From Veldt Camp Fires

by H. A. Bryden

Nina moved to her seat and sat, now faint and dejected, watching with feverish eyes for the end.

The case for the prosecution was soon finished. Three witnesses, experts of well-known reputation and unimpeachable character, testified to the fact that the stone was a De Beers stone, and by no possibility any other. Evidence was then put in, proving conclusively that the diamond was unregistered.

Counsel for the defence had but a poor case, but he made the best of it. He dwelt upon the unimpeachable reputation of the prisoner, upon the utter improbability of his having stolen the diamond, or bought it, knowing it to be stolen. There was not a particle of direct evidence upon these points. The testimony of experts was never satisfactory. Their evidence in this case was mere matter of opinion. It was well known that the history of gold and gem finding exceeded in romance the wildest inspirations of novelists. The finding of the first diamond in South Africa was a case very much in point. Why should not the diamond have come from the Mahalapsi River with the other gravel in the belly of the dead crocodile? Mr Farnborough’s friend, Mr Kentburn, would prove beyond doubt that he had brought the mummified crocodile from the Mahalapsi River, where he had picked it up. The greatest offence that could by any possibility be brought home to his client was that he had this stone in his possession for two days without declaring it! That was an act of sheer inadvertence. The stone was not a Griqualand West stone, and it was a puzzling matter, with a young and inexperienced man, to know quite what to do with it. If the stone were, as he, counsel, contended, not a stone from the Cape districts at all, it was an arguable question whether the court had any rights or jurisdiction in this case whatever. Would it be contended that a person coming to South Africa, innocently, with a Brazilian or an Indian diamond in his possession, could be hauled off to prison, and thereafter sentenced for unlawful possession? Such a contention would be monstrous! The great diamond industry had in South Africa far too much power already—many men thought. Let them be careful in further stretching or adding to those powers—powers that reminded unbiassed people more of the worst days of the Star Chamber or the Inquisition, than of a modern community. Had the prisoner attempted to conceal the diamond? On the contrary, he had shown it eagerly to Mr Staarbrucker and his sister immediately he had found it. That was not the act of a guilty man!

These, and many other arguments, were employed by the defending advocate in a powerful and almost convincing speech. There were weak points, undoubtedly—fatally weak, many of the spectators thought them. These were avoided, or lightly skated over with consummate art. The advocate closed his speech with a touching appeal that a young, upright, and promising career might not be wrecked upon the vaguest of circumstantial evidence.

The speech was over; all the witnesses had been called, the addresses concluded. The afternoon was wearing on apace, and the court was accordingly adjourned; the prisoner was put back into jail again, and the crowded assemblage flocked into the outer air, to discuss hotly throughout the rest of the evening the many points of this singular and absorbing case.

Again, as usual in Kimberley at this season, the next morning broke clear and invigorating. All the world of the corrugated-iron city seemed, after breakfast, brisk, keen, and full of life as they went about their business. The Cape swallows flitted, and hawked, and played hither and thither in the bright atmosphere, or sat, looking sharply about them, upon the telegraph wires or housetops, preening their feathers and displaying their handsome, chestnut body colouring. The great market square was still full of waggons and long spans of oxen, and of native people, drawn from well-nigh every quarter of Southern Africa.

Out there in the sunlit market-place stood a man, whose strong brain was just now busily engaged in piecing together and puzzling out the patchwork of this extraordinary case. David Ayling, with his mighty voice, Scotch accent, oak-like frame, keen grey eyes, and vast iron-grey beard, was a periodical and excellently well-known Kimberley visitant. For years he had traded and hunted in the far interior. His reputation for courage, resource, and fair dealing was familiar to all men, and David’s name had for years been a household word from the Cape to the Zambesi. Periodically, the trader came down to Kimberley with his waggons and outfit, after a year or two spent in the distant interior. Yesterday morning he had come in, and in the afternoon and evening he seemed to hear upon men’s tongues nothing else than Frank Farnborough’s case, and the story of the Mahalapsi diamond. Now David had known Frank for some few years, and had taken a liking to him. Several times he had brought down-country small collections of skins, and trophies of the chase, got together at the young man’s suggestion. He had in his waggon, even now, some new and rare birds from the far-off Zambesi lands, and the two had had many a deal together. Frank’s unhappy plight at once took hold of the trader’s sympathies, and the Mahalapsi and crocodile episodes tended yet further to excite his interest. Certain suspicions had been growing in his mind. This morning, before breakfast, he had carefully read and re-read the newspaper report of the trial, and now, just before the court opened, he was waiting impatiently, with further developments busily evolving in his brain. There was a bigger crowd even than yesterday; the prisoner and counsel had come in; all waited anxiously for the end of the drama. In a few minutes the court entered, grave and self-possessed, and the leading judge began to arrange his notes.

At that moment, David Ayling, who had shouldered his way to the fore, stood up and addressed the court in his tremendous deep-chested tones, which penetrated easily to every corner of the chamber.

“Your Honours,” he said, “before you proceed further, I should like to lay one or two facts before you—not yet known in this case. They are very important, and I think you should hear them in order that justice may be done, and perhaps an innocent man saved. I have only just come down from the Zambesi and never heard of this trial till late yesterday afternoon.”

Two persons, as they listened to these words and looked at the strong, determined man uttering them, felt, they knew not why, instantly braced and strengthened, as if by a mighty tonic. They were Frank, the prisoner, hitherto despairing and out of heart, and Nina Staarbrucker, sitting at the back of the court, pale and trembling with miserable anticipations.