A. CONAN DOYLE.

DOYLE, A. CONAN, British physician and novelist; born at Edinburgh in 1859. He was carefully trained for a physician, but went to London at twenty and adopted literature as a profession. His first book was "The Mystery of the Sassassa Valley," published at the age of nineteen. His greatest success was won with the series of detective tales known as the Sherlock Holmes stories : "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," etc. In 1894 Mr. Doyle visited the United States, where his books are very popular, and lectured in the principal cities. Doyle has, published: "Mystery of Cloomber" and "Study in Scarlet" (1888); "Micah Clarke, His Statement to His Three Grandchildren" (1889); "Captain of the Polestar, and Other Tales, Mysteries, and Adventures," and "Sign of Four" (1890); "White Company" (1891); "Adventure of Sherlock Holmes," "Doings of Raffles Haw," "Firm of Girdlestone," "Great Shadow," and "Gully of Bluemansdyke, and Other Stories" (1892); "Beyond the City" and "Refugees, a Tale of Two Continents" (1893); "An Actor's Duel," "The Winning Shot," "The Parasite," "Round the Red Lamp" and "The Slapping Sal, and Other Tales" (1894); "The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard" (1895); "The Stark-Munro Letters" (1895), and "Uncle Bernac" (1897).

OUR PERILOUS ADVENTURE ON THE PLAIN.

(From "Micah Clarke.")

WE were not half a mile from the town before the roll of kettledrums and the blare of bugles swelling up musically through the darkness announced the arrival of the regiment of horse which our friends at the inn had been expecting.

"It is as well, perhaps," said Saxon, "that we gave them. the slip, for that young springald might have smelt a rat and played us some ill turn. Have you chanced to see my silken kerchief?"

"Not I," I answered.

"Nay, then, it must have fallen from my bosom during our ruffle. I can ill afford to leave it, for I travel light in such

matters. Eight hundred men, quoth the major, and three thousand to follow. Should I meet this same Oglethorpe or Ogilvy when the little business is over, I shall read him a lesson on thinking less of chemistry and more of the need of preserving military precautions. It is well always to be courteous to strangers, and to give them information, but it is well, also, that the information should be false."

"As his may have been," I suggested.

"Nay, nay, the words came too glibly from his tongue. So ho, Chloe, so ho! She is full of oats, and would fain gallop, but it is so plaguy dark that we can scarce see where we are going."

We had been trotting down the broad high-road, shimmering vaguely white in the gloom, with the shadowy trees dancing past us on either side, scarce outlined against the dark background of cloud. We were now coming upon the eastern edge of the great plain which extends forty miles one way and twenty the other, over the greater part of Wiltshire and past the boundaries of Somersetshire. The main road to the west skirts this wilderness, but we had agreed to follow a less important track, which would lead us to our goal though in a more tedious manner. Its insignificance would, we hoped, prevent it from being guarded by the king's horse. We had come to the point where this by-road branches off from the main highway, when we heard the clatter of horses' hoofs behind us.

"Here comes some one who is not afraid to gallop," I remarked.

"Halt here in the shadow!" cried Saxon, in a short, quick whisper. "Have your blade loose in the scabbard. He must have a set errand who rides so fast o' night."

Looking down the road, we could make out, through the darkness, a shadowy blur, which soon resolved itself into man. and horse. The rider was well-nigh abreast of us before he was aware of our presence, when he pulled up his steed in a strange, awkward fashion and faced round in our direction.

"Is Micah Clarke there?" he said, in a voice which was strangely familiar to my ears.

"I am Micah Clarke," said I.

"And I am Reuben Lockarby," cried our pursuer, in a mock-heroic voice. "Ah, Micah, lad, I'd embrace you were it not that I should assuredly fall out of the saddle if I at

tempted it, and perchance drag you along. That sudden pull up well-nigh landed me on the roadway. I have been sliding off and clambering on ever since I bade good-bye to Havant. Sure, such a horse for slipping from under one was never bestridden by man.'

"Good heavens, Reuben!" I cried, in amazement, "what brings you all this way from home?"

"The very same cause which brings you, Micah, and also Don Decimo Saxon, late of the Solent, whom methinks I see in the shadow behind you. How fares it, O illustrious one?" "It is you, then, young cock of the woods!" growled Saxon, in no very overjoyed voice.

"No less a person," " said Reuben. "And now, my gay cavalieros, round with your horses and trot on your way, for there is no time to be lost. We ought all to be at Taunton to-morrow."

"But, my dear Reuben," said I, "it cannot be that you are coming with us to join Monmouth. What would your father say? This is no holiday jaunt, but one that may have a sad and stern ending. At the best, victory can only come through much bloodshed and danger. At the worst, we are as like to wind up upon a scaffold as not."

