Frank Lester, much against his mother’s wishes, had persuaded his father to take him with him in the early part of the previous year to the diamond fields in South Africa, whither Mr Lester was going for the purpose of purchasing some of the best stones he could get for a large firm who intrusted him with the commission. The object of the journey had been safely accomplished, and Mr Lester and Frank reached Cape Town, where they took their return passage to England in a vessel called the Dragon King.
Seth nudged Mr Rawlings at this point.
“Didn’t I say that was the name of the desarted ship?” he asked in a whisper.
And Mr Rawlings nodded his assent.
The Dragon King—to continue Frank’s, or Sailor Bill’s story—was commanded by a rough sort of captain, who was continually swearing at the men and ill-treating them; and, in the middle of the voyage a mutiny broke out on board, started originally by some of the hands who wished merely to deprive the captain of his authority, and put the first mate, who was much liked by the men, in his place; but the outbreak was taken advantage of by a parcel of desperadoes and ne’er-do-weels, who were returning home empty handed from the diamond diggings, and were glad of the opportunity of plundering the ship and passengers—whence the mutiny, from being first of an almost peaceful character, degenerated into a scene of bloodshed and violence which it made Frank shudder to speak about.
His father, fearing what was about to happen, and that, as he was known as having been up the country and in the possession of jewels of great value, the desperadoes would attempt to rob him first, placed round Frank’s neck, in the original parchment-covered parcel in which he had received them from the bank at the diamond fields, the precious stones he had bought, with all his own available capital as well as his employers’ money, thinking that that would be the last place where the thieves would search for them.
“And now they are lost,” added the boy with another stifled sob, “and poor mother will be penniless.”
“Nary a bit,” said Seth; and pulling out the little packet by the silken string attached round his neck—which the poor boy had not thought of feeling for even, he was so confident of his loss—he disclosed it to his gaze. “Is that the consarn, my b’y?” he asked.
“Oh!” exclaimed Frank in delighted surprise. “It is, with the bank seal still unbroken, I declare!”
And opening the parchment cover he showed Ernest and the rest some diamonds of the first water, that must have been worth several thousand pounds.