Luck at the Diamond Fields

by Dalrymple J. Belgrave

Old David Miller, who lived in the other tent at Moonlight Rush, was a taciturn old fellow, who always worked by himself and seemed to look upon the world in general with surly indifference. He had been digging all over the world since gold was first discovered in Australia, and had spent a good many years on the banks of the Vaal. He dug by himself without employing Kaffirs, but he got through a fair amount of work, as the high bank of boulders which he had broken up and dragged out of claim at Moonlight bore witness to.

So far as Charlie knew he had found little enough to recompense him for his toil. He was not, however, much given to talk about his own affairs, though for him he was very friendly with Charlie—often coming round to his claim and growling about South Africa and its inhabitants, and contrasting the country with others in which it had been his lot to live. He was owner of a rickety little tub of a boat, in which, on the rare occasions on which he yearned for more of society and civilisation than he could get at Moonlight, he would cross over to the other side. The object of these voyages was a canteen that was some miles down the river. Old David, a sober man enough as a rule, used at intervals to go on the drink somewhat seriously. He believed, as a good many men of his class do believe, that an occasional bout of drinking was good for the system, and brightened a man up for his work like a change of air. Besides, he probably liked it. So now and then he used to indulge in one of these bouts. At other times he took nothing but tea—looking upon strong drink as a medicine that was wasted if not taken in large quantities. Sometimes these bouts would last for days, sometimes for a much shorter time. When he had taken what he considered was enough, or as more often was the case spent all his money, he would start off from the canteen, stagger off to the river, and get into his little tub of a boat and navigate himself across in it. The voyage always seemed beset with considerable danger, as the little boat, which the old man had made himself, was a very crank craft, certainly not fit to carry old David after he himself had taken in such a large cargo of whiskey. Charlie knew that the old man had started on one of his expeditions that afternoon, for he had come to his claim and asked him to come with him, showing an amount of hospitality and a wish for society which was unlike him. It was likely enough that he had gone to grief and got swamped. The river was swollen with recent floods, and flowing rather strongly; so Charlie looked forward to rather a longish job, particularly as he remembered that the old man had told him he could not swim a stroke.

It was a dark night for South Africa. Again and again, as he ran along the bank peering into the river, he thought he saw something in the water, but the object turned out to be a snag, or a mass of weed. At last he made out a paddle floating down; then he came to an upturned boat, and then he saw, or thought he saw something rise and sink again. In a second he was in the water, and when he got about to the spot where he thought he saw the object sink he dived for it. As he dived he felt himself caught in a mass of Vaal river-weed, which clung round him like a net, and seemed to drag him down in its deadly grip. At first he struggled wildly to get free, and the more he struggled the more entangled he got. After a little time, however, and before it was too late, his presence of mind came back, and humouring the weed rather than struggling against it, he managed to get free. Then he reached the body he had dived for, and came up with it to the top of the water. He had hard work enough to get it to land, and he began to feel terribly done with his struggles to drag it along through the weeds, and to keep free from them himself. At last he got it up the bank, dragging a tangled mass of weeds out with it. Then he lay exhausted and out of breath for some seconds before he was sure what it was that he had fished out from the bottom of the river, and recognised old David Miller in the object covered with weed and slime by his side. He remembered that he had a bottle of Cape smoke in his tent, so he went and got it, and having taken a pull at it himself, he tried to force some down the old man’s throat. A dozen conflicting directions for recovering half-drowned persons occurred to him, and without being sure of whether he was doing the right thing or not he did his best to bring back life to the body he had rescued. He felt fearfully alone, for he and the old man were the only inhabitants of Red Jacket, and even the nearest Kaffir huts were some miles off. The old man must have been for some time in the water before he got him out, and Charlie soon began to see that his help had come too late. The heart did not beat, and the life was not to come back, and when the sun rose its grey light lit up poor old David’s dead body.

“Poor old chap! he has growled his last growl at South Africa, and seen his last year out in the country,” Charlie said to himself, as he looked at him.

Then he carried the body into the tent, and lit a fire. He had always thought that poor old David would come to grief some day in that little boat of his. Well, the old fellow hadn’t much to live for. Charlie thought that if any of the Kaffirs came down to the river in the morning he would get them to watch by the body, and that he would walk down to one of the larger river camps where there was a magistrate, and report the death. Before, however, he left the place he ought to see what property old David had when he died. There would be little enough most likely—a few tools, and some blankets and perhaps a diamond or two, as a result of all the work he had done. Maybe a few coins, but there were not likely to be many after his visit to the canteen.

Charlie did not find much in the tent. The body was clothed in a pair of cord trousers and a woollen shirt. Round his waist there was a digger’s belt. Charlie took it off, and opened it. There was a purse in the belt, in which there were two small all-coloured diamonds, worth a pound or two, but no money. There was something else in the belt besides the purse—something tied up in a piece of a handkerchief. Charlie gave a start as he felt, and when he undid it and saw what it was, he stood holding it in his hand and staring at it in a dazed, stupid way. It was a diamond—such a diamond as diggers may dream of, but few have ever seen. It was about the finest stone he had ever seen, he thought.

“What luck—what queer luck,” he said to himself, as he looked at the dead man and then at the diamond. “It was just like luck giving poor old David a turn like that. Poor old fellow! he has never wanted more than a few pounds, and has often enough been without them; and just before his death he had come across this splendid prize.” No wonder the old man had looked rather queer that afternoon before, when he had come round to Charlie’s claims and asked him to come over the river to the canteen, and have a drink with him; Charlie had wondered at this unwonted hospitality, though he had refused it. The diamond explained it, however; there was plenty of occasion for it.

Then, as Charlie stood with the diamond in his hand, the thought came into his head, what would happen to the diamond now that the lucky digger who had found it had gone to where there is no more luck? He remembered that old David once told him that he had neither kith nor kin whom he knew of. Well, the stone would probably go to the Government, or to enrich lawyers who would reap the rich harvest of actions over it. Perhaps some peasant at home would be found, who would be proved to be old David’s next-of-kin, though he would have as little to do with the old man as if he had lived in another world. He remembered that some days before they had talked about digging together. If they had only come to terms then, he would have had his share of this find. Why it would be absurd to let the diamond do no one any good. Had he not done his best to save the old man and risked his life, and nearly lost it amongst the weeds? Would it not be throwing away his good luck if he did not keep the treasure-trove which was his by natural right if not by law? How much that stone meant to him. It must be worth many thousand pounds, as much money as any diamond. With the money he could get for it he could go home, not as an unsuccessful prodigal, but as a prosperous man come back to live the pleasant life of an English gentleman.

The sight of the diamond, and the knowledge of the lot of money it was worth, seemed to make Charlie realise how sick he was of the hopeless, wandering life he was living, and how he longed for civilisation and refinement again. If he only had some money he could go home and have another chance. A few more years of the life he was leading and he would be fit for nothing else, and even if luck came to him it would be no use.

As he was thinking he looked up and saw some Kaffir women from the huts standing by the river. He shouted to them, and bargained with them to stop and watch by the body, for he did not like to leave it by itself, unprotected, and then he set out to walk across the veldt to the nearest camp. Before he started he put the purse with the two small diamonds into one pocket, and tying the big diamond up in his handkerchief he put it into the breast-pocket of his coat. He was bound for a place about six miles off, where he could report what had happened. On his way he had to pass the roadside canteen where old David had spent his last evening. The proprietor of it had just opened the place, so he went in and ordered some breakfast. As he ate it he told the landlord of the fate of his guest of the night before.