chieftain, and, in compliment to his entertainer, was attired in the dress of an English gentleman of the period. His hose and doublet were of unexceptional texture, giving no token of the poverty of the wardrobe from which they were taken, and his russet boots might have moved the envy of many a Sassenach gallant in the merry throng.

"I prophesied truly, did I not ?" asked his partner, with a smile, "when I told you that we could show a muster of fair faces and bright eyes able to put to flight a phalanx of cares?"

"It were obstinate heresy to deny it," replied O'Neill, pleasantly; "and I am too orthodox a knight to fall into it. It gives a new value to your present that it has enabled me to enjoy this spectacle."

"Hush!" replied the lady, somewhat uneasily; "you must not allude to my singular gift. It was such an odd present to make! I fear I shall be laughed at if the story gets abroad. I dread ridicule above all things; spare my sensitiveness, and say nothing of my message to you last night."

"Count upon my discretion, lady," replied O'Neill. "Even should you be questioned on the subject?" "My silence is assured."

"You promise on your loyalty as a knight ?" asked the lady, with an uneasy smile, which belied the assumed gaiety of her manner.

"Even that solemn oath I swear," answered O'Neill, with a laugh. The woman was able to read his character well enough to understand that even a promise so lightly given would be faithfully executed. Her anxieties were dissipated. She put her hand into his, the music rose loud above the merry din of voices, and O'Neill and his partner joined the merry lines that were forming for the dance.

"By my faith, yon churlish rebel trips it right gracefully," remarked a soldier, in lancer's uniform-the centre of a small group that "There is stood in a corner of the room observing the dancers. nothing to put life in the leaden heels of our northern gallants like a little practice in the land of guitars and castanets, of sprightly señoras and gay hidalgos. And, mark you, he has learned to talk as well as to dance. See with what attention his partner listens to his gallant speeches."

"Ay, sir," growled a stout officer, in the same uniform as the speaker, "it is thus we are outdone by those apish foreigners. A dancing master's tricks, and a courtier's twaddle are more in honour with the women of our day than a strong hand and a clear head. A pest on their prancings and pratings! What say you, my melancholy friend, Plunkett ?" he asked, turning to another gentleman of the group. "Would not the world be well rid of them ?"

The individual addressed had been following with his eyes the movements of the leaders of the dance. His face was flushed, his glance unsteady, and it required no extraordinary penetration to discover that he had prepared himself for the fatigues of the ball-room by a liberal indulgence in the wine cup at the banquet.

"Why do you ask me?" he demanded, sharply; with ridding the world of them ?”

"what have I to do

"Ob

"A thousand pardons!" said the soldier, apologetically. serving you to be of meditative mood to-night, I thought your opinion on such a knotty point would be worth having. However, had I known that you had left your good humour at home I would have addressed myself to some other philosopher. You seem deeply interested in the dance; let me not further distract you in your contemplation."

"Interested?

fiercely.

Why should I be interested?" asked Plunkett,

"How the devil should I know ?" answered the other, carelessly. "Mayhap you dislike the attention Miss Coote pays to the whispers of this stranger knight; or it may be you find much to admire in his costume, though from the direction your glances take I should say your attention was attracted wholly to his boots."

"You become insulting, sir," exclaimed Plunkett, with bated. breath, while the unnatural flush faded from his face; "your insolence deserves a chastisement which the company you find yourself in prevents me from inflicting."

"Bah!" retorted the soldier, contemptuously, "spare us your maudlin bravado. If in your cooler moments your courage is as high as it is in your cups, you shall have an opportunity of displaying it."

"By G- you shall answer for your impertinence this moment," hissed Plunkett, in a paroxysm of drunken anger. "If you would not have me brand you as a coward, follow me when I quit the room; you will find me beneath the wall, at the end of the street."

“Have with thee, my blustering bantling," answered the soldier, carelessly; "and if there be a slit put in your throat which spoils your crowing, you know where to cast the blame."

Plunkett heard but half the reply. He had made his way through the crowd, and was already at the door.

"You cannot mean it, Hamilton?" remonstrated the younger soldier, laying his hand on his companion's shoulder. "You would not soil your weapon on such carrion ?"

"Let's follow, at any rate," replied the acceptor of the challenge. "I doubt much that the braggart's valour will stand the shock of the cool air outside. If it do, we must only try to convince him that it wants its better part, which is prudence.'

He pushed his way through the gay throng, and followed by his companion succeeded at length in gaining the street. Though the season was far advanced, the night air was cold and raw, and they were obliged to quicken their pace to protect themselves against the chill.

Beneath the shadow of the city wall Plunkett was found waiting as he had promised. But he was no longer the fearless man of honour that he had been a few moments before. His light costume was but an indifferent protection against the chill night air, he trembled unheroically, and his teeth chattered with most unwarlike violence. The valour he had displayed under the influence of wine, and of an excitement which his friends were at a loss to understand, had evaporated in the cold atmosphere. His face had assumed its wonted

paleness, and his courage was at its accustomed level when his adversary arrived at the trysting-place.

"You have demanded satisfaction for the insult you conceive has been offered you," said Hamilton, drawing his sword; "you may have it now."

There was something intensely ludicrous in the expression of undisguised dismay which overspread Plunkett's features as he realised the consequences of his rashness. He was an abject coward, and the same influence that had made him a braggart in his anger made him a craven in his fear. He stammered some half-audible explanation, in which the words "momentary excitement" were alone intelligible; but his adversary, who was in no hurry to release him from the dilemma in which he was placed, pretended not to hear him.

At last Hamilton's companion interfered to deliver the distressed champion from his awkward difficulty.

"Let me beg you, gentlemen, to understand each other," he began with a smile. "Mr. Plunkett, I feel warranted in assuring you that Captain Hamilton intended nothing insulting in any of his remarks."

