NOT SO ROMANTIC AFTER ALL.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 24, Issue 19, 11 March 1913, Page 3

NOT SO ROMANTIC AFTER ALL.

11 Do you notice how attentively Ttotleman has beer watching me ft-r tht h-.t hall hour?" said one young lady te another at an evening party. " Do you mean tha’ nan by the piano ?" " Yes.” " Well, now that yos speak of it, he d<vs> seem somewhat interested in you." "He certainly does. Ido declare," ccrjtinned the young lady gaily, " 1 believe !:■<; has fallen in love with le. Isn’t it delightfully romantic ?” ; A lew minutes after the was talking with her hostess, when, as an opportunity pi s seated itself, she carele sly remarked : "My dear Mrs. 8., pray tell me who th; I quiet but very distingm looking genlleni! .1 is near the piano. Ido not remember ev 1 seeing him before ” “Probably not," replied the lady ; "b 1 he is quite v ell known. He is a detective ' SURVIVED HIS OWN EXECUTION. A man whr has attended his own execution and still survives to relate the details is surely worthy of a short paragraph. The man in question, although at presen 1 serving in the humble capacity of waiter in one of the Paris cafes, was, twenty-one years ago, one of the historic characters ol the world. His name is Colonel Marteras, and in 1.V69, was on the point of being proclaimed 1 ’resident of Uruguay, when he was arrested, charged with treason, and sentenced to be shot. On Monday, J une 30th of that year, he was 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. 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 Martera s 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 suppose 3 execution of the "French Pretender.” MY BABES IN THE WOOD. t 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 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 otheid 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—! shall never Knowhow Host them. Do you understand? Poor slightly golden heads I 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'l 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. Tfieir names were—what yours arc. At this you wonder, Their pictures are—your own, as you have seen; Vid my bird-buried darlings, hidden under Cost leaves—why, it is your dead selves 1 mean 1

BACK FROM THE GRAVE. Hu was a young sergeant in the Ilussat_, ind in one of the numerous night attacks on he Russian fortifications in the Crimea, lie ,ad the misfortune to receive a dangerous .diet wound in the region of the heart, Hide bravely exhorting his men to action. Mo was immediately stricken to the ground vilh insensibility, and a period of perhaps iwo hours elapsed before the ambulance could be procured. During this time, owing 10 the piercing east winds that only a 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 Ihe Crimea this department was, very badly managed—he was pronounced the next afternoon by throe medical men to have met with instantaneous death. His body was accordingly handed over to the burial corps of/his regiment. ' There were numerous burials to lake place the same afternoon, so the bodies 0/ 1 he sergeant and three privates were handed over to a big brawny Irishman for burial. '. Ins man, having dug the trenches, placed the four 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 night, leaving the remains of the sergeant posed 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 bad 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 foi quarters for the night. Aghast with terror. ,he trembling officer led the man—who was no other than the dead and buried sergeant -to the colonel’s quarters, and having awakened the colqnel, 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 Russians discharged some shells near the British encampment, and one of the shells dropping quite close to the burial lines awoke the sergeant from his trance, Cold, sore, and stiff, but feeling little the worse for hb 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 chosl jir.i below the second rib, curved off the edge 01 the third, and was found by one of the "clever trio” who pronounced the mai dead, imbedded about half an inch below the surface of the skin. This incident was related by the sergean’ himself to a Horae representative.