“Sir Everard Dominey?” he enquired.

Dominey nodded assent.  “That is my name.  Have I seen you before?”

The man shook his head.  “I am a cousin of Doctor Schmidt.  I arrived in the Colony from Rhodesia, after your Excellency had left.”

“And how is the doctor?”

“My cousin is, as always, busy but in excellent health,” was the reply.  “He sends his respectful compliments and his good wishes.  Also this letter.”

With a little flourish the man produced an envelope inscribed: 

To Sir Everard Dominey, Baronet,

Dominey Hall,

In the County of Norfolk,

England.

Dominey broke the seal just as Seaman entered.

“A messenger here from Doctor Schmidt, an acquaintance of mine in East Africa,” he announced.  “Mr. Seaman came home from South Africa with me,” he explained to his visitor.

The two men looked steadily into each other’s eyes.  Dominey watched them, fascinated.  Neither betrayed himself by even the fall of an eyelid.  Yet Dominey, his perceptive powers at their very keenest in this moment which instinct told him was one of crisis, felt the unspoken, unbetokened recognition which passed between them.  Some commonplace remark was uttered and responded to.  Dominey read the few lines which seemed to take him back for a moment to another world: 

“Honoured and Honourable Sir,

“I send you my heartiest and most respectful greeting.  Of the progress of all matters here you will learn from another source.

“I recommend to your notice and kindness my cousin, the bearer of this letter—­Mr. Ludwig Miller.  He will lay before you certain circumstances of which it is advisable for you to have knowledge.  You may speak freely with him.  He is in all respects to be trusted.

“Karl Schmidt.” (Signed)

“Your cousin is a little mysterious,” Dominey remarked, as he passed the letter to Seaman.  “Come, what about these circumstances?”

Ludwig Miller looked around the little room and then at Seaman.  Dominey affected to misunderstand his hesitation.

“Our friend here knows everything,” he declared.  “You can speak to him as to myself.”

The man began as one who has a story to tell.

“My errand here is to warn you,” he said, “that the Englishman whom you left for dead at Big Bend, on the banks of the Blue River, has been heard of in another part of Africa.”

Dominey shook his head incredulously.  “I hope you have not come all this way to tell me that!  The man was dead.”

“My cousin himself,” Miller continued, “was hard to convince.  The man left his encampment with whisky enough to kill him, thirst enough to drink it all, and no food.”

“So I found him,” Dominey assented, “deserted by his boys and raving.  To silence him forever was a child’s task.”

“The task, however, was unperformed,” the other persisted.  “From three places in the colony he has been heard of, struggling to make his way to the coast.”