Gazing down upon me was a face that I shall never forget to my dying day the face of a woman, whose skin of ivory whiteness accentuated the unfathomable blackness of the most wonderful eyes I shall ever behold.
They seemed to pierce me through and through, and to search my very soul, as I lay there and gazed back into them as a fascinated bird gazes back into the eyes of the striking snake.
Power infinite there was in those commanding orbs, wisdom and knowledge surpassing that of mere mankind infinite good or infinite evil I know not which!
I shrank in mortal terror at their merciless scrutiny, but I could neither close my eyes nor tear them away, until a hand was passed across my brow, and the spell was broken.
Now a knife cut my bonds, and I was raised by a strong arm to a sitting posture.
How is it possible to describe the horror of the appalling scene that met my shrinking eyes, as for the first time since I had been a prisoner I was able to look upon my surroundings.
The blood-red sun was setting in a stormy sky, from which in the distance the lightning still flickered, close beside me stood the tall form of the priestess, and below, on the lower tiers of the pyramid, were grouped about twenty men priests I judged them to be all robed in white garments, all white men, of fierce and sinister aspect.
But it was not upon these that my eyes rested, but upon the grim and awful holocaust that stretched in all directions below and beyond.
For the pyramid stood as an island in a sea of dead men: from its base, to the mighty walls that encircled the vast floor of the crater, it stretched in an unbroken sheet unbroken, that is, except for the myriad drowned bodies from which the rapidly receding flood was fast draining away.
The glare from the crimson sunset turned it into a sea of blood, and each moment the forms of the drowned multitude showed more and more distinctly; clasping and clinging to each other in the awful contortions of death, as they had struggled with each other in their frantic fight against that awful cataclysm; heap upon heap, line after line, thousands upon thousands of them a multitude a whole nation overwhelmed and destroyed.
Not white men such as the priests, who alone had been saved upon the pyramid, but brown men of Inyati's type, their bodies nude except for a loincloth.
Stunned and dismayed at the fearful sight, I sat inert upon the altar, and gazed upon the mighty hecatomb in utter forgetfulness of my own awful position, till the priestess, who had awakened me, and who also had stood in silent contemplation, turned and once more fixed her glowing eyes upon me.
"Look well, O stranger, look well upon these thy dead," she said in a clear, ringing voice; "upon these who would have sacrificed thee yet who, dying, called upon thee, their bound sacrifice, to save them! 'Save us, Mighty One!' they supplicated, 'thou who art mightier than the Snake save us!' . . . Poor fools they are dead all, all, are dead. . . . And thou, thou helpless 'Mighty One'" she mocked, "art thou content with this thy vengeance, or must we poor servants of the Snake also die to appease thy wrath?"
The look and tone of fierce mockery brought back to me all the fear of hideous torture I had felt before, and I begged that they should mercifully kill me and have done.
"Nay," she replied, "fear not that shall not be I have told thee thy life is safe. Well do I know that thou art but a man, and no god, such as these poor fools thought thee at the last but the Snake hath spared thee, and thy life is sacred. Free shalt thou go, free and with an abundance of the bright stones these dead people deemed sacred and the lust of which brought thee, O stranger, unasked and unwelcome to this our land. Life shall be thine and thou shalt be guided back to the land from whence thou earnest; but thou shalt eat first of the fruit of forgetfulness, and never shalt thou find again the path by which thou earnest hither, or that other by which thou shalt return."
The solemn tone and promise allayed my fears somewhat; at least my life was to be spared; but this talk of not finding the path again did it mean that they would blind me?
Even as the thought entered my mind the mysterious being who held me in her power answered it as though I had spoken it aloud.
"Fear not, I say again," said she, "neither thine eyes, nor a hair of thy head shall be injured. Rather do I grant thee a precious boon, such as many crave for in vain the boon of forgetfulness . . . yet not of all! Stand upon thy feet, O stranger, and look well upon this lake of the dead, then turn and look upon me these things thou shalt not forget."
Weak and shaken by my awful experience, I tottered as I tried to stand upright, and but for her supporting hand I should have fallen. "Aye thou art weak," said she again, "but that which I will give will bring back the strength to thy palsied limbs. . . . Look well, I say, and forget not this!"
Forget! How could I ever forget that awful scene the blood-red water, the countless heaps of drowned men, the upturned faces of the pale priests below me, their dark eyes fixed upon me with looks of hatred and malevolence.
"Aye, they would torture and sacrifice thee," said the strange being who dominated them, and who held my life in her hands, and who again answered my unspoken thought, "but that may not be. . . . And now look thou on me and forget not."
She stood proudly erect, her brow bound by a bronze snake the miniature of the idol above, the diamond set in this strange coronet outdone in splendor by the fires of her wondrous eyes. And now I saw her not as a sphinx-like being of terror, but as a glorious woman, a creature to be adored for her beauty alone, and the long stagnant blood coursed through my veins as I gazed entranced, and for ever enthralled.
No thought of that woman who waited crossed my mind, nothing but mad desire and adoration filled me for this creature of unearthly beauty; and spirit, woman, devil, be she what she might, my one mad longing was to gaze upon her, to worship her, to possess her for ever.
And as I gazed spellbound she spoke again.
"Nay, I see thou wilt never forget," she smiled gravely, "yet must thou eat of the fruit that will bring forgetfulness of all other things."
She called to the priest in another tongue; and one came scowlingly, bringing with him a small box of ebony. The priestess took something from it, and again turned her piercing eyes upon my own, compelling, commanding, dominating me, as she had done when I first opened my eyes. I tried to speak to beg, to implore, that I might remain her slave, if need be, but near her, but she had put a spell upon my tongue, and I could not.
Slowly she held forth her hand, and in the palm I now saw a small withered berry, black and shriveled, but in shape like the scarlet berries I had eaten so often in the crater. "Eat and forget! . . . Eat and forget!" the voice commanded; and now the eyes sought mine again and fascinated and mastered me.
No! I would not eat. … I would not go! and with all my strength I opposed her will . . . this was poison surely … I would not eat!
"I seek not thy life rather would I save it," came the warning, as I struggled against the domination, "I have but to hold forth my hand to these my servants, and they would tear thee limb from limb. See, then!"
A gesture, and the crowd of frowning priests sprang up the steps and swarmed round me; their fierce, vulpine faces aglow with terrible joy, their long talon-like nails outstretched to rend me fearful horrifying!
At a word, and just as they had almost reached me, the priestess stayed them; but now their hot breath beat close upon me, and in deadly fear I stretched out my hand and took the berry. "Eat eat, and be safe, no harm shall come thee eat and forget eat and forget!" and with the clarion accents ringing in my ears, and with those unfathomable eyes gazing steadily into my own, I crushed the berry between my teeth and swallowed it. A strange, acrid taste, similar but vastly stronger than the berries I had eaten before . . . a rush of blood to my head, a tingling through all my veins, and then a blackness surging up and hiding all, even blotting out the star-like eyes before me, till all, all was black.
