JOURNEYING HOMEWARD. In spite of Ferris’s objection they carried him back to camp carefully on a litter. Ralph St. Alban and a few others who had stayed behind were amazed when they bore that burden into camp. They shuddered when they learned how he had come by those terrible wounds. “It is very unlikely that he will recover, but I shall do all that human skill can do for the poor fellow,” said Doctor Lewis. When Talbot Strangemore had seen the wounded man made comfortable, he again renewed his request for a guide to Khartoom. “It lacks barely a month to that terrible day,” he said, shudderingly. “I shall have to make all haste to reach home in time to save my darling.” He was surprised and pleased when Harvey Wilson said, diffidently: “I will go with you, myself, Strangemore, if you will have my company.” “To Khartoom?” asked Talbot. “Yes--and to America, too,” answered the gallant Englishman. “You will need a friend, a witness, perhaps, and if you will have me I will go with you, most willingly.” His offer was gratefully accepted, and they made hasty preparations for leaving. Oswald Ferris watched their leave-takings with wistful eyes. When Talbot came to bid him farewell he whispered, faintly: “Ask her--your beautiful bride--to forgive me for all that I caused her to suffer. Tell her that in dying, I repented my sin and all the suffering it brought upon others. I wish now that I had let poor heartless Sibyl live out the brief summer of her butterfly existence. And you, Strangemore, you can forgive me for what I did to you?” Gazing at the poor suffering face on which the grey pallor of death seemed already settling, Strangemore felt that this was no time to harbor resentment. He gave his hand to his late foe in token of his hearty forgiveness, and commending him to the care of his comrades, bade him a last adieu and passed out of his sight with Harvey Wilson, taking the road for Khartoom where they would find transportation to England. With what burning impatience he contemplated the days and weeks that must elapse before he reached the side of his doomed Nina! “But I shall save her at last. Oh, how glad I am that fate having first made me the cause of her unhappiness, has now selected me as the instrument to deliver her from her peril,” he said to himself, gladly, and it seemed to him that this would be something like an atonement to Nina.