“I trekked back to the Old Colony, sold off my things and came home. The diamonds I had brought away realised in England 22,000 pounds. I have never dreamt of going to the fatal valley again; nothing on earth would tempt me after that ill-starred journey, heavy with the fate of Klaas and the Bechuana boy, Amazi. As for the tunnel, I would not venture once more into its recesses for all the diamonds in Africa, even if they lay piled in heaps at the other end of it. Except old Ariseep, Klaas had no relation that I knew of, and it was useless to think of spending the diamond-money in that quarter. The old fellow had, so far as I could make him understand me, utterly refused to accompany me from the kloof, where he evidently meant to end his days; even if he had come, what could I have done for him? At his time of life, and with his peculiar habits, he could hardly have begun the world again, even if I had brought him home, bought him a country house, taken rooms in Piccadilly, dressed him in the height of fashion and launched him upon society.
“Therefore I left him as I found him. Klaas I have never ceased to mourn from that day to this. Part of the 22,000 pounds I invested for some relatives, the balance that I kept suffices, with what I already possessed, for all possible wants of my own. Then I came back to my dearly-loved South Africa for the last time, and a few weeks later made the journey to the Chobi River, from which you rescued me in the thirstland.”
Such was the story related to us by the transport rider, in a clear and singularly graphic manner, to which these pages do scant justice. Our narrator wound up by telling us that Mowbray had further imparted to him the exact locality of the diamond valley, but, he added, “I have never yet been there, nor do I think that, for the present, it is likely I shall go. Some day before I leave the Cape I may have a try and trek down the Orange River; but I don’t feel very keen about that secret passage, after poor Mowbray’s experiences.”
We had sat wrapt listeners for some hours of that soft, calm, African night. The glorious stars looked out from above us in their deep blue dome; the Southern Cross shone in serene effulgence, as if, too, its sparkling gems claimed an interest in the legend of the lost diamonds. It was now two o’clock, and the camp fire of the transport riders burned low; just one more soupje we had with our friendly entertainers, and then, with hearty expressions of thanks and good-will, rose to seek our beds. That night, before falling asleep, I pondered long upon the strange narrative we had heard. Often since have I done so. Often, too, have I thought of the lone grave of the English hunter, Mowbray, far out upon the verge of that dim and mysterious desert, the Kalahari.
Chapter Two.
The Story of a Tusk.
It was a fine spring morning in the City: even in the great dingy warehouse, where Cecil Kensley was engaged in cataloguing a vast store of ivory in preparation for the periodical sales, the sun beamed pleasantly. It lit up the dark corners of the building, and played everywhere upon hundreds of smooth, rounded elephants’ teeth, varying in colour from a rich creamy yellow to darkest brown—from the gleaming tusk, fresh chopped within the last year from the head of a young bull, to the huge, dark, discoloured, almost black-skinned tooth, that for a hundred years had lain unnoticed in some mud swamp, or for generations had decorated the grave or kraal-fence of some native chief. There they lay, those precious pillars of ivory—solid scrivelloes, Egyptian soft teeth, Ambriz hard irregulars, billiard and bagatelle scrivelloes, bangle teeth, Siam, Niger, Abyssinian, Bombay, West Coast, Cape, and all the rest of them—upon which the world sets so great a store, and for which mankind is so rapidly exterminating a species.
Those wonderful teeth, dumb memorials, so many of them, of dark tales of blood and suffering, of slave raids, plundered villages, murders, floggings, terrible journeys to the coast, unutterable scenes of horror and woe—what histories could they not unfold? But the tusks lay there, hugging their grim secrets, silent and mute enough.
Cecil Kensley, the person cataloguing these treasures of ivory in a purely matter-of-fact way, was a good-looking, fair-bearded man of thirty, partner in a wealthy firm, a bachelor, somewhat of a man of pleasure out of office hours, but in business smart, shrewd and hard-working. The cataloguing of such an accumulation of ivory as that great warehouse held was a lengthy business; and all day, until four o’clock, Kensley was engaged, with the help of the warehousemen, sorting, turning over and writing down. Before taking a short rest for luncheon, his eye fell upon one magnificent tusk—long, perfectly shaped and balanced, massive, highly polished, and, in colour, of the richest chrome yellow. It lay somewhat apart, and appeared to have no fellow; a careful inspection of the rest of the warehouse, and a single glance at that peerless tooth, showed that, even out of all that vast collection, no possible match for it could be found.
Kensley had been working all the morning at the far end of the warehouse; he now stood by the tusk which had so taken his eye.
“Hallo, Thomas!” he said, interrogating the man who stood by him, “what have you got here? What a grand tooth! Where’s the fellow to it? Is it an odd one?”