shmen. There was plenty of water. Halloran seems
to have tried to get the diamonds by bartering goods for them, but for
some days the Bushmen had kept up the pretence that there were no
diamonds there. Then force was threatened and a demonstration made as
to what could be done with eight repeating rifles. Finally Halloran
seems to have laid violent hands on the chief and to have held him to
ransom against the production of the stones. But from this time the
pocket-book speaks best for itself.

"August 13th. They have given in. Gert has taken the chief's message,
and they have brought us a skin-bag full of the stones. These are
diamonds right enough fine big stones of eight or nine carats, nearly
all the same size and we are rich men. The sight of them made us
greedy, and we told the chief they were not enough. He told us through
Gert that we had broken our word. Have we? Of course we did not tell
him for how many diamonds we would let him go. Besides, we will give
him all the trading goods in return. He said something to his wives
which even the Hottentots could not understand, but they came again
with a dozen very large diamonds, and we let him go.

"I do not like the look of things. Every Bushman has disappeared. Do
they intend to attack us later? We shall water the camels as soon as it
is cool enough, fill our water-bags and start on our return journey.
Luckily we have buried water all the way back, we can travel lightly
and rapidly.

"What shall we do? They have poisoned the water-pools. One of the
Arabs, the younger Hottentot, and three of our camels are dead.
Lucidly, the poison was swift, and they fell dead before Gert and the
other camels could get to the pool. We must fly as best we may, our
nearest cask is only twelve hours away.

"14th. We are resting the camels for a short spell about three hours
from the first cask. We have neglected the camels in our anxiety for
the diamonds. They have had no water for three days. We must give them
most of the first cask. It is awful work riding two on a camel, but we
can get through in four or five days, and then---

"I am almost too stunned to write. We found the cask. We had not
thought of its being tampered with. My poor brother Frank drank the
first pannikin greedily, and fell dying at our feet as he drank. The
fiends had found the water and poisoned it. As the poor boy lay dying
in my arms the water ran unheeded into the sands. A camel sucked it up
eagerly. It