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 Summary

CHAPTER 2 Spatial Representations of Weather Data

2.1 The Station Model

2.2 Surface Maps

2.2.1 Isotherms and Temperature Maps
2.2.2 Temperature Fronts
2.2.3 Isobars and Pressure Maps
2.2.4 Highs, Lows, Ridges, and Troughs

2.3 Upper-Level Maps

2.4 Radar

2.5 Satellites
2.5.1 Visible Satellite Images
2.5.2 Infrared Satellite Images
2.5.3 Water Vapor Images
2.5.4 Geostationary Satellites
2.5.5 Polar-Orbiting Satellites
Summary

Appendix 2.1 Important Satellite Cloud Signatures

Appendix 2.2 Contiguous USA Reference Map

CHAPTER 3 Our Atmosphere: Origin, Composition, and Structure

3.1 Aspect

3.2 Composition

8
3.3 Origin and Evolution

3.4 Future Evolution

3.5 Vertical Structure

Summary

Appendix 3.1 Dynamic Equilibrium

CHAPTER 4 Heat and Energy Transfer

4.1 Conduction

4.2 Convection

4.3 Radiation
4.3.1 The Nature of Electromagnetic Radiation
4.3.2 Temperature and Radiation

4.4 Radiative Interactions

4.4.1 Absorption
4.4.2 Reflection
4.4.3 Scattering
4.4.4 Radiative Equilibrium
4.4.5 Selective Absorbers
4.4.6 A Window to the Sky
4.4.7 The Greenhouse Effect

4.5 Radiation and Weather

4.5.1 Heat Imbalance
4.5.2 Seasonal Variations
4.5.3 Diurnal Variations

9
 4.5.4 The Influence of Clouds
4.5.5 Land–Ocean Contrasts
Summary

CHAPTER 5 Water

5.1 The Water Cycle

5.2 Saturation

5.3 Humidity

5.4 Relative Humidity

5.5 Humidity and Temperature

5.5.1 Relative vs. Absolute Humidity
5.5.2 Condensation

5.6 Dew Point Temperature

5.7 Applications of the Dew point Temperature

5.7.1 Surface Weather Maps
5.7.2 Meteograms
5.7.3 Radiosonde Profiles
5.7.4 Back to Relative Humidity
5.7.5 How to Saturate
Summary

CHAPTER 6 Cloud Formation

6.1 Adiabatic Processes

6.2 Adiabatic Processes in the Atmosphere

10
6.3 Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate

6.4 Relative Humidity

6.5 Moist Adiabatic Lapse Rate

6.6 Orographic Lifting

6.7 Lifting by Convergence

6.8 Frontal Lifting

6.9 Convection
6.9.1 Stable Air
6.9.2 Unstable Air and Thermals
6.9.3 Stable vs. Unstable
6.9.4 Fair-Weather Cumulus Clouds
6.9.5 Conditional Instability and Cumulonimbus
Summary

Appendix 6.1 A Cloud Family Album

CHAPTER 7 Precipitation

7.1 Warm vs. Cold Clouds

7.2 Collision and Coalescence

7.3 Ice-Crystal Growth

7.4 Precipitation Types

Summary

Appendix 7.1 Some Optical Phenomena

11
CHAPTER 8 Wind

8.1 Force and Acceleration

8.2 Pressure Gradient Force

8.3 Sea Breeze and Land Breeze

8.4 Coriolis Force

8.5 Geostrophic Wind

8.6 Gradient Wind

8.7 Surface Winds

8.8 Friction

8.9 Topography
8.9.1 Mountain Breeze and Valley Breeze
8.9.2 Katabatic Winds
Summary

CHAPTER 9 Global Wind Systems

9.1 The Averaged Atmosphere

9.1.1 Surface Temperature
9.1.2 Upper-Level Heights
9.1.3 Surface Pressure
9.1.4 Precipitation

9.2 The Single-Cell Model

9.3 The Three-Cell Model

12
9.4 Some Large-Scale Circulations
9.4.1 West Coast vs. East Coast
9.4.2 Antarctica
9.4.3 The Sahel
9.4.4 The Indian Monsoon
9.4.5 El Niño
Summary

CHAPTER 10 Air Masses, Fronts, and Midlatitude Cyclones

10.1 Air Masses

10.2 Fronts
10.2.1 Stationary Fronts
10.2.2 Cold Fronts
10.2.3 Warm Fronts
10.2.4 Occluded Fronts
10.2.5 Large-Scale Influences on Cyclone Structure, and the
T-bone Model

10.3 Midlatitude Cyclone Development

10.3.1 The Life Cycle of a Midlatitude Cyclone
10.3.2 Vertical Structure of Cyclones
10.3.3 The February 2014 Cyclone
10.3.4 Where do Cyclones Form?
Summary

Appendix 10.1 Southern Hemisphere Midlatitude Cyclones

Appendix 10.2 The Bergen School of Meteorology

CHAPTER 11 Thunderstorms and Tornadoes

13
11.1 Ordinary Thunderstorm

11.2 Severe Thunderstorm

11.3 Lightning and Thunder

11.4 Supercells

11.5 Tornadoes
11.5.1 Description
11.5.2 Tornado Development
11.5.3 Tornado Alley
Summary

CHAPTER 12 Tropical Cyclones

12.1 Facts and Figures

12.2 Tropical Cyclone Structure

12.3 Tropical Cyclone Development

12.3.1 Tropical Easterly Wave
12.3.2 Tropical Depression
12.3.3 Tropical Storm
12.3.4 Tropical Cyclone (Hurricane)
12.3.5 Tropical Cyclone Decay

12.4 Conditions for Tropical Cyclone Development

Summary

CHAPTER 13 Weather Forecasting

13.1 Weather Forecasts and Uncertainty

14
13.2 Prognostic Equations

13.3 Ensemble Forecasting

13.4 Chaos and Weather Prediction

13.5 From Forecast Grids to Reliable Forecast Values

13.6 Making a Forecast

13.6.1 Medium to Long-Range Forecasting
13.6.2 Seasonal Outlook
Summary

CHAPTER 14 Air Pollution

14.1 Pollutants
14.1.1 Gases and Compounds
14.1.2 Particulates
14.1.3 Photochemical Smog

14.2 Wind and Stability

14.3 Large-Scale Patterns

14.4 Topography
Summary

CHAPTER 15 Climate Change and Weather

15.1 Past and Future

15.2 Changing Composition

15.3 A Warmer World

15
15.4 An Altered Water Cycle

15.5 Changing Global Wind Systems

15.6 Midlatitude and Tropical Cyclones in a Warmer World

15.7 Beyond Weather

15.8 The Forecast

Summary

Glossary

References

Credits

Index

16
Preface
Having taught introductory classes on weather many times, we came to see
the need for a textbook on the subject that covers the foundations of
meteorology in a concise, clear, and engaging manner. We set out to create
an informative, cost-effective text that meets the needs of students who
may not have any background in mathematics and science. The result –
Weather: A Concise Introduction – is an introductory meteorology
textbook designed from scratch to provide students with a strong
foundation in the physical, dynamical, and chemical processes taking place
in the atmosphere.
This textbook is unique in that it:

► provides a concise and practical approach to understanding the

atmosphere;
► introduces the basic physical laws early on and then ties them
together with a single case study spanning the book;
► presents weather analysis tools early in the book to allow
instructors to engage in discussions of current weather in tandem
with the basic concepts, thus attracting and retaining student
interest; and
► facilitates students’ learning and understanding of the fundamental
aspects of weather analysis and forecasting, as well as practical
skills, through a careful description of the forecasting process.
Modern methods, such as ensemble forecasting, are central to the
approach.

