I at once went on deck, where I found the captain, and reported to him what I had seen. He viewed me in silence, with a stare of astonishment and incredulity. What I had seen, he said, was not the diamond. I told him the thing that had dropped into the Major's hand was bright, and, as I thought, sparkled, but it was so held I could not see it.

I was talking to him on this extraordinary affair when the Major came on deck. The captain said to me: "Hold him in chat. I'll judge for myself," and asked me to describe how he might quickly find the pistol-case. This I did, and he went below.

I joined the Major, and talked on the first subjects that entered my head. He was restless in his manner, inattentive, slightly flushed in the face; wore a lofty manner, and being half a head taller than I, glanced down at me from time to time in a condescending way. This behaviour in him was what Captain North and I had agreed to call his "injured air." He'd occasionally put it on to remind us that he was affronted by the captain's insensibility to his loss, and that the assistance of the police would be demanded on our arrival at Cape Town.

Presently looking down the skylight, I perceived the captain. Mackenzie had charge of the watch. I descended the steps, and Captain North's first words to me were:—

"It's no diamond!"

"What, then, is it?"

"A common piece of glass not worth a quarter of a farthing."

"What's it all about, then?" said I. "Upon my soul, there's nothing in Euclid to beat it. Glass?"

"A little lump of common glass; a fragment of bull's-eye, perhaps."

"What's he hiding it for?"

"Because," said Captain North, in a soft voice, looking up and around, "he's mad!"

"Just so!" said I. "That I'll swear to now, and I've been suspecting it this fortnight past."

"He's under the spell of some sort of mania," continued the captain; "he believes he's commissioned to present a diamond to the Queen; possibly picked up a bit of stuff in the street that started the delusion, then bought a case for it, and worked out the rest as we know."

"But why does he want to pretend that the stone was stolen from him?"

"He's been mastered by his own love for the diamond," he answered. "That's how I reason it. Madness has made his affection for his imaginary gem a passion in him."

"And so he robbed himself of it, you think, that he might keep it?"

"That's about it," said he.

After this I kept no further look-out upon the Major, nor would I ever take an opportunity to enter his cabin to view for myself the piece of glass as the captain described it, though curiosity was often hot in me.

We arrived at Table Bay in twenty-two days from the date of my seeing the Major with the pistol in his hand. His manner had for a week before been marked by an irritability that was often beyond his control. He had talked snappishly and petulantly at table, contradicted aggressively, and on two occasions gave Captain North the lie; but we had carefully avoided noticing his manner, and acted as though he were still the high bred, polished gentleman who had sailed with us from Calcutta.

The first to come aboard were the Customs people. They were almost immediately followed by the harbour-master. Scarcely had the first of the Custom House officers stepped over the side when Major Hood, with a very red face, and a lofty, dignified carriage, marched up to him, and said in a loud voice:—

"I have been robbed during the passage from Calcutta of a diamond worth fifteen thousand pounds, which I was bearing as a gift from the Maharajah of Ratnagiri to Her Majesty the Queen of England."

The Customs man stared with a lobster-like expression of face: no image could better hit the protruding eyes and brick-red countenance of the man.

"I request," continued the Major, raising his voice into a shout, "to be placed at once in communication with the police at this port. No person must be allowed to leave the vessel until he has been thoroughly searched by such expert hands as you and your confreres no doubt are, sir. I am Major Byron Hood. I have been twice wounded. My services are well known, and I believe duly appreciated in the right quarters. Her Majesty the Queen is not to suffer any disappointment at the hands of one who has the honour of wearing her uniform, nor am I to be compelled, by the act of a thief, to betray the confidence the Maharajah has reposed in me."

He continued to harangue in this manner for some minutes, during which I observed a change in the expression of the Custom House officers' faces.

Meanwhile Captain North stood apart in earnest conversation with the harbour-master. They now approached; the harbour-master, looking steadily at the Major, exclaimed:—

"Good news, sir! Your diamond is found!"

"Ha!" shouted the Major. "Who has it?"

"You'll find it in your pistol-case," said the harbour-master.

The Major gazed round at us with his wild, bright eyes, with a face a-work with the conflict of twenty mad passions and sensations. Then bursting into a loud, insane laugh, he caught the harbour-master by the arm, and in a low voice and a sickening, transforming leer of cunning, said: "Come, let's go and look at it."



We went below. We were six, including two Custom House officers. We followed the poor madman, who grasped the harbour-master's arm, and on arriving at his cabin we stood at the door of it. He seemed heedless of our presence, but on his taking the pistol-case from the portmanteau, the two Customs men sprang forward.

"That must be searched by us," one cried, and in a minute they had it.

With the swiftness of experienced hands they found and pressed the spring of the pistol, the silver plate flew open, and out dropped a fragment of thick, common glass, just as Captain North had described the thing. It fell upon the deck. The Major sprang, picked it up, and pocketed it.

"Her Majesty will not be disappointed, after all," said he, with a courtly bow to us, "and the commission the Maharajah's honoured me with shall be fulfilled."

* * * * *

The poor gentleman was taken ashore that afternoon, and his luggage followed him. He was certified mad by the medical man at Cape Town, and was to be retained there, as I understood, till the arrival of a steamer for England. It was an odd, bewildering incident from top to bottom. No doubt this particular delusion was occasioned by the poor fellow, whose mind was then fast decaying, reading about the transmission of the Koh-i-noor, and musing about it with a mad-man's proneness to dwell upon little things.



PECULIAR PLAYING CARDS.

By

George Clulow

II.



The "foolish business" of Heraldry has supplied the motive for numerous packs of cards. Two only, however, can be here shown, though there are instructive examples of the latter half of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries from England, Scotland, France, Germany, and Italy. The example given in Fig. 16 is English, of the date of 1690, and the fifty-two cards of the pack give us the arms of the different European States, and of the peers of England and Scotland. A pack similar to this was engraved by Walter Scott, the Edinburgh goldsmith, in 1691, and is confined to the Arms of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and the great Scottish families of that date, prepared under the direction of the Lyon King of Arms, Sir Alexander Erskine. The French heraldic example (Fig. 17) is from a pack of the time of Louis XIV., with the arms of the French nobility and the nobles of other European countries; the "suit" signs of the pack being "Fleur de Lis," "Lions," "Roses," and "Eagles."



Caligraphy, even, has not been left without recognition, for we have a pack, published in Nuremberg, in 1767, giving examples of written characters and of free-hand pen drawing, to serve as writing copies. We show the Nine of Hearts from this pack (Fig. 18), and the eighteenth century South German graphic idea of a Highlander of the period is amusing, and his valorous attitude is sufficiently satisfying.



Biography has, too, its place in this playing-card cosmography, though it has not many examples. The one we give (Fig. 19) is German, of about 1730, and is from a pack which depicts a series of heads of Emperors, poets, and historians, Greek and Roman—a summary of their lives and occurrences therein gives us their raison d'etre.



Of Geographical playing cards there are several examples in the second half of the seventeenth century. The one selected for illustration (Fig. 20) gives a sectional map of one of the English counties, each of the fifty-two cards of the pack having the map of a county of England and Wales, with its geographical limitations. These are among the more rare of old playing cards, and their gradual destruction when used as educational media will, as in the case of horn-books, and early children's books generally, account for this rarity. Perhaps the most interesting geographical playing cards which have survived this common fate, though they are the ultima rarissima of such cards, is the pack designed and engraved by H. Winstanley, "at Littlebury, in Essex," as we read on the Ace of Hearts. They appear to have been intended to afford instruction in geography and ethnology. Each of the cards has a descriptive account of one of the States or great cities of the world, and we have taken the King of Hearts (Fig. 21), with its description of England and the English, as the most interesting. The costumes are those of the time of James II., and the view gives us Old London Bridge, the Church of St. Mary Overy, on the south side of the Thames, and the Monument, then recently erected at the northern end of the bridge to commemorate the Great Fire, and which induced Pope's indignant lines:—

"Where London's column, pointing to the skies Like a tall bully, lifts its head and—lies."

The date of the pack is about 1685, and it has an added interest from the fact that its designer was the projector of the first Eddystone Lighthouse, where he perished when it was destroyed by a great storm in 1703.



Music, too, is not forgotten, though on playing cards it is seen in smaller proportion than other of the arts. To the popularity of the "Beggar's Opera" of John Gay, that satirical attack upon the Government of Sir Robert Walpole, we are indebted for its songs and music appearing as the motif of the pack, from which we give here the Queen of Spades (Fig. 22), and the well-thumbed cards before us show that they were popular favourites. Their date may be taken as nearly coincident with that of the opera itself, viz., 1728. A further example of musical cards is given in Fig. 23, from a French pack of 1830, with its pretty piece of costume headgear, and its characteristic waltz music.



France has been prolific in what may be termed "Cartes de fantaisie," burlesque and satirical, not always designed, however, with due regard to the refinements of well-behaved communities. They are always spirited, and as specimens of inventive adaptation are worth notice. The example shown (Fig. 24) is from a pack of the year 1818, and is good of its class.



Of these "Cartes de fantaisie," each of the card-producing countries of Europe has at different dates produced examples of varying degrees of artistic value. Although not the best in point of merit, the most generally attractive of these are the packs produced in the years 1806-7-8 and 9, by the Tuebingen bookseller, Cotta, and which were published in book form, as the "Karten Almanack," and also as ordinary packs. Every card has a design, in which the suit signs, or "pips," are brought in as an integral part, and admirable ingenuity is displayed in this adaptation; although not the best in the series, we give the Six of Hearts (Fig. 25), as lending itself best to the purpose of reproduction, and as affording a fair instance of the method of design.



