'Tention. By George Manville Fenn. (W. and R. Chambers' 5s.)—Mr.
Fenn has constructed this story with no little skill, giving it the dramatic unity which goes so far towards effectiveness. The two heroes, a private of gentle birth who has enlisted for some family reasons and a bugle boy, are separated from their comrades during one of the Peninsular campaigns. Their efforts to escape the notice of the French, who are close at hand, and their adventures generally, wish ti.e Spanish peasants especially, are admirably told. They bear everything with patience and courage, nor does the endurance go without reward. They come in the end under the notice of the great man himself. No one can fail to recognise the officer with the aquiline nose, and ho finds that their observations put him into possession of some very valuable information.—A Heroine of France, by Evelyn Everett-Green (T. Nelson and Sons, 28. 6d.), takes us back to the days of Joan Dare—the spelling "d'Are" is surely wrong—and we have her story told from the lips of a young French squire, knighted in the course of the story. We have the chief scenes of her career pictured for us,—the curious recognition of the Dauphin, for instance. Miss Everett-Green has a gift for realising, and making her readers realise, bygone times, and this volume is a good specimen of her power.—Roger the Bold, by Captain Brereton (Blackie and Son, Os.), tells an old story from a new point of view. Roger is an Englishman who somehow is brought to make common cause with the Aztecs when they are striving to resist the Spaniards under Cortes. It seems at one time that his lot is to bo a very different one, for he is doomed to play the part of a victim rather than of an ally, or even commander. It must be allowed that all this is very strange ; but the readers of these books do not much trouble themselves about probabilities. Of course, the story ends as it should; Roger gets home with substantial results of his enterprise— there is a by-plot of a treasure—but could not his escape have been made more picturesque if it had been connected with the temporary retreat of the Spaniards from Mexico City, with La Noche Triste, and the great scene of " Alvarado's Leap "? But, after all, it is Captain Brereton's business, not ours, to construct plots.— With Gordon at Khartum. By Eliza Pollard. (Same publishers. 2s. 6d.)—This story would have been the better for more concentration. We have to accept the necessity of some scenes in England by way of introduction, but the massacre at Alexandria and the doings of Arabi might have been retrenched. Nor are the pages given to the fortunes of Ayesha relevant. It is true that Arabi was in the chain of sensations which had an end in the fall of Khartum. Still, when we are promised a story about " Gordon at Khartum" we are inclined to complain of being kept so long away. There are two hundred and forty-eight pages in the book, and Gordon makes a first appearance on p. 104. The situation at Khartum was such that no story-writer could desire a better subject; nor is it the less desirable because the uncertainty that surrounds the hero's death gives the writer a free hand. We cannot express ourselves as satisfied with Miss Pollard's use of the opportunity.—Two stories of adventure, on the familiar lines of treasure-hunting, are The Golden Astrolabe, by W. A. Bryce and H. de Vere Stacpoole (Wells Gardner, Dalton, and Co., 3s. 6d.), and The Lost Treasure Cave, by Everett McNeill (W. and R. Chambers, 5s.) The first of these has at least a link with history, for the treasure sought for by the two boys of Kiloowan—a place not to be found on the map, but lying between Loch Nevis and Ardnamurchan Point—was brought thither by a wandering ship of the Spanish Armada. These young gentlemen encounter more perils than one would suppose likely in the Inner Hebrides, a French pirate among them ; but hunters for treasure must not expect the course of things to keep on ordinary lines. The lines of The Lost Treasure Cave are certainly anything but ordinary. The scene is laid in Colorado. It is natural that we should meet cowboys there, and we meet them; nor is the comic nigger a surprise ; but we are not prepared for a "chamber hung round with skeletons wearing their crowns of gold " and " staring contemptuously at the men of another race" who are seeking to rob them of their treasure. This is, we take it, quite a new departure for Colorado. We shall not say whether the young Highlanders or the Western hunters who are seeking this peculiar game succeed or no.
Those who choose to satisfy themselves will find some exciting reading.
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