Features

17
 Case Study: February 2014 Cyclone
The main concepts of the book are illustrated in Chapters 2–13 by a single
case study: a midlatitude cyclone that swept through the eastern half of the
USA between February 19 and 22, 2014. This rich case study serves as a
common thread throughout the book, allowing students to study it from
multiple perspectives. Viewing the storm in the context of different topics
provides a familiar setting for mastering new subjects and for developing
an holistic understanding of midlatitude cyclones.

Boxes on More Advanced Topics

Instructors have the option of including more advanced coverage through
use of boxes that provide insights on various topics. For example, in
Chapter 1, Weather Variables, boxes include an in-depth description of the
four laws of physics that are central to the study of the atmosphere. The
book contains 25 boxes, affording instructors the opportunity to tailor the
level of the material that they present to students in their course.

Appendixes for Additional Coverage

Appendixes at the ends of Chapters 2, 3, 6, 7, and 10 include additional
material on important cloud signatures found in satellite imagery, the
concept of dynamic equilibrium, the cloud classification, some optical
phenomena, southern hemisphere midlatitude cyclones, and the Bergen
School of meteorology.

Summary
18
A summary of key points has been included at the end of each chapter so
that students can, at a glance, confirm that they have understood the
significant take-away facts and ideas.

Figures, Charts, and Maps

Figures have been designed to convey the key concepts in a simple and
self-explanatory way, keeping in mind that clean representations of
information are more helpful to students than complex drawings. Graphs
and maps have been created with real data as much as possible, obtained
from NOAA, NASA, ECMWF, and similar research-quality sources
referenced in the text.

Key Terms and Glossary

The main text contains terms (in bold) that students need to understand and
become familiar with. Many of these terms are listed in the Glossary at the
back of the book. The Glossary allows the reader to look up terms easily
whenever needed and can also be used to review important topics and key
facts.

SI Units
We have consistently used SI units throughout the book, while providing
alternative units whenever possible or relevant.

Organization

19
The first two chapters provide a general overview of key variables and
weather maps used by meteorologists, which facilitates daily weather map
discussions early in the course. We have found that motivating lecture
topics with real-time examples using weather map discussions is a very
effective way to engage students in the lecture material, and it allows
instructors to introduce aspects of weather forecasting at their discretion
well in advance of discussing the material more completely in Chapter 13.
As a result, students are more invested in adding to their knowledge, which
builds systematically toward understanding and predicting weather
systems.
Chapters 3–8 provide foundational material on the composition and
structure of the atmosphere, along with the application of the laws of
classical physics to emphasize and explain the role of energy, water, and
wind in weather systems.
Chapters 9–12 apply the foundational material to understanding the
general circulation of the atmosphere (Chapter 9), midlatitude cyclones
and fronts (Chapter 10), thunderstorms (Chapter 11), and tropical cyclones
(Chapter 12).
Chapters 13–15 build further on the first twelve chapters by applying
the concepts developed to explain processes that affect how weather
forecasts are made (Chapter 13), air pollution (Chapter 14), and climate
change (Chapter 15).

Instructor Resources
A companion website at www.cambridge.org/weather contains PowerPoint
slides of the figures in the text as well as a testbank of questions.

20
 Acknowledgments
We thank: NOAA, NASA, and ECMWF for providing access to data and
images; Reto Knutti, Jan Sedlacek, and Urs Beyerle for providing access
to IPCC data; Rick Kohrs from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for
providing global composite satellite imagery; and Paul Sirvatka from the
College of DuPage for providing radar imagery.
We also thank Ángel Adames, Becky Alexander, Ileana Blade, Peter
Blossey, Michael Diamond, Ralph Foster, Dargan Frierson, Qiang Fu,
Dennis Hartmann, Lynn McMurdie, Paul Markowski, Cliff Mass, Max
Menchaca, Yumin Moon, Scott Powell, Virginia Rux, David Schultz,
Justin Sharp, Brian Smoliak, Mike Warner, Steve Warren, Rachel White,
Darren Wilton, Matt Wyant, and Qi Zhong, as well as 13 anonymous
reviewers, for their help in the preparation of this book.
This project would not have come to life without the support, help,
influence, and constructive criticism from many fellow professors,
teaching assistants, and students. We cannot acknowledge them all here by
name, but we thank them nevertheless for the important role they have
played in shaping the development of this book.

21
Introduction
Why should we study our atmosphere? Why should we learn about the
causes and mechanisms of our weather? Weather affects our daily life: the
clothes we wear (rain coat, shorts, hat, should we take an umbrella or
sunglasses...?), the means of transportation we choose (walk, take a bus,
ride our bike...?), our activities (ski, sail, water our plants, read a book in a
coffee shop...?), and probably more. But beyond our daily concerns,
weather affects society at large. Schools close when snow impedes traffic.
Visitors to ski resorts might be more impatient for snow, while the ski
instructors will be keeping an eye on the possibility of avalanches. Rangers
are concerned with fog, thunderstorms, and flash floods. Fire patrols look
for weather patterns that are conducive to forest fires (dryness, wind).
Electricity providers are concerned by wind storms that can damage the
infrastructure of the electrical grid and, on larger timescales, also need to
plan how weather will affect upcoming energy needs (minimum
temperatures impact heating, while maximum temperatures impact air-
conditioning). Weather averages, such as prevailing winds, the typical
temperature range, and mean precipitation determine how we build our
homes and what locations are sensitive to extreme events, such as
droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. On longer timescales, we can
ask how humans are changing the atmosphere, and what those changes
imply for the weather and climate of the future.
To start answering those questions, we need to understand how the
atmosphere works. We need to identify the basic processes that drive the
atmosphere, and the laws that govern atmospheric processes. By doing so,
we will be able to explain the weather phenomena we experience around
the year and throughout the world. Furthermore, we will also be able to
apply these laws to the current state of the atmosphere, and predict how it
will evolve in the future.

22
 © Caroline Planque
There is a lot of value in becoming a knowledgeable observer of the
atmosphere. After reading this book, you will look at the sky differently,
you will gain an understanding of weather and climate that will make you
more attentive to the world around you. You will have a basic
understanding of weather phenomena, of cyclones, thunderstorms, and
hurricanes, and you will understand the basic aspects of weather
forecasting. You will see beyond the weather forecast you get on your
phone, radio, TV, or the internet, and you will be able to make your own
forecast in many situations.

Weather and Climate

23
Before we continue, let us clarify an important distinction between
weather and climate. Weather is the condition of the atmosphere at a
particular time and location. Weather varies on timescales of minutes to
days. Climate, by contrast, is an average of the weather. It varies on
timescales of decades to centuries and beyond. In this textbook, we will be
mostly concerned with weather – even though many of the concepts have
direct application to climate.

