ably to make preparations for the foul deed. He was heard, just before he struck, to accuse his companion of having cheated and ruined him. Now I remember the strong impulse by which I was prompted to depart from Forsyth's without waiting for him, and think myself well out of the tangles of that weird night.

Carried away by these ideas, which I have never uttered to a living soul, and can only reveal to my posterity, I have strayed far from the course of my narrative. Let me resume the thread. Bailie M'Cosh's wound was soon found not to be mortal shortly it appeared that it was not dangerous, only severe. The fact that no homicide had occurred, tended to, in some degree, mitigate the public indignation against Menzies; the absence of all animus, and the conviction that he must have been demented on the occasion, further helped him; and then the impenetrable mystery about his companion left a haze about juries and judges, and inclined them to a lenient view of his case. He escaped with six months' imprisonment where many thought he ought to have been hanged.

Of course he disappeared from the society of which I never thought him an ornament, thus clearing the stage for me. Everything, indeed, Everything, indeed, seemed to have been working in conspiracy for the furtherance of my desires. I had earned Mr Macleod's favour and gratitude; I was as prosperous as I had been before my fall; my rival was disposed of,—and all this was brought about by an unintelligible power, while I remained little more than passive, following most extraordinary advice.

Although I could not but be intensely interested in the trial and sentence of Menzies (which

were not concluded until about three months after the evening when the premature intelligence of the capture of Buonaparte was received), I am happy to say that throughout this period I had other interests and other occupations which were of no small importance. Mr Macleod, after the evening above-named, was only too ready to discard Captain Menzies from his good graces. Of course that gallant person, being in custody, could do nothing in the way of active pretension to Miss Macleod's hand. Her father had evidently been converted to a belief in my merits; he was profuse in his attentions, and "oft invited me." I was allowed to be the escort of Aline and Mrs Fergus Fraser, or whichever female friend she chose to go abroad with, in their morning excursions. Everybody conspired to give me the opportunities that I used to long in vain for; and I so used them that, long before Menzies's fate was sealed in the law courts, my fortune as the accepted lover and future husband of my adored Aline was secured. Mr Macleod, in accordance with the general approval of me which of late he had been at no pains to conceal, readily sanctioned the engagement, and promised to be most liberal in the endowment of his daughter. The houses of Cameron and Macleod were all astir at the prospect of the alliance.

Our wedding took place in the autumn of 1815 with much circumstance and much gaiety. Maitland was my groomsman. I will not give further particulars, but say that I was supremely happy, and that I am to this day well pleased with the wife of my choice.

It must have been two years after my marriage, when my eldest son was an infant of only a few

months old, that I went with my dear wife and my infant heir for an excursion to my Shetland house, Quarda. There was little change among the servants since I had left them. The man who had seen my resemblance in the study was still employed about the property, and he came to express his delight at my reappearance, and the relief of mind that he experienced at finding that he had been mistaken in his forebodings. "After what ye ken o'," said he, "I never thought to see your face again; yet here ye stand sound and hearty. I'll think nae mair o' thae aule-wives' tales.".

I wish to make known also that, immediately after my return to Quarda, I examined the secure recess in which I firmly believed that I had deposited the heptagon and crystal. There I found Maggie's cordial wrapped up and placed exactly as I had enveloped and set the other article. There is a possibility of a mistake having been made; if so, I must have lost my wits for the moment in which I made it, and it was a lucky error for me, as I should have been without guidance, and should probably have lost courage after my return to Edinburgh, had not the heptagon so unexpectedly turned up for my relief.

