ers to look up, and had not noticed that one
of them was a white man.

"What is it?" he asked, as he looked round. "Has the heat upset you?"

Then, as his eye fell on Dick, his voice changed, and he hurried
towards him, exclaiming anxiously:

"What is it, Dick? What has happened?"

For Dick was leaning against a bale by the side of him, and had hidden
his face in his arms. Surajah saw that his whole frame was shaking
with emotion.

"My dear lord," Surajah said, as he knelt beside him and laid his arm
across his shoulder, "you frighten me. Has aught gone wrong? Are you
ill?"

Dick slightly shook his head, and, lifting one of his hands, made a
sign to Surajah that he could not, at present, speak. A minute or two
later, he raised his head.

"Did you not see him, Surajah?"

"See who, Dick?"

"The white man you last served."

"I did not notice any white man."

"It was the one you gave a pound of the best tobacco to. Did you not
hear me speak to him, afterwards?"

"No. I was so busy, and so fearfully hot with this padded thing, it
was as much as I could do to attend to what they said to me. A white
man, did you say? Oh, Dick!"

And as the idea struck him, he rose to his feet in his excitement.

"Do you think--do you really think he can be your father?"

"I do think so, Surajah. Of course, I did not recognise his face. Nine
years must have changed him greatly, and he has a long beard. But he
is about the right age, and, I should say, about the same figure; and
he has certainly been a sailor, for he said, to one of the soldiers,
that he would give that pound of tobacco for a couple of pipes of
pigtail, which is the tobacco sailors smoke. I told him that, perhaps,
I might be able to find him some in my packs, and asked him to come
here at eight o'clock this evening. If I was not in, then, he was to
come the first thing tomorrow morning; but of course I shall be in at
eight. You must make some excuse to the ladies. Say that there are
some goods you wish to show them, in one of the other packs, and ask
me to go and look for it."

"Oh, Dick, only to think that, after all our searching, we seem to
have come on him at last! It is almost too good to be true."

Great as was Surajah's confidence in Dick, he had never quite shared
his faith that he would find his father alive, and his non-success
while with the army, and since, had completely extinguished any hopes
he had entertained. His surprise, therefore, equal