The Invisible Witness.

AN UNACCOUNTABLE

Chapter I.

It is ;:ofcas if I could account for it. That in just whas I can t do, ju<t what I h»ve cover b-eu »';>le to nod anybody elae to .to. If I bad been asleep when I had the dream, if any of my dreams had been natural to the life j was lending at the time ; if I had kuowa, or could havo supposed, he was in any such place or circumstances ; or if the seqnel could possibly have been explained aw, y, a3 being less than the hardest, and saddest of hard and sad realities— theu I might expect you to receive my narrative with come Jitstle credence, or at least with some degree of toleration. But, as I have to teli ih<j story without any of these condi tions, I must be content to brave your dis belief, and even, at the worst to endure your f<eorn. I was surgeon on board the " Old Poto mac," when the brave old whaler was chrush ed to splinters between two icebergs in Lancaster Hound, at the latter end of the Bbii : on in ISG -. We had been on the ice

about fifteen weeks, and were, ass nearly as wo could bring our reckoning, within a few miiiw of the northern extremity of the spurs of Cock burn Land. Day-light was a luxury wo did not very largely indulge in ; and when we had auy of it we couid turn it to no good account. Tho destruction of our vessel had been so tmdden, rapid, and complete, that. oar s.nva»;o < f stoiies had been most meagre ; and such sport .13 we were afterwards able to ob am went but a little way towards ekaingoac cur livelihood.

Imagine me, then, dead of night under n pile of furs, aud -sk.m«, at the bottom of a den we had dug out of the frozen matter which aerved us instead of earth ; too colii to sleep, almost too completely stupified to think, uml far to miserable lo speculate on tbn relative chances of my own lif-) or death. All around us was Bilont as tho grave. Nei'.her sough of wind, nor wash of wave, nor c y of wild dog or bird, nor whisper of human creature, broke the utter, death-hkcstillneas iatheruidst of which 1 lay benumbed urn( hopeless, as one may who has been buried alive .and, after his last struggle with ironhanded Fate, calmly waits for tho coming of Doom

\t sucli a time, in such a placo, with such snrrouudings, I s;«v the scene ou which thia s;ory i'nrns.

Fro;>! '.he hiffh meridian centre of a cloud-

less tropical sky. the sue—a monstrous, gldiious, b azmy ball of fire—looked down upon a wnst circular plain of waters, bo bught so burning hut, it might have beun a shield of silver, whke-beated in the furnace. A* my sight ranged far aud wide across this desert of Qua and sky, its nKignificeufc aad horriblo monotony was unrelieved by wing or waif, or weed, by mist, or spray, or sh-dow, l>y ripple, breath or shimmer. Only the ficnv, merciless flood of .scalding light boat down upon the helpless, inimoveabie flood below. All the rest was death : more awful in its dread intensity than the silent, lifeless terror of the Arctic night in which my spirit vision mutely gszed upon its paradox, ! remember openiug widu my heavy eyes : upon the darkness : I remember ahsolutoly ii;< Ha.' the darkness with my eye 3 groping in it with my sightless balls ; yet, rrhile neither ray nor beam relieved the blackness, gi/.ing still upon the frightful brightness of that picture which fcas more real .to me than all thV. wa■! present around me. There was a fascination in tho far-ofF painted picture of the blazing tropics aud I strove, and wrestled in vain to break the spell. I closed my eyta, clenched my eyelids with a force of desperate strength that seemed to scorch them as they pressed upon tho iiery scene I would fain'destroy. I started upright in my bed, a?id thrust my eyelids down upon the burning pupils, but all in vain. Brighter, hotter, more desolate, more frightfully horrible, grew the dread panorama of my waking dream. While I shivered with tins freezing cold, and icy limbs trembled with the palsy of a mysterious terror, this picture seemed to burn its way through my vision into my very soul : as one may faintly fancy red-hot irons win their way through the eyeball* of tho doomed, when tyrants make martyrs.

