er husband testily. But at this moment the
house rang with an alarm upon the front-door bell.

The poor lady stood up fluttering, white in the face.

"You must answer it, Elihu! I couldn't, not if you was to offer me
twice the reward at this moment--and him standing there, perhaps, or
his ghost, like Peter out of prison!"

But their visitor proved to be the Chief Constable himself. He, too,
was pale with excitement, and he held in his hand a copy of the
Sherborne _Mercury_.

"Your friend--" he began.

"Well?"

"He is dead. The mystery is not, indeed, explained, but the issue of
it appears too certain. I was walking along old Town Street when the
Sherborne Rider came along. He gave me my copy, and see here!"--The
Chief Constable spread the paper under the lamp and pointed to this
paragraph:

"_Operations off Boulogne_. By advices received from Admiral
Lord Keith, the first experiment made with the new engines of
destruction (of which so much was hoped) against the vessels
moored off Boulogne pier, has not resulted in an unqualified
success. On the 15th ult. one of these catamarans, as they are
called, was launched against the foe from the _Vesuvius_ bomb.
The machinery had been set in motion, and the bomb's boat,
having towed it into range, was preparing to return to the ship,
when a shot from the shore batteries, falling close,
precipitated our gallant fellows into the water. We are happy
to add that they were all picked up by the boats of the squadron
with the exception of one seaman, recently shipped at Plymouth.
His name is given as Hymen; and the Captain of the _Vesuvius_
reports that he joined as a volunteer.

"We need hardly remind our readers that the name of Hymen has
figured prominently for a fortnight past in our advertisement
columns. If this gallant but unfortunate man should prove to be
none other than Solomon Hymen, Esquire, Chief Magistrate of
Troy, Cornwall, whose recent mysterious disappearance has cast a
gloom over the small borough, we commiserate our friends in the
West while envying them this exemplar of an unselfish
patriotism. _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_."

Troy required no further evidence. To those of us indeed who had
known the man--who, to borrow the words of a later poet, had lived in
his mild and magnificent eye--the news carried its own verification.