Good heavens! It was his letter home; in the excitement of starting he had forgotten it. The man who brought it was one of Nanzela's people who had gone back to pick up anything which the white man or his servants might have left behind. He hoped, no doubt, to find a stray cartridge or two in the grass, or perhaps a spoon or a table knife.
Wrenshaw did not remove the letter from the stick, but carried it as the natives did their tax-papers. The simple people became impatient to pay their tax; was not the white man also playing this new game?
The letter home was never sent. In place of it Wrenshaw despatched a brief account of his adventure, told in a very matter-of-fact way.
Over the mantelpiece of his den hangs a frame; in place of a picture it contains a letter in a stick which, at a short distance, looks like a miniature notice-board.
THE DOCTOR.
Those who go in search of trouble usually find it. They deserve no sympathy and seldom get any.