And then Mr. Miles, bald and florid, came civilly forward to welcome me, and I forgot the Russian, and all connected with him.

66

Certainly, my dear sir, certainly," said the jeweller, unlocking the strongest of safes with the tiniest of Bramah keys, and tossing over a quantity of écrins labelled with the names of half the duchesses and countesses in the Red Book.

"Here is the set that your esteemed father, Mr. Henley, was so good as to order. Very old and respected customer of ours, is Mr. Henley. I sold him-dear me! thirty years ago it must have been-a set of emeralds for Mrs. Henley's wearing. Not a very costly. set, but in good taste, in capital taste. Mr. Henley had but lately come back, then, from Calcutta. His was a new name, then, on the Royal Exchange, and in the Bank parlour. No name higher, now; but his taste was always excellent, always. Here the stones are."

And the talkative old man, who was reputed to be enormously wealthy, but who stuck to his shop like a barnacle to its rock, and never forgot a customer, opened first one and then another of the dark morocco cases, and showed me the jewels my father had ordered. A very superb present it was, tastefully magnificent, and such as a peeress might have been proud to wear. I was quite dazzled by the first flash of the sparkling necklace, the blood-red rubies glinting the brighter for the moony lustre of the pure white pearls. I had expected that the jewels would prove handsome, but their beauty far surpassed my anticipations, and I felt a certain nervous uneasiness at the idea of walking London streets with such valuables in my pocket. Spray, and brooch, and bracelets, rings, and ear-rings, and tiara, were all equally splendid and elegant; and I was half disposed to scold my father for his generosity, but consoled myself with the recollection that nothing could possibly be too good for Carry Lethbridge. Old Mr. Miles accompanied me to the street door, chatting as volubly as was his practice, his tongue running mostly on the splendour of the wares he had just delivered over to my charge.

"Pretty, very pretty, the design," he said, as he opened the plate-glass door of the shop. "And as for the stones, I defy the sharpest eye to make out a flaw in any one of the rubies. Better stones never came from Ceylon, nor pearls of a finer water. Ah! Mr. Henley, it is not every one who is able to give such presents as your good father. I sent a set nearly similar, last week, for the wedding of

I think these words were either uttered in a louder tone than the rest of the jeweller's discourse, or a lull in the roll and rumble of the carriages made them unusually distinct, but at any rate three or four of the passers-by turned their heads inquisitively towards old Mr. Miles and myself, as we stood in the open doorway. And among those three or four was the ugly foreigner with the red-brown beard. He was repassing the shop, coming down from the opposite direction to that in which he had previously been walking. A coincidence, no doubt! Merely a coincidence.

I beckoned to the driver of a Hansom, sauntering past in quest of a fare, and rattled down to the club. It wanted some time as yet to the dinner hour, but I preferred waiting at the club for my friends' arrival to driving back to my father's house in Harley Street. The second editions of the morning papers had just come in as I arrived, and there was a hum and buzz of conversation going on upon the subject of some important telegrams from America which they contained. It was just then that M'Clellan was meeting with his first reverses, if I remember rightly, in his peninsular campaign, and I gladly secured one of the copies of the Times, and applied myself to read. In vain. A strange feverish listlessness oppressed me; there was a dull weight upon my spirits, and my mind seemed to be possessed by a sort of aimless activity that wearied mý thoughts to no purpose. In vain I fixed my eyes upon the newspaper, resolved to concentrate my faculties upon Mr. Reuter's telegrams. The big black words swam before my eyes, and the sounding sentences were barren of meaning. Had I, at that moment, been put on my examination before the sternest of commissioners, with all I valued at stake on the results, I could not for my very life have given a lucid definition as to who was fording the Chickahominy, or passing the James River, or what the bone of contention might be. Vague, formless apprehensions of some invisible danger, of something too shadowy to be boldly grappled with, floated through my brain, and I found myself looking forward with positive dislike to the solitary journey that lay before me that night.

