“Well, I should say sport rather than saint,” laughed the boy. “She certainly was a bit of a sinner from all accounts—not morally, you know, but against the law.”
“I don’t understand—”
“The Diamond Law, I mean. In the days when old Micky Solano made his money diamonds could be found lying about the streets here in Kimberley, or bought at every street corner from the niggers who stole them.”
“But how could the niggers steal them?”
“Well, you see, nowadays, De Beers have the system of watching and searching brought to a fine art; boys who are working in the mines are absolutely isolated from the rest of the world in Compounds for six months or so at a time; at the end of their contracts and before leaving they are watched day and night and gone over internally as well as externally, so that they haven’t a hope of getting away with anything as big as a pin’s head. But in those early days there were no Compounds. They worked out in the open with nothing round them but wire fences, and opportunities for stealing were endless. There were watching overseers, but John nigger is a wily fellow and soon discovered means of hiding some of his finds. At the end of a day’s work among the blue ground he would hand over a dozen diamonds and probably have three or four fine ones concealed upon his person. The next step was to get into touch with illicit diamond buyers who would give him perhaps two pounds for a stone worth a hundred. This of course paid the nigger who had got the stone for nothing, while the man who made the purchase soon developed into a millionaire. A severe law was made to combat this traffic but people still did it, in spite of the risk of being sent to jail for ten or twenty years. The Breakwater at Cape Town was almost entirely built by men sentenced for I.D.B. People never talked of being sent to jail, but to the Breakwater. Nevertheless illicit buying of diamonds continued, and many well known men founded their fortunes in that way. Micky Solano was one of them. Not only Micky. His wife was in it too. She did it for love of the game, people say. Others say that diamonds had cast a glamour over her soul, and she couldn’t help herself. Anyway it was quite well known that Micky who kept a sort of wayside hotel got hold of the stones by hook or by crook, and she ran them across the border into the Orange Free State. Once you were in Dutch territory the Diamond Law could not touch you, and from there you could easily smuggle the stones down to the Cape and away by mail boat to the big buyers in Holland. You can imagine that heaps of people were constantly backwards and forwards to the border pretending to be travellers and traders. Scores of them were trapped at it and sent to the Breakwater. But Micky and his wife were never trapped. She was too clever. No one ever found the diamonds she hid though she was often searched. The detectives knew that she got away with thousands of pounds’ worth every month, but they were never able to catch her out. Then, one journey she had her baby with her. It was the only child they ever had, and for the first time she took it with her on the rough coach journey. There were no trains then, you know. People either had their own wagons and trekked across the veld, rode horses, or drove a four-in-hand. Mrs Solano used all these modes of getting about but upon this occasion she was travelling by the ordinary mail cart. As usual they were all searched by detectives and nothing found, but just after they got across the border and were free of the police a fellow passenger called her attention to the stillness of the child which usually was a very lively little thing. The mother looked, and found it dead. It was black in the face and had apparently died of strangulation. Mrs Solano nearly went mad. Some one took charge of her while the child was examined by a doctor who found a magnificent rough diamond stuck in its throat. It had been sucking one of those sugar bag arrangements that mothers sometimes make for their children. Apparently the stone had been placed inside the sugar bag for concealment and I wonder it never occurred to the mother that the baby might suck a hole in the bag and swallow the stone. Pretty awful Nemesis to descend upon her, wasn’t it?”
“Terrible!” murmured Loree.
“That was the last I.D.B. adventure she undertook anyhow. They were pretty rich by then and she must just have been doing it for the love of the risk. But she never did it again. Micky invested the beans—and they became fabulously rich. But isn’t it a curious idea of hers to wear the stone that choked the baby?”
“Wear it?”
“Well, they say that’s the one—the big golden stone she always wears on her forehead. They say she hates diamonds now and wears them as a sort of punishment and reparation, especially that one. I don’t know how much truth there is in it. People say anything in Africa. Awful country! Hullo! there’s the band. Do let’s go in and have this dance.”
Loree felt very uneasy, but the music was irresistible and she let herself be beguiled. As soon as she got back into the ballroom she saw that Quelch had arrived. He was on the other side of the room staring about everywhere, but to her relief he passed out of a door without having caught sight of her. In a few seconds she had forgotten him and everything else in the joyous response of her whole being to the rhythm of the music. Young Dalkeith in common with most Colonials was an accomplished dancer and it was like being wrenched brutally out of a dream when the music stopped. They strolled in silence to one of the doors leading to the verandahs. As they reached the darkness Loree realised that she had run right into that which she had tried to avoid. A resonant and determined voice was saying: