"You also imagine that there is no such land as the N'bosini, I think?"
Bones put the question with a certain insolent assurance which was very irritating.
"I not only think, but I know," replied Hamilton.
Bones laughed, a sardonic, knowing laugh.
"We shall see," he said, mysteriously; "I hope, in the course of a few weeks, to place a document in your possession that will not only surprise, but which, I believe, knowing that beneath a somewhat uncouth manner lies a kindly heart, will also please you."
"Are you chucking up the army?" asked Hamilton with interest.
"I have no more to say, sir," said Bones.
He got up, took his helmet from a peg on the wall, saluted and walked stiffly from the Residency and was swallowed up in the darkness of the parade ground.
A quarter of an hour later, there came a tap upon his door and Mahomet Ali, his sergeant, entered.
"Ah, Mah'met," said Hamilton, looking up with a smile, "all things were quiet on the river my lord Tibbetts tells me."