EXPECT NEWS OF THE INDIANS, TOWARDS THE END OF THE
MONTH.
And that done, I hand the pen, which I have now no further claim to use,
to the writer who follows me next.
THIRD NARRATIVE
Contributed by FRANKLIN BLAKE
CHAPTER I
In the spring of the year eighteen hundred and forty-nine I was
wandering in the East, and had then recently altered the travelling
plans which I had laid out some months before, and which I had
communicated to my lawyer and my banker in London.
This change made it necessary for me to send one of my servants to
obtain my letters and remittances from the English consul in a certain
city, which was no longer included as one of my resting-places in my new
travelling scheme. The man was to join me again at an appointed place
and time. An accident, for which he was not responsible, delayed him on
his errand. For a week I and my people waited, encamped on the
borders of a desert. At the end of that time the missing man made his
appearance, with the money and the letters, at the entrance of my tent.
"I am afraid I bring you bad news, sir," he said, and pointed to one of
the letters, which had a mourning border round it, and the address on
which was in the handwriting of Mr.
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