In England numerous examples of these illustrated playing cards have been produced of varying degrees of artistic merit, and, as one of the most amusing, we select the Knave of Spades from a pack of the year 1824 (Fig. 26). These cards are printed from copper-plates, and are coloured by hand, and show much ingenuity in the adaptation of the design to the form of the "pips."



Of the same class, but with more true artistic feeling and treatment than the preceding, we give the Deuce of Clubs, from a pack with London Cries (Fig. 27), and another with Fables (Fig. 28), both of which date from the earlier years of the last century, the former with the quaint costume and badge of a waterman, with his cry of "Oars! oars! do you want a boat?" In the middle distance the piers of Old London Bridge, and the house at its foot with overhanging gallery, make a pleasing old-time picture. The "Fables" cards are apparently from the designs of Francis Barlow, and are probably engraved by him; although we find upon some of them the name of J. Kirk, who, however, was the seller of the cards only, and who, as was not uncommon with the vendor of that time, in this way robbed the artist of what honour might belong to his work. Both of these packs are rare; that of the "Fables" is believed to be unique. Of a date some quarter of a century antecedent to those just described we have an amusing pack, in which each card has a collection of moral sentences, aphorisms, or a worldly-wise story, or—we regret in the interests of good behaviour to have to add—something very much the reverse of them. The larger portion of the card is occupied by a picture of considerable excellence in illustration of the text; and notwithstanding the peculiarity to which we have referred as attaching to some of them, the cards are very interesting as studies of costume and of the manners of the time—of what served to amuse our ancestors two centuries ago—and is a curious compound survival of Puritan teaching and the license of the Restoration period. We give one of them in Fig. 29.



The Ace of Clubs, shown in Fig. 30, is from a pack issued in Amsterdam about 1710, and is a good example of the Dutch burlesque cards of the eighteenth century. The majority of them have local allusions, the meaning of which is now lost; and many of them are of a character which will not bear reproduction. A better-known pack of Dutch cards is that satirizing the Mississippi scheme of 1716, and the victims of the notorious John Law—the "bubble" which, on its collapse, four years later, brought ruin to so many thousands.



Our space forbids the treatment of playing cards under any but their pictorial aspects, though the temptation is great to attempt some description of their use from an early period as instruments of divination or fortune telling, for which in the hands of the "wise man" or woman of various countries they are still used, and to which primary purpose the early "Tarots" were doubtless applied; but, as it is among the more curious of such cards, we give the Queen of Hearts from a pack of the immediate post-Commonwealth period (Fig. 31). The figure is called Semiramis—without, so far as can be seen, any reason. It is one of a melange of names for cards in which Wat Tyler and Tycho Brahe rub shoulders in the suit of Spades, and Mahomet and Nimrod in that of Diamonds! In the pack we find the Knave of Clubs named "Hewson" (not the card-maker of that name), but he who is satirized by Butler as "Hewson the Cobbler." Elsewhere he is called "One-eyed Hewson." He is shown with but one eye in the card bearing his name, and as it is contemporary, it may be a fair presentment of the man who, whatever his vices, managed under Cromwell to obtain high honours, and who was by him nominated a member of the House of Lords. The bitter prejudice of the time is shown in the story which is told of Hewson, that on the day the King was beheaded he rode from Charing Cross to the Royal Exchange proclaiming that "whoever should say that Charles Stuart died wrongfully should suffer death." Among the quasi-educational uses of playing cards we find the curious work of Dr. Thomas Murner, whose "Logica Memorativa Chartiludium," published at Strassburg in 1507, is the earliest instance known to us of a distinct application of playing cards to education, though the author expressly disclaims any knowledge of cards. The method used by the Doctor was to make each card an aid to memory, though the method must have been a severe strain of memory in itself. One of them is here given (Fig. 32), the suit being the German one of Bells (Schnellen).

It would seem that hardly any branch of human knowledge had been overlooked in the adaptation of playing cards to an educational purpose, and they who still have them in mind under the designation of "the Devil's books," may be relieved to know that Bible history has been taught by the means of playing cards. In 1603 there was published a Bible History and Chronology, under the title of the "Geistliche Karten Spiel," where, much as Murner did in the instance we have given above, the cards were used as an aid to memory, the author giving to each of the suit signs the distinctive appellation of some character or incident in Holy Writ. And more recently Zuccarelli, one of the original members of our Royal Academy, designed and etched a pack of cards with the same intention.

In Southern Germany we find in the last century playing cards specially prepared for gifts at weddings and for use at the festivities attending such events. These cards bore conventional representations of the bride, the bridegroom, the musicians, the priest, and the guests, on horseback or in carriages, each with a laudatory inscription. The card shown in Fig. 33 is from a pack of this kind of about 1740, the Roman numeral I. indicating it as the first in a series of "Tarots" numbered consecutively from I. to XXI., the usual Tarot designs being replaced by the wedding pictures described above. The custom of presenting guests with a pack of cards has been followed by the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards, who at their annual banquet give to their guests samples of the productions of the craft with which they are identified, which are specially designed for the occasion.



To conclude this article—much too limited to cover so interesting a subject—we give an illustration (Fig. 34) from a pack of fifty-two playing cards of silver—every card being engraved upon a thin plate of that metal. They are probably the work of a late sixteenth century German goldsmith, and are exquisite examples of design and skill with the graver. They are in the possession of a well-known collector of all things beautiful, curious, and rare, by whose courteous permission this unique example appears here.



Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives.

LORD HOUGHTON.

BORN 1858.



Lord Houghton, whose appointment to the post of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland came somewhat as a surprise, is a Yorkshire landowner, and a son of the peer so well known both in literary and social circles as Richard Monckton Milnes, whose poems and prose writings alike will long keep his memory alive. This literary faculty has descended to the present peer, his recent volume of poems having been received by the best critics as bearing evidence of a true poetic gift. Lord Houghton, who served as a Lord-in-Waiting in Mr. Gladstone's Government of 1886, is a rich man and the reputed heir of Lord Crewe; he has studied and travelled, and has taken some share, though hitherto not a very prominent one, in politics. He is a widower, and his sister presides over his establishment.

JOHN PETTIE, R.A.

BORN 1839.



Mr. John Pettie was born in Edinburgh, and exhibited his earliest works in the Royal Scottish Academy. He came to London at the age of twenty-three, and at the age of twenty-seven was elected an A.R.A. His election to the distinction of R.A. took place when he was thirty-four, in the place of Sir Edwin Landseer. Mr. Pettie's portraits and historical pictures are within the knowledge of every reader—his armour, carbines, lances, broadswords, and pistols are well-known features in every year's Academy—for his subjects are chiefly scenes of battle and of military life. His first picture hung in the Royal Academy was "The Armourers," He has also painted many subjects from Shakespeare's works; his "Scene in the Temple Gardens" being one of his most popular productions. "The Death Warrant" represents an episode in the career of the consumptive little son of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour. In "Two Strings to His Bow," Mr. Pettie showed a considerable sense of humour.

THE DUCHESS OF TECK.



Princess Mary Adelaide, daughter of H.R.H. Prince Adolphus Frederick, Duke of Cambridge, the seventh son of His Majesty King George III., married on June 12th, 1866, H.S.H. the Duke of Teck, whose portrait at different ages we have the pleasure of presenting on the opposite page. The Duchess of Teck and her daughter Princess Victoria are well known and esteemed far beyond their own circle of society for their interest in works of charity and the genuine kindness of heart, which render them ever ready to enter into schemes of benevolence. We may remind our readers that a charming series of portraits of Princess Victoria of Teck appeared in our issue of February, 1892.

THE DUKE OF TECK.

BORN 1837.



His Serene Highness Francis Paul Charles Louis Alexander, G.C.B., Prince and Duke of Teck, is the only son of Duke Alexander of Wuertemberg and the Countess Claudine Rhedy and Countess of Hohenstein, a lady of a most illustrious but not princely house. It is not generally known that a family law, which decrees that the son of a marriage between a prince of the Royal Family of Wuertemberg and a lady not of princely birth, however nobly born, cannot inherit the crown, alone prevents the Duke of Teck from being King of Wuertemberg. The Duke of Teck has served with distinction in the Army, having received the Egyptian medal and the Khedive's star, together with the rank of colonel.

REV. H. R. HAWEIS, M.A.

BORN 1838.



The Reverend Hugh Reginald Haweis, preacher, lecturer, journalist, musician, was born at Egham, his father being the Rev. J. O. W. Haweis, rector of Slaugham, Sussex. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and appointed in 1866 incumbent of St. James's, Marylebone. He has been an indefatigable advocate of the Sunday opening of museums, and a frequent lecturer at the Royal Institution, notably on violins, church bells, and American humorists. He also took a great interest in the Italian Revolution.

FREDERIC H. COWEN.

BORN 1852.



Mr. F. H. Cowen, whose new opera will appear about the same time as these portraits, was born at Kingston, in Jamaica, and showed at a very early age so much musical talent that it was decided he should follow music as a career, with what excellent results is known to all musicians. His more important works comprise five cantatas, "The Rose Maiden," "The Corsair," "Saint Ursula," "The Sleeping Beauty," and "St. John's Eve," several symphonies, the opera "Thorgrim," considered his finest work, and over two hundred songs and ballads, many of which have attained great popularity.



The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

XV.—THE ADVENTURE OF THE YELLOW FACE.

BY A. CONAN DOYLE.

In publishing these short sketches, based upon the numerous cases which my companion's singular gifts have made me the listener to, and eventually the actor in some strange drama, it is only natural that I should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures. And this not so much for the sake of his reputation, for indeed it was when he was at his wits' end that his energy and his versatility were most admirable, but because where he failed it happened too often that no one else succeeded, and that the tale was left for ever without a conclusion. Now and again, however, it chanced that even when he erred the truth was still discovered. I have notes of some half-dozen cases of the kind of which "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" and that which I am now about to recount are the two which present the strongest features of interest.

Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise's sake. Few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was undoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen, but he looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste of energy, and he seldom bestirred himself save where there was some professional object to be served. Then he was absolutely untiring and indefatigable. That he should have kept himself in training under such circumstances is remarkable, but his diet was usually of the sparest, and his habits were simple to the verge of austerity. Save for the occasional use of cocaine he had no vices, and he only turned to the drug as a protest against the monotony of existence when cases were scanty and the papers uninteresting.

One day in early spring he had so far relaxed as to go for a walk with me in the Park, where the first faint shoots of green were breaking out upon the elms, and the sticky spearheads of the chestnuts were just beginning to burst into their five-fold leaves. For two hours we rambled about together, in silence for the most part, as befits two men who know each other intimately. It was nearly five before we were back in Baker Street once more.

"Beg pardon, sir," said our page-boy, as he opened the door; "there's been a gentleman here asking for you, sir."

Holmes glanced reproachfully at me. "So much for afternoon walks!" said he. "Has this gentleman gone, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Didn't you ask him in?"

"Yes, sir; he came in."

"How long did he wait?"

"Half an hour, sir. He was a very restless gentleman, sir, a-walkin' and a-stampin' all the time he was here. I was waitin' outside the door, sir, and I could hear him. At last he goes out into the passage and he cries: 'Is that man never goin' to come?' Those were his very words, sir. 'You'll only need to wait a little longer,' says I. 'Then I'll wait in the open air, for I feel half choked,' says he. 'I'll be back before long,' and with that he ups and he outs, and all I could say wouldn't hold him back."

"Well, well, you did your best," said Holmes, as we walked into our room. "It's very annoying though, Watson. I was badly in need of a case, and this looks, from the man's impatience, as if it were of importance. Halloa! that's not your pipe on the table! He must have left his behind him. A nice old briar, with a good long stem of what the tobacconists call amber. I wonder how many real amber mouthpieces there are in London. Some people think a fly in it is a sign. Why, it is quite a branch of trade the putting of sham flies into the sham amber. Well, he must have been disturbed in his mind to leave a pipe behind him which he evidently values highly."

"How do you know that he values it highly?" I asked.

"Well, I should put the original cost of the pipe at seven-and-sixpence. Now it has, you see, been twice mended: once in the wooden stem and once in the amber. Each of these mends, done, as you observe, with silver bands, must have cost more than the pipe did originally. The man must value the pipe highly when he prefers to patch it up rather than buy a new one with the same money."



"Anything else?" I asked, for Holmes was turning the pipe about in his hand and staring at it in his peculiar, pensive way.

He held it up and tapped on it with his long, thin forefinger as a professor might who was lecturing on a bone.

"Pipes are occasionally of extraordinary interest," said he. "Nothing has more individuality save, perhaps, watches and boot-laces. The indications here, however, are neither very marked nor very important. The owner is obviously a muscular man, left-handed, with an excellent set of teeth, careless in his habits, and with no need to practise economy."

My friend threw out the information in a very off-hand way, but I saw that he cocked his eye at me to see if I had followed his reasoning.

"You think a man must be well-to-do if he smokes a seven-shilling pipe?" said I.

"This is Grosvenor mixture at eightpence an ounce," Holmes answered, knocking a little out on his palm. "As he might get an excellent smoke for half the price, he has no need to practise economy."

"And the other points?"

"He has been in the habit of lighting his pipe at lamps and gas-jets. You can see that it is quite charred all down one side. Of course, a match could not have done that. Why should a man hold a match to the side of his pipe? But you cannot light it at a lamp without getting the bowl charred. And it is all on the right side of the pipe. From that I gather that he is a left-handed man. You hold your own pipe to the lamp, and see how naturally you, being right-handed, hold the left side to the flame. You might do it once the other way, but not as a constancy. This has always been held so. Then he has bitten through his amber. It takes a muscular, energetic fellow, and one with a good set of teeth to do that. But if I am not mistaken I hear him upon the stair, so we shall have something more interesting than his pipe to study."

An instant later our door opened, and a tall young man entered the room. He was well but quietly dressed in a dark-grey suit, and carried a brown wideawake in his hand. I should have put him at about thirty, though he was really some years older.

"I beg your pardon," said he, with some embarrassment; "I suppose I should have knocked. Yes, of course I should have knocked. The fact is that I am a little upset, and you must put it all down to that." He passed his hand over his forehead like a man who is half dazed, and then fell, rather than sat, down upon a chair.

"I can see that you have not slept for a night or two," said Holmes, in his easy, genial way. "That tries a man's nerves more than work, and more even than pleasure. May I ask how I can help you?"

"I wanted your advice, sir. I don't know what to do, and my whole life seems to have gone to pieces."

"You wish to employ me as a consulting detective?"

"Not that only. I want your opinion as a judicious man—as a man of the world. I want to know what I ought to do next. I hope to God you'll be able to tell me."

He spoke in little, sharp, jerky outbursts, and it seemed to me that to speak at all was very painful to him, and that his will all through was overriding his inclinations.

"It's a very delicate thing," said he. "One does not like to speak of one's domestic affairs to strangers. It seems dreadful to discuss the conduct of one's wife with two men whom I have never seen before. It's horrible to have to do it. But I've got to the end of my tether, and I must have advice."

"My dear Mr. Grant Munro——" began Holmes.

Our visitor sprang from his chair. "What!" he cried. "You know my name?"

"If you wish to preserve your incognito," said Holmes, smiling, "I should suggest that you cease to write your name upon the lining of your hat, or else that you turn the crown towards the person whom you are addressing. I was about to say that my friend and I have listened to many strange secrets in this room, and that we have had the good fortune to bring peace to many troubled souls. I trust that we may do as much for you. Might I beg you, as time may prove to be of importance, to furnish me with the facts of your case without further delay?"

Our visitor again passed his hand over his forehead as if he found it bitterly hard. From every gesture and expression I could see that he was a reserved, self-contained man, with a dash of pride in his nature, more likely to hide his wounds than to expose them. Then suddenly with a fierce gesture of his closed hand, like one who throws reserve to the winds, he began.



"The facts are these, Mr. Holmes," said he. "I am a married man, and have been so for three years. During that time my wife and I have loved each other as fondly, and lived as happily, as any two that ever were joined. We have not had a difference, not one, in thought, or word, or deed. And now, since last Monday, there has suddenly sprung up a barrier between us, and I find that there is something in her life and in her thoughts of which I know as little as if she were the woman who brushes by me in the street. We are estranged, and I want to know why.

"Now there is one thing that I want to impress upon you before I go any further, Mr. Holmes. Effie loves me. Don't let there be any mistake about that. She loves me with her whole heart and soul, and never more than now. I know it—I feel it. I don't want to argue about that. A man can tell easily enough when a woman loves him. But there's this secret between us, and we can never be the same until it is cleared."

"Kindly let me have the facts, Mr. Munro," said Holmes, with some impatience.

"I'll tell you what I know about Effie's history. She was a widow when I met her first, though quite young—only twenty-five. Her name then was Mrs. Hebron. She went out to America when she was young and lived in the town of Atlanta, where she married this Hebron, who was a lawyer with a good practice. They had one child, but the yellow fever broke out badly in the place, and both husband and child died of it. I have seen his death certificate. This sickened her of America, and she came back to live with a maiden aunt at Pinner, in Middlesex. I may mention that her husband had left her comfortably off, and that she had a capital of about four thousand five hundred pounds, which had been so well invested by him that it returned an average of 7 per cent. She had only been six months at Pinner when I met her; we fell in love with each other, and we married a few weeks afterwards.

"I am a hop merchant myself, and as I have an income of seven or eight hundred, we found ourselves comfortably off, and took a nice eighty-pound-a-year villa at Norbury. Our little place was very countrified, considering that it is so close to town. We had an inn and two houses a little above us, and a single cottage at the other side of the field which faces us, and except those there were no houses until you got half-way to the station. My business took me into town at certain seasons, but in summer I had less to do, and then in our country home my wife and I were just as happy as could be wished. I tell you that there never was a shadow between us until this accursed affair began.

"There's one thing I ought to tell you before I go further. When we married, my wife made over all her property to me—rather against my will, for I saw how awkward it would be if my business affairs went wrong. However, she would have it so, and it was done. Well, about six weeks ago she came to me.

"'Jack,' said she, 'when, you took my money you said that if ever I wanted any I was to ask you for it.'

"'Certainly,' said I, 'it's all your own.'

"'Well,' said she, 'I want a hundred pounds.'

"I was a bit staggered at this, for I had imagined it was simply a new dress or something of the kind that she was after.

"'What on earth for?' I asked.

"'Oh,' said she, in her playful way, 'you said that you were only my banker, and bankers never ask questions, you know.'

"'If you really mean it, of course you shall have the money,' said I.

"'Oh, yes, I really mean it.'

"'And you won't tell me what you want it for?'

"'Some day, perhaps, but not just at present, Jack.'

"So I had to be content with that, though it was the first time that there had ever been any secret between us. I gave her a cheque, and I never thought any more of the matter. It may have nothing to do with what came afterwards, but I thought it only right to mention it.

"Well, I told you just now that there is a cottage not far from our house. There is just a field between us, but to reach it you have to go along the road and then turn down a lane. Just beyond it is a nice little grove of Scotch firs, and I used to be very fond of strolling down there, for trees are always neighbourly kinds of things. The cottage had been standing empty this eight months, and it was a pity, for it was a pretty two-storied place, with an old-fashioned porch and honeysuckle about it. I have stood many a time and thought what a neat little homestead it would make.

