To be sure, he himself hunted diamonds every day of his life, just
as hard as Guy did; there was nothing else to do in this detestable
place, and a man MUST find something to turn his idle hands to.
Also he carried them, like Guy, bound up in a girdle round his own
waist; it was a pity they should be lost, if ever he should chance
to get away safe in the end to England. But then, don't you see,
the cases were so different. Guy hoarded up his diamonds for mere
wretched gain; whereas Granville valued his (he said to himself
often) not for the mere worth in money of those shimmering little
trinkets, but for his mother's sake, and Gwendoline's, and the
credit of the family. He wanted Lady Emily to see her son filling
the place in the world she had always looked forward with hope to
his filling; and, by Heaven's help, he thought, he could still fill
it. He couldn't marry Gwendoline on a beggar's pittance; and, by
Heaven's help, he hoped still to be able to marry her.
Guy, on the other hand, found himself almost equally surprised
in turn at the rapid way he grew really to be fond of Granville
Kelmscott. Though Kelmscott knew, as he thought, the terrible secret
of his half-unconscious crime--for he could feel now how completely
he had acted under Montague Nevitt's compelling influence--Guy
was aware before long of such a profound and deep-seated sympathy
existing between them, that he became exceedingly attached in time
to his friendly fellow-prisoner. In spite of the one barrier they
could never break down, he spoke freely by degrees to Granville of
everything else in his whole life; and Granville in return spoke to
him just as freely. A good fellow, Granville, when you got to know
him. There was only a single trait in his character Guy couldn't
endure; and that was his ingrained love of money-grubbing. For the
way the man pounced down upon those dirty little stones, when he
saw them in the mud, and hoarded them up in his belt, and seemed
prepared to defend them with his very life-blood, Guy couldn't
conceal from himself-the fact that he fairly despised him. Such
vulgar, common-place, unredeemed love of pelf! Such mere bourgeois
avarice! Of what use could those wretched pebbles be to him here
in the dusty plains of far inland Africa?
Guy himself kept close count of his finds, to be sure; but then,
the cases, don't you see, were so different! HE wanted his diamonds
to discharge the great debt of his life to Cyril, and to appear an
honest man, rehabilitated once more, before the brother he had so
deeply wronged and humiliated. Whereas Granville Kelmscott, a rich
man's son, and the heir to a great estate beyond the dreams of
avarice--that HE should have come risking his life in these savage
wilds for mere increase of superfluous wealth, why, it was simply
despicable.
So eighteen months wore away, in mutual friendship, tempered to a
certain degree by mutual contempt, and little chance of escape came
to the captives in Barolong land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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