Wide World - Vol. 22, No. 128

Told by "Cecil Addington" and Set Down by George A. Raper.

I write this record of a strange chapter in my life with a double motive. It may serve, firstly, as a warning to others who find themselves placed in what I once regarded as my enviable position. Secondly, it ought to have a wider usefulness in opening people's eyes to the very real dangers that lurk under the surface of London life. Had anyone told me, two years ago, that a man living in peaceful England could be in daily danger of assassination at the hands of an organized gang of villains, I should have found no words strong enough to express my disbelief. Still less would I have supposed that I, Cecil Addington, a strong, vigorous young Englishman, would ever go about in constant dread of murderous violence. Many who read my story will treat it as the outcome of a disordered imagination and refuse to believe that the forces of civilization are powerless to protect a man whose death has been deliberately planned. I wish I could share this belief; but, unfortunately, my experience points the other way. I have come to know that there are to-day, in London, men who would not hesitate to commit murder if it could be done without undue risk to themselves, and who have enough devilish ingenuity to reduce that risk almost to vanishing-point.

But I had better begin at the beginning and tell my story simply and straightforwardly, just as it happened, merely warning the reader that, though I am relating actual facts, I have, for obvious reasons, used fictitious names.

In May, 1906, having got away from Cambridge for a few days, I was enjoying myself in town. I was doing it in a very small way and under a sense of injustice, for I had nothing like the means at my disposal that I considered my due. In six months' time, on reaching my majority, I was to come into possession of thirty thousand pounds under my mother's will, and yet I had still to get along as best I might on a poor undergraduate's allowance from my father. He and I did not hit it off at all well. I was rather stage-struck, and had made up my mind that an actor's life was the life for me. He did not see it in that light, and was dead set on getting me into the Foreign Office, where, he argued, I could use my money and 'Varsity education to some purpose. If I had not been rather "green," and, I may as well admit, headstrong, I might have seen that he was right. Anyhow, we quarrelled, and he decided that, though he could not prevent me from committing what he called social suicide when I became my own master, he would at any rate put the financial screw on as long as he could. The result was that I found myself tied down to the smallest possible allowance, continued only on condition that I remained at Cambridge. I was plainly told, moreover, that if I were fool enough to throw up everything and go on the stage, I should have to exist as best I could. This gave me "furiously to think," as they say in France. I had sense enough to realize that budding actors do not fall on their feet at once, and that I should very likely be most unpleasantly hard up long before the blessed day came when I could open a bank account of my own. At the same time I was irritated at being kept in leading-strings, and my greatest desire was to find some way of circumventing my cautious parent.

In this frame of mind I set off to London one Friday to spend a week-end and a few pounds I happened to have in hand. Archie Hunter, one of my college chums, who was to have gone with me, managed to sprain his ankle the day before and had to stay indoors. I was half inclined to give up the expedition, but, chafing as I was under a sense of restraint, it seemed feeble to let my plans fall through on account of an absurd accident, and it was with a secret feeling of satisfaction at my own determination that I got out of the train at King's Cross, though I was beginning to feel that I might not enjoy myself so very much, after all, without a comrade.

I spent most of the afternoon hunting up fellows of my acquaintance in the West-end, and not finding them. Not knowing how to fill up the interval before dinner, I dropped into a well-known restaurant and sought solace in a whisky and soda and a cigarette. There were very few people in the bar—only a knot of two or three men discussing racing—and I sat, feeling a trifle lonely and not anticipating much fun for the evening. While I was cogitating the door opened and a well-dressed man came in. At the first glance I took him to be a retired Army officer. His hair and moustache were iron-grey, and, though he might have been well on the wrong side of forty, he looked every bit as active and supple as myself. His features were remarkably handsome, and he had an unmistakable air of good breeding, combined with the easy bearing of an experienced man of the world; in fact, he was just such a type as youngsters like myself secretly envy and take as their model. He glanced carelessly at me as he came in, ordered a whisky and soda, and, standing near me at the bar, took a long pull at his drink, after which he reached over the bar to take a match. As he did so his arm touched my glass and overturned it.

"HIS ARM TOUCHED MY GLASS AND OVERTURNED IT."

He was profuse in his apologies.

"How awfully careless of me!" he exclaimed. "I am so sorry. Hope I haven't spilt any of the stuff over your clothes?"

I answered that it was not of the slightest consequence, but he continued to excuse himself, and insisted on having my glass refilled, in spite of my protests. In another two minutes we were chatting away as if we had known each other for years. My new friend proved a delightful companion. He seemed to have been everywhere worth mentioning and to know all sorts of celebrities. He had a way of keeping the talk on the subjects which most interested me, and I felt a secret satisfaction at talking on equal terms with a man so much older and cleverer than myself. Although I did not realize it at the time, he was one of those accomplished conversationalists who do not appear to be saying much, but manage to make the other fellows think they can talk rather well. He soon found out that I was a Cambridge man, and as he turned out to be an old Cantab himself, that was another bond of union between us. We exchanged cards, and I found that his bore the name of "Captain Wyngate."

We got on so uncommonly well together that I was quite annoyed to find it was half-past seven, and that I should soon have to think about my solitary dinner.

As if divining my thoughts, my new acquaintance said:—

"What are you going to do this evening?"

I had to admit, rather against my will, that I had no particular plans and did not know what to do with myself.

"You had better come and dine with me," he said. "I haven't anything on to-night, and we might just as well have a bit of dinner together and go somewhere afterwards, if you feel inclined."

The invitation was given so frankly and cordially that I accepted it without any fuss, being only too glad of the prospect of a cheerful evening instead of mooning about by myself. It never occurred to me that I knew nothing whatever about Captain Wyngate, and that he might not prove so reputable an acquaintance as he looked.

We took a cab and drove to a queer little French restaurant, quite unlike anything I had ever seen, in a back street in Soho. In a general way I regarded the typical London restaurant as a big, showy establishment, with a profusion of electric lights, flowers on the tables, and everyone in evening dress. The place chosen by Captain Wyngate was entirely different. It was up two pairs of very narrow stairs covered with a red carpet, and seemed to be made up of quite poky little rooms. We were shown into one containing only a small table set for two, a sideboard, and a sofa.

"They seem to be expecting us," I remarked, with a laugh.

"Oh, they know my ways here," Wyngate replied, as he proceeded to question the waiter in French, which was a good deal too fluent for me to follow.

There was a surprisingly elaborate menu for such a little hole of a place, and it was with feelings of considerable satisfaction that I plunged into the dinner. It was admirably cooked and beautifully served—in fact, it was about the best dinner I had ever tasted; and by the time I had absorbed my second glass of Burgundy I was feeling particularly well-disposed towards humanity in general and my host in particular. Without seeming to question me at all, he showed such a friendly interest in me that the champagne found us on quite an intimate footing. Before the coffee and cigars came, and the waiter had left us alone, Captain Wyngate knew all about me, and I had a strong impression that he was preordained to be my guide, philosopher, and friend.

When I bemoaned my fate at being kept on short commons until I came of age, he smiled.

"You needn't unless you like," he said.

"I've heard of fellows borrowing on their expectations," I replied; "but it costs a lot, doesn't it? And I don't know anything about that sort of thing."

"Oh, it's simple enough," he remarked, casually, flicking the ash off his cigar.

"I might get into some old Jew's clutches," I remarked.

"My dear fellow," he replied, "all those stories about modern Shylocks are rubbish. You must have been reading about the man in Balzac who was fool enough to take a bit in cash and the rest in stuffed crocodiles. All that sort of thing is over now, and if you have anything solid in the way of expectations you can always raise money on them from reliable people."

Then, as if the subject did not interest him, he began to talk about something else; but he had set me thinking. Half-a-dozen times at least I was on the point of asking him to help me, but I did not want him to think me hopelessly inexperienced in business matters. At length I said:—

"Do you know, I have been thinking of raising a little money, and now that I am in town I might as well see about it."

"If you have made up your mind," he said, "there is no use in losing time. To whom do you intend to go?"

This was a poser. I had the vaguest possible ideas about money-lenders, and did not know the name of a single member of the fraternity.

Before I could find an answer he observed:—

"There's Jackson, in X—— Street. Why not try him? I haven't had to visit him myself, but I know about him, and I will go and see him with you if you like."

"That would be awfully kind of you," I said, gratefully.

"Of course," he added, "it's of no use unless you can tell him something definite about the property. He doesn't care about wasting time on little bits of business, and I suppose you would like to have a good pocketful of money."

I replied by giving him all the information I had about my expectations. He listened attentively, asked two or three questions, said he did not think there would be any difficulty, and made an appointment for us to meet the following morning. This done, he called for the waiter, paid the bill, and we spent the rest of the evening at a music-hall. I returned to my hotel charmed with my new acquaintance, and feeling a warm glow of satisfaction at the thought that in a few days I should have as much as I wanted to spend instead of having to reckon with every shilling.

Next morning, Saturday, I woke in my little sixth-floor bedroom to see the sun shining brilliantly, and it was in excellent spirits that I dressed and went down to breakfast. As usual in the season, the hotel was full, and few seats were vacant in the lofty and lavishly-decorated hall, still called, by virtue of old custom, the coffee-room. The cheerful hum of conversation, the noiseless dexterity of the waiters darting to and fro, the comfort and luxury of the surroundings, increased my sense of enjoyment, and while waiting for my coffee and kidneys I began to think what an uncommonly good time I might have in London. What a fool I had been not to think of raising money before! It must be simple enough, judging by what Captain Wyngate had said, and he seemed to know pretty well what he was talking about.

I had barely finished breakfast when the captain himself came into the coffee-room, much to my surprise. He explained that he had some business near my hotel, and that he had dropped in on the chance of finding me, so that we could go to X—— Street together, instead of meeting as we had originally planned. I was afraid he had put himself out of his way for my convenience, but this he would not admit, and I had to put down his visit as another proof of his obliging disposition. Off we went in a hansom to X—— Street, and were lucky enough to find Jackson disengaged.

He was not at all the type of man I had expected to see. I had imagined a rather grimy and snuffy-looking individual, sitting in a little, dark room, surrounded by safes and deed-boxes. Mr. Jackson, on the other hand, was quite a gentleman: tall, well-groomed, clean-shaven, and wearing an immaculate frock-coat. Captain Wyngate was kind enough to explain why I had come. After this he got up and was about to leave the room, and I had some difficulty in getting him to stay and help me out. This was lucky, as Jackson proved a hard nut to crack. He was very polite, but raised so many objections that I began to despair of doing anything with him. It was very risky, he said, to lend money to minors, as he knew to his cost; and then, how was he to be sure I was to get as much as thirty thousand pounds? Trusts did not always produce what was expected of them. Finally, after asking a lot of questions about my family and the date of the will, he promised to make inquiries and give me an answer at three o'clock in the afternoon.

Had I known more about business it would probably have struck me as peculiar that a few hours should be considered enough to investigate a transaction of which the lender was supposed to know next to nothing. In the light of subsequent knowledge I am convinced that the urbane Mr. Jackson knew all about the matter long before he set eyes on me, and that the postponement until the afternoon was a mere blind. In happy unconsciousness of this I accepted an invitation to luncheon from Captain Wyngate, who kindly expressed his intention of seeing me through the business. And a very excellent lunch it was, too—just the kind of thing to make a man feel at peace with himself and all the world. Three o'clock saw us back at Jackson's office.

"Well, Mr. Addington," he said, "I have looked into the matter, and I think I shall be able to accommodate you."

"I'm very glad to hear it," I returned, joyously.

"Of course, I need not tell anyone of your intelligence and education," he continued, "that this is a rather irregular sort of transaction, and very risky for me. If you were to take advantage of being a minor and should go back on your word, where should I be?"

I assured him there was no danger of anything of the kind happening.

"I could not do business of this kind," he continued, "with anyone who was not a gentleman, and in whom I did not feel the fullest confidence."

He said this so impressively that I was quite touched—the champagne at luncheon was certainly very good—and inwardly decided that a money-lender was just as likely as anyone else to be a good fellow.

"But," he continued, "you must remember the risk, as I said before, and that I have heavy expenses (he didn't mention what they were), but I will advance you five thousand pounds on the spot, if you will undertake to repay me eight thousand pounds when you come of age. The only other condition that I make is that you insure your life in my favour, so that in case anything happened to you I should not lose my money."

This proposal rather took my breath away, and I stared at him blankly.

"I can assure you," he said, with a bland smile, "that these are really very favourable terms. Plenty of other gentlemen in my line would refuse to take the risk at any price. Perhaps you would like to talk it over with this gentleman?" indicating Captain Wyngate.

Without waiting for an answer, he rose and left the room. I cast an appealing glance at the captain.

"My dear fellow," he said, "you mustn't think that I want to advise you against your own interests, but you might do worse than take this offer."

"Three thousand pounds is a lot of interest," I urged.

"It's only a small slice out of your thirty thousand," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "Jackson treats you like a gentleman, and will hand the money over at once. If you go to someone else you may be kept hanging on for weeks and charged all sorts of fees and expenses."

"All the same——" I began.

"What's the use of haggling about a hundred or two?" Wyngate interrupted. "You won't save anything in the long run."

His tone and look implied that he considered I was trying to drive a hard bargain. To be thought mean by this superior being, who had shown himself so friendly and hospitable, was more than I could endure, and I hastily replied that he was quite right, and that we might as well settle the affair at once.

Jackson opportunely returning at this juncture, I signified my acceptance of his terms. A bond and an insurance proposal which had been made out beforehand were produced, and I signed them.

"Shall I cross the cheque for payment through your own bank, Mr. Addington?" Jackson asked, bringing out his cheque-book. "But perhaps," he added, before I had to confess that I had no banking account, "you would prefer to have part of the money in cash. A thousand pounds in notes and the rest in a cheque? Certainly. If you will kindly count the notes in this bundle, I think you will find them all right. Thank you, Mr. Addington. My clerk will call upon you with any other papers there may be for you to sign."

I walked out with the money in my pocket and my troubles before me.

My doings during the next few weeks were not exactly what might be called judicious, but what can be expected from a youth suddenly let loose in London with heaps of money and nobody to restrain him? I am quite willing to admit that I was a fool, but I dare say a great many other people would not have proved much wiser if they had found themselves in similar circumstances. Without suspecting it, I was a sort of Faust in the clutches of a modern Mephistopheles. As Captain Wyngate had given me the Open Sesame, he naturally stepped into the position of familiar friend and adviser. Of course, Cambridge saw me no more. I took up my abode in furnished rooms close to Piccadilly, and was delighted when Captain Wyngate accepted an invitation to leave his hotel and share my quarters. Under his guidance I began to enjoy myself exceedingly. The gaps in my knowledge of the Metropolis filled up very quickly, and I think I could pass a pretty stiff examination about the places of amusement, recognised and unrecognised, in London. Wyngate and I were constantly together, and he introduced me to a good many men who seemed, like himself, to have no particular occupation except killing time as agreeably as possible. He generally picked up these acquaintances on race-courses, in hotel bars, music-halls, and other public places. We did not go to any private houses. Captain Wyngate voted dances slow, and I was enjoying myself so much under his guidance that I was not inclined to differ from him.

In the enclosure at Kempton Park he introduced me to a strikingly handsome and stylish young lady, Miss Violet Alexander, and took the earliest opportunity of telling me in a confidential whisper that she was an actress and immensely clever. Both these statements I afterwards found to be true in a sense; I did not understand at the time. She was extremely gracious, and I was much flattered when she invited me to take a cup of tea with her at her flat in Bedford Park. She soon fascinated me completely, and after my second visit I was madly in love, or thought I was. Captain Wyngate, to whose experience I resorted as a matter of course, suggested that a handsome present would advance matters very materially. He kindly undertook to find out from the lady what would be most acceptable to her, and the result was the transfer of a lace dress and a diamond star to Miss Violet's abode, and a hole of seven hundred pounds in my bank account. Both these presents were purchased (very much above their real value, as I afterwards found out) at shops recommended by Captain Wyngate, on the ground that they were "the" place for such things, and that gifts were always more appreciated when the lady knew they came from the very best places. My gifts certainly did not disgrace even the wardrobe of Miss Violet Alexander. They made her even more gracious than before, and but for the rude awakening that came soon afterwards there is no knowing what further follies she would have made me commit.

One night, when we were to have gone to a new play at the Gaiety, the captain felt out of sorts and decided to stay indoors with a book and a pipe. I returned home rather late, and, as I passed his room, I heard choking, inarticulate sounds. Thinking he must be ill, I opened the door quietly and looked in. He was lying in bed, tossing uneasily and muttering in his sleep. While I waited—wondering if I ought to wake him—his muttering went on, broken here and there by an intelligible word.

"'HANDS OFF!' HE ALMOST SHOUTED, AND STARTED UP IN BED."

"The Rigi—Came for your health—Hate looking over precipices, do you?—Oh, don't be a baby!—Two thousand feet down—Ah, I've done it!"

Beads of perspiration started out on his forehead, and he groaned as if suffering agonies.

I put my hand on his shoulder.

"Hands off!" he almost shouted, and started up in bed, a horrible expression of fear on his face.

"Why, Wyngate, old chap, you seem to be having a first-class nightmare," I remarked.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he replied, not very graciously. "What are you doing here?"

"You were talking in your sleep," I told him, "and tossing about all over the place."

"That's very strange indeed," he said, anxiously. "I'm seldom troubled with nightmares."

"Yes," I continued, "you thought you were at the top of a precipice in Switzerland with another fellow, and threw him over."

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed, roughly.

"Weren't you dreaming about precipices?" I asked.

"Nothing of the kind!" he snapped. "I have slept badly, that was all, and you needn't have roused me."

"Sorry, old chap," I rejoined, and left the room, rather offended by his unusual surliness.

Next morning Wyngate said nothing about his nightmare, but the effects did not seem to have left him. He found fault with the breakfast, made irritable remarks, and, though he was not actually rude, revealed a side of his character which was new to me. This was, in fact, the commencement of altered relations between us. I began to notice in his conversation covert sneers at my youth and inexperience, though this did not in the least prevent him from borrowing a few pounds from time to time when a bill came in. The money would not have mattered at all had he remained the good fellow he had seemed at first, but it was a different matter now, and I began to chafe.

