To spring upon his feet-to catch by a projecting stone, and vault upon the quay, was but the work of a

moment for Lecomte.

"Bravely done!" said Matilde. "God and good angels be your speed! O holy heaven!-What is that? The hour struck! Come back!" she shrieked, "back, if you be a man!-back, in the name of Heaven!back, in the name of God!" and, her mortal faculties unable longer to bear the excitation of her mind, she fell senseless upon the beams.

Aignan Lecomte, in the meantime, did not cease to fly-the voice of his mistress, lost in the sound of that sullen bell, which, after its reality had passed away, continued still to peal through the depths of his soul.

He reached his post at the Tower of Francis I., which, perhaps, did not very greatly differ in appearance from the tower of the present day, as represented in the annexed view.

"You are my prisoner!" said Letournois, advancing with four men of the guard; "surrender your arms!"

Lecomte, who had already drawn his sword, struck a blow at the traitor, without a word of reply, which would have cleft him from shoulder to hip, had it not been parried by one of his comrades. The whole then closed upon him, not for the purpose of wounding, but of disarming him; and no man was more sedulously careful that he should be taken unhurt than Letournois. It was owing to this forbearance that the mutineer was able to fight his way backward to the gate of the fortress, which was now deserted by the few soldiers it contained (at the hour of morning muster), who

were drawn from the interior by the noise of the disturbance.

Aignan Lecomte made a stand at the threshold for

suddenly darted into the His enemies paused, seeing

several minutes, and then tower, and closed the gate. that their victim had run, of his own accord, into a trap, and was now secure; and some of them began to joke upon the oddity of a single man offering resistance to such a power. Letournois at length attempted to push open the gate with his foot, and then tried to force it with the but-end of a musket. It was in vain : the gate was fast; and they heard the last of the heavy iron bolts grating against the stone as it was thrust into the wall.

In vain they summoned this strange garrison to surrender; in vain they thundered with their muskets at the gate the only reply was the echo of the sound as it rumbled through the deserted building. Under circumstances so unusual, Letournois did not dare to proceed further on his own responsibility; but despatched a messenger to the governor, to inform him that the Tower of Francis I. had been taken by a soldier of the guard, and was defended by him against the arms of the ex-garrison.

The surprise which this announcement created may be conceived. The citizens shut up their shops, and buckled on their swords; some ran through the streets shouting treason; even the governor dreaded that the mutiny was more considerable than it had been represented; and speedily the drum beat to arms, the whole of the garrison turned out, and the Tower of Francis I. was regularly invested by the troops.

A summons to surrender, under the authority of the governor, met with the same inattention as the former, while the mutineer was observed looking down from one of the windows upon the scene, his hair hanging in disordered masses over his brow, and his dark eyes blazing beneath with fury and disdain. A column was then ordered to advance and force the gate; but the attempt was ineffectual; and, the besiegers being by this time reinforced by a body of more than a thousand armed citizens, the signal was given for a general assault.

Till now the mutineer appeared to have been satisfied with the passive resistance he was able to offer by means of the bolts and bars of the fortress; but after listening for a while to the shouts of the besiegers, and the thunder of their musketry, directed against every opening where he might be supposed to stand, either resolving to defend his liberty to the last, or unconsciously animated by the common instinct of our nature, to turn upon and rend those who would destroy us, he started from his inaction, and rushed upon the ramparts.

Here, collecting a quantity of large stones for ammunition, he hurled them down upon the assailants, remaining himself secure from their fire; and so certain was his aim, that the groans of the wounded soon conferred a terrible reality upon a scene which might otherwise have appeared to be only a mimicry of war. The besiegers now became furious; and, "Ladders! ladders!" was the cry; "To the walls! for shame!" They planted a ladder at a window distant from the

scene of Lecomte's operations; but his quick ear had caught the sound, and the first man who stepped on the ledge was received upon his halberd.

And thus, flying from window to window, wherever his enemies appeared, and ever and anon rushing back to the ramparts and hurling heavy stones upon their heads thus, we say, did Aignan Lecomte defy the united forces of the troops and citizens of Havre, and sustain gallantly a siege, or rather one continuous assault of arms, for more than three hours, in the old Tower of Francis I.*

Letournois, in the mean time, stood inactive in the rear, and some paces distant from the dense mass of the besiegers. Whether he felt any touch of pity or admiration it is impossible to say; but more than once he was seen to raise his carbine to his shoulder, and as often to lower it again instantaneously. At last, after a long look behind towards the sea, he brought his piece once more to bear upon the ramparts, and remained patiently in one attitude for nearly a quarter of an hour. At the end of that time, the shoulder of the mutineer appeared unsheltered, as he stooped to rend a stone from the wall. Letournois's finger touched the trigger; but he checked himself. Then the leg of his enemy was partially exposed, and again the finger caught the fatal spring, and was again withheld by a strong effort of forbearance, betrayed in the white lip and clenched teeth of the assassin. At length the head of the muti

The

* It is necessary to say, that these facts are strictly historical. tower is now no longer a fortress, but is the resort of all strangers who wish to enjoy the splendid view of the sea which it affords.

neer appeared above the ramparts for an instant-and that instant was enough.

It was not to watch the operations of his enemies that the motion was made, for he could not see those that were near the tower. His eyes were upon the blue, calm waters below; and in the same moment a bullet pierced his brain, and Aignan Lecomte fell dead upon the walls.

As soon as Letournois saw that his rival was no more, taking advantage of the confusion of the scene, he left his post, and ran at full speed to the pier. The skiff had drifted away with the tide, and was now at some distance. Matilde sat on the beams, her hands folded in her lap, and her eyes fixed upon the Tower of Francis I. After a moment's hesitation, he leaped into a boat that lay moored by a line to the pier; and shipping a single oar in the stern, began to scull out with all his might.

As he neared the object of his pursuit, Matilde, starting suddenly from her lethargy, seized both oars, and applying to the task a strength and skill not usually found in woman, made the light skiff dance over the waves with a speed which soon distanced her pursuer. He, on the other hand, waxing fiercer and fiercer, compelled the heavy and sullen boat which he sculled to plunge through the water with a rapidity that would have seemed marvellous in ordinary circumstances. They were soon so far at sea, that the peculiarities of the coast could hardly be distinguished.

Letournois at length lay upon his oar, and was just about to abandon the hopeless chase, when Matilde

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