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 driven to get what sort of a living she could as a play-actress. That he made her life a hell to her I have no sort of doubt; but while the child lived, the woman was content to work and to slave for love of it. What she put up with from the man's temper and brutality and jealousies God only knows; for his affection for her was strong to the last, and I believe he would have shot any man who spoke twice to her. At the time we first met her in London he was in a private hospital; but the child was dead—killed by a blow of his, as more than one whisperer says, though God forbid that I should charge him with it. Be that as it may, the little one's death robbed Lilian More of all she cared to live for; and the end was what I have told.

But of all the women I ever met, she was the sweetest and the truest—and that I will say with my last breath.

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limbs are wasted with a flame,

My feet are sore with travelling,

For, calling on my Lady's name,

My lips have now forgot to sing.

O Linnet in the wild-rose brake

Strain for my Love thy melody,

O Lark sing louder for love's sake,

My gentle Lady passeth by.

O almond-blossoms bend adown

Until ye reach her drooping head;

O twining branches weave a crown

Of apple-blossoms white and red.

She is too fair for any man

To see or hold his heart's delight,

Fairer than Queen or courtesan

Or moon-lit water in the night.

Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves,

(Green leaves upon her golden hair!)

Green grasses through the yellow sheaves

Of autumn corn are not more fair. 113

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 when the servants enquire for him in the morning! No, no, Jacques; we must wait for our associates. If they join us, we are strong enough to dispatch the domestics as well as their masters, and the booty is our own. If Claude does not find the troop, we must take patience, and suffer the prey to slip through our fingers. Ah! boys, boys, had you arrived but five minutes sooner, the Spaniard would have been done for, and two thousand pistoles our own. But you are always out of the way when you are most wanted. You are the most unlucky rogues"

"Well, well, father!" answered Jacques; "had you been of my mind, all would have been over by this time. You, Robert, Claude, and myself—why the strangers were but double the number, and I warrant you we might have mastered them. However, Claude is gone; 'tis too late to think of it now. We must wait patiently for the arrival of the gang; and if the travellers


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 escape us to-night, we must take care to way-lay them to-morrow."

"True! true!" said Baptiste; "Marguerite, have you given the sleeping-draught to the waiting-women?"

She replied in the affirmative.

"All then is safe. Come, come, boys; whatever falls out, we have no reason to complain of this adventure. We run no danger, may gain much, and can lose nothing."

At this moment I heard a trampling of horses. Oh! how dreadful was the sound to my ears! A cold sweat flowed down my forehead, and I felt all the terrors of impending death. I was by no means reassured by hearing the compassionate Marguerite exclaim, in the accents of despair,

"Almighty God! they are lost."

Luckily the woodman and his sons were too much occupied by the arrival of their associates to attend to me, or the violence of my agitation would have convinced them that my sleep was feigned.


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 is my business in these memoirs to speak chiefly of the many strange things which happened to Sir Nicolas Steele during the last three or four years I served him; but I do not know why that should prevent me saying a last word here about Roderick Connoley, the barrister, and the many queer stories he told us during our stay in London and afterward in Paris. How far he believed these stories, what foundation in fact they had, it is not for me to decide. That he had lived a curious life, I knew well; that he had lost his left hand in his boyhood was a truth which my eyes told me unmistakably. But how he came to lose it, if his own account is not to be believed, is a thing I am not competent to speak about.

It was a year after the death of Lilian More that we met this remarkable man again; and then we ran against him quite by accident in Paris, where we had been living some months, and allowing London to forget that we existed. He came almost every day to the Hôtel de Lille, where we were stopping; and it was there that he gave my master the manuscript of

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 the following story, which contains his own account of his deformity. Sir Nicolas declared at that time that he would send the writing to one of the London papers; but he never did so, and when I left him in Russia last year, I took the pages with me to America. In this way I am able to give the tale without altering a line or a word that Roderick Connoley wrote, and, for my part, I say this—that a stranger tale of an accident I never read.

The rain was pitiless, and the night was dark. There was pretence of light from the floors of the restaurant and the misted street lamps, but none of it came upon the slum where the stage-door opened. For the fiftieth time, as the clock struck eleven, I drew my cape around me, and cursed the folly which led me to pace a stone-yard and ape the idiocy of boyhood when maturer years had come. And "The Raven" did the same, I doubt not.

I had watched "The Raven" many a night as I had kept a vigil akin to this. For whom did he wait, and why was he here? Had he done as I had done—thrown sense to the winds for a chit in lace petticoats; staked all on a baby-face which smiled upon him in the second row of the stalls, but smiled

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 not in the dark of the exit hour? I judged so, for no man would keep such a watch at such an hour if madness did not lead him. The thought begot my sympathy for him. I had seen his face on other nights, and knew that he could hope for nothing, for his was the face of a wizened old man, long-drawn in solitude and bitterness; and the black locks which fell upon his shoulders seemed a mockery of time. I called him "The Raven," and for many nights we watched each other as beasts that would quarrel, but lack the courage. He knew my secret, I did not doubt; for it was a tale in all the theatre that I had waited for Lelia Winnie since the autumn had gone, and that I had spoken no word to her. There were others—richer, perhaps—of great name, and able to move managers. I had not the password; none showed me deference; and Lelia danced on, a stranger to me.

The rain was pitiless, and the night was dark. But Lelia did not pass out when the others left. I had taken up a position close to the stage-door, and scanned the faces of those going into the night, but hers was not among them. Bright faces they were for the most part—the faces of girls moved by all the curious romance of the theatre, moved to desire of excitement, in some cases to desire of shame; a merry throng of irresponsibles, who would die peeresses or paupers, in old family mansions or in the gutter. And they went to lovers and to suppers with the gas-jets lighting up their faces, and the black

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 "Open! open!" exclaimed several voices on the outside of the cottage.

"Yes! yes!" cried Baptiste joyfully; "they are our friends, sure enough. Now then our booty is certain. Away! lads, away! Lead them to the barn; you know what is to be done there."

Robert hastened to open the door of the cottage.

"But first," said Jacques, taking up his arms, "first let me dispatch these sleepers."

"No, no, no!" replied his father: "Go you to the barn, where your presence is wanted. Leave me to take care of these and the women above."

Jacques obeyed, and followed his brother. They seemed to converse with the new-comers for a few minutes; after which I heard the robbers dismount, and, as I conjectured, bend their course towards the barn.

"So! that is wisely done!" muttered Baptiste; "they have quitted their horses,


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 still thick upon their eyes, while I waited as the rain fell and struck me, cold and chill, with disappointment. I had forgotten "The Raven" as the crowd surged out; but he, too, was looking, and when all had gone he spoke to me with a voice hard as the crack of dry wood:

"Again!"

It was the one word only, but I turned upon him with a sharp reply, when I saw, by the light streaming through the still open door, that there was a smile upon his lips, while he gripped my arm tightly with his hand.

"Again, and unto seventy times! Seek and find—seek and find—like all the fools before and since, unto seventy times!"

He was either a madman or a fanatic, and I determined to let him be, giving him smile for smile and jest for jest; but he gripped my arm yet tighter, saying:

"Come!"

I went with him down the passage and into the open Strand, passing from the valley of the disreputable to the highway of the respectable going home to supper and to bed. Nor did he pause until we had gone westward many paces, when he drew me with him to a small eating-house by Covent Garden, and there we sat. In the clearer light of the room I had that opportunity to observe him which the dark of the passage had denied me; and in truth he was a strange man, much furrowed in the flesh, and glittering

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Rh It was then half-past two.

She flitted hastily upstairs, un- dressed, decided after a moment’s con- sideration to leave her hair untouched, arrayed herself in her best nighty and a pretty silk dressing-gown which had once adorned Lady Marjory’s own fair form, enveloped her little white feet in ludicrously tiny slippers, and having satisfied herself that all the house was still, stole down to the study and com- posed herself with patience to what was destined to prove a somewhat weari- some vigil.

The dressing-gown was of the filmi- est texture and the night was an ex- tremely chilly one; but, as she had an- ticipated, there was a good fire in the study. She ensconced herself in a com- fortable chair and listened at first at- tentively, then with growing drowsi- ness, to the noisy passage of some hun- dreds of motors. They would come in a taxi—if they came.

If they came. An hour passed; an hour and a half; two hours; it seemed to her an eternity.

She fell asleep, awoke with a little shock of fright and stirred the dying ashes cautiously. A quarter to five! Well—she would wait until five. She shivered a little, but was afraid to risk the inevitably noisy replenishment of the fire.

Just before five a taxi stopped out- side the house. The study opened into the hall, but its windows did not look into the street. She sprang to her feet, and as the hall door opened, switched on the light.

Two rather noisy voices dropped abruptly to a lower pitch.

“Hello!” said one. *‘The governor’s been out somewhere. Naughty old hoy 1”

“As for extinction,” said another voice, not very clearly, “extinction doesn’t trouble me. It doesn’t trouble me at all, ole fellow. Extinction—"

“Oh, shut up, you silly ass!” broke in the first voice pleasantly. ‘‘Here Let’s go and have a drink with the old governor.”

“All right,” said the second voice, without rancour. “But I should like you to have that quite clear. Quite clear. Extinction doesn’t trouble me. Death—existence after death—that scares me, I admit. Yes, I admit that quite frankly, dear boy. But as for utter extinction, I—"

Their footsteps were just outside the study door.

Miss Barker moved across to the table on which Lady Marjory’s letters lay, gathered them up, put one hand modestly to the lace at her throat, and turned a genuinely blushing face toward the two men who had halted in the doorway and were now staring at her in an astonishment equally unaf- fected.

