'_June 25_.--He has dared at open mid-day to enter my room. I watched
him from an angle of the stairs pass along the corridor and open my
door. But for the terrifying, death-boding thump, thump of my heart, I
should have faced the traitor then, and told him that I knew all his
treachery. Did I say that I had strange fibrillary twitchings at the
right angle of my mouth, and a brain on fire? I have ceased to write my
book--the more the pity for the world, not for me.
'_June 26_.--Marvellous to tell, the traitor, Ul-Jabal, has now placed
_another_ stone in the Edmundsbury chalice--also identical in nearly
every respect with the original gem. This, then, was the object of his
entry into my room yesterday. So that he has first stolen the real
stone and replaced it by another; then he has stolen this other and
replaced it by yet another; he has beside stolen the valueless stone
from the modern chalice, and then replaced it. Surely a man gone rabid,
a man gone dancing, foaming, raving mad!
'_June 28_.--I have now set myself to the task of recovering my jewel.
It is here, and I shall find it. Life against life--and which is the
best life, mine or this accursed Ishmaelite's? If need be, I will do
murder--I, with this withered hand--so that I get back the heritage
which is mine.
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