"This is very awful," he said, so gravely that I turned to look at him.

"What is awful?"

"Don't you know?" he replied. "Haven't you heard about— Sir John-last night?"

"Dead?" I asked.

He nodded; and then he said

"Murdered in the night. Cathcart heard a noise and went in, and stumbled over him on the floor. As he came in he saw the lamp knocked over, and a figure rush out through the verandah. The moon was bright, and he saw a man run across a clear space in the moonlight-a tall, slightly-built man in native dress, but not a native, Cathcart said; that he would take his oath on, by his build. He roused the house, but the man got clean off, of course." "And Sir John?"

"Sir John was quite dead when Cathcart got back to him. He found him lying on his face. His arms were spread out, and his dressing-gown was torn as if he had struggled hard. His pockets had been turned inside out, his writing-table drawers forced open, the whole room had been ransacked. Yet the old man's gold watch had not been touched, and some money in one of the drawers had not been taken. What on earth is the meaning of it all?" said young Dickson below his breath. "What was the

thief after?"

In a moment the truth flashed across my brain. I put two and two together as quickly as most men, I fancy. The jewels! Some one had got wind of the jewels, which at that moment were reposing on my own person in their old brown bag. Sir John had been only just in time.

"What was he looking for?" continued Dickson, walking up and down. "The old man must have had some paper or other about him that he wanted to get hold of. But what? Cathcart says that nothing whatever has been taken, as far as he can see at present."

I was perfectly silent. It is not every man who would have been so in my place, but I was. I know when to hold my tongue, thank Heaven!

Presently the others came in, all full of the same subject, and then suddenly I remembered that it was getting late; and there was a bustle and a leave-taking, and I had to post off before I could hear more. Not, however, that there was much more to hear, for everything seemed to be in the greatest confusion, and every species of conjecture was afloat as to the real criminal, and the motive for the crime. I had not much time to think of anything

during the first day on board; yet, busy as I was in arranging and re-arranging my things, poor old Sir John never seemed quite absent from my mind. His image as I had last seen him constantly rose before me, and the hoarse whisper was for ever sounding in my ears, "I'm watched! I know I'm watched!" I could not get him out of my head. I was unable to sleep the first night I was on board, and as the long hours wore on I always seemed to see the pale searching eyes of the dead man; and above the manifold noises of the steamer and the perpetual lapping of the calm water against my ear came the whisper, "I'm watched! I know I'm watched!"

CHAPTER II.

I was all right next day. I suppose I had had what women call nerves. I never knew what nerves meant before, because no two women I ever met seemed to have the same kind. If it is slamming a door that upsets one woman's nerves, it may be coming in on tip-toe that will upset another's. You never

can tell. But I am sure it was nerves with me that first night; I know I have never felt so queer since. O yes I have, though once. I was forgetting; but I have not come to that yet.

We had a splendid passage home. Most of the passengers were in good spirits at the thought of seeing England again, and even the children were not so troublesome as I have known them. I soon made friends with some of the nicest people, for I generally make friends easily. I do not know how I do it, but I always seem to know what people really are at first sight. I always was rather a judge of character.

There was one man on board whom I took a great fancy to from the first. He was a young American, travelling about, as Americans do, to see the world. I forget where he had come from-though I believe he told me-or why he was going to London; but a nicer young fellow I never met. He was rather simple and unsophisticated, and with less knowledge of the world than any man I ever knew; but he did not mind owning to it, and was as grateful as possible for any little hints which, as an older man who had not gone through life with his eyes shut, I was of course able to give him. He was of a shy disposition I could see, and wanted drawing out; but he soon took to me, and in a surprisingly short time we became friends. He was in the next cabin to mine, and evidently wished so much to have been with me, that I tried to get another man to exchange; but he was grumpy about it, and I had to give it up, much to young

Carr's disappointment. Indeed he was quite silent and morose for a whole day about it, poor fellow. He was a tall, handsome young man, slightly built, with the kind of sallow complexion that women admire, and I wondered at his preferring my company to that of the womankind on board, who were certainly very civil to him. One evening when I was rallying him on the subject, as we were leaning over the side (for though it was December it was hot enough in the Red Sea to lounge on deck), he told me that he was engaged to be married to a beautiful young American girl. I forget her name, but I remember he told it me-Dulcima Something-but it is of no consequence. I quite understood then. I always can enter into the feelings of others so entirely. I know when I was engaged myself once, long ago, I did not seem to care to talk to any one but her. She did not feel the same about it, which perhaps accounted for her marrying someone else, which was quite a blow to me at the time. But still I could fully enter into young Carr's feelings, especially when he went on to expatiate on her perfections. Nothing, he averred, was too good for her. At last he dropped his voice, and, after looking about him in the dusk to make sure he was not overheard, he said—

"I have picked up a few stones for her on my travels; a few sapphires of considerable value. I don't care to have it generally known that I have jewels about me, but I don't mind telling you."

