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demned to be shot for what the Germans were pleased to call "high treason."

More as a matter of form than with the idea of achieving any useful result, she protested that she had never had a proper trial; but their only reply was that, where a prisoner absolutely declined to make any defence or to give any evidence, they were perfectly justified in assuming that she was guilty, and the verdict could not be reconsidered without the production of some new material fact, which only she herself could supply.

Moreover, they hinted darkly that, in this particular case, a full-dress trial could not be carried out without disclosing information which would put certain other suspects on their guard, and Adrienne trembled for her friends in the convent.

On the whole, it was best that she should be put beyond the risk of betraying those who had helped her, and she accepted the fiat with resignation, asking only that "le Curé" might be allowed to minister to her before the final act took place.

This request met with instant acquiescence, which she thought indicated some symptoms of humanity in her captors, but which was due, in reality, to the hope that the priest might prevail upon her to make a confession which would provide valuable evidence.

The good old man lost no time in obeying the summons, even though his own position was obviously extremely pre

carious, seeing that Adrienne's condemnation could only be due to a discovery of the truth on the part of the enemy. Indeed, it puzzled him to know why he himself was still at liberty, and no light was thrown on the mystery by the Germans in Brussels, who declined even to inform him of the reasons for which she was to suffer the extreme penalty. All they would say was that a full confession on her part might still result in a commutation of the sentence, and that if he wished to save her, he should use his influence to that end; otherwise she would die the following morning.

The old man pondered deeply on this question; but the insuperable difficulties of following this course were as painfully obvious to him as they will be to the reader.

Still he thought that it would be only fair to give her the option, and decided to do so, though he must have felt fairly certain as to what her attitude would be.

Their first and last interview took place early on the following morning, when Adrienne rejected the idea with scorn. There are solemn occasions when it would be almost sacrilege for a third person to intrude, but it must be stated that the enemy were not above doing so doing so in this particular instance; in fact, it formed an essential part of their methods. For us it will be necessary only to lift the veil for two brief moments.

"My child," said the old

man, "the Church has done its best to help you, and many of us have had to beg forgiveness for the sins which we have committed on your behalf and in the name of France. I had hoped that you would have been spared, in order that you might repay the debt to the Holy Mother; but, alas! she has willed it otherwise, and we must bow to her decision.”

"Yes, Father, I also had felt that the Church had a right to claim me, had the Almighty given me the opportunity after my work for France was done."

Then, in answer to a question, she said: "Yes, there is one last thing I would ask you to do for me; but first, have you a knife?" and on his producing one, she cut off a curl of her brown hair and wrapped it in a piece of paper, on which she wrote, "Adieu, Adrienne." Then she gave it to him, saying, "Will you send it at once to this address by a sure hand!" and she made him repeat the address till she was certain that he would remember it.

Shortly afterwards a German, who, unbeknown to them, had been watching the scene, entered the cell and hustled the old priest out, despite his protests and entreaties that he should be allowed to stay to the end. Once outside, he was ordered to hand over Adrienne's last message, and the official seized it eagerly. His face fell

when he saw the scrap of paper containing the two pathetic words, and he appeared to be on the point of tearing it up, when the old priest, moved beyond endurance, burst out: "Have you then no bowels of compassion that you would destroy a dying girl's last message? Is that a sample of German kultur ? If so, may Heaven have mercy on you, for civilisation will have none.'

The man looked extremely embarrassed, and twirled the paper in his fingers uncertainly, before finally handing it back with a wry smile, saying, "You do us an injustice. We also have our feelings. I should prefer that you did not deliver it, and I personally consider that it would be a mistake to do so. But if you insist, so be it."

Half an hour later Adrienne was informed that she had been reprieved, and would be sent to Germany for the duration of the war. The first part of this statement was hardly correct, for it eventually transpired that, being unable to procure any evidence against their prisoner, they had gone through the formalities of a mock condemnation and sentence to death as a last desperate expedient to break the girl's resolution.

But "le Curé " had already started back to Lille, and did not hear of the so-called reprieve till some weeks later. Meanwhile Adrienne's message had crossed the frontier.

(To be concluded.)

A BY-DAY WITH THE PEKING DRAG.

THE pack of the Peking Drag has no pretensions to pedigree. It consists, to be exact, of a pointer, an Irish setter, a pseudowhippet, a couple of terriers, and three or four nondescripts. Its owner is M., who hunts it in winter twice a week with an occasional by-day, and the kennels are in his temple. Lest this last statement should cause surprise, let me haste to explain that around Peking temples are merely the local substitute for week-end cottages. One rents part or the whole, and either shares the premises with the resident priests, orfor a slightly larger consideration-obtains complete possession. M.'s, which is of the latter sort, stands a couple of miles outside the town on the western side in one of the best bits of riding country to be found anywhere near Peking.

