Then I started in a frenzy of hope, to write to the stranger who had sent to me this sad intelligence. I do not know what I said to him; but I remember how I begged and prayed, with involuntary unconscious tears, urging my entreaty aloud in the intensity of my emotion, that nothing should be left undone; that every means that could be used, should be put into immediate operation--that my unknown correspondent would employ agents for me to prosecute the search for Hew. When I had finished, I thought it cold and indifferent--it would not do--I could not be content to depute to mercenary hands such an undertaking as this. I resolved to go myself to India, to seek for my dearest friend. But in the mean time there was much to be done. I could not leave home without making many arrangements, and losing precious time. So I sent off my letter, and began immediately to prepare for my journey. CHAPTER X. No hope--no hope! let calm lips say, No hope, To whom hope never was; but as for me, This possible is life-- And if you say it is impossible, Yet up, up to your highest cliffs of ice I go to light my watchfire--so perchance, As he may see it from afar. No hope! There never is but hope where there is love.--OLD PLAY. Land! our voyage is just ending, and softly before us in the dawn of the morning rise the shores of India; the mighty, impotent, fabulous, golden East. But I was in no mood to indulge in the pleasant excitement and curiosity of a stranger. My anxiety, like other torments, became intolerable as it approached its end, and in feverish haste I hurried to seek the Mr Churchill who had written to me of Hew. He was a civilian, with something of that stiff, well-drilled military look, which such officials acquire from their contact, I suppose, with their warlike brethren. He was a middle-aged man of indefinite years, endowed largely with the grave politeness of tone and manner which belongs to your sober, retired major or captain; perfectly urbane, and not without its considerable mixture of kindliness, but presenting to a stranger an unimpressible blank of courteous gravity, which to your shy man is, in most cases, an invincible barrier. I was very much agitated--I told Mr Churchill my name. He looked politely puzzled and at a loss. “He was not aware--” I interrupted him with a statement of my errand, and an anxious inquiry for Hew. The polite, grave man was melted; the muscles of his face moved. “Ah, poor Murray!” he said, in a tone which told me there was no more to hope.