After careful examination I put it into my pocket, saying, "This is the price of your master's gin and therefore belongs to him as much as it does to anybody.

Now if you want to keep out of trouble, tell me--whence came it into the hands of that man, Karl ?" "Baas," replied Footsack, trembling all over, "how do I know?
He and the rest have been working at the mines; I suppose he found it there." "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.