To Lincoln's keen disappointment, the delegation from Sangamon County was instructed for Baker. A variety of social and personal influences, besides Baker's popularity, worked against Lincoln. "It would astonish, if not amuse, the older citizens," wrote Lincoln to a friend, "to learn that I (a stranger, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flat-boat at ten dollars per month) have been put down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family distinction." He was not only accused of being an aristocrat, he was called "a deist." He had fought, or been about to fight, a duel. His wife's relations were Episcopalian and Presbyterian. He and she attended a Presbyterian church. These influences alone could not be said to have defeated him, he wrote, but "they levied a tax of considerable per cent. upon my strength."

The meeting that named Baker as its choice for Congress appointed Lincoln one of the delegates to the convention. "In getting Baker the nomination," Lincoln wrote to Speed, "I shall be fixed a good deal like a fellow who is made a grooms-man to a man that has cut him out, and is marrying his own dear 'gal.'" From the first, however, he stood bravely by Baker. "I feel myself bound not to hinder him in any way from getting the nomination; I should despise myself were I to attempt it," he wrote certain of his constituents who were anxious that he should attempt to secure the nomination in spite of his instructions. It was soon evident to both Lincoln and Baker that John J. Hardin was probably the strongest candidate in the district, and so it proved when the convention met in May, 1843, at Pekin.

It has frequently been charged that in this Pekin convention, Hardin, Baker, and Lincoln agreed to take in turn the three next nominations to Congress, thus establishing a species of rotation in office. This charge cannot be sustained. What occurred at the Pekin convention has been written out for this magazine by one of the only two surviving delegates, the Hon. J.M. Ruggles of Havana, Illinois.

"When the convention assembled," writes Mr. Ruggles, "Baker was there with his friend and champion delegate, Abraham Lincoln. The ayes and noes had been taken, and there were fifteen votes apiece, and one in doubt that had not arrived. That was myself. I was known to be a warm friend of Baker, representing people who were partial to Hardin. As soon as I arrived Baker hurried to me, saying: 'How is it? It all depends on you.' On being told that notwithstanding my partiality for him, the people I represented expected me to vote for Hardin, and that I would have to do so, Baker at once replied: 'You are right—there is no other way.' The convention was organized, and I was elected secretary. Baker immediately arose, and made a most thrilling address, thoroughly arousing the sympathies of the convention, and ended by declining his candidacy. Hardin was nominated by acclamation; and then came the episode.

"Immediately after the nomination, Mr. Lincoln walked across the room to my table, and asked if I would favor a resolution recommending Baker for the next term. On being answered in the affirmative, he said: 'You prepare the resolution, I will support it, and I think we can pass it.' The resolution created a profound sensation, especially with the friends of Hardin. After an excited and angry discussion, the resolution passed by a majority of one."

Lincoln supported Hardin as energetically as he had Baker. In a letter[3] to the former, hitherto unpublished, written on May 11th, just after the convention, he says:

"Butler informs me that he received a letter from you in which you expressed some doubt as to whether the Whigs of Sangamon will support you cordially. You may at once dismiss all fears on that subject. We have already resolved to make a particular effort to give you the very largest majority possible in our county. From this no Whig of the county dissents. We have many objects for doing it. We make it a matter of honor and pride to do it; we do it because we love the Whig cause; we do it because we like you personally; and, last, we wish to convince you that we do not bear that hatred to Morgan County that you people have seemed so long to imagine. You will see by the 'Journal' of this week that we propose, upon pain of losing a barbecue, to give you twice as great a majority in this county as you shall receive in your own. I got up the proposal.

"Who of the five appointed is to write the district address? I did the labor of writing one address this year, and got thunder for my reward. Nothing new here.

Yours as ever,

"A. LINCOLN."

"P.S. I wish you would measure one of the largest of those swords we took to Alton, and write me the length of it, from tip of the point to tip of the hilt, in feet and inches. I have a dispute about the length[4].

A. L."

[Footnote 3: The originals of both the letters on this page addressed by Lincoln to Hardin are owned by the daughter of General Hardin, Mrs. Ellen Hardin Walworth of New York City.]

[Footnote 4: The swords referred to in this postscript are those used in the Shields-Lincoln duel. See MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for April, 1896.]

LINCOLN WORKS FOR THE NOMINATION IN 1846.

Hardin was elected, and in 1844 Baker was nominated and elected. Lincoln had accepted his defeat by Hardin manfully. He had secured the nomination for Baker in 1844. He felt that his duty toward his friends was discharged, and that the nomination in 1846 belonged to him. Through the terms of both Hardin and Baker, he worked persistently and carefully to insure his own nomination. With infinite pains-taking he informed himself about the temper of every individual whom he knew or of whom he heard. In an amusing letter to Hardin, hitherto unpublished, written in May, 1844, while the latter was in Congress, he tells him of one disgruntled constituent who must be pacified, giving him, at the same time, a hint as to the temper of the "Locofocos."

"Knowing that you have correspondents enough, I have forborne to trouble you heretofore," he writes; "and I now only do so to get you to set a matter right which has got wrong with one of our best friends. It is old Uncle Thomas Campbell of Spring Creek (Berlin P.O.). He has received several documents from you, and he says they are old newspapers and old documents, having no sort of interest in them. He is, therefore, getting a strong impression that you treat him with disrespect. This, I know, is a mistaken impression, and you must correct it. The way, I leave to yourself. Robert W. Canfield says he would like to have a document or two from you.

"The Locos here are in considerable trouble about Van Buren's letter on Texas, and the Virginia electors. They are growing sick of the tariff question, and consequently are much confounded at Van Buren's cutting them off from the new Texas question. Nearly half the leaders swear they won't stand it. Of those are Ford, T. Campbell, Ewing, Calhoun, and others. They don't exactly say they won't go for Van Buren, but they say he will not be the candidate, and that they are for Texas anyhow.

"As ever yours,

"A. LINCOLN."



[Illustration: GENERAL JOHN J. HARDIN.

After a portrait owned by Mrs. Julia Duncan Kirby, Jacksonville, Illinois. John J. Hardin was born at Frankfort, Kentucky, January 6, 1810; was educated at Transylvania University; removed to Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1830, and there began practising law. He at once became active in politics, and in 1834 was a candidate for Prosecuting Attorney, an officer at that time chosen by the legislature. He was defeated by Stephen A. Douglas, then a recent arrival from Vermont. In 1836 he was elected to the lower branch of the General Assembly, and served three terms. In the session of 1836-37, he was one of the few members who opposed the internal improvements scheme. He was elected to Congress from the Sangamon district in 1843, and served until 1845. For some time he was a general in the State militia. In the Mexican War, he was colonel of the First Illinois Regiment, and was killed at the battle of Buena Vista, February 23, 1847. General Hardin was a man of brilliant parts. He was an able lawyer, and at the time of his death had risen to the leadership of the Whig party in his State. It was through his intercession, aided by Dr. R.W. English, that the unpleasantness between Lincoln and Shields in 1842 was amicably settled and a duel prevented.—J. McCan Davis.]

[Illustration: COLONEL EDWARD D. BAKER.

From the Civil War collection of Mr. Robert Coster. Edward Dickinson Baker was born in London, February 24, 1811. In his infancy his parents emigrated to America, and his father became a teacher at Philadelphia. There Edward was apprenticed to a weaver; but he disliked the trade, and soon gave it up and left home. He drifted to Belleville, Illinois, about 1826, and was followed a year later by his parents. For several months he drove a dray in St. Louis, Missouri; then removed to Carrollton, Illinois, and studied law. His early experience at the bar was disheartening, and upon becoming a member of the Christian church he resolved to enter the ministry; but political success about this time caused a change of mind, and robbed the pulpit of a splendid ornament. In 1835 he removed to Springfield, and in 1837 was elected to the legislature. He achieved immediate distinction as an orator, and for the ensuing fifteen years he ranked among the foremost lawyers and politicians of the State. He was reflected to the House in 1838, served in the State Senate from 1840 to 1844, and was then elected to Congress. Upon the breaking out of the Mexican War he returned home, and raised a regiment of which he was commissioned colonel. After the war he removed to Galena, and was there sent back to Congress. In 1851 he went to the Isthmus of Panama with four hundred laborers to engage in the construction of the Panama Railroad. In 1852 he went to San Francisco, California, where he at once became the leader of the bar. He was not successful there in any of his political aspirations, and removed to Oregon. That State at once made him a United States Senator. The Civil War coming on, he resigned his seat in the Senate, raised "the California regiment," immediately went to the front, and was killed at Ball's Bluff, October 20, 1861.—. J. McCan Davis.]

In 1844, being a presidential elector, Lincoln entered the canvass with ardor. Henry Clay was the candidate, and Lincoln shared the popular idolatry of the man. His devotion was not merely a sentiment, however. He had been an intelligent student of Clay's public life, and his sympathy was all with the principles of the "gallant Harry of the West." Throughout the campaign he worked zealously, travelling all over the State, speaking and talking. As a rule he was accompanied by a Democrat. The two went unannounced, simply stopping at some friendly house. On their arrival the word was sent around, "the candidates are here," and the men of the neighborhood gathered to hear the discussion, which was carried on in the most informal way, the candidates frequently sitting tipped back against the side of the house, or perched on a rail, whittling during the debates. Nor was all of this electioneering done by argument. Many votes were still cast in Illinois out of personal liking, and the wily candidate did his best to make himself agreeable, particularly to the women of the household. The Hon. William L.D. Ewing, a Democrat who travelled with Lincoln in one campaign, used to tell a story of how he and Lincoln were eager to win the favor of one of their hostesses, whose husband was an important man in his neighborhood. Neither had made much progress until at milking-time Mr. Ewing started after the woman of the house as she went to the yard, took her pail, and insisted on milking the cow himself. He naturally felt that this was a master stroke. But receiving no reply from the hostess, to whom he had been talking loudly as he milked, he looked around, only to see her and Lincoln leaning comfortably over the bars, engaged in an animated discussion. By the time he had his self-imposed task done, Lincoln had captivated the hostess, and all Mr. Ewing received for his pains was hearty thanks for giving her a chance to have so pleasant a talk with Mr. Lincoln.[5]

[Footnote 5: Interview with Judge William Ewing of Chicago.]



