“With petious and mercifully I employ to thy protection and also the carrer man no good and he say they not fit because of susistence unless he get some pay but the Mansu brige never spoil any more and so the bush people complain the weather fine too much and the carier man they say he not fit get only his susistence because he sit down too long to wait for you. Sir I have the honour to inform you these few words to tell you if the steamer from leeward came here in few days I beg you that you came on board one time because the rain finish and carier man no good for sit down too long because he say they not fit for get sussistence unless he find some pay so I beg you not stay any longer because carrier man they say he not fit unless they get some pay. “I have the honour to be Sir, thy handmaidden in affliction. “David Annan.” “Can you make any sense of this?” I asked, passing the precious document to Pereira. “Certainly,” said Pereira; “it is perfectly clear. He means to say that he is waiting for you at Cape Coast, that the dry season has set in, that the bridge at Mansu has been repaired, having apparently been washed away by the floods, and that the carriers refuse to accept subsistence money only (threepence a day), but demand to be put on full travelling pay, so he begs you to come on by the first steamer. He also implies that he is being put to great expense in consequence of your delaying, which he will expect you to make good.” “I see. Do you know when the next steamer is due from leeward?” “The _Benin_ is due now homewards,” replied Pereira, “so if you think of going by her you will have to get your things together.” He rose from the table, and, taking up a handful of biscuits from a dish, held them out to the messenger and waved to him to be gone. Then he strode up and down the room a few times, and presently halted before me. “You had better think again, my son,” said he, “whether this thing is worth doing. The chance of your really getting any substantial good out of it is, as you know, very small, and you may easily come back no wiser than you go, while the risk you run is enormous. The question is, is it worth while? I need not say that Isabel and I will be loth to see you go, for this will be an empty house without you--but I mustn’t talk like this,” he added in a shaky voice; “only, think it over again before you decide once for all.” It was a great temptation. I had never been so happy in my life as during these last few weeks; had never known a friendship so intimate and real as that of this fatherly old man and this sweet, gentle girl. And for what was I giving up all this? For an enterprise so shadowy and vague that I could not even state it to myself. And yet the unrest of youth was upon me and the treasure seemed to beckon me on. “I think it is worth while,” I said at length.