There is never any telling what a cat will do. Everybody who has kept house, or who is keeping house, or who is an inmate of a house that is kept, as all well-regulated houses are, for the partial convenience of the cat, will agree to this proposition.The cat, to all appearances, as far as any member of the family is able to see, has been put out for the night, and yet she is found to be in at 4a.m.as usual, pleading with all the inmates, individually and collectively, to have the door opened for her so that she may go out.On the other hand, she is safely locked in, as far as anybody can see. Witnesses are always willing to testify that they have seen her locked in. Nevertheless, at about 4.30a.m., she is heard outside under the bedroom windows, pleading as usual to be let in.Again, the cat has been taken to the river in a flour-sack, and comfortably drowned. The small boy of the family, accompanied by one of the boarders, who has given the small boy a quarter, has seen the bag, with the cat inside of it, sink below the surface.The news is somehow rumored about the house, and all the boarders go to bed early that night, feeling that there is really more in life than they had any right to hope for. Yet in the morning the voice of that cat is heard on the front door-step, and the cat herself comes in when Mr. Johnson reaches out for his morning paper.And, again, a terrible noise is heard in the dining-room. It sounds as if the contents of the sideboard had been emptied on the floor. When sufficient time is given for the burglars to escape, the procession comes down-stairs, headed by Mrs. Johnson.There is not a single thing disturbed in the dining-room or elsewhere, and the cat is sleeping snugly on the best rug. It is always a mystery how the cat makes that kind of noise.The days of superstition are long since passed. Few are superstitious now, and these are generally the ignorant. But there are very many people in every community who do not understand many things about the cat.It is not going too far to say that many millions of people who pass for intelligent believe that every cat has two personalities—one that is just an ordinary cat and the other an intangible something that can penetrate solid matter like the X-ray.This theory would account for the fact that a cat which you have seen run down by an automobile will be found next morning chasing squirrels across the lawn, and for the fact that the cat which you expressed, charges prepaid, to your brother's wife in Trenton, New Jersey, is heard running over the piano-keys in your own house a few nights later.We are far from knowing everything that is worth while about the cat, much as we may boast of our advancement in general education.
There is never any telling what a cat will do. Everybody who has kept house, or who is keeping house, or who is an inmate of a house that is kept, as all well-regulated houses are, for the partial convenience of the cat, will agree to this proposition.
The cat, to all appearances, as far as any member of the family is able to see, has been put out for the night, and yet she is found to be in at 4a.m.as usual, pleading with all the inmates, individually and collectively, to have the door opened for her so that she may go out.
On the other hand, she is safely locked in, as far as anybody can see. Witnesses are always willing to testify that they have seen her locked in. Nevertheless, at about 4.30a.m., she is heard outside under the bedroom windows, pleading as usual to be let in.
Again, the cat has been taken to the river in a flour-sack, and comfortably drowned. The small boy of the family, accompanied by one of the boarders, who has given the small boy a quarter, has seen the bag, with the cat inside of it, sink below the surface.
The news is somehow rumored about the house, and all the boarders go to bed early that night, feeling that there is really more in life than they had any right to hope for. Yet in the morning the voice of that cat is heard on the front door-step, and the cat herself comes in when Mr. Johnson reaches out for his morning paper.
And, again, a terrible noise is heard in the dining-room. It sounds as if the contents of the sideboard had been emptied on the floor. When sufficient time is given for the burglars to escape, the procession comes down-stairs, headed by Mrs. Johnson.
There is not a single thing disturbed in the dining-room or elsewhere, and the cat is sleeping snugly on the best rug. It is always a mystery how the cat makes that kind of noise.
The days of superstition are long since passed. Few are superstitious now, and these are generally the ignorant. But there are very many people in every community who do not understand many things about the cat.
It is not going too far to say that many millions of people who pass for intelligent believe that every cat has two personalities—one that is just an ordinary cat and the other an intangible something that can penetrate solid matter like the X-ray.
