"'I was telling you about Chambers, the president of the Parfontein mine. I learned from one of my countrymen who was working there, that the last month before war began they pushed the mine for all it was worth—took men off the levels they were driving, and put every hand on to get the stuff down in the rich places, and kept all the stamps working on their best stuff. One of the men who works in the place where they run the gold into blocks told me that they must have got at least a quarter of a million pounds' worth of gold. It was taken up as usual every night to the president's house, but he declares that it was never sent to the bank, and that he is sure the whole, or at any rate by far the greater part of it, is there still. Chambers himself has not left. I suppose he bribed Kruger to let him stop without being interfered with. He has his wife and two daughters there, and three servants, two of them Germans and one an Irishman. We have already got at them, it was better to do so, although we could easily settle them. Anyhow, my plan is to get a score of men we can rely upon, and attack the house. It is near the mine, and far enough away from the town to prevent any firing being heard.
"'Anyhow, we need not bother about that, as Muller has squared the three men-servants. He has promised them an equal share in the plunder; and it is a good thing that it was arranged so, because we shall be able to carry out the affair, I hope, without a gun being fired. We are to be there at nine o'clock, and they have arranged to seize Chambers and tie him up; or, if he resists, to knock him on the head directly they hear our whistle. Besides, there is no doubt the gold is stored in some secret vault. We might have a difficulty in finding it, and even if we do find it, we may have to use powder to blow it open.'
"'Why get twenty?' another asked, 'when we four and Muller would be enough. The fewer the better.
"'No, Driscoll; we had better take a good force. I would rather take forty than twenty. A quarter of a million weighs a tremendous lot, I make it out roughly about two tons and a half. A man could not carry off more than fifty pounds weight—that is, he could not hide more than fifty pounds weight about him—so that it would take a hundred men to carry off that lot.'
"'Well, then, we must get some carts. There is John Blake, he has a cart, and picks up fares in the town, we could rely upon him; and Pat Maloney, he lets his cart out. Between them they could bring in two tons easily enough; and then we could get two others—all boys we could trust. Then, if there were twenty of us, we could take fifty pounds apiece, as you say.'
"'Yes,' the other said doubtfully, 'but there would be a big row over it. It would be guessed that the job had been done to get at gold, and Kruger's people would consider that they had been robbed of their rights, and there would be a big search.'
"'They can only guess,' the Irishman replied; 'you may be sure we shall leave no one in the house to blab about it.'
"They talked for some time and went through a lot of names, and then agreed that they would only take a dozen altogether, as they were not sure that they could trust any of the others they had named. And they were of opinion that each of them could carry a hundredweight, and perhaps even a hundredweight and a half. 'A man can carry a mighty lot of gold,' one of them said, 'and it takes up such a little space that it would not make much of a lump.' It was agreed that on leaving the house they should separate, all going different ways, each choosing such hiding-place as he liked for his gold. Then they would meet at the houses of the two men who were to take the carts, and bury the gold they had carried off in the yards.
"That is about what I have heard, Master Yorke. There were bits that I did not hear, for sometimes they talked so low that I could not catch the words. Then they called the wine-shop keeper to pay for what they had had, and went out in a body. I didn't move for half an hour. I thought that perhaps one of them might be watching me from outside the window, and if I had woke up too soon, they might suspect that I had not been really asleep, in which case I should not have gone far before I got a knife between my shoulders. But luckily the landlord came in, and after speaking to me twice, seized me by the collar and shook me. 'Now,' he said, 'you can't be sleeping here any longer. Wake up! You have a shilling to pay for what you have drunk.'
"I pretended to fumble about for some time trying to find the money, and then stumbled out of the room. Then I came along in hopes of finding you or Peter to tell you about it."