Luck at the Diamond Fields Part 15

"Two," said the doctor.

"Four," answered Bowker.

The doctor began to wonder whether after all Bowker might not have a straight flush, but just then he felt sure that he saw the signs in his face he had noticed before.

"Eight," said the doctor, and there was an expression in his bright eyes that meant danger, as he looked into the other's face.

Bowker stared at his hand for some seconds, before, in a husky voice, he said--

"Sixteen. That's about all your shanties are worth," he added, seeming to gain courage.

"How much did you say, Brown--twenty-four thousand five hundred? Make it that; that's the amount of my street and your shares, Bowker," Gorman said, and we all noticed the tone of malice in his voice, which had kept calm and emotionless all through the play.

For a second or two Bowker did not answer. He looked like an elephant which had received its death-wound, so a man who had just come down from the Zambesi said.

"Twenty-four thousand five hundred. Well, I will make it up to that and go." Then he stopped, as if he realised he had about got to the end of his tether.

Not only the doctor, but every one in the room, felt pretty sure that he had a bad hand, and that the finish of the game had come.

Every face was turned to Bowker; the lookers-on wondering what he would do, and how he would take his bad luck. For a second he seemed to be trying to think. Then a dazed look came into his face, and he half stood up, and then fell heavily forward, bringing the table down with him. There was a paraffin lamp on the table, which smashed as it fell, and in a second the cloth and table was blazing. There was a rush forward of the men looking on. Bowker was lifted on to a sofa, and a doctor, who on his way home from a case had dropped into the club, seeing it open, began to attend to him.

"By Jove! the place will be burnt down!" some one cried, and some men rushed out of the room to get water, while others tried to put out the fire with rugs.

Gorman stood holding his cards in his hand, looking first at his opponent and then at the blazing card-table.

"Well, how are we going to play this out? This is a d.a.m.n pretty thing,"

he said. He did not care about Bowker's state of health, nor did he care whether the building were burnt down or not.

"See here, where are his cards? we have got to see this out.

Twenty-four thou, is no laughing matter. He never raised, so we had better show our cards. What's he got?" Gorman said, as he stood with his cards in hand.

The fire was put out. Bowker was on the sofa looking rather bad, but the doctor seemed to be perfectly careless about everything except the stake he felt sure he had won.

"Never mind about the game, man, now; maybe the poor fellow will never get round," one of the men who was looking at Bowker said.

"Beg pardon, but I do care about the game; it's all very well his going into a fit, but that don't alter the fact that we've got to play this out. Where are his cards?"

"You want to see his hand, do you? Well, there you are," some one said, holding up a charred ma.s.s which was all there was left of the cloth that had been on the table, or the rest of the cards, except the four knaves and a queen which Gorman held in his hand.

Gorman looked at it for a second, and then with an oath he threw his own cards on to the floor.

"Four knaves and a queen, and I had at first an ace and a king. So I must win with them."

"The question is, what had Bowker? He don't look like telling you, and n.o.body else knows; besides, the game has not been played out. It's a draw," said one of the on-lookers, and this speech brought a murmur of consent from the others.

Gorman gathered up his cards and showed them to the company. Then he said no more, but watched Bowker, who seemed to be coming to.

"Look here, what was your hand?" he asked, when the latter seemed to be sensible.

Bowker, however, did not answer the question, and it was some months before he could be induced to talk about that game. Until Gorman left the Fields his mind was a blank on the subject.

The story went, however, that he was induced to tell in confidence the story of that night's play to a particular friend.

He had held three aces and two kings. Not a very good hand, but one worth backing for a little. Gorman, however, had taken him up, and instead of throwing up his hand, he had determined to bluff. He had originally held a queen, so he knew that Gorman could not hold four of aces, kings, or queens. He could remember getting to the end of his tether, and finding Gorman sticking to him like grim death; and then he could remember no more. It was only after Gorman had left for England that this story was told. Some people shrug their shoulders and laugh when they talk of that fit which Bowker had, and they say that under the circ.u.mstances it was the best thing he could have done. But the doctor who attended him knows it was real enough, and so does Gorman, who saw it coming on.

Story 9.

"A WHISKEY DRINKER."

The 'Queen's Hotel,' Kimberley, was doing a roaring trade. The bar was one dense ma.s.s of thirsty men, struggling to get served with splits and other drinks. The large dining-room, out of which the tables had been taken, was crowded. People from all parts of the colony were there.

