But the morning was chill, so I sprang up and went to work with the pick, uprooting the grass and bushes. Day waxed and a few men appeared. When I thought the light strong enough, I crouched down and began sorting the gravel on the board. With the scraper I separated a small handful from the heap, and spread it out so that every individual pebble became visible. These would be swept off the board and the former process repeated. But before I got half-way through the heap my heart leaped to my throat, and I almost swooned with ecstasy there in the middle of the spread-out gravel glittered a diamond. It was very small, not much more than half a carat in weight, still, it was most indubitably a diamond.
I searched in the pockets of my somewhat ragged coat for a scrap of paper wherein to wrap my treasure. Then I put the diminutive parcel away very carefully, as I thought. I finished sorting the heap of gravel and again filled the sieve. I sorted this and loosened more ground. I worked hard and feverishly, loosening the ground with the pick, filling the sieve with my bare hands, sifting out the sand, and sorting what remained. However, no more diamonds could I find. I had brought in my pocket a lump of roster-koek (a lump of unleavened dough, flattened out and roasted on a gridiron). This I munched as I worked. More and more people arrived. Soon the thudding of picks and the "whish, whish" of sieves sounded from every direction.
Some one shouted. I looked up and saw numbers of people running towards a certain spot. I leapt up and ran too. A diamond had been found, and around the lucky finder an excited and curious crowd soon collected. The stone, a clear yellow octahedron of about ten carats' weight, was passed from hand to hand to be admired and appraised. After an enthusiastic "hip hip hurrah" the crowd dispersed, each one eager to test his claim.
I hugged my secret; no one should know of my good fortune until after my partners had arrived and I had confounded their skepticism. I rehearsed the prospective scene in imagination; what a lofty lecture I meant to read them on the unreasonableness of their incredulity. Within a few minutes another shout rang out; another crowd collected. Once more a diamond had been found. This sort of thing went on, at more or less short intervals, ail day long.
It must have been nearly eleven o'clock before Brown and Beranger strolled up. I watched their approach.
"Well, have you made our fortune?" asked Brown.
"I have found a diamond," I replied loftily.
"What!" he said, with a start. "Where is it?"
I searched through all the pockets and interstices of my coat with trembling fingers. I turned every pocket inside out, but no diamond could I find. I vainly searched the surrounding surface of the sand. But all in vain; my treasure had disappeared. Brown and Beranger smiled superciliously, and strolled back to De Beers. That was to me an hour of bitter humiliation.
However, as the day went on, more and more diamonds, some of considerable size, were found. Indubitable evidence of this having reached my partners, they came back post-haste in the hope of being able to mark out claims. They even went so far as to peg one out. This was on the western edge of the kopje, clean outside the diamond bearing area. But this circumstance was not yet known, for here the red soil lay nearly ten feet deep over the bed-rock. However, we exchanged this worthless site for a piece of ground in No. 9 Road a half claim belonging to Alick McIntosh. The latter piece of ground turned out to be very valuable.