d passively
staring at the fallen diamonds.

Then the wachtmeister's grip tightened, as Brietmann hurried up, making
ready the handcuffs as he came.

"I did not steal them!" shouted Dick, finding his tongue at last. "I
will explain. Professor! Professor! I did not steal them!"

"Lying rogue," said, or rather snarled Gilderman, thrusting his face
close to Dick's, and filled with the rage of a lately frightened man.
"Filthy donkey-driver and thief you were too miserable and contemptible
for us even to suspect!"

And secure in the fact that the wachtmeister held Dick, he struck the
latter across the face with his open hand.

Before he had time to draw back things happened.

Dick, blazing with fury at the indignity, wrenched himself free of the
wachtmeister, as though that big man had been a child, struck Gilderman
a terrific smash on the nose that flattened it and him instantly, and
seizing Jelder, who had tried to trip him, he threw that unfortunate
Israelite on the top of his colleague. But now the other men flung
themselves upon Dick simultaneously, and for a short but crowded period
a most memorable scrap took place in and round that little prospecting
camp.

Dick, as he afterwards expressed it, was "all out" in that brief but
brisk encounter, and fought with every limb and muscle he possessed.

Borne down by sheer numbers for a moment, he succeeded in twisting
Brietmann under him, and his knee, judiciously planted in the plump
policeman's embonpoint as they fell, with the weight of the other crowd
on top of them, drove all the wind out of that unfortunate man, who,
for a time, took no further interest in the proceedings.

Dick felt him gasp and subside, and at that very moment his hand came
in contact with the heavy steel handcuffs. Here was a weapon worth
having, and with such odds against him Dick had no hesitation in using
it, and swinging them round blindly at the arms clutching at him, he
felt them meet flesh and bone with a soul-satisfying crunch. A sharp
yelp followed, and Dick felt the scrum above him lighten, as Zweiter
retired from the fray, spitting blood and curses in a polyglot and
highly satisfactory manner.

But now the big wachtmeister, a powerful and athletic man, was less
cumbered by his would-be helpers, and getting a firm grip on Dick with
both arms he gradually forced him down on the unfortunate Brietmann,
whilst Spattboom, his one remaining helper, valiantly clung to Dick's
frantical