Chapter VII: Part 7

After some months, Charlie came back from the gold-fields on foot, for he had found, as Jim Heap prophesied, that there was nothing much sticking out for him up there. He came back with empty pockets and worn-out boots, but he did not seem sickened of the chances of digging, or had not the energy to try anything else, for he turned to his old occupation again. Fortune thought fit to do him a good turn, as it did to many others down the river that year. The Vaal that winter became unusually shallow, and the diggers who went to work in its bed, as they do when they can get at it, found very well. When the river came down again, Charlie had found a nice lot of diamonds which he sold for eight hundred pounds, and, rather to the surprise of every one who knew him, he announced his intention of going for a run home. Maybe he would never have another chance, he said, and he would like to know a little bit more of the world than South Africa. The truth was that he felt a longing to know something about the world in which Connie would live; not that he supposed there was any chance of his seeing her--he did not want to see her, he told himself. So he took his passage home, and in a few weeks found himself in London.

After a few weeks of the round of theatres, race meetings, and sight-seeing, which colonists generally go in for, he began to feel half tired and bored with it all. The feeling of being alone in a crowd chilled him, as it does those who have always lived in a small community, and he began to feel something that was very like home-sickness. He was delighted when he came across any one he had known on the Diamond Fields, even finding himself pleased to talk to men whom at the mine he had rather disliked and avoided. He was in this state of mind when he met one Brown, a man whom out there he had always looked upon as an ass. Mr Brown was equally lonely and in want of a companion; he was about to set out on a Continental trip; and though he doubted whether Charlie was not a little too colonial to be a desirable travelling companion, still he thought that it would be better to get him to go with him than travel by himself, so they agreed to travel together, and started for the regulation Rhine and Switzerland trip. Mr Brown's misgivings as to Charlie were confirmed by his conduct. He hadn't got the mind for travel, and took nothing in. He was all very well on the Diamond Fields, but he ought to have stopped there, was the opinion expressed to himself of Charlie after they had travelled together for two days. On the Rhine steamer his disgust reached a climax. Charlie showed his hopeless ignorance by saying that the Rhine reminded him of the Vaal River, and he seemed to take more interest in that grovelling fancy than in anything he saw. He refused to listen to Mr Brown's stories from Murray about the castles and islands he was passing by, nor did he seem to care to have the special beauties of the scenery pointed out to him--for Mr Brown had a nice taste for Nature-- but he sat silent and stupid. To tell the truth, his thoughts were far away amongst old familiar scenes. He seemed to see the hut by the river, to hear the swish of the diggers' cradles and Kaffirs jabbering at their work, and Connie's silvery laugh as she ran along the bank to her father's claim. That scene had come back to his mind twenty times a day since he had left Africa.

"Did you see that pretty girl who got in at Boppart? You don't see that sort of woman in Africa. There she is, sitting opposite, next to that white-haired old buffer. Oh, what a fellow you are! you won't take an interest in anything," Mr Brown was saying when Charlie woke up from his day-dream, and looking across the deck he saw Connie sitting opposite. She was at the same time wonderfully altered, and yet her old self. The battered old straw hat and the old bright-coloured frock bought at the Barkly store in celebration of one of the General's meagre finds, which Charlie remembered so well, were replaced by soft deftly-made garments, and she had grown even more beautiful than she promised to be; but Charlie knew her at once, and as he saw her she looked round, and a joyous look of recognition came into her face. In a second he was shaking hands and was being introduced (as Mr Langdale, who was a great friend of ours in South Africa, and who found my diamond for me) to a white-haired gentleman and an elderly, somewhat grim-looking lady, who eyed him rather dubiously, as if they were inclined to doubt whether acquaintances made on the Diamond Fields were very desirable ones; but neither Connie nor Charlie troubled themselves much about them.

"What made you go to the gold-fields without waiting to say good-bye to me?" Connie said to him when they were able to talk without being overheard.

Charlie looked rather uncomfortable, and began to tell some story of a party who were going to start and would not wait, when Connie interrupted him.

"If I thought you had had no better reason than that I should forgive you; as it is, I don't think I shall unless you tell me something I want to know. You remember the day of the accident;" and a tear came into her eyes as the terrible memory of her father's death came back to her. "Well, you remember on that day we were talking together under the trees, you and I: you were just going to tell me something when I was called away. Can you remember now what it was you were going to say?"

Of course he could remember, and once for all the heroic resolutions he had made and tried to act upon utterly broke down.

"I suppose I must tell my cousins about this," Connie said, after they had talked for some time, as she glanced in the direction of the gentleman and lady she was travelling with, who were regarding them with looks of surprise and disapproval. "They are my guardians, and perhaps they mayn't like it; but they know I always have my own way, and I think you might have known that too."

