The Moonstone
_Contributed by Gabriel Betteredge._
I am the person (as you remember no doubt) who led the way in these
pages, and opened the story. I am also the person who is left behind,
as it were, to close the story up.
Let nobody suppose that I have any last words to say here concerning
the Indian Diamond. I hold that unlucky jewel in abhorrence—and I refer
you to other authority than mine, for such news of the Moonstone as you
may, at the present time, be expected to receive. My purpose, in this
place, is to state a fact in the history of the family, which has been
passed over by everybody, and which I won’t allow to be disrespectfully
smothered up in that way. The fact to which I allude is—the marriage of
Miss Rachel and Mr. Franklin Blake. This interesting event took place
at our house in Yorkshire, on Tuesday, October ninth, eighteen hundred
and forty-nine. I had a new suit of clothes on the occasion. And the
married couple went to spend the honeymoon in Scotland.
Family festivals having been rare enough at our house, since my poor
mistress’s death, I own—on this occasion of the wedding—to having
(towards the latter part of the day) taken a drop too much on the
strength of it.
If you have ever done the same sort of thing yourself you will
understand and feel for me. If you have not, you will very likely say,
“Disgusting old man! why does he tell us this?” The reason why is now
to come.
Having, then, taken my drop (bless you! you have got your favourite
vice, too; only your vice isn’t mine, and mine isn’t yours), I next
applied the one infallible remedy—that remedy being, as you know,
_Robinson Crusoe_. Where I opened that unrivalled book, I can’t say.
Where the lines of print at last left off running into each other, I
know, however, perfectly well. It was at page three hundred and
eighteen—a domestic bit concerning Robinson Crusoe’s marriage, as
follows:
“With those Thoughts, I considered my new Engagement, that I had a
Wife”—(Observe! so had Mr. Franklin!)—“one Child born”—(Observe again!
that might yet be Mr. Franklin’s case, too!)—“and my Wife then”—What
Robinson Crusoe’s wife did, or did not do, “then,” I felt no desire to
discover. I scored the bit about the Child with my pencil, and put a
morsel of paper for a mark to keep the place; “Lie you there,” I said,
“till the marriage of Mr. Franklin and Miss Rachel is some months
older—and then we’ll see!”
The months passed (more than I had bargained for), and no occasion
presented itself for disturbing that mark in the book. It was not till
this present month of November, eighteen hundred and fifty, that Mr.
Franklin came into my room, in high good spirits, and said,
“Betteredge! I have got some news for you! Something is going to happen
in the house, before we are many months older.”
“Does it concern the family, sir?” I asked.
“It decidedly concerns the family,” says Mr. Franklin.
“Has your good lady anything to do with it, if you please, sir?”
“She has a great deal to do with it,” says Mr. Franklin, beginning to
look a little surprised.
“You needn’t say a word more, sir,” I answered. “God bless you both!
I’m heartily glad to hear it.”
Mr. Franklin stared like a person thunderstruck. “May I venture to
inquire where you got your information?” he asked. “I only got mine
(imparted in the strictest secrecy) five minutes since.”
Here was an opportunity of producing _Robinson Crusoe_! Here was a
chance of reading that domestic bit about the child which I had marked
on the day of Mr. Franklin’s marriage! I read those miraculous words
with an emphasis which did them justice, and then I looked him severely
in the face. “_Now_, sir, do you believe in _Robinson Crusoe_?” I
asked, with a solemnity suitable to the occasion.
“Betteredge!” says Mr. Franklin, with equal solemnity, “I’m convinced
at last.” He shook hands with me—and I felt that I had converted him.
With the relation of this extraordinary circumstance, my reappearance
in these pages comes to an end. Let nobody laugh at the unique anecdote
here related. You are welcome to be as merry as you please over
everything else I have written. But when I write of _Robinson Crusoe_,
by the Lord it’s serious—and I request you to take it accordingly!
When this is said, all is said. Ladies and gentlemen, I make my bow,
and shut up the story.
EPILOGUE.
THE FINDING OF THE DIAMOND.
I
THE STATEMENT OF SERGEANT CUFF’S MAN. (1849.)
On the twenty-seventh of June last, I received instructions from
Sergeant Cuff to follow three men; suspected of murder, and described
as Indians. They had been seen on the Tower Wharf that morning,
embarking on board the steamer bound for Rotterdam.
I left London by a steamer belonging to another company, which sailed
on the morning of Thursday the twenty-eighth. Arriving at Rotterdam, I
succeeded in finding the commander of the Wednesday’s steamer. He
informed me that the Indians had certainly been passengers on board his
vessel—but as far as Gravesend only. Off that place, one of the three
had inquired at what time they would reach Calais. On being informed
that the steamer was bound to Rotterdam, the spokesman of the party
expressed the greatest surprise and distress at the mistake which he
and his two friends had made. They were all willing (he said) to
sacrifice their passage money, if the commander of the steamer would
only put them ashore. Commiserating their position, as foreigners in a
strange land, and knowing no reason for detaining them, the commander
signalled for a shore boat, and the three men left the vessel.
