"Glad to see you, Lister. You remember Miss Barkworth?" The major bowed. "We're all anxious, of course. Where is the boy? how is he?"
"Ah! you don't know then? Of course; you couldn't have got Corney's letter before you started. It was the padre who found Tom. On the day Corney sent you the cable he had got a pencilled note from the padre, brought here by train from Kisumu, where it had been carried by a native in a canoe round the Nyanza. I have it in my pocket."
He took out of his pocket-book a small, crumpled, dirty note, and handed it to Sir John, who translated aloud the almost illegible writing: "I have just found Tom Burnaby. He is badly wounded. I am taking him, as soon as he can be moved, to Bukoba."
They were all walking now towards the hotel, and a painful silence fell upon the group as they heard the brief message.
"I suppose Corney started at once?" said Sir John.
"Oh yes! He caught the first train. Your cable arrived just before he left, and he asked me to assure you he would do everything he could."
"Of course he would. And you have heard nothing since?"
"Not a word."
"Why Bukoba, do you think? Wouldn't Entebbe have been a more natural point to make for?"
"There's nothing to show where the padre wrote from, but I take it that Bukoba is the nearest point on the Nyanza. The padre knows the German commandant, and has probably arranged with him."