CHASED BY A LION.-"MY RIGHT HAND HELD THE RIFLE ABOVE MY HEAD IN A LAST WILD INSTINCT OF SELF-PRESERVATION.". -SEE PAGE 527. Vol. I., No. 5-34 The lion-the largest I had ever seen-bounded across the path, and plunged into a thicket not more than a hundred yards in advance of me. I rode up and dismounted from my horse. Peering into the thicket, I could dimly see his immense form crouched among the dried grass and weeds. I fired, and he fell so instantaneously, without a single groan, that I supposed I had struck him to the very heart. I reloaded my rifle, got on my horse, described a halfcircle, raised myself in my stirrups, and took a closer view of my victim. A single glance sent the blood in a torrent to my heart-I had missed him! There he lay, crouched upon the ground; no sign of life except in the upturned ears that quivered slowly, and the terrible fire of his eyes fastened menacingly upon me. I was quite near him; in front of me was an immense ant hill; I counted the chances of being able to reach that elevation, and spurred my horse closer to him to take a surer aim. Suddenly, with a frightful roar, the lion sprang up, made a bound forward; my horse leaped back, and darted off with the speed of the wind. But just as he flew the infuriated beast followed still faster. But, forward in the saddle, with my spurs buried in my horse's flanks, I looked back. On dashed the lion, making two bounds to one of my faithful steed-a frightful chase, a repetition of which no man could desire. Could I turn in the saddle and fire while my horse was galloping at such a fearful pace? Doubtful as was the chance—I must say it—a few more of those terrible leaps, and the creature would be upon me! To take aim was impossible. I was crouching forward on the horse's neck upon my left side; my right hand held the rifle above my head in a last wild instinct of self-preservation. Another sullen roar-a still wilder leap-and the lion passed, one paw striking my shoulder with such force that I nearly fell to the ground. But, as he sprang, my horse bounded to the left with a force which sent our pursuer rolling over upon the ground. Before he could rise I had reached the hill, managed to dismount, and fired with an aim which it seemed to me must have been directed by some good angel. I broke the left paw of the brute just at the joint. He darted aside and made for the thicket, roaring till the very air shook, and even my trained and courageous horse trembled in every limb, though through all his fright he obeyed my slightest word or signal. At that moment the rest of the party rode up; they had followed me, and the sound of my rifle had warned them of my adventure. I could not think of danger now; the hunter instinct was at its height. I could only remember that my prey might escape. The men surrounded the thicket. I rode wildly over the trampled bushes across which he had taken flight. I saw him again cowering for another spring, while he yelled with rage and pain. I had snatched a gun from somebody's hand. I fired once more, and a deeper groan told with what success. Again the trusty bullet hissed out; the gigantic animal rolled over upon his back; there was a last roar, a fierce struggle, then he lay quite still. When we came to examine the carcass we found that it was an old lion, very fat, and enormous in size, his great yellow claws worn, broken, and reduced to four upon the forward paw. As we rode back to camp, and I received the congratulations and praise of my companions, I felt no thrill of exultation—nothing but a deep sense of thankfulness at having escaped that horrible peril. Even to this day, when I look | at the glossy skin which lies in my library, and which my children regard with such pride, I only wonder at the daring spirit which could have made me brave such hardships and dangers in that far-off land. THE FAMILY SECRET. HAT'S all, sir. But I-I'll never forget the way in which you've heard my story, father," his rough voice a little unsteady. "No, Dick. Come, now, let's drink Miss Nelly's health. You want to be off, I know. I thought the young dog never looked so handsome as he did that moment, pulling his brown beard, blushing and stammering like a girl. "You will come over and spend Christmas week with them, father ?" as I uncorked the wine. "Yes, Dick. Here's to Nelly's blue eyes, and luck to and yourself, boy. I'll write a note to Solmes to-morrow, come over on Tuesday." Dick left me with my wine and cigars a few moments later. I got up and sauntered to the window to watch him mount and gallop out of the yard. It was snowing heavily, a thick gray sky promising a very long continuance of falling weather; a cold, crisp air blowing; just the right weather for the time; for a sloppy warm Christmas wrongs me personally. I was glad Dick had made up his mind to marry, though it moved me more than he knew; he had been my sole companion so long. But he needed a woman's influence in his life now. I had done what I could since he was three years old; I had tried to be watchful, gentle, with the boy; to catch glimpses of the woman's side of his nature, as she would have done who was gone. The effort had kept me young, whatever other effect it might have had-given a different position to both than that usually held by father and son-made me more of his friend than his mentor. It may have lessened his respect