gipsy. To the Turks, to the Moldavians, to the Vallachians, I am, in truth, a robber; but to the Russians I am a guest. When Saphiános had fired away all his ammunition, and came to us in the quarantine, to collect from the wounded men everything he could find for a last loading for our guns,-buttons, nails, the chains and tassels of their ataghans, I gave him twenty sequins, and left myself without money. God sees that I,—I, Kirdjáli, have lived on alms! Wherefore, then, should the Russians now give me up to my enemies?" After pronouncing these words, Kirdjáli was silent, and began calmly to await the decision of his destiny.

A karútza was drawn up at the gate of the prison, in the year 1821, on one of the last days of September. Jewesses, with their sleeves dangling loose and their slipshod slippers trailing along the ground; Arnaúts, in their ragged but picturesque costume; tall Moldavian women, with their black-eyed babies in their arms ;—all these, in a motley group, surrounded the karútza. The men preserved a complete silence,-the women seemed eagerly expecting something or other.

The gates opened, and a number of police officers came out into the street; they were followed by two soldiers, conducting between them Kirdjáli, chained.

He appeared about thirty years of age. The features of his tawny countenance were regular and severe. He was of lofty stature, broad shouldered, exhibiting every sign of extraordinary physical strength. A turban of various colours was placed slantingly on his head; his slender waist was encircled by a broad belt of shawl; a doliman of stout dark-blue cloth, a wide and thickly-plaited shirt, falling nearly to the knee, and scarlet slippers, completed his costume. His air was calm and proud.

One of the civil officers, a red-faced old fellow, in a faded and threadbare uniform, to which still dangled three remaining buttons, having pinched between the arch of a pair of pewter spectacles a purplish nob, which represented a nose, unfolded a paper, and holding it up to his eye, began to read in the Moldavian language. From time to time he glanced contemptuously at the fettered Kirdjáli, who was apparently the subject of the paper. Kirdjáli listened to him with attention. The civilian finished his reading, folded up the paper, called loudly to the people, ordering them to make way, and commanded the karútza to be brought up. Then Kirdjáli turned towards him, and said a few words in the Moldavian dialect; his voice trembled; he changed countenance; burst into tears, and threw himself at the feet of the officer of police, his chains clashing as he fell. The police officer, struck with terror, scuttled off; the soldiers were about to raise Kirdjáli, but he got up of his own accord, gathered his fetters into his hand, stepped into the karútza, and cried, "Drive on!" A gendarme seated himself by his side, the Moldavian cracked his whip, and the karútza rolled away.

Kirdjáli, on his arrival at Jassy, was delivered up to the pasha, who sentenced him to be impaled. The execution was deferred to some great holiday or other. In the meantime he was shut up in a dungeon. The duty of guarding the prisoner was confided to seven Turks (men of rude and simple habits, and at heart, to a certain degree, brigands like Kirdjáli); they treated him with respect, and

listened, with the greediness so universal throughout the East, to his strange and wondrous tales.

It was not long before a secret bond of fellowship united the guards and their prisoner. One day Kirdjáli said to them," Brothers! my hour is near. No man can escape his fate, In a short time I shall bid ye farewell. I should like to leave you something as a keepsake." The Turks pricked up their ears.

"Brothers!" continued Kirdjáli," three years ago, when I robbed in company with Mikhailáke, who is now dead, we buried in the steppe, not far from Jassy, a great iron pot full of piastres. Apparently neither I nor he were destined to enjoy that hoard. So be it! do you dig it up, and share it among ye like good comrades."

The Turks were almost crazy with delight. Then began the arguments, how they should find the spot in which the treasure was concealed. They meditated and discussed the matter so long, that at last they proposed that Kirdjáli himself should shew them the way.

Night came on. The Turks took off the fetters from the prisoner's feet, tied his hands behind him with a rope, and the whole party set off with him for the steppe.

Kirdjáli led them on, keeping always in the same direction, from one hillock to another. They walked onward for a long time. At last Kirdjáli stopped at a broad stone, measured out twelve paces towards the south, stamped with his foot, and criedhere.

The Turks now set to work. Four of them drew their ataghans, and began to dig up the earth. The three others stood on guard. Kirdjáli sat down on the stone, and began to look at them as they laboured.

"Well, are you near it?" he inquired, "have you got down to it?" "Not yet," replied the Turks, toiling on, till the sweat streamed from them like rain.

Kirdjáli began to show signs of impatience.

"What a set of fellows!" he cried; "they can't even dig up a few feet of earth! If I set about it, the affair would be done in a couple of minutes. Come, my boys! untie my hands and give me an ataghan." The Turks hesitated, and began to consult together.