This theory would account for the fact that a cat which you have seen run down by an automobile will be found next morning chasing squirrels across the lawn, and for the fact that the cat which you expressed, charges prepaid, to your brother's wife in Trenton, New Jersey, is heard running over the piano-keys in your own house a few nights later.
We are far from knowing everything that is worth while about the cat, much as we may boast of our advancement in general education.
The golden setting in which the brightest jewel is "mother."
A world of strife shut out, a world of love shut in.
An arbor which shades when the sunshine of prosperity becomes too dazzling; a harbor where the human bark finds shelter in time of storm.
Home is the blossom of which heaven is the fruit.
Home is a person's estate obtained without injustice, kept without disquietude; a place where time is spent without repentance, and which is ruled by justice, mercy, and love.
A hive in which, like the industrious bee, youth garners the sweets and memories of life for age to meditate and feed upon.
The best place for a married man after business hours.
Home is the coziest, kindliest, sweetest place in all the world, the scene of our purest earthly joys and deepest sorrows.
The place where the great are sometimes small, and the small often great.
The father's kingdom, the children's paradise, the mother's world.
The jewel casket containing the most precious of all jewels—domestic happiness.
Where you are treated best and grumble most.
The center of our affections, around which our heart's best wishes twine.
A popular but paradoxical institution, in which woman works in the absence of man, and man rests in the presence of woman.
A working model of heaven, with real angels in the form of mothers and wives.
Having offered a prize for the best definition of "Home," LondonTit-Bitsrecently received more than five thousand answers.
Among those which were adjudged the best were the definitions printed above.
In 1897 the British Empire celebrated the Diamond Jubilee, as it was called, of Victoria's accession to the throne. She had been queen for sixty years, and in that time the dominion of the flag of Britain had been extended over lands which, at her coronation, were scarcely known except by name. The celebration culminated in a splendid and stately ceremonial which made London appear to be the capital city of the entire world. From out all the length and breadth of the empire came princes, chiefs, nobles, and statesmen of every race, all united under British rule, and vying with each other in homage to their sovereign. So overwhelming were this display and the significance of its splendor that it roused in many minds a feeling of awe bordering almost upon apprehension. Was this greatness not too great? Might it not breed that overweening pride of power which goes before destruction?
This thought sank deep into the impressionable mind of Rudyard Kipling. His genius sought to express in words the idea which came to him—the wish to deprecate that divine disfavor which men have always feared as the punishment of too great prosperity. It was the feeling which made the Greeks and Romans dread the power of Nemesis, the jealousy of the gods. Kipling wrote five stanzas which he entitled "Recessional."
The lines at once were cabled to all parts of the English-speaking world, and they took their place with the classic poems of the English tongue. "Recessional" is indeed a majestic and noble poem—a prayer in verse. Its solemnity and religious fervor are Hebraic. Its mastery of phrase is almost unrivaled. Through it there runs a tone of proud humility which marks the English character, touched with haughtiness even in its supplication. Such a phrase as that which speaks of the "lesser breeds without the Law" contains even a touch of scorn which would be discordant were it not so characteristic of the great conquering race of which to-day Kipling himself has become the unofficial laureate. It is not extravagant to say that no poem written in the last quarter of a century is so sure of immortality.
By RUDYARD KIPLING.
God of our fathers, known of old,Lord of our far-flung battle line,Beneath whose awful hand we holdDominion over palm and pineLord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget—lest we forget!The tumult and the shouting dies;The captains and the kings depart;Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,An humble and a contrite heart.Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget—lest we forget!Far-called, our navies melt away;On dune and headland sinks the fire;Lo, all our pomp of yesterdayIs one with Nineveh and Tyre!Judge of the nations, spare us yet,Lest we forget—lest we forget!If, drunk with sight of power, we looseWild tongues that have not Thee in awe—Such boasting as the Gentiles use,Or lesser breeds without the Law—Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget—lest we forget!For heathen heart that puts her trustIn reeking tube and iron shard—All valiant dust that builds on dust,And guarding, calls not Thee to guard—For frantic boast and foolish word,Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!Amen.
