SURRENDER.By Gertrude Hall.

“Good evening, ladies. Is your pa at home?”

“N—no,” faltered Rose, trying to settle to her own satisfaction whether this dirty-looking stranger might be some new neighbor, who had come upon legitimate business, or whether he was her one horror—a tramp.

“Any of your big brothers in?” with rather a jocular manner.

“N—no, sir.”

“And I don’t see any bull-dog loafin’ round,” he added.

“Our dord, he is dead,” explained the baby solemnly.

“Well, that’s a good thing. Will the old gentleman be in soon?”

“I—I don’t know—yes—I—Ihope304so. Is there any message you would like to leave for him?”

Before the man could answer, the baby’s voice was again heard.

“My fahver he’s dorn orf.”

“Where’s he gone, sonny?”

“He’s dorn on the tars, so’s my mohver; and my bid brover he putted yem on, and he won’t be home ’til I’m asleep, and he’s doin’ to brin’ me a drum and put it in my bed.”

(Oh, how Rose longed to shake the baby!)

“Well, then, ladies, since you are likely to be alone, I think I’ll stay and keep you company; and since you press me, Iwilltake tea and spend the evening. Don’t go to any extra work for me, though; it all looks very nice. I’m rather hungry, so you may dish up that ham at once, my dear”—this to poor Florence, who had shrunk almost into invisibility behind the stove-pipe, and who seemed glued to the spot—“I’ve usually a very fair appetite, and I am sure I will relish it.”

He tossed his hat down beside the chair which he drew up to the table.

With the light falling full upon his dirty, insolent face, Rose knew that her greatest dread was before her. With her knees almost sinking under her, she started toward the stairs, for she felt that she must let the intrepid Cassie know, and find out what she advised.

“Where are you going, my dear?” asked the tramp, suspiciously. “You’ve not got any big cousin or uncle or anything of that kind up-stairs that you are going to call to tea, have you?”

“Oh, no, there is no one up-stairs but my poor sister,” she managed to gasp. She could not have told why she said “poor sister,” unless it was from the sense of calamity which had overtaken them all.

“In that case be spry, for I’m hungry, and I want you to pour out my tea for me. I like to have a pretty face opposite me at table.”

Rose dragged herself up the narrow enclosed stairs and into Cassie’s room.

“Well, Rose, youmustbe about tuckered out. You come up-stairs as if you were eighty,” said Cassie, looking up from the shoe she was fastening. “Why, what ails you? You look as if you had seen a ghost!”

“Oh, Cassie, there is one of them down-stairs!” came in a whisper.

“Whatdoyou mean, Rose Bostwick? Aghostdown-stairs!”

“No—no—a tramp.”

“Whew!” and Cassie gave a low whistle. “And I suppose you’re scared?”

“Oh, Cassie, I feel as if I were choking! Do hurry down, he may be killing poor little Florence and the baby.305What shall we do? The baby has told him we are all alone.”

“The baby ought to be soundly spanked for that.”

“Whatcanwe do? Try to think.”

Cassie sat swinging the button-hook in her hand and thinking very hard and fast.

“Does he know I’m here?”

“Yes, I’ve told him.”

“Then it would be no use for me to pretend to be Ned,” thinking aloud.

“I’m afraid not.”

Another silence dedicated to thought.

“Rose?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to be crazy. I’m going to chase him off the farm.”

“Oh, Cassie, youcan’t! He’s a great, big, impudent wretch. What folly to talk about chasing him off the farm!”

“It’s our only chance.”

“Don’t count on me.Ican’t help you. My teeth are chattering with terror, and my legs are doubling up under me this very minute. I couldn’t help chase a fly.”

“You can scream, I s’pose?”

“Oh, yes, I can do that.”

“Well, you do the screaming and I’ll do the chasing. Rush down-stairs and scream and scream, and bang the door to, and just shriek: ‘She’s out—she’s out—she’s coming down stairs!’ And you’ll see what a perfectly beautiful lunatic I will be. It’s a good thing I have this old dress on, and only one shoe. Now make a rush, and scream.”

