If Mr Joseph Mitchell, sugar planter, and thoroughly honest, well- meaning man, flattered himself that the foregoing conversation would have any other effect than to stimulate the curiosity of his guests and confirm them in their determination to carry out their plans in their entirety, he very greatly over-estimated his persuasive powers, and completely misread the characters of those to whom he had been talking. For both Grosvenor and Maitland were of a highly adventurous disposition, and what Mitchell had told them had simply whetted their curiosity to a keen edge, and had strongly suggested to them that the adventure promised to be of an even more alluring and thrilling character than they had ever ventured to hope, even in their most sanguine moments. So much, indeed, they made clear to their host when they met him the next morning at the breakfast table; and, when he would have made a further attempt at dissuasion, laughingly assured him that their minds were finally made up, and that the kindest thing he could now do for them would be to give them as much information and as many hints and wrinkles as he could think of to help them to a satisfactory conclusion of the adventure. This Mitchell proceeded to do, when at length the conviction had been borne in upon him that all his efforts at dissuasion were worse than useless; and when, two days later, they took leave of the genial planter, Dick carried away with him a notebook crowded from cover to cover with information that was destined to prove of incalculable value to him and his companion, as well as a sketch map showing the best route to follow, and certain localities that were to be most carefully avoided if they desired to return sane and sound to civilisation. Arrived in Durban once more, after a most delightful jaunt, they at once set about making their preparations in earnest, one of the first things which Grosvenor insisted upon doing being the payment to Dick of six months' salary in advance, from the date of their landing upon South African soil. Practically the whole of this Dick was able to remit home to his mother, since Grosvenor would not hear of his contributing so much as a single penny toward the expenses of the expedition, therefore the junior member of the partnership had no need to spend anything, except for a few curios which he thought his mother might like to display to her friends; but he laid in a few additional drugs, and also added a spare instrument or two to his surgical case, to cover the possibility of loss or accident.