Lincoln's speeches at this time were not confined to his own State. He made several in Indiana, being invited thither by prominent Whig politicians who had heard him speak in Illinois. The first and most important of his meetings in Indiana was at Bruceville. The Democrats, learning of the proposed Whig gathering, arranged one, for the same evening, with Lieutenant William W. Carr of Vincennes as speaker. As might have been expected from the excited state of politics at the moment, the proximity of the two mass-meetings aroused party loyalty to a fighting pitch. "Each party was determined to break up the other's speaking," writes Miss O'Flynn, in a description of the Bruceville meeting prepared for this Magazine from interviews with those who took part in it. "The night was made hideous with the rattle of tin pans and bells and the blare of cow-horns. In spite of all the din and uproar of the younger element, a few grown-up male radicals and partisan women sang and cheered loudly for their favorites, who kept on with their flow of political information. Lieutenant Carr stood in his carriage, and addressed the crowd around him, while a local politician acted as grand marshal of the night, and urged the yelling Democratic legion to surge to the schoolhouse, where Abraham Lincoln was speaking, and run the Whigs from their headquarters. Old men now living, who were big boys then, cannot remember any of the burning eloquence of either speaker. As they now laughingly express it: 'We were far more interested in the noise and fussing than the success of the speakers, and we ran backward and forward from one camp to the other.'

Fortunately, the remaining speeches in Indiana were made under more dignified conditions. One was delivered at Rockport; another "from the door of a harness shop" near Gentryville, Lincoln's old home in Indiana; and a third at the "Old Carter School" in the same neighborhood. At the delivery of the last many of Lincoln's old neighbors were present, and they still tell of the cordial way in which he greeted them and of the interest he showed in every familiar spot.

"'I was a young fellow,' Mr. Redmond Grigsby says, 'and took a long time to get to the speaking. When I got to the out-skirts of the crowd, Mr. Lincoln saw me, and called out: "If that isn't Red Grigsby, then I'm a ghost." He then came through the crowd and met me. We shook hands and talked a little. His speech was good, and was talked about for a long while around in this section. The last words of his speech at the Carter schoolhouse were: 'My fellow-citizens, I may not live to see it, but give us protective tariff, and we will have the greatest country on the globe.'"

"After the speaking was over, Mr. Josiah Crawford invited Abraham Lincoln and John W. Lamar to go home with him. As they rode along, Mr. Lincoln talked over olden times. He asked about a saw pit in which he had worked when a young boy. Mr. Crawford said it was still in existence, and that he would drive around near it. The three men, Lincoln, Crawford, and Lamar, went up into the woods where the old pit was. It had partly fallen down; the northwest corner, where Lincoln used to stand when working, was propped up by a large forked stick against a tree. Mr. Lincoln said: 'This looks more natural than I thought it would after so many years since I worked here.' During the time spent at Mr. Crawford's home, Mr. Lincoln went around inspecting everything."[6]

[Footnote 6: Lincoln in Indiana in 1844. Unpublished MS. by Anna O'Flynn.]

So vivid were the memories which this visit to Gentryville aroused, so deep were Lincoln's emotions, that he even attempted to express them in verse.

[Illustration: THE REV. PETER CARTWRIGHT.

The Rev. Peter Cartwright, the most famous itinerant preacher of the pioneer era, was born in Amherst County, Virginia, on James River, September 1, 1785. His father was a Revolutionary soldier, and soon after peace was declared the family moved to the wildest region of Kentucky. The migrating party consisted of two hundred families, guarded by an armed escort of one hundred men. Peter was a wild boy; but in his sixteenth year he was persuaded by his mother to join the Methodist Church. He at once displayed a wonderful talent for exhorting, and at the age of seventeen he became a licensed exhorter. A year later he became a regular travelling preacher. His reputation soon spread over Kentucky and Ohio. He hated slavery, and in 1823, to get into a free State, he and his wife (he had married Frances Gaines in 1808) and their seven children removed to Illinois. They settled in the Sangamon valley, near Springfield. For the next forty years he travelled over the State, most of the time on horseback, preaching the gospel in his unique and rugged fashion. His district was at first so large (extending from Kaskaskia to Galena) that he was unable to traverse the whole of it in the same year. He was elected to the legislature in 1828 and again in 1832; Lincoln, in the latter year, being an opposing candidate. In 1846 he was the Democratic nominee for Congress against Lincoln, and was badly beaten. Peter Cartwright enjoyed, perhaps, a larger personal acquaintance with the people of Illinois than any other man ever had. His name was familiar in every household in the West. Up to 1856 (he wrote an autobiography in that year) he had baptized twelve thousand persons and preached five hundred funeral sermons. His personality was quaint and original. A native vigor of intellect largely overbalanced the lack of education. He was a great wit, and often said startling things. His religion sometimes bordered upon fanaticism. He was fearless and aggressive, and was no respecter of persons. It was not a rare thing for him to descend from the pulpit, and by sheer physical force subdue a disorderly member of his congregation. On one occasion, attending a dinner given by Governor Edwards, he requested the governor to "say grace," observing that the ceremony was about to be dispensed with. The wife of a Methodist brother objected to family worship; Peter Cartwright shut her outdoors and kept her there until she became convinced of her error. At Nashville, Tennessee, as he was about to begin a sermon, a distinguished-looking stranger entered the church; some one whispered to him that it was Andrew Jackson; whereupon he at once blurted out, "Who is General Jackson? If he don't get his soul converted, God will damn him as quick as he would a Guinea nigger!" Attending the general conference in New York, he astonished the hotel clerk by asking for an axe "to blaze his way" up the six flights of stairs, so that he would not get lost on the return trip. He died in 1872, after having been a member of the Methodist Church for more than seventy-one years.—J. McCan Davis.]

LINCOLN'S POSITION IN 1845 ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

In this campaign of 1844 the annexation of Texas was one of the most hotly discussed questions. The Whigs opposed annexation, but their ground was not radical enough to suit the growing body of Abolitionists in the country, who nominated a third candidate, James G. Birney. Lincoln was obliged to meet the arguments of the Abolitionists frequently in his campaigning. In 1845, while working for Congress, he found the abolition sentiment stronger than ever. Prominent among the leaders of the third party in the State were two brothers, Williamson and Madison Durley of Hennepin, Illinois. They were outspoken advocates of their principles, and even operated a station of the underground railroad. Lincoln knew the Durleys, and, when visiting Hennepin to speak, solicited their support. They opposed their liberty principles. When Lincoln returned to Springfield he wrote Williamson Durley a letter which has never before been published,[7] and which sets forth with admirable clearness his exact position on the slavery question at that period. It must be regarded, we think, as the most valuable document on the question which we have up to this point in Lincoln's life.

[Footnote 7: This letter is dated October 3, 1845. It is now owned by the son of Williamson Durley, Mr. A.W. Durley of West Superior, Wisconsin. Mr. C.W. Durley of Princeton, Illinois, kindly secured the copy for us from his brother.]



"When I saw you at home," Lincoln began, "it was agreed that I should write to you and your brother Madison. Until I then saw you I was not aware of your being what is generally called an Abolitionist, or, as you call yourself, a Liberty man, though I well knew there were many such in your county.

"I was glad to hear that you intended to attempt to bring about, at the next election in Putnam, a union of the Whigs proper and such of the Liberty men as are Whigs in principle on all questions save only that of slavery. So far as I can perceive, by such union neither party need yield anything on the point in difference between them. If the Whig abolitionists of New York had voted with us last fall, Mr. Clay would now be President, Whig principles in the ascendant, and Texas not annexed; whereas, by the division, all that either had at stake in the contest was lost. And, indeed, it was extremely probable, beforehand, that such would be the result. As I always understood, the Liberty men deprecated the annexation of Texas extremely; and this being so, why they should refuse to cast their votes [so] as to prevent it, even to me seemed wonderful. What was their process of reasoning, I can only judge from what a single one of them told me. It was this: 'We are not to do evil that good may come.' This general proposition is doubtless correct; but did it apply? If by your votes you could have prevented the extension, etc., of slavery, would it not have been good, and not evil, so to have used your votes, even though it involved the casting of them for a slave-holder? By the fruit the tree is to be known. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit. If the fruit of electing Mr. Clay would have been to prevent the extension of slavery, could the act of electing have been evil?

"But I will not argue further. I perhaps ought to say that individually I never was much interested in the Texas question. I never could see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free republican people on our own model. On the other hand, I never could very clearly see how the annexation would augment the evil of slavery. It always seemed to me that slaves would be taken there in about equal numbers, with or without annexation. And if more were taken because of annexation, still there would be just so many the fewer left where they were taken from. It is possibly true, to some extent, that, with annexation, some slaves may be sent to Texas and continued in slavery that otherwise might have been liberated. To whatever extent this may be true, I think annexation an evil. I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free States, due to the Union of the States, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem), to let the slavery of the other States alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear that we should never knowingly lend ourselves, directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death—to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old. Of course I am not now considering what would be our duty in cases of insurrection among the slaves. To recur to the Texas question, I understand the Liberty men to have viewed annexation as a much greater evil than ever I did; and I would like to convince you, if I could, that they could have prevented it, without violation of principle, if they had chosen.

