e most wonderful of Meriem's life. She
had not dreamed even vaguely of the marvels that civilization held in
store for her. The great ocean and the commodious steamship filled her
with awe. The noise, and bustle and confusion of the English railway
station frightened her.

"If there was a good-sized tree at hand," she confided to Korak, "I
know that I should run to the very top of it in terror of my life."

"And make faces and throw twigs at the engine?" he laughed back.

"Poor old Numa," sighed the girl. "What will he do without us?"

"Oh, there are others to tease him, my little Mangani," assured Korak.

The Greystoke town house quite took Meriem's breath away; but when
strangers were about none might guess that she had not been to the
manner born.

They had been home but a week when Lord Greystoke received a message
from his friend of many years, D'Arnot.

It was in the form of a letter of introduction brought by one General
Armand Jacot. Lord Greystoke recalled the name, as who familiar with
modern French history would not, for Jacot was in reality the Prince de
Cadrenet--that intense republican who refused to use, even by courtesy,
a title that had belonged to his family for four hundred years.

"There is no place for princes in a republic," he was wont to say.

Lord Greystoke received the hawk-nosed, gray mustached soldier in his
library, and after a dozen words the two men had formed a mutual esteem
that was to endure through life.

"I have come to you," explained General Jacot, "because our dear
Admiral tells me that there is no one in all the world who is more
intimately acquainted with Central Africa than you.

"Let me tell you my story from the beginning. Many years ago my little
daughter was stolen, presumably by Arabs, while I was serving with the
Foreign Legion in Algeria. We did all that love and money and even
government resources could do to discover her; but all to no avail.
Her picture was published in the leading papers of every large city in
the world, yet never did we find a man or woman who ever had seen her
since the day she mysteriously disappeared.

"A week since there came to me in Paris a swarthy Arab, who called
himself Abdul Kamak. He said that he had found my daughter and could
lead me to her. I took him at once to Admiral d'Arnot, whom I knew had
traveled some in Central Africa. The man's story led the Admiral to
believe that the place where the white girl the Arab