"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.
"He thinks that those of our race who did not take on a dark hue and woolly texture of hair were the less adapted to life in the tropics and eventually died out, leaving those that were better adjusted to survive.
"He thinks that these beneficial modifications were preserved and transmitted with increasing strength from generation to generation until our hue and our hair or the physical attributes for which they stand rendered us immune from yellow fever. I may add that Livingstone says of us, 'Heat alone does not produce blackness of skin, but heat with moisture seems to insure the deepest hue.'
"Now, nature, in thus protecting us against yellow fever, by changing our color from the original, whatever it was, has painted upon us a sign that causes some races to think that there is a greater difference between us and them than there really is. So much for our color and the ills that it has entailed."