“Well, there are others who will suffer as well as you,” said one of the crowd.

“I reckon we’re all hit pretty hard if this is true,” remarked another.

“I’m fair sick of it,” said the little man, passing his grimy hand across his eyes and leaving a black smear as he did so.  “This ain’t the first time—­no, nor the second—­that my luck has played me this trick.  I’ve a mighty good mind to throw up my hand altogether.”

“Come in and have some whisky,” said a rough sympathizer, and the unlucky one was hustled in through the rude door of the Griqualand Saloon, there to find such comfort as he might from the multitudinous bottles which adorned the interior of that building.  Liquor had lost its efficacy that evening, however, and a dead depression rested over the little town.  Nor was it confined to Dutoitspan.  All along the diggings the dismal tidings spread with a rapidity which was astonishing.  At eleven o’clock there was consternation at Klipdrift.  At quarter-past one Hebron was up and aghast at the news.  At three in the morning a mounted messenger galloped into Bluejacket, and before daybreak a digger committee was sitting at Delporte’s Hope discussing the situation.  So during that eventful night down the whole long line of the Vaal River there was ruin and heartburning and dismay, while five thousand miles away an old gentleman was sleeping calmly and dreamlessly in his comfortable bed, from whose busy brain had emanated all this misery and misfortune.

Perhaps the said old gentleman might have slumbered a little less profoundly could he have seen the sight which met his son’s eyes on the following morning.  Ezra had passed the night at Dutoitspan, in the hut of a hospitable miner.  Having risen in the morning, he was dressing himself in a leisurely, methodical fashion, when his host, who had been inhaling the morning breeze, thrust his head through the window.

“Come out here, Mr. Girdlestone,” he cried.  “There’s some fun on.  One of the boys is dead drunk, and they are carrying him in.”

Ezra pulled on his coat and ran out.  A little group of miners were walking slowly up the main street.  He and his host were waiting for the procession to pass them with several jocose remarks appropriate to the occasion ready upon their lips, when their eyes fell upon a horrible splotchy red track which marked the road the party had taken.  They both ran forward with exclamations and inquiries.

“It’s Jim Stewart,” said one of the bearers.  “Him that they used to call Unlucky Jim.”

“What’s up with him?”

“He has shot himself through the head.  Where d’ye think we found him?  Slap in the middle o’ his own claim, with his fingers dug into the gravel, as dead as a herring.”

“He’s a bad plucked ’un to knock under like that,” Ezra’s companion remarked.