a human price. He flushed again, this time angrily, and swore a round oath under his breath. Isabella clapped her two little hands over her shocked

ears.

"Anything," she repeated.

"Is the good smuggler's launch a fast craft?" asked Cingleton, turning suddenly to Pedro Gomez. "A very fast one?"

"But yes, señor. It is a smuggler's launch," replied the Spaniard with an air of finality. "It was built to escape the preventives."

"I'll be back to-morrow," said the Englishman curtly, bowing to the President and his daughter. "By nine o'clock I shall return. You will be safe until then?"

"Assuredly. We shall hide safely for a few hours. Afterwards-ah! perhaps there will be no afterwards."

"Won't be my fault if there isn't," was all Cingleton's answer; and, with a second bow to Isabella, he ran rapidly down the long sloping spit of land. "A bow only," said Isabella, with a shrug of the shoulders, "when he might have

Ah, Henry, Henry,

caro mio!" She whispered the last words under her breath; then, feeling the delightful influence of them, whispered them again and again.

The full moon was slowly climbing its stately way through the intricacies of the skies as a fussy steam-launch swept into the harbor of Rio Santa Maria, the renowned capital of Tallisteria. Fully revealed in the midst of a shimmering track of reflected silver lay the long leaden bulk of a thirdclass cruiser, every spar and rope plainly silhouetted against the lightening purple of the sky. The chug-chug of a moored boat came listlessly through the almost oppressive stillness of the night.

"Ah!" remarked Cingleton to the sphinx-like Spaniard at the wheel, "the Immortal. She is still here, then? That

simplifies matters-if Kavanagh has He finished

had a good dinner". the sentence to himself.

"Si, señor, the Immortal. Ꭺ fine vessel." The smuggler said nothing further, but admired the outline of the cruiser appreciatively. He was a man who had an eye for lines of speed.

Eight bells tinkled softly across the water; the cry of the forebridge sentry answered as thunder answers the lightning. Then Cingleton ran his craft alongside, whispered to the gangwayman, and stood on the British planking.

"The captain is asleep," said the man with that air of deference which implies that captain begins with a capital letter. "He dined ashore."

"All the better. Waken him at once, and tell him I want to see him. Cingleton's my name."

Two minutes later a slim, boyish figure in silk pyjamas was peering amazedly through the faint light.

"How the devil did you get here, Cingleton? What's afoot? There's always a row on when you get on deck, you blighted stormy petrel!"

Cingleton dragged the young Irish captain away out of earshot of the curious gangwayman.

"Larks!" he said gleefully. "Big, sound larks! Feel like an adventure?" "That's rather a useless question to put to a chap, isn't it? I grubbed on the beach with the governor. He has some sherry that'd do your heart good. It did mine."

"That's the ticket. Then, are you game to"

There were five minutes of excited whispering, followed by a decided shaking of a close-cropped head.

"Couldn't do it, me boy. It's too big a thing. "Twill be the devil and all if it leaks out. No, no, hang it all, Cingleton! If it were anything else; but that-no."

Cingleton knew his man, and ap

pealed to the sentiment that is in every Irishman.

"There's a girl in it," he said softly, as a vision grew up out of the moonlit sea. "A girl in it, Kavvy boy, for me."

"Ye've salved me conscience, ye beggar. A woman? Never was Dennis Kavanagh deaf to a lone maiden's appeal. Bedad! I'll be best-man at the"

"You'll do it, then?"

"Like a shot. There'll be the Old Harry to pay; but-well, we're in for it anyway."

That is why the third-class cruiser Immortal, Captain Dennis Kavanagh, picked up her anchors, both bower and stream, and slowly passed out between the frowning headlands of Rio Santa Maria. Sleepy engineers in the depths below uttered curses on the fate that lugged them out of their beauty-sleep at twelve midnight to work among odoriferous engines. But on the bridge, far above the stench of oil and the thud of resonant pistons, Kavanagh was greedily drinking in details.

"The very thing I wanted," he murmured ecstatically. "Ye'll find your friend a famous man, yet, Cingleton sonny. It's been on my mind since I was on the Britannia; but what chance has a man of studying such things nowadays? Ye're a benefactor to the human race, if ye but knew it. But won't there be a howly row?"

The long night-hours glided past. Dawn grew suddenly up out of the radiant east, and the purple gloom of the sky vanished in rosy confusion. Far ahead of the hurrying bow, like a cloud, loomed the shores of Wisteria. Cingleton could hardly restrain his impatience. He paced fretfully to and fro, gnawing his fingers impatiently; and yet this was the man who had run under the spears of a hundred fanatical natives and dragged this same Kav anagh into safety. Kavanagh had never forgotten it.

"Be easy now, be easy," said the latter. "The colleen herself will be as safe as Barney's pig when the bailiff took it. What's the pile of imposing masonry that towers up into the sky?" "The old palace-deserted now. No one has lived in it for years, ever since there was a plague inside the place. They say it's haunted."

Kavanagh looked the solid piles of gray old stone up and down, and his eyes shone. Something dear to his heart was working within him, something that he had longed for for years. "I wasn't at Alexandria," he muttered, "worse luck! but this'll be as good. You're sure there's not a soul in the palace?"

"Quite. But what's that got to do with it? There are plenty of men about, bloodthirsty villains who'llBut there, that won't bear thinking about."

"Ye poor-civilian! Did ye ever hear of the Monroe Doctrine? The life of every man-Jack ashore there, no matter though they're all murderers--and the most of them are-is as sacred as the memory of the late Queen, God bless her! Ye'll see my tack in a minute. Mr. Swainson!" This to the address of the gunnery-lieutenant, who stood at his elbow.

He whispered to his subordinate discreetly, and Swainson left the bridge with the step of a schoolboy off on holiday. "With armor-piercing shell," called Kavanagh as he disappeared; "mind that!"

"Well, whatever it is," said Cingleton hastily, "you'd better hurry. See that thin red line? It's revolutionists making their way along the sandspit to the Point. The President, and his daughter, especially his daughter, are at the extreme end, hidden in a cave in the rocks. They won't be anything worth mentioning if you don't look alive."

"Did ye ever see the British navy

asleep? An armed launch'll keep the beggars under; but we'll create a diversion. That's what we're here for-to create a diversion. You watch."

The Immortal glided into the richly set bay like a leaden messenger of wrath. No flag flew from her gaff; from a distance, allowing for the inexperience of any watching eyes, she might have been taken for any lowclass passenger-steamer. A ramshackle fort on the end of the other sandspit, that with the first mentioned composed the harbor, flung a tattered flag to the breeze as a signal for the approaching craft to display her colors. Kayanagh's square face gave no sign that he had seen.

Cingleton watched a long straggling line of redcoated, barefooted men racing along the sandspit. He held his breath as he gazed, for his heart-beats threatened to choke him.

Kavanagh whistled unconcernedly. "Always remember the Monroe Doc trine, me boy," he said cheerfully.

"Oh, confound the Monroe Doctrine! Aren't you going to do anything?"

"That I am. The toy fort is asking us to salute. We'll salute in a little minute. By the way, are there any of our own correspondents' in that large city?"

"Blest if I know. But if you're afraid of the thing leaking out, I'll promise you, once the President gets back, there'll be no telegrams sent. And the cables are all cut; they always do that first."

"Slainthe! That's all I care about. We don't court publicity in the navy, me boy. Unlike some other services which I needn't particularise, we do our little bit incognito.-I think the time's ready now, Mr. Swainson."

The ragged army of extermination that hastened so blithely along the sandspit spread out fanwise, and commenced an exhaustive search of the surrounding country. An armadillo

would not have escaped that search for ten minutes. They chuckled loudly; the sound of their derisive voices came along the water like a message of dread.

But alas for their hopes of slaughter! The strange new arrival in the harbor was commencing to salute the flag. Well, it was only just; the new Republic deserved that mark of recognition. But a sudden exclamation from one of the leaders turned all eyes citywards. They were just in time to see a large piece of masonry detach itself from the old palace and fall in dusty ruins. Surprise held them speechless for a moment; then a roar of anger burst from two hundred throats. But a dull blue flash burst from the side of the lead-colored steamer in the bay as if in answer, and a dull boom reverberated among the sandhills as another large lump of stone and mortar fell giddily.

"Betrayed!" groaned one of their leaders, the redoubtable Fuegos himself. "The cursed steamer from"But from where? That he was not able to understand. No Power was at war with Wisteria; every other nation knew that the country was too busy with its own affrays to wish to take a hand in the game. Before he could find a solution the whole broadside of the Immortal flashed out with a crunching roar. The entire sea-wall of the palace crumbled away into itself like a shut telescope.

"Back to the city!" yelled Fuegos, his eyes bloodshot with a sudden fear. He knew that he was unable to cope with the emergency; more, his men knew it. He could see that, for at the word of command they threw down their rifles and stood sullenly about in groups. They were essentially landfighters, and had no wish to combat an element they dreaded amazingly.

"We shall not return to the city," exclaimed a score of voices. "to be

buried in the ruins! None but a fool would give the order!"

Fuegos stormed and raved, but his words fell on unheeding ears. Suddenly the gaunt cruiser swung its whole broadside, at a range of less than a thousand yards, upon the sandspit. It was enough. Like one man they broke and fled for cover. They had come to find a sheep and they had met with a very ferocious tiger.

Another long stream of figures had issued from the city, and was rapidly making its way along the sand to where the President was hidden. But these were not red-coated; they were chiefly women and children, though many of them were men. As they ran a hoarse roar rose from them.

"Where is Fuegos?" they asked. "Bid him stop the firing of this devil's ship."