They were both fine, broad-shoul- dered, slim-flanked young animals, good-looking, assured and debonair. Mr. Arbuthnot was in uniform; Bulgie (no one knew why he was called Bulgie —nor is the point of any importance) in mufti. Bulgie was in the process of recovering slowly from the effects of ‘a German machine gun; Mr. Arbuthnot had not yet been “out.” He was the possessor of a very determined chin and a pair of pale grey eyes with black irises which looked at every object, however near, as if it was two miles distant. He was the first to speak.

“I’'m afraid we're rather intruding, aren’t we, old chap?” he said with some solemnity.

“Not at all,” said Miss Barker hasti- ly, moving toward the door. “I—Lady Marjory asked e to bring her up something—these letters—and I quite forgot—I woke up and suddenly re- membered—I—please forgive me—I had no idea—"

Her confusion was delicious. A let- ter slipped from her hand. Both young men made a hasty dive, but both were late.

“Please don’t- run away in such an awful hurry!” said Bulgie, laying a de- taining hand on the dressing-gown, as its wearer thade another little move- ment toward the door.

“Oh—but—I must. I really must.


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 with the light of madness in his eyes. But he drank full well from the cup set before him, and there were diamonds, large and lustrous, upon the fingers which he raised. I waited for him to speak, for the advance had been of his, and not of my seeking; but he drank many glasses before he spoke, and then it was in the tone of the hard-mouthed cynic who has bitten into life and found gall for his palate.

"Again, Roderick Connoley"—having my name in what way I knew not—"again, and the woman is no nearer—no nearer, but more distant, while you wait."

"What my business is to you, I cannot think," I answered, "or why you should seek to discuss it."

He replied with a loud guffaw, throwing his sod- den cape over his shoulders so that the rain ran down upon his shirt and over the heavy-linked chain hanging at his waistcoat.

"Why should I discuss it?" he said. "Because, my friend, the only serious thing that man does discuss is woman. Since the world began he has discussed her; since the day that there was chaos and she sat a star in the heavens; and he will discuss her when the world is no more. Sometimes it will be the good thought from which springs the tree of life; sometimes it will be with the more base and degrading idea of self, which they call possession—such an idea as moves you now, the evil, ill-gotten desire for a woman who may be innocent, but whom

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 you would make guilty before the day comes—you, I say, who find life at a stage-door!"

He pointed threateningly with his finger across the table, and I knew that he spoke the truth. I could find no answer to his accusation, so I drank deeply of the wine and avoided the search of his eyes. But I continued to feel his look; almost the terrible grasp of his hand upon mine. There was silence for some minutes before he spoke again, and then it was with another voice, as though one had put ice upon his tongue.

"One fool often makes two," he said, as he called for a second bottle of wine. " Forget that I have spoken, for I am but the servant of the Master, and how shall the servant speak when the Master has not spoken? I brought you here for your ends, not for mine, and therefore would serve your ends before my own. You are Roderick Connoley, a barrister, with little money and with less employment; your life, for what it is worth, is a dream mostly dreamed in tobacco-smoke; and what you lack in performance at the moment you find in promise for the future. As a so-called man about town, you are condescending enough to patronize the vices, for which you care little, but in the true pleasures of living you remain a child. In this respect you are as other men, for how many of the thousands who drift on the sea of enjoyment in this city know any thing of those treasures which Life can give to him who understands her? I have watched you as I have

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 watched others, and have been moved to pity for you. I have even spoken to the Master, who has listened to me as I have talked of yon, and has made known his will about you. This night your lesson in pleasure shall begin; but it remains with you to profit all or to lose all. At this moment I say no more, for the hour is at hand, and we go. Look! the clock is about to strike midnight."

He rose up from the table, this amiable madman I had met, and I knew not how to humor him. I remembered that it was a terrible night, the rain falling pitilessly, and the streets empty; so I followed the old man into the street, and entered the single brougham that was at the curbstone. It was an adventure, and why should I not pursue it?

When we left Coven t Garden we seemed to drive by way of Bloomsbury toward the north of London. The rain was still falling, but the clouds skirmished over the heavens, leaving gaps through which the stars shone, and there was light from the moon newly risen above the endless roofing. I had a mind to ask my companion whither he went; but he appeared to be sleeping as he reclined deeply in the cushions, and I, in my turn, was almost overpowered by an incontrollable [sic] drowsiness. It was just at the moment when I opened my eyes for the last time—

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 eyes then almost fixed in sleep—that I observed a strange movement on the old man's part; for he started up of a sudden, holding something to my nostrils, and in that moment I fell asleep.

The sensations of waking have been described often. I shall not attempt to describe them again, saying only that, when I awoke from that which appeared to me an unusually long sleep, it was with the sense of a profound delight and realization of ease. I seemed to be sunken deeply in a bed of silk, whereof the huge cushions towered up around me, so that, as my eyes opened, I saw nothing but the roof of the room in which I lay. Gilded spandrels richly dowered with mosaic united in a star of silver in the centre of the chamber, and from the silver star shot down a soft white light that drew the eyes in sympathy and yet bathed them in content. There was something so rich, so resplendent in all this maze of gold-work, in the flow of the steady rays of white light that poured upon me, in the ease of the bed whereon I rested, that I lay for many minutes content to let the mystery be. What did it matter? I suffered from some dream; such things as men shape in that keen moment of imagination when the brain wakes and the body is yet sleeping; but I would not be fooled by them.

I thought thus, and closed my eyes, opening them again when some minutes had gone. The light was still shining, and it shone with a greater power, as it seemed to me, making clear the darker portions of

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 the room, lighting the niches and the black recesses. The air I breathed seemed laden with a strange perfume, as of the perfume of unknown flowers; but to breathe it was to take strength, to feel a newer energy and a newer life. I looked around the chamber, raising myself upon my elbows in the great bed, and sitting up so that I saw all the wondrous sight. It was a great room, banked up by twenty couches,—for that upon which I rested proved to be a couch,—and, as I judged, at least a hundred silver lanterns hung down from its painted roof. All the upper portions—the metopes in the frieze of the entablature, and the frieze itself—were covered with strange Eastern pictures depicting fables and tales from the myths of Greece and the richer stories of the East. But no pen may tell of the splendor of the mosaics let into the painted walls, or of the paintings which filled the lower panels. When I looked at length from the walls to the centre of the room the sight that met my gaze was not less bewildering. There were vases of jasper and of agate, from which there stood out wide-spreading palms and the lesser palms of the forests of the East; there were tables studded with gems and with precious stones, the like of which I had seen in no land; there were hookahs in pure amber, and smaller lamps in amethyst stone from which the vapor rose. Many smaller tables placed by the couches were heaped up with fruit such as was not then to be had in London, and there were goblets chased after the fashion of the chalice known

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 that they may fall upon the strangers by surprise. Good! good! and now to business."

I heard him approach a small cupboard which was fixed up in a distant part of the room, and unlock it. At this moment I felt myself shaken gently.

"Now! now!" whispered Marguerite.

I opened my eyes. Baptiste stood with his back towards me. No one else was in the room save Marguerite and the sleeping lady. The villain had taken a dagger from the cupboard, and seemed examining whether it was sufficiently sharp. I had neglected to furnish myself with arms; but I perceived this to be my only chance of escaping, and resolved not to lose the opportunity. I sprang from my seat, darted suddenly upon Baptiste, and, clasping my hands round his throat, pressed it so forcibly as to prevent his uttering a single cry. You may remember, that I was remarkable at Salamanca for the power of my arm. It now rendered me an essential service. Sur-


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 to the Western Church. I saw that a dish of the fruit and one of these goblets had been placed at the foot of my own bed, and I drank of the wine,—a deep draught and luscious,—and as I drank the sensation of pleasure, pure and without blemish, came upon me. Perhaps for the first time in my life I lived—lived in an existence which no tongue can make clear; an existence which promised to be infinite, unmarred by any bridge of death, wanting nothing of the promise of priests; an existence of the imagination, in which the body had no part. And in the very ecstasy of living I leaned back in my cushions and closed my eyes to dream.

When I opened them again it was to look into the face of an old man. He sat squat upon his haunches, with the mouthpiece of a hookah in his hand. He had the face of an Eastern, yet moulded somewhat finely in the features; and his jet-black hair hung in ringlets upon his shoulders. His robe was woven in one piece,—a robe of purple silk,—but there was no turban on his head, and his legs and feet were bare but for slippers studded with gems. Jewels shone from rings on his hands, and his one woven vestment was bound about him at the girdle with a cincture of fine linen studded with diamonds. A quaint figure and impressive; a mind not lacking thought or purpose, I surmised, and something kindly in the black eyes which then looked upon me.

"Son, I give you greeting," he said, "and thanks that you wait upon me."

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"The thanks are yours," I replied. "To drink that wine is to live."

"It is good wine," he said thoughtfully; "and good wine is one of the factors of life—blessed be him that made it!"

"It is new to me as an Englishman," I answered; "and if I were not a stranger to you, I would ask questions."

"Son, he that asks questions is a poor learner; ask nothing from life, but take it as it comes to you. He that asks shall learn lies."

"You are a philosopher, I see."

He laughed scornfully in reply.

"la philosopher! Nay, my son, I am no philosopher. I am the concentration of life, which I have squeezed as you squeeze a lemon, until it has poured its last drop into my skin—blessed be he that made it!"

"Wonderful man! You have learned, then, to live, and you keep the secret to yourself?"

