CHEATED.

Otago Witness, Issue 2373, 24 August 1899, Page 50

CHEATED.

A FIGHT FOR A LIFE. (By Gilbert Floyd, in Answers.) I. " Does it clank chains and groan, Geoff? " *' Or burn blue lights 1 " " Say, Sir Geoffrey, does it wear chainBnnour or a shroud?" " Do they charge extra for it in the rates Jand taxes?" ''Is it a lady or a man? " • "'ls she good-looking?" "Does he look pale and sad?" ♦'A -real ghost,-now! Waal, Sir Geoff, •I guess this bar-onial hall is just about com-plete in its fixin's ! " Sir Geoffrey Ambrose leaned over the Milliard table, smilingly receiving the storm pi chaff that was levelled from all sides upon his devoted head. "Wait a minute," he replied, "and just give me the ghost of a chance of making fchis shot, and I'll tell you all about the ,Gbost of Greylands." Click! click! went the balls. " Good shot ! " murmured the onlookers. " Game ! " cried the noble earl, who was feting as billiard-marker. Sir Geoffrey placed his cue very deliberately in the rack, then turned to the group ibhat lounged around the wide fireplace of the billiard room. " So you want me to tell you about our ghost? " he said, with an indulgent smile vpon his guests. "Of course," they chorussed. "How dare you keep such a delightful toystery up your sleeve ! " cried pretty Mrs Major Mantrap, reproachfully. "Or on your top-floor," added Miss j Highflyer. Turn down the lights ! " demanded a voice in the background ; whereupon the fioble earl, who above all things delighted n making himself useful, promptly switched off the electric light, leaving the room in darkness, save where the blaze of the fire lit the wide circle of expectant faces. Sir Geoffrey settled himself comfortably ia a wide armchair next" to Miss Chatteris. Somehow, by the way, Sir Geoffrey invariably managed to remain in the close neighbourhood of tnat lady. * " • "The Ghost of Greylands'," he began, "jieither clanks chains nor groans. I cannot tell you whether it is a man or a woman, for it has never been seen." " Never been seen ! " cried a disappointed chorus of voices. j " Never," replied Sir Geoffrey ; "in fact," lie continued, " there is no ghost at all, un- ' less one may attribute a haunted character to an ill-fated room." "Which room?" queried a woman's voice, anxiously. ! "Is it mine?" cried one. "Or mine?" asked another. "Do not be alarmed, ladies," replied Sir Qeoffrey ; "no one sleeps there. The Blue Room has been closed for a century, and this is its story : — "A Tery great uncle of mine, who founded Greylands Abbey about the end of the fourteenth century, was Cardinal Ambrose, who made a pilgrimage to Rome for the purpose of conferring with the famous or infamous Rodrigo Borgia, who was then known to the world as Pope Alexander, VI. - • "Tradition tells that the cardinal made himself exceedingly useful to the Pope's son, Caesar Borgia, of whom, I have no doubt, you have all heard." "Say, Sir Geoffrey, wasn't he some sort of a cousin to the generaf who annexed bhese islands about nineteen hundred years >go? " queried Mr Hogg, of Chicago — a travelled American of an inquiring mind. ! "I am afraid I cannot enlighten you on \ {hat point, .Mr Hogg," replied Sir Geoffrey, with a smile all I know of Ceesar Borgia is that he was a gentleman who was famous for his chemical experiments upon his friends." " Like Sir Charles, here, who's always walking around with a tube of cholera germs, o rYellow Jack, or fits of some sort

or another stored away in his waistcoat pockets ! '' replied Mr Hogg, indicating a famous Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, who, on his hands and knees before the fire, was busily employed in turning % large baking of chestnuts. " What scandal are you retailing about me now, Hogg? " laughed Sir Charles Stanton, throwing him a fiery hot chestnut. " I was thinking about that nigger you tried to kill down at St. Augusta last fall." " 1 did not kill the nigger, Hogg ; and I fiimly believe that you were the man who told him that my 3'ellow fever preparations were charms against the Ju-ju, and so set him on to steal and drink bacilli enough to kill a nation ! Anyhow, didn't I cure him?' " Yes, by filling him up with whisky, Worcestershire sauce, and eau-de-Cologne till he turned whiter than a white man's gbost ! " retorted Mr Hogg, with his mouth full of chestnuts ; '" but go on, Sir Geoffrey — I'm afraid our little scientific discussion is interrupting your ghost story." " Not at all," rejoined Sir Geoffrey, politely. "I was saying that Cassar Borgia was famous for his chemical experiments upon his friends, and in return for services rendered him by Cardinal Ambrose, he imparted to him several of his secret methods of poisoning, together with instructions to usa them on certain persons over