Luck at the Diamond Fields Part 23

It was on a Monday that I had this conversation with him, and it was on the following Thursday that the cart was to be stopped. The next day the police sergeant came up to the house to finally arrange his plans.

I didn't like the man's looks any better on that occasion. In his presence I began to feel ashamed of myself because I was going to become a thief. It seemed disgraceful to be mixed up in such a business with that shifty-looking scoundrel. Dormer's society, on the other hand, made me reckless and in good spirits, while he took care that I had drink enough to prevent my thinking too much.

The place we had chosen to make our attack upon the cart was about twenty miles from Kimberley, and the cart would pa.s.s there about ten o'clock in the evening. An hour before that time Jim Dormer and I were sitting behind some rocks near the road at that place where we had agreed to stop the cart. We had the rope ready to put across the road when it was time for the cart to pa.s.s, while we both had our revolvers, with which we intended to make a great display of a determined attack.

"It's no good being too soon with the rope, the cart won't be before its time, and something else might pa.s.s," Dormer said as he lit a match to look at his watch.

"How long have we to wait?" I asked, for I began to feel rather nervous and to wish the time for action had come.

"An hour or more before the cart is due here; take a drink," he said, handing me a whiskey-flask. I half emptied the flask and lit a pipe, and listened to my companion, who, to cheer me up, I fancy, began to talk about the time we would have when we cleared out of the country with the nice little pile we would make by that evening's work.

Dormer's conversation and whiskey had its intended effect, and I got back my careless, reckless spirits.

It was not very pleasant work waiting, the night had clouded over an hour or so before, and the flashes of lightning seemed to be terribly near us, while soon after the first flash the storm broke and the rain came down in torrents, as it does on the South African veldt in a summer's thunderstorm.

"All the better for us, my lad, just the night for the job," he said as we tried to huddle behind the boulders to get out of the rain. Dormer talked away about the delights of Paris and London and the time we would have at home, while we both took several more pulls at the whiskey-bottle; for all that the time went slowly, and we began to feel wretchedly uncomfortable.

As we sat there waiting for the time to arrive for us to begin our work and to stretch the rope across the road which was to stop the cart, it certainly seemed that my fate was sealed, and that I was destined to become a successful scoundrel or a skulking jail-bird for the rest of my life. Looking back I cannot remember that I felt much shame or remorse.

I was infected with Dormer's ideas of things. What we were going to do would not hurt any individual very much; it seemed to me then that it was a much more harmless thing than the financial robberies which were carried out by men who were considered most respectable persons; and as for the danger of being found out, I didn't see where it came in, I thought, as I took a drink from the bottle.

"Easy with that bottle, old chap, or you will be hitting some one when you let off your revolver; keep yourself cool, and mind you go straight for old Jacob, and see that he don't pull the c.r.a.pe off your face,"

Dormer said to me. Then he walked some yards off to take a look at the spot in the road he had chosen for tying the rope across.

As he left me a strange change seemed to come over me. The reckless devil-may-care spirits I had been in left me, and I felt a sense of awe as if I knew that something was going to happen. Then a feeling came over me that some one was present, and all at once the rocks in front of me seemed to fade away, and where they had been I saw an unearthly luminous mist, and through it I saw a figure dressed as an officer in a Highland regiment. I could see that his arms were thrown back, his sword was falling from his hand. There was a rent in the breast of his coat, and in his face was the look of death. I knew him; he was my brother Donald; he had grown from a lad into a man, and he was handsome and more soldierlike than when I had seen him last. I remembered our compact, and then I knew that my brother was dead. There was the proud look of one who had earned the respect of his fellow-men in his highbred face. For one instant our eyes seemed to meet, and then as I sprang forward calling to him by name the figure and the mist surrounding it seemed to fade away. "Heaven help me," I thought, "I am the last of our race." A flood of home memories, which for some time I had done my best to banish from my thoughts, came back to me. As I touched my face and felt the mask of c.r.a.pe I had on, I realised what I was going to do, and that I was about to become a common criminal.