God of our fathers, known of old,Lord of our far-flung battle line,Beneath whose awful hand we holdDominion over palm and pineLord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget—lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;The captains and the kings depart;Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,An humble and a contrite heart.Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;On dune and headland sinks the fire;Lo, all our pomp of yesterdayIs one with Nineveh and Tyre!Judge of the nations, spare us yet,Lest we forget—lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we looseWild tongues that have not Thee in awe—Such boasting as the Gentiles use,Or lesser breeds without the Law—Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget—lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trustIn reeking tube and iron shard—All valiant dust that builds on dust,And guarding, calls not Thee to guard—For frantic boast and foolish word,Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!
Amen.
While Kipling Makes the Merits of "Unwreckable" and "Impeccable" Lies the Subjectof Song, Others Continue to Prefer the Medium of Story.
Heading of Chapter VII of "The Naulahka," by Rudyard Kipling and Walcott Balestier.Copyright, 1892, Macmillan & Co.
There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay,When the artist's hand is potting it,There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay,When the poet's hand is blotting it,There is pleasure in the shine of your picture on the lineAt the Royal Arcade—my;But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to Cheddar cheeseWhen it comes to a well made Lie,To a quite unwreckable Lie,To a most impeccable Lie!To a water-tight, fire-proof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock, steel-faced Lie!Not a private hansom Lie,But a fair and brougham Lie,Nota little place in Tooting, but a country house with shooting and a ring-fence, deer-park Lie.
There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay,When the artist's hand is potting it,There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay,When the poet's hand is blotting it,There is pleasure in the shine of your picture on the lineAt the Royal Arcade—my;But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to Cheddar cheeseWhen it comes to a well made Lie,To a quite unwreckable Lie,To a most impeccable Lie!To a water-tight, fire-proof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock, steel-faced Lie!Not a private hansom Lie,But a fair and brougham Lie,Nota little place in Tooting, but a country house with shooting and a ring-fence, deer-park Lie.
When a boy, in the early days in the lead mines of Wisconsin, I often met pioneers and heard them tell strange stories about hoop-snakes. In one particular they all agreed—the snakes, in pairs, about the 15th of May would come rolling up from Illinois. Then they would disappear, and not be seen again until August. During that month strange sights might be seen on lonely stretches of prairie—hundreds of them playfully chasing one another.
They were a green snake—the males about six and the females five feet long. About four inches from the ends of their tails grew a hard, curved horn, from two to four inches in length.
They were considered the most dangerous snakes in the Northwest.
Wo betide the living thing that crossed their path as they rolled noiselessly over the prairie. I heard an old hunter say he once stood by a lone tree on the prairie and saw a hoop-snake come rolling toward the tree. As it drew near he held his gun right across its path.
When near enough, the snake let go of its tail and struck the metal barrel of the gun, knocking it out of his hand and making it ring like a bell. The snake then stuck its tail into its mouth and went rolling away.
The hunter soon noticed that the gun-barrel began to swell. He watched the gun until it swelled so big it scared him, and in terror he fled over the prairie and never went near the spot again. Years afterward miners prospecting for mineral found an old cannon shaped like a musket-barrel. It was the old gun, grown to be a foot in diameter.—Correspondence in Chicago Inter-Ocean.
An Atchison man planted lettuce, but as fast as it came through the ground the English sparrows ate it off.
He finally got a few small flags and stuck them in the lettuce-bed, and not a sparrow will consent to touch that lettuce as long as Old Glory floats over it.—Atchison (Kansas) Globe.
Not long ago an ex-Governor of Michigan, a Cleveland capitalist, and several friends were in the big woods near Turtle Lake, guided by Sam Sampson, a famous hunter and trapper. Sam possesses a gun with a barrel five feet long, but once, according to his story, he had a still longer one.
