My deduction from this was that some one wished to send me a message, and that Colles had given that some one a sheet of signed paper to serve as a kind of introduction.

I might take it, therefore, that the scribble was Colles' reply to my letter.
Now, my argument continued, if the unknown person saw fit to send me a message, it could not be merely one of warning.

Colles must have told him that I was awake to some danger, and as I was in Blaauwildebeestefontein, I must be nearer the heart of things than any one else.

The message must therefore be in the nature of some password, which I was to remember when I heard it again.
I reasoned the whole thing out very clearly, and I saw no gap in my logic.

I cannot describe how that scribble had heartened me.