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 road I wished to avoid, though an ill-defined feeling that there was danger in the one before us had led me to endeavour to take the other. But, my friends, who can avoid his fate? If it is the will of Alla that one is to die, of what use is human foresight? We went on, and soon reached the inclosed fields, between the high milk-bush hedges of which the path wound. It was scarcely light enough for us to see our way, but we knew every foot of the road. All at once, as we proceeded, I thought I saw in a hedge which crossed the road a glimmer, as if of the match of a gun.

"'Look!' said I to my father, 'we are waylaid, there are people behind the hedge; look, there are three lighted matches!'

"'You are a fool,' cried he, 'they are fire-flies: are you afraid? has my son become a coward?"

"The words were hardly out of his mouth, when there were three sharp cracks close to us. My father fell on his face without uttering a sound, and I felt a coldness and numbness all down my back, with a sharp pain, and the same feeling in my leg. I became sick, staggered a few paces, and then fell; but I was not insensible. Three men rushed out from the