The Mask: A Story of Love and Adventure
armchair a dozen yards away, and at the far end of the room Ray, Steell
and Reynolds were engrossed in an exciting game of cards. Leaning
quickly over, he seized her hand. His voice vibrating with passion, he
said:
"Not only the cleverest, but the most desirable of women. Don't you
see that you've set me afire? I'm mad for you! Helen--I want you!"
For a moment she was too stunned by his insolent daring to withdraw her
hand, which he continued to press in his. His eyes flashing, he went
on:
"Haven't you seen all along that I love you--desperately, passionately.
You've set me afire. I'm mad for you. Let me awaken that love that's
in your breast, but which your husband has never awakened. Let me----"
He did not finish, for that moment a small, jeweled hand, suddenly torn
from his grasp, struck him full on the mouth. Rising and trying with
difficulty to control the emotion in her voice, she said quickly:
"You'd better go now--so as to prevent a scandal. If they knew, it
might be awkward for you. Of course, you must never come here again."
That was all. She swept away from him with the dignity of an offended
queen. The silence was deadly. All one heard was the silk rustle of
her gown as she moved across the floor.
"It's my say," exclaimed Ray.
"I lead with trumps," said Steell.
"Signor Keralio has to go. Isn't it too bad!"
Mr. Steell and Dick rose and bowed politely.
There was nothing to be done. He was ignominiously dismissed like a
lackey caught pilfering. But there was black wrath in his heart as he
picked himself up, and turning to the others, he bowed and said:
"Good night."
CHAPTER VII
Dawn broke over the desert region of the Kalihari. The gray mists of
the South African night slowly dissolved on the approach of the rising
sun, until the crimson glow of the coming day, spreading high in the
eastern heavens, tipped with gold the snow-clad peaks of the
Drachenberg, and then, swiftly inundating the valley like a flood,
chased away the shadows and filled the undulating plains with warmth
and light.
Stretched out near the flickering embers of an expiring camp fire, not
half a day's _trek_ from the Vaal River, lay what, at first view,
appeared to be bundles of rags. A closer inspection showed them to be
the prostrate forms of two men, asleep. Huddled close together, as if
seeking all possible protection from the keen air of the open _veldt_,
they appeared grateful even for the little warmth that still came from
the dying fire. Every now and again a tiny flame, bursting from one of
the smouldering logs, would light up the recumbent figures, revealing a
brief glimpse of the sleepers.
Both bore traces of desperate need. The rags they wore were filthy,
and gave only scant protection from the weather, their emaciated faces
and hollowed cheeks told eloquently of many days of fatigue and hunger;
their feet, long since without shoes, were clumsily protected from the
rocky _veldt_ by pieces of coarse sacking. For weeks they had tramped
across the great, merciless desert, guided only by the stars, often
losing the trail, begging their way from farm to farm, glad to do
little jobs for friendly Boers in return for a meal, always in peril of
attack by hostile Kaffirs, yet never halting, trudging ever onward in
their anxiety to reach the coast. That was the haven they painfully
sought--the open sea where at least there was a chance to die among
their fellows and not perish miserably like dogs on the lonely.
God-forsaken plains, with only the howling jackal and the screaming
vulture to pick their bones.
They had tried and they had lost in the great gamble. Like thousands
of other reckless adventurers attracted to the newly discovered diamond
country, they had rushed out there from England, confident that they,
too, could wrest from nature that wonderful gem, ever associated with
tragedy and romance, mystery and crime, for the possession of which,
since history began, men have been ready to give up their lives.
Confident of their success, they had risked all on a turn of the wheel,
and Fortune, mocking their puny efforts, had first ruined and then
degraded them, afterward sending them back home to die.
It was now quite light. The fire, which had flickered up fitfully at
intervals, was entirely extinguished. A chilly wind had started to
blow from the plateau on the north. The strangers stirred uneasily in
their sleep and awoke almost simultaneously. Sitting up with a start,
they yawned and rubbed their eyes.
"What show o' gettin' some breakfast, Handsome?" asked the smaller of
the two.
"Damned little!" was the profane and laconic rejoinder.
They were men still in the early thirties. One was short and stocky,
his face slightly pock-marked. Pictures of a mermaid and anchor
clumsily tattooed in indigo on his wrist showed him to be a sailor. In
fact, Dick Hickey, boatswain on _H. H. S. Tartar_, having taken French
leave of his ship, as she lay in Cape Town Harbor, ran a very good
chance of being taken back to England in irons as a deserter. Just now
he was serenely indifferent as to what happened to him. Half dead from
exposure and lack of nourishment, he would have gladly welcomed ship's
officers or anybody else so long as there was some relief from his
present sufferings. Meantime he spent what little breath he had left
in cursing his hard luck, and blaming his companion as being solely
responsible for his misfortune.
The latter was some few years his senior, stalwart and clean-limbed.
