the man was dead whether I expected the event or whether I did not.
When we reached Trinidad I proposed to go ashore to ascertain if any news had arrived of the death at Panama. The general said it was waste of time. The man was dead, and had died at noon. Nevertheless, I landed and found that a telegram had appeared in which the death of this lonely gentleman was noted as having taken place on the day I have named. The hour of his death was not mentioned, but on my return to England I was shown by his relatives the actual cablegram which had conveyed to them the news. It stated that he had died at Panama on that particular day at twelve o'clock noon. No coincidence could have been more precise.
The general, to whom the event was as mysterious as it was unique in his experience, ventured one comment. He said that during his long residence in India he had heard rumours of the transmission of news from natives in one part of India to natives in another, which reports—if true—could not be explained by the feats of runners nor by any system of signalling, since the distances traversed were often hundreds of miles. We were both aware of the rumour, current at the time, that the news of the defeat
