I felt so grateful to Agnes, and admired her so! I saw those two together, in a bright perspective, such well-associated friends, each adorning the other so much!

'What ought I to do then, Agnes?' I inquired, after looking at the fire a little while. 'What would it be right to do?'

'I think,' said Agnes, 'that the honourable course to take, would be to write to those two ladies. Don't you think that any secret course is an unworthy one?'

'Yes. If YOU think so,' said I.

'I am poorly qualified to judge of such matters,' replied Agnes, with a modest hesitation, 'but I certainly feel - in short, I feel that your being secret and clandestine, is not being like yourself.'

'Like myself, in the too high opinion you have of me, Agnes, I am afraid,' said I.

'Like yourself, in the candour of your nature,' she returned; 'and therefore I would write to those two ladies. I would relate, as plainly and as openly as possible, all that has taken place; and I would ask their permission to visit sometimes, at their house. Considering that you are young, and striving for a place in life, I think it would be well to say that you would readily abide by any conditions they might impose upon you. I would entreat them not to dismiss your request, without a reference to Dora; and to discuss it with her when they should think the time suitable. I would not be too vehement,' said Agnes, gently, 'or propose too much. I would trust to my fidelity and perseverance and to Dora.'

'But if they were to frighten Dora again, Agnes, by speaking to her,' said I. 'And if Dora were to cry, and say nothing about me!'

'Is that likely?' inquired Agnes, with the same sweet consideration in her face.

'God bless her, she is as easily scared as a bird,' said I. 'It might be! Or if the two Miss Spenlows (elderly ladies of that sort are odd characters sometimes) should not be likely persons to address in that way!'

'I don't think, Trotwood,' returned Agnes, raising her soft eyes to mine, 'I would consider that. Perhaps it would be better only to consider whether it is right to do this; and, if it is, to do it.'

I had no longer any doubt on the subject. With a lightened heart, though with a profound sense of the weighty importance of my task, I devoted the whole afternoon to the composition of the draft of this letter; for which great purpose, Agnes relinquished her desk to me. But first I went downstairs to see Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep.

I found Uriah in possession of a new, plaster-smelling office, built out in the garden; looking extraordinarily mean, in the midst of a quantity of books and papers. He received me in his usual fawning way, and pretended not to have heard of my arrival from Mr. Micawber; a pretence I took the liberty of disbelieving. He accompanied me into Mr. Wickfield's room, which was the shadow of its former self - having been divested of a variety of conveniences, for the accommodation of the new partner - and stood before the fire, warming his back, and shaving his chin with his bony hand, while Mr. Wickfield and I exchanged greetings.

'You stay with us, Trotwood, while you remain in Canterbury?' said Mr. Wickfield, not without a glance at Uriah for his approval.

'Is there room for me?' said I.

'I am sure, Master Copperfield - I should say Mister, but the other comes so natural,' said Uriah, -'I would turn out of your old room with pleasure, if it would be agreeable.'

'No, no,' said Mr. Wickfield. 'Why should you be inconvenienced? There's another room. There's another room.' 'Oh, but you know,' returned Uriah, with a grin, 'I should really be delighted!'

To cut the matter short, I said I would have the other room or none at all; so it was settled that I should have the other room; and, taking my leave of the firm until dinner, I went upstairs again.

I had hoped to have no other companion than Agnes. But Mrs. Heep had asked permission to bring herself and her knitting near the fire, in that room; on pretence of its having an aspect more favourable for her rheumatics, as the wind then was, than the drawing-room or dining-parlour. Though I could almost have consigned her to the mercies of the wind on the topmost pinnacle of the Cathedral, without remorse, I made a virtue of necessity, and gave her a friendly salutation.

'I'm umbly thankful to you, sir,' said Mrs. Heep, in acknowledgement of my inquiries concerning her health, 'but I'm only pretty well. I haven't much to boast of. If I could see my Uriah well settled in life, I couldn't expect much more I think. How do you think my Ury looking, sir?'

I thought him looking as villainous as ever, and I replied that I saw no change in him.

'Oh, don't you think he's changed?' said Mrs. Heep. 'There I must umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don't you see a thinness in him?'

'Not more than usual,' I replied.

'Don't you though!' said Mrs. Heep. 'But you don't take notice of him with a mother's eye!'

His mother's eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I thought as it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and I believe she and her son were devoted to one another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes.

'Don't YOU see a wasting and a wearing in him, Miss Wickfield?' inquired Mrs. Heep.

'No,' said Agnes, quietly pursuing the work on which she was engaged. 'You are too solicitous about him. He is very well.'

Mrs. Heep, with a prodigious sniff, resumed her knitting.

She never left off, or left us for a moment. I had arrived early in the day, and we had still three or four hours before dinner; but she sat there, plying her knitting-needles as monotonously as an hour-glass might have poured out its sands. She sat on one side of the fire; I sat at the desk in front of it; a little beyond me, on the other side, sat Agnes. Whensoever, slowly pondering over my letter, I lifted up my eyes, and meeting the thoughtful face of Agnes, saw it clear, and beam encouragement upon me, with its own angelic expression, I was conscious presently of the evil eye passing me, and going on to her, and coming back to me again, and dropping furtively upon the knitting. What the knitting was, I don't know, not being learned in that art; but it looked like a net; and as she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but getting ready for a cast of her net by and by.

At dinner she maintained her watch, with the same unwinking eyes. After dinner, her son took his turn; and when Mr. Wickfield, himself, and I were left alone together, leered at me, and writhed until I could hardly bear it. In the drawing-room, there was the mother knitting and watching again. All the time that Agnes sang and played, the mother sat at the piano. Once she asked for a particular ballad, which she said her Ury (who was yawning in a great chair) doted on; and at intervals she looked round at him, and reported to Agnes that he was in raptures with the music. But she hardly ever spoke - I question if she ever did - without making some mention of him. It was evident to me that this was the duty assigned to her.

This lasted until bedtime. To have seen the mother and son, like two great bats hanging over the whole house, and darkening it with their ugly forms, made me so uncomfortable, that I would rather have remained downstairs, knitting and all, than gone to bed. I hardly got any sleep. Next day the knitting and watching began again, and lasted all day.

I had not an opportunity of speaking to Agnes, for ten minutes. I could barely show her my letter. I proposed to her to walk out with me; but Mrs. Heep repeatedly complaining that she was worse, Agnes charitably remained within, to bear her company. Towards the twilight I went out by myself, musing on what I ought to do, and whether I was justified in withholding from Agnes, any longer, what Uriah Heep had told me in London; for that began to trouble me again, very much.

I had not walked out far enough to be quite clear of the town, upon the Ramsgate road, where there was a good path, when I was hailed, through the dust, by somebody behind me. The shambling figure, and the scanty great-coat, were not to be mistaken. I stopped, and Uriah Heep came up.

'Well?' said I.

'How fast you walk!' said he. 'My legs are pretty long, but you've given 'em quite a job.'

'Where are you going?' said I.

'I am going with you, Master Copperfield, if you'll allow me the pleasure of a walk with an old acquaintance.' Saying this, with a jerk of his body, which might have been either propitiatory or derisive, he fell into step beside me.

'Uriah!' said I, as civilly as I could, after a silence.

'Master Copperfield!' said Uriah.

'To tell you the truth (at which you will not be offended), I came Out to walk alone, because I have had so much company.'

He looked at me sideways, and said with his hardest grin, 'You mean mother.'

'Why yes, I do,' said I.

'Ah! But you know we're so very umble,' he returned. 'And having such a knowledge of our own umbleness, we must really take care that we're not pushed to the wall by them as isn't umble. All stratagems are fair in love, sir.'

Raising his great hands until they touched his chin, he rubbed them softly, and softly chuckled; looking as like a malevolent baboon, I thought, as anything human could look.

'You see,' he said, still hugging himself in that unpleasant way, and shaking his head at me, 'you're quite a dangerous rival, Master Copperfield. You always was, you know.'

'Do you set a watch upon Miss Wickfield, and make her home no home, because of me?' said I.

'Oh! Master Copperfield! Those are very arsh words,' he replied.

'Put my meaning into any words you like,' said I. 'You know what it is, Uriah, as well as I do.'

'Oh no! You must put it into words,' he said. 'Oh, really! I couldn't myself.'

'Do you suppose,' said I, constraining myself to be very temperate and quiet with him, on account of Agnes, 'that I regard Miss Wickfield otherwise than as a very dear sister?'

'Well, Master Copperfield,' he replied, 'you perceive I am not bound to answer that question. You may not, you know. But then, you see, you may!'

Anything to equal the low cunning of his visage, and of his shadowless eyes without the ghost of an eyelash, I never saw.

'Come then!' said I. 'For the sake of Miss Wickfield -'

'My Agnes!' he exclaimed, with a sickly, angular contortion of himself. 'Would you be so good as call her Agnes, Master Copperfield!'

'For the sake of Agnes Wickfield - Heaven bless her!'

'Thank you for that blessing, Master Copperfield!'he interposed.

'I will tell you what I should, under any other circumstances, as soon have thought of telling to - Jack Ketch.'

'To who, sir?' said Uriah, stretching out his neck, and shading his ear with his hand.

'To the hangman,' I returned. 'The most unlikely person I could think of,' though his own face had suggested the allusion quite as a natural sequence. 'I am engaged to another young lady. I hope that contents you.'

'Upon your soul?' said Uriah.

I was about indignantly to give my assertion the confirmation he required, when he caught hold of my hand, and gave it a squeeze.

'Oh, Master Copperfield!' he said. 'If you had only had the condescension to return my confidence when I poured out the fulness of my art, the night I put you so much out of the way by sleeping before your sitting-room fire, I never should have doubted you. As it is, I'm sure I'll take off mother directly, and only too appy. I know you'll excuse the precautions of affection, won't you? What a pity, Master Copperfield, that you didn't condescend to return my confidence! I'm sure I gave you every opportunity. But you never have condescended to me, as much as I could have wished. I know you have never liked me, as I have liked you!'

All this time he was squeezing my hand with his damp fishy fingers, while I made every effort I decently could to get it away. But I was quite unsuccessful. He drew it under the sleeve of his mulberry-coloured great-coat, and I walked on, almost upon compulsion, arm-in-arm with him.

'Shall we turn?' said Uriah, by and by wheeling me face about towards the town, on which the early moon was now shining, silvering the distant windows.

'Before we leave the subject, you ought to understand,' said I, breaking a pretty long silence, 'that I believe Agnes Wickfield to be as far above you, and as far removed from all your aspirations, as that moon herself!'

'Peaceful! Ain't she!' said Uriah. 'Very! Now confess, Master Copperfield, that you haven't liked me quite as I have liked you. All along you've thought me too umble now, I shouldn't wonder?'

'I am not fond of professions of humility,' I returned, 'or professions of anything else.' 'There now!' said Uriah, looking flabby and lead-coloured in the moonlight. 'Didn't I know it! But how little you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in my station, Master Copperfield! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness - not much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. "Be umble, Uriah," says father to me, "and you'll get on. It was what was always being dinned into you and me at school; it's what goes down best. Be umble," says father," and you'll do!" And really it ain't done bad!'

It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed.

'When I was quite a young boy,' said Uriah, 'I got to know what umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, "Hold hard!" When you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. "People like to be above you," says father, "keep yourself down." I am very umble to the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I've got a little power!'

And he said all this - I knew, as I saw his face in the moonlight - that I might understand he was resolved to recompense himself by using his power. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but I fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting, and revengeful spirit, must have been engendered by this early, and this long, suppression.

His account of himself was so far attended with an agreeable result, that it led to his withdrawing his hand in order that he might have another hug of himself under the chin. Once apart from him, I was determined to keep apart; and we walked back, side by side, saying very little more by the way. Whether his spirits were elevated by the communication I had made to him, or by his having indulged in this retrospect, I don't know; but they were raised by some influence. He talked more at dinner than was usual with him; asked his mother (off duty, from the moment of our re-entering the house) whether he was not growing too old for a bachelor; and once looked at Agnes so, that I would have given all I had, for leave to knock him down.

When we three males were left alone after dinner, he got into a more adventurous state. He had taken little or no wine; and I presume it was the mere insolence of triumph that was upon him, flushed perhaps by the temptation my presence furnished to its exhibition.

I had observed yesterday, that he tried to entice Mr. Wickfield to drink; and, interpreting the look which Agnes had given me as she went out, had limited myself to one glass, and then proposed that we should follow her. I would have done so again today; but Uriah was too quick for me.

'We seldom see our present visitor, sir,' he said, addressing Mr. Wickfield, sitting, such a contrast to him, at the end of the table, 'and I should propose to give him welcome in another glass or two of wine, if you have no objections. Mr. Copperfield, your elth and appiness!'

I was obliged to make a show of taking the hand he stretched across to me; and then, with very different emotions, I took the hand of the broken gentleman, his partner.

'Come, fellow-partner,' said Uriah, 'if I may take the liberty, - now, suppose you give us something or another appropriate to Copperfield!'

I pass over Mr. Wickfield's proposing my aunt, his proposing Mr. Dick, his proposing Doctors' Commons, his proposing Uriah, his drinking everything twice; his consciousness of his own weakness, the ineffectual effort that he made against it; the struggle between his shame in Uriah's deportment, and his desire to conciliate him; the manifest exultation with which Uriah twisted and turned, and held him up before me. It made me sick at heart to see, and my hand recoils from writing it.

'Come, fellow-partner!' said Uriah, at last, 'I'll give you another one, and I umbly ask for bumpers, seeing I intend to make it the divinest of her sex.'

Her father had his empty glass in his hand. I saw him set it down, look at the picture she was so like, put his hand to his forehead, and shrink back in his elbow-chair.

'I'm an umble individual to give you her elth,' proceeded Uriah, 'but I admire adore her.'

No physical pain that her father's grey head could have borne, I think, could have been more terrible to me, than the mental endurance I saw compressed now within both his hands.

'Agnes,' said Uriah, either not regarding him, or not knowing what the nature of his action was, 'Agnes Wickfield is, I am safe to say, the divinest of her sex. May I speak out, among friends? To be her father is a proud distinction, but to be her usband -'

Spare me from ever again hearing such a cry, as that with which her father rose up from the table! 'What's the matter?' said Uriah, turning of a deadly colour. 'You are not gone mad, after all, Mr. Wickfield, I hope? If I say I've an ambition to make your Agnes my Agnes, I have as good a right to it as another man. I have a better right to it than any other man!'

I had my arms round Mr. Wickfield, imploring him by everything that I could think of, oftenest of all by his love for Agnes, to calm himself a little. He was mad for the moment; tearing out his hair, beating his head, trying to force me from him, and to force himself from me, not answering a word, not looking at or seeing anyone; blindly striving for he knew not what, his face all staring and distorted - a frightful spectacle.

I conjured him, incoherently, but in the most impassioned manner, not to abandon himself to this wildness, but to hear me. I besought him to think of Agnes, to connect me with Agnes, to recollect how Agnes and I had grown up together, how I honoured her and loved her, how she was his pride and joy. I tried to bring her idea before him in any form; I even reproached him with not having firmness to spare her the knowledge of such a scene as this. I may have effected something, or his wildness may have spent itself; but by degrees he struggled less, and began to look at me - strangely at first, then with recognition in his eyes. At length he said, 'I know, Trotwood! My darling child and you - I know! But look at him!'

He pointed to Uriah, pale and glowering in a corner, evidently very much out in his calculations, and taken by surprise.

'Look at my torturer,' he replied. 'Before him I have step by step abandoned name and reputation, peace and quiet, house and home.'

'I have kept your name and reputation for you, and your peace and quiet, and your house and home too,' said Uriah, with a sulky, hurried, defeated air of compromise. 'Don't be foolish, Mr. Wickfield. If I have gone a little beyond what you were prepared for, I can go back, I suppose? There's no harm done.'

'I looked for single motives in everyone,' said Mr. Wickfield, and I was satisfied I had bound him to me by motives of interest. But see what he is oh, see what he is!'

'You had better stop him, Copperfield, if you can,' cried Uriah, with his long forefinger pointing towards me. 'He'll say something presently - mind you! he'll be sorry to have said afterwards, and you'll be sorry to have heard!'

'I'll say anything!' cried Mr. Wickfield, with a desperate air. 'Why should I not be in all the world's power if I am in yours?'

'Mind! I tell you!' said Uriah, continuing to warn me. 'If you don't stop his mouth, you're not his friend! Why shouldn't you be in all the world's power, Mr. Wickfield? Because you have got a daughter. You and me know what we know, don't we? Let sleeping dogs lie - who wants to rouse 'em? I don't. Can't you see I am as umble as I can be? I tell you, if I've gone too far, I'm sorry. What would you have, sir?'

'Oh, Trotwood, Trotwood!'exclaimed Mr. Wickfield, wringing his hands. 'What I have come down to be, since I first saw you in this house! I was on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary road I have traversed since! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remembrance, and indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child's mother turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. I have infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on what I dearly love, I know -you know! I thought it possible that I could truly love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the lessons of my life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!'

He dropped into a chair, and weakly sobbed. The excitement into which he had been roused was leaving him. Uriah came out of his corner.

'I don't know all I have done, in my fatuity,' said Mr. Wickfield, putting out his hands, as if to deprecate my condemnation. 'He knows best,' meaning Uriah Heep, 'for he has always been at my elbow, whispering me. You see the millstone that he is about my neck. You find him in my house, you find him in my business. You heard him, but a little time ago. What need have I to say more!'

'You haven't need to say so much, nor half so much, nor anything at all,' observed Uriah, half defiant, and half fawning. 'You wouldn't have took it up so, if it hadn't been for the wine. You'll think better of it tomorrow, sir. If I have said too much, or more than I meant, what of it? I haven't stood by it!'

The door opened, and Agnes, gliding in, without a vestige of colour in her face, put her arm round his neck, and steadily said, 'Papa, you are not well. Come with me!'

He laid his head upon her shoulder, as if he were oppressed with heavy shame, and went out with her. Her eyes met mine for but an instant, yet I saw how much she knew of what had passed.

'I didn't expect he'd cut up so rough, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah. 'But it's nothing. I'll be friends with him tomorrow. It's for his good. I'm umbly anxious for his good.'

I gave him no answer, and went upstairs into the quiet room where Agnes had so often sat beside me at my books. Nobody came near me until late at night. I took up a book, and tried to read. I heard the clocks strike twelve, and was still reading, without knowing what I read, when Agnes touched me.

'You will be going early in the morning, Trotwood! Let us say good-bye, now!'

She had been weeping, but her face then was so calm and beautiful!

'Heaven bless you!' she said, giving me her hand.

'Dearest Agnes!' I returned, 'I see you ask me not to speak of tonight - but is there nothing to be done?'

'There is God to trust in!' she replied.

'Can I do nothing- I, who come to you with my poor sorrows?'

'And make mine so much lighter,' she replied. 'Dear Trotwood, no!'

'Dear Agnes,' I said, 'it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor in all in which you are so rich - goodness, resolution, all noble qualities - to doubt or direct you; but you know how much I love you, and how much I owe you. You will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of duty, Agnes?'

More agitated for a moment than I had ever seen her, she took her hands from me, and moved a step back.

'Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes! Much more than sister! Think of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a love as yours!'

Oh! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before me, with its momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. Oh, long, long afterwards, I saw that look subside, as it did now, into the lovely smile, with which she told me she had no fear for herself - I need have none for her - and parted from me by the name of Brother, and was gone!

It was dark in the morning, when I got upon the coach at the inn door. The day was just breaking when we were about to start, and then, as I sat thinking of her, came struggling up the coach side, through the mingled day and night, Uriah's head.

'Copperfield!' said he, in a croaking whisper, as he hung by the iron on the roof, 'I thought you'd be glad to hear before you went off, that there are no squares broke between us. I've been into his room already, and we've made it all smooth. Why, though I'm umble, I'm useful to him, you know; and he understands his interest when he isn't in liquor! What an agreeable man he is, after all, Master Copperfield!'

I obliged myself to say that I was glad he had made his apology.

'Oh, to be sure!' said Uriah. 'When a person's umble, you know, what's an apology? So easy! I say! I suppose,' with a jerk, 'you have sometimes plucked a pear before it was ripe, Master Copperfield?'

'I suppose I have,' I replied.

'I did that last night,' said Uriah; 'but it'll ripen yet! It only wants attending to. I can wait!'

In the trouble of this state of mind - not exclusively my own, I hope, but known to others - I went down to Norwood that night; and finding from one of the servants, when I made my inquiries at the door, that Miss Mills was there, got my aunt to direct a letter to her, which I wrote. I deplored the untimely death of Mr. Spenlow, most sincerely, and shed tears in doing so. I entreated her to tell Dora, if Dora were in a state to hear it, that he had spoken to me with the utmost kindness and consideration; and had coupled nothing but tenderness, not a single or reproachful word, with her name. I know I did this selfishly, to have my name brought before her; but I tried to believe it was an act of justice to his memory. Perhaps I did believe it.

My aunt received a few lines next day in reply; addressed, outside, to her; within, to me. Dora was overcome by grief; and when her friend had asked her should she send her love to me, had only cried, as she was always crying, 'Oh, dear papa! oh, poor papa!' But she had not said No, and that I made the most of.

Mr. jorkins, who had been at Norwood since the occurrence, came to the office a few days afterwards. He and Tiffey were closeted together for some few moments, and then Tiffey looked out at the door and beckoned me in.

'Oh!' said Mr. jorkins. 'Mr. Tiffey and myself, Mr. Copperfield, are about to examine the desks, the drawers, and other such repositories of the deceased, with the view of sealing up his private papers, and searching for a Will. There is no trace of any, elsewhere. It may be as well for you to assist us, if you please.'

I had been in agony to obtain some knowledge of the circumstances in which my Dora would be placed - as, in whose guardianship, and so forth - and this was something towards it. We began the search at once; Mr. jorkins unlocking the drawers and desks, and we all taking out the papers. The office-papers we placed on one side, and the private papers (which were not numerous) on the other. We were very grave; and when we came to a stray seal, or pencil-case, or ring, or any little article of that kind which we associated personally with him, we spoke very low.

We had sealed up several packets; and were still going on dustily and quietly, when Mr. jorkins said to us, applying exactly the same words to his late partner as his late partner had applied to him:

'Mr. Spenlow was very difficult to move from the beaten track. You know what he was! I am disposed to think he had made no will.'

'Oh, I know he had!' said I.

They both stopped and looked at me. 'On the very day when I last saw him,' said I, 'he told me that he had, and that his affairs were long since settled.'

Mr. jorkins and old Tiffey shook their heads with one accord.

'That looks unpromising,' said Tiffey.

'Very unpromising,' said Mr. jorkins.

'Surely you don't doubt -' I began.

'My good Mr. Copperfield!' said Tiffey, laying his hand upon my arm, and shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head: 'if you had been in the Commons as long as I have, you would know that there is no subject on which men are so inconsistent, and so little to be trusted.'

'Why, bless my soul, he made that very remark!' I replied persistently.

'I should call that almost final,' observed Tiffey. 'My opinion is - no will.'

It appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out that there was no will. He had never so much as thought of making one, so far as his papers afforded any evidence; for there was no kind of hint, sketch, or memorandum, of any testamentary intention whatever. What was scarcely less astonishing to me, was, that his affairs were in a most disordered state. It was extremely difficult, I heard, to make out what he owed, or what he had paid, or of what he died possessed. It was considered likely that for years he could have had no clear opinion on these subjects himself. By little and little it came out, that, in the competition on all points of appearance and gentility then running high in the Commons, he had spent more than his professional income, which was not a very large one, and had reduced his private means, if they ever had been great (which was exceedingly doubtful), to a very low ebb indeed. There was a sale of the furniture and lease, at Norwood; and Tiffey told me, little thinking how interested I was in the story, that, paying all the just debts of the deceased, and deducting his share of outstanding bad and doubtful debts due to the firm, he wouldn't give a thousand pounds for all the assets remaining.

This was at the expiration of about six weeks. I had suffered tortures all the time; and thought I really must have laid violent hands upon myself, when Miss Mills still reported to me, that my broken-hearted little Dora would say nothing, when I was mentioned, but 'Oh, poor papa! Oh, dear papa!' Also, that she had no other relations than two aunts, maiden sisters of Mr. Spenlow, who lived at Putney, and who had not held any other than chance communication with their brother for many years. Not that they had ever quarrelled (Miss Mills informed me); but that having been, on the occasion of Dora's christening, invited to tea, when they considered themselves privileged to be invited to dinner, they had expressed their opinion in writing, that it was 'better for the happiness of all parties' that they should stay away. Since which they had gone their road, and their brother had gone his.

These two ladies now emerged from their retirement, and proposed to take Dora to live at Putney. Dora, clinging to them both, and weeping, exclaimed, 'O yes, aunts! Please take Julia Mills and me and Jip to Putney!' So they went, very soon after the funeral.

How I found time to haunt Putney, I am sure I don't know; but I contrived, by some means or other, to prowl about the neighbourhood pretty often. Miss Mills, for the more exact discharge of the duties of friendship, kept a journal; and she used to meet me sometimes, on the Common, and read it, or (if she had not time to do that) lend it to me. How I treasured up the entries, of which I subjoin a sample! -

'Monday. My sweet D. still much depressed. Headache. Called attention to J. as being beautifully sleek. D. fondled J. Associations thus awakened, opened floodgates of sorrow. Rush of grief admitted. (Are tears the dewdrops of the heart? J. M.)

'Tuesday. D. weak and nervous. Beautiful in pallor. (Do we not remark this in moon likewise? J. M.) D., J. M. and J. took airing in carriage. J. looking out of window, and barking violently at dustman, occasioned smile to overspread features of D. (Of such slight links is chain of life composed! J. M.)

'Wednesday. D. comparatively cheerful. Sang to her, as congenial melody, "Evening Bells". Effect not soothing, but reverse. D. inexpressibly affected. Found sobbing afterwards, in own room. Quoted verses respecting self and young Gazelle. Ineffectually. Also referred to Patience on Monument. (Qy. Why on monument? J. M.)

'Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night. Slight tinge of damask revisiting cheek. Resolved to mention name of D. C. Introduced same, cautiously, in course of airing. D. immediately overcome. "Oh, dear, dear Julia! Oh, I have been a naughty and undutiful child!" Soothed and caressed. Drew ideal picture of D. C. on verge of tomb. D. again overcome. "Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do? Oh, take me somewhere!" Much alarmed. Fainting of D. and glass of water from public-house. (Poetical affinity. Chequered sign on door-post; chequered human life. Alas! J. M.)

'Friday. Day of incident. Man appears in kitchen, with blue bag, "for lady's boots left out to heel". Cook replies, "No such orders." Man argues point. Cook withdraws to inquire, leaving man alone with J. On Cook's return, man still argues point, but ultimately goes. J. missing. D. distracted. Information sent to police. Man to be identified by broad nose, and legs like balustrades of bridge. Search made in every direction. No J. D. weeping bitterly, and inconsolable. Renewed reference to young Gazelle. Appropriate, but unavailing. Towards evening, strange boy calls. Brought into parlour. Broad nose, but no balustrades. Says he wants a pound, and knows a dog. Declines to explain further, though much pressed. Pound being produced by D. takes Cook to little house, where J. alone tied up to leg of table. joy of D. who dances round J. while he eats his supper. Emboldened by this happy change, mention D. C. upstairs. D. weeps afresh, cries piteously, "Oh, don't, don't, don't! It is so wicked to think of anything but poor papa!" - embraces J. and sobs herself to sleep. (Must not D. C. confine himself to the broad pinions of Time? J. M.)'

Miss Mills and her journal were my sole consolation at this period. To see her, who had seen Dora but a little while before - to trace the initial letter of Dora's name through her sympathetic pages - to be made more and more miserable by her - were my only comforts. I felt as if I had been living in a palace of cards, which had tumbled down, leaving only Miss Mills and me among the ruins; I felt as if some grim enchanter had drawn a magic circle round the innocent goddess of my heart, which nothing indeed but those same strong pinions, capable of carrying so many people over so much, would enable me to enter!

CHAPTER 39 WICKFIELD AND HEEP

My aunt, beginning, I imagine, to be made seriously uncomfortable by my prolonged dejection, made a pretence of being anxious that I should go to Dover, to see that all was working well at the cottage, which was let; and to conclude an agreement, with the same tenant, for a longer term of occupation. Janet was drafted into the service of Mrs. Strong, where I saw her every day. She had been undecided, on leaving Dover, whether or no to give the finishing touch to that renunciation of mankind in which she had been educated, by marrying a pilot; but she decided against that venture. Not so much for the sake of principle, I believe, as because she happened not to like him.

Although it required an effort to leave Miss Mills, I fell rather willingly into my aunt's pretence, as a means of enabling me to pass a few tranquil hours with Agnes. I consulted the good Doctor relative to an absence of three days; and the Doctor wishing me to take that relaxation, - he wished me to take more; but my energy could not bear that, - I made up my mind to go.

As to the Commons, I had no great occasion to be particular about my duties in that quarter. To say the truth, we were getting in no very good odour among the tip-top proctors, and were rapidly sliding down to but a doubtful position. The business had been indifferent under Mr. jorkins, before Mr. Spenlow's time; and although it had been quickened by the infusion of new blood, and by the display which Mr. Spenlow made, still it was not established on a sufficiently strong basis to bear, without being shaken, such a blow as the sudden loss of its active manager. It fell off very much. Mr. jorkins, notwithstanding his reputation in the firm, was an easy-going, incapable sort of man, whose reputation out of doors was not calculated to back it up. I was turned over to him now, and when I saw him take his snuff and let the business go, I regretted my aunt's thousand pounds more than ever.

But this was not the worst of it. There were a number of hangers-on and outsiders about the Commons, who, without being proctors themselves, dabbled in common-form business, and got it done by real proctors, who lent their names in consideration of a share in the spoil; - and there were a good many of these too. As our house now wanted business on any terms, we joined this noble band; and threw out lures to the hangers-on and outsiders, to bring their business to us. Marriage licences and small probates were what we all looked for, and what paid us best; and the competition for these ran very high indeed. Kidnappers and inveiglers were planted in all the avenues of entrance to the Commons, with instructions to do their utmost to cut off all persons in mourning, and all gentlemen with anything bashful in their appearance, and entice them to the offices in which their respective employers were interested; which instructions were so well observed, that I myself, before I was known by sight, was twice hustled into the premises of our principal opponent. The conflicting interests of these touting gentlemen being of a nature to irritate their feelings, personal collisions took place; and the Commons was even scandalized by our principal inveigler (who had formerly been in the wine trade, and afterwards in the sworn brokery line) walking about for some days with a black eye. Any one of these scouts used to think nothing of politely assisting an old lady in black out of a vehicle, killing any proctor whom she inquired for, representing his employer as the lawful successor and representative of that proctor, and bearing the old lady off (sometimes greatly affected) to his employer's office. Many captives were brought to me in this way. As to marriage licences, the competition rose to such a pitch, that a shy gentleman in want of one, had nothing to do but submit himself to the first inveigler, or be fought for, and become the prey of the strongest. One of our clerks, who was an outsider, used, in the height of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. The system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day. The last time I was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word 'Marriage-licence' in my ear, was with great difficulty prevented from taking me up in his arms and lifting me into a proctor's. From this digression, let me proceed to Dover.

I found everything in a satisfactory state at the cottage; and was enabled to gratify my aunt exceedingly by reporting that the tenant inherited her feud, and waged incessant war against donkeys. Having settled the little business I had to transact there, and slept there one night, I walked on to Canterbury early in the morning. It was now winter again; and the fresh, cold windy day, and the sweeping downland, brightened up my hopes a little.

Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through the old streets with a sober pleasure that calmed my spirits, and eased my heart. There were the old signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. It appeared so long, since I had been a schoolboy there, that I wondered the place was so little changed, until I reflected how little I was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet influence which was inseparable in my mind from Agnes, seemed to pervade even the city where she dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done; the battered gateways, one stuck full with statues, long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses, the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere - on everything - I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit.

Arrived at Mr. Wickfield's house, I found, in the little lower room on the ground floor, where Uriah Heep had been of old accustomed to sit, Mr. Micawber plying his pen with great assiduity. He was dressed in a legal-looking suit of black, and loomed, burly and large, in that small office.

Mr. Micawber was extremely glad to see me, but a little confused too. He would have conducted me immediately into the presence of Uriah, but I declined.

'I know the house of old, you recollect,' said I, 'and will find my way upstairs. How do you like the law, Mr. Micawber?'

'My dear Copperfield,' he replied. 'To a man possessed of the higher imaginative powers, the objection to legal studies is the amount of detail which they involve. Even in our professional correspondence,' said Mr. Micawber, glancing at some letters he was writing, 'the mind is not at liberty to soar to any exalted form of expression. Still, it is a great pursuit. A great pursuit!'

He then told me that he had become the tenant of Uriah Heep's old house; and that Mrs. Micawber would be delighted to receive me, once more, under her own roof.

'It is humble,' said Mr. Micawber, '- to quote a favourite expression of my friend Heep; but it may prove the stepping-stone to more ambitious domiciliary accommodation.'

I asked him whether he had reason, so far, to be satisfied with his friend Heep's treatment of him? He got up to ascertain if the door were close shut, before he replied, in a lower voice:

'My dear Copperfield, a man who labours under the pressure of pecuniary embarrassments, is, with the generality of people, at a disadvantage. That disadvantage is not diminished, when that pressure necessitates the drawing of stipendiary emoluments, before those emoluments are strictly due and payable. All I can say is, that my friend Heep has responded to appeals to which I need not more particularly refer, in a manner calculated to redound equally to the honour of his head, and of his heart.'

'I should not have supposed him to be very free with his money either,' I observed.

'Pardon me!' said Mr. Micawber, with an air of constraint, 'I speak of my friend Heep as I have experience.'

'I am glad your experience is so favourable,' I returned.

'You are very obliging, my dear Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber; and hummed a tune.

'Do you see much of Mr. Wickfield?' I asked, to change the subject.

'Not much,' said Mr. Micawber, slightingly. 'Mr. Wickfield is, I dare say, a man of very excellent intentions; but he is - in short, he is obsolete.'

'I am afraid his partner seeks to make him so,' said I.

'My dear Copperfield!' returned Mr. Micawber, after some uneasy evolutions on his stool, 'allow me to offer a remark! I am here, in a capacity of confidence. I am here, in a position of trust. The discussion of some topics, even with Mrs. Micawber herself (so long the partner of my various vicissitudes, and a woman of a remarkable lucidity of intellect), is, I am led to consider, incompatible with the functions now devolving on me. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in our friendly intercourse - which I trust will never be disturbed! - we draw a line. On one side of this line,' said Mr. Micawber, representing it on the desk with the office ruler, 'is the whole range of the human intellect, with a trifling exception; on the other, IS that exception; that is to say, the affairs of Messrs Wickfield and Heep, with all belonging and appertaining thereunto. I trust I give no offence to the companion of my youth, in submitting this proposition to his cooler judgement?'

Though I saw an uneasy change in Mr. Micawber, which sat tightly on him, as if his new duties were a misfit, I felt I had no right to be offended. My telling him so, appeared to relieve him; and he shook hands with me.

'I am charmed, Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'let me assure you, with Miss Wickfield. She is a very superior young lady, of very remarkable attractions, graces, and virtues. Upon my honour,' said Mr. Micawber, indefinitely kissing his hand and bowing with his genteelest air, 'I do Homage to Miss Wickfield! Hem!' 'I am glad of that, at least,' said I.

'If you had not assured us, my dear Copperfield, on the occasion of that agreeable afternoon we had the happiness of passing with you, that D. was your favourite letter,' said Mr. Micawber, 'I should unquestionably have supposed that A. had been so.'

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances - of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it! I never had this mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than before he uttered those words.

I took my leave of Mr. Micawber, for the time, charging him with my best remembrances to all at home. As I left him, resuming his stool and his pen, and rolling his head in his stock, to get it into easier writing order, I clearly perceived that there was something interposed between him and me, since he had come into his new functions, which prevented our getting at each other as we used to do, and quite altered the character of our intercourse.

There was no one in the quaint old drawing-room, though it presented tokens of Mrs. Heep's whereabouts. I looked into the room still belonging to Agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty old-fashioned desk she had, writing.

My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the cause of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that sweet regard and welcome!

'Ah, Agnes!' said I, when we were sitting together, side by side; 'I have missed you so much, lately!'

'Indeed?' she replied. 'Again! And so soon?'

I shook my head.

'I don't know how it is, Agnes; I seem to want some faculty of mind that I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking for me, in the happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you for counsel and support, that I really think I have missed acquiring it.'

'And what is it?' said Agnes, cheerfully.

'I don't know what to call it,' I replied. 'I think I am earnest and persevering?'

'I am sure of it,' said Agnes.

'And patient, Agnes?' I inquired, with a little hesitation.

'Yes,' returned Agnes, laughing. 'Pretty well.'

'And yet,' said I, 'I get so miserable and worried, and am so unsteady and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know I must want - shall I call it - reliance, of some kind?'

'Call it so, if you will,' said Agnes.

'Well!' I returned. 'See here! You come to London, I rely on you, and I have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, I come here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The circumstances that distressed me are not changed, since I came into this room; but an influence comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how much for the better! What is it? What is your secret, Agnes?'

Her head was bent down, looking at the fire.

'It's the old story,' said I. 'Don't laugh, when I say it was always the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old troubles were nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever I have gone away from my adopted sister -'

Agnes looked up - with such a Heavenly face! - and gave me her hand, which I kissed.

'Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of difficulty. When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done), I have come to peace and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest!'

I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and broke into tears. I write the truth. Whatever contradictions and inconsistencies there were within me, as there are within so many of us; whatever might have been so different, and so much better; whatever I had done, in which I had perversely wandered away from the voice of my own heart; I knew nothing of. I only knew that I was fervently in earnest, when I felt the rest and peace of having Agnes near me.

In her placid sisterly manner; with her beaming eyes; with her tender voice; and with that sweet composure, which had long ago made the house that held her quite a sacred place to me; she soon won me from this weakness, and led me on to tell all that had happened since our last meeting.

'And there is not another word to tell, Agnes,' said I, when I had made an end of my confidence. 'Now, my reliance is on you.'

'But it must not be on me, Trotwood,' returned Agnes, with a pleasant smile. 'It must be on someone else.'

'On Dora?' said I.

'Assuredly.'

'Why, I have not mentioned, Agnes,' said I, a little embarrassed, 'that Dora is rather difficult to - I would not, for the world, say, to rely upon, because she is the soul of purity and truth - but rather difficult to - I hardly know how to express it, really, Agnes. She is a timid little thing, and easily disturbed and frightened. Some time ago, before her father's death, when I thought it right to mention to her - but I'll tell you, if you will bear with me, how it was.'

Accordingly, I told Agnes about my declaration of poverty, about the cookery book, the housekeeping accounts, and all the rest of it.

'My own! May I mention something?'

'Oh, please don't be practical!' said Dora, coaxingly. 'Because it frightens me so!'

'Sweetheart!' I returned; 'there is nothing to alarm you in all this. I want you to think of it quite differently. I want to make it nerve you, and inspire you, Dora!'

'Oh, but that's so shocking!' cried Dora.

'My love, no. Perseverance and strength of character will enable us to bear much worse things.' 'But I haven't got any strength at all,' said Dora, shaking her curls. 'Have I, Jip? Oh, do kiss Jip, and be agreeable!'

It was impossible to resist kissing Jip, when she held him up to me for that purpose, putting her own bright, rosy little mouth into kissing form, as she directed the operation, which she insisted should be performed symmetrically, on the centre of his nose. I did as she bade me - rewarding myself afterwards for my obedience - and she charmed me out of my graver character for I don't know how long.

'But, Dora, my beloved!' said I, at last resuming it; 'I was going to mention something.'

The judge of the Prerogative Court might have fallen in love with her, to see her fold her little hands and hold them up, begging and praying me not to be dreadful any more.

'Indeed I am not going to be, my darling!' I assured her. 'But, Dora, my love, if you will sometimes think, - not despondingly, you know; far from that! - but if you will sometimes think - just to encourage yourself - that you are engaged to a poor man -'

'Don't, don't! Pray don't!' cried Dora. 'It's so very dreadful!'

'My soul, not at all!' said I, cheerfully. 'If you will sometimes think of that, and look about now and then at your papa's housekeeping, and endeavour to acquire a little habit - of accounts, for instance -'

Poor little Dora received this suggestion with something that was half a sob and half a scream.

'- It would be so useful to us afterwards,' I went on. 'And if you would promise me to read a little - a little Cookery Book that I would send you, it would be so excellent for both of us. For our path in life, my Dora,' said I, warming with the subject, 'is stony and rugged now, and it rests with us to smooth it. We must fight our way onward. We must be brave. There are obstacles to be met, and we must meet, and crush them!'

I was going on at a great rate, with a clenched hand, and a most enthusiastic countenance; but it was quite unnecessary to proceed. I had said enough. I had done it again. Oh, she was so frightened! Oh, where was Julia Mills! Oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please! So that, in short, I was quite distracted, and raved about the drawing-room.

I thought I had killed her, this time. I sprinkled water on her face. I went down on my knees. I plucked at my hair. I denounced myself as a remorseless brute and a ruthless beast. I implored her forgiveness. I besought her to look up. I ravaged Miss Mills's work-box for a smelling-bottle, and in my agony of mind applied an ivory needle-case instead, and dropped all the needles over Dora. I shook my fists at Jip, who was as frantic as myself. I did every wild extravagance that could be done, and was a long way beyond the end of my wits when Miss Mills came into the room.

'Who has done this?' exclaimed Miss Mills, succouring her friend.

I replied, 'I, Miss Mills! I have done it! Behold the destroyer!' - or words to that effect - and hid my face from the light, in the sofa cushion.

At first Miss Mills thought it was a quarrel, and that we were verging on the Desert of Sahara; but she soon found out how matters stood, for my dear affectionate little Dora, embracing her, began exclaiming that I was 'a poor labourer'; and then cried for me, and embraced me, and asked me would I let her give me all her money to keep, and then fell on Miss Mills's neck, sobbing as if her tender heart were broken.

Miss Mills must have been born to be a blessing to us. She ascertained from me in a few words what it was all about, comforted Dora, and gradually convinced her that I was not a labourer - from my manner of stating the case I believe Dora concluded that I was a navigator, and went balancing myself up and down a plank all day with a wheelbarrow - and so brought us together in peace. When we were quite composed, and Dora had gone up-stairs to put some rose-water to her eyes, Miss Mills rang for tea. In the ensuing interval, I told Miss Mills that she was evermore my friend, and that my heart must cease to vibrate ere I could forget her sympathy.

I then expounded to Miss Mills what I had endeavoured, so very unsuccessfully, to expound to Dora. Miss Mills replied, on general principles, that the Cottage of content was better than the Palace of cold splendour, and that where love was, all was.

I said to Miss Mills that this was very true, and who should know it better than I, who loved Dora with a love that never mortal had experienced yet? But on Miss Mills observing, with despondency, that it were well indeed for some hearts if this were so, I explained that I begged leave to restrict the observation to mortals of the masculine gender.

I then put it to Miss Mills, to say whether she considered that there was or was not any practical merit in the suggestion I had been anxious to make, concerning the accounts, the housekeeping, and the Cookery Book?

Miss Mills, after some consideration, thus replied:

'Mr. Copperfield, I will be plain with you. Mental suffering and trial supply, in some natures, the place of years, and I will be as plain with you as if I were a Lady Abbess. No. The suggestion is not appropriate to our Dora. Our dearest Dora is a favourite child of nature. She is a thing of light, and airiness, and joy. I am free to confess that if it could be done, it might be well, but -' And Miss Mills shook her head.

I was encouraged by this closing admission on the part of Miss Mills to ask her, whether, for Dora's sake, if she had any opportunity of luring her attention to such preparations for an earnest life, she would avail herself of it? Miss Mills replied in the affirmative so readily, that I further asked her if she would take charge of the Cookery Book; and, if she ever could insinuate it upon Dora's acceptance, without frightening her, undertake to do me that crowning service. Miss Mills accepted this trust, too; but was not sanguine.

And Dora returned, looking such a lovely little creature, that I really doubted whether she ought to be troubled with anything so ordinary. And she loved me so much, and was so captivating (particularly when she made Jip stand on his hind legs for toast, and when she pretended to hold that nose of his against the hot teapot for punishment because he wouldn't), that I felt like a sort of Monster who had got into a Fairy's bower, when I thought of having frightened her, and made her cry.

After tea we had the guitar; and Dora sang those same dear old French songs about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving off dancing, La ra la, La ra la, until I felt a much greater Monster than before.

We had only one check to our pleasure, and that happened a little while before I took my leave, when, Miss Mills chancing to make some allusion to tomorrow morning, I unluckily let out that, being obliged to exert myself now, I got up at five o'clock. Whether Dora had any idea that I was a Private Watchman, I am unable to say; but it made a great impression on her, and she neither played nor sang any more.

It was still on her mind when I bade her adieu; and she said to me, in her pretty coaxing way - as if I were a doll, I used to think:

'Now don't get up at five o'clock, you naughty boy. It's so nonsensical!'

'My love,' said I, 'I have work to do.'

'But don't do it!' returned Dora. 'Why should you?'

It was impossible to say to that sweet little surprised face, otherwise than lightly and playfully, that we must work to live.

'Oh! How ridiculous!' cried Dora.

'How shall we live without, Dora?' said I.

'How? Any how!' said Dora.

She seemed to think she had quite settled the question, and gave me such a triumphant little kiss, direct from her innocent heart, that I would hardly have put her out of conceit with her answer, for a fortune.

Well! I loved her, and I went on loving her, most absorbingly, entirely, and completely. But going on, too, working pretty hard, and busily keeping red-hot all the irons I now had in the fire, I would sit sometimes of a night, opposite my aunt, thinking how I had frightened Dora that time, and how I could best make my way with a guitar-case through the forest of difficulty, until I used to fancy that my head was turning quite grey.

CHAPTER 38 A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP

I did not allow my resolution, with respect to the Parliamentary Debates, to cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat immediately, and one of the irons I kept hot, and hammered at, with a perseverance I may honestly admire. I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography (which cost me ten and sixpence); and plunged into a sea of perplexity that brought me, in a few weeks, to the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else, entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep. When I had groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties, and had mastered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian Temple in itself, there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters; the most despotic characters I have ever known; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a cobweb, meant expectation, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket, stood for disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, I found that they had driven everything else out of it; then, beginning again, I forgot them; while I was picking them up, I dropped the other fragments of the system; in short, it was almost heart breaking.

It might have been quite heart-breaking, but for Dora, who was the stay and anchor of my tempest-driven bark. Every scratch in the scheme was a gnarled oak in the forest of difficulty, and I went on cutting them down, one after another, with such vigour, that in three or four months I was in a condition to make an experiment on one of our crack speakers in the Commons. Shall I ever forget how the crack speaker walked off from me before I began, and left my imbecile pencil staggering about the paper as if it were in a fit!

This would not do, it was quite clear. I was flying too high, and should never get on, so. I resorted to Traddles for advice; who suggested that he should dictate speeches to me, at a pace, and with occasional stoppages, adapted to my weakness. Very grateful for this friendly aid, I accepted the proposal; and night after night, almost every night, for a long time, we had a sort of Private Parliament in Buckingham Street, after I came home from the Doctor's.

I should like to see such a Parliament anywhere else! My aunt and Mr. Dick represented the Government or the Opposition (as the case might be), and Traddles, with the assistance of Enfield's Speakers, or a volume of parliamentary orations, thundered astonishing invectives against them. Standing by the table, with his finger in the page to keep the place, and his right arm flourishing above his head, Traddles, as Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Burke, Lord Castlereagh, Viscount Sidmouth, or Mr. Canning, would work himself into the most violent heats, and deliver the most withering denunciations of the profligacy and corruption of my aunt and Mr. Dick; while I used to sit, at a little distance, with my notebook on my knee, fagging after him with all my might and main. The inconsistency and recklessness of Traddles were not to be exceeded by any real politician. He was for any description of policy, in the compass of a week; and nailed all sorts of colours to every denomination of mast. My aunt, looking very like an immovable Chancellor of the Exchequer, would occasionally throw in an interruption or two, as 'Hear!' or 'No!' or 'Oh!' when the text seemed to require it: which was always a signal to Mr. Dick (a perfect country gentleman) to follow lustily with the same cry. But Mr. Dick got taxed with such things in the course of his Parliamentary career, and was made responsible for such awful consequences, that he became uncomfortable in his mind sometimes. I believe he actually began to be afraid he really had been doing something, tending to the annihilation of the British constitution, and the ruin of the country.

Often and often we pursued these debates until the clock pointed to midnight, and the candles were burning down. The result of so much good practice was, that by and by I began to keep pace with Traddles pretty well, and should have been quite triumphant if I had had the least idea what my notes were about. But, as to reading them after I had got them, I might as well have copied the Chinese inscriptions of an immense collection of tea-chests, or the golden characters on all the great red and green bottles in the chemists' shops!

There was nothing for it, but to turn back and begin all over again. It was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a snail's pace; stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive characters by sight wherever I met them. I was always punctual at the office; at the Doctor's too: and I really did work, as the common expression is, like a cart-horse. One day, when I went to the Commons as usual, I found Mr. Spenlow in the doorway looking extremely grave, and talking to himself. As he was in the habit of complaining of pains in his head - he had naturally a short throat, and I do seriously believe he over-starched himself - I was at first alarmed by the idea that he was not quite right in that direction; but he soon relieved my uneasiness.

Instead of returning my 'Good morning' with his usual affability, he looked at me in a distant, ceremonious manner, and coldly requested me to accompany him to a certain coffee-house, which, in those days, had a door opening into the Commons, just within the little archway in St. Paul's Churchyard. I complied, in a very uncomfortable state, and with a warm shooting all over me, as if my apprehensions were breaking out into buds. When I allowed him to go on a little before, on account of the narrowness of the way, I observed that he carried his head with a lofty air that was particularly unpromising; and my mind misgave me that he had found out about my darling Dora.

If I had not guessed this, on the way to the coffee-house, I could hardly have failed to know what was the matter when I followed him into an upstairs room, and found Miss Murdstone there, supported by a background of sideboard, on which were several inverted tumblers sustaining lemons, and two of those extraordinary boxes, all corners and flutings, for sticking knives and forks in, which, happily for mankind, are now obsolete.

Miss Murdstone gave me her chilly finger-nails, and sat severely rigid. Mr. Spenlow shut the door, motioned me to a chair, and stood on the hearth-rug in front of the fireplace.

'Have the goodness to show Mr. Copperfield,' said Mr. Spenlow, what you have in your reticule, Miss Murdstone.'

I believe it was the old identical steel-clasped reticule of my childhood, that shut up like a bite. Compressing her lips, in sympathy with the snap, Miss Murdstone opened it - opening her mouth a little at the same time - and produced my last letter to Dora, teeming with expressions of devoted affection.

'I believe that is your writing, Mr. Copperfield?' said Mr. Spenlow.

I was very hot, and the voice I heard was very unlike mine, when I said, 'It is, sir!'

'If I am not mistaken,' said Mr. Spenlow, as Miss Murdstone brought a parcel of letters out of her reticule, tied round with the dearest bit of blue ribbon, 'those are also from your pen, Mr. Copperfield?'

I took them from her with a most desolate sensation; and, glancing at such phrases at the top, as 'My ever dearest and own Dora,' 'My best beloved angel,' 'My blessed one for ever,' and the like, blushed deeply, and inclined my head.

'No, thank you!' said Mr. Spenlow, coldly, as I mechanically offered them back to him. 'I will not deprive you of them. Miss Murdstone, be so good as to proceed!'

That gentle creature, after a moment's thoughtful survey of the carpet, delivered herself with much dry unction as follows.

'I must confess to having entertained my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I observed Miss Spenlow and David Copperfield, when they first met; and the impression made upon me then was not agreeable. The depravity of the human heart is such -'

'You will oblige me, ma'am,' interrupted Mr. Spenlow, 'by confining yourself to facts.'

Miss Murdstone cast down her eyes, shook her head as if protesting against this unseemly interruption, and with frowning dignity resumed:

'Since I am to confine myself to facts, I will state them as dryly as I can. Perhaps that will be considered an acceptable course of proceeding. I have already said, sir, that I have had my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I have frequently endeavoured to find decisive corroboration of those suspicions, but without effect. I have therefore forborne to mention them to Miss Spenlow's father'; looking severely at him- 'knowing how little disposition there usually is in such cases, to acknowledge the conscientious discharge of duty.'

Mr. Spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly sternness of Miss Murdstone's manner, and deprecated her severity with a conciliatory little wave of his hand.

'On my return to Norwood, after the period of absence occasioned by my brother's marriage,' pursued Miss Murdstone in a disdainful voice, 'and on the return of Miss Spenlow from her visit to her friend Miss Mills, I imagined that the manner of Miss Spenlow gave me greater occasion for suspicion than before. Therefore I watched Miss Spenlow closely.'

Dear, tender little Dora, so unconscious of this Dragon's eye!

'Still,' resumed Miss Murdstone, 'I found no proof until last night. It appeared to me that Miss Spenlow received too many letters from her friend Miss Mills; but Miss Mills being her friend with her father's full concurrence,' another telling blow at Mr. Spenlow, 'it was not for me to interfere. If I may not be permitted to allude to the natural depravity of the human heart, at least I may - I must - be permitted, so far to refer to misplaced confidence.'

Mr. Spenlow apologetically murmured his assent.

'Last evening after tea,' pursued Miss Murdstone, 'I observed the little dog starting, rolling, and growling about the drawing-room, worrying something. I said to Miss Spenlow, "Dora, what is that the dog has in his mouth? It's paper." Miss Spenlow immediately put her hand to her frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. I interposed, and said, "Dora, my love, you must permit me." '

Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work!

'Miss Spenlow endeavoured,' said Miss Murdstone, 'to bribe me with kisses, work boxes, and small articles of jewellery - that, of course, I pass over. The little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching him, and was with great difficulty dislodged by the fire-irons. Even when dislodged, he still kept the letter in his mouth; and on my endeavouring to take it from him, at the imminent risk of being bitten, he kept it between his teeth so pertinaciously as to suffer himself to be held suspended in the air by means of the document. At length I obtained possession of it. After perusing it, I taxed Miss Spenlow with having many such letters in her possession; and ultimately obtained from her the packet which is now in David Copperfield's hand.'

Here she ceased; and snapping her reticule again, and shutting her mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent.

'You have heard Miss Murdstone,' said Mr. Spenlow, turning to me. 'I beg to ask, Mr. Copperfield, if you have anything to say in reply?'

The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my heart, sobbing and crying all night - of her being alone, frightened, and wretched, then - of her having so piteously begged and prayed that stony-hearted woman to forgive her - of her having vainly offered her those kisses, work-boxes, and trinkets - of her being in such grievous distress, and all for me - very much impaired the little dignity I had been able to muster. I am afraid I was in a tremulous state for a minute or so, though I did my best to disguise it.

'There is nothing I can say, sir,' I returned, 'except that all the blame is mine. Dora -'

'Miss Spenlow, if you please,' said her father, majestically.

'- was induced and persuaded by me,' I went on, swallowing that colder designation, 'to consent to this concealment, and I bitterly regret it.'

'You are very much to blame, sir,' said Mr. Spenlow, walking to and fro upon the hearth-rug, and emphasizing what he said with his whole body instead of his head, on account of the stiffness of his cravat and spine. 'You have done a stealthy and unbecoming action, Mr. Copperfield. When I take a gentleman to my house, no matter whether he is nineteen, twenty-nine, or ninety, I take him there in a spirit of confidence. If he abuses my confidence, he commits a dishonourable action, Mr. Copperfield.'

'I feel it, sir, I assure you,' I returned. 'But I never thought so, before. Sincerely, honestly, indeed, Mr. Spenlow, I never thought so, before. I love Miss Spenlow to that extent -'

'Pooh! nonsense!' said Mr. Spenlow, reddening. 'Pray don't tell me to my face that you love my daughter, Mr. Copperfield!'

'Could I defend my conduct if I did not, sir?' I returned, with all humility.

'Can you defend your conduct if you do, sir?' said Mr. Spenlow, stopping short upon the hearth-rug. 'Have you considered your years, and my daughter's years, Mr. Copperfield? Have you considered what it is to undermine the confidence that should subsist between my daughter and myself? Have you considered my daughter's station in life, the projects I may contemplate for her advancement, the testamentary intentions I may have with reference to her? Have you considered anything, Mr. Copperfield?'

'Very little, sir, I am afraid;' I answered, speaking to him as respectfully and sorrowfully as I felt; 'but pray believe me, I have considered my own worldly position. When I explained it to you, we were already engaged -'

'I BEG,' said Mr. Spenlow, more like Punch than I had ever seen him, as he energetically struck one hand upon the other - I could not help noticing that even in my despair; 'that YOU Will NOT talk to me of engagements, Mr. Copperfield!'

The otherwise immovable Miss Murdstone laughed contemptuously in one short syllable.

'When I explained my altered position to you, sir,' I began again, substituting a new form of expression for what was so unpalatable to him, 'this concealment, into which I am so unhappy as to have led Miss Spenlow, had begun. Since I have been in that altered position, I have strained every nerve, I have exerted every energy, to improve it. I am sure I shall improve it in time. Will you grant me time - any length of time? We are both so young, sir, -'

'You are right,' interrupted Mr. Spenlow, nodding his head a great many times, and frowning very much, 'you are both very young. It's all nonsense. Let there be an end of the nonsense. Take away those letters, and throw them in the fire. Give me Miss Spenlow's letters to throw in the fire; and although our future intercourse must, you are aware, be restricted to the Commons here, we will agree to make no further mention of the past. Come, Mr. Copperfield, you don't want sense; and this is the sensible course.'

No. I couldn't think of agreeing to it. I was very sorry, but there was a higher consideration than sense. Love was above all earthly considerations, and I loved Dora to idolatry, and Dora loved me. I didn't exactly say so; I softened it down as much as I could; but I implied it, and I was resolute upon it. I don't think I made myself very ridiculous, but I know I was resolute.

'Very well, Mr. Copperfield,' said Mr. Spenlow, 'I must try my influence with my daughter.'

Miss Murdstone, by an expressive sound, a long drawn respiration, which was neither a sigh nor a moan, but was like both, gave it as her opinion that he should have done this at first.

'I must try,' said Mr. Spenlow, confirmed by this support, 'my influence with my daughter. Do you decline to take those letters, Mr. Copperfield?' For I had laid them on the table.

Yes. I told him I hoped he would not think it wrong, but I couldn't possibly take them from Miss Murdstone.

'Nor from me?' said Mr. Spenlow.

No, I replied with the profoundest respect; nor from him.

'Very well!' said Mr. Spenlow.

A silence succeeding, I was undecided whether to go or stay. At length I was moving quietly towards the door, with the intention of saying that perhaps I should consult his feelings best by withdrawing: when he said, with his hands in his coat pockets, into which it was as much as he could do to get them; and with what I should call, upon the whole, a decidedly pious air:

'You are probably aware, Mr. Copperfield, that I am not altogether destitute of worldly possessions, and that my daughter is my nearest and dearest relative?'

I hurriedly made him a reply to the effect, that I hoped the error into which I had been betrayed by the desperate nature of my love, did not induce him to think me mercenary too?

'I don't allude to the matter in that light,' said Mr. Spenlow. 'It would be better for yourself, and all of us, if you WERE mercenary, Mr. Copperfield - I mean, if you were more discreet and less influenced by all this youthful nonsense. No. I merely say, with quite another view, you are probably aware I have some property to bequeath to my child?'

I certainly supposed so.

'And you can hardly think,' said Mr. Spenlow, 'having experience of what we see, in the Commons here, every day, of the various unaccountable and negligent proceedings of men, in respect of their testamentary arrangements - of all subjects, the one on which perhaps the strangest revelations of human inconsistency are to be met with - but that mine are made?'

I inclined my head in acquiescence.

'I should not allow,' said Mr. Spenlow, with an evident increase of pious sentiment, and slowly shaking his head as he poised himself upon his toes and heels alternately, 'my suitable provision for my child to be influenced by a piece of youthful folly like the present. It is mere folly. Mere nonsense. In a little while, it will weigh lighter than any feather. But I might - I might if this silly business were not completely relinquished altogether, be induced in some anxious moment to guard her from, and surround her with protections against, the consequences of any foolish step in the way of marriage. Now, Mr. Copperfield, I hope that you will not render it necessary for me to open, even for a quarter of an hour, that closed page in the book of life, and unsettle, even for a quarter of an hour, grave affairs long since composed.'

There was a serenity, a tranquillity, a calm sunset air about him, which quite affected me. He was so peaceful and resigned - clearly had his affairs in such perfect train, and so systematically wound up - that he was a man to feel touched in the contemplation of. I really think I saw tears rise to his eyes, from the depth of his own feeling of all this.

But what could I do? I could not deny Dora and my own heart. When he told me I had better take a week to consider of what he had said, how could I say I wouldn't take a week, yet how could I fail to know that no amount of weeks could influence such love as mine?

'In the meantime, confer with Miss Trotwood, or with any person with any knowledge of life,' said Mr. Spenlow, adjusting his cravat with both hands. 'Take a week, Mr. Copperfield.'

I submitted; and, with a countenance as expressive as I was able to make it of dejected and despairing constancy, came out of the room. Miss Murdstone's heavy eyebrows followed me to the door - I say her eyebrows rather than her eyes, because they were much more important in her face - and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at about that hour of the morning, in our parlour at Blunderstone, that I could have fancied I had been breaking down in my lessons again, and that the dead weight on my mind was that horrible old spelling-book, with oval woodcuts, shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the glasses out of spectacles.

When I got to the office, and, shutting out old Tiffey and the rest of them with my hands, sat at my desk, in my own particular nook, thinking of this earthquake that had taken place so unexpectedly, and in the bitterness of my spirit cursing Jip, I fell into such a state of torment about Dora, that I wonder I did not take up my hat and rush insanely to Norwood. The idea of their frightening her, and making her cry, and of my not being there to comfort her, was so excruciating, that it impelled me to write a wild letter to Mr. Spenlow, beseeching him not to visit upon her the consequences of my awful destiny. I implored him to spare her gentle nature - not to crush a fragile flower - and addressed him generally, to the best of my remembrance, as if, instead of being her father, he had been an Ogre, or the Dragon of Wantley.3 This letter I sealed and laid upon his desk before he returned; and when he came in, I saw him, through the half-opened door of his room, take it up and read it.

He said nothing about it all the morning; but before he went away in the afternoon he called me in, and told me that I need not make myself at all uneasy about his daughter's happiness. He had assured her, he said, that it was all nonsense; and he had nothing more to say to her. He believed he was an indulgent father (as indeed he was), and I might spare myself any solicitude on her account.

'You may make it necessary, if you are foolish or obstinate, Mr. Copperfield,' he observed, 'for me to send my daughter abroad again, for a term; but I have a better opinion of you. I hope you will be wiser than that, in a few days. As to Miss Murdstone,' for I had alluded to her in the letter, 'I respect that lady's vigilance, and feel obliged to her; but she has strict charge to avoid the subject. All I desire, Mr. Copperfield, is, that it should be forgotten. All you have got to do, Mr. Copperfield, is to forget it.'

All! In the note I wrote to Miss Mills, I bitterly quoted this sentiment. All I had to do, I said, with gloomy sarcasm, was to forget Dora. That was all, and what was that! I entreated Miss Mills to see me, that evening. If it could not be done with Mr. Mills's sanction and concurrence, I besought a clandestine interview in the back kitchen where the Mangle was. I informed her that my reason was tottering on its throne, and only she, Miss Mills, could prevent its being deposed. I signed myself, hers distractedly; and I couldn't help feeling, while I read this composition over, before sending it by a porter, that it was something in the style of Mr. Micawber.

However, I sent it. At night I repaired to Miss Mills's street, and walked up and down, until I was stealthily fetched in by Miss Mills's maid, and taken the area way to the back kitchen. I have since seen reason to believe that there was nothing on earth to prevent my going in at the front door, and being shown up into the drawing-room, except Miss Mills's love of the romantic and mysterious.

In the back kitchen, I raved as became me. I went there, I suppose, to make a fool of myself, and I am quite sure I did it. Miss Mills had received a hasty note from Dora, telling her that all was discovered, and saying. 'Oh pray come to me, Julia, do, do!' But Miss Mills, mistrusting the acceptability of her presence to the higher powers, had not yet gone; and we were all benighted in the Desert of Sahara.

Miss Mills had a wonderful flow of words, and liked to pour them out. I could not help feeling, though she mingled her tears with mine, that she had a dreadful luxury in our afflictions. She petted them, as I may say, and made the most of them. A deep gulf, she observed, had opened between Dora and me, and Love could only span it with its rainbow. Love must suffer in this stern world; it ever had been so, it ever would be so. No matter, Miss Mills remarked. Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at last, and then Love was avenged.

This was small consolation, but Miss Mills wouldn't encourage fallacious hopes. She made me much more wretched than I was before, and I felt (and told her with the deepest gratitude) that she was indeed a friend. We resolved that she should go to Dora the first thing in the morning, and find some means of assuring her, either by looks or words, of my devotion and misery. We parted, overwhelmed with grief; and I think Miss Mills enjoyed herself completely.

I confided all to my aunt when I got home; and in spite of all she could say to me, went to bed despairing. I got up despairing, and went out despairing. It was Saturday morning, and I went straight to the Commons.

I was surprised, when I came within sight of our office-door, to see the ticket porters standing outside talking together, and some half-dozen stragglers gazing at the windows which were shut up. I quickened my pace, and, passing among them, wondering at their looks, went hurriedly in.

The clerks were there, but nobody was doing anything. Old Tiffey, for the first time in his life I should think, was sitting on somebody else's stool, and had not hung up his hat.

'This is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Copperfield,' said he, as I entered.

'What is?' I exclaimed. 'What's the matter?'

'Don't you know?' cried Tiffey, and all the rest of them, coming round me.

'No!' said I, looking from face to face.

'Mr. Spenlow,' said Tiffey.

'What about him!'

'Dead!' I thought it was the office reeling, and not I, as one of the clerks caught hold of me. They sat me down in a chair, untied my neck-cloth, and brought me some water. I have no idea whether this took any time.

'Dead?' said I.

'He dined in town yesterday, and drove down in the phaeton by himself,' said Tiffey, 'having sent his own groom home by the coach, as he sometimes did, you know -'

'Well?'

'The phaeton went home without him. The horses stopped at the stable-gate. The man went out with a lantern. Nobody in the carriage.'

'Had they run away?'

'They were not hot,' said Tiffey, putting on his glasses; 'no hotter, I understand, than they would have been, going down at the usual pace. The reins were broken, but they had been dragging on the ground. The house was roused up directly, and three of them went out along the road. They found him a mile off.'

'More than a mile off, Mr. Tiffey,' interposed a junior.

                     CHAPTER XLII

 67.  Whom could I find to reconcile me to thee?  Should I  have approached the angels?  What kind of prayer?  What kind of  rites?  Many who were striving to return to thee and were not able  of themselves have, I am told, tried this and have fallen into a  longing for curious visions and deserved to be deceived.  Being  exalted, they sought thee in their pride of learning, and they  thrust themselves forward rather than beating their breasts.[391]   And so by a likeness of heart, they drew to themselves the princes  of the air,[392] their conspirators and companions in pride, by  whom they were deceived by the power of magic.  Thus they sought a  mediator by whom they might be cleansed, but there was none.  For  the mediator they sought was the devil, disguising himself as an  angel of light.[393]  And he allured their proud flesh the more  because he had no fleshly body.      They were mortal and sinful, but thou, O Lord, to whom they  arrogantly sought to be reconciled, art immortal and sinless.  But  a mediator between God and man ought to have something in him like  God and something in him like man, lest in being like man he  should be far from God, or if only like God he should be far from  man, and so should not be a mediator.  That deceitful mediator,  then, by whom, by thy secret judgment, human pride deserves to be  deceived, had one thing in common with man, that is, his sin.  In  another respect, he would seem to have something in common with  God, for not being clothed with the mortality of the flesh, he  could boast that he was immortal.  But since "the wages of sin is  death,"[394] what he really has in common with men is that,  together with them, he is condemned to death.


