CHAPTER I.

THE QUEEN'S CADET

And other Tales

BY JAMES GRANT

AUTHOR OF

"THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "FIRST LOVE AND LAST LOVE,"

"THE WHITE COCKADE," ETC., ETC.

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS

THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE

NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET

1874

CONTENTS.

THE QUEEN'S CADET

THE SPECTRE HAND

THE BOMBARDIER'S STORY

KOTAH: A TALE OF THE INDIAN MUTINY

THE STORY OF RAPHAEL VELDA

LA BELLE TURQUE: THE STORY OF THE PRINCESS CECILE

THE MARQUIS DE FRATTEAUX, CAPTAIN OF FRENCH HORSE

SOCIVISCA: THE STORY OF A GREEK OUTLAW

PAQUETTE: AN EPISODE OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR

APPARITIONS AND WONDERS:

LEAVES FROM OLD LONDON LIFE; 1664-1705

THE WILD BEAST OF GÉVAUDAN

"THERE WERE GIANTS IN THOSE DAYS"

BURIED HEARTS

PHANTASMAGORIA

A STRING OF GHOST STORIES

THE QUEEN'S CADET.

"I have been forced to believe in the existence and influence of an

unseen world, of something which is described in that line of

Dryden's,

"'With silent steps I follow you all day.'

"I have felt the influence of the spiritual and invisible on the

senses, though I know nothing of the complications, the deceptions

and alleged perils, forming a portion of that which is now termed

spiritualism; and which affirms that the unseen world cannot become

manifest, save in obedience to certain occult laws which regulate the

phenomena of nature."

What rigmarole was this?

Could the speaker--this man with the melancholy tone and saddened

eye--actually be the same handsome Jack Arkley, my old college chum

at Sandhurst, who was always rather sceptical even in religious

matters, who was one of the merriest fellows there, who had been once

nearly rusticated for breaking the lamps and dismounting the guns to

spite the adjutant, but who, as a Queen's cadet, had more marks of

excellence than any of us; who was afterwards the beau-ideal of a

fine young English officer--a prime bat and bowler, who pulled a good

stroke oar, had such a firm seat in his saddle, and who was the best

hand for organizing a picnic, a ball, or a scratch company, for

amateur theatricals; and who in the late expedition against the

Looshais, had won the reputation of being a regular fire-eater--a

fellow who would face the devil in his shirt sleeves!

Could the champagne of "the Rag" have affected him, thought I, as he

continued earnestly and sadly, and while manipulating a cigar

selected from the silver stand on the table:

"I have somewhere read that very few persons in this world have been

unfortunate enough to have seen those things that are invisible to

others."

"By Jove! Do you mean a--ghost?"

"Not exactly the vulgar ghost of the nursery," said he, his pale face

colouring slightly.

"But we have all met with those who knew some one else who had seen

something weird, unearthly, unexplainable."

"Precisely; but I shall speak from personal experience--so now for a

little narrative of my own."

We had dined that evening at the club, where D---- of the Greys had

given a few fellows a dinner, in honour of being gazetted to his

troop, and to "wet" the new commission; and though it seemed to me

that, like the rest of us, Jack Arkley had done justice to all the

good things set before him, from the soup to the coffee and curaçao,

he had been, during dinner, remarkably _triste_ or abstracted, and

took but little interest in the subjects discussed by the guests, who

were mostly all upon short leave from Aldershot, and, the Spring

drills being over, were thankful to exchange the white dust of the

Long Valley, for the Row or Regent Street.

We were alone now, and lingering over some iced brandy-pawnee (as we

called it in India) in the cool bay-window of his room in Piccadilly,

where it overlooked the pleasant Green Park and where the clock of

Westminster was shining above the trees, like a red harvest moon. So

I prepared to listen to him with more curiosity than belief, while he

related the following singular story, which he would never have

ventured to relate to the circle of heedless fellows whom we had just

left.

"My parents died when I was little more than an infant, leaving me to

the care of two uncles, a maternal one, named Beverley, a man of

considerable wealth, who in consequence of a quarrel with my father,

whose marriage with his sister he resented, totally ignored my

existence, and was ever a kind of myth to me; the other a paternal

one, a bachelor curate in North Wales, poor old Morgan Apreece

Arkley, than whom there was no better or more kind-hearted man in all

the principality.

"His means were most limited; but to share the little he possessed he

made me freely and tenderly welcome, all the more so that to two

appeals he had made to the generosity of my Uncle Beverley, no

response was ever returned--a cutting coldness and rudeness, bitterly

resented by my hot-tempered but warm-hearted old Welsh kinsman.

"A career was necessarily chosen for me.

"The death of my father on duty at Benares, enabled me to be borne on

the strength of the Military College at Sandhurst as one of the

twenty Queen's cadets; and to that seminary I repaired, a few months

after you did, when in my sixteenth year, leaving with sincere sorrow

the lonely white-haired man who had been as a parent to me, and whose

secluded parsonage by the margin of Llyn Ogwen, and under the shadow

of Carneydd Davydd, had been the only home I could remember. There

for years he had been my earnest and anxious tutor, mingling with the

classics a store of quaint old Welsh legends and ancient songs, for

he was an excellent and enthusiastic harper, and had come of a long

line of harpers.

"Prior to this change in my life, I encountered an adventure which

has had considerable influence in my after career.

"From childhood I had been familiar with the mountains that overhang

Llyn Ogwen. I knew every track and rock and fissure of Carneydd

Davydd, of 'the Black Ladders' of Carneydd Llewellyn, and the brows

of the greater giant of the three, cloud-capped Snowdon. For miles

upon miles among them I had been wont to wander with my gun, and at

times to aid the shepherds in tracking out lost sheep or goats, by

places where we looked down upon the gray mist and vapour that

floated below us, and where the mountain peaks seemed to start out of

it like isles amid a sea. In the heart of such solitudes as these I

found food for much reflective thought, and was wont to give full

swing to my boyish fancies.

"Under every variety of season and weather I was wont to wander among

these mountains; sometimes when their sides seemed to vibrate under

the hot rays of a cloudless summer sun; at others when the glistening

snow lay deep in the passes and valleys, or when height and hollow

were alike shrouded in thick and impenetrable mist; but my favourite

spot was ever Llyn Idwal, the wildest and most savage of all our

Welsh lakes. It fills the crater of an ancient volcano, and is the

traditional scene of the murder of Idwal, a prince of Wales, who was

flung over its precipice--a place which for gloomy grandeur has no

equal, as the bare rocks that start out of it, sheer as a wall,

darken by their shadows its depth to the most intense blackness; and

the peasants aver that no fish can swim in it, and no bird fly over

it and live.

"Lying upon the mountain tops, amid the purple heather or the scented

thyme-grass, I was wont to watch the distant waters of the Channel,

stretching far away beyond the Puffin Isle and Great Orme's Head,

ever changing in hue as the masses of cloud skimmed over them; and

from thence I followed, with eager eyes, the white sails of the

ships, or the long smoky pennants of the steamers that were bound

for--ah! where were they bound for?--and so, far from the solitary

parsonage of the good old man who loved me so well, I was ungrateful

enough to follow to distant isles and shores these vanishing specks,

in the spirit.

"I see that you are impatient to know what all this preamble has to

do with Sandhurst and the melancholy which now oppresses me; but

nevertheless, I am fast coming to the matter--to 'that keystone of

the soul which must exist in every nature.'

"One day I was up a wild part of the mountains, far above Llyn Ogwen,

a long and narrow sheet of water which occupies the whole pass

between Braich-ddu and the shoulder of Carneydd Davydd. My sole

companion was my dog Cidwm--in English, 'Wolf'--which lay beside me

on the sunny grass, when from one of my day-dreams I was suddenly

roused by voices, and found three persons close beside me.

"Mounted on sturdy Welsh ponies, two of these were a gentleman in the

prime of life, and a very young lady, apparently his daughter,

attended by David Lloyd, one of the guides for the district, who knew

me well. He led the bridle of the girl's pony with one hand, and

grasped his alpenstock with the other. This group paused near me,

and some conversation ensued. Lloyd had evidently mistaken the path,

and was loath to admit the fact, or to suggest that they should

retrace their steps, and yet he knew enough of the mountains to be

well aware that to advance would be to court danger. During the

colloquy that ensued between him and his employer, a haughty and

imperious-looking man, I was earnestly gazing in the half-averted

face of the girl, who was watching an eagle in full flight.

"She was marvellously beautiful. Her features--save in profile--were

perhaps far from correct, yet there was a divine delicacy, a charming

purity of complexion, and brightness of expression over them all; and

her minute face seemed to nestle amid the masses of her fair rippling

hair. She turned towards me, and her eyes met mine. They were dark

violet blue, and shaded by brown lashes, so long that they imparted

much of softness to their dove-like expression, and she smiled, for

no doubt the little maid saw that there was something of unequivocal

admiration to be read in my ardent gaze; and so absorbed was I, that,

for a few seconds, I was not aware that the guide was addressing me,

and inquiring how far the path was traversable in this particular

direction. Ere I could reply,

"'How should this mere lad know, if you don't?' asked the male

tourist, haughtily and sharply.

"'Few here can know better, sir,' replied Lloyd. 'I have seen him

climb where the eagles alone can go.'

"'Shall we proceed, then?' he asked me, sharply.

"'I think not, sir,' said I; 'Moel Hebog was covered with mist this

morning, and----'

"'But Moel Hebog is clear enough now,' said David Lloyd, with

irritation--the mountain so named being deemed an unerring barometer,

as regards the chances of mist upon its greater brethren--'so I think

we may proceed,' he added, touching his hat to his employer. 'I

don't require, sir, to be taught my trade by a mere lad, a gentleman

tho you be, Master Arkley.'

"'_Arkley!_' repeated the stranger, starting and eyeing me keenly,

and yet with a lowering expression of face.

"I warned them of the danger of farther progression, but the

avaricious guide derided me; and I heard his employer, as they passed

on, asking him some questions, amid which--but it might be fancy--I

thought my own name occurred. I gazed after them with interest, and

with much of anxiety, for their path was perilous, and the sweet soft

beauty of the girl had impressed me deeply; and, as she disappeared,

with all her wealth of golden hair, the brightness seemed to have

departed from the mountain side.

"What was the magic this creature, whom I had only seen for a few

minutes, possessed for me? She was scarcely a woman, yet past

childhood; and her features remained as distinctly impressed upon my

memory as if they were before me still. Do not infer from this

strange interest that 'love at first sight,' as the novels used to

have it, was an ingredient of this emotion. No; it was something

deeper--a subtle magnetism--something that I know not how to define

or to express; and with a repining sigh, I thought of my lonely life,

and longed to go forth on the career that awaited me beyond those

green mountains that were bounded by the sea.

"Had I ever seen that fair little face before, or dreamed of it by

night or by day, that already it seemed to haunt me so?

"The little group had not disappeared above five minutes, when a

sound like a cry was borne past me on the mountain breeze. I started

up, my heart beating wildly; and with undefined apprehension,

hastened in the direction of the sound, while Wolf careered in front

of me. There now came the sound of hoofs, and with bridle trailing,

saddle reversed, and nostrils distended, the pony on which I had so

recently seen the young girl, came tearing over the crest of the

hill, and galloped madly past me towards Llyn Idwal.

"Quicker beat my heart, and my breath came thick and fast. Something

dreadful had taken place! True to his instincts as ever was the

faithful Gelert of the Welsh tradition, Wolf sped in haste to the

edge of what I knew to be a frightful ravine. There the hoof marks

were fresh in the turf, the edge of which was broken; the grass too,

was crushed and torn, as if something had fallen over it. The dog

now paused, lifted up his nose, and howled ominously. I peered over;

and far down below, on a ledge of green turf, but perilously

overhanging a chasm in the mountain side, lay that which appeared at

first to be a mere bundle of clothes, but which I knew to be the

little maiden dead-- doubtlessly dead--and a wail of sorrow escaped

me.

"Her father and the guide had disappeared.

"Partly sliding, partly descending as if by a natural ladder, finding

footing and grasp where many might have found neither, mechanically,

and as one in a dream, I reached her in about ten minutes; and, as I

had a naturally boyish dread of facing death, with joy I saw her

move, and then took her in my arms tenderly and caressingly; while

she opened her eyes and sighed deeply, for the fall had stunned and

shaken her severely. Otherwise she was, happily, uninjured; but I

had reached her just in time, for, if left to herself, she must have

tottered and fallen into the terrible profundity below.

"'Papa! oh, where is my papa? I was thrown suddenly from my pony--a

bird scared it--and remember no more;' then a passion of tears and

terror came over her, with the consciousness of the peril she had

escaped and that which still menaced her, for to ascend was quite

impracticable, and to descend seemed nearly equally so. Above us the

mountain side seemed to rise like a wall of rock; on the other hand,

at the bottom of the ravine, where the shadows of evening were dark

and blue, though sunset still tipped Snowdon's peaks with fire, and

clouds of crimson and gold were floating above us, I could see a

rivulet, a tributary of the Ogwen, glittering like a silver thread

far down, perhaps a thousand feet below.

"'Courage,' said I, while for a time my heart died within me; 'I

shall soon conduct you to a place of safety.'

"'But papa, he will die of fright. Where is my papa?' she exclaimed,

piteously.

"'Gone round some other way,' I suggested. And subsequently this

proved to be the case. Placing an arm round her for aid, we now

began to descend, but slowly, the face of the hill, which was there

so steep and shelved so abruptly, that to lose one step might have

precipitated us to the bottom with a speed that would have insured

destruction. From rock to rock, from bush to bush, and from cleft to

cleft, I guided and often lifted her, sometimes with her eyes closed;

and gazed the while with boyish rapture on the beautiful girl, as her

head drooped upon my shoulder. She had lost her hat, and the unbound

masses of her golden hair, blown by the wind, came in silken ripples

across my face; and delight, mingled with alarm, bewildered me.

"Till that hour no sorrow could have affected a spirit so pure as

hers; and certainly love could not have agitated it--she was so

young. But when we drew nearer the base of the hill, and reached a

place of perfect safety, the soft colour came back to her face, and

the enchantment of her smile was as indescribable as the clear violet

blue of her eye, which filled with wonder and terror as she gazed

upward to the giddy verge from which she had partly fallen; and then

a little shudder came over her.

"With a boy's ready ardour, I was already beginning to dream of being

beloved by her, when excited voices came on the wind; and round an

angle of the ravine into which we had descended came Lloyd, the

guide, several peasants, and her father, who had partially witnessed

our progress, and whose joy in finding her alive and well, when he

might have found her dashed perhaps out of the very semblance of

humanity, was too great for words. The poor man wept like a very

woman, as he embraced her again and again, and muttered in broken

accents his gratitude to me, and praise of my courage. Suddenly he

exclaimed to the guide,

"'You said his name was--Arkley, I think?'

"'Yes, sir,' replied Lloyd.

"'John Beverley Arkley, nephew of the curate at the foot of the

mountain yonder?' he added, turning to me.

"'The same, sir.'

"'Good heavens! I am your Uncle Beverley!' said he, colouring

deeply, and taking my hand again in his. 'The girl you have saved is

your own cousin--my darling Eve. I owe you some reparation for past

neglect, so come with me to the parsonage at once.'

"Here was a discovery that quite took away my breath. So this

dazzling little Hebe was my cousin! How fondly I cherished and

thought over this mysterious tie of blood--near almost as a sister,

and yet no sister. It was very sweet to ponder over and to nurse the

thoughts of affection, and all that yet might be.

"What a happy, happy night was that in the ancient parsonage! The

good old curate forgave Uncle Beverley all the short-comings in the

years that were past, and seemed never to weary of caressing the

wonderful hair and the tiny hands of Evelyn Beverley, for such was

her name, though familiarly known as Eve.

"'It is quite a romance, this,' said kind Uncle Arkley to his

brother-in-law; 'the young folks will be falling in love!'

"Eve grew quite pale, and cast down her eyes; while I blushed

furiously.

"'Stuff!' said Uncle Beverley, somewhat sharply. 'She has barely cut

her primers and pinafores, and Jack has Sandhurst before him yet.'

"He presented me with his gold repeater, and departed by the first

convenient train, taking my newly-discovered relation with him. I

had a warm invitation to visit them for a few weeks before entering

at Sandhurst; and, to add to my joy and impatience, I found that

Beverley Lodge was in Berkshire, and within a mile of the College:

and so, but for the presence of the golden gift, and the memory of a

kind and grateful kiss from a beautiful lip--a kiss that made every

nerve thrill--I might have imagined that the whole adventure on the

slopes of Carneydd Davydd was but a dream.

"Naturally avaricious, cold, and hard in heart, Mr. Beverley had

warmed to me for a time, but a time only; yet I revered and almost

loved him. He was the only brother of my dead mother, whom I had

never known. _She_--this golden-haired girl--was of her blood, and

had her name; so my whole soul clung to her with an amount of

youthful ardour, such as I cannot portray to you--for I was always

much of an enthusiast--and I was again alone, to indulge in the old

tenor of my ways amid the voiceless mountain solitudes.

"Again and again in my lonely wanderings had my mind been full of

vague longings and boyish aspirations after glory, pleasure, and

love: and now the memory of Eve's minute and perfect face--so pure

and English in its beauty--by its reality filled up all that had been

a blank before; and I was ever in fancied communion with her, while

lying on the hill-slopes and looking to the sea that sparkled at the

far horizon, into the black ravines through which the mountain brooks

went foaming to the rocky shore, or where our deep Welsh _llyns_ were

gleaming in the sunshine like gold and turquoise blue--amid the

monotony of the silent woods; and so the time passed on, and the day

came when I was to start for Beverley Lodge, and thence to Sandhurst;

while love and ambition rendered me selfishly oblivious of poor old

Uncle Morgan, and the fervent wishes and blessings with which he

followed my departing steps.

"A month's visit to Beverley Lodge, amid the fertility of Berkshire,

many a ride and ramble in the Vale of the White Horse, many an hour

spent by us together in the shady woods, the luxurious garden, in the

beautiful conservatory, and in the deep leafy lanes where we wandered

at will, confirmed the love my cousin and I bore each other. A boy

and a girl, it came easily about; while many were our regrets and

much was our marvelling that we had not known each other earlier.

"No two men make a declaration of love, perhaps, in precisely the

same way, though it all comes to the same thing in the end; but it

might be interesting to know in what precise terms, and having so

little choice, Father Adam declared his passion for Mother Eve, and

in what fashion she responded.

"I know not now how my love for _my_ little Eve was expressed; but

told it was, and I departed for college the happiest student there,

every hour I could spare from study and drill being spent in or about

Beverley Lodge.

"With an income of forty pounds per annum till gazetted, I almost

thought myself rich; and I had three years before me--it seemed an

eternity of joy--to look forward to. At Sandhurst I was, as you

know, entered as a Queen's cadet _free_, and a candidate for the

infantry. I had thus to master algebra, the three first books of

Euclid, French, German, and 'Higher Fortification;' but in the pages

of Straith, amid the ravelins of Vauban and the casemates of Coehorn,

I seemed to see only the name and the tender eyes of Eve. The daily

drills, in which I was at first an enthusiast, became dull and

prosaic, and hourly I made terrible mistakes, for Eve's voice was

ever in my ear, and her delicate beauty haunted me; for wondrously

delicate it became, as consumption--which she fatally inherited from

her mother--shed over it a medium that was alike soft and alluring.

"Since then I have met girls of all kinds everywhere. Though only a

sub, I have been dressed for, played for, sung for; but never have I

had the delight of those remembered days that were passed with Eve

Beverley in our dream of cousinly love; however, a rude waking was at

hand!

"When she was eighteen, and I a year older, she told me one day that

her father had been insisting upon her marrying an old friend of his,

a retired Sudder judge, who had proposed in form; but she had laughed

at the idea.

"'Absurd! It is so funny of papa to have a husband ready cut and dry

for me; is it not, Jack?' said she.

"I did not think so; but my heart beat painfully as I leaned

caressingly over her, and played with her beautiful hair.

"'I don't thank him for selecting a husband for me, Jack, dear,' she

continued, pouting; 'do you?'"

"'Certainly not, Eve.'

"'But I must prepare my mind for the awful event,' said she, looking

up at me with a bright, waggish smile.

"The time was fast approaching, however, when neither of us could see

anything 'funny' in the prospect; for 'the awful event' became

alarmingly palpable, when one day she met me with tears, and threw

herself on my breast, saying:

"'Save me, dearest Jack--save me!'

"'From whom?"

"'Papa and his odious old Sudder judge, Jack, love. You know that I

must marry you, and you only!'

"'The devil he does!' said a voice, sharply; and there, grim as Ajax,

stood Uncle Beverley, with hands clenched and brows knit. 'My sister

married his father, a beggar, with only his pay; and now, minx, you

dare to love their son, by heavens, with no pay at all! Leave this

house, sir--begone instantly!' he added, furiously, to me. 'I would

rather that she had broken her neck on the mountains than treated me

to a scene like this.'

"The gates of Beverley Lodge closed behind me, and our dream was over.

"Half my life seemed to have left me. After three years of such

delightful intercourse I could not adopt the conviction that I should

never see her again; and in a very unenviable state of mind I entered

the college, where you may remember meeting me under the Doric

portico, and saying:

"'What's up, Jack? But let me congratulate you.'

"'On what?' I asked sulkily.

"'Your appointment to the Buffs. The _Gazette_ has just come from

town. They are stationed at Jubbulpore.'

"And so it proved that the very day I lost her saw me in the service,

with India, and a far and final separation before us. Necessity

compelled us to prepare for an almost instant departure; short leave

was given me by the adjutant-general; and I had to join the Candahar

transport going with drafts from Chatham for the East, on a certain

day.

"Rumours reached me of Eve being seriously ill. She was secluded

from me, and there was every chance that I should see her no more. A

letter came from her imploring me to meet her for the last time at a

spot known to us both--a green lane that led to a churchyard

stile--the scene of many a tender tryst and blissful hour, as it was

a place where overhanging trees, with the golden apple, the purple

damson, and the plum, formed a very bower, and where few or none ever

came, save on Sunday; and there we met for the last time!

"There once again her head lay on my shoulder, my circling arm was

round her, and her hot, tremulous hand was clasped in mine. I was

shocked by the change I perceived in her. Painful was her pallor to

look upon; there were circles dark as her lashes under her sad,

melancholy eyes; her nostrils and lips were unnaturally pink; she had

a short, dry cough; and blood appeared more than once upon her

handkerchief.

"Consumption on one hand, and parental tyranny on the other, were

fast doing their fatal work.

"Her father was pitiless and inexorable--wonderfully, infamously so,

as he was so rich that mere money was no object, and as she was his

only child, and one so tender, and so fragile. His studied system of

deliberate 'worry' had wrung a consent from her; she was to marry the

old judge; and in more ways than one I felt that too surely I was

losing her for ever. She could not go out with me. I felt

desperate, and in silence folded her again and again to my breast.

At last the ting-tong of the old church clock announced the hour when

we must part, never to meet again, and the fatal sound struck us like

a shock of electricity.

"'Jack, my dearest--my dearest,' she whispered wildly; 'I don't think

I shall live very long now. I may--nay, I must, die very soon; but

the spirit is imperishable, and I shall always be with you, wherever

you may be, wherever you may go, hovering near you, I hope, _like a

guardian angel_!'

"Her words struck me as strange and wild; I did not attach much

importance to them then, but they have had a strange and terrible

significance since.

"'Would you welcome me?' she asked, with a mournful smile.

"'Dead or living shall I welcome you!' I replied, with mournful

ardour.

"'Then kiss me once again, dear Jack; and now we part--in this world,

at least!'

"Another wild, passionate embrace, and all was over. In a minute

later I was galloping far from the villa to reach the railway. I saw

her beloved face no more; but voice and face, eye and kiss, were all

with me still. Would a time ever come when I might forgot them?

"Adverse winds detained us long in the Channel, but we cleared it at

last; and the last _Times_ that came on board announced the marriage

of this unhappy girl.

"Six months subsequent found me in cantonments at Neemuch, with a

small detachment of ours, and in hourly expectation of the mutiny

which had broken out at Meerut and Delhi, with such horrors, being

imitated there, though we had sworn the sepoys to be 'true to their

salt,' the Mahometans on the Koran, the Hindoos on the waters of the

Ganges, and the other darkies on whatever was most sacred to them;

and if they revolted, all Europeans were to seek instant shelter in

the fort.

"It was the night of _the 3rd June_--one of the loveliest I ever saw

in India--the moonlight was radiant as midday, and not a cloud was

visible throughout the blue expanse of heaven. I was lying in my

bungalow, with sword and revolver beside me, as we could not count

upon the events of an hour, for all Hindostan seemed to be going to

chaos in blood and outrage.

"The cantonment ghurries had clanged midnight; my eyes were closing

heavily; and when just about to sleep I thought that my name was

uttered by some one near me, very softly, very tenderly, and with an

accent that thrilled my heart's core. Starting, I looked up, and

there--oh, my God!--there, in the slanting light of the moon, like a

glorified spirit, with a brightness all about her, was the figure of

Eve Beverley bending over me, with all her golden hair unbound, and a

garment like a shroud or robe about her.

"Entranced, enchained by love as much as by mortal terror, I could

not move or speak, while nearer she bent to kiss my brow; but I felt

not the pressure of her lips, though reading in her starry, violet

eyes a divine intensity of expression--a mournful, unspeakable

tenderness, when, pointing in the direction of _the fort_, she

disappeared.

"'It is a dread--a dreadful dream!' said I, starting to my feet

preternaturally awake, to hear the sound of artillery, the rattle of

musketry, the yells of 'Deen! deen!' and the shrieks of those who

were perishing; for the mutineers had risen, and the 1st Cavalry, the

72nd N. I., and Walker's artillery, had commenced the work of

massacre. I rushed forth, and at the moment I left my bungalow on

one side it was set in flames and fired through from the other. I

fled to the fort, which, thanks to my dream--for such I supposed it

to be--I reached in safety, while many perished, for all the station

was sheeted now with flame.

"Once again I had that dream, so wild and strange, when a deadly

peril threatened me. I was hiding in the jungle, alone and in great

misery, near Jehaz-ghur, a fugitive. The time was noon, and I had

dropped asleep under the deep, cool shadow of a thicket, when that

weird vision of Eve came before me, soft and sad, tender and intense,

with her loving eyes and flowing hair, as, with hands outstretched,

she beckoned me to follow her. A cry escaped me, and I awoke.

"'Was my Eve indeed dead?' I asked of myself; 'and was it her

intellectual spirit, her pure essence, that imperishable something

engendered in us all from a higher source, that followed me as a

guardian angel?' I remembered her parting words. The idea suggested

was sadly sweet and terrible; and so, as a sense of her perpetual

presence as a _spirit-wife_ hovered at all times about me,

controlling all my actions, rendered me unfit for society, till at

Calcutta, a crisis was put to all this.

"With some of the 72nd, and other Europeans who had escaped from

Neemuch, or had 'distinguished themselves,' as the 'Hurkaru' had it,

I once went to be photographed at the famous studio near the corner

of the Strand. I sat, in succession, alone and in a group, after

being posed in the usual fashion, with an iron hoop at the nape of my

neck. On examining the first negative, an expression of perplexity

and astonishment came over the face of the artist.

"'Strange, sir,' said he; 'most unaccountable!'

"'What is strange; what is unaccountable?' asked several.

"'Another figure that is _not_ in the room appears at Captain

Arkley's back--a woman, by Jove!' he replied, placing the glass over

a piece of black velvet; and there--there--oh, there could be no

doubt of it--was faintly indicated the outline of one whose face and

form had been but too vividly impressed on my heart and brain,

bending sorrowfully over me, with her soft, bright eyes and wealth of

long bright hair.

"From my hand the glass fell on the floor, and was shivered to atoms.

A similar figure hovering near me, was visible among the pictured

group of officers, but faded out. I refused to sit again, and

quitted the studio in utter confusion, and with nerves dreadfully

shaken, though my comrades averred that a trick had been played upon

me. If so, how was the figure that of my dream--that of my lost

love--who, a letter soon after informed me, had burst a blood-vessel,

and expired on _the night of the 3rd June_, with my name on her lips?"

Such was the story of Jack Arkley. Whether it was false or true, in

this age of spiritualism and many other _isms_ of mediums with the

world unseen, and in which Enemoser has ventilated his theory of

polarity, I pretend not to say, and leave others to determine. He

became a moody monomaniac. I rejoined my regiment, and from that

time never saw my old chum again. The last that I heard of him was,

that he had quitted the service, and died a Passionist Father, in one

of the many new monastic institutions that exist in the great

metropolis.

THE SPECTRE HAND.

Do the dead ever revisit this earth?

On this subject even the ponderous and unsentimental Dr. Johnson was

of opinion that to maintain they did not was to oppose the concurrent

and unvarying testimony of all ages and nations, as there was no

people so barbarous, and none so civilized, but among whom

apparitions of the dead were related and believed in. "That which is

doubted by single cavillers," he adds, "can very little weaken the

general evidence, and some who deny it with their tongues confess it

by their _fears_."

