Canaanite on a similar occasion, made the fatal error of his life. Sisera, we are told, supposed that Jael was friendly, and no doubt he also banked on the fact that she was a woman, and was alone and apparently unarmed. Charles in the same way thought of his of his wife's mother simply as a washer of clothes and purveyor of food, and quite omitted to credit her with a spirit to disapprove of the beating of her daughter and the leading of her youngest son into criminal ways. Yet Madame Lachivlachère disapproved in toto, and Charles threw himself away as surely as did his more illustrious prototype in supping with the wife of Heber the Kenite. The method of his betrayal may serve as a warning to all careless fools. Many women, if placed as Madame Lachivlachère found herself when Charles walked in at the gate, would have flown out at him for a sacré maudit calvaire de bandit, and called the neighbours and the curé, and given the delinquent a perfect opportunity of escaping in the tumult. But far from doing any of these things, Madame Lachivlachère, who was of stern stuff, greeted Charles kindly, fed him, gave him some home-brewed beer, and suggested that he should rest for an hour after his long walk. Charles, who was always ready for a rest, acceded gladly, and as soon as he was asleep and snoring, the old lady proceeded swiftly and coolly to destroy him. VOL. CCXXI.-NO. MCCCXXXVI. Just up the road there was a general store which possessed a box on the local lumber company's bush telephone line. That telephone box had been hanging for an hour or more like a vision of Paradise before the inward eyes of Madame Lachivlachère, and now she flew to her reward. The neighbours, it is true, did not observe that she was hurrying, as she was careful to dissemble her speed for their especial benefit. Nor was there a quaver in her voice nor a wry button on her dress to arouse the curiosity of the woman in the store. Even the delays and vagary of the country telephone were borne with a calmness that many great generals could not match; and in the end the message slipped through to the police in St Isidore while the stupid store-woman was out at the back drawing off a pint of syrup. "Charles Dumais est chez moi là, Monsieur : je dis Charles Dumais le bandit de St Sauveur là-bas." (Pause.) "Ouay, Monsieur, montez toute-suite. You will be able to catch him for certain." (Pause.) "Welcome, Monsieur." And when the police arrived in their Ford, Madame was still quite calm. herself with a wash-tub by the open doorway, and nodded the sergeant in without ever interrupting the swish of the suds. She had staged "He is inside there," she said quietly, and motioned towards the inner room, where Charles was still snoring the I praises of the home-brewed supporting a wife, or by the beer ; and so he was taken as tamely as a rabbit that is chopped in the grass by a strolling dog. Off they go down to St Isidore, and into the clink with a maudlin weeping Charles, who confessed more than everything in the hope of damaging his uncle, as being the trustee of stolen goods. The clothes were thus recovered, with the exception of the shoes that had been made whisky, and were duly handed over to Raoul Vezina when he arrived to carry off the thief to stand his trial in St Sauveur. This trial turned out to be a much more serious affair than that of young Jean-Baptiste had been. The audience was just as informal and expectorative, but the magistrate looked grave, and there were no comic interludes as in the matter of the hunting-boots. The only spark of humour was struck by the prisoner, who, being questioned as to the fate of the major's patent-leather shoes, replied that he regretted that these had been stolen from him at the station at St Isidore. Otherwise proceedings were very sordid and gloomy. Charles pleaded guilty, but begged with tears for a light sentence on the grounds that he would never do it again, and that he had a young wife and child to support. The magistrate, however, was not impressed either by what he knew of Charles' methods of prospects of his repentance, in view of a comfortable list of previous thefts that the police produced against him; and sentenced him accordingly to be imprisoned for two years with hard labour. And now, though the trial was over and the gossips had gone home to dinner with the satisfied air of good citizens who have seen justice done, a certain disquiet reigned in the entrance-hall of the abandoned court-house. Achille Pouliot was fussing uncertainly with his coat and hat, while Raoul Vezina looked out of the window and whistled. It seemed as if some question lay between them, though neither wished to speak the opening words. Then Achille plunged: "He did not say a word, that one.' "What do you mean, 'say a word '?" "There was the affair of the drink, for example!" "The drink? "Yes, your little shop there. I feared that he might————” "No danger of him saying a word, that one!" 