Rose’s over-strained nerves were her best allies, and as she flew down the stairs it was the easiest thing in the world for her to give one piercing shriek after another. They resounded from the narrow stairway through the kitchen, and for the moment seemed to paralyze its inmates. As she burst in upon them, Florence was transfixed midway of the table and the stove with the platter of ham in her hands, the baby had climbed upon a chair, and the tramp had arisen with a bewildered air from the table. As her skirts cleared the door, she turned and dashed it shut, and flung herself against it, shrieking, “She’s out—she’s out of her room!”

To the mystified Florence there came but one solution to her behavior—fright had overthrown her sister’s reason, and with a wail she rushed toward her, crying, “She’s crazy! Oh, she’s crazy!”

306

“Who’s crazy?” yelled the tramp.

The baby, now wildly terrified, set up a loud weeping, while from the stairway came a succession of blows and angry demands that the door be opened. A moment later it was forced ajar, and a head crowned with a mass of tossed hair was thrust out and quickly followed by a hand in which was clutched a gun.

“She’s got the gun! Oh, Florence, run to the baby!” cried Rose.

“Who’s that?” demanded the apparition, making a rush toward the tramp.

“Here, keep off! Leave me alone!” backing away and warding off an expected blow.

She stood before him, tall, strong, and agile.

“I won’t leave you alone. What do you mean by locking me in that room? I’m no more crazy than you are. What’s this?” as she stumbled over the hat which the tramp had put beside the chair, and into which he had deposited the silver spoons from the table. “Oh, I see, you are all in league to rob me of my gold and precious stones!” and catching the hat up on the muzzle of the gun she gave it a whirl which sent the spoons glittering in every direction; then, advancing upon him, she thrust hat and gun into the face of the horrified man. With a volley of oaths he sprang backwards, upsetting his chair and falling over it.

“Oh, don’t kill him, Cassie! don’t kill him!”

“We’ll have a merry time,” gaily dancing about him and prodding him sharply with the gun, as he tried to scramble to his feet.

“Keep off with that gun, can’t you!” he yelled. “Can’t you hold her, you screaming idiots?” and half crawling, half pushed, he gained the kitchen door, which had stood partly open since he had entered.

“Where are you going, my pretty maid? Don’t you try to get away,” shouted Cassie, as she lilted lightly after him. The tramp stayed not to answer her question nor to obey her command, but clearing the door fled wildly away through the dusk.

“Here’s your hat; I’ll fire it after you,” she called, and a sharp report307rang out on the quiet evening air, then all was still.

The three girls stood for a moment in the door, watching the dim outline fleeing across the meadow in the direction of the highway.

“He’ll think twice before inviting himself to supper another time,” quietly remarked Cassie with a satisfied smile.

“Oh, Cassie, darling, you have saved our lives,” cried Florence, flinging her arms around her sister.

“I don’t know about that; but I’ve saved the spoons, anyway.”

“There, there, baby,” going to the still afflicted boy; “don’t cry any more. Sister Cassie was just making a dirty old tramp hop; she didn’t really shoot him, she was just playing shoot.”

“Oh, Cassie, you splendid, brave girl! Howdidyou ever happen to think to go crazy?” asked Rose, as she looked over her shoulder from the door which she was barricading.

“Well, I knew something had to be done, and that just popped into my mind. I was doing ‘Ophelia’ the other day up in my room, so I was in practice; and didn’t I make a sweetly pensive maniac? Now I hope you girls will never again make disrespectful comments upon any little private theatricals of mine. If I had never cultivated my dramatic talents, what would have become of you, I’d like to know?”

It was some time before the tidal wave of excitement subsided sufficiently for the girls to settle down for the evening, or for the baby to go to sleep. Again and again they thought they heard footsteps, and, although the door was locked and double-locked, they drew up into battle line whenever the autumn wind shook down a shower of leaves upon the roof.

Just as the clock was on the stroke of eight, a pleasant sound came fitfully to them. It was a softly whistled tune, and the cheery cadence told of a mind free from unpleasant doubts of welcome.

“Surely that can’t be Ned back already; he wasn’t to start home until nine,” said Rose, going to the window and cautiously peeping from under the curtain.

“Right you are there, sister Rose,” assented Cassie. “It surely can’t be, especially as Ned could no more whistle ‘Marching through Georgia’ than you could have done the marching. It sounds uncommonly like young Farmer Dunscomb’s whistle to me.”

