Suddenly arousing himself he asked to be taken to the telegraph office. Arriving there they found it closed.
“Fortune favours me thus much,” he thought; “the only news they will receive will be that I am dead.”
They reached the prison, and the Count was placed in a cell.
Before the sound of the jailer’s footsteps had died away, the report of a pistol told that Telfus had passed beyond the reach of human law.
Chapter Two.
The Mystic Sign.
Within rifle-shot of the “ninth wonder of the world,” the great Kimberley Mine, stood a pretty one-story cottage nestling among a mass of creepers that shaded a wide veranda. The house, like many others on the Fields, was constructed of corrugated iron, fastened to a framework of wood. Beams were laid on the ground; to these were fastened uprights from four to six inches square.
In place of lath and plastered walls, thick building paper formed the interior covering, leaving a space between the iron outside and the paper within.