"It was a wonderful gun," he said to the ex-Governor. "I could kill a b'ar as fur off as I could see 'im, an' that gun was as knowing as a man. If it hadn't been fur that, it would never ha' busted!"
"How did you break it?" asked one of the hunters.
"I strained it t' death," said the old guide soberly. "I was out hunting one day when I seen a buck and seven does a-standin' close onto me. I pulled up old Beetle—that's what I called th' gun—and was jest goin' t' let go when I heard an awful funny noise over my head.
"I looked up 'n' there was more'n ten million wild geese a-sailin' over me. There I was in a predicament. I wanted th' geese 'n' I wanted th' deer.
"At last I aimed at th' geese an' let sliver. Beetle must ha' knowed I wanted both, fur that was th' end of the old gun. The strain on her was too much, an' both barrels busted.
"Th' shot in one of 'em killed the buck, th' shot in th' other killed ten geese, and when Beetle died she kicked so hard I was knocked into a crick. But when I come out my bootlegs was full o' fish. I ain't never seen another sech gun as Beetle."—Lippincott's Magazine.
A man in Nebraska has invented a new powerful double-acting salve which shows powers never before exhibited by salves of any kind.
The inventor accidentally cut off the tail of a tame wolf, and, immediately applying some of the salve to the stump, a new tail grew out. Then picking up the old tail, he applied some of the salve to the raw end of that, and a wolf grew out; but he was a wild wolf, and had to be shot.—Chicago Tribune.
A red-faced man was holding the attention of a little group with some wonderful recitals.
"The most exciting chase I ever had," he said, "happened a few years ago in Russia. One night, when sleighing about ten miles from my destination, I discovered to my intense horror that I was being followed by a pack of wolves. I fired blindly into the pack, killing one of the brutes, and to my delight saw the others stop to devour it. After doing this, however, they still came on. I kept on repeating the dose, with the same result, and each occasion gave me an opportunity to whip up my horses. Finally there was only one wolf left, yet on it came, with its fierce eyes glaring in anticipation of a good, hot supper."
Here the man who had been sitting in the corner burst forth into a fit of laughter.
"Why, man," said he, "by your way of reckoning, that last wolf must have had the rest of the pack inside him."
"Ah!" said the red-faced man, without a tremor, "now I remember it did wobble a bit."—Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Scott Cummins, the poet of Winchester, Woods County, was a cow-puncher in the Northwest many years ago. His outfit came to Snake River one day with three thousand cattle. Cummins, with a poet's license, relates what happened:
"The river was too dangerous for swimming, but after following the bank a short distance the foreman found a giant redwood tree that had fallen across the river. Fortunately the tree was hollow, and, making a chute, they had no trouble in driving the cattle through the log to the other side.
"As the cattle had not been counted for several days, one of the cowboys was stationed to count them as they emerged from the log. The count fell short some three hundred head, but about that time a distant lowing was heard.
"Their surprise may be imagined when on looking about they found that the cattle had wandered off into a hollow limb."—Kansas City Star.
President Murphy, of the Chicago National League Club, told at a baseball dinner a remarkable echo story.
"There was a man," he began, "who had a country home in the Catskills. He was showing a visitor over his grounds one day, and coming to a hilly place, he said:
"'There's a remarkable echo here. If you stand under that rock and shout, the echo answers four distinct times, with an interval of several minutes between each answer.'
"But the visitor was not at all impressed. He said, with a laugh:
"'You ought to hear the echo at my place in Sunapee. Before getting into bed at night I stick my head out of the window and shout, "Time to get up, William!" and the echo wakes me at seven o'clock sharp the next morning.'"—Detroit Free Press.
Alas, it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.—Longfellow.
Alas, it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.—Longfellow.
Alas, it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.—Longfellow.