"Forward, lads, forward!" cried he, spurring on his horse. "It is all arranged and settled. I am about to offer my august person, together with a sword which I borrowed and a horse which I stole, to his most Protestant highness, James, Duke of Monmouth.'

"But how comes it all?" I asked, as we rode on together. "It warms my very heart to see you, but you were never concerned either in religion or in politics. Whence, then, this sudden resolution?"

"Well, truth to tell," he replied, "I am neither a king's man, nor a duke's man, nor would I give a button which sat upon the throne. I do not suppose that either one or the other would increase the custom of the Wheatsheaf, or want Reuben Lockarby for a councillor. I am a Micah Clarke man, though, from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet; and, if he rides to the wars, may the plague strike me if I don't stick to his elbow!" He raised his hand excitedly as he spoke, and, instantly losing his balance, he shot into a dense clump of bushes by the roadside, whence his legs flapped helplessly in the darkness.

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"That makes the tenth," said he, scrambling out and clambering into his saddle once more. My father used to tell me not to sit a horse too closely. A gentle rise and fall,' said the old man. Egad! there is more fall than rise, and it is anything but gentle."

"Odd's truth!" exclaimed Saxon.

"How, in the name of all the saints in the calendar, do you expect to keep your seat in the presence of an enemy if you lose it on a peaceful highroad?"

"I can but try, my illustrious," he answered, rearranging his ruffled clothing. "Perchance the sudden and unexpected character of my movements may disconcert the said enemy."

"Well, well, there may be more truth in that than you are aware of," quoth Saxon, riding upon Lockarby's bridle arm, so that there was scarce room for him to fall between us. "I had sooner fight a man like that young fool at the inn, who knew a little of the use of his weapon, than one like Micah here, or yourself, who know nothing. You can tell what the one is after, but the other will invent a system of his own which will serve his turn for the nonce. Ober-hauptmann Muller was reckoned to be the finest player at the small-sword in the kaiser's army, and could for a wager snick any button from an opponent's vest without cutting the cloth. Yet was he slain in an encounter with Fahnführer Zollner, who was a cornet in our own Pandour corps, and who knew as much of the rapier as you do of horsemanship. For the rapier, be it understood, is designed to thrust, and not to cut, so that no man wielding it ever thinks of guarding a side-stroke. But Zollner, being a long-armed man, smote his antagonist across the face with his weapon, as though it had been a cane, and then, ere he had time to recover himself, fairly pinked him. Doubtless, if the matter were to do again, the ober-hauptmann would have got his thrust in sooner, but as it was, no explanation or excuse could get over the fact that the man was dead."

"If want of knowledge maketh a dangerous swordsman, quoth Reuben, "then am I even more deadly than the unpronounceable gentleman whom you have mentioned. To continue my story, however, which I broke off in order to step down from my horse, I found out early in the morning that ye were gone, and Zachary Palmer was able to tell me whither. I made up my mind, therefore, that I would out into the world. also. To this end I borrowed a sword from Solomon Sprent,

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and, my father having gone to Gosport, I helped myself to the best nag in his stables for I have too much respect for the old man to allow one of his flesh and blood to go ill-provided to the wars. All day I have ridden, since early morning, being twice stopped on suspicion of being ill-affected, but having the good luck to get away each time. I knew that I was close at your heels, for I found them searching for you at the Salisbury inn.

Decimus whistled. "Searching for us?" said he.

"Yes. It seems that they had some notion that ye were not what ye professed to be, so the inn was surrounded as I passed, but none knew which road ye had taken."

"That young viper hath We must push on, for they

"Said I not so?" cried Saxon. stirred up the regiment against us. may send a party on our track." "We are off the main road should they pursue us, they would be unlikely to follow this side-track."

now,

"I remarked: "even

"Yet it would be wise to show them a clean pair of heels," said Saxon, spurring his mare into a gallop. Lockarby and I followed his example, and we all three rode swiftly along the rough moorland track.

We passed through scattered belts of pinewood, where the wildcat howled and the owl screeched, and across broad stretches of fenland and moor, where the silence was only broken by the booming cry of the bittern or the fluttering of wild ducks far above our heads. The road was, in parts, overgrown with brambles, and was so deeply rutted and so studded with sharp and dangerous hollows that our horses came more than once upon their knees. In one place the wooden bridge which led over a stream had broken down, and no attempt had been made to repair it, so that we were compelled to ride our horses girth deep through the torrent. At first some scattered lights had shown that we were in the neighborhood of human habitations, but these became fewer as we advanced, until the last died away, and we found ourselves upon the desolate moor, which stretched away in unbroken solitude to the shadowy horizon. The moon had broken through the clouds, and now shone hazily through wreaths of mist, throwing a dim light over the wild scene, and enabling us to keep to the track, which was not fenced in in any way, and could scarce be distinguished from the plain around it.