HOW THE DIAMONDS WERE CONCEALED.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1191, 28 December 1894, Page 33

HOW THE DIAMONDS WERE CONCEALED.

The escape of a man, aided by his quickwitted wife, after doing a good business in illicit diamond-buying on the Kimberley fields, is thus told by the man himself: —' We reached Hope Town in safety. m The baby had an attack of croup, so we remained there for- a day and night. On the morning of the second day the post-cart driver from Kimberley told me that there was a party of detectives out in hot pursuit of us. I went back to the waggon, and, in mortal terror, told Maria what I had heard, and all the consolation I got wag •. " Well, to be sure, Jones, you do look a sight! Have you got any diamonds ? If so, hand them over, for they are not safe in the hands of such a Sammy as you are ? " In about an hour's time the detectives were on us. According to Maria's instructions, I sat doggedly watching them as they turned the waggon inside out. She, meanwhile, was preparing the baby's milk. I quietly submitted to be sea-ched, but when they went over to Maria I trembled. She took the feeding-bottle from the baby, laid it upon the sand, and then, slipping something from the child's clothes to her pocket, handed the little fellow to the detectives. " Here you are, mate ; I thought she was our man," exultantly remarked one, snatching from- my wife's dress the parcel I have mentioned. " Oh, dear ! Don't show them to Jones ; he will kill me!" shrieked Maiia. "No fear! we will protect you," laughed the superior, proceeding to undo the parcel. " But he found nothing but a lot of old love-letters, which he pitched into the fire." "Yes," sullenly remarked one, " here that confounded chief has sent us on another fool's errand. I would enter an action against him for unlawful detention, and all sorts of other things., if I were yra, Mrs. Jones." Maria the while had thrown the shawl over the baby, and now sat down on a little old stump of wood, and with her hand pressed hard to her left side, stared at the men as they mounted and rode away. Then she fell on the sand in a dead faint, from which it was very difficult to recover her. The next day we proceeded on our journey, and. not many days after we sailed, worth twenty-five thousand pounds, from the bright, sunny land to which we had come with high hopes in abundance, but little gold. "But where had she hidden the diamonds asked one?" "Why, I thought you would guess ; seems that you are as atupid as I was," said Jones, looking up with astonishment, but never a smile. " Why, they were in the milk—part in the bottle, part in the tin." '