From Veldt Camp Fires

(It is perfectly well known in South Africa that diamond experts can at once pick out a particular stone and indicate its mine of origin. Practice has created perfection in this respect, and stones, whether from De Beers, Du Toit’s Pan, Bultfontein, the Kimberley mine, or the Vaal River, can be at once identified.)

Here there was a visible “sensation” (that mysterious compound of shifting, whispering, and restless movement) in court. “Yes,” continued the advocate, “the stone is beyond all shadow of a doubt a De Beers stone. It is not registered. The prisoner has no title to it; the diamond is a stolen diamond; and if, as I have little doubt, I shall succeed in proving my facts to you clearly and incontestably, the prisoner must take the consequences of his guilt. If indeed he be guilty, then let justice, strict but not vindictive justice, be done. Kimberley, in spite of the severest penalties, the most deterrent legislation, is still eaten up and honeycombed by the vile and illicit traffic in diamonds.”

The advocate warmed to his peroration, and, as he was a holder of De Beers shares, he naturally felt what he said. The court was already becoming warm. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. It is hot work delivering an important speech in South Africa. “In the name of Heaven, I say,” he continued, striking the desk with his clenched fist, “let us have done with this vile and monstrous traffic, that renders our city – one of the foremost cities in South Africa – a byword and a laughing-stock among the nations.”

Otto Staarbrucker was the first witness called. He gave his evidence with great clearness, and conveyed, with consummate skill, the impression of his extreme reluctance and pain at having thus brought his former friend into trouble. Only the natural instinct of self-protection, on behalf of himself and his sister, and the absolute refusal of the prisoner to “declare” the diamond, had induced him to take the extreme step of informing the authorities. One item, and that an important one, was added to the evidence tendered by him upon the occasion of the prisoner’s committal. He had omitted then to state that on two evenings, shortly before his discovery of the diamond in Farnborough’s possession, he had seen the prisoner, not far from the house, in earnest conversation with a native. The time was evening, and it was dark, and he was unable to positively identify the “boy.” This evidence, as was suggested by counsel for the prosecution, tended manifestly to couple the prisoner with a native diamond thief, and thereby to tighten the damning chain of evidence now being wound about him. Staarbrucker suffered it to be extracted from him with an art altogether admirable. He had not mentioned the fact at the former hearing, thinking it of trifling importance. The prosecuting advocate, on the contrary, exhibited it with manifest care and parade, as a most important link in the case.

This piece of evidence, it may be at once stated, was a bit of pure and infamous invention on Otto’s part, an afterthought suggested by seeing Frank once give an order to a native groom. In the hands of himself and a clever advocate it did its work.

In cross-examination, Otto Staarbrucker suffered very little at the hands of the defending advocate, skilful though the latter proved himself. The prisoner’s theory (and indeed, perfectly true story) of his, Staarbrucker’s, repeated offers of a prospecting partnership, and of his ultimate rage and vexation upon Frank’s refusal, he treated with an amused, slightly contemptuous surprise. The man was a finished actor, and resisted all the assaults of counsel upon this and other points of the story with supreme skill and coolness. The touch of sympathy for the prisoner, too, was never lost sight of. Frank Farnborough, as he glared fiercely at this facile villain, reeling off lie after lie with damning effrontery, felt powerless. What could he do or say against such a man? To express the burning indignation he felt, would be but to injure his case the more fatally. With difficulty indeed, while he felt his fingers tingling to be at the slanderer’s throat, he restrained himself, as Otto’s calm eye occasionally wandered to his, expressing, as plainly as might be for the benefit of all present, its sympathy and sorrow at the unfortunate situation of his former friend.

The next witness called was “Miss Nina Staarbrucker.” Again there was a manifest sensation. Miss Staarbrucker was well known in Kimberley, and every eye turned in the direction of the door. There was some delay; at length a passage was made through the crowded court, and Nina appeared.

Before she steps into the witness-box it may be well to explain Nina’s attitude and feelings from the morning of the day upon which Frank’s arrest had been made.

After cooling down somewhat from the paroxysm of rage and revenge, which had impelled him to turn traitor upon his friend, and deliver him into the none too tender hands of the detective authorities, Otto Staarbrucker had suffered a strong revulsion of feeling. He regretted, chiefly for his own ease and comfort, the rash step he had taken, and would have given a good deal to retrace it. But the die was irrevocably cast; having chosen his path, he must perforce follow it.