for me, perhaps; I do not know. Well, I was glad Dick was going to marry. I had amassed a tolerably heavy surplus at my banker's during the later years of my practice-enough for us all to have a solid foothold. Then the farm needed attention. I was no practical agriculturist; Dick was. If he married, he would settle down in earnest, and give Jim Tiernes and the clubhouse the go-by. Then I glanced about the room, with its handsome, ill-kept furniture, and pictured the change which neat little Nelly Solmes would make in a day or two, with her bright, keen eyes, and arbitrary ways. I liked my son's choice. If Nelly's pretty head was set with a dogmatic turn on her shoulders, she had a kind, honest heart, and sound common sense beneath all. Her father, Cyrus Solmes, had been a college chum of mine—but while I had turned in to hard work as a country doctor, Solmes had gone into business, made a snug little fortune, married late in life, and came back to the old homestead, about a year before my story commences, with his wife and their only child, Nelly. I had no fears about Dick's success. The girl liked him; Solmes and I had a real cordial friendship and trust in each other; and, as for outside matters, the properties would dove-tail well together, and the families ranked alike. On the following Tuesday with my carpet-bag, I started out for Solmes's. The snow had fallen steadily and lay nearly two feet deep, with a glittering crust upon it, on the broad stretch of hills which the road skirted, and piled in They were superinduced by some violent mental excitement; of that, as a physician, I had no doubt. Yet what trouble ever came into her life? Dick's face, as he stood leaning against the mantel-shelf, was graver than I had ever known it. I began, from that moment, to understand how the boy had taken this matter to heart, and no one can know how deeply it touched me At this juncture of my musings, the little lady's flushed, that, in this crisis of his life, he came to me with his conjolly face appeared at the upper window of the house, which | fidence. I had now reached. She nodded, laughed, waved her handkerchief, and disap- not refuse you?" peared, to turn back and nod again. She had three realities in her life-her husband, Nelly, and the pantry-out of which there came comfort and warmth enough to lighten the whole world to her. But she had these curious attacks notwithstanding, and they puzzled me more than I liked to say. "What is it, boy?" I demanded, impatiently. "She did "Nellie loves me, father, but she says she never can marry. Some obstacle, with which her father and you have something to do. The poor little thing sobbed so that I could make nothing out of it. She hinted something about family honor-our family" "Eh? What? That is a matter for Solmes and me, boy. The Caldwells never were rich, but they've something else to be proud of.” "You are angry without cause, father. "It may be that you mistook maidenly shyness for something deeper, that The old Solmes' homestead was a roughly built large dwelling of stone, covering an irregular space of ground, in the middle of apple and plum orchards, one wing after another having been added as necessity might require, without much consideration for order or effect. The oldest part of the building, used as a store-house, had fallen, "No," decisively. "I've flirted with too many women under Mrs. Solmes's orderly rule, into a receptacle for Winter not to understand them. Nelly is free from any such tricks provisions, into which no one but herself ever penetrated. or turns. She is downright and earnest in her least word. It was from one of the dormer-windows of this wing she There is some actual impediment in the way. She would looked now. The whole establishment looked like its mis-only wring her hands and say she dared not speak, that she tress, I fancied-low, large, squat, and glowing with hospitality. The very open door, the great fires blazing inside, the solid barns in the background, and the fat-sided cows in their paddocks knew it was Christmas time, and were glad of it. Solmes was out on the steps, rubbing his hands, waiting to help me to alight, his face, between the wind and excitement, in a red heat to the very tip of his hook-nose. Solmes had worked all the flesh off his bones in the first part of his life; but I think he meant to collect and enjoy to the uttermost, in the few years left to him, all the fun and comfort he had lost, and I never knew a man with a broader or heartier capacity for enjoyment; there was not a twinkle of his gray eye which did not betray it. Dick and Nelly were in the background, watching the arrival. So, matters were going on smoothly in that direction, I concluded. However, I had no chance to ascertain from Dick what progress he had made, until I had gone to my own room for the night, when he tapped at my door and came in. Solmes himself had just left me; had brought in a jug of excellent punch, "in case I felt thirsty during the night." The old fellow seemed to rejoice like a boy at having his old chụm under his roof, so that his hospitality knew not how to express itself. "We'll have no other guests this Christmas," he said, "so that we can take our time in going over the old stories. So we sat long over our wine, and longer over coffee, telling old jokes, and tracing up the fate of the "boys," grayheaded as