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."

"Does he call himself by his own name?" Dominey asked.