“I don’t see anything curious about it.”

“Nor do I, as to one thing.  If a fellow is crazy about butterflies, he may as well roam in Africa as a lunatic with a net as anywhere else; but the curious part of the matter is, that my study of Arabic is intended to prepare me for a trip to the very same place.”

“Compton, you don’t mean it,” said the other, jumping from his seat.

“I do, most decidedly.”

“But what has Arabic got to do with the Central African Forest?”

“Quite as much as your short-nosed elephant or long-tailed hippopotamus.  I also wish to discover something that has been lost.  Don’t open your mouth so wide.”

“Is it an animal, Dick?”

“Good gracious, no!  I don’t care twopence about an animal, except it is for the pot, or unless it wants me for dinner.  No; mine is another search.  It is connected with my father.”

“Yes,” said Venning, quietly; for his friend had suddenly grown grave.

“When I was a little chap, about seventeen years ago, my mother received a letter dated from the ‘great forest.’”

“It contained only these words, ‘Good-bye.’  With it there was a letter in Arabic, written by my father’s headman.  That letter was seven months on its travels, and since then no other word have I heard.”

Venning muttered something in sympathy.

“My mother,” continued the other, “died five years ago, without having learnt the meaning of the message in Arabic.  She had a wish that no one but I should read the letter, and often she told me that if it contained any instructions or directions, I was to carry them out.  Well, I have interpreted the Arabic signs.”

“Yes, Dick; and——­”

“And I can’t quite make out the meaning.  There is a reference to the journal my father kept, with the statement that it was safely hidden; but then follows a reference to a Garden of Rest, to certain people who protected him, and to a slave-trader who did him an injury.  These references to me are a mystery; but what is clear is his desire to have his journal recovered from the Arab slave-dealer, described merely as ‘The Wolf.’”

“And that is why you wish to go to Central Africa?”

“That is why, Venning.  I must recover my father’s journal if it exists; I must, if it is not too late, find out how he died; I must find out who are the wild people, and what is the Garden of Rest.”

“The Garden of Rest!  That sounds peaceful, but it is very vague, Dick, as a direction.  A garden in a forest hundreds of miles in length will take some finding.”

“I have a clue.”

“So.”

“There is mention of the ‘gates’ to the garden, whose summits ’are in the clouds’—­twin mountains, I take it.”

“Even so, Dick, I think I should have more chance of finding my new animal than you would have of hitting off your garden.”

“Well, you know now why I have been studying Arabic.  I have a little money, and no ties.”