ourselves now, or dead. Solmes heard Dick coming along the hall. "There's your boy, Caldwell," he said. "He's a thorough chip of the old block. My heart warms to that fellow as if he were a son of my own. A pity you never had a boy, Cyrus," I said, drawing off my boots. "Nelly is the best of daughters, I know; but a never could marry.' "I'll talk to Solmes in the morning, Dick; 'family honor' is his business and mine, if it has come to that." "It might be as well, sir.” The young fellow was pacing the floor, with his head down. I waited awhile. "What is it, Dick? Is there anything more to trouble you ?" "There's no story to tell," almost gruffly, buttoning his coat. "I'm sorry I spoke of it. I've been annoyed every night since I came, by a dream-we'll call it a dream, for want of a better name, but it is as horrible a reality as I ever wish to meet." You 'The same every night, Dick ?" taking his wrists, and laying my fingers on his pulse. “Cool enough. Stomach all right. It is the result of the day's excitement, then.” "Perhaps," dubiously. "Well, I'll go take a walk in the snow before I go to my room. Don't laugh at me. know I'm not usually addicted to fancies like that.' “No, Richard. It is easily accounted for. What shape does your visitor assume, by the way ?” "That of a face-the long, lantern-jawed face of a young man, with blue eyes, and thin, gray hair. Gray !" Gray-but the face is young, as I said, with a cold, malignant leer on it. The dream, if it be one, comes just as I waken-the face appearing sometimes in a dark corner, sometimes gibbering between the curtains, once close over I was not a superstitious man; yet, on the contrary, was too much accustomed to the discoveries of unsolved mysteries in physiology to condemn any vulgar beliefs because they were vulgar. If Rivers Solmes chose to appear as a ghost, why should he not? What law of nature was there to say him nay? So, feebly wandering from Dick's dream to his affair with Nelly, I fell asleep — thinking, however, what an unlikely thing this house, with its present inmates, was for ghosts to operate in. the ancient hangings, nor portrait with unfathomable eyes en règle in ghost appearances. It was a square, newly furIt was a square, newly furnished chamber, with French bedstead, wardrobe, etc., shining with fresh varnish; a glowing fire burned in the grate, lit up the brass fender, the crimson carpet, the grayish walls, to a point outside of all mystery. There wasn't a shadow large enough for a ghost to hang his hat on. So, drawing my nose quite underneath the blankets, I slept soundly. do not know how long-long enough for the fire to burn into red embers, giving a sickly flush, now and then, but failing to warm the cold air in the room, leaving it to be lighted, too, by the chilly pallor of the Winter moonlight, which came in through unshuttered windows. I awoke with a start, feeling as if a cold hand had been laid on my face; it may have been the air, though, for the night was freezing. I sat up, feeling an oppression upon my chest, and looked about the room with that vague swerving of the brain of which one is conscious on being roughly awakened. The window was square, and the patch of bluish white lay in the centre of the room; outside of that was darkness, in which I could dimly trace the outlined furniture. Beyond the window I could see the opaque-blue Winter's sky, with Orion's belt full in view. I gathered up the quilt over my shoulders preparatory to another nap, when something to this day I don't know what made me pause with a sudden intangible dread; shook me, as I might say, thoroughly awake. It might have been a singular flicker in the moonlight, or a stir in the air as of some one breathing, but it gave me a vague consciousness that I was not alone. I sat up, bracing myself straighter, as men do when they are frightened, and then, ashamed, beat up the pillow. up the pillow. Bah! I was nervous; Dick's story had infected me; but I peered about the room sharply, from the ceiling to the shadows of the bedpost on the carpet. There were no triangular, greenish figures on the carpet, I remember, and I counted them to prove that I was entirely awake. Nothing was in the room, however, that should not be there, and I was about composing myself again to sleep, when there was a sort of shudder, if I may so express myself, in the darkness of one corner, where a protruding closet and a wardrobe made a heavy shadow—an uncertain, undefined motion at first. undefined motion at first. I leaned forward with a cold shiver, I confess it, in my blood. That story of Dick's, and the watching now, half-asleep, had completely unnerved me. For a moment there was a breathless silence; then, out of this darkness in the corner, there came slowly a head, the face of a young man, with long, sunken jaws and peaked features, with watery-blue eyes, and gray hair falling thin and straight down to the shoulders. It was the very face of the portrait, but older and more pinched and THE FAMILY SECRET.-. HANDS LIKE CLAWS, AND BLOODLESS AS THE FACE, PROJECTED FROM THE SLEEVES." wan. However, the picture was taken in life, and this I drew my breath sharply and tried to rise; the eyes of the thing had been laid on mine from the first, a cold weight; they rested there immovable, while the whole figure slowly emerged into the pallid moonlight a tall, bony man's |