"You see, I am an old man. I'm an honest man, oh yes, quite honest. I
don't lie like the others."
He paused and looked out of the door of my tent.
"The other two are bad."
I don't attempt to reproduce his accent or the queer, querulous way he
had of talking, because I can't. He was an old Scotsman, so you may fill
in the local colour for yourself.
"I want to tell you something."
"Yes."
"You won't give me away?"
"No, of course not."
"You won't tell the other two?"
"Certainly not, but who are the other two?"
The old man looked out of the tent again and quickly back at me. He
placed his finger alongside his nose and winked. Then he said in a loud
voice: "I must be going. Thanks for the drink. No, I won't have another.
It's getting late and my pals will be anxious."
Through his talk I heard an approaching footstep.
The old man backed out of my tent and I followed him. Within a few yards
of us was another man approaching hurriedly. He looked anxiously from me
to the old Scotsman and back again.
He stopped and, addressing the old, old man, said: "What are you doing
here?"
This annoyed me. I was on the point of asking very sharply what he
wanted, anyway, when the expression of both made me pause.
On the old man's face, fear; on the newcomer's, anger, suspicion, greed,
cruelty--a bad face of a bad man.
My curiosity was aroused; I answered the question.
"Your friend has been having a drink with me. Won't you have one?"
"No, I will not." Then, by way of an afterthought: "No, thank you very
much." And the fellow smiled with his ugly mouth, but not with his eyes.
The intruder, as I now regarded him, seemed in a hurry to be gone.
"The canoe boys are waiting for us and we must go. Come along,
Macdonald."
The old man turned his face towards me and, as he said good-bye, I saw a
great fear in his eyes.
Ignoring the other, I begged him to stay the night and promised to try
my best to mend his gun. He shook his head and turned slowly away.
The ugly man hurried him along towards the bank of the river and helped
him into the canoe. I felt there was something wrong but didn't see how
I could interfere.
As the pair pushed off from the bank, the other man turned round and
shot a searching look at me. What could the mystery be? That thick-set,
black-haired little devil was up to no good. He looked as if could
murder the old man, me, or anyone else, if necessary.
I saw nothing of them next day, but my natives told me that there were
three white men with a waggon camped on the other side. I sent a boy
across to spy out the land, but he came back with no information of any
real importance.
On the third day I felt so uneasy about the old man that I half made up
my mind to cross the river to see him. I was prevented from doing so by
the arrival at my camp of the veriest pair of ruffians I ever clapped
eyes on.
As they walked up from the river I had time to study them. And a pair of
arrant scoundrels they looked.
The man who had already paid me one visit was talking rapidly to a fat,
unhealthy-looking fellow who seemed to feel mere walking an excessive
exertion, for he puffed, stooped, and walked awkwardly.
The stranger wore a waistcoat but no coat. His braces, which were red,
hung untidily on either side; he had forgotten to slip them over his
shoulders when putting on his waistcoat.
When they reached my tent I offered them chairs. The fat man sank into
one, his thick-set companion stood.
It was the latter who talked. The other mopped his perspiring forehead
with a blue cotton handkerchief, and seemed capable only of saying:
"That is so; yes, yes," in support of his companion's rapid talk.
It soon became obvious that this precious pair wanted to know exactly
what the old man had told me three days before. As he had told me
nothing, it was easy to answer them.
"How did I find the old man?"
"Just that he seemed very old, much too old to be at the Zambesi at his
time of life."
"Didn't I find him lightheaded?"
"On the contrary, quite normal."
"Hadn't he spun me some queer yarns?"
"No; just told me of his gun and his accident with it."
"Well, as a matter of fact, he was off his head, and I really mustn't
believe all he said. Oh dear, he had kept them both in fits of laughter
on the road up with his queer notions. Stories of gold mines and
suchlike nonsense. Hadn't he talked of that kind of thing?"
"No."
"Well, he was now in bed with a go of fever and talking queerer than
usual. Yes, if I could spare it, they'd like some quinine for him; but
they had better be going, for it wasn't playing the game to leave an old
man for long who had the fever on him."
The pair got up to go.
I disliked them both, especially the fat one, who looked to me like a
city-bred parasite--a barman, bookmaker, tobacconist's assistant, or
something of that sort. They glanced round them and hesitated, evidently
expecting to be asked to drink with me. I would sooner have gone "three
out" of a bottle of beer with a couple of hogs.
Presently they went off, evidently much relieved to find I knew nothing.
I was now determined to know all, and quickly; but how to get hold of
the old man alone again was the difficulty.
As I sat in my chair thinking, I recollected a remark let fall by the
boy I sent to spy upon them: "The fat one drank much Kaffir beer, which
he bought from the natives who lived on the north bank of the river."
