choose to give them. "The stick," says the Moslem maxim, "came down from heaven, a blessing from God." And man resembles a spice, which, the more it is beaten, the sweeter perfume it exhales.

When we had arrived at the last station before Loanda, I determined to solve Joachim, that human enigma. After I had tak en my dinner of fowl and farinha, I told him that I felt in low .spirits, and should take a glass of grog. He brought me the materials, and watched me furtively as I drank. I invited him to join me. With that diffidence which confirmed drunkards so often assume, he replied that he seldom touched spirits, but that he would take a demi-goutte just to keep me company. I drank enough to have turned my head at any other time; but when one determines not to be drunk, it is as when one desires in cold blood to be drunk-one remains sober.

After I had unbosomed several secrets of an imaginary nature to Joachim, he began to be garrulous and communicative, the subject which he chiefly dwelt upon being the number of injuries he had received at other people's hands, and the remarkable manner in which the Fates had always conspired against him.

"I am now in Africa," he said; "it is my prison; I do not know how I shall escape from it. I am a Swiss; here there is no Swiss consul. It is true, I can work my passage in a vessel to Lisbon-but then?-what am I to do?"

"You will return to Switzerland and your family, without doubt."

"You do not love your country, then?"

"I do not love my country! Oh, mon Dieu! he says I do not love my country. Switzerland! Switzerland! oh, I would kiss your dust were I with you. I would sit on your hill-side, and I would look all day at your blue lakes, and your cultivated fields, and your mountains of snow, which lose themselves in the clouds. Do not I yearn for you in this filthy land? And I must never, never see you again!"

"But what is there to prevent your seeing Switzerland again?" "What is there to prevent me? Well, I will tell you," said he, clenching his teeth. "I have made a vow. It is that which prevents me."

"Oh, a vow! You are romantic, Joachim."

"Yes, I am very romantic," he said, bitterly. "Listen. I love

Switzerland; I hate the Swiss. I had a friend; that brutal people drove him away. I made a vow that I would go among them

no more."

"Drove him away!"

Joachim swallowed a glass of neat brandy, and now spoke thickly and rapidly, as if afraid of being interrupted. "You wish me to tell you this story. I will tell it you. This young man, my friend, he was a student; he was young and handsome; he was un peu galant; when he was merry, he sang; when he was thoughtful, he wrote verses to pretty women; he led the life of a bird which has a gay plumage and a sweet voice.

"His parents were Swiss, but not pure Swiss; there was Italian blood there. He went to see them, for he had his money from an uncle who had made him his heir, and he was independent of them. He gave them a visit; they were proud of him when they saw his fine clothes and his French manners; and the girls of the village they thought him very handsome, and they called him 'Monsieur.'

"He had another uncle in that same village. He was a bearhunter, a huge brute of a man, with a black beard, and limbs like a giant's. But he had a very pretty daughter-the cousin of my friend. You know, monsieur, that custom which they have in Switzerland on Saturday nights for young people to pass the night together: in French we call it se-veiller. One Saturday night his cousine came into his father's house. She had a new cap on, and gay ribbons, and for a Swiss she was charming. His motheryes, it was his own mother who said it-told him that such a pretty couple must se-veiller that night; and Pauline clapped her little hands, and kissed my friend on the cheek, and-"

"But what was his name?"

"His name! Eh, sacre Dieu! his name! Oh, the name of this young man, it was Franz.

“You know, monsieur, that a custom is nothing because it is a custom. In Switzerland the young people do not think it strange to se-veiller; they are stupid, besides: they are not men and women-they are swine of the mountain. But this Franz, he was a young Parisian. He had hot blood-he did not understand this custom: you can easily understand, monsieur, why Pauline had such pale cheeks the next day. She was a child, this Pauline. A woman knows how to hide a folly, but the tongue of a child is quicker than her thought. When the bear-hunter came home that

night he called her to him, and sat her on his knee, as he always did, and kissed her. And she began to cry, and twisted her fingers in his beard, and then she hid her head in his breast, and told him all. And what did this wise father do? In France, and in Russia, and in England too, I dare say, they understand these things; they do not foul their own nest-they keep still tongue, and they make a marriage. Franz was not a bad man then; he would not have refused to marry her. But no, this man talks to every body; when Franz enters the village, the girls who used to bring him flowers turn away their eyes and look at him after he has passed; the old people whisper together, looking at him. He does not understand this; he does not know why the people come together. Ah! now that man, whose daughter Franz has known, he rushes from the crowd; he seizes him by the neck, and beats him with the wood of mountain ash. He beat him-he beat him like a dog; and when he fainted away, he left him like a dog to die !"

"And did Franz die ?" I asked.

Joachim, who had sunk his face in his hand, raised his eyes, which shone like those of a hyena.

