"Easily explained," said Kumi. "A white explorer spent years in our kingdom collecting these things. We deemed them worthless, gave them to him readily and called him fool. He took sick in our country and saw that he was going to die. He called your great grandfather, our king, to his bedside, told him that civilization would make its way into Africa one day, and urged him at all hazards to preserve and secrete the treasures that he had collected. Our king was led to believe that these treasures would make him one of the greatest rulers of earth, and he obeyed the dying man's injunction. The white man left this inventory and a document giving the location of his European home, the names and family history of his kin, asking that our king remember them in the day of his affluence. "Our king gave the formula that leads to the hiding place to your grandfather, your grandfather told it to your father, your father has, I see, no doubt, told it to you. "As a further proof that I speak the truth I hand you now a few specimen stones that were reserved to prevent this affair from being classed as a myth." He now took from a pocket a box of costly stones and handed them to Dorlan. "How these things would grace Morlene," thought Dorlan, as his eye passed from one sparkling jewel to another. It now occurred to Dorlan that the acceptance of this fortune might entail upon him a sacrifice of which he was incapable. It might involve his leaving this country, a step that he could not even contemplate in view of the fact that Morlene was now free. The looming of this contingency before his mind caused him to drop the jewels as though they had suddenly become hot. Kumi looked up at him in great astonishment. Dorlan's face now wore a pained expression. He had always been profoundly interested in Africa and was congratulating himself on the opportunity now offered to convert the proffered kingdom into an enlightened republic. It now seemed that his own interests and those of his ancestral home were about to clash. He cannot endure the thought of putting an ocean between Morlene and himself. Nor can he with equanimity think of allowing Africa to remain in her existing condition. "When am I expected to go to Africa?" enquired Dorlan in serious tones. "You may not have to come at all, and yet serve our purpose." "How so?" asked Dorlan, arising and drawing near to Kumi. The latter began: "We Africans are engaged in a sociological investigation of many questions. We are seeking to know definitely what part the climate, the surface, the flora and the fauna have played in keeping us in civilization's back yard. Huxley thinks that our woolly hair and black skins came to us only after our race took up its abode in Africa. He holds that it was nature's contribution to render us immune from the yellow fever germs so abundant in swampy regions.