viperous murderer! He has stolen my gem, well knowing that with it he
has stolen my life. The stone is gone--gone, my precious gem. A
weakness overtook me, and I lay for many dreamless hours naked on the
marble floor.

'Does the fool think to hide ought from my eyes? Can he imagine that I
shall not recover my precious gem, my stone of Saul?

'_June 20_.--Ah, Ul-Jabal--my brave, my noble Son of the Prophet of
God! He has replaced the stone! He would not slay an aged man. The
yellow ray of his eye, it is but the gleam of the great thinker,
not--not--the gleam of the assassin. Again, as I lay in
semi-somnolence, I saw him enter my room, this time more distinctly. He
went up to the cabinet. Shaking the chalice in the dawning, some hours
after he had left, I heard with delight the rattle of the stone. I
might have known he would replace it; I should not have doubted his
clemency to a poor man like me. But the strange being!--he has taken
the _other_ stone from the _other_ cup--a thing of little value to any
man! Is Ul-Jabal mad or I?

'_June 21_.--Merciful Lord in Heaven! he has _not_ replaced it--not
_it_--but another instead of it. To-day I actually opened the chalice,
and saw. He has put a stone there, the same in size, in cut, in
engraving, but different in colour, in quality, in value--a stone I
have never seen before. How has he obtained it--whence? I must brace
myself to probe, to watch; I must turn myself into an eye to search
this devil's-bosom. My life, this subtle, cunning Reason of mine, hangs
in the balance.

'_June 22_.--Just now he offered me a cup of wine. I almost dashed it