I disliked them both, especially the fat one, who looked to me like a city-bred parasite—a barman, bookmaker, tobacconist's assistant, or something of that sort. They glanced round them and hesitated, evidently expecting to be asked to drink with me. I would sooner have gone "three out" of a bottle of beer with a couple of hogs.

Presently they went off, evidently much relieved to find I knew nothing.

I was now determined to know all, and quickly; but how to get hold of the old man alone again was the difficulty.

As I sat in my chair thinking, I recollected a remark let fall by the boy I sent to spy upon them: "The fat one drank much Kaffir beer, which he bought from the natives who lived on the north bank of the river."

I sent a messenger to the headman of the village with an order to make much beer, pots and pots of it, and take it new and half-fermented to the white men on the other side. I instructed the headman to sell it cheaply, and said that I would make up the difference.

In due course I had my reward. The old Scotsman came over and told me one of his companions was in great pain and the other was trying to ease the pain by rubbing fat on his belly, that he himself had got away unnoticed, and now wanted to tell me all about "it."

I was naturally all anxiety to hear what "it" was all about, and made the old man sit down.

Now why is it, I wonder, that old men can't come quickly to the point? Much to my annoyance, he wasted a good half an hour telling me what scamps the other two were; how he felt sure that, given half a chance, they would "do him in" but not until they had got from him his secret. Tell them? Not on your life!

But he would tell me; oh yes, he would tell me. Ever seen a ruby? No, not out of a ring? Well, I should see one now and hold it in my hand. A large one, fit for a king. And he would tell me where to find more. Hundreds of them. The other two had brought him up to the Zambesi just to find out where the rubies were. But he wasn't going to tell them, not he. They were too darned stingy with the whisky bottle; besides, they wouldn't sign a paper on it. A man who wouldn't sign a paper on a deal was up to no good—didn't intend to play fair. Now what did I think they should pay him for showing them where the ruby mine was? Would a couple of hundred be a fair thing?

And so on, and on, and on.