The people, too, had almost forgotten Mahkmoud's existence; he was either dead or as good as dead. Abdul, in due course, had taken Rukhia to his harem as a wife, and she was the mother of his three children. After Mahkmoud's transportation his brother, as is usually the case when a widow re-marries, had taken over the care of his nephews, together with his brother's land and property. It was again September, and the hour before sunset, when the women of the village had gone to draw water for their households. Abdul was sitting in his house, and his three children were asleep in the adjoining room. Suddenly a shadow was thrown across the room. Abdul turned quickly, half rising as he did so, to see who it was. But in an instant strong hands gripped his throat, and a voice, to him a terrible one, hoarsely hissed into his ear, "It is I, Mahkmoud, who after many years have not forgotten you!" Then a knife flashed for one moment before his terrified eyes, and in another second Abdul lay dead upon the floor, dead as his victim had lain in the path that fateful night twelve years before! Later Rukhia returned. The room was almost dark and, before she realized that anything out of the ordinary had occurred, unseen hands seized her from the darkness and a voice, as it were of the dead, said, "It is your husband Mahkmoud who speaks to you, you false and perjured woman. Go now to where Abdul has gone!" * * * * * At dawn next day Mahkmoud walked calmly into the police-station at Assiout. Here he asked to see the Yushbashi of police, and when brought before him said, very quietly, "My name is Mahkmoud. Twelve years ago I was, through the false and perjured testimony of my wife and her lover, convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Now I _am_ a murderer. Arrest me. I have spoken." [Illustration: "IT IS YOUR HUSBAND MAHKMOUD WHO SPEAKS TO YOU, YOU FALSE AND PERJURED WOMAN."] For a second time Mahkmoud was tried for his life in Assiout, found guilty on his own confession, and sentenced to death. His Highness the Khedive once again commuted his sentence to penal servitude for life. After five years, during which Mahkmoud's character was exemplary, he received a free pardon, and returned once more to his native village, where he died, an old and broken man. There is an Arab proverb, "If once you have tasted the sweet waters of the Nile, you will return to drink of them again." [Illustration: A White Woman in Cannibal-Land. +By Annie Ker.+] Some incidents of a lady's life in the wilds of New Guinea. Miss Ker went out to Papua--as the country is now called--attached to a mission, and describes the many strange, amusing, and exciting experiences she encountered during her seven years' sojourn among the natives, who, not so very long ago, were always fighting and much addicted to cannibalism--a practice which still prevails among the wild tribes of the unexplored interior.