I. D. B.
TALES FROM REAL LIFE.—“THE MYSTIC THREE LETTERS.”—AN UNGRATEFUL HOUND.—A
PLUCKY WOMAN.—NEMESIS.—TOO CLEVER BY HALF.—THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE
WORM.—AN UNEXPECTED RECOVERY.—A DEATH-BED SCENE.
In connection with this nefarious traffic, this insidious disease I will
term it, the nature of which I have, I hope, fully explained in a
preceding chapter, I purpose appending a few examples, grave and gay, to
illustrate the subject.
The stories are not without interest, illustrating as they do a certain
phase of humanity, and at the same time possessing the merit of strict
accuracy, as I have carefully excluded any narratives for the truth of
which I am not, so far as is possible in such secret transactions,
personally able to vouch.
While it is true that some slight freemasonry, not to speak of a
frequent exhibition of what might fairly be termed freehanded
generosity, undoubtedly exists or has existed among the fraternity of
the mystic three letters, it must not for one moment be imagined that
their moral sense prevents them cheating each other quite as
remorselessly as the unfortunate digger or shareholder, on whose vitals
they so long have “preyed” without ceasing. Men engaged in this traffic
will rob one another, and there is no honor whatever among thieves of
this class, their standard of morality being low indeed. Creatures of
this type will often descend to any depth to gratify their sensual
pleasure, and to satisfy their greed for gold. Examples have not been
infrequent on the diamond fields of men employing Kafir females, on the
one hand as touts for their infamous trade, and on the other to minister
to the basest lusts of their nature. These unfortunate women are, as a
rule, faithful to their protectors (Heaven save the mark!) combining at
the same time the capacities of mistress, drudge and go-between. Their
life is a terrible one, poor creatures, as this tale will show.
A certain _gentleman_, who boasted of his intimate acquaintance with the
mysteries of one of the gayest capitals in Europe, was living not so
long ago with a smart and not by any means repulsive-looking Fingo
woman. About this time camp fever was very prevalent, and he fell under
its influence. For days, nay, weeks, the disease held him in its grasp,
and as day and night he tossed in wild delirium, hiding himself in the
bedclothes to escape from the imaginary detectives who were conjured up
by his disordered brain, his bedside was but seldom deserted by this
loving example of native fidelity.
His trade connection with the “boys” employed in the mine had, however,
to be kept together, and here it was that the faithful creature showed
the devotion of her nature by running great risks in purchasing diamonds
from the natives who had been in the habit of coming to her paramour.
When this man rose from his bed of sickness, to his astonishment she
presented him with hundreds of carats of valuable diamonds, but my
readers will scarcely credit it when I tell them that no sooner was this
despicable hound able to crawl than he sneaked away to Europe, taking
with him the diamonds that _she_ had bought, and leaving _her_ penniless
to starve or gain her living on the streets.
“Ingratum si dixeris omnia dices.”
As a pleasing contrast to the story I have just related, I have now to
record an instance of woman’s fidelity and presence of mind when brought
face to face with danger to those she loved.
A man, his wife, and child resided in Newton, a quarter of the camp, at
one time at least, as thickly studded with swell I. D. B.’s “as the
autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambrosa.”
The husband was, not without reason, suspected of being what was
euphemistically known as “in the trade.” So the detectives came to his
house again and yet again, they emptied the sugar pots, they stuck their
fingers in the pomatum, the pepper-boxes were turned topsy-turvy, making
catarrh as universal in the house as cholera round Mecca; potatoes
preparing for the diurnal tiffin were carefully diagnosed as to their
diamondiferous capabilities, in fact Newton, the philosopher, suffered
less from the incendiary propensities of his lap-dog than did Newton,
the locality, from the “minions of the law.”
On one occasion when these gentlemen put in an appearance, a diamond of
a large size was lying in the reticule of Mrs. —— upon the table. When
about to rise and remove it, she was ordered by the officers to remain
seated, whereupon she asked permission to send for a bottle of stout, a
request at once acceded to. Hastily scribbling the words “Send bottle
stout; keep bag till I come,” she rose and nonchalantly handed the
message and reticule containing the diamond to her child, who toddled
off to a neighboring canteen, where, as the mother knew, her husband was
almost certain to be found. He, smelling a rat, made away with the
stone, and the detectives very soon after left the house, baffled in
their search, never dreaming of how they had been overreached. This
woman’s presence of mind no doubt saved her husband many years in jail.
