"Ha! the sun is rising," said one of the squires presently; "Lord Despenser will be stirring now."

No one replied. John looked uneasily at his master. Was he, too, beginning to doubt?

Ten minutes passed: the mob grew steadily. A cart arrived, bringing a great balk of timber.

"Ah!" cried Salisbury, "I thought so; they are going to batter us."

"I wonder how long that will take?" said Tom, fingering his hilt.

At this moment a loud shout was heard. "Fire! fire!" The cry came from the southeast corner of the marketplace, where smoke was seen rising from the back of the houses.

"Lucky!" said someone. "That's no luck," answered Lumley. "That's my priest: he stayed behind when we ran out of the inn. Good man! That will keep the wasps busy!"

"A priest all over," said Salisbury, "he has only maddened them."

It was quite true: a dozen or two of those more immediately concerned went off to extinguish the fire, but the rest ran with loud shouts to get out their battering-ram. The priest priest had only succeeded in destroying their scruples.

The prisoners stood upon the steps of the high altar and consulted.

"Shall we fight them here or make a rush for it when the door gives?" asked Tom. His

eyes were bright again and his hands restless.

"Neither," replied Salisbury; "we must surrender before they break in."

He went quickly to the door: the ram had reached the entrance of the porch.

"Is the bailiff there?" he shouted. "We wish to parley with the bailiff."

"I am here," said the cold voice they knew; "I give you ten minutes' truce."

The door was opened, and the two parties faced one another. Tom moved to the front. "I am the Earl of Kent," he said. "To save you from committing sacrilege, we are willing to surrender-upon terms."

The bailiff was neither young nor old: his face by daylight looked harder than ever.

"There are no terms for rebels," he replied.

"I appeal to the king, your lord."

The bailiff looked at the three leaders in turn: his eyes rested deliberately on Lord Lumley.

"I bid you to Blockham Feast," he answered.

Tom closed the door. "Now what do you say?" he asked Salisbury.

"Surrender," replied Salisbury,-"the axe is a decent end: I can't die like a rat among a hundred dogs."

"It will take them longer too," urged Lumley, "and there is always the chance."

Tom drew his sword and opened the door again; the crowd edged back as if expecting a charge.

"We are knights and peers

of Parliament," he said; "we have appealed to the king, and we are content to leave the rest to you. But we have servants here: what will you do with them?”

"They may have their horses," replied the bailiff, "and an hour's law on the road you came by."

"At once?" asked Tom. "No," answered the bailiff, "afterwards."

The three lords came forward and gave up their swords: no one asked for those of the squires. The crowd pressed eagerly round the whole party, but the armed men soon formed a ring and drove them back. Axes were brought, and a confessor sent for from the abbey; the battering-ram was laid on three upturned stools to make a block.

"John," said his lord, "you must find my uncle, wherever he is."

John was surprised: he dared not name his mistress, but the look on his face betrayed his thought.

"My wife," said Tom, "is safe by now: say no more of that. My uncle is the king's only chance. I don't know

what he has done since he left us; but if he has made terms with Henry, so much the better for Richard."

"I will go to him at once," said John. His voice seemed no longer part of him.

A monk was brought in: Kent and Lumley made their confession, but Salisbury refused, and knelt at a little distance by himself.

When they had all three risen, Tom held out his hand to the other two.

66

"Good-bye," he said, "I go first." He came over to John once more and kissed him. "Remember," he said, "that we are murdered, not attainted: Edmund should have my earldom."

He kissed him again and stepped resolutely to the block.

John fell on his knees and covered his face. At last down to the horrible abyss of frozen darkness where he crouched there came a faint sound of a crowd shouting. He rose to his feet and pushed blindly towards the inn.

"My horse, my horse," he heard his own voice reiterating. No one replied or hindered him.

All that day John rode in a stupor of grief, careless of danger, thoughtless of direotion, unobservant of his horse's growing lameness, scarcely speaking a word to his companions. At starting next morning they reminded him that his lord's badge could

serve him no longer for credit or protection: he carried it concealed about him till evening, and then sank it in the river beneath Abingdon Bridge.

The other squires had parted from him before this: to them he seemed to be a madman, riding directly to certain de

struction. They left him to go his own way, and turning north themselves, fell straight into the hands of the pursuing army, which, as it happened, had been misdirected at Wallingford, and was now lying round Oxford.

King Henry was gracious over the news from Cirencester, but he declined to ratify the terms of surrender: the squires, after a short imprisonment, he sent to the scaffold with Sir Thomas Blount, Sir Barnard Brocas, and a score of other knights and gentlemen.

John meanwhile stayed undisturbed at Abingdon, where no one asked him any questions. He was just a listless, pleasant-spoken gentleman, who bandaged his horse's legs himself, and took no interest in public affairs however near or thrilling. In his own thought he was a man with an errand, and life was bounded absolutely by his journey; but it was the journey of a ghost, a nameless and half visible traveller passing through a country where he had once been some one, but was now no longer remembered even by his enemies. About such a journey there could be no haste or impatience, for he had lost all count of time.

It was some days later that the sense of time came back to him. He had left Henley in the early morning on his way to Marlow, and was riding slowly beyond Hurley Bottom when he came to the well-remembered fork where the road breaks off to Maidenhead Thicket. He stood a long time looking down it, as if even

from there he could see the great bridge and his lord still fighting with the sunlight on his helmet. Then from Hurley the north wind suddenly brought a chiming of bells, and he knew that this was another Sunday than that Sunday of the bridge. For the first time, as he turned away, his face was wet with tears.

Four days later he was at Amersham; and he might have come to Berkhamstead on the next morning, but by this time cunning also had returned to him. He would make for Langley first, and approach as though from London; he might hear, too, if Huntingdon had passed that way, as was most likely.

It was a bright still morning; the Chess glittered in the January sun as he crossed it below Latimer: he went slowly up the hill, and looked for the bridle-path to Flaunden. There it lay, remote and clear, vanishing at the crest of the slope into a mysterious little wood: the scene was all small and brilliant as the background of a picture. And now, while he stood looking at it, the figure of a man on horseback came out of the wood and moved downwards upon the path: he, too, was strangely clear, man and horse, and as he drew slowly nearer, John was certain that he knew him. Then his heart quickened, for he saw that chance had brought back to him a fragment of the past; no friend, but one who had been formerly a knight of Huntingdon's

household, and had ridden away with him the night before the battle..

"Shelley!" "Marland!". even on the open hillside they spoke the names with cautious intensity.

"Have you heard?" asked John.

"By God, yes," answered Shelley, with the gusto of a sensation-monger. "You did pick a hard bit to fall on! Not that we did any better!"

"What?" faltered John, "I have a message for Huntingdon.'

"Then it's hunting done' for you," said Shelley, still more cheerfully. He looked about him at the empty landscape. "We're safe enough here. I'll tell you how it happened: it was his fault, not mine. We were making a bolt for France: we got into Essex pretty easily, but there was some delay about a boat. We lay in a mill at Pitwell, as snug as possible, only Huntingdon would have wine. The vintner smelt a rat, and had the miller followed: we were collared as we sat at supper and hurried off to Chelmsford. Next day they took us-where d'you think?-to Pleshey: a regular hornet's nest for poor old Huntingdon. There was the Duchess of Gloucester with the Staffords and young Arundel, and half a dozen more to back her. She came out on to the steps, and Huntingdon went on his knees to her, but all she said was: 'We never know, my lord,

The man's every word was disgusting to John: he himself had never had any affection for Huntingdon, but this coarse picture of his miserable end was so heartlessly drawn, and seemed so horrible a travesty of his own lord's death, that it soiled for a moment the dignity of that poignant farewell.

"Where are you going?" he asked abruptly.

"To the king," replied Sir John. "I told young Arundel I could put him in the way of finding his property that Huntingdon had taken: so they gave me a safe-conduct and letters commendatory. I think I'm all right." He slapped his saddle bag, and mounted. "Where are you going yourself?" he asked carelessly. "Oh, never mind, if you'd rather not tell me. Well, good luck!" and he rode away.

John knew Henry better: the New June was forfeit, root and branch, and Shelley, the last flower of it, had but a few days more to bloom. The memory of it all was suddenly like rotten weeds before him: black to his eyes and sickening to his nostrils. Had he indeed been part of this? How often Nicholas Love had told him so.

Ten days later he dismounted before the guesthouse of Mount Grace.

THE Orient Express from Constantinople puts you down at Adrianople somewhere between eleven and midnight. As you step from the footboard of the train-de-luxe you leave Western comfort and ease behind you. You have reached an environment more Oriental than Constantinople itself. But even in the five years that have elapsed since the writer last visited the ancient capital of European Turkey, to some degree the influences of the West have forced themselves upon Adrianople. Five years ago there was no hotel at Karagatch, and arriving by the same train the European passenger was obliged to drive the three miles into Adrianople proper, there to seek refuge in the most insalubrious hospitality of a native caravanserai boasting the pretentious title of "hotel." Now, however, a well-dressed young Greek meets the train and pilots the visitor to the very passable hostelry called "The Janick," where the traveller is able, if the demands upon the limited space of the institutions are not too great, to sleep in a room of Western appointment.

This was my fortune, and after passing a good night, I arose early and walked into Adrianople. The first touch of winter had fallen upon Southern Europe, and if it had not been for the endless stream of red-fezzed Redifs that I

met upon the road, it might have been 8 cold weather morning in Northern India. This parallel almost became convincing, when, presently, through a gap in the trees which lined the road, the view of Adrianople in the grey haze of a misty morning burst upon me. The town is built upon a small hill lying in a bend of the river Tundja (tributary to the Maritza), and is remarkable from a distance for the many minarets of its mosques. Crossing the Maritza by the solid Turkish bridge, I found myself in bazaars packed with off-duty reservists, and, what is more wonderful, these soldiers were all engaged in marketing. It is indeed a new sight in Turkey to see soldiers with money to spend, and Adrianople, even at first view, impressed upon me the changes which the Young Turks have already effected in their country. I discovered later that the army had actually received its pay with regularity since the new order of things had arrived. My first call was upon the British Consulate. Here I found Major Samson, the energetic Consul, who knows everybody and everything worth knowing in the whole vilayet. As the preliminary elections were actually taking place in Adrianople, and were to some degree responsible for my visit, the Consul arranged an interview with Reshid Pasha, the Vali.

Now Reshid Pasha is