+ ~ -
 
Please report pronunciation problems here. Select and sample other voices. Options Pause Play
 
Report an Error
Go!
 
Go!
 
TOC
 

were equally matched; but the blow between
the eyes had given your countryman somewhat
the advantage; and, as they struggled,
Julie's brother felt himself the weaker. They
rolled to the side of the road, overhanging
the gave. With a firm clutch of his
antagonist, the Basque, by a strong kick,
brought them both to the brink. In vain
Charles tried to free himself from the grasp
which held him. They crashed together down
the rocks, breaking through the slight trees
which grew from the clefts, and fell heavily
into the gave which flowed beneath. They fell
a height of nearly one hundred and fifty feet,
in a place where the stream, choked up with
rocks and stones, was half a foot deep.

Julie's brother was killed on the spot;
Charles, strange to say, still lived. His fall
had been somewhat broken by his enemy falling
undermost. They were discovered by a
fisherman, who was out early to supply the
hotels at the baths with trout. He hurried
off for assistance, and they were conveyed to
the cottage of Julie's mother. I was
immediately sent for, and saw that there was not
the least hope for the mangled survivor.
He told me before he died, that he had
unhappily lost the address Julie had given him;
but that, in hopes she might have gone to
inquire at the post-office in Pau, he had
addressed letter after letter to her at the
Poste Restante, where, he doubted not, they
still remained. It was in her arms, with his
head on her bosom, and his child holding one
of his hands, that he died.

I never shall forget that girl's curses against
her brother. I never shall forget how she
refused to be separated from his body, how
she clung to it, how she raved and swooned, or
the terrible brain-fever that supervened; from
the time of her recovery to this hour, her face
has retained the bloodless hue you must have
noticed. She and her boy are provided for by
Charles's parents, to whom I wrote, by his
desire. He is buried in the Protestant burying-
ground at Pau; and four times a year a fresh
crown of bright immortelles is found on the
railings which surround his grave.

I thanked my companion for his story; and
we parted.

                            INVOCATION.

                WHERE waitest thou,
Lady I am to love? Thou comest not,
Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot,
                 I looked for thee ere now!

                 It is the May:
Each longing sister-soul hath found its brother,
Only we two seek fondly, each the other;
                And seeking, still delay.

                Thou art as I:
Thy soul doth wait for mine, as mine for thee.
We cannot be apart. Must meeting be
                Never, before we die?

                Yes! we shall meet:
And therefore let our searching be the stronger;
Dark ways of life shall not divide us longer,
                Nor change, nor Time defeat.

                Therefore I strove
Bravely with winter-tide, and long,
Patiently waiting for the glad spring-song
                 That bodes thy coming, love.

                 'Tis the May-light
That crimsons all the quiet College gloom;
May it shine brightly in thy sleeping-room!
                 And so, sweet wife, good night!

                     UNDER CANVAS.

MR. LAYARD was in the midst of the excavations
at Kouyunjik, near Mosul: colossal gods,
and storied palaces, daily rose like unburied
ghosts from the tomb. The Arabsbelieving
that the Frankish Bej, "who had come from
the other end of the world to dig up the
bones of their grandfathers and
grandmothers," was searching for treasure among
those hoary stonesbrought him continually
tiny particles of gold-leaf, carefully wrapped
up in dingy pieces of paper, or crying out
that they had found Nimrod himself, or an
accursed Jinn, as a human-headed bull or
lion slowly reared its gigantic proportions
from the bowels of the earth. " Walleh! it
was not the work of men's hands, but of those
infidel giants of whom the Prophet (peace
be with him!) has said they were higher than
the tallest date-tree; it was one of the idols
which Noah (peace be with him too!) cursed
before the flood." It was in the midst of all
the bustle, and excitement, and life of the
Ninevite diggings, that a note was brought
from the Sheikh of the Jebour tribe, saying that
two colossal idols had been found near the
Khebour river, and inviting the Frankish Bej to
ride out into the desert to view them. This
was an invitation few men could have
resisted. Accordingly Mr. Layard and a
large cavalcade, near a hundred strong, set
out for their journey among the Bedouins.

It was no mere sandy waste in these bright
spring months that the explorer passed
through. Far as the eye could reach,
tracts of young grass, mingled with patches
of brilliant flowers, offered a scene little in
accordance with the received idea of an
Arabian desert. Gazelles bounded from the low
cover; hares scudded through the bright
green grass, and the greyhound plunged
among the low brushwood after them.
Returning from the course, dyed purple, and
blue, and scarlet, and yellow, from the gaudy
flower-beds they had passed through, hawks
were flown at the francolins, or black
partridges, that rose whirring up from the ground
men shouted the war-cry of their tribes, or
fired their matchlocks in the air, galloping
madly to and fro, intoxicated with the freedom
and beauty about them. Some flung
their long spears in the air, playing at the
jerid; others brandished their weapons, with
bright handkerchiefs streaming from the end.
The white pavilions of the Hytas, or
irregular Turkish cavalry, glittered in the
distance, side by side with the black tents of the
wandering Arabs; horses gaily caparisoned,