“Did he see the diamond?”
“Oh, yes; he seed too much of it; but he didn’t want any more of that sort o’ minin’—and ’tweren’t long afore I chucked the job, too.”
“How was that?”
“Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I tole you. At any rate it’s bedtime; and if you young ones don’t roost now you’ll never hold your guns straight in the mornin’. So long!”
Chapter Twenty Three.
Abe’s Diamond Mine.
We were still at the camp near the bush by the sea, and the week’s hunt was ended. The “boys” had gone off to a neighbouring kraal to dance and eat and drink throughout the night, and we were left in the great quiet of a South African evening. As usual, Long Jim had squeezed from his concertina all the melancholy airs he knew, and Amos Topper had trotted out all his well-worn arguments against the Ukolobola—the Kaffir system of selling girls into wedlock in exchange for cattle; a system which he warmly contended was the root of all the stock-thieving.
“A darned good system,” said Abe; “one that’s based on reason and justice; that’s so.”