here who had made themselves objectionable or dangerous to the Borgias. "I regret that any ancestor of mine should have been so shady a character; but I must confess that the tradition is fairly corroborated by a number of old parchments in the library, which tell how the cardinal, at different periods, invited a number of distinguished guests to the abbey, on Saturday to Monday visits, from which they never returned. " They were found dead in bed, in the Blue Room, doubtless murdered by one of Borgia's mysterious poisons, which, I daresay Sir Charles will tell you any analyst of to-day would quickly detect as prosaic overdoses of arsenic or strychnine." " Quite right, Ambrose"! " replied Sir Charles. " I'm sure that Borgia was only a fly-paper murderer, for all his reputation. Strychnine was beyond him. If my memory serves me right, Wainwright was the first gentleman to use that vehicle for the transportation of his victims to the next world. Have another chestnut, Hogg? I'll guarantee them sterilised ! " " Naw, tha — anks, Sir Charles ! " drawled Mr Hogg, cautiously. " You can sterilise your British chestnuts all you Jike, but they're Borgia's death on the American di-gestion. Go ahead, Sir Geoffrej-." '' Well, the cardinal died," continued Sir Geoffrey. "He died in the Blue Room, fearfully and mysteriously. Hia servants found him one morning lying on the floor, rigid and stark, a slight foam upon his lips. " A sliding door in the wainscot, the presence of which was unknown till then to any of the retainers of the abbey, was open. This panel gives entrance to a secret passage and staircase, which winds down through one of the buttresses on the north side of the house, and comes to the surface again beneath a stone that forms part of the pavement of the ten-ace. " The terrace in those days used to overlook a moat, and there. is little doubt that the bodies of some of the cardinal's less important victims were carried down the staircase in the depth of the night and thrown into the dark waters of the moat, where the pike soon made short work of them. "In this fact another ghost story of Greylands Abbey took birth. It was said that when any harm came to the occupants of the blue chamber, mysterious and ghostly footsteps were heard on she terrace outside. " The old Latin manuscript from .vhich I have gathered this information, and which was written by one ot the good monks of Greylands Abbey, mentions how, on the night of the cardinal's death, the shuffling of feet was plainly heard by one of the brothers who was keeping vigil. " The leeches were called to examine the cardinal's body, but they could find no trace of injury beyond a bruise on his hip, doubtless caused by his fall from the bed to the floor, and a minute bluish spot on his lip. " Some detective of the Middle Ages also discovered and recorded the fact that the moss around the paving stone at the foot of the hollow buttress which contained the secret staircase was disturbed, and that the I edge of one ot the adjoining stones was I freshly chipped and bore signs of iron, which pointed to the supposition that the stone had been forced up by an iron crowbar, or possibly the head of a pike. " Later on, towards the end of the sixteenth century, a rheumatic ancestor of mine caused the moat to be drained and filled in. " The accounts of this work tendered by the local builder are in the library, and one of the items is ' for fiyfteen pence for ye proper transporte and buryal of fowre skelytones founde in ye bedde of ye mote, ■ and afterwards interred in Chrystianne grounde.' I have a shrewd suspicion that those four skeletons were those of the cardinal's victims." " How horrible ! '" exclaimed Mrs Major Mantrap, with a shudder. " But that Is not all the story. The rest of it concerns two ancestors of yours, Chatteris," continued Sir Geoffrey," turning to Captain Chatteris, who, with his beautiful sister, had joined the Greylands party on the previous day. " Never heard of it," replied that gentleman, cheerfully. "Fact is. the Chatteris records have been scattered to the four winds of heaven since great-great-grandpa Chatteris gambled away Chatteris Park — house, lands, diamond-pin and all — in one glorious night at Crockford's." "To his false friend and my great-grand-fathei," said Sir Geoffrey, rather sadly. " Was it so, by Jove ! " remarked Chatteris. " Never mind, old man ! The property fell into good hands; and, thanks to Australia and wool, the (Shatteris fortunes