Things went on like this for a couple of weeks. Then one day Hicks, my servant, came to me with three of Captain Wyngate's tradesmen's bills.

"The captain," said Hicks, "won't be back till to-night, sir, and he told me to ask you if you would kindly pay these for him."

This was the last straw. To be sneered at by a man who was living under my roof, and then to be expected to pay his tailor and bootmaker, was more than I could stand. With as much composure as I could command, I told Hicks that Captain Wyngate would settle the accounts when he returned. I then sat down and wrote my guest a note, in which I told him what I thought of him, and added that, as he would probably prefer other quarters, Hicks would pack up his things as soon as he pleased. After this I went out, spent the afternoon watching a cricket match at Lord's, and did not return home until late, when, to my great relief, Captain Wyngate's room was vacant.

"What did the captain say when he read my note?" I asked Hicks.

"He only laughed, sir," was the reply, "and said he was going away for a change of air."

It was a relief to find that my Old Man of the Sea, as I had now come to regard the fascinating captain, had been unseated so easily, and I went to bed feeling decidedly pleased with myself, and quite convinced that I had heard the last of him. This fond delusion, however, was shattered the very next day by the arrival of a crop of his bills, including those of the day before, all brought by men with instructions to ask for payment. I was for indignantly repudiating all liabilities, but Hicks deferentially suggested that this might create a bad impression; and on reflection I saw that a blunt refusal might bring some of my own creditors about my ears rather sooner than I had bargained for. I therefore told Hicks to say the accounts would be settled next day, and meanwhile sent him to the hotel at which Captain Wyngate was staying before he joined me, with a chillingly polite note requesting him to settle with his tradespeople. Hicks came back with the cheerful information that the captain had gone away and left no address. Not knowing what else to do, I paid. The amount was not large—some fifty pounds, in fact—but signing the cheques was a very bitter pill.

Being now left to my own resources, it occurred to me to look into my finances, and I discovered to my amazement that I had run through more than four thousand pounds in two months! There were also accounts owing, and it dawned upon me that at my present rate of living I should be without a penny long before my twenty-first birthday arrived.

"Bah!" I said to myself. "I can always borrow again if I run short." And I tried to dismiss the matter from my mind. I suppose, though, there must have been a thin strain of caution, probably inherited from a Scotch grandfather, underneath my foolishness, for I could not shake off a feeling that I was drifting on to the rocks. I went to see Violet Alexander, with a vague hope of getting sympathy, but was told she had gone out. I called again and again, with the same result. Could it be that she did not want to see me?

In this position, ashamed to make it up with my father, and not having a single friend to whom I cared to turn, I did what I ought to have done long ago. I went to Lincoln's Inn Fields to lay my case before the family solicitors.

"Mr. Benedict is away, sir, but his son, Mr. Charles, will see you," was the reply to the announcement of my name, and I was ushered into the presence of Mr. Charles Benedict. He did not correspond at all to my idea of a family solicitor. He was faultlessly dressed, and did not look much older than myself, but it did not take me long to discover that his knowledge of town was as extensive and peculiar as Mr. Weller's.

"Ah! Captain Wyngate," he repeated, when I mentioned the name of my evil genius. "Tall, fine-looking man, with a grey moustache, isn't he?"

"Yes," I replied, in surprise. "Do you know him?"

"I should say that he was pretty well known," rejoined Mr. Charles Benedict, with a smile. "But perhaps you had better go on with your story."

Encouraged by his interest in my troubles, I went ahead and gave him the main lines of the narrative, though I could not yet bring myself to disclose all the details of my weakness. When I had answered his last question he drew a long breath and said:—

"Well, Mr. Addington, I congratulate you!"

"What about?" I asked. "It seems to me I am in a pretty bad mess."

"So you are," he replied, cheerfully. "But I was congratulating you on coming to us before it was too late. You have had a narrow escape. Did you never suspect what kind of man Captain Wyngate is?"

"Not until those bills came in," I replied.

"The bills," remarked Mr. Benedict, "are a mere trifle. Captain Wyngate is one of the most dangerous men in London. The police have had their eye upon him for years, but he is so clever that they have never been able to catch him in the act. He lives on inexperienced young men with money."

"Like me, I suppose?"

"Yes, but you are not the first by a very long way. Your case is quite in his best style. He has goodness knows how many accomplices, quite a syndicate of sharks, and they have all sorts of shady people in their pay. I have no doubt whatever that he knew all about your money affairs and had a look at you at Cambridge without your knowledge; also that he knew of your coming to London and had you tracked to the bar where he made your acquaintance by upsetting your glass. Jackson is in the syndicate, and you may be sure our friend the captain would have had a good slice out of the three thousand pounds they reckoned to make out of you; but I think we can stop their little game."

Needless to say, these disclosures staggered me considerably.

"Then Captain Wyngate is nothing but a swindler?" I asked.

"One of the worst type," answered the solicitor. "I don't think he would stick at murder if it was worth while and could be done safely. He was mixed up in the death of Charlie Byfleet, a rich young fellow who went to Switzerland with him and was killed by falling down a precipice. Many people suspected that Wyngate got possession of Byfleet's money and papers and then pushed him over the cliff."

"That explains the nightmare!" I exclaimed, and I told my adviser of the scene in Wyngate's bedroom.

"Yes; no doubt he has to do it over again in his sleep now and then," said Mr. Benedict, "but that's all the punishment he has had. He swore it was an accident, and there was no evidence against him. He has been keeping quiet since that affair, but he must have thought it had blown over by this time as he has begun again on you. I suppose he kept you to himself as long as he could?"

"He never took me to see anybody except Violet Alexander, the actress," I said.

"Oh, indeed!" ejaculated Mr. Benedict, smiling. "This is interesting. Did you find her very agreeable?"

"Charming," I replied, ingenuously.

"Wasn't she a rather expensive acquaintance?"

I was obliged to confess that she was, and mentioned the presents.

"Of course, as you were so friendly with Wyngate, you had to be nice to his wife," observed the solicitor.

"What?" I exclaimed, in astonishment.

"She is a very useful helpmate for him," continued the lawyer, smiling compassionately at me. "They have hunted together for years and made lots of money. Have you never heard of Violet Alexander's solid silver bath? You may be quite sure the lace dress and the diamond star have gone back to the shops where Wyngate made you buy them, and that he and Violet pocketed a nice little commission on the transaction. The shopkeepers are just as much in the gang as Wyngate and Jackson are. Wyngate stayed with you until he saw you were getting restive; then he ran up a few bills for you to pay and cleared out. You will not see him again until Jackson's bill falls due."

"And then?" I asked.

"Then there will be ructions," said Mr. Benedict, cheerfully.

Here he took up a paper-knife, played with it carelessly, and looked as if he expected me to find a way out of the tangle.

"Great Scot!" I exclaimed. "Shall I have to pay these villains eight thousand pounds?"

"You certainly would if you had not come to us in time," was the reply.

"Then I am in time?" I asked, much relieved.

"Yes," said Mr. Benedict; "we can save your money, if you hand it over to someone else."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Simply this. You must execute a deed placing your property, from the moment you become entitled to it, in the hands of trustees, who will pay you, let us say, three or four hundred a year out of the income. You will be unable to touch the capital. When Mr. Jackson presents his little bill, you refer him to your trustees, who will repay him his five thousand pounds with strict legal interest. Come back next week, and we will have the papers ready for you to sign. In the meantime I recommend you to change your quarters or leave London altogether."

I left Mr. Benedict with a new respect for the legal profession. After having been so thoroughly fooled and exploited, it was pleasant to think that I should have the laugh on my side in the long run. I was not at all inclined to keep out of the way, however. To miss the dénouement was not to be thought of; but I decided to retire to less expensive rooms, settle my outstanding debts, dispense with Hicks ("I suppose he makes commissions out of me, like the rest of them," I said to myself, savagely), and await the crisis.

The rest of the summer and the early part of the autumn I spent very agreeably in the country, returning to London a few days before my twenty-first birthday, which fell on November 15th. I took care to write Jackson a polite letter, informing him of my change of address, and received an equally polite acknowledgment, to my great delight. In due course came another letter, reminding me that it would give Mr. Jackson pleasure to receive the sum of eight thousand pounds at my earliest convenience. This letter I handed over to Mr. Benedict, who, in the best legal language, replied that he and his father, as my sole trustees, repudiated the transactions I had entered into, but would nevertheless repay the five thousand pounds, with six months' interest at four per cent.

I would have given a good deal to see the faces of Jackson and Co. when they received this missive. By what I could gather from my lawyers, the money-lender was very indignant at first, but when he found he could make no impression on the Benedicts he concluded to treat the matter as one of those little disappointments to which business men are liable; and, finally, he accepted the offer and the money. I had expected him to show more fight, and was rather disappointed at first; but I had not long to wait for excitement.

Late one afternoon I was on my way home to dress for dinner, after spending an hour or two at one of my usual resorts near the Strand. Having plenty of time, I turned into the Green Park and was sauntering along, enjoying a cigarette, when a hand was laid on my shoulder from behind, and a well-known voice exclaimed: "A word with you, my friend!"

It was Captain Wyngate!

I wheeled round and looked at him defiantly.

"I have nothing to say to you," I said, curtly.

"But I have a great deal to say to you," he retorted. "I have been on the look-out for you for some time, and now that there is no one to listen to us I would like to give you a small piece of advice."

"I don't want it," I interrupted.

"Perhaps not," he continued; "but if you don't take it you will be very sorry one of these days. Are you going to pay Jackson his three thousand pounds or are you not?"

His manner was brusque and overbearing to the last degree, and my temper began to rise.

"What has that to do with you?" I demanded.

"That's my affair," he snapped. "Make your trustees pay up, or——"

"Or what?"

"You'll see, and pretty soon, too."

"Look here, Captain Wyngate," I exclaimed, hotly, "I am not going to be bullied. You and your friends have had all you will get out of me. I know you to be one of the biggest scoundrels in London, and if you interfere with me, look out for yourself, that's all."

"Indeed!" he sneered. "So you think you can trick me and get off scot-free, do you? Listen! If that money isn't paid in a week I'll have your life!"

"Don't talk rubbish," I interposed.

"Ah, you think yourself safe," he went on, in the same ironical tone. "You imagine the police will protect you, I suppose. You young idiot, your life won't be worth sixpence!"

"Touch me if you dare!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, you're quite safe now," he sneered. "I give you a week to think it over, and then, if the money isn't paid, look out. You have had fair warning."

"More than the man in Switzerland had," I suggested sarcastically, as Wyngate turned away.

He gave me one look of concentrated hate, and seemed about to speak, but checked himself, turned his back on me, and disappeared in the darkness.

"Bluff!" I said to myself. "What can he do?" And I continued my walk home.

I was quite as strong as Wyngate, and felt well able to hold my own if he attacked me. As to the idea of being murdered in the heart of London, it was preposterous. This kind of thing might happen among secret society men and weird foreigners handy with their knives; but Englishmen had nothing to fear, I assured myself, and several fellows to whom I mentioned the matter casually at the club agreed with me. I did not even think it worth while to tell Mr. Benedict of the meeting.

One night I was walking home through a fog which, though not possessing the regulation pea-soup consistency, was thick enough to make it impossible to see anyone more than twenty yards away. As I entered St. James's Square I heard footsteps behind me, but having no thought of danger I paid no attention to them. Suddenly I felt a violent blow on the shoulder, and turning sharply round I saw a man with an uplifted bludgeon, in the act of striking at me again. I was absolutely defenceless, having not even a cane with me. The thought, "Wyngate's at the bottom of this!" flashed across my mind. I had just time to jump aside and avoid the stick as it fell. Then I dashed off at full speed into the fog. I was at too great a disadvantage to be heroic.

My assailant made no attempt to follow me. His coup having failed, he no doubt thought it prudent to clear out at once. I could not distinguish his features, but one thing was certain: he was not Wyngate. He was a rather short, thick-set man, wearing a soft hat pulled well down over his eyes. The only other detail that struck me during the instant we were at close quarters was the strong smell of drink which he gave out. I put him down as a hired ruffian, and it became evident to me that if Wyngate were capable of using such instruments of revenge I should have to take him a good deal more seriously than hitherto.

As long as there was the bruise on my shoulder to remind me of the adventure in St. James's Square I was almost prudent. I took to carrying a sword-cane, and went home at night in cabs instead of walking. I also gave myself a certain amount of entertainment by manœuvering to find out whether I was being followed. To this end I used to stop suddenly and pretend to look into shop-windows, in the hope of catching the spy unawares; but, if he existed at all, he was cleverer than I at the game. Nothing happened except a collision now and then, caused by some innocent promenader running into me from behind when I pulled up. Then I had to apologize and try not to look foolish. Finally my natural insouciance got the upper hand, and I ceased to worry about my enemy.

"I SAW A MAN WITH AN UPLIFTED BLUDGEON, IN THE ACT OF STRIKING AT ME AGAIN."

Christmas was drawing near, and I was preparing to leave town to spend the festive season with friends in the country, when I received a wire one morning from Archie Hunter, my Cambridge chum, telling me he was coming to town in the afternoon, and asking me to meet him at six o'clock in the bar of a small West-end hotel where we had foregathered on previous occasions. I was on hand at the appointed time, but there was no sign of Hunter.

"Train late, I suppose," I thought, and sat down to wait. There was no one I knew in the bar, but, being sociably inclined, I was soon in conversation with two or three other men whose only object seemed to be to while away the time. With them were a couple of fashionably-dressed girls, and by and by I noticed that one of them looked at me frequently, not as if she wanted to begin a flirtation, but rather with curiosity. I had never seen her before, but, beyond wondering vaguely whether she had remarked something peculiar about my appearance, I paid no attention, engaged as I was in discussing cricket with one of the men.

Presently two of them began to talk billiards, at which, it seemed, they were old rivals, and, as neither would admit inferiority, they decided to go upstairs to the billiard-room and play a couple of hundred up.

"We may as well go and watch them," remarked the man with whom I was talking.

"All right," I said, unsuspectingly, and, emptying my glass, I prepared to go upstairs.

The billiard-players led the way, the others following. The girl who had been looking at me was the last except myself to leave the bar. The door-handle apparently slipped from her fingers and the door, which had an ordinary spring, closed in her face with a slam, thus momentarily cutting us off from the others. To my intense surprise she turned and whispered, hurriedly:—

"Don't go upstairs; they will throw you down!"

In another instant she had pulled the door open and was ascending the stairs.

"Wyngate again!" was the thought that flashed through my mind.

At first I was inclined to disregard the warning, but a moment's reflection showed me that there was no disgrace in declining an unequal combat, and that, even if I were not knocked downstairs by some cleverly-contrived "accident," I could be sure of being dealt some underhand blow by agents of so unscrupulous a person as my late guest.

I went up three or four steps, and then—exclaiming, "Forgotten my stick; I'll be back in a moment!"—I returned to the bar, went out quickly by another door, jumped into a hansom, and made good my retreat.

"Two not out, captain!" I remarked, with satisfaction; but, as I was soon to discover, the game was not by any means finished.

I wrote to Hunter at once, asking him if he had wired me to meet him. He replied that he had not done so, and that someone must have been using his name.

The more I thought over the situation the less I liked it. It was evident that I had become the object of a sort of vendetta on the part of a very clever scoundrel, who would stick at nothing to obtain his revenge and was always ready to strike at me when I least expected it. To apply to the police would have been useless, as I had not a scrap of evidence against him. I had slipped through his fingers twice, but I could hardly count upon another such timely warning as I received in the hotel bar. The girl must have known that there was a plot against me, but why did she interfere? Was it caprice or a good instinct?

In the hope of finding out something I dropped in two or three times at the hotel at different hours, but the few guarded inquiries I made led to nothing. The girl and her companions were merely chance customers, quite unknown to the hotel people, who would have been almost as disagreeably surprised as myself if Wyngate's little scheme had succeeded.

Feeling that the air of London was becoming decidedly unwholesome, I went off to my friends at Folkestone, rather unwisely leaving my address, so that letters could be forwarded. Thanks to cheerful surroundings—the society of nice people has a really remarkable effect in changing the current of one's ideas—my enemy's sinister figure began to recede into the background. I was one of a house-party of about a dozen, and they were all intensely interested in my story, though nobody could suggest anything better than going abroad for a year or two.

On the Tuesday after my arrival somebody mentioned that there was to be a ball on the following Monday at one of the hotels on the cliff, and we decided to make up a party and go. Tickets were taken, and, of course, we made no secret of our intention, which was known to the servants, tradespeople, and, in fact, anyone who might have taken an interest in our doings.

On the Monday afternoon, while we were talking and tea-drinking in the drawing-room, Charlie Barbour, one of the party, came in, walked straight up to me, and remarked:—

"Well, old chap, there's some more fun in store for you."

"What on earth do you mean?" I demanded, vaguely uneasy.

"Only that your friend Wyngate is beginning again," he replied.

Then he told us that, happening to stroll into a barber's to get himself smartened up for the evening, he had overheard two men talking confidentially in German while waiting their turn to be shaved. As it happened, Charlie was educated in Germany, and understood the language perfectly well. At first, having no desire to overhear what was not intended for him, he paid no attention, but presently he caught a remark about the ball to which we were going the same evening. Listening more attentively, he made out that somebody at the ball was to be given a letter asking him to come outside for a few minutes on to the terrace at the top of the cliff. This did not at first strike him as suspicious, but when the two men, who looked like innocent commercial travellers, had left the shop it suddenly occurred to Charlie that their conversation might relate to me. It was so very much like Wyngate's style, he thought, to get me on top of a cliff at night, when there would probably be no one to see what happened to me. With this idea in his head, Charlie escaped from the barber's as promptly as possible and spent an hour or two prowling about in search of the two men, but in vain; after which he made for home to tell me his story.

