Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookpealed to their rude instinct. One by one they dropped their firearms, and stood looking sullenly in the direction of the scornful woman, standing there without a particle of fear in her eyes. 'Who are you,' cried one bolder than the rest-'who are you, that come between us and justice?' They all took up the cry, and bade her stand aside. 'If she falls, I fall!' Lucci exclaimed in a firm steady voice. 'Go on your knees, and ask for pardon.-Madam,' he continued, falling upon one knee, 'I did not think my followers would have shown such scant courtesy to Isodore.' At the very mention of her name, a change came over the mutineers. One by one they dropped their firearms, and came forward humbly to implore her forgiveness for their rashness, but she waved them aside. Long and earnestly the three talked together, listening to the revelation of Le Gautier's treachery, and how the final act was about to be played over there in England: how Le Gautier had confessed his treachery, and how, out of his own mouth, he was going to be convicted. Silently and slowly they wound their way down the mountain path, under Lucci's guidance, out on to the plains, beyond which the sun lighted upon the house-tops of distant Rome. When they had got so far, Isodore held out her hand to the guide. 'Good-bye. It will not be safe for you to come any farther,' she said. 'Rest assured, in the general reckoning your account shall not be forgotten.' 'It will not,' Lucci answered sternly. 'I shall see to that myself. By the time you reach England, I shall be there too.-Nay, do not strive to dissuade me. I do not take my revenge from another hand. I shall run a great risk; but, mark me, when the time comes, I shall be there!' Without another word he disappeared; and Isodore and Maxwell walked on towards the Eternal City both wrapped in their own thoughts. Mile after mile passed on thus, ere Maxwell broke the silence. 'Do you think he will keep his word?' he said half timidly. 'Who, Lucci? Yes; he will keep his word; nothing but death will prevent that.-And now, you and I must get back to England without a moment's loss of time.' 'I cannot say how grateful I am,' Maxwell said earnestly. 'If it had not been for your bravery and courage'-- He stopped and shuddered; the contemplation of what might have been was horrible. Isodore smiled a little unsteadily in answer to these words. 'I owe you a debt of gratitude,' she replied. 'My memory serves me well. I was not going to allow you to die, when you would have perished rather than raise a hand against Carlo Visci.' 'Indeed, you only do me justice. I would have died first.' 'I know it; and I thank you for your kindness to him at the last. You were with him when he died. Things could not have been better. He was always fond of you. For that, I am grateful.' 'But I do not understand,' Maxwell faltered. 'He did not know you except by reputation.' 'I think you are mistaken. Am I so changed that you do not recognise your friend Genevieve?' 'Genevieve! You? Am I dreaming?' 'Yes; I am Genevieve; though much changed and altered from those happy old days when you used to come to the Villa Mattio. You wonder why I am here now-why I left my home. Cannot you guess that Le Gautier was at the bottom of it?' 'But he professed not to know you; he'-- 'Yes, he professed to be a friend of yours. But until I give you permission to speak, not a word that Isodore and Genevieve are one and the same.' 'My lips are sealed. I leave everything in your hands.' 'And cannot you guess why you have incurred Le Gautier's enmity?-No? Simply, because he aspires to the hand of Enid Charteris.-You need not start,' Isodore continued, laying her hand upon the listener's arm. 'You have no cause for anxiety. It will never be!' 'Never, while I can prevent it!' Maxwell cried warmly. 'It is impossible. He has a wife already.' Only tarrying for one mournful hour to visit the cemetery where lay Carlo Visci's quiet grave, Isodore and Maxwell made their way, but not together, to England, as fast as steam could carry them. THE ORDNANCE SURVEY, ITS PAST AND FUTURE. The Ordnance Survey is now a hundred years old, and it is expected, according to present arrangements, to be finished in 1890. That, in one sense, is a considerable time to look forward to; but there are several knotty and important questions connected with the completion of this great scientific enterprise which it would be well duly to weigh and consider beforehand. A suitable opportunity for calling attention to the results of this national undertaking is afforded by the publication of a popularly written volume, _The Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom_ (Blackwood & Sons), by Lieutenant-Colonel T. P. White of the Royal Engineers, the executive officer of the Survey. An additional reason for noticing the matter at this stage may also be found in the amount of ignorance which prevails on the subject. To most persons, the Ordnance Survey only means some kind of measuring of the land; but they have little idea of the methods adopted for the purpose, of the multifarious ends served by the publication of the maps, of the difficulties which had to be overcome, and of the marvellous and unexampled accuracy with which the work has been carried on. There are indeed few things of which as a nation we may feel more proud than the accomplishment of this gigantic work; a noble illustration and monument of persistent perseverance, of infinite ingenuity of resource, and of general engineering skill. A beginning was made, according to Colonel White, with the primary triangulation for the Survey in 1784 (the Annual Report says 1791), under the charge of General Roy, an able scientific officer, who had been associated with General Watson, thirty-six years before, in a survey of the Highlands made for military reasons, after the crushing of the rebellion of 1745. The idea of a scientific survey of the whole kingdom was first mooted in 1763; but for various reasons, nothing was done till twenty-one years later, when, in response to a proposal from the French government to connect the system of triangulation already existing in France with that about to be set on foot here, the work was at last begun. Hounslow Heath was selected as the base-line of that great system which has now overspread the land. It may not be unnecessary here to remark that the work of a cadastral survey is carried on by a series of triangles proceeding from a base-line-that is, a space of level ground usually about five miles long, which is measured by chain in the most exact manner-this forming the nucleus. From the two ends of this measured space a triangle is formed to some point at a distance, and the length of the two unknown sides computed by trigonometry. From this primary triangle, other triangles are formed, and calculated similarly, until there is a series of these like a network all over the country. Four or five other base-lines were also measured for ver |