lating quiver that seemed to mark the passage of something living. In a moment he had darted across the bare space between his hut and the nearest bush, and was threading his way in pursuit.

And yet was it in pursuit? As he left the plantation and began to enter the forest, dank and forbidding in daylight, and now peopled with a thousand shadows, he knew that he was purposely following the same track he had idly strolled along such a short time before. He heard the sound of his own feet as the forest driftage rustled beneath them, and now and again a dry twig snapped, yet he could not catch the faintest sound ahead, though he knew he must now be close behind the being he had followed.

He stopped short, concealed behind the large clump of trees, and saw before him the great tomb, its flat raised platform outlined against the deep midnight sky. He stood in dark shade, but a flood of moonlight poured its dazzling radiance upon Rahatra as she began to mount the steps round the tomb. Her black hair fell like a veil almost to her knees, but here and there it parted and showed the gleaming beauty of smooth skin and rounded limb. She carried her folded lamba upon her head, and as her stately form climbed the three steps she looked like a living statue of ebony and ivory.

On the platform she paused for a moment, and with a careless motion shook the burden from her head; then crossing her arms on her breast she began to pace rhythmically round and round the red earthen space. Every movement was full of a strange sinuous grace, every gesture revealed some fresh appeal of beauty in curving or straightening limb. Still she paced on, her steps growing gradually more rapid, till she broke into a lilt, which,

beautiful as it was, could have accorded with no earthly music, for it was entirely timeless, the measure rising and falling, coming and going, it seemed, with the dancer's fitful breath, as she sometimes moved across the space and sometimes round.

And now the pace was quickened. The ivory feet flashed past, every muscle in the perfect form was instinct with motion; a low, almost melodious, wail rose into the stillness, then another and another, till it seemed to the fascinated watcher that a wind, which he might not feel, was breathing upon that wild beautiful figure, lifting the heavy rippling hair, spreading it about the shapely head and rigid face like a wide cloudy aureole, then letting it fall again strand by strand, as though loth to hide that moving perfection of form. Quicker and ever quicker moved the feet, the round arms were thrust through the veil of falling hair and raised above the upturned face, the long taper fingers set in a rigid curve. As she passed near him Hugh saw the face turned skyward, with strained chin and quivering nostrils clear against the blue. He saw the full lips part, as if by force, while shriek after shriek suddenly broke the silence, and the fingers were knotted and clutched together in an agony of effort. And then the hands slowly drooped once more, once more the face relaxed, once more the glancing feet were curbed to a slow measure; from head to foot a gradual shiver of change seemed to pass over the woman, and the hidden spectator asked himself whether the shrieking demoniac of a minute or two before was not after all some creature of his own imagination.

It was over. A baffled, raging woman lay prone upon the tomb, her arms flung outwards, her face pressed

to the red earth, her soul in revolt against all things, while through the weed-grown streets of the crumbling village the man strode firmly homewards with never a look behind.

He slept soon, and heavily, the dreamless strengthening sleep of pure exhaustion. Néni Bè, with his coffee, had made three brief maternal inspections of his slumber, and the sun had long been blazing overhead before, on a fourth visit, she found him awake, sitting up in bed, and curiously turning over something.

"Look here, Néni," he said with a puzzled air, "what does all this mean? I found the basket on the floor, near my bed, just now when I woke.”

She set down the coffee and came

nearer.

Hugh was holding a tiny square basket containing several oddlooking things. Among them was a bit of banana leaf in which something was wrapped; he opened it carefully; it was a little red earth. He put the basket hastily down, and Néni with a grave and troubled face began an inspection. Beside the earth was another lock of dark hair, a few trandrak's bristles, a little wooden peg, and a couple of small chips of rock.

"What does it all mean?" he asked with some concern. He was not especially superstitious, but his nerves. felt rather shaken.

66

"See!" said Néni in a frightened whisper. Here is a hole burned in the side of the basket; that is hurt by fire. Here [she held up the chips of stone] are the death-stones; here is the hair that shall spread a net for your feet, lest you escape. Vazaha," she broke off suddenly, "pour away this coffee, and till you go, eat and drink nothing but what I will give you. It will be poor food, such as slaves eat; but it will be harmless."

"I wonder, Néni," said Hugh looking at her ugly old face, just now more wrinkled than usual by reason

of the puckers which concern had wrought, "I wonder, Néni, what I can do for you in return for all this help?"

"The Vazaha will sometimes remember me when he is safe in his own country," said Néni Bè simply ; "and I shall not forget him."

Then she disappeared, taking the baleful little basket with her, and Hugh becoming suddenly alive to the fact that matters were assuming a rather serious complexion, carefully poured away the coffee.