The girls became very much excited, and one of them said I was like the hero of a sensational novel. We held a sort of council of war, and decided that, if any letter of the kind were sent in to me while the dance was going on, I should go outside with a revolver in my pocket, and that Barbour and another man, Carruthers, also armed, should follow close behind.

We were still discussing the affair when a telegram was brought to me. I opened it and read:—

"If you value your life, leave Folkestone immediately."

There was no signature, but I had not the least doubt that the telegram, which came from London, was sent by the unknown girl who had already befriended me once.

Somebody remarked that the situation was becoming quite dramatic. I agreed; but when I asked whether anyone would like to take my part as the hero there were no offers.

Calling in the police was suggested; but Barbour and Carruthers—both strong, active fellows—objected strongly to giving anyone else a chance of capturing a brace of modern desperadoes, and we concluded to keep the matter perfectly quiet, so as to give the enemy no hint of the counter-mine we were preparing.

I never went to such an exciting dance in my life as I did that evening; and all the others in our party were equally on the qui vive. I rather enjoyed it after a time, as the ladies were so very anxious to keep me dancing with them; while Barbour and Carruthers several times got into trouble with their partners through trying to keep their eye on me instead of attending to business.

It was nearly twelve o'clock before the expected summons came. I had just taken my partner back to her seat when one of the hotel servants came and told me a gentleman was anxious to see me outside on important business.

Signalling to Barbour and Carruthers, I left the ball-room and strolled as unconcernedly as possible out on to the terrace. There was no moon, and, but for a few twinkling gas-lamps and the light from the hotel windows, all was dark outside. I could just distinguish two men standing on the terrace about twenty yards away. Seeing me walk towards them they moved to meet me, but at this moment Barbour and Carruthers made their appearance behind me. This was quite enough for my enemies. Without a word they turned and ran off at full speed, taking different directions as they reached the main road. We gave chase, but they ran as fast as we did, and we soon lost them in the darkness.

It was annoying to have let the fellows slip through our fingers, but there was some satisfaction in knowing that I was in no danger when with friends, and that Wyngate's emissaries were not conspicuous for courage. Like himself, no doubt, they were ready to strike only when there was no danger of being caught.

As soon as possible after returning to London I gave up my rooms, stored such of my belongings as were not portable, and went to live at my club, on the principle that there is safety in numbers. In this I was again mistaken, as I was soon to learn.

A fortnight later I went to a fancy dress ball at the Covent Garden Opera house. I had just been chatting with an acquaintance, and was standing amid a small group of people who were strangers to me, at the top of the grand staircase, looking down at the people coming up, when I felt myself suddenly seized from behind and hurled down the steps. I was completely taken by surprise and could do nothing to save myself. My unknown assailant no doubt reckoned that my head would come into contact with the wall at the bottom of the flight of steps, and that I should either be killed or badly hurt. By great good luck, however, a portly commissionaire, taking tickets, was standing just in the right spot, and I dashed into him with great violence, bowling him over like a ninepin, but luckily without hurting him. I was stunned by the shock, and by the time I recovered it was of course useless to look for the man who had thrown me down the staircase. He must have shadowed me for some time and chosen his moment well, for no one saw the act, unless it be that he had accomplices who screened him from observation.

After this fourth experience I confessed that my nerve was considerably shaken. To go on living by myself in London was only to court disaster and live in daily expectation of a fifth attempt on my life. I need not trouble the reader with the details of my consultations with the Benedicts and my father, who became reconciled to me on hearing my story. The end of it was that, after a few months' strict seclusion with a coach in the country, I entered the Militia.

At L——, where I am stationed, I ought to be fairly safe among my brother officers and the soldiers. And yet, who knows? Perhaps Wyngate (who goes about openly in London, dines at the best restaurants, and stares defiantly at friends of mine who know the story) is tired of pursuing me, or thinks the game is not worth the candle. I hope so, at any rate, for I sometimes feel that if he keeps to his purpose he will, sooner or later, achieve it.

By Victor Forbin.

A vivacious account by a French journalist of his introduction to a curious sport of which practically nothing is known in this country.

For a long time a hotbed of patriotic Anglophobia, St. Malo, the ancient city whose proud boast it is that it has never been conquered, has been of recent years quietly annexed, so to speak, by its former foe, and has become a popular resort with English tourists, so that the poorest of its shops is proud to display on its front windows the welcoming motto, "English spoken."

The Malouins themselves are the boldest sailors of France; it is a saying among them that "they have the love of the sea in their blood." The sons and grandsons of daring privateers, they pass nearly their whole lives at sea, many of them going every year to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland for the cod-fishing season.

Even the well-to-do classes, gentry or bourgeoisie, are fond of maritime pastimes such as fishing and yachting. Their favourite diversion, however, is dolphin-hunting, a sport which the authorities encourage by every means in their power, since dolphins and porpoises are causing terrible havoc among the schools of herring and sardines on the French coast, thus destroying the livelihood of the fisher-folk.

"DELPHINUS DELPHIS," THE LARGEST SPECIES OF DOLPHIN FOUND OFF THE BRITTANY COAST—IT WEIGHS FROM THREE TO FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS, AND MAY REACH NINE FEET IN LENGTH.

From a Photograph.

During a recent stay in the suburbs of St. Malo, my host insisted upon introducing me to the enchantment of a sport of whose very existence I had hitherto been ignorant.

"You cannot possibly return to Paris until you have killed your porpoise, can you?" he asked, insinuatingly.

"I am here for rest, not for butchery," I replied, indolently.

"But just think of the story you will have to tell," he continued. "A dolphin hunt! It is old to us Malouins, but what a novelty for you, a newspaper man, a Parisian!"

"A novelty, to be sure," I returned. "But what about sunstroke? I tell you, my dear Desmond, in this terrific heat the shade of your apple trees is good enough for me. Bother your dolphin-hunting!"

That is what I told him, and at the moment I meant it; yet I must confess that I allowed myself to be conquered in the end by a monetary argument.

"But you're losing money," urged my host. "You forget that a certain official is ready to pay you a five-franc piece for each dolphin's head you may bring him!"

Five francs! I rose to the bait. What glory for a writer to be able to boast that he has earned money with his gun! How I could crow over my fellow-scribes! So, tempted by glorious visions of many five-franc pieces, I weakly surrendered.

It is quite likely that dreams of sport caused me to sleep more soundly than I ought to have done, for when my friend's shouts awoke me at last I unjustly scolded my alarm-clock, which had done its duty.

Fortunately, everything was ready, down to the café-au-lait and petit pain that the maid was bringing in. A few minutes later I hastily jumped aboard the yacht Christiane, where Desmond and his mousse (cabin-boy), Jean-Marie Le Floch, were waiting for me, meanwhile endeavouring to ascertain from some old salts in which direction and at about what distance out we should be likely to meet with a school of marsouins.

"Marsouins?" ejaculated one old fisherman, between puffs at his pipe. "The confounded vermin are to be met with everywhere and nowhere."

Never expect, by the way, to receive precise information from a Breton fisherman. But never mind; we shall reach our objective some time or other with the help of the breeze and the good-will of the dolphins!

Presently the yacht was ploughing her way gracefully through the waves, and for the time being we had nothing else to do but search the horizon and talk about our intended victims. Meanwhile I learnt from my friend many interesting details about dolphins and their ways.

It appears that several species of dolphins are to be met with near the shores of Brittany. The largest is known to science as Delphinus delphis, and differs from other varieties by its long jaws—very like the beak of a big bird, and armed with about sixty teeth as hard and sharp as steel. Its length may reach nine feet, and it weighs from three to four hundred pounds. A swift swimmer, it preys on the schools of herrings, following them right up to Scottish waters. In spite of its greed, it is noted for its mild temper, and frequently amuses itself by playing round ships in the open sea.

Then there is the Delphinus tursio, or souffleur. This is smaller, and its beak is shorter, though armed with strong, powerful teeth that enable it to attack a big fish, pinning it down to the rocks with such force that its nose is often deeply marked with numerous cuts. This dolphin hates the very sight of a ship and never comes close to one.

My friend was beginning to tell me something about the porpoise, or marsouin, the smallest species of the genus, when Jean-Marie Le Floch put an end to the scientific discourse by a sudden shout. He was positive, he declared, that he had just seen a dolphin jumping out of the water about five hundred yards ahead of us!

"Are you quite certain about it, mon garçon?" said Desmond, eagerly grasping his gun. "Did you really?"

"Tenez, m'sieur!" replied the lad. "There! there! Did you see it?"

A YACHT CHASING A SCHOOL OF DOLPHINS.

From a Photograph.

Sure enough, a black object had just shot out of the water, disappearing again so quickly that I almost thought I had made a mistake. Not so my friend. He had seen enough to convince him that the dolphin was coming towards us at full speed, and accordingly got his gun ready, meanwhile giving me some rapid hints about the best way of shooting.

"Now, don't aim at the head," he told me. "Never at the head, whatever you do."

"What a queer idea!" said I. "Wouldn't a bullet through its head stop it dead?"

HAULING A DOLPHIN INTO THE YACHT'S DINGHY.

From a Photograph.

"Most certainly; but you would waste your powder and shot. The dolphin would sink at once, taking away to the depths of the ocean both your bullet and your five-franc premium. No; you must aim squarely at the belly. Otherwise——Dear me!"

At that very moment the dolphin jumped clear out of the waves quite close to us. Swift as lightning Desmond aimed at the flying monster, shining in the sunlight about a hundred yards ahead, and pulled trigger.

"Well done! A splendid shot!" I shouted enthusiastically, as the bullet took effect and the dolphin disappeared.

"It was too splendid!" grumbled Desmond.

Without another word he jumped into the dinghy, towing astern, where the boy was already waiting for him, a harpoon in his hand.

"Keep an eye upon it as soon as it comes up," he shouted to me, as he scrambled for an oar.

"There it is! I see it, bleeding!" I cried. The wounded dolphin had reappeared a short distance away, the foam of the waves around being tinted red with its life-blood. Pointing out the right direction to the pair in the boat, I shouted a few remarks after them.

"I should say it is sinking. Make haste! Dépêchez-vous! It is turning over on its back; I see only its white underside. Quick! Quick!"

"Malheur de ma vie!" I heard Desmond groaning in despair.

Under his very nose, just at the moment when Jean-Marie Le Floch was about to throw his harpoon, the white spot suddenly disappeared; the sea had swallowed the dead dolphin in an instant.

At that moment of bitter disappointment I foresaw the sad dénouement of the venture: our shameful return empty-handed to the little harbour amid the sneers of the old fishermen, who would inquire eagerly:—

"What about the porpoises, gentlemen? How many dolphins are you bringing in?"

Assuredly there must be a special Providence which looks after hunters—especially amateur ones. Just as I was about to sit down, in a fit of despair, a flash caught my eye. Less than sixty yards from the bow, where I was standing, and at about half that distance from the dinghy, a school of dolphins had suddenly appeared!

With a quick motion I seized my gun, and as I raised it to my shoulder my friend's admonitions were clean forgotten.

Bang! bang! bang! A positive frenzy of slaughter appeared to have taken hold of me, and I kept on shooting just as long as the magazine of my rifle held out. Meanwhile the two spectators in the dinghy were frantic with joy. Never in my life have I heard so thick a rain of flattering words as they showered upon me then.

THE CABIN-BOY WITH THE LAST DOLPHIN SHOT BY THE AUTHOR.

From a Photograph.

It is quite likely that several of my victims sank while breathing their last, for I really cannot believe that a single one of my dozen shots missed its mark. Be this as it may, however, I had undoubtedly broken the record in dolphin-hunting, for, as a matter of fact, Desmond and the boy succeeded in harpooning and bringing back half-a-dozen of the creatures.

I am satisfied that Desmond is a sincere and trustworthy friend. Nevertheless, I am not prepared to swear that he was not just a little bit envious when we re-entered the harbour a few minutes after noon. Just think of it! He, the veteran hunter, was coming back as he had gone, empty-handed, whereas his pupil—the man to whom he had had to explain what dolphin-hunting was—would be able to bring to-morrow to the commissaire des pêches, the responsible official, six dolphin tails, receiving from that worthy no less a sum than thirty francs! Truly it must have been a sad blow for him.

Later in the afternoon the tide brought in a dying dolphin, too weak to resist the flood and fight its way towards the open sea. Success makes one generous, and I begged of Jean-Marie Le Floch to help himself freely and take possession of the tail of my seventh dolphin, asking him, by way of exchange, to pose as heroically as possible in front of the camera by the side of my last victim.

Such was the début of a Parisian journalist as a dolphin-hunter. Do not ask me if I went out again on a similar quest. My initial exploit has established my reputation as a dead shot, and I do not care to risk the loss of my laurels.

By Major D. G. Prendergast.

The first act of this tragedy of real life took place at a small village a few miles south of Assiout, the chief town of what in the 'eighties was known as Upper Egypt.

It was the end of September, after the Nile had overflowed its banks, and the crops were full and green. The time was evening, and Mahkmoud, one of the principal actors in my story, was sitting on the sun-dried mud wall of one of the shadoofs (irrigation wells) which watered his land. He was at this time a man of some consequence in his village, and for a fellah was counted rich, being the owner of a fair-sized piece of fertile land. He was a man over six feet in height, with the broad sinewy back and shoulders and general physical strength which is the heritage of the fellaheen race of the Nile Valley. His head was large and bullet-shaped, his neck thick-set, his eyes keen and deep-set, while his mouth and chin plainly indicated that he was a man possessed of great determination and of unusually strong passions.

To-night he sat and gazed moodily into the dark, transparent waters of the rushing stream, black thoughts of vengeance crowding into his brain, for he was in sore trouble. Of late the village gossips had been busy connecting the name of his young wife, Rukhia, with one Abdul, the ne'er-do-weel of the place.

In a small community no secret can remain hidden for long, and although, naturally, Mahkmoud would be the last to hear of the scandal, still it was only a matter of time before it reached his ears. Only to-day his friends had hinted to him that his wife was, perhaps, not quite all he thought her to be, and the name of Abdul was at the same time carelessly introduced into the conversation. Now, Abdul had only been back in his native village for six months; for the past seven years, previous to his return, he had been serving his Highness the Khedive as a conscript soldier in the Egyptian army.

The fellaheen of Egypt make docile, tractable soldiers, amenable to discipline, keen on all routine work and peace soldiering, but lacking that élan and dash which are so valuable an asset in time of war. Even in the Egyptian army, however, there are bad characters, and for these there is a special corps—a sort of "Lost Legion." This corps is known as the Discipline Company, and the life led by its members is little better than that of the convict. Their uniform is of a much brighter yellow than khaki, and each man wears an iron ring welded round his right ankle. Abdul had finished the last three years of his service in this ill-starred company. News spreads in a mysterious way from village to village along the hundreds of miles from Cairo to the frontier, and tidings of Abdul's doings during his soldiering career had somehow reached his native village. It was not of a sort which was likely to ensure a warm welcome for him on his return.

During the three years Abdul served out his time in the Discipline Company he became intimately acquainted with many men who were among the scum of the earth. When at length the period of service in this Legion of the Lost was concluded, and its members returned to the world and civil life, as often as not they led lives of crime and infamy which generally brought them within reach of the law, so that most of them ended their days in the convict prisons of Tourah or Tokar, and the very worst of all in the hulk moored in Trinkitat Bay.

Years ago, before the lot of the conscript soldier had fallen on Abdul, Mahkmoud and he had had bitter quarrels over the question of the irrigation of their respective lands, which were adjacent to each other.

The water of the Nile is the very life-blood of the fellaheen, and he who secretly or by stealth diverts the water from his neighbour's land on to his own is guilty of a heinous crime. In days gone by Mahkmoud had more than sufficient reason to suspect that the water from his shadoofs and sakiehs had helped to irrigate his neighbour's land. Many angry words had been exchanged in consequence, and a lifelong feud had been established between the two men.

On the evening of the day this story opens, Mahkmoud sat and brooded over all he had lately heard. Many little incidents in connection with his young wife, to which at the time he had hardly given a passing thought, now seemed to rise up clearly before him. He realized that within the past six months his wife had changed from a pattern of domestic drudgery—the usual lot of a fellah's wife—to a listless, slovenly woman who found work too much for her. Often on his return from a long day's labour in the fields he would find the evening meal not yet ready, the fuel not gathered, and the ziehs (earthen water-jars) only half filled. Even his two little boys, who had hitherto been the joy of their mother's life, did not seem any longer to interest her. Mahkmoud also remembered, now that his jealousy was aroused, how frequently on his return he found his wife out—absent from home at hours when it is unusual for women to be away from their domestic duties. There had even been an occasion when Mahkmoud had come home in the grey dawn from watching his crops by night and scaring away wild animals, when he found her outside the wall which surrounded his house. At the time he thought it strange, but was satisfied with some paltry excuse. Now, all these incidents loomed large before his gaze, and he understood their meaning. To-night he vowed he would take a terrible revenge—revenge upon his hated enemy and on his faithless wife. He would wait and watch; he would bide his time. When it came, the punishment he would mete out to the guilty pair would live in the memory of his village for all time.

About a month before the events just described a stranger arrived in the village, and the first man he met happened to be Mahkmoud. To him the new-comer told a plausible story of how he had worked for the eccentric sawerheen (white travellers) who were always digging amongst the ruins of the ancient temples. Having scraped together enough money to enable him to return to his native village near Wady Halfa, he was on his journey back, when he had fallen amongst thieves and lost all he possessed. He asked Mahkmoud to help him by giving him employment during the season of the crops. For a few pence a day he worked for Mahkmoud—irrigating the fields, watching his flocks of goats by day, and taking his turn in frightening off wild animals from the growing crops at night. He slept in a mud hovel with the goats, inside the sun-baked mud wall which surrounded Mahkmoud's dwelling-houses. He was a taciturn man, with an evil-looking countenance. He spoke to no one, and no one spoke to him. If mentioned in conversation, men referred to him as "ibn el kelp" (son of a dog), and mothers warned their children to flee from his path should they meet him, and on no account whatever to look at him, for he was a man possessed of "the evil eye" and would cast a spell over them.

