MISS CHEYNE OF ESSILMONT BY JAMES GRANT AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "THE CAMERONIANS," "THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER," ETC., ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1883. _All rights reserved._ Contents Chap. I. The Battle of Amoaful II. The Scarabœus III. The Lost One IV. A Year of Joy V. In Hampshire Again VI. Thoughts that often lie too deep for tears VII. 'Oh, for a Horse with Wings!' VIII. A Birthday Gift IX. Cadbury Redivivus X. At Cape Coast XI. The Old Warning XII. 'Ashes to Ashes' XIII. Events Progress XIV. Bella's Dot XV. In Bayswater XVI. The Four-in-Hand Club XVII. Humiliation XVIII. Miss De Jobbyns' Admirer XIX. The Foreclosure Effected XX. Homeless XXI. Conclusion MISS CHEYNE OF ESSILMONT. CHAPTER I. THE BATTLE OF AMOAFUL. The firing proved a mistake--the result of a false alarm--so the night passed without any other _alerte_ or disturbance, and all remained quiet during the temporary halt at Prahsu; but the troops heard of many strange things as occurring at Coomassie, all deemed by the natives portentous of its coming fate. In its market-place--that scene of daily blood and murder--where the predecessor of King Koffee devoted three thousand victims 'to water the grave' of his mother--an aërolite fell, to the terror of the people; but there came still a greater prodigy. A child was born which instantly began to converse, and, to prevent it having intercourse with supernatural visitors, it was placed alone in a room under guards, who in the morning found that it had vanished, and that nothing lay in its place but a bundle of withered bones; and on this the fetish men argued 'that Coomassie itself would pass away, and nothing remain thereof but dead leaves;' and on the same day and hour that Lieutenant Grant of the 6th--the first white man--crossed the Prah, there sprang up a mighty tornado, that levelled the great tree under which the king used to sit, surrounded by his warriors. This caused a profound sensation among the Ashantees, who gathered by thousands around it in the market-place, which at that time was described by one who saw it as 'a den of reeking corpses, shrieking and tortured victims--men and women butchered by hundreds--where skulls and human bones lay about as oyster-shells do at home!' By order of the king's fetishmen two prisoners had knives run through their cheeks, and were tied up in the woods to die, as a test of whether our invasion would be successful. The idea of the fetishmen was that, if the victims died soon, all would be well with Ashantee; but they lived, one for four and the other for nine days--so the nation gave itself over for lost.