“Well, whoever it is, I am deeply thankful that somebody besides a tramp is coming,” interrupted Florence.

“And so am I,” demurely agreed Rose. “Do go to the door, Cassie, and peep out, and make sure that it isn’t that dreadful creature coming back.”

“Are you a dreadful creature coming to murder us all?” demanded Cassie of the whistler, setting the door slightly ajar, and thrusting her head out.

“Well, I don’t go round giving myself out as a dreadful creature,” responded a jolly voice from the porch. “Hello! What’s this I’m breaking my neck over?” as the owner of the voice tripped upon an old slouch hat.

“Bring that article of wearing apparel to me, if you please,” requested Cassie as she opened the door, letting a flood of light out upon the visitor. “That is a little token of remembrance308which I wish to keep. There!” holding the hat out at arm’s length, “I have long wanted a gilt toasting-fork or rolling-pin, or something artistic, for my room; now I shall embroider these shot-holes and gild the brim and hang it up by long blue ribbons, just where my waking orbs can rest upon it as they open in the morning. Ah, this hat will ever have stirring memories for me, friend George,” eying the young man dramatically.

He looked at her a moment, then burst into a hearty laugh. “Is she crazy, Rose?”

“Yes, she’s the dearest and bravest lunatic in the world, George,” answered Rose.

SURRENDER.By Gertrude Hall.

Then lead me, Friend. Here is my hand,Not in dumb resignation lent,Because thee one cannot withstand—In love, Lord, with complete consent.Lead—and I, not as one born blindObeys in sheer necessity,But one with muffled eyes designed,Will blindly trust myself to thee.Lead.—Though the road thou mak’st me treadBring sweat of anguish to my brow,And on the flints my track be red,I will not murmur—it is thou.Lead.—If we come to the cliff’s crest,And I hear deep below—oh, deep!—The torrent’s roar, and “Leap!” thou sayst,I will not question—I will leap.

Then lead me, Friend. Here is my hand,Not in dumb resignation lent,Because thee one cannot withstand—In love, Lord, with complete consent.

Then lead me, Friend. Here is my hand,

Not in dumb resignation lent,

Because thee one cannot withstand—

In love, Lord, with complete consent.

Lead—and I, not as one born blindObeys in sheer necessity,But one with muffled eyes designed,Will blindly trust myself to thee.

Lead—and I, not as one born blind

Obeys in sheer necessity,

But one with muffled eyes designed,

Will blindly trust myself to thee.

Lead.—Though the road thou mak’st me treadBring sweat of anguish to my brow,And on the flints my track be red,I will not murmur—it is thou.

Lead.—Though the road thou mak’st me tread

Bring sweat of anguish to my brow,

And on the flints my track be red,

I will not murmur—it is thou.

Lead.—If we come to the cliff’s crest,And I hear deep below—oh, deep!—The torrent’s roar, and “Leap!” thou sayst,I will not question—I will leap.

Lead.—If we come to the cliff’s crest,

And I hear deep below—oh, deep!—

The torrent’s roar, and “Leap!” thou sayst,

I will not question—I will leap.

309

“HUMAN DOCUMENTS.”

“For of the soule the bodie forme doth take,For soule is forme and doth the bodie make.”—From “An Hymne in Honour of Beautie.”—Spenser.

“For of the soule the bodie forme doth take,For soule is forme and doth the bodie make.”

“For of the soule the bodie forme doth take,

For soule is forme and doth the bodie make.”

—From “An Hymne in Honour of Beautie.”—Spenser.

William II., Emperor of Germany, was born January 27, 1859, and received an education chiefly at home, under the supervision of his parents, his tutors, and his military instructors. On March 9, 1888, his grandfather, the first emperor, died. On June 15 of the same year Emperor Frederick also died, and William II. succeeded. After spending some time in personally visiting the courts of European sovereigns, the young emperor took a decisive step towards his future standing as a leader in European politics, by severing relations with his grandfather’s right-hand man, Prince Bismarck. From that time, he has himself been the most prominent and dominating figure in the administration of Germany’s affairs. He has, without regard to imperial precedent, personally connected himself with such questions as concern the population of the whole world, notably the Socialistic and Labor problems. He has made himself, also, a master of the smallest details concerning the government of his people, and even of his household. As yet without experience of actual warfare, he is an alert and constant inspector of both his army and navy, and, in his determined enforcement of the “Army Bill,” has given evidence of his desire to uphold Germany as a military power second to none. With the exception of slight colonial difficulties in Samoa and Africa, he has had as yet no foreign trouble to contend with. He is a close student and an eager inquirer; he is a good shot, a skilled horseman, and interested in all forms of sport.