In the August of last year I found myself with three friends, when on

a northern tour, at the Hôtel de Scandinavie, in the long and

handsome Carl Johan Gade of Christiania. A single day, or little

more, had sufficed us to "do" all the lions of the little Norwegian

capital--the royal palace, a stately white building, guarded by

slouching Norski riflemen in long coats, with wide-awakes and green

plumes; the great brick edifice wherein the Storthing is held, and

where the red lion appears on everything, from the king's throne to

the hall-porter's coal-scuttle; the castle of Aggerhuis and its petty

armoury, with a single suit of mail, and the long muskets of the

Scots who fell at Rhomsdhal; after which there is nothing more to be

seen; and when the little Tivoli gardens close at ten, all

Christiania goes to sleep till dawn next morning.

English carriages being perfectly useless in Norway, we had ordered

four of the native carrioles for our departure, as we were resolved

to start for the wild mountainous district named the Dovrefeld, when

a delay in the arrival of certain letters compelled me to remain two

days behind my companions, who promised to await me at Rodnaes, near

the head of the magnificent Ransfiord; and this partial separation,

with the subsequent circumstance of having to travel alone through

districts that were totally strange to me, with but a very slight

knowledge of the language, were the means of bringing to my knowledge

the story I am about to relate.

The table d'hôte is over by two o'clock in the fashionable hotels of

Christiania, so about four in the afternoon I quitted the city, the

streets and architecture of which resemble portions of Tottenham

Court Road, with stray bits of old Chester. In my carriole, a

comfortable kind of gig, were my portmanteau and gun-case; these,

with my whole person, and indeed the body of the vehicle itself,

being covered by one of those huge tarpaulin cloaks furnished by the

carriole company in the Store Standgade.

Though the rain was beginning to fall with a force and density

peculiarly Norse when I left behind me the red-tiled city with all

its green coppered spires, I could not but be struck by the bold

beauty of the scenery, as the strong little horse at a rasping pace

tore the light carriole along the rough mountain road, which was

bordered by natural forests of dark and solemn-looking pines,

interspersed with graceful silver birches, the greenness of the

foliage contrasting powerfully with the blue of the narrow fiords

that opened on every hand, and with the colours in which the toy-like

country houses were painted, their timber walls being always snowy

white, and their shingle roofs a flaming red. Even some of the

village spires wore the same sanguinary hue, presenting thus a

singular feature in the landscape.

The rain increased to an unpleasant degree; the afternoon seemed to

darken into evening, and the evening into night sooner than usual,

while dense masses of vapour came rolling down the steep sides of the

wooded hills, over which the sombre firs spread everywhere and up

every vista that opened, like a sea of cones; and as the houses

became fewer and farther apart, and not a single wanderer was abroad,

and I had but the pocket-map of my "John Murray" to guide me, I soon

became convinced that instead of pursuing the route to Rodnaes I was

somewhere on the banks of the Tyri-fiord, at least three Norwegian

miles (_i.e._ twenty-one English) in the opposite direction, my

little horse worn out, the rain still falling in a continual torrent,

night already at hand, and mountain scenery of the most tremendous

character everywhere around me. I was in an almost circular valley

(encompassed by a chain of hills), which opened before me, after

leaving a deep chasm that the road enters, near a place which I

afterwards learned bears the name of Krogkleven.

Owing to the steepness of the road, and some decay in the harness of

my hired carriole, the traces parted, and then I found myself, with

the now useless horse and vehicle, far from any house, homestead, or

village where I could have the damage repaired or procure shelter,

the rain still pouring like a sheet of water, the thick, shaggy, and

impenetrable woods of Norwegian pine towering all about me, their

shadows rendered all the darker by the unusual gloom of the night.

To remain quietly in the carriole was unsuitable to a temperament so

impatient as mine; I drew it aside from the road, spread the

tarpaulin over my small stock of baggage and the gun-case, haltered

the pony to it, and set forth on foot, stiff, sore, and weary, in

search of succour; and, though armed only with a Norwegian tolknife,

having no fear of thieves or of molestation.

Following the road on foot in the face of the blinding rain, a Scotch

plaid and oilskin my sole protection now, I perceived ere long a side

gate and little avenue, which indicated my vicinity to some place of

abode. After proceeding about three hundred yards or so, the wood

became more open, a light appeared before me, and I found it to

proceed from a window on the ground floor of a little two-storeyed

mansion, built entirely of wood. The sash, which was divided in the

middle, was unbolted, and stood partially and most invitingly open;

and knowing how hospitable the Norwegians are, without troubling

myself to look for the entrance door, I stepped over the low sill

into the room (which was tenantless), and looked about for a

bell-pull, forgetting that in that country, where there are no

mantelpieces, it is generally to be found behind the door.

The floor was, of course, bare, and painted brown; a high German

stove, like a black iron pillar, stood in one corner on a stone

block; the door, which evidently communicated with some other

apartment, was constructed to open in the middle, with one of the

quaint lever handles peculiar to the country. The furniture was all

of plain Norwegian pine, highly varnished; a reindeer skin spread on

the floor, and another over an easy-chair, were the only luxuries;

and on the table lay the _Illustret Tidende_, the _Aftonblat_, and

other papers of that morning, with a meerschaum and pouch of tobacco,

all serving to show that some one had recently quitted the room.

I had just taken in all these details by a glance, when there entered

a tall thin man of gentlemanly appearance, clad in a rough tweed

suit, with a scarlet shirt, open at the throat, a simple but _dégagé_

style of costume, which he seemed to wear with a natural grace, for

it is not every man who can dress thus and still retain an air of

distinction. Pausing, he looked at me with some surprise and

inquiringly, as I began my apologies and explanation in German.

"Taler de Dansk-Norsk," said he, curtly.

"I cannot speak either with fluency, but----"

"You are welcome, however, and I shall assist you in the prosecution

of your journey. Meantime, here is cognac. I am an old soldier, and

know the comforts of a full canteen, and of the Indian weed too, in a

wet bivouac. There is a pipe at your service."

I thanked him, and (while he gave directions to his servants to go

after the carriole and horse) proceeded to observe him more closely,

for something in his voice and eye interested me deeply.

There was much of broken-hearted melancholy--something that indicated

a hidden sorrow--in his features, which were handsome, and very

slightly aquiline. His face was pale and care-worn; his hair and

moustache, though plentiful, were perfectly white-blanched, yet he

did not seem over forty years of age. His eyes were blue, but

without softness, being strangely keen and sad in expression, and

times there were when a startled look, that savoured of fright, or

pain, or insanity, or of all mingled, came suddenly into them. This

unpleasant expression tended greatly to neutralize the symmetry of a

face that otherwise was evidently a fine one. Suddenly a light

seemed to spread over it, as I threw off some of my sodden mufflings,

and he exclaimed--

"You speak Danskija, and English too, I know! Have you quite

forgotten me, Herr Kaptain?" he added, grasping my hand with kindly

energy. "Don't you remember Carl Holberg of the Danish Guards?"

The voice was the same as that of the once happy, lively, and jolly

young Danish officer, whose gaiety of temper and exuberance of spirit

made him seem a species of madcap, who was wont to give champagne

suppers at the Klampenborg Gardens to great ladies of the court and

to ballet girls of the Hof Theatre with equal liberality; to whom

many a fair Danish girl had lost her heart, and who, it was said, had

once the effrontery to commence a flirtation with one of the royal

princesses when he was on guard at the Amalienborg Palace. But how

was I to reconcile this change, the appearance of many years of

premature age, that had come upon him?

"I remember you perfectly, Carl," said I, while we shook hands; "yet

it is so long since we met; moreover--excuse me--but I knew not

whether you were in the land of the living."

The strange expression, which I cannot define, came over his face as

he said, with a low, sad tone--

"Times there are when I know not whether I am of the living or the

dead. It is twenty years since our happy days--twenty years since I

was wounded at the battle of Idstedt--and it seems as if 'twere

twenty ages."

"Old friend, I am indeed glad to meet you again."

"Yes, old you may call me with truth," said he, with a sad weary

smile as he passed his hand tremulously over his whitened locks,

which I could remember being a rich auburn.

All reserve was at an end now, and we speedily recalled a score and

more of past scenes of merriment and pleasure, enjoyed

together--prior to the campaign of Holstein--in Copenhagen, that most

delightful and gay of all the northern cities; and, under the

influence of memory, his now withered face seemed to brighten, and

some of its former expression stole back again.

"Is this your fishing or shooting quarters, Carl?" I asked.

"Neither. It is my permanent abode."

"In this place, so rural--so solitary? Ah! you have become a

Benedick--taken to love in a cottage, and so forth--yet I don't see

any signs of----"

"Hush! for God's sake! You know not _who_ hears us," he exclaimed,

as terror came over his face; and he withdrew his hand from the table

on which it was resting, with a nervous suddenness of action that was

unaccountable, or as if hot iron had touched it.

"Why?--Can we not talk of such things?" asked I.

"Scarcely here--or anywhere to me," he said, incoherently. Then,

fortifying himself with a stiff glass of cognac and foaming seltzer,

he added: "You know that my engagement with my cousin Marie Louise

Viborg was broken off--beautiful though she was, perhaps _is_ still,

for even twenty years could not destroy her loveliness of feature and

brilliance of expression--but you never knew _why_?"

"I thought you behaved ill to her,--were mad, in fact."

A spasm came over his face. Again he twitched his hand away as if a

wasp had stung, or something unseen had touched it, as he said--

"She was very proud, imperious, and jealous."

"She resented, of course, your openly wearing the opal ring which was

thrown to you from the palace window by the princess----"

"The ring--the ring! Oh, do not speak of _that_!" said he, in a

hollow tone. "Mad?--Yes, I was mad--and yet I am not, though I have

undergone, and even _now_ am undergoing, that which would break the

heart of a Holger Danske! But you shall hear, if I can tell it with

coherence and without interruption, the reason why I fled from

society and the world--and for all these twenty miserable years have

buried myself in this mountain solitude, where the forest overhangs

the fiord, and where no woman's face shall ever smile on mine!"

In short, after some reflection and many involuntary sighs--and being

urged, when the determination to unbosom himself wavered--Carl

Holberg related to me a little narrative so singular and wild, that

but for the sad gravity--or intense solemnity of his manner--and the

air of perfect conviction that his manner bore with it, I should have

deemed him utterly--mad!

"Marie Louise and I were to be married, as you remember, to cure me

of all my frolics and expensive habits--the very day was fixed; you

were to be the groomsman, and had selected a suite of jewels for the

bride in the Kongens Nytorre; but the war that broke out in

Schleswig-Holstein drew my battalion of the guards to the field,

whither I went without much regret so far as my _fiancée_ was

concerned; for, sooth to say, both of us were somewhat weary of our

engagement, and were unsuited to each other: so we had not been

without piques, coldnesses, and even quarrels, till keeping up

appearances partook of boredom.

"I was with General Krogh when that decisive battle was fought at

Idstedt between our troops and the Germanizing Holsteiners under

General Willisen. My battalion of the guards was detached from the

right wing with orders to advance from Salbro on the Holstein rear,

while the centre was to be attacked, pierced, and the batteries

beyond it carried at the point of the bayonet, all of which was

brilliantly done. But prior to that I was sent, with directions to

extend my company in skirmishing order, among some thickets that

covered a knoll which is crowned by a ruined edifice, part of an old

monastery with a secluded burial-ground.

"Just prior to our opening fire the funeral of a lady of rank,

apparently, passed us, and I drew my men aside, to make way for the

open catafalque, on which lay the coffin covered with white flowers

and silver coronets, while behind it were her female attendants, clad

in black cloaks in the usual fashion, and carrying wreaths of white

flowers and immortelles to lay upon the grave. Desiring these

mourners to make all speed lest they might find themselves under a

fire of cannon and musketry, my company opened, at six hundred yards,

on the Holsteiners, who were coming on with great spirit. We

skirmished with them for more than an hour, in the long clear

twilight of the July evening, and gradually, but with considerable

loss, were driving them through the thicket and over the knoll on

which the ruins stand, when a half-spent bullet whistled through an

opening in the mouldering wall and struck me on the back part of the

head, just below my bearskin cap. A thousand stars seemed to flash

around me, then darkness succeeded. I staggered and fell, believing

myself mortally wounded; a pious invocation trembled on my lips, the

roar of the red and distant battle passed away, and I became

completely insensible.

"How long I lay thus I know not, but when I imagined myself coming

back to life and to the world I was in a handsome, but rather

old-fashioned apartment, hung, one portion of it with tapestry and

the other with rich drapery. A subdued light that came, I could not

discover from where, filled it. On a buffet lay my sword and my

brown bearskin cap of the Danish Guards. I had been borne from the

field evidently, but when and to where? I was extended on a soft

fauteuil or couch, and my uniform coat was open. Some one was kindly

supporting my head--a woman dressed in white, like a bride; young and

so lovely, that to attempt any description of her seems futile!

"She was like the fancy portraits one occasionally sees of beautiful

girls, for she was divine, perfectly so, as some enthusiast's dream,

or painter's happiest conception. A long respiration, induced by

admiration, delight, and the pain of my wound escaped me. She was so

exquisitely fair, delicate and pale, middle-sized and slight, yet

charmingly round, with hands that were perfect, and marvellous golden

hair that curled in rippling masses about her forehead and shoulders,

and from amid which her _piquante_ little face peeped forth as from a

silken nest. Never have I forgotten that face, nor shall I be

_permitted_ to do so, while life lasts at least," he added, with a

strange contortion of feature, expressive of terror rather than

ardour; "it is ever before my eyes, sleeping or waking, photographed

in my heart and on my brain! I strove to rise, but she stilled, or

stayed me, by a caressing gesture, as a mother would her child, while

softly her bright beaming eyes smiled into mine, with more of

tenderness, perhaps, than love; while in her whole air there was much

of dignity and self-reliance.

"'Where am I?' was my first question.

"'With me,' she answered naïvely; 'is it not enough?'

"I kissed her hand, and said--

"'The bullet, I remember, struck me down in a place of burial on the

Salbro Road--strange!'

"'Why strange?'

"'As I am fond of rambling among graves when in my thoughtful moods.'

"'Among graves--why?' she asked.

"'They look so peaceful and quiet.'

"Was she laughing at my unwonted gravity, that so strange a light

seemed to glitter in her eyes, on her teeth, and over all her lovely

face? I kissed her hands again, and she left them in mine.

Adoration began to fill my heart and eyes, and be faintly murmured on

my lips; for the great beauty of the girl bewildered and intoxicated

me; and, perhaps, I was emboldened by past success in more than one

love affair. She sought to withdraw her hand, saying--

"'Look not thus; I know how lightly you hold the love of one

elsewhere.'

"'Of my cousin Marie Louise? Oh! what of that! I never, never loved

till now!' and, drawing a ring from her finger, I slipped my

beautiful opal in its place.

"'And you love me?' she whispered.

"'Yes; a thousand times, yes!'

"'But you are a soldier--wounded, too. Ah! if you should die before

we meet again!'

"'Or, if you should die ere then?' said I, laughingly.

"'Die--I am already dead to the world--in loving you; but, living or

dead, our souls are as one, and----'

"'Neither heaven nor the powers beneath shall separate us now!' I

exclaimed, as something of melodrama began to mingle with the

genuineness of the sudden passion with which she had inspired me.

She was so impulsive, so full of brightness and ardour, as compared

to the cold, proud, and calm Marie Louise. I boldly encircled her

with my arms; then her glorious eyes seemed to fill with the subtle

light of love, while there was a strange magnetic thrill in her

touch, and, more than all, in her kiss.

"'Carl, Carl!' she sighed.

"'What! You know my name?-- And yours?'

"'Thyra. But ask no more."

"There are but three words to express the emotion that possessed

me--bewilderment, intoxication, madness. I showered kisses on her

beautiful eyes, on her soft tresses, on her lips that met mine half

way; but this excess of joy, together with the pain of my wound,

began to overpower me; a sleep, a growing and drowsy torpor, against

which I struggled in vain, stole over me. I remember clasping her

firm little hand in mine, as if to save myself from sinking into

oblivion, and then--no more--no more!

"On again coming back to consciousness, I was alone. The sun was

rising, but had not yet risen. The scenery, the thickets through

which we had skirmished, rose dark as the deepest indigo against the

amber-tinted eastern sky; and the last light of the waning moon yet

silvered the pools and marshes around the borders of the Langsö Lake,

where now eight thousand men, the slain of yesterday's battle, were

lying stark and stiff. Moist with dew and blood, I propped myself on

one elbow and looked around me, with such wonder that a sickness came

over my heart. I was _again_ in the cemetery where the bullet had

struck me down; a little gray owl was whooping and blinking in a

recess of the crumbling wall. Was the drapery of the chamber but the

ivy that rustled thereon?--for where the lighted buffet stood there

was an old square tomb, whereon lay my sword and bearskin cap!

"The last rays of the waning moonlight stole through the ruins on a

new-made grave--the fancied _fauteuil_ on which I lay--strewn with

the flowers of yesterday, and at its head stood a temporary cross,

hung with white garlands and wreaths of immortelles. Another ring

was on my finger how; but where was she, the donor? Oh, what

opium-dream, or what insanity was this?

"For a time I remained utterly bewildered by the vividness of my

recent dream, for such I believed it to be. But if a dream, how came

this strange ring, with a square emerald stone, upon my finger? And

_where_ was mine? Perplexed by these thoughts, and filled with

wonder and regret that the beauty I had seen had no reality, I picked

my way over the ghostly _débris_ of the battle-field, faint,

feverish, and thirsty, till at the end of a long avenue of lindens I

found shelter in a stately brick mansion, which I learned belonged to

the Count of Idstedt, a noble, on whose hospitality--as he favoured

the Holsteiners--I meant to intrude as little as possible.

"He received me, however, courteously and kindly. I found him in

deep mourning: and on discovering, by chance, that I was the officer

who had halted the line of skirmishers when the funeral _cortège_

passed on the previous day, he thanked me with earnestness, adding,

with a deep sigh, that it was the burial of his only daughter.

"'Half my life seems to have gone with her--my lost darling! She was

so sweet, Herr Kaptain--so gentle, and so surpassingly beautiful--my

poor Thyra!'

"'_Who_ did you say?' I exclaimed, in a voice that sounded strange

and unnatural, while half-starting from the sofa on which I had cast

myself, sick at heart and faint from loss of blood.

"'Thyra, my daughter, Herr Kaptain,' replied the Count, too full of

sorrow to remark my excitement, for this had been the quaint old

Danish name uttered in my dream. 'See, what a child I have lost!' he

added, as he drew back a curtain which covered a full-length

portrait, and, to my growing horror and astonishment, I beheld,

arrayed in white even as I had seen her in my vision, the fair girl

with the masses of golden hair, the beautiful eyes, and the

_piquante_ smile lighting up her features even on the canvas, and I

was rooted to the spot.

"'This ring, Herr Count?' I gasped.

"He let the curtain fall from his hand, and now a terrible emotion

seized him, as he almost tore the jewel from my finger.

"'My daughter's ring!' he exclaimed. 'It was buried with her

yesterday--her grave has been violated--violated by your infamous

troops.'

"As he spoke, a mist seemed to come over my sight; a giddiness made

my senses reel, then a hand--the soft little hand of last night, with

my opal ring on its third finger--came stealing into mine, unseen!

More than that, a kiss from tremulous lips I could not see, was

pressed on mine, as I sank backward and fainted! The remainder of my

story must be briefly told.

"My soldiering was over; my nervous system was too much shattered for

further military service. On my homeward way to join and be wedded

to Marie Louise--a union with whom was intensely repugnant to me

now--I pondered deeply over the strange subversion of the laws of

nature presented by my adventure; or the madness, it might be, that

had come upon me.

"On the day I presented myself to my intended bride, and approached

to salute her, I felt a hand--the _same hand_--laid softly on mine.

Starting and trembling I looked around me; but saw nothing. The

grasp was firm. I passed my other hand over it, and felt the slender

fingers and the shapely wrist; yet still I saw nothing, and Marie

Louise gazed at my motions, my pallor, doubt, and terror, with calm

but cool indignation.

"I was about to speak--to explain--to say I know not what, when a

kiss from lips I could not see sealed mine, and with a cry like a

scream I broke away from my friends and fled.

"All deemed me mad, and spoke with commiseration of my wounded head;

and when I went abroad in the streets men eyed me with curiosity, as

one over whom some evil destiny hung--as one to whom something

terrible had happened, and gloomy thoughts were wasting me to a

shadow. My narrative may seem incredible; but this attendant, unseen

yet palpable, is ever by my side, and if under any impulse, such even

as sudden pleasure in meeting you, I for a moment forget it, the soft

and gentle touch of a female hand reminds me of the past, and haunts

me, for a guardian demon--if I may use such a term--rules my destiny:

one lovely, perhaps, as an angel.

"Life has no pleasures, but only terrors for me now. Sorrow, doubt,

horror, and perpetual dread have sapped the roots of existence; for a

wild and clamorous fear of what the next moment may bring forth is

ever in my heart, and when the touch comes my soul seems to die

within me.

"You know what haunts me now--God help me! God help me! You do not

understand all this, you would say. Still less do I; but in all the

idle or extravagant stories I have read of ghosts--stories once my

sport and ridicule, as the result of vulgar superstition or

ignorance--the so-called supernatural visitor was visible to the eye,

or heard by the ear; but the ghost, the fiend, the invisible Thing

that is ever by the side of Carl Holberg, is only sensible to the

touch--it is the unseen but tangible substance of an apparition!"

He had got thus far when he gasped, grew livid, and, passing his

right hand over the left, about an inch above it, with trembling

fingers, he said--

"It is here--here now--even with you present, I feel her hand on

mine; the clasp is tight and tender, and she will never leave me, but

with life!"

And then this once gay, strong, and gallant fellow, now the wreck of

himself in body and in spirit, sank forward with his head between his

knees, sobbing and faint.

Four months afterwards, when with my friends, I was shooting bears at

Hammerfest, I read in tell Norwegian _Aftenposten_, that Carl Holberg

had shot himself in bed, on Christmas Eve.

THE BOMBARDIER'S STORY.

"Some feel by instinct swift as light

The presence of the foe,

Whom God ordains in future time

To strike the fatal blow." AYTOUN.

Very few persons in this world are unlucky enough to see, or to have

seen, a ghost; but we nearly have all met with some one else who had

seen something weird or unearthly. And now for a little story of my

own, by which you will find that, in my time, I have more than once

encountered a ghost, or that which, perhaps, was _worse_ than any

ghost could be.

In the Christmas before the battle of the Alma, I, Bob Twyford, was a

young bombardier of the Royal Artillery, a "G.C.R." (good conduct

ring) man, mighty proud of that, and of my uniform, with its yellow

lace and rows of brass buttons, with the motto "_Ubique quo fas et

gloria ducunt_," and so forth, when I went home on a month's

furlough, to see old mother and all my friends at our little village

in the Weald of Kent.

I was proud too, to show them that, by the single chevron of

bombardier, my foot was firmly planted on the first step of the long

ladder of promotion; happy, too, that there was one in particular to

show it to--my cousin, little Bessie Leybourne--though she was a big

Bessie now--my sweetheart, and my wife that was to be, if good

promotion came, or if I bought my discharge, and took to business

with some money we expected--money that was long, long in coming.

More than once, in the beautiful season of autumn, had Bessie

Leybourne been the queen of the hop-pickers, and then I thought that

she looked bright and beautiful as a fairy, when the crown of flowers

was placed on her sunny brown hair, and her deep blue eyes were

beaming with pleasure and gratified vanity.

I had a dream about Bessie on the night before--a dream that made me

uncomfortable and gave me much cause for thought; and so a vague

presentiment of coming evil clouded the joy of my returning home.

I had seen Bessy in her beauty and her bravery as the hop queen; but

she was calling on me to protect her--for she was struggling to free

herself from the embraces and the blandishments of a handsome and

blasé-looking man, whose costume and bearing were alike fashionable

and distinguished. Close by them, looking on evidently with

amusement, was his friend, a hook-nosed, grim, and sombre-looking

fellow, with a black moustache, and malevolent eyes, who held me back

as with a grasp of iron, while uttering a strange, chuckling laugh,

the sound of which awoke me. But the faces of those men made a vivid

and painful impression upon me; for the whole vision seemed so

distinct and real, that I believed I should recognize them anywhere.

I spoke to Tom Inches, our Scotch pay-sergeant, about it, and he,

being a great believer in dreams, assured me that it was ominous of

some evil that would certainly happen to Bessie or to me, or to us

both.

"For you must know, Bob," he continued, "that in sleep the soul seems

to issue from the body, and to attain the power of looking into the

future; for time or place, distance or space, form no obstruction

then; so the untrammelled spirit of the dreamer may see the future as

well as the past, and know that which is to happen as well as that

which has happened."

The Scotchman's words had a solemnity about them that rendered me

still more uneasy; but I strove to shake off care, and already saw in

anticipation my mother's cottage among the woodlands of the Weald.

Every pace drew me nearer home, and I trod gaily on, with my knapsack

on my back, and only a crown piece in my pocket. My purse was light;

but, save for that ugly dream, my heart was lighter still, as I

thought of Bessie Leybourne.

I had left the railway station some miles behind. It was Christmas

Eve. The Weald of Kent spread before me; not as I had seen it last

in its summer greenness, but covered deep with snow, over which the

sun, as he set, shed a purple flush, that deepened in the shade to

blue, and made the icicles on every hedge and tree glitter with a

thousand prismatic colours.

Red lights were beginning to twinkle through the leafless copses from

cottage windows, and heavily the dun winter smoke was curling in the

clear mid air, from many a house and homestead, and from the

clustered chimney stalks of the quaint and stately old rectory.

An emotion of bitterness came over me, on passing this edifice, with

all its gables and lighted oriel windows.

I had no great love for the rector. When a boy I had found in our

garden a pheasant, which he, the Rev. Dr. Raikes, had wounded by a

shot. Pleased with the beauty of the bird, I made a household pet of

it, till his keeper, hearing of the circumstance, had me arrested and

stigmatized as a little poacher, the rector, as a magistrate, being

the exponent of the law in the matter. So I quitted the parish and

its petty tyrant, to become a gunner and driver in the artillery,

where my good education soon proved of service to me.

For the sake of a miserable bird, the sporting rector had driven into

the world a widow's only son. But how fared he in his own household?

Valentine Raikes, his only son, was breaking his proud and pampered

heart by mad dissipation, by gambling, and every species of

debauchery; by horse-racing, and by debts of honour, which had been

paid thrice over, to save his commission in the hussars.

At last I stood by mother's cottage door.

The little dwelling was smothered among hops and ivy, and with these

were blended roses and honeysuckle in summer. Now the icicles hung

in rows under the thatched eaves, but a red and cheerful glow came

through the lozenged panes of the deep-set little windows on the

waste of snow without.

A moment I lingered by the gate, and in the garden plot, for my heart

was very full, and it well-nigh failed me; but there was a listener

within who heard my step and knew it. And the next moment saw me in

my mother's arms, and I felt like a boy again, as my happy tears

mingled with hers, and it seemed as if this Christmas Eve was to be

the Christmas Eve of past and jollier times.

"A merry Christmas, Bob, and a happy new year!"

The dear old woman's face was bright with joy; yet I could detect

many a wrinkle now where dimples once had been, and see that her hair

was thinner and whiter, perhaps, as she passed her tremulous hand

caressingly over my bronzed face as if to assure herself of my

identity, and that I was really her "own boy Bob." Then she helped

me off with my knapsack, and sat me in father's old leathern chair,

by the side of the glowing hearth, and pottered about, getting me a

hot cake, and a mug of spiced ale, muttering and laughing, and

hovering about me the while.

"But, mother, dear," said I, looking round, "where is Bessie all this

time? She got my letter, of course?"

"Bessie is across the meadows at the church, Bob?"

"On this cold night, mother!"

"Yes; helping Miss Raikes to decorate it for the service to-morrow."

"Miss Raikes!" said I, and a cloud came over me.

I had left head-quarters with only four crowns in my pocket. We

soldiers are seldom over-burdened with cash--for though England

expects every man to do his duty, England likes it done cheap--and I

had well-nigh starved myself on the road home that I might bring

something with me for those I loved--some gay ribbons for Bessie, and

a lace cap for my mother, who was so proud of her "Bombardier Bob,"

for so she always called me, heaven bless her!

"I hope she won't be long away, mother, for I've had such a dream----"

"Lor' bless me, Bob," said she, pausing as she bustled about

preparing supper, "a dream, have you--about what, or whom?"

"Bessie," said I, with a sigh, as I took the ribbons from my knapsack.

"Was it good or evil, Bob?"

"I can't say, mother," said I, with a sickly smile, as the solemn

words of the Scotch pay-sergeant came back to my memory; "for an evil

dream, say we, portends good, and a pleasant dream portends evil;

they seem to go by contraries. Yet somehow, by the impression this

dream made upon me, it seems almost prophetic."

"Don't 'ee say so, Bob, for though in the Old Testament we find many

instances of prophetic dreaming, I don't believe in such things

nowadays."

The darkness had set completely in now, and I saw that, although

mother affected to make light of Bessie's protracted absence, she

glanced uneasily, from time to time, through the window, and at the

old Dutch clock that ticked in its corner, just as it used to tick

when I was a boy, and rode on father's knee; for nothing here seemed

changed, save that mother was older, and stooped a trifle more.