                     CHAPTER XLIII

 68.  But the true Mediator, whom thou in thy secret mercy  hast revealed to the humble, and hast sent to them so that through  his example they also might learn the same humility -- that  "Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,"[395]  appeared between mortal sinners and the immortal Just One.  He was  mortal as men are mortal; he was righteous as God is righteous;  and because the reward of righteousness is life and peace, he  could, through his righteousness united with God, cancel the death  of justified sinners, which he was willing to have in common with  them.  Hence he was manifested to holy men of old, to the end that  they might be saved through faith in his Passion to come, even as  we through faith in his Passion which is past.  As man he was  Mediator, but as the Word he was not something in between the two;  because he was equal to God, and God with God, and, with the Holy  Spirit, one God.      69.  How hast thou loved us, O good Father, who didst not  spare thy only Son, but didst deliver him up for us wicked  ones![396]  How hast thou loved us, for whom he who did not count  it robbery to be equal with thee "became obedient unto death, even  the death of the cross"[397]!  He alone was "free among the  dead."[398]  He alone had power to lay down his life and power to  take it up again, and for us he became to thee both Victor and  Victim; and Victor because he was the Victim.  For us, he was to  thee both Priest and Sacrifice, and Priest because he was the  Sacrifice.  Out of slaves, he maketh us thy sons, because he was  born of thee and did serve us.  Rightly, then, is my hope fixed  strongly on him, that thou wilt "heal all my diseases"[399]  through him, who sitteth at thy right hand and maketh intercession  for us.[400]  Otherwise I should utterly despair.  For my  infirmities are many and great; indeed, they are very many and  very great.  But thy medicine is still greater.  Otherwise, we  might think that thy word was removed from union with man, and  despair of ourselves, if it had not been that he was "made flesh  and dwelt among us."[401]      70.  Terrified by my sins and the load of my misery, I had  resolved in my heart and considered flight into the wilderness.   But thou didst forbid me, and thou didst strengthen me, saying  that "since Christ died for all, they who live should not  henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for  them."[402]  Behold, O Lord, I cast all my care on thee, that I  may live and "behold wondrous things out of thy law."[403]  Thou  knowest my incompetence and my infirmities; teach me and heal me.   Thy only Son -- he "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom  and knowledge"[404] -- hath redeemed me with his blood.  Let not  the proud speak evil of me, because I keep my ransom before my  mind, and eat and drink and share my food and drink.  For, being  poor, I desire to be satisfied from him, together with those who  eat and are satisfied: "and they shall praise the Lord that seek  Him."[405]




                     BOOK ELEVEN


 The eternal Creator and the Creation in time.  Augustine ties  together his memory of his past life, his present experience, and  his ardent desire to comprehend the mystery of creation.  This  leads him to the questions of the mode and time of creation.  He  ponders the mode of creation and shows that it was  de nihilo and  involved no alteration in the being of God.  He then considers the  question of the beginning of the world and time and shows that  time and creation are cotemporal.  But what is time?  To this  Augustine devotes a brilliant analysis of the subjectivity of time  and the relation of all temporal process to the abiding eternity  of God.  From this, he prepares to turn to a detailed  interpretation of Gen. 1:1, 2.  


                       CHAPTER I

 1.  Is it possible, O Lord, that, since thou art in eternity,  thou art ignorant of what I am saying to thee?  Or, dost thou see  in time an event at the time it occurs?  If not, then why am I  recounting such a tale of things to thee?  Certainly not in order  to acquaint thee with them through me; but, instead, that through  them I may stir up my own love and the love of my readers toward  thee, so that all may say, "Great is the Lord and greatly to be  praised." I have said this before[406] and will say it again: "For  love of thy love I do it." So also we pray -- and yet Truth tells  us, "Your Father knoweth what things you need before you ask  him."[407]  Consequently, we lay bare our feelings before thee,  that, through our confessing to thee our plight and thy mercies  toward us, thou mayest go on to free us altogether, as thou hast  already begun; and that we may cease to be wretched in ourselves  and blessed in thee -- since thou hast called us to be poor in  spirit, meek, mourners, hungering and athirst for righteousness,  merciful and pure in heart.[408]  Thus I have told thee many  things, as I could find ability and will to do so, since it was  thy will in the first place that I should confess to thee, O Lord  my God -- for "Thou art good and thy mercy endureth forever."[409]


                      CHAPTER II

 2.  But how long would it take for the voice of my pen to  tell enough of thy exhortations and of all thy terrors and  comforts and leadings by which thou didst bring me to preach thy  Word and to administer thy sacraments to thy people?  And even if  I could do this sufficiently, the drops of time[410] are very  precious to me and I have for a long time been burning with the  desire to meditate on thy law, and to confess in thy presence my  knowledge and ignorance of it -- from the first streaks of thy  light in my mind and the remaining darkness, until my weakness  shall be swallowed up in thy strength.  And I do not wish to see  those hours drained into anything else which I can find free from  the necessary care of the body, the exercise of the mind, and the  service we owe to our fellow men -- and what we give even if we do  not owe it.      3.  O Lord my God, hear my prayer and let thy mercy attend my  longing.  It does not burn for itself alone but longs as well to  serve the cause of fraternal love.  Thou seest in my heart that  this is so.  Let me offer the service of my mind and my tongue --  and give me what I may in turn offer back to thee.  For "I am  needy and poor"; thou art rich to all who call upon thee -- thou  who, in thy freedom from care, carest for us.  Trim away from my  lips, inwardly and outwardly, all rashness and lying.  Let thy  Scriptures be my chaste delight.  Let me not be deceived in them,  nor deceive others from them.  O Lord, hear and pity!  O Lord my  God, light of the blind, strength of the weak -- and also the  light of those who see and the strength of the strong -- hearken  to my soul and hear it crying from the depths.[411]  Unless thy  ears attend us even in the depths, where should we go?  To whom  should we cry?       "Thine is the day and the night is thine as well."[412]  At  thy bidding the moments fly by.  Grant me in them, then, an  interval for my meditations on the hidden things of thy law, nor  close the door of thy law against us who knock.  Thou hast not  willed that the deep secrets of all those pages should have been  written in vain.  Those forests are not without their stags which  keep retired within them, ranging and walking and feeding, lying  down and ruminating.[413]  Perfect me, O Lord, and reveal their  secrets to me.  Behold, thy voice is my joy; thy voice surpasses  in abundance of delights.  Give me what I love, for I do love it.   And this too is thy gift.  Abandon not thy gifts and despise not  thy "grass" which thirsts for thee.[414]  Let me confess to thee  everything that I shall have found in thy books and "let me hear  the voice of thy praise."[415]  Let me drink from thee and  "consider the wondrous things out of thy law"[416] -- from the  very beginning, when thou madest heaven and earth, and  thenceforward to the everlasting reign of thy Holy City with thee.      4.  O Lord, have mercy on me and hear my petition.  For my  prayer is not for earthly things, neither gold nor silver and  precious stones, nor gorgeous apparel, nor honors and power, nor  fleshly pleasures, nor of bodily necessities in this life of our  pilgrimage: all of these things are "added" to those who seek thy  Kingdom and thy righteousness.[417]      Observe, O God, from whence comes my desire.  The unrighteous  have told me of delights but not such as those in thy law, O Lord.   Behold, this is the spring of my desire.  See, O Father, look and  see -- and approve!  Let it be pleasing in thy mercy's sight that  I should find favor with thee -- that the secret things of thy  Word may be opened to me when I knock.  I beg this of thee by our  Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, the Man of thy right hand, the Son of  Man; whom thou madest strong for thy purpose as Mediator between  thee and us; through whom thou didst seek us when we were not  seeking thee, but didst seek us so that we might seek thee; thy  Word, through whom thou madest all things, and me among them; thy  only Son, through whom thou hast called thy faithful people to  adoption, and me among them.  I beseech it of thee through him who  sitteth at thy right hand and maketh intercession for us, "in whom  are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge."[418]  It is he I  seek in thy books.  Moses wrote of him.  He tells us so himself;  the Truth tells us so.


                      CHAPTER III

 5.  Let me hear and understand how in the beginning thou  madest heaven and earth.[419]  Moses wrote of this; he wrote and  passed on -- moving from thee to thee -- and he is now no longer  before me.  If he were, I would lay hold on him and ask him and  entreat him solemnly that in thy name he would open out these  things to me, and I would lend my bodily ears to the sounds that  came forth out of his mouth.  If, however, he spoke in the Hebrew  language, the sounds would beat on my senses in vain, and nothing  would touch my mind; but if he spoke in Latin, I would understand  what he said.  But how should I then know whether what he said was  true?  If I knew even this much, would it be that I knew it from  him?  Indeed, within me, deep inside the chambers of my thought,  Truth itself -- neither Hebrew, nor Greek, nor Latin, nor  barbarian, without any organs of voice and tongue, without the  sound of syllables -- would say, "He speaks the truth," and I  should be assured by this.  Then I would confidently say to that  man of thine, "You speak the truth."[420]  However, since I cannot  inquire of Moses, I beseech thee, O Truth, from whose fullness he  spoke truth; I beseech thee, my God, forgive my sins, and as thou  gavest thy servant the gift to speak these things, grant me also  the gift to understand them.


                      CHAPTER IV

 6.  Look around; there are the heaven and the earth.  They  cry aloud that they were made, for they change and vary.  Whatever  there is that has not been made, and yet has being, has nothing in  it that was not there before.  This having something not already  existent is what it means to be changed and varied.  Heaven and  earth thus speak plainly that they did not make themselves: "We  are, because we have been made; we did not exist before we came to  be so that we could have made ourselves!"  And the voice with  which they speak is simply their visible presence.  It was thou, O  Lord, who madest these things.  Thou art beautiful; thus they are  beautiful.  Thou art good, thus they are good.  Thou art; thus  they are.  But they are not as beautiful, nor as good, nor as  truly real as thou their Creator art.  Compared with thee, they  are neither beautiful nor good, nor do they even exist.  These  things we know, thanks be to thee.  Yet our knowledge is ignorance  when it is compared with thy knowledge.


                       CHAPTER V

 7.  But _how_ didst thou make the heaven and the earth, and  what was the tool of such a mighty work as thine?  For it was not  like a human worker fashioning body from body, according to the  fancy of his mind, able somehow or other to impose on it a form  which the mind perceived in itself by its inner eye (yet how  should even he be able to do this, if thou hadst not made that  mind?).  He imposes the form on something already existing and  having some sort of being, such as clay, or stone or wood or gold  or such like (and where would these things come from if thou hadst  not furnished them?).  For thou madest his body for the artisan,  and thou madest the mind which directs the limbs; thou madest the  matter from which he makes anything; thou didst create the  capacity by which he understands his art and sees within his mind  what he may do with the things before him; thou gavest him his  bodily sense by which, as if he had an interpreter, he may  communicate from mind to matter what he proposes to do and report  back to his mind what has been done, that the mind may consult  with the Truth which presideth over it as to whether what is done  is well done.      All these things praise thee, the Creator of them all.  But  how didst thou make them?  How, O God, didst thou make the heaven  and earth?  For truly, neither in heaven nor on earth didst thou  make heaven and earth -- nor in the air nor in the waters, since  all of these also belong to the heaven and the earth.  Nowhere in  the whole world didst thou make the whole world, because there was  no place where it could be made before it was made.  And thou  didst not hold anything in thy hand from which to fashion the  heaven and the earth,[421] for where couldst thou have gotten what  thou hadst not made in order to make something with it?  Is there,  indeed, anything at all except because thou art?  Thus thou didst  speak and they were made,[422] and by thy Word thou didst make  them all.


                      CHAPTER VI

 8.  But how didst thou speak?  Was it in the same manner in  which the voice came from the cloud saying, "This is my beloved  Son"[423]?  For that voice sounded forth and died away; it began  and ended.  The syllables sounded and passed away, the second  after the first, the third after the second, and thence in order,  till the very last after all the rest; and silence after the last.   From this it is clear and plain that it was the action of a  creature, itself in time, which sounded that voice, obeying thy  eternal will.  And what these words were which were formed at that  time the outer ear conveyed to the conscious mind, whose inner ear  lay attentively open to thy eternal Word.  But it compared those  words which sounded in time with thy eternal word sounding in  silence and said: "This is different; quite different!  These  words are far below me; they are not even real, for they fly away  and pass, but the Word of my God remains above me forever." If,  then, in words that sound and fade away thou didst say that heaven  and earth should be made, and thus _madest_ heaven and earth, then  there was already some kind of corporeal creature _before_ heaven  and earth by whose motions in time that voice might have had its  occurrence in time.  But there was nothing corporeal before the  heaven and the earth; or if there was, then it is certain that  already, without a time-bound voice, thou hadst created whatever  it was out of which thou didst make the time-bound voice by which  thou didst say, "Let the heaven and the earth be made!"  For  whatever it was out of which such a voice was made simply did not  exist at all until it was made by thee.  Was it decreed by thy  Word that a body might be made from which such words might come?


                      CHAPTER VII

 9.  Thou dost call us, then, to understand the Word -- the  God who is God with thee -- which is spoken eternally and by which  all things are spoken eternally.  For what was first spoken was  not finished, and then something else spoken until the whole  series was spoken; but all things, at the same time and forever.   For, otherwise, we should have time and change and not a true  eternity, nor a true immortality.      This I know, O my God, and I give thanks.  I know, I confess  to thee, O Lord, and whoever is not ungrateful for certain truths  knows and blesses thee along with me.  We know, O Lord, this much  we know: that in the same proportion as anything is not what it  was, and is what it was not, in that very same proportion it  passes away or comes to be.  But there is nothing in thy Word that  passes away or returns to its place; for it is truly immortal and  eternal.  And, therefore, unto the Word coeternal with thee, at  the same time and always thou sayest all that thou sayest.  And  whatever thou sayest shall be made is made, and thou makest  nothing otherwise than by speaking.  Still, not all the things  that thou dost make by speaking are made at the same time and  always.


                     CHAPTER VIII

 10.  Why is this, I ask of thee, O Lord my God?  I see it  after a fashion, but I do not know how to express it, unless I say  that everything that begins to be and then ceases to be begins and  ceases when it is known in thy eternal Reason that it ought to  begin or cease -- in thy eternal Reason where nothing begins or  ceases.  And this is thy Word, which is also "the Beginning,"  because it also speaks to us.[424]  Thus, in the gospel, he spoke  through the flesh; and this sounded in the outward ears of men so  that it might be believed and sought for within, and so that it  might be found in the eternal Truth, in which the good and only  Master teacheth all his disciples.[425]  There, O Lord, I hear thy  voice, the voice of one speaking to me, since he who teacheth us  speaketh to us.  But he that doth not teach us doth not really  speak to us even when he speaketh.  Yet who is it that teacheth us  unless it be the Truth immutable?  For even when we are instructed  by means of the mutable creation, we are thereby led to the Truth  immutable.  There we learn truly as we stand and hear him, and we  rejoice greatly "because of the bridegroom's voice,"[426]  restoring us to the source whence our being comes.  And therefore,  unless the Beginning remained immutable, there would then not be a  place to which we might return when we had wandered away.  But  when we return from error, it is through our gaining knowledge  that we return.  In order for us to gain knowledge he teacheth us,  since he is the Beginning, and speaketh to us.


                      CHAPTER IX

 11.  In this Beginning, O God, thou hast made heaven and  earth -- through thy Word, thy Son, thy Power, thy Wisdom, thy  Truth: all wondrously speaking and wondrously creating.  Who shall  comprehend such things and who shall tell of it?  What is it that  shineth through me and striketh my heart without injury, so that I  both shudder and burn?  I shudder because I am unlike it; I burn  because I am like it.  It is Wisdom itself that shineth through  me, clearing away my fog, which so readily overwhelms me so that I  faint in it, in the darkness and burden of my punishment.  For my  strength is brought down in neediness, so that I cannot endure  even my blessings until thou, O Lord, who hast been gracious to  all my iniquities, also healest all my infirmities -- for it is  thou who "shalt redeem my life from corruption, and crown me with  loving-kindness and tender mercy, and shalt satisfy my desire with  good things so that my youth shall be renewed like the  eagle's."[427]  For by this hope we are saved, and through  patience we await thy promises.  Let him that is able hear thee  speaking to his inner mind.  I will cry out with confidence  because of thy own oracle, "How wonderful are thy works, O Lord;  in wisdom thou hast made them all."[428]  And this Wisdom is the  Beginning, and in that Beginning thou hast made heaven and earth.


                       CHAPTER X

 12.  Now, are not those still full of their old carnal  nature[429] who ask us: "What was God doing _before_ he made  heaven and earth?  For if he was idle," they say, "and doing  nothing, then why did he not continue in that state forever --  doing nothing, as he had always done?  If any new motion has  arisen in God, and a new will to form a creature, which he had  never before formed, how can that be a true eternity in which an  act of will occurs that was not there before?  For the will of God  is not a created thing, but comes before the creation -- and this  is true because nothing could be created unless the will of the  Creator came before it.  The will of God, therefore, pertains to  his very Essence.  Yet if anything has arisen in the Essence of  God that was not there before, then that Essence cannot truly be  called eternal.  But if it was the eternal will of God that the  creation should come to be, why, then, is not the creation itself  also from eternity?"[430]


                      CHAPTER XI

 13.  Those who say these things do not yet understand thee, O  Wisdom of God, O Light of souls.  They do not yet understand how  the things are made that are made by and in thee.  They endeavor  to comprehend eternal things, but their heart still flies about in  the past and future motions of created things, and is still  unstable.  Who shall hold it and fix it so that it may come to  rest for a little; and then, by degrees, glimpse the glory of that  eternity which abides forever; and then, comparing eternity with  the temporal process in which nothing abides, they may see that  they are incommensurable?  They would see that a long time does  not become long, except from the many separate events that occur  in its passage, which cannot be simultaneous.  In the Eternal, on  the other hand, nothing passes away, but the whole is  simultaneously present.  But no temporal process is wholly  simultaneous.  Therefore, let it[431] see that all time past is  forced to move on by the incoming future; that all the future  follows from the past; and that all, past and future, is created  and issues out of that which is forever present.  Who will hold  the heart of man that it may stand still and see how the eternity  which always stands still is itself neither future nor past but  expresses itself in the times that are future and past?  Can my  hand do this, or can the hand of my mouth bring about so difficult  a thing even by persuasion?


                      CHAPTER XII

 14.  How, then, shall I respond to him who asks, "What was  God doing _before_ he made heaven and earth?"  I do not answer, as  a certain one is reported to have done facetiously (shrugging off  the force of the question).  "He was preparing hell," he said,  "for those who pry too deep." It is one thing to see the answer;  it is another to laugh at the questioner -- and for myself I do  not answer these things thus.  More willingly would I have  answered, "I do not know what I do not know," than cause one who  asked a deep question to be ridiculed -- and by such tactics gain  praise for a worthless answer.      Rather, I say that thou, our God, art the Creator of every  creature.  And if in the term "heaven and earth" every creature is  included, I make bold to say further: "Before God made heaven and  earth, he did not make anything at all.  For if he did, what did  he make unless it were a creature?"  I do indeed wish that I knew  all that I desire to know to my profit as surely as I know that no  creature was made before any creature was made.


                     CHAPTER XIII

 15.  But if the roving thought of someone should wander over  the images of past time, and wonder that thou, the Almighty God,  the All-creating and All-sustaining, the Architect of heaven and  earth, didst for ages unnumbered abstain from so great a work  before thou didst actually do it, let him awake and consider that  he wonders at illusions.  For in what temporal medium could the  unnumbered ages that thou didst not make pass by, since thou art  the Author and Creator of all the ages?  Or what periods of time  would those be that were not made by thee?  Or how could they have  already passed away if they had not already been?  Since,  therefore, thou art the Creator of all times, if there was any  time _before_ thou madest heaven and earth, why is it said that  thou wast abstaining from working?  For thou madest that very time  itself, and periods could not pass by _before_ thou madest the  whole temporal procession.  But if there was no time _before_  heaven and earth, how, then, can it be asked, "What wast thou  doing then?"  For there was no "then" when there was no time.      16.  Nor dost thou precede any given period of time by  another period of time.  Else thou wouldst not precede all periods  of time.  In the eminence of thy ever-present eternity, thou  precedest all times past, and extendest beyond all future times,  for they are still to come -- and when they have come, they will  be past.  But "Thou art always the Selfsame and thy years shall  have no end."[432]  Thy years neither go nor come; but ours both  go and come in order that all separate moments may come to pass.   All thy years stand together as one, since they are abiding.  Nor  do thy years past exclude the years to come because thy years do  not pass away.  All these years of ours shall be with thee, when  all of them shall have ceased to be.  Thy years are but a day, and  thy day is not recurrent, but always today.  Thy "today" yields  not to tomorrow and does not follow yesterday.  Thy "today" is  eternity.  Therefore, thou didst generate the Coeternal, to whom  thou didst say, "This day I have begotten thee."[433]  Thou madest  all time and before all times thou art, and there was never a time  when there was no time.


                      CHAPTER XIV

 17.  There was no time, therefore, when thou hadst not made  anything, because thou hadst made time itself.  And there are no  times that are coeternal with thee, because thou dost abide  forever; but if times should abide, they would not be times.      For what is time?  Who can easily and briefly explain it?   Who can even comprehend it in thought or put the answer into  words?  Yet is it not true that in conversation we refer to  nothing more familiarly or knowingly than time?  And surely we  understand it when we speak of it; we understand it also when we  hear another speak of it.      What, then, is time?  If no one asks me, I know what it is.   If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know.  Yet I  say with confidence that I know that if nothing passed away, there  would be no past time; and if nothing were still coming, there  would be no future time; and if there were nothing at all, there  would be no present time.      But, then, how is it that there are the two times, past and  future, when even the past is now no longer and the future is now  not yet?  But if the present were always present, and did not pass  into past time, it obviously would not be time but eternity.  If,  then, time present -- if it be time -- comes into existence only  because it passes into time past, how can we say that even this  is, since the cause of its being is that it will cease to be?   Thus, can we not truly say that time _is_ only as it tends toward  nonbeing? 


                      CHAPTER XV

 18.  And yet we speak of a long time and a short time; but  never speak this way except of time past and future.  We call a  hundred years ago, for example, a long time past.  In like manner,  we should call a hundred years hence a long time to come.  But we  call ten days ago a short time past; and ten days hence a short  time to come.  But in what sense is something long or short that  is nonexistent?  For the past is not now, and the future is not  yet.  Therefore, let us not say, "It _is_ long"; instead, let us  say of the past, "It _was_ long," and of the future, "It _will be_  long." And yet, O Lord, my Light, shall not thy truth make mockery  of man even here?  For that long time past: was it long when it  was already past, or when it was still present?  For it might have  been long when there was a period that could be long, but when it  was past, it no longer was.  In that case, that which was not at  all could not be long.  Let us not, therefore, say, "Time past was  long," for we shall not discover what it was that was long  because, since it is past, it no longer exists.  Rather, let us  say that "time _present_ was long, because when it was present it  _was_ long." For then it had not yet passed on so as not to be,  and therefore it still was in a state that could be called long.   But after it passed, it ceased to be long simply because it ceased  to be.      19.  Let us, therefore, O human soul, see whether present  time can be long, for it has been given you to feel and measure  the periods of time.  How, then, will you answer me?       Is a hundred years when present a long time?  But, first, see  whether a hundred years can be present at once.  For if the first  year in the century is current, then it is present time, and the  other ninety and nine are still future.  Therefore, they are not  yet.  But, then, if the second year is current, one year is  already past, the second present, and all the rest are future.   And thus, if we fix on any middle year of this century as present,  those before it are past, those after it are future.  Therefore, a  hundred years cannot be present all at once.      Let us see, then, whether the year that is now current can be  present.  For if its first month is current, then the rest are  future; if the second, the first is already past, and the  remainder are not yet.  Therefore, the current year is not present  all at once.  And if it is not present as a whole, then the year  is not present.  For it takes twelve months to make the year, from  which each individual month which is current is itself present one  at a time, but the rest are either past or future.      20.  Thus it comes out that time present, which we found was  the only time that could be called "long," has been cut down to  the space of scarcely a single day.  But let us examine even that,  for one day is never present as a whole.  For it is made up of  twenty-four hours, divided between night and day.  The first of  these hours has the rest of them as future, and the last of them  has the rest as past; but any of those between has those that  preceded it as past and those that succeed it as future.  And that  one hour itself passes away in fleeting fractions.  The part of it  that has fled is past; what remains is still future.  If any  fraction of time be conceived that cannot now be divided even into  the most minute momentary point, this alone is what we may call  time present.  But this flies so rapidly from future to past that  it cannot be extended by any delay.  For if it is extended, it is  then divided into past and future.  But the present has no  extension[434] whatever.      Where, therefore, is that time which we may call "long"?  Is  it future?  Actually we do not say of the future, "It is long,"  for it has not yet come to be, so as to be long.  Instead, we say,  "It will be long." _When_ will it be?  For since it is future, it  will not be long, for what may be long is not yet.  It will be  long only when it passes from the future which is not as yet, and  will have begun to be present, so that there can be something that  may be long.  But in that case, time present cries aloud, in the  words we have already heard, that it cannot be "long."


                      CHAPTER XVI

 21.  And yet, O Lord, we do perceive intervals of time, and  we compare them with each other, and we say that some are longer  and others are shorter.  We even measure how much longer or  shorter this time may be than that time.  And we say that this  time is twice as long, or three times as long, while this other  time is only just as long as that other.  But we measure the  passage of time when we measure the intervals of perception.  But  who can measure times past which now are no longer, or times  future which are not yet -- unless perhaps someone will dare to  say that what does not exist can be measured?  Therefore, while  time is passing, it can be perceived and measured; but when it is  past, it cannot, since it is not.


                     CHAPTER XVII

 22.  I am seeking the truth, O Father; I am not affirming it.   O my God, direct and rule me.      Who is there who will tell me that there are not three times  -- as we learned when boys and as we have also taught boys -- time  past, time present, and time future?  Who can say that there is  only time present because the other two do not exist?  Or do they  also exist; but when, from the future, time becomes present, it  proceeds from some secret place; and when, from times present, it  becomes past, it recedes into some secret place?  For where have  those men who have foretold the future seen the things foretold,  if then they were not yet existing?  For what does not exist  cannot be seen.  And those who tell of things past could not speak  of them as if they were true, if they did not see them in their  minds.  These things could in no way be discerned if they did not  exist.  There are therefore times present and times past.


                     CHAPTER XVIII

 23.  Give me leave, O Lord, to seek still further.  O my  Hope, let not my purpose be confounded.  For if there are times  past and future, I wish to know where they are.  But if I have not  yet succeeded in this, I still know that wherever they are, they  are not there as future or past, but as present.  For if they are  there as future, they are there as "not yet"; if they are there as  past, they are there as "no longer." Wherever they are and  whatever they are they exist therefore only as present.  Although  we tell of past things as true, they are drawn out of the memory  -- not the things themselves, which have already passed, but words  constructed from the images of the perceptions which were formed  in the mind, like footprints in their passage through the senses.   My childhood, for instance, which is no longer, still exists in  time past, which does not now exist.  But when I call to mind its  image and speak of it, I see it in the present because it is still  in my memory.  Whether there is a similar explanation for the  foretelling of future events -- that is, of the images of things  which are not yet seen as if they were already existing -- I  confess, O my God, I do not know.  But this I certainly do know:  that we generally think ahead about our future actions, and this  premeditation is in time present; but that the action which we  premeditate is not yet, because it is still future.  When we shall  have started the action and have begun to do what we were  premeditating, then that action will be in time present, because  then it is no longer in time future.      24.  Whatever may be the manner of this secret foreseeing of  future things, nothing can be seen except what exists.  But what  exists now is not future, but present.  When, therefore, they say  that future events are seen, it is not the events themselves, for  they do not exist as yet (that is, they are still in time future),  but perhaps, instead, their causes and their signs are seen, which  already do exist.  Therefore, to those already beholding these  causes and signs, they are not future, but present, and from them  future things are predicted because they are conceived in the  mind.  These conceptions, however, exist _now_, and those who  predict those things see these conceptions before them in time  present.      Let me take an example from the vast multitude and variety of  such things.  I see the dawn; I predict that the sun is about to  rise.  What I see is in time present, what I predict is in time  future -- not that the sun is future, for it already exists; but  its rising is future, because it is not yet.  Yet I could not  predict even its rising, unless I had an image of it in my mind;  as, indeed, I do even now as I speak.  But that dawn which I see  in the sky is not the rising of the sun (though it does precede  it), nor is it a conception in my mind.  These two[435] are seen  in time present, in order that the event which is in time future  may be predicted.      Future events, therefore, are not yet.  And if they are not  yet, they do not exist.  And if they do not exist, they cannot be  seen at all, but they can be predicted from things present, which  now are and are seen.


                      CHAPTER XIX

 25.  Now, therefore, O Ruler of thy creatures, what is the  mode by which thou teachest souls those things which are still  future?  For thou hast taught thy prophets.  How dost thou, to  whom nothing is future, teach future things -- or rather teach  things present from the signs of things future?  For what does not  exist certainly cannot be taught.  This way of thine is too far  from my sight; it is too great for me, I cannot attain to it.[436]   But I shall be enabled by thee, when thou wilt grant it, O sweet  Light of my secret eyes.


                      CHAPTER XX

 26.  But even now it is manifest and clear that there are  neither times future nor times past.  Thus it is not properly said  that there are three times, past, present, and future.  Perhaps it  might be said rightly that there are three times: a time present  of things past; a time present of things present; and a time  present of things future.  For these three do coexist somehow in  the soul, for otherwise I could not see them.  The time present of  things past is memory; the time present of things present is  direct experience; the time present of things future is  expectation.[437]  If we are allowed to speak of these things so,  I see three times, and I grant that there are three.  Let it still  be said, then, as our misapplied custom has it: "There are three  times, past, present, and future." I shall not be troubled by it,  nor argue, nor object -- always provided that what is said is  understood, so that neither the future nor the past is said to  exist now.  There are but few things about which we speak properly  -- and many more about which we speak improperly -- though we  understand one another's meaning.


                      CHAPTER XXI

 27.  I have said, then, that we measure periods of time as  they pass so that we can say that this time is twice as long as  that one or that this is just as long as that, and so on for the  other fractions of time which we can count by measuring.      So, then, as I was saying, we measure periods of time as they  pass.  And if anyone asks me, "How do you know this?", I can  answer: "I know because we measure.  We could not measure things  that do not exist, and things past and future do not exist." But  how do we measure present time since it has no extension?  It is  measured while it passes, but when it has passed it is not  measured; for then there is nothing that could be measured.  But  whence, and how, and whither does it pass while it is being  measured?  Whence, but from the future?  Which way, save through  the present?  Whither, but into the past?  Therefore, from what is  not yet, through what has no length, it passes into what is now no  longer.  But what do we measure, unless it is a time of some  length?  For we cannot speak of single, and double, and triple,  and equal, and all the other ways in which we speak of time,  except in terms of the length of the periods of time.  But in what  "length," then, do we measure passing time?  Is it in the future,  from which it passes over?  But what does not yet exist cannot be  measured.  Or, is it in the present, through which it passes?  But  what has no length we cannot measure.  Or is it in the past into  which it passes?  But what is no longer we cannot measure.


                     CHAPTER XXII

 28.  My soul burns ardently to understand this most intricate  enigma.  O Lord my God, O good Father, I beseech thee through  Christ, do not close off these things, both the familiar and the  obscure, from my desire.  Do not bar it from entering into them;  but let their light dawn by thy enlightening mercy, O Lord.  Of  whom shall I inquire about these things?  And to whom shall I  confess my ignorance of them with greater profit than to thee, to  whom these studies of mine (ardently longing to understand thy  Scriptures) are not a bore?  Give me what I love, for I do love  it; and this thou hast given me.  O Father, who truly knowest how  to give good gifts to thy children, give this to me.  Grant it,  since I have undertaken to understand it, and hard labor is my lot  until thou openest it.  I beseech thee, through Christ and in his  name, the Holy of Holies, let no man interrupt me.  "For I have  believed, and therefore do I speak."[438]  This is my hope; for  this I live: that I may contemplate the joys of my Lord.[439]   Behold, thou hast made my days grow old, and they pass away -- and  how I do not know.      We speak of this time and that time, and these times and  those times: "How long ago since he said this?"  "How long ago  since he did this?"  "How long ago since I saw that?"  "This  syllable is twice as long as that single short syllable." These  words we say and hear, and we are understood and we understand.   They are quite commonplace and ordinary, and still the meaning of  these very same things lies deeply hid and its discovery is still  to come.


                     CHAPTER XXIII

 29.  I once heard a learned man say that the motions of the  sun, moon, and stars constituted time; and I did not agree.  For  why should not the motions of all bodies constitute time?  What if  the lights of heaven should cease, and a potter's wheel still turn  round: would there be no time by which we might measure those  rotations and say either that it turned at equal intervals, or, if  it moved now more slowly and now more quickly, that some rotations  were longer and others shorter?  And while we were saying this,  would we not also be speaking in time?  Or would there not be in  our words some syllables that were long and others short, because  the first took a longer time to sound, and the others a shorter  time?  O God, grant men to see in a small thing the notions that  are common[440] to all things, both great and small.  Both the  stars and the lights of heaven are "for signs and seasons, and for  days and years."[441]  This is doubtless the case, but just as I  should not say that the circuit of that wooden wheel was a day,  neither would that learned man say that there was, therefore, no  time.      30.  I thirst to know the power and the nature of time, by  which we measure the motions of bodies, and say, for example, that  this motion is twice as long as that.  For I ask, since the word  "day" refers not only to the length of time that the sun is above  the earth (which separates day from night), but also refers to the  sun's entire circuit from east all the way around to east -- on  account of which we can say, "So many days have passed" (the  nights being included when we say, "So many days," and their  lengths not counted separately) -- since, then, the day is ended  by the motion of the sun and by his passage from east to east, I  ask whether the motion itself is the day, or whether the day is  the period in which that motion is completed; or both?  For if the  sun's passage is the day, then there would be a day even if the  sun should finish his course in as short a period as an hour.  If  the motion itself is the day, then it would not be a day if from  one sunrise to another there were a period no longer than an hour.   But the sun would have to go round twenty-four times to make just  one day.  If it is both, then that could not be called a day if  the sun ran his entire course in the period of an hour; nor would  it be a day if, while the sun stood still, as much time passed as  the sun usually covered during his whole course, from morning to  morning.  I shall, therefore, not ask any more what it is that is  called a day, but rather what time is, for it is by time that we  measure the circuit of the sun, and would be able to say that it  was finished in half the period of time that it customarily takes  if it were completed in a period of only twelve hours.  If, then,  we compare these periods, we could call one of them a single and  the other a double period, as if the sun might run his course from  east to east sometimes in a single period and sometimes in a  double period.      Let no man tell me, therefore, that the motions of the  heavenly bodies constitute time.  For when the sun stood still at  the prayer of a certain man in order that he might gain his  victory in battle, the sun stood still but time went on.  For in  as long a span of time as was sufficient the battle was fought and  ended.[442]      I see, then, that time is a certain kind of extension.  But  do I see it, or do I only seem to?  Thou, O Light and Truth, wilt  show me.


                      CHAPTER XXIV

 31.  Dost thou command that I should agree if anyone says  that time is "the motion of a body"?  Thou dost not so command.   For I hear that no body is moved but in time; this thou tellest  me.  But that the motion of a body itself is time I do not hear;  thou dost not say so.  For when a body is moved, I measure by time  how long it was moving from the time when it began to be moved  until it stopped.  And if I did not see when it began to be moved,  and if it continued to move so that I could not see when it  stopped, I could not measure the movement, except from the time  when I began to see it until I stopped.  But if I look at it for a  long time, I can affirm only that the time is long but not how  long it may be.  This is because when we say, "How long?", we are  speaking comparatively as: "This is as long as that," or, "This is  twice as long as that"; or other such similar ratios.  But if we  were able to observe the point in space where and from which the  body, which is moved, comes and the point to which it is moved; or  if we can observe its parts moving as in a wheel, we can say how  long the movement of the body took or the movement of its parts  from this place to that.  Since, therefore, the motion of a body  is one thing, and the norm by which we measure how long it takes  is another thing, we cannot see which of these two is to be called  time.  For, although a body is sometimes moved and sometimes  stands still, we measure not only its motion but also its rest as  well; and both by time!  Thus we say, "It stood still as long as  it moved," or, "It stood still twice or three times as long as it  moved" -- or any other ratio which our measuring has either  determined or imagined, either roughly or precisely, according to  our custom.  Therefore, time is not the motion of a body.


                      CHAPTER XXV

 32.  And I confess to thee, O Lord, that I am still ignorant  as to what time is.  And again I confess to thee, O Lord, that I  know that I am speaking all these things in time, and that I have  already spoken of time a long time, and that "very long" is not  long except when measured by the duration of time.  How, then, do  I know this, when I do not know what time is?  Or, is it possible  that I do not know how I can express what I do know?  Alas for me!   I do not even know the extent of my own ignorance.  Behold, O my  God, in thy presence I do not lie.  As my heart is, so I speak.   Thou shalt light my candle; thou, O Lord my God, wilt enlighten my  darkness.[443]


                     CHAPTER XXVI

 33.  Does not my soul most truly confess to thee that I do  measure intervals of time?  But what is it that I thus measure, O  my God, and how is it that I do not know what I measure?  I  measure the motion of a body by time, but the time itself I do not  measure.  But, truly, could I measure the motion of a body -- how  long it takes, how long it is in motion from this place to that --  unless I could measure the time in which it is moving?       How, then, do I measure this time itself?  Do we measure a  longer time by a shorter time, as we measure the length of a  crossbeam in terms of cubits?[444]  Thus, we can say that the  length of a long syllable is measured by the length of a short  syllable and thus say that the long syllable is double.  So also  we measure the length of poems by the length of the lines, and the  length of the line by the length of the feet, and the length of  the feet by the length of the syllable, and the length of the long  syllables by the length of the short ones.  We do not measure by  pages -- for in that way we would measure space rather than time  -- but when we speak the words as they pass by we say: "It is a  long stanza, because it is made up of so many verses; they are  long verses because they consist of so many feet; they are long  feet because they extend over so many syllables; this is a long  syllable because it is twice the length of a short one."      But no certain measure of time is obtained this way; since it  is possible that if a shorter verse is pronounced slowly, it may  take up more time than a longer one if it is pronounced hurriedly.   The same would hold for a stanza, or a foot, or a syllable.  From  this it appears to me that time is nothing other than  extendedness;[445] but extendedness of what I do not know.  This  is a marvel to me.  The extendedness may be of the mind itself.   For what is it I measure, I ask thee, O my God, when I say either,  roughly, "This time is longer than that," or, more precisely,  "This is _twice_ as long as that." I know that I am measuring  time.  But I am not measuring the future, for it is not yet; and I  am not measuring the present because it is extended by no length;  and I am not measuring the past because it no longer is.  What is  it, therefore, that I am measuring?  Is it time in its passage,  but not time past [praetereuntia tempora, non praeterita]?  This  is what I have been saying.


                     CHAPTER XXVII

 34.  Press on, O my mind, and attend with all your power.   God is our Helper: "it is he that hath made us and not we  ourselves."[446]  Give heed where the truth begins to dawn.[447]   Suppose now that a bodily voice begins to sound, and continues to  sound -- on and on -- and then ceases.  Now there is silence.  The  voice is past, and there is no longer a sound.  It was future  before it sounded, and could not be measured because it was not  yet; and now it cannot be measured because it is no longer.   Therefore, while it was sounding, it might have been measured  because then there was something that could be measured.  But even  then it did not stand still, for it was in motion and was passing  away.  Could it, on that account, be any more readily measured?   For while it was passing away, it was being extended into some  interval of time in which it might be measured, since the present  has no length.  Supposing, though, that it might have been  measured -- then also suppose that another voice had begun to  sound and is still sounding without any interruption to break its  continued flow.  We can measure it only while it is sounding, for  when it has ceased to sound it will be already past and there will  not be anything there that can be measured.  Let us measure it  exactly; and let us say how much it is.  But while it is sounding,  it cannot be measured except from the instant when it began to  sound, down to the final moment when it left off.  For we measure  the time interval itself from some beginning point to some end.   This is why a voice that has not yet ended cannot be measured, so  that one could say how long or how briefly it will continue.  Nor  can it be said to be equal to another voice or single or double in  comparison to it or anything like this.  But when it is ended, it  is no longer.  How, therefore, may it be measured?  And yet we  measure times; not those which are not yet, nor those which no  longer are, nor those which are stretched out by some delay, nor  those which have no limit.  Therefore, we measure neither times  future nor times past, nor times present, nor times passing by;  and yet we do measure times.      35.  Deus Creator omnium[448]: this verse of eight syllables  alternates between short and long syllables.  The four short ones  -- that is, the first, third, fifth, and seventh -- are single in  relation to the four long ones -- that is, the second, fourth,  sixth, and eighth.  Each of the long ones is double the length of  each of the short ones.  I affirm this and report it, and common  sense perceives that this indeed is the case.  By common sense,  then, I measure a long syllable by a short one, and I find that it  is twice as long.  But when one sounds after another, if the first  be short and the latter long, how can I hold the short one and how  can I apply it to the long one as a measure, so that I can  discover that the long one is twice as long, when, in fact, the  long one does not begin to sound until the short one leaves off  sounding?  That same long syllable I do not measure as present,  since I cannot measure it until it is ended; but its ending is its  passing away.      What is it, then, that I can measure?  Where is the short  syllable by which I measure?  Where is the long one that I am  measuring?  Both have sounded, have flown away, have passed on,  and are no longer.  And still I measure, and I confidently answer  -- as far as a trained ear can be trusted -- that this syllable is  single and that syllable double.  And I could not do this unless  they both had passed and were ended.  Therefore I do not measure  them, for they do not exist any more.  But I measure something in  my memory which remains fixed.      36.  It is in you, O mind of mine, that I measure the periods  of time.  Do not shout me down that it exists [objectively]; do  not overwhelm yourself with the turbulent flood of your  impressions.  In you, as I have said, I measure the periods of  time.  I measure as time present the impression that things make  on you as they pass by and what remains after they have passed by  -- I do not measure the things themselves which have passed by and  left their impression on you.  This is what I measure when I  measure periods of time.  Either, then, these are the periods of  time or else I do not measure time at all.      What are we doing when we measure silence, and say that this  silence has lasted as long as that voice lasts?  Do we not project  our thought to the measure of a sound, as if it were then  sounding, so that we can say something concerning the intervals of  silence in a given span of time?  For, even when both the voice  and the tongue are still, we review -- in thought -- poems and  verses, and discourse of various kinds or various measures of  motions, and we specify their time spans -- how long this is in  relation to that -- just as if we were speaking them aloud.  If  anyone wishes to utter a prolonged sound, and if, in forethought,  he has decided how long it should be, that man has already in  silence gone through a span of time, and committed his sound to  memory.  Thus he begins to speak and his voice sounds until it  reaches the predetermined end.  It has truly sounded and will go  on sounding.  But what is already finished has already sounded and  what remains will still sound.  Thus it passes on, until the  present intention carries the future over into the past.  The past  increases by the diminution of the future until by the consumption  of all the future all is past.[449]


                      CHAPTER XXVIII

 37.  But how is the future diminished or consumed when it  does not yet exist?  Or how does the past, which exists no longer,  increase, unless it is that in the mind in which all this happens  there are three functions?  For the mind expects, it attends, and  it remembers; so that what it expects passes into what it  remembers by way of what it attends to.  Who denies that future  things do not exist as yet?  But still there is already in the  mind the expectation of things still future.  And who denies that  past things now exist no longer?  Still there is in the mind the  memory of things past.  Who denies that time present has no  length, since it passes away in a moment?  Yet, our attention has  a continuity and it is through this that what is present may  proceed to become absent.  Therefore, future time, which is  nonexistent, is not long; but "a long future" is "a long  expectation of the future." Nor is time past, which is now no  longer, long; a "long past" is "a long memory of the past."      38.  I am about to repeat a psalm that I know.  Before I  begin, my attention encompasses the whole, but once I have begun,  as much of it as becomes past while I speak is still stretched out  in my memory.  The span of my action is divided between my memory,  which contains what I have repeated, and my expectation, which  contains what I am about to repeat.  Yet my attention is  continually present with me, and through it what was future is  carried over so that it becomes past.  The more this is done and  repeated, the more the memory is enlarged -- and expectation is  shortened -- until the whole expectation is exhausted.  Then the  whole action is ended and passed into memory.  And what takes  place in the entire psalm takes place also in each individual part  of it and in each individual syllable.  This also holds in the  even longer action of which that psalm is only a portion.  The  same holds in the whole life of man, of which all the actions of  men are parts.  The same holds in the whole age of the sons of  men, of which all the lives of men are parts.


                     CHAPTER XXIX

 39.  But "since thy loving-kindness is better than life  itself,"[450] observe how my life is but a stretching out, and how  thy right hand has upheld me in my Lord, the Son of Man, the  Mediator between thee, the One, and us, the many -- in so many  ways and by so many means.  Thus through him I may lay hold upon  him in whom I am also laid hold upon; and I may be gathered up  from my old way of life to follow that One and to forget that  which is behind, no longer stretched out but now pulled together  again -- stretching forth not to what shall be and shall pass away  but to those things that _are_ before me.  Not distractedly now,  but intently, I follow on for the prize of my heavenly  calling,[451] where I may hear the sound of thy praise and  contemplate thy delights, which neither come to be nor pass away.      But now my years are spent in mourning.[452]  And thou, O  Lord, art my comfort, my eternal Father.  But I have been torn  between the times, the order of which I do not know, and my  thoughts, even the inmost and deepest places of my soul, are  mangled by various commotions until I shall flow together into  thee, purged and molten in the fire of thy love.


                      CHAPTER XXX

 40.  And I will be immovable and fixed in thee, and thy truth  will be my mold.  And I shall not have to endure the questions of  those men who, as if in a morbid disease, thirst for more than  they can hold and say, "What did God make before he made heaven  and earth?"  or, "How did it come into his mind to make something  when he had never before made anything?"  Grant them, O Lord, to  consider well what they are saying; and grant them to see that  where there is no time they cannot say "never." When, therefore,  he is said "never to have made" something -- what is this but to  say that it was made in no time at all?  Let them therefore see  that there could be no time without a created world, and let them  cease to speak vanity of this kind.  Let them also be stretched  out to those things which are before them, and understand that  thou, the eternal Creator of all times, art before all times and  that no times are coeternal with thee; nor is any creature, even  if there is a creature "above time."


                     CHAPTER XXXI 

 41.  O Lord my God, what a chasm there is in thy deep secret!   How far short of it have the consequences of my sins cast me?   Heal my eyes, that I may enjoy thy light.  Surely, if there is a  mind that so greatly abounds in knowledge and foreknowledge, to  which all things past and future are as well known as one psalm is  well known to me, that mind would be an exceeding marvel and  altogether astonishing.  For whatever is past and whatever is yet  to come would be no more concealed from him than the past and  future of that psalm were hidden from me when I was chanting it:  how much of it had been sung from the beginning and what and how  much still remained till the end.  But far be it from thee, O  Creator of the universe, and Creator of our souls and bodies --  far be it from thee that thou shouldst merely know all things past  and future.  Far, far more wonderfully, and far more mysteriously  thou knowest them.  For it is not as the feelings of one singing  familiar songs, or hearing a familiar song in which, because of  his expectation of words still to come and his remembrance of  those that are past, his feelings are varied and his senses are  divided.  This is not the way that anything happens to thee, who  art unchangeably eternal, that is, the truly eternal Creator of  minds.  As in the beginning thou knewest both the heaven and the  earth without any change in thy knowledge, so thou didst make  heaven and earth in their beginnings without any division in thy  action.[453]  Let him who understands this confess to thee; and  let him who does not understand also confess to thee!  Oh, exalted  as thou art, still the humble in heart are thy dwelling place!   For thou liftest them who are cast down and they fall not for whom  thou art the Most High.[454]      

He smote them with the flat instead of the edge of the sword. "Away, imps!" cried he, "away to your mothers!" The fanatic dervise reproached him with his clemency. "I did not kill them," replied Zenete, "because I saw no beards!"*

*Cura de los Palacios, c. 84.

The alarm was given in the camp, and the Christians rushed from all quarters to defend the gates of the bulwarks. Don Pedro Puerto Carrero, senior of Moguer, and his brother, Don Alonzo Pacheco, planted themselves with their followers in the gateway of the encampment of the master of Santiago, and bore the whole brunt of battle until they were reinforced. The gate of the encampment of the master of Calatrava was in like manner defended by Lorenzo Saurez de Mendoza. Hamet was furious at being thus checked where he had expected a miraculous victory. He led his troops repeatedly to the attack, hoping to force the gates before succor should arrive: they fought with vehement ardor, but were as often repulsed, and every time they returned to the assault they found their enemies doubled in number. The Christians opened a cross-fire of all kinds of missiles from their bulwarks; the Moors could effect but little damage upon a foe thus protected behind their works, while they themselves were exposed from head to foot. The Christians singled out the most conspicuous cavaliers, the greater part of whom were either slain or wounded. Still, the Moors, infatuated by the predictions of the prophet, fought desperately and devotedly, and they were furious to revenge the slaughter of their leaders. They rushed upon certain death, endeavoring madly to scale the bulwarks or force the gates, and fell amidst showers of darts and lances, filling the ditches with their mangled bodies.

Hamet el Zegri raged along the front of the bulwarks seeking an opening for attack. He gnashed his teeth with fury as he saw so many of his chosen warriors slain around him. He seemed to have a charmed life, for, though constantly in the hottest of the fight amidst showers of missiles, he still escaped uninjured. Blindly confiding in the prophecy of victory, he continued to urge on his devoted troops. The dervise too ran like a maniac through the ranks, waving his white banner and inciting the Moors by howlings rather than by shouts. "Fear not! the victory is ours, for so it is written!" cried he. In the midst of his frenzy a stone from a catapult struck him in the head and dashed out his bewildered brains.*

*Garibay, lib. 18, c. 33.

When the Moors beheld their prophet slain and his banner in the dust, they were seized with despair and fled in confusion to the city. Hamet el Zegri made some effort to rally them, but was himself confounded by the fall of the dervise. He covered the flight of his broken forces, turning repeatedly upon their pursuers and slowly making his retreat into the city.

The inhabitants of Malaga witnessed from their walls with trembling anxiety the whole of this disastrous conflict. At the first onset, when they beheld the guards of the camp put to flight, they exclaimed, "Allah has given us the victory!" and they sent up shouts of triumph. Their exultation, however, was soon turned into doubt when they beheld their troops repulsed in repeated attacks. They could see from time to time some distinguished warrior laid low and others brought back bleeding to the city. When at length the sacred banner fell and the routed troops came flying to the gates, pursued and cut down by the foe, horror and despair seized upon the populace.

As Hamet entered the gates he heard nothing but loud lamentations: mothers whose sons had been slain shrieked curses after him as he passed; some in the anguish of their hearts threw down their famishing babes before him, exclaiming, "Trample on them with thy horse's feet, for we have no food to give them, and we cannot endure their cries." All heaped execrations on his head as the cause of the woes of Malaga.

The warlike part of the citizens also, and many warriors who with their wives and children had taken refuge in Malaga from the mountain-fortresses, now joined in the popular clamor, for their hearts were overcome by the sufferings of their families.

Hamet el Zegri found it impossible to withstand this torrent of lamentations, curses, and reproaches. His military ascendancy was at an end, for most of his officers and the prime warriors of his African band had fallen in this disastrous sally. Turning his back, therefore, upon the city and abandoning it to its own counsels, he retired with the remnant of his Gomeres to his stronghold in the Gibralfaro.

CHAPTER LXIV.

HOW THE CITY OF MALAGA CAPITULATED.

The people of Malaga, being no longer overawed by Hamet el Zegri and his Gomeres, turned to Ali Dordux, the magnanimous merchant, and put the fate of the city into his hands. He had already gained the alcaydes of the castle of the Genoese and of the citadel into his party, and in the late confusion had gained the sway over those important fortresses. He now associated himself with the alfaqui Abraham Alhariz and four of the principal inhabitants, and, forming a provisional junta, they sent heralds to the Christian sovereigns offering to surrender the city on certain terms protecting the persons and property of the inhabitants, permitting them to reside as mudexares or tributary vassals either in Malaga or elsewhere.

When the herald arrived at the camp and made known their mission to King Ferdinand, his anger was kindled. "Return to your fellow- citizens," said he, "and tell them that the day of grace is gone by. They have persisted in a fruitless defence until they are driven by necessity to capitulate; they must surrender unconditionally and abide the fate of the vanquished. Those who merit death shall suffer death; those who merit captivity shall be made captives."

This stern reply spread consternation among the people of Malaga, but Ali Dordux comforted them, and undertook to go in person and pray for favorable terms. When the people beheld this great and wealthy merchant, who was so eminent in their city, departing with his associates on this mission, they plucked up heart, for they said, "Surely the Christian king will not turn a deaf ear to such a man as Ali Dordux."

Ferdinand, however, would not even admit the ambassadors to his presence. "Send them to the devil!" said he in a great passion to the commander of Leon; "I'll not see them. Let them get back to their city. They shall all surrender to my mercy as vanquished enemies."*

*Cura de los Palacios, cap. 84.

To give emphasis to this reply he ordered a general discharge from all the artillery and batteries, and there was a great shout throughout the camp, and all the lombards and catapults and other engines of war thundered furiously upon the city, doing great damage.

Ali Dordux and his companions returned to the city with downcast countenances, and could scarce make the reply of the Christian sovereign be heard for the roaring of the artillery, the tumbling of the walls, and the cries of women and children. The citizens were greatly astonished and dismayed when they found the little respect paid to their most eminent man; but the warriors who were in the city exclaimed, "What has this merchant to do with questions between men of battle? Let us not address the enemy as abject suppliants who have no power to injure, but as valiant men who have weapons in their hands."

So they despatched another message to the Christian sovereigns, offering to yield up the city and all their effects on condition of being secured in their personal liberty. Should this be denied, they declared they would hang from the battlements fifteen hundred Christian captives, male and female--that they would put all their old men, their women, and children into the citadel, set fire to the city, and sally forth, sword in hand, to fight until the last gasp. "In this way," said they, "the Spanish sovereigns shall gain a bloody victory, and the fall of Malaga be renowned while the world endures."

To this fierce and swelling message Ferdinand replied that if a single Christian captive were injured, not a Moor in Malaga but should be put to the edge of the sword.

A great conflict of counsels now arose in Malaga. The warriors were for following up their menace by some desperate act of vengeance or of self-devotion. Those who had families looked with anguish upon their wives and daughters, and thought it better to die than live to see them captives. By degrees, however, the transports of passion and despair subsided, the love of life resumed its sway, and they turned once more to Ali Dordux as the man most prudent in council and able in negotiation. By his advice fourteen of the principal inhabitants were chosen from the fourteen districts of the city, and sent to the camp bearing a long letter couched in terms of the most humble supplication.

Various debates now took place in the Christian camp. Many of the cavaliers were exasperated against Malaga for its long resistance, which had caused the death of many of their relatives and favorite companions. It had long been a stronghold also for Moorish depredators and the mart where most of the warriors captured in the Axarquia had been exposed in triumph and sold to slavery. They represented, moreover, that there were many Moorish cities yet to be besieged, and that an example ought to be made of Malaga to prevent all obstinate resistance thereafter. They advised, therefore, that all the inhabitants should be put to the sword.*

*Pulgar.

The humane heart of Isabella revolted at such sanguinary counsels: she insisted that their triumph should not be disgraced by cruelty. Ferdinand, however, was inflexible in refusing to grant any preliminary terms, insisting on an unconditional surrender.

The people of Malaga now abandoned themselves to paroxysms of despair; on one side they saw famine and death, on the other slavery and chains. The mere men of the sword, who had no families to protect, were loud for signalizing their fall by some illustrious action. "Let us sacrifice our Christian captives, and then destroy ourselves," cried some. "Let us put all the women and children to death, set fire to the city, fall on the Christian camp, and die sword in hand," cried others.

Ali Dordux gradually made his voice be heard amidst the general clamor. He addressed himself to the principal inhabitants and to those who had children. "Let those who live by the sword die by the sword," cried he, "but let us not follow their desperate counsels. Who knows what sparks of pity may be awakened in the bosoms of the Christian sovereigns when they behold our unoffending wives and daughters and our helpless little ones? The Christian queen, they say, is full of mercy."

At these words the hearts of the unhappy people of Malaga yearned over their families, and they empowered Ali Dordux to deliver up their city to the mercy of the Castilian sovereigns.

The merchant now went to and fro, and had several communications with Ferdinand and Isabella, and interested several principal cavaliers in his cause; and he sent rich presents to the king and queen of Oriental merchandise and silks and stuffs of gold and jewels and precious stones and spices and perfumes, and many other sumptuous things, which he had accumulated in his great tradings with the East; and he gradually found favor in the eyes of the sovereigns.* Finding that there was nothing to be obtained for the city, he now, like a prudent man and able merchant, began to negotiate for himself and his immediate friends. He represented that from the first they had been desirous of yielding up the city, but had been prevented by warlike and high-handed men, who had threatened their lives; he entreated, therefore, that mercy might be extended to them, and that they might not be confounded with the guilty.

*MS. Chron. of Valera.

The sovereigns had accepted the presents of Ali Dordux--how could they then turn a deaf ear to his petition? So they granted a pardon to him and to forty families which he named, and it was agreed that they should be protected in their liberties and property, and permitted to reside in Malaga as mudexares or Moslem vassals, and to follow their customary pursuits.* All this being arranged, Ali Dordux delivered up twenty of the principal inhabitants to remain as hostages until the whole city should be placed in the possession of the Christians.

*Cura de los Palacios, cap. 84.

Don Gutierrez de Cardenas, senior commander of Leon, now entered the city armed cap-a-pie, on horseback, and took possession in the name of the Castilian sovereigns. He was followed by his retainers and by the captains and cavaliers of the army, and in a little while the standards of the cross and of the blessed Santiago and of the Catholic sovereigns were elevated on the principal tower of the Alcazaba. When these standards were beheld from the camp, the queen and the princess and the ladies of the court and all the royal retinue knelt down and gave thanks and praises to the Holy Virgin and to Santiago for this great triumph of the faith; and the bishops and other clergy who were present and the choristers of the royal chapel chanted "Te Deum Laudamus" and "Gloria in Excelsis."

Boabdil was fated to be unfortunate, even in his victories. His defeat of the forces of his uncle destined to the relief of unhappy Malaga shocked the feelings and cooled the loyalty of many of his best adherents. The mere men of traffic might rejoice in their golden interval of peace, but the chivalrous spirits of Granada spurned a security purchased by such sacrifices of pride and affection. The people at large, having gratified their love of change, began to question whether they had acted generously by their old fighting monarch. "El Zagal," said they, "was fierce and bloody, but then he was faithful to his country; he was an usurper, it is true, but then he maintained the glory of the crown which he usurped. If his sceptre was a rod of iron to his subjects, it was a sword of steel against their enemies. This Boabdil sacrifices religion, friends, country, everything, to a mere shadow of royalty, and is content to hold a rush for a sceptre."

These factious murmurs soon reached the ears of Boabdil, and he apprehended another of his customary reverses. He sent in all haste to the Castilian sovereigns beseeching military aid to keep him on his throne. Ferdinand graciously complied with a request so much in unison with his policy. A detachment of one thousand cavalry and two thousand infantry was sent under the command of Don Fernandez Gonsalvo of Cordova, subsequently renowned as the grand captain. With this succor Boabdil expelled from the city all those who were hostile to him and in favor of his uncle. He felt secure in these troops, from their being distinct in manners, language, and religion from his subjects, and compromised with his pride in thus exhibiting that most unnatural and humiliating of all regal spectacles, a monarch supported on his throne by foreign weapons and by soldiers hostile to his people. Nor was Boabdil el Chico the only Moorish sovereign that sought protection from Ferdinand and Isabella. A splendid galley with latine sails and several banks of oars, displaying the standard of the Crescent, but likewise a white flag in sign of amity, came one day into the harbor. An ambassador landed from it within the Christian lines. He came from the king of Tremezan, and brought presents similar to those of Boabdil, consisting of Arabian coursers, with bits, stirrups, and other furniture of gold, together with costly Moorish mantles: for the queen there were sumptuous shawls, robes, and silken stuffs, ornaments of gold, and exquisite Oriental perfumes.

The king of Tremezan had been alarmed at the rapid conquests of the Spanish arms, and startled by the descent of several Spanish cruisers on the coast of Africa. He craved to be considered a vassal to the Castilian sovereigns, and that they would extend such favor and security to his ships and subjects as had been shown to other Moors who had submitted to their sway. He requested a painting of their arms, that he and his subjects might recognize and respect their standard whenever they encountered it. At the same time he implored their clemency toward unhappy Malaga, and that its inhabitants might experience the same favor that had been shown toward the Moors of other captured cities.

The embassy was graciously received by the Christian sovereigns. They granted the protection required, ordering their commanders to respect the flag of Tremezan unless it should be found rendering assistance to the enemy. They sent also to the Barbary monarch their royal arms moulded in escutcheons of gold, a hand's-breadth in size.*

*Cura de los Palacios, c. 84; Pulgar, part 3, c. 68.

While thus the chances of assistance from without daily decreased, famine raged in the city. The inhabitants were compelled to eat the flesh of horses, and many died of hunger. What made the sufferings of the citizens the more intolerable was to behold the sea covered with ships daily arriving with provisions for the besiegers. Day after day also they saw herds of fat cattle and flocks of sheep driven into the camp. Wheat and flour were piled in huge mounds in the centre of the encampments, glaring in the sunshine, and tantalizing the wretched citizens, who, while they and their children were perishing with hunger, beheld prodigal abundance reigning within a bow-shot of their walls.

CHAPTER LIX.

HOW A MOORISH SANTON UNDERTOOK TO DELIVER THE CITY OF MALAGA FROM THE POWER OF ITS ENEMIES.

There lived at this time in a hamlet in the neighborhood of Guadix an ancient Moor of the name of Ibrahim el Guerbi. He was a native of the island of Guerbes, in the kingdom of Tunis, and had for several years led the life of a santon or hermit. The hot sun of Africa had dried his blood, and rendered him of an exalted yet melancholy temperament. He passed most of his time in caves of the mountains in meditation, prayer, and rigorous abstinence, until his body was wasted and his mind bewildered, and he fancied himself favored with divine revelations and visited by angels sent by Mahomet. The Moors, who had a great reverence for all enthusiasts of the kind, believed in his being inspired, listened to all his ravings as veritable prophecies, and denominated him "el santo," or the saint.

The woes of the kingdom of Granada had long exasperated the gloomy spirit of this man, and he had beheld with indignation this beautiful country wrested from the dominion of the faithful and becoming a prey to the unbelievers. He had implored the blessings of Allah on the troops which issued forth from Guadix for the relief of Malaga, but when he saw them return routed and scattered by their own countrymen, he retired to his cell, shut himself up from the world, and was plunged for a time in the blackest melancholy.

On a sudden he made his appearance again in the streets of Guadix, his face haggard, his form emaciated, but his eyes beaming with fire. He said that Allah had sent an angel to him in the solitude of his cell, revealing to him a mode of delivering Malaga from its perils and striking horror and confusion into the camp of the unbelievers. The Moors listened with eager credulity to his words: four hundred of them offered to follow him even to the death and to obey implicitly his commands. Of this number many were Gomeres, anxious to relieve their countrymen who formed part of the garrison of Malaga.

They traversed the kingdom by the wild and lonely passes of the mountains, concealing themselves in the day and travelling only in the night to elude the Christian scouts. At length they arrived at the mountains which tower above Malaga, and, looking down, beheld the city completely invested, a chain of encampments extending round it from shore to shore and a line of ships blockading it by sea, while the continual thunder of artillery and the smoke rising in various parts showed that the siege was pressed with great activity. The hermit scanned the encampments warily from his lofty height. He saw that the part of the encampment of the marques of Cadiz which was at the foot of the height and on the margin of the sea was most assailable, the rocky soil not admitting ditches or palisadoes. Remaining concealed all day, he descended with his followers at night to the sea-coast and approached silently to the outworks. He had given them their instructions: they were to rush suddenly upon the camp, fight their way through, and throw themselves into the city.

It was just at the gray of the dawning, when objects are obscurely visible, that they made this desperate attempt. Some sprang suddenly upon the sentinels, others rushed into the sea and got round the works, others clambered over the breastworks. There was sharp skirmishing; a great part of the Moors were cut to pieces, but about two hundred succeeded in getting into the gates of Malaga.

The santon took no part in the conflict, nor did he endeavor to enter the city. His plans were of a different nature. Drawing apart from the battle, he threw himself on his knees on a rising ground, and, lifting his hands to heaven, appeared to be absorbed in prayer. The Christians, as they were searching for fugitives in the clefts of the rocks, found him at his devotions. He stirred not at their approach, but remained fixed as a statue, without changing color or moving a muscle. Filled with surprise, not unmingled with awe, they took him to the marques of Cadiz. He was wrapped in a coarse albornoz, or Moorish mantle, his beard was long and grizzled, and there was something wild and melancholy in his look that inspired curiosity. On being examined, he gave himself out as a saint to whom Allah had revealed the events that were to take place in that siege. The marques demanded when and how Malaga was to be taken. He replied that he knew full well, but he was forbidden to reveal those important secrets except to the king and queen. The good marques was not more given to superstitious fancies than other commanders of his time, yet there seemed something singular and mysterious about this man; he might have some important intelligence to communicate; so he was persuaded to send him to the king and queen. He was conducted to the royal tent, surrounded by a curious multitude exclaiming "El Moro Santo!" for the news had spread through the camp that they had taken a Moorish prophet.

The king, having dined, was taking his siesta, or afternoon's sleep, in his tent, and the queen, though curious to see this singular man, yet from a natural delicacy and reserve delayed until the king should be present. He was taken, therefore, to an adjoining tent, in which were Dona Beatrix de Bovadilla, marchioness of Moya, and Don Alvaro of Portugal, son of the duke of Braganza, with two or three attendants. The Moor, ignorant of the Spanish tongue, had not understood the conversation of the guards, and supposed, from the magnificence of the furniture and the silken hangings, that this was the royal tent. From the respect paid by the attendants to Don Alvaro and the marchioness he concluded that they were the king and queen.

He now asked for a draught of water: a jar was brought to him, and the guard released his arm to enable him to drink. The marchioness perceived a sudden change in his countenance and something sinister in the expression of his eye, and shifted her position to a more remote part of the tent. Pretending to raise the water to his lips, the Moor unfolded his albornoz, so as to grasp a scimetar which he wore concealed beneath; then, dashing down the jar, he drew his weapon and gave Don Alvaro a blow on the head that struck him to the earth and nearly deprived him of life. Turning then upon the marchioness, he made a violent blow at her; but in his eagerness and agitation his scimetar caught in the drapery of the tent; the force of the blow was broken, and the weapon struck harmless upon some golden ornaments of her head-dress.*

*Pietro Martyr, Epist. 62.

Ruy Lopez de Toledo, treasurer to the queen, and Juan de Belalcazar, a sturdy friar, who were present, grappled and struggled with the desperado, and immediately the guards who had conducted him from the marques de Cadiz fell upon him and cut him to pieces.*

*Cura de los Palacios

The king and queen, brought out of their tents by the noise, were filled with horror when they learned the imminent peril from which they had escaped. The mangled body of the Moor was taken by the people to the camp and thrown into the city from a catapult. The Gomeres gathered up the body with deep reverence as the remains of a saint; they washed and perfumed it and buried it with great honor and loud lamentations. In revenge of his death they slew one of their principal Christian captives, and, having tied his body upon an ass, they drove the animal forth into the camp.

From this time there was appointed an additional guard around the tents of the king and queen, composed of four hundred cavaliers of rank of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. No person was admitted to the royal presence armed; no Moor was allowed to enter the camp without a previous knowledge of his character and business; and on no account was any Moor to be introduced into the presence of the sovereigns.

An act of treachery of such ferocious nature gave rise to a train of gloomy apprehensions. There were many cabins and sheds about the camp constructed of branches of trees which had become dry and combustible, and fears were entertained that they might be set on fire by the mudexares, or Moorish vassals, who visited the army. Some even dreaded that attempts might be made to poison the wells and fountains. To quiet these dismal alarms all mudexares were ordered to leave the camp, and all loose, idle loiterers who could not give a good account of themselves were taken into custody.