There was one man in the village, however, who knew this stranger, and the stranger knew him. Abdul and the goatherd had toiled together for many a weary day, with the iron ring on their ankles, in the ranks of the Discipline Company. By tacit consent they never openly recognised one another, and, as far as anyone knew, had never been seen to speak to each other. Both inwardly feared one another and wondered when the other would give him away. As a cat watches a mouse so did this stranger watch Abdul, and it was not very long before he had made himself acquainted with information for which it seemed that either Abdul, his enemy, or Mahkmoud, his master, might think it worth while to pay him handsomely.

One night, when his employer was away keeping watch over his crops, he lay awake in his shed and heard footsteps steal silently past where he lay. Then he heard the door of the walled enclosure quietly opened and shut. Scenting that something was amiss, the goatherd stranger rose and silently went in pursuit. Seeing nothing, he hid himself amongst the mimosa bushes, which grew thick on both sides of the narrow path leading from the door to the river-bank. Presently, from his place of concealment, he beheld two forms walking up from the direction of the river towards the house, and as they slowly passed the spot where he lay hidden the watcher, by the light of the stars, recognised beyond a doubt who the couple were. "Allah is great, and Mohammed is His Prophet," murmured the stranger. "My enemy has now been delivered into my hands. I will demand from the dog the sum of twenty Egyptian pounds, and if he will not give them to me—then my employer knows all."

As the door softly closed, out of the deep shadow of the wall one figure retraced its steps along the path towards the river. It was Abdul. When he arrived at the spot where the path was narrowed by the mimosa bushes, the watcher rose up and, stepping to the path, confronted his man. Speaking in a low, hissing voice, he said, "Abdul, you know me. I am a man of few words, and my words to you this night are few."

Abdul, taken unawares, stood still, trembling, and then, recognising who it was that spoke, answered, "What do you want with me at this hour of night, you offspring of a snake?"

"I will tell you," the stranger replied. "Since my sojourn here I have been employed in watching my master's property; both by day and by night I have driven the noxious animals away. But there is one foul bird of night that I have not driven away, and that, O Abdul, is yourself. Now I will make this compact with you, who are in my power. If you will give me the sum of twenty Egyptian pounds at noon to-morrow I will go forth from here and return no more; and my lips shall be for ever sealed. This I will swear by the beard of the Prophet."

"HE MOVED FORWARD AS THOUGH TO PASS HIS MAN, WHEN THE KNIFE FLASHED DOWNWARDS."

The stranger folded his arms and stood silent, awaiting the reply.

After a pause, which to both men seemed an age, Abdul replied, "And if I refuse this price of blackmail, how then? What can you do—a stranger and a dog? Who, think you, will believe your perjured evidence?"

The goatherd did not immediately reply, and for a space the two men stood confronting each other. Abdul was wearing a gallibeah—a long cloak reaching from the neck to the feet, made of thick cotton stuff, with very large loose sleeves. The stranger was dressed, as he slept, in a cotton shirt and drawers. So it happened that Abdul was able, unseen by his foe, to draw his knife from its sheath. (All the natives of this country carry a big knife in a sheath strapped to the left arm, just above the elbow.)

After a few moments had elapsed the stranger laughed a short, derisive laugh, and, putting out his arm, as if to brush Abdul aside, said, "You fool! At the rising of to-morrow's sun Mahkmoud shall know all." With that he moved forward as though to pass his man, when the knife flashed downwards, and with a choking, gurgling sound, followed by a deep sigh, he sank to the earth, never to rise again!

Abdul's knife had been driven home to the hilt through his heart, and the luckless goatherd's life-blood gushed out in a dark red stream, spreading over the pathway. Abdul, having made sure that there was no chance of life remaining, dragged the corpse into the bushes, and hurriedly returned to the door in the shadow of the wall. Here he imitated the cry of the night-bird—the preconcerted signal between himself and Rukhia. After a pause the door was quietly opened once more, and in the dark shadow Abdul hurriedly told her all that had happened. Before they parted it was arranged as to what should be said and done on the morrow. The blood-stained knife was hidden by the wife in Mahkmoud's sleeping apartment. Her part of the crime was that she should gain possession of her husband's knife after he had sunk into the deep sleep which usually came upon him after a night of watching, and throw it into the river.

The sun had scarcely risen above the line of the sand-hills on the eastern bank before the whole village was astir and excitedly discussing what was undoubtedly a murder. The Yushbashi (captain) of police at Assiout was in due course informed. He and his men arrived later, and after much talking and taking down of numerous notes which had little bearing on the subject he ordered the body of the murdered man to be carried to Assiout, almost half the population of the village accompanying him as well.

ASSIOUT, WHERE MAHKMOUD WAS TRIED FOR HIS LIFE.

From a Photograph.

"The Mudir (the Egyptian governor) shall decide who is the culprit," said the officer.

The police, of course, had to find a culprit, and also procure sufficient evidence to convict him, and this they proceeded to do. As the result of their investigations the unhappy Mahkmoud was placed on his trial for the murder. He pleaded "Not guilty," but otherwise had no defence, admitting that he was absent from home from nine o'clock on the night of the murder until about half-past four the next morning. The police produced evidence that the murdered man and Mahkmoud were not on good terms, that Mahkmoud's shoes were covered with blood, and that they exactly fitted the footsteps on the path leading from the scene of the murder to the house. It was also hinted that there was an intrigue between the stranger and the wife. Finally, the prosecution produced the blood-stained knife and sheath, which had been discovered in a rat-hole in Mahkmoud's sleeping apartment. In addition, two important witnesses were called. One was Abdul, who swore that on the fatal night he was watching his crops some five hundred yards from the spot where the body was found, and heard voices in angry altercation some two hours before sunrise.

Rukhia, Mahkmoud's wife, then appeared, to everyone's astonishment, and told a graphic story of how she was awakened some little time before sunrise, and heard the voices of the stranger and her husband in a heated argument. Mahkmoud then returned, much excited and swearing fiercely. In the morning she noticed the blood-stained shoes and missed the knife from the shelf where it was usually put. Later it was found by the police who searched the house.

Mahkmoud, in spite of his protestations of innocence, was found guilty—mainly on the circumstantial evidence of his wife and Abdul. He was sentenced to death, which sentence was subsequently commuted to penal servitude for the term of his natural life.

It would take too long to follow this miserable but innocent convict through the weary years he spent working out his awful doom. To be able to realize what an Egyptian convict's life is like one must at least have seen the prisons and the hulk. The first five years were spent in the prison at Tourah. The very fact that this man—so strong willed and passionate by nature—was innocent drove him to the verge of frenzy, and having become known as a dangerous and violent convict he found himself confined first in a solitary cell, and then drafted to the prison at Tokar. Here he was compelled to associate with the very worst criminals in Egypt; and, breaking the rules again, he was sentenced to undergo the remainder of his imprisonment on board the hulk in Trinkitat Bay.

It is enough to say that this bay is on the Red Sea littoral, a terrible place for any living man, white or black, to have to spend his life. It was in this hulk that the writer saw Mahkmoud. Escape from this floating jail is practically impossible. It is moored some seven hundred yards from the shore, and the water teems with sharks, who do not allow much to escape their observant eyes as they continually cruise round the hulk.

Many times poor wretches doomed to this living grave have escaped from Tokar Prison. It is easy, for the prison is only built of mud and wattle, and the warders are very careless. But up to the time I shall describe later no prisoner had been known to get far away.

Nomad tribes of Somalis and Arabs (the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies" of the days of our fierce fights at El Teb and Tamai, Tokar and McNeill's Zareba) live and move all round this part of the bush, occupying the few wells there are, right up to the Erkoweit hills. The Government give the head-men of these tribes substantial rewards for each fugitive they capture and bring in, so that the convict's chance of escape is infinitesimal. They must go to these tribes for food and water, or die of hunger and thirst in the desert.

The Nile is the very life and soul of the Egyptian fellah, and the captives of the Kings of Assyria, who sat down by the waters of Babylon and wept, could not have longed more passionately for their Jewish homes than did these poor outcasts to see once more their native villages and taste "the sweet waters of the Nile."

"If I can but escape and reach those distant hills," they told themselves, "then I can easily walk over them. There may still be a few miles of desert sand to cross, but it will surely at length bring me once again to the great beloved river, our Father Nile." This remark has been made to the writer times without number when visiting the convict gangs at work in the course of his official duties. But one and all of the hapless wretches reckoned without the far-stretching, arid sands or the prowling nomads, ever on the watch for fugitives.

One hot, still, starlight night, towards the end of the seventh year of his penal servitude, whilst the sentry was snugly rolled up in his blanket, Mahkmoud slipped overboard from the hulk and swam shorewards. He had seen the sharks cruising slowly round the hulk for many a long day, but, as he said in after years when telling the story of his escape, "Better become food for sharks than endure a living death." As luck would have it, he reached the beach safely, and after wandering towards the distant hills all that day and night he was overcome with hunger and thirst and, resigning himself to his fate, lay down under the sparse shadow of a thorn-bush to die. But Providence decreed otherwise. He was found by a party of raiding Baggara horsemen, who carried him off to Adharama, the head-quarters of the celebrated Dervish Emir, Osman Digna.

For the next two years Mahkmoud was a household slave in Osman Digna's house. While he was there the Khalifa sent for his Governor of the Eastern Sudan, and Mahkmoud accompanied his master. So once more, after nine long years, he again set eyes on the River Nile.

Even now it was almost impossible to escape, for the wild Arab tribes who at this time held sway over the country from Sarras to Fashoda loathed and despised the Egyptian fellah, and no one would help him. After three more years of bondage, however, spent between the Eastern Sudan and Omdurman, Mahkmoud escaped, joined a caravan which was bringing gum and ostrich feathers to the Egyptian frontier, and at last found himself on the Egyptian Nile at Assouan.

By this time "the murder," as it was generally referred to, had almost been forgotten by the villagers. If it was mentioned at all it was as an historical event, generally to fix the date of some other event which had occurred before or since.

The people, too, had almost forgotten Mahkmoud's existence; he was either dead or as good as dead. Abdul, in due course, had taken Rukhia to his harem as a wife, and she was the mother of his three children. After Mahkmoud's transportation his brother, as is usually the case when a widow re-marries, had taken over the care of his nephews, together with his brother's land and property.

It was again September, and the hour before sunset, when the women of the village had gone to draw water for their households. Abdul was sitting in his house, and his three children were asleep in the adjoining room. Suddenly a shadow was thrown across the room. Abdul turned quickly, half rising as he did so, to see who it was. But in an instant strong hands gripped his throat, and a voice, to him a terrible one, hoarsely hissed into his ear, "It is I, Mahkmoud, who after many years have not forgotten you!" Then a knife flashed for one moment before his terrified eyes, and in another second Abdul lay dead upon the floor, dead as his victim had lain in the path that fateful night twelve years before!

Later Rukhia returned. The room was almost dark and, before she realized that anything out of the ordinary had occurred, unseen hands seized her from the darkness and a voice, as it were of the dead, said, "It is your husband Mahkmoud who speaks to you, you false and perjured woman. Go now to where Abdul has gone!"

At dawn next day Mahkmoud walked calmly into the police-station at Assiout. Here he asked to see the Yushbashi of police, and when brought before him said, very quietly, "My name is Mahkmoud. Twelve years ago I was, through the false and perjured testimony of my wife and her lover, convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Now I am a murderer. Arrest me. I have spoken."

"IT IS YOUR HUSBAND MAHKMOUD WHO SPEAKS TO YOU, YOU FALSE AND PERJURED WOMAN."

For a second time Mahkmoud was tried for his life in Assiout, found guilty on his own confession, and sentenced to death. His Highness the Khedive once again commuted his sentence to penal servitude for life.

After five years, during which Mahkmoud's character was exemplary, he received a free pardon, and returned once more to his native village, where he died, an old and broken man. There is an Arab proverb, "If once you have tasted the sweet waters of the Nile, you will return to drink of them again."

By Annie Ker.

By Isaac Motes.

The forty years from 1855 to 1895 were strenuous years for me. A mere boy almost, just turned eighteen, I emigrated to Texas in the former year, and being a good shot with rifle and revolver, and owning a good horse, I joined the Ranger force, having nothing else to do. For two score of eventful years I spent the best part of every day in the saddle, taking part in some of the most dramatic, tragic, and nerve-trying episodes of frontier life.

Those were exciting times indeed. There was but little law in West Texas during the first half of those forty years, and the Rangers exercised far more power and authority than at the present day. The State was full of savage Indians and renegade Mexicans, as well as "bad men" from the other States of the American Union.

The Rangers were chosen with very great care. A man must be brave, of good character, preferably unmarried, a good shot, a good horseman, and must be possessed of a horse worth not less than a hundred dollars. He must be absolutely fearless of danger, and prepared to give his life at any time in enforcing the law and in the protection of the settlers on the frontier and their families. The Rangers had to deal with wild, vicious, lawless characters and criminals, Indians, Mexicans, and outlaws from other States—all of them men who would fight to the death rather than surrender. Of necessity, therefore, the Rangers had to carry things with a high hand, often passing sentence on captured criminals and executing them without the ceremony of a trial.

From 1855 to 1870 the Rangers were chiefly employed in ridding Texas of the Comanche Indians, incidentally keeping Mexican desperadoes from crossing the border and protecting the stage-coaches which carried the United States mail, in all of which work they had the hearty assistance of the United States troops stationed at the different forts in Western Texas. Every Ranger felt it his duty to live up to the reputation which the corps had gained for fearlessness and untiring perseverance in hunting down criminals. Thus it was that the Texas Rangers have been for generations the most dreaded set of law officers in the South-West among malefactors.

In the year 1856, soon after coming to Texas, I was at Fort Inge, in the employ of the United States Government as a scout. That year a mail route was opened between San Antonio and El Paso, six hundred miles distant. The contract for delivering the mail was let to Captain William Wallace, an old Texas Ranger and Mexican War veteran, and six mounted guards were furnished by the Government to accompany the coach. The Rangers were generally selected for this dangerous duty because they knew the State better than the United States cavalry. For two years I was one of these guards. Our route lay through the wildest part of the State, where we were exposed to attacks from Indians and outlaws all the way. We had numberless fights with Indians and many narrow escapes. Two of the guards were killed during the year 1856 by Indians, who shot them from behind clumps of cactus. We rode close behind the mail coach, to prevent the Indians cutting us off from the stage, and capturing the loose mules which we always took along for service in case of accident.

The prettiest fight we had with redskins on any of these trips was at the crossing of Devil's River. This is a deep, rocky stream, with very high bluffs, a good place for Indians to make an attack. The west bank was much higher than the east bank, and crowned with trees and large boulders. We stopped on the east bank one day at noon to eat our lunch, and were just ready to cross and continue our journey when twenty-seven Indians attacked us from the west bluffs, keeping themselves well hidden among the rocks.

Captain Wallace ordered us to hold our fire, knowing that the savages would presently get bolder and come out where we could see them better. Thinking we were cowards, they soon began to show themselves, and the chief was heard to say that they would come down and scalp the white men, as we were afraid to fight. We were all good shots and had good rifles, which we kept ready for instant use. As the Indians made preparations to descend the bank, Captain Wallace made us creep under the stage as if frightened at the arrows which came down from the bluffs. The redskins, seeing this, came out into the open and bunched together in plain view. Captain Wallace now gave the signal to fire, and his own rifle cracked, followed instantly by our six, and five Indians fell and rolled down the bank a short distance among the rocks. The remainder scattered at once, and nothing was seen of them for some time. They were hidden behind the rocks close by their dead, but were afraid to risk showing themselves. Our one volley had given them enough of us, and they were anxious to leave, but, according to their custom, they wished to carry their dead warriors with them.

"FIVE INDIANS FELL AND ROLLED DOWN THE BANK."

Presently we saw a lasso thrown from behind a rock and fall among the dead Indians; the survivors were trying to rope them and drag the bodies to cover. They threw many times, and succeeded in catching and dragging them all in except one. This man had fallen farther down the bank than the others, and his arms hung over the bluff, so that he was hard to lasso. Loop after loop came down, and finally he was caught under the arms and dragged away. The Indians did not show themselves again, and at last we harnessed up the mules, turning back to Fort Clark to get reinforcements, as we feared an ambuscade by a larger force. During the fight a number of arrows hit the stage and stuck in, and we allowed them to remain where they were during many trips. They were examined with a great deal of curiosity and awe by Eastern visitors whenever we came into San Antonio.

In the autumn of 1870 a band of Comanches came raiding near Bastrop, Texas. Close to this town lived a man named Craig, who was the owner of a pair of fine grey horses, which, with many others, the Indians stole. Craig was greatly distressed about the loss of his team, and called on his neighbours to help him recover them, and quite a number responded, including several friendly Indians. In the neighbourhood lived a Tonkaway Indian named John. He was a good trailer and fighter, and immediately joined the party, following the trail of the Comanches very rapidly.

On the afternoon of the first day out we discovered the robbers camped in a ravine. They were cooking meat, and it was the smoke of their camp fire which led us to their position. We promptly charged, but the Indians discovered us in time to make their escape, leaving one of Craig's horses behind. We had ridden all day with nothing to eat, so we at once proceeded to help ourselves to the roast meat left by the fugitives. While thus engaged we heard a yell, and, looking round, saw a solitary warrior on a hill, mounted on Craig's other horse. Seeing us watching him, the Indian yelled again and began wheeling the horse about in a circle. He had a brand-new bridle on this horse—probably obtained from a looted store in Bastrop—and as he wheeled his mount rapidly the metal on the bridle glistened in the sunshine, although the Indian must have been a quarter of a mile away. There was a man in the party named Bates, who was riding a very fast horse, and Tonkaway John said if Bates would let him have the horse he would catch the Comanche and bring back his scalp, together with Craig's horse. "All right," replied Bates, "but don't you lose my horse."