Dutch Africanders from the western province, Englishmen from the east; colonial soldiers; officers of the Cape Mounted Rifles, and mounted police officers from the frontier; merchants from Capetown and Port Elizabeth, and visitors from every part of South Africa. Besides these visitors there was every sort of Diamond-Field man represented. The honest digger--the expression is considered out there the correct one to use, though if it be your lot to have much dealing with the mining element of South Africa you will wonder how it came into vogue--with his broad-brimmed hat and big beard and bad language is making himself conspicuous as he generally does, wherever he be. The diamond-buyers, licensed and unlicenced, gentlemen of the Jewish persuasion for the most part, given as a rule to wearing much of their stock-in-trade on their hands, and indulging in that shiny smartness of dress so dear to the race; the latter, the unlicenced and unlawful dealers in diamonds, wearing in their eyes that restless uneasy look that is peculiar to those cla.s.ses who are liable at any moment to find themselves involved in an embarra.s.sing and one-sided misunderstanding with the police.

There were merchants, speculators, lawyers, doctors, and civil servants there. About some men who took rather a prominent position there was the unmistakable betting man's look; and they gave one the idea that they would be at home in the ring at any English race meeting. The occasion was the drawing of the lotteries for the forthcoming races, and as times had been good, and money was plentiful, sovereigns were flowing in very quickly to the men who were giving out the chances. I was looking on smoking when I recognised a slight, good-looking man who was taking a ticket in the lottery. His name was Jack Harman, an ex-officer in the army, who had been a digger on the Diamond Fields, had married and settled in the colony.

"How is it you're up here?" I said to him as I shook hands with him.

"A married man like you ought not to be wandering about the country."

"You're right--wish to goodness I was at home, for the missis is ill; but I have to look after my horses up here."

"Well, I suppose your horse Marmion is a certainty for the cup, eh?" I said. "Up here they think the race is over."

"All I can say is, that it isn't, I wish it were, for it's a rich prize, and goodness knows I want the money badly enough."

Just then a dark-bearded man pushed past Jack Harman, and as he did so gave him a look of recognition which the latter answered by a blank stare.

"Who's that?--who's your friend?" I asked him.

"That is one of the blackest-hearted scoundrels unhanged; he is a sort of fellow you read about in a book; Solomon Muzada is his name, and he is one of the greatest enemies I have. Do you know that brute wanted to marry my wife; it's an infernal cheek because there is a touch of the tar-brush in him. Dutchman, Jew, and n.i.g.g.e.r--it's a nice breed, isn't it? Of course she wouldn't look at him, and since our marriage he has been our enemy. There was a mortgage on Laurie's Kloof, on which I ought to have paid the interest, but didn't; well he has bought it, and by Jove he is going to sell us up. He has sworn he will make a bankrupt of me, and I believe he will do it. Do you hear that? I have drawn a horse Storm Drum. By George, that's a rum thing!" he added, as he caught something which the steward of the races, who was managing the drawing, had shouted out. "Look here, are you going to do anything about the races, because don't make any bets till you have seen me. I must see about the selling," he said as he went off.

A steward had got upon one of the tables, upon which a desk had been put, and was about to sell the chances. Anglo-Indians or South Africans need no explanation of a selling lottery, but to some Englishmen an explanation may be given. After the lotteries have been drawn the chances of the different horses are sold by auction; any ore present is allowed to bid, but in perhaps the generality of cases the owners of horses buy the chances, this being the best way of backing their horses to win a good amount. The highest bidder has to pay the amount of his bid twice over, once to the owner of the ticket that drew the horse, and again he has to pay it into the pool. The latter money, of course, he gets back again, together with the amount collected for the tickets and the prices paid for the other chances if the horse whose chance he bought wins. After the chance of some outsider had been sold for a few pounds the steward, who was acting as auctioneer, shouted out that the next chance to be sold was Marmion. "Gentlemen, Captain Harman's Marmion, and three hundred and four pounds in the pool."

The sporting division began to make calculations in their betting-books, and to be all on the alert to learn what those who knew most about it thought of the horse's chance.

I watched Jack Harman carefully. "Poor beggar, he wants money badly! I hope he will be able to buy Marmion's chance cheap," I thought to myself, as I noticed the expression on his face. As I looked away from him I saw Solomon Muzada, the man Jack had told me about; he also was watching Jack, and I believe, from the devilish smile that was playing round his coa.r.s.e, thick lips, that he too read the expression I saw.

"Captain Harman's Marmion, three hundred and four pounds in the pool,"

the steward cried out, and the bidding began.

Some one bid twenty pounds, some one thirty, thirty-five, forty, fifty, sixty, a hundred; then the bidding steadied, and went up a pound at a time till a hundred and fifty was reached.

"That's all it will go for," said a bookmaker near me; "it's buying money to give more."

He was wrong though; a hundred and ninety was reached before only two bidders were left--one was Jack Harman, the other was Solomon Muzada.

"Going at one hundred and ninety, three hundred pounds in the pool,"

said the steward.

"Ninety-one," cried out Jack Harman.

"Ninety-two," snarled out Solomon Muzada.