CHAPTER XXIII My Uncle’s Gift Is Many Times Multiplied

We got at the treasure by blowing open the turnstile. It was easy enough to trace the spot in the rock where it stood, but the most patient search did not reveal its secret. Accordingly we had recourse to dynamite¹, and soon laid bare the stone steps, and ascended² to the gallery. The chasm³ was bridged with planks⁴, and Arcoll and I crossed alone. The cave was as I had left it. The bloodstains on the floor had grown dark with time, but the ashes of the sacramental fire were still there to remind me of the drama I had borne a part in. When I looked at the way I had escaped my brain grew dizzy at the thought of it. I do not think that all the gold on earth would have driven me a second time to that awful escalade. As for Arcoll, he could not see its possibility at all.

‘Only a madman could have done it,’ he said, blinking his eyes at the green linn. ‘Indeed, Davie, I think for about four days you were as mad as they make. It was a fortunate thing, for your madness saved the country.’

With some labour we got the treasure down to the path, and took it under a strong guard to Pietersdorp. The Government were busy with the settling up after the war, and it took many weeks to have our business disposed of. At first things looked badly for me. The Attorney–General set up a claim to the whole as spoils of war, since, he argued, it was the war-chest of the enemy we had conquered. I do not know how the matter would have gone on legal grounds, though I was advised by my lawyers that the claim was a bad one. But the part I had played in the whole business, more especially in the visit to Inanda’s Kraal, had made me a kind of popular hero, and the Government thought better of their first attitude. Besides, Arcoll had great influence, and the whole story of my doings, which was told privately⁶ by him to some of the members of the Government, disposed them to be generous. Accordingly they agreed to treat the contents of the cave as ordinary treasure trove⁷, of which, by the law, one half went to the discoverer and one half to the Crown.

This was well enough so far as the gold was concerned, but another difficulty arose about the diamonds; for a large part of these had obviously been stolen by labourers from the mines, and the mining people laid claim to them as stolen goods. I was advised not to dispute this claim, and consequently we had a great sorting-out of the stones in the presence of the experts of the different mines. In the end it turned out that identification was not an easy matter, for the experts quarrelled furiously among themselves. A compromise was at last come to, and a division made; and then the diamond companies behaved very handsomely, voting me a substantial sum in recognition of my services in recovering their property. What with this and with my half share of the gold and my share of the unclaimed stones, I found that I had a very considerable fortune. The whole of my stones I sold to De Beers, for if I had placed them on the open market I should have upset the delicate equipoise of diamond values. When I came finally to cast up my accounts, I found that I had secured a fortune of a trifle over a quarter of a million pounds.

The wealth did not dazzle so much as it solemnized me. I had no impulse to spend any part of it in a riot of folly⁸. It had come to me like fairy gold out of the void; it had been bought with men’s blood, almost with my own. I wanted to get away to a quiet place and think, for of late my life had been too crowded with drama, and there comes a satiety⁹ of action as well as of idleness. Above all things I wanted to get home. They gave me a great send-off, and sang songs, and good fellows shook my hand till it ached. The papers were full of me, and there was a banquet and speeches. But I could not relish¹⁰ this glory as I ought, for I was like a boy thrown violently out of his bearings. Not till I was in the train nearing Cape⁵ Town did I recover my equanimity¹¹. The burden of the past seemed to slip from me suddenly as on the morning when I had climbed the linn. I saw my life all lying before me; and already I had won success. I thought of my return to my own country, my first sight of the grey shores of Fife, my visit to Kirkcaple, my meeting with my mother. I was a rich man now who could choose his career, and my mother need never again want for comfort. My money seemed pleasant to me, for if men won theirs by brains or industry, I had won mine by sterner methods, for I had staked against it my life. I sat alone in the railway carriage and cried with pure thankfulness. These were comforting tears, for they brought me back to my old common-place self.

My last memory of Africa is my meeting with Tam Dyke¹². I caught sight of him in the streets of Cape Town, and running after him, clapped him on the shoulder. He stared at me as if he had seen a ghost.

‘Is it yourself, Davie?’ he cried. ‘I never looked to see you again in this world. I do nothing but read about you in the papers. What for did ye not send for me? Here have I been knocking about inside a ship and you have been getting famous. They tell me you’re a millionaire, too.’

I had Tam to dinner at my hotel, and later, sitting smoking on the terrace and watching the flying-ants among the aloes, I told him the better part of the story I have here written down.