When the Comanche saw John coming he galloped off across the valley, yelling defiance, and no doubt thinking he could easily get away. When he saw the Tonkaway gaining on him, however, he began whipping and kicking furiously, but it was all of no avail—Bates's horse steadily overtook the grey. The Comanche now strung his bow, and a battle with arrows commenced between the two red men, but the hostile Indian was soon stuck full of arrows and at the mercy of John, who rode quickly up alongside of him. They must have been fully a mile and a half from us, but there was not a bush or a shrub to obstruct the view, and in the bright light of the setting sun and the clear, thin atmosphere of the prairie we could see them as plainly as though within two hundred yards of them.

The Comanche, badly wounded, now threw away his bow and began to beg for his life. John, however, paid no attention to him, but grabbed him by his long, coarse hair, pulled him from his horse, and, dismounting, killed and scalped him with his long knife. Remounting, he came back yelling triumphantly, leading Craig's horse with one hand and waving the scalp with the other. Craig had now recovered both his horses, so he was profuse in his thanks, and never finished talking about the bravery of Tonkaway John.

In a fight we had with Indians on the Upper Brazos River, in the year 1876, we captured a big Comanche chief named Black Wolf. We took him to Fort Griffin, intending to turn him over to the colonel commanding, but he refused to have anything to do with the prisoner. As he was one of the most bloodthirsty Indians on the frontier, however, the officer recommended us to shoot him. None of us fancied the job, and as some friendly Tonkaways, who had been in this fight, had a special grudge against the Comanche, he was turned over to them to be killed, although we little thought at the time how they proposed to carry out the death-sentence.

There were about twenty of the Tonkaways, armed with bows and arrows, and they took the chief—a Herculean fellow—and turned him loose in front of the fort. Then they began shooting at him from all sides. They had to be careful, however, not to miss him and shoot some of their own men, so for this reason it was not safe to shoot very strongly. The first arrow that struck the big Indian he pulled out, and rushed about here and there with it, trying to stab his enemies as they shot at him. The greater the number of arrows that struck him the more furious he became, and the faster he ran the more difficult it was for the archers to hit him. The Comanche was tall, with long, powerful arms, and could reach far with his curious weapon, and very soon it began to look as though he would put the whole band of Tonkaways to flight with only an arrow. They rushed around frantically, uttering shrill cries of rage, trying hard to kill the big chief, but being careful to keep out of reach of his long arms. While this went on we stood around the gate of the fort with the soldiers, watching the absorbingly interesting fight. The Comanche was soon stuck full of arrows, but they did not penetrate deeply and did not interfere in the least with his fighting powers. Presently he had most of the Tonkaways on the run, those in front trying to get out of the way of the arrow in his hands, those at his back and sides endeavouring to kill him without wounding any of their comrades. Springing this way and that he wounded several of the Tonkaways, and our captain began to fear he would kill some of them, so the colonel at the fort sent several soldiers out to drive the Tonkaways away. The Comanche was afterwards shot. Spite of the chief's terrible record, one could not help admiring his pluck, and his last battle was the bravest fight for life I have ever seen put up by a lone Indian.

"THEY RUSHED AROUND FRANTICALLY, TRYING HARD TO KILL THE BIG CHIEF."

During the time I was a Ranger, most of the Indians in Texas, whether hostile or friendly, were cannibals. The hostiles were probably greater cannibals than the friendlies, as association with white men had a restraining influence on the latter, but we had no opportunity to observe the hostile Indians as we could the friendlies. The Indians friendly to us, and who aided us at times in our wars with the Comanches, were the Tehuacanas, the Tonkaways, the Karankawas, and the Lipans; the Tonkaways and Lipans were especially friendly. But they were all more or less cannibals by instinct and practice, and it was only on account of the restraining influence of the white men that they did not indulge this revolting practice more often. No matter how friendly they were to us, and no matter how emphatically they were forbidden to eat their enemies, there were times when it seemed the Indians simply must give way to their natural appetites and indulge in a cannibal feast, followed by a scalp-dance.

Some few of the Ranger captains were not so strict in this regard as their colleagues, allowing the Indian allies to do more or less as they pleased with their slain enemies after a battle in which they had shown unusual bravery. But while our captain was glad to have the assistance of the friendlies, he drew the line sharply when it came to allowing them to indulge their cannibal instincts while under his command. In 1879 there was a fight, known as the Battle of Lost Valley, between our company of Rangers and the Comanches, where we were assisted by some friendly Tehuacanas and Tonkaways. The Comanches outnumbered us four to one, and the fight was hot and furious. The friendly Indians became much excited, and it was hard to restrain them. The Comanches were routed after many fierce hand-to-hand encounters. One of their braves was especially daring, wounding four of the Tehuacanas before he dropped dead—shot full of arrows, but fighting as long as he could cling to his horse. After the battle we were too busy attending to the wounds of our men to give attention to the friendlies until our captain noticed a pair of Indian hands tied to the saddle of one of the Tehuacana braves. He was the Indian who had finally killed the brave Comanche, and his trophies were the hands of the dead warrior.

"What are you going to do with those?" asked our captain, sternly, pointing to the gory souvenirs.

"Goin' to eat 'em. Maybe so make me brave," replied the Tehuacana.

"You rascal! If you don't drop them instantly I'll have you shot," thundered the captain, and very reluctantly the Tehuacana relinquished the hands.

The Tehuacanas say that the first member of their race was brought into the world by a wolf. "How am I to live?" asked the Tehuacana. "The same as we do," said the wolf, and that is just about how they have lived. The braver the enemy they slew in battle, the more liable they were to eat him, or, at least, want to do so, believing that this act would add to their own pluck.

After 1875 Indians became very scarce in Western Texas. They had been removed to the Indian Territory, north of Texas, partly by the United States soldiers and the Rangers, and partly by the gradual and inevitable advance of civilization. They were located on reservations in the Territory, and a strenuous endeavour was made by the Indian Agents and the United States troops to keep them there, but it was impossible to prevent small bands from crossing the border and descending suddenly and unexpectedly upon the scattered settlements in Texas to steal horses, loot stores, burn houses, and murder defenceless women and children. As the number of Indians grew smaller, however, they confined themselves more and more to prowling around on dark nights and stealing horses. Ostensibly they were now at peace with the white men, but having been run out of Texas mainly by the Rangers, the grievance rankled in their bosoms, and they occasionally came back in small squads and straggling parties on horse-stealing expeditions. If they could get away with a man's saddle-horse without fighting the owner they preferred to do so, but if necessary they were ready to fight.

The white settlers were so aggravated by having their horses stolen that they resorted to all sorts of expedients to keep the Indians from getting them. The savages, however, kept up their thieving excursions till there were no horses left in some neighbourhoods, especially near rivers, down which the Indians came from the north and north-west, under cover of the timber along the waterside. If they could not get away with a horse, they would kill it rather than leave it alive to its owner. The settlers built strong log stables, with stout doors, which they fastened from the inside, climbing out themselves through a hole in the roof. Still, with wonderful cunning, the Indians got the horses, or killed them by shooting them with arrows through the cracks between the logs.

A friend of mine with whom I often stopped in South-West Texas told me how, on one occasion, the Indians got two fine horses from him when there seemed absolutely no chance for them to be stolen. He had a stable made of heavy oak logs, with a stout door fastened by a strong wooden pin, which one of his grown sons drove in with a maul on this particular evening, having seen Indian signs in the neighbourhood that day. Then the settler and his sons went to sleep in the hay-loft, under the same roof, with their loaded guns beside them. Not a sound disturbed them during the night, but when morning came the stable door was open and the horses gone. The Indians had found how the door was fastened and, by steady perseverance, succeeded in working the pin out. Probably the job took them hours, but they had plenty of time.

Old frontiersmen are the most superstitious class of people in the world. They all believe in omens and portents, things that forebode death and disaster. Their lives are spent amid dangerous surroundings, and they are suspicious of everything that seems unusual or ominous, and often attach uncanny significance to things which would make no impression upon the ordinary citizen living in a peaceful community.

One of the surest signs of approaching death to the old plainsman and Indian fighter is the scream of the "death-bird." The "death-bird" is supposed to fly about at night or hover near white men or women and children to give warning of the approach of Indians, wild beasts, or other great dangers. Its cry is the most piercing, nerve-racking wail that ever smote upon human ears. There is an almost human expression in it, as though it were the scream of a woman or child in mortal fear; and there is no mistaking its note among all the other night-birds of the plains. It never warns people unless there is no possible escape by other means, and woe to the man who hears its cry and heeds it not. As far as I have been able to discover no human eye has ever looked upon this mysterious "death-bird," for it flies only on dark nights, never uttering its warning at any other time, and the folk it honours with its attentions are thrown into such a state of fear, expectancy, and dread that curiosity as to the appearance of the bird is far from their thoughts. It is supposed, however, to be an owl, black as midnight, with very long wings and a large head and mouth, which superstitious people who claim to have seen the creature declare to be strangely like the head and mouth of a human being.

Almost every old Ranger and frontiersman has a weird story to tell as to the "death-bird" having saved the life of someone or other from Indians or outlaws. Most of the stories, however, are second-hand narratives, and I found when they had been sifted down they had almost always happened to someone other than the narrator. It was extremely rare that they were personal experiences, and they generally happened in some distant part of the State at some remote time. I had been a Ranger twenty years before I met a man, in whom I had the utmost confidence, who had a personal experience to relate wherein the "death-bird" had warned him of danger and saved his life. Up to this time I had doubted the truthfulness of these stories, and scouted the idea that such a bird existed. About seven years after this my friend, in company with two other Rangers, was ambushed and killed one night by renegade Mexicans down on the Rio Grande border, and on this occasion there was no "death-bird" to save his life, so I was still a little dubious.

MR. ISAAC MOTES, WHO HERE RELATES SOME OF THE MOST EXCITING EXPERIENCES HE HAD DURING FORTY YEARS' SERVICE AS A TEXAS RANGER.

From a Photograph.

Three years later, however, I met with an adventure which removed the last vestige of doubt from my mind. In the autumn of 1880, with five other Rangers, under command of a lieutenant, I was stationed at Eagle Pass, on the Rio Grande. About the middle of November I was sent to San Antonio with important despatches for the colonel commanding. I was selected for the trip because I had the fleetest horse of any man in the force, a big black thoroughbred, for which I had paid three hundred dollars when he was only two years old, and at a time, too, when horseflesh was cheap. For three years I had ridden this horse daily on all our scouting expeditions. He had borne me safely through many dangers, and I loved him almost as if he had been a human being.

I left San Antonio on my return one morning at eleven o'clock and rode seventy miles by nine o'clock that night, arriving at the Nueces River and Turkey Creek bottoms. The weather became threatening in the afternoon, and at night dense clouds obscured the light from the stars, and as there was no moon it became so appallingly black when we entered the thick timber of the "bottoms" that I could not see an inch before my eyes, and even my horse could not find his way around the trees, bushes, and fallen timber. There was no rain, no lightning, no thunder, and no wind—simply a thick pall of clouds which seemed to rest upon the tops of the trees—while a curious soft murmuring sound seemed to come from the bottom lands. I would have stopped immediately upon reaching the timber, but I had heard that afternoon that Indians had been seen along the river within the past twenty-four hours, and I had noticed the trail of what I believed to be Indian ponies crossing my road about six o'clock. So somehow or other I felt my way through the pitch-darkness till we were perhaps three hundred yards from the edge of the Nueces bottom. Then, dismounting, I took off my saddle and, letting down my lariat, looped the end around my left wrist so that my horse could graze, and yet waken me if he got too far away. Lying down under a large live-oak with my head on the saddle, I soon went to sleep with the subdued murmuring sound still echoing in my ears. I intended to rest a few hours, until the clouds lifted, and then continue my journey to a settlement twenty miles farther on. The tree under which I lay was a very large one, and I found next morning that the top limbs were dead, the tree having been struck by lightning some years before.

I must have slept for some time, but it seemed to me my eyes had barely closed when a piercing, wailing scream in the tree above me brought me instantly to my feet—a scream so startling that it seemed to vibrate every nerve in my body. Even if I had never heard so much as a whisper as to the peculiar character of the "death-bird's" cry I should have recognised it, for never before or since have I heard such a wild, foreboding shriek. The cry was long and wailing—the first note sharp, like the crack of a six-shooter, then trailing off into a long-drawn-out, ominous wail. The bird was doubtless sitting on one of the dead limbs above me, and at the first note of alarm had flown off across the bottom, the cry becoming more weird and portentous the farther away it got.

I took notice of this in a kind of subconscious way, for my faculties were strung to their highest tension to discover the danger that I was convinced menaced me. Even before the cry died away I heard my horse drawing in its breath in a sort of sob, as though uneasy and somewhat excited. Then I noticed that the lariat looped to my wrist was drawn suspiciously tight. This impression had hardly formed in my mind before the lariat suddenly drew a little tighter, then slackened perceptibly. Instantly it occurred to me that an Indian was out there with my horse, that he had the lariat in his hand, and was perhaps running his hand along it towards me to untie it, thinking it was tied to a stake, when, having got near enough to hear me as I sprang to my feet, he cut the line with a knife, causing the momentary tightness, followed by the slackening.

The thought that an Indian was making off with my valuable horse so filled me with fury that I was driven almost to desperation, and forgot for an instant the necessity for caution. Slipping the looped lariat off my wrist, I drew my six-shooter and crept as softly as I could out in the direction of my horse. I could still hear him sniffing out there in the brush, and thought I heard him stepping among sticks as though he was being led away. This so enraged me that I pushed through the brush faster and more recklessly than ever, gripping my six-shooter, though I realized I was doing a foolhardy thing, for an Indian can see in the dark much better than a white man. Still, it seemed impossible for me to resist the impulse to pursue my horse.

I had groped my way perhaps twenty feet when I stepped on to some dry twigs, which cracked sharply under my weight. Simultaneously I heard the ominous throb of a heavy bow-string, and as I ducked my head, quick as thought, an arrow took off my hat and tore through my hair, scorching my scalp as though a red-hot iron rod had been laid across my head. Upon this my horse became so excited that he began to rear, plunge, and snort. I stood irresolute, fearing to fire in that direction lest I should kill the animal. From the sound the horse was making I believed he was pulling considerably on the halter and backing towards me. While I stood there, in a fever of uncertainty, I again heard the dull hum of the bow-string and ducked to avoid the arrow, but instead of its coming toward me there was a wild, almost human, cry from my horse, and he reared and fell heavily to the ground, then staggered to his feet again and came towards me, uttering the most agonizing cry that ever tortured human ears. When perhaps ten feet from me he again fell and lay still, moaning with pain. A mad fury of rage possessed me at my beauty's agony, and I leaped blindly forward in the darkness, not caring whether I lived or died if only I could kill that brute of an Indian. I made towards where I heard my horse fall, feeling for him with my left hand, and just as I touched him I heard once more the twang of the Indian's bow-string, and again an arrow whizzed at me, tearing away the lobe of my ear. In ducking this time I sank to my knees and found myself between my dead horse's fore and hind legs as he lay with his belly towards me, with my left hand resting on his body. I marked carefully the direction of the bow-string's hum, and as my knees touched the ground I raised myself up and fired twice in quick succession, afterwards sinking down low again behind the horse's body.

There was no sound from the redskin to lead me to believe I had struck him, so I crouched down between the feet of my dead horse, gripping my six-shooter, expecting the Indian or Indians to be upon me every minute. But minutes and hours passed, and still I heard not the faintest sound from that direction. Nevertheless, I dared not move, but spent the remainder of the night where I was, protected by the animal's body.

As the grey light of coming day began to steal into the bottom I peered anxiously around me, searching for signs of the Indian, either dead or alive. I could see nothing of him through the bushes and vines, so when it became light I got up and walked cautiously in the direction from which the arrows had come. About fifty yards away I discovered traces of blood, and following these for a short distance I found where the Indian had lain down and dragged himself, leaving a plainly discernible trail. Following this for about three hundred yards farther I came to a tiny little gully about a foot deep. In one place the limbs of a low tree overhung it, and here the gully appeared to be nearly full of leaves. Looking about, I saw what I took to be an arrow sticking up above the leaves. I approached very cautiously, watching for the slightest movement, but there was none, and the arrow still stuck out at an angle of about forty-five degrees. Six-shooter in hand I drew nearer, and found an Indian lying there dead in the gully. It was obvious what had happened. Becoming too weak to crawl, my enemy had stretched himself in this gully, raked the dead leaves over his body, covering himself from view very artfully, and then, with bow and arrow, ready to shoot me if I had followed him and overtook him while he was yet alive, he had lain there, bearing the pain of his wounds with stoical fortitude, until death came to his release.

By F. Harris Deans.

Other travellers may have experienced adventures in inns. They may have been awakened—many declare they have—in the early hours of the morning by the creaking of the stairs; have listened, frozen with horror, to the whispered colloquy between the villainous innkeeper and his equally villainous wife outside his door; have heard the stealthy sharpening of a knife. I admit that such adventures may have befallen other wayfarers, but that anyone has lived through a night at an inn as strange as that spent by me I am unable to believe.

MR. F. HARRIS DEANS, WHO HERE RELATES AN AMUSING EXPERIENCE THAT BEFELL HIM IN HUNGARY.

From a Photograph.

The only person—at one time I had regarded him as a friend—to whom I have hitherto nerved myself to recount my experience regarded it as an excuse—nay, more than an excuse, an incentive—for mirth. The thoughtful reader, however, who now becomes acquainted with my story will, I feel confident, place himself in imagination in my position, so that his perusal of this article will, at all events, enable him to refrain from ribald laughter.

I will confess at the outset that my knowledge of Hungarian is limited to some dozen words. The time of day I will pass with you in the most fluent Ungarisch; if you, enraptured at my accent, wish to continue the conversation, and will confine yourself to remarking that the weather is hot or cold (you must not say warm or chilly), I will agree, or disagree, with you—curtly, maybe, but nevertheless I will do so; if you are thirsty I will order you wine, beer, or water; your hunger I will satisfy with bread. Further, I can amuse, instruct, and elevate you by counting up to ten.

