Luck at the Diamond Fields Part 7

"Don't, Hardman, don't! I can't bear to think of it. The chances some of 'em here have had and the way they have thrown 'em away! If I had only been in their place I'd have done something for myself, but I came here too late."

"Too late be blowed! there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out, and there are as rich mines lying unworked and undisturbed as any that have been found, that's my opinion. How do we know that there is not another mine as rich as Kimberley on which the gra.s.s and bush are growing, and the spring bucks are playing? We may be sitting on just such a mine now, for all you know."

"By Jove! it's enough to make a fellow wild when he thinks of the fortune that may be waiting for him to be picked up; but what's the good of thinking of it? No one has found a diamond mine that would pay to work since Kimberley was opened."

"What of that? They have found a dozen places such as we have seen to-day, where there are diamonds in small quant.i.ties. Mark my words: sooner or later they will drop on to a place which will make the Kimberley mine pretty sick, and if we could only get hold of such a mine, you with your knowledge of business and the City of London, and me--well, I know my way about--what couldn't we do with it?"

As he spoke, Mr Bill Hardman glanced at his companion, and an ominous smile played across his swarthy face. His words had evidently told with a good deal of effect.

The two men were on their way home from an expedition from Kimberley, to a mining camp in the Orange Free State. So it was not surprising that as they smoked their pipes under the shade of their Cape cart, after an excellent luncheon, their conversation should turn to the topic which in Griqualand West exercised men's minds most, diamonds and diamond mining.

Bill Hardman was about forty-five, and there was something about him which suggested that he had knocked about the world a good deal. He was not a bad-looking man, but every now and then an expression came into his face which gave one an unpleasant impression, and suggested that he might be rather dangerous, either as a friend or an enemy. For years he had been a well-known character on the Diamond Fields, and there were many stories told about him which bore witness rather to his astuteness, than to his integrity. He called himself a digger, but no one could remember his owning a claim or doing any work. The calling to which he devoted himself in the early days of the Fields was that of an exponent of faro, roulette, poker, and other games, more or less of chance.

Afterwards, when what was called the company mania broke out, rotten scrip and a rigged share market gave him more scope for speculation, and he became a comparatively respectable member of society. But notwithstanding his respectability, many of those who knew most about him would have considered that Mr Timson was not very prudent in choosing him for a companion.

The latter was a young man of about twenty-five; his get-up, sleek, fresh-complexioned face and plump figure had a very English look, and he seemed as if he would be far more at home eating at a luncheon bar in the City, than picnicking on the South African veldt. Though he had not been very long in South Africa and knew little of the country, he believed very much in himself and in his business knowledge, and had a very great contempt for the people he found himself amongst. He had brought out a few thousand pounds with him and had done very well in his speculations, doubling his capital again and again, which was not difficult in those days of wild speculation, when every investment was going up. About that time people on the Diamond Fields had gone mad on the subject of new mines, even old hands who had seen place after place reported to be very rich turn out a failure, were again taking the fever for prospecting, while men who had just come out from home were simply delirious with it. To a new hand there is a singular charm in the idea of a new mine, and Mr Timson found the fascination of this form of speculation simply irresistible. Mr Hardman also had turned his attention to prospecting, and on this common interest the two men had struck up a very intimate acquaintanceship.

"Yes," said Hardman, after they had smoked in silence for some time, "the place we saw to-day may be payable, but there ain't much to be done with it. What one wants is to get on to a mine on private property, with no reservation of minerals to the Crown, so that one could get the whole mine into one's hands."

"Fancy that, now, buying a farm for a few hundreds on which there might be a mine worth millions and millions. But we have got to find it, and without the owner or any one else knowing anything about it!" said Mr Timson, as much to himself as to his companion.

"Right you are, Smarty! we have got to do that. It's well enough to talk as one smokes one's pipe; but it's a hundred to one, one never gets such a chance. For all that, mind you, the chance may come; that's what living in a mining country means. There is always the hope of a big fortune for the man who knows how to make the most of his luck."

Mr Timson listened to the other, and began to indulge in a delicious day-dream of what he would do, and how he would live if he were the owner of a diamond mine, with hundreds of pounds a day to spend. If it were only possible, he thought--possible! it was possible, he declared to himself, as he thought how fortunate he had been already. He was half asleep and half awake when he was woke up by hearing a strange voice inquiring the way to Pneil, a digging on the Vaal River some twenty-five miles off. The new-comer, who was on foot, was a tall man with a long beard; he was dressed in tattered clothes, and had on an old hat which had seen many years' service. He looked travel-worn and tired; as Timson looked at him, he noticed a peculiar scar on his face and a curious droop in one eyelid.

Hardman told him the distance. "It's a long stretch and a sandy road; you had better sit down and take a drink," he added, pouring some beer out into a gla.s.s as he spoke.

"It's a long time since I had a gla.s.s of beer," the stranger said as he emptied the gla.s.s.

"How's that? been sworn off?" asked Hardman.

"No, nor much need to. I've been living where you don't get many chances of taking too much to drink; a hundred miles beyond the Tati Gold-Fields. I've tramped it down and had a pretty hard time of it."

