"Ay, Lajolais, but who would pardon _us_?" cried Fouché, carried beyond all the bounds of his prudence, by the thought of a danger so imminent. "Well, well, let us come back; the price--will that do?" And taking up a pen he scratched some figures on a piece of paper. Lajolais smiled dubiously, and added a unit to the left of the sum. "What! a hundred and fifty thousand francs!" cried Fouché. "And a cheap bargain, too," said the other; "for, after all, it is only the price of a ticket in the Lottery, of which the great prize is General Ney!" "You say truly," said the Minister; "be it so." "Write your name there, then," said Lajolais, "beneath those figures; that will be warranty sufficient for my negotiation, and leave the rest to me." "Nature evidently meant you for a _Chef-de-Police_, Master Lajolais." "Or a cardinal! Monsieur le Ministre," said the other, as he folded up the paper, a little insignificant slip, scrawled over with a few figures, and an almost illegible word; and yet pregnant with infamy to one, banishment to another, ruin and insanity to a third. This sad record need not be carried further. It is far from a pleasant task to tell of baseness unredeemed by one trait of virtue--of treachery, unrepented even by regret. History records Moreau's unhappy destiny--the pages of private memoir tell of Ney's disastrous connection; our own humble reminiscences speak of poor Mahon's fate, the least known of all, but the most sorrowful victim of a woman's treachery! (TO BE CONTINUED.) THE FLOATING ISLAND. A LEGEND OF LOCH DOCHART.