others over the way, and deriving little | down the staircase, issued after him with comfort from the conversation. From a broom, but only caught sight of his time to time a deserting rebel could be coat-tails fluttering apart as he pelted seen bounding through the street without away two steps at a time. arms or head-dress, having recoiled at She turned back with a wrathful shrug, the last moment from risking his life for but immediately all her strength was in the cause in which he had been enrolled, request to restrain Agathe, who, as soon probably against his will. But the firing as her father had departed, seemed to and carnage proceeded; and all this lose all control over her senses. Her while the sun shone in all the glory of a face was haggard, her hands burned with warm May-day. The heavens were blue, fever, and she came to the door, entreatthe sun shot golden rays on to the white ing: Aglae, I implore you to let me façades of the houses; and in the re-out. It is dark now; nobody can see cesses of doorways large shadows ap-me." peared to offer cool peaceful shelters.

66

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"Do you think the bullets want eyes The fratricidal battle raged all day, to fly through the night?" cried Aglae, and at nightfall gathered rather than di- with rough eloquence, as she barred the minished in intensity. By this time the way. "Why, see too the house - it's all sky was clouded by huge columns of in a tremor from the noise, and shells smoke, and here and there long forked may burst in the streets at any minute." streaks of purple told of houses that were I conjure you to let me go!" pleaded burning. The fight was drawing nearer, Agathe, naking a feeble dart to pass by. and it was evident that the Communists" I shall die this night if you do not listen were losing ground. Whole companies to me. My head is in a whirl of pain." of them, grimy with powder, footsore, "You are beside yourself, that's it," and with many of the men limping, be- cried the servant, forcibly shutting the gan to surge through the streets in routed door, and keeping Agathe back. disorder. But others hurried up from and lie down in your room, mademoiselle. contrary directions, fierce, flushed, and How can you hope to find that man in heated with drink, so that there was no the night? He must have left his house telling for certain with what hazards the long ago, and be fighting now, or dead. warfare was being carried on. The com- Besides, if he were lying wounded in the batants seemed to disappear into a yawn- street, and by running ten yards you could ing cavern of tumult and flame. save him, I wouldn't let you. You've no mother now, and I've got to look after you."

Go

When night arrived, however, Agathe's anguish culminated in a revival of excitement, and she again talked deliriously But Agathe was not rebuffed. Women about going out. As for M. Marron, he moved by the fire of love become herobroiled with impatience to get news of ines, and for the first time Agathe's gensome sort. Never since his boyhood had tle nature rose in rebellion; her eyes he passed twelve mortal hours without flushed, and her small hands were opening a newspaper; and thinking that clenched. "I insist on going out - do Agathe's agitation was due to the same you hear?" she broke out, with an hyscauses as his, he moaned sympathizingly teric sob, and advanced once more. But with her, and exclaimed that it was a Aglae, without replying, caught her round woful thing to be a whole day without the arms like a child, lifted her from the knowing what was going on in one's own floor, and ran with her into the drawingcity. At nine o'clock the prospect of room, where she deposited her on a sofa. having to spend the night in utter igno- Scarcely had she crossed the threshold, rance of who were the winners crept like however, than the bell on the landing of spasms over his mind, and proved too the flat was pulled, and as Agathe was much for him. There was another bour- struggling the servant quickly disengeois of his own inquisitive sort who gaged herself and ran to open the door, lived opposite him, and M. Marron be-thinking it must be M. Marron who had thought him that under cover of the dusk rung, and that the presence of her father he could just run across the way and would make Agathe hear reason. compare notes with this fellow-sufferer turned the key in the lock, and a bearded for a brief quarter of an hour. He did man brushed hurriedly by her and passed not impart his plan to Aglae, but rushed into the drawing-room. But it was not out without warning and bareheaded, for M. Marron. the servant had locked up his hat. Aglae, who heard his retreating feet scamper

