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to the wire rope which swung above the burning shaft. The self-appointed leader asked for flannel clothing. A dozen garments were flung to him at He wrapped himself up like a mummy, and bound a cotton handkerchief over his face. Then, with the machine strapped securely across his shoulder, he set one foot in the bucket, and laid a hand upon the rope. A man ran forward with a slender chain, which he passed rapidly round the volunteer's waist, and fixed to the rope which supported the bowk. Another thrust an end of cord into his hand, and stood by to reeve out the rest as he descended. Then came the word: "Short, steady." The eng.ne panted, the rope tightened, the muffled figure with the machine bound about it swung into the smoke, and in a death-like stillness, with here and there smothered gasp, the man went down. His comrade at the edge dribbled the cord through his coal-blackened fingers as delicately as though it had been a silken thread. Then came a sudden tug at it, and the word was flashed to the engineroom, and the creak of the wheel ceased, and the gliding wire rope was still. Then for a space of nigh a minute not a sound was heard, but every eye was on the rope, and every cheek was pallid with suspense, and every heart was with the hero in the fiery depths below. Then came another warning tug at the rope, and again the word flashed to the engine-room. The wheel spun round, the rope glided, quivered, stopped, the figure swung up through the smoke again, was seized, lowered, landed. When his comrades laid hands upon him, the flannel garments fell from him in huge blackened flakes, so near to the flames had he been. He cast these garments from him, and they fell, half tinder, at his feet. Then he drew off the handkerchief which bound his face, and, at the god-like, heroic pallor of his countenance, and the set lips and gleaming eyes, women whispered pantingly, "God bless him!" and the breath of those bold fellows was drawn hard. Then he reeled, and a pair of arms like a bear's were round him in a second. In ten seconds more he was outside the crowd, and a bottle of whisky, which came from nobody knew where, was at his lips as he lay upon the ground, and two or three women ran for water. And whilst all this was doing, another man, as good as he, was swinging downwards in the blinding smoke. So fierce a leap the flames made at this hero that they caught him fairly for a moment in their arms, and when he was brought to the surface, he hung limp and senseless, with great patches of smouldering fire upon his garments, and his hands and face cracked and blackened. But the next man was ready, and when he in turn came to the light, he had said good-bye to the light for ever in this world. Not this, nor anything that fear could

urge, could stay the rest. Man after man went down. There were five-and-thirty men and boys below, and they would have them up or die. With that godlike pallor on their lips and cheeks, with those wide eyes that looked Death in the face, and knew him, and defied him-down they went! I saw these things, who tell the story. Man after man defied that fiery hell, and faced its lurid smoky darkness undismayed, until, at last, their valour won the day.

The love-lorn William had but little room in his heart for superfluous sentiment as he laid his hand upon the wire rope, and set his foot in the bowk again. Yet just a hope was there—that Selina should not grieve too greatly if this second venture failed, and he should meet his death. He was not, as a rule, devotionally inclined, but he whispered inwardly, "God be good to her." And there, at that second, he saw her face before him-so set and fixed, that in its agony of fear and prayer it looked like marble. The rope grew taut, he passed the handkerchief about his face again, and with the memory of her eyes upon him, dropped out of sight. The man at the side of the shaft paid out the slender line again, and old hands watched it closely. Yard after yard ran out. The great coil at his feet snaked itself, ring by ring, through his coaly fingers. Still no warning message came from below. The engine stopped at last, and they knew that the foot of the shaft was reached. Had the explorer fainted by the way? He might, for all they knew above, be roasting down below that minute. Even then, his soul, newly released, might be above them.

Through the dead silence of the crowd the word flashed to the engine-room. The wheel went round, and the wire rope glided and quivered up again, over it. There was not a man or woman there who did not augur the same thing from the tenser quiver of the rope, and when, at last, through the thinner coils of smoke about the top of the shaft the rescuer's figure swung with the first of the rescued in his arms, there was heard one sound of infinite pathos-a sigh of relief from twenty thousand breasts-and dead silence fell again.

"Alive?" asked one, laying a hand on Bowker's arm. Bill nodded and pushed him by, and made his way towards that marble face, nursing his burden still.

"Seliner," he said quietly, "here's your sweetheart."

"No, no, no, Bill," she answered. "There's on'y one man i' the world for me, Bill, if ever he forgives me an' my wicked ways."

Cheer on cheer of triumph rang in their ears. The women fought for Bill Bowker, and kissed him, and cried over him. Men shook hands with him, and with each other. Strangers mingled

E are all still watching with undiminished anxiety for the consummation of the natural progress of incubation now proceeding in the coop. We know that any day the twelve assorted eggs may break, and their varied occupants come hopping out into this vale of tears.

Yes, I say twelve assorted ones advisedly. Our veteran Cochin-China hen is sitting on a dozen eggs, every one of which is of a different species.

It is an experiment. I long for the day when the varied brood will crack their shells and emerge. How the cochin one will stare when an infant peacock, a turkey, a gosling, a duckling, a dabchick, a guinea-fowl, a sea-gull, a cuckoo, a dorking, a partridge, a pheasant, and a woodcock, will crowd about her, and call her Mother, in diverse accents. I am most anxious about the sea-gull. The cochin hen looks on this egg especially with suspicion, and scores it deeply with her bill.

When the supreme moment arrives, we shall not be unprepared. Everything that ornithological experience can suggest has been done, and I await the advent of the assorted twelve with tolerable complacency. Each member of my family has had instructions how to act, and knows his or her especial charge. I have drawn up a code of regulations which I read every morning after breakfast. We all take it in turn to watch the coop, and relieve one another at the appointed hours, like the sentries at the Horse Guards.

To show you how complete is our organisation, I will tell you how the duties have been severally allotted. On the first warning from the watcher at the coop that the hatching has commenced, the whole of us will march in Indian file to the scene of action, and at once assume charge of our respective protégés. As father of the family, I have taken upon myself to look after the sea-gull and the cuckoo. The sea-gull will be the source of much trouble, we expect and I am keeping a tub of water, strongly impregnated with Tidman's seasalt, always ready, so that the marine bird may take to its native element at once. A few dead

sprats and some oyster-shells placed at the bottom of the tub will complete the illusion, and I have every reason to hope the young gull will thrive. I have prepared a nest for the cuckoo, and have put in it three dough models of young sparrows for the pugnacious harbinger of spring to turn out. He will then, I hope, settle down, and cheer our back garden with his dreamy note.

My wife, by special desire, will devote all her energies to the young peacock and the dab-chick. She says her Pa used to keep peacocks, and that the only way to save their young is to give them a spoonful of isinglass and sal volatile at their birth. As to the dab-chick, she has prepared a cotton-wool dressing-gown for it, and intends to place it in the oven, should it be born with a cough.

My eldest boy is told off for the turkey, and has, with great ingenuity, constructed a house for it out of an old biscuit tin. He has lined it with scarlet cloth, which will serve the double object of accustoming the bird to red from its birth, and developing its wattles. So, at least, the secretary of the National Poultry Institute says.