For a good while, Sir George Grey spoke of himself as being in England, only to bid England farewell. Some fine morning he would pack his trunks, and sail south to those who knew him best. Every step in New Zealand was a greeting; in London a mile was bare. Once he did pack his trunks, but the fine morning never arrived.

When rallied about that, Sir George defended himself, 'I suppose I want to see what I can do, as one of your most eminent statesmen did, in his youth. He went to a small island, then connected with the family property, and studied laboriously for a whole winter. He desired to establish what was in him, what exertion he was likely to be equal to, in the world's affairs. Then, lest trouble should ever befall him, he, another time, went into lodgings to test how little it was really possible to live upon. I don't recall at what figure the experiment worked out, but it was a ridiculously small one.'

A spirit, kindred in its attitude to the seriousness of life, animated Sir George Grey, even as he spoke. Affairs in England seemed critical, and he would stay on to watch them, since any hint might be of import. In London there beat the heart of the Empire, and he would keep his ear to it. He heard most clearly through that trumpet, the endless roll of London's traffic. Moreover, the great city, while she hardly nodded to Sir George, smote him afresh with the spell which is hers alone. Oh to be in London!

So dates moved past, and Sir George Grey, as he waned under the growing load, realised that he and Greater Britain would be no more together. That thought he parried, not liking to admit it, but the painter was cut when he resigned his place in the Parliament of New Zealand. It had to be done, therefore let it be done; but it was a shock, like losing a limb to the surgeon.

A hail from Greater Britain became thrice welcome, and that of Mahomed Naser Eben took Sir George by siege, especially its quaintness and literary touch. When Governor of the Cape Colony, he sent word up-country, by David Livingstone, that he would be glad of any manuscripts throwing light upon the Greeks and Romans in Africa. To a British man-of-war, making patrol of the Mombasa coast, there rowed out a boat, having a respectable old Arab gentleman in the stern-sheets. He handed up a parcel, desiring it to be delivered to Sir George Grey at Cape Town. Sir George had left South Africa for New Zealand, and the manuscripts, as the contents of the bundle proved, were sent after him.

'But nobody could read them,' he stated, 'until here, as I learn, an Assyrian gentleman has been visiting Auckland. What is my surprise, on opening this envelope, to find everything made clear in English, including Mahomed Naser Eben's letter to me. He addresses me as a cavern of hospitality, which is very handsome, and a phrase with a true Oriental flavour. Unluckily, he appears to have got lost for two years in that part of Africa marked Oman on the map. Hence a delay with him, in sending the manuscripts, but he need not have apologised, my single feeling being gladness that he discovered himself again.'

It was nigh forty years since Mahomed Naser Eben wrote, and in the interval many skies had changed. Two had been apart, a sundered heaven, the doing of that tragedy which ever lies in wait upon romance. But they came together, as the clouds were gathering, and upon them the sun ray of Mahomed Naser Eben could sparkle. Sir George had scarce mastered the mystery of his epistle when he was drawing out a reply to it. His only doubt was whether the erudite Arab might not have changed his address!

'We are about the same age,' Rewi imparted to Sir George Grey in New Zealand, 'and when I go, your time will be approaching.' Sir George recalled this, on hearing that Rewi had been gathered to his Maori fathers. He was buried in a grave which 'The Governor' had selected, near the spot where the last fight took place between the Maoris and the English. 'We should lie together,' Rewi also held, 'as being the two people who brought peace to New Zealand. Sir George's voice shook when telling this proof of Maori affection, as his eyes turned dim at reading an address sent him, to fabled London, by the men of that race in the Cook Islands.

'Our word to you, O Grey,' they saluted him, 'is this. We wish you happiness and health, and to know that our love goes forth with this letter. We wish to tell you that your name will never be forgotten by the Maori people in these islands Many of us knew you in New Zealand, but all have heard of the great things done by you, for European and for Maori, in that country. May God's blessing rest upon you, and give peace and happiness to you, who have done so much for the peace and happiness of others, in your long and honoured life.'

An illness brought that life very near the ebb, and friends wondered, of an evening, if next morning they would hear his simple, tender, 'Good-bye to you.' Sir George waited ready, abiding in the faith, witnessing of it, 'Man should have religion as his guide in all things. I feel that God communicates with His creatures when they please. He lets them know what is right and wrong, even argues with them.

'It was a comfort to me, in trying hours, to feel that I was working according to the way of my Maker, so far as I could comprehend it. Perhaps I most experienced this nearness of an all-wise Providence while I was amid the heathen acres of the far south. You seemed to be communing with the Great Spirit more intimately in these lonely haunts than elsewhere. I have always been supported by the belief in God's goodness, as manifested to me. My judgment is that man cannot prosper if he falls from faith, by which I mean trust in a Supreme Being.'

There were no shadows, no terrors for Sir George Grey, in what we chilly term death. He could look blithely along the road, ready to greet it with outstretched hand when it turned the corner. Just, he waited to go, as he might have waited for a sure arm on which to lean. He saw the lamps afar. 'When one has reached an old age,' was his vista, 'the thought of death should not be a sad thought. It is not sad with me, but on the contrary pleasant, meaning a happy event to be welcomed. Death! I do not believe in death, except that the flesh dies; for the spirit goes on and on. Terror of death is necessary, in order to keep men and animals from killing themselves. That is all.

'The future is mystery, for none have returned to inform us what is there. But our knowledge of the, Creator teaches us that His goodness will be greater and greater towards His creatures. If the babe leaves the womb, to come into such a beautiful world as ours, how beautiful a world may we not pass into? It was terrible to the babe to be torn from the womb, but it had no idea what loving hands were waiting for it.

'We have God's assurance that He is always good to His creatures who die, and we may be satisfied. Really, there is a lovely romance in death, in the spirit being released from the clay, which, through ill-health or old age, has grown to burden it. That spirit, struggling onward and upward, shakes itself free and soars off, bright, fresh, eternal, to the other world for which it had been preparing. It purifies itself, by throwing aside a weight, and thus death is not death but life; another birth, life in death.'

Not then, not for another year and more, was the departure to be. 'Put my watch under my pillow,' he looked up cheerily to those at his bedside; 'and thank you for taking care of it while I have been ill. It's the watch the Queen gave me, and I like to have it near.' But that illness sapped and mined him, even while he proposed, 'Oh, yes, we'll go down to Chelsea and inspect Carlyle's old house. I'll try and fill it again with him, in particular the room at the top which he built to be noise-proof, and which wasn't.' The visit was never paid, but the celebration of the Queen's reign of sixty years still found Sir George able to be about.

That was right well, for how many had made such a contribution to the history and dominion of the reign? Truly, dreams had come about, since he listened to the bells of Plymouth, when taking passage by the "Beagle." Here was goodly proof of things achieved for the happiness of men, such as even he had scarce dared to imagine. The fairies had been working.

Sir George followed, in imagination, the nations of the realm as they walked through London, its capital, while all the world .wondered. He attended, in heart, the simple service at St. Paul's Cathedral, where he himself was to find a last resting-place, sleeping with the worthies. He could picture the great fleet, seal of the sea-power which made all possible, spread itself athwart the Solent. Yes Sir George Grey heard, from afar, the 'tumult and the shouting,' and they rounded off his own career as the True Briton and True Imperialist.

He heard also, amid the glorious rumble, of another royal progress made by the Queen. It was at her Highland home, the spectators the eternal hills which lie about it. For caparisoning there was a donkey-chaise, and for escort a Highlander, carrying the shawls. The Queen was bound for the manse, across the fields by the river-side, to pray with the minister's wife that he, being ill, might be made whole.

That was the royal progress Sir George Grey would best have liked to see, because it held the key to the other. From it, he sent, by his friend the Prime Minister of New Zealand, a last message to Greater Britain. 'Give the people of New Zealand my love,' it ran, 'and may God have you in His keeping? It was the closing of the book, save for the blank pages which occur at the end.

'It's all light,' was Selwyn's dying exclamation in Maori. None knew the Maori words that Sir George Grey murmured, and none doubted what they were. To us, the island race of two worlds,

Under the Cross of Gold, That shines over city and river, There he shall rest for ever, Among the wise and the bold.

THE END