She was right, they didn't like it; but she in the end had her own way, and some twelve months after their meeting a digger of Red Shirt, who was reading a tattered English newspaper at the canteen, came across an advertisement of the marriage of Charles, son of the late Charles Langdale, of the Griqualand West Civil Service, to Constance, daughter of the late John Stanley (late Captain --th Light Infantry), which after much debate was interpreted to mean that Charlie had married the old General's daughter after all.

Story 8.

A DUEL AT "POKER."

Nobody on the Diamond Fields quite knew the beginning of the ill-feeling between Dr Gorman and Mr Bowker.

It had existed, as far as any one could remember, from the early days of the Fields, and had been increased and intensified by a hundred matters of grievance. It is only in a small community, where there is not much change of thought, and where a fresh face is not very often seen, that bitter personal hatred can grow luxuriantly, and the rancorous ill-will between those two men had become part of themselves, adding a sort of enjoyment to their lives, and influencing many of their actions. Men knew and counted upon the fact that one of them would oppose the other in every possible way, and those who were on bad terms with the one could always reckon on the support and friendship of the other.

It was as much owing to their being respectively directors of the Long Hope and the New Colonial Mining Companies, as to anything else, that the disastrous litigation, which eventually swamped both companies, broke out and was carried on to the bitter end. It was owing to some one suggesting to Bowker that it was the cherished ambition of Dr Gorman to represent Kimberley in the House of Assembly, that the former first took to politics, and began that distinguished public career which we at the Diamond Fields believed was attracting the attention of Europe, while the latter, who had no more ambition to become a member of the Legislative Assembly than to be a bishop, when his enemy issued his address, at once came forward and began to canvass the constituency on his own account.

That election was memorable in the annals of the Diamond Fields for years, and was fought with a spirit which a journal that made a good thing out of it said was creditable to both parties, and bore witness to the healthy vitality of the Diamond Fields. Money was thrown about with a splendid recklessness, and some men, who had the foresight to put their Kaffir workmen on the register, made a good thing out of the rise in the value of free and independent voters.

There was no other candidate who stood a ghost of a chance while there were two seats, so the fight between the two was only for the honour of being senior member, but it was none the less brisk on that account. Bowker won, and then both parties got up petitions against each other's return on account of gross bribery and corruption, and succeeded in turning each other out.

From that day they were the prominent leaders in local politics, in fact they helped to form the two parties who became the Guelphs and Ghibbelines of the Diamond Fields.

Bowker was supposed to own the `Assagai,' a satirical journal that had a stormy existence for some months, and the doctor was believed to have found the money for the `Knobkerri,' and to have imported its editor, a broken-down London journalist, whose power of invective, until he matured the incipient delirium tremens he brought out with him, was the terror of Mr Bowker and his party.

When the former journal devoted a series of articles to the doctor's former life, and to the incidents connected with the suspicious death of his half-aunt, Bowker was believed to have inspired the attack; while the biography of Bowker, giving a graphic account of his being tarred and feathered on the Ovens Gold Field in Australia, in connection with a charge of petty theft, which sent up the circulation of the `Knobkerri' to a figure never before or afterwards reached by a newspaper on the Diamond Fields, was put down to the doctor. Bowker, who achieved a great reputation in colonial politics by his command of language, saying "that he recognised the contemptible handiwork of the medical assassin's dastardly brain." The enmity between these two men increased with the prosperity of the Diamond Fields, but did not go down with the shares when the bad times came.

Through good times and bad the feud between them became more bitter. When things were at their worst, the one felt that the other's bad fortune made up to a certain extent for his own. When things began to mend, Bowker felt that his satisfaction at finding himself on the breast of the wave of returning prosperity was diminished by seeing his old enemy floating in with him. But with Bowker's shares the doctor's house property rose in value, and when at length the latter, having become weary of the dust of the Fields, determined to shake it off his feet for ever, and return home, he felt that the knowledge that he was leaving Bowker behind him a prosperous man, who in a year or two would follow him with a larger fortune, spoilt much of his self-satisfaction.

Bowker, on the other hand, heard with considerable chagrin of the other's intended departure; he felt that in a way he would miss him, and thought that life would be dull now there was little chance of seeing his enemy come to grief, and now it seemed certain on the whole that his career on the Diamond Fields might be summed up as a successful one.

One evening some days before Gorman was to leave Kimberley, he was with some of us in the card-room of the club. We had been playing some mild game of limited loo. We were discussing whether we should go on playing or leave off, no one taking much interest in the game, when Bowker came into the room with a look in his face which showed that he had been taking a fair amount of drink. At that time he was not on speaking terms with Gorman, but for all that, as he came into the room he stared more at him than any one else, and seemed to speak to him when he asked what game we were playing.

