"I had hardly settled all this in my mind when Rung Budruck came to me.
'The Russian sahib has gone: I have something to tell you,' he said,
only he spoke in broken English. 'Yesterday, just after the sahib
Captain was dead, the Russian came back. You had left the tent, and I
was sitting on the ground behind the Captain's big trunk, the lid of
which was open. I was sitting with my chin in my hand, very sad at
heart, when the Russian came in. He looked carefully round the tent. Me
he could not see, but I could see him through the opening between the
hinges of the box. What did he do? He unfastened the bosom of the sahib
Captain's shirt, and then he drew over the Captain's head the steel
chain with the little gold box hanging to it that he always wore. He
opened the box, and saw there was that in it which he expected to find
there. Then he hid away both chain and box in one of his pockets,
rebuttoned the dead man's shirt, and left the tent.' 'But you have not
told me what there was in the box,' I said. He put the tips of his
fingers together and smiled: 'In that box was the Great Hara Diamond!'

"Your ladyship, I was so startled when Rung said this that the wind of a
bullet would have knocked me down. A new light was all at once thrown on
the Captain's dying words. 'But how do you know, Rung, that the box
contained a diamond?' I asked when I had partly got over my surprise. He
smiled again, with that strange slow smile which those fellows have. 'It
matters not how, but Rung knew that the diamond was there. He had seen
the Captain open the box, and take it out and look at it many a time
when the Captain thought no one could see him. He could have stolen it
from him almost any night when he was asleep, but that was left for his
friend to do.' 'Was the diamond you speak of a very valuable one?' I
asked. 'It was a green diamond of immense value,' answered Rung; 'it was
called _The Great Hara_ because of its colour, and it was first worn by