Hugh sat up. "I may as well," he agreed dejectedly. "You'd better hear it from me than from some old policeman. I suppose one will be stalking up the path soon." He was silent again for a minute, and then started once more:

"It was this way. When we went up first it was perfectly glorious-- you never can imagine how lovely Adelaide looks from the air, with the hills round and the sea in the distance and almond-blossom all over the place. Oh--if only this thing hadn't happened I could tell you all sorts of things, but now I can't think of anything. It was near the end. I was awfully keen on trying an experiment--two experiments in fact. I wanted to see how near I could hit a given spot if I aimed at it with a stone, and I wanted to see how much the stone would deflect in falling. Perhaps it's only one experiment really, but it struck me as being two at the time. You see, if Australia ever goes to war we might want to shoot from balloons, or one might drop a ball of explosives with a fuse attached or something. I thought about it when that Russian scare was on, but I never thought I'd get the chance to try. So I got a good, smooth, round stone, nine-and-a-half ounces, and wrapped it up in a handkerchief and took it up. I knew a good place to aim at--the tree in Mr. Macgregor's Burnt Oak field. I knew the field was empty; it is being ploughed up for some experiment that Mr. Macgregor wants to try--blow all experiments! And to-day he gave his men a holiday to come and see the balloon. We were about fifteen hundred feet up and going slowly. I could see the oak and its shadow quite plainly. So I let the stone drop."

Hugh paused again and groaned.

"Go on," said somebody.

"No one noticed what I had done, but something or other made Mr.

Ferguson start talking about how dangerous it was to chuck things over carelessly, though it seems to me that in Jules Verne they spend half their time chucking sandbags about. I asked him how about a stone weighing half a pound, and he said it would fall half a mile in twelve and a half seconds, and if it hit anyone on the head that person would be as dead as if he had got a bullet through him. I felt a bit sick, but I was glad that field had been empty. We came down soon after that, and I cut off to Burnt Oak field to look for my stone." Hugh stopped short.

"Go on," said the others.

"It wasn't there, nor anywhere round; and I _knew_ it must have dropped on that field."

"But," said Jerry, "if it hit the earth at that speed it would bury itself ever so deep. You could not possibly see it."

"I thought of that," said Hugh, "so I looked for the hole, and I found it. About thirty feet from the tree, which was a good hit considering. I could soon learn to aim well--that is, if I'm not hanged or sent to prison for life. Oh--Well, I found the hole, and beside it I found--"

No one dared to ask a question. Hugh remained silent till it was almost more than they could bear.

"Blood!" he whispered at last.

"Jiminy! Is that all!" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "I thought you were going to say a dead body. If the body got up and walked away it couldn't have been so very dead. How much blood? Were there any footmarks about?"

"That part of the field hadn't been ploughed, and the ground was rather hard, covered with gra.s.s the cattle had been cropping. There were some stones in a little pile, but my stone wasn't among them. I looked at those stones--by George, I looked at them! They were splashed with blood--Then I got sick, and then had to skedaddle because someone was calling me."

"I am _sure_ it will turn out all right; you had the lucky diamond,"

Grizzel said consolingly.

"That makes it worse," said Hugh, groaning again. "I tied the diamond up with the stone and forgot to take it out."

"Oh, _Hugh_!" exclaimed Prudence, more perturbed by this disaster than by the hypothetical murder, "how _could_ you be so careless?"

"It doesn't matter," Grizzel persisted, with cheerful calm, "that diamond brings luck. It has had one miracle, and I expect it will have another. It will come back. Very likely the dead man will bring it back himself."

"It will come back all right," said Hugh, "because the ring has Grizzel's name inside it, and, seeing that mine is the same on the handkerchief, the police will have a jolly good clue to start on. If the person was _not_ hit and steals the diamond he'll take good care not to show himself. Then the diamond will be gone, but I'll give Grizzel mine. I'll spend my bank money on getting a ring made. Oh-- if I only knew! If I only knew what was going to happen I shouldn't mind so much. It's waiting for that bobby to turn up that gives me the horrors." He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, with a shiver of antic.i.p.ation.

"It sounds to me a bit fishy, you know," said Jerry, with a thoughtful frown. "How do you know that the hole you saw was made by your stone? It might have been there already."

"Because it was fresh, and the earth round was freshly thrown up; and some of my handkerchief was lying beside it."

The boys looked grave. This did sound rather serious.

"But," said Mollie, "the stone could not have buried itself in a hole and hit a person so that the person was killed at the same time. If it went down into a hole it did not hit anyone."

"I never thought of that," said Hugh, cheering up for the first time. "Neither it could; but there was the blood," he added despondently, "pints of it. I never thought anything could bleed so much. Well--I shall know before very long one way or the other, for either some news will turn up or the diamond will stay away."