All these gloomy fancies vanished, however, at the first grasp of a friendly human hand, and the first sound of a friendly human voice. I was in excellent spirits at dinner time, and took the fire of good-humoured banter with which my companions plied me-in very good part. We lingered rather longer over our wine

than I had anticipated, while we talked of old days, and wondered when our next meeting would be; but at last I jumped up, looked at my watch, and found that I must drive fast if I meant to catch the train. I shook hands cordially with my friends, and bade them goodbye; and, amid a shower of hearty wishes for my future happiness-how little did I think that I should never see the speakers more?-left the club. A Hansom cab had been called for me by one of the messengers, and I found it drawn up by the curbstone, as I briskly descended the steps. It was twilight by this time in the streets, and the lamps had long been twinkling. I noticed, as I stepped into the cab, that another, a four-wheeler, was stationed a few doors off, and that a man's head was protruded through the open window nearest the pavement, but the instant I looked that way, the head disappeared into the interior of the vehicle like that of a tortoise within its shell. I did not give a second thought to this circumstance.

"Drive fast, my man. night train for C we don't miss it."

I want to hit the Half-a-crown extra if

The cab bowled swiftly off, and the streets being clearer than at an earlier hour, we met with no interruption, until, suddenly, in a narrow part of one of the most frequented thoroughfares, a lock occurred, in which a string of carts and waggons, two or three cabs, and a dray, were entangled confusedly together. There was the usual exchange of oaths, street witticisms, and abuse, the usual cracking of whips, grinding of wheels, and interference of a single bewildered policeman, but the provoking feature of the case was the great probability that I should lose the train. My charioteer had been forced up a narrow cross street by the pressure of the loaded vehicles in front, and as he flourished his whip, and rated the carters and draymen in no measured terms, I looked anxiously about me for signs of a clearance. Then it was that I noticed, hard by, the very same cab, drawn by a fleabitten light-grey horse, that had been stationed close by my club door. By the dim light of the street lamp, I could see that the horse was in a lather of foam, and had evidently been forced along at a great pace. The windows of the cab were close shut, hot and stifling as was the atmosphere of that reeking and crowded quarter of London. But just as I had conjectured that probably the occupants of the cab, like myself, were eager to catch some train, the lock of carriages broke up, and I was borne quickly to the terminus.

"Your luggage is labelled, Mr. Edgar, and ready to be put into the van," said old Jones,

my father's confidential servant, touching his hat respectfully. "I have put the rugs and sticks, and fishing-rods into an empty first-class carriage, third from the bookstall to the left."

"Very well, Jones. Just see the luggage put in. I must get my ticket," answered I, and hurried to the ticket office, where several impatient passengers were jostling and elbowing one another, while a stout lady, one of those voluble but unprotected female travellers who are the scourges and torments of all officials, was blocking up the window, and holding a long and discursive argument with the booking clerk, on the subject of her fare, her change, her preference of slow trains and cheapness to express trains and high charges, and the best way in which she could reach some cross country line eighty miles off. At last, however, even this lady voyager's demands, or the clerk's patience, being exhausted, I managed to crush my way to the window, and to take my ticket for C

"First-class to C

monsieur!" said a peculiarly harsh and strident voice at my elbow, with a slight but perceptible foreign accent in its tones, and I glanced around at the man, who was thrusting a half-washed muscular hand, decorated by a heavy gold signet-ring, past me to lay his money on the counter.

With some surprise I recognised the Russian whom I had seen twice on that very afternoon in front of the jeweller's shop. The recognition did not appear mutual. He never looked at me, but redemanded his ticket in a quick angry manner, and, having got it, fell back and mingled with the crowd.

By the time I had reached the carriage, third from the bookstall, I saw Jones approach along with the guard, who unlocked the carriage, held open the door for my entry, and, having received the usual silver compliment that has now become a vested interest on railways, closed and relocked it, saying that I should "have the compartment to myself, if I wished to smoke." Then Jones, after asking if he could take any message to "master," touched his hat and vanished. I remained alone, lazily gazing out of the window at the lively scene which the well-lighted platform presented. The usual bustle which precedes the departure of a train was going on. Porters were wheeling heavy barrowloads of luggage rapidly past me, all the quicker in their movements because the warning bell had begun clanging for the first time; mail-guards were dragging along the huge sacks of letters that were impatiently awaited by the sorters in the post-office carriage; newspaper boys were thrusting evening journals into the faces of nervous passengers, wistfully leaning out to

see after the safety of those trunks that the porter had glibly assured them would be all right;" and Paterfamilias was gathering his strayed family around him, or wrangling over a charge for overweight.

