his person. Father and son, nothing
daunted, walked boldly forward and seated
themselves by the jogi. They waited for
some time in silence, and then the raja
asked the devotee what commands there
might be for them? Shanta-Shil desired
them to go to a certain place where dead
bodies were burned, and where, hanging
from a mimosa tree, was a body which he
was to bring to him immediately. So
Vikram and his son rose up and departed
for the place.

It was an awful night, and they had an
awful walk, even worse than before, with
company neither to be imagined nor
described. At last they came to the burning
place; where they suddenly sighted
a tree which, from root to topmost bough,
was a blaze of crimson flame. And hanging
from this, head downward, was a
nondescript thing, more like a flying fox
than anything else: icy cold, and clammy
as a snake; whose only sign of life was the
whisking of a ragged little tail like a
goat's. This was the oilman's son—the
baital or vampire. After tremendous struggles
and repeated failures, but by the grace
of not knowing when he was beaten, and
never giving in, Vikram at last conquered,
the vampire saying on the seventh effort,
"Even the gods cannot resist a thoroughly
obstinate man," as he resignedly suffered
himself to be thrust into a bag improvised
out of the king's waist-cloth, and slung
across his shoulders en route for the jogi,
and the subjection of the Eight Powers of
Nature. But on the way, being a loquacious
demon, the vampire proposed to tell
the king some stories, giving him good-
naturedly a prefatial bit of advice, never
to allow himself to be entrapped into giving
an answer or an opinion, for if he should
fail in this, then assuredly would he, the
baital, slip back to his mimosa tree, and all
the labour of the capture would have to be
repeated. Then he began his stories.

Not being able to epitomise even one of
them, we refer our readers to the book
itself. There are eleven of them, for eleven
times did the Sun of Heroism suffer himself
to be entrapped into an answer, whereby
the baital was able to wriggle himself free
from his bag, and hang himself up by his
toes again from a high branch of the burning
mimosa tree. But the twelfth time
Vikram had learnt a little discretion, so
the journey was duly completed, and the
baital flung into the jogi's magic circle.
We will say no more. How Vikram fared,
and how the jogi fared, and who slew
whom, that is which was able to " breakfast
on his enemy ere his enemy could
dine on him," is it not all to be found
within the black and red covers which
Ernest Griset has so quaintly adorned?
All that we would say is this: if such a
story as we have epitomised can be got out
of the prologue, what may not be expected
from the body of the book?

LADY MACNAMARA'S STORY.

IT was eight-and-thirty years ago, and
I had been married five or six years, when
I went to live at Manorbere Lodge. The
ship in which my husband had been first
lieutenant was paid off. He had got his
rank as commander, but had no immediate
prospect of employment afloat, so his mind
naturally turned to the occupation he loved
best, next to his profession—fox-hunting:
a passion for which sport came to him by
nature, as the second son of a Lincolnshire
squire. His younger-son's portion, with
my dowry and his pay, though altogether
making up a comfortable income, would not
suffice for that very expensive amusement,
unless we could find a house in a good
situation, at a moderate rent; and we
were looking for such a house, when one
day Dick came in, radiant with expectation,
to tell me he had heard of one
beyond the dreams of avarice, or rather of
economy. It was in the heart of the
shires, within easy reach of three first-rate
packs, had capital stabling, and was all to
be let by the year at a fabulously low
rental.

It is a maxim with me that nothing is
to be had for less than its value, so I was
not quite so sanguine as Dick; but I
agreed with him in thinking it worth
while that he should run down and look
at the place.

He went, and came back delighted. He
had spared no pains to find out what there
could be amiss with the house, but had
come to the conclusion that it was almost
faultless. Indeed, it seemed to him such a
prize that he had feared to lose it by
delay, and had taken it at once for a year
certain. " I am sure you will like it, my
love," he said. "It is an old house, a
great deal larger and handsomer than
we want, but that does not matter."  I
was quite content so that he pleased
himself, and a very few days saw us settled at
Manorbere.

I found the place all that Dick had