Suddenly Reeves raised a musket and fired into the air. Beyond a bend in the river the report of an answering shot reverberated between the tree-lined banks, while the rapid pulsation of an engine grew louder and louder. The negroes heard the sounds too, and seized by panic they turned about and paddled upstream for dear life. "We're safe, lads!" exclaimed Reeves, in a broken voice. "Look!" Sweeping round the bend came a large white motor boat, covered from stem to stern with canvas awnings, while standing about a quick-firer in her bows were five or six blacks, dressed in a kind of zouave uniform--blue coats, red waistcoats, and baggy white trousers. Almost before the three travellers could realize the turn things had taken, the launch was alongside, with the motor reversed to check her way. Under the canopy were two bronzed and bearded white men, dressed in soiled and creased white drill uniforms. "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?" It was a long story, and by the time that Reeves had finished his narrative the motor launch had reached the frontier post of Nali, seven hundred miles from the Gold Coast. Here good use was made of the telegraph, and by noon on the following day the _London Intelligence_ came out with double-leaded headlines, announcing the safe arrival of their missing correspondent and the two lads, whose disappearance had been the subject of much anxiety and speculation; while the news of the discovery of Croixilia aroused so much enthusiasm that long before Reeves reached the coast he received nearly a dozen tempting offers for his services as a lecturer in the principal towns of the United Kingdom. * * * * * Three weeks later Mr. Reeves--the "mister" had been dropped when beyond the pale of civilization--and his two charges again set foot in their native land.