"Who's that man?" asked George Marshall of his friend Joe Warton, a
Kimberley digger, as a slightly-made, good-looking man, dressed in a
well-fitting suit of tweeds, which no colonial tailor could have turned
out, walked past them as they were sitting on the stoop of the club.
"That man! why he is the hero of the day--our last distinguished
visitor, Sir Harry Ferriard. You will hear all about him if you are
long on the Fields, for every one is talking about him."
"Sir Harry Ferriard! why he is the crack gentleman rider and owner of
race-horses; the man who won last year's `Grand National,' what's he
doing up in Kimberley, of all places in the world?" asked George
Marshall, looking through the door of the club at the gentleman in
question with some interest.
"He is going a trip into the interior, when some friends of his for whom
he is waiting arrive. I wish they would come and he were off, for I am
sick of the sight of him. Since his arrival the camp in general has
begun to take an interest in the British aristocracy. The proprietor of
the club has procured a big `Peerage and Baronetage,' which is always in
use. Sir Harry of an evening tells stories of his friend Lord This, and
the Duchess of Something Else, till one feels sick. Little Lazarus
picked him up coming here in the coach. He likes you to think that he
knew him at home, and that he is a fair sample of the pals he made in
London. The little cad is as proud as a peacock of his friend Sir
Harry, and is never tired of drawing him out and showing him off."
"Shouldn't have thought they'd have stood much of that sort of thing
here," said Marshall. "We have our faults, and perhaps our weaknesses,
but I never would have said snobbishness was one of them."
"Well, we are a very `English community,' as they are always saying in
the papers. Besides, this fellow Ferriard makes himself infernally
pleasant to every one, and half the fellows in the camp think they are
going to get something out of him. Says that he has been turning his
attention to the city and financial business lately, and that now he is
out here he may as well take a look round and see what investments are
sticking out. That makes him popular, you bet. He says he sees that
Fools' Rush might be turned into a company, and floated as a big thing
on the London markets. Thinks there is a fortune for any one who would
buy up the shares in the Diddler Diamond Mining Company. He is going to
make home capital flow into the place, and every one is to be better off
even than they were in the wildest days of the share mania. Then he is
very friendly to every one--asks you to stay with him at Melton the
first winter you are in England, before he has known you for an hour.
And tells you about the shooting he will give you in Norfolk, and his
moor in Scotland. The men all swear by him, and the women think that
there never was any one like him, confound him!"
"You don't appear to like him, Joe, as much as the rest of 'em do," said
Marshall, after he had listened to his friend's unusually long speech.
"Like him! I think him an infernal outsider; but I see he has settled
down to play at poker, so I will go down to the Shorts', as he won't be
hanging about there making himself a nuisance, as he generally does of
an evening."
"Does Polly Short find him such a nuisance then? Looks the sort of man
who could make himself pretty agreeable."
Warton answered by a growl rather than by any articulate speech, and
George Marshall laughed to himself. It was not difficult to diagnose
his friend's case, and guess why he did not particularly Ike the new
arrival.
Polly Short was the prettiest girl on the Diamond Fields, and a good
many men had been more or less in love with her, but Joe Warton had
begun to be looked upon as the favourite. In fact, the other candidates
had almost given up all hope; and Joe, though he was not exactly
engaged, was supposed to have arrived at a very fair understanding with
her. She, though she had not much harm in her, was decidedly fond of
admiration; while Joe Warton, though he was a capital good fellow, was a
little heavy in hand; and his great affection for Polly sometimes showed
itself in fits of jealousy, which were as near surliness as they could
be. Given a man like the brilliant Sir Harry Ferriard, and let him
admire Polly as he well might--for she would be an unusually pretty
girl, not only on the Diamond Fields, but anywhere else--it would be
easy to understand, so George Marshall thought, how the course of his
friend's true love should have got a little tangled.
"By the by, shall you ride Lone Star for her gallop to-morrow?" Joe
Warton said to his friend after he had got up. "We shall win the
Ladies' Purse with her again this year, seems to me."
