obeyed the order; but already several were in full pursuit of the fugitives, preventing the others from firing, lest they should shoot their comrades. Seeing this, all threw down their muskets and joined in the chase. Ludwig sought to keep near Bernard, in order not to sever his fate from that of his trusty friend. But the number of their pursuers soon forced them to take different directions. The hunted and the hunters were alike impeded by the snow, which had been blown off the steep side of the hillock, but lay in thick masses on the table-land, and at every step the feet sank deep. Already Ludwig saw the dusky foliage of the pines close before him, already he deemed himself to have escaped his unjust doom, when suddenly he sank up to the hips, and, by his next movement, up to the breast in the snow, which had drifted into a fissure in the earth. In vain he strained every muscle to extricate himself. In a few seconds his pursuers reached him, grappled him unmercifully, and pulled him out of the hole by his arms and hair. "Ill treated by the soldiers, driven forward by blows from fists and musket butts, Ludwig was dragged, rather than he walked, to the place appointed for his death. Even the scornful gaze with which Beaucaire received him was insufficient to give him strength to enjoy in the last moments of his life an inward triumph over that contemptible wretch. But he looked anxiously around for Bernard, to see whether he again was the companion of his melancholy lot. He saw him not; he evidently was not yet captured. The hope that his friend had finally effected his escape, comforted Ludwig, although he felt that death, now he was alone to meet it, was harder to endure than when he was sustained by the companionship of the gallant Bernard. have scorned the bandage, but now he let his kind-hearted fellow-soldier have his way. Suddenly it occurred to him that he might make the sergeant the bearer of his last earthly wishes. "Comrade,' said he as the man secured the cloth over his eyes, 'you will not refuse me a last friendly service. So soon as you are able, go to Colonel Rasinski, who commands our regiment; tell him how I died, and beg him to console my sister. And if you outlive this war, and go to her in Warsaw or Dresden, and tell her that' "He was interrupted by several musket-shots close at hand. "Are those for me, already?' cried Ludwig-for the sergeant had let go the handkerchief, now secured round his head, and had stepped aside. For sole reply Ludwig heard him exclaim The devil! what is that?' and spring forward. At the same time arose a confused outcry and bustle, and again shots were fired just in the neighbourhood, one bullet whistling close to Ludwig's head. He heard horses in full gallop, whilst a mixture of words of command, shouts, clash of steel and reports of fire-arms resounded on all sides. Forward!' cried the voice of the sergeant. Close your ranks! fire!' "A platoon fire from some twenty muskets rang in Ludwig's ear; he imagined the muzzles were pointed at him, and an involuntary tremor made his whole frame quiver. But he was still alive and uninjured. The complete darkness in which he found himself, the bonds that prevented his moving, the excitement and tension of his nerves, caused a host of strange wild ideas to fit across his brain. Hearing upon the left the stamp of hoofs and shouts of charging horsemen, he thought for a moment that Rasinski and his men had come to deliver him. Then, however, he heard the howling war-cry of the Russians. Ahurrah' rent the air. The contending masses rushed past him; the smoke of powder whirled in his face; cries, groans, and clatter of weapons were all around him. He was in the midst of the fight; in vain he strove to break his bonds, that he might tear the bandage from his eyes; he continued in profound obscurity. 'Is it a frightful dream? he at last gasped out, turning his face to heaven. Will none awaken me, and end this horrible suffering? "But no hand touched him, and little by little the tumult receded, and was lost in the distance. "Thus passed a few minutes of agonizing suspense; Ludwig writhed in his fetters; a secret voice whispered to him, that, could he burst them, he yet might be saved, but they resisted his utmost efforts. Then he again heard loud voices, which gradually approached, accompanied by hurried footsteps. On a sudden a rough hand tore the cloth from his eyes. "Thunderstruck, he gazed around. Three men with long beards, whom he at once recognised as Russian peasants, stood before him, staring at him with a mixture of scorn and wonder. On the ground lay several muskets and the bodies of two French soldiers. Ludwig saw himself in the power of his enemies, whom a strange chance had converted into his deliverers." Beaucaire and St. Luces were also in the hands of the Russians, in whose unfriendly care we for the present leave both them and Ludwig, to recur, at a future day, to this interesting romance. THE BLUE DRAGOON; A STORY OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE, FROM THE CRIMINAL RECORDS OF HOLLAND.