So she

Agathe uttered a scream, for the man had pulled off his false beard and thrown

himself in one rush at her feet. It was the room since Victor's entry. Aglue Victor Fielot in civilian's dress. He was was not evilly-disposed towards the Comcovered with dust, his face streamed with munist colonel, for he had bestowed on perspiration, and as he covered her trem- her those gold pieces the last time he bling hands with kisses he stammered, was there; and now his confession of "I could not come before. I have been having 10,000l. about him gave him an watched for the past month all my eminently respectable standing - outlaw footsteps have been dogged by that wo-though he was. "There is a deep cupman. I warned you in my letter what a harpy she was, but I added that I should come to you soon or late, whatever happened; and here I am."

"What letter?" faltered Agathe, who had no strength to withdraw her hands, nor indeed to do anything save ask this question.

board in my room," said she, after a moment's puzzled scrutiny of the insurgent. "I can mask it with my bed, and nobody will suspect its existence; but it's not sure that any one will search either."

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"They will search," ejaculated Victor, passing a handkerchief over his reeking brow; they are searching everywhere for arms and men in uniform. When they come don't mention that you've ever seen me."

"No danger," grumbled Aglae; "we don't want our throats cut for your sake. But what's that noise?"

The question was evoked by a sudden and loud altercation that was resounding on the staircase. M. Marron's tongue was protesting in terms of fright and indignation, and an angry woman was replying to him. Both Victor and Agathe

"Why, did you not get my letter?" exclaimed Victor, starting. "I wrote on the very day I left here to tell you I loved you to ask your forgiveness - to swear that as soon as I could desert that accursed cause I would come and pray your father to give me your hand, and that we might go away and live in some foreign land, forgetting all this. Say, Agathe, did you not receive that letter?" "I received no letter," murmured Agathe; for, divining now that the other letter must have been sent her, un-recognized the tones of the woman's known to Victor, by the woman who had signed herself Léontine, she was too generous to make allusion to it. An emotion full of joy, yet of lingering doubt, was running through her head; Victor was opposite her, bending a yearning glance into her eyes, and her hands were still warm with his kisses. "No; I received no letter," she repeated faintly.

voice as Léontine Fovard's; and before another half-minute had elapsed Léontine stood before them, glaring fury and jealous vengeance.

She was standing in the doorway, in a black silk dress and a long cloak, and her hair, disordered by emotion or by her mad ramble through Paris, fell over her

"Victor!" she cried, as Agathe clutched to her lover in terror, "Victor, you swear now before me, and in the presence of that woman, that you'll never more forsake me, or your minutes and "Ah! that woman must have inter-hers are numbered. The Versaillais are cepted it," he cried, clasping his fore- at the end of the street!" head, and muttering a curse. "But no matter, I am here, Agathe. I have two hundred and fifty thousand francs in bank-notes sewn about me. Hide me somewhere, in a cupboard, a cellar, any-brow and shoulders, giving her the look where, till the battle is over, and then I will leave Paris by St. Denis, where the Prussians are. I have a passport, and you can join me in England. But quick, my own child, for the Versaillais are already in this quarter, and before "See here, Léontine, I have firearms; long they will be searching all the houses and if it were not that by killing you I for refugees. They have done that in should render myself a murderer in the all the other quarters they have invaded." sight of this angel, to whose purity your Victor did not ask Agathe whether she presence is an insult, I should shoot you accepted his love; he probably saw by dead at her feet. And should have her blushes and troubled glances that she shot you if I had been alone with you in did. Agathe rose when he had men- the street- I should have shot you if I tioned the instant imminence of danger, could have thought this morning that you and made an appealing gesture to Aglae, would guess my intention of coming here. who had been standing dumbstricken in ❘ It must have been Jean who betrayed me

of an escaped maniac. Victor, who had turned livid at the first sound of her voice, now drew a revolver from his pocket, and strode towards her with an exasperated gesture.

the double-dyed scoundrel! Now, her back by sheer force. There was a consider that my affianced bride has hideous struggle of a minute's duration, saved your life, and begone." and then Agathe, baffled, and locked into the drawing-room, sprang from Aglae's arms like a young cat, flew to the window, wrenched it open, and looked into the

"That is your last word?" gasped Léontine, and there was nothing earthly in the hoarse tone in which she put this question.