Getting Started
Our exploration of weather will start with a quick overview of important
weather elements that we can observe or measure, and analyze. The choice
of variables to observe is influenced by the laws of physics that govern the
atmosphere. As we will see shortly, the atmosphere is made of matter (air
and water etc.), it contains energy (heat), and it is in motion (wind,
convection). Our understanding of weather is based on the fundamental
notion that matter, energy, and motion obey conservation laws. To apply
these conservation laws to the atmosphere requires observations of
temperature (conservation of energy), pressure (conservation of mass),
wind (conservation of momentum), along with humidity, precipitation, and
clouds. One step at a time, and one building block over another, we will
then investigate the physical processes that underlie the atmosphere at
work. Finally, we will articulate these processes together to build a picture
of weather systems such as midlatitude cyclones, thunderstorms, and
hurricanes. In doing so, we will follow the precepts of René Descartes,
who advocated, as early as 1637, that every difficult problem should be
divided into small parts, and that one should always proceed from the
more simple to the more complex. This cornerstone of the scientific

24
method, still in favor today, will be an important aspect of our exploration
as we elaborate a thorough understanding of the atmosphere from its most
fundamental constituents at the molecular scale to its most complex inner
workings as a system for moving heat at the global scale.

25
Another Random Scribd Document
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 "This is very strange--it has, then, a history?" said she, bending
her dark eyes on mine.

"Yes."

"And this history--what is it?"

"I cannot--dare not tell you."

"Indeed!" Her black lashes drooped for a moment, and she passed
a white hand nervously over her golden braids. "And wherefore?"

"It would be to reveal the secrets of another."

"Another whom you love?" she asked, hurriedly, while her teeth
seemed to glitter as well as her eyes, for her lips were parted.

"No, no; on my honour, no!" said I, laying my right hand on my

breast, and feeling that then I spoke but the truth and without the
equivocation, to which her questions were forcing me. Then Valerie
seemed to blush with pleasure, and my heart beat lightly with joy. I
should certainly have done something rash; but the inevitable
Madame Tolstoff was in the room, embroidering a smoking cap for
her son the colonel, then in command of the 26th at Sebastopol; so I
was compelled to content myself by simply touching the hand of
Valerie, and by caressing it tenderly, while affecting to admire a
beautiful opal ring she wore, and urging her to continue her music.
The whole episode partook somewhat of the nature of a scene
between us, and even the usually self-possessed Valerie seemed a
little confused, as she once more laid her tapered fingers on the
ivory keys.

"I am very far from perfect in my music, or anything else,

perhaps," she said.

"Do not say so," I whispered; "yet had you been more perfect
than you are, I think no other woman in this world would have had
 the chance of a lover."

"How--why?"

"All men would be loving you, and you only."

"This is more like the inflated flattery of a Frenchman than the

speech of a sober Briton," said Valerie, a little disdainfully.

"Does it displease you?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Why?"

"People don't love when they flatter," was the pretty pointed and
coquettish response, and preluded an air with a crash on the keys,
thus interrupting something I was about to say--heaven only knows
what--a formal declaration, I fear.

"You admired my opal. Listen to the story of its origin; I doubt if

the story of your ring is half so pretty," said she. And then she sang
in English the following song, which she had been taught by her
governess, a song the author of which I have never been able to
discover; but then and there, situated as I was, the English words
came deliciously home to my heart, and I quote them now from
memory:--

"A dew-drop came, with a spark of flame

It had caught from the sun's last ray,
To a violet's breast, where it lay at rest,
Till the hours brought back the day.
With a blush and a frown a rose look'd down,
But smiled at once to view,
With its colouring warm, her own bright form
Reflected back by the dew!
Then a stolen look the stranger took
At the sky so soft and blue,
And a leaflet green, with its silvery sheen,
Was seen by the idler, too.
As he thus reclined, a cold north wind
Of a sudden blew around,
And a maiden fair, who was walking there,
Next morning an opal found!"

I ventured to pat her shoulder approvingly. I glanced furtively

round; the Tolstoff had gone out of the room, and somehow my arm
slipped round Valerie, who looked up at me, smiling archly, yet she
said, firmly,

"Pray don't."

"How much longer am I to keep this silence?" I asked.

"How--what silence?"

"To be thus in suspense, Valerie," I added, lowering my voice and

bending my face towards her ear.

Her smile passed away, her white lids drooped, and perplexity and
trouble stole over her eyes, as she drew her head back.

"I do not know what you mean, or whither your conversation

tends," she said.

"You know that I love you!"

"No, I don't."

"You must have seen it--must have guessed it--since the happy
hour in which I first saw you."

"Do not speak to me thus, I implore you," said she, colouring

deeply, and covering her face with her beautiful hands.

"Why, Valerie, dearest, dearest Valerie?"

 "I must not--dare not listen to you."

"Dare not?"

"I speak the truth," said she, and her breast heaved.

"Will you marry me, Valerie?"

"I cannot marry you."

"Why?"

"O heavens, don't ask me! But enough of this; and here comes
Madame Tolstoff, to announce that the samovar--the tea-urn--is
ready."

In my irritation I muttered something that she of the red sarafan,

Madame Tolstoff, would not wish graved on her tombstone, and
resumed my previous task of turning the leaves at the piano; but
Valerie sang no more then, and for two entire days gave me no
opportunity of learning why she had received my declaration in a
manner so odd and unexpected. I could but sigh and conjecture the
cause, and recall the words of her brother on the night he first met
me at Yalta; and if it were the case that a convent proved the only
barrier, I was not without hopes of smoothing all such scruples away.

CHAPTER XLVIII.--THE THREATS OF TOLSTOFF.

In the growth of my passion for Valerie I forgot all about the

probable opposition of her brother, the Count, to my wishes. Indeed,
he entered very little into my schemes of the future; for the perilous
contingencies of war caused life to be held by a very slight tenure
indeed; so we might never see him again, though none would
deplore more than I the death of so gallant a fellow. Then, in that
instance, did one so lovely as Valerie require more than ever a
legitimate protector, and who could be more suitable than I? I felt
convinced at that time, that those who loved Valerie once could
never feel for another as they had loved her. She was so full of an
individuality that was all her own. Was it the coquetry of her manner,
the strange and indescribable beauty of her dark eyes, the coils of
her golden hair, the smile on her lips, or the subtle magnetism the
kisses of those lips might possess, that entangled them? God knows,
but I have heard that those who loved her once were never quite the
same men again. If Valerie married me, with what pride and
exultation should I display her beauty, if occasion served, before
Estelle and her dotard Earl, as a bright being I had won from hearts
that were breaking for her, and as one who was teaching me fast to
forget her, even as she had forgotten me! A Russian wife, at that
crisis of hostility and hatred, seemed a somewhat singular alliance
certainly; what would the regiment say, and what would my chief
friend old Sir Madoc, with all his strong national prejudices, think? I
should be pretty certain to find the doors of Craigaderyn closed for
long against me. These, however, were minor considerations amid
my dreams; for dreams they were, and visions that might never be
realised; châteaux en Espagne never, perhaps, to be mine!

On the morning of the third day after the musical performance

recorded in the preceding chapter, Valerie met me, accompanied by
Madame Tolstoff. Her face wore a bright smile, and interlacing her
fingers, she raised her eyes to the eikon above the fireplace, and
said to me, "O Hospodeen, have I not cause to thank Heaven for the
news a Cossack has just brought me, in a letter from Colonel
Tolstoff?"

"I hope so; but pray what is the news?" I. asked, while drawing
nearer her.
 "My brother Paulovitch has been taken prisoner by your people."

"Call you that good news?" I asked, with surprise.

"Yes, most happy tidings."

"How?"

"My brother will now be safe, and I hope that they will keep him
so till this horrible and most unjust war is over."

"Unjust! how is it so?" I asked, laughing.

"Can it be otherwise, when it is waged against holy Russia and

our good father the Czar?"

I afterwards learned that Volhonski had been taken prisoner in

that affair which occurred on the night of Sunday, the 14th January,
when the Russians surprised our people in the trenches, and
captured one officer and sixteen men of the 68th, or Durham Light
Infantry, into whose hands Volhonski fell, and was disarmed and
taken at once to the rear.

