“Indeed!  And did he find others of the same sort?”

“I think so, Baas.  At least he said that he had been buying bottles of gin with such stones all the way down from Kimberley.  Karl is a great drunkard, Baas, as I am sure, who have known him for years.”

“That is not all,” I remarked, keeping my eyes fixed on him.  “What else did he say?”

“He said, Baas, that he was very much afraid of returning to the Baas Marnham whom the Kaffirs call White-beard, with only a few stones left.”

“Why was he afraid?”

“Because the Baas Whitebeard, he who dwells at Tampel, is, he says, a very angry man if he thinks himself cheated, and Karl is afraid lest he should kill him as another was killed, he whose spook haunts the wood through which those silly people feared to pass last night.”

“Who was killed and who killed him?” I asked.

“Baas, I don’t know,” replied Footsack, collapsing into sullen silence in a way that Kaffirs have when suddenly they realize that they have said too much.  Nor did I press the matter further, having learned enough.

What had I learned?  This:  that Messrs. Marnham & Rodd were illicit diamond buyers, I.D.B.’s as they are called, who had cunningly situated themselves at a great distance from the scene of operations practically beyond the reach of civilized law.  Probably they were engaged also in other nefarious dealings with Kaffirs, such as supplying them with guns wherewith to make war upon the Whites.  Sekukuni had been fighting us recently, so that there would be a very brisk market for rifles.  This, too, would account for Marnham’s apparent knowledge of that Chief’s plans.  Possibly, however, he had no knowledge and only made a pretence of it to keep us out of the country.

Later on I confided the whole story and my suspicions to Anscombe, who was much interested.

“What picturesque scoundrels!” he exclaimed, “We really ought to go back to the Temple.  I have always longed to meet some real live I.D.B.’s.”

“It is probable that you have done that already without knowing it.  For the rest, if you wish to visit that den of iniquity, you must do so alone.”

“Wouldn’t whited sepulchre be a better term, especially as it seems to cover dead men’s bones?” he replied in his frivolous manner.

Then I asked him what he was going to do about Footsack and the bottle of gin, which he countered by asking me what I was going to do with that diamond.

“Give it to you as Footsack’s master,” I said, suiting the action to the word.  “I don’t wish to be mixed up in doubtful transactions.”

Then followed a long argument as to who was the real owner of the stone, which ended in its being hidden away be produced if called for, and in Footsack, who ought have had a round dozen, receiving a scolding from his master, coupled with the threat that if he stole more gin he would be handed over to a magistrate—­when we met one.