"I recommend to your notice and kindness my cousin, the bearer of this
letter--Mr. Ludwig Miller. He will lay before you certain circumstances
of which it is advisable for you to have knowledge. You may speak freely
with him. He is in all respects to be trusted.

"KARL SCHMIDT." (Signed)

"Your cousin is a little mysterious," Dominey remarked, as he passed the
letter to Seaman. "Come, what about these circumstances?"

Ludwig Miller looked around the little room and then at Seaman. Dominey
affected to misunderstand his hesitation.

"Our friend here knows everything," he declared. "You can speak to him
as to myself."

The man began as one who has a story to tell.

"My errand here is to warn you," he said, "that the Englishman whom
you left for dead at Big Bend, on the banks of the Blue River, has been
heard of in another part of Africa."

Dominey shook his head incredulously. "I hope you have not come all this
way to tell me that! The man was dead."

"My cousin himself," Miller continued, "was hard to convince. The man
left his encampment with whisky enough to kill him, thirst enough to
drink it all, and no food."

"So I found him," Dominey assented, "deserted by his boys and raving. To
silence him forever was a child's task."

"The task, however, was unperformed," the other persisted. "From three
places in the colony he has been heard of, struggling to make his way to
the coast."

"Does he call himself by his own name?" Dominey asked.

"He does not," Miller admitted. "My cousin, however, desired me to point
out to you the fact that in any case he would probably be shy of doing
so. He is behaving in an absurd manner; he is in a very weakly state;
and without a doubt he is to some degree insane. Nevertheless, the fact
remains that he is in the Colony, or was three months ago, and that if
he succeeds in reaching the coast you may at any time be surprised by
a visit from him here. I am sent to warn you in order that you may take
whatever steps may be necessary and not be placed at a disadvantage if
he should appear."

"This is queer news you have brought us, Miller," Seaman said
thoughtfully.

"It is news which greatly disturbed Doctor Schmidt," the man replied.
"He has had the natives up one after another for cross-examination.
Nothing can shake their story."

"If we believed it," Seaman continued, "this other European, if he had
business in this direction, might walk in here at any moment."

"It was