"Jiminy! Is that all!" exclaimed Dick. "I thought you were going to say a dead body. If the body got up and walked away it couldn't have been so very dead. How much blood? Were there any footmarks about?" "That part of the field hadn't been ploughed, and the ground was rather hard, covered with grass the cattle had been cropping. There were some stones in a little pile, but my stone wasn't among them. I looked at those stones--by George, I looked at them! They were splashed with blood--Then I got sick, and then had to skedaddle because someone was calling me." "I am _sure_ it will turn out all right; you had the lucky diamond," Grizzel said consolingly. "That makes it worse," said Hugh, groaning again. "I tied the diamond up with the stone and forgot to take it out." "Oh, _Hugh_!" exclaimed Prudence, more perturbed by this disaster than by the hypothetical murder, "how _could_ you be so careless?" "It doesn't matter," Grizzel persisted, with cheerful calm, "that diamond brings luck. It has had one miracle, and I expect it will have another. It will come back. Very likely the dead man will bring it back himself." "It will come back all right," said Hugh, "because the ring has Grizzel's name inside it, and, seeing that mine is the same on the handkerchief, the police will have a jolly good clue to start on. If the person was _not_ hit and steals the diamond he'll take good care not to show himself. Then the diamond will be gone, but I'll give Grizzel mine. I'll spend my bank money on getting a ring made. Oh--if I only knew! If I only knew what was going to happen I shouldn't mind so much. It's waiting for that bobby to turn up that gives me the horrors." He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, with a shiver of anticipation. "It sounds to me a bit fishy, you know," said Jerry, with a thoughtful frown. "How do you know that the hole you saw was made by your stone? It might have been there already." "Because it was fresh, and the earth round was freshly thrown up; and some of my handkerchief was lying beside it." The boys looked grave. This did sound rather serious. "But," said Mollie, "the stone could not have buried itself in a hole and hit a person so that the person was killed at the same time. If it went down into a hole it did not hit anyone." "I never thought of that," said Hugh, cheering up for the first time. "Neither it could; but there was the blood," he added despondently, "pints of it. I never thought anything could bleed so much. Well--I shall know before very long one way or the other, for either some news will turn up or the diamond will stay away." "The best thing you can do now is to have some tea," said Prudence, "then you will feel better and we can plan what to do."