It was at the `George Hotel' at Portsmouth (said Gordon, as we paced the
deck of the `Trojan' on our voyage home) that I spent my last evening in
England with my brother. The next day I was to see him off for Cape
Coast Castle, where he was going to serve with his regiment in the
Ashantee war.
To-day I can remember the dingy old smoking-room in which we sat till
late at night, talking over the home and school days which were over,
and our lives, which having always run together, seemed then to be
branching far apart. We had no other relations alive; our father had
died that year. The old castle in Sutherland, in which we had been
born, had been sold to a rich London stock-broker, and our old life
seemed to have come to an end. My brother, he was the elder, had chosen
the army for his profession. He would have little but his pay to live
upon, but it seemed to him to be the proper career for one of his race.
I had determined to make money; it had been my dream that I would make
my fortune in some distant part of the world where fortunes were to be
made easily, though I did not quite know how. I was to come back to
Scotland and settle down there, and we Gordons were to take our own
place again. A few days after my brother sailed I was to start for
South America, the country I had at last determined to be the land where
that fortune would be soonest made. My brother had listened to all my
schemes; and then we had talked about the campaign for which he was
going to start. I think we both thought a good deal of the terrible
climate he was going to face, and we became grave as the idea came into
our minds that the next day's parting was likely to be a long one.
There was a story in our family that both of us must have been thinking
of, for while it was in my mind my brother Donald suddenly spoke about
it. The story was of a compact made between our grandfather and his
brother. They were both soldiers, and their regiments were on service,
one in Spain and the other in America. The agreement was that if one of
them were killed, he would, if he were allowed to do so, appear to the
other. Our uncle was killed in America, and it was always believed most
religiously in our family that he was allowed to perform his promise,
and that on the day he was killed my grandfather, who was in Spain, saw
him and knew of his death. It was of this story, as we grew more
thoughtful, on that last evening we were to spend together, my brother
reminded me. "Let us make the same promise; the one who lives will be
the last of our name and race, and perhaps it would be as well for him
to know it at once," he said to me. We had both become grave and
earnest enough, and as we grasped each other's hands and made that
promise I think we felt it was not one lightly made. The next morning I
saw him off. He said no more about our promise, yet as he stood on the
deck of the troopship and I on the dockyard, I think we both thought of
it.
Neither King Koffee or the more dire potentate King Fever hurt my
brother, and he came home well and in good spirits, and got on in the
service, and of what fighting there was managed to see plenty.
I am sorry to say that, unlike him, I did not fulfil the career I had
mapped out for myself. I went to South America and did not succeed; and
then tried one country after another, until one day, some nine years
after I left England, I found myself in South Africa, finishing a long
tramp from the gold-fields to the Diamond Fields. So far that fortune
which I had gone out to seek was as far away in the future as ever. I
had ceased even to hope for it. I had been a proverbial rolling stone
and had gathered no moss. I had tried my luck in Canada, Australia, and
South Africa, and had found each country worse than the one I had been
in before.
My experiences were not very interesting, and they would only make a
tale which has already been told many a time before. I had begun to
laugh grimly at my old hopes of making a fortune and buying back some of
the family property. And yet my ideas had not been so absurd either; I
had seen men whose chances did not seem to be much better than mine
succeed and make something like the fortune I had dreamt of. Still I
laughed when I contrasted my life with what I had expected it would have
been. Certainly there had been plenty of incident in it; but it was a
better life to talk about than to live--a life full of long dreary days
of rough uncongenial society, and I am sorry to say, of coarse,
brutalising dissipation and of degrading poverty brought about thereby.
I failed at first from bad luck, and afterwards from my own fault.
After one or two failures I came to South Africa and went up to the
Diamond Fields. Kimberley, when I came there, seemed to be the city of
the prodigal son. He was there devouring his substance and getting the
worst of its kind for it, and feeding the swine, or rather, minding a
bar, which is a good colonial equivalent, and only too ready to eat of
the husk he served out. I had little substance to devour, and when I
had used it up was not even as lucky as the prodigal, for I got nothing
to do at all. From there I went up to the gold-fields in the Transvaal,
and two years of varied luck in digging ended in my being on my way
tramping back. I had not done much towards making my fortune, I had not
a penny in my pocket, my boots were worn out, and I had not had a meal
for twelve hours, and I was very doubtful as to how or where I should
get the next one. I was doing my last day's tramp. Far away across the
veldt I could see the mounds of earth that had been taken out of the
Kimberley mine, and as slowly and painfully I dragged across that weary
flat they seemed to grow longer every step I took.
It was with little feelings of hope I saw the distant view of that most
hideous of towns, Kimberley. When I left the gold-fields I had thought
that I could hardly be worse off than I had been there, and that I would
get some work at the diamond mines. But, weary with my long journey,
and weak from hunger and dysentery that had come over me, I had lost all
strength, and thought that the best I could hope for would be that I
should be allowed to crawl into the hospital at Kimberley and die there.
Every step I took pained me, for my feet were sore and swollen. I
remember I had been thinking a good deal about my brother and
contrasting his career with mine. Already he was known as one of the
most promising young officers in the army. I had not heard from him for
years, for I had left off writing, and he did not know where to write to
me. But I had seen by the papers that he had gained the Victoria Cross
in Afghanistan. I thought of him and I thought of myself, and cursed my
luck then, for I was too weak and out of spirits to fool myself; I
cursed my own folly, which I knew had been the cause of my having come
down so low. Slowly and hopelessly I stumbled along through the sand.
"When should I get to Kimberley, what should I do when I got there?" I
kept asking myself, and I felt too dull and tired out to answer the
question. I had very few friends there, and my appearance, ragged,
almost barefooted and obviously penniless, would not tell in my favour.
"What was the good of walking any faster? I might as well sleep there
on the veldt as go on," I said to myself; and then stumbling over a
stone, I half fell, half threw myself down beside the road, and lay
there exhausted, thoughtless, and almost insensible. I was roused by
some one lifting me up and pouring brandy down my throat.
"Played out, eh? well, take a good nip of this, it will pull you
together if anything will, it's Eckshaw's Number One, the best brandy
that comes to this cursed country. Where have you come from, eh?" The
voice I somehow seemed to remember, and as the brandy revived me I took
a look at the Good Samaritan who had come to my assistance. I knew him;
the pleasant voice belonged to Jim Dormer, and it was his handsome
reckless face I saw looking down at me.
"I have come from the gold-fields and have had a hardish time of it," I
said in answer to his question.
"Well, I don't know that I'd have done myself up like that to come to
this wretched hole Kimberley; but you'd better get into my cart--I'll
give you a lift in anyhow," he said. Of course I was glad enough to
accept his offer and to get into his cart, which was drawn up close to
where we were, his Kaffir boy holding the reins.
"Let's see, ain't you Mr Gordon, who used to have claims at old De
Beer's? Thought I knew you. Do you remember that day on the racecourse
when Cockney Bill and his pals tried the system of going for the banker
at faro and jumping his satchel? That system would have come off if it
hadn't been for your taking a hand in the game." I remembered the
incident he alluded to, which took place one evening after the races.
Some roughs had made an attack upon him and his partner, who were
keeping a faro table, and I, who had been losing my money to him, came
to his assistance. "I haven't forgotten it and shan't in a hurry.
`That's the sort of chap I'd like to have with me in anything that
wanted good grit,' I said to myself when I saw you in that row," he
said.
"Look here, Mr Gordon, where are you going to put up when you get to
Kimberley?" he added, after thinking for some time. "If you like to
come to my place I can look after you and give you as good a room as you
will get at any of the hotels, and you'll be made quiet and
comfortable." It was a good-natured offer, and all the more
good-natured from the way he put it; but I hesitated before I accepted
it.
"Ah, you think that stopping with Jim Dormer won't sound over well, and
I don't say you're not right; but times are bad in the camp and there
isn't much chance of your getting a billet all at once, so you might
stop at my place till you get over your tramp down; but you won't hurt
my feelings by refusing, I ain't one of the respectable crowd and don't
want to be."
