procession to pass them with several jocose remarks appropriate to the
occasion ready upon their lips, when their eyes fell upon a horrible
splotchy red track which marked the road the party had taken. They both
ran forward with exclamations and inquiries.

"It's Jim Stewart," said one of the bearers. "Him that they used to
call Unlucky Jim."

"What's up with him?"

"He has shot himself through the head. Where d'ye think we found him?
Slap in the middle o' his own claim, with his fingers dug into the
gravel, as dead as a herring."

"He's a bad plucked 'un to knock under like that," Ezra's companion
remarked.

"Yes," said the croupier of the saloon gambling table. "If he'd waited
for another deal he might have held every trump. He was always a soft
chap, was Jim, and he was saying last night as how this spoiled the last
chance he was ever like to have of seeing his wife and childer in
England. He's blowed a fine clean hole in himself. Would you like to
see it, Mr. Girdlestone?" The fellow was about to remove the
blood-stained handkerchief which covered the dead man's face, but Ezra
recoiled in horror.

"Mr. Girdlestone looks faint like," some one observed.

"Yes," said Ezra, who was white to his very lips. "This has upset me
rather. I'll have a drop of brandy." As he walked back to the hut, he
wondered inwardly whether the incident would have discomposed his
father.

"I suppose he would call it part of our commercial finesse," he said
bitterly to himself. "However, we have put our hands to the plough, and
we must not let homicide stop us." So saying, he steadied his nerves
with a draught of brandy, and prepared for the labours of the day.

CHAPTER XXI.

AN UNEXPECTED BLOW.

The crisis at the African fields was even more acute than had been
anticipated by the conspirators. Nothing approaching to it had ever
been known in South Africa before. Diamonds went steadily down in value
until they were selling at a price which no dealer would have believed
possible, and the sale of claims reached such a climax that men were
glad to get rid of them for the mere price of the plant and machinery
erected at them. The offices of the various dealers at Kimberley were
besieged night and day by an importunate crowd of miners, who were
willing to sell at any price in order to save something from the general
ruin which they imagined was about to come upon the industry. Some,
more long-headed or more d