"Well, last Monday evening I was taking a stroll down that way when I met an empty van coming up the lane, and saw a pile of carpets and things lying about on the grass-plot beside the porch. It was clear that the cottage had at last been let. I walked past it, and then stopping, as an idle man might, I ran my eye over it, and wondered what sort of folk they were who had come to live so near us. And as I looked I suddenly became aware that a face was watching me out of one of the upper windows.

"I don't know what there was about that face, Mr. Holmes, but it seemed to send a chill right down my back. I was some little way off, so that I could not make out the features, but there was something unnatural and inhuman about the face. That was the impression I had, and I moved quickly forwards to get a nearer view of the person who was watching me. But as I did so the face suddenly disappeared, so suddenly that it seemed to have been plucked away into the darkness of the room. I stood for five minutes thinking the business over, and trying to analyze my impressions. I could not tell if the face was that of a man or a woman. It had been too far from me for that. But its colour was what had impressed me most. It was of a livid, dead yellow, and with something set and rigid about it, which was shockingly unnatural. So disturbed was I, that I determined to see a little more of the new inmates of the cottage. I approached and knocked at the door, which was instantly opened by a tall, gaunt woman, with a harsh, forbidding face.

"'What may you be wantin'?' she asked, in a northern accent.

"'I am your neighbour over yonder,' said I, nodding towards my house. 'I see that you have only just moved in, so I thought that if I could be of any help to you in any——'

"'Aye, we'll just ask ye when we want ye,' said she, and shut the door in my face. Annoyed at the churlish rebuff, I turned my back and walked home. All the evening, though I tried to think of other things, my mind would still turn to the apparition at the window and the rudeness of the woman. I determined to say nothing about the former to my wife, for she is a nervous, highly-strung woman, and I had no wish that she should share the unpleasant impression which had been produced upon myself. I remarked to her, however, before I fell asleep that the cottage was now occupied, to which she returned no reply.



"I am usually an extremely sound sleeper. It has been a standing jest in the family that nothing could ever wake me during the night; and yet somehow on that particular night, whether it may have been the slight excitement produced by my little adventure or not, I know not, but I slept much more lightly than usual. Half in my dreams I was dimly conscious that something was going on in the room, and gradually became aware that my wife had dressed herself and was slipping on her mantle and her bonnet. My lips were parted to murmur out some sleepy words of surprise or remonstrance at this untimely preparation, when suddenly my half-opened eyes fell upon her face, illuminated by the candle light, and astonishment held me dumb. She wore an expression such as I had never seen before—such as I should have thought her incapable of assuming. She was deadly pale, and breathing fast, glancing furtively towards the bed, as she fastened her mantle, to see if she had disturbed me. Then, thinking that I was still asleep, she slipped noiselessly from the room, and an instant later I heard a sharp creaking, which could only come from the hinges of the front door. I sat up in bed and rapped my knuckles against the rail to make certain that I was truly awake. Then I took my watch from under the pillow. It was three in the morning. What on this earth could my wife be doing out on the country road at three in the morning?

"I had sat for about twenty minutes turning the thing over in my mind and trying to find some possible explanation. The more I thought the more extraordinary and inexplicable did it appear. I was still puzzling over it when I heard the door gently close again and her footsteps coming up the stairs.

"'Where in the world have you been, Effie?' I asked, as she entered.

"She gave a violent start and a kind of gasping cry when I spoke, and that cry and start troubled me more than all the rest, for there was something indescribably guilty about them. My wife had always been a woman of a frank, open nature, and it gave me a chill to see her slinking into her own room, and crying out and wincing when her own husband spoke to her.

"'You awake, Jack?' she cried, with a nervous laugh. 'Why, I thought that nothing could awaken you.'

"'Where have you been?' I asked, more sternly.

"'I don't wonder that you are surprised,' said she, and I could see that her fingers were trembling as she undid the fastenings of her mantle. 'Why, I never remember having done such a thing in my life before. The fact is, that I felt as though I were choking, and had a perfect longing for a breath of fresh air. I really think that I should have fainted if I had not gone out. I stood at the door for a few minutes, and now I am quite myself again.'

"All the time that she was telling me this story she never once looked in my direction, and her voice was quite unlike her usual tones. It was evident to me that she was saying what was false. I said nothing in reply, but turned my face to the wall, sick at heart, with my mind filled with a thousand venomous doubts and suspicions. What was it that my wife was concealing from me? Where had she been during that strange expedition? I felt that I should have no peace until I knew, and yet I shrank from asking her again after once she had told me what was false. All the rest of the night I tossed and tumbled, framing theory after theory, each more unlikely than the last.

"I should have gone to the City that day, but I was too perturbed in my mind to be able to pay attention to business matters. My wife seemed to be as upset as myself, and I could see from the little questioning glances which she kept shooting at me, that she understood that I disbelieved her statement and that she was at her wits' ends what to do. We hardly exchanged a word during breakfast, and immediately afterwards I went out for a walk that I might think the matter out in the fresh morning air.

"I went as far as the Crystal Palace, spent an hour in the grounds, and was back in Norbury by one o'clock. It happened that my way took me past the cottage, and I stopped for an instant to look at the windows and to see if I could catch a glimpse of the strange face which had looked out at me on the day before. As I stood there, imagine my surprise, Mr. Holmes, when the door suddenly opened and my wife walked out!

"I was struck dumb with astonishment at the sight of her, but my emotions were nothing to those which showed themselves upon her face when our eyes met. She seemed for an instant to wish to shrink back inside the house again, and then, seeing how useless all concealment must be, she came forward with a very white face and frightened eyes which belied the smile upon her lips.

"'Oh, Jack!' she said, 'I have just been in to see if I can be of any assistance to our new neighbours. Why do you look at me like that, Jack? You are not angry with me?'

"'So,' said I, 'this is where you went during the night?'

"'What do you mean?' she cried.

"'You came here. I am sure of it. Who are these people that you should visit them at such an hour?'

"'I have not been here before.'

"'How can you tell me what you know is false?' I cried. 'Your very voice changes as you speak. When have I ever had a secret from you? I shall enter that cottage and I shall probe the matter to the bottom.'

"'No, no, Jack, for God's sake!' she gasped, in incontrollable emotion. Then as I approached the door she seized my sleeve and pulled me back with convulsive strength.



"'I implore you not to do this, Jack,' she cried. 'I swear that I will tell you everything some day, but nothing but misery can come of it if you enter that cottage.' Then, as I tried to shake her off, she clung to me in a frenzy of entreaty.

"'Trust me, Jack!' she cried. 'Trust me only this once. You will never have cause to regret it. You know that I would not have a secret from you if it were not for your own sake. Our whole lives are at stake on this. If you come home with me all will be well. If you force your way into that cottage, all is over between us.'

"There was such earnestness, such despair in her manner that her words arrested me, and I stood irresolute before the door.

"'I will trust you on one condition, and on one condition only,' said I at last. 'It is that this mystery comes to an end from now. You are at liberty to preserve your secret, but you must promise me that there shall be no more nightly visits, no more doings which are kept from my knowledge. I am willing to forget those which are passed if you will promise that there shall be no more in the future.'

"'I was sure that you would trust me,' she cried, with a great sigh of relief. 'It shall be just as you wish. Come away, oh, come away up to the house!' Still pulling at my sleeve she led me away from the cottage. As we went I glanced back, and there was that yellow livid face watching us out of the upper window. What link could there be between that creature and my wife? Or how could the coarse, rough woman whom I had seen the day before be connected with her? It was a strange puzzle, and yet I knew that my mind could never know ease again until I had solved it.

"For two days after this I stayed at home, and my wife appeared to abide loyally by our engagement, for, as far as I know, she never stirred out of the house. On the third day, however, I had ample evidence that her solemn promise was not enough to hold her back from this secret influence which drew her away from her husband and her duty.

"I had gone into town on that day, but I returned by the 2.40 instead of the 3.36, which is my usual train. As I entered the house the maid ran into the hall with a startled face.

"'Where is your mistress?' I asked.

"'I think that she has gone out for a walk,' she answered.

"My mind was instantly filled with suspicion. I rushed upstairs to make sure that she was not in the house. As I did so I happened to glance out of one of the upper windows, and saw the maid with whom I had just been speaking running across the field in the direction of the cottage. Then, of course, I saw exactly what it all meant. My wife had gone over there and had asked the servant to call her if I should return. Tingling with anger, I rushed down and hurried across, determined to end the matter once and for ever. I saw my wife and the maid hurrying back together along the lane, but I did not stop to speak with them. In the cottage lay the secret which was casting a shadow over my life. I vowed that, come what might, it should be a secret no longer. I did not even knock when I reached it, but turned the handle and rushed into the passage.

"It was all still and quiet upon the ground-floor. In the kitchen a kettle was singing on the fire, and a large black cat lay coiled up in a basket, but there was no sign of the woman whom I had seen before. I ran into the other room, but it was equally deserted. Then I rushed up the stairs, but only to find two other rooms empty and deserted at the top. There was no one at all in the whole house. The furniture and pictures were of the most common and vulgar description save in the one chamber at the window of which I had seen the strange face. That was comfortable and elegant, and all my suspicions rose into a fierce, bitter blaze when I saw that on the mantelpiece stood a full-length photograph of my wife, which had been taken at my request only three months ago.

"I stayed long enough to make certain that the house was absolutely empty. Then I left it, feeling a weight at my heart such as I had never had before. My wife came out into the hall as I entered my house, but I was too hurt and angry to speak with her, and pushing past her I made my way into my study. She followed me, however, before I could close the door.

"'I am sorry that I broke my promise, Jack,' said she, 'but if you knew all the circumstances I am sure that you would forgive me.'

"'Tell me everything, then,' said I.

"'I cannot, Jack, I cannot!' she cried.

