ible, as it
was carried out, that there was not a knowing mind in the Islands which
would not have echoed Rhodes' words, "Jameson has upset the apple-cart."

Rudyard Byng did not visit Jasmine the next evening at six o'clock. His
world was all in chaos, and he had not closed his eyes to sleep since
he had left her. At ten o'clock at night, as he had arranged, "The
Partners" and himself met at his chambers, around which had gathered a
crowd of reporters and curious idlers; and from that time till the grey
dawn he and they had sat in conference. He had spent two hours at the
Colonial Office after he left Jasmine, and now all night he kneaded the
dough of a new policy with his companions in finance and misfortune.

There was Wallstein, the fairest, ablest, and richest financier of them
all, with a marvellous head for figures and invaluable and commanding
at the council-board, by virtue of his clear brain and his power to
co-ordinate all the elements of the most confusing financial problems.
Others had by luck and persistence made money--the basis of their
fortunes; but Wallstein had showed them how to save those fortunes and
make them grow; had enabled them to compete successfully with the games
of other great financiers in the world's stock-markets. Wallstein was
short and stout, with a big blue eye and an unwrinkled forehead;
prematurely aged from lack of exercise and the exciting air of the high
veld; from planning and scheming while others slept; from an inherent
physical weakness due to the fact that he was one of twin sons, to his
brother being given great physical strength, to himself a powerful
brain for finance and a frail if ample body. Wallstein knew little and
cared less about politics; yet he saw the use of politics in finance,
and he did not stick his head into the sand as some of his colleagues
did when political activities hampered their operations. In
Johannesburg he had kept aloof from the struggle with Oom Paul, not
from lack of will, but because he had no stomach for daily intrigue and
guerrilla warfare and subterranean workings; and he was convinced that
only a great and bloody struggle would end the contest for progress and
equal rights for all white men on the Rand. His inquiries had been bent
towards so disposing the financial operations, so bulwarking the mining
industry by sagacious designs, that, when the worst came, they all
would be able to weather the storm. He had done his work better than
h