For an instant my sight died ont, and all before, about, around, within me wis but as one dense ball of blindnoss. Only for an instant. Tho darkness dwindled to a speck, and all around it, like the glittering setting of v dusky jewel, grew out again the picture of that southern ocoan with its glowing v.-iMorn'.'s 1! ofj lazing Bunlights.

Yet there was bonie respite in tins, for I fixed my gaze upon the speck of darkness, and found relief in watching its diminished size, as it dwindled slowly down and camo to be an <■'. pin's point- only in the wide expanse of firtj. Suddenly, when if; should have died out, end mingled in iho silver 3ea, it stayed, took form, and moved along the surface of the placed, growing waves. As I watched, and traced it in its progress, ifc becemo a boat : a lonely castaway of hollowed timber, floating rudderless, oarless, unguided through the desert of flame.

It seemed to me as if the scene came nearer, growing, as it oame. The speck-boat «rcw, till I could trace its opaquo outlino"on the glistening waters, and could see that it ■wao painted white—its whito paint looking black iv contrast with the purer day-stream that encompossed it. Even in my fancy clream I smiled at the half-grotesoue reality which forced itself upon mo when I read, in painted letters on its side, the words— "Barkey, Shielda." But, strangoly, I perceived that as the black speck had left the horizon and become a boat, so now it left the outline of the boar, and settled in the Bfcern-sheets, with the border of the boat's white timber:j as a, frame around it Then it slowly rose above the side, and again took form and shape and character.

The form and shaps and character of a huge, black, human face. Its akin was dark aa ebony ; its features gross and full of marks of vice ; ifca eyes were large, ami liery as the smu that beat upon its woolly head, and ita grand expression, Ha it came so c!op° —•*•:_ my_v»w tlut I SK- , raco j fi VBr y\Yp7rate lmCAttcot, "SPSS all a demon could have asked of a savage, treacherous beauty, for test of lungehip Jn the world of Hell.

The figure rose and stretched itself along the boat. 1 It stooped, then rose again, lifting another figure—the form of a white man, slight, thin, emaciated -as helpless in his stalwart arms as a moth in the grasp of a Titan.

I saw tho negro grasp th<=> whi^e rmin'a slender throat in his cruel ringers, I saw him, wish the other hand, strike to the whits man's heart with a long, sp*re, glittering knife; then draw forth the knife reeking with blood, and drop it into the waves.. I saw him strip the dead man's body of its rini<3 and watch and purse. And then I saw him lifs the body in hi 3 arms, Btark and gory as his hand hai made io, and fling it into the silver-shining sea

And, as the water closed and partod once to let the white man's face turn upwards to the blazing suulight, thst face was turned to mine, and I knew it for—My Own Brother ! Chapter II 1 Well, doctor,' paid the sk'pner, ' you've con-trived to give us a start "Ome !' This was said iv the still-ibifh; g da^knsaa of our icy diggings, up on the shores of Cock burn Land. Tho skipper was hard-akinoed, long-headed, dry-spoke i man, who hailed from Portland, Maine. He seldom said muc'a and I doubt whether he ever thought, much But what he did say was generally pointel, and considered by his crew conclusive ; and what he did think was as hard and dry as

New England itaelf. Ho and the rest had been routed in the middle of tho long, black, Arctic ni;j;ht by the cry of horror I h/id uttered as my brother's face appeared co mo and faded away, in the) vision I have tried to describe. In tho excitement of my early recovery from a swoon or trance with which I foil, I had told the story as well as I eouid to the skipper, in the hearing of several of our ship's company. Tquh is wa3 that, when I had recovered from tho first effects of my extraordinary experience, he began an address to me in tho words —

' Well, doctor, you've con-trived to give us ast^rt some !'

