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?”
“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 grass 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 quantities. 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 glass as he spoke.
“It’s a long time since I had a glass of beer,” the stranger said as he emptied the glass.
“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 pricked 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 quantities. 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 damned 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.
“What! you want to strike my luck, do you? I wouldn’t put a pick in there again for all the diamonds there are in the coast of the earth.”
“Well, if you don’t like to work the place yourself, it seems a pity that no one else should,” said Timson, who, though he had some other weaknesses, was not superstitious. “You see, I don’t believe much in luck, except the luck of getting hold of a good thing when you know how to work it.”
“Look here, mate, I am an old digger, and it goes agin’ my ideas of right to try and worm out another digger’s secret; but if you let us into this thing, we will work it with you fair and square,” said Hardman.
“I don’t want you to work it with me or for me, but I don’t mind telling you where it is. See here,” said the prospector, pointing in the direction of a distant range of mountains towards which he had been gazing for some time, “do you see that little hump-backed hill standing out by itself? Well, it’s about four hundred yards to the north of it. You will see my old working still, I should say. Now, mates, I am off to Pneil, for I want to see the old place again, and then—”
“Stop, let us talk it over. You had better work the place with us,” said Hardman; “we will forget all about what you have told us, or try to.”
The stranger’s only answer was to wish them good luck at their prospecting, and refusing to listen to Hardman’s persuasions, he started off on his lonely walk.
“I don’t like letting him go off in that state of mind; he means finishing himself, I saw it in his face, I have seen men look like that before,” said Hardman as he watched the tall figure striding over the long flat into the distance.
“Certainly one pities him; but if what he has told us is true, life can’t be much comfort to him, and it’s just as well, if he is going to do it, that he should kill himself before he lets out to any one about that place. What do you think of that part of the story; do you believe it?” answered Mr Timson.
“Believe it! well, I don’t know. It’s a queer story, but I ain’t one of those sharps who always disbelieve any story that’s a bit out of the common. I believe it well enough to mean finding out whether or no it’s true. What do you say?”
“Ah! that’s just what I think. It may be true, and if it is true—”
“If it is true, or near true, we are in a pretty big thing, for the farms out there ain’t on Crown land, and there is no reservation of minerals. Of course we must keep what we have heard quiet and try and learn a bit more. There’s millions who wouldn’t believe the yarn we have heard, but I ain’t one of ’em. If you ask me what I think, well, I think it’s true,” said Hardman, and then he shouted to his Kaffir to outspan the horses so that they could continue their journey to Kimberley. All the way they talked of the strange story they had heard, and the more they talked of it the more hopeful Mr Timson began to grow, and the more splendid were the castles in the air which he built on the foundation of the wonderful diamond mine he was to acquire a part possession of.
Chapter Two.
A few days after their conversation with the prospector, Messrs Hardman and Timson were again on a prospecting expedition. This time they had sought the prospector’s hump-backed hill, and they had come to it after a journey of about forty miles. Sure enough, about two hundred yards north of it, they found marks of old working and a hole which was almost filled up by sand. Mr Timson’s excitement before he reached the spot had begun to cool a good deal. Perhaps there was nothing in the tale he had heard. The man might have been mad, or have been hoaxing him, or exaggerating, he kept thinking to himself. Bill Hardman had not taken much trouble to reassure him. All he said was that it was good enough to look into, though it was long odds against its being as good as they hoped, and he professed to be quite prepared to find their trip turn out to be waste of time, though at the same time something seemed to tell him to try the place. They had come out in an ox waggon, professedly on a shooting trip, and had brought with them a small washing machine, picks, shovels and other tools for digging and prospecting; they had also taken out two or three Kaffirs who were accustomed to work in the mine.
The sight of the old workings had a considerable effect in raising the hopes of Mr Timson.
“That bears him out, anyhow!” said Hardman; “it seems to be the sort of hole a man working by himself could make in a month.”
“How soon shall we know whether it is any good?” asked Timson.