Mr. Plunkett was only too ready to accept the explanation, and hastened to profess himself abundantly satisfied by it.

"Friends of the same good cause, we must not turn our swords against one another's throats," continued the peace-maker. "For, know you," he added, addressing Hamilton, "we have no more sincere supporter than this gentleman, whose honour is so much dearer to him than his life. We are indebted to him for important services already, and we may expect others in future. No later than last night I surprised him on a errand of much moment to the state."

Plunkett listened to this encomium upon his merits with a demure modesty, which served to show the satisfaction he derived from it.

"Yes," he whispered, approaching his lips to the ear of his rescuer, "on an errand more important than any that state courier has travelled on for ten years."

"And you have doubtless achieved some great political success ?" "Removed a great political enemy."

"One of the Irishry?" asked the soldier, his curiosity excited by these mysterious revelations.

"Their chief!" answered Plunkett, in a hollow whisper.

The soldier laughed outright.

"Your brain wanders, man, or your eyes have ceased to do their duty," he cried. "The chief of the Irish is dancing in the glare of the lights you see burning yonder. You must have jostled him a few minutes ago when you pushed your way to the door."

"I know it," answered Plunkett, with fierce exultation; "but he is dancing his last measure. He will never tread ball-room floor again."

The savage earnestness with which this assurance was given dispelled the mirth of Plunkett's companions. There was no doubting that his words contained more than the crazy imaginings of a brain inflamed by alcohol.

"Look you, Mr. Plunkett," said the younger soldier, after a .engthened pause, "I do not know what plan these words may cover, but, whatever it be, let me beg you not to execute it. I am an enemy of O'Neill, but I never can permit that a guest of ours shall suffer harm within our quarters. For the sake of our good name, attempt nothing against him here."

Plunkett gazed in stupid astonishment at the speaker. He had expected that his communication would have been far otherwise received.

"You have spoken too late," he answered, curtly. "I will attempt nothing further; but he cannot be saved. Good night! If you love dancing, get you back to the ball-room. For me, I have had enough of enjoyment for one evening."

With this adieu Plunkett turned away, and soon disappeared in the darkness of a narrow street which led down into the city. The two soldiers retraced their steps to the scene of festivity discussing on the way their strange adventure.

There was a pause in the dancing, and O'Neill had quitted the apartment to seek some refreshment for his tired partner. At the door of the room he felt a hand laid on his shoulder, and a voice whispered in his ear:

"Beware of a traitor amongst your friends; a plot is on foot to destroy you."

He turned in time to catch sight of a tall figure in the showy uniform of a lancer regiment, which was approaching the throng of revellers, and was soon lost to view within it. He hurried after his mysterious monitor, but he was already lost in the crowd. Returning to his partner, who was consoling herself for his absence by encouraging the attentions of a group of new admirers, he hastily explained that he was obliged instantly to depart on important business, and, in spite of the entreaties and reproaches of the lady, he quitted the ball-room, and was soon outside the walls of Derry, and, as he thought, beyond the reach of traitors' wiles.

II wanted but a few days of the end of August. The yellow tint of autumn was upon the fields; the purple, summer hue of the mountains had changed to a dusky brown; and the bright green of the luxuriant woods that clothed the banks of the Foyle was merging into

the dingy iron tint that marks the approach of the season of desolation. It was the still hour of evening. The exercises of the day had concluded in the Irish camp, and an interval of comparative quiet had succeeded the tumult and bustle of afternoon drill. Soldiers in all the variety of a negligent undress were lounging on the slopes of the hill occupied by the army of O'Neill. Snatches of songs, bursts of gay laughter, or the noisy disputes of gamesters quarrelling over their games, broke in at times upon the stillness. Occasionally, too, were heard the shriller voices of the women of the camp who stopped as they went upon their errands to reply to the compliments of the lounging soldiers. Peaceful light-heartedness seemed the prevailing spirit in this school of war.

A wooden building rather roughly constructed crowned the hill. At an open window which commanded a view of the scene we have been describing, lay the Chieftain of Ulster. He was stretched upon a kind of rude sofa. His face was colourless, his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken, yet strangely large and lustrous. His hand, once sunburnt and muscular, rested white and bony, on his breast.

By his couch sat a man advanced in years, with features which marked a character of mingled gentleness and energy, of tender feeling and high courage. His costume was an odd mixture of the ecclesiastical and the military, and left the observer in doubt to which of the two professions the wearer belonged. He was watching the motions of the pale form beside him with a touching look of sorrow and affection.

The eyes of the invalid were turned on the fair landscape before him. Again and again they travelled over the graceful undulations of the rich plain below, and traced the silver pathway of the Foyle from the spot where it lost itself in the broad estuary to the point where it hid its folds in the dark woods. The attention of the sick chieftain was called from this monotonous occupation to a group of his soldiers who were indulging in a noisy game of romps on the declivity of the hill. He watched their vigorous and agile movements with wistful gaze, and then turning his languid eyes on his own feeble limbs, he sighed deeply.

"Repining again?" asked his companion, gently. "You suffer

much."

me.

"Ay, my lord, in body much, but more in mind. The sight of the gambols of yon hardy fellows rouses the spirit of impatience in I am disposed to forget your lessons and to curse the fate against which I can no longer struggle. O God! that I could only borrow the strong limbs and fresh blood of some of these sturdy churls for one last effort before I die."

"Despair not, my son," said his monitor, meekly; "you may yet enjoy those blessings without borrowing them."

"Do not deceive yourself, my lord; me you cannot deceive. It is never to be. The leaven of death is in my veins. I shall never wield a sword or mount a steed again."

A tear stood in the bold, bright eye of O'Neill's companion; and he answered in a broken voice: