Chapter Twenty Two.
The Red Diamond.
Our big Christmas hunt was in full swing. In a smooth, well-carpeted glade, surrounded by forest trees and bush, the three tent wagons of the party were outspanned, drawn up in a hollow square which formed a capacious outside room, roofed in by a wide stretch of canvas. From the spreading branches of a yellow-wood hung the last day’s ‘bag,’ consisting of seven bushbucks, two duikers, three blaauwboks, one jackal, and a wild dog. Beyond the wagons was the servants’ fire, and the ‘boys’ themselves were ‘brying’ meat and talking, as only Kaffirs can talk when the day’s work is over and food is plentiful. In our ‘scherm’ one lantern swung from the centre pole, its light just sufficient to mark out the position of the brown demijohn on the box that served as a table; while across the breadth of darkness, where the ‘scherm’ opened to the wood, fireflies crossed and circled. The quiet of the night was over the bush, intensified by the deep undertone from the sea, and the brooding spirit in time reduced us to silence, even stilling Long Jim’s concertina, whose lugubrious notes had in the early hours of the evening wailed complainingly over “The Old Camp Ground,” “Poor Old Joe,” and other old favourites.
“I envy you fellows,” said Mr Strong, a crack shot from the town; “we don’t get such nights as this.”
“The boot’s on the other foot,” said Long Jim, making his instrument moan. “We’ve got poverty and pumpkins. You’ve got comfort and a pianny.” And he pumped out “Hard times come again no more” till a dog pointed its nose to the sky and howled in sympathy.
“There’s no chance of making a pile in the country,” said Amos Topper, who raised ten acres of “forage” regularly every season, and “rode” firewood for a living in the balance of the year. “’Tis all hard work and disappointment—ticks in the cattle and rust in the corn.”
“Soh!” said Abe Pike.
“Well; so it is!”
“Yet,” said Abe, “there’s chances.”
“Meanin’ pine-apples and bananas, which Dick Purdy made a fortune out of through growing them on the slope of a valley.”
“No; meanin’ diamonds.”
“There’s no diamonds down here.”
“Is that so? Well, I seed one right here, as big as a plum an’ as red as the eye of a coal gleamin’ outer the dark. Yes, sir.”
“Of course. It belonged to some digger from the field. For the matter of that, I’ve seen a whole bucketful of them, but then they was white, and the sight of ’em never made me any the richer.”
“Your head was allus too big for your hat, Amos. I expect that’s why there’s a hole in the crown of it for your hair to grow through—but it so happens this yer diamon’ I’m speakin’ of could ha’ been gathered by anyone who had the pluck to grab it.”
“Fire ahead, old man,” I said, seeing that Abe was preparing the way for a yarn.
“You’ve hit it, sonny,” said Abe solemnly; “it was fire-ahead, and no mistake. Lemme see; you know ole Harkins, the mad trader?”
“I remember him,” said Mr Strong, “a fine hunter in his youth, who returned from his last trip into the interior broken by the Zambesi fever. He had a suspicion that everyone was watching him, and I believe he died in the bush after leading the life of a hermit.”
“That’s him,” said Abe, pulling at his pipe until the glow lit up his lined face. “Yes, he went into the bush—and for three years he hunted for that same red diamond. Some people thought he was crazy—so he were crazy after a fortune, but lor’ bless yer, he’d got all his wits about him, and the fortune was big enough to buy up the whole side of this district—houses, land and stock—which is a big enough haul to turn the minds of most of us. One night, many years ago, I was still-huntin’ buffel by the Kowie bush, when from the thick of the wood I yeard a noise that sent me up a tree in a jif—a shrill sort o’ scream that I couldn’t fix—an’ whiles I was up the tree I seed ole Harkins slippin’ along through the moon light. He stood under the tree listenin’, and then he began talkin’ to hisself in jerks. ‘That’s him, I swear!’ he said, ‘and by God I’ll have him or die!’
