A VOICE FEOM THE DEAD 263 'Tou are back sooner than I expected,” General Hunter said when Gregory went in and reported his arrival. “ It is scarce a week since you left.”

“ Just a week, sir. Everything went smoothly, and I was but three or four hours at Hebbeh.”

And did you succeed in your search ? ” “ Yes, sir; I most fortunately found a man who had hidden a pocket-book he had taken from the body of one of the white men who were murdered there. There was nothing in it but old papers, and when Brackenbury’s expedition approached he had hidden it away, and did not give it a thought until I enquired if he knew of any papers and other things connected with those on board the steamer. He at once took me to the place where he had hidden it under a great stone, and it turned out to be the note-book and journals of my father, who was, as I thought possible, the white man who had arrived at Khartoum a short time before the place was captured by the Dervishes, and who had gone down in the steamer that carried Colonel Stewart.”

“ Well, Hilliard,” the General said kindly, “ even the certain knowledge of his death is better than the fear that he might be in slavery. You told me you had no remembrance of him ? ” “None, sir; but of course my mother had talked of him so often, and had several photographs of him—the last taken at Cairo before he left,—so that I almost seem to have known him. However, I do feel it as a relief to know that he is not, as I feared was remotely possible, a slave among the Baggara; but I think it is hard that after having gone through two years of trials and sufferings he should have been murdered on his way home.”

“No doubt that is so. Have you read your father’s diary yet ? ” “ No, sir; I have not had the heart to do so, and shall put it off until the shock that this has given me has passed away.

I feel that a little hard work will be the best thing for me; is there any chance of it ? ”