Mr Moss’s heart gave a jump when he saw this. The man had picked up a bundle of rag in which something seemed to be wrapped. The stranger unfolded it, and as he did so Mr Moss sprang from behind the water-barrel, and placed his hand on his shoulder.
“Who are you? and what’s that you have found in my garden? Come, drop it, or I will call the police,” Mr Moss said, for the other was an undersized, slight man, and he did not feel very much afraid of him.
“Leave me alone! keep your hands off, or I will make a hole in yer!” the man answered. As he spoke the attorney saw that he had something in his hand which glistened rather nastily in the moonlight.
“Put up that knife, or I will shout out; there is a policeman at the corner of the road, most likely, and they can hear me at the house across the road,” he said.
“Leave me alone, then, and I will clear out. I don’t want to have nothing to do with you,” the man said; and he gave a wriggle away.
“Give me what you have just taken from my garden, then,” said Mr Moss; “it belongs to me—I saw you pick up the—”
“Hush! you fool!” the man said, interrupting him. “Maybe there is a peeler outside in the road, and they would hear that word if they were within half a mile of us.”
“Look here, my man, you don’t think I’m going to let you take away what you have just found—you haven’t got a prospecting licence to look for diamonds in my garden, so just give it up, and I will say nothing about what I caught you at.”
“You bet you won’t, but it happens the diamond is mine. The party who planted it there left it me; that party was poor Ike Hart, who died the other day in Capetown jail, that’s where I’ve just come from. When poor old Ike saw he weren’t going to live to get out, he manages to tell me about this. He was a pal of mine, was Ike, and he thought he’d do me a good turn. I’ve tramped up here from Capetown to get this big ’un.”
“See here, my man,” said Mr Moss, “I don’t want to be hard on you. You say you have a right to the diamond because Ike Hart gave it you—I say it’s mine because it’s in my garden. Suppose we compromise the matter; come into my house, and we will talk it quietly over.”