* In the town of M—, in Holland, there lived, towards the close of the last century, an elderly widow,Madame Andrecht. She inhabited a house of her own, in company with her maid-servant, who was nearly of the same age. She was in prosperous circumstances; but, being in delicate health and paralysed on one side, she had few visitors, and seldom went abroad except to church or to visit the poor. Her chief recreation consisted in paying a visit in spring to her son, who was settled as a surgeon in a village a few miles off. On these occasions, fearing a return of a paralytic attack, she was invariably accompanied by her maid, and, during these visits, her own house was left locked up, but uninhabited and unwatched. On the 30th June, 17-, the widow returning to M, from one of these little excursions, found her house had been broken open in her absence, and that several valuable articles, with all her jewels and trinkets, had disappeared. Information was immediately given to the authorities, and a strict investigation of the circumstances took place without delay. The old lady had been three weeks absent, and the thieves of course had had ample leisure for their attempt. They had evidently gained access through a window in the back part of the house communicating with the garden, one of the panes of which had been removed, and the bolts of the window forced back, so as to admit of its being pulled up. The bolts of the back-door leading into the garden had also been withdrawn, as if the robbers had withdrawn their plunder in that direction. The other doors and windows were uninjured; and several of the rooms appeared to have been unopened. The furniture, generally, was touched; but the kitchen utensils were left in confusion, as if the robbers had intended removing them, but had been interrupted or pursued. un At the same time it was evident they had gone very deliberately about their work. The ceilings and doors of a heavy old press, the drawers of which had been secured by strong and well constructed locks, had been *The following singular story of circumstantial evidence is compressed from a collection of criminal trials, published at Amsterdam, under the title "Oorkonen uit de Gedenkschriften van het Strafregt, en uit die der menschlyke Mishappen; te Amsterdam. By J. C. Van Kersleren, 1820." Notwithstanding the somewhat romantic complexion of the incidents, it has been included as genuine in the recent German collection, Der Neue Pitaval. 7 Band. removed with so much neatness that no part of the wood-work had been injured. The ceiling and doors were left standing by the side of the press. The contents, consisting of jewels, articles of value, and fine linens, were gone. Two strong boxes were found broken open, from which gold and silver coin, with some articles of clothing, had been abstracted. The value of the missing articles amounted to about two thousand Dutch guldens. The house, however, contained many other articles of value, which, singularly enough, had escaped the notice of the thieves. In particular, the greater part of the widow's property consisted of property in the funds, the obligations for which were deposited, not in the press above-mentioned, but in an iron chest in her sleeping-room. This chest she had accidentally removed, shortly before her departure; placing it in a more retired apartment, where it had fortunately attracted no attention. The robbery had, apparently, been committed by more than one person; and, it was naturally suspected, by persons well acquainted with the house, and with the circumstances of its inhabitants. The house itself, which was almost the only respectable one in the neighbourhood, was situated in a retired street. The neighbouring dwellings were inhabited by the poorer classes, and not a few of the less reputable members of society. The inner fosse of the town, which was navigable, flowed along the end of the garden through which the thieves had, apparently, gained admittance, being separated from the garden only by a thin thorn hedge. It was conjectured that the thieves had made their way close to the hedge by means of a boat, and from thence had clambered over into the garden, along the walks and flower-beds of which foot-marks were traceable. The discovery of the robbery had created a general sensation, and the house was surrounded by a crowd of curious idlers, whom it required some effort on the part of the police to prevent from intruding into the premises. One of them only, a baker, and the inhabitant of the house opposite to that of the widow, succeeded in making his way in along with the officers of justice. His acquaintances awaited his return with impatience, trusting to be able, from his revelations, to gratify their curiosity at second-hand. If so, they were disappointed, for, on his exit, he assumed an air of mystery, answered equivocally, and observed, that people might suspect many things of which it might not be safe to speak. In proportion, however, to his taciturnity, was the loquaciousness of a woolspinner, Leendert Van N—————, the