Page 3 Advertisements Column 6

Dunstan Times, Issue 2676, 28 July 1913, Page 3

NOT SO ROMANTIC AFTER ALL. “Do you notice how attentively that gentleman has been watching me for the last half hour? 1 ' said one young lady to mother at an evening party. “Do you mean that man by the piano;' "Yes.’’ “Well, now that you speak of it he does seem somewhat interested in you “ “He certainly does. Ido declare," tinned the young lady, gaily, “ I believe lie has fallen'in love with me. Isn’t it delightfully romantic ?" A few minutes after she was talking wi - her hostess, when, as an opportunity presented itself, she carelessly remarked : “My dear Mrs. 8., pray tell me who t quiet but very distingue looking gentleman is near the piano. Ido not remember ew. seeing him before." “Probably not," replied the lady : “bn 1 he is quite well known. He is a detective." SURVIVED HIS OWN EXECUTION A man who has attended his own e\ccution and still .survives to relate the details’ is surely worthy of a short paragraph. The man in question, although at presem serving in the humble capacity of waiter in one of the Paris cafes, was. twenty one years ago, one of the historic characters 01 the world. His name is Colonel Marteras, and in :86g, was on the point of being proclaimed President of Uruguay, when he was arrested, barged with treason, and sentenced to be «not. On Monday, June 30th of that year, lie was taken by a platoon of soldiers out of the capital to a cleared spot in the heart of a forest and bound tc a chair. At the word “Eire!” a nervous shock caused Marteras to fall to the ground. He did not hear the volley, but a labourer working near by did. The workman went to ascertain the cause; saw the soldiers marching away, and Marteras badly wounded, but not dead by any means, lying on the ground. The labourer took the would-be President home and cured his wounds, and he and Marteras both now often tell of the supposed execution of the " French Pretender." MY BABBS IN THE WOOD. I know a story, fairer, dimmer, sadder, . Than any story painted in your books You are so glad? I will not make you gladder: Yet listen, with your pretty restless look* “Isit a fairy story ?” Well, half fairy— At least it dates far back as fairies do. And seems to me as beautiful and airy ; Yet half, perhaps the fairy half, is true, j You had a baby sister and a brother, Two very dainty people, rosy whits, Sweeter than all things else except each other! Older yet younger—gone from human sight! And I, who loved them, and shall love them ever, And think with yearning tears how each light hand Crept toward bright bloom and berries—l shall never Knowhow Host them. Do you understand? Poor slightly golden heads 11 think'l missed them First in some dreamy, piteous, doubtful way; But when and where with lingering lips I kissed them, My gradual parting, I can never say. Sometimes I fancy that they may have perished In shadowy quiet of wet rocks and moss, Near paths whose very pebbles I have cherished, For their small sakes, since my most bitter loss. I fancy, too, that they were softly covered By robins, out of apple flowers they knew, Whose nursing wings in far home sunshine hovered, Before the timid world had dropped the dew. Their names were—what yours are. At this you wonder, T ( Their pictures are—your own, as you have seen; And my bird-buried darlings, hidden under Lost leaves—why, it is your dead selves I mean I BACK FROM THE GRAVE. T Ple was a young sergeant in the Hussars, and in one of the numerous night attacks on the Russian fortifications in the Crimea, he had the misfortune to receive a dangerous bullet wound in the region of the heart, while bravely exhorting his men to action. He was immediately stricken to the ground with insensibility, and a period of perhaps two hours elapsed before the ambulance could be procured. During this time, owing to the piercing east winds that only a 1 Russian .can stand with equanimity, the sergeant became perfectly pale and cold. Notwithstanding all precautions, and a fair share of nursing and attention—for in the Crimea this department was very badly managed—he was pronounced the next afternoon by three medical men to have met with instantaneous death. His body was accordingly handed over to the burial corps of his regiment. ' * There were nunjgjjfJUfi, burials to take place the same afternoon, so the bodies of the sergeant and three privates were handed over to a big brawny Irishman for burial. This man, having dug the trenches, placed the four bodies in a line and proceeded to, cover them. 4' He had covered three of them, when a frightful thunderstorm came on, and he was obliged' to discontinue his operations for the night, leaving the remains of the sergeant exposed to the weather, wolves, and other evils. Night came on, and the men all turned into their beds, such as they were, and soon were.fast asleep. At three o’clock, the shrill cry of the sentry challenging a man might have been heard on the still night air, and to the usual query came the answer, " Friend." Making his way past the sentry, the man had to 'walk three hundred yards to reach the encampment of his “squad." Calling with a feeble voice outside the tent of the sergeant-major, he asked for quarters for the night. Aghast with terror, the trembling officer led the man—who was. no other than the dead and buried sergeant —to the colonel's quarters, and having awakened the colonel, he his strange story. 1 Next day the fortunate " non-com." was reinstated as sergeant to his toop ones more, and great was the merry-making when the company heard the good news. It appears that about 2a.n1,, the Russians discharged some shells near the British and one of the shells dropping quhlsfcidse to the burial lines awoke the sergeant from his trance. Cold, sore, and stiff, but feeling little the worse for his perilous adventure, he rose and made his way as quickly as possible to the tents. An examination of the wound elicited the fact that the bullet entered the chest just below the second rib, curved off the edge of the third, and was found by one of the ♦"clever trio” who pronounced tne man dead, imbedded about half an inch below Efface of the skin. s incident was related by the sergeant LI IP