Eugene Field, poet and journalist, was born in St. Louis in 1850, but spent the greater part of his youth in Massachusetts. He was educated at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, and the State University at Columbia, Missouri. After a visit to Europe, he commenced work as a journalist on the “St. Louis Journal.” From that time to the present he has been continually connected with the western newspaper press of America, having occupied editorial positions in St. Joseph, Kansas City, and Denver, and finally on the Chicago “News.” His humorous and satirical studies in that newspaper have made him widely known, and his occasional verses have become very popular. His best work has been published in book form under the titles: “A Little Book of Western Verse,” “A Second Book of Verse,” and “A Little Book of Profitable Tales.” (See “Dialogue between Eugene Field and Hamlin Garland,” in the August number ofMcClure’s Magazine.)

Colonel Albert Augustus Pope, President of the Pope Manufacturing Company, was born in Boston in 1843. He received an ordinary public-school education, and at nineteen years of age entered the Union army as a volunteer, with the appointment of second lieutenant in the 35th Massachusetts Infantry, serving with distinction, and being gazetted lieutenant-colonel “for gallant conduct in the battles of Knoxville, Poplar Springs Church, and front of Petersburg.” At the close of the war he commenced business in Boston, and, becoming interested in the development of the bicycle, he began to introduce the machines into the United States, commencing the manufacture of them in 1878. The Pope Manufacturing Company are the proprietors of the “Columbia” bicycle, and their works are among the largest of the kind in the world. Colonel Pope has taken an active interest in affairs of public moment both in his native State and throughout the country, notably so in the movement for establishing better roads, and in the welfare and education of factory employees.

310

Born January 27, 1859.

AGE 10. 1869. PRINCE WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA, YOUNGEST LIEUTENANT IN THE ARMY.

AGE 25. 1884. PRINCE WILLIAM, COLONEL OF INFANTRY.

311AGE 15. 1874. STUDENT AT CASSEL.

AGE 15. 1874. STUDENT AT CASSEL.

AGE 20. 1879. PRINCE WILLIAM, PREMIER LIEUTENANT.

312AGE 29. CROWN PRINCE OF PRUSSIA, IN THE UNIFORM OF A COLONEL OF HUSSARS.

AGE 29. CROWN PRINCE OF PRUSSIA, IN THE UNIFORM OF A COLONEL OF HUSSARS.

AGE 29. EMPEROR WILLIAM OF GERMANY, KING OF PRUSSIA, IN THE UNIFORM OF A GENERAL OF CUIRASSIERS.

313AGE 33. DECEMBER, 1892. EMPEROR WILLIAM OF GERMANY, IN THE UNIFORM OF A GENERAL OF CUIRASSIERS OF THE ROYAL BODY GUARD.

AGE 33. DECEMBER, 1892. EMPEROR WILLIAM OF GERMANY, IN THE UNIFORM OF A GENERAL OF CUIRASSIERS OF THE ROYAL BODY GUARD.

314

Born in St. Louis, 1850.

AGE SIX MONTHS.

AGE 12.

AGE 20.

AGE 23.

315AGE 30.

AGE 30.

AGE 34.

AGE 42.

316

Born in Boston, 1843.

AGE 7.

AGE 15.

AGE 19. 1862. LIEUTENANT IN THE 35TH MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY.

317AGE 27.

AGE 27.

AGE 48.

318DREAMS GO BY CONTRARIES.By George H. Jessop.

“I don’t want to hurry any one,” remarked our host, shaking the ashes out of a well-blackened meerschaum, “but we have a long day before us to-morrow, and if any one wants any sleep this is the time to take it.”

No response from any one of the half-dozen men lounging in the snug armchairs of that most perfectly appointed smoking-room.

“I don’t mind,” said Sir Alan. “Two or three hours in bed are enough for me at any time. Please pass the spirit case, Jones. I wonder you’re not sleepy, Tom Everton. You used always to be in bed by eleven when you had an early morning in prospect, but I suppose matrimony has cured you of that along with other failings.”