"Mother, dear," said I, starting up at last, "I can't stand this

delay, and Bessie must not come through the lanes alone; so I shall

just step down to the church and escort her home."

In another moment I was out in the snow. A few thick flakes were

falling athwart the gloom. The decoration of the rectory church for

the solemn services of the morrow was, I knew of old, always

considered an important matter in our village, yet I could not help

thinking that, as I had written to announce the very time of my

return, Bessie might have been at home to welcome me. Instead of

that, I had now to go in search of her; and this was the Christmas

meeting--the home-coming of which I had drawn so many happy and

joyous pictures when alone, and in the silence of the night when far

away, a sentinel on a lonely post, or when tossing sleeplessly on the

hard wooden guard-bed.

Mother was kind, loving, affectionate as ever, but Bessie, my

betrothed, why was she absent at such a time?

The sad presentiment of coming evil grew strong within me, and I

thought, with bitterness, of how far I had marched afoot for days,

and starved myself to buy her gewgaws, for I knew that pretty Bessie

was not without vanity.

"Pshaw!" said I. "Be a man, Bob Twyford--be a man!" and, leaping the

churchyard stile, I slowly crossed the burial ground.

There were lights in the church; and I heard the sound of merry

voices, and even of laughter, ringing in its hollow, stony space.

Snow covered all the graves, and the headstones, which stood in close

rows; a heavy mantle of snow loaded the roof of the church, and,

tipping the carvings of its buttresses, brought them out from the

mass of the building in strong white relief. Great icicles depended

from the gurgoyles of its tower and battlements, and the wind

whistled drearily past, rustling the masses of ivy that grew over the

old Saxon apse. The tracery of the windows, the sturdy old mullions

and some heraldic blazons, with quaint and ghastly spiritual subjects

in stained glass, could be discerned by the lights that were within.

I lifted my forage-cap in mute reverence as I passed one grave, for I

knew my father lay there under a winding-sheet of snow, and a pace or

two more brought me to the quaint little porch of the church, where I

remained for a time looking in, and irresolute whether to advance or

retire.

When my eyes became accustomed to the partial gloom within, I could

see that the zigzag Saxon mouldings and ornaments of the little

chancel arch, the capitals of the shafts, the stairs of the pulpit,

and the oaken canopy thereof, were all decorated with ivy sprigs and

holly leaves, combined with artificial flowers, all with some meaning

and taste, so as to bring out the architectural features of the

quaint old edifice.

A portable flight of steps stood in the centre of the aisle, just

under the chancel arch, which was low, broad, massive, of no great

height, and formed a species of frame for a picture that sorely

disconcerted me.

On the summit of that flight stood a lovely, laughing young lady,

whose delicate white hands, a little reddened by the winter's frost,

were wreathing scarlet holy-berries among the green leaves.

A little lower down was seated Bessie--my own Bessie--her blue eyes

radiant with pleasure, her thick hair--half flaxen, half

auburn--shining like golden threads in the light of the altar lamps,

that fell on her beaming English face, so fresh, so fair, so

charming. Her lap was full of ivy and holly twigs, which a gentleman

who hovered near, cigar in mouth, was cutting and tossing into that

receptacle, amid much banter and badinage, that savoured strongly of

familiarity, if not of flirtation.

Near them in the background loitered another, who was simply leaning

against the pillar of the chancel arch, looking on with a strange

smile, and sucking the ivory handle of his cane.

He laughed as he regarded them.

That laugh--where had I heard it before?

In my dream. And now the antitypes--the men of my dream--stood

before me!

As yet unnoticed, I remained apart, and observed them; but not

unseen, for the eyes of the dark man were instantly upon me, and the

peculiarity of their expression rendered me uneasy.

He who hovered about Bessie was a fair-faced, blasé-looking young

man, with sleepy blue eyes, a large jaw, a receding chin, and thick,

red, sensual lips. He had long, thin, flyaway whiskers, and a slight

moustache, with an unmistakably good air about him.

His companion had that peculiar cast of features which we sometimes

see in the Polish Jew--keen and hawk-like, with sharp, glittering

black eyes, hair of a raven hue, and a general pallor of complexion

that seemed bilious, sickly, and unhealthy.

I felt instinctively that I hated one and solemnly feared the other.

Why was this?

Was it the result of my dream?--of that "instinct which, like

imagination, is a word everybody uses, and nobody understands?"

Perhaps we shall see.

Suddenly the eye of the fair-haired stranger fell on me. He adjusted

his glass, surveyed me leisurely, and, pausing in the act of

playfully holding a sprig of mistletoe over Bessie's head, said, in

the lisping drawl peculiar to men of his style--

"A soldier, by Jove! Now, my good man--ah, ah!--what do you want

here at this time of night?"

"I came to escort my cousin home, sir."

"Your cousin, eh--haw?"

"Bessie Leybourne, sir; but," I added, reddening with vexation and

annoyance, "I see she is still busy."

"Cousin, eh? What do you say to this, Bessie?"

Bessie, who started from the steps on which she had been seated, came

towards me, also blushing, confused, and letting fall all the

contents of her lap as she held out her hands to me, and said--

"Welcome home, dear Bob. A merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Captain Raikes, this is my Cousin Bob, who is a soldier like

yourself--an artilleryman," she added, with increasing confusion, as

if she felt ashamed of my blue jacket among those fine folks; while

the captain, after glancing at me coolly again, merely said,

"Oh--ah--haw--indeed!" and proceeded to assist his sister in

descending the steps, as their labours were done, and the decorations

of the church complete; but a heavier cloud came over me now.

Captain Raikes was the son of the rector, and squire of the parish,

in right of his mother, who was an heiress; and he, perhaps the

wildest and most systematic profligate in all England, had made the

acquaintance of Bessie Leybourne!

A little time they lingered ere Bessie curtseyed, and bade the young

lady good-night. Captain Raikes whispered something which made

Bessie blush, and glance nervously at me, while his friend with the

hook nose gave a mocking cough, and then we separated. They took the

path to the gaily-lighted rectory, while Bessie and I trod silently

back through the snow to my mother's little cottage.

I pressed Bessie's hand and arm from time to time, and though the

pressure was returned, I never ventured to touch her cheek, or even

to speak to her, for I felt somehow, intuitively, that all was over

between us; and we walked in silence through the lanes where we had

been wont to ramble when children.

It seemed to be always summer in the green lanes then; but it was

biting winter now. I asked for no explanation, and none was offered

me; but I felt that Bessie, once so loving and playful, was now cold,

reserved, and shy.

Next day was Christmas. Our fireplace was decked with green boughs,

and holly-leaves, and huge sprigs of mistletoe. I heard the chimes

ringing merrily in the old tower of the rectory church.

It was a clear, cold, snowy, and frosty, but hearty old English

Christmas; and faces shone bright, hands were shaken, and warm wishes

expressed among friends and neighbours, as we trod through the holly

lanes, and over the crisp, frosty grass, to church--mother, Bessie,

and I; and again, as in boyhood, I heard our rubicund rector preach

against worldly pride and luxury, both of which, throughout a long

life, he had enjoyed to the full.

The dark stranger--the squire's constant companion, chum, and Mentor,

whose strange bearing and wicked ways gained him the sobriquets of

Pluto and Hooknose in the village--was not with the rector's family

on this day; and I learned that he resided at the village inn. It

was evident, though we read off the same book, that Bessie's thoughts

were neither with heaven nor me, for I caught many a glance that was

exchanged between Captain Raikes and her, and these showed a secret

intelligence.

I sat out the rector's sermon in silent misery, and in misery

returned home--a moody and discontented fellow, wishing myself back

at head-quarters, or anywhere but in the Weald of Kent.

Bessie didn't seem to care much about my ribbons. Why should she? I

was only a poor devil of a bombardier, and couldn't give her such

rich presents as those pearl drops which I now discovered in her ears.

"A present from Captain Raikes, Bob," said mother, good, simple soul;

"but I don't think she should ha' shown 'em till her wedding-day."

I had a mouthful of mother's Christmas dumpling in my throat at that

moment, and it well-nigh choked me.

The mistletoe hung over our heads; but I never claimed the playful

privilege it accorded. Was there not some terrible change, when I

dared not--or scorned--to kiss Bessie, even in jest? Others' kisses

had been upon her lips, and so they had no longer a charm for me!

Day and night dread and doubt haunted me, while hope, with her

hundred shapes and many hues, returned no more. Brooding, silent,

and melancholy thoughts seemed to consume me; yet the time passed

slowly and heavily, for Bessie's falsehood and fickleness formed the

first recollection in the morning, the last at night, and the source

of many a tantalizing dream between. All the ebbs and flows of

feeling or emotion which torment the lover I endured. My sufferings

were very great; and from being as jolly, hardy, and expert a gunner

as ever levelled a Lancaster or an Armstrong, I was becoming a very

noodle--a moonstruck creature--"a thoroughbred donkey," as Tom Inches

would have called me--and all for the love of Bessie Leybourne.

Short though my time at home would be, Bessie could give me but

little of her society. My jealousy would no longer be concealed, and

that she had secret meetings with our squire I could no more doubt.

Then came tears, upbraidings, and bitterness, with promises that she

would meet him no more; and in the strongest language I could

command, I told her of the perils she ran, of the desperate character

of Valentine Raikes, of his mad orgies and debaucheries, of the

gambling, drinking, singing, swearing, and whooping that accompanied

the suppers he and Hooknose had almost every night in a lonely lodge

of the rectory grounds.

"Oh, Bob, don't bother," she would say, imploringly, through her

smiles and tears. "It is terrible to be told constantly that one

must marry one particular young man."

"Meaning, Bessie, that mother reminds you of being engaged to me?"

"Well, yes."

"You are fickle, Bessie."

"My poor Bob, you are not rich, neither am I."

"Hence your fickleness; but, oh, Bessie, don't think I want to make a

soldier's wife of you. I hope for better days, and to settle down at

home. Oh, Bessie, my own Bessie, listen to me, and hear me."

And so she would listen to me, and hear me, and then slip away to

keep a tryst with my rival.

Once or twice Bessie became angry with me, and ventured to defend the

squire, laying the blame of all his evil actions on his friend, or

Mentor--the dark Mephistopheles, who was always by his side. Her

defence of him maddened me. From tears she took to taunts, and I

replied by scorn.

We separated in hot anger, and with my mind a perfect chaos--a

whirl--and already repenting my violence, or precipitation, I strode

moodily through the holly lanes, till a sudden turn brought me face

to face with Captain Raikes and his dark friend, in close and earnest

conversation.

The idea of honest and manly remonstrance seized me; and touching my

cap respectfully, as became me to an officer, I said--

"Captain Raikes, may I crave a word with you?"

"Certainly--haw!" he drawled, while his friend drew back, surveying

me with his strange, malevolent, but terrible smile. "In what can

I--haw--serve you?"

"In a matter, sir, that lies very near my heart."

He surveyed me with a quiet but puzzled air, through his glass, and

replied--

"Haw--have seen you before. How is your pretty cousin, Bessie

Leybourne, this morning--well, I hope?"

"It is about Bessie I wish to speak, sir," said I, with a gravity

that made him start and colour a little--but only a little, as he was

one of those solemn, self-conceited, unimpressionable "snobs," who

disdain to exhibit the slightest emotion. He did, however, become

uneasy ultimately, and pulled his long whiskers when I said--

"Captain Raikes, my cousin Bessie is my betrothed wife; and, though I

am but a poor private soldier (or little more), I must urge, sir--ay,

request--that you cease to follow, molest, or meet her, as I have

good reason to know you do; for though Bessie is a true-hearted girl,

no good can come of it. So I put it to you, sir, as a gentleman--as

my comrade, though our ranks are far apart--whether your intentions

can be honourable in the matter?"

"By Jove! the idea! I'll tell you what it is, my good fellah," said

he, twirling his riding whip; "I have listened to your impertinent

advice--your demmed interference with my movements--so far without

laying this across your shoulders; but beware--haw--how you address

me on this subject again."

Passion and jealousy blinded me, and shaking my hand in his face, I

said--

"Captain Raikes, on your life I charge you not to trifle with her or

with me!"

He never lost his self-possession, but said, with a smile--

"Very good; but rather daring in a private soldier--a poacher--a

vagabond!"

I heard the strange laugh of Hooknose at these words, and, while it

was ringing in my ears, I struck the squire to the earth, and he lay

as still as if a twelve-pound shot had finished him. Then I walked

deliberately away.

I had vague alarms now. He might have me arrested on a charge of

assault or might report me to head-quarters for the blow, although he

was not in uniform; but he did neither, as he left the Weald that

night for London; and mother and I sat gazing at each other in alarm

and grief--our Bessie had disappeared!

By some of our neighbours she had been seen near the branch station

of the South-Eastern line, with Valentine Raikes and his mysterious

friend, the Hooknose: and from that hour all trace of her was--lost!

* * * * *

She had left me coldly and heartlessly, and old mother, too, who had

always been more than a mother to her.

So passed the last Christmas I was to spend in old England.

I got over it in time. I was not without hope that I might discover

Bessie, and befriend her yet--ay, even yet. But I couldn't do much,

being only a poor fellow with two shillings per diem, and an extra

penny for beer and pipeclay. But even that hope was crushed when, in

the following August, I was ordered with the siege train to

Sebastopol, and sailed from Southampton aboard the "Balmoral," of

Hull, a transport ship, which had on board a whole battery of

artillery, with one hundred and ten fine horses.

Captain Raikes was, I knew, with the Light Cavalry Brigade, under

Lord Cardigan; and I only prayed that heaven and the chances of war

would keep us apart, and not put the terrible temptation before me of

seeing him under fire.

Our voyage was prosperous till we entered the Black Sea, when we

experienced heavy gales of wind, and lost our topmasts; and as the

gales increased in fury and steadiness, they were blowing a perfect

hurricane on the night when, in this crippled condition, we hauled up

for the harbour of Balaclava.

Were I to live a thousand years, I should never forget the horrors

and certain events of that night; and though the perils that our

transport encountered were ably described by more than one newspaper

correspondent, I shall venture to recall them here.

Wearied with hard stable duty, I had fallen asleep in my birth, when

I was suddenly roused by a voice--the voice of Bessie,

"Bob, Bob, dearest Bob--save me! save me! I am drowning!"

It rang distinctly in my ears, and then I seemed to hear the gurgling

of water, as I sprang from bed in terror and bewilderment, and from

no dream that I was at all conscious of; but I had little time to

think of the matter, for now the bugle sounded down the hatchway to

change the watch on deck.

The night was pitchy dark; all our compasses had suddenly become

useless--no two needles pointed the same way--and the rudder bands

were rent by the force of the sea, which tore in vast volume over the

deck, sweeping everything that was loose away. The watch were all

lashed to belaying pins, or the lower rattlins; but three of ours and

two seamen were swept overboard and drowned.

To add to our dangers, as we lifted towards the harbour mouth, the

"Balmoral" heeled over so much that the ballast broke loose in the

hold, and uprooted the stable deck. The centre of gravity was thus

lost, and the transport lay almost over on her beam-ends, with the

wild sea breaking over her, as she went, like a helpless log, on some

rocks within the harbour entrance.

The captain commanding the artillery ordered Tom Inches and a party,

of whom I was one, into the hold or stables, to see how the horses

fared; and I shall never forget that terrific scene, for it nearly

rendered me oblivious of the cry that yet lingered in my ears.

The time was exactly midnight, and I almost fear to be considered a

visionary by relating all that followed. The vessel lay nearly on

her beam-ends to starboard; the whole of the stalls on the port side

had given way, and the horses were lying over each other in piles,

many of them half or wholly strangled in their halters; and there, in

the dark, they were biting and tearing each other with their teeth,

neighing, snorting, and even screaming (a dreadful sound is a horse's

scream), and kicking each other to death.

The atmosphere was stifling. The wounds they gave each other were

bloody and frightful. Many had their legs and ribs broken, and

others their eyes dashed out by ironed hoofs. Above were the

bellowing of the wind, and the roaring of the Black Sea on the rocks

of Balaclava. There were even thunder-peals at times, to add to the

terrors of the occasion, and the rain was falling on the deck like a

vast sheet of water.

Many of our men were severely wounded by kicks; for the horses that

survived were wild with fear--maddened, in fact--and, in their

present condition, proved quite unmanageable.

Carrying a lantern, I was making my way into the hold, and through

this frightful scene, when suddenly, amid it all, and through the

gloom, I saw a face that terrified--that fascinated--me, but which

none of my comrades could see.

Was I mad, or about to become so?

Within six inches of my own face was the keen, dark, and swarthy--the

almost black--visage of Hooknose glaring at me, mocking and

jibbering; his eyes shining like two carbuncles, his sharp teeth

glistening with his old malevolent smile; and, as I shrank back, I

heard his mocking laugh--the same laugh that had tingled in my ears

on that fatal Christmas time at home.

I fell over a horse, the hoof of another struck me on the chest. I

became insensible, and, on recovering, found myself on deck, in the

hands of Tom Inches and the surgeon.

I was soon fit for duty, luckily, as that ship was no place for a

sick man. With sunrise the storm abated; with slings the horses were

hoisted out as fast as we could bring them; and of the hundred and

ten we had on board, we found that ninety-five had been kicked to

death, smothered, or so bruised that we were compelled to shoot them

with our carbines.

Their carcasses lay long in Balaclava harbour, where they were used

as stepping stones by the sailors and boatmen, till their corruption

filled the air, adding to the cholera and fever in the town and camp.

All that haunted me must have been fancy, thought I, for my thoughts

were always running on Bessie--lost to me and to the world--fevered

fancy, especially the cry, and the horrid gurgling as of a drowning

person that followed it. The sound of the sea must have produced or

suggested the cry in my sleeping ear, and the subsequent vision in

the hold--those gleaming eyes and that fierce hooked nose; and yet,

as an author has remarked, the whole world of nature is but one vast

book of symbols, which we cannot decipher because we have lost the

key.

It was ungrateful of me to be always thinking of Bessie, who had

scorned, flouted, and deserted me--thinking more of her than of poor

old mother in the Weald of Kent, who loved me with all her soul, as

only a mother could love a son who was amid the trenches of

Sebastopol; but I couldn't help it, for the terrible mystery that

involved the fate of Bessie made me brood over it at all times.

As for the trifle of money I had expected, it never came, and now I

didn't want it.

It was Christmas Eve before Sebastopol, as it was all over God's

Christian world; but I hope never again to see such a ghastly

festival. I was not at the breaching batteries that night, having

been sent with two horses and four men to bring in a twelve pound

gun, which had been left by the Russians in the valley of Inkermann,

after the battle of the 5th of November. Tom Inches and many a brave

fellow of ours had gone to their long home in that valley of death,

and I was a battery-sergeant now.

The cold was awful, and we were rendered very feeble by hunger, toil,

and half-healed wounds; so, like men in a dream, we traced the horses

to the gun, and limbered up the tumbril, both of which lay among some

ruins in rear of the British right attack, and not far from the

frozen Tchernay.

Three miles distant rose Sebastopol, and the sky seemed all on fire

in and around it, for they were keeping Christmas night, amid shot

from our Lancaster guns, and whistling Dicks of all sorts and sizes,

from hand-grenades to eighteen-inch bombs, chokeful of nails, broken

bottles, and grapeshot.

Yet I couldn't help thinking of home, and how merrily the village

chimes would be ringing in the old tower of the rectory church, amid

the hop-gardens and the cherry-groves of Kent. And then I saw in

fancy the old fireside, where father's leathern chair was empty now,

and where one at least would say her prayers that night for me--that

happy night at home, when every church and hearth would be gay with

ivy leaves and holly-berries, and the lads and the lasses would be

dancing under the mistletoe; and with all these came thoughts of

Christmas geese and plum-puddings, and I drew my sword-belt in a hole

or two, for I was starving--light-headed and giddy with want; and as

we rode silently on, the swinging chains of the gun seemed to me like

the jangle of our village chimes! but they rung over the snowy waste

that lay between Khutor Mackenzie and the Highland camp--a white

waste, dotted by many a dead man and horse.

As we rode silently on, man after man of our little party of four

gave in, dropped from the gun, to which I had no means of securing

them, overcome by cold, fatigue, and death. At last I was riding

alone in the saddle, with the gun rattling behind me.

Ghastly sights were around me on that Christmas night, and the

glinting of the moon at times made them more ghastly still.

On French mule litters, and on horses, many wounded and dying men

were being borne from the redoubts down to Balaclava; and as my

progress was very slow, with two worn-out, half-starved nags, a

terrible procession passed before me. Many of the poor fellows were

nearly over their troubles and sorrows. With closed eyes, relaxed

jaws, and hollow visages, they were carried down the snowy path by

the Ambulance Corps, and the pale steam that curled in the frosty air

from the lips of each alone indicated that they breathed.

Two dismounted hussars--for amid their rags, I discovered them to be

such--were carrying one who seemed like a veritable corpse, strapped

upright on a seat; the legs dangled, the eyes were staring open and

glassy, and the head nodded to and fro.

"Comrades," said I, "that poor fellow is surely out of pain now?"

"Not yet," said one. "He is an officer of ours, badly wounded and

frost-bitten."

"An officer!"

"Captain Raikes. He won't last till morning, I fear."

"Raikes," said I through my clenched teeth; "Valentine Raikes--and

here!"

"Ay, here, sure enough," said the hussar.

My heart bounded, and then stood still for a moment. At last I said--

"Place him on the gun, comrades, and I will take him on to Balaclava;

but first, here I've some raki in my canteen. Give him a mouthful,

if he can swallow."

Raikes was placed on the seat of the gun-carriage, buckled thereto

with straps, and muffled up as well as we could devise, to protect

him from the cold. The two hussars left me, and then we were alone,

he and I--Valentine Raikes and Bob Twyford--in the solitary valley,

through which the road wound that led to Balaclava.

Though coarse and fiery, the raki partially revived the sinking man,

and, leaving my saddle, I asked him, in a voice husky with cold and

emotion, if he knew me.

But he shook his head sadly and listlessly. And bearded as I was

then, it was no wonder that his dimmed vision failed to recognize me.

"I am Robert Twyford, the bombardier, whose plighted wife you stole,

Valentine Raikes! God judge between you and me; but I feel that I

must forgive you now."

"My winding sheet is woven in the loom of hell!" he moaned, in a low

and almost inarticulate voice. "Oh! Twyford, I have wronged

you--and her--and--many, many more."

"But Bessie!" said I, drawing near, and propping him in my arms;

"what came of Bessie Leybourne? Speak--tell me for mercy's sake,

while you have the power!"

"Ask the waters--the waters----"

"Where--where?"

"Under Blackfriars-bridge. She perished there on the 27th of last

September."

The 27th was the night of the storm--the night of the mysterious

drowning cry, which startled me from sleep!

"I am sinking fast, Twyford!" he resumed, in a hollow and broken

voice. "Pray for me--pray for me. There is but one way to

heaven----"

"But many to perdition!" added a strange, deep voice.

And a dark, indistinct, and muffled figure, having two gleaming eyes,

stood by the wheel of the gun-carriage, just as a cloud overspread

the moon.

"Here--he here! Do not let him touch me--do not let him--touch me!"

cried Raikes, in a voice that rose into a scream of despair, as he

threw up his arms and fell back.

There was a gurgle in his throat, and all was over!

A fiendish, chuckling laugh seemed to pass me on the skirt of the

frosty wind; but I saw no one; nor had I time to observe, or to

remember, much more, for now a madness seemed to seize the horses.

They dashed away with frightful speed, the field-piece swinging like

a toy at their hoofs. It swept over me breaking one of my legs, and

inflicting also a terrible wound on the head, I sank among the snow,

and remember no more of that night, for, after weeks of delirium and

fever, I found myself a poor, weak, and emaciated inmate of the

hospital at Scutari, and so far on my way home to dear old England.

But such was the Christmas night I spent before Sebastopol, and such

were those mysteries in the "Book of Nature," to which I can find as

yet no key.

KOTAH.

A TALE OF THE INDIAN MUTINY.

It was on a soft and warm night in April that we were encamped not

far from the margin of Lake Erie, in expectation of the Fenian

raiders, who were having armed picnics, and threatening a plundering

invasion of Upper Canada. We were simply an advanced post,

consisting of my company of the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment, and

some two hundred volunteers, farmers and their sons. For some time

past there had been considerable alarm along the Canadian frontier.

General Mead, of the United States army, was at Eastport with his

staff, and the Federal gun-boat Winooske was cruising off that place,

on the look-out for an alleged Fenian vessel.

Numerous armed meetings had taken place in the State of Maine, and a

great embarkation of the brotherhood in green was expected to take

place at Ogdensburg, the capital of St. Lawrence, which has a safe

and commodious harbour; but luckily the whole affair ended in bluster

and rumour. The only fire we saw was that of our bivouac, and the

only smoke that of the soothing weed, while we sat by "the

wolf-scaring faggot," and drank from our canteens of rum-and-water,

singing songs, and telling stories to wile the night away.

The picturesque was not wanting in the group around that blazing fire

of pine wood. The Royal Canadians, in their dark green tunics, faced

with scarlet; the volunteers, in orthodox red coats or fringed

hunting-shirts, with white belts worn over them, were all bronzed,

rough, and bearded fellows, hardy by nature and resolute in bearing,

led, in most instances, by old Queen's officers, who had commuted

their commissions, and turned their swords into ploughshares on farms

by the banks of the New Niagara, or the shores of the vast Erie,

whose waters stretched in darkness far away towards the hills of

Pennsylvania.

"Come, captain, tell us a story of other lands and sharper work than

this," said one of the Canadian volunteers, as he proffered me his

tobacco-pouch, which was prettily embroidered with wampum; "tell us

something about the mutiny in India. You served there, as we all

know."

"Yes," said I, as the memory of other times and other faces--faces I

should never look upon in this world again--came over me, "I served

there in the --th Dragoons, and can relate a strange story indeed--of

discipline overdone--of that which we hear little about in our

service, thank heaven--tyranny; and of a young hero, who, without a

crime, was sentenced to die the death of a felon!"

"We know," said one of my subs, "that the mutiny is always a bitter

subject with you."

"I lost much by the destruction of Indian property, and so had to

begin the sliding-scale."

"What kind of scale is that?"

"Sloping from the cavalry to the line."

"But the story, captain!" urged the volunteers.

"Well, here goes," said I; and after a pause and a sip at the

canteen, began thus:--

"The narrative I am about to tell you was not one in which I figured

much personally, save as member of a court-martial; but it details

suffering with which I was familiar--the miserable fate of Sergeant

Anthony Ernslie, a fine old soldier, and his son Philip, a brave

young fellow--a mere lad--both of whom were in my troop during the

Crimean war, and afterwards in the memorable mutiny, the horrors of

which are so fresh in the minds of all.

"I had not been long with the regiment before I discovered that a

deeply-rooted enmity existed between our sergeant-major, Matthew

Pivett, and my troop-sergeant, Ernslie, and that it had been one of

long standing, having originated in jealousy when both were privates

quartered at Canterbury, and both were rivals for the affection of a

pretty milliner girl. She, however, preferred Ernslie, then a horse

artilleryman; but when our corps was under orders to join the army of

the East, Ernslie volunteered for general service in the cavalry,

and, by the chance of fate, was placed in my troop of the --th

Dragoons, where his steady conduct, fine appearance, and strict

attention to duty, soon caused me to recommend him for promotion, and

he gained his third stripe with a rapidity that did not fail to

excite the remark of the envious.

"Yet his life was rendered miserable by the sergeant-major--a stern,

wiry, sharp-eyed, loud-voiced, and vindictive man; and more than

once, when I interposed my authority to keep peace between them, has

Ernslie told me, with tears in his eyes, that 'he cursed the day on

which he left the ranks of the Horse Artillery to become a dragoon!'

"A senior, when perpetually on the watch to worry a junior, may

easily find opportunities enough for doing so. Thus Ernslie's belts

were never pipe-clayed quite to the taste of Pivett, and at the staff

inspection before parade, faults were ever found with his horse,

harness, and everything. He was put on duty at times out of his

turn, and not in accordance with the roster. A complaint to the

adjutant or myself always altered these errors; but the sting of

annoyance remained. At drill a hundred petty faults were found with

him, and he was perpetually accused of taking up wrong dressings,

distances, and alignments, till, in his anger and bewilderment, the

poor man sometimes really did so, and then great was the delight of

Pivett!

"'For what,' said he one day, bitterly, 'for what did I ever leave my

old regiment?'

"'No good, most likely,' sneered Pivett.

"'Sir, I won my three good-conduct rings there.'

"'By a fluke, of course,' replied Pivett; adding, in a loud voice,

'Silence!' to check the rising retort of the other.

"As Shakespeare has it--

"'That in the captain's but a choleric word

Which in the soldier is rank blasphemy.'

And so it came to pass that whenever Ernslie ventured to remonstrate,

his oppressor invariably sent him to his room under arrest, and

twice--a great insult to a sergeant--to the guard-house; but though

the charges of mutiny and insubordination were always 'quashed' by

the colonel, poor Ernslie felt, as he told me, 'that he was a doomed

man, and safe to come to grief some day, for the sergeant-major had

sworn an oath to smash him!'

