Part 1 (1/2)
Diamond d.y.k.e.
by George Manville Fenn.
CHAPTER ONE.
QUERY BAD s.h.i.+LLINGS?
”Hi!”
No answer.
”Hi! d.y.k.e!”
The lad addressed did not turn his head, but walked straight on, with the dwarf karroo bushes crackling and snapping under his feet, while at each call he gave an angry kick out, sending the dry red sand flying.
He was making for the kopje or head of bald granite which rose high out of the level plain--where, save in patches, there was hardly a tree to be seen--for amongst these piled-up ma.s.ses of glittering stone, lay deep moist crevices in which were shade and trickling water, the great blessings of a dry and thirsty desert.
”Hi! Do you hear, d.y.k.e?” came again, shouted by a big athletic-looking young man, in flannels and a broad-brimmed Panama hat, and he gave his thick brown beard an angry tug as he spoke.
”Oh yes, I hear,” muttered the lad; ”I can hear you, old Joe. He's got away again, and I shan't come. A stupid-headed, vicious, long-legged beast, that's what he is.”
”Hi!” roared the young man, as he stood in front of an ugly corrugated iron shed, dignified by the name of house, from which the white-wash, laid thickly over the grey zinc galvanising to ward off the rays of the blinding Afric sun, had peeled away here and there in patches.
Some attempts had been made to take off the square, desolate ugliness of the building by planting a patch of garden surrounded by posts and wire; but they were not very successful, for, as a rule, things would not grow for want of water.
Vand.y.k.e Emson--the d.y.k.e shouted at--had been the gardener, and so long as he toiled hard, fetching water from the granite kopje springs, a quarter of a mile away, and tended the roots he put in the virgin soil, they rushed up out of the ground; but, as he reasonably said, he couldn't do everything, and if he omitted to play Aquarius for twenty-four hours, there were the plants that looked so flouris.h.i.+ng yesterday shrivelled to nothing. He had planted creepers to run all over the sides and roof, but the sun made the corrugated iron red hot-- the boy's exaggerated figure of speech, but so hot that you could not keep your hand upon the roof or wall--and the creepers found the temperature too much for their const.i.tution, and they rapidly turned to hay. Then he trained up tomatoes, which grew at express speed so long as they were watered, formed splendid fruit, were left to themselves a couple of days, and then followed suit with the creepers. Joseph Emson smiled behind his great beard, and said they were a success because the tomatoes were cooked ready for use; but d.y.k.e said it was another failure, because they were just as good raw, and he did not like to eat his fruit as vegetables cooked in a frying-pan covered with white-wash.
Still all was not bare, for a patch of great sunflowers found moisture enough for their roots somewhere far below, and sent up their great pithy stalks close to the house door, spread their rough leaves, and imitated the sun's disk in their broad, round, yellow flowers. There was an ugly euphorbia too, with its th.o.r.n.y, almost leafless branches and brilliant scarlet flowers; while grotesque and hideous-looking, with its great, flat, oblong, biscuit-shaped patches of juicy leaf, studded with great thorns, a p.r.i.c.kly pear or opuntia reared itself against the end gable, warranted to stop every one who approached.
”It's no good,” d.y.k.e once said; ”the place is a nasty old desert, and I hate it, and I wish I'd never come. There's only six letters in Africa, and half of them spell fry.”
”And that's bad grammar and bad spelling,” said his half-brother; ”and you're a discontented young cub.”
”And you're another,” said d.y.k.e sourly. ”Well, haven't we been fried or grilled ever since we've been out here? and don't you say yourself that it's all a failure, and that you've made a big mistake?”
”Yes, sometimes, when I'm very hot and tired, d.i.c.ky, my lad. We've failed so far; but, look here, my brave and beautiful British boy.”
”Look here, Joe; I wish you wouldn't be so jolly fond of chaffing and teasing me,” said d.y.k.e angrily.
”Poor old fellow, then! Was um hot and tired and thirsty, then?” cried his half-brother mockingly. ”Take it coolly, d.i.c.ky.”
”Don't call me d.i.c.ky,” cried the boy pa.s.sionately, as he kicked out both legs.
”Vand.y.k.e Emson, Esquire, ostrich-farmer, then,” said the other.
”Ostrich-farmer!” cried d.y.k.e, in a tone full of disgust. ”Ugh! I'm sick of the silly-looking, lanky goblins. I wish their heads were buried in the sand, and their bodies too.”
”With their legs sticking straight up to make fences, eh, old man?” said Joseph Emson, smiling behind his beard--a smile that would have been all lost, if it had not been for a pleasant wrinkle or two about his frank blue eyes.
”Well, they would be some good then,” said d.y.k.e, a little more amiably.
”These wire fences are always breaking down and going off _spang_, and twisting round your legs. Oh, I do wish I was back at home.”