The Queen's cadet, and other tales

by James Grant

THE QUEEN'S CADET.

"I have been forced to believe in the existence and influence of an unseen world, of something which is described in that line of Dryden's,

"'With silent steps I follow you all day.'

"I have felt the influence of the spiritual and invisible on the senses, though I know nothing of the complications, the deceptions and alleged perils, forming a portion of that which is now termed spiritualism; and which affirms that the unseen world cannot become manifest, save in obedience to certain occult laws which regulate the phenomena of nature."

What rigmarole was this?

Could the speaker—this man with the melancholy tone and saddened eye—actually be the same handsome Jack Arkley, my old college chum at Sandhurst, who was always rather sceptical even in religious matters, who was one of the merriest fellows there, who had been once nearly rusticated for breaking the lamps and dismounting the guns to spite the adjutant, but who, as a Queen's cadet, had more marks of excellence than any of us; who was afterwards the beau-ideal of a fine young English officer—a prime bat and bowler, who pulled a good stroke oar, had such a firm seat in his saddle, and who was the best hand for organizing a picnic, a ball, or a scratch company, for amateur theatricals; and who in the late expedition against the Looshais, had won the reputation of being a regular fire-eater—a fellow who would face the devil in his shirt sleeves!

Could the champagne of "the Rag" have affected him, thought I, as he continued earnestly and sadly, and while manipulating a cigar selected from the silver stand on the table:

"I have somewhere read that very few persons in this world have been unfortunate enough to have seen those things that are invisible to others."

"By Jove! Do you mean a—ghost?"

"Not exactly the vulgar ghost of the nursery," said he, his pale face colouring slightly.

"But we have all met with those who knew some one else who had seen something weird, unearthly, unexplainable."

"Precisely; but I shall speak from personal experience—so now for a little narrative of my own."

We had dined that evening at the club, where D—— of the Greys had given a few fellows a dinner, in honour of being gazetted to his troop, and to "wet" the new commission; and though it seemed to me that, like the rest of us, Jack Arkley had done justice to all the good things set before him, from the soup to the coffee and curaçao, he had been, during dinner, remarkably triste or abstracted, and took but little interest in the subjects discussed by the guests, who were mostly all upon short leave from Aldershot, and, the Spring drills being over, were thankful to exchange the white dust of the Long Valley, for the Row or Regent Street.

We were alone now, and lingering over some iced brandy-pawnee (as we called it in India) in the cool bay-window of his room in Piccadilly, where it overlooked the pleasant Green Park and where the clock of Westminster was shining above the trees, like a red harvest moon. So I prepared to listen to him with more curiosity than belief, while he related the following singular story, which he would never have ventured to relate to the circle of heedless fellows whom we had just left.

"My parents died when I was little more than an infant, leaving me to the care of two uncles, a maternal one, named Beverley, a man of considerable wealth, who in consequence of a quarrel with my father, whose marriage with his sister he resented, totally ignored my existence, and was ever a kind of myth to me; the other a paternal one, a bachelor curate in North Wales, poor old Morgan Apreece Arkley, than whom there was no better or more kind-hearted man in all the principality.

"His means were most limited; but to share the little he possessed he made me freely and tenderly welcome, all the more so that to two appeals he had made to the generosity of my Uncle Beverley, no response was ever returned—a cutting coldness and rudeness, bitterly resented by my hot-tempered but warm-hearted old Welsh kinsman.

"A career was necessarily chosen for me.

"The death of my father on duty at Benares, enabled me to be borne on the strength of the Military College at Sandhurst as one of the twenty Queen's cadets; and to that seminary I repaired, a few months after you did, when in my sixteenth year, leaving with sincere sorrow the lonely white-haired man who had been as a parent to me, and whose secluded parsonage by the margin of Llyn Ogwen, and under the shadow of Carneydd Davydd, had been the only home I could remember. There for years he had been my earnest and anxious tutor, mingling with the classics a store of quaint old Welsh legends and ancient songs, for he was an excellent and enthusiastic harper, and had come of a long line of harpers.

