"Oh, don't mention it-mention it.

up to your camp. Capital tent-capital."

I'll just step

Seagrave saw he could not shake the fellow off, so making a virtue of necessity he walked doggedly up to the tent, and opened it to enter. To his horror, a second Englishman was inside carefully examining the contents, but more especially the few papers there were there.

"Hullo!" said the first man; "hullo! my old mate Jem! Well now, this is a coincidence; a regular coincidence I call it; three old friends meeting in the jungle, and none knowing nothing of the other." The second man stepped coolly out, and stared hard at Seagrave, who was now deadly white and trembling like an aspen-leaf.

"I don't know you, either of you. What do you mean by entering my tent?"

"Well, youngster, I'll just tell you; your game's blown! If you hadn't told John Burton you were going to Goa, no one would ever have dreamed of looking after you."

"Looking after me? What for?"

"Oh, stow that gammon! We're two of the English detectives in Bombay-there-the murder's out."

"Be gentle, be gentle with the boy, Jem. Let him down easy, and tell your story proper."

"Well then, let him sit down, he looks faint enough, and listen without pretending he don't know nothing."

Seagrave slipped down on the soft jungle grass, the picture of misery-the awful misery of detection in a first crime. Then the man went on :

"Well, you see, just a mail before this last, there was a terrible row with the telegraph folk. The merchants said the cotton market had been cooked by the suppression of telegrams, and threatened to bust up the company. The company they says they know nothing about it. How's that?' says the merchants: 'Here's the despatch from the grower's meeting at Omrawuttee, on the morning of our market, with their prices, was kep' back till we was all half-ruined; and yet,' says they, 'some one must have had a despatch, for he, which his name's Jabez Clicker, "beared" the market, and all the time,' says they, 'he was buying in like mad through the dd brokers,' says they. The company says it's curious, which it was; they couldn't make it out nohow, for their communication was stopped, so how could Clicker have a message? Then the most of the merchants swore awful, and called us in. Down we goes to the office. 'Who's away?' says we (for my mate here, he'd seen this trick done in England afore, and guessed pretty well what it was). 'Seagrave's away,' says they, 'and Jones, and Tirrell, and one

or two more. Well, they could all be accounted for in Bombay but you. John Burton-he suspected it, bless you, but he's a true-hearted fellow, and wouldn't let out till we made him-confessed you said you were off to Goa. Now we knowed you couldn't leave for Goa without the harbour-police knowing it; they didn't know it, so we soon picked up your trail, and here we are. Bless you we've watched you this week past, but we didn't want to nab you until

"I know. You wanted to catch Clicker," broke in Seagrave, now utterly reckless: "Dn him! it was he tempted me to do this. I hope you have caught him."

"No doubt he's nabbed in Bombay by this time. Your fellow with the hare, and the message neatly done up inside its throat, with this mornin's Omrawuttee prices, was followed from the moment he left this till he got to Clicker's office, and there they'd nab the old bird at once. Now we'll just strike this pretty little green tent of yours, pack up box, dice, and everything, and just walk coolly down to the next station to get the train for Bombay. But before we start just—ah! would you?" Seagrave had tried to grasp his gun, but in a second he was handcuffed, and lying powerless on the ground.

In a few brief hours the miserable young criminal

R

was in Bombay, locked up, with Jabez Clicker in the next cell, on a charge of cutting the telegraph wires, and intercepting valuable mercantile messages (which he had sewed up in pretended presents of game), that his worthless employer made use of for his own purposes. They had determined that this second attempt should be the last, but as we have seen they were detected before they could complete their purpose.

They were tried before the next High Court. There was absolutely no defence to the case, and Jabez Clicker was sentenced to five years' penal servitude, while his wretched young accomplice was let off with two years, on account of his youth.

"WHO SHOT THE KAFFIRS?"

CHAPTER I.

A LUNCHEON AND A YARN.

EW Year's Day, 1852, and the thermometer at

ΝΕ

120 degrees in the shade! Where, it will naturally be asked, was this abnormal state of heat to be found in Her Majesty's possessions? The answer is as simple as the question. It was in Graham's Town, the principal military station of Albany, on the frontiers of Kaffraria in south-east Africa, in which portion of the globe the hot weather comes in what we at home call the winter months. It was very hot : stifling hot would perhaps be the more correct expression. The streets of the little colonial capital were crowded with a confused mass of men of many nations, all labouring under great excitement, and all clamouring (in a dozen languages) for arms, as well as for competent commanders to lead them forth against the savage Kaffirs, who early in the preceding month had broken out into rebellion, or warfare rather, and were now plundering and devastating the whole