Luck at the Diamond Fields

by Dalrymple J. Belgrave

The stranger did not answer his question, and for some time sat wrapped in his thoughts, which seemed to be gloomy enough. Then, with the air of one who could only get relief by telling his story, he spoke: “I say that prospecting trip cost me dear, and so you will say when you have heard my story. I must tell it, though it’s not the sort of tale most men would pan out to two strangers; but I must speak out, for I have done nothing but think over this for eight years, and feel that I should be easier in my mind for making a clean breast of it to some one or the other before I die. Prospecting! well, I’ve done about as much of prospecting as any man. They called me the Demon Prospector in Australia and New Zealand, and well they might, for I have found three payable gold-fields in my time. I did more good to others than to myself, though, for I could never stop in one place long, and would often turn my back upon a certainty to wander away after that wonderfully rich gold field I was always dreaming of. Still I did not do so badly, and before I came over to this country I had made a little money. And I had what was better than money—a home of my own and a wife, not the sort of wife many a digger with his belt full of gold-dust picked up in those days, but an English girl who had not been long out from home. She had come out with her father, who had collected the little money he had, and gone to try for a fortune in the land of gold. He lost his money, as a new chum will lose his money, and died leaving her alone. I don’t believe she only married me for a home; once she really cared for me—but you find this yarn a bit long, don’t you?” he said, looking at Mr Timson, who was not in the slightest degree interested in his domestic history.

“About the place where you found all those diamonds, where was that?” said the latter.

“Let him rip and he will come round to it; don’t pump him too much or you’ll spoil a good thing,” whispered Hardman. “Go on, mate,” he added, “I like to hear you.”

“Well, we were married in Sydney a few months after her father died, and we lived there for a bit, when I heard of the Diamond Fields breaking out in this country, and nothing would do for me but I must come over here. We got up here some months before the dry diggings were found, and I tried my luck at the river where all the diggers were then. I chose Pneil, where there were a good many men doing fairly well. I put up a stone shanty amongst the trees near the river, and we were fairly comfortable and happy enough. I found pretty well, and began to believe that my old restless spirit had left me, for I didn’t seem to want to go prospecting, but was willing enough to stop on there. After a bit the dry diggings were found and many of the diggers left the river for them, but still I stayed on at Pneil. Then I heard of the New Rush being opened, and how men were finding sackfuls of diamonds. I went over and saw the new diggings, and after that I could not be contented at the river. I had noticed the lay of the ground of the dry diggings, and I felt sure that there must be lots of spots where diamonds were to be found in quantities. Then the old instinct came over me and I longed to go off prospecting. At last I felt I could stay where I was no longer. My wife didn’t like my leaving her by herself, for the other women at Pneil were not much company for her, and she had very few friends. About the only person she seemed to care to speak to was a man who had come over with us from Australia, who was staying at the other side of the river helping to keep a canteen. He was an educated man, one of the broken-down gentleman kind, and could make himself agreeable enough, but I never liked him very much. He was no good and would never do any honest work. He had come to grief in the old country by gambling, and was just turning from a pigeon into a rook, but there was something about him that women found very fascinating. Well, to cut my story short, I went off prospecting. I would stay away a week or so at a time. Looking back now it seems to me that after the first time my wife didn’t seem to mind my going so much. At last, after trying in one place and then another, I did find the sort of place I was looking for. It was out yonder,” said the prospector, as he stretched out his brown hand and pointed in the direction of a ridge of hills in the far distance. Mr Timson’s eyes glistened with excitement. He had never heard of any diamond mine being found in that direction.

“Yes, sir,” continued the stranger, “if the New Rush is as rich as the place I found, it is a deal better than I ever heard it was. I was working out yonder myself, but I found diamonds every day. I kept putting off going back to get Kaffirs to work for me, for I didn’t like the idea of the secret of the place being let out, and half thought I might keep it all to myself. After about a month I had over two hundred carats of smaller diamonds, besides a thirty, a fifty, and a sixty carat stone. Then I thought it was about time to go back and see the missis again and tell her my luck, sell my diamonds and get some Kaffirs to work for me. I cannot tell how I felt as I tramped back to the river. At last I had struck something really rich and made my fortune. How the boys would wake up when they heard, as they sooner or later would, I suppose, that I had found a place twice as rich as the famous New Rush. But diamonds would be down to nothing at all when my secret was known and people knew how plentiful they were if you only looked for them in the right place, so I determined to keep it quiet until I had made my fortune, which would not take me long, I thought. Then I would be able to take my missis home to England, and she would live the life she was fit for and be as fine a lady as any of ’em at home.

“As soon as I got to Klip Drift I sold my diamonds. I got about five thousand pounds for them. Then I went into a canteen to get a drink. There were one or two men there who knew me, and I thought that they stared at me rather oddly. ‘Where’s the Count?’ I asked the man behind the bar, for that was the name they called the broken-down gentleman chap I told you of, and it was the bar he kept.

“‘Don’t you know about it then?’ asked one man, and the others stared at me very queerly.

“‘Know about it? about what?’ I asked.

“‘Oh nothing; only he has cleared,’ the men answered.

“The men looked at me, I thought, as if they expected me to break my heart about the Count’s having cleared, and I couldn’t make out their manner at all. I said I was off across the river to see the missis, and left the place. A man I knew pretty well followed me and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s no good going across, for you won’t find the missis there,’ he said. ‘Where is she?’ I asked. ‘She has cleared, too; gone off with the Count,’ was his answer. I turned round on him, half inclined to knock him down to show him I didn’t like that kind of joke, but there was something in his face which told me that he wasn’t joking; then he told me that it had been going on for a long time, and that every one had been talking about it, and about a week ago two or three saw them start off together, ‘and a good job for me, he told me, was what most of them said.’ At first I wouldn’t believe it, but it was true, though: she was gone, and I began to see how I had fooled away my happiness by leaving my wife to go prospecting and letting that damned scoundrel steal her from me. It wasn’t many hours after I heard the news that I was off on their track. They had gone up north to some gold-fields which broke out about then. It was some time before I came up with them, for they kept dodging about, first living in one place and then in another, and once or twice I was at fault and could hear nothing of them. At last I got to a new camp on the gold-fields where I heard the Count was; he had started in at his old trade, gambling, and was keeping a faro bank. I had not been many minutes at the hotel before I heard all the boys talking about him and the run of luck he had struck. Then they began to talk of the pretty woman he had with him; you can guess that made me feel wild. I don’t know how I behaved that night, but I stopped in the bar of the hotel drinking and longing for the time to come when I had planned to have my revenge.