CHAPTER LX.

HOW HAMET EL ZEGRI WAS HARDENED IN HIS OBSTINACY BY THE ARTS OF A MOORISH ASTROLOGER.

Among those followers of the santon that had effected their entrance into the city was a dark African of the tribe of the Gomeres, who was likewise a hermit or dervise and passed among the Moors for a holy and inspired man. No sooner were the mangled remains of his predecessor buried with the honors of martyrdom than this dervise elevated himself in his place and professed to be gifted with the spirit of prophecy. He displayed a white banner, which he assured the Moors was sacred, that he had retained it for twenty years for some signal purpose, and that Allah had revealed to him that under that banner the inhabitants of Malaga should sally forth upon the camp of the unbelievers, put it to utter rout, and banquet upon the provisions in which it abounded.* The hungry and credulous Moors were elated at this prediction, and cried out to be led forth at once to the attack; but the dervise told them the time was not yet arrived, for every event had its allotted day in the decrees of fate: they must wait patiently, therefore, until the appointed time should be revealed to him by Heaven. Hamet el Zegri listened to the dervise with profound reverence, and his example had great effect in increasing the awe and deference of his followers. He took the holy man up into his stronghold of Gibralfaro, consulted him on all occasions, and hung out his white banner on the loftiest tower as a signal of encouragement to the people of the city.

*Cura de los Palacios, cap. 84.

In the mean time, the prime chivalry of Spain was gradually assembling before the walls of Malaga. The army which had commenced the siege had been worn out by extreme hardships, having had to construct immense works, to dig trenches and mines, to mount guard by sea and land, to patrol the mountains, and to sustain incessant conflicts. The sovereigns were obliged, therefore, to call upon various distant cities for reinforcements of horse and foot. Many nobles also assembled their vassals and repaired of their own accord to the royal camp.

Every little while some stately galley or gallant caravel would stand into the harbor, displaying the well-known banner of some Spanish cavalier and thundering from its artillery a salutation to the sovereigns and a defiance to the Moors. On the land side also reinforcements would be seen winding down from the mountains to the sound of drum and trumpet, and marching into the camp with glistening arms as yet unsullied by the toils of war.

One morning the whole sea was whitened by the sails and vexed by the oars of ships and galleys bearing toward the port. One hundred vessels of various kinds and sizes arrived, some armed for warlike service, others deep freighted with provisions. At the same time the clangor of drum and trumpet bespoke the arrival of a powerful force by land, which came pouring in lengthening columns into the camp. This mighty reinforcement was furnished by the duke of Medina Sidonia, who reigned like a petty monarch over his vast possessions. He came with this princely force a volunteer to the royal standard, not having been summoned by the sovereigns, and he brought, moreover, a loan of twenty thousand doblas of gold.

When the camp was thus powerfully reinforced Isabella advised that new offers of an indulgent kind should be made to the inhabitants, for she was anxious to prevent the miseries of a protracted siege or the effusion of blood that must attend a general attack. A fresh summons was therefore sent for the city to surrender, with a promise of life, liberty, and property in case of immediate compliance, but denouncing all the horrors of war if the defence were obstinately continued.

Hamet again rejected the offer with scorn. His main fortifications as yet were but little impaired, and were capable of holding out much longer; he trusted to the thousand evils and accidents that beset a besieging army and to the inclemencies of the approaching season; and it is said that he, as well as his followers, had an infatuated belief in the predictions of the dervise.

The worthy Fray Antonio Agapida does not scruple to affirm that the pretended prophet of the city was an arch nigromancer, or Moorish magician, "of which there be countless many," says he, "in the filthy sect of Mahomet," and that he was leagued with the prince of the powers of the air to endeavor to work the confusion and defeat of the Christian army. The worthy father asserts also that Hamet employed him in a high tower of the Gibralfaro, which commanded a wide view over sea and land, where he wrought spells and incantations with astrolabes and other diabolical instruments to defeat the Christian ships and forces whenever they were engaged with the Moors.

To the potent spells of this sorcerer he ascribes the perils and losses sustained by a party of cavaliers of the royal household in a desperate combat to gain two towers of the suburb near the gate of the city called la Puerto de Granada. The Christians, led on by Ruy Lopez de Toledo, the valiant treasurer of the queen, took and lost and retook the towers, which were finally set on fire by the Moors and abandoned to the flames by both parties. To the same malignant influence he attributes the damage done to the Christian fleet, which was so vigorously assailed by the albatozas, or floating batteries, of the Moors that one ship, belonging to the duke of Medina Sidonia, was sunk and the rest were obliged to retire.

"Hamet el Zegri," says Fray Antonio Agapida, "stood on the top of the high tower of Gibralfaro and beheld this injury wrought upon the Christian force, and his proud heart was puffed up. And the Moorish nigromancer stood beside him. And he pointed out to him the Christian host below, encamped on every eminence around the city and covering its fertile valley, and the many ships floating upon the tranquil sea, and he bade him be strong of heart, for that in a few days all this mighty fleet would be scattered by the winds of heaven, and that he should sally forth under the guidance of the sacred banner and attack this host, and utterly defeat it, and make spoil of those sumptuous tents; and Malaga should be triumphantly revenged upon her assailants. So the heart of Hamet was hardened like that of Pharaoh, and he persisted in setting at defiance the Catholic sovereigns and their army of saintly warriors."

CHAPTER LXI.

SIEGE OF MALAGA CONTINUED.--DESTRUCTION OF A TOWER BY FRANCISCO RAMIREZ DE MADRID.

Seeing the infatuated obstinacy of the besieged, the Christians now approached their works to the walls, gaining one position after another preparatory to a general assault. Near the barrier of the city was a bridge with four arches, defended at each end by a strong and lofty tower, by which a part of the army would have to pass in making an attack. The commander-in-chief of the artillery, Francisco Ramirez de Madrid, was ordered to take possession of this bridge. The approach to it was perilous in the extreme, from the exposed situation of the assailants and the number of Moors that garrisoned the towers. Francisco Ramirez therefore secretly excavated a mine leading beneath the first tower, and placed a piece of ordnance with its mouth upward immediately under the foundation, with a train of powder to produce an explosion at the necessary moment.

When this was arranged he advanced slowly with his forces in face of the towers, erecting bulwarks at every step, and gradually gaining ground until he arrived near to the bridge. He then planted several pieces of artillery in his works and began to batter the tower. The Moors replied bravely from their battlements, but in the heat of the combat the piece of ordnance under the foundation was discharged. The earth was rent open, a part of the tower overthrown, and several of the Moors were torn to pieces; the rest took to flight, overwhelmed with terror at this thundering explosion bursting beneath their feet and at beholding the earth vomiting flames and smoke, for never before had they witnessed such a stratagem in warfare. The Christians rushed forward and took possession of the abandoned post, and immediately commenced an attack upon the other tower at the opposite end of the bridge, to which the Moors had retired. An incessant fire of crossbows and arquebuses was kept up between the rival towers, volleys of stones were discharged, and no one dared to venture upon the intermediate bridge.

Francisco de Ramirez at length renewed his former mode of approach, making bulwarks step by step, while the Moors, stationed at the other end, swept the bridge with their artillery. The combat was long and bloody--furious on the part of the Moors, patient and persevering on the part of the Christians. By slow degrees they accomplished their advance across the bridge, drove the enemy before them, and remained masters of this important pass.

For this valiant and skilful achievement King Ferdinand after the surrender of the city conferred the dignity of knighthood upon Francisco Ramirez in the tower which he had so gloriously gained.* The worthy padre Fray Antonio Agapida indulges in more than a page of extravagant eulogy upon this invention of blowing up the foundation of the tower by a piece of ordnance; which, in fact, is said to be the first instance on record of gunpowder being used in a mine.

*Pulgar, part 3, c. 91.

CHAPTER LXII.

HOW THE PEOPLE OF MALAGA EXPOSTULATED WITH HAMET EL ZEGRI.

While the dervise was deluding the garrison of Malaga with vain hopes the famine increased to a terrible degree. The Gomeres ranged about the city as though it had been a conquered place, taking by force whatever they found eatable in the houses of the peaceful citizens, and breaking open vaults and cellars and demolishing walls wherever they thought provisions might be concealed.

The wretched inhabitants had no longer bread to eat; the horse- flesh also now failed them, and they were fain to devour skins and hides toasted at the fire, and to assuage the hunger of their children with vine-leaves cut up and fried in oil. Many perished of famine or of the unwholesome food with which they endeavored to relieve it, and many took refuge in the Christian camp, preferring captivity to the horrors which surrounded them.

At length the sufferings of the inhabitants became so great as to conquer even their fears of Hamet and his Gomeres. They assembled before the house of Ali Dordux, the wealthy merchant, whose stately mansion was at the foot of the hill of the Alcazaba, and they urged him to stand forth as their leader and to intercede with Hamet for a surrender. Ali Dordux was a man of courage as well as policy; he perceived also that hunger was giving boldness to the citizens, while he trusted it was subduing the fierceness of the soldiery. He armed himself, therefore, cap-a-pie, and undertook this dangerous parley with the alcayde. He associated with him an alfaqui named Abraham Alhariz and an important inhabitant named Amar ben Amar, and they ascended to the fortress of Gibralfaro, followed by several of the trembling merchants.

They found Hamet el Zegri, not, as before, surrounded by ferocious guards and all the implements of war, but in a chamber of one of the lofty towers, at a table of stone covered with scrolls traced with strange characters and mystic diagrams, while instruments of singular and unknown form lay about the room. Beside Hamet stood the prophetic dervise, who appeared to have been explaining to him the mysterious inscriptions of the scrolls. His presence filled the citizens with awe, for even Ali Dordux considered him a man inspired.

The alfaqui, Abraham Alhariz, whose sacred character gave him boldness to speak, now lifted up his voice and addressed Hamet el Zegri. "We implore thee," said he, solemnly, "in the name of the most powerful God, no longer to persist in a vain resistance which must end in our destruction, but deliver up the city while clemency is yet to be obtained. Think how many of our warriors have fallen by

the sword; do not suffer those who survive to perish by famine. Our wives and children cry to us for bread, and we have none to give them. We see them expire in lingering agony before our eyes, while the enemy mocks our misery by displaying the abundance of his camp. Of what avail is our defence? Are our walls, peradventure, more strong than the walls of Ronda? Are our warriors more brave than the defenders of Loxa? The walls of Ronda were thrown down and the warriors of Loxa had to surrender. Do we hope for succor?--whence are we to receive it? The time for hope is gone by. Granada has lost its power; it no longer possesses chivalry, commanders, nor a king. Boabdil sits a vassal in the degraded halls of the Alhambra; El Zagal is a fugitive, shut up within the walls of Guadix. The kingdom is divided against itself--its strength is gone, its pride fallen, its very existence at an end. In the name of Allah we conjure thee, who art our captain, be not our direst enemy, but surrender these ruins of our once-happy Malaga and deliver us from these overwhelming horrors."

Such was the supplication forced from the inhabitants by the extremity of their sufferings. Hamet listened to the alfaqui without anger, for he respected the sanctity of his office. His heart too was at that moment lifted up with a vain confidence. "Yet a few days of patience," said he, "and all these evils will suddenly have an end. I have been conferring with this holy man, and find that the time of our deliverance is at hand. The decrees of fate are inevitable; it is written in the book of destiny that we shall sally forth and destroy the camp of the unbelievers, and banquet upon those mountains of grain which are piled up in the midst of it. So Allah hath promised by the mouth of this his prophet. Allah Akbar! God is great! Let no man oppose the decrees of Heaven!"

The citizens bowed with profound reverence, for no true Moslem pretends to struggle against whatever is written in the book of fate. Ali Dordux, who had come prepared to champion the city and to brave the ire of Hamet, humbled himself before this holy man and gave faith to his prophecies as the revelations of Allah. So the deputies returned to the citizens, and exhorted them to be of good cheer. "A few days longer," said they, "and our sufferings are to terminate. When the white banner is removed from the tower, then look out for deliverance, for the hour of sallying forth will have arrived." The people retired to their homes with sorrowful hearts; they tried in vain to quiet the cries of their famishing children, and day by day and hour by hour their anxious eyes were turned to the sacred banner, which still continued to wave on the tower of Gibralfaro.

CHAPTER LXIII.

HOW HAMET EL ZEGRI SALLIED FORTH WITH THE SACRED BANNER TO ATTACK THE CHRISTIAN CAMP.

"The Moorish nigromancer," observes the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida, "remained shut up in a tower of the Gibralfaro devising devilish means to work mischief and discomfiture upon the Christians. He was daily consulted by Hamet, who had great faith in those black and magic arts which he had brought with him from the bosom of heathen Africa."

From the account given of this dervise and his incantations by the worthy father it would appear that he was an astrologer, and was studying the stars and endeavoring to calculate the day and hour when a successful attack might be made upon the Christian camp.

Famine had now increased to such a degree as to distress even the garrison of Gibralfaro, although the Gomeres had seized upon all the provisions they could find in the city. Their passions were sharpened by hunger, and they became restless and turbulent and impatient for action.

Hamet was one day in council with his captains, perplexed by the pressure of events, when the dervise entered among them. "The hour of victory," exclaimed he, "is at hand. Allah has commanded that to-morrow morning ye shall sally forth to the fight. I will bear before you the sacred banner and deliver your enemies into your hands. Remember, however, that ye are but instruments in the hands of Allah to take vengeance on the enemies of the faith. Go into battle, therefore, with pure hearts, forgiving each other all past offences, for those who are charitable toward each other will be victorious over the foe." The words of the dervise were received with rapture; all Gibralfaro and the Alcazaba resounded immediately with the din of arms, and Hamet sent throughout the towers and fortifications of the city and selected the choicest troops and most distinguished captains for this eventful combat.

In the morning early the rumor went throughout the city that the sacred banner had disappeared from the tower of Gibralfaro, and all Malaga was roused to witness the sally that was to destroy the unbelievers. Hamet descended from his stronghold, accompanied by his principal captain, Ibrahim Zenete, and followed by his Gomeres. The dervise led the way, displaying the white banner, the sacred pledge of victory. The multitude shouted "Allah Akbar!" and prostrated themselves before the banner as it passed. Even the dreaded Hamet was hailed with praises, for in their hopes of speedy relief through the prowess of his arm the populace forgot everything but his bravery. Every bosom in Malaga was agitated by hope and fear: the old men, the women, and children, and all who went not forth to battle mounted on tower and battlement and roof to watch a combat that was to decide their fate.

Ferdinand at first could not credit so signal and miraculous a defeat, but suspected some lurking stratagem. He ordered, therefore, that a strict watch should be maintained throughout the camp and every one be ready for instant action. The following night a thousand cavaliers and hidalgos kept guard about the royal tent, as they had done for several preceding nights; nor did the king relax this vigilance until he received certain intelligence that the enemy was completely scattered and El Zagal flying in confusion.

The tidings of this rout and of the safety of the Christian army arrived at Cordova just as reinforcements were on the point of setting out. The anxiety and alarm of the queen and the public were turned to transports of joy and gratitude. The forces were disbanded, solemn processions were made, and "Te Deums" chanted in the churches for so signal a victory.

CHAPTER L.

HOW THE PEOPLE OF GRANADA REWARDED THE VALOR OF EL ZAGAL.

The daring spirit of Muley Abdallah el Zagal in sallying forth to defend his territories while he left an armed rival in his capital struck the people of Granada with admiration. They recalled his former exploits, and again anticipated some hardy achievement from his valor. Couriers from the army reported its formidable position on the height of Bentomiz. For a time there was a pause in the bloody commotions of the city; all attention was turned to the blow about to be struck at the Christian camp. The same considerations which diffused anxiety and terror through Cordova swelled every bosom with exulting confidence in Granada. The Moors expected to hear of another massacre like that in the mountains of Malaga. "El Zagal has again entrapped the enemy!" was the cry. "The power of the unbelievers is about to be struck to the heart. We shall soon see the Christian king led captive to the capital." Thus was the name of El Zagal on every tongue. He was extolled as the savior of the country, the only one worthy of wearing the Moorish crown. Boabdil was reviled as basely remaining passive while his country was invaded and so violent became the clamor of the populace that his adherents trembled for his safety.

While the people of Granada were impatiently looking out for tidings of the anticipated victory scattered horsemen came spurring across the Vega. They were fugitives from the Moorish army, and brought the first incoherent account of its defeat. Every one who attempted to tell the tale of this unaccountable panic and dispersion was as if bewildered by the broken recollection of some frightful dream. He knew not how or why it came to pass. He talked of a battle in the night, among rocks and precipices, by the glare of bale-fires; of multitudes of armed foes in every pass, seen by gleams and flashes; of the sudden horror that seized upon the army at daybreak, its headlong flight, and total dispersion. Hour after hour the arrival of other fugitives confirmed the story of ruin and disgrace.

In proportion to their recent vaunting was the humiliation that now fell upon the people of Granada. There was a universal burst, not of grief, but indignation. They confounded the leader with the army-- the deserted with those who had abandoned him, and El Zagal, from being their idol, became suddenly the object of their execration. He had sacrificed the army; he had disgraced the nation; he had betrayed the country. He was a dastard, a traitor; he was unworthy to reign.

On a sudden one among the multitude shouted, "Long live Boabdil el Chico!" The cry was echoed on all sides, and every one shouted, "Long live Boabdil el Chico! long live the legitimate king of Granada! and death to all usurpers!" In the excitement of the moment they thronged to the Albaycin, and those who had lately besieged Boabdil with arms now surrounded his palace with acclamations. The keys of the city and of all the fortresses were laid at his feet; he was borne in state to the Alhambra, and once more seated with all due ceremony on the throne of his ancestors.

Boabdil had by this time become so accustomed to be crowned and uncrowned by the multitude that he put no great faith in the duration of their loyalty. He knew that he was surrounded by hollow hearts, and that most of the courtiers of the Alhambra were secretly devoted to his uncle. He ascended the throne as the rightful sovereign who had been dispossessed of it by usurpation, and he ordered the heads of four of the principal nobles to be struck off who had been most zealous in support of the[9]usurper. Executions of the kind were matters of course on any change in Moorish government, and Boabdil was lauded for his moderation and humanity in being content with so small a sacrifice. The factions were awed into obedience; the populace, delighted with any change, extolled Boabdil to the skies; and the name of Muley Abdallah el Zagal was for a time a by-word of scorn and opprobrium throughout the city.

Never was any commander more astonished and confounded by a sudden reverse of fortune than El Zagal. The evening had seen him with a powerful army at his command, his enemy within his grasp, and victory about to cover him with glory and to consolidate his power: the morning beheld him a fugitive among the mountains, his army, his prosperity, his power, all dispelled, he knew not how--gone like a dream of the night. In vain had he tried to stem the headlong flight of the army. He saw his squadrons breaking and dispersing among the cliffs of the mountains, until of all his host only a handful of cavaliers remained faithful. With these he made a gloomy retreat toward Granada, but with a heart full of foreboding. As he drew near to the city he paused on the banks of the Xenil and sent forth scouts to collect intelligence. They returned with dejected countenances. "The gates of Granada," said they, "are closed against you. The banner of Boabdil floats on the tower of the Alhambra."

El Zagal turned his steed and departed in silence. He retreated to the town of Almunecar, and thence to Almeria, which places still remained faithful to him. Restless and uneasy at being so distant from the capital, he again changed his abode, and repaired to the city of Guadix, within a few leagues of Granada. Here he remained, endeavoring to rally his forces and preparing to avail himself of any sudden change in the fluctuating politics of the metropolis.

CHAPTER LI.

SURRENDER OF VELEZ MALAGA AND OTHER PLACES.

The people of Velez Malaga had beheld the camp of Muley Abdallah covering the summit of Bentomiz and glittering in the last rays of the setting sun. During the night they had been alarmed and perplexed by signal-fires on the mountain and by the sound of distant battle. When the morning broke the Moorish army had vanished as if by enchantment. While the inhabitants were lost in wonder and conjecture, a body of cavalry, the fragment of the army saved by Reduan de Vanegas, the brave alcayde of Granada, came galloping to the gates. The tidings of the strange discomfiture of the host filled the city with consternation, but Reduan exhorted the people to continue their resistance. He was devoted to El Zagal and confident in his skill and prowess, and felt assured that he would soon collect his scattered forces and return with fresh troops from Granada. The people were comforted by the words and encouraged by the presence of Reduan, and they had still a lingering hope that the heavy artillery of the Christians might be locked up in the impassable defiles of the mountains. This hope was soon at an end. The very next day they beheld long laborious lines of ordnance slowly moving into the Spanish camp--lombards, ribadoquines, catapults, and cars laden with munitions--while the escort, under the brave master of Alcantara, wheeled in great battalions into the camp to augment the force of the besiegers.

The intelligence that Granada had shut its gates against El Zagal, and that no reinforcements were to be expected, completed the despair of the inhabitants; even Reduan himself lost confidence and advised capitulation.

Ferdinand granted favorable conditions, for he was eager to proceed against Malaga. The inhabitants were permitted to depart with their effects except their arms, and to reside, if they chose it, in Spain in any place distant from the sea. One hundred and twenty Christians of both sexes were rescued from captivity by the surrender, and were sent to Cordova, where they were received with great tenderness by the queen and her daughter the infanta Isabella in the famous cathedral in the midst of public rejoicings for the victory.

The capture of Velez Malaga was followed by the surrender of Bentomiz, Comares, and all the towns and fortresses of the Axarquia, which were strongly garrisoned, and discreet and valiant cavaliers appointed as their alcaydes. The inhabitants of nearly forty towns of the Alpuxarras mountains also sent deputations to the Castilian sovereigns, taking the oath of allegiance as mudexares or Moslem vassals.

About the same time came letters from Boabdil el Chico announcing to the sovereigns the revolution of Granada in his favor. He solicited kindness and protection for the inhabitants who had returned to their allegiance, and for those of all other places which should renounce adherence to his uncle. By this means (he observed) the whole kingdom of Granada would soon be induced to acknowledge his sway, and would be held by him in faithful vassalage to the Castilian Crown.

The Catholic sovereigns complied with his request. Protection was immediately extended to the inhabitants of Granada, permitting them to cultivate their fields in peace and to trade with the Christian territories in all articles excepting arms, being provided with letters of surety from some Christian captain or alcayde. The same favor was promised to all other places which within six months should renounce El Zagal and come under allegiance to the younger king. Should they not do so within that time, the sovereigns threatened to make war upon them and conquer them for themselves. This measure had a great effect in inducing many to return to the standard of Boabdil.

Having made every necessary arrangement for the government and security of the newly-conquered territory, Ferdinand turned his attention to the great object of his campaign, the reduction of Malaga.

CHAPTER LII.

OF THE CITY OF MALAGA AND ITS INHABITANTS.--MISSION OF HERNANDO DEL PULGAR.

The city of Malaga lies in the lap of a fertile valley, surrounded by mountains, excepting on the part which lies open to the sea. As it was one of the most important, so it was one of the strongest, cities of the Moorish kingdom. It was fortified by walls of prodigious strength studded with a great number of huge towers. On the land side it was protected by a natural barrier of mountains, and on the other the waves of the Mediterranean beat against the foundations of its massive bulwarks.

At one end of the city, near the sea, on a high mound, stood the Alcazaba, or citadel, a fortress of great strength. Immediately above this rose a steep and rocky mount, on the top of which in old times had been a pharos or lighthouse, from which the height derived its name of Gibralfaro.* It was at present crowned by an immense castle, which, from its lofty and cragged situation, its vast walls, and mighty towers, was deemed impregnable. It communicated with the Alcazaba by a covered way six paces broad, leading down between two walls along the profile or ridge of the rock. The castle of Gibralfaro commanded both citadel and city, and was capable, if both were taken, of maintaining a siege. Two large suburbs adjoined the city: in the one toward the sea were the dwelling-houses of the most opulent inhabitants, adorned with hanging gardens; the other, on the land side, was thickly peopled and surrounded by strong walls and towers.

*A corruption of "Gibel-faro," the hill of the lighthouse.

Malaga possessed a brave and numerous garrison, and the common people were active, hardy, and resolute; but the city was rich and commercial, and under the habitual control of numerous opulent merchants, who dreaded the ruinous consequences of a siege. They were little zealous for the warlike renown of their city, and longed rather to participate in the enviable security of property and the lucrative privileges of safe traffic with the Christian territories granted to all places which declared for Boabdil. At the head of these gainful citizens was Ali Dordux, a mighty merchant of uncounted wealth, connected, it is said, with the royal family of Granada, whose ships traded to every part of the Levant and whose word was as a law in Malaga. Ali Dordux assembled the most opulent and important of his commercial brethren, and they repaired in a body to the Alcazaba, where they were received by the alcayde, Aben Comixa, with that deference generally shown to men of their great local dignity and power of purse. Ali Dordux was ample and stately in his form and fluent and emphatic in his discourse; his eloquence had an effect, therefore, upon the alcayde as he represented the hopelessness of a defence of Malaga, the misery that must attend a siege, and the ruin that must follow a capture by force of arms. On the other hand, he set forth the grace that might be obtained from the Castilian sovereigns by an early and voluntary acknowledgment of Boabdil as king, the peaceful possession of their property, and the profitable commerce with the Christian ports that would be allowed them. He was seconded by his weighty and important coadjutors; and the alcadye, accustomed to regard them as the arbiters of the affairs of the place, yielded to their united counsels. He departed, therefore, with all speed to the Christian camp, empowered to arrange a capitulation with the Castilian monarch, and in the mean time his brother remained in command of the Alcazaba.

There was at this time as alcayde in the old crag-built castle of Gibralfaro a warlike and fiery Moor, an implacable enemy of the Christians. This was no other than Hamet Zeli, surnamed El Zegri, the once-formidable alcayde of Ronda and the terror of its mountains. He had never forgiven the capture of his favorite fortress, and panted for vengeance on the Christians. Notwithstanding his reverses, he had retained the favor of El Zagal, who knew how to appreciate a bold warrior of the kind, and had placed him in command of this important fortress of Gibralfaro.

Hamet el Zegri had gathered round him the remnant of his band of Gomeres, with others of the same tribe recently arrived from Morocco. These fierce warriors were nestled like so many war-hawks about their lofty cliff. They looked down with martial contempt upon the commercial city of Malaga, which they were placed to protect; or, rather, they esteemed it only for its military importance and its capability of defence. They held no communion with its trading, gainful inhabitants, and even considered the garrison of the Alcazaba as their inferiors. War was their pursuit and passion; they rejoiced in its turbulent and perilous scenes; and, confident in the strength of the city, and, above all, of their castle, they set at defiance the menace of Christian invasion. There were among them also many apostate Moors, who had once embraced Christianity, but had since recanted and fled from the vengeance of the Inquisition.* These were desperadoes who had no mercy to expect should they again fall into the hands of the enemy.

*Zurita, lib. 30, cap. 71.

Such were the fierce elements of the garrison of Gibralfaro, and its rage may easily be conceived at hearing that Malaga was to be given up without a blow; that they were to sink into Christian vassals under the intermediate sway of Boabdil el Chico; and that the alcayde of the Alcazaba had departed to arrange the terms of capitulation.

Hamet determined to avert by desperate means the threatened degradation. He knew that there was a large party in the city faithful to El Zagal, being composed of warlike men who had taken refuge from the various mountain-towns which had been captured; their feelings were desperate as their fortunes, and, like Hamet, they panted for revenge upon the Christians. With these he had a secret conference, and received assurances of their adherence to him in any measures of defence. As to the counsel of the peaceful inhabitants, he considered it unworthy the consideration of a soldier, and he spurned at the interference of the wealthy merchant Ali Dordux in matters of warfare.

"Still," said Hamet el Zegri, "let us proceed regularly." So he descended with his Gomeres to the citadel, entered it suddenly, put to death the brother of the alcayde and such of the garrison as made any demur, and then summoned the principal inhabitants of Malaga to deliberate on measures for the welfare of the city.* The wealthy merchants again mounted to the citadel, excepting Ali Dordux, who refused to obey the summons. They entered with hearts filled with awe, for they found Hamet surrounded by his grim African guard and all the stern array of military power, and they beheld the bloody traces of the recent massacre.

*Cura de los Palacios, c. 82.

Hamet rolled a dark and searching eye upon the assembly. "Who," said he, "is loyal and devoted to Muley Abdallah el Zagal?" Every one present asserted his loyalty. "Good!" said Hamet; "and who is ready to prove his devotion to his sovereign by defending this his important city to the last extremity?" Every one present declared his readiness. "Enough!" observed Hamet. "The alcayde Aben Comixa has proved himself a traitor to his sovereign and to you all, for he has conspired to deliver the place to the Christians. It behooves you to choose some other commander capable of defending your city against the approaching enemy." The assembly declared unanimously that no one was so worthy of the command as himself. So Hamet was appointed alcayde of Malaga, and immediately proceeded to man the forts and towers with his partisans and to make every preparation for a desperate resistance.

Intelligence of these occurrences put an end to the negotiations between King Ferdinand and the superseded alcayde Aben Comixa, and it was supposed there was no alternative but to lay siege to the place. The marques of Cadiz, however, found at Velez a Moorish cavalier of some note, a native of Malaga, who offered to tamper with Hamet el Zegri for the surrender of the city, or at least of the castle of Gibralfaro. The marques communicated this to the king. "I put this business and the key of my treasury into your hands," said Ferdinand; "act, stipulate, and disburse in my name as you think proper."

The marques armed the Moor with his own lance, cuirass, and target and mounted him on one of his own horses. He equipped in similar style also another Moor, his companion and relative. They bore secret letters to Hamet from the marques offering him the town of Coin in perpetual inheritance and four thousand doblas in gold if he would deliver up Gibralfaro, together with a farm and two thousand doblas for his lieutenant, Ibrahim Zenete, and large sums to be distributed among his officers and soldiers; and he offered unlimited rewards for the surrender of the city.

Hamet had a warrior's admiration of the marques of Cadiz, and received his messengers with courtesy in his fortress of Gibralfaro. He even listened to their propositions with patience, and dismissed them in safety, though with an absolute refusal. The marques thought his reply was not so peremptory as to discourage another effort. The emissaries were despatched, therefore, a second time, with further propositions. They approached Malaga in the night, but found the guards doubled, patrols abroad, and the whole place on the alert. They were discovered, pursued, and only saved themselves by the fleetness of their steeds and their knowledge of the passes of the mountains.*

*Cura de los Palacios, MS., c. 82.

Finding all attempts to tamper with the faith of Hamet utterly futile, King Ferdinand publicly summoned the city to surrender, offering the most favorable terms in case of immediate compliance, but threatening captivity to all the inhabitants in case of resistance.

It required a man of nerve to undertake the delivery of such a summons in the present heated and turbulent state of the Moorish community. Such a one stepped forward in the person of a cavalier of the royal guards, Hernan Perez del Pulgar by name, a youth of noble descent, who had already signalized himself by his romantic valor and daring enterprise. Furnished with official papers for Hamet el Zegri and a private letter from the king to Ali Dordux, he entered the gates of Malaga under the protection of a flag, and boldly delivered his summons in presence of the principal inhabitants. The language of the summons or the tone in which it was delivered exasperated the fiery spirit of the Moors, and it required all the energy of Hamet and the influence of several of the alfaquis to prevent an outrage to the person of the ambassador. The reply of Hamet was haughty and decided. "The city of Malaga has been confided to me," said he--"not to be surrendered, but defended, and the king shall witness how I acquit myself of my charge."*

*Pulgar, part 3, cap. 74.

His mission at an end, Hernan del Pulgar rode slowly and deliberately through the city, utterly regardless of the scowls and menaces and scarcely restrained turbulence of the multitude, and bore to Ferdinand at Velez the haughty answer of the Moor, but at the same time gave him a formidable account of the force of the garrison, the strength of the fortifications, and the determined spirit of the commander and his men. The king immediately sent orders to have the heavy artillery forwarded from Antiquera, and on the 7th of May marched with his army toward Malaga.

CHAPTER LIII.

ADVANCE OF KING FERDINAND AGAINST MALAGA.

The army of Ferdinand advanced in lengthened line, glittering along the foot of the mountains which border the Mediterranean, while a fleet of vessels, freighted with heavy artillery and warlike munitions, kept pace with it at a short distance from the land, covering the sea with a thousand gleaming sails. When Hamet el Zegri saw this force approaching, he set fire to the houses of the suburbs which adjoined the walls and sent forth three battalions to encounter the advance guard of the enemy.

The Christian army drew near to the city at that end where the castle and rocky height of Gibralfaro defended the seaboard. Immediately opposite, at about two bow-shots' distance, stood the castle, and between it and the high chain of mountains was a steep and rocky hill, at present called the hill of St. Christobal, commanding a pass through which the Christians must march to penetrate to the vega and surround the city. Hamet ordered the three battalions to take their stations--one on this hill, another in the pass near the castle, and a third on the side of the mountain near the sea.

A body of Spanish foot-soldiers of the advance guard, sturdy mountaineers of Galicia, sprang forward to climb the side of the height next the sea, at the same time a number of cavaliers and hidalgos of the royal household attacked the Moors who guarded the pass below. The Moors defended their posts with obstinate valor. The Galicians were repeatedly overpowered and driven down the hill, but as often rallied, and, being reinforced by the hidalgos and cavaliers, returned to the assault. This obstinate struggle lasted for six hours: the strife was of a deadly kind, not merely with crossbows and arquebuses, but hand to hand with swords and daggers; no quarter was claimed or given on either side--they fought not to make captives, but to slay. It was but the advance of the Christian army that was engaged; so narrow was the pass along the coast that the army could proceed only in file: horse and foot and beasts of burden were crowded one upon another, impeding each other and blocking up the narrow and rugged defile. The soldiers heard the uproar of the battle, the sound of trumpets, and the war-cries of the Moors, but tried in vain to press forward to the assistance of their companions.

At length a body of foot-soldiers of the Holy Brotherhood climbed with great difficulty the steep side of the mountain which overhung the pass, and advanced with seven banners displayed. The Moors, seeing this force above them, abandoned the pass in despair. The battle was still raging on the height; the Galicians, though supported by Castilian troops under Don Hurtado de Mendoza and Garcilasso de la Vega, were severely pressed and roughly handled by the Moors: at length a brave standard-bearer, Luys Mazeda by name, threw himself into the midst of the enemy and planted his banner on the summit. The Galicians and Castilians, stimulated by this noble self- devotion, followed him, fighting desperately, and the Moors were at length driven to their castle of Gibralfaro.*

*Pulgar, Cronica.

This important height being taken, the pass lay open to the army, but by this time evening was advancing, and the host was too weary and exhausted to seek proper situations for the encampment. The king, attended by several grandees and cavaliers, went the rounds at night, stationing outposts toward the city and guards and patrols to give the alarm on the least movement of the enemy. All night the Christians lay upon their arms, lest there should be some attempt to sally forth and attack them.

When the morning dawned the king gazed with admiration at this city which he hoped soon to add to his dominions. It was surrounded on one side by vineyards, gardens, and orchards, which covered the hills with verdure; on the other side its walls were bathed by the smooth and tranquil sea. Its vast and lofty towers and prodigious castles, hoary with age, yet unimpaired in strength, showed the labors of magnanimous men in former times to protect their favorite abode. Hanging gardens, groves of oranges, citrons, and pomegranates, with tall cedars and stately palms, were mingled with the stern battlements and towers, bespeaking the opulence and luxury that reigned within.

In the mean time, the Christian army poured through the pass, and, throwing out its columns and extending its lines, took possession of every vantage-ground around the city. King Ferdinand surveyed the ground and appointed the stations of the different commanders.

The important mount of St. Christobal, which had cost so violent a struggle and faced the powerful fortress of Gibralfaro, was given in charge to Roderigo Ponce de Leon, marques of Cadiz, who in all sieges claimed the post of danger. He had several noble cavaliers with their retainers in his encampment, which consisted of fifteen hundred horse and fourteen thousand foot, and extended from the summit of the mount to the margin of the sea, completely blocking up the approach to the city on that side. From this post a line of encampments extended quite round the city to the seaboard, fortified by bulwarks and deep ditches, while a fleet of armed ships and galleys stretched before the harbor, so that the place was completely invested by sea and land. The various parts of the valley now resounded with the din of preparation, and was filled with artificers preparing warlike engines and munitions; armorers and smiths with glowing forges and deafening hammers; carpenters and engineers constructing machines wherewith to assail the walls; stone-cutters shaping stone balls for the ordnance; and burners of charcoal preparing fuel for the furnaces and forges.

When the encampment was formed the heavy ordnance was landed from the ships and mounted in various parts of the camp. Five huge lombards were placed on the mount commanded by the marques of Cadiz, so as to bear upon the castle of Gibralfaro.

The Moors made strenuous efforts to impede these preparations. They kept up a heavy fire from their ordnance upon the men employed in digging trenches or constructing batteries, so that the latter had to work principally in the night. The royal tents had been stationed conspicuously and within reach of the Moorish batteries, but were so warmly assailed that they had to be removed behind a hill.

When the works were completed the Christian batteries opened in return, and kept up a tremendous cannonade, while the fleet, approaching the land, assailed the city vigorously on the opposite side.

"It was a glorious and delectable sight," observes Fray Antonio Agapida, "to behold this infidel city thus surrounded by sea and land by a mighty Christian force. Every mound in its circuit was, as it were, a little city of tents bearing the standard of some renowned Catholic warrior. Besides the warlike ships and galleys which lay before the place, the sea was covered with innumerable sails, passing and repassing, appearing and disappearing, being engaged in bringing supplies for the subsistence of the army. It seemed a vast spectacle contrived to recreate the eye, did not the volleying bursts of flame and smoke from the ships, which seemed to lie asleep on the quiet sea, and the thunder of ordnance from camp and city, from tower and battlement, tell the deadly warfare that was waging.

"At night the scene was far more direful than in the day. The cheerful light of the sun was gone; there was nothing but the flashes of artillery or the baleful gleams of combustibles thrown into the city, and the conflagration of the houses. The fire kept up from the Christian batteries was incessant: there were seven great lombards in particular, called the Seven Sisters of Ximenes, which did tremendous execution. The Moorish ordnance replied in thunder from the walls; Gibralfaro was wrapped in volumes of smoke rolling about its base; and Hamet and his Gomeres looked out with triumph upon the tempest of war they had awaked. Truly they were so many demons incarnate," concludes the pious Fray Antonio Agapida, "who were permitted by Heaven to enter into and possess this infidel city for its perdition."

CHAPTER LIV.

SIEGE OF MALAGA.

The attack on Malaga by sea and land was kept up for several days with tremendous violence, but without producing any great impression, so strong were the ancient bulwarks of the city. The count de Cifuentes was the first to signalize himself by any noted achievement. A main tower, protecting what is at present called the suburb of Santa Ana, had been shattered by the ordnance and the battlements demolished, so as to yield no shelter to its defenders. Seeing this, the count assembled a gallant band of cavaliers of the royal household and advanced to take it by storm. They applied scaling-ladders and mounted sword in hand. The Moors, having no longer battlements to protect them, descended to a lower floor, and made furious resistance from the windows and loopholes. They poured down boiling pitch and rosin, and hurled stones and darts and arrows on the assailants. Many of the Christians were slain, their ladders were destroyed by flaming combustibles, and the count was obliged to retreat from before the tower. On the following day he renewed the attack with superior force, and after a severe combat succeeded in planting his victorious banner on the tower.

The Moors now assailed the tower in their turn. They undermined the part toward the city, placed props of wood under the foundation, and, setting fire to them, drew off to a distance. In a little while the props gave way, the foundation sunk, and the tower was rent; part of its wall fell with a tremendous noise; many of the Christians were thrown out headlong, and the rest were laid open to the missiles of the enemy.

By this time, however, a breach had been made in the wall of the suburb adjoining the tower, and troops poured in to the assistance of their comrades. A continued battle was kept up for two days and a night by reinforcements from camp and city. The parties fought backward and forward through the breach of the wall and in the narrow and winding streets adjacent with alternate success, and the vicinity of the tower was strewn with the dead and wounded. At length the Moors gradually gave way, disputing every inch of ground, until they were driven into the city, and the Christians remained masters of the greater part of the suburb.

This partial success, though gained with great toil and bloodshed, gave temporary animation to the Christians; they soon found, however, that the attack on the main works of the city was a much more arduous task. The garrison contained veterans who had served in many of the towns captured by the Christians. They were no longer confounded and dismayed by the battering ordnance and other strange engines of foreign invention, and had become expert in parrying their effects, in repairing breaches, and erecting counter-works.

The Christians, accustomed of late to speedy conquests of Moorish fortresses, became impatient of the slow progress of the siege. Many were apprehensive of a scarcity of provisions from the difficulty of subsisting so numerous a host in the heart of the enemy's country, where it was necessary to transport supplies across rugged and hostile mountains or subjected to the uncertainties of the sea. Many also were alarmed at a pestilence which broke out in the neighboring villages, and some were so overcome by these apprehensions as to abandon the camp and return to their homes.

Several of the loose and worthless hangers-on that infest all great armies, hearing these murmurs, thought that the siege would soon be raised, and deserted to the enemy, hoping to make their fortunes. They gave exaggerated accounts of the alarms and discontents of the army, and represented the troops as daily returning home in bands. Above all, they declared that the gunpowder was nearly exhausted, so that the artillery would soon be useless. They assured the Moors, therefore, that if they persisted a little longer in their defence, the king would be obliged to draw off his forces and abandon the siege.

The reports of these renegados gave fresh courage to the garrison; they made vigorous sallies upon the camp, harassing it by night and day, and obliging every part to be guarded with the most painful vigilance. They fortified the weak parts of their walls with ditches and palisadoes, and gave every manifestation of a determined and unyielding spirit.

Ferdinand soon received intelligence of the reports which had been carried to the Moors: he understood that they had been informed, likewise, that the queen was alarmed for the safety of the camp, and had written repeatedly urging him to abandon the siege. As the best means of disproving all these falsehoods and destroying the vain hopes of the enemy, he wrote to the queen entreating her to come and take up her residence in the camp.

CHAPTER LV.

SIEGE OF MALAGA CONTINUED.--OBSTINACY OF HAMET EL ZEGRI.

Great was the enthusiasm of the army when they beheld their patriot queen advancing in state to share the toils and dangers of her people. Isabella entered the camp attended by the dignitaries and the whole retinue of her court to manifest that this was no temporary visit. On one side of her was her daughter, the infanta; on the other, the grand cardinal of Spain: Hernando de Talavera, the prior of Prado, confessor to the queen, followed, with a great train of prelates, courtiers, cavaliers, and ladies of distinction. The cavalcade moved in calm and stately order through the camp, softening the iron aspect of war by this array of courtly grace and female beauty.

Isabella had commanded that on her coming to the camp the horrors of war should be suspended and fresh offers of peace made to the enemy. On her arrival, therefore, there had been a general cessation of firing throughout the camp. A messenger was at the same time despatched to the besieged, informing them of her being in the camp, and of the determination of the sovereigns to make it their settled residence until the city should be taken. The same terms were offered in case of immediate surrender that had been granted to Velez Malaga, but the inhabitants were threatened with captivity and the sword should they persist in their defence.

Hamet el Zegri received this message with haughty contempt, and dismissed the messenger without deigning a reply, and accompanied by an escort to prevent his holding any communication with the inhabitants in the streets. "The Christian sovereigns," said Hamet to those about him, "have made this offer in consequence of their despair. The silence of their batteries proves the truth of what has been told us, that their powder is exhausted. They have no longer the means of demolishing our walls, and if they remain much longer the autumnal rains will interrupt their convoys and fill their camp with famine and disease. The first storm will disperse their fleet, which has no neighboring port of shelter: Africa will then be open to us to procure reinforcements and supplies."

The words of Hamet el Zegri were hailed as oracular by his adherents. Many of the peaceful part of the community, however, ventured to remonstrate, and to implore him to accept the proffered mercy. The stern Hamet silenced them with a terrific threat: he declared that whoever should talk of capitulating or should hold any communication with the Christians should be put to death. The Gomeres, like true men of the sword, acted upon the menace of their chieftain as upon a written law, and, having detected several of the inhabitants in secret correspondence with the enemy, set upon and slew them and confiscated their effects. This struck such terror into the citizens that those who had been loudest in their murmurs became suddenly mute, and were remarked as evincing the greatest bustle and alacrity in the defence of the city.

When the messenger returned to the camp and reported the contemptuous reception of the royal message, King Ferdinand was exceedingly indignant. Finding the cessation of firing on the queen's arrival had encouraged a belief among the enemy that there was a scarcity of powder in the camp, he ordered a general discharge from all the batteries. The sudden burst of war from every quarter soon convinced the Moors of their error and completed the confusion of the citizens, who knew not which most to dread, their assailants or their defenders, the Christians or the Gomeres.

That evening the sovereigns visited the encampment of the marques of Cadiz, which commanded a view over a great part of the city, the camp, and the sea with its flotillas. The tent of the marques was of great magnitude, furnished with hangings of rich brocade and French cloth of the rarest texture. It was in the Oriental style, and, as it crowned the height, with the surrounding tents of other cavaliers, all sumptuously furnished, presented a gay and silken contrast to the opposite towers of Gibralfaro. Here a splendid collation was served up to the sovereigns, and the courtly revel that prevailed in this chivalrous encampment, the glitter of pageantry, and the bursts of festive music made more striking the gloom and silence that reigned over the Moorish castle.

The marques of Cadiz while it was yet light conducted his royal visitors to every point that commanded a view of the warlike scene below. He caused the heavy lombards also to be discharged, that the queen and ladies of the court might witness the effect of those tremendous engines. The fair dames were filled with awe and admiration as the mountain shook beneath their feet with the thunder of the artillery and they beheld great fragments of the Moorish walls tumbling down the rocks and precipices.

While the good marques was displaying these things to his royal guests he lifted up his eyes, and to his astonishment beheld his own banner hanging out from the nearest tower of Gibralfaro. The blood mantled in his cheek, for it was a banner which he had lost at the time of the memorable massacre of the heights of Malaga.* To make this taunt more evident, several of the Gomeres displayed themselves upon the battlements arrayed in the helmets and cuirasses of some of the cavaliers slain or captured on that occasion. The marques of Cadiz restrained his indignation and held his peace, but several of, his cavaliers vowed loudly to revenge this cruel bravado on the ferocious garrison of Gibralfaro.

*Diego de Valera, Cronica, MS.

CHAPTER LVI.

ATTACK OF THE MARQUES OF CADIZ UPON GIBRALFARO.

The marques of Cadiz was not a cavalier that readily forgave an injury or an insult. On the morning after the royal banquet his batteries opened a tremendous fire upon Gibralfaro. All day the encampment was wrapped in wreaths of smoke, nor did the assault cease with the day, but throughout the night there was an incessant flashing and thundering of the lombards, and the following morning the assault rather increased than slackened in fury. The Moorish bulwarks were no proof against those formidable engines. In a few days the lofty tower on which the taunting banner had been displayed was shattered, a smaller tower in its vicinity reduced to ruins, and a great breach made in the intervening walls.

Several of the hot-spirited cavaliers were eager for storming the breach sword in hand; others, more cool and wary, pointed out the rashness of such an attempt, for the Moors had worked indefatigably in the night; they had digged a deep ditch within the breach, and had fortified it with palisadoes and a high breastwork. All, however, agreed that the camp might safely be advanced near to the ruined walls, and that it ought to be done in return for the insolent defiance of the enemy.

The marques of Cadiz felt the temerity of the measure, but was unwilling to dampen the zeal of these high-spirited cavaliers, and, having chosen the post of danger in the camp, it did not become him to decline any service merely because it might appear perilous. He ordered his outposts, therefore, to be advanced within a stone's- throw of the breach, but exhorted the soldiers to maintain the utmost vigilance.

The thunder of the batteries had ceased; the troops, exhausted by two nights' fatigue and watchfulness, and apprehending no danger from the dismantled walls, were half of them asleep; the rest were scattered about in negligent security. On a sudden upward of two thousand Moors sallied forth from the castle, led on by Ibrahim Zenete, the principal captain under Hamet. They fell with fearful havoc upon the advanced guard, slaying many of them in their sleep and putting the rest to headlong flight.

The marques was in his tent, about a bow-shot distant, when he heard the tumult of the onset and beheld his men dying in confusion. He rushed forth, followed by his standard-bearer. "Turn again, cavaliers!" exclaimed he; "I am here, Ponce de Leon! To the foe! to the foe!" The flying troops stopped at hearing his well-known voice, rallied under his banner, and turned upon the enemy. The encampment by this time was roused; several cavaliers from the adjoining stations had hastened to the scene of action, with a number of Galicians and soldiers of the Holy Brotherhood. An obstinate and bloody contest ensued; the ruggedness of the place, the rocks, chasms, and declivities broke it into numerous combats: Christian and Moor fought hand to hand with swords and daggers, and often, grappling and struggling, rolled together down the precipices.

The banner of the marques was in danger of being taken: he hastened to its rescue, followed by some of his bravest cavaliers. They were surrounded by the enemy, and several of them cut down. Don Diego Ponce de Leon, brother to the marques, was wounded by an arrow, and his son-in-law, Luis Ponce, was likewise wounded: they succeeded, however, in rescuing the banner and bearing it off in safety. The battle lasted for an hour; the height was covered with killed and wounded and the blood flowed in streams down the rocks; at length, Ibrahim Zenete being disabled by the thrust of a lance, the Moors gave way and retreated to the castle.

They now opened a galling fire from their battlements and towers, approaching the breaches so as to discharge their crossbows and arquebuses into the advanced guard of the encampment. The marques was singled out: the shot fell thick about him, and one passed through his buckler and struck upon his cuirass, but without doing him any injury. Every one now saw the danger and inutility of approaching the camp thus near to the castle, and those who had counselled it were now urgent that it should be withdrawn. It was accordingly removed back to its original ground, from which the marques had most reluctantly advanced it. Nothing but his valor and timely aid had prevented this attack on his outpost from ending in a total rout of all that part of the army.

Many cavaliers of distinction fell in this contest, but the loss of none was felt more deeply than that of Ortega del Prado, captain of escaladors. He was one of the bravest men in the service, the same who had devised the first successful blow of the war, the storming of Alhama, where he was the first to plant and mount the scaling- ladders. He had always been high in the favor and confidence of the noble Ponce de Leon, who knew how to appreciate and avail himself of the merits of all able and valiant men.*

*Zurita, Mariana, Abarca.

CHAPTER LVII.

SIEGE OF MALAGIA CONTINUED.--STRATAGEMS OF VARIOUS KINDS.

Great were the exertions now made, both by the besiegers and the besieged, to carry on the contest with the utmost vigor. Hamet went the rounds of the walls and towers, doubling the guards and putting everything in the best posture of defence. The garrison was divided into parties of a hundred, to each of which a captain was appointed. Some were to patrol, others to sally forth and skirmish with the enemy, and others to hold themselves armed and in reserve. Six albatozas, or floating batteries, were manned and armed with pieces of artillery to attack the fleet.

On the other hand, the Castilian sovereigns kept open a communication by sea with various parts of Spain, from which they received provisions of all kinds; they ordered supplies of powder also from Valencia, Barcelona, Sicily, and Portugal. They made great preparations also for storming the city. Towers of wood were constructed to move on wheels, each capable of holding one hundred men; they were furnished with ladders to be thrown from their summits to the tops of the walls, and within those ladders others were encased, to be let down for the descent of the troops into the city. There were gallipagos, or tortoises, also being great wooden shields, covered with hides, to protect the assailants and those who undermined the walls.

Secret mines were commenced in various places: some were intended to reach to the foundations of the walls, which were to be propped up with wood, ready to be set on fire; others were to pass under the walls, and remain ready to be broken open so as to give entrance to the besiegers. At these mines the army worked day and night, and during these secret preparations the ordnance kept up a fire upon the city to divert the attention of the besieged.

In the mean time, Hamet displayed wonderful vigor and ingenuity in defending the city and in repairing or fortifying by deep ditches the breaches made by the enemy. He noted also every place where the camp might be assailed with advantage, and gave the besieging army no repose night or day. While his troops sallied on the land, his floating batteries attacked the besiegers on the sea, so that there was incessant skirmishing. The tents called the Queen's Hospital were crowded with wounded, and the whole army suffered from constant watchfulness and fatigue. To guard against the sudden assaults of the Moors, the trenches were deepened and palisadoes erected in front of the camp; and in that part facing Gibralfaro, where the rocky heights did not admit of such defences, a high rampart of earth was thrown up. The cavaliers Garcilasso de la Vega, Juan de Zuniga, and Diego de Atayde were appointed to go the rounds and keep vigilant watch that these fortifications were maintained in good order.

In a little while Hamet discovered the mines secretly commenced by the Christians: he immediately ordered counter-mines. The soldiers mutually worked until they met and fought hand to hand in these subterranean passages. The Christians were driven out of one of their mines; fire was set to the wooden framework and the mine destroyed. Encouraged by this success, the Moors attempted a general attack upon the camp, the mines, and the besieging fleet. The battle lasted for six hours on land and water, above and below ground, on bulwark, and in trench and mine; the Moors displayed wonderful intrepidity, but were finally repulsed at all points, and obliged to retire into the city, where they were closely invested, without the means of receiving any assistance from abroad.

The horrors of famine were now added to the other miseries of Malaga. Hamet, with the spirit of a man bred up to war, considered everything as subservient to the wants of the soldier, and ordered all the grain in the city to be gathered and garnered up for the sole use of those who fought. Even this was dealt out sparingly, and each soldier received four ounces of bread in the morning and two in the evening for his daily allowance.

The wealthy inhabitants and all those peacefully inclined mourned over a resistance which brought destruction upon their houses, death into their families, and which they saw must end in their ruin and captivity; still, none of them dared to speak openly of capitulation, or even to manifest their grief, lest they should awaken the wrath of their fierce defenders. They surrounded their civic champion, Ali Dordux, the great and opulent merchant, who had buckled on shield and cuirass and taken spear in hand for the defence of his native city, and with a large body of the braver citizens had charge of one of the gates and a considerable portion of the walls. Drawing Ali Dordux aside, they poured forth their griefs to him in secret. "Why," said they, "should we suffer our native city to be made a mere bulwark and fighting-place for foreign barbarians and desperate men? They have no families to care for, no property to lose, no love for the soil, and no value for their lives. They fight to gratify a thirst for blood or a desire for revenge, and will fight on until Malaga becomes a ruin and its people slaves. Let us think and act for ourselves, our wives, and our children. Let us make private terms with the Christians before it is too late, and save ourselves from destruction."

The bowels of Ali Dordux yearned toward his fellow citizens; he bethought him also of the sweet security of peace and the bloodless yet gratifying triumphs of gainful traffic. The idea also of a secret negotiation or bargain with the Castilian sovereigns for the redemption of his native city was more conformable to his accustomed habits than this violent appeal to arms, for, though he had for a time assumed the warrior, he had not forgotten the merchant. Ali Dordux communed, therefore, with the citizen-soldiers under his command, and they readily conformed to his opinion. Concerting together, they wrote a proposition to the Castilian sovereigns, offering to admit the army into the part of the city entrusted to their care on receiving assurance of protection for the lives and properties of the inhabitants. This writing they delivered to a trusty emissary to take to the Christian camp, appointing the hour and place of his return that they might be ready to admit him unperceived.

The Moor made his way in safety to the camp, and was admitted to the presence of the sovereigns. Eager to gain the city without further cost of blood or treasure, they gave a written promise to grant the condition, and the Moor set out joyfully on his return. As he approached the walls where Ali Dordux and his confederates were waiting to receive him, he was descried by a patrolling band of Gomeres, and considered a spy coming from the camp of the besiegers. They issued forth and seized him in sight of his employers, who gave themselves up for lost. The Gomeres had conducted him nearly to the gate, when he escaped from their grasp and fled. They endeavored to overtake him, but were encumbered with armor; he was lightly clad, and he fled for his life. One of the Gomeres paused, and, levelling his crossbow, let fly a bolt which pierced the fugitive between the shoulders; he fell and was nearly within their grasp, but rose again and with a desperate effort attained the Christian camp. The Gomeres gave over the pursuit, and the citizens returned thanks to Allah for their deliverance from this fearful peril. As to the faithful messenger, he died of his wound shortly after reaching the camp, consoled with the idea that he had preserved the secret and the lives of his employers.*

*Pulgar, Cronica, p. 3, c. 80.

CHAPTER LVIII.

SUFFERINGS OF THE PEOPLE OF MALAGA.

The sufferings of Malaga spread sorrow and anxiety among the Moors, and they dreaded lest this beautiful city, once the bulwark of the kingdom, should fall into the hands of the unbelievers. The old warrior-king, Abdallah el Zagal, was still sheltered in Guadix, where he was slowly gathering together his shattered forces. When the people of Guadix heard of the danger and distress of Malaga, they urged to be led to its relief, and the alfaquis admonished El Zagal not to desert so righteous and loyal a city in its extremity. His own warlike nature made him feel a sympathy for a place that made so gallant a resistance, and he despatched as powerful a reinforcement as he could spare under conduct of a chosen captain, with orders to throw themselves into the city.

Intelligence of this reinforcement reached Boabdil el Chico in his royal palace of the Alhambra. Filled with hostility against his uncle, and desirous of proving his loyalty to the Castilian sovereigns, he immediately sent forth a superior force of horse and foot under an able commander to intercept the detachment. A sharp conflict ensued; the troops of El Zagal were routed with great loss and fled back in confusion to Guadix.

There were two attempts to patch up the feud. Jim Mason, who went about the world seeking to do good, tried in his shy way to set things right. But M'Adam and his Red Wull between them soon shut him and Betsy up.

"You mind yer letters and yer wires, Mr. Poacher-Postman. Ay, I saw 'em baith: th' am doon by the Haughs, t'ither in the Bottom. And there's Wullie, the humorsome chiel, havin' a rare game wi' Betsy." There, indeed, lay the faithful Betsy, suppliant on her back, paws up, throat exposed, while Red Wull, now a great-grown puppy, stood over her, his habitually evil expression intensified into a fiendish grin, as with wrinkled muzzle and savage wheeze he waited for a movement as a pretext to pin: "Wullie, let the leddy be--ye've had yer dinner."

Parson Leggy was the other would-be mediator; for he hated to see the two principal parishioners of his tiny cure at enmity. First he tackled James Moore on the subject; but that laconic person cut him short with, "I've nowt agin the little mon," and would say no more. And, indeed, the quarrel was none of his making.

Of the parson's interview with M'Adam, it is .enough to say here that, in the end, the angry old minister would of a surety have assaulted his mocking adversary had not Cyril Gilbraith forcibly withheld him.

And after that the vendetta must take its course unchecked.

David was now the only link between the two farms. Despite his father's angry commands, the boy clung to his intimacy with the Moores with a doggedness that no thrashing could overcome. Not a minute of the day when out of school, holidays and Sundays included, but was passed at Kenmuir. it was not till late at night that he would sneak back to the Grange, and creep quietly up to his tiny bare room in the roof--not supperless, indeed, motherly Mrs. Moore had seen to that. And there he would lie awake and listen with a fierce contempt as his father, hours later, lurched into the kitchen below, lilting liquorishly:

"We are na Lou, we're nae that Lou, But just a drappie in our e'e; The cock may craw, the day may daw', And ay we'll taste the barley bree!"

And in the morning the boy would slip quietly out of the house while his father still slept; only Red Wull would thrust out his savage head as the lad passed, and snarl hungrily.

Sometimes father and son would go thus for weeks without sight of one another. And that was David's aim--to escape attention. It was only his cunning at this game of evasion that saved him a thrashing.

The little man seemed devoid of all natural affection for his son. He lavished the whole fondness of which his small nature appeared capable on the Tailless Tyke, for so the Dales-men called Red Wull. And the dog he treated with a careful tenderness that made David smile bitterly.

The little man and his dog were as alike morally as physically they were contrasted. Each owed a grudge against the world and was determined to pay it. Each was an Ishmael among his kind.

You saw them thus, standing apart, leper-like, in the turmoil of life; and it came quite as a revelation to happen upon them in some quiet spot of nights, playing together, each wrapped in the game, innocent, tender, forgetful of the hostile world.

The two were never separated except only when M'Adam came home by the path across Kenmuir. After that first misadventure he never allowed his friend to accompany him on the journey through the enemy's country; for well he knew that sheep-dogs have long memories.

To the stile in the lane, then, Red Wull would follow him. There he would stand, his great head poked through the bars, watching his master out of sight; and then would turn and trot, self-reliant and defiant, sturdy and surly, down the very centre of the road through the village--no playing, no enticing away, and woe to that man or dog who tried to stay him in his course! And so on, past Mother Ross's shop, past the Sylvester Arms, to the right by Kirby's smithy, over the Wastrel by the Haughs, to await his master at the edge of the Stony Bottom.

The little man, when thus crossing Ken-muir, often met Owd Bob, who had the free run of the farm. On these occasions he passed discreetly by; for, though he was no coward, yet it is bad, single-handed, to attack a Gray Dog of Kenmuir; while the dog trotted soberly on his way, only a steely glint in the big gray eyes betraying his knowledge of the presence of his foe. As surely, however, as the little man, in his desire to spy out the nakedness of the land, strayed off the public path, so surely a gray figure, seeming to spring from out the blue, would come fiercely, silently driving down on him; and he would turn and run for his life, amid the uproarious jeers of any of the farm-hands who were witness to the encounter.

On these occasions David vied with Tammas in facetiousness at his father's expense.

"Good on yo', little un!" he roared from behind a wall, on one such occurence.

"Bain't he a runner, neither?" yelled Tammas, not to be outdone. "See un skip it--ho! ho!"

"Look to his knees a-wamblin'!" from the Jon, I'd wear petticoats." As he spoke, a swinging box on the ear nearly knocked the young reprobate down.

"D'yo' think God gave you a dad for you to jeer at? Y'ought to be ashamed o' yo'self. Serve yo' right if he does thrash yo' when yo' get home." And David, turning round, found James Moore close behind him, his heavy eyebrows lowering over his eyes.

Luckily, M'Adam had not distinguished his ?Ofl's voice among the others. But David Iearcd he had; for on the following morning the little man said to him:

"David, ye'll come hame immediately after school to-day."

"Will I?" said David pertly.

''Ye will.

"Why?"

"Because I tell ye to, ma lad"; and that was all the reason he would give. Had he told the simple fact that he wanted help to drench a "husking" ewe, things might have gone differently. As it was, David turned away defiantly down the hill.

The afternoon wore on. Schooltime was long over; still there was no David.

The little man waited at the door of the Grange, fuming, hopping from one leg to the other, talking to Red Wull, who lay at his feet, his head on his paws, like a tiger waiting for his prey.

At length he could restrain himself no longer; and started running down the bill, his heart burning with indignation.

"Wait till we lay hands on ye, ma lad," he muttered as he ran. "We'll warm ye, we'll teach ye."

At the edge of the Stony Bottom he, as always, left Red Wull. Crossing it himself, and rounding Langholm How, he espied James Moore, David, and Owd Bob walking away from him and in the direction of Kenmuir. The gray dog and David were playing together. wrestling, racing, and rolling. The boy had never a thought for his father.

The little man ran up behind them, unseen and unheard, his feet softly pattering on the grass. His hand had fallen on David's shoulder before the boy had guessed his approach.

"Did I bid ye come hame after school, David?" he asked, concealing his heat beneath a suspicious suavity.

"Maybe. Did I say I would come?"

The pertness of tone and words, alike, fanned his father's resentment into a blaze. In a burst of passion he lunged forward at the boy with his stick. But as he smote, a gray whirlwind struck him fair on the chest, and he fell like a snapped stake, and lay, half stunned, with a dark muzzle an inch from his throat.

"Git back, Bob!" shouted James Moore, hurrying up. "Git back, I tell yo'!" He bent over the prostrate figure, propping it up anxiously. "Are yo' hurt, M'Adam? Eh,

A stranger might well have mistaken the identity of the boy's father. For he stood now, holding the Master's arm; while a few paces above them was the little man, pale but determined, the expression on his face betraying his consciousness of the irony of the situation.

"Will ye come hame wi' me and have it noo, or stop wi' him and wait till ye get it?" he asked the boy.

"M'Adam, I'd like yo' to--"

"None o' that, James Moore.--David, what d'ye say?"

David looked up into his protector's face. "Yo'd best go wi' your feyther, lad," said the Master at last, thickly. The boy hesitated, and clung tighter to the shielding arm; then he walked slowly over to his father.

A bitter smile spread over the little man's face as he marked this new test ci? the boy's obedience to the other.

"To obey his frien' he foregoes the pleasure o' disobeyin' his father," he muttered. "Noble!" Then he turned homeward, and the boy followed in his footsteps.

James Moore and the gray dog stood looking after them.

"I know yo'll not pay off yer spite agin me on the lad's head, M'Adam," he called, almost appealingly.

"I'll do ma duty, thank ye, James Moore, wi'oot respect o' persons," the little man cried back, never turning.

Father and son walked away, one behind the other, like a man and his dog, and there was no word said between them. Across the Stony Bottom, Red Wull, scowling with bared teeth at David, joined them. Together the three went up the bill to the Grange.

In the kitchen M'Adam turned.

"Noo, I'm gaein' to gie ye the gran'est thrashin' ye iver dreamed of. Tak' aff yer coat!"

The boy obeyed, and stood up in his thin shirt, his face white and set as a statue's. Red Wull seated himself on his haunches close by, his ears pricked, licking his lips, all attention.

The little man suppled the great ash-plant in his hands and raised it. But the expression on the boy's face arrested his arm.

"Say ye're sorry and I'll let yer a.ff easy."

"I'll not."

"One mair chance--yer last! Say yer 'shamed o' yerself'!"

"I'm not."

The little man brandished his cruel, white weapon, and Red Wull shifted a little to obtain a better view.

"Git on wi' it," ordered David angrily.

The little man raised the stick again and-- threw it into the farthest corner of the room.

It fell with a rattle on the floor, and M'Adam turned away.

"Ye're the pitifulest son iver a man had," he cried brokenly. "Gin a man's son dinna haud to him, wha can he expect to?--no one. Ye're ondootiful, ye're disrespectfu', ye're maist ilka thing ye shouldna be; there's but ae thing I thocht ye were not--a coward. And as to that, ye've no the pluck to sa)ye're sorry when, God knows, ye might be. I canna thrash ye this day. But ye shall gae nae mair to school. I send ye there to learn. Ye'll not learn--ye've learnt naethin' except disobedience to me-ye shall stop at hame and work."

His father's rare emotion, his broken voice and working face, moved David as all the stripes and jeers had failed to do. His conscience smote him. For the first time in his life it dimly dawned on him that, perhaps, his father, too, had some ground for complaint; that, perhaps, he was not a good son.

He half turned.

"Feyther--"

"Git oot o' ma sight!" M'Adam cried.

And the boy turned and went.

Chapter VI. A LICKING OR A LIE

THENCEFORWARD David buckled down to work at home, and in one point only father and son resembled--industry. A drunkard M'Adam was, but a drone, no.

The boy worked at the Grange with tireless, indomitable energy; yet he could never satisfy his father.

The little man would stand, a sneer on his face and his thin lips contemptuously curled, and flout the lad's brave labors.

Is he no a gran' worker, Wullie? 'Tis a pleasure to watch him, his hands in his pockets, his eyes turned heavenward!" as the boy snatched a hard-earned moment's rest. "You and I, Wullie, we'll brak' oorsel's slavin' for him while he looks on and laffs."

And so on, the whole day through, week in, week out; till he sickened with weariness of it all.

In his darkest hours David thought sometimes to run away. He was miserably alone on the cold bosom of the world. The very fact that he was the son of his father isolated him in the Daleland. Naturally of a reserved disposition, he had no single friend outside Kenmuir. And it was only the thought of his friends there that witheld him. He could not bring himself to part from them; they were all he had in the world.

So he worked on at the Grange, miserably, doggedly, taking blows and abuse alike in burning silence. But every evening, when work was ended, he stepped off to his other home beyond the Stony Bottom. And on Sundays and holidays--for of these latter he took, unasking, what he knew to be his due-- all day long, from cock-crowing to the going down of the sun, he would pass at Kenmuir. In this one matter the hoy was invincibly stubborn. Nothing his father could say or do sufficed to break him of the habit. He endured everything with white-lipped, silent dogged-ness, and still held on his way.

