ng staging,
stretched wire ropes, windlass, and iron pulley-travelers now became
necessary for getting out one's stuff. As my little capital was quite
inadequate to all this, I surrendered the claim to its owner.

Herbert Rhodes was a restless being, a stormy petrel ever on the wing
seeking adventures. I was told a few years since of an escapade which I
will here relate. While believing the story, to be literally true, I do
not guarantee its authenticity.

It is believed that in the caverns of what used to be Sekukuni's
country considerable stores of diamonds, taken back from the fields by
Baphedi laborers in the early days, lie concealed. Now, Sekukuni was a
warrior of parts, he defied for several years the Transvaal, when the
administration of President Burgers attempted to levy tribute on him in
the form of hut tax. It was his great ambition to obtain a cannon for
the defense of his mountain stronghold. Accordingly, towards the end of
the seventies, he offered a heavy price, no less than a pint of clear,
flawless diamonds, to any one who would supply such a weapon. Herbert
Rhodes heard of the offer, opened communications with the chief, and
agreed to provide a cannon on the terms specified.

Gun running the supply of firearms to savage natives is rightly looked
upon as the unpardonable sin by men whose opinions are worth regarding.
But this case fell not into the ordinary, category of gun-running. A
cannon, for purposes of offence or defense, would have been of no more
use to Sekukuni than a gramophone. However, the chief did not know
this. He possessed the diamonds, but they were of no use whatever to
him. He desired the artillery; this could not have been of any use to
him for the purpose he had in view. The gun was, as a matter of fact, a
weapon so utterly obsolete that it could have been of no use to any
one. Logically, therefore, the transaction proposed amounted to x minus
against x minus. But the diamonds would have been of great use to
Herbert Rhodes, while the cannon would have been as a symbol priceless
to the chief; he would have slept sounder the nights through in the
realization that he possessed an engine capable, at least, of making a
tremendous noise.

The gun, it appears, was conveyed to Lourenco Marques in a small French
barque, Herbert Rhodes accompanying it. At night it was lowered into a
boat, which was rowed up the Maputa River to a specified landing-place.
Sekukuni had sent an induna bearin