I gave him the best advice I could, which amounted to a warning not to trust his companions.
Then he showed me the ruby, which he carried in a small blue medicine bottle marked "fever mixture."
I knew precious little about rubies, and told him so. It was then that I tried it between the two half-crowns.
Having satisfied myself that it was a very hard stone, even if it weren't a ruby, I gave it back to him, and he returned it to its bottle.
He then told me that, many years before, he had been travelling in company with a Jesuit Father along the banks of the Zambesi. That just below the village of a native, whose name for the moment he could not remember, he had found the rubies. One he had kept and the other he had given to the priest, who told him he was going home to France shortly and would find out whether the stone was worth anything or not. If it had value, he would sell it and go halves.
They went down south together, and parted company at Grahamstown. A year later he was sent for by the manager of the Bank and told that £480 had been remitted to him by the Reverend Father.
The money came in handy, and for one reason or another he didn't bother about going all the way up to the Zambesi to get more rubies. He also got married and settled down in Bechuanaland on a farm.
But his wife had lately died. His two daughters were married, and his son was killed in the Matabeleland rebellion. Then he lost all his cattle by rinderpest.
So he left the farm and went to Bulawayo. He didn't know anyone there, but took up with his two companions, met them in a bar, told them about the ruby and showed it to them. A Jew had assured them that the stone was a ruby right enough, and had, he believed, put up some cash for their outfit and journey.
But they wouldn't sign a paper, and were up to no good. He had come up to the Zambesi—felt he had to. It was hard to make money nowadays.