Once past the Stony Bottom, he threw his troubles behind him with a courage that did him honor. Of all the people at Kenmuir two only ever dreamed the whole depth of his unhappiness, and that not through David. James Moore suspected something of it all, for he knew more of M'Adam than did the others. While Owd Bob knew it as did no one else. He could tell it from the touch of the boy's hand on his head; and the story was writ large upon his face for a dog to read. And he would follow the lad about with a compassion in his sad gray eyes greater than words.

David might well compare his gray friend at Kenmuir with that other at the Grange.

The Tailless Tyke had now grown into an immense dog, heavy of muscle and huge of bone. A great bull head; undershot jaw, square and lengthy and terrible; vicious, yellow-gleaming eyes; cropped ears; and an expression incomparably savage. His coat was a tawny, lion-like yellow, short, harsh, dense; and his back, running up from shoulder to loins, ended abruptly in the knob-like tail. He looked like the devil of a dogs' hell. And his reputation was as bad as his looks. He never attacked unprovoked; but a challenge was never ignored, and he was greedy of insults. Already he had nigh killed Rob Saunderson's collie, Shep; Jem Burton's Monkey fled incontinently at the sound of his approach; while he had even fought a round with that redoubtable trio, the Vexer, Venus, and Van Tromp.

Nor, in the matter of war, did he confine himself to his own kind. His huge strength and indomitable courage made him the match of almost anything that moved. Long Kirby once threatened him with a broomstick; the smith never did it again. While in the Border Ram he attacked Big Bell, the Squire's underkeeper, with such murderous fury that it took all the men in the room to pull han off.

More than once had he and Owd Bob essayed to wipe out mutual memories, Red Wull, in this case only, the aggressor. As yet, however, while they fenced a moment for that deadly throat-grip, the value of which each knew so well, James Moore had always seized the chance to intervene.

"That's right, hide him ahint yer petticoats," sneered M'Adam on one of these occasions.

"Hide? It'll not be him I'll hide, I warn you, M'Adam," the Master answered grimly, as he stood, twirling his good oak stick between the would-be duellists. Whereat there was a loud laugh at the little man's expense.

It seemed as if there were to be other points of rivalry between the two than memories. For, in the matter of his own business--the handling of sheep--Red Wull bid fair to be second only throughout the Daleland to the Gray Dog of Kenmuir. And M'Adam was patient and painstaking in the training of his Wullie in a manner to astonish David. It would have been touching, had it not been so unnatural in view of his treatment of his own blood, to watch the tender carefulness with which the little man moulded the dog beneath his hands. After a promising display he would stand, rubbing his palms together, as near content as ever he was.

"Weel done, Wullie! Weel done. Bide a wee and we'll show 'em a thing or two, you and I, Wullie.

"'The wand's wrack we share o't, The warstie and the care o't.'

For it's you and I alane, lad." And the dog would trot up to him, place his great forepaws on his shoulders, and stand thus with his great head overtopping his master's, his ears back, and stump tail vibrating.

You saw them at their best when thus together, displaying each his one soft side to the other.

From the very first David and Red Wull were open enemies: under the circumstances, indeed, nothing else was possible. Sometimes the great dog would follow on the lad's heels with surly, greedy eyes, never leaving him from sunrise to sundown, till David could hardly hold his hands.

So matters went on for a never-ending year. Then there came a climax.

One evening, on a day throughout which Red Wull had dogged him thus hungrily, David, his work finished, went to pick up his coat, which he had left hard by. On it lay Red Wull.

"Git off ma coat!" the boy ordered angrily. marching up. But the great dog never stirred: he lifted a lip to show a fence of white, even teeth, and seemed to sink lower in the ground; his head on his paws, his eyes in his forehead.

"Come and take it!" he seemed to say.

Now what, between master and dog, David had endured almost more than he could bear that day.

"Yo' won't, won't yo', girt brute!" he shouted, and bending, snatched a corner of the coat and attempted to jerk it away. At that, Red Wull rose, shivering, to his feet, and with a low gurgle sprang at the boy.

David, quick as a flash, dodged, bent, and picked up an ugly stake, lying at his feet. Swinging round, all in a moment, he dealt his antagonist a mighty buffet on the side of the head. Dazed with the blow, the great dog fell; then, recovering himself, with a terrible, deep roar he sprang again. Then it must have gone hard with the boy, fine-grown, muscular young giant though he was. For Red Wull was now in the first bloom of that great strength which earned him afterward an undying notoriety in the land.

As it chanced, however, M'Adam had watched the scene from the kitchen. And now he came hurrying out of the house, shrieking commands and curses at the combatants. As Red Wull sprang, he interposed between the two, head back and eyes flashing. His small person received the full shock of the charge. He staggered, but recovered, and in an imperative voice ordered the dog to heel.

Then he turned on David, seized the stake from his hand, and began furiously belaboring the boy.

"I'll teach ye to strike--a puir--dumb--harrnless--creetur, ye--cruel-- cruel---lad!" he cried. "Hoo daur ye strike--ma----Wullie? yer-- father's----Wullie? Adam--M 'Adam's--Red Wull?" He was panting from his exertions, and his eyes were blazing. "I pit up as best I can wi' all manner o' disrespect to masel'; but when it comes to takin' ma puir Wullie, I cantia thole it. Ha' ye no heart?" he asked, unconscious of the irony of the question.

"As much as some, I reck'n," David muttered.

"Eh, what's that? What d'ye say?"

"Ye may thrash me till ye're blind; and it's nob'but yer duty; but if only one daurs so much as to look at yer Wullie ye're mad," the boy answered bitterly. And with that he turned away defiantly and openly in the direction of Kenmuir.

M'Adam made a step forward, and then stopped.

"I'll see ye agin, ma lad, this evenin','' he cried with cruel significance.

"I doot but yo'il be too drunk to see owt-- except, 'appen, your bottle," the boy shouted back; and swaggered down the hill.

At Kenmuir that night the marked and particular kindness of Elizabeth Moore was too much for the overstrung lad. Overcome by the contrast of her sweet motherliness, he burst into a storm of invective against his father, his home, his life--everything.

"Don't 'ee, Davie, don't 'ee, deane!" cried Mrs. Moore, much distressed. And taking him to her she talked to the great, sobbing boy as though he were a child. At length he lifted his face and looked up; and, seeing the white, wan countenance of his dear comforter, was struck with tender remorse that he had given way and pained her, who looked so frail and thin herself.

He mastered himself with an effort; and, for the rest of the evening, was his usual cheery self. He teased Maggie into tears; chaffed stolid little Andrew; and bantered Sam'l Todd until that generally impassive man threatened to bash his snout for him.

Yet it was with a great swallowing at his throat that, later, he turned down the slope for home.

James Moore and Parson Leggy accompanied him to the bridge over the Wastrel, and stood a while watching as he disappeared into the summer night.

"Yon's a good lad," said the Master half to himself.

"Yes," the parson replied ; "I always thought there was good in the boy, if only his father'd give him a chance. And look at the way Owd Bob there follows him. There's not another soul outside Kenmuir he'd do that for."

"Ay, sir," said the Master. "Bob knows a mon when he sees one."

"He does," acquiesced the other. "And by the by, James, the talk in the village is that you've settled not to run him for the Cup. Is, that so?"

The Master nodded.

"It is, sir. They're all mad I should, but I mun cross 'em. They say he's reached his prime--and so he has o' his body, but not o' his brain. And a sheep-dog--unlike other dogs--is not at his best till his brain is at its best--and that takes a while developin', same as in a mon, I reck'n."

"Well, well," said the parson, pulling out a favorite phrase, "waiting's winning--waiting's winning."

David slipped up into his room and into bed unseen, he hoped. Alone with the darkness, he allowed himself the rare relief of tears; and at length fell asleep. He awoke to find his father standing at his bedside. The little man held a feeble dip-candle in his hand, which lit his sallow face in crude black and white. In the doorway, dimly outlined, was the great figure of Red Wull.

"Whaur ha' ye been the day?" the little man asked. Then, looking down on the white stained face beneath him, he added hurriedly: "If ye like to lie, I'll believe ye."

David was out of bed and standing up in his night-shirt. He looked at his father contemptuously.

"I ha' bin at Kenmuir. I'll not lie for yo' ur your likes," he said proudly.

The little man shrugged his shoulders.

" 'Tell a lee and stick to it,'is my rule, and. a good one, too, in honest England. I for one 'II no think ony the worse o' ye if yer memory plays yer false."

"D'yo' think I care a kick what yo' think o' me?" the boy asked brutally. "Nay; there's 'nough liars in this fam'ly wi'oot me."

The candle trembled and was still again.

"A lickin' or a lie--tak' yer choice!"

The boy looked scornfully down on his father. Standing on his naked feet, he already towered half a head above the other and was twice the man.

"D'yo' think I'm fear'd o' a thrashin' fra yo'? Goo' gracious me!" he sneered. "Why, I'd as lief let owd Grammer Maddox lick me, for all I care."

A reference to his physical insufficiencies fired the little man as surely as a lighted match powder.

"Ye maun be cauld, standin' there so. Rin ye doon and fetch oor little frien' "--a reference to a certain strap hanging in the kitchen. "I'll see if I can warm ye."

David turned and stumbled down the unlit, narrow stairs. The hard, cold boards struck like death against his naked feet. At his heels followed Red Wull, his hot breath fanning the boy's bare legs.

So into the kitchen and back up the stairs, and Red Wull always following.

"I'll no despair yet o' teachin' ye the fifth commandment, though I kill masel' in doin' it!" cried the little man, seizing the strap from the boy's numb grasp.

When it was over, M'Adam turned, breathless, away. At the threshold of the room he stopped and looked round: a little, dim-lit, devilish figure, framed in the door; while from the blackness behind, Red Wull's eyes gleamed yellow.

Glancing back, the little man caught such an expression on David's face that for once he was fairly afraid. He banged the door and hobbled actively down the stairs.

Chapter VII. THE WHITE WINTER

M'ADAM--in his sober moments at least-- never touched David again; instead, he devoted himself to the more congenial exercise of the whiplash of his tongue. And he was wise; for David, who was already nigh a head the taller of the two, and comely and strong in proportion, could, if he would, have taken his father in the hollow of his hand and crumpled him like a dry leaf. Moreover, with his tongue, at least, the little man enjoyed the noble pleasure of making the boy wince. And so the war was carried on none the less vindictively.

Meanwhile another summer was passing away, and every day brought fresh proofs of the prowess of Owd Bob. Tammas, whose stock of yarns anent Rex son of Rally had after forty years' hard wear begun to pall on the loyal ears of even old Jonas, found no lack of new material now. In the Dalesman's Daughter in Silverdale and in the Border Ram at Grammoch-town, each succeeding market day brought some fresh tale. Men told how the gray dog had outdone Gypsy Jack, the sheep-sneak; how he had cut out a Kenmuir shearling from the very centre of Londesley's pack; and a thousand like stories.

The Gray Dogs of Kenmuir have always been equally heroes and favorites in the Dale-land. And the confidence of the Dalesmen in Owd Bob was now invincible. Sometimes on market days he would execute some unaccotmtable maneuvre, and .. strange shepherd would ask: "What's the gray dog at?" To which the nearest Dalesman would reply: "Nay, I canno tell ye! But he's reet enough. Yon's Owd Bob o' Kenmuir."

Whereon the stranger would prick his ears and watch with close attention.

"Yon's Owd Bob o' Kenmuir, is he?" he would say; for already among the faculty the name was becoming known. And never in such a case did the young dog fail to justify the faith of his supporters.

It came, therefore, as a keen disappointment to every Dalesman, from Herbert Trotter, Secretary of the Trials, to little Billy Thornton, when the Master persisted in his decision not to run the dog for the Cup in the approaching Dale Trials; and that though parson, squire, and even Lady Eleanour essayed to shake his purpose. It was nigh fifty years since Rex son o' Rally had won back the Trophy for the land that gave it birth; it was time, they thought, for a Daleland dog, a Gray Dog of Kenmuir--the terms are practically synonymous--to bring it home again. And Tarnmas, that polished phrase-maker, was only expressing the feelings of every Dalesman in the room when, one night at the Arms, he declared of Owd Bob that "to ha' run was to ha' won." At which M'Adam sniggered audibly and winked at Red Wull. "To ha' run was to ha' one--lickin'; to rin next year'll be to-- Win next year." Tammas interposed dogmatically. "Onless "--with shivering sarcasm

--"you and yer Wullie are thinkin' o' winnin'." The little man rose from his solitary seat at the back of the room and pattered across.

"Wullie and I are thinkin' o' t," he whispered loudly in the old man's ear. "And mair:

"Ye leetle devil!" he laughed. "He! he! ye leetle devil!" and flipped together finger and thumb in vain endeavor to coax the puppy to him.

But it growled, and glared more terribly.

"Stop it, ye little snake, or I'll flatten you!" cried the big drover, and shuffled his feet threateningly. Whereat the puppy, gurgling like hot water in a kettle, made a feint as though to advance and wipe them out, these two bad men.

M'Adam laughed again, and smote his leg.

"Keep a ceevil tongue and yer distance," says he, "or I'll e'en ha' to mak' ye. Though he is but as big as a man's thumb, a dog's a dog for a' that--he! he! the leetle devil." And he fell to flipping finger and thumb afresh.

"Ye're maybe wantin' a dog?" inquired the stranger. "Yer friend said as much."

"Ma friend lied; it's his way," M'Adam replied.

"I'm willin' to part wi' him," the other pursued.

The little man yawned. "Weel, I'll tak' him to oblige ye," he said indifferently.

The drover rose to his feet.

"It's givin' 'im ye, fair givin' im ye, mind! But I'll do it!"--he smacked a great fist into a hollow palm. "Ye may have the dog for a pun'--I'll only ask you a pun'," and he walked away to the window.

M'Adam drew back, the better to scan his would-be benefactor; his lower jaw dropped, and he eyed the stranger with a drolly sarcastic air.

"A poun', man! A pouxi'--for yon noble dorg!" he pointed a crooked forefinger at the little creature, whose scowling mask peered from beneath the chair. "Man, I couldna do it. Na, na; ma conscience wadna permit me.

'Twad be fair robbin' ye. Ah, ye Englishmen!" he spoke half to himself, and sadly, as if deploring the unhappy accident of his nationality; "it's yer grand, open-hairted generosity that grips a puir Scotsman by the throat. A poun'! and for yon!" He wagged his head mournfully, cocking it sideways the better to scan his subject.

"Take him or leave him," ordered the drover truculently, still gazing out of the window.

"Wi' yer permission I'll leave him," M'Adam answered meeldy.

"I'm short o' the ready," the big man pursued, "or I wouldna part with him. Could I bide me time there's many'd be glad to give me a tenner for one o' that bree--" he caught himself up hastily--" for a dog sic as that."

"And yet ye offer him me for a poun'! Noble indeed!"

Nevertheless the little man had pricked his ears at the other's slip and quick correction. Again he approached the puppy, dangling his coat before him to protect his ankles; and again that wee wild beast sprang out, seized the coat in its small jaw, and worried it savagely.

M'Adam stooped quickly and picked up his tiny assailant; and the puppy, suspended by its neck, gurgled and slobbered; then, wriggling desperately round, made its teeth meet in its adversary's shirt. At which M'Adam shook it gently and laughed. Then he set to examining it.

Apparently some six weeks old; a tawny coat, fiery eyes, a square head with small, cropped ears, and a comparatively immense jaw; the whole giving promise of great strength, if little beauty. And this effect was enhanced by the manner of its docking. For the miserable relic of a tail, yet raw, looked little more than a red button adhering to its wearer's stern.

M'Adam's inspection was as minute as it was apparently absorbing; he omitted nothing from the square muzzle to the lozenge-like scut. And every now and then he threw a quick glance at the man at the window, who was watching the careful scrutiny a thought uneasily.

"Ye've cut him short," he said at length, swinging round on the drover.

"Ay; strengthens their backs," the big man answered with averted gaze.

M'Adam's chin went up in the air; his. mouth partly opened and his eyelids partly closed as he eyed his informant.

"Oh, ay," he said.

"Gie him back to me," ordered the drover surlily. He took the puppy and set it on the floor; whereupon it immediately resumed its former fortified position. "Ye're no buyer; I knoo that all along by that face on ye," he said in insulting tones.

"Ye wad ha' bought him yerseif', nae doot?" M'Adam inquired blandly.

"In course; if you says so."

"Or airblins ye bred him?"

'Appen I did."

"Ye'll no be from these parts?"

"Will I no?" answered the other.

A smile of genuine pleasure stole over M'Adam's face. He laid his hand on the other's arm.

"Man," he said gently, "ye mind me o' hame." Then almost in the same breath:

Ye said ye found him?"

It was the stranger's turn to laugh.

"Ha! ha! Ye teecide me, little mon. Found 'im? Nay; I was give 'im by a friend. But there's nowt amiss wi' his breedin', ye may believe me."

The great fellow advanced to the chair under which the puppy lay. It leapt out like a lion, and fastened on his huge boot.

"A rare bred un, look 'ee! a rare game wi. Ma word, he's a big-hearted un! Look at the back on him; see the jaws to him; mark the pluck of him!" He shook his booted foot fiercely, tossing his leg to and fro like a tree in a wind. But the little creature, now raised ceilingward, now dashed to the ground, held on with incomparable doggedness, till its small jaw was all bloody and muzzle wrinkled with the effort.

"Ay, ay, that'll do," M'Adam interposed, irritably.

The drover ceased his efforts.

"Now, I'll mak' ye a last offer." He thrust his head down to a level with the other's, shooting out his neck. "It's throwin' him at ye, mind. 'Tain't buyin' him ye'll be-- don't go for to deceive yourself. Ye may have him for fifteen shillin'. Why do I do it, ye ask? Why, 'cos I think ye'll be kind to him," as the puppy retreated to its chair, leaving a spotted track of red along its route.

"Ay, ye wadna be happy gin ye thocht he'd no a comfortable hame, conseederate man?" M'Adam answered, eyeing the dark track on the floor. Then he put on his coat.

"Na, na, he's no for me. Weel, I'll no detain ye. Good-nicht to ye, mister!" and he made for the door.

"A gran' worker he'll be," called the drover after him.

"Ay; muckle wark he'll mak' amang the sheep wi' sic a jaw and sic a temper. Weel, I maun be steppin'. Good-nicht to ye."

"Ye'll niver have sich anither chanst."

"Nor niver wush to. Na, na; he'll never mak' a sheep-dog"; and the little man turned up the collar of his coat.

"Will he not?" cried the other scornfully. "There niver yet was one o' that line "he stopped abruptly.

The little man spun round.

"Iss?" he said, as innocent as any child; "ye were sayin'?"

The other turned to the window and watched the rain falling monotonously.

"Ye'll be wantin' wet," he said adroitly.

"Ay, we could do wi' a drappin'. And he'll never mak' a sheep-dog." He shoved his cap down on his head. "Weel, good-nicht to ye!" and he stepped out into the rain.

It was long after dark when the bargain was finally struck.

Adam M'Adam's Red Wull became that little man's property for the following realizable assets: ninepence in cash--three coppers and a doubtful sixpence; a plug of suspicious tobacco in a well-worn pouch; and an old watch.

"It's clean givin' 'im ye," said the stranger bitterly, at the end of the deal.

"It's mair the charity than aught else mak's me sae leeberal," the other answered gently. "I wad not like to see ye pinched."

"Thank ye kindly," the big man replied with some acerbity, and plunged out into the darkness and rain. Nor was that long-limbed drover-man ever again seen in the countryside. And the puppy's previous history--. whether he was honestly come by or no, whether he was, indeed, of the famous Red McCulloch* strain, ever remained a mystery in the Daleland.

*N. B--You may know a Red McCulloeh anywhere by the ring of white upon his tail some two inches from the root.

Chapter IV. FIRST BLOOD

AFTER that first encounter in the Dales-. man's Daughter, Red Wull, for so M'Adam called him, resigned himself complacently to his lot; recognizing, perhaps, his destiny.

Thenceforward the sour little man and the vicious puppy grew, as it were, together. The two were never apart. Where M'Adam was, there was sure to be his tiny attendant, bristling defiance as he kept ludicrous guard over his master.

The little man and his dog were inseparable. M'Adam never left him even at the Grange.

"I couldna trust ma Wullie at hame alone wi' the dear lad," was his explanation. "I ken wed I'd come back to find a wee corpse on the floor, and David singin':

'My heart is sair, I daur na tell,

My heart is sair for somebody.'

Ay, and he'd be sair elsewhere by the time I'd done wi' him--he! he!"

The sneer at David's expense was as characteristic as it was unjust. For though the puppy and the boy were already sworn enemies, yet the lad would have scorned to harm so small a foe. And many a tale did David tell at Kenmuir of Red Wull's viciousness, of his hatred of him (David), and his devotion to his master; how, whether immersed in the pig-bucket or chasing the fleeting rabbit, he would desist at once, and bundle, panting, up at his master's call; how he routed the tomcat and drove him from the kitchen; and how he clambered on to David's bed and pinned him murderously by the nose.

Of late the relations between M'Adam and James Moore had been unusually strained. Though they were neighbors, communications between the two were of the rarest; and it was for the first time for many a long day that, on an afternoon shortly after Red Wull had come into his possession, M'Adam entered the yard of Kenmuir, bent on girding at the master for an alleged trespass at the Stony Bottom.

"WI' yer permission, Mr. Moore,'' said the little man, "I'll wheestle ma dog, " and, turning, he whistled a shrill, peculiar note like the cry of a disturbed peewit.

Straightway there came scurrying desperately up, ears back, head down, tongue out, as if the world depended on his speed, a little tawny beetle of a thing, who placed his forepaws against his master's ankles and looked up into his face; then, catching sight of the strangers, hurriedly he took up his position between them and M'Adam, assuming his natural attitude of grisly defiance. Such a laughable spectacle he made, that martial mite, standing at bay with bristles up and teeth bared, that even James Moore smiled.

"Ma word! Ha' yo' brought his muzzle, man?" cried old Tammas, the humorist; and, turning, climbed all in a heat on to an upturned bucket that stood by. Whereat the puppy, emboldened by his foe's retreat, advanced savagely to the attack, buzzing round the slippery pail like a wasp on a windowpane, in vain attempt to reach the old man.

Tammas stood on the top, hitching his trousers and looking down on his assailant, the picture of mortal fear.

'Elp! Oh, 'elp!" he bawled. "Send for the sogers! fetch the p'lice! For lawk-amussy's sake call him off, man!" Even Sam'l Todd, watching the scene from the cart-shed, was tickled and burst into a loud guffaw, heartily backed by 'Enry and oor Job. While M'Adam remarked: "Ye're fitter for a stage than a stable-bucket, Mr. Thornton."

"How didst coom by him?" asked Tammas, nodding at the puppy.

"Found him," the little man replied, sucking his twig. "Found him in ma stockin' on ma birthday. A present from ma leetle David for his auld dad, I doot."

"So do I," said Tammas, and was seized with sudden spasm of seemingly causeless merriment. For looking up as M'Adam was speaking, he had caught a glimpse of a boy's fair head, peering cautiously round the cow-shed, and, behind, the flutter of short petti.. coats. They disappeared as silently as they had come; and two small figures, just returned from school, glided away and sought shelter in the friendly darkness of a coal-hole.

"Coom awa', Maggie, coom awa'! 'Tis th' owd un, 'isself," whispered a disrespectful voice.

M'Adam looked round suspiciously.

"What's that?" he asked sharply.

At the moment, however, Mrs. Moore put her head out of the kitchen window.

"Coom thy ways in, Mister M'Adam, and tak' a soop o' tea," she called hospitably.

"Thank ye kindly, Mrs. Moore, I will," he answered, politely for him. And this one good thing must be allowed of Adam M'Adam:

that, if there was only one woman of whom he was ever known to speak well, there was also only one, in the whole course of his life, against whom he ever insinuated evil--and that was years afterward, when men said his brain was sapped. Flouts and jeers he had for every man, but a woman, good or bad, was sacred to him. For the sex that had given him his mother and his wife he had that sentiment of tender reverence which, if a man still preserve, he cannot be altogether bad. As he turned into the house he looked back at Red Wull.

"Ay, we may leave him," he said. "That is, gin ye're no afraid, Mr. Thornton?"

Of what happened while the men were within doors, it is enough to tell two things. First, that Owd Bob was no bully. Second, this: In the code of sheep-dog honor there is written a word in stark black letters; and opposite it another word, writ large in the color of blood. The first is "Sheep-murder"; the second, "Death." It is the one crime only to be wiped away in blood; and to accuse of the crime is to offer the one unpardonable insult. Every sheep-dog knows it, and every shepherd.

That afternoon, as the men still talked, the quiet echoes of the farm rung with a furious animal cry, twice repeated: "Shot for sheepmurder"--" Shot for sheep-murder"; followed by a hollow stillness.

The two men finished their colloquy. The matter was concluded peacefully, mainly owing to the pacifying influence of Mrs. Moore. Together the three went out into the yard; Mrs. Moore seizing the opportunity to shyly speak on David's behalf.

"lie's such a good little lad, I do think," she was saying.

"Ye should ken, Mrs. Moore," the little man answered, a thought bitterly; "ye see enough of him."

"Yo' mun be main proud of un, mester," the woman continued, heedless of the sneer: "an' 'im growin' such a gradely lad."

M'Adam shrugged his shoulders.

"I barely ken the lad," he said. "By sight I know him, of course, but barely to speak to. He's but seldom at hame."

"An' hoo proud his mother'd be if she could see him," the woman continued, well aware of his one tender place. "Eh, but she was fond o' him, so she was."

An angry flush stole over the little man's face. Well he understood the implied rebuke; and it hurt him like a knife.

"Ay, ay, Mrs. Moore," he began. Then breaking off, and looking about him-- "Where's ma Wullie?" he cried excitedly. "James Moore!" whipping round on the Master, "ma Wullie's gone--gone, I say!"

Elizabeth Moore turned away indignantly. "I do declar' he tak's more fash after yon little yaller beastie than iver he does after his own flesh," she muttered.

"Wullie, ma we doggie! Wullie, where are ye? James Moore, he's gone--ma Wullie's gone!" cried the little man, running about the yard, searching everywhere.

"Cannot 'a' gotten far," said the Master, reassuringly, looking about him.

"Niver no tellin'," said Sam'l, appearing on the scene, pig-bucket in hand. "I inisdoot yo'll iver see your dog agin, mister." He turned sorrowfully to M'Adam.

That little man, all dishevelled, and with the perspiration standing on his face, came hurrying out of the cow-shed and danced up to the Master.

"It's robbed I am--robbed, I tell ye!" he cried recklessly. "Ma wee Wull's bin stolen while I was ben your hoose, James Moore!"

"Yo' munna say that, ma mon. No robbin' at Kenmuir," the Master answered sternly.

"Then where is he? It's for you to say."

"I've ma own idee, I 'aye," Sam'l announced opportunely, pig-bucket uplifted.

M'Adam turned on him.

"What, man? What is it?"

"I misdoot yo'll iver see your dog agin, mister," Sam'l repeated, as if he was supplying the key to the mystery.

"Noo, Sam'l, if yo' know owt tell it, "ordered his master.

Sam'l grunted sulkily.

"Wheer's oor Bob, then?" he asked.

At that M'Adam turned on the Master.

'Tis that, nae doot. It's yer gray dog, James Moore, yer--dog. I might ha' kent it, "--and he loosed off a volley of foul words.

"Sweerin' will no find him," said the Master coldly. "Noo, Sam'l."

The big man shifted his feet, and looked mournfully at M'Adam.

'Twas 'appen 'aif an hour agone, when I sees oor Bob goin' oot o' yard wi' little yaller tyke in his mouth. In a minnit I looks agin-- and theer! little yaller 'Un was gone, and oor Bob a-sittin' a-lickin' his chops. Gone for-iver, I do reck'n. Ah, yo' may well take on, Tammas Thornton!" For the old man was rolling about the yard, bent double with merriment.

M'Adam turned on the Master with the resignation of despair.

"Man, Moore," he cried piteously, "it's yer gray dog has murdered ma wee Wull! Ye have it from yer am man."

"Nonsense," said the Master encouragingly. " 'Tis but yon girt oof."

Sam'l tossed his head and snorted.

"Coom, then, and i'll show yo'," he said, and led the way out of the yard. And there below them on the slope to the stream, sitting like Justice at the Courts of Law, was Owd Bob.

Straightway Sam'l whose humor was something of the calibre of old Ross's, the sexton, burst into horse-merriment. "Why's he sit-tin' so still, think 'ee? Ho! Ho! See un lickin' his chops--ha! ha! "--and he roared afresh. While from afar you could hear the distant rumbling of 'Enry and oor Job.

At the sight, M'Adam burst into a storm of passionate invective, and would have rushed on the dog had not James Moore forcibly restrained him.

"Bob, lad," called the Master, "coom here!" But even as he spoke, the gray dog cocked his ears, listened a moment, and then shot down the slope. At the same moment Tammas hallooed: "Theer he be! yon's yaller un coomin' oot o' drain! La, Sam'l!" And there, indeed, on the slope below them, a little angry, smutty-faced figure was crawling out of a rabbit-burrow.

"Ye murderin' devil, wad ye duar touch ma Wullie?" yelled M'Adam, and, breaking away, pursued hotly down the hill; for the gray dog had picked up the puppy, like a lancer a tent-peg, and was sweeping on, his captive in his mouth, toward the stream.

Behind, hurried James Moore and Sam'l, wondering what the issue of the comedy would be. After them toddled old Tammas, chuckling. While over the yard-wall was now a little cluster of heads: 'Enry, oor Job, Maggie and David, and Vi'let Thornton, the dairy-maid.

Straight on to the plank-bridge galloped Owd Bob. In the middle he halted, leant over, and dropped his prisoner; who fell with a cool plop into the running water beneath.

Another moment and M'Adam had reached the bank of the stream. In he plunged, splashing and cursing, and seized the struggling puppy; then waded back, the waters surging about his waist, and Red Wull, limp as a wet rag, in his hand. The little man's hair was dripping, for his cap was gone; his clothes clung to him, exposing the miserableness of his figure; and his eyes blazed like hot ashes in his wet face.

He sprang on to the bank, and, beside himself with passion, rushed at Owd Bob.

"Curse ye for a--"

"Stan' back, or yo'll have him at your throat!" shouted the Master, thundering up. "Stan' back, I say, yo' fule!" And, as the little man still came madly on, he reached forth his hand and hurled him back; at the same moment, bending, he buried the other hand deep in Owd Bob's shaggy neck. It was but just in time; for if ever the fierce desire of battle gleamed in gray eyes, it did in the young dog's as M'Adam came down on him.

The little man staggered, tottered, and fell heavily. At the shock, the blood gushed from his nose, and, mixing with the water on his face, ran down in vague red streams, dripping off his chin; while Red Wull, jerked from his grasp, was thrown afar, and lay motionless.

"Curse ye!" M'Adam screamed, his face dead-white save for the running red about his jaw. "Curse ye for a cowardly Englishman!" and, struggling to his feet, he made at the Master.

But Sam'l interposed his great bulk between the two.

"Easy, little mon," he said leisurely, regarding the small fury before him with mournful interest. "Eli, but thee do be a little spit-cat, surely!"

James Moore stood, breathing deep, his hand still buried in Owd Bob's coat.

"If yo'd touched him," he explained, "I conidna ha' stopped him. He'd ha' mauled yo' afore iver I could ha' had him off. They're bad to hold, the Gray Dogs, when they're roosed."

"Ay, ma word, that they are!" corroborated Tammas, speaking from the experience of sixty years. "Once on, yo' canna get 'em off."

The little man turned away.

"Ye're all agin me," he said, and his voice shook. A pitiful figure he made, standing there with the water dripping from him. A red stream was running slowly from his chin; his head was bare, and face working.

James Moore stood eyeing him with some pity and some contempt. Behind was Tammas, enjoying the scene. While Sam'l regarded them all with an impassive melancholy.

M'Adam turned and bent over Red Wull, who still lay like a dead thing. As his master handled him, the button-tail quivered feebly; he opened his eyes, looked about him, snarled faintly, and glared with devilish hate at the gray dog and the group with him.

The little man picked him up, stroking him tenderly. Then he turned away and on to the bridge. Half-way across he stopped. It rattled feverishly beneath him, for he still trembled like a palsied man.

"Man, Moore!" he called, striving to quell the agitation in his voice--" I wad shoot yon dog."

Across the bridge he turned again. "Man, Moore!" he called and paused. Ye'll not forget this day." And with that the blood flared up a dull crimson into his white face.

PART II THE LITTLE MAN

Chapter V. A MAN'S SON

THE storm, long threatened, having once burst, M'Adam allowed loose rein to his bitter animosity against James Moore.

The two often met. For the little man frequently returned home from the village by the footpath across Kenmuir. It was out of his way, but he preferred it in order to annoy his enemy and keep a watch upon his doings.

In the stack-yard, behind the lengthy range of stables, two men were thatching. One lay sprawling on the crest of the rick, the other stood perched on a ladder at a lower level.

The latter, small, old, with shrewd nut-brown countenance, was Tammas Thornton,, who had served the Moores of Kenmuir for more than half a century. The other, on top of the stack, wrapped apparently in gloomy meditation, was Sam'l Todd. A solid Dales-- man, he, with huge hands and hairy arms; about his face an uncomely aureole of stiff, red hair; and on his features, deep-seated, an expression of resolute melancholy.

"Ay, the Gray Dogs, bless 'em!" the old man was saying. "Yo' canna beat 'em not nohow. Known 'em ony time this sixty year, I have, and niver knew a bad un yet. Not as I say, mind ye, as any on 'em cooms up to Rex son o' Rally. Ah, he was a one, was Rex! We's never won Cup since his day."

"Nor niver shall agin, yo' may depend," said the other gloomily.

Tammas clucked irritably.

"G'long, Sam'! Todd!" he cried, "Yo' niver happy onless yo' making' yo'self miser'ble. I niver see sich a chap. Niver win agin? Why, oor young Bob he'll mak' a right un, I tell yo', and I should know. Not as what he'll touch Rex son o' Rally, mark ye! I'm niver saying' so, Sam'l Todd. Ah, he was a one, was Rex! I could tell yo' a tale or two o' Rex. I mind me boo--"

The big man interposed hurriedly.

"I've heard it afore, Tammas, I welly 'aye," he said.

Tammas paused and looked angrily up.

"Yo've heard it afore, have yo', Sam'l Todd?" he asked sharply. "And what have yo' heard afore?"

"Yo' stories, owd lad--yo' stories o' Rex son o' Rally."

"Which on' em

"All on 'em, Tammas, all on 'em--mony a time. I'm fair sick on 'em, Tammas, I welly am," he pleaded.

The old man gasped. He brought down his mallet with a vicious smack.

"I'll niver tell yo' a tale agin, Sam'l Todd, not if yo' was to go on yo' bended knees for't.

Nay; it bain't no manner o' use talkin'. Niver agin, says I."

"I niver askt yo'," declared honest Sam'l. "Nor it wouldna ha' bin no manner o' use if yo' had," said the other viciously. "I'll niver tell yo' a tale agin if I was to live to be a hunderd."

"Yo'll not live to be a hunderd, Tammas Thornton, nor near it," said Sam'l brutally.

"I'll live as long as some, I warrant," the old man replied with spirit. "I'll live to see Cup back i' Kenmuir, as I said afore."

"If yo' do," the other declared with emphasis, "Sam'l Todd niver spake a true word. Nay, nay, lad; yo're owd, yo're wambly, your time's near run or I'm the more mistook."

"For mussy's sake hold yo' tongue, Sam'l Todd! It's clack-clack all day--" The old man broke off suddenly, and buckled to his work with suspicious vigor. "Mak' a show yo' bin workin', lad," he whispered. "Here's Master and oor Bob."

As he spoke, a tall gaitered man with weather-beaten face, strong, lean, austere, and the blue-gray eyes of the hill-country, came striding into the yard. And trotting soberly at his heels, with the gravest, saddest eyes ever you saw, a sheep-dog puppy.

A rare dark gray he was, his long coat, dashed here and there with lighter touches, like a stormy sea moonlit. Upon his chest an escutcheon of purest white, and the dome of his head showered, as it were, with a sprinkling of snow. Perfectly compact, utterly lithe, inimitably graceful with his airy-fairy action; a gentleman every inch, you could not help but stare at him--Owd Bob o' Ken-muir.

At the foot of the ladder the two stopped. And the young dog, placing his forepaws on a lower rung, looked up, slowly waving his silvery brush.

"A proper Gray Dog!" mused Tammas, gazing down into the dark face beneath him. "Small, yet big; light to get about on. backs o' his sheep, yet not too light. Wi' a coat hard a-top to keep oot Daleland weather, soft as sealskin beneath. And wi' them sorrerful eyes on him as niver goes but wi' a good un. Amaist he minds me o' Rex son o' Rally."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" groaned Sam'l. But the old man heard him not.

"Did 'Enry Farewether tell yo' hoo he acted this mornin', Master?" he inquired, addressing the man at the foot of the ladder.

"Nay," said the other, his stern eyes lighting.

"Why, 'twas this way, it seems," Tammas continued. "Young bull gets 'isseif loose. somegate and marches oot into yard, o'erturns milkpail, and prods owd pigs i' ribs. And as he stands lookin' about un, thinking' what he shall be up to next, oor Bob sees un 'An' what yo' doin' here, Mr. Bull?' he seems to say, cockin' his ears and trottin' up gay-like. Wi' that bull bloats fit to bust 'isseif, lashes wi's tail, waggles his head, and gets agate o' chargin' 'im. But Bob leaps oot o' way, quick as lightnin' yet cool as butter, and when he's done his foolin drives un back agin."

"Who seed all this?" interposed Sam'l, sceptically.

" 'Enry Farewether from the loft. So there, Fat'ead!" Tammas replied, and continued his tale. "So they goes on; bull chargin' and Bob drivin' un back and back, hoppin' in and oot agin, quiet as a cowcumber, yet determined. At last Mr. Bull sees it's no manner o' use that gate, so he turns, rares up, and tries to jump wall. Nary a bit. Young dog jumps in on un and nips him by tail. Wi' that, bull tumbles down in a hurry, turns wi' a kind o' groan, and marches back into stall, Bob after un. And then, dang me!"--the old man beat the ladder as he loosed off this last titbit,--" if he doesna sit' isseif i' door like a sentrynel till 'Enry Farewether cootn up. Hoo's that for a tyke not yet a year?"

Even Sam'l Todd was moved by the tale.

"Well done, oor Bob!" he cried.

"Good, lad!" said the Master, laying a hand on the dark head at his knee.

"Yo' may well say that," cried Tanitnas in a kind of ecstasy. "A proper Gray Dog, I tell yo'. Wi' the brains of a man and the way of a woman. Ah, yo' canna beat 'em nohow, the Gray Dogs o' Kenmuir!"

The patter of cheery feet rang out on the plank-bridge over the stream below them. Tammas glanced round.

"Here's David," he said. "Late this mornin' he be."

A fair-haired boy came spurring up the slope, his face all aglow with the speed of his running. Straightway the young dog dashed off to meet him with a fiery speed his sober gait belied. The two raced back together into the yard.

"Poor lad!" said Sam'l gloomily, regarding the newcomer.

"Poor heart!" muttered Tammas. While the Master's face softened visibly. Yet there looked little to pity in this jolly, rocking lad with the tousle of light hair and fresh, rosy countenance.

"G'mornin', Mister Moore! Morn'n, Tammas! Morn'n, Sam'l!" he panted as he passed; and ran on through the hay-carpeted yard, round the corner of the stable, and into the house.

In the kitchen, a long room with red-tiled floor and latticed windows, a woman, white-aproned and frail-faced, was bustling about her morning business. To her skirts clung a sturdy, bare-legged boy; while at the oak table in the centre of the room a girl with brown eyes and straggling hair was seated before a basin of bread and milk.

"So yo've coom at last, David!" the woman cried, as the boy entered; and, bending, greeted him with a tender, motherly salutation, which he returned as affectionately. "I welly thowt yo'd forgot us this mornin'. Noo sit you' doon beside oor Maggie." And soon he, too, was engaged in a task twin to the girl's.

The two children munched away in silence, the little bare-legged boy watching them, the while, critically. Irritated by this prolonged stare, David at length turned on him.

"Weel, little Andrew," he said, speaking in that paternal fashion in which one small boy loves to address another. "Weel, ma little lad, yo'm coomin' along gradely." He leant back in his chair the better to criticise his subject. But Andrew, like all the Moores, slow of speech, preserved a stolid silence, sucking a chubby thumb, and regarding his patron a thought cynically.

David resented the expression on the boy's countenance, and half rose to his feet.

"Yo' put another face on yo', Andrew Moore," he cried threateningly, "or I'll put it for yo'."

Maggie, however, interposed opportunely.

"Did yo' feyther beat yo' last night?" she inquired in a low voice; and there was a shade of anxiety in the soft brown eyes.

"Nay," the boy answered; "he was a-goin' to, but he never did. Drunk," he added in explanation.

"What was he goin' to beat yo' for, David?" asked Mrs. Moore.

"What for? Why, for the fun o't--to see me squiggle, "the boy replied, and laughed bitterly.

"Yo' shouldna speak so o' your dad, David," reproved the other as severely as was in her nature.

"Dad! a fine dad! I'd dad him an I'd the chance, " the boy muttered beneath his breath. Then, to turn the conversation:

"Us should he startin', Maggie," he said, and going to the door. "Bob! Owd Bob, lad! Ar't coomin' along?" he called.

The gray dog came springing up like an antelope, and the three started off for school together.

Mrs. Moore stood in the doorway, holding Andrew by the hand, and watched the departing trio.

"'Tis a pretty pair, Master, surely," she said softly to her husband, who came up at the moment.

"Ay, he'll be a fine lad if his feyther'll let him," the tall man answered.

"Tis a shame Mr. M'Adam should lead him such a life," the woman continued indignantly. She laid a hand on her husband's arm, and looked up at him coaxingly.

"Could yo' not say summat to un, Master, think 'ee? Happen he'd 'tend to you," she pleaded. For Mrs. Moore imagined that there could be no one but would gladly heed what James Moore, Master of Kenmuir, might say to him. "He's not a bad un at bottom, I do believe," she continued. "He never took on so till his missus died. Eh, but he was main fond o' her."

Her husband shook his head "Nay, mother," he said "'Twould nob' but mak' it worse for t' lad. M'Adam'd listen to no one, let alone me." And, indeed, he was right; for the tenant of the Grange made no secret of his animosity for his straight-going, straight-speaking neighbor.

Owd Bob, in the mean time, had escorted the children to the larch-copse bordering on the lane which leads to the village. Now he crept stealthily back to the yard, and established himself behind the water-butt.

How he played and how he laughed; how he teased old Whitecap till that gray gander all but expired of apoplexy and impotence; how he ran the roan bull-calf, and aroused the bitter wrath of a portly sow, mother of many, is of no account.

At last, in the midst of his merry mischief-making, a stern voice arrested him.

"Bob, lad, I see 'tis time we lamed you yo' letters."

So the business of life began for that dog of whom the simple farmer-folk of the Daleland still love to talk,--Bob, son of Battle, last of the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir.

Chapter II. A SON OF HAGAR

It is a lonely country, that about the Wastreldale.

Parson Leggy Hornbut will tell you that his is the smallest church in the biggest parish north of the Derwent, and that his cure numbers more square miles than parishioners. Of fells and ghylls it consists, of becks and lakes; with here a scattered hamlet and there a solitary hill sheep-farm. It is a country in which sheep are paramount; and every other Dalesman is engaged in that profession which is as old as Abel. And the talk of the men of the land is of wethers and gimmers, of tup-hoggs, ewe tegs in wool, and other things which are but fearsome names to you and me; and always of the doings or misdoings, the intelligence or stupidity, of their adjutants, the sheep-dogs.

Of all the Daleland, the country from the Black Water to Grammoch Pike is the wildest. Above the tiny stone-built village of Wastrel-- dale the Muir Pike nods its massive head. Westward, the desolate Mere Marches, froni which the Sylvesters' great estate derives its name, reach away in mAe on mile of sheep infested, wind-swept moorland. On the far side of the Marches is that twin dale where. flows the gentle Silver Lea. And it is there in the paddocks at the back of the Dalesman's Daughter, that, in the late summer months, the famous sheep-dog Trials of the North are held. There that the battle for the Dale Cup, the world-known Shepherds' Trophy, is fought out.

Past the little inn leads the turnpike road to the market-centre of the district--Grammoch-town. At the bottom of the paddocks at the back of the inn winds the Silver Lea. Just there a plank bridge crosses the stream, and, beyond, the Murk Muir Pass. crawls up the sheer side of the Scaur on to the Mere Marches.

At the head of the Pass, before it debouches. on to those lonely sheep-walks which divide. the two dales, is that hollow, shuddering with gloomy possibilities, aptly called the Devil's. Bowl. In its centre the Lone Tarn, weirdly suggestive pool, lifts its still face to the sky. It was beside that black, frozen water, across. whose cold surface the storm was swirling in white snow-wraiths, that, many, many years ago (not in this century), old Andrew Moore-came upon the mother of the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir.

In the North, every one who has heard of the Muir Pike--and who has not?--has heard. of the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir, every one who has heard of the Shepherd's Trophy--and who has not?--knows their fame. In that country of good dogs and jealous masters the pride of place has long been held unchallenged. Whatever line may claim to follow the Gray Dogs always lead the van. And there is a saying in the land: "Faithfu' as the Moores and their tykes."

On the top dresser to the right of the fireplace in the kitchen of Kenmuir lies the family Bible. At the end you will find a loose sheet-- the pedigree of the Gray Dogs; at the beginning, pasted on the inside, an almost similar ?heet, long since yellow with age--the family register of the Moores of Kenmuir.

Running your eye down the loose leaf, once, twice, and again it will be caught by a small red cross beneath a name, and under the cross the one word "Cup." Lastly, opposite the name of Rex son of Rally, are two of those proud, tell-tale marks. The cup referred to is the renowned Dale Cup--Champion Challenge Dale Cup, open to the world. Had Rex won it but once again the Shepherds' Trophy, which many men have lived to win, and died still striving after, would have come to rest forever in the little gray house below the Pike.

It was not to be, however. Comparing the two sheets, you read beneath the dog's name a date and a pathetic legend; and on the other sheet, written in his son's boyish hand, beneath the name of Andrew Moore the same date and the same legend.

From that day James Moore, then but a boy, was master of Kenmuir.

So past Grip and Rex and Rally, and a hundred others, until at the foot of the page you come to that last name--Bob, son of Battle.

From the very first the young dog took t& his work in a manner to amaze even James Moore. For a while he watched his mother, Meg, at her business, and with that seemed to have mastered the essentials of sheep tactics.

Rarely had such fiery ?lan been seen on the sides of the Pike; and with it the young dog combined a strange sobriety, an admirable patience, that justified, indeed, the epithet. "Owd." Silent he worked, and resolute; and even in those days had that famous trick of coaxing the sheep to do his wishes;--blending, in short, as Tammas put it, the brains of a man with the way of a woman.

Parson Leggy, who was reckoned the best judge of a sheep or sheep-dog 'twixt Tyne and Tweed, summed him up in the one word "Genius." And James Moore himself, cautious man, was more than pleased.

In the village, the Dalesmen, who took a personal pride in the Gray Dogs of Kenmuir, began to nod sage heads when "oor" Bob was mentioned. Jim Mason, the postman, whose word went as far with the villagers as Parson Leggy's with the gentry, reckoned he'd never seen a young un as so took his fancy.

That winter it grew quite the recognized thing, when they had gathered of a night round the fire in the Sylvester Arms, with Tammas in the centre, old Jonas Maddox on his right, Rob Saunderson of the Holt on the left, and the others radiating away toward the sides, for some one to begin with:

"Well, and what o' oor Bob, Mr. Thornton?"

To which Tammas would always make reply:

"Oh, yo' ask Sam'l there. He'll tell yo' better'n me, "--and would forthwith plunge, himself, into a yarn.

And the way in which, as the story proLeeded, Tupper of Swinsthwaite winked at Ned Hoppin of Fellsgarth, and Long Kirby, the smith, poked Jem Burton, the publican, in the ribs, and Sexton Ross said, "Ma word, lad!" spoke more eloquently than many words.

One man only never joined in the chorus of admiration. Sitting always alone in the background, little M'Adam would listen with an incredulous grin on his sallow face.

"Oh, ma certes! The devil's in the dog! It's no cannie ava!" he would continually exclaim, as Tammas told his tale.

In the Daleland you rarely see a stranger's face. Wandering in the wild country about the twin dales at the time of this story, you might have met Parson Leggy, striding along with a couple of varmint terriers at his heels, and young Cyril Gilbraith, whom he was teaching to tie flies and fear God, beside him; or Jim Mason, postman by profession, poacher by predilection, honest man and sportsman by nature, hurrying along with the mail-bags on his shoulder, a rabbit in his pocket, and the-faithful Betsy a yard behind. Besides these you might have hit upon a quiet shepherd and a wise-faced dog; Squire Sylvester, going his rounds upon a sturdy cob; or, had you been lucky, sweet Lady Eleanour bent upon some errand of mercy to one of the many tenants.

It was while the Squire's lady was driving through the village on a visit* to Tammas's slobbering grandson--it was shortly after Billy Thornton's advent into the world--that little M'Adam, standing in the door of the Sylvester Arms, with a twig in his mouth and a sneer fading from his lips, made his ever-memorable remark:

"Sail!" he said, speaking in low, earnest voice; " 'tis a muckle wumman."

was this visit which figured in the Grammochtown Argus (local and radical) under the heading of "Alleged Wholesale Corruption by Tory Agents." And that is why, on the following market day, Herbert Trotter, journalist, erstwhile gentleman, and Secretary of the Dale Trials, found himself trying to swim in the public horsetrough.

"What? What be sayin', mon?" cried old Jonas, startled out of his usual apathy.

M'Adam turned sharply on the old man.

"I said the wumman wears a muckle hat!" he snapped.

Blotted out as it was, the observation still remains--a tribute of honest admiration. Doubtless the Recording Angel did not pass it by. That one statement anent the gentle lady of the manor is the only personal remark ever credited to little M'Adam not born of malice and all uncharitableness. And that is why it is ever memorable.

The little Scotsman with the sardonic face had been the tenant of the Grange these many years; yet he had never grown acclimatized to the land of the Southron. With his shrivelled body and weakly legs he looked among the sturdy, straight-limbed sons of the hill-country like some brown, wrinkled leaf holding its place midst a galaxy of green. And as he differed from them physically, so he did morally.

He neither understood them nor attempted to. The North-country character was an unsolved mystery to him, and that after ten years' study. "One-half o' what ye say they doot, and they let ye see it; t'ither half they -disbelieve, and they tell ye so," he once said. And that explained his attitude toward them, and consequently theirs toward him.

He stood entirely alone; a son of Hagar, mocking. His sharp, ill tongue was rarely still, and always bitter. There was hardly a. man in the land, from Langholm How to the market-cross in Grammoch-town, but had at one time known its sting, endured it in silence,--for they are slow of speech, these men of the fells and meres,--and was nursing his resentment till a day should bring that chance which always comes. And when at the Sylvester Arms, on one of those rare occasions when M'Adam was not present, Tammas summed up the little man in that historic phrase of his, "When he's drunk he's wi'lent, and when he bain't he's wicious," there was an applause to gratify the blas? heart of even Tammas Thornton.

Yet it had not been till his wife's death that the little man had allowed loose rein to his ill-nature. With her firmly gentle hand no longer on the tiller of his life, it burst into. fresh being. And alone in the world with David, the whole venom of his vicious temperament was ever directed against the boy's head. It was as though he saw in his fair-haired son the unconscious cause of his ever-living sorrow. All the more strange this, seeing that, during her life, the boy had been to poor Flora M'Adam as her heart's core. And the lad was growing up the very antithesis of his father. Big and hearty, with never an ache or ill in the whole of his sturdy young body; of frank, open countenance; while even his speech was slow and burring like any Dale-bred boy's. And the fact of it all, and that the lad was palpably more Englishman than Scot--ay, and gloried in it--exasperated the little man, a patriot before everything, to blows. While, on top of it, David evinced an amazing pertness fit to have tried a better man than Adam M'Adam.

On the death of his wife, kindly Elizabeth Moore had, more than once, offered such help to the lonely little man as a woman only can give in a house that knows no mistress. On the last of these occasions, after crossing the 'Stony Bottom, which divides the two farms, and toiling up the hill to the Grange, she had met M'Adam in the door.

"Yo' maun let me put yo' bit things straight .for yo', mister," she had said shyly; for she feared the little man.

"Thank ye, Mrs. Moore," he had answered with the sour smile the Dalesmen knew so well, "but ye maun think I'm a waefu' cripple." And there he had stood, grinning sardonically, opposing his small bulk in the very centre of the door.

Mrs. Moore had turned down the hill, abashed and hurt at the reception of her offer; and her husband, proud to a fault, had forbidden her to repeat it. Nevertheless her motherly heart went out in a great tenderness for the little orphan David. She knew well the desolateness of his life; his father's aversion from him, and its inevitable consequences.

It became an institution for the boy to call every morning at Kenmuir, and trot off to the village school with Maggie Moore. And soon the lad came to look on Kenmuir as his true home, and James and Elizabeth Moore as his real parents. His greatest happiness was to be away from the Grange. And the ferret-eyed little man there noted the fact, bitterly resented it, and vented his ill-humor accordingly.

It was this, as he deemed it, uncalled-for trespassing on his authority which was the chief cause of his animosity against James Moore. The Master of Kenmuir it was at whom he was aiming when he remarked one day at the Arms: "Masel', I aye prefaire the good man who does no go to church, to the bad man who does. But then, as ye say, Mr. Burton, I'm peculiar."

The little man's treatment of David, exaggerated as it was by eager credulity, became at length such a scandal to the Dale that Parson Leggy determined to bring him to task on the matter.

Now M'Adam was the parson's pet antipathy. The bluff old minister, with his brusque manner and big heart, would have no truck with the man who never went to church, was perpetually in liquor, and never spoke good of his neighbors. Yet he entered upon the interview fully resolved not to be betrayed into an unworthy expression of feeling; rather to appeal to the little man's better nature.

The conversation had not been in progress two minutes, however, before he knew that, where he had meant to be calmly persuasive, he was fast become hotly abusive.

"You, Mr. Hornbut, wi' James Moore to help ye, look after the lad's soul, I'll see to his body," the little man was saying.

The parson's thick gray eyebrows lowered threateningly over his eyes.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk like that. Which d'you think the more important, soul or body? Oughtn't you, his father, to be the very first to care for the boy's soul? If not, who should? Answer me, sir."

The little man stood smirking and sucking his eternal twig, entirely unmoved by the other's heat.

"Ye're right, Mr. Hombut, as ye aye are. But my argiment is this: that I get at his soul best through his icetle carcase."

The honest parson brought down his stick with an angry thud.

"M'Adam, you're a brute--a brute!" he shouted. At which outburst the little man was seized with a spasm of silent merriment,

"A fond dad first, a brute afterward, aiblins--he! he! Ah, Mr. Hornbut! ye 'ford me vast diversion, ye do indeed, 'my loved, my honored, much-respected friend."

"If you paid as much heed to your boy's welfare as you do to the bad poetry of that profligate ploughman--"

An angry gleam shot into the other's eyes. "D'ye ken what blasphemy is, Mr. Horn-but?" he asked, shouldering a pace forward.

For the first time in the dispute the parson thought he was about to score a point, and was calm accordingly.

"I should do; I fancy I've a specimen of the breed before me now. And d'you know what impertinence is?"

"I should do; I fancy I've--I awd say it's what gentlemen aften are unless their mammies whipped 'em as lads."

For a moment the parson looked as if about to seize his opponent and shake him.

"M'Adam," he roared, "I'll not stand your insolences!"

The little man turned, scuttled indoors, and came runnng back with a chair.

"Permit me!" he said blandly, holding it before him like a haircutter for a customer.

The parson turned away. At the gap in the hedge he paused.

"I'll only say one thing more," he called slowly. "When your wife, whom I think we all loved, lay dying in that room above you, she said to you in my presence--"

It was M'Adam's turn to be angry. He made a step forward with burning face.

"Aince and for a', Mr. Hornbut," he cried passionately, "onderstand I'll not ha' you and yer likes lay yer tongues on ma wife's memory whenever it suits ye. You can say what ye like aboot me--lies, sneers, snash--and I'll say naethin'. I dinna ask ye to respect me; I think ye might do sae muckle by her, puir lass. She never harmed ye. Gin ye canna let her bide in peace where she lies doon yonder"-- he waved in the direction of the churchyard-- "ye'll no come on ma land. Though she is dead she's mine."

Standing in front of his house, with flushed face and big eyes, the little man looked almost noble in his indignation. And the parson, striding away down the hill, was uneasily conscious that with him was not the victory.

Chapter III. RED WULL

THE winter came and went; the lambing season was over, and spring already shyly kissing the land. And the back of the year s work broken, and her master well started on a fresh season, M'Adam's old collie, Cuttie Sark, lay down one evening and passed quietly away.

The little black-and-tan lady, Parson Leggy used to say, had been the only thing on earth M'Adam cared for. Certainly the two had been wondrously devoted; and for many a market-day the Dalesmen missed the shrill, chuckling cry which heralded the pair's approach: "Weel done, Cuttie Sark!"

The little man felt his loss acutely, and, according to his wont, vented his ill-feeling on David and the Dalesmen. In return, Tammas, whose forte lay in invective and alliteration, called him behind his back, "A wenomous one!" and "A wiralent wiper!" to the applause of tinkling pewters.

A shepherd without his dog is like a ship without a rudder, and M'Adarn felt his loss practically as well as otherwise. Especially did he experience this on a day when he had to take a batch of draft-ewes over to Grammoch-town. To help him Jem Burton had lent the services of his herring-gutted, herring-hearted, greyhound lurcher, Monkey. But before they had well topped Braithwaite Brow, which leads from the village on to the marches, M'Adam was standing in the track with a rock in his hand, a smile on his face, and the tenderest blandishments in his voice as he coaxed the dog to him. But Master Monkey knew too much for that. However, after gambolling a while longer in the middle of the flock, a boulder, better aimed than its predecessors, smote him on the hinder parts and sent him back to the Sylvester Arms, with a sore tail and a subdued heart.

For the rest, M'Adam would never have won over the sheep-infested marches alone with his convoy had it not been for the help of old Saunderson and Shep, who caught him on the way and aided him.

It was in a very wrathful mood that on his way home he turned into the Dalesman's Daughter in Silverdale.

The only occupants of the tap-room, as he entered, were Teddy Boistock, the publican, Jim Mason, with the faithful Betsy beneath his chair and the post-bags flung into the corner, and one long-limbed, drover-like man--a stranger.

"And he coom up to Mr. Moore," Teddy was saying, "and says he, 'I'll gie ye twal' pun for yon gray dog o' yourn.' 'Ah,' says Moore, 'yo' may gie me twal' hunner'd and yet you'll not get ma Bob.'--Eh, Jim?"

"And he did thot," corroborated Jim. " 'Twal' hunner'd,' says he."

"James Moore and his dog agin" snapped M'Adam. "There's ithers in the wand for bye them twa."

"Ay, but none like 'em," quoth loyal Jim.

"Na, thanks be. Gin there were there'd be no room for Adam M'Adam in this 'melancholy vale.'

There was silence a moment, and then--:

"You're wantin' a tyke, bain't you, Mr. M'Adam?" Jim asked.

The little man hopped round all in a hurry.

"What!" he cried in well-affected eagerness, scanning the yellow mongrel beneath the chair. "Betsy for sale! Guid life! Where's ma check-book?" Whereat Jim, most easily snubbed of men, collapsed.

M'Adam took off his dripping coat and crossed the room to hang it on a chair-back. The stranger drover followed the meagre, shirt-clad figure with shifty eyes; then he buried his face in his mug.

M'Adam reached out a hand for the chair; and as he did so, a bomb in yellow leapt out from beneath it, and, growling horribly, at tacked his ankles.

"Curse ye!" cried M'Adam, starting back.

"Ye devil, let me alone!" Then turning fiercely on the drover, " Yours, mister?" he asked. The man nodded. "Then call him aff, can't ye? D--n ye!" At which Teddy Boistock withdrew, sniggering; and Jim Mason slung the post-bags on to his shoulder and plunged out into the rain, the faithful Betsy following, disconsolate.

The cause of the squall, having beaten off the attacking force, had withdrawn again beneath its chair. M'Adam stooped down, still cursing, his wet coat on his arm, and beheld a tiny yellow puppy, crouching defiant in the dark, and glaring out with fiery light eyes. Seeing itself remarked, it bared its little teeth, raised its little bristles, and growled a hideous menace.

"It is a mighty sum," said Malluch. "I must have security."

"So thou shalt. Go to Simonides, and tell him I wish the matter arranged. Tell him my heart is set on the ruin of my enemy, and that the opportunity hath such excellent promise that I choose such hazards. On our side be the God of our fathers. Go, good Malluch. Let this not slip."

And Malluch, greatly delighted, gave him parting salutation, and started to ride away, but returned presently.

"Your pardon," he said to Ben-Hur. "There was another matter. I could not get near Messala's chariot myself, but I had another measure it; and, from his report, its hub stands quite a palm higher from the ground than yours."

"A palm! So much?" cried Ben-Hur, joyfully.

Then he leaned over to Malluch.

"As thou art a son of Judah, Malluch, and faithful to thy kin, get thee a seat in the gallery over the Gate of Triumph, down close to the balcony in front of the pillars, and watch well when we make the turns there; watch well, for if I have favor at all, I will-- Nay, Malluch, let it go unsaid! Only get thee there, and watch well."

At that moment a cry burst from Ilderim.

"Ha! By the splendor of God! what is this?"

He drew near Ben-Hur with a finger pointing on the face of the notice.

"Read," said Ben-Hur.

"No; better thou."

Ben-Hur took the paper, which, signed by the prefect of the province as editor, performed the office of a modern programme, giving particularly the several divertisements provided for the occasion. It informed the public that there would be first a procession of extraordinary splendor; that the procession would be succeeded by the customary honors to the god Consus, whereupon the games would begin; running, leaping, wrestling, boxing, each in the order stated. The names of the competitors were given, with their several nationalities and schools of training, the trials in which they had been engaged, the prizes won, and the prizes now offered; under the latter head the sums of money were stated in illuminated letters, telling of the departure of the day when the simple chaplet of pine or laurel was fully enough for the victor, hungering for glory as something better than riches, and content with it.

Over these parts of the programme Ben-Hur sped with rapid eyes. At last he came to the announcement of the race. He read it slowly. Attending lovers of the heroic sports were assured they would certainly be gratified by an Orestean struggle unparalleled in Antioch. The city offered the spectacle in honor of the consul. One hundred thousand sestertii and a crown of laurel were the prizes. Then followed the particulars. The entries were six in all--fours only permitted; and, to further interest in the performance, the competitors would be turned into the course together. Each four then received description.

"I. A four of Lysippus the Corinthian--two grays, a bay, and a black; entered at Alexandria last year, and again at Corinth, where they were winners. Lysippus, driver. Color, yellow.

"II. A four of Messala of Rome--two white, two black; victors of the Circensian as exhibited in the Circus Maximus last year. Messala, driver. Colors, scarlet and gold.

"III. A four of Cleanthes the Athenian--three gray, one bay; winners at the Isthmian last year. Cleanthes, driver. Color, green.

"IV. A four of Dicaeus the Byzantine--two black, one gray, one bay; winners this year at Byzantium. Dicaeus, driver. Color, black.

"V. A four of Admetus the Sidonian--all grays. Thrice entered at Caesarea, and thrice victors. Admetus, driver. Color, blue.

"VI. A four of Ilderim, sheik of the Desert. All bays; first race. Ben-Hur, a Jew, driver. Color, white."

BEN-HUR, A JEW, DRIVER!

Why that name instead of Arrius?

Ben-Hur raised his eyes to Ilderim. He had found the cause of the Arab's outcry. Both rushed to the same conclusion.

The hand was the hand of Messala!

CHAPTER XI

Evening was hardly come upon Antioch, when the Omphalus, nearly in the centre of the city, became a troubled fountain from which in every direction, but chiefly down to the Nymphaeum and east and west along the Colonnade of Herod, flowed currents of people, for the time given up to Bacchus and Apollo.

For such indulgence anything more fitting cannot be imagined than the great roofed streets, which were literally miles on miles of porticos wrought of marble, polished to the last degree of finish, and all gifts to the voluptuous city by princes careless of expenditure where, as in this instance, they thought they were eternizing themselves. Darkness was not permitted anywhere; and the singing, the laughter, the shouting, were incessant, and in compound like the roar of waters dashing through hollow grots, confused by a multitude of echoes.

The many nationalities represented, though they might have amazed a stranger, were not peculiar to Antioch. Of the various missions of the great empire, one seems to have been the fusion of men and the introduction of strangers to each other; accordingly, whole peoples rose up and went at pleasure, taking with them their costumes, customs, speech, and gods; and where they chose, they stopped, engaged in business, built houses, erected altars, and were what they had been at home.

There was a peculiarity, however, which could not have failed the notice of a looker-on this night in Antioch. Nearly everybody wore the colors of one or other of the charioteers announced for the morrow's race. Sometimes it was in form of a scarf, sometimes a badge; often a ribbon or a feather. Whatever the form, it signified merely the wearer's partiality; thus, green published a friend of Cleanthes the Athenian, and black an adherent of the Byzantine. This was according to a custom, old probably as the day of the race of Orestes--a custom, by the way, worthy of study as a marvel of history, illustrative of the absurd yet appalling extremities to which men frequently suffer their follies to drag them.

The observer abroad on this occasion, once attracted to the wearing of colors, would have very shortly decided that there were three in predominance--green, white, and the mixed scarlet and gold.

But let us from the streets to the palace on the island.

The five great chandeliers in the saloon are freshly lighted. The assemblage is much the same as that already noticed in connection with the place. The divan has its corps of sleepers and burden of garments, and the tables yet resound with the rattle and clash of dice. Yet the greater part of the company are not doing anything. They walk about, or yawn tremendously, or pause as they pass each other to exchange idle nothings. Will the weather be fair to-morrow? Are the preparations for the games complete? Do the laws of the Circus in Antioch differ from the laws of the Circus in Rome? Truth is, the young fellows are suffering from ennui. Their heavy work is done; that is, we would find their tablets, could we look at them, covered with memoranda of wagers--wagers on every contest; on the running, the wrestling, the boxing; on everything but the chariot-race.

And why not on that?

Good reader, they cannot find anybody who will hazard so much as a denarius with them against Messala.

There are no colors in the saloon but his.

No one thinks of his defeat.

Why, they say, is he not perfect in his training? Did he not graduate from an imperial lanista? Were not his horses winners at the Circensian in the Circus Maximus? And then--ah, yes! he is a Roman!

In a corner, at ease on the divan, Messala himself may be seen. Around him, sitting or standing, are his courtierly admirers, plying him with questions. There is, of course, but one topic.

Enter Drusus and Cecilius.

"Ah!" cries the young prince, throwing himself on the divan at Messala's feet, "Ah, by Bacchus, I am tired!"

"Whither away?" asks Messala.

"Up the street; up to the Omphalus, and beyond--who shall say how far? Rivers of people; never so many in the city before. They say we will see the whole world at the Circus to-morrow."

Messala laughed scornfully.

"The idiots! Perpol! They never beheld a Circensian with Caesar for editor. But, my Drusus, what found you?"

"Nothing."

"O--ah! You forget," said Cecilius.

"What?" asked Drusus.

"The procession of whites."

"Mirabile!" cried Drusus, half rising. "We met a faction of whites, and they had a banner. But--ha, ha, ha!"

He fell back indolently.

"Cruel Drusus--not to go on," said Messala.

"Scum of the desert were they, my Messala, and garbage-eaters from the Jacob's Temple in Jerusalem. What had I to do with them!"

"Nay," said Cecilius, "Drusus is afraid of a laugh, but I am not, my Messala."

"Speak thou, then."

"Well, we stopped the faction, and--"

"Offered them a wager," said Drusus, relenting, and taking the word from the shadow's mouth. "And--ha, ha, ha!--one fellow with not enough skin on his face to make a worm for a carp stepped forth, and--ha, ha, ha!--said yes. I drew my tablets. 'Who is your man?' I asked. 'Ben-Hur, the Jew,' said he. Then I: 'What shall it be? How much?' He answered, 'A--a--' Excuse me, Messala. By Jove's thunder, I cannot go on for laughter! Ha, ha, ha!"