"His son Philip, a private in the troop, saw and felt all this. The

lad's smothered hatred and fear of the sergeant-major were great; but

he did his duty well and steadily, and contrived to elude notice.

Ernslie was proud of his handsome boy, and thanked heaven in the

inmost recesses of his heart when the war was over in the Crimea, for

there father and son had ridden side by side in the famous charge of

the Heavy Brigade, and both had escaped almost scatheless; but when

we were ordered to India, to stem with our swords the great tide of

the terrible mutiny, the father's anxieties were revived again.

"When our transport was off the Cape de Verd Islands, Ernslie came to

my cabin in great distress, to announce that his wife had just died.

I knew that the poor woman had been ailing for some time past, and

the sickness incident to the rough weather we encountered put an end

to her sufferings, and she died in the arms of her son, for her

husband was with his watch on deck, and the sergeant-major would not

permit him to go below.

"She had died at daybreak, and by noon that day the body, swathed in

her bedding, and lashed round with spun-yarn, lay on a grating to

leeward, with a twenty-pound shot at the feet, and a Union Jack

spread over it. By sound of trumpet, our men fell into their ranks,

and, like the sailors, all stood bare-headed, silent, and grave, for

a funeral at sea is the most sad and solemn of all. There was a

heavy breeze at the time, and the ship was flying before it with her

courses and head-sails only, and the bitter spray swept over us in

drenching showers.

"The adjutant read the burial service. At a given signal the grating

was lifted, and the body vanished with a splash under the ship's

counter. Close by me stood Sergeant Ernslie and his son. Clutching

the mizen shrouds with one hand, and Philip by the other, he bent his

pale face over the quarter, as if to give a farewell glance at the

corpse; but it was gone--gone for ever!

"Ernslie was barely forty; but now he looked quite old and haggard,

and his hair was streaked with gray. He saw Pivett standing near

him, as the men were dismissed, and passing forward or below; and as

if he felt and knew that the original cause of enmity had passed

away, he held forth his hand, and said, in a choking voice, for grief

had softened his heart--

"'You'll shake hands with me now, sergeant-major, won't you?'

"But Matthew Pivett answered only by a scowl, and crossed to the

windward side of the deck. So even by the side of that vast and

uncouth grave their hatred was not quenched; and I had twice to

interfere for Ernslie's protection before our transport ran up the

Hooghly, and landed us at Calcutta, from whence the river steamers

took us up country to Allahabad, where our remount awaited us, and we

took the field at once, under Brigadier-General R----.

"If Ernslie's tormentor spared his son, it must have been through

some lingering regard for the dead mother, or some soft memory of the

love he once bore her, and Ernslie was thankful that Philip escaped,

for the lad was passionate and resentful, and had vowed to his father

in secret that he would 'yet serve out the sergeant-major.'

"One morning, long before daybreak, we were on the march towards the

province of Ajmir, where a noted rebel, Hossein Ali, was at the head

of a great force. We had endured the most unparalleled heat; for

days the sky had been as a sheet of heated brass above our heads, and

the cracked and baked earth as molten iron under foot. Cases of

sunstroke had been incessant, and many of our horses perished on the

march.

"On this morning our thirst was excessive, for the tanks of a temple

on which we had relied for water had become dry in the night, and the

_bheesties_, or water-carriers, attached to the regiment, had

deserted to Hossein Ali, and most of us were without liquid of any

kind in our canteens.

"Among others situated thus was Sergeant Ernslie, who had been on

patrol duty until the last moment. His son Philip was the orderly of

the colonel, and while that officer's horse was getting a drink, he

had contrived to fill his canteen from the bucket, and held it

invitingly to Ernslie, just as the corps filed past, for the colonel

had not yet mounted. Agonized as he was with thirst, to resist the

temptation was impossible; so Ernslie galloped to where his son

stood, a hundred yards distant or so, near the hut of palm-leaves

which had formed the colonel's quarters.

"'To your troop, Sergeant Ernslie! back to your troop, sir!' cried

the sergeant-major, in a voice of thunder.

"Ernslie heard the voice of his enemy, but still rode towards his

son, and took a long draught from his canteen before turning his

horse and galloping back to his troop.

"'How dare you leave the ranks when on the line of march?' resumed

Pivett, heedless in his fury that this was interfering with _me_.

'Fall in with the quarter guard!' he added, in his most bullying

tone; 'and consider yourself under arrest!'

"'I shall do neither one nor the other,' replied Ernslie, trembling

with passion. 'I am under the orders of the captain of the

troop--not yours. Keep your own place, or, by heaven, I shall make

you!'

"And in his just anger, Ernslie was rash enough to shake his sword

with the point towards Pivett--an unmistakable threat. So the

colonel was compelled to place him under arrest, in the face of the

whole regiment.

"'At last you have fixed me, sergeant-major!' said he, calmly, but

bitterly, as he sheathed his sword, and turned to the rear; 'but if

you look for your true character, you will find it in the "Military

Dictionary."'

"'Likely enough; but under what head? Discipline?'

"'No. Tyrant! See how that is defined!'

"The sergeant-major did look, and saw that Colonel James therein

defines, 'Petty tyrants--a low, grovelling set of beings, who,

without one spark of real courage within themselves, execute the

orders of usurped or strained authority with brutal rigour;' and as

he read on Pivett grew pale with rage.

"At the first halt of the brigade, a general court-martial, of which

I was the junior member, sat, by order of General R----. An example

was wanted; so Ernslie was reduced to the ranks.

"Our parade next morning was a gloomy one, as we formed a hollow

square of close columns of regiments, near the ruins of a great

Hindoo temple. The sun was yet below the horizon, and in the dim,

cold light, the face of Ernslie looked pale and ghastly as he was

marched into the square, a prisoner, between two armed troopers, one

of whom, with execrable taste, the sergeant-major had contrived

should be his own son, Philip.

"The sergeant was nervous in bearing and restless in eye; but his

mind seemed to be turned inward. He was thinking, perhaps, of the

terrors of the day at Balaclava, of the dead wife he had committed to

the deep, or of the boy who stood scheming revenge by his side; but

it was not until he felt the penknife of the trumpet-major ripping

the worthily-won chevrons from his sleeve that a groan escaped his

lips, a flush crossed his haggard face, and his soul seemed to die

within him.

"Then he slunk to the rear of his troop, a broken and degraded man.

Philip's dark eyes were full of fire, and, if a glance could have

slain, the career of Matthew Pivett had ended there.

"We all felt for the sergeant, and knew that in the vindication of

discipline he had been made a victim; but that night the Queen lost a

good soldier, for Ernslie was absent from roll-call--he had

disappeared without a trace, and the sergeant-major openly declared

his belief that he had deserted to the rebel Sepoys, under Hossein

Ali.

"The truth was, though we knew it not at the time, that Ernslie, when

wandering alone and unarmed near our camp, communing with himself in

a storm of grief and misery, had actually been waylaid and carried

off by some of Hossein's scouting Sepoys, who by that time were tired

of slaughtering and torturing the white Feringhees. They spared him,

and discovering somehow that he had once been a _golandazee_, or

gunner, they chained him naked to a field-piece, and kept him to

assist in working their cannon against us in Kotah, the place which

we were on the march to besiege and storm.

"So poor Anthony Ernslie's name was further disgraced by being scored

down as a deserter in the regimental books.

"The forces which we accompanied, under General R----, consisted of

the 8th Royal Irish Hussars, H.M. 72nd Highlanders, 83rd and 95th

Regiments, together with the 13th Bengal Native Infantry, a corps

which had not yet revolted, but was sorely mistrusted.

"The enemy in Kotah consisted entirely of mutineers, but chiefly

those of the 72nd Bengal Infantry, whose scarlet coats were faced

with yellow, exactly like those of the 72nd Highlanders, now

advancing against them; and we considered it a curious coincidence

that two regiments bearing the same number should meet in mortal

conflict.

"Our march was a severe one; each of our horses had not less than

twenty stone weight to carry, irrespective of forage, and yet there

was not a sore back or a broken girth either in our ranks or in those

of the 8th Hussars, when, after traversing a mountainous but fertile

and well-watered district, we came in sight of Kotah (which had been

the seat of a Rajpoot-rajah), on the east bank of the Chumbul. It is

a large town, girt by massive walls, defended by bastions and deep

ditches cut out of the solid rock. Its entrances were all protected

by double gateways.

"Both strong and stately looked the fortified town, when, under the

scorching blaze of an Indian sun, and a hot, red sky, amid which the

hungry vultures floated, we saw it and the palace of the rajah, with

all its lofty white turrets, the roofs of bazaars and temples,

crowning a steep slope that was covered by teak, tamarind, and date

palm trees, all of lovely green. In the foreground lay a vast lake,

with the superb temple of Jugmandul, a mass of snow-white marble,

rising in its centre, its peristyles and domes reflected downward in

the deep and dark-blue water.

"The rajah had fled. In his palace Hossein Ali, an

ex-_kote-havildar_, or pay-sergeant of the revolted 72nd B.N.I.,

reigned supreme; and its marble courts and chambers were yet stained

by the blood of our women, children, and other defenceless people,

who had been slain therein, after enduring indignities and torments

that maddened those who came, like us, to avenge them; and, full of

the memories of those deeds, with the other horrors of Cawnpore and

Delhi to inflame us, we pushed the siege with relentless vigour,

though Hossein's men, with seventy pieces of cannon, gave us quite

enough to do, and our sappers worked in vain to undermine the

enormous walls.

"Night and day, amid slaughter, wounds, sunstroke, and cholera, we

pounded away at each other with the big guns. Officers and men

worked side by side at them and in the trenches, aiding or covering

the sappers in their scheme of a mine, till we were all as black as

the Pandies with gunpowder, dust, and grime, and till the once gay

uniform of ours had given place to flannel jerseys and rags; our

helmets to linen puggerees, or solar-hats; our pantaloons to cotton

knickerbockers and Cawnpore boots; and even those who had been the

greatest dandies among us were seldom seen without a scrubby beard, a

shovel, a revolver, and Chinshura cheroot. In short, we were more

like diggers or desperadoes than her Britannic Majesty's dragoons.

"With a working party composed of men of various corps, one morning,

before daybreak, I was assisting the sappers at the mine, while the

enemy, with shot, shell, and rockets, did all they could to retard or

dislodge us. It was a horrid place, I remember, encumbered by dead

camels and horses--yea, and men, too, in every stage of

decomposition, where the gorged vultures hovered lazily among fallen

ruins and whitening bones.

"'Jack Sepoy thinks it no sin now to bite the greased cartridge--the

scoundrel!' said one of my men, as a bullet broke the shovel in his

hand.

"'Sin--as little as to cut the throats of our wives and children in

cold blood!' added another, with a fierce oath.

"'Fighting for glory is a fine thing,' said young Philip Ernslie,

resting on his pickaxe; 'but fighting for a shilling per day, with a

penny extra for beer, is a different affair.'

"'But we are fighting for revenge, Phil,' said a soldier, whose wife

and children had perished at Meerut.

"'True,' replied Ernslie, through his clenched teeth; 'and times

there are, by Jove! when even revenge may be just and holy!'

"'Silence!' growled Sergeant-Major Pivett, still in pursuance of his

feud.

"'Down, men--down!' cried I, 'for here comes a shell.'

"Humming through the air, but, oddly enough, _not_ whistling, a

ten-inch shell fell near me, and, with a thud, half sunk into the

soil. Strange to say, it was without a fuze; the touch-hole was

simply plugged by a common cork, in which a half-scorched quill-pen

was stuck. After lying flat on our faces, and watching it uneasily

for some time, and all fearing a snare, or the explosion of some

poisonous stuff, I ventured to roll it over with a shovel, and found

that it was empty, or quite unloaded. Pivett, who certainly did not

lack courage, sprang forward, and, extracting the cork from the

fuze-hole, found a scrap of paper attached to it, and on the scrap

was written, with ink that seemed to have been composed of gunpowder

and water, these words:--

"'_I am a prisoner in Kotah. The work of the sappers is useless, for

where they are mining the rock is solid. There are seventy guns in

this place, and I am chained to one of the seventeen in the right

bastion. If the front gate is blown up, the place may be carried at

the point of the bayonet, as the way beyond is quite open._

"'A. ERNSLIE, _private, H.M. --th Dragoons_.'

"'I knew that fellow had deserted to the enemy!' growled the

sergeant-major.

"'Silence,' said I, 'and do not be unjust in your hatred.'

"'It's a message-shell, sir, a message-shell, and fired by my father,

poor man. Heaven help him!--he is in the hands of the Sepoys!'

exclaimed young Ernslie, whom, with the shell and note, I took at

once to the general, whose tent was by the margin of the lake.

"This information caused the staff at once to abandon the idea of a

mine, and all our energies were now bent against the great gate.

"Though the junior regiment of the division, the 72nd, or Duke of

Albany's Own Highlanders, were ordered to furnish three hundred men

for a storming party, and at two o'clock on the morning of the 30th

of March the grand assault was to be made, while we--the

cavalry--were in our saddles, to cover, and if possible assist in the

attack, when the great gate was forced.

"'My brave lads, rouse!' I heard the adjutant of the Highlanders cry

in the dark; 'quit your dog's sleep--half-dozing and half-waking--and

fall in. Fall in, stormers!'

"And while the warning pipes blew loud and shrill, cheerfully they

formed by companies, those brave Albany Highlanders; and stately,

indeed, looked their grenadiers, with their tall plumed bonnets and

royal Stuart tartan; for the highland regiments during the mutiny had

not time to adopt Indian clothing, and went at the Pandies in their

kilts and ostrich feathers, just as their forefathers did at Madras

and Assaye.

"Silently they crossed the river in the dark, where the graceful date

palms and the luxuriant mango topes cast a deeper shadow than the

starry night upon the water. Then, quitting their boats, they crept

close to the great outer wall of Kotah; but so great was the delay in

blowing up the gate, that day broke, the Highlanders were seen, and

for hours we sat in our saddles helplessly, and saw the enemy pouring

shot and shell upon them from the same bastion where we knew poor

Tony Ernslie was chained to a gun.

"Suddenly there was a dreadful shock; the wall of the city seemed to

open, as it rent and gaped, a blinding cloud of dust and stones

ascended into the air, and a shower of wooden splinters, the

fragments of the great gate, flew far and wide, as our mine blew the

barrier up.

"A mingled shout of 'Scotland for ever!' the old Waterloo war-cry of

the Black Watch and the Greys, broke from the Highlanders* again and

again, as they rushed in with fixed bayonets, driving back the

terrified Sepoys, storming bastion after bastion, and capturing two

standards. The other regiments broke in at different points, and

after much hard fighting Kotah was ours, and then we rode through the

streets cutting down the fugitive rebels on right and left.

* See _Scotsman_ of 28th of May, 1858.

"Philip Ernslie and a few of his comrades made straight for the

bastion indicated in his father's note. It was deserted by all save

a few dead or dying Sepoys; but a more terrible spectacle awaited the

searchers.

"Stripped nude, and nailed to the wall of the bastion by the hands

and feet, hung the body of Anthony Ernslie, minus nose and ears, and

otherwise horribly mutilated!

"Even this appalling spectacle failed to excite the pity or soothe

the hate of the malevolent Matthew Pivett (but we were well used to

scenes of horror and barbarity during the mutiny), for he audibly

expressed a conviction 'that Ernslie had met his just reward for

deserting to the enemy.'

"'I shall make you eat your words before the going down of the sun,

by the God who made us, I shall!' said Philip Ernslie, in a low,

husky voice, heard only by the sergeant-major, who shrunk back, so

impressed was he by the fierce and resolute aspect of the lad, by the

deep concentrated loathing that glared in his eyes, making his lips

ashy pale, and causing every muscle to quiver; but this emotion was

unseen by others, and his threat was unheard, luckily, for if Pivett

could have found a witness, he would at once have made young Ernslie

prisoner on a charge of insubordination, as he really dreaded his

vengeance.

"About dark that evening the sergeant-major was returning from the

bungalow of the colonel, where, with the adjutant, he had been

preparing lists of casualties and for our march on the morrow, when

we and the 8th Hussars were to surround a village that was full of

fugitive mutineers. The day had been one of toil, of strife, and

heat; now the atmosphere was steamy and moist, and Pivett was

enjoying by anticipation the comforts of a hearty supper and a cool

sleep in his tent, the sides of which his _tatty-wetter_ had, no

doubt, soused well with cold water.

"To reach the cavalry camp he had to pass through a ravine, not far

from the town wall--a narrow place, full of prickly and thorny

shrubs, where the beautiful silky jungle grass grew in such wild

luxuriance that, in some instances, it was almost breast-high, and

where the perfume of the many aromatic plants came floating on the

puffs of warm air.

"Traversing the narrow path on foot, with his sword under his arm, he

was suddenly confronted in the dusk by Philip Ernslie, who resolutely

barred the way. He, too, had his sword by his side, but in each hand

he had a holster pistol. His features were pale as those of a

corpse, and might have passed for such, but for the nervous twitching

of his lips as he spoke.

"'You know, Matthew Pivett, for what purpose I am here?'

"'Mutiny and murder, likely enough,' replied Pivett, who was a stern

and resolute man. 'Give up those pistols--fall back, and return to

your quarters, or I shall cut you down.'

"'Draw your sword but one inch from its sheath, and I shall send a

bullet through your brain!' replied Philip, cocking one of the

pistols. 'You maddened my poor father by your systematic tyranny for

years; you had him reduced and degraded, and driven desperate from

among us. You wronged his memory this morning, and taunted even his

mutilated remains----'

"'Scoundrel! what then? Would you dare to murder me?' exclaimed the

undaunted sergeant-major.

"'No, you shall have a chance for your life. Oh, Matthew Pivett, I

have long looked for an opportunity like this, when I might meet you

face to face; so take your choice of these pistols, for, by the

heaven that hears us, you or I must lie dead here to-night!'

"As Philip spoke solemnly and sternly, with clenched teeth and

flashing eyes, he thrust a pistol into Pivett's hand.

"'Quarter guard!' shouted Pivett, as he made a resolute attempt to

grasp the throat of Ernslie, who thrust him back with the barrel of

the other pistol, crying--

"'Stand back, sergeant-major, and keep your distance, or I shall

shoot you down like the dog you are!'

"Pivett, who now saw there was no resource but to fight, withdrew a

pace or two, and fired straight at Ernslie's head. The ball whistled

through the white puggeree, or cap, and slightly grazed his left ear.

He gave a ghastly smile, and said--

"'You were rather quick, sergeant-major, but now it is my turn!'

"He levelled his pistol, with a deadly, triumphant, and vindictive

aim, straight at the glaring eyes of the agitated Pivett; but the

percussion cap must have been defective--it snapped and hung fire.

"'Seize this mutinous rascal!' cried the sergeant-major to a patrol

who, on hearing the explosion of the first pistol, came galloping up;

and Philip was instantly made prisoner by a party of the 8th Hussars,

who had seen the whole situation.

"Another court-martial sat by break of day, in the palace of the

Rajah of Kotah, and, wan and haggard, after a sleepless night,

fettered by handcuffs, and looking the picture of misery, Philip

Ernslie stood before it, charged with violating the forty-first

clause of the second section of the Articles of War, which ordain

that 'any officer or soldier who shall strike a superior, or use any

violence against him, shall, if an officer, suffer death, and if a

soldier, death, transportation, or such other punishment as by a

general court-martial shall be awarded.'

"The majority of the members of the court were strangers to the lad

and his story, and the father's alleged spirit of insubordination,

manifested when on the march to Kotah, was now brought forward in the

prosecution of the son. The court was but an epitome of the greater

world, where accusation is condemnation. Nothing is so fallible as

human judgment, but nothing so pitiless.

"As captain of Philip's troop, I gave evidence of all I knew, and of

the good characters borne by father and son; but, after the brief

proceedings terminated, and the court was cleared for the

consideration of the verdict and sentence, I knew too well what they

would of necessity be.

"That evening the chaplain visited the prisoner, who was confined in

one of the vaults of the palace, to announce that on the following

morning he was to--DIE!

"He spent nearly the whole night with the poor lad, who was quite

resigned, and so calm and prepared for his fate that he begged to be

left alone for a little sleep before the appointed time; and when the

provost-marshal came at gun-fire, he found Philip Ernslie in a

profound slumber, with a horse-cloak spread over him, and his head

resting on a bundle of straw.

"Never did we parade with more reluctance than on that 31st of March

at dawn, and all the corps in and about Kotah, with some others that

had marched in during the night, got under arms to witness the

execution. It was a lovely Indian morning. The beams of the sun

shone redly on the white marble domes and carved minarets of Kotah,

and on the turrets of the rajah's stately palace.

"The place where we paraded was a hollow between two hills that were

covered with beautiful groves of the peepul-palm and teakwood, and

flocks of wild peacocks and green paroquets flew hither and thither

as we were massed in columns round the spot, where an open grave was

yawning, and where the guard of the provost-marshal--twelve men and a

sergeant--stood with their rifles loaded.

"Every face was expressive of intense anxiety to have the whole

affair over, and many were very pale.

"Accompanied by the chaplain of the cavalry brigade, who wore a

surplice over his black uniform surtout, and praying very devoutly

with his fettered hands clasped before him, Philip Ernslie, guarded

by an escort, came slowly into the square of regiments, and stopped

midway between the firing party and that premature grave that was so

soon to receive him. His face was frightfully pale; he looked at

that black hole, which yawned so horribly amid the green turf, calmly

and steadily, and something of a smile--but not of bravado or

derision--stole over his features.

"My heart bled for the poor lad; but I was immensely relieved when

our colonel said, in a whisper, as he passed me--

"'The adjutant-general has a reprieve from General R---- in his

pocket, so there will be no execution.'

"'Thank heaven!' I exclaimed, fervently.

"'We are but acting out a solemn farce.'

"'For the sake of effect and discipline?'

"'Exactly.'

"'And the sentence, colonel----'

"'Will be commuted to transportation for life.'

"It was a human existence blighted for ever, any way; but now I could

look on with more composure.

"The fetters were removed from Philip's hands. He was ordered to

take off his cap and listen respectfully to the sentence of the

court; and he seemed to do so mechanically, as one in a dream.

"The proceedings of the tribunal were briefly noted, the enormity of

the crime forcibly adverted to, and then came the doom--that he was

to be shot to death!

"The young man's usually haughty and handsome face was wistful and

sad in expression now. He merely bowed his head in meek assent, and

in a weak voice asked leave to shake hands with me and some of his

comrades. They came forth from the ranks as he named them, and wrung

his cold and clammy fingers in silence, and I could see that the eyes

of these men were moist with tears; yet they were brave fellows all,

and had charged by my side at Inkermann and Balaclava.

"Philip next asked for the sergeant-major, that he might shake hands

even with him, and so die at peace with all mankind. But Pivett was

absent from parade that morning, and lay seriously ill in his tent,

for Asiatic cholera had fastened upon him.

"Philip then turned to the chaplain to signify that he was ready,

and, kneeling near his grave, had his eyes covered by a handkerchief.

"The whole scene was now worked up to its utmost intensity, and many

officers, who knew not of the reprieve, had taken off their caps to

utter a silent prayer for the spirit that was so soon to appear

before its Maker.

"The silence was profound, and we heard only the Chumbal rushing on

its course to meet the Jumna, till the voice of the provost-marshal

rang in the air--

"'Firing-party--ready!' and softly the rifles were cocked.

"'As you were!' cried the adjutant-general, with a bright expression

of face; 'half-cock, and order arms! Prisoner, stand up! you are, I

rejoice to say, mercifully reprieved.'

"Philip Ernslie did not hear the words apparently, for his head sank

forward on his breast.

"The provost-marshal took his hand to assist him to rise; but the

poor lad fell forward on his face, dead--stone dead--without a wound.

The sudden revulsion of feeling had killed him.

"So he was actually buried in that unconsecrated ground, beneath the

shadow of the walls of Kotah; but, ere we marched next day, another

grave was formed beside him.

"It contained the remains of Sergeant-Major Pivett; and, during a

long career of service, I have met with few events which created so

profound a sensation among the troops as this little tragedy."

THE STORY OF RAPHAEL VELDA.

On an evening in the September of 1860, some excitement was caused

among the inhabitants of the secluded town of Oppido in Calabria

Ultra, when the gleam of arms announced the approach of regular

troops. The dealers in pottery and silk, in wine and oil, and the

manufacturers of gloves and stockings from the delicate filaments of

the shell-fish named the _pinna marina_, and the water-carrier by the

well, conferred together on this unusual circumstance; the wandering

_pifferari_ paused in their strains before the shrine of the Madonna;

and the rustics of a more doubtful character--to wit, the armed and

lawless _carbonari_ and mountaineers, the brigands, with their

sugar-loaf hats, velveteen jackets, and sandalled feet--looked forth

from the dense forests and coverts wherein they lurked, defying alike

the anathemas of the Archbishop of Reggio and the powers of the High

Court there, and thought the time was near to inspect their guns and

stilettoes, and set their wives to abandon the distaff for the

bullet-mould, as none knew on what errand those troops had come, or

what might ensue ere long, and strange things were expected, for

Mazzini and "The Liberator" had been busy with their manifestoes;

even the Fata Morgana had been showing strange optical delusions of

late in the Bay of Reggio and the Straits of Messina.

The battle of Aspromonte had been fought in their vicinity during the

preceding month.

Garibaldi, as all the world knows, intent on raising an insurrection

in Hungary, had placed himself at the head of a body of Sicilian

volunteers, in the forest district of Ficuzza, twenty miles from

Palermo, and, by a hasty and ill-advised movement, he landed these

men from two steamers on the Calabrian shore, where, on the mountain

plateau of Aspromonte--one of the highest of the Calabrian hills,

rising immediately behind the town of Oppido--he was attacked by the

Royal Italian troops, under Colonel Pallavacino. He fell, wounded by

a musket-shot in the ankle, while all his people were surrounded and

made prisoners.

Military executions followed on many, though "The Liberator," for his

great services in the cause of Italian independence, was never

brought to trial; and now the young grass was sprouting above the

earthy mounds, and round the rude little crosses that marked where

the dead lay in their lonely graves on the slope of the Apennines.

For two noted brigands who had accompanied him, named Agostino Velda

and Giuseppe Rivarola, rewards were offered at that time in vain.

The excitement in Oppido was in no way lessened when the sound of

bugles came on the evening wind, and ere long the 3rd regiment of

Bersaglieri, or Italian Rifles, in the service of Victor Emanuel,

with their plumed hats and quaint uniforms, marched into the town,

and halted before the _Albergo del Leon d'Oro_, where the colours

were lodged, and the lieutenant-colonel commanding took up his

quarters.

The soldiers were placed in an empty monastery; a guard was mounted

there, and also at the _albergo_; and then it began to be whispered

about in the market-place and _cafés_ that the Bersaglieri were to

remain there until a captain arrived from Reggio with some special

instructions for the colonel, Vincenzo il Conte Manfredi, of whom we

shall hear more anon.

These rumours were unpleasantly connected with a Bersagliere named

Agostino Velda--the same Velda who had followed General Garibaldi,

and who had been brought in with the quarter-guard as a prisoner, and

was now in a cell of the monastery, heavily ironed, and under the

strictest surveillance.

Among the Bersaglieri of Colonel Manfredi were two soldiers of the

name of Velda--the prisoner Agostino, and his son Raphael, a youth of

little more than twenty years, who bore a character as high and

unblemished as that of his father was degraded and low, dissipated

and vile. Yet the father and son were both eminently handsome men,

and both had fought bravely--the former on the fields of Goïto and

Novara, and the latter at Montebello and Solferino; but latterly to

many crimes and breaches of military law, Agostino had added that of

desertion and consorting with brigands, among whom he narrowly

escaped an assassination in which he became involved; and a notice of

this event found its way even into the _Times_.

He had thrown aside his uniform, adopted the well-known costume of

the brigands--a gaily-embroidered jacket, a high hat, with broad,

flaunting ribbon, and long leathern gaiters--and, armed with a rifle

and six-barrelled revolver, made his lurking-place among the

mountains near Naples.

Not far from Acerra--an episcopal city in the province of Lavoro--for

a year prior to the affair of Aspromonte, he had taken up his

residence with a formidable bandit and his wife, with whom he lived,

concealed in a vault, the fragment of some ruined castle or villa of

the old days of Roman Naples.

There they might have resided long enough together, and made perilous

the road to Rome, but for the sum of two thousand ducats which had

been put upon the head of Agostino Velda after Garibaldi's defeat,

and which proved too much for a friendship such as theirs.

One day, after a close pursuit, his _padrona_ assured him that he

might safely issue forth, as the police had disappeared; but

immediately on Velda raising the trap-door, which was covered with

turf and branches to conceal their den, he was struck to the earth by

a blow from an axe, dealt full on his head by a most unsparing hand.

Assisted by his wife, the _padrona_ dragged the body to a ditch close

by, and then, stabbing her to death, he departed at once to Naples,

where he claimed the reward offered for Agostino Velda, whom he

accused of killing the woman. But Velda was not dead--such men are

hard to kill; he was simply stunned, grievously wounded, and made

hideous by the blood that covered him.

