by M. P. Shiel
XXIII
UNDER THE ELM
His risk of arrest here, round about his old home, was enormous, and hedrew the Bedouin kefie well round his face, skulking from the station tothe "Fen", northward, where he got an urchin to buy him a paper lanternin a general shop, and now trudged up to Priddlestone, then down throughmeadows to the beech-wood, the night rough with March winds.
It was not the winds, however, which made him draw close his Arab cloak,but his approach to the elm: there, one night, he had seen a naked blackman! there had fallen the Arab Jew.
He stood twenty yards from the tree, till, with sudden resolution, hestrode, soon had the lantern ruby, and since the grave of "the affair"had been digged with a piece of wood, for such a piece he went seeking,having thrown off his caftan.
Instead, he found the rusted half-blade of a spade, and commenced to diground the roots, the lantern shine reddening a face strangely agitated,uncertainty of finding what he sought heightening his excitement: forthe earth showed no disturbance, and since three years had passed sincethat night of Bates in the wood, the object might have been alreadyunearthed. After an hour his back was aching, his hands dabbled, hisbrow beaded, while the night-winds blew, the light now was commoved, andnow glowed a steady red; and still he grovelled.
Presently, as he shovelled in a circle, always two feet deep, movingthe light as he moved, he saw on the top of a shovelful of marl--a twig:barkless, black, cracked--_scorched!_
To an immoderate degree this thing agitated him--some whisper in theback of his head--some half-thought: he began now to root furiously,with a frowning intentness.
But suddenly he shuddered: a finger seemed to touch his shoulder behind;and he twisted with wild eyes, caught up the light, peered, saw no blackman--nothing: but quite five minutes he stood defiant, with clenchedfists; then resumed the work, though with a constant feeling now that hewas being watched by the unseen seers.
After two new strokes he struck upon something hard, and, diggingeagerly round it, found a quart-can, full of earth. And instantly alldoubt vanished: for this must have been the beer-can carried by Bates.
Strong curiosity now wrought in Hogarth, a zeal to lay eyes upon thatobject which had careered through the heights of space to find thatbeech-wood and that elm-tree; and during fifteen minutes his littleimplement digged with the quick-plying movement of a distaff-shuttle, hefighting for breath, anon casting a flying wild glance behind, but stilldigging.
Now, frequently, he came upon burned objects, twigs, cinders. Even themarl had a scorched look; and his agitation grew to ecstasy.
Something very singular had happened to his mind with regard to this"affair" of Bates: Bates had said that it had fallen on the asteroidnight; and O'Hara had told him--falsely, indeed--that a piece of theasteroid, fallen upon the French coast, had had diamonds; yet, somehow,never once had his mind associated the Fred Bates "affair" with thethought of diamonds, but only with the "thousand pounds" which Bates hadbeen promised by old Bond. So at the moment when he had begun to dig,his whole thought was of "a thousand pounds"; but, somehow, by the timehis implement at last grated against something two feet down, that word"diamonds" had grown up in his brain.
But diamonds! In the midst of his shovelling the thought flashed throughhim: "The world is God's! and to whom He wills He gives it...."
Now at last the thing lay definitely before him: he grated the spadefrom end to end, scraping away the marl; and it was very rough....
The size and shape of a man's leg, and red, anyway in the redlantern-shine--his sight dim--he moved and saw in an improbable dream;and when he tried to lift the object and failed, for a long time hesat on the edge of the trench, passing one palm across and across hisforehead, till the lantern-light leapt, and went out.
He sprang upright then--awake, sure: they were diamonds, those bits ofglass, big celestial ones, not of earth, in hundreds; when he passed hishand along the meteorite he felt it leprous, octahedron, dodecahedron,large and small: if they were truly diamonds, he divined that theirowner must be as wealthy as some nations.
About three in the morning he managed to raise the meteorite; refilledthe trench; and since it still rained, rolled the meteorite to thehollow of the elm, put on his caftan, and with his back on the interiorof the tree, his feet on the meteorite, tumbled into a wonderfulslumber.
