A spirit, kindred in its attitude to the seriousness of life, animated Sir George Grey, even as he spoke.  Affairs in England seemed critical, and he would stay on to watch them, since any hint might be of import.  In London there beat the heart of the Empire, and he would keep his ear to it.  He heard most clearly through that trumpet, the endless roll of London’s traffic.  Moreover, the great city, while she hardly nodded to Sir George, smote him afresh with the spell which is hers alone.  Oh to be in London!

So dates moved past, and Sir George Grey, as he waned under the growing load, realised that he and Greater Britain would be no more together.  That thought he parried, not liking to admit it, but the painter was cut when he resigned his place in the Parliament of New Zealand.  It had to be done, therefore let it be done; but it was a shock, like losing a limb to the surgeon.

A hail from Greater Britain became thrice welcome, and that of Mahomed Naser Eben took Sir George by siege, especially its quaintness and literary touch.  When Governor of the Cape Colony, he sent word up-country, by David Livingstone, that he would be glad of any manuscripts throwing light upon the Greeks and Romans in Africa.  To a British man-of-war, making patrol of the Mombasa coast, there rowed out a boat, having a respectable old Arab gentleman in the stern-sheets.  He handed up a parcel, desiring it to be delivered to Sir George Grey at Cape Town.  Sir George had left South Africa for New Zealand, and the manuscripts, as the contents of the bundle proved, were sent after him.

‘But nobody could read them,’ he stated, ’until here, as I learn, an Assyrian gentleman has been visiting Auckland.  What is my surprise, on opening this envelope, to find everything made clear in English, including Mahomed Naser Eben’s letter to me.  He addresses me as a cavern of hospitality, which is very handsome, and a phrase with a true Oriental flavour.  Unluckily, he appears to have got lost for two years in that part of Africa marked Oman on the map.  Hence a delay with him, in sending the manuscripts, but he need not have apologised, my single feeling being gladness that he discovered himself again.’

It was nigh forty years since Mahomed Naser Eben wrote, and in the interval many skies had changed.  Two had been apart, a sundered heaven, the doing of that tragedy which ever lies in wait upon romance.  But they came together, as the clouds were gathering, and upon them the sun ray of Mahomed Naser Eben could sparkle.  Sir George had scarce mastered the mystery of his epistle when he was drawing out a reply to it.  His only doubt was whether the erudite Arab might not have changed his address!

‘We are about the same age,’ Rewi imparted to Sir George Grey in New Zealand, ‘and when I go, your time will be approaching.’  Sir George recalled this, on hearing that Rewi had been gathered to his Maori fathers.  He was buried in a grave which ‘The Governor’ had selected, near the spot where the last fight took place between the Maoris and the English.  ‘We should lie together,’ Rewi also held, ’as being the two people who brought peace to New Zealand.  Sir George’s voice shook when telling this proof of Maori affection, as his eyes turned dim at reading an address sent him, to fabled London, by the men of that race in the Cook Islands.