lowed the rest of the liquor that was in it. After which he gave a chuckle, and staggered to a couch, on which he tumbled, and lay with his eyes open for a long while. At last he fell asleep, but I was too nervous to do likewise, and sat watching him the most of the night at least when I awoke it was daylight, and it seemed to me that I had been asleep but a few

minutes.

Jackson was still lying on the couch, and his face was calm and peaceful as he softly breathed. The morning too was fine, and as I walked on to the verandah, I saw the sea sparkling in the sunlight, and there was not a sound from it save a far-off and drowsy murmur. Not a sign remained on its broad surface of the wrath of the day before. It was wonderfully calm. Lying here and there on the verandah, rolled up in their clothes, were the servants of the factory, sleeping soundly on the hard planks. Presently, as the sun rose in the heavens and warmed the air, the place began to show signs of life, and one of the watch that I had set on the beach came running across the yard to tell me that the bodies had come ashore.

Immediately upon hearing this I called the hammock-bearers together, and going down to the beach, I went a considerable way along it towards a dark spot, which I knew to be a group of natives. On coming up to the group, I found at least fifty negroes collected round the drowned man and woman, all chattering and squabbling amongst themselves, and probably over the plunder, for I saw that the bodies had been stripped to their underclothing. Rushing into the crowd, with the aid of a stick I dispersed it, so far as to make the wretches stand back. The man of course was Bransome, there was no doubt as

to that, although he had received a terrible blow on the left temple, most likely from the pointed stem of the boat as it had toppled over upon him, and his face was distorted and twisted to one side. The woman was evidently English, young and pretty, although her long hair, heavy and wet, was polluted by the sand that stuck to it, and her half-open eyes were filled with the same. On her lips there lingered a slight smile. She was of middle height, of slender figure, and delicately nurtured, as the small bare feet and little hands showed. As I looked at the latter I saw a wedding-ring on her finger, and I thought, "it is Bransome's wife." I tried to take the ring away, but it would not come off her finger-which I might have known, because the natives would not have left it there had they been able to remove it. I then ordered the bearers to lay the bodies in the hammocks; and that done, our little party wended its way along the shore homewards, while the natives I had dispersed followed one after another in African fashion.

Arrived at the factory, I bade the boys place the bodies side by side on a spare bed in an empty room, and then I sent them to dig a grave in the little burial-ground on the Point, where two or three worm-eaten wooden crosses marked the resting-places of former agents of Messrs. Flint Brothers.

As quick interment was necessary in such a climate, even on that very day, I went to call Jackson in order that he might perform the duty that was his-that of reading the burial-service over the dead, and of sealing up the desk and effects of Mr. Bransome. But Jackson was not in the factory. I guessed, however, where he was; and sure enough I found him in

his accustomed haunt at the end of the Point. The moment he saw me he tried to hide himself among the brushwood, but I was too quick for him, and spied him as he crouched behind a dwarf palm.

"I know, I know," he cried, as I ran up to him; "I saw you come along the beach. Bury them, bury them out of sight."

"Come, Mr. Jackson," I replied, "it isn't fair to put all the trouble on to me. I am sure I have had enough of the weariness and anxiety of this sad business. You must take your share of it. I want you to read the service for the dead over them."

"No, no," he almost shrieked; "bury them quick; never mind me. Put them out of sight."

"I will not," I said, resolutely. "For your own sake you must, at any rate, view the bodies."

"They have not been murdered?" he replied. But the startled look with which I received the suggestion his words implied, seemed to make him recollect himself, for he rose and took my arm without saying more. As he did so, I felt for the first time a sort of repugnance towards him. Up to that moment my feeling had been one of pity and anxiety on his account, but now I loathed him. This he seemed instinctively to feel, and he clung closely to me.

Once at the factory I determined that there should be no more delay on his part, and I took him to the door of the room where the bodies had been laid, but at it he made a sudden halt and would not enter. Covering his face with his hands, he trembled violently as I pushed the door open and advanced to the bedside. The room, hushed and in semi- darkness-the white sheet, whose surface showed too plainly the forms beneath it- and the scared, terrified face of the man who,

with brain a-fire, stood watching, with staring eyes, the bed,-made a scene I have never forgotten.

Slowly I turned down the upper part of the sheet, and Jackson, as if fascinated by the act, advanced a step or two into the room, but with face averted. Gradually he turned it towards the bodies, and for a moment his gaze rested upon them. The next instant he staggered forward, looked at the woman's face, panted for breath once or twice, and then, with uplifted hands and a wild cry of "Lucy!" fell his length upon the floor. When I stooped over him he was in convulsions, and dark matter was oozing out of his mouth. The climax had come. I shouted for the servants, and they carried him to his own room, and placed him on his own bed.