"Well," said they at last, "let's unbind his hands, and give him an ataghan. What harm can that do? We are seven to one." And the Turks untied his hands, and gave him an ataghan.

At last Kirdjáli found himself once more a free man, with arms in his hands. What must he have felt at such a moment! He began to dig with great activity; his guards helped him. Suddenly he plunged his ataghan into the body of one of them, and leaving the weapon sticking in the Turk's bosom, he snatched a brace of pistols from the falling man's belt.

The remaining six, seeing Kirdjáli levelling a cocked pistol in each hand, took to their heels.

Kirdjáli is now once more a brigand, and plunders principally in the neighbourhood of Jassy. A short time ago he wrote a letter to the hospodar, demanding five thousand gold piastres, and threatening, in case of non-payment, to set fire to Jassy, and to present himself in person to the hospodar. The five thousand piastres were sent him.

"ARE THERE THOSE WHO READ THE FUTURE ?”

A TISSUE OF STRANGE COINCIDENCES.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "EXPERIENCES OF A GAOL CHAPLAIN." "I can't say she was an agreeable person: for in society her main aim was to appear wiser than her neighbours."

LADY MARY W. MONTAGU's opinion of Madame la Comtesse de V—tt. In a sheltered nook of fertile Devon, within an easy drive of Exeter, and a pleasant sail of Torquay, lies a little bustling villageoriginally a cluster of fishers' huts-whose bold coast, firm sands, and gently shelving shore proved irresistible recommendations to public favour. The straggling hamlet of Sunny Bay rose rapidly into a much frequented watering-place. To it flocked the infirm, the feeble, the consumptive, the suffering: and these, ere long, were followed by the idle, and the jaded, the luxurious, and the hypochondriacal.

To the former class, the invalids, belonged the young Duc de la Miniac de Rohan, who, at the period I am referring to, came to Sunny Bay by the special recommendation of a whole conclave of physicians. His malady was consumption: but he had youth and a truly happy, equable, contented temper on his side; and the most vigilant and affectionate of nurses. He was ordered to live in the saddle; to confine himself mainly to a milk diet; to be at least a couple of hours every morning on the sands; and daily to luxuriate in a beverage, or broth, of which snails were the main ingredient: and for which horrible staple in his mid-day meal the neighbouring gardens were laid under willing contribution.

Whether from the soft, genial air of Devon, or from horse-exercise, or from the long hours passed on the sunny beach fanned the while by the freshening breeze, or from the strange but nourishing diet so peremptorily prescribed for him, and so steadily abided by, it boots not now to say,-the result was this: the Duc de Rohan rallied. The hectic spot disappeared from his cheek. His face lost its anxious and haggard expression. He rode with greater firmness and spirit. His eye looked no longer dull and glassy. And the Sunny Bay people-with whom, from his gay good humour and lavish expenditure, the young French noble was a favourite-thus expressed, and with sincerity, their sentiments. "For his own sake we wish the young duke may get right well again; but for ours we hope that he will take some time about it!"

Where, and in what latitude, dwell disinterested people? Strange that with all our hopes and aspirations Self should so insensibly and largely mingle!

With the departure of the duke's household from Sunny Bay, all memory of their sayings and doings would have gradually faded, had it not been for the prolonged sojourn of a lady who seemed, to a certain degree, identified with the foreign visitant. This party had come into Devonshire at the express wish of the ladies of the duke's family. They had known her abroad; liked her society; had experienced great courtesy at her hands, and pressed her to visit them. On the other hand, Hortense de Crespigny-such was

the fair one's name-had no settled home. "All countries and domiciles," she remarked, 66 are alike to one who is an exile for ever; and why not waste what remains to me of life at Sunny Bay?"

What might remain to her of life was "an open" and "much controverted" question. No two gossips could agree as to her age. By some Mademoiselle de Crespigny was pronounced forty; by others five-and-twenty. Her country, too, afforded matter for many a wordy war.

The elderlies held her to be of French origin. The juniors maintained her to be an Italian. She herself observed the most inviolable silence as to her birth-place, connexions, past or future residence. She was an accomplished linguist; could converse in five languages; drew rapidly and accurately; and sang; but-like the beautiful and too celebrated Lady Hamilton-declined invariably an accompaniment. "It confused her," was her remark; "caused her to forget both words and air." But the quality of her voice was delicious; her intonation perfect; and those who had the good fortune to hear her in an English or Spanish ballad, will not easily forget the witchery of her tones.

