Chapter XI: Part III: King Terror (2)

"A rat!" she answered, breathless. And she aimed another blow at it.

"Where?" he asked sharply. "Where is it?" He snatched up his stool, too, and at that moment a rat darted out of the straw, ran nimbly between his legs, and plunged into a hole by the door. He flung the wooden stool after it; but in vain. "It was a rat!" he said, as if until then he had doubted it.

"Thank God!" she muttered. She was shaking all over.

He stared at her in stupid wonder. What did she mean? What had come to her? "Have you had a sunstroke my girl?" he said suspiciously.

Her nut-brown face was a shade less brown than usual, but she met his eyes boldly. "No," she said, "I am all right." And she added an explanation that for the moment satisfied him. But he did not sit down again, and when she went out he went out also. And though, as she retired slowly to the rye fields and her work, she repeatedly looked back at him, it was always to find his eyes fixed upon her. When this had happened half a dozen times, a thought struck him. "How now?" he muttered. "The rat ran out of the straw! Why?"

Nevertheless he continued to gaze after her, with a cunning look upon his features, until she disappeared over the edge of the rift. Then he crept back to the door of the barn, and stole in, exchanging the sunlight for the cool darkness of the raftered building, across which a dozen rays of light were shooting, laden with dancing motes. A pace or two from the door he stood stock still until he had regained the use of his eyes; then he began to peer round him. In a moment, far sooner than he expected, he found what he sought. Half upon, and half hidden by, the straw in the furthest corner, lay a young man, in the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. His face, which bore traces of more than common beauty, was white and pinched; his hair hung dank about his forehead. His clothes were in rags; and his feet, bound up with pieces torn at random from his blouse, were raw and bleeding. For a short time Michel Tellier bent over him, noting these things with glistening eyes. Then the peasant stole out again. "It is five crowns!" he muttered, blinking in the sunlight. "Ha, ha! Five crowns!"

He looked round him cautiously, but could see no sign of his wife; and after hesitating and pondering a minute or two, he took the path for Carhaix, his native astuteness leading him to saunter at a slow pace after his ordinary fashion. When he was gone the moorland about the cottage lay still and deserted. Thrice, at intervals, the girl dragged home her load of straw, but on each occasion she seemed to linger in the barn no longer than was necessary. Michel's absence, though it was unlooked-for, raised no suspicion in her breast, for he would frequently go down to the village to spend the afternoon. The sun sank lower, and the shadow of the great monolith, which, on the crest of the highest point of the moor, at a distance of a mile, rose gaunt and black against a roseate sky, grew longer and longer; and then, as twilight fell, the two coming home met a few paces from the cottage. He asked some questions about the work she had been doing, and she answered briefly. Then, silent and uncommunicative, they went in together. The girl set the bread and cider on the table, and going to the great black pot which had been simmering all day upon the fire, poured some broth into two pitchers. It did not escape Michel's frugal eye that she was careful to leave a little broth in the bottom of the pot; and the fact induced a new feeling in him--anger. When his wife invited him by a sign to the meal, he went instead to the door, and fastened it. Then he moved to the corner and picked up the wood-chopper, and armed with this he came back to his seat.

The girl watched his movements first with surprise, then with secret terror. The twilight was come, the cottage was almost dark, and she was alone with him; or, if not alone, yet with no one near who could help her. Nevertheless she met his grin of triumph bravely. "What is this?" she said. "Why do you want that?"

"For the rat," he answered grimly, his eyes on hers.

Her heart sank. "The rat?" she echoed.

"Ay!"

"Why not--your stool?" she strove to murmur.

"Not for this rat," he answered cunningly. "It might not do, my girl. Oh, I know what is to do," he continued, fingering the edge of the axe. "I have been down to the village, and seen the mayor, and he is coming up to fetch him." He nodded towards the partition, and she knew that her secret was known.

"It is Pierre," she said, trembling violently, and turning first crimson and then a dull sallow hue.