How I got through that day I hardly know. Alone I buried Bransome and his wife, and alone I returned from the hurried task to watch by Jackson's bedside. None of the natives would stay near him. For two days he lay unconscious. At the end of that time he seemed to have some idea of the outside world, for his eyes met mine with intelligence in their look, and on bending over him I heard him whisper, "Forgive me!" Then he relapsed into unconsciousness again. Through the long hours his eyes remained ever open and restless; he could not eat, nor did he sleep, and I was afraid he would pass away through weakness without a sign, being an old man. On the third day he became delirious, and commenced chattering and talking to himself, and imagining that all kinds of horrid shapes and creatures were around and near him. I had to watch him narrowly in order to prevent him stealing out of his bed, which he was ready to do at any moment to avoid the tortures which he fearfully imagined

awaited him.

By these signs I knew that he was in the middle of an attack of delirium tremens, and I tried to quiet him by means of laudanum, but it had no effect upon him. I got him, however, to swallow a little soup, which sustained him. My own boy was the only negro I had been able to induce to stay in the room, and he would only remain in it while I was there. I had sent a messenger to the nearest station, where I remembered there was a Portuguese doctor; but he had not returned by the evening of the fourth day. That night, worn out with watching, I had dozed off to sleep on a chair, placed by the sick man's bed, when all at once I was awakened by a loud report, and I jumped up to find the room filled with smoke. As it cleared away I saw that Jackson was standing in the middle of the room with a revolver in his hand. As I confronted him he laughed a devilish laugh and cocked the weapon, crying as he did so, "It was you who tempted me with your smooth face and unsuspicious way, and you shall die, though I suffer doubly in hell for it. Hist!" and he stopped suddenly and listened. "Don't you hear the breakers! Hark! how they roar. They say they are ready, always ready," and staring in front of him, he advanced, as if following the sign of an invisible hand, to the door, unconsciously placing, to my infinite relief, the revolver on the top of a chest of drawers as he passed by it. I did not dare to move, and he opened the door and walked into the front room. Then I followed him. For a little he remained in the room, glaring vacantly about him, and muttering to himself, but seeing the outer door open he made a rush towards it, and disappeared into the darkness of the night. Calling to the boy, I ran after him,

and easily came up to him, when he turned, and picking up a heavier stone than I thought he could have lifted, threw it at me. I dodged it and closed with him. Once in my arms I found I could hold him, and my servant and I carried him back into the factory. We placed him on the floor of the diningroom, and he was too exhausted to move for a while. By degrees, however, he recovered sufficiently to stand; and as soon as he could do so by himself, with devilish cunning, he made for the lamp, which he struck, quick as lightning, with a stick that had been lying on the table. In an instant the great round globe fell to pieces, but luckily the chimney was not broken, and the lamp remained alight, and before he could strike another blow at it I had grappled with him again. This time he struggled violently for a few moments, and seemed to think that he was dealing with Bransome, for he shrieked, "What! have you come back from the sea? You are wet! you are wet!" and shuddering, he tried to free himself from my hold; and I, not liking to hurt him, let him go, taking care to keep myself between him and the lamp.

"Back from me, you villain of hell!" he cried, as soon as he was free. "What have you done with her? what have you done with her?" And then, in a tone of weird and pathetic sorrow, "Where is my little one that. I loved? I have sought her many a year; oh, why did she forsake me? Aha, Sooka! we were right to send him to the hell whence he came-the lying, false-hearted scoundrel, to steal away my white dove!"

After which he drew from his finger a solid gold ring which he always wore and threw it from him, saying, with a wild laugh, "There! that's for any one that

likes it; I'm a dead man." He then staggered towards his own room, and I, remembering the loaded revolver which still lay on the chest of drawers, tried to intercept him. In his rage, for I verily believe that he also remembered that the weapon was there, he spat in my face, and struck me with all his force between the eyes; but I stuck to him, and with the help of the boy, who had been all this time in hiding, but who came for ward at my call, I laid him for the last time upon his bed. There he lay exhausted for the remainder of the night; but there was no rest for me,-I felt that I had to watch him now for my own safety.