He managed to crawl to the nearest house of the National Guard, to

whom he told his story, denouncing, as his accomplice, the _padrona_,

who was seized and shot, as the reward of his crimes; while he

(Velda) was sent back under escort to the 3rd Bersaglieri, then on

their march to Calabria, to overawe the brigands in that mountain

region, and he was now under sentence and waiting the result of his

trial, the papers connected with which had been forwarded for

approval to General Enrico Cialdini, who, in the subsequent year, was

appointed leader of the entire Italian army, and "Viceroy of Naples,

with full power to repress brigandage."

The proceedings of the court-martial by which the father had been

tried were actually engrossed by the hand of his son, who was the

clerk to the regiment, and he knew all the papers contained, save the

sentence, which was known to the sworn members of the court alone;

but he could not doubt the tenor of it.

Shame and gloom clouded the dark and handsome face of the young man,

and this dejection was held sacred by his comrades, though it has

been said that Colonel Manfredi--a man of weak and vicious character,

one, moreover, who was fierce, reckless, and dissipated--was cruel

enough, on more than one occasion, to taunt the innocent son with the

errors of the guilty father.

The sun was verging towards the watery horizon of the gulf of Gioja,

and the shadows of the Apennines were falling far athwart the deep

and wooded valleys that lie eastward of Oppido, when, full of sad,

terrible, and bitter thoughts, the younger Velda left the little

city, and, after pausing once or twice to cross himself before the

little lamp-lighted Madonnas at the street corners, hurried towards a

spot which was familiar to him, for he was by birth a Calabrian, and

like his father before him had first seen light among those very

mountains where Aspromonte had been fought.

Under the circumstances in which he was placed, the young soldier

gazed sadly on the scenes of his infancy--on the forest paths and

secluded places where he had been led by the hand of his mother, who

had perished of fever and fright after the battle of Novara.

Raphael Velda walked rapidly onward for a few miles through a

district that was rich in fruit trees, where the lemon and citron,

the fig, the vine, and the orange were growing, till he reached a

region that was rocky and wild, and where the majestic oaks and pines

of that extensive tract known as the Forest of La Sila, celebrated

even by Virgil in the twelfth book of the "Æneid," cast a deepening

shadow over the way he pursued, and where the goat, the buffalo, and

the wild black swine appeared at times amid the solitude.

Brightly streamed the evening sun through the openings in the forest

while Raphael, with unerring steps, trod a path that had been

familiar to him in boyhood, and at last reached the place he sought.

It was a cavern in the gray basaltic rocks; but the entrance, known

only to the initiated, was carefully concealed by the hand of nature,

for the wild fig-trees, the vines, and other luxuriant creepers

completely screened it from the casual eye.

"Oh, Francesca, my love! my love! what an abode for _you_!" muttered

the soldier as he saw it. But the place was silent as the grave; the

hum of insect life, and the gurgle of a mountain rivulet, whose

course was hidden by the verdure, alone met his ear. "Francesca, my

betrothed! the wife of my heart!"

Passing through the screen of leaves, Raphael Velda came to a barrier

of wood, wedged between the walls of rock, and on this he knocked

with a resolute hand, though his heart was throbbing with anxiety.

After a pause, a sound most unpleasantly like the click of a gunlock

met his quickened ear, and he hastily knocked again.

"_Chi è la?_ (Who is there?)" demanded a stern voice.

"'Tis I, good Giuseppe--a friend."

The wooden barrier sharply revolved on its centre, and within the

cavern, half seen in ruddy sunlight, and half sunk in dark brown

shadow, appeared the picturesque figure of a man whose attire and

bearing proclaimed him to be a Calabrian brigand. Strong and

athletic in form, erect and dignified in carriage, the lines of his

dark face and his keen, wild eyes declared him to possess an ardent

and fiery spirit; but his garments were tattered and miserable, his

beard was long, and its natural raven blackness was becoming silvered

by time.

His sash contained a brace of pistols and a horn-hafted knife, and in

his hands was a long double-barrelled rifle, which was cocked and

held menacingly, for the naturally ferocious expression of his face

deepened when he saw the hostile attire of his visitor.

"A friend!" he exclaimed scornfully. "Do the friends of Giuseppe

Rivarola wear the uniform of the king's Bersaglieri?"

"True, I am a soldier, Giuseppe--a soldier of the king; yet am I not

the less your friend," replied Velda gently.

"Back, I say! I seek not your friendship, boy, and I want not your

blood! Yet," continued the robber, wrathfully, "how am I to save my

own if I permit you to return alive after having dared to track me to

my hiding-place?"

As Rivarola spoke he involuntarily raised the musket to his right

shoulder.

"Hold, Giuseppe Rivarola!" cried his visitor. "Have you quite

forgotten me? I am Raphael, the son of Agostino Velda."

The brigand uttered a cry, threw down his musket, and springing

forward, with all that volubility of gesture and violent declamation

which proclaims the Calabrian a genuine child of nature--a rough and

impetuous mountaineer--he embraced the young man, took him in his

arms and led him into his hiding-place.

It was indeed a squalid den, and lighted only by a few dim rays of

the fading sunshine which stole in through fissures in the basalt.

In a recess a little Madonna of coarse clay was fixed to the wall of

rock, and the flame of a brass oil-lamp was flickering before it.

Beneath lay a bed or rather a pallet, the neat arrangements of which

indicated the presence of a female hand.

Outside this lay a couch of leaves and deer-skins whereon doubtless

old Rivarola snatched his few hours of repose. Some vessels of

coarse pottery, an iron pot, a bullet-mould, a powder-flask, and

other similar _et cetera_, made up the furniture; and Raphael looked

round him with a saddened and anxious eye.

"Francesca?" said he, inquiringly.

"She has gone to vespers, and to market at Oppido. The poor child

requires other comforts than my gun can procure her on these bleak

mountain sides, or even on the highway, for few men travel now

without an escort of the Carabinieri. I am in hopes that she may be

employed as a _zitella_--(a girl who will make herself useful)--by

the good sisters of the Benedictine convent--God and His Mother bless

them!" continued the brigand, lifting off his old battered hat with

reverence. "The sisters pity her for her own sake, though they

execrate me as one of the godless Garibaldini. Once that our

Francesca is safe within their walls, I shall go farther west, among

the mountains, where some of the men of Aspromonte are still lurking,

though heaven knows that to leave this place for that may be only

_noi cadiamo da Scilli in Cariddi_," he added, using the old classic

proverb. "But while talking of my own affairs I forget yours. What

of your father, my boy?"

"He has been taken by the National Guard, and is now with us in

Oppido; but under sentence of death, as I too justly fear it must

be," replied Raphael, in a broken voice.

"Rebellion, desertion, treason, and robbery! What else could be the

penalty of these but death! He will be shot, of course, by the

Bersaglieri."

"Alas!"

"Yet you will continue to wear their uniform?" said the old brigand,

his moustaches quivering with anger.

"I follow the dictates of my conscience."

"Conscience!" replied the other, grimly. "I had such a thing about

me once; but now---- Well! well!"

"Are they safe for Francesca, or safe for you, these evening errands

into Oppido?"

"She goes in as the twilight falls, and always returns after dark,

when none can see the way she takes. But our perils will be

increased now that your precious Bersaglieri are so close at hand."

"They are increased, Giuseppe. A list of persons to be captured, and

shot if found with arms in their hands, or who prove unable to give a

satisfactory account of themselves, has been given by Cialdini to the

Conte Manfredi, and your name is the _first_ on that fatal roll, of

which I made a copy no later than yesterday, by the Conte's order."

The outlaw only laughed at this, and his white teeth glistened under

his dark moustache.

"They will never discover my retreat," said he.

"Oh, be not too sure of that."

"It has served me ever since that fatal day at Aspromonte."

"You are wrong. Either Francesca has been watched or some one has

betrayed you."

"None could betray me. My secret is known to Francesca and myself

alone," replied the outlaw, confidently.

"A clue to your hiding-place is in the hands of the Conte Manfredi,

and ere to-morrow--yea, to-night, perhaps--a cordon of riflemen will

be around it. _Povero amico_! I swear to you that this is the

truth!"

"And my Francesca!" exclaimed Rivarola, mournfully, as he clasped his

brown hands.

"She is here--here at last!" cried the young man, as a girl sprang

into the cavern; but on beholding his uniform she uttered a low cry

of terror, and shrank behind her father.

Her figure was slender and _petite_, yet she was full-bosomed and

beautifully rounded. Her eyes were dark, but bright and sparkling,

and softened in expression by their wonderfully long lashes, which,

like her hair, were black as jet. Her attire was poor, but plain and

neat, even to being piquante and pretty. Her scarlet bodice was

handsomely embroidered, and her habit-shirt, like the square fold of

linen that shaded her face, was white as snow, and contrasted well

with the almost olive hue of her complexion.

"_O padre mio_! I have been pursued!" she exclaimed.

"By whom?" asked Rivarola, starting to his musket.

"An officer of the Bersaglieri; but I escaped him in the forest. Oh,

my father! my father! and a Bersagliere is here before me!"

"Raphael Velda, your betrothed!" said the young man, taking off his

plumed hat, and coming forward from the shade which had partly

concealed him.

Uttering a soft exclamation of joy, mingled with astonishment, the

girl rushed into his arms, and he covered her face with kisses,

showering them on her brow, her lips and eyes, even on her neck,

where hung her only ornament, a little crucifix of brass.

"_Ne sono estatico!_ (I am in ecstasies!)" the young soldier

continued to murmur, as he gazed upon the upturned face that lay upon

his fringe epaulette, and so near his own flushed cheek.

"Oh, what happiness!" responded the girl. "I am beside myself with

joy! Raphael, Raphael, speak to me!"

"Thou art loved by every one, my child," said the old brigand, who

made no attempt to check the free emotions of the lovers, but turned

away sadly, and leaned upon his long musket.

"Oh, Francesca, many may--nay, must have loved you; but none as poor

Raphael Velda does," said the lover.

"If ever we are parted, judging by what I have suffered already, the

_wrench_ will be terrible! Francesca will die!" murmured the girl.

"No female society ever afforded me the delight that yours does, and

were we to be together for days and days, instead of a few short

stolen hours, I would never weary of looking into your sweet eyes.

How often in camp and on the march, when weary and listless, I have

longed for your beloved shoulder to lay my head upon and go to sleep,

though I fear your presence would put all sleep to flight."

"Oh, Raphael, when absent from you I seem only to endure existence.

All time seems lost that is not spent with you."

"And one of our officers pursued you, Francesca?" asked Raphael,

after a pause.

"Yes, my beloved--from the gate of Oppido, along the highway, and

close up to the forest, where I eluded him by lurking behind an ilex

tree, while he passed on."

"Is he old or young?"

"A man of some fifty years, with long gray moustaches curled up to

his ears."

"_Dio!_ 'tis the colonel--the Conte Manfredi! the greatest _roué_, in

all Naples!"

"Never mind--soldiers are used to run after pretty girls. You have

escaped him, and if he comes hither my gun will do the rest--there

will be promotion for the major," said Rivarola, calmly.

But the handsome face of Velda became troubled and clouded.

His love for Francesca was deep and passionate; yet as a soldier

could he marry and make her a camp-follower--the jest, perhaps, of

his comrades, the prey, perchance, of such a man as the conte?--she,

with all her purity and beauty. A soldier, could he with safety wed

the daughter of a brigand--an outlaw--one of the Garibaldini? She

had been seen and pursued by his _roué_ colonel also, to complicate

and make matters more dubious, perilous, and difficult.

"Be one of us--throw your allegiance to the winds, and take to the

mountains," the brigand would have suggested; but Raphael was loyal

and good, and mourned the lost lives of Rivarola and his doomed

father.

But now the sun was set, and he knew that he must soon return to

quarters, as he had only leave till midnight, and, taking his gun,

Rivarola prepared to accompany him a little distance on the way.

The lovers separated, with an arrangement for their meeting on the

morrow, and from the screen of leaves that hid her wretched home the

poor girl, with eyes half-blinded by tears, watched their figures

retiring through the forest; but scarcely had they been gone ten

minutes when both came rushing back to her. The face of Raphael was

deadly pale; that of Rivarola inflamed by passion, and in his eyes

there sparkled a dangerous light.

"Conceal yourself, my child. A party of the Bersaglieri are in the

forest, searching, doubtless, for _me_, so I must fly; but I shall

leave your betrothed with you. Surely," continued Rivarola, "he will

be able to protect you from his own comrades, at least. I will fire

a shot to lure these men after me, and away from this vicinity; so,

if you hear it, my children, be not alarmed. To heaven and your love

I trust her, Raphael. Adieu!"

He pressed the terrified girl almost convulsively to his breast,

sprang up the rocks with his musket slung behind him, and

disappeared, while Raphael led Francesca into the cavern and closed

the door.

The task of soothing her was a delightful one; but then came the

reflection--what was he to do? To remain there with her was

impossible, as, ere midnight, he would have to report himself to the

quarter-guard, and could he leave her alone--alone in the wild forest?

No! She should return with him to Oppido, and seek at the

Benedictine convent that shelter which would not be denied her. This

was soon resolved on, and, though about to leave the cavern, perhaps

for ever, she reverentially trimmed anew the votive lamp before the

little Madonna, while Raphael stole for half a mile or so into the

forest, to assure himself that his comrades were gone. This proved

to be the case, as they had heard the distant random shot of

Rivarola, and, following it, had disappeared.

"Heaven be praised!" said Raphael, aloud; "the road is clear for her

and me."

He was returning to the hiding-place, when a shrill cry--almost a

shriek--from Francesca made him spring forward with all the speed he

could exert; and he saw with dismay that the barrier of wood and

screen of leaves were alike thrown down, and that an armed man stood

within them.

All that his heart had foreboded of evil--the climax of every vague

apprehension to which the soul of Raphael Velda had been a prey--was

reached when he beheld his beautiful little Francesca struggling to

free herself from the grasp of her visitor--his colonel, the Conte

Manfredi!

Of all men in Italy, the man from whom he had most cause to fear--the

man who held in his hands, perhaps, the life of his father, Agostino

Velda, and his own life as a consorter with outlaws--had now tracked

out Francesca as a new prey! This was but an example probably, of

"how oft the power to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done."

Raphael knew that the conte was a man without scruple or conscience,

possessed of vast wealth, of high rank, and a position which enabled

him always to _crush_ with success all who opposed his wishes,

however vile or cruel those wishes might be; and Raphael was but a

poor Bersagliere, whose father was a convicted brigand.

All this foreknowledge rushed upon the mind of Raphael, and for a

moment he was paralyzed with dismay; but a moment only.

The next saw him tear Francesca from the grasp of the conte, whom he

thrust without much ceremony aside.

In an instant the blade of the colonel's sword glittered in his hand.

"_In guardia, signore! in guardia!_" cried he, in a voice that was

tremulous with rage; while Raphael, who had no other weapon than the

short sword-bayonet of the Bersagliere, promptly drew it to defend

himself, and therewith he parried one or two thrusts that were aimed

at his breast. As yet the colonel had not recognized him, for the

cavern was dark, or only lit by the tiny votive lamp that flickered

above the humble couch of Francesca. "Ha, Signore Spadaccino!" said

Manfredi, mockingly, "I'll be through your body this time."

But, by a rapid circular parry and great strength of wrist, Raphael

twisted the sword from the hand of the conte, who then drew a pistol.

All this passed in a few seconds; while Francesca, crouching behind

Raphael, looked upward with her face blanched by terror. And now, as

he levelled the pistol, the conte for the first time discovered that

his antagonist was a soldier.

"_Como vi chiamente_ (what is your name)?" he asked, in a voice of

thunder.

"Raphael Velda, signore."

"_Ehi!_ one of my own men, too!"

"_Illustrissimo--si--_I have the honour," replied Raphael, with a

profound salute, but keeping his sword drawn, nevertheless.

"Oh, Raphael! my love! my love! you are lost! Spare him, Signore

Colonello! spare him!" cried Francesca. "He is too young to die!"

"Leave this place, Raphael Velda," said the conte, in a low, hoarse

voice.

"Never!"

"Indeed! When are you due at Oppido?"

"I have my captain's leave till midnight, signore."

"_Mezzanotte_? Good. It wants but two hours of that time now," said

the mocking conte, looking at his watch. "You know, I presume, the

penalty of drawing upon a superior officer?"

"No--not when in defence of my own life, and of one who is dearer to

me than life."

"_Veramente_--indeed!" drawled the other, curling up his enormous

moustache, which he wore in imitation of King Victor Emanuel. "This

girl--the daughter of a brigand--of a Garibaldino--is beyond the pale

of all protection."

"She is my betrothed wife, signore," said Raphael, with a deep burst

of emotion.

"Your life is in my hands, Velda, as a consorter with outlaws."

"Not more a consorter than yourself, signore, if the mere fact of

being here makes me one."

"Insolent! Yet I will spare your life on one condition."

"Name it, signore."

"That you will never mention what has transpired here to-night--our

combat, and my disarmament. Swear it by the God that hears you, and

the soul of the girl you love!"

Raphael felt astonished at a punishment so unlike Manfredi, but swore

as he was requested.

"Good," said the colonel, picking up and sheathing his sword. "I

give you life for silence, but my vengeance will come on the morrow!"

And with these ominous words, which the unfortunate Raphael connected

in some way with his imprisoned father, the colonel quitted the

dreary abode of the Rivarolas, and disappeared in the forest.

The moment he was gone, Raphael raised Francesca, and strove by his

caresses to reassure her. He affected to make light of the threats

of Manfredi, expatiated on the promises he had given as a reward for

silence, expressed joy that her father had escaped; and, as soon as

she had regained her composure, he led her from the cavern, and

together, hand in hand, with their minds mutually oppressed by fear

for the future, they pursued the highway almost in silence till they

reached the little city of Oppido.

"Adieu, Raphael," said the girl, weeping on his breast.

"Oh, Francesca! my dearest Francesca! I cannot tell you how I love

you! And this love continues, if possible, to grow every day. My

whole soul is yours, Francesca!"

"And I shall yearn long and wearily for you till we meet again.

Separate from you, the most sunny days are gloomy to me, and I seem

to shiver as if chilled by the _tramontana_!"

And now, after a long and passionate kiss--a _last_ one, as it

proved--they separated at the gate of the Convent of Santo Benedetto;

and, fortunately for Raphael, he was in quarters before the time

necessary, and amid their dull monotony the voice of Francesca ever

lingered in his ear.

Some valets or emissaries of the conte were at the cavern betimes

before daybreak. The cage was empty, and its pretty bird flown, they

knew not whither; and this only served to inflame him the more

against the elder Velda.

Next morning the shrill brass bugles of the Bersaglieri were blown at

an unusually early hour, while the mountain summits were yet red with

the first rays of the morning sun, and the whole battalion paraded

under the orders of the conte; for the expected captain had arrived

overnight from Reggio with his final instructions, and, rumour said,

with the death-warrant of Agostino Velda. The latter seemed to be

fully verified by the fact that the regimental chaplain--a Franciscan

friar--had spent the greater portion of the night in his cell.

It was a lovely Italian morning, and never did the towering Apennines

look more beautiful in their verdure and fertility, while the red

rising sun cast their purple shadows, and those of the great pines

and oaks which clothed their sides far to the westward. To the east,

dotted by many a white sail, the blue Mediterranean spread away

towards the Lipari Isles; and the smoke of many a steamer towered

high into the deep azure of the dome above the Straits of Messina and

the Bay of Gioja.

The plain where the Bersaglieri (who derive their name from

_bersaglio_, a mark, or shooting-butt) were paraded was a solitary

spot about a mile distant from Oppido, in a rugged ravine, overhung

on all side by masses of rock, which had been rent into fantastic

shapes seventy-seven years before by the dreadful earthquake of 1783.

The troops were unpopular among the Calabrese; so none of the

inhabitants were present to witness the morning parade, which, on the

part of the Conte Manfredi, embraced a scheme for vengeance such as

an Italian heart of a certain calibre alone could conceive.

The well-trained Bersaglieri stood silent and firm in their ranks;

the only motion there being the fluttering of their dark-green

plumes, which were caught by the passing breeze. Their

sword-bayonets were fixed on their rifles, as the regiment formed

three sides of a hollow square, and the broad blades of these

reflected gayly the sheen of the morning sun.

On the vacant side of the square stood an upright post, firmly placed

in the earth, with a stout rope dangling from it. At this object the

eyes of the soldiers looked grimly but sternly from time to time.

The officers leaned on their swords, and yawned wearily in the early

morning air. Since the field of Aspromonte they had grown tired of

the perilous work of brigand-hunting, and looked forward with

something of dismay to the rustication of dull quarters in the

mountain city of Oppido, while knowing that at Reggio there were the

great cathedral, with its aisles of paintings, where people may flirt

if they do not pray, the theatre, the opera, and the promenade of the

Porto Nuovo, where girls handle their fans as girls only do in Spain

and Italy. Even the yearly fair would be lost to the Bersaglieri.

It was all a profound bore!

While such empty regrets occupied the minds of many, the heart of

Raphael Velda was a prey to a grief and horror all its own. He and

all the regiment thought that he should have been spared a scene so

horrible as the execution of his own father! He had proffered this

request personally, and through the captain of his company, but in

vain. The conte was inexorable. He only gave one of his sinister

smiles, and shrugged his shoulders in token of refusal. So, pale as

a spectre, and trembling in every fibre, Raphael stood under arms in

his usual place.

Agostino Velda, though an old soldier of the corps, who had, as we

have said, fought loyally on the field of Goïto, in Lombardy, and

that of Novara, in Piedmont, was viewed now only as a disgrace, a

brigand and Garibaldino; so, although all sympathized with his son,

and deprecated his presence on an occasion so awful, they cared

little otherwise about the impending execution. But how little could

they foresee the terrible _triple_ tragedy which was to ensue on that

bright and sunny morning parade!

From the lower end of the ravine was seen the gleam of approaching

bayonets, and the prisoner appeared with fetters on his hands,

walking slowly between a file of Bersaglieri, and by the side of the

chaplain--a very reverend-looking old man, who wore the garb of a

Franciscan--and who had been praying with him all night in the vault

of the old castle, which served as a dungeon. And now poor Raphael

felt an icy shudder pass over his whole frame as his father drew near.

He had already that day at dawn taken a passionate and affectionate

farewell of him, and they were to meet no more on earth; but yet the

dark and haggard eyes of Agostino Velda wandered restlessly and

yearningly along the ranks, as if in search of a beloved face.

He was a splendid-looking man, in the prime of life. His stature was

great, and his bearing lofty and commanding. The pallor of his face

contrasted strangely with the raven blackness of his voluminous beard

and hair; the latter seemed to start up in sprouts from his forehead

and temples, and fell backward like the mane of a lion. His eyes

were dark--dark as the doom that awaited him; and their usual

expression was fierce, defiant, and lowering.

He was bareheaded, and muffled in an old regimental great-coat, which

was intended to be his shroud.

"I have repented of all my faults and crimes," said he, in a firm

voice, and with a collected manner. "I see now, old comrades, the

folly, the wickedness, of my past life, and am ready to die for it!"

The proceedings of the court-martial were then read over by the

adjutant, and they closed with the sentence--

"_That he--the said Agostino Velda, lately a Bersagliere of the 3rd

Regiment, and now a brigand--was to be tied to a post and shot to

death by any three soldiers whose doubtful character might lead the

colonel to select them for that duty as a species of punishment!_"

The hand of Manfredi seemed to tighten on his bridle-rein as he heard

this, and there passed a grim smile over his face as he handed a

pencilled memorandum to the sergeant-major, who changed colour as he

read it, and in his utter confusion actually forgot to salute his

officer, under whose glance most of the Bersaglieri cowered, for he

was supposed to possess that terror of the Italians, an evil-eye. He

paused for a moment irresolutely, and then turned to obey, for

discipline and obedience become a second nature to a soldier.

While the pioneers bound the passive prisoner to the stake, the

perplexed sergeant-major summoned from the ranks two soldiers who had

been punished repeatedly for breaches of discipline, and twice for

robbery, as their names had been given to him by the colonel. Then,

pausing slowly before the company in the ranks of which Raphael Velda

stood, pale as a sheet, and supporting himself on his rifle, he

summoned him to step forth, as the _third_ fire, to complete the

firing-party.

A thrill of horror and dismay seemed to pervade the whole regiment on

witnessing this, and now Raphael rushed to the front.

"_Signore Illustrissimo--oh, colonello mio!_" he exclaimed, in a

piercing voice, while gesticulating with all the fervour of a true

Calabrian; "_Dio buono!_ you cannot mean this! It is too cruel--too

terrible. The king will resent it--General Cialdini will never

permit it," he added, wildly and incoherently, while his tongue

seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth.

In a paroxysm of grief he knelt before the conte, entreating him to

alter the terrible selection--to forego this subtle scheme for

vengeance, while the pale prisoner, who saw and understood the whole

situation, uttered a cry of grief, and, dropping the crucifix which

the chaplain had placed in his hands, covered his face with them.

"What can be the meaning of this?" was whispered round the ranks.

Raphael alone could have told; but he was sworn to secrecy--secrecy

by God's name and the soul of Francesca.

In vain did the major--a gallant old soldier, who possessed great

influence in the corps--urge the conte to change his plan; in vain

did the venerable chaplain supplicate on one hand and threaten on the

other; and in vain also did Raphael Velda, whose voice had now left

him, stretch his hands towards the conte in mute entreaty.

Vincenzo Manfredi was inexorable!

"I do not command the son to shoot the father, but the loyal

Bersagliere to slay the convicted felon," said he; and then, with a

voice and bearing that forbade all hope of his revoking an order

which filled the regiment with indignation and bewilderment--for the

character of Raphael was unimpeachable, and even were it not so, the

selection was alike cruel and unnatural--he ordered the firing-party

to fall in at fifty yards' distance from the criminal, and to load

and cap their rifles. Then the remainder of the obnoxious task was

to be performed by the sergeant-major.

"_Sono allo desperazione!_--I am in despair--oh, Francesca!--oh, my

father!" moaned Raphael, as he loaded mechanically, and knew that

even if he fired in the air he would throughout all his future life

be branded as a parricide--as the executioner of his own father!

A blindness--a horror, like a great darkness--seemed to come over

him, and for a few moments he was beside himself with excess of

emotion. For a second or so the idea of shooting Manfredi at the

head of the regiment occurred to him, but only to be dismissed, for

that officer was so placed that he could not have been hit without

the risk of killing another; and now, like an automaton, he found

himself kneeling--one of three executioners--before his father, at

fifty yards' distance.

Though horror blanched his face, Agostino looked proudly and steadily

at the three dark tubes from whence his doom was to come; for at the

word "three" the executioners were to fire.

"_Uno!_" cried the sergeant-major, in a voice that was quite unlike

his own; "_due!_ TRE!"

Reverberating with a hundred echoes among the rocks as the sounds

were tossed from peak to peak, _four_ rifles rang sharply in the

clear morning air, and three men fell dead.

They were Agostino Velda, pierced by two bullets in his head, which

sank heavily forward on his breast; Raphael, who, by an expert use of

his bayonet as a lever, after uttering a prayer to heaven and for

Francesca, had shot himself through the heart; and, lastly, the Conte

Manfredi, who, pierced by a bullet fired from the rocks above, threw

up his hands with a wild scream, and fell lifeless from his horse!

His fall and the suicide of Raphael Velda were so totally unexpected,

that the Bersaglieri were utterly bewildered and confounded. The

double catastrophe was almost terrifying even to old soldiers; but

the major was the first to recover his presence of mind, and at the

head of a company proceeded to surround and scale those rocks from

whence the mysterious bullet had come.

No trace of the assassin could be found, save a long and

double-barrelled rifle, which had been recently discharged, and on

the stock of which was carved the name of the noted brigand,

"Giuseppe Rivarola;" so not a doubt remained that by his hand the

conte had perished.

In vain were the mountains searched, and princely rewards for his

apprehension offered by General Cialdini and the king; for Giuseppe

was never seen afterwards, though he is supposed to be still lurking

among the wilds of the Abruzzi--the Promised Land of the Italian

brigands.

As a suicide, the hapless Raphael Velda was buried in a solitary

place, and in unconsecrated ground; but yearly, on the anniversary of

his death--the festival of St. Michael and All Angels--there comes a

Benedictine nun, who kneels by the green sod that covers him, and

with beads in hand and head bent low and reverently, says a prayer

for the repose of his soul.

She then hangs a wreath of fresh flowers on the little cross that

marks his grave, and glides slowly and sadly away.

LA BELLE TURQUE.

THE STORY OF THE PRINCESS CÉCILE.

Of all the wandering claimants to royalty, scions of kings "retired

from business," _soi-disant_ regal pretenders, false or real--whether

like Perkin Warbeck, or the six Demetriuses of Russia, some more

recent pseudo-heirs of the house of Stuart who figured in Austria

after the "Quarterly" drove them out of Scotland, "the Duke of

Normandy" in London, and so forth, who have appeared from time to

time, none have had so marvellous a story to tell as the Princess

Cécile, "La Belle Turque," as she was named, who, announcing herself,

in two volumes octavo, to be a daughter of the deposed sultan Achmet

III., took the heedless world of Paris by surprise, about a hundred

years ago, and whose narrative has frequently been classed with

romances, though it came forth as a veritable history, and with a

title more clearly avowed than that of "Ascanius, or the Adventurer

in Scotland."

