she did not like her husband's ignorances | it came into the Plaza, and stopped before being so very openly shown to any one. the great gateway of Santa Martin; Valentia should be their last visit in Spain; the soldiers presented arms and knelt she felt she had made a mistake in com- down, and the priest descended bearing ing, but this should be the end. the Host. The weather was very hot; the sun shone down pitilessly. Miss Eliza's temper did not improve with the increased temperature, and a large green fan was added to her bag. One day she attempted to go for a walk, but a crowd of beggars surrounded her, and she had to take refuge in a shop. "The woman behind the counter said 'Anglice!' or some such word, and shut the door to protect me from them. I don't know how she knew I was English, for I did not say anything to her. I held my cloak round me, and held my umbrella tight, and waited about a quarter of an hour. It is not safe to walk in such places." "They would not hurt you, I think," the squire grinned, always open to anything in the shape of a contradiction. "They had better not," Miss Eliza answered. Still it is not proper for English women to be unprotected in such a land. The men all look like cutthroats, and the women are known to be the most immoral in the world." "You won't be mistaken for one of them. You need not fear," the squire chuckled. "An uncommonly handsome lot they are, though." "He has been to one who is dying," Mrs. Aylmer heard, and then the crowd dispersed. What was it that made her look so anxiously at Joyce, and take her hand? What was it that made her notice her daughter's face was very pale? What gave her a sudden aching in her already sad heart? If death were so near her in one street, what should hinder its coming nearer? Why would Miss Eliza's words come back to her? The sun was hotter than ever that day, and when Joyce returned she could eat no luncheon. "You have walked her out in the eye of the meridian sun. You know how dangerous it is. I have told you so often," Miss Eliza said, a little triumphantly. "She's only tired; she wants rest," Mrs. Aylmer said. Miss Eliza was the last person to whom she would confide the dreadful dread that had crept over her. Joyce had no rest that night. She lay tossing and disturbed, not sleeping, yet not quite awake. She was feverish and hot, and her head was burning. Mrs. Aylmer had noticed an English doctor's name in the list of visitors that hung on the wall of the entrance-hall, and she said she should ask him to come and see Joyce. Miss Eliza resorted to her knitting in high dudgeon. Then, another of her "What! Fling away more money on grievances was, to see how utterly useless those fellows! the squire grumbled. her good advice had become. Mrs. Ayl-"You are never satisfied." mer at home was a totally different woman "You should not have walked her so from Mrs. Aylmer abroad. There, weak- continually," Miss Eliza said, peppering minded as she was, she had just sense enough to be guided; here, you might as well talk to the winds. She was out sight-seeing and dragging Joyce about all day long. "You will repent it," was her daily warning. "It is most imprudent to be out in the eye of the meridian sun. You don't know what fever you may take, and if you die the officials will bury you that very evening." One day, after a more than usually severe warning, Mrs. Aylmer was returning through the Plaza de Martin with her daughter. A crowd was assembled there, and she stopped to see what was the cause of it. Flags were flying down the street, through which a carriage was slowly pass ing; soldiers walked in front and by the side of it. Wherever the carriage passed the people fell on their knees. Presently an egg. Mrs. Aylmer did not listen to these remarks, but she sent a little note by her maid to a certain Doctor Temple, in a room Number 83 in their hotel. Perhaps, though, he would not come; perhaps he was retired, or even a clergyman. She sighed; but about five minutes afterwards a rap at the door reassured her, and a kindfaced, white-haired old man was bowing to her. "You have sent me this note," he said, still holding Mrs. Aylmer's little message. "It is true I am a physician, and if I can be of any use to your invalid, or any comfort to you, I shall be very glad. I have been travelling for the health of my wife, so I understand anxieties," he said, with kind smile. 66 Really, really, this was a little too much," the squire thought. "Not even allowed now to eat one's breakfast in peace." Something, though, in the stranger's quiet, self-possessed manner stopped any grumbling. "You are very kind," Mrs. Aylmer said, getting up from her chair; "perhaps I have been unnecessarily alarmed," and here she looked instinctively at Miss Eliza, who had finished her egg and was giving the empty shell a decided tap with her spoon" but she is our only child." "I perfectly understand," the doctor replied. Perhaps he understood even more than his words intended, as he stood looking at the group before him. "Come in and sit down," the squire said, Yorkshire hospitality overcoming his natural irritability. "Can't offer you anything good, sir. Haven't seen a breakfast since we left home; but take what we have got." Mrs. Aylmer went to see if Joyce was ready to receive her new visitor. The doctor stayed in the sick-room for more than half an hour, and when he came out there was a gentle pity on his face that made Mrs. Aylmer snatch both his hands and cry, "She is not ill! She is not ill! She is not going to die! Oh, Joyce! my Joyce!" "No no," he answered reassuringly. "I have not said that, and she has such a good mother that I shall look to your nursing more than to my medicines. She requires very, very great care; but between us both, please God, we will restrain the fever. It is very well you sent for me as you did, for we were leaving this evening." But you will not go?" the poor mother cried. 