At

A small savanna extended from the stockade. several hundred yards' distance it was bounded by the woods. As soon as the day broke, we saw three men emerge from the timber, and advance into the open ground. They were Indian chiefs in full costume; they were the commissioners. All three were recognised from the camp-Abram, Coa Hajo, and Oçeola. Outside musket-range, they halted, placing themselves side by side in erect attitudes, and facing the enclosure.

Three officers, two of whom could speak the native tongue, were sent forth to meet them. I was one of the deputation.

In a few seconds we stood face to face with the hostile chiefs.

CHAPTER LXX.

THE TALK.

Before a word was uttered, all six of us shook hands so far as appearances went, in the most friendly manner. Oçeola grasped mine warmly; as he did so, saying, with a peculiar smile:

6

Ah, Randolph! friends sometimes meet in war as well as in peace.'

I knew to what he referred, but could only answer him with a significant look of gratitude.

An orderly, sent to us with a message from the general, was seen approaching from the camp. At the same instant, an Indian appeared coming out of the timber, and, keeping pace with the orderly, simultaneously with the latter arrived upon the ground. The deputation was determined we should not outnumber it.

As soon as the orderly had whispered his message, the 'talk' began.

Abram was the spokesman on the part of the Indians, and delivered himself in his broken English. The others merely signified their assent by a simple nod, or the affirmative Ho;' while their negative was expressed by the exclamation 'Cooree.'

'Do you white folk want make peace?' abruptly demanded the negro.

Upon what terms?' asked the head of our party. 'Da tarms we gib you are dese: you lay down arm, an' stop de war; your sogas go back, an' stay in dar forts: we Indyen cross ober da Ouithlacoochee; an' from dis time forth, for ebber affer, we make de grand ribber da line o' boundary atween de two. We promise lib in peace an' good tarms wi' all white neighbor. Dat's all got say.'

'Brothers!' said our speaker in reply, 'I fear these conditions will not be accepted by the white general, nor our great father, the President. I am commissioned to say, that the commander-in-chief can treat with you on no other conditions than those of your absolute submission, and under promise that you will now agree to the removal.'

'Cooree! cooree! never!' haughtily exclaimed Coa Hajo and Oçeola in one breath, and with a determined emphasis, that proved they had no intention of offering to surrender.

'An' what for we submit?' asked the black, with some show of astonishment. We not conquered! We conquer you ebbery fight-we whip you people, one, two, tree time-we whip you; dam! we kill you well too. What for we submit? We come here gib condition-not ask um.'

'It matters little what has hitherto transpired,' observed the officer in reply; we are by far stronger than you-we must conquer you in the end.'

Again the two chiefs simultaneously cried 'Cooree!' 'May be, white men, you make big mistake 'bout our strength. We not so weak you tink for-dam! We shew you our strength.'

no.

As the negro said this, he turned inquiringly

towards his comrades, as if to seek their assent to some proposition.

Both seemed to grant it with a ready nod; and Oceola, who now assumed the leadership of the affair, faced towards the forest, at the same time giving utterance to a loud and peculiar intonation.

The echoes of his voice had not ceased to vibrate upon the air, when the evergreen grove was observed to be in motion along its whole edge; and the next instant, a line of dusky warriors shewed itself in the open ground. They stepped forth a pace or two, then halted in perfect order of battle-so that their numbers could easily be told off from where we stood.

'Count the red warriors!' cried Oçeola, in a triumphant tone-'count them, and be no longer ignorant of the strength of your enemy.'

As the Indian uttered these words, a satirical smile played upon his lips; and he stood for some seconds confronting us in silence.

'Now,' continued he, once more pointing to his followers, 'do yonder braves-there are fifteen hundred of them-do they look starving and submissive? No! they are ready to continue the war till the blood of the last man sinks into the soil of his native land. If they must perish, it will be here-here in Florida -in the land of their birth, upon the graves of their fathers.

'We have taken up the rifle because you wronged us, and would drive us out. For the wrongs we have had revenge. We have killed many of your people, and we are satisfied with the vengeance we have taken. We want to kill no more. But about the removal, we have not changed our minds. We shall never change them.

'We have made you a fair proposition: accept it, and in this hour the war may cease; reject it, and more blood shall be spilled-ay, by the spirit of Wykomé! rivers of blood shall flow. The red poles of our lodges shall be painted again and again with the blood of our pale-faced foes. Peace or war then-you are welcome to your choice.'