An endless dream of wanderings in thick pathless forests, an endless search for something lost: an eternity of vague formless dreams. Searching searching, and finding nothing: an infinite sorrow for something I could never again find.
Eyes gleaming at me from the dark forest; a myriad eyes, coming and going in the vague shadows, and a voice calling; something I could not understand; and through all, the sorrow for something precious, lost beyond recall.
And then voices in my own tongue, low voices in the tongue I had not heard for so long; and kind English faces coming and going beside my bed, and mingling with my dreams.
And there came a time when I awoke to full sanity again, a time when dreams no longer blended with reality.
I lay in a cool, green-shuttered room, and beside me sat a pleasant- faced man, dressed in white, who was looking at me intently, and who nodded vigorously as I looked back at him.
"Better, eh?" he asked "There, don't speak. I can see you are. Take this, and go to sleep; you have had a bad time, and must get stronger before you talk."
And strong I got rapidly, and in a few days he told me where I was, and how I came there.
He was the British Consul at Loanda in Portuguese West Africa, and one morning about two months before, some natives had brought me in to him slung in a machilla.
They said they had been paid to bring me in, and that I was sick, and before he had had time to question them closely they had disappeared, without anyone finding out where they came from.
Sick and delirious, the Consul had been on the point of sending me to the Portuguese hospital, when a few words in English caught his attention, and feeling that he could not leave a fellow-countryman to the mercy of strangers and foreigners in such a plight, he had seen me through the stiff bout of brain fever in his own house.
As he told me all this, I decided to tell him all in return; for I now remembered all that had happened up to the time I had swallowed the berry; though after that it seemed nothing but a dream.
And first I asked him if the natives had brought anything with me."Nothing whatever," he replied, "except a small skin bag of stones!"
He had not opened it, nor did I need to then, for the feel was enough. And it had been no dream then the crater, the deluge, the priestess, and the promise she gave me.
Quietly, and as briefly as I could, I told him my story. Half way through it he stopped me. "Look here," he said, "you mustn't go on like this. You are wandering again!" and though I assured him I was not, he felt my pulse and took my temperature. Then he let me go on again, and though he looked puzzled and uneasy he listened till I was finished. And then, looking at his pained and startled expression, I could see that he believed I was lying or mad.
And then and then only I opened the bag. And the diamonds were there enough to make a dozen men rich many more than the few blue ones I had with me when I first escaped.
And never was a man more astounded than the Consul; again and again he made me repeat my story, and at last, in considerable agitation, he got up and walked to the window, where he stood looking out in silence for some time.
Then he came back to the bed where I lay, and looked searchingly at me again.
"You are a young man," he said slowly; "to all appearance you are a young, strong man in spite of your scarred face and your bent spine, you look a young man! Now how long were you there in that pit how long do you think has passed since your terrible experience with the Snake?"
"It all seems like a dream," I answered him, "and I cannot tell. But I must have been several months in the crater perhaps a year. Since then I cannot have wandered long."
"Well, then," he questioned, "what month and year was it that you went to Walfisch Bay, and found Inyati?"
"In 1860," I said; "I landed there in November, 1860. What is it now?"
"Good God, man," he exclaimed, "you must be mistaken. Are you sure it was 1860?"
"Sure," I repeated, "November, 1860; and it was some time in the following May that I lost Inyati May, 1861. Last year, was it?"
"Last year! Last year!" he repeated as though dazed in fact I could see that he was absolutely frightened. "Why man, what you tell me is incredible impossible! If it were true, you have slept for nearly forty years. For it is now 1900."
And now it was my turn to be amazed, for truly what he had told me was incredible . . . surely he must be mad himself!
But he went to the door and called the little Portuguese doctor, who had also been kindness itself to me.
"Aha," he said as he looked me over and felt my pulse, "now you are well and have sense again, eh? That is good, it is good that you are strong very strong never have I see so strong a man never! And if you have not been strong, you would die, for your head it was quite mad!"
"Look here, Doctor Santos," said the Consul, "our friend has forgotten a lot of what has happened to him, . . there is a long period about which his mind is a blank months in fact years!"
"That can be if it is the fever, yes! he will remember again. But his head have been hurt, it is to be seen, that too may make forget, for months even a year!"
"Forty years?" suggested the Consul tentatively.
"Ah, you joke, my friend!" replied Santos, "that would not be possible, he is surely not that age himself?"
And laughing, as he thought, at the Consul's joke, the little man gave me a few instructions that I did not even hear, and left us.
And the Consul, without a word, handed me a newspaper, and a glance at it was enough to show that he at least had made no mistake, for it was dated September, 1900.
And now I was like to go crazy again, with the shock and bewilderment. Forty years! A lifetime lost. My friends would be dead, or old, old people who had long forgotten me. Of what use would all this wealth be to me an old and forgotten friendless man. Old! yes, I must be an old, old man myself. And yet, now the fever had gone, I felt strong and vigorous indeed, the doctor had said that I was exceptionally strong and that I was not forty and the Consul too had said I was a "young, strong man!"
Surely this was pure hallucination . . . but no! the paper was real enough. And turning it over I saw that indeed I had slept a lifetime, for although it was in my own tongue, all it referred to was absolutely strange to me. New inventions, places I had never heard of, nations even that were unknown to me; it was as though I read of a new world, as, uncomprehending, I glanced through this first newspaper that I had seen for forty years.
The Consul had sat watching me in silence. He saw my agitation, and realized something of what I felt, for putting out his hand and grasping mine he said, kindly: "It must be a blow . . . friends all dead, eh? Well, I'm your friend, anyhow . . . and you'll remember later. Why, man, you must get that forty years out of your mind you are surely younger than myself, and will be as strong as a bull in a week or two. Try and sleep, my friend; you'll remember better to-morrow!"
But well I knew that the memory of those lost years would never return to me. "Eat and forget forget!" The words were ringing in my ears even now, as though spoken but yesterday. I had but to close my eyes and the scene of deluge and destruction, there beneath the Snake, came as a vivid picture before them and the eyes and voice of the woman that had bade me forget were with me always. Those burning eyes! They blotted out every other vision even that of the woman that had waited. God help me, I could not even remember the semblance of her face always those eyes of flame came between us. And God help her! If she had waited all these years she would be an old, old woman but forty years! Surely she was dead!
When had it been, that awful sleep of mine that had blotted out nearly half a century, and left me, an anachronism, an outcast a "young, strong man" still, whilst my schoolmates must be old, toothless gossips or long since dead and forgotten? It must have been in the crater where I had fallen that all these years had passed!
