words.

"How do I know? The Indians may be
hidden in the house."

He waited again. I drew back behind the
half curtain of the bed. He looked about the
room, with the vacant glitter in his eyes. It
was a breathless moment. There was a pause
of some sort. A pause in the action of the