As Oçeola ceased speaking, he waved his hand towards his dusky warriors by the wood, who at the sign disappeared among the trees silently, rapidly, almost mysteriously.

A meet reply was being delivered to the passionate harangue of the young chief, when the speaker was interrupted by the report of musketry, heard in the direction of the Indians, but further off. The shots followed each other in rapid succession, and were accompanied by shouts, that, though feebly borne from the far distance, could be distinguished as the charging cheers of men advancing into a battle.

'Ha! foul play!' cried the chiefs in a breath; 'pale-faced liars! you shall rue this treason;' and, without waiting to exchange another sentence, all three sprang off from the spot, and ran at full speed towards the covert of the woods.

We turned back within the lines of the camp, where the shots had also been heard, and interpreted as the advance of Clinch's brigade attacking the Indian outposts in the rear. We found the troops already mustered in battle-array, and preparing to issue forth from the stockade. In a few minutes, the order was given, and the army marched forth, extending itself rapidly both right and left along the bank of the river.

As soon as the formation was complete, the line advanced. The troops were burning for revenge. Cooped up as they had been for days, half-famished, and more than half-disgraced, they had now an opportunity to retrieve their honour; and were fully bent upon the punishment of the savage foe. With an army in their rear, rapidly closing upon them by an extended line-for this had been pre-arranged between the commanders-another similarly advancing upon

their front, how could the Indians escape? They must fight-they would be conquered at last.

This was the expectation of all-officers and soldiers. The commander-in-chief was himself in high spirits. His strategic plan had succeeded. The enemy was surrounded-entrapped; a great victory was before him-a 'harvest of laurels.'

We marched forward. We heard shots, but now only solitary or straggling. We could not hear the well-known war-cry of the Indians.

We continued to advance. The hommocks were carried by a charge, but in their shady coverts we found no enemy.

Surely they must still be before us-between our lines and those of the approaching reinforcement? Is it possible they can have retreated-escaped?

Of course wonderful things were expected from the new commander-in-chief, and great deeds were promised. He would deal with the savages in a different way from that adopted by his predecessors; he would soon put an end to the contemptible war.

There was much rejoicing at the appointment; and preparations were made for a campaign on a far more extensive scale than had fallen to the lot of either of the chiefs who preceded him. The army was doubled -almost trebled-the commissariat amply provided for, before the great general would consent to set foot upon the field.

He arrived at length, and the army was put in motion.

I am not going to detail the incidents of this campaign; there were none of sufficient importance to be chronicled, much less of sufficient interest to be narrated. It consisted simply of a series of harassing

now

Ha! those blue uniforms and white belts-those forage-caps and sabres-these are not Indians! It is not the enemy! They are our friends-the soldiers of Clinch's brigade!

Fortunate it was that at that moment there was a mutual recognition, else might we have annihilated one another.

CHAPTER LXXI.

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF AN ARMY.

The two divisions of the army now came together, and after a rapid council had been held between the commanders, continued scouring the field in search of our enemy. Hours were spent in the search;

but not an Indian foe could be found!

Oceola had performed a piece of strategy unheard of in the annals of war. He had carried an army of 1500 men from between two others of nearly equal numbers, who had completely enfiladed him, without leaving a man upon the ground-ay, without leaving a trace of his retreat. That host of Indian warriors, so lately observed in full battle-array, had all at once broken up into a thousand fragments, and, as if by magic, had melted out of sight.

The enemy was gone, we knew not whither; and the disappointed generals once more marched their forces back to Fort King.

A third general now took the field as commanderin-chief-an officer of more notoriety than either of his predecessors-Scott. A lucky wound received in the old British wars, seniority of rank, a good deal of political buffoonery, but above all a free translation of the French 'system of tactics,' with the assumption of being their author, had kept General Scott conspicuously before the American public for a period of twenty years. He who could contrive such a system of military manoeuvring, could not be otherwise than a great soldier; so reasoned his countrymen.

