Very delightful it was in the late afternoons to walk together on the smooth wet beach, and listen to the booming surf; to watch the hideous red crabs playing peep-bo! at the mouths of their burrows and squinting at us with their goggle eyes as we passed; or to show our newly-acquired erudition by inscribing Arabic flourishes upon the smooth sand, and all the time to babble unceasingly of the mysterious cavern and of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Very peaceful and pleasant was the walk home in the quickly-fading twilight, with the palm-trees chattering overhead, and the cicadas chirping in the distance, while the little sandpipers trotted along before us on the wet sand, and the nightjars whirled around us with ghostly flutterings. And then in the hot afternoon when the sun was high and the old merchant was taking his siesta, we would sit together in the verandah with our book between us, conning the uncouth characters and laughing over our mistakes. But in all this there was no philandering or coquetry but steady earnest work; and indeed so close was our application that it was a real relief, when Aochi appeared with the tea, to shut the book and fall to talking about the treasure in the cavern and the pool with the golden floor. The awakening from this state of dreamy happiness came with the disagreeable suddenness of a douche of cold water. We were sitting at table at our late breakfast, discussing--with unbecoming hilarity, I fear--the chapter of the Koran on which we had been engaged the day before, when there appeared in the open doorway an excessively dirty negro who stood and glared silently at us as he slowly masticated a chew-stick. “What do you want, boy?” demanded Pereira sharply. The man drew a filthy and crumpled envelope from the folds of his cloth and handed it to Pereira, who, having glanced at it, passed it to me with a grin. “The Honourable and Reverend Mr. Englefield, Esq.,” I read aloud; and tearing it open, extracted a sheet of ruled notepaper covered with childish scrawl. The letter--for such it appeared to be--was headed, “Cape Coast, Friday,” and commenced-- “Honoured and reverend Master, “With petious and mercifully I employ to thy protection----” “Now what in the name of fortune is this?” I exclaimed. Turning the document over I sought the signature, which I presently found squeezed into a lower corner: “thy handmaidden in affliction,--David Annan.” I remember that, ludicrous as the thing was, none of us laughed. For my own part, I felt a sudden chill, and hastened to decipher the rest of the absurd epistle, of which I made out the contents to be as follows:-- “Honoured and reverend Master,