The strange berries, mayhap they had robbed me of these years the berries that stupefied me and gave me pleasant dreams.
What then had the priestess bidden me forget . . . the path? Yes, the path; and truly my wanderings had been but as a confused dream, a long weary search it had seemed, hopeless and endless, yet it could have taken but a few months from that long total of years.
And the thought came to me that though I knew nothing of this way of my return, yet the spell had not been perfect, for I forgot little of that other path I had trod with Inyati, and after; and I could, and would, return!
For as my strength came back, and grew till it was the wonder of all, so did my longing to return increase.
The eyes the voice that had bidden me go, now seemed to call for me incessantly . . . all else was a weariness I must go back!
For long I fought it. I even went back to England with Gerard, my good friend the Consul, who, if he still thought me mad, at least respected my madness.
For he said nothing of my story to a soul, and he it was that piloted me as a child through the new conditions of life that I found on all sides in England; he helped me turn part of my diamonds into a large fortune, he helped me at length and with reluctance, for he would rather not have believed in the miracle of my long sleep to find proof of all I had told him.
There came a day when we stood before the graves of my father and mother, who had died years after I had left England died mourning me as dead and from the lips of an old greybeard, who had been my schoolmate, we heard how that scapegrace son of theirs had gone treasure-seeking and had never returned all those years ago.
Poor old garrulous fool; he little knew that the deformed, but strong and vigorous man that asked him of this companion of his youth was that very "scapegrace" himself transformed, and with age held back from him by a miracle.
And there came a day, too, when a sweet-voiced, silver-haired old lady, with her grandchildren playing about her, told these two strangers from Africa how her lover of long ago had gone there to win her a fortune, and had never returned, and how she had waited ten long years for him, till all hope of him had fled, before she married; and how even now she held his memory in dear regard.
How astonished and delighted she had been at the blazing diamond I had given her, in memory of that old adventurer, of whom we said we had heard in far-off Africa; and how I feared as she looked in my eyes, that she would know. For as she gazed tearfully at me, and stammered her protests and thanks for she was poor, and it meant wealth to her I saw her eyes widen as they looked into my own, and she stammered: "You! . . . who are you? . . . You have his very eyes, are you his son?"
Almost was I tempted to tell her all, but the Consul's warning glance stayed me; and why, indeed, should I change her sweet memory of me as I had been, into the horror and dismay she must feel if she knew all?
And so I left her happy, and she blessed me as I went; blessed me as a mother might do for indeed I was apparently young enough to be her son and to her amongst all the women of my own land my disfigurements were as nothing, for she was of those wise and sweet beings that see deeper than the surface.
And then I came back, for I was as a lost man there in the rush and worry of a civilization I knew nothing of moreover, never could I rest, for the eyes of that other being were haunting me and calling me . . . calling me. . . . Well she had known spirit, woman, witch, or what she may have been that once I had looked in her eyes I might forget all else, but her I should forget never.
And so I have sought for years . . . and I cannot find the path.
Again and again I have tried from all sides. West, where Inyati led me, the dunes have altered; storm after storm has swept them till many of the pans are filled and covered, and others laid bare; and from the south it is the same.
Eastward I have tried in vain, for Khama's men are jealous guardians of the desert border there, and twice I have been turned back, in spite of my gold.
From the north and through it I must have found a path back I have struggled long, and there fever has killed my men, and pathless forests have kept me back.
There I left Gerard in a lonely grave; for after he knew that my story had been true nothing could keep him from joining me. Life in Loanda was far too tame, with such an adventure in hand. "Hang the diamonds," he had said, "I've money enough for my simple needs. But those berries they are what I want, for I am getting old, and would be young again. And this woman you dream and rave of perhaps I would see her too!"
Poor friend, he lies there in the thick forest where the fever took him he had not my strength.
And now I go again this time alone. I have searched these dunes till but one path remains untried on that path I now travel. And this time I shall not strive in vain, and again I shall look into those eyes that I have worshipped so long.
And then? Who knows? I am no trembling fugitive now, but one who fears not to measure strength with the immortals if needs be. … If she be that, I fear nothing . . . and I shall find the way. Seek not to follow me, my friend of the wilderness . . . for I leave no spoor. . . . This time I shall find the path.
It was nearly morning when he finished his weird tale; the waning moon had risen, and threw a faint light over the limitless void of the desert.
The fire was dying down, and I turned to replenish it; for lions were numerous in the vicinity. And as I turned back, I saw this strange acquaintance of mine for the last time. He stood about twenty yards away, his arms outstretched towards the desert as though in supplication; a motionless and striking figure in spite of his deformity.
"I'm going to turn in," I called; but he neither moved nor answered, and when I looked again he had gone.
"He will be back directly," I thought, and curling myself up on my blanket I fell asleep immediately.
All too soon my boys called me, and waking, I found that my guest had gone.
"Which way?" I asked Jantje.
"Nie, baas; ek wiet nie," he said, shaking his head.
"Kambala," said I, impatiently, to the other man; "has the ou baas gone?"
"Ee-wah t In-koos," he answered in the affirmative; "but where I know not. Ask thou, master, these Bushmen, they know!"
There were two Bushmen in the camp, who had turned up but the day before and I made Kambala bring the small, pot-bellied men to where I sat. I knew their "talk."
"The baas with the scarred face," I said; "whither went he?"
"No! no!" they answered in their clicking tongue, "we know not! Who knows? Not we 'Khoi Khoian.'"
"Ye are no 'Khoi Khoian' (Hottentots, as Bushmen often like to style themselves), but San (Bushmen), and of these parts. Therefore, answer me where is he, that scarred one?"
They squatted on their haunches before me, looking at me furtively from their little slits of eyes, muttering to each other afraid.
"Master, we fear," they said reluctantly. "He is a great witch, that 'old one' we know him well. Often does he cross the dunes where even we dare not go where no man goes!"
"Seek him," I ordered.
"No! no!" they said again, "he leaves no spoor and we fear. It is not well to follow that 'old one'!"
And search as I could, no spoor did I find.
But what I did find, there on my blanket beside my pillow, was a big, blue, uncut diamond, together with a scrap of paper bearing the one word "Farewell."
To be "broke to the world" was by no means a new experience to Dick Sydney, and as he sat on the sandy shore near Luderitzbucht and watched the setting sun turn the broad ocean into molten gold, he was little troubled by the fact that his last mark had been spent an hour or two back for a very belated and necessary breakfast, and that he was now absolutely penniless. Always an optimist, Dick easily outdid the immortal Micawber in his faith in something turning up just when things looked their blackest, and he had literally no thought for the morrow, until his hand, mechanically groping in his pocket for the wherewithal to fill his pipe, advised him of the fact that even his "baccy" was finished.