"I know it, Jeanne. It was excellent of you! Excellent! It is long since you have done such a day's work."

"You will not give him up?" she gasped.

"My faith, I shall!" he answered, affecting, and perhaps really feeling, wonder at her simplicity. "He is five crowns, my girl! You do not understand. He is worth five crowns and the risk nothing at all."

If he had been angry, if he had shown anything of the fury of the suspicious husband, if he had been about to do this out of jealousy or revenge or passion she would have quailed before him, though she had done him no wrong, save the wrong of mercy and pity. But his spirit was too mean for the great passions; he felt only the mean and sordid impulses, which to a woman are the most hateful. And instead of quailing, she looked at him with flashing eyes. "I shall warn him," she said.

"It will not help him," he answered, sitting still, and feeling anew the edge of the hatchet with his fingers.

"It will help him," she retorted. "He shall go. He shall escape before they come." She rose impetuously from her seat.

"I have locked the door!"

"Give me the key!" she panted. "Give me the key, I say!" She stood before him, her trembling hands outstretched, her figure drawn to its full height. Her look was such that he rose and retreated behind the table, still retaining the hatchet in his grasp.

"Stand back!" he said sullenly. "You may awaken him, if you please, my girl. It will not avail him. Do you not understand, fool, that he is worth five crowns? Five crowns? And listen! It is too late now. They are here!"

A blow fell on the door as he spoke, and he stepped towards it. But at that, seeing the last chance leaving her, despair moved her, she threw herself upon him; for a moment she wrestled with him like a wild-cat, but in the end he prevailed; he flung her off, and, brandishing his weapon in her face, kept her at bay. "You vixen!" he cried, retreating to the door, with a pale cheek and his eyes still on her, for he was an arrant coward. "You deserve to go to prison with him, you jade! I will have you in the stocks for this! I'll have you jailed!"

She leaned against the wall where he had flung her, her white despairing face seeming to shine in the darkness of the wretched room. Meanwhile the continuous murmur of men's voices outside the door could be heard mingled with the clatter of weapons; the summons for admission was repeated, and again repeated, as if those without had no mind to be kept waiting long.

"Patience! patience! I am opening!" he cried. Still keeping his face to her, he unlocked the door and called on the men to enter. "He is in the straw, M. le Maire!" he said, in a tone of triumph, his eyes still on his wife. "Cursed Girondin! He will give you no trouble, I will answer it! But first give me my five crowns, M. le Maire. My five crowns!"

He felt, craven as he was, so much fear of his wife that he did not turn to see the men enter, and he was taken by surprise when a voice at his elbow--a voice he did not know--answered, "Five crowns, my friend? For what, may I ask?"

In his eagerness and greed he suspected nothing, but that on some pretext or other they were trying to filch from him his dues. "For what? For the Girondin!" he answered rapidly. Then at last he did turn and found that half a dozen men had entered, that more were entering. But to his astonishment, they were all strangers--men with stern, gloomy faces, and armed to the teeth. There was something so formidable, indeed, in their appearance that he stepped back, and his voice faltered as he added: "But where is the mayor, gentlemen? I do not see him."

No one answered, but in silence the last of the men--they were eleven in all--entered and bolted the door behind him. Michel Tellier peered at them in the gloom with growing alarm, nay, with growing terror. In return the tallest of the strangers, he who had entered first and seemed to command the others, looked round him keenly. And it was he who at length broke the silence. "So you have a Girondin here, have you?" he said, his voice curiously sweet and sonorous.

"I was to have five crowns for him," Michel muttered dubiously.

"Oh!" and then, "Petion," the spokesman continued to one of his companions, "can you kindle a light? It strikes me that we have hit upon a dark place."

