Tragic, Very.

Otago Witness, Issue 2501, 19 February 1902, Page 72

Tragic, Very.

She was a fair young creature of some eighteen summers, more or less. She w>re a slightly alarmed look and a brown braided jacket at 18 and 11-3, sale price. She- occupied one corner of a compartment. But she was not alone. Xo ! A beetle-browed ruffian sat in tho farther cornei and glowered darkly upon the hapless girl. He wore a long, black cloak. A slouch hat. And a general air of mystery which would have befitted a sausage factory. By the feeble light of the lamp above, his eyes seemed to shino with a fiendish malignity as he gazed across at hia helpless companion. • Or victim? Ah! The train jp"Hl on into the deepening mist. It would stop no moro until — until it reached Louphborousrh Junction. What tragedy is this? What tale ot horror arc we about to unfold?

Reader, ha\ o patienci ! The black-browed ruffian looked craftily across at the luckless girl from beneath his coal-black lashes. Her eyes fell beneath his piercing gaze. Rapidly, -silently, his long, lean right hand disappeared in the breast of his cloak.

The pirl raised her eyes and ?aw the action Her hair stiffened, her very heart's blood seemed to freeze within her, and she sat in mute horror gazing at the villain with terror-stricken looks.

Ho was feeling for a concealed weopon. TUgrc could be, n& d,<iuhJi M i&»

In another moment all would be over and she a bleeding corpse upon the floor, with this murderer,* this madman, gloating over his handiwork.

Oh, lor the power to think, to pull the communication cord, to scream for the help which must come too late. The assassian removed hit hand, The light glinted upon the burnished metal of his pistol. He raised it deliberately, and Bang The girl sprang quickly into the air with a single ?ry, and then sank back upon the seat. Dead? No. The man had only taken out his brandy-flask and the train had gone over a fog-signal.