On a bright frosty morning coming after a snowfall, which had made the country impassable for the previous week, M.'s invitation to come out for a run was more than usually welcome. The ponies are sent off in charge of our ma-foos, with orders to be at the kennels by half-past two, and after an early lunch we start off ourselves in a car. Once outside the seclusion of the Legation Quarter, we plunge into the dense traffic of one of the long thoroughfares which intersect

the Tartar City like the lines of a chess-board. Progress is slow in spite of the efforts of a zealous police force, who, imbued with a boundless reverence for" steam chariots," ruthlessly clear all other traffic aside the moment they see one above the horizon. Even they, however, are powerless to clear the obstruction which presently brings us to a standstill, and owes its origin to a corpulent lady of vermilion cheeks and sky-blue raiment, whose ricksha has collided with a country cart. She is firmly encamped in the middle of the road, venting her wrath with impartial vigour on the offending coolie, the dumfounded driver, and the highly amused lookers-on who form a ring round them. Not till her shrill imprecations have subsided from sheer exhaustion can the arm of the law induce her to move and allow the traffic to resume its flow.

The car again creeps onward, and presently turns at right angles into a street running due north and south, and ending, in the latter direction, in one of the gates which connect the Tartar with the Chinese City. These gates, with their wonderful blending of mass with grace, are triumphs of architecture. A cavernous archway leads through the wall, and above it rises a six-storied

structure, solid and severe as a Norman keep, till relieved by the sweeping curves and matchless colours of the Chinese four-decker roof which surmounts it.

Inside the archway the crush grows terrific. Men on foot and on horse, rickshas, porters, water-carts, barrows, and those handsome mule-drawn vehicles (half-way between a Roman chariot and an old English gig) which are known as "Peking Carts," cram the narrow space, and make it almost impossible to move. Inch by inch, however, we squeeze our way, and, having crossed the semi-lune that lies just beyond and serves as a pottery market, pass through a second gateway into the Chinese City. This arrangement of gates set a few yards apart and at right angles to each other is, by the way, a Chinese contrivance for the confusion of evil spirits who, being notoriously incapable of turning a right-angled corner, are by this means prevented from entering the city.

Another turn to the westward, and a few minutes winding through devious hutungs, brings us out on to a straight stretch of road which runs parallel to the city walls. On our right as we drove along it was a frozen moat crowded with Chinese children sliding on the ice or skating on the queer-shaped skates of the country, which are made in the form of a flat-iron. On our

left, a foot or two lower than the modern road, ran the old sandy track to which the country carts are nowadays relegated, and along which a string of them were now labouring, drawn by long teams of mules, and bumping over ruts half up to their axles.

At the end of this long straight stretch, lined on each side with acacias, the road crosses the track of the railway running southward to the Yangtze river, and northward to its distant terminus on the edge of the Gobi Desert. No trains bound for that Ultima Thule of China passed at the moment, and we saw only a stationary engine standing in a siding and belching out clouds of white smoke into the still clear air.

Passing a twelve-tiered pagoda, proportioned like the Tower of Pisa, we found ourselves presently driving along the bottom of a trench some eight to ten feet deep. The fact was, that we were now in the region of the "loëss," that amazingly fine and friable soil stretching for hundreds of miles from Peking, which it plagues at frequent intervals with the most horrible dust-storms. The feet of generations of men and beasts wending towards the capital through the loëss plain have worn down the roads to an astonishing depth, so that, in the course of ages, the surrounding country has become a network of trenches along which one rides between minia

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ture cliffs with nothing visible but the sky overhead.

The few houses which stand along the road are perched up on the edge of the cliff and led up to by flights of rough stone steps, many of which by the carvings on them are betrayed as second-hand tombstonesnot an unnatural economy in a country where stone is as rare as graves are abundant.

Here and there, for some not very obvious reason, the road rises again to the general level, and at one such place we passed by a Taoist temple. The temple itself was almost hidden by the high surrounding wall, but in front of the entrance stood a very beautiful pi-lo. The peculiar Chinese invention which goes by this name is so marked and charming a feature of Peking scenery that I may well spare it a word of description. It is a highly elaborate structure built in one plane, its thickness hardly exceeding that of its individual timbers. It serves in general as a sort of commemorative arch, though often it has no raison d'être in particular, and is erected simply as a thing of beauty. find it standing at the entrance to a temple, at the gate to a palace, in the centre of a street in Peking, or even occasionally in front of a private house. In the last case it has probably been put up by the subscriptions of neighbours as a token of their esteem for the occupant, this singular mark of honour being most commonly bestowed

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on widowed ladies who have proved their devotion to the memory of the "old 'un" by rejecting subsequent suitors. With a few exceptions, such as the exquisite marble pi-lo which is one of the glories of the Summer Palace, the structure is entirely of wood. Four large masts, planted in a row and buttressed by poles, are crossed by massive architraves so as to form three arches, of which the central one is slightly the highest and widest. This makes the base for a superstructure of exceedingly intricate timbering, keyed together in a highly ingenious fashion, and bristling with carved beamends and cross-bits. The principal beams are cut up in panels, each of which serves as a frame for a miniature painted landscape, and sometimes a slab of marble is let into the centre. The pi-lo is roofed by a descending series of curly gables covered with blue and green tiles, and the whole is patterned in brilliant colours and resplendent with gold-leaf dragons. As most of the principal pi-los in and about Peking exist in the palaces and other parts of the Imperial domains, they are becoming sadly derelict, the tiles gradually loosening and the paint peeling off in a truly regrettable manner.

We presently turned off the main road along a sandy track, and the chauffeur running the car up a short steep slope, pulled up in front of M.'s

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