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lonely cell of the doings of the great world outside, from which-so difficult is it for the mind to measure accurately the duration of time past-I seemed to have been separated for long years. Had I not been born in a dungeon and bred in a dungeon, and did I not know it for the first time; and did my memory hold any recollection of real events, or of nothing more than a wild jumble of lunatic dreams? Ah me! how many long, bitter, and melancholy hours I passed lying on my pallet when the day was dying, and the gray shades of evening filled alike the dungeon and my mind with grim unrealities and ugly phantoms-when brain and body were wearied out-when existence itself seemed stale, weary, and unprofitable, and the grave no more than a pleasant refuge!

with short intervals till the first streak of dawn
broke the charm, and brought with it peace and
slumber unbroken. Was the dread shadow of
madness beginning in reality to brood over me?
In fear and trembling, I asked myself the ques-
tion. If such were some of the effects produced
by solitude and imprisonment on a strong man
like me, what must be their effects upon the
far more delicate organisation of Catherine! I
trembled to think.

Rudyard had not visited me for some days,
when late one afternoon I heard him speaking
above; and presently he came down the steps
leading to my dungeon, attended by Ann Starke
with the keys. Ann having unlocked the door,
Rudyard entered; she followed him and closed
the door behind her, stationing herself close to
it and holding the bunch of keys in her hand.
Her face was paler than I had ever seen it
before, and there was a cold, stern, revengeful
glitter in her green eyes which boded no good
to somebody. I was sitting in my chair near
the window, and neither spoke nor stirred when
Rudyard entered. He came forward with an
insolent smile on his lips, and was evidently half
drunk; he was smoking a cigar, and carried in
one hand a formidable life-preserver, while from
the folds of his waistcoat there protruded the
butt-end of a pistol.

A

As I lay thus one evening watching the shadows darken in the opposite corners of my dungeon, I seemed to feel the bed move under me, and next moment there waddled forth from beneath it the figure of a veritable Chinese mandarin about two feet high, attired en grande tenue, with a pigtail which reached nearly to the floor. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, just in time to see this singular creature take a sudden spring and alight on the middle of the table, where, crossing its legs and squatting down after the eastern fashion, it turned upon me a pair of stony eyes, and began slowly to wag its 'Well, Master Gallowsbird, and how are you head at me, as I had sometimes seen the Chinese by this time?' he asked in thick husky tones. images do in the windows of the teashops. It'Not dead yet; but as mad as ever, I see. was a slow, grave, measured nod, always timing dangerous lunatic, that's what you are-danitself accurately between each repetition. I, of gerous to the community, and that's why I keep course, set the figure down as what it really was you shut up here, out of pure charity to my an optical delusion, and at once proceeded to fellow-creatures. Ah, this old tower is a nice fling my boot at it, but without producing the spot to keep lunatics in-snug and quiet. No slightest derangement of its centre of gravity. fear of any country-folk prowling about it: the Fixing my eyes steadily on it, I then slowly fools all believe it's haunted, and wouldn't set approached it. As I advanced, it lost by degrees foot near it for a bag of sovereigns. its clearness of outline and roundness of form, you here, and that white-faced cat up-stairs— and slowly merged itself into the shadows of I know not which is the madder of the two! the advancing night, so that when I reached the table, nothing of it remained visible; but as I receded from the table, so did it seem to project itself out of the dusk, till by the time I reached the opposite end of my prison it was there again, gravely wagging its head at me as before, and apparently as much alive and as much a thing of substance as myself. Night after night it came, always at the gloaming hour, so that after a time I became so accustomed to its presence as to take but little notice of it, although for the first few evenings that interminable nodding of its head annoyed me greatly, inducing in me an intense desire to count the number of nods, which it required all my strength of mind to

resist.

But this apparition of the mandarin was not the only mental hallucination to which I became subject during my incarceration. Waking suddenly sometimes in the dull, dead middle of the night, I heard strange, wild bursts of laughter coming now from one corner of my dungeon and now from another; sometimes fiendish and discordant in character, at others low, silvery, and gracious as the laughter of ladies and young children. Then there would be strange whisperings and mutterings around my bed in some language unknown to me; and then the unearthly chorus of laughter would recommence, lasting

There's

Before he could utter another word, I had sprung from my seat and gripped him savagely by the throat. It was a momentary impulse, acted on without premeditation or forethought. I was weakened by my long confinement; but I seemed to have been suddenly endowed with a strength not my own, and though Rudyard was a big, powerful man, he quivered like a plaything in my grasp. Perhaps he saw in my eyes the madness which burned in my heart, for he quailed, and turned yellow with fear beneath the grip of my fingers. 'Liar and scoundrel!' I exclaimed; and holding him firmly with my left hand, with my right I rained on his head and face such a shower of blows as he would bear the traces of for many a day to come. He was paralysed by the suddenness of my attack; and before he could make use of his life-preserver, it was wrested from his hand and he himself flung back, a bruised and bleeding mass, to the other end of the dungeon, where Ann Starke, as cool and impassive as a statue, was still standing. Rudyard slowly gathered himself up, like a man who can hardly believe the evidence of his senses; but suddenly his face lighted up with a diabolical smile; he remembered the pistol which he carried. It was out of his vest and pointed full at me before I was aware of his intention; but Ann's quick eye had noted the

3

Journal

action, and at the moment he pulled the trigger, she struck up his arm, and the bullet passing over my head, flattened itself against the wall, and fell harmlessly to the ground. He turned on her like a baffled wild beast, and made as though he would have struck her with the pistol.

'Touch her, and you are a dead man!' I exclaimed, and coward as he was, he shrank back into a corner of the dungeon.

'This madman will murder me,' he whined. 'Run, Ann-quick, quick, and fetch your uncle or anybody you can find to help me.'

She turned on him, a white Fury, with green flaming eyes and clenched hands. 'Dog!" she exclaimed, grinding out the word from between her sharp white teeth, 'ask no help from me. I utterly hate and loathe you. I would not lift a finger to save you from the gallows. Do you remember the words you said to me three days ago? If you have forgotten them, I have not; and you thought by such foul lies to deceive me, as you have deceived others! But beware! Your career of vice and crime is nearly at an end.' Then turning to me, she said: 'Here are the keys of your prison; do with them as you will.' She handed me the keys, then turned and went out without another word.

After a few words of warning to Rudyard, who glared at me feebly in reply, but did not speak, I followed her, locking the door behind me, and found her waiting for me at the top of the stairs. "Take these keys,' I said to her, 'and go up to Mrs Rudyard, and tell her that Philip Burton is waiting here to conduct her to a place of safety.'

While she was gone, I waited at the door of the tower. Can I ever forget the delicious sensations of those few minutes, as I stood gazing on the fast darkening landscape! I was once more a free man, and in those words everything is said.

Presently, Ann Starke came down-stairs, followed by Mrs Rudyard, a thin, frail figure of a woman, with a white sunken face, looking prematurely aged. But for the rare sweet expression in her eyes, I should scarcely have known her again. We each took a hand of the other in silence. You are come to take me away from this terrible place, are you not, Philip? I ask no questions-I desire nothing but to quit this spot and die elsewhere in peace !'

How my heart ached as I gazed upon her! Two young lives had been shattered-two loving hearts had been torn asunder, and all to what purpose? The answer was before me.

She took hold of my arm, Ann supported her on the other side; and walking slowly, we came after a time to the door in the boundary wall, of which Ann possessed the key; and so, after crossing a field or two on the other side, we found ourselves on the high-road.

The question was, what ought our next step to be? A sudden thought struck me. There was nothing to fear from Mr Rudyard for a little while; there might be much to fear from Aaron Starke. Turning to the girl, I said: 'Where is your uncle?'

"He's gone with Mr Tyson to Berryfield Fair, and he won't be back till late,' was the answer; and it eased my mind wonderfully.

'Now, Ann,' I said, 'you must devise some means by which Mrs Rudyard can be got away at once to the nearest railway station.'

'Oh! there's no difficulty about that,' she replied. 'There's Dapple in the stable, and there's uncle's old shandrydan in the barn, which will hold three comfortably. The nearest railway station is only nine miles away.' Here was comforting news.

'You are going with us, Ann?' I said.

'I daren't stay here, that's certain,' she answered simply. 'My uncle would half kill me, when he found out what I had done. But come up to the cottage, while I get a few things ready and leave the keys,' she added. 'Mrs Rudyard can sit down while I get the shandrydan ready. There is not a soul about; they are all off to the fair.'

A quarter of an hour later, the shandrydan, a nondescript country vehicle, was in readiness. Ann had deposited among the straw at the bottom a small corded box containing some of her worldly belongings. Like all north-country girls, she possessed a profusion of warm wraps and shawls, and she was as anxious as I was that Mrs Rudyard should be well protected from the keen autumn breezes.

By Ann's advice, we took a byroad which debouched into the main road about three miles farther on. In order to reach this road, we were compelled to drive past the old tower. Ann's eyes met mine as we skirted a corner of the boundary wall, and at the same moment I felt a shudder run through Catherine. She and I had set eyes on those cruel old walls for the last time.

We reached the railway station without adventure, and sent the shandrydan back under care of a porter. My first duty was to despatch a telegram to Mrs Staveley, asking her to meet us at a certain hotel in London as early as possible the following day. Mrs Staveley's house was within a few miles of Isterby Manor; and in the state of Catherine's health, I did not deem it advisable to take her at once back to a neighbourhood fraught to her with so many painful recollections; besides which, Mr Rudyard in one of his mad fits might choose to go in search of his wife, and Mrs Staveley's house was one of the first places he would be likely to visit. In London, Catherine would at least be safe from his violence.

We never

Before noon next day, Mrs Staveley had the satisfaction of embracing her long-lost niece. But little more remains to be told. heard whether Rudyard made any efforts to trace his wife, nor did we care to inquire.

Mrs Staveley took a pretty little furnished house in the suburbs of London, and there Catherine went to live with her aunt. She had a long illness, during which she was faithfully nursed by Ann; it was nature's reaction after all she had suffered and gone through during those terrible weeks in Dunleap Tower; but when at length it left her, it left her stronger and better in health than she had been for years, more especially when she found that her husband seemed to have no intention of molesting her. But not for long had she any need to start and tremble whenever a louder ring than ordinary came to the door. Little more than six months after our escape, Mr Rudyard, in one of his mad

gallops, was thrown from his horse, and died within twenty-four hours. His affairs were found to be hopelessly involved. Isterby Manor and Dunleap Tower were brought to the hammer. To the surprise of every one, except a few who were in the secret, the whole of the mortgages on the latter estate were found to be in the hands of Aaron Starke; and, as his niece had prophesied, Aaron is now the squire of Dunleap. Ann went back to live with him after Rudyard's death; and as it is not likely that her uncle will ever marry, she is already regarded as his heiress in prospective.

It was a mystery to me at the time, and it has been a mystery ever since, why Aaron Starke should have allowed himself so readily to become Mr Rudyard's tool, in the latter's illegal dealings both with his wife and myself. He was too crafty a man not to have some strong motive for acting as he did. What that motive was, is best known to himself.

I had made up my mind to return to Australia as soon as I had seen Catherine safely domiciled with her aunt; but just at this time, through Mrs Staveley's influence, I received the offer of a situation which made it worth my while to remain in England; and in England I am likely

to remain.

I have nothing to add, except that the eyes which are looking over my shoulder as I pen these last lines are those of my first and only love-those of Catherine my wife. The past is not forgotten by us, nor can it ever be; but Time has brought healing on its wings; and it may be that the memory of bygone trials serves but to heighten the happiness of the present, and while life is spared us, will but render more indissoluble the bonds of the future.

THE MONTH:

SCIENCE AND ARTS.

SIR PETER LUMSDEN's interesting paper on his experiences in Afghanistan, read before the Royal Geographical Society, contains an account of the curious lake upon which the Tekke Turcomans are dependent for their supplies of salt. This lake is six miles square, is situated at an elevation of about fourteen hundred feet above the sea-level, and is surrounded on all sides by a steep precipitous descent. The yield of salt is practically unlimited, for the bed of the lake is one solid mass of level rock-salt, covered only by an inch or two of water, the depth of the deposit being unknown. A second lake furnishes the Saryks of Penj-deh with salt. This lake is much larger than the one just described, and the salt in it does not present such a smooth unbroken surface. The salt is dug out in the form of flakes about four inches in thickness, which are packed into bags, and carried on camels to market without any kind of preparation.

A recent number of the Amateur Photographer contains a letter from Captain Peters-dated from Quebec-who has just returned from the rebellion in the Canadian north-west. He tells how, throughout the campaign, he carried on his saddle a small photographic camera, of which he made so good a use that he secured sixty good negatives. These included about a

dozen taken during the battles of Batoche and Fish Creek. He remarks, with justifiable pride: 'I do not think that any photographer has yet accomplished a picture under fire; one of mine was taken during a volley from the rebels' pits about one hundred and fifty yards distant.' There are certainly few men who would have the nerve to go through the somewhat delicate manipulations involved in taking a photograph with death almost staring them in the face. Captain Peters is likely for a long time to enjoy the distinction of being the only one who has accomplished such a feat.

The work of the wandering photographer is constantly being rendered more easy by the ingenuity of instrument-makers; but the last move in this direction possibly marks the beginning of a revolution in the art. Relinquishing glass for the negative image, the Eastman Dryplate Company have introduced a system of coating paper with the necessary sensitised gelatine. This paper is supplied in rolls several feet long, which fit into a specially contrived dark slide for insertion in the back of the photographic camera. By means of a winding-key, like that of a clock, the paper roll is unwound from one reel and wound upon another at the other side of the dark slide. In this way, pictures can be taken by exposing in the camera successive portions of the paper until the supply is exhausted. The paper strip is afterwards cut into sections so as to separate the pictures, which are developed in the usual way, and subsequently, by simple treatment, rendered as transparent as a negative on glass. The chief advantages of the system are the lightness of the material used as compared with glass, the impossibility of breakage, and the very small space in which a number of negatives thus prepared can be stored. The entire process is shown in operation at 13 Soho Square, London.

A new kind of lighthouse is being constructed at the Colwell Iron-works, United States, which is destined for the Delaware Breakwater. It is composed of cast-iron plates riveted together, weighing collectively two hundred tons, and presenting, when put together, a tapering tower eighty feet high. The circumference of the structure is at the base sixty-six feet, and at the top fifty-four feet. This iron casing will be taken piecemeal to the concrete foundations prepared for it, and after erection, will receive a solid lining of brickwork. This novel plan of construction is claimed to be effective, expeditious, and very cheap.

The chief Director of the Norwegian fisheries has made some curious observations upon the height to which a salmon can leap in order to clear a waterfall which bars its progress upstream. It would seem that the most favourable condition for a good jump is the presence of a deep pool immediately below the fall, in which case a salmon has been known to rise perpendicularly to a height of sixteen feet. Such high leaps are not common, yet they have occurred upon one Norwegian river, where masts have been planted below a fall for the purpose of actual measurement. The same observer states that on more than one occasion a fish failing to clear the fall at one bound, has been seen to remain in the falling water a foot or two below

the top, and then, with a rapid twitch of the tail, to accomplish its purpose. This only happens when the fish succeeds in striking the falling water straight with its snout. If it strikes obliquely, it is immediately carried down to the pool below.

We have much pleasure in calling attention to a new material which is intended more particularly for the clothing of those who risk their lives on the water. It has been invented by Mr William Jackson of London, and it consists of cotton, silk, or woollen fabrics interwoven with cork cut into the thinnest shreds imaginable. The material was lately submitted to a severe test. Three persons who could not swim were dressed in clothing made of it: one as a naval officer, the second in boating costume, and the third in ordinary lady's attire. The three were then unceremoniously thrown into the sea from the end of Ryde pier, with the result that they floated without difficulty and without any kind of exertion on their part. We may mention that machinery has been contrived that will cut the cork into shreds as thin as paper or linen. Messrs Brown and Porter, of Liverpool, have patented a very clever contrivance to enable workmen to ascend tall chimneys and similar high structures quite independently of scaffolding. It consists of a staging which grasps the chimney, and which, by the turn of a wheel, ascends it by a spiral movement. In the case of a circular chimney, the staging is triangular in shape, and can be tightened as it rises, so as to adapt itself to the reduced circumference of the structure towards the top. The parts of the staging which actually touch the brickwork are three rollers set at an angle, and it is by turning one of these that the contrivance is made to creep up the structure. The staging for square chimney's is still more simple. It consists of two frames, one depending from the other, either of which can be firmly bolted to the chimney. On the lower one is a gallery for workmen to stand upon. Its mode of progression up the chimney is somewhat like that of a leech, one frame being fastened, while the other creeps up to it by means of screws. Then the first one is released, and, after the second is bolted to the chimney, is raised to a higher level. By this step-by-step motion, the staging is made gradually to ascend to any height required.

A new method of ventilating ships has been suggested by an Australian inventor. Pipes are made to extend from the various places that require ventilation, to the furnace in the engineroom. The furnace-doors are made to fit very tightly, so that no air can reach the fuel except through these ventilation pipes. Powerful suction is in this way established, and all, foul air is drawn off into the furnace, while fresh air is made to take its place through orifices provided for the purpose. The plan is only applicable to steamships, unless in other cases a special furnace be employed.

The necessary plant for lighting the Low Moor Colliery by electricity is now being prepared, and the whole of the apparatus is to be erected at the bottom of the pit. Permanent wires are being fixed along the principal roadways from the shaft to the extreme end of the workings, while branch wires-which are movable, so that

the miners can shift the lamps from place to place as they work-extend on either side into the several workings. The lamps used are of the incandescent form, inclosed in a stout glass globe, which is further protected on the outside by wirework. A small switch in connection with each lamp will allow the workman to reduce or increase the amount of light at pleasure. The system has already been tried experimentally, and gives every sign that when established permanently, it will prove a success.

Mr Thomas Burt, M.P., in addressing an audience of colliers at Barnsley the other day, maintained that an explosion in a colliery should be followed by a searching inquiry by experienced men, such as always follows a railway disaster. He reminded his hearers that they had other perils to guard against besides the risk of explosion, and told them of the great danger of omitting to support the roof of the workings with a sufficiency of props and stays. He stated that the number of lives lost during the past thirty years as a result of insufficient timbering was nearly double that due to explosions of firedamp.

Engineering states that last year four thousand five hundred tons of borax were produced in the States of California and Nevada, and that the supply can never fail, because as fast as the deposits are removed, they are renewed. Many new uses for this substance have been found since it has become so plentiful. A few years back, it was used in the United States almost solely as a flux in welding iron. Now it is employed in glazing iron and pottery, for softening water, in the manufacture of soap, and lastly, as a preservative for meat.

In factories, warehouses, theatres, and other large establishments where it is considered desirable to employ night-watchmen or firemen, it has long been customary to place tell-tale clocks in different parts of the building, which show whether or not the watchers have regularly gone their rounds every hour throughout the night. Dr Millar, of Bethnal House Asylum, has contrived a clock of very simple design which accomplishes this work with great accuracy. The axle for the hour-hand carries a paper disc instead of the usual hand, and the whole arrangement is contained in a strong box. In the lid of this box is a hole just large enough to admit a pencil; and it is the duty of the night attendant in passing a station where one of these clocks is placed to insert a pencil into the hole and give it a twist, so that it leaves a mark on the disc of paper slowly travelling below. The next morning an inspection of the paper will show how many times the spot was visited and at what hours. By using differently coloured pencils and slightly shifting the paper disc, records for a whole week can easily be made on one piece of paper. More than one hundred clocks on this principle are already in use at different asylums in this country.

It

A new form of torpedo has lately been tried with some success in the United States. consists of an iron tube measuring sixteen inches in diameter and forty-two inches in length, containing, besides its explosive, a charge of rocket composition. It is fired from another tube, which gives it initial direction in its course.

In practice it is found that it will attain a velocity through the water of ten feet per second, and that it will preserve a straight course even when contending with a swift current. It is obvious that such a weapon may prove quite as efficient as the complicated torpedoes in present use, whilst its cost must be very moderate in comparison with them.

Those who have visited any large engineering works will know that rivets for iron-work, instead of being hammered into position as of old, are now pressed into place by a mighty squeeze from a pair of huge jaws worked by hydraulic power. The same plan is being adopted for riveting up the plates and girders at the Charing Cross Railway Bridge Extension Works, London. But the novel part of this adaptation of the system is that the hydraulic power is borrowed of the London Hydraulic-power Company, whose mains now traverse all the important thoroughfares of the city. The near dwellers to the bridge will have reason to thank this Company for relieving them of the incessant din which night and day usually accompanies ironbridge construction.

A method of making sheet-lead which presents some novel features has been patented in Germany. The apparatus employed consists of an iron box called a receiver, the bottom of which is movable, and can be raised from beneath by an hydraulic ram. This box corresponds in length with the width of the sheet of lead to be made. At the top is a pair of jaws running the whole length of the box, the opening between which can be adjusted so as to form a slit of any desired size, such size agreeing with the thickness of the sheet-lead in course of manufacture. The operations are as follows. The receiver is filled with molten lead, which is allowed to cool down to a semi-plastic state. In the meantime the jaws are brought to the required distance from one another. The hydraulic ram is now put into motion, and the bottom of the box slowly rises, forcing the soft metal through the jaws in the form of a compact sheet. We may mention that the old method of making sheet-lead is to roll out a mass of the metal until it is reduced to the required thickness.

Some months ago, we adverted to the system which has been introduced by the New York Steam-heating Company of warming houses by steam supplied by pipes from a central station. The system also comprises the feeding of all kinds of stationary steam-engines, which are thus rendered independent of separate boiler-power. It is now proposed to extend the steam-pipes to dry-goods stores, so that they may act as fireextinguishers. The plan proposed is to establish stand-pipes in each building, with big nozzles opening on to the separate floors. The steam could at any time be turned on from the street, and would, it is said, quickly drive out the air from the place and smother an incipient conflagration. The proposal to use steam for the purpose of putting out fires is by no means a new one, and possibly it has never been tried on a practical scale, because the necessary apparatus was not easy to find. But in New York, where the pipes and boiler are all ready to hand, we may look forward to some experimental trials of the system, from which much good may accrue.

A rival to india-rubber and gutta-percha, which is enthusiastically described by an American firm as 'the best gum in the world,' has been found in the dried milk of the bullet-tree (Mimusops globosa). This gum, which is commonly known as Balata, seems to possess all the advantages of india-rubber and gutta-percha without the intractable nature of the one or the friability of the other. It is now regularly collected in British Guiana, and has for some time been exported as a superior kind of gutta-percha.

Professor Poleck has demonstrated by recent experiments that dry-rot increases in rapidity according to the amount of potassium and phos phoric acid which is contained in the wood where it occurs. Wood felled in the spring is rich in both these constituents, and in such wood the professor has found no difficulty in cultivating dry-rot spores. But winter-felled trees contain much less both of the acid and the potassium, and the cultivation of the spores in wood from such trees has been found quite impossible. The experiments also show that the spores require a certain definite time for full development.

The government astronomer of Hong-kong has published an account of the phenomena which precede typhoons. The first signs are feathery clouds in the sky of the cirrus type, looking like fine tufts of white wool, and which travel from east to north. These appearances are accompanied by a slight rise of the barometer, clear weather, heat, and light winds. The barometer then begins to fall; the heat becomes oppres sive; there is a swell on the sea, and the sky assumes a threatening appearance. As the storm approaches, these effects become more marked, while the wind gradually increases in force. Near the centre of the storm, the wind blows with such violence that no canvas can hold against it, and the rain pours down in torrents. Still nearer the centre, the sea is lashed into such fury that this is the most dangerous position for ships. Typhoons are most common during September and August, but they are met with all the year round.

According to the American papers, the researches which Professor S. A. Forbes, of the Illinois State College, has instituted into the cause of the terrible mortality recently prevailing among fresh-water fish in some parts of the American continent have been rewarded with complete success. The Report he has just submitted on the subject shows that the disease is due to a minute spherical microbe or germ whose diameter is only about the 1-25,000th part of an inch. This germ he discovered in the liver and kidneys of the diseased fish. There it forms abscesses, which ultimately destroy the cells of those organs, and therewith the life of the fish. Professor Forbes says that there are various species of this germ, the different varieties of which cause specific diseases, such as fevers, and especially smallpox, chicken-pox, hog cholera, and so forth. The case which more particularly prompted him to undertake this investigation was the extraordinary mortality among the perch and other fish of Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, where the fish have for some time past been dying in enormous numbers.

Central American advices give details of the eruption of the volcano of Cotopaxi, which

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