or twelve fresh-coloured young farmers awaiting us, who all very cordially extended to me the right hand of fellowship-for never did I see so much handshaking among a mounted company. Each one then addressed himself energetically to the work in hand, as if he grudged to waste a single moment of the pleasure before him.

And even had there been nothing more, the joyous sensations of the fresh morning breeze rushing round your brow, as you rode rapidly on over the springy turf and flowery heaths, would have been delightful. But now there was joined to it the sportsman's feeling of excitement, as he followed in the rear of the eager dogs, and saw, far over the plain, his game, the beautiful and graceful antelope the favourite game in South Africafrisking and gamboling in his gladness, and every now and then springing into the air with one of those wondrous bounds which have gained for him the appellation of springbok.

And it is the animal's very fleetness that gives the chase its greatest charm. There you go rush ing, dashing, crashing on, leaping over ant-hills, passing by small boks unregarded, and looking coolly on the ostriches that, putting on their seven-league boots, speed from your sight, with fear visibly shaking their whity-brown feathers. Possessed with the same one idea, the dogs rush on, tearing, panting, and struggling over the uneven ground, unheeding the hares that start terrified across their path, or the wild hen that feeds among the grass. And before all goes the springbok, bounding lightly over the flat, as if he fancied the race was one of his own choosing, while every now and then he leaps some fifteen or twenty feet into the air, and comes down again as lightly as if you had not expected his four slender legs to be broken by the concussion, and bounds on as before.

But for all that it was trying work for all parties. The antelope felt weary, though he still sped swiftly on-the dogs felt weary, though they pressed eagerly on his rear; and the poor Cape horses felt weary, though they struggled horsefully on. But there was one among the party who soon distanced, not only us, but all save two of the fleetest dogs. He was mounted on a splendid bay Arabian, and it was beautiful to watch the courser of the desert sweep lightly on, as if to him such speed was pastime.

Gallantly as he had borne himself, the antelope was the first to give in, and wearied and distressed, he turned hither and thither hoping to evade his foes, and seeking the sanctuary which was not to be found. The dogs gathered madly around him, but we will throw a veil over his end, for in a few minutes more the gambling, gleesome antelope of the morning lay stretched on his native plain, dabbled in blood.

Two such victories had crowned our arms before the scorching noontide compelled us to take shelter, which we then did among the natural bowers of a group of old acacias that formed part of the border of a jungle, stretching back as far as the

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Great Fish River. And our steeds were no less glad to be freed from their saddles, and though kept in remembrance of their slavery by the halters which bowed down their heads to the vicinity of their fore legs, they yet rolled joyfully on the grass, and then wandered contentedly off along the shade of the trees, to profit by the food that nature had plentifully provided for them.

Hungry as a hunter " is an adage, and no wonder, if their appetites at all resemble those of the party assembled round the outspread cloth, to see what the beautiful Zerlina had provided for them. For Hottentot-fig's Hollow being the nearest homestead, the banquet had come from thence. But, fortunately, Zerlina was as hospitable as she was fair-for we were hungry enough to have relished anything. I really think a paen would have been received with favour.

Then commenced the second act of the drama, which by many, I could perceive, was had in preference to the first-that lazy, happy hour, wherein sportsmen relate their past adventures, and allow a light to fall on the misadventures of their companions. Every moment I expected my feat of the morning to flash out, a source of inextinguishable mirth; but my friends were more generous than I thought, and I was allowed to laugh at the unhorsing of my companions, without their discovering the grass on my own back. But the great tie of quizzing set towards Louis Lee, the owner of the bay Arabian-a present from a rich uncle in India, as everybody said-whom two days more were to see strutting about a neighbouring farm, filling the important role of bridegroom. But Louis Lee took all their quizzing in good part : their most ironical congratulations he would recive as sincere, their pretended envy of his happiness as true, and when they laughed at him, his laugh was the happiest and merriest of all. His heart was so light that it danced in his bosom.

