schoolmistress. The sword fell on them ruthlessly,
one sickened in prison, where fever prevailed,
and died there. Another poor girl,
pleading for mercy to Jefferies, was handed
over by him to the jailer, and died of despair
in a few hours. The Tory member for Bridgewater
undertook to exact seven thousand
pounds as the ransom of these children. That
sum was to be the booty of the maids of honour,
for even James's queen was at this time sharing
in the confiscations and the sale of slaves to
the plantations. The ransoms thus obtained
at this time were very large—one gentleman
paid Jefferies fifteen thousand pounds.
Roger Hoare, a merchant of Bridgewater,
disbursed one thousand pounds. Hundreds
of poor Somersetshire men were sent as slaves
for ten years to the West Indies. The voyage
out was terrible indeed. Wounded rebels,
never visited by surgeons since Sedgemoor,
were thrown in heaps into the holds of small
cranky vessels. The sharks soon had half of
them. They could neither stand up nor sleep.
Rotten biscuit and foul water were given them
scantily and at long intervals. They were
not suffered to go on deck for weeks together,
and armed men guarded the hatchway.
Every hold was a seething mass of groaning
misery. Death alone showed mercy to those
unhappy men. In one vessel alone, twenty-
two convicts out of ninety-nine died before
the vessel reached Jamaica, though after an
unusually quick journey.

After the assizes, as Fox says, all the west
became an Aceldama, nothing was to be seen
in it but forsaken walls, dismal gibbets, and
ghastly carcases. At last Jefferies proposed
"to jog homewards" after his campaign,
having transported three hundred and eighty-
five persons and hung ninety-seven. Then
came the cruel confiscations and greedy divisions
of the property of those dead men whose
heads scowled over the church porches, or
whose bodies hung beside the park gates. The
Bloody Assize will never be forgotten in
Taunton.

FATAL ZERO.

A DIARY KEPT AT HOMBURG: A SHORT SERIAL STORY.

CHAPTER XIV.

WEDNESDAY.—Arose after one of those
weary nights with heart very sore, having
awakened in great trouble. A sense as if a
great blow had fallen on me: and a short
way off, on the table, I could see the fatal
silver pile. Yet I looked at it, not with
disgust, but with a strange interest, much
as a woman does on a faithless admirer
whom she still loves. There they were
piled up in that almost picturesque disorder
into which piles of money fall, and then
came the unworthy consolation, of which I
feel ashamed, and yet which has force,
namely, "that it turned out well on the
whole," and there was no harm done. And
yet had there been loss there should not
have been a bit of difference. . . . Yes, it
shall go to the poor—the Lutheran and the
Catholic poor, in equal shares, and I must
add a couple of pieces to make it round,
and as a little penalty. Somehow these
early grey hours of the morning do make
one feel so wretched. It is the only drawback
of early rising. Have something on
your mind, rise betimes, and walk a little
through a lonely town, and you will see
your trouble laid in the blackest colours.
After breakfast, towards noon, it fades out.
Rising for a journey, at, say, five, makes me
utterly miserable and low spirited. Now
I must train myself a little. Another man
would let this prey on him: I shall put it
away from me: it is no use, it is unmanly,
whining over anything that cannot be
recalled. Why, when we see the Bishop
of——'s nieces "putting down," the Bishop
himself reading the Times just outside, it
cannot be the unpardonable sin exactly.

See how a little fall of this sort brings its
own inconveniences. The dean, who has
not noticed me for a long time, stopped me
in the walk.

"Fie! fie!" he said. "Is this the end
of the good thoughts and pious sentiments?
Ah! Did I not warn you, my friend?"

Now, my dear Dora and darling, you see
I set all this down as a little lesson. And
I am not ashamed of it. I answered him
without anger:

"I deserve your reproof, Mr. Dean. We
are not all perfect, and you have often, I
dare say, repeated in the pulpit a number
of times, A just man will fall. Over such
a fall, however, there is no ground for
congratulation, or, as the vulgar would say,
chuckling." On that I turned away.

Receive a telegram from the merchant, at
Frankfort, saying he will be at his house at
four, and sign the papers, if I bring them
and an English witness. I am not sorry
to hear this, for it was hanging over me
that I might be kept here for an immense
time. I should be glad to be home, my
health is almost restored, and I have no
doubt an easy journey, with a little lingering
at some of the noble and curious towns
on the road, would be more profitable than
the waters. I feel a "flurry" beginning in
this place. It is living in a heated ballroom;
but who shall I get as a witness?
I know no one. Grainger came in as I
was writing. The very man. And yet I
don't like quite admitting him to that
confidence. It is too familiar; but as I shall