"Nay, not so, since you are here to share it. I have waited for you many days until I could give you what you wished; for what you wish is another factor of your life. To-night it is in my power to put before you the realization of the dream which has been in your mind the month past. I intend to do so without condition; for condition is not an element of satisfaction, though made one by your teachers here, who would have no sustenance or employment if limitation were not part of their gospel. To-night you are my guest in the secret of pleasure

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 as in the freedom of my house; and again I give you greeting."

He said the words, putting his hand upon an ivory knob in the floor beside him, when of a sudden the hundred silver lanterns about him slowly waxed radiant with a soft rose light that fell upon us and lit the scarlet and the gold of the tapestries so wonderfully wrought. I knew not until that time how large that chamber was, and I fell to wondering what sort of house it was which possessed such an apartment, and where it lay. But I had small opportunity to wonder, for at the lanterns' light there was the sound of distant music, and a surpassing strange sensation of singers and dancers near to me, yet all invisible. I was conscious only of a movement of the warm and perfumed air and of the presence of women surpassingly lovely, though unseen by me. The spirit-music, too, was entrancing beyond all music that I have heard—harmonious in its discordance, message-bearing, sensuous music, by which the walls of cities might have been built. Again, it was a sensation, and not a grasp of mathematical sound. I heard, and was not sure that I heard; I shut my ears, and yet was moved; hearkened for melody, and yet took none to me. But the delight was transcendent, indescribable; and I lay ravished, troubled as a woman in the ecstasy of her love. And he who had made the sign watched me, inhaling a thin vapor from the amber bowl, drinking of the cup which was at his hand.

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The music ceased suddenly with a mad crash of strings. The man who sat before me pressed again upon the knob, and doors burst open in the wall behind him. I was conscious that a woman veiled in gauze, but whose rounded limbs showed pink and white beneath the veiling, was bending before him, and anon others, like dressed to her, spread meats at our feet. The old man made a sign to them, and they withdrew; but to me he spoke not, only pointing at the dishes as he cast the amber behind him. Then, too, I ate of the meats, which were cut in portions as the size of toast dressings, but had a flavor most curious and unknown to me. I found that so much as one mouthful had satisfied my hunger, but had produced a prodigious thirst, slaked only in many draughts from the goblet, which was deep and long- bodied. It was new tome thus to dine, and I asked him whose guest I was and what kind were the meats which he had set before me.

"Son," he said, "the guest asks not of the host, What do I eat with thee? Nor does he who would dine waste his moments on words which have been said by others, and better said. As you are a stranger, I make light of your fault; but hark to this; When you shall know how to live you shall know also that man, who has labored two thousand years and more to learn the things of life, has given not one year to learn of those things which are of the essence of life. He remains as the beasts, taking the fodder of the field, and where food should be his

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 prised, terrified, and breathless, the villain was by no means an equal antagonist. I threw him upon the ground; I grasped him still tighter; and while I fixed him without motion upon the floor, Marguerite, wresting the dagger from his hand, plunged it repeatedly in his heart till he expired.

No sooner was this horrible but necessary act perpetrated, than Marguerite called on me to follow her.

"Flight is our only refuge," said she, "quick! quick! away!"

I hesitated not to obey her; but unwilling to leave the baroness a victim to the vengeance of the robbers, I raised her in my arms still sleeping, and hastened after Marguerite. The horses of the banditti were fastened near the door. My conductress sprang upon one of them. I followed her example, placed the baroness before me, and spurred on my horse. Our only hope was to reach Strasbourg, which was much nearer than the perfidious Claude had assured me. Marguerite was well acquainted


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 idol be has no reverence for it. Eat you, then, as the wise who have found light."

But I was satisfied, and could eat no more. The drink in the goblet, too, swayed me in a paroxysm of sensuous ecstasy. The room seemed a very bower of rose light. The jewels sent myriads of rays dancing toward me and blinding the eyes. Again the music arose, again he who ate touched the knob at his side, and the door in the wall of tapestry flew open. I saw the figure of a woman pass in, she veiled as the others had been; but she passed on to my side, and drawing back the veil, showed a face wondrous fair.

It was the face of Lelia, for whom I had waited so long at the theatre.

When the pleasures of the lantern-room had continued three days, it came that the third night fell, and a deep sleep held me. Many hours passed, and I lay in a trance,—the trance of living death,—knowing nothing even of dreams, nor of that consciousness of rest which waits upon a brain yet active. I awoke at length, to find myself alone and in another chamber. A soft light—the dim light of day—fell from a rose window in the ceiling of the room, but there was no other aperture, and I could not distinguish any visible door which gave access to the place. For my own part, I lay upon a low bed,

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 whose curtains were of silk, and I saw that an ivory table at my side had meat and drink upon it; but it was not the food which I had tasted when the old man served me, nor was the wine dream-giving as the wine of the other time.

For many hours I lay, suffering much from a weakness which had come upon me in waking, and I set myself to ask for the first time what the meaning of this strange adventure might be. Into whose hands had I fallen, and for what object? Who was this old man who had troubled himself to gratify my pleasures and to satisfy my wishes? What recompense did he ask? and in what way would the affair end? That there was danger in my position I did not doubt in my cooler moments, for, if all were well, for what object had my long-eyed host thus isolated me! I knew that I had been in the house at least three days, and a great longing came upon me to be out in the world again. I remembered that there would be many to ask for me, that engagements awaited me, that I had my pretence of business to attend to; and, above all, I began to long to fly from these rooms of darkness, from the perpetual night, from the perfume-laden atmosphere. And yet I was in a room the walls of which seemed impenetrable—a room without door or window—a room which was a well-furnished prison I did not doubt. This knowledge moved me to action, and I sprang from the bed, determined to ascertain the truth.

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Now, at the moment when I rose, a curious thing happened, for the curtain of blue in the right corner of the chamber, which had seemed a perfect whole, divided in half, and a man with one hand stood before me. He was dressed in a long white garment, shaped as an alb, and girded at his waist, and was altogether as an Eastern, though his face was as the face of our people. I saw that he was young, but lines furrowed his cheeks, and he was deadly pale, with the pallor of a man who is shut from the air of life. Nor did he seem to see me when he moved to the table and laid upon it a small casket in pure gold; only he raised his voice, and said, in loud tones"

"Son, three days are numbered and three nights are numbered. Rise, and go hence, or be for all time as I am."

Then he left the room as he had come, and I looked behind the divided curtain to see that the wall had opened, and that a long passage lay beyond it—a passage leading into a garden where flowers bloomed. The temptation to greet the sun and the God-given air was immense; but I stayed a moment to open the casket upon the table, and stood still with astonishment as I looked upon its contents. There, on a little bed of wool, lay a ruby, large and lustrous as the finest from Burmah, and a little scroll of gold above it had the words, "Son, who would live must lack." I knew not the whole meaning of the fable, but it appeared that my host wished to make a trial of me;

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 and I determined to go, showing him that I had mastered self and passion. And so I took up the jewel and passed into the garden. But what a wondrous sight there met my eyes! The whole air seemed deep-laden with the richest perfumes, vast shrubs towered up into the high roof of glass above, fountains played, and rare birds sang. There, too, in the very centre, was a great bath of marble, and as the cool of the glittering water spread about, I determined that I would bathe, and go out into the day refreshed.

I had come out of the bath, and wrapped about me one of the robes of linen which hung upon the rail of ivory, when I saw beneath a canopy of silver cloth another cup of wine, standing upon a table, and a couch spread under the leaves of a tree whereon luscious fruit was hanging. What madness took me I know not, but the bath seemed to have fatigued me, and I drank of the wine, and ate of the fruit; yet I had scarce put it to my lips when another man with one hand stood before me, and laid a casket upon the table as the other had done. He, too, cried with doleful voice, saying:

"Son, three days are numbered and three nights are numbered. Rise, and go hence, or be for all time as I am."

I opened his casket and found that it contained a great opal, and a scroll whereon these words were written: "Son, what is all is not all; and what is not all is all." But the meaning was hidden, as the

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 meaning of the other fable; and I began to laugh at the warning as the wine exhilarated me, and to lose inclination to leave the garden of delights and the draught which was life. Indeed, for some while I lay upon the couch of silk and skins, listening to the hours as they were chimed upon a great, sphinx-like clock above me; and as each hour was numbered, it seemed to me that a new man with but one hand stood by me, and cried:

"Son, three days are numbered and three nights are numbered. Rise, and go hence, or be for all time as I am."

And each laid upon the table a casket and a gem, until five were added unto the number which I had— a turquoise, a pink pearl, a black pearl, a diamond, and an emerald; and the five scrolls had these five warnings:

"Look not to reap in the season of the sower."

"When the end cometh seek not to begin."

"Behind thee is thy future; before thee is thy past."

"Mind not matter, if matter be less than mind."

"There is time for all things save for death."

Now, when the Seven Men with the Seven Hands had left me, I thought at length to go forth from the tent, and rose up to dress myself again, and to take away the jewels of price which had come to me so curiously. But as I rose, Lelia, whom I had not seen that day, came of a sudden to the spot, and I drew her to me, wondering at her beauty, which was

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 Her little lips, more made to kiss

Than to cry bitterly for pain,

Are tremulous as brook-water is,

Or roses after evening rain.

Her neck is like white melilote

Flushing for pleasure of the sun,

The throbbing of the linnet's throat

Is not so sweet to look upon.

As a pomegranate, cut in twain,

White-seeded, is her crimson mouth,

Her cheeks are as the fading stain

Where the peach reddens to the south.