It struck him towards the afternoon that it might not be amiss to try for a shot at something edible, since for a few days, at any rate till Rainkettaka's return, he would be dependent on his own supplies; the curried fowl prepared for his mid-day meal and carried in from Dumazel's table, had been removed with suspicious mutterings by Néni Bè, who presented him instead with some boiled manioc and a bunch of bananas. This fare was, as his old friend had promised, perfectly harmless; but manioc at the best is rather like an inferior and fibrous parsnip, and he did not find it appetising.

Accordingly after this anchorite's meal was over, he strolled through the plantation towards the clearer and more undulating land where the ricecrop was grown. He lighted his pipe and sat down leisurely to make observations. A few small birds twittered with a dull mechanical sound, and two of the brilliant blue sultan birds ran stealthily in and out of the rushes and flowering herbage; but he saw nothing more till, towards sun-down, a small flock of eight or ten wild ducks dropped among a thicket of reeds and papyrus that lay upon the further side of the rice-fields, separating it from the bare rolling tract of land beyond. Marking where they lay he made the best of his way back to Faravohitra,

resolving to shoot a couple of birds at sunrise next morning, by way of accompaniment to the manioc, or to die in the attempt.

The faithful Néni woke him early with the welcome coffee, which she assured him had been roasted, ground, and prepared by her own hands. She Idid not add that she had abstracted a certain weight of coffee for his daily supply from one of Dumazel's rushbags. Half an hour after he drew on his thick boots, took his gun, and set off, in blissful ignorance of the fact that he had left all the cartridges he intended to take with him in the pocket of his other coat, having inadvertently put on the wrong one.

Dumazel rose that morning in a very bad temper, which several circumstances conspired to aggravate. In the first place, many untoward bodily symptoms warned him, much against his will, that he habitually took too much to drink, and that unless he pulled himself up, he would soon be beyond the power of drinking anything at all—a most undesirable consummation for a thirsty soul like himself to contemplate. Next he began to regret having confided so much of his past connection with Holson to Hugh; and next, to add to all his other griefs, Rahatra was in one of her unapproachable moods, half-sulky, half-violent, wholly disagreeable. A throbbing head completed his catalogue of woes, and he roamed restlessly to and fro, his evil heart full of the spite that seeks to vent its malice by injuring some one else. Under the riceshed he found Rahatra, her silky hair bright and fresh from the skilful hands of Néni Bè, who retained her position as house-slave chiefly on account of her cleverness as a hairdresser. The old woman was pounding rice, every gray woolly knob on her head shaking with the exertion;

the young one stood idly by watching.

Dumazel walked up, like some illtempered cur, and began snarling like the same animal.

"What's this I hear," he said; "that half those year-old plants have got some sort of a blight?"

“I heard Rahé say so," answered Rahatra, in a particularly nonchalant and aggravating manner.

66

"I shall be ruined; that's what will happen next," said Dumazel ; ' especially with a pack of lazy black rascals about the place who do nothing but eat and sleep.”

Néni's pestle pounded steadily on, but in her heart she quaked at what might come, being now well-versed in the Creole's moods.

"What's all this?" he asked savagely, going up to the pile of empty coffee-bags that lay in one corner. Why haven't you filled these, Néni?"

66

The slave knew well that no order of the kind had been given, but she merely answered: “At once, at once; as soon as the rice is finished the bags shall be filled. It is but a moment; I grieve that I forgot."

"I smelt coffee roasting by your hut this morning, Néni," said Rahatra, maliciously.

"Did you?" cried Dumazel.

Néni Bè had told many thousand lies during the course of her existence, but never had she lied with such heartiness and resolution as when she protested her innocence of any such actions as pilfering and roasting coffee.

Dumazel walked into the middle of the shed and stood for a moment looking at the centre rafter, then he turned and spoke. "I'll teach you to forget my orders and steal my coffee, old woman. I'll give you a lesson you won't forget in a hurry. you move till I come back.”

Don't

Rahatra stood still where she was. Life needed a little excitement, she found, and she was not averse to the anticipation of something stirring. Néni Bè pounded on, but it was with quaking limbs and a sinking heart.

In a couple of minutes Dumazel returned, carrying a short length of cord with a slip knot at each end, and his whip.

"Now come here,” he called, and the old woman came tremblingly towards him.

"Don't punish me," she faltered. "I will do anything, anything the master requires. I am a good slave; I have done no wrong."

He seized her brutally by the arm, and slipt one knot over her wrist, holding her hand high in the air and flinging the cord with the other knot over the beam. "Come here, Rahatra," he said, raising the wretched creature in his arms off the ground. "Put the other knot over her other wrist." She carried out the order, and then Dumazel let his burden fall. She hung suspended by both wrists, her toes just touching the ground.

