gold was delivered to his wife by an unknown hand. He had no doubt it was a present from Jose Maria, to whom he had pointed out a ford, one day when he was hotly pursued by the miquelets.

I will close this long letter with another anecdote of my hero's bounty.

A poor hawker of Campillo d'Arenas was carrying a load of vinegar to the town. The vinegar was in skins, according to the custom of the country, which were laid on the back of a wretched mangy, and half-starved ass. In a narrow pass a stranger, dressed like a sportsman, meets the hawker, and the moment he sets eyes on the ass bursts into a loud laugh. "What sort of a jade have you got there, comrade," he cried. "Is it carnival time, that you parade about in that fashion?" And still he laughed louder than before.

"Sir," said the mortified owner of the ass, "this animal, for all it is so ugly, helps to win my bread. I am a very poor man, so I am, and have no money to buy another." "What, you mean to tell me it is this hideous old neddy that saves you from starving outright? Why, man, it has not a week's life in it.-Here," he said, handing him a tolerably weighty bag, "old Herrera has got a handsome mule for sale; he asks fifteen hundred reals for it; here they are. Go and buy the mule this very day, no later. Don't higgle for the price. If I find you to-morrow on the road with this infernal scarecrow, as sure as my name is Jose Maria I'll fling you both over a precipice."

The ass driver, left alone with the bag in his hand, thought he must surely be dreaming. He counted the fifteen hundred reals the sum was exact. He knew what an oath sworn by Jose Maria was worth, and lost no time in going to Hererra and exchange his fifteen hundred reals for a handsome mule.

The next night Herrera was rudely startled from his sleep. Two men stood by his bed-side, holding their poniards, and a dark lantern to his face. "Come, your money, be quick !" "Oh, dear sirs, I have not a quarto in the house."-" You lie; you sold a mule yesterday to such a one from Campillo ; he paid you fifteen hundred reals." So irresistible were their arguments, that the fifteeen hundred reals were soon given up, or, if you will, given back.

Postscript, 1842. Jose Maria died some years since. In the year 1833, on the occasion of the oath of allegiance being taken to the young queen Isabella, king Ferdinand granted a general amnesty, of which the celebrated bandit availed himJANUARY, 1843.

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self. The government even granted him a pension of two reals a day to keep him quiet. As that sum was not sufficient for the wants of a man who had several elegant vices, he was forced to accept a place offered him by the board of directors of the diligences. He became an escopetro, and undertook to protect the diligences he had often rifled.

Everything went on well for some time: his old comrades feared him or treated him with forbearance. But one day some more resolute bandits stopped the Seville diligence, though it carried Jose Maria. He harangued them from the imperial, and such was the ascendancy he possessed over his former accomplices that they seemed disposed to withdraw without further violence, when the leader of the robbers, known by the name of El Gitano, or the gypsey, the lieutenant of Jose Maria, levelled his musket at him, and shot him dead on the spot.

120000-

LINES.

A CLOUD lay near the setting sun,
As he smiled in the glowing west,

And his glorious beams, as he slowly sunk,
Fell full on its shining breast;

And it sent him back again his rays,
And grew brighter, and more bright,

Till it seemed, as its glowing colors changed

An embodiment of light.

But the sun sunk down at the close of day.
And in rain-drops it wept itself away.

A fair young bride at the altar stood,

And a blush was on her cheek,

And her voice was so low, that the vows she vow'd

Seemed scarce from her lips to break.

Yet joy sat on her placid lip,

And in her downcast eye,

For a long, long, life of happiness

Before her seemed to lie.

But her lord soon bowed to Death's stern doom,

And she wept herself to her silent tomb.

THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.

(Continued from page 320. Vol. VIII.)

CHAPTER XIX.

RIVALRY.

THE following morning Flamming stood again in knightly mail, with his dalmatica and cross in the hall of the harbour

castle, which he had stormed in the night. He leaned against the window looking out on the sea, and listening to the dull sound of the distant artillery, that shook the air at brief intervals from the south-east. Paolo now stepped up to him, his face betraying suppressed passion. "I have something highly important to speak with you about, sir knight," he said, with fixed calmness. "Have the goodness to hear me thereupon to an end, without interrupting me with your usual impetuosity after that, you may speak, and resolve and do just as you have a mind.”

66

Say on, Paolo," said Flamming, surprised at this commencement, and resting himself on his sword.

:

"As

"We both love the beautiful Scian," said Paolo. always, when my hostile fate throws me in a collision with you, you are the victor in the contest. The sweet girl loves you with a fire that blazed out in full glow yesterday evening at your parting but your vows forbid you to take her home as your bride; and your concubine I trust you think not of making her. Thus you can never be anything to Dione, and therefore I may venture, whom no vow binds, to woo her. That will I do this day, and I am sure of the consent of my godfather, who wishes to see me happy, without constraining me as to the method in which I become so. But from you I demand an explicit declaration, that you will wholly forgo all pretensions to Dione, and never approach her as you did yesterday, in gross contravention of your sacred obligations as member of the Order. Will you give me your hand and word for this, as a gentleman and an hospitaller. If so, receive my oath in return, that I will be your true and fast friend to the grave. If not, then God and our good swords judge between us: for, without Dione, I cannot and will not live, and it is a torture of hell to know you for the possessor of her heart."

"You may

Flamming looked compassionately on the unfortunate lover, and replied in his own commanding accents: thank my own experience, Paolo, that love bewilders the head, and my reverence for the noble grand master, that I do not reply to your unseemly speech as it deserves. I now tell you quietly, that I am not disposed to recognise as my correctioner, a lad, who is to win his spurs under my command; were he even the holy father's nephew. My pretensions to Dione I cannot give up; since none may I make. But had I any pretensions to the maiden, I should certainly not forego them, if, for nothing else, at least for the rudeness with which you have made the demand. It needs not my knightly

word to make it assured that another's honourable wooing would be sacred in my eyes. After this explanation, if you have any desire to quarrel with me, wait till our return to Malta, where I will meet you in the narrow street: here we are both in the service of the Order, and a duel is out of the question; so much so, that if you persist in your mad perversity, I shall be forced to arrest you."

"You have decided," cried Paolo, furiously. "On your own head be the consequences !" He rushed out, and old Wulf entered, to enquire what was to be done with the Greek taken yesterday along with the Turks in old Lambro's villa, and carried to the harbour castle.

"What Greek?" said Flamming.

"He is without, there," said Wulf, opening the door, and Leontaras, betraying on his pale face, only fear of deserved punishment, not sorrow for his treachery, crawled in, raised his eyes timidly, and recognizing in the knight of Malta the Hamburgh merchant, he fell on his knees, and shrieked "Mercy!"

"You were not imprisoned by my orders," said Flamming, looking coldly down on him. ""Tis true indeed, the christian who gladly offered himself to the unbelievers as the betrayer of his brethren in faith, hath well deserved death: for to you, and villains like you, is christendom indebted for countless misery, and your unfortunate country owes its thraldom: but my contempt shields you from my anger. You are free, and shall this instant quit the island, on which I cannot suffer any Turkish spy. See to this, Wulf."

In his delight at getting off alive, Leontaras seemed to overlook the contemptuous manner of his pardon, and sought to declare his thanks to the youth in Greek hyperbole : but it was irksome to the latter to listen to the hypocrite, and he motioned to the file-master to remove him.

When he was alone, he fixed his eyes long on the cross of his dalmatica, then raised them piously to heaven with a deep sigh, and said: "This too was a follower of the blessed doctrine, to seal which, thou, my Saviour, didst suffer and die. Truly he whose heart is not wholly penetrated with thy blessed faith, might well doubt its efficacy amongst these wretched lip christians.

CHAPTER XX.

THE LAW OF HONOUR-UNGENTLE WOOING.

It was now late in the evening: Flamming stood again at the window listening to the distant firing, thought, between whiles,

of Dione, and exhausted himself in conjectures as to the nature of a gleam in the south-east, which showed itself in a point of the horizon, where the moon could not possibly be rising.

Wulf entered. said he, "

"The two janissary officers, our prisoners," request to speak with the commander, to arrange about their ransom."

"Send them in."

The two bachis were conducted into the hall by the guard, and their astonishment at recognizing in the arbiter of their fate, an old acquaintance in a new garb, produced a highly amusing effect.

"Well friends, I was right, was I not?" said Flamming, laughing "to be the prisoner of Malta is no disgrace?"

:

"If one were not a prisoner!" muttered they, "if one might speak!"

"Who hinders you? speak!" said Flamming.

"I will let that alone," said one of the Turks.

"I am in thy power, if my words do not please thee, I may expect ill-usage."

"Pah !" cried Flamming with disgust. "So that is your custom, is it? It is not ours. Speak boldly. My word on it, thou mayst with impunity. A prisoner, cannot offend me." Well, if I may speak," the Turk broke out, "I tell thee, my capture does thee the greatest disgrace. Thou hast, with wicked craft, availed thyself to my ruin of my good nature and my friendliness toward thee, thou hast stolen my confidence from me, to lie and trick me with thy impudence. This is not the conduct of a warrior, and least of all becomes thee, monk-knight, who settest up for something peculiarly superior. We Turks are not used to fight with such weapons, consequently thy victory was as easy as inglorious, and thou canst as little magnify thyself upon it, as the accursed jewish woman, who poisoned our holy prophet, on her assassin deed."

Flamming replied, suppressing his irritation, "Thou art certainly wrong in the main, for the order had dictated my proceedings, and to its welfare must all other conversation give place. Stratagems in war too, have always been practised, and allowed since the memory of man. Still a voice within my breast admits some truth in thy reproaches; I am therefore ready to give thee the satisfaction which thou canst justly d'mand."

"Set me free, then," cried the Thorbaschi.