heavily handicapped by youthful cocksureness and want of ballast.

They discussed many things in that dingy bedroom. Lance's past; Uncle Jimmy's little allowance, mortgaged many years in advance; the creditors to whom, together with the law of the land, he was indebted for the presence beneath his roof of the versatile Mr Mould; his future; the journalistic work which was promised him as soon as he should be fit again; Mrs Lance; and also Mr Haliburton.

Joan's name was barely mentioned. Lance exhibited newborn delicacy in the matter. His officious solicitude on his sister's behalf was dead; he knew now that no woman need ever regret having trusted Hugh Marrable; and he was content to leave it at that.

"Well, I must be moving," said Hughie at last. "Buck up, and get fit! It's good to hear that there's work waiting for you when you get about again. Grand tonic, that! So long!"

He shook Lance's hand, and the two parted undemonstratively. Lance made no set speech: he appreciated Hughie's desire that there should be no returning of thanks or contrite expressions of gratitude. All he said was—

"Hughie, you are a sports

man!"

Then he settled down on his pillow with a happy sigh. He

had paid Hughie the highest compliment it was in his power to bestow-and that costs an Englishman an effort.

So they parted. But Mrs Lance did not let Hughie off so easily. As she accompanied him downstairs to open the door for him, she suddenly seized his hand and kissed it. Tears were running down her cheeks.

Hughie grew red.

"I say, Mrs Lance," he said in clumsy expostulation, "it's all right, you know! He'll soon be quite well again." "Let me cry," said Mrs Lance comfortably. "It does me good."

They stood together in the obscurity of the shabby little hall, and Hughie, surveying the flamboyant but homely figure before him, wondered what the future might hold in store for this little household. It all depended, of course, on

"Mrs Lance," he said suddenly, "tell me do you-love him?"

"I do!" replied Mrs Lance, in a voice which for the moment relegated her patchouli and dyed eyebrows to nothing

ness.

"And does he-love you?" "He does-thank God!" "You are both all right, then," said Hughie, nodding a wise head. "Nothing matters much-except that!"

"That's true," said Mrs Gaymer. "But I wonder how you knew!" she added curiously. "Good-bye!" said Hughie.

IF there is a place in the world where East and West do meet it is Canea. On one On one side of the quay the old Venetian fortress carries the flags of Europe, on the other the minaret of a mosque rises above the busy cafés. The street of the coppersmiths might be in the heart of Tangier, and many a red fez and black veil remain to show that Turk vanquished Venetian three centuries ago upon the walls of Candia.

It was at six o'clock in the morning on the 25th of March 1909 that we landed in this enchanting city, and it was as we were rowed over the green waters of the harbour that we made the acquaintance of the first of the many friends whom we left behind us in Crete three weeks later. The great lesson to be learned in that light-hearted land is that it is the unexpected which happens, and before many days had passed it seemed natural to look for friends in every village, every inn, and every gendarmerie post upon the way, and not seldom to find them; but even on this, the morning of our arrival, we began to realise a little of the greatness of Monsieur Gallance. He met us upon the ship and took charge of us at once and for ever. He told us that he came from the hotel of which madame his mother was the

VOL. CLXXXVI.-NO. MCXXVIII.

proprietress; he pointed out to us the windows and balconies overlooking the harbour and quay which were destined for us; he mentioned as a huge jest that he had not been to bed all night lest our ship should come in and find him unprepared, and within five minutes he had won all our hearts; but it was at the actual moment of landing that we had a taste of his real quality. "Are the customs very strict here?" we asked, seeing a row of officials watching the approach of our rowboat. 66 Extremely," said Monsieur Gallance, "but do not derange yourselves, for your boxes will not be opened. Say nothing, and I will arrange it." Accordingly we landed, and walked along the quayside, objects of extreme interest to the bystanders, but unquestioned by the douaniers. Presently Monsieur Gallance rejoined us. "Your luggage is passed," said he. "How did you do it?" we asked. said," replied he mysteriously, "that you were British officers. That suffices. They believed me, and the baggage of officers is not opened."

"I

These were the circumstances under which we first set foot in Canea, and in reflecting upon them one could not but feel that it is not only the Cretans who are sometimes liars! Indeed, there never 2 N

seemed to be any ground for St Paul's criticisms of them in this, or any other, direction. Monsieur Gallance was himself a Frenchman, though years of life in Crete had made him as happy in talking Greek as in his own language. It was with his help a few days later that we made preparations for our ride through the country. Our way was to lie across the island till we touched its southern shore, and then northward to the town of Candia, a distance of 130 miles in all. Mules and ponies were easily forthcoming, and Cretan rugs of gorgeous dyes to pile upon the wooden saddles by day and to sleep upon by night. Four mules for ourselves, two more for the muleteers and the baggage, was our original calculation, but in the end we rode a party of eight instead of six, for there came with us a gendarme and Monsieur Gallance himself. The gendarme was provided by the

kindness of the commandant, and made a splendid advanceguard to our column as he rode ahead on his active little horse, with rifle slung on his shoulder. It was but a quarter of an hour before we actually started that we persuaded Monsieur Gallance to come with us.

We had stipulated for a muleteer who could talk French, and it was only on the day of our departure that we discovered his excursions into that language to be practically confined to the cheerful "Bon jour, madame," which was his daily greeting to me. It was so plain that this phrase would

hardly suffice as a channel of communication between ourselves and a Greek-speaking population in the midst of its Lenten fast, that in a good hour for us Monsieur Gallance came to our rescue.