have looked up. Perhaps if great-great-grandpa hadn't gone to rattle the bones that night at ' Crocky's/ Grandpa Chatteris would never have gone abroad to seek and find fortune, and to make a man of himself." " Nevertheless, my great-grandfather was a false friend, for he ruined John Chatteris, who died a few days after — in the Blue Room ! " replied Sir Geoffrey, quietly. "And who was the other ancestor in question?" asked the sweet voice of Maude Chatteris at his side. " You see." she^ explained, ".we know very little of our people. We were both born in Australia, and although Fred was brought up in England, I have lived in the colonies all my life, and came ' home ' for the first time only tw« years ago. You know, Sir Geoffrey, we colonials always call the old country ' Home.' " Sir Geoffrey turned in his chair and looked into the eyes of the beautiful Australian. His face grew stern and anxious. It seemed to him that his grim story of Greylands was to become a confession to th'j woman he had learned to love — a confession of the sins of his flesh and blood against her fathers. History had repeated itself when Sir Geoffrey had fallen in love with his friend's sister. Many a time and oft in" olden days had the two families mingled in friendship, and on two occasions an Ambrose had married a Chatteris. To her family the love and the friendship of his ancestors had always ended in disaster. Of the vast lands that now formed the Greylands estate, a good half had once belonged to the Chatteris family. The tale of its acquisition was one long sad story of how a Chatteris had been betrayed and bested by an Am- , biose. Sir Geoffrey knew it all, for he was of a studious nature, and the well-kept records of Greylands held no secrets from him. The whole tale of Ambrose misdeeds flashed through his brain as he looked iuto the fair face upturned to his, and the words of hia story froze upon his lips. " Never mind that other ancestor, Miss Chatteris!" he said, with a light laugh. " I shall give you the horrors if I keep on chronicling all the misdeeds of my family back to the time of Noah." " Well, I will let you off on one condition," replied Miss Chatteris, with a bright smile. " And what is that? " " That you give me the key of this Bluebeard chamber, and allow us to inspect it ourselves." " A splendid idea ! " cried everyone. And Sir Geoffrey, after a feeble protest, went to his desk in the library, hunted out the key of the old Blue Room, and gave it her. His guests followed Miss Chatteris, a clamourous, -laughing crowd, -and left Sir • Geoffrey alone by the billiard room fire. He sat for * while gazing in the fire, pondering his unfinished ghost story. Should he tell her the-, whole story? Could he tell her how, in the reign of Charles I, Sir Harry Ambrose, the morose old Royalist, had trapped Colonel John Chatteris, of Cromwell's Horse, in his fatal blue chamber, and how John Chatteris had been found dead in the morning, with that same faint blue mark on his lip mentioned in the old monkish chronicle of the cardinal's death? Could he tell her how the other John Chatteris, her great-grand-father, was found dead in the fatal room one morning with only a tiny blue scar on his lip to bear the suspicion of his death? "It is all nonsense, tradition, a pack of lies invented by a lot of ignorant servants ! " said Geoffrey to himself as he rose and paced the billiard room floor. " I daresay some of my people were blackguards! Most families have their skeletons and their black sheep, but I can't see what connection our blackguards had with those mysterious deaths. " Ten to one the poor beggars died of heart failure — the one, because he was made a prisoner; the other, because he had lost all his coin in fashionable speculation. As for the blue mark, that's all an old woman's tale, like the Lambton worm, or the Cock Lane ghost. Geoffrey Ambrose, you're a fool! You are suffering from nerves, and you'll have to cut dowr your tobacco allowance by half, and give up talcing coffee ; and you have fallen in love, which upsets a man even .more than tobacco and eof " Here Sir Geoffrey paused in his selfcemmuning. Miss Chatteris was standing at the billiard room door, regarding him with some amazement. "Do you often talk to yourself, Sir Geoffrey? " she asked, laughingly. " Er — never — sometimes. That is, not often ! " stammered Sir Geoffrey. " I picked up the habit a bit when I was living alone in chambers in town. You see, when a fellow lives alone, he doesn't have anyone to talk to, does he? " Miss Chatteris smiled at this quaint appeal. She was beginning to like Sir Geoffrey. He" was so old-fashioned a young man, and so unlike the self-confident and somewhat self-assertive Australians. " And how did you like living alone? " .she queried, innocently. " It was horrible, beastly slow, and ever so dreary ! " replied Sir Geoffrey, with almost uncalled-for fervour. He was just beginning to realise what a terrible thing it is for a man to live alone. "We have all been to see the Blue Room," continued Miss Chatteris, gaily. " Poor Mr Hogg insisted on exploring the secret staircase, and slipped in the dark and fell down fifteen stairs ! He says fifteen hundred, but he does exaggerate things so." " Th.it Toom is always unlucky ! " exclaimed Sir Geoffrey. " One of these days, when I have saved enough, I will rebuild • that side of the house." " I would not do that," replied Miss , Chatteris. "We all^fell quite in love with I the picture of the old cardinal. The eyes i seem to follow one wherever one goes." " I'll certainly pull that part of the house down," reiterated Sir Geoffrey, uneasily. " Surely you are not superstitious, Sir Geoff rejf" asked his fair guest, a faint