Alas, it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.—Longfellow.
While a Very Few Are Marked by Monuments Erected at the Expense of theNation, Others, Almost Forgotten, Are in a State of Shameful Neglect.
An original article written forThe Scrap Book.
The ingratitude of republics is proverbial, and perhaps no better proof of this fact need be adduced than the manner in which they neglect the graves of illustrious persons who have reflected honor on the national life. We may as well take this criticism directly home to ourselves. In the United States there is nothing to correspond with England's Westminster Abbey, and how many American schoolboys are there who are able to name the burial-places of so many as a dozen of our Presidents, famous statesmen, generals, admirals, and men of letters?
Nearly all the resting-places of our Presidents have been purchased by private means, and in several cases the monuments that mark them have been erected with funds obtained by popular subscription.
Unfortunately, however, many of these spots that should be held in veneration by the citizens of the republic have, from time to time, been suffered to remain in a state of neglect that reflects little credit on the national spirit—and this, too, notwithstanding the proposition to raise the salary of the President of the United States to one hundred thousand dollars per annum and to pension retired Presidents at twenty-five thousand dollars.
George Washington's tomb is situated at some little distance from the mansion at Mount Vernon. Surrounded by sweet briar, trailing arbutus, and other flowers, it is the Mecca of Americans as well as the revered visiting-place of thousands of Europeans. The tomb is of brick, according to Washington's desire. The front is plain, with a wide gateway arching over double iron gates, above which is the inscription upon a plain white marble slab:
Within This EnclosureRest the Remains ofGENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON.
The sarcophagi containing the bodies of George and Martha Washington are in the anteroom, behind which is the vault where the bodies of about thirty members of the family repose. On a tablet over the door are the words: "I am the Resurrection and the Life. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
On the sarcophagus of Mrs. Washington is the inscription: "Martha, Consort of Washington; died 22nd of May, 1802; aged 71 years."
That of Washington is ornamented with the United States coat-of-arms upon a draped flag, and bears the all-sufficient word:
WASHINGTON.
John Adams, the second President, rests side by side with his son, John Quincy Adams, under the First Congregational Church, where they worshiped in their native town of Braintree, Massachusetts, now called Quincy. The tomb is in the front part of the cellar, under the porch. It is fourteen feet square, and is made of large blocks of granite, slightly faced. The door is formed by a granite slab, seven feet by three.
The bodies of the two Presidents and their wives are enclosed in leaden caskets and are placed in stone coffins, each hewn from a single piece of marble. In the church, on the right side of the pulpit, as seen from the pews, is a memorial tablet surmounted by a life-sized bust ofJohn Adams. Below the bust is a Latin line:
Libertatem, Amicitiam, Fidem, Retinebis.
Above the tablet are the words:
Thy Will Be Done
The tablet is inscribed in two columns, the first testifying that "Beneath these walls are deposited the mortal remains of John Adams, son of John and Susanna (Boylston) Adams, second President of the United States." At great length it eulogizes his life and says of his death that "On the Fourth of July, 1826, he was summoned to the independence of immortality and to the judgment of his God."
The second column is inscribed to his wife with similar feeling.
John Quincy Adams's last resting-place is necessarily described with that of his father, John Adams. On the other side of the pulpit from the one where stands the tablet and bust of the elder Adams is another similarly dedicated to John Quincy Adams and his wife. It records that
Near this place reposes all that could die of John Quincy Adams.
Near this place reposes all that could die of John Quincy Adams.
After dwelling on his official achievements, it refers to him as:
A Son worthy of his Father, a Citizen shedding Glory on his Country, a Scholar ambitious to advance Mankind, this Christian sought to walk humbly in the sight of God.
A Son worthy of his Father, a Citizen shedding Glory on his Country, a Scholar ambitious to advance Mankind, this Christian sought to walk humbly in the sight of God.
The second column of the tablet similarly commemorates the virtues of his "partner for fifty years."