She had ample means; was not disinclined to use them; compassionate and fearless. One exhibition of her courage and kindly feeling established for her an ascendancy among the poor, who in after years often reverted to the bold heart and open hand of the melancholy Spanish lady.

A very poor woman, living within a stone's throw of Mr. Stacey, the flourishing grocer and petty banker of the little sea-port, was seized with malignant fever. Two nurses who had gone to the assistance of the sufferer, had, one after another, caught the infection, and were pronounced past recovery. No one was disposed to succeed them; and the deserted woman-she had four fatherless children-seemed doomed to perish alone. At this juncture the foreigner heard of the case, and sought fearlessly the bedside of the sufferer. Watch her, hour by hour, as a nurse, she did not. But four times a day did Hortense de Crespigny present herself in that squalid dwelling. She gave the poor delirious creature her medicine; she surrounded her with comforts; she shifted her uneasy pillow, and fumigated her close and unhealthy chamber. Nay, more. At the crisis of the disorder the generous Hortense, at no light cost, summoned Dr. Luke twice from Exeter, on purpose to place the case under his guidance. The widow-she was a lacemaker-rallied; and when, on the first morning of recovered reason she saw her benefactress bending over her couch, she overwhelmed her with thanks and blessings, and prayed that she might live long and happily. A strange expression of anguish passed over Mademoiselle de Crespigny's face; and she checked the grateful speaker with the hurried exclamation, "No, no! don't pray for me that I may live; but pray-yes, pray, and that earnestly, that I may be permitted to die."

Perhaps this morbid and devouring melancholy will explain her long solitary rambles by the shore. Watching the ceaseless throb of ocean, she would remain for hours on the hissing beach, heedless of the blast and the spray. She said the waves spoke to her,―spoke to her of the future,-spoke to her of the past. She maintained that

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to her mind the great deep mirrored THE INFINITE and THE EterNAL, and that the billows, as they burst in rapid succession on the shore, had each for her a language and a lesson, and bore tidings of the dead and the distant, the lost and the loved.

Of the stars, her notions were to the full as wild and dreamy. After a lengthened gaze at the studded hemisphere on a bright and glorious night, she burst forth :

"The stars are talking together, as happily and harmoniously, as on the first morning of creation, fulfilling, with unutterable gladness, their mighty Maker's will, nor dreading nor desiring to shun the hour when they must fall from their courses! "

Of necessity, her religious views were speedly pronounced faulty, and it was hinted that she thought much more about the sea and stars than a sober-minded christian ought to do.

"Perhaps," said she, in reply, "my creed is not so fully matured as it should be. In truth, I feel that I have much to learn: but what is it which you here teach me? What do I see at Sunny Bay? An aged minister, Mr. Winton, has the misfortune to differ slightly with some of his hearers. They instantly leave him, turn their backs on Glenorchy Chapel, and run up a hideous brick building behind the Beacon, in which they congregate, and call their house of assembly 'THE LITTLE REVENGE;' a strange name, surely, for a place dedicated to the worship of THE SUPREME! Again, in the church, poor old Mr. Rhymer, a most inoffensive being, makes use of two or three unguarded expressions in an ill-considered sermon. He is denounced to his bishop; cited in the spiritual court; suspended; takes to his bed and dies of a broken heart. My creed, I daresay, is imperfect, but it tells me this,-to love-to forbear-and to forgive."

"A rank heretic!" cried Mrs. Chapman of The Globe,-an enormously stout woman, and an unquestionable authority in the hamlet," a rank heretic! and if she had but lived in good old Bishop Bonner's days, I, for one, know what would have become of

her!

Nor was this the only point on which public propriety,—marvellously sensitive at Sunny Bay !-felt itself scandalized.

It soon transpired,-how or by what means I cannot now recal,— that this extraordinary woman read the future. This last expression is, perhaps, un peu trop fort! and should be softened down into "guessed" at what was approaching, and all her "hits" be designated as so many fortunate coincidences. The reader must take which version soever he pleases.

Her first essay was in connexion with a youthful son of Admiral (then Captain) Carpenter. The captain was afloat, and a house on the Parade-not far from Miss Langford's library-was occupied by his lady and her young family. It numbered among its members a very intelligent, shrewd, restless boy, full of life and hope, of peculiarly frank and winning manners, and of whom the fondest expectations were formed by those around him.

That boy will cut a brilliant figure in after life," was the remark of a gentleman who had been captivated with his apt but courteous answers; "we shall hear of him by the time he's thirty."

Miss de Crespigny looked at the lad steadily, and then slowly murmured, to the amazement of those who listened :