"Any damage?" asked one of the officers. "No? Good! Have a cigar. Come far?"
These questions, seemingly so commonplace after the trials and difficulties they had undergone, almost took the lads' breath away; but Reeves, knowing that the imperturbability of the Englishman abroad is generally a mask to conceal the emotions he is ashamed of betraying, merely accepted the proffered weed with a laconic "Thanks!"
The smoke—after his vain hankering for tobacco for months—raised him to the seventh heaven of delight.
"Come aboard; we'll tow you down to Nali," continued the officer. "My name's Jones, by the by. What's yours?"
"Reeves."
"Not the war correspondent!"
"What's left of him."
"By Jove, that's strange! Only the other day we had a batch of papers through, and I remember there was nearly a column devoted to your obituary."
"Very kind of the Press, I'm sure. Did they say what happened to me?"
"Only that an Italian airman saw the bodies of you and your two young companions lying in the desert, or in an oasis, rather. He dropped a bomb in the midst of the Arabs, and returned with the news. But how on earth did you manage to get here?"