"I intend this letter for you and Madison together; and if you and he or either shall think fit to drop me a line, I shall be pleased.

"Yours with respect,

"A. LINCOLN."

LINCOLN AND HARDIN.

As the time drew near for the convention of 1846 Lincoln learned that Hardin proposed to contest the nomination with him. Hardin certainly was free to do this. He had voluntarily declined the nomination in 1844, because of the events of the Pekin convention, but he had made no promise to do so in 1846. Many of the Whigs of the district had not expected him to be a candidate, however, arguing that Lincoln, because of his relation to the party, should be given his turn. "We do not entertain a doubt," wrote the editor of the "Sangamo Journal," in February, 1846, "that if we could reverse the positions of the two men, a very large portion of those who now support Mr. Lincoln most warmly would support General Hardin quite as warmly." Although Lincoln had anticipated that Hardin would enter the race, it made him anxious and a little melancholy.

"Since I saw you last fall," he wrote on January 7, 1846, to his friend Dr. Robert Boal of Lacon, Illinois, in a letter hitherto unpublished[8], "I have often thought of writing you, as it was then understood I would; but, on reflection, I have always found that I had nothing new to tell you. All has happened as I then told you I expected it would—Baker's declining, Hardin's taking the track, and so on.

[Footnote 8: This letter is still in the possession of Dr. Boal of Lacon, Illinois, and the right of publication was secured for the Magazine by W.B. Powell of that city.]

"If Hardin and I stood precisely equal—that is, if neither of us had been to Congress, or if we both had—it would not only accord with what I have always done, for the sake of peace, to give way to him; and I expect I should do it. That I can voluntarily postpone my pretensions, when they are no more than equal to those to which they are postponed, you have yourself seen. But to yield to Hardin under present circumstances seems to me as nothing else than yielding to one who would gladly sacrifice me altogether. This I would rather not submit to. That Hardin is talented, energetic, unusually generous and magnanimous, I have, before this, affirmed to you, and do not now deny. You know that my only argument is that 'turn about is fair play.' This he, practically at least, denies.

"If it would not be taxing you too much, I wish you would write me, telling the aspect of things in your county, or rather your district; and also send the names of some of your Whig neighbors to whom I might, with propriety, write. Unless I can get some one to do this, Hardin, with his old franking list, will have the advantage of me. My reliance for a fair shake (and I want nothing more) in your county is chiefly on you, because of your position and standing, and because I am acquainted with so few others. Let me hear from you soon."



Lincoln followed the vibrations of feeling in the various counties with extreme nicety, studying every individual whose loyalty he suspected or whose vote was not yet pledged. "Nathan Dresser is here," he wrote to his friend Bennett, on January 15, 1846, "and speaks as though the contest between Hardin and me is to be doubtful in Menard County. I know he is candid, and this alarms me some. I asked him to tell me the names of the men that were going strong for Hardin; he said Morris was about as strong as any. Now tell me, is Morris going it openly? You remember you wrote me that he would be neutral. Nathan also said that some man (who, he could not remember) had said lately that Menard County was again to decide the contest, and that made the contest very doubtful. Do you know who that was?

"Don't fail to write me instantly on receiving, telling me all—particularly the names of those who are going strong against me[9]."

[Footnote 9: This letter, hitherto unpublished, is owned by E. R. Oeltjen of Petersburg, Illinois.]

In January, General Hardin suggested that, since he and Mr. Lincoln were the only persons mentioned as candidates, there be no convention, but the selection be left to the Whig voters of the district. Lincoln refused.

"It seems to me," he wrote Hardin, "that on reflection you will see the fact of your having been in Congress has, in various ways, so spread your name in the district as to give you a decided advantage in such a stipulation. I appreciate your desire to keep down excitement; and I promise you to 'keep cool' under all circumstances.... I have always been in the habit of acceding to almost any proposal that a friend would make, and I am truly sorry that I cannot in this. I perhaps ought to mention that some friends at different places are endeavoring to secure the honor of the sitting of the convention at their towns respectively, and I fear that they would not feel much complimented if we shall make a bargain that it should sit nowhere."[10]

[Footnote 10: From a letter published in the "Sangamo Journal" of February 26, 1846, and which is not found in any collection of Lincoln's letters and speeches.]

After General Hardin received this refusal he withdrew from the contest, in a manly and generous letter which was warmly approved by the Whigs of the district. Both men were so much loved that a break between them would have been a disastrous thing for the party. "We are truly glad that a contest which in its nature was calculated to weaken the ties of friendship has terminated amicably," said the "Sangamo Journal."

[Illustration: ROBERT C. WINTHROP, SPEAKER OF THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS.

Born in Boston in 1809, graduated at Harvard, and studied law with Daniel Webster. Winthrop's career as a statesman began with his election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1834. He remained there until elected to Congress in 1840, where he served ten years. In 1847 he was elected Speaker by the Whigs. In 1850 Winthrop was appointed Senator to take Daniel Webster's place, but he was defeated in his efforts to be re-elected. Candidate for governor in the same year, he was also defeated. He retired from politics after this, though often offered various candidacies. Winthrop was especially noted as an orator.]

The charge that Hardin, Baker, and Lincoln tried to ruin one another in this contest for Congress has often been denied by their associates, and never more emphatically than by Judge Gillespie, an influential politician of the State. In an unpublished letter Judge Gillespie says: "Hardin was one of the most unflinching and unfaltering Whigs that ever drew the breath of life. He was a mirror of chivalry, and so was Baker. Lincoln had boundless respect for, and confidence in, them both. He knew they would sacrifice themselves rather than do an act that could savor in the slightest degree of meanness or dishonor. Those men, Lincoln, Hardin, and Baker, were bosom friends, to my certain knowledge.... Lincoln felt that they could be actuated by nothing but the most honorable sentiments towards him. For although they were rivals, they were all three men of the most punctilious honor, and devoted friends. I knew them intimately, and can say confidently that there never was a particle of envy on the part of one towards the other. The rivalry between them was of the most honorable and friendly character, and when Hardin and Baker were killed (Hardin in Mexico, and Baker at Ball's Bluff) Lincoln felt that in the death of each he had lost a dear and true friend[11]."

[Footnote 11: From an unpublished letter by Joseph Gillespie, owned by Mrs. Ellen Hardin Walworth of New York City.]



After Hardin's withdrawal, Lincoln went about in his characteristic way trying to soothe his and Hardin's friends. "Previous to General Hardin's withdrawal," he wrote one of his correspondents,[12] "some of his friends and some of mine had become a little warm; and I felt ... that for them now to meet face to face and converse together was the best way to efface any remnant of unpleasant feeling, if any such existed. I did not suppose that General Hardin's friends were in any greater need of having their feelings corrected than mine were."

[Footnote 12: From an unpublished letter to Judge James Berdan of Jacksonville, Illinois, dated April 26, 1846. The original is now owned by Mrs. Mary Berdan Tiffany of Springfield, Illinois.]

In May, Lincoln was nominated. His Democratic opponent was Peter Cartwright, the famous Methodist exhorter. Cartwright had been in politics before, and made an energetic canvass. His chief weapon against Lincoln was the old charges of deism and aristocracy; but they failed of effect, and in August, Lincoln was elected.

The contest over, sudden and characteristic disillusion seized him. "Being elected to Congress, though I am grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected," he wrote Speed.

LINCOLN GOES TO WASHINGTON.

In November, 1847, Lincoln started for Washington. The city in 1848 was little more than the outline of the Washington of 1896. The Capitol was without the present wings, dome, or western terrace. The White House, the City Hall, the Treasury, the Patent Office, and the Post-Office were the only public buildings standing then which have not been rebuilt or materially changed. The streets were unpaved, and their dust in summer and mud in winter are celebrated in every record of the period. The parks and circles were still unplanted. Near the White House were a few fine old homes, and Capitol Hill was partly built over. Although there were deplorable wastes between these two points, the majority of the people lived in this part of the city, on or near Pennsylvania Avenue. The winter that Lincoln was in Washington, Daniel Webster lived on Louisiana Avenue, near Sixth Street; Speaker Winthrop and Thomas H. Benton on C Street, near Third; John Quincy Adams and James Buchanan, the latter then Secretary of State, on F Street, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth. Many of the senators and congressmen were in hotels, the leading ones of which were Willard's, Coleman's, Gadsby's, Brown's, Young's, Fuller's, and the United States. Stephen A. Douglas, who was in Washington for his first term as senator, lived at Willard's. So inadequate were the hotel accommodations during the sessions that visitors to the town were frequently obliged to accept most uncomfortable makeshifts for beds. Seward, visiting the city in 1847, tells of sleeping on "a cot between two beds occupied by strangers."

The larger number of members lived in "messes," a species of boarding-club, over which the owner of the house occupied usually presided. The "National Intelligencer" of the day is sprinkled with announcements of persons "prepared to accommodate a mess of members." Lincoln went to live in one of the best known of these clubs, Mrs. Sprigg's, in "Duff Green's Row," on Capitol Hill. This famous row has now entirely disappeared, the ground on which it stood being occupied by the new Congressional Library.



At Mrs. Sprigg's, Lincoln had as mess-mates several Congressmen: A.R. McIlvaine, James Pollock, John Strohm, and John Blanchard, all of Pennsylvania, Patrick Tompkins of Mississippi, Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio, and Elisha Embree of Indiana. Among his neighbors in messes on Capitol Hill were Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. Only one of the members of the mess at Mrs. Sprigg's in the winter of 1847-1848 is now living, Dr. S.C. Busey of Washington, D.C. He sat nearly opposite Lincoln at the table.