I made rucu apologies as occurred to me, in the besb way I could ; but, long before I tinished, 1 saw the skippar would not be content without a fairly protracted catecheti cal examination of the deliniquent, aa liin mmner whs iv all cases of innovation upon or disturbance of the established usages of his small community. I was not, therefore, surprised when ho went oa to aay—

'When yew shipped with m- at Portland, doctor, yewr con.icienc>..- didn'tfspiing auny way to tell ma there waa madness iv yewr fam'ly to hum ':'

Tbia wat) his key notj, and ho s;uo c t i'r, according to bin habit. When the skipoer, ar.er serious deliberation, hit upon an i i-;a, he clung to that idea for ail time. Oa this occasion, tho result of his cogitations was that 1 had developed symptoms of madness, and I am bound to say that, while the major ity of our small company huld the Harms opinion, I was myself unable to give aay such account of mj- waking dream as c^ulit possibly restore their faith iv my sanity. My only dufcuca was which I shall t'ive to you During live lona weary mouths of the arMc winter we remained prisoners ; and during that time, while all my comrades regarded me with undisguised suspicion, some openly ridiculing my belief in what I had seen, au-1 others endeavouring to argue with nic on the folly of what; they naturally regarded as the hallucination of a diseased brain, I had no answer to their gibes or their reasons, or to my own half-increduious mind, bub thii which follows : —

My brother .Tack aud I had bein, from our earliest childhood, the best and closest of friends. We were the only children of our parents, Jack being my senior by about two years. Our mother died in giving birth to me, and our father, who had become first mate iv an fi'ast Indiaman, was lost ia a squall oil tho CLipe, nine years afterwards. Jack went to at« when he was fourteen years of nge, and I bej;au life as a doctor's boy. In cour3e of lime, my master took mo as an apprentice, and so well did he discharge hia dv.ty to me, that before I had reached my twenty-fifth year I had passed ray examination, and taken my diploma as a member of the Col lege of Surgeons. By that time I had seem Jack frequently ; and hia manly, healthy condition, combiaod with his glowing accouuts of the delights of lifo at ao;», had confirmed ruy inclination to tako to the eea. As soon, therefore, as 1 could sccuro my liberty, I obtained an appointment; on board a Liverpool ship, aud sailed an surgeon to tho South t;eas. Miny changes followed. I passed from one vessel to another, and no did Jack ; until at length 1 joined tha ' Old Potomac,' aa Ijhave said, and went norlh ward, while Jack, as far aa I could judge from hia last letter, was sailing iv tao Mediterranean trade, between tha Bos phorus and Mersoy.

But, long before this, events had occurved which powerfully induced me to look upon such visions as that which visited me in the Polar Sea with more seriousness than tho reader would be disposed to indulge. Two of these events I will record as briefly as I can.

About six months before Jack first set out uponjjhis life of adventure and hardship, I awoke one night from a deep sleep, with a sense of anxiety almost akin to terror. As 30on as I became perfectly conscious, this strange feeling took the form of faar for my brother's safety. Jack and I slept in adjoin ing rooms. I sprang out of bed. and, With great difficulty, contrived to light my candle and hurry to Jack's bed-side. I was trembling violently, and so vivid was my an prehension of evil that for a second or more I was unable to summon courage to look at him When I did look he wm Bleeping calmly with his right arm lying high abovl his head, and on his face a smile which suffi ciently rebuked my f oars and teut me back glad and silent to my chamber. But I could not rest To and fro I tossed, imagining all kinds of horrible possibilities, till bed became intolerable to me, and dresaing hastily and creepiog out by the back door,' just as dr-y waa breaking I dashed off into the field* A long ramble iv the meadows aad a dip inco onr favorite brook, restored my spirits, and by the titno I reached home I" succeeded in laughing off my midnight terrors. Bat Jack did not presnnfc himself at breakfast that morning, and when onr kind-hearted foster

mother went to call him, she found him in the first stage of typhuss fever.

You may laugh at this instance, or you may reason with yourselves that the coinci dence was fanciful. But wait.