This was serious, for Dick's old battered briar rarely left his mouth; and whilst the odoriferous Boer equivalent for the "divine weed" held out, food and drink were but minor considerations. But something must be done now, so, knocking out the ashes from his last whiff, and with one more futile grope in his capacious pocket, he stuck his empty pipe in his mouth, rose, stretched himself, and, glancing once more at the pageant of the western sky, turned back towards the contemptible collection of tin shanties, drinking saloons, empty beer-bottles, and Germans, known as Luderitzbucht.
A few months back, the discovery of diamonds had brought fame to this wind-swept wilderness, and fame had been immediately followed by the choicest collection of cosmopolitan scoundreldom that a mining "rush" had ever been responsible for.
Now Dick Sydney, though a man of variegated experience and a bit of a "hard case," was still passing honest, and a gentleman; and he soon found that he stood but little chance in Luderitzbucht. His modest capital, which he had hoped to increase in this new Diamondopolis, had vanished within a few weeks of his arrival, swallowed up by shares in diamond-fields that existed only in the vivid imagination of the swindling "company-promoters" or so-called "prospectors," who infested the place; and when his illusions of easily-made wealth had vanished also, and he had tried to obtain a billet, he had failed utterly.
His knock-about experiences had included several spells of gold- prospecting and mining in California and other wild spots, and, being as hard as nails, he was admirably suited to the life of a prospector, and prospectors were being paid large salaries in those early days of the diamond rush in German South-West Africa. But, unfortunately for himself, Dick possessed a constitutional but at times embarrassing prejudice against lying, and in his numerous applications about prospecting jobs had made no secret of the fact that his prospecting had never been for diamonds.
And as a result he had had to stand aside and see all sorts of gentry taken on for the numerous expeditions that were constantly being arranged: runaway seamen, cooks, stewards, and stokers from the ships, gangers and navvies from the railways, ne'er-do-wells of all descriptions, with but here and there an old "river digger," or genuine prospector to leaven the lump.
Added to his stubborn and uncompromising honesty, Dick possessed another trait which severely handicapped him in this German-governed dust-hole of creation, in that he was uncompromisingly British, and took no pains to conceal the fact; and here in Luderitzbucht the arrogance of the German officials, and the way in which they boasted of Their Army, and Their Kaiser, and Their Beer, and Their Sauerkraut, and, in short, of every product of their whole blamed Fatherland, exasperated Dick to a degree. Though not very big, he was a bundle of muscle and sinew, and already he had been fined heavily for making a mess of one or two spread-eagled Teutons who had been unwise enough to mistake his quiet manner for timidity.
Dick strolled back over the low-lying sand-dunes to the little township, where lights were already twinkling in the stores and beer- halls; and, passing the largest of these, he suddenly realized that he was thirsty, and, momentarily forgetting the state of his finance, he turned into the bar for a bottle of beer. The brightly-lit room was full of people, naturally mostly Germans, who, whilst imbibing vast quantities of their national beverage, were singing, bragging and swearing at the top of their voices, and after the manner of their kind. At the farther end of the room a big corpulent swashbuckler was holding forth loudly to a circle of admiring cronies; his peroration was an introduction to a toast; that toast was "To the Day!"
Dick had heard it frequently of late; in fact, wherever Germans and beer came together, that toast was being drank at the time.
"The Day!" . . . Dick, and every other Britisher knew what "Day" was meant, and as a rule took but little notice of these fire-eating gas- bags; anyway, though he understood German, he spoke it but little. And so he stood quietly imbibing his bottle of beer whilst Bombastus Furiosis still held forth. His quiet attitude evidently misled the orator, whose guttural German became mixed with quite enough English to make his remarks perfectly understandable to the few Britishers amongst the crowd.
Boasting and bragging, and with his discourse liberally garnished with "Donner-wetters," and such-like meteorological expressions dear to the Teuton, this big chap let the world at large know what would happen on the great "Day"; when the whole "schwein-hund" Englander nation would, at long last, be knocked sky-high and to everlasting flinders by the ineffable and invincible Army of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Dick got tired of the drunken man's blatant boasting, and finished his beer with the intention of leaving the bar before he lost his temper, but as he put down the empty mug he realized with consternation that he had not the wherewithal to pay for the drink! He stood embarrassed and irresolute. What could he say to excuse himself how explain before this crowd of contemptuous Germans?
At that moment, however, something happened to put the matter out of his mind entirely. The orator had gone one better, and was now describing what various kinds of "schwein-hunden" all Britishers were, and those in Luderitzbucht in particular, when suddenly a small man, who had been sitting quietly in a corner of the room, left his seat, and, walking up to the group, called out, "'Ere, you with the mouth! Shut yer fat head abaht Englishmen or I'll make yer! I'm English. Wot yer got to say abaht it?"
A roar of laughter went up from the Germans, any of whom looked big enough to eat the small man. Dick pushed nearer to the group. He knew the chap now—he was a little Cockney Jew, a bookmaker, horse-dealer, and what not, scarcely the kind of chap to be expected to show pluck and patriotism, yet these are often met with in the most unexpected places. There he stood, opposite a German big enough to eat him and in fluent Cockney he proceeded to tell that big man more about himself than is good for any fat man to know.
Of course it could not last long. The jeering laughter changed to threats and curses, and then suddenly the colossus made a terrific round-arm all-embracing swipe at that small man, calculated to obliterate him once for all. But he wasn't there when it arrived; and, to Dick's joy and amazement, he saw the little Jew dodge in under the stroke, and with a spring and a lightning blow on the point bring down the big bully with a crash to the floor.
"A boxer, by gad!" yelled Dick, capering with excitement; "bravo, little 'un!" But the small man's victory was only that of a moment. The next the whole crowd had flung themselves upon him, and the miniature champion of "Rule Britannia" was borne to the ground in the centre of a whirl of legs, arms, chairs, bottles, and the other weapons usually preferred by the German larrikin to bare fists.
Dick could stand no more, and the members of that Peace Conference must have thought about that time that a cyclone had struck them.
It was no time for fancy boxing. Two men who faced Dick went down like ninepins before a terrific left and right between wind and water; a big Bavarian hero brandishing a beer-bottle collapsed with a sudden and acute attack of knee-in-the-stomach; and a strong and handy chair coming to Dick's hand in the nick of time and used as a flail, and with strict impartiality, soon did the rest. Berserk with fight, and with the plucky little Jew to help him, Dick cleared the bar till not a soul but the frightened bar-keeper and themselves stood within the locked doors. Outside they could hear the crowd yelling for the police.