The man addressed took something from his pouch. For a moment there was silence, broken only by the sharp sound of the flint striking the steel. Then a slow-growing glare lit up the dark interior, and disclosed the group of cloaked strangers standing about the door, the light gleaming back from their trailing sabres and great horse-pistols. Michel trembled. He had never seen such men as these. True, they were wet and travel-stained, and had the air of those who spend their nights in ditches and under haystacks. But their pale, stern faces were set in indomitable resolve. Their eyes glowed with a steady fire, and they trod the mud floor as kings tread. Their leader was a man of majestic height and stern beauty, and in his eyes alone there seemed to lurk a spark of lighter fire, as if his spirit still rose above the task which had sobered his companions. Michel noted all this in fear and bewilderment; noted the white head yet the vigorous bearing of the man who had struck the light; noted even the manner in which the light died away in the dim recesses of the barn.

"And this Girondin--is he in hiding here?" the tall man asked.

"That is so," Michel answered. "But I had nothing to do with hiding him, citizen. It was my wife hid him in the straw there."

"And you gave notice of his presence to the authorities?" the stranger continued, raising his hand to repress some movement among his followers.

"Certainly, or you would not be here," replied Michel, better satisfied with himself.

The answer struck him, prostrated him, with an awful terror. "That does not follow," the tall man rejoined coolly, "for we, we, also, are Girondins!"

"You are? You?"

"Without doubt," the other answered, with majestic simplicity; "or there are no such persons. This is Petion of Paris, and this citizen Buzot. Have you heard of Louvet? There he stands. For me, I am Barbaroux."

Michel's tongue remained glued to the roof of his mouth. He could not utter a word. But another could. On the far side of the barrier a rustling was heard, and while all turned to look--but with what different feelings--the pale face of the youth over whom Michel had bent in the afternoon appeared above the partition. A smile of joyful recognition effaced for the time the lines of exhaustion. The young man, clinging for support to the planks, uttered a cry of thankfulness. "It is you! It is really you! You are safe!" he exclaimed. Love beamed in his eyes.

"We are safe, all of us, Pierre," Barbaroux answered. "And now"--he turned to Michel Tellier with thunder in his voice--"know that this man whom you would have betrayed is our guide, whom we lost last night. Speak, then, in your defence, if you can. Say what you have to say why justice should not be done upon you, miserable caitiff, who would have sold a man's life, as you would sell a sheep's, for a few pieces of silver!"

The wretched peasant's knees trembled under him; the perspiration stood upon his brow. He heard the voice as the voice of a judge or an executioner. He looked in the stern eyes of the Girondins, and read only anger, doom, vengeance. Then he caught in the silence the sound of his wife weeping, for at Pierre's appearance she had broken into wild sobbing; and on that he spoke out of the base instincts of his heart. "He was her lover," he muttered. "I swear it, citizens."

"He lies!" the man at the barrier cried, his face transfigured with rage. "I loved her once, it is true, but it was before her old father sold her to this Judas. For what he would have you believe now, my friends, it is false. I, too, swear it."

A murmur of execration broke from the group of Girondins. Barbaroux repressed it by a gesture. "What do you say of this man?" he asked, turning to them, his tone deep and solemn.

"He is not fit to live!" they answered with one voice.

The poor coward screamed as he heard the words, and, flinging himself on the ground, he embraced Barbaroux's knees in a paroxysm of terror. But the judge did not look at him. Barbaroux turned, instead, to Pierre Bounat. "What do you say of him?" he asked.

"He is not fit to live," the young man answered solemnly, his breath coming quick and fast.

"And you?" Barbaroux continued, turning and looking with eyes of fire at the wife. And his voice was still more solemn.

A moment before she had ceased to weep, and had stood up listening and gazing, awe and wonder in her face. Barbaroux had to repeat his question before she answered. Then she said, "He is not fit to die."

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the entreaties, the prayers, of the wretch on the floor. At last Barbaroux spoke. "She has said rightly," he pronounced. "He shall live. They have put us out of the law and set a price on our heads; but we will keep the law. He shall live. Yet, hark you," the great orator continued, in tones which Michel never forgot, "if a whisper escape you as to our presence here, or as to our names, or if you wrong your wife from this time forth by word or deed, the life she has saved shall pay for it.

