Charles Atherstone, a poster artist from a Brighton carnival, joins the diamond rush to Africa only to find when he arrives in Cape Town that he hasn't enough money to pay for the coach journey to the diamonds of the Orange River. An unsuspecting dreamer, he is the perfect mark for Fleetwood Erskine Tucker, himself there to make a fortune, but with methods more creative than the traditional way that required an excess of sweat. As an artist, Charles attracts the friendship of two elderly Kalahari Bushmen on their final journey to a famous cave in the mountains. It was where the last Bushman painter fell to his death while painting an eland on the cliff face. It was a friendship that earned Charles the Bushman's greatest honour, the artists bracelet.