"I soon learned to know and admire him," says Dr. Busey[13], "for his simple and unostentatious manners, kind-heartedness, and amusing jokes, anecdotes, and witticisms. When about to tell an anecdote during a meal he would lay down his knife and fork, place his elbows upon the table, rest his face between his hands, and begin with the words, 'That reminds me,' and proceed. Everybody prepared for the explosions sure to follow. I recall with vivid pleasure the scene of merriment at the dinner after his first speech in the House of Representatives, occasioned by the descriptions, by himself and others of the Congressional mess, of the uproar in the House during its delivery.

[Footnote 13: "Personal Reminiscences and Recollections," by Samuel C. Busey, M.D., LL.D., Washington, D.C., 1895.]



"Congressman Lincoln was always neatly but very plainly dressed, very simple and approachable in manner, and unpretentious. He attended to his business, going promptly to the House and remaining till the session adjourned, and appeared to be familiar with the progress of legislation."

The town offered then little in the way of amusement. The Adelphi Theatre was opened that winter for the first time, and presented a variety of mediocre plays. At the Olympia were "lively and beautiful exhibitions of model artists." Herz and Sivori, the pianists, then touring in the United States, played several times in the season; and there was a Chinese Museum. Add the exhibitions of Brown's paintings of the heroes of Palo Alto, Resaca, Monterey, and Buena Vista, and of Powers's "Greek Slave," the performances of Dr. Valentine, "Delineator of Eccentricities," a few lectures, and numerous church socials, and you have about all there was in the way of public entertainment in Washington in 1848. But of dinners, receptions, and official gala affairs there were many. Lincoln's name appears frequently in the "National Intelligencer" on committees to offer dinners to this or that great man. He was, in the spring of 1849, one of the managers of the inaugural ball given to Taylor. His simple, sincere friendliness and his quaint humor won him soon a sure, if quiet, social position. He was frequently invited to Mr. Webster's Saturday breakfasts, where his stories were highly relished for their originality and drollery.



Dr. Busey recalls his popularity at one of the leading places of amusement on Capitol Hill.

"Congressman Lincoln was very fond of bowling," he says, "and would frequently join others of the mess, or meet other members in a match game, at the alley of James Casparis, which was near the boarding-house. He was a very awkward bowler, but played the game with great zest and spirit, solely for exercise and amusement, and greatly to the enjoyment and entertainment of the other players and bystanders by his criticisms and funny illustrations. He accepted success and defeat with like good nature and humor, and left the alley at the conclusion of the game without a sorrow or disappointment. When it was known that he was in the alley, there would assemble numbers of people to witness the fun which was anticipated by those who knew of his fund of anecdotes and jokes. When in the alley, surrounded by a crowd of eager listeners, he indulged with great freedom in the sport of narrative, some of which were very broad. His witticisms seemed for the most part to be impromptu, but he always told the anecdotes and jokes as if he wished to convey the impression that he had heard them from some one; but they appeared very many times as if they had been made for the immediate occasion."

Another place where he became at home and was much appreciated was in the post-office at the Capitol. "During the Christmas holidays," says Ben: Perley Poore, "Mr. Lincoln found his way into the small room used as the post-office of the House, where a few jovial raconteurs used to meet almost every morning, after the mail had been distributed into the members' boxes, to exchange such new stories as any of them might have acquired since they had last met. After modestly standing at the door for several days, Mr. Lincoln was reminded of a story, and by New Year's he was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capitol. His favorite seat was at the left of the open fireplace, tilted back in his chair, with his long legs reaching over to the chimney jamb. He never told a story twice, but appeared to have an endless repertoire of them always ready, like the successive charges in a magazine gun, and always pertinently adapted to some passing event. It was refreshing to us correspondents, compelled as we were to listen to so much that was prosy and tedious, to hear this bright specimen of Western genius tell his inimitable stories, especially his reminiscences of the Black Hawk War."



LINCOLN'S WORK IN THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS.

But Lincoln had gone to Washington for work, and he at once interested himself in the Whig organization formed to elect the officers of the House. There was only a small Whig majority, and it took skill and energy to keep the offices in the party. Lincoln's share in achieving this result was generally recognized. As late as 1860, twelve years after the struggle, Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, who was elected speaker, said in a speech in Boston wherein he discussed Lincoln's nomination to the Presidency: "You will be sure that I remember him with interest, if I may be allowed to remind you that he helped to make me the speaker of the Thirtieth Congress, when the vote was a very close and strongly contested vote."



A week after Congress organized, Lincoln wrote to Springfield: "As you are all so anxious for me to distinguish myself, I have concluded to do so before long;" and he did it—but not exactly as his Springfield friends wished. The United States were then at war with Mexico, a war that the Whigs abhorred. Lincoln had used his influence against it; but, hostilities declared, he had publicly affirmed that every loyal man must stand by the army. Many of his friends, Hardin, Baker, and Shields, among others, were at that moment in Mexico. Lincoln had gone to Washington intending to say nothing in opposition to the war. But the administration wished to secure from the Whigs not only votes of supplies and men, but a resolution declaring that the war was just and right. Lincoln, with others of his party in Congress, refused his sanction, voting a resolution that the war had been "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally" begun. On December 22d he made his debut in the House by the famous "Spot Resolutions," a series of searching questions so clearly put, so strong historically and logically, that they drove the administration step by step from the "spot" where the war began, and showed that it had been the aggressor in the conquest. In January Lincoln followed up these resolutions with a speech in support of his position. His action was much criticised in Illinois, where the sound of the drum and the intoxication of victory had completely turned attention from the moral side of the question, and Lincoln found himself obliged to defend his position with even his oldest friends.



The routine work assigned him in the Thirtieth Congress was on the Committee on the Post-office and Post Roads. Several reports were made by him from this committee. These reports, with a speech on internal improvements, cover his published work in the House up to July. Then he made a speech which was at the time quoted far and wide.

In July Zachary Taylor had been nominated at Philadelphia for President by the Whigs. Lincoln had been at the convention, and went back to Washington full of enthusiasm. "In my opinion we shall have a most overwhelming, glorious triumph," he wrote a friend. "One unmistakable sign is that all the odds and ends are with us—Barnburners, Native Americans, Tyler men, disappointed office-seekers, Locofocos, and the Lord knows what. This is important, if in nothing else, in showing which way the wind blows."

In connection with Alexander H. Stephens, with whom he had become a warm friend, Toombs, and Preston, Lincoln formed the first Congressional Taylor Club, known as the "Young Indians." Campaigning had already begun on the floor of Congress, and the members were daily making speeches for the various candidates. On July 27th Lincoln made a speech for Taylor. It was a boisterous election speech, full of merciless caricaturing, and delivered with inimitable drollery. It kept the House in an uproar, and was reported the country over by the Whig press. The "Baltimore American," in giving a synopsis of it, called it the "crack speech of the day," and said of Lincoln: "He is a very able, acute, uncouth, honest, upright man, and a tremendous wag, withal.... Mr. Lincoln's manner was so good-natured, and his style so peculiar, that he kept the House in a continuous roar of merriment for the last half hour of his speech. He would commence a point in his speech far up one of the aisles, and keep on talking, gesticulating, and walking until he would find himself, at the end of a paragraph, down in the centre of the area in front of the clerk's desk. He would then go back and take another head, and work down again. And so on, through his capital speech."

LINCOLN GOES TO NEW ENGLAND.—A NEW SPEECH.

This speech, as well as the respect Lincoln's work in the House had inspired among the leaders of the party, brought him an invitation to deliver several campaign speeches in New England at the close of Congress, and he went there early in September. There was in New England, at that date, much strong anti-slavery feeling. The Whigs claimed to be "Free Soilers" as well as the party which appropriated that name, and Lincoln, in the first speech he made, defined carefully his position on the slavery question. This was at Worcester, Massachusetts, on September 12th. The Whig State convention had met to nominate a candidate for governor, and the most eminent Whigs of Massachusetts were present. Curiously enough the meeting was presided over by ex-Governor Levi Lincoln, a descendant, like Abraham Lincoln, from the original Samuel of Hingham. There were many brilliant speeches made; but if we are to trust the reports of the day, Lincoln's was the one which by its logic, its clearness, and its humor, did most for the Whig cause. "Gentlemen inform me," says one Boston reporter, who came too late for the exercises, "that it was one of the best speeches ever heard in Worcester, and that several Whigs who had gone off on the Free Soil fizzle have come back again to the Whig ranks."

A report was made and printed in the Boston "Advertiser," though it has hitherto been entirely overlooked by biographers of Lincoln. A search made for this magazine through the files of the Boston and Worcester papers of the year brought it to light, and we reprint it here for the first time. It gives concisely what Lincoln thought about the slavery question in 1848. The report reads:

"Mr. Lincoln has a very tall and thin figure, with an intellectual face, showing a searching mind and a cool judgment. He spoke in a clear and cool and very eloquent manner for an hour and a half, carrying the audience with him in his able arguments and brilliant illustrations—only interrupted by warm and frequent applause. He began by expressing a real feeling of modesty in addressing an audience this 'side of the mountains,' a part of the country where, in the opinion of the people of his section, everybody was supposed to be instructed and wise. But he had devoted his attention to the question of the coming Presidential election, and was not unwilling to exchange with all whom he might the ideas to which he had arrived. He then began to show the fallacy of some of the arguments against General Taylor, making his chief theme the fashionable statement of all those who oppose him (the old Locofocos as well as the new), that he has no principles, and that the Whig party have abandoned their principles by adopting him as their candidate. He maintained that General Taylor occupied a high and unexceptionable Whig ground, and took for his first instance and proof of this his statement in the Allison letter—with regard to the Bank, Tariff, Rivers and Harbors, etc.—that the will of the people should produce its own results, without executive influence. The principle that the people should do what—under the Constitution—they please, is a Whig principle. All that, General Taylor not only consents to, but appeals to the people to judge and act for themselves. And this was no new doctrine for Whigs. It was the 'platform' on which they had fought all their battles, the resistance of executive influence, and the principle of enabling the people to frame the government according to their will. General Taylor consents to be the candidate, and to assist the people to do what they think to be their duty, and think to be best in their national affairs; but because he don't want to tell what we ought to do, he is accused of having no principles. The Whigs have maintained for years that neither the influence, the duress, nor the prohibition of the executive should control the legitimately expressed will of the people; and now that on that very ground General Taylor says that he should use the power given him by the people to do, to the best of his judgment, the will of the people, he is accused of want of principle and of inconsistency in position.

