fell.

"Try agen!" said the hump-back, grinning delightedly.

Joel stooped first to pick up the coin, and bit it eagerly.

"Ay, good Gosh! 'tes gowld, sure 'nuff!"

"Try agen!" said the hump-back "Make up a pile!"

Joel held out his wrist and repeated the formula.

"Wan!"

And another coin clinked at his feet.

"I needn' wait no longer, s'pose?" said the hump-back.

"Wan!" cried Joel. And a third coin dropped.

He leaned on his pick and kept coining his blood eagerly, till presently
there was quite a little pile at his feet.

The hump-back watched him intently for a time: but Joel appeared to be
oblivious of his presence; and the squat little figure stealthily
disappeared.

The falling coins kept chiming melodiously, till presently the great
stalwart miner had to lean against the wall of the level to support
himself. So tired as he was, he had never felt before. But give over his
task he either could not, or would not. The chink of the gold-pieces he
must hear if he died for it. He looked down at them greedily. "Wan! . . .
Wan! . . . Wan! . . ."

Presently he tottered, and fell over on his heap.

At that same moment the halting little hump-back stole out from the
shadows immediately behind him, and leaned over Joel, rubbing his hands
gleefully.

"I must catch his soul," said the little black man.

And with that he turned Joel's head round sharply, and held his hand to
the dying man's mouth.

Just then there fluttered up to Joel's lips a tiny yellow flame, which,
for some reason or other, seemed as agitated as if it had a human
consciousness. One might almost have imagined it perceived the little
hump-back, and knew full well who and what he was.

But there on Joel's lips the flame hung quivering. And now a deeper
shadow fell upon his face.

Surely the tiny thing shuddered with horror as the hump-back's black
paws closed upon it!

But, in any case, it now was safely prisoned. And the little black man
laughed long and loudly.

"Not so bad a bargain after all!" chuckled he.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] To "_knaw tin_" is among the miners of Cornwall a sign of, and a
colloquial euphemism for, _cleverness_.

AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY.

THE performance was over: the curtain had descended and the spectators
had dispersed.

There had been a slight crush at the doors of the theatre, and what with
the abrupt change from the pleasant warmth and light of the interior to
the sharp chill of the night outsi