gleam of amusement dancing in her blue eyes. " No, no, not superstitious," replied Sir Geoffrey, hastily; "but I hate to tempt coincidence, that's all." "I'm sorry for that, for I came to ask you if I might sleep in your haunted chamber to-night," said Miss Chatteris, coaxingly. Sir Geoffrey turned pale. "Really, Miss Chatteris " he began. "In fact,- 1 had quite made up my mind to do it. Mr Hogg has bet me half adozen pairs, of gloves that I won't," said Miss Chatteris .with a pout. " Hang Mr Hogg and his gloves ! " murmured Sir Geoffrey under his breath. "I wish you would give iip the idea," he continued, aloud. "Then Mr Hogg will think that I am afraid, and will return to the States to lecture upon" the timidity of English women ! " "But the bed will be damp," protested Sir Geoffrey. , . " Mrs. Wilson, your, housekeeper.,, has just told me that she airs the sheets every three days," replied the lady, stubbornly. " The room is so draughty," urged Sir Geoffrey. " I have slept in the open air by a campfire hundreds of times." "Well, well, I will say no more," said Sir Geoffrey. But his heart misgave him. 11. - That night Sir Geoffrey was restless and anxious. He heard the clock in the turret above ihe stable ring out the hour of one sharply. Then he fell asleep to troubled dreams. Sir Charles Stanton was the only wakeful person in the house. Although he invariably prescribed sleep to his patients, he j was a consistent sinner against the laws ' of Nature in this respect, and seldom ! sought his coucli till well on in the small J hours of the morning. From the depths of a wonderful portmanteau he had produced a microscope, a vast i array of test-cubes, and a bulky notebook, I and the early 'hours of the morning found him with a cigar between his lips, deeply immersed in bacteriological research. j •Presently he started violently, as a sharp J rap sounded at his door. "Are you awake, Sir Charles? For Heaven's, sake, .come at once to Miss Chatteris!" cried a voice outside. He sprang to the door and opened it, to discover Mrs Mantrap shivering in her I dressing-gown. "What is the matter?" he asked. ! "I am afraid she is dying." J Sir Charles snatched up a small leathern j case and raced down the corridora of Grey- I lands to the .Blue Room, Mrs Mantrap at 'i his heels, a good second. . j Aiiss Chatter's was lying in the great : four-post bed, white and rigid, with a ! slight foam upon her lips. The great surgeon made no remark. He opened the leather case, and, producing his stethoscope, listened intently for a few moments to the laboured bzeathing of th«> I inanimate figure.' j Then he turned back iha eyelids, and j peered into the eyes. " Will . you kindly bring a light? " he said, coolly, to Mrs Mantrap, who stood, pallid and shuddering, in the background. "When did you discover her in this "state?" , he queried. ] " Only five minutes ago," replied Mrs Mantrap. " I could not go to sleep. I was anxious about - her sleeping in this hoirid room, so I came up to see that she was all right." • "Urn! And found her all wrong," replied Sir Charles. " Will you kindly hold the -light closely in front of her eyes? That's just right. Thank you." He made no further remark, and gave no sign that he had noticed the sliding panel of the room was slightly moved, and that upon his patient's lips was a faint blue mark — the death-mark of Greylands Abbey. This he examined with a magnifyingglass, and found it to be a tiny punctured wound. He had seen a similar wound several times before, but never singly, for it was the mark of a serpent's fang. " She's fainted, that's all," he said, coolly, as, unperceived by Mrs Mantrap, he drew a tiny fairy-like syringe from his pocket. This he filled from a small vial, and pie&sed it against the white arm of the rijnd figure on the bed. Then this wonderful man produced another tiny syringe charged with a poison which, in unskilled hands, brings death, but which, set to* fight against the poison of a serpent's fang, brings life to the stricken victim. This he pressed against the