"Limited loo! call that a game! No one has got the pluck to play now-a-days. Now I wouldn't mind having a bit of a gamble to-night, but I ain't come down to limited loo," he said with a loud laugh, and a sneer at the doctor.

"What do you want to play?" Gorman said, speaking to Bowker, rather to the surprise of those who were present.

"Well, I'd play a game of poker if any one would sit down who knew how to play, as wasn't afraid of the game," Bowker growled out.

"I know how to play, and I'm not afraid of the game either, Mr Bowker," the doctor answered quietly enough, but with a note in his voice that some of us believed meant mischief.

The rest of us did not offer to join in the play, from the first we fancied it would be a pretty warm game. It was anything but a friendly one, for it seemed to be rather a duel than a mere gamble, and we felt sure that when the two men sat down at the table, each one promised himself that if he could manage it, the other should look back with considerable regret to that little game of poker.

The two men were a great contrast to each other. Bowker was a heavy, coarse-looking, bull-necked man of over six feet high, with a straggling yellow beard growing over his huge red cheeks and jowls. Gorman was a slight, dark man, clean shaven except a twisted moustache, with a pair of sharp black eyes. Both men occasionally played high, though they were not habitual gamblers, and the lookers-on expected to see some sensational playing.

"What do you say to making the blind five pounds?" said the doctor, as he sat down and smiled at his opponent.

"Thought you weren't afraid of the game! but you know what you can afford," the other answered.

"Ten if you like," said the doctor, and then the game began.

For some time the luck ran with provoking evenness; both parties backed their hands with considerable freedom, but after a couple of hours' play neither had lost or won very much.

It happened that they both had a considerable sum in notes, which first collected before one player and then went across to the other. We watched the money pass from player to player, and waited for the more serious period of the game, when one party would have come to the end of his ready money, and play on credit would have begun. After a bit they increased the amount of the blind to thirty pounds, then to a hundred. First one player would be some hundred pounds to the good, then the other would get a turn of luck which would wipe it out again. For a long time they played without what is called a meet occurring; that is to say, when one happened to hold a good hand, the other generally held nothing.

"Hanged if the rent of Gorman's buildings mustn't be going up a bit, since you're man enough to play that game. What do you put your pile at?" Bowker had said, when the other had suggested the last increase of the blind.

"Gorman's buildings are worth about as much as twenty thousand pounds' worth of stock in the Long Hope Company, are not they, Brown?" the doctor said, turning round to a share and estate agent who was looking on at the game.

"Gorman's buildings would fetch twenty-five thousand to-morrow, and we all know the market price of Long Hope," Brown answered.

"Well, play away and hold your jaw. I ain't afraid of you and your damned shanties," Bowker answered.

After this change of remarks neither party said another word, except about the game. We, as we looked on, realised that there was more than mere gamblers' greed in the savage hard look in their eyes. They were anxious to ruin one another, rather than to win money; the hatred of a dozen years seemed to find a vent in that game. The amount that Bowker held in the Long Hope Company was known to be about equal to the price put upon Gorman's buildings, a row of offices near the mine; so the terms on which they met were quite fair. As hour after hour passed the game went on, neither party winning or losing much, but each in turn being to the good. They were both fine players, the doctor the more cautious of the two, while Bowker had on the whole the best luck, which carried him through one or two attempts to win by sheer force of bluffing. As the doctor looked into the mask of red flesh opposite him, he for some time found nothing there to give any clue as to the sort of hand his opponent held; but in the small hours of the morning he began to notice that every now and then the veins in his face would seem to swell, and his breathing would become harder. The luck just then was rather in the doctor's favour, and after he had won several stakes he was able to diagnose his opponent's symptoms of intense excitement pretty satisfactorily. When Bowker had a strong hand he would back it without showing these signs, but when he was in doubt, and backing his hand for more than it was worth, they would appear.

"You had better not try that on again, it's not good for your health, and worse for your pocket, you will find, my friend," the doctor said to himself, as he dealt out the cards, determined that before long he would utilise the piece of knowledge which he fancied he had acquired.

For some time after that, however, Bowker got hand after hand that there was no resisting, and the doctor's winnings were reduced to nothing.

It was getting on into the morning, but the club was still kept up, and several members stayed on watching the sensational game played out. At last the doctor took up a hand of three knaves, a king, and an ace, doubled the blind, and then changed the king and the ace, getting a queen and another knave. He had four knaves, but he had the best possible four, for he held a queen and had thrown away a king and an ace. Unless Bowker held a straight flush (that is to say, a sequence of the same suit) he could not hold as good a hand. Bowker had taken one card, and his heavy coarse face showed no sign. The betting went up at first gradually, then by leaps and bounds till it came to a thousand pounds.

