“Yes, of course,” admitted Grosvenor, “it is true that we are both quite inexperienced; but our youth is surely in our favour rather than against us, for we are strong and healthy, and no doubt will soon become inured to fatigue, hardship, and even privation. We both have splendid constitutions; and, moreover, my friend Maitland here is a doctor and surgeon of quite remarkable ability, which fact I regard as of the utmost importance. Then, as to the matter of experience, I imagine that we are bound to acquire that as we go on; we are not going to be transported into the heart of the wilds in a few hours by express train, you know.”
“No,” answered Mitchell, with a somewhat grim smile, “that is quite true, as is also your contention that you will acquire some experience as you go on. Then, of course, the fact that Mr Maitland is a doctor and surgeon—of which I was unaware—is a great point in your favour. But, when all is said, I still think that you will find the undertaking too much for you. Why— By the way, did you ever hear of a certain Charles Menzies?”
“The explorer, you mean? Yes, I have heard of him; in fact I believe it was an account of his travels that first put this idea into my head,” answered Grosvenor.
“Ah!” remarked Mitchell cryptically; “I wonder just how much you have heard respecting his travels?”
“Well, not very much, I must confess,” acknowledged Grosvenor. “So far as I can remember, it amounted simply to the statement that after one of his long absences from civilisation he returned with the story that he had actually discovered the site of ancient Ophir; and that he had gathered reliable information concerning the existence of the mysterious white race, which is to be one of the objects of my quest.”
“Just so,” commented Mitchell, relapsing into a pregnant silence. It was evident that he was intently considering some difficult question. Presently he looked up and said:
“I knew Menzies very well in my younger days. As a matter of fact I saved his life; for had I not happened to have fallen in with him and picked him up he must have inevitably perished; and in that case the public would never have heard any of the extraordinary rumours respecting his discoveries that afterwards leaked out. I was away up-country elephant hunting at the time, and I found him, some seventy miles this side of the Zambezi, in the last stages of exhaustion from starvation. He was then returning from the journey that made him famous, and had lost everything he possessed, even to his rifle; it is therefore nothing short of marvellous that he had contrived to make his way as far back as he did when I found him. He was too ill to talk much when I first picked him up, but afterwards, when he grew stronger, he told me the whole astounding story of his journey and his adventures. He talked of publishing the narrative, but I very strongly dissuaded him from doing so; for, as I pointed out to him, there were portions of that narrative which were of so absolutely incredible a character that nobody would believe them, and the story would lose all value from the fact that it would be regarded as merely a fantastic fabrication, and he would gain the reputation of an unblushing romancer. To tell you the truth, I was firmly persuaded at the time that what he had gone through had affected his brain, and that he was the victim of a series of the most weird and horrible illusions. But I had reason to modify my opinion in that respect a few years afterward, although I am still unable to make up my mind definitely as to just how much of his story was true and how much was due to an imagination that had become warped and distorted by peril and suffering.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Grosvenor, with a sort of thrill in his voice. “I say, you know, all this is intensely interesting. Eh, what? I wonder if you would mind repeating to us a few of those statements that you found it so difficult to believe at the time, and with regard to which you were afterwards inclined to modify your opinion?”
“Well,” answered Mitchell, “I am afraid I must ask you to excuse me from doing that. You see, Menzies was my friend, and one of the finest fellows that ever lived. He is dead now, poor chap, and I would not willingly say a single word that might cause you or anyone else to think lightly of him, or picture him in your mind as other than the very soul of truth and honour. Yet if I were to repeat to you some of the statements that I have in my mind, I know that you two hard-headed, matter-of-fact Englishmen would at once set them down as the veriest fairy tales, their author a second Munchausen, and myself a credulous old fool for attaching the slightest weight to them. And yet, let me tell you, Africa is a very queer country—as you will discover if you persist in attempting to carry out your plan—and queer things happen in it, things that strain a man’s credulity to the breaking-point, until he has had personal experience of them. That remark of Shakespeare’s, that ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are reckoned in our philosophy’ is nowhere more forcefully confirmed than in this continent of Africa, and especially in those parts of it which are practically unknown to the white man. Why, even here, close at hand, among our neighbours the Zulus, there have been happenings—well authenticated, mind you—that are absolutely unexplainable by any knowledge that we whites possess. But I think I have prosed enough for one sitting, and it is growing late—one o’clock, as I am a living sinner!—and you must be growing tired. Do you wonder why I have told you all these things? Well, it is because I should like to dissuade you from this mad scheme of yours, which my experience tells me can only end in disaster, and induce you to content yourselves with a two-months’ hunting trip in the company of some good man who knows the country, and can be trusted to see that you come to no harm. Now, good night, both of you! think over what I have said; sleep well, and don’t dream of fantastic horrors such as my talk may have suggested.”
If Mr Joseph Mitchell, sugar planter, and thoroughly honest, well-meaning man, flattered himself that the foregoing conversation would have any other effect than to stimulate the curiosity of his guests and confirm them in their determination to carry out their plans in their entirety, he very greatly over-estimated his persuasive powers, and completely misread the characters of those to whom he had been talking. For both Grosvenor and Maitland were of a highly adventurous disposition, and what Mitchell had told them had simply whetted their curiosity to a keen edge, and had strongly suggested to them that the adventure promised to be of an even more alluring and thrilling character than they had ever ventured to hope, even in their most sanguine moments. So much, indeed, they made clear to their host when they met him the next morning at the breakfast table; and, when he would have made a further attempt at dissuasion, laughingly assured him that their minds were finally made up, and that the kindest thing he could now do for them would be to give them as much information and as many hints and wrinkles as he could think of to help them to a satisfactory conclusion of the adventure. This Mitchell proceeded to do, when at length the conviction had been borne in upon him that all his efforts at dissuasion were worse than useless; and when, two days later, they took leave of the genial planter, Dick carried away with him a notebook crowded from cover to cover with information that was destined to prove of incalculable value to him and his companion, as well as a sketch map showing the best route to follow, and certain localities that were to be most carefully avoided if they desired to return sane and sound to civilisation.