"Prior to this change in my life, I encountered an adventure which has had considerable influence in my after career.

"From childhood I had been familiar with the mountains that overhang Llyn Ogwen. I knew every track and rock and fissure of Carneydd Davydd, of 'the Black Ladders' of Carneydd Llewellyn, and the brows of the greater giant of the three, cloud-capped Snowdon. For miles upon miles among them I had been wont to wander with my gun, and at times to aid the shepherds in tracking out lost sheep or goats, by places where we looked down upon the gray mist and vapour that floated below us, and where the mountain peaks seemed to start out of it like isles amid a sea. In the heart of such solitudes as these I found food for much reflective thought, and was wont to give full swing to my boyish fancies.

"Under every variety of season and weather I was wont to wander among these mountains; sometimes when their sides seemed to vibrate under the hot rays of a cloudless summer sun; at others when the glistening snow lay deep in the passes and valleys, or when height and hollow were alike shrouded in thick and impenetrable mist; but my favourite spot was ever Llyn Idwal, the wildest and most savage of all our Welsh lakes. It fills the crater of an ancient volcano, and is the traditional scene of the murder of Idwal, a prince of Wales, who was flung over its precipice—a place which for gloomy grandeur has no equal, as the bare rocks that start out of it, sheer as a wall, darken by their shadows its depth to the most intense blackness; and the peasants aver that no fish can swim in it, and no bird fly over it and live.

"Lying upon the mountain tops, amid the purple heather or the scented thyme-grass, I was wont to watch the distant waters of the Channel, stretching far away beyond the Puffin Isle and Great Orme's Head, ever changing in hue as the masses of cloud skimmed over them; and from thence I followed, with eager eyes, the white sails of the ships, or the long smoky pennants of the steamers that were bound for—ah! where were they bound for?—and so, far from the solitary parsonage of the good old man who loved me so well, I was ungrateful enough to follow to distant isles and shores these vanishing specks, in the spirit.

"I see that you are impatient to know what all this preamble has to do with Sandhurst and the melancholy which now oppresses me; but nevertheless, I am fast coming to the matter—to 'that keystone of the soul which must exist in every nature.'

"One day I was up a wild part of the mountains, far above Llyn Ogwen, a long and narrow sheet of water which occupies the whole pass between Braich-ddu and the shoulder of Carneydd Davydd. My sole companion was my dog Cidwm—in English, 'Wolf'—which lay beside me on the sunny grass, when from one of my day-dreams I was suddenly roused by voices, and found three persons close beside me.

"Mounted on sturdy Welsh ponies, two of these were a gentleman in the prime of life, and a very young lady, apparently his daughter, attended by David Lloyd, one of the guides for the district, who knew me well. He led the bridle of the girl's pony with one hand, and grasped his alpenstock with the other. This group paused near me, and some conversation ensued. Lloyd had evidently mistaken the path, and was loath to admit the fact, or to suggest that they should retrace their steps, and yet he knew enough of the mountains to be well aware that to advance would be to court danger. During the colloquy that ensued between him and his employer, a haughty and imperious-looking man, I was earnestly gazing in the half-averted face of the girl, who was watching an eagle in full flight.

"She was marvellously beautiful. Her features—save in profile—were perhaps far from correct, yet there was a divine delicacy, a charming purity of complexion, and brightness of expression over them all; and her minute face seemed to nestle amid the masses of her fair rippling hair. She turned towards me, and her eyes met mine. They were dark violet blue, and shaded by brown lashes, so long that they imparted much of softness to their dove-like expression, and she smiled, for no doubt the little maid saw that there was something of unequivocal admiration to be read in my ardent gaze; and so absorbed was I, that, for a few seconds, I was not aware that the guide was addressing me, and inquiring how far the path was traversable in this particular direction. Ere I could reply,

"'How should this mere lad know, if you don't?' asked the male tourist, haughtily and sharply.

