Introduction

Indian Diamonds 177
gether with the three Sikhs, Jonathan Small swears the oath that makes him one of
“the Four”, an Indian conspiracy to murder for greed. The oath is taken in the
Agra fort which is divided into two parts: “[A] modern part, which took all our
garrison, women, children, […]” and an “old quarter, where nobody goes, and
which is given over to the scorpions and the centipedes” (Doyle, Sign 216-217).
The old part is “a labyrinth of passages and corridors” and “it is easy for folk to
get lost in it” (217) and it is here that Small agrees to enter the pact. The fort thus
figures as the wilderness and the uncivilised. The labyrinth is exactly the place
where Small gets lost morally. This is the place where the treasure is buried (225),
in the wilderness of a ruined hall.
Small stays true to his oath and seeks revenge for his Sikh accomplices. The
racial difference in this pact is dangerously blurred and following racist logic, overstepping
the line leads Jonathan Small to crime. On the Andamans, he is then
guarded as a prisoner by Sholto and Morstan, the reversal of his employment as
supervisor on the indigo plantation before the Mutiny. In his change from supervisor
to supervised, Small’s descent is apparent as he has left the white and ruling
class of the guards and is classed with captives and criminals, the natives. Furthermore,
the white officers are not the only people who have power over him
now, but the camp is also guarded by “a vile Pathan who had never missed a
chance of insulting and injuring [Small]” (232) and Small is being “bullied by every
cursed black-faced policeman who loved to take it out of a white man” (213) 25.
Jonathan Small’s pairing with Tonga offers another instance of his native character.
While Tonga is implicitly dehumanised, Small, too, is described as “monkeyfaced”
(180). The connection between the two, however, is revised after Tonga’s
death. Small confesses that his friend killed Sholto and claims, in an attempt to
win favour, that he himself would never have committed this deed.
Driven by greed, Thomas Vandeleur in “The Rajah’s Diamond” also enters a
pact with an Indian and serves him against his own countrymen during the Mutiny.
He “betrayed a body of his fellow-soldiers, and suffered them to be defeated
and massacred by thousands” (Stevenson, “Rajah’s” 175). John Vandeleur, “the
biggest adventurer” and some-time “Dictator of Paraguay” is known for “his exploits
and atrocities” in America and “services in the Indian Mutiny” (96).
[H]is whole appearance that of a swift, violent, unscrupulous man of action;
and his copious white hair and the deep sabre-cut that traversed his nose
and temple added a note of savagery to a head already remarkable and
menacing in itself. (96)
his fellow-soldiers, and suffered them to be defeated and massacred by thousands” (Stevenson,
“Rajah’s” 175).
25 Yumna Siddiqi argues that it was especially colonial working-class characters like Jonathan Small
who worked in direct contact with the natives, as on the indigo plantation, that threatened the
clear division between the rulers and the ruled (239).