bout the price of the diamond,
assented calmly; and next day they diverged, and got into forest
scenery, and their eyes were soothed with green glades here and there,
wherever the clumps of trees sheltered the grass from the panting sun.
Animals abounded, and were tame. Staines, an excellent marksman, shot
the Hottentot his supper without any trouble.

Sleeping in the wood, with not a creature near but Squat, a sombre
thought struck Staines. Suppose this Hottentot should assassinate him
for his money, who would ever know? The thought was horrible, and he
awoke with a start ten times that night. The Hottentot slept like a
stone, and never feared for his own life and precious booty. Staines was
compelled to own to himself he had less faith in human goodness than the
savage had. He said to himself, "He is my superior. He is the master of
this dreadful diamond, and I am its slave."

Next day they went on till noon, and then they halted at a really
delightful spot; a silver kloof ran along a bottom, and there was a
little clump of three acacia-trees that lowered their long tresses,
pining for the stream, and sometimes getting a cool grateful kiss from
it when the water was high.

They halted the horse, bathed in the stream, and lay luxurious under the
acacias. All was delicious languor and enjoyment of life.

The Hottentot made a fire, and burnt the remains of a little sort of
kangaroo Staines had shot him the evening before; but it did not suffice
his maw, and looking about him, he saw three elands leisurely feeding
about three hundred yards off. They were cropping the rich herbage close
to the shelter of a wood.

The Hottentot suggested that this was an excellent opportunity. He would
borrow Staines's rifle, steal into the wood, crawl on his belly close up
to them, and send a bullet through one.

Staines did not relish the proposal. He had seen the savage's eye
repeatedly gloat on the rifle, and was not without hopes he might even
yet relent, and give the great diamond for the hundred pounds and
this rifle; and he was so demoralized by the diamond, and filled with
suspicion, that he feared the savage, if he once had the rifle in
his possession, might levant, and be seen no more, in which case he,
Staines, still the slave of the diamond, might hang himself on the
nearest tree, and so secure his Rosa the insurance money, at all events.
In short, he had really diamond on the brain.

He hem'd and haw'd a little at Squa