Towards morning, however, his breathing became, all at once, very heavy and slow, and I bent over him in alarm. As I did so, I heard him sigh faintly, "Lucy!" and at that moment the native boy softly placed something upon the bed. I took it up. It was the ring the sick man had thrown away in the night, and as I looked at it I saw James, from Lucy" engraved on its inside surface, and I knew that the dead woman was his wife.

แ

As the first faint streaks of dawn stole into the room, the slow-drawn breathing of the dying man ceased. I listened-it came again-oncetwice and then all was silence. He was dead, and I realised in the sudden stillness that had come upon the room that I was alone. Yet he had passed away so quietly after his fitful fever that I could not bring myself to believe that he was really gone, and I stood looking at the body, fearing to convince myself of the truth by touching it.

So entranced was I by that feeling of awe which comes to almost every one in the presence of death,

that I did not hear the shouting of the hammock-boy outside, or the footsteps of a white man coming into the room; and not until he touched me on the shoulder did I turn and recognise the sallow face of the Portuguese doctor whom I had sent for, and who had thus arrived too late. However, he served to help me to bury the mortal part of Jackson in the little graveyard beside the body of his wife, and that of the man who had come between them when alive. And such was without doubt the fact; for when the doctor had gone, and I was alone again, I collected and made an inventory of the dead men's effects, and in Jackson's desk I found his diary, or, as he himself would have called it, his log; and in that log was noted, on the very day that Bransome had arrived on the Point, his suspicion of the man, and later on his conviction that Bransome was indeed he who had injured him.

Sooka was never found; but when the mail-steamer returned from the south coast, I discovered that the younger patrao had made his crew row away suddenly from the steamer's side, while Mr. Bransome had been engaged below, and was out of sight. So it was evident that the pair had been in league together to insure Sooka his revenge. What share Jackson had had in the murder of his enemy, I did not care to think of, but feared the worst.

For myself, I had to remain on the Point for many months, until the factory was finally closed-for no purchaser was ever found for it; and doubtless, by this time, the buildings are in ruins, and long grass hides the graves of those who sleep upon King Bemba's

Point.

WE take it to be undeniable that our earliest and happiest memories associate themselves in some shape with eating and drinking. We had almost added, the purest and the holiest; but on second thoughts that might be going too far. For we remember that stolen pleasures were the sweetest, and the piquancy of some of our most delightful reminiscences originated in the spirit of lawless adventure. Be it remarked, besides, that for the present we use the word "eating" in its simplest meaning. The boy eats from instinct, and to sustain his irrepressible energy and spirits, although far from insensible to those gratifications of the palate which transfer their agreeable sensations to the memory. Caring about cookery comes later. Next, "cookery" with him may be translated into the more artificial cuisine; while sooner or later, should his tastes lie that way, the half-careless connoisseur becomes the serious gourmand, or rises into the more refined order of the gourmets.

But our present concern is with the boy-the father of the future man- and so we go back to him from our brief digression. With the country boy, come home for the holidays after his first terms at school, and proud of his emancipation from those schoolroom dinners where his elder sisters, in company of the governess, are nourished on the wholesome but monotonous roastmutton, and on rice-puddings that are remarkable for the absence of egg. He feels it to be a decided step of promotion when he is permitted to join the party at the family luncheon. It has its material advantages, moreover, in variety of delicacies which

the

are

brought within the range of his formidable powers. Every boy has, or ought to have, a splendid appetite, which may be invariably depended upon. Even preliminary surfeits of fruit, when he has been ranging the garden from the gooseberry-bushes to the strawberrybeds, seem to make slight impression on it. He lives in the open air in most weathers; and even when the drenching rain is almost too much for his philosophy, he is lounging about the open doors of the stables, or making dashes at the keeper's cottage and the kennels. The hottest sunshine only warms him into increased activity, like the lizards and scorpions of southern climes. Punctuality, in well-ordered households, is the rule, and especially for the young. So, somehow, when the bell has tolled for luncheon, Our busy young acquaintance finds himself in his place, panting with the final burst that saved his distance, and with his face flushed as with incipient fever, and steaming from hurried immersion in cold water. He has lost some of his breath, but none of his appetite. It is cut and come again with the cold beef. The .butler, with whom Master Jack is a prime favourite, notwithstanding his predilection for practical jokes, helps him repeatedly and surreptitiously to sweets; and finally, with cheese and bread, butter and salad, he completes a comfortable and satisfactory repast. The envious valetudinarian with chronic indigestion, who has been trifling with a biscuit and weak brandy and apollinaris, might set Master Jack down as a glutton. We were going to say, "Not a bit of it" but we would stick closely