He was well aware of Nina’s friendship – fondness he might call it – for Frank; her sympathy would most certainly be enlisted actively on the young man’s behalf immediately upon hearing of his position. At all hazards she must be kept quiet. Shortly before tiffin, he returned to the house. Calling Nina into the sitting-room, he shut the door and sat down.

“Nina,” he said, “I have some bad news for you. Don’t excite yourself, or make a fuss, but listen carefully and quietly to what I tell you, and then we’ll put our heads together and see what is best to be done.”

Nina turned pale. She feared some news of disaster to Otto’s business, which latterly, as she knew, had been none too flourishing. Otto went on:

“I heard, late last night, from an unexpected quarter, that the detective people had an inkling of an unregistered diamond in this house. You know very well what that means. I went to Frank Farnborough both late last night and early this morning. I begged and entreated him, for his own sake, for all our sakes, to go at once first thing this morning and hand over and declare the stone. This he refused to do, and in a very insulting way. I had no other course open, for my own safety and yours, but to give the information myself. I am afraid matters have been complicated by the discovery that the diamond is a De Beers stone, undoubtedly stolen. Frank is in a temporary mess, but we shall be able to get him out of the difficulty somehow.”

Nina had uttered a low cry of pain at the beginning of this speech. She knew too well the danger, and, as Otto went on, her heart seemed almost to stand still within her.

“Oh,” she gasped, “what is to be done? What shall we do? I must see Frank at once. Surely an explanation from us both should be sufficient to clear him?” She rose as she spoke.

“My dear Nina; first of all we must do nothing rash. We shall no doubt be easily able to get Frank out of his trouble. The thing is, of course, absurd. He has been a little foolish – as indeed we all have – that is all. For the present you must leave every thing to me. I don’t want to have your name dragged into the matter even for a day. If there is any serious trouble, you shall be consulted. Trust to me, and we shall make matters all right.”

By one pretext or another, Otto managed to keep his sister quiet, and to allay her worst fears, until two days after, by which time Frank had been sent for trial and was safely in prison. Nina had meanwhile fruitlessly endeavoured to possess her soul in patience. When Otto had come in that evening and told her of the news, “Why was I not called in evidence?” she asked fiercely. “Surely I could have done something for Frank. You seem to me to take this matter – a matter of life and death – with very extraordinary coolness. I cannot imagine why you have not done more. You know Frank is as innocent as we are ourselves. We ought to have moved heaven and earth to save him this dreadful degradation. What – what can he think of me? I shall go to-morrow and see his solicitors and tell them the whole of the facts!”

Next morning, Nina read an account of the proceedings in the newspaper. It was plainly apparent, from the report of Otto’s evidence, that there was something very wrong going on. She taxed her brother with it.

“My dear Nina, be reasonable,” he said. “Of course Frank has got into a desperate mess. I was not going to give myself away, because I happened to know, innocently, that he had an unregistered diamond for two or three days in his possession. I have since found out that Frank knew a good deal more of the origin of that diamond than I gave him credit for, and it was my plain duty to protect myself.”

This was an absolute fabrication, and Nina more than half suspected it.

“But you were trying to make arrangements with Frank to prospect the very place the stone came from,” said the girl.

“I admit that, fully,” replied Otto calmly. “But I never then suspected that the diamond was stolen. I imagined it was innocently come by. It was foolish, I admit, and I am not quite such an idiot, after giving the information I did, to own now that I was prepared to go in for a speculation with Frank upon the idea of the diamond being an up-country one. Now, clearly understand me, not a word must be said upon this point, or you may involve me in just such a mess as Frank is in.”

Nina was fairly bewildered, and held her peace. Matters had taken such astounding turns. The diamond, it seemed after all, was a stolen one, and a De Beers stone to boot; she knew not what to think, or where to turn for guidance and information. And yet, something must be done to help Frank.

For the next few days, the girl moved about the house like a ghost, seldom speaking to her brother, except to give the barest replies to his scant remarks.

Several times she was in a mind to go straight to Frank’s solicitor and tell her version of the whole affair. But then, again, there were many objections to such a course. She would be received with great suspicion, as an informer from an enemy’s camp. After almost insufferable doubts and heartaches, Nina judged it best to wait until the day of trial, and then and there to give her version of the affair as she knew it. Surely the judge would give ear to a truthful and unprejudiced witness, anxious only to save an honest and cruelly misused man! Surely, surely Frank could and should be saved!