It is true that I was sound and hearty as the servant had said, and I may add that I was prosperous. The causes of my prosperity I hardly understood myself, while, at the same time, there was nothing connected with it that need cause me the slightest selfreproach. Nevertheless, out of it had arisen a little secret dissatisfaction, which, now that I had a son who would, as I hoped, succeed to my property and social position, was much increasing. My little cross was this. It was a

most natural thing that my wife should inquire how it came about that I, after having suddenly left Edinburgh, a ruined and despairing man, so soon reappeared. She did speak of this both before and after our marriage. I told her in reply what was strictly truenamely, that I found absence from her insupportable, and that, at last, throwing prudence aside, I had rushed back to the capital, hoping for hardly any greater gratification than to look on her beauty from a distance; that fortune had enormously and unexpectedly rewarded this movement of true love and admiration, and brought me to the fulfilment of my dearest wishes.

The above was, as I have said, strictly true; but every one who has read the foregoing narrative must be aware that it was not the whole truth, and that I could not reveal the whole truth to her without leading her to doubt my sanity or the purity of my religious belief. And this impossibility of telling the whole truth raised in my mind the suspicion that a commerce which I dared not acknowledge could not be altogether right. Then I occupied myself with the question, Where did I go wrong? and I distinctly and honestly say that, setting aside the fact that, after my first acquaintance with my strange visitor and resemblance, I did voluntarily bring about other conferences, there was nothing which seemed to call for remorse. I had been instigated to do nothing, I had done nothing, dishonourable or dishonest. the other hand, I had received incalculable benefit. I had made no compact of any kind, and did not feel that I had in any way compromised myself. The good genius, or whatever it was which wrought for me, had been propitiated by

On

an ancestor whom I never saw. I had no evidence that even he had procured the goodwill of the genius by illicit means.

Notwithstanding that I thus made a good case for myself, I think I should have ended the doubt by destroying, as summarily as old Prospero did, all relics and appliances of the weird studies, had it not struck me forcibly that this sprite, this influence, was an heirloom. Though I might, through tenderness of conscience, choose to separate myself from such a power, had I any right to deprive the eldest son of my line, for as long as that line may endure, of what had proved in my own case to be a potent and beneficent auxiliary?

That I would prepare for the use of my son and successor (whom alone, after my death, these mysteries could concern) a clear account of the power which he would possess as the heir of Angus Cameron, of the place where the treasures of the said Angus were now deposited, and of the manner in which (so far as my experience went) the heptagonal box was to be used.

The instructions to my son and successor under this head will be found by him in paper No. 8 of the blue series.

Having now stated, for the information of my posterity (who are not to peruse these papers until sixty years from this present 1825, my eldest son being elsewhere instructed as to matters which concern himself separately), these curious passages in my history, of which no human being save myself is at the time of this writing conscious, I go on to narrate an interesting circumstance in the life of my brother Donald, the sailor.

IN the summer of 1880 I happened to find myself in the lovely little town of Gastein in Austria. Only courtesy, and the fact that there existed a portly, red-faced dignitary claiming the title of mayor, could excuse the irregular, untidy, beautiful little spot being called a town; for a few straggling houses of the very plainest kind, one large edifice called the Baderschloss, and a tolerably comfortable hotel opposite, with the old Roman Catholic church on one side of a turbulent stream, and a new German Protestant chapel on the other, were the only buildings in the place. A great roaring waterfall, tumbling and splashing into this same stream, divided the quaint little settlement into two distinct halves, and high hills rising on either side shut in the smiling valley, green with luxuriant verdure, and gay with a multitude of bright-coloured wild flowers.

No railroad came within miles of the place, and to reach it one was obliged to drive in rumbling diligences, or queer conveyances which were neither cart nor carriage, drawn by horses harnessed on one side of a pole, in a curious fashion peculiar to Austria.

To this out-of-the-way valley, hidden among the hills, Kaiser Wilhelm was to come for his annual visit to the baths, and the excitement among the inhabitants increased as the day of his arrival drew near. Triumphal arches were erected along the route by which he must come, and the word Wilkommen awaited him on every side. The occupants of the Baderschloss were turned out bodily to make room for the imperial suite; and fastidious travellers were, per

force, obliged to content themselves with very modest quarters in buildings calling themselves inns, but being in fact hardly much more than houses of well-to-do peasants. Together with some friends I had rooms at one of these extremely primitive establishments, and our landlord informed us, with no little pride, that the Hof-Prediger, who was to be sent from Berlin to conduct the Church services during the Emperor's stay at Gastein, would also reside under his roof. pretty German fashion a Wilkommen was prepared for the divine, as well as for the Kaiser; and flowers were arranged in his room, some of them forming the friendly word of greeting upon a broad band of green across the door.