"No, he did not die. In the night he crawled to his father's house. A hand was put outside the door and gave him food; a voice told him to go from them and to return no more. He went away, and to return no more. But he would stay a little—yes, a little while in the mountain. He went to the place where he had been beaten; his alpenstock still lay there; no one had touched. it; it was his; it would have tainted them. He climbed up the mountain till he came to a small chasm in its side; he walked along its side till he came to the path of the hill-goats: it was by this path that the hunter of bears always went to seek his sport. It was a wide place to leap, but a large flat stone jutted out from the mountain side, and was imbedded in a soil of gravel. When Franz had first sprang upon it in chasing the chamois, he had feared that it would yield beneath his feet. This fear was the instinct of his revenge. He labored all night, though his limbs were cramped and tender, and loss of blood had made him faint. But every pain which he felt reminded him of his insult, and urged him to his task. It was scarcely dawn when his work was done. He hid himself behind a bush some feet above the stone, which tottered in the very wind. He heard a step. Was it a goat, which would come and spoil his snare? No, it was the firm tread of a man upon the rattling stones. Yes, it was he; no one could

mistake that form of a giant: he came on and on-to his doom. It was scarcely light; he could not see that the earth had been touched; he did not even examine the leap he had to make; he had leaped it a thousand times. Franz saw him running forward -saw his body as it bounded in the air. The giant stood quivering before him as the stone rolled from beneath his feet and fell crashing in the ravine below. With a yell which made the hills echo all around, the giant sprang up in the air, athlete that he was, and seized a plant which grew from the mountain side: it slowly-oh, how slowly!-tore itself out root by root, fibre by fibre. But his active feet were searching for a resting-place-another moment, and he was saved-when Franz held out the alpenstock, and cried, 'Quick! quick! take this, and you are saved.'

"When a man struggles for life he does not suspect a snare; he seized it with both his hands. Those hands had lost their brown and healthy color; fear had made them all white and mottled. And oh! his face, that was horrid to see. 'I see it sometimes now,' said Franz; 'his mouth covered with foam, and his eyes bursting from his head. But that only pleased me then. I laughed in that fearful face; I let go the pole; I saw him fall, the blood spurting as he struck against the rocks; and after I could see no more, I heard something faint and dull fall in the invisible depths below.'"

Joachim was silent.

"And what became of Franz ?" I asked.

"Franz left Switzerland," said Joachim, in a dull, dreamy tone. "He returned to Paris, where he spent all his money like a madman. When it was gone his friends left him, his mistresses insulted him. He became a vagabond, and while a vagabond he was a criminal."

“Well, Joachim,” said I, "that is a very interesting story, but I do not see why you should hate your family because Franz has had reason to detest his. Now make my bed. We must be off early to-morrow."

The next morning Joachim told me that he had made up this story to amuse me, because he saw that I was dull. There was not a word of truth in it. My Cognac had inspired him; for certainly it was dramatic, was it not? I complimented him upon his powers of imagination; at the same time, I took pains to impress upon him the fact that I had not been taken in, and that I knew very well all along that there was no such a person as his friend Franz.

CHAPTER XXVI.

FEVER AND FLIGHT.

Three Dreams.-Fever.-Mr. Gabriel's Sickness.-His Death.-S. S. Don Pedro. -The White Lady.-The Language of Cigars.

On the morning of my arrival in Loanda I felt unwell, which I ascribed to the brandy and water overnight. When I sat down to copy and arrange my note-book memoranda, according to my custom on returning from a journey, I found that I could not settle down to work, although I felt a restless inclination to do so. As the evening approached my spirits became quite elastic; my veins seemed no longer filled with blood, but with quicksilver; and my brain was filled with thoughts so fantastic that they resembled dreams. I sent out Joachim to inquire if I could get a boat to take me to the Congo. In spite of Mr. Gabriel's advice that I should enjoy a little civilized repose, I determined to set off to the Congo in a couple of days. When I went to bed that night I had never felt in such buoyant health.

I got to sleep with great difficulty, and not before I had built quite a city of castles in the air. My imagination having been already so excited, it was natural that I should dream.

I dreamt that I was at home-my bachelor's home in London. It was a winter's night. The fire was blazing in the grate, and threw flickering shadows on the walls. I was reading by the light of two candles. Suddenly these became extinguished; the fire died out; I felt in my dream as if I was cold. Out from the walls, as they faded away, came tall, dim, shadowy trees, and a red moon rising above them. Water splashed round me. I was in a canoe, and before me were my men bending to their paddles. We glided along with inconceivable swiftness, till my brain seemed to turn, and the trees and the moon were left far behind.

I awoke, but soon fell asleep again. This time I was in the forest. This impression was so vivid that the tints of certain leaves, the rugged appearance of the bark of the trees, have never yet left my memory. I was there, standing alone, with my double-barreled rifle in my hand. I heard a rustle in the wood. I started.