Chapter Twenty One.

“Vale, Me Ama!”

The rest of our story is soon told.

Grenville and his companions, after numberless hardships, owing to the unprecedentedly heavy rains, at last reached Natal, where our friend had the satisfaction of acting as best man at his cousin’s wedding.

A full notice of this interesting event was published in the Local Press by some enterprising reporter. On the following day, a few hours after the issue of the sheet in question, Grenville, who was sitting listlessly smoking in the hotel, was surprised by the advent of a smart, dapper-looking little man, who asked him if he was the “gentleman known as Mr Alfred Leigh.”

“No,” replied Grenville; “do you really want my cousin?—for he’s a newly-married man, you know.”

“Yes, sir, I do want him,” said the little man, bowing deferentially, “and he will wish to see me. Can you introduce me?”

“Certainly,” said Grenville, rising lazily. “Whom shall I announce?”

“My name is Driffield, of the firm of Masterton and Driffield, solicitors,” was the reply.

Leading the new arrival to Leigh’s private sitting-room, Grenville circumspectly knocked at the door, and entering said, “My cousin, Mr Driffield.—Alf, Mr Driffield, who is a lawyer, is anxious to meet you, and says you will be glad to see him.”

“You misunderstood me, sir,” said the little lawyer; “I observed that your cousin would wish to see me. The news I bring you, sir, is both bad and good—bad, because your father and your brother are both dead; good, because I have to congratulate you upon your accession to the peerage, Lord Drelincourt.”

Poor Alf! it was indeed cruel news to strike him at the very commencement of his wedded happiness; but his wife slipped her soft arms round his neck, and the lawyer considerately withdrew, Grenville whispering to him to wait his return in the smoke-room.

In few words Leigh told his cousin to find out all the solicitor had to communicate, and to do what he thought best; and then Grenville left him alone with his sorrow and his new-made wife.

The lawyer had little to tell. Lord Drelincourt and his son had been killed in a railway accident in Ireland, and advertisements had been inserted in all the South African papers for the missing heir to the title, as his wanderings had been traced as far as Natal.

Grenville was favourably impressed with the little man, who hurried away to cable his lordship’s London solicitors, promising to return that evening, which he did, and made himself so useful that before the new Lord Drelincourt’s departure for England he was made happy with a very handsome cheque.

Grenville next took passages by the Union Company’s steamer Tartar, and saw his cousin and his bride safely off two days after, the former in possession of a bill of lading for gold dust to the value of a quarter of a million sterling.

Words cannot describe poor Leigh’s distress when he found that his cousin had no intention of accompanying them to the Old Country.

“Dick, you’re not going back to waste your life over her grave and amongst savages? Don’t do it, old man,” pleaded his cousin.

“Not I, Alf—I’m not made of that kind of stuff. If I do anything with reference to the matter, it will be in the direction of visiting Salt Lake City and exterminating the whole cursed Mormon breed. I cannot yet coop myself up in trim civilised England—I long for the keen breath of the mountain air and for the wide sweep of veldt as it spreads its expanse before me in all the weird mystery of the moonlight. No, dear old chap; you have someone else to take care of you now; but when you want Dick Grenville, you know you’ve only to ask for him. Adieu, Alf; good-bye, Sister Dora. God bless you both! Vale, me ama!”

The End.