CORRESPONDENCE.

THE DEATH OF WILFRID EWART.

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Six,—There are a thousand " ifs," " if onlys." If only that Spaniard in the train had not said "Go to the Hotel Isabel,"' if only we had opened that bottle of wine at half-past eleven on Old Year's Night and stayed over it to welcome the New Year, if only we had gone together to the Plaza Mayor till midnight instead of parting But how vain it is.

A strange fate seems to have pulled at Wilfrid Ewart. We had spent the autumn together at Santa Fe, New Mexico. I dissuaded him from accompanying me to Old Mexico. I felt something might happen to him there. He insisted. I told him I should feel it a grave responsibility, and put it to him in such a way that he decided I was right. He determined to go to New Orleans, take a room there, live quietly, and finish his Scots Guards' history. I would go south and ride from Vera Cruz to Mexico in the footsteps of Cortez, and in a month or so return to the States. He took a ticket to New Orleans and checked all his baggage through, except a knap- sack. But on his way, at the frontier city of El Paso, he changed his mind and made a plunge for Mexico. Some days later my wife and I came to El Paso and we heard what he had done. " I do hope nothing will happen to him I " I cried. But, except for being put off the train at Juarez and sent back to El Paso for a visa he had no misadventures, and got safely to Mexico City. He got there either on the night of Christmas Eve or the day before. There was firing in all parts of the city. He thought another revolution was going on. But it was merely the customary feu de joie of the Mexicans, their way of celebrating Christmastide. I arrived on the 27th, sought him at the obvious places, but could not find him, and I concluded he had continued his journey and made a long loop to San Antonio and New Orleans. As a matter of fact, he was in the city and had decided to remain there. On Saturday, the 30th, about one p.m., I suddenly saw his tall figure on the edge of the kerb of San Juan de Latran, and he was gazing in his short-sighted way up into the sky, and did not see me till I cried out.

We moved joyfully to a restaurant together, and had lunch. " Well, Wilfrid Ewart, you are a wicked fellow," I said to him, reproachfully.

He ruffled a little.

" Well, I don't know," said he. " It's the chance of a lifetime. I've been looking for a place like this all my life."

He seemed utterly charmed with Mexico City, and we agreed to spend next day at Chapultepec and San Angel.

After lunch I went with him to his hotel, and saw the English-speaking German who kept it, went up to his room, looked out at the window, admired the fine view, the semi- circle of mountains. I did not altogether like the room. There were two single beds in it which seemed awkward. And the atmosphere was a disturbed one. Except letters, he told me, he had not written a stroke there, nor even revised the manuscripts he had brought. He had half a mind to come to the • Iturbide,' where my wife and I had a charming room for a peso less than he was payiiw. and I believe he spoke

to the German about it, and the latter promptly reduced his rent.

Next day we lunched at San Angel, in view of the great mountains, but the snowy peaks we wished to gaze upon, Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, were wreathed in cloud. In the evening we went to a Mexican Revue of the year 1022, an amusing series of tableaux and dances, exemplifying the popular attitude toward the Obregon regime.

It had become a wild night in Mexico City. When we cameiput it was into the midst of a hurly-burly. All the roads were jammed with tooting and barking cars, the saloons were packed, the pavements crowded. There were many rifle reports and explosions, pistol shots, bursting of crackers. We wandered about aimlessly for an hour, put our heads into one or two restaurants and finally chose one where there was a good band playing, Ewart's wish. There we lingered over supper—and might have lingered later but we were all rather tired and not in tune with the noise of the city. Towards half-past eleven we parted and went to our respective hotels. I believe he did not go anywhere else. He went to his room and undressed and washed, and prepared to go to bed. Next day he was found shot through the eye, dead on the floor beside the open window of his room.

Whilst I write the police investigation is still in progress, but the theory is he went to his window to look out at the hell which was let loose at midnight, and a stray bullet killed him. At midnight I also stood at my window, for never in my life, not even in a London air-raid or in France, have I heard such a racket of firing and of explosions of all kinds. I had no idea of Wilfrid Ewart's danger. But I remember I said to my wife : " I don't think Wilfrid will come to any good in this country. He is making a mistake."

Next day I sat at home and wrote. Ewart did not call On the Tuesday we were to visit the railway agent, with a view to recovering his baggage from New Orleans. As he did not come to me I went along to his hotel. The proprietor, in a quiet voice, said, " He has met with an accident."

I was at once startled.

" Yes," said the German. " He is at the police-station." " Where ? " I cried. " What happened ? "

" He is dead," said the hotel-keeper, in a hollow voice. There is no way to say what I felt. It was one of the most dreadful moments of life. I heard all the hotel-keeper had to say. Next day I saw the body of my dear friend. It was in a ghastly place—like the ante-chamber to an Aztec altar, when living human hearts were being sacrificed to blood- thirsty gods. But there came from it a sense of calm. I looked carefully at Wilfrid Ewart's face, there was no pain in it, only a slight expression of annoyance and a desire to see. It had been instantaneous death.

In the afternoon we buried the body in the British cemetery, beside the Tlacopan Causeway, along which Cortez and the remains of his defeated army slowly retreated on the Noche Triste of July 1st, 1520. There are white roses buried with him. There are lilies growing near him.

STEPHEN GRAHAM.