Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1885-07-02
Tke Stury Teller.
SYLVESTER'SW wife.

After tiffin on the second day of the sum-
mer assizes for Griqualand West, the Ian
guild interest which had hitherto been taken
in the proceedings suddenly developed into
something nearly akin to excitement. The
iury had lust returned verdict of culpable
homicide against dozen out of some fifty
Shangaans who stood huddled together,
helpless and frightened, in the dock charged
with participation in fatal tribal affray at
the Lone Star Diamond Mining Company's
compound; the Judge had duly sentenced
the gaping unfortunates, and the jailers
were endeavoring to sort them out from
among their unconvicted but probably no
less guilty comrades, when the Crown Pros
ecutOr, a fresh-colored young Englishman,
with no small idea of his own Importance,
turned in his seat at the barrister's table,
and Whispered to the official who sat behind
him to put forward Dirk Sylvester. The
official arose and repeated the name aloud
hum of expectancy ran through the little
crowd of spectators, and passed on 10 tne
loungers outside, who eagerly crowded into
the corrugated iron temple of justice gen
tlemen of the long robe and members OF the
press hurried over from "The Yellow Bar"
lust opposite, and the stalWart Zulu, attired
in canvas marked with the broad black ar
row. paused in his monotonous jerking OF
the punkah cord in order to catch glimpse
of "Baas" Sylvester, as he stepped into the
dock.
The prisoner was tall, handsome coloni-
al, with dark cleaning eyes, black beard,
ripened into swarthiness by the fierce Afri-
can sun. He was erect and fearless; he
threw glance of defiance at his enemies;
he nodded with smile to his friends, and
then, as the door of q private entrance to
the BODY of the court opened, and figure
draped in purest white, with bright golden
hair ripping in rich profusion over the
shapely shoulders, glided in softly and qui-
etly like sunbeam from the free world out
side, he leaned over the rail which inter-
posed between him and liberty, and hoarse-
ly whispered her name-the dearest name
on earth to him.
1t was Sylvester's wife. She responded
quickly with look more eloquent than
words; and then the prisoner drew himself
up to his full height, folded his arms, listen
ed intently as the clerk of the court, an old
friend with whom he had spent many a
registering evening in his bachelor days,
droned through the Indictment, and in
clear voice replied to the charge Of wilful
murder, "Not guilty."
The Crown Protector, in slow and meas
ured tones, began to sketch the history of
the crime; the Judge lounged back in his
chair and leisurely sought for the clean
pages in his record book; the counsel for
the defence pushed back his wig from his
perspiring brow, and hunted out reference
in an almost forgotten work on the Roman
Dutch law; the spectators hushed their
murmuring; the punkah sWayed regularly
to and fro overhead; and Sylvester's wife,
sitting there in the we'll of the sitting court,
with her sweet blue eyes riveted on the
prisoner, and her luXuriant locks rising and
falling with the artificial breeze, looked to
me even more beautiful than two years
ago, when she nightly ravished the hearts
of susceptible diggers in the make-shift
theatre in the Dutoitspan Road.
: In those memorable bygone days she was
Mademoiselle Marie La Cour, and the star
of q travelling theatrical company, which,
like most other combinations of TALENT"
visiting the Diamond Fields, never, as a
whole, got any further. The proprietor
made so much money in short season that
he left to assume the lesseship of a big Aus
tralian house, and Marie's father took over
the management of the sheep thus bereft
of their shepherd. How divinely she dane
ed and sang; how she brought tears into
the eyes of great rough fellows, or made
them shake the rafterS with their sonorous
laughter; how she fluttered the hearts of
the bank magnateS and the Jew diamond
merchants, and how she caused the ''treas-
ury' to overflow with fatness-are not all
these things written in the tablets of the
memory of every dWeller on the Fields?
In the zenith of her fame she married Dirk
Sylvester, and if ever a man deserved his
bride he did, for his passion wore him al
most to shadow, and his dark eyes gleam-
ed dangerously if rival presumed as much
as to speak t. her; and before Dirk came
upon the scene there were rivals in plenty;
but though Marie slipped the champagne
they proffered, and even accepted their dia-
monds, she laughed openly at all of them.
Dirk was proprietor of one Of the richest
claims at the New Rush, and the moment
he and Marie met the host Of more or less
hopeful suitors saw their chances were over.
She seemed to have fallen in love with him
quite as much as he had with her, and would
have married him long before she did but
that her father besought her to continue on
the stage little longer for his benefit. At
length the old gentleman drank himself
into the Carnarvon Hospital, and only came
out theme to occupy one OF the graves
which are always yawning, ready dug in
the Kimberley Cemetery, for victims to
fever and alcohol; and then Marie La Cour
became to US all and our world "Sylvesters
wife,"
They took little villa at the extremity
of Dutoitspan Road; a neat veranda-sur-
rounded residence, screened from the dust
and heat by tall blue gums, and half COW
cred with creepers and tropical flowers.
After that we saw little of the once so we'll
known Marie La Cour. Occasionally at
long intervals they would invite a few
bachelor friends-myself included-to wit
ness their bliss, and on such evenings the
great bulfrogs which invaded the gardens
of "The Oasis" as their place was rightly
named. would hush their vile croaking as
Sylvesters wife trilled forth some gay chan
sonette to the accompaniment of the Broad
wood which Dirk specially imported for
her from Europe; or sometimes the happy
pair would ride over to a picnic on the
banks of the meandering Modder River,
and Mrs. Sylvester would design to astonish
us with the feats of craftsmanship which
she could accomplish with the pretty revol-
ver-ivory handled and chased with gold
Dirk had given her.
One night as l strolled into the Albert
Saloon for a game Of billiards, l found a
knot of diggers gathered around new ar
rival-a handsome little Frenchman, who
had come to the Fields to look after some
claims in which Partisan firm had invest
ed. He was laughing conceitedly, and
stroking his carefully waXed imperial with
a self-satisfied air, when Dirk came in, and
was Immediately hailed by a man who was
no friend of his-the manager of some
ground which was always tumbling into
Dirk's claims and smashing his gear.
did not hear exactly what he said, but
my attention was suddenly arrested by see
ing Dirk make bound at the Frenchman,
and seize him by the throat, while his eyes
fairly blazed with passion. The French