Then he thanked me a thousand times over, shouldered the knapsack, embraced me as he had my father, and caressed the dog, embraced me again, and made no attempt to hide the tears that ran down his cheeks.

“There,” he said; “I shall wait here till you are out of sight.”

I turned away, and did not look back till I reached the place at which I knew that I should lose the statues.  I then turned round, waved my hand—­as also did George, and went down the mountain side, full of sad thoughts, but thankful that my task had been so happily accomplished, and aware that my life henceforward had been enriched by something that I could never lose.

For I had never seen, and felt as though I never could see, George’s equal.  His absolute unconsciousness of self, the unhesitating way in which he took me to his heart, his fearless frankness, the happy genial expression that played on his face, and the extreme sweetness of his smile—­these were the things that made me say to myself that the “blazon of beauty’s best” could tell me nothing better than what I had found and lost within the last three hours.  How small, too, I felt by comparison!  If for no other cause, yet for this, that I, who had wept so bitterly over my own disappointment the day before, could meet this dear fellow’s tears with no tear of my own.

But let this pass.  I got back to Harris’s hut without adventure.  When there, in the course of the evening, I told Harris that I had a fancy for the rug he had found on the river-bed, and that if he would let me have it, I would give him my red one and ten shillings to boot.  The exchange was so obviously to his advantage that he made no demur, and next morning I strapped Yram’s rug on to my horse, and took it gladly home to England, where I keep it on my own bed next to the counterpane, so that with care it may last me out my life.  I wanted him to take the dog and make a home for him, but he had two collies already, and said that a retriever would be of no use to him.  So I took the poor beast on with me to the port, where I was glad to find that Mr. Baker liked him and accepted him from me, though he was not mine to give.  He had been such an unspeakable comfort to me when I was alone, that he would have haunted me unless I had been able to provide for him where I knew he would be well cared for.  As for Doctor, I was sorry to leave him, but I knew he was in good hands.

“I see you have not brought your knapsack back, sir,” said Mr. Baker.

“No,” said I, “and very thankful was I when I had handed it over to those for whom it was intended.”

“I have no doubt you were, sir, for I could see it was a desperate heavy load for you.”

“Indeed it was.”  But at this point I brought the discussion to a close.

Two days later I sailed, and reached home early in February 1892.  I was married three weeks later, and when the honeymoon was over, set about making the necessary, and some, I fear, unnecessary additions to this book—­by far the greater part of which had been written, as I have already said, many months earlier.  I now leave it, at any rate for the present, April 22, 1892.