About a week before the trial, she was subpoenaed as a witness on behalf of both prosecution and defence, and finally, the day before the terrible event, Otto had a long interview with her upon the subject of her evidence. Her proof he himself had carefully prepared and corrected with the prosecuting solicitor; excusing his sister upon the ground of ill-health and nervousness, but guaranteeing her evidence at the trial. He now impressed upon her, with great solemnity and anxiety, the absolute necessity of her story coinciding precisely with his own. Nina listened in a stony silence and said almost nothing. Otto was not satisfied, and expressed himself so.

“Nina,” he said sharply, “let us clearly understand one another. My tale is simple enough, and after what has occurred – the finding of a stolen diamond and not an innocent stone from up-country – I cannot conceal from myself that Frank must be guilty. You must see this yourself. Don’t get me into a mess, by any dangerous sympathies, or affections, or feelings of that sort. Be the sensible, good sister you always have been, and, whatever you do, be careful; guard your tongue and brain in court, with the greatest watchfulness. Remember, my reputation – your brother’s reputation – is at stake, as well as Frank’s!”

Nina dared not trust herself to say much. Her soul sickened within her; but, for Frank’s sake, she must be careful. Her course on the morrow was fully made up. She replied to Otto: “I shall tell my story as simply and shortly as possible. In spite of what you say, I know, and you must know, that Frank is perfectly innocent. I know little about the matter, except seeing Frank with the diamond in his hand that night. You may be quite content. I shall not injure you in any way.”

Otto Staarbrucker was by no means satisfied with his sister’s answer, but it was the best he could get out of her. He could not prevent – it was too late now – her being called as a witness. Come what might, she was his sister and never would, never could, put him into danger.

At last the time had come. Nina made her way, with much difficulty, to the witness-box; steadily took her stand and was sworn. All Kimberley, as she knew, was looking intently and watching her every gesture. She had changed greatly in the last few weeks, and now looked, for her, thin and worn – almost ill. The usual warmth of her dark beauty was lacking. An ivory pallor overspread her face; but her glorious eyes were firm, open and determined, and honesty and truth, men well might see, were in her glance. She looked once quickly at the two judges and the magistrate sitting with them, and then her eyes met Frank’s, and for him a world of sympathy was in them. It did Frank good and he breathed more freely. Nina, at all events, was the Nina of old.

The prosecuting advocate opened the girl’s evidence quietly, with the usual preliminaries. Then very gently he asked Nina if she was well acquainted with the prisoner. Her reply was, “Yes, very well acquainted.”

“I suppose,” continued counsel, “I may even call him a friend of yours?”

“Yes,” replied Nina, “a very great friend.”

“Without penetrating unduly into your private affairs and sympathies, Miss Staarbrucker,” went on the advocate, “I will ask you to tell the court shortly what you actually saw on the night in question – the night, I mean, when the diamond was first seen by yourself and your brother.”

Here was Nina’s opportunity, and she took advantage of it. She told plainly, yet graphically, the story of that evening; she portrayed the amazed delight of Frank on the discovery of the stone, his free avowal of his find, the knife in his hand, the open crocodile on the table, the pebbles previously taken from the reptile’s stomach. She went on with her story with only such pauses as the taking of the judge’s notes required. Counsel, once or twice, attempted to pull her up; she was going much too fast and too far to please him; but the court allowed her to complete her narrative. She dealt with the next two days. Mr Farnborough had kept the diamond, it was true. He was puzzled to know what to do with it. He had, finally, announced his intention of giving it up and declaring it, and he would undoubtedly have done so, but for his arrest. The stone might have been stolen, or it might not, but Mr Farnborough, as all his friends knew, was absolutely incapable of stealing diamonds, or of buying diamonds, knowing them to be stolen. The stone came into his possession in a perfectly innocent manner, as she could and did testify on oath. As for her brother’s suspicions, she could not answer for or understand them. For two days, he at all events had had none; she could not account for his sudden change. Spite of the judge’s cautions, she concluded a breathless little harangue – for she had let herself go completely now – by expressing her emphatic belief in Frank’s absolute innocence.