‘Man, Davie,’ he said at the end, ‘you’ve had a tremendous time. Here are you not eighteen months away from home, and you’re going back with a fortune. What will you do with it?’ I told him that I proposed, to begin with, to finish my education at Edinburgh College. At this he roared with laughter.

‘That’s a dull ending, anyway. It’s me that should have the money, for I’m full of imagination. You were aye a prosaic¹³ body, Davie.’

‘Maybe I am,’ I said; ‘but I am very sure of one thing. If I hadn’t been a prosaic body, I wouldn’t be sitting here to-night.’

Two years later Aitken found the diamond pipe, which he had always believed lay in the mountains. Some of the stones in the cave, being unlike any ordinary African diamonds, confirmed his suspicions and set him on the track. A Kaffir tribe to the north-east of the Rooirand had known of it, but they had never worked it, but only collected the overspill. The closing down of one of the chief existing mines had created a shortage of diamonds in the world’s markets, and once again the position was the same as when Kimberley began. Accordingly he made a great fortune, and today the Aitken Proprietary¹⁴ Mine is one of the most famous in the country. But Aitken did more than mine diamonds, for he had not forgotten the lesson we had learned together in the work of resettlement. He laid down a big fund for the education and amelioration of the native races, and the first fruit of it was the establishment at Blaauwildebeestefontein itself of a great native training college. It was no factory for making missionaries¹⁵ and black teachers, but an institution for giving the Kaffirs the kind of training which fits them to be good citizens of the state. There you will find every kind of technical workshop, and the finest experimental farms, where the blacks are taught modern agriculture. They have proved themselves apt pupils, and today you will see in the glens of the Berg and in the plains Kaffir tillage which is as scientific as any in Africa. They have created a huge export trade in tobacco and fruit; the cotton promises well; and there is talk of a new fibre which will do wonders. Also along the river bottoms the india-rubber business is prospering¹⁶.

There are playing-fields and baths and reading-rooms and libraries just as in a school at home. In front of the great hall of the college a statue stands, the figure of a black man shading his eyes with his hands and looking far over the plains to the Rooirand. On the pedestal it is lettered ‘Prester John,’ but the face is the face of Laputa. So the last of the kings of Africa does not lack his monument.

Of this institution Mr Wardlaw is the head. He writes to me weekly, for I am one of the governors, as well as an old friend, and from a recent letter I take this passage:—

‘I often cast my mind back to the afternoon when you and I sat on the stoep of the schoolhouse, and talked of the Kaffirs and our future. I had about a dozen pupils then, and now I have nearly three thousand; and in place of a tin-roofed shanty¹⁷ and a yard, I have a whole countryside. You laughed at me for my keenness, Davie, but I’ve seen it justified¹⁸. I was never a man of war like you, and so I had to bide¹⁹ at home while you and your like were straightening out the troubles. But when it was all over my job began, for I could do what you couldn’t do — I was the physician to heal wounds. You mind how nervous I was when I heard the drums beat. I hear them every evening now, for we have made a rule that all the Kaffir farms on the Berg sound a kind of curfew. It reminds me of old times, and tells me that though it is peace nowadays we mean to keep all the manhood in them that they used to exercise in war. It would do your eyes good to see the garden we have made out of the Klein Labongo glen. The place is one big orchard²⁰ with every kind of tropical fruit in it, and the irrigation dam is as full of fish as it will hold. Out at Umvelos’ there is a tobacco-factory, and all round Sikitola’s we have square miles of mealie and cotton fields. The loch on the Rooirand is stocked with Lochleven trout²¹, and we have made a bridle-path up to it in a gully east of the one you climbed. You ask about Machudi’s. The last time I was there the place was white with sheep, for we have got the edge of the plateau grazed down, and sheep can get the short bite there. We have cleaned up all the kraals, and the chiefs are members of our county council, and are as fond of hearing their own voices as an Aberdeen bailie. It’s a queer transformation²² we have wrought²³, and when I sit and smoke my pipe in the evening, and look over the plains and then at the big black statue you and Aitken set up, I thank the Providence²⁴ that has guided me so far. I hope and trust that, in the Bible words, “the wilderness²⁵ and the solitary²⁶ place are glad for us.” At any rate it will not be my fault if they don’t “blossom as the rose”. Come out and visit us soon, man, and see the work you had a hand in starting. . . . ’

I am thinking seriously of taking Wardlaw’s advice.

