"When I was a little chap, about seventeen years ago, my mother received a letter dated from the 'great forest.'"
"It contained only these words, 'Good-bye.' With it there was a letter in Arabic, written by my father's headman. That letter was seven months on its travels, and since then no other word have I heard."
Venning muttered something in sympathy.
"My mother," continued the other, "died five years ago, without having learnt the meaning of the message in Arabic. She had a wish that no one but I should read the letter, and often she told me that if it contained any instructions or directions, I was to carry them out. Well, I have interpreted the Arabic signs."
"Yes, Dick; and——"
"And I can't quite make out the meaning. There is a reference to the journal my father kept, with the statement that it was safely hidden; but then follows a reference to a Garden of Rest, to certain people who protected him, and to a slave-trader who did him an injury. These references to me are a mystery; but what is clear is his desire to have his journal recovered from the Arab slave-dealer, described merely as 'The Wolf.'"
"And that is why you wish to go to Central Africa?"
"That is why, Venning. I must recover my father's journal if it exists; I must, if it is not too late, find out how he died; I must find out who are the wild people, and what is the Garden of Rest."
"The Garden of Rest! That sounds peaceful, but it is very vague, Dick, as a direction. A garden in a forest hundreds of miles in length will take some finding."
"I have a clue."