Night came on-the moon had risen, but was obscured-I only saw one star, and this looked redly out from the dark sky above the island towards which we were hurrying; for the boat was now quite unmanageable. Perhaps I did not do my best to manage her: I, too, had my eyes fixed on Filfla; I felt impressed that we must near the isle, I knew not why. If I had a thought beyond, at that moment, it was that by making a long stretch we might afterwards fetch in under the land, and possibly reach a small bay on the western coast; or, when the gregale had expended its fury, we might beat back to Marsa Scirocco.

"Poor Signora Balzan, seeing her husband stand appalled, his eyes glaring towards the fearful isle, the sight of which she turned from shudderingly, clung to him, and hid her face in his bosom ; but he heeded her not. Just then-oh! night of horror !—we were nearing the very cliff beneath which I had found the dead-ay! the murdered man. It seemed to me that I was obliged to run close to it, and that I had no power over the helm. Then came a lull, as though the blast had done its worst. I heard a cry-a yell from Balzan:-he had thrown his wife to the deck - his arms were extended-he pointed to the crags above. I looked-I could not have been mistaken-there was a human form leaning over the precipice -it fell! The gentleman who was with us called out, 'It is a fall of the cliff. A fall of the cliff certainly followed on the instant— down it came with a sullen noise like distant thunder.

Mercy! mercy!' exclaimed Balzan,-'I come! I come!' "The waters had hardly closed over the fall of rock when the murderer dashed headlong from the boat, and sank amid the waves. That night we succeeded in beating back to Marsa Scirocco. The Signora Balzan never spoke from the moment she beheld her husband's awful suicide; every sense seemed paralyzed. The gentleman, who had done little as yet but cross himself, was now of some service when we got on shore. He had a friend near at hand who owned a calesse, and in this the poor Signora was conveyed to her solitary home. She is now, I believe, in a Sicilian convent.

"Can you wonder, Signor," concluded the old fisherman, "that I like not to visit Filfla? Did I know that a boat-load of fish might be had for the fetching from beneath those unlucky cliffs, I would not go there, though I am very poor; and whatever the Signor gives me will be a charity to one who often wants bread."

So ended, as it commenced, in an appeal to my compassion, the Maltese Ghost-Story.

THE TWO GATE-KEEPERS.

The Doctor receives us from birth at bed-side,

And forwards us on towards Death, his pale brother.
Thus life is a railway on which we all glide,

With the Doctor at this end, and Death at the other!

G. D.

MR. LEDBURY'S ADVENTURES AT HOME AND

ABROAD.

BY ALBERT SMITH.

CHAPTER III.

Of the manner in which Mr. Ledbury was examined by the Municipal Guard, and of his interview with the Prefect of Police.

THE cold grey light of morning crept sluggishly, as though it feared to enter, through the rusty bars in the apertures of the cell that served for windows, and the rumble of vehicles in the adjacent streets began a prelude to the round of noise, traffic, misery, happiness, and crime, which a day in a great city gives birth to, when the luckless Mr. Ledbury woke up, and allowed a clear perception of his not very enviable situation to burst upon him. His slumbers during the night had been confused and broken. Occasionally wild screeches and convivial yells had sounded from contiguous cells; but when these rose to an unpleasant height, or tended in any way to disturb the nerves of the garde municipale, (who dozed upon luxurious inclined planes of oak and iron in the outer room,) a visit from one of them generally quelled the riot for a short period, only to return, in most cases, as soon as the functionary's departing footsteps were heard outside the door.

All the excitement of the champagne and vin ordinaire which sparkled from Mr. Ledbury's eyes the night before,-all his rapid defiance and valorous demeanour had passed away. A head-ache, which appeared likely to split his brain into two, had succeeded to his gay imaginings of the previous evening. His eyelids smarted with inflammation and the want of legitimate rest; and moreover he had broken one of the pebbles of his spectacles. His mouth was dry and parched; his hands red and swollen, and looking about the nails as if he had been excorticating millions of new walnuts; whilst his mind revolted at everything he thought of or perceived about him. Two or three companions of his imprisonment, of the lowest class of society, and of whose presence he had hitherto been entirely unconscious, were disposed about the cell. One was still snoring heavily with the stertor of intoxication; another was smacking his lips with thirst, or the lack of the usual morning stimulus from the marchand de vin to settle his irritable and depraved stomach; and a third, awake, but scarcely returned to his proper intellects, was gazing listlessly at the window, which quivered in his disturbed vision, or indulging in occasional unmeaning wailings, half melodious, half lachrymose. Mr. Ledbury's mild temperament was ill calculated to bear up against the first terrible consciousness of his position as he awoke. The whole reality by which he was surrounded faded away in the appalling visions of the galleys, the mines of Siberia, impalement, underground cells in the Bastile, laden with heavy chains, the guillotine, and other continental modes of punishment, which rapidly crowded upon his imagination. Suppose, by the mild intervention of the law, he should only be imprisoned for two or three years in a fort

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ress! Gracious powers! how would his family, who lived at Islington, bear the shock when they came to hear of it !-what desolation would brood on the hearth, or rather the Chunk stove, of his office! What would Miss Mitchell, Miss Hamilton, and all his young-lady friends of bygone evening parties think of him, when they were informed of his disgrace?—and how would the Saturday-night organ, that always played "As I view these scenes so charming" out of tune, contrive to do without the hebdomadal penny which purchased its retreat to an inaudible distance? These were fearful things to reflect upon, and he cried as he thought about them, or rather gave a very good imitation of having a very bad cold in his head. He envied the very flies, that flew in and out the bars just as they pleased, without asking permission of anybody..

An hour or two passed miserably away until about nine o'clock, when the bolts were withdrawn, and he was summoned to the front office of the guard-house, and confronted with the chief officer of the force to be interrogated; his extreme state of conviviality on the preceding evening having quite precluded the possibility of getting anything like a correct answer from him.

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Monsieur," gruffly demanded the guard, in a voice made ten times more terrible by its transmission through a pair of formidable mustachios, " dites-moi votre nom, s'il vous plait ?"

"Not guilty," replied Ledbury, who had some faint idea that a species of judicial inquiry was going on.

The supposed cognomination was immediately written down, as near as they could catch it.

"Où est votre passeport?”

"Je non pas," answered Ledbury, slightly comprehending the question, and endeavouring to answer it in French.

A very suspicious look from the guard followed this declaration. The truth was, that our hero, having been so short a time in Paris, had not yet got his provisionary passport exchanged for his travelling one; but this he could not explain. The officer, not understanding him, gave orders that his pockets should be investigated.

One of the corps forthwith began to search Mr. Ledbury,—a process which was exceedingly interesting to the others. The first article they turned out upon the bench was his pocket-handkerchief, covered all over with a representation of the flags of different nations, and a large Union-jack in the middle. This was evidently considered a most important discovery, and immediately entered in the police-sheet as a code of private signals. The standard of Algiers strengthened this belief, and the whole of the garde pointed it out immediately with great exultation; for, ever since the French won the battle of Constantina, they have formed a singular idea that there never was another victory in the world, and have framed all their toys, bonbons, sports, and public shows accordingly, wherein "les sacrés Bedouins" are always represented as getting ten to one the worst of it. Then from the other pocket was produced a most suspicious list of the General Steam Navigation Company, evidently in correspondence with the pocket-handkerchief; together with his keys, his little French dictionary, some crumbs of biscuit, and some nuts, which he had pocketed from the dinner-table, having heard such proceedings were customary in France, and proper to be done. His waistcoat gave up all of the cosmétique that he had not