She had finished, and in her now deathly pale beauty was leaving the box. There were no further questions asked by counsel upon either side. Nina had said far too much for the one, and the advocate for the defence judged it wiser to leave such a runaway severely alone. Who knew in what direction she might turn next? He whispered regretfully to his solicitor: “If we had got hold of that girl, by George! we might have done some good with her – with a martingale and double bit on.”

The senior judge, as Nina concluded, remarked blandly – for he had an eye for beauty – “I am afraid we have allowed you a good deal too much latitude. Miss Staarbrucker, and a great deal of what you have told the court is quite inadmissible as evidence.”

As for Otto, he had stared with open mouth and fixed glare at his sister during her brief episode. He now heaved a deep breath of relief, as he watched the judges.

“Thank God!” he said to himself savagely under his breath, “she has overdone it, and spoilt her own game – the little fool!”

Nina moved to her seat and sat, now faint and dejected, watching with feverish eyes for the end.

The case for the prosecution was soon finished. Three witnesses, experts of well-known reputation and unimpeachable character, testified to the fact that the stone was a De Beers stone, and by no possibility any other. Evidence was then put in, proving conclusively that the diamond was unregistered.

Counsel for the defence had but a poor case, but he made the best of it. He dwelt upon the unimpeachable reputation of the prisoner, upon the utter improbability of his having stolen the diamond, or bought it, knowing it to be stolen. There was not a particle of direct evidence upon these points. The testimony of experts was never satisfactory. Their evidence in this case was mere matter of opinion. It was well known that the history of gold and gem finding exceeded in romance the wildest inspirations of novelists. The finding of the first diamond in South Africa was a case very much in point. Why should not the diamond have come from the Mahalapsi River with the other gravel in the belly of the dead crocodile? Mr Farnborough’s friend, Mr Kentburn, would prove beyond doubt that he had brought the mummified crocodile from the Mahalapsi River, where he had picked it up. The greatest offence that could by any possibility be brought home to his client was that he had this stone in his possession for two days without declaring it! That was an act of sheer inadvertence. The stone was not a Griqualand West stone, and it was a puzzling matter, with a young and inexperienced man, to know quite what to do with it. If the stone were, as he, counsel, contended, not a stone from the Cape districts at all, it was an arguable question whether the court had any rights or jurisdiction in this case whatever. Would it be contended that a person coming to South Africa, innocently, with a Brazilian or an Indian diamond in his possession, could be hauled off to prison, and thereafter sentenced for unlawful possession? Such a contention would be monstrous! The great diamond industry had in South Africa far too much power already – many men thought. Let them be careful in further stretching or adding to those powers – powers that reminded unbiassed people more of the worst days of the Star Chamber or the Inquisition, than of a modern community. Had the prisoner attempted to conceal the diamond? On the contrary, he had shown it eagerly to Mr Staarbrucker and his sister immediately he had found it. That was not the act of a guilty man!

These, and many other arguments, were employed by the defending advocate in a powerful and almost convincing speech. There were weak points, undoubtedly – fatally weak, many of the spectators thought them. These were avoided, or lightly skated over with consummate art. The advocate closed his speech with a touching appeal that a young, upright, and promising career might not be wrecked upon the vaguest of circumstantial evidence.

The speech was over; all the witnesses had been called, the addresses concluded. The afternoon was wearing on apace, and the court was accordingly adjourned; the prisoner was put back into jail again, and the crowded assemblage flocked into the outer air, to discuss hotly throughout the rest of the evening the many points of this singular and absorbing case.

Again, as usual in Kimberley at this season, the next morning broke clear and invigorating. All the world of the corrugated-iron city seemed, after breakfast, brisk, keen, and full of life as they went about their business. The Cape swallows flitted, and hawked, and played hither and thither in the bright atmosphere, or sat, looking sharply about them, upon the telegraph wires or housetops, preening their feathers and displaying their handsome, chestnut body colouring. The great market square was still full of waggons and long spans of oxen, and of native people, drawn from well-nigh every quarter of Southern Africa.

