There are few more hideous parts of the world than the country known as
Griqualand West, celebrated, as the school books have it, for its
diamonds. In that weary land the traveller may go on day by day
outspanning at evening in just the same dreary waste of veldt in which
he inspanned at morning, until he almost forgets that the world is not
one endless series of rolling, burnt-up flats with ridges of
table-topped hills in the distance, the last just like the one before
it. Still there are spots on the banks of the Vaal River which runs
through this territory that have a soft beauty of their own, all the
more fascinating because of their contrast with the desert ugliness of
the country--places where the traveller longs to settle down and live
the rest of his days doing some slight work well paid by kind nature,
forgetting the troublesome, distant world. Moonlight Rush is perhaps
the fairest of these silent river nooks. There a wooded gulley, gay
with flowering bushes, and shadowed by wide-spreading trees, runs down
to the waters of the Vaal River. One can rest under the shade of those
trees and forget how cruelly the sun beats down on the veldt, and as one
looks at the Vaal, which flows at one's feet in a noble reach, one no
longer thinks of the arid discomfort of the plains. The place is quiet
enough now, but once it had its day. The night it was rushed will be
always remembered by those who came to seek their fortunes on the banks
of the Vaal in the early days of diamond-digging. To this day men talk
of how the news about the quantities of diamonds that had been found at
a new place spread like wild-fire around the river camps, and how
diggers, as soon as they heard it, snatched up their picks and shovels
and rough provision for a meal or two, and left their camp fires, eager
to get a claim in the new diggings, where they were at last to strike a
fortune. Its history was like that of other river camps, only the
diamonds found there at first were more plentiful, and are said to have
been of better average quality; but they became fewer and fewer, and the
diggers, party by party, either left for the new dry digging, which
afterwards became the wonderful diamond mines of South Africa, or
wandered away to other river camps. And at last the place was quite
deserted, and the rock hares sported over the grass-grown claims, and
the snakes, who had found the place too lively for them, sneaked back to
make their homes in the ruined hovels put up by sanguine diggers who had
believed in the future of Moonlight, and had shown their faith by
plunging into building to the extent of houses built with boulders and
thatched with rushes. Still, from time to time diggers, who had found
well at Moonlight in its palmy days, or had heard of the wonderful
stones which had been found there, came back to try their luck either in
sorting the _debris_ for the gems which the greedy diggers in those good
flush times threw away in their haste, or in working the less promising
ground which was left untouched. But since those old days no one had
done much. Diggers had lingered on there, and persuaded themselves into
believing in it because they liked the place; for the charm of nature
has a strange influence over many a rough mind which knows little of
culture or art jargon. But most of them, after working for months, had
to tell the diggers' oft-told tale of "we are not making tucker, let
alone wages," and had to drag their small stock-in-trade of tools off to
some other digging, or had given up the river as a bad game, and had
gone to work as overseers for wages in the mines.
One night, a year or two ago, there were only two tents there--almost
hidden in the bushes by the river-bank. Though it was long past the
time when men who have to work hard all day and to be up betimes are
usually asleep, it was lit up. Its tenant was stretched across the tent
on a mattress. By his side there were several tattered, well-read
volumes--`Vanity Fair,' `Elia,' some of Bret Harte's books; and Whyte
Melville's `Bones and I,' and in his hand he had a crumpled home letter.
His name was Charlie Lumsden, and he was about thirty years old. For
the last ten years, more or less, he had belonged to the noble army of
diggers who are recruited from all classes of society, and form a
distinct class of their own. He was also an English gentleman of good
birth and gentle breeding, as any one would guess from a first glance at
him, and be sure of after a few minutes' conversation. He was not
reading, though it was so late, but thinking, and had been thinking for
some time, far more seriously than he often did. It was perhaps an
orthodox occasion for a little self-retrospection, for it happened to be
the last night of the old year. Charlie, by chance, for he had been
living a solitary life in which men are apt to forget dates, had
remembered this, and he was seeing the New Year in, as many a man may
well do, thinking over the years of his life he had lived, and what he
had managed to do with them. He has not much reason to be satisfied
with the past, or to be over sanguine about the future. Where will he
be this time next year, and what sort of a year will it be for him? he
wonders. Well, pretty much the same as the last year or two. Last year
he was at `Bad Hope,' digging with his old chum, Jack Heathcote, who has
just left him, and given up the off-chance of the river for the
certainty of some pay in the Mounted Police. They were finding fairly
well, but their finds melted away before the claim was worked out, at
least most of them did, though there would have been something left if
they had not been fools and had that spree at Kimberley Races. Last New
Year's Day he was up-country hunting for gold near the Crocodile River.