This proceeding of the Indians having been plainly resolved on
beforehand, as a means of preventing their being traced, I lost no time
in returning to England. I left the steamer at Gravesend, and
discovered that the Indians had gone from that place to London. Thence,
I again traced them as having left for Plymouth. Inquiries made at
Plymouth proved that they had sailed, forty-eight hours previously, in
the _Bewley Castle_, East Indiaman, bound direct to Bombay.
On receiving this intelligence, Sergeant Cuff caused the authorities at
Bombay to be communicated with, overland—so that the vessel might be
boarded by the police immediately on her entering the port. This step
having been taken, my connection with the matter came to an end. I have
heard nothing more of it since that time.
II
THE STATEMENT OF THE CAPTAIN. (1849.)
I am requested by Sergeant Cuff to set in writing certain facts,
concerning three men (believed to be Hindoos) who were passengers, last
summer, in the ship _Bewley Castle_, bound for Bombay direct, under my
command.
The Hindoos joined us at Plymouth. On the passage out I heard no
complaint of their conduct. They were berthed in the forward part of
the vessel. I had but few occasions myself of personally noticing them.
In the latter part of the voyage, we had the misfortune to be becalmed
for three days and nights, off the coast of India. I have not got the
ship’s journal to refer to, and I cannot now call to mind the latitude
and longitude. As to our position, therefore, I am only able to state
generally that the currents drifted us in towards the land, and that
when the wind found us again, we reached our port in twenty-four hours
afterwards.
The discipline of a ship (as all seafaring persons know) becomes
relaxed in a long calm. The discipline of my ship became relaxed.
Certain gentlemen among the passengers got some of the smaller boats
lowered, and amused themselves by rowing about, and swimming, when the
sun at evening time was cool enough to let them divert themselves in
that way. The boats when done with ought to have been slung up again in
their places. Instead of this they were left moored to the ship’s side.
What with the heat, and what with the vexation of the weather, neither
officers nor men seemed to be in heart for their duty while the calm
lasted.
On the third night, nothing unusual was heard or seen by the watch on
deck. When the morning came, the smallest of the boats was missing—and
the three Hindoos were next reported to be missing, too.
If these men had stolen the boat shortly after dark (which I have no
doubt they did), we were near enough to the land to make it vain to
send in pursuit of them, when the discovery was made in the morning. I
have no doubt they got ashore, in that calm weather (making all due
allowance for fatigue and clumsy rowing), before day-break.
On reaching our port, I there learnt, for the first time, the reason
these passengers had for seizing their opportunity of escaping from the
ship. I could only make the same statement to the authorities which I
have made here. They considered me to blame for allowing the discipline
of the vessel to be relaxed. I have expressed my regret on this score
to them, and to my owners.
Since that time, nothing has been heard to my knowledge of the three
Hindoos. I have no more to add to what is here written.
III
THE STATEMENT OF MR. MURTHWAITE. (1850.)
_(In a letter to Mr. Bruff.)_
Have you any recollection, my dear sir, of a semi-savage person whom
you met out at dinner, in London, in the autumn of ’forty-eight? Permit
me to remind you that the person’s name was Murthwaite, and that you
and he had a long conversation together after dinner. The talk related
to an Indian Diamond, called the Moonstone, and to a conspiracy then in
existence to get possession of the gem.
Since that time, I have been wandering in Central Asia. Thence I have
drifted back to the scene of some of my past adventures in the north
and north-west of India. About a fortnight since, I found myself in a
certain district or province (but little known to Europeans) called
Kattiawar.
Here an adventure befell me, in which (incredible as it may appear) you
are personally interested.
In the wild regions of Kattiawar (and how wild they are, you will
understand, when I tell you that even the husbandmen plough the land,
armed to the teeth), the population is fanatically devoted to the old
Hindoo religion—to the ancient worship of Bramah and Vishnu. The few
Mahometan families, thinly scattered about the villages in the
interior, are afraid to taste meat of any kind. A Mahometan even
suspected of killing that sacred animal, the cow, is, as a matter of
course, put to death without mercy in these parts by the pious Hindoo
neighbours who surround him. To strengthen the religious enthusiasm of
the people, two of the most famous shrines of Hindoo pilgrimage are
contained within the boundaries of Kattiawar. One of them is Dwarka,
the birthplace of the god Krishna. The other is the sacred city of
Somnauth—sacked, and destroyed as long since as the eleventh century,
by the Mahometan conqueror, Mahmoud of Ghizni.
Finding myself, for the second time, in these romantic regions, I
resolved not to leave Kattiawar, without looking once more on the
magnificent desolation of Somnauth. At the place where I planned to do
this, I was (as nearly as I could calculate it) some three days
distant, journeying on foot, from the sacred city.
I had not been long on the road, before I noticed that other people—by
twos and threes—appeared to be travelling in the same direction as
myself.
To such of these as spoke to me, I gave myself out as a
Hindoo-Boodhist, from a distant province, bound on a pilgrimage. It is
needless to say that my dress was of the sort to carry out this
description. Add, that I know the language as well as I know my own,
and that I am lean enough and brown enough to make it no easy matter to
detect my European origin—and you will understand that I passed muster
with the people readily: not as one of themselves, but as a stranger
from a distant part of their own country.