66 No, I certainly shall not leave; you and I must nurse our patient together." He did not think it necessary to tell Mrs. Aylmer, but his first action was to send his own wife into another hotel, and then he gave himself up entirely to the charge of Joyce and her mother. For nearly a week the girl lay quite delirious; now and then she was singing a few bits from some old songs, now and then talking to imaginary people; sometimes, but very seldom, she was speaking of Aylmer. Almost always each speech ended with the cry of Mother! mother!" Often she started up with her hands held out, and her face all alight, as it used to look in the old days, and she was evidently chafing again at some fresh injustice, or she was crying to her mother with that protecting sound in her voice, as if she were shielding her from some invisible fury; now and again (and then the mother's heart sank within her), she was crying to her, as she had once heard her cry, and the sound then was full of entreaty, of despair, of anguish. "You must never leave her; she knows you through it all," the kind old doctor said. Did he know what words of healing he was saying? Did he understand the sor rowing heart beside him? Souls and bodies are very nearly allied, and some doctors have the great gift of ministering to both. Once Mrs. Aylmer had partly told him the reason of their coming abroad; and then she had also said how Miss Eliza had disapproved her taking her daughter about so much. "You did quite right," he answered, and even if he thought it had been a little overdone he did not acknowledge it. On the sixth morning he looked at Mrs. Aylmer's white face, and wondered if she could bear the strain of knowing that the crisis of Joyce's illness would arrive within the next twelve hours. No; she had enough to bear, he thought; so he went down-stairs to the squire and Miss Eliza and told them. "It will not hurt them," he said to himself. The squire said no word, but he turned his back upon the doctor, and the tears streamed down his face. Miss Eliza's knitting was on the table by her; but somehow it was not touched, and she was continually blowing her nose. Joyce's sleep lasted ten hours; her mother sat by her side holding her hand - the doctor had prescribed it. "She shall have her as long as she may." He had three daughters at home in England, and his eyes filled with tears. At the end of the ten hours a change came over the invalid, and a slight stir made Doctor Temple look anxious. Mrs. Aylmer, catching his look, read the reason why. "Oh! my God, give her back!" she gasped. Joyce's blue eyes opened, and with a perfect recognition she looked at her mother and smiled. "She will do," the doctor said, quietly pushing Mrs. Aylmer aside and taking her place. He dreaded the reaction to Mrs. Aylmer, and the least excitement before Joyce might yet be fatal for her. But the mother's love was stronger than the mother, and in another minute Mrs. Aylmer was the nurse again. The doctor went to tell the news down-stairs. "God The squire could not speak. bless you, my dear sir, God bless you!" was all he said. Miss Eliza instantly took her knitting in her hand, but she did not attempt to knit; the needles looked four times the size they generally did, and as for the silk, why it was all colors and quite confused! She laid it down with a jerk. "Dora must not be allowed to take her out in the sun again," she tried to say, and then her fan and pocket-handkerchief rolling out of her lap, she got up quickly and dabbed a kiss on the squire's cheek. It was strange to see how she and her mother kept their changed places; Mrs. Aylmer grew to be afraid of no one, and Joyce still clung to her mother in any difficulty like a child. But stranger still was the squire's conduct. He, who once had been so passion. ate, and who could brook no opposition, was now so gentle, not only in his own home but everywhere, that no one ceased talking of it. One Sunday, a little boy, forgetting the manners of the Aylmer tenants, pushed out of the west door before the squire had "Law! bless my soul, Eliza!" he cried in astonishment, and then he began blow-passed. ing his nose also very vigorously. Strange whispers were creeping about in the little village round Aylmer; the cottagers tried to look wise and nod their heads, but none really knew the cause of the family's departure, nor of Miss Aylmer's mysterious illness. She had been so carefully guarded by her mother during that sad time that few had any idea of the nature of it. His mother tried to pull him back, but the squire, laying his hand on the child's head, said, "No, no, let him come. Fine little man! Good little man! Whose boy is it?" 66 Hodges', please, sir," said the woman, with a curtsey. Hodges had been gardener at the Hall for twenty years, but none of his children had ever dared to look in at the gardens, and had run for their lives if they had seen the squire "Oh, Hodges', is he? Fond of apples, my boy? Must tell your father to give you some. Hope you are kind to him, Mrs. Hodges; can't be too kind to children, you know," patting the boy's head again as he walked off. Strange, too, was