In

I was out at the actual moment of the Herr Prediger's arrival; but the following day, when writing by my open window, I noticed a man of venerable and dignified appearance, with long white hair, walking in the garden, and concluded he must be the pasteur appointed to minister to the spiritual needs of the Emperor. A little later I laid aside my pen, and opening the ancient instrument which did duty for a piano, began singing some favourite bits of Schubert. Scarcely had I finished a verse, when the door of my sitting-room was flung open, and, unannounced, the man whose calm and dignified appearance I had just made a mental note of, stood before me in a state of visible agitation.

"You sing and in German! Mein Gott, I am saved !''

I certainly thought him lost, so far as mind and manners were concerned; but truth, like murder, seems to come out sooner or later;

and in rapid German, which taxed my attention to the utmost, the good man explained the situation. In all Gastein it seemed there were no voices to be found equal to the task of singing in the Sunday services-and in singing, I may remark en passant, exists almost the entire German form of worship. Besides, his Imperial Majesty the Emperor William was particular as to what kind of music he heard, even in the wilds of Austria.

The perplexity of the case was evident. With all his eloquence the Hof-Prediger urged me to help him to solve the difficulty. I protested, with an equal flow of language. How could I-a foreigner, having spent little more than twelve months in trying to master a language which Mark Twain assures us requires at least thirty years to learn? How was it possible for me to face a church full of Germans, to say nothing of the Emperor himself, and calmly to sing to them in their native tongue? But my resistance was all in vain: the old man's distress was piteous, and very real, and he pleaded eloquently and well. Finally I consented, taking my courage in both hands, and remembering the Frenchman's receipt for success—“ l'audace, toujours l'audace." If ever a case of sheer and unmitigated audacity existed it was the present; therefore devoutly trusting the recipe might prove a sound one, I arranged to be at the tiny grey-stone church at a certain hour, and do my best to help in the emergency.

Sunday came, and the limited space of the building was crowded, as the Emperor, tall and erect, his arm linked in that of his favourite aide-de-camp, General Count Lehndorff, walked up the aisle, followed by the suite in attendance, to the arm-chair set apart for his use on the right of the chancel. A few

opening chords from the organ, and then, in terrible earnest, the singing began. How or why it went smoothly on, I did not at the time, nor do I now, clearly understand; but psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, whose number seemed interminable, all came at last to an end, and nothing particularly dreadful had happened.

The white-haired Hof-Prediger was certainly the most grateful human being it has ever been my lot to meet, and with beaming countenance he came to tell me that his Majesty had asked who had sung, and learning that it was an American lady, had sent his thanks, at the same time expressing a wish to make her acquaintance. It seemed churlish to damp the good man's pleasure in bringing this gracious message, by suggesting the thought which had at once come to my own mind-namely, that the Imperial ear had doubtless detected the fact that, whoever the singer might be, she certainly was not a native of the Fatherland; and this conviction it was which had prompted the courteous inquiries, so I merely accepted the flattering thanks with proper gratitude.

At La Solitude, the pretty white villa half-hidden in trees, where Count and Countess Lehndorff were spending part of the summer, I had the honour of meeting the venerable Sovereign who to-day claims the respect of all Europe in his ripe and vigorous old age, and whose ninetieth year of an eventful life has lately been celebrated at the palaces in Unter den Linden. When Countess Lehndorff presented me to him, he began speaking in French, but so indistinctly that I could not comprehend a word of what he said. As he paused, and evidently awaited some reply, I answered in most respectful tones, "Votre Majesté