"It is my last word. Begone!" And as if he feared to trust himself with the revolver, Victor threw it away from him on the sofa.

"I will begone," said Léontine implacably, "but you have not seen the last of me;" exclaiming which she darted the glance of a wounded tigress on Agathe and, wrapping her cloak quickly round her, turned and fled down the staircase.

"I am lost!" exclaimed Victor, after standing for an instant motionless. "Concealment is of no use, Agathe; let me fly, for if they found me here you and your father might suffer."

"Yes, for God's sake fly, and at once!" shouted M. Marron, who had been an awestricken witness of the foregoing scene, but now felt his knees shiver at the thought of being held responsible for harbouring an insurgent. His enthusiasm for the Commune had sensibly declined now that that institution was on its last legs. "Yes, for God's sake, fly! he repeated. Agathe, are you mad? Let go monsieur's arm!"

66

But Agathe clung to Victor with the desperation of death. "There is a trapdoor leading to the roof!" she cried in broken accents. "He can escape through there, and go over the leads to some other house!

"The trap-door is locked, and I don't know where the ladder is!" shrieked M. Marron, in a kind of panic-stricken gulp.

as a sheet.

ing outside, and I hear soldiers." Then the Communist fell into a sudden calm. His lips ceased to quiver, but his face was like a statue's.

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street.

It was pitch-dark, for the gas-lamps. had not been lit that night, but the rays of two lanterns held aloft by men with drawn swords threw a lurid gleam on some hundred bayonets. The pavement on both sides of the way appeared to be covered with soldiers, and in the middle of the road was a group from out of which rose clear into the night words which fell like flakes of searing fire on Agathe's ears. A woman's voice was crying, "That is the notorious Colonel Fielot - he has 250,000 francs about him, the fruits of plunder!"

"It's true!" answered Fielot's voice. “Let me stand against the wall, and make an end of me quickly. I have nothing to say."

There was an instant's deliberation, then the group opened; and shadows seemed to flutter on the wall. A clump of men stood out clear in the glow of the lanterns, and in the luminous circle formed some dozen barrels uprose. Then something wild and terrible was enacted; for, just before the report of the rifles rang in the night air, a second shadow rushed forward and blended itself with the first. A struggle ensued, and one shadow seemed to repel the other, but suddenly both dropped to the earth together, the woman embracing the man, and raving: "Oh, Victor, forgive me! ..."

VI.

THERE was, until lately, in New CaleBesides, it's too late!" exclaimed donia a woman whose inscription on the Aglae, running towards the window white register of the penal colony ran as fol"There's that woman shout-lows: "No. 303,001: Agathe Marron. Sentenced to transportation for life for firing six barrels of a revolver at soldiers who had executed her paramour, Victor Fielot. This convict is an orphan. Her father, Adolphe Marron, and a servant named Aglae Dubois, who lived with them, were both shot under the impression that they were accomplices in the girl's act of vengeance. Agathe herself was not executed, owing to her extreme youth; hence her arrest. She has refused to answer any questions; but her behaviour has shown resignation."

Good-bye, darling," he said, clasping Agathe in his arms. "After all, I was not worthy to possess you. One kiss it shall be my absolution; and by-andby try to think forgivingly of me.”

Stooping over her, he pressed a burning kiss on her lips; then with a force greater than her own freed himself from her embrace and ran out. Agathe raised a heart-rending cry and endeavoured to follow him, but her father and Aglae held

One day Agathe Marron disappeared from the convict settlement; but whether

she had escaped, or been drowned in the water between the Island of Pines and the Presqu'île Ducos has never been ascertained.