“Working on the small scale as we shall, it may take us days before we find a diamond, however rich it may be. We will first get some twenty loads of ground out and then we will wash. There is no house near here, and we might work for six months without being disturbed, so we needn’t fear that, though if the man who owns the farm found we were prospecting, he’d pretty quick get an interdict, as those cursed lawyers call it, from the High Court and clear us off,” answered the other.
In a very short time work began, Bill Hardman opening a bottle of champagne to drink ‘luck’ to the venture, as the first pick was put into the ground. There is a strange excitement in working in new ground which is very fascinating to any one of a speculative turn. Mr Timson thought of the Scripture story of the man who knew of treasure hid in a field, and sold all he had to purchase that field. Let him but once satisfy himself that there was a diamond mine under his feet and he would show no want of enterprise in making the best use of his knowledge. Hardman said very little. When a few days’ work would tell them what they wanted to know, it was no good prophesying. He professed to like the look of the ground, it reminded him of the top stuff in the Kimberley mine, and Mr Timson was a good deal impressed with his favourable opinion. But the hours passed very slowly, and Mr Timson kept fidgeting about, looking into the shaft the boys were digging, and sorting handfuls of the earth they had thrown out, as if he expected that diamonds ought to be found every minute, much to the amusement of his companion, who pointed out that, however rich the place might be, they were likely enough to find nothing before they washed the ground. Hour after hour the Kaffirs worked on stolidly, though lazily, and as the shaft that they were sinking deepened, Timson’s spirits began to sink. He was breaking up a lump of ground when he heard a shout from Hardman—
“We’ve found here a diamond! look at it! It’s true—that yarn we heard was true. It’s a ten-carat stone! I saw it glisten as Tom picked down some ground. Tom would have jumped it if I had not been too quick. Wouldn’t you, you black thief?”
“Nay, boss,” said the Kaffir, grinning and showing his white teeth, “the boss is a good boss and I’d no jump his diamond.”
Timson looked at the diamond, a white stone of about ten carats in weight, and he felt that his fortune was made. The Kaffirs talked to each other in their own language about the diamond. “They think it is a rich place and there will be lots of diamonds for them to steal,” said Hardman.
The next day another diamond was found in the picking, and Mr Timson began to feel most hopeful as to what the result of washing the stuff would be.
“If what we know is found out, we shall never be able to buy at a reasonable price,” he said, as they smoked their pipes after supper on the night before the day on which they intended to wash.
“Nobody does as yet, and even we don’t know much,” said Hardman; “wait till we have washed.”
Their washing machine was a small one, only able to get through about thirty loads of ground a day. In the afternoon they began to take out of the machine the heavy deposit which had been left after the earth and lighter gravel had been washed away. Hardman filled a sieve with this stuff, and worked it up and down in a tub of water so that the action of the water should work the diamonds to the bottom of the sieve.
“Now, what luck?” he said, as he turned the sieve upside down on the sorting-table, at which Timson had taken his position. It was an exciting moment, for the stuff on the table was the result of a good many loads of ground, and if the place was any good, they might hope to find several diamonds in it. Mr Timson trembled with excitement. There was a second or two of suspense. Then he saw one diamond, then another, and another, and Hardman, who was looking over his shoulder, found two or three more. The next sieveful was equally good, and the result of the wash up was that the ground was proved to be marvellously rich. After that Timson suggested that they had better sink in some other place and find out how large the mine was, but Hardman did not agree to this. They had found out enough to know that whoever owned the farm owned a fortune, and they had better make the best use of their information and try to purchase the farm from its present owner before any one else found out what they knew. So the machinery and tools were packed up in their waggon, and the party started back again to Kimberley.
Hardman undertook to find out about the land where the mine was situated, and until he could obtain that information, Mr Timson was to take care not to breathe one word of their secret. It was an exciting time for the latter gentleman. He thought to himself that perhaps they had been watched by some one who would claim a share in their prize, or give information to others who might bid against them for the land, or perhaps the man who owned it might come across the traces of the fresh working and that might arouse his suspicions. Come what might, thought Mr Timson, he would become the part owner of that wonderful mine. So far as they could judge, it was of greater extent than the Kimberley mine, and the work they had done made it appear to be three times as rich. If he could purchase the farm for a small sum, all the better, but he would not be afraid of risking all he had to get possession of it. Of the prospector, he could hear no more. He had probably wandered away into the veldt and destroyed himself. Mr Timson did not care much what might have happened to him so long as he did not tell his story, or rather, so much of it as related to the diamond mine, to any one else.