When Jaok came home from his second voyage, instead of making first for our house, he went about to several other places, en quiring iv an idireco and nervous fashion a* to whether anything waa known about; me. Wheu this came to my knowledge a day or r.wo afterwards, I, thinking there was some joke iv it, laughingly asked him what it meant. Jack looked inora serious than I thought necessary ; and then he fetched his ' lot;,' as he called it, and gave it me to read. This 'log' waa a book iv which he had put down from time to time notes of such mattors as he had beun interestered iv during iiis absence : and when I came to a date about r,welve months before his return, I found these words : ' Port Phillip, Australia : - Ctme to anchor at six bells. Been miserable all day, fancying that something was wrong with Brother Joe.' A3 1 read on I found vote after note expressing h's fear that some t.hiug serious had happened to me on that day when his ship arrived at Port Phillip. And «.vhen I compared the date with one I had too much ciuse to remoinber, I found *diat the very time when JacK had been ho wretched about mo was the time when I hid got out of my depsh in the river, and all but drowned, was dragged ashore more dead than alive, Now, two or three such coincidences as these, would, I fancy, be likely to make an impression oa le.-js impressible natures than mine ; and, though I could meatiou others of the same kind, perhaps I have said enough to satisfy you that I had some reason far aUschiug more importance to that hor rible wakinsj dream about Jack and the murdering nigger than would seem natural to other people. That, however, was not she effect of my explanations upon my fellow castaways in the icy desert.

If it wore'any part of my present de?!«n to tell the story of our sufferings in that pitiless region, there would bu no lack of incident wherewith to horrify the reader. 1 could tell such tfile-i of misery, privation, and death, upon those plains of frosen sea as would chill ►he blood ; but my business is to follow out this strange history, which remains as incom prehensible to mo to-day, as when it became part of my experience of thut perpetual miracle which we call Lifo Let me, then, pimply niy that Lite in the Spring of 'SG—, nearly nine months afner the ' Old Potomac,' met her doom in Lancaster Wound, the few miserable nurvivorn of her c^ew were rescued liv -i Yankee whaler, and carried hoaie to M u'ne ; and thus hasten on to the next stage of my tale.

Chapter TIT. At Portland, I found a letter, oao solitary lef^er, awaiting mo Men talk of^en and glibly, fiorn<v; mps upon p'ighfc occasion, of loneliness The lot of an Alexander Selkirk mwai he h^rd, if I may judge from the comparative solitude of our small community upon fcho ico The condition of a friendless wanderer in n crowded city is only lais desolate becanse there is much around him to distraci lub attention from himself But ah lca-t one of the saddest revelatious possible to a human being is that whicn breaks upon him when, afrer months or years of absence,

I rif:er toil and peri!, he returns to the place | whence h* first, set out, and finds that, of all j the millions upon earth, only one fellow creature has thought of him, that one but onel, and that ' once' long a^o. It was with j some such thought as this that T opened mv ! letter. It war in Jack's handwritiug ; and it W.14 ditod just a week later than the d;<.y on which I had set sail in the ' Old Potomac ' The first momentary inclination to vent my disapmiutment oa my brother's neglig^nc^ jor want of care for me, gp.ve place before I I hid read a word of tho content*, to a pang of self repro-tcl!. Was it possible, I asked myself, that Jack—truost of men aud most f.ii hful of fri^ndti—oou'.d ever hive forgor.ton mo? My heart answered for him. Only if Jack had beeu Dr>vond the power to seek or send no me would he have f lied. Might not h^ also have cauao to think himself neglected, abandoned, and by me ? For how could ho have known that I had been locked up and helpless in the region of eternal winter all the3o months ? The last thought brought back the memory of my fearful vision, which the sight of Jack's welcome scrawl bad for the moment banished troin ray mind, and I hastened to read ihe contents of hia letter. The creator part was a record of what had interested him ir. bis last voyage, written (for Jack cr.uld ucver ba persuaded that any from of composition was equal in beauty and completeness to that of which the model is tho fihip's log) at intervals during lvs travels. Ona day he had fished up a young sea-horse, measurement seven inches by throe quarters of an inch, and a full pen-and-ink portrait of the interesting little beast was sat down in hia letter to 'old Joe ;' another day there wa3 Jack's testimony, a<3 au eyevv-itness, to the fact, thai; when Vesuvius vomits, a shower of blackened ashes falls thick and silent on the waves of the bay, and the decks of tbe ships that ride there ; aud anon, hia sage opinion that the man who described St. Paul's shipwreck, on the Island of Mrlta, must have been on the spot Poor Jack !He was always surprised when his own experience confirmed what he had read in books, and always auxioii3 <;o convince a world which had never been half so sceptical aa himself. At length I came to the postscript, and as it will beat explain ihe influence of Jack's letter on my mind, I will transcribo it here : - . '^'S ;— We^r old boy— l've been a long time sick of this Mediterranean business. Going always back and forward between Liverpool and Smyrna, between Lisbon and Alexandria; seems like being ever'as'iugly j in a ship that's tacking first to port ;>.ud then to starboard, and never making way. l-o I've left the old boat, aud I start to-morrow as first mate of the finest little clipper I've seen for many a day for the Spanish Main, round to Lima, and perhaps a longer cruiso, and back to Liverpool. So mayba you won't see me soon ; buh be sura I shan't forges to 1 write, either to Portland or to the old shop, j which I shall consider headquarters for boh i of us till we meet; once more.' _ '

