Please sign enclosed receipt and return same to us." Yes, and there was the draft for L650 sterling! I explained the matter to Hans, or rather I translated the document, adding: "You see you have got your money back again.

But Hans, I never sent it; I don't know where it comes from." "Is it money, Baas ?" asked Hans, surveying the draft with suspicion.

"It looks very much like the other bit of paper for which I paid money." Again I explained, reiterating that I knew nothing of the transaction.
"Well, Baas," he said, "if you did not send it someone did--perhaps your father the reverend Predikant, who sees that you are in trouble and wishes to wash your name white again.

Meanwhile, Baas, please put that bit of paper in your pocket-book and keep it for me, for otherwise I might be tempted to buy square-face with it." "No," I answered, "you can now buy your land back, or some other land, and there will be no need for you to come with me to the country of the Kendah." Hans thought a moment and then very deliberately began to tear up the draft; indeed I was only just in time to save it from destruction.
"If the Baas is going to turn me off because of this paper," he said, "I will make it small and eat it." "You silly old fool," I said as I possessed myself of the cheque.
Then the conversation was interrupted, for who should appear but Sammy, my old cook, who began in his pompous language: "The perfect rectitude of your conduct, Mr.Quatermain, moves me to the deepest gratitude, though indeed I wish that I had put something into the food of the knave Jacob who beguiled us all, that would have caused him internal pangs of a severe if not of a dangerous order.

My holding in the gold mine was not extensive, but the unpaid bill of the said Jacob and his friends----" Here I cut him short and fled, since I saw yet another shareholder galloping to the gate, and behind him two more in a spider.