ourney? We
have seen many countries, and the faces of many men, and yet, though
we are advancing in years, the time has not yet come for me to lay
you down, as having no need of you. What say you--shall we start once
more?" I hear a confused sound as of men who murmur together, and
say, "We have supped full of horrors, and have waded chin-deep in
Zulu blood; we have followed the Clergy of the Established Church into
the recesses of terrible crimes, and have endured them as they bared
their too sensitive consciences to our gaze. We pine for simpler, and
more wholesome pleasures. Now," I continued, "if only Queen TITA and
the rest will help us, I think we can do something to satisfy this
clamour." For all answer, my pen-holder nestled lovingly in my hand.
I placed my patent sunset-nib in its mouth, waved it twice, dipped it
once, and began.

CHAPTER II.

The weary day was at length sinking peacefully to rest behind the
distant hills. The packed and tumbled clouds lay heavily towards the
West, where a gaunt jagged tower of rock rose sheer into the sky.
And lo! suddenly a broad shaft of blood-red light shot through the
brooding cumulus and rested gorgeously upon the landscape. On each
side of this a thin silvery veil of mist crept slowly up and hung in
impalpable folds. The Atlantic sand stretching away to the North shone
with the effulgence of burnished copper. And now brilliant flickers
of coloured light, saffron, purple, green and rose danced over the
heaven's startled face. The piled clouds opened and showed in the
interspace a lurid lake of blood tinged with the pale violet of an
Irishwoman's eyes. Great pillars of flame sprang up rebelliously and
spread over the burning horizon. Then a strange, soft, yellow and
vaporous light raised its twelve bore breech-loading ejector to its
shoulder and shot across the Cryanlaughin hills, and the cattle shone
red in the green pastures, and everything else glowed, and the whole
world burned with the bewildering glare of a stout publican's nose in
a London fog. And silence came down upon the everlasting hills whose
outlines gleamed in a prismatic--

"That will do," said a mysterious Voice, "the paint-box is exhausted!"

CHAPTER III.

I was shocked at this rude interruption.

"Sir!" I said, "I cannot see you, though I hear your voice. Will you
not disclose yourself?"

"Nonsense, man," said the aggravating, but invisible one, "do not
waste time. Let us get on with the story.