But Fuegos knew that he was powerless, and discreetly remained hidden. "Give us a man to stop the firing!" the stream cried, and their voices rose in wavering shrieks. "Give us a man!"

The ex-President saw his opportunity. He waited until the excited mob had halted within five hundred yards of his hiding place, and then stepped slowly forth into the light of day. It was a risky thing to do, but he had won his position as president through knowing how to strike.

"Here is such a man," he said simply. He had seen a well-known figure on the bridge of the cruiser, for he had been watching the experiment through glasses. Now he waved his arm, and the sustained roar of the cruiser's broadsides died away into palpitating silence.

"Here is such a man," said the President again.

The crowd paused in astonishment at his daring. Then a simultaneous shout of "Viva el Presidente!" went up through the air. He was their savior,

their protector; they fawned about his knees with ingratiating words. But the President turned away.

"A complete surrender only," he said. He was not going to rely on half-measures. "Bring the man Fue

gos to me."

They brought him, digging him out of a self-made burrow. He stood like a convicted felon before the accusing gaze of the man he had ousted.

"Wash him first," said the President disgustedly. "Afterwards we will discuss his future"; and he turned resolutely away from the supplicants to meet two men who had landed from a launch and were coming in his direction.

"But it was too bad to fire on the city, señor capitan," he said not very severely when Kavanagh was introduced. "Think of the amount of damage to my poor people."

"Devil a bit," said Kavanagh with a broad grin. "I only fired four rounds at the old palace, which Cingleton assured me was deserted. Every other charge was blank.-But where's the lady, Cingy boy?"

She was coming towards them as he spoke and the impressionable Irishman stiffened like a ramrod. "Bedad, ye lucky beggar!" he whispered, "she was worth solid shot, let alone blank!"

"But how can I thank you, Captain Kavanagh?" asked Isabella de Cordeza. -"And you, Mr. Cingleton?" turning to that worthy.

"Oh, I've done nothing," he said, blushing before her gaze. "It's all Kavanagh here."

The sailor broke in excitedly: "Satisfy us both, Miss de Cordeza. Let me be the best-man a month hence." She looked at Cingleton, and then her eyes dropped. He strode resolutely to her side.

"But for a best-man to be required there must be a husband. No one has asked me yet."

"That's all right," was all Kavanagh said. Then, taking the President by the arm, he led him away.

"Four rounds of armor-piercing shell has won me a world-wide reputation," he explained to the mystified Southerner. "I'll tell ye what I intend to do"; and he explained volubly.

Cingleton looked at Isabella, and she was very full of a sweet confusion. Chambers's Journal.

Suddenly she laid her hand in his and smiled into his eyes.

Kavanagh's book, The Effect of Armor-Piercing Shell on Masonry, is now an accredited classic in all the navies of the world. Sometimes people ask him where he got his information; but he only winks, and says it was at a wedding. Then they say he has been drinking.

The French newspapers, led by the Figaro, are full of extracts from the compromising documents of Mgr. Montagnini, recently the agent of the Vatican in Paris. These documents reveal organized attempts, sanctioned directly by the Vatican, to stir up resistance to the Separation Law (which, right or wrong, is after all the law of France), and they teem with evidences of petty intrigue, ignoble suggestions about public characters, and snippets of private conversations never intended for the use to which they were put. The publication of these things in newspapers anticipates the work of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry. But no political secret is safe in France for many weeks, and it might have been foreseen that if the Committee did not publish a Report within a very short time of its appointment, it would be forestalled. There was always the possibility that the Vatican, to which the documents were addressed, would publish its copies without waiting for the French Committee to act. This is in a sense what has happened. A French Roman Catholic journalist in touch with the Vatican, M. Julien de Narfon, is publishing a series of articles in the Figaro (itself, of course, favorable to the Roman Catholic cause) giving the gist of the documents, and in some cases exact quotations from

them. It may be asked why Roman Catholics themselves should produce all this evidence of the shady negotiations of the Vatican agent in Paris. The answer, of course, is that publication was inevitable in any case, and the Roman Catholics thought it better tactics to accept the responsibility at once. By so doing they seem to say:"Here are these much-debated papers. We do not approve of everything our agent did, but, after all, such are the ways of diplomacy. There is nothing venal to be proved against him or the Vatican. It is useless for the French Government to hold these papers any longer over our heads. Now you know the truth. If the French Government are defiant, so are we." We do not impugn the value of these tactics in the circumstances. But we do think that British Roman Catholics will be unable to read these disclosures without deep pain, if not with a good deal of vicarious shame. The whole spirit of the secret negotiations was sordid. In our opinion, the affair shows conclusively the debasing effect of aspirations after secular power on the Holy See, and the unfitness of the Vatican to wield that power. The story of the Montagnini papers is a tangled one, and for the sake of clearness we shall try to retell it as simply as possible.