A half-leaf happened to escape. She picked it out of the fender when the rest were burnt black, and her heart was beginning to ache for what she had done. She took it to the window, and read on the crisp, scorched paper the ordinary end of an ordinary letter--the end of all was, as ever: "Yours always, E. M." Without a moment's warning, her tears rattled upon the hot paper; she pressed it passionately to her lips; she flung herself upon the bed in a paroxysm of helpless agony. [Illustration] _The Guest of a Cannibal King._ By J. E. MUDDOCK, F.R.G.S. (A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN THE SOUTH SEAS.) WHEN it was announced some years ago that the Germans had annexed the large group of islands lying to the north and west of the Solomon Group, and known as the New Britain Group, in the South Pacific, I was enabled to give, through the columns of _The Daily News_, a number of particulars of New Britain and New Ireland, derived from personal experience. At the time some controversy arose as to whether the natives were or were not cannibals. That they _were_ cannibals there is not the shadow of a doubt; but what they are now, since they became subjects of the German Fatherland, I know not. It did not fall to my lot, unhappily, to be able to make any exploratory examination of the islands, but I had an experience on the largest of the group--that is, New Britain--which was perhaps sufficiently interesting and exciting to warrant its being narrated in detail. If the reader will take a glance at a map of the Pacific Ocean, he can hardly fail to be astonished at the immense number of islands, large and small, that stud that glorious home of the sun, while due north of Australia, and separated by Torres Strait, is New Guinea, which is practically unexplored. To the eastward of this immense island lies the group collectively known as the Solomon Islands, the southern section of which was first discovered by the Spanish navigator, Mendana, in 1567. To the north and west of these, and much nearer to the coast of New Guinea, are situated the two magnificent islands known as New Ireland and New Britain. These were discovered and named by Captain Cook, and ought now to have been in possession of Great Britain. They are situated within ten degrees south of the equator, and are amongst the most beautiful islands of that island-studded sea. The two islands form a roughly shaped horseshoe, the inside of the shoe facing the north-west. The northern end of New Britain is separated by a very narrow passage, known as St. George's Channel, from the southern end of New Ireland. Lying off the north-western extremity of New Ireland, and separated from it by only a few miles of sea, is a small upheaval covered with dense vegetation, and known as New Hanover. About two hundred miles from this, almost in a direct line, west and by north, is Admiralty Island, which is within two hundred miles of the equator. New Britain is the most extensive of the cluster, and is probably