From The Academy. THE EXPLORATION OF THE ARCTIC

REGIONS.

To the President of the Royal Geographical Society.

SIR, Ten years ago when Arctic exploration was sought to be revived by the Royal Geographical Society, all, I think, were agreed as to the main points of the subject, while a diversity of opinion arose regarding one point, which appears to me to be only of secondary importance now, namely, the route to be chosen. There was a great deal of discussion upon this point, and whether it would be more advisable for a new English expedition to proceed west of Greenland up Smith Sound, or east of it, anywhere in the wide sea between Greenland and Nowaya Zemlya.

From the results arrived at by actual exploration since 1865, and the light shed by it upon the subject, it appears to me that a real ground for any such diversity of opinion no more exists, as the most noteworthy fact brought out by the various recent Polar expeditions is a greater navigability in all parts of the Arctic seas than was formerly supposed to exist.

For my part I readily admit that the Smith Sound route has turned out to be a great deal more practicable and navigable than could formerly be surmised from the experience of Kane and Hayes. Certainly both these attempts were made with insufficient means, Kane's Advance being only a sailing-brig, heavily laden, and blown about by unusually strong gales; and Hayes's schooner, the United States, a mere sailing-vessel of 133 tons, not fit for navigation in the Arctic seas. When therefore Hall, in 1871, tried this route with the Polaris, he achieved most astounding results, for he sailed and steamed from Tessinsak without interruption in one stretch through the ill-famed Melville Bay, Smith Sound, Kennedy Channel, and into new seas as far as 82° N. latitude, a distance of 700 miles, with the greatest ease in seven days, and even reached beyond the 82nd parallel. Yet his vessel, the Polaris, was only a small, weak-powered steamer, by no means well fitted for the work, and manned by a mot

ley crew hampered by Eskimo families and little children.

While I thus readily admit my expectations to have been far exceeded by recent experience, similar progress has also been made on all the other routes into the central area of the Arctic regions, and a great deal has been achieved, even with small means. From the results already arrived at it is evident that with appropriate steam-vessels making use of the experience gained, that central area will be penetrated as far as the North Pole, or any other point.

As I cannot but think that an English exploring expedition will soon leave for the Arctic regions, I take this opportunity to state to you explicitly, that I withdraw everything I formerly said that might be construed into a diversity of opinion on the main points at issue, and that I now distinctly approve beforehand of any route or direction that may be decided on for a new expedition by British geographers.

For those expeditions which I myself have been able to set on foot since 1865, the most direct and shortest routes and the nearest goals seemed the most advisable, as only very small means could be raised, and these chiefly by promising to break new ground and opening new lines of research never before attempted. With the same small means at our command we could not have done as much as we did elsewhere. At my instance, more or less, seven very modest expeditions and summer cruises went forth: the first one, a reconnoitring tour in 1868 under Captain Koldewey, consisted of a little Norwegian sloop of only about sixty tons, no bigger than an ordinary trawlingsmack; she was purchased at Bergen, received the name Germania, and went towards East Greenland, then to the east of Bear Island, on the north of Spitzbergen, beyond the 81st parallel, and surveyed portions of East Spitzbergen not before reached by English or Swedish expeditions. Next year, 1859, started the so-called second German expedition, consisting of two vessels — a steamer of 143 tons called the Germania, and a sailing-brig of 242 tons called the Hansa, as a tender; they went agala to East Greenland, explored this coast as far as 77° N. lat., and discovered a magnificent inlet, Franz Joseph Fjord, extending far into the interior of Greenland, navigable, and the shores of it enlivened by herds of reindeer and musk oxen. It was also shown that the interior of Green

Screw

"to start on expeditions such as these in vessels ill-adapted, ill-strengthened, illfound, and ill-provisioned, is but to court failure," to which I say Amen.

