"Stopping the illicit-diamond-buying and selling, for instance," said Ingleborough sarcastically.

"Exactly!" replied Anson, apparently without noticing the sarcasm; "and I've been thinking that no doubt I could put a good thing in both your ways. Of course, we have been bad enough friends; but I'll pa.s.s over all that if you'll serve me as faithfully as you did the company. What do you say?"

"Say?" cried West.

"Stop! Hold hard, Oliver!" cried Ingleborough, stopping him short; "this is a thing that can't be settled in a minute. We want time. All I say now, Mr Anson, is that I'm glad we bear such a good character, seeing that we are illicit-diamond-dealers escaping with the plunder that we haven't got."

"Exactly!" said Anson. "Very well, then, I'll give you till to-morrow night to think it over, and you'll soon see which side your bread's b.u.t.tered."

"Don't stop me, Ingle," said West hotly. "I can't stand this. I must speak. This--"

A sharp report from behind the wagon checked further words, and every man made a rush for this place or that in full expectation that a sudden attack had been made upon the laager within the rocky walls.

At the same moment a Kaffir of the blackest type and with his hair greased up into the familiar Zulu ring bounded into sight, tripped, fell upon his hands, sprang up again, ran on, and disappeared, whilst a rush was made for the man who fired, leaving Anson and the prisoners together.

The next minute West's blood felt as if it was running cold in his veins as he saw, only a few yards from him and close to the stone upon which his jacket had been stretched, the sentry slowly re-loading his pistol.

But the coat was gone.

West had hard work to repress a groan. "My orders were to fire at anyone I saw stealing," said the man surlily, and West heard every word.

"Well, who was stealing?" asked one of the officers.

"A Kaffir," replied the sentry. "I'd got a jacket stretched out upon the stones yonder, to get aired in the sunshine, and I only took my eyes off it for a minute, when I saw a foot rise up from behind a stone, grab hold of the coat with its toes--"

"Nonsense!" cried the officer; "a foot could not do that!"

"Not do it?" said the man excitedly. "It had to do it; and it was creeping away, when I fired, and the black sprang up and ran."

"Where's the jacket?"

The officer's question woke an echo in West's breast, and he started, for it was just as if the question was repeated there, and it seemed to be echoed so loudly that he fancied those near must have heard it.

"He's got it, I suppose," said the sentry coolly. "Carried it away, and a bullet too somewhere in his carca.s.s."

A miserably despondent feeling attacked West at these words, for he had clung to the hope that he might be able to recover the despatch, succeed in escaping and delivering it in safety, however late; while now the desire to get away died out, for how could he return to Kimberley and confess that he had failed?

He turned to glance at Ingleborough, who met his eyes and then shrugged his shoulders as much as to say: "It's a bad job, and I pity you."

At that moment a hand was clapped heavily upon West's shoulder, and the Boer who had saluted him so roughly pointed to the wagon, and he saw that his companion was being treated in the same way, while, the scare being over, upon their walking back and preparing to climb in, they were called upon to stop. Naturally the prisoners obeyed, and, turning, they found the group of Boers in earnest conversation once more with Anson, who at the end of a few minutes nodded decisively and approached his two old fellow-clerks, making West's heart begin to thump with excitement and his eyes gleam, for the despair he felt at the loss he had sustained made him ready to turn fiercely upon the first enemy who addressed him.

"Take it calmly!" whispered Ingleborough. "Let me diplomatise. You'll do no good by making a row."

"Take it calmly!" whispered back West, "and at a time like this! I can't!"

"Look here, you two," said Anson coolly. "Let's have no more bones about the matter. These gentlemen say they have too much to think about to bother over any shilly-shallying on the part of a couple of prisoners. You know it's a good chance, and I've told them you'll both join along with me. Just tell them out and out you will."

"You miserable renegade, how dare you!" cried West fiercely.

"Here, what does that mean?" cried the Boer commandant sharply.