"Open this door, you guard! Halloa, guard! Open the door of this carriage, will you?"

It was thus that my reverie was broken in upon. A strange traveller, with a railway rug over his arm, was roughly shaking the door of the compartment where I sat alone. The guard came up rather reluctantly. Railway guards are discriminating persons as to social condition, and the newcomer's coarse manners and husky voice were not calculated to inspire respect.

"First-class, sir?" asked the guard, and when the man, with a curse, produced his ticket, the guard was still too loyal to my tacit compact with him to permit the invasion of my privacy without an effort to preserve it. "First to C, sir? This way, please. Plenty of room here." And he tried to draw the intruder towards a distant carriage that was half full. But this manoeuvre failed.

"There is plenty of room in this carriage. Look sharp and let me in," said the obstinate traveller; and the guard, being an English and not a French official, succumbed, and unlocked the door.

and down the engine-driver. darting across the platform, tore open the door, jumped in, and sat down opposite to me. A policeman ran up, and shut the door.

line, prepared to signal the At that moment a man came

I looked at my

"All right, Saunderson!" The train began to move. opposite neighbour, and could hardly repress an exclamation of surprise and vexation. The Russian ! Yes, there was no mistaking the man. I knew that red-brown beard, that flat tigerish face, those long crafty eyes, black and narrow as an American Indian's, perfectly well.

I had seen the man at the ticket-window, certainly, but that was more than ten minutes ago, and I had been confident that he had long since taken his seat in some other compartment of the train. Such, however, was not the case. I was fated, it seemed, always to be in contact with this person, for whom I had conceived an antipathy that was perhaps unjust, but was not the less decided. There was a look of stealthy fierceness and greasy self-sufficiency about the man which would have been distasteful to most people. His was one of those faces that conveyed to those who looked upon it at once a threat and a warning. And, after all, was it a coincidence that had brought me so often face to face with this grim foreigner? Certainly it might have

"Never mind,” said I, smiling, and applied myself to observing the newcomer, who sat down, not opposite to me, but in the middle partition, full in the glare of the lamp. In a very short time I had, as I thought, taken the measure of this not very delightful fellow voyager. He was a young man, perhaps a year my senior, strongly built, and with rather a handsome face, sadly marred by very evident traces of dissipation. He wore a coat of sporting cut; a blue "birdseye" scarf, with a horseshoe pin in it, and a great deal of dubious jewellery in the shape of rings, watch-chain, and dangling trinkets. The railway rug, that lay across the knees of his tight-fitting drab trousers, was of a gaudy pattern, yellow and red. His eyes were bloodshot, his voice thick, and he smelt very strongly of bad tobacco and bad brandy. To all appearance he was a betting man, or sporting "gent" of the lower substratum of that uninviting class.

The bell rang for the last time. There was the customary final rush and scurry of belated passengers and porters, and the voices of the newspaper boys grew shriller and more excited. Then the guards sprang to the steps of their vans, and the station-master looked warily up

ness both my entry into and my exit from the jeweller's shop. It might have been mere hazard which made him my fellow traveller by the same train and carriage. And yet I could not help somehow connecting the four-wheeled cab drawn by the grey horse, the cab that had been stationed near the club door, that had ap peared in the street stoppage, with the sudden appearance of the Russian at the terminus of the railway. Had he dogged me all that evening, tracking me with a blood-hound's pertinacity from the jeweller's door to the railway carriage? It was possible, though not likely. But in vain I tried to dismiss the idea as silly and romantic. It recurred again and again. And yet why should he or anyone dog my steps?

The answer to this self-question soon came. The jewels! the costly set of pearl and ruby ornaments I carried about me, and of which this man had probably overheard the garrulous old jeweller make mention! And yet the Russian had hardly the air of a pickpocket. There was something defiant and arrogant in his look, and an undefinable air of education clung to him in spite of his shabby exterior. And as for violence, I had a young man's confidence in my own power to cope with any

the shabby lecturer and the betting man, sodden with drink and attired in flashy finery, any previous acquaintance seemed improbable. Yet there they were, rapidly communicating with one another by means of some thieves' alphabet of finger telegraphy, unaware as yet that I had observed them. So far as I could make out, the foreigner was urging the other to some course which the latter was reluctant to pursue.