"Yes, if nothing else is entered that can beat us," Marshall, who was a
man not much given to express a decided opinion, answered.
Lone Star belonged to Joe Warton, and had been for some time in
training, for the forthcoming Kimberley races, on George Marshall's
farm. He had brought her into Kimberley the day before. She was a very
nice mare, but of no particular class. Warton had, however, won The
Ladies' Purse, one of the minor races, with her the year before, and he
had set his heart on winning the same race again that year.
"Wait till the entries are published and then I will tell you whether we
shall win or no. The mare is fit enough as far as that goes, and she's
a good bit honester than most of her sex, but she is no wonder,"
Marshall added.
"Oh, they won't enter anything better than Lone Star--it wouldn't be
worth their while when the winner is to be sold for fifty pounds,"
Warton said as he got up, and saying "good night" to his friend, walked
up the street in the direction of the Shorts' house.
As luck would have it, however, it chanced that he saw a man he knew,
whom he wished to speak to, in the bar of a hotel he was passing. So he
went in and said what he had to say to him, and was going to leave when
a certain Mr Howlett appeared on the scene--who about the race meeting
became an important individual on the Fields. He was called in the
papers "our leading local bookmaker." He came into the bar, and seeing
Warton began to talk to him about the races.
"Is that mare of yours, Lone Star, going to go for anything this time?
You were lucky to win with her last year," Mr Howlett said, looking at
Joe in a way that somehow or other annoyed him.
"Lucky! what do you mean by that?" Joe asked; "she won easy enough;
what would you like to bet against her winning again?"
"Well, it's full early to talk about betting, but I shouldn't mind just
backing my opinion as I gave it. Though it ain't business, I will lay
you fifty to twenty-five."
It happened from one cause and another that Warton was in an
half-irritable, half-excited humour--when it's a relief to do anything.
He thought to himself that at the start it would as likely as not be
odds on Lone Star, so he took the bet. Mr Howlett booked it with a
twinkle in his eye that annoyed Warton.
"You're one of the sort who are always in a hurry; take the advice of
one who knows a bit more than you do, and wait a bit in future," Mr
Howlett said.
The man's manner irritated Warton strangely. "Like to go on with it, as
it's such a bad bet for me?" he said.
Mr Howlett at first said he didn't want to go on with it. It wasn't
business to bet before he knew the horses entered. He only had offered
a bit of advice to Warton which was meant to be friendly, and if he
didn't take it friendly he could take it how he chose.
Presently, however, he appeared to get irritated too by something some
one else said, and it ended by his first doubling the bet, and then
laying Warton three fifties to two against his horse.
As Warton walked on to the Shorts' he was half inclined to think that it
would have been better for him if he had taken the bookmaker's advice,
and not been in such a hurry. The entries would be published the next
morning, and he might just as well have waited before he made his bet.
He might have guessed that Howlett, though he did seem at first
unwilling to bet, was not the sort of man who would throw away his money
merely because he got warm in a dispute.
When he bet against Lone Star he must have had an idea of some other
horse being entered which could beat her. Still Warton thought he knew
pretty well the horses entered for the race. It was then limited to
colonial-bred horses, and he was sure that there was nothing to beat
him.
The Short family consisted of the father, mother, and one daughter--the
fair Polly. Old Tom Short was a taciturn old gentleman, who spent his
evenings sitting in the corner of the stoop of his house, with a glass
of whiskey-and-water before him, and a pipe in his mouth--now and then
growling out some remark about the wages of the Kaffirs, the price of
wood, or other subjects connected with the winning of diamonds. He met
with his wife during a visit to England, after he made some money on the
Australian gold-fields. If he had since repented of his bargain he kept
it to himself. She in her way was a very fine lady, being the daughter
of a bankrupt grocer, but also the half great-niece of a London
alderman, who had been knighted. The alderman's picture always hung on
the wall in the drawing-room of their house, and Mrs Short generally
found an excuse for referring to it, when strangers were present, at
least once in ten minutes. As one looked at Polly Short one wondered
how she could have been the child of her parents, and where she could
have got all her beauty and charm from, and the keen sense of humour
that gave a mischievous twinkle to her eyes. Her love of admiration
might have come from her mother, and she had, for all her dainty beauty,
a curious look of her rugged old father. But there was much about her
which seemed incongruous with her surroundings. When Warton came in he
thought that he detected a considerable diminution in the cordiality of
Mrs Short's greeting. Once he had been rather a favourite visitor, but
since Sir Harry Ferriard had come on the scene, he had noticed a decided
alteration.