“I jes’ kep’ quiet, for I tell you I didn’t like the look o’ him, with his long hair, and his lean fingers, and burnin’ eyes, but when he slipped along inter the wood like a shadder—for there the no boots on his feet—I skimmed down and let out after him with my heart in my mouth. I guess I hadn’t got much sense, and when I’d gone no more’n fifty paces inter the dark of the trees he grabbed me by the throat—afore I knew where he were. Oh, lor’! He jes’ grabbed me by the throat and shook me. ‘You’re follerin’ me!’ he hissed.
“Of course, I couldn’t speak, but I kicked and spluttered, and he loosened his hold. ‘You’re follerin’ me!’ he said, stickin’ his face close up. ‘I ain’t,’ I said; ‘I’m after buffel.’ ‘You yeard it,’ he hissed; ‘and you meant to rob me.’ Well, I laughed. The idea of robbing a scarecrow like him was too much, and I couldn’t help laughing, not though he looked as savage as a starved tiger. All the property he carried were a big-bore elephant gun, and I noticed the trigger were cocked. ‘Clear out,’ he said; ‘and if I see you after me I’ll kill you.’ By gum, he meant it, and I cleared out smart with him after me over the ridge, when once ag’in there came that strange cry from the woods, so near this time that I jumped inter a bush. Well, there were a smashin’ o’ trees, and afore I knew what was up a bit of the country rose up and came rolling down through the moonlight. Man alive—it were a thunderation bull elephant, and I slipped outer the bush and bolted for hum with Harkins’s yell a-ringing in my ears. Well, sir, whiles I was sittin’ in the room gettin’ back my wind, up along, in a flurry, came Sam Dale. ‘It’s true,’ said he, with a gasp, as he flung open the door. ‘What’s true?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I seed it. I were crossing the drift in Euphorby Valley when I yeard a splash in the pool, and out of the dark end beneath the krantz I seed a glow of red. First I thought it were a eye, but then I noted how it sparkled, and all in a breath it struck me it were ole Harkins’s diamond. Then there was a splash in the water, and I ran on here to ask you to help me kill the crittur.’ ‘Hol’ on,’ I said; ‘what the blazes are you talking about? I never yeard of any diamond, and I’m not killing any crittur to-night,’ I said. Well, Sam Dale he up and tole me how Harkins had courted his sister years before, and how his sister had told him, unbeknown to Harkins, how she had seen the big red diamond he kep’ in his pocket, which he had bought from a Kaffir chief. And Sam, he told me a most surprisin’ story, how Harkins being one night cornered by a animile in the wood had loaded his big rifle with that same diamond instead of a bullet—and how he had fired it into that animile—and how he went crazy in consequence. That’s what Sam tole me that very night arter I had met Harkins hisself, and it wern’t more’n a minute afore I seed that if there was any truth in that yarn the red diamon’ was in that bull elephant. Sam and me we talked and talked, until in the early morning we fixed up a company.”
“What did you do?”
“We made a company—that’s what—the Dale-Pike Diamon’ Mining Company, but lor’ bless yer, in the morning the whole thing seemed so blamed ridiklus that we guv up the idea. All the same, Sam he went down to Euphorby Drift, and I smoused over to the old spot where I seed the elephant, and blow me—there was ole Harkins flattened out Yes, sir. He were.”
“What ailed him?”
“He were dead—that’s all. That bull elephant must have charged him down soon’s I cleared off. We reckoned, Sam and me, that as Harkins were dead that diamon’ mine b’longed to us, and we started that company over again. It was quite reg’lar. Sam he studied up a prospectus, and fixed up a capital, he subscribin’ two trek oxen, an’ me a cow, a bull calf, and a pair o’ gobblers. The hull lot came to 16 pounds, and with that we laid in a stock o’ powder, lead, blankets, boots, coffee, sugar, tabak, an’ a demijohn o’ Cango. Then we shut up our homes, both on us being bachelors, and started after that ere blasted bull elephant.”