He found pretty well too, and would not have done so badly if his mates
had not gone down with fever. Maybe he will have another turn at it.
After all, it wouldn't much matter, he thinks, if next time he is
tempted to trespass on Tom Tiddler's ground fever should catch him, and
keep him as it caught his chums. Yes, now he sees what a mess he has
made of his life. Ten years before he had just left school, and was
going up to Cambridge, where it was hoped that he would do wonders in
the way of taking honours and getting fellowships. Now he was a digger,
just like old David Miller who worked near him, though he was not half
as good with a pick and shovel as the old man who could hardly read and
write.
Then he remembered the year he had spent at Cambridge. Well, he had a
jolly time enough there; but what a young fool he was to have run up all
those ticks, and to have got into those scrapes, which when he looks
back to them seem so childish. What a mistake he had made in living
with the fast, noisy lot instead of the steady-going set, who were just
as good fellows after all. How well he remembers that supper party
which was so fatal to him. It had been in a rich fellow-commoner's
room, and a good many bottles had been emptied, and they were just ripe
for mischief, when one of the party suggested the brilliant idea of
having songs, and a camp fire on the college grass plot.
They had proceeded at once to carry out the suggestion; their host, who
was placidly intoxicated, blandly approving, at the sacrifice of his
household gods in defiance of college discipline, when it was proposed
that his chairs should be used for firewood. The fire was lit, and the
fun round it was fast and furious until the college tutor made his
appearance, as he naturally did.
The dons were only too glad to make a clean sweep of the rowdy lot in
the college, and about ten of them were sent down the next morning.
Some of them got over their misfortune very easily. The man who
suggested the bonfire is a popular preacher, and the giver of the supper
party is a county member. Poor Charlie unfortunately was the earthern
pot between the brazen ones, and that college row ended in his leaving
England for South Africa, with his passage paid and fifty pounds in his
pocket. Well, and he would have had a good chance on the fields if he
had only been wise. What a lot of diamonds he used to get in that
half-claim of his, in number five road. The other day it was sold for
over ten thousand; but he had been sold up and had to let it go for a
few hundreds after he struck a bad layer. He would have been able to
have worked through the bad layer though if he had saved the money he
made first, instead of throwing it away playing faro in those gambling
saloons that were so fatal to many a digger's fortunes.
After he sold his claim in the mine he lived the roving hand-to-mouth
life of a river-digger, with very little capital beyond his pick and
shovel, and his reputation with the store-keepers of being a straight
man, who would always pay when he found. Not a bad life either he would
think at any other time, for the Bohemianism of a digger is ingrained in
him. He liked the free and easy life, the absence from restraint or
dependence on any one else. But he was out of spirits. He had not
found for months; he missed his old partner, and he had no boys working
for him. In fact he would find it very difficult to pay them any wages
if he had, so he can get through but very little work. That night,
memories of the old days and his old life came crowding into his mind,
and he longed to be in England again, and to see well-remembered places
and faces.
The crumpled letter by his side was from home--from his sister in
England. She told him that she had been staying at the little village
in Somersetshire, where he once went with a reading party, and that she
had met the parson's daughter there, who had asked so much after him.
How well he remembered that reading party. Does the message in his
sister's letter mean that she still cares for him? She has not married
yet then. That boy and girl engagement was perfectly absurd of course,
but he knows that they were quite in earnest while it lasted, and after
all if he had taken his degree instead of being sent down in disgrace,
they probably would have been married. For a minute or two he pictures
himself as a staid curate or vicar dressed in decent black garment,
instead of in moleskin and a flannel shirt--with a vicarage house to
live in, instead of a tent.
Probably she got over it as easily as he did. He was broken-hearted
when he got her sad little letter, saying that it must all come to an
end, and that her father would not hear of it. He got over it
wonderfully soon though. With his sea-sickness his love-trouble left
him in the bay. She probably had got over it too, and could laugh at it
as he did. But as he smokes and thinks, he realises how much happier
his life might have been. How wanting it is in real happiness; why how
long is it since he has spoken to any woman more refined than the
barmaid of the Vaal Hotel? Should he ever shake the dust of Africa off
his boots and go home, or should he be buried there as many a chum of
his had been. It is no good going home dead beat to loaf on his
relations; no, it would be better to stay in the country for ever, or to
land without a sixpence in some other colony. What bad luck he has
always had. The men who make money may say what they like, but it is
almost all luck after all, he thinks, as he contrasts his position with
that of many another man, just as thoughtless and reckless as he, who
has made a fortune and gone home with it. Maybe the very next shovel
full of gravel he washes may turn his luck, and he thinks of all the big
diamonds that have at one time or the other been found down the river.
