I am indebted to Mr. Hill, the general manager of the above-mentioned company, for a plan of the furnace. It may be interesting to add that, even had Perry contrived to shelter himself from the flames at the foot of the wall he mentions, he would very soon have met with a death too awful to contemplate, as the molten iron would have flowed down and overwhelmed him. The authorities inform me that Perry’s adventure is altogether unprecedented in the whole of their experience. At the moment when his first cry was heard the furnace had been alight for some considerable time, having been started with a large quantity of wood and many barrow-loads of hot coal in order to raise the heat quickly! [Illustration: MR. PHILLIPS STANDING BY THE FIRE-DOOR THROUGH WHICH PERRY WAS DRAGGED. [_From a Photograph._]] THE HEADLESS WOMAN. BY CHARLES NEEDHAM. I had just recovered from a troublesome throat affection, and under the doctor’s orders had moved out of town for a spell of fresh air and quieter surroundings, selecting the little village of Canewdon, in South-East Essex, as my retreat. I had always had an eye on the village, first making its acquaintance whilst yachting off the coast and in the River Crouch, where my boat had its permanent berth. Canewdon is actually little more than a straggling hamlet four miles by road to the north of Rochford, and about nine from Southend-on-Sea. It required only a very short residence there for me to find that the secluded little place considered it had its own corner in history, and a very pretty turn in folk-lore and superstition as well. To begin with, Canewdon claims King Canute as one of its founders, and its domestic romances and tragedies would make a presentable volume in the hands of a scribbling antiquary. It had, however, something more than mere history, and far less to my liking, for me to feed my imagination upon, as I was soon to discover. [Illustration: THE OLD COTTAGE AT CANEWDON IN WHICH THE AUTHOR RESIDED. _From a Photograph._] After a good look round I settled upon a comfortable old cottage, with a small garden traversed by a brook, only a very short distance from the ancient, square-towered church. Into this, having taken it at a very moderate rental, I moved a small amount of furniture, my books, and other paraphernalia, and prepared to settle down to the life of a hermit for a time. The woman who came from close by to “do” for me looked upon me, I fancy, as something of a curiosity, but, for some reason I had not then discovered, she seemed a little uneasy at my solitary existence. She would remark that I must be lonely, or that it was unlikely that I should stop in the place very long. I put all this down to a friendly disposition, coupled with a desire to draw me out as to my place in the larger world I had dropped from so suddenly.