"'Few here can know better, sir,' replied Lloyd. 'I have seen him climb where the eagles alone can go.'

"'Shall we proceed, then?' he asked me, sharply.

"'I think not, sir,' said I; 'Moel Hebog was covered with mist this morning, and——'

"'But Moel Hebog is clear enough now,' said David Lloyd, with irritation—the mountain so named being deemed an unerring barometer, as regards the chances of mist upon its greater brethren—'so I think we may proceed,' he added, touching his hat to his employer. 'I don't require, sir, to be taught my trade by a mere lad, a gentleman tho you be, Master Arkley.'

"'Arkley!' repeated the stranger, starting and eyeing me keenly, and yet with a lowering expression of face.

"I warned them of the danger of farther progression, but the avaricious guide derided me; and I heard his employer, as they passed on, asking him some questions, amid which—but it might be fancy—I thought my own name occurred. I gazed after them with interest, and with much of anxiety, for their path was perilous, and the sweet soft beauty of the girl had impressed me deeply; and, as she disappeared, with all her wealth of golden hair, the brightness seemed to have departed from the mountain side.

"What was the magic this creature, whom I had only seen for a few minutes, possessed for me? She was scarcely a woman, yet past childhood; and her features remained as distinctly impressed upon my memory as if they were before me still. Do not infer from this strange interest that 'love at first sight,' as the novels used to have it, was an ingredient of this emotion. No; it was something deeper—a subtle magnetism—something that I know not how to define or to express; and with a repining sigh, I thought of my lonely life, and longed to go forth on the career that awaited me beyond those green mountains that were bounded by the sea.

"Had I ever seen that fair little face before, or dreamed of it by night or by day, that already it seemed to haunt me so?

"The little group had not disappeared above five minutes, when a sound like a cry was borne past me on the mountain breeze. I started up, my heart beating wildly; and with undefined apprehension, hastened in the direction of the sound, while Wolf careered in front of me. There now came the sound of hoofs, and with bridle trailing, saddle reversed, and nostrils distended, the pony on which I had so recently seen the young girl, came tearing over the crest of the hill, and galloped madly past me towards Llyn Idwal.

"Quicker beat my heart, and my breath came thick and fast. Something dreadful had taken place! True to his instincts as ever was the faithful Gelert of the Welsh tradition, Wolf sped in haste to the edge of what I knew to be a frightful ravine. There the hoof marks were fresh in the turf, the edge of which was broken; the grass too, was crushed and torn, as if something had fallen over it. The dog now paused, lifted up his nose, and howled ominously. I peered over; and far down below, on a ledge of green turf, but perilously overhanging a chasm in the mountain side, lay that which appeared at first to be a mere bundle of clothes, but which I knew to be the little maiden dead— doubtlessly dead—and a wail of sorrow escaped me.

"Her father and the guide had disappeared.

"Partly sliding, partly descending as if by a natural ladder, finding footing and grasp where many might have found neither, mechanically, and as one in a dream, I reached her in about ten minutes; and, as I had a naturally boyish dread of facing death, with joy I saw her move, and then took her in my arms tenderly and caressingly; while she opened her eyes and sighed deeply, for the fall had stunned and shaken her severely. Otherwise she was, happily, uninjured; but I had reached her just in time, for, if left to herself, she must have tottered and fallen into the terrible profundity below.

"'Papa! oh, where is my papa? I was thrown suddenly from my pony—a bird scared it—and remember no more;' then a passion of tears and terror came over her, with the consciousness of the peril she had escaped and that which still menaced her, for to ascend was quite impracticable, and to descend seemed nearly equally so. Above us the mountain side seemed to rise like a wall of rock; on the other hand, at the bottom of the ravine, where the shadows of evening were dark and blue, though sunset still tipped Snowdon's peaks with fire, and clouds of crimson and gold were floating above us, I could see a rivulet, a tributary of the Ogwen, glittering like a silver thread far down, perhaps a thousand feet below.

