For a distance of about two miles the stream wound its way over a bed of exposed rock, beyond which occurred a considerable stretch of coarse gravelly soil, thickly overgrown with long grass. The constant flow of water for untold ages through this bed of gravel had scoured out a channel nearly forty feet wide by half that depth; the banks being perfectly vertical, except in a few places where the gravel had crumbled away to a rather steep slope. It was whilst the wanderers were passing one of these places that--the sun being by this time in the western quarter of the heavens, and his level rays falling directly upon the right bank of the stream--the baronet's attention was arrested by the appearance of several bright sparkling gleams emanating from among the _debris_ of the crumbling bank. He directed the colonel's attention to these, whereupon the latter, seized with sudden excitement, scrambled down the bank, waded across the shallow stream, and in another instant flung himself down upon his knees on the gravel. Before the astonished baronet could follow him he leaped to his feet again, and, whilst he waved some glittering object above his head, shouted: "Hurrah! hurrah! Elphinstone, my dear fellow, we are in luck to-day. Here is a fabulous fortune for every one of us, to be had merely for the trouble of picking up. _This is a bed of diamondiferous gravel_." Sir Reginald hastened across the stream, and, scrambling half-way up the bank, joined his companion on the spot where the latter had halted. "Look here!" exclaimed Lethbridge, holding out for inspection a crystal as large as a pigeon's egg; "what think you of that for a first find? And it is of the first water, too." The baronet took it in his hand and examined it critically. Then he handed it back with the remark: "Well, my dear fellow, I am no judge of diamonds, at least in their natural uncut state; but if your supposition--that you have discovered a `bed' or `pocket,' or whatever you call it, of diamonds--be correct, I most heartily congratulate you." "You--congratulate--_me_?" gasped the colonel. "Why, my dear Elphinstone, what on earth do you mean? I am much obliged for your congratulations, certainly; but whether the diamonds here be many or few, we shall of course all share alike, so you may also congratulate yourself and our absent friends at the same time. And as to my supposition being correct, I have had too much experience at the South African diamond-fields to make a mistake in such a matter. Why," he continued, looking round and picking up two or three more stones, "they are positively sown broadcast just here--an hour's diligent work in this spot will make us all rich beyond the power of computation."