I love you," he said again.

I shall watch over you.

"Sleep,

Then his fixed gaze, shining with a last light, lost itself in a search for the unknown in the desolate gray sky and in the silent and endless plain. No sound came to trouble the death of Nature; the snow wind alone moaned around the Pyramid, and seemed to wish to awaken the old Pharach sleeping in its depths for so many million years.

Suddenly the noise of footsteps and moans was heard, lost in the distance. Was it some lethargic awakening in the interior of the monument ? Was it a heavy bird, thrown by the tempest against the dismantled steps? Was it some polar bear come with the snow? The noise ceased. A joyful cry sounded, and with one bound a dog, broken by fatigue, jumped on the sleeping couple.

1.

It was Omegar's dog that had looked for him, followed him (how ?), and found him in spite of the distance, the solitude, and the snow.

He called his master and mistress, licked their face and hands and covered them with his body to warm them. But they did not awake.

And the snow continued to fall in a fine powder on to the entire surface of the earth.

And the earth continued to turn on its axis night and day, and to float through the immensity of space.

And the sun continued to shine, but with a reddish and barren light. But long afterward it became entirely extinguished, and the dark terrestrial cemetery continued to revolve in the night around the enormous invisible black ball.

And the stars continued to scintillate in the immensity of the heavens.

And the infinite universe continued to exist with its billions of suns and its billions of living or extinct planets.

And in all the worlds peopled with the joys of life, love continued to blooin beneath the smiling glance of the Eternal.— Contemporary Review.

Ir was a splendid night toward the close of the past summer; the air was soft and fragrant, the winds were still, and the stars were glittering with a weird watch ful brilliancy which atoned for the absence of the moon. A long line of open carriages, each drawn by four sturdy little Bulgarian horses, was traversing the upland plain which surrounds Sophia, and shaping its course to the south, where the fierce black mass of Mount Vitosh stood looming against the bespangled sky. We were on our way to Rilo, the great fortressmonastery of Bulgaria, which lies in the wildest, remotest region of the Balkan Peninsula a region hitherto preserved by the brigands, heaven bless them against the inroads of the British tourist. The bells on our horses' harness tinkled drowsily, but we did not yield ourselves to slumber, for we were soon among the mountain-passes, and the gloomy grandeur of the scenery kept us awake. But with the dawn there fell a chill, so we wrapped ourselves in rugs and greatcoats, and slept as best we could.

In the morning we found ourselves at Dubnitza, a long straggling town, still entirely Turkish in appearance. I gazed at its inhabitants with peculiar interest, for until recent years the whole male population has been wont to follow the romantic profession of brigandage during the summer months, returning from the mountains in the autumn to pursue the less interesting avocations of ordinary life. We had coffee in the garden of the sub-prefect, an intelligent official, who evidently keeps the turbulent townsmen in order. As we left Dubnitza the fine summits of the Rilo range rose before us in all their grandeur, their jagged points presenting a curious contrast to the rounded outlines of the Balkans. These magnificent Alps, an offshoot of the great chain of Rhodope, form the central mountain group of the Peninsula; they are connected with the vast Alpine system extending through Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Servia into Macedonia. They are distinct from the Balkan range, which belongs to the Carpathians.

Before long we entered a beautiful and

fertile district, in which vineyards, now laden with purple clusters, were interspersed with rich fields of maize and wellcultivated tobacco plantations; and in another hour we arrived at Rilo Selo, a charming wood built village, with houses nestling among fruit-trees, and rivulets of clear water flowing through the streets. Here the projecting verandas and the house-walls were so thickly festooned with green leaves of the tobacco-plant, hung up to dry, that no other decoration was needed in honor of the Prince's visit. We were now on the vast estate of the monastery, which rivals in extent more than one German principality, and embraces a circuit of some ninety miles; the monks have a metoch, or dependency, in the village, where a few of their number reside. There is also a sisterhood of nuns who dwell, not in a convent, but in separate houses throughout the village; they occupy themselves with the manufacture of textile fabrics, and live in spiritual union with the holy fathers. Many of them are young, and, according to Bulgarian ideas, sufficiently comely.