"How do you do, Mr Warton, we 'alf expects Sir 'Arry would drop in this
evening--have you seen him?"
"I don't think you will see him to-night, I just saw him setting down to
a game of cards," answered Warton, whose expression by no means
brightened up when he heard Ferriard's name as soon as he came into the
house.
"Dear, dear, it's a pity he is so fond of play and gambling. But there,
it's a weakness of the aristocracy; they are 'igh spirited, and must
'ave excitement, as I know only too well!" Mrs Short gave a sigh and
looked at the picture.
"He won't hurt himself at it, I fancy," Warton said with rather a snarl.
"From what I hear he has been rather a heavy winner."
"Well, somebody must win at cards, and I don't see why you should sneer
at any one who happens to be fortunate, as if there was anything wrong
about it," said Polly, resenting rather the tone of Warton's remark than
the actual words.
"You're quite right; I am sure I don't wish to say anything against him,
everybody seems to like him very well, and all I know is more or less in
his favour," Warton answered, feeling somewhat ashamed of himself for
having spoken rather unfairly about a man whom he disliked.
He did not quite make his peace though, and the visit did not seem
likely to be a very happy one. After some time he began to talk about
the races. Polly had worked the purse in which the stakes for "the
ladies' prize" were to be given to the winner, and this was the secret
of his being so anxious to gain it.
"You will be glad to hear your favourite, Lone Star, is very fit--I am
going to gain that smart purse this year again, I hope," he said after
some time.
"Are you sure you'll win? I don't think you will. Do you know, I shall
make my bets the other way."
"Surely you're not going to bet against Lone Star?" Warton said,
remembering how pleased she was at his success the year before and
feeling a good deal hurt at her words.
"Sir Harry Ferriard tells me he is sure to win--he rides for Mr
Lascelles, who has entered Induna."
"What! has that little--I mean has Lazarus entered Induna for the
Ladies' Purse? why he told me he was not entering him for anything but
the two big races. It's a shame, and a low trick of his," Warton said,
remembering with anything but pleasure the bets he had just made.
"Sir Harry persuaded him to do it because he wanted a mount in the race.
I thought it very nice of him, considering he has won so many races in
England, to wish to win our Purse here."
"Yes, and a speech he made about it too," struck in Mrs Short, smiling
encouragingly at her daughter; "he said that he had never coveted any
prize so much as the purse our Polly had worked, and that he had made
Mr Lascelles promise that if he won he was to keep it. Ah! after all
it's only the real titled classes that can pay compliments with grace,
as well I remember was the case in dear Uncle Sir Peter's time!"
"Well, after that I can hardly hope that you can wish me success, though
I think you might have kept some kindly feeling for old Lone Star,"
Warton said as he got up to go.
"Well, you see, you don't ride yourself, and Mr Marshall rides for you,
and he never speaks to a lady if he can help it, so you must allow me to
wish Sir Harry to win," Polly said, as she shook hands with him.
"Of course you may wish who you like to win; and what's more, you will
have what you wish for, for Lone Star won't have a chance against
Induna," he said, as he left the house.