The End

1 dynamite   

n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破)

参考例句：

• The workmen detonated the dynamite.工人们把炸药引爆了。
• The philosopher was still political dynamite.那位哲学家仍旧是政治上的爆炸性人物。

2 ascended   

v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He has ascended into heaven. 他已经升入了天堂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The climbers slowly ascended the mountain. 爬山运动员慢慢地登上了这座山。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 chasm   

n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突

参考例句：

• There's a chasm between rich and poor in that society.那社会中存在着贫富差距。
• A huge chasm gaped before them.他们面前有个巨大的裂痕。

4 planks   

（厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点

参考例句：

• The house was built solidly of rough wooden planks. 这房子是用粗木板牢固地建造的。
• We sawed the log into planks. 我们把木头锯成了木板。

5 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

6 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

7 trove   

n.被发现的东西，收藏的东西

参考例句：

• He assembled a rich trove of Chinese porcelain.他收集了一批中国瓷器。
• The gallery is a treasure trove of medieval art.这个画廊是中世纪艺术的宝库。

8 folly   

n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话

参考例句：

• Learn wisdom by the folly of others.从别人的愚蠢行动中学到智慧。
• Events proved the folly of such calculations.事情的进展证明了这种估计是愚蠢的。

9 satiety   

n.饱和；(市场的)充分供应

参考例句：

• There is no satiety in study.学无止境。
• Their presence in foods induces satiety at meal time.它们在食物中的存在诱导进餐时的满足感。

10 relish   

n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味

参考例句：

• I have no relish for pop music.我对流行音乐不感兴趣。
• I relish the challenge of doing jobs that others turn down.我喜欢挑战别人拒绝做的工作。

11 equanimity   

n.沉着，镇定

参考例句：

• She went again,and in so doing temporarily recovered her equanimity.她又去看了戏，而且这样一来又暂时恢复了她的平静。
• The defeat was taken with equanimity by the leadership.领导层坦然地接受了失败。

12 dyke   

n.堤，水坝，排水沟

参考例句：

• If one sheep leap over the dyke,all the rest will follow.一只羊跳过沟，其余的羊也跟着跳。
• One ant-hole may cause the collapse of a thousand-li dyke.千里长堤，溃于蚁穴。

13 prosaic   

adj.单调的，无趣的

参考例句：

• The truth is more prosaic.真相更加乏味。
• It was a prosaic description of the scene.这是对场景没有想象力的一个描述。

14 proprietary   

n.所有权，所有的；独占的；业主

参考例句：

• We had to take action to protect the proprietary technology.我们必须采取措施保护专利技术。
• Proprietary right is the foundation of jus rerem.所有权是物权法之根基。

15 missionaries   

n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Some missionaries came from England in the Qing Dynasty. 清朝时，从英国来了一些传教士。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The missionaries rebuked the natives for worshipping images. 传教士指责当地人崇拜偶像。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

16 prospering   

成功，兴旺( prosper的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Our country is thriving and prospering day by day. 祖国日益繁荣昌盛。
• His business is prospering. 他生意兴隆。

17 shanty   

n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子

参考例句：

• His childhood was spent in a shanty.他的童年是在一个简陋小屋里度过的。
• I want to quit this shanty.我想离开这烂房子。

18 justified   

a.正当的，有理的

参考例句：

• She felt fully justified in asking for her money back. 她认为有充分的理由要求退款。
• The prisoner has certainly justified his claims by his actions. 那个囚犯确实已用自己的行动表明他的要求是正当的。

19 bide   

v.忍耐；等候；住

参考例句：

• We'll have to bide our time until the rain stops.我们必须等到雨停。
• Bide here for a while. 请在这儿等一会儿。

20 orchard   

n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场

参考例句：

• My orchard is bearing well this year.今年我的果园果实累累。
• Each bamboo house was surrounded by a thriving orchard.每座竹楼周围都是茂密的果园。

21 trout   

n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属)

参考例句：

• Thousands of young salmon and trout have been killed by the pollution.成千上万的鲑鱼和鳟鱼的鱼苗因污染而死亡。
• We hooked a trout and had it for breakfast.我们钓了一条鳟鱼，早饭时吃了。

22 transformation   

n.变化；改造；转变

参考例句：

• Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
• He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。

23 wrought   

v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的

参考例句：

• Events in Paris wrought a change in British opinion towards France and Germany.巴黎发生的事件改变了英国对法国和德国的看法。
• It's a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a flower.那是一个金质花形包头的拐杖。

24 providence   

n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝

参考例句：

• It is tempting Providence to go in that old boat.乘那艘旧船前往是冒大险。
• To act as you have done is to fly in the face of Providence.照你的所作所为那样去行事，是违背上帝的意志的。

25 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

26 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。