Out there in the sunlit market-place stood a man, whose strong brain was just now busily engaged in piecing together and puzzling out the patchwork of this extraordinary case. David Ayling, with his mighty voice, Scotch accent, oak-like frame, keen grey eyes, and vast iron-grey beard, was a periodical and excellently well-known Kimberley visitant. For years he had traded and hunted in the far interior. His reputation for courage, resource, and fair dealing was familiar to all men, and David’s name had for years been a household word from the Cape to the Zambesi. Periodically, the trader came down to Kimberley with his waggons and outfit, after a year or two spent in the distant interior. Yesterday morning he had come in, and in the afternoon and evening he seemed to hear upon men’s tongues nothing else than Frank Farnborough’s case, and the story of the Mahalapsi diamond. Now David had known Frank for some few years, and had taken a liking to him. Several times he had brought down-country small collections of skins, and trophies of the chase, got together at the young man’s suggestion. He had in his waggon, even now, some new and rare birds from the far-off Zambesi lands, and the two had had many a deal together. Frank’s unhappy plight at once took hold of the trader’s sympathies, and the Mahalapsi and crocodile episodes tended yet further to excite his interest. Certain suspicions had been growing in his mind. This morning, before breakfast, he had carefully read and re-read the newspaper report of the trial, and now, just before the court opened, he was waiting impatiently, with further developments busily evolving in his brain. There was a bigger crowd even than yesterday; the prisoner and counsel had come in; all waited anxiously for the end of the drama. In a few minutes the court entered, grave and self-possessed, and the leading judge began to arrange his notes.

At that moment, David Ayling, who had shouldered his way to the fore, stood up and addressed the court in his tremendous deep-chested tones, which penetrated easily to every corner of the chamber.

“Your Honours,” he said, “before you proceed further, I should like to lay one or two facts before you – not yet known in this case. They are very important, and I think you should hear them in order that justice may be done, and perhaps an innocent man saved. I have only just come down from the Zambesi and never heard of this trial till late yesterday afternoon.”

Two persons, as they listened to these words and looked at the strong, determined man uttering them, felt, they knew not why, instantly braced and strengthened, as if by a mighty tonic. They were Frank, the prisoner, hitherto despairing and out of heart, and Nina Staarbrucker, sitting at the back of the court, pale and trembling with miserable anticipations.

“You know me, your Honour, I think,” went on David, in his deep Scotch voice.

“Yes, Mr Ayling, we know you, of course,” answered the senior judge (every one in Kimberley knew David Ayling), “and I am, with my colleagues, anxious to get at all the evidence available, before delivering judgment. This is somewhat irregular, but, upon the whole, I think you had better be sworn and state what you have to say.”

David went to the witness-box and was sworn. “This crocodile skin here,” he went on, pointing to the skin, which was handed up to him, “I happen to know very well. I have examined it carefully before your lordship came in; it is small, and of rather peculiar shape, especially about the head. I remember that skin well, and can swear to it; there are not many like it knocking about. That skin was put on to my waggon in Kimberley seventeen months ago, and was carried by me to the Mahalapsi River.”

The court had become intensely interested as the trader spoke, the judges and magistrate pricked up their ears and looked intently, first at the skin, then at David.

“Go on,” said the judge.

“Well, your Honour,” resumed David, “the skin was put on to my waggon in February of last year, by Sam Vesthreim, a Jew storekeeper, in a small way in Beaconsfield. There were some other odds and ends put on the waggon, little lots of goods, which I delivered in Barkly West. But the crocodile skin, Sam Vesthreim said, was a bit of a curio, and he particularly wanted it left at some friend’s place farther up-country. I was in a hurry at the time, and forgot to take the name, but Sam said there was a label on the skin. The thing was pitched in with a lot of other stuff, and lay there for a long time! Lost sight of it till we had got to the Mahalapsi River, where the waggon was overturned in crossing. I offloaded, and the crocodile skin then turned up with the label off. We were heavily laden; the skin was, I thought, useless; we were going on to the Zambesi, and I had clean forgotten where the skin ought to have been left. It seemed a useless bit of gear, so I just pitched it away in the bushes, in the very spot, as near as I can make it, where Mr Farnborough’s friend, Mr Kentburn, found it, nearly a year later, as he came down-country. That is one remarkable thing. I would like to add, my lord, that the Mahalapsi is a dry river, never running except in rains; and in all my experience, and I have passed it some scores of times, I never knew a crocodile up in that neighbourhood. The chances of there being any other crocodile skin in that sandy place and among those bushes, where Mr Kentburn found this one, would, I reckon, be something like a million (David pronounced it mullion) to one.