unknown; or, on the other hand, a mysterious, aerial descent
which should persuade the nuns that the Devil himself had paid

them a visit. They had decided upon the latter course in the
secret council held before they left Paris, and subsequently

everything had been done to insure the success of an expedition
which promised some real excitement to jaded spirits weary of

Paris and its pleasures.
An extremely light pirogue, made at Marseilles on a Malayan

model, enabled them to cross the reef, until the rocks rose from
out of the water. Then two cables of iron wire were fastened

several feet apart between one rock and another. These wire
ropes slanted upwards and downwards in opposite directions, so

that baskets of iron wire could travel to and fro along them; and
in this manner the rocks were covered with a system of baskets

and wire-cables, not unlike the filaments which a certain species
of spider weaves about a tree. The Chinese, an essentially

imitative people, were the first to take a lesson from the work
of instinct. Fragile as these bridges were, they were always

ready for use; high waves and the caprices of the sea could not
throw them out of working order; the ropes hung just sufficiently

slack, so as to present to the breakers that particular curve
discovered by Cachin, the immortalcreator of the harbour at

Cherbourg. Against this cunningly devised line the angry surge
is powerless; the law of that curve was a secret wrested from

Nature by that faculty of observation in which nearly all human
genius consists.

M. de Montriveau's companions were alone on board the vessel, and
out of sight of every human eye. No one from the deck of a

passing vessel could have discovered either the brig hidden among
the reefs, or the men at work among the rocks; they lay below the

ordinary range of the most powerful telescope. Eleven days were
spent in preparation, before the Thirteen, with all their

infernal power, could reach the foot of the cliffs. The body of
the rock rose up straight from the sea to a height of thirty

fathoms. Any attempt to climb the sheer wall of granite seemed
impossible; a mouse might as well try to creep up the slippery

sides of a plain china vase. Still there was a cleft, a straight
line of fissure so fortunately placed that large blocks of wood

could be wedged firmly into it at a distance of about a foot
apart. Into these blocks the daring workers drove iron cramps,

specially made for the purpose, with a broad iron bracket at the
outer end, through which a hole had been drilled. Each bracket

carried a light deal board which corresponded with a notch made
in a pole that reached to the top of the cliffs, and was firmly

planted in the beach at their feet. With ingenuityworthy of
these men who found nothing impossible, one of their number, a

skilled mathematician, had calculated the angle from which the
steps must start; so that from the middle they rose gradually,

like the sticks of a fan, to the top of the cliff, and descended
in the same fashion to its base. That miraculously light, yet

perfectly firm, staircase cost them twenty-two days of toil. A
little tinder and the surf of the sea would destroy all trace of

it forever in a single night. A betrayal of the secret was
impossible; and all search for the violators of the convent was

doomed to failure.
At the top of the rock there was a platform with sheer precipice

on all sides. The Thirteen, reconnoitring the ground with their
glasses from the masthead, made certain that though the ascent

was steep and rough, there would be no difficulty in gaining the
convent garden, where the trees were thick enough for a

hiding-place. After such great efforts they would not risk the
success of their enterprise, and were compelled to wait till the

moon passed out of her last quarter.
For two nights Montriveau, wrapped in his cloak, lay out on the

rock platform. The singing at vespers and matins filled him with
unutterable joy. He stood under the wall to hear the music of

the organ, listening intently for one voice among the rest. But
in spite of the silence, the confused effect of music was all

that reached his ears. In those sweet harmonies defects of
execution are lost; the pure spirit of art comes into direct

communication with the spirit of the hearer, making no demand on
the attention, no strain on the power of listening. Intolerable

memories awoke. All the love within him seemed to break into
blossom again at the breath of that music; he tried to find

auguries of happiness in the air. During the last night he sat
with his eyes fixed upon an ungrated window, for bars were not

needed on the side of the precipice. A light shone there all
through the hours; and that instinct of the heart, which is

sometimes true, and as often false, cried within him, "She is
there!"

"She is certainly there! Tomorrow she will be mine," he said
to himself, and joy blended with the slow tinkling of a bell that

began to ring.
Strange unaccountable workings of the heart! The nun, wasted by

yearning love, worn out with tears and fasting, prayer and
vigils; the woman of nine-and-twenty, who had passed through

heavy trials, was loved more passionately than the lighthearted
girl, the woman of four-and-twenty, the sylphide, had ever been.

But is there not, for men of vigorouscharacter, something
attractive in the sublime expression engraven on women's faces by

the impetuous stirrings of thought and misfortunes of no ignoble
kind? Is there not a beauty of suffering which is the most

interesting of all beauty to those men who feel that within them
there is an inexhaustible wealth of tenderness and consoling pity

for a creature so gracious in weakness, so strong with love? It
is the ordinary nature that is attracted by young, smooth,

pink-and-white beauty, or, in one word, by prettiness. In some
faces love awakens amid the wrinkles carved by sorrow and the

ruin made by melancholy; Montriveau could not but feel drawn to
these. For cannot a lover, with the voice of a great longing,

call forth a wholly new creature? a creature athrob with the life
but just begun breaks forth for him alone, from the outward form

that is fair for him, and faded for all the world besides. Does
he not love two women?--One of them, as others see her, is pale

and wan and sad; but the other, the unseen love that his heart
knows, is an angel who understands life through feeling, and is

adorned in all her glory only for love's high festivals.
The General left his post before sunrise, but not before he had

heard voices singing together, sweet voices full of tenderness
sounding faintly from the cell. When he came down to the foot of

the cliffs where his friends were waiting, he told them that
never in his life had he felt such enthralling bliss, and in the

few words there was that unmistakablethrill of repressed strong
feeling, that magnificentutterance which all men respect.

That night eleven of his devoted comrades made the ascent in the
darkness. Each man carried a poniard, a provision of chocolate,

and a set of house-breaking tools. They climbed the outer walls
with scaling-ladders, and crossed the cemetery of the convent.

Montriveau recognised the long, vaulted gallery through which he
went to the parlour, and remembered the windows of the room. His

plans were made and adopted in a moment. They would effect an
entrance through one of the windows in the Carmelite's half of

the parlour, find their way along the corridors, ascertain
whether the sister's names were written on the doors, find Sister

Theresa's cell, surprise her as she slept, and carry her off,
bound and gagged. The programme presented no difficulties to men