The editor, who guaranteed its truth, was a man of veracity and

credit in his day; and he urged upon the public, that however

extraordinary and romantic her adventures might appear, they were,

nevertheless, strictly fact; and in a letter addressed to the editor

of the "Journal de Paris," in 1787, he added, that in that year the

lady was still alive in the French capital, "and, notwithstanding her

advanced age, in the enjoyment of good health."

It is singular that her narrative, whether false or true, as given by

herself and "M. Buisson, Littéraire, Hôtel de Mesgrigny, Rue des

Poitevins,"--as it would furnish ample materials for the largest

three-volume novel--escaped the eyes of Alexandre Dumas, or Viscount

d'Arlincourt, as it is full of adventures of the most stirring kind,

and, told briefly, runs thus:--

The introductory part of her story, in which the names of persons of

rank are concealed, contains, necessarily the adventures of her

governess, or nurse, by whom she was first abducted from her home,

and brought to France. It would appear that about the year 1700, a

Mademoiselle Emilia (_sic_), daughter of a surgeon in the French

seaport town of Génes, was, with her lover, a young Genoese, named

Salmoni, in a pleasure-boat upon the Mediterranean, a little way from

the coast, when, notwithstanding "la terreur du nom de Louis XIV.,"

they were pounced upon by some Turkish corsairs--a common enough

event in those days, and one not unfrequent, even after Lord Exmouth

demolished Algiers.

This occurred in the dusk; and the voice of Salmoni, who had been

singing, is supposed to have first attracted them. Being armed, the

Italian defended his love and his life with courage, but fell

severely wounded, and was left for dead in the bottom of his boat,

which floated away, the sport of the waves, while Emilia was carried

off, and, in consequence of her great beauty, was ultimately sold, at

Constantinople, under the name of Fatima, for the service and

amusement of Achmet III., who, in consequence of her accomplishments,

made her a species of governess to his children, instead of retaining

her among the odalisques in the seraglio. This must have been

subsequent to 1703, when Achmet began his troublesome reign.

She was in this situation of trust, when Salmoni, who had never

forgotten her, after a long and unsuccessful search through many

seaport towns in the Levant--a veritable pilgrim of

love--accidentally discovered, by a casual conversation with a

Turkish seaman, where she was, and how occupied; for this man had

been one of the corsair's crew.

Disguised as a Turk, and giving out that "he was the father of

Fatima, the trusted slave," Salmoni found means to communicate with

her through an _itchcoglan_, one of the slaves or pages attached to

the seraglio, and they were thus enabled to see each other and

converse, their hasty meetings being but stolen moments of tenderness

and joy.

Emilia was now in attendance upon a little daughter of Achmet III.,

born in 1710, and then six months old. Her mother was the Sultana

Aski, formerly a Georgian slave, and then one of the kadines or wives

of the Sultan, ladies whose number rarely exceeds seven. Emilia was

high in favour with both Achmet and this sultana, as she had been

particularly serviceable to the latter at the birth of the child,

through some little skill she had acquired from her father, the

surgeon; thus the confidence they reposed in her, and the authority

she possessed over all the people in and about the seraglio,

facilitated the execution of those plans for an escape, suggested and

urged by Salmoni.

With a view to this end, she desired the _bastonghi_, or

head-gardener, to make a see-saw, which was in the gardens, so high

that she--and her pupils, probably--might see the whole city from the

lofty wall that girds this place, where still the trees planted are

always green, that the inhabitants of Galata and other places may not

see the ladies at their lonely promenades. Aided by this see-saw,

she dropped over the wall a billet to Salmoni, desiring him to

procure a ladder, "a steel-yard" to fix it to the masonry, to make

arrangements with a ship captain, and, when all was prepared, to wait

her beneath the wall of that terrible Serai Bournous, which no

slave-woman had ever yet left alive.

Salmoni promptly obeyed her instructions; he discovered a ship for

the Levant, and, by a note tossed over the wall, informed her of the

night, and the very hour of their departure.

She was in the act of reading this note--probably not for the first

time--when the Sultan Achmet suddenly entered her apartment; and she

had barely time to toss it, unseen, into a porphyry vase; for this

billet, if discovered, might have consigned her to the bowstring of

the _capidgi-bashi_, or the sack of the black _channatoraga_, and its

concealment forms an important feature in the story of the fugitives.

The hour--almost the moment--for flight had arrived, and Salmoni, she

knew, awaited her below the garden wall; yet, amid all the terror and

anxiety of the time, so strong was Emilia's love for the little

baby-girl of whom she had the chief care, that she resolved to convey

the child away with her, and hoped eventually to rear it as a

Christian. Collecting all her jewels, and those which Achmet had

already lavished on the infant, she took with them the silken

_fetfa_, or record of its birth; and, to be brief, escaped unseen by

means of the steel-yard and ladder.

As she descended, the latter was held for her by a person in a gray

cloak, whom she believed to be Salmoni, and into whose arms she was,

consequently, about to throw herself, when another man started

forward, and plunged a sword into his breast. He fled, and a cry

escaped Emilia, who fell to the ground; but at that moment the

captain of the vessel, by which Salmoni had arranged they should

escape, rushed up, and, tearing off the mufflings of the fallen man,

merely exclaimed, "It is _not_ he!" and bore her off to the seashore.

An alarm had been given. There was no time to wait for the absent

Salmoni; she was placed at once on board the vessel, which

immediately sailed and made all speed to leave the Golden Horn

behind. She proved to be a small craft belonging to Bayonne,

commanded by a young captain from Dieppe; who ultimately landed

Emilia and her charge at Génes, where her first care was to have the

little _Turque_ baptized according to the rites of the Catholic

church.

This, it is recorded, was done by the _curé_ of St. Eulalie de Génes,

who named her Marie Cécile; and in honour of an event so remarkable,

a salute was fired by the cannon of the château and those of the

ramparts of the fort; and three _religeuses_, named respectively, La

Mère St. Agnes, La Mère St. Modeste, and La Mère de l'Humilité, are

mentioned as having taken a deep interest in the escaped fugitive and

her charge, who was kept in ignorance of her origin till her

fifteenth year.

We know not how many daughters Achmet III. is said to have had; but

in a letter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, dated from Adrianople, she

writes of his eldest being betrothed in marriage to Behram Bassa,

then the reigning court favourite, and translates a copy of verses he

had addressed to her.

Cécile was now taken to several European courts, "at

which"--according to the narrative--"she was received with all the

honours due to her illustrious rank." In Russia, she was presented

to the Czar, Peter I., (who died in that year); but in England, she

would seem to have contented herself with a short residence at a

coffee-house (_café_), in Covent Garden! Among other sovereigns, she

was presented to Pope Clement XI., at Rome, where her beauty, which

she inherited from her Georgian mother, especially the profusion of

her exquisite hair, began to surround her with snares and perils.

In Rome, her guardian, Emilia, had the joy of once more meeting

Salmoni! The man who had been stabbed beneath the seraglio wall had

not been he, but the Turkish corsair, through whom he had first

traced her there, and who had hoped to make profit out of the

intended escape by treacherously revealing it to the sultan; and for

this purpose he had plotted with a female slave attached to the

palace. This woman, through whose hands the important billet passed,

had artfully erased the hour of twelve, fixed by Salmoni, and

substituted _eleven_. Hence, though the sailor had full time to make

the attempt, he failed in the execution of his purpose; so now, after

all their perils, Salmoni and Emilia were married in the Eternal

City, where the love affairs of "La Belle Turque" speedily began to

attract notice.

First, we are told, that a duke fell in love with her; but she made

him her friend, assuring him that he could never be more to her, as

she had already become inspired by a passion for a handsome young

Knight of Malta, who hoped soon to be absolved from his vow of

celibacy. While waiting for this, the knight's father, old Prince

----, as mischance would have it, became enamoured of her, reckless

that he was a rival of his son; and, to avoid his importunities, she

and the Salmonis set out suddenly for Paris, where, by the knavery of

a banker, she lost much of the proceeds of the jewels brought from

Constantinople; so that her fortune was reduced from sixty thousand

livres yearly, to about ten thousand.

In a coffee-house at Paris, Cécile chanced to see in the "Gazette de

France," an account of the misfortunes that had overtaken her father,

Achmet III. This was in 1730, when that weak and imbecile

voluptuary, who had viewed with indifference the Hungarian troubles

and the wars of the north, after being involved in a contest with

Russia, by which he lost in succession the cities of Asoph and

Belgrade, and the provinces of Temesvar, Servia and Wallachia, on the

discomfiture of his arms by Persia, had an insurrection among his own

subjects, and was compelled by the Janissaries to abdicate in favour

of his nephew, Mustapha III., who threw him into a prison, where he

passed a life of mortification and shame, "after he had," as Voltaire

has it, "sacrificed his vizier and his principal officers, in vain,

to the resentment of the nation."

On reading of all these things, Cécile registered a vow that she

would visit Turkey, seek out her father, and endeavour to console him

in his misfortunes; and the death of her guardian, Emilia, about this

time, together with the annoyance she experienced from the old

Prince, who, presuming on her friendless, dubious, and false

position, daily "became more urgent and less respectful," hastened

her departure.

Alone she set out for Fontainebleau to solicit a passport as a French

subject, and to return thanks for the protection afforded her by the

court of Louis XIV; but in returning to Paris, her carriage was

stopped at night in the forest, which then covered thirty thousand

acres of hill and valley, and there ensued an episode, which, by its

_coincidences_, seems too evidently romance, though truth at times is

stranger than fiction.

A handsomely-attired chevalier--who proved to be the

Prince--requested her to alight and enter a voiture, which stood

there with six horses, pleading that she would do so, "without

compelling him to use violence."

On this, she uttered a cry for help; and ere long another _voiture_

dashed up, and there leaped out a gentleman sword in hand. He proved

to be the young Duke de ----, her Roman admirer, and he had barely

time to recognize Cécile, when her betrothed, the Knight of Malta,

also appeared on the scene, which thus becomes so melo-dramatic as to

throw ridicule on the story.

"The Duke is about to deprive you of your mistress," said the cunning

old Prince to his son; "let us jointly use our swords against him in

defence of your dearest interests."

So thereupon the cavalier of Malta ran the poor Duke through the body

in the most approved fashion; bore off the fainting Cécile to Paris,

and placed her in the hotel of his father. There the renewed, but

secret, addresses of the latter so greatly alarmed her, that on one

occasion she had to protect herself by an exhibition of pistols,

after which she escaped with Salmoni and the Knight, who urged that

she should, in fulfilment of her vow, visit her captive father, while

he once more strove, at the feet of Pope Clement's successor, to get

the oath of celibacy absolved.

In Turkey, some unruly Janissaries slew Salmoni, and were about to

offer some violence to Cécile, despite her French passport, when she

displayed before them the _fetfa_! This, we are told, was a piece of

yellow silk on which was embroidered, in golden letters, the names of

the Sultan, of her mother Aski, and herself, with the day and hour of

her birth, together with certain passages from the Koran: "The

children of the Sultans are bound with the _fetfa_ immediately after

birth; and this document is deemed a sacred proof of their royal

descent; and at the sight of it every Mohammedan must bow himself to

the ground, and defend with his life the wearer of it."

By this time her cousin Mustapha III. was dead, and his successor,

her kinsman, Mohammed V., on hearing of her story, and, more than

all, of her beauty, conceived a passion for her, and sent his chief

friend and confident, the Beglerbeg of Natolia, to inform her of the

honour that awaited her. Being informed that it was the fame of her

wonderful hair that had first excited the curiosity and admiration of

the Sultan, she cut it entirely off, and, tossing it to the

messenger--

"Go," said she, "and give your master this--the object of his

love--and tell him, that a woman capable of such a sacrifice, knows

no master but Heaven and her own heart!"

Had chignons been then in fashion, much trouble might have been saved

the fair Cécile; who, finding that a hasty departure from Turkey

alone could save her, demanded, but in vain, a passport from the

Bashaw of Smyrna or Izmir. Urged by her father Achmet, she quitted

secretly by sea, and was landed by a French frigate at Toulon, where

she learned from the lieutenant of a Maltese galley that her lover

had perished in a duel.

Her journey to Turkey had greatly impoverished her, and now she found

herself in France almost without a friend, with only five hundred

ducats and a diamond, the gift of her father Achmet III. Choosing to

conceal her fallen fortune from every eye, she selected an humble

dwelling in an obscure part of the city, where, long years after, her

editor first discovered her, and where, at a distance from royal

thrones, from human wealth and grandeur, she had sought to pass the

evening of her days in peace and obscurity. "God has blessed my

fortitude," she concludes. "Born in 1710, I have lived to see the

1st of January, 1786, and must now serenely and tranquilly await that

peace by which death must make amends for all the surprising and

afflicting changes of fortune which I experienced in my passage

through life."

Cécile--if ever she existed at all--must have been then in her 76th

year. Her narrative is certainly mentioned in the "Journal de

Paris;" but in the tide of events that so rapidly followed the year

in which the financial troubles of France began, the meeting of the

States-General, and the crash of the first Revolution following, we

hear no more of "La belle Turque," the _soi-disant_ daughter of the

dethroned Achmet III.

THE MARQUIS DE FRATTEAUX,

CAPTAIN OF FRENCH HORSE.

Few events made a greater sensation in England generally, and more

particularly in London, in March, 1752, than the mysterious

disappearance or abduction--it was called for a time the murder--of

the unfortunate Marquis de Fratteaux, who was actually dragged by

force from the heart of the English metropolis, and immured in the

Bastile, to gratify the strange and unnatural hatred of his own

father.

This noble, whose name was Louis Mathieu Bertin, Marquis de

Fratteaux, Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis, and a distinguished

young captain of French cavalry, was the eldest son of M. Jean Bertin

de St. Geyran (Honorary Master of Requests and Counsellor to the

Parliament of Bordeaux) and of his wife Lucretia de St. Chamant, both

of whose families were deemed, by character and descent, most

honourable among the Bordelais. In the Blazon ou Art Héraldique,*

Bertin is represented as bearing an escutcheon argent, charged with a

saltire (simple) dentelé.

* French Encyclopaedie, 1789.

From his birth, the Marquis Louis Mathieu was an object of aversion

to his father, who, on the other hand, doted even to absurdity on his

youngest son, on whom he lavished all his love and his livres, and on

whom he bestowed the estate of Bourdeille. M. Bertin would seem,

almost, from the birth of his second boy, to have determined, by

every scheme he could devise, to deprive the eldest of his

birthright; and this object he followed with singular rancour nearly

to the end of his life.

It has never been hinted that M. Bertin suspected the paternity of

his heir. Through life the conduct of Madame Bertin was

irreproachable and above all suspicion.

In the infancy and boyhood of Louis, his father strove by systematic

oppression, and by cutting neglect, to degrade, mortify, and break

the spirit of the poor little fellow: on all occasions giving the

place of honour, and the whole of his affection, to his second son.

As his manhood approached, his father proposed to him the profession

of the law, but as he, weary of his unhappy home, displayed an

inclination for the army, open war was at once declared by his father

against him. To more than one abbé did the young man in his misery

appeal for intercession with his tyrannical parent; but such appeals

only made matters worse, and the Counsellor became so furious in his

wrath, that he made preparations to seclude Louis in some strong

vault or cellar of his mansion.

The Marquis having discovered the residence of a young woman who was

the mistress of his father, paid her a secret visit, told her the

story of his unhappy life and domestic persecution; and, as his own

mother seemed powerless in the matter, on his knees sought _her_

interest in his behalf. She would seem to have been touched by the

appeal; and rated the Counsellor soundly for his unnatural conduct,

threatening him with the loss of her affection "if M. Louis were not

left to his own inclination in the choice of a profession."

In the hope, perhaps, that some English or Prussian bullet might rid

him of a son whom he hated so cordially, Bertin permitted the Marquis

to join the Regiment de Noailles (or 54th Cavalry of the Line,

commanded by the Comte d'Ayen, nephew of Marshal Noailles) as a cadet

or volunteer; but, according to the system then pursued in the French

service, he could receive no pay or emolument, even while campaigning

in Flanders and Germany. After fourteen months of this probation,

however, he was gazetted to a cornetcy in the Regiment de Maine, and

at sixteen years of age became captain of a troop in the 40th

Cavalry, or Dragoons of St. Jal, commanded by Brigadier the Comte de

St. Jal;* his boyish spirit and bravery (not to mention his rank)

having even then attracted the attention of Comte d'Argenson, who was

prime minister of France from 1743 to 1757. The Count prevailed upon

Louis the Fifteenth to make the Marquis a Chevalier of the Royal

Order, and bestow upon him a special pension, in lieu of the wretched

pittance allowed him by his father.

* Liste Historique de toutes les troupe au Service de France.

This early success in camp and at court seemed to inflame the

resentment of the Counsellor, who now began to affirm that the

Marquis was not his son, but a changeling, or impostor, substituted

by the nurse for his first child, who, he declared, had died while

under her charge; but, as this story could be in no way sustained, M.

Bertin changed his tactics, and resolved to get rid of his eldest son

by--poison!

A fever with which Fratteaux was seized about this time, favoured the

infamous idea; and his father, who visited him with an air of

concern, contrived to give him, in his medicine, a dose of some

deadly drug which he called an infusion of bark. It nearly proved

fatal, and would inevitably have done so, but for the prompt arrival

of the apothecary who had furnished it, and who, suspecting foul play

when summoned by the Marquis, brought with him a powerful antidote.

The Counsellor, who was immensely rich, now suborned some worthless

fellows, among whom was an Italian (name unknown), to swear that

Fratteaux meditated a parricidal design against _his_ life; "that the

Marquis, having a quarrel with his father, drew his sword, and would

have killed him but for the interposition of the father of the

Italian, who received the thrust, and died of it."

This deposition enabled Bertin to purchase a lettre de cachet, by

virtue of which he had his son arrested, and thrust into a monastery

near Bordeaux, where he was treated as a prisoner. Though for the

crime of attempted parricide he might have been broken alive on the

wheel by the then existing laws of France.

Through the great influence of Bertin as a Counsellor of Parliament,

all his son's entreaties for release, or for a public trial, were

rendered vain, and he lost his commission in the Regiment of St. Jal.

Some of his friends, however, having discovered where he was

confined, and fearing that he might be secretly put to death, broke

into the monastery one night, and assisted him to escape. Through

Gascony and Bearn he fled to Spain, where, without so much as a

change of clothes, without money or letters of introduction, he

arrived, in a famished and destitute condition, at the house of the

Comte de Marcillac (a relation of his mother), who derived his title

from the little town of that name, nine miles north of Bordeaux.

The Counsellor soon discovered the place of his son's retreat, and,

assisted by a liberal donation of gold, soon procured from the French

ambassador at Madrid a warrant for the arrest of the fugitive, based

upon the powers afforded by that infamous instrument of tyranny, the

lettre de cachet. Once more the unhappy son had to fly; the Comte de

Marcillac supplied him with money; and, embarking at the nearest

port, he sailed for London, where he arrived in 1749. There, under

the name of Monsieur de St. Etienne, he took a humble lodging in

Paddington, then a country village with green fields all round it,

from Marybone Farm to Kensington. His landlord was a market gardener.

His friends in France and Spain sent him remittances and letters of

introduction to several persons of rank in London. To these, the

pleasant manners, gentle bearing, and handsome person of the young

Marquis speedily recommended him, and ere long he was enabled to

remove nearer town, where he boarded with a Mrs. Giles, in

Marybone--or, as another account has it, "with one Mrs. Bacon, a

widow gentlewoman of much good nature and understanding." But even

in this "land of liberty" he was not safe from the rancour of the

indefatigable Counsellor, with his lettre de cachet.

The English friends of the Marquis having urged that he should lay

the story of his wrongs before Louis the Fifteenth in the form of a

memorial, the preparation of it was confided to an amanuensis, a

Frenchman named Dages de Souchard. This fellow (though only the son

of an obscure lawyer at Libourne, then a very small town of Provence)

assumed, in London, the title of Baron. A deep-witted, crafty, and

insinuating rascal, he contrived to propitiate many unsuspecting

persons, and claimed to be a strict French Protestant, though he had,

in early life, been a Franciscan monk, or friar minor, in a monastery

at Nerac, in the west of France, and came of a family of rigid

Catholics. Nay, while in the monastery, he seduced a young girl

named Du Taux, whose mother was the lavandière of the establishment,

and they had come together to London, where they gave themselves out

as persecuted French Protestants. Having been born within twenty

miles of Bordeaux, this Souchard knew the story of the Marquis de

Fratteaux, and conceived the idea of turning it to his own profit

before it should reach the ears of Louis the Fifteenth. For this

purpose, delaying the preparation of the memorial, he wrote secretly

to the Counsellor, stating that he knew where his son was, and

offering to make terms to secure and deliver him up! The Counsellor

entered cordially into the scheme, and, after remitting him some

money on account, agreed to settle upon him for life a pension of six

hundred livres, and to pay him two thousand English guineas down,

with two hundred more, for the reward of any assistants or

accomplices he might deem necessary.

Dages de Souchard immediately set about his treachery, and employed a

man of most unscrupulous character, one Alexander Blasdale, a

Marshal's Court officer who resided in St. Martin's Lane, and whose

follower or colleague, by a strange coincidence, was the very Italian

who had been accessory to the incarceration of the Marquis in the

monastery near Bordeaux.

On the night of the 25th of March, 1752, they repaired to the

lodgings of the Marquis: who immediately became deadly pale on seeing

the Italian, and exclaimed, in alarm and distress:

"I am a dead man!"

Blasdale summoned him to surrender in the king's name. Knowing that

he owed no man anything, Fratteaux was disposed to resist. His

landlady sent for M. Robart, French clergyman, to whom Blasdale, with

cool effrontery, showed a writ to arrest the Marquis for a pretended

debt. The latter was persuaded to yield and to accompany the officer

to his house in St. Martin's Lane, whither he was immediately driven

in a hackney-coach, and there placed in a secure chamber.

Five gentlemen, "one of them a person of the first fashion," on

hearing of the arrest, repaired to the bailiff, and in strong

language warned him to beware of using the least violence towards his

prisoner, lest he should be called to a severe account; and they

added, that sufficient bail would be found for him in the morning.

One gentleman, named M. Dubois, remained with the Marquis as his

friend, resolved to see the end of the affair, and to protect him;

but about midnight the Italian came in, saying that some one wished

to speak with this gentleman below. On descending to the street,

Dubois found only the bailiff Blasdale, who roughly told him "to be

gone," and thrusting him out of the house, shut him out, and secured

the door. On this gentleman returning with the French clergyman and

others next morning, they were told by a servant-girl "that the

Marquis was gone, in company with several gentlemen." They then

demanded to see her master, but were curtly told that "he was out of

town." In short, neither he nor his victim was ever beheld in

England again!

Fears of foul play being immediately excited, the whole party

repaired to Justice Fielding, by whom a warrant to apprehend Blasdale

was issued, on suspicion of murder. Application was made to the Lord

Chief Justice, and also to the secretary of state, Robert Earl of

Holderness, for a habeas corpus to prevent the Marquis from being

taken out of the kingdom dead or alive; but all was of no avail, and

the fate of Fratteaux remained for some time a dark mystery.

It would appear that on finding himself alone, after the rough

expulsion of his friend Dubois, the Marquis became furious with rage;

on which Blasdale swore that as he made so much noise in the house he

would convey him at once to jail. Fratteaux, who feared he might be

assassinated where he was, readily consented to go to jail, and a

hackney-coach was called. In it, he, the bailiff, and the nameless

Italian, drove through various obscure streets and by-lanes. It was

now about five in the morning.

The marquis again and again implored aid from the coach window in

broken English, but received none; to the watch his keepers said that

he was "only a French fellow they had arrested for debt;" to others

they said he had been made furious by the bite of a mad dog, and they

were going to dip him in salt water at Gravesend. Thus his

entreaties were abortive, and at about sunrise he found himself at a

lonely place by the side of the river Thames. A cocked pistol was

put to his ear, and resistance was vain; he was thrust on board a

small vessel, which had been waiting for him in the river, and which,

after he was secured below, dropped down with the ebb tide. So well

did Souchard, Blasdale, and the Italian take all their measures, that

on the night of the 29th the two last-named worthies landed the

Marquis at Calais, the gates of which town were opened to admit them

long after the usual hour of closing. He was then delivered over as

a prisoner of state to the town authorities, who had all been duly

communicated with, and probably well fee'd, and by whom he was sent,

chained by the neck, in a post-chaise, to his father's house in

Paris. The Counsellor, in virtue of his lettre de cachet, now sent

his son the Marquis to be immured in the Bastile for life.

"This is the first narrative of the kind which has stained the annals

of England," says a print of the time; "and if it be not the last,

highly as we boast of giving laws to all Europe, we shall be little

better, in fact, than a pitiful colony exposed to the mercy of every

insolent neighbour." Great indignation was excited in London, where

a subscription was raised for the purpose of punishing all concerned

in this flagrant violation of British law; but nothing was achieved

in the end,* though in January, 1754--one year and eight months after

the outrage at St. Martin's Lane--our ambassador at the court of

Versailles, General the Earl of Albemarle, demanded that both the

Marquis and his infamous trepanner, Alexander Blasdale, at that time

in Paris, should be delivered up and sent back to London. His

request was never complied with, and for fourteen years the luckless

Marquis was allowed to languish in the Bastile.

* "We are told that a foreign nobleman is already in custody of a

messenger for this offence, and no person is permitted to have access

to him, neither is he allowed the use of pen, ink, or

paper."--_Gentleman's Magazine_, 1752. Very probably this "foreign

nobleman" was the _Baron_ Dages de Souchard.

He and his story were soon forgotten, and nothing more was heard of

him, until some of the London papers of July 14, 1764, contained the

following paragraph: "The Marquis de Fratteaux, that French gentleman

who was some years ago forcibly carried off from England to France

and confined in the Bastile, is now at liberty on his estate at

Fratteaux; for when his brother, M. Bertin de Bourdeille, was made

Intendant of Lyons, he obtained his liberty, on giving his word of

honour to remain on his estate at Fratteaux, and never to go above

six miles from it without leave from his father, with whom he had

been at great variance, which was the occasion of his leaving France.

Two months after his arrival at Fratteaux his father went to see him,

and he had permission to return the visit at Bourdeille. He has kept

his word of honour strictly, and lives at present in cordiality with

the whole family."

Broken in health and spirit by all he had undergone, this unfortunate

victim of a family feud and an unnatural hatred, died soon

afterwards, and thus the wishes of his father were accomplished.

SOCIVISCA:

THE STORY OF A GREEK OUTLAW.

In the year 1688, that district of Western Turkey named

Montenegro--the ancient Illyria--placed itself under the protection

of the Venetian republic, which was then governed by the doge

Francisco Morosini, a famous soldier, who took the castle of the

Dardanelles from the Turks, together with Lepanto and several other

places.

For a time after this, its inhabitants, those half-Greek and

half-Slavonian mountaineers, with the people of Bosnia, enjoyed

comparative peace; but by the treaty concluded at Passarowitz in

July, 1718, between Charles VI. (last Count of Hapsburg) and the

Porte, they were surrendered to the tender mercies of the Turks, and

became subject to all the exactions of those grasping, ignorant, and

impracticable conquerors.

However, the hardy warriors of the mountains were scarcely content,

like their countrymen in the eastern portions of Greece, to live on

despised and unmolested for the payment of tribute; the worst and

most humiliating feature of which was the number of children they

were compelled to present yearly to the sultan for service in the

seraglio, or in the ranks of the janissaries, where their identity

soon became lost; and where in the end they realized what Voltaire

termed "a great proof of the force of education and of the strange

constitution of human affairs, that the most of those proud

oppressors of Christianity should thus be born of _Christian

parents_."

Socivisca, the subject of the following sketch, was born at Simiova

in 1725, of Grecian parents, who reared and educated him in the

profession and faith of the Greek church. He was strong, hardy, and

athletic in form, and of a haughty and resentful spirit, that would

ill brook the circumstances in which he found himself as he grew to

manhood.

His father occupied a small sheep farm on the slope of those

mountains whose forests of dark pine give a name to the people and

the province. But the proprietors were Turks, who treated the

family, which consisted of the old man and his four sons, with great

severity, subjecting them to constant exactions, insults, and

oppressions.

They were thus reduced to such extreme poverty that Socivisca, with

all his industry, aided by that of his three brothers, Nicholas,

Giurgius, and Adrian, found himself quite unable to marry a beautiful

Greek girl, of whom he became enamoured in youth. His father, being

of a peaceful and gentle nature, and being perhaps aware of the

hopelessness of resistance, on perceiving that his sons writhed under

their afflictions, besought them to submit with patience to the will

of God; but the four young men, being alike of a fiery and haughty

spirit, and, moreover, being trained to the use of those arms which

the Montenegrin shepherds constantly wear (like the Scots Highlanders

in the last century), they received his advice in reluctant silence,

and not the less resolved to have a trial of strength some day with

their Mahommedan oppressors.

