4x-xx-xx ep67 The Moonstone

Out of the past, phantoms of a world gone by speak again the immortal tale, the Moon Stone. One thousand years ago, in the holy city of Sonneth in Mother India, they stood a temple of gold, and in this temple sitting in sombre judgment on his cringing worshippers was he who may call the moon god.

deeply embedded in his golden forehead, they stood a great yellow diamond, fabulous beyond all price. And from it came the evil light of the moon, waxing bright when the moon was full, and waning pale when the moon grew dim.

This was the holy treasure of ageless India, this they called the moon stone. And it came to pass that the great god Vishnu, the preserver, came upon the wings of a monsoon wind and appeared to the three high priests of the temple and said to them, I, Vishnu, have breathed the breath of divinity into the moonstone.

YE3 shall watch it, and after you three other Brahman priests, and after you three others till the end of time. And he who lays hands upon this sacred gem, and thus defiles it, shall come to evil and disaster.

And those of his house and name who follow him. This shall be my curse. This new have spoken. I, Gabriel Beteridge, house-joint in the service of Julia, Lady Verinder, have heard the legendary tale of the moonstone.

I thought it fanciful nonsense. A tale spun of opium mists and hashish dreams from Bombay to Singapore. Yet today I have reason to believe, good reason to believe, for here in quiet rural Yorkshire, far from the heathen temples of India, I have seen the moonstone and known its evil heritage. This is the tale I would tell you. It begins in southern India in the