become. He was a natural-born king of men though; and was equal to the occasion.

"Silence in the Court there! or else-"

And like the "Quos ego" of Virgil's Neptune, whose very vagueness appalled the winds into instant submission,-- so now a calm, unbroken, absolute, took the place of the chaos that raved an instant before.

"Who? Where is the murderer?" was the next thrilling enquiry. “Here, sir! Here, sir!" responded a chorus of voices, and a number of officious hands grasped and hustled Barney forward, in spite of his protests, to the notice of the Colonel.

"No, no! the other!- Barillot!" he said impatiently.

A dead pause ensued; and all seemed to shun their Chief's lurid

gaze.

"Have ye let him escape ?"—cried he at last in deep, resentful tones. Then with startling abruptness came the long expected

order

"Mount and follow! A hundred pounds, alive or dead!"

A whispered command from the Sergeant, and the four leading files made a step in advance, swept up their hands in a parting salute, then faced about, and strode to the door; an instant more, and the tramp of horse-hoofs told they were off on the trail of the fugitive.

Without a word, Calvert moved back to his former position alongside his friends.

A dark look of mingled rage and apprehension had settled on Delaval's countenance. An emphatic nod across the table to his confederate apprized McWhirter it was his turn to take up the word.

The Scotchman, with all his national hesitancy and clumsiness, got up for the second time, and scratching his head, and clearing his throat, began

"I'm no jist clear in my ain mind that it's a'thegither richt an' ticht in pint o' law to be gaun on as we hae dune e'enow; but maybe yer Honer kens best."

Here his snuff-mull was solemnly produced, the lid tapped, and a pinch laboriously administered to his long, hungry nose, which expressed its satisfaction at the timely refreshment by a wheezy snorting in the depths of a blue cotton handkerchief. "What's not right?" responded the Colonel.

"Aweel, sir! I mean to say, it's no jist the reg'lar coorse to brak in on the deposeetion jist as it's bein' laid afore the Coort, an' to ask the prisoner at the bar plump an' plain the quastion 'Guilty or no?""

"Pshaw! Confound your Scotch precision!" said his coadjutor, irritably.

"Weel, weel!" resumed the thing mair on that pint e'enoo. the accused denies everything, though as onybody can see frae the evidensh he has been caught in a mainer red-haunded in the ack. It's as clear as dirt, sir!"

Scot: "I'm no gaun to say ony-
Only as micht hae been expeckit,

"Confound your impudence, sir!" broke in the Colonel, testily. "Do you think I wouldn't take the word of an honest fellow like Barney there, prisoner or no prisoner, before I would the oath of yonder hound, Barillot? or your's either, for that matter!" he muttered in conclusion.

"Come here, my man:" continued the Colonel, addressing Barney, and turning round as the Irishman drew near with eyes suffused; "Sergeant!" shouted he: "Off with the clips there. I'm ashamed of myself even to have seemed to doubt an old comrade."

The manacles were removed with ready alacrity.

“Here, lad!” resumed he, stretching forth his hand: "The head may be wrong at times; but the heart's in the right place yet. It always knows a friend. The man who risked his life, time and again for mine, isn't the one to attempt murder on me now." What could his humble friend do, other than he did?

Falling on his knees, he caught between both his own the hand extended to him, and reverently kissing it, and bedewing it with tears, he looked up to Heaven and invoked blessings on his generous patron.

"Dinna think, yer Honor;" said the Scotchman, with a slow disapproving snore in the depths of his handkerchief; "Dinna think that I'm agin' your showin' a forgeevin' speerit. The Word tells us we sud e'en pray for them wha despighteously use us. But, my certy! this is a horse o' anither color. For a' that's come an' gane yet, there's naething to shew that the chiel Barney has been wrangously accused. An' I'm free to mainteen that admittin' the testimony o' a prisoner at the bar,-let alane settin' him up to turn on a crown-witness in yon daftlike fashion, an' to frichten

the poor man oot o' Coort yon way, is jist clean again' a' law an' reason. An' noo lettin' the prisoner aff without ony ane o' the counts o' the indictment being answered;-hech, sirs! Its naething but a scandalous mispreesion o' treason; an' as ane o' the magistrates sittin' on the case, I frankly tell ye I'll no rin my craig intil a tether by countenancing the like. I summon the sodgers there to uphaud the majesty o' the law, by keepin' their grip on that man.”

