There is something very eerie and exciting about a march by night with a prospect of danger ahead. Abject cowering fear is perhaps an unmixed pain, but excitement tinged with something which, if not fear, is closely akin to it, is one of the Gilbertian pains that is almost if not quite a pleasure. As we rode along I experienced a kind of exultation, and I actually rejoiced in and encouraged the thought that the rustling of the grasses might be due, not to the night wind, but to the stealthy movements of an enemy. The moon shone upon our ride, though obscured from time to time by the shifting clouds. A tornado threatened to break over us, but no rain fell, the wind serving only to clear and freshen the air, the best tonic imaginable for people engaged on an exploit like ours. Our pace was slow, for our horses were often knee-deep in mud and water. The late rains, too, had drawn out of the deep black cotton soil a stench of a kind remembered and detested by all who have travelled in Africa.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself, and I am sure that Clutton did. He gave me the impression of a man who had put off for the time being all the load of bitter disappointment he was wont to carry about with him,-of one whose heart was centred solely upon doing one single thing successfully, that one thing being the arrest of a murderer in a remote corner of the British Empire. It never entered his head, as I believe it once or twice did mine, that to be stuck in the gizzard by a native spear or hit by a poisoned arrow in an obscure African town is a very unsatisfactory way of dying, and that the danger of it is for that reason a harder thing to undergo than to march gloriously to death with the eyes of the world upon you in a great If I had such a thought, how

war.

ever, it was soon driven out by the loud drumming which struck upon our ears as we neared the dead king's town. The monotonous continuing sound took hold of us,-seemed to sweep the brain clear of conscious thought and hypnotize us until every idea left our minds save that one thing we had ridden out to do. Not for nothing does the African beat the tom-tom. After an hour of it, the inhibitory centres give way, and the mind is an instrument upon which the single. hearted emotions of war or religion can play at will.

When we reached the outskirts of the town we found them deserted. All the inhabitants, to judge by the direction from which the sound of the drumming came, were gathered round the king's house. We stopped for a moment to consult. Clutton said he wished to go straight up to the king's house with his interpreter and disarm hostility by his confidence. It was a proposal in keeping with his elated mood.

"If they see the soldiers," he said, "before we've effected the arrest. they'll begin to fire arrows and we won't get out of this without the loss of fifty or sixty lives, including probably our own. Once we've got our prisoner, your eighteen men are enough for defence if they get nasty. But it's no good using the men for making the arrest. I'll go alone. It's the only way to do our job without unnecessary slaughter."

I.

"Well, then, let's go together," said

"Of course it's perfectly obvious you must stay behind," put in the Doctor. "If anything happens, Clutton can fire his revolver, and then you can run up with your men. There's the difficulty how best to act when you do run up. Everything will depend then upon the soldiers, and you can't leave that either to a native corporal or an ignoramus of

with Clutton, and if anything goes wrong we'll fire."

"The Doctor's advice is obviously right," was Clutton's comment.

I could not but agree. The lives of those making the arrest might very probably depend upon the men being under the command of their own officer. I stayed therefore in a compound about a hundred and fifty yards distant from the place where we saw the people assembled round their fires. Clutton and the Doctor started. I do not believe any of us thought seriously of the risk of failure.

I had only to wait five minutes. No very definite change occurred, so far as 1 could hear, in the sounds that came from the big market-place in front of the king's house. The drumming seemed to be a little fainter on that side of the market-place through which my companions had decided to pass, but there was no evidence of any universal alarm. Presently I thought I heard Clutton's voice thunderously eursing some one or other. The next thing that attracted my attention was the appearance of Clutton in person, the Doctor following behind him, while in front, pushed along by the interpreter and two or three natives of the town, was a black gentleman in gorgeous clothes who proved to be the refractory usurper of whom we had come in search.

"I have the honor to hand over to your charge the lately crowned King Bashir of Kwanu," said Clutton, laughing, with a glint of amused triumph in his eye. "We'd better get away as soon as we can. It's touch and go. They're awfully excited-those few, that is to say, who yet realize what's been done. If we wait here, the whole town may collect their senses and go for us."

We clapped a pair of irons on the prisoner's wrists, placed a man with

a rifle on either side of him, set him in the middle of our caravan, and made off for our camp. As we went along, Clutton and the Doctor described their adventure to me. They had found the people crowded round fires, drumming and singing for all they were worth. They had made their way through the market-place to the gate of the house unnoticed, the light of the fires throwing into obscurity the passages between. They found the gate open and walked in. The murderer was sitting in great state, chewing kolanuts and listening to the praises of his singers. The interpreter clapped him on the shoulder, whereupon he started up and saw for the first time the figures of two white men standing by him. He was told he must come along at once. It seems he obeyed mechanically, both he and his men being utterly dazed by the sudden contretemps. Outside the gate, however, there was very nearly trouble. A large group round one of the fires got wind of what was happening. a few arrows were flicked off, amidst much shouting, at Clutton and 'the Doctor, and things began to look threatening. Clutton continued his policy of bluff, advanced with his raised whip of hippo hide towards the shouting group, volubly abusing them the while, and habitual awe of the white man and his magic "medicine" Idid the rest. The group of natives scattered, some of them even helping to propel out of the market-place the unwilling prisoner. Such was the arrest of Bashir. That night Clutton's natural bravery and daring was the first element in our success.

