"After all," I exclaimed, patting Enchanter's neck till he snorted, "thou, poor brute, art to-night more sensible than I.”

"Than I, I, I," mimicked back a hundred voices, as if the rocks were alive with goblin sprites; and unwilling to converse longer with these mocking denizens of the waste, I rode forward in silence.

Another twenty minutes brought me to the path leading up to the archway before mentioned. Here I could press my horse into a trot. The gloomy portal rose before me. A minute later I was swallowed up in the pitchy darkness which the impending rock cast over the way. Enchanter stumbled slowly on. The neigh of a horse, startled at our approach, told me that I had arrived at my journey's end. I shouted for the scyce, whom I knew to be rolled up in his blanket hard by.

Ata, sahib!" and he was at my side.

Dismounting, I handed him my charger, and, with an order to return on the following evening, dispatched him to camp.

For a few minutes there was the tramping of the horses, an occasional fiery spark as the iron shoes struck the stone, a sullen rumble as the pair passed under the vaulted gateway, and then a perfect silence. I was alone. A curious feeling it is, this being alone in darkness and solitude. The first impression is that of one's smallness and insignificance compared with the gloomy grandeur around; the second, a consciousness of one's greatness and importance as sole master of the position; the third, a vague, unreasonable doubt in regard to the "cannyness or uncannyness' " of the surroundings. Through all these stages I passed, as, entering the garden, I found my way to the terrace overlooking the lake. The last rays of the waning moon silvered the dark mountain crest, a few gleams reflected and played on the motionless waters below; from a cleft in the rocks a narrow stream of moonlight fell on the dark foliage around me, illuminating it with a brilliancy surpassing that of the brightest artificial light, and rendering faintly visible the crimson hue of the pomegranates planted several paces distant.

I could have stood gazing on the scene before me till the last beam of the sinking luminary had vanished; but it was already late, and I was tired; so, proceeding to the bungalow, I entered the outward apartment and passed through into an inner chamber-my sleepingroom for the night. Here I kindled the small "buti," or simple oil-lamp, the usual watcher throughout the night-indeed, a necessary precaution against the dangers arising from snakes and other venomous reptiles.

After the customary preparations for the night, I threw myself, clad in pygamahs and a light loose jacket, on the couch, and in a few minutes fell into that drowsy, semi-conscious state which precedes sound sleep.

How long I had thus lain I know not. But on a sudden I became indistinctly aware of a noise in the adjoining Chamber; still I dozed on. Again the sounds of movement fell on my ear, and produced a feeling of uneasiness. Was it a dream? Half-slumbering as I was, it was difficult to distinguish between the phantasmata of sleep and those of wakefulness. Yet, surely, the noise was there again! With an effort, I threw off the weariness that was deadening every nerve and sense, and listened. Something was certainly moving in the next room, but what? Was it a hyena or jackal that had found its way in through the open door or windows, and was bent on stealing my morrow's meal? A moment's attention sufficed to destroy this idea. It was a methodical motion; it was the cautious step of one ignorant of the locality groping his way towards the lighted doorway of my bedroom. That person was now in the centre of the room; I heard the round table creak as his hand touched it, and then all was still, as if he had paused to remark whether the sound had caused the slumberer to stir. The next minute, I knew, he might be at the door and then! I lay still and motionless; but the thoughts flashed with lightning speed through my brain. The last words of the moonshee suddenly rang upon my ear: Sahib, khubar da!" Was it, then, the fanatic devotee? Had I been tracked here to be attacked alone, defenceless? My revolver I had left in camp, and my only weapon was a hunting-knife, a six-inch, double-edged blade, the present of an old Radley school crony. This lay on the chair at my bedside. Noiselessly I grasped and drew the dagger. In less time than this takes to write, half a dozen plans had been reviewed. Should I gently rise and station myself at the door, ready to grasp the intruder by the throat as he entered? But it was impossible to do so without causing sufficient noise to betray me; besides, in the present position of the lamp, my shadow must necessarily fall across the doorway. Should I, perhaps, throw off all disguise, and advance boldly into the next room to meet the unknown? But was not this imprudence? Were he an aggressor, he would be covered by the obscurity, whereas I, with the light at my back, should be fully exposed to an attack. What if I sprang from the bed, and jumping through the open window, either into the lake below or into the garden, made the best of my way on foot to the camp? But then if it should prove a false alarm! Even a practical joke of one anxious to test my mettle! No; one of the R. A. was not going to show the white feather! I would face the matter out, and, as I had chaffed the Moslem, would now give him l'amende honorable, if he it should prove to be.

Resolved to see the affair to an end, I was yet fully alive to the prudence of concealing my vigilance from my nocturnal visitor. I therefore continued to lie as if asleep, the knife concealed under the

broad sleeve of my jacket, my eyes imperfectly closed and watching the doorway as a cat the rat-hole.

Convinced apparently that the creaking of the wood had not disturbed my sleep, the incognito again advanced. A few muffled steps, and he was at the door; a pause, and then a black head was thrust round the door-post. I continued still motionless, but with every nerve braced and my heart beating unpleasantly loud. The dark visage seemed to regard me attentively; then its owner moved its body further round the door-post, raised the left leg as if to advance. But the time had now come. With a bound I was on the floor; my knife, grasped and pointed upwards, was concealed behind my arm, but ready to strike.

"Kaun ho?" (Who are you ?) I asked, with all the coolness at my disposal.