Leaving Rilo Selo, we began to ascend the superb mountain gorge in the heart of which the monastery lies. The slopes around us were clothed with thickets of dense brushwood; but after some hours' progress we entered upon the grand prime

val forest which forms the distinctive feature of the Rilo scenery. At our feet a foaming torrent dashed swiftly along, half hidden by luxuriant foliage; from its margin to the confines of the rocky tracts above-a distance of some five thousand feet the steep acclivity on either hand was covered with noble trees, the delicate green of the beech contrasting with the darker shades of the oak and ilex and the still more sombre coloring of the firs and pines. For hours we made our way through these leafy glades, till at length an open vista in the woods revealed to us a prospect through the valley; and we saw before us the monastery of Rilo, with its domes and cupolas and battlemented tower, standing like some enchanted castle in the royal solitude of its vast domains. Close beneath it ran the sparkling stream; around were undulating lawns interspersed with tufted groves; beyond was the boundless forest, climbing upward to where, in the heaven above, stupendous rocky summits stood ranged like a regi

ment of giants, surrounding and protecting the national sanctuary.

The monastery of Rilo has ever been the central-point and focus not only of the national religion but of the national sentiment. Its history is interwoven with that of Christianity in the Balkans; it is to Bulgaria, as Jireczek says, what Mont Saint-Michel is to Normandy or the Grand Chartreuse to Dauphiné; for ages it has kept alive the light of the faith in the heart of the Peninsula, though so many of the mountaineers close by-the Pomaks of Rhodope-have embraced the creed of Islam; and to-day it forms a link, both political and religious, between the free Bulgarians and their not forgotten brethren in Macedonia, Its founder, St. Ivan Rilski, the St. Bruno of Bulgaria, was born in 876; he was the contemporary of the great Czar Simeon, and, as may be supposed, innumerable legends have gathered round his memory. For years the holy man wandered over the mountains of Bulgaria, seeking a spot where he might found a pious retreat; at one time he lived in a hollow tree, at another in a cave among the rocks. At length he fixed his dwelling in the mountain, above the present site of the monastery: his fame for exorcising demons and healing incurable maladies brought disciples to his side, and the little band constructed a chapel and some rude dwellings: the chapel still exists, and there is a grotto hard by, into which pilgrims descend through a chimney-like passage cut in the rock. Sinners, it is said, cannot pass this way; and the fat, who, it may be presumed, have had too much of the good things of this life, are fain to enter by a door from below. The saint was buried here, but his bones were afterward removed to Sophia, where they remained for five hundred years. The Bulgarian Czars loaded the sanctuary with gifts and privileges; and their memory served to keep alive, through centuries of Turkish domination, the national idea and the record of a glorious past. Since the Ottoman invasion the monastery has had a checkered history. At first it fell into decay; then it was restored by three brothers from Küstendil, who brought back the bones of the founder; in later times it won the favor of successive sultans, who bestowed upon it by firman most of the privileges it now enjoys. Twice it has been almost destroyed by fire; it has

stood innumerable sieges, and more than once it has been stormed and captured by brigands, who exacted a heavy ransom from the monks. It has had enemies spiritual as well as temporal; but notwithstanding all the efforts of the Greek hierarchy, it has clung to the Slavonic language and ritual. In times of political and religious persecution it was a refuge to the oppressed, and at the beginning of the present century it counted some six or seven hundred inmates, clerical and lay. The Berlin Treaty gave the monastery to the new principality, but its trials did not end here. The revival of brigandage which followed the revolt of Eastern Roumelia again exposed the brethren to danger; the shepherds on the estate were compelled to supply the robber-gangs with provisions; the monks found themselves obliged to carry arms, and many of them were wont to sleep with a loaded rifle by their pillow. But the energy of the Bulgarian Government has successfully dealt with the evil; some fifty of the brigands have been shot, hanged, or otherwise disposed of, and the remainder have adopted less picturesque methods of earning their bread. The trackless forest has now been cleared of its human, or rather inhuman denizens; the bear, the wolf, and the wild boar roam unchallenged in its weird solitudes, while the chamois and the eagle divide the empire of the rocky heights

above.

While we were still at some distance from the monastery I was shown the spot where M. Karastoyanoff, Prince Ferdinand's photographer, had been captured by brigands some two years ago. M. Karastoyanoff had been summoned to Rilo by the Prince, in order to make a series of photographs of the scenery which surrounds the monastery. He had not quite finished his labors when the Prince took his departure; M. Stambouloff, and other Cabinet Ministers who had been in attendance on his Royal Highness, left the following day; and on the third day M. Karastoyanoff, accompanied only by a boy who acted as his assistant, set out in an ordinary fiacre on his return to Sophia. They had proceeded some eight or ten miles down the valley when they were stopped by a party of wild looking fellows, armed with rifles, who bade them surrender at discretion. There was nothing for it but to submit. The brigands some