"Bosh, what's the use of thinking," he said to himself as the end of the
candle, which has been growing shorter and shorter, fell down to the
bottom of the bottle into which he had stuck it, and he was left in the
dark to knock out the ashes of his pipe and to curl himself up in his
blanket.
It was still enough at Moonlight Rush, and in a few minutes he was
asleep and dreaming a queer medley of English and Diamond-Field scenes.
As he slept and dreamt he heard a cry for help, repeated again and
again. At first it seemed to fit in with what he was dreaming about.
But he heard it again after he woke up, and then he formed a pretty
notion as to what it meant. "It's poor old David come to grief," he
said to himself, as he sprang up and ran out of his tent.
Old David Miller, who lived in the other tent at Moonlight Rush, was a
taciturn old fellow, who always worked by himself and seemed to look
upon the world in general with surly indifference. He had been digging
all over the world since gold was first discovered in Australia, and had
spent a good many years on the banks of the Vaal. He dug by himself
without employing Kaffirs, but he got through a fair amount of work, as
the high bank of boulders which he had broken up and dragged out of
claim at Moonlight bore witness to.
So far as Charlie knew he had found little enough to recompense him for
his toil. He was not, however, much given to talk about his own
affairs, though for him he was very friendly with Charlie--often coming
round to his claim and growling about South Africa and its inhabitants,
and contrasting the country with others in which it had been his lot to
live. He was owner of a rickety little tub of a boat, in which, on the
rare occasions on which he yearned for more of society and civilisation
than he could get at Moonlight, he would cross over to the other side.
The object of these voyages was a canteen that was some miles down the
river. Old David, a sober man enough as a rule, used at intervals to go
on the drink somewhat seriously. He believed, as a good many men of his
class do believe, that an occasional bout of drinking was good for the
system, and brightened a man up for his work like a change of air.
Besides, he probably liked it. So now and then he used to indulge in
one of these bouts. At other times he took nothing but tea--looking
upon strong drink as a medicine that was wasted if not taken in large
quantities. Sometimes these bouts would last for days, sometimes for a
much shorter time. When he had taken what he considered was enough, or
as more often was the case spent all his money, he would start off from
the canteen, stagger off to the river, and get into his little tub of a
boat and navigate himself across in it. The voyage always seemed beset
with considerable danger, as the little boat, which the old man had made
himself, was a very crank craft, certainly not fit to carry old David
after he himself had taken in such a large cargo of whiskey. Charlie
knew that the old man had started on one of his expeditions that
afternoon, for he had come to his claim and asked him to come with him,
showing an amount of hospitality and a wish for society which was unlike
him. It was likely enough that he had gone to grief and got swamped.
The river was swollen with recent floods, and flowing rather strongly;
so Charlie looked forward to rather a longish job, particularly as he
remembered that the old man had told him he could not swim a stroke.
It was a dark night for South Africa. Again and again, as he ran along
the bank peering into the river, he thought he saw something in the
water, but the object turned out to be a snag, or a mass of weed. At
last he made out a paddle floating down; then he came to an upturned
boat, and then he saw, or thought he saw something rise and sink again.
In a second he was in the water, and when he got about to the spot where
he thought he saw the object sink he dived for it. As he dived he felt
himself caught in a mass of Vaal river-weed, which clung round him like
a net, and seemed to drag him down in its deadly grip. At first he
struggled wildly to get free, and the more he struggled the more
entangled he got. After a little time, however, and before it was too
late, his presence of mind came back, and humouring the weed rather than
struggling against it, he managed to get free. Then he reached the body
he had dived for, and came up with it to the top of the water. He had
hard work enough to get it to land, and he began to feel terribly done
with his struggles to drag it along through the weeds, and to keep free
from them himself. At last he got it up the bank, dragging a tangled
mass of weeds out with it. Then he lay exhausted and out of breath for
some seconds before he was sure what it was that he had fished out from
the bottom of the river, and recognised old David Miller in the object
covered with weed and slime by his side. He remembered that he had a
bottle of Cape smoke in his tent, so he went and got it, and having
taken a pull at it himself, he tried to force some down the old man's
throat. A dozen conflicting directions for recovering half-drowned
persons occurred to him, and without being sure of whether he was doing
the right thing or not he did his best to bring back life to the body he
had rescued. He felt fearfully alone, for he and the old man were the
only inhabitants of Red Jacket, and even the nearest Kaffir huts were
some miles off. The old man must have been for some time in the water
before he got him out, and Charlie soon began to see that his help had
come too late. The heart did not beat, and the life was not to come
back, and when the sun rose its grey light lit up poor old David's dead
body.