O twining hands! O delicate

White body made for love and pain!

O House of love! O desolate

Pale flower beaten by the rain!

God can bring Winter unto May,

And change the sky to flame and blue,

Or summer corn to gold from grey:

One thing alone He cannot do.

He cannot change my love to hate,

Or make thy face less fair to see,

Though now He knocketh at the gate

With life and death—for you and me. 114

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 yet more dazzlingly fair in the garden of delights. And I would have questioned her of herself, and of this strange home of hers, and of a hundred other mysteries as she sat upon the couch at my side. But when I so much as began to speak, and to question her if she would leave the place and follow me, that I might not again be separated from her, she put her hand upon my lips to hush me, and held me tight in her arms so that her hair fell upon my shoulders and her face was close pressed against my breast. Then she begged me to leave her, saying that the end must come, and the better if it should be in that moment. Nay, she implored me to say nothing, nor to delay; "for," said she, "if you do not go now, you may never go, and that shall bring no happiness to you or to me." But how could I leave her in that house of light, knowing not if I should see her or even hear of her again? Through many long months I had waited for her, had watched the lustre of her dark eyes, the beauty of her exquisite figure, the silk-knit waves of her lovely hair that fell upon her shoulders; and at last I held her to me, felt her kisses warm upon me—and she willed that I should leave her! Do you wonder that I answered her with a deep seal upon her lips; with an embrace wherein all the joy of life seemed to be gathered? Alas! that it was the last embrace we knew—die whom I loved, the child of mystery.

As I kissed her thus, of a sudden she rose and tore herself away from me.

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 with the road, and galloped on before me. We were obliged to pass by the barn, where the robbers were slaughtering our domestics. The door was open: we distinguished the shrieks of the dying, and imprecations of the murderers. What I felt at that moment language is unable to describe.

Jacques heard the trampling of our horses, as we rushed by the barn. He flew to the door with a burning torch in his hand, and easily recognised the fugitives.

"Betrayed! betrayed!" he shouted to his companions.

Instantly they left their bloody work, and hastened to regain their horses. We heard no more. I buried my spurs in the sides of my courser, and Marguerite goaded on hers with the poniard which had already rendered us such good service. We flew light lightning, and gained the open plains. Already was Strasbourg's steeple in sight, when we heard the robbers pursuing us. Marguerite looked back, and dis-


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"Leave this place," she said, with a voice of fear; "leave it, or the hour will have passed; leave it, if you would see me again! I ask you, who may never ask again; go now, before the moments fly!"

And she left me as she had come. But I remained, drinking from the goblet, mystified and unnerved, until the bell of the sphinx-like clock rang out and the first hour of night chimed. I listened to the hour—it was seven o'clock; and the seventh stroke had not died away in echo when the tent under which I sat dropped upon me, and I felt its folds being bound about my body. It was the work of a moment, and I lay helpless as a log, bound hand and foot, and in black darkness. But I knew that men carried me, and I heard a door clang before silence fell.

They had uncovered my head from the folds of the silver-cloth when they laid me in the room, and they loosened the bonds of my body. I was unbound save at the left hand, which was chained—as I judged by touch—to a cube of iron. But all the room was dark, and I lay for many hours, cold and shivering, upon a floor of stone. When the light came at last it was from an arc lamp high above me, and I saw that my surmise had been right. I was in a cell of stone, bare and cold, without window or furniture, and my left hand was chained

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 to a block of iron. But what brought a new chill to my heart, and damped my forehead with the sweat of fear, was the of steel which lay close to my touch. For what object was it placed there? With what purpose? Then I remembered the Seven Men with the Seven Hands, and cursed the place and him who had brought me there.

It was my thought at that moment that the men who had brought me to this cell would return anon and do their work upon me, but I lay long and was alone. Nor did I hear any sound or movement through the great mass of stone—not so much as a hum from the city or the fall of a foot. The silence bred a strange terror in me. I seemed in one moment to learn the whole purpose of the man who had been my host. I recalled the seven warnings he had given me, the words upon the scrolls, the repeated urging to curb the will and to fly. Here, then, was a philosopher and a devourer of men. He had offered me pleasure, he had offered me pain; I had chosen both when it lay upon me to take but the first; and now I was about to reap,. What said the Seven Men with the Seven Hands?

"Rise and go, or be for all time as we are."

For all time maimed and a servant in that prison! The thought tortured me. I swore that I would fight for my limb as none had fought there before. And I took the cimeter, which lay at my right hand. It was a weapon superb to see, shaped as the short swords of Japan, sharper than any razor of the

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West; and upon the gold that bound the shark-skin of the scabbard I read the words:

"Free thyself—or be freed." A new enigma, a word puzzle, a humor of the long-eyed man. How should I free myself? How be freed? I looked at the left hand bound to the block, and the answer came to me. I could only free myself by losing the hand; by severing it myself with the cimeter they had offered to me. Horrible thought! To be a self-maimer; to curse one's self to all time for the deed which the right hand did to the left! I shuddered, and the sweat of fear ran from me to the stone.

When many hours had gone, and I had put the thought from me, it came upon me again, and had taken strength tenfold to itself. "Or be forever as we are." The words haunted me; the spectres of the seven men were ever before my eyes. I crouched from them, and yet they fell upon me, pointing at the block. I shut my ears by will, and their words rang louder than before. I prayed to God to be delivered from the dead, and was mocked back by devils who said, "Free thyself, free thyself!" In my agony I rolled upon the floor as my chain would let me, and an all-absorbing longing for life and light and home came upon me. To be for ever amongst the halt and the maimed, the scoff of whole men, the jeered of women!

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 And to be so by an act of self! No mad terror of night was as this terror, no phantom dream as this reality. Hours must have passed—days, perchance—and still I lay chained, the cimeter in my right hand, the other bound. I kissed the fingers of the doomed hand madly, hugged the arm which they prompted me to maim, grew delirious with joy as 1 knew it remained to me. But my strength of reason was going; the longing for freedom was becoming stronger; the will to resist weaker and weaker, until at last, as the frenzy took me, I raised the gleaming blade, and with one powerful stroke laid my left hand upon the stone.

I was free! and as the blood ran I fell back fainting on the floor.

I regained consciousness in my own chambers in the Temple. I was lying in bed with my left hand bound, and my old servant waiting upon me. He said that they who carried me there talked of an accident in the street, and he asked me of what nature it was. I put him off with an idle tale, and took up the letter which had been left for me; but a curse fell from my lips when I found I could not open it, and remembered that I had but one hand. So he broke the seal, and I read the words: "Son, seek in the East, and thou shalt find."

And from the well-sealed envelope there fell out the opal, the ruby, the emerald, and a diamond which was half the size of the diamond I had left in the

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 garden. Then I knew the enigma, and that the day would come when I should meet the long-eyed man again. But it would be in the freedom of sacrifice, the freedom of the pain which I suffered then and after.

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 tinguished our followers descending a small hill at no great distance. It was in vain that we urged on our horses: the noise approached nearer with every moment.

"We are lost!" she exclaimed; "the villains gain upon us!"

"On! on!" replied I; "I hear the trampling of horses coming from the town."

We redoubled our exertions, and were soon aware of a numerous band of cavaliers, who came towards us at full speed. They were on the point of passing us.

"Stay! stay!" shrieked Marguerite; "save us! for God's sake, save us!"

The foremost, who seemed to act as guide, immediately reined in his steed.

Tis she! 'tis she!" exclaimed he, springing upon the ground: "Stop, my lord, stop! they are safe! 'tis my mother!"

At the same moment Marguerite threw herself from her horse, clasped him in her arms, and covered him with kisses. The other cavaliers stopped at the exclamation.


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 "The baroness Lindenberg!" cried another of the strangers eagerly: "Where is she? Is she not with you?"

He stopped on beholding her lying senseless in my arms. Hastily he caught her from me. The profound sleep in which she was plunged, made him at first tremble for her life; but the beating of her heart soon re-assured him.

"God be thanked!" said he, "she has escaped unhurt."

I interrupted his joy by pointing out the brigands, who continued to approach. No sooner had I mentioned them, than the greatest part of the company, which appeared to be chiefly composed of soldiers, hastened forward to meet them. The villains staid not to receive their attack. Perceiving their danger, they turned the heads of their horses, and fled into the wood, whither they were followed by our preservers. In the mean while the stranger, whom I guessed to be the baron Lindenberg, after thanking me for my care of his lady, proposed our returning with all speed to the


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 town. The baroness, on whom the effects of the opiate had not ceased to operate, was placed before him; Marguerite and her son remounted their horses; the baron's domestics followed, and we soon arrived at the inn, where he had taken his apartments.

This was at the Austrian Eagle, where my banker, whom before my quitting Paris I had apprised of my intention to visit Strasbourg, had prepared lodgings for me. I rejoiced at this circumstance. It gave me an opportunity of cultivating the baron's acquaintance, which I foresaw would be of use to me in Germany. Immediately upon our arrival, the lady was conveyed to bed. A physician was sent for, who prescribed a medicine likely to counteract the effects of the sleepy potion; and after it had been poured down her throat, she was committed to the care of the hostess. The baron then addressed himself to me, and entreated me to recount the particulars of this adventure. I complied with his request instantaneously; for, in pain respecting Stephano's


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 fate, whom I had been compelled to abandon to the cruelty of the banditti, I found it impossible for me to repose till I had some news of him. I received but too soon the intelligence that my trusty servant had perished. The soldiers who had pursued the brigands, returned while I was employed in relating my adventure to the baron. By their account, I found that the robbers had been overtaken. Guilt and true courage are incompatible: they had thrown themselves at the feet of their pursuers, had surrendered themselves without striking a blow, had discovered their secret retreat, made known their signals by which the rest of the gang might be seized, and, in short, had betrayed every mark of cowardice and baseness. By this means the whole of the band, consisting of near sixty persons, had been made prisoners, bound, and conducted to Strasbourg.