The man was startled at the suddenness of my movements. Was there in that naked, sinewy form before me something that reminded me of the Mussulman at the Mosque? Did those swarthy, but, through the flickering oil-lamp, scarce distinguishable, features resemble those of the fanatic whose anger I had that morning aroused? I could not with certainty tell, for at the very moment when I most required light, an awkward moth fluttered near the burning wick, and falling into the oil almost extinguished the feeble flame. The room was now almost dark. Yet in the more than twilight gloom I thought, in the position of the intruder, to distinguish something that bid me be on my : 1fellow seemed to be carefully hiding his right side and arm from view

Again, and this time with more of command, I repeated my question “ Kaun ho?" Without altering his posture the fellow replied: "Mainne buti dekha hai (I saw light), and came to see who was

here."

During his answer had been measuring his figure, as well as the deep obscurity permitted. He was taller and more powerfully built than myself, and if armed with a native talwar or sword, I knew my chief chance of success in a combat lay in the unexpectedness of my attack. I kept my eyes, therefore, steadily fixed on his attitude. An advance, a threatening gesture, and I had sprung at his neck; a movement of resistance would then have sufficed to make me force the dagger home at the spot I already marked with my eye. As he ceased speaking, I said: "Main hun" (I am here). But he stirred not.

"Now, jao!" ejaculated I, authoritatively, motioning him to retire. He hesitated, and then without a reply, without even uncovering his right side the fellow disappeared. I heard his steps pass through the room and into the garden; then all was again still as death.

What was now to be done? Should I dress and walk the seven miles to camp? But if this were in reality a villainous scheme of

revenge, such a course would be to throw myself into the hands of an assassin who, did he yet lurk in the garden, could strike me down in the darkness, without my being able to lift a hand in self-defence. To use the lake as a way of escape would be, at that season of the year, to run the risk of stifling in the mud—a death more ignominious than that at the hands of a fanatic Moslem. Besides, should the whole prove to be nothing more than a harmless fright, how ludicrous would appear my return to camp!

For the second time, then, I determined to remain. Accordingly, I trimmed the lamp and sat down on the bed, the hunting-knife still in my hand, and ruminated.

"Well," pondered I, "if solitude has its charms, it is not without its defects; and a comrade with a stout heart and a ready hand may often stand us in good stead at an hour when danger is least expected."

With this and similar reflections I tried to shorten the slow-pacing hours preceding dawn. But the silence of the room, the fatigue of the preceding day, and the excitement of the past hour gradually brought with them a reaction. I lent on my elbow to relieve my weariness; once or twice I started up to resume my watch; and then, I know not how, I sank back, and fell into a troubled dream :-I was at Dublin; in the mail-train careering swiftly on for Kingstown; in the coupe sat one whose features, unseen for many years, rise before me as I pen these lines with all the charm and brightness of reality. We joined hands, for the time had come to say the last farewell. Ah! how cold, how stiff were those fingers! How that eye glanced in horror behind me! I turned. A black, shadowy figure leaned through the carriage-door. "Kaun ho?" I shouted, and at the same instant the Mussulman of the mosque was by my side. A dagger gleamed in his hand. I dashed my arm round to parry the blow. A crash!-and I awoke.

Drops of perspiration stood on my forehead; the cold, hard, handle of the hunting-knife was still in my grasp; the chair lay overturned; its fall had roused me, and my arm still smarted from the blow I had struck; the oil-lamp had burnt out, but the room was filled with sunlight it was already morning.

I arose, confused and fatigued. Gradually the events of the foregoing night recurred to my mind, and I at once set out to search the outer room and garden.

Beyond the faint marks of footprints, not a trace remained to give me a clue to the nocturnal visitor, all was as solitary as usual. Below, the few scattered huts were breathing their violet smoke into the cloudless sky; from up the valley rose the distant voice of some waterdrawer singing to his oxen, as they ascended and descended the incline by the well; around, the notes of the ring-doves in the trees, and the VOL. XII., No. 129.

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hum of countless insects amid the flowers-these were the only signs of life that broke the customary silence of the spot.

Had perhaps a villager prompted by curiosity paid me this midnight visit? or had some poor devil, led by the hope of a paltry gain, tried his skill at burglary? or lastly, was it, indeed, the fanatic Moslem who, inspired by the demon of revenge, had planned a murderous scheme which Providence and the lightness of my sleep had frustrated? Heaven alone can tell.

FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE.

A Patrick's Day Offering from Australia to the Old Land.

BY REV. WILLIAM KELLY, S.J.

THE tribute most dear to our Lord above

Is drawn from man's Faith, and Hope, and Love-
Whose centre and source and living shrine
Are his Name, his Cross, and his Heart benign.
With just proportion, in fair degree,

Round the Isle of Saints, the gem of the sea,

With hearts ever warm, with all strength, all mind,
Are our Faith and our Hope, and our Love, entwined.

And believe we then in the Ancient Land?
Fixes Hope her anchor in Erin's strand?
Can changes alter, can years efface
The Faith and Hope of old Irish race?
Faithful to God, who made land and sea,
True to herself shall old Ireland be!
High hopes, fair fates, and a future grand
Before our enraptured eyes expand.

Yes! we believe, and our trust is strong,
That old Ireland at last shall right her wrong;
'Midst her weeping skies the bow appears

That proclaims the approach of brighter years-

Shows the deluge of woe for ever gone by,

Drives gloom from the heart, and cloud from the sky.
Unbroken-unconquered-'tis surely just

In this brave old race we should put staunch trust!