the sudden reappear-anywhere about. ance of the family among them again. Miss Eliza was the only one unchanged. "She was too much of an Aylmer for that," some of the country folk said approvingly. The whole ire of the place fell on Mrs. Aylmer for having left Aylmer without one of the name in it for a year. "A curse will fall on the family," said one old man, who dedicated his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to the service of an Aylmer long before they could even speak. "A curse will "And if he did," said Margaret Silverfall on the family, see if it don't. My dale, the oldest woman in the village, comeyes shall be closed before then, but falling down the churchyard path, "is it you, it will," and he rapped his stick prophetically. "He ought not to have given us a wife from down south," one neighbor of a more revolutionary turn of mind said. "The squire, he would never have left us, but she always was a weakly-looking thing. And now as for Miss Joyce, why, she never rides or hunts as she used, and she looks as altered - there — it's just all that travelling and leaving home, and that comes from a southerner being put at the head of us." Joyce did not ride or hunt, it is true, for her constitution had received such a shock, she never became really strong; but her mind was restored, and, very mercifully, the whole of her illness and its cause she never referred to again. That part of her life was completely a blank to her. Well, I never!" said one woman. "What has come to him? I remembers the time when he hated children; and how he did curse and swear at them, too, to be sure!" Mary Fenton, to judge him? There ain't All the five voices in this tale are hushed pleasant business, for there was no doubt about it the poor girl was uncommonly fond of me, but it would have been too awkward, you know, to have had a wife liable to go mad." Mrs. Aylmer and her daughter outlived the squire and Miss Eliza many years; and they lived so happily together that death did not divide them, for Joyce died the same year her mother did. Every one's life forms a history; but the pages written in this world, whether long or short, are but the preface to the life which is eternal. And to each preface the word Finis must sooner or later be written. The Finis to the old music book before me is written to a plaintive little song called "A Dieu." And with these two simple words I leave Joyce Aylmer. From Good Words. A RIDE IN THE GREAT SAHARA. BY J. H. FORBES. FIRST PAPER. THERE is an epidemic which is very apt to seize members of my learned profes sion towards the end of March. It has been given no generic name by the medical faculty, but it generally manifests itself in an almost irresistible feverish longing to cast away the law-books, the wig, and the gown, and to follow the swallows in search of sunshine and novelty. In March, 1890, I succumbed to a rather severer attack than usual of the malady, and, having secured a compagnon de voyage, I started on the twentieth of the month to get cured of my fever. Our present plan was to go straight to Algeria and to spend our vacation there. The country is one of the most fascinating in the world, as well on account of its climate, scenery, and fine vegetation, as of its Roman remains which are almost everywhere to be found in fine preservation. It is easily reached from Marseilles by a very fine line of steamers which run straight to Algiers. The steamboat service along the coast is good, and, in addition to a railway running from Oran on the west to Tunis on the east, there are numerous lines which branch off the main line and run south into the heart of the country. The enterprising Mr. Cook has exploited all its known regions, and has even stretched his octopus-like arms as far south as Biskra, an oasis on the edge of the great Sahara. Here we looked forward to getting a glimpse of the boundless sea of sand, snake-charmers, dervishes, and other Arabian wonders. L'homme propose, however, and on our arrival at Algiers I received a pressing summons to go at once far inland to Aïn Khenchela from the wife of M. Wolff, the commandant supérieur of an immense "circle" of administration which stretches from Khenchela due south to the extreme limits at which the flag of France has been hoisted. The general represented that at best at Biskra we should only see a Frenchified oasis, and, further, that the snake-charmers, dancers, and other gentry of the kind were a very spurious article seized with no epileptic frenzies, but "got up" to ensnare the British tourist, and turned on like the water-tap, as occasion demanded, for a few francs. The general offered to take us with him under military escort for a three weeks' tour which he was about to make amongst some of the tribes under his administration; and during our trip we were to visit curious oases, Roman remains, etc. In short, we were offered a chance which we should never again get in our lives of seeing the real Sahara. Taking advantage accordingly of the opportunity, we started off as fast as we could for our new destination. We steamed to Boujie, and from thence drove through the far-famed pass of Chabet-el-Akhra to that uniquely situated town Constantine. At a junction a few miles from this town we got into a train which carried us by a curious zigzagging narrow-gauge line over great table lands which afford grazing for countless flocks and herds, and upon which were encamped at intervals Bedouin Arabs. A day's journey brought us to Aïn Beida, a military outpost, and