Some of the soldiers hastened to the cottage, one of the banditti serving them as guide. Their first visit was to the fatal barn, where they were fortunate enough to find two of the baron's servants still alive, though des-


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of gold and a milk-white dove

Are goodly gifts for thee,

And a hempen rope for your own love

To hang upon a tree.

For you a House of Ivory,

(Roses are white in the rose-bower)!

A narrow bed for me to lie,

(White, O white, is the hemlock flower)!

Myrtle and jessamine for you,

(O the red rose is fair to see)!

For me the cypress and the rue,

(Fairest of all is rosemary)!

For you three lovers of your hand,

(Green grass where a man lies dead)!

For me three paces on the sand,

(Plant lilies at my head)! 115

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 perately wounded. The rest had expired beneath the swords of the robbers, and of these my unhappy Stephano was one.

Alarmed at our escape, the robbers, in their haste to overtake us, had neglected to visit the cottage; in consequence, the soldiers found the two waiting-women unhurt, and buried in the same death-like slumber which had overpowered their mistress. There was nobody else found in the cottage, except a child not above four years old, which the soldiers brought away with them. We were busying ourselves with conjectures respecting the birth of this little unfortunate, when Marguerite rushed into the room with the baby in her arms. She fell at the feet of the officer who was making us this report, and blessed him a thousand times for the preservation of her child.

When the first burst of maternal tenderness was over, I besought her to declare by what means she had been united to a man whose principles seemed so totally discordant with her own. She bent her eyes downwards, and wiped a few tears from her cheek.


text: The Poems of Oscar Wilde/Chanson

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 "Gentlemen," said she, after a silence of some minutes, "I would request a favour of you. You have a right to know on whom you confer an obligation; I will not, therefore, stifle a confession which covers me with shame; but permit me to comprise it in as few words as possible.

"I was born in Strasbourg, of respectable parents; their names I must at present conceal. My father still lives, and deserves not to be involved in my infamy. If you grant my request, you shall be informed of my family name. A villain made himself master of my affections, and to follow him I quitted my father's house. Yet, though my passions overpowered my virtue, I sunk not into that degeneracy of vice but too commonly the lot of women who make the first false step. I loved my seducer, dearly loved him! I was true to his bed: this baby, and the youth who warned you, my lord baron, of your lady's danger, are the pledges of our affection. Even at this moment I lament his loss, though 'tis to him that I owe all the miseries of my existence.


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 "He was of noble birth, but he had squandered away his paternal inheritance. His relations considered him as a disgrace to their name, and utterly discarded him. His excesses drew upon him the indignation of the police. He was obliged to fly from Strasbourg; and saw no other resource from beggary than an union with the banditti who infested the neighbouring forest, and whose troop was chiefly composed of young men of family in the same predicament with himself. I was determined not to forsake him. I followed him to the cavern of the brigands, and shared with him the misery inseparable from a life of pillage. But though I was aware that our existence was supported by plunder, I knew not all the horrible circumstances attached to my lover's profession: these he concealed from me with the utmost care. He was conscious that my sentiments were not sufficiently depraved to look without horror upon assassination. He supposed, and with justice, that I should fly with detestation from the embraces of a murderer. Eight


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 years of possession had not abated his love for me; and he cautiously removed from my knowledge every circumstance which might lead me to suspect the crimes in which he but too often participated. He succeeded perfectly. It was not till after my seducer's death that I discovered his hands to have been stained with the blood of innocence.

"One fatal night he was brought back to the cavern, covered with wounds: he received them in attacking an English traveller, whom his companions immediately sacrificed to their resentment. He had only time to entreat my pardon for all the sorrows which he had caused me: he pressed my hand to his lips, and expired. My grief was inexpressible. As soon as its violence abated, I resolved to return to Strasbourg, to throw myself, with my two children; at my father's feet, and implore his forgiveness, though I little hoped to obtain it. What was my consternation when informed, that no one entrusted with the secret of their retreat was ever permitted to


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 quit the troop of the banditti; that I must give up all hopes of ever rejoining society, and consent instantly to accept one of their band for my husband! My prayers and remonstrances were vain. They cast lots to decide to whose possession I should fall. I became the property of the infamous Baptiste. A robber, who had once been a monk, pronounced over us a burlesque rather than a religious ceremony: I and my children were delivered into the hands of my new husband, and he conveyed us immediately to his home.

"He assured me that he had long entertained for me the most ardent regard; but that friendship for my deceased lover had obliged him to stifle his desires. He endeavoured to reconcile me to my fate, and for some time treated me with respect and gentleness. At length, finding that my aversion rather increased than diminished, he obtained those favours by violence which I persisted to refuse him. No resource remained for me but to bear my sorrows with patience; I was conscious that I deserved


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 them but too well. Flight was forbidden. My children were in the power of Baptiste; and he had sworn, that if I attempted to escape, their lives should pay for it. I had had too many opportunities of witnessing the barbarity of his nature, to doubt his fulfilling his oath to the very letter. Sad experience had convinced me of the horrors of my situation. My first lover had carefully concealed them from me; Baptiste rather rejoiced in opening my eyes to the cruelties of his profession, and strove to familiarise me with blood and slaughter.

"My nature was licentious and warm, but not cruel: my conduct had been imprudent, but my heart was not unprincipled. Judge, then, what I must have felt at being a continual witness of crimes the most horrible and revolting! Judge how I must have grieved at being united to a man, who received the unsuspecting guest with an air of openness and hospitality, at the very moment that he meditated his destruction! Chagrin and discontent preyed upon my constitution; the few charms bestowed on me by nature withered away, and the dejection of


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 my countenance denoted the sufferings of my heart. I was tempted a thousand times to put an end to my existence; but the remembrance of my children held my hand. I trembled to leave my dear boys in my tyrant's power, and trembled yet more for their virtue than their lives. The second was still too young to benefit by my instructions; but in the heart of my eldest I laboured unceasingly to plant those principles which might enable him to avoid the crimes of his parents. He listened to me with docility, or rather with eagerness. Even at his early age, he shewed that he was not calculated for the society of villains; and the only comfort which I enjoyed among my sorrows, was to witness the dawning virtues of my Theodore.

"Such was my situation when the perfidy of Don Alphonso's postillion conducted him to the cottage. His youth, air, and manners interested me most forcibly in his behalf. The absence of my husband's sons gave me an opportunity which I had long wished to find, and I resolved to risque every thing to preserve the stranger.


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 was Connoley's story, just as he wrote it. Strange enough I never set eyes on the man after that time in Paris; and within a month from the day he gave us the paper we were in Derbyshire, and Sir Nicolas Steele was in a fair way to do the best deal he ever did in his life. How it came about that fortune checkmated him once more I shall now try to tell, simply saying that while no man was ever more surprised than I was to find myself, after twelve months' exile, so to speak, again comfortably settled in a great country house, so was I sure from the start that the affair would never come to a head, and that Janet Oakley would never be Lady Steele.

We had been in Paris six months, living anyhow, but avoiding any thing which could remind London of our existence, when my master received the invitation, and determined to accept it.

"’Tis good luck entirely," said he, "for there will be no one in Derbyshire in July, and I'll be glad to see the back of these Frenchmen for a while. Bedad, 'tis possible that the old man will adopt me. He has

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Rh er's eyes and ears were more impressed with the grand and striking traits; their views of life are as different as the two regions of which they sang are varied in their natural aspects.

(1805-75) was the son of poor parents, who could not afford to give their eager and talented boy a suitable education. In his fourteenth year he left his native town, Odense, and went to Copenhagen, where he hoped to realize the dream of greatness and honor which from early childhood he had continued to cherish. At first he tried his fortune as an actor, but proved a complete failure. In the meantime he had the good fortune of falling in with people who took an interest in him, and thus he was able to enter the university in the year 1828. At that time he had already written several very pretty poems, among which "Det döende Barn" (the dying child), and from this time his genius developed rapidly and revealed its great powers in a number of compositions. His first more ambitious work "Fodreise fra Holmens Kanal til östpynten af Amager" (a journey on foot from the Holmen Canal to the eastern point of Amager) a humorous fantasia in Hoffmann's style, and a collection of poems, appeared in 1829, and in the same year his first dramatic work, the vaudeville "Kjarlighed paa Nicolai Taarn" (Love on the Nicolai Tower), was produced on the stage. Then followed in quick succession romances (among them the best he ever wrote, such as "Improvisatoren" and "Kun en Spillemand") and dramas, and in 1835 was published the first volume of his fairy tales—those poetical compositions by which, together with his "Billed-bog uden Billeder" (Picture book without pictures) and his "Historier," his old dreams of fame and fortune were to be abundantly realized, for they were at once translated into almost all the languages of the world, and carried Andersen's name to every land on the globe. Not only the children for whom his fairy-tales were primarily written, but also grown people, and that too even in a higher degree, could enjoy these tales, which


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(See page 8.)


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 a pretty daughter any way, and that's a good beginning."

I said nothing, though I thought that he ran some risk in going to England just then; and three days after we were at Melbourne station driving to the house of Mr. Robert Oakley, than whom there is no better horseman nor more honorable gentleman in all Derbyshire, or Europe for that matter. Nicky would listen to no advice at that time; nor did he answer my suggestions with any thing but a laugh.

