in use.

leaders at San Sebastian scorned to postpone the bayonet to the spade or the linstock! So there became visible in the conduct of the siege that óraw haste' which is something more than halfsister to delay.'

Batteries were marked out on the night of July 10, 1813; by the morning of the 14th the guns were thundering across the front of the isthmus on San Bartolomeo ; but not till the 20th did the breaching batteries across the Urumea begin to smite with their fire the eastern wall of the town. Even at this early stage in the siege the British began to feel the strength of the defence. Frazer writes in his diary on July 19 : The enemy has some

good head in the fortress; we must feel for it. He fires and takes his measures with judgment.'

Nothing could well surpass the energy with which the siege was pushed. The great breaching battery had ten guns in action,

, and in fifteen and a half hours of daylight the fire from these averaged 350 rounds a gun; 'such a rate of firing,' says Jones in his · Journal,' was probably never equalled at any siege.' The sustained fury of the fire on both sides, indeed, quickly affected the

guns The guns fired from the fortress, for example, gave the appearance of two explosions when discharged; the vent of the gun, in a word, being so enlarged that the flash from it was almost as clear as that from the muzzle ; while in the English batteries, Jones records that some of the vents of the guns were so much enlarged that a moderate-sized finger might be put into them.'

The attacks on the two faces of the defence were, of course, part of one scheme, and should have been pushed on with a wise balance of energy. But Graham, apparently, found it impossible to keep the too eager spirits of his force in check; and, as a result, the attack on the isthmus was urged on with fiery energy, and without any regard to the operations against the eastern front of the town. By the 17th, San Bartolomeo was almost knocked out of shape; and though the batteries had not yet opened fire against the eastern front it was impossible to cool the impatience of the attack on the southern face. On the 17th the convent was assaulted. From the engineering point of view the attack was premature; but it was a brilliant and picturesque feat of arms.

The convent stood upon a steep ridge, and was open to the fire of both besiegers and besieged. From the batteries on the

6

Chofres sandhills, and from the rocky height of Monte Orgullo, the French and British, alike, eagerly watched the fierce struggle for the convent. No less than sixty guns indeed concentrated their fire on the building while the attack raged—the French guns smiting the assailants, the British guns trying to crush the defenders. At ten o'clock the storming party in two columns came over the crest of the hill which looked down on the convent. It consisted of Wilson's Portuguese, supported by the light company of the 9th British, and three companies of the Royals. Colin Campbell, afterwards Lord Clyde, led the men of the 9th. The Portuguese came on slowly, and the four companies of the British pushed forward with impatient eagerness, carried the redoubt, jumped over the convent wall, and thrust the French fiercely out. The French clung stubbornly to the houses which stretched beyond the convent towards the town, but the other companies of the 9th coming up with great resolution the French were still thrust back, while the cheers of the British troops watching the struggle from the further bank of the Urumea, could be heard above the tumult of the fight. The reckless daring of the British carried them too far; they tried to carry the great circular redoubt, which stood betwixt the convent and the town. Musket and bayonet were vain, however, to carry a work so strong, and the too eager soldiers were driven back with sharp loss.

The convent was at once turned into batteries against the southern front of the defence, and the eastern wall of the town began to crumble under the stroke of the guns from the Chofres hills. A parallel was carried by the British across the neck of the isthmus, and in its course laid bare an ancient aqueduct, a great drain four feet high and three feet wide. A young officer, Reid, of the Engineers, crept up this drain ; he found it ran for 230 yards towards the curtain across the isthmus, and ended in a door in the very counterscarp itself. A space of eight feet at the end of the aqueduct was stopped with sandbags, and thirty barrels of gunpowder were lodged against it, thus forming a globe of compression. This was to be fired when the moment of the assault came, and it was hoped would blow, as through a tube, enough rubbish over the counterscarp to fill the ditch of the hornwork, and thus make a way for the stormers.

Meanwhile the eastern wall crumbled fast under the fire of the batteries across the river. On July 23, the great breach was

* Heaven bless you !' she cried, weeping. And would have taken his hand.

He turned from her so sharply that she marvelled ; she had not judged him a man averse from thanks. But setting his manner down to the need of haste, she took the hint and prepared to follow him in silence. Holding the lanthorn so that its light fell on the floor he listened an instant, then led the way on tip-toe down the dim corridor. The house was hushed round them; if a board creaked, it seemed to her scared ears a pistol

l shot. At the entrance to the gallery round the hall which was partly illumined by lights still burning below, the tutor paused an instant to listen, then turned quickly from it, and by a narrow passage on the right gained a back staircase. Descending the narrow stairs he guided her by devious turnings through dingy offices and servants' quarters until they stood in safety before an outer door. To withdraw the bar that secured it, while she held the lanthorn, was for the tutor the work of an instant. They passed through, and he closed the door softly behind them.

