Blake, let me know, and I
will go with you. You are a lucky man."
Here I struck in. This sort of thing didn't at all square with my
English ideas.
"You don't really mean to say, sir," I asked, "that they would have
taken Mr. Franklin's life, to get their Diamond, if he had given them
the chance?"
"Do you smoke, Mr. Betteredge?" says the traveller.
"Yes, sir.
"Do you care much for the ashes left in your pipe when you empty it?"
"No, sir."
"In the country those men came from, they care just as much about
killing a man, as you care about emptying the ashes out of your pipe.
If a thousand lives stood between them and the getting back of their
Diamond--and if they thought they could destroy those lives without
discovery--they would take them all. The sacrifice of caste is a serious
thing in India, if you like. The sacrifice of life is nothing at all."
I expressed my opinion upon this, that they were a set of murdering
thieves. Mr. Murthwaite expressed HIS opinion that they were a wonderful
people. Mr. Franklin, expressing no opinion at all, brought us back to
the matter in hand.
"They have seen the Moonstone on Miss Verinder's dress," he said.
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