usly whether his
mother were living, and sighed when he answered 'No,' because he had no
one to watch and wait for him in far-away England. And when the weary
young Englishman, in spite of desperate efforts to be polite, dropped
asleep in the royal presence, the sovereigns, with courtesy which would
have done honour to a more civilised Court, quietly withdrew, sending
him a message that he must stay long with them and rest well.

But Lauder was anxious to rejoin his master, and, hurrying back to
Wow-Wow, reached it just as Clapperton, who had outdistanced his fair
pursuer, arrived there himself. The gallant Captain, hearing of his loss
of favour, took the bull by the horns and went at once to the King. He
quite disarmed that angry monarch by his frank greeting and assurances
that he had not seen such a handsome face since his departure as that of
the sovereign of Wow-Wow; but Mohammed, to make all sure, refused to
allow the Captain to proceed on his travels until Lyuma was safely under
supervision. So that the lady, when she arrived, found herself obliged
to submit to the royal authority and stay quietly at home, while the
Captain and Lauder, by no means sorry to escape, bade farewell to
Mohammed, and left the poor beauty to find a husband among the gentlemen
of Wow-Wow.

We might end the story there, with a laugh over poor Lyuma's
disappointment, for the rest of the tale that Lauder has to tell is sad.

For weeks the two explorers were delayed by tribal wars, and the long
inaction in the deadly climate broke down even Clapperton's hopeful
spirit. When they sat together in the evenings at the door of their hut,
and Lauder sang the old Scottish songs that had been familiar to his
master as a child, the foreboding seems to have fallen upon the Captain
that he would never tread his native hills again. He fell ill of the
sickness that had claimed so many victims, and gave his papers and
instructions, with business-like calmness, to his 'dear boy,' as he
called the young servant, who tended him with the devotion of a son. The
man who had before bidden Lauder never to forget his prayers knew where
to turn for help when his own splendid strength and energy could avail
him no more. But sorely desolate Richard Lauder must have felt, when he
laid the British flag over the body of him who had been master and
comrade in one, and, with broken voice, read the Burial Service, with
its words of faith and hope, over the lonely grave.