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chance, some trivial device of his oracular squire, but he took idly laughing gods-the shape the hint, and for the rest of the of a woman's nose, a lame evening joined cheerfully in a horse, the indigestion of a general conversation which, by Court favourite, or the quack- a determined effort, we steered ing of a flock of geese. Who clear of everything connected can say what China would have with Chinese politics and upbeen to-day if those young men lift." had opened the right door?"

"A very thrilling bit of history," observed the Senator, "and an interesting subject for speculation. But they took the wrong door, and that's all there is to it. Now, Mr M'Quigg, I'd be real glad to have your opinion on the present situation."

"No, Mr Penting," said Cantegril, who during M'Quigg's yarn had recovered his usual bonhomie under the soothing influences of port and a good cigar, "let us have no more arguments to-night. Let us digest this most excellent dinner in a lighter mood. Believe me, Chinese politics, taken seriously, play the devil with your liver. Ah, here is old Kuan with coffee on a lordly dish! M'Quigg, let us have it in the library, and we'll talk of the latest scandals of London, Paris, and Washington, books and theatrical news, Shakespeare and the musical glasses-anything you like, except politics and finance. You know your Sancho Panza, Senator? It was he who said, 'Talk not of halters in the house of the hanged.'"

I doubt whether the Senator had ever heard of the knight of the rueful countenance or

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Later, M'Quigg, preceded by Kuan with a melon-shaped red lantern, had said good-night to his guests at the gate lodge. The Senator had started off with Cantegril, earnestly explaining to this bored, but now courteous, listener the manifold blessings of woman suffrage. On the pretext of fixing up a game of golf, I lingered behind. The shadow of a faint suspicion, the glimmer of a doubt, was hovering at the back of my mind. For one of M'Quigg's occasional weaknesses was a propensity to pull, with elaborate gravity, the legs of the mighty, to cast the bread of whimsical invention upon the waters of pompous credulity.

"That was a good yarn of yours, Peter," I said.. "It's the first I've ever heard of your having had anything to do with Kang Yu-wei and the martyrs of '98."

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Everything comes to him who waits, old fellow," he replied. "Also, don't forget that it's the first time the Empress Dowager has died, and the first time we've had an American Senator to dinner. The occasion called for a special effort, didn't it? And everything went off very well, considering."

(To be continued.)

young men who carried out the kidnapping had ever seen the Empress in the flesh. Daylight was near; it was too late to try again. There was nothing for it but to make their way back as fast as possible. So taking their captive with them (she turned out to be one of the consort widows of his Majesty Tung Chih), they hurried to the city, got in just as the gates were opened, and deposited the old lady in a safe hiding-place. Then by trusty messenger they sent word of what had happened to Sung, the Emperor's personal attendant, bidding him warn his Majesty that the plot had failed, and that the only hope left lay in giving immediate command of the foreign-drilled troops at Tientsin to Yuan Shih-k'ai, and prevailing upon him to come speedily to the rescue of the Reform party.

"All this Wang told me when he came to see me next morning, a picture of hopeless dejection. It was not for himself, but for the Emperor and the cause, that he lamented his failure and feared its results. As regards the kidnapping of Tung Chih's widow, he was not greatly concerned, for she was more in sympathy with the Emperor than with the Yehonala Clan, so that there was nothing to connect her disappearance with the Reformers. Nevertheless, the business was bound to stir up a hornets' nest in the palace, and to preclude all hope of another attempt to secure the person of the Old Buddha. He feared

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rest. That morning the Emperor gave audience to Yuan Shih-k'ai, entrusting his fortunes and his fate hands of the betrayer; that same afternoon the Old Buddha sent for him and ordered him to have Kang Yu-wei placed under arrest for speaking disrespectfully of her private morals. Five days later the blow fell, which condemned Kuang Hsü for the rest of his days to eat the bread of affliction and humiliation, and which relegated to the Board of Punishments all the leading Reformers except the two who had escaped to Shanghai. At no time during the crisis of the Old Buddha's savage reprisals did any hint leak out that Wang's attempt to seize her person had been discovered. The secret was well kept, and the kidnapped Dowager (deposited one night anonymously near the Palace Gate) never knew, of course, who her captors were or whence they came.

"In the long run a nation's destiny depends upon the character of the race, but every now and then its fortunes would seem to be determined by pure

chance, some trivial device of idly laughing gods-the shape of a woman's nose, a lame horse, the indigestion of a Court favourite, or the quacking of a flock of geese. Who can say what China would have been to-day if those young men had opened the right door?" "A very thrilling bit of history," observed the Senator, "and an interesting subject for speculation. But they took the wrong door, and that's all there is to it. Now, Mr M'Quigg, I'd be real glad to have your opinion on the present situation."

"No, Mr Penting," said Cantegril, who during M'Quigg's yarn had recovered his usual bonhomie under the soothing influences of port and a good cigar, "let us have no more arguments to-night. Let us digest this most excellent dinner in a lighter mood. Believe me, Chinese politics, taken seriously, play the devil with your liver. Ah, here is old Kuan with coffee on a lordly dish! M'Quigg, let us have it in the library, and we'll talk of the latest scandals of London, Paris, and Washington, books and theatrical news, Shakespeare and the musical glasses-anything you like, except politics and finance. You know your Sancho Panza, Senator? It was he who said, 'Talk not of halters in the house of the hanged.'