He had guessed my thoughts. He was a pleasant, well-mannered fellow
enough, but he had acquired rather a doubtful character, and I am afraid
to a certain extent deserved it. It would be difficult for any one who
wished to do so in a friendly spirit to say how he lived and had lived
for the last ten years. He himself would probably admit that he was a
professional gambler. His enemies would declare that in the matter of
buying stolen diamonds he was not altogether without reproach. This
charge, however, was not true, for he preferred winning money from the
buyers of stolen diamonds to indulging in such a risky trade on his own
account. He never for one moment was able to see that he was one whit
worse than the people who belonged to what he called the respectable
crowd.
He won money from some of the biggest thieves in the camp, so he was
called a sharper and an associate of bad characters, while your
respectable men got hold of honest men's money with their bubble
companies. "He wished he got as much the best of it at a deal of faro
as honest Mr Bowker, the member of the Legislative Assembly, did when
he started the Boschfontein Mining Company. He was too straight to be
respectable, that's where he went wrong," he would say to me when I got
to know him better; and I believe he thought it.
"Thanks, you're a good fellow, but I don't like to sponge on you; I am
dead broke," I said in answer to his invitation.
"Dead broke be blowed! No man's dead broke till his neck's broke; and
as for sponging on me, one never loses anything by doing a good turn to
one of your sort who has good grit. You're looking pretty bad though--
dysentery do you say? Well, you'd better watch it; come up to my place
and I'll put you straight," he said.
It was not, perhaps, a very wise thing to do, but beggars can't be
choosers, and I was very little more than a beggar, besides I liked Jim
Dormer's cheery, free-and-easy manner. It was pleasant to meet a man
who seemed to think something of one although one was unsuccessful and
dead broke. So I accepted his offer, and leaned back in the cart,
relieved to think that I should have a place to rest in after my long
weary journey.
Jim Dormer was on his way back from a visit to a roadside canteen, where
a man he was interested in was training for a foot-race. "I am glad I
met you; I like a man who has got grit; maybe it will be a lucky meeting
for the pair of us," he said somewhat enigmatically. I did not take
much thought about what his motives might be, I was too tired. "Take a
man as you find him; he has been a good friend to me anyhow," I thought
as I drove through the well-known street. The town looked dull and
depressed; there was a marked change, one could see that bad times were
felt more than they were when I left some months before. Bars, stores,
and billiard-rooms that used to be doing a roaring business were empty.
Several stores were to let; there was not as much traffic in the
streets, while I fancied there was something in the listless gait of the
men one saw lounging about which expressed bad times. Glad enough was I
when we pulled up at a neat iron house where Jim lived, and where that
great luxury, as it seemed to me then, a bed, was to be found provided
for me after I had attempted a meal.
A fortnight afterwards found me still staying with Jim. The morning
after I had arrived at his house I had found myself too ill to get up;
and nothing could have been kinder than he was to me, nursing me very
carefully and seeing that I had everything that I wanted. When I had
become well enough to go out and look for work he did not show much
sympathy with my endeavour to find something to do. He had, I found
out, a deep-rooted conviction that any attempts to get on in life by
what people called honest labour was a vanity and a delusion. To make a
pile and clear out of the country ought to be the aim and object of
every one, and it was absurd being too particular as to how that pile
was to be made, was the doctrine he was always preaching. Of all the
more generally accepted modes of making a fortune he was most sceptical.
Digging was a losing game, he considered. Even canteen keeping was
hardly good enough. "What one wanted," he would say with much candour,
"was to go in for one good swindle and then clear off."
"You bet what you and I want to do is to get hold of a few thousands,
and then say good-bye to the country. Don't tell me we can't do it,
there is lots of money in the camp, though times may be so bad," he said
to me one evening as I was sitting in the verandah after a tiring day
spent walking round the mines looking for work. "I was thinking of
something in the New Mine line; there is a good deal to be done at that,
but I hardly care to go in for the game; it's too much one of your
respectable man's swindles for me, taking some poor devil's last sov or
two, who thinks the new rush is going to turn up trumps: it's always
your poor devils who are landed by that sort of swindle, now I only want
to catch the big fish." I made some remark in answer to this, more or
less commending him for indulging in his conscientious scruples. I am
afraid in my then frame of mind Jim Dormer's peculiar code of morality
was very taking. I began to agree with him that every one was more or
less of a swindler, and that the more prosperous men were the adroiter
scoundrels. Tramping about all day looking in vain for work put one in
a suitable frame of mind for listening to my friend's notions of things
in general and of the Diamond Field public in particular.