what overrated the importance of their capture; they imagined they had secured M. Stambouloff. "Are you the man the Russians don't want in Bulgaria ?" they inquired. M. Karastoyanoff replied that he had not the honor to be the Prime Minister, or even a member of his Cabinet. "Then why do you wear a European hat," they asked-for their victim was arrayed in the hateful cylinder of Western civilization-" and ride in a carriage?" They politely informed him that he might take anything he desired for his personal use from his luggage, and proceeded to appropriate his watch, chain, and seal. The latter, which M. Karastoy anoff preserved as a memento of his mother, he was somewhat unwilling to abandon; but one of the brigands, by name Nikolas, who appeared more sympathetic than the rest, consoled him by promising that when the ransom arrived he would redeem not only the seal but the watch and chain with his own share of the money. Nikolas little knew that his kindness was destined eventually to rescue him from the gallows. The brigands then strapped the arms of their victims tightly to their sides—M. Karastoyanoff assures me that he sometimes still feels the pangs of those bonds

and attached their necks together with a rope in such a way, that if either of them attempted to escape he would strangle the other. They at once withdrew with their captives into the wildest solitudes of the Rilo forest.

It was then September, and the snow had already begun to fall in these elevated regions. For six weeks M. Karastoyanoff and the lad spent night and day beneath the open sky, bound together in this cruel manner, and often compelled to make long wearying journeys, when their captors, either from want of food or because of the hotness of the pursuit, determined on changing their quarters. M. Karastoyanoff had hitherto suffered much from rheumatism, but strange to say the exposure and privation seemed to cure the disease, of which he has never since had a relapse. The Oriental ideas of etiquette between master and servant were maintained throughout this period of close companionship; when the brigands offered the boy some cigarettes, the latter refused to smoke in presence of his master, and the brigands were obliged to intercede with M. Karastoyanoff for the required

permission. The brigands were extremely pious men; they said their prayers morning and evening, and diligently observed the fasts of the Orthodox Church, taking care that their captives followed their good example. For food they sometimes had a sheep or a kid, obtained by force or fraud from the shepherds of the monastery; sometimes they had to content themselves with trout taken from the mountain torrents; often they were a day, or even two days, without anything to eat. Once, while fishing in a stream near Rilo, they came in sight of a party of gendarmes, reposing on the greensward a little below them and smoking cigarettes: the brigands forbade their captives to speak, or even to cough, on pain of immediate death; they quietly went on with their fishing, and presently the gendarmes went away. They then proceeded to light a fire, and splitting a long stick, they inserted the fishes into the aperture, and so turned them before the fire till they were cooked; in accordance with their custom they offered the largest and best fish to M Karastoyanoff. Sometimes they would converse on public affairs with their prisoners their political horizor appeared somewhat limited, and the sum of their hopes seemed to be that the Russians were coming to make war in Bulgaria. Good times, they said, would then come round, and there would be an excellent opening for persons of their profession.

After awhile, however, the pursuit became hot; the band had some narrow escapes from the soldiers and the gendarmes; long forced marches became necessary; and once the party crossed the frontier into Macedonia. It was decided to send the boy to Sophia to procure a ransom. One of the brigands, who knew the town well, recognized M. Karastoyanoff's house from his description. "It is a good house," he said, and your relatives can sell it for a ransom." He then drew a staff across M. Karastoyanoff's throat in order to show what his fate would be if the money were not forthcoming. The boy departed; but when, after two or three weeks, no tidings came from Sophia, M. Karastoyanoff's position became exceedingly critical. A council was held, and the majority decided to put their prisoner to death. Some of thein, however, seemed touched when M. Karastoyanoff, recalling, as he told me, the mem

ory of his wife and children, shed some tears; and Nikolas interposed, declaring that if they persisted in their intention he would desert from the band. His remonstrances were successful, and eventually M. Karastoyanoff was released. At parting they all shook hands with him. "God is good," they said; "He will send us some one richer than you. In fact, they all felt well disposed toward him; but, according to the rules of the profession, he ought to have been put to death.

