e left Khartoum on the 14th, and came down without any serious
trouble until this morning, when the boat struck on a rock in the
cataract, opposite a village called Hebbeh. A hole has been knocked in
her bottom, and there is not a shadow of hope of getting her off.
Numbers of the natives have gathered on the shore. I have advised that
we should disregard their invitations to land, but that, as there would
be no animosity against the black crew, they would be safe; and that we
three whites should take the ship's boat, and four of the crew, put
provisions for a week on board, and make our way down the river.
Colonel Stewart, however, feels convinced that the people can be
trusted, and that we had better land and place ourselves under the
protection of the sheik. He does not know the Arabs as well as I do.

"However, as he has determined to go ashore, I can do nothing. I
consider it unlikely, in the extreme, that there will be any additions
to this journal. If, at any time in the future, this should fall into
the hands of any of my countrymen, I pray that they will send it down
to my dear wife, Mrs. Hilliard, whom, I pray, God may bless and
comfort, care of the Manager of the Bank, Cairo."

Chapter 20: A Momentous Communication.

Gregory had, after finishing the record, sat without moving until the
dinner hour. It was a relief to him to know that his father had not
spent the last years of his life as he had feared, as a miserable
slave--ill treated, reviled, insulted, perhaps chained and beaten by
some brutal taskmaster; but had been in a position where, save that he
was an exile, kept from his home and wife, his lot had not been
unbearable. He knew more of him than he had ever known before. It was
as a husband that his mother had always spoken of him; but here he saw
that he was daring, full of resource, quick to grasp any opportunity,
hopeful and yet patient, longing eagerly to rejoin his wife, and yet
content to wait until the chances should be all in his favour. He was
unaffectedly glad thus to know him; to be able, in future, to think of
him as one of whom he would have been proud; who would assuredly have
won his way to distinction.

It was not so that he had before thought of him. His mother had said
that he was of good family, and that it was on account of his marriage
with her that he had quarrelled with his relations. It had always
seemed strange to him that he should have been content to take, as she
h