"By the way," he said, a sudden thought striking him, "where's that Englishman?"

"Gone to the rice marshes after duck; he won't be back for hours." Dumazel swung his whip. "Here goes then. Stand clear, Rahatra." The first blow slit the flimsy straw shirt off the lean brown back, while a shriek for mercy came from Néni's strained lips. "Not too much," said Rahatra coolly, "or she won't be able to dress my hair to-morrow morning." Again the whip came down full force, this time in an opposite direction, and two great wheals in the shape of an X had started out. The next blow, planted with greater precision, drew

blood, and with a loud horrible wail the tortured woman's head fell forward on to her breast. The veins in her arms stood out already like cords, and her hands were swollen almost to bursting, as the dead weight of her helpless swaying body drew the rope yet tighter round her wrists. Another blow and another, when there was a quick rush of footsteps. "You infernal scoundrel!" Dumazel heard close to his ear, and then he found himself doubled up upon the ground at some distance, inspecting a gratuitous exhibition of fireworks, and masticating two of his front teeth.

Hugh supported Néni's helpless body. "Come here," he called peremptorily to Rahatra, who had never admired him so much as now, when she had seen him assault her lord and master; women dearly love brute force. She came obediently towards him. "Take the knife out of my pocket and cut this rope." In another moment the woman was free; her rescuer laid her on the ground with a sack under her head, and began to rub her blue swollen hands.

"Fetch water," he said, without looking up, and the other again obeyed, though the water was brought by another slave, to whom Hugh thereupon confided the completion of his humane task. He then walked over to Dumazel who was now sitting upright on the ground, very sulky and injured, and with only one visible eye.

"Now look here," he said sternly; "I tell you plainly, M. Dumazel, if I find you up to any more of your devil's tricks on that woman, or any one else here, I'll thrash you within an inch of your life; and as an English gentleman, I am quite willing to abide by any consequences that may ensue."

"WHAT Ireland wants," said an old gentleman not very long ago, “is a Walter Scott." The remedy did not seem very practical, since Walter Scotts will not come to order, but the point of view is worth noting, for there you touch the central fact about Irish literature. We desire a Walter Scott that he may glorify our annals, popularise our legends, describe our scenery, and give an attractive view of the national character. In short, we know that Ireland possesses preeminently the quality of picturesqueness, and we should like to see it turned to good account. We want a Walter Scott to advertise Ireland and to fill the hotels with tourists; but as for desiring to possess a great novelist simply for the distinction of the thing, probably no civilised people on earth is more indifferent to the matter. At present indeed a Walter Scott, should he appear in Ireland, would be apt to have a cold welcome. To write on anything connected with Irish history is inevitably to offend the Press of one party, and very probably of both. The history of Ireland is a history of defeat. Ireland has never had a Bannockburn; and this makes it hard for any novelist to foster a national pride which prefers to feed on ignorant imaginations. Yet some of Scott's greatest triumphs were made out of unprosperous causes, and certainly such themes are not lacking in Irish history; Owen Roe O'Neill and Sarsfield are figures not less heroic than

1 Professor Atkinson, in the preface to his edition of THE BOOK OF LECAN, stated that the legends contained in it had no literary merit. A resolution was promptly proposed in the Royal Irish Academy requesting him to rescind, or apologise for this statement.

any in Scotch annals. But the novelist who should represent Irish patriotism as it was in Owen Roe's day would be called strange names. Thackeray, though an Englishman, came in for copious abuse on the score of his Irish characters, and it is hard for any Irishman not to feel resentful towards him. Yet one has never heard that London bankers resented Sir Barnes Newcome. Had Thackeray been an Irishman and handled society in Dublin as he handled it in London, the poor man might have lived where else he pleased, but Dublin would never have held him. The honour of producing a great satirist would not have salved the wounds of his satire. Lever is less of a caricaturist than Dickens, yet Dickens is idolised while Lever has been bitterly blamed for lowering Irish character in the eyes of the world; the charge is even repeated in the DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY. That may be patriotic sentiment, but it is not criticism.

Literature in Ireland, in short, is almost inextricably connected with considerations foreign to art; it is regarded as a means, not as an end. The belief is general among all classes of Irish people that the English know nothing of Ireland, and consequently every book is judged by the effect it is likely to have upon English opinion, to which the Irish naturally sensitive since it decides the most important Irish questions. But apart from this practical aspect of the matter, there is a morbid national sensitiveness which desires to be consulted. Ireland, though she ought to count herself amply justified of her children, is still complaining

are