bluff face, and his clear good-natured guileless
eyes, refuted the suspicion.

"Nonsense, be quiet, major; that's the way
you always make a journey disagreeable," said
his wife, arranging herself for sleep. Then
Levison began talking about his early life, and
how, in George the Fourth's time, he was
travelling for a cravat house in Bond-street. He
grew eloquent in favour of the old costume.

"Low Radical fellows," he said, "run down
the first gentleman in Europe, as he was justly
called. I respect his memory. He was a wit,
and the friend of wits; he was lavishly generous,
and disdained poor pitiful economy. He
dressed well, sir; he looked well, sir; he was
a gentleman of perfect manners. Sir, this is a
slovenly and shabby age. When I was young, no
gentleman ever travelled without at least two
dozen cravats, four whalebone stiffeners, and an
iron to smooth the tie, and produce a thin equal
edge to the muslin. There were no less, sir, than
eighteen modes of putting on the cravat; there
was the cravate à la Diane, the cravate à
l'Anglaise, the cravate au næud Gordien, the
cravate——"

The train jolted, moved on, slackened,
stopped.

The major thrust his head out of window,
and shouted to a passing guard:

"Where are we?"

"Twenty miles from Lyons—Fort Rouge,
monsieur."

"What is the matter? Anything the matter?"

An English voice answered from the next
window:

"A wheel broken, they tell us. We shall
have to wait two hours, and transfer the luggage."

"Good Heaven!" I could not help exclaiming.

Levison put his head out of window. "It is
but too true," he said, drawing it in again;
"two hours' delay at least, the man says.
Tiresome, very—but such things will happen on
the road; take it coolly. We'll have some
coffee and another rubber. We must each look
to our own luggage; or, if Mr. Blamyre goes in
and orders supper, I'll see to it all. But, good
gracious, what is that shining out there by the
station lamps? Hei, monsieur!" (to a passing
gendarme whom the major had hailed), "what
is going on at the station?"

"Monsieur," said the gendarme, saluting,
"those are soldiers of the First Chasseurs;
they happened to be at the station on their
way to Châlons; the station-master has sent
them to surround the luggage-van, and see to
the transfer of the baggage. No passenger is
to go near it, as there are government stores of
value in the train."

Levison spat on the ground and muttered
execrations to himself:—I supposed at French
railways.

"By Jove, sir, did you ever see such clumsy
carts?" said Major Baxter, pointing to two
country carts, each with four strong horses,
that were drawn up under a hedge close to the
station; for we had struggled on as far as the
first turn-table, some hundred yards from the
first houses of the village of Fort Rouge.

Levison and I tried very hard to get near our
luggage, but the soldiers sternly refused our
approach. It gave me some comfort, however,
to see my chests transferred carefully, with
many curses on their weight. I saw no sign of
government stores, and I told the major so.

"Oh, they're sharp," he replied, "dooced
sharp. Maybe the empress's jewels—one little
package only, perhaps; but still not difficult to
steal in a night confusion."

Just then there was a shrill piercing whistle,
as if a signal. The horses in the two carts tore
into a gallop, and flew out of sight.

"Savages, sir; mere barbarians still,"
exclaimed the major; "unable to use railways even
now we've given them to them."

"Major!" said his wife, in a voice of awful
reproof, "spare the feelings of these foreigners,
and remember your position as an officer and a
gentleman."

The major rubbed his hands, and laughed
uproariously.

"A pack of infernal idiots," cried Levison;
"they can do nothing without soldiers; soldiers
here, soldiers there, soldiers everywhere."

"Well, these precautions are sometimes
useful, sir," said Mrs. B.; "France is a place
full of queer characters. The gentleman next
you any day at a table d'hôte may be a
returned convict. Major, you remember that case
at Cairo three years ago?"

"Cairo, Julia my dear, is not in France."

"I know that, major, I hope. But the house
was a French hotel, and that's the same thing."
Mrs. B. spoke sharply.

"I shall have a nap, gentlemen. For my part,
I'm tired," said the major, as we took our
places in the Marseilles train, after three hours'
tedious delay. "The next thing will be the
boat breaking down, I suppose."

"Major, you wicked man, don't fly out against
Providence," said his wife.

Levison grew eloquent again about the Prince
Regent, his diamond epaulettes, and his inimitable
cravats; but Levison's words seemed
to lengthen, and gradually became inaudible to
me, until I heard only a soothing murmur, and
the rattle and jar of the wheels.

Again my dreams were nervous and uneasy. I
imagined I was in Cairo, threading narrow dim
streets, where the camels jostled me and the
black slaves threatened me, and the air was
heavy with musk, and veiled faces watched me
from latticed casements above. Suddenly a rose
fell at my feet. I looked up, and a face like my
Minnie's, only with large liquid dark eyes like an
antelope's, glanced forth from behind a water-vase
and smiled. At that moment, four Mamelukes
appeared, riding down the street at full
gallop, and came upon me with their sabres flashing.
I dreamed I had only one hope, and that was
to repeat the talismanic words of my letter-locks.
Already I was under the hoofs of the Mamelukes'
horses. I cried out with great difficulty,