"Remember!" he added, shaking Michel to and fro with a finger, "the arm of Barbaroux of Marseilles is long, and though I be a hundred leagues away, I shall know and I shall punish. So, beware! Now rise, and live!"

The miserable man cowered back to the wall, frightened to the core of his heart. The Girondins conferred a while in whispers, two of their number assisting Pierre to cross the barrier. Suddenly on their talk there broke--and Michel trembled anew as he heard it--a loud knocking at the door. All started and stood listening and waiting. A voice cried: "Open! open! in the name of the law!"

"We have lingered too long," Barbaroux muttered. "I should have thought of this. It is the Mayor of Carhaix come to apprehend our friend."

Again the Girondins conferred together. At last, seeming to arrive at a conclusion, they ranged themselves on either side of the door, and one of their number opened it. A short, stout man, girt with a tricolour sash, and wearing a huge sword, entered with an air of authority. Blinded by the gush of light he saw, at his first entrance, nothing out of the common; he was followed by four men armed with muskets.

Their appearance produced an extraordinary effect on Michel Tellier. As they crossed the threshold one by one, the peasant leaned forward, his face flushed, his eyes gleaming; and he counted them. They were only five. And the others were twelve. He fell back, and from that moment his belief in the Girondins' power was clinched.

"In the name of the law!" the mayor panted. He was a little out of breath. "Why did you not----" Then he stopped abruptly, his mouth remaining open. He found himself surrounded by a group of grim, silent mutes, with arms in their hands; and in a twinkling it flashed into his mind that these were the eleven chiefs of the Girondins, whom he had been warned to keep watch for, and to take. He had come to catch a pigeon and had caught a crow. He turned pale and his eyes dropped. "Who are--who are these gentlemen?" he stammered, in a tone suddenly and ludicrously fallen.

"Some volunteers of Quimper, returning home," replied Barbaroux, with ironical smoothness.

"You have your papers, citizens?" the mayor asked, mechanically; and he took a step backwards towards the door, and looked over his shoulder.

"Here they are!" said Petion rudely, thrusting a packet into his hands. "They are in order."

The mayor took them, and longing only to see the outside of the door, pretended to look through them, his little heart going pit-a-pat within him. "They seem to be in order," he assented, feebly. "I need not trouble you further, citizens. I came here under a misapprehension, I find, and I wish you a good journey."

He knew, as he backed out, that he was cutting a poor figure. And he would fain have made a more dignified retreat. But before these men, fugitives and outlaws as they were, he felt, though he was Mayor of Carhaix, almost as small a man as did Michel Tellier. These were the men of the Revolution, nay, they were the Revolution. They had bearded Capet, they had shattered the regime of centuries, they had pulled down kings. There was Barbaroux, who had grappled with Marat; and Petion, the Mayor of the Bastille. The little Mayor of Carhaix knew greatness when he saw it. He turned tail, and hurried back to his fireside, his body-guard not a whit behind him in their desire to be gone.

Five minutes later the men he feared and envied came out also, and went their way, passing in single file into the darkness which brooded over the great monolith; beginning, brave hearts, another of the few stages which still lay between them and the guillotine. Then in the cottage there remained only Michel and Jeanne. She sat by the dying embers, silent, and lost in thought. He leaned against the wall, his eyes roving ceaselessly, but always when his gaze met hers it fell. Barbaroux had conquered him. It was not until Jeanne had risen to close the door, and he was alone, that he wrung his hands, and muttered: "Five crowns! Five crowns gone and wasted!"

THE END

* * * * *

UNDER THE RED ROBE.

A ROMANCE.

BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN,

AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF," ETC.

With 12 Full-page Illustrations by R. Caton Woodville. 12mo, Linen Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.

"Mr. Weyman is a brave writer, who imagines fine things and describes them splendidly. There is something to interest a healthy mind on every page of his new Story. Its interest never flags, for his resource is rich, and it is, moreover, the kind of a story that one cannot plainly see the end of from Chapter I.... the story reveals a knowledge of French character and French landscape that was surely never acquired at second hand. The beginning is wonderfully interesting."--NEW YORK TIMES.

