What had I learned? This: that Messrs. Marnham & Rodd were illicit diamond buyers, I.D.B.‘s as they are called, who had cunningly situated themselves at a great distance from the scene of operations practically beyond the reach of civilized law. Probably they were engaged also in other nefarious dealings with Kaffirs, such as supplying them with guns wherewith to make war upon the Whites. Sekukuni had been fighting us recently, so that there would be a very brisk market for rifles. This, too, would account for Marnham’s apparent knowledge of that Chief’s plans. Possibly, however, he had no knowledge and only made a pretence of it to keep us out of the country.
Later on I confided the whole story and my suspicions to Anscombe, who was much interested.
“What picturesque scoundrels!” he exclaimed, “We really ought to go back to the Temple. I have always longed to meet some real live I.D.B.‘s.”
“It is probable that you have done that already without knowing it. For the rest, if you wish to visit that den of iniquity, you must do so alone.”
“Wouldn’t whited sepulchre be a better term, especially as it seems to cover dead men’s bones?” he replied in his frivolous manner.
Then I asked him what he was going to do about Footsack and the bottle of gin, which he countered by asking me what I was going to do with that diamond.
“Give it to you as Footsack’s master,” I said, suiting the action to the word. “I don’t wish to be mixed up in doubtful transactions.”
Then followed a long argument as to who was the real owner of the stone, which ended in its being hidden away to be produced if called for, and in Footsack, who ought have had a round dozen, receiving a scolding from his master, coupled with the threat that if he stole more gin he would be handed over to a magistrate—when we met one.
On the following day we reached the hot, low-lying veld which the herd of buffalo was said to inhabit. Next morning, however, when we were making ready to begin hunting, a Basuto Kaffir appeared who, on being questioned, said that he was one of Sekukuni’s people sent to this district to look for two lost oxen. I did not believe this story, thinking it more probable that he was a spy, but asked him whether in his hunt for oxen he had come across buffalo.
He replied that he had, a herd of thirty-two of them, counting the calves, but that they were over the Oliphant’s River about five-and-twenty miles away, in a valley between some outlying hills and the rugged range of mountains, beyond which was situated Sekukuni’s town. Moreover, in proof of his story he showed me spoor of the beasts heading in that direction which was quite a week old.