If change of pitch is advantageous in the swift bowling, it is the very soul of slows. Full pitches, leg balls, off balls, shooters, all styles, and forms should be allowed full play. The bowler, too, must dodge about, and make himself an extra field, going wherever he imagines the ball will be hit. In writing about slows, I cannot pass unmentioned the great advantage derived from making a ball twist in from the leg. It is always understood that the leg stump is the hardest to defend, and consequently the best to attack.

A slow ball is pitched a little wide of the leg, the batsman runs away from his guard, and, in his imagination, sees the ball hit to square leg for four. In reality, however, he finds his off-stump knocked down by this same leg-ball at which, in his ignorance, he struck too soon, and found that it hit his stump before he could be back to stop it.

The positions of the field may be varied according to the opinion of the bowler. One of the most practical attitudes for slows is given on page 44 of my hand-book, to which, as well as for further advice upon this subject, I beg to refer the reader.

NOTE.

Since the above was in type, the Committee of the Marylebone Cricket Club has held a Meeting, in order to take into consideration a proposed alteration in Law 10. The result of their deliberations is, that the portion of the Rule which refers to raising the arm above the shoulder is done away with, and the Rule itself now reads as follows:-" The ball shall be bowled; if thrown or jerked, the umpire shall call 'no ball.'”

THE DISCOVERY OF THE TREASURE ISLES.

AT

(A.D. 1760.)

BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS.

(Continued from page 338.)

T this thought I ran on again, breathless, but very angry. As I drew nearer, however, my anger gave place to a kind of terrified bewilderment. I hesitated-ran forward again—stood still-trembled— could not believe the evidence of my eyes; for at every step the aspect of the Mary-Jane grew more strange and startling.

She was lying high and dry upon the beach- -a wreck! Her shrouds were hanging in shreds; her hull was clustered thick with barnacles; her sails were white with mould; her anchor, broken, and covered with rust, lay some yards off, half buried in the sand. Could she be the same little schooner that I had left only yesterday, as trim and stout as when she was turned out of the builder's yard? Was that indeed her name still visible in letters half effaced? Was I mad or dreaming?

I had now come up close under her bulwarks. I walked slowly round and round her, three or four times, quite dumb and stupefied. It was impossible that she could be the same ship. Her build, her size, her name, it is true, seemed precisely those of my little schooner; but common sense and the testimony of my own reason forbade me to believe that twenty-four hours could have done the work of twenty-four years. Here was a vessel that had been deserted for perhaps a quarter of a century, and had rotted where it lay. It was a coincidence-a strange, dramatic, incredible coincidence—nothing more.

I looked round for some means of clambering on board this ruin, and succeeded in finding the end of a broken chain. It hung rather short, but I caught it by a leap, and hauled myself up, hand over hand. In another moment I stood upon her deck. The timbers of that deck were all gaping and rotten, and overgrown with rank fungi. A sea-bird had built its nest in the binnacle: some smaller nests, deserted and gone to wreck like the ship herself, clung to the rotten shrouds. One boat yet hung in its place, by ropes that looked as if a touch would break them to tinder. The other boat-just precisely the small one which would

have been missing if this were indeed all that remained of the MaryJane-was gone from its moorings.

curiosity, took me down

It was a foot deep in
The table yet held to-

Curiosity, and something deeper than mere the crazy stairs, and into the captain's cabin. water, and all the furniture was rotting away. gether, though spotted all over with white mould; the chairs had fallen to pieces, and were lying in the water; the paper was hanging in black rags from the walls, and the presses looked ready to fall on the head of anyone who should venture to approach them.

I looked round, amazed, upon this scene of desolation. Strange! Dilapidated and disfigured as the place was, it yet bore a weird and unaccountable resemblance to my own cabin on board the Mary-Jane. My wardrobe stood in that corner of the cabin, just as this did; my berth occupied the recess beside the stove, just as this did; my table stood in the same spot, under the window, just as this did. I could not comprehend it!

I turned to the table and tried the drawers, but the locks were rusty, and the wood had swollen with the damp, and it was only with the utmost difficulty that I broke away the surrounding woodwork, and wrenched them out. They were filled with mildewed parchments, bundles of letters, pens, account-books, and such other trifles. In one corner lay a mouldy looking-glass in a sliding cover. I recognised the little thing at once-recognised it undeniably, positively. It had been given to me by my mother when I was a boy, and I had never parted from it. I snatched it up with a hand that trembled as if I had the ague. I caught sight of my own face reflected upon its scarred surface.

Το my terror, I saw that my beard and hair were no longer chestnut brown, but almost white. The glass fell from my grasp, and was shattered to fragments upon the wet floor. Merciful Heaven! what spell was upon me? What had happened to me? What strange calamity had befallen my ship? Where were my crew? Grey-grey and old in one short day and night! My ship a ruin, my youth a dream, myself the sport of some mysterious destiny, the like of which no man had ever known before!