I sent a messenger to the headman of the village with an order to make
much beer, pots and pots of it, and take it new and half-fermented to
the white men on the other side. I instructed the headman to sell it
cheaply, and said that I would make up the difference.
In due course I had my reward. The old Scotsman came over and told me
one of his companions was in great pain and the other was trying to ease
the pain by rubbing fat on his belly, that he himself had got away
unnoticed, and now wanted to tell me all about "it."
I was naturally all anxiety to hear what "it" was all about, and made
the old man sit down.
Now why is it, I wonder, that old men can't come quickly to the point?
Much to my annoyance, he wasted a good half an hour telling me what
scamps the other two were; how he felt sure that, given half a chance,
they would "do him in" but not until they had got from him his secret.
Tell them? Not on your life!
But he would tell me; oh yes, he would tell me. Ever seen a ruby? No,
not out of a ring? Well, I should see one now and hold it in my hand. A
large one, fit for a king. And he would tell me where to find more.
Hundreds of them. The other two had brought him up to the Zambesi just
to find out where the rubies were. But he wasn't going to tell them, not
he. They were too darned stingy with the whisky bottle; besides, they
wouldn't sign a paper on it. A man who wouldn't sign a paper on a deal
was up to no good--didn't intend to play fair. Now what did I think they
should pay him for showing them where the ruby mine was? Would a couple
of hundred be a fair thing?
And so on, and on, and on.
I gave him the best advice I could, which amounted to a warning not to
trust his companions.
Then he showed me the ruby, which he carried in a small blue medicine
bottle marked "fever mixture."
I knew precious little about rubies, and told him so. It was then that I
tried it between the two half-crowns.
Having satisfied myself that it was a very hard stone, even if it
weren't a ruby, I gave it back to him, and he returned it to its bottle.
He then told me that, many years before, he had been travelling in
company with a Jesuit Father along the banks of the Zambesi. That just
below the village of a native, whose name for the moment he could not
remember, he had found the rubies. One he had kept and the other he had
given to the priest, who told him he was going home to France shortly
and would find out whether the stone was worth anything or not. If it
had value, he would sell it and go halves.
They went down south together, and parted company at Grahamstown. A year
later he was sent for by the manager of the Bank and told that L480 had
been remitted to him by the Reverend Father.
The money came in handy, and for one reason or another he didn't bother
about going all the way up to the Zambesi to get more rubies. He also
got married and settled down in Bechuanaland on a farm.
But his wife had lately died. His two daughters were married, and his
son was killed in the Matabeleland rebellion. Then he lost all his
cattle by rinderpest.
So he left the farm and went to Bulawayo. He didn't know anyone there,
but took up with his two companions, met them in a bar, told them about
the ruby and showed it to them. A Jew had assured them that the stone
was a ruby right enough, and had, he believed, put up some cash for
their outfit and journey.
But they wouldn't sign a paper, and were up to no good. He had come up
to the Zambesi--felt he had to. It was hard to make money nowadays.
"But I'll tell you all about it," he said, "and where the mine is, so
that, if these fellows do me in, you can get the stones. They shan't
have them. You know where the Gwai River runs into the Zambesi?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's not quite so far down--Listen! Did you hear that?"
"No, what?"
"That calling for help. There it is again."
We went to the tent door and looked towards the river. In midstream we
could see a canoe bottom up. One white man was sitting astride at one
end, and there was a native at the other. A second white man was
swimming for the bank.
I ran down to the landing stage, calling my canoe boys as I went. For
the moment I forgot all about my visitor. There was a white man in the
water and, scamp though he undoubtedly was, I couldn't let him drown.
My boys and I got him ashore. It was the thickset one. His fat,
unhealthy-looking companion was floating down the river astride the
upturned canoe.
After landing the one, I sent my boys back for the other. They had had a
thorough wetting and the city-bred fellow was very much scared.
I had their clothes dried and then sent them back to their camp in my
own canoe. It appears that an angry hippopotamus attacked them.
All this time I had little time to think about old Macdonald. I asked my
people about him and they told me that he had slipped away and crossed
in a canoe to the white man's camp whilst the other men's clothes were
being dried.
Not a word was said about the Kaffir beer. If the pair of villains were
coming across the river to me for assistance or medicine when the
accident happened, they forgot to mention the fact in the excitement of
the moment and after.
Next day they were gone--all three of them, ruby and all. And I never
saw any of them again. But I did see in a Bulawayo paper, which reached
me later, the following announcement:
"At the Memorial Hospital, Bulawayo, John Macdonald, died of
blackwater fever. Funeral (Hendrix and Sons) starting from the
Hospital at 3.30 this afternoon."
So I repeat there are rubies in Africa, somewhere on the banks of the
Zambesi, below the Falls, but north of where the Gwai river makes its
junction. If you decide to go and look for them, good luck to you!