after Mrs. Weldon and her companions rejoined it at the foot
of an old sycamore, lost in the thickest part of the wood.

There was a dilapidated hut, with disjoined boards, before which Dingo
was barking lamentably.

"Who can be there?" exclaimed Dick Sand.

He entered the hut.

Mrs. Weldon and the others followed him.

The ground was scattered with bones, already bleached under the
discoloring action of the atmosphere.

"A man died in that hut!" said Mrs. Weldon.

"And Dingo knew that man!" replied Dick Sand. "It was, it must have
been, his master! Ah, see!"

Dick Sand pointed to the naked trunk of the sycamore at the end of the
hut.

There appeared two large red letters, already almost effaced, but
which could be still distinguished.

Dingo had rested its right paw on the tree, and it seemed to indicate
them.

"S. V.!" exclaimed Dick Sand. "Those letters which Dingo knew among
all others! Those initials that it carries on its collar!"

He did not finish, and stooping, he picked up a little copper box, all
oxydized, which lay in a corner of the hut.

That box was opened, and a morsel of paper fell from it, on which Dick
Sand read these few words:

"Assassinated--robbed by my guide, Negoro--3d December,
1871--here--120 miles from the coast--Dingo!--with me!

"S. VERNON."

The note told everything. Samuel Vernon set out with his dog, Dingo,
to explore the center of Africa, guided by Negoro. The money which he
carried had excited the wretch's cupidity, and he resolved to take
possession of it. The French traveler, arrived at this point of the
Congo's banks, had established his camp in this hut. There he was
mortally wounded, robbed, abandoned. The murder accomplished, no doubt
Negoro took to flight, and it was then that he fell into the hands
of the Portuguese. Recognized as one of the trader Alvez's agents,
conducted to Saint Paul de Loanda, he was condemned to finish his days
in one of the penitentiaries of the colony. We know that he succeeded
in escaping, in reaching New Zealand, and how he embarked on the
"Pilgrim" to the misfortune of those who had taken passage on it.
But what happened after the crime? Nothing but what was easy to
understand! The unfortunate Vernon, before dying, had evidently had
time to write the note which, with the date and the motive of the
assassination, gave the name of the assassin. This note he had shut
up in that box where, doubtless, the stolen money wa