The Saint Paul globe., 1905-01-01

the great durbar, whereat the
accession of the first English emperor
of India was to be proclaimed. North
ward, beyond the historic ridge. new
and an even more wonderful Deihi nad
sprung UP In the course OF weeks.
Delhi of ten thousand tents. with more
than thirty miles of streets between
them city that it would take man
seven or eight hours of continuous
smart marching to walk round.
For weeks the tramp Of elephants
and horses had filed the air by day
and had rarely ceased at night. The
camps of the native princes lay In
carefully planned order, and the COM
ings and goings of the princes them
selves-emulous, proud, jealous In
trifies-were announced punctilioUSiy
by the proper number OF guns, from
twenty-one downward, the envied and
eagerly sought salute that grades In
dian princes by absolute mathematical
scale.
Under the frail canvas of that camp
lay the ransom of hundred kings in
gems and gold and precious stuff. Dia-
monds, emeralds, rubies, pearls, in
strings, in dozens and in scores, each
were brought together there in an as
semblage impossible to make In any
other part of the globe. Even the
lesser rajahs, thakores and nawabs
had brought for their adornment many
gems of. great name, such as singly
would stand heirlooms in the royal
houses of Europe.
Not the least renowned among these
+l,a Of fl,a
green diamond belonging to the rajah
of Goona.
Indeed, among the assembly Of mar
veleus gems the Eye of Deccan took
rank among the very greatest-far
higher rank than the rajah took among
the princes; for he could claim only
nine-gun salute, which placed him
merely in the seventh grade. with the
eleven-gun, the thirteen-gun. the fif-
teen-gun, the seventeen gun and the
nineteen-gun degrees between it and
the topmost rank Of twenty-one guns,
reserved for the three greatest native
princes of all India.
The Eye Of Deccan was the more an
cient name of the jewel, which now
adays was more commonly called the
Eye of Goona. 1t was famous alike
for its color, its size and its history.
OF celored diamonds, the green are
the rarest, and this was not only of 4
gloriously brilliant emerald tint, but Of
extraordinary size, being nearly three
times the weight of the renowned pale
green diamond kept at Dresden, as we'll
as of incomparably finer color. In
shape it was an oval brilliant fully an
inch and a half long and shade more
than an inch wide. When this amaz
ing stone had left the mine no man
could tell, for it had been known all
over India as an envy and contention OF
kings for nearly thousand years.
Purchase, spoliation murder, treachery,
theft and war had passed 1t from hand
to hand till at last it had rested in the
treasure house of Alxbar the Great, and
there remained till the death OF his
descendant, Aurungzebe. In the fall Of
the dynasty of Akbar early in the
eighteenth century and the general dis
ruption which followed it, the Eye of
Deccan vanished, and it was only on
the establishment of safe and steady
government under British domination
that it was allowed to reappear-this
time in the possession OF the rajah
of Goona, ancestor Of the present rajah,
now camping at Delhi to do homage to
the new emperor represented by his
viceroy.
One after another through the last
weeks Of the year the trumpetipg
trampling professions rolled into camp
till the tents were full OF princes and
their retinues; and then when the bus
tie Of constant arrivals had begun to
slacken, on cool, clear night, the
customary noises of tethered elephants
and waking horses were broken upon
by a riot of human shouts and yells.
The disturbance was over in very
few minutes, and the rurnor ran round
the camp that a thief had entered the
tents Of the rajah OF Goona and been
cut down by the rajah's chief minister
as he was crawling away. And in the
morning more was Known. The thief
was dead, and his body, black, naked
and oiled from top to toe, had been
identified; he was a thief by trade, of
family Of thieves. He had entered
the tent in the dead Of night, had ef-
fected his robbery and was escaping
silently, when he was observed by
Mehta Singh, the chief minister, and
cut down, two blows Of a heavy tulwar
putting an end to his thieving for all
time. And the plunder which he was
carrying away was no other than the
Eye of Goona itself,
This last news kept the camp talk
ing from end to end. The audacity of
the thief was great enough, but the
wonder was how, having entered the
tent without being seen by the guards,
he was able to put his hand directly
on the great jewel, or to pick the lock
of the case in which it was doubtless
kept. The thing carried a smell of
treachery; it seemed clear that some
body in the rajafa's train had BETRAYED
his trust and sold information to the
thief. This was agreed on all hands:
but at any rate the plot had been
frustrated, and by the faithful Wig
flance of Mehta Singh the jewel had
been restored; that was enough. More,
the great ceremony was now coming
on. so the camp turned to the business
before it and talked little more of the
attempt on the Eye OF Goona.
Talked little of 1t, that is to say, till
after the great durbar-eyen later.
For it was not till the whole pro-
gramme Of the splendid fortnight had
been worked through and the viceroy
had departed in state that the rumor
the news, for 1t was proclaimed a
ertainty-hummed through the break
ing camp that the stone which had
been taken from the hands of the dead
thief was now found to be a mere col
ored crystal. and that the Eve of
Goona was gone after all,