"I am so happy," continued Valerie, clapping her hands like a

child, "though it may be long, long ere I see him again, my dear
Paulovitch! He will be taken to England, of course."

"Should you not like to join him there?" I asked, softly. "Yes, but I
cannot leave Russia."

"Why?"

"Do not ask me; but we may keep you as a hostage for him," she
added, merrily; "do you agree?"

"Can I do otherwise?" said I, tenderly and earnestly.

 "Of course not, while those Cossacks are in the Baidar Valley. Poor
Paulovitch! and this was his parting gift!" she continued, and drew
from her bosom--and none in the world could be whiter or more
lovely--a gold cross; and after kissing, she replaced it, looking at me
with a bright, coquettish, and most provoking smile, as it slipped
down into a receptacle so charming. "And dear Madame Tolstoff is so
happy, too, for her son arrives here to-morrow; he has been severely
bruised by the splinter of a shell in the Wasp Battery, and comes
hither to be nursed by us."

I cannot say that I shared in "dear Madame's" joy on this

occasion, and would have been better pleased had Valerie seemed to
be less excited than she was. Moreover, I feared that the arrival of a
Russian officer as an inmate might seriously complicate matters, and
completely alter my position; and a pang seemed to enter my heart,
as I already began to feel with wretchedness that Valerie might soon
be lost to me. I had no time to lose if I would seek to resume the
subject of conversation on that evening when Madame Tolstoff
arrived just in time to interrupt us; but Valerie seemed studiously
never to afford me an opportunity of being with her alone. This was
most tantalising, especially now when a crisis in my affairs seemed
approaching. Moreover, I had already been at Yalta longer than I
could ever have anticipated. The love of the brother and sister for
each other was, I knew, strong and tender; could I, therefore, but
persuade her to escape--"to fly" with me, as novels have it--to our
camp, now that he was a prisoner, and probably en route for
England! A meagre choice of comforts would await her in the allied
camp; but in the excess of my love, my ardour, and folly, I forgot all
about that, and even about the Cossacks who occupied the Pass of
the Baidar Valley.

It was not without emotions of undefined anxiety that on the

following day I heard from Ivan Yourivitch that Colonel Tolstoff had
arrived, and would meet me at dinner. The whole of that noon and
afternoon passed, but I could nowhere see Valerie; and on entering
the room when dinner was announced--a dinner à la Russe, the table
covered with flowers fresh from the conservatory--I was sensible that
she received me with an air of constraint which, in her, was very
remarkable; while something akin to malicious pleasure seemed to
twinkle in the little dark beadlike eyes of Madame Tolstoff as she
introduced me to her son the Colonel; at least, by his reception of
me I understood so much of what she said, for the old lady spoke in
her native Russian. He was a tall, grim-looking man, who, after
laying aside the long military capote, appeared in the dark green
uniform of the 26th Infantry, with several silver medals dangling on
his well-padded breast. He had fierce keen eyes, that seemed to
glare at times under their bristling brows; and he had an enormous
sandy-coloured moustache, that appeared to retain the blue curling
smoke of his papirosse, or to emit it grudgingly, as if it came through
closely-laid thatch; a thick beard of the same hue, streaked with
grizzled gray hair, concealed a massive jaw and most determined
chin. He was huge, heavy-looking, and muscular; and on seeing me,
held out a strong, weather-beaten hand but coldly and dryly, as he
addressed me in German; and then we immediately recognised each
other, for he was the officer who commanded the regiment which
had occupied the abattis, and who received me when I took the flag
of truce into Sebastopol. Volhonski, I have said, was a noble of the
first class--that which traces nobility back for a single century; but
Tolstoff was only of the second, or military class, being the son of a
merchant, who after serving eight years in the ranks as a junker, on
being made an officer becomes an hereditary noble, with the right to
purchase a landed estate. Tolstoff was quite lame--temporarily,
however--by the bruises his left leg had suffered from the explosion
of a shell. He spoke to me in bad and broken German, though I shall
render his words here in English.

"So my friend Volhonski is taken prisoner?" said I.

"Yes; less lucky than you, Herr Captain, who have to be taken
yet," he replied, tossing the fag end of his paper cigar into the
peitchka.
 "It was in a sortie, I understand?"

"A little one; his party was led astray by their guide towards the
trenches."

"Their guide! could one be found?"

"Yes; an officer who deserted to us."

"An officer!" said I, with astonishment.

"Yes; one who was a prime favourite with the Lord Raglan.
Strange that he should desert, was it not!"

"With Lord Raglan!" I continued, more bewildered still.

"The devil! You are strangely fond of repeating my words! Anyway

he wears a diamond ring that was given him by Lord Raglan for
some great service he performed; but as he is to be here to-night,
you shall see him yourself."

Guilfoyle! The inevitable Guilfoyle and his ring!

I could have laughed, but for rage at his cowardice, villainy, and
treachery, in actually acting as guide in that affair which caused a
loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners to our 68th Foot. However,
thought I, through my clenched teeth, I shall see him to-night.

"Have you ever seen this officer?" I asked.

"No; but he comes to Yalta with certain reports for my signature. I

doubt if Prince Woronzow, who is now Governor of Tiflis in Georgia,
knows who--all--honour his mansion by a residence therein. You
have made a longer visit among us this time than you did under the
flag of truce!"

"Circumstances have forced me to do so, with what willingness

you may imagine," said I, justly displeased by his tone and tenor of
his speech, which seemed to class me with a rascal and a traitor like
Guilfoyle. "I was most fortunate, however, in finding my way here,
after escaping death, first at the hands of your Cossacks, and
afterwards in the sea."

"Ah, they are troublesome fellows those Cossacks, and I fear you
are not quite done with them yet."

"They, and your infantry, too, found us pretty well prepared on

that misty morning at Inkermann," said I, growing more and more
displeased by his tone and manner.

"Well prepared! By----, I should think so; when people come on

frivolous errands with flags of truce, to see what an enemy is about
behind his own lines."

I felt the blood rush to my temples, and Valerie, with a piteous

expression in her soft face, said something in Russian, and with a
tone of expostulation; to which the grim Pulkovnick made no
response, but sat silently making such a dinner as seemed to
indicate that rations had been scarce in Sebastopol, and keeping
Ivan Yourivitch in constant attendance, but chiefly on himself. I could
see that the man was a soldier, and nothing but a soldier, a Russian
military tyrant in fact, and felt assured that the sooner I was out of
Yalta, and beyond his reach--risking even the Cossacks in the Valley--
the better for myself.

He was twice assisted by his amiable "mamma," to the bativina,

i.e., soup made of roasted beef cut into small pieces, with boiled
beetroot, spring onions, carraway-seeds, purée of sorrel, with
chopped eggs and kvass. He was thrice helped to stuffed carrots
with sauce, to roast mutton with mushrooms, and compote of
almonds; and he drank great quantities of hydromel flavoured with
spices, and so fermented with hops that it foamed up in the silver
tankard and over his vast moustache. But in the intervals during
dinner, and often speaking with his mouth very full, he related for
the express behoof of his mother and Valerie, a very strange
incident, which they seemed implicitly to believe, and which the
latter politely translated for me. It was to the effect, that on the
night Volhonski was taken prisoner, one of his officers, a man of
noble rank, and major of the Vladimir Regiment, was carried into
Sebastopol mortally wounded in an attempt to rescue him; and as he
was dying, the host was borne to him under a canopy by Innocent,
Bishop of Odessa, in person. As the procession passed a tratkir, or
tea-house, some soldiers and girls were dancing there to the sound
of a violin; and though they heard the voices of the chanters, and
the occasional ringing of the sanctus bell, they ceased not their
amusement, neither did they kneel, so the host passed on; but like
those who were enchanted by hearing the wonderful flute of the
German tale, they could not cease dancing, neither could the violinist
desist from playing, and for six-and-thirty hours they continued to
whirl in a wild waltz--in sorrow and tears, a ghastly band--till,
exhausted and worn nearly to skeletons, they sank gasping and
breathless on the floor, where they were still lying, paralysed in all
their limbs, and hopelessly insane!