“I thought you were after a diamond?”
“You ain’t got any more thinking machine than a biled rabbit, Sam Topper. That bull elephant were the diamon’ mine, in course.”
“How was that?”
“Ain’t I tole you? Why, when Harkins made that mistake and fired off that diamon’ it went plump into the ole bull. I seed that as soon’s Sam Dale told me the yarn, and we started after that property of ourn. That was forty-five year ago, and I guess from the size of his right tusk, the left been broken off, he were then about one hundred years old. I tell you what, chaps, that diamon’s still knocking aroun’ in the Addo bush.”
“The company didn’t come into possession, then?” said Mr Strong.
“Well, do I look as if I had a fortune of one hundred and fifty thousand golding sovereigns, which we reckoned was the value of that stone? Not much! No, sir.”
“Well, did you ever see the diamond?”
“I’ll tell you. Sam and me we struck the spoor at Euphorby, follered it fifteen miles in an’ out of the Kowie bush, away over to the Kasouga, and ten miles to the Kareiga—in an’ out of the thickest bush—sleepin’ out o’ nights. Back ag’in to the Kowie bush, over into the Fish River, without settin’ eyes once on the blanged thing. One month we were on the spoor, and the food run out, so’s we’d got to raise more capital, which we riz by selling Sam’s plough and my harrow—the two of ’em bringing in twenty-five shillings. Then we ran ag’inst the mine after Sam had taken a horn o’ Cango—and his ribs were broken in. Yes, the fust thing we knowed one night thet bull charged us out of a patch of bush in the open. Well, I took Sam to a farmhouse, and picked up the spoor, and two nights after came on the bull standin’ in a vley on the flats over yonder. My! He were jes’ standing there shooting the water over his mountain-high body, with his big ears flapping, when he turned his head, and I seed that diamon’ shinin’ in his forehead like a blood-red star. I tell you that mine lit out a yell and came arter me like a rock hurled from the hilltop. The land was as flat as the palm of your hand, and the only thing was ter double. Well, I did that, and slipped into the vley, and the ole bull, arter ramping around, stood there on the brink listenin’, while his trunk went twistin’ about to catch my wind. He kep’ me there till the cold got into my bones, and then, when the dawn was breaking, off he made for the Kareiga again. Arter that Sam and me we called in fresh capital, an’ Jerry Wittal joined us with a piebald mare and twenty-five sheep. Part o’ the money was paid to mend Sam’s ribs, and then we went arter the ole bull ag’in. This time he went west, through the Addo and on to the Knysna. Six months we kep’ on arter him, sometimes he came arter us; and at last he smashed up the company one morning by takin’ us as we slep’. Yes, sir. That crittur, he waited till the cold of the mornin’, when we couldn’t see for the sleep, and he pounded Jerry into the groun’. He did that, and ef he hadn’t a screamed in his joy he might a done for us; but Sam and me, we dodged roun’ a tree an’ blazed inter him. Sam right there said the company must go inter liquidation, an’ he worked his way back home as a handy-man from farm to farm. Poor Sam! His nerves went, and in less than a year he was dead, sure enuf. Of course all this huntin’ got about, and a chap from Port Elizabeth said he would help me refloat the company; but when I giv’ him all the facts blow me if he didn’t try to ‘jump’ the claim.”
“How was that?”
“Why, he went off on the hunt with a couple o’ niggers, and afore I knowed about it he’d been out three days in the bush. It makes me laugh now. Wha’ yer think? I came across him without his gun, or his hat, or his kit, making tracks for home. He found the bull sure enough, but the bull chased him up a yellow-wood tree and kep’ him there one day and a night.”
“Did he see the diamond?”
“Oh, yes; he seed too much of it; but he didn’t want any more of that sort o’ minin’—and ’tweren’t long afore I chucked the job, too.”
“How was that?”
“Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I tole you. At any rate it’s bedtime; and if you young ones don’t roost now you’ll never hold your guns straight in the mornin’. So long!”