Polly watched him go through the garden, and listened to the tread of
his feet as he walked away along the road. His very walk seemed to tell
how angry and hurt he was. For a minute or two she felt a little guilty
and sorry. After all she liked him a good deal. Though he was heavy
and perhaps a little stupid, and at times by no means sweet-tempered, he
was a good honest fellow and perfectly devoted to her. To tell the
truth she had been upset by the attentions of her new admirer, Sir
Harry. She was not more silly than most girls of her age, but she could
not help thinking that the element of romance which was wanting in Joe
Warton was present in the other. When she looked at Sir Harry's
good-looking face she told herself that he could care a good deal more
for a woman than Joe could. Then he had a title and two or three places
in England, and if she married him she would live in London and be in
society, instead of living on the Diamond Fields, and that counted for a
good deal with her, as it naturally would with a high-spirited girl who
had plenty of ambition and wish to see the world. She knew that
colonial girls had married Englishmen of family and gone home and held
their own there, and she did not see why she could not do it.
Warton went round to his friend Marshall's house, and found him turning
in.
When he told the latter what he had done about Lone Star, and what he
had heard about Induna being entered by Mr Lazarus, or Lascelles, as
that gentleman had taken to call himself since he had made money on the
Diamond Fields, he got very little sympathy.
"You must have been a fool to have backed the mare before you knew the
entries. Believed Lazarus would not enter Induna because he said he was
not going to, why he would sell his brother to please his friend Sir
Harry; besides, he is not above a robbery on his own account. And as
for its not paying them to enter the horse, and to have to buy it in,
why they can back it for a good bit. Probably Howlett was doing it for
them when he laid you those bets," said Marshall.
"Do you think we have any chance? I should like to beat that fellow
Ferriard."
"Chance! devil a bit; no race is a certainty till the jockey is weighed
in, and it's all right. But this goes pretty near one."
Warton went off greatly irritated with himself, and very much cut up and
pained about Polly Short's treatment of him. When he got back to his
house he sat for some time in a chair outside his house, smoking and
thinking over the unpleasant events of the evening. He had half gone to
sleep when he was woke up by hearing the voices of two men, who were
passing along the road on the side of the reed fence round his garden.
"Waste my time, do you say? don't see it--why we haven't done badly
to-night, or this week either; and one can't be always at business.
What's life without sentiment, my dear Bill?"
"All right, we ain't done so bad to-night, only it's a bit rilin' when
one sees a chance of getting up a bit of Poker or Loo to find that
you're hanging after that girl and out of the way."
The first speaker spoke in the tones of an educated man and a gentleman.
The second voice was a loud, gruff one, and seemed to belong to some
one in a lower grade of society.
Joe Warton somehow thought he knew both voices, so he got up and looked
over the fence. He found that the men had parted company; one had
turned down a road and was out of sight; the other he could see. He was
a heavily built man over six feet high, and Warton recognised him as a
man called McNeil, who had not been long in Kimberley. He was rather a
rough sort of fellow, who had knocked about the world a good deal. He
professed to have come out to look at the mines, and report on them for
a syndicate of capitalists at home. He was a good deal at the club,
though some members thought him rather a doubtful character. The queer
thing was, that Joe could not help suspecting that he had recognised in
the other voice that of Ferriard. He remembered that Ferriard, though
he was friendly enough to most men, had been rather standoffish to
McNeil, and professed some surprise at meeting a man like him in a club,
though he had afterwards played cards with him on several occasions, as
they both seemed to have a keen taste for play. Yet if Warton's
suspicions were right, the two men seemed to be on the most confidential
footing. After all he was not sure. He had no reason to suspect that
Ferriard was not perfectly _bona fide_ and straight, and because he
disliked the man and was jealous of him, he ought to be all the more
careful not to spread injurious reports about him. It was no business
of his, and he would not mix himself up in it, he thought, as he
undressed and went to bed.
When the day of the races came, Joe Warton's chances of winning the
Ladies' Purse did not look any more hopeful than they were when the
entries were published; nor had he managed to hedge any of the money he
had put on Lone Star.