"What on earth are you shouting for? what's the matter with you, man?

we'd better be moving and fixing the rope," I heard Dormer say as he came back to where I was. I did not answer, but stood irresolute for a second or two. I felt half-ashamed to give up the adventure I had engaged in, but after what I had seen I was determined not to engage in it.

"Jim, I am going to cut it; I have had a warning not to go on with this--let's give it up."

"Give it up by--" and Dormer gave vent to his surprise and disgust in very strong language. "Well, I did think you were good grit; but you can't give it up now. What's come over you all at once?" He was thoroughly disgusted with me; such faith in human nature as remained to him had evidently received a shock. "Well, I'd have never thought it of you, you whom I always believed in. Come, pull yourself together and do what you said you'd do; it's too late to turn tail now." And then looking into my face and seeing how agitated I was, he asked me what on earth had happened to me. I think, like many a gambler and adventurer of his type, Jim had a strong vein of superst.i.tion in his nature. When I told him something of what I had seen he was somewhat impressed by it, and on my again expressing my determination to turn back and have no more to do with it he did not attempt to persuade me. Nor did he think of doing the thing by himself. He growled out a few sentences of disgust, and sulkily walked after me as I turned and made the best of my way towards Kimberley. We kept some way from the road; I hardly know why I did this, but I think it was because I did not wish to pa.s.s too close to the post-cart. After about half-an-hour we saw the post-cart driven along, and then Jim Dormer's feelings became too much for him again, and he burst out into a string of oaths and reproaches. I must say I quite saw how contemptible my conduct must seem to him, and to a certain extent I sympathised with him. Suddenly he came to a stop and clutched my arm, motioning me to dodge behind some bushes. I did so, and in a few seconds three hors.e.m.e.n rode almost by where we were.

"We are well out of that little trap. Did you see who they were? I will swear to two of them being Lamb and Stedman, the detectives. By George! but I will go back from all I've been saying; that was a straight tip you got wherever it came from to give up this job," Dormer whispered to me when they had ridden past. "That hound of a policeman has rounded on us and given information," he added. It turned out afterwards that this idea of his was right. It was pretty clear that we had just been in time in leaving the place where we had agreed to wait for the cart. Our plot had been betrayed and a very warm reception had been arranged for us. Even as it was we felt that there was some chance of our being arrested, and we were both glad enough when we were got back to Kimberley and were safe in our beds.

Tired though I was, I slept very little, but I lay awake and thought of my brother, whom I was convinced was no more, and of the old home days.

I thought more seriously of my degraded life and made more good resolutions than I had done for many a long day. I think I kept them fairly well, though I had a hard time of it for some time to come. At last I got some work to do for a company on the Transvaal gold-fields, and since then I have made a living, though I don't know that I am likely to make the fortune I used to dream of. Dormer and I parted good friends. "Your second-sight seems as if it had been a warning to you to keep straight, and I'd do it if I were you; as for me, well, it's different," he said as we shook hands. He left South Africa shortly after this, and I don't know what happened to him.

The Kimberley newspaper a day or two after had a telegram in it telling of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and when I saw full particulars of it some weeks after I learnt that my brother had been shot when leading his company in that engagement.

Story 13.

A FATAL DIAMOND.

Chapter One.

