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343 pages

English

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The Moonstone is a 19th-century novel by the master of sensation fiction, Wilkie Collins. It is considered, with The Woman in White, to be his best work, and is also commonly seen as the first English detective novel. Many of the standard ground rules for detective fiction can be found in this work, as well as examples of Collins' forward-thinking approach to the treatment of Indians and servants.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 janvier 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775414308
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE MOONSTONE
* * *
WILKIE COLLINS

*

The Moonstone From a 1868 edition.
ISBN 978-1-775414-30-8
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Prologue First Period Second Period First Narrative Second Narrative Third Narrative Fourth Narrative Fifth Narrative Sixth Narrative Seventh Narrative Eighth Narrative Epilogue Endnotes
Prologue
*
THE STORMING OF SERINGAPATAM (1799)
Extracted from a Family Paper
I
I address these lines—written in India—to my relatives in England.
My object is to explain the motive which has induced me to refuse theright hand of friendship to my cousin, John Herncastle. The reservewhich I have hitherto maintained in this matter has been misinterpretedby members of my family whose good opinion I cannot consent to forfeit.I request them to suspend their decision until they have read mynarrative. And I declare, on my word of honour, that what I am now aboutto write is, strictly and literally, the truth.
The private difference between my cousin and me took its rise in agreat public event in which we were both concerned—the storming ofSeringapatam, under General Baird, on the 4th of May, 1799.
In order that the circumstances may be clearly understood, I mustrevert for a moment to the period before the assault, and to the storiescurrent in our camp of the treasure in jewels and gold stored up in thePalace of Seringapatam.
II
One of the wildest of these stories related to a Yellow Diamond—afamous gem in the native annals of India.
The earliest known traditions describe the stone as having been set inthe forehead of the four-handed Indian god who typifies the Moon. Partlyfrom its peculiar colour, partly from a superstition which representedit as feeling the influence of the deity whom it adorned, and growingand lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the moon, itfirst gained the name by which it continues to be known in India tothis day—the name of THE MOONSTONE. A similar superstition was onceprevalent, as I have heard, in ancient Greece and Rome; not applying,however (as in India), to a diamond devoted to the service of a god, butto a semi-transparent stone of the inferior order of gems, supposed tobe affected by the lunar influences—the moon, in this latter case also,giving the name by which the stone is still known to collectors in ourown time.
The adventures of the Yellow Diamond begin with the eleventh century ofthe Christian era.
At that date, the Mohammedan conqueror, Mahmoud of Ghizni, crossedIndia; seized on the holy city of Somnauth; and stripped of itstreasures the famous temple, which had stood for centuries—the shrineof Hindoo pilgrimage, and the wonder of the Eastern world.
Of all the deities worshipped in the temple, the moon-god alone escapedthe rapacity of the conquering Mohammedans. Preserved by three Brahmins,the inviolate deity, bearing the Yellow Diamond in its forehead, wasremoved by night, and was transported to the second of the sacred citiesof India—the city of Benares.
Here, in a new shrine—in a hall inlaid with precious stones, undera roof supported by pillars of gold—the moon-god was set up andworshipped. Here, on the night when the shrine was completed, Vishnu thePreserver appeared to the three Brahmins in a dream.
The deity breathed the breath of his divinity on the Diamond in theforehead of the god. And the Brahmins knelt and hid their faces in theirrobes. The deity commanded that the Moonstone should be watched, fromthat time forth, by three priests in turn, night and day, to the endof the generations of men. And the Brahmins heard, and bowed before hiswill. The deity predicted certain disaster to the presumptuous mortalwho laid hands on the sacred gem, and to all of his house and namewho received it after him. And the Brahmins caused the prophecy to bewritten over the gates of the shrine in letters of gold.
One age followed another—and still, generation after generation, thesuccessors of the three Brahmins watched their priceless Moonstone,night and day. One age followed another until the first years of theeighteenth Christian century saw the reign of Aurungzebe, Emperor of theMoguls. At his command havoc and rapine were let loose once more amongthe temples of the worship of Brahmah. The shrine of the four-handedgod was polluted by the slaughter of sacred animals; the images ofthe deities were broken in pieces; and the Moonstone was seized by anofficer of rank in the army of Aurungzebe.