After the confinement of her prison, the night air that chilled her temples was rapture to Julia; for it breathed of freedom. She turned her face up to the dark boughs that met and interlaced above her head, and whispered her thankfulness. Then, obedient to Mr. Thomasson's impatient gesture, she hastened to follow him along a dank narrow path that skirted the wall of the house for a few yards, then turned off among the trees.

They had left the wall no more than a dozen paces behind, when Mr. Thomasson paused, as in doubt, and raised his light. They were in a little beech-coppice that grew up to the walls of the servants' offices. The light showed the dark shining trunks, running in solemn rows this way and that; and more than one path trodden smooth across the roots. The lanthorn disclosed no more, but it was enough for Mr. Thomasson. He pursued the path he had chosen, and less than a minute's walking brought them into the avenue.

Julia drew a breath of relief and looked behind and before. Where is the carriage?' she whispered, shivering with excitement.

The tutor before he answered raised his lanthorn thrice to the level of his head, as if to make sure of his position. Then, *In the road,' he answered. “And the sooner you are in it the better, child, for I must return and replace the key before he

6

a

sobers. Or 'twill be worse for me,' he added snappishly, 'than for you!'

'You are not coming with me?' she exclaimed in surprise.

'No, I–I can't quarrel with him, he answered hurriedly. 'I-I am under obligations to him. And once in the carriage you'll be safe enough.'

Then please to tell me this,' Julia rejoined, her breath a little short. "Mr. Thomasson, did you know anything of my being carried off before it took place ?'

*I?' he cried effusively. “Did I know?'
'I mean—were you employed—to bring me to Mr. Pomeroy's?'

'I employed ? Good heavens! ma'am, what do you take me for ?' the tutor cried in righteous indignation. “No, ma'am,

. certainly not! I am not that kind of man!' And then blurting out the truth in his surprise, 'Why, 'twas Mr. Dunborough!'he said. “And like him too ! Heaven keep us from him !'

Mr. Dunborough ?' she exclaimed. · Yes, yes.

Oh, she said, in a helpless, foolish kind of way. “It was Mr. Dunborough, was it ?' And she begged his pardon.

So humbly, in a voice so broken by feeling and gratitude, that, bad man as he was, his soul revolted from the work he was upon; and for an instant, he stood still, the lantborn swinging in his hand.

She misinterpreted the movement. "Are we right?' she said, anxiously. "You don't think that we are out of the road?'

? Though the night was dark, and it was difficult to discern anything beyond the circle of light thrown by the lanthorn, it struck her that the avenue they were traversing was not the one by which she had approached the house two nights before. The trees seemed to stand farther from one another and to be smaller. Or was it her fancy?

At any rate it was not that had moved him to stand; for in a moment, with a curious sound between a groan and a curse he led the way on, without answering her. Fifty paces brought them to the gate and the road. Thomasson held up his lanthorn and looked over the gate.

'Where is the carriage?' she whispered, startled by the darkness and silence.

* It should be here,' he answered, his voice betraying his perplexity. 'It should be here at this gate. But I–I don't see it.'

Would it have lights ?' she asked anxiously. He had opened

6

the gate; as she spoke they passed through, and stood together looking up and down the road. The moon was obscured, and the lanthorn's rays were of little use to find a carriage which was not there.

'It should be here, and it should have lights,' he said in evident dismay. I don't know what to think of it. 1-ha! What is that? It is coming, I think. Yes, I hear it. It must have drawn off a little for some reason, and now they have seen the lanthorn.'

He had only the sound of wheels to go upon, but he was right; she uttered a sigh of relief as the twin lights of a carriage apparently approaching round a bend of the road, broke upon them. The lights drew near and nearer, and he waved his lamp. For a second the driver appeared to be going to pass them; then, as Mr. Thomasson again waved his lanthorn and shouted, he drew up.

• Halloa !' he said.

Mr. Thomasson did not answer, but with a trembling hand opened the door and thrust the girl in. "God bless you!' she murmured; 'and'

- He slammed the door, cutting short the sentence.

*Well ?' the driver said, looking down at him, his face in shadow ; 'I am-'

•Go on!' Mr. Thomasson cried peremptorily, and, waving his lanthorn again, startled the horses; they plunged away wildly, the man tugging vainly at the reins. The tutor fancied that

. he caught a faint scream from the inside of the chaise, but he set it down to fright caused by the sudden jerk; and, after standing long enough to assure himself that the carriage was keeping the road, he turned to retrace his steps to the house.

He was opening the gate-and his thoughts were no pleasant ones, for the devil pays scant measure—when his ear was surprised by a new sound of wheels approaching from the direction whence the chaise had come. He stood to listen, thinking he heard an echo; but in a second or two he saw lights approaching through the night precisely as the other lights had approached. Once seen they came on swiftly, and he was still standing gaping in wonder when a carriage and pair, a postboy riding and a cloaked man sitting in the rumble, swept by, dazzling him a moment; the next it was gone, whirling away into the darkness.

(To be continued.)