Tolstoff seemed to hasten the ceremonies of the dinner-table to

get rid of the ladies; and the moment they rose he gave his mother
some papirosses, or cigarettes, to smoke, and then proceeded,
leisurely, to roll up one for himself, after pushing across the table
towards me the champagne, which he despised as very poor wine
indeed.

"Hah, Yourivitch!" said he, taking up a decanter, and applying his

somewhat snub nose thereto; "what is this? corn-brandy!" he added,
draining a glassful; "as it is good, I must have a glass;" so he took a
second of the fiery fluid. "O, now I feel another man, and being
another man, require another glass;" so he took a third.

These additions to the hydromel did not seem to improve his

temper, and assuredly I would have preferred to follow the ladies to
the drawing-room, than to linger on with him
 "In after-dinner talk
Across the walnuts and the wine,"

but that I feared to offend the man unnecessarily.

"Excuse me," said he, as he lay back in his seat, with his coat
unbuttoned, and proceeded, very coolly, to pick his teeth with one of
those small cross-hilted daggers, the slender blades of which are
about four inches long, and which are worn in secret by so many
Russian officers, and are all of the finest steel. After a pause, during
which he again dipped his long moustache in the foaming hydromel,
he said,

"Though Volhonski told me about you, I scarcely expected, Herr

Captain, to have found you here still."

"Where should I have gone--into the hands of the Cossacks, at

Baidar?"

"Towards Kharkoff, at all events."

I coloured at this very pointed remark, as it was to that province

in the Ukraine that the Russians had transmitted many of the
prisoners taken during the war.

"Here I felt myself on a special footing."

"How, Herr Captain?"

"As the guest of the Volhonskis," said I, sternly.

"Though an enemy of Russia?"

"Politically or professionally, yes: but I have the honour to be

viewed as a friend by the Count, and also by his sister."
 "Ah, indeed! I have heard as much. The Hospoza Valerie is, you
see, beautiful."

"Wondrously so," said I, with fervour, glad that I could cordially

agree with this odious fellow in one thing at least.

"Then beware," said Tolstoff, his face darkening; "for I don't

believe that much friendship can subsist between the sexes without
its assuming a warmer complexion."

"Colonel Tolstoff!"

"Besides, the Hospoza Valerie is a coquette--one who would flirt

with the tongs, if nothing better were at hand--so don't flatter
yourself, Herr Captain."

I felt inclined to fling the decanter at his head; for in his tone of
mentor he far exceeded even Volhonski.

"This is a somewhat offensive way to speak of a noble lady--the

sister of your friend," said I.

"We shall dismiss that subject; and now for another," said he. "It
must be pretty apparent to you, Herr Captain, that you cannot
remain here, unparoled, in your present anomalous position."

"I quite agree with you, and feel it most keenly; but I gave my
parole of honour to Valerie," I added, gaily and unwisely, for again
the face of Tolstoff lowered.

"To let you remain or go free were treason to Russia and the Czar;
you must therefore be sent as a prisoner of war to Kharkoff, and--"

"What then?"

"Be treated there according to the report I shall transmit with your
escort."
 "What will Volhonski say?"

"Just what he pleases; the Count is a prisoner now himself."

I read some hidden meaning in his eyes, though he sat quietly

cracking walnuts and sipping his hydromel.

"An officer on duty, I fall into the hands of an enemy--" I was

beginning passionately, when he interrupted me, and his eyes
gleamed as he said,

"You had a despatch; I think you told Volhonski or his sister so?"

"Yes, Colonel--a despatch for Marshal Canrobert."

"Where is it?"

"I destroyed it."

"Bah!--I thought so," said he, scornfully.

"On my honour, I did so, Colonel Tolstoff!"

"Honour! ha, ha, you are a spy!"

"Rascal!" I exclaimed, feeling myself grow white with passion the

while; "recall this injurious epithet, or--"

"Or what? Dare you threaten me? I can pick the ace of hearts off
a card at twenty paces with a revolver, so beware; and yet I am not
obliged to meet any one who is amenable to the laws of war, and is
in a position so dubious as yours."

I was choking with rage; yet a conviction that he spoke with

something of warrant, so far as appearances went, and of the
absolute necessity for acting with policy, if I would leave myself a
chance of winning Valerie and escape greater perils than any I had
encountered, compelled me to assume a calmness of bearing I was
far from feeling.

"Seek neither to threaten nor to trifle with me," said he, loftily and
grimly; "you may certainly know the common laws of war regarding
the retention of prisoners and the punishment of spies, but you
know not those of Russia. If I do not treat you as one of the latter, it
is because Volhonski is your friend; but I have it in my power, in
treating you as one of the former, to have you transmitted farther
than the Ukraine--to where you should never be heard of more. We
are not particular to a shade here," he continued, with a sneering
smile; "when the Emperor commanded a certain offender to be
taken and punished, the minister of police could not find the right
individual. What the deuce was to be done? Justice could not remain
unsatisfied; so, instead, he seized a poor German, who had just
arrived and was known to none. He slit his tongue, tore out his
nostrils, sent him to Siberia to hunt the ermine, and reported to the
Czar that his orders had been obeyed. So don't flatter yourself that
any persons in office among us would be very particular in analysing
any report that I may transmit with you, a mere English captain!"

And rising from the table with these ominous words, he bowed to
the eikon, crossed himself after the Greek fashion, inserted a
papirosse into his dense moustache, and limped away, leaving me in
a very unenviable frame of mind. Already I saw Valerie lost to me! I
beheld myself, in fancy, marched into the interior of Russia under
armed escort, maltreated and degraded, with my hands tied to the
mane of a Cossack pony, or a foot chained to a six-pound shot; a
secret report transmitted with me--a tissue of malevolent lies--to be
acted upon by some irresponsible official with a crackjaw name; to
be never more heard of, my sufferings and my ultimate fate to be--
God alone knew what!

I was weak enough to feel jealous of this ungainly Tolstoff--this

Muscovite Caliban--in addition to being seriously alarmed by his
threats, and enraged by his tone and bearing. Had Valerie ever
viewed him with favour? The idea was too absurd! If not, what right
had he to advise me concerning her? But then she was so beautiful,
one could not wonder that he--coarse though he was--might love her
in secret.

Full of these and other thoughts that were vague and bitter, I
quitted the table just as Yourivitch was lighting the lamps, and
wandered into the long and now gloomy picture-gallery, one of the
great windows of which was open. Beyond it was a terrace, whereon
I saw the figure of Valerie. She was alone, and in defiance of all
prudence and the warning of Tolstoff, I followed her.

CHAPTER XLIX.--BETROTHED.

