"But, my dear boy," said the king, filling his pipe again, "look at the practical side of things. It costs a fortune to fit out an African expedition. Where are you to get the money?" This question sounded more natural from the lips of the king than did the answer from the lips of Cromwell. "There has been too much force and too much expenditure about African travel. I do not intend to cross the continent with arms and the munitions of war. As you remarked a while ago, I know several European languages, and if you will forgive what sounds like boasting, I may say that I have a gift for picking up tongues. I have money enough to fit myself out with some necessary scientific instruments, and to pay my passage to the coast. Once there, I will win my way across the continent through love and not through fear." [Illustration: IT WAS A YEAR AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE THAT A WAN LIVING SKELETON STAGGERED OUT OF THE WILDERNESS IN AFRICA.] "You will lose your head," said King Charles; "they don't understand that sort of thing out there, and, besides, the idea is not original. Didn't Livingstone try that tack?" "Yes, but people have forgotten Livingstone and his methods. It is now the explosive bullet and the elephant gun. I intend to learn the language of the different native tribes I meet, and if a chief opposes me, and will not allow me to pass through his territory, and if I find I cannot win him over to my side by persuasive talk, then I will go around." "And what is to be the outcome of it all?" cried Charles. "What is your object?" "Fame, my boy, fame," cried Cromwell enthusiastically, flinging the chair from under him and pacing the narrow room. "If I can get from coast to coast without taking the life of a single native, won't that be something greater to have done than all the play-acting from now till doomsday?" "I suppose it will," said the king gloomily; "but you must remember you are the only friend I have, and I have reached an age when a man does not pick up friends readily." Cromwell stopped in his walk, and grasped the king by the arm. "And are not you the only friend I have?" he said. "And why can you not abandon this ghastly sham and come with me, as I asked you to at first? How can you hesitate when you think of the glorious freedom of the African forest, and compare it with this cribbed, and cabined, and confined business we are now at?" The king shook his head slowly, and knocked the ashes from his pipe. He seemed to have some trouble in keeping it alight, probably because of the prohibition on the wall.