"Poor old chap! he has growled his last growl at South Africa, and seen
his last year out in the country," Charlie said to himself, as he looked
at him.
Then he carried the body into the tent, and lit a fire. He had always
thought that poor old David would come to grief some day in that little
boat of his. Well, the old fellow hadn't much to live for. Charlie
thought that if any of the Kaffirs came down to the river in the morning
he would get them to watch by the body, and that he would walk down to
one of the larger river camps where there was a magistrate, and report
the death. Before, however, he left the place he ought to see what
property old David had when he died. There would be little enough most
likely--a few tools, and some blankets and perhaps a diamond or two, as
a result of all the work he had done. Maybe a few coins, but there were
not likely to be many after his visit to the canteen.
Charlie did not find much in the tent. The body was clothed in a pair
of cord trousers and a woollen shirt. Round his waist there was a
digger's belt. Charlie took it off, and opened it. There was a purse
in the belt, in which there were two small all-coloured diamonds, worth
a pound or two, but no money. There was something else in the belt
besides the purse--something tied up in a piece of a handkerchief.
Charlie gave a start as he felt, and when he undid it and saw what it
was, he stood holding it in his hand and staring at it in a dazed,
stupid way. It was a diamond--such a diamond as diggers may dream of,
but few have ever seen. It was about the finest stone he had ever seen,
he thought.
"What luck--what queer luck," he said to himself, as he looked at the
dead man and then at the diamond. "It was just like luck giving poor
old David a turn like that. Poor old fellow! he has never wanted more
than a few pounds, and has often enough been without them; and just
before his death he had come across this splendid prize." No wonder the
old man had looked rather queer that afternoon before, when he had come
round to Charlie's claims and asked him to come over the river to the
canteen, and have a drink with him; Charlie had wondered at this
unwonted hospitality, though he had refused it. The diamond explained
it, however; there was plenty of occasion for it.
Then, as Charlie stood with the diamond in his hand, the thought came
into his head, what would happen to the diamond now that the lucky
digger who had found it had gone to where there is no more luck? He
remembered that old David once told him that he had neither kith nor kin
whom he knew of. Well, the stone would probably go to the Government,
or to enrich lawyers who would reap the rich harvest of actions over it.
Perhaps some peasant at home would be found, who would be proved to be
old David's next-of-kin, though he would have as little to do with the
old man as if he had lived in another world. He remembered that some
days before they had talked about digging together. If they had only
come to terms then, he would have had his share of this find. Why it
would be absurd to let the diamond do no one any good. Had he not done
his best to save the old man and risked his life, and nearly lost it
amongst the weeds? Would it not be throwing away his good luck if he
did not keep the treasure-trove which was his by natural right if not by
law? How much that stone meant to him. It must be worth many thousand
pounds, as much money as any diamond. With the money he could get for
it he could go home, not as an unsuccessful prodigal, but as a
prosperous man come back to live the pleasant life of an English
gentleman.
The sight of the diamond, and the knowledge of the lot of money it was
worth, seemed to make Charlie realise how sick he was of the hopeless,
wandering life he was living, and how he longed for civilisation and
refinement again. If he only had some money he could go home and have
another chance. A few more years of the life he was leading and he
would be fit for nothing else, and even if luck came to him it would be
no use.
As he was thinking he looked up and saw some Kaffir women from the huts
standing by the river. He shouted to them, and bargained with them to
stop and watch by the body, for he did not like to leave it by itself,
unprotected, and then he set out to walk across the veldt to the nearest
camp. Before he started he put the purse with the two small diamonds
into one pocket, and tying the big diamond up in his handkerchief he put
it into the breast-pocket of his coat. He was bound for a place about
six miles off, where he could report what had happened. On his way he
had to pass the roadside canteen where old David had spent his last
evening. The proprietor of it had just opened the place, so he went in
and ordered some breakfast. As he ate it he told the landlord of the
fate of his guest of the night before.