"Well, you'd better take a rest and have something to eat," said Hardman, as he pushed a plate and some cold meat towards the stranger, who, without any more pressing, accepted the other's hospitality, and after he had made a good meal, filled his pipe and smoked for some time without joining in the conversation, the other two going on talking about diamonds and new mines.

At last he broke in: "Have they worked out the New Rush, the Colesberg Kopje, as they called it?"

"Colesberg Kopje, did you say? Why, that's the Kimberley mine. No, it's not worked out and won't be in our time," answered Hardman.

"You mean they have abandoned it 'cause they have found a richer place?"

"Abandoned it! Not they; there is no place one third as rich as Kimberley mine!"

"Ain't there though, mate; you mean they haven't found one yet," said the stranger. "Well, I'd have thought some one would have tumbled on to it by this time!" he added, more to himself than to the others, though Mr Timson heard him and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.

"I suppose they don't go prospecting much now-a-days?" the stranger asked after a second or two.

"There is a bit of it being done just now," replied Hardman; "but they haven't come across a second Kimberley yet."

"So they go out prospecting still. Well, I suppose men will always keep on at that game. I have done a good lot of it in my time. I'd have been a happy man with a home of my own instead of the miserable devil I am now if I had only let it alone."

"So you broke yourself and lost your money prospecting! Well, others have done pretty much the same," said Hardman.

"Lost my money! No, I found as rich a place as you want to come across and got plenty of diamonds, but they cost me dear."

"You found as rich a place as one wants to come across, did you?" said Mr Timson, who was all attention. "Whereabouts was that, now?"

The stranger did not answer his question, and for some time sat wrapped in his thoughts, which seemed to be gloomy enough. Then, with the air of one who could only get relief by telling his story, he spoke: "I say that prospecting trip cost me dear, and so you will say when you have heard my story. I must tell it, though it's not the sort of tale most men would pan out to two strangers; but I must speak out, for I have done nothing but think over this for eight years, and feel that I should be easier in my mind for making a clean breast of it to some one or the other before I die. Prospecting! well, I've done about as much of prospecting as any man. They called me the Demon Prospector in Australia and New Zealand, and well they might, for I have found three payable gold-fields in my time. I did more good to others than to myself, though, for I could never stop in one place long, and would often turn my back upon a certainty to wander away after that wonderfully rich gold field I was always dreaming of. Still I did not do so badly, and before I came over to this country I had made a little money. And I had what was better than money--a home of my own and a wife, not the sort of wife many a digger with his belt full of gold-dust picked up in those days, but an English girl who had not been long out from home. She had come out with her father, who had collected the little money he had, and gone to try for a fortune in the land of gold.

He lost his money, as a new chum will lose his money, and died leaving her alone. I don't believe she only married me for a home; once she really cared for me--but you find this yarn a bit long, don't you?" he said, looking at Mr Timson, who was not in the slightest degree interested in his domestic history.

"About the place where you found all those diamonds, where was that?"

said the latter.

"Let him _rip_ and he will come round to it; don't pump him too much or you'll spoil a good thing," whispered Hardman. "Go on, mate," he added, "I like to hear you."

"Well, we were married in Sydney a few months after her father died, and we lived there for a bit, when I heard of the Diamond Fields breaking out in this country, and nothing would do for me but I must come over here. We got up here some months before the dry diggings were found, and I tried my luck at the river where all the diggers were then. I chose Pneil, where there were a good many men doing fairly well. I put up a stone shanty amongst the trees near the river, and we were fairly comfortable and happy enough. I found pretty well, and began to believe that my old restless spirit had left me, for I didn't seem to want to go prospecting, but was willing enough to stop on there. After a bit the dry diggings were found and many of the diggers left the river for them, but still I stayed on at Pneil. Then I heard of the New Rush being opened, and how men were finding sackfuls of diamonds. I went over and saw the new diggings, and after that I could not be contented at the river. I had noticed the lay of the ground of the dry diggings, and I felt sure that there must be lots of spots where diamonds were to be found in quant.i.ties. Then the old instinct came over me and I longed to go off prospecting. At last I felt I could stay where I was no longer.

My wife didn't like my leaving her by herself, for the other women at Pneil were not much company for her, and she had very few friends.

About the only person she seemed to care to speak to was a man who had come over with us from Australia, who was staying at the other side of the river helping to keep a canteen. He was an educated man, one of the broken-down gentleman kind, and could make himself agreeable enough, but I never liked him very much. He was no good and would never do any honest work. He had come to grief in the old country by gambling, and was just turning from a pigeon into a rook, but there was something about him that women found very fascinating. Well, to cut my story short, I went off prospecting. I would stay away a week or so at a time. Looking back now it seems to me that after the first time my wife didn't seem to mind my going so much. At last, after trying in one place and then another, I did find the sort of place I was looking for.

It was out yonder," said the prospector, as he stretched out his brown hand and pointed in the direction of a ridge of hills in the far distance. Mr Timson's eyes glistened with excitement. He had never heard of any diamond mine being found in that direction.