"Indeed, and 'tis a ladies' school ye should have kept," he would say. "Ye're over fearful for any decent business, and that's a fact. Is it ghosts ye look to see when we're at the White House?"

I did not answer him, but I was still sure that we were wrong in leaving Paris, and when we had been Mr. Oakley's guests for a month, he had reason to think as I did. For it was then that we received the telegram I am going to speak about, and that I shall never forget. The moment it came into my hands I knew the game was up; and he didn't need to read many times to agree with me.

"Hildebrand," said he, when I went up to his room with it just after the first gong for dinner had struck, "what the devil are you pulling a long face about now? Man, I'd think from your countenance that you were come to wake and not to marry me. Is it a tale you want to tell in all the house?"

"No tale, sir," said I, "but what's worse than a tale—a bungle. And you won't blame me, I'm sure.

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 It was done against my advice all along. Now you see what's come of it."

He took the telegram in his hands and sat, half-dressed as he was, upon the bed to read it. I don't think, even then, that he understood it at all, for he looked it up and down, and turned it over and over, just as if there was more written upon the back of it.

"Well," said he at last, "and if I can make heads or tails of it, put me in Hanwell!"

"Then you don't read it properly, sir," said I; "can't you see that it's not for me at all?"

"Then whom, pray, is it for?"

I took the telegram and read it to him. It was in these words: "Return to Datcham at once—meet you there." But there was no signature nor any mark that would have betrayed the sender.

"Now, sir," said I, holding the message still in my hands, "isn't it plain to you?"

"Be hanged if it is!" said he.

He was always a very poor thinker, was Sir Nicolas Steele, but that night he was stupid beyond ordinary. I had no patience with him, and yet, goodness knows, it was not a night for temper.

"Look, sir," said I, "it's all as plain as the signboard of an inn. That telegram is meant for Lord Heresford, over at Altenham Lodge. There's been a bungle at the post-office, and what was meant for him has come to me, while, likely as not, what was meant for me has gone to him."

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He saw it now, and his face went white as a sheet.

"Then," said he, "you think that he'll get to know we are here?"

"That depends upon what my telegram said. Better to have sleeping dogs lie, sir. We might have lived here a month just as snug and safe as aboard your own yacht. And it was any odds you'd have got through without talk—leastwise until the wedding was done."

He heard me testily, beginning to dress himself anyhow, just as he always did when trouble was at our heels.

"Well," said he, after some time, "that may be all true, and he may come here; but what then, Hildebrand, what then?"

"Ah! that's for you to say, sir. It seems to me that we shall want a change of air again. He is not a merciful man, is Lord Heresford—and this isn't the first time he's bundled us out neck and crop, as you know well."

"As I know well—confound him! But what if I wouldn't go? what if I snapped my fingers in his face? You can't forget the wedding's for Saturday, and this is Wednesday night. Is it in two days that he's to confirm his word? Bedad! I've the best of him any way, bring what tale he may."

"Sir," said I, now quite angry with him, "that's child's talk. Do you forget Margaret King so soon? You may, but he's a longer memory."

He sat down on the bed again, but he looked for

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 all the world like a broken man. If there was one word to bring Sir Nicolas Steele to his senses, it was mention of Margaret King, and the trouble that had come with her.

"Hildebrand, Hildebrand," said he, "’tis a mortal unlucky man I am, for sure. To think that Heresford of all others should be here in Derbyshire, and me wanting three days to my marriage! What we're to do, Heaven knows!"

"It's late to talk of it," said I, "for, if he's coming, he'll be here with the morning—and we'll be on the road before this time to-morrow. Let's hope for the best, sir. It's just possible there was nothing in the other telegram to set him thinking."

"Is that likely?" he asked eagerly.

"It should not be," said I; "my brother's no fool, and this is no mistake of his. But he wouldn't have looked for Heresford of all others to read what was meant for me. What I'd better do, sir, is to go down to the village at once and get the other telegram. You, meanwhile, put a good face on it. We shall want all that before we've done."

"That's true," said he, in a very melancholy voice, "but I'd have given a thousand to have pulled this affair off. She's a sweet little woman, for sure. Bedad, 'tis the devil's own luck that's with us, upon my life!"

"Indeed, and it is, sir," said I, "and our own fault, too, I'm thinking. It was never my idea that you should try to get Lord Heresford out of Derbyshire."

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"Faith, you speak true. If we'd have let him alone, we'd be right as a trivet now. And Saturday gone, we might have snapped our fingers in his face. Well, well, it's my own fault. I've just a poor head for scheming, Hildebrand, and that's the plain fact. But I count upon you. You'll go down to the village at once?"

"I'll be down and back again while you're at dinner, sir," said I.

"And if your brother said nothing compromising"

"In that case you're as safe here as anywhere. But I'm doubting that he didn't."

"You're quick to make the worst of it," said he very gloomily; and with that I left him to finish his dressing.

It being dinner time, there were few about the place to take any notice of my doings; and I slipped through the park, and so, by the long drive, to the Melbourne Road without a word to any man. Though it was late in July, the evenings were long-drawn, and when I stood upon the hilltop, the windows of the old house below seemed ablaze with the red light of the sun. I could see Mr. Robert Oakley and his daughter waiting in the garden, as I thought, for Sir Nicolas; and while I stood a minute to watch them, I realized for the first time the whole of our misfortune.

"Three days more," said I to myself, "and rogue or no rogue, Sir Nicolas, you could have stood with

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 The vigilance of Baptiste prevented me from warning Don Alphonso of his danger, I knew that my betraying the secret would be immediately punished with death; and however embittered was my life by calamities, I wanted courage to sacrifice it for the sake of preserving that of another person. My only hope rested upon procuring succour from Strasbourg. At this I resolved to try; and should an opportunity offer of warning Don Alphonso of his danger unobserved, I was determined to seize it with avidity. By Baptiste's orders I went up stairs to make the stranger's bed: I spread upon it sheets in which a traveller had been murdered but a few nights before, and which still were stained with blood. I hoped that these marks would not escape the vigilance of our guest, and that he would collect, from them the designs of my perfidious husband. Neither was this the only step which I took to preserve the stranger. Theodore was confined to his bed by illness. I stole into his room unobserved by my tyrant, communicated to him my project, and he entered into it with ea-


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 any man in that house. But who knows now where you will be this time to-morrow night? under lock and key, perhaps, or in the train for Paris? Oh, Fortune, Fortune, what a slut you are!"

I said this to myself, turning out of the lodge gate, and giving "good-night" to the keeper. It seemed only a week ago since we had driven up that same drive, and had been received by Mr. Oakley and his daughter just as if we were princes. And yet it was a month or more, and we had lived that time with never a man to come up to the White House—for that was the name of Mr. Oakley's place—to tell them that they had better make enquiries about their guest. A fine gentleman, as I have said, was that Mr. Oakley. We'd met him two winters back at Cannes, where my governor's riding caught his eye, as well it might, for there is no better horseman breathing than Nicky Steele. The friendship was warm from the first. Mr. Oakley was no man of the world, and knew nothing of what the world was talking about. And my master, like all Irishmen, had the gift of the gab. Talk! you'd think he was a boy of eighteen, and not a man hob-nobbing with the tail end of the thirties, as I know he must be. And it was no surprise to me that the young lady—Miss Janet her name was—stood friends with us so quickly. She'd lived all her life among boobies; and here was a man who knew every city worth the knowing, and could tell her tales of half the people in Europe. I said to myself often when I saw them walking in the old

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 garden together—"Nicky, it really does look as if we're to be settled for life this time," and indeed I could not help but think we were to pull it off, the way things were going at the White House. So far as I knew, there was not a creature in the county who could say any thing about us. Mr. Oakley himself would listen to no gossip. He liked my master's boyish frankness and big-hearted ways. And if ever Sir Nicolas Steele was hard hit by a girl, it was by Janet Oakley.

Unbelieving as I was, all these things had half persuaded me that my master was right and I was wrong, for all went smooth and the day was fixed, and what was to be put in the papers was given to me, who lit my pipe with it. From the first we had stipulated for a quiet marriage, for my master pretended that he had just lost his only brother, who died at Castle Rath, County Kerry,—he really died three years ago, but our grief was still young,—and being in mourning, he asked for a plain wedding, with a few county folk to see him off, and neither ball nor party to make a splash. Mr. Oakley didn't much like this, for it was a boast of his that he would fill all Derbyshire with "sixty-three" port when his daughter married; but he gave way to Sir Nicolas, and the affair was kept as quiet as possible. This was lucky, since there were plenty who would have come all the way from London to make things pleasant; and for the matter of that, we'd have been hard pressed to fake up presents enough for a show.

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 As it was, I had to buy a few little things in town and to send them down by my brother, Jerome Bigg; but the county folk rained plate and jewelry on Janet Oakley, and old Mr. Robert's gifts were worth two hundred and fifty to pawn any day.

Things were just in this way when the week-before the wedding arrived. I remember the Saturday night well—how Sir Nicolas told them that he had sent instructions for bonfires on all the hills in Kerry; and how, notwithstanding his young brother's death, his people were coming to the castle by hundreds to drink a bumper to Janet Oakley. He was always good to play the winning game, was my master; and that we were winning hand over fist at the White House no man could deny. Once married to that rosy-cheeked miss, who knew no more of the world than a child of seven, Sir Nicolas might have laughed at his friends. That old Oasley would have stood by him I did not doubt, if once the thing were done. And when that night I saw Janet kissing her husband that was to be on the stairs leading to the picture gallery, I said to myself, "Kiss away, miss, for there'll be tears to follow, quick enough."

