ay for some days with the pigs,
and then to an inn in a neighbouring town--it was a near thing they
didn't put him under ground. He had been completely insensible--without
a ray of recognition of any human thing--for three whole months; had not
a glimmer of consciousness of any blessed thing. It was touch and go to
that degree that they couldn't come near him, they couldn't feed him,
they could scarcely look at him. Then one day he had opened his eyes--as
fit as a flea!

'I give you my honour it had done me good--it rested my brain.' He
appeared to intimate that with an intelligence so active as his these
periods of repose were providential. Lyon thought his story very
striking, but he wanted to ask him whether he had not shammed a
little--not in relating it, but in keeping so quiet. He hesitated
however, in time, to imply a doubt--he was so impressed with the tone in
which Colonel Capadose said that it was the turn of a hair that they
hadn't buried him alive. That had happened to a friend of his in
India--a fellow who was supposed to have died of jungle fever--they
clapped him into a coffin. He was going on to recite the further fate of
this unfortunate gentleman when Mr. Ashmore made a move and every one
got up to adjourn to the drawing-room. Lyon noticed that by this time no
one was heeding what his new friend said to him. They came round on
either side of the table and met while the gentlemen dawdled before
going out.

'And do you mean that your friend was literally buried alive?' asked
Lyon, in some suspense.

Colonel Capadose looked at him a moment, as if he had already lost the
thread of the conversation. Then his face brightened--and when it
brightened it was doubly handsome. 'Upon my soul he was chucked into the
ground!'

'And was he left there?'

'He was left there till I came and hauled him out.'

'_You_ came?'

'I dreamed about him--it's the most extraordinary story: I heard him
calling to me in the night. I took upon myself to dig him up. You know
there are people in India--a kind of beastly race, the ghouls--who
violate graves. I had a sort of presentiment that they would get at him
first. I rode straight, I can tell you; and, by Jove, a couple of them
had just broken ground! Crack--crack, from a couple of barrels, and they
showed me their heels, as you may believe. Would you credit that I took
him out myself? The air brought him to and he was none the worse. He
has got his pension--he came home