The landlord did not seem to waste much pity upon old David. "What, he
got drowned, did he? I always told him he would some day, and I advised
him not to cross last night, but he was a bit queer in his temper. He
wanted me to stick up a drink, but I said it was against the rules. And
then he talked a lot about being worth more than I was, and being able
to buy up me and my canteen; but none paid much heed to him. I 'spect
he ain't left a very big estate behind him?"
"No, he hasn't, poor old chap! Here are his finds--they are not worth
much," Charlie said, as he showed the landlord the two small diamonds.
Then he wondered whether he looked like a thief, as he thought of what
he had stowed away in his breast-pocket.
He finished his breakfast and had something to drink afterwards, for he
felt as if his nerves wanted settling. Just as he was going to start a
man, dressed in the uniform of the Mounted Police, came into the bar,
and came up to Charlie holding out his hand.
"A happy New Year to you, old boy! Where are you off to this morning?"
he said.
The new arrival was Charlie's old friend and partner, Jack Heathcote.
Jack was as good a fellow as ever lived, and as true a friend, but for
the first time since he had known him Charlie did not feel best pleased
to see him.
"What's the matter, Charlie?" Jack added, as he noticed a rather
downcast look in his friend's face, "you seem a bit down on your luck."
"I have had rather a trying night of it," answered Charlie, and he told
how poor old David Miller had upset and got drowned the night before,
and what a near thing he had had of it amongst the weeds trying to save
him. But there was one part of the story which he kept to himself. He
did not say anything about the big diamond, though he produced the two
little ones, and asked Jack as he was going into the camp to report the
death, and give them up to the authorities.
"All right; I will tell 'em about it, and give these up to the
magistrate. They ain't worth much; but poor old David hadn't much
better luck than you and I," said Jack. "Come, cheer up, old fellow;
after all the old man hadn't much to live for, and you did your level
best to save him. Let's have a split, and drink good luck to the New
Year. It is about time you and I had a turn of luck, but it never comes
to honest men in this cursed country. Well, may we get out of it
somehow or the other before the next New Year's Day; may you find a `big
un,' on which you can go home," he said, when their glasses were filled.
"Who can tell? luck is a queerish thing," Charlie said, as he emptied
his glass.
"So it is--not that I know very much about it, for it has not troubled
me much. Well, good-bye," said Jack Heathcote, as he left the canteen
and jumped on his horse, which was tied up outside.
Charlie stood for a second or two watching his friend ride away.
"A happy New Year! Well, I shall have it if money can make one happy.
That streak of luck you talk about has come in my way after all. I
shall be able to clear out of the country as soon as I like. Honest
men! Well, it don't do to be too honest," he said to himself.
Then he wondered what his old partner Jack Heathcote would have said if
he had heard about the big diamond. Of course he would have said that
he was right to stick to it, and would have been a fool if he had thrown
away such a chance. He didn't feel quite certain about it though. Jack
was rather a queer fellow in his way, and though he did not go in for
preaching, had some very decided notions about right and wrong. He had
half a mind to tell his old friend, with whom he had lived as a partner
for years, and from whom he had hardly had a secret since he had known
him, of this good luck and ask him to share in it, but on second
thoughts he knew that he had better not do that.
Jack Heathcote had reined in his horse, some hundred yards from the
canteen, to light his pipe, and Charlie for a second or two watched him,
unable to make up his mind.
"No, by Jove, I won't ask him to have a share, and I won't ask him what
he'd do if he were in my place. I know. Hi, Jack Heathcote, Jack.
Stop I say," he shouted at the top of his voice, as he ran up to his
friend, waving his hat.
Jack saw him and waited for him to come up.
"Well, what's the matter?" he asked wondering, as he noticed a strangely
excited look in his friend's face.
"There is something else you ought to have, Jack; it is this," Charlie
said, and he took the big diamond from his pocket. "It's over three
hundred carats, I should say, and about the best stone in the world.
Old David must have found it yesterday, for he had it on him when I
pulled him out of the river. Take it to the camp and give it up, and
let me be rid of it, for it's safe with you; and, Jack, don't think too
badly of me because I have so nearly been a thief."
"Charlie, there's about ninety-nine men in a hundred who would think you
a fool," Jack said as he took the diamond, and then gave his old
friend's hand a grip. "I wonder who this thing belongs to now?"
"Don't know, don't care; not to me, anyhow; it's a niceish stone, ain't
it?" he answered, and then the two friends parted, the one to startle
the Diamond Fields by the tale of old David Miller's luck, and, as a
good many men thought, of Charlie Lumsden's egregious folly, and the
other to work with very ordinary luck as a digger at Moonlight Rush.
Story 6.