"Shamming!" replied Anson, with a contemptuous laugh. "They're going to join us, knowing, as they do, that the game is all up at Kimberley; but they put on all this make-believe. They want to be able to say that they were forced to serve, so as to hedge--so as to make it all comfortable with their consciences, as they call them."

"It is false!" cried West furiously--"a tissue of lies! Don't believe him; this man is no better than a miserable contemptible thief!"

"What!" shouted Anson, lowering the rifle he carried and taking a step forward with what was intended to be a fierce aspect.

But he only took one step, being checked suddenly by the action of West, who, regardless of the weapon, sprang at him, and would have wrenched away the rifle had he not been seized by a couple of the Boers, who held him fast.

"Pooh! I don't want to shoot the wretched cad!" said Anson contemptuously. "An old fellow-clerk of mine! He's savage and jealous of my position here! He always was an ill-tempered brute!"

"But he says that you are a thief!" said the Boer commandant sternly.

"Pooh! A spiteful man would say anything!" cried Anson contemptuously.

"Look here, sir, I've watched the Boer troubles from the first: I've seen how the English have been trying to find an excuse for seizing the two republics: I know how they got possession of the great diamond-mines by a trick arranged with the surveyors of the boundaries."

There was a low murmur of a.s.sent here from the gathering crowd of Boers who had now surrounded him.

"Yes," he said, raising his voice, "I knew all the iniquities of the British Government--how the English had seized the diamond-fields, and how they were trying to get the gold-mines, and as soon as the war broke out I made up my mind to join the people fighting for their liberty."

There was a burst of cheering from the few who could follow the speaker, and then a roar as soon as his words were explained to the crowd, while Anson looked round with his fat face growing shiny, as he beamed upon his hearers.

"Yes," said the Boer leader coldly; "but this young man, who knows you, charges you with being a thief."

"All cowardly malice!" cried Anson contemptuously, and giving his fingers a snap. "A thief?--a robber?--nonsense. Pooh! I only dealt in and brought away with me a few of the stones, which were as much mine as theirs. I was not coming away from the enemy empty-handed. I said to myself that I'd spoil the Egyptians as much as I could, and I did."

There was a shout of delight at this, and one of the field-cornets gave the speaker a hearty slap on the shoulder.

"Yes, I brought some away," continued Anson, rejoicing fatly in the success of his words; and, raising his voice, he said, first in English and then in Boer-Dutch: "I brought some away, and I wish I had brought more."

There was a fresh and a long-continued roar of delight, repeated again and again, giving the speaker time to collect his thoughts, and as soon as he could gain silence he continued.

"Look here," he said: "I came and joined the Boers because I believed their cause to be just; and I said to myself, knowing what I do of the secrets of the diamond-mines, I will be the first as soon as Kimberley is taken to show the commandants where the British tyrants have hidden away the stones that belong of right to the Boers, the stones that have been stolen from the earth--the land they fought for and won with their blood from the savage black sc.u.m who infested the country. I know where the stones are hidden away, and I can, if you like, lead you to what the British think you will never find. But if you are going to believe the words of this malicious boy, and consider me to be a common thief, I've done. You can have the few paltry stones I brought away to sell and pay for my bread and meat till the war is over, and let me go. I don't want to act as your guide into Kimberley! It's nothing to me! I have told you what I did; and what is more, I'd do it again!"

"Yes," said Ingleborough, in a whisper to West, as he sat holding his hand to his injured head: "I believe him there."

West nodded, and the next minute they saw Anson being led away in triumph by a crowd of Boers; but the commandant, with half-a-dozen more who seemed to be officers, and the man who had defended them when they were captured, remained close by the prisoners, talking together.

Soon after, the commandant approached them, glanced at Ingleborough, who lay back, evidently in pain, and then turned to West: "You heard what your old friend said?"

"Yes," replied West.

"It is all true?"

"His base confession is," said West boldly. "The man is a detected illicit-diamond-dealer."

"He only bought what the British wrongly claimed!" said the Boer warmly.

"What right had they to make laws forbidding people to buy what was freely given up by the earth for the benefit of all?"

"It is of no use for me to argue about the matter!" said West coolly.