Toulon. And yet, you are right, I do wish to go there. I shall not feel it hard to be there-first, because it will be on account of my faith, and next, for M. Rabaut's sake." "For whom?" cried Charnay. But he had only heard too well. his head; he threw himself upon arm convulsively.

"Rabaut!" he cried.

His eyes started out of Reboul, and shook his

"Was it Rabaut ?"

"Yes, it was," said Reboul, quietly. "Did you not

know it ?"

In fact, Charnay had no suspicion of it. He imagined that Rabaut was at Toulon, or the neighbourhood; nothing could have led him to suppose that he had followed him so closely in the Cevennes. Only too glad to lay hold of a pastor, he had never thought of inquiring the name of the one who had just escaped from him. If, however, Reboul had imagined he did not know it, he would have taken care not to tell him.

His fury was beyond all bounds. He reproached himself aloud for having taken his measures so ill. He sent for his soldiers, for the peasants; he asked them for fresh details, in a terrible voice, and did not listen to them. He wished to go up again into the loft, down again into the cellar, to search every corner himself.

Amidst all this violence, he had once more forgotten the aged Reboul. The latter had remained in the room, guarded by two soldiers, who did not dare to speak to Charnay to ask for orders. They conversed, meanwhile, with their prisoner. These men seemed but little pleased with the part they were called upon to act in the country. They thought that French soldiers might have had something better to do at that time than to help the purveyors for the scaffold. On the whole, they would have preferred serving under Marshal Soubise, beaten and turned into ridicule as he was, to conquering under a Jesuit, and taking prisoners of eighty-three.

"And you do not know where he is?" repeated the priest suddenly, as he came back and planted himself before him. "I do not know," said Reboul.

"Ah! you do not know, indeed.

You will not speak?

Wait a little; we have opened the mouths of more obstinate

"For the last time-will you or will you not?" Reboul only shrugged his shoulders.

In the twinkling of an eye, Charnay bound him to the chair with the rope of the ladder. Then, tearing off his shoes and stockings, he dragged him to the fire.

The soldiers did not conceal their horror. Charnay made the tongs red-hot. M. Machault had done the same, we may remember, to force revelations from Damiens. Reboul had turned pale. He was heard praying in a low voice.

"You are praying, I think ?" said Charnay, as he arranged the fire.

"The Abbé Chayla prayed too."

"When ?"

"When we put him to death, Abbé Charnay, for having done to some of our people what you intend doing to me." You think, perhaps, to intimidate me?"

66

"It would be easy enough, I think; you are already quite agitated.".

"IP"

"But be calm; we do not assassinate now.

geance is sure, why should we hasten it?" "Vengeance! what vengeance?"

"Do you believe in God, sir ?"

"Be silent, wretched man."

When ven

"Well, do not ask upon whom we rely. Your tongs are red-hot, abbé."

Charnay took them.

Meanwhile, Rabaut heard and saw all this. By the same opening which enabled him to breathe, he saw, from under the bed, the fire, and Charnay bending down before it, and the bare feet of the unfortunate Reboul. His resolution was taken. He would not allow the sacrifice to be accomplished. At the first cry, the first groan of the victim, he would cry out to the executioner to stop, and give himself up to him.

But the executioner hesitated. Several times he had taken the tongs, and several times, as if not finding them hot enough, he had put them back into the fire. The tone of his voice, which became more and more threatening, but ill dissembled his embarrassment. He was evidently struggling against some feeling. Was it pity? Perhaps, for-w we are bound to say so-it was the first time that he

was about to inflict torture with his own hand; but it was also, and still more, at the thought of the danger that he risked bringing down upon his own head. On one hand, the remembrance of Chayla; on the other, the limits of his powers as Inspector, which did not by any means comprehend that of inflicting torture, still less that of inflicting it with his own hand. The gentlemen of the Parliament had always shown themselves very jealous of this right; and it was not the moment for the Jesuits to quarrel with them on account of an unnecessary usurpation.

Rabaut, one hand on the bolt, the other on his bosom, as if to stifle the noise of the throbbings of his heart-Rabaut, we say, did not lose sight of him. His strength and courage were exhausted by this cruel suspense. He was accustomed to expose his life; but to see it hanging, as it were, by a thread, and a thread that he must cut as soon as a furious man should please to tighten it, was more than he could bear. He felt suffocated. He was obliged to exercise the greatest self-command, not to burst open his hiding-place, if only to breathe freely.

