their natural high spirits reasserted themselves; it was time to refill the great brass petrol reservoirs which are hung symmetri· cally above the car on either side. Debrabant swung himself into the rigging, and, after emptying tin after tin of petrol, se himself astride the reservoir with arms crossed and a broad grin on his face, as contented as if one leg were not dangling over 2000 feet of space.

We had long ago become accustomed to the roar of the motors, and a feeling of drowsiness, only kept off by the sudden changes from light to shade as we zigzagged against the wind, began to steal over me. The destroyer had long been out of sight, and we were beginning to think that it was time that we should see something more than sea and sky; some of us had a secret apprehension that the mysterious wind which could sweep us from our course without visible sign might be carrying us towards the Atlantic. I glanced up at the fat yellow sides of the gas-bag, brilliant in the sunlight, and thought for a second of what would happen if a propeller broke and ripped them open, precipitating us down headlong to the fate of the victims of the République. But the thought was soon forgotten. Suddenly Capazza turned and announced a sail in sight—a small schooner, a fishing boat, with her mainsails set and tacking to and fro across our course. Through the glasses we could see her crew gazing up in astonishment at our sudden apparition, and waving to our mechanics, who were not slow to reply.

It was at 1.10 P.M. that we sighted what seemed to be the white cliffs of England, though the glasses soon showed that it was a bank of clouds probably miles inland. But the clouds told certainly of land, and showed that we had covered at least half of our eighty miles of sea. It was not till half an hour later that land was really sighted. As I watched the bank of mist and rolling clouds ahead through my glasses, I suddenly saw a long white form like the back of a phantom whale loom up through the haze; just as the image on a photographic plate comes up under the developer, so the white ridge slowly grew longer and more definite until suddenly all the details of the coast leapt into view. The cliffs from Selsey Bill to Beachy Head glimmered through a light haze, and the grey harbour with its lighthouse right ahead must be Newhaven. Our course had been almost perfect, and Capazza beat down the coast a mile or two so that we might pasз over the exact spot chosen at Rottingdean and marked by a

captive balloon. Leaning over the side, I watched our shadow glide over the waves until it touched the shore: it was 2.8 P.M., and we were above English ground.

Of our voyage across England there is little to be said. From above Brighton seemed curiously uniform with its crescents and rows of houses neatly arranged in arabesque patterns, We passed Horsham and Christ's Hospital; leaving Guildford on the right, our course passed over Godalming, and, though I knew the town well, I could scarcely identify it, for the hills were no more than shadows, and I had never seen the roofs of houses which from below were old familiar friends. There was no mistaking Charterhouse, however, as Founder's Tower rose up before us distorted and foreshortened like the shadow of itself.

Suddenly Capazza announced that the shed at Farnborough was in sight, a grey speck in a sea of green. We crossed a strangely straight violet-coloured ridge, and recognised the Hog's Back; from Aldershot a heliograph began to wink messages at us. At 3.28 Capazza switched on the siren, which drowned the roar of the motors, and with its shrill bellowing deafened every one on board, and we began our descent from 1500 feet.

Sleepy and inactive, I watched a scene of wild activity in our little world. Every man of the crew had his great clasp-knife open and stood waiting the word of command. Léon was foreing us down with the planes, while the centrifugal fans above, running at full blast, were driving pounds of air into the ballonets to increase our weight and take the place of the contracting hydrogen. In front of us a white sheet marked the place of landing, and the soldiers awaiting us were arranged round it in horseshoe fashion. Down we came, and at a height of about 300 feet Léon and Capazza left their wheels and cut the guideropes loose; with a whirr they unrolled and fell till they trailed along the ground. The men below failed to reach them, the wind carried us sideways beyond their reach, and it was necessary to rise again, since it is not safe to leave a dirigible under way only a few hundred feet from the ground. The knives flashed in the sunlight, cutting loose bag after bag of water-ballast, and as if by magic the earth fell away from beneath us. By this time, however, we had drifted a mile or so from the shed, and we had to beat back straight into the teeth of the wind, which had freshened to a velocity of some twenty miles an hour. Slowly, very slowly, we gained ground upon it. Capazza called for more

power from the motors, and with a cheerful smile and shrug of the shoulders the mechanics pushed over the levers, giving a thousand revolutions and over to their engines. The whole car shook and groaned under the strain. We were moving a little faster than the men who were running after the guide-ropes beneath us, and had almost reached the landing-place when the steering-wheel jammed, its chain slipping off the sprocket. Once again we drifted helplessly to leeward, until Léon with a tremendous effort forced the chain back into its place. All this time a pond on Cove Common had seemed to exercise an uncanny fascination on the airship, and Julliot shouted in my ear, I am sure, after escaping the sea, we are going to land right in the centre of that pond.' But our troubles were nearly over. Capazza had regained control, and a few minutes later a hundred men were hauling at the guide-ropes and pulling us gently to the earth. Our voyage was over.