She seemed absorbed in thought as I drew near her, and did not
perceive my approach. She was leaning on the carved balustrade of
the terrace, and gazing at the sea and the scenery that lay below it,
steeped in the brilliance of a clear and frosty moonlight. The snow
had entirely departed from the vicinity of Yalta, though its white
mantle still covered all the peaks of the Yaila range of mountains.
About a mile distant on one side lay the town, its glaring white-
walled houses gleaming coldly in the moonshine. A beach was there,
with most civilised-looking bathing-machines upon it; for prior to the
war, Yalta had been the fashionable watering-place for the ladies of
Sebastopol, Bagtcheserai, and Odessa, who were wont there to
disport themselves in fantastic costumes, and take headers in the
Euxinus Pontus. On the other side were lovely valleys and hills,
covered with timber--pine-groves dark and huge as those that
overhang the fjords of Norway.
 In the distance lay the Black Sea--so called from the dark fogs
that so often cover it--sleeping in silver light, its waves in shining
ripples rolling far away round the points of Orianda and Maragatsch;
and Valerie, absorbed in thought, and her dark eyes fixed apparently
on that point where the starry horizon met the distant sea.

She wore an ample jacket or pelisse of snow-white ermine lined

with rose-coloured silk, and clasped at the tender throat by a brooch
which was a cluster of bright amethysts. A kind of loose silken hood,
such as ladies when in full dress may wear in a carriage, was hastily
thrown over the masses of her golden hair, which formed a kind of
soft framework for her delicately-cut and warmly-tinted face, for the
cold air had brought an unwonted colour into her usually pale
complexion. Her eyes wore an expression of languor and anxiety.
Heaven knows what the girl was thinking of; but as she watched the
shining sea I could see her full pink nervous lips curling and
quivering, as if with the thoughts that ran through her impulsive
mind. And this bright creature might be mine! I had but to ask her,
perhaps, and I had not so faint a heart as to lose one so fair for the
mere dread of asking her. Yet, as I drew near, the reflection flashed
upon my mind that for three days at least she had purposely avoided
me. Why was this? Had my love for her been too apparent to others?
had I underdone or overdone anything? what had I omitted, or how
committed myself?

"Valerie!" said I, softly.

She uttered a slight exclamation, as if startled, and then placing

her firm, cool, and velvet-like hands confidingly in mine, glanced
nervously round her, and more particularly up at the windows of the
house.

"I would speak with you," said she, in a half whisper.

"And I with you, Valerie. O, how I have longed for a moment such
as this, when I might again be with you alone!"
 "But we must not be seen together; and I have but that moment
you have so wished for to spare. Come this way--this way, quick;
those cypresses in the tubs will shield us from any curious eyes that
may lurk at yonder windows."

"O, Valerie!" I sighed with happiness, and as I passed a hand

caressingly over her jacket of ermine I thought vengefully of
Tolstoft's dark hint about hunting that small quadruped in Siberia;
and then as I gazed tenderly into her dark and glittering eyes, I
could perceive that their long tremulous lashes were matted.

"Tears--why tears, Valerie?"

She spoke hurriedly. "I have most earnestly to apologise to you

for much that I heard the Pulkovnick say during dinner; it was
indeed horrid--all!"

"Much that you have not heard was more horrid still."

"It is unbearable! His wounds or bruises must have exasperated

his temper. Yet I cannot speak to him of that which I did not hear, as
to do so would appear too much as if you and I had some secret
confidences, and Madame Tolstoff, I fear, has hinted at something of
this kind already."

"I asked you to marry me, dearest Valerie."

"Yes--vainly," said she, with a half-smile on her partly-averted

face.

"Vainly--why?"

"Do not press me to say why."

"Could you love me, Valerie?"

"I might."
 "Might, Valerie?" (I was never weary of repeating her sweet
name; and what meant this admission, if she declined me?) "You do
not doubt my love for you?" I urged.

"No, though I fear it is but a passing fancy, born of idleness and

the ennui of Yalta."

"Think you, Valerie, that any man could see, and only love you
thus? O no, no! But say that you will be mine--that you will come
with me to England, where your brother is, or soon shall be--to
England, where women are treated with a courtesy and tenderness
all unknown in Russia, and where the girl a man loves is indeed as
an empress to him, and has his fate in life in her own hands."

"I don't quite understand all this--nor should I listen to it," said
she, looking me fully in the face, with calm confidence and
something of sadness; too.

Her right hand was still clasped in mine, and as I pressed it

against my heart, I placed my left arm round her waist, modestly,
tenderly, and with a somewhat faltering manner; for she looked so
stately, and in her white ermine seemed taller and more ample than
usual, a beauty on a large scale and with "a presence." But starting
back, she quickly freed herself from my half-embrace, and said,
"Captain Hardinge, you forget yourself!"

"Can it be that you receive my tenderness thus?" said I,

reproachfully, and feeling alike disappointed and crestfallen. "I love
you most dearly, Valerie, and implore you to tell me of my future, for
on your answer depends my happiness or misery."

"I hope that I am the holder of neither. I did not ask you to love
me; and O, I would to Heaven that you had never come to Yalta--
that we had never, never met!"

"Why--O, why?" I asked, imploringly.

 "Because I am on the very eve of being married."

"Married!" I repeated, breathlessly; and then added passionately

and hoarsely, "To whom?"

"Colonel Tolstoff, to whom I was betrothed in form by the Bishop

of Odessa."

Her refusal was really a double-shotted one, and for a moment I

was stupefied. Then I said, in a voice I could scarcely have
recognised as my own,

"It was to this tie, and not to a convent, that Volhonski alluded,
when hinting that you were set apart from the world?"

"Yes. I thank you from my soul for the love you offer me, though
it fills me with distress. I pity you; but can do no more. Alas! you
have been here only too long."

"Too long, indeed!" said I, sadly, while bending my lips to her

hand; and then hurrying into the house by the picture-gallery, she
left me--left me to my own miserable and crushing thoughts, with
the additional mortification of knowing that Madame Tolstoff,
watchful as a lynx, had overseen and overheard our interview from
another angle of the terrace, though she could not understand its
nature; but of course she suspected much, and was all aflame for
the interests of her suave and amiable son.

However, this was not to be my last moment of tenderness with

Valerie. But I was left little time for reflection, as events were now to
succeed each other with a degree of speed and brevity equalled only
by the transitions and discoveries of a drama on the stage.
 CHAPTER L.--CAUGHT AT LAST.

I re-entered the château feeling sad, irresolute, and crushed in

spirit. I had lost that on which I had set my heart, and at the hands
of Tolstoff, my rival, I might yet lose more, if his threats meant
anything--liberty, perhaps life itself.

What, then, was to be done? I was without money, without arms,

or a horse. All these Valerie might procure for me; but how or where
was I to address her again? After the result of our last interview she
would be certain to avoid me more sedulously than ever. As I passed
through the magnificent vestibule, which was hung with rose-
coloured lamps, the light of which fell softly on the green malachite
pedestals and white marble Venuses, Dianas, and Psyches, which
had no part of them dressed but their hair, which was done to
perfection, I met Ivan Yourivitch, who made me understand that the
officer whom the Pulkovnick expected with certain papers from
Sebastopol had arrived, and was now in the dining-room; but the
Pulkovnick had smoked himself off to sleep, and must not, under
certain pains and penalties, be disturbed. Would I see him? And so,
before I knew what to say, or had made up my mind whether to
avoid or meet the visitor, I was ushered into the stately room, when
I found myself once more face to face with Mr. Hawkesby Guilfoyle!