"As perfect a novel of the new school of fiction as 'Ivanhoe' or 'Henry Esmond' was of theirs. Each later story has shown a marked advance in strength and treatment, and in the last Mr. Weyman ... demonstrates that he has no superior among living novelists.... There are but two characters in the story--his art makes all other but unnoticed shadows cast by them--and the attention is so keenly fixed upon one or both, from the first word to the last, that we live in their thoughts and see the drama unfolded through their eyes."--N. Y. WORLD.

"It was bold to take Richelieu and his time as a subject and thus to challenge comparison with Dumas's immortal musketeers; but the result justifies the boldness.... The plot is admirably clear and strong, the diction singularly concise and telling, and the stirring events are so managed as not to degenerate into sensationalism. Few better novels of adventure than this have ever been written."--OUTLOOK, NEW YORK.

"A wonderfully brilliant and thrilling romance.... Mr. Weyman has a positive talent for concise dramatic narration. Every phrase tells, and the characters stand out with life-like distinctness. Some of the most fascinating epochs in French history have been splendidly illuminated by his novels, which are to be reckoned among the notable successes of later nineteenth-century fiction. This story of 'Under the Red Robe' is in its way one of the very best things he has done. It is illustrated with rigor and appropriateness from twelve full-page designs by R. Caton Woodville."--BOSTON BEACON.

"It is a skillfully drawn picture of the times, drawn in simple and transparent English, and quivering with tense human feeling from the first word to the last. It is not a book that can be laid down at the middle of it. The reader once caught in its whirl can no more escape from it than a ship from the maelstrom."--PICAYUNE, NEW ORLEANS.

"The 'red robe' refers to Cardinal Richelieu, in whose day the story is laid. The descriptions of his court, his judicial machinations and ministrations, his partial defeat, stand out from the book as vivid as flame against a background of snow. For the rest, the book is clever and interesting, and overflowing with heroic incident. Stanley Weyman is an author who has apparently come to stay."--CHICAGO POST.

"In this story Mr. Weyman returns to the scene of his 'Gentleman of France,' although his new heroes are of different mould. The book is full of adventure and characterized by a deeper study of character than its predecessor."--WASHINGTON POST.

"Mr. Weyman has quite topped his first success.... The author artfully pursues the line on which his happy initial venture was laid. We have in Berault, the hero, a more impressive Marsac; an accomplished duelist, telling the tale of his own adventures, he first repels and finally attracts us. He is at once the tool of Richelieu, and a man of honor. Here is a noteworthy romance, full of thrilling incident set down by a master-hand."--PHILADELPHIA PRESS.

* * * * *

THE RED COCKADE.

A NOVEL OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN,

AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER THE RED ROBE," "THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF," "MY LADY ROTHA," ETC.

With 48 Illustrations by R. Caton Woodville. Crown 8vo, Cloth, ornamental, $1.50.

"Deserves a place among the best historical fiction of the latter part of this century. The gradual maddening of the people by agitators, the rising of those who have revenges to feed, the burnings and the outrages are described in a masterly way. The attack on the castle of St. Alais, the hideous death of the steward, the looting of the great building, and the escape of the young lovers--these incidents are told in that breathless way which Weyman has made familiar in other stories. It is only when one has finished the book and has gone back to reread certain passages that the dramatic power and the sustained passion of these scenes are clearly felt."--SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE.

"'The Red Cockade,' a story of the French Revolution, shows, in the first place, careful study and deliberate, well-directed effort. Mr. Weyman ... has caught the spirit of the times.... The book is brimful of romantic incidents. It absorbs one's interest from the first page to the last; it depicts human character with truth, and it causes the good and brave to triumph. In a word, it is real romance."--SYRACUSE POST.