Though then notoriously “in the swim” they are now, having seen the
error of their ways, earning an honest livelihood down Colony, and I am
told often exhibit that “charity” which we are taught “covers a
multitude of sins.”
In the case I will now mention Nemesis overtakes well-nigh all parties
concerned.
About August, 188—, an individual over whose head was hanging a charge,
not, however, connected with the diamond ordinance, determined to
diminish his household expenses by sending his wife to Europe in charge
of the proceeds of certain little private speculations which, it is
needless for me to say, are never entered in the books of any mercantile
firm. After selling off, he took apartments for his wife and another
lady at a somewhat pretentious looking hotel in Kimberley.
All was going merrily as marriage bells are popularly supposed to do,
the voyage was anticipated with eager delight, and a visit to an old
friend in Hatton Garden was expected to prove highly remunerative; but
“l’homme propose et Dieu dispose.”
The detective department, from “information received,” determined to
make these ladies a domiciliary visit; so one afternoon, just as a nice
little tiffin had been washed down with a glass of fine Clicquot,
rendered still more delicious by the inspection of the glittering gems,
which they had proudly been displaying to the longing eyes of the
landlady, who had come in to remove the cloth, a sharp tap was heard at
the door, and in walked the dreaded forms of two prominent detectives
and a female searcher.
Quick as lightning the landlady whisked up the cloth, diamonds and all,
leaving the room to give the officers the opportunity of a private and
confidential interview with their startled guests. These gentlemen
having explained the object of their visit politely introduced their
female companion, and retired to smoke a cigar on the verandah.
The lady visitor, or rather the female searcher, at once took advantage
of her position, and sarcastically remarked to her agitated “friends”:
“Never mind, my dears, let down your hair; I have had finer ladies than
you through my fingers before.”
After expressing satisfaction at the elegance of their coiffure, she
then proceeded to admire their entire wardrobe, even the pretty little
No. 2’s and silk stockings in which their tiny feet were encased did not
escape attention.
Not finding any portion of their apparel encrusted with gems of purest
ray, decidedly meant, in this case, to blush unseen, this “perfect lady”
proceeded to express her appreciation of the delicate whiteness of their
arms, somewhat marring their beauty, however, by leaving marks of sundry
pinches which she inflicted to test the genuine nature of their
plumpness.[50]
This interview being brought to a satisfactory or unsatisfactory
conclusion, as the reader may elect to decide, the detectives and their
coadjutrix took their departure. Forthwith the ladies rang the bell for
the landlady, who promptly answered it, but wonderful to relate denied
the most remote knowledge of the contents of the table-cloth, averring
that when she shook it there was nothing but bread-crumbs to be seen.
What could be done? These ladies dare not appeal to the police, time
pressed, their passages had been taken, so they were compelled to brave
the perils of the deep, unsupported by the pleasing hope that they had
cherished of a profitable visit to the horticultural domains of Hatton
Garden, E. C.
Now would the reader be surprised to hear, that shortly after this
incident, the husband of the landlady, whose eyesight had been so very
defective, was suddenly seized with a desire to visit the Transvaal,
possibly to investigate the gold-bearing qualities of that State,
perhaps merely for an agreeable change. He did not, however, confine his
peregrinations to the suzerainty, but proceeded to make an amateur
survey of the proposed railway route between Pretoria and Delagoa Bay
over the Lebombo Mountains. From the latter place he set sail for
Rotterdam, which he reached in a much more satisfied frame of mind than
his whilom lady boarders possessed on their arrival in London.
As all the world knows diamond cutters are to be found in considerable
numbers in Holland, and it did not take him long to renew acquaintance
with his old friends, some of whom were skilled in that trade. To one of
these he intrusted the cutting of a valuable parcel of gems, which by an
almost inexplicable coincidence was the exact counterpart of that which
a few months before had disappeared so mysteriously at his antipodean
hotel. Now, our Boniface was a gay old dog in his way, so he made up his
mind to taste once more the long absent pleasures of the capitals of
Europe, serenely conscious that a little extravagance was pardonable in
a landlord whose very table linen produced more diamonds in one shaking
than many a twelve-foot washing machine, worked by a Davy Paxman, would
in thousands of revolutions. While enjoying the gayeties of Vienna, he
received a telegram to the effect that his diamonds had been duly cut
and were awaiting his disposal. So he at once returned to Holland,
received his gems and secured the services of a well-known goldsmith for
their setting, which proved in accordance with his orders both elaborate
and costly. When all was completed he started once more for his South
African home. Many a night, ere the billows rocked him to sleep, though
congratulating himself on his lucky journey, he mentally execrated the
tyranny of a government which he knew too well would on his arrival in
Capetown heartlessly exact from him a certain duty of 30 per cent. _ad
valorem_. The thought of this unwarrantable interference with the
liberty of the subject haunted him continually, until one night as his
cabin companion told me he was disturbed by a delighted chuckle followed
by a semi-audible soliloquy: “Shtrike me dead, I’ve got it, pay the dam
duty, not if I knowsh it, sho’elp me. I’ll risk it.”