There was no limit to the amount that could be staked, but the game of poker played on the Diamond fields only allowed a player to raise the amount at one time to double what had already been staked.

"Make it a thousand, that's a good bit of your street," Bowker said coolly enough.

"Two," said the doctor.

"Four," answered Bowker.

The doctor began to wonder whether after all Bowker might not have a straight flush, but just then he felt sure that he saw the signs in his face he had noticed before.

"Eight," said the doctor, and there was an expression in his bright eyes that meant danger, as he looked into the other's face.

Bowker stared at his hand for some seconds, before, in a husky voice, he said--

"Sixteen. That's about all your shanties are worth," he added, seeming to gain courage.

"How much did you say, Brown--twenty-four thousand five hundred? Make it that; that's the amount of my street and your shares, Bowker," Gorman said, and we all noticed the tone of malice in his voice, which had kept calm and emotionless all through the play.

For a second or two Bowker did not answer. He looked like an elephant which had received its death-wound, so a man who had just come down from the Zambesi said.

"Twenty-four thousand five hundred. Well, I will make it up to that and go." Then he stopped, as if he realised he had about got to the end of his tether.

Not only the doctor, but every one in the room, felt pretty sure that he had a bad hand, and that the finish of the game had come.

Every face was turned to Bowker; the lookers-on wondering what he would do, and how he would take his bad luck. For a second he seemed to be trying to think. Then a dazed look came into his face, and he half stood up, and then fell heavily forward, bringing the table down with him. There was a paraffin lamp on the table, which smashed as it fell, and in a second the cloth and table was blazing. There was a rush forward of the men looking on. Bowker was lifted on to a sofa, and a doctor, who on his way home from a case had dropped into the club, seeing it open, began to attend to him.

"By Jove! the place will be burnt down!" some one cried, and some men rushed out of the room to get water, while others tried to put out the fire with rugs.

Gorman stood holding his cards in his hand, looking first at his opponent and then at the blazing card-table.

"Well, how are we going to play this out? This is a damn pretty thing," he said. He did not care about Bowker's state of health, nor did he care whether the building were burnt down or not.

"See here, where are his cards? we have got to see this out. Twenty-four thou, is no laughing matter. He never raised, so we had better show our cards. What's he got?" Gorman said, as he stood with his cards in hand.

The fire was put out. Bowker was on the sofa looking rather bad, but the doctor seemed to be perfectly careless about everything except the stake he felt sure he had won.

"Never mind about the game, man, now; maybe the poor fellow will never get round," one of the men who was looking at Bowker said.

"Beg pardon, but I do care about the game; it's all very well his going into a fit, but that don't alter the fact that we've got to play this out. Where are his cards?"

"You want to see his hand, do you? Well, there you are," some one said, holding up a charred mass which was all there was left of the cloth that had been on the table, or the rest of the cards, except the four knaves and a queen which Gorman held in his hand.

Gorman looked at it for a second, and then with an oath he threw his own cards on to the floor.

"Four knaves and a queen, and I had at first an ace and a king. So I must win with them."

"The question is, what had Bowker? He don't look like telling you, and nobody else knows; besides, the game has not been played out. It's a draw," said one of the on-lookers, and this speech brought a murmur of consent from the others.

Gorman gathered up his cards and showed them to the company. Then he said no more, but watched Bowker, who seemed to be coming to.

"Look here, what was your hand?" he asked, when the latter seemed to be sensible.

Bowker, however, did not answer the question, and it was some months before he could be induced to talk about that game. Until Gorman left the Fields his mind was a blank on the subject.

The story went, however, that he was induced to tell in confidence the story of that night's play to a particular friend.

He had held three aces and two kings. Not a very good hand, but one worth backing for a little. Gorman, however, had taken him up, and instead of throwing up his hand, he had determined to bluff. He had originally held a queen, so he knew that Gorman could not hold four of aces, kings, or queens. He could remember getting to the end of his tether, and finding Gorman sticking to him like grim death; and then he could remember no more. It was only after Gorman had left for England that this story was told. Some people shrug their shoulders and laugh when they talk of that fit which Bowker had, and they say that under the circumstances it was the best thing he could have done. But the doctor who attended him knows it was real enough, and so does Gorman, who saw it coming on.

Story 9.

"A WHISKEY DRINKER."

