He was greeted by the curious individual within with a demeanor which somehow offended Raikes with the impression that his prompt eagerness was the subject of amused calculation. His irritation, however, was not permitted to develop, for no sooner had he seated himself in the chair indicated by his host than the latter placed upon the table, within easy reach of his harassed visitor, a small box of leather and directed him to press the spring. Anticipating something of the nature of the contents of the case from the material of which it was made, Raikes, forgetting for the moment the futility of the day's researches, pressed his bony thumb upon the spring, and at once the lid flew back like a protest, disclosing the most superb diamond it had ever been his misfortune to see and not possess. "Ah!" he cried in an ecstasy of tantalized contemplation, "the glass, the glass! Anything so precious must have had commensurate treatment. What color, what clarity, what bulk!" and as the unhappy creature yielded to that species of intoxication which even the grace of God seems unable to ameliorate, the Sepoy, with the easy poise and balance of intonation and phrase which had served as such facile vehicles for the previous instalments, began: "When the bewildered prince realized the meaning of the worthless heap in the recess, and calculated, with familiar appraisement, the immense loss represented by the senseless substitution, he stood for a moment destitute of all dignity and as impotent as the meanest of his household. "His thin, fine lips, which usually held such firm partnership and divided his words with such cynical scission, relaxed separately into the inane lines of superstitious fear, and the luster of his restless eyes seemed to have degenerated into that surrounding dullness of sickly white which would have provided the impressionable Lal Lu with an easy fortitude to deny the approaches of this semi-potentate. "The next instant, like the doubled blade of Toledo steel, the prince recoiled to his lithe stature, and the customary brightness of his eyes returned shadowed with a degree of crafty reflection. "One by one, lest a stray gem might be collected with the worthless debris, like the crew of Ulysses clinging to the sheep of the Cyclops, Prince Otondo removed the pebbles which intruded their sordid presence in this scintillant treasure-trove like a motley of base subjects in an assemblage of the nobility. "When the last of these worthless objects had been cleared from the recess, the prince closed the panel, and seating himself before the rayless heap, surrendered himself to moody reflection, like a disabled enthusiast confronted by his disillusions. "How did these pebbles reach this hiding place? "In asking himself the question, the prince had absolute assurance that it was impossible for any one to enter his sleeping-apartment without his knowledge.