“Tom says he isn’t going,” some one remarked.

“Not going! Pooh, nonsense! I thought he’d made up his mind to bring down a hart royal, at least, or leave his bones on Balmaquidder Brae.”

Mr. Everton looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“I—I should like to try of all things,” he stammered, “but—well—I won’t—at least I think—I—I shan’t go with you to-morrow—that is, if Sir Alan will excuse me.”

“Please yourself and you’ll please me,” replied the hospitable baronet; “but if it isn’t any secret I’d like to know what has made you change your mind so suddenly.”

“He promised Mrs. Everton he wouldn’t go,” broke in the previous speaker. “She dreamed a dream, and, like Pharaoh’s chief baker, she thought there was something in it.”

“Do be quiet, Jones,” interrupted Everton, irritably. “My wife had a rather odd dream last night, and she’s a bit nervous, you know, and—well, after all, it’s not much to give up one day’s deer-stalking, if any one’s going to make herself miserable over it.”

We all knew each other pretty well, this little circle of guests collected by Sir Alan to help him to shoot his Scotch mountain, and very free and outspoken was the “chaff” that flew around poor Tom Everton’s devoted head. He bore it with great good-humor for some time, till Jones made a rather uncalled-for remark involving questions of free will and “petticoat government.” Then Tom flared up.

“I don’t stay at home because I’m afraid of anything, but simply because I have promised. My wife dreamed that I went out with this party, and it grew late without any of us coming back. Then she thought she saw me lying face down in the Balmaquidder, and she seemed to know I was dead. I don’t remember the details, but I know she worked herself up into a shocking nervous state about it till I promised not to go. Of course it’s all nonsense, I know that, but what can I do?”

“Do as you promised!” It was Colonel Eyre’s deep voice that uttered the words, and we all glanced round at the speaker. He had remained silent319during the badinage occasioned by Everton’s determination, sitting with his tumbler of Scotch whiskey-and-water in front of him, puffing away silently at the short brier-root, whose bowl scarcely cleared the sweep of his heavy, grizzled mustache. He was holding the pipe in his hand now, sitting erect and speaking with unmistakable earnestness of manner. “Do as you promised, and don’t be too sure it’s all nonsense, either. I have known cases in which men have lived to be very thankful that they yielded to a presentiment.”

“But this was a dream, colonel,” broke in the irrepressible Jones.

“Dream be it, then! Stay at home, Everton. As you say, it’s not much to miss a day’s shooting. And if you neglect this warning the chances are you may never live to regret it.” The speaker took a sip from the tumbler in front of him, replaced his pipe between his lips, and leaned back as if the subject were at an end.

But the colonel, an Indian officer of many years’ service, was popularly supposed to have led a life of adventure, and to have figured in more than one story whose exciting incidents could well bear repetition. As a rule, he was a taciturn man, and it was by no means easy to “set him talking,” as the story goes. The present seemed an opportunity too good to be lost, and several voices demanded the experience by whose authority he had spoken so decidedly.

“Well, yes,” said Colonel Eyre slowly, “I have seen a presentiment very remarkably fulfilled. I am not much of a hand at yarning, but, if you wish, I have no objection to give you a leaf out of my own book, if it’s only that you may leave my friend Tom here in peace to follow his own course, without badgering him about it. Yes, I mean you, Mr. Jones,” he went on, impaling that helpless youngster with a glance that sent him nervously to the spirit case, while the rest of us settled ourselves320comfortably to listen, and Sir Alan, with a “Fire ahead, colonel,” drew his chair forward into a better position.

