not without a cunning attempt on the part of the Greeks to gain Berenger and play him off against his chief. D'Entenca, however, was firm against their wiles. For a day or two, indeed, he appeared to waver, heard all that was said, and received the Emperor's gifts with complaisance. But when the hour of sailing came, he gathered the envoys into his cabin, shewed them the glittering vases put to base uses, and then thrust them out of the galley with opprobrium, and pursued them while they remained in sight with hearty Western imprecations.

A grand career was now opening before Brother Roger-one that promised to exercise vast influence over the fate of the world. For there can be no question that the feudal system of Europe, firmly planted in Asia Minor by the vigorous hand and comprehensive intellect of the rover, would have thrown back the Turkish hordes en permanence from those beautiful lands; while the Lower Empire and its corruptions, compressed between encroaching Franks on the West, and still more encroaching Franks on the East, must have been speedily crushed out of existence. The adventurer, too, comprehended his mission, and took measures to fulfil it with his usual fierce decision. He threw a strong advance corps ashore at Cyzicus, he sent a fleet southward to sweep the Grecian seas, and he despatched couriers to summon additional warriors from the West. Then, when all was ready for the march, he determined to meet the Emperor and take leave of him for ever! His Eastern wife, devoted to him like everybody else, heard of this purpose with dismay. She knew the treacherous character of the court, and she was well aware that many there thirsted for the blood of the new Cæsar. She warned, entreated, and wept; her relatives seconded her well, and so did the leading officers of the Catalans, but all in vain. Then she and they excited the alarm of the Great Company for their leader, and soon raised an affectionate mutiny therein the men threatening to restrain him by force if he persisted in his purpose. But Roger was not to be deterred. Gathering round him all the troops that still remained at Gallipoli, he made them his last speech-ridiculing their fears, making light of the risks, and declaring that he was bound in honour to take the course he intended. "Fear not," said he, "for me; I mean to live and lead you to many triumphs. And even should the worst you dread befall, why should that unman you? The loss of a single chief should never drive so many veterans to despair. Should I be laid low to-morrow, there are scores about me fully as competent to lead the Great Company." Accordingly, he departed, with 300 horse and 1,000 foot, to meet the Emperor and his son Michael at Adrianople; and Muntaner takes advantage of his absence to give a curious account of the rape of Helen-which, in its mixture of current fashions and ideas with antique characters and events, bears some resemblance to the Ingoldsby Legends. "Hereabouts," says he, "was a strong castle called Paris, constructed by Paris, son of King Priam, when he had taken Helen, wife of the Duke of Athens, from the island of Tenedos. In those days there was an idol in Tenedos, and

thither on a certain month in the year hied all the dames and nobles of Romania in pilgrimage. And so it happened that Helen came thither on pilgrimage, escorted by 100 knights. And Paris, son of King Priam, came also thither on pilgrimage, attended by 50 knights. He saw Dame Helen, and was so much troubled with the sight that he said to his knights, 'I must verily carry her off!' And as his heart suggested, so he did. He put on his brightest armour, and his knights also, and he seized the dame. Her knights took weapon to defend her; but they perished every one, and Paris carried off the lady. This was the cause of the war which destroyed Troy."

Meanwhile, Roger went fearlessly to Adrianople. He reached the city on the 13th of March, 1305, and was received with much respect, especially by Prince Michael. Indeed, there was nothing but feast and festival in honour of the Cæsar for the next six days. But all this while soldiers were being collected from the surrounding country and admitted by stealth into Adrianople, until there were not less than 9,000 horsemen secreted therein. Some of these were Byzantines; but by far the greater number were Bulgarians and Turcopules, under the command of the chief whom Roger had beaten with the flat of his sword at Philadelphia, and of others who had lost relations by his just sentence, and who, therefore, were all deeply pledged to revenge.

Early on the morning of the 19th, the Catalans who happened to be in the capital were set upon and slaughtered. Much about the same hour the camp at Gallipoli was assailed unawares by an army, which was repelled after a desperate struggle, in which the Great Company suffered so severely that no more than 206 horses and 3,700 men survived it. The camp remained in fearful anxiety concerning their chief for four other days. At length, on the evening of the 23rd, three squires from Adrianople appeared at the barriers and were eagerly admitted. Their tale was a short one. On the 19th, De Flor had ridden to the palace with a feeble escort. These he left at the gate, and was conducted with the usual ceremonious respect to the Imperial apartment. As he stepped across the threshold a sword struck him through the back. It was a mortal thrust, but a hundred others followed it, and the dreaded chief fell stark and stiff at the feet of his cowardly assassins without uttering a single word. No sooner was the deed done than the word was given to the bands in hiding, who fell upon the Catalans and massacred them all, except these three squires. And they also would have been murdered had they not mounted into a bell-tower, where they defended themselves so long and valiantly, that the Emperor, for once constrained into a generous deed, withdrew their assailants and sent them safe out of the city.

The further adventures of the Great Company form another and even more interesting story, which will be found ably summarized in the sixtythird chapter of Gibbon.

Against Time.

CHAPTER I.
FRIENDS ABROAD.

T was drawing on to midnight, and, with the exception of yawning nightporters and waiters, any life that was stirring in Homburg had gathered itself very much into the salons of the Kursaal. The crowd of an hour or two before had been melting from the terrace, leaving only a few belated smokers among the deserted tables. While the last faint echoes of the evening's music were yet floating in the boughs of the chestnuts and dying away among the columns of the porticoes, the subjects of the Lilliputian landgraviate

had set themselves to plod with Teutonic deliberation towards their fluffy pillows. Then went the professed invalids and valetudinarians -people who shuddered in the soft night air, going early to bed as they meant early to rise: who, morning after morning, descended to the healing fountains before the rising sun had kissed the chalybeate wave, or taken the chill off the breezes of the Taunus. Then followed grave fashion and serious respectability, tearing themselves away before pleasure should have dropped her mask, and begun to coquette with vice.

Count Saalfeld, the peppery and gouty Prussian diplomat, had gone limping off on his sounder foot and gold-headed cane, in hot dispute, as usual, with his Russian confrère, Baron Soltchikoff. De Roquefort, ex-French Minister at Copenhagen, after elaborately saluting the inseparables, who acknowledged the courtesy with the very slightest of inclinations, had attached himself, en galant homme, to the retiring Mesdames Von Saalfeld and Soltchikoff, whom their lords pretty generally left to shift for themselves. De Roquefort, strong in the acknowledged fascination of his manners and talk, and never more diligent in his business than when he seemed thinking of it the least, was always puzzling after the secrets of State, that might have an interest for the inmate of the Tuileries. Sir Mungo Currie, the late Governor of Scinde, with his dark, crisp-haired, sallow-complexioned lady, her diamonds, and cashmeres, and fairy fabrics from the Indian looms,