My fca'S -such feats as I could nob have confessed to any mortal being—had gradually

dwindled away and disappeared in the pleasure with which I read the letter, down to the poat-script. ' Confound the follow !' I said to myself; • why don't he give the name of the he's sailing in ? How am I to trace him wheu I get one of my fits of nervousness ? No use in getting hold of a shipping list, when I don't know the ship I'm looking for. Io was high noon on an autumn day, and I had settled down on a barrel of salt-fish on the quay at Portland, sheltered from the sun by a small mountain of oil-casks, piled there ready for shipment. I fell into a reverie, with Jack's letter in my hand. A whole history of things that had been, or might bj, or n^ver could ba, passed though my mind, as if I had been in a dream. Perhaps I was in a dream ; to this day I dont'c know whether I was or not but I do know that, slowly and surely and vividly, I seemed to be once more in the ice-cave of Cockburn . Land, chilled to the very heart with the poUr cold; that steadily and painfully, there grew into my eyeballs the furnace-glare of the tropic sun, the hot silver sheen of the southern tea, and the black speck-boat lying idly on the wave, with the two words boldly painted on her whitened side—' Barkey, ,Stnei<is.' I started trembling to my feet, but laughed at my folly, as I realized that; I was alono in a familiar place, with common place surroundings, and Jack's letter still in my baud.

Well, I must get on, or you will think me a prosy, egotistcil bore.

Two things were clear. There was no later letter from Jack than the letter 1 had read ; ani he had given me no clue to the vessel he had sailed in. Two things were proWle. If he had been alive and well, I should have found a iater letter from him, after co long an interval ; and, although 1 hesitated much and long, before granting so much to my superstitious heart, the time when I saw that horrible vision was juut about the period when Jack would have been moss likely to be crossing the tropics on his return from South America. One thing was most certain of all, that my best chance of obtaining news of my brother would be by getting uack to Liverpool, The owners of the ' Old Potomac' weie generous. They paid me all I had a right to demand for my services during the voyage, and, upon the skipper's repott that the skill and care I had been able to exercise, had saved some lives during our awful imDrison msnt afcer the wreck, presented me with an acknowledgement; which made my circams;ance3 more than er^sy. I went to Boston, aud (iading no chance of working my passage aa a doocor, took a berth as pas senger in a Gunard liner, to Liverpool. J-. was afternoon on the day after my lauding, when I plucked up courage to encer on my search. Most of my letters and mem oranda h-.d gone with my cheso and the good old whaler to oblivion under the icebergs, and though I knew tha name of the vessel in which Jack had formerly sailed, I could not remember the names of the owners. So, by way of trying to find a clue, I set off to the Sailor's Home, and, making my way through a crowd of seamen, touts, crimps, shoeblacks., and hawkers, who thronged about the doors, contriver! at last to get speech with thu superintendent Ha ■w&s a stout man, of middle age, middle- height, a speckled face, a dreauay mamiyr, but most obliging disposition. When he had heard the particulars of my search, he went into an office and left me alone. Presently ho returned and said the vessel in question be lonsred to Greoch and Rowlo3ki, of the Goree Piazzis. Upon my asking the way, he volunteered to ba my guide, casually remark ing that he had ten miautos to spare. Less than that timo eufficed to bring us to the dingy chambers in which the firm didbusiness, aid to sea us out again, under the shadow of the dirty piazzas, with no further gain than the knowledge that Messrs. Greeeh and Row- Icwiak, having betn incauß^d at Jack's leaving them, knew nothing of his subsequent proceedings. This was so little to my t-iste that 1 should most certainly have made myself disagreeable, had not the superintend ent, Mr. Duvfy, prudently cajoled me out; of the office and beguiled me into a back parlor in James-straet, where my passion cooled and his sympathy expanded.

