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[Illustration: "Hurled headlong into the flaming mouth."--_Page 179._]
AUTHOR OF "ZORAIDA" "THE GREAT WAR IN ENGLAND IN 1897" "A SECRET SERVICE" ETC. . .
John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd., _Publishers_, 3, Pilgrim Street, London, E.C.
CHAP. PAGE I.--A ROMANCE 1 II.--OMAR'S SLAVE 8 III.--OUTWARD BOUND 18 IV.--A STRANGE PROMISE 25 V.--THE GIANT'S FINGER 31 VI.--THE ROYAL JUJUS 37 VII.--SAMORY'S STRONGHOLD 45 VIII.--THE SECRET OF THE QUEEN 52 IX.--CONDEMNED TO THE TORTURE 59 X.--ZOMARA 65 XI.--THE HUMAN SACRIFICE 72 XII.--IN THE SACRED GROVE 81 XIII.--THE WAY OF THE THOUSAND STEPS 88 XIV.--FOES 96 XV.--A NATURAL GRAVE 102 XVI.--WORDS OF FIRE 111 XVII.--A SALUTE OF BULLETS 122 XVIII.--THE MYSTERIOUS REALM 131 XIX.--THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS 138 XX.--THE GREAT WHITE QUEEN 143 XXI.--A FIGURE IN THE SHADOW 154 XXII.--TO THE UNKNOWN 162 XXIII.--UNDER THE VAMPIRE'S WING 169 XXIV.--THE FLAMING MOUTH 180 XXV.--LIOLA 191 XXVI.--THE FIRST BLOW 201 XXVII.--BY THE NAYA'S ORDERS 208 XXVIII.--THE FIGHT FOR THE EMERALD THRONE 218 XXIX.--A MYSTERY 229 XXX.--TREASURE AND TREASON 242 XXXI.--A SPY'S STARTLING STORY 255 XXXII.--WAR 264 XXXIII.--THE HAREM SLAVE 271 XXXIV.--LIOLA'S DISCOVERY 287 XXXV.--INTO THE MIST 303 CONCLUSION 308
IT is a curious story, full of exciting adventures, extraordinary discoveries, and mysteries amazing.
Strange, too, that I, Richard Scarsmere, who, when at school hated geography as bitterly as I did algebraic problems, should even now, while just out of my teens, be thus enabled to write down this record of a perilous journey through a land known only by name to geographers, a vast region wherein no stranger had ever before set foot.
The face of the earth is well explored now-a-days, yet it has remained for me to discover and traverse one of the very few unknown countries, and to give the bald-headed old fogies of the Royal Geographical Society a lesson in the science that I once abominated.
I have witnessed with my own eyes the mysteries of Mo. I have seen the Great White Queen!
Three years ago I had as little expectation of emulating the intrepidity of Stanley as I had of usurping the throne of England. An orphan, both of whose parents had been drowned in a yachting accident in the Solent and whose elder brother succeeded to the estate, I was left in the care of a maternal uncle, a regular martinet, who sent me for several long and dreary years to Dr. Tregear's well-known Grammar-school at Eastbourne, and had given me to understand that I should eventually enter his office in London. Briefly, I was, when old enough, to follow the prosaic and ill-paid avocation of clerk. But for a combination of circumstances, I should have, by this time, budded into one of those silk-hatted, patent-booted, milk-and-bun lunchers who sit on their high perches and drive a pen from ten till four at a salary of sixteen shillings weekly. Such was the calling my relative thought good enough for me, although his own sons were being trained for professional careers. In his own estimation all his ideas were noble and his generosity unbounded; but not in mine.