Suddenly, there was a great noise. Reboul, silent and motionless, had triumphed. Charnay had not ventured to go beyond threats; he had risen and thrown aside the instrument of punishment, as if to punish it for its impotency. He then rushed to the door, and his step was heard on the stairs, unsteady from rage. Some minutes after, his people carried off Reboul.

Some days after, his workmen threw down the house. They found the hiding-place; it was empty. And while the house was being demolished, the proprietor arrived at the galleys, where his two grandsons awaited him.

MY VISIT TO VESUVIUS.

We have often wondered at people living near to a burning mountain; and we think that neither the salubrity of the climate, nor the richness of the soil, nor the abundance with which Providence has crowned the district, would prevail upon us to pitch our dwelling on a spot so apt to be disturbed by the breaking out of a subterraneous fire: yet some geologists affirm, and many people believe them,

that we all live on a thin crust of solid material, under which there is a globe of liquid fire, which is constantly struggling to break from its confinement, and which betrays its restlessness in earthquakes, volcanoes, or bursting floods; and it is believed also that at some period, when Jehovah's purposes concerning the present state of things are finished, the latent fire will break forth and consume this dwellingplace of man, which will quickly disappear—

rence.

"And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wrack behind."

But as there is no immediate appearance of such a catastrophe, we generally think little about so awful an occurAnd just so, we suppose, it is with the inhabitants of volcanic districts, who are so accustomed to shakings of the earth, and rumbling noises under-ground, and puffs of smoke or flame from a crater, that they take little notice of them, and entertain no apprehension of danger, because of the commonness of such premonitions. Thus it happens, according to the laws of the human mind, that an unperceived cause of fear, and the constant presence of such an object, are attended with the same apathy of heart and want of anxiety. How different the feelings of a stranger, however, to those of an inhabitant of such a country, when any of those interesting phenomena occur!

My mind was deeply impressed with such sentiments when, some years ago, I paid a visit to Mount Vesuvius. I rode out of Naples in a carriage to Resina, built on the ruins of Herculaneum. Here was a dead town below, and a living town above. When Pompeii was overwhelmed by a shower of burning ashes, Herculaneum was covered by a vast wave of thick mud, which issued from the volcano, and buried it for ages. Whilst some men were, not many years ago, engaged in sinking a well, they came upon the theatre of the Roman town. This led to further explorations, which resulted in the discovery of the subterranean city. Most of the ancient theatre has been excavated, and may be seen by torchlight. Other parts of the buried town have been discovered nearer the surface, so that by removing the earth and the consolidated mud beneath, the ruins are exposed to the light of heaven; and a visitor can now see the walls of Roman houses and temples, and the cells of a prison, with iron gratings and fetters attached. These objects carry the mind back to the doings of former

times; and imagination paints to itself the horrors of that fatal day, when the engulphing flood slowly but surely approached, driving before it the terror-stricken dwellers of the suburbs, and then burying, as in a common sepulchre, the abodes of the rich and the poor, with their places of worship, of pleasure, and of torture. The inhabitants of Resina live as unconcerned about Vesuvius as we do about the coming "day of fire," and seem to think no more of the sepulchre beneath them than we do of the cemeteries which surround us, and the earth beneath us, full of the dust of our forefathers.

I procured a guide, who had for many years conducted strangers up the mountain. He brought a large white donkey for me to mount, whilst he walked by my side, along with an attendant, carrying my little basket of refreshments. As we pursued our ascent by a winding path up the face of Vesuvius, I often stopped to look upon the scene below, that I might mark the different effects produced by viewing it from different degrees of altitude. The towns and villages, which at first formed such conspicuous objects, gradually appeared smaller, till they seemed to be only specks in a vast plain; and even the gorgeous city of Naples only occupied an insignificant portion of the widespreading landscape. I was then forcibly struck with the beauty of a sentiment of Cicero's, when he describes a sage contemplating the heavens, and pondering over the number and magnitude of the stars, until the earth seemed so small that he felt ashamed of the Roman empire, which appeared to be only a spot in the universe. So, the higher the mind rises above earthly things, and the more it busies itself with the grand works and counsels of Deity, the less is the heart affected by sublunary concerns; and it "overcomes the world," by identifying itself with the glories of the upper sanctuary, and the wide-spread interests of eternity. Things that are looked at from a short distance, on the same level, occupy much of the field of vision; whilst the same objects viewed from an eminence, dwindle into comparative insignificance, and seem to claim little of our regard. Let us always calculate the value of worldly goods from a lofty position on the hill of faith.

In about two hours and a half we reached the foot of the crater, where, in a little cove, we partook of some refreshment, and left the donkey and attendant. We were fur