But if we were to win any laurels on our way back, it was time we went to horse; and sending on three or four of our dark servitors to turn back the steeds, each man stcod forward with his saddle at his feet, ready for service. In a few minutes they came hobbling up like a sorry troop, as, no doubt, they were; but with true human disregard of any other's feelings, each one seized upon his own, and strapping on his saddle, mounted. But to every one's astonishment, four of our number remained standing, foremost among whom was Louis Lee. Their steeds had not returned.

Then followed a vast commotion; the dingy seekers were sent back on their steps again, but nothing came of it; impatient horsemen tore madly along the jungle, but no trace of the fugitives was to be discovered; and at the end of an hour, it became quite evident to me that the spirited desert-steed had resolved to yield himself no longer to a life of slavery, but to break his bonds, and live in freedom among the glorious wilds, and that three of his companions had followed in his hoof

However true might be his idea, as well as those of his companions, that their horses would be found on the flat the following day, it was needful to take the owners off in the meantime; and sadly did the strongest backed steeds among us have cause to groan at the double burthen imposed upon them. But then, as is usual in this world, another part of the community had cause to rejoice; springboks leaped, and played, and gambolled undisturbed along the flat, as we returned.

My stay at Hottentot-fig's Hollow was now drawing to a close; yet I agreed to prolong it for a day or two until after the return of Timpson, who, with Charles Franklin, was going to escort the beautiful Zerlina to a neighbouring farm, some twenty miles distant, where she was to play the part of bridesmaid at Louis Lee's wedding, and where her companions were invited guests-as, indeed, I was myself; but I hate weddings, they are apt to be infectious. So I staid behind at Hottentot-fig's Hollow.

The moonless night soon closed in, and Farmer Franklin and I sat alone with the candles. He was rarely a man of many words, but now, either our solitude, or else the errand on which his daughter was bound, opened his lips, and he told me the history of his love and marriage. It was strange to see him sitting there, rough, rugged, and homely, while he told me the long by-gone tale of his hopes and fears, his quarrels and reconciliations, and above all of the love and the devotion of the fair gentle being who had been a true helpmeet to him, who had been the one star in his sky when adversity was round him, the bright angel of his home when the world smiled upon him, and of whom there remained nothing now save memory, and a grass-grown grave beneath the Babylonian willows.

I listened to him with interest, never once connecting him in thought with the tale he told, until he spoke of the shadow her death had cast upon his life and then the rough man's voice faltered, and his dull eye filled with tears; and then I recognised him as the lover and the husband.

Then we sank into silence-my host, probably, wrapped in the past, I pondering on the unknown future. At length, a rustling sound on the stoep roused us from our reveries, and then there was a loud knocking at the door. Franklin hastened to open it. Without, wrapped in his leopard-skin mantle, stood the stalwart form of his recent guest. the Black Knight, grasping in his right hand a quivering assegai. Behind him was a cloud blacker than night, whence shot forth the lightning of flashing eyes.

"Tyamie!" exclaimed Franklin in surprise. A thrust with his uplifted weapon was the reply,

I sprang forward to grasp my rifle. A knotkerrie whirled through the air-I felt a blow on the side of my head,-a horrible sensation of overwhelming sickness-and nothing more.

There was a hissing, and a crackling, and a crashing, and a bright light flashing through my closed eyelids, and I opened them hastily. Above, and all around me, flickered long, arrowy flames, like the outstretched tongues of fiery serpents, licking all things into fire. With a confused sensation of danger, I started up. Beside me lay Franklin, silent and motionless, his long white hair dabbled in blood, and his features pale and corpse-like. In an instant I remembered allTyamie's coming, Frauklin's wound, and the blow which had stunned without wounding me, and from which even then my head seemed whirling round like a boat in the Maelstrom.