I am not, I believe, one whit more disposed to timidity than most of my fellow countrymen, and yet I must confess that my blood ran cold and my heart almost ceased beating as the truth dawned upon me. I was the victim evidently of an artful and treacherous scheme. That cab-that sudden appearance of the Russian at the terminus-that persistency of his English confederate to occupy a seat in the carriage where I sat alone! All was clear to me now. Robbery, no doubt, was the object of the two villains in whose company I was shut up, and probably they would hesitate at no crime to obtain possession of the valuable jewels I so incautiously carried about my person. Both were strong men, probably armed too; and though I braced my nerves and set my teeth for a struggle, I had little hope of a successful resistance, none of rescue. The train was racing fast through the black stillness of a moonless night. was to be no stoppage short of C hours must elapse before that station was reached.

There and

At the moment when my thoughts had travelled thus far, I made some slight movement; the Russian looked up, and our eyes met, and the villain saw that his bye-play had been observed, and instantly threw off the mask. Grinding out an oath between his set teeth, he rose from his seat. I rose, too; and as the Russian noticed the action he sprang like a tiger at my throat, grappling with me so closely that the blow I dealt him took but partial effect. Linked together, we wrestled furiously for a few seconds, rising and falling; but I was the younger and more agile of the two, and had nearly overpowered my enemy, when his confederate came to his aid, and dealt me a succession of crushing blows upon the head with some heavy weapon, beneath which I fell, stunned and helpless, with my face covered with blood, and my strength and senses left me. When I came to myself again, the ruffians were rifling my pockets as I lay on the floor of the carriage. The Russian had opened one of the morocco cases that held the ornaments, and he was examining the gems by the light of the lamp overhead. The other villain was searching for fresh plunder.

He

was livid with agitation, I noticed, and his face was blotched with crimson, and damp with heat-drops, while his hands trembled very much. He it was who first spoke, in a husky whisper.

"What shall we do with him?"

"La belle affaire! Toss him out! The fall won't hurt him!" sneered the Russian.

It was plain that they believed me to be dead. I lay still, resolved that no cry, no twitching of an eyelid, should betray that life was still not extinct. Too well I knew that mercy was hopeless, and that my chance would be far better if flung out, at the risk of being mangled and crushed beneath the whirling iron wheels, than if I remained in that luxurious first-class carriage, with those two wild beasts in human guise, ready to finish their work at the first sign that I yet lived. Tho Russian leaned out of the window, and cautiously opened the door. I felt the chill of the fresh night wind upon my cheek as I lay. Then I had to summon all my resolution to my help, to repress a shudder as the murderers stooped and lifted me up, one taking me by the head, and the other by the feet, as butchers carry a slaughtered calf. The Eng

lishman breathed hard, and trembled perceptibly as he dragged me towards the gaping doorway.

out.

"I don't half like the job," he growled

are!

The Russian gave a scornful laugh. "Pitch the carrion out, blanc bec that you One, two, three, and over with him." I remember one agonised moment of suspense as I was violently thrust forward, one hurried frenzied prayer that rose from my heart to my lips, but was drowned by the roar and rush of the long train of massive carriages as they tore along the iron way. I was launched out, and felt myself falling, and then I dropped with a crash, and my brain reeled, and sensation seemed again to desert me.

On coming gradually to myself, my first vague perception was, that I formed a part of some vast moving body speeding swiftly along, swinging and swaying, but rushing fast through the cool night air. Then, as memory returned, I began to realise my position. In falling, when the assassins had thrown me out of the carriage where the robbery had taken place, I had dropped upon the wooden plank that runs like an elongated step below the carriages, and my hand had closed mechanically, in a clutch like that of a drowning man, on some projecting portion of the iron-work above, which I presently conjectured to be the prop of one of the iron steps by which passengers ascend. And there I clung instinc