"'Courage,' said I, while for a time my heart died within me; 'I shall soon conduct you to a place of safety.'

"'But papa, he will die of fright. Where is my papa?' she exclaimed, piteously.

"'Gone round some other way,' I suggested. And subsequently this proved to be the case. Placing an arm round her for aid, we now began to descend, but slowly, the face of the hill, which was there so steep and shelved so abruptly, that to lose one step might have precipitated us to the bottom with a speed that would have insured destruction. From rock to rock, from bush to bush, and from cleft to cleft, I guided and often lifted her, sometimes with her eyes closed; and gazed the while with boyish rapture on the beautiful girl, as her head drooped upon my shoulder. She had lost her hat, and the unbound masses of her golden hair, blown by the wind, came in silken ripples across my face; and delight, mingled with alarm, bewildered me.

"Till that hour no sorrow could have affected a spirit so pure as hers; and certainly love could not have agitated it—she was so young. But when we drew nearer the base of the hill, and reached a place of perfect safety, the soft colour came back to her face, and the enchantment of her smile was as indescribable as the clear violet blue of her eye, which filled with wonder and terror as she gazed upward to the giddy verge from which she had partly fallen; and then a little shudder came over her.

"With a boy's ready ardour, I was already beginning to dream of being beloved by her, when excited voices came on the wind; and round an angle of the ravine into which we had descended came Lloyd, the guide, several peasants, and her father, who had partially witnessed our progress, and whose joy in finding her alive and well, when he might have found her dashed perhaps out of the very semblance of humanity, was too great for words. The poor man wept like a very woman, as he embraced her again and again, and muttered in broken accents his gratitude to me, and praise of my courage. Suddenly he exclaimed to the guide,

"'You said his name was—Arkley, I think?'

"'Yes, sir,' replied Lloyd.

"'John Beverley Arkley, nephew of the curate at the foot of the mountain yonder?' he added, turning to me.

"'The same, sir.'

"'Good heavens! I am your Uncle Beverley!' said he, colouring deeply, and taking my hand again in his. 'The girl you have saved is your own cousin—my darling Eve. I owe you some reparation for past neglect, so come with me to the parsonage at once.'

"Here was a discovery that quite took away my breath. So this dazzling little Hebe was my cousin! How fondly I cherished and thought over this mysterious tie of blood—near almost as a sister, and yet no sister. It was very sweet to ponder over and to nurse the thoughts of affection, and all that yet might be.

"What a happy, happy night was that in the ancient parsonage! The good old curate forgave Uncle Beverley all the short-comings in the years that were past, and seemed never to weary of caressing the wonderful hair and the tiny hands of Evelyn Beverley, for such was her name, though familiarly known as Eve.

"'It is quite a romance, this,' said kind Uncle Arkley to his brother-in-law; 'the young folks will be falling in love!'

"Eve grew quite pale, and cast down her eyes; while I blushed furiously.

"'Stuff!' said Uncle Beverley, somewhat sharply. 'She has barely cut her primers and pinafores, and Jack has Sandhurst before him yet.'

"He presented me with his gold repeater, and departed by the first convenient train, taking my newly-discovered relation with him. I had a warm invitation to visit them for a few weeks before entering at Sandhurst; and, to add to my joy and impatience, I found that Beverley Lodge was in Berkshire, and within a mile of the College: and so, but for the presence of the golden gift, and the memory of a kind and grateful kiss from a beautiful lip—a kiss that made every nerve thrill—I might have imagined that the whole adventure on the slopes of Carneydd Davydd was but a dream.

"Naturally avaricious, cold, and hard in heart, Mr. Beverley had warmed to me for a time, but a time only; yet I revered and almost loved him. He was the only brother of my dead mother, whom I had never known. She—this golden-haired girl—was of her blood, and had her name; so my whole soul clung to her with an amount of youthful ardour, such as I cannot portray to you—for I was always much of an enthusiast—and I was again alone, to indulge in the old tenor of my ways amid the voiceless mountain solitudes.