"'Until you tell me who it is that has been living in that cottage, and who it is to whom you have given that photograph, there can never be any confidence between us,' said I, and breaking away from her I left the house. That was yesterday, Mr. Holmes, and I have not seen her since, nor do I know anything more about this strange business. It is the first shadow that has come between us, and it has so shaken me that I do not know what I should do for the best. Suddenly this morning it occurred to me that you were the man to advise me, so I have hurried to you now, and I place myself unreservedly in your hands. If there is any point which I have not made clear, pray question me about it. But above all tell me quickly what I have to do, for this misery is more than I can bear."



Holmes and I had listened with the utmost interest to this extraordinary statement, which had been delivered in the jerky, broken fashion of a man who is under the influence of extreme emotion. My companion sat silent now for some time, with his chin upon his hand, lost in thought.

"Tell me," said he at last, "could you swear that this was a man's face which you saw at the window?"

"Each time that I saw it I was some distance away from it, so that it is impossible for me to say."

"You appear, however, to have been disagreeably impressed by it."

"It seemed to be of an unnatural colour and to have a strange rigidity about the features. When I approached, it vanished with a jerk."

"How long is it since your wife asked you for a hundred pounds?"

"Nearly two months."

"Have you ever seen a photograph of her first husband?"

"No, there was a great fire at Atlanta very shortly after his death, and all her papers were destroyed."

"And yet she had a certificate of death. You say that you saw it?"

"Yes, she got a duplicate after the fire."

"Did you ever meet anyone who knew her in America?"

"No."

"Did she ever talk of revisiting the place?"

"No."

"Or get letters from it?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Thank you. I should like to think over the matter a little now. If the cottage is permanently deserted we may have some difficulty; if on the other hand, as I fancy is more likely, the inmates were warned of your coming, and left before you entered yesterday, then they may be back now, and we should clear it all up easily. Let me advise you, then, to return to Norbury and to examine the windows of the cottage again. If you have reason to believe that it is inhabited do not force your way in, but send a wire to my friend and me. We shall be with you within an hour of receiving it, and we shall then very soon get to the bottom of the business."

"And if it is still empty?"

"In that case I shall come out to-morrow and talk it over with you. Good-bye, and above all do not fret until you know that you really have a cause for it."

"I am afraid that this is a bad business, Watson," said my companion, as he returned after accompanying Mr. Grant Munro to the door. "What did you make of it?"

"It had an ugly sound," I answered.

"Yes. There's blackmail in it, or I am much mistaken."

"And who is the blackmailer?"

"Well, it must be this creature who lives in the only comfortable room in the place, and has her photograph above his fireplace. Upon my word, Watson, there is something very attractive about that livid face at the window, and I would not have missed the case for worlds."

"You have a theory?"

"Yes, a provisional one. But I shall be surprised if it does not turn out to be correct. This woman's first husband is in that cottage."

"Why do you think so?"

"How else can we explain her frenzied anxiety that her second one should not enter it? The facts, as I read them, are something like this: This woman was married in America. Her husband developed some hateful qualities, or, shall we say, that he contracted some loathsome disease, and became a leper or an imbecile. She fled from him at last, returned to England, changed her name, and started her life, as she thought, afresh. She had been married three years, and believed that her position was quite secure—having shown her husband the death certificate of some man, whose name she had assumed—when suddenly her whereabouts was discovered by her first husband, or, we may suppose, by some unscrupulous woman, who had attached herself to the invalid. They write to the wife and threaten to come and expose her. She asks for a hundred pounds and endeavours to buy them off. They come in spite of it, and when the husband mentions casually to the wife that there are new-comers in the cottage, she knows in some way that they are her pursuers. She waits until her husband is asleep, and then she rushes down to endeavour to persuade them to leave her in peace. Having no success, she goes again next morning, and her husband meets her, as he has told us, as she came out. She promises him then not to go there again, but two days afterwards, the hope of getting rid of those dreadful neighbours is too strong for her, and she makes another attempt, taking down with her the photograph which had probably been demanded from her. In the midst of this interview the maid rushes in to say that the master has come home, on which the wife, knowing that he would come straight down to the cottage, hurries the inmates out at the back door, into that grove of fir trees probably which was mentioned as standing near. In this way he finds the place deserted. I shall be very much surprised, however, if it is still so when he reconnoitres it this evening. What do you think of my theory?"

"It is all surmise."

"But at least it covers all the facts. When new facts come to our knowledge, which cannot be covered by it, it will be time enough to reconsider it. At present we can do nothing until we have a fresh message from our friend at Norbury."

But we had not very long to wait. It came just as we had finished our tea. "The cottage is still tenanted," it said. "Have seen the face again at the window. I'll meet the seven o'clock train, and take no steps until you arrive."

He was waiting on the platform when we stepped out, and we could see in the light of the station lamps that he was very pale, and quivering with agitation.

"They are still there, Mr. Holmes," said he, laying his hand upon my friend's sleeve. "I saw lights in the cottage as I came down. We shall settle it now, once and for all."

"What is your plan, then?" asked Holmes, as we walked down the dark, tree-lined road.

"I am going to force my way in, and see for myself who is in the house. I wish you both to be there as witnesses."

"You are quite determined to do this, in spite of your wife's warning that it was better that you should not solve the mystery?"

"Yes, I am determined."

"Well, I think that you are in the right. Any truth is better than indefinite doubt. We had better go up at once. Of course, legally we are putting ourselves hopelessly in the wrong, but I think that it is worth it."

It was a very dark night and a thin rain began to fall as we turned from the high road into a narrow lane, deeply rutted, with hedges on either side. Mr. Grant Munro pushed impatiently forward, however, and we stumbled after him as best we could.

"There are the lights of my house," he murmured, pointing to a glimmer among the trees, "and here is the cottage which I am going to enter."

We turned a corner in the lane as he spoke, and there was the building close beside us. A yellow bar falling across the black foreground showed that the door was not quite closed, and one window in the upper story was brightly illuminated. As we looked we saw a dark blurr moving across the blind.

"There is that creature," cried Grant Munro; "you can see for yourselves that someone is there. Now follow me, and we shall soon know all."

We approached the door, but suddenly a woman appeared out of the shadow and stood in the golden track of the lamp light. I could not see her face in the darkness, but her arms were thrown out in an attitude of entreaty.

"For God's sake, don't, Jack!" she cried. "I had a presentiment that you would come this evening. Think better of it, dear! Trust me again, and you will never have cause to regret it."

"I have trusted you too long, Effie!" he cried, sternly. "Leave go of me! I must pass you. My friends and I are going to settle this matter once and for ever." He pushed her to one side and we followed closely after him. As he threw the door open, an elderly woman ran out in front of him and tried to bar his passage, but he thrust her back, and an instant afterwards we were all upon the stairs. Grant Munro rushed into the lighted room at the top, and we entered it at his heels.

It was a cosy, well-furnished apartment, with two candles burning upon the table and two upon the mantelpiece. In the corner, stooping over a desk, there sat what appeared to be a little girl. Her face was turned away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed in a red frock, and that she had long white gloves on. As she whisked round to us I gave a cry of surprise and horror. The face which she turned towards us was of the strangest livid tint, and the features were absolutely devoid of any expression. An instant later the mystery was explained. Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind the child's ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance, and there was a little coal-black negress with all her white teeth flashing in amusement at our amazed faces. I burst out laughing out of sympathy with her merriment, but Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand clutching at his throat.



"My God!" he cried, "what can be the meaning of this?"

"I will tell you the meaning of it," cried the lady, sweeping into the room with a proud, set face. "You have forced me against my own judgment to tell you, and now we must both make the best of it. My husband died at Atlanta. My child survived."

"Your child!"

She drew a large silver locket from her bosom. "You have never seen this open."

"I understood that it did not open."

She touched a spring, and the front hinged back. There was a portrait within of a man, strikingly handsome and intelligent, but bearing unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent.

"That is John Hebron, of Atlanta," said the lady, "and a nobler man never walked the earth. I cut myself off from my race in order to wed him; but never once while he lived did I for one instant regret it. It was our misfortune that our only child took after his people rather than mine. It is often so in such matches, and little Lucy is darker far than ever her father was. But, dark or fair, she is my own dear little girlie, and her mother's pet." The little creature ran across at the words and nestled up against the lady's dress.

"When I left her in America," she continued, "it was only because her health was weak, and the change might have done her harm. She was given to the care of a faithful Scotchwoman who had once been our servant. Never for an instant did I dream of disowning her as my child. But when chance threw you in my way, Jack, and I learned to love you, I feared to tell you about my child. God forgive me, I feared that I should lose you, and I had not the courage to tell you. I had to choose between you, and in my weakness I turned away from my own little girl. For three years I have kept her existence a secret from you, but I heard from the nurse, and I knew that all was well with her. At last, however, there came an overwhelming desire to see the child once more. I struggled against it, but in vain. Though I knew the danger I determined to have the child over, if it were but for a few weeks. I sent a hundred pounds to the nurse, and I gave her instructions about this cottage, so that she might come as a neighbour without my appearing to be in any way connected with her. I pushed my precautions so far as to order her to keep the child in the house during the daytime, and to cover up her little face and hands, so that even those who might see her at the window should not gossip about there being a black child in the neighbourhood. If I had been less cautious I might have been more wise, but I was half crazy with fear lest you should learn the truth.



"It was you who told me first that the cottage was occupied. I should have waited for the morning, but I could not sleep for excitement, and so at last I slipped out, knowing how difficult it is to awaken you. But you saw me go, and that was the beginning of my troubles. Next day you had my secret at your mercy, but you nobly refrained from pursuing your advantage. Three days later, however, the nurse and child only just escaped from the back door as you rushed in at the front one. And now to-night you at last know all, and I ask you what is to become of us, my child and me?" She clasped her hands and waited for an answer.