The `Queen's Hotel,' Kimberley, was doing a roaring trade. The bar was one dense mass of thirsty men, struggling to get served with splits and other drinks. The large dining-room, out of which the tables had been taken, was crowded. People from all parts of the colony were there. Dutch Africanders from the western province, Englishmen from the east; colonial soldiers; officers of the Cape Mounted Rifles, and mounted police officers from the frontier; merchants from Capetown and Port Elizabeth, and visitors from every part of South Africa. Besides these visitors there was every sort of Diamond-Field man represented. The honest digger--the expression is considered out there the correct one to use, though if it be your lot to have much dealing with the mining element of South Africa you will wonder how it came into vogue--with his broad-brimmed hat and big beard and bad language is making himself conspicuous as he generally does, wherever he be. The diamond-buyers, licensed and unlicenced, gentlemen of the Jewish persuasion for the most part, given as a rule to wearing much of their stock-in-trade on their hands, and indulging in that shiny smartness of dress so dear to the race; the latter, the unlicenced and unlawful dealers in diamonds, wearing in their eyes that restless uneasy look that is peculiar to those classes who are liable at any moment to find themselves involved in an embarrassing and one-sided misunderstanding with the police. There were merchants, speculators, lawyers, doctors, and civil servants there. About some men who took rather a prominent position there was the unmistakable betting man's look; and they gave one the idea that they would be at home in the ring at any English race meeting. The occasion was the drawing of the lotteries for the forthcoming races, and as times had been good, and money was plentiful, sovereigns were flowing in very quickly to the men who were giving out the chances. I was looking on smoking when I recognised a slight, good-looking man who was taking a ticket in the lottery. His name was Jack Harman, an ex-officer in the army, who had been a digger on the Diamond Fields, had married and settled in the colony.

"How is it you're up here?" I said to him as I shook hands with him. "A married man like you ought not to be wandering about the country."

"You're right--wish to goodness I was at home, for the missis is ill; but I have to look after my horses up here."

"Well, I suppose your horse Marmion is a certainty for the cup, eh?" I said. "Up here they think the race is over."

"All I can say is, that it isn't, I wish it were, for it's a rich prize, and goodness knows I want the money badly enough."

Just then a dark-bearded man pushed past Jack Harman, and as he did so gave him a look of recognition which the latter answered by a blank stare.

"Who's that?--who's your friend?" I asked him.

"That is one of the blackest-hearted scoundrels unhanged; he is a sort of fellow you read about in a book; Solomon Muzada is his name, and he is one of the greatest enemies I have. Do you know that brute wanted to marry my wife; it's an infernal cheek because there is a touch of the tar-brush in him. Dutchman, Jew, and nigger--it's a nice breed, isn't it? Of course she wouldn't look at him, and since our marriage he has been our enemy. There was a mortgage on Laurie's Kloof, on which I ought to have paid the interest, but didn't; well he has bought it, and by Jove he is going to sell us up. He has sworn he will make a bankrupt of me, and I believe he will do it. Do you hear that? I have drawn a horse Storm Drum. By George, that's a rum thing!" he added, as he caught something which the steward of the races, who was managing the drawing, had shouted out. "Look here, are you going to do anything about the races, because don't make any bets till you have seen me. I must see about the selling," he said as he went off.

A steward had got upon one of the tables, upon which a desk had been put, and was about to sell the chances. Anglo-Indians or South Africans need no explanation of a selling lottery, but to some Englishmen an explanation may be given. After the lotteries have been drawn the chances of the different horses are sold by auction; any ore present is allowed to bid, but in perhaps the generality of cases the owners of horses buy the chances, this being the best way of backing their horses to win a good amount. The highest bidder has to pay the amount of his bid twice over, once to the owner of the ticket that drew the horse, and again he has to pay it into the pool. The latter money, of course, he gets back again, together with the amount collected for the tickets and the prices paid for the other chances if the horse whose chance he bought wins. After the chance of some outsider had been sold for a few pounds the steward, who was acting as auctioneer, shouted out that the next chance to be sold was Marmion. "Gentlemen, Captain Harman's Marmion, and three hundred and four pounds in the pool."

The sporting division began to make calculations in their betting-books, and to be all on the alert to learn what those who knew most about it thought of the horse's chance.

I watched Jack Harman carefully. "Poor beggar, he wants money badly! I hope he will be able to buy Marmion's chance cheap," I thought to myself, as I noticed the expression on his face. As I looked away from him I saw Solomon Muzada, the man Jack had told me about; he also was watching Jack, and I believe, from the devilish smile that was playing round his coarse, thick lips, that he too read the expression I saw.

"Captain Harman's Marmion, three hundred and four pounds in the pool," the steward cried out, and the bidding began.

Some one bid twenty pounds, some one thirty, thirty-five, forty, fifty, sixty, a hundred; then the bidding steadied, and went up a pound at a time till a hundred and fifty was reached.

"That's all it will go for," said a bookmaker near me; "it's buying money to give more."

He was wrong though; a hundred and ninety was reached before only two bidders were left--one was Jack Harman, the other was Solomon Muzada.

"Going at one hundred and ninety, three hundred pounds in the pool," said the steward.

"Ninety-one," cried out Jack Harman.

"Ninety-two," snarled out Solomon Muzada.

"Three."

"Bah! what's the good, I bid five," said Muzada.

Jack Harman seemed to be doing a sum in mental arithmetic then, he shrugged his shoulders and walked away, letting Marmion's chance be knocked down to Solomon Muzada.

"See, that is done to spite me; he'd do anything to prevent me winning any money, the brute! I'll sell him though. If Mr Muzada thinks I keep horses in training to win money for him he makes a mistake," Harman said, as he came up to me; then raising his voice he turned to Muzada, who was standing near: "Well, what do you expect to make by this? You're pretty clever to buy a horse against an owner, but you'll find if it wasn't worth my while to pay for the horse's chance it wasn't worth yours."

"Ah! this is the Captain who is such an honourable gentleman, and he says he will humbug me, and not let his horse win because I bought the lottery," Muzada sneered; "but I tink the honourable Captain can't afford to throw away the stakes, so that's why I buy Marmion's chance."

"You think I can't afford to lose the stakes--well, you will find out whether I can afford that; all I say is, that you sha'n't win money by my horse."

"Your horse! well, he won't be your horse long, you will have to sell him after the race. You're a nice man to own horses--a beggar like you; you will be sold up soon after the race is over. I will buy your horse then."

"That depends on others as well as you, for the horse will be sold by public auction; but stop, since you have bought the horse's lottery you had better buy him now at once, you shall have him with his engagements for fifteen hundred pounds, he is worth more to you than to any one else."

Muzada looked eagerly at Harman as he made this suggestion. He had set his mind on buying Marmion after the race, and he thought he might as well buy him before. He could not quite understand why Jack was willing to sell to him. The price mentioned seemed not to be very much, considering that the horse was sure to win the race the next day; so some of the purchase money would come back.

"Don't be a fool, the horse is worth more than that," another owner of race-horses whispered to Jack.

Muzada heard the whisper, and that determined him; after haggling for some time about the price he came to terms with Jack.

"What have you done that for? it seems to me you would have done better to have secured the stakes before you sold the horse," I said to Jack, after the sale had been completed.

"I don't think Marmion is going to win that race; it was not certain before, it certainly isn't now," Jack answered, somewhat to my mystification.

"Why, what's to beat him?" I asked; "what can?"

"There is one that can beat him if he liked, and that's the horse that I have drawn--Storm Drum."

I looked at Jack in surprise. Storm Drum was owned by a Kimberley canteen-keeper, who had bought him after the races the year before. He had gained an evil reputation by his savage temper, and had never started for a race without distinguishing himself by some display of vice. On one occasion he had shown a tendency towards indulging in the luxury of human flesh, having taken a large bite out of the leg of a jockey riding another horse.

"Surely you don't mean that you believe that brute can have a chance?" I asked incredulously.

"It's all chance. If he took it into his head to try it would be a certainty. You needn't tell me all you know about him, you seem to forget that he was in our stable; he belonged to Markham of Port Elizabeth, and I won a race on him in Natal, and have ridden him often enough. He was a better horse than Marmion, in fact he is the best horse that ever came out to this country, only he is such an untrustworthy brute."

I shook my head. Jack Harman knew a good deal more about racing than I did, still I could not help feeling that his anger with Muzada was making him act rashly; and I was still more of this opinion after I had been present at an interview between them next morning. Muzada was standing at the bar of the `Queen's Hotel,' swaggering about the good bargain he had made with Jack, and the folly of the latter in selling out of pique, when Jack came in. Some one asked him if he was going to ride in the Kimberley Cup the next day.

"Yes, I am; I ride Storm Drum," Jack answered.

Muzada burst out laughing. The horse's eccentricities were so well-known, that he thought with pleasure how the man he hated was certain to look ridiculous.

"So, Captain, you are going to ride; how much will you bet that you ever get round the course?" said Muzada, talking to Jack in his free and easy way, which I knew made my friend's blood boil. "Come, you had better put your pride in your pocket, and ride for _me_," he added, as it occurred to him that this would annoy Jack.

"Thank you, but it is bad enough that you should own a thoroughbred horse, let alone that a white man should ride for you," Jack answered with a glance at the other's dark skin, which was full of meaning.

Muzada looked for a second or two as if he were thinking of hitting Jack, then thinking better of it he pretended not to understand the allusion.

"Well, who would like to back Captain Harman's mount? I will bet ten to one against Storm Drum, even though this famous gentleman jockey does ride for Pat Brady."

"How much will you lay it to?" Jack asked.

There was a gleam in Muzada's eyes as he heard this question.

"To a good deal more than you can afford to pay," he answered, thinking to himself that Jack was going mad.

The idea of Storm Drum's having any chance of winning the race seemed too absurd to be entertained for a minute; and Muzada thought that Jack had realised that he was likely soon to become ruined, and had become desperate.