The reader who himself possesses some knowledge of Hungarian will share with me my admiration of my linguistic accomplishments. It takes some years of patient efforts for an Hungarian himself to learn his own language. I feel confident, had I been so fortunate (I am writing this in the heart of Hungary, and the inhabitants are an impulsive people) as to have been born an Hungarian, I should have borne dumbness with equanimity.

All this—though, to the broad-minded, it excuses my ignorance of the language—does not alter the fact that I was fully aware beforehand that in certain regions of the country I should not be able to enjoy heart-to-heart talks with the people. Even in England there are whole villages which speak no tongue save their native one. I did not, however, anticipate that my ignorance would land me in the weird adventure here set forth.

In a town, however, such as Arad I did not anticipate that there would exist one miserable, imbecile, uneducated incompetent—who, alas, only knows my opinion of him through a far too polite interpreter—who spoke only his own language, and that this one disreputable outcast and disgrace to an educated nation should cross my path.

I arrived in Arad—a town of about sixty thousand people, lying near the Roumanian border—at about 2 a.m. I had not slept for over thirty-six hours, and I was so tired that I would have shared a bed with a Roumanian peasant. Can I say more?

At the nearest hotel I pulled myself together and demanded, in what was, under the circumstances, very tolerable German, a bedroom. There was no difficulty about this; there was a room vacant. Gladly I filled in particulars of myself on the Police Form as the law demands.

"Are you an Austrian or a German?" inquired the porter.

I glanced at him sharply; I was in no mood for sarcasm. Besides, if it came to that, his German wasn't of much account. But no; his face was gravity itself; courteous curiosity was its only expression. I pointed—I had no mind to risk my reputation as a linguist by further speech—to the form I had just filled in.

"London," he read. "So, ein Englander?"

"Ja," said I.

I got into bed at 2.30 a.m., and immediately fell last asleep.

"ONCE MORE THE IDIOT MET ME WITH AN AMIABLE GRIN."

Some time later I awoke and sat up with a start. Thump, thump, thump—blows rained steadily, monotonously, on my door. I switched on the light; it was 3.30 a.m. Springing out of bed, I threw open my door. The interrupter of my repose, apparently resting against it after his exertions, fell forward into the room and trod on my bare toes. I called him, in German, a clumsy donkey, and demanded to know what all of the noise was about. By way of reply he grinned at me amiably—as if we had a little joke in common—and promptly retreated.

Puzzled by his behaviour, I looked along the corridor. Everything appeared to be all right, so I retired again to bed.

Seven minutes, by my watch, had I been sleeping dreamlessly, when again that tattoo was beaten on my door. I nearly choked with anger, and, throwing off my quilt, I dashed madly to the door.

Once more the idiot met me with an amiable grin.

"You confounded fool!" I roared, shaking my fist in his beaming face; "what do you think you're doing? Even if this is an Hungarian game, do you think this is the time to start teaching it to a stranger? Your intentions may be good; I admit I am lonely; perhaps in the afternoon I may be glad to play some simple little game with you. But not now. Do you understand? Not at three in the morning. Get!"

My vivacity appeared to cause him much satisfaction, and he again took his departure.

I returned to bed.

This time I didn't even succeed in getting to sleep; he must have been waiting round the corner. Once more he beat upon my door.

I made no attempt to speak to him; I could not have expressed my feelings even in English; I seized him by the shoulders (luckily he was a good-tempered man) and shook him. Apparently, judging from the sound, I had shaken him to pieces. I looked on the ground and saw that he had dropped—my boots! This restored my speech. "Boots!" I shrieked, as he picked them up and politely offered them to me. "I want peace, not boots. Have I as much as mentioned boots to you? Does any sane man want his boots at three o'clock? Do you think I sleep in them? Do you imagine that's what's keeping me awake, not having them?"

I think it was the man's perfect placidity that made me so mad. Had he lost his temper, had he only sworn in Hungarian—a language admirably suited for the art, by the way—I should have felt better. But no; he maintained a perfect silence; he appeared to regard me as a lunatic on whom speech would be wasted. Realizing at last, however, that I was not yearning at that moment for my boots, he put them on one side—to be introduced again at a more suitable moment. Next he pointed to my pyjamas.

"What about them?" I demanded, furiously. "What's wrong with them? Is it the colour, or what?" As a matter of fact they looked rather neat—a sort of chocolate with blue stripes. In any case, I didn't want to be awakened in the middle of the night to have a boots tell me he didn't admire my pyjamas. They weren't meant to be admired; they were intended to be slept in. I wished he would realize that.

"Perhaps you would rather I wore a night-shirt," I continued, as he remained speechless. "Well, I'm not going to. I'm an Englishman, Englander, Angol—do you understand?—and I'll wear what I like. Now I'm going to bed again. If I so much as hear you breathe near my door before nine o'clock I'll shoot you." With that I retired and slammed the door.

I was half-way towards the bed when the door opened and boots inserted his head. Then a hand followed, and he scratched his head in a puzzled manner. Words, I felt, were wasted on him. In as dignified a manner as possible I climbed into bed and switched off the light hanging over it. Immediately boots turned on the light near the door. I sat up, indignant.

"Look here," I said, "I've had enough of it." I raised a cautioning forefinger. "I will not play games with you. Understand that, once for all. Go and wake somebody else up—somebody who knows these national customs of yours. I'm speaking seriously now. When I engaged this room I engaged it to sleep in. Sleep! Do you understand? It's an English custom. You're wasting your time trying to talk to me. I don't understand your language, and I'm not going to learn—not immediately, anyhow. Now, go! Go, you——!" As I rushed at him he turned and fled, and, locking the door, for the fifth time that night I got into bed.

I was by this time in such a mood that I was awakened with a start at four o'clock by the sound of whispering outside my door. Without stopping to consider how I should dispose of the corpse of my intended victim, I again vacated my bed. This time boots was accompanied by another person, who turned out to be the manager.

"I hev' come to apologize," he remarked, blandly.

I struggled to regain my composure.

"This is too good of you," I said, warmly. "Come in and take a seat."

He misunderstood my sarcasm and promptly entered, accompanied by the boots.

"Zere have been a leetle mistake," he continued, with an amused smile I made no effort to share.

"It's more than kind of you," I said, gratefully, "to come and wake me up at four in the morning to explain it."

He bowed modestly. Personal convenience, he assured me earnestly, was as nothing to an act of courtesy.

Then he explained. It appeared that the previous occupier of my room had been a German, who had intended to take his departure at three o'clock that morning. At the last moment, however, he had changed his mind, and had left at 11 p.m. Unfortunately, the porter, whom he had desired to instruct the boots to awaken him, had forgotten to cancel the order.

"Und he had sayed he vos a ver' heafy sleeper!" he wound up. "So you see, it vos a mutual misunderstanding. Nicht was?"

"This," I said, "makes everything satisfactory. Now, if you don't mind, I should like to go to sleep. I have to catch a train at ten. Perhaps you will see that I am not awakened before nine?"

When he had impressed this on the penitent boots, we parted, with mutual expressions of regard.

The boots—no doubt in a well-meant desire to make up for his earlier mistake—this time forbore to awaken me at all. I accordingly awoke at midday, in plenty of time for my next train, which left twenty-two hours later.

By E. F. Martin, late of the Royal Niger Company's Service.

I have since been to a great extent cured; but in my earlier African days, somewhere about eleven years ago, I was full of romantic ideas and intoxicated with the strange glamour and mystery that pervaded everything connected with the great Niger River and its unknown territories. Having tied up to a bank late one afternoon, half an hour before sunset, I took my gun—a sporting Martini—and set out from the little river launch, of which I was the sole white passenger, and made my way through the long grass skirting the banks of the stream, until I emerged into an open, ploughed field, with its lines of mounds about eighteen inches high, indicating guinea-corn or yam cultivation. My intention was to reach a backwater, some half a mile away, which I had noticed as we steamed up the river a short time before tying up. I hoped I might find hippo, or, at any rate, an alligator or two, hidden in the seclusion of this secret byway of the great river.

Crossing the field I entered a kind of copse, consisting of minor trees and scrub. Pushing my way through I found some clearer ground, carpeted with the gourd plant. Ahead of me I noticed that the land suddenly dipped to a large pool that might have been connected with the main river. This, I thought, would do as well as my backwater, especially as I heard just then the distant grunting roar of a hippo. Next moment, without warning, the solid ground gave way under my feet, and I went hurtling down into black darkness, bringing up with a tremendous shock that seemed to jar me from tip to toe.

MR. E. F. MARTIN, WHO HAD AN APPALLING STRUGGLE WITH A SNAKE AT THE BOTTOM OF A PIT.

From a Photograph.

When I had recovered from my utter astonishment, and had made certain that no bones were broken, I looked about and above me to see where I was and what had happened. Around and beneath me I could see nothing; everything was shrouded in impenetrable blackness. Above me, however, I saw the evening sky, gradually fading into night. My gun was gone. Where was I? What had happened? Had the earth opened and swallowed me up?

I decided to strike a light and see what kind of place I had fallen into. The blue spurt and the flickering flame, settling almost immediately into a thin, steady tongue of yellow fire, revealed to me the fact that I had fallen into some kind of trap—probably for hippo—and that this trap was some eight feet long by five broad and ten deep. At the bottom, at regular intervals, were placed pointed stakes about eighteen inches apart. Had I fallen prone I should have been impaled. I had apparently, then, something to be thankful for. As this thought struck me my match burnt the tips of my fingers and I dropped it. As it fell something caught my eye that froze my blood in my veins—some coiled black thing was slowly moving in the farther corner! Part of its body was enshrouded in the shadow of the stakes, but I saw sufficient to convince me that my companion was some kind of venomous snake. Have any of my readers known what it is to feel the heart stop dead still, after one fierce bound into the throat, the body go cold and clammy, like dank, damp clay—like the earth that I leaned up against in that moment of dumb, stricken terror? You that have know what I felt then, ten feet down in the bowels of the earth, imprisoned with that coiling thing. You that have not, pray that you never may, for it seems as though the life is passing from one in the cold sweat which oozes through every pore. I leant against the side of the pit trembling like an aspen leaf. Oh! for my gun and a steady light! At least I could then stake all in one try for life. My hands shaking violently, I lit another match and glanced in the direction of the horror. I might have spared my pains. The brute—a long, black, shiny snake, with a sort of hooded head—was actually at my feet, the sinuous body stretched across the rough floor among the pointed stakes!

I stood still as though paralyzed, the match burning like a tiny flare in my uplifted right hand. The snake came straight on without striking, and as the match went out it started to coil up my left leg. The sensation of that strange, gliding grip, which squeezed the muscles as it passed along, is impossible to describe. Up it came in the darkness, higher and higher still, feeling like a hawser of steel round my body—and heavy! Suddenly—to my dying day I shall never forget the horror of that moment—its cold, hard snout touched my chin. It was just a sort of gliding touch, with no attempt at striking. Obeying a mad impulse, I gripped straight for where the neck should be, judging by the feel of the snout on my chin, and with the strength of a maniac my fingers closed on the snake just behind the head. Feeling my advantage, I forced my two thumbs deep into its throat. Then I tripped forward in my excitement, the coils of the snake suddenly contracting with a fierce pressure as I strengthened my grip. Down I went, tearing myself badly on two stakes as I fell, gashing my right leg above the knee—the scar remains to this day—and receiving a nasty bruise on my left shoulder. In spite of my fall, however, I had enough presence of mind to keep the terrible head at arm's length, and now, once on the ground, in spite of cuts, bruises, and the twining coils round my arm, I got on to my knees and banged and dashed that deadly head on the hard earth and against the stakes I could feel on either side. How long I kept on in my wild, frenzied fury I don't know, but gradually the fierce-gripping coils relaxed, until at last the limp form hung from my bleeding hands, lifeless and harmless.

I don't remember what happened then, but I think I lost consciousness for a time. All I know for certain is that I was hauled out of that hole some time later—about 8 p.m., to be exact—by two of the coloured deck-hands, who had tracked me through the field and the bushes, and, ultimately, to the edge of the hippo trap. They guessed that I had fallen in, and the lowering of a lamp that they carried proved this to be the case. My gun lay where it had fallen, close to the edge.

"I TRIPPED FORWARD IN MY EXCITEMENT."

Why that snake never struck me I do not know to this day, unless it was that, seeing me in the sudden light of the match leaning up against the opposite wall, it had attempted to get out of the pit—into which it also must have dropped by accident like myself—by using my body as a ladder. For all I know the skeleton of the creature still lies in that ten-foot-deep hole. I have not since been there to inquire, nor do I intend to do so in the future; the very thought of the place is nightmare enough.

This incident occurred about four miles below Abutshi, the trading station near Onitsha, before one comes to the shallows that make that part of the Niger so difficult in the dry season.

By Commander R. Dowling, R.N.R. (Captain in the Imperial Ottoman Navy).

In December, 1900, I left Port Said for London in command of a small "hopper." For the benefit of the uninitiated, I should explain that this is a vessel with a bottom which opens out and allows the contents of the hold to fall into the sea. The "hopper" had formerly been employed in widening the Suez Canal, but had since been converted into a tank steamer for carrying oil. I had undertaken to bring her to England in tow of another steamer of some seven thousand tons burden.

COMMANDER R. DOWLING, R.N.R., WHO DESCRIBES A PERILOUS VOYAGE HE MADE FROM PORT SAID TO LONDON IN A "HOPPER."

From a Photo. by Apollon Studio.

I got the crew together with some difficulty. When I explained the project to English-speaking seamen, they all refused, in a most emphatic manner, to have anything to do with it, and in the end I had to fall back on a number of men to whom I was unable to explain it at all properly. They were one Swede, the mate; a Greek and a Frenchman, whom I understood to be engineers; four Italian seamen and four Greek firemen, and an Italian cook. Excepting the Swede, who understood English with difficulty, not one of the crew could make out a word I said, so that during the first part of the voyage I was compelled to give orders to the ship's company in a kind of pantomimic dumb-show.

We managed to bend on two five-inch hawsers to the other steamer and started on our voyage, using our own engines to assist the towing ship. The engineer was full of zeal, which he showed by repeatedly "ramming" our consort, through his failure to understand the orders sent below through the tube—we had no telegraph—and this, needless to say, caused a great deal of unpleasantness, shown chiefly in personal abuse of myself from the big vessel, though I repeatedly tried to gesticulate explanations as to the position.

The Italian cook turned out an utter fraud, giving repeated proofs of his incapacity. I endeavoured to instruct him by practical demonstration in the art of boiling pork and cabbage, but it came on to blow and, the sea rising rapidly as it does in the Mediterranean, the galley was washed out and the cooking difficulty disposed of for ever, for we had to live on cocoa, biscuit, and onions during nearly the whole of that eventful voyage.

The seas grew bigger and bigger, and the Crocodile rolled horribly. Finally we had to abandon the quarters forward for fear of being washed overboard. I had twice tried to get to my cabin, for I had stowed away all the medical comforts, my sextant, cigars, and so forth in my bunk. At the first attempt I got knocked down and nearly had my leg broken by a heavy sea; at the second I came as close to being washed overboard as possible. By a desperate effort, however, I finally got down to my cabin, where I found everything—my clothes included—washing about in a depth of bilge water and oil, while my precious sextant was smashed. I managed to rescue the barometer—an excellent one, lent me by the towing ship, but useless under the circumstances—but I was obliged to let everything else go.

"THE SEAS GREW BIGGER AND BIGGER, AND THE 'CROCODILE' ROLLED HORRIBLY."

When I clambered back on deck I found the crew simply torpid with fright. Our two little engines raced as we lifted in such a way as to threaten a smash-up of the whole of the machinery. In spite of all my threats, and even some muscular persuasion, I was unable to induce a single man of the crew, with the exception of the mate, to stir. The ship, I may remark, was an awkward one to handle; she had no bulwarks, except a small piece forward and aft, with a single chain in between. Bunker lids were being continually washed off, but, as the men were too scared to reship them, the mate and myself had to do this ourselves to prevent our going down.

In the middle of the night, the weather growing steadily worse, one of the anchors got adrift. By a mingling of menace and persuasion I got one of the Italians to go forward with me to secure it. The mate, dead beat, was lying asleep on the engine-room gratings. We watched our time and made a rush for it, when a tremendous sea came over, simply burying us in water. I smashed my left toe against a pump, got a big piece taken out of one forefinger, and felt blood running into my eyes from a wound in my head. Looking round, I saw the Italian overboard, hanging on convulsively to a rail, and made a rush to his rescue. I managed to get hold of him, and finally hauled him on deck—and an awful bundle he was, having seemingly put all the clothes he had in the world on his back. However, we contrived to pass a lashing round the anchor and secure it as well as could be done under the circumstances. We were also successful in getting back aft, though the luckless Italian was bowled over and rolled about beneath another heavy sea, but the clothes he had on seemed to protect him, and he got to the stokehold uninjured.

Throughout the grim days and black nights that followed we laboured incessantly, led by the two hawsers that held us to the other ship. These hawsers had to be watched incessantly, and pieces of wood kept under the places where they came on board to prevent them from being cut. There was not a chair, or a stool, or a dry rag on board the ship. The crew spent their time praying or lamenting, and when we wanted to sleep the only place on which we could lie was the engine-room gratings, from which we got up as black as sweeps with coal-dust and grime. The seas were constantly washing over us from stem to stern, though the ship ahead had been dropping oil for three days to make things better for us. She herself was in difficulties, as we could see from the seas which continually rushed out from her water ports and scuppers.