I gathered the papers together from the table drawers, and staggered up on deck with them like a drunken man. There I sat down, stupefied, not knowing what to think or do. A frightful gulf seemed to lie between me and the past. Yesterday I was young-yesterday I left my ship, with hope in my heart, and brown locks upon my head; to-day, I am a middle-aged man-to-day, I find my ship rotting on a desolate beach, the hair white upon my brow, and the future all a blank! Mechanically, I

untied one of the packets of letters.

The outer ones were so discoloured

that no writing remained visible upon them. They were mere folds of damp brown tinder, and fell to shreds as I unfolded them. Only two, which lay protected in the middle of the packet, were yet legible. I opened them. One was from my mother, the other from Bessie Robinson. I remembered so well when I read them last. It was the evening before that misty night when I met the Adventure with her cargo of gold and jewels. Fatal night! accursed ship! accursed and thrice-accursed wealth that had tempted me from my duty, and dragged me to destruction.

I read the letters through at least, all that was legible of them—and my tears fell fast the while. When I had read them a second time, I fell upon my knees and prayed to God to deliver me. After this, I felt somewhat calmer, and having laid the papers carefully aside, began to think what I should do to escape from my captivity.

My first thought was of my crew. The men did not seem to have abandoned the Mary-Jane. Everything on board, so far as I could perceive, though rotting away, was untouched. There were no signs of plunder, neither had they taken the ship's last boat, in any attempt to put to sea on their own account. I looked down into the hold, and saw the great packing-cases lying half under water, apparently undisturbed since the hour when I left the vessel. Surely, then, the men must have landed and gone up the island. In that case, where were they? How long had they been gone? What time had gone by since we parted? Was it possible that they could be all lost or dead? Was I absolutely and utterly alone in this unknown island; and was it my fate to live and die here, like a dog? Alas, alas! of what use were diamonds and gold to me, if this were the price at which I was to purchase them?

With these bitter reflections pressing on my mind, I roused myself by a great effort, and resolved that my first step should be to institute a thorough search for my men along the coast. In order to do this, it was necessary that I should find myself some place of temporary habitation, either in the wreck or on the shore, to which I could retire at night; also that I should lay up a store of provisions for my daily use. I likewise determined to set up some kind of signals, here and there, along the cliffs, to guide the men to me, if they were yet wandering about the island. My bundle of jewels, too, needed to be placed in a secure spot, lest any strange ship should find its way into the bay, and other treasure-seekers lay hands upon it. I looked round about me at the rotting timbers and the leaky cabin, and shuddered at the notion of passing a night on board the Mary-Jane. The ship looked as if it must be phantom haunted. It was, at all events, too remarkable an object to be a secure storehouse

for my treasures, in case of the arrival of strangers. It was the first place they would ransack. Altogether, I felt it would be safer and pleasanter to stow myself and my jewels in some cavern along the cliffs. I had seen plenty on my way, and I determined to set off at once in search of what I wanted. So I went down again into the cabin to look for some weapon to carry with me, and having found a rusty marlingspike and cutlass still hanging where I had left them behind the door, thrust them into my belt, slung my bundle over my shoulder, let myself down over the ship's side, and started for a walk under the cliffs. I had not gone far before I found just the spot I wanted. It was a deep cavern, about three feet above the level of the beach, the mouth of which was almost hidden by an angle of rock, and was quite invisible from some little distance. The inside of the cave was smooth, and carpeted with soft white sand. The walls were dry, and tapestried here and there with velvety lichens. In short, it was precisely such a retreat as best accorded with my present purposes. I took possession of it at once, by stowing away my bundle of jewels on a sort of natural shelf at the remotest end of the cave. I then traced a great cross in the sand before the entrance, that I might find my lodging again without difficulty, and went out to seek something in the shape of food and firewood.

The first easy path up the face of the cliffs brought me to the outskirts of the palm forests. I climbed the nearest tree, and flung

down about twenty nuts. They were by no means such fine fruits as those farther in amid the woods; but I had taken a kind of superstitious horror of the interior of the island, and had no mind now to venture one step farther than was necessary. I then carried my nuts to the

By these means, I saved myself

edge of the cliff, and rolled them over. the labour of carrying them down, and had only to pick them up from the beach, and store them in the cave, close under the shelf where I had hidden my jewels. By this time, in spite of my trouble, I was very hungry; but the sun was bending westward, and I was anxious to make another excursion to the ship before nightfall; so I promised myself that I would dine and sup together by-and-by, and so proceeded once more in the direction of the Mary-Jane.

What I wanted now was, if it were possible to find them, a couple of blankets, a hatchet to break up my cocoa-nuts, a bottle of some kind of spirits, and a piece of tarpauling to hang at night before the entrance to my cavern. I hauled myself up again by the cable-chain, and went down into the cabin. I found my bed a mere shelf-ful of rotten rags. If I hoped to find blankets anywhere, it must be among the ship's stores, in some place more protected from the damp. I forced open a locker in