The two days he had spent at
Dutoitspan had not been wasted. He had learnt to recognise the look
of the native gem. Once glance told him at once what his pebble
was. He recognised it at sight as one of those small but much-valued
diamonds of the finest water, which diggers know by the technical
name of "glass-stones."
The hollow where he stood was in fact an ancient alluvial pit or
volcanic mud-crater. Scoriac rubble filled it in to a very great
depth; and in the interstices of this rubble were embedded here
and there rude blocks of greenstone, containing almond-shaped
chalcedonies and agate and milk-quartz, with now and then a tiny
water-worn spec which an experienced eye would have detected at
once as the finest "riverstones."
Here indeed was a prize! The solitary Englishman recognised in a
second that he was the first pioneer of a new and richer Kimberley.
But as Granville Kelmscott stood still, looking hard at his find
through the little pocket-lens he had brought with him from England,
with a justifiable tremor of delight at the pleasant thought that
here, perhaps, he had lighted on the key to something which might
restore him once more to his proper place at Tilgate, he was suddenly
roused from his delightful reverie by a harsh negro voice, shrill
and clear, close behind him, saying, in very tolerable African-English--
"Hillo, you white man! what dat you got there? You come here to
Barolong land, so go look for diamond?"
Granville turned sharply round, and saw standing by his side a
naked and stalwart black man, smiling blandly at his discovery with
broad negro amusement.
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