It took Hardman about two days to obtain the information he required. It was fairly satisfactory, and he came to his friend in very good spirits. “It’s the Farm Boschfontein, there is no doubt about that, and it belongs to a Dutchman, by name Ziederman; and it’s the worst farm in the province, I am told,” he said, coming up to Timson, who was standing on the stoep of the hotel, and taking him on one side.
“Ziederman! where does he live, and what kind of a man is he?”
“Well, he is a pretty crude sort of a Dutchman, and his house is on the farm, about an hour’s drive from the mine. If we go over and see him, and tell him that we think of keeping a store where the road runs past it, and want to stock the farm, he will think he has got hold of two fools, and be glad to sell,” was the other’s answer.
The next day Messrs Hardman and Timson started off to interview Mr Ziederman, the unconscious owner (they hoped) of the mine. The Boschfontein homestead where he lived was one of those low, whitewashed mud houses with which travellers in South Africa are so familiar. Mr Timson could see it miles away across the long flat over which they were driving. It was a poverty-stricken looking place, and as they neared the house there was no sign of any stock about.
“Looks as if Boschfontein had about broke him,” said Hardman; “he’ll be glad to sell, you bet!”
Mr Timson felt that in an hour or so he would know his fate, and as he gazed at the mean-looking Dutch farm-house, visions came before him of the house in London and the country place he would soon be the owner of. “Wonder how Hardman will do as a man of property? He’s a smart chip, but not quite one of us,” he thought to himself. As they came near to the house they saw Mr Ziederman sitting on a chair on the stoep of the house, staring after the manner of a Dutch boer into the far distance at nothing at all. When their cart drove up he turned round and stared at it, but no gleam of intelligence came into his face; he evidently was, so Mr Timson thought, a very crude specimen of the Dutchman. It would be very tedious to narrate all the conversation which took place after the two had got out of their cart, and had shaken the grimy, flabby hand which Mr Ziederman held out to them. Gradually, and with very much caution, Mr Hardman approached the subject of the purchase of the farm. Would Mr Ziederman care to sell it? they wished to set up a store and canteen, and would like to have the farm for keeping stock on, was the question which, after much fencing, he asked.
“Yes, I will sell the farm. Ten thousand pounds, and you may have Boschfontein, but for not one dollar less,” answered Mr Ziederman, looking as stolid as ever.
“Ten thousand pounds, mein herr! you are joking. The farm is not worth one twentieth part of that,” said Hardman.
Mr Timson tried to look as if he were more surprised than disappointed.
“Never mind, the farm is worth more than that. I know something that you perhaps know and perhaps don’t know. There are diamonds on my farm.”
Mr Timson began to feel that all his hopes were going to be dashed to the ground.
“Diamonds, mein herr! there are no diamonds out in this direction, and me and my partner don’t want to have anything to do with diamonds, they ain’t in our line; we want to keep a store and raise stock.”
“Then you don’t want to buy the Farm Boschfontein, because the Farm Boschfontein has diamonds,” answered Ziederman. “See here, I will show you something,” he added, as he went into his house and came out with something in his hand; “see what my herd boy found near the kopje yonder,” he said as he pointed in the direction of the mine. It was a ten-carat white diamond he had in his hand, and one of the partners felt something out of heart when he saw it. It was useless to try and persuade Ziederman that the stone was not a diamond.
“Yes, I always knew there were some diamonds on my farm, but I would not say anything about them, for I knew diamonds bring English diggers on one’s farm; but I said to myself, ‘If I ever sell Boschfontein I will get plenty of money for it.’ I want ten thousand pounds!” he said as he lit his pipe again, looking as if he did not care whether he sold the farm or no. “If you like to buy it for the money, well; if not, I will have it prospected, and then I will sell it for what it will bring.”
Hardman touched Timson on the shoulder and they walked away from the house together. “See here,” he said, when they were out of hearing of Ziederman, who sat smoking with a placid expression on his face, “what can we do? I can only raise two thousand pounds. I don’t like to let the thing slip from me, though, and once let him have the farm prospected and find out how rich it is, what we know is worth nothing to us.”
“Maybe he will take less,” said Mr Timson.
Very little could be got out of the boer. Somehow or the other he seemed to have hit upon ten thousand pounds as the price the farm was worth, and he would take no less.
Then the two had another conversation. Curiously enough Timson could just raise eight thousand pounds, Mr Hardman had two. After all, thought Mr Timson to himself, he would have four-fifths of the mine instead of only one-half, so perhaps it would be all the better for him that Ziederman had stuck out for his price. At last, after much conversation, the bargain was struck and they drove home, it having been agreed that Ziederman should come into Kimberley a few days afterwards, and having given transfer of the farm, receive the ten thousand pounds.
“Well, we are going our piles on it, eh, partner?” said Hardman as they drove back to Kimberley; “but I don’t mind owning that I feel pretty confident. Lord! I am sorry for the Kimberley people; it will just about bust up their mine when we open ours.”
Chapter Three.
Mr Ziederman arrived at Kimberley on the appointed day. Transfer was duly given, and the ten thousand pounds were paid over to him. Timson could not help feeling rather a twinge as he parted with his money. It did not leave him more than a few hundred pounds, still he was very pleased with his bargain; he had bought the farm, he hoped, for very much less than one hundredth of its value, and had got the best of Mr Hardman, who would only have a fifth share. The next day the news was all over the camp. It created a good deal of excitement, and at eleven in the forenoon, an hour when splits and other drinks, long and short, are in much request, quite a crowd of the leading citizens of Kimberley dropped into the bar of the Queen’s Hotel, where Mr Timson was to be found at that hour, reading the local morning paper and criticising the manners and customs of the place. On this occasion there was a look of unusual importance about him, and he was laying down the law more authoritatively than he generally did. He had just been discussing the value of claims in the Kimberley mine, and chuckling to himself as he thought how startled the claimholders would be when they heard of his discovery.
“Well, Mr Timson, so I hear you have been speculating in farms,” said a man who was standing at the bar.
“I don’t know why people should interest themselves in my affairs so much,” answered Timson; “but I don’t mind owning that I have bought a farm called Boschfontein.”
“You’re going to make your fortune farming?” said the first speaker, a digger who had dropped in on his way from the mine to get a drink and to interview Timson.
“I don’t know about farming, but I don’t think I shall do so badly with Boschfontein,” answered Timson, who, now that he owned the property, thought there was no reason why he should not have the pleasure of bragging about his wonderfully good bargain. He noticed that his listeners were not impressed, there was something like a smile on their faces.
“How much did you give Bill Hardman for Boschfontein?” asked the first speaker.
“Bill Hardman! I never bought from Bill Hardman, I bought with him, he has a small share in the speculation. So he has been telling you about it, has he? Well, I suppose he won’t make less than four or five hundred thousand pounds, though he only has one-fifth of it. Yes, you may laugh, but you won’t laugh when the place up there is shut up, as it will be when I work the diamond mine on Boschfontein.”
“Here, barman, drinks; open some champagne for Mr Timson; he has gone in for a spec with Bill Hardman, and they have got a diamond mine on Boschfontein which will shut the Kimberley mine,” cried the first speaker.
Mr Timson was no admirer of the prevailing custom, a survival from the early days of the diamond-digging, which demanded that good fortune of any sort should be celebrated by a reckless expenditure in champagne. Still he felt that the occasion was a special one, and after having in vain tried to catch the barman’s eye, and prevent him opening more than one bottle, he made no remonstrance. “Well, gentlemen, we will drink to the health of the Boschfontein mine,” he said, “though I am afraid it will prove rather a bad business for some of my friends here. Three carats of diamonds to a load is a pretty good average, and the mine is as big as Kimberley; it will revolutionise diamond mining, our mine will.”