"We have in this novel a powerful but not an exaggerated study of the spirit of the high born and the low born which centuries of aristocratic tyranny and democratic suffering engendered in France. It is history which we read here, and not romance, but history which is so perfectly written, so veritable, that it blends with the romantic associations in which it is set as naturally as the history in Shakespeare's plays blends with the poetry which vitalizes and glorifies it."--MAIL AND EXPRESS, NEW YORK.

"It will be scarcely more than its due to say that this will always rank among Weyman's best work. In the troublous times of 1789 in France its action is laid, and with marvellous skill the author has delineated the most striking types of men and women who made the Revolution so terrible."--NEW YORK WORLD.

"'The Red Cockade' is a novel of events, instinct with the spirit of the eighteenth century and full of stirring romance. The tragic period of the French Revolution forms a frame in which to set the adventures of Adrien du Pont, Vicomte de Saux, and the part he plays in those days of peril has a full measure of dramatic interest.... Mr. Weyman has evidently studied the history of the revolution with a profound realization of its intense tragedy."--DETROIT FREE PRESS.

"The action of the story is rapid and powerful. The Vicomte's struggle with his own prejudices, his unhappy position in regard to his friends, the perils he encounters, and the great bravery he shows in his devotion to Denise are strikingly set forth, while the historical background is made vivid and convincing--the frenzy caused by the fall of the Bastile, the attacks of the mob, the defence and strategy of the nobility, all being described with dramatic skill and verisimilitude. It is a fascinating and absorbing tale, which carries the reader with it, and impresses itself upon the mind as only a novel of unusual merit and power can do."--BOSTON BEACON.

"The story gives a view of the times which is apart from the usual, and marked with a fine study of history and of human conditions and impulse on Mr. Weyman's part. Regarding his varied and well-chosen characters one cares only to say that they are full of interest and admirably portrayed.... It is one of the most spirited stories of the hour, and one of the most delightfully freighted with suggestion."--CHICAGO INTERIOR.

"With so striking a character for his hero, it is not wonderful that Mr. Weyman has evolved a story that for ingenuity of plot and felicity of treatment is equal to some of his best efforts.... 'The Red Cockade' is one of the unmistakably strong historical romances of the season."--BOSTON HERALD.

"We are greatly mistaken if the 'Red Cockade' does not take rank with the very best book that Mr. Weyman has written."--SCOTSMAN.

* * * * *

SOPHIA

BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN

AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER THE RED ROBE," ETC.

With 12 Illustrations by C. Hammond. Crown 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $1.50.

"Mr. Weyman's new romance illustrates the types and manners of fashionable London society in the year 1742. In everything that means the revival of an historical atmosphere it is skilful, and, on the whole, just. The characters also are well realized.... 'Sophia' is a decidedly interesting novel.... The tale moves swiftly, hurrying on from the town to the heath, from hatred to love, from imprisonment on bread and water to diamonds ... and a dozen other things. Sophia, the heroine, is a bundle of girlish foolishness and charms. 'Sophia,' the book, is a bundle of more or less extraordinary episodes woven into a story in the most beguiling manner."--NEW YORK TRIBUNE, April, 1900.

"It is a good, lively, melodramatic story of love and adventure ... it is safe to say that nobody who reads the lively episode in the first chapter will leave the book unfinished, because there is not a moment's break in the swift and dramatic narrative until the last page.... The dramatic sequence is nearly faultless."--TRIBUNE, CHICAGO.

"Sophia, with her mistakes, her adventures, and her final surrender; Sophia moving among the eighteenth century world of fashion at Vauxhall; Sophia flying through the country roads, pursued by an adventurer, and Sophia captured by her husband, transport one so far from this work-a-day life that the reader comes back surprised to find that this prosaic world is still here after that too-brief excursion into the realm of fancy."--NEW YORK COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.