The ex-cornet of wagoners was clad now in the gray Russian

military capote, with a sword and revolver at his girdle. His beard
had grown prodigiously; but his hair--once so well cared for--was
now very thin indeed, and he did not appear altogether to have
thriven in the new service to which he had betaken himself. His
aspect was undoubtedly haggard. Suspected by his new friends (who
urged him on duties for which he had not the smallest taste), and in
perpetual dread of falling into the hands of the old, by whom he
would be certainly hanged or shot, his life could not be a pleasant
one; so he had evidently betaken himself to drink, as his face was
blotched and his eyes inflamed in an unusual degree.

He was very busy with a decanter of sparkling Crimskoi and other

good things which the dvornick had placed before him, and on
looking up he failed to recognise me, clad as I was in a suit of
Volhonski's plain clothes, which were "a world too wide" for me; and
no doubt I was the last person in the world whom he wished or
expected to see in such a place and under such circumstances--
being neither guest nor prisoner, and yet somewhat of both
characters. He bowed politely, however, and said something in
Russian, of which he had picked up a few words, and then smiled
blandly.

"You smile, sir," said I, sternly; "but remember the adage, a man
may smile and smile, and be----"

"Stay, sir!" he exclaimed, starting up; "this is intolerable! Who the

devil are you, and what do you mean?"

"Simply that you are a villain, and of the deepest die!"

His hand went from the neck of the decanter towards his revolver;
then he reseated himself, and with his old peculiar laugh said, while
inserting his glass in his right eye,

"O, this beats cock-fighting! Hardinge of the Welsh Fusileers! Now,

where on earth did you come from?"

"Not from the ranks of the enemy, at all events," I replied.

His whole character--the wrongs he had tried to do me and had

done to many others; the artful trick he had played me at Walcot
Park his pitiless cruelty to Georgette Franklin; his base conduct to me
when helpless on the field of Inkermann; his guiding a sortie in the
night; his entire career of unvarying cunning and treachery--caused
me to regard the man with something of wonder, mingled with
loathing and contempt, but contempt without anger. He was beneath
that.

"So you are a prisoner of war?" said he, after a brief pause,
during which he had drained a great goblet of the Crimskoi--a kind of
imitation champagne.

"What I am is nothing to you--my position, mind, and character

are the same."

"Perhaps so," he continued; "but I think that the most

contemptible mule on earth is a fellow in whom no experience or
time can effect a change of mind, or cure of those narrow opinions
in which he is first brought up, as the phrase is, in that little island of
ours."

"So you have quite adopted the Russian idea of Britain?" said I,
with a scornful smile.

"Yes; and hope to have more scope for my talents on the

Continent than I ever had there. I should not have left the army of
my good friend Raglan----"

"Who presented you with that ring, eh?"

"Had there not been the prospect of a row about a rooking one
night in camp, and a bill which some meddling fellow called a
forgery. Bah! a bad bill may be a very useful thing at times; it is like
a gun warranted to burst; but, as Lever says, you must always have
it in the right man's hands, when it comes for explosion. If you are a
prisoner, I am afraid that your chances of early seeing our dear
mutual friends in Taffyland--by the way, how is old Sir Taffy?--are
very slender, if once you are sent towards the Ukraine," he went on
mockingly, as he lit a papirosse. "And so the fair Estelle threw you
over, eh? Good joke that! Preferred old Potter's company to yours,
for the term of his natural life? What a deuced sell! But what a
touching picture of love they must present--quite equal to Paul and
Virginia, to Pyramus and Thisbe!"

At that moment, and while indulging in a loud and mocking laugh,

his countenance suddenly changed; he grew very pale, the glass fell
from his pea-green eye, and the lighted papirosse from his lips; all
his natural assurance and insouciance deserted him, and he looked
as startled and bewildered as if a cannon-shot had just grazed his
nose. I turned with surprise at this sudden change, and saw the face
and figure of Colonel Tolstoff, who had limped into the room and
been regarding us for half a minute unperceived. He stood behind
me, grim and stern as Ajax, and was gazing at Guilfoyle with eyes
that, under their bristling brows, glittered like those of a basilisk, and
seemed to fascinate him.

"We have not met since that night at Dunamunde!" exclaimed

Tolstoff, in a voice of concentrated fury; "but, I thank God and St.
Sergius, we have met at last--yes, at last! And so you know each
other--you two?" he added, in German, while bestowing a withering
glance on me.

"Dunamunde!" said I, sternly, as the name of that place recalled

something of a strange story concerning Tolstoff told by Guilfoyle to
Lord Pottersleigh at Craigaderyn; "and you two would seem to have
known each other and been friends of old, that is, if you are the
same Count Tolstoff whom he saved from the machinations of a
certain Colonel Nicolaevitch, then commanding the Marine Infantry
at Riga."

"What rubbish is this you speak?" demanded the other, with angry
surprise; "there never was a Count Tolstoff; and I am the Pulkovnick
Nicolaevitch Tolstoff who commanded in Dunamunde, and was
custodian of eighty thousand silver roubles, all government money.
This ruffian was my friend--my chief friend then, though of the
gaming table; but he joined in a plot, with others like himself, among
whom was the Head of the Police, to rob me. He admitted them
masked into my rooms, when they shot me down with my own
pistols, and left me, with a broken thigh, bound hand and foot and
cruelly gagged, while they escaped in safety across the Prussian
frontier and got to Berlin, where they started a gaming-house. But
he is here--here in my power at last; and sweetly and surely, I shall
have such vengeance as that power gives me. Ha! look at him, the
speechless coward; he has no bones in his tongue now!" he added,
using a favourite Russian taunt.

"All over--run to earth, by Jove!" muttered Guilfoyle, with

trembling lips, forgetting about the papers he had brought, his new
character of a Russian officer, and forgetting even to deny his
identity; "I have thrown the dice for the last time, and d--nation,
they have turned up aces!"

Ivan Yourivitch and other Cossack servants, who had heard the
loud voice of Tolstoff raised in undisguised anger, now appeared, and
received some orders from him in Russian. In a moment they threw
themselves upon Guilfoyle, disarmed, stripped him of his uniform,
and bound him with a silken cord torn from the window-curtains. At
first I was not without fears that they meant to strangle him with it,
so prompt and fierce was their manner; but they merely tied his
hands behind him, and thrust him into a closet, the door of which
was locked, and the key given to the Pulkovnick.

The latter, without deigning to take farther notice of me, turned

on his heel and limped away, muttering anathemas in Russian; and I
felt very thankful that he had not made me a close prisoner also,
after the humiliating fashion to which he had subjected the wretched
Guilfoyle. But he was not without secret and serious ulterior views
regarding me. All remained still now in the great mansion after this
noisy and sudden episode; and I heard no sound save once--the
clatter of a horse's hoofs, which seemed to leave the adjoining
stable-yard and die away, as I thought, in the direction of the Baidar
Valley, where the Cossacks lay encamped; and somehow my heart
naturally connected these circumstances and foreboded coming evil,
as I sat alone in the recess of a window overlooking the terrace, and
the same moonlighted scenery which Valerie had viewed from it so
lately.

CHAPTER LI.--FLIGHT.

I was full of gloomy, perplexing, and irritating thoughts.

"If I am to drag on my life for years perhaps as a Russian

prisoner, better would it have been, O Lord, that a friendly shot had
finished my career for ever. What have I now to live for?" I
exclaimed, in the bitterness of my heart, as I struck my hands
together.

"You speak thus--you so young?" said Valerie, reproachfully yet

softly, as she suddenly laid a hand on my shoulder, while her bright
eyes beamed into mine--eyes that could excite emotion by emitting
it.