Arrived at Capetown he induced a female passenger with whom he was
acquainted, to conceal about her person the diamonds which already had
had so strange a story, and thus endeavor to evade the eagle eyes of the
revenue officials stationed at the dock entrance.
The attempt was unsuccessful, the diamonds were discovered and
confiscated, and the fair contrabandista, having of course in
self-defence revealed the owner, he was tried for the misdemeanor, when
in addition to the loss of his jewelry he was sentenced to pay a heavy
fine or in default of payment to endure a term of imprisonment.
For time he cared little, for character less, for money more,
consequently as a matter of course the Capetown jail received within its
walls a visitor who for several months had leisure to ruminate on the
adage, “much will have more,” ofttimes more than it bargains for.
This same man on being liberated returned to the Fields, sunk lower and
lower, until one day he was caught in “_flagrante delicto_” by the
detective department. The breakwater at Capetown now is visited daily by
the quondam tourist and the gradual progress of this valuable public
work is materially assisted by the thews and sinews of our ingenious but
not ingenuous hero.
As an illustration of the strange infatuation which this crime exercises
over its votaries, how like the fascinated moth they flutter round the
candle, singeing their wings, and what perfidy they can on occasions
exhibit to one another, I will give a brief anecdote respecting a young
man whom we shall call Silberfeldt.
Under the old diamond ordinance this bright specimen of humanity was
trapped in the usual manner, caught red-handed by the detectives and
sentenced to three years’ hard labor, of which time nearly two years
were remitted in consequence of good conduct while in jail. Unwarned by
this experience, ungrateful for the lenity shown him by the authorities,
no sooner had he gained his liberty than he emulated the example of the
scriptural sow and returned at once to his wallowing in the mire.
The further knowledge of the inner working of the I. D. B. craft, which
he had gained during his temporary retirement from public life, had so
increased his self-confidence that, considering himself now a veritable
passed-master in its mysteries, he openly boasted there was not a man
clever enough in all Griqualand West to catch him a second time; but
unhappily for him, Ord 48, 1882, which throws upon the holders of
diamonds the _onus probandi_ of honest possession, had passed the Cape
parliament, and had received Her Majesty’s sanction.
Too wary to be trapped by even the most astute detective, he
nevertheless, with all his cunning, fell into the meshes of the law, and
along with another was arrested under the section dealing with the
offense of “illegal possession,” having been pounced upon one fine
morning, when diamonds were found in the house where he and his
companion were stopping.
The two were friends who had long been on terms of the greatest
intimacy, and naturally they might have been expected to stick to each
other through thick and through thin. When, however, they were placed in
the dock and asked to plead, Silberfeldt at once, arrant coward as he
was, exclaimed:
“Oh! your vorship, I don’t vant to plead, I’m going to turn Queensh
evidensh.”
This vision of a traitor’s liberty, this desire to shelter himself and
protect his own worthless skin by “rounding on his pal” was soon rudely
ended by the magistrate, who intimated that the Crown was not in want of
any “Queensh evidensh” in the case at all, or to slightly parody Oliver
Goldsmith—
“When the culprit cried, oh, yes!
The court it cried, oh, no!”
After evidence of a most conclusive character had been given, the
accused were duly committed for trial to the special court, where,
strange to say, “one was taken and the other left,” with a cruel irony
of fate, the one taken (to the breakwater for seven years) was the
perfidious Silberfeldt, the one left (to the enjoyment of his liberty)
was the friend who so narrowly escaped betrayal.
As an instance of the fact that in temporal matters at least “honesty”
does not always appear to be “the best policy,” I recollect an instance
of which the truth can be vouched.