"Mr. Lincoln proceeded to examine the absurdity of an attempt to make a platform or creed for a national party, to all parts of which all must consent and agree, when it was clearly the intention and the true philosophy of our government, that in Congress all opinions and principles should be represented, and that when the wisdom of all had been compared and united, the will of the majority should be carried out. On this ground he conceived (and the audience seemed to go with him) that General Taylor held correct, sound republican principles.

[Illustration: LEVI LINCOLN, GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM 1825 TO 1834.

From a photograph kindly loaned by Miss Frances M. Lincoln of Worcester, Massachusetts, after a painting by Chester Harding. Levi Lincoln was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1782, and died there in 1868. He was a fourth cousin of Thomas Lincoln, father of the President, being descended from the oldest son of Samuel Lincoln of Hingham, Massachusetts, from whose fourth son, Mordecai, Abraham Lincoln descended. Levi Lincoln was a graduate of Harvard, and studied law, practising in Worcester. He filled many important public positions in the State, serving in the legislature, and as lieutenant-governor, judge of the Supreme Court, and from 1825 to 1834 as governor. He represented the Whigs in Congress from 1835 to 1841, and after the expiration of his term was made collector of the port of Boston. Levi Lincoln was an active member of several learned societies, and prominent in all the public functions of his State. In 1848, when Abraham Lincoln, then member of Congress, spoke in Worcester, ex-Governor Lincoln presided.]

"Mr. Lincoln then passed to the subject of slavery in the States, saying that the people of Illinois agreed entirely with the people of Massachusetts on this subject, except, perhaps, that they did not keep so constantly thinking about it. All agreed that slavery was an evil, but that we were not responsible for it, and cannot affect it in States of this Union where we do not live. But the question of the extension of slavery to new territories of this country is a part of our responsibility and care, and is under our control. In opposition to this Mr. Lincoln believed that the self-named 'Free Soil' party was far behind the Whigs. Both parties opposed the extension. As he understood it, the new party had no principle except this opposition. If their platform held any other, it was in such a general way that it was like the pair of pantaloons the Yankee peddler offered for sale, 'large enough for any man, small enough for any boy.' They therefore had taken a position calculated to break down their single important declared object. They were working for the election of either General Cass or General Taylor. The speaker then went on to show, clearly and eloquently, the danger of extension of slavery likely to result from the election of General Cass. To unite with those who annexed the new territory, to prevent the extension of slavery in that territory, seemed to him to be in the highest degree absurd and ridiculous. Suppose these gentlemen succeed in electing Mr. Van Buren, they had no specific means to prevent the extension of slavery to New Mexico and California; and General Taylor, he confidently believed, would not encourage it, and would not prohibit its restriction. But if General Cass was elected, he felt certain that the plans of farther extension of territory would be encouraged, and those of the extension of slavery would meet no check. The 'Free Soil' men, in claiming that name, indirectly attempt a deception, by implying that Whigs were not Free Soil men. In declaring that they would 'do their duty and leave the consequences to God,' they merely gave an excuse for taking a course they were not able to maintain by a fair and full argument. To make this declaration did not show what their duty was. If it did, we should have no use for judgment; we might as well be made without intellect; and when divine or human law does not clearly point out what is our duty, we have no means of finding out what it is but using our most intelligent judgment of the consequences. If there were divine law or human law for voting for Martin Van Buren, or if a fair examination of the consequences and first reasoning would show that voting for him would bring about the ends they pretended to wish, then he would give up the argument. But since there was no fixed law on the subject, and since the whole probable result of their action would be an assistance in electing General Cass, he must say that they were behind the Whigs in their advocacy of the freedom of the soil.

"Mr. Lincoln proceeded to rally the Buffalo convention for forbearing to say anything—after all the previous declarations of those members who were formerly Whigs—on the subject of the Mexican War because the Van Burens had been known to have supported it. He declared that of all the parties asking the confidence of the country, this new one had less of principle than any other.

"He wondered whether it was still the opinion of these Free Soil gentlemen, as declared in the 'whereas' at Buffalo, that the Whig and Democratic parties were both entirely dissolved and absorbed into their own body. Had the Vermont election given them any light? They had calculated on making as great an impression in that State as in any part of the Union, and there their attempts had been wholly ineffectual. Their failure there was a greater success than they would find in any other part of the Union.

"Mr. Lincoln went on to say that he honestly believed that, if all those who wished to keep up the character of the Union, who did not believe in enlarging our field, but in keeping our fences where they are, and cultivating our present possessions, making it a garden, improving the morals and education of the people, devoting the administrations to this purpose—all real Whigs, friends of good honest government—will unite, the race was ours. He had opportunities of hearing from almost every part of the Union, from reliable sources, and had not heard of a county in which we had not received accessions from other parties. If the true Whigs come forward and join these new friends, they need not have a doubt. We had a candidate whose personal character and principles he had already described, whom he could not eulogize if he would. General Taylor had been constantly, perseveringly, quietly standing up, doing his duty, and asking no praise or reward for it. He was and must be just the man to whom the interests, principles, and prosperity of the country might be safely intrusted. He had never failed in anything he had undertaken, although many of his duties had been considered almost impossible.

"Mr. Lincoln then went into a terse though rapid review of the origin of the Mexican War, and the connection of the administration and General Taylor with it, from which he deduced a strong appeal to the Whigs present to do their duty in the support of General Taylor, and closed with the warmest aspirations for and confidence in a deserved success.

"At the close of this truly masterly and convincing speech, the audience gave three enthusiastic cheers for Illinois, and three more for the eloquent Whig member from that State."

After the speech at Worcester, Lincoln spoke at Dorchester, Dedham, Roxbury, and Chelsea, and on September 22d, in Tremont Temple, Boston,[14] following a splendid oration by Governor Seward. His speech on this occasion was not reported, though the Boston papers united in calling it "powerful and convincing." His success at Worcester and Boston was such that invitations came from all over New England asking him to speak, and "The Atlas," to which many of these requests were sent, was obliged finally to print the following note:

[Footnote 14: At this meeting the secretary was Ezra Lincoln, also a descendant of Samuel Lincoln of Hingham.]

HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

In answer to the many applications which we daily receive from different parts of the State for this gentleman to speak, we have to say that he left Boston on Saturday morning on his way home to Illinois.

But Lincoln won something in New England of vastly deeper importance than a reputation for making popular campaign speeches. He for the first time caught a glimpse of the utter irreconcilableness of the Northern conviction that slavery was evil and unendurable, and the Southern claim that it was divine and necessary; and he began here to realize that something must be done. Listening to Seward's speech in Tremont Temple, he seems to have had a sudden insight into the truth, a quick illumination; and that night, as the two men sat talking, he said gravely to the great anti-slavery advocate:

"Governor Seward, I have been thinking about what you said in your speech. I reckon you are right. We have got to deal with this slavery question, and got to give much more attention to it hereafter than we have been doing."



[BEGUN IN THE APRIL NUMBER.]



A TALE OF BRAVE DEEDS AND PERILOUS VENTURES

BY ANTHONY HOPE,

Author of "The Prisoner of Zenda," "The Dolly Dialogues," etc.

SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS ALREADY PUBLISHED.

Lord Charles Wheatley, having taken leave in London (in a parting not overcharged with emotion) of Miss Beatrice Hipgrave, to whom he is to be married in a year; of her mother, Mrs. Kennett Hipgrave. and of Mr. Bennett Hamlyn, a rich young man who gives promise of seeing that Miss Hipgrave does not wholly lack a man's attentions in the absence of her lover,—sets put to enter possession of a remote Greek island, Neopalia, which he has purchased of the hereditary lord, Stefanopoulos. But on arriving he finds himself anything but welcome. He and his companions,—namely, his cousin, Denny Swinton; his factotum, Hogvardt; and his servant, Watkins,—are at once locked up; and though released soon, it is with a warning from the populace, headed by Vlacho, the innkeeper, that if found on the island after six o'clock the next morning, their lives will not be worth much. Toward midnight, little disposed to sleep, and curious to look about somewhat before leaving the island, they stroll inland, and come by chance upon the manor-house, still and apparently deserted. Curiosity drives them to enter. They find Lord Stefanopoulos, whom Vlacho had reported to them as recently dead of a fever, not dead, but on the point of dying—from a dagger wound. And the wound, they learn from his own lips, was given him by his nephew, Constantine, in a tumult that arose a few hours before when the people came up to protest against the sale of the island, and to persuade the lord to send the strangers away. Constantine, it further appears, is making them all their trouble, having come to the island just ahead of them to that end, after learning their plans by overhearing Wheatley talking in a London restaurant. In the darkness, on their way up, they have met a man and a woman going toward the village. The man, by his voice, they knew to be Constantine. The woman, they now learn, was the Lady Euphrosyne, cousin of Constantine and heiress to the island. From talk overheard between her and Constantine, she had seemed to be, while desirous of their departure, also anxious to spare them harm. In full possession of the house, they decide to stand siege, though scant of provisions and ammunition, and armed only with their own revolvers and a rifle left behind by Constantine. Soon Stefanopoulos dies, and by an old serving-woman they send warning to Constantine that he shall be brought to justice for his crime. Thus passes the night. Next morning Wheatley's attention is engaged by a woman studying them through a field-glass from before a small bungalow, higher up the mountain. Then Vlacho, the innkeeper, presents himself for a parley, of which nothing comes but the disclosure that Constantine is pledged to marry Euphrosyne, while already secretly married to another woman. The evening falls with the "death-chant" sounding in the air—a chant made by Alexander the Bard when an earlier Lord Stefanopoulos was killed by the people for having tried to sell the island. Lord Wheatley himself tells the story.



