"Why don't you answer me ?" the robber at l
ast shouted.

"Because," gasped Casey, " I have nothing to
say."

"Nothing to say?" roared the Bushranger.
" Take that!"

He drew a revolver, half rose from his
seat, and, with wonderful quickness, levelled
the weapon at Casey. But My Chainman
was quicker than he. He had quietly picked
up an American tomahawk which lay on a
block beside him, and, just as the Bushranger
had given the half turn to fire, down came the
tomahawk on the back of the neck. The pistol
exploded at the same moment. The wretched
man gave hardly a quiver. He was dead in a
second. The two survivors looked into each
other's faces.

"Of course he was a Bushranger?" inquired
Casey, after a long pause.

"Of course he was," said My Chainman;
and he then told him the whole story. " But
even if he were not, I did it in self-defence, for he
would have shot me the next minute."

"You saved my life, however," said Casey,
" and that is everything to the purpose."

"I thought at first," said My Chainman,
" that you were in league with the robbers."

"Probably I might have been forced to be
so in time," was the reply; " but I have not
been here long, and, rely upon it, I shan't be
here long."

"What is best to be done?" said My
Chainman. " Shall I ride on and meet the
police, if they are on the way?"

"For the Lord's sake, don't!" exclaimed the
other. " His mates are sure to be here in no
time, and they'll torture me if they find this out."

"Get up behind me, and we'll both ride
off," said My Chainman.

"Then I leave everything belonging to me
to be plundered."

"Well, then, man, what is it you want?
"What's your advice?"

"Let us throw the body down that rock
into the scrub there, and then clean up.
You ride off. I'll pretend that their mate was
after you. If you do meet the police, don't
say a word about it."

"But the horse and saddle may be stolen
property?"

"You must chance that. It's the only plan."

My Chainman adopted the only plan, rode
down to Sydney, and sold the horse.

"But now, sir," said he, "comes the
strangest part of the story, and, if I didn't feel
sure that you would believe me, I would never
tell it. Years passed, and I happened to be
travelling through a town where the assizes
were going on. I heard that a great murderer
was to be tried, so I went to hear the trial.
I did hear the trial. As I live and must die,
one of the officials of that court, and not the
lowest either, was Jim, the Bushranger who
stripped me!"

"Of course you communicated your discovery
to the police?"

My Chainman gave a dry cough, and, I
rather think, got red in the face.

"I never much cottoned to the police, sir,
at any time least of all then. Not so much
for my own sake as for others'."

"I see, I see," said I; "but I hope that
was the only human blood you ever shed?"

"The only drop," said My Chainman, in
some confusion, "saving and excepting one
other case. That's a longer yarn than this."

         OLD STORIES RE-TOLD.

THE LOSS OF THE KENT EAST INDIAMAN BY
                      FIRE (1825).

DR. ARNOLD says, in one of his sermons,
referring to this calamity: " Never was the faith
and charity of martyrs shown more beautifully
than in the Christian soldiers and sailors so
nobly united amid the horrors of that scene in
the service of God."

The dangers these brave men underwent were
deeply sympathised with by the nation, whose
courage and chivalrous fidelity they had so well
illustrated, and millions of hearts will beat faster
with pride and joy at the recital of their
providential escape.

It is sometimes difficult to understand why
certain events rouse a whole country, while
others, apparently equally or more interesting,
fail to excite any attention. There had been
wrecks at sea, in which thousands more lives
had been lost losses far more heartrending in
their suddenness and in the circumstances
connected with them. In 1780, fifteen English
vessels of war sank together in a tornado off
the West Indies. ln 1811, two English men-of
-war struck on the iron-bound rocks of Jutland,
and nearly one thousand of their seamen
perished. Yet these catastrophes are now
almost forgotten, and the loss of the Kent East
Indiaman is remembered, and discussed with
an interest that shows that ympathy in the
event is still existing. Our nation is incapable
of false sentiment or hypocrisy. There is
generally a good reason for the emotion it
evinces. There is always some peculiar heroism
or pathos in any event which touches the national
heart.

The Kent, a fine new Indiaman of 1350 tons,
Captain Henry Cobb commander, bound to
Bengal and China, left the English Downs before
a fine fresh north-east wind on February 19,
1825. She had on board twenty officers, three
hundred and forty-four soldiers, forty-three
women and sixty children belonging to the
Thirty-first Regiment, besides twenty private
passengers, and a crew (including officers) of one
hundred and forty-eight men, making a total of
six hundred and forty-one souls.

Early on the 1st of March, eleven days from
leaving England, the stately vessel, bewildered
by a pitiless storm, lay-to under a triple-reefed
main topsail only, having struck her top-gallant
yards. The pasengers were below, miserable
and anxious; the women and children groaning