One well-appointed English expedition of one or two strong steamers may well be able to penetrate to the furthest point of our globe. Even the whaling-ships, now furnished as they are with steam, penetrate as a rule to where it was formerly thought impossible for such a fleet, to pursue their valuable fisheries; the ill-famed middle ice of Baffin's Bay is to them no more impenetrable, and extreme points reached by former discovery-expeditions in the course of a long series of years, are now visited and passed by one whaling-vessel in the course of a few summer months.

land in this region consists not of a slightly elevated table-land, as formerly supposed, but of splendid mountain masses of Alpine character. The account of this expedition, which also wintered on the coast of East Greenland in 74 1-2° N. lat., is before you in an English dress. Besides this, I got my friend Mr. Rosenthal, a shipowner, to allow two scientific men, Dr. Dorst and Dr. Bessels, to accompany two of his whaling-steamers, one to explore the seas east of Spitzbergen, the other those east of Greenland; both made highly interesting and valuable scientific observations, which have not yet been published. In 1870, my friends Baron Heuglin and Count Zeil went from Tromsö in a small schooner of thirty tons to East Spitzbergen, and collected most interesting information on a Up to 1869 the general opinion was region never before visited by scientific that from Bear Island in 74 1-2o N. lat. men; and when Baron Heuglin had been there extended the line of heavy impenéout a second time the next following year trable pack-ice eastward as far as No(1871), again with one of Rosenthal's ex-waya Zemlya; that working along this peditions, he published a valuable work coast- -the furthest limit of navigation in three volumes. In the same year Payer was at Cape Nassau, and that the Kara and Weyprecht went in the Isbjörn, a Sea was entirely and always filled with sailing vessel of forty tons, from Tromsö, masses of ice, totally impracticable for to explore still further northward than any navigation. But the Norwegians, Bessels the sea east of Spitzbergen, which with their frail fishing-smacks of only was done with great success as high up thirty tons on an average, have for five as 78° 43m. N. lat. (in 42 1-2o E. long. consecutive years every year navigated Gr.), and as far east as 59° E. long. The all those seas hitherto considered as scientific results of this cruise have also totally impenetrable; they have repeatedly not yet been fully worked out. circumnavigated the whole of Nowaya Thus, from the interior of Greenland Zemlya, crossed the Kara Sea in every in 30° W. long. to 59° E. long, east of direction, penetrated to the Obi and YeSpitzbergen, a width of about 90° of lon- nisei, and shown beyond the shadow of a gitude has been explored, and highly in- doubt that navigation can generally be teresting results obtained. The cost of pursued there during five months of the these seven expeditions and cruises was year, from June to October, and, moreabout 140,000 thalers, or altogether over, that the whole of the Kara Sea and 20,000/., of which only 5,000 thalers, or the Siberian Sea far to the north are every 750, were contributed by the govern-year more or less cleared of their ice, ment of Germany, all the rest by private individuals, my friend Rosenthal spend ing upwards of 30,000 thalers. Half of the results of these expeditions have not yet been published, but the work of the second German expedition in four volumes, and that by Baron Heuglin fn three volumes are finished, and are, I think, a credit to the explorers.

I have mentioned these details in order to show that such endeavours to extend human knowledge, improve the spirit of the navy, and foster a taste for the cause of science, are not necessarily expensive. A really effective expedition will cost more, but also accomplish more; in this respect a writer in the Athenæum, in reviewing our second expedition, says that

both by its melting and drifting away to the north. I have had the journals of many of these cruises sent to me from Norway, containing a mass of good observations made at the instance of the Government Meteorological Office, under the superintendence of Professor Mohn, at Christiania. If another proof of confirmation was wanting, it has been furnished by Mr. Wiggins, of Sunderland, who this summer also navigated through the Kara Sea as far as the mouth of Obi.

As to the sea between Nowaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen, the very first time in our days its navigation was attempted, namely, by Weyprecht and Payer in 1871, it was found navigable even to a small sailing-vessel of forty tons up to 79° N.