"Yes, we must get hold of some money somehow. See there, look at that
cart," he said, pointing to the mail-cart that was being driven along
the road past the house, "there is not less than thirty thousand pounds'
worth of diamonds going across the veldt to-night, for that is a good
bit less than the average amount they send home every week! Thirty
thousand pounds, my boy! that would be a good haul, eh?" I watched the
cart being driven along towards the open veldt, and I thought of how it
was going to travel across miles of desert veldt with only one policeman
upon it to guard its precious contents. So far as I knew, that mail,
which started on Thursday with the week's finds to catch the home
steamer, had never been robbed. My friend did not say anything more
about the cart, though I noticed he watched it till it was out of sight,
and then he smoked in silence for some time. Then he returned to the
subject, and made some remark about how strange it was that the mail had
never stuck up; and we began to discuss how easily it could be done.
"Nobody would lose one penny except the insurance companies and banks,
for the diamonds are insured for more than they will sell for; yes, it's
just the thing sticking out; sooner or later it will be done, and then
they will put on a stronger guard," he said, looking at me rather
carefully as he spoke, as if he wished to see how I took what he was
saying. My evil genius led me to grumble out some sort of agreement
with what he said.
"Believe me, I'd like to collar that pool, or take a half or a third
share of it," he answered, "then I'd leave this cursed country. And it
ain't so tough a job neither. One only has to wait with a string across
the road to upset the horses, and as they go down jump on the cart, get
the mail-bags, tie up the driver and the guard, and get back to camp,
and the next morning at breakfast look as mild as milk while every one's
jawing about one's work the night before. It would be a pretty little
game to play, eh, my boy? Better than going round to those managers and
asking for a job as an overseer and being treated like a nigger, and
being told to clear off and be damned by 'em."
"But there's the policeman; he is armed and would show fight, and I
shouldn't like to hurt a chap who was only doing his duty," I answered.
"Well, nor would I; but I never see that mail-cart pass without
wondering who will take the pool; some one will, mind you," he said, and
then turned the conversation to some other subject.
A week or so more passed and I got nothing to do. At one time I thought
I ought not to go on staying with Dormer and living upon him, but he
laughed away my scruples. "What did it matter? it wasn't as if I was
always going to have bad luck. Was I ashamed of staying with him?" he
would remark when I talked of going away. It always ended in my staying
on. I was generally seen with him, I used to get money on for him when
he played billiards or shot pigeons or made any other match, and to do
some other little things for him; in fact, I began to be identified as
Jim Dormer's pal.
Very few visitors came to see us at the house. Dormer carried on his
business down the town in billiard-rooms and canteens; he never asked me
to help him at faro or roulette or any of the games he played, nor did
he impart to me any of the tricks of his trade. Nothing could be kinder
than his manner to me; but nevertheless I felt that I was bound to repay
him for his kindness, and that I was under a great obligation to him.
After some time he once or twice stayed at home of an evening and a man
came in to see him. The visitor was not a pleasant-looking person. He
had a shifty, half-ashamed expression, and as he sat clumsily playing
cards with Dormer he looked as if he knew he ought not to be where he
was.
"Who's that? Don't like his looks, can't look one in the face," I asked
Jim one night when he had left.
"That! oh, he's a most respectable man, a sergeant in the police. We
are thinking of going in for a little spec together, and you ought to be
in it too. That's the chap who goes down with the diamond mail. Old
Jacobus the driver is going to be made a little drunker than usual, the
policeman is to make a desperate resistance, and to be overpowered by us
two, and then the three of us divide the swag, do you see?"
Though I had not been boarding very luxuriously for some time, I had
been drinking heavily. There was always drink to be had at Dormer's
house and when I went about with him, and lately I had drunk to drown my
anxiety. I don't intend to ape the canting cry of the criminal who,
when he's convicted of jumping upon his wife, tells the judge that "it's
all the drink wot's done it." Drink of itself doesn't often make a
criminal of a man, but it often enough robs him of all that sense of
prudence which men mistake for conscience. If my brain had been clear
of alcohol I think I should have refused Dormer's suggestion at once; as
it was there was something in it that took my fancy. Instead of
refusing, I began to question him as to how it could be done. His
answer was that it would be easy enough. The mail-cart was to be
stopped by a rope tied across the road; the guard and the driver were to
be tied up--the latter would not be likely to make a very determined
resistance, while the former would be our confederate. When we had
secured the diamonds we had nothing to do but to get back to Kimberley.
