Whether he was lawyer enough to know--for sailors do pick up queer things--that he saved the family £4,500, by this behaviour; or whether it was only that he would not now disturb himself, and did not wish to be reminded of the only stars, that living people care for; or whether he would not confuse his last pipe; at any rate, in the most decisive manner, he conveyed to me, that he would have no more said about _Jumbilug's_ eyes--which he would have condemned, at any less momentous moment--but all was to be, as he had once for all directed. This made me feel a certain sense of trusteeship; as if I were placed in full charge of these stones, and must most exactly do, whatever he had ordered. But when I was told, for the first time, of their value, I found it very hard to trust my ears. Such a great injustice did it seem to me, (who have an ardent love of fairness) that the cleverest man in the world might work, for sixty years--the entire parenthesis of anybody's meaning here--without earning half of the value of one of the eyes of a barbarous idol. For the great jewel-merchant in Hatton Garden, to whom Sir Roland took me, could scarcely believe his own eyes at first--the day being of London texture--until he put on a strong jet of light (reflected by white mirrors) and took a double magnifier, and went into the very bottom of both stones. Even then, he was almost afraid of his own judgment, and looked at us doubtfully, and shook his head, and even the hand that held such treasures. "If I did not know you to be Sir Roland Twentifold, and this young gentleman to be a friend of yours, and therefore above all suspicion, it would be my duty to call in the police, and place these in their charge," he said; "as the produce of some tremendous robbery. I have been in the trade, for more than forty years, and Crown jewels, and those of the great R---- family have passed through my hands; but until now, never such a pair of blue diamonds as these are. They must be well known; they must have a great history. I know all the leading gems of Europe; but these are entirely new to me. Is there any reason, why I should not know the story?" "None whatever," I replied, "if you will receive it first in confidence. And then if you think that my right to them is perfect, I care not how the story spreads." I told him all I knew; while he listened with deep interest, and so did Sir Roland, who had not heard all till then. I insisted especially upon Uncle William's character, and his great superiority to piracy, or rapine; and enforced the fact that he had not run away with that idol, with any view to its value, but simply as a deed of justice, against a most horrible tribe of cannibals, who had eaten as much as seventeen white men, and had vowed the sole survivor as a sacrifice, to the image with these resplendent eyes. The jeweller's sympathies went warmly with me, and with Uncle Bill in his operations; but he could not help sighing, and I asked him why.