hen went to the gardens,
where he found the man waiting for him. The man led him to the Uz
monument, which was at a little distance from the main path, and shut in
by trees. Here he made him take a solemn oath of secrecy and handed him
the little purse, which Kaspar, in his hurry to seize it, let drop. As
he stooped to pick it up he was stabbed, and when he lifted himself up
the stranger was gone. Then he ran home.

For two days he was not supposed to be in any danger, but fever set in;
the doctors gave no hope of his recovery, and on the 17th he died.

His death caused great excitement, not only in Ausbach and Nuremberg,
but throughout all Germany. The question as to whether he was an
impostor or not was hotly debated; those who favoured the former theory
insisting that he had killed himself accidentally when he only meant to
wound himself and so excite sympathy. Some of the doctors declared,
however, that that was quite impossible, for the wound was meant to
kill, and could only have been self-inflicted by a left-handed person of
great strength, for it had pierced through a padded coat. A large reward
(1,200_l._) was offered for the capture of the assassin, but in vain;
and the spot of the murder was marked by an inscription in Latin:

HIC
OCCULTUS
OCCULTO
OCCISUS EST

(Here the Mystery was mysteriously murdered).

The same idea is repeated on his tombstone. 'Here lies K. H., the riddle
of the age. His birth was unknown, his death mysterious.'

His death was the signal for a violent paper-war between his friends and
his enemies. It raged hotly for years; but his friends have never
succeeded in proving who he was; why, after having been shut up for so
long, he was at last set free; or why his death was, after all,
necessary; while his enemies have utterly failed to prove that he was an
impostor.[11]

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Probably the man had tied a piece of black crape over his face as a
mask.

[11] This is rather a picturesque than a critical story of Kaspar
Hauser. The evidence of the men who first met him shows that he could
then speak quite rationally. The curious will find a brief but useful
account of him in the Duchess of Cleveland's 'Kaspar Hauser'
(Macmillans, 1893.)

_AN ARTIST'S ADVENTURE_

NEARLY four hundred years ago, a boy was born in Italy who grew up to be
one of the most accomplished artists of his own or any other age.
Besides exc