* Scott's whole career, political as well as military, has been a series of faux pas. His campaign in Mexico will not bear

criticism. The numerous blunders he there committed would

have led to most fatal results, had they not been neutralised by

the judgment of his inferior officers, and the indomitable valour of the soldiery. The battle of Molino del Rey-the armistice with Santa Anna, were military errors unworthy of a cadet fresh from college. I make bold to affirm that every action was a mob-fight-the result depending upon mere chance; or

rather on the desperate bravery of the troops upon one side, and

the infamous cowardice of those on the other.

of a parade review. The army was formed into three divisions, somewhat bombastically styled 'right wing,' left wing,' and 'centre.' Thus formed, they were to approach the 'Cove of the Ouithlacoochee'-again that fatal Cove-from three different directions, Fort King, Fort Brooke, and the St Johns. On arriving on the edge of the great swamp, each was to fire minuteguns as signals for the others, and then all three were to advance in converging lines towards the heart of the Seminole fastness.

The absurd manœuvre was carried out, and ended, as might have been expected, in complete failure. During the march, no man saw the face of a red Indian. A few of their camps were discovered, but nothing more. The cunning warriors had heard the signal guns, and well understood their significance. With such a hint of the position of their enemy, they had but little difficulty in making their retreat between the 'wings.'

Perhaps the most singular, if not the most important, incident occurring in Scott's campaign was one which came very near costing me my life. If not worthy of being given in detail, it merits mention as a curious case of abandonment.'

While marching for the Cove' with his centre wing, the idea occurred to our great commander to leave behind him, upon the banks of the Amazura, what he termed a 'post of observation.' This consisted of a detachment of forty men-mostly our Suwanee volunteers, with their proportion of officers, myself among the number.

We were ordered to fortify ourselves on the spot, and stay there until we should be relieved from our duty, which was somewhat indefinitely understood even by him who was placed in command of us. After giving these orders, the general, at the head of his central wing,' marched off, leaving us to our fate.

Our little band was sensibly alive to the perilous position in which we were thus placed; and we at once set about making the best of it. We felled trees built a block-house, dug a well, and surrounded both with a strong stockade.

Fortunately we were not discovered by the enemy for nearly a week after the departure of the army, else we should most certainly have been destroyed to a man. The Indians, in all probability, had followed the 'centre wing,' and thus for the time were carried out of our neighbourhood.

On the sixth day, however, they made their appearance, and summoned us to surrender.

intervals, during a period of fifty days! We refused, and fought them-again and again, at

Several of our men were killed or wounded; and among the former, the gallant chief of our devoted band, Holloman, who fell from a shot fired through the interstices of the stockade.

Provisions had been left with us to serve us for two

weeks; they were eked out to last for seven! For thirty days we subsisted upon raw corn and water, with a few handfuls of acorns, which we contrived to gather from the trees growing within the enclosure. In this way we held out for a period of fifty days, and still no commander-in-chief-no army came to relieve us. During all that gloomy siege, we never heard word of either; no white face ever shewed itself to our anxious eyes, that gazed constantly outward. We believed ourselves abandoned-forgotten.

And such in reality was the fact-General Scott, in his eagerness to get away from Florida, had quite forgotten to relieve the post of observation; and others, believing that we had long since perished,

made no effort to send a rescue.

Death from hunger stared us in the face, until at length the brave old hunter, Hickman, found his way through the lines of our besiegers, and communicated our situation to our friends at home.'

His tale produced a strong excitement, and a force was despatched to our relief, that succeeded in dispersing our enemies, and setting us free from our block-house prison.

Thus terminated 'Scott's campaign,' and with it his command in Florida. The whole affair was a burlesque, and Scott was only saved from ridicule, and the disgrace of a speedy recall, by a lucky accident that fell in his favour. Orders had already reached him to take control of another 'Indian war' -the 'Creek-that was just breaking out in the states of the south-west; and this afforded the discomfited general a well-timed excuse for retiring from the Flowery Land.'

Florida was destined to prove to American generals a land of melancholy remembrances. No less than seven of them were successively beaten at the game of Indian warfare by the Seminoles and their wily chieftains. It is not my purpose to detail the history of their failures and mishaps. From the disappearance of General Scott, I was myself no longer with the main army. My destiny conducted me through the more romantic by-ways of the campaign-the paths of la petite guerre-and of these only am I enabled to write. Adieu, then, to the grand historic.

DIPSOMANIACS.

