played me this awful trick. But could I
proceed? It was my fate. I took a little
more brandy, and went to work again, cautiously
cutting another hole in the iron plate
next above; and while I was gently extracting
the piece, down fell something which struck
me a hard sharp blow upon the bridge of the
nose, and, bouncing against the glass of my
lamp, broke through and extinguished it,
leaving me in utter darkness, and excessive
fright. I was completely bedewed with a cold
perspiration, and I also found my nose was
bleeding profusely.

Recovering myself, I lighted a lucifer, and,
proceeding to re-illumine my lamp, what
should my startled eyes behold but a great
mass of the sparklings and arrowy cross-fire
of diamond rays, lying at the bottom of the
tin frame! Was it!—could it be!—did my
eyes deceive me? They had deceived me
about the horrible "half face" looking down
—were they deceiving now? The Koh!—no
—no—it could not—fond fancy drive me not
to madness—it could not be! But there lay
the brilliant thing, at which I continued to
stare fixedly with open mouth!

At last I ventured, with a shaking hand, to
take it from the bottom of the lamp. Yes!
—yes!—it was it was the Illustrious
Stranger himself!—his Imperial Brightness
was lying in the dewy palm of my aspen
hand! The cunning spring intended to cause
him to dart downwards and disappear at the
least touch, devised by the subtle brain of
Mr. Chubb, had no doubt been the very cause
of his sudden descent upon the bridge of my
nose. It is thus that great locksmiths, and
others, outwit themselves. Like vaulting
ambition, they pitch over on the other side.
These were after-reflections—for, at the
moment, I could do nothing but pant and
stare, and stare and pant. Then I listened
with consternation—but it was at nothing.
My greatest present fear was, lest Bob Styles
should come down to work, and meet me in
my excited state. I secreted the Prize, and
hurried off wildly to my bed-room, and double-locked
the door, and put a chair against it.

It was late before I awoke next morning,
as I had been up the whole night listening, and
continually changing the place where I had
hidden the invaluable Mountain. I dressed
myself with trepidation—all quite natural
under the circumstances. My hand shook so,
I could scarcely hold the razor. At breakfast,
I could not eat a morsel, and I did all sorts of
absurd things. My first anxiety was to get
rid of Bob Styles, and to leave the house. I
called Bob to me, and telling him, with a
gayish air, that we had quite succeeded in
discovering the gas-pipe, and I was very
much obliged to him, I put six sovereigns
into his hand, which I said was a present
from the Gas Company, as I had engaged
him by the week, and he had always drawn
his money—and then I told him we had no
further need of his services at present, so he
might now return to Somersetshire. He
took the six sovereigns slowly, and looked at
them in a way I did not like. He said he did
not much think he should go to Zummerzetshire;
he thought as how he liked Lunnun
best. I was not in a frame of mind to argue
the question with him, or to hold further
parley, so I wished him good day; and when
he had made up his bundle, I wished him
good luck, and shook hands with him, which
he received in a heavy ungrateful way, and
lounged off with a dissatisfied air. How glad
I was to see the back of him!

Now to leave my house. This was by no
means so easy. For how could I risk the discovery
of my subterranean work? The
entrance to the burrow must be blocked up,
and, in fact, bricked up, and concealed in the
most careful way. I saw that I must remain
a short time in the house, at least till the
mortar was dry—but I did so yearn to be off.
Where to hide the Koh-i-noor, in the meantime,
this was a constant fever to me. No
place seemed safe, or beyond suspicion. Hide
it where I would, I was obliged to change its
place the next hour.

I engaged a charwoman to come every
morning to attend to my domestic wants,
and a boy to live in the house. I worked at
bricking up the entrance to my under-ground
secrets all night, and locked up the cellars
during the day.

Finding that the bricks and mortar would
continue to look fresh and suspicious, notwithstanding
all the dirt and dust I threw up
against the new wall I had built, and also that
the bricks did not look very regular and
workmanlike, I pulled them all down. A. much
brighter thought had struck me. I built up
a termination wall, some eight feet from the
entrance, and then fitted shelves and bins of
old wood in the recess, so that it looked like
an additional wine-cellar. I instantly ordered
in six dozen of old port, and six of sherry,
six dozen of claret in pints and magnums, and
twelve dozen of empty bottles; and all these I
packed away in a very regular manner, and
with a profusion of saw-dust, and chalk-marks,
and old dusty cobwebs which I collected from
the corners of the cellars. It looked so well
when it was completed, that I thought it even
worthy to serve as a hiding-place for the
"Illustrious," and I actually thrust him,
enveloped in the thumb of a kid-glove, into the
neck of a magnum of claret, and corked him
safely down, waxed and all, and so left him
for nearly two days; but I fancied one night
that that particular bottle looked at me—so
to speak—and I feared the eye of a detective
officer might see a something 'special in its
appearance; so I knocked off the neck of the
bottle, after trying in vain to draw the Illustrious
with a corkskrew, and transferred him
to the inside of an old German sausage, having
held the part to the fire where the incision
had been made, till the fat began to run, and
so healed the wound. I then hung it up in