One fine spring morning in September, 187–, a certain diamond buyer,
whom we will call Gonivavitski, might have been seen marching up and
down the Bulfontein road enjoying the early rays of the sun, reading the
daily paper, yet still keeping a narrow watch on the canvas frame-house
in which he conducted his licensed (?) dealings. Active, robust, cheery,
though a rogue in spirit and grain, manliness appeared to beam from
every line of his seemingly honest face. Our friend, too, was of a
dogmatic turn of mind, insisted on “cleanliness being next to
godliness,” and no firmer believer in the proverb that the “early bird
catches the worm” could have been found in all Kimberley.
Just as he had finished the leading article he caught sight of one of
his clients approaching in an opposite direction. G. started nervously,
as he did not desire the visit of this especial gentleman in the
daylight—in other words he only bought of “niggers” after dark—but his
dusky acquaintance gave him a sly glance, as much as to say: “I fancy
I’ve seen you before,” a quite sufficient hint that “something” (as
illicit stones are often called “in the trade”) was in the immediate
neighborhood, so G. could not resist the temptation.
Taking a bird’s-eye view of the situation, Gonivavitski hastily came up
to the native, who, with a knowing leer, opened his hand, revealing a
magnificent pure white diamond nearly the size of a plover’s egg.
“Mooi klippe baas!” (fine stone, master) said the nigger.
“Ya! kom hier sa, booi,” (yes, come this way, boy) said G. hurriedly,
fearing observation.
The boy did as he was told, following the white man into his office,
which was close by. The door was soon shut, the stone weighed and the
bargain struck, the native starting off with the money at a round trot
to join his “brothers,” who were waiting round the corner. But
“conscience doth make cowards of us all,” and Mr. G. was not an
exception; fearing that he had been watched, and regardful either of his
spotless reputation, or of the pleasures of the “tronk”[51] looming in
the future, started in hot pursuit and gave his late visitor into the
custody of the first policeman he met.
“What’s up now?” said the guardian of law and order.
“Why, look here, this d—d thief of a nigger wants to sell me this ’ere,”
was Gonivavitski’s answer, given in tones of simulated indignation.
“This ’ere,” however, was not the forty-carat white diamond of a few
minutes before, G. was too clever for that, it was merely a piece of
boart not worth a sovereign that he now produced.
A crowd soon gathered to watch the thief marched off to jail, the
_honest_ man following in his wake to lay the charge. Next day at the
trial, a little perjury more or less was immaterial, the boy was
sentenced to imprisonment and lashes, whilst Mr. G. in a few days found
it necessary for the sake of his health to proceed to Europe, where he
disposed of the diamond for a good round sum. With this addition to his
former capital he returned to the Fields, where he still remains,
boasting the possession of an ample fortune, gained, as he always says,
by “’ard work and hearly rising.”
One of the most generally admitted apothegms of worldly wisdom is that
“a man should always tell the truth to his doctor and his lawyer,” but
like many far more valuable maxims it is frequently disregarded. An
instance in which (albeit I am happy to say I have a tolerably good
opinion of my fellow creatures) I could not place confidence in the
statements of my patient, occurs to my mind in connection with the
anecdotes of which this chapter is composed.
About two o’clock one morning in the year 1872 I was roused from the
sleep I so much needed, as it was a sickly and busy season, by a hurried
rapping at my front door. A doctor’s slumbers are through force of habit
light, and in a few seconds my dressing-gown and slippers were assumed,
and I hastened to answer the imperative summons of my visitor. A
middle-aged citizen, whose reputation, although never openly impugned,
was yet hardly enviable, greeted me in somewhat quavering accents, and
with pallid cheeks desired my services without a moment’s delay. Having
ushered him into my consulting-room I at once discovered the secret of
his alarm. The sufferer informed me that “he had been discussing with
some friends the means by which the rascally illicits evaded the law and
concealed their ill-gotten gems on any sudden emergency, suiting the
action to the word he had swallowed (or otherwise concealed from view)
two sovs. and a diamond.”