CHAPTER IV.

A RAID AND A RAIDER.

It was between eight and nine o'clock when the first of the enemy appeared on the road, in the persons of two smart fellows in gleaming kilts and braided jackets. It was no more than just dusk, and I saw that they were strangers to me. One was tall and broad, the other shorter, and of very slight build. They came on towards us confidently enough. I was looking over Denny's shoulder; he held Constantine's rifle, and I knew that he was impatient to try it. But inasmuch as might was certainly not on our side, I was determined that right should abide with us, and was resolute not to begin hostilities. Constantine had at least one powerful motive for wishing our destruction; I would not furnish him with any plausible excuse for indulging his desire. So we stood, Denny and I at one window, Hogvardt and Watkins at the other, and watched the approaching figures. No more appeared; the main body did not show itself, and the sound of the fierce chant had suddenly died away. But all at once a third man appeared, running rapidly after the first two. He caught the shorter by the arm, and seemed to argue or expostulate with him. For a while the three stood thus talking; then I saw the last comer make a gesture of protest, and they all came on together.

"Push the barrel of that rifle a little farther out," said I to Denny, "It may be useful to them to know it's there."

Denny obeyed. The result was a sudden pause in our friends' advance; but they were near enough now for me to distinguish the last comer, and I discerned in him, although he wore the native costume, and had discarded his tweed suit, Constantine Stefanopoulos himself.

"Here's an exercise of self-control," I groaned, laying a detaining hand on Denny's shoulder.

As I spoke, Constantine put a whistle to his lips and blew loudly. The blast was followed by the appearance of five more fellows. In three of them I recognized old acquaintances—Vlacho, Demetri, and Spiro. These three all carried guns; and the whole eight came forward again, till they were within a hundred yards of us. There they halted, and, with a sudden, swift movement, three barrels were levelled at the window where Denny and I were looking out. Well, we ducked. There is no use in denying it. For we thought that the fusillade had really begun. Yet no shot followed, and, after an instant, holding Denny down, I peered out cautiously myself. The three stood motionless, their aim full on us. The other five were advancing cautiously, well under the shelter of the rock, two on one side of the road and three on the other. The slim, boyish fellow was with Constantine, on our right hand; a moment later the other three dashed across the road and joined them. Suddenly what military men call "the objective," the aim of these manoeuvres, flashed across me. It was simple almost to ludicrousness; yet it was very serious, for it showed a reasoned plan of campaign, with which we were very ill prepared to cope. While the three held us in check, the five were going to carry off our cows. And without our cows we should soon be hard put to it for food. For the cows had formed in our plans a most important piece de resistance.

"This won't do," said I. "They're after the cows." And I took the rifle from Denny's hand, cautioning him not to show his face at the window. Then I stood in the shelter of the wall, so that I could not be hit by the three, and levelled the rifle, not at any human enemies, but at the unoffending cows.

"A dead cow," I remarked, "is a great deal harder to move than a live one."

The five had now come quite near the pen of rude hurdles in which the cows were. As I spoke, Constantine appeared to give some order; and while he and the boy stood looking on, Constantine leaning on his gun, the boy's hand resting with jaunty elegance on the handle of the knife in his girdle, the others leaped over the hurdles. Crack, went the rifle! A cow fell! I reloaded hastily. Crack! And the second cow fell. It was very fair shooting in such a bad light, for I hit both mortally; and my skill was rewarded by a shout of anger from the robbers (for robbers they were; I had bought the live stock).

"Carry them off now!" I cried, carelessly showing myself at the window. But I did not stay there long, for three shots rang out, and the bullets pattered on the masonry above me. Luckily the covering party had aimed a trifle too high.

"No more milk, my lord," observed Watkins, in a regretful tone. He had seen the catastrophe from the other window.

The besiegers were checked. They leaped out of the pen with alacrity. I suppose they realized that they were exposed to my fire, while at that particular angle I was protected from the attack of their friends. They withdrew to the middle of the road, selecting a spot at which I could not take aim without showing myself at the window. I dared not look out to see what they were doing. But presently Hogvardt risked a glance, and called out that they were in retreat, and had rejoined the three, and that the whole body stood together in consultation, and were no longer covering my window. So I looked out, and saw the boy standing in an easy, graceful attitude, while Constantine and Vlacho talked a little apart. It was growing considerably darker now, and the figures became dim and indistinct.

"I think the fun's over for to-night," said I, glad to have it over so cheaply.

Indeed, what I said seemed to be true, for the next moment the group turned, and began to retreat along the road, moving briskly out of our sight. We were left in the thick gloom of a moonless evening and the peaceful silence of still air.

"They'll come back and fetch the cows," said Hogvardt. "Could we not drag one in, my lord, and put it where the goat is, behind the house?"

I approved of this suggestion, and Watkins having found a rope, I armed Denny with the rifle, took from the wall a large, keen hunting-knife, opened the door, and stole out, accompanied by Hogvardt and Watkins, who carried their revolvers. We reached the pen without interruption, tied our rope firmly round the horns of one of the dead beasts, and set to work to drag it along. It was no child's play, and our progress was very slow; but the carcass moved, and I gave a shout of encouragement as we got it down to the smoother ground of the road and hauled it along with a will. Alas! that shout was a great indiscretion. I had been too hasty in assuming that our enemy was quite gone. We heard suddenly the rush of feet; shots whistled over our heads; we had but just time to drop the rope and turn round when Denny's rifle rang out, and then—somebody was at us! I really do not know exactly how many there were. I had two at me, but by great good luck I drove my big knife into one fellow's arm at the first hazard, and I think that was enough for him. In my other assailant I recognized Vlacho. The fat innkeeper had got rid of his gun, and had a knife much like the one I carried myself. I knew him more by his voice, as he cried fiercely, "Come on," than by his appearance, for the darkness was thick now. Parrying his fierce thrusts—he was very active for so stout a man—I called out to our people to fall back as quickly as they could, for I did not know but that we might be taken in the rear also.

But discipline is hard to maintain in such a force as mine.

"Bosh!" cried Denny's voice.

"Mein Gott, no!" exclaimed Hogvardt.

Watkins said nothing, but for once in his life he also disobeyed me.

Well, if they would not do as I said, I must do as they did. The line advanced—the whole line, as at Waterloo. We pressed them hard. I heard a revolver fired and a cry follow. Fat Vlacho slackened in his attack, wavered, halted, turned and ran. A shout of triumph from Denny told me that the battle was going well there. Fired with victory, I set myself for a chase. But, alas! my pride was checked. Before I had gone two yards I fell headlong over the body for which we had been fighting (as Greeks and Trojans fought for the body of Hector), and came to an abrupt stop, sprawling most ignominiously over the cow's broad back.

"Stop! stop!" I cried. "Wait a bit, Denny. I'm down over this infernal cow!" It was an inglorious ending to the exploits of the evening.

Prudence, or my cry, stopped them. The enemy were in full retreat; their steps pattered quick along the rocky road, and Denny observed in a tone of immense satisfaction:

"I think that's our trick, Charlie,"

"Are you hurt?" I asked, scrambling to my feet.

Watkins owned to a crack from the stock of a gun on his right shoulder; Hogvardt to a graze of a knife on the arm. Denny was unhurt. We had reason to suppose that we had left our mark on at least two of the enemy. For so great a victory it was cheaply bought.

"We'll just drag in the cow," said I—I like to stick to my point—"and then we might see if there's anything in the cellar."

We did drag in the cow; we dragged it through the house, and finally bestowed it in the compound behind. Hogvardt suggested that we should fetch the other also; but I had no mind for another surprise, which might not end so happily, and I decided to run the risk of leaving the second animal till the morning. So Watkins went off to seek for some wine, for which we all felt very ready, and I went to the door with the intention of securing it. But before I did so I stood for a moment on the step, looking out into the night, and snuffing the sweet, clear, pure air. It was in quiet moments like this, not in the tumult that had just passed, that I had pictured my beautiful island; and the love of it came on me now, and made me swear that these fellows and their arch ruffian Constantine should not drive me out of it without some more and more serious blows than had been struck that night. If I could get away safely, and return with enough force to keep them quiet, I would pursue that course. If not—well, I believe I had very blood-thirsty thoughts in my mind, as even the most peaceable man will have, when he has been served as I had and his friends roughly handled on his account.

