Gretchen stood still in alarm, and looked around to see what was the danger threatening; but there was nothing visible except a heap. of dead branches across the path.

"And these withered leaves are to bar my passage?" she asked, touching them contemptuously with her foot.

"Though they be but leaves, they mark the frontier, Fräulein; and were we to be found only a dozen steps beyond the frontier, we should be instantly arrested and taken off to the nearest town."

"But what for, in the name of all that is illogical?"

"I cannot say that I know what for, Fräulein; perhaps they do not know it themselves. They are always suspicious, those Roumanians, and think it more natural that you should be doing harm than not."

"The Roumanian grapes look twice as good as the Hungarian ones," said Gretchen, casting a longing glance at the purple berries which hung so temptingly just out of her reach. "Forbidden fruit are always the sweetest, you know."

"I have never heard that, Fräulein; and, begging your pardon, I do not think it can be true: we can never enjoy anything if our conscience be not clear."

"Well, I could make a very comfortable meal upon forbidden fruit, I think," said Tolnay; "much more enjoyable than any legiti mately obtained pine-apples or nectarines at least to my thinking; but it is all a matter of taste."

"An acquired taste, perhaps?" put in Gretchen, looking at him over her shoulder.

"Exactly-caviare to such simple souls hampered by a tender conscience;" and the ironically compassionate glance which accom

VOL. CXXXVII.-NO. DCCCXXXIII.

panied the words rested not only on the Bohemian, but on Komers as well.

"I don't like caviare," said Gretchen," unwholesome, oily stuff; but I should like to take just one step into Roumania, and to gather one bunch of Roumanian grapes."

"Come, then, let us defy the laws of the country!" said Tolnay, with his irresistible smile, and offering his arm to help her over the momentous heap of branches,-"let us taste of the forbidden fruit together."

And partly out of contempt for such illogical restrictions, partly out of that spirit of coquetry which in her seemed always to be called forth by István Tolnay's presence, Gretchen accepted his arm, and together they passed the line of demarcation; while, with gloomy frowning brow, Vincenz watched them disappear round a

corner.

All the evil that was in her nature seemed ever ready to be roused at Tolnay's will. To watch her with that man at her side was almost to believe her the cold and heartless coquette, the mercenary fortune-hunter, which Anna declared her to be. "And that day," thought Vincenz-" that day when we spoke together in the gorge, I found it so easy to believe that she was a true woman, with a heart that could love, even if it cannot love me. Ah, what a pity is the change!"

"Ah, what a pity is the change!" Gretchen's own thoughts were saying at that very moment. "That day in the gorge he was like Hercules come down from his pedestal to save me; down here today he is tiresome and awkward. What a pity is the change!"

This thought was underlying all her most flippant speeches, all her most seductive smiles; and per2 E

haps, too, this thought made her find out that forbidden fruits are only sweet in anticipation, and that even Roumanian grapes can be sour. But nothing of this ap peared on the surface, and she came back laughing and talking as lightly as before.

Well, we have not been arrested, you see," she said, addressing

the others.

"And by what shadow of right should you have been arrested?" said Mr Howard. "There must be justice even in Roumania."

The Bohemian's expression seemed to say that justice was much too good a thing to be found in such a country.

"By what right, I do not know; but that they do it, I know. It is sometimes much easier to walk over the Roumanian frontier than to walk back again. Some years ago there was a gentleman here who had passed the border without knowing it. He was seized and locked up. as a political spy; and afterwards they forgot all about letting him out again, and if his relations had not found him out at the end of a month, he might be there still."

"A nice state of affairs," cried Mr Howard, with rising wrath. "I should just like to see them try to lock up a free British subject!" And at the bare idea Mr Howard grew scarlet.

think it matters much what they are; the more of them you have, the better. At home, in Bohemia, we need no such precautions; but in this strange land

"He means a passport," put in Tolnay.

"I always looked upon passports as an exploded superstition," remarked Kurt.

"So they should be," went on Mr Howard; "but people in this country cling to superstitions, it seems. If you want to travel slowly, travel with a passport by all means. It is the best recipe I know for being detained at every turn and regarded as a suspicious individual. A passport is the most suspicious-looking article possible nowadays. Last year I was travelling. I was told I must have a passport; naturally I declined. What was the result? At the French frontier I was asked for it, and distinctly informed my questioner that I had none. A terrifying Frenchman, with a black beard and rolling eyes, glared at me ferociously for a minute, then roared in a voice of thunder, Comment, monsieur, pas de passeport! Alors PASSEZ, monsieur!' and I passed, very comfortably indeed."

"Ah, what admirable prudence! None of us have had such care of our persons."

Vincenz continued to unfold his pocket-book, perfectly unperturbed by Baron Tolnay's pin pricks. These pin pricks were István's greatest pleasure. He delighted in displaying his youthfulness under the eyes of the elder man, who would fain be his rival. That the lawyer could ever succeed in being his rival, was an idea far too preposterous to have occurred to István's mind.

"I got the passport to satisfy my sister," said Vincenz calmly, while he smoothed out the rustling document. "She believed that without it I was exposing myself to innumerable dangers."

Tolnay threw a glance of disparagement at the battered leather pocket-book from which the passport had issued.