The public considered that it was a certainty for Induna, and it was
generally thought that Mr Lascelles had been somewhat greedy and
unsportsmanlike in entering his horse for the minor event, instead of
trying to win one of the big ones. However, Mr Lascelles had joined
his forces with some other owners, and had settled to take a share in
the stakes they might win, instead of opposing them with Induna, one of
the fastest horses ever bred in the colony, and one which several good
judges thought might at the weights have a chance of beating the
imported horses in the two principal handicaps. Men grumbled and said
that the races were being made a cut and dried affair of, but Mr
Lascelles did not care, so long as he was backed up by his friend
Ferriard, about whom he swaggered and boasted more and more every day.
He liked to think that Ferriard was going to ride for him. The race
would be reported in the home papers, and there would be a crop of
paragraphs about it, and the world in general would learn that Sir Harry
Ferriard had sported his, Mr Lascelles, colours.
If Joe Warton's chances of winning the race looked hopeless, his chances
of winning what he cared a great deal more about, namely Polly Short's
affections, seemed to be almost as small. Their quarrel had grown more
serious during the last few days. The Kimberley Race Ball had taken
place, and Joe had attended it. He had not asked Polly to dance with
him, and though he was an awkward dancer enough, generally managing to
get her more or less torn and in trouble, she was none the less inclined
to be angry with him for taking so little notice of her. At the same
time Ferriard's attentions had been very marked, and people were
canvassing her chances of becoming Lady Ferriard. A good many of her
friends laughed at the idea of his being such a fool as to bring home a
bride from the Diamond Fields, but they did not know as much as Polly
did, as she sat on the grand stand watching the horses entered for the
Ladies' Purse. The day before Ferriard had asked her to marry him, but
his proposal had been a somewhat strange one. He had just received a
cablegram he said, which made it necessary for him to put off his trip
up country and start for England almost at once, and he wanted her to
marry him in a week's time and go home with him. Now that she had to
make up her mind she felt half afraid. It had come so suddenly. Though
she felt certain that Ferriard was in love with her, she felt somehow
that she was doubtful whether she did not like her old lover best.
As she watched old Lone Star being saddled, and saw Joe Warton looking
glum and out of spirits, she experienced a feeling of something like
remorse. After all old friends were surest, she thought.
Lone Star had not many supporters. The old mare had won a good many
races on the Diamond Fields, and his owner was one of the most popular
men there. Little Lazarus might just as well have run Induna in one of
the other races, and left the Ladies' Purse for Lone Star, and one or
two others, who would have had a fair chance. But there is no sentiment
about betting, and the bookmakers' cry of "Odds bar one, eight to one
bar one, ten to one bar one!" met with very few responses. One or two
men took the odds to a few sovereigns on the off-chance. People on the
Diamond Fields are as a rule great believers in the off-chance. Still
Joe Warton himself said he did not think he could win, and he advised
his friends to leave it alone.
"Beg your pardon, sir, but will you let me have a look through your
race-glasses for a second?" said a grey-haired, elderly-looking man,
whom Joe never remembered having seen before, and who had just bustled
into the grand stand, just as the horses were going down to the
starting-post. "That black is the horse Sir Harry Ferriard rides, isn't
it? blue and yellow cap? Thank you, sir, I've seen what I want," he
added, with rather a satisfied air, as he gave the glasses back again to
Warton.
"That's the horse which will win," Joe said, as he took the glasses.
"So they all seem to think, but maybe it isn't one of Sir Harry's lucky
days," the grey-haired man answered, as he bustled away, and Warton saw
him in a second or two afterwards speaking rather earnestly to an
inspector of police, who was in the ring. Whatever the grey-haired man
had to say, seemed to surprise the latter a good deal.
"All right, in the weighing-room after the race. It will be done neatly
and quietly, and no fuss; and a very pretty little bit of business it
will be," the grey-haired man said, as he bustled away, and he seemed to
leave the inspector with something to do, for the latter at once went
and spoke to one of the mounted men.
