"So did I," said Hamlin.
"So did I," said Stetson.
"It seems clear enough that we are absolutely ruined," said Hamlin.
"I wonder what has become of that Portuguese, Emanuel," said Hamlin.
At that moment he entered the office. He looked like the picture of despair. He broke out with: "It is awful! I have just heard ze truth. It was that American who did it. When you thought last year that he had gone to America, he, with another American, had gone to Africa.
"They found ze mine. They found a way out from it by going in the opposite direction from which they came. Sedgwick went by Australia to San Francisco, and ordered a forty-stamp mill. The other American remained, and opened the mine by a tunnel. Sedgwick came back this way, and, left here to meet the mill at Port Natal.
"It has been running three months. Two months' proceeds are here, and pay dividends of four shillings, and it is good for two shillings per month for years; with machinery doubled, good for four shillings per month for years to come. The stock has gone to £6; it will go to £10 so soon as it is well understood. And I lost it all, because I had not the sense to find that way out from ze mine. The road by the trail would have cost £75,000 or £100,000, and I believed only impassable mountains were to ze west."
"How did you find all this out?" asked Jenvie.
"From ze Secretary, McGregor. He was master of ze ship that carried the machinery from San Francisco, and he brought ze Americans from Port Natal. One was very sick with the fever, and came near dying. He had, besides, one wound which he received with ze Boers coming out to the coast from the mine. They are two devils. Ten or a dozen Boers attacked them to get the first month's bullion, and they two killed five of them, and drove ze rest away."
"I wish the Boers had killed them both," said Jenvie.