Luck at the Diamond Fields

by Dalrymple J. Belgrave

“No, don’t wake her up—let her sleep, and you tell her about it when she is better. Maybe it will only excite her now; you had better keep it,” Charlie answered, and he walked back to his tent to sit by himself, and think over his future and Connie’s, and how the wonderful find he had made that afternoon would alter it.

By the next day the news of the find was all over the camp, and spread up and down the river, and to Kimberley, where it excited much interest amongst buyers and dealers, who discussed the news of the find, and discounted it and speculated as to how much such a diamond would be worth, and who could afford to buy. Connie was one of the last to hear the news, for, as the day went on, she got worse, and the next morning Charlie met the Barkly doctor coming from Jim Heap’s with rather a bad report to give of her. She had an attack of fever. There was a good deal of it about down the river that year, and her trouble and the shock she had sustained had made it worse, and it would be some time before she could be told of her good luck.

“It seems hard that her father shouldn’t have lived to see his luck turned, poor old fellow!” the doctor said to Charlie; “but his daughter will be able to go home now and be educated; that’s what he always talked about. I remember his saying that he felt troubled to think that she was growing up out here, and he had hoped to have made something out of his claims before.”

“Yes, she will be able to go home, of course; that’s what she ought to do,” Charlie answered, with something of regret in his voice; “but the place will seem strange without her.”

“Yes, the old General and pretty little Connie were quite features in the place, weren’t they? They introduced an element you don’t often see in a digging; but they were both out of place, if you come to think of it; and it’s a good thing that, thanks to you, she can get out of it. It would have been a pity if she had married some river-digger, and lived all her life away from civilisation and out of society. It’s bad enough for a man, but it’s worse for a woman.”

Charlie was inclined to think the doctor a conceited ass, who gave himself airs because he was a professional man, and had come out from home, and thought the country where he made his living not good enough for him. Still, he had said what every one else was saying, that Connie ought to go home. There was no doubt about it; he ought to give up all his hopes of winning her. That big diamond had made all the difference; she belonged properly to a different world from the one in which he would have to live his life, and it would be mean and treacherous to the memory of his old friend, her father, if he hindered her from going back to it. He cursed the chance, which had thrown all his plans out of gear, and wished that his partner, Bill Jeffson, had found that diamond, or fate had not placed it in the General’s claim in order to mock him. He wondered whether Connie really did care for him; how sweet the idea of working for her and protecting her had been! Now she did not want his work or protection, and the best thing he could do would be to clear off. The idea of going away took hold of him; it seemed to him that flight was the bravest course he could take. There was some fairly good news from the Transvaal gold-fields just then, and he thought he would go up there.

That morning, as he was working at his claim, his partner, who had been across the river, turned up in a state of irritation which he appeared to think praiseworthy and just.

“You’re a clever chap you are!” he snarled out, after he had looked with disgust for some time at Charlie working in the claim; “but you’re too clever by half; they are all talking about you at the canteen over the river, and a precious fool they think you, though they say you acted very straight. When I told ’em that your game was to marry the girl, and get the diamond back that way, Higgins, the law agent, said that it wasn’t likely, and that he believed the law would prevent it, ’cause she was a minor, and would be made a ward of the Court, and that it would be a shame if she were to marry the likes of you, and that of course she would go home; and every one agreed with him except Luney White. Why, Higgins, he said that he doubted whether you would get a farthing for having found the diamond, as the High Court, which will have to administer the estate, won’t have any power to grant it. There won’t be as much as a drink stood over that diamond—think of that now—the best stone ever found down the river; and not so much as a glass of square face or Cape smoke stood over it. Oh, it makes me sick!”

Charlie told him that if he ever said anything about his wanting to stop Connie going home he would give him the worst thrashing he ever had in his life, for it was a lie. Of course she ought to go away from Red Shirt, and he knew it, and he seemed so much in earnest that Bill Jeffson thought it prudent to lurch away, comforting himself with the reflection that his words had left a sting, and that Charlie would be punished for his foolishness about the diamond.

Ah, it was the same story all round; every one said she ought to go home; he must either stay there and see the last of Connie without telling her how much he loved her, or go away somewhere, and of the two alternatives the latter seemed to be the easier. He waited till he heard that Connie was better, and then early one morning he turned his back on Red Shirt, and set off to walk across the veldt to Kimberley.