"The best thing you can do now is to have some tea," said Prudence, "then you will feel better and we can plan what to do."

Things certainly looked less black after tea. Hugh, beginning to hope for Grizzel's miracle, decided to develop some photographs of the ballooners which he had taken on the previous day. "I promised Mr. Ferguson to have some prints ready for him to-morrow," he said, "so I may as well begin. If the bobby comes you can call me."

But everyone wanted to watch the developing process. Hugh's dark- room was a roomy lean-to shed, built by himself and well equipped with shelves, sink, and taps. It would hold six people at a pinch.

"No, I can't have you all," Hugh said, "you wouldn't all see at once, and it is too much of a crowd. I'll take two at a time. d.i.c.k and Prue to begin with."

The remaining three settled themselves within sight of the garden gate, and discussed the various features of Hugh's adventure.

"I don't believe it is half so bad as he thinks," Jerry said, "because it stands to reason that a dead man could not get up and walk away, especially not across a ploughed field. I doubt if even a man who had lost several pints of blood could walk very far. And if he had been _carried_ off, there would have been a fuss, and the ballooners would have been tackled at once--in fact, I can't think why they weren't. I think it looks rather bad for Grizzel's diamond; worse for the diamond than for the man. I wonder how fast the balloon was going. How fast does a balloon fly?"

"Somewhere from eight to thirty-six miles an hour, according to the wind, Jules Verne says," Grizzel answered.

"Eight miles an hour! My hat! Fancy crawling through the air at eight--"

There was a sound at the garden gate and the three jumped to their feet. A young man walked up the broad path between the cypress trees, striking across the gra.s.s when he saw the children. He was not a policeman, having indeed a very kind and cheerful expression, which he was trying, not very successfully, to hide under a severe frown.

"Does anyone named Grizzel Campbell live in this house?" he asked.

"Yes, me," Grizzel answered, turning a little pale.

"You!" exclaimed the young man, looking with some astonishment at the small figure before him, with its tumbled red curls. "I don't suppose _you_ are the owner of a--" he broke off uncertainly.

"She is the owner of a green diamond in a ring, if that is what you wish to know," Jerry spoke up.

"What on earth is a kid like you doing with a magnificent diamond ring?" the young man asked, forgetting to frown and letting everyone see quite plainly what a nice face he really had.

"Oh--have you got my ring? Has there been a miracle?" Grizzel cried, clutching at the young man's arm.

"I have got the ring, and there has been a miracle sure enough," he answered rather grimly. "I suppose that Mr. Hugh Campbell is your brother. Where is he?"

"He's here all right," Jerry answered, "but would you mind telling us what happened before I call him? Whatever he did he's jolly cut up about it, and if it was anything very bad I'd like to--to prepare him a bit, you know. He went to look for his stone and got the fright of his life when he found his hank and the blood."

"Blood!" the young man e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with a puzzled frown. "What blood?"

"He said the ground was soaked in blood. All the stones were red. He thinks that the person he hit must have lost pints of blood."

The young man threw back his head and laughed--a big, rea.s.suring laugh which brought some colour into the three pale and anxious faces turned up to his. "Blood! I see! No, it was not so bad as all that, it only _might_ have been. It was not blood, it was only--but I'd better begin at the beginning and tell you what happened. I was sitting in Macgregor's Burnt Oak field, working at--well, a little experiment I am interested in, when I saw the balloon had come right over. Of course I had been watching it, but for a bit I was absorbed in my experiment and had not looked up. I looked up then and was staring hard, when suddenly, before I could say Jack Robinson, a whacking stone came hurtling down and cleared my head by less than a foot. If it had hit me--by Jove! I'd have tried the last and biggest experiment before this!"

"A foot is a pretty good miss," said Jerry, a look of immense relief spreading over his face. "I know a chap who had a parting cut in his hair with a bullet; that's what _I_ call a narrow shave. That's what he calls it too," Jerry added, with a grin.

"No doubt he does. My shave was narrow enough for me, thank you. It all but knocked my precious experiment into the middle of next week.

But what I want to know is why Hugh Campbell throws diamond rings about the country. If the stone hadn't plopped into the middle of my--my little game--which was almost another miracle when you consider the size of the field--the ring would have been lost for ever."

"It's a miraculous ring," Grizzel explained, "and it brings luck. I expect you'll be ever so lucky now. But how did you know where to look for Hugh?" she added rather anxiously. Mr. Ferguson would not be pleased, to put it mildly, if he knew how nearly Hugh had involved him in a tragedy.

"I know your father," the young man replied, "he once did me a good turn. So I knew where to look for the owner of the handkerchief without troubling Mr. Ferguson."

"But what was that mush if it wasn't blood?" asked Jerry.