painted on it this message:

"Messrs. Aston, Old Calabar. Please forward accompanying fifty-three
packages, or as many as arrive, and cable as follows (all costs will be
remitted): Miss Champers, Kingswell, England. Prisoner among Asiki.
No present prospect of escape, but hope for best. Jeekie and I well.
Allowed send this, but perhaps no future message possible. Good-bye.
Alan."

As it happened just as Alan was finishing this scrawl with a sad heart,
he heard a movement and glancing up, perceived standing at his side
the Asika, of whom he had seen nothing since the interview when she had
beaten Jeekie:

"What are those marks that you make upon the board, Vernoon?" she asked
suspiciously.

With the assistance of Jeekie, who kept at a respectful distance, he
informed her that they were a message in writing to tell the white men
at the coast to forward the gold to his starving family.

"Oh!" she said, "I never heard of writing. You shall teach it me. It
will serve to pass the time till we are married, though it will not
be of much use afterwards, as we shall never be separated any more and
words are better than marks upon a board. But," she added cheerfully, "I
can send away this black dog of yours," and she looked at Jeekie, "and
he can write to us. No, I cannot, for an accident might happen to him,
and they tell me you say that if he dies, you die also, so he must stop
here always. What have you in those little boxes?"