Next day they went on till noon, and then they halted at a really delightful spot; a silver kloof ran along a bottom, and there was a little clump of three acacia-trees that lowered their long tresses, pining for the stream, and sometimes getting a cool grateful kiss from it when the water was high. They halted the horse, bathed in the stream, and lay luxurious under the acacias. All was delicious languor and enjoyment of life. The Hottentot made a fire, and burnt the remains of a little sort of kangaroo Staines had shot him the evening before; but it did not suffice his maw, and looking about him, he saw three elands leisurely feeding about three hundred yards off. They were cropping the rich herbage close to the shelter of a wood. The Hottentot suggested that this was an excellent opportunity. He would borrow Staines's rifle, steal into the wood, crawl on his belly close up to them, and send a bullet through one. Staines did not relish the proposal. He had seen the savage's eye repeatedly gloat on the rifle, and was not without hopes he might even yet relent, and give the great diamond for the hundred pounds and this rifle; and he was so demoralized by the diamond, and filled with suspicion, that he feared the savage, if he once had the rifle in his possession, might levant, and be seen no more, in which case he, Staines, still the slave of the diamond, might hang himself on the nearest tree, and so secure his Rosa the insurance money, at all events. In short, he had really diamond on the brain. He hem'd and haw'd a little at Squat's proposal, and then got out of it by saying, “That is not necessary. I can shoot it from here.” “It is too far,” objected Blacky. “Too far! This is an Enfield rifle. I could kill the poor beast at three times that distance.” Blacky was amazed. “An Enfield rifle,” said he, in the soft musical murmur of his tribe, which is the one charm of the poor Hottentot; “and shoot three times SO far.” “Yes,” said Christopher. Then, seeing his companion's hesitation, he conceived a hope. “If I kill that eland from here, will you give me the diamond for my horse and the wonderful rifle?--no Hottentot has such a rifle.” Squat became cold directly. “The price of the diamond is two hundred pounds.” Staines groaned with disappointment, and thought to himself with rage, “Anybody but me would club the rifle, give the obstinate black brute a stunner, and take the diamond--God forgive me!” Says the Hottentot cunningly, “I can't think so far as white man. Let me see the eland dead, and then I shall know how far the rifle shoot.” “Very well,” said Staines. But he felt sure the savage only wanted his meal, and would never part with the diamond, except for the odd money.