NOT SO ROMANTIC AFTER ALL.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 18, Issue 12, 8 February 1907, Page 8

NOT SO ROMANTIC AFTER ALL.

"Do you notice how attentively thaJ gentleman has been watching me tor tbe last half hour ?" said one young lady to another at an evening party. " Do you mean that man by the piano?" "Yes." v "Well, now that you speak of it, he does seem somewhat interested in you." "He certainly does. Ido declare," continued the young lady, gaily, " I believe he has fallen in love with me. Isn't it delightfully romantic ?" A few minutes after she was talking with her hostess, when, as an opportunity presented itself, she carelessly remarked : " My dear Mrs. 8., pray tell me who that quiet but very distingue looking gentleman is near the piano. Ido not remember ever seeing him before." / "Probably not," replied the lady; "but he is quite well known. He is a detective." SURVIVED HIS OWN EXECUTION. A man who has attended his own execuion and still survives to relate the details is surely worthy of a short paragraph. The man in question, although at present erving in the humble capacity of waiter in re of the Paris cafes, was, twenty-one .ears ago, one of the historic characters of lie world His name is Colonel Marteras, and in 1 Sf-o, was on the point of being proclaimed I 'resident of Uruguay, when he was arrested, 'barged with treason, and sentenced to be -hot. On Monday, June 30th of that year, he rtas taken by a platoon of soldiers out of the capital to a cleared spot in the heart of a forest and bound to a chair. At the word "Fire!" a nervous shock caused Marteras to fall to the ground. Pie 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 Mai leras both now often tell of the supposed sxecution of the " French Pretender." MY BABES IN THE WOOD. I know a story, fairer, dimmer, sadder, Than any story painted in your books. Youaresoglad ? I will not make you gladder; Yet listen, with your pretty restless looks. "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. You had a baby sister and a brother, Two very dainty people, rosy white, 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 Know how I lost them. Do you understand? Poor snghtly golden heads! I think I 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, Their pictures are—your own, as yon have seen; \nd n:y bird-buried darlings, hidden under leaves—why, it is your dead selves I mean I BACK FROM THE GRAVE I If. a young sergeant in the Ilussai.., nd in one of the numerous night attacks on ie Russian fortifications in the Crimea, he / id the misfortune to receive a dangerous I ullet wound in the region of the heart, hilt! bravely exhorting his men to action. He was immediately stricken to the ground iili insensibility, and a period of perhaps .vo hours elapsed before the ambulance could be procured. During this lime, owing to the piercing east winds '.hat only a Russian can stand with equanimity, the sergeant became perfectly pale and cold. Notwithstanding all precautions, and a lair share ol nursing and attention—for in Ihe 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 ol his regiment. There were numerous 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. ! his man, having dug the trenches, placed ilie lour bodies in a line and proceeded to cover them. He had covered three of them, when a frightful thunderstorm came on, and he was obliged to discontinue his operations for the leaving the remains of the sergeant - posed to the weather, wolves, and other ids, Night came on, and the men all timed into their beds, such as they were, id soon were last asleep. At three o'clock, the shrill cry of the: entry challenging a man might have been I Iti 4.1 on the still night air, and to the usual iery came the answer, " Friend." ' Liking hir. way past the sentry, the man ul lo walk three hundred yards to reach 1 • encampment of his "squad." Calling with a feeble voice outside the leu* oi the sergeant-major, he asked lot a., icis for the night. Aghast with terror tic trembling officer led the man—who was no other than the dead and buried sergeanl -to the colonel's quarters, and having awakened the colonel, he narrated his strange story. Next day the fortunate " non-com." was reinstated as sergeant to his troop once more, and great was the merry-making when the company heard the good news. It appears that about 2 a.m., the discharged some shells near the British encampment, and one of the shells dropping quite close to the burial lines awoke thu sergeant from his trance. Cold, sere, and stiff, but feeling: little the worse iVr his perilous adventure, he rose and made iiis way as quickly as possible to the tents , An examination of the wound elicited the fact that the bullet entered the chest ju-i below the second rib, curved off the edge ol the third, and was found by one m the "clever trio" who pronounced s,;- ,n ui dead, imbedded about half an inch below the surface of the skin. This incident was related by the se. o c.ui! himself to a Home representative.