Luck at the Diamond Fields Part 17

"Why, man, you look nervous," said the other; "never fear, your horse is sure to win."

Muzada looked gratified.

"I think the Captain will find he has humbugged himself this time; I think he'll have to walk down to the colony after the race," he said.

"They're off--it's a good start," said Langford, and we put up our gla.s.ses.

Jack Harman went straight to the front.

"Who's that leading?"

"Storm Drum."

"Storm Drum has bolted!" they were crying out.

"Devil a bit bolted. Jack thinks that to win at all he must take the lead and keep it, and, by Jove, he's right," said Langford. "But I have never seen him go like that before."

"How about Storm Drum now?" shouted out some one, as he came past the stand leading by twenty lengths.

"Ah, then, who's got the laugh this day?" Pat Brady cried out.

"There's lots of time for him to come out with his old tricks, but if he don't they won't catch him," said Langford.

Muzada snarled out a sentence hideous with blasphemy.

"Even if he wins his bet the triumph will have cost him something," I thought, as I looked at his ugly face, and saw how sick he looked as Storm Drum came along, the gap between him and the other horse rather increasing than decreasing.

"It's a race! Marmion wins!" shouted some one, as for a second the favourite looked dangerous.

"Not a bit of it; Storm Drum has the lot of 'em settled," said Langford as he put down his gla.s.ses; "he is on his good behaviour for once, and he has made fools of us all."

As Storm Drum came past the post, an easy winner, men began to remember how they had always said he was the best bred horse in South Africa, and better cla.s.s than anything else out there, and generally to be wise after the event.

Muzada was not able to take his losses so philosophically. He got into a rage, swearing that he had been robbed, that Marmion had been got at, and that the whole thing was a swindle. n.o.body sympathised with him very much, and even those who had lost their money found some consolation in his disappointment.

"So, you see, I was not so rash as you thought; but then I happened to know something about the horse that no one else knew," said Jack Harman to me that evening. "When Tom Markham owned him we found out that he could not be depended upon, and after he had let us in once or twice we determined to get rid of him. One day, however, at Cradock races, a man came up to us and said he thought he could tell us something about the horse. He had been employed in a stable at home, where Blue Peter, Storm Drum's sire, was trained. Blue Peter was just such another customer as his son, till somehow it was found out that he had a weakness for strong drink. His favourite tipple was whiskey, Irish whiskey, the older and better it was the more he liked it--it seemed to put heart in him, and after he took to drink he won race after race for them, and our informant suggested that the taste might be inherited.

Well, we determined to give his idea a trial, and before Storm Drum started for the race he won in Natal, he had his half bottle of whiskey.

It seemed to agree with him, for he went right away and won. A few weeks after that Markham went to grief, and had to bolt to South America, and Storm Drum was seized by his creditors. One or two men owned him before he came to Pat Brady, but they all burnt their fingers with him; for no one knew of his family failing, and as a Good Templar he didn't turn out a success, but I always remembered what he could do if he liked, and when Muzada interfered with me I thought how I could sell him if I put Storm Drum on his good behaviour. Well, it came off all right, but I didn't enjoy that ride; every moment I was afraid that the brute would stop dead, but thanks to Pat's whiskey, he had won the race before he remembered himself. It's the last bet I shall make in this country. I shall go back and look after the farm, and the missis, and the kids, now that I am out of Muzada's clutches again."

Jack Harman was as good as his word, and there is no steadier husband or better specimen of the colonial farmer than the ex-hussar. He lives happily at Laurie's Kloof, and prosperous and well to do.

Story 10.

JUMPED--A TALE OF THE KIMBERLEY RACES.

Chapter One.

It was in the flush times on the Diamond Fields; the days afterwards remembered, in the bad times which came so soon, with so much wondering regret. In those days every one had made money out of shares and confidently hoped to make much more. Shares and companies were talked about morning, noon, and night; and what more delightful topic for conversation could any one wish to have? for then almost every one held shares, and those shares, independently of what they were in or where the ground possessed by the company was situated, went up every hour, so that, except when a public benefactor did some thing unusually criminal or eccentric, so giving the Diamond Field public a subject for much interesting talk, no one discussed and no one wished to discuss anything else.

For a short time, however, when the mania was at its very height, shares became a subject of secondary interest, and as the topic of interest the Kimberley races took its place. With a characteristic unanimity and zest the public of the four camps began to talk, think, and speculate about the races. One would only hear sc.r.a.ps of conversation relating to weight for age, the rules of racing, and the performances of the imported horses, as one pa.s.sed the open doors of bars and canteens.