The listeners leaned forward.

Messala looked to Cecilius.

"A shekel," said the latter.

"A shekel! A shekel!"

A burst of scornful laughter ran fast upon the repetition.

"And what did Drusus?" asked Messala.

An outcry over about the door just then occasioned a rush to that quarter; and, as the noise there continued, and grew louder, even Cecilius betook himself off, pausing only to say, "The noble Drusus, my Messala, put up his tablets and--lost the shekel."

"A white! A white!"

"Let him come!"

"This way, this way!"

These and like exclamations filled the saloon, to the stoppage of other speech. The dice-players quit their games; the sleepers awoke, rubbed their eyes, drew their tablets, and hurried to the common centre.

"I offer you--"

"And I--"

"I--"

The person so warmly received was the respectable Jew, Ben-Hur's fellow-voyager from Cyprus. He entered grave, quiet, observant. His robe was spotlessly white; so was the cloth of his turban. Bowing and smiling at the welcome, he moved slowly towards the central table. Arrived there, he drew his robe about him in a stately manner, took seat, and waved his hand. The gleam of a jewel on a finger helped him not a little to the silence which ensued.

"Romans--most noble Romans--I salute you!" he said.

"Easy, by Jupiter! Who is he?" asked Drusus.

"A dog of Israel--Sanballat by name--purveyor for the army; residence, Rome; vastly rich; grown so as a contractor of furnishments which he never furnishes. He spins mischiefs, nevertheless, finer than spiders spin their webs. Come--by the girdle of Venus! let us catch him!"

Messala arose as he spoke, and, with Drusus, joined the mass crowded about the purveyor.

"It came to me on the street," said that person, producing his tablets, and opening them on the table with an impressive air of business, "that there was great discomfort in the palace because offers on Messala were going without takers. The gods, you know, must have sacrifices; and here am I. You see my color; let us to the matter. Odds first, amounts next. What will you give me?"

The audacity seemed to stun his hearers.

"Haste!" he said. "I have an engagement with the consul."

The spur was effective.

"Two to one," cried half a dozen in a voice.

"What!" exclaimed the purveyor, astonished. "Only two to one, and yours a Roman!"

"Take three, then."

"Three say you--only three--and mine but a dog of a Jew! Give me four."

"Four it is," said a boy, stung by the taunt.

"Five--give me five," cried the purveyor, instantly.

A profound stillness fell upon the assemblage.

"The consul--your master and mine--is waiting for me."

The inaction became awkward to the many.

"Give me five--for the honor of Rome, five."

"Five let it be," said one in answer.

There was a sharp cheer--a commotion--and Messala himself appeared.

"Five let it be," he said.

And Sanballat smiled, and made ready to write.

"If Caesar die to-morrow," he said, "Rome will not be all bereft. There is at least one other with spirit to take his place. Give me six."

"Six be it," answered Messala.

There was another shout louder than the first.

"Six be it," repeated Messala. "Six to one--the difference between a Roman and a Jew. And, having found it, now, O redemptor of the flesh of swine, let us on. The amount--and quickly. The consul may send for thee, and I will then be bereft."

Sanballat took the laugh against him coolly, and wrote, and offered the writing to Messala.

"Read, read!" everybody demanded.

And Messala read:

"Mem.--Chariot-race. Messala of Rome, in wager with Sanballat, also of Rome, says he will beat Ben-Hur, the Jew. Amount of wager, twenty talents. Odds to Sanballat, six to one.

"Witnesses: SANBALLAT."

There was no noise, no motion. Each person seemed held in the pose the reading found him. Messala stared at the memorandum, while the eyes which had him in view opened wide, and stared at him. He felt the gaze, and thought rapidly. So lately he stood in the same place, and in the same way hectored the countrymen around him. They would remember it. If he refused to sign, his hero-ship was lost. And sign he could not; he was not worth one hundred talents, nor the fifth part of the sum. Suddenly his mind became a blank; he stood speechless; the color fled his face. An idea at last came to his relief.

"Thou Jew!" he said, "where hast thou twenty talents? Show me."

Sanballat's provoking smile deepened.

"There," he replied, offering Messala a paper.

"Read, read!" arose all around.

Again Messala read:

"AT ANTIOCH, Tammuz 16th day.

"The bearer, Sanballat of Rome, hath now to his order with me fifty talents, coin of Caesar.

SIMONIDES."

"Fifty talents, fifty talents!" echoed the throng, in amazement.

Then Drusus came to the rescue.

"By Hercules!" he shouted, "the paper lies, and the Jew is a liar. Who but Caesar hath fifty talents at order? Down with the insolent white!"

The cry was angry, and it was angrily repeated; yet Sanballat kept his seat, and his smile grew more exasperating the longer he waited. At length Messala spoke.

"Hush! One to one, my countrymen--one to one, for love of our ancient Roman name."

The timely action recovered him his ascendancy.

"O thou circumcised dog!" he continued, to Sanballat, "I gave thee six to one, did I not?"

"Yes," said the Jew, quietly.

"Well, give me now the fixing of the amount."

"With reserve, if the amount be trifling, have thy will," answered Sanballat.

"Write, then, five in place of twenty."

"Hast thou so much?"

"By the mother of the gods, I will show you receipts."

"Nay, the word of so brave a Roman must pass. Only make the sum even--six make it, and I will write."

"Write it so."

And forthwith they exchanged writings.

Sanballat immediately arose and looked around him, a sneer in place of his smile. No man better than he knew those with whom he was dealing.

"Romans," he said, "another wager, if you dare! Five talents against five talents that the white will win. I challenge you collectively."

They were again surprised.

"What!" he cried, louder. "Shall it be said in the Circus to-morrow that a dog of Israel went into the saloon of the palace full of Roman nobles--among them the scion of a Caesar--and laid five talents before them in challenge, and they had not the courage to take it up?"

The sting was unendurable.

"Have done, O insolent!" said Drusus, "write the challenge, and leave it on the table; and to-morrow, if we find thou hast indeed so much money to put at such hopeless hazard, I, Drusus, promise it shall be taken."

Sanballat wrote again, and, rising, said, unmoved as ever, "See, Drusus, I leave the offer with you. When it is signed, send it to me any time before the race begins. I will be found with the consul in a seat over the Porta Pompae. Peace to you; peace to all."

He bowed, and departed, careless of the shout of derision with which they pursued him out of the door.

In the night the story of the prodigious wager flew along the streets and over the city; and Ben-Hur, lying with his four, was told of it, and also that Messala's whole fortune was on the hazard.

And he slept never so soundly.

CHAPTER XII

The Circus at Antioch stood on the south bank of the river, nearly opposite the island, differing in no respect from the plan of such buildings in general.

In the purest sense, the games were a gift to the public; consequently, everybody was free to attend; and, vast as the holding capacity of the structure was, so fearful were the people, on this occasion, lest there should not be room for them, that, early the day before the opening of the exhibition, they took up all the vacant spaces in the vicinity, where their temporary shelter suggested an army in waiting.

At midnight the entrances were thrown wide, and the rabble, surging in, occupied the quarters assigned to them, from which nothing less than an earthquake or an army with spears could have dislodged them. They dozed the night away on the benches, and breakfasted there; and there the close of the exercises found them, patient and sight-hungry as in the beginning.

The better people, their seats secured, began moving towards the Circus about the first hour of the morning, the noble and very rich among them distinguished by litters and retinues of liveried servants.

By the second hour, the efflux from the city was a stream unbroken and innumerable.

Exactly as the gnomon of the official dial up in the citadel pointed the second hour half gone, the legion, in full panoply, and with all its standards on exhibit, descended from Mount Sulpius; and when the rear of the last cohort disappeared in the bridge, Antioch was literally abandoned--not that the Circus could hold the multitude, but that the multitude was gone out to it, nevertheless.

A great concourse on the river shore witnessed the consul come over from the island in a barge of state. As the great man landed, and was received by the legion, the martial show for one brief moment transcended the attraction of the Circus.

At the third hour, the audience, if such it may be termed, was assembled; at last, a flourish of trumpets called for silence, and instantly the gaze of over a hundred thousand persons was directed towards a pile forming the eastern section of the building.

There was a basement first, broken in the middle by a broad arched passage, called the Porta Pompae, over which, on an elevated tribunal magnificently decorated with insignia and legionary standards, the consul sat in the place of honor. On both sides of the passage the basement was divided into stalls termed carceres, each protected in front by massive gates swung to statuesque pilasters. Over the stalls next was a cornice crowned by a low balustrade; back of which the seats arose in theatre arrangement, all occupied by a throng of dignitaries superbly attired. The pile extended the width of the Circus, and was flanked on both sides by towers which, besides helping the architects give grace to their work, served the velaria, or purple awnings, stretched between them so as to throw the whole quarter in a shade that became exceedingly grateful as the day advanced.

This structure, it is now thought, can be made useful in helping the reader to a sufficient understanding of the arrangement of the rest of the interior of the Circus. He has only to fancy himself seated on the tribunal with the consul, facing to the west, where everything is under his eye.

On the right and left, if he will look, he will see the main entrances, very ample, and guarded by gates hinged to the towers.

Directly below him is the arena--a level plane of considerable extent, covered with fine white sand. There all the trials will take place except the running.

Looking across this sanded arena westwardly still, there is a pedestal of marble supporting three low conical pillars of gray stone, much carven. Many an eye will hunt for those pillars before the day is done, for they are the first goal, and mark the beginning and end of the race-course. Behind the pedestal, leaving a passage-way and space for an altar, commences a wall ten or twelve feet in breadth and five or six in height, extending thence exactly two hundred yards, or one Olympic stadium. At the farther, or westward, extremity of the wall there is another pedestal, surmounted with pillars which mark the second goal.

The racers will enter the course on the right of the first goal, and keep the wall all the time to their left. The beginning and ending points of the contest lie, consequently, directly in front of the consul across the arena; and for that reason his seat was admittedly the most desirable in the Circus.

Now if the reader, who is still supposed to be seated on the consular tribunal over the Porta Pompae, will look up from the ground arrangement of the interior, the first point to attract his notice will be the marking of the outer boundary-line of the course--that is, a plain-faced, solid wall, fifteen or twenty feet in height, with a balustrade on its cope, like that over the carceres, or stalls, in the east. This balcony, if followed round the course, will be found broken in three places to allow passages of exit and entrance, two in the north and one in the west; the latter very ornate, and called the Gate of Triumph, because, when all is over, the victors will pass out that way, crowned, and with triumphal escort and ceremonies.

At the west end the balcony encloses the course in the form of a half circle, and is made to uphold two great galleries.

Directly behind the balustrade on the coping of the balcony is the first seat, from which ascend the succeeding benches, each higher than the one in front of it; giving to view a spectacle of surpassing interest--the spectacle of a vast space ruddy and glistening with human faces, and rich with varicolored costumes.

The commonalty occupy quarters over in the west, beginning at the point of termination of an awning, stretched, it would seem, for the accommodation of the better classes exclusively.

Having thus the whole interior of the Circus under view at the moment of the sounding of the trumpets, let the reader next imagine the multitude seated and sunk to sudden silence, and motionless in its intensity of interest.

Out of the Porta Pompae over in the east rises a sound mixed of voices and instruments harmonized. Presently, forth issues the chorus of the procession with which the celebration begins; the editor and civic authorities of the city, givers of the games, follow in robes and garlands; then the gods, some on platforms borne by men, others in great four-wheel carriages gorgeously decorated; next them, again, the contestants of the day, each in costume exactly as he will run, wrestle, leap, box, or drive.

Slowly crossing the arena, the procession proceeds to make circuit of the course. The display is beautiful and imposing. Approval runs before it in a shout, as the water rises and swells in front of a boat in motion. If the dumb, figured gods make no sign of appreciation of the welcome, the editor and his associates are not so backward.

The reception of the athletes is even more demonstrative, for there is not a man in the assemblage who has not something in wager upon them, though but a mite or farthing. And it is noticeable, as the classes move by, that the favorites among them are speedily singled out: either their names are loudest in the uproar, or they are more profusely showered with wreaths and garlands tossed to them from the balcony.

If there is a question as to the popularity with the public of the several games, it is now put to rest. To the splendor of the chariots and the superexcellent beauty of the horses, the charioteers add the personality necessary to perfect the charm of their display. Their tunics, short, sleeveless, and of the finest woollen texture, are of the assigned colors. A horseman accompanies each one of them except Ben-Hur, who, for some reason--possibly distrust--has chosen to go alone; so, too, they are all helmeted but him. As they approach, the spectators stand upon the benches, and there is a sensible deepening of the clamor, in which a sharp listener may detect the shrill piping of women and children; at the same time, the things roseate flying from the balcony thicken into a storm, and, striking the men, drop into the chariot-beds, which are threatened with filling to the tops. Even the horses have a share in the ovation; nor may it be said they are less conscious than their masters of the honors they receive.

Very soon, as with the other contestants, it is made apparent that some of the drivers are more in favor than others; and then the discovery follows that nearly every individual on the benches, women and children as well as men, wears a color, most frequently a ribbon upon the breast or in the hair: now it is green, now yellow, now blue; but, searching the great body carefully, it is manifest that there is a preponderance of white, and scarlet and gold.

In a modern assemblage called together as this one is, particularly where there are sums at hazard upon the race, a preference would be decided by the qualities or performance of the horses; here, however, nationality was the rule. If the Byzantine and Sidonian found small support, it was because their cities were scarcely represented on the benches. On their side, the Greeks, though very numerous, were divided between the Corinthian and the Athenian, leaving but a scant showing of green and yellow. Messala's scarlet and gold would have been but little better had not the citizens of Antioch, proverbially a race of courtiers, joined the Romans by adopting the color of their favorite. There were left then the country people, or Syrians, the Jews, and the Arabs; and they, from faith in the blood of the sheik's four, blent largely with hate of the Romans, whom they desired, above all things, to see beaten and humbled, mounted the white, making the most noisy, and probably the most numerous, faction of all.

As the charioteers move on in the circuit, the excitement increases; at the second goal, where, especially in the galleries, the white is the ruling color, the people exhaust their flowers and rive the air with screams.

"Messala! Messala!"

"Ben-Hur! Ben-Hur!"

Such are the cries.

Upon the passage of the procession, the factionists take their seats and resume conversation.

"Ah, by Bacchus! was he not handsome?" exclaims a woman, whose Romanism is betrayed by the colors flying in her hair.

"And how splendid his chariot!" replies a neighbor, of the same proclivities. "It is all ivory and gold. Jupiter grant he wins!"

The notes on the bench behind them were entirely different.

"A hundred shekels on the Jew!"

The voice is high and shrill.

"Nay, be thou not rash," whispers a moderating friend to the speaker. "The children of Jacob are not much given to Gentile sports, which are too often accursed in the sight of the Lord."

"True, but saw you ever one more cool and assured? And what an arm he has!"

"And what horses!" says a third.

"And for that," a fourth one adds, "they say he has all the tricks of the Romans."

A woman completes the eulogium:

"Yes, and he is even handsomer than the Roman."

Thus encouraged, the enthusiast shrieks again, "A hundred shekels on the Jew!"

"Thou fool!" answers an Antiochian, from a bench well forward on the balcony. "Knowest thou not there are fifty talents laid against him, six to one, on Messala? Put up thy shekels, lest Abraham rise and smite thee."

"Ha, ha! thou ass of Antioch! Cease thy bray. Knowest thou not it was Messala betting on himself?"

Such the reply.

And so ran the controversy, not always good-natured.

When at length the march was ended and the Porta Pompae received back the procession, Ben-Hur knew he had his prayer.

The eyes of the East were upon his contest with Messala.

CHAPTER XIII

About three o'clock, speaking in modern style, the program was concluded except the chariot-race. The editor, wisely considerate of the comfort of the people, chose that time for a recess. At once the vomitoria were thrown open, and all who could hastened to the portico outside where the restaurateurs had their quarters. Those who remained yawned, talked, gossiped, consulted their tablets, and, all distinctions else forgotten, merged into but two classes--the winners, who were happy, and the losers, who were grum and captious.

Now, however, a third class of spectators, composed of citizens who desired only to witness the chariot-race, availed themselves of the recess to come in and take their reserved seats; by so doing they thought to attract the least attention and give the least offence. Among these were Simonides and his party, whose places were in the vicinity of the main entrance on the north side, opposite the consul.

As the four stout servants carried the merchant in his chair up the aisle, curiosity was much excited. Presently some one called his name. Those about caught it and passed it on along the benches to the west; and there was hurried climbing on seats to get sight of the man about whom common report had coined and put in circulation a romance so mixed of good fortune and bad that the like had never been known or heard of before.

Ilderim was also recognized and warmly greeted; but nobody knew Balthasar or the two women who followed him closely veiled.

The people made way for the party respectfully, and the ushers seated them in easy speaking distance of each other down by the balustrade overlooking the arena. In providence of comfort, they sat upon cushions and had stools for footrests.

The women were Iras and Esther.

Upon being seated, the latter cast a frightened look over the Circus, and drew the veil closer about her face; while the Egyptian, letting her veil fall upon her shoulders, gave herself to view, and gazed at the scene with the seeming unconsciousness of being stared at, which, in a woman, is usually the result of long social habitude.

The new-comers generally were yet making their first examination of the great spectacle, beginning with the consul and his attendants, when some workmen ran in and commenced to stretch a chalked rope across the arena from balcony to balcony in front of the pillars of the first goal.

About the same time, also, six men came in through the Porta Pompae and took post, one in front of each occupied stall; whereat there was a prolonged hum of voices in every quarter.

"See, see! The green goes to number four on the right; the Athenian is there."

"And Messala--yes, he is in number two."

"The Corinthian--"

"Watch the white! See, he crosses over, he stops; number one it is--number one on the left."

"No, the black stops there, and the white at number two."

"So it is."

These gate-keepers, it should be understood, were dressed in tunics colored like those of the competing charioteers; so, when they took their stations, everybody knew the particular stall in which his favorite was that moment waiting.

"Did you ever see Messala?" the Egyptian asked Esther.

The Jewess shuddered as she answered no. If not her father's enemy, the Roman was Ben-Hur's.

"He is beautiful as Apollo."

As Iras spoke, her large eyes brightened and she shook her jeweled fan. Esther looked at her with the thought, "Is he, then, so much handsomer than Ben-Hur?" Next moment she heard Ilderim say to her father, "Yes, his stall is number two on the left of the Porta Pompae;" and, thinking it was of Ben-Hur he spoke, her eyes turned that way. Taking but the briefest glance at the wattled face of the gate, she drew the veil close and muttered a little prayer.

Presently Sanballat came to the party.

"I am just from the stalls, O sheik," he said, bowing gravely to IIderim, who began combing his beard, while his eyes glittered with eager inquiry. "The horses are in perfect condition."

Ilderim replied simply, "If they are beaten, I pray it be by some other than Messala."

Turning then to Simonides, Sanballat drew out a tablet, saying, "I bring you also something of interest. I reported, you will remember, the wager concluded with Messala last night, and stated that I left another which, if taken, was to be delivered to me in writing to-day before the race began. Here it is."

Simonides took the tablet and read the memorandum carefully.

"Yes," he said, "their emissary came to ask me if you had so much money with me. Keep the tablet close. If you lose, you know where to come; if you win"--his face knit hard--"if you win--ah, friend, see to it! See the signers escape not; hold them to the last shekel. That is what they would with us."

"Trust me," replied the purveyor.

"Will you not sit with us?" asked Simonides.

"You are very good," the other returned; "but if I leave the consul, young Rome yonder will boil over. Peace to you; peace to all."

At length the recess came to an end.

The trumpeters blew a call at which the absentees rushed back to their places. At the same time, some attendants appeared in the arena, and, climbing upon the division wall, went to an entablature near the second goal at the west end, and placed upon it seven wooden balls; then returning to the first goal, upon an entablature there they set up seven other pieces of wood hewn to represent dolphins.

"What shall they do with the balls and fishes, O sheik?" asked Balthasar.

"Hast thou never attended a race?"

"Never before; and hardly know I why I am here."

"Well, they are to keep the count. At the end of each round run thou shalt see one ball and one fish taken down."

The preparations were now complete, and presently a trumpeter in gaudy uniform arose by the editor, ready to blow the signal of commencement promptly at his order. Straightway the stir of the people and the hum of their conversation died away. Every face near-by, and every face in the lessening perspective, turned to the east, as all eyes settled upon the gates of the six stalls which shut in the competitors.

The unusual flush upon his face gave proof that even Simonides had caught the universal excitement. Ilderim pulled his beard fast and furious.

"Look now for the Roman," said the fair Egyptian to Esther, who did not hear her, for, with close-drawn veil and beating heart, she sat watching for Ben-Hur.

The structure containing the stalls, it should be observed, was in form of the segment of a circle, retired on the right so that its central point was projected forward, and midway the course, on the starting side of the first goal. Every stall, consequently, was equally distant from the starting-line or chalked rope above mentioned.

The trumpet sounded short and sharp; whereupon the starters, one for each chariot, leaped down from behind the pillars of the goal, ready to give assistance if any of the fours proved unmanageable.

Again the trumpet blew, and simultaneously the gate-keepers threw the stalls open.

First appeared the mounted attendants of the charioteers, five in all, Ben-Hur having rejected the service. The chalked line was lowered to let them pass, then raised again. They were beautifully mounted, yet scarcely observed as they rode forward; for all the time the trampling of eager horses, and the voices of drivers scarcely less eager, were heard behind in the stalls, so that one might not look away an instant from the gaping doors.

The chalked line up again, the gate-keepers called their men; instantly the ushers on the balcony waved their hands, and shouted with all their strength, "Down! down!"

As well have whistled to stay a storm.

Forth from each stall, like missiles in a volley from so many great guns, rushed the six fours; and up the vast assemblage arose, electrified and irrepressible, and, leaping upon the benches, filled the Circus and the air above it with yells and screams. This was the time for which they had so patiently waited!--this the moment of supreme interest treasured up in talk and dreams since the proclamation of the games!

"He is come--there--look!" cried Iras, pointing to Messala.

"I see him," answered Esther, looking at Ben-Hur.

The veil was withdrawn. For an instant the little Jewess was brave. An idea of the joy there is in doing an heroic deed under the eyes of a multitude came to her, and she understood ever after how, at such times, the souls of men, in the frenzy of performance, laugh at death or forget it utterly.

The competitors were now under view from nearly every part of the Circus, yet the race was not begun; they had first to make the chalked line successfully.

The line was stretched for the purpose of equalizing the start. If it were dashed upon, discomfiture of man and horses might be apprehended; on the other hand, to approach it timidly was to incur the hazard of being thrown behind in the beginning of the race; and that was certain forfeit of the great advantage always striven for--the position next the division wall on the inner line of the course.

This trial, its perils and consequences, the spectators knew thoroughly; and if the opinion of old Nestor, uttered that time he handed the reins to his son, were true--

"It is not strength, but art, obtained the prize, And to be swift is less than to be wise"--

all on the benches might well look for warning of the winner to be now given, justifying the interest with which they breathlessly watched for the result.

The arena swam in a dazzle of light; yet each driver looked first thing for the rope, then for the coveted inner line. So, all six aiming at the same point and speeding furiously, a collision seemed inevitable; nor that merely. What if the editor, at the last moment, dissatisfied with the start, should withhold the signal to drop the rope? Or if he should not give it in time?

The crossing was about two hundred and fifty feet in width. Quick the eye, steady the hand, unerring the judgment required. If now one look away! or his mind wander! or a rein slip! And what attraction in the ensemble of the thousands over the spreading balcony! Calculating upon the natural impulse to give one glance--just one--in sooth of curiosity or vanity, malice might be there with an artifice; while friendship and love, did they serve the same result, might be as deadly as malice.

The divine last touch in perfecting the beautiful is animation. Can we accept the saying, then these latter days, so tame in pastime and dull in sports, have scarcely anything to compare to the spectacle offered by the six contestants. Let the reader try to fancy it; let him first look down upon the arena, and see it glistening in its frame of dull-gray granite walls; let him then, in this perfect field, see the chariots, light of wheel, very graceful, and ornate as paint and burnishing can make them--Messala's rich with ivory and gold; let him see the drivers, erect and statuesque, undisturbed by the motion of the cars, their limbs naked, and fresh and ruddy with the healthful polish of the baths--in their right hands goads, suggestive of torture dreadful to the thought--in their left hands, held in careful separation, and high, that they may not interfere with view of the steeds, the reins passing taut from the fore ends of the carriage-poles; let him see the fours, chosen for beauty as well as speed; let him see them in magnificent action, their masters not more conscious of the situation and all that is asked and hoped from them--their heads tossing, nostrils in play, now distent, now contracted--limbs too dainty for the sand which they touch but to spurn--limbs slender, yet with impact crushing as hammers--every muscle of the rounded bodies instinct with glorious life, swelling, diminishing, justifying the world in taking from them its ultimate measure of force; finally, along with chariots, drivers, horses, let the reader see the accompanying shadows fly; and, with such distinctness as the picture comes, he may share the satisfaction and deeper pleasure of those to whom it was a thrilling fact, not a feeble fancy. Every age has its plenty of sorrows; Heaven help where there are no pleasures!

The competitors having started each on the shortest line for the position next the wall, yielding would be like giving up the race; and who dared yield? It is not in common nature to change a purpose in mid-career; and the cries of encouragement from the balcony were indistinguishable and indescribable: a roar which had the same effect upon all the drivers.

The fours neared the rope together. Then the trumpeter by the editor's side blew a signal vigorously. Twenty feet away it was not heard. Seeing the action, however, the judges dropped the rope, and not an instant too soon, for the hoof of one of Messala's horses struck it as it fell. Nothing daunted, the Roman shook out his long lash, loosed the reins, leaned forward, and, with a triumphant shout, took the wall.

"Jove with us! Jove with us!" yelled all the Roman faction, in a frenzy of delight.

As Messala turned in, the bronze lion's head at the end of his axle caught the fore-leg of the Athenian's right-hand trace-mate, flinging the brute over against its yoke-fellow. Both staggered, struggled, and lost their headway. The ushers had their will at least in part. The thousands held their breath with horror; only up where the consul sat was there shouting.

"Jove with us!" screamed Drusus, frantically.

"He wins! Jove with us!" answered his associates, seeing Messala speed on.

Tablet in hand, Sanballat turned to them; a crash from the course below stopped his speech, and he could not but look that way.

Messala having passed, the Corinthian was the only contestant on the Athenian's right, and to that side the latter tried to turn his broken four; and then; as ill-fortune would have it, the wheel of the Byzantine, who was next on the left, struck the tail-piece of his chariot, knocking his feet from under him. There was a crash, a scream of rage and fear, and the unfortunate Cleanthes fell under the hoofs of his own steeds: a terrible sight, against which Esther covered her eyes.

On swept the Corinthian, on the Byzantine, on the Sidonian.

Sanballat looked for Ben-Hur, and turned again to Drusus and his coterie.

"A hundred sestertii on the Jew!" he cried.

"Taken!" answered Drusus.

"Another hundred on the Jew!" shouted Sanballat.

Nobody appeared to hear him. He called again; the situation below was too absorbing, and they were too busy shouting, "Messala! Messala! Jove with us!"

When the Jewess ventured to look again, a party of workmen were removing the horses and broken car; another party were taking off the man himself; and every bench upon which there was a Greek was vocal with execrations and prayers for vengeance. Suddenly she dropped her hands; Ben-Hur, unhurt, was to the front, coursing freely forward along with the Roman! Behind them, in a group, followed the Sidonian, the Corinthian, and the Byzantine.

The race was on; the souls of the racers were in it; over them bent the myriads.

CHAPTER XIV

When the dash for position began, Ben-Hur, as we have seen, was on the extreme left of the six. For a moment, like the others, he was half blinded by the light in the arena; yet he managed to catch sight of his antagonists and divine their purpose. At Messala, who was more than an antagonist to him, he gave one searching look. The air of passionless hauteur characteristic of the fine patrician face was there as of old, and so was the Italian beauty, which the helmet rather increased; but more--it may have been a jealous fancy, or the effect of the brassy shadow in which the features were at the moment cast, still the Israelite thought he saw the soul of the man as through a glass, darkly: cruel, cunning, desperate; not so excited as determined--a soul in a tension of watchfulness and fierce resolve.

In a time not longer than was required to turn to his four again, Ben-Hur felt his own resolution harden to a like temper. At whatever cost, at all hazards, he would humble this enemy! Prize, friends, wagers, honor--everything that can be thought of as a possible interest in the race was lost in the one deliberate purpose. Regard for life even should not hold him back. Yet there was no passion, on his part; no blinding rush of heated blood from heart to brain, and back again; no impulse to fling himself upon Fortune: he did not believe in Fortune; far otherwise. He had his plan, and, confiding in himself, he settled to the task never more observant, never more capable. The air about him seemed aglow with a renewed and perfect transparency.

When not half-way across the arena, he saw that Messala's rush would, if there was no collision, and the rope fell, give him the wall; that the rope would fall, he ceased as soon to doubt; and, further, it came to him, a sudden flash-like insight, that Messala knew it was to be let drop at the last moment (prearrangement with the editor could safely reach that point in the contest); and it suggested, what more Roman-like than for the official to lend himself to a countryman who, besides being so popular, had also so much at stake? There could be no other accounting for the confidence with which Messala pushed his four forward the instant his competitors were prudentially checking their fours in front of the obstruction--no other except madness.

It is one thing to see a necessity and another to act upon it. Ben-Hur yielded the wall for the time.

The rope fell, and all the fours but his sprang into the course under urgency of voice and lash. He drew head to the right, and, with all the speed of his Arabs, darted across the trails of his opponents, the angle of movement being such as to lose the least time and gain the greatest possible advance. So, while the spectators were shivering at the Athenian's mishap, and the Sidonian, Byzantine, and Corinthian were striving, with such skill as they possessed, to avoid involvement in the ruin, Ben-Hur swept around and took the course neck and neck with Messala, though on the outside. The marvellous skill shown in making the change thus from the extreme left across to the right without appreciable loss did not fail the sharp eyes upon the benches; the Circus seemed to rock and rock again with prolonged applause. Then Esther clasped her hands in glad surprise; then Sanballat, smiling, offered his hundred sestertii a second time without a taker; and then the Romans began to doubt, thinking Messala might have found an equal, if not a master, and that in an Israelite!

And now, racing together side by side, a narrow interval between them, the two neared the second goal.

The pedestal of the three pillars there, viewed from the west, was a stone wall in the form of a half-circle, around which the course and opposite balcony were bent in exact parallelism. Making this turn was considered in all respects the most telling test of a charioteer; it was, in fact, the very feat in which Orastes failed. As an involuntary admission of interest on the part of the spectators, a hush fell over all the Circus, so that for the first time in the race the rattle and clang of the cars plunging after the tugging steeds were distinctly heard. Then, it would seem, Messala observed Ben-Hur, and recognized him; and at once the audacity of the man flamed out in an astonishing manner.

"Down Eros, up Mars!" he shouted, whirling his lash with practised hand--"Down Eros, up Mars!" he repeated, and caught the well-doing Arabs of Ben-Hur a cut the like of which they had never known.

The blow was seen in every quarter, and the amazement was universal. The silence deepened; up on the benches behind the consul the boldest held his breath, waiting for the outcome. Only a moment thus: then, involuntarily, down from the balcony, as thunder falls, burst the indignant cry of the people.

The four sprang forward affrighted. No hand had ever been laid upon them except in love; they had been nurtured ever so tenderly; and as they grew, their confidence in man became a lesson to men beautiful to see. What should such dainty natures do under such indignity but leap as from death?

Forward they sprang as with one impulse, and forward leaped the car. Past question, every experience is serviceable to us. Where got Ben-Hur the large hand and mighty grip which helped him now so well? Where but from the oar with which so long he fought the sea? And what was this spring of the floor under his feet to the dizzy eccentric lurch with which in the old time the trembling ship yielded to the beat of staggering billows, drunk with their power? So he kept his place, and gave the four free rein, and called to them in soothing voice, trying merely to guide them round the dangerous turn; and before the fever of the people began to abate, he had back the mastery. Nor that only: on approaching the first goal, he was again side by side with Messala, bearing with him the sympathy and admiration of every one not a Roman. So clearly was the feeling shown, so vigorous its manifestation, that Messala, with all his boldness, felt it unsafe to trifle further.

As the cars whirled round the goal, Esther caught sight of Ben-Hur's face--a little pale, a little higher raised, otherwise calm, even placid.

Immediately a man climbed on the entablature at the west end of the division wall, and took down one of the conical wooden balls. A dolphin on the east entablature was taken down at the same time.

In like manner, the second ball and second dolphin disappeared.

He took the papyri from Esther, and, reserving one, rolled them and offered them to Ben-Hur. The pride perceptible in his manner was not offensive; it might have been from a sense of duty well done; it might have been for Ben-Hur without reference to himself.

"And there is nothing," he added, dropping his voice, but not his eyes--"there is nothing now thou mayst not do."

The moment was one of absorbing interest to all present. Simonides crossed his hands upon his breast again; Esther was anxious; Ilderim nervous. A man is never so on trial as in the moment of excessive good-fortune.

Taking the roll, Ben-Hur arose, struggling with emotion.

"All this is to me as a light from heaven, sent to drive away a night which has been so long I feared it would never end, and so dark I had lost the hope of seeing," he said, with a husky voice. "I give first thanks to the Lord, who has not abandoned me, and my next to thee, O Simonides. Thy faithfulness outweighs the cruelty of others, and redeems our human nature. 'There is nothing I cannot do:' be it so. Shall any man in this my hour of such mighty privilege be more generous than I? Serve me as a witness now, Sheik Ilderim. Hear thou my words as I shall speak them--hear and remember. And thou, Esther, good angel of this good man! hear thou also."

He stretched his hand with the roll to Simonides.

"The things these papers take into account--all of them: ships, houses, goods, camels, horses, money; the least as well as the greatest--give I back to thee, O Simonides, making them all thine, and sealing them to thee and thine forever."

Esther smiled through her tears; Ilderim pulled his beard with rapid motion, his eyes glistening like beads of jet. Simonides alone was calm.

"Sealing them to thee and thine forever," Ben-Hur continued, with better control of himself, "with one exception, and upon one condition."

The breath of the listeners waited upon his words.

"The hundred and twenty talents which were my father's thou shalt return to me."

Ilderim's countenance brightened.

"And thou shalt join me in search of my mother and sister, holding all thine subject to the expense of discovery, even as I will hold mine."

Simonides was much affected. Stretching out his hand, he said, "I see thy spirit, son of Hur, and I am grateful to the Lord that he hath sent thee to me such as thou art. If I served well thy father in life, and his memory afterwards, be not afraid of default to thee; yet must I say the exception cannot stand."

Exhibiting, then, the reserved sheet, he continued,

"Thou hast not all the account. Take this and read--read aloud."

Ben-Hur took the supplement, and read it.

"Statement of the servants of Hur, rendered by Simonides, steward of the estate. 1. Amrah, Egyptian, keeping the palace in Jerusalem. 2. Simonides, the steward, in Antioch. 3. Esther, daughter of Simonides."

Now, in all his thoughts of Simonides, not once had it entered Ben-Hur's mind that, by the law, a daughter followed the parent's condition. In all his visions of her, the sweet-faced Esther had figured as the rival of the Egyptian, and an object of possible love. He shrank from the revelation so suddenly brought him, and looked at her blushing; and, blushing, she dropped her eyes before him. Then he said, while the papyrus rolled itself together,

"A man with six hundred talents is indeed rich, and may do what he pleases; but, rarer than the money, more priceless than the property, is the mind which amassed the wealth, and the heart it could not corrupt when amassed. O Simonides--and thou, fair Esther--fear not. Sheik Ilderim here shall be witness that in the same moment ye were declared my servants, that moment I declared ye free; and what I declare, that will I put in writing. Is it not enough? Can I do more?"

"Son of Hur," said Simonides, "verily thou dost make servitude lightsome. I was wrong; there are some things thou canst not do; thou canst not make us free in law. I am thy servant forever, because I went to the door with thy father one day, and in my ear the awl-marks yet abide."

"Did my father that?"

"Judge him not," cried Simonides, quickly. "He accepted me a servant of that class because I prayed him to do so. I never repented the step. It was the price I paid for Rachel, the mother of my child here; for Rachel, who would not be my wife unless I became what she was."

"Was she a servant forever?"

"Even so."

Ben-Hur walked the floor in pain of impotent wish.

"I was rich before," he said, stopping suddenly. "I was rich with the gifts of the generous Arrius; now comes this greater fortune, and the mind which achieved it. Is there not a purpose of God in it all? Counsel me, O Simonides! Help me to see the right and do it. Help me to be worthy my name, and what thou art in law to me, that will I be to thee in fact and deed. I will be thy servant forever."

Simonides' face actually glowed.

"O son of my dead master! I will do better than help; I will serve thee with all my might of mind and heart. Body, I have not; it perished in thy cause; but with mind and heart I will serve thee. I swear it, by the altar of our God, and the gifts upon the altar! Only make me formally what I have assumed to be."

"Name it," said Ben-Hur, eagerly.

"As steward the care of the property will be mine."

"Count thyself steward now; or wilt thou have it in writing?"

"Thy word simply is enough; it was so with the father, and I will not more from the son. And now, if the understanding be perfect"--Simonides paused.

"It is with me," said Ben-Hur.

"And thou, daughter of Rachel, speak!" said Simonides, lifting her arm from his shoulder.

Esther, left thus alone, stood a moment abashed, her color coming and going; then she went to Ben-Hur, and said, with a womanliness singularly sweet, "I am not better than my mother was; and, as she is gone, I pray you, O my master, let me care for my father."

Ben-Hur took her hand, and led her back to the chair, saying, "Thou art a good child. Have thy will."

Simonides replaced her arm upon his neck, and there was silence for a time in the room.

CHAPTER VIII

Simonides looked up, none the less a master.

"Esther," he said, quietly, "the night is going fast; and, lest we become too weary for that which is before us, let the refreshments be brought."

She rang a bell. A servant answered with wine and bread, which she bore round.

"The understanding, good my master," continued Simonides, when all were served, "is not perfect in my sight. Henceforth our lives will run on together like rivers which have met and joined their waters. I think their flowing will be better if every cloud is blown from the sky above them. You left my door the other day with what seemed a denial of the claims which I have just allowed in the broadest terms; but it was not so, indeed it was not. Esther is witness that I recognized you; and that I did not abandon you, let Malluch say."

"Malluch!" exclaimed Ben-Hur.

"One bound to a chair, like me, must have many hands far-reaching, if he would move the world from which he is so cruelly barred. I have many such, and Malluch is one of the best of them. And, sometimes"-- he cast a grateful glance at the sheik--"sometimes I borrow from others good of heart, like Ilderim the Generous--good and brave. Let him say if I either denied or forgot you."

Ben-Hur looked at the Arab.

"This is he, good Ilderim, this is he who told you of me?"

Ilderim's eyes twinkled as he nodded his answer.

"How, O my master," said Simonides, "may we without trial tell what a man is? I knew you; I saw your father in you; but the kind of man you were I did not know. There are people to whom fortune is a curse in disguise. Were you of them? I sent Malluch to find out for me, and in the service he was my eyes and ears. Do not blame him. He brought me report of you which was all good."

"I do not," said Ben-Hur, heartily. "There was wisdom in your goodness."

"The words are very pleasant to me," said the merchant, with feeling, "very pleasant. My fear of misunderstanding is laid. Let the rivers run on now as God may give them direction."

After an interval he continued:

"I am compelled now by truth. The weaver sits weaving, and, as the shuttle flies, the cloth increases, and the figures grow, and he dreams dreams meanwhile; so to my hands the fortune grew, and I wondered at the increase, and asked myself about it many times. I could see a care not my own went with the enterprises I set going. The simooms which smote others on the desert jumped over the things which were mine. The storms which heaped the seashore with wrecks did but blow my ships the sooner into port. Strangest of all, I, so dependent upon others, fixed to a place like a dead thing, had never a loss by an agent--never. The elements stooped to serve me, and all my servants, in fact, were faithful."

"It is very strange," said Ben-Hur.

"So I said, and kept saying. Finally, O my master, finally I came to be of your opinion--God was in it--and, like you, I asked, What can his purpose be? Intelligence is never wasted; intelligence like God's never stirs except with design. I have held the question in heart, lo! these many years, watching for an answer. I felt sure, if God were in it, some day, in his own good time, in his own way, he would show me his purpose, making it clear as a whited house upon a hill. And I believe he has done so."

Ben-Hur listened with every faculty intent.

"Many years ago, with my people--thy mother was with me, Esther, beautiful as morning over old Olivet--I sat by the wayside out north of Jerusalem, near the Tombs of the Kings, when three men passed by riding great white camels, such as had never been seen in the Holy City. The men were strangers, and from far countries. The first one stopped and asked me a question. 'Where is he that is born King of the Jews?' As if to allay my wonder, he went on to say, 'We have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him.' I could not understand, but followed them to the Damascus Gate; and of every person they met on the way--of the guard at the Gate, even--they asked the question. All who heard it were amazed like me. In time I forgot the circumstance, though there was much talk of it as a presage of the Messiah. Alas, alas! What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart. You have seen Balthasar?"

"And heard him tell his story," said Ben-Hur.

"A miracle!--a very miracle!" cried Simonides. "As he told it to me, good my master, I seemed to hear the answer I had so long waited; God's purpose burst upon me. Poor will the King be when he comes--poor and friendless; without following, without armies, without cities or castles; a kingdom to be set up, and Rome reduced and blotted out. See, see, O my master! thou flushed with strength, thou trained to arms, thou burdened with riches; behold the opportunity the Lord hath sent thee! Shall not his purpose be thine? Could a man be born to a more perfect glory?"

Simonides put his whole force in the appeal.

"But the kingdom, the kingdom!" Ben-Hur answered, eagerly. "Balthasar says it is to be of souls."

The pride of the Jew was strong in Simonides, and therefore the slightly contemptuous curl of the lip with which he began his reply:

"Balthasar has been a witness of wonderful things--of miracles, O my master; and when he speaks of them, I bow with belief, for they are of sight and sound personal to him. But he is a son of Mizraim, and not even a proselyte. Hardly may he be supposed to have special knowledge by virtue of which we must bow to him in a matter of God's dealing with our Israel. The prophets had their light from Heaven directly, even as he had his--many to one, and Jehovah the same forever. I must believe the prophets.--Bring me the Torah, Esther."

He proceeded without waiting for her.

"May the testimony of a whole people be slighted, my master? Though you travel from Tyre, which is by the sea in the north, to the capital of Edom, which is in the desert south, you will not find a lisper of the Shema, an alms-giver in the Temple, or any one who has ever eaten of the lamb of the Passover, to tell you the kingdom the King is coming to build for us, the children of the covenant, is other than of this world, like our father David's. Now where got they the faith, ask you! We will see presently."

Esther here returned, bringing a number of rolls carefully enveloped in dark-brown linen lettered quaintly in gold.

"Keep them, daughter, to give to me as I call for them," the father said, in the tender voice he always used in speaking to her, and continued his argument:

"It were long, good my master--too long, indeed--for me to repeat to you the names of the holy men who, in the providence of God, succeeded the prophets, only a little less favored than they--the seers who have written and the preachers who have taught since the Captivity; the very wise who borrowed their lights from the lamp of Malachi, the last of his line, and whose great names Hillel and Shammai never tired of repeating in the colleges. Will you ask them of the kingdom? Thus, the Lord of the sheep in the Book of Enoch--who is he? Who but the King of whom we are speaking? A throne is set up for him; he smites the earth, and the other kings are shaken from their thrones, and the scourges of Israel flung into a cavern of fire flaming with pillars of fire. So also the singer of the Psalms of Solomon--'Behold, O Lord, and raise up to Israel their king, the son of David, at the time thou knowest, O God, to rule Israel, thy children. . . . And he will bring the peoples of the heathen under his yoke to serve him. . . . And he shall be a righteous king taught of God, . . . for he shall rule all the earth by the word of his mouth forever.' And last, though not least, hear Ezra, the second Moses, in his visions of the night, and ask him who is the lion with human voice that says to the eagle--which is Rome--'Thou hast loved liars, and overthrown the cities of the industrious, and razed their walls, though they did thee no harm. Therefore, begone, that the earth may be refreshed, and recover itself, and hope in the justice and piety of him who made her.' Whereat the eagle was seen no more. Surely, O my master, the testimony of these should be enough! But the way to the fountain's head is open. Let us go up to it at once.--Some wine, Esther, and then the Torah."

"Dost thou believe the prophets, master?" he asked, after drinking. "I know thou dost, for of such was the faith of all thy kindred.--Give me, Esther, the book which bath in it the visions of Isaiah."

He took one of the rolls which she had unwrapped for him, and read, "'The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. . . . For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder. . . . Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever.'--Believest thou the prophets, O my master?--Now, Esther, the word of the Lord that came to Micah."

She gave him the roll he asked.

"'But thou,'" he began reading--"'but thou, Bethlehem Ephrath, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.'--This was he, the very child Balthasar saw and worshipped in the cave. Believest thou the prophets, O my master?--Give me, Esther, the words of Jeremiah."

Receiving that roll, he read as before, "'Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely.' As a king he shall reign--as a king, O my master! Believest thou the prophets?--Now, daughter, the roll of the sayings of that son of Judah in whom there was no blemish."

She gave him the Book of Daniel.

"Hear, my master," he said: "'I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven. . . . And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.'--Believest thou the prophets, O my master?"

"It is enough. I believe," cried Ben-Hur.

"What then?" asked Simonides. "If the King come poor, will not my master, of his abundance, give him help?"

"Help him? To the last shekel and the last breath. But why speak of his coming poor?"

"Give me, Esther, the word of the Lord as it came to Zechariah," said Simonides.

She gave him one of the rolls.

"Hear how the King will enter Jerusalem." Then he read, "'Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. . . . Behold, thy King cometh unto thee with justice and salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.'"

Ben-Hur looked away.

"What see you, O my master?"

"Rome!" he answered, gloomily--"Rome, and her legions. I have dwelt with them in their camps. I know them."

"Ah!" said Simonides. "Thou shalt be a master of legions for the King, with millions to choose from."

"Millions!" cried Ben-Hur.

Simonides sat a moment thinking.

"The question of power should not trouble you," he next said.

Ben-Hur looked at him inquiringly.

"You were seeing the lowly King in the act of coming to his own," Simonides answered--"seeing him on the right hand, as it were, and on the left the brassy legions of Caesar, and you were asking, What can he do?"

"It was my very thought."

"O my master!" Simonides continued. "You do not know how strong our Israel is. You think of him as a sorrowful old man weeping by the rivers of Babylon. But go up to Jerusalem next Passover, and stand on the Xystus or in the Street of Barter, and see him as he is. The promise of the Lord to father Jacob coming out of Padan-Aram was a law under which our people have not ceased multiplying--not even in captivity; they grew under foot of the Egyptian; the clench of the Roman has been but wholesome nurture to them; now they are indeed 'a nation and a company of nations.' Nor that only, my master; in fact, to measure the strength of Israel--which is, in fact, measuring what the King can do--you shall not bide solely by the rule of natural increase, but add thereto the other--I mean the spread of the faith, which will carry you to the far and near of the whole known earth. Further, the habit is, I know, to think and speak of Jerusalem as Israel, which may be likened to our finding an embroidered shred, and holding it up as a magisterial robe of Caesar's. Jerusalem is but a stone of the Temple, or the heart in the body. Turn from beholding the legions, strong though they be, and count the hosts of the faithful waiting the old alarm, 'To your tents, O Israel!'--count the many in Persia, children of those who chose not to return with the returning; count the brethren who swarm the marts of Egypt and Farther Africa; count the Hebrew colonists eking profit in the West--in Lodinum and the trade-courts of Spain; count the pure of blood and the proselytes in Greece and in the isles of the sea, and over in Pontus, and here in Antioch, and, for that matter, those of that city lying accursed in the shadow of the unclean walls of Rome herself; count the worshippers of the Lord dwelling in tents along the deserts next us, as well as in the deserts beyond the Nile: and in the regions across the Caspian, and up in the old lands of Gog and Magog even, separate those who annually send gifts to the Holy Temple in acknowledgment of God--separate them, that they may be counted also. And when you have done counting, lo! my master, a census of the sword hands that await you; lo! a kingdom ready fashioned for him who is to do 'judgment and justice in the whole earth'--in Rome not less than in Zion. Have then the answer, What Israel can do, that can the King."

The picture was fervently given.

Upon Ilderim it operated like the blowing of a trumpet. "Oh that I had back my youth!" he cried, starting to his feet.

Ben-Hur sat still. The speech, he saw, was an invitation to devote his life and fortune to the mysterious Being who was palpably as much the centre of a great hope with Simonides as with the devout Egyptian. The idea, as we have seen, was not a new one, but had come to him repeatedly; once while listening to Malluch in the Grove of Daphne; afterwards more distinctly while Balthasar was giving his conception of what the kingdom was to be; still later, in the walk through the old Orchard, it had risen almost, if not quite, into a resolve. At such times it had come and gone only an idea, attended with feelings more or less acute. Not so now. A master had it in charge, a master was working it up; already he had exalted it into a cause brilliant with possibilities and infinitely holy. The effect was as if a door theretofore unseen had suddenly opened flooding Ben-Hur with light, and admitting him to a service which had been his one perfect dream--a service reaching far into the future, and rich with the rewards of duty done, and prizes to sweeten and soothe his ambition. One touch more was needed.

"Let us concede all you say, O Simonides," said Ben-Hur--"that the King will come, and his kingdom be as Solomon's; say also I am ready to give myself and all I have to him and his cause; yet more, say that I should do as was God's purpose in the ordering of my life and in your quick amassment of astonishing fortune; then what? Shall we proceed like blind men building? Shall we wait till the King comes? Or until he sends for me? You have age and experience on your side. Answer."

Simonides answered at once.

"We have no choice; none. This letter"--he produced Messala's despatch as he spoke--"this letter is the signal for action. The alliance proposed between Messala and Gratus we are not strong enough to resist; we have not the influence at Rome nor the force here. They will kill you if we wait. How merciful they are, look at me and judge."

He shuddered at the terrible recollection.

"O good my master," he continued, recovering himself; "how strong are you--in purpose, I mean?"

Ben-Hur did not understand him.

"I remember how pleasant the world was to me in my youth," Simonides proceeded.

"Yet," said Ben-Hur, "you were capable of a great sacrifice."

"Yes; for love."

"Has not life other motives as strong?"

Simonides shook his head.

"There is ambition."

"Ambition is forbidden a son of Israel."

"What, then, of revenge?"

The spark dropped upon the inflammable passion; the man's eyes gleamed; his hands shook; he answered, quickly, "Revenge is a Jew's of right; it is the law."

"A camel, even a dog, will remember a wrong," cried Ilderim.

Directly Simonides picked up the broken thread of his thought.

"There is a work, a work for the King, which should be done in advance of his coming. We may not doubt that Israel is to be his right hand; but, alas! it is a hand of peace, without cunning in war. Of the millions, there is not one trained band, not a captain. The mercenaries of the Herods I do not count, for they are kept to crush us. The condition is as the Roman would have it; his policy has fruited well for his tyranny; but the time of change is at hand, when the shepherd shall put on armor, and take to spear and sword, and the feeding flocks be turned to fighting lions. Some one, my son, must have place next the King at his right hand. Who shall it be if not he who does this work well?"

Ben-Hur's face flushed at the prospect, though he said, "I see; but speak plainly. A deed to be done is one thing; how to do it is another."

Simonides sipped the wine Esther brought him, and replied,

"The sheik, and thou, my master, shall be principals, each with a part. I will remain here, carrying on as now, and watchful that the spring go not dry. Thou shalt betake thee to Jerusalem, and thence to the wilderness, and begin numbering the fighting-men of Israel, and telling them into tens and hundreds, and choosing captains and training them, and in secret places hoarding arms, for which I shall keep thee supplied. Commencing over in Perea, thou shalt go then to Galilee, whence it is but a step to Jerusalem. In Perea, the desert will be at thy back, and Ilderim in reach of thy hand. He will keep the roads, so that nothing shall pass without thy knowledge. He will help thee in many ways. Until the ripening time no one shall know what is here contracted. Mine is but a servant's part. I have spoken to Ilderim. What sayest thou?"

Ben-Hur looked at the sheik.

"It is as he says, son of Hur," the Arab responded. "I have given my word, and he is content with it; but thou shalt have my oath, binding me, and the ready hands of my tribe, and whatever serviceable thing I have."

The three--Simonides, Ilderim, Esther--gazed at Ben-Hur fixedly.

"Every man," he answered, at first sadly, "has a cup of pleasure poured for him, and soon or late it comes to his hand, and he tastes and drinks--every man but me. I see, Simonides, and thou, O generous sheik!--I see whither the proposal tends. If I accept, and enter upon the course, farewell peace, and the hopes which cluster around it. The doors I might enter and the gates of quiet life will shut behind me, never to open again, for Rome keeps them all; and her outlawry will follow me, and her hunters; and in the tombs near cities and the dismal caverns of remotest hills, I must eat my crust and take my rest."

The speech was broken by a sob. All turned to Esther, who hid her face upon her father's shoulder.

"I did not think of you, Esther," said Simonides, gently, for he was himself deeply moved.

"It is well enough, Simonides," said Ben-Hur. "A man bears a hard doom better, knowing there is pity for him. Let me go on."

They gave him ear again.

"I was about to say," he continued, "I have no choice, but take the part you assign me; and as remaining here is to meet an ignoble death, I will to the work at once."

"Shall we have writings?" asked Simonides, moved by his habit of business.

"I rest upon your word," said Ben-Hur.

"And I," Ilderim answered.

Thus simply was effected the treaty which was to alter Ben-Hur's life. And almost immediately the latter added,

"It is done, then."

"May the God of Abraham help us!" Simonides exclaimed.

"One word now, my friends," Ben-Hur said, more cheerfully. "By your leave, I will be my own until after the games. It is not probable Messala will set peril on foot for me until he has given the procurator time to answer him; and that cannot be in less than seven days from the despatch of his letter. The meeting him in the Circus is a pleasure I would buy at whatever risk."

Ilderim, well pleased, assented readily, and Simonides, intent on business, added, "It is well; for look you, my master, the delay will give me time to do you a good part. I understood you to speak of an inheritance derived from Arrius. Is it in property?"

"A villa near Misenum, and houses in Rome."

"I suggest, then, the sale of the property, and safe deposit of the proceeds. Give me an account of it, and I will have authorities drawn, and despatch an agent on the mission forthwith. We will forestall the imperial robbers at least this once."

"You shall have the account to-morrow."

"Then, if there be nothing more, the work of the night is done," said Simonides.

Ilderim combed his beard complacently, saying, "And well done."

"The bread and wine again, Esther. Sheik Ilderim will make us happy by staying with us till to-morrow, or at his pleasure; and thou, my master--"

"Let the horses be brought," said Ben-Hur. "I will return to the Orchard. The enemy will not discover me if I go now, and"--he glanced at Ilderim--"the four will be glad to see me."

As the day dawned, he and Malluch dismounted at the door of the tent.

CHAPTER IX

Next night, about the fourth hour, Ben-Hur stood on the terrace of the great warehouse with Esther. Below them, on the landing, there was much running about, and shifting of packages and boxes, and shouting of men, whose figures, stooping, heaving, hauling, looked, in the light of the crackling torches kindled in their aid, like the laboring genii of the fantastic Eastern tales. A galley was being laden for instant departure. Simonides had not yet come from his office, in which, at the last moment, he would deliver to the captain of the vessel instructions to proceed without stop to Ostia, the seaport of Rome, and, after landing a passenger there, continue more leisurely to Valentia, on the coast of Spain.

The passenger is the agent going to dispose of the estate derived from Arrius the duumvir. When the lines of the vessel are cast off, and she is put about, and her voyage begun, Ben-Hur will be committed irrevocably to the work undertaken the night before. If he is disposed to repent the agreement with Ilderim, a little time is allowed him to give notice and break it off. He is master, and has only to say the word.

Such may have been the thought at the moment in his mind. He was standing with folded arms, looking upon the scene in the manner of a man debating with himself. Young, handsome, rich, but recently from the patrician circles of Roman society, it is easy to think of the world besetting him with appeals not to give more to onerous duty or ambition attended with outlawry and danger. We can even imagine the arguments with which he was pressed; the hopelessness of contention with Caesar; the uncertainty veiling everything connected with the King and his coming; the ease, honors, state, purchasable like goods in market; and, strongest of all, the sense newly acquired of home, with friends to make it delightful. Only those who have been wanderers long desolate can know the power there was in the latter appeal.

Let us add now, the world--always cunning enough of itself; always whispering to the weak, Stay, take thine ease; always presenting the sunny side of life--the world was in this instance helped by Ben-Hur's companion.

"Were you ever at Rome?" he asked.

"No," Esther replied.

"Would you like to go?"

"I think not."

"Why?"

"I am afraid of Rome," she answered, with a perceptible tremor of the voice.

He looked at her then--or rather down upon her, for at his side she appeared little more than a child. In the dim light he could not see her face distinctly; even the form was shadowy. But again he was reminded of Tirzah, and a sudden tenderness fell upon him--just so the lost sister stood with him on the house-top the calamitous morning of the accident to Gratus. Poor Tirzah! Where was she now? Esther had the benefit of the feeling evoked. If not his sister, he could never look upon her as his servant; and that she was his servant in fact would make him always the more considerate and gentle towards her.

"I cannot think of Rome," she continued, recovering her voice, and speaking in her quiet womanly way--"I cannot think of Rome as a city of palaces and temples, and crowded with people; she is to me a monster which has possession of one of the beautiful lands, and lies there luring men to ruin and death--a monster which it is not possible to resist--a ravenous beast gorging with blood. Why--"

She faltered, looked down, stopped.

"Go on," said Ben-Hur, reassuringly.

She drew closer to him, looked up again, and said, "Why must you make her your enemy? Why not rather make peace with her, and be at rest? You have had many ills, and borne them; you have survived the snares laid for you by foes. Sorrow has consumed your youth; is it well to give it the remainder of your days?"

The girlish face under his eyes seemed to come nearer and get whiter as the pleading went on; he stooped towards it, and asked, softly, "What would you have me do, Esther?"

She hesitated a moment, then asked, in return, "Is the property near Rome a residence?"

"Yes."

"And pretty?"

"It is beautiful--a palace in the midst of gardens and shell-strewn walks; fountains without and within; statuary in the shady nooks; hills around covered with vines, and so high that Neapolis and Vesuvius are in sight, and the sea an expanse of purpling blue dotted with restless sails. Caesar has a country-seat near-by, but in Rome they say the old Arrian villa is the prettiest."

"And the life there, is it quiet?"

"There was never a summer day, never a moonlit night, more quiet, save when visitors come. Now that the old owner is gone, and I am here, there is nothing to break its silence--nothing, unless it be the whispering of servants, or the whistling of happy birds, or the noise of fountains at play; it is changeless, except as day by day old flowers fade and fall, and new ones bud and bloom, and the sunlight gives place to the shadow of a passing cloud. The life, Esther, was all too quiet for me. It made me restless by keeping always present a feeling that I, who have so much to do, was dropping into idle habits, and tying myself with silken chains, and after a while--and not a long while either--would end with nothing done."

She looked off over the river.

"Why did you ask?" he said.

"Good my master--"

"No, no, Esther--not that. Call me friend--brother, if you will; I am not your master, and will not be. Call me brother."

He could not see the flush of pleasure which reddened her face, and the glow of the eyes that went out lost in the void above the river.

"I cannot understand," she said, "the nature which prefers the life you are going to--a life of--"

"Of violence, and it may be of blood," he said, completing the sentence.

"Yes," she added, "the nature which could prefer that life to such as might be in the beautiful villa."

"Esther, you mistake. There is no preference. Alas! the Roman is not so kind. I am going of necessity. To stay here is to die; and if I go there, the end will be the same--a poisoned cup, a bravo's blow, or a judge's sentence obtained by perjury. Messala and the procurator Gratus are rich with plunder of my father's estate, and it is more important to them to keep their gains now than was their getting in the first instance. A peaceable settlement is out of reach, because of the confession it would imply. And then--then-- Ah, Esther, if I could buy them, I do not know that I would. I do not believe peace possible to me; no, not even in the sleepy shade and sweet air of the marble porches of the old villa--no matter who might be there to help me bear the burden of the days, nor by what patience of love she made the effort. Peace is not possible to me while my people are lost, for I must be watchful to find them. If I find them, and they have suffered wrong, shall not the guilty suffer for it? If they are dead by violence, shall the murderers escape? Oh, I could not sleep for dreams! Nor could the holiest love, by any stratagem, lull me to a rest which conscience would not strangle."

"Is it so bad then?" she asked, her voice tremulous with feeling. "Can nothing, nothing, be done?"

Ben-Hur took her hand.

"Do you care so much for me?"

"Yes," she answered, simply.

The hand was warm, and in the palm of his it was lost. He felt it tremble. Then the Egyptian came, so the opposite of this little one; so tall, so audacious, with a flattery so cunning, a wit so ready, a beauty so wonderful, a manner so bewitching. He carried the hand to his lips, and gave it back.

"You shall be another Tirzah to me, Esther."

"Who is Tirzah?"

"The little sister the Roman stole from me, and whom I must find before I can rest or be happy."

Just then a gleam of light flashed athwart the terrace and fell upon the two; and, looking round, they saw a servant roll Simonides in his chair out of the door. They went to the merchant, and in the after-talk he was principal.

Immediately the lines of the galley were cast off, and she swung round, and, midst the flashing of torches and the shouting of joyous sailors, hurried off to the sea--leaving Ben-Hur committed to the cause of the KING WHO WAS TO COME.

CHAPTER X

The day before the games, in the afternoon, all Ilderim's racing property was taken to the city, and put in quarters adjoining the Circus. Along with it the good man carried a great deal of property not of that class; so with servants, retainers mounted and armed, horses in leading, cattle driven, camels laden with baggage, his outgoing from the Orchard was not unlike a tribal migration. The people along the road failed not to laugh at his motley procession; on the other side, it was observed that, with all his irascibility, he was not in the least offended by their rudeness. If he was under surveillance, as he had reason to believe, the informer would describe the semi-barbarous show with which he came up to the races. The Romans would laugh; the city would be amused; but what cared he? Next morning the pageant would be far on the road to the desert, and going with it would be every movable thing of value belonging to the Orchard--everything save such as were essential to the success of his four. He was, in fact, started home; his tents were all folded; the dowar was no more; in twelve hours all would be out of reach, pursue who might. A man is never safer than when he is under the laugh; and the shrewd old Arab knew it.

Neither he nor Ben-Hur overestimated the influence of Messala; it was their opinion, however, that he would not begin active measures against them until after the meeting in the Circus; if defeated there, especially if defeated by Ben-Hur, they might instantly look for the worst he could do; he might not even wait for advices from Gratus. With this view, they shaped their course, and were prepared to betake themselves out of harm's way. They rode together now in good spirits, calmly confident of success on the morrow.

On the way, they came upon Malluch in waiting for them. The faithful fellow gave no sign by which it was possible to infer any knowledge on his part of the relationship so recently admitted between Ben-Hur and Simonides, or of the treaty between them and Ilderim. He exchanged salutations as usual, and produced a paper, saying to the sheik, "I have here the notice of the editor of the games, just issued, in which you will find your horses published for the race. You will find in it also the order of exercises. Without waiting, good sheik, I congratulate you upon your victory."

He gave the paper over, and, leaving the worthy to master it, turned to Ben-Hur.

"To you also, son of Arrius, my congratulations. There is nothing now to prevent your meeting Messala. Every condition preliminary to the race is complied with. I have the assurance from the editor himself."

"I thank you, Malluch," said Ben-Hur.

Malluch proceeded:

"Your color is white, and Messala's mixed scarlet and gold. The good effects of the choice are visible already. Boys are now hawking white ribbons along the streets; tomorrow every Arab and Jew in the city will wear them. In the Circus you will see the white fairly divide the galleries with the red."

"The galleries--but not the tribunal over the Porta Pompae."

"No; the scarlet and gold will rule there. But if we win"--Malluch chuckled with the pleasure of the thought--"if we win, how the dignitaries will tremble! They will bet, of course, according to their scorn of everything not Roman--two, three, five to one on Messala, because he is Roman." Dropping his voice yet lower, he added, "It ill becomes a Jew of good standing in the Temple to put his money at such a hazard; yet, in confidence, I will have a friend next behind the consul's seat to accept offers of three to one, or five, or ten--the madness may go to such height. I have put to his order six thousand shekels for the purpose."

"Nay, Malluch," said Ben-Hur, "a Roman will wager only in his Roman coin. Suppose you find your friend to-night, and place to his order sestertii in such amount as you choose. And look you, Malluch--let him be instructed to seek wagers with Messala and his supporters; Ilderim's four against Messala's."

Malluch reflected a moment.

"The effect will be to centre interest upon your contest."

"The very thing I seek, Malluch."

"I see, I see."

"Ay, Malluch; would you serve me perfectly, help me to fix the public eye upon our race--Messala's and mine."

Malluch spoke quickly--"It can be done."

"Then let it be done," said Ben-Hur.

"Enormous wagers offered will answer; if the offers are accepted, all the better."

Malluch turned his eyes watchfully upon Ben-Hur.

"Shall I not have back the equivalent of his robbery?" said Ben-Hur, partly to himself. "Another opportunity may not come. And if I could break him in fortune as well as in pride! Our father Jacob could take no offence."

A look of determined will knit his handsome face, giving emphasis to his further speech.

"Oraetes chose a crypt for her up in the tombs of the queens; and, calling the master sculptors and painters to Memphis, he set them to work upon designs more elaborate than any even in the great galleries of the dead kings.

"'O thou beautiful as Athor herself, my queen!' said the king, whose hundred and thirteen years did not lessen his ardor as a lover, 'Tell me, I pray, the ailment of which, alas! thou art so certainly perishing before my eyes.'

"'You will not love me any more if I tell you,' she said, in doubt and fear.

"'Not love you! I will love you the more. I swear it, by the genii of Amente! by the eye of Osiris, I swear it! Speak!' he cried, passionate as a lover, authoritative as a king.

"'Hear, then,' she said. 'There is an anchorite, the oldest and holiest of his class, in a cave near Essouan. His name is Menopha. He was my teacher and guardian. Send for him, O Oraetes, and he will tell you that you seek to know; he will also help you find the cure for my affliction.'

"Oraetes arose rejoicing. He went away in spirit a hundred years younger than when he came."

V.

"'Speak!' said Oraetes to Menopha, in the palace at Memphis.

"And Menopha replied, 'Most mighty king, if you were young, I should not answer, because I am yet pleased with life; as it is, I will say the queen, like any other mortal, is paying the penalty of a crime.'

"'A crime!' exclaimed Oraetes, angrily.

"Menopha bowed very low.

"'Yes; to herself.'

"'I am not in mood for riddles,' said the king.

"'What I say is not a riddle, as you shall hear. Ne-ne-hofra grew up under my eyes, and confided every incident of her life to me; among others, that she loved the son of her father's gardener, Barbec by name.'

"Oraetes's frown, strangely enough, began to dissipate.

"'With that love in her heart, O king, she came to you; of that love she is dying.'

"'Where is the gardener's son now?' asked Oraetes.

"'In Essouan.'

"The king went out and gave two orders. To one oeris he said, 'Go to Essouan and bring hither a youth named Barbec. You will find him in the garden of the queen's father;' to another, 'Assemble workmen and cattle and tools, and construct for me in Lake Chemmis an island, which, though laden with a temple, a palace, and a garden, and all manner of trees bearing fruit, and all manner of vines, shall nevertheless float about as the winds may blow it. Make the island, and let it be fully furnished by the time the moon begins to wane.'

"Then to the queen he said,

"'Be of cheer. I know all, and have sent for Barbec.'

"Ne-ne-hofra kissed his hands.

"'You shall have him to yourself, and he you to himself; nor shall any disturb your loves for a year.'

"She kissed his feet; he raised her, and kissed her in return; and the rose came back to her cheek, the scarlet to her lips, and the laughter to her heart."

VI.

"For one year Ne-ne-hofra and Barbec the gardener floated as the winds blew on the island of Chemmis, which became one of the wonders of the world; never a home of love more beautiful; one year, seeing no one and existing for no one but themselves. Then she returned in state to the palace in Memphis.

