You would surely have thought that I had been detectedin no less a heinous crime than the purloining of the CrownJewels from the Tower, or putting poison in the coffeeof His Majesty the King.

The erudite gentleman in whom I confided congealedbefore I was half through!--it is all that saved himfrom exploding--and my dreams of an Honorary Fellowship,gold medals, and a niche in the Hall of Fame faded intothe thin, cold air of his arctic atmosphere.

But I believe the story, and so would you, and so wouldthe learned Fellow of the Royal Geological Society, had youand he heard it from the lips of the man who told it to me.Had you seen, as I did, the fire of truth in those gray eyes;had you felt the ring of sincerity in that quiet voice;had you realized the pathos of it all--you, too, would believe.You would not have needed the final ocular proof that Ihad--the weird rhamphorhynchus-like creature which hehad brought back with him from the inner world.

I came upon him quite suddenly, and no less unexpectedly,upon the rim of the great Sahara Desert. He was standingbefore a goat-skin tent amidst a clump of date palms withina tiny oasis. Close by was an Arab douar of some eightor ten tents.

I had come down from the north to hunt lion. My partyconsisted of a dozen children of the desert--I was the only"white" man. As we approached the little clump of verdureI saw the man come from his tent and with hand-shaded eyespeer intently at us. At sight of me he advanced rapidlyto meet us.

"A white man!" he cried. "May the good Lord be praised! Ihave been watching you for hours, hoping against hope thatTHIS time there would be a white man. Tell me the date.What year is it?"

And when I had told him he staggered as though he hadbeen struck full in the face, so that he was compelledto grasp my stirrup leather for support.

"It cannot be!" he cried after a moment. "It cannot be!Tell me that you are mistaken, or that you are but joking."

"I am telling you the truth, my friend," I replied."Why should I deceive a stranger, or attempt to, in sosimple a matter as the date?"

For some time he stood in silence, with bowed head.

"Ten years!" he murmured, at last. "Ten years, and Ithought that at the most it could be scarce more than one!"That night he told me his story--the story that I give youhere as nearly in his own words as I can recall them.