patient's arm. " Now, work her arms backwards and forwards' — so ! " said he. Mrs Mantrap, dishevelled, and with all her wrinkles and crow's-teet showing with uncompromising distinctness, did as she was bid, and for an hour she and Sir Charles fought silently and stealthily for their patient's life. " The major? " queried Sir Charles. "Is asleep," replied Mrs Mantrap. " If he wakes? " " The major never wakes," answered Mrs Mantrap. Presently signs of life began to return, the fixed rigidity died away from the stiff limbs, the natural hue returned to the blue lips. " She's coming round," said Sir Charles to Mrs Mantrap, who was heating water on a spirit-lamp. Presently Miss Chatteris moaned and opened her eyes. "There! there! it's all right! It's all right, my dear — don't be frightened. Here's Mrs iiantrap come to see you !" cooed the great -doctor in his most soothing professional tones. "Just a fainting fife," he continued. " Only just a little fainting fit. Want to cry, my dear? Ve-ry well, my dearie shall cry on the old doctor's shoulder. There ! Sir Charles sat on the edge of the bed

whilst his patient qried heartily and" healthily upon his shoulder. "About as near a shave as I have ever seen," he murmured to himself. "Fire minutes later, and she would have been dead ! A snake with a single fang, too I " Then he spoke aloud to Mrs Mantrap. " She has received a severe nervous shock," he- said, calmly: '""I am going to shift hei into my* room.* Will you things ready? " . m "Now," he murmured, when Mrs Mantrap had hurried off, ''this iif.a big dose ol opium for a little girl, but I • daresay she -can stand it." . "»• . Another. tiny syringe^was pressed against the white arm. ' " " .. "That's right. .Now you'll ..go to sleep, and I'll call youi .brother to help carry you out of • this chamber of horrors," " said .the doctor, as the" heavy head fell back on the pillow. At breakfast-time everyone had heard how Miss Chatteris had been, frightened into hysterics during the night^ and was indis» -posed. Sir Geoffrey was greatly distressed. ' Mr Hogg was mildly elated. Had. he not said that. she would be frightened? Sir Charles, wan and worn with his fight for life against death, had a great desire to kick Mr Hogg, but desisted. An hour after breakfast he lit a cigar and walked round to the terrace that ran along the north side of the house under the windows of the ill-fated roflirt.' At the hollow buttress he paused. Then he dropped his handkerchief. As he stooped to pick it up ' again he marked how one of the stones was loosened in its bed. In the dust were footmarks plainly discernible by Sir Charles's keen eye. " The mysterious footsteps have left their impression," said Sir Charles to himself. " The ghest wore dress-pumps, too, ! judging from the width and shallowness of j the^ hsel." ; Than he returned to the house to see his patient. He found her feverish, but recovering rapidly. She was greatly surprised to find herself in Sir Charles's room; also to find a to-bacco-pouch and pipe under her pillow. She had no recollection of the previous night beyond having laiu awake in the I great bed* of the Blue Room, and of having i watched the piercing eyes of the cardinal's portrait till they seemed to have bewitched her. " You hypnotised yourselfl," said Sir Charles. "But, proceed." j A little after one in the morning she had I dc-zed off, but had been awakened by a I slight stinging sensation on the lip. Then j the terror of some unseeD presence in the. j roon? had overcome her, and she could remember no more. j " With this information Sir Charles was j forced to content himself. I He sought his host, who was evidently ■ greatly depressed by the incident. In fact, the manner of his inquiries left no doubt in the mind " of the observant doctor that Sir Geoffrey was deeply in love. " And yet the footmarks on the terrace are just the size of his dress-shoes!" marj veiled Sir Charles. " Never mind, we'll j see to-night ! " i a in. Next night Sir Charles, with a handful of cigars, a riding-whip, and a six-cham- , bered revolver, quietly sought the Blue I Room, and seated himself in the corner to await the ghost of Greylands. One, two, three! The stable clock told the hours. Sir Charles had smoked all the cigars he wanted. He stretched himself on ihe bed and began to doze. The ghost or serpent was evidently not coming to-night, but he would see the affair through. Presently he awoke with a start. There was a faint creaking in the corner of the room. "A rat!" he thought. Nevertheless, his heart began to beat violently, and he reached- out for the revolver that lay handy tj the bedside. Slowly the sliding panel ground back, whilst through the aperture a, white figure crept into the room. "Click!" 