"Again and again in my lonely wanderings had my mind been full of vague longings and boyish aspirations after glory, pleasure, and love: and now the memory of Eve's minute and perfect face—so pure and English in its beauty—by its reality filled up all that had been a blank before; and I was ever in fancied communion with her, while lying on the hill-slopes and looking to the sea that sparkled at the far horizon, into the black ravines through which the mountain brooks went foaming to the rocky shore, or where our deep Welsh llyns were gleaming in the sunshine like gold and turquoise blue—amid the monotony of the silent woods; and so the time passed on, and the day came when I was to start for Beverley Lodge, and thence to Sandhurst; while love and ambition rendered me selfishly oblivious of poor old Uncle Morgan, and the fervent wishes and blessings with which he followed my departing steps.

"A month's visit to Beverley Lodge, amid the fertility of Berkshire, many a ride and ramble in the Vale of the White Horse, many an hour spent by us together in the shady woods, the luxurious garden, in the beautiful conservatory, and in the deep leafy lanes where we wandered at will, confirmed the love my cousin and I bore each other. A boy and a girl, it came easily about; while many were our regrets and much was our marvelling that we had not known each other earlier.

"No two men make a declaration of love, perhaps, in precisely the same way, though it all comes to the same thing in the end; but it might be interesting to know in what precise terms, and having so little choice, Father Adam declared his passion for Mother Eve, and in what fashion she responded.

"I know not now how my love for my little Eve was expressed; but told it was, and I departed for college the happiest student there, every hour I could spare from study and drill being spent in or about Beverley Lodge.

"With an income of forty pounds per annum till gazetted, I almost thought myself rich; and I had three years before me—it seemed an eternity of joy—to look forward to. At Sandhurst I was, as you know, entered as a Queen's cadet free, and a candidate for the infantry. I had thus to master algebra, the three first books of Euclid, French, German, and 'Higher Fortification;' but in the pages of Straith, amid the ravelins of Vauban and the casemates of Coehorn, I seemed to see only the name and the tender eyes of Eve. The daily drills, in which I was at first an enthusiast, became dull and prosaic, and hourly I made terrible mistakes, for Eve's voice was ever in my ear, and her delicate beauty haunted me; for wondrously delicate it became, as consumption—which she fatally inherited from her mother—shed over it a medium that was alike soft and alluring.

"Since then I have met girls of all kinds everywhere. Though only a sub, I have been dressed for, played for, sung for; but never have I had the delight of those remembered days that were passed with Eve Beverley in our dream of cousinly love; however, a rude waking was at hand!

"When she was eighteen, and I a year older, she told me one day that her father had been insisting upon her marrying an old friend of his, a retired Sudder judge, who had proposed in form; but she had laughed at the idea.

"'Absurd! It is so funny of papa to have a husband ready cut and dry for me; is it not, Jack?' said she.

"I did not think so; but my heart beat painfully as I leaned caressingly over her, and played with her beautiful hair.

"'I don't thank him for selecting a husband for me, Jack, dear,' she continued, pouting; 'do you?'"

"'Certainly not, Eve.'

"'But I must prepare my mind for the awful event,' said she, looking up at me with a bright, waggish smile.

"The time was fast approaching, however, when neither of us could see anything 'funny' in the prospect; for 'the awful event' became alarmingly palpable, when one day she met me with tears, and threw herself on my breast, saying:

"'Save me, dearest Jack—save me!'

"'From whom?"

"'Papa and his odious old Sudder judge, Jack, love. You know that I must marry you, and you only!'

"'The devil he does!' said a voice, sharply; and there, grim as Ajax, stood Uncle Beverley, with hands clenched and brows knit. 'My sister married his father, a beggar, with only his pay; and now, minx, you dare to love their son, by heavens, with no pay at all! Leave this house, sir—begone instantly!' he added, furiously, to me. 'I would rather that she had broken her neck on the mountains than treated me to a scene like this.'