H. WARNER ALLEN.

THE BARDON PAPERS AND MARY

QUEEN OF SCOTS.

COMMENTARIES have been written on the book of Job which only Job could have the patience to read. A hundred books have been written and many a song has been sung with the fortunes of Mary Stuart for their burden, but these have been redeemed from the dulness which has so often fallen upon even the stupendous drama of the Old Testament by the mystery and glamour which ever wait upon the Scottish Queen. Three whole centuries have passed away since she stood to her trial in Fotheringay Castle, yet Time, that covers most things with its weeds, has been powerless to impair the interest of her story.

The question whether she was an innocent martyr, or a traitress against Elizabeth whose inordinate wickedness had finally met its fitting end, is still left in the wind. Her lifethat scene of constant transformation until by a most violent solution of a dangerous problem the act-drop fell upon it makes continual appeal to the imagination.

Hence it comes to pass her name has been so much bandied about in books and journals. It has become familiar both in good and bad report. It has been bespattered with the foulest charges; it has been gilded with light by intemperate friends. To thousands of her countrymen, and to many of alien race, she will remain the victim of circumstance and of a jealous rival; for multitudes the figure which went to the block clad from head to foot in blood-red hue moves luridly through the past invested with the wickedness and witcheries of the Scarlet Woman.

Those who deny the authenticity of the Casket Letters will affirm their belief in Mary's ignorance of the Babington plot and in an unjust judgment based upon forgeries, whilst unfriendly critics will unhesitatingly maintain that the mind which could suffer a sick young husband to be blown up by gunpowder laid by a paramour's hand would not hesitate at the bloodiest removal of a woman standing in her way.

On few subjects is the feeling of the partizan more engaged; in the perplexities of the case speculative minds find a constant exercise for their ingenuity. So it happens that any available source of information pointing to guilt or confirming innocence has been eagerly sought after and ransacked.

With the lapse of so many years it would seem unlikely that any fresh evidence would accrue, but to one source, happily soon to be at the service of the public in a printed volume, we are able to turn for some new light.1

It is true that a few of the students nourished on the air of the British Museum Reading Room have been aware that since 1870 the Bardon Papers, under the title of the Egerton MS 2124, have lain within their reach. At a date even earlier than this their existence was not unknown, for Lingard, in bringing into relief the pressure put upon Nau and Curl to betray their mistress, quotes a significant menace from a letter in the collection sent by Cecil to Sir Christopher Hatton. In her Life of Queen Elizabeth,' Miss Strickland also refers to a bundle of manuscripts in the possession of Mr. W. Leigh.

But previously to the year 1836 they were not known to exist even by Mr. Leigh himself and the more immediate ancestors in whose possession they had unwittingly been lying from one generation to another. It is here we meet with a curious parallel between the fortunes of the Bardon Papers and the more famous collection known as the Paston Letters.

When Fenn first published the edition of the Paston correspondence, which he gave to the world with the King's approval and patronage, he presented to George III. three bound volumes of the original script. These were received by the Royal hand, only to disappear as by some act of legerdemain. A careful search, in which the Prince Consort shared, revealed no trace of them. They were not in the Royal library, they were not in any of the Royal palaces, nor had they been consigned to the keeping of the British Museum. Their fate was unknown and unaccountable.

And even with the finding of them the mystery of their disappearance remained. Lost to sight for a whole century, they were discovered at a country house in Suffolk amongst the heirlooms of Captain Pretyman, the well-known Member of Parliament. How they passed from Buckingham Palace to Orwell Park-whether they were mixed up with the books and papers belonging to Pitt, of which a large number are to be found in the Orwell library, or whether they made their mysterious migration through the agency of Dr. Pretyman (Bishop Tomline of

1 The Bardon Papers have now been published by the Royal Historical Society.