I'd been pretty busy during the day, beginning to get my master's clothes ready for the following Saturday. It was near to twelve o'clock at night when I sat down to a glass of whiskey and water and a pipe, and to a copy of a local paper left by the butler in my room. This I read a while, and it was when I was running my eye over the fashionable

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(See page 127.)


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 intelligence that I saw the news about Lord Heresford. They said he was staying at Altenham Lodge,—the Earl of Holford's place, about ten miles from us,—and when I read the paragraph my heart jumped just as if it was coming into my mouth.

"Good Lord!" said I, "what a thing for a man to read!" For, you see, of all men in Europe I'd least soon have met in Derbyshire, Lord Heresford was the man. He knew well enough the whole history of the Margaret King affair; he knew why we left Dublin suddenly two years ago. Just as Sir Nicolas hated him—and Nicky could hate a man—so he hated us. I didn't doubt that he'd come a hundred miles to show us up, and here he was in Derbyshire, and we wanting a week of the marriage. The devil himself couldn't have dealt us shabbier luck.

I must have sat on my bed two hours, thinking what was to be done. After all, it seemed to me that we should be better advised to leave the matter alone. If Heresford had been in Derbyshire a week without scenting us, why should he not remain another week? Any way, we could do nothing to move him; and I saw that any word of us might bring a hornet's nest about our ears.

"You leave it alone, sir," said I to Sir Nicolas next morning; "just go on as you are. But don't be driving about the county, and when you ride, let it be in the park here. That's all the advice I can give you."

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"’Tis precious bad luck any way, Hildebrand," said he, "and I don't know that we oughtn't to do something. You don't forget that he's only eight miles from here. He'll not be remaining another week and know nothing of us. Faith, that would be a miracle."

"It's the best course, sir," said I; "let sleeping dogs lie, as I've often told you. Eight miles in the country are eight miles. How should he hear of you now if he's not done it by this time?"

He was not satisfied, and all the Sunday he thought of it. There are few who would call Nicky Steele a coward, but this Heresford was like a whip to him. He lost his laugh that day, and for the most part he spent the hours in his bedroom. When I went up to him at night, he had made up his mind, and nothing that I could say would turn him from his purpose.

"Hildebrand," he cried, "we must get this jabbering old idiot out of Derbyshire, and we mustn't lose time about it."

"Will you please to tell me how that's to be done, sir?" I asked.

"To be done, man—you've no more wits than a pig"—he always spoke impatient like this; "why, fetch him back to his place at Datcham with a telegram. Isn't that how it's to be done? Look, now, the wedding's for Saturday—this is Sunday. Let your brother wire to him on Wednesday from London. No name, of course, and no address. Just

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 the simple words—'Return home at once.' That 'll fetch him to Surrey on Thursday, and before he's time to think of it we'll have done the trick. Faith, 'tis a good idea, too, and lucky that one of us did not leave his wits in Paris. Why, man, a child could see it."

I did not argue with him, hoping to find him in better mind next morning; but the more he thought of it, the more he liked the idea, and so it came about that on Tuesday he had his way, and I wrote to my brother Jerome in London telling him to telegraph to Heresford at Altenham. But it was my notion to add the words—"meet you there," for, said I, that will put him off the scent, and he will think that his lawyer or some one wishes to see him on big business. In this way the whole telegram would read, "Return to Datcham at once—meet you there," and might after all, I thought, help us over a stiff place. Any way, I posted the letter to Jerome on the Tuesday in time for the London post, but it was not until the Wednesday evening that the answer came, and hit us, so to speak, fair between wind and water. I saw what had happened directly I looked at the thing. Either Jerome had addressed his telegram wrongly, or the muddle was made at the post-office. Be that as it might, I had got the message intended for Heresford, and he must have got the message intended for me.

"Now," said I to myself, as I went down the village road that night, "was ever such a thing

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 gerness. He rose in spite of his malady, and dressed himself with all speed. I fastened one of the sheets round his arms, and lowered him from the window. He flew to the stable, took Claude's horse, and hastened to Strasbourg. Had he been accosted by the banditti, he was to have declared himself sent upon a message by Baptiste, but fortunately he reached the town without meeting any obstacle. Immediately upon his arrival at Strasbourg, he entreated assistance from the magistrate: his story passed from mouth to mouth, and at length came to the knowledge of my lord the baron. Anxious for the safety of his lady, who he knew would be upon the road that evening, it struck him that she might have fallen into the power of the robbers. He accompanied Theodore, who guided the soldiers towards the cottage, and arrived just in time to save us from falling once more into the hands of our enemies."

Here I interrupted Marguerite to enquire why the sleepy potion had been presented to me. She said, that Baptiste supposed me to have arms about me, and


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 heard of—that we should go out of our way to bring that old busybody buzzing about the White House? And just when we seemed set for the best innings we'd ever played! It's enough to make a man cut his throat."

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What an eye!—Methinks it sounds a parley of provocation.—An inviting eye, and yet, methinks, right modest.

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 wished to incapacitate me from making resistance: it was a precaution which he always took, since, as the travellers had no hopes of escaping, despair would have incited them to sell their lives dearly.

The baron then desired Marguerite to inform him what were her present plans. I joined him in declaring my readiness to shew my gratitude to her for the preservation of my life.

"Disgusted with a world," she replied, "in which I have met with nothing but misfortunes, my only wish is to retire into a convent. But first I must provide for my children. I find that my mother is no more—probably driven to an untimely grave by my desertion. My father is still living. He is not an hard man. Perhaps, gentlemen, in spite of my ingratitude and imprudence, your intercessions may induce him to forgive me, and to take charge of his unfortunate grandsons. If you obtain this boon for me, you will repay my services a thousand-fold."

Both the baron and myself assured Marguerite, that we would spare no pains to


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(See page 365.)


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 == THE PROLOGUE of the Tranſlator. ==

TRue it is, that after the noble & expert doctrine of wiſe and well learned Philoſophers, lefte & remaining with vs in writing, we knowe that the properties of thinges followe and enſue their ſubſtannce. Héerefore it is, that after the order and the diſtinction of ſubſtaunces, the order and the diſtinction of the properties of things ſhall be and enſue. Of the which things, this worke of all the bookes enſuing, by the grace, helpe and aſſiſtaunce of Almighty God, is compiled and made. Meruaile not ye wittie & eloquent readers, that I thin of wit, and void of cunning, haue tranſlated this booke from latin into our vulgar language, as a thing profitable to me, and peraduenture to manye other, which vnderſtand not Latine, nor haue not the knowledge of the properties of things, which things be approued by the bookes of great and cunning Clearkes, and by the experience of moſt wittie & noble Philoſophers. All theſe properties of things be neceſſarie and of great valew, to them that will be deſirous to vnderſtand the obſcurities or darkneſſe of holy Scriptures, which are giuen to vs vnder figures, vnder parables & ſeemblance or likelihoods of things naturalls & artificialls. that great philoſopher and ſolemyne Clearke, in his booke named, , teſtifieth and witneſſeth the ſame, ſaieng in this manner: Whatſoeuer any man will coniect, faine, imagine, ſuppoſe, or ſay: it is a thing impoſſible, that the light of the heauenly diuine brightneſſe couered and cloſed in the Deitie or in the Godhead, ſhould ſhine vpon vs: if it were not by the diuerſities of holy couertures. Alſo it is not poſſible, that our wit or intendement might aſcende vnto the contemplation of the heauenly Hierarchies immaterials, if our wit be not led by ſome materiall thing, as a man is ledde by the hande: ſo by theſe formes viſibles, our wit may he ledde to the conſideration of greatnes or magnitude of the moſt excellent beauteous claretie, diuine and inuiſible. Alſo, the bleſſed in his Epiſtles reciteth this, ſaieng: that by theſe things viſibles, which are made and be viſible, man may ſée and know by his inwarde ſight intellectuall, the diuine, celeſtiall, & godlye things, which are inuiſibles to this our naturall ſight. Deuout Doctors of Theologie or Diuinitie, for this conſideration, prudently and wiſely read and vſe natural philoſophie and morall, and Poets in their fictions and fayned informations, vnto this fine and end, ſo that by the lykelihoode or ſimilitude of things viſible, our wit or our vnderſtanding ſpiritually, by cléere and ſkilfull vtteraunce of words, may be ſo well ordered and vttered, that theſe things corporalls may be coupled with things ſpiritualls, and theſe things viſibles maye be conioyned with things inuiſibles. Excited by theſe cauſes to the edifieng of the people contained in our Chriſtian faith of Almightie Chriſt Ieſus, whoſe maieſtie diuine is incomprehenſible, and of whom to ſpeak it becommeth no man but with great excellent worſhip and honour, and with an inwarde dreadfull feare. Loath to offend, I purpoſe to ſay ſomwhat vnder the correction of excellent learned Doctours, and wiſe men: what euery creature reaſonable ought to beléeue in this our bleſſed chriſtian faith.

FINIS PROLOGI.

[Signature, handwritten] ''Thomas Extſſett(?) ¶. \ 1601 /''

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(See page 487.)


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(See page 606.)