It was a pure white stone of over two hundred carats, and since nature had somehow brewed it ages before it had rested peacefully in its native 'blue' as innocent of harm as the meanest pebble near it. No sooner, however, was it unearthed by the pick of one Sixpence, a Kaffir in the employ of the Union Diamond Mining Company of the Kimberley Mine, than its evil influence began to work. Sixpence's eyes glittered as he saw it glisten in the South African sunshine, and then he gave one stealthy glance at an overseer, who was paid to watch over him and keep him from straying from the paths of honesty, and found that he had little to fear from that quarter. The overseer was indulging in a day-dream, and in his imagination was reacting the incident of the previous Sat.u.r.day evening, when he had engaged in four fights, three of which he could quite remember. While he was thus occupied Sixpence clutched the diamond, and when he had got it up and hidden it away in the rag he wore round his waist, began to indulge in a delicious day-dream on his own account. He would sell the diamond to a canteen-keeper he knew of, and have one last drinking bout and then farewell to the white man and his troublesome ways. He knew, however, that on leaving the mine he would have to pa.s.s through the searching house, and that it would be dangerous to take his chance with the diamond. So he hides it somewhere near where he is working, and when he goes home he has the lump of blue ground, a few yards from which the diamond is buried, photographed in his mind with an instinct strange to any civilised man. That night, an hour after midnight, he steals away from the compound where the Union Company Kaffirs sleep and makes his way to the side of the mine.

At the far end of the mine a company was working by electric light, and the brilliant glare in its claims made the rest of the huge pit look weirdly gloomy, and seem bottomless and infernal. Sixpence, however, had not much imagination, cared little enough for the picturesque effect. He had no room in his mind for any other picture but that of the exact spot where he had concealed the big diamond. Glancing around to see that there was no one about, he turned down a track which led from the reef to the bottom of the mine. Without much difficulty he found the exact spot in the claims where he had hid the diamond. Then, as he held the stone in his hand and realised that the prize was his, he felt inclined to give vent to his joy in a wild Kaffir song of triumph.

That bit of a pebble for which the big fools of white men would give so much money and undergo so much toil was his. His last day's work was done. No overseer would again awaken him in the morning and compel him to go to those hateful claims. His future would be made up of days of delicious loafing, watching his wives hoe in the mealie patch, and his cows feed round his kraal, while he would have an ever delightful story to tell to the young men of his tribe, of how he had fooled the white men, and carried off the biggest diamond that ever turned up in their claims.

Perhaps it was fate, or some wayward influence exercised by the big stone he had found, that made him choose another way to ascend by than that which he had followed when he went down the mine. This brought him up about fifty yards from where he had gone down. It was just as good a path to take as the other, or rather it would have been just as good a path for him to take but for one circ.u.mstance.

As Sixpence reached the top of the reef, and was just starting off at a run, he found himself tumbling over something which when he was on the ground he discovered to be a pair of long legs. Those legs happened to belong to one Jack Enderby, a searcher in the employ of the Kimberley Mining Board. Mr Sixpence, who did not read the local papers, was unaware of the fact that the Mining Board, in order to put a stop to exactly the course of proceeding which he was carrying out, had inst.i.tuted the system of putting men on guard round the reef at night.

Though the idea was a good one, it was not being carried out in a very satisfactory and efficient manner by the owner of the legs. Going on night guard, particularly after one has spent a somewhat convivial evening, is tiresome work enough. Mr Jack Enderby had found it so, and after he had walked about for some time, and grumbled at his luck in having to earn his living in that way, he had settled himself down to smoke a quiet pipe and think over things. He had yawned, stretched himself, looked into the mine, and wished devoutly that the infernal place had never been found at all, or that he at all events had never seen it. And then his thoughts had begun to stray listlessly over his somewhat chequered career, which was perhaps all the easier to follow as it was all downhill. His history was one which he was willing enough to tell any one who would listen to it.

"Went from Eton to the --th Hussars; about as lively a lot as any in the service. Went the pace as strong as any of 'em for a time, but couldn't last. Found myself dead broke when the numbers went up after one Derby.

Had to go after that, and for my sins managed to find my way out to this forsaken hole of a place," was his oft-told tale. At one time he had owned some claims in the mine, but he soon gambled them away. Then he lived by his wits for a period, but falling upon bad times had been glad to take the billet of a searcher upon the Mining Board, which some of the few friends who continued to stick to him were able to get for him.

