Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1899 — STARTLING. [ARTICLE]

STARTLING.

Wild Flames and Stars Innumerable HU rat (Jut Before the ■ raveler. During Mr. Pickering’s attempts to in Formosa, difficulties growing out of what has been termed the “Camphor War,” his life was several times in danger from the treachery of certain officials with whom he had to deal. On one occasion be dismissed his hearers and walked on alone in order to pass the capital under cover of the night, and so to reach Anplng, where he would find a boat For a long distance the path led through Chinese graveyards. My prosper of getting past Taiwanfoo City undiscovered and In safety was doubtful, he says. I was overwrought by the strain and excitement of the day. Trouble lay behind me, and vexation and danger lay ahead. Feeling at length the need of a rest and smoke, I squatted on my hams, Chinese fashion, beside one of the tombs, and searched In my badger-skin purse for my iron pipe, which I filled and lighted with my flint and steel. My uncanny surroundings and the stillness of the night led my thoughts back to my boyhood terrors of such places, and my early belief in ghosts. I was just saying to myself that I had outgrown these boyish superstitions when suddenly a wild flame bnrst before me. I saw stars innumerable, my pipe was whirled from my mouth, and I fell sprawling on my back, utterly helpless from fear, my limbs trembling and my heart beating violently. I was powerless to stand, so scared and shaken was I; so, sitting on a grave, I waited until I grew calmer, when my reason reasserted itself. I grasped my purse and examined It carefully. It contained several divisions. In the lower one was loose tobacco, with my flint and steel, and in one of the upper pockets was a quantity of small metallic cartridges for use in my revolver. I eagerly searched among the tobacco, and to my relief I found one or two of the tiny cartridges, which had fallen through a hole in the upper division. The whole affair was thus made clear. I had unwittingly stuffed, with the tobacco, a cartridge into my pipe, and had smoked on until it became red-hot; then it had exploded, producing the mysterious shock which had given me such a fright.—Youth’s Companion.