"Life seems so worthless."

"Why?" she asked, in a low voice.

"Can you ask me after what passed between us the other

evening, and more especially on yonder terrace, less than an hour
ago?"

"But why is existence worthless?"

"Because I have lost you!"

 (Had I not thought the same thing about Estelle, and deemed that
"he who has most of heart has most of sorrow"?)

"This is folly, dear friend," said she, looking down; "I never was
yours to lose."

"But you lured me to love you, Valerie; and now--now you would
cast--nay, you have cast--my poor heart back upon itself!"

"I lured you?" asked the gentle voice; "O unjust! How could I help
your loving me?"

"Perhaps not; nor could I help it myself."

"Tell me truly--has this--this misplaced passion for me lured you

from one who loves you well at home perhaps?"

"From no one," said I, bitterly.

"Thank Heaven for that; and we shall part as friends any way."

"As friends only?"

"Yes."

"But you will ever be more to me, Valerie."

She shook her head and smiled.

A desire for vengeance on Tolstoff, for his insulting bearing on one

hand, with, the love and admiration I had of herself on the other,
and the pictured triumph of taking her away from him, and by her
aid and presence with me reaching our camp in safety, all prompted
me to urge an elopement; nor could I also forget the coquettish
admission that she "might" love me; but just as I was about to
renew my suit and had taken possession of her hands, she withdrew
them, and while glancing nervously about her, informed me that the
Pulkovnick had sent a mounted messenger to the Baidar Valley for
Cossacks, to escort me and Guilfoyle to Kharkoff in the Ukraine; and
when I remembered his threats of probable ulterior measures, I felt
quite certain that his report would include us both, and thus be
framed in terms alike dangerous and injurious to me.

"What is to be done, Valerie?" I asked, in greater perplexity.

"If I cannot love, I can still serve you," said she, smiling with a
brightness that was cruel; "it is but just, in gratitude for the regard
you have borne me."

"That I still bear you and ever shall, beloved Valerie!" said I, with
tremulous energy; "but to serve me--how?"

"You must leave this place instantly, for in less than an hour the
Cossacks will be here, and Tolstoff may have you killed on the
march; the escort may be but a snare."

"Then come--come with me--let us escape together!"

"Impossible--you do but waste time in speaking thus."

"Why--O why, Valerie, when you know that I love you?"

"Race, religion, ties, all forbid such a step, even were I inclined for
it, which fortunately I am not," she replied, lifting for a moment, as if
for coolness, the rippling masses of her golden hair from her white
temples, and letting them fall again; "you might and must spare me
more of this! Have I not told you it is useless to speak of love to me,
and wrong in me to listen to you?"

"And since when have you been engaged to this" (bear, I was
about to say)--"to this man Tolstoff? And by what magic or devilry
has he taught you to love him?"

"In what can either concern you, at such a time as this especially,
when you have not a moment to lose?" she asked, almost with
irritation. "But hush--O, hush! here is some one."

At that moment Ivan Yourivitch, with excitement on his usually

stolid Russian visage, entered the room almost on tiptoe, and
whispered something to her in haste, while his eyes were fixed the
while on me.

"Ah!--thank you, Ivan, thank you--that is well!" she said, and

turning to me, she added, hurriedly and energetically, "If you would
be free, and choose, it may be, between liberty or death, you have
not another instant to lose! Ivan tells me that the crew of an English
man-of-war boat is at this moment filling casks with water at the well
of St. Basil on the beach yonder. Thrice has that ship been there for
the same purpose; and I was watching for her when you came to me
on the terrace, as I heard of her being off Alupka this morning."

"Your thoughts, then, were of me?" said I, tenderly.

"For you, rather; but away, and God be with you, sir!"

I lifted the window softly, and across the moonlit park that
stretched away towards the seashore she pointed to where four tall
cypresses rose like dark giants against the clear and starry sky, and
where, at the distance of a mile or little more, the white marble
dome of the well could be distinctly seen between them, its polished
surface shining like a star above a sombre belt of shrubbery.

"There is the sound of hoofs! The Cossacks, your escort, are

coming Away, sir; you cannot miss the well, though you may the
boat!" said Valerie, with her hands clasped and her dark eyes
dilated; and as she spoke the clank of galloping horses coming up
the valley (and, as I fancied, the cracking of the whips carried by the
Cossacks at their bridles) could be heard distinctly in the clear frosty
air.

"If I had but my sword and pistols!" said I, with my teeth

clenched.
 "You do not require them. Farewell!

"Adieu, Valerie--adieu!"

I passionately kissed her lips and her cheek, too, ere she could
prevent me, waved my hand to old Yourivitch, vaulted over the
window, dropped from the balustrade of the terrace into the park,
and at the risk of being seen by some of the household crossed it
with all the speed I could exert in the direction that led to where I
knew that the well--a structure erected by Prince Woronzow--stood
on a lonely part of the shore. More than once did I look back at the
lofty façade of the beautiful château, with its four towers and onion-
shaped domes of shining copper, and all its stately windows that
glittered in the light of a cloudless moon; and just as I drew near the
belt of shrubbery, I could see the dark figures of mounted men
encircling the terrace! A fugitive, in danger of losing honour and life
together! Was this the end of my daydreams in Yalta? Once more I
turned, and hastened to where the four cypress-trees towered
skyward.

"Ahoy! who comes there?" cried a somewhat gruff voice, in

English, accompanied by the sound of a slap on the butt of a
musket; and then the squat sturdy figure of a seaman, posted as
sentinel, appeared among the bushes, with an infantry pouch, belts,
and bayonet worn above his short pea-jacket.

"A friend!" I replied, mechanically, yet not without a glow of

sincere pleasure.

"Stand there, till I have a squint at you," replied Jack, cocking his
musket and giving a glance at the cap; but I was too much excited
to parley with him, and continued to advance, saying,

"I am an officer--Captain Hardinge, of the 23rd, a prisoner

escaping from the enemy."
 "All right, sir--glad to see you; heave ahead," he replied, half
cocking his piece again.

"Who commands your party?"

"Lieutenant Jekyll, sir," said the seaman, saluting now, when he

saw me fully in the moonlight.

"Of what ship?"

"The Southesk, sir, of twenty guns."

"Let me pass to your rear. He must instantly shove off his boat, as
the Cossacks are within a mile of us--at yonder house."

In a minute more I reached the party at the well, twelve seamen

and as many marines under an officer, who had a brace of pistols in
his belt, and carried his sword drawn. They were in the act of
carrying the last cask of water into a ship's cutter, which lay
alongside a ridge of rock that ran into the sea, forming a species of
natural pier or jetty, close by the white marble fountain.

I soon made myself known, and ere long found myself seated
among new friends, and out on the shining water, which bubbled up
at the bow and foamed under the counter as the oarsmen bent to
their task, and their steadily and regularly feathered blades flashed
in the silver sheen. The shore receded fast; the belt of shrubs grew
lower and lower; and then the glittering domes of the distant
mansion, which was ever in my mind and memory to be associated
with Valerie Volhonski, rose gradually on our view, with the snow-
clad range of Yaila in the background. But all were blended in haze
and distance by the time we came sheering alongside H.M.S.
Southesk, the water-tank of which had, fortunately for me, been
empty, thus forcing her crew to have recourse to the well of St. Basil,
by which circumstance I more than probably escaped the fate that
ultimately overtook, but deservedly, the luckless Hawkesby Guilfoyle.