his breath.

"What a country this is," he thought; "pleasant enough, though, as far
as the climate goes; but the people in it are awful! What a lot of
bloodthirsty, bilious-looking wretches, to be sure; ready to consign to
torture and death a poor innocent, unprotected orphan because he
happens to be of a different colour from themselves!"

So perturbed were the thoughts of Mr. Figgins that he was obliged to
smoke a cigar to soothe himself.

But even this failed to quiet his agitated nerves.

His mind was full of gloomy apprehensions.

"Where am I?" he asked himself. "How am I to get home? I shall be sure
to meet some of the rabble, and with them and the dogs I shall be torn
to pieces. What will become of me--wretched orphan that I am! What
shall I do?"

Hardly had he uttered these distressful exclamations when a prolonged
note of melody caught his ear.

"Hark!" he said to himself, "there is music. 'Music hath charms to
soothe the savage breast,' says the poet, and it seems to have a
soothing effect upon my nerves."

The strain had died away, and was heard no longer.

Mark Antony Figgins was in despair.

"Play again, sweet instrument," he cried, anxiously, "play again."

Again the sweet note sounded and again the solitary orphan felt
comforted.

"It's a flute; it must be a flute," he murmured to himself, as he
listened. "I always liked the flute. It's so soft and melancholy."

The grocer had a faint recollection of his boyhood's days, when he had
been a tolerably efficient performer on a penny whistle.

Just at this moment the mournful note he heard recalled the past
vividly.

So vividly, that Mr. Figgins, in the depths of his loneliness, fixed
his eyes sadly on the turned-up toes of his leather slippers, and wept.

As the melody proceeded, so did the drops pour more copiously from the
orphan's eyes.

And no wonder, for of all the doleful too-tooings ever uttered by wind
instrument, this was the dolefullest.

But it suited Mr. Figgin's mood at that moment.

"It's a Turkish flute, I suppose," he sobbed; "but it's very
beau-u-u-tiful. I wish I had a flute."

He got up and looked round, and found himself outside an enclosure of
thick trees.

It was evidently within this enclosure the flute player was located.

As the reader knows, there was nothing bold or daring about Mark Antony
Figgins.

But now the flute seemed to have inspired him with a kind of
supernatural recklessness.

"I'd give al