inhabitant of the corner house next to that of the widow. He mingled with the groups who were discussing the subject; dropped hints that he had his own notions as to the culprits, and could, if necessary, give a clue to their discovery. Among the crowd who were observed to listen to these effusions, was a Jew dealer in porcelain, a suspected spy of the police. Before evening, the woolspinner received a summons to the town-house, and was called upon by the Burgomaster for an explanation of the suspicious expressions he had used. He stammered, hesitated, pretended he knew of nothing but general grounds of suspicion, like his neighbours; but being threatened with stronger measures of compulsion, he at last agreed to speak out, protesting, at the same time, that he could willingly have spared persons against whom he had no grudge whatever, and would have been silent for ever, if he had foreseen the consequence of his indiscretion. The substance of his disclosure was to this effect;-Opposite the German post-house, at the head of the street, in which the woolspinner lived, there was a little alehouse. Nicholas Dwas the landlord. He was generally known among his acquaintances, not by his baptismal or family name, but by the appellation of the Blue Dragoon, from having formerly served in the horse regiment of Colonel Van Wackerbarth, which was popularly known by the name of the Blues. About two years before, he had become acquainted with and married Hannah, the former servant of Madame Andrecht, who had been six years in that situation, and possessed her entire confidence. Unwilling to part with her attendant, and probably entertaining no favourable notion of the intended husband, Madame Andrecht had long thrown impediments in the way of the match, so that the parties were obliged to meet chiefly at night, and by stealth. Nicholas found his way into the house at night through the garden of his acquaintance the woolspinner, and across the hedge which divided it from Madame Andrecht's. Of these nocturnal visits the woolspinner was at first cognisant, but, fearful of getting into a scrape with his respectable neighbour, he was under the necessity of intimating to the bold dragoon, that if he intended to continue his escalades, he must do so from some other quarter than his garden. Nicholas obeyed apparently, and desisted; but, to the surprise of the woolspinner, he found the lovers continued to meet not the less regularly in Madame Andrecht's garden. One evening, however, the mystery was explained. The woolspinner, returning home after dark, saw tied to a post in the canal, close by Madame Andrecht's garden, one of those small boats which were generally used by the dragoons for bringing forage from the magazine; and he at once conjectured that this was the means by which the dragoon was enabled to continue his nocturnal assignations. With the recollection of this passage in the landlord's history was combined a circumstance of recent occurrence, trifling in itself, but which appeared curiously to link in with the mode in which the robbery appeared to have been effected. Ten days before the discovery of the housebreaking, and while the widow was in the country, the woolspinner stated that he found, one morning, a dirtycoloured handkerchief lying on the grass bank of the fosse, and exactly opposite his neighbour's garden. He took it up and put it in his pocket, without thinking about it at the time. At dinner he happened to remember it, mentioned the circumstance to his wife, showed her the handkerchief, and observed jestingly, "If Madame Andrecht were in town, and Hannah were still in her service, we should say our old friend the Blue Dragoon had been making his rounds and had dropt his handkerchief." His wife took the handkerchief, examined it, and exclaimed, "In the name of wonder, what is that you say? Is not Hannah's husband's name Nicholas D-?" pointing out to him at the same time the initials N. D. in the corner. Both, however, had forgotten the circumstance till the occurrence of the robbery naturally recalled it to the husband's mind. The woolspinner told his story simply; his conclusions appeared unstrained: suspicion became strongly directed against the Blue Dragoon, and these suspicions were corroborated by another circumstance which emerged at the same time. During the first search of the house, a half-burnt paper, which seemed to have been used for lighting a pipe, was found on the floor, near the press which had been broken open. Neither Madame Andrecht nor her maid smoked; the police officers had no pipes when they entered the house; so the match had in all probability been dropped on the ground by the housebreakers. On examination of the remains of the paper, it appeared to have been a receipt, such as was usually granted by the excise to innkeepers for payment of the duties on spirits received into the town from a distance, and which served as a permit entitling the holder to put the article into his cellars. The upper part of the receipt containing the name of the party to whom it was granted