CHAPTER XIII 



FROM MAIFONI TO KUKAWA 



The sadness of the last terrible days at Maifoni weighed 

 with continuing heaviness upon my mind, and my thoughts 

 kept weaving across the gloom pictures of my brother's last 

 illness and death. There were also the uncertain, haunting 

 fears of the blow my cable must by now have struck at 

 home, with no hope of news for many months to come ; 

 and, as it afterwards proved, more than a year passed before 

 I received a letter from home. 



It was impossible to stay still, and work came as the only 

 means of relief. But at first, I found it very difficult to 

 concentrate my powers ; effort groped in the darkness that 

 enveloped my thoughts, and struck out aimlessly like one 

 beating the air. But, more than ever did I feel the necessity 

 to keep on straining every nerve to carry the work through 

 to a successful end, and so justify the launching of an enter- 

 prise that had already cost us so terribly dear. So sorrow 

 was buried deep in the heart and covered with silence, where 

 it lay with leaden weight for many days. But the dews of 

 heaven, passing over all, do not leave even the graves un- 

 visited, and after a while flowers began to spring in my vale 

 of desolation from work's boon and Talbot's tender sympathy, 

 and once more the world began to move for me and weary 

 miles were put behind. 



