AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVEKY 367 folly for you to stay here. You have got the address of the lawyers who advertised for you, and have only to go straight to them with your proofs in your hand, and they will take all the necessary steps. I should say that it would facilitate matters if, as you go through Cairo, you were to obtain statements or affidavits from some of the people who knew your mother, stating that you are, as you claim to be, her son, and that she was the wife of the gentleman known as Gregory Hilliard, who went up as an interpreter with Hicks.

I don’t say that this would be necessary at all, for the letters you have would in themselves go far to prove your case.

Still, the more proofs you accumulate the less likely there is of any opposition being offered to your claim. Any papers or letters of your mother might contain something that would strengthen the case. It is really a pity, you know, when you have done so well out here, and would be certain to rise to a high post under the administration of the province (which will be taken in hand in earnest now), that you should have to give it all up.” “ I scarcely know whether to be pleased or sorry myself, sir. At present I can hardly take in the change that this will make, or appreciate its advantages.”

You will appreciate them soon enough,” one of the others laughed. “ As long as this war has been going on, one could put up with the heat, and the dust, and the horrible thirst one gets, and the absence of anything decent to drink; but now that it is all over, the idea of settling down here permanently would be horrible except to men—and there are such fellows—who are never happy unless they are at work, to whom work is everything—meat, and drink, and pleasure.

It would have to be everything out here, for no one could ever think of marrying and bringing a wife to such a country as this. Women can hardly live in parts of India, but the worst station in India would be a paradise in comparison with the Soudan; though possibly in time Khartoum will be rebuilt, and being situated between two rivers might become