I at once went on deck, where I found the captain, and reported to him what I had seen. He viewed me in silence, with a stare of astonishment and incredulity. What I had seen, he said, was not the diamond. I told him the thing that had dropped into the Major's hand was bright, and, as I thought, sparkled, but it was so held I could not see it. I was talking to him on this extraordinary affair when the Major came on deck. The captain said to me: "Hold him in chat. I'll judge for myself," and asked me to describe how he might quickly find the pistol-case. This I did, and he went below. I joined the Major, and talked on the first subjects that entered my head. He was restless in his manner, inattentive, slightly flushed in the face; wore a lofty manner, and being half a head taller than I, glanced down at me from time to time in a condescending way. This behaviour in him was what Captain North and I had agreed to call his "injured air." He'd occasionally put it on to remind us that he was affronted by the captain's insensibility to his loss, and that the assistance of the police would be demanded on our arrival at Cape Town. Presently looking down the skylight, I perceived the captain. Mackenzie had charge of the watch. I descended the steps, and Captain North's first words to me were:-- "It's no diamond!" "What, then, is it?" "A common piece of glass not worth a quarter of a farthing." "What's it all about, then?" said I. "Upon my soul, there's nothing in Euclid to beat it. Glass?" "A little lump of common glass; a fragment of bull's-eye, perhaps." "What's he hiding it for?" "Because," said Captain North, in a soft voice, looking up and around, "he's mad!" "Just so!" said I. "That I'll swear to _now_, and I've been suspecting it this fortnight past." "He's under the spell of some sort of mania," continued the captain; "he believes he's commissioned to present a diamond to the Queen; possibly picked up a bit of stuff in the street that started the delusion, then bought a case for it, and worked out the rest as we know." "But why does he want to pretend that the stone was stolen from him?" "He's been mastered by his own love for the diamond," he answered. "That's how I reason it. Madness has made his affection for his imaginary gem a passion in him." "And so he robbed himself of it, you think, that he might keep it?" "That's about it," said he. After this I kept no further look-out upon the Major, nor would I ever take an opportunity to enter his cabin to view for myself the piece of glass as the captain described it, though curiosity was often hot in me.