But my head was clear enough to comprehend that to remain here was death; so, shouldering the body of my companion, I staggered with it out into the open air. But I was still too bewildered to understand what more could be done; and during the short time that remained until daylight, I sat silent before the blazing house, between the motionless form of its master, and the stiff stark bodies of two farm servants, who had been assegaied when they rushed to our assistance.

Then

At length the red light of the flames ceased to flicker on the surrounding hills, and to glance on the glossy leaves of the Hottentot figs that gave the Hollow its name; and the grey dawn broke on the farmer's homestead a heap of ashes. the servants crept out timidly from the bush, where they had fled on the arrival of the Black Knight and his companions. And then Franklin's wound, which was in the shoulder-and though it had bled much, was not dangerous-was dressed, and my jumbled senses began to re-arrange themselves.

There was no doubting the motive of the Black Knight's visit. Like the villain knights of old, he had come to bear away by force the bride whose hand he could not otherwise obtain; and well it was for the beautiful Zerlina that she had gone to place the orange-flower wreath on another fair head, or she would then have been on her way to Kaffirland.

High, evidently, had swelled the tide of the Black Knight's grief and anger on discovering that his fair prize had escaped him, so high that, as some mitigation of his anguish, he and his followers had swept off every horse, sheep, and ox the farmer had-it might have been merely as gages d'amour. And by way of lighting his departure, he had fired the rooftree that had given him shelter.

It was about the middle of the second day after, that a party of horsemen, among whom were not only the wedding guests, but the new made bridegroom himself, as well as your humble servant, might have been seen cantering rapidly across the

nuzzah, that might have been heard for miles over the echoing flat. And then we again addressed ourselves to our return, taking back with us the valuable prize that, with the view of improving each shining hour, the Black Knight had snatched from the edge of the jungle, while he was lying in wait for a propitious moment to bear off the beautiful Zerlina from Hottentot-fig's Hollow.

Acting in the capacity of herds, our progress was, of course, slow; and it was nearly evening when we reached the jungle-filled valley of the Fish River. But a broad enough path had been cut in it to permit the passage of our horned companions, and very cautiously and leisurely they began to descend it, while we followed patiently in the rear.

The party were just entering within the belt of bush, when a cry of agony rang shrilly out behind us, followed by a heavy fall. We all rushed back in alarmed surprise, to see the joyous young bridegroom lying bleeding on the ground, with an assegai quivering in his side.

Sorrowfully we gathered round him, and they were tender, though unskilful, hands that sought to draw out the barbed weapon, and dress his wound, while others scoured the surrounding bush for the perpetrator. There was no need to ask to whom was owing this fresh calamity-the name of him who had already wrought us so much evil was in every heart; but the advancing evening, and the almost impenetrable jungle favoured the miscreant, and not a trace of him was discovered.

Meanwhile, poor Lee was breathing painfully out the last few sobbing breaths of the life which had hitherto been so joyous, and upon which a long future of bliss seemed opening. But now he would never more look on the face he loved, or clasp the hand he had so lately won.

"Poor Ellen!" he said, sadly, "remind her of that world beyond the grave, where those who love are never parted."

And with a single sigh the awful parting of body and soul was over, and we stood beside the unconscious form that had lately been the most animated and joyous of us all. We raised him reverently, and placed him on the Arab steed whose return had cost his master so dearly, and took our way slowly and sadly back-not to Hottentots fig's Hollow, but to Timpson's place, where the Franklins now were.

Sadly and silently we bore him in, and laid him on the rude settle in the hall, at the same moment that the young bride sprang joyously forward. One glance was enough, and with a wild scream she fell senseless upon him; and it was hours ere they roused the widowed bride to the consciousness that her dream of happiness was already past. It was a cruel kindness-far better let the flower fade with the tree round which it had twined.

And now my tale so lightly begun is sadly ended; but such is human life, and that this is not its least true chapter, poor Ellen Lee's tears have told.

:

G. Precious! It seems to me all wasted. I want to go to a particular place. I leave my home or my office to do it—it's as plain as a pikestaff that the sooner I get there the better.

