At supper, sun-dried flesh, cabbage, and a savory dish the travellers returned to with gusto. Staines asked what it was: the vrow told him—locusts. They had stripped her garden, and filled her very rooms, and fallen in heaps under her walls; so she had pressed them, by the million, into cakes, had salted them lightly, and stored them, and they were excellent, baked.
After supper, the accomplished Reginald, observing a wire guitar, tuned it with some difficulty, and so twanged it, and sang ditties to it, that the flabby giant's pasty face wore a look of dreamy content over his everlasting pipe; and in the morning, after a silent breakfast, he said, “Mine vriends, stay here a year or two, and rake in mine rubbish. Ven you are tired, here are springbok and antelopes, and you can shoot mit your rifles, and ve vil cook them, and you shall zing us zongs of Vaderland.”
They thanked him heartily, and said they would stay a few days, at all events.
The placid Boer went a-farming; and the pair shouldered their pick and shovel, and worked on their heap all day, and found a number of pretty stones, but no diamond.
“Come,” said Falcon, “we must go to the river;” and Staines acquiesced. “I bow to experience,” said he.
At the threshold they found two of the little Bulteels, playing with pieces of quartz, crystal, etc., on the door-stone. One of these stones caught Staines's eye directly. It sparkled in a different way from the others: he examined it: it was the size of a white haricot bean, and one side of it polished by friction. He looked at it, and looked, and saw that it refracted the light. He felt convinced it was a diamond.
“Give the boy a penny for it,” said the ingenious Falcon, on receiving the information.
“Oh!” said Staines. “Take advantage of a child?”
He borrowed it of the boy, and laid it on the table, after supper. “Sir,” said he, “this is what we were raking in your kopjes for, and could not find it. It belongs to little Hans. Will you sell it us? We are not experts, but we think it may be a diamond. We will risk ten pounds on it.”
“Ten pounds!” said the farmer. “Nay, we rob not travellers, mine vriend.”