'Jhe cocking trigger of Sir Charles's revolver sounded loud in the stillness of the Toom. The figure approached the bed!- / " Sir Geoffrey, by George — a somnambulist ! murmured the doctor under his bieath. A bright gleam of moonlight shone over the floor. As the figure, with outstretched hands and wide-open expressionless eyes, passed ' through the belt of light towards the bed, the doctor saw the gleam of a large jewel on the middle finger of the right hand. As Sir Geoffrey approached the doctor slid cautiously over to the opposite side of the bed, uncocking his revolver, but holding the butt-end ready for a blow. Sir Geoffrey paused at the bedside. His left hand strayed to bhe ring, which he twisted on his- finger till the shining jewel lay inward on,. his -palm. Then he pressed his hand gently upon the pillow, and with a . deep srgh turned towards the open panel. \ _ " A Borgia ring, by Jingo ! "' breathlessly murmured the doctor, as he peered cautiously over the edge of the bed 'after the re-» ceding figure, " and an inherited unconscious tendency to make use. of it." Slipping off his shoes, he waited till Sir Geoffrey had slid back the panel to its former position. In two bounds he was across the room. The panel slid back silently, in time for him to catch a gh'mpse of Sir Geoffrey's figure turning the corner that led to the descending staircase. H« crouched. The somnambulist had paused. Out of the darkness there came a. clink and the sound of a closing drawer, followed by a shuffling ot feet downstairs. A minute or two afterwards a dull thud sounded up the stairs. "He has dropped the stone ! " exclaimed Sir Charles. He ran back to the Blue Room z and, throwing up the window^

watched Sir Geoffrey as he walked slowly along the terrace in the direction of his own apartments. " He has left the ring behind him, and I must get hold of it." In a few minutes Sir Charles came back iv the passage, armed with a chisel and a small saw. After some tapping and probing he discovered a spot where the woodwork gave back a hollow sound. " I suppose I really ought to find the hidden spring; they always do in the story books," he muttered, with a smile. "Anyhow, here goes ! " A few well-directed blows with hammer and chisel rent the wainscot. " Brutal, but efficient ! " murmured the doctor, as he drew forth the shattered I remnant of a secret drawer. ' A gleam of gold showed amongst the j splinters, and wrapping his handkerchief j over his fingers, the doctor cautiously lifted a massive signet ring. His next movement was mysterious. Passing down the hidden staircase, he lifted the massive stone that hid its outlet, and ran swiftly round past the stable-yard. He had noticed that the coachman's little boy kept guinea-pigs. In a few minute's he was back again, with a stolen guinea-pig tied in his handkerchief. Closing the stone gently over the entrance, and wrapping the ring carefully in an old envelope, he crept stealthily back to his room. He locked the door, and carried the guinea-pig into the light of the readinglamp; then, gifting the rjng by its circlet, he pressed it upor- the shoulder of its innocent victim. There was a shudder, a convulsive kick, and -the guinea-pig lay dead upon the table. Through the magnificent sapphire with j which it was set a tiny grooved fang projected. . j " H'm ! " remarked the doctor. "Borgia, after all, knew a bit more than the art of fly-paper poisoning. I don't suppose that Sir Geoffrey, if he only knew of its existence, would object to my stealing this ring for the College of Surgeons. In fact, I am sure he would not, considering that I have exorcised the ghost of Greyknds Abbey, saved the life of the very charming .girl he is going to marry, and have made up my mind to cure him of somnambulism. The rest is my secret." The doctor's prophecy was fulfilled. In a week Miss Chatteris had fully recovered from the mysterious terror of the Blue Room, whilst Sir Geoffrey, proud and bappy, announced his engagement to Miss Maude Chatteris, blissfully ignorant of the veiy existence of the fatal ring, which lay snugly hidden away in Sir Charles Stanton's portmanteau.

— 'The Greenland whale has a heart a yard in 'diameter. —In 1842 a farmer in Russia conceived the idea o£ extracting oil from the 6eed of the sunflower. His neighbours told him it was a visionary idea, and that he would have his labour for his pains. He persevered, however, and from that humble beginning the industry has extended to enormous proportions. To-day more than 7,000,000 acrea of laud in Russia are devoted to the cultivation of the sunflower. Two kinds are grown — one with small seeds, which are crushed for oil, and the other with larger seeds, that are consumed by the poorer people in enormoua quantities.