towards the end of
the siege. I know, because I happened to meet him, when I was going
home from work; and he asked me the way to the governor's. I should not
have known him to be a white man, for he had a native attire; and was
as black, from exposure to the sun, as any of the Arabs. I gave him
directions, and did not ask him any questions; but it was said,
afterwards, that he was one of Hicks's officers. Later, I heard that he
went down in the steamer with Colonel Stewart."

"You did not hear his name?" Gregory asked, anxiously.

"No, sir."

"Did he talk Arabic well?"

"Extremely well. Much better than I did, at the time."

"Do you remember how long he arrived before the steamer started?"

"Not very long, sir, though I really cannot tell you how long it was."

"After you were cut off, I suppose?"

"Certainly it was, but I cannot say how long."

"No one else, here, would know more about it than you do?"

"No, sir; I should think not. But you can ask them."

He called up some of the other workmen. All knew that a white officer,
of Hicks Pasha's army, was said to have returned. One of them
remembered that he had come down once, with Gordon, to see about some
repairs required to the engines of a steamer; but he had never heard
his name, nor could he recall his personal appearance, except that he
seemed to be a man about thirty. But he remembered once seeing him,
again, on board Stewart's steamer; as they had been working at her
engines, just before she started.

After thanking the foreman, Gregory returned to the hut, where he and
two other officers of Hunter's staff had taken up their quarters. He
was profoundly depressed. This white man might well have been his
father; but if so, it was even more certain than before that he had
fallen. He knew what had been the fate of Stewart's steamer, the
remains of which he had seen at Hebbeh. The Colonel, and all with him,
had accepted the invitation of the treacherous sheik of that village,
and had been massacred. He would at least go there, and endeavour to
learn, from some of the natives, the particulars of the fate of those
on board; and whether it was possible that any of the whites could have
escaped.

After sitting for some time, in thought, he went to General Hunter's
quarters, and asked to see him. The General listened, sympathetically,
to his story.

"I never, for a moment, thought that your father could have escaped,"
he said; "but from what you tell m