' What did you say your name was ?' sail Mr. Durfy." ' Wafierton,' said I. 1 Ah ! and your brother's name was ? 'Jack - tnafe is, John, of course.' ' Ho didn't go first mate under Greech's firm ?' ' No.' The supariatendent relapsed. Daring his silence he nervously pulled every button of his waistcoat, dr.ink his ruin and water spasmodically, aud seemed fco be working out a problem. Then he said, ' Come along ! we'll find him !' and led the way into the streeb.

What foolish hope I had begun to build on this assurance was extinguished by the words he spoke, aa taking my arm, he hastened back to the Sailor's Home.

' I. remember him well enough, Mr. Water ton,' he began. He and I spent half-an-hour iv that very room the day he sailed. Ke was sitting ia the very same place you sat just now. He was one of the jolliest young fellows I ever saw. Poor chap !' As I live there was a shake in Durfy'a voice, and a tear in his eye, when he said this, and with some impatience I asked him what he meat. To which his reply was— ' Oh, nothing yet.' 'Can'tyou recollect what ship ha was to sail in for the main and tho West Coast ?' said 1.

' Wait a bit,' he answered tetchiJv, as I thought. We returned to the Home, and a few minutes later he brought a book from the office ami said : 'I'vefound him. He sailed in the month of -April last year—]"ast seventeen months and nineteen days a.«o -as lirst mate, and half the crew were taken from this Home. The captnin's name was ' 1 Never mind the captain, Mr. Durfy,' said I. ' What was the ship ?' ' Oh, the ship ! It was n tight little clipper — the 'B.irkv, 'belonging to the Shields.' What more he might h&ve said I don't kiiow, for I staggered backward as if he had

struck me with a marlin' spike, and t J nothing of what passed for asm iO3 ?jj] mi^ht have been mea<mred-by hours," TPij I came to myself, the kind hearted su , tendenfc was bathing my head. I hidfoM on the stones and got a acaip wound w first; conscious words were . ' J

' Barkey, Shields ' 1 Ah, poor lad ! said Darfy. <Th On knew all about it ?' ca ft

'About what?' I asked him. ' About her going down in tag huH« with all hands. c Urn°J-

