the shop with my friend the surgeon; ' there is
some sad history attached to that man's life, I
know.'

"'There is,' said the surgeon, 'and it so
happens that the circumstances connected with
it are, perhaps, better known to myself than to
any other person you could apply to.'

"The story," said the believer in presentiments,
looking round at the company assembled
at the English tavern, "is a short one, and if
you feel interested in hearing it, I will narrate
it, partly as the surgeon told it to me, and partly
(for at last I had some share in it) as the facts
came under my own observation."

We expressed our anxiety to hear more, and
the believer in presentiments went on as
follows:

"About four years ago a party of travellers
arrived at a certain convent in Jerusalem, at
which you can be put up for the night and
entertained very much, as European travellers who are
crossing the Alps are received at the Great St.
Bernard. Amongst, the party who had newly
arrived was one who—as had been the case with
myself—had got the lock of his pistol so deranged
that it was impossible to stir it, and as he, like
myself, and most other Eastern travellers, very
much disliked the idea of proceeding on his
journey unarmed, he was anxious to have the
defect in his weapon attended to at once. It
was easier to feel this want than to get it
supplied, there being no one at that time in
Jerusalem who would be at all likely to understand
the pistol in question, which was a revolver, and
furnished with all the latest improvements. At
length, however, after much consideration and
casting about as to what was to be done, one of
the lay brothers of the convent suggested a way
out of the difficulty which seemed promising
enough. There were, he said, a couple of German
travellers sleeping that night in the convent
who were locksmiths by trade, and he had little
doubt that one of them would be able to do what
was necessary to the pistol, if anybody could.
The weapon was handed over to the lay brother,
who at once took it to the room which the two
Germans occupied, and, explaining to them what
was amiss, asked if they would undertake to set
it right. The traveller, he added, would pay
them liberally for their trouble.

"The two Germans were sitting at supper
when the lay brother came in with the pistol in
his hand. The elder of them, whose name was
Max, getting up from table, took the weapon
from the monk, and carried it to the window (as
the light was fading), that he might examine it
more completely. His friend remained at table
sitting with his back towards Max, finishing his
supper in a philosophical manner enough.
The German who was examining the pistol
had not been so occupied for a couple of minutes,
when it went off with a loud noise. At that
moment, the poor fellow who was sitting eating
his supper at the table fell forward without
uttering a sound. The charge had entered his
back.

"He fell upon his face on the ground, and
when my friend, who told me the story—and
who as surgeon to the embassy was sent for at
once—when he arrived, it seemed to him at
first as if two men had been killed instead of
one, for both the Germans were stretched upon
the floor, and he who was to be the survivor,
holding the other locked in his arms, wore upon
his ghastly countenance the deadlier look of the
two. It was quite a difficult thing to separate
them. The wounded man had got the other's
hand in his, as if by that to reassure him, and to
show him that he loved him all the same.

"The surgeon caused the wounded man—it
was but too evident that he had not long to live
—to be removed to the infirmary and laid upon
a bed to die. It was a bed that stood beneath
a window, and across which, when the sun was
setting, the shadow of a cypress fell. A very
brief examination showed that any attempt to
relieve the dying man would be useless, and
they could only stanch the blood that flowed
from his wound and watch him with that breath-less
eagerness—there is none like it—with which
men watch their brother, when each short breath,
drawn less and less often, seems as though it
were the last. As for the other German, he was
sunk in a heap upon the ground beside the bed
in speechless stupefaction. One of his hands
was on the couch, and the expiring effort of the
dying man was to take this passive hand in his.
Those who were around him seeing then a change
upon his face, leant hastily over him, for they
heard him whisper faintly.

"'Poor Max,' he said—'poor Max.' The
last act of the man who died was to pity the
man who lived.

"And well he might.

"For some time it was very uncertain whether
the man who had thus slain his best and
dearest friend would not speedily follow him into
another world—so fearfully was he affected.
For a still longer period it was doubtful in the
last degree whether he would retain his reason.
And, indeed, at the time when the story was
told me he could hardly be said to be altogether
of sound mind. At that very time the man was
haunted by a fixed presentiment that he should
die one day as his friend had died. No reasoning
with him had the least effect, the presentiment
had taken a hold upon his mind which
nothing could shake. Those who wished him
well—and there were many—had often tried to
lead him to a happier frame of mind, and to
make him take an interest in his own future.
They had urged him, since he had taken up his
abode in Jerusalem, to settle there more
comfortably, to get into a better and more convenient
workshop, and, since his skill as a workman
always ensured him the means of living, to marry.
For they knew that the fresh interests of a
domestic nature which would follow would be of
the greatest possible service to him.

"'The day will come,' was his invariable
answer to all such advice—'the day will come when
some one will shoot me with a pistol through
the back, just as I shot my friend. That day
will surely come; what have I to do, then, with a