ell upon its rough and filth-encrusted surface, and as I
looked, curious little thrills of excitement began to pass through me.
But I could not be sure.

"'Give me your knife, Harry,' I said.

"He did so, and resting the brown stone on my knee I scratched at its
surface. Great heavens, it was soft!

"Another second and the secret was out, we had found a great nugget of
pure gold, four pounds of it or more. 'It's gold, lad,' I said, 'it's
gold, or I'm a Dutchman!'

"Harry, with his eyes starting out of his head, glared down at the
gleaming yellow scratch that I had made upon the virgin metal, and then
burst out into yell upon yell of exultation, which went ringing away
across the silent claims like shrieks of somebody being murdered.

"'Be quiet!' I said; 'do you want every thief on the fields after you?'

"Scarcely were the words out of my mouth when I heard a stealthy
footstep approaching. I promptly put the big nugget down and sat on it,
and uncommonly hard it was. As I did so I saw a lean dark face poked
over the edge of the claim and a pair of beady eyes searching us out.
I knew the face, it belonged to a man of very bad character known as
Handspike Tom, who had, I understood, been so named at the Diamond
Fields because he had murdered his mate with a handspike. He was now no
doubt prowling about like a human hyaena to see what he could steal.

"'Is that you, 'unter Quatermain?' he said.

"'Yes, it's I, Mr. Tom,' I answered, politely.

"'And what might all that there yelling be?' he asked. 'I was walking
along, a-taking of the evening air and a-thinking on the stars, when I
'ears 'owl after 'owl.'

"'Well, Mr. Tom,' I answered, 'that is not to be wondered at, seeing
that like yourself they are nocturnal birds.'

"''Owl after 'owl!' he repeated sternly, taking no notice of my
interpretation, 'and I stops and says, "That's murder," and I listens
again and thinks, "No, it ain't; that 'owl is the 'owl of hexultation;
some one's been and got his fingers into a gummy yeller pot, I'll swear,
and gone off 'is 'ead in the sucking of them." Now, 'unter Quatermain,
is I right? is it nuggets? Oh, lor!' and he smacked his lips
audibly--'great big yellow boys--is it them that you have just been and
tumbled across?'

"'No,' I said boldly, 'it isn't'--the cruel gleam in his black eyes
altogether overcoming my aversion to untruth, for I knew that if once he
found out what it was that I was sitting on--and by the way I