S.: On the contrary, it is far from plain. The travelling interval between place and place often proves anything but a blank period in the inner life.

G.: Don't be a fool. I see a twinkle in your eye, while you're talking.

S.: Yes; I don't like special vocabularies. But my meaning is earnest enough. Released from immediate occupation, shut up from it indeed, the blood suffering just a gentle fillip from the motion of the carriage (whatever it may be), and perhaps some faint unmeasurable suggestions of infinity arising from the perpetual change of the eye's point of view as we proceed, I fancy we may often find our travelling hours "religious hours" in no ignoble sense. Unimportuned by the trifles which ordinarily call on her to "spill" herself, as Emerson puts it, the better soul seems instinctively to keep a sweet, solemn state at such times, and calmly entertain the angel-guests whom her "purblind, opaque flunkeys," the senses, drive from her outer-gates, when she is busy with what she calls her daily duty—she only gives the dusty thing that fine name in her sublime despair at the incongruities of her lot-Duty, and-" Jernigan, Jernigan! bring me my garters !"-immortality, and-" My dear, I wish you'd brush my hat; I'm in such a hurry." Now, when the soul rides "a-cockhorse," she knows she is like the prophet's coffin, neither on terra firma nor off it, that she is between heaven and earth; and she takes advantage of the situation to mock at the old serpent hissing down below, and coquette with the elder seraphim.

G. (who has listened with exemplary patience, for which he is hereby rewarded with a public record of the fact): Suppose you've got the toothache, or an old woman with sandwiches, or apples, or shrimps, or rum shrub in a phial, sits just opposite-what then?

:

S. Toothache's bad. Old woman indifferent. The soul is not at the mercy of an old woman with shrimps, who is merely a fellow passenger. You're ten times worse; but for all your undeniable physiognomy, I am at this moment in the third heaven.

G. (laconically): Keep there. I'm in a railway carriage. (4 pause of silence; after which G. who knows S's. æsthetic leanings and is bent on mischief, again interrupts his meditations): I say, Skyblue! look at the window of that house! Ah, you're too late now. Such a pretty servant maid arranging a blind. Quite a houri for your third heaven, if you could only have enskied her.

S. (with a twinkle in the eye which discloses at once his appreciation of the move, and his forgiveness of it): Sorry I missed a sight which has made you poetical. Did you ever notice, Granite, in going to town on the omnibus from "Laburnum Villas," early in the morning, that the servant

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:

G. You're a sad Pagan, as I've often told you. If I were not an out-and-out Protestant, I would taunt you with the confessed beauty of the Madonna type.

S.: You need not do anything of the kind; I am quite sensible of it. But there you have the saintly element added to the repose; and the repose, too, is that of the mother, when her travail is overpast and gone; not a rest unbought, unhealthy, undevote. There is repose in sleep, and if it be healthy—that is, if it have followed naturally upon fatigue-it is beautiful, either in reality or in representation; but other things being equal, the beauty of a sleeping face will depend upon the suggestions of life which underlie the unconscious placidity of the moment.

G.: Well, let us keep to women. I am a practical man. I think a woman cannot be too quiet.

S.: I think she can be a great deal too quiet. I am glad you mentioned the Madonna; because it reminds me to say that, whereas European manhood has almost wholly recovered from the false print left upon it by the Romanist ideal, with its monasticism and quietism, European womanhood has been slower in resuming its natural mould and shape. There is too much of the Madonna, or rather the nun, about your female ideal, which is that of the multitude. The modern model woman is an indoor creature; she measures her growth by her relations to Heaven, or her relations to men, alternately. There is no healthy self-assertion about her. Christianity, acting upon Teutonic sentiment, has done much to raise woman; but the present standard is romantic rather than natural, and is wanting in sustained dignity. I miss the grandeur which, in the ideal of classicism, clings to the virgin, or the chaste matron.