Joe Warton was Wondering who the grey-haired man was, when he noticed
that after he had spoken to the inspector he passed closed to McNeil,
the man whom he had recognised the night before outside his garden. The
latter seemed also, so Warton thought, to be a good deal interested in
the grey-haired man. In fact, he would have wagered, from the
expression of his face, that he recognised the stranger.
However, Joe Warton did not bother himself any more about them, for just
then there was a cry of "They're off!" He was not long in suspense.
"Induna wins!" was shouted out before the horses had got a furlong.
"Lone Star is coming up--No, it's no good, she can't catch Induna,"
Warton said, as he put his glasses back in their case, for the race was
practically over.
Polly Short looked at the race and felt that she was sorry, and that she
would give a good deal to see old Lone Star win and that Joe should have
the purse she had worked, though she supposed he would not care much for
it now.
It was about as tame a race as could be seen, but as the winner passed
the post, followed by Lone Star, a somewhat startling incident occurred.
The grey-haired man who had borrowed Warton's glass, had not gone up to
the stand; McNeil also had stopped below and stood just behind him.
Suddenly he sprang forward, seized the grey-haired man under his two
arms and lifted him clean up into the air, at the same time shouting in
a voice that could be heard all over the course,--
"Jim! Slim Jim! ride like hell! look here! Old Sharp has come out
after you!"
"Hullo! what's the matter with Sir Harry? he don't seem to be able to
stop the horse. Why, he's going round twice--no he ain't! Where the
deuce is he going?" said Mr Lascelles, as he saw his horse shoot out
from a canter into a gallop, and dash past the paddock at a racing pace.
"Well, that's a rum way to finish a race! I suppose it's what they do
at the club meeting where he rides at home. But I don't see the sense
of it."
Mr Lascelles' astonishment increased considerably as he saw a mounted
policeman set off in hot pursuit of the winner.
"He's gone mad! He can't stop the horse! He's got a sunstroke! He
don't know where the winning-post is!" were the opinions shouted out by
the lookers-on.
"What price against the peeler?" called out some one in the ring. To
which there was an answering yell of "Any odds!"
"He knows where he's going to finish--it's Stella Land he is making for,
and my opinion is he will get there, for none of our men have anything
that will catch him," the Kimberley inspector said, and he looked at the
grey-haired man with grim smile.
"Where is that man who interfered with me? Ah, it's you, is it?" the
latter said as he saw McNeil, who was straining his eyes at the race,
not on the card, which was now taking place; "so you knew me, did you?
I fancy I know you."
"Know you, old man! I'd have known yer made into soup. Glad you
remember me, for you've no old accounts against me," the big man
answered cheerily enough.
In the mean time George Marshall, the rider of Lone Star, had gone to
the weighing-room.
"I'll weigh in at once, I think; and I fancy old Lone Star has won this
race after all, for Sir Harry Ferriard won't pass the scales unless he
loses the race he is riding now, and it's long odds on him for that," he
said to the stewards who were superintending there.
The rider of Induna, Sir Harry Ferriard, _alias_ Slim Jim, _alias_
Captain Barton, _alias et cetera_, never did come back to weigh in. He
never came back to Kimberley at all.
Mr Lascelles never saw his aristocratic acquaintance or his horse
Induna again. The former turned out to be a well-known criminal, who
was wanted by the London police for a heavy Bill forgery case.
Inspector Sharp of Scotland Yard had tracked him out to the Diamond
Fields, and just arrived by the coach in time to get up to the
racecourse and see him go down to the start on Induna.
The inspector does not often speak about that trip to South Africa,
which he hoped would have been such a successful episode in his
professional career. He has a mean opinion of a country where a fast
horse enables a fugitive to get away from the police.
Joe Warton won the bets he was in such a hurry to make, and he spent the
money in furnishing a house for Pretty Polly Short, who became Mrs
Warton after all. She told him that before the sensational end of that
queer race she had determined to give up the idea of becoming Lady
Ferriard, on the chance of making it up with him again, and he believed
her.
Story 12.