Having registered these determinations, I was about to proceed with my task of securing the door, when I heard a sound that startled me. There was nothing hostile or alarming about it, rather it was pathetic and appealing; and, in spite of my previous truculence of mind, it caused me to exclaim: "Hullo, is that one of those poor beggars mauled?" For the sound was a slight, painful sigh, as of somebody in suffering, and it seemed to come from out of the darkness about a dozen yards ahead of me. My first impulse was to go straight to the spot; but I had begun by now to doubt whether the Neopalians were not unsophisticated in quite as peculiar a sense as that in which they were good-hearted; so I called Denny and Hogvardt, bidding the latter to bring his lantern with him. Thus protected, I stepped out of the door, in the direction from which the sigh had come. Apparently we were to crown our victory by the capture of a wounded enemy.

An exclamation from Hogvardt told me that he, aided by the lantern, had come upon the quarry; but Hogvardt spoke in disgust rather than triumph.

"Oh, it's only the little one!" said he. "What's wrong with him, I wonder." He stooped down, and examined the prostrate form. "By heaven, I believe he's not touched! Yes, there's a bump on his forehead; but not big enough for any of us to have given it."

By this time Denny and I were with him, and we looked down on the boy's pale face, which seemed almost death-like in the glare of the lantern. The bump was not such a very small one, but it would not have been made by any of our weapons, for the flesh was not cut. A moment's further inspection showed that it must be the result of a fall on the hard, rocky road.

"Perhaps he tripped on the cord, as you did on the cow;" suggested Denny, with a grin.

It seemed likely enough, but I gave very little thought to it, for I was busy studying the boy's face.

"No doubt," said Hogvardt, "he fell in running away, and was stunned; and they did not notice it in the dark, or were afraid to stop. But they'll be back, my lord, and soon."

"Carry him inside," said I. "It won't hurt us to have a hostage."

Denny lifted the lad in his long arms—Denny was a tall, powerful fellow—and strode off with him. I followed, wondering who it was that we had got hold of; for the boy was strikingly handsome. I was last in, and barred the door. Denny had set our prisoner down in an armchair, where he sat now, conscious again, but still with a dazed look in his large, dark eyes, as he looked from me to the rest, and back again to me, finally fixing a long glance on my face.

"Well, young man," said I, "you've begun this sort of thing early. Lifting cattle and taking murder in the day's work is pretty good for a youngster like you. Who are you?"

"Where am I?" he cried, in that blurred, indistinct kind of voice that comes with mental bewilderment.

"You're in my house," said I, "and the rest of your infernal gang's outside, and going to stay there. So you must make the best of it."

The boy turned his head away and closed his eyes. Suddenly I snatched the lantern from Hogvardt. But I paused before I brought it close to the boy's face, as I had meant to do, and I said:

"You fellows go and get something to eat and a snooze, if you like. I'll look after this youngster. I'll call you if anything happens outside."

After a few unselfish protests, they did as I bade them. I was left alone in the hall with the prisoner, and merry voices from the kitchen told me that the battle was being fought again over the wine. I set the lantern close to the boy's face.

"H'm!" said I, after a prolonged scrutiny. Then I sat down on the table, and began to hum softly that wretched chant of One-eyed Alexander's, which had a terrible trick of sticking in a man's head.

For a few minutes I hummed. The lad shivered, stirred uneasily, and opened his eyes. I had never seen such eyes, and I could not conscientiously except even Beatrice Hipgrave's, which were in their way quite fine. I hummed away, and the boy said, still in a dreamy voice, but with an imploring gesture of his hand:

"Ah, no, not that! Not that, Constantine!"

"He's a tender-hearted youth," said I; and I was smiling now. The whole episode was singularly unusual and interesting.

The boy's eyes were on mine again. I met his glance full and square. Then I poured out some water, and gave it to him. He took it with trembling hand—the hand did not escape my notice—and drank it eagerly, setting the glass down with a sigh.

"I am Lord Wheatley," said I, nodding to him. "You came to steal my cattle, and murder me, if it happened to be convenient, you know."

The boy flashed out at me in a minute:

"I didn't. I thought you'd surrender, if we got the cattle away."

"You thought," said I, scornfully. "I suppose you did as you were bid."

"No; I told Constantine that they weren't to—" The boy stopped short, looked round him, and said in a questioning voice: "Where are all the rest of my people?"

"The rest of your people," said I, "have run away. You are in my hands. I can do just as I please with you."

His lips set in an obstinate curve, but he made no answer. I went on as sternly as I could: "And when I think of what I saw here yesterday—of that poor old man stabbed by your blood-thirsty crew—"

"It was an accident," he cried, sharply; the voice had lost its dreaminess, and sounded clear now.

"We'll see about that when we get Constantine and Vlacho before a judge," I retorted grimly. "Anyhow, he was foully stabbed in his own house, for doing what he had a perfect right to do."

"He had no right to sell the island," cried the boy; and he rose for a moment to his feet, with a proud air, only to sink back again into the chair and stretch out his hand for water again.

Now at this moment Denny, refreshed by meat and drink, and in the highest of spirits, bounded into the hall.

"How's the prisoner?" he cried.

"Oh, he's all right. There's nothing the matter with him," I said; and, as I spoke, I moved the lantern, so that the boy's face and figure were again in shadow.

"That's all right," observed Denny, cheerfully. "Because I thought, Charlie, we might get a little information out of him."

"Perhaps he won't speak," I suggested, casting a glance at the captive, who sat now motionless in the chair.

"Oh, I think he will," said Denny, confidently; and I observed for the first time that he held a very substantial looking whip in his hand; he must have found it in the kitchen. "We'll give the young ruffian a taste of this, if he's obstinate," said Denny; and I cannot say that his tone witnessed any great desire that the boy should prove at once compliant.

I shifted my lantern so that I could see the proud young face while Denny could not. The boy's eyes met mine defiantly.

"You hear what he proposes?" I asked. "Will you tell us all we want to know?"

The boy made no answer, but I saw trouble in his face, and his eyes did not meet mine so boldly now.

"We'll soon find a tongue for him," said Denny, in cheerful barbarity; "upon my word, he richly deserves a thrashing. Say the word, Charlie."

"We haven't asked him anything yet," said I.

"Oh, I'll ask him something. Look here, who was the fellow with you and Vlacho?"

The boy was silent; defiance and fear struggled in the dark eyes.

"You see, he's an obstinate beggar," said Denny, as though he had observed all necessary forms and could now get to business; and he drew the lash of the whip through his fingers. I am afraid Denny was rather looking forward to executing justice with his own hands.

The boy rose again, and stood facing that heartless young ruffian, Denny—it was thus that I thought of Denny at the moment—then once again he sank back into his seat, and covered his face with his hands.

"Well, I wouldn't go out killing if I hadn't more pluck than that," said Denny, scornfully. "You're not fit for the trade, my lad."

The boy had no retort. His face was buried in those slim hands of his. For a moment he was quite still. Then he moved a little; it was a movement that spoke of helpless pain, and I heard something very like a stifled sob.

"Just leave us alone a little, Denny," said I. "He may tell me what he won't tell you."

"Are you going to let him off?" demanded Denny, suspiciously. "You never can be stiff in the back, Charlie."

"I must see if he won't speak to me first," I pleaded, meekly.

"But if he won't?" insisted Denny.

"If he won't," said I, "and you still wish it, you may do what you like."

Denny sheered off to the kitchen, with an air that did not seek to conceal his opinion of my foolish tender-heartedness. Again I was alone with the boy.

"My friend is right," said I, gravely. "You are not fit for the trade. How came you to be in it?"

My question brought a new look, as the boy's hands dropped from his face.

"How came you," said I, "who ought to restrain these rascals, to be at their head? How came you, who ought to shun the society of men like Constantine Stefanopoulos and his tool Vlacho, to be working with them?"

I got no answer; only a frightened look appealed to me in the white glare of Hogvardt's lantern. I came a step nearer, and leaned forward to ask my next question:

"Who are you? What's your name?"

"My name—my name?" stammered the prisoner. "I won't tell my name."

"You'll tell me nothing? You heard what I promised my friend?"

"Yes, I heard," said the lad, with a face utterly pale, but with eyes that were again set in fierce determination. I laughed a low laugh.

"I believe you are fit for the trade, after all," said I; and I looked with mingled distaste and admiration on him. But I had my last weapon still, my last question.

I turned the lantern full on his face; I leaned forward again, and said, in distinct, low tones—and the question sounded an absurd one to be spoken in such an impressive way:

"Do you generally wear clothes like these?"

I had got home with that question. The pallor vanished; the haughty eyes sank. I saw long, drooping lashes and a burning flush; and the boy's face once again sought his hands.

At the moment I heard chairs pushed back in the kitchen. In came Hogvardt, with an amused smile on his broad face; in came Watkins, with his impassive acquiescence in anything that his lordship might order; in came Master Denny, brandishing his whip in jovial relentlessness.

"Well, has he told you anything?" cried Denny. It was plain that he hoped for the answer "No."

"I have asked him half a dozen questions," said I, "and he has not answered one."

"All right," said Denny, with wonderful emphasis.

Had I been wrong to extort this much punishment for my most inhospitable reception? Sometimes now I think that it was cruel. In that night much had occurred to breed viciousness in a man of the most equable temper. But the thing had now gone to the extreme limit to which it could; and I said to Denny:

"It's a gross case of obstinacy, of course, Denny; but I don't see very well how we can horsewhip the lady!"

A sudden, astounded cry, "The lady!" rang from three pairs of lips; the lady herself dropped her head on the table, and fenced her face round about with her protecting arms.

"You see," said I, "this lad is the Lady Euphrosyne."

For who else could it be that would give orders to Constantine Stefanopoulos, and ask where "my people" were? Who else, I also asked myself, save the daughter of the noble house, would boast the air, the hands, the face, that graced our young prisoner? In all certainty it was Lady Euphrosyne.



CHAPTER V.

THE COTTAGE ON THE HILL.

