Ergasilus had spoken the truth, not a moment
was to be lost; and he hastened to the port,
leaving Ergasilus behind, with full powers over
the kitchen, and all offices and things
connected therewith. The season for eating
had returned; and Ergasilus, having resolved to
to make up for lost time, entered the kitchen like
a conqueror, and made such havoc among the
provisions, while giving orders for the coming
banquet, that the servants were stricken with terror,
and began to think that a famine was at hand.

The joy with which Hegio embraced his son
was, indeed, great; but more happiness was yet
in store for him. Through the answers given to
him by Slalagmus, and further elucidated by
Philocrates, he learned that the child had
been sold to Theodoromedes, and was, in fact,
no other than the very Tyndarus who had just
been taken to the quarry. The faithful slave
was, therefore, at last rewarded. He had
effected the liberation of not only the young
master with whom he had been brought up as
a companion, but also of his own brother,
Philopolemus, and he had found a father in one
of the best and wealthiest men of AEtolia.

The above story is the plot of Plautus's
comedy, The Captives, reduced to a narrative
form, with the intention of making more
generally known a play which stands quite a
alone among the dramas of antiquity, and in
this country, at least, has never been
celebrated to the extent of its deserts.

OLD STORIES RE-TOLD
THE FRENCH IN IRELAND

ON the morning of the 22nd of August, 1798,
the town of Killala, a seaport facing a large
inlet of the Atlantic in the county of Mayo,
was startled by the appearance in the bay of
three frigates, showing English colours. The
arrival of English cruisers seemed especially
unaccountable, as the province (Connaught)
was then quiet, although rebellion was raging
in other parts of Ireland.

Mr. Kirkwood, a magistrate, who commanded
the local yeomanry, though not much alarmed,
kept his corps of thirty horsemen under arms
at the castle, the residence of Dr Stock, Bishop
of Killala; and so did Lieutenant Sills, of the
Prince of Wales's Fencibles, his twenty militiamen
from Ballina, a place seven miles and a half
distant. Two sons of the bishop, eager to see the
English men-of-war, threw themselves into a
boat with the port-surveyor, and pulled off at
once to the unexpected vessels.

The next day was the visitation of the dioceses
of Killala and Achonry (sees now abolished),
and the sensible and good-natured bishop was
entertaining three or four of the clergy and two
officers of carbineers, from Ballina, at the castle.
The ladies of the family—the bishop's wife, his
sister-in-law, Mrs. Cope, and eleven children—
had just retired to the drawing-room. The bishop
and his friends had drawn closer round the claret;
the pleasant after-glow of a summer evening was
gleaming on the ruby of the wine; the Atlantic
decanting into the bay was crimson as a bowl
of Burgundy; when suddenly the door flew
open, and a terrified messenger informed the
bishop that the French had come, and that three
hundred of them were within a mile of the town.
General Humbert (Hoche's second in command
at Bantry Bay in 1796) had, indeed, disembarked
with one thousand and ninety men. The carbineer
officers instantly leaped on their horses and
dashed off to carry the news to Ballina.
Lieutenant Sills resolved to fight, and mustered
his fifty yeomen and fencibles at the castle gate.
The men then marched into the main street,
which stands at right angles to the castle, and
prepared to meet the French advanced guard,
which came on in a dark mass of blue and scarlet
and sour sallow faces; the drums beating sharp,
fierce, and quick. In a moment two yeomen were
struck dead, and the rest fled, leaving Captain
Kirkwood alone to stand fifty shots before he
was taken. Lieutenant Sills, retreating into the
castle, was soon after obliged to surrender to
General Humbert, who sent him away the next
day to the ships to be taken to France, because
he was an Englishman. Nineteen of the yeomen
were also secured by the French, and closely
imprisoned in the bishop's drawing-room. One of
the bishop's guests, the Reverend Dr Thomas
Ellison, of Castlebar, having formerly been an
officer, could not resist the sound of the drum,
and at the approach of the French shouldered
a musket and joined the yeomen. He stood
fire well, was wounded by a spent ball, and was
one of the last to retreat into the castle. The
worthy bishop retired into his garden to collect
his mind while the firing went on, and
succeeded in the attempt by the time the
French general and staff of seventy officers
arrived in the castle yard and demanded to see
Monsieur l'Eveque.

The French soldiers were, except the
grenadiers, generally short men; their clothes
were shabby, their faces pale and sallow with the
recent voyage and the fatigues of the campaigns
of Italy and the Rhine. At the siege of Mentz,
the winter before, many of them had suffered
great privations. It is only necessary to say
they were French soldiers, to be sure that
they were temperate, intelligent, self-reliant,
patient, and full of ardent courage. They had
started eighteen days before from Rochelle,
and had tried unsuccessfully to land in
Donegal, where a succeeding expedition
afterwards failed to get footing.

General Humbert, who had distinguished himself
in the desperate Vendean war, was sanguine of
success. Ten more frigates and three thousand
men would soon be off the coast. Ireland would
be a free and happy nation, under the protection
of France, within a month. A Directory was
immediately to be set up in Conuaught. The
tricolour and the green flag would wave
together, and scare the English lion. Humbert
was an ignorant man of low origin, who had
forced his way through the ranks by prompt
decision and by physical energy. His passions
were furious, his manner marked by a
roughness and violence that was only assumed