Luck at the Diamond Fields

by Dalrymple J. Belgrave

It was not very pleasant work waiting, the night had clouded over an hour or so before, and the flashes of lightning seemed to be terribly near us, while soon after the first flash the storm broke and the rain came down in torrents, as it does on the South African veldt in a summer’s thunderstorm.

“All the better for us, my lad, just the night for the job,” he said as we tried to huddle behind the boulders to get out of the rain. Dormer talked away about the delights of Paris and London and the time we would have at home, while we both took several more pulls at the whiskey-bottle; for all that the time went slowly, and we began to feel wretchedly uncomfortable.

As we sat there waiting for the time to arrive for us to begin our work and to stretch the rope across the road which was to stop the cart, it certainly seemed that my fate was sealed, and that I was destined to become a successful scoundrel or a skulking jail-bird for the rest of my life. Looking back I cannot remember that I felt much shame or remorse. I was infected with Dormer’s ideas of things. What we were going to do would not hurt any individual very much; it seemed to me then that it was a much more harmless thing than the financial robberies which were carried out by men who were considered most respectable persons; and as for the danger of being found out, I didn’t see where it came in, I thought, as I took a drink from the bottle.

“Easy with that bottle, old chap, or you will be hitting some one when you let off your revolver; keep yourself cool, and mind you go straight for old Jacob, and see that he don’t pull the crape off your face,” Dormer said to me. Then he walked some yards off to take a look at the spot in the road he had chosen for tying the rope across.

As he left me a strange change seemed to come over me. The reckless devil-may-care spirits I had been in left me, and I felt a sense of awe as if I knew that something was going to happen. Then a feeling came over me that some one was present, and all at once the rocks in front of me seemed to fade away, and where they had been I saw an unearthly luminous mist, and through it I saw a figure dressed as an officer in a Highland regiment. I could see that his arms were thrown back, his sword was falling from his hand. There was a rent in the breast of his coat, and in his face was the look of death. I knew him; he was my brother Donald; he had grown from a lad into a man, and he was handsome and more soldierlike than when I had seen him last. I remembered our compact, and then I knew that my brother was dead. There was the proud look of one who had earned the respect of his fellow-men in his highbred face. For one instant our eyes seemed to meet, and then as I sprang forward calling to him by name the figure and the mist surrounding it seemed to fade away. “Heaven help me,” I thought, “I am the last of our race.” A flood of home memories, which for some time I had done my best to banish from my thoughts, came back to me. As I touched my face and felt the mask of crape I had on, I realised what I was going to do, and that I was about to become a common criminal.

“What on earth are you shouting for? what’s the matter with you, man? we’d better be moving and fixing the rope,” I heard Dormer say as he came back to where I was. I did not answer, but stood irresolute for a second or two. I felt half-ashamed to give up the adventure I had engaged in, but after what I had seen I was determined not to engage in it.

“Jim, I am going to cut it; I have had a warning not to go on with this—let’s give it up.”

“Give it up by—” and Dormer gave vent to his surprise and disgust in very strong language. “Well, I did think you were good grit; but you can’t give it up now. What’s come over you all at once?” He was thoroughly disgusted with me; such faith in human nature as remained to him had evidently received a shock. “Well, I’d have never thought it of you, you whom I always believed in. Come, pull yourself together and do what you said you’d do; it’s too late to turn tail now.” And then looking into my face and seeing how agitated I was, he asked me what on earth had happened to me. I think, like many a gambler and adventurer of his type, Jim had a strong vein of superstition in his nature. When I told him something of what I had seen he was somewhat impressed by it, and on my again expressing my determination to turn back and have no more to do with it he did not attempt to persuade me. Nor did he think of doing the thing by himself. He growled out a few sentences of disgust, and sulkily walked after me as I turned and made the best of my way towards Kimberley. We kept some way from the road; I hardly know why I did this, but I think it was because I did not wish to pass too close to the post-cart. After about half-an-hour we saw the post-cart driven along, and then Jim Dormer’s feelings became too much for him again, and he burst out into a string of oaths and reproaches. I must say I quite saw how contemptible my conduct must seem to him, and to a certain extent I sympathised with him. Suddenly he came to a stop and clutched my arm, motioning me to dodge behind some bushes. I did so, and in a few seconds three horsemen rode almost by where we were.

“We are well out of that little trap. Did you see who they were? I will swear to two of them being Lamb and Stedman, the detectives. By George! but I will go back from all I’ve been saying; that was a straight tip you got wherever it came from to give up this job,” Dormer whispered to me when they had ridden past. “That hound of a policeman has rounded on us and given information,” he added. It turned out afterwards that this idea of his was right. It was pretty clear that we had just been in time in leaving the place where we had agreed to wait for the cart. Our plot had been betrayed and a very warm reception had been arranged for us. Even as it was we felt that there was some chance of our being arrested, and we were both glad enough when we were got back to Kimberley and were safe in our beds.

Tired though I was, I slept very little, but I lay awake and thought of my brother, whom I was convinced was no more, and of the old home days. I thought more seriously of my degraded life and made more good resolutions than I had done for many a long day. I think I kept them fairly well, though I had a hard time of it for some time to come. At last I got some work to do for a company on the Transvaal gold-fields, and since then I have made a living, though I don’t know that I am likely to make the fortune I used to dream of. Dormer and I parted good friends. “Your second-sight seems as if it had been a warning to you to keep straight, and I’d do it if I were you; as for me, well, it’s different,” he said as we shook hands. He left South Africa shortly after this, and I don’t know what happened to him.