The sporting division scented the carcase from afar, and thought with glee of the abundance of money there was in the camp and the enthusiasm for sport which had come over the public. The big event of the races was the Diggers' Stakes, a handicap, for which the weights were out, and very little admiration was expressed for the wisdom of the stewards who had made it. What with those who knew something about racing and had games of their own to play, and those who knew nothing about it but, though honest and ignorant, were too self-important to stand aside and refrain from taking any part in it, they had made the handicapping a farce. Men said there were only two horses in it which had any chance-- Mr Musters' Our Boy, and Mr Saul Gideon's The Pirate. They were both of them imported horses, and the former had won a race or two in England; both were four-year-olds. Besides these there was one other imported horse, Captain Brereton's Kildare, and a good many colonial horses. Kildare was said to be lame, and the handicappers had not given the colonial horses a chance; in fact it was hardly a handicap at all, as two favourites carried not much more than weight for age. That evening Mr Saul Gideon had come into the Claimholders' Club in Kimberley with a glare in his hard black eyes and a twitching of his claw-like hands that might well have warned any one who knew him that he was dangerous. Mr Gideon was a sport, not a sportsman--anything but that--but certainly a sport. In any pastime on which money could be risked by way of wagering he took an interest. Before the law put down those inst.i.tutions he had, with great profit to himself, kept a gambling saloon. When prize-fights occurred every now and then, just over the border of the Free State (the P.R. is or was an inst.i.tution on the Diamond Fields), he had much to do with getting them up, and sometimes would have much to do with settling their issue in a peaceable and humane manner before the men went into the ring. In fact there were few sporting frauds on the Diamond Fields but Saul Gideon had a finger in the pie. He probably only just could tell the difference between a dray-horse and a racer, but he was satisfied he was clever enough to hold his own and win money at racing, and perhaps with reason, for success such as he coveted requires rather a knowledge of men than of horses. The Claimholders' Club was crowded with men who were talking about the races, and Mr Gideon had not to wait long before they began to discuss the event in which he was interested, the Diggers' Stakes.

"Take moy tip, boys," said Dr Buckeen, an Irish medical man much given to racing, who in his time had done a good deal to maintain in South Africa the character which some Irish sporting men have gained for themselves at home; "there is only one in it, that's The Pirate; never mind about Our Boy and the race he won at Sandown. I know all about it, I was there and saw, and after the race Lord Swellington, who owned the horses that ran second and third, came up to me and said, 'Buck, me boy'--all thim fellows call me Buck--'Buck, me boy,' me lord said, 'be crimes, that wore the biggest robbery I ever wore in.'"

"But Lord Swellington wouldn't say 'be crimes;' he is not an Irishman,"

said one of the doctor's audience.

"'Deed he did, though, to chaff me; the old divil is always chaffing me, we are like brothers."

"But, doctor, you could not have seen Our Boy win that race at Sandown; you weren't home that year," said another objector.

"Not home that year?" said the doctor, taken rather aback. "That's all you know about it. But never mind, what I say is that The Pirate will win the Diggers' Stakes."

"That's all you know about it, Buckeen," said a tall man with a red nose and a squint, who looked as if he were gazing at the bottles behind the bar, though he really was watching Mr Gideon.

"I will take a thousand to five hundred from any one," said Buckeen, who liked to talk loudly about bets which no one who knew him would think of taking from him or dream of his ever intending to pay.

"Not from me, Buckeen," said the tall man, whose name was Crotty, as he continued to squint hideously while he watched Mr Gideon.

Mr Crotty was remembering a little battle at the n.o.ble game of poker which he once engaged in with Mr Gideon. On that occasion he--Crotty-- had been dealt four kings; and as at last they showed their hands after much money had been staked, Mr Gideon had said, "For the first time in my life, believe me--though I have played since I was a lad in California, in '49--four aces." And as he remembered this little episode in his life and watched Mr Gideon he hoped soon to be even with him.

"Bedad, I must go and see after me patients. I am just murthered be the work I have to do in me profession," said Buckeen, and he swaggered out of the club.

"Well, Mr Crotty," said Gideon when the doctor had gone, "what will you do about the stakes?"

"Even money against The Pirate," was Mr Crotty's answer.

"It is odds against my horse. Come, I will take two to one," said Gideon.

Mr Crotty only shook his head and asked Mr Gideon to take a drink with him, which offer the other excused himself from accepting on the plea that he had to go and see a man on business. "See you again in a half-an-hour or so," he said, as he left the club to visit several other places where betting men congregated.

However, he found there was not much to be done about his horse; betting men, like politicians, like to know how the cat jumps before they commit themselves to any great extent; and there was a tendency to wait a bit before doing much about "the Stakes."

After half-an-hour Mr Gideon returned to the Claimholders' Club, looking more restless and anxious than ever.

"Will you lay me six to four?" he asked Mr Crotty, who was still there.

"Even money," answered Crotty, who was a man of few words.

For a minute or two Mr Gideon said nothing, then he gulped down his drink, and clearing his throat, said:

"I hate fiddling about with one bet here and one bet there. Will you lay me a good big bet at even money?"

"I am not a millionnaire, like you Diamond-Field men," answered Crotty, "but I will lay you an even thousand against The Pirate."

"I will take that," said Gideon.

Mr Crotty produced his betting-book and wrote down the bet.