The appointment was grumbled at by some men who cared more about the interests of the mine than about the welfare of Jack Enderby, and certainly they would have been able to justify their stricture if they could have seen him, for he had found his thoughts soothing, and having found a comfortable place had gone fast asleep.

His peculiar way of looking after the interest of the Kimberley claimholders, however, was destined to prove as disastrous to Mr Sixpence as if he had been performing his duty with the most exemplary zeal.

Sixpence did not know what he was there for, but he realised that all white men were dangerous to a black man who had a big diamond in his possession, and he sprung on to his feet and set off at his best pace.

Just then, however, Jack woke up, saw Sixpence making off, and in a second was on his legs and in pursuit of him. Sixpence had managed to get about twenty yards' start, and he took a path that led away from the mine to some ground given up to washing machines, depositing-floors, and _debris_ heaps. In that direction he would not be likely to meet with a policeman, and if he got a good start from his pursuer, there would be plenty of hiding-places where he could take cover and dodge behind.

Unfortunately for him, however, Jack Enderby had once won the 'quarter'

at Sandhurst, and though he was not improved by the fifteen years that had pa.s.sed since then, he could still go better than most men, so long as he could keep his wind. Mr Sixpence soon began to know that he had a good man behind him, and to believe he was outpaced. He would have to use his hands as well as his legs if he meant to keep the diamond, which he had in the pocket of the tattered soldier's coat he was wearing.

Sixpence meant to keep that diamond, and he gave the heavy iron-bound k.n.o.bkerri he had taken out with him a savage grip, and had a vision of a smashed white face as he slackened his pace. Then, as his pursuer came up, he stopped suddenly, and turning upon him before he realised that he was going to show fight, struck him one blow full on the face. Enderby staggered back dazed and half stunned, hardly able to avoid the second blow the Kaffir aimed at him. He had nothing in his hands, having left his stick at the spot where he was lying asleep, but it chanced on that particular evening that he had a revolver in the side-pocket of his coat. As a rule he never carried arms, few men on the Diamond Fields ever do, but as luck would have it, that evening before he went on duty he had encountered in a canteen an intoxicated young gentleman, who was possessed of a revolver, and not having been long on the Diamond Fields thought it the thing to make a flourish with it, to the great danger of the company present. Jack had considered that he would be safer without it, so he had taken it from him. The circ.u.mstance turned out to be rather an unfortunate one for Mr Sixpence.

"You blasted n.i.g.g.e.r! I'll stop that game," Jack said, as he felt some blood running down his cheek, and his hand went to his pocket. He fired without taking particular aim, but the Kaffir's hands went up, and he fell on his back. "Well, it's not your night out, my boy; there is a dead run of luck against you. First of all you must tumble over me as you come out of the mine, and it's long odds against that; then I have a revolver on me, and then when I do shoot I put a bullet through your brain instead of missing. Well, we will see what it was you were taking away with you," Jack said to himself, as he bent over the fallen man and put his hand into the pocket of the tattered soldier's coat he had on, and then as he touched the diamond he gave an exclamation of surprise.

"By the Lord, Harry, it was worth going to get," he said, as he pulled it out and looked at it in the moonlight.

Jack Enderby was a good-hearted fellow enough as men went, but it is no libel upon him to say that he was far more moved by the sight of the diamond than by the fate which had befallen the Kaffir. It was his duty to stop any one whom he found surrept.i.tiously visiting the mine, and when he had a revolver he could hardly be expected not to use it in self-defence. Not much trouble would be made about the Kaffir's death.

He would report it to the police, an inquiry would be held, but the state of his face would show the provocation he had received before he fired. No, there would be no fuss about the n.i.g.g.e.r, but the diamond-- that was a very different matter--that would be something to talk about, when people saw it; and then Jack Enderby thought to himself that for some time no one should see it. Hitherto in the matter of diamonds he had been straight; but he had never concealed from himself that if he got one good chance of getting hold of a big diamond he would make no bones about it. Well, the chance had come, and he was not going to be such a fool as not to avail himself of it, he thought, as he put the diamond into his pocket, and like poor Sixpence began to think of what he would do with it.

In his case, too, it meant farewell to the Kimberley mine, and work which he hated. It meant also, if it were as good a stone as he believed it to be, his having that good fling at home, which he had longed for without much hope.

As he grasped the diamond a vision of Newmarket Heath rose up, and he seemed to hear the thud of the horses as they pa.s.sed the post, and hear the roar of the ring. He thought of the card-room of his club, and the pleasant excitement of _ecarte_; and then he thought of the Richmond dinners he would partake of again in congenial society, and realised that he would soon be enjoying all these pleasures again.

He remembered that for a wonder he happened to have a little store of ready money, which he had won a few days before on the Kimberley races, about twenty-five pounds, enough to get him home if he travelled steerage in the steamer; and what did a little discomfort matter if it were only rewarded by the good time he intended to have. Once he was home with the diamond he was safe. On the Fields he would only get a small price for it, because of the danger of buying a diamond from a man like himself who had no right to own one; but in England no troublesome questions would be asked. For the present, the sooner he got the diamond hidden away the better, he thought, so he made the best of his way to the little iron house near the mine where he slept, and found a hiding-place for it there. Then he went to the police-station.

The sergeant of police looked at his face, which was badly bruised from the blow he had received. "He gave you that, did he? no wonder you fired at him. What made him show fight though? Had he a big diamond on him?"

"No such luck. I disturbed him when he was going to fetch one he had hid," Jack answered, and when he looked into the other's face and saw that his story went down all right, he felt a good deal relieved. "Poor beggar, I don't know what put it into his head to go for me as he did."

He added this as he left the place.

People would wonder whether the Kaffir had had a diamond on him, but they could never know that he had, he thought. The finest diamond in South Africa was now his, and he was the only man alive who had seen it.

The inquiry into the death of the luckless Sixpence resulted in the magistrate coming to the conclusion that it was a case of justifiable homicide. The crown prosecutor was of the same opinion, and Jack Enderby was generally considered not to be to blame in the matter. One circ.u.mstance was discussed with a good deal of interest: people asked why should the Kaffir have shown fight if he had no diamond? Some people argued that he was going to get one he had hidden away in the mine, but others, however, more cynically disposed, were inclined to take a different view. It wasn't likely that a diamond would be found on him after Jack Enderby had sorted him. No, Jack had his own notions of what a Searcher's perquisites were, so one or two of his friends suggested. Jack shrugged his shoulders when he was asked about it. It was just like his luck, he said; if the poor devil of a Kaffir had had a diamond on him he supposed he would have been allowed a percentage on it, which would have come in handy enough. As it was he had got a smashed face, and was thought a thief for his pains. There would soon be a searcher's billet open for any one who wanted one, for he was tired of the job and meant to leave Kimberley and go and try his luck up at the gold-fields. In a week or two he did clear from the Fields without leaving any great gap there or causing people to trouble themselves very much about his absence.

Chapter Two.

Strangers, who find themselves for the first time in Hatton Garden, are probably somewhat surprised when they learn that they are in the princ.i.p.al diamond market of the world. If they turn into the street from Holborn they find it a common place enough at first, and towards the other end it becomes mean and shabby, and wears an expression suggestive of anything but riches. The houses seem to suffer from a premature age and mouldiness, and give one the idea of their being occupied by persons who are in anything but a large way of business.

From the names on the doors, however, one learns that the majority of their occupiers profess to be dealers in diamonds and precious stones, and those who know about diamonds will inform you that they do deal therein to a very considerable extent, and will have strange tales to tell of the huge quant.i.ties of precious stones which the merchant of that dingy thoroughfare have in their safes, and will hold until some long-looked-for turn in the market comes.

Its population is much given to gather in knots on doorsteps and at the corners of streets. They are as a rule swarthy-visaged, hungry-eyed men, rejoicing in much jewellery, gorgeous raiment, and glossy hats.