It was a long two minutes before Grant Munro broke the silence, and when his answer came it was one of which I love to think. He lifted the little child, kissed her, and then, still carrying her, he held his other hand out to his wife and turned towards the door.

"We can talk it over more comfortably at home," said he. "I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being."

Holmes and I followed them down to the lane, and my friend plucked at my sleeve as we came out. "I think," said he, "that we shall be of more use in London than in Norbury."

Not another word did he say of the case until late that night when he was turning away, with his lighted candle, for his bedroom.

"Watson," said he, "if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you."



Illustrated Interviews.

No. XX.—DR. BARNARDO, F.R.C.S. Ed.



When it is remembered that the Homes founded and governed by Dr. Barnardo comprise fifty distinct institutions; that since the foundation of the first Home, twenty-eight years ago, in Stepney, over 22,000 boys and girls have been rescued from positions of almost indescribable danger; that to-day five thousand orphans and destitute children, constituting the largest family in the world, are being cared for, trained, and put on a different footing to that of shoeless and stockingless, it will be at once understood that a definite and particular direction must be chosen in which to allow one's thoughts and investigations to travel. I immediately select the babies—the little ones of five years old and under; and it is possible that ere the last words of this paper are written, the Doctor may have disappeared from these pages, and we may find ourselves in fancy romping and playing with the babes in the green fields—one day last summer.

There is no misjudging the character of Dr. Barnardo—there is no misinterpreting his motives. Somewhat below the medium height, strong and stoutly built, with an expression at times a little severe, but with benevolent-looking eyes, which immediately scatter the lines of severity: he at once impresses you as a man of immovable disposition and intentions not to be cast aside. He sets his heart on having a thing done. It is done. He conceives some new departure of rescue work. There is no rest for him until it is accomplished. His rapidity of speech tells of continual activity of mind. He is essentially a business man—he needs must be. He takes a waif in hand, and makes a man or woman of it in a very few years. Why should the child's unparentlike parent now come forward and claim it once more for a life of misery and probable crime? Dr. Barnardo thinks long before he would snap the parental ties between mother and child; but if neglect, cruelty, or degradation towards her offspring have been the chief evidences of her relationship, nothing in the wide world would stop him from taking the little one up and holding it fast.

I sat down to chat over the very wide subject of child rescue in Dr. Barnardo's cosy room at Stepney Causeway. It was a bitter cold night outside, the streets were frozen, the snow falling. In an hour's time we were to start for the slums—to see baby life in the vicinity of Flower and Dean Street, Brick Lane, and Wentworth Street—all typical localities where the fourpenny lodging-house still refuses to be crushed by model dwellings. Over the comforting fire we talked about a not altogether uneventful past.

Dr. Barnardo was born in 1845, in Dublin. Although an Irishman by birth, he is not so by blood. He is really of Spanish descent, as his name suggests.



"I can never recollect the time," he said, "when the face and the voice of a child has not had power to draw me aside from everything else. Naturally, I have always had a passionate love for children. Their helplessness, their innocence, and, in the case of waif children, their misery, constitute, I feel, an irresistible appeal to every humane heart.

"I remember an incident which occurred to me at a very early age, and which made a great impression upon me.

"One day, when coming home from school, I saw standing on the margin of the pavement a woman in miserable attire, with a wretched-looking baby in her arms. I was then only a schoolboy of eleven years old, but the sight made me very unhappy. I remember looking furtively every way to see if I was observed, and then emptying my pockets—truly they had not much in them—into the woman's hands. But sauntering on, I could not forget the face of the baby—it fascinated me; so I had to go back, and in a low voice suggested to the woman that if she would follow me home I would try to get her something more.

"Fortunately, I was able to let her into the hall without attracting much attention, and then went down to the cook on my errand. I forget what was done, except that I know a good meal was given to the 'mother' and some milk to the baby. Just then an elder sister of mine came into the hall, and was attracted as I had been to the infant; but observing the woman she suddenly called out: 'Why, you are the woman I have spoken to twice before, and this is a different baby; this is the third you have had!'

"And so it came to pass that I had my first experience of a beggar's shifts. The child was not hers; she had borrowed it, or hired it, and it was, as my sister said, the third in succession she had had within a couple of months. So I was somewhat humiliated as 'mother' and infant were quietly, but quickly, passed out through the hall door into the street, and I learned my first lesson that the best way to help the poor is not necessarily to give money to the first beggar you meet in the street, although it is well to always keep a tender heart for the sufferings of children."

"Hire babies! Borrow babies!" I interrupted.

"Yes," replied the Doctor, "and buy them, too. I know of several lodging-houses where I could hire a baby from fourpence to a shilling a day. The prettier the child is the better; should it happen to be a cripple, or possessing particularly thin arms and face, it is always worth a shilling. Little girls always demand a higher price than boys. I knew of one woman—her supposed husband sells chickweed and groundsel—who has carried a baby exactly the same size for the last nine or ten years! I myself have, in days gone by, bought children in order to rescue them. Happily, such a step is now not needful, owing to changes in the law, which enable us to get possession of such children by better methods. For one girl I paid 10s. 6d., whilst my very first purchase cost me 7s. 6d. It was for a little boy and girl baby—brother and sister. The latter was tied up in a bundle. The woman—whom I found sitting on a door-step—offered to sell the boy for a trifle, half-a-crown, but not the mite of a girl, as she was 'her living.' However, I rescued them both, for the sum I have mentioned. In another case I got a poor little creature of two years of age—I can see her now, with arms no thicker than my finger—from her drunken 'guardian' for a shilling. When it came to washing the waif—what clothes it had on consisted of nothing but knots and strings; they had not been untied for weeks, perhaps months, and had to be cut off with a pair of scissors—we found something tied round its waist, to which the child constantly stretched out its wasted fingers and endeavoured to raise to its lips. On examination it proved to be an old fish-bone wrapped in a piece of cotton, which must have been at least a month old. Yet you must remember that these 'purchases' are quite exceptional cases, as my children have, for the most part, been obtained by legitimate means."

Yes, these little mites arrive at Stepney somewhat strangely at times. A child was sent from Newcastle in a hamper. It bore a small tablet on the wicker basket which read: "To Dr. Barnardo, London. With care." The little girl arrived quite safe and perfectly sound. But the most remarkable instance of all was that of little Frank. Few children reach Dr. Barnardo whose antecedents cannot be traced and their history recorded in the volumes kept for this purpose. But Frankie remains one of the unknown. Some time ago a carrier delivered what was presumably a box of Swiss milk at the Homes. The porter in charge received it, and was about to place it amongst other packages, when the faintest possible cry escaped through the cracks in the lid. The pliers were hastily brought, the nails flew out, the lid came off, and there lay little Frank in his diminutive baby's robe, peacefully sleeping, with the end of the tube communicating with his bottle of milk still between his lips!



"That is one means of getting rid of children," said Dr. Barnardo, after he had told me the story of Frank, "but there are others which might almost amount to a respectable method. I have received offers of large sums of money from persons who have been desirous of my receiving their children into these Homes without asking any questions. Not so very long ago a lady came to Stepney in her carriage. A child was in it. I granted her an interview, and she laid down five L100 notes, saying they were mine if I would take the child and ask no questions. I did not take the child. Again. A well-known peer of the realm once sent his footman here with L100, asking me to take the footman's son. No. The footman could support his child. Gold and silver will never open my doors unless there is real destitution. It is for the homeless, the actually destitute, that we open our doors day and night, without money and without price. It is a dark night outside, but if you will look up on this building, the words, 'No destitute boy or girl ever refused admission, are large enough to be read on the darkest night and with the weakest eyesight; and that has been true all these seven-and-twenty years.

"On this same pretext of 'asking no questions,' I have been offered L10,000 down, and L900 a year guaranteed during the lifetime of the wealthy man who made the offer, if I would set up a Foundling Institution. A basket was to be placed outside, and no attempt was ever to be made either to see the woman or to discover from whence she came or where she went. This, again, I refused. We must know all we can about the little ones who come here, and every possible means is taken to trace them. A photo is taken of every child when it arrives—even in tatters; it is re-photographed again when it is altogether a different small creature."

Concerning these photographs, a great deal might be said, for the photographic studio at Stepney is an institution in itself. Over 30,000 negatives have been taken, and the photograph of any child can be turned up at a moment's notice. Out of this arrangement romantic incidents sometimes grow.

Here is one of many. A child of three years old, discovered in a village in Lancashire deserted by its parents, was taken to the nearest workhouse. There were no other children in the workhouse at the time, and a lady visitor, struck with the forlornness of the little girl waif, beginning life under the shadow of the workhouse, benevolently wrote to Dr. Barnardo, and after some negotiations the child was admitted to the Homes and its photograph taken. Then it went down to the Girls' Village Home at Ilford, where it grew up in one of the cottage families until eleven years old.

One day a lady called on Dr. Barnardo and told him a sad tale concerning her own child, a little girl, who had been stolen by a servant who owed her a spite, and who was lost sight of years ago. The lady had done all she could at the time to trace her child in vain, and had given up the pursuit; but lately an unconquerable desire to resume her inquiries filled her. Among other places, she applied to the police in London, and the authorities suggested that she should call at Stepney.

Dr. Barnardo could, of course, give her no clue whatever. Eight years had passed since the child had been lost; but one thing he could do—he could turn to his huge photographic album, and show her the faces of all the children who had been received within certain dates. This was done, and in the course of turning over the pages the lady's eye fell on the face of the little girl waif received from a Lancashire workhouse, and with much agitation declared that she was her child. The girl was still at Ilford. In an hour's time she was fetched up, and found to be a well-grown, nice-mannered child of eleven years of age—to be folded immediately in her mother's arms. "There could be no doubt," the Doctor added, "of the parentage; they were so much alike." Of course, inquiries had to be made as to the position of the lady, and assurances given that she was really able to maintain the child, and that it would be well cared for. These being satisfactory, Dorothy changed hands, and is now being brought up under her mother's eye.