A SHORT time ago, we drew attention to a pamphlet of Dr Peddie on the subject of dipsomania-a craving for intoxicating liquors that partakes of the nature of madness, and which now seems to call for some special legislation. Since making these remarks, a lecture on the same subject has been delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, by Professor Christison, who adopts views of dipsomania similar to those of Dr Peddie. Referring to the peculiar style of treatment required for dipsomaniacs, the learned professor made some observations which are worthy of extended publicity.

He mentioned, that in Scotland, medical men had already established a system of treatment which was applied to all those who would consent to submit to it; and it was found to answer the purpose very well; so that all that was required of the legislature was to render compulsory, at the instance of the nearest relative of the patient, what was at present merely voluntary. He then described an institution at Strathaird, in the Isle of Skye, for patients of this kind, where inmates had unrestrained liberty, ample opportunities for amusing and interesting pursuits, no possibility of getting any drink but whisky, and no chance of getting that except by walking twelve miles to one place, where they had to deceive the dealer, who was bound not to sell it to any of the anchorites of Strathaird, or by walking fourteen miles to another place, where the dealer was free from any restriction. He had visited that establishment himself, and found the patients living in a state of sobriety,

EVENING IN EARLY SPRING.
THE west is crimsoned, and the evening falls,
The lamp of night is lighting up aloft;
Unto his mate afar the partridge calls,
The blue wren's tinkle ceases in the croft.

Upon the waving poplar's topmost spray,
His mellow note the thrush is piping forth,
Singing his farewell to the dying day,
While pale stars peep out in the dusky north.

Over the land the sunny south wind blows,
The spring's first wrestle with the winter's cold;
And nature flushed, with genial triumph glows,
On sparkling fount, and cloudlet tipped with gold.

The morn was balmy, and the noontide bright,
And happy children strayed to gather flowers;
Seeking the slopes with celandines adight,
Whereon in March winds, daisies make their bowers.

The father led his children forth to-day,
To scented violets, clustered white and blue,
To watch the young lambs bounding in their play,
Perchance to hear the merry sweet cuckoo.

The twilight closes o'er the balmy eve,
The bat is flitting in the quiet air,
The wren, his last song on the fence doth weave,
And the shy rabbit leaves his sandy lair.
Blithe lovers wander happy, arm in arm,
Moved by the magic of the witching time,
Thus tasting, ere life's toils begin, a balm,
To memory precious in their after prime.
The field, and grove, and music of the bird,
The humming insect, and the budding bough,
Wildling and tame, the sounds in still night heard,
And the shrill whistle of the wild wind's sough;
All sing God's praise; thus musing home we go,
Grateful for nature, pleased that as we plod,
While native music falls from these, we know,
We too may raise a grateful song to God.
Grantham.

J. HAWKINS.

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 23 Upper Sackville Street, DUBLIN, and all Booksellers.

OF POPULAR

RE

THE GENERAL'S NEPHEW. SEVERAL years before the introduction of Minié-rifles and tunics, when Brown Bess with a well-hammered flint was considered the most efficient weapon of the British soldier, the regiment to which I then belonged was stationed, during its Indian tour of service, in the Sultrypore division, commanded by Major-general Sir Hannibal Peacocke, K. C. B., one of the best whist-players and worst general officers in the service. He had entered the army young, and having both luck and interest, rose rapidly to the rank of lieu- | tenant-colonel, when he was put on half-pay, and, having served almost exclusively on the staff, as ignorant of regimental duty as a man well could be. During the years which followed, he endeavoured, by assiduous attention to the duties of a man about town, to fit himself for future command; and on promotion to the rank of general, attended every levee of the commander-in-chief, asking for employment, and became a regular hanger-on at the Horse-guards, who, either to get rid of his importunities, or oblige his brother-in-law, Lord Cawood, gave him a division in India. Favoured child of fortune as he was, the general was always grumbling at his ill-luck, particularly at the card-table, though he could not bear to hear any one else do so, and would always demolish the complainant's grievance by quoting some greater misfortune which had happened to himself, making the lesser mischance appear contemptible and insignificant. If a defeated adversary made any remark on the number of rubbers he had lost, the general would exclaim: You don't call that a run of ill-luck, do you, sir? Why, I played whist regularly every night for eight years, and never held a trump the whole time.'

'But, Sir Hannibal,' rashly suggests an incredulous sub, you must have dealt every fourth round, and taken the turn-up card into your hand.'