“Bill Hardman found that mine, I’d bet,” said another man who had just come in and stood listening to Timson. “Why, Boschfontein’s looking up. It wasn’t as rich as that last time.”
“Look here,” said the digger, taking up a dice-box which lay on the bar, “we will throw for this wine, and Mr Timson shall stand out. No, it’s a shame letting him in, he has been let in enough. How much did you pay for Boschfontein?”
“What do you mean?” asked Timson, who began to feel nervous and uncomfortable. “Let in! some of you will only wish that you had been let in in the same way when we begin to work the new mine. Bill Hardman ain’t the sort of man to be taken in so easy.” Then he told them how he had learnt the secret about the mine and became possessed of the Farm Boschfontein.
The others listened to every word of his narrative, no one ordered drinks nor even lifted their glasses to their mouths while he spoke. When he had told them all, and described the finding of the diamonds and the subsequent purchase of the farm Boschfontein, there was a burst of noise, every one beginning to shout or laugh, expressing with much vigour of language their admiration for the smartness of Bill.
“Look here, what was the prospector like? wasn’t he a tall man with a long beard, and a scar across the left side of his face, and a droop in one eye?” asked the digger.
“Yes, that’s the man,” answered Timson.
“I’d have sworn it; it’s Tom Raven; he was in camp the other day. Now, look here, young man, you’d better try and find your friend, Bill Hardman, not that there’s much chance of your coming across him; now that they have got your money they’d be off. I dare say you never heard of Raven’s Rush, that was on Boschfontein. There isn’t a show of a mine there; but Tom Raven and Bill Hardman, who have always been more or less partners, won it at cards off a Dutchman. It’s about as bad a farm as there is in the country; but they meant working it off somehow, so they started a mine there, any one to have a claim for two pounds down. It took for a bit; but as no one could find diamonds there except Bill and Tom Raven, people cooled off it, and there was some talk of starting a prosecution for fraud, as some one split as to where they got the diamonds from they found there, and that’s why Raven, against whom there was most of a case, cleared off. Ziederman is a long, stolid-looking Dutchman; he is not such a fool as he looks, is that Dutchman—‘Slim Pete’ they call him—he has always been more or less in with the firm of Hardman and Raven.”
“Look here, you’re trying to fool me, ain’t you? You don’t mean to tell me that the man who told me how his wife ran away and how he killed her wasn’t genuine!” said Timson.
“Genuine! it was a pretty bit of play-acting, made up by the two of ’em. Tom was always clever at a yarn.”
Mr Timson did not say another word. Something seemed to tell him that the suspicions of the others were well founded; anyhow he would interview his partner and do his best to get back some of his money.
However, Hardman was not so easily to be found. He was not at the hotel where he boarded, nor at the billiard-room he usually patronised, nor at any of his other haunts, and none of his associates had seen him. All day long Mr Timson was making fruitless inquiries; but though he could hear nothing about Hardman, every one could tell him a good deal about the Farm Boschfontein. Every one laughed when they heard his story, and with the exception of one or two men who had formed little plans for the disposal of his fortune, no one sympathised very much with him. There was no doubt about it that he had a case against Mr Hardman and the men who helped to swindle him; but he might just as well have had a case against the man in the moon. For some time Mr Timson cherished a faint hope that the mine might be a genuine one, so he spent a little more money in having it well tested. But the charm was gone when Mr Hardman had vanished. There was no appearance of diamond bearing ground on the Farm Boschfontein, so experts declared; and what was more to the point, there was no appearance of diamonds.
Mr Timson is still the owner of the property, and has not found it very remunerative. The only consolation he has is, that many of the men who laughed at him when he made his unfortunate purchase, invested their money in speculations which seemed at the time very hopeful, but resulted in their becoming the owners of nicely-engraved diamond-mining scrip which, though useful for papering a spare room with, is now even less marketable than that desirable property, the Farm Boschfontein.