Native hardihood and warlike spirit were in this instance added to

national animosity and religious rancour; thus Socivisca, like Rob

Roy, vowed that ere long those should tremble "on hearing of his

vengeance, that would not listen to the story of his wrongs."

The Montenegrins, like most other mountaineers, are eminently

patriotic, and the solemn and melancholy aspect of those dark hills

of Illyria that look down on the Adriatic, to their eyes must seem

well to harmonize with the fallen state of Greece:--

"And yet how lovely in thine age of woe,

Land of lost gods and god-like men, art thou!

Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow,

Proclaim thee nature's varied favourite now."

Though not pure Greeks, but Zernagorzii, of half-Slavonian blood, the

Montenegrins have the most extravagant ideas of independence and the

past glories of their country. Inspired by its scenery, by the real

and imaginary stories of its departed greatness and present

degradation, Socivisca and his brothers registered at the altar a vow

of vengeance on their oppressive Overlords! and as if _fatality_ had

a hand in the matter, it chanced soon after that the haughty Turk,

the proprietor of their sheep farm, accompanied by two of his

brothers, came, either by choice or necessity, to lodge at the farm.

This was in 1744, when Socivisca was in his nineteenth year.

"We are four to three," said he, "so look to your pistols and

yataghans, after these dogs have had their food and coffee."

Notwithstanding their vow, it is said that he wavered for a time

before performing the terrible deed; but when he saw his father's

face, sharpened more by want and privation than by age--when he

looked on the rags and sheepskins that clad them all--they the true

lords of the soil--and saw in contrast the rich flowing garments of

fine silk and velvet, laced with gold, and the jewelled weapons of

the three Mahommedans, in whose presence every wooden crucifix or

gaudy little picture of a Greek saint had to be hidden--and perhaps

when the youth thought of his bride, and all that might be if the

land they trod on was indeed their own, every scruple gave way, and,

inciting his brothers to the deadly work, they fell on the three

Turks, as they lounged over their long pipes, and slew them by their

pistols and yataghans, after a very brief resistance.

In their mails were found eighteen thousand sequins--an unexpected

but most seasonable accession of fortune. The brothers quickly

buried the bodies and all their habiliments. Save the gold, which

was carefully concealed, there remained no trace of the terrible

deed, and as it occurred unknown to all save themselves, in that

solitary little farm amid the savage mountain solitude, no suspicion

of the circumstance fell on them.

Thus, instead of taking to flight, the Greeks remained quietly where

they were. The Pacha of Bosnia made every inquiry after the three

missing Turks, who were his friends. Suspicions somehow fell on

other parties, who were dragged to Traunick, and executed with great

barbarity, while Socivisca wedded the girl he loved, and lived with

his father and brothers in comparative ease and comfort.

About a year after the triple assassination, some imprudence of

Socivisca, in displaying the latent pride and ferocity of his

character, together with the unusual amount of money the family were

enabled to spend, excited the surprise and then the ready suspicions

of the pastoral people around them.

Some whisper of these suspicions reached Socivisca; so by his advice

the whole family abandoned the farm in the night, and, taking with

them only their gold and their arms, departed from the mountains

towards the Venetian territory.

The weather was severe, the roads were rough, and the elder

Socivisca, unable to sustain privations so unwonted at his time of

life, expired of toil by the wayside, and was hastily buried by his

four sons in a wild and solitary place.

Entering the territories of the republic, where they were in safety,

in the year 1745, they took up their habitation in the town of

Imoski, which is now in what is termed Austrian Dalmatia, and on the

borders of Bosnia; but in those days the old fortress on the

hill--the site of the ancient Novanium--bore the flag of Venice.

Here they gave themselves out to be traders, and opened a bazaar,

which they stored with rich merchandise; they built a large house,

and soon became almost wealthy; but the easy life of a merchant by no

means suited the temperament of Socivisca and his brethren,--for the

warrior shepherds pined for their mountain home and the forests of

the Illyrian shore.

They sold their house, the bazaar, and its goods, and attended by

stout fellows, whose spirit was something like their own, they

returned again to Montenegro, and commenced a series of those forays

and surprises (against the pacha) in which the Black Mountaineers

delight, and in the conduct of which they peculiarly excel; and

during the ensuing summer they contrived to massacre, in various

ways, about forty Turks, as it was against them, and them only, that

all the hatred of Socivisca was directed.

The habits to which he had been accustomed from infancy pre-eminently

fitted him for the life of a wandering guerrilla. "A Montenegrin,"

says Broniewski, a Russian traveller, "is always armed, and carries

about, during his most peaceful occupation, a rifle, pistols, a

yataghan, and cartouch-box. They spend their leisure from boyhood in

firing at a target. Inured to hardships and privations, they

perform, without fatigue, long and forced marches, climb the steepest

rocks with facility, and bear with patience hunger, thirst, and every

kind of privation. They cut off the heads of those enemies whom they

take with arms in their hands, and spare only those who surrender

_before_ battle."

Seeking no mercy, they yielded none; and if one of their number was

wounded severely, his comrades cut off his head; and when not tending

their flocks, like the Circassians, they spent their whole time in

forays against the invaders of the Black Mountains. But after a time

Socivisca grew weary of slaughtering and beheading the Turks, and

returned once more to his wife and children at Imoski, where he

remained till 1754, engaged in trade, though now and then he slung

his long rifle on his shoulder, stuck his dagger and pistols in his

girdle, and crossed the Bosnian frontier to indulge in his favourite

pastime of slaying the Turks.

In all his dealings and adventures, whether as a merchant or

guerrilla robber, it could never be discovered that he wronged in the

least degree any subjects either of the Austrian empire or of the

Venetian republic.

Meantime, two of his brothers married, and Adrian, the youngest,

joined the Aiducos, a band of Morlachians, who had leagued themselves

together for the express but hazardous purpose of preventing the

Turks from crossing what they considered the frontier of their own

country; in short to defend the wooded passes of the Black Mountains.

Brave, rash, cunning, treacherous, and cruel, these Morlachians are a

mixture of Hungarian, Greek, and Venetian blood, and their religion

is a mere mass of superstition, partly Christian and partly Oriental.

The youth became the comrade of a Morlachian of the Greek church, and

chose him for his _probatim_. This choice of friendship was always

consecrated by a solemn ceremony at the altar of the nearest church,

before which they knelt, each holding a lighted taper, whilst the

priest sprinkled them with holy water and blessed the compact.

United thus, the _probatims_ are bound for life to assist each other

in war or peace, in danger or adversity, against all men whatsoever.

The young mountaineer, however, made an unfortunate choice of a

friend, for the probatim lured him to his own house, gave him drugged

wine, and for a sum of money delivered him over, bound hand and foot,

to the Pacha of Traunick, which is one of the six military pachalics

into which Bosnia is divided.

After exposing the poor youth, who was a model of manly beauty,

stripped and nude before the people, the pacha put him to death, amid

the most exquisite tortures that the Oriental mind can suggest.

On hearing of this atrocity Socivisca was filled with rage and grief;

but dissembling, he armed himself fully, and travelled without

stopping until he reached the residence of the false probatim, whose

father, a subtle old Morlachian, received him with an air of such

grief and commiseration that he succeeded completely in making our

mountaineer believe that the son was innocent of the crime laid to

his charge by common rumour. The probatim next appeared, and acted

_his part_ so well, and shed so many tears, that Socivisca,

confounded and convinced, gave him his hand, and consented to dine

with the family. Then the young Morlachian said that, "in honour of

such a guest, he would kill the best lamb in his flock;" and he went

forth, but instead of going to his pastures, he rode on the spur

twelve miles to have a conference with the mir-alai who commanded a

body of Turkish horse on the bank of the Danube, and to inform him of

where Socivisca was to be found, receiving from the officer a

handsome sum for his second act of treachery.

The day wore on, and evening came without either the lamb or the

probatim appearing. The wily host, who knew what was on the _tapis_,

left nothing unsaid to satisfy the doubts of Socivisca, who, after

night-fall, retired to his bedchamber, but not to repose; for strange

and unbidden forebodings of coming evil tormented him. He dared not

sleep, and he seemed to hear the voices of his wife and children

mingling with the wind that shook the woods, and with the tread of

coming enemies. His dogs, also--two of that Molossian breed which is

unsurpassed for strength and ferocity--warned him by their snorts and

restlessness of approaching danger,--for dogs at times are said to

have strange instincts. At last, unable to endure the suspicions of

peril and treachery, he sprang from bed, dressed himself in the dark,

and sought for his arms, but _they had been removed_!

Musket, pistols, yataghan, and all were gone. He called on his host

repeatedly, but without receiving an answer. Then, inspired by rage

and the conviction that, like his brother, he had been snared to his

doom, with a flint and tinder-box, he lighted a lamp, went forth to

search the house, and soon appeared by the bedside of his host.

"Wretch!" he exclaimed as he seized him by the beard, "my arms--where

are they? Speak ere it be too late for us both!"

Every moment expecting to hear his son return with a party of Turks,

the Morlachian attempted to expostulate and to temporize; but

Socivisca's eye fell on a small hatchet that lay near, and snatching

it up, with a terrible malediction, he cleft the old traitor's skull

to the chin.

On this a female servant, dreading her master's fate, gave Socivisca

his arms, and he fled into the woods close by, where he lurked long

enough to see the probatim arrive with a party of Timariots, who

surrounded the house. On this the fugitive withdrew and retired

towards the mountains, swearing by every saint in his church to have

a terrible revenge!

Assembling his followers, he descended in the night, and guarding all

the avenues to prevent escape, he set fire to the house of the

probatim, who perished miserably with sixteen of his family, all of

whom were burned alive, save a woman, who was killed by a rifle-shot

when in the act of leaping from a window with an infant in her arms.

After these affairs the Pacha of Bosnia, a three-tailed dignitary who

resided at Traunick, scoured the country with his Timariots, and made

such incredible efforts to capture Socivisca, that though the latter

multiplied his slaughters, raids, and robberies, he was ultimately

driven, with his brothers, his wife, and two children (a son and

daughter), over the Montenegrin frontier to Karlovitz, a small place

in the Austrian territory, famous only as the scene of Prince

Eugene's victory over the Ottoman troops in the early part of the

last century. The Hungarians being, like the Illyrians, of Slavonian

blood, there he found a comfortable shelter for three years under the

protection of the Emperor Francis I. and the Empress-Queen, and

during that time his conduct and life were alike blameless and

without reproach. One of his brothers, however, having strayed

across the frontier, fell into the hands of the Turks, and would have

died a miserable death, had his escape not been favoured by one who

proved friendly to him, a Timariot named Nouri Othman.

In October, 1757, Osman III. died, and was succeeded by Mustapha, son

of the deposed Sultan Achmet. Karlovitz is only forty miles from the

Bosnian frontier; so the pacha, who never lost sight of Socivisca,

anxious to please the new sovereign and display his activity, by a

lavish disposal of gold, and by the aid of some person or persons

unknown, had the exile betrayed and made prisoner. He ordered him to

be conveyed at once to Traunick, and to be placed in the same prison

where his younger brother perished so miserably.

Though elaborately tied and bound, by some of that skill which the

rope-tricksters display in the present day, he contrived, _en route_,

to get free, and, escaping, reached Karlovitz, where he had the

unhappiness to find that, by a singular stroke of misfortune, his

wife and two children had in the interim fallen into the hands of the

pacha, that in his flight he had actually passed them on the road,

and that they were now in the strong prison of Traunick, from which

escape or release seemed alike hopeless.

By messengers from Karlovitz he strove to negotiate for their

release, but the pacha was inexorable. He then wrote the following

letter, which appeared in a newspaper for March, 1800, where it was

given "as a curious specimen of social feeling operating on a rugged

and ardent disposition;" moreover, it is no bad specimen of the

outlaw's literary power:--

"I am informed, O Pacha of Bosnia, that you complain of my escape;

but I put it to yourself, what would you have done in my place?

Would you have suffered yourself to be bound with cords like a

miserable beast, and led away without resistance by men who, as soon

as they arrived at a certain place, would put you to death?

"Nature impels us to avoid destruction, and I have acted only in

obedience to her laws.

"Tell me, Pacha, what crime have my wife and little children

committed that, in spite of law and justice, you should retain them

like slaves? Perhaps you hope to render me more submissive; but you

cannot surely expect that I shall return to you and hold forth my

arms to be loaded with fresh bonds.

"Hear me then, Pacha! You may exhaust on them all your fury without

producing the least advantage. On _my part_, I declare I shall wreak

my vengeance _on all Turks_ who may fall into my hands, and I will

omit no means of injuring you!

"For the love of God restore to me, I beseech you, my blood! obtain

my pardon from my sovereign, and no longer retain in your memory my

past offences; and I promise that I will _then_ leave your subjects

in tranquillity, and even serve them as a friend when necessary.

"If you refuse this favour, expect from me all that despair can

prompt! I shall assemble my friends, carry destruction wherever you

reside, pillage your property, plunder your merchants; and from this

moment, if you pay no attention to my entreaties, I swear that I will

massacre every Turk that falls into my hands."

As Socivisca had been doing this for so many years past, perhaps the

pacha thought compliance would not make much difference; so this

letter, like its preceding messages, he received with contempt,

swearing by the "beard of the sultan to listen neither to the threats

nor entreaties of a common robber." So Socivisca performed to the

full all that he had named and threatened. At the head of a body of

Greeks and Montenegrins he ravaged all the Bosnian frontier, slaying

and decapitating every Mussulman who fell into his hands. Seeking no

quarter and giving none, as before, flames and rapine marked his path

wherever he went.

Many of his forays were made near the Lake of Scutari, in concert

with the Montenegrins, whom the Russians supplied with arms and

artillery to add to the troubles of the Pacha of Bosnia, whose people

ere long on their knees besought him to yield up the wife and

children of Socivisca, and save them from a scourge so terrible.

Still the pacha refused; but suddenly the indomitable Socivisca

appeared with his hardy Aiducos before the walls of Traunick, and, by

a wonderful combination of force and stratagem, the gates were

stormed, the guards dispersed, and he carried off his wife, his son,

and daughter to a place of safety beyond the frontier.

In retiring from Traunick, at a wild place near Razula, his people

captured one of the Turkish Timariots, in the service of the pacha,

and would instantly have put him to death had not the brother of

Socivisca recognized in him the man who had favoured his escape a

short time before,--Nouri Othman. These Timariots were soldiers, who

clothed, armed, and accoutred themselves out of their pay, and were

under the immediate command of the sanjiac or bey, and each

maintained under him a certain number of militiamen, as they were, in

fact, high-class Turkish cavaliers. Those on the Hungarian frontier

had each an income of 6000 aspres, a coin then worth one shilling and

threepence British money.

In gratitude the mountain warrior permitted Othman to escape; and

while Socivisca was at prayers--a duty which he never omitted before

a meal--the prisoner was set at liberty, a fleet horse was given him,

and from the camp of the outlaws he spurred towards Traunick.

Against this act of generosity the Aiducos of the band exclaimed

loudly; and a nephew of Socivisca went so far as to draw from his

girdle a long brass-butted pistol, with which he struck his uncle on

the face; the latter, infuriated by such an insult from a junior,

shot him through the heart, and was compelled to fly from the troop.

The nephew was buried as his grandfather had been, in a grave by the

wayside; but this family quarrel and double misfortune affected

Socivisca so much that he returned to Karlovitz, relinquishing alike

his life of war and outrage for a time, but for a time only; for,

fired with enthusiasm on hearing that Stephano Piciola (known as Di

Montenero), so often victorious over the Turks, had made himself

master of all Albania, in 1770, he issued forth again at the head of

his Aiducos, and scoured the Bosnian frontier, shooting down every

Turk whom he met.

In his fiftieth year, after having led a life of such danger and

strife--after shedding so much blood, and during a period of thirty

years since the slaughter of the three Turkish brothers at his

father's farm, having plundered so much, so freely had he spent his

cash among his friends and followers, that he found his exchequer

reduced to only six hundred sequins.

To secure these, he entrusted three hundred to the care of a kinsman

and the rest to a friend, both of whom absconded with their trust to

the shelter of the pacha, and left him in abject poverty in the small

town of Grachaez, in the province of Carlstadt, on the military

frontier of Croatia.

In the year 1775 the Emperor Francis I., when passing through the

province, wished to see the famous predatory warrior of whom he had

heard so much, and visited his humble abode at Grachaez. There he

was so greatly struck with the simple dignity, the resolute but

respectful demeanour of the white-bearded partisan, that he presented

him with a handsome sum of money, and asked him to show his numerous

wounds, and to detail the chief events of his life.

Socivisca did so, with so much simplicity and modesty that the

Emperor, whom he pleased and amused, and who was looking forward to

the capture of the Bukovine and other districts from the Turks, made

him an offer of service, and assigned him an important military

command upon the Hungarian frontier, opposed to the great pachalics

of Bosnia and Servia.

In the exercise of this office* he was alive at Grachaez in 1777,

after which year his name can no more be traced in the histories,

papers, or periodicals of the time, so that we are unable to say when

he died.

* "Arambassa of Pandonas" it is styled in the English newspapers--a

title we frankly confess ourselves unable to understand.

Such was the wild, romantic, and singular story of a mountain robber,

whose life ultimately became productive of public utility; who

enjoyed the favour and protection of Francis I. and Maria Theresa;

and whose career, in his unrelenting animosity to the Turks, presents

a curious mixture of patriotism and ferocity, religious enthusiasm

and the long-engendered rancour of rival and antagonistic races.

PAQUETTE.

AN EPISODE OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR.

CHAPTER I.

In the spring of the year 1870, when my merry Paquette and I used to

laugh at the cartoons of the _Kladderadatch_, representing King

William lowering a mannikin in regimentals gently, by the spike of

his helmet, into a huge chair, inscribed "Spanien," we little foresaw

the horrors that were to come, or the days when we might tremble at

the warlike news of the official _Staatsanzieger_.

We had been married a year, and were so happy in our pretty little

house at Blankenese (a short distance from Hamburg), where all the

sloping bank above the Elbe is covered with rich green copsewood,

from amid which peep out the tiny red-tiled cottages of the

fishermen; while over all tower the white-walled villas of those

opulent merchants whose names stood so high in the Neuerwall or the

Admiralitatstrasse, and higher still in the Bourse of the Free

City--free now only in name, as it has become, since the Holstein

war, an integral portion of the Prussian Empire.

Paquette Champfleurie was my first real love; yet, though still

little more than a girl, she was a widow when we married, and it all

came to pass in this fashion, for we had indeed much sorrow before

our days of joy arrived. When I, Carl Steinmetz--for such is my

name, though no relation to the great Prussian general--was but a lad

in a merchant's office, in the quaint old gable-ended and

timber-built street called the Stubbenhuk, I had learned to love

Paquette, then a boarder in a fashionable school on the beautiful

Alsterdam. Our interviews were stolen; our intercourse most

difficult; for her kinswoman, the Gräfine von Spitzberger--a reduced

lady of rank, with whom she was placed for educational

purposes--watched her with the eyes of a lynx. But what will not

love achieve?

Paquette, a lively, dark-eyed, and chestnut-haired girl from

Lorraine, with a piquant little face that was not by any means French

in contour or expression, and I, a sharp-witted _burschen_ fresh from

Berlin, soon found means for prosecuting our affair of the heart,

from the time when our eyes first met on a Sunday evening in St.

Michael's Kirche, to that eventful hour when, after many a note

exchanged or concealed in a certain hollow tree near the

Lombardsbrücke, we plighted our troth in the little grove near

Schiller's bronze statue, with no witnesses but the quiet stars

overhead, and the snow-white swans that floated on the blue current

of the Alster.

But sorrow soon came to rouse us from our dreams; for three weeks

after that happy evening her father took her home, without permitting

us to say farewell, and ere long I learned that she had become the

wife of Baptiste Graindorge, a wealthy merchant of Lorraine! With

these tidings the half of my life seemed to leave me. They cost me

many a secret tear, and much jealous bitterness, though I knew that

French girls have no freedom of choice in matrimony; and I loathed

the odious Graindorge in my heart, while bending resolutely over my

desk, in the dingy and gloomy little office in the noisy

Stubbenhuk--bending also every energy to amass money, though for what

purpose now I scarcely know. But fortune favoured me.

I became ere long a junior partner in the firm under whom I had

worked as a clerk, and the same year saw Paquette free; for our

horrible Graindorge had died abroad of fever, at the French colony of

Senegal, and she became mine--mine after all! A widow, no scheming

father could interfere with her then.

In the whole of busy Hamburg there could be no happier couple than we

were--and this was but a year ago. Wedded, we visited every place

where we had been wont to meet by stealth, in terror of the old

Gräfine--the leafy arcades of the Young Maiden's Walk, the Botanical

Gardens, the groves that cover all the old mounds about the Holstein

Wall, and the banks of the Alster, while Michael's Kirche was indeed

a holy place to us, for there we had first met.

One morning in July of last year--ah, I shall never forget it--we

were at breakfast together in the dining-room of our cottage at

Blankenese, and prior to taking the Sporvei 'bus for the city, I was

skimming over the _Staatsanzieger_, which was then beginning to be

full of threatening news concerning the Spanish succession, and

calling on Prussia to rouse herself, as all France, or Paris, at

least, was shouting "A Berlin!" and "To the Rhine!" The atmosphere

was deliciously warm; the slender iron casements were wide open; the

fragrant roses and jessamine clambered thickly round them, and the

drowsy hum of the bees mingled with the sounds that came, softened by

distance, from the vast shining bosom of the Elbe, where ships, with

the flags of all the world, were gliding, some towards Jonashafen and

the city, others downward to the North Sea; and opposite lay the flat

but green and lovely coast of Hanover, studded with pretty red

villages, church-spires, and windmills whirling in the sunny air.

My heart felt happy and joyous, and Paquette was looking her

loveliest in a light muslin morning dress; her bright brown hair, her

pure complexion, and her dark, laughing eyes, making her seem a very

Hebe, as she poured out my coffee, buttered the little brown German

rolls, and chirruped about how we should spend the evening, after she

had joined me in the city, and we had dined, as we frequently did,

under the shady verandah of the pleasant Alster Pavilion, surrounded

by swans and pleasure boats.

"Where shall we go, Carl, darling?" she continued--"to the Circus

Renz?"

"No, Paquette; I am sick of the horsemanship and the sawdust, and the

same everlasting girl, who, when she is not flying through a hoop,

prances about in the dress of a Uhlan."

"The Botanical Gardens, then; the band of the 76th Hanoverians play

there to-night, and some ten thousand gay people will be present."

"Well, darling, it shall be as you wish; and after looking in at the

Stadt Theatre, to see Kathie Lanner's Swedish ballet, a droski will

soon whirl us home from the Damthor-wall."

"But it was in that theatre, Carl, love, we saw each other last, and

at a distance, on the night----"

"Before--before----" I began.

"I was torn from you to become the wife of another, Carl," she

exclaimed, in a low voice, as she took my face between her pretty

hands, and kissed me playfully.

"Ah, Graindorge!" thought I, with a little bitterness, as I kissed

her in return, and rose to fill my meerschaum prior to setting forth

for the city; but a strange cry from Paquette made me wheel sharply

round on the varnished floor, and to my bewilderment and terror, I

saw her sinking back in her chair, pallid as death, like one

transfixed--her jaw relaxed, her poor little hands clasped, her eyes

expressive only of horror and woe, and bent on something outside the

window. My gaze involuntarily followed hers, as I sprung to her side.

At the railing before our little flower-garden stood a shabby-looking

man, whose face will ever haunt me. His hat, well worn, tall and

shiny, was pressed knowingly over the right eye. He was looking

steadily at us, and appeared as if he had been doing so for some

time. A diabolical grin, like that of Mephistopheles, was over all

his features--in his carbuncle-like eyes, and in his wide mouth,

where all his teeth seemed to glisten. He had a sallow and

dissipated face, a hooked, sardonic nose, and on his left cheek a

large black mole. A faded green dress-coat, with brass buttons, a

yellow vest, and short inexpressibles of checked stuff, formed his

attire.

My wife was almost fainting, and seemed on the verge of distraction.

"Paquette, my love," I began; but she held up her trembling hands as

if deprecatingly between us, and said in a low, broken, and wailing

voice--

"Do not speak to me--do not touch me. I am not your wife! Oh, my

poor deluded Carl!--oh, my poor heart! Oh, death, come and end this

horror--this mystery!"

Her words, her voice, her whole air and expression, made my blood run

cold with a sudden terror, that her reason had become affected.

"Paquette--dearest Paquette," I said, in a soothing and an imploring

manner, "what do these terrible words mean? That man----"

"Is Monsieur Baptiste Graindorge, my first husband, come back from

the grave to torment me!"

"Impossible--girl, you rave!" said I, in deep distress, as I vaulted

over the window and rushed out upon the road; but the scurvy

eavesdropper was gone, and no trace of him remained. In great grief,

and feeling sorely disturbed by the whole affair, I returned to

Paquette, whom I found crouching on the sofa, crushed by agitation

and despair. She gazed at me lovingly, sorrowfully, and yet as if

fearful that I might approach and touch her.

"Is there not some terrible mistake or misconception in this?" said

I, seeking to gather courage from my own words.

"None--none," she replied. "I recognized too surely his face--the

mole--the odious smile."

"But the man died in Africa--it is impossible; and you are my wife,

Paquette, whom none can take from me," I continued, with excited

utterance, as she permitted me to kiss her: but the poor little pet

was cold as marble, and her tremulous hands played almost fatuously,

yet caressingly, with my hair, while she murmured--

"Oh, Carl--my poor Carl--what _will_ become of us now?"

The whole affair seemed too improbable for realization. I besought

her to take courage--to consider the likeness which had startled her

as a mere fancy--an optical delusion; and, aware that my presence was

imperatively necessary at business in the city, I was compelled to

leave her, and did so not without a sorrowful foreboding.

So strong was the latter emotion, that the closing of the house-door

rang like a knell in my heart. I paused irresolute at the garden

gate, and again on the road; but the jingling bells of the

approaching Sporvei 'bus ended my doubts. I sprang in, and in due

time found myself at my office in the busy Admiralitatstrasse,

opposite the Rath Haus.

Haunted by the strange episode of the morning, I strove vainly to

become absorbed in bills of lading, and so forth, till one o'clock

should toll from the spires--the time for plunging into the crowd of

noisy speculators at the Bourse--and I was just about to set forth,

when a stranger was announced; I looked up, and was face to face with

the horrible Graindorge! He stood before me just as I had seen him

at the garden-rail, with his tall shiny hat, his shabby coat, his

bloated visage with its black mole and malignant smile.

"Your business?" I asked curtly.

"Will be briefly stated, Herr Steinmetz," said he. "So madame fully

recognized me this morning?"

"Or thought she did," said I, after a short interval of silence.

"There was no doubt in the matter, but firm conviction. I did _not_

die in Senegal, the report was false; and so, Herr Steinmetz, I am

here to claim my wife and take her back with me to Lorraine."

"You are a foul impostor!" cried I furiously, yet with a sinking

heart; "and I shall hand you over to the watch."

"Pardon me, but you will do nothing of the kind," replied the other,

with the most exasperating composure; "it will not be pleasant to

have your wife--your _supposed_ wife, I mean--made a source of

speculation to all Hamburg, by any public exposé."

"Oh, my God! my poor Paquette!" I exclaimed involuntarily; "and I

love her so!"

"Milles diables!" grinned the Frenchman; "it is more than I do."

"Wretch! what proof have we that you are Baptiste Graindorge, and

not a cheat--a trickster?"

"The effect produced by my presence--my appearance--on madame, who

dare not deny my identity, which the Gräfine Spitzberger has already

admitted--with great reluctance, I grant you. Well, I am supposed to

be dead. I shall be content to let this supposition remain, and to

quit Hamburg for a consideration."

"Name it," I asked, thankful for the prospect of being rid of his

horrid presence even for a time, that I might consult some legal

friend; and yet, even while I spoke and thought of purchasing his

silence, I knew that Paquette, my adored wife, would be no wife of

mine! It was a horrible dilemma. Graindorge the Lorrainer was rich;

now he seemed to be poor and needy. I knew not what to think; grief

was uppermost in my soul. After a pause he said slowly--

"For six thousand Prussian dollars I shall quit Hamburg."

With a trembling hand, yet without hesitation, I wrote him a cheque

on my banker, Herr Berger in the Gras-keller, for the sum named, and

the snaky eyes of the Frenchman flashed as he clutched the document.

He inserted it in his tattered pocket-book, and carefully buttoned

his shabby green coat over it; then he placed his hat jauntily on one

side of his head, and tapping the crown with his hand, made me a low

ironical bow, and with a pirouette and a malicious smile quitted the

room, saying--

"Adieu, Monsieur Steinmetz--I go; but for _a time_ only."

CHAPTER II.

