s I felt all the time my sympathy with the
boarders, and knew that I was only a prisoner with these horrid Malays.
Then I saw a signal being given, and knew they were going to blow up the
ship. I leaped right off, and heard my captors splash in the water after
me as thick as pebbles when a bit of river bank has given way beneath
the foot. I never heard the ship blow up; but I spent the rest of the
night swimming about some piles with the whole sea full of Malays,
searching for me with knives in their mouths. They could swim any
distance under water, and every now and again, just as I was beginning
to reckon myself safe, a cold hand would be laid on my ankle--ugh!

However, my long sleep, troubled as it was, put me all right again, and
I was able to work acceptably this morning and be very jolly all day.
This evening I have had a great deal of talk with both the Russian
ladies; they talked very nicely, and are bright, likable women both.
They come from Georgia.

_Wednesday, 10.30._--We have all been to tea to-night at the Russians'
villa. Tea was made out of a samovar, which is something like a small
steam engine, and whose principal advantage is that it burns the fingers
of all who lay their profane touch upon it. After tea Madame Z. played
Russian airs, very plaintive and pretty; so the evening was Muscovite
from beginning to end. Madame G.'s daughter danced a tarantella, which
was very pretty.

Whenever Nelitchka cries--and she never cries except from pain--all that
one has to do is to start "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre." She cannot
resist the attraction; she is drawn through her sobs into the air; and
in a moment there is Nellie singing, with the glad look that comes into
her face always when she sings, and all the tears and pain forgotten.

It is wonderful, before I shut this up, how that child remains ever
interesting to me. Nothing can stale her infinite variety; and yet it is
not very various. You see her thinking what she is to do or to say next,
with a funny grave air of reserve, and then the face breaks up into a
smile, and it is probably "Berecchino!" said with that sudden little
jump of the voice that one knows in children, as the escape of a
jack-in-the-box, and, somehow, I am quite happy after that!

R. L. S.

TO MRS. SITWELL

_[Menton, January 1874], Wednesday._

MY DEAR FRIEND,--It is still so cold, I cannot tell you how miserable
the weather is. I have begun my "Walt Whitman"