'Well, now, listen,' I 'I know that Charles got seven hundred dollars from Notaire Leblanc, and that half of that was due to Adélard Dubé, who was with him in the business. And I know that he never gave that money to Adélard, and that he hid it somewhere, and I believe that you know where it is. So if you tell me where that money is, I will tell Charles to-morrow one had arrested him, for he one! might well have said some- said. thing displeasing in the matter of the little shop. So I considered how I could make him keep his box shut. Now it was I who was to go up to St Isidore to fetch him, and that made it that I had to do something before the night train left. That was the devil, ehonly three hours to arrange that?" "Yes, it certainly was the that I know all about it, and I devil." "Well, I knew of something that could be useful, so I went down to see his wife. I asked her if she was glad that one would clear away her husband for two-three years, and she said, Maudit oui.' She said that that would be two-three years that she would not get beaten, for example. After that I asked her if she would be glad to have him cleared away for ten years, not alone for two-three years, and she said yes, that that would be good sense. So then I said, Listen a little, madame. It is necessary that Charles shall not say a word about our little shop. Good. Now if you will help me to stop his mouth about that, I will help you to keep him in prison for ten years. Is that good sense?' She said yes, that that was good sense too. Well,' I said, 'to stop his mouth you must tell me where he hid the money that the Conservative Committee paid him for gin for the elections.' 'How is that?' she said-ah, she is malign, that will threaten if he says a word against me to tell Adélard too. And that will stop his mouth, for he will want to get the money himself when he comes out of prison. Are you good for that? 'I'm not so sure,' she said; 'you will come and look for the money yourself, perhaps?' 'No,' I said, 'you can tell me this evening after I am in the train to go to St Isidore, and then you can take the money and hide it somewhere else yourself. It makes nothing whether it is really there or not, if only Charles thinks that I know where it is. Is that correct? So she said yes, that that was correct, and that she would tell me at the station in the evening. "Good,' I said; and now it is necessary to consider how we can keep him in prison for ten years, and that may be more difficult. For me it would be best for you to swear that it was he who set fire to the house of Dr Galipeault, which was burned last April.' 'What?' she said: 'go into the court at the trial? I am not good for "Ah!" said Achille, and paused to get his bearings. "And Charles, what did he do?" that!' 'Oh no,' I said, 'no self and marry Adélard, so as need for that at all. Here is to be sure of getting both an official paper: we will write shares." a confession on that, and you shall sign it before me, and that will be enough. I am the grand constable, for example, and a confession signed before me is just as good as an oath sworn in the court.'" "But that was only bluff, surely?" put in Achille Pouliot, who was beginning to feel very much confused. "Oh yes, it was only bluff, but she believed it. What does a woman know about the law? In any case, I wrote out a confession which said that her husband had burned down the doctor's house, and that he had forced her to help him start the fire. She did not much want to sign it when I read it to her for fear that she would be put in prison too. But I promised to arrange that, and told her that a woman was allowed to marry again if her husband was put in prison for ten years. So then she was satisfied. I think she calcu lated to take the money her "Charles had the malign air when I met him at St Isidore. But on the way back in the train I told him that I knew that the money was in such and such a place, and explained that if he said a word I would let Adélard know, and then he would find nothing when he came out of prison. He was afraid of that, and he was afraid that I would take the money if he kept his mouth shut, but in the end he said that he would not speak. And he has not spoken, either." Eh, maudit Charles!" said Achille; and as that profound sentiment seemed to wind the conversation up, he sighed and turned towards the door. "Would you like a little drink before dinner?" "Bin, oui ! " replied Achille. And so they set a course for the Rue Brodeur. THE CHART-MAKERS. BY VICE-ADMIRAL BOYLE SOMERVILLE, C.M.G. IV. THE Dart was under orders is concerned, as Hell. That for the New Hebrides islands was just a hundred years ago, for her next season's surveying in 1826, when it became a work, and we left Sydney towards the end of May, with orders to call first at Norfolk Island and then at Noumea, the capital of the French island of New Caledonia, before making across to the new and immensely interesting surveying ground to the north-eastward, where we were to spend several months before returning to civilisation. Our first point, Norfolk Island, lies at about nine hundred miles to the E.N.E. of Sydney, in the pleasant latitude of 29° S., neither too hot nor too cold. It is a beautiful spot. There are about thirteen square miles of undulating park land, surrounded by low salmoncoloured cliffs with their feet in the blue sea, and its surface is varied by groves of pine-trees, of a kind indigenous to the island, while every gully is feathered with large tree-ferns. All the really nice fruits of the earth grow there as if they enjoyed doing so, and require none of the cockering necessary in less-favoured climates and soils. Norfolk Island was evidently intended to be a Heaven upon Earth, but it began its existence, so far as humanity penal settlement. Those were 66 blocked," as hats must be. The disciplinary methods of Port Arthur were such that a good number of the poor bad wretches sank beneath them, and, still unshaped, thankfully took a further short voyage to Dead Island in that romantic harbour, where they still remain. The cream of the remainder (or perhaps we should say the sediment) were sent on for even more drastic treatment to Port Macquarie, on the west coast of Tasmania. But there was a still deeper depth of horror in the matter of prisons for the dregs of Port Macquarie, and this was established on Norfolk Island. I have met a "Black Norfolker," and he proudly showed me his naked back, which had |