Our confederate would take care not to be able to identify us, and there
would be, so Jim urged, very little risk of our getting into trouble or
failing to secure the rich booty.
"It's our last chance of making a good pile in the country; every day I
expect that some one else will try the trick, and then they will put on
a strong guard. It's the one good thing left in the country," he said;
and then he began to talk about the rich prize we should secure without
any one except the banks and insurance people being one bit the worse.
"I don't know whom to go to if you won't go in for this; there are
plenty of men in the camp who would jump at the chance, but they ain't
the sort I'd like to trust, but you're good grit and I'd trust you any
day," he said; "come, I know you will stick to a pal." For a second or
two I hesitated, and then I said I would go in for it, and we shook
hands over the agreement.
It was on a Monday that I had this conversation with him, and it was on
the following Thursday that the cart was to be stopped. The next day
the police sergeant came up to the house to finally arrange his plans.
I didn't like the man's looks any better on that occasion. In his
presence I began to feel ashamed of myself because I was going to become
a thief. It seemed disgraceful to be mixed up in such a business with
that shifty-looking scoundrel. Dormer's society, on the other hand,
made me reckless and in good spirits, while he took care that I had
drink enough to prevent my thinking too much.
The place we had chosen to make our attack upon the cart was about
twenty miles from Kimberley, and the cart would pass there about ten
o'clock in the evening. An hour before that time Jim Dormer and I were
sitting behind some rocks near the road at that place where we had
agreed to stop the cart. We had the rope ready to put across the road
when it was time for the cart to pass, while we both had our revolvers,
with which we intended to make a great display of a determined attack.
"It's no good being too soon with the rope, the cart won't be before its
time, and something else might pass," Dormer said as he lit a match to
look at his watch.
"How long have we to wait?" I asked, for I began to feel rather nervous
and to wish the time for action had come.
"An hour or more before the cart is due here; take a drink," he said,
handing me a whiskey-flask. I half emptied the flask and lit a pipe,
and listened to my companion, who, to cheer me up, I fancy, began to
talk about the time we would have when we cleared out of the country
with the nice little pile we would make by that evening's work.
Dormer's conversation and whiskey had its intended effect, and I got
back my careless, reckless spirits.
It was not very pleasant work waiting, the night had clouded over an
hour or so before, and the flashes of lightning seemed to be terribly
near us, while soon after the first flash the storm broke and the rain
came down in torrents, as it does on the South African veldt in a
summer's thunderstorm.
"All the better for us, my lad, just the night for the job," he said as
we tried to huddle behind the boulders to get out of the rain. Dormer
talked away about the delights of Paris and London and the time we would
have at home, while we both took several more pulls at the
whiskey-bottle; for all that the time went slowly, and we began to feel
wretchedly uncomfortable.
As we sat there waiting for the time to arrive for us to begin our work
and to stretch the rope across the road which was to stop the cart, it
certainly seemed that my fate was sealed, and that I was destined to
become a successful scoundrel or a skulking jail-bird for the rest of my
life. Looking back I cannot remember that I felt much shame or remorse.
I was infected with Dormer's ideas of things. What we were going to do
would not hurt any individual very much; it seemed to me then that it
was a much more harmless thing than the financial robberies which were
carried out by men who were considered most respectable persons; and as
for the danger of being found out, I didn't see where it came in, I
thought, as I took a drink from the bottle.
"Easy with that bottle, old chap, or you will be hitting some one when
you let off your revolver; keep yourself cool, and mind you go straight
for old Jacob, and see that he don't pull the crape off your face,"
Dormer said to me. Then he walked some yards off to take a look at the
spot in the road he had chosen for tying the rope across.