Powerless to recover their lost treasure by open force, the threeguardian priests followed and watched it in disguise. The generationssucceeded each other; the warrior who had committed the sacrilegeperished miserably; the Moonstone passed (carrying its curse with it)from one lawless Mohammedan hand to another; and still, through allchances and changes, the successors of the three guardian priests kepttheir watch, waiting the day when the will of Vishnu the Preservershould restore to them their sacred gem. Time rolled on from the firstto the last years of the eighteenth Christian century. The Diamond fellinto the possession of Tippoo, Sultan of Seringapatam, who caused it tobe placed as an ornament in the handle of a dagger, and who commandedit to be kept among the choicest treasures of his armoury. Even then—inthe palace of the Sultan himself—the three guardian priests still kepttheir watch in secret. There were three officers of Tippoo's household,strangers to the rest, who had won their master's confidence byconforming, or appearing to conform, to the Mussulman faith; and tothose three men report pointed as the three priests in disguise.
III
So, as told in our camp, ran the fanciful story of the Moonstone. Itmade no serious impression on any of us except my cousin—whose loveof the marvellous induced him to believe it. On the night before theassault on Seringapatam, he was absurdly angry with me, and with others,for treating the whole thing as a fable. A foolish wrangle followed; andHerncastle's unlucky temper got the better of him. He declared, inhis boastful way, that we should see the Diamond on his finger, ifthe English army took Seringapatam. The sally was saluted by a roar oflaughter, and there, as we all thought that night, the thing ended.
Let me now take you on to the day of the assault. My cousin and I wereseparated at the outset. I never saw him when we forded the river; whenwe planted the English flag in the first breach; when we crossed theditch beyond; and, fighting every inch of our way, entered the town.It was only at dusk, when the place was ours, and after General Bairdhimself had found the dead body of Tippoo under a heap of the slain,that Herncastle and I met.
We were each attached to a party sent out by the general's orders toprevent the plunder and confusion which followed our conquest. Thecamp-followers committed deplorable excesses; and, worse still, thesoldiers found their way, by a guarded door, into the treasury of thePalace, and loaded themselves with gold and jewels. It was in the courtoutside the treasury that my cousin and I met, to enforce the laws ofdiscipline on our own soldiers. Herncastle's fiery temper had been, asI could plainly see, exasperated to a kind of frenzy by the terribleslaughter through which we had passed. He was very unfit, in my opinion,to perform the duty that had been entrusted to him.
There was riot and confusion enough in the treasury, but no violencethat I saw. The men (if I may use such an expression) disgracedthemselves good-humouredly. All sorts of rough jests and catchwords werebandied about among them; and the story of the Diamond turned upagain unexpectedly, in the form of a mischievous joke. "Who's gotthe Moonstone?" was the rallying cry which perpetually caused theplundering, as soon as it was stopped in one place, to break out inanother. While I was still vainly trying to establish order, I heard afrightful yelling on the other side of the courtyard, and at once rantowards the cries, in dread of finding some new outbreak of the pillagein that direction.
I got to an open door, and saw the bodies of two Indians (by theirdress, as I guessed, officers of the palace) lying across the entrance,dead.
A cry inside hurried me into a room, which appeared to serve as anarmoury. A third Indian, mortally wounded, was sinking at the feet of aman whose back was towards me. The man turned at the instant when I camein, and I saw John Herncastle, with a torch in one hand, and a daggerdripping with blood in the other. A stone, set like a pommel, in the endof the dagger's handle, flashed in the torchlight, as he turned on me,like a gleam of fire. The dying Indian sank to his knees, pointed tothe dagger in Herncastle's hand, and said, in his native language—"TheMoonstone will have its vengeance yet on you and yours!" He spoke thosewords, and fell dead on the floor.
Before I could stir in the matter, the men who had followed me acrossthe courtyard crowded in. My cousin rushed to meet them, like a madman."Clear the room!" he shouted to me, "and set a guard on the door!" Themen fell back as he threw himself on them with his torch and his dagger.I put two sentinels of my own company, on whom I could rely, to keep thedoor. Through the remainder of the night, I saw no more of my cousin.
Early in the morning, the plunder still going on, General Bairdannounced publicly by beat of drum, that any thief detected in thefact, be he whom he might, should be hung. The provost-mar