"My dear fellow," I replied, laying my hand on his shoulder, and sinking my voice to a whisper, "not a soul on board this vessel suspects it, but so have I."

It was too dark for me to see his face, but I felt that he was much impressed by what I had told him.

"Then you will know where I had better keep mine," he said a moment later, with his impulsive boyish confidence. "How fortunate I told you about them. Some are of considerable value, and—and I don't know where to put them that they will be absolutely safe. I never carried about jewels with me before, and I am nervous about losing them, you understand." And he nodded significantly at me. "Now where would you advise me to keep them?"

"On you," I said significantly.

"But where?"

He was simpler than even I could have believed.

"My dear boy," I said, hardly able to refrain from laughing, "do as I do; put them in a bag with a string to it. Put the string round your neck, and wear that bag under your clothes night and day."

"At night as well?" he asked anxiously.

"Of course. You are just as likely to lose them, as you call it, in the night as in the day.

"I'm very much obliged to you," he replied. "I will take your advice this very night. I say," he added suddenly, "you would not care to see them, would you? I would not have any one else catch sight of them for a good deal, but I would shew them you in a moment. Everyone else is on deck just now, if you would like to come down into my cabin."

I hardly know one stone from another, and never could tell a diamond from paste; but he seemed so anxious to shew me what he had, that I did not like to refuse.

"By all means," I said. And we went below.

It was very dark in Carr's cabin, and after he had let me in, he locked the door carefully before he struck a light. He looked quite pale in the light of the lamp after the red dusk of the warm evening on deck.

"I don't want to have other fellows coming in," he said in a whisper, nodding at the door.

He stood looking at me for a moment as if irresolute, and then he suddenly seemed to arrive at some decision, for he pulled a small parcel out of his pocket and began to open it.

They really were not much to look at, though I would not have told him so for worlds. There were a few sapphires-one of a considerable size, but uncut-and some handsome turquoises, but not of perfect colour. He turned them over with evident admiration. They will look lovely, set in gold, as a bracelet on her arm,” he said softly. He was very much in love, poor fellow. And then he added humbly: "But I dare say they are nothing to yours."

66

I chuckled to myself at the thought of his astonishment when he should actually behold them; but I only said—

"Would you like to see them, and judge for yourself?"

"Oh! If it is not giving you too much trouble," he exclaimed gratefully, with shining eyes. "It's very kind of you. I did not like to ask. Have you got them with you?"

I nodded, and proceeded to unbutton my coat.

At that moment a voice was heard shouting down the companion ladder: "Carr! I say, Carr, you are wanted!" and in another moment some one was hammering on the door.

Carr sprang to his feet, looking positively savage.

"Carr!" shouted the voice again. "Come out, I say; you are

wanted!"

"Button up your coat," he whispered, scowling suddenly; and with an oath he opened the door.

Poor Carr! He was quite put out, I could see, though he recovered himself in a moment, and went off laughing with the man, who had been sent for him to take his part in a rehearsal which had been suddenly resolved on; for theatricals had been brewing for some time, and he had promised to act in them. I had not been asked to join, so I saw no more of him that night. The following morning as I was taking an early turn on deck he joined me, and said with a smile, as he linked his arm in mine: "I was put out last night, wasn't I?"

"But you got over it in a moment," I replied. "I quite admired you; and, after all, you know-some other time."

"No," he said, smiling still, "not some other time. I don't think I will see them-thanks all the same. They might put me out of conceit with what I have picked up for my little girl, which are the best I can afford."

He seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, for he began to talk of England, and of London, about which he appeared to have that kind of vague half-and-half knowledge which so often proves misleading to young men newly launched into town life. When he found out, as he soon did, that I was to a certain extent familiar with the Metropolis, he began to question me minutely, and ended by making me promise to dine with him at the Criterion, of which he had actually never heard, and go with him afterwards to the best of the theatres the day after we arrived in London.

He wanted me to go with him the very evening we arrived, but on that point I was firm. My sister Jane, who was living with a hen canary (called Bob, after me, before its sex was known) in a small house in Kensington, would naturally be hurt if I did not spend my first evening in England with her, after an absence of so many years.

Carr was much interested to hear that I had a sister, and asked innumerable questions about her. Was she young and lovely, or was she getting on? Did she live all by herself, and was I going to stay with her for long? Was not Kensington-was that the name of the street?-rather out of the world, etc.

I was pleased with the interest he took in any particulars about myself and my relations. People so seldom care to hear about the concerns of others. Indeed I have noticed as I advance in life such a general want of interest on the part of my acquaintance in the minutiae of my personal affairs, that of late I have almost ceased to speak of them at any length. Carr, however, who was of what I should call a truly domestic turn of character, showed such genuine pleasure in hearing about myself and my