Page:Knaves of Diamonds.pdf/211

192 It pleased the Fates to draw out the tragedy which thus began with the inhuman butchery of poor little Tommy—one of many a like innocent martyr to the unholy cause of I.D.B.—into more scenes than could be reproduced here. The present narrative is, however, only concerned with the last of them, or perhaps it would be more correct to say the last but one, and that which brought the curtain down.

As week after week went by, the outrages committed by the mysterious Border Gang, as the unknown desperadoes, who had so suddenly invaded the hitherto comparatively peaceful frontiers of the Free State and Griqualand West, very soon came to be called, seemed to increase in number and daring.

It was quite a curious situation—such a one as the student of human crime had never had the chance of studying before, and may never have again. It was a sort of three-