When on these expeditions Frick himself had found diamonds, and had heard wonderful stories from the natives of the great quantities of these stones which were to be found in caverns of a peculiar formation, reminding one more of deserted mines than anything else.
Frick had obtained the report through a source which did not admit of doubt that there was at least some truth in it; and the location given with regard to the place seemed to be efficient. But he could not then get any companions to form an expedition, as the supposed place lay far away in the desert, blocked by wild and hostile negro tribes. Nor had he at that time the means to fit out an expedition by himself, and he was therefore obliged to give up all thoughts of it. These were the diamonds in search of which Frick and Davis decided to go.
"Davis seemed to me to be just the right sort of a man," remarked old Frick, when he had gone thus far in his narrative; "he was at least double as greedy about finding the diamonds as I."
Now that they were able, the two companions journeyed at once to the Cape, bought themselves an excellent outfit, and hired people sufficient for a large expedition.
The money which they did not spend on the outfit they sent to the bank in London.
It was Davis who managed all that; he was the most businesslike of the two.
This expedition got as far as the Vaal, but did not return, and this is how it happened.
When they had got so far that, according to Frick's and Davis's calculations, they should be only a day's journey from the diamond caves, they let the natives, with the ox wagons, camp, while they themselves continued their journey alone.
They were lucky enough to find what Frick maintained must have been Solomon's deserted mines, and they filled a whole sack with diamonds. But when they reached the camp they found it had been plundered, and all the members of the expedition killed by a hostile negro tribe.
Frick and Davis were also captured after a hard struggle.