"'Now whom lovest thou best?' asked the king.

"She kissed his cheek and said, 'Take me back, O good king, for I am cured.'

"Oraetes laughed, none the worse, that moment, of his hundred and fourteen years.

"'Then it is true, as Menopha said: ha, ha, ha! it is true, the cure of love is love.'

"'Even so,' she replied.

"Suddenly his manner changed, and his look became terrible.

"'I did not find it so,' he said.

"She shrank affrighted.

"'Thou guilty!' he continued. 'Thy offense to Oraetes the man he forgives; but thy offence to Oraetes the king remains to be punished.'

"She cast herself at his feet.

"'Hush!' he cried. 'Thou art dead!'

"He clapped his hands, and a terrible procession came in--a procession of parachistes, or embalmers, each with some implement or material of his loathsome art.

"The King pointed to Ne-ne-hofra.

"'She is dead. Do thy work well.'"

VII.

"Ne-ne-hofra the beautiful, after seventy-two days, was carried to the crypt chosen for her the year before, and laid with her queenly predecessors; yet there was no funeral procession in her honor across the sacred lake."

At the conclusion of the story, Ben-Hur was sitting at the Egyptian's feet, and her hand upon the tiller was covered by his hand.

"Menopha was wrong," he said.

"How?"

"Love lives by loving."

"Then there is no cure for it?"

"Yes. Oraetes found the cure."

"What was it?"

"Death."

"You are a good listener, O son of Arrius."

And so with conversation and stories, they whiled the hours away. As they stepped ashore, she said,

"To-morrow we go to the city."

"But you will be at the games?" he asked.

"Oh yes."

"I will send you my colors."

With that they separated.

CHAPTER IV

Ilderim returned to the dowar next day about the third hour. As he dismounted, a man whom he recognized as of his own tribe came to him and said, "O sheik, I was bidden give thee this package, with request that thou read it at once. If there be answer, I was to wait thy pleasure."

Ilderim gave the package immediate attention. The seal was already broken. The address ran, TO VALERIUS GRATUS AT CAESAREA.

"Abaddon take him!" growled the sheik, at discovering a letter in Latin.

Had the missive been in Greek or Arabic, he could have read it; as it was, the utmost he could make out was the signature in bold Roman letters--MESSALA--whereat his eyes twinkled.

"Where is the young Jew?" he asked.

"In the field with the horses," a servant replied.

The sheik replaced the papyrus in its envelopes, and, tucking the package under his girdle, remounted the horse. That moment a stranger made his appearance, coming, apparently, from the city.

"I am looking for Sheik Ilderim, surnamed the Generous," the stranger said.

His language and attire bespoke him a Roman.

What he could not read, he yet could speak; so the old Arab answered, with dignity, "I am Sheik Ilderim."

The man's eyes fell; he raised them again, and said, with forced composure, "I heard you had need of a driver for the games."

Ilderim's lip under the white mustache curled contemptuously.

"Go thy way," he said. "I have a driver."

He turned to ride away, but the man, lingering, spoke again.

"Sheik, I am a lover of horses, and they say you have the most beautiful in the world."

The old man was touched; he drew rein, as if on the point of yielding to the flattery, but finally replied, "Not to-day, not to-day; some other time I will show them to you. I am too busy just now."

He rode to the field, while the stranger betook himself to town again with a smiling countenance. He had accomplished his mission.

And every day thereafter, down to the great day of the games, a man--sometimes two or three men--came to the sheik at the Orchard, pretending to seek an engagement as driver.

In such manner Messala kept watch over Ben-Hur.

CHAPTER V

The sheik waited, well satisfied, until Ben-Hur drew his horses off the field for the forenoon--well satisfied, for he had seen them, after being put through all the other paces, run full speed in such manner that it did not seem there were one the slowest and another the fastest--run in other words, as if the four were one.

"This afternoon, O sheik, I will give Sirius back to you." Ben-Hur patted the neck of the old horse as he spoke. "I will give him back, and take to the chariot."

"So soon?" Ilderim asked.

"With such as these, good sheik, one day suffices. They are not afraid; they have a man's intelligence, and they love the exercise. This one," he shook a rein over the back of the youngest of the four--"you called him Aldebaran, I believe--is the swiftest; in once round a stadium he would lead the others thrice his length."

Ilderim pulled his beard, and said, with twinkling eyes, "Aldebaran is the swiftest; but what of the slowest?"

"This is he." Ben-Hur shook the rein over Antares. "This is he: but he will win, for, look you, sheik, he will run his utmost all day--all day; and, as the sun goes down, he will reach his swiftest."

"Right again," said Ilderim.

"I have but one fear, O sheik."

The sheik became doubly serious.

"In his greed of triumph, a Roman cannot keep honor pure. In the games--all of them, mark you--their tricks are infinite; in chariot racing their knavery extends to everything--from horse to driver, from driver to master. Wherefore, good sheik, look well to all thou hast; from this till the trial is over, let no stranger so much as see the horses. Would you be perfectly safe, do more--keep watch over them with armed hand as well as sleepless eye; then I will have no fear of the end."

At the door of the tent they dismounted.

"What you say shall be attended to. By the splendor of God, no hand shall come near them except it belong to one of the faithful. To-night I will set watches. But, son of Arrius"--Ilderim drew forth the package, and opened it slowly, while they walked to the divan and seated themselves--"son of Arrius, see thou here, and help me with thy Latin."

He passed the despatch to Ben-Hur.

"There; read--and read aloud, rendering what thou findest into the tongue of thy fathers. Latin is an abomination."

Ben-Hur was in good spirits, and began the reading carelessly. "'MESSALA TO GRATUS!'" He paused. A premonition drove the blood to his heart. Ilderim observed his agitation.

"Well; I am waiting."

Ben-Hur prayed pardon, and recommenced the paper, which, it is sufficient to say, was one of the duplicates of the letter despatched so carefully to Gratus by Messala the morning after the revel in the palace.

The paragraphs in the beginning were remarkable only as proof that the writer had not outgrown his habit of mockery; when they were passed, and the reader came to the parts intended to refresh the memory of Gratus, his voice trembled, and twice he stopped to regain his self-control. By a strong effort he continued. "'I recall further,'" he read, "'that thou didst make disposition of the family of Hur'"--there the reader again paused and drew a long breath--"'both of us at the time supposing the plan hit upon to be the most effective possible for the purposes in view, which were silence and delivery over to inevitable but natural death.'"

Here Ben-Hur broke down utterly. The paper fell from his hands, and he covered his face.

"They are dead--dead. I alone am left."

The sheik had been a silent, but not unsympathetic, witness of the young man's suffering; now he arose and said, "Son of Arrius, it is for me to beg thy pardon. Read the paper by thyself. When thou art strong enough to give the rest of it to me, send word, and I will return."

He went out of the tent, and nothing in all his life became him better.

Ben-Hur flung himself on the divan and gave way to his feelings. When somewhat recovered, he recollected that a portion of the letter remained unread, and, taking it up, he resumed the reading. "Thou wilt remember," the missive ran, "what thou didst with the mother and sister of the malefactor; yet, if now I yield to a desire to learn if they be living or dead"--Ben-Hur started, and read again, and then again, and at last broke into exclamation. "He does not know they are dead; he does not know it! Blessed be the name of the Lord! there is yet hope." He finished the sentence, and was strengthened by it, and went on bravely to the end of the letter.

"They are not dead," he said, after reflection; "they are not dead, or he would have heard of it."

A second reading, more careful than the first, confirmed him in the opinion. Then he sent for the sheik.

"In coming to your hospitable tent, O sheik," he said, calmly, when the Arab was seated and they were alone, "it was not in my mind to speak of myself further than to assure you I had sufficient training to be intrusted with your horses. I declined to tell you my history. But the chances which have sent this paper to my hand and given it to me to be read are so strange that I feel bidden to trust you with everything. And I am the more inclined to do so by knowledge here conveyed that we are both of us threatened by the same enemy, against whom it is needful that we make common cause. I will read the letter and give you explanation; after which you will not wonder I was so moved. If you thought me weak or childish, you will then excuse me."

The sheik held his peace, listening closely, until Ben-Hur came to the paragraph in which he was particularly mentioned: "'I saw the Jew yesterday in the Grove of Daphne;'" so ran the part, "'and if he be not there now, he is certainly in the neighborhood, making it easy for me to keep him in eye. Indeed, wert thou to ask me where he is now, I should say, with the most positive assurance, he is to be found at the old Orchard of Palms.'"

"A--h!" exclaimed Ilderim, in such a tone one might hardly say he was more surprised than angry; at the same time, he clutched his beard.

"'At the old Orchard of Palms,'" Ben-Hur repeated, "'under the tent of the traitor Shiek Ilderim.'"

"Traitor!--I?" the old man cried, in his shrillest tone, while lip and beard curled with ire, and on his forehead and neck the veins swelled and beat as they would burst.

"Yet a moment, sheik," said Ben-Hur, with a deprecatory gesture. "Such is Messala's opinion of you. Hear his threat." And he read on--"'under the tent of the traitor Sheik Ilderim, who cannot long escape our strong hand. Be not surprised if Maxentius, as his first measure, places the Arab on ship for forwarding to Rome.'"

"To Rome! Me--Ilderim--sheik of ten thousand horsemen with spears-- me to Rome!"

He leaped rather than rose to his feet, his arms outstretched, his fingers spread and curved like claws, his eyes glittering like a serpent's.

"O God!--nay, by all the gods except of Rome!--when shall this insolence end? A freeman am I; free are my people. Must we die slaves? Or, worse, must I live a dog, crawling to a master's feet? Must I lick his hand, lest he lash me? What is mine is not mine; I am not my own; for breath of body I must be beholden to a Roman. Oh, if I were young again! Oh, could I shake off twenty years--or ten--or five!"

He ground his teeth and shook his hands overhead; then, under the impulse of another idea, he walked away and back again to Ben-Hur swiftly, and caught his shoulder with a strong grasp.

"If I were as thou, son of Arrius--as young, as strong, as practised in arms; if I had a motive hissing me to revenge--a motive, like thine, great enough to make hate holy-- Away with disguise on thy part and on mine! Son of Hur, son of Hur, I say--"

At that name all the currents of Ben-Hur's blood stopped; surprised, bewildered, he gazed into the Arab's eyes, now close to his, and fiercely bright.

"Son of Hur, I say, were I as thou, with half thy wrongs, bearing about with me memories like thine, I would not, I could not, rest." Never pausing, his words following each other torrent-like, the old man swept on. "To all my grievances, I would add those of the world, and devote myself to vengeance. From land to land I would go firing all mankind. No war for freedom but should find me engaged; no battle against Rome in which I would not bear a part. I would turn Parthian, if I could not better. If men failed me, still I would not give over the effort--ha, ha, ha! By the splendor of God! I would herd with wolves, and make friends of lions and tigers, in hope of marshalling them against the common enemy. I would use every weapon. So my victims were Romans, I would rejoice in slaughter. Quarter I would not ask; quarter I would not give. To the flames everything Roman; to the sword every Roman born. Of nights I would pray the gods, the good and the bad alike, to lend me their special terrors--tempests, drought, heat, cold, and all the nameless poisons they let loose in air, all the thousand things of which men die on sea and on land. Oh, I could not sleep. I--I--"

The sheik stopped for want of breath, panting, wringing his hands. And, sooth to say, of all the passionate burst Ben-Hur retained but a vague impression wrought by fiery eyes, a piercing voice, and a rage too intense for coherent expression.

For the first time in years, the desolate youth heard himself addressed by his proper name. One man at least knew him, and acknowledged it without demand of identity; and he an Arab fresh from the desert!

How came the man by his knowledge? The letter? No. It told the cruelties from which his family had suffered; it told the story of his own misfortunes, but it did not say he was the very victim whose escape from doom was the theme of the heartless narrative. That was the point of explanation he had notified the sheik would follow the reading of the letter. He was pleased, and thrilled with hope restored, yet kept an air of calmness.

"Good sheik, tell me how you came by this letter."

"My people keep the roads between cities," Ilderim answered, bluntly. "They took it from a courier."

"Are they known to be thy people?"

"No. To the world they are robbers, whom it is mine to catch and slay."

"Again, sheik. You call me son of Hur--my father's name. I did not think myself known to a person on earth. How came you by the knowledge?"

Ilderim hesitated; but, rallying, he answered, "I know you, yet I am not free to tell you more."

"Some one holds you in restraint?"

The sheik closed his mouth, and walked away; but, observing Ben-Hur's disappointment, he came back, and said, "Let us say no more about the matter now. I will go to town; when I return, I may talk to you fully. Give me the letter."

Ilderim rolled the papyrus carefully, restored it to its envelopes, and became once more all energy.

"What sayest thou?" he asked, while waiting for his horse and retinue. "I told what I would do, were I thou, and thou hast made no answer."

"I intended to answer, sheik, and I will." Ben-Hur's countenance and voice changed with the feeling invoked. "All thou hast said, I will do--all at least in the power of a man. I devoted myself to vengeance long ago. Every hour of the five years passed, I have lived with no other thought. I have taken no respite. I have had no pleasures of youth. The blandishments of Rome were not for me. I wanted her to educate me for revenge. I resorted to her most famous masters and professors--not those of rhetoric or philosophy: alas! I had no time for them. The arts essential to a fighting-man were my desire. I associated with gladiators, and with winners of prizes in the Circus; and they were my teachers. The drill-masters in the great camp accepted me as a scholar, and were proud of my attainments in their line. O sheik, I am a soldier; but the things of which I dream require me to be a captain. With that thought, I have taken part in the campaign against the Parthians; when it is over, then, if the Lord spare my life and strength--then"--he raised his clenched hands, and spoke vehemently--"then I will be an enemy Roman-taught in all things; then Rome shall account to me in Roman lives for her ills. You have my answer, sheik."

Ilderim put an arm over his shoulder, and kissed him, saying, passionately, "If thy God favor thee not, son of Hur, it is because he is dead. Take thou this from me--sworn to, if so thy preference run: thou shalt have my hands, and their fulness--men, horses, camels, and the desert for preparation. I swear it! For the present, enough. Thou shalt see or hear from me before night."

Turning abruptly off, the sheik was speedily on the road to the city.

CHAPTER VI

The intercepted letter was conclusive upon a number of points of great interest to Ben-Hur. It had all the effect of a confession that the writer was a party to the putting-away of the family with murderous intent; that he had sanctioned the plan adopted for the purpose; that he had received a portion of the proceeds of the confiscation, and was yet in enjoyment of his part; that he dreaded the unexpected appearance of what he was pleased to call the chief malefactor, and accepted it as a menace; that he contemplated such further action as would secure him in the future, and was ready to do whatever his accomplice in Caesarea might advise.

And, now that the letter had reached the hand of him really its subject, it was notice of danger to come, as well as a confession of guilt. So when Ilderim left the tent, Ben-Hur had much to think about, requiring immediate action. His enemies were as adroit and powerful as any in the East. If they were afraid of him, he had greater reason to be afraid of them. He strove earnestly to reflect upon the situation, but could not; his feelings constantly overwhelmed him. There was a certain qualified pleasure in the assurance that his mother and sister were alive; and it mattered little that the foundation of the assurance was a mere inference. That there was one person who could tell him where they were seemed to his hope so long deferred as if discovery were now close at hand. These were mere causes of feeling; underlying them, it must be confessed he had a superstitious fancy that God was about to make ordination in his behalf, in which event faith whispered him to stand still.

Occasionally, referring to the words of Ilderim, he wondered whence the Arab derived his information about him; not from Malluch certainly; nor from Simonides, whose interests, all adverse, would hold him dumb. Could Messala have been the informant? No, no: disclosure might be dangerous in that quarter. Conjecture was vain; at the same time, often as Ben-Hur was beaten back from the solution, he was consoled with the thought that whoever the person with the knowledge might be, he was a friend, and, being such, would reveal himself in good time. A little more waiting--a little more patience. Possibly the errand of the sheik was to see the worthy; possibly the letter might precipitate a full disclosure.

And patient he would have been if only he could have believed Tirzah and his mother were waiting for him under circumstances permitting hope on their part strong as his; if, in other words, conscience had not stung him with accusations respecting them.

To escape such accusations, he wandered far through the Orchard, pausing now where the date-gatherers were busy, yet not too busy to offer him of their fruit and talk with him; then, under the great trees, to watch the nesting birds, or hear the bees swarming about the berries bursting with honeyed sweetness, and filling all the green and golden spaces with the music of their beating wings.

By the lake, however, he lingered longest. He might not look upon the water and its sparkling ripples, so like sensuous life, without thinking of the Egyptian and her marvellous beauty, and of floating with her here and there through the night, made brilliant by her songs and stories; he might not forget the charm of her manner, the lightness of her laugh, the flattery of her attention, the warmth of her little hand under his upon the tiller of the boat. From her it was for his thought but a short way to Balthasar, and the strange things of which he had been witness, unaccountable by any law of nature; and from him, again, to the King of the Jews, whom the good man, with such pathos of patience, was holding in holy promise, the distance was even nearer. And there his mind stayed, finding in the mysteries of that personage a satisfaction answering well for the rest he was seeking. Because, it may have been, nothing is so easy as denial of an idea not agreeable to our wishes, he rejected the definition given by Balthasar of the kingdom the king was coming to establish. A kingdom of souls, if not intolerable to his Sadducean faith, seemed to him but an abstraction drawn from the depths of a devotion too fond and dreamy. A kingdom of Judea, on the other hand, was more than comprehensible: such had been, and, if only for that reason, might be again. And it suited his pride to think of a new kingdom broader of domain, richer in power, and of a more unapproachable splendor than the old one; of a new king wiser and mightier than Solomon--a new king under whom, especially, he could find both service and revenge. In that mood he resumed to the dowar.

The mid-day meal disposed of, still further to occupy himself, Ben-Hur had the chariot rolled out into the sunlight for inspection. The word but poorly conveys the careful study the vehicle underwent. No point or part of it escaped him. With a pleasure which will be better understood hereafter, he saw the pattern was Greek, in his judgment preferable to the Roman in many respects; it was wider between the wheels, and lower and stronger, and the disadvantage of greater weight would be more than compensated by the greater endurance of his Arabs. Speaking generally, the carriage-makers of Rome built for the games almost solely, sacrificing safety to beauty, and durability to grace; while the chariots of Achilles and "the king of men," designed for war and all its extreme tests, still ruled the tastes of those who met and struggled for the crowns Isthmian and Olympic.

Next he brought the horses, and, hitching them to the chariot, drove to the field of exercise, where, hour after hour, he practised them in movement under the yoke. When he came away in the evening, it was with restored spirit, and a fixed purpose to defer action in the matter of Messala until the race was won or lost. He could not forego the pleasure of meeting his adversary under the eyes of the East; that there might be other competitors seemed not to enter his thought. His confidence in the result was absolute; no doubt of his own skill; and as to the four, they were his full partners in the glorious game.

"Let him look to it, let him look to it! Ha, Antares--Aldebaran! Shall he not, O honest Rigel? and thou, Atair, king among coursers, shall he not beware of us? Ha, ha! good hearts!"

So in rests he passed from horse to horse, speaking, not as a master, but the senior of as many brethren.

After nightfall, Ben-Hur sat by the door of the tent waiting for Ilderim, not yet returned from the city. He was not impatient, or vexed, or doubtful. The sheik would be heard from, at least. Indeed, whether it was from satisfaction with the performance of the four, or the refreshment there is in cold water succeeding bodily exercise, or supper partaken with royal appetite, or the reaction which, as a kindly provision of nature, always follows depression, the young man was in good-humor verging upon elation. He felt himself in the hands of Providence no longer his enemy. At last there was a sound of horse's feet coming rapidly, and Malluch rode up.

"Son of Arrius," he said, cheerily, after salutation, "I salute you for Sheik Ilderim, who requests you to mount and go to the city. He is waiting for you."

Ben-Hur asked no questions, but went in where the horses were feeding. Aldebaran came to him, as if offering his service. He played with him lovingly, but passed on, and chose another, not of the four--they were sacred to the race. Very shortly the two were on the road, going swiftly and in silence.

Some distance below the Seleucian Bridge, they crossed the river by a ferry, and, riding far round on the right bank, and recrossing by another ferry, entered the city from the west. The detour was long, but Ben-Hur accepted it as a precaution for which there was good reason.

Down to Simonides' landing they rode, and in front of the great warehouse, under the bridge, Malluch drew rein.

"We are come," he said. "Dismount."

Ben-Hur recognized the place.

"Where is the sheik?" he asked.

"Come with me. I will show you."

A watchman took the horses, and almost before he realized it Ben-Hur stood once more at the door of the house up on the greater one, listening to the response from within--"In God's name, enter."

CHAPTER VII

Malluch stopped at the door; Ben-Hur entered alone.

The room was the same in which he had formerly interviewed Simonides, and it had been in nowise changed, except now, close by the arm-chair, a polished brazen rod, set on a broad wooden pedestal, arose higher than a tall man, holding lamps of silver on sliding arms, half-a-dozen or more in number, and all burning. The light was clear, bringing into view the panelling on the walls, the cornice with its row of gilded balls, and the dome dully tinted with violet mica.

Within a few steps, Ben-Hur stopped.

Three persons were present, looking at him--Simonides, Ilderim, and Esther.

He glanced hurriedly from one to another, as if to find answer to the question half formed in his mind, What business can these have with me? He became calm, with every sense on the alert, for the question was succeeded by another, Are they friends or enemies?

At length, his eyes rested upon Esther.

The men returned his look kindly; in her face there was something more than kindness--something too spirituel for definition, which yet went to his inner consciousness without definition.

Shall it be said, good reader? Back of his gaze there was a comparison in which the Egyptian arose and set herself over against the gentle Jewess; but it lived an instant, and, as is the habit of such comparisons, passed away without a conclusion.

"Son of Hur--"

The guest turned to the speaker.

"Son of Hur," said Simonides, repeating the address slowly, and with distinct emphasis, as if to impress all its meaning upon him most interested in understanding it, "take thou the peace of the Lord God of our fathers--take it from me." He paused, then added, "From me and mine."

The speaker sat in his chair; there were the royal head, the bloodless face, the masterful air, under the influence of which visitors forgot the broken limbs and distorted body of the man. The full black eyes gazed out under the white brows steadily, but not sternly. A moment thus, then he crossed his hands upon his breast.

The action, taken with the salutation, could not be misunderstood, and was not.

"Simonides," Ben-Hur answered, much moved, "the holy peace you tender is accepted. As son to father, I return it to you. Only let there be perfect understanding between us."

Thus delicately he sought to put aside the submission of the merchant, and, in place of the relation of master and servant, substitute one higher and holier.

Simonides let fall his hands, and, turning to Esther, said, "A seat for the master, daughter."

She hastened, and brought a stool, and stood, with suffused face, looking from one to the other--from Ben-Hur to Simonides, from Simonides to Ben-Hur; and they waited, each declining the superiority direction would imply. When at length the pause began to be embarrassing, Ben-Hur advanced, and gently took the stool from her, and, going to the chair, placed it at the merchant's feet.

"I will sit here," he said.

His eyes met hers--an instant only; but both were better of the look. He recognized her gratitude, she his generosity and forbearance.

Simonides bowed his acknowledgment.

"Esther, child, bring me the paper," he said, with a breath of relief.

She went to a panel in the wall, opened it, took out a roll of papyri, and brought and gave it to him.

"Thou saidst well, son of Hur," Simonides began, while unrolling the sheets. "Let us understand each other. In anticipation of the demand--which I would have made hadst thou waived it--I have here a statement covering everything necessary to the understanding required. I could see but two points involved--the property first, and then our relation. The statement is explicit as to both. Will it please thee to read it now?"

Ben-Hur received the papers, but glanced at Ilderim.

"Nay," said Simonides, "the sheik shall not deter thee from reading. The account--such thou wilt find it--is of a nature requiring a witness. In the attesting place at the end thou wilt find, when thou comest to it, the name--Ilderim, Sheik. He knows all. He is thy friend. All he has been to me, that will he be to thee also."

Simonides looked at the Arab, nodding pleasantly, and the latter gravely returned the nod, saying, "Thou hast said."

Ben-Hur replied, "I know already the excellence of his friendship, and have yet to prove myself worthy of it." Immediately he continued, "Later, O Simonides, I will read the papers carefully; for the present, do thou take them, and if thou be not too weary, give me their substance."

Simonides took back the roll.

"Here, Esther, stand by me and receive the sheets, lest they fall into confusion."

She took place by his chair, letting her right arm fall lightly across his shoulder, so, when he spoke, the account seemed to have rendition from both of them jointly.

"This," said Simonides, drawing out the first leaf, "shows the money I had of thy father's, being the amount saved from the Romans; there was no property saved, only money, and that the robbers would have secured but for our Jewish custom of bills of exchange. The amount saved, being sums I drew from Rome, Alexandria, Damascus, Carthage, Valentia, and elsewhere within the circle of trade, was one hundred and twenty talents Jewish money."

He gave the sheet to Esther, and took the next one.

"With that amount--one hundred and twenty talents--I charged myself. Hear now my credits. I use the word, as thou wilt see, with reference rather to the proceeds gained from the use of the money."

The scientific fellows tell us that we have not nearly reached the maximum of yield to the acre of crops that are harvested once a year, but in regard to the crops that are harvested twice a day it looks to me as if we were doing fairly well. Nowadays we hardly know what is meant by the expression, "Spring poor." It is a sinister phrase, and tells a story of the old, cruel days when farmers begrudged their cattle the little bite they ate in wintertime, so that when the grass came again the poor creatures would fall over trying to crop it. They were so starved and weak that, as the saying went, they had to lean up against the fence to breathe. They don't do that way now, as one look at the fine, sleek cows will show you. A cow these days is a different sort of a being, her coat like satin, and her udder generous, compared with the wild-eyed things with burrs in their tails, and their flanks crusted with filth, their udders the size of a kid glove, and yielding such a little dab of milk and for such a short period. Hear the dairymen boast now of the miraculous yearly yield in pounds of butter and milk, and when they say: "You've got to treat a cow as if she were a lady," it sounds like good sense.

Pigs are naturally so untidy about their persons, and have such shocking table-manners that it seems difficult to treat a sow like a lady, but that one in the pen yonder, with her litter of sucking pigs, seems very interesting. Come, let's have a look. Aren't the little pigs dear things? I'd like to climb in and take one of them up to pet it; do you s'pose she'd mind it if I did? I can see decided improvement in the modern hogs over old Mose Batcheller's. If you remember, his were what were known as "razorbacks." They could go like the wind, and the fence was not made that could stop them. If they couldn't root under it, they could turn themselves sidewise and slide through between the rails. It was told me that, failing all else, they could give their tails a swing - you remember the big balls of mud they used to have on their tails' ends - they could swing their tails after the manner of an athlete throwing the hammer, and fly over the top of the tallest stake-and-rider fence ever put up. I don't know whether this is the strict truth or not, but it is what was told me as a little boy, and I don't think people would wilfully deceive an innocent child.

The pigs nowaday aren't as smart as that, but they cut up better at hog-killing time. They aren't quite so trim; indeed, they are nothing but cylinders of meat, whittled to a point at the front end, and set on four pegs, but as you lean on the top-rail of the pens out at the County Fair and look down upon them, you can picture in your mind, without much effort, ham, and sidemeat, and bacon, and spare-ribs, and smoked shoulder, and head-cheese, and liver-wurst, and sausages, and glistening white lard for crullers and pie-crust - Yes, I think pigs are right interesting. I know they've got Scripture for it, the folks that think it is wrong to eat pork, but somehow I feel sorry for them; they miss such a lot, not only in the eating line, but other ways. They are always being persecuted, and harassed, and picked at. Whereas the pork-fed man, it seems to me, sort of hankers to be picked at. It gives him a good chance to slap somebody slonchways. He feels better after he has seen his persecutors go away with a cut lip, and fingering of their teeth to see if they're all there.

You'll just have to take me gently but firmly by the sleeve and lead me past the next exhibit, the noisy one, where there's so much cackling and crowing. I give you fair warning that if you get me started talking about chickens, the County Fair will have to wait till some other time. I don't know much about ducks, and geese, and guinea-hens, and pea-fowl, and turkeys, but chickens - Why, say. We had a hen once (Plymouth Rock she was; we called her Henrietta), and honestly, that hen knew more than some folks. One time she - all right. I'll hush. Let's go in here.

I don't remember whether the pies, and cakes, and canned fruit, and such are in Pomona Hall or the Fine Arts Hall. Fine Arts Hall I think. They ought to be. I speak to be one of the judges that give out the premiums in this department. I'd be generous and let somebody else do the judging of the cakes, because I don't care much for cake. Oh, I can manage to choke it down, but I haven't the expert knowledge, practical and scientific, that I have in the matter of pie. I'd bear my share of the work when it came to the other things, jellies and preserves, and pies, but not cake. Wouldn't know just exactly how to go at it in the matter of jellies. I'd take a glass of currant, and hold it up to the light to note its crimson glory. And I'd lift off the waxed paper top and peer in, and maybe give the jelly a shake. And then I'd take a spoon and taste, closing my eyes so as to appear to deliberate - they'd roll up in an ecstacy anyhow - and I'd smack my lips, and say: "Mmmmm!" very thoughtfully, and set the glass back, and write down in my book my judgment, which would invariably be: "First Prize." Because if there is anything on top of this green earth that I think is just about right, it is currant jelly. Grape jelly is nice, and crab-apple jelly has its good points, and quince jelly is very delicate, but there is something about currant jelly that seems to touch the spot. Quince preserves are good if there is enough apple with the quince, and watermelon preserves are a great favorite, not because they are so much better tasting, but because the lucent golden cubes in the spicy syrup appeal so to the eye. But if you want to know what I think is really good eating in the preserve line, you just watch my motions when I come to the tomato preserves, these little fig-tomatoes, and see how quick the red card is put on them. Yes, indeed. It's been a long time, hasn't it? since you had any tomato-preserves, you that haven't been "Back Home" lately.

It's no great trick to put up other fruit so that it will keep, but I'd look the canned tomatoes over pretty carefully, and if I saw that one lady had not only put them up so that they hadn't turned foamy, but had also succeeded with green corn, and that other poser, string beans, I'd give her first premium, because I'd know she was a first-rate housekeeper, and a careful woman, and one that deserved encouragement.

But I'd save myself for the pies. I can tell a rich, short, flaky crust, and I can tell the kind that is as brown as a dried apple, and tough as the same on the top, and sad and livery on the bottom. And I know about fillings, how thick they ought to be, and how they ought to be seasoned, and all. Particularly pumpkin-pies, because I had early advantages that way that very few other boys had. I was allowed to scrape the crock that had held the pumpkin for the pies. So that's how I know as much as I do.

I suppose, however, when all is said and done, that there is no pie that can quite come up to an apple-pie. You take nice, short crust that's been worked up with ice-water, and line the tin with it, and fill it heaping with sliced, tart apples -not sauce. Mercy, no! - and sweeten them just right, and put on a lump of butter, and some allspice, and perhaps a clove, and a little lemon peel, and then put on the cover, and trim off the edge, and pinch it up in scallops, and draw a couple of leaves in the top with a sharp knife, and have the oven just right, and set it in there, and I tell you that when ma opens the oven-door to see how the pie is coming on, there distils through the house such a perfume that you cry out in a choking voice: "Say! Ain't dinner 'most ready?"

But I fully recognize the fact that very often our judgment is warped by feeling, and I am inclined to believe that even the undoubted merit of the apple-pie would not prevail against a vinegar-pie, if such should be presented to me for my decision. A vinegar-pie? Well, it has a top and bottom crust, the same as any other pie, but its filling is made of vinegar, diluted with water to the proper degree of sub-acidity, sweetened with molasses, thickened with flour, and all baked as any other pie. You smile at its crude simplicity, and wonder why I should favor it. To you it doesn't tell the story that it does to me. It doesn't take you back in imagination to "the airly days," when folks came over the mountains in covered wagons, and settled in the Western Reserve, leaving behind them all the civilization of their day, and its comforts, parting from relatives and friends, knowing full well that in this life they never more should look upon their faces - leaving everything behind to make a new home in the western wilds.

Is was a land of promise that they came to. The virgin soil bore riotously. There were fruit-trees in the forest that Johnny Appleseed had planted on his journeyings. The young husband could stand in his dooryard and kill wild turkeys with his rifle. They fed to loathing on venison, and squirrels, and all manner of game, and once in a great while they had the luxury of salt pork. They were well-nourished, but sometimes they pined for that which was more than mere food. They hungered for that which should be to the meals' victuals what the flower is to the plant.

"I whoosh't - I woosh't was so we could hev pie," sighed one such. (Let us call him Uriah Kinney. I think that sounds as if it were his name.

"Land's sakes!" snapped his wife, exasperated that he should be thinking of the same thing that she was. "Land's sakes! Haow d' ye s'pose I kin make a pie when I hain't got e'er a thing to make it aout o'? You gimme suthirnn to make it aout o', an' you see haow quick - "

"I ain't a-faultinn ye, Mary Ann," interposed Uriah gently. "I know haow 't is. I was on'y tellin' ye. I git I git a kind o' hum'sick sometimes. 'Pears like as if I sh'd feel more resigned like . . . . Don't ye cry, Mary Ann. I know, I know. You feel julluk I do 'baout back home, an' all luk that."

O woman! When the heft of thy intellect is thrown against a problem, something has got to give. Not long after, Uriah sits down to dinner, and can hardly ask a blessing, he has to swallow so. A pie is on the table!

"Gosh, Mary Ann, but this is good!" says he, holding out his hand for the third piece. "This is lickinn good!" And he celebrates her achievement far and wide.

"My Mary Ann med me a pie t' other day, was the all-firedest best pie I ever et."

"Med you what?"

"Med me a pie."

"Pie? Whutch talkinn' baout? Can't git nummore pies naow. Frot 's all gin aout."

"I golly, she med it just the same. Smartest woman y' ever see." The man dribbled at the mouth.

"What sh' make it aout o'?"

"Vinegar an' worter, I think she said. I d' know 's I ever et anythinn I relished julluk that. My Mary Ann, tell yew! She's 'baout's smart 's they make 'em."

I wish I knew who she really was whom I have called Mary Ann Kinney, she that made the first vinegar-pie. I wish I knew where her grave is that I might lay upon it a bunch of flowers, such as she knew and liked - sweet-william, and phlox, and larkspur, and wild columbine. It couldn't make it up to her for all the hardships she underwent when she was bringing up a family in that wild, western country, and especially that fall when they all had the "fever 'n' ager" so bad, Uriah and the twins chilling one day, and Hiram and Sophronia Jane the next, and she just as miserable as any of them, but keeping up somehow, God only knows how. It couldn't make it up to her, but as I laid the pretty posies against the leaning headstone on which is written:

"A Loving Wife , a Mother Dear, Faithful Friend Lies Buried Here."

I believe she 'd get word of it somehow, and understand what I was trying to say by it.

I'll ask to be let off the committee that judges the rest of the exhibits in the Fine Arts Hall, the quilts and the Battenberg, and the crocheting, and such. I know the Log Cabin pattern, and the Mexican Feather pattern, and I think I could make out to tell the Hen-and-Chickens pattern of quilts, but that's as much as ever. And as to the real, hand-painted views of fruit-cake, and grapes and apples on a red table-cloth, I am one of those that can't make allowances for the fact that she only took two terms. I call to mind one picture that Miss Alvalou Ashbaker made of her pap, old "Coonrod" Ashbaker. The Lord knows he was a "humbly critter," but he wasn't as "humbly" as she made him out to be, with his eyes bulging out of his head as if he was choking on a fishbone. And, instead of her dressing him up in his Sunday clothes, I wish I may never see the back of my neck if that girl didn't paint him in a red-and-black barred flannel shirt, with porcelain buttons on it! And his hair looked as if the calf had been at it. Wouldn't you think somebody would have told her? And that isn't all. She got the premium!

Neither am I prepared to pass judgment on the fancy penmanship displayed by Professor Swope, framed elegantly in black walnut, and gilt, depicting a bounding deer, all made out of hair-line, shaded spirals, done with his facile pen. (No wonder a deer can jump so, with all those springs inside him.) Professor Swope writes visiting cards for you, wonderful birds done in flourishes and holding ribbons in their bills. He puts your name on the ribbon place. Neatest and tastiest thing you can imagine. I like to watch him do it, but it makes me feel unhappy, somehow. I never was much of a scribe, and it's too late for me to learn now.

I don't feel so downcast when I examine the specimens of writing done by the children of District No. 34. I can just see the young ones working at home on these things, with their tongues stuck out of one corner of their mouths.

"Rome was not built in a day      Rome was not built in a day      Rome was not built in a day"

and so on, bearing down hard on the downstroke of the curve in the capital "R," and clubbing the end of the little "t." And in the higher grades, they toil over "An Original Social Letter," describing to an imaginary correspondent a visit to Crystal Lake, or the Magnetic Springs. I can hear them mourn: "What shall I say next?" and "Ma, make Effie play some place else, won't you? She jist joggles the table like everything. Now, see what you done! Now I got to write it all over again. No, I cain't 'scratch it out. How'd it look to the County Fair all scratched out? Plague take it all!"

The same hands have done maps of North and South America, and red-and-blue ink pictures of the circulation of the blood. It does beat all how smart the young ones are nowadays. I could no more draw off a picture of the circulation of the blood - get it right, I mean - why, I wouldn't attempt it.

I am kind of mixed up in my recollection of the hall right next to the Fine Arts. You know it had two doors in each end. Sometimes I can see the central space between the doors, roped off and devoted to sewing-machines with persons demonstrating that they ran as light as a feather, and how it was no trouble at all to tuck and gather, and fell; to organs, which struck me with amaze, because by some witchcraft (octave coupler, I think they called it) the man could play on keys that he didn't touch, and pianos, whereon young ladies were prevailed to perform "Silvery Waves" - that's a lovely piece, I think, don't you? - and

"Listen to the mocking-bird, TEE-die-eedle-DONG      Lisen to the mocking-bird, teedle-eedle-EE-dle DONG      The mocking-bird still singing oer her grave,                              toomatooral-oo-cal-LEE!"

And then again I can see that central, roped-off space given over to reckless deviltry, sheer impudent, brazen-faced, bold, discipline-defying er - er - wickedness. I had heard that people did things like that, but this was the first time I had ever caught a glimpse of such carryings-on in the broad open daylight, right before everybody. I stood there and watched them for hours, expecting every minute to see fire fall from heaven on them and burn up every son and daughter of Belial. But it didn't.

I seem to recollect that it was a hot day, and that, tucked away where not a breath of air could get to them, were three fellows in their shirtsleeves, one playing on an organ, one on a yellow clarinet, and one on a fiddle. Every chance he could get, the fiddler would say to the organist: "Gimme A, please," and saw away trying to get into some sort of tune, but the catgut was never twisted that would hold to pitch with the perspiration dribbling down his fingers in little rills. The clarinet man looked as if he wanted to cry, and he had to twitter his eyelids all the time to keep the sweat from blinding him, and every once in a while, his soggy reed would let go of a squawk that sounded like a scared chicken. But the organ groaned on unrelentingly, and the tune didn't matter so much as the rhythm which was kept up as regular as a clock, whack! whack! whack! whack! And there were two or three other fellows with badges on that went around shouting: "Select your podners for the next quadrille! One more couple wanted right over here!"

Dancing. M-hm.

The fiddler "called off" and chanted to the tune, with his mouth on one side: "Sullootch podners! First couple forward and back. Side couples the same. Doe see do-o-o-o. Al-lee-man LEFT! Ballunce ALL! Sa-weeny the corners!" I don't know whether I get the proper order of these commands or not, or whether my memory serves me as to their effect, but it seems to me that at "Bal-lunce ALL!" the ladies demurely teetered, first on one foot and then on the other, like a frozen-toed rooster, while the gents fairly tore themselves apart with grape-vine twists and fancy steps, and slapped the dust out of the cracks in the floor. When it came to "SaWEENG your podners!" the room billowed with flying skirts, and the ladies squealed like anything. It made you a little dizzy to watch them do "Graaan' right and left," and you could understand how those folks felt - there were always one or two in each set - who had to be hauled this way and that, not sure whether they were having a good time or not, but hoping they were, their faces set in a sickly grin, while their foreheads wrinkled into a puzzled: "How's that? I didn't quite catch that last remark" expression. I don't know if it affected you in the same way that it did me, but after I had stood there for a time and watched those young men and women thus wasting the precious moments that dropped like priceless pearls into the ocean of Eternity, and were lost irrevocably, young, men and women giving themselves up to present enjoyment without one serious thought in their minds as to who was going to wash the supper dishes, or what would happen if the house took fire while they were away I say I do not know how the sight of such reckless frivolity affected you, but I know that after so long a time my face would get all cramped up from wearing a grin, and I'd have to go out and look at the reapers and binders to rest myself so I could come back and look some. There are two things that you simply have to do at the County Fair, or you aren't right sure you've been. One is to drink a glass of sweet cider just from the press, (which, I may say in passing, is an over-rated luxury. Cider has to be just the least bit "frisky" to be good. I don't mean hard, but" frisky." You know). And the other is to buy a whip, if it is only the, little toy, fifteen-cent kind. On the next soap-box to the old fellow that comes every year to sell pictorial Bibles and red, plush-covered albums, the old fellow in the green slippers that talks as if he were just ready to drop off to sleep - on the next soap-box to him is the man that sells the whips. You can buy one for a dollar, two for a dollar, or four for a dollar, but not one for fifty cents, or one for a quarter. Don't ask me why, for I don't know. I am just stating the facts. It can't be done, for I've seen it tried, and if you keep up the attempt too long, the whip-man will lose all patience with your unreasonableness, and tell you to go 'long about your business if you've got any, and not bother the life and soul out of him, because he won't sell anything but a dollar's worth of whips, and that's all there is about it.

He sells other things, handsaws, and pencils, and mouth-harps, and two knives for a quarter, of such pure steel that he whittles shavings off a wire nail with 'em, and is particular to hand you the very identical knife he did it with. He has jewelry, though I don't suppose you could cut a wire nail with it. You might, at that.

To him approaches a boy.

"Got 'ny collar-buttons?"

"Well, now, I'll just look and see. Here's a beautiful rolled-plate gold watch-chain, with an elegant jewel charm. Lovely blue jewel." He dangles the chain and its rich glass pendant, and it certainly does look fine. "That'd cost you $2.50 at the store. How'd that strike you ?"

"Hpm. I want a collar-button."

"Well, now, you hold on a minute. Lemme look again. Ah, here's a package 'at orta have some in it. Yes, sir, here's four of 'em, enough to last you a lifetime; front, back, and both sleeves, the kind that flips and don't tear the buttonholes. Well, by ginger! Now, how'd that git in here, I want to know? That gold ring? Well, I don't care. It'll have to go with the collar-buttons. Tell you what I'll do with you: I'll let you have this elegant solid gold rolled-plate watch-chain and jewel, this elegant, solid gold ring to git married with - Hay? How about it? - and these four collar-buttons for - for - twenty-five cents, or a quarter of a dollar."

That boy never took that quarter out of his breeches pocket. It just jumped out of itself. But I see that you are getting the fidgets. You're hoping that I'll come to the horse-racing pretty soon. You want to have it all brought back to you, the big, big race-track which, as you remember it now, must have been about the next size smaller than the earth's orbit around the sun. You want me to tell about the old farmer with the bunch of timothy whiskers under his chin that gets his old jingling wagon on the track just before a heat is to be trotted, and all the people yell at him: "Take him out!" You want me to tell how the trotters looked walking around in their dusters, with the eye-holes bound with red braid, and how the drivers of the sulkies sat with the tails of their horses tucked under one leg. Well, I'm not going to do anything of the kind, and if you don't like it, you can go to the box-office and demand your money back. I hope you'll get it. First place, I don't know anything about racing, and consequently I don't believe it's a good thing for the country. All I know is, that some horses can go faster than others, but which are the fastest ones I can't tell by the looks, though I have tried several times . . . . I did not walk back. I bought a round-trip ticket. They will tell you that these events at the County Fair tend to improve the breed of horses. So they do - of fast horses. But the fast horses are no good. They can't any of them go as fast as a nickel trolley-car when it gets out where there aren't any houses. And they not only are no good; they're a positive harm. You know and I know that just as soon as a man gets cracked after fast horses, it's good-by John with him.

In the next place, I wouldn't mind it if it was only interesting to me. But it isn't. It bores me to death. You sit there and sit there trying to keep awake while the drivers jockey and jockey, scheming to get the advantage of the other fellow, and the bell rings so many times for them to come back after you think: "They're off this time, sure," that you get sick of hearing it. And when they do get away, why, who can tell which horse is in the lead? On the far side of the track they don't appear to do anything but poke along, and once in a while some fool horse will "break" and that's annoying. And then when they come into the stretch, the other folks that see you with the field-glasses, keep nudging you and asking: "Who 's ahead, mister? Hay? Who's ahead?" And it's ruinous to the voice to yell: "Go it! Go it! Go IT, ye devil, you!" with your throat all clenched that way and your face as red as a turkey-gobbler's. And that second when they are going under the wire, and the horse you rather like is about a nose behind the other one that you despise - Oh, tedious, very tedious. Ho hum, Harry! If I wasn't engaged, I wouldn't marry. Did you think to put a saucer of milk out for the kitty before you locked up the house?

No. Horse-racing bores me to death, and as I am one of the charter members of the Anti-Other-Folks-Enjoyment Society, organized to stop people from amusing themselves in ways that we don't care for, you can readily see that it is a matter of principle with me to ignore horseracing, and not to give it so much encouragement as would come from mentioning it.

If you're so interested in improving the breed of horses by competitive contests, what 's the matter with that one where the prize is $5 for the team that can haul the heaviest load on a stoneboat, straight pulling? Pile on enough stones to build a house, pretty near, and the owner of the team, a young fellow with a face like Keats, goes "Ck! Ck! Ck! Geet . . . ep . . . thah BILL! Geet ep, Doll-ay!" and cracks his whip, and kisses with his mouth, and the horses dance and tug, and jump around and strain till the stone-boat slides on the grass, and then men climb on until the load gets so heavy that the team can't budge it. Then another team tries, and so on, the competitors jawing and jowering at each other with: "Ah, that ain't fair! That ain't fair! They started it sideways."

"That don't make no difference."

"Yes, it does, too, make a difference. Straight ahead four inches. that's the rule."

"Well, didn't they go straight ahead four inches? What's a matter with ye?"

"I'll darn soon show ye what's the matter with me, you come any o' your shenanigan around here."

" Mighty ready to accuse other folks o' shenannigan, ain't ye? For half a cent I'd paste you in the moot."

"Now, boys! Now boys! None o' that."

Lots more excitement than a horse-race. Lots more improving to the mind, and beneficial to the country.

And if you hanker after the human element of skill, what's the matter with the contest where the women see who can hitch up a horse the quickest? Didn't you have your favorite picked out from the start? I did. She was about thirteen years old, dressed in an organdie, and I think she had light blue ribbons flying from her hat, light blue or pink, I forget which. Her pa helped her unharness, and you could tell by the way he look-at her that he thought she was about the smartest young one for her age in her neighborhood. (You ought to hear her play "General Grant's Grand March" on the organ he bought for her, a fine organ with twenty-four stops and two full sets of reeds, and a mirror in the top, and places to set bouquets and all.) There was a woman in the contest that seemed, by her actions, to think that the others were just wasting their time competing with her, but when they got the word "Go!" (Old Nate Wells was the judge; he sold out the livery-stable business to Charley, you recollect) her horse backed in wrong, and she got the harness all twisty-ways, and everything went bewitched. And wasn't she provoked, though? Served her right, I say. A little woman beside her was the first to jump into her buggy, and drive off with a strong inhalation of breath, and that nipping together of the lips that says: "A-a-ah! I tell ye!" The little girl that we picked out was hopping around like a scared cockroach, and her pa seemed to be saying: "Now, keep cool! Keep cool! Don't get flustered," but when another woman drove off, I know she almost cried, she felt so bad. But she was third, and when she and her pa drove around the ring, the people clapped her lots more than the other two. I guess they must have picked her for a favorite the same as you and I did. Bless her heart! I hope she got a good man when she grew up.

Around back of the Old Settlers' Cabin, where they have the relics, the spinning-wheel, the flax-hackle, and the bunch of dusty tow that nobody knows how to spin in these degenerate days; the old flint-lock rifle, and the powder-horn; the tinder-box, and the blue plate, "more'n a hundred years old;" the dog-irons, tongs, poker, and turkey-wing of an ancient fireplace - around back of the Old Settlers' Cabin all the early part of the day a bunch of dirty canvas has been dangling from a rope stretched between two trees. It was fenced off from the curious, but after dinner a stranger in fringy trousers and a black singlet went around picking out big, strong, adventurous young fellows to stand about the wooden ring fastened to the bottom of the bunch of canvas, which went over the smoke-pipe of a sort of underground furnace in which a roaring fire had been built. As the hot air filled the great bag, it was the task of these helpers to shake out the wrinkles and to hold it down. Older and wiser ones forbade their young ones to go near it. Supposing it should explode; what then? But we have always wanted to fly away up into the air, and what did we come to the Fair for, if not for excitement? The balloon swells out amazingly fast, and when the guy-ropes are loosened and drop to the ground, the elephantine bag clumsily lunges this way and that, causing shrill squeals from those who fear to be whelmed in it. The man in the singlet tosses kerosene into the furnace from a tin cup, and you can see the tall flames leap upward from the flue into the balloon. It grows tight as a drum.

"Watch your horses!" he calls out. There is a pause . . . . "Let go all!" The mighty shape shoots up twenty feet or so, and the man in the singlet darts to the corner to cut a lone detaining rope. As he runs he sheds his fringy trousers.

"Sst! Come here once. Tell you sumpum. Now don't you go and blab it out, now will you? Hope to die? Well . . . . Now, no kiddin'. Cross your heart? Well . . . . Ah, you will, too. I know you. You go and tattle everything you hear . . . . Well. . . . Cheese it! Here comes somebody. Make out we're talkin' about sumpum else. Ah, he did, did he? What for, I wonder? (Say sumpum, can't ye?) Why 'nu' ye say sumpum when he was goin' by? Now he'll suspicion sumpum 's up, and nose around till he . . . . Aw, they ain't no use tellin' you anything . . . . Well. Put your head over so 's I can whisper. Sure I am. . . . Well, I could learn, couldn't I? Now don't you tell a living soul, will you? If anybody asts you, you tell 'em you don't know anything at all about it. Say, why 'n't you come along? I promised you the last time. That's jist your mother callin' you. Let on you don't hear her. Aw, stay. Aw, you don't either have to go. Say. Less you and me get up early, and go see the circus come in town, will you? I will, if you will. All right. Remember now. Don't you tell anybody what I told you. You know."

If a fellow just only could run off with a circus! Wouldn't it be great? No more splitting kindling and carrying in coal; no more: "Hurry up, now, or you'll be late for school;" no more poking along in a humdrum existence, never going any place or seeing anything, but the glad, free, untrammeled life, the life of a circus-boy, standing up on top of somebody's head (you could pretend he was your daddy. Who'd ever know the difference?) and your leg stuck up like five minutes to six, and him standing on top of a horse - and the horse going around the ring, and the ring master cracking his whip - aw, say! How about it?

Maybe the show-people would take you even if you didn't have two joints to common folks' one, and hadn't had early advantages in the way of plenty of snakes to try the grease out of. And then . . . and then. . . . Travel all around, and be in a new town every day! And see things! The water-works, and Main Street, and the Soldiers' Monument, and the Second Presbyterian Church. All the sights there are to see in strange places. And then when the show came back to your own home-town next year, people would wonder whose was that slim and gracile figure in the green silk tights and spangled breech-clout that capered so nimbly on the bounding courser's back, that switched the natty switch and shrilly called out: "Hep! Hep!" They'd screw up their eyes to look hard, and they'd say: "Yes, sir. It is. It's him. It's Willie Bigelow. Well, of all things!" And they'd clap their hands, and be so proud of you. And they'd wonder how it was that they could have been so blind to your many merits when they had you with them. They'd feel sorry that they ever said you were a "regular little imp," if ever there was one, and that you had the Old Boy in you as big as a horse. They'd feel ashamed of themselves, so they would. And they'd come and apologize to you for the way they had acted, and you'd say: "Oh, that's all right. Forgive and forget." And they'd miss you at home, too. Your daddy would wish he hadn't whaled you the way he did, just for nothing at all. And your mother, too, she'd be sorry for the way she acted to you, tormenting the life and soul out of you, sending you on errands just when you got a man in the king row, and making you wash your feet in a bucket before you went to bed, instead of being satisfied to let you pump on them, as any reasonable mother would. She'll think about that when you're gone. It'll be lonesome then, with nobody to bang the doors, and upset the cream-pitcher on the clean table-cloth, and fall over backward in the rocking-chair and break a rocker off. Your daddy will sigh and say:

"I wonder where Willie is to-night. Poor boy, I sometimes fear I was too harsh with him." And your mother will try to keep back her tears, but she can't, and first thing she knows she'll burst out crying, and . . . and . . . and old Maje will go around the house looking for you, and whining because he can't find his little playmate . . . . It will seem as if you were dead - dead to them, and . . . . Smf! Smf!

(Confound that orchestra leader anyhow! How many times have I got to tell him that this is the music-cue for "Where is My Wandering Boy To-night?")

We were all going to get up early enough to see the show come in at the depot. Very few of us did it. Somehow we couldn't seem to wake up. Here and there a hardy spirit compasses the feat.

All the town is asleep when this boy slips out of his front-gate and snicks the latch behind him softly. It is very still, so still that though he is more than a mile away from the railroad he can hear Johnny Mara, the night yardmaster, bawl out: "Run them three empties over on Number Four track!" the short exhaust of the obedient pony-engine, and the succeeding crash of the cars as they bump against their fellows. It is very still, scarey still. The gas-lamp flaring and flickering among the green maples at the corner has a strange look to him. His footfalls on the sidewalk sound so loud he takes the soft middle of the dusty road. He hears some one pursuing him and his bosom contracts with fear, as he stands to see who it is. Although he hardly knows the boy bound on the same errand as his, he takes him to his heart, as a chosen friend. They are kin.

On the freight-house platform they find other boys. Some of them have waited up all night so as not to miss it. They are from across the tracks. They have all the fun, those fellows do. They can swear and chew tobacco, and play hookey from school and have a good time. They get to go barefoot before anybody else, and nobody tells them it will thin their blood to go in swimming so much. Yes, and they can fight, too. They'd sooner fight than eat. Our boys, conscious of inferiority, keep to themselves. The boys from across the tracks show off all the bad words they can think of. One of them has a mouth-harp which he plays upon, now and then opening his hands hollowed around the instrument. Patsy Gubbins dances to the music, which is a thing even more reckless and daredevil than swearing. Patsy's going with a "troupe" some day. Or else, he's going to get a job firing on an engine. He isn't right sure which he wants to do the most.

Now and then a brakeman goes by swinging his lantern. The boys would like to ask him what time it is, but for one thing they're too bashful. Being a brakeman is almost as good as going with a "troupe" or a circus. You get to go to places that way, too, Marysville, and Mechanicsburg, and Harrod's - that is, if you're on the local freight, and then you lay over in Cincinnati. Some ways it's better than firing, and some ways it isn't so good. And then there is another reason why they don't ask the brakeman what time it is. He'd say it was "forty-five" or maybe "fifty-three," and never tell what hour.

"Say! Do you know it's cold? You wouldn't think it would be so cold in the summer-time."

The maple-trees, from being formless blobs, insensibly begin to look like lace-work. Presently the heavens and the earth are bathed in liquid blue that casts a spell so potent on the soul of him that sees it that he yearns for something he knows not what, except that it is utterly beyond him, as far beyond him as what he means to be will be from what he shall attain to. One dreams of romance and renown, of all that should be and is not. And as he dreams the birds awaken. In the East there comes a greenish tinge. Far up the track, there is a sullen roar, and then the hoarse diapason of an engine whistle. The roar strengthens and strengthens. It is the circus train.

Under the witchcraft of the dreaming blue, each boy had a firm and stubborn purpose. Over and over again he rehearsed how he would go up to the man that runs the show, and say: "Please, mister, can I go with you?" And the man would say, "Yes." (As easy as that.) But the purpose wavered as he saw the roustabouts come tumbling out, all frowsy and unwashed, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, cross and savage. And the man whose word they jump to obey, he's kind of discouraging. it's all business with him. The fellows may plead with their eyes; he never sees them. If he does, he tells them where to get to out of that and how quick he wants it done, in language that makes the boldest efforts of the boys from across the tracks seem puny in comparison. The lads divide into two parties. One follows the buggy of the boss canvasman to Vandeman's lots where the stand is made. They will witness the spectacle of the raising of the tents, but they will also be near the man that runs the show, and if all goes well it may be he will like your looks and saunter up to you and say: "Well, bub, and how would you like to travel with us?" You don't know. Things not half so strange as that have happened. And if you were right there at the time . . . .

The other party lingers awhile looking up wistfully at the unresponsive windows of the sleeping-cars, behind which are the happy circus-actors. Perhaps the show-boy that stands up on top of his daddy's head will look out. If he should raise the window and smile at you, and get to talking with you maybe he would introduce you to his pa, and tell him that you would like to go with the show, and his pa would be a nice sort of a man, and he'd say: "Why, yes. I guess we can fix that all right." And there you'd be.

Or if it didn't come out like that, why, maybe the boy would be another "Little Arthur, the Boy Circus-rider," like it told about in he Ladies' Repository. It seems there was a man, and one day he went by where there was a circus, and in a quiet secluded, vine-clad nook only a few steps from the main tent, he heard somebody sigh, oh, so sadly and so pitifully! Come to find out, it was Little Arthur, the Boy Circus-rider. He had large sensitive violet eyes, and a wealth of clustering ringlets, and he was very, very unhappy. So the man took from his pocket a Bible that he happened to have with him, and he read from it to Little Arthur, which cheered him up right away, because up to that moment he had only heard of the Bible. (Think of that!) And that night at the show, what do you s'pose? Little Arthur fell off the horse and hurt himself. And this man was at the show and he went back in the dressing-room, and held Little Arthur's hand. And the clown was crying, and the actors were crying, for they all loved Little Arthur in their rude, untutored way. And Little Arthur opened his large sensitive violet eyes, and saw the man, and said off the text that the man taught him that afternoon.

And then he died. It was a sad story, but it made you wish it had been you that happened to have a Bible in your pocket as you passed the secluded, vine-clad nook only a few paces from the main tent, and had heard Little Arthur sigh so pitifully. It was those sensitive eyes we looked for in the sleeping-car windows, and all in vain. I think I saw the wealth of clustering ringlets, or at least the makings of it. I am almost positive I saw curl-papers as the curtain was drawn aside a moment.

But whether a boy stands gazing at the sleepers, or runs over to the lots, there is something pathetic about it, something almost terrible. It is the death of an ideal. I can't conceive of a boy coming down to the depot to see the circus train come in another time. Hitherto, the show has been to him the ne plus ultra of romance. It comes in the night from 'way off yonder; it goes in the night to 'way off yonder. It is all splendor, all deeds of high emprise. It stands to reason then, that the closer you get to it, the closer you get to pure romance. And it isn't that way at all.

What gravels a boy the most of all is to have to do the same old thing over and over again, day after day, week in, week out. Once he has seen the circus come in, he cannot blind himself to the fact that everything is marked and numbered; that all is system, and that everything is done today exactly as it was done yesterday, and as it will be done tomorrow.

"What town is this?" he hears a man inquire of another.

"Blest if I know. What's the odds what town it is?"

Didn't know what town it was! Didn't care!

The keen morning air, or something, makes a fellow mighty unromantic, too. Perhaps it was the thin blue wood-smoke from the field-stoves, and the smell of the hot coffee and the victuals the waiters are carrying about, some to the tent where the bare tables are for the canvasmen, some to the table covered with a red and white table-cloth as befits performers. These have no rosy cheeks. Their lithe limbs are not richly decked with silken tights. Insensibly the upper lip curls. They're not so much. They're only folks. That's all, just folks.

But when ideals die, great truths are born. To such a boy at such a moment there comes the firm conviction which increasing years can only emphasize: Home is but a poor prosaic place, but Home - Ah, my brother, think on this - Home is where Breakfast is.

"Hay! Wait for me, you fellows! Hay! Hold on a minute. Well, ain't I a-comin' jis''s fast's ever I kin? What's your rush?"

It is the exceptional boy has this experience. The normal one preserves the delicate bloom of romance, by never seeing the show until it makes its Grand Triumphal Entree in a Pageant of Unparalleled Magnificence far Surpassing the Pomp and Splendor of Oriental Potentates.

The hitching-posts are full of whinnering country horses, and people are in town you wouldn't think existed if you hadn't seen their pictures in Puck and Yudge, people from over by Muchinippi, and out Noodletoozy way, big, red-necked men with the long loping step that comes from walking on the plowed ground. Following them are lanky women with their front teeth gone, and their figures bowed by drudgery, dragging wide-eyed children whose uncouth finery betrays the "country jake," even if the freckles and the sun-bleached hair could keep the secret. From the far-off fastnesses, where there are still log-cabins chinked with mud, they have ventured to see the show come into town, and when they have seen that, they will retire again beyond our ken. How every sense is numbed and stunned by the magnificence and splendor of the painted and gilded wagons as they rumble past, the driver rolling and pitching in his seat, as he handles the ribbons of eight horses all at once! The farmer's heart is filled with admiration of his craft, as much as the children's hearts are at the gaudy pictures.

The allegorical tableau-car solemnly waggles past, Europe, and Asia, and Africa, and Australia brilliant in grease-paint and gorgeous cheesecloth robes. And can you guess who the fat lady is up on the very tip-top of all, on the tip-top where the wobble is the worst? Our own Columbia! It must be fine to ride around that way all dressed up in a flag. But a sourer lot of faces you never saw in your life. No. I am wrong. For downright melancholy and despondency you must wait till the funny old clown comes along in his little bit of a buggy drawn by a little bit of a donkey.

"And, oh, looky! Here comes the elephants, just the same as in the joggerfy books. And see the men walking beside them. They come from the place the elephants do. See, they have on the clothes they wear in that country. Don't they look proud? Who wouldn't be proud to get to walk with an elephant? And if you ever do anything to an elephant to make him mad, he'll always remember it, and some day he'll get even with you. One time there was a man, and he gave an elephant a chew of tobacco, and - O-o-ooh! See that man in the cage with the lions! Don't it just make the cold chills run over you? I wouldn't be there for a million dollars, would you, ma?

"What they laughing at down the street? Ma, make Lizzie get down; she's right in my way. I don't want to see it pretty soon. I want to see it naow! Oh, ain't it funny? See the old clowns playing on horns! Ain't it too killing? Aw, look at them ponies. I woosht I had one. Johnny Pym has got a goat he can hitch up. What was that, pa? What was that went 'OoOOoohm!'"

"Whoa, Nell, whoa there! Steady, gal, steaday! Ho, there! Ho! Whoa -whoa-hup! Whad dy y' about? Fool horse. Whoa . . . whoa so, gal, soo-o. Lion, I guess, or a tagger, or sumpum or other."

And talk about music. You thought the band was grand. You just wait. Don't you hear it down the street? It'll be along in a minute now.

There it is. That's the cally-ope. That's what the show bills call: "The Steam Car of the Muses." . . . Mm-well, I don't know but it is just a leetle off the pitch, especially towards the end of a note, but you must remember that you can't haul a very big boiler on a wagon, and the whistles let out an awful lot of steam. It's pretty hard to keep the pressure even. But it's loud. That's the main thing. And the man that plays on it - no, not that fellow in the overalls with a wad of greasy waste in his hand. He 's only the engineer. I mean the artist, the man that plays on the keys. Well, he knows what the people want. He has his fingers on the public pulse. Does he give them a Bach fugue, or Guillmant's "Grand Choeur?" 'Deed, he doesn't. He goes right to the heart, with "Patrick's Day in the Morning," and "The Carnival of Venice," and "Home, Sweet Home," and "Oh, Where, Oh Where has my Little Dog Gone?" He knows his business. A shade off the key, perhaps, but my! Ain't it grand? So loud and nice!

"Well, that's all of it . . . . Why, child, I can't make it any longer than it is.

What do you want me to drive round into the other street for? You've seen all there is to see. Got all your trading done, mother? Well, then I expect we'd better put for home. Now, Eddy, I told you 'No' once, and that's the end of it. Hush up now! Look here, sir! Do you want me to take and 'tend to you right before everybody? Well, I will now, if I hear another whimper out o' ye. Ck-ck-ck! Git ep there, Nelly."

Some day, when we get big, and have whole, whole lots of money we're going to the circus every time it comes to town, to the real circus, the one you have to pay to get into. For if merely the street parade is so magnificent, what must the show itself be?

How people can sit at the table on circus day and stuff, and stuff the way they do is more than I can understand. You'd think they hadn't any more chances to eat than they had to go to the show. And they can find more things to do before they get started! And then, after the house is all locked up and everything, they've got to go back after a handkerchief! What does anybody want with a handkerchief at a circus?

It's exasperating enough to have to choose between going in the afternoon and not going at all. Why, sure, it's finer at night. Lots finer. You know that kind of a light the peanut-roaster man has got down by the post-office. Burns that kind of stuff they use to take out grease-spots. Ye-ah. Gasoline. Well, at the circus at night, they don't have just one light like that, but bunches and bunches of them on the tentpoles. No, silly! Of course not. Of course they don't set the tent afire. But say! What if they did, eh? The place would be all full of people, laughing at the country jake that comes out to ride the trick-mule, and you'd happen to look up and see where the canvas was ju-u-ust beginning to blaze, and you'd jump up and holler: "Fire! Fire!" as loud as ever you could because you saw it first, and you'd point to the place. Excitement? Well, I guess yes. The people would all run every which way, and fall all over themselves, and the women would squeal - And do you know what I'd do? Wouldn't just let myself down between the kind of bedslat benches, and drop to the ground, and lift up the canvas and there I'd be all safe. And after I was all safe, then I'd go back and rescue folks.

We-ell, I s'pose I'd have to rescue a girl. It seems they always do that. But it would be nicer, I think, to rescue some real rich man. He'd say: "My noble preserver! How can I sufficiently reward you?" and take out his pocketbook. And wouldn't say: "Take back your proffered gold," and make like I was pushing it away, "take back your proffered gold. I but did my duty." And then wouldn't forget all about it. And one day, after I'd forgotten all about, it, the man would die, and will me a million dollars, or a thousand, I don't know. Enough to make me rich.

And say! Wouldn't the animals get excited when they saw the show was afire? They'd just roar and roar, and upset the cages, and maybe they'd get loose. O-o-o-Oh! How about that? If there was a lion come at me I'd climb a tree. What would you do? Ah, your pa's shot-gun nothing! Why, you crazy, that would only infuriate him the more. What you want to do is to take an express rifle, like Doo Challoo did, and aim right for his heart. An express rifle is what you send off and get, and they ship it to you by express.

So you see what a fellow misses by having to go to the show in the afternoon, like the girls and the a-b-abs. The boys from across the tracks get to go at night. They have all the fun. When they go they don't have to poke along, and poke along, and keep hold of hands so as not to get lost. . . . Aw, hurry up, can't you? Don't you hear the band playing? It'll be all over before we get there.

But finally the lots are reached, and there are the tents, with all kinds of flags snapping from the centerpoles and the guy-ropes. And there are the sideshows. Alas! You never thought of the sideshows when you asked if you could go. And now it's too late. It must be fine in the side-shows. I never got to go to one. I didn't have the money. But if the big, painted banners, bulging in and out, as the wind plays with them, are anything to go by, it must be something grand to see the Fat Lady, and the Circassian Beauty, whose frizzled head will just about fit a bushel basket, and the Armless Wonder. They say he can take a pair of scissors with his toes and cut your picture out of paper just elegant.

Oh, and something else you miss by going in the afternoon. At night you can sneak around at the back, and when nobody is looking you can just lift up the canvas and go right in for nothing . . . . Why, what's wrong about that? Ah, you're too particular . . . . And if the canvasman catches you, you can commence to cry and say you had only forty cents, and wanted to see the circus so bad, and he'll take it and let you in, and you can have ten cents, don't you see, to spend for lemonade, red lemonade, you understand; and peanuts, the littlest bags, and the "on-riest" peanuts that ever were.

