IV.
I was m America while Frank was making his final
preparations for leaving England. His letters to me
during that period were full of his work. He was
taking counsel, advice, and lessons in many things.
Some of the learned and kindly men of the Geographical
Society were helping him. He was deep in the
mysteries of solar observations, navigation, survey-
in g ; in the intervals of these studies he was swim-
ming, boating, shooting; these occupations and the
collection of his outfit and scientific equipment found
him at work early and la te ; so that at last, when all
was prepared, the time for departure was welcomed
as a period of rest. I never ceased to make inquiries
as to the possible influence upon him physically and
morally of his work. Crossing the Atlantic, I had a
long conversation with Captain Murray, then of the
Arizona, who had for a time commanded a trading
steamer on the Amazon. He gave me many interesting
accounts of his tropical experiences, and envied
Frank the investigation of the unexplored rivers of
Borneo. Colonel Knox, an American journalist and
author, who had visited the Sabah coast, assured me
I had nothing to fear, and much to be proud of, in the
appointment of my son. “ He will be well attended and
well provisioned on his excursions, and his mind will
be so full of his work that he will not have time to be
sick.” I received a shock on returning home. Consulting
a medical friend, who knew Frank well, as to
the influences of a hot climate upon a boy of his
physique, I told him that the only illness Frank had
ever had was an attack of bronchitis. “ He could not
go to a better climate, then,” said my friend; “ it will
help him, and after being immured for so long in the
laboratories at Kensington, his system will receive a
fillip out there, and the trip will make a man of him.
But of course you will insure his life ? ”
“ No, indeed I will not,” I said.
“ Then the Company must,” he said.
“ Because he is going to a climate that will be good
for him ? ”
“ Oh, no,” said my friend, “ but for the same reason
that you make an extra and special insurance on your
life when you go to America—in case of accident. Not
that, to my thinking, he will run any more risks out
there than he runs every day in London, especially as
a tricyclist.”
“ The cases have no point in common, let us not
discuss th em ; do you think it is good for Frank to
accept this appointment?”
“ Good! I t is a splendid chance for him—such a
chance as falls to the lot of very few young fellows at
the outset of a career.”
He saw that his remark about insurance had
troubled me for the moment. And yet I let Frank go.
When I came home after saying good-bye to him, his
mother said, “ I shall never see him a g a i n a n d yet
I did not say, “ Come back.”
Not long before we heard the first good news of his
last expedition, a little shrine, which his sisters had set
up to him, fell to the ground. I am not superstitious, but
my heart seemed to stand still when they reported this to
me; and I think we all looked at each other apprehensively.
If afterwards, in our sorrow, we had calculated
the date of that occurrence, I believe it would have proved