The Obstruction had not been Found.

Now came the critical stage. Twenty-four—forty-eight—hours would show whether the exhausted system could throw off the weakness under which it suffered, whether the relieved organs would act, whether the real obstruction did not still exist. The patient alternated between semi-consciousness and delirium. There was little hope from the first, but there was some. As the hours passed on, and it was found impossible to give him anything beyond a very little fluid nourishment, the hope waned steadily, and the wonderful vitality which the sufferer had shown threatened to be exhausted at last. From the Saturday morning until the hour of his death the Premier had no material food. On Wednesday a last effort was made by the injection of champagne to stave off the end, and set the bodily functions once more going. There was a temporary revival—a flicker of the expiring life—but by Thursday morning the medical men had practically given up hope, and, as the afternoon advanced they feared that the end was at hand. Messengers were sent out in haste to summon Ministers, who had just gone to their residences after coming out of Cabinet, the Minister for Public Works and the Colonial Secretary having been earlier in the page 14 morning at the Premier's residence. Cabs were flying hither and yon with urgent appeals for haste, and soon all the Ministers were going to Tinakori Road as fast as horse-flesh could take them.

Soon there were assembled with Mrs. Ballance and her sisters (Mrs. Forman and Mrs. Griffiths), who knelt around the bed, her brother (Mr. David Anderson), Mr. Seddon, Sir Robert Stout, Mr. John M'Kenzie, Mr. W. P. Reeves, Sir Patrick Buckley, Drs. Henry, Fell, and Cleghorn, the Private Secretary, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Heywood, Secretary to the Treasury. Such were the actors in that