THE GOLDEN POOL A STORY OF A FORGOTTEN MINE BY R. AUSTIN FREEMAN CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE. MCMV All Rights Reserved CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. In which I Make the Acquaintance of Captain Bithery CHAPTER II. In which I Set Out for Africa CHAPTER III. I Hear Strange Stories and Vague Rumours CHAPTER IV. I Visit a Graveyard and Meet a Blind Man CHAPTER V. I Encounter a Curious Relic CHAPTER VI. The Journal of Captain Barnabas Hogg CHAPTER VII. I Form an Absurd Resolution CHAPTER VIII. I Make a New Acquaintance CHAPTER IX. I Bid Farewell to My Friends CHAPTER X. I Take to the Road CHAPTER XI. I Find Myself among Enemies CHAPTER XII. I Change My Identity CHAPTER XIII. The Golden Pool CHAPTER XIV. I am Led into Captivity CHAPTER XV. The Aboasi Mine CHAPTER XVI. I Assist in a Robbery and Become a Fugitive CHAPTER XVII. The Last of Bukári Moshi CHAPTER XVIII. I Again Become a Fugitive CHAPTER XIX. I Make my Appearance in a New Character CHAPTER XX. I Join a Party of Bohemians CHAPTER XXI. I Meet with Some Old Acquaintances CHAPTER XXII. A Catastrophe CHAPTER XXIII. I Make a Curious Discovery CHAPTER XXIV. I Return to an Old Trade CHAPTER XXV. I Set Out upon My Voyage CHAPTER XXVI. I Put Out into the Darkness CHAPTER XXVII. Ship Ahoy! CHAPTER XXVIII. In which I bid Farewell to the Reader Epilogue THE GOLDEN POOL. THE STORY OF A FORGOTTEN MINE. CHAPTER I. IN WHICH I MAKE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF CAPTAIN BITHERY. It must have been a matter of surprise to most of us who have arrived at, or passed, middle life, on looking back through a vista of years, to note what an astonishingly important part has been played in our lives by entirely trivial circumstances. It has, indeed, become a common-place that “great events from little causes spring”; but we do not realise, until we actually submit our experiences to analysis, how the whole tenour and meaning of our lives has in many cases been determined by some occurrence so unimportant that, at the time, it appears incredible that it should have any consequences at all. Yet so it is. Not only great and critical events which occupy our attention at the time and impress themselves afterwards upon our memory, but trifling circumstances that pass almost unnoticed and are straightway forgotten generate each its train of consequences; and when in retrospect we retrace our steps through the busy years, we are apt to find the starting-point of the main action of our life in some little incident that had long since passed out of recollection until thus recalled by association. These reflections are suggested to me as I review the series of strange and well-nigh incredible adventures that befell me in the early years of my manhood--adventures which it is the purpose of this narrative to chronicle; for their occurrence is traceable to an event so insignificant that its mention would appear an impertinence but for this connection.