"The gem of the book is its description of the long coach-ride made by Sophia to Sir Hervey's home in Sussex, the attempt made by highwaymen to rob her, and her adventures at the paved ford and in the house made silent by smallpox, where she took refuge. This section of the story is almost as breathless as Smollett.... In the general firmness of touch, and sureness of historic portrayal, the book deserves high praise."--BUFFALO EXPRESS.

"'Sophia' contains, in its earlier part, a series of incidents that is, we believe, the most ingenious yet planned by its author.... The adventure develops and grows, the tension increases with each page, to such an extent that the hackneyed adjective, 'breathless,' finds an appropriate place."--NEW YORK MAIL AND EXPRESS.

"'Sophia,' his latest, is also one of his best. A delightful spirit of adventure hangs about the story; something interesting happens in every chapter. The admirable ease of style, the smooth and natural dialogue, the perfect adjustment of events and sequences conceal all the usual obtrusive mechanism, and hold the curiosity of the reader throughout the development of an excellent plot and genuine people."--PUBLIC LEDGER, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

"Those who read Mr. Stanley J. Weyman's 'Castle Inn' with delight, will find in his 'Sophia' an equally brilliant performance, in which they are introduced to another part of the Georgian era.... Mr. Weyman knows the eighteenth century from top to bottom, and could any time be more suitable for the writer of romance?... There is only one way to define the subtle charm and distinction of this book, and that is to say that it deserves a place on the book-shelf beside those dainty volumes in which Mr. Austin Dobson has embalmed the very spirit of the period of the hoop and the patch, the coffee-house, and the sedan chair. And could Mr. Stanley Weyman ask for better company for his books than that?"--EVENING SUN, NEW YORK.

"Contains what is probably the most ingenious and exciting situation even he has ever invented."--BOOK BUYER, NEW YORK.

* * * * *

THE CASTLE INN.

A ROMANCE.

BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN.

AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER THE RED ROBE," "SHREWSBURY," ETC., ETC.

With six full-page Illustrations by Walter Appleton Clark. Crown 8vo, Cloth, ornamental, $1.50.

A tale which is full of old-world romance and adventure. It has a strong flavor of the under life in England when George the Third was young, when sign-posts served also as gibbets, when travel was by coach and highwaymen were many, when men drank deep and played high. There are plenty of stirring scenes along the way, plenty of treachery and fighting at cross-purposes which lead to intricate and dramatic situations. The heroine's charms recall Mlle. de Cocheforet in 'Under the Red Robe,' and she proves herself a maid of spirit through all the mishaps which befall her. One of the most notable things about 'The Castle Inn' is the way in which Mr. Weyman has caught the spirit of the age, and manages to imbue his readers with its feeling."--DETROIT FREE PRESS.

" ... In 'The Castle Inn,' this master of romance tells a story of the time of George III, in the third person.... A story of rapid action, with a swinging succession of moving incidents that keep the reader incessantly on the _qui vive_. It deals with human emotions with directness and thoughtfulness."--THE PRESS, PHILA., PA.

" ... 'The Castle Inn' ... is so fresh and entertaining that it takes one back to 'A Gentleman of France,' and other good things this author did several years ago. Mr. Weyman, in looking about for an appropriate setting for his romance, very wisely eschews scenes and people of to-day, and chooses, instead, England a hundred and thirty years ago, when George III. was on her throne, and living was a far more picturesque business than it is now. Beautiful maidens could be kidnapped then; daring lovers faced pistols and swords in behalf of their sweethearts, and altogether the pace was a lively one. Mr. Weyman knows how to use the attractive colorings to the best advantage possible."--CHICAGO EVENING POST.

" ... a piece of work which is infinitely better than anything else which he has accomplished. He has treated the eighteenth century, the time of the elder Pitt, with a grasp and a sympathy that presage a greater reputation for this novelist than he has enjoyed hitherto. The story itself is worth the telling, but the great thing is the way it is told."--NEW YORK SUN.

" ... he has a firm grasp of his period in this book, and revives the atmosphere of the last century in England, with its shallow graces and profound brutality, coherently and even with eloquence ... it is a most interesting story, which should please the reader of romantic tastes and sustain the author's reputation."--NEW YORK TRIBUNE.

