as low as you can, and give
this hotel as your address. When they call here they shall be paid,
which is better than having you carrying the money round with you."

The clergyman scowled as though he thought it was anything but better.
He did not make any remark, however.

"You can get one or two fellows to help you," said Ezra. "I'll pay for
their licences. I can't expect you to work all the camps yourself.
Of course, if you offer more for a stone than I care to give, that's
your look out, but if you do your work well you shall not be the loser.
You shall have a percentage on business done and a weekly salary as
well."

"How much money do you care to invest?" asked Farintosh.

"I'm not particular," Ezra answered. "If I do a thing I like to do it
well. I'll go the length of thirty thousand pounds."

Farintosh was so astonished at the magnitude of the sum that he sank
back in his chair in bewilderment. "Why, sir," he said, "I think just
at present you could buy the country for that."

Ezra laughed. "We'll make it go as far as we can," he said. "Of course
you may buy claims as well as stones."

"And I have carte blanche to that amount?"

"Certainly."

"All right, I'll begin this evening," said the ex-parson; and picking
up his slouched hat, which he still wore somewhat broader in the brim
than his comrades, in deference to old associations, he departed upon
his mission.

Farintosh was a clever man and soon chose two active subordinates.
These were a navvy, named Burt, and Williams, a young Welshman, who had
disappeared from home behind a cloud of forged cheques, and having
changed his name had made a fresh start in life to the south of the
equator. These three worked day and night buying in stones from the
more needy and impecunious miners, to whom ready money was a matter of
absolute necessity. Farintosh bought in the stock, too, of several
small dealers whose nerves had been shaken by the panic. In this way
bag after bag was filled with diamonds by Ezra, while he himself was to
all appearances doing nothing but smoking cigars and sipping
brandy-and-water in front of the _Central Hotel_.

He was becoming somewhat uneasy in his mind as to how long the delusion
would be kept up, or how soon news might come from the Cape that the
Ural find had been examined into and had proved to be a myth. In any
case, he thought that he would be free from suspicion. Still, it might
be as well for him by that t