"Yes, sir," continued the stranger, "if the New Rush is as rich as the place I found, it is a deal better than I ever heard it was. I was working out yonder myself, but I found diamonds every day. I kept putting off going back to get Kaffirs to work for me, for I didn't like the idea of the secret of the place being let out, and half thought I might keep it all to myself. After about a month I had over two hundred carats of smaller diamonds, besides a thirty, a fifty, and a sixty carat stone. Then I thought it was about time to go back and see the missis again and tell her my luck, sell my diamonds and get some Kaffirs to work for me. I cannot tell how I felt as I tramped back to the river.

At last I had struck something really rich and made my fortune. How the boys would wake up when they heard, as they sooner or later would, I suppose, that I had found a place twice as rich as the famous New Rush.

But diamonds would be down to nothing at all when my secret was known and people knew how plentiful they were if you only looked for them in the right place, so I determined to keep it quiet until I had made my fortune, which would not take me long, I thought. Then I would be able to take my missis home to England, and she would live the life she was fit for and be as fine a lady as any of 'em at home.

"As soon as I got to Klip Drift I sold my diamonds. I got about five thousand pounds for them. Then I went into a canteen to get a drink.

There were one or two men there who knew me, and I thought that they stared at me rather oddly. 'Where's the Count?' I asked the man behind the bar, for that was the name they called the broken-down gentleman chap I told you of, and it was the bar he kept.

"'Don't you know about it then?' asked one man, and the others stared at me very queerly.

"'Know about it? about what?' I asked.

"'Oh nothing; only he has cleared,' the men answered.

"The men looked at me, I thought, as if they expected me to break my heart about the Count's having cleared, and I couldn't make out their manner at all. I said I was off across the river to see the missis, and left the place. A man I knew pretty well followed me and put his hand on my shoulder. 'It's no good going across, for you won't find the missis there,' he said. 'Where is she?' I asked. 'She has cleared, too; gone off with the Count,' was his answer. I turned round on him, half inclined to knock him down to show him I didn't like that kind of joke, but there was something in his face which told me that he wasn't joking; then he told me that it had been going on for a long time, and that every one had been talking about it, and about a week ago two or three saw them start off together, 'and a good job for me, he told me, was what most of them said.' At first I wouldn't believe it, but it was true, though: she was gone, and I began to see how I had fooled away my happiness by leaving my wife to go prospecting and letting that d.a.m.ned scoundrel steal her from me. It wasn't many hours after I heard the news that I was off on their track. They had gone up north to some gold-fields which broke out about then. It was some time before I came up with them, for they kept dodging about, first living in one place and then in another, and once or twice I was at fault and could hear nothing of them. At last I got to a new camp on the gold-fields where I heard the Count was; he had started in at his old trade, gambling, and was keeping a faro bank. I had not been many minutes at the hotel before I heard all the boys talking about him and the run of luck he had struck.

Then they began to talk of the pretty woman he had with him; you can guess that made me feel wild. I don't know how I behaved that night, but I stopped in the bar of the hotel drinking and longing for the time to come when I had planned to have my revenge.

"I was the last to go to bed, and then I did not sleep, but waited till about three o'clock, when I knew the camp would be asleep. Then I stole out and walked along the creek to a canvas house which had been pointed out to me as the one they lived in. The place was quiet enough; I can remember now how a dog tied up to a waggon barked at me and how savage I felt with it, and how I laughed to myself as I knocked it over with a stone I hurled at it. When I got to the house I looked through the window. I saw them, they were asleep. I had a bowie knife on me, and I cut the rope with which the door was tied. No--I can't tell you the rest."

"Well, you killed him; he's injured you, but it's rough killing a man when he's asleep," said Bill Hardman.

"Him! I killed them," said the prospector. "When she woke up and saw what I had done to him, she screamed and cursed at me; the devil came into me, and I stabbed her again and again. It would have been better for me if I had been caught red-handed, and strung up, as I should have been then and there; but I got away. Since then I have never got the sight I saw before I rushed out of their place into the open out of my head. I have hardly seen a white man to speak to since that day, for I wandered away up country and have lived amongst Kaffirs; but now I feel I must tell it to some one."

"Well, and now what are you going to do? Go back and work at the place you prospected?" asked Hardman.

"Work at the place! What good are diamonds and money to me? No, I have not come back for that. I have come back to see the place where we were happy together once before I got the prospecting fever and left her, and then--well, what should a man do who has no hope and is sick of life and not afraid of finishing it? There, I have told you my story, and now I will say good-day, and good luck to you. If it goes against your conscience not to tell the police that a man has confessed murder to you, for I suppose there are police on the fields now, tell on, and make a clean breast of it."

Having finished speaking he got up to walk away. "Stop, don't go yet, sit down and have a talk; tell us more about the place where you found those diamonds. Can you tell us exactly where it was?" said Timson, his voice quavering with excitement, for all the time the prospector had been telling the conclusion of his story he had been thinking of the wonderful diamond mine the other had spoken of.

"Where is the place you said you found so well at?" he added as the stranger sat down and lit his pipe again.