"Mein Gott, mein lieber Gott! Who will pay for all der smashes?" whimpered the bar-keeper, wringing his hands, and looking round at the trail of the cyclone.
"Tell the truth abaht that big fat 'ed starting the row to the police, and I'll pay for the smash," said the little Jew. "And while we're waiting for the police let's have a drink," he continued. "Here's your health, guv'nor; blimey, but you're a bit useful in a scrap!" By this time the police were pounding at the door. "My money my money!" again pleaded the bar-keeper.
"Right-oh!" said the Jew, putting his hand in his pocket. His face changed; quickly and anxiously he searched for his pocket-book it was gone! Whilst they had had him on the floor they had improved the occasion; and his blank stare of dismay was mirrored on Dick's face as the latter remembered that he too was penniless and owed for a drink!
"Schwein-hunden! Thieves! Robbers! Dam-fools!" yelled the exasperated bar-keeper, unlocking the door for the police. That night they slept in a German prison.
Sydney could not disguise from himself the fact that the situation was rather serious. The escapade would probably mean a sentence of a stiff bout of imprisonment, or a heavy fine, and, as he was penniless, it would perforce have to be the former.
"Hang that little Yiddisher!" he growled, as he sucked at his empty pipe; "wish I'd let him get out of his trouble himself. No! I couldn't have done that. He's a plucky little beggar, and I suppose he's as bad off as myself now his pocket-book's gone. Still, I suppose something'll turn up."
His optimism was justified, for about ten o'clock the following morning he was liberated without more ado, and outside the gaol he found the little Hebrew who had been the cause of all the trouble.
"I squared 'em," explained the little man, with a grin; "sent a note along to a pal of mine who knows the ropes, and he soon got us out. Better come along and have some grub!"
"Look here," said Dick, "I'd better let you know right away that I'm dead-broke."
"Never mind," said the other; "come along and feed, and then we'll yap."
A good meal, and a good smoke after it, and the little Jew said abruptly, "Now then, Mr. Sydney, I've found out a bit about you this morning, and if you want a job, I think I can get one for you. We want a straight man for something that's on, and I think you'll do."
"I'm game," said Dick, "if it's a straight deal."
"Straight as a die," replied Solstein or "Solly," as he liked to be called. "Let's get along the beach, we can talk there!"
Pacing along the sands, with no one to hear them but the sea-gulls, and with his old briar again charged with some real God-fearing cake tobacco, Sydney heard what it was that was required of him; and there and then Solly's offer was accepted.
Two days later an expedition, outfitted regardless of expense in Johannesburg, left Luderitzbucht to carry out a systematic testing of certain distant diamond-fields recently discovered and acquired by a local syndicate, and reported to be fabulously rich, so rich that an extremely large company talked of acquiring them in turn, and those in the know hinted at a huge flotation.
Money was therefore no object, and the party was both large and well- equipped. It consisted of a diamond expert acting on behalf of the Syndicate; another expert acting on behalf of the would-be purchasers, and, incidentally, to watch the other chap; a financial representative of either side to watch proceedings; two prospectors, presumably to watch each other; a learned professor of geology to give an unbiased report of the fields; and, lastly, Dick Sydney, ostensibly in charge of the transport, but in reality to watch the whole caboodle of them.
Striking north-east, the expedition almost immediately entered a practically untraversed desert of barren sand-dunes, waterless, and both difficult and dangerous to traverse; and their animals drank nothing for the first two days. On the third, however, guided by the discovering syndicate's prospector Grosman, and by two stunted little Bushmen in his employ, they came to a deep water-hole, where the precious fluid, though "brak" (alkaline) and stagnant, was still plentiful and drinkable, and within working distance of which the newly-discovered "fields" were located. Here the dunes were interspersed with long narrow "aars," covered with fine gravel and loose stones, and here and there covered with scrubby vegetation.
Within a few days Sydney had to acknowledge that his first conclusion that there was not a single honest man in the party besides himself, was an unjust one, for the harmless and most necessary professor of geology was a notable exception.
Absorbed in his science, he passed most of his time in his tent poring over a microscope, taking very little heed, apparently, of what was going on, and he was obviously without guile and likely to be easily gulled by even the most transparent roguery. And that the others were rogues Dick grew more and more convinced, and it would have been hard to say which of the party he detested the more; Gilderman, the suave Johannesburg expert, glib, well-dressed and fastidious; Jelder, the syndicate's expert from the same locality, a rough-voiced, domineering mining engineer; Zweiter and Spattboom, the "financial" men; or Junes and Grosman, the two prospectors. On the whole, he thought, were he a free agent, he would have picked a quarrel with each and all of them for the sake of giving them individually a thrashing, and in that case the immaculate Gilderman would have been his first choice.
Each and all of them spoke English, and professed that nationality, but Dick soon decided that, with the possible exception of Junes, what wasn't German of the party was certainly Jew!
But still to all appearance everything was fair and above-board. The prospectors would point out the most likely spots to try for diamonds, the Ovampo boys would be set to work, and almost invariably they found diamonds. Occasionally one or other of the "experts" would suggest a different spot, and usually these sapient individuals would justify their reputation by finding diamonds also in these spots.
The syndicate's expert was jubilant, the company's expert apparently well satisfied, and the professor beamed upon the stones as they came from the sieve, talked learnedly of their origin and the peculiarities of the deposit they were found in, and passed a great deal of time in abstruse calculations as to the probable yield of the fields, based upon the rich finds they were making, and the genuineness of which he, obviously, never doubted.
Sydney picked up several small stones himself. The experts were always finding them, so were the financial agents; yet Dick, though for a time he could find out nothing to confirm his opinion, was convinced that the whole thing meant a gigantic swindle. A few words in French between the experts which they did not expect the "man in charge of the transport" to understand a word here, and a look there, strengthened this conviction into certainty, but still he had no proof.
Now Dick had heard of, and suffered from, more than one case of "salting" since he first came to Luderitzbucht, and the quantity of illicit diamonds in the hands of unscrupulous people made such salting a comparatively easy matter, but if it were being done in this case, it was certainly being done very thoroughly and artistically and when?
The whole party moved from place to place practically together in fact, they kept in sight of each other ostentatiously.
It must be done after dark, if at all, and Dick resolved to watch at night, as soon as he came to that conclusion. That same night, from his tiny patrol tent, he watched the lights go out one by one, until the camp lay silent, and apparently every one was asleep. And as time passed he was nodding himself, when suddenly a shadow stole silently from the tent occupied by the two prospectors, crossed to the experts' tent, and disappeared inside. Dick saw the momentary gleam of an electric torch and heard the tinkle of a bunch of keys, then the form reappeared, and, with a glance round, passed silently and rapidly out of sight across the sand-dunes.