The boys and girls admitted to the fifty Homes under Dr. Barnardo's care are of all nationalities—black and white, even Hindus and Chinese. A little while ago there were fourteen languages spoken in the Homes.

"And what about naming the 'unknown'?" I asked. "What about folk who want to adopt a child and are willing to take one of yours?"

"In the naming of unknown children," the Doctor replied, "we have no certain method, but allow ourselves to be guided by the facts of the case. A very small boy, two years ago, was discovered destitute upon a door-step in Oxford. He was taken to the workhouse, and, after more or less investigation to discover the people who abandoned him, he came into my hands. He had no name, but he was forthwith christened, and given the name of a very celebrated building standing close to where he was found.

"Marie Perdu suggests at once the history which attaches to her. Rachel Trouve is equally suggestive. That we have not more names of this sort is due to the fact that we insist upon the most minute, elaborate and careful investigation of every case; and it is, I think, to the credit of our institutions that not more than four or five small infants have been admitted from the first without our having been able to trace each child home to its parentage, and to fill our records with incidents of its early history.

"Regarding the question of adoption. I am very slow to give a child out for adoption in England. In Canada—by-the-bye, during the year 1892, 720 boys and girls have emigrated to the Colonies, making a grand total of 5,834 young folks who have gone out to Canada and other British Colonies since this particular branch was started. As I was saying, in Canada, if a man adopts a child it really becomes as his own. If a girl, he must provide her with a marriage dowry."

"But the little ones—the very tiny ones, Dr. Barnardo, where do they go?" I interrupted.

"To 'Babies' Castle' at Hawkhurst, in Kent. A few go to Ilford, where the Girls' Village Home is. It is conducted on the cottage principle—which means home. I send some there—one to each cottage. Others are 'boarded out' all over the kingdom, but a good many, especially the feebler ones who need special medical and nursing care, go to 'Babies' Castle,' where you were—one day last summer!"

One day last summer! It was remembered only too well, and more so when we hurried out into the cold air outside and hastened our footsteps—eastwards. And as we walked along I listened to the story of Dr. Barnardo's first Arab boy. His love for waifs and strays as a child increased with years; it had been impressed upon his boyish memory, and when he became a young man and walked the wards of the London Hospital, it increased.

It was the winter of 1866. Together with one or two fellow students he conducted a ragged school in an old stable. The young student told the children stories—simple and understandable, and read to them such works as the "Pilgrim's Progress." The nights were cold, and the young students subscribed together—in a practical move—for a huge fire. One night young Barnardo was just about to go when, approaching the warming embers to brace himself up for the snow outside, he saw a boy lying there. He was in rags; his face pinched with hunger and suffering.

"Now then, my boy—it's time to go," said the medico.

"Please, sir, do let me stop."

"I can't, my lad—it's time to go home. Where do you live?"

"Don't live nowhere, sir!"

"Nowhere! Where's your father and mother?"

"Ain't got none, sir!"

"For the first time in my life," said Dr. Barnardo as he was telling this incident, "I was brought face to face with the misery of outcast childhood. I questioned the lad. He had been sleeping in the streets for two or three years—he knew every corner of refuge in London. Well, I took him to my lodgings. I had a bit of a struggle with the landlady to allow him to come in, but at last I succeeded, and we had some coffee together.

"His reply to one question I asked him impressed me more than anything else.

"'Are there many more like you?' I asked.

"'Heaps, sir.'

"He spoke the truth. He took me to one spot near Houndsditch. There I obtained my first view of real Arab life. Eleven lads—some only nine and ten years of age—lay on the roof of a building. It was a strange sight—the moon seemingly singling out every sleeper for me. Another night we went together over to the Queen's Shades, near Billingsgate. On the top of a number of barrels, covered with tarpaulin, seventy-three fellows were sleeping. I had the whole lot out for a halfpenny apiece.

"'By God's help,' I cried inwardly, 'I'll help these fellows.'

"Owing to a meeting at Islington my experiences got into the daily Press. The late Lord Shaftesbury sent for me, and one night at his house at dinner I was chaffed for 'romancing.' When Lord Shaftesbury went with me to Billingsgate that same night and found thirty-seven boys there, he knew the terrible truth. So we started with fifteen or twenty boys, in lodgings, friends paying for them. Then I opened a dilapidated house, once occupied by a stock dealer, but with the help of brother medicos it was cleaned, scrubbed, and whitewashed. We begged, borrowed, and very nearly stole the needful bedsteads. The place was ready, and it was soon filled with twenty-five boys. And the work grew—and grew—and grew—you know what it is to-day!"

We had now reached Whitechapel. The night had increased in coldness, the snow completely covered the roads and pavements, save where the ruts, made by the slowly moving traffic and pedestrians' tread, were visible. To escape from the keen and cutting air would indeed have been a blessing—a blessing that was about to be realized in strange places. Turning sharply up a side street, we walked a short distance and stopped at a certain house. A gentle tap, tap at the door. It was opened by a woman, and we entered. It was a vivid picture—a picture of low life altogether indescribable.

The great coke fire, which never goes out save when the chimney is swept, and in front of which were cooking pork chops, steaks, mutton-chops, rashers of bacon, and that odoriferous marine delicacy popularly known as a bloater, threw a strange glare upon "all sorts and conditions of men." Old men, with histories written on every wrinkle of their faces; old women, with straggling and unkempt white hair falling over their shoulders; young men, some with eyes that hastily dropped at your gaze; young women, some with never-mind-let's-enjoy-life-while-we're-here expressions on their faces; some with stories of misery and degradation plainly lined upon their features—boys and girls; and little ones! Tiny little ones!

Still, look at the walls; at the ceiling. It is the time of Christmas. Garlands of paper chains are stretched across; holly and evergreens are in abundance, and even the bunch of mistletoe is not missing. But, the little ones rivet my attention. Some are a few weeks old, others two, three, four, and five years old. Women are nursing them. Where are their mothers? I am told that they are out—and this and that girl is receiving twopence or threepence for minding baby until mother comes home once more. The whole thing is too terribly real; and now, now I begin to understand a little about Dr. Barnardo's work and the urgent necessity for it. "Save the children," he cries, "at any cost from becoming such as the men and women are whom we see here!"

That night I visited some dozen, perhaps twenty, of these lodging-houses. The same men and women were everywhere, the same fire, the same eatables cooking—even the chains of coloured papers, the holly and the bunch of mistletoe—and the wretched children as well.

Hurrying away from these scenes of the nowadays downfall of man and woman, I returned home. I lit my pipe and my memory went away to the months of song and sunshine—one day last summer!

I had got my parcel of toys—balls and steam-engines, dolls, and funny little wooden men that jump about when you pull the string, and what-not. But, I had forgotten the sweets. Samuel Huggins, however, who is licensed to sell tobacco and snuff at Hawkhurst, was the friend in need. He filled my pockets—for a consideration. And, the fine red-brick edifice, with clinging ivy about its walls, and known as "Babies' Castle," came in view.

Here they are—just on their way to dinner. Look at this little fellow! He is leading on either side a little girl and boy. The little girl is a blind idiot, the other youngster is also blind; yet he knows every child in the place by touch. He knew what a railway engine was. And the poor little girl got the biggest rubber ball in the pack, and for five hours she sat in a corner bouncing it against her forehead with her two hands.



Here they come—the fifty yards' race down the corridor; a dozen of the very smallest crawling along, chuckling and screaming with excitement. Frank leads the way. Artful Frank! He is off bottles now, but he still has an inclination that way, and, unless his miniature friends and acquaintances keep a sharp look-out, he annexes theirs in the twinkling of an eye. But, then, Frank is a veritable young prize-fighter. And as the race continues, a fine Scotch collie—Laddie—jumps and flies over the heads of the small competitors for the first in to lunch. You don't believe it? Look at the picture of Tommy lying down with his head resting peacefully on Laddie. Laddie! To him the children are as lambs. When they are gambolling in the green fields he wanders about amongst them, and "barks" them home when the time of play is done and the hour of prayer has come, when the little ones kneel up in their cots and put up their small petitions.



Here they are in their own particular dining-room. Never were such huge bowls of meat soup set before children. Still, they'll eat every bit, and a sweet or two on the top of that. I asked myself a hundred times, Can these ever have been such children as I have seen in the slums? This is little Daisy. Her name is not the only pretty thing about her. She has a sweet face. Daisy doesn't know it; but her mother went mad, and Daisy was born in a lunatic asylum. Notice this young man who seems to take in bigger spoonfuls than all the others. He's got a mouth like a money box—open to take all he can get. But when he first came to "Babies' Castle" he was so weak—starved in truth—that for days he was carried about on a pillow. Another little fellow's father committed suicide. Fail not to observe and admire the appetite of Albert Edward. He came with no name, and he was christened so. His companions call him "The Prince!" Yet another. This little girl's mother is to-day a celebrated beauty—and her next-door diner was farmed out and insured. When fourteen months old the child only weighed fourteen pounds. Every child is a picture—the wan cheeks are no more, a rosy hue and healthy flush are on every face.

After dinner comes the mid-day sleep of two hours.



Now, I must needs creep through the bedrooms, every one of which is a pattern of neatness. The boots and shoes are placed under the bed—not a sound is heard. Amongst the sleepers the "Midget" is to be found. It was the "Midget" who came in the basket from Newcastle, "with care." I had crept through all the dormitories save one, when a sight I had not seen in any of the others met me. It was in a double bed—the only one at "Babies' Castle." A little boy lay sleeping by the side of a four-year-old girl. Possibly it was my long-standing leaning over the rails of the cot that woke the elder child. She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at me.



