“Stop, boys, and watch ’em; why it makes quite a picture. Did you ever see such a fool?” said Austin, holding up his hand and pointing to an opening in the thorn trees and underwood, through which they could get a view of the Hawkins’s claim.
The claim was one which had been almost worked out in the days when the place was first rushed. Hawkins, a grizzled old fellow, was seated with a pipe in his mouth, watching two Kaffirs picking away at the side of the claim, filling buckets with the gravel, which another Kaffir was carrying across to the sorting-table, at which the new proprietor of the claim was seated. That person was no other than our old friend, Mr Moses Moss. He was got up as a digger, wearing a red flannel shirt, and a very broad-brimmed hat, and he had put on, though there was no particular use for them, a pair of long boots.
“Looks as though he was going to find a diamond every minute; he will tire a bit of the game before long,” Jack Austin said, as he watched the new arrival on the river. “The doctor ordered him an open-air life, so he gave up his practice. He was a lawyer in Kimberley, and down he comes here to dig. Did any one ever hear of such a thing?”
“Hullo, by God, what’s his game now? What’s he up to? Blessed if I don’t believe he has found!” another digger said, as to their surprise Moss suddenly threw his hat into the air with a tremendous shout of triumph.
“Hullo, mate, what are you up to now? what do yer think you have got hold of?” growled out old Hawkins, as he came up with his pipe in his mouth.
“A diamond!—a wopping big diamond! Oh, hurrah! hurrah!” Mr Moss cried, executing a dance of triumph.
The other men crowded round Moss, eager to see what he had found.
Hawkins looked rather mortified. It was somewhat annoying that a diamond should have been found in his claim the day after he sold it. His expression, however, changed a good deal when the other handed him the diamond.
“Say, did you find this just now; it’s a mighty rum thing to find in a claim; why—” Hawkins was grumbling out, when Austin gave him a kick, and motioned to him to keep quiet.
“Magnificent diamond, sir; the finest stone that ever has been found. Did ever man see such luck? Here you come down just for a lark, and find a fortune; but there, luck is one of the queerest things out!” Jack Austin said.