another day to Aïn Khenchela. This town, which the reader will find on his map, is half French and half Arab, and is placed in a depression in the chain of the Aures Mountains at a height of from three thousand to four thousand feet above the sealevel. Here, roughly speaking, may be said to end the Tell, or the first region into which Algeria is said to be divided, and the immense country which stretches to the edge of the great Sahara, and over which we were about to journey, is known as the second region, or the hauts pla teaux. Our host's military command includes the control of what is known as the Bureau Arabe, which is established at all the strategical points of the country, and which forms the machinery by which the French control the whole of Algeria. The administration is carried on by a central bureau at Algiers, divisional bureaux, and bureaux of circles. Under the command of each bureau of a circle, such as our host administered, there is a caïd, generally of princely Arab blood, who is responsible for the order of the tribes in the particular circle, and who is assisted by a khalifa, a cadi, and by the sheiks or chiefs of the countless tribes in the circle. It will thus be seen how anxious and onerous are the duties of a commandant supérieur. While the caïd and his subordinates are responsible for good order and payment of tribute by the tribes, the commandant has to watch the conduct of his subordinates, to win their confidence, decide quarrels between the French and the Arabs, and generally to do all in his power to strengthen and consolidate the power of the French government. For these purposes he makes a yearly visit of inspection in some portion of the immense territory included in his circle of administration. Hence the present expedition, upon which we started on the 8th of April. occasionally much needed. Sleep was difficult the first night under canvas. Our horses neighing close to our tents around which they were tethered, dogs barking, jackals screaming, all combined to keep off nature's sweet restorer, and we seemed to fall asleep in the small hours only to be awakened by a strange, dirge-like sound rising and falling, which turned out to be the early service of the caïd and his harem, who were reciting passages from the Koran. The camp was now stirring, and, mounting the Arab horse allotted to each of us, we started south, and from this point entered new country so far as any published map is concerned. We were a goodly cavalcade. Led by our caïd and his brother, with their attendant cavaliers all splendidly mounted on pure-bred Arabs, and by our general and his officers, the rear was brought up by the spahis, or native cavalry, and muleteers with mules to carry tents, provisions, etc. There was a bright sun, and a bitterly cold wind blowing from the snow-capped Aures on our right, and our journey lay over great ridges and ranges of mountains The caravan was to be made up at the with not a blade of grass or a shrub of bordj, or fortress of the Caïd Si Belk- more importance than a stray juniper plant hassem, head of the tribe of Ouled two feet high. Occasionally, where there Rechaich, a part of the confederation of happened to be some moisture in the Nememcha. This caïd was to accompany ground, we found barley growing. The us while we passed through his "king. country reminded me of nothing so much dom," and, jointly with our general, he as the high tops of the hills in Invernessarranged the commissariat, providing shire which one knows when shooting tents, horses, provisions, etc. He is a ptarmigan. There was no sign of life man of great intelligence, extremely hand- save an occasional flight of partridges some with his fine eyes and noble car- flushed by our caravan, or a bustard hangriage, and speaks excellent French. In ing like a speck over the desolate mounhis silk burnous and gorgeously em-tains. broidered turban he looked an ideal Arab After some five hours' riding we saw a chief. He entertained us right royally in his palace at a never ending dinner à l'arabe, cooked in his harem, and at which we were introduced to the two national dishes of "cous-cous" and the "diffa." The former is the chief food of every wandering Arab, and consists of a semolina of hard wheat placed on a perforated dish, and cooked by steam ascending from another vessel beneath containing meat and vegetables, and it is served with sour milk. The "diffa" is a young lamb roasted whole, and turned for three hours over a spit in the open air over a charcoal fire. It is served up whole, and you are expected to tear off the pieces of meat you fancy with your fingers. My friend and I had a very spacious tent, and as we each had a canteen we could take lots of clothes, which were white object in the distance, which turned out to be the general's tent, pitched as if by magic, and containing a breakfast fit for an epicure, and which had been prepared for our arrival by the muleteers and cooks who preceded us, starting in the small hours. The tent was pitched amidst the ruins of a Roman city whose name is unknown, but which has been christened Enchir Titten by the Arabs. It is situ ated in a remarkably strong position, commanding the access to a mighty plain from which passes one of the tracks to the great Sahara. Truly these Romans knew what they were about when they chose their strategical positions, using them also as heliographic stations. After a rest we continued our march over great rugged rifts and mountains, and enjoyed splendid views of the Aures on |