As he left me a strange change seemed to come over me. The reckless
devil-may-care spirits I had been in left me, and I felt a sense of awe
as if I knew that something was going to happen. Then a feeling came
over me that some one was present, and all at once the rocks in front of
me seemed to fade away, and where they had been I saw an unearthly
luminous mist, and through it I saw a figure dressed as an officer in a
Highland regiment. I could see that his arms were thrown back, his
sword was falling from his hand. There was a rent in the breast of his
coat, and in his face was the look of death. I knew him; he was my
brother Donald; he had grown from a lad into a man, and he was handsome
and more soldierlike than when I had seen him last. I remembered our
compact, and then I knew that my brother was dead. There was the proud
look of one who had earned the respect of his fellow-men in his highbred
face. For one instant our eyes seemed to meet, and then as I sprang
forward calling to him by name the figure and the mist surrounding it
seemed to fade away. "Heaven help me," I thought, "I am the last of our
race." A flood of home memories, which for some time I had done my best
to banish from my thoughts, came back to me. As I touched my face and
felt the mask of crape I had on, I realised what I was going to do, and
that I was about to become a common criminal.
"What on earth are you shouting for? what's the matter with you, man?
we'd better be moving and fixing the rope," I heard Dormer say as he
came back to where I was. I did not answer, but stood irresolute for a
second or two. I felt half-ashamed to give up the adventure I had
engaged in, but after what I had seen I was determined not to engage in
it.
"Jim, I am going to cut it; I have had a warning not to go on with
this--let's give it up."
"Give it up by--" and Dormer gave vent to his surprise and disgust in
very strong language. "Well, I did think you were good grit; but you
can't give it up now. What's come over you all at once?" He was
thoroughly disgusted with me; such faith in human nature as remained to
him had evidently received a shock. "Well, I'd have never thought it of
you, you whom I always believed in. Come, pull yourself together and do
what you said you'd do; it's too late to turn tail now." And then
looking into my face and seeing how agitated I was, he asked me what on
earth had happened to me. I think, like many a gambler and adventurer
of his type, Jim had a strong vein of superstition in his nature. When
I told him something of what I had seen he was somewhat impressed by it,
and on my again expressing my determination to turn back and have no
more to do with it he did not attempt to persuade me. Nor did he think
of doing the thing by himself. He growled out a few sentences of
disgust, and sulkily walked after me as I turned and made the best of my
way towards Kimberley. We kept some way from the road; I hardly know
why I did this, but I think it was because I did not wish to pass too
close to the post-cart. After about half-an-hour we saw the post-cart
driven along, and then Jim Dormer's feelings became too much for him
again, and he burst out into a string of oaths and reproaches. I must
say I quite saw how contemptible my conduct must seem to him, and to a
certain extent I sympathised with him. Suddenly he came to a stop and
clutched my arm, motioning me to dodge behind some bushes. I did so,
and in a few seconds three horsemen rode almost by where we were.
"We are well out of that little trap. Did you see who they were? I
will swear to two of them being Lamb and Stedman, the detectives. By
George! but I will go back from all I've been saying; that was a
straight tip you got wherever it came from to give up this job," Dormer
whispered to me when they had ridden past. "That hound of a policeman
has rounded on us and given information," he added. It turned out
afterwards that this idea of his was right. It was pretty clear that we
had just been in time in leaving the place where we had agreed to wait
for the cart. Our plot had been betrayed and a very warm reception had
been arranged for us. Even as it was we felt that there was some chance
of our being arrested, and we were both glad enough when we were got
back to Kimberley and were safe in our beds.
Tired though I was, I slept very little, but I lay awake and thought of
my brother, whom I was convinced was no more, and of the old home days.
I thought more seriously of my degraded life and made more good
resolutions than I had done for many a long day. I think I kept them
fairly well, though I had a hard time of it for some time to come. At
last I got some work to do for a company on the Transvaal gold-fields,
and since then I have made a living, though I don't know that I am
likely to make the fortune I used to dream of. Dormer and I parted good
friends. "Your second-sight seems as if it had been a warning to you to
keep straight, and I'd do it if I were you; as for me, well, it's
different," he said as we shook hands. He left South Africa shortly
after this, and I don't know what happened to him.
The Kimberley newspaper a day or two after had a telegram in it telling
of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and when I saw full particulars of it
some weeks after I learnt that my brother had been shot when leading his
company in that engagement.
Story 13.