ADVENTURES OF A RING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10908, 12 November 1898, Page 5

ADVENTURES OF A RING.

At the close of the battle of the Tehernaya (writes Sir W. A. Russell) I was riding from the bridge towards our cam]) when a Zouave offered me a huge gold signet-ring which he had taken off the finger of a Russian officer. I need not mention how he had obtained it, hut 1 Ixnight the ring as a memento of tho day. It bore a massive shield with a coat of arms, and a coronet with the letter " Z. ' I wore it occasionally on my forefinger as a siomet-ring, and the likeness of it is to bo seen in an engraving from a photograph j which adorns 0110 of my books. When I at- 1 tended the coronation of the Czar in 1856 Count took impression of the seal, and discovered that tho ring belonged to a colonel whoso widow, an English lady who nad been a Miss Hope, of the eommandery of orcester, was then living at her country seat mine distance from Moscow. I sent the lady (lie rincr. with a few lines to say how fortunate I esteemed myself to be the means of restoring her a souvenir of her gallant husband. Before I left Moscow my fair countrywoman brought me the ring, and with many thankis asked me to keep what was painfully associated with the memory of one whom she could never forget. I was not destined to keep it loin'. The following year I was on my way !o Sir Colin Campbell's camp, and while the Nubia was coaling at Aden Mr. Stuart Muirhead, of the 7th Hussars, and I wero lodged in a sort of a cave for the night. It was inten sol v hot, and my companion, who was a confirmed sybarite, hired a Somali Arab to fan him to keep the mosquitoes away while he slept. I reposed on an adjoining couch, rand when I woke in tho morning the ring which I wore on niv finger was gone! The hotel was turned inside out. the no!ire were summoned, all the Somali boys in .Aden were driven like a flock of s'-eeo into the yard, where their wool was closely searched, and their scanty clothing minutel-- examined; hut, though T offered egregious ransom, the V. and 0, Nubia, sailed that day with mo for Calcutta, disconsolate and ruleless!