"The gates of Beverley Lodge closed behind me, and our dream was over.

"Half my life seemed to have left me. After three years of such delightful intercourse I could not adopt the conviction that I should never see her again; and in a very unenviable state of mind I entered the college, where you may remember meeting me under the Doric portico, and saying:

"'What's up, Jack? But let me congratulate you.'

"'On what?' I asked sulkily.

"'Your appointment to the Buffs. The Gazette has just come from town. They are stationed at Jubbulpore.'

"And so it proved that the very day I lost her saw me in the service, with India, and a far and final separation before us. Necessity compelled us to prepare for an almost instant departure; short leave was given me by the adjutant-general; and I had to join the Candahar transport going with drafts from Chatham for the East, on a certain day.

"Rumours reached me of Eve being seriously ill. She was secluded from me, and there was every chance that I should see her no more. A letter came from her imploring me to meet her for the last time at a spot known to us both—a green lane that led to a churchyard stile—the scene of many a tender tryst and blissful hour, as it was a place where overhanging trees, with the golden apple, the purple damson, and the plum, formed a very bower, and where few or none ever came, save on Sunday; and there we met for the last time!

"There once again her head lay on my shoulder, my circling arm was round her, and her hot, tremulous hand was clasped in mine. I was shocked by the change I perceived in her. Painful was her pallor to look upon; there were circles dark as her lashes under her sad, melancholy eyes; her nostrils and lips were unnaturally pink; she had a short, dry cough; and blood appeared more than once upon her handkerchief.

"Consumption on one hand, and parental tyranny on the other, were fast doing their fatal work.

"Her father was pitiless and inexorable—wonderfully, infamously so, as he was so rich that mere money was no object, and as she was his only child, and one so tender, and so fragile. His studied system of deliberate 'worry' had wrung a consent from her; she was to marry the old judge; and in more ways than one I felt that too surely I was losing her for ever. She could not go out with me. I felt desperate, and in silence folded her again and again to my breast. At last the ting-tong of the old church clock announced the hour when we must part, never to meet again, and the fatal sound struck us like a shock of electricity.

"'Jack, my dearest—my dearest,' she whispered wildly; 'I don't think I shall live very long now. I may—nay, I must, die very soon; but the spirit is imperishable, and I shall always be with you, wherever you may be, wherever you may go, hovering near you, I hope, like a guardian angel!'

"Her words struck me as strange and wild; I did not attach much importance to them then, but they have had a strange and terrible significance since.

"'Would you welcome me?' she asked, with a mournful smile.

"'Dead or living shall I welcome you!' I replied, with mournful ardour.

"'Then kiss me once again, dear Jack; and now we part—in this world, at least!'

"Another wild, passionate embrace, and all was over. In a minute later I was galloping far from the villa to reach the railway. I saw her beloved face no more; but voice and face, eye and kiss, were all with me still. Would a time ever come when I might forgot them?

"Adverse winds detained us long in the Channel, but we cleared it at last; and the last Times that came on board announced the marriage of this unhappy girl.

"Six months subsequent found me in cantonments at Neemuch, with a small detachment of ours, and in hourly expectation of the mutiny which had broken out at Meerut and Delhi, with such horrors, being imitated there, though we had sworn the sepoys to be 'true to their salt,' the Mahometans on the Koran, the Hindoos on the waters of the Ganges, and the other darkies on whatever was most sacred to them; and if they revolted, all Europeans were to seek instant shelter in the fort.

"It was the night of the 3rd June—one of the loveliest I ever saw in India—the moonlight was radiant as midday, and not a cloud was visible throughout the blue expanse of heaven. I was lying in my bungalow, with sword and revolver beside me, as we could not count upon the events of an hour, for all Hindostan seemed to be going to chaos in blood and outrage.