“It was a good while after the breaking of the monsoon in ’68,” began the colonel, slowly; “the weather was cool and pleasant enough, so that, on the face of it, it seemed no great hardship when I was ordered to take a detachment down to Sumbalpar. I was stationed at Raipur at the time, in the Orissa district, and word came of some trouble with the Zemindars above Sumbalpar. The only thing that seemed inconvenient was the suddenness of the order. It was just ‘Fall in and march out’ without delay of an hour. I was a young married man in those days, pretty much in the position of my friend Tom Everton, with a wife of two years and a bit of a baby a few months old. It wasn’t pleasant to leave them behind me in a place like Raipur, and, of course, it was out of the question to start them at an hour’s notice. I spoke to my bearer, Josein, one of the best native servants I ever saw, and directed him to make arrangements for an early march on the following morning. He was to see my family driven quietly over to Sumbalpar in the tonga. They were to travel by easy stages under the charge of a careful bilewallah. If there are any ‘griffs’ in this company, I may explain for their benefit that a tonga is a kind of bullock wagon, and a bilewallah is the driver of the same. Well, I had just time for a few words of comfort and farewell—Tom will appreciate all that—before I rode out of Raipur at the head of my column. We camped that night in the jungle, after a march of about twenty miles, and it was under canvas that I was visited with the dream or presentiment, or whatever you choose to call it, that gives such point as it may possess to this old-time yarn of mine.”

The colonel paused to refill his glass, but every one’s interest was now awakened, and no one broke the momentary silence that ensued.

“It was pretty late before I fell asleep,” resumed Colonel Eyre, setting down his tumbler, “and it was still dark when I awoke, or seemed to awake, with my wife’s voice ringing in my ears—a shriek of agony that made me start up from my pillow and listen breathlessly. There was a lantern burning in my tent—I had left it so when I lay down—and by the glimmer of light I saw a large, dark mass spread itself between me and the canvas roof and gradually settle down on my head. I did not know what it was—it was vague and formless in outline—but I had a consciousness that it was something of a dangerous nature—something that threatened my life—and I struggled to throw myself to one side or the other. In vain. I could not move hand or foot. I lay as if chained to the bed, and still the dark mass descended, shutting out light and air and seeming to suffocate me.”

“Nightmare!” remarked Sir Alan.

“Very possibly,” returned the colonel. “Suddenly, just as I gave myself up for lost, and sank back on the pillow exhausted, I heard my wife’s voice again, this time clear and articulate. ‘Save yourself, Gerald,’ it cried. ‘Make one more effort for my sake.’ I glanced up at the threatening outline, nerving myself for a final struggle. It was no longer formless; its approach had ceased to be slow. Swift as the swoop of a falcon it descended upon me—the immense body of a tiger on the spring—its cruel jaws agape, its enormous paws with every claw unsheathed, and its hot, fetid breath on my very brow!”

“A decidedly uncomfortable dream,” observed Jones.

“Of course all this passed in one-tenth of the time I take to tell it. I rolled out from under the hungry jaws, and just as I reached the ground I heard the angry growl of the baffled monster, followed by a shattering roar loud enough to waken the Seven Sleepers. As my senses came back to me, I found myself lying half on the ground, half on my low camp bed, my body bathed in perspiration, and trembling in every limb. Just then my batman put his head inside the tent-flap and asked me if I had heard the roar, adding that there was a tiger in the camp. I pulled on my clothes,321and I could hear the men walking about among the tents, searching and whispering—but no trace of a tiger could we discover.”

“Then it was a real tiger?” inquired Tom.

“It would seem so, as the whole camp had heard the roar as well as myself. However, it was almost morning by this time, and as every one was afoot and moments were precious I gave orders to push on at once. A hurried chota hazree was quickly prepared and despatched, and by the time the sun rose we were fairly on our way, with a good prospect of reaching Sumbalpar before nightfall. I couldn’t shake off the impression of the dream, however, try as I would. Besides, some natives who had come in before we broke camp told us of a man-eater which had been infesting the district. A tiger that has once tasted human flesh, as you may have heard, is never content with beef or venison afterwards, and they sometimes make themselves the terror of a whole country-side before they are shot. What with the vague misgivings suggested by my dream, and the tangible danger of the man-eater, I found myself growing more and more uneasy with every mile we marched. Finally, I determined to turn back and meet my wife. I was well mounted, and I believed I could gallop to the rear, assure myself that all was well with her, and pick up my command again before it reached Sumbalpar. I left the detachment in charge of a sergeant—poor old Busbee, he died322of jungle fever that same year—and rode back as fast as King Tom, a very speedy chestnut, could lay leg to ground. I passed the spot where we had spent the night, and kept on several miles beyond without seeing anything to cause uneasiness. My fears were beginning to disperse, and common sense made itself heard. I realized that I might find it very difficult to give a satisfactory explanation of my absence if the men reached Sumbalpar without me—they do not pay much attention to dreams at headquarters. This view of the case became more impressive with each mile I rode, and I determined that if the next turn in the path did not bring my family into view, or show me some other good reason for pushing on, I would turn back and rejoin my command. Thus resolved, I cantered forward, swung round the tangled angle of brush that limited my view, and saw——”

Here the colonel stopped for another sip of whiskey-and-water.

