"Halloa, Doctor!—you up already? I hope you have slept well?"
"Good-morning, Mr. Stanley! I am glad to see you. I hope you rested well. I sat up late reading my letters. You have brought me good and bad news. But sit down." He made a place for me by his side. "Yes, many of my friends are dead. My eldest son has met with a sad accident—that is, my boy Tom; my second son, Oswell, is at college studying medicine, and is doing well I am told. Agnes, my eldest daughter, has been enjoying herself in a yacht, with 'Sir Paraffine' Young and his family. Sir Roderick, also, is well, and expresses a hope that he will soon see me. You have brought me quite a budget."
The man was not an apparition, then, and yesterday's scenes were not the result of a dream! and I gazed on him intently, for thus I was assured he had not run away, which was the great fear that constantly haunted me as I was journeying to Ujiji.
"Now, Doctor," said I, "you are, probably, wondering why I came here?"
"It is true," said he; "I have been wondering. I thought you, at first, an emissary of the French Government, in the place of Lieutenant Le Saint, who died a few miles above Gondokoro. I heard you had boats, plenty of men, and stores, and I really believed you were some French officer, until I saw the American flag; and, to tell you the truth, I was rather glad it was so, because I could not have talked to him in French; and if he did not know English, we had been a pretty pair of white men in Ujiji! I did not like to ask you yesterday, because I thought it was none of my business."
"Well," said I, laughing, "for your sake I am glad that I am an American, and not a Frenchman, and that we can understand each other perfectly without an interpreter. I see that the Arabs are wondering that you, an Englishman, and I, an American, understand each other. We must take care not to tell them that the English and Americans have fought, and that there are 'Alabama' claims left unsettled, and that we have such people as Fenians in America, who hate you. But, seriously, Doctor—now don't be frightened when I tell you that I have come after—YOU!"
"After me?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Well. You have heard of the 'New York Herald?'"