He was thus one day cast heedlessly on his bed, when the door of his cell opened, and the jailer desired him to follow. St Maurice rose and obeyed, and a few minutes brought him to a larger chamber, which he was bade to enter. At the other side of the room there stood a middlesized man, habited in a plain suit of rusty black velvet, with strong marked aquiline features, and grey hair and beard. His eye was keen and quick, his forehead broad and high, and there was something peculiar in the firm rooted attitude with which he stood, bending his eyes upon the open door. Even had St Maurice never seen him before, he could never have doubted that he was a King.

"Come hither, Sir Count," said Henry IV. abruptly, " and tell me all you know of this treason of the Duke de Biron. Tell me all, tell me true, and, by my faith, you shall have full pardon."

"Sire," replied St Maurice," when my father died in the service of your majesty, and my mother left this world a few days after my birth, I was left a penniless orphan, for all our fortunes had been lost in your royal cause- Henry knitted his brow-" I was a beggar," continued St Maurice," and the Duke de Biron took pity on me-brought me upled me to the field-protected-provided for me"

"Hold! hold! hold!" cried the King. "Say no more! say no more -get you gone-yet stay-I seek not, sir, this unhappy man's death. Justice shall be done, but no more than justice-not severity. If you know any thing which can mitigate his offence, speak it boldly, and the King will thank you; any thing that may render his crime less black."

I know little, Sire, of the Marshal's late conduct," replied the Count," for in truth I have been less in his confidence than formerly; but this I know, and do believe, that he is one of those men to speak, aye, and to write, many base things in a hasty and a passionate mood, that he would be the last on earth to act."

Henry mused for a moment in silence, and then, without any farther observation, ordered St Maurice back again to his cell.

Another long week passed, and day after day grew more weary and horrible than the last. Each hour, each moment, added to anxiety, uncertainty, and expectation, already beyond endurance. The rising and the setting of the sun, the heavy passing away of the long and tardy minutes, the wide vague infinity through which apprehension and care had leave to roam, overwhelmed his mind, and shook even his corporeal strength. Each noise, each sound, made him start; and the very opening of his cell door brought with it some quick indistinct fear. It is said that those long accustomed to solitary confinement, get inured to the dead, blank vacancy of existence without action; lose hope, and fear, and thought, and care; and exist, but hardly can be said to live. But St Maurice had not yet had time to let one of the fresh pangs of his situation become lulled by the opiate of custom, and every moment of its endurance was a moment of new agony. He heard no tidings, he received no comfort, no hope, from any one. The very joys that he had known, and the love he valued most, became a torture to him; his own heart was a burden, and while the future was all dark and lowering, the past was full of regret, and prolific of apprehension.

At length one evening an unusual number of footsteps traversing the court below, called him from the bed on which he usually cast himself in prostrate despondency, and he beheld, from the small window of his cell, a number of people gathered together in the open space, of a quality which shewed at once that some great and formal act was about to take place within the walls of the prison. The Chancellor was there, and various judges and officers of the Parliament, and a number of the municipal body of Paris were on the spot, with clerks and sergeants, and the two chief prévôts. A small body of soldiers also guarded the different doors of the court, and on the side next to the garden was raised a scaffold, about five feet above the ground, at the foot of which a strong man in black stood, with two others of an inferior grade, examining the edge of a large heavy sword,

which was suddenly put into the sheath on the sound of some voices at the other side of the court.

At that moment the Duke de Biron was brought in through the opposite door, accompanied by several of the officers of the prison. His dark swarthy countenance was not a shade paler than usual, and, with his hat and plume upon his head, he walked boldly forward with an erect and daring carriage; but as his eye first fell upon the scaffold, he paused a single instant, exclaiming, "Ha!" He then strode forward again, as if he had been marching against an enemy, and came to the foot of the ladder which led to the scaffold. There he paused and looked round him with furious and impatient eyes, as if he would fain have vented the wrath that was in his heart upon some of those around him.

"Sir Chancellor ! Sir Chancellor!" he cried, "you have condemned a man more innocent than many you have suffered to escape, and that upon the evidence of two perjured villains. You have done injustice, sir, which you could have prevented, and you shall answer for it before God.-Yes, sir, before him to whose presence I summon you before a year pass over." Then turning to the commandant, he added, "Ah, Monsieur de Roissy, Monsieur de Roissy! had your father been alive, he would have aided me to quit this place. Fie! fie! is this a fate for one who has served his country as I have?"