“What did you see?” cried Sir Alan. “Your wife?”

“Yes, sir, I saw her. She was sitting with the baby in her lap in the tonga—pale—I have never seen such an expression of strained terror on any human countenance. The bilewallah was in front, trying to keep the bullocks, which seemed almost frantic with fear, to the path. I knew the man well—one of the best hands with a team at the station—but just then his face was so distorted with fright that I hardly recognized him. You know that lilac-grayish tinge a native’s face gets when he is scared almost to death——”

“I know, I know,” broke in Sir Alan. “But what was the matter—what was frightening them? Could you see anything?”

“Indeed I could,” replied the colonel. “Cause enough they had; not five yards behind them trotted the largest tiger it has ever been my fortune to see.”

Various exclamations testified to the completeness of the surprise to which Colonel Eyre had treated his audience.

“Was it a man-eater?” I asked.

“At first I supposed it was, but if it had been I never should have seen them alive. After I shot the beast——”

“Oh, you did shoot him?”

“Don’t ask me how! I am counted a fair shot—I was far better then; but when I levelled my rifle at that brute’s heart, when I realized how much hung on the result—for if I had missed, or if I had merely wounded him, he would have been in the tonga at a single spring, and nothing under heaven itself could have saved those dearest to me from a horrible death—when I realized all this, I don’t know how I found the nerve to pull the trigger. I suppose I knew it was the only chance. My appearance had enraged the animal and he was just preparing to spring. This I do know, and I’m not ashamed to own it: when I saw that I had laid the tiger out with a single shot—a thing that doesn’t happen twice in a lifetime—I fell flat beside the tonga in the act of helping my wife down; for the first and last time in my life I fainted.

“Yes, it was a pretty hard trial on the nerves,” resumed the colonel, as our discussion of the situation sank into silence, “but nothing to what my wife had gone through. That tiger had followed them for more than four miles through the jungle. The bilewallah, with rare presence of mind, had managed to keep the bullocks to their steady jog-trot—any increase of pace or appearance of flight would have provoked a spring. She, poor woman, had succeeded in hushing her baby, for had the child cried, nothing is surer than that the sound would have led to an attack. It must have been an awful323four miles for her. It was years before she recovered from the effect.”

“And why did not the tiger attack them?” inquired Jones. “Does any one know?”

“The animal was doubtless waiting to kill them till they got into the vicinity of water,” explained Colonel Eyre. “Tigers often do that with cattle and other large quarry. There was water a mile or less further on. I had noticed it myself in passing. If I had not come upon the ground, another ten minutes would have sealed their fate.”

“So it may fairly be said that your dream was the means of saving their lives,” observed Tom Everton, who, although the most silent, had not been the least attentive of the listeners.

“I think we may fairly admit so much,” replied Colonel Eyre. “If it had not been for my dream, I do not think the report of the man-eater would have brought me back. On the other hand, but for hearing about the man-eater and actually being awakened by the roar of a tiger, I am not sure that the dream would have had weight enough with me to induce me to leave a detachment on the march—a serious thing, gentlemen, as some of you who are soldiers know well enough.”

“It’s a very curious circumstance, certainly,” observed Sir Alan; and then there was a pause.

“But see here, colonel,” Tom broke in again, “the dream, if a warning at all, was a warning of danger to you, yourself, and though you certainly heard Mrs. Eyre’s voice calling to you, yet it was urging you to save yourself, and not summoning you to her assistance.”

“That is very true, and it puzzled me at the time. But, as I argued, it is wonderful enough to get a warning of danger in the future at all; you must not expect to have it spelled out to you in large print. Now, as to this dream of Mrs. Everton’s—it prefigures danger to you, as I understand?”

“You must go to Mrs. Everton herself for the details. All that I remember is that she saw me lying drowned in the Balmaquidder, and read the vision as a warning that some accident would befall me if I joined the shooting-party to-morrow. But, by the light of your experience, it would seem the danger is to her, not to me.”

“I’m not quite so sure of that,” returned the colonel, thoughtfully.

“Well, I think there can be no question that your dream saved your wife’s life,” observed Jones, upon whose scepticism the colonel’s narrative had made some impression.

“No question at all,” rejoined that officer, rising, “and therefore, young man, pay attention to dreams, whether they be your own or those of your better half, which should be,a fortiori, better and more reliable than your own. Good-night, gentlemen. It’s past one o’clock, and we have an early start before us.”

In ten minutes more silence and darkness reigned in the smoking-room of Balmaquidder Lodge.

Next morning the men of the party were up and stirring betimes. As I left my bedroom, candle in hand, I heard voices proceeding from the apartment occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Everton. “Ah, ha,” thought I, “Tom’s curtain lecture is not over yet.” However, our friend’s absence was forgotten in the enjoyment of a substantial Highland breakfast, and by the time the sun asserted his power against the mist we were bravely breasting a steep mountain side, spurred on by the hope of a good day’s sport.

Only one incident occurred at our start. Sir Alan was setting his face against a steep brae when he was324stopped by the bare-legged gillie who acted as our guide. “Dinna gae yon gait, Sir Alan. We must win ower by the brig below.”

“Can’t we get across by the stepping-stones at the ford?” inquired our host, impatiently. “The bridge is a mile of a round.”

“I dinna ken that the stanes’ll be ower muckle safe, Sir Alan, forbye ye canna see them at a’ wi’ the white water swirling ower them, and the pool maybe ten feet deep close in under them. We mought win ower recht enoo, an’ again we mought na—ye ken——”

“Yes, I ken,” interrupted Sir Alan. “We’ll go round by the bridge, gentlemen. There’s a flood in the river, it appears—a cheerful habit the Balmaquidder has when you least want it or expect it.”

By the bridge accordingly we went, and when I saw the brown water whirling down in swift eddies I was thankful that we had not attempted the stepping-stones.

It was evening, and fast growing dark, when we reached the glen on our return, wet, tired, and hungry, but thoroughly satisfied with the day’s result. We were stepping out briskly, for we knew we were close to home, when a big mountain hawk swooped right in front of us. Jones, who had not drawn the cartridge from his rifle, let fly on the instant, without remembering how small was his chance with a bullet at quarry on the wing. We were amusing ourselves chaffing Jones as the bird flew off untouched when Colonel Eyre, who was a few steps to the rear, pulled up short and raised his hand to signal for silence.

We all heard it then—a shrill, lamentable voice ringing sharply from the hillside; there was no mistaking the purport of that appeal, it was a cry for help. But the mist was beginning to settle and the echo baffled us. For a moment we looked blankly at each other and around, not knowing whither to turn.

Again the cry, “Help, help, help!” with a note of agony in it that stirred the blood like a trumpet. “God guide us—’tis at the foord above you,” cried the gillie, and, tired as we were, none of us were far behind him when he reached the stepping-stones.

They were hidden by a mass of swirling, broken water, but just below them lay the pool of which the guide had spoken—calm by comparison with the ford, but agitated nevertheless with a swift current that flashed between steep banks faced with granite; as ugly a place for an accident as might be found in the whole length of the brawling Balmaquidder.

And an accident had happened, plainly enough. On one of the granite boulders knelt Mrs. Everton, leaning back with all her might against the drag of a plaid, one end of which she325held, while the other was lost in the black shadows of the pool.

She heard our footsteps as we ran up, but did not turn her head. “Help, help!” she cried again. “I can’t hold on much longer, and he—oh——”

She broke off with a sob, as strong hands relieved her of the extemporized life-line, and Colonel Eyre, bending forward, peered down into the obscurity of the pool. I was one of those who had grasped the shore end of the plaid, and the strain told me that whoever was below still maintained his grasp. “Can you hold on another moment?” asked the colonel; then, without waiting for a reply, “Cling close for dear life. Now, boys, gently does it. A steady, slow pull—no jerking;” and in another moment the dripping, half-senseless form of Tom Everton was drawn out on the bank, his drowning grip of the plaid still unloosened, and laid beside the fainting form of his wife.

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