About daybreak on the fourth day a loud report sounded through the din of wind and weather, and I saw our port hawser snap close up to the towing ship. We were then, of course, towing the broken part astern, and for hours I was in dread that it would foul our propeller. Luckily the weather moderated somewhat, and the larger vessel eased up, endeavouring to drop a line down to our end of the hawser so that we might heave it aboard. Owing to the drift to leeward, however, we found it impossible to do anything in this way, so, after waiting some hours longer, the towing vessel launched a boat to bring in the end. The boat was stove in as soon as it touched the water, and it was hauled on board again only just in time to save the crew from drowning. In the meantime I started to get out one of our own small steel boats. For four hours we laboured at this task, for the steamer rolled so much that at one moment the boat would be hanging over the water quite a distance from the side, and at another threatening to knock the funnel off. In the end we managed to launch her, pick up the end of the broken hawser, connect up again, and make a fresh start. But I defy anyone who has not gone through it to realize the labour, the difficulties, and danger we went through. Tossed about by mountainous seas, expecting every moment to be capsized, to fish up a five-inch steel hawser trailing deep below the surface, and pull back with it to the towing vessel, is a labour the arduousness of which my pen is utterly unable to describe. At last we got started again, and two days later, one lovely clear morning, we arrived at Algiers, the first port of call on our voyage.

Here the captain of the towing ship went ashore with me to obtain two Manila hawsers, these having more "give" and "spring" in them than wire ropes. We ransacked Algiers in vain, and accordingly cabled home for instructions. These were to the effect that the "hopper" was to be brought to England under her own steam, and I was given twenty-four hours to decide whether I would undertake the task. I made up my mind, now I had got so far, to see the thing through.

Most of the crew had cleared off at Algiers the moment they had the chance, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I managed to get another lot together. Having seen my friend the towing ship off, I started myself two days later for Gibraltar.

Scarcely had we got to sea again when we began to encounter the same diabolical weather as before. I made a discovery, too, that disconcerted me more almost than anything that we had already experienced—I found we had no instruments! During the voyage from Port Said all the navigation, of course, was done by the towing vessel, and the necessity of independent navigation, in consequence of the altered arrangements, had never entered our heads. I had neither a chronometer nor sextant; only a small-scale chart and a very questionable and erratic compass on the bridge. After much cogitation I found the only thing I could do was to get the bearing of the North Star, and this I did by laying a broomstick along the top of the compass and pointing it as straight as possible. By this I was able to shape a course to Cape de Gat, the south-east corner of Spain, making due allowance for wind and current.

But trouble soon began. At Algiers I had picked up a French engineer who was in perpetual trouble with his engines. He spoke no English, I spoke no French; so that after various altercations in our own languages I was obliged to intimate to him, in a fashion it was difficult for him to misunderstand, that further discussions were useless. One morning, however, when between blowing and pitching it was hard to stand upright, the engineer came tumbling on deck frantic with excitement, gesticulating madly and shouting, "Monsieur le Commandant, oily, oily!" while he pointed a quivering forefinger below.

I rushed down and found the starboard engine bearings grinding away just about red-hot for want of oil, the stench and steam being indescribable. I cursed him for an idiot, for he might have known we were half full of oil, and he promptly shut off steam. During this time our tiny vessel (she was only a hundred and thirty-five tons), having but little way on her, was tossed about like a chip, and the rest of the crew lay in a jumble in the stokehold—sick, praying and groaning—neither persuasion nor kicks having the least effect on them. It was under these cheerful conditions that, having restarted the engines, we reached Gibraltar a day or two later.

The Officer of Health at Gibraltar received my account of the voyage, first with incredulity, and then astonishment. He heard my proposal to navigate home under the prevailing conditions with a stare of stupefaction, and then remarked, significantly, "Well, rather you than me, captain."

I had literally to hold the chief engineer down at starting in order to frustrate his frantic struggles to get overboard. We made for Cape St. Vincent, the weather being bad, though endurable, thence I steered for Cape Roca and the Burlings, but made neither. Finally we picked up Cape Finisterre and were in the Bay of Biscay, where, sure enough, we caught it. It blew hard from the north-west, and the vessel at times nearly stood on end. Nevertheless, we had to be continually shifting coal and water to keep the propeller under water. In the middle of the night the second engineer crawled along to me on the bridge to tell me the piston packings of the port engine had blown out, and those of the other engine were leaking so badly that they were expected to blow out also at any moment.

Now, if the engine had gone, there was not a spar or a sail of any kind on the vessel to keep her before the wind, and our fate, had we once been cast into the trough of the sea, would have been certain. Accordingly we had to keep one engine running at half speed while we patched up the other with some valuable hose which had been used for pumping oil out. When we had finished one we turned to the other, and managed to make a tolerable job of both. This kept us going for nearly two days.

On the fourth day from Finisterre, about one in the morning, we sighted a light. At first I thought it was the coast of France, but after a while I saw the familiar stump of the Eddystone, and then I knew where I was. On receiving the joyful news the crew worked up some sort of enthusiasm, and I determined to put out to sea again and face it. The firemen threw their hearts into their work and we breasted the waves gallantly. Soon, however, I heard a muffled report and yells from the engine-room, and, rushing below, found we had to stop the port engine for a time; so we went on with the starboard one pretty comfortably for about twenty-four hours, when the repairs were roughly completed. Then the wind rose again to almost hurricane force, and the ship rolled and pitched quite in her best style. Even this was not the worst, for near Dungeness a heavy sea threw a water-tank on top of me, and when I was hauled out I found I had broken a bone in my left wrist, in addition to other injuries. At that point, too, the electric light went out. The ship was now in total darkness; we had no mast or side-lights, and presently, to crown all, a dense fog settled upon us. At that moment a nautical Mark Tapley would have been hard put to it to muster up any cheerfulness worth mentioning.

However, to make an end to a long story, we worried through our troubles somehow or other, got a pilot on board, and at last arrived off the Royal Albert Docks, where very thankfully we made fast to the Galleon buoys on December 22nd. To show one difficulty I had to contend with during this ever-memorable voyage I may mention that the compass was so untrue that to make a true east course I had to steer south a quarter west.

For ten days after our arrival I was laid up and unable to get off to the ship. When I did I found that nearly the whole of my things had been stolen. I received from the owners, in recognition of the danger and arduousness of the voyage, a gratuity of ten pounds!

By Mrs. Herbert Vivian.

In many parts of the world the peasant and the countryman are dependent for a whole year's daily bread on the sort of weather Providence is good enough to send them. In England we are perhaps more independent than any other land, for our much-abused climate seldom runs to wild extremes. A drought makes a serious difference certainly, but it rarely ruins the entire crop. In the great plains of Hungary and Roumania, however, a winter without plentiful snow means a miserable harvest, and under the blazing sun of summer a drought there is a very much more tragic affair than it is with us. In parts of Northern Italy and the Tyrol what they most dread is not drought, but the terrible hailstorms and tempests which sweep down with sudden and relentless fury upon the country-side, doing irreparable damage in an incredibly short time.

It is interesting to notice the different ways in which country-folk meet these trials. In England after long drought we pray for rain in our churches, and in most Roman Catholic countries processions and pilgrimages are the order of the day. In Macedonia the Greeks organize great demonstrations in dry summers. A procession of children visits all the local wells and springs, accompanied by a maiden covered with garlands and masses of flowers. This sounds as romantic as our Queen of the May, and it could surprise no one if, like Tennyson's heroine, she came to a sad end, for at each of the stopping-places the poor dear is drenched with water, whilst the children sing a rhyming prayer for rain.

A TYPICAL SCENE IN THE SALZKAMMERGUT, WHERE THE PEASANTS STILL OBSERVE SOME VERY CURIOUS CUSTOMS IN CONNECTION WITH THE WEATHER.

From a Photograph.

The Russian peasants say prayers to Elisha, whom they consider a very potent rain-producer. In some countries the images of the saints are immersed in water when rain is wanted. On the other hand, sometimes more rain falls than is needed, and in parts of Westphalia they say that it is fatal to kill a swallow, for such a crime will bring at least four weeks' deluge. Swallows are considered lucky birds in that part of the world, and if they are driven away all the vegetables of the neighbourhood are sure to be destroyed by frost.

THE CASTLE OF KAPRUN AND THE CHAPEL OF ST. JACOB, WHERE HANGS ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS "WEATHER AND WITCH BELLS" IN THE TYROL.

From a Photograph.

Weather-wise peasants know more or less at what time hailstorms may be expected, and are on the alert for danger-signals. In Northern Italy cannons are fired off to disperse the clouds, and enough powder is expended to supply an army, while in some parts of France they rely on bombs for the same purpose.

Perhaps the most interesting methods of propitiating the skies are to be found in parts of the Tyrol, where the peasants are still refreshingly simple and full of piety. The Salzkammergut is one of the most interesting parts of Austria, from an ethnological point of view. It teems with ancient survivals and customs, and is a treasure-house of legendary lore. A certain imagination is displayed in all their tales; sly humour, picturesque turns of phrases, and distinct kindliness peep out everywhere. Few Englishmen can live in the Tyrol without acquiring an affection for the friendly folk. They are like a lot of big children, with their yellow hair, dancing blue eyes, and honest, sunburnt faces. Moreover, they are thoroughgoing sportsmen, first-rate at all games and athletics.

It is just about the time that the harvest is ripening that the farmer begins to feel qualms of anxiety concerning the weather, and keeps his eye fixed on the sky. Any particularly black clouds fill him with gloomy forebodings, for in the course of a few moments the work of the whole year may be swept away. Hoping to shield his property from the powers of evil, he employs all the means that his brain can devise, and some of these are distinctly original and curious.

As soon as low, rumbling thunder is heard in the far-off hills the house-bells that are usually found in the roofs of Tyrolese cottages begin to ring. This is known as "Ringing in the storm," and is considered an absolutely necessary precaution. As the weather grows worse you may hear the church bells all along the valleys peal as well. Hailstorms in August are most dreaded, and if the sky seems to indicate that they are coming the priest is warned and goes to stand at the door of the church, bearing the Host, to pronounce the storm blessing. Some priests are considered more gifted than others in giving this blessing, and are supposed to be able to stave off disaster by their peculiar powers. They become popular far and wide with the peasantry and are known as "storm-fighting gentlemen."

Not only the priests, but also the bells of certain churches have a great reputation for their miraculous powers of checking bad weather. The "witches' bell" in the wood at Pinzgau and the one at Muhr, in Lungau, are famous in this connection; while the two little bells of St. Jacob's chapel in Kaprun Castle are supposed to be very potent, both to avert hailstorms and to frighten away witches. In past days the peasants used to believe that many of the storms were caused by witches who flew through the air on broomsticks, scattering a powder as they went and raising the blizzard. These were called "manufactured storms."

THE GREAT "STORM CRUCIFIX" AT GRÖDIG, NEAR SALZBURG.

From a Photograph.

A mischievous spirit called Zabera Jaggl is said to bewail bitterly the difficulties that certain bells put in his path when he wants to ride out on the wings of the storm. He is supposed to explain his troubles thus: "When I want to dash through the pass of Lueg the watch-dog of Werpener will not let me by"—the watch-dog being the great bell of Werpener Castle, which was always rung at the approach of a storm till the inhabitants of Abtenau, near by, implored the castle folk to cease, since in consequence of their ringing all the tempest swept on to Abtenau. He goes on to say: "If by any chance the watch-dog sleeps and I get safely past Hell Bridge across the Fritzbach, then I knock up against the big Altenmarker hound (the church bell of Altenmark), and he will not let me fly up the forest of Kreisten, where I ought to be able to do great damage. Supposing I try to turn back and ride to St. Martin's, then the mastiff at the inn howls and all the whelps yap (the big bell of the inn and the smaller ones found on every house-top in St. Martin), and I must vent my rage as best I can on Hell Mountain. Wherever I turn a watch-dog faces me, till in despair I climb the mighty mountain, tear the trees down, and whirl around the summits, lying down at last, dead tired, to rest on Dachstein."[1]

A legend is told of the witch bell of Muhr, in Lungau, which is of a peculiar shape, very ancient in appearance, and very much chipped. It hangs in the middle of the peal of bells in the village church, and the story runs that the devil once rode down to Muhr, determined to enjoy himself, on the back of one of the biggest hurricanes ever seen. But the witches' bell was rung for Ave Maria, and every man in the village fell on his knees to pray for the defeat of the Evil One. So fervent were their prayers and so potent was the Ave Maria bell that Satan had to turn again. The memory rankled, and he determined to revenge himself. Now it happened that he was in league with one of the very worst witches of the neighbourhood, so he went to give her instructions, taking with him a "hell hammer," which is a very infernal weapon. According to instructions, she mounted her broomstick at midnight and flew away to the belfry at Muhr. She went straight to the middle bell and began hitting it with all her might with the hell hammer. But the bell had been consecrated, and resisted all her efforts till just before one o'clock, when she managed to chip it. At one o'clock, however, the hour for witches, ghosts, and ghouls is over, and so she had to pick up her hammer and fly home again. Since that time, however, the bell has lost most of its tone, and instead of being heard for miles around it can now only protect its own little parish.

Among the sights that strike one most in passing through the villages of the Salzkammergut are the "storm crucifixes" and "hail crosses." Sometimes you find them in the church porches, sometimes in the graveyards, and sometimes right out in the fields. They stand about fifteen feet high, and are often painted a reddish brown. There is almost always a second and shorter plank nailed across to form two extra arms. The figure of Christ is usually carved out of wood in a primitive fashion and highly coloured. All around, fixed on to the four arms, are the emblems of the Passion. These are the chains, the ladder, the sword, the staves, the lantern, the cock, the dice, the seamless robe, the sponge, the purse of Judas, and many more. Village artists and carvers frequently employ their winter evenings in making every emblem that they can think of, and they call them "Christ's weapons." On the 3rd of May, the day of the finding of the true Cross, they take them to the parish priest, who blesses them and fixes them to the crucifix.

THE "HAIL CROSS" AT UNTER ECHING.

From a Photograph.

The storm crucifix at Grödig, near Salzburg, of which we give a photograph, is a very curious-looking and primitive erection, standing in a great open field behind the village. Another photograph shows the hail cross of Unter Eching, an immense thing over twenty feet high. It does not bear the figure of our Lord, but, on the other hand, there is a great collection of "Christ's weapons." A leaden cock always stands on the very top of all the crucifixes. At the foot is usually found a little pew where pious pilgrims frequently come to pray for fine weather at harvest time, and close by there will frequently be seen a frame of wood across which is stretched a piece of wire. Ten little wooden balls run along the wire and are used by passers-by as a roadside rosary.

BUNCHES OF CATKINS ARE GIVEN AWAY IN THE CHURCHES ON PALM SUNDAY, AND THESE ARE BURNT AT HARVEST-TIME TO AVERT THE EVIL EFFECTS OF STORMS.

From a Photograph.

The Tyrolese peasants have a strongly superstitious as well as a religious side to their characters. They invoke the aid of Heaven, but they also place a good deal of reliance in the help of amulets and charms. It is only fair to say that these have usually been blessed by the Church. For instance, little bunches of catkins are blessed and given away in the churches on Palm Sunday, and are carefully preserved by the country-folk till harvest time. Then if the weather becomes threatening and they fear for their crops they fling them into the fire to avert the evil effects of the storm.

St. John's Wort or Hypericum is regarded in most countries as a plant with every sort of wonderful power. When lightning is heard a bunch of it is hung up in front of the window to protect the house. If it is picked before breakfast it is almost infallible as a talisman against lightning. St. John's Wort gathered on Midsummer Eve has marvellously magical properties.

In some parts of the Tyrol it is considered dangerous to touch anyone who has been struck by lightning till the priest has said a prayer over the body. There are even countries where it is considered a Divine favour to be killed by lightning. Another protection against being struck is the Antlass Ei, an egg laid on the Thursday before Easter and then placed in the roof.

A "STORM CANDLE"—THESE ARE LIGHTED TO DRIVE AWAY HAILSTORMS.

From a Photograph.

Summer hailstorms are feared more than anything else, and in cases of severe hail the farmers have a "hail Mass" performed in church. In some places where storms are much dreaded hail processions take place every Sunday from Whitsuntide till the end of August. When the big stones come pelting down, black and red "storm candles" are lighted. These are kept in readiness for such occasions in every well regulated household.

I am told that in Belgium blessed wax is burnt in times of tempest. Among the various recipes for avoiding danger the following may be mentioned: Never point your finger at a thunderstorm. Do not eat or drink while it lasts, but wrap yourself in silk and put a candle under the table. If you are caught by a storm out of doors, go and lie down under an elder tree. There can then be no danger, for the Cross was made of elder wood.

Evidently the curious four-armed cross given below must have some special connection with storms. It is a little metal one intended for personal use, and is inscribed with mystic letters which seem to have no meaning, but must convey some subtle sense of protection to the wearer. In the middle is a little medallion representing the Host.

A TALISMAN INTENDED TO PROTECT THE PERSON CARRYING IT AGAINST LIGHTNING AND TEMPEST.

From a Photograph.

The photograph reproduced on the next page shows a "Letter of Protection" against storms and other evils, which is regarded as a very potent charm by the Tyrolese peasant. At the top of the page on the right-hand side, St. Anthony of Padua is expelling demons, unpleasant-looking creatures with wings and forked tails. Beneath him is St. Roch, protecting from pests, and St. Benet from sorcerers. Here again we see the cross with four arms. The two heads are those of St. Anastasius and St. Anastasia, both beheaded martyrs, who are invoked against ghosts and demons, and below them, in the corner, is St. Francis Xavier, repulser of tempests. The hands, feet, and heart of our Lord preserve from serpents.

On the left hand side comes, first, St. Francis. Below him are St. Michael and St. George, on either side of a cross. St. George preserves the believer from lapses of faith and St. Michael keeps malign spirits at a distance. The three kings sitting in a row beneath are invoked as protectors of faithful travellers, and a very evil-looking beast is seen grovelling before the uplifted cross of St. Ignatius. Right in the middle is a particle of earth from the Holy Land and three relics as safeguards against fever, fire, and lightning.

In the Tyrol the labourer when sowing the seed scatters his field with charcoal "for luck." In Bohemia a splinter of wood from which a coffin has been made is stuck upright in the fields to protect them from sparrows. Another idea is that a piece of wood from a coffin that has been dug up will defend crops from caterpillars.