PRICE 1d.

unanimously pointed out the greatest fool of the family as the fittest for the army.

No rational doubt could be entertained that Lord Cawood's second son was perfectly eligible on this score to wear a red coat: he accompanied his uncle to India; and soon after their arrival, the Gazette informed us that the Honourable Peregrine Falcon Rooke had purchased an ensigney in our regiment.

There was at the time, I fear, a sadly democratic feeling in the corps, as some of our slips of aristocracy had not been very favourable specimens; and others who had left the regiment soon after going on foreign service, had made rather hard bargains with their successors. We were not, therefore, inclined to think better of the young hand because he happened to be an earl's son; besides which, we were shortly afterwards ordered in from our out-station, where game was abundant and duty light, to the formality and field-days of division head-quarters; and we all felt sure that our recall from our happy huntinggrounds was chiefly in order that the junior ensign should be under the avuncular eye, and have the benefit of his countenance and support on first joining.

We arrived in Sultrypore at the beginning of the hot season, and being a new station, houses were so scarce there that five of us were fain to content ourselves with the joint-occupancy of a splendid mansion, consisting of one large room, with an enclosed verandah all round. That is to say, we remained in the house by day, and slept at night in tents pitched close outside, until, as the rainy season drew near, we were driven from their comparative coolness by sand-storms occurring nearly every night, which forced us to take refuge in the house.

It was an unusually hot season even for that climate; the rains delayed their coming; the hot wind blew from sunrise till midnight; there was a lurid haze in the scorching atmosphere, through which objects loomed large as if seen through a fog.

The youngster is silenced; and the triumphant general makes a mental mem. that so wide-a-wake a young gentleman is just suited for the agreeable task of the next treasure-escort, which amiable intention he generally carried out with praiseworthy fidelity.

The general had never been married; but he brought out a nephew with him, who he requested might be gazetted to the first vacancy occurring in any of Her Majesty's regiments in the Sultrypore division. In those days, commissions had not been thrown open to public competition; preparatory examination was undreamed of, and popular opinion

punkah going all night, for which purpose we had a relay of coolies; much-enduring individuals, without any peculiar characteristics mental or physical, except an inordinate capacity for sleep and extreme scantiness of drapery, who, in consideration of the monthly guerdon of eight shillings, without board or lodging, undertook that one of their number should always be ready to fan our fevered brows. Like most natives, they possessed the power of instantly composing themselves to sleep at any hour of the four and twenty; but at night, in particular, the exercise of their monotonous vocation seemed to possess an effect as irresistibly somniferous as the branch dripping

with Lethean dew did on Palinurus. Somnus relaxed their wearied limbs; the long punkah, under which all slept, stopped, and we awoke, bathed in perspiration, to abuse the coolie, rub our mosquito bites, and doze off again. The paymaster, a choleric little Welshman, being the most wakeful of the party, took upon himself the task of keeping the coolies on the alert, for which purpose his cot was placed in the centre, with an abundant supply of ammunition heaped alongside thereof, in the shape of the united boots and shoes of the entire party, besides a collection of sundry miscellaneous articles, such as glove-trees, cricket-balls, old books, &c., which might, on occasion, be converted into projectiles. Even with this formidable armament, and the fear of punishment before their eyes, the coolies did snooze occasionally; but retribution swift and terrible followed, from the avenging slipper of the paymaster.

I do not think we were as grateful to him as we ought to have been for his exertions, as we found that the noise produced by the shower of missiles, the crash of broken glass, or the piteous accents of the coolie deprecating master's wrath, protesting he was murdered, or imploring assistance from the governor-general and East India Company, was quite as fatal to tired nature's sweet restorer' as the want of cool air.

We accordingly had a tall three-legged stool constructed, on which the coolie on duty was always perched. It gave him great facility in pulling the punkah, and proved an excellent seat as long as he remained awake, and sat upright; but the moment he began to nod, the rickety tripod was overbalanced, and the whole concern upset bodily. This we found a most effectual means of murdering sleep, as, after performing half-a-dozen of these involuntary somersaults, the coolies learned to keep themselves awake, and the punkah going.

Whilst we, in a semi-deliquescent state, were endeavouring, by expedients such as these, to render the heat somewhat less unbearable, we were constantly tantalised by seeing the junior ensign in undivided possession of an excellent house adjoining ours, which he did not offer to share with any one.