Jack Harman said nothing, and I whispered to him a warning not to do anything rash.

"Come, I have some money to give you for Marmion, after we have settled the bills I hold; well, I will lay you ten to one to that."

"That's four hundred pounds. Well, I will take four thousand to four hundred," Jack answered in the same quiet voice.

Muzada looked a little surprised; he evidently thought that Jack was mad with annoyance. The idea of winning what he had every reason to believe was Jack's last four hundred pounds in the world was very sweet to him. There were one or two men present, who were fairly good judges, and their expressions seemed to tell Muzada that they thought Jack was mad.

"It's a bet," he said, as he wrote it down in his book.

"Why on earth have you thrown that money away?" I asked Jack, as I followed him into the street.

"It's not thrown away yet," he answered; "and I never could get as much money bet against the horse by any one else; he only does it because he knows that if I lose it will about break me."

"Well, why should you be broke, why not keep your money in your pocket?" I insisted rather wearisomely, for it was not much use lecturing my friend when the mischief was done.

"Look here, I am going to win on Storm Drum. Take my advice and take ten to one or eight to one for the matter of that. You see, it's like this," Jack said, as he noticed my expression, "these races are my last chance of winning some money, so as to prevent that black scoundrel from selling me up. When I married I hadn't much of my own, as you know, and though my wife owned the farm and the homestead, it was mortgaged a good bit. Instead of paying off the mortgage we have let matters go from bad to worse, and have taken things easily enough until we found that Muzada had been quietly getting hold of all the paper I had put my name to, and of all the charges on our property. It was just the revenge that would please him, to make us beggars, and show my wife that she had married a spendthrift, who had wasted all she had and brought her to ruin. Muzada knew that I trusted to winning a fair stake with Marmion, and he came up here to prevent it. He would spend a good deal of money to stop me from winning enough to keep his claws off Laurie's Kloof. Well, I have determined to do my best to disappoint him. I have always had a sort of presentiment that some day or the other Storm Drum would surprise every one, and when I drew the horse in the lottery and no one bid the chance so that it was knocked down to me, the idea came into my head that my only chance of saving Laurie's Kloof was to trust to that uncertain gentleman. Imprudent you may say, well perhaps it is, but let me tell you this, that I know more about the horse than you do, and something tells me that it will be all right, and Mr Muzada will find out to his cost that he has burnt his fingers in meddling with my affairs."

I could do nothing but hope for the best, but I found it very difficult to feel much confidence in my friend's scheme coming off successfully; and that evening I watched Muzada and noticed that he was in a high state of delight, and was counting beforehand on the discomfiture of the enemy.

Racecourse scenes are like one another all the world over. The crowd at the grand stand was composed of much the same materials as the crowd at minor meetings at home. The principal difference probably would be, that on the colonial racecourse people know much more about one another than they do at home; and there is strong personal interest felt in the result of the races. The story of Jack Harman's having sold the horse to Muzada was well-known to every one on the course, and to a certain extent rather decreased the confidence felt in the favourite winning, though it was not easy to see what horse could beat him.

Jack Harman had been a digger on the Diamond Fields before he married and settled down in the colony, and a good many of his old friends invested a sovereign or two on the chances of the horse he had elected to ride, but very little hope was felt as to his chance. The local bookmakers, who had many a time won money from those who had put their trust in Storm Drum's good breeding, were anxious enough to lay odds against him again, although they had heard the story of Harman's sensational bet.

Pat Brady, who owned Storm Drum, was a short, thick-set, good-humoured little Irishman, who had often been subjected to a good deal of chaff on account of the way his horse would shut up and refuse to try a yard in public. At last he had sworn never to bet another farthing upon him, and had declared that after the Kimberley Cup he would sell him for what he would fetch. Jack Harman, however, seemed to have infected Pat with a good deal of his hopefulness.

"Sure then the Captain is going to do the trick to-day; those fellows won't be laughing about Storm Drum in half-an-hour's time, you'll find," he said to his friends, as the bookmakers joked him about his horse.

There were two or three other imported horses as well as Marmion, and one colonial-bred one who was thought to have a chance. I found myself standing on the top of the grand stand, next to Muzada, when the horses had gone down to the post, and I noticed with some pleasure that that gentleman did not seem to be enjoying himself very much. He was evidently thinking of the money he stood to lose on Storm Drum.

"Laid ten to one against him did you? well, if he tried it would be odds on him, but it's more than ten to one he don't try," a well-known colonial racing-man named Langford, whom I had just seen laying two hundred to fifty on Marmion, was saying to Muzada, as he looked through his race-glasses at the horses getting together at the starting-post.