Dick followed, the pale light from a waning moon, occasionally peeping from behind the clouds, making the pursuit an easy one.
After half an hour of rapid walking the man disappeared over a gigantic dune that Dick had noticed in the distance the previous evening, and which he had heard marked the position of the next field to be examined.
More cautiously now, and keeping well away from the man's actual spoor, Dick crept up the slope, and peered over the crest down the farther side.
The moon at that moment shone out clearly, and there, not fifty yards away from him, Dick could see the figure of Grosman the prospector. He was walking slowly up and down, now and then throwing his arm out with the action of a sower, and the seeds he sowed sparkled like dewdrops in the moonlight.
For he was sowing diamonds—salting!
Salting! there was no doubt about it.
The prospector to whom the syndicate owning the fields had entrusted the important task of locating the most likely spots on which to demonstrate their richness, had with admirable forethought forestalled that notoriously fickle jade Fortune and brought the diamonds along himself, before the remainder of the "testing" party arrived. To-morrow the whole caboodle of unbiased individuals, representing both his own party and the enormously wealthy Jo'burg financiers who were negotiating for the fields with a view to a big flotation, would come along as per schedule, and would doubtless be greatly impressed by this fresh proof of the fields' richness!
Dick lay flat on his face on the warm and accommodating sand-dune, and watched Grosman for some time: he was prodigal with the diamonds, and this was undoubtedly destined to be an exceptionally rich field.
"The question is," reasoned Dick, "how many of these swabs are in this swindle. Let's see now, it's no good letting my angry passions run away with me, and jumping on this chap as I'd like to do. I must reason this out. The other prospector sleeps in the same tent sometimes disagrees with this chap as to the best place to test. In that case yes! they've always tried and found in both places. And they sleep in the same tent. They're both in it. Same with the experts, both in the same tent, and they keep the diamonds. That's what this swab went to them to-night for. And Zweiter and Spattboom, well, no one could be honest with faces like theirs. Blazes! They're all in it, and all this elaborate business is just to artistically fool the old professor—he's not part of the swindle, anyway."
That was it undoubtedly. The old professor, who, simple as a child in many things, had yet a name famous the world over; he it was that this precious crowd of scoundrels were deceiving so elaborately he it was whose word of the genuineness of the finds would carry weight with the financiers and when the time became ripe would rope in the guileless public.
Well, he, Dick, would have to take a hand in it, but it would require caution; moreover, Solly to whom he owed his job had told him at parting:
"We don't want no experience, just you watch all of these blighters and find out what their game is, and lie low that's all!"
His diamond sowing finished, Grosman sat down, took off his veldtschoens and knocked out the sand, loaded up his pipe, and with a sigh of contentment which the pipeless and tobacco-loving Dick heard and appreciated, turned back towards the camp.
Luckily Dick old hand on the plains of countries where it is not considered healthy to be found on the home trail of a man one watches at night had taken the precaution to crawl aside sufficiently to give this "Knave of diamonds" a wide berth; and he lay inert and silent as the dead till Grosman was well on his homeward journey, before following him to a well-earned spell of sleep.
Following the usual routine, the next morning the two prospectors rode ahead to locate the best spot for proving this fresh field, the rest of the expedition following more leisurely. Dick had to confess that they were most artistic in their methods. On arriving near the high dune, where he had seen Grosman giving Fortune a friendly lead in the small hours of the morning, Dick found to his astonishment that they were being guided to quite a different spot at some distance from the carefully prepared "jeweller's shop." "What the devil does this mean?" mused he, as he rode behind with the professor and the others. He could not be mistaken about the spot, for the dune was too prominent a landmark yet there were the two prospectors signaling to them from a place at least half a mile away from the scene of his nocturnal experience. Trotting across to them they found an argument in full swing.
"Gentlemen," said the other prospector a tall slab-sided individual whose English was of a pronounced American flavor. "I don't think this kind of thing is fair! I'm here earning the company's dollars, and I'm about tired of being yanked around to try spots that Grosman points out. I guess I'm here to locate the pay-dirt as well as he is, that's what the company pays me for, that's what I'm here for, to find out the truth! No, sir not any I don't."
"Junes," cried Gilderman, "remember your position! I'm sure no one ever expressed a doubt as to the syndicate's finds and I—"
"But look-ee here, Mr. Gilderman," interrupted the prospector; "you've got to excuse me. I'm supposed to look into this thing myself, besides it's for the blamed fool's own benefit. Any fool can see that the deepest wash runs the other side of that dune, not this."
"Rot," jerked out Grosman; "well, if you want to go to your damned old place, do so."
High words followed, the experts became partisans, every one was dragged in except Dick and the Herr Professor, and the latter, flushed and rattled and his glasses all awry, was at length appealed to in the matter.
"Ach, gentlemens," said he, beaming from one to the other, and absolutely exuding good temper and conciliation; "why quarrel on this so-splendid an expedition, hein? Let us then return to the Herr Prospector Junes' choice let us accede to this so good man's request, hein?"
"Right," snorted Grosman; "but if the damned place is no good don't blame me and don't condemn the field. I can show you where there are stones, anyway!"
And so with many a sneer and jeer, and with an atmosphere of extreme tension pervading the whole party, Junes was allowed to lead the way to the spot of his choice. He went straight across the foot of the big dune, and in a few minutes had amply justified himself, for there were diamonds in abundance the diamonds his confederate Grosman had strewn there the night before.
Now Solly's instructions to Dick to lie low, and say nothing, no matter what he found out, had been explicit and insisted upon, and in spite of his instinct to warn the professor, he might have been content to "lie low" and go on watching till the trip was over, had it not been for a certain small but excessively highly-charged black scorpion that found its way into Dick's sleeping-bag that night; and more than making up in "cussedness" what it lacked in size, gave him an exceedingly warm time of it. One sting in particular, on a big vein in his leg, gave him excruciating pain, and though he applied the universal veldt remedy of nicotine from his pipe-bowl, the agony was so great and the swelling so alarming that at length he hobbled off to the professor's tent to see if that learned man could give him some relief. He found the old gentleman sleeping soundly and had some difficulty in rousing him; but that task accomplished, so assiduous was the professor in dressing the sting, and such kindly interest did he display in both Dick and the defunct scorpion, that Dick, who had always liked the old chap, almost made up his mind to tell him all that he had seen and suspected. The scorpion really settled the question for him, for the professor had scarcely finished injecting Dick's leg than he turned his attention to the dead reptile, at which he had already cast many curious glances as it lay on his little camp-table beside his medicine chest. And now he proceeded to examine it thoroughly, lighting a powerful acetylene lamp for the purpose.