As far as I can see, the animal part of the show is just the same as it always was. The people that take you to the show always pretend to be interested in them, but it's my belief they stop and look only to tease you. Away, 'way back in ancient times, there used to be a man that took the folks around and told them what was in each cage, and where it came from, and how much it cost, and what useful purpose it served in the wise economy of nature, and all about it. That was before my time. But I can recollect something they had that they don't have any more. I can remember when Mr. Barnum first brought his show to our town. It didn't take much teasing to get to go to that, because in those days Mr. Barnum was a "biger man than old Grant." "The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself" was on everybody's marble-topped centertable, just the same as "The History of the Great Rebellion." You show some elderly person from out of town the church across the street from the Astor House, and say: "That's St. Paul's Chapel. General Montgomery's monument is in the chancel window. George Washington went to meeting there the day he was inaugurated president," and your friend will say: "M-hm." But you tell him that right across Broadway is where Barnum's Museum used to be, and he'll brighten right up and remember all about how Barnum strung a flag across to St. Paul's steeple and what a fuss the vestry of Trinity Parish made. That's something he knows about. that's part of the history of our country.

Well, when Mr. Barnum first came to our town, all around one tent were vans full of the very identical Moral Waxworks that we had read about, and had given up all hopes of ever seeing because New York was so far away. There was the Dying Zouave. Oh, that was a beauty! The Advance Courier said that "the crimson torrent of his heart's blood spouted in rhythmic jets as the tide of life ebbed silently away;" but I guess by the time they got to our town they must have run all out of pokeberry juice, for the "crimson torrent" didn't spout at all. But his bosom heaved every so often, and he rolled up his eyes something grand! I liked it, but my mother said it was horrid. That's the way with women. They don't like anything that anybody else does. There's no pleasing 'em. And she thought the Drunkard's Family was "kind o' low." It wasn't either. It was fine, and taught a great moral lesson. I told her so, but she said it was low, just the same. She thought the Temperance Family was nice, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as the Drunkard's Family. Why, let me tell you. The Drunkard's Wife was in a ragged calico dress, and her eye was all black and blue, where he had hit her the week before. And the Drunkard had hold of a black quart bottle, and his nose was all red, and he wore a plug hat that was even rustier and more caved in than Elder Drown's, if such a thing were possible. And there was - But I can't begin to tell you of all the fine things Mr. Barnum had that year, but never had again.

Another thing Mr. Barnum had that year that never appeared again. It may be that after that time the Funny Old Clown did crack a joke, but I never heard him. The one that Mr. Barnum had got off the most comical thing you ever heard. I'll never forget it the longest day I live. Laugh? Why, I nearly took a conniption over it. It seems the clown got to crying about something . . . . Now what was it made him cry? Let me see now . . . . Ain't it queer I can't remember that? Fudge! Well, never mind now. It will come to me in a minute.

I feel kind of sorry for the poor little young ones that grow up and never know what a clown is like. Oh, yes, they have them to-day, after a fashion. They stub their toes and fall down the same as ever, but there is a whole mob of them and you can't take the interest in them that you could in "the one, the only, the inimitable" clown there used to be, a character of such importance that he got his name on the bills. He was a mighty man in those days. The ring-master was a kind of stuck-up fellow, very important in his own estimation, but he didn't have a spark of humor. Not a spark. And he'd be swelling around there, all so grand, and the clown, just to take him down a peg or two, would ask him a conundrum. And do you think he could ever guess one? Never. Not a one. And when the clown would tell him what the answer was, he'd be so vexed at himself that he'd try to take it out on the poor clown, and cut at him with his long whip. But Mr. Clown was just as spry in his shoes as he was under the hat, and he'd hop up on the ring-side out of the way, and squall out: "A-a-aah! Never touched me!" We had that for a byword. Oh, you'd die laughing at the comical remarks he'd make. And he'd be so quick about it. The ring-master would say something, and before you'd think, the clown would make a joke out of it . . . . I wish I could remember what it was he said that was so funny, the time he started crying. Seems to me it was something about his little brother . . . . Well, no matter.

Yes, sir, there are heads of families to-day, I'll bet you, that have grown up without ever having heard a clown sing a comic song, and ask the audience to join in the chorus. And if you say to such people: "Here we are again, Mr. Merryman," or "Bring on another horse," or "What will the little lady have now? the banners, my lord?" they look at you so funny. They don't know what you mean, and they don't know whether to get huffy or not. Well, I suppose it had to be that the Funny Old Clown with all his songs, and quips, and conundrums, and comical remarks should disappear. Perhaps he "didn't pay."

I can't see that the rest of the show has changed so very much. Perhaps the trapeze performances are more marvelous and breath-suspending than they used to be. But they were far and far beyond what we could dream of then, and to go still farther as little impresses us as to be told that people live still even westerly of Idaho. The trapeze performers are up-to-date in one respect. The fellow that comes down with his arms folded, one leg stuck out and the other twined around the big rope, revolving slowly, slowly - well, the band plays the Intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" nowadays when he does that. It used to play: "O Thou, Sweet Spirit, Hear my Prayer!" But the lady in the riding-habit still smiles as if it hurt her when her horse walks on its hind legs; the bareback rider does the very same fancy steps as the horse goes round the ring in a rocking-chair lope; the attendants still slant the hurdles almost flat for the horse to jump; they still snake the banners under the rider's feet as he gives a little hop up, and they still bang him on the head with the paper-covered hoop to . . . . Hold on a minute. Now.

Now . . . That story the clown told that was so funny, that had something to do with those hoops. I wish I could think of it. It would make you laugh, I know.

People try to lay the blame of the modern circus's failure to interest them on the three rings. They say so many things to watch at once keeps them from being watching properly any one act. They can't give it the attention it deserves. But I'll tell you what's wrong: There isn't any Funny Old Clown, a particular one, to give it human interest. It is all too splendid, too magnificent, too far beyond us. We want to hear somebody talk once in awhile.

They pretended that the tent was too big for the clown to be heard, but I take notice it wasn't too big for the fellow to get up and declaim "The puffawmance ees not yait hawf ovah. The jaintlemanly agents will now pawss around the ring with tickets faw the concert." I used to hate that man. When he said the performance was not yet half over, he lied like a dog, consarn his picture! There were only a few more acts to come. He knew it and we knew it. We wanted the show to go on and on, and always to be just as exciting as at the very first, and it wouldn't! We had got to the point where we couldn't be interested in anything any more. We were as little ones unable to prop their eyelids open and yet quarreling with bed. We were surfeited, but not satisfied. We sat there and pouted because there wasn't any more, and yet we couldn't but yawn at the act before us. We were mad at ourselves, and mad at everybody else. We clambered down the rattling bedslats seats, sour and sullen. We didn't want to look at the animals; we didn't want to do this, and we didn't want to do that. We whined and snarled, and wriggled and shook ourselves with temper, and we got a good hard slap, side of the head, right before everybody, and then we yelled as if we were being killed alive.

"Now, mister, if I ever take you any place again, you'll know it. I'd be ashamed of myself if I was you. Hush up! Hush up, I tell you. Now you mark. You're never going to the show again. Do you hear me? Never! I mean it. You're never going again."

But at eventide there was light. After supper, after a little rest and a good deal of food, while chopping the kindling for morning (it's wonderful how useful employ tends to induce a cheerful view of life) out of her dazzling treasure-heap of jewels, Memory took up, one after another, a glowing recollection and viewed it with delight. The evening performance, the one all lighted up with bunches and bunches of lights, was a-preparing, and in the gentle breeze the far-off music waved as it had been a flag. A harsh and rumbling noise as of heavy timbers falling tore through the tissue of sweet sounds. The horses in the barn next door screamed in their stalls to hear it. Ages and ages ago, on distant wind-swept plains their ancestors had hearkened to that hunting-cry, and summoned up their valor and their speed. It still thrilled in the blood of these patient slaves of man, though countless generations of them had never even so much as seen a lion.

"And is that all the difference, pa, that the lion roars at night and the ostrich in the daytime?"

Out on the back porch in the deepening dusk we sat, with eyes relaxed and dreaming, and watched the stars that powdered the dark sky. Before our inward vision passed in review the day of splendor and renown. We sighed, at last, but it was the happy sigh of him who has full dined. Ambition was digesting. In our turn, when we grew up, we, too, were to do the deeds of high emprise. We were to be somebody.

(I never heard of anybody sitting up to see the show depart. And yet it seems to me that would be the best time to run off with it.)

The next day we visited the lots. It was no dream. See the litter that mussed up the place.

We were all there. None had heard the man that runs the show say genially: "Yes, I think we can arrange to take you with us." Here was the ring; here the tent-pole holes, and here a scrap of paper torn from a hoop the bareback rider leaped through . . . . Oh, now I know what I was going to tell you that the clown said. The comicalest thing!

He picked up one of these hoops and began to sniffle.

So the ring-master asked him what he was crying about.

"I - I -was thinking of my mother. Smf! My good old mother!"

So the ring-master asked him what made him think of his mother.

"This." And he held up the paper-covered hoop.

The ring-master couldn't see how that put the clown in mind of his mother. He was awful dumb, that man.

"It looks just like the pancakes she used to make for us."

Well, sir, we just hollered and laughed at that. And after we had quieted down a little, the ringmaster says: "As big as that?"

"Bigger," says the clown. "Why, she used to make 'em so big we used 'em for bedclothes."

"Indeed" (Just like that. He took it all in, just as if it was so.)

"Oh, my, yes! I mind one time I was sleeping with my little brother, and I waked up just as cold - Brr! But I was cold!"

"But how could that be, sir? You just now said you had pancakes for bedclothes."

"Yes, but my little brother got hungry in the night, and et up all the cover."

Laugh? Why, they screamed. Me? I thought I'd just about go up. But the ring master never cracked a smile. He didn't see the joke at all.

Good-by, old clown, friend of our childhood, goodby, good-by forever! And you, our other friend, the street parade, must you go, too? And you, the gorgeous show-bills, must you tread the path toward the sundown? Good-by! Good-by! In that dreary land where you are going, the Kingdom of the Ausgespielt, it may comfort you to recollect the young hearts you have made happy in the days that were, but never more can be again.

THE COUNTY FAIR

Whether or not the name had an influence on the weather, I don't know. Perhaps it did rain some years, but, as I remember, County Fair time seems to have had a sky perfectly cloudless, with its blue only a little dulled around the edges where it came close to the ground and the dust settled on it. Things far off were sort of hazy, but that might have been the result of the bonfires of leaves we had been having evenings after supper. In Fair weather, when the sun had been up long enough to get a really good start, it was right warm, but in the shade it was cool, and nights and mornings there was a chill in the air that threatened worse things to come.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended. Down cellar the swing-shelf is cram-jam full of jellyglasses, and jars of fruit. Out on the hen-house roof are drying what, when the soap-box wagon was first built, promised barrels and barrels of nuts to be brought up with the pitcher of cider for our comforting in the long winter evenings, but what turns out, when the shucks are off, to be a poor, pitiful half-peck, daily depleted by the urgent necessity of finding out if they are dry enough yet. Folks are picking apples, and Koontz's cider-mill is in full operation. (Do you know any place where a fellow can get some nice long straws?) Out in the fields are champagne-colored pyramids, each with a pale-gold heap of corn beside it, and the good black earth is dotted with orange blobs that promise pumpkin-pies for Thanksgiving Day. No. Let me look again. Those aren't pie-pumpkins; those are cow-pumpkins, and if you want to see something kind of pitiful, I'll show you Abe Bethard chopping up one of those yellow globes -with what, do you suppose? With the cavalry saber his daddy used at Gettysburg.

The harvest is past, the summer is ended. As a result of all the good feeding and the outdoor air we have had for three or four months past, the strawberry shortcakes, and cherry-pies, and green peas, and new potatoes, and string beans, and roasting-ears, and all such garden-stuff, and the fresh eggs, broken into the skillet before Speckle gets done cackling, and the cockerels we pick off the roost Saturday evenings (you see, we're thinning 'em out; no sense in keeping all of 'em over winter) - as a result, I say, of all this good eating, and the outdoor life, and the necessity of stirring around a little lively these days we feel pretty good. And yet we get kind of low in our minds, too. The harvest is past, the summer is ended. It's gone, the good playtime when we didn't have to go to school, when the only foot-covering we wore was a rag around one big toe or the other; the days when we could stay in swimming all day long except mealtimes; the days of Sabbath-school picnics and excursions to the Soldiers' Home - it's gone. The harvest is past, the summer is ended. The green and leafy things have heard the word, and most of them are taking it pretty seriously, judging by their looks. But the maples and some more of them, particularly the maples, with daredevil recklessness, have resolved, as it were, to die with their boots on, and flame out in such violent and unbelievable colors that we feel obliged to take testimony in certain outrageous cases, and file away the exhibits in the Family Bible where nobody will bother them. The harvest is past, the summer is ended. Rainy days you can see how played-out and forlorn the whole world looks. But at Fair time, when the sun shines bright, it appears right cheerful.

It seems to me the Fair lasted three days. One of them was a holiday from school, I know, and unless I'm wrong, it wasn't on the first day, because then they were getting the things in, and it wasn't on the last day, because then they were taking the things out, so it must have been on the middle day, when everybody went. Charley Wells had both the depot 'buses out with "County FAIR" painted on muslin hung on the sides. The Cornet Band rode all round town in one, and so on over to the "scene of the festivities" as the Weekly Examiner very aptly put it, and then both 'buses stood out in front of the American House, waiting for passengers, with Dinny Enright calling out: "This sway t' the Fair Groun's! Going RIGHT over!" Only he always waited till he got a good load before he turned a wheel. (Dinny's foreman at the chair factory now. Did you know that? Doing fine. Gets $15 a week, and hasn't drunk a drop for nearly two years.)

Everybody goes the middle day of the Fair, everybody that you ever did know or hear tell of. You'll be going along, kind of half-listening to the man selling Temperance Bitters, and denouncing the other bitters because they have "al-cue-hawl" in them, and "al-cue-hawl will make you drunk," (which is perfectly true), and kind of half-listening to the man with the electric machine, declaring: "Ground is the first conductor; water is the second conductor," and you'll be thinking how slippery the grass is to walk on, when a face in the crowd will, as it were, sting your memory. "I ought to know that man," says you to yourself. "Now, who the mischief is he? Barker? No, 't isn't Barker, Barkdull? No. Funny I can't think of his name. Begins with B I'm pretty certain." And you trail along after him, as if you were a detective, sort of keeping out of his sight, and yet every once in a while getting a good look at him. "Mmmmmm!" says you. "What is that fellow's name? Why, sure. McConica." And you walk up to him and stick out your hand while he's gassing with somebody, and there's that smile on your face that says: "I know you but you don't know me," and he takes it in a limp sort of fashion, and starts to say: "You have the advantage of - " when, all of a sudden, he grabs your hand as if he were going to jerk your arm out of its socket and beat you over the head with the bloody end, and shouts out: "Why, HELLO, Billy! Well, suffering Cyrus and all hands round! Hold still a second and let me look at you. Gosh darn your hide, where you been for so long? I though you'd clean evaporated off the face the earth. Why, how AIR you? How's everything? That's good. Let me make you acquainted with my wife. Molly, this is Mr. - " But she says: "Now don't you tell me what his name is. Let me think. Why, Willie Smith! Well, of all things! Why, how you've changed! Honest, I wouldn't have knowed you. Do you mind the time we went sleigh-ridin' the whole posse of us, and got upset down there by Hanks's place?" And then you start in on "D' you mind?" and "Don't you recollect?" and you talk about the old school-days, and who's married, and who's moved out to Kansas, and who's got the Elias Hoover place now, and how Ella Trimble - You know Ella Diefenbaugh, old Jake Diefenbaugh's daughter, the one that lisped. Course you do. Well, she married Ed Trimble, and he died along in the early part of the summer. Typhoid. Was getting well but he took a relapse, and went off like that! And now she's left with three little ones, and they guess poor Ella has a pretty hard time making out. And this old schoolmate that you start to tell a funny story about is dead, and the freckle-faced boy with the buck teeth that put the rabbit in the teacher's desk, he's dead, too, and the boy that used to cry in school when they read:

"Give me three grains of corn, mother, Only three grains o f corn; To save what little life I have, mother, Till the coming o f the morn."

well, he studied law with old judge Rodehaver, and got to be Prosecuting Attorney, but he took to drinking - politics, you know - and now he's just gone to the dogs. Smart as a steel-trap, and bright as a dollar. Oh, a terrible pity! A terrible pity. And as you hear the fate of one after another of the happy companions of your childhood, and the sadness of life comes over you, they start to tell something that makes you laugh again. I tell you. Did you ever see one of these concave glasses, such as the artists use when they want to get an idea of how a picture looks all together as a whole, and not as an assemblage of parts? Well, what the concave glass is to a picture, so such talk is to life. It sort of draws it all together, and you see it as a whole, its sunshine and its shadow, its laughter and its tears, its work and its play, its past and its present. But not its future. The Good Man has mercifully hidden that from us.

It does a body good to get such a talk once in a while.

And there are the young fellows and the girls. This young gentleman in the rimless eye-glasses, who is now beginning to "go out among 'em" the last time you saw him was in meeting when Elder Drown was preaching, and my gentleman stood up in the seat and shouted shrilly: "'T ain't at all, man. 'T ain't at all!" And this sweet girl-graduate - the last time you saw her was just after Becky Daly, in the vain effort to "peacify" the squalling young one, had given her a fresh egg to play with. I kind o' like the looks of the younger generation of girls. But I don't know about the young fellows. They look to me like a trifling lot. Nothing like what they were in our young days. I don't see but what us old codgers had better hold on a while longer to the County Clerk's office, and the Sheriff's office, and the Probate judgeship, and the presidency of the National Bank. It wouldn't be safe to trust the destinies of the country in the hands of such heedless young whiffets. Engaged to be married! Oh, get out! What? Those babies?

In the waving orange glare the crowd is seen, shifting and moving. It seems impossible for the onlookers to remain constant in one spot. The chief, Charley Lomax, is gesticulating with wide arm movements. He puts his speaking-trumpet to his mouth. "Yoffemoffemoffemoffemoffi" he says.

"Wha-at?" the men halloo back.

"Yoffemoffemoffemoffemoff."

"What'd he say?"

"Search me. John, you run over and ask him what he wants. Or, no; I'll go myself."

"Why in Sam Hill didn't you come sooner?" demands the angry chief.

"Well, why in Sam Hill don't you talk so 's a body can understand you? 'Yoffemoffemoffemoffem.' Who can make sense out o' that?"

"The hose ain't long enough to reach from here to the hydrant. You 'n' some more of 'em run down t' th' house an' git that other reel."

"Aw, say, Chief! Look here. I'm awful busy right now. Can't somebody else go?"

"You go an' do what I tell you to, and don't gimme none o' your back talk."

(Too dag-gon bossy and dictatorial, that Charley Lomax is. Getting 'most too big for his breeches. Never mind. there's going to be a fire election week from Tuesday. See whether he'll be chief next year or not. Sending a man away from the fire right at the most interesting part!)

"I'll go, Chief, wommetoo," puts in jumbo Lee, all in a huddle of words. "Ije slivsnot. Aw ri. Mon Jim. Shoonmeansmore of 'em go gitth'otherreel."

Jumbo isn't a member of the fire department, though he is wild to join. He isn't old enough. He is six feet one inch, weighs 180, and won't be sixteen till the 5th of next February. Nobody ever saw him when he wasn't eating. They say he clips his words so as to save time for eating. He takes a cracker out of his pocket, shoves it in his mouth whole, jams his hat down till his ears stick out, and, with his companions, tears down the road, seemingly propelled as much by his elbows as by his legs. Why, under the combined strain of growing and running, he doesn't part a seam somewhere is a dark mystery.

Crash! The roof of the barn caves in and reveals what we had not before suspected, that Platt's barn, on the other side of the alley, is afire too. Say! This is getting interesting. The wind is setting directly toward Swope's house. It has been so terribly dry this last month or so that the house will go like powder if it ever catches. Why, I think Swope has a well and cistern both. Used to have, anyway, before they put the water-works in, and the board of health condemned the wells. Say! There was a put-up job if there ever was one. Why, sure! Sure he had stock in the water works. Doc. Muzzey? I guess, yes . . . . Pity they ever traded off the hand-engine. They got a light-running hook-and-ladder truck. Won two prizes at the tournament, just with that truck. But if they had that hand-engine now though! "Up with her! Down with her!" Have that fire out in no time!

They're not trying to save the barns. They're a dead loss. What little water they can get from the cisterns and wells around - hasn't it been dry? - they are using to try to save Swope's house, and the one next to it. Is that where Lonny Wheeler lives? I knew it was up this way somewhere. Don't he look ridiculous, sitting up there a-straddle of his ridgepole, with a tin-cup? A tin-cup, if you please. Over this way a little. See better. They're wetting down the roof. Line of fellows passing buckets to the ladder, and a line up the ladder. What big sparks those are! Puts you in mind of Fourth of July. How the roof steams! Must be hot up there.

O-o-o-oh!

A universal indrawn breath from all spectators proclaims their horror. One of the men on the roof missed his footing and slipped, rolling over and over till he reached the roof of the porch, where he spread-eagled for a fall. The women begin to moan. Some poor fellow gone to his death. Or, if he be so lucky as to miss death itself, he is doomed to languish all his days a helpless cripple. Like enough the sole support of an aged mother; or perhaps his wife is sitting up for him at home now, tiptoeing into the bedroom every little while to look at the sleeping children. That's generally the way of it. Who is there so free and foot-loose that, if harm befall him, some woman will not go mourning all her days? It must take the heart out of brave men to think what their women folk must suffer, mothers and wives and - Who? Dan O'Brien? Oh, he'll be all right. He'll light on his feet like a cat. I believe that boy is made of India rubber. He never gets hurt. Why, one time - Ah! There he goes now up the ladder as if nothing had happened. Hooray-ayayay! Hooray-ay-ay-ay! I thought he'd broken his neck as sure as shooting.

Wandering about one cannot fail to encounter what the gallant fire-laddies have rescued from the devouring element. There is the piano with a deep scratch across the upper part, and the top lid hanging by one hinge. It caught in the door, and the boys were kind of in a hurry. There is the parlor carpet, plucked up by the roots, as it were; and two tubs, the washboard and a bag of clothes-pins; a stuffed chair, with three casters gone, the coffee-pot, a crayon enlargement, a winter overcoat, a blanket, a pile of old dresses, the screw-driver and a paper of tacks in the colander, the couch with a triangular rip in the cover, the coal-scuttle, a pile of dishes, the ax and wood-saw, a fancy pillow, the sewing-machine with the top gone, the wash-boiler, the basket of dirty clothes, with the stove-shaker and the parlor clock in together, and a heap of books, all spraddled and sprawled every which way. Upon this pitiful mound sits Mrs. Swope with her baby sound asleep upon her bosom. She mingles her tears with the sustaining tea that Mrs. Farley has made for her. Swope, still in his socks and with his wife's shoulder-cape upon him, caught up somehow, is trying to soothe her. He is as mad as a hornet, and doesn't dare to show it. All this furniture he had insured. It was all old stuff their folks had given them. If the gallant fire-laddies had been as discreet as they were zealous, they would have let the furniture go, and Swope and his wife would have had an entire, brand-new outfit. As it is, who can ever make that junk look like anything any more?

What's this coming up the road? Jumbo Lee and his friends with the other hose-reel. Now they will connect it with the hydrant, and have water a-plenty to save the house. Now the fellows are coming down from the ladder. Cistern's empty, I suppose. The other reel didn't come any too soon. How the roof steams! Or is it smoking?

"Don't stand around here with that reel! Up to that water-plug. Farther up the street. Front o' Cummins's."

Jumbo crams another cracker into his mouth and speeds away, hunching the patient, unresenting air with his elbows.

Ah! See - that little flicker of flame on the roof! Do, for pity's sake, hurry up with that connection! The roof is really burning. See? They are trying to chop away the burning place. But there's another! And another!

A-a-ah! Hooray-ay! Connection's made! Now you'll see something. Out of the way there! One side! One side! Up you go! . . . Wha-at? Is that the best they can do? Why, it won't run out of the nozzle at all when it's up on the roof. Not a drop. Feeble little dribble when it's on the ground-level. There's your water-works for you. It is a good long way from the fire-plug I know, but there ought to be more pressure than that. Oh, pshaw! If we only had the old hand-engine! "Up with her! Down with her!" Have that fire out in no time. The house will have to go now. Too bad!

Somebody in the second story is rescuing property from the devouring element. He has just tossed out a wash-bowl and pitcher. Luckily they both fell on the sod and rolled apart. He takes down the roller-shade and flings it out. The lace curtains follow. They catch on the edge of the veranda roof, and languidly wave there as for some holiday. Bed-clothes issue and pillows hurtle out. What's he doing now? No use. No use. You can't get the mattress out of that window. A waste-paper basket, a rag rug, a brush and comb - as fast as his hands can fly he's throwing out things.

The women began to whimper.

"Oh, the poor man! The roof will fall in on him! He'll smother to death! Oh, why doesn't somebody go tell him to come away? Not you! Don't you think of such a trick! Oh, why does he risk his life for a lot of trash I wouldn't have around the house?"

The smoke oozes out of the open window. It must be choking in there. For a long time no jettison of household goods appears. Perhaps the man, whoever he is, has seen his peril and fled while yet it was possible to flee. Ah, but suppose he has been overcome and lies there huddled in a heap, never to rouse again? Is there none to save him? Is there none? Ah! A couple of collars and a magazine flutter out into the light! He is still there. He is still alive. Plague take the idiot! Why doesn't he come down out of that?

"Yoffemoffemoffemoffemoff. Yoffemoff!"

But no! He will do it himself. The Chief rushes gallantly into the burning building and disappears up the dark stair.

Desperate measures are now to be resorted to. On the lawn a line of men forms. They bend their necks, cowering before the fierce glow, but daring it, and prepared to face it at even closer range. You are to witness now an exhibition of that heroism which is commoner with us than we think, that spirit of do and dare which mocks at danger and even welcomes pain. It is a far finer sentiment than the cold-hearted calculation which looks ahead, and figures out first whether it is worth while or not.

The men dash forward in the withering heat. With frantic haste they fix the hook into the lattice-work beneath the porch and scamper back.

"Yo hee! Yo hee!"

The thick rope tautens as the firemen lay their weight to it. You can almost see the bristling fibers stand up on it.

"Yo hee! Yo hee!"

With a splintering crash the timber parts, and a piece of lattice-work is dragged away.

Another sortie and another. Bit by bit the porch is ripped and torn to rubbish. You smile. It seems so futile. What are these kindlings saved when the whole house is burning? Is this what you call heroism? Yet the charge at Balaklava was not more futile. It had even less of commonsense, less of hope of benefit to mankind to back it and inspire it. Heroism is an instinct, not a thoughtout policy. Its quality is the same, in two-ounce samples or in car-load lots.

The weather-boarding slips down in a sparkling fall. The joists and stringers, all outlined and gemmed with coals, are, as it were, a golden grille, through which the world may look unhindered in upon the holy place of home, heretofore conventually private. There stands the family altar, pitifully grotesque amid the ruinous splendor of the destroying fire, the tea-kettle upon it proudly flaunting its steamy plume. What? Is a common cooking-stove an altar? Yes, verily, in lineal descent. Examine an ancient altar and you will see its sacrificial stone scored and guttered to catch the dripping from the roasting meat. Who is the priestess, after an order older than Melchisedec's, but she that ministers to us that most comfortable sacrament, wherein we are made partakers not alone of the outward and visible food which we do carnally press with our teeth, but also of that inward and spiritual sustenance, the patient and enduring love of wife and mother, without which there can be no such thing as home? All other sacraments wherein men break the bread of amity together are but copies of this pattern, the Blessed Sacrament of the Household Altar, the first and primal one of all, the one that shall perdure, please God! throughout all ages of ages.

The flames die down. The timbers sink together with a softer fall. The air grows chill. We fetch a sigh. We cannot bear to look at that mute figure of the priestess seated on the sordid heap of broken furniture, her sleeping baby pressed against her breast, her gaze fixed - but seeing naught - upon her ruined temple. We do not like to think upon such things. We do not like to think at all. Is there nothing more to laugh at?

The firemen, having all borrowed the makings of a cigarette from each other, put on their hats and coats, left on the hook-and-ladder truck in the custody of a trusted member. The apparatus trundles off, the bells dolorously tolling as the striking gear on the rear axle engages the cam.

Who is this weeping man approaches, supported by two friends, that comfort him with: "All right, Tom. You done noble," uttered in pacifying if not convincing tones? Heart-brokenly he cries: "I dull le ver' bes' I knowed, now di' n't I? Charley? Billy, I dub bes' I knowed how. An' nen he says to me - Oo-hoo-hoo-oooo-oo! He says to me: 'Come ou' that, ye cussed fool!' Oo-oooo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo! Smf! Lemme gi' amma ham hankshiff. Leg go my arm. Waw gi' amma hankshifp. Oo-oo-oo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo! Fmf! I ash you as may wurl - I ash you as may - man of world, is that - is that proper way address me? Me! Know who I am? I'm Tom Ball. 'S who I am. I kill lick em man ill Logan Coun'y. Ai' thasso? Hay? 'S aw ri. Mfi choose stay up there, aw thas sec - aw thas second floor and rescue fel-cizzen's propprop'ty from devouring em - from devouring emlement, thas my bizless. Ai' tham my bizless, Charley? Ai' tham my bizless, Billy? W'y, sure. Charley, you're goof feller. You too, Billy. You're goof feller, too. Say. Wur-wur if Miller's is open yet? 'Spose it is? Charley; I dub bes' I knowed how, di'n't I, now? Affor that Chief come up thas stairway and say me: 'Come ou' that, ye cussed fool!' Aw say! 'Come ou' that - 'Called me fool, too! Oo-hoo-hoo-oo-oo-oo!"

"Hello, Dan! Hurt yourself any? (That's Dan O'Brien. Fell off the roof.) Well, sir, I thought sure you'd broken your neck. You don't know your luck. And let me tell you one thing, my bold bucko: You'll do that just once too often. Now you mark."

The day before the Weekly Examiner goes to press, Mr. Swope hands the editor a composition entitled: "A Card of Thanks," signed by John K. and Amelia M. Swope, and addressed to the firemen and all who showed by their many acts of kindness, and so forth and so on.

"Kind of help to fill up the paper," says Mr. Swope, covering his retreat.

"Sure," replies the editor. When Mr. Swope is good and gone, he says: "Dog my riggin's if I didn't forget all about writing up that fire. Been so busy here lately. Good thing he come in. Hay, Andy!"

"Watch want?" from the composing-room.

"Got room for about two sticks more?"

"Yes, guess so. If it don't run over that."

A brief silence. Then:

"Hay, Andy?"

"What ?"

"Is it 'had have,' or 'had of ?"

"What's the connection?"

"Why-ah. 'If the gallant fire-laddies, under the able direction of Chief Charley Lomax, had of had a sufficiency of water with which to cope with the devouring element - 'etc."

"'Had have,' I guess. I don't know."

"Guess you're right. Run it that way anyhow."

CIRCUS DAY

Only the other day, the man that in all this country knows better than anybody else how a circus should be advertised, said (with some sadness, I do believe) that it didn't pay any longer to put up showbills; the money was better invested in newspaper advertising.

"It doesn't pay." Ah, me! How the commercial spirit of the age plays whaley with the romance of existence! You shall not look. long upon the showbill now that there is no money to be had from it. "Youth's sweet-scented manuscript" is about to close, but ere it does, let us turn back a little to the pages illuminated by the glowing colors of the circus poster.

Saturday afternoon when we went by the enginehouse, its brick wall fluttered with the rags and tatters of "Esther, the Beautiful Queen," and the lecture on "The Republic: Will it Endure?" (Gee! But that was exciting!) Sunday morning, after Sunday-school, there was a sudden quickening among the boys. We stopped nibbling on the edges of the lesson leaf and followed the crowd in scuttling haste. Miraculously, over-night, the shabby wall had blossomed into thralling splendor. What was Daniel in the Lions' Den, compared with Herr Alexander in the same? Not, as the prophet is pictured, in the farthest corner from the lions, and manifestly saying to himself: "If I was only out of this!" But with his head right smack dab in the lion's mouth. Right in it. Yes, sir.

"S' Posin'!" we gasped, all goggle-eyed, "jist s'posin' that there lion was to shut his mouth! Ga-ash!"

The Golden Text? It faded before the lemon-and-scarlet glories of the Golden Chariot. Drawn by sixteen dappled steeds, each with his neck arching like a fish-hook and reined with fancy scalloped reins, it occupied the center of the foreground. The band rode in it, far more fortunate than our local band whose best was, Charley Wells's depot 'bus. And nobler than all his fellows was the bass-drummer. He had a canopy over him, a carved and golden canopy, on whose top revolved a clown's head with its tongue stuck out. On each quarter of this rococo shallop a golden circus-girl in short skirts gaily skipped rope with a nubia or fascinator, or whatever it is the women call the thing they wrap around their heads in cold weather when they hang out the clothes. There were big pieces of looking-glass let into the sides of the band-wagon, and every decorator knows that when you put looking-glass on a thing it is impossible to fix it so that it will be any finer.

Winding back and forth across the picture was the long train of tableau-cars and animal cages, diminishing with distance until away, 'way up in the upper left-hand corner the hindmost van was all immersed in the blue-and-yellow haze just this side of out-of-sight. That with our own eyes we should behold the glories here set forth we knew right well. Cruel Fortune might cheat us of the raptures to be had inside the tents, but the street-parade was ours, for it was free.

It seems to me that we did not linger so long before these pictures, nor before those of the rare and costly animals, which, if we but knew it, were the main reason why we were permitted to go (if we did get to go). To look at these animals is improving to the mind, and since we could not go alone, an older person had to accompany us, and . . . and . . . I trust I make myself clear. But we didn't want to improve our minds if it was a possible thing to avoid it. The pictures of these animals were in the joggerfy book anyhow, though not in colors, unless we had a box of paints. There can be no doubt that the show-bill pictures of the menageries were in colors. I seem to recollect that Mr. Galbraith, who kept the dry-goods store across the street from the engine-house, was very much exercised in his mind about the way one of these pictures was printed. It was the counterfeit presentment of the Hip-po-pot-a-mus, or Behemoth of Holy Writ. His objection to the hip - you know was not because its open countenance was so fearsome, but because it was so red. Six feet by two of flaming crimson across the street in the afternoon sun made it necessary for him to take the goods to the back window of the store to show to customers. He didn't like it a bit.

No. Neither before the large and expensive pictures of the street-parade, nor the large and expensive wild beasts did we linger. The swarm was thickest, sand the jabbering loudest, the "O-o-oh's," the "M! Looky's" the "Geeminently's" shrillest, in front of where the deeds of high emprise were set forth. Men with their fists clenched on their breasts, and their neatly slippered toes touching the backs of their heads, crashed through paper-covered hoops beneath which horses madly coursed; they flew through the air with the greatest of ease, the daring young men on the flying; trapeze, or they posed in living pyramids.

And as the sons of men assembled themselves together, Satan came also, the spirit I, that evermore denies.

"A-a-ah!" sneers his embodiment in one whose crackling voice cannot make up its mind whether to be bass or treble, "A-a-ah, to the show they down't do hay-uf what they is in the pitchers."

A chilling silence follows. A cold uneasiness strikes into all the listeners. We are all made wretched by destructive criticism. Let us alone in our ideals. Let us alone, can't you?

"Now . . . now," pursues the crackle-voiced Mephisto, pointing to where Japanese jugglers defy the law of gravitation and other experiences of daily life, "now, they cain't walk up no ladder made out o' reel sharp swords."

"They can so walk up it," stoutly declares one boy. Hurrah! A champion to the rescue! The others edge closer to him. They like him.

"Nah, they cain't. How kin they? They'd cut their feet all to pieces."

"They kin so. I seen 'em do it. The time I went with Uncle George I seen a man, a Japanee . . . . Yes, sharp. Cut paper with 'em. . . . A-a-ah, I did so. I guess I know what I seen an' what I didn't."

The little boys breathe easier, but fearing another onslaught, make all haste to call attention to the most fascinating one of all, the picture of a little boy standing up on top of his daddy's head. And, as if that weren't enough, his daddy is standing up on a horse and the horse is going round the ring lickety-split. And, as if these circumstances weren't sufficiently trying, that little show-boy is standing on only one foot. The other is stuck up in the air like five minutes to six, and he has hold of his toe with his hand. I'll bet you can't do that just as you are on the ground, let alone on your daddy's head, and him on a horse that's going like sixty. Now you just try it once. Just try it. . . . Aa-ah! Told you you couldn't.

Now, how the show-actors can do that looks very wonderful to you. It really is very simple. I'll tell you about it. All show-actors are born double-jointed. You have only two hip-joints. They have four. And it's the same all over with them. Where you have only one joint, they have two. So, you see, the wonder isn't how they can bend themselves every which way, but how they can keep from doubling up like a foot-rule.

And another thing. Every day they rub themselves all over with snake-oil. Snakes are all limber and supple, and it stands to reason that if you take and try out their oil, which is their express essence, and then rub that into your skin, it will make you supple and limber, too. I should think garter-snakes would do all right, if you could catch enough of them, but they 're so awfully scarce. Fishworms won't do. I tried 'em. There's no grease in 'em at all. They just dry up.

And I suppose you know the reason why they stay on the horse's back. They have rosin on their feet. Did you ever stand up on a horse's back? I did. It was out to grandpap's, on old Tib. . . . No, not very long. I didn't have any rosin on my feet. I was going to put some on, but my Uncle Jimmy said: "Hay! What you got there?" I told him. "Well," he says, "you jist mosey right into the house and put that back in the fiddle-box where you got it. Go on, now. And if I catch you foolin' with my things again, I'll . . . . Well, I don't know what I will do to you." So I put it back. Anyhow, I don't think rosin would have helped me stay on a second longer, because old Tib, with an intelligence you wouldn't have suspected in her, walked under the wagon-shed and calmly scraped me off her back.

And did you ever try to walk the tight-rope? You take the clothes-line and stretch it in the grape-arbor - better not make it too high at first - and then you take the clothes-prop for a balance-pole and go right ahead - er - er as far as you can. The real reason why you fall off so is that you don't have chalk on your shoes. Got to have lots of chalk. Then after you get used to the rope wabbling so all-fired fast, you can do it like a mice. And while I'm about it, I might as well tell you that if you ever expect to amount to a hill of beans as a trapeze performer you must have clear-starch with oil of cloves in it to rub on your hands. Finest thing in the world. My mother wouldn't let me have any. She said she couldn't have me messing around that way, I blame her as much as anybody that I am not now a competent performer on the trapeze.

I don't know that I had better go into details about the state of mind boys are in from the time the bills are first put up until after the circus has actually departed. I don't mean the boys that get to go to everything that comes along, and that have pennies to spend for candy, and all like that, whenever they ask for it. I mean the regular, proper, natural boys, that used to be "Back Home," boys whose daddies tormented them with: "Well, we Il see - " that's so exasperating! - or, "I wish you wouldn't tease, when you know we can't spare the money just at present." A perfectly foolish answer, that last. They had money to fritter away at the grocery, and the butcher-shop, and the dry-goods store, but when it came to a necessity of life, such as going to the circus, they let on they couldn't afford it. A likely story.

"Only jist this little bit of a once. Aw, now, please. Please, cain't I go? Aw now, I think you might. Aw now, woncha? Aw, paw. I ain't been to a reely show for ever so long. Aw, the Scripture pammerammer, that don't count. Aw, paw. Please cain't I go? Aw, please!" And so forth and so on, with much more of the same sort. No, I can't go into details. it's too terrible.

Even those of us whose daddies said plainly and positively: "Now, I can't let you go. No, Willie. That's the end of it. You can't go." Even those, I say, hoped against hope. It simply could not be that what the human heart so ardently longed for should be denied by a loving father. This same conviction applies to other things, even when we are grown up. It is against nature and the constituted scheme of things that we cannot have what we want so badly. (And, in general, it may be said that we can have almost anything we want, if we only want it hard enough. That's the trouble with us. We don't want it hard enough.) We boys lay there in the shade and pulled the long stalks of grass and nibbled off the sweet, yellow ends, as we dramatized miracles that could happen just as well as not, if they only would, consarn 'em! For instance, you might be going along the street, not thinking of anything but how much you wanted to go to the circus, and how sorry you were because you hadn't the money, and your daddy wouldn't give you any; and first thing you 'd know, you 'd stub your toe on something, and you'd look down and there'd be a half a dollar that somebody had lost - Gee! If it would only be that way! But we knew it wouldn't, because only the other Sunday, Brother Longenecker had said: "The age of miracles is past." So we had to give up all hopes. Oh, it's terrible. Just terrible!

But some of the boys lay there in the grass with their hands under their heads, looking up at the sky, and making little white spots come in and out on the corners of their jaws, they had their teeth set so hard, and were chewing so fiercely. You could almost hear their minds creak, scheming, scheming, scheming. I suppose there were ways for boys to make money in those times, but they always fizzled out when you came to try them, to say nothing of the way they broke into your day. Why, you had scarcely any time to play in. You 'd go 'round to some neighbor's house with a magazine, and you'd say: "Good afternoon, Mrs. Slaymaker. Do you want to subscribe for this?" Just the way you had studied out you would say. And she'd take it, and go sit down with it, and read it clear through while you played with the dog, and then when she got all through with it, and had read all the advertisements, she'd hand it back to you and say: No, she didn't believe she would. They had so many books and papers now that she didn't get a chance hardly to read in any of them, let alone taking any new ornes. Were you getting many new subscribers? _ Just commenced, eh? Well, she wished you all the luck in the world. How was your ma? That's good. Did she hear from your Uncle John's folks since they moved out to Kansas?

I have heard that there were boys who, under the dire necessity of going to the circus, got together enough rags, old iron, and bottles to make up the price, sold 'em, collected the money, and went. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. We all had, hidden under the back porch, our treasure-heap of rusty grates, cracked fire-pots, broken griddles and lid-lifters, tub-hoops and pokers, but I do not believe that any human boy ever collected fifty cents' worth. I want you to understand that fifty cents is a whole lot of money, particularly when it is laid out in scrap-iron. Only the tin-wagon takes rags, and they pay in tinware, and that's no good to a boy that wants to go to the circus. And as for bottles - well, sir, you wash out a whole, whole lot of bottles, a whole big lot of 'em, a wash-basket full, and tote 'em down to Mr. Case's drug- and book-store, as much as ever you and your brother can wag, and see what he gives you. It's simply scandalous. You have no idea of how mean and stingy a man can be until you try to sell him old bottles. And the cold-hearted way in which he will throw back ink-bottles that you worked so hard to clean, and the ones that have reading blown into the glass - Oh, it's enough to set you against business transactions all your life long. There's something about bargain and sale that's mean and censorious, finding this fault and finding that fault, and paying just as little as ever they can. It gets on one's nerves. It really does.

Gunshot Injuries of the Orbit.--Barkan recites the case in which a leaden ball 32/100 inch in diameter was thrown from a sling into the left orbital cavity, penetrating between the eyeball and osseous wall of the orbit without rupturing the tunics of the eye or breaking the bony wall of the cavity. It remained lodged two weeks without causing any pain or symptoms, and subsequently worked itself forward, contained in a perfect conjunctival sac, in which it was freely movable.

Buchanan recites the case of a private in the army who was shot at a distance of three feet away, the ball entering the inner canthus of the right eye and lodging under the skin of the opposite side. The eye was not lost, and opacity of the lower part of the cornea alone resulted. Cold water and purging constituted the treatment.

It is said a that an old soldier of one of Napoleon's armies had a musket-ball removed from his left orbit after twenty-four years' lodgment. He was struck in the orbit by a musket-ball, but as at the same time a companion fell dead at his side he inferred that the bullet rebounded from his orbit and killed his comrade. For twenty-four years he had suffered from cephalalgia and pains and partial exophthalmos of the left eye. After removal of the ball the eye partially atrophied.

Warren reports a case of a man of thirty-five whose eyeball was destroyed by the explosion of a gun, the breech-pin flying off and penetrating the head. The orbit was crushed; fourteen months afterward the man complained of soreness on the hard palate, and the whole breech-pin, with screw attached, was extracted. The removal of the pin was followed by fissure of the hard palate, which, however, was relieved by operation. The following is an extract of a report by Wenyon of Fatshan, South China:--

"Tang Shan, Chinese farmer, thirty-one years of age, was injured in the face by the bursting of a shot-gun. After being for upward of two months under the treatment of native practitioners, he came to me on December 4, 1891. I observed a cicatrix on the right side of his nose, and above this a sinus, still unhealed, the orifice of which involved the inner canthus of the right eye, and extended downward and inward for about a centimeter. The sight of the right eye was entirely lost, and the anterior surface of the globe was so uniformly red that the cornea could hardly be distinguished from the surrounding conjunctiva. There was no perceptible enlargement or protrusion of the eyeball, and it did not appear to have sustained any mechanical injury or loss of tissue. The ophthalmia and keratitis were possibly caused by the irritating substances applied to the wound by the Chinese doctors. The sinus on the side of the nose gave exit to a continuous discharge of slightly putrid pus, and the patient complained of continuous headache and occasional dizziness, which interfered with his work. The pain was referred to the right frontal and temporal regions, and the skin on this part of the head had a slight blush, but there was no superficial tenderness. The patient had been told by his native doctors, and he believed it himself, that there was no foreign body in the wound; but on probing it I easily recognized the lower edge of a hard metallic substance at a depth of about one inch posteriorly from the orifice of the sinus. Being unable to obtain any reliable information as to the probable size or shape of the object, I cautiously made several attempts to remove it through a slightly enlarged opening, but without success. I therefore continued the incision along the side of the nose to the nostril, thus laying open the right nasal cavity; then, seizing the foreign body with a pair of strong forceps, I with difficulty removed the complete breech-pin of a Chinese gun. Its size and shape are accurately represented by the accompanying drawing. The breech-pin measures a little over three inches in length, and weighs 21 ounces, or 75.6 grams. It had evidently lain at the back of the orbit, inclined upward and slightly backward from its point of entrance, at an angle of about 45 degrees. On its removal the headache was at once relieved and did not return. In ten days the wound was perfectly healed and the patient went back to his work. A somewhat similar case, but which terminated fatally, is recorded in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences of July, 1882."

The extent of permanent injury done by foreign bodies in the orbit is variable. In some instances the most extensive wound is followed by the happiest result, while in others vision is entirely destroyed by a minor injury.

Carter reports a case in which a hat-peg 3 3/10 inches long and about 1/4 inch in diameter (upon one end of which was a knob nearly 1/2 inch in diameter) was impacted in the orbit for from ten to twenty days, and during this time the patient was not aware of the fact. Recovery followed its extraction, the vision and movements of the eye being unimpaired.

According to the Philosophical Transactions a laborer thrust a long lath with great violence into the inner canthus of the left eye of his fellow workman, Edward Roberts. The lath broke off short, leaving a piece two inches long, 1/2 inch wide, and 1/4 inch thick, in situ. Roberts rode about a mile to the surgery of Mr. Justinian Morse, who extracted it with much difficulty; recovery followed, together with restoration of the sight and muscular action. The lath was supposed to have passed behind the eyeball. Collette speaks of an instance in which 186 pieces of glass were extracted from the left orbit, the whole mass weighing 186 Belgian grains. They were blown in by a gust of wind that broke a pane of glass; after extraction no affection of the brain or eye occurred. Watson speaks of a case in which a chip of steel 3/8 inch long was imbedded in cellular tissue of the orbit for four days, and was removed without injury to the eye. Wordsworth reports a case in which a foreign body was deeply imbedded in the orbit for six weeks, and was removed with subsequent recovery. Chisholm has seen a case in which for five weeks a fly was imbedded in the culdesac between the lower lid and the eyeball.

Foreign bodies are sometimes contained in the eyeball for many years. There is an instance on record in which a wooden splinter, five mm. long and two mm. broad, remained in the eye forty-seven years. It was extracted, with the lens in which it was lodged, to relieve pain and other distressing symptoms. Snell reports a case in which a piece of steel was imbedded and encapsulated in the ciliary process twenty-nine years without producing sympathetic irritation of its fellow, but causing such pain as to warrant enucleation of this eye. Gunning speaks of a piece of thorn 5/8 inch long, imbedded in the left eyeball of an old man for six years, causing total loss of vision; he adds that, after its removal, some improvement was noticed.

Williams mentions a stone-cutter whose left eye was put out by a piece of stone. Shortly after this his right eye was wounded by a knife, causing traumatic cataract, which was extracted by Sir William Wilde, giving the man good sight for twelve years, after which iritis attacked the right eye and produced a false membrane over the pupil so that the man could not work. It was in this condition that he consulted Williams, fourteen years after the loss of the left eye. The eye was atrophied, and on examination a piece of stone was seen projecting from it directly between the lids. The visible portion was 1/4 inch long, and the end in the shrunken eye was evidently longer than the end protruding. The sclera was incised, and, after fourteen years' duration in the eye, the stone was removed.

Taylor reports the removal of a piece of bone which had remained quiescent in the eye for fourteen years; after the removal of the eye the bone was found adherent to the inner tunics. It resembled the lens in size and shape. Williams mentions continual tolerance of foreign bodies in the eyeball for fifteen and twenty-two years; and Chisholm reports the lodgment of a fragment of metal in the iris for twenty-three years. Liebreich extracted a piece of steel from the interior of the eye where it had been lodged twenty-two years. Barkar speaks of a piece of steel which penetrated through the cornea and lens, and which, five months later, was successfully removed by the extraction of the cataractous lens. Critchett gives an instance of a foreign body being loose in the anterior chamber for sixteen years. Rider speaks of the lodgment of a fragment of a copper percussion cap in the left eye, back of the inner ciliary margin of the iris, for thirty-five years; and Bartholinus mentions a thorn in the canthus for thirty years. Jacob reports a case in which a chip of iron remained in the eyeball twenty-eight years without giving indications for removal. It was clearly visible, protruding into the anterior surface of the iris, and although it was rusted by its long lodgment, sight in the eye was fairly good, and there was no sign of irritation.

Snell gives an instance in which a piece of steel was imbedded close to the optic disc with retention of sight. It was plainly visible by the opthalmoscope eighteen months after the accident, when as yet no diminution of sight was apparent. Smyly speaks of a portion of a tobacco pipe which was successfully removed from the anterior chamber by an incision through the cornea. Clark mentions a case in which molten lead in the eye caused no permanent injury; and there are several cases mentioned in confirmation of the statement that the eye seems to be remarkably free from disastrous effects after this injury.

Williamson mentions eyelashes in the anterior chamber of the eye, the result of a stab wound of this organ.

Contusion of the eyeball may cause dislocation of the lens into the anterior chamber, and several instances have been recorded. We regret our inability to give the reference or authority for a report that we have seen, stating that by one kick of a horse the lenses of both eyes of a man were synchronously knocked through the eyeballs by the calkins of the horseshoe. Oliver mentions extraction of a lens by a thrust of a cow's horn.

Lowe speaks of rupture of the anterior capsule of the lens from violent sneezing, with subsequent absorption of the lenticular substance and restoration of vision. Trioen mentions a curious case of expulsion of the crystalline lens from the eye in ophthalmia, through the formation of a corneal fissure. The authors have personal knowledge of a case of spontaneous extrusion of the lens through a corneal ulcer, in a case of ophthalmia of the new-born.

Injury of the Eyeball by Birds.--There are several instances in which birds have pierced the eyeball with their bills, completely destroying vision. Not long since a prominent taxidermist winged a crane, picked it up, and started to examine it, when it made one thrust with its bill and totally destroyed his eyeball. In another instance a man was going from the railroad station to his hotel in a gale of wind, when, as he turned the corner of the street, an English sparrow was blown into his face. Its bill penetrated his eyeball and completely ruined his sight. There are several instances on record in which game fowls have destroyed the eyes of their owners. In one case a game cock almost completed the enucleation of the eye of his handler by striking him with his gaff while preparing in a cock-pit.

Moorehead explains a rare accident to an eye as follows:--

"Mr. S. B. A., while attending to his bees, was stung by one upon the right upper eyelid near its center. An employee, who was assisting in the work, immediately discovered the sting driven in the lid and cautiously extracted it, stating that he made sufficient traction to lift the lid well away from the globe. In a few hours the lid became much swollen, but the pain experienced at first had disappeared. Before retiring for the night he began gentle massage of the lid, stroking it horizontally with his finger. The edematous condition was by this means much reduced in a short time. While thus engaged in stroking the lid he suddenly experienced intense pain in the eye as if it had been pierced by a sharp instrument. The suffering was very severe, and he passed a wretched night, constantly feeling 'something in his eye.'

"The next morning, the trouble continuing, he came to me for relief. Upon examination of the lid, no opening could be made out where the sting had penetrated, and a minute inspection of the conjunctival surface with a good glass failed to reveal any foreign substance. Cleansing the lid thoroughly, and carefully inspecting with a lens under strong light, a minute dark point was made out about the center of the lid. Feeling that this might be the point of the sting, I had recourse to several expedients for its removal, but without success. Finally, with a fine knife, I succeeded in cutting down by the side of the body and tilting it out. Examination with a 1/5 inch objective confirmed my opinion that it was the point of the bee-sting.

"The barbed formation of the point explains how, under the stroking with the finger, it was forced through the dense tarsal cartilage and against the cornea of the eye."

There is a story told in La Medecine Moderne of a seamstress of Berlin who was in the habit of allowing her dog to lick her face. She was attacked with a severe inflammation of the right eye, which had to be enucleated, and was found full of tenia echinococcus, evidently derived from the dog's tongue.

Gabb mentions a case of epistaxis in which the blood welled up through the lacrimal ducts and suffused into the eye so that it was constantly necessary to wipe the lower eyelid, and the discharge ceased only when the nose stopped bleeding. A brief editorial note on epistaxis through the eyes, referring to a case in the Medical News of November 30, 1895, provoked further reports from numerous correspondents. Among others, the following:--

"Dr. T. L. Wilson of Bellwood, Pa., relates the case of an old lady of seventy-eight whom he found with the blood gushing from the nostrils. After plugging the nares thoroughly with absorbent cotton dusted with tannic acid he was surprised to see the blood ooze out around the eyelids and trickle down the cheeks. This oozing continued for the greater part of an hour, being controlled by applications of ice to both sides of the nose."

"Dr. F. L. Donlon of New York City reports the case of a married woman, about fifty years old, in whom epistaxis set in suddenly at 11 P.M., and had continued for several hours, when the anterior nares were plugged. In a short time the woman complained that she could scarcely see, owing to the welling up of blood in the eyes and trickling down her face. The bleeding only ceased when the posterior nares also were plugged."

"Dr. T. G. Wright of Plainville, Conn., narrates the case of a young man whom he found in the night, bleeding profusely, and having already lost a large amount of blood. Shortly after plugging both anterior and posterior nares the blood found its way through the lacrimal ducts to the eyes and trickled down the cheeks."

"Dr. Charles W. Crumb cites the case of a man, sixty-five years old, with chronic nephritis, in whom a slight bruise of the nose was followed by epistaxis lasting twenty-four hours. When the nares were plugged blood escaped freely from the eyes. A cone-shaped bit of sponge, saturated with ferrous sulphate, was passed into each anterior naris, and another piece of sponge, similarly medicated, into either posterior naris. The patient had been taking various preparations of potassium, and it was thought that his blood contained a deficiency of fibrin. Upon removal of the nasal plugs a catarrhal inflammation developed which lasted a long time and was attended with considerable purulent discharge."

Late Restoration of Sight.--There are some marvelous cases on record in which, after many years of blindness, the surgeon has been able, by operation, to restore the sight. McKeown gives the history of a blind fiddler of sixty-three, who, when one and a half years old, had lost the sight of both eyes after an attack of small-pox. Iridectomy was performed, and after over sixty years of total blindness his sight was restored; color-perception was good. Berncastle mentions a case of extraction of double cataract and double iridectomy for occluded pupils, which, after thirty years of blindness, resulted in the recovery of good sight. The patient was a blind beggar of Sydney.

To those interested in this subject, Jauffret has a most interesting description of a man by the name of Garin, who was born blind, who talked at eight or nine months, showed great intelligence, and who was educated at a blind asylum. At the age of twenty-four he entered the hospital of Forlenze, to be operated upon by that famous oculist. Garin had never seen, but could distinguish night or darkness by one eye only, and recognized orange and red when placed close to that eye. He could tell at once the sex and age of a person approximately by the voice and tread, and formed his conclusions more rapidly in regard to females than males. Forlenze diagnosed cataract, and, in the presence of a distinguished gathering, operated with the happiest result. The description that follows, which is quoted by Fournier and is readily accessible to any one, is well worth reading, as it contains an account of the first sensations of light, objects, distance, etc., and minor analogous thoughts, of an educated and matured mind experiencing its first sensations of sight.

Hansell and Clark say that the perplexities of learning to see after twenty-six years of blindness from congenital disease, as described by a patient of Franke, remind one of the experience of Shelley's Frankenstein. Franke's patient was successfully operated on for congenital double cataract, at twenty-six years of age. The author describes the difficulties the patient had of recognizing by means of vision the objects he had hitherto known through his other senses, and his slowness in learning to estimate distances and the comparative size of objects.

Sight is popularly supposed to be occasionally restored without the aid of art, after long years of blindness. Benjamin Rush saw a man of forty-five who, twelve years before, became blind without ascertainable cause, and recovered his sight equally without reason. St. Clair mentions Marshal Vivian, who at the age of one hundred regained sight that for nearly forty years had gradually been failing almost to blindness, and preserved this new sight to the time of his death.

There are many superstitions prevalent among uneducated people as to "second sight," recovery of vision, etc., which render their reports of such things untrustworthy. The real explanations of such cases are too varied for discussion here.

Nyctalopia etymologically means night blindness, but the general usage, making the term mean night-vision, is so strongly intrenched that it is useless and confusing to attempt any reinstatement of the old significance. The condition in which one sees better by night, relatively speaking, than by day is due to some lesion of the macular region, rendering it blind. At night the pupil dilates more than in the day-time, and hence vision with the extramacular or peripheral portions of the retina is correspondingly better. It is, therefore, a symptom of serious retinal disease. All night-prowling animals have widely dilatable pupils, and in addition to this they have in the retina a special organ called the tapetum lucidum, the function of which is to reflect to a focus in front of them the relatively few rays of light that enter the widely-dilated pupil and thus enable them the better to see their way. Hence the luminous appearance of the eyes of such animals in the dark.

Hemeralopia (etymologically day-blindness, but by common usage meaning day-vision or night-blindness) is a symptom of a peculiar degenerative disease of the retina, called retinitis pigmentosa. It also occurs in some cases of extreme denutrition, numerous cases having been reported among those who make the prolonged fasts customary in the Russian church. In retinitis pigmentosa the peripheral or extramacular portions of the retina are subject to a pigmentary degeneration that renders them insensitive to light, and patients so afflicted are consequently incapable of seeing at night as well as others. They stumble and run against objects easily seen by the normal eye.

Snow-blindness occurs from prolonged exposure of the eyes to snow upon which the sun is shining. Some years ago, some seventy laborers, who were clearing away snow-drifts in the Caucasus, were seized, and thirty of them could not find their way home, so great was the photophobia, conjunctivitis, and lacrimation. Graddy reports six cases, and many others are constantly occurring.

Other forms of retinal injury from too great or too prolonged exposure to light are "moon-blindness," due to sleeping with the eyes exposed to bright moonlight, and that due to lightning--a case, e.g., being reported by Knies. Silex also reports such a case and reviews the reported cases, 25 in number, in ten of which cataract ensued. In the Annual of the Universal Medical Sciences, 1888, there is a report of seven cases of retinal injury with central scotoma, amblyopia, etc., in Japanese medical students, caused by observation of the sun in eclipse.

In discussing the question of electric-light injuries of the eyes Gould reviews the literature of the subject and epitomizes the cases reported up to that time. They numbered 23. No patient was seriously or permanently injured, and none was in a person who used the electric light in a proper manner as an illuminant. All were in scientific investigators or workmen about the light, who approached it too closely or gazed at it too long and without the colored protecting spectacles now found necessary by such workers.

Injuries to the Ear.--The folly of the practice of boxing children's ears, and the possible disastrous results subsequent to this punishment, are well exemplified throughout medical literature. Stewart quotes four cases of rupture of the tympanum from boxing the ears, and there is an instance of a boy of eight, who was boxed on the ear at school, in whom subsequent brain-disease developed early, and death followed. Roosa of New York mentions the loss of hearing following a kiss on the ear.

Dalby, in a paper citing many different causes of rupture of the tympanic membrane, mentions the following: A blow in sparring; violent sneezing; blowing the nose; forcible dilatation of the Eustachian canal; a thorn or twig of a tree accidentally thrust into the head; picking the ear with a toothpick. In time of battle soldiers sometimes have their tympanums ruptured by the concussion caused by the firing of cannon. Dalby mentions an instance of an officer who was discharged for deafness acquired in this manner during the Crimean War. He was standing beside a mortar which, unexpectedly to him, was fired, causing rupture of the tympanic membrane, followed by hemorrhage from the ear. Similar cases were reported in the recent naval engagements between the Chinese and Japanese. Wilson reports two cases of rupture of the membrane tympani caused by diving. Roosa divides the causes into traumatic, hemorrhagic, and inflammatory, and primary lesions of the labyrinth, exemplifying each by numerous instances. Under traumatic causes he mentions severe falls, blows about the head or face, constant listening to a telegraphic instrument, cannonading, and finally eight cases of boiler-makers' deafness. Roosa cites a curious case of sudden and profound deafness in a young man in perfect health, while calling upon the parents of his lady-love to ask her hand in marriage. Strange to say that after he had had a favorable reply he gradually recovered his hearing! In the same paper there is an instance of a case of deafness due to the sudden cessation of perspiration, and an instance of tinnitus due to the excessive use of tobacco; Roosa also mentions a case of deafness due to excessive mental employment.

Perforation of the Tympanum.--Kealy relates an instance in which a pin was introduced into the left ear to relieve an intolerable itching. It perforated the tympanum, and before the expiration of twenty-four hours was coughed up from the throat with a small quantity of blood. The pin was bent at an angle of about 120 degrees. Another similar case was that of a girl of twenty-two who, while pricking her ear with a hair-pin, was jerked or struck on the arm by a child, and the pin forced into the ear; great pain and deafness followed, together with the loss of taste on the same side of the tongue; after treatment both of the disturbed senses were restored. A man of twenty was pricked in the ear by a needle entering the meatus. He uttered a cry, fell senseless, and so continued until the fourth day when he died. The whole auditory meatus was destroyed by suppuration. Gamgee tells of a constable who was stabbed in the left ear, severing the middle meningeal artery, death ensuing. In this instance, after digital compression, ligature of the common carotid was practiced as a last resort. There is an account of a provision-dealer's agent who fell asleep at a public house at Tottenham. In sport an attendant tickled his ear with a wooden article used as a pipe light. A quick, unconscious movement forced the wooden point through the tympanum, causing cerebral inflammation and subsequent death. There is a record of death, in a child of nine, caused by the passage of a knitting-needle into the auditory meatus.

Kauffmann reports a case of what he calls objective tinnitus aurium, in which the noise originating in the patient's ears was distinctly audible by others. The patient was a boy of fourteen, who had fallen on the back of his head and had remained unconscious for nearly two weeks. The noises were bilateral, but more distinct on the left than on the right side. The sounds were described as crackling, and seemed to depend on movements of the arch of the palate. Kauffmann expresses the opinion that the noises were due to clonic spasm of the tensor velum palati, and states that under appropriate treatment the tinnitus gradually subsided.

The introduction of foreign bodies in the ear is usually accidental, although in children we often find it as a result of sport or curiosity. There is an instance on record of a man who was accustomed to catch flies and put them in his ear, deriving from them a pleasurable sensation from the tickling which ensued. There have been cases in which children, and even adults, have held grasshoppers, crickets, or lady-birds to their ears in order to more attentively listen to the noise, and while in this position the insects have escaped and penetrated the auditory canal. Insects often enter the ears of persons reposing in the fields with the ear to the ground. Fabricius Hildanus speaks of a cricket penetrating the ear during sleep. Calhoun mentions an instance of disease of the ear which he found was due to the presence of several living maggots in the interior of the ear. The patient had been sleeping in a horse stall in which were found maggots similar to those extracted from his ear. An analogous instance was seen in a negro in the Emergency Hospital, Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1894; and many others are recorded. The insects are frequently removed only after a prolonged lodgment.

D'Aguanno gives an account of two instances of living larvae of the musca sarcophaga in the ears of children. In one of the cases the larvae entered the drum-cavity through a rupture in the tympanic membrane. In both cases the maggots were removed by forceps. Haug has observed a tic (ixodes ricinus) in the ear of a lad of seventeen. The creature was killed by a mercuric-chlorid solution, and removed with a probe.

There is a common superstition that centipedes have the faculty of entering the ear and penetrating the brain, causing death. The authors have knowledge of an instance in which three small centipedes were taken from the ear of a policeman after remaining there three days; during this time they caused excruciating pain, but there was no permanent injury. The Ephemerides contains instances in which, while yet living, worms, crickets, ants, and beetles have all been taken from the ear. In one case the entrance of a cricket in the auditory canal was the cause of death. Martin gives an instance in which larvae were deposited in the ear. Stalpart van der Wiel relates an instance of the lodgment of a living spider in the ear.

Far more common than insects are inanimate objects as foreign bodies in the ear, and numerous examples are to be found in literature. Fabricius Hildanus tells of a glass ball introduced into the auditory canal of a girl of ten, followed by headache, numbness on the left side, and after four or five years epileptic seizures, and atrophy of the arm. He extracted it and the symptoms immediately ceased. Sabatier speaks of an abscess of the brain caused by a ball of paper in the ear; and it is quite common for persons in the habit of using a tampon of cotton in the meatus to mistake the deep entrance of this substance for functional derangement, and many cases of temporary deafness are simply due to forgetfulness of the cause. A strange case is reported in a girl of fourteen, who lost her tympanum from a profuse otorrhea, and who substituted an artificial tympanum which was, in its turn, lost by deep penetration, causing augmentation of the symptoms, of the cause of which the patient herself seemed unaware. Sometimes artificial otoliths are produced by the insufflation of various powders which become agglutinated, and are veritable foreign bodies. Holman tells of a negro, aged thirty-five. whose wife poured molten pewter in his ear while asleep. It was removed, but total deafness was the result.

Alley mentions a New Orleans wharf laborer, in whose ear was poured some molten lead; seventeen months afterward the lead was still occupying the external auditory meatus. It is quite remarkable that the lead should have remained such a length of time without causing meningeal inflammation. There was deafness and palsy of that side of the face. A fungous growth occupied the external portion of the ear; the man suffered pain and discharge from the ear, and had also great difficulty in closing his right eyelid. Morrison mentions an alcoholic patient of forty who, on June 6, 1833, had nitric acid poured in her right ear. There were no headache, febrile symptoms, stupor, or vertigo. Debility alone was present. Two weeks after the injury paralysis began on the right side, and six weeks from the injury the patient died. This case is interesting from the novel mode of death, the perfect paralysis of the arm, paralysis agitans of the body (occurring as hemorrhage from the ear came on, and subsiding with it), and extensive caries of the petrous bone, without sensation of pain or any indicative symptoms.

There is an instance in a young girl in which a piece of pencil remained in the right ear for seven years. Haug speaks of two beads lying in the auditory canal for twenty-eight years without causing any harm.

A boy of six introduced a carob-nut kernel into each ear. On the next day incompetent persons attempted to extract the kernel from the left side, but only caused pain and hemorrhage. The nut issued spontaneously from the right side. In the afternoon the auditory canal was found excoriated and red, and deep in the meatus the kernel was found, covered with blood. The patient had been so excited and pained by the bungling attempts at extraction that the employment of instruments was impossible; prolonged employment of injections was substituted. Discharge from the ear commenced, intense fever and delirium ensued, and the patient had to be chloroformed to facilitate the operation of extraction. The nut, when taken out, was found to have a consistency much larger than originally, caused by the agglutination of wax and blood. Unfortunately the symptoms of meningitis increased; three days after the operation coma followed, and on the next day death ensued. In 75 cases collected by Mayer, and cited by Poulet (whose work on "Foreign Bodies" is the most extensive in existence), death as a consequence of meningitis was found in three.