"How is he behaving now--him?" said Muzada, with a scowl on his ugly face. He was not over comforted at the other's remarks. After all Jack Harman had not made such a bad bet, and he didn't like the way the horse was being backed by one or two others; nor was he pleased to hear that Pat Brady had recovered that confidence in the gay deceiver which of old cost him so dear.

"He is behaving himself wonderfully well; wait a bit though, and he will come out in his old character."

"Why, man, you look nervous," said the other; "never fear, your horse is sure to win."

Muzada looked gratified.

"I think the Captain will find he has humbugged himself this time; I think he'll have to walk down to the colony after the race," he said.

"They're off--it's a good start," said Langford, and we put up our glasses.

Jack Harman went straight to the front.

"Who's that leading?"

"Storm Drum."

"Storm Drum has bolted!" they were crying out.

"Devil a bit bolted. Jack thinks that to win at all he must take the lead and keep it, and, by Jove, he's right," said Langford. "But I have never seen him go like that before."

"How about Storm Drum now?" shouted out some one, as he came past the stand leading by twenty lengths.

"Ah, then, who's got the laugh this day?" Pat Brady cried out.

"There's lots of time for him to come out with his old tricks, but if he don't they won't catch him," said Langford.

Muzada snarled out a sentence hideous with blasphemy.

"Even if he wins his bet the triumph will have cost him something," I thought, as I looked at his ugly face, and saw how sick he looked as Storm Drum came along, the gap between him and the other horse rather increasing than decreasing.

"It's a race! Marmion wins!" shouted some one, as for a second the favourite looked dangerous.

"Not a bit of it; Storm Drum has the lot of 'em settled," said Langford as he put down his glasses; "he is on his good behaviour for once, and he has made fools of us all."

As Storm Drum came past the post, an easy winner, men began to remember how they had always said he was the best bred horse in South Africa, and better class than anything else out there, and generally to be wise after the event.

Muzada was not able to take his losses so philosophically. He got into a rage, swearing that he had been robbed, that Marmion had been got at, and that the whole thing was a swindle. Nobody sympathised with him very much, and even those who had lost their money found some consolation in his disappointment.

"So, you see, I was not so rash as you thought; but then I happened to know something about the horse that no one else knew," said Jack Harman to me that evening. "When Tom Markham owned him we found out that he could not be depended upon, and after he had let us in once or twice we determined to get rid of him. One day, however, at Cradock races, a man came up to us and said he thought he could tell us something about the horse. He had been employed in a stable at home, where Blue Peter, Storm Drum's sire, was trained. Blue Peter was just such another customer as his son, till somehow it was found out that he had a weakness for strong drink. His favourite tipple was whiskey, Irish whiskey, the older and better it was the more he liked it--it seemed to put heart in him, and after he took to drink he won race after race for them, and our informant suggested that the taste might be inherited. Well, we determined to give his idea a trial, and before Storm Drum started for the race he won in Natal, he had his half bottle of whiskey. It seemed to agree with him, for he went right away and won. A few weeks after that Markham went to grief, and had to bolt to South America, and Storm Drum was seized by his creditors. One or two men owned him before he came to Pat Brady, but they all burnt their fingers with him; for no one knew of his family failing, and as a Good Templar he didn't turn out a success, but I always remembered what he could do if he liked, and when Muzada interfered with me I thought how I could sell him if I put Storm Drum on his good behaviour. Well, it came off all right, but I didn't enjoy that ride; every moment I was afraid that the brute would stop dead, but thanks to Pat's whiskey, he had won the race before he remembered himself. It's the last bet I shall make in this country. I shall go back and look after the farm, and the missis, and the kids, now that I am out of Muzada's clutches again."

Jack Harman was as good as his word, and there is no steadier husband or better specimen of the colonial farmer than the ex-hussar. He lives happily at Laurie's Kloof, and prosperous and well to do.

Story 10.

JUMPED--A TALE OF THE KIMBERLEY RACES.

Chapter One.

It was in the flush times on the Diamond Fields; the days afterwards remembered, in the bad times which came so soon, with so much wondering regret. In those days every one had made money out of shares and confidently hoped to make much more. Shares and companies were talked about morning, noon, and night; and what more delightful topic for conversation could any one wish to have? for then almost every one held shares, and those shares, independently of what they were in or where the ground possessed by the company was situated, went up every hour, so that, except when a public benefactor did some thing unusually criminal or eccentric, so giving the Diamond Field public a subject for much interesting talk, no one discussed and no one wished to discuss anything else.

For a short time, however, when the mania was at its very height, shares became a subject of secondary interest, and as the topic of interest the Kimberley races took its place. With a characteristic unanimity and zest the public of the four camps began to talk, think, and speculate about the races. One would only hear scraps of conversation relating to weight for age, the rules of racing, and the performances of the imported horses, as one passed the open doors of bars and canteens.