I doubt whether the Senator had ever heard of the knight of the rueful countenance or

his oracular squire, but he took the hint, and for the rest of the evening joined cheerfully in a general conversation which, by a determined effort, we steered clear of everything connected with Chinese politics and "uplift."

Later, M'Quigg, preceded by Kuan with a melon-shaped red lantern, had said good-night to his guests at the gate lodge. The Senator had started off with Cantegril, earnestly explaining to this bored, but now courteous, listener the manifold blessings of woman suffrage. On the pretext of fixing up a game of golf, I lingered behind. The shadow of a faint suspicion, the glimmer of a doubt, was hovering at the back of my mind. For one of M'Quigg's occasional weaknesses was a propensity to pull, with elaborate gravity, the legs of the mighty, to cast the bread of whimsical invention upon the waters of pompous credulity.

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That was a good yarn of yours, Peter," I said. "It's the first I've ever heard of your having had anything to do with Kang Yu-wei and the martyrs of '98."

"Everything comes to him who waits, old fellow," he replied. "Also, don't forget that it's the first time the Empress Dowager has died, and the first time we've had an American Senator to dinner. The occasion called for a special effort, didn't it? And everything went off very well, considering."

(To be continued.)

THE ARMAGEDDON HUNT.

THE STORY OF THE VALE OF ACRE AND PLAIN
OF SHARON FOXHOUNDS.

BY BRAVIDA.

"The brave commander Bravida . . . captain of the clothing department."

MR JORROCKS observes, in his third sporting lector, "Every 'unt should have its trumpeter as well as its 'untsman-some nice easy-writin' cove to exhibit its bright pints; butterin' without bedaubin' praisin' without besmearin'just as a barber hoils a customer arter a sixpenny clip."

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The compiler of this little record makes no pretence to being a nice easy - writin' cove." Nor has he any intention of butterin', much less of bedaubin'; but there seems reason for thinking that a record of this little pack may be appreciated, not only by those who have shared in the thrill of its many gallant runsnot only, indeed, by fox-hunters in general, but by a wider public.

The pack first came into being as a regular hunt on the slopes of Mount Carmel in the autumn of 1919.

Survivors (and, alas! successors) of its gallant hounds and hard-riding field are hunting the central plains of Palestine this season as ever was."

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-TARTARIN OF TARASCON.

From its obscure beginning to the apotheosis of its most triumphant kill, the Armageddon Hunt is an illustration of one of the queer accidental processes that have, in former times, helped to times, helped to build the Empire.

Unlike the pack made famous in Mr Kipling's "Little Foxes," it was built up gradually and from small beginnings. A yeoman officer, perhaps, scouting the stony Syrian plain, puts up a fox, a jackal, or a hare. Next time he rides that way he brings a long dog with him, possibly another yeoman as well. The spark is lighted. A few days later, the astonished sun, popping up over Anti-Lebanon, sees a bobbery pack in the full swing of a four o'clock in the morning

run.

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Fox terriers, pointers, slim Selugis, and no doubt an element of "pi "-all the dogs of the camp, that look like dogs

have been "fallen in," sorted over, and recruited into a riotous mob which, as the weeks go on, sobers and simmers down into something that may

be called a pack, and injects a thrill of life-worth-living into a camp bored with an eventless existence on the fringe of the desert.

To them enter, one red-letter day, a fox-hound, inseparable companion and friend of a chance-sent subaltern.

The method of his hunting, the sound of his music, instil a divine discontent. The bobbery pack is good fun; but what would a pack of foxhounds be?4

Fortune favours the brave. Keen reconnaissance discovers two tiny packs. Reshuffling and redealing in Whitehall, Higher Authority, after several unwitting attempts, manages to get all the cards into one hand-the Master, hounds, and the keenest of fields, all gathered together first in the Vale of Acre, and later in the priceless grass country of Sharon.

The hills which echoed the war-cries of ancient days learn a new note, the war-cry of a gallant pack in pursuit of the thief of the world.

Technically, to the soldier, the Armageddon Hunt has another claim to distinction. It puts into practice a motto motto which has been in the mouth of almost every soldier of modern times-there's nothing like hunting for teaching a cavalryman (or, for that mat

ter, any other type of soldier) to know his country.

If that is true of hunting at home, how much more true of our hunt in the Holy Land! British cavalry have not, thank God, been obliged to meet the enemy in the grass countries. But the soldiers who hunted with the Armageddon hounds were riding across the very country it was their business to know, and possibly to defend. Many a village never saw soldiers within its bounds except those (doubtless afflicted of God: these English are a strange people) who came towlin' and rowlin' through, behind the pack. (Dogs that ate not of what is in the street, as do the village dogs; or if they did, one in a yellow coat 1 would chastise them with curses and scourgings, saying, "Leavit Rai-en-Djer": but who pursued, with one mind and voice, et ta'aleb, whom the English call garn-e-weh.")

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1 The impromptu uniform worn by the M.F.H. and Whips, in early days, was a yellow woolly cardigan.

2 A deep crack in the earth, forming a watercourse in the rainy season. Many have precipitous sides.

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