Luck at the Diamond Fields

by Dalrymple J. Belgrave

A few days after their conversation with the prospector, Messrs Hardman and Timson were again on a prospecting expedition. This time they had sought the prospector’s hump-backed hill, and they had come to it after a journey of about forty miles. Sure enough, about two hundred yards north of it, they found marks of old working and a hole which was almost filled up by sand. Mr Timson’s excitement before he reached the spot had begun to cool a good deal. Perhaps there was nothing in the tale he had heard. The man might have been mad, or have been hoaxing him, or exaggerating, he kept thinking to himself. Bill Hardman had not taken much trouble to reassure him. All he said was that it was good enough to look into, though it was long odds against its being as good as they hoped, and he professed to be quite prepared to find their trip turn out to be waste of time, though at the same time something seemed to tell him to try the place. They had come out in an ox waggon, professedly on a shooting trip, and had brought with them a small washing machine, picks, shovels and other tools for digging and prospecting; they had also taken out two or three Kaffirs who were accustomed to work in the mine.

The sight of the old workings had a considerable effect in raising the hopes of Mr Timson.

“That bears him out, anyhow!” said Hardman; “it seems to be the sort of hole a man working by himself could make in a month.”

“How soon shall we know whether it is any good?” asked Timson.

“Working on the small scale as we shall, it may take us days before we find a diamond, however rich it may be. We will first get some twenty loads of ground out and then we will wash. There is no house near here, and we might work for six months without being disturbed, so we needn’t fear that, though if the man who owns the farm found we were prospecting, he’d pretty quick get an interdict, as those cursed lawyers call it, from the High Court and clear us off,” answered the other.

In a very short time work began, Bill Hardman opening a bottle of champagne to drink ‘luck’ to the venture, as the first pick was put into the ground. There is a strange excitement in working in new ground which is very fascinating to any one of a speculative turn. Mr Timson thought of the Scripture story of the man who knew of treasure hid in a field, and sold all he had to purchase that field. Let him but once satisfy himself that there was a diamond mine under his feet and he would show no want of enterprise in making the best use of his knowledge. Hardman said very little. When a few days’ work would tell them what they wanted to know, it was no good prophesying. He professed to like the look of the ground, it reminded him of the top stuff in the Kimberley mine, and Mr Timson was a good deal impressed with his favourable opinion. But the hours passed very slowly, and Mr Timson kept fidgeting about, looking into the shaft the boys were digging, and sorting handfuls of the earth they had thrown out, as if he expected that diamonds ought to be found every minute, much to the amusement of his companion, who pointed out that, however rich the place might be, they were likely enough to find nothing before they washed the ground. Hour after hour the Kaffirs worked on stolidly, though lazily, and as the shaft that they were sinking deepened, Timson’s spirits began to sink. He was breaking up a lump of ground when he heard a shout from Hardman—

“We’ve found here a diamond! look at it! It’s true—that yarn we heard was true. It’s a ten-carat stone! I saw it glisten as Tom picked down some ground. Tom would have jumped it if I had not been too quick. Wouldn’t you, you black thief?”

“Nay, boss,” said the Kaffir, grinning and showing his white teeth, “the boss is a good boss and I’d no jump his diamond.”

Timson looked at the diamond, a white stone of about ten carats in weight, and he felt that his fortune was made. The Kaffirs talked to each other in their own language about the diamond. “They think it is a rich place and there will be lots of diamonds for them to steal,” said Hardman.

The next day another diamond was found in the picking, and Mr Timson began to feel most hopeful as to what the result of washing the stuff would be.