Another relief expedition from the _Tocsin_ met with scarcely more brilliant success. Beppe and Meneghino set out under the guidance of old M'Dermott, on tramp to Cardiff, whence they hoped to work their way out to the insurgent island. They, too, set out full of brave hopes and generous enthusiasm, but with too confident a trust in the beneficence of Providence as caterer to their material needs on the journey. Before a fortnight had elapsed, they also were back at the office, Beppe bearing the poor old Irishman on his shoulders in a quite crippled and exhausted condition. He had to be put to bed, and remained there several weeks, before he was in a fit state to get about again. They all complained bitterly of the inhospitality of the country-folk to whom they had appealed for help, and of the uncourteous reception they had met with in the Cardiff docks. Poor Meneghino reached London barefooted, his faithful canvas bag hanging disconsolately over his shoulder--and all with woefully vacant stomachs. They formed a comically dismal group as they collapsed into the office in an exhausted heap. * * * * * Amid these many strange and dubious, ludicrous or pathetic characters, some few heroic figures appeared. From time to time there came into our midst Vera Marcel, the Red Virgin of the barricades, the heroine of the Commune of Paris--a woman of blood and smoke and of infinite mercies towards men and beasts. I can see her still, almost beautiful in her rugged ugliness, her eyes full of the fire of faith and insane fanaticism, her hair dishevelled, her clothes uncared for. I can hear the wonderful ring of her tragic voice as she pleaded the misery of the poor and suffering, of the oppressed, the outcast, the criminal, the rejected, and as it rose higher and higher to invoke fire and sword and bloodshed in expiation. Then I seem to hear its magic and inspired ring as her wonderful faith conjured up visions of the future when the whole of humanity shall live in peace and brotherhood, and the knife, which in time of revolution had shed the blood of the oppressors, shall "cut nothing deadlier than bread." A strange gaunt figure she was, a woman who had never hesitated at shedding blood in the good Cause, nor feared to face death for it; but with her friends, and especially with children and dumb animals, she was as gentle as the gentlest of her sex; and no words can describe the extreme sweetness of her voice.