My lord duke," said the Chancellor, "you have heard the sentence of your peers, and it must now be executed. The King commands me to demand the insignia of that noble order to which you once belonged."

There, sir, take it!" cried the duke, giving him his star and riband. "Tell the king, that, though he treat me thus, I have never broken one statute of the order to which my deeds in his service raised me.Pshaw!" he continued, turning from the priests, who now pressed him to confess" I make my confession All my words are my confession.-Still," he added, as his eye rested for a moment on the scaffold and all the awful preparation for his fate, "still I may as well think a while of where I am going."

aloud.

He then spoke fora few minutes

with the priest who stood by his side His countenance grew calmer and graver; and after having received absolution and the sacrament, he looked for a brief space up towards the sky, then knelt down before the scaffold, and prayed for some time, while a dead silence was maintained around-you might have heard a feather fall. As he still knelt, the sun broke out, and shone calmly and sweetly over the whole array of death, while a bird in the neighbouring garden, wakened by the sunshine and the deep stillness, broke into a clear, shrill, joyful song, with the most painful music that ever struck the ear.

The prisoner started on his feet, and, after looking round for an instant, mounted the scaffold with the same bold step wherewith he had approached it. His eyes, however, still had in them that sort of wild, ferocious gleam, which they had exhibited ever since his arrest; and though he seemed to strive for calmness, and displayed not a touch of fear, yet there was an angry spirit in his tone as he addressed those around him. "I have wronged the King," he said sharply, "I have wronged the King. Tis better to acknowledge it. But that I ever sought his life, is a lie and perjury. Had I listened to evil counsel, he would have been dead ten years ago. Ah! my old friends and fellow-soldiers," he added, turning to the guards, why will none of you fire your piece into my heart, instead of leaving me to the vile hands of this common butcher." And he pointed to the executioner. "Touch me not," he continued, seeing the other approach him with a handkerchief to bind his eyes-"Touch me not with those hellish fingers, or, by heavens, I will tear you limb from limb! Give me the handkerchief."

He then cast his hat away from him, and bound his own eyes-knelt -prayed again for a moment-rose suddenly up as the executioner was about to draw the sword-withdrew the covering from his sight-gazed wildly round him for an instant, and beckoned one of the officers to tie up his long hair under the handkerchief. This was immediately done, and his eyes being covered, he call"Haste! haste!"-" Repeat the In manus, my lord," said the

ed out,

executioner, taking the heavy sword, which had been hitherto concealed by the attendants.

Biron began to repeat the psalm of the dying-the blade glittered in the air-swayed round the head of the executioner; and before the eye could trace the blow which ended the earthly career of the unfortunate but guilty soldier, his head was severed at once from his body, and Biron was no more.

A feeling of intense and painful interest had kept St Maurice at the window till the moment that the unhappy soldier covered his own eyes with the handkerchief; but then a sensation of giddy sickness forced him away, and he cast himself down once more, with bitterer feelings than ever at his heart. The world seemed all a hell of cares and sorrows, and he could have died that moment with hardly a regret. After he had lain there for near two hours, he once more rose, and approached the window. The crowd were all gone, but the dark scaffold still remained, and the young soldier drew back again, saying to himself, "Who next? who next?" He lay down and tried to sleep, but his throbbing temples, and his heated blood, rendered the effort vain. Strange wild images rose up before his eyes. Fiends and foul shapes were grinning at him in the air. Fire seemed circling through his veins, and burning his heart; he talked, with no one to hear ―he raved―he struggled-and then came a long term of perfect forgetfulness, at the end of which he woke as from a profound sleep.

He was weak as a child, and his ideas of the past were but faint and confused. The first thing, however, that returned to memory was the image of his cell, and he cast his heavy eyes around, in search of the bolts, and bars, and grated windows; but no such things were near. He was in a small but handsome room, with the open lattice admitting the breath of many flowers, and by his side sat an old and reverend dame, whom he had never seen before. A few