Fleury de Clermont mentions a woman of twenty-five who consulted him for removal of a pin which was in her right ear. Vain attempts by some of her lay-friends to extract the pin had only made matters worse. The pin was directed transversely, and its middle part touched the membrane tympanum. The mere touching of the pin caused the woman intense pain; even after etherization it was necessary to construct a special instrument to extract it. She suffered intense cephalalgia and other signs of meningitis; despite vigorous treatment she lost consciousness and died shortly after the operation.

Winterbotham reports an instance in which a cherry-stone was removed from the meatus auditorius after lodgment of upward of sixty years. Marchal de Calvi mentions intermittent deafness for forty years, caused by the lodgment of a small foreign body in the auditory canal. There is an instance in which a carious molar tooth has been tolerated in the same location for forty years.

Albucasius, Fabricius Hildanus, Pare, and others, have mentioned the fact that seeds and beans have been frequently seen to increase in volume while lodged in the auditory canal. Tulpius speaks of an infant, playing with his comrades, who put a cherry-seed in his ear which he was not able to extract. The seed increased in volume to such an extent that it was only by surgical interference that it could be extracted, and then such serious consequences followed that death resulted. Albers reports an instance in which a pin introduced into the ear issued from the pharynx.

Confusion of diagnosis is occasionally noticed in terrified or hysteric persons. Lowenberg was called to see a child of five who had introduced a button into his left ear. When he saw the child it complained of all the pain in the right ear, and he naturally examined this ear first but found nothing to indicate the presence of a foreign body. He examined the ear supposed to be healthy and there found the button lying against the tympanum. This was explained by the fact that the child was so pained and terrified by the previous explorations of the affected ear that rather than undergo them again he presented the well ear for examination. In the British Medical Journal for 1877 is an account of an unjustified exploration of an ear for a foreign body by an incompetent physician, who spent a half hour in exploration and manipulation, and whose efforts resulted in the extraction of several pieces of bone. The child died in one and a half hours afterward from extreme hemorrhage, and the medical bungler was compelled to appear before a coroner's jury in explanation of his ignorance.

In the external ear of a child Tansley observed a diamond which he removed under chloroform. The mother of the child had pushed the body further inward in her endeavors to remove it and had wounded the canal. Schmiegelow reports a foreign body forced into the drum-cavity, followed by rough extraction, great irritation, tetanus, and death; and there are on record several cases of fatal meningitis, induced by rough endeavors to extract a body from the external ear.

In the Therapeutic Gazette, August 15, 1896, there is a translation of the report of a case by Voss, in which a child of five pushed a dry pea in his ear. Four doctors spent several days endeavoring to extract it, but only succeeded in pushing it in further. It was removed by operation on the fifth day, but suppuration of the tympanic cavity caused death on the ninth day.

Barclay reports a rare case of ensnared aural foreign body in a lady, aged about forty years, who, while "picking" her left ear with a so-called "invisible hair-pin" several hours before the consultation, had heard a sudden "twang" in the ear, as if the hair-pin had broken. And so, indeed, it had; for on the instant she had attempted to jerk it quickly from the ear the sharp extremity of the inner portion of its lower prong sprang away from its fellow, penetrated the soft tissues of the floor of the external auditory canal, and remained imbedded there, the separated end of this prong only coming away in her grasp. Every attempt on her part to remove the hair-pin by traction on its projecting prong--she durst not force it INWARD for fear of wounding the drumhead--had served but to bury the point of the broken prong more deeply into the flesh of the canal, thereby increasing her suffering. Advised by her family physician not to delay, she forthwith sought advice and aid. On examination, it was found that the lower prong of the "invisible hair-pin" had broken at the outer end of its wavy portion, and seemed firmly imbedded in the floor of the auditory canal, now quite inflamed, at a point about one-third of its depth from the outlet of the canal. The loop or turn of the hair-pin was about 1/2 inch from the flaccid portion of the drumhead, and, together with the unbroken prong, it lay closely against the roof of the canal. Projecting from the meatus there was enough of this prong to be easily grasped between one's thumb and finger. Removal of the hair-pin was effected by first inserting within the meatus a Gruber speculum, encircling the unbroken projecting prong, and then raising the end of the broken one with a long-shanked aural hook, when the hair-pin was readily withdrawn. The wound of the canal-floor promptly healed.

It is said that in the eighty-fourth Olympiad, Empedocles restored to life a woman who was about to be buried, and that this circumstance induced the Greeks, for the future protection of the supposed dead, to establish laws which enacted that no person should be interred until the sixth or seventh day. But even this extension of time did not give satisfaction, and we read that when Hephestion, at whose funeral obsequies Alexander the Great was present, was to be buried his funeral was delayed until the tenth day. There is also a legend that when Acilius Aviola fell a victim to disease he was burned alive, and although he cried out, it was too late to save him, as the fire had become so widespread before life returned.

While returning to his country house Asclepiades, a physician denominated the "God of Physic," and said to have been a descendant of aesculapius, saw during the time of Pompey the Great a crowd of mourners about to start a fire on a funeral pile. It is said that by his superior knowledge he perceived indications of life in the corpse and ordered the pile destroyed, subsequently restoring the supposed deceased to life. These examples and several others of a similar nature induced the Romans to delay their funeral rites, and laws were enacted to prevent haste in burning, as well as in interment. It was not until the eighth day that the final rites were performed, the days immediately subsequent to death having their own special ceremonies. The Turks were also fearful of premature interment and subjected the defunct to every test; among others, one was to examine the contractility of the sphincter and, which shows their keen observation of a well-known modern medical fact.

According to the Memoirs of Amelot de la Houssaye, Cardinal Espinola, Prime Minister to Philip II, put his hand to the embalmer's knife with which he was about to be opened; It is said that Vesalius, sometimes called the "Father of Anatomy," having been sent for to perform an autopsy on a woman subject to hysteric convulsions, and who was supposed to be dead, on making the first incision perceived by her motion and cries that she was still alive. This circumstance, becoming known, rendered him so odious that he had to leave the community in which he practiced, and it is believed that he never entirely recovered from the shock it gave him. The Abbe Prevost, so well known by his works and the singularities of his life, was seized by apoplexy in the Forest of Chantilly on October 23, 1763. His body was carried to the nearest village, and the officers of justice proceeded to open it, when a cry he sent forth frightened all the assistants and convinced the surgeon in charge that the Abbe was not dead; but it was too late to save him, as he had already received a mortal wound.

Massien speaks of a woman living in Cologne in 1571 who was interred living, but was not awakened from her lethargy until a grave-digger opened her grave to steal a valuable ring which she wore. This instance has been cited in nearly every language. There is another more recent instance, coming from Poitiers, of the wife of a goldsmith named Mernache who was buried with all her jewels. During the night a beggar attempted to steal her jewelry, and made such exertion in extracting one ring that the woman recovered and was saved. After this resurrection she is said to have had several children. This case is also often quoted. Zacchias mentions an instance which, from all appearances, is authentic. It was that of a young man, pest-stricken and thought to be dead, who was placed with the other dead for burial. He exhibited signs of life, and was taken back to the pest-hospital. Two days later he entered a lethargic condition simulating death, and was again on his way to the sepulcher, when he once more recovered.

It is said that when the body of William, Earl of Pembroke, who died April 10, 1630, was opened to be embalmed, the hand raised when the first incision was made. There is a story of an occurrence which happened on a return voyage from India. The wife of one of the passengers, an officer in the army, to all appearances died. They were about to resort to sea-burial, when, through the interposition of the husband, who was anxious to take her home, the ship-carpenters started to construct a coffin suitable for a long voyage, a process which took several days, during which time she lay in her berth, swathed in robes and ready for interment. When the coffin was at last ready the husband went to take his last farewell, and removed the wedding-ring, which was quite tightly on her finger. In the effort to do this she was aroused, recovered, and arrived in England perfectly well.

It is said that when a daughter of Henry Laurens, the first President of the American Congress, died of small-pox, she was laid out as dead, and the windows of the room were opened for ventilation. While left alone in this manner she recovered. This circumstance so impressed her illustrious father that he left explicit directions that in case of his death he should be burned. The same journal also contains the case of a maid-servant who recovered thrice on her way to the grave, and who, when really dead, was kept a preposterous length of time before burial.

The literature on this subject is very exhaustive, volumes having been written on the uncertainty of the signs of death, with hundreds of examples cited illustrative of the danger of premature interment. The foregoing instances have been given as indicative of the general style of narration; for further information the reader is referred to the plethora of material on this subject.

Postmortem Anomalies.--Among the older writers startling movements of a corpse have given rise to much discussion, and possibly often led to suspicion of premature burial. Bartholinus describes motion in a cadaver. Barlow says that movements were noticed after death in the victims of Asiatic cholera. The bodies were cold and expressions were death-like, but there were movements simulating natural life. The most common was flexion of the right leg, which would also be drawn up toward the body and resting on the left leg. In some cases the hand was moved, and in one or two instances a substance was grasped as if by reflex action. Some observers have stated that reflex movements of the face were quite noticeable. These movements continued sometimes for upward of an hour, occurring mostly in muscular subjects who died very suddenly, and in whom the muscular irritability or nervous stimulus or both had not become exhausted at the moment of dissolution. Richardson doubts the existence of postmortem movements of respiration.

Snow is accredited with having seen a girl in Soho who, dying of scarlet fever, turned dark at the moment of death, but in a few hours presented such a life-line appearance and color as to almost denote the return of life. The center of the cheeks became colored in a natural fashion, and the rest of the body resumed the natural flesh color. The parents refused to believe that death had ensued. Richardson remarks that he had seen two similar cases, and states that he believes the change is due to oxidation of the blood surcharged with carbon dioxid. The moist tissues suffuse carbonized blood, and there occurs an osmotic interchange between the carbon dioxid and the oxygen of the air resulting in an oxygenation of the blood, and modification of the color from dark venous to arterial red.

A peculiar postmortem anomaly is erection of the penis. The Ephemerides and Morgagni discuss postmortem erection, and Guyon mentions that on one occasion he saw 14 negroes hanged, and states that at the moment of suspension erection of the penis occurred in each; in nine of these blacks traces of this erectile state were perceived an hour after death.

Cadaveric perspiration has been observed and described by several authors, and Paullini has stated that he has seen tears flow from the eyes of a corpse.

The retardation of putrefaction of the body after death sometimes presents interesting changes. Petrifaction or mummification of the body are quite well known, and not being in the province of this work, will be referred to collateral books on this subject; but sometimes an unaccountable preservation takes place. In a tomb recently opened at Canterbury Cathedral, a for the purpose of discovering what Archbishop's body it contained, the corpse was of an extremely offensive and sickening odor, unmistakably that of putrefaction. The body was that of Hubert Walter, who died in 1204 A.D., and the decomposition had been retarded, and was actually still in progress, several hundred years after burial.

Retardation of the putrefactive process has been noticed in bodies some years under water. Konig of Hermannstadt mentions a man who, forty years previous to the time of report, had fallen under the waters of Echoschacht, and who was found in a complete state of preservation.

Postmortem Growth of Hair and Nails.--The hair and beard may grow after death, and even change color. Bartholinus recalls a case of a man who had short, black hair and beard at the time of interment, but who, some time after death, was found to possess long and yellowish hair. Aristotle discusses postmortem growth of the hair, and Garmanus cites an instance in which the beard and hair were cut several times from the cadaver. We occasionally see evidences of this in the dissecting-rooms. Caldwell mentions a body buried four years, the hair from which protruded at the points where the joints of the coffin had given away. The hair of the head measured 18 inches, that of the beard eight inches, and that on the breast from four to six inches. Rosse of Washington mentions an instance in which after burial the hair turned from dark brown to red, and also cites a case in a Washington cemetery of a girl, twelve or thirteen years old, who when exhumed was found to have a new growth of hair all over her body. The Ephemerides contains an account of hair suddenly turning gray after death.

Nails sometimes grow several inches after death, and there is on record the account of an idiot who had an idiosyncrasy for long nails, and after death the nails were found to have grown to such an extent that they curled up under the palms and soles.

The untoward effects of the emotions on the vital functions are quite well exemplified in medical literature. There is an abundance of cases reported in which joy, fear, pride, and grief have produced a fatal issue. In history we have the old story of the Lacedemonian woman who for some time had believed her son was dead, and who from the sudden joy occasioned by seeing him alive, herself fell lifeless. There is a similar instance in Roman history. Aristotle, Pliny, Livy, Cicero, and others cite instances of death from sudden or excessive joy. Fouquet died of excessive joy on being released from prison. A niece of the celebrated Leibnitz immediately fell dead on seeing a casket of gold left to her by her deceased uncle.

Galen mentions death from joy, and in comment upon it he says that the emotion of joy is much more dangerous than that of anger. In discussing this subject, Haller says that the blood is probably sent with such violence to the brain as to cause apoplexy. There is one case on record in which after a death from sudden joy the pericardium was found full of blood. The Ephemerides, Marcellus Donatus, Martini, and Struthius all mention death from joy.

Death from violent laughter has been recorded, but in this instance it is very probable that death was not due to the emotion itself, but to the extreme convulsion and exertion used in the laughter. The Ephemerides mentions a death from laughter, and also describes the death of a pregnant woman from violent mirth. Roy, Swinger, and Camerarius have recorded instances of death from laughter. Strange as it may seem, Saint-Foix says that the Moravian brothers, a sect of Anabaptists having great horror of bloodshed, executed their condemned brethren by tickling them to death.

Powerfully depressing emotions, which are called by Kant "asthenic," such as great and sudden sorrow, grief, or fright, have a pronounced effect on the vital functions, at times even causing death. Throughout literature and history we have examples of this anomaly. In Shakespeare's "Pericles," Thaisa, the daughter to Simonides and wife of Pericles, frightened when pregnant by a threatened shipwreck, dies in premature childbirth.

In Scott's "Guy Mannering," Mrs. Bertram, on suddenly learning of the death of her little boy, is thrown into premature labor, followed by death. Various theories are advanced in explanation of this anomaly. A very plausible one is, that the cardiac palsy is caused by energetic and persistent excitement of the inhibitory cardiac nerves. Strand is accredited with saying that agony of the mind produces rupture of the heart. It is quite common to hear the expression, "Died of a broken heart;" and, strange to say, in some cases postmortem examination has proved the actual truth of the saying. Bartholinus, Fabricius Hildanus, Pliny, Rhodius, Schenck, Marcellus Donatus, Riedlin, and Garengeot speak of death from fright and fear, and the Ephemerides describes a death the direct cause of which was intense shame. Deleau, a celebrated doctor of Paris, while embracing his favorite daughter, who was in the last throes of consumption, was so overcome by intense grief that he fell over her corpse and died, and both were buried together.

The fear of child-birth has been frequently cited as a cause of death McClintock quotes a case from Travers of a young lady, happily married; who entertained a fear of death in child-birth; although she had been safely delivered, she suddenly and without apparent cause died in six hours. Every region of the body was examined with minutest care by an eminent physician, but no signs indicative of the cause of death were found. Mordret cites a similar instance of death from fear of labor. Morgagni mentions a woman who died from the disappointment of bearing a girl baby when she was extremely desirous of a boy.

The following case, quoted from Lauder Brunton, shows the extent of shock which may be produced by fear: Many years ago a janitor of a college had rendered himself obnoxious to the students, and they determined to punish him. Accordingly they prepared a block and an axe, which they conveyed to a lonely place, and having appropriately dressed themselves, some of them prepared to act as judges, and sent others of their company to bring him before them. He first affected to treat the whole affair as a joke, but was solemnly assured by the students that they meant it in real earnest. He was told to prepare for immediate death. The trembling janitor looked all around in the vain hope of seeing some indication that nothing was really meant, but stern looks met him everywhere. He was blindfolded, and made to kneel before the block. The executioner's axe was raised, but, instead of the sharp edge, a wet towel was brought sharply down on the back of the neck. The bandage was now removed from the culprit's eyes, but to the horror and astonishment of the students they found that he was dead. Such a case may be due to heart-failure from fear or excitement.

It is not uncommon that death ensues from the shock alone following blows that cause no visible injury, but administered to vital parts. This is particularly true of blows about the external genital region, or epigastrium, where the solar plexus is an active factor in inhibition. Ivanhoff of Bulgaria in 1886 speaks of a man of forty-five who was dealt a blow on the testicle in a violent street fight, and staggering, he fell insensible. Despite vigorous medical efforts he never regained consciousness and died in forty-five minutes. Postmortem examination revealed everything normal, and death must have been caused by syncope following violent pain. Watkins cites an instance occurring in South Africa. A native shearing sheep for a farmer provoked his master's ire by calling him by some nickname. While the man was in a squatting posture the farmer struck him in the epigastrium. He followed this up by a kick in the side and a blow on the head, neither of which, however, was as severe as the first blow. The man fell unconscious and died. At the autopsy there were no signs indicative of death, which must have been due to the shock following the blow on the epigastrium.

As illustrative of the sensitiveness of the epigastric region, Vincent relates the following case: "A man received a blow by a stick upon the epigastrium. He had an anxious expression and suffered from oppression. Irregular heart-action and shivering were symptoms that gradually disappeared during the day. In the evening his appetite returned and he felt well; during the night he died without a struggle, and at the autopsy there was absolutely nothing abnormal to be found." Blows upon the neck often produce sudden collapse. Prize-fighters are well aware of the effects of a blow on the jugular vein. Maschka, quoted by Warren, reports the case of a boy of twelve, who was struck on the anterior portion of the larynx by a stone. He fell lifeless to the ground, and at autopsy no local lesion was found nor any lesion elsewhere. The sudden death may be attributed in this case partly to shock and partly to cerebral anemia.

Soldiers have been seen to drop lifeless on the battle-field without apparent injury or organic derangement; in the olden times this death was attributed to fear and fright, and later was supposed to be caused by what is called "the wind of a cannon-ball." Tolifree has written an article on this cause of sudden death and others have discussed it. By some it is maintained that the momentum acquired by a cannon-ball generates enough force in the neighboring air to prostrate a person in the immediate vicinity of its path of flight.

CHAPTER X.

SURGICAL ANOMALIES OF THE HEAD AND NECK.

Injuries of such a delicate organ as the eye, in which the slightest accident can produce such disastrous consequences, naturally elicit the interest of all. Examples of exophthalmos, or protrusion of the eye from the orbit from bizarre causes, are of particular interest. Among the older writers we find Ficker and the Ephemerides giving instances of exophthalmos from vomiting. Fabricius Hildanus mentions a similar instance. Salmuth, Verduc, and others mention extrusion of the eyeball from the socket, due to excessive coughing. Ab Heers and Sennert mention instances in which after replacement the sight was uninjured. Tyler relates the case of a man who, after arising in the morning, blew his nose violently, and to his horror his left eye extruded from the orbit. With the assistance of his wife it was immediately replaced and a bandage placed over it. When Tyler saw him the upper lid was slightly swollen and discolored, but there was no hemorrhage.

Hutchinson describes extrusion of the eyeball from the orbit caused by a thrust with a stick. There was paraphymotic strangulation of the globe, entirely preventing replacement and necessitating excision. Reyssie speaks of a patient who, during a fire, was struck in the right eye by a stream of water from a hose, violently thrusting the eye backward. Contracting under the double influence of shock and cold, the surrounding tissues forced the eyeball from the orbit, and an hour later Reyssie saw the patient with the eye hanging by the optic nerve and muscles. Its reduction was easy, and after some minor treatment vision was perfectly restored in the injured organ. Thirty months after the accident the patient had perfect vision, and the eye had never in the slightest way discommoded him.

Bodkin mentions the case of a woman of sixty who fell on the key in a door and completely avulsed her eye. In von Graefe's Archiv there is a record of a man of seventy-five who suffered complete avulsion of the eye by a cart-wheel passing over his head. Verhaeghe records complete avulsion of the eye caused by a man falling against the ring of a sharp-worn key. Hamill describes the case of a young girl whose conjunctiva was pierced by one of the rests of an ordinary gas-bracket. Being hooked at one of its extremities the iron became entangled in either the inferior oblique or external rectus muscles, and completely avulsed the eyeball upon the cheek. The real damage could not be estimated, as the patient never returned after the muscle was clipped off close to its conjunctival insertion. Calhoun mentions an instance of a little Esquimaux dog whose head was seized between the jaws of a large Newfoundland with such force as to press the left eyeball from the socket. The ball rested on the cheek, held by the taut optic nerve; the cornea was opaque. The ball was carefully and gently replaced, and sight soon returned to the eye.

In former days there was an old-fashioned manner of fighting called "gouging." In this brutal contest the combatant was successful who could, with his thumb, press his opponent's eyeball out. Strange to say, little serious or permanently bad results followed such inhuman treatment of the eye. Von Langenbeck of Berlin mentions an instance of fracture of the superior maxilla, in which the eyeball was so much displaced as to lodge in the antrum of Highmore. Von Becker of Heidelberg reports the history of a case in which a blow from the horn of a cow dislocated the eye so far back in the orbit as to present the appearance of enucleation. The conjunctiva hid the organ from view, but when it was pulled aside the eyeball was exposed, and in its remote position still possessed the power of vision. In some cases in which exophthalmos has been seemingly spontaneous, extreme laxity of the lids may serve as an explanation. There is an instance on record in which a Polish dew appeared in a Continental hospital, saying that while turning in bed, without any apparent cause, his eyeball was completely extruded. There have been people who prided themselves on their ability to produce partial exophthalmos.

Rupture of the Eyeball.--Jessop mentions the case of a child of eight who suffered a blow on the eye from a fall against a bedpost, followed by compound rupture of the organ. The wound in the sclerotic was three or four lines in length, and the rent in the conjunctiva was so large that it required three sutures. The chief interest in this case was the rapid and complete recovery of vision.

Adler reports a case of fracture of the superior maxillary in which the dislocated bone-fragment of the lower orbital border, through pressure on the inferior maxillary and counter pressure on the skull, caused rupture of the conjunctiva of the left eye.

Serious Sequelae of Orbital Injuries.--In some instances injuries primarily to the orbit either by extension or implication of the cerebral contents provoke the most serious issues. Pointed instruments thrust into the orbital cavity may by this route reach the brain. There is a record of death caused by a wound of a cavernous sinus through the orbit by the stem of a tobacco-pipe. Bower saw a woman at the Gloucester Infirmary who had been stabbed in the eye by the end of an umbrella. There was profuse hemorrhage from the nostrils and left eye, but no signs indicative of its origin. Death shortly ensued, and at the necropsy a fracture through the roof of the orbit was revealed, the umbrella point having completely severed the optic nerve and divided the ophthalmic artery. The internal carotid artery was wounded in one-half of its circumference at its bend, just before it passes up between the anterior clinoid process and the optic nerve. The cavernous sinus was also opened. In this rare injury, although there was a considerable quantity of clotted blood at the base of the brain, there was no wound to the eyeball nor to the brain itself.

Pepper records a case in which a knife was thrust through the spheroidal fissure, wounding a large meningeal vein, causing death from intracranial hemorrhage. Nelaton describes an instance in which the point of an umbrella wounded the cavernous sinus and internal carotid artery of the opposite side, causing the formation of an arteriovenous aneurysm which ultimately burst, and death ensued. Polaillon saw a boy of eighteen who was found in a state of coma. It was stated that an umbrella stick had been thrust up through the roof of the orbit and had been withdrawn with much difficulty. The anterior lobe of the brain was evidently much wounded; an incision was made in the forehead and a portion of the frontal bone chiseled away entrance being thus effected, the aura was incised, and some blood and cerebrospinal fluid escaped. Five splinters were removed and a portion of the damaged brain-substance, and a small artery was tied with catgut. The debris of the eyeball was enucleated and a drain was placed in the frontal wound, coming out through the orbit. The patient soon regained consciousness and experienced no bad symptoms afterward. The drains were gradually withdrawn, the process of healing advanced rapidly, and recovery soon ensued.

 'That moveth altogether if it move at all.'

Now, then, I was again happy; I took only a thousand drops of Laudanum per day, and what was that? A latter spring had come to close up the season of youth; my brain performed its functions as healthily as ever before; I read Kant again, and again I understood him, or fancied that I did." There have been many authors who, in condemning De Quincey for unjustly throwing about the opium habit a halo of literary beauty which has tempted many to destruction, absolutely deny the truth of his statements. No one has any stable reason on which to found denial of De Quincey's statements as to the magnitude of the doses he was able to take; and his frankness and truthfulness is equal to that of any of his detractors. William Rosse Cobbe, in a volume entitled "Dr. Judas, or Portrayal of the Opium Habit," gives with great frankness of confession and considerable purity of diction a record of his own experiences with the drug. One entire chapter of Mr. Cobb's book and several portions of other chapters are devoted to showing that De Quincey was wrong in some of his statements, but notwithstanding his criticism of De Quincey, Mr. Cobbe seems to have experienced the same adventures in his dreams, showing, after all, that De Quincey knew the effects of opium even if he seemed to idealize it. According to Mr. Cobbe, there are in the United States upward of two millions of victims of enslaving drugs entirely exclusive of alcohol. Cobbe mentions several instances in which De Quincey's dose of 320 grains of opium daily has been surpassed. One man, a resident of Southern Illinois, consumed 1072 grains a day; another in the same State contented himself with 1685 grains daily; and still another is given whose daily consumption amounted to 2345 grains per day. In all cases of laudanum-takers it is probable that analysis of the commercial laudanum taken would show the amount of opium to be greatly below that of the official proportion, and little faith can be put in the records of large amounts of opium taken when the deduction has been made from the laudanum used. Dealers soon begin to know opium victims, and find them ready dupes for adulteration. According to Lewin, Samter mentions a case of morphin-habit which was continued for three years, during which, in a period of about three, hundred and twenty-three days, upward of 2 1/2 ounces of morphin was taken daily. According to the same authority, Eder reports still larger doses. In the case observed by him the patient took laudanum for six years in increasing doses up to one ounce per day; for eighteen months, pure opium, commencing with 15 grains and increasing to 2 1/4 drams daily; and for eighteen months morphin, in commencing quantities of six grains, which were later increased to 40 grains a day. When deprived of their accustomed dose of morphin the sufferings which these patients experience are terrific, and they pursue all sorts of deceptions to enable them to get their enslaving drug. Patients have been known to conceal tubes in their mouths, and even swallow them, and the authors know of a fatal instance in which a tube of hypodermic tablets of the drug was found concealed in the rectum.

The administration of such an inert substance as the infusion of orange-peel has been sufficient to invariably produce nervous excitement in a patient afflicted with carcinoma.

Sonnenschein refers to a case of an infant of five weeks who died from the effects of one phosphorous match head containing only 1/100 grain of phosphorus. There are certain people who by reason of a special susceptibility cannot tolerate phosphorus, and the exhibition of it causes in them nausea, oppression, and a feeling of pain in the epigastric region, tormina and tenesmus, accompanied with diarrhea, and in rare cases jaundice, sometimes lasting several months. In such persons 1/30 grain is capable of causing the foregoing symptoms. In 1882 a man was admitted to Guy's Hospital, London, after he had taken half of a sixpenny pot of phosphorous paste in whiskey, and was subsequently discharged completely recovered.

A peculiar feature of phosphorus-poisoning is necrosis of the jaw. This affection was first noticed in 1838, soon after the introduction of the manufacture of phosphorous matches. In late years, owing to the introduction of precautions in their manufacture, the disease has become much less common. The tipping of the match sticks is accomplished by dipping their ends in a warm solution of a composition of phosphorus, chlorate of potassium, with particles of ground flint to assist friction, some coloring agent, and Irish glue. From the contents of the dipping-pans fumes constantly arise into the faces of the workmen and dippers, and in cutting the sticks and packing the matches the hands are constantly in contact with phosphorus. The region chiefly affected in this poisoning is the jaw-bone, but the inflammation may spread to the adjoining bones and involve the vomer, the zygoma, the body of the spheroid bone, and the basilar process of the occipital bone. It is supposed that conditions in which the periosteum is exposed are favorable to the progress of the disease, and, according to Hirt, workmen with diseased teeth are affected three times as readily as those with healthy teeth, and are therefore carefully excluded from some of the factories in America.

Prentiss of Washington, D.C., in 1881 reported a remarkable case of pilocarpin idiosyncrasy in a blonde of twenty-five. He was consulted by the patient for constipation. Later on symptoms of cystitis developed, and an ultimate diagnosis of pyelitis of the right kidney was made. Uremic symptoms were avoided by the constant use of pilocarpin. Between December 16, 1880, and February 22, 1881, the patient had 22 sweats from pilocarpin. The action usually lasted from two to six hours, and quite a large dose was at length necessary. The idiosyncrasy noted was found in the hair, which at first was quite light, afterward chestnut-brown, and May 1, 1881, almost pure black. The growth of the hair became more vigorous and thicker than formerly, and as its color darkened it became coarser in proportion. In March, 1889, Prentiss saw his patient, and at that time her hair was dark brown, having returned to that color from black. Prentiss also reported the following case a as adding another to the evidence that jaborandi will produce the effect mentioned under favorable circumstances: Mrs. L., aged seventy-two years, was suffering from Bright's disease (contracted kidney). Her hair and eyebrows had been snow-white for twenty years. She suffered greatly from itching of the skin, due to the uremia of the kidney-disease; the skin was harsh and dry. For this symptom fluid extract of jaborandi was prescribed with the effect of relieving the itching. It was taken in doses of 20 or 30 drops several times a day, from October, 1886, to February, 1888. During the fall of 1887 it was noticed by the nurse that the eyebrows were growing darker, and that the hair of the head was darker in patches. These patches and the eyebrows continued to become darker, until at the time of her death they were quite black, the black tufts on the head presenting a very curious appearance among the silver-white hairs surrounding them.

Quinin being such a universally used drug, numerous instances of idiosyncrasy and intolerance have been recorded. Chevalier mentions that through contact of the drug workmen in the manufacture of quinin are liable to an affection of the skin which manifests itself in a vesicular, papular, or pustular eruption on different parts of the body. Vepan mentions a lady who took 1 1/2 grains and afterward 2 1/2 grains of quinin for neuralgia, and two days afterward her body was covered with purpuric spots, which disappeared in the course of nine days but reappeared after the administration of the drug was resumed. Lewin says that in this case the severity of the eruption was in accordance with the size of the dose, and during its existence there was bleeding at the gums; he adds that Gouchet also noticed an eruption of this kind in a lady who after taking quinin expectorated blood. The petechiae were profusely spread over the entire body, and they disappeared after the suspension of the drug. Dauboeuf, Garraway, Hemming, Skinner, and Cobner mention roseola and scarlatiniform erythema after minute doses of quinin. In nearly all these cases the accompanying symptoms were different. Heusinger speaks of a lady who, after taking 1/2 grain of quinin, experienced headache, nausea, intense burning, and edema, together with nodular erythema on the eyelids, cheeks, and portion of the forehead. At another time 1 1/2 grains of the drug gave rise to herpetic vesicles on the cheeks, followed by branny desquamation on elimination of the drug. In other patients intense itching is experienced after the ingestion of quinin. Peters cites an instance of a woman of sixty-five who, after taking one grain of quinin, invariably exhibited after an hour a temperature of from 104 degrees to 105 degrees F., accelerated pulse, rigors, slight delirium, thirst, and all the appearances of ill-defined fever, which would pass off in from twelve to twenty-four hours. Peters witnessed this idiosyncrasy several times and believed it to be permanent. The most unpleasant of the untoward symptoms of quinin exhibition are the disturbances of the organs of special sense. Photophobia, and even transient amblyopia, have been observed to follow small doses. In the examination of cases of the untoward effects of quinin upon the eye, Knapp of New York found the power of sight diminished in various degrees, and rarely amaurosis and immobility of the pupils. According to Lewin, the perceptions of color and light are always diminished, and although the disorder may last for some time the prognosis is favorable. The varieties of the disturbances of the functions of the ear range from tinnitus aurium to congestion causing complete deafness. The gastro-intestinal and genito-urinary tracts are especially disposed to untoward action by quinin. There is a case recorded in which, after the slightest dose of quinin, tingling and burning at the meatus urinarius were experienced. According to Lewin, there is mentioned in the case reported by Gauchet a symptom quite unique in the literature of quinin, viz., hemoptysis. Simon de Ronchard first noted the occurrence of several cases of hemoptysis following the administration of doses of eight grains daily. In the persons thus attacked the lungs and heart were healthy. Hemoptysis promptly ceased with the suspension of the drug. When it was renewed, blood again appeared in the sputa. Taussig mentions a curious mistake, in which an ounce of quinin sulphate was administered to a patient at one dose; the only symptoms noticed were a stuporous condition and complete deafness. No antidote was given, and the patient perfectly recovered in a week. In malarious countries, and particularly in the malarial fevers of the late war, enormous quantities of quinin were frequently given. In fact, at the present day in some parts of the South quinin is constantly kept on the table as a prophylactic constituent of the diet.

Skinner noticed the occurrence of a scarlatiniform eruption in a woman after the dose of 1/165 grain of strychnin, which, however, disappeared with the discontinuance of the drug. There was a man in London in 1865 who died in twenty minute's after the ingestion of 1/2 grain of strychnin. Wood speaks of a case in which the administration of 1/100 grain killed a child three and one-half months old. Gray speaks of a man who took 22 grains and was not seen for about an hour. He had vomited some of it immediately after taking the dose, and was successfully treated with chloral hydrate. A curious case is mentioned in which three mustard plasters, one on the throat, one on the back of the neck, and another on the left shoulder of a woman, produced symptoms similar to strychnin poisoning. They remained in position for about thirty minutes, and about thirty hours afterward a painful stinging sensation commenced in the back of the neck, followed by violent twitching of the muscles of the face, arms, and legs, which continued in regular succession through the whole of the night, but after twelve hours yielded to hot fomentations of poppy-heads applied to the back of the neck. It could not be ascertained whether any medicine containing strychnin had been taken, but surely, from the symptoms, such must have been the case.

Tobacco.--O'Neill a gives the history of a farmer's wife, aged forty, who wounded her leg against a sewing-machine, and by lay advice applied a handful of chopped wet tobacco to it, from which procedure, strange to say, serious nicotin-poisoning ensued. The pupils were dilated, there were dimness of vision, confusion of thought, and extreme prostration. The pulse was scarcely apparent, the skin was white and wet with clammy perspiration. Happily, strychnin was given in time to effect recovery, and without early medical assistance she would undoubtedly have succumbed. There are several similar cases on record.

Although not immediately related to the subject of idiosyncrasy, the following case may be mentioned here: Ramadge speaks of a young Frenchman, suffering from an obstinate case of gonorrhea, who was said to have been completely cured by living in a newly painted house in which he inhaled the odors or vapors of turpentine.

White speaks of a case of exanthematous eruption similar to that of ivy-poison in mother and child, which was apparently caused by playing with and burning the toy called "Pharaoh's serpent egg."

The idiosyncrasies noticed in some persons during coitus are quite interesting. The Ephemerides mentions a person in whom coitus habitually caused vomiting, and another in whom excessive sexual indulgence provoked singultus. Sometimes exaggerated tremors or convulsions, particularly at the moment of orgasm, are noticed. Females especially are subject to this phenomenon, and it is seen sometimes in birds.

Winn reports the case of a man who, when prompted to indulge in sexual intercourse, was immediately prior to the act seized with a fit of sneezing. Even the thought of sexual pleasure with a female was sufficient to provoke this peculiar idiosyncrasy.

Sullivan mentions a bride of four weeks, who called at the doctor's office, saying that in coitus her partner had no difficulty until the point of culmination or orgasm, when he was seized with complete numbness and lost all pleasurable sensation in the penis. The numbness was followed by a sensation of pain, which was intensified on the slightest motion, and which was at times so excruciating as to forbid separation for upward of an hour, or until the penis had become flaccid. The woman asked for advice for her unfortunate husband's relief, and the case was reported as a means of obtaining suggestions from the physicians over the country. In response, one theory was advanced that this man had been in the habit of masturbating and had a stricture of the membranous portion of the urethra, associated with an ulcer of the prostate involving the ejaculatory ducts, or an inflammatory condition of all the tissues compressed by the ejaculatory muscles.

Hendrichsen quotes a case in which a spasmodic contraction of the levator ani occurred during coitus, and the penis could not be withdrawn while this condition lasted; and in support of this circumstance Hendrichsen mentions that Marion Sims, Beigel, and Budin describe spasmodic contractions of the levator and, constricting the vagina; he also cites an instance under his personal observation in which this spasm was excited by both vaginal and rectal examination, although on the following day no such condition could be produced. In this connection, among the older writers, Borellus gives the history of a man who before coitus rubbed his virile member with musk, and, similar to the connection of a dog and bitch, was held fast in his wife's vagina; it was only after the injection of great quantities of water to soften the parts that separation was obtained. Diemerbroeck confirms this singular property of musk by an analogous observation, in which the ludicrous method of throwing cold water on the persons was practised. Schurig also relates the history of a similar instance.

Among the peculiar effects of coitus is its deteriorating effect on the healing process of wounds. Boerhaave, Pare, and Fabricius Hildanus all speak of this untoward effect of venery, and in modern times Poncet has made observations at a hospital in Lyons which prove that during the process of healing wounds are unduly and harmfully influenced by coitus, and cites confirmatory instances. Poncet also remarks that he found on nine occasions, by placing a thermometer in the rectum, that the temperature was about 1 degrees F. lower just before than after coitus, and that during the act the temperature gradually rose above normal.

There are many associate conditions which, under the exciting influence of coitus, provoke harmful effects and even a fatal issue. Deguise mentions a man who had coitus 18 times in ten hours with most disastrous effects. Cabrolius speaks of a man who took a potion of aphrodisiac properties, in which, among other things, he put an enormous dose of cantharides. The anticipation of the effect of his dose, that is, the mental influence, in addition to the actual therapeutic effect, greatly distressed and excited him. Almost beyond belief, it is said that he approached his wife eighty-seven times during the night, spilling much sperm on the sleeping-bed. Cabrolius was called to see this man in the morning, and found him in a most exhausted condition, but still having the supposed consecutive ejaculations. Exhaustion progressed rapidly, and death soon terminated this erotic crisis. Lawson is accredited with saying that among the Marquesan tribe he knew of a woman who during a single night had intercourse with 103 men.

Among the older writers there are instances reported in which erection and ejaculation took place without the slightest pleasurable sensation. Claudius exemplifies this fact in his report of a Venetian merchant who had vigorous erections and ejaculations of thick and abundant semen without either tingling or pleasure.

Attila, King of the Huns, and one of the most celebrated leaders of the German hosts which overran the Roman Empire in its decline, and whose enormous army and name inspired such terror that he was called the "Scourge of God," was supposed to have died in coitus. Apoplexy, organic heart disorders, aneurysms, and other like disorders are in such cases generally the direct cause of death, coitus causing the death indirectly by the excitement and exertion accompanying the act.

Bartholinus, Benedictus, Borellus, Pliny, Morgagni, Plater, a Castro, Forestus, Marcellus Donatus, Schurig, Sinibaldus, Schenck, the Ephemerides, and many others mention death during coitus; the older writers in some cases attributed the fatal issue to excessive sexual indulgence, not considering the possibility of the associate direct cause, which most likely would have been found in case of a necropsy.

Suspended Animation.--Various opinions have been expressed as to the length of time compatible with life during which a person can stay under water. Recoveries from drowning furnish interesting examples of the suspension of animation for a protracted period, but are hardly ever reliable, as the subject at short intervals almost invariably rises to the surface of the water, allowing occasional respiration. Taylor mentions a child of two who recovered after ten minutes' submersion; in another case a man recovered after fourteen minutes' submersion. There is a case reported in this country of a woman who was said to have been submerged twenty minutes. Guerard quotes a case happening in 1774, in which there was submersion for an hour with subsequent recovery; but there hardly seems sufficient evidence of this.

Green mentions submersion for fifteen minutes; Douglass, for fourteen minutes; Laub, for fifteen minutes; Povall gives a description of three persons who recovered after a submersion of twenty-five minutes. There is a case in French literature, apparently well authenticated, in which submersion for six minutes was followed by subsequent recovery.

There have been individuals who gave exhibitions of prolonged submersion in large glass aquariums, placed in full view of the audience. Taylor remarks that the person known some years ago in London as "Lurline" could stay under water for three minutes. There have been several exhibitionists of this sort. Some of the more enterprising seat themselves on an artificial coral, and surrounded by fishes of divers hues complacently eat a meal while thus submerged. It is said that quite recently in Detroit there was a performer who accomplished the feat of remaining under water four minutes and eight seconds in full view of the audience. Miss Lurline swam about in her aquarium, which was brilliantly illuminated, ate, reclined, and appeared to be taking a short nap during her short immersion. In Paris, some years since, there was exhibited a creature called "l'homme-poisson," who performed feats similar to Lurline, including the smoking of a cigarette held entirely in his mouth. In all these exhibitions all sorts of artificial means are used to make the submersion appear long. Great ceremony, music, and the counting of the seconds in a loud voice from the stage, all tend to make the time appear much longer than it really is. However, James Finney in London, April 7, 1886, stayed under water four minutes, twenty-nine and one-fourth seconds, and one of his feats was to pick up 70 or 80 gold-plated half-pennies with his mouth, his hands being securely tied behind his back, and never emerging from his tank until his feat was fully accomplished. In company with his sister he played a game of "nap" under water, using porcelain cards and turning them to the view of the audience. "Professor Enochs" recently stayed under water at Lowell, Mass., for four minutes, forty-six and one-fifth seconds. The best previous record was four minutes, thirty-five seconds, made by "Professor Beaumont" at Melbourne on December 16, 1893.

For the most satisfactory examples of prolonged submersion we must look to the divers, particularly the natives who trade in coral, and the pearl fishers. Diving is an ancient custom, and even legendary exploits of this nature are recorded. Homer compares the fall of Hector's chariot to the action of a diver; and specially trained men were employed at the Siege of Syracuse, their mission being to laboriously scuttle the enemy's vessels. Many of the old historians mention diving, and Herodotus speaks of a diver by the name of Scyllias who was engaged by Xerxes to recover some articles of value which had been sunk on some Persian vessels in a tempest. Egyptian divers are mentioned by Plutarch, who says that Anthony was deceived by Cleopatra in a fishing contest by securing expert divers to place the fish upon the hooks. There was a historical or rather legendary character by the name of Didion, who was noted for his exploits in the river Meuse. He had the ability to stay under water a considerable length of time, and even to catch fish while submerged.

There was a famous diver in Sicily at the end of the fifteenth century whose feats are recorded in the writings of Alexander ab Alexandro, Pontanus, and Father Kircher, the Jesuit savant. This man's name was Nicolas, born of poor parents at Catania. From his infancy he showed an extraordinary power of diving and swimming, and from his compatriots soon acquired various names indicative of his capacity. He became very well known throughout Sicily, and for his patron had Frederick, King of Naples. In the present day, the sponge-fishers and pearl-fishers in the West Indies, the Mediterranean, the Indian Seas, and the Gulf of Mexico invite the attention of those interested in the anomalies of suspended animation. There are many marvelous tales of their ability to remain under water for long periods. It is probable that none remain submerged over two minutes, but, what is more remarkable, they are supposed to dive to extraordinary depths, some as much as 150 to 200 feet. Ordinarily they remain under water from a minute to one and a half minutes. Remaining longer, the face becomes congested, the eyes injected; the sputum bloody, due to rupture of some of the minute vessels in the lung. It is said by those who have observed them carefully that few of these divers live to an advanced age. Many of them suffer apoplectic attacks, and some of them become blind from congestion of the ocular vessels. The Syrian divers are supposed to carry weights of considerable size in their hands in order to facilitate the depth and duration of submersion. It is also said that the divers of Oceanica use heavy stones. According to Guyot-Daubes, in the Philippine Isles the native pearl-fishers teach their children to dive to the depth of 25 meters. The Tahitians, who excited the admiration of Cook, are noted for their extraordinary diving. Speaking of the inhabitants of the island of Fakaraya, near Tahiti, de la Quesnerie says that the pearl-fishers do not hesitate to dive to the depth even of 100 feet after their coveted prizes. On the Ceylon coast the mother-of-pearl fishers are under the direction of the English Government, which limits the duration and the practice of this occupation. These divers are generally Cingalese, who practice the exercise from infancy. As many as 500 small boats can be seen about the field of operation, each equipped with divers. A single diver makes about ten voyages under the water, and then rests in the bottom of the boat, when his comrade takes his place. Among other native divers are the Arabs of Algeria and some of the inhabitants of the Mexican coast.

It might be well to mention here the divers who work by means of apparatus. The ancients had knowledge of contrivances whereby they could stay under water some time. Aristotle speaks of an instrument by which divers could rest under water in communication with the air, and compares it with the trunk of an elephant wading a stream deeper than his height. In the presence of Charles V diving bells were used by the Greeks in 1540. In 1660 some of the cannon of the sunken ships of the Spanish Armada were raised by divers in diving bells. Since then various improvements in submarine armor have been made, gradually evolving into the present perfected diving apparatus of to-day, by which men work in the holds of vessels sunk in from 120 to 200 feet of water. The enormous pressure of the water at these great depths makes it necessary to have suits strong enough to resist it. Lambert, a celebrated English diver, recovered L90,000 in specie from the steamer Alphonso XII, a Spanish mail boat belonging to the Lopez line, which sank off Point Gando, Grand Canary, in 26 1/2 fathoms of water. For nearly six months the salvage party, despatched by the underwriters in May, 1885, persevered in the operations; two divers lost their lives, the golden bait being in the treasure-room beneath the three decks, but Lambert finished the task successfully.

Deep-sea divers only acquire proficiency after long training. It is said that as a rule divers are indisposed to taking apprentices, as they are afraid of their vocation being crowded and their present ample remuneration diminished. At present there are several schools. At Chatham, England, there is a school of submarine mining, in which men are trained to lay torpedoes and complete harbor defense. Most of these divers can work six hours at a time in from 35 to 50 feet of water. Divers for the Royal Navy are trained at Sheerness. When sufficiently trained to work at the depth of 150 feet seamen-divers are fully qualified, and are drafted to the various ships. They are connected with an air-pump in charge of trustworthy men; they signal for their tools and material, as well as air, by means of a special line for this purpose. At some distance below the water the extraordinary weight of the suits cannot be felt, and the divers work as well in armor as in ordinary laboring clothes. One famous diver says that the only unpleasant experience he ever had in his career as a diver, not excepting the occasion of his first dive, was a drumming in the ears, as a consequence of which, after remaining under water at a certain work for nine hours, he completely lost the use of one ear for three months, during which time he suffered agony with the earache. These men exhibit absolute indifference to the dangers attached to their calling, and some have been known to sleep many fathoms beneath the surface. Both by means of their signal lines and by writing on a slate they keep their associates informed of the progress of their work.

Suspension of the Pulse.--In some cases the pulse is not apparent for many days before actual death, and there have been instances in which, although the pulse ceased for an extended period, the patient made an ultimate recovery. In reviewing the older literature we find that Ballonius mentions an instance in which the pulse was not apparent for fourteen days before complete asphyxia. Ramazzini describes a case of cessation of the pulse four days before death. Schenck details the history of a case in which the pulse ceased for three days and asphyxia was almost total, but the patient eventually recovered. There is a noteworthy observation. in which there was cessation of the pulse for nine days without a fatal issue.

Some persons seem to have a preternatural control over their circulatory system, apparently enabling them to produce suspension of cardiac movement at will. Cheyne speaks of a Colonel Townshend who appeared to possess the power of dying, as it were, at will,--that is, so suspending the heart's action that no pulsation could be detected. After lying in this state of lifelessness for a short period, life would become slowly established without any consciousness or volition on the man's part. The longest period in which he remained in this death-like condition was about thirty minutes. A postmortem examination of this person was awaited with great interest; but after his death nothing was found to explain the power he possessed over his heart.

Saint Augustin knew of a priest named Rutilut who had the power of voluntarily simulating death. Both the pulsation and respiration was apparently abolished when he was in his lifeless condition. Burning and pricking left visible effects on the skin after his recovery, but had no apparent effect on his lethargy. Chaille reports an instance of voluntary suspension of the pulse.

Relative to hibernation, it is well-known that mice, snakes, and some reptiles, as well as bees, sometimes seem to entirely suspend animation for an extended period, and especially in the cold weather. In Russia fish are transported frozen stiff, but return to life after being plunged into cold water. A curious tale is told by Harley, from Sir John Lubbock, of a snail brought from Egypt and thought to be dead. It was placed on a card and put in position on a shelf in the British Museum in March, 1845. In March, 1850 after having been gummed to a label for five years, it was noticed to have an apparent growth on its mouth and was taken out and placed in water, when it soon showed signs of life and ate cabbage leaves offered to it. It has been said, we think with credible evidence, that cereal seeds found in the tombs with mummies have grown when planted, and Harley quotes an instance of a gentleman who took some berries, possibly the remnants of Pharaoh's daughter's last meal, coming as they did from her mummified stomach after lying dormant in an Egyptian tomb many centuries, and planted them in his garden, where they soon grew, and he shortly had a bush as flourishing as any of those emanating from fresh seeds.

Human hibernation is an extremely rare anomaly. Only the fakirs of India seem to have developed this power, and even the gifted ones there are seldom seen. Many theories have been advanced to explain this ability of the fakirs, and many persons have discredited all the stories relative to their powers; on the other hand, all who have witnessed their exhibitions are convinced of their genuineness. Furthermore, these persons are extremely scarce and are indifferent to money; none has been enticed out of his own country to give exhibitions. When one dies in a community, his place is never filled--proving that he had no accomplices who knew any fraudulent secret practices, otherwise the accomplice would soon step out to take his place. These men have undoubtedly some extraordinary mode of sending themselves into a long trance, during which the functions of life are almost entirely suspended. We can readily believe in their ability to fast during their periods of burial, as we have already related authentic instances of fasting for a great length of time, during which the individual exercised his normal functions.

To the fakir, who neither visibly breathes nor shows circulatory movements, and who never moves from his place of confinement, fasting should be comparatively easy, when we consider the number of men whose minds were actively at work during their fasts, and who also exercised much physical power.

Harley says that the fakirs begin their performances by taking a large dose of the powerfully stupefying "bang," thus becoming narcotized. In this state they are lowered into a cool, quiet tomb, which still further favors the prolongation of the artificially induced vital lethargy; in this condition they rest for from six to eight weeks. When resurrected they are only by degrees restored to life, and present a wan, haggard, debilitated, and wasted appearance. Braid is credited, on the authority of Sir Claude Wade, with stating that a fakir was buried in an unconscious state at Lahore in 1837, and when dug up, six weeks later, he presented all the appearances of a dead person. The legs and arms were shrunken and stiff, and the head reclined on the shoulder in a manner frequently seen in a corpse. There was no pulsation of the heart or arteries of the arm or temple--in fact, no really visible signs of life. By degrees this person was restored to life. Every precaution had been taken in this case to prevent the possibility of fraud, and during the period of interment the grave was guarded night and day by soldiers of the regiment stationed at Lahore.

Honigberger, a German physician in the employ of Runjeet Singh, has an account of a fakir of Punjaub who allowed himself to be buried in a well- secured vault for such a long time that grain sown in the soil above the vault sprouted into leaf before he was exhumed. Honigberger affirms that the time of burial was over 40 days, and that on being submitted to certain processes the man recovered and lived many years after. Sir Henry Lawrence verified the foregoing statements. The chest in which the fakir was buried was sealed with the Runjeet stamp on it, and when the man was brought up he was cold and apparently lifeless. Honigberger also states that this man, whose name was Haridas, was four months in a grave in the mountains; to prove the absolute suspension of animation, the chin was shaved before burial, and at exhumation this part was as smooth as on the day of interment. This latter statement naturally calls forth comment when we consider the instances that are on record of the growth of beard and hair after death.

There is another account of a person of the same class who had the power of suspending animation, and who would not allow his coffin to touch the earth for fear of worms and insects, from which he is said to have suffered at a previous burial.

It has been stated that the fakirs are either eunuchs or hermaphrodites, social outcasts, having nothing in common with the women or men of their neighborhood; but Honigberger mentions one who disproved this ridiculous theory by eloping to the mountains with his neighbor's wife.

Instances of recovery after asphyxia from hanging are to be found, particularly among the older references of a time when hanging was more common than it is to-day. Bartholinus, Blegny, Camerarius, Morgagni, Pechlin, Schenck, Stoll, and Wepfer all mention recovery after hanging. Forestus describes a case in which a man was rescued by provoking vomiting with vinegar, pepper, and mustard seed. There is a case on record in which a person was saved after hanging nineteen minutes. There was a case of a man brought into the Hopital Saint-Louis asphyxiated by strangulation, having been hung for some time. His rectal temperature was only 93.3 degrees F., but six hours after it rose to 101.6 degrees F., and he subsequently recovered. Taylor cites the instance of a stout woman of forty-four who recovered from hanging. When the woman was found by her husband she was hanging from the top of a door, having been driven to suicide on account of his abuse and intemperance. When first seen by Taylor she was comatose, her mouth was surrounded by white froth, and the swollen tongue protruded from it. Her face was bloated, her lips of a darkened hue, and her neck of a brown parchment-color. About the level of the larynx, the epidermis was distinctly abraded, indicating where the rope had been. The conjunctiva was insensible and there was no contractile response of the pupil to the light of a candle. The reflexes of the soles of the feet were tested, but were quite in abeyance. There was no respiratory movement and only slight cardiac pulsation. After vigorous measures the woman ultimately recovered. Recovery is quite rare when the asphyxiation has gone so far, the patients generally succumbing shortly after being cut down or on the following day. Chevers mentions a most curious case, in which cerebral congestion from the asphyxiation of strangling was accidentally relieved by an additional cut across the throat. The patient was a man who was set upon by a band of Thugs in India. who, pursuant to their usual custom, strangled him and his fellow-traveler. Not being satisfied that he was quite dead, one of the band returned and made several gashes across his throat. This latter action effectually relieved the congestion caused by the strangulation and undoubtedly saved his life, while his unmutilated companion was found dead. After the wounds in his throat had healed this victim of the Thugs gave such a good description of the murderous band that their apprehension and execution soon followed.

Premature Burial.--In some instances simulation of death has been so exact that it has led to premature interment. There are many such cases on record, and it is a popular superstition of the laity that all the gruesome tales are true of persons buried alive and returning to life, only to find themselves hopelessly lost in a narrow coffin many feet below the surface of the earth. Among the lower classes the dread of being buried before life is extinct is quite generally felt, and for generations the medical profession have been denounced for their inability to discover an infallible sign of death. Most of the instances on record, and particularly those from lay journals, are vivid exaggerations, drawn from possibly such a trivial sign as a corpse found with the fist tightly clenched or the face distorted, which are the inspiration of the horrible details of the dying struggles of the person in the coffin. In the works of Fontenelle there are 46 cases recorded of the premature interment of the living, in which apparent has been mistaken for real death. None of these cases, however, are sufficiently authentic to be reliable. Moreover, in all modern methods of burial, even if life were not extinct, there could be no possibility of consciousness or of struggling. Absolute asphyxiation would soon follow the closing of the coffin lid.

Peace or harmony between the sexes and individuals does not necessarily depend on a superficial equalization of human beings; nor does it call for the elimination of individual traits and peculiarities. The problem that confronts us today, and which the nearest future is to solve, is how to be one's self and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one's own characteristic qualities. This seems to me to be the basis upon which the mass and the individual, the true democrat and the true individuality, man and woman, can meet without antagonism and opposition. The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather, Understand one another. The oft-quoted sentence of Madame de Stael: "To understand everything means to forgive everything," has never particularly appealed to me; it has the odor of the confessional; to forgive one's fellow-being conveys the idea of pharisaical superiority. To understand one's fellow-being suffices. The admission partly represents the fundamental aspect of my views on the emancipation of woman and its effect upon the entire sex.

Emancipation should make it possible for woman to be human in the truest sense. Everything within her that craves assertion and activity should reach its fullest expression; all artificial barriers should be broken, and the road towards greater freedom cleared of every trace of centuries of submission and slavery.

This was the original aim of the movement for woman's emancipation. But the results so far achieved have isolated woman and have robbed her of the fountain springs of that happiness which is so essential to her. Merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being, who reminds one of the products of French arboriculture with its arabesque trees and shrubs, pyramids, wheels, and wreaths; anything, except the forms which would be reached by the expression of her own inner qualities. Such artificially grown plants of the female sex are to be found in large numbers, especially in the so-called intellectual sphere of our life.

Liberty and equality for woman! What hopes and aspirations these words awakened when they were first uttered by some of the noblest and bravest souls of those days. The sun in all his light and glory was to rise upon a new world; in this world woman was to be free to direct her own destiny--an aim certainly worthy of the great enthusiasm, courage, perseverance, and ceaseless effort of the tremendous host of pioneer men and women, who staked everything against a world of prejudice and ignorance.

My hopes also move towards that goal, but I hold that the emancipation of woman, as interpreted and practically applied today, has failed to reach that great end. Now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free. This may sound paradoxical, but is, nevertheless, only too true.

What has she achieved through her emancipation? Equal suffrage in a few States. Has that purified our political life, as many well-meaning advocates predicted? Certainly not. Incidentally, it is really time that persons with plain, sound judgment should cease to talk about corruption in politics in a boarding-school tone. Corruption of politics has nothing to do with the morals, or the laxity of morals, of various political personalities. Its cause is altogether a material one. Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world, the mottos of which are: "To take is more blessed than to give"; "buy cheap and sell dear"; "one soiled hand washes the other." There is no hope even that woman, with her right to vote, will ever purify politics.

Emancipation has brought woman economic equality with man; that is, she can choose her own profession and trade; but as her past and present physical training has not equipped her with the necessary strength to compete with man, she is often compelled to exhaust all her energy, use up her vitality, and strain every nerve in order to reach the market value. Very few ever succeed, for it is a fact that women teachers, doctors, lawyers, architects, and engineers are neither met with the same confidence as their male colleagues, nor receive equal remuneration. And those that do reach that enticing equality, generally do so at the expense of their physical and psychical well-being. As to the great mass of working girls and women, how much independence is gained if the narrowness and lack of freedom of the home is exchanged for the narrowness and lack of freedom of the factory, sweat-shop, department store, or office? In addition is the burden which is laid on many women of looking after a "home, sweet home"--cold, dreary, disorderly, uninviting--after a day's hard work. Glorious independence! No wonder that hundreds of girls are willing to accept the first offer of marriage, sick and tired of their "independence" behind the counter, at the sewing or typewriting machine. They are just as ready to marry as girls of the middle class, who long to throw off the yoke of parental supremacy. A so-called independence which leads only to earning the merest subsistence is not so enticing, not so ideal, that one could expect woman to sacrifice everything for it. Our highly praised independence is, after all, but a slow process of dulling and stifling woman's nature, her love instinct, and her mother instinct.

Nevertheless, the position of the working girl is far more natural and human than that of her seemingly more fortunate sister in the more cultured professional walks of life--teachers, physicians, lawyers, engineers, etc., who have to make a dignified, proper appearance, while the inner life is growing empty and dead.

The narrowness of the existing conception of woman's independence and emancipation; the dread of love for a man who is not her social equal; the fear that love will rob her of her freedom and independence; the horror that love or the joy of motherhood will only hinder her in the full exercise of her profession--all these together make of the emancipated modern woman a compulsory vestal, before whom life, with its great clarifying sorrows and its deep, entrancing joys, rolls on without touching or gripping her soul.

Emancipation, as understood by the majority of its adherents and exponents, is of too narrow a scope to permit the boundless love and ecstasy contained in the deep emotion of the true woman, sweetheart, mother, in freedom.

The tragedy of the self-supporting or economically free woman does not lie in too many but in too few experiences. True, she surpasses her sister of past generations in knowledge of the world and human nature; it is just because of this that she feels deeply the lack of life's essence, which alone can enrich the human soul, and without which the majority of women have become mere professional automatons.

That such a state of affairs was bound to come was foreseen by those who realized that, in the domain of ethics, there still remained many decaying ruins of the time of the undisputed superiority of man; ruins that are still considered useful. And, what is more important, a goodly number of the emancipated are unable to get along without them. Every movement that aims at the destruction of existing institutions and the replacement thereof with something more advanced, more perfect, has followers who in theory stand for the most radical ideas, but who, nevertheless, in their every-day practice, are like the average Philistine, feigning respectability and clamoring for the good opinion of their opponents. There are, for example, Socialists, and even Anarchists, who stand for the idea that property is robbery, yet who will grow indignant if anyone owe them the value of a half-dozen pins.

The same Philistine can be found in the movement for woman's emancipation. Yellow journalists and milk-and-water litterateurs have painted pictures of the emancipated woman that make the hair of the good citizen and his dull companion stand up on end. Every member of the woman's rights movement was pictured as a George Sand in her absolute disregard of morality. Nothing was sacred to her. She had no respect for the ideal relation between man and woman. In short, emancipation stood only for a reckless life of lust and sin; regardless of society, religion, and morality. The exponents of woman's rights were highly indignant at such representation, and, lacking humor, they exerted all their energy to prove that they were not at all as bad as they were painted, but the very reverse. Of course, as long as woman was the slave of man, she could not be good and pure, but now that she was free and independent she would prove how good she could be and that her influence would have a purifying effect on all institutions in society. True, the movement for woman's rights has broken many old fetters, but it has also forged new ones. The great movement of TRUE emancipation has not met with a great race of women who could look liberty in the face. Their narrow, Puritanical vision banished man, as a disturber and doubtful character, out of their emotional life. Man was not to be tolerated at any price, except perhaps as the father of a child, since a child could not very well come to life without a father. Fortunately, the most rigid Puritans never will be strong enough to kill the innate craving for motherhood. But woman's freedom is closely allied with man's freedom, and many of my so-called emancipated sisters seem to overlook the fact that a child born in freedom needs the love and devotion of each human being about him, man as well as woman. Unfortunately, it is this narrow conception of human relations that has brought about a great tragedy in the lives of the modern man and woman.

About fifteen years ago appeared a work from the pen of the brilliant Norwegian, Laura Marholm, called WOMAN, A CHARACTER STUDY. She was one of the first to call attention to the emptiness and narrowness of the existing conception of woman's emancipation, and its tragic effect upon the inner life of woman. In her work Laura Marholm speaks of the fate of several gifted women of international fame: the genius, Eleonora Duse; the great mathematician and writer, Sonya Kovalevskaia; the artist and poet-nature, Marie Bashkirtzeff, who died so young. Through each description of the lives of these women of such extraordinary mentality runs a marked trail of unsatisfied craving for a full, rounded, complete, and beautiful life, and the unrest and loneliness resulting from the lack of it. Through these masterly psychological sketches, one cannot help but see that the higher the mental development of woman, the less possible it is for her to meet a congenial mate who will see in her, not only sex, but also the human being, the friend, the comrade and strong individuality, who cannot and ought not lose a single trait of her character.

The average man with his self-sufficiency, his ridiculously superior airs of patronage towards the female sex, is an impossibility for woman as depicted in the CHARACTER STUDY by Laura Marholm. Equally impossible for her is the man who can see in her nothing more than her mentality and her genius, and who fails to awaken her woman nature.

A rich intellect and a fine soul are usually considered necessary attributes of a deep and beautiful personality. In the case of the modern woman, these attributes serve as a hindrance to the complete assertion of her being. For over a hundred years the old form of marriage, based on the Bible, "till death doth part," has been denounced as an institution that stands for the sovereignty of the man over the woman, of her complete submission to his whims and commands, and absolute dependence on his name and support. Time and again it has been conclusively proved that the old matrimonial relation restricted woman to the function of a man's servant and the bearer of his children. And yet we find many emancipated women who prefer marriage, with all its deficiencies, to the narrowness of an unmarried life; narrow and unendurable because of the chains of moral and social prejudice that cramp and bind her nature.

The explanation of such inconsistency on the part of many advanced women is to be found in the fact that they never truly understood the meaning of emancipation. They thought that all that was needed was independence from external tyrannies; the internal tyrants, far more harmful to life and growth--ethical and social conventions--were left to take care of themselves; and they have taken care of themselves. They seem to get along as beautifully in the heads and hearts of the most active exponents of woman's emancipation, as in the heads and hearts of our grandmothers.

These internal tyrants, whether they be in the form of public opinion or what will mother say, or brother, father, aunt, or relative of any sort; what will Mrs. Grundy, Mr. Comstock, the employer, the Board of Education say? All these busybodies, moral detectives, jailers of the human spirit, what will they say? Until woman has learned to defy them all, to stand firmly on her own ground and to insist upon her own unrestricted freedom, to listen to the voice of her nature, whether it call for life's greatest treasure, love for a man, or her most glorious privilege, the right to give birth to a child, she cannot call herself emancipated. How many emancipated women are brave enough to acknowledge that the voice of love is calling, wildly beating against their breasts, demanding to be heard, to be satisfied.

The French writer, Jean Reibrach, in one of his novels, NEW BEAUTY, attempts to picture the ideal, beautiful, emancipated woman. This ideal is embodied in a young girl, a physician. She talks very cleverly and wisely of how to feed infants; she is kind, and administers medicines free to poor mothers. She converses with a young man of her acquaintance about the sanitary conditions of the future, and how various bacilli and germs shall be exterminated by the use of stone walls and floors, and by the doing away with rugs and hangings. She is, of course, very plainly and practically dressed, mostly in black. The young man, who, at their first meeting, was overawed by the wisdom of his emancipated friend, gradually learns to understand her, and recognizes one fine day that he loves her. They are young, and she is kind and beautiful, and though always in rigid attire, her appearance is softened by a spotlessly clean white collar and cuffs. One would expect that he would tell her of his love, but he is not one to commit romantic absurdities. Poetry and the enthusiasm of love cover their blushing faces before the pure beauty of the lady. He silences the voice of his nature, and remains correct. She, too, is always exact, always rational, always well behaved. I fear if they had formed a union, the young man would have risked freezing to death. I must confess that I can see nothing beautiful in this new beauty, who is as cold as the stone walls and floors she dreams of. Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks. If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus.

The greatest shortcoming of the emancipation of the present day lies in its artificial stiffness and its narrow respectabilities, which produce an emptiness in woman's soul that will not let her drink from the fountain of life. I once remarked that there seemed to be a deeper relationship between the old-fashioned mother and hostess, ever on the alert for the happiness of her little ones and the comfort of those she loved, and the truly new woman, than between the latter and her average emancipated sister. The disciples of emancipation pure and simple declared me a heathen, fit only for the stake. Their blind zeal did not let them see that my comparison between the old and the new was merely to prove that a goodly number of our grandmothers had more blood in their veins, far more humor and wit, and certainly a greater amount of naturalness, kind-heartedness, and simplicity, than the majority of our emancipated professional women who fill the colleges, halls of learning, and various offices. This does not mean a wish to return to the past, nor does it condemn woman to her old sphere, the kitchen and the nursery.

Salvation lies in an energetic march onward towards a brighter and clearer future. We are in need of unhampered growth out of old traditions and habits. The movement for woman's emancipation has so far made but the first step in that direction. It is to be hoped that it will gather strength to make another. The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman's soul. History tells us that every oppressed class gained true liberation from its masters through its own efforts. It is necessary that woman learn that lesson, that she realize that her freedom will reach as far as her power to achieve her freedom reaches. It is, therefore, far more important for her to begin with her inner regeneration, to cut loose from the weight of prejudices, traditions, and customs. The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved. Indeed, if partial emancipation is to become a complete and true emancipation of woman, it will have to do away with the ridiculous notion that to be loved, to be sweetheart and mother, is synonymous with being slave or subordinate. It will have to do away with the absurd notion of the dualism of the sexes, or that man and woman represent two antagonistic worlds.

Pettiness separates; breadth unites. Let us be broad and big. Let us not overlook vital things because of the bulk of trifles confronting us. A true conception of the relation of the sexes will not admit of conqueror and conquered; it knows of but one great thing: to give of one's self boundlessly, in order to find one's self richer, deeper, better. That alone can fill the emptiness, and transform the tragedy of woman's emancipation into joy, limitless joy.

MARRIAGE AND LOVE

The popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs. Like most popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but on superstition.

Marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other. No doubt some marriages have been the result of love. Not, however, because love could assert itself only in marriage; much rather is it because few people can completely outgrow a convention. There are today large numbers of men and women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but who submit to it for the sake of public opinion. At any rate, while it is true that some marriages are based on love, and while it is equally true that in some cases love continues in married life, I maintain that it does so regardless of marriage, and not because of it.