"An old fellow-clerk of mine! He's savage and jealous of my position here! He always was an ill-tempered brute!" "But he says that you are a thief!" said the Boer commandant sternly.
"Pooh! A spiteful man would say anything!" cried Anson contemptuously.
"Look here, sir, I've watched the Boer troubles from the first: I've seen how the English have been trying to find an excuse for seizing the two republics: I know how they got possession of the great diamond-mines by a trick arranged with the surveyors of the boundaries." There was a low murmur of assent here from the gathering crowd of Boers who had now surrounded him.
"Yes," he said, raising his voice, "I knew all the iniquities of the British Government--how the English had seized the diamond-fields, and how they were trying to get the gold-mines, and as soon as the war broke out I made up my mind to join the people fighting for their liberty." There was a burst of cheering from the few who could follow the speaker, and then a roar as soon as his words were explained to the crowd, while Anson looked round with his fat face growing shiny, as he beamed upon his hearers.
"Yes," said the Boer leader coldly; "but this young man, who knows you, charges you with being a thief." "All cowardly malice!" cried Anson contemptuously, and giving his fingers a snap.

"A thief ?--a robber ?--nonsense.

Pooh! I only dealt in and brought away with me a few of the stones, which were as much mine as theirs.

I was not coming away from the enemy empty-handed.

I said to myself that I'd spoil the Egyptians as much as I could, and I did." There was a shout of delight at this, and one of the field-cornets gave the speaker a hearty slap on the shoulder.
"Yes, I brought some away," continued Anson, rejoicing fatly in the success of his words; and, raising his voice, he said, first in English and then in Boer-Dutch: "I brought some away, and I wish I had brought more." There was a fresh and a long-continued roar of delight, repeated again and again, giving the speaker time to collect his thoughts, and as soon as he could gain silence he continued.
"Look here," he said: "I came and joined the Boers because I believed their cause to be just; and I said to myself, knowing what I do of the secrets of the diamond-mines, I will be the first as soon as Kimberley is taken to show the commandants where the British tyrants have hidden away the stones that belong of right to the Boers, the stones that have been stolen from the earth--the land they fought for and won with their blood from the savage black scum who infested the country.