was burnt, but the lower part was preserved, containing the signature of the excise officer, and the date of the permit: it was the 16th March of the same year, From these materials it was easy to ascertain what innkeeper in the town had, on that day, received such a permit for spirits. From an examination of the excise register, it appeared that on that day Nicholas D- had received and paid the duties on several ankers of Geneva. Taken by itself, this would have afforded but slender evidence that he had been the person who had used the paper for a match, and had dropped it within Madame Andrecht's room; but, taken in connexion with the finding of the handkerchief, and the suspicious history of his nocturnal rambles which preceded it, it strengthened in a high degree the suspicions against the ex-dragoon. After a short consultation, orders were issued for his apprehension. Surprise, it was thought, would pro bably extort from him an immediate (her apprehension having taken place confession. His wife, his father-a on a Thursday), she had brushed out man advanced in years-and his the press from top to bottom-had brother, a shoemaker's apprentice, cleared out the contents, and nothing were apprehended at the same time. of the kind was then to be found there. A minute search of the house of the innkeeper followed; but none of the stolen articles were at first discovered, and indeed nothing that could excite suspicion, except a larger amount of money than might perhaps have been expected. At last, as the search was on the point of being given up, there was found in one of the drawers a memorandum-book. This was one of the articles mentioned in the list of Madame Andrecht's effects; and, on inspection, there could be no doubt that this was the one referred to-for several pages bore private markings in her own handwriting, and in a side-pocket were found two letters bearing her address. Beyond this, none of the missing articles could be traced in the house. The persons apprehended were severally examined. Nicholas Danswered every question with the utmost frankness and unconcern. He admitted the truth of the woolspinner's story of his courtship, his nightly scrambles over the hedge, and his subsequent visits to his intended by means of the forage-boat. The handkerchief he admitted to be his property. When and where he had lost it he could not say. It had disappeared about six months before, and he had thought no more about it. When the pocket-book which had been found was laid before him, he gave it back without embarrassment, declared he knew nothing of it, had never had it in his possession, and shook his head with a look of surprise and incredulity when told where it had been found. The other members of his household appeared equally unembarrassed: they expressed even greater astonishment than he had done, that the pocket-book, with which they declared themselves entirely unacquainted, should have been found in the place where it was. The young wife burst out into passionate exclamations: she protested it was impossible; or if the book was really found on the spot, that it was inexplicable to her how it came there. The Saturday before, The behaviour of the married pair and their inmates made, on the whole, a favourable impression on the judge who conducted the inquiry. Their calmness appeared to him the result of innocence; their character was good; their house was orderly and quiet, and none of the articles of value had been discovered in their possession. True, they might have disposed of them elsewhere; but the articles were numerous, and of a kind likely to lead to detection. Why should they have preserved the comparatively worthless article found in the drawer, instead of burning or destroying it? Why, above all, preserve it in a spot so likely to be discovered, if they had so carefully made away with every trace of the rest? Still unquestionable suspicions rested on the landlord. The thieves must have been well acquainted with Madame Andrecht's house; and this was undeniably his position. His handkerchief, found on the spot about the time of the robbery; the half-burned match dropped on the premises; the pocketbook found in his own house-these, though not amounting to proof, scarcely seemed to admit of an explanation absolutely consistent with innocence. In this stage of the inquiry, a new witness entered upon the scene. A respectable citizen, a dealer in wood, voluntarily appeared before the authorities, and stated that his conscience would no longer allow him to conceal certain circumstances which appeared to bear upon the question, though, from an unwillingness to come forward or to appear as an informer against parties who might be innocent, he had hitherto suppressed any mention of them. Among his customers was the wellknown carpenter, Isaac Van C, who was generally considerably in arrears with his payments. These arrears increased: the wood-merchant became pressing at last he threatened judicial proceedings. This brought matters to a point. A few days before the discovery of the robbery at |