city indeed maintained its normal attitude; and this fact the Commissioner pronounced to be "quite a miracle." But surely a more reasonable explanation is, that the citizens were too engrossed by their commerce and banking, by their sacred bulls and cereceremonial bathings, and by their four hundred mosques and temples, to involve themselves gratuitously in external embroilments. Besides, the way in which the sepoys who had obtained the upper hand in Delhi were known to be looting the shops and levying contributions formed a wholesome warning to all who were prosperous and peace-loving. It was in the great open districts which surrounded us that our authority began to be more or less disregarded. If in some quarters of the globe the towns protect the country, and in other quarters the country protects the towns, in India it is the British station that holds the mastery at once of town and open country. Naturally, a good many of the dispersed sepoys had taken refuge in the neighbouring villages, which in very few cases were closed against them. Moreover, the rural chiefs thought the opportunity a good one for digging up their buried cannon, and trying conclusions with one another. Everything of this sort had to be put down by the good old military methods. On 9th June - the day of Neill's start for Allàhàbàd― the Government of India caused martial law, that is, no law

the Benares division. Such was the spirit which the crimes of the mutineers had created, that gentle women laughed and clapped their hands with pleasure when told of some Ràjà who had been seized, charged, tried by amateur judges, and executed at his own door, all in the space of an hour or two, and in the middle of his frantic appeal to the High Court!

By way of closing these reminiscences, a little episode belonging to the end of June may be set before the reader. The 23rd was the centenary of Plassey, Clive's decisive battle which gave to the Company Bengal, Behàr, and Orissa. It was commonly said that, long before the Sepoy war, the natives were imbued with the expectation of seeing our rule extinguished on the hundredth anniversary of Plassey, that is, on 23rd June 1857. This real or supposed prediction produced an indescribable effect on the minds of many; and on the day and night in question the Mint was if possible more tightly packed than ever. When the "Ides of March" had passed without ushering in any fresh horror, a reaction followed; the beginnings of confidence showed themselves; and on the 24th the ladies of our household, being less subject than those of the other sex to military authority, resolved to spend the night in the bungalow. Retiring early, I found myself sleepless. First of all, a sportive musk-rat ran from corner to corner of the room, diffusing its sickening

as

odour. Then there was 8 sound like the distant rattle of musketry; which proved to be only the flapping of a towel affixed to the phankà for the better dispersion of the mosquitoes! At last there was a real alarm. The officer in command of the adjoining church-picket, as fully armed a banker's pahalwàn, or fighting-man, entered the room through a side - veranda, and urged the despatch of the ladies to the Mint, as an attack was expected every minute from the Allahabad direction. With all haste the terrified houseinmates were put into a carriage and escorted to the Mint, where every one was in a state of the greatest excitement. A considerable body of troops was under arms in the compound; and one side of the building bristled with weapons like a hedgehog with its spines. A confused layer of ladies and children, ayahs and phankàcoolies, covered the roof as thickly as the Mecca pilgrims cover the deck of the Jedda steamers. Barè mems, who, a month previously, would not have gone in to dinner with any one under the rank of a Collector or a field-officer, had gladly spread their shakedowns by the side of the

uncovenanted and the noncommissioned. Happily the expected attack turned out a myth; and indeed from the 4th of June down to the time of writing no shot has ever been fired with a serious purpose in the station of Benares.

To award praise or blame lies outside of the present design. After the event it is

easy to enact the part of Solomon. All that occurred during and after the disarmament of the 37th is known; but what would have occurred had there been no disarmament is hidden behind the curtain, and can only form the subject of conjecture. Of the actors who have been named above, the writer is perhaps the last survivor. General Sir William Olpherts, V.C., G.C.B., the Rupert in his day of the artillery arm, died only last year, as rich in years as in honours. His gallant and distinguished comrade, General Sir David Dodgson, K.C.B., preceded him by a not very long interval. The last words may well be these: if ever again, which may Heaven avert, there should happen & similar crisis, may there be present another Gubbins, another Neill, and another Olpherts!

THE next morning at eight o'clock-and again without his breakfast-Loder covered the distance between Grosvenor Square and Clifford's Inn. He left Chilcote's house hastily, with a haste that only an urgent motive could have driven him to adopt; his steps were quick and uneven as he traversed the intervening streets, his shoulders lacked their decisive pose, and his pale face was marked with shadows beneath the eyes-shadows that bore witness to the sleepless night spent in pacing Chilcote's vast and lonely room. By the curious effect of circumstances the likeness between the two men had never been more significantly marked than on that morning of April the 19th, when Loder walked along the pavements crowded with early workers and brisk with persistent news - vendors already alive to the value of last night's political crisis.

