CHAPTER VIII.
Here, for one moment, I find it necessary to call a halt.
On summoning up my own recollections--and on getting Penelope to help me, by consulting her journal--I find that we may pass pretty rapidly over the interval between Mr.Franklin Blake's arrival and Miss Rachel's birthday.

For the greater part of that time the days passed, and brought nothing with them worth recording.

With your good leave, then, and with Penelope's help, I shall notice certain dates only in this place; reserving to myself to tell the story day by day, once more, as soon as we get to the time when the business of the Moonstone became the chief business of everybody in our house.
This said, we may now go on again--beginning, of course, with the bottle of sweet-smelling ink which I found on the gravel walk at night.
On the next morning (the morning of the twenty-sixth) I showed Mr.
Franklin this article of jugglery, and told him what I have already told you.

His opinion was, not only that the Indians had been lurking about after the Diamond, but also that they were actually foolish enough to believe in their own magic--meaning thereby the making of signs on a boy's head, and the pouring of ink into a boy's hand, and then expecting him to see persons and things beyond the reach of human vision.

In our country, as well as in the East, Mr.Franklin informed me, there are people who practise this curious hocus-pocus (without the ink, however); and who call it by a French name, signifying something like brightness of sight.