Luck at the Diamond Fields

by Dalrymple J. Belgrave

Though the idea was a good one, it was not being carried out in a very satisfactory and efficient manner by the owner of the legs. Going on night guard, particularly after one has spent a somewhat convivial evening, is tiresome work enough. Mr Jack Enderby had found it so, and after he had walked about for some time, and grumbled at his luck in having to earn his living in that way, he had settled himself down to smoke a quiet pipe and think over things. He had yawned, stretched himself, looked into the mine, and wished devoutly that the infernal place had never been found at all, or that he at all events had never seen it. And then his thoughts had begun to stray listlessly over his somewhat chequered career, which was perhaps all the easier to follow as it was all downhill. His history was one which he was willing enough to tell any one who would listen to it.

“Went from Eton to the —th Hussars; about as lively a lot as any in the service. Went the pace as strong as any of ’em for a time, but couldn’t last. Found myself dead broke when the numbers went up after one Derby. Had to go after that, and for my sins managed to find my way out to this forsaken hole of a place,” was his oft-told tale. At one time he had owned some claims in the mine, but he soon gambled them away. Then he lived by his wits for a period, but falling upon bad times had been glad to take the billet of a searcher upon the Mining Board, which some of the few friends who continued to stick to him were able to get for him.

The appointment was grumbled at by some men who cared more about the interests of the mine than about the welfare of Jack Enderby, and certainly they would have been able to justify their stricture if they could have seen him, for he had found his thoughts soothing, and having found a comfortable place had gone fast asleep.

His peculiar way of looking after the interest of the Kimberley claimholders, however, was destined to prove as disastrous to Mr Sixpence as if he had been performing his duty with the most exemplary zeal.

Sixpence did not know what he was there for, but he realised that all white men were dangerous to a black man who had a big diamond in his possession, and he sprung on to his feet and set off at his best pace.

Just then, however, Jack woke up, saw Sixpence making off, and in a second was on his legs and in pursuit of him. Sixpence had managed to get about twenty yards’ start, and he took a path that led away from the mine to some ground given up to washing machines, depositing-floors, and débris heaps. In that direction he would not be likely to meet with a policeman, and if he got a good start from his pursuer, there would be plenty of hiding-places where he could take cover and dodge behind. Unfortunately for him, however, Jack Enderby had once won the ‘quarter’ at Sandhurst, and though he was not improved by the fifteen years that had passed since then, he could still go better than most men, so long as he could keep his wind. Mr Sixpence soon began to know that he had a good man behind him, and to believe he was outpaced. He would have to use his hands as well as his legs if he meant to keep the diamond, which he had in the pocket of the tattered soldier’s coat he was wearing. Sixpence meant to keep that diamond, and he gave the heavy iron-bound knobkerri he had taken out with him a savage grip, and had a vision of a smashed white face as he slackened his pace. Then, as his pursuer came up, he stopped suddenly, and turning upon him before he realised that he was going to show fight, struck him one blow full on the face. Enderby staggered back dazed and half stunned, hardly able to avoid the second blow the Kaffir aimed at him. He had nothing in his hands, having left his stick at the spot where he was lying asleep, but it chanced on that particular evening that he had a revolver in the side-pocket of his coat. As a rule he never carried arms, few men on the Diamond Fields ever do, but as luck would have it, that evening before he went on duty he had encountered in a canteen an intoxicated young gentleman, who was possessed of a revolver, and not having been long on the Diamond Fields thought it the thing to make a flourish with it, to the great danger of the company present. Jack had considered that he would be safer without it, so he had taken it from him. The circumstance turned out to be rather an unfortunate one for Mr Sixpence.

“You blasted nigger! I’ll stop that game,” Jack said, as he felt some blood running down his cheek, and his hand went to his pocket. He fired without taking particular aim, but the Kaffir’s hands went up, and he fell on his back. “Well, it’s not your night out, my boy; there is a dead run of luck against you. First of all you must tumble over me as you come out of the mine, and it’s long odds against that; then I have a revolver on me, and then when I do shoot I put a bullet through your brain instead of missing. Well, we will see what it was you were taking away with you,” Jack said to himself, as he bent over the fallen man and put his hand into the pocket of the tattered soldier’s coat he had on, and then as he touched the diamond he gave an exclamation of surprise.

“By the Lord, Harry, it was worth going to get,” he said, as he pulled it out and looked at it in the moonlight.

Jack Enderby was a good-hearted fellow enough as men went, but it is no libel upon him to say that he was far more moved by the sight of the diamond than by the fate which had befallen the Kaffir. It was his duty to stop any one whom he found surreptitiously visiting the mine, and when he had a revolver he could hardly be expected not to use it in self-defence. Not much trouble would be made about the Kaffir’s death. He would report it to the police, an inquiry would be held, but the state of his face would show the provocation he had received before he fired. No, there would be no fuss about the nigger, but the diamond—that was a very different matter—that would be something to talk about, when people saw it; and then Jack Enderby thought to himself that for some time no one should see it. Hitherto in the matter of diamonds he had been straight; but he had never concealed from himself that if he got one good chance of getting hold of a big diamond he would make no bones about it. Well, the chance had come, and he was not going to be such a fool as not to avail himself of it, he thought, as he put the diamond into his pocket, and like poor Sixpence began to think of what he would do with it.

In his case, too, it meant farewell to the Kimberley mine, and work which he hated. It meant also, if it were as good a stone as he believed it to be, his having that good fling at home, which he had longed for without much hope.