Luck at the Diamond Fields Part 6

"Well, he has found a man who is flat enough to give him a ten-pound note for his claim. It is a Kimberley Jew who has made that investment," answered Austin.

"Never met with that sort of Jew, and I have seen a good bit of them in one country or another," said another man, who was believed to have had a very varied experience of life, before he found himself digging on the banks of the Vaal River.

"Well, it's a solid fact; Hawkins showed me the ten-pound note, and he would be here now spending it, only the new proprietor of that claim of his has promised him five pounds a week to work for him."

"Things are looking up at last, boys," said the proprietor of the canteen. "I told you they would soon recognise the splendid openings for investment there are down the river. What will you take, boys?

Have a drink with me just for luck."

No one refused the offer, though the enthusiasm the landlord expressed was not shared by the others.

After they had emptied their gla.s.ses, some one suggested that they should go round to Hawkins's claim, and with that intention they lounged out of the canteen, and strolled along the bank in that direction.

"Stop, boys, and watch 'em; why it makes quite a picture. Did you ever see such a fool?" said Austin, holding up his hand and pointing to an opening in the thorn trees and underwood, through which they could get a view of the Hawkins's claim.

The claim was one which had been almost worked out in the days when the place was first rushed. Hawkins, a grizzled old fellow, was seated with a pipe in his mouth, watching two Kaffirs picking away at the side of the claim, filling buckets with the gravel, which another Kaffir was carrying across to the sorting-table, at which the new proprietor of the claim was seated. That person was no other than our old friend, Mr Moses Moss. He was got up as a digger, wearing a red flannel shirt, and a very broad-brimmed hat, and he had put on, though there was no particular use for them, a pair of long boots.

"Looks as though he was going to find a diamond every minute; he will tire a bit of the game before long," Jack Austin said, as he watched the new arrival on the river. "The doctor ordered him an open-air life, so he gave up his practice. He was a lawyer in Kimberley, and down he comes here to dig. Did any one ever hear of such a thing?"

"Hullo, by G.o.d, what's his game now? What's he up to? Blessed if I don't believe he has found!" another digger said, as to their surprise Moss suddenly threw his hat into the air with a tremendous shout of triumph.

"Hullo, mate, what are you up to now? what do yer think you have got hold of?" growled out old Hawkins, as he came up with his pipe in his mouth.

"A diamond!--a wopping big diamond! Oh, hurrah! hurrah!" Mr Moss cried, executing a dance of triumph.

The other men crowded round Moss, eager to see what he had found.

Hawkins looked rather mortified. It was somewhat annoying that a diamond should have been found in his claim the day after he sold it.

His expression, however, changed a good deal when the other handed him the diamond.

"Say, did you find this just now; it's a mighty rum thing to find in a claim; why--" Hawkins was grumbling out, when Austin gave him a kick, and motioned to him to keep quiet.

"Magnificent diamond, sir; the finest stone that ever has been found.

Did ever man see such luck? Here you come down just for a lark, and find a fortune; but there, luck is one of the queerest things out!"

Jack Austin said.

"Well, I _am_ lucky, I don't mind owning it; but there, boys, come and have a drink, every blessed one of you, to celebrate the biggest diamond that ever has been found down the river, which you just saw me find,"

Mr Moss said, and the diggers seemed to fall in with his humour willingly enough, following him without any more pressing to the canteen.

Jack Austin might have been noticed to wink slightly at the proprietor of the canteen, before the diamond was shown to the latter. His enthusiasm when he saw it was unbounded.

"Knocks the Komnoor into a c.o.c.ked hat. I always said we would show 'em all the way, some day. What's it to be, sir, champagne--I've got a case in stock?" he said, and in a few second she was opening a case, and getting out some bottles.

The wine was some which the canteen-keeper had bought at a sale in Kimberley. It was a remnant which had failed to please the not over critical taste of the Fields. He had bought it very cheap, and had kept it by him, knowing that on any extraordinary occasion, when a demand arose for it on the river, its want of quality would not matter. As the wine was being got out, Jack Austin touched the lucky digger on the shoulder.

"Beg pardon, sir, but about old Hawkins; what are you going to do for him? It's a bit hard on him, seeing a stone like this found after he has just sold his claim."

"Hard! bless me no--a bargain is a bargain. I bought the claim for good or bad."

"Well, that's true enough; but he might make himself a bit nasty about it. You see it's rather a rum start your finding a stone like that in the ground you were working, and Hawkins might get talking, and people are apt to be a bit uncharitable."

Mr Moss looked a little uncomfortable. The man was right. Hawkins ought to be put into a good temper, and after some little talk he took out a cheque-book and wrote out a cheque for fifty pounds, for Austin had suggested that it would be as well to give it to Hawkins at once, before he began to talk.

Hawkins took the cheque, looking very stolid. Soon after he got it he hurried away, and might have been seen tramping across the veldt towards Kimberley, where he changed it.

When the gla.s.ses were filled, Jack Austin called to the company to drink to the health of Mr Moss, the lucky digger, who had just found the big diamond.

"He has just given our friend Hawkins another fifty, on account of the claim in which it was found. So you see he is a generous man, besides being an honest digger, and a jolly good chap," Jack said.

Mr Moss was much struck with the thirstiness of the river-diggers. The news of the find had very quickly travelled down the banks of the Vaal, and men from various other camps looked into the canteen. When they finished the champagne they set to work at the brandy, and then at the square gin, and the Cape smoke. Nothing seemed to come amiss to them.

There was one peculiarity in their manners, which somewhat amazed Mr Moss. They had a curious way of bursting into laughter about nothing at all, as far as he could see. They did not show any envy, but to a man were full of a generous wish to drink with the fortunate finder. Their estimate of the value of the diamond was somewhat vague. One said fifty thou, another laughed at the idea of fifty thousand buying it, and seemed to have quite a contempt for such a paltry sum of money; though he would have had to have searched a long time in the pockets of his trousers before he could find sixpence. "A hundred thou, more like, that's what it's worth," he said, pretty confidently.

"Nice chap he is, to talk about a hundred thou. I think I have spent about enough money on that lot," Moss thought to himself. He hated spending money, but still he thought that the more delighted he appeared to be about his find, the more genuine the find would seem to be. When the stock-in-trade of the canteen was just giving out, a man from Kimberley, whom Moss knew, came into the canteen. He was a diamond-buyer, of the name of Jacobs, and Moss rejoiced to think that at last he would be able to get a good opinion as to the value of his find.

"Well, Moss, what's this I hear about your having turned digger, and found all at once? You have wonderful luck; show us the stone," the new-comer said.

"Well, you can have a look at it, though I don't suppose it is much in your way," Moss said, as he gave it him.

"My eye, it's a big 'un!" said the diamond-buyer, and then his expression changed. "What on earth is your game?" he asked. "Who are you trying to get at?"

"What's my game? why I want to know how much that is worth. You won't buy it yourself, I know, because you're only a small man; but what do you put its price down as?"

"Well, about half-a-crown, may be more, may be less; it's a pretty clever sell too," was to the astonishment of Moss the answer he received. "Why, Moss, you don't mean to say any one has been fooling you with this."

"Fooling me! What do you mean? Don't play any tricks with me, for I can't stand it. Do you mean to tell me that ain't a diamond?"

"Diamond, of course it ain't a diamond!--not a real one, that's to say, it's a sham 'un. I have never seen one before, but I have heard of 'em before. Joe Aavons, who you know of, got them made for him at home somewhere, and he has sold one or two of 'em at night to illicit diamond-buyers."

The man's face told Moss that he was in earnest, and a roar of laughter from the diggers confirmed him.

"Well, mate, how about the big diamond; is it fifty or a hundred thou, that it's worth?" Jack Austin said, and the others gave vent to the suppressed merriment of the last few hours in a yell of laughter. It was too bad, Moss thought, to treat him like that, after they had got him to pay for their liquor. It was terrible for him to think of the money he had lost, if his purchase turned out to be worthless.

"Yes, that is one of Joe Aavons' diamonds. I'll bet little d.i.c.k Starks has been working 'em off for Joe, and they say they have made a lot of money out of them."

"Look here, what is d.i.c.k Stark like?" Moss asked, rather eagerly.

"He is a little chap, with a cast in one eye, and red hair. He is a pretty sharp customer, is d.i.c.k."

Moss recognised the description only too well as that of the man whom he had seen find the diamond. Without saying another word he left the canteen. The next day old Hawkins took possession again of his claim; for Mr Moss was never seen more at Jobling's Sell.

The story, however, very soon followed him back to Kimberley, and the circ.u.mstances under which he was persuaded to pay a thousand pounds for the diamond became well-known; for Messrs. Aavons and Stark, who were much elated at their success, told their particular friends, who repeated the story. Mr Moss never quite got over it; and though he never had any more transactions in diamonds he ceased to boast about his honesty, or even make any allusion to his knowledge of precious stones.

Story 4.

THE FARM BOSCHFONTEIN.

Chapter One.

"If we could get hold of one of these mines between us, we would show them how to work it, I guess. We wouldn't fool around the camp trying to float a company and let a lot of local men into the thing. We'd go straight home and give the British public a turn. Couldn't you fancy yourself as the South African millionnaire chairman of the Great Diamond Mining Company, with a house in Belgrave Square, a country house with a blessed big park round it, the favourite for the Derby in training at Newmarket, and the best of everything that money could buy, eh, Timson?"