"You remember how those two fellows robbed my tent, and how I fired all the six barrels of my revolver into them? Well, it was just after that job that I shifted my tent away from the rest, thinking I'd be more comfortable by myself for a bit. You'll say this was rather venturesome, after I'd been robbed once already; but then, you see, these beauties that I fired at thought they'd fairly cleaned me out. Nobody knew that I'd got a lot more buried under a big gum-tree some two hundred yards off; so the whole camp thought I was dry, and you may be sure I did not undeceive them. Well, I moved my tent up to the tree where the gold was, and there I stayed; but I still stuck to my digging, to make up for what I'd lost. I got a middling lot of dust every day, but I took care to let nobody see more of it than I could help; so folks got to think I was down on my luck, and left off minding about me at all.

"One night I'd been working pretty late, and got chilled right through; and, though I rolled my blanket well round me after turning into my hammock, I couldn't get warm anyhow; and so I shivered away till I fell asleep. Then I fell to dreaming that I was in a trance, like some man I once read about in America, and that they thought me dead, and were going to bury me. I tried my hardest to move, or scream out, or something, but no good; and I heard the coffin-lid slap to, and the first spadeful of earth fall on it, and then I awoke.

"It was a fine bright morning, and through the opening of the tent I could see the sun shining, and hear the picks and cradles getting to work as usual. But my dream wasn't all fancy, for I felt as if I were bound down, and couldn't move an inch; and yet it wasn't quite that either-it was more as if I had no substance left, but was all air and shadow. If ever a living man felt like a ghost, I did then.

“Well, I didn't think of being frightened just at first; I felt more put out and foolish, like a man who's had a tumble, or got splashed all over by a cart. It seemed so queer for a great strong fellow like me, to be laid by the heels that way, and at first the thought of it almost made me laugh; so there I lay like a log for ever so long, listening to all the noises from the camp, till at last (about noon it must have been, by the sun) I began to feel hungry, and commenced looking very hard at my 'damper' and cold mutton, which lay upon a log t'other side of the tent. Well,' thought I, 'it's a queer thing for a man to be starved this way, with food before his eyes!' But the moment I thought it, something cold seemed to clutch my heart and squeeze it all together. I tried to put it away by saying to myself, 'This'll go off soon-of course it will ;' but at that minute it flashed across me, as if some one had written it in letters of fire

all over the place, 'And supposing it doesn't go off WHAT THEN?'

"It was then I began to feel frightened for the first time. I turned sick all at once, as if I were going to die, and likely enough I may have fainted, for the next thing I remember, there was a great silence all over the camp; and by that I knew that the men were having their dinner, and that it must be late in the afternoon. As night came on, I began to feel very bad every way. So long as the sun was shining, and the sound of the picking and shovelling went on, the light, and the noise, and the feeling of having lots of people close to me, kept me up a bit; but when the sounds died away little by little, and the darkness came all round as if it were locking me in, I felt as castdown and helpless as a child lost in a great town. However, my hunger made me savage-like, and that held me up; for so long as there's strength enough for anger in a man, he's got a chance; it's when he can't feel savage that his heart's broken. Only I kept always wishing that something would break the silence and at last something did, with a vengeance, for a lot of the horrible dingoes commenced howling. And so they kept on, and worked me up till I felt as if I'd give anything to have just one blow at them, no matter what came after; for what with the hunger, and the lying still so long, and the howling of these brutes, I'd got so mad, that I'd have liked to kill something, no matter what it was. And so the night wore away -a dreary night for me!"

While he was speaking, the moon had become gradually obscured, and we were wrapped in a shadowy dimness that harmonised well with the gloomy recital, to which the deepening sombreness of his tone lent additional horror.

"The sun rose at last, but it brought no bright morning hope with it; only the same weary helplessness, which seemed as if it had lasted for days and days-for I had lost all count of time. When the noise of the diggings began again, I almost wished it would leave off, much as I had wished for it before; for it sent a kind of horror through me to think of the hundreds of men so near, any one of whom would have run like lightning to help me, if he'd only known of the scrape I was inwhile I lay dumb and dying close by. Ay, dying! it was no use shamming hopeful any longer; for now I began to feel a gnawing and tugging in my inside, as if the teeth of a wolf were tearing it; and I knew what that meant, for I'd felt it before, only not so bad. I wouldn't have minded so much if I could only have screamed, or flung myself about, or anything to show what I felt; but to lie there stock-still and speechless, it was horrible."

A shudder, which I could see in the uncertain light, shook his strong frame as he proceeded. "As the sun grew hotter, the flies began to

"The third morning came, and found me nearly at my last. The gnawing pain was gone, and instead of it had come a pleasant drowsiness, like what a man feels when he falls down to sleep in the snow. All the morning I lay in a kind of dream, thinking of nothing, fearing nothing as quiet as a child at its mother's breast; till all at once I saw something that roused me in good earnest a black shining thing, like a long strip of velvet, coming gliding into the tent. I knew it directly for one of the deadliest snakes in Australia. The next moment I heard the rustle of its coils up the tent pole to which my hammock was slung, and then I saw its flat head and black beady eyes hanging over me, and looking right down into my face to see if I were dead or not. I suppose it thought I was, for the next minute it slid down over my face, and to and fro along the hammock, till at last it went to the other pole, and there it glided off, and I saw no more of it. Anybody watching me then would have called me a brave fellow; but I daresay it's not the first time that a man has been thought brave because he couldn't run away.

"I don't know how long it was after that-it may have been an hour, or a day, or a week, for all I could tell-that a shadow fell across my face, and I heard a voice calling out, 'Holloa, mate! can you give us a firestick? I've let my fire out!' With the sound of that voice all my love of life

came back again, and I gathered up my strength to try and speak.

"Seeing me lying there so white and still, the fellow must have thought me dead; and for a moment-the bitterest moment I ever had-I thought he was going to turn and go out again; but, although I couldn't speak, I managed just to move my eyelids, and he saw it. He said nothing, but raised my head on his arm and took out his flask to pour some rum into my mouth; and then I knew that I was saved, and with the shock of the reaction I fainted in right earnest."

Here my strange companion suddenly ceased, and, rising from his chair, said to me, "You've had your story, stranger, and now I'm going to bid you good night; for I haven't spoke of this business since it befell, and it rather upsets me thinking of it. You tell me you're off early to-morrow morning, so it's a hundred to one if we ever meet again; but in any case I wish you success in your travels, and may you end better than I have done!"

Then grasping my hand with a force that made it tingle to the wrist, he departed.

His parting words were true, for we have never met since that night; but should these lines ever meet his eye, it may gratify him to know there is at least one man in the world who fully believes his story, even though it be (as he styled it) "the strangest adventure of all."

R. GEORGE TALBOYS.-Any person who has met this gentleman since the 7th inst., or who can furnish any information respecting his movements subsequent to that date, will be liberally rewarded on communicating with A. Z., 14, Chancery Lane."

Sir Michael Audley read the above advertisement in the second column of the Times, as he sat at breakfast with my lady and Alicia two or three days after Robert's return to town.

"Robert's friend has not yet been heard of, then," said the baronet, after reading the advertisement to his wife and daughter.

Though the advertisement appeared several times, the party at the Court attached very little importance to Mr. Talboys' disappearance; and after this one occasion his name was never again mentioned by either Sir Michael, my lady, or Alicia.

Alicia Audley and her pretty step-mother were by no means any better friends after that quiet evening on which the young barrister had dined at the Court.

ever keep in one spot."

In proof of which last assertion Miss Alicia