He appeared to be over six feet in height and a man of splendid
physique. At first glance it was evident that he came of superior
stock. His shapely hands were grimy, his eyes of a peculiarly light
shade of blue were hollow and haggard looking. His face, emaciated and
ghastly, was almost livid. A clean-cut chin was covered with several
weeks' growth of beard. Yet, underneath all these repellant externals,
there was in his every attitude that indefinable refinement of manner
which the world always associates with a gentleman. His dark hair,
disheveled and matted, was unusually thick and bushy, with the
exception of one spot, in the center of his forehead, where there was a
single white lock, a capillary phenomenon, which imparted at once to
his face from its very unusualness an individuality quite its own.
No one knew who he was or where he came from. They called him
"Handsome Jack," partly because of his good looks and also on account
of his reckless liberality with his cronies when flush. What his real
name was no one knew or cared. It was a time when no one asked
questions. As soon as the news of the astonishing diamond discoveries
reached Europe, men began to flock to South Africa. Adventurers from
all over the world gathered in Cape Town, a motley crew of incompetents
and blacklegs, an investigation into the antecedents of any of whom was
apt to have unpleasant results. That he was a professional gambler, he
made no attempt to conceal, and that he had knocked about the world a
good deal was also to be inferred from his wide knowledge of men and
places. A man of aggressive, domineering personality, he was not
without a certain following, attracted by his skill with cards and
dice, but he was more feared than liked, and his reputation as a
dangerous gunman kept inquisitive strangers at a safe distance. He was
well known in every den frequented by the criminal and vicious, and it
was in one of these resorts that Hickey had met him. The sailor had
lost all his savings at faro. Dead broke, he was ready for anything
which promised to recoup his fortunes. Handsome Jack laid before him a
scheme which would make them both rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
The recent discoveries on the Vaal had startled the world. A native
had picked up a stone weighing over 80 carats. They might be equally
lucky. All that was needed was pluck and patience. The plan was to
make their way as best they could to the Vaal fields, jump a claim, and
dig for diamonds.
They set out secretly, avoiding the larger caravans, making the long
trek across the great plateau, partly by ox wagon, partly on foot. The
trail led through a wild, desolate country, and gradually they left
civilization hundreds of miles behind them. As far as the eye could
reach in every direction was a monotonous desert of stone and sand,
broken every now and then by small kopjies, the sides and summits of
which were sparsely covered with thick brush and coarse grass.
Scattered here and there, some twenty miles apart, were the homesteads
of the Boer farmers and the thatched kraals of the dark-skinned
Kaffirs. Over this lonely waste sheep and cattle wandered undisturbed
by springbok, ostriches, crocodiles, mountain lions and other wild
animals.
In this barren spot Nature had concealed her treasures. A child's cry
of joy over a pretty pebble led to their discovery. The little son of
a Boer farmer was playing one day in the fields near the homestead when
his eye was attracted by something glittering at his feet. Stooping,
he picked up a stone unlike any other he had ever seen. Interested, he
began to look for others and found a number of them, which with great
glee he carried home to show his mother. The worthy woman paid little
heed to what, in her ignorance, she regarded merely as pretty stones,
but she happened to speak about them to a neighboring farmer, who asked
to look at them. Already tired of his new plaything, the child had
thrown the stones away, but one was found in the field close by, and
the neighbor, a shrewd Dutchman, who had heard of certain stones picked
up in that locality having a certain value, offered to buy it. The
good woman laughed at the idea of selling a stone, and made him a
present of it. The farmer took it to the nearest town, where experts
declared it to be a twenty-one carat diamond, worth $2,500. Round the
world the telegraph flashed this remarkable story, and the rush to
South Africa began. That was in 1870. In May of that year there were
about a hundred men at the diggings in the Vaal fields. Before the
next month had closed there were seven hundred. By April of the
following year five thousand men were digging frantically in the mud
along the Vaal and Orange rivers.
It was a rough, lawless gathering of men of every nationality under the
sun, the criminal and the vicious, the idle and the worthless. The
region being inside the border lines of the waste territory that lay
between the Boers and the Hottentots, it was therefore No Man's Land,
and beyond the pale of established law and order. The miners,
compelled, in self-protection, to institute laws of their own,
appointed committees to issue licenses, keep the peace, and punish
offenders. Natives were whipped; white men were banished, and from
this rough-and-ready justice there was no appeal.
When Handsome and Hickey arrived at the diggings, the fever was still
at its height, and having secured a claim, they went to work with a
will. Claims were thirty feet square, and to prevent speculation in
them the owner, in order to hold title, was compelled to toil
incessantly. It was hard work, harder work than Handsome had ever been
put to in all his life. At the end of a few days, the skin was scraped
off his hands from shoveling, and he had such a kink in his back that
he couldn't straighten up. But he had come to stay, and a little;
discomfort was not going to scare him. Their implements, purchased at
the diggings, consisted of pick, shovel and rocker, this last being a
box arranged on rockers like a baby's cradle. It was a clumsy yet
useful contrivance, in which were fastened, one above the other, wire
screens of varying fineness, the coarsest being on top. As Handsome