I saw the whole scheme now. The bankrupt--for such I had no doubt he

was--meant to make his power over Paquette and me a source of future

revenue to himself; and I felt sure that when his last dollar was

spent--by to-morrow, perhaps--he would present himself again with a

fresh demand. Like one in a dream I went to the Bourse; but little

or no business was done there that day, for war rumours were hourly

growing more rife. There were riots in its neighbourhood, too. The

tradesmen were "on strike," and the swords of the watch had been

busy, for no less than seven unarmed men were cut down in the

Adolphsplatz. Then, that evening I heard that a spy, supposed to be

a Frenchman, had been hovering about the northern ramparts, near the

Damthor, and had been seen to count the cannon on the

Holstein-wall--a spy who had escaped alike the watch and the guard of

the Seventy-sixth Regiment, and whom I heard described as a shabby

man in a green coat, with a _mole_ on his cheek!

My heart leaped within me; could this personage and M. Baptiste

Graindorge be one and the same? If so, neither Hamburg nor I was

likely to be troubled by his presence again.

Before my usual hour, I hastened home--home to my pretty little villa

among the rose-trees at Blankenese; but, alas! to find it desolate,

and our servant, Trüey, a faithful young Vierlander, in tears, and

filled with wonder; for her mistress had packed up some clothes, and

leaving all her jewels, even to her wedding-ring, had departed, after

writing a letter for me.

I tore it open, and found it to contain but a few words, to confirm

my terror and fill up the cup of my misery.

"The Gräfine von Spitzberger has been with me. The man we saw is

indeed my husband, M. Graindorge, the story of whose death has been

all a mistake; and he proved _to her_ his identity, by his knowledge

of all our family affairs. Oh, Carl! oh, my poor darling! the real

husband of my heart and my only love! I must leave you--yes--and by

the time you read this, shall be far on the railroad for France.

Graindorge shall never see me more; my father's house or a convent

must be my shelter now. My last hope is, that you will not attempt

to follow me; my last prayer, that God may bless and comfort you."

The lines were written tremulously. I kissed my darling's

wedding-ring, placed it by a ribbon at my neck, and wept bitterly.

Then the room seemed to swim around me; I became senseless, and was

ill in bed for days. Our home was broken now. It was desolate--oh,

so desolate, without my Paquette! She was gone. She had left me for

ever! And every object around seemed to recall her more vividly to

me--her piano, her music, the little ornaments we had bought together

at the Alster Arcade, and the pillow her cheek had rested on. "She

will write to me," thought I; but no letter came. And something of

jealousy began to mingle with the bitterness of my soul. Was she

with Graindorge?

I think I should have gone mad but for the events that occurred so

quickly now, for one week sufficed to change the whole face of

affairs in Hamburg. France had declared war against Prussia. Trade

stood still; silence reigned in our splendid Bourse, usually the most

noisy and busy scene in the world; the Elbe was empty of shipping,

for its buoys and lights were all destroyed. The Prussians, horse,

foot, and artillery, were pouring towards Travemünde, where a landing

of the French was expected. In one day nearly every horse in Hamburg

was seized for military purposes, and the city was ordered to furnish

eighteen thousand infantry for the Landwehr.

Of this force I was one. A strip of paper was left at my office one

day, and the next noon saw me in the barracks near the Damthor-wall,

and before the colonel, an officer of Scottish descent, the Graf von

Hamilton. Then, like thousands of others, my plain clothes were

taken from me, and I received in lieu a spiked helmet of glazed

leather, a blue tunic faced with white, a goat-skin knapsack,

great-coat, and camp-kettle, a needle-gun, bayonet, and sword. We

were all accoutred without delay, and within two hours were at drill,

under a burning sun, in the Heilinghaist-feld, between Hamburg and

Altona. My desk, my office, my home, knew me no more; yet I often

mounted guard near the chambers of our firm in the

Admiralitatstrasse. Paquette and my previous existence seemed all a

dream--a dream that had passed away for ever. And though the gay

streets, the tall spires, the sights and sounds in our

pleasure-loving city were all unchanged, I seemed to have lost my

identity. My former life was completely blotted out.

From the Landwehr, with many others, I was speedily drafted into the

Seventy-sixth Hanoverians, and in three weeks we were ordered to join

the Army of the Rhine. Though I had studied in Berlin, I was not a

Prussian, but a native of the free city of Hamburg. Like many of my

comrades, who were fathers of families, or only sons, torn from their

homes and peaceful occupations, I had no interest in the cruel and

wanton war on which we were about to enter; and more than all, I

loved France, for it was the native land of Paquette Champfleurie.

In the then horror of my mind, the war was certainly somewhat of a

change or relief, and the excitement around drew me from my own

terrible thoughts. I was going towards Lorraine, where even while

fighting against her poor countrymen, I might see my lost one, my

wife--for such I still deemed her, despite the odious Baptiste

Graindorge; and so I fondly and wildly speculated. The idea of being

killed and buried where Paquette might perhaps pass near my grave,

was even soothing to my now morbid soul, for I knew that she had

loved me long before _that man_ came between us with his wealth of

gold napoleons; so she must love me still--Carl, whose heart had

never wandered from her.

But there is something great and inspiring in war and its adjuncts,

after all. I remember that on the day we left our beautiful Hamburg,

when I heard the crash of the brass bands and saw the North German

colours waving in the wind, above the long, long column of glazed

helmets and bright bayonets, as our regiment, with the Forty-seventh

Silesians, the Fifty-third Westphalians, and the Eighty-eighth

Nassauers, defiled through the Damthor, and past the Esplanade

towards the Bahnhof, I became infected by the enthusiasm around me,

and found myself joining in the mad shouts of "Hurrah, Germania!" and

in the old Teutonic song which the advanced guard of Uhlans struck

up, brandishing their lances the while--

"O Tannebaum, O Tannebaum, wie grün sind deine Blatter!"

as we marched for the Rhine, towards which we were forwarded fast by

road and rail.

We were soon face to face with the gallant French, and how fast those

terrible battles followed each other at Weissenburg, Forbach,

Spicheren, and elsewhere, the public prints have already most fully

related. Though I did not seek death any more than others my

comrades, I cared little for life, yet (until one night in October) I

escaped in all three of those bloody conflicts, and many a daily

skirmish, without a wound, though the chassepot balls whistled

thickly round me, and more than once the fire of a mitrailleuse, a

veritable stream of bullets, swept away whole sections by my side. I

have had my uniform riddled with holes, my helmet grazed many times,

and part of my knapsack shot away; yet somehow fate always spared

poor Carl Steinmetz; for he had no enmity in his heart towards the

poor fellows who fell before his needle-gun. At last we rapidly

pushed on, and reduced many fortified places as we advanced to

blockade Metz. Then Lorraine lay around us, and I gazed on the

scenery with emotions peculiarly my own, for I thought of Paquette,

of her animated face and all her pretty ways, and of all she had told

me of her native province, its dense forests where wolves lurked, its

wild mountains, its salt springs and lakes--Lorraine now, as in

centuries long past, a subject for dispute between France and Germany.

The Seventy-sixth, under the Graf von Hamilton, formed part of the

army which, under Prince Frederick Carl, blockaded Metz with such

cruel success; and we had severe work in the wet nights of October,

while forming the _feld-wacht_ in the advanced rifle-pits. Often

when lying there alone, in the damp hole behind a sand-bag or

sap-roller, waiting for a chance shot in the early dawn at some

unfortunate Frenchman, I thought bitterly and sadly of our once happy

home, of Paquette, my lost wife, and wondered where she was _now_, or

if, when she saw the Prussian columns, with all their bright-polished

barrels and spiked helmets shining in the sun, she could dream that

I, Carl Steinmetz, was a unit in that mighty host. Then I would

marvel in my heart whether I, with the spiked helmet and needle-gun,

loaded with accoutrements and spattered with mud, was the same Carl

Steinmetz who, but a few months before, sat daily at his desk in the

Admiralitatstrasse, and had the sweet smiles of Paquette to welcome

him home and listen to his news from the Bourse. Was this military

transformation madness or witchcraft? It was neither, but stern

reality, as an unexpected shot from a hedge about four hundred yards

distant, tore the brass eagle from my helmet and fully informed me.

This was just about daybreak on the morning of the 26th October last,

and when I could see all the village quarters, from Mars-la-Tour to

Mazières, lit up, and all the bivouac fires burning redly on our left

and in the rear.

With a few others I started from the rifle-pits, and we made a dash

at the hedge, which we believed to conceal some of those

Francs-tireurs, whom we had orders to shoot without mercy, though

they were only fighting for home and country. We were on the extreme

flank of the blockading force, and the hedge in question surrounded a

villa which stood somewhat apart from the road to Château Salins.

Led by the Graf's son, a young captain, we rushed forward, and found

it manned by some fifty men of the French line, who had crept out of

Metz intending to desert, for Bazaine permitted them to do so when

provisions began to fail. "A bas les Pru-essiens!" cried their

leader--a tall sub-officer in very tattered uniform--thus

accentuating the word in the excess of his hatred.

"Vorwarts--für Vaterland--hurrah, Germania!" shouted the young Von

Hamilton. A volley that killed ten of our number tore among us, but

we broke through and fell upon them with the bayonet. Clubbing his

chassepot the French sous-officier, with a yell on his lips, beat

down poor Hamilton; then he rushed upon me, and what was my

emotion--what my astonishment, to find myself face to face with

Graindorge--he who had robbed me of Paquette--the same beer-bloated

and scurvy-looking fellow, with the huge black mole, whom I had last

seen in Hamburg! I charged him with my bayonet breast high, but

agitation so bewildered me that he easily eluded my point, and felled

me to the earth with his clubbed rifle. Now came a sense of

confusion, of light flashing from my eyes, the clash of steel, the

_ping_ of passing balls; then darkness seemed to envelop me, and

death to enter my heart as I became senseless.

I remained long thus, for the sun was in the west when full

consciousness returned. The thick leather helmet had saved my head

from fracture, but dried blood plastered all my face, and I found my

right arm broken by a bullet. All the French in the rear of the

hedge had been shot down or bayoneted, and they presented a terrible

spectacle. All were dead save one--the sous-officier, who lay near

me, dying of many bayonet wounds. Our wounded had been removed, but

ten of the Seventy-sixth lay near me stiff and cold. What a scene it

was in that pretty garden, amid the rose-trees, the last flowers of

autumn, and the twittering sparrows, to see all those poor fellows,

made in God's fair image, butchered thus--and for WHAT? My wounds

were sore, my heart was sad and heavy; oh, when was it otherwise now?

Staggering up I turned to the Frenchman, whose half-glazing eyes

regarded me with a fiercely defiant expression, for he doubted not

that in this _guerre à la mort_ his last moment had come. I took off

my battered helmet, and then with a thrill of terror he seemed to

recognize me.

"Carl Steinmetz of Hamburg!" said he, with difficulty.

"You know me then?" I asked grimly.

"Oh, yes--in God's name give me water--I am dying!"

My canteen was empty; but I found some wine in that of a corpse which

lay near. I poured it down his throat and it partially revived him.

"Yes, fellow," said I, "in me you see that Steinmetz who was so happy

till you came and my wife fled; so we know each other, Monsieur

Baptiste Graindorge."

"I am _not_ Baptiste--_he_ is lying quiet in his grave on the shore

of the Senegal river."

"Who, in the name of Heaven, are you?"

"Achille Graindorge--his cousin. I took advantage of our casual but

strong resemblance to impose upon you--and--and get money--when in

Hamburg--acting----"

"As a spy--eh?"

"Yes."

"Has she--has Paquette seen you since?"

"No--for she would at once have detected the cheat."

"And you know not where she is?"

"As I have Heaven soon to answer--no," he gasped out, and sinking

back, shortly after expired, his last breath seeming to issue from

the wounds in his chest. I had no pity for him, but felt a glow of

joy in my heart, as I turned away, and crept--for I was unable to

stand--towards the door of the villa in search of succour, the agony

of my thirst and wounds being so great that I cared little whether

the inmates aided or killed me.

However, the coincidences of this day were not yet over.

The door, on which I struck feebly with my short Prussian sword, was

opened ultimately by an old gentleman, beyond whom I saw a female,

shrinking back in evident terror. I recognized M. de Champfleurie,

my father-in-law; but being now unable to speak, I could only point

to my parched lips and powerless arm, as I sank at his feet and

fainted.

When I recovered, my uniform was open, my accoutrements were off; I

was lying upon a sofa with my aching head pillowed softly--on

what?--The tender bosom of Paquette, my darling little wife; for she

had recognized me, though disguised alike by dress and blood, and now

her tears were falling on my weather-beaten face.

It chanced that, flying from place to place in Lorraine, before our

advancing troops, and having failed to reach Metz, they had taken

shelter in that abandoned villa; and thus happily I could reveal the

secret of our separation before the burial party bore away the body

of Achille Graindorge, who had actually been quartered at Senegal

when his cousin Baptiste died there.

My story is told. On the following day Metz capitulated, and poor M.

Champfleurie danced with rage on learning that Bazaine had

surrendered with two other Marshals of the Empire, 173,000 prisoners

and 20,000 sick, wounded, and starving men. My fighting days were

over now; Paquette was restored to me, and happiness was again before

us.

For their kindness in succouring me, the Graf von Hamilton gave M. de

Champfleurie and his daughter a pass to the rear, and we speedily

availed ourselves of it, for I was discharged with a shattered arm;

and now I write these lines, again in pleasant Blankenese, our dear

home, with the broad Elbe shining blue beneath our windows, and the

autumn leaves falling fast from the thick woods that cover all its

green and beautiful shore.

APPARITIONS AND WONDERS.

CHAPTER I.

LEAVES FROM OLD LONDON LIFE: 1664-1705.

The Scottish newspaper recorded, not long ago, some instances of

mirages in the Firth of Forth exactly like the freaks of the Fata

Morgana in the Straits of Messina, and on three distinct occasions

the Bass Rock has assumed, to the eyes of the crowds upon the sands

of Dunbar, the form of a giant sugar-loaf crowned by battlements,

while the island of May seemed broken into several portions, which

appeared to be perforated by caverns where none in fact exist.

Such optical delusions have been common at all times in certain

states of the atmosphere, and science finds a ready solution for

them; but in the days of our forefathers, they were deemed the sure

precursors of dire calamities, invasion, or pestilence.

The years shortly before and after the beginning of the last century

seem to have been singularly fruitful in the marvellous; and the most

superstitious Celtic peasant in the Scottish glens or the wilds of

Connemara would not have believed in more startling events than those

which are chronicled in the occasional broadsides, and were hawked

about the streets of London by the flying stationers of those days.

To take a few of these at random: we find that all London was excited

by strange news from Goeree, in Holland, where, on the evening of the

14th of August, 1664, there was seen by many spectators an apparition

of two fleets upon the ocean; these, after seeming to engage in close

battle for one hour and a half (the smoke of the noiseless cannon

rolling from their sides), vanished, as if shown from a

magic-lantern. Then appeared in the air two lions, or the figures

thereof, which fought three times with great fury, till there came a

third of greater size, which destroyed them both. Immediately after

this, there came slowly athwart the sky, as represented in the

woodcut which surmounted this veracious broadsheet, the giant figure

of a crowned king. This form was seen so plainly, that the buttons

on his dress could be distinguished by the awe-stricken crowd

assembled on the sands. Next morning the same apparition was seen

again; and all the ocean was as red as blood. "And this happening at

this juncture of time," concludes the narrator, "begets some strange

apprehensions; for that, about six months before Van Tromp was slain

in war with England, there was seen near the same place an apparition

of ships in the air fighting with each other."*

* London: printed by Thomas Leach, Shoe Lane, 1664.

Sixteen years later, another broadsheet announced to the metropolis,

that the forms of ships and men also had been seen on the road near

Abington, on the 26th of August, 1680, "of the truth whereof you may

be fully satisfied at the Sarazen's Head Inn, Carter Lane." It would

seem that John Nibb, "a very sober fellow," the carrier of

Cirencester, with five passengers in his waggon, all proceeding to

London about a quarter of an hour after sunrise, were horrified to

perceive at the far horizon, the giant figure of a man in a black

habit, and armed with a broadsword, towering into the sky. Like the

spectre of the Brocken, this faded away; but to add to the

bewilderment of Nibb and his companions, it was replaced by "about a

hundred ships of several bigness and various shapes." Then rose a

great hill covered with little villages, and before it spread a

plain, on which rode thirty horsemen, armed with carbine and pistol.

The same document records that, on the 12th of the subsequent

September, a naval engagement was seen in the air, near Porsnet, in

Monmouthshire, between two fleets, one of which came from the

northern quarter of the sky, the other from the south. A great ship

fired first, "and after her, the rest discharged their vollies in

order, so that great flashings of fire, and even smoak was visible,

and noises in the ayr as of great guns." Then an army of phantoms

engaged in "a square medow" near Porsnet, closing in with sword and

pistol, and the cries of the wounded and dying were heard. On the

27th of December, Ottery, near Exeter, had a visitation of the same

kind, when at five in the evening two armies fought in the air till

six o'clock. "This was seen by a reverend minister and several

others to their great amazement." On the 2nd of the same month, the

people in Shropshire were, according to another sheet, sorely

perplexed by the sudden appearance of two suns in the firmament, and

it was duly remembered, that "such a sign was seen before the death

of that tempestuous firebrand of Rome here in England, Thomas

Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury, and when Queen Mary began her

bloody reign."

Then follow the death of the three lions in the Tower, and a vast

enumeration of fiery darts, bullets, storms of hail, and floods,

making up that which the writer hopes will prove "a word in season to

a sinking kingdom."*

* London: Printed for J. B., Anno Domini 1680; and P. Brooksly,

Golden Ball, near the Hospital Gate, 1681.

Nor were ghosts wanting at this time, of a political nature, too;

for, in the same year, there was hawked in London an account of an

apparition which appeared three several times to Elizabeth Freeman,

thirty-one years of age, on each occasion delivering a message to his

sacred majesty King Charles the Second. As certified before Sir

Joseph Jorden, knight, and Richard Lee, D.D., rector of Hatfield, her

story was as follows, and was, no doubt, a political trick:

On the night of the 24th of January, 1680, she was sitting at her

mother's fire-side, with a child on her knee, when a solemn voice

behind her said, "Sweetheart!" and, on turning, she was startled to

perceive a veiled woman all in white, whose face was concealed, and

whose hand--a pale and ghastly one--rested on the back of her chair.

"The 15th day of May is appointed for the royal blood to be

poisoned," said the figure. "Be not afraid, for I am only sent to

tell thee," it added, and straightway vanished.

On Tuesday, the 25th of January, the same figure met her at the house

door, and asked Elizabeth if she "remembered the message," but the

woman, instead of replying, exclaimed: "In the name of the Father,

Son, and Holy Ghost, what art thou?" Upon this the figure assumed "a

very glorious shape," and saying, "Tell King Charles, from me, not to

remove his parliament, but stand to his council," vanished as before.

Next evening the veiled figure appeared again, when Elizabeth was

with her mother, who, on beholding her daughter's manifest terror,

said: "Dost thou see anything?" She was then warned to retire, after

which the spectre said, sternly: "Do your message." "I shall, if God

enable me," replied Elizabeth. After this the spectre appeared but

once again, and remained silent. "This was taken from the maid's own

mouth by me, Richard Wilkinson, schoolmaster in the said town of

Hatfield."*

* London: Printed for J. B., Anno Domini 1680; and P. Brooksly,

Golden Ball, near the Hospital Gate, 1681.

In 1683, as a variety, London was treated to an account of a dreadful

earthquake in Oxfordshire, where the houses were rocked like ships or

cradles, while tables, stools, and chests "rowled to and fro with the

violence of the Shog."*

* Printed for R. Baldwin, at the Old Bailey.

The year 1687 brought "strange and wonderful news from Cornwall,

being an account of a miraculous accident which happened near the

town of Bodmyn, at a place called Park. Printed by J. Wallis, White

Fryars Gate--next Fleet St.--near the Joyners Shop."

From this it would appear that on Sunday, the 8th of May, Jacob

Mutton, whose relations were of good repute, and who was servant to

William Hicks, rector of Cordingham (at a house he had near the old

parish church of Eglashayle, called Park), heard, on going into his

chamber about eight o'clock in the evening, a hollow voice cry, "So

hoe! so hoe! so hoe!" This drew him to the window of the next room,

from whence, to the terror of a lad who shared his bed, he

disappeared, and could nowhere be found.

According to his own narrative, he had no sooner laid a hand upon an

iron bar of the window, which was seventeen feet from the ground,

than the whole grating fell into the yard below, all save the bar

which he had grasped. This bar was discovered in his hand next

morning, as he lay asleep in a narrow lane beyond the little town of

Stratton, among the hills, thirty miles distant from Park. There he

was wakened by the earliest goers to Stratton fair, who sent him

home, sorely bewildered, by the way of Camelford. "On Tuesday he

returned to his master's estate, without any hurt, but very

melancholy, saying 'that a tall man bore him company all the journey,

over hedges and brakes, yet without weariness.'" What became of this

mysterious man he knew not, neither had he any memory of how the iron

bar came to be in his hand. "To conclude, the young man who is the

occasion of this wonderful relation, was never before this accident

accounted any ways inclinable to sadness, but, on the contrary, was

esteemed an airy, brisk, and honest young fellow."

But Mutton's adventure was a joke when compared with that of Mr.

Jacob Seeley, of Exeter, as he related it to the judges on the

western circuit, when, on the 22nd of September, 1690, he was beset

by a veritable crowd of dreadful spectres. He took horse for

Taunton, in Somersetshire, by the Hinton Cliff road, on which he had

to pass a solitary place, known as the Black Down. Prior to this, he

halted at a town called Cleston, where the coach and waggons usually

tarried, and there he had some roast beef, with a tankard of beer and

a noggin of brandy, in company with a stranger, who looked like a

farmer, and who rode by his side for three miles, till they reached

the Black Down, when he suddenly vanished into the earth or air, to

the great perplexity of Mr. Jacob Seeley. This emotion was rather

increased when he found himself surrounded by from one to two hundred

spectres, attired as judges, magistrates, and peasantry, the latter

armed with pikes; but, gathering courage, he hewed at them with his

sword, though they threw over his head something like a fishing-net,

in which they retained him from nine at night till four next morning.

He thrust at the shadows with his rapier, but he felt nothing, till

he saw one "was cut and had four of his fingers hanging by the skin,"

and then he found blood upon his sword. After this, ten spectre

funerals passed; then two dead bodies were dragged near him by the

hair of the head; and other horrors succeeded, till the spell broke

at cock-crow.

It was now remembered that the house wherein Mr. Seeley had his beef,

beer, and brandy had been kept by one of Monmouth's men (the spectre

farmer, probably), who had been hung on his own sign-post, and the

piece of ground where the net confined the traveller, was a place

where maay of the hapless duke's adherents had been executed and

interred. Hence it was named the Black Down, according to the sheet

before us, which was "Printed for T. M., London, 2nd Oct., 1690."

A sheet circulated at the close of the preceding year warns "all

hypocrites and atheists to beware in time," as there had been a

dreadful tempest of thunder and lightning in Hants, at Alton, where

the atmosphere became so obscure that the electric flashes alone

lighted the church during the service, in which two balls of fire

passed through its eastern wall, another tore the steeple to pieces,

broke the clock to shreds, and bore away the weathercock. The

narrator adds, that all Friesland was under water, and that a flood

in the Tiber had swept away a portion of the Castle of St. Angelo.

As another warning, London was visited, in 1689, by a tempest, which

uprooted sixty-five trees in St. James's Park and Moorfields, blew

down the vane of St. Michael's Church in Cornhill, and innumerable

chimneys, and injured many well-built houses, and part of the

Armourers' Hall in Coleman Street. Several persons were killed in

Gravel Lane and Shoreditch; sixty empty boats were dashed to pieces

against the bridge; three Gravesend barges full of people were cast

away, and the Crown man-of-war was stranded at Woolwich.*

* Printed for W. F., Bishopgate Without.

But the warning seems to have been in vain, for London, in 1692, was

treated to an earthquake, which--as another sheet records--spread

terror and astonishment about the Royal Exchange, all along Cornhill,

in Lothbury, and elsewhere, on the 8th of September. All things on

shelves were cast down, and furniture was tossed from wall to wall;

the Spitalfields weavers had to seek shelter in flight, and all their

looms were destroyed; these and other calamities were, it was

alleged, "occasioned by the sins of the nation," and to avert such

prodigies, the prayers of all good men were invoked.*

* J. Gerard, Cornhill, 1692.

Two years later saw another marvel, when "the dumb maid of Wapping,"

Sarah Bowers, recovered her power of speech through the prayers of

Messrs. Russell and Veil, "two pious divines," who exorcised and

expelled the evil spirit which possessed her; and in 1696 the

metropolis was treated to the "detection of a popish cheat"

concerning two boys who conversed with the devil, though none seemed

to doubt the Protestant miracle.

The close of the century 1700 saw "the dark and hellish powers of

witchcraft exercised upon the Reverend Mr. Wood, minister of Bodmyn,"

on whom a spell was cast by a mysterious paper, or written document,

which was given to him by a man and woman on horseback (the latter

probably seated on a pillion), after which he became strangely

disordered, and wandered about in fields, meadows, woods, and lonely

places, drenched the while with copious perspirations; however, "the

spell was ultimately found in his doublet, and on the burning

thereof, Mr. Wood was perfectly restored," and wrote to his uncle an

account of the affair, which appeared in a broadsheet published at

Exeter, by Darker and Farley, 1700.

Rosemary Lane was the scene of another wonder, when a notorious witch

was found in a garret there, and carried before Justice Bateman, in

Well Close, on the 23rd July, 1704, and committed to Clerkenwell

Prison. Her neighbour's children, through her alleged diabolical

power, vomited pins, and were terrified by apparitions of enormous

cats; by uttering one word she turned the entire contents of a large

shop topsy-turvy. She was judicially tossed into the river from a

ducking-stool, "but, like a bladder when put under water, she popped

up again, for this witch swam like a cork." This was an indisputable

sign of guilt; and in her rage or terror she smote a young man on the

arm, where the mark of her hand remained "as black as coal;" he died

soon after in agony, and was buried in St. Sepulchre's churchyard.*

Of the woman's ultimate fate we know nothing.

* H. Hills, in the Blackfriars, near the waterside.

In 1705, London was excited by a new affair: "The female ghost and

wonderful discovery of an iron chest of money;" a rare example of the

gullibility of people in the days of the good Queen Anne.

A certain Madam Maybel, who had several houses in Rosemary Lane, lost

them by unlucky suits and unjust decrees of the law: for a time they

were tenantless and fell to decay and ruin. For several weeks, nay

months past (continues the broadsheet), a strange apparition appeared

nightly to a Mrs. Harvey and her sister, near relations of the late

Madam Maybel, announcing that an iron chest filled with treasure lay

in a certain part of one of the old houses in the lane. On their

neglecting to heed the vision, the ghost became more importunate, and

proceeded to threaten Mrs. Harvey, "that if she did not cause it to

be digged up in a certain time (naming it) she should be torn to

pieces." On this the terrified gentlewoman sought the counsel of a

minister, who advised her to "demand in the name of the Holy Trinity

how the said treasure should be disposed of."

Next night she questioned the spectre, and it replied:

"Fear nothing; but take the whole four thousand pounds into your own

possession, and when you have paid twenty pounds of it to one Sarah

Goodwin, of Tower Hill, the rest is your own; and be sure you dig it

up on the night of Thursday, the 7th December!"

Accordingly men were set to work, and certainly a great iron chest

"was found under an old wall in the very place which the spirit had

described."

One of the diggers, John Fishpool, a private of the Guards, "has been

under examination about it, and 'tis thought that the gentleman who

owns the ground will claim the treasure as his right, and 'tis

thought there will be a suit of law commenced on it." Many persons

crowded to see the hole from whence the chest had been exhumed in

Rosemary Lane, and, by a date upon the lid, it would seem to have

been made or concealed in the ninth year of the reign of Henry the

Eighth.*

* London: printed for John Green, near the Exchange, 1705.

The dreadful effects of going to conjurers next occupied the mind of

the public.

Mr. Rowland Rushway, a gentleman of good reputation, having lost

money and plate to a considerable amount, Hester, his wife, took God

to witness, "that if all the cunning men in London could tell, she

should discover the thief, though it cost her ten pounds!"

With this view she repaired to the house of a judicial astrologer in

Moorfields, about noon, when the day was one of great serenity and

beauty. After some preliminary mummery or trickery, the wizard

placed before her a large mirror, wherein she saw gradually appear

certain indistinct things, which ultimately assumed "the full

proportion of one man and two women."

"These are the persons who stole your property," said the astrologer;

"do you know them?"

"No," she replied.

"Then," quoth he, "you will never have your goods again."

She paid him and retired, but had not gone three roods from the house

when the air became darkened, the serene sky was suddenly overcast,

and there swept through the streets a dreadful tempest of wind and

rain, done, as she alleged, "by this cunning man, Satan's agent, with

diabolical black art," forcing her to take shelter in an ale-house to

escape its fury. Many chairmen and market folks were all cognizant

of this storm, which was confined to the vicinity of the ale-house,

and a portion of the adjacent river, where many boats were cast away;

and the skirt of it would seem to have visited Gray's Inn Walk, where

three stately trees were uprooted.