"The characters in the book are all entertaining, and many of them are droll, while a few, like the conscientious Mr. Fishwick, the attorney, and the cringing parasite, Mr. Thomasson, are, in their own way, masterpieces of character study. Take it all in all, 'The Castle Inn' is in many ways the best work which has yet come from Mr. Weyman's pen."--COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER, NEW YORK.

"Mr. Weyman has surpassed himself in 'The Castle Inn.' From cover to cover the book teems with adventure and romance, and the love episode is delicious. Julia will live as one of the most graceful heroines in the literature of our time.... We get an excellent idea of the doings of fashionable society in the time when George III. was young, and altogether the volume can be heartily recommended as the best thing that Weyman has done, and, in the opinion of one, at least, the most fascinating book of the season."--HOME JOURNAL, NEW YORK.

* * * * *

COUNT HANNIBAL

A ROMANCE OF THE COURT OF FRANCE

BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN

AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER THE RED ROBE," "THE CASTLE INN," ETC., ETC.

With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, cloth, ornamental, $1.50

"It is very seldom that one runs across a historical novel the plot of which is so ably sustained, the characters so strongly drawn, the local color or atmosphere so satisfactory.... 'Count Hannibal' is the strongest and most interesting novel as yet written by this popular author."--BOSTON TIMES.

"Stanley J. Weyman has had hundreds of imitators since he wrote 'A Gentleman of France,' but no man has yet surpassed him. I know of no book in the whole list of popular favorites that holds one's interest more intensely or more continuously than 'Count Hannibal' does. And what an insistent, throat-gripping interest it is!

What is the use of hoping for a decadence of the craze for historical romances so long as the public is fed on books like this? Such a story has zest for the most jaded palate; nay, it can hold the interest even of a book reviewer. From the first page to the last there is not a moment when one's desire to finish the book weakens. Along with the ordinary interest of curiosity there goes that of a delightful and unique love story involving no little skill in character delineation."--RECORD-HERALD, CHICAGO.

"A spirited, tersely interesting and most vivid story of scenes and incidents and portrayals of various characters that lived and fought and bled in the lurid days that saw the massacre of St. Bartholomew.... This is Mr. Weyman's most graphic and realistic novel."--PICAYUNE, NEW ORLEANS.

"Mr. Weyman has surpassed himself in 'Count Hannibal.' The scene of the story is laid chiefly in Paris, at the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.... We are made to grasp the soul of Count Hannibal and are tacitly asked to let its envelope take care of itself.... Never has Mr. Weyman achieved, in fact, a higher degree of verisimilitude. Count Hannibal may leave us breathless with his despotic methods, but he is not abnormal; he is one of the Frenchmen who shared the temper which made the St. Bartholomew, and he is intensely human too ... how the tangle of events in which he and half a dozen others are involved is straightened out we refrain from disclosing. The reader who once takes up this book will want to find all this out for himself."--NEW YORK TRIBUNE.

"A story in Mr. Weyman's best vein, with the crimson horror of St. Bartholomew as an historical setting. 'Count Hannibal' is a worthy companion of 'A Gentleman of France' and 'The Red Cockade,' and Mr. Weyman's hand is as cunning as ever in fashioning a romance which will send a thrill through the most jaded reader and keep even a reviewer from his bed."--BOOKMAN, LONDON.

"The book is rapid, is absorbing, and the hero is a distinctly interesting character in himself, apart from his deeds of daring."--ATHENAEUM.

"Mr. Stanley Weyman's 'Count Hannibal' is fully worthy of his great reputation--the style is brilliant, easy and clear; the invention of subject and the turns of fortune in the story surprising; above all, the subtle painting of a man and a woman's heart is done with inexhaustible knowledge."--GUARDIAN.

"A picturesque and vigorous romance. The narrative will be followed with breathless interest."--TIMES, LONDON.

LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91-93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.