Alas! the evening was not to end so successfully as we thought. I had noticed that Clutton, although usually fond of indulging his powers of vivid description, had left the Doctor to tell the chief part of the story. I attributed his silence to an access of mod

esty, and chaffed him about it a little. "I feel a bit dizzy," he answered; and then fell behind a little. The Doctor did not hear his remark, and I thought nothing of it. A few moments afterwards I heard cries of consternation from the natives behind us. Clutton had fallen heavily from his horse.

We went back, the Doctor and I, to where he lay. In the moonlight his face looked ghastly white. He spoke with difficulty.

"I'm afraid I'm done for, you fellows."

"You've not broken any bones, I hope?" said the Doctor.

"No, no, it's not the fall from my horse. Look at my thumb! I didn't notice it at the time. I was too much excited."

There was a scratch on his thumb with a little blood upon it. It seemed a small thing.

"Not one of the arrows they flicked?" asked the Doctor in a tone of utter dismay.

"Yes, that's it. Just a scratch! so small I didn't feel it at the time. But it's had twenty minutes' start, and the brutes use Strophanthus. I noticed the blood a few minutes ago, and thought I must have barked my thumb somewhere. But I'm afraid it's an arrow scratch all right. Well, it'll serve."

I felt angry and miserable. Why had 1 been so thick-headed as not to see the possible meaning of his dizziness!

The Doctor did what he could for him with tannic acid and brandy, but it was too late: Strophanthus is a quick destroyer even when, as probably in this case, the arrow-tip has not been Blackwood's Magazine.

Poor

freshly dipped in the poison. Clutton's troubles, relations, and disappointments were nearly over.

He lay on a soldier's cloak, looking straight up at the moon with a faint smile upon his face. He reached out weakly for my hand.

"I've only known you for a fortnight, Walker, but you've been just about the kindest friend I ever had. I could tell you everything. I felt it the first day you spoke to me. You seemed to understand."

I pressed his hand. My eyes filled. He was a brave fellow, and I had come to like him very much in the course of our long evening talks. He seemed to become unconscious for a few minutes. Then, evidently now in the very grip of death, he heaved himself up with a struggle from the ground a little. His words were just audible to me as I knelt beside him. They were three times repeated.

"Clutton!" he whispered.

a Chee-Chee!"

"Clutton!

Poor fellow! I believe his last thought was one of satisfaction that both the Doctor and I should have seen how one of his race and upbringing could die. - I described how on our ride the thought came over me, that such a death was a poor way to leave the world. But I felt now that there was one man who perhaps welcomed it in his dying thoughts as an irrevocable refutation of hundreds of things said which had pierced his sensitive soul, as a final justification of his own constant and self-respecting belief that he was as good a man as those who twitted him with what he could not avoid.

W. Bannatyne Thomson.

A very curious discovery, which throws some interesting sidelights on the life of sixteenth-century Europe was made some years ago, when the contents of the old post-office at Frankfort-on-Maine were transferred to the new premises. A complete mail-bag, full of letters and apparently officially sealed, was discovered hidden among the rafters of the old post-office, where it had lain forgotten for over three hundred years.

The bag was at first deposited intact among the State archives; but it has recently been handed over to the Imperial Postal Museum, where the Curator, Dr. Sautter, has been occupied in examining the contents. Dr. Sautter has published the results of his examination in the Imperial Post and Telegraph Archives.

The mail comprised one hundred and seventy-five packages, containing in all two hundred and seventy-two letters; in some instances several different letters were enclosed in one package, either for the sake of economy or in the hope of greater security.

Most of the letters were addressed to persons residing in Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne and Antwerp, besides a number intended to reach officers and soldiers of the Spanish army then operating in the Netherlands.

One can but vainly speculate upon the disappointments, quarrels, and losses that may have resulted from the miscarriage of all these messages. They were no doubt serious, for in those days letter-writing was too costly and troublesome to be undertaken without real need. Dr. Sautter has classified the letters and published a selection of those that contain items of general interest.

The "aviso," or despatch-note, found in the bag is written in Italian, though signed by the Spanish postmaster at

It is impossible now to say how these letters came to be deposited in the roof of the Frankfort post-office, though there can be little doubt that it was the result of some mail-robberywhich was no uncommon event at that period. The peculiar fact remains, however, that the thieves selected a post-office for the concealment of their haul.

Dr. Sautter offers two theories that may account for this. It has been ascertained from other sources that the municipal authorities of Frankfort were at that time very indignant at what they considered the arbitrary manner in which the Imperial postmaster overrode the ancient rights of Frankfort, and it is possible that they caused the mail to be intercepted and confiscated just to cause him annoyance. Or the theft may have been carried out on political grounds. In order to understand this we must recall that there was then open war between the Pope and the Prince-Archbishop of Cologne. The Archbishop had gone over to Protestantism, burnt the Pope's bull, and appealed to the "secular arm" of the Emperor. In an age when even official "safe-conducts" were often deliberately used as a snare to catch an enemy, the mere robbery of despatches by the emissaries of contending parties was a matter of ordinary occurrence; and it is significant that among all these letters there is not one addressed to any person of political or clerical eminence. Dr. Sautter surmises that the thieves may have helped themselves to any letters that looked like political despatches before hiding the remainder so safely that, as we