"Perhaps," said he; "but I heard that Mr. Webb had received a letter from you, and that you and Livingstone had discovered that the Rusizi ran into the lake—that you had the Doctor's letters and despatches with you."
"Yes; but you acquired all this information from my men; you have seen nothing yourself. You have therefore resigned before you had personal evidence of the fact."
"Well, Dr. Livingstone is relieved and found, as Mr. Henn tells me, is he not?"
"Yes, that is true enough. He is well supplied; he only requires a few little luxuries, which I am going to send him by an expedition of fifty freemen. Dr. Livingstone is found and relieved, most certainly; and I have all the letters and despatches which he could possibly send to his friends."
"But don't you think I did perfectly right?"
"Hardly—though, perhaps, it would come to the same thing in the end. Any more cloth and beads than he has already would be an incumbrance. Still, you have your orders from the Royal Geographical Society. I have not seen those yet, and I am not prepared to judge what your best course would have been. But I think you did wrong in resigning before you saw me; for then you would have had, probably, a legitimate excuse for resigning. I should have held on to the Expedition until I had consulted with those who sent me; though, in such an event as this, the order would be, perhaps, to 'Come home.'"
"As it has turned out, though, don't you think I did right?"
"Most certainly it would be useless for you to go to search for and relieve Livingstone now, because he has already been sought, found, and relieved; but perhaps you had other orders."
"Only, if I went into the country, I was then to direct my attention to exploration; but the primary object having been forestalled by you, I am compelled to return home. The Admiralty granted me leave of absence only for the search, and never said anything about exploration."
That evening I despatched a boy over to the English Consulate with letters from the great traveller for Dr. Kirk and Mr. Oswell Livingstone.