faint but coherent words, and the light of intelligence re-awakened in his eye, shewed the nurse, for such she was, that the fever had left him, and going out of the chamber, she returned with a soldier-like man, whom St Maurice at once remembered as the old Count de Belin, who had arrested him at Bourg. Many words of comfort and solace were spoken by the old soldier, but St Maurice was forbidden to utter a word, or ask a question for several days. A physician, too, with a grave and solemn face, visited him twice each day, and gave manifold cautions and warnings as to his treatment, which the young gentleman began soon to think unnecessary, as the firm calm pulse of health grew fuller and fuller in his frame. At length one day, as he lay somewhat weary of restraint, the door opened, and Henry IV. himself stood by his bed-side. "Now, faith, my good young Count," said the Monarch, " I had a hearty mind to keep you to silence and thin bouillon for some days longer, to punish certain rash words spoken in the Bastile, casting a stigma upon royal gratitude for leaving faithful friends, who had lost all in our behalf, to poverty and want. But I have lately heard all your story, and more of it than you thought I ever would hear; and therefore, though I shall take care that there be no more reproaches against my gratitude, as a punishment for your crimes, I shall sell you as a slave for ever. Come hither, sweet taskmaster," he added, raising his voice, "and be sure you do all that woman can-and that is no small power-to tease this youth through all his life to come."

As the King spoke, the flutter of a woman's robe-the bright, dear eyes-the sweet, all-graceful form,

the bland, glad smile of her he loved, burst upon the young soldier's sight; and she, forgetting fear, timidity, the presence of royalty-all, all but love, sprung forward at once, and bedewed his bosom with her happy tears.

handsome in person, and a perfect horseman, usually accompanied us on a spirited Arabian. I shall not say, when, in order to shew his seat, he made the animal rear in the most terrific manner, how certain tremors ran through my heart, as I sat in momentary expectation that the charger, in its descent, would put its iron foot through the carriage window, and demolish my unfortunate head. I remarked, that during these displays, the lovely cheek of Lady Annabella never underwent the slightest change; and I confess, that without allowing myself to enquire into the cause, I rejoiced in perceiving her indifference. I shall not trouble you with lengthened details of the progress of my affection. You will imagine for yourself the effects which beauty and artless condescension naturally produced; and at the end of a fortnight, I was madly, miserably in love.

In the meantime, my favour with the Marquis continued undiminished. The opinion he first entertained of me luckily made him blind to any little appearances of so unheroical a feeling as fright; and the respect with which I treated so choleric and unrivalled a shot, was attributed to the deference I felt myself called upon to pay to his experience and fame. The hospitable orgies after dinner continued as immoderately as ever, and to me the most provoking part of the Marquis's peculiarity was, that no quantity of wine, however large, had the slightest effect upon his brain. Hour after hour, bottle after bottle, passed away-aid-de-camp after aid-de-camp dropt peacefully under the table, and still his lordship sat with his head as clear, and his eye as steady as ever, relating to us -those of us who could listen-the military and bacchanalian achieve ments of his youth, and ever and anon reminding us of our neglect, if the bottle by any chance hesitated for a moment in its rapid unvarying round. After a succession of these parties had accustomed us to each other, he addressed me one evening in the most friendly and confidential manner. "Pumpkin, I have a proposal to make to you." I bowed, and waited in expectation. "You see," he continued,- "D-me,Jack Hardy, are you going to keep the

claret all night?—my aids-de-camp have a merry life-a very merry life! -Help yourself, Pumpkin-but somehow or other, I can't account for it at all-it is a very short one. About five months, I think, is the average.Burton, how long has Pilpay been on the staff?"

"Three months, my lord," said Burton," and two days." "Is he going soon?" "Not very, my lord. He'll be good for another fortnight. He'll see out the present case of liqueurs; but that's all."

"I feared as much: his hand has been unsteady in the morning since our week with the Enniskillens."

His lordship paused for a little, and I was in hopes the conversation was at an end; but he turned to me, and said, with the kindest air in the world," There will be a vacancy, Captain Pumpkin, in my staff in the course of ten days or a fortnight. I fear by that time Pilpay's last glass will be drained, and I need not tell you how I shall be delighted if you will supply his place."

"Is Captain Pilpay, then, my lord, about to exchange?"

"Aye," said his lordship," this world for a better, I hope-He was always a poor drinker-Will you pass the wine?-something went wrong with him, and he sunk from four bottles a-night to a paltry couple, so we can scarcely expect him to recover. You will consider my proposal, and let me have your answer to-morrow. In the meantime, fill a bumper; for Burton, I see, is waiting for the wine."-It was a deathblow to my happiness! I looked at his lordship, who was smiling with the most friendly and benignant expression, as if he had been an assassin. What! after I had escaped the horrors of an engagement, was I to be murdered by a lingering death of three months and two days, under the pretence of hospitality and kindness? Better, far better, if I had died at the first view of the enemy; and, alas! I found it equally dangerous to decline the intended honour. There was no saying in what light his lordship might view my refusal. Tormented by these thoughts, the conversation around me passed unnoticed. I only saw before me a collection of murderers, and considered