"The cantonment ghurries had clanged midnight; my eyes were closing heavily; and when just about to sleep I thought that my name was uttered by some one near me, very softly, very tenderly, and with an accent that thrilled my heart's core. Starting, I looked up, and there—oh, my God!—there, in the slanting light of the moon, like a glorified spirit, with a brightness all about her, was the figure of Eve Beverley bending over me, with all her golden hair unbound, and a garment like a shroud or robe about her.

"Entranced, enchained by love as much as by mortal terror, I could not move or speak, while nearer she bent to kiss my brow; but I felt not the pressure of her lips, though reading in her starry, violet eyes a divine intensity of expression—a mournful, unspeakable tenderness, when, pointing in the direction of the fort, she disappeared.

"'It is a dread—a dreadful dream!' said I, starting to my feet preternaturally awake, to hear the sound of artillery, the rattle of musketry, the yells of 'Deen! deen!' and the shrieks of those who were perishing; for the mutineers had risen, and the 1st Cavalry, the 72nd N. I., and Walker's artillery, had commenced the work of massacre. I rushed forth, and at the moment I left my bungalow on one side it was set in flames and fired through from the other. I fled to the fort, which, thanks to my dream—for such I supposed it to be—I reached in safety, while many perished, for all the station was sheeted now with flame.

"Once again I had that dream, so wild and strange, when a deadly peril threatened me. I was hiding in the jungle, alone and in great misery, near Jehaz-ghur, a fugitive. The time was noon, and I had dropped asleep under the deep, cool shadow of a thicket, when that weird vision of Eve came before me, soft and sad, tender and intense, with her loving eyes and flowing hair, as, with hands outstretched, she beckoned me to follow her. A cry escaped me, and I awoke.

"'Was my Eve indeed dead?' I asked of myself; 'and was it her intellectual spirit, her pure essence, that imperishable something engendered in us all from a higher source, that followed me as a guardian angel?' I remembered her parting words. The idea suggested was sadly sweet and terrible; and so, as a sense of her perpetual presence as a spirit-wife hovered at all times about me, controlling all my actions, rendered me unfit for society, till at Calcutta, a crisis was put to all this.

"With some of the 72nd, and other Europeans who had escaped from Neemuch, or had 'distinguished themselves,' as the 'Hurkaru' had it, I once went to be photographed at the famous studio near the corner of the Strand. I sat, in succession, alone and in a group, after being posed in the usual fashion, with an iron hoop at the nape of my neck. On examining the first negative, an expression of perplexity and astonishment came over the face of the artist.

"'Strange, sir,' said he; 'most unaccountable!'

"'What is strange; what is unaccountable?' asked several.

"'Another figure that is not in the room appears at Captain Arkley's back—a woman, by Jove!' he replied, placing the glass over a piece of black velvet; and there—there—oh, there could be no doubt of it—was faintly indicated the outline of one whose face and form had been but too vividly impressed on my heart and brain, bending sorrowfully over me, with her soft, bright eyes and wealth of long bright hair.

"From my hand the glass fell on the floor, and was shivered to atoms. A similar figure hovering near me, was visible among the pictured group of officers, but faded out. I refused to sit again, and quitted the studio in utter confusion, and with nerves dreadfully shaken, though my comrades averred that a trick had been played upon me. If so, how was the figure that of my dream—that of my lost love—who, a letter soon after informed me, had burst a blood-vessel, and expired on the night of the 3rd June, with my name on her lips?"

Such was the story of Jack Arkley. Whether it was false or true, in this age of spiritualism and many other isms of mediums with the world unseen, and in which Enemoser has ventilated his theory of polarity, I pretend not to say, and leave others to determine. He became a moody monomaniac. I rejoined my regiment, and from that time never saw my old chum again. The last that I heard of him was, that he had quitted the service, and died a Passionist Father, in one of the many new monastic institutions that exist in the great metropolis.