All this time I had little time to think about old Macdonald. I asked my people about him and they told me that he had slipped away and crossed in a canoe to the white man's camp whilst the other men's clothes were being dried.
Not a word was said about the Kaffir beer. If the pair of villains were coming across the river to me for assistance or medicine when the accident happened, they forgot to mention the fact in the excitement of the moment and after.
Next day they were gone—all three of them, ruby and all. And I never saw any of them again. But I did see in a Bulawayo paper, which reached me later, the following announcement:
"At the Memorial Hospital, Bulawayo, John Macdonald, died of blackwater fever. Funeral (Hendrix and Sons) starting from the Hospital at 3.30 this afternoon."
So I repeat there are rubies in Africa, somewhere on the banks of the Zambesi, below the Falls, but north of where the Gwai river makes its junction. If you decide to go and look for them, good luck to you!
THE CATTLE KING.
Schiller was a cattle trader by profession, and he made a lot of money.
He was incidentally a Jew by birth, an Austrian by accident, a hairdresser by training, and a soldier of fortune when occasion offered. He was quite illiterate.