I listened to the story with all becoming gravity, and proceeded to
perform a surgical operation for the removal of the foreign substances,
with the anatomical details of which it is wholly unnecessary to weary
my readers. When relieved from his distress of mind and body he was
desirous of further explaining the circumstances under which the sad
occurrence took place, but as the subject did not particularly interest
me I suggested that “time was on the wing,” which hint he promptly took,
dividing the _corpora delicti_ by leaving the gold with me and putting
the diamond (a thirty-carat stone) in his pocket. Years afterward, when
I heard that while sitting among the _Dii majores_ of the Kimberley club
this gentleman’s main topic of conversation was his extreme horror of
the illicit traffic with its train of evils—I could not help calling to
mind the episode of 1872. However, as we are told “the reformed rake
makes the best husband,” I hope that my ex-patient believes all he now
enunciates, and what is still more important has the courage of his
opinions.
I shall finish these few sketches of I. D. B. with the recital of an
incident which occurred to me personally: the moral to be gathered I
leave to my readers.
As nearly as I can remember, it was late on a cold winter’s night in
June, 187–, that I heard a tapping at my bedroom window. It was a
dreadful night. The south wind was blowing the sand from the débris
heaps in fitful gusts, whilst the dust clouds were careering along so
thickly that to see but a yard or two ahead was impossible. To those who
know the mine and its surroundings it will require but a slight stretch
of imagination to picture the bottomless pit from which “all hell had
broken loose.”
Mentally anathematizing my nocturnal visitor, I rose and opened the
door, when a Kafir thrust into my hand a piece of paper on which was
scrawled in pencil:
“DRY DIGGINGS HOSPITAL.
“DR. MATTHEWS. _Sir_:—Mr. O. J. is tossing about and very restless
to-night, and says he _must_ see you. Will you come quickly—I think he
is dying?
“Yours obediently,
I. P.”
Though at the time one of the surgeons of the Dry Diggings hospital, yet
as O. J. was not under my treatment I did not much relish the idea of a
dreary walk at that time of night. Not wishing, however, to disappoint
the poor fellow, who had once worked a claim for me and who was now, so
I had heard, dead out of luck, having, as the American gold digger says,
struck “the bed-rock,” I dressed quickly and trudged away through the
heavy sand to the wattle and daub shanty which then did service as a
hospital.
On my arrival the attendant guided me with his flickering candle down
the long barn-like shed to the bedside of O. J. At a glance I saw that
death had marked him for his own. Beads of cold sweat stood out on his
forehead, whilst clammy hands and convulsive paroxysms of his throat
showed the nearness of the end.
“Sie können Deutsch verstehen nicht wahr, Herr Doctor?” (You can
understand German, can’t you, Doctor?)
I nodded assent, when continuing the conversation partly in that
language and partly in English, evidently with the object of keeping the
attendant ignorant of what was passing between us, he imploringly looked
up and said: “Do tell me doctor how long I shall live, I can’t last
long.” I shook my head doubtfully, when he gasped out in tones of
agonized anxiety:
“I shan’t, I won’t, I can’t die without telling you how when I worked
your and Mr. Lynch’s claim in No. 6 I robbed you of nearly all your
diamonds! Oh! doctor, how I have hoped, how I have prayed God to let me
live, to spare me to work again, to make up the wrong that I have done
you.”
Entering further into details of how he had been tempted, and how he
hoped, even if he never could work again, to repay me out of a
remittance he expected from Europe, he suddenly seized my hand and in
feeble accents, broken by the death-rattle in his throat, uttered these
earnest words:
“YOU WILL FORGIVE ME THOUGH, WON’T YOU?”
Comforting him as well as I could, I assured him that, as far as I was
concerned, he might bury the past in oblivion. Never shall I forget, to
my dying day, the expression of intense relief which passed over his
anxious face and the glow which came again to his pallid cheek by the
assurance which I gave him.
As I was rising to bid him good night he again grasped my hand with both
of his and piteously exclaimed:
“Don’t, don’t forget me, doctor, you’ll come, won’t you, and see me
to-morrow?”
This I promised him, although with inward misgiving that his “to-morrow”
would never come.
Instructing the attendant to pay special heed to the sufferer during the
night, and again promising to return at sunrise, I trudged my weary way
home.
Daylight saw me again at the hospital. Alas! Too late! No. 3 bed was
empty! The troubled spirit had fled, its sins, I trust, blotted out for
ever by a merciful and all-wise God!
Yet the wretch who tempted this poor fellow to steal diamonds, the
sneaking creature who made him a thief and who profited by his thefts, I
ofttimes meet strutting proudly about with an air of pharisaical
honesty, to all outward appearance respectable and respected!
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