AN ANCIENT "LETTER OF PROTECTION," REGARDED AS A VERY POTENT CHARM BY THE TYROLESE PEASANTS.

From a Photograph.

It is all very well for us to laugh at these superstitions, but not so long ago in parts of Scotland the farmers used to leave one portion of their land uncropped year after year. The spot was supposed to be dedicated to the devil, and known as the good-man's croft or landlord's acre. This was done so that the Evil One should busy himself with it and leave the rest of the place alone.

In conclusion, I should like to acknowledge the kind help I have received from Mr. Adrian, of Salzburg, the well known authority on folklore, who furnished me with much information for the purpose of this article.

By N. H. Crowell.

The fall of the year 1901 was remarkable for the number of bank robberies occurring in the States of Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota. The daring of the travelling bands of criminals, commonly known as "yeggmen," manifested itself in frequent and generally successful attempts on the vaults of various financial institutions. In Iowa alone there had been no fewer than thirteen robberies without a single arrest up to the date of the Greenville Bank case, which I am about to set forth.

On Saturday morning, November 16th, 1901, a Greenville business man, rising early, was attracted by a peculiar object lying in the middle of the main thoroughfare. Greenville, being only a small village of some three hundred people, possessed but one principal street, which ran through it from east to west. Upon approaching the object the man saw that it was the door of a bank-safe, and his surprise may be imagined when, looking about him, he discovered that the large glass front of the bank building near by was entirely shattered.

In a very few moments he had gathered an anxious crowd, and the more daring ventured into the ruined building. It then became apparent that the safe had been blown open by nitroglycerine and its precious contents carried away. On the bank counters were found a small dark lantern, two bars of soap, some chisels, and a silk handkerchief. The completeness of the job showed it to have been the work of persons who were either unacquainted with the terrific power of the explosive used, or of extraordinary daring and recklessness.

The cashier of the bank, Mr. E. B. Harrington, lost no time in reaching the local telephone office, from which point he immediately notified the sheriff of the county at Spencer, nine miles north, of the robbery, afterwards reporting it to the town marshals of all the surrounding towns.

While thus engaged an employé of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway arrived with the intelligence that the station tool-house had been broken open and a hand-car taken therefrom. The operators on the line at Spencer to the north, and at Sioux Rapids to the south, were at once called up, but both protested that no hand-car had passed their station at any hour of the night. The mystery was solved half an hour later by the discovery of a broken hand-car at the crossing of the Rock Island and Minneapolis and St. Louis roads, one mile south of the town. It was evident that the robbers, fleeing on the car, had met with an accident and had been forced to abandon it. The clue was serviceable, however, in that it pointed out the direction of the miscreants' escape, and the officials at Marathon, Laurens, and Albert City—towns in the general line of flight—were promptly advised to be on the alert to intercept all suspicious characters and hold them till examined.

At this juncture a young lady employed in the Spencer telephone exchange imparted the information that she had observed three nasty-looking strangers the night before eating a late supper at a Spencer restaurant. The restaurant proprietor corroborated this, and added that one of the men was of very dark complexion, and, in his judgment, was a mulatto.

The wires were again resorted to and neighbouring officials given the fresh information. At nine o'clock on the morning of the robbery the marshals of every place within a radius of forty miles were in possession of the facts, and had trusted deputies guarding all approaches to their respective towns. Assuming it to be a fact that the robbery had been committed by two white men and one black man, who were now travelling on foot in a south-easterly direction, it seemed but a question of hours before they would be halted by some one of the representatives of the law.

An hour passed by, then two, and a third. Not a word came from Marathon, the nearest town in the line of flight. It was impossible for the men to escape by train, as all depôts were under close surveillance; it was equally impossible to conceal themselves in a farming community so thickly inhabited as the one they were now traversing. It appeared inevitable, therefore, that their whereabouts must soon be reported.

Just before noon a farmer living five miles east of Sioux Rapids drove into that town and, upon being questioned, stated that he had given three strangers breakfast less than an hour before. He stated that one was a negro, and that all three were well armed and were apparently desperate characters. Upon being informed that the trio had burglarized the Greenville Bank, the farmer was considerably surprised, but was able to give a minute description of the robbers to the marshal.

It being now evident that the men were heading for Albert City, a small town on the Milwaukee railroad, fifteen miles to the south-east, Marshal Snyder, of Sioux Rapids, lost no time in picking a posse to aid him in the capture of the desperate men. In twenty minutes he, with three others, whirled away in a carriage drawn by the fleetest team in the town. Marshal Snyder knew that a freight train was due to leave Albert City shortly after the dinner-hour, and he hoped to reach the depôt in time to thwart this method of escape.

While Snyder and his deputies were speeding toward Albert City, the town marshal of that little place, Mr. C. J. Lodine, received definite word by telephone that the robbers were moving in his direction. Barely had he hung up the instrument when he learnt that three men answering the descriptions sent out were in the waiting-room of the Albert City depôt, awaiting the arrival of the freight train, concerning which they had been questioning the agent.

Marshal Lodine, a brave and efficient officer, knew that there was no time to lose. The train was due in a very few minutes, and he felt that upon him devolved the success or failure of all the efforts that had been put forth for the capture of the three criminals.

Seizing a Winchester rifle, he started out to secure men to assist him in the capture. No one refused his call. He darted into a forage store, and the proprietor grasped his hat and followed readily. A doctor's office came next, and the physician was added to the little party. At the bank he secured the cashier, while a farmer who was hitching up his team joined him with alacrity. In the space of ten minutes Lodine had five armed and determined men behind him, and speedily made his way to the waiting-room of the little depôt.

Far to the north sounded the whistle of the approaching freight train, and the posse stepped a trifle faster at its summons. They knew the crucial moment was soon to arrive.

Down the length of the narrow platform they walked and approached the door of the waiting-room. With his men close at his back Marshal Lodine entered, and located his men seated in the corner of the room. Rifle in hand, he took a step in their direction and commanded:—

"Hands up! We want you!"

"THE THREE MEN WHIPPED OUT REVOLVERS AND OPENED A FURIOUS FIRE."

Immediately, without warning or replying, the three men whipped out revolvers and opened a furious fire. Marshal Lodine was hit in the body and staggered out on to the platform, where he dropped the rifle. Mr. M. H. Conlin, a farmer, snatched it up and ran for cover from the galling fusillade that was being poured in his direction.

The posse, unprepared for such an unexpected onslaught, scattered wildly, and as they ran the desperadoes emerged upon the platform and fired repeatedly upon them. Lodine, sorely wounded, secreted himself near the depôt, while Conlin and the forage-store proprietor, John Sundblad, dropped behind a pile of rocks. Conlin was uninjured, but a bullet found poor Sundblad, and he fell writhing in agony.

JOHN SUNDBLAD, WHO DIED FROM THE EFFECTS OF THE WOUND RECEIVED IN THE FIGHT.

From a Photograph.

Having cleared the field, the robbers ran across the railroad tracks and entered a barn belonging to one Johnson. Finding a horse therein, one of the white men led it out and began a hurried attempt to hitch it up to a buggy standing near, being protected in his efforts by the negro, who stood by firing at every hiding-place where lurked a member of the posse.

From his cover behind the rock-pile Farmer Conlin began shooting at the horse, intending to kill it and thus prevent escape by that means. In his excitement, and being under a severe fire, Conlin was unsuccessful, and desisted. A moment later, however, as the men were about to leap into the buggy, he resolved to make one more effort. At the crack of his rifle the white man dropped to the earth, struck squarely in the breast. The negro at once ran up and stripped his fallen comrade of his guns and money.

At this point the freight train drew in and separated the combatants. A delay ensued, during which the two remaining robbers leaped into a farmer's wagon and compelled him to drive north at breakneck speed. As rapidly as was possible three rigs were dispatched in hot pursuit, and the chase became so warm that the fleeing men were forced to stop a single rig driven by two boys, whom they threw out and thus continued their flight. This rig was soon exchanged for another, a lady's vehicle being commandeered in this instance. This team failed them shortly, and a farmer, fixing fence along the highway, was next required to deliver his team. Stripping the harness off, the men mounted the animals bareback and started away at a gallop. The horse ridden by the negro, however, suddenly "bucked" and threw his rider off. He was unable to mount, and, seeing the pursuers approaching, dropped the reins and turned into a cornfield at one side of the road. His partner, observing this, also dropped off his horse and dashed into the cornfield.

The men were now practically cornered. From the east the posse from Marathon was just in sight, and would have intercepted them in another mile.

Conlin, with the Winchester rifle, sent big bullets screaming through the corn-shocks (sheaves), and as the field was not an extensive one the men were in considerable danger of being struck down unless they surrendered, and this they finally decided to do. The desperadoes, having thrown down their guns, were directed to approach with their hands in the air. Thereupon they were securely tied with straps taken from the harness.

At this moment Farmer Conlin discovered that he had fired his last cartridge. Brooks, the negro, then stated that had he known this a moment before he would never have been taken, as it was the fear of the big rifle alone that had caused them to surrender.

The two robbers were driven rapidly back to Albert City, at which place Marshal Snyder had arrived. He searched the men, and, not satisfied with a superficial examination revealing more guns and ammunition, ordered the men to strip. This they did with evident reluctance. Around the negro's neck was tied a razor and a bag containing a quantity of some liquid. As Snyder removed the latter the negro remarked:—

"Be careful of that; it's dangerous!"

Needless to say this liquid was nitroglycerine, and as there was enough of it to have blown off at least twelve safe-doors it is not difficult to understand the ferocious nerve of the man who carried it when exposed to bullets and the eccentricities of bucking horses.

The examination over, the negro hastily snatched up his under-garments and began donning them hurriedly. This aroused Snyder's suspicion further, and realizing the calibre of the men with whom he was dealing he searched the garments. Sewn in the seams of the shirt he found two fine saws nearly twelve inches in length, with which he cut an iron stove-poker as easily as a dull knife cuts cheese. This discovery was a serious one for the negro, and his spirits fell noticeably thereafter.

The men were now turned over to the sheriff and deputies who had arrived from Storm Lake, and by them taken to that city and lodged in the county jail.

"THEY WERE DIRECTED TO APPROACH WITH THEIR HANDS IN THE AIR."

John Sundblad died on Sunday afternoon from the effects of the wound received in the fight, and Marshal Lodine, after battling bravely for eight days, also succumbed to his injuries. The robber shot by Farmer Conlin lingered until Sunday noon, and before dying confessed that it was he and his companions who had robbed the Greenville Bank. He stated that his name was Dolan, although he was apparently of Italian descent.

The two surviving men, giving the names of Albert Phillips and Louis Brooks, were tried for murder, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged.

Upon appeal to the Supreme Court errors were found, and a new trial granted the accused. They were found guilty of manslaughter at this trial and sentenced to life imprisonment at hard work. At the present time they are in the Iowa State Penitentiary at Anamosa.

The money stolen from the bank was subsequently recovered, being found concealed in the field where the desperate men made their last stand.

This merry little five-year-old nigger-boy is comfortably stowed inside an elephant's foot, and, judging from the size of his smile, seems delighted at being photographed in such a strange position. The elephant was shot by us some months ago, and the foot is large enough to hide the boy completely.—MR. F. K. ROWE (Uganda), IN "THE STRAND MAGAZINE."

Twice in my chase of Bruin I have made use of a bear-spear as my weapon of attack, and, as some newspaper writers in their search after copy have rioted furiously over my methods, I may take this opportunity to maintain that the use of a spear entails no greater cruelty than any other mode of attack and that every hunter should be armed with one in reserve, since these powerful beasts have a vitality that triumphs over a stray bullet or more unless lodged in a vital region, and when wounded their retaliation is redoubtable and easily fatal. In Karelen the bear is yet regarded as a noxious horror. The great black-haired "Slagbjörn," or killing bear, is still rampant there, and a couple of winters back I was able to wreak justifiable vengeance on some beasts that had killed over a score of cows and nine horses.—COUNT ERIC VON ROSEN, IN "COUNTRY LIFE."

Society in Washington is very attractive. Everybody in society there is in politics or is an official. It is the one city of consequence in the United States that has no commercial interests. In Washington they think and talk politics, literature, and art. Men come to Washington from all parts of the country and all corners of the earth. There is a large section of naval and military, literary, and scientific men. Society is cosmopolitan rather than local. It is not narrow in any way, and over all there hangs the charm of the White House and its inmates.—"WOMAN'S LIFE."

Commander Peary, the famous Arctic explorer, never starts on one of his exploring expeditions without receiving all sorts of packages from cranks—cowhide underwear, tea tablets, medicated boots, and what not. A few days before the start of his last trip a club acquaintance wired him to expect an important package by express. The package came. It was labelled: "To be opened at the farthest point north." Peary opened it at once, however. It was a small keg, inscribed: "Axle grease for the pole."—"TIT-BITS."

When going foreign in a motor-car, it is by no means necessary to take a man—in fact, I prefer not; and though I drive a 25 Talbot which gives 48 horse-power on the brake, and can touch fifty miles an hour, we are getting on nicely without the extra weight and expense of a man who, however good his intentions are, cannot work harder than we amateurs do when there is anything to be done. You see, if you take an honest English one, he, as a rule, is as a child, and cannot borrow a split pin without your linguistical assistance. In England you can say "Put the car up somewhere, get a bed, and have her round at ten to-morrow," and go to your dinner happy in the knowledge that all will be well. But on the Continent you have to mother him even to the extent of arranging his dinner for him, get his rooms, and translate every desire and necessary till one comes to the conclusion that the game is hardly worth the candle.—"C. B. FRY'S MAGAZINE."

Near Ploumanach, in Brittany, there is one of the most curious shrines in Europe. This is the chapel of St. Guirec, a tiny, picturesque building of the twelfth century. It stands on a rock in the bay, and at high tide is surrounded by the waves. Inside is a wooden statue of St. Guirec in a deplorable state, for it is simply riddled with tiny holes. The reason for this sad state of things is that the fishermen's daughters have a strong superstition that if they come to pray at the shrine and stick a pin into poor St. Guirec they are certain to get married within the year. If the hapless saint gives himself a shake during the night and the pin drops out, it is an infallible sign that everything will go well.

THE CURIOUS CHAPEL OF ST. GUIREC, IN BRITTANY—IT CONTAINS A WOODEN STATUE OF THE SAINT, INTO WHICH THE FISHER-GIRLS STICK PINS, BELIEVING THAT THIS WILL ENSURE THEM A HUSBAND DURING THE YEAR!

From a Photograph.

The extraordinary photograph on the next page shows what may well be called a "human Catharine-wheel." This is to be seen at the annual feast of the Totonaco Indians at Papantla, in the State of Vera Cruz, Mexico. Wearing huge, highly-coloured erections—made from the bark of a tree—on their heads, four men take their positions on the arms of the mill and proceed to make it rotate, gradually working up to a speed of forty or fifty revolutions a minute, while the crowd cheer excitedly. This ranks as "fun," but must be decidedly warm work for the performers, who, to guard against the results of giddiness, are strapped by the legs. The two Indians seen in the foreground are wearing grotesque masks.

A HUMAN CATHARINE-WHEEL—THIS EXTRAORDINARY DEVICE IS TO BE SEEN AT THE ANNUAL FEAST OF THE TOTONACO INDIANS, OF MEXICO. FOUR MEN, GAILY BEDECKED, TAKE THEIR PLACES ON THE ARMS OF THE MILL AND PROCEED TO MAKE IT ROTATE, WORKING UP TO A SPEED OF FORTY OR FIFTY REVOLUTIONS A MINUTE.

From a Photograph.

A SNAPSHOT WITH A CURIOUS HISTORY.

From a Photograph.

From Sialkot, India, a member of the 12th Lancers sends us the quaint little photograph here shown. He writes: "My dog had been burrowing in loose sand, and, as he turned to come out, the sides of the excavation fell in and imprisoned him. Had I not been there he would undoubtedly have died; so, after freeing his head, I made a sort of tombstone round him and photographed him as a memento."

THE ONLY BRASS BAND IN THE WORLD WHOSE MEMBERS ARE DEAF AND DUMB.

From a Photograph.

The only brass band in the world whose members are deaf and dumb is depicted in the photograph reproduced below. This remarkable band belongs to the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. To teach a person who is afflicted in this way to play an instrument and get him to understand something of musical notation would appear at first an impossible task, and it was only accomplished after many months of patience. First of all the players were taught how to blow the fife, the simplest of all wind instruments. The next step was more intricate. By the use of certain fingers the players were made to produce given notes, and in this way various tones were taught and committed to memory. Being of necessity taught with the utmost exactness, the pupils developed a confidence of execution not found in the average musical student. Certain rules were laid down, which the deaf-mute had to follow explicitly, and the result was absolute correctness in playing.

THE PENALTY OF GLUTTONY—THE PYTHON HERE SHOWN TRIED TO SWALLOW A GOAT BODILY, BUT "BILLY" STUCK IN HIS THROAT AND KILLED HIM.

Copyright Photograph by St. Michael Padmore.

It is difficult for those who have not had ocular demonstration to credit the extraordinary capacity of snakes for absorbing large animals. The striking photograph we next reproduce was taken in the Zoo at Perth, Western Australia, and shows a python which endeavoured to dine not wisely but too well. He killed a goat, and commenced to swallow it bodily, as is the pleasing habit of these great snakes. Poor "Billy," however, had his revenge, for he stuck in the reptile's throat, capacious though it was, and all the python's efforts to dislodge him failed. The result, of course, was distinctly unfortunate for the snake. When the curator went his rounds the following day he discovered the monster quite dead, with the goat's hind legs sticking out of his mouth, as shown in the snapshot.

THE MAP-CONTENTS OF "THE WIDE WORLD MAGAZINE," WHICH SHOWS AT A GLANCE THE LOCALITY OF EACH ARTICLE AND NARRATIVE OF ADVENTURE IN THIS NUMBER.

Added table of contents.

Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors.

Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.