"Does not such a magnificent document deserve a more worthy resting-place?"

"I prize this pocket-book above everything else in the world,” said Vincenz, with sudden fire. "It is dearer to me than the most sacred relic." He spoke only on a thoughtless impulse, but Tolnay had caught

the tone.

Quick as lightning his glance shot towards Gretchen. A faint flush was on her cheek: she knew well enough that this old pocketbook was the same that she had once stitched together for Dr Komers.

Of this István Tolnay knew nothing. And yet it was at this moment, while he stood beside the ruined watch-tower, and looked from one face to the other, that there was sown in István's soul the first frail seed of a plant which was to bear bitter fruit.

NOTWITHSTANDING the marked leaning of the literary world towards biographies during the present century, our English writers had let 1900 come wellnigh upon them without their presenting us with a life of the hero of Lepanto. Now that the void has been ably filled, it is easy to perceive after the event what a fruitful field it was which was left for so long unworked. For it is not only as a conqueror and a prominent historical figure that Don John of Austria interests us. His career was run when the ten centuries of darkness had just closed; and the actions and circumstances of it apart from wars, politics, and religions are admirably illustrative of the social and moral condition of that attractive period. curtain was already falling on the eld of fable, tradition, and twilight chronicle when he came upon the scene; and attending his few but eventful days appeared the dayspring of history, the dawn of the arts, the renaissance of poetry with its civilising influence. At the same time there lay upon Europe enough of middle-age shadow to prolong the waning empire of those cherished unrealities which are the province of romance, and which lend such delicious enchantment to days of old. A figure better worth exhibiting faithfully and particularly is not to be lighted on at every epoch.

The

There were, no doubt, sufficient reasons why the writing of the life of this illustrious personage by a British author was postponed; and one of these probably was, that the great historical events of which he was a great part have been amply recounted to us. But who, after

feeding full of the stories of heroic achievements and of events big with the future of nations and races, can rise from his study without a yearning to know the personal story of one whose appearances in the great tableaux of the past have created such thrilling emotion? One of our foremost poets names in the same line,

"Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar!" If these sea-fights deserve to be ranked together, one of them certainly may complain of some discourtesy on the part of posterity. We have abundant knowledge of them who led at Actium. Of the hero of Trafalgar English pens have not failed to register the minutest particulars, which English minds still receive with almost the devotion due to sacred writings; but somehow English curiosity concerning the life of him who led the Christian fleets at Lepanto and broke the power of the dreaded Turk has, until lately, been patient. Looking into Maunder's Universal Biography,' we find under the word Austrea the following notice: "D. Juan, a Spanish admiral, born in 1545; remembered as the conqueror of the Turks at Lepanto." A scant account this of a man who took a prominent part in the most important European affairs of his generation; whose praise was hymned by poets and told out by orators and authors far and near; who was without co-rival

"The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,

The observed of all observers ; "

to whom the Vicar of Christ thought it proper to apply the

words, "There was a man sent from God whose name was John." We may say then, without fear of contradiction, that Sir William Stirling - Maxwell desired a good work when he set himself "to write unto us in order" the chief events of the life of the distinguished commander, Don John of Austria.1 With what degree of success he achieved his purpose these pages are intended to discover in some sort. Our readers will find, as we think, that the author defined correctly the scope of his task, that he has made the career of his subject the trunk line of his story; but that he has not hesitated to diverge from it judiciously at intervals, that he may place beside us, as we go along, pictures illustrative of the manners and customs of the time, and lucid descriptions of means and appliances which have long been obsolete.

The work before us is the product of much learning and research, of which we are little able and little disposed to constitute ourselves the judges. We choose

rather to sit at Sir William Stirling-Maxwell's feet, to take what account we can of his labours, and to indicate the instructive and entertaining character of his scholarly narration. Our intention is to point where we can to matter which has hitherto been untold, or very sparingly told, in our tongue. Of course, such great themes as the Morisco rebellion, the Holy League against the Turks, and the struggle of the Netherlands with Spain, which are fully and graphically related here, cannot but claim attention in their places. Nevertheless, in following

the account of these we shall by no means shut from view the "passages," as our author calls them, which take us back to the life of the sixteenth century.

The life of Don John was a romance from beginning to end. Many a hero of fiction has been wrought out of far less romantic material than that which made up his very impressive true biography. Our readers will probably think with us that there could not be a Don John in these matter-of-fact days in which we live. In his birth and his death, in his deeds, his adventures, and his aspirations, we are reminded of ballads and traditions rather than of the workaday world; and yet he was a real living man, a mainspring of his generation, as our accomplished author has cunningly taught us.

About his birth and his early youth a rigid mystery was cast and maintained. He was nourished, habited, taught, and shown to the rural folk among whom he lived, as the son of a musician who had retired from Court to pass his days in a village a little to the south of Madrid. His Christian name was then said to be Jerome. His condition at this period was that of a disguised prince of fairy lore. He knew not, his fosterparents knew not, there were not half-a-dozen persons in Europe who knew, that he might claim the Emperor Charles the Fifth for his sire. Barbara Blomberg, a woman of a noble house at Ratisbon, has been generally believed to have been his mother, though there were rumours that he had been born of a princess whose name has not been given. The mother, whoever she may