The irony of this last element in the day's concerns came to him fully when one newsboy more insistent than his fellows thrust a paper in front of him.

"Sensation in the 'Ouse, sir! Government defeat! Great speech by Mr Chilcote!"

For a moment Loder stopped, and his face reddened. The tide of emotions still ran strong.

teapot, and the can of milk; farther off, a kettle was set to boil upon a tiny spirit-stove. In all strong situations we are more or less commonplace. Loder's first remark as he glanced round the disordered room seemed strangely immaterial to the moment.

"Where's Robins?" he asked in a brusque voice. His mind teemed with big considerations, yet this was his first involuntary question.

Chilcote had started at the entrance of his visitor; now he sat staring at him, his hands holding the arms of his chair.

"Where's Robins?" Loder asked again.

"I don't know. She-IWe didn't hit it off. She's gone went yesterday." He shivered, and drew the rug about him.

"Chilcote!" Loder began sternly; then he paused. There was something in the other's look and attitude that arrested him. A change of expression passed over his face. He turned with an abrupt gesture, pulled off his coat and threw it on a chair; then, crossing deliberately to the fireplace, he began to rake the ashes from the grate.

Within a few minutes he had a fire crackling where the bed of dead cinders had been; and having finished the task, he rose slowly from his knees, wiped his hands, and crossed to the table. On the small spirit-stove the kettle had boiled, and the cover was lifting and falling with a tinkling sound. Blowing out the flame, he picked up the teapot, and with hands that

Chilcote extended a cold and shaky hand. "You seehe began.

But Loder checked him almost savagely. "I do-as well as though I had followed you from Piccadilly last night? You've been hanging about, God knows where, till the small hours of the morning; then you've come back-slunk back-starving for your damned poison and shivering with cold. You've settled the first part of the businessbut the cold has still to be reckoned with. Drink the tea. I've something to say to you." He mastered his vehemence, and walking to the window, stood looking down into the court. His eyes were blank, his face hard, his ears heard nothing but the faint sound of Chilcote's swallowing, and the click of the cup against his teeth.

For a time that seemed interminable he stood motionless; then, when he judged the tea finished, he turned slowly. Chilcote had drawn closer to the fire. He was obviously braced by the warmth; and the apathy that hung about him was to some extent dispelled. Still moving slowly, Loder went towards him, and relieving him

of the empty cup, stood looking down at him.

"Chilcote," he said very quietly, "I've come to tell you that the thing must end." After he spoke there was a prolonged pause; then, as if shaken into sudden consciousness, Chilcote rose. The rug dropped from one shoulder and hung down ludicrously; his hand caught the back of his chair for support; his unshaven face looked absurd and repulsive in its sudden expression of scared inquiry. Loder involuntarily turned away. "I mean it," he said slowly. "It's over. We've come to the end."

"But why?" Chilcote articulated blankly. "Why? Why?" In his confusion he

could think of no better word. "Because I throw it up. My side of the bargain's off!" Again Chilcote's lips parted stammeringly. The apathy caused by physical exhaustion and his recently administered drug was passing from him; the hopelessly shattered condition of mind and body was showing through it, like a skeleton through a thin covering of flesh.

"But why?" he stammered again. "Why?"

Still Loder avoided the frightened surprise of his eyes. "Because I withdraw," he answered doggedly.

Then suddenly Chilcote's tongue was loosened. "Loder!" he cried excitedly, "you can't do it! God! man, you can't do it!" Then, to reassure himself, he laughed a painfully thin

But Loder turned upon him. "Be quiet!" he said, so menacingly that the the other stopped.

"It's not a matter of money, Chilcote," he went on more quietly; "it's a matter of necessity." He brought the word out with difficulty. Chilcote glanced up. cessity?" he said. Why?"

"Ne"How?

The reiteration roused Loder. "Because there was a scene in the House last night," he began hurriedly; "because when you go back you'll find that Sefborough has smashed up over the assassination of Sir William Brice-Field at Meshed, and that you have made your mark in a big speech; and because" Abruptly he stopped. The thing he had meant to say would not be said. Either his tongue or his resolution failed him, and for the instant he stood as silent and almost as ill at ease as his companion.

"Because, Chilcote" he began again lamely. Then all at once inspiration came to him in the suggestion of a wellnigh forgotten argument by which he might influence the other and save his own self-respect.

"It's all over, Chilcote," he said more quietly; "it has run itself out." And in a dozen sentences he sketched the story of Lillian Astrupp,-her past relations with himself-her present suspicions. It was not