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260 seemed so easy and natural, but which in reality were the result of the consummate skill of the artist. The fairy tales are unquestionably the flower of Andersen’s poetical compositions, and in this field he certainly has no peer. No other poet can be compared with him in this style of literature. He is always the same Andersen, whether he invents the story himself or borrows it from popular traditions or old ballads, as for instance, in the splendid tale, "Den uartige Dreng" ("The naughty boy"), the materials of which are taken from Anacreon. Even in his last collections, which were published in his old age, we still find the same grace and freshness which had been admired in his earliest works of this kind. A unique kind of literature are his fairy comedies "Mer end Perler og Guld" and "Ole Luköie," which were played in Copenhagen with extraordinary success, and which are very amusing on account of the rapid succession of attractive situations that pass before the spectators. On the other hand he made decided failures in several of his dramatic works, as for instance in "Ahasuerus," and "Agnete og Havmanden," in which he lost all control of his imagination. In many of his other works he has also shown a striking lack of self-criticism, and of artistic command of his materials. Some of his descriptions of travel are very interesting, as for instance, "En Digters Bazar," "I Sverrig," etc. He has given us an attractive and faithful autobiography in his "Mit Livs Eventyr" (The story of my life).

(1791-1860), a son of Peder Andreas Heiberg, who was mentioned in the preceding chapter, though he most decidedly must be characterized as a romanticist and was on his first appearance strongly influenced by Oehlenschläger, still is in many respects a sharp contrast to the poets already described. For while the latter on the whole abandoned themselves freely to their poetical inspirations, without criticising their own works, Heiberg was in the highest sense reflective, and he severely criticised all his poet-


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 obtain her pardon: and that, even should her father be inflexible, she need be under no apprehensions respecting the fate of her children. I engaged myself to provide for Theodore, and the baron promised to take the youngest under his protection. The grateful mother thanked us with tears for what she called generosity, but which in fact was no more than a proper sense of our obligations to her. She then left the room to put her little boy to bed, whom fatigue and sleep had completely overpowered

The baroness, on recovering, and being informed from what dangers I had rescued her, set no bounds to the expressions of her gratitude. She was joined so warmly by her husband in pressing me to accompany them to their castle in Bavaria, that I found it impossible to resist their entreaties. During a week which we passed at Strasbourg, the interests of Marguerite were not forgotten. In our application to her father we succeeded as amply as we could wish. The good old man had lost his wife. He had no children but this unfortunate daughter, of whom he had re-


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 ceived no news for almost fourteen years. He was surrounded by distant relations, who waited with impatience for his decease, in order to get possession of his money. When therefore Marguerite appeared again so unexpectedly, he considered her as a gift from Heaven. He received her and her children with open arms, and insisted upon their establishing themselves in his house without delay. The disappointed cousins were obliged to give place. The old man would not hear of his daughter's retiring into a convent. He said, that she was too necessary to his happiness, and she was easily persuaded to relinquish her designs. But no persuasions could induce Theodore to give up the plan which I had at first marked out for him. He had attached himself to me most sincerely during my stay at Strasbourg; and when I was on the point of leaving it, he besought me with tears to take him into my service. He set forth all his little talents in the most favourable colours, and tried to convince me that I should find him of infinite use to me upon the road. I was unwilling to charge my-


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 this, as you may think, was in my mind when I set out for the post-office to find out, if I could, what message really had been given to Lord Heresford. I knew well enough that a word would send him barking to old Oakley; and if that word had been written, good-by to Miss Janet, said I, and heigho for Paris again. This wasn't the first time by a long way that Nicky and I had changed our quarters suddenly; but better quarters than the White House we couldn't hope to find in a hurry—better quarters nor better people, for there wasn't a man of them, even down to Reubens, the constable, that didn't treat us in slap-up style. Whenever I went into the village, it was "Good-day to you, Mr. Bigg. Ye'll take a glass of ale with me?" or, "How's Sir Nicolas finding himself to-day, Mr. Bigg? Been riding, I suppose. Ay, he's a wunner on horseback is your master." Strange, it was, too, how they did love Nicky, every man, woman, and child among them; and this I will say, that more pleasant manners with children you'll never see this side of Dublin.

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When I got down to the post-office, old Barker, the post-master, was at the meeting-house, "wrestling with the Lord," his wife called it; and there was nothing for it but to catch him as he came out and before he got into the public. But I hadn't been in the village five minutes when Reubens came sidling up to me, and began a parley. He was a rare talker, was Reubens, and if you wanted any thing put abroad, you couldn't do better than give him a whisper of it.

"Evenin', Mister Bigg," said he. "I do hope that you be finding yourself better this day."

"Well, thank you, Mr. Reubens," said I, "it's not much that I'm complaining of. Will you have a cigar to-night?"

I offered him my case, and he took a smoke readily.

"It's funny," said he, biting off the end of it then and there, "that you should be offering me bacca, for it weren't five minutes ago that Mrs. Reubens says to me, 'Reubens, ye're more tiresome this night than I can remember. Drat ye, go out and smoke your pipe, and leave me to get the childer to bed.' Ay, wunnerful woman she is with childer! Ye'll not be having a lucifer about you, Mr. Bigg?"

"Oh, but I have, though. You'll take a glass of ale with me, Mr. Reubens?"

"Well, now, you do put things into a man's head!"

I took him up to the Duke of York, and we went into the private bar at his wish.

"There's some as say," he explained, "that a constable shouldn't go for to be seen drinking in a public;

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 but that's not my word. A man's a man, and no' the worse for taking a glass of yale like other folk. And it's example, too. What would ye think of a policeman that wanted a stomach for a sup of beer? That's no man to preserve the Queen's peace."

"Quite right," said I. "But I don't suppose the Queen's peace wants very much preserving in these parts."

"No," said he, draining his jug at a draught; "we're a tidy civil folk as folk go. When there's trouble, it's a'most a' ways brought by strangers. An' that reminds me—ye'll not have been looking for any man from Lunnon to-day, Mr. Bigg?"

"What sort of a man?" said I, feeling a bit queer at the question; which was no wonder, remembering the business I'd come down to the village about.

"Spare party, with short legs and a fly-away voice," said he. "Clerkish way he has, too, pryin' about just as if he was sorting out pigs. Thought he might be down here about Saturday. Ay, but you'll be busy enough without him. She's a fine lady, is Miss Oakley; no finer in the county, that I do say. And I've seed a many giv' and took since I was a lad, Mr. Bigg."

"That's so, Mr. Reubens," replied I; "you must have seen a wonderful lot in your time. But this clerk, now—was he asking after me?"

"After you—no; I don't mind that he was, or I'd have been bringing him up to the house. Queer party he is, though. And you'll not forget that there

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 are diamonds and such up yonder now. There's been stranger things in Derbyshire than house-breakers, Mr. Bigg."

I saw in a minute what he meant, and I could have burst out laughing in his face. When he told me that a clerk was in the village he didn't need to say more. I knew well what the chap was after, and I said to myself, "Nicky, my boy, here's another bit of white paper which the wind has sent us." Yet how they had scented us out, or whose writ it was, I couldn't think. At the same time, it wasn't for me to be putting thoughts into the constable's head, and I kept my wits about me.

"It seems to me that the village should think itself lucky to have such a man as you about, Mr. Reubens," said I, after a bit. "There's no knowing what these London chaps aren't up to nowadays. Do you remember when old Lord Ramer was married down Bedford way last autumn? Well, the very night he was honeymooning, three of them entered his place and filled themselves right up with plate and jewels. Broke into his dressing-room, they did, and wired all the park, so that when his butler went after them he cut his face cruel. What do you think of that?"

"Ay, but it was bad business, Mr. Bigg."

"You're right there; and if I was you I'd keep my eye on this chap you speak of. Likely enough he's news of what's going on yonder. But I don't doubt you'll be good enough for him—and more to come."

This, you see, I said, to please him; and mighty

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 self with a lad scarcely turned of thirteen, who I knew could only be a burthen to me: however, I could not resist the entreaties of this affectionate youth, who in fact possessed a thousand estimable qualities. With some difficulty he persuaded his relations to let him follow me; and that permission once obtained, he was dubbed with the title of my page. Having passed a week at Strasbourg, Theodore and myself set out for Bavaria, in company with the baron and his lady. These latter, as well as myself, had forced Marguerite to accept several presents of value, both for herself and her youngest son. On leaving her, I promised his mother faithfully, that I would restore Theodore to her within the year.

I have related this adventure at length, Lorenzo, that you might understand the means by which "the adventurer Alphonso d'Alvarada got introduced into the castle of Lindenberg." Judge from this specimen, how much faith should be given to your aunt's assertions.


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 pleased he was at it, giving me trouble to get away to the post-master. But I was itching to read the telegram which had gone to Heresford, and when he had drunk another glass of beer we went across to the post-office together. Old Barker was back from his hymn-singing now, and he made haste to light up his lamps and to refer to his book. It wasn't ten minutes before he'd come across the other message, and no sooner had I cast my eye over it than I knew the game was up.

"Have wired the old boy as directed. What is Nicky up to now?"

Here was the telegram I read, and pretty bad it made me feel, I must say. How my brother Jerome could have been such a fool, the Lord only knows; but there were the words, and I knew that Heresford must already have seen them.

"There's been a mistake here," said I to Barker, keeping as cool as I could. "The telegram you sent up to me was meant for Lord Heresford."

"You don't say so!" cried he, running hurriedly to the book. "Dear, dear, what an annoying thing to happen, Mr. Bigg!"

But I was wishing already that I had bitten my tongue off before making such a fool of myself.

"Well, perhaps it's my mistake," I cried, as quickly as I could. "But this wasn't the telegram I was looking for, that is all. You're quite sure that the

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