•'No, noc with all hands,' I sa i(j a . vision rising hazily before my mm j ' f0- Then he told me how theclipn er'w in the Trades, on her voyage home ia Dw ber ; how a gale had come on in that toy a lew hours afterwards, how she and art other gallant ships known to have been S Bame quarter must have foundered { word of them had ever again been heard " ' *nd it's nine months since, now mv'hn -a great deal too long for hope,' ho a "dd?i by way of clinching my despair. Chapter IV. If all hope of ever seeing my uJ again in this world had not been t -1 extiaguished by this apparently mj r , -'] confirmation of my tragic, visioa it. have died out slowly aad surely u U( j ct ffl; 1 perpetual failure of all my efforts t ' further trace of Jack's ill-fated ship o .° more natural proof of his murder tLu had been foully slaia, by a negro, in ar boat, out on the desert ocean, I had no lo? aay doubt. Not that I had any further! position or temptation to think of mv if r.bte vision either as tbe dream of Ll easy sleeper or the hallucination of a if naught brain. So perfectly convi'^ was I that I had myself, by some ear human agency, been the invisible *tt of the ghastly deed, that, could I t been confronted with tb.B murderer should hare sworn to his ideality and'*l circumstantial detuus of the crime- e~ though i knew my oath would hare «• signed me instantly to a madhouse, andct never for a moment have been taken" evidence against the wretch whose ha 1 had seen steeped in my brother's bloj .Nevertheless, from that day forwsrf lived only for the prosecution of a m that was to me as sacred as was the k» for the o oly Grail in the eyes of Art! aad his knights. Knowing that I jjft should look upon poor Jack again oaeitlj my one remaining business was to disara the villian who had done him to death. Owners, agents, underwriters, relative had all relinquished; the search before took it up. Inquiries at home and abroa had failed to briag the poorest waif news of the ' Karkey.' Fragments wreck were washed asuure on many ana and distant coast ; msssagea' that « from the dead— rnessa^ee sealed in boPi and cast afloat in ths last hours of drowri; raanners, aud treated tenderly by the mi less waves that had engulfed the bn hearts that sea!; them ; starved akelete men were picked up here and there np ths ocean, and saved from Hng3rin» deati buc neither bacnered wreck, nor faH; Mask, nor castaway survivor brought t tidings of the ship iii which poor Jack 1 made hi 3 fiaal! voyage. Others, who 1 los: fathers, sons, and brothers by same catastrophe, sympathized awhile my passionate feverish quest; thee ih their heads and whispered among thermit with some pity aad perhaps more Boom, t: my loss had turned my brain.

Thus passed, in cc-aseles3 motion tormenting thought, four long, exhans! years. But noi; entirely without fruit.. fore the third of those years expired, circumstance occurred from which my fs

in my mission wouid have grille confirmatioa stronger than miracles c give, and my p:>ssijn for vengeance t dying ardour, irvl either for an ins-3 flagged. Walking oao day through *j row and buay scrtefa near iho Battery G den, iv New Yo.-k, Bora-i pas3ing faUj me to pause in front of a jeweller's si Thera were triakeos of ail varieties, i aad new, quaint, zare, and comtaoajili: poor and valuable, timepiecas, optical; trutuenty, coins and notes of many natis extant ani byegoao; for the oraer f ono of thosg fishermen who reject t little that enters the net. Suddenly,' eyo alighted on an object so strange, ii so familiar, that I started, as one wios a spectre. It was an old-fashioned 38 with a curiously wrought silver case, t an ingeniously contrived dial, dtesii through one section tho mechanism witf and upon the ether an illuminated pi* of some Dutch market place, with a cto tower in which a tiny clock-faofl mark the hours, the longer hand of the stf sweeping over all to tell she minnfces. Ij well I remembsred hoy/ my father had li; us that his father had received it as a p from some rich Hollander, in acknowlefe ment of good service rendered mow £* forty years before; and, how, before? father was lost, he had given it to bidding him bear in mind each tifffil lookad upon it that ii; became him toi^ iv hia grandsire'e honest ways. _ Scarcely had this recogniiion fi^ through my mind, before I bad entewi' store. Fortunately the jeweller m 1 gaged with another customer, so tb had time to eoUect my thoughts. &J? of my effert3 to assume a compost could not feel, it waa evident tbtf " tradesmen, as soon as ho turned to sf mo, regarded me with some snsp^ However, at my request, he produced! watch and named its price. Ji' You price it hiph'y.' I observed, , 'Well/ said he, with that nasalj 8 which never fails to be emphatic, '^V 1 bub the man that gets thaft timo-p^oß' value it more as a curiosity, I guess, the number of dollars he pays for it' .;, I held the watch in one" hand, 531 4 have dona a wild birr), fearing i* escape me, while ho counted out ftaS*' backs with the other. , ■- ' Will you give ma a memorana^ certify fchafe I bought this watch'^ stating the date, and signing your W^ liepaueed a moment-, and then fif ' Guess, yon've taken a start oui * this trip, sir !' ' How so ?'

EVENING STAR TT^yOYEMBEII 25, 1876.