"Who are you, my little one?" I whispered.

And the whisper came back—"I'm Sister's Fidget!"

"Sister's who?"

"Sister's Fidget, please, sir."

I learnt afterwards that she was a most useful young woman. All the clothes worn at "Babies' Castle" are given by friends. No clothing is bought, and this young woman has them all tried on her, and after the fitting of some thirty or forty frocks, etc., she—fidgets! Hence her name.

"But why does that little boy sleep by you?" I questioned again.



"That's Erney. He walks in his seep. One night I couldn't seep. As I was tieing to look out of the window—Erney came walking down here. He was fast aseep. I got up ever so quick."



"And what did you do?'

"Put him in his bed again!"



I went upstairs with Sister Alice to the nursery. Here are the very smallest of them all. Some of the occupants of the white enamel cribs—over which the name of the babe appears—are only a very few weeks old. Here is Frank in a blue frock. It was Frank who came in the condensed milk box. He is still at his bottle as he was when first he came. Sleeping opposite each other are the fat lady and gentleman of the establishment. Annie is only seven months and three days old. She weighs 16lb. 4oz. She was bathed later on—and took to the water beautifully. Arthur is eleven months. He only weighs 22lb. 4oz.! Eighteen gallons of milk are consumed every day at "Babies' Castle," from sixty to seventy bottles filled per diem, and all the bottle babies are weighed every week and their record carefully kept. A glance through this book reveals the indisputable fact that Arthur puts on flesh at a really alarming rate. But there are many others who are "growing" equally as well. The group of youngsters who were carried from the nursery to the garden, where they could sit in their chairs in the sunshine and enjoy a quiet pull at their respective bottles, would want a lot of beating for healthy faces, lusty voices, and seemingly never-to-be-satisfied appetites.

A piteous moan is heard. It comes from a corner partitioned off. The coverlet is gently cast on one side for a moment, and I ask that it may quickly be placed back again. It is the last one sent to "Babies' Castle." I am wondering still if this poor little mite can live. It is five months old. It weighs 4lb. 1oz. Such was the little one when I was at "Babies' Castle."



I looked in at the surgery, presided over by a fully-qualified lady doctor; thence to the infirmary, where were just three or four occupants suffering from childish complaints, the most serious of which was that of the youngster christened "Jim Crow." Jimmy was "off his feed." Still, he could shout—aye, as loud as did his famous namesake. He sat up in his little pink flannel nightgown, and screamed with delight. And poor Jimmy soon learnt how to do it. He only had to pull the string, and the aforementioned funny little wooden man kicked his legs about as no mortal ever did, could, or will.



I saw the inhabitants at "Babies' Castle" in the schoolroom. Here they are happily perched on forms and desks, listening to some simple story, which appeals to their childish fancies. How they sing! They "bring down the house" with their thumping on the wooden desks as an accompaniment to the "big bass drum," whilst a certain youngster's rendering of a juvenile ditty, known as "The Muffin Man," is calculated to make one remember his vocal efforts whenever the hot and juicy muffin is put on the breakfast table. Little Mary still trips it neatly. She can't quite forget the days and nights when she used to accompany her mother round the public-houses and dance for coppers. Jane is also a terpsichorean artiste, and tingles the tambourine to the stepping of her feet; whilst Annie is another disciple of the art, and sings a song with the strange refrain of "Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay!"



Now, hurrah for play!—and off we go helter-skelter to the fields, Laddie barking and jumping at the youngsters with unsuppressed delight.



If you can escape from joining in their games—but they are irresistible—do, and walk quietly round and take stock of these rescued little ones. Notice this small contingent just starting from the porch. Babies' brougham only consists of a small covered cart, with a highly respectable donkey—warranted not to proceed too fast—attached to it. Look at this group at the gate. They can't quite understand what "the genelman" with the cloth over his head and a big brown box on three pieces of stick is going to do, but it is all right. They are taught to smile here, and the photographer did not forget to put it down. And I open the gate and let them down the steps, the little girl with the golden locks all over her head sharply advising her smaller companions to "Come along—come along!" Then young Christopher mounts the rocking-horse of the establishment, the swinging-boats are quickly crammed up with passengers, and twenty or thirty more little minds are again set wondering as to why "the genelman" will wrap his head up in a piece of black cloth and cover his eyes whenever he wants to see them! And the Castle perambulator! How pretty the occupants—how ready the hands to give Susan and Willie a trip round. They shout, they jump, they do all and more than most children, so wild and free is their delight.



The sun is shining upon these one-time waifs and strays, these children of the East—the flowers seem to grow for them, and the grass keeps green as though to atone for the dark days which ushered in their birth. Let them sing to-day—they were made to sing—let them be children indeed. Let them shout and tire their tiny limbs in play—they will sleep all the better for it, and eat a bigger breakfast in the morning. The nurses are beginning to gather in their charges. Laddie is leaping and barking round the hedge-rows in search of any wanderers.



And the inhabitants of "Babies' Castle" congregate on the steps of their home. We are saying "Good-bye." "Jim Crow" is held up to the window inside, and little Ernest, the blind boy, waves his hands with the others and shouts in concert. I drive away. But one can hear their voices just as sweet to-night as on one day last summer!

HARRY HOW.



Beauties:—Children.



Shafts from an Eastern Quiver.

VIII.—THE MASKED RULER OF THE BLACK WRECKERS

BY CHARLES J. MANSFORD, B.A.

I.

"Hassan," called Denviers to our guide in an imperative tone, as the latter was looking longingly at the wide expanse of sea over which our boat was helplessly drifting, "lie down yonder immediately!" The Arab rose slowly and reluctantly, and then extended himself at the bottom of the boat out of sight of the tempting waters.

"How much longer are these torments to last, Frank?" I asked wearily, as I looked into the gaunt, haggard face of my companion as we sat in the prow of our frail craft and gazed anxiously but almost hopelessly onward to see if land might even yet loom up in the distance.

"Can't say, Harold," he responded; "but I think we can hold out for two more days, and surely by that time we shall either reach some island or else be rescued by a passing vessel." Two more days—forty-eight more hours of this burning heat and thirst! I glanced most uneasily at our guide as he lay impassively in the boat, then I continued:—

"Do you think that Hassan will be able to resist the temptation of these maddening waters round us for so long as that?" There was a serious look which crossed Denviers' face as he quietly replied:—

"I hope so, Harold; we are doing our best for him. The Arab gets a double share now of our pitifully slender stock, although, happily, he doesn't know it; if he did he would certainly refuse to take his dole of rice and scanty draught of water, and then I'm afraid that it would be all over with him. He bears up bravely enough, but I don't at all like the bright look in his eyes which has been there for the last few hours. We must have travelled now more than half way across the Bay of Bengal with such a driving wind as this behind us. It's certainly lucky for us that our valuables were not on board the other boat, for we shall never see that again, nor its cowardly occupants. The horses, our tent, and some of our weapons are, of course, gone altogether, but we shall be able to shift for ourselves well enough if once we are so lucky as to reach land again."



"I can't see of what use any weapons are just at present," I responded, "nor, for the matter of that, the gems which we have hidden about our persons. For the whole five days during which we have been driven on by this fierce, howling wind I have not seen a living thing except ourselves—not even a bird of the smallest size."

"Because they know more about these storms than we do, and make for the land accordingly," said Denviers; then glancing again at the Arab, he continued:—

"We must watch Hassan very closely, and if he shows signs of being at all likely to lose his self-control, we shall have to tie him down. We owe a great deal to him in this present difficulty, because it was entirely through his advice that we brought any provisions with us at all."

"That is true enough," I replied; "but how were we to know that a journey which we expected would occupy less than six hours was to end in our being cast adrift at the mercy of wind and wave in such a mere cockle-shell as this boat is, and so driven sheer across this waste of waters?"

"Well, Harold," said Denviers, quietly, "we must stick to our original plan of resting turn and turn about if we wish to keep ourselves alive as long as possible. I will continue my watch from the prow, and meantime you had better endeavour to obtain some rest; at all events we won't give in just yet." He turned his head away from me as he spoke and narrowly surveyed the scene around us, magnificent as it was, notwithstanding its solitude and the perils which darkly threatened us.

Leaving the hut of the Cingalese after our adventure with the Dhahs in the forest of Ceylon, we had made our way to Trincomalee, where we had embarked upon a small sailing boat, similar in size and shape to those which may be constantly seen on the other side of the island, and which are used by the pearl-divers. We had heard of some wonderful sea-worn caves, which were to be seen on the rocky coast at some distance from Trincomalee, and had thus set out, intending afterwards to land on a more southerly portion of the island—for we had determined to traverse the coast, and, returning to Colombo again, to take ship for Burmah. Our possessions were placed in a second boat, which had a planked covering of a rounded form, beneath which they were secured from the dashing spray affecting them. We had scarcely got out for about an hour's distance when the natives stolidly refused to proceed farther, declaring that a violent storm was about to burst upon us. We, however, insisted on continuing our journey, when those in the second boat suddenly turned its prow round and made hastily for the land, at the same time that our own boatman dived from the side and dexterously clambered up on the retreating boat, leaving us to shift for ourselves as best we could. Their fears were only too well grounded, for before we were able to make an attempt to follow them as they coolly made off with our property in the boat, the wind struck our own little boat heavily, and out to sea we went, driven through the rapidly rising waves in spite of our efforts to render the boat manageable.

For five days we had now been whirled violently along; a little water and a few handfuls of rice being all that we had to share between the three of us who occupied the boat, and upon whom the sun each day beat fiercely down in a white heat, increasing our sufferings ten-fold—the effects of which could be seen plainly enough as we looked into each other's faces.