The effect of my remark was curious. Denny turned scarlet, and flung his whip down on the table; the others stood for a moment motionless, then turned tail and slunk back to the kitchen. Euphrosyne's face remained invisible. However, I felt quite at my ease. I had a triumphant conviction of the importance of my capture, and a determination that no misplaced chivalry should rob me of it. Politeness is, no doubt, a duty, but only a relative duty; and, in plain English, men's lives were at stake here. Therefore I did not make my best bow, fling open the door, and tell the lady that she was free to go whither she would; but I said to her in a dry, severe voice:

"You had better go, madam, to that room you usually occupy here, while we consider what to do with you. You know where the room is; I don't."

She raised her head, and said in tones that sounded almost eager:

"My own room? May I go there?"

"Certainly," said I. "I shall accompany you as far as the door; and when you've gone in, I shall lock the door."

This programme was duly carried out, Euphrosyne not favoring me with a word during its progress. Then I returned to the hall, and said to Denny:

"Rather a trump card, isn't she?"

"Yes, but they'll be back pretty soon to look for her, I expect."

Denny accompanied this remark with such a yawn that I suggested he should go to bed.

"And aren't you going to bed?" he asked.

"I'll take first watch," said I. "It's nearly twelve now. I'll wake you at two, and you can wake Hogvardt at five, and Watkins will be fit and well at breakfast time, and can give us roast cow."

Thus I was left alone again; and I sat, reviewing the position. Would the islanders fight for their lady? Or would they let us go? They would only let us go, I felt sure, if Constantine were outvoted, for he could not afford to see me leave Neopalia with a head on my shoulders and a tongue in my mouth. Then they probably would fight. Well, I calculated that as long as our provisions held out, we could not be stormed; our stone fortress was too strong. But we could be beleaguered and starved out, and should be very soon, unless the lady's influence could help us. I had just arrived at the conclusion that I would talk very seriously to her in the morning, when I heard a remarkable sound.

"There never was such a place for queer noises," said I, pricking up my ears.

The noise seemed to come from directly above my head; it sounded as though a light, stealthy tread were passing over the roof of the hall in which I sat. But the only person in the house besides ourselves was the prisoner; she had been securely locked in her room; how then could she be on the top of the hall? For her room was in the turret over the door. Yet the steps crept over my head, going toward the kitchen. I snatched up my revolver, and trod with a stealth equal to the stealth of the steps overhead, across the hall and into the kitchen beyond. My three companions slept the sleep of tired men, but I ruthlessly roused Denny.

"Go on guard in the hall," said I; "I want to have a look round."

Denny was sleepy, but obedient. I saw him start for the hall, and went on till I reached the compound behind the house. Here I stood, deep in the shadow of the wall. The steps were now over my head again. I glanced up cautiously, and above me, on the roof, three yards to the right, I saw the flutter of a white kilt.

"There are more ways out of this house than I know," I thought to myself.

I heard next a noise as though of something being pushed cautiously along the flat roof. Then there protruded from between two of the battlements the end of a ladder! I crouched closer under the wall. The light flight of steps was let down; it reached the ground; the kilted figure stepped on it and began to descend. Here was the Lady Euphrosyne again! Her eagerness to go to her own room was fully explained; there was a way from it across the house and out on to the roof of the kitchen; the ladder showed that the way was kept in use. I stood still. She reached the ground, and as her foot touched it she gave the softest possible little laugh of gleeful triumph. A pretty little laugh it was. Then she stepped briskly across the compound, till she reached the rocks on the other side. I crept forward after her, for I was afraid of losing sight of her in the darkness, and yet did not desire to arrest her progress till I saw where she was going. On she went, skirting the perpendicular drop of rock, I was behind her now. At last she came to the angle formed by the rock running north and that which, turning to the east, enclosed the compound.

"How's she going to get up?" I asked myself.

But up she began to go—her right foot on the north rock, her left foot on the east. She ascended with such confidence that it was evident that steps were ready for her feet. She gained the top. I began to mount in the same fashion, finding steps cut in the face of the cliff. I reached the top, and I saw her standing still, ten yards ahead of me. She went on. I followed. She stopped, looked, saw me, screamed. I rushed on her. Her arms dealt a blow at me—I caught her hand, and in her hand there was a little dagger. Seizing her other hand, I held her fast.

"Where are you going?" I asked in a matter-of-fact tone, taking no notice of her hasty resort to the dagger. No doubt that was purely a national trait.

Seeing that she was caught, she made no attempt to struggle.

"I was trying to escape," she said. "Did you hear me?"

"Yes, I heard you. Where were you going?"

"Why should I tell you? Shall you threaten me with the whip again?"

I loosed her hands. She gave a sudden glance up the hill. She seemed to measure the distance.

"Why do you want to go to the top of the hill?" I asked. "Have you friends there?"

She denied the suggestion, as I thought she would.

"No, I have not. But anywhere is better than with you."

"Yet there is some one in the cottage up there," I observed. "It belongs to Constantine, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does," she answered, defiantly. "Dare you go and seek him there? Or dare you only skulk behind the walls of the house?"

"As long as we are only four against a hundred I dare only skulk," I answered. She did not annoy me at all by her taunts. "But do you think he's there?"

"There! No, he's in the town—and he'll come from the town to kill you to-morrow."

"There is nobody there?" I pursued.

"Nobody," she answered.

"You're wrong," said I. "I saw somebody there to-day."

"Oh, a peasant, perhaps."

"Well, the dress didn't look like it. Do you really want to go there now?"

"Haven't you mocked me enough?" she burst out. "Take me back to my prison."

Her tragedy air was quite delightful. But I had been leading her up to something which I thought she ought to know.

"There's a woman in that cottage," said I. "Not a peasant—a woman in some dark-colored dress, who uses opera glasses."

I saw her draw back with a start of surprise.

"It's false," she cried. "There's no one there. Constantine told me no one went there except Vlacho, and sometimes Demetri."

"Do you believe all Constantine tells you?" I asked.

"Why should I not? He's my cousin and—"

"And your suitor?"

She flung her head back proudly.

"I have no shame in that," she answered.

"You would accept his offer?"

"Since you ask, I will answer. Yes; I have promised my uncle I would."

"Good God!" said I, for I was very sorry for her.

The emphasis of my exclamation seemed to startle her afresh. I felt her glance rest on me in puzzled questioning.

"Did Constantine let you see the old woman whom I sent to him?" I demanded.

"No," she murmured. "He told me what she said."

"That I told him he was his uncle's murderer?"

"Did you tell her to say that?" she asked, with a sudden inclination of her body toward me.

"I did. Did he give you the message?"

She made no answer. I pressed my advantage.

"On my honor I saw what I have told you at the cottage," I said. "I know what it means no more than you do. But before I came here I saw Constantine in London. And there I heard a lady say she would come with him. Did any lady come with him?"

"Are you mad?" she asked; but I could hear her breathing quickly, and I knew that her scorn was assumed. I drew suddenly away from her, and put my hands behind my back.

"Go to the cottage if you like," said I. "But I won't answer for what you'll find there."

"You set me free?" she cried with eagerness.

"Free to go to the cottage. You must promise to come back. Or I'll go to the cottage, if you'll promise to go back to your room and wait till I return."

She hesitated, looking again toward where the cottage was; but I had stirred suspicion and disquietude in her. She dared not face what she might find in the cottage.

"I'll go back and wait for you," she said. "If I went to the cottage and—and all was well, I'm afraid I shouldn't come back."

The tone sounded softer. I would have sworn a smile or a half smile accompanied the words, but it was too dark to be sure; and when I leaned forward to look, Euphrosyne drew back.

"Then you mustn't go," said I decisively, "I can't afford to lose you,"

"But if you let me go, I could let you go," she cried.

"Could you? Without asking Constantine? Besides, it's my island, you see."

"It's not," she cried, with a stamp of her foot. And without more she walked straight by me and disappeared over the ledge of rock. Two minutes later I saw her figure defined against the sky, a black shadow on the deep gray ground. Then she disappeared. I set my face straight for the cottage under the summit of the hill. I knew that I had only to go straight, and I must come to the little plateau, scooped out of the hillside, on which the cottage stood. I found not a path, but a sort of rough track that led in the desired direction, and along this I made my way very cautiously. At one point it was joined at right angles by another track, from the side of the hill where the main road across the island lay. This, of course, afforded an approach to the cottage without passing by my house. In twenty minutes the cottage loomed, a blurred mass, before me. I fell on my knees and peered at it.

There was a light in one of the windows; I crawled nearer. Now I was on the plateau; a moment later I was under the wooden veranda and beneath the window where the light glowed. My hand was on my revolver. If Constantine or Vlacho caught me here, neither side would be able to stand on trifles; even my desire for legality would fail under the strain. But for the minute everything was quiet, and I began to fear that I should have to return empty-handed; for it would be growing light in another hour or so, and I must be gone before the day began to appear. Ah! There was a sound—a sound that appealed to me after my climb—the sound of wine poured into a glass; and then came a voice I knew.

"Probably they have caught her," said Vlacho the innkeeper. "What of that? They will not hurt her. And she'll be kept safe."

"You mean she can't come spying about here?"

"Exactly. And that, my lord, is an advantage. If she came here—"

"Oh the deuce!" laughed Constantine. "But won't the men want me to free her by letting that infernal crew go?"

"Not if they think Wheatley will go to Rhodes and get soldiers and return. They love the island more than her. It will all go well, my lord. And this other here?"

I strained my ears to listen. No answer came; yet Vlacho went on as though he had received an answer.

"These cursed fellows make that difficult, too," he said. "It would be an epidemic." Then he laughed, seeming to see wit in his own remark.