And scarcely had the strong rays fallen upon the black, wicked, lobster-like little iniquity than the Herr Professor let off a regular yell of delight and literally fell upon Dick's neck.
"Ach, meine lieber!" he exclaimed ecstatically. "Aber this is most wunderbahr! It is of the great fortune, good luck, what you call him? That he sting you."
"Good luck?" said the surprised Sydney, feeling anything but pleased; "well, professor, it's the kind of luck that I can very well do without. Why, the blamed little thing must have been about a thousand volts strong. Sting! why it must have squirted about a pint of forked lightning into me! Luck?"
"Of the greatest," said the scientist; "of the most colossal. For it is a discovery you have of him made he is new he is wonderful wunderschoen wunderbahr!"
"You're wrong, professor," protested Dick with emphasis. "He discovered me. He may be new newly charged, anyway!"
"Of a variety entirely new, Herr Sydney," insisted the old professor impressively; "and much would I have given to have been in your place to discover him."
"You'd have been welcome," said Dick feelingly; "but why?"
"It is my life-work, my stedenpferd, my 'hobby' you call it, hein? This study of the arachnids, spiders, scorpions! Geology, you say? True, that is my work, but this other is different, this I love! Already have I four large volumes written upon the known varieties of scorpion and now to have been but almost the discoverer of a new variety, it is hard to have been so near. But at least I shall be the first to describe, to classify, that honor you will grant me? It is hard to have been so near!"
"Believe me, professor, it was a good deal harder to be just where I was. But I see your point, and feel for you indeed I may say I'm feeling it quite a lot even now. I'm mighty sorry the electric gentleman with the red-hot trousers didn't sample you first as you say, it's real hard he didn't. So do please take the fame and describe all you want!"
It took a lot of persuasion to make the scientist see it in the light that Dick did, but after a while he consented to name the new specimen after himself, and sat down to examine and gloat over his treasure.
But first he showed Dick some of his books, thick tomes full of illustrations of most weird and undesirable-looking insects, spiders, scorpions, and the like, and crammed with learned descriptions bristling with Latin names; and he showed such an innocent delight in his new acquisition that Dick's mind was made up. He did not like Germans, but this old chap was so naive, so full of human-kindness, so innocent and ignorant of all but his science that it would have been infamous not to have warned him of what was happening. For Dick could see plainly enough that if nothing were said this poor kind-hearted old scientist would have to bear the blame when the gigantic swindle was at length discovered, and the victimized public demanded a scapegoat.
He lifted the fly of the tent and looked out. There was no light in any of the tents, and the sound of snoring came from them in chorus. Farther away by the still flickering embers of the campfire could be dimly seen a dozen or more recumbent forms, where the native boys huddled. The waning moon was just rising, and except for the snores all was quiet as only the desert can be; yet Dick, when he turned once more towards the professor, stood with a warning finger on his lips, and spoke but in a whisper. For he knew that he and the man he spoke to were the only honest men in this lonely camp; and that the others would not hesitate to put either himself or the professor out of the way if once they suspected that their villainy was known, he never doubted. Not that he was afraid; but here in the wilds, with six well-armed and determined men against him, he saw the need for caution. The professor he did not count not just then!
The old man still sat at his little camp-table, magnifying glass in hand, and at Dick's low "Hist," he turned a bland, inquiring gaze in his direction. Dick came close to him, and with head half averted so that he could listen for the slightest sound outside, he whispered his story. Not a sound came either from the camp or from his listener till his brief tale was ended.
"They are all in it all rogues together, sir," he whispered in conclusion; "and it's part of a big swindle that people will blame you for."
And for the first time since he began his tale he looked the professor full in the face. He started with amazement as he did so: for now he saw not a benign, smiling old scientist, beaming good nature and affability through his spectacles, but a stern-faced, iron-mouthed man, whose jaw was set with grim inflexibility, and whose eyes seemed actually to blaze with fury. The big veins stood out upon his temples, and the hand that still held the magnifying glass was now clenched in a grip of iron, that trembled, not from weakness, but from the violence of his anger and emotion.
Dick saw the man with new eyes: this was no worn-out old scientist, such as he had deemed him; but a man still strong and vigorous, in spite of his three-score and ten years, a man in whom the hot blood of passion could still work wonders. And the younger man realized that if the strong hand were necessary in this affair, he would by no means need to play it alone.
"Gott im Himmel!" he muttered hoarsely, as Dick finished. "Diebstahl und rauberei! . . . and through me! For I have been a fool, and I have been also to blame. Look you, Herr Sydney, now can I see but too clearly that I have neglected my work, and looked but little to the fields themselves but to the diamonds and the gravel they brought with them. Numskull! dummkopf! That I have been it is but now that I see also how they have advantage taken of this hobby of mine. Each day they have brought me spiders, and scorpions, and snakes to examine even now I have almost a hundred specimens alive! And so they have thrown sand in my eyes, and would have made a criminal of me even as they are themselves. Schaendlich und verraetherisch schwein-hunden! But for you, friend, they would have robbed me of my good name, and shamed me before the world. But for you, friend!"
As he spoke, still in a hoarse whisper, he rose and grasped Dick's hand, and strong as the latter was he winced at the vigor of that iron grip.
"And now come!" said he, simply, turning as though to leave the tent.
Dick caught his arm. "No! no!" said he in a tense and eager whisper "what would you do?"
"Take them bind them disarm them . . . take them prisoners toLuderitzbucht to pay for their knavery," muttered the old man savagely."Six and with arms, you say! And what care I for six such schwein-hunden? And you, Herr Sydney, I know you are both strong and fearless?"
"Oh, nothing would suit me better than to smash up the whole outfit, but what good would it do?" urged Dick. "It's their six words against ours, or rather against mine, so far! And most of 'em are German, as you know, and well in with the authorities in Luderitzbucht. And I'm English, what hope will my word have against theirs there? Besides, sir, the story as it stands will be all against yourself!"
"Donner-wetter, that is wahr! That will never do," said the old man naively. "What do you advise then?"
"Watch well, and either contrive to catch them yourself on some of the remaining fields or say nothing till we are safely back in Luderitzbucht," counseled Dick.
"Never can I so long contain myself with these thieves. Think you the company spoke of a flotation of 500,000, of half a million pounds, that these hounds would have caused my name and my report to rob from the public! Never can I contain myself long, but as you wish, friend, I will try unless indeed some better plan offers."
Dick crept back quietly to his little patrol tent and tried to sleep, but pain and excitement kept him wide-eyed; and he had scarcely dropped off when his Hottentot driver awakened him to tell him that two of the mules had broken their reins and cleared in the night, apparently making their way back in a bee-line towards Luderitzbucht.
"I have found their spoor, baas," he said; "but they have gone far and fast and it will need a horse to catch them."
