dyke twelve hours. It is full, too, with the heavy rains."

"Here's a go!" said Dick, turning pale. "Well, if it is to burst, it
must."

"Why so? You can make it safe in a few hours. You have got a clumsy
contrivance for letting off the excess of water: let us go and relieve
the dam at once of two feet of water. That will make it safe for a day
or two, and to-morrow we will puddle it afresh, and demolish those busy
excavators."

He spoke with such authority and earnestness, that they all got up from
table; a horn was blown that soon brought the Hottentots, and they all
proceeded to the dam. With infinite difficulty they opened the waste
sluice, lowered the water two feet, and so drenched the arid soil that
in forty-eight hours flowers unknown sprang up.

Next morning, under the doctor's orders, all the black men and boys were
diving with lumps of stiff clay and puddling the endangered wall with a
thick wall of it. This took all the people the whole day.

Next day the clay wall was carried two feet higher, and then the doctor
made them work on the other side and buttress the dyke with supports so
enormous as seemed extravagant to Dick and Phoebe; but, after all, it
was as well to be on the safe side, they thought: and soon they were
sure of it, for the whole work was hardly finished when the news came in
that the dyke of a neighboring Boer, ten miles off, had exploded like a
cannon, and emptied itself in five minutes, drowning the farm-yard and
floating the furniture, but leaving them all to perish of drought; and
indeed the Boer's cart came every day, with empty barrels, for some
time, to beg water of the Dales. Ucatella pondered all this, and said
her doctor child was wise.

This brief excitement over, Staines went back to his own gloomy
thoughts, and they scarcely saw him, except at supper-time.

One evening he surprised them all by asking if they would add to all
their kindness by lending him a horse, and a spade, and a few pounds to
go to the diamond fields.

Dick Dale looked at his sister. She said, "We had rather lend them you
to go home with, sir, if you must leave us; but, dear heart, I was half
in hopes--Dick and I were talking it over only yesterday--that you would
go partners like with us; ever since you saved the dam."

"I have too little to offer for that, Mrs. Falcon; and, besides, I am
driven into a corner. I must make money quickly, or not at all: the
diamonds are only three hundred miles off: