Liberia. I was returning from my quest when chance brought me in contact with this magnificent tribe of dwellers in the desert, and I threw in my lot with them. Before doing so, however, my old instinct of revenge prompted me to make one last visit to the United States, and I returned from it in the "Marie Celeste."

'As to the voyage itself your intelligence will have told you by this time that, thanks to my manipulation, both compasses and chronometers were entirely untrustworthy. I alone worked out the course with correct instruments of my own, while the steering was done by my black friends under my guidance. I pushed Tibbs's wife overboard. What! You look surprised and shrink away. Surely you had guessed that by this time. I would have shot you that day through the partition, but unfortunately you were not there. I tried again afterwards, but you were awake. I shot Tibbs. I think the idea of suicide was carried out rather neatly. Of course when once we got on the coast the rest was simple. I had bargained that all on board should die; but that stone of yours upset my plans. I also bargained that there should be no plunder. No one can say we are pirates. We have acted from principle, not from any sordid motive.'

I listened in amazement to the summary of his crimes which this strange man gave me, all in the quietest and most composed of voices, as though detailing incidents of every-day occurrence. I still seem to see him sitting like a hideous nightmare at the end of my couch, with the single rude lamp flickering over his cadaverous features.

'And now,' he continued, there is no difficulty about your escape. These stupid adopted children of mine will say that you have gone back to heaven from whence you came. The wind blows off the land. I have a boat all ready for you, well stored with provisions and water. I am anxious to be rid of you, so you may rely that nothing is neglected. Rise up and follow me.'

I did what he commanded, and he led me through the door of the hut. The guards had either been withdrawn or Goring had arranged matters with them. We passed unchallenged through the town and across the sandy plain. Once more I heard the roar of the sea, and saw the long white line of the surge. Two figures were standing upon the shore arranging the gear of a small boat. They were the two sailors who had been with us on the voyage.

'See him safely through the surf,' said Goring. The two men

sprang in and pushed off, pulling me in after them. With mainsail and jib we ran out from the land and passed safely over the bar. Then my two companions without a word of farewell sprang overboard, and I saw their heads like black dots on the white foam as they made their way back to the shore, while I scudded away into the blackness of the night. Looking back I caught my last glimpse of Goring. He was standing upon the summit of a sandhill, and the rising moon behind him threw his gaunt angular figure into hard relief. He was waving his arms frantically to and fro; it may have been to encourage me on my way, but the gestures seemed to me at the time to be threatening ones, and I have often thought that it was more likely that his old savage instinct had returned when he realised that I was out of his power. Be that as it may, it was the last that I ever saw or ever shall see of Septimius Goring.

There is no need for me to dwell upon my solitary voyage. I steered as well as I could for the Canaries, but was picked up upon the fifth day by the British and African Steam Navigation Company's boat Monrovia.' Let me take this opportunity of tendering my sincerest thanks to Captain Stornoway and his officers for the great kindness which they showed me from that time till they landed me in Liverpool, where I was enabled to take one of the Guion boats to New York.

From the day on which I found myself once more in the bosom of my family I have said little of what I have undergone. The subject is still an intensely painful one to me, and the little which I have dropped has been discredited. I now put the facts before the public as they occurred, careless how far they may be believed, and simply writing them down because my lung is growing weaker, and I feel the responsibility of holding my peace longer. I make no vague statement. Turn to your map of Africa. There above Cape Blanco where the land trends away north and south from the westernmost point of the continent, there it is that Septimius Goring still reigns over his dark subjects, unless retribution has overtaken him; and there, where the long green ridges run swiftly in to roar and hiss upon the hot yellow sand, it is there that Harton lies with Hyson and the other poor fellows who were done to death in the Marie Celeste.'

6

II.

BYRON places the best part of human life as respects enjoyment at two-and-twenty; the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty,' he says, 'are worth all your laurels, however so plenty,' and he is probably right. If one has meat and drink enough (which at that age is important), and our tailor's confidence in us is still fresh, that is indeed the palmy time with most of us. But young gentlemen with a turn for poetry (or what they confidently believe to be such) have a still better time than others at this happy epoch.

One need not be a Coleridge to appreciate the conditions of existence under such circumstances, and I verily believe there was not a happier being upon the earth's surface than I when I went up

to Lakeland at two-and-twenty with the avowed intention and malice prepense of writing my second volume of poems. A humorous expedition enough as it now appears to me, but then the kaleidoscope of life has shifted a little. Of what rainbow hues was it not then composed!

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light

as to my betters. Moreover they were not meaac 3 but mountains, not streams but fine running becks, which I had come to dwell amongst, and being a south-country lad, these noble aspects of nature intoxicated me. I think the first snow on the fell in October is the most charming sight that can greet the eye of a lowlander. I have seen it in many an October since, but I am thankful to say it still stirs in me something of the old delightI see, I see, with joy I see,

albeit my soul is bowed beneath her

earthly freight,

And custom lies upon me with a weight
Heavy as frost and deep almost as life.

It was in the early autumn that I first visited Lakeland with fifty pounds in my purse, which my dear mother had given me to make holiday with (as though all life were not then a holiday!), and an introduction to Miss Harriet Martineau, the Knoll, Ambleside, from Mary Russell Mitford, in my pocket.

I had read many of the former lady's books, including a later one which was just then making no little noise in the world, to the great detriment of her reputation among the orthodox; but I had never seen even her portrait; and, though very desirous of her acquaintance, I felt a little frightened of her.

6

Though I was able to understand that the authoress of Life in the Sick-room' must needs have a loyal and gentle heart, whatever appearances might be against her, I pictured to myself a tall masculine woman (rather bony), with the air of a lecturer; and the portrait was about as much like the original (i.e. differed from it in toto) as the portraits of others evolved from our own consciousness generally are.

On the morning after my arrival in Ambleside I enquired the

1 I am almost sure that it was 'just then,' but I repeat once and for all that my dates are not to be relied upon; I only profess to give my impressions, which, however, are distinctly marked enough.

way to The Knoll, a charming cottage on an eminence, but quite shut out from the road, and looking on the Rothay valley, with Loughrigg for a background. A residence, I thought, as I stood within the pretty porch, much more fitted for a poet than a political economist. The bell was answered by a neat serving-maid, who, although by no means beautiful, had her attractions for me, for, she had been the subject of certain scientific (mesmeric) experiments which had aroused much discussion.

'Is Miss Martineau at home?' I asked.

'She is, sir,' said the maid. Fashionable tarradiddles were not permitted under that conscientious roof; but, if ever a face said Not at home!' it was the face of that domestic.

The fact is, sir,' she continued, looking at my card, and certainly drawing no exceptional deductions from its perusal, Miss Martineau never sees visitors in the morning. She writes in her study until dinner-time.'

I could not, in fact, have committed a greater solecism had I called on the Archbishop of Canterbury on a Sunday during the hours of divine service. I felt at once the full extent of my crime, and with a stammered apology, and putting my note of introduction into the maid's hand, I fled down the little carriage drive abashed. It was not, however, I must confess, without a sense of relief that I thus found my visit to one whom a leading organ of popular opinion had designated a female atheist of European reputation' postponed; and when, just as I had reached the gate, the handmaid came flying after me with 'My mistress will see you, sir,' I wished she had not been quite so light-footed. I knew of course that I was indebted for this unusual favour to some monstrous exaggeration of my merits contained in the letter I had brought from Swallowfield, which only made the matter much worse; but there was nothing for it but to return with the mesmeric maid.

In the porch stood Miss Martineau herself. A lady of middle height, 'inclined' as the novelists say 'to embonpoint,' with a smile on her kindly face and her trumpet at her ear. She was at that time, I suppose, about fifty years of age; her brown hair had a little grey in it, and was arranged with peculiar flatness over a low but broad forehead. I don't think she could ever have been pretty, but her features were not uncomely and their expression was gentle and motherly.

'I am so sorry, Miss Martineau,' I began ; but of course I might