"Saddle mine, quickly, and I will go back myself," ordered Dick, with a muttered blessing or two on the defaulters; and within a few minutes he was cantering over the spoor of yesterday, along which the mules had bolted. He soon found where they had left the trail, and in the now clear light of dawn their spoors showed clearly in the soft sand. At last he caught sight of them grazing on a small patch of Bushman grass growing in the hollow between two dunes, and after a considerable amount of trouble managed to secure them, and making them fast to a convenient bush he climbed a big dune to have a look round and try and mark out for himself a straight cut back to camp.
He recognized his whereabouts instantly, for scarcely five hundred yards away rose the big dune that had been the scene of Grosman's forethought two nights back. The sight of it brought back Dick's indignation afresh.
"Beastly swabs," he thought, "why they never even take the trouble to find out if there really are any diamonds in the blessed fields or not? From what I've seen at Kolman's Kop, this place looks extremely likely. I wonder whether, after all, they have been a bit too clever? I'll have a look, anyway."
Between him and the dune where the bogus find had been made there stretched a wide, flat space of comparatively firm ground a so-called anp, or shallow vlei, in which at some time water had accumulated. Here there was very little sand, its place being taken by a deposit of fine loose grit, made up of a variety of tiny stones all about the size of a small pea.
The prevailing wind, blowing almost continually in the same direction, had heaped up this grit in little wave-like ridges and Dick knew that if there were diamonds there he would find them near the crest of these little waves.
He went down on his hands and knees at once, and almost immediately his eye caught the glitter of a diamond. And there was another and another! And Dick, as he picked up stone after stone, realized that by sheer luck he had stumbled upon far the richest deposit he had ever seen or heard of and realized too that these clever scoundrels had over-reached themselves. There had been no need of salting had they but taken the trouble to search systematically they must have found this spot, had they but walked a few hundred yards from the spot they had salted last, this "Tom Tiddler's Ground" had awaited them!
Incredibly and incalculably rich it was; for Dick, in the hour or so that he permitted himself the luxury of picking them up, well-nigh filled his pockets with the glittering little gems, and yet he had scarcely moved a yard from where he had picked up the first.
The power of the blazing sun, now beating down upon him from high in the heavens, first admonished him of the fact that it was getting late, and that he must get back to camp, or probably some one would be coming to look for him.
"And that would never do," said Dick to himself; "no one must know of this but the professor."
So, reluctantly leaving his newly-found bonanza, he tied up the double- handful of diamonds in his old red handkerchief, thrust it in the bosom of his khaki shirt, and securing the two errant mules he struck across country to the camp.
He found that during his absence a farther field had been successfully "tested"; and the meaning look the professor gave him when the latter rode into camp with the returning party, and voiced his satisfaction at the morning's "find," left no doubt in Dick's mind but that the old man had profited by his advice, and would yet fool the would-be foolers! Itching as he was to impart the news of his splendid discovery to the professor, he had no opportunity of seeing him alone during the rest of the day; and he could only try to possess his soul with patience till night fell and the others were asleep. But that night the professor had a different plan in view.
"Gentlemens," said the old man when supper was finished, and they sat smoking by the fire; "now that this so successful expedition arrives at so near its conclusion, shall we not celebrate our good fortune? To-day is not our find of diamonds more rich than of ever? Let us drink then to our great good fortune, to the diamonds we have found, and to those we hope again to find to-morrow! Come!" He led the way to his tent, and diving under his bed he hauled out a case of wine. Strong, heady wine Dick found it, and the warning glance the old man gave him as he filled his glass the second time, made him sip but lightly of the potent liquor.
Not so the two experts, or the prospectors, or the other members of the little coterie of scoundrels; who, safe in the assumption that they had hoodwinked the professor thoroughly, drank deep and made merry like men without a care. Bottle after bottle was opened, and soon one of the experts began to snore; and it was the professor himself who broke up the merry party by saying: "Gentlemens; to-morrow have we a long day and a long ride before us to test the other fields. And the Herr Prospector Junes he must ride before us always, is it not? The test places to locate together with his comrade. And this so good man see! He sleeps already! Let us then to rest. But first fill again your glasses and drink deep. To the diamonds we have found and to the discovery you will make to-morrow!"
Surely the wine was very potent, for Dick, thanks to the warning glances of the professor, had drank but little, yet he could scarcely keep awake; whilst Junes and Grosman were snoring like pigs, and could scarcely be awakened sufficiently to enable them to stagger to their tent. Dick barely managed to get to his own before sleep overcame him too, and his last hazy thought was: "That wine was drugged, the professor must have got another plan!"
Once, in the night, he had a dim notion that some one was trying to waken him; that some one was it the professor? was shaking him and whispering fiercely in his ear, "Wake, man you must help me wake!" But it all seemed like part of a dream, and he was too overpoweringly sleepy to be able to rouse and the remembrance of this only came long after.
But at last he did awake; his head was buzzing and Andreas the Hottentot was shaking him. "Baas, baas; wake up," he was saying; "I cannot wake the others! Allemachtag! How they sleep like dead men!"
It was broad daylight; long past the hour when the prospectors should have ridden on ahead to locate the fields. Their horses, ready saddled, stood before their tent; and from it came the sound of stertorous snoring.
Dick walked over and shook the men; and at last they stumbled shakily to their feet, and made their way to the experts' tent, muttering something about instructions; but really, as Dick realized, to get the wherewithal to salt the remaining claims.
Usually this proceeding was carried out long before daylight and with no one to watch. Now, however, the whole camp was astir; the old professor was washing in front of his tent in the tiny modicum of water allowed him for the purpose, boys were hurrying here and there preparing breakfast; and Dick smiled grimly as he noticed that as Junes and Grosman entered the experts' tent they carefully closed the fly behind them.
He looked across at the professor, who had paused in his ablutions to look in the direction of the tent, and now stood, a comical enough looking object, his face covered in soap-suds, watching for the reappearance of the prospectors.
Dick and he exchanged a glance of intelligence, and Dick took a step towards the old man, intending to whisper to him the news of what he had found the day before; but before he could do so there came a shout from the tent, followed by a volley of oaths and ejaculations, the sound of a scuffle, and out into the open burst the two prospectors, locked together in a desperate struggle.
"Hound, schwein-hund, robber!" gasped Grosman, as, with his face purple with rage and exertion he temporarily got the better of his long and wiry opponent, and bore him back; "scoundrel that you are you could not play straight even with me! Where are the diamonds hound where have you hidden them?"
"Yes, where are they? Own up, you thief!" chorused the two experts, who, pallid and debauched looking, now stood beside the two struggling men: and Dick now noticed that Gilderman held the small strong box and that it was open, and empty. The diamonds had gone!