Early upon a lovely April morning we left Canea, to drive the first stage of our journey through the valley of Suda. Three hundred years ago a Scottish traveller named William Lithgow, whose 'Rare Adventures' have lately been republished, thus described what he saw upon that same road :—

"The Olives, Pomegranets, Dates,

Figges, Oranges, Lemmons, and Pomi del Adamo growing all through other. And at roots of which trees grew Wheat, Malvasie, Muscadine, Leaticke wines, Grenadines, Carnobiers, Mellones, and all other sorts of fruites and herbes the earth can

yield to man, that for beauty, pleasure, and profit it ure, and profit it may easily be surnamed the garden of the whole Universe, being the good liest plot, the Diamond Spark, and the Honey

spot of all Candy."

Marvellously fertile and beautiful the place certainly is, even in this prosaic twentieth century, when "Leaticke wines" are, alas, no longer to be met with growing at the foot of Lithgow's wonderful fruit-trees. On this spring day the young corn stood already a foot high around the roots of the olivetrees, violently green under their shimmering silver. The Cretan yokes his dun-coloured oxen to a wooden plough, and scratches an inch or two off the surface of his island, and even so its valleys yield him three crops in a year, and its olive groves are as fine as any

in the world. Though he spoils his fruit in the gathering and his wine in the making, the riches of his land are as evident as they were in Lithgow's day. But swords must be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks before Crete indeed becomes the "Garden of the Universe," for hitherto revolutions have always seemed more attractive than agriculture to its inhabitants. On the spurs of the low hills which enclose this very valley the signs of devastation appear in the ruined houses of a group of Turkish villages, which have never been rebuilt since the fighting in 1898.

Through the plain the road passes, and then rises to the red cliffs which border Suda Bay. Looking up and down over its calm waters it is not difficult to understand the importance of its splendid natural harbour-finest anchorage of all the Eastern Mediterranean -broad and deep enough to allow the navy of a great nation to lie within its shelter. The road climbed high above it, and the horses stopped to

it is not much more than ten years since the gendarmes came into being. Cretans themselves, they fulfil many of the functions performed by the Irish Constabulary nearer home, and it seems that they are hardly less efficient. It was a very short time after passing the place of Monsieur Gallance's disaster that we made our first acquaintance with one of them.

He was our appointed escort, and joined us at the village of Kaleyvis, where we left the carriage and had our midday meal. A table was prepared for us by the side of a stream which ran through the village square, and upon the opposite bank he appeared, a martial form in tight blue uniform, with fiercely curling moustaches. We exchanged salutes, and presently there came across to us a little boy with a bunch of iris in his hands.

"For madame, from the gendarme," explained Monsieur Gallance. Such was the ingratiating fashion of our introduction.

That meal would have been an embarrassing one judged by Anglo-Saxon standards. Our table by the running water, under the shade of a great walnut-tree, was in the midst of the cluster of white hovels which calls itself Kaleyvis. Every doorway was crowded, and those householders whose dwellings were not conveniently situated for seeing the show took up positions behind our seats. The bridge over the brook accommodated the younger generation, and a row of little brown legs swung to and

fro over its white parapet, while the eyes of their owners followed the fate of every fig and olive consumed by the English lunatics. For at the word of Monsieur Gallance the village had heaped its supplies before us-eggs, honey, bread, and bottles of the rough resinous wine which we soon learned to know so well, and to abhor so deeply. We ate and drank with as much unconcern as if our surroundings had really been the scene out of an Italian opera, which they seemed to be trying to imitate. On the other bank sat the gendarme with one or two chosen companions, and the mules stood tethered in the shade beyond. There could be no more driving after this, for the carriage-road ended at the very place where we sat, to be seen no more until it appeared again at the outskirts of Candia, and before us lay a hundred miles of track cut in the limestone through valleys and mountain-passes. So it was with the joy of pushing into the unknown that we mounted and rode away first upon that afternoon, making trial of what so soon became the familiar order of our going, and discovering quickly the ways of the Devil when he works among mules.

The gendarme rode ahead, the two muleteers behind. Cheerful companions enough they were everlastingly laughing, and singing interminable ditties with a monotony of tune which recalled more Eastern music. Often did I ask Monsieur Gallance to translate, but he would never do more than

I

listen for a while, laugh, shake his head, and reply, "It is nothing: & song of love merely.' So it had to find its place among the indefinite and inconsequent gaieties of that un-matter-of-fact journey. can compare the life we led during that week to nothing but the opening chapters of a series of the most delightful novels by Merriman or Mason. There was no opportunity of becoming thoroughly absorbed into their plots, for every night's lodging and day's journey was a new beginning, each in its way entrancing. But there were episodes which it was sad to turn from so quickly, and such an one was our visit to the Monastery of Arkadi.

It was towards the end of a long day's ride upon the lower ground that we saw, high above us and far away, the three wind-swept pines which are the landmark of the great monastery for all the country round. It stands 2000 feet above the sea, at the head of 8 limestone gorge. As we climbed towards it we left behind us the tangled banks of blossoming trees and the fields of anemones and poppies through which we had ridden all day, and found instead little tough rock-plants in the open, masses of maidenhair ferns inside the dripping caves, and the strong, clean scent of wild thyme on every side. We crossed the glen, and the gendarme spurred his horse on up the hill to warn the Fathers that we were near, for the next turn of the track