A frown black as midnight settled on the Colonel's brow as he answered, turning short round on his refractory associate

"Sir; it seems to me you have forgotten where you stand; and that I, not you, hold the commission of Lieutenant-Colonel of the County. Any orders for the military must come through me. I am abundantly able to answer for my own acts. So, my friend, as you yourself would say, you had better save your breath to cool your ain kail.' You'll find it hot enough, I promise you, if what I begin to suspect be true. And that reminds me you appear somewhat prominently in one part of these informations. I'd have you to remember there are penalties for perjury and conspiracy, sir. And I'll have the pound of flesh out of you, if anything of this should appear."

At this point the Scotchman's trepidation became excessive. His hard, granite face was working convulsively; its usual brickdust hue had degenerated into a whitey-brown. He seemed to meditate a reply; but his parched lips, that he vainly tried to moisten, and his teeth chattering like castanets, precluded the effort.

The Colonel then turned and addressed the American in a polite and conciliatory tone

"Mr. Reginald Harvey; you have heard these allegations brought against you?"

66

"I have, Colonel Ansdell. To reply to them, however, would be to acknowledge that I am under arrest."

"Unquestionably."

"But that is precisely what I cannot admit. As a citizen of the United States, I have already entered my protest, and appeal for protection to the nearest American Consul. This of course removes the case out of your hands. Besides, my arrest has been utterly informal. No warrant has been or can be produced for my detention."

"No; to be sure!" said the Colonel, with a perplexed face. "Why, how's this? Delaval."

“I was entrusted by you with a general discretionary power;" said his nephew, somewhat chopfallen.

"Sir, you seem to have used your power with a most abundant lack of that same quality. What grounds had you for detaining this gentleman ?"

"They have already been stated in sum," said the Frenchman: "They will now be proved in detail."

Certain strictures on the course pursued by the government in dealing with the troubles in Ireland were read, and made the most of, by the accuser. One extract in particular was dwelt upon, referring to Harvey's having met, in the office of a well-known Irish author in New York, the celebrated General S, Head Centre etc. of the I. R.

"And is this all? Is it on grounds so frivolous as these you would dare arraign on such a serious charge as treason a gentleman of honor?"

"This is not all;" responded Delaval: and he unfolded the declaration drawn up and signed at his instance by McWhirter. Sundry conversations of a seditious tendency alleged to have been overheard by the subscriber, were here reported; as also the fact that amongst the disaffected the accused was currently known as "the American General."

Harvey's practice of sketching, cunningly represented as being for military purposes; his frequent and prolonged absences, and his familiarity with certain questionable characters, were duly detailed.

"Familiarities wid quistinable charackthers!" commented Barney. "Och, howly Moses! D'ye hear the black words dhrappin' like toads from his ugly mouth? Familiarities' is it? Well, here's thankin' ye, ma bouchal, for all your familiarities; but it's the shtrangeness we'd take the kindest from the likes av yez. An' who do ye call 'quistinable charackthers?' It's yerself is the onquistinable charackther, Heaven knows. Augh, boys! hear till him now. It bates Banagher! He makes lies fasther than a harse can throt. But isn't he his leasing Father's own child for that, sure?"

CHAPTER XX.

AT last the Frenchmen's lame and labored deposition against the American was drawn to a close. Lame though it was, however, such was the excited state of public opinion at the time, that very few magistrates would have had the moral courage and high sense of justice which prompted the Colonel to reply in conclusion

"Pshaw! Delaval; your zeal has manifestly outrun your discretion. There is nothing tangible in all this which would justify committal, even if we had the power, which I question. What about this sketching and surveying though? There may be something in that;" said the veteran, whose military instinct had caught at the suggestion.

For sole reply Harvey stepped forward and spread out before the. Colonel his sketching-folio, which he had drawn out of his pocket. Adjusting his eye-glass, the old militaire caught up a sheet at hazard. It was that in which Calvert and his mare had been so dashingly introduced into the foreground, as recounted above. "Capital!" said the father. "You have hit off the young dog and his rantipole brute to a T. thinking."

Not much treason in that, I'm

After glancing in a cursory way over most of the contents of the folio, he happened upon the sketch of the Ruined Chapel, in which the young girl formed the most striking figure.

Long the Colonel sat motionless, and his eyes with a far-off look in them ranged backwards and forwards unconsciously between the copy and the blushing original.

66

"Very like; Ah, so like!" at last he said, softly, with a sigh. Surely there must be some mistake. The child seems pure, and high-bred."

At the instant he caught an expressive glance of Marie's, and throwing down the picture, muttered

"Ay; too true, too true! It must be so. The thing is too circumstantial to be false. Yet 'tis pity of the child too."

Then with a sudden revulsion of mood he swept the papers from before him, and turning angrily upon Delaval, cried—

"All this only serves to make your action in the case more absurd and groundless. You ought to be ashamed to bring up such trumpery charges as these: and still more to let be known your