Young Rooke seemed an ungainly, rather silly lad, without much harm in his composition, or anything aristocratic in his manners or appearance, but with an overweening sense of his own importance. At drill, he was the most awkward fellow I ever saw; it required a couple of sergeants to put him in the proper position of a soldier, and the moment their hands were withdrawn, he relapsed into his usual slouching attitude. He had a habit, too, of knocking one foot against another like a horse cutting, by which he was always losing step; and when he shouldered his musket, it seemed an even chance whether he sent the bayonet into his own cheek or his neighbour's. All rebukes and corrections he received with so well-satisfied an air, that his amendment seemed hopeless; and Wright, our adjutant, was in a state of despair at having such an unpromising recruit to deal with, declaring his life would be shortened by being daily compelled to witness so melancholy a spectacle. Now, next to a pretty girl and a well-drilled battalion, there was nothing Wright liked so much as a joke, particularly a practical one; indeed, he loved it not wisely, but too well, and had often got into trouble by indulging his facetious propensities.

He longed to play off some trick upon Rooke, which might soothe his own feelings, and diminish the other's self-importance, but found it difficult to get an opportunity for doing so, as the youngster seldom came to mess or mixed with his brotherofficers, being unwisely kept away by his uncle, the general, which made him even more unpopular than

he would have been at any rate. Accordingly, he gravely informed Rooke, that, as he had got on so far in his drill, it was time for him to proceed to more advanced exercises, and commence learning the drum, for which purpose the drum-major would provide him with an instrument, and attend at his quarters for an hour daily, after morning parade-a private hint being given to the instructor, that the lesson should always be given in the verandah, which was in full view of the mess-room. There we used to assemble every morning for coffee and billiards, but both were neglected for the pleasure of seeing Rooke pacing up and down with a drum suspended from his shoulders, practising the initiatory exercise called 'mammy daddy,' which is, in fact, the do, re, mi of all who learn this sonorous instrument.

To explain for the benefit of the uninitiated, it may be briefly described as follows: The tyro's hands being arranged in the proper position, he gives two taps with the right one, then withdrawing it, holds the drum-stick perpendicularly by his side, repeats the same process with the left, and so on ad infinitum. It is rather monotonous work, and, at the best of times, makes the performer look rather foolish; but when Rooke's awkward movements and shambling gait were contrasted with the splendid proportions of the drum-major, who owed his situation to the fact of his being the handsomest man in the regiment, the effect was inexpressibly ludicrous, and formed a neverfailing source of amusement to those who witnessed it. The pupil, however, had not advanced beyond these elementary studies, when his further progress was stopped by his uncle coming in one day to pay our colonel a visit.

Sir Hannibal Peacocke, like most ignorant men, was very fussy about trifles, and constantly getting hold of some new hobby, which he rode until he tired of it, or some fresh one came in his way. Having that morning mounted a new one-a novel method of putting on the knapsack without straps, which proved a complete failure-he came in to display his equitation for the colonel's benefit. Having taken as much exercise in that way as he felt disposed for, the conversation turned on his nephew, who, the general remarked, he was glad to hear was getting on so well with his drill.

'I am sorry I cannot agree with you, general,' said the outspoken Colonel Hardy, for really I never met a more stupid lad in my life; he seems to make no progress, notwithstanding all the trouble taken with him.'

'I am afraid you do not take the trouble of making yourself acquainted with what passes in your regiment,' replied Sir Hannibal, with some asperity; for I can tell you the adjutant is so well satisfied with his proficiency, that he has allowed him to commence learning the drum.'

"The drum, general! you cannot be serious; there must be some mistake. Surely no one ever heard of such a thing as training an officer to a bandsman's duties.'

'My nephew never told me a falsehood, even in jest, Colonel Hardy; and you will find what I have stated to be perfectly correct, if you ask your adjutant, who I saw writing in the next room when I came in.'

Wright was summoned, and the moment he entered the room, perceived that the conjunction of two such luminaries boded him no good; and augured from the ominous silence which greeted his entrance, that, as he expressed it, the devoted storm was about to descend on his thundering head.

'Have you been playing off any of your jokes on Mr Rooke?' sternly demanded the colonel.

Jokes, sir!' demurely answered Wright; 'I assure you it is no joke trying to teach a man of his