A little later, finding it impossible to remain in Bulgaria, the brigands sought refuge on Servian soil near Pirot. Being accosted by some gendarmes, they declared that they were political refugees; and, kneeling down, they kissed the earth and thanked God that they were now free men. But some watches and other articles of value in their possession aroused suspicion; M. Karastoyanoff, who was summoned from Sophia, identified his former companions; and the brigands were soon handed over by the Servian authorities to the Bulgarian Government. I witnessed the closing scene of their trial at Sophia. It was a dark, tempestuous night, and a dense crowd had collected before the door of an unpretentious little building in which the court-martial was holding its deliberations. The officers composing it-five in number-had withdrawn to consider their finding, but the sitting was resumed about eleven o'clock; and a little before that hour the brigands, surrounded by a strong escort, were marched from the prison to the court in order to hear their fate. I shall shall never forget the spectacle; the strange, ghost like figures in long, gray robes-the Bulgarian prison dress; the torches; the glittering bayonets of the escort; the mysterious cart which followed behind, laden with clanking chains. The reading of the verdict occupied nearly an hour, the officers standing all the while. One by one the prisoners learned whether they were to live or die. There was a terrible contrast between the dull apathy of the condemned and the eager expectancy of those who still waited for the fatal words. Six of the brigands, four of them brothers of one family, were condemned to death; one, a youth of nineteen, had his sentence commuted to ten years' imprisonment; Nikolas, to whose kindness M. Karastoyanoff testified at the trial, was consigned to penal servitude for life. The

condemned men were then led from the building, and sat down submissively in an open space outside the door while the irons, which had been brought in anticipation of the sentence, were being riveted on their feet. The execution, of which I heard a description from a bystander, took place in the court-yard of the half-ruined mosque which serves the purposes of a prison at Sophia. A strange geometrical structure, consisting of three upright triangles of wood placed parallel to each other, and connected from apex to apex by a long horizontal pole, stood, and is still standing, in a corner of the enclosure. From the pole hung five nooses, at equal distances from each other. A vast crowd had collected, and every window and roof which commanded a view of the scene was fully occupied, the best places here, as at the trial, being conceded to ladies dressed with faultless elegance and taste. The prisoners were led out one by one, and remained standing while the sentence of the court-martial was read to them a second time. They were then conducted to the gallows, the nooses were adjusted, and a long sack-like covering was drawr over their heads, descending almost to their feet. In a few moments justice, as the phrase is, was satisfied.

Not long ago I went with M. Karastoyanoff to visit Nikolas in prison. The convicts were exercising in the court-yard when we arrived, and Nikolas was allowed to come and chat with us, without a guard, in the porch of the mosque. He was arrayed in the flowing prison dress; round his ankles were heavy irons, with a chain attached to them which he held up with his hand. He was a fine, manly-looking fellow, about thirty years of age, with an intelligent, sympathetic face, which brightened with a smile when he recognized M. Karastoyanoff. It was interesting to witness the warm interchange of salutation between captor and captive in their altered positions. We conversed on many subjects, and Nikolas spoke freely of the experiences of his past life. He had formerly, he told us, cultivated a small paternal property, as most Bulgarian peas ants do. I asked him how he came to be a brigand, and he replied that he had been driven to adopt his perilous calling by the gendarmes, who wrongfully accused him of giving shelter and provisions to some outlaws in his neighborhood. Threatened

with arrest and punishment, he absconded, and entered into partnership with the gentlemen of the forest. I have elsewhere heard complaints of this over-zeal on the part of the gendarmes, which, however reprehensible, testifies to the energy wherewith the Bulgarian authorities have set themselves to extirpate brigandage. The prisoners at Sophia are allowed to carry on sinall industries of their own, from the proceeds of which they may buy tobacco and certain other luxuries. Nikolas showed us many specimens of his skill and taste in sewing colored beads, and was highly pleased when I made some purchases. He inquired for M. Karastoyanoff's children ; and it appeared that every Monday morning, as he and the other prisoners were marched past M. Karastoyanoff's house on their way to the baths, he was accustomed to watch for the children and to exchange greetings with them. Poor Nikolas! He has been, I think, more sinned against than sinning, and I hope he is not des. tined to end his days in chains. Shall I confess that I shook hands with him at parting? Forgive me, sons and daughters of Mrs. Grundy!

A pro

We advanced to the great gate of the monastery, which is sheltered by a portico adorned, like those at Mount Athos, with frescoes of saints and angels, and flanked by loop-holed projections in the wall on either side. Here the Abbot or Hegúmen, a portly, genial ecclesiastic, received us, arrayed in robes of purple and silver brocade, and accompanied by some sixty or seventy monks-all that remained of the once numerous brotherhood. cession was formed; and, with incense and lighted tapers going before, we passed into the great quadrangle and directed our steps to the church which stands in its midst. The quadrangle is, properly speaking, an irregular pentagon; a number of galleries run round it, which lead to the cells of the monks; these long corridors are supported on stone arches, rising in tiers, and forming a series of picturesque arcades. Every where the coloring is rich Everywhere and effective; the masonry is picked out in white and red, and the walls are bright with medallions and quaintly traced devices. The topmost gallery forms a kind of veranda beneath a projecting roof, which rests on dark oaken beams. court is overgrown with grass, and shaded by a few fruit-trees; around are numerous

The