Thomas Jefferson's grave is at Monticello, the place of his residence. It is a little way from his old house, in a thick growth of woods, surrounded by about thirty graves, which are enclosed by a brick wall ten feet high. Until 1883 it was a neglected spot, desecrated and ruined by vandal relic-hunters. The mound was trodden level with the ground, and the inscription on the coarse granite obelisk was beaten off and unreadable except for the dates of birth and death.
In 1878 a movement was made in Congress to remedy this condition, but it was frustrated by the owner of the place, who claimed the grave and the right of way to it. An understanding was reached in 1883, and an appropriation of ten thousand dollars made for the erection of a suitable monument.
W.W. Corcoran, of Washington, endowed a professorship of natural history at the University of Virginia on condition that the university should take care of the grave. It is a place of exquisite natural beauty and grandeur, and is now marked by a fitting monument, inscribed as was the old one, a rough sketch of which was found. The inscription is as follows:
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. Born April 2 (O.S.), 1743; died July 4, 1826.
Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. Born April 2 (O.S.), 1743; died July 4, 1826.
Jefferson's death preceded that of John Adams by only one hour.
James Madison is buried at his beautiful home, Montpelier, four miles from Orange, Virginia. An attractive lawn of about sixty acres surrounds the brick mansion, and in the center of this is an enclosure, one hundred feet square, fenced in by a brick wall some five feet high. In this enclosure is the grave of Madison. Three other graves are near it, one of them being Mrs. Madison's.
Over the dead President's grave is a mound, from the top of which rises a granite obelisk twenty feet high.
Near the base are inscribed the words:
MADISON.Born March 16, 1751.
A smaller monument beside it bears the record, "In memory of Dolly Payne, wife of James Madison; born May 20th, 1772; died July 8, 1849."
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States, and was the third out of the five to die on July 4. For twenty-seven years after his death his body rested at New York, where he had died, but on July 4, 1858, it was removed, by order of the General Assembly of Virginia, to Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, and re-interred there on July 5.
A brick and granite vault, built five feet under ground on an eminence overlooking the beautiful valley of the James River, now holds the body. On a polished block of Virginia marble, eight feet by four, stands a large granite sarcophagus bearing a brass plate with this inscription:
James Monroe, born in Westmoreland County, 28th of April, 1758; died in the city of New York 4th of July, 1831. By order of the General Assembly his remains were removed to this cemetery 5th of July, 1858. As an evidence of the affection of Virginia for her good and honored son.
James Monroe, born in Westmoreland County, 28th of April, 1758; died in the city of New York 4th of July, 1831. By order of the General Assembly his remains were removed to this cemetery 5th of July, 1858. As an evidence of the affection of Virginia for her good and honored son.
The ends and sides of the vault are formed by ornamental cast iron grating joining the supporting pillars, and so closely made as to render it difficult to see through the interstices.
Andrew Jackson is buried in the garden of his home, the Hermitage, eleven miles from Nashville, Tennessee. The grave is about two hundred feet from the house. A circular space of earth, eighteen feet across and elevated about two feet, is crowned by a massive monument of Tennessee limestone marking the spot where Jackson and his wife lie. The base covers the graves, and from it rise eight fluted columns supporting a plain entablature surmounted by an urn. The ceiling and cornices thus formed are ornamented with white stucco work.
From a base on this encolumned platform rises a pyramid. On the left, over the body of the President, is a stone bearing the inscription:
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON.Born March 15, 1767;Died June 8, 1845.
On the right of the pyramid is another stone recording his undying esteem for his wife.
Martin Van Buren died at Kinderhook, Columbia County, New York, and is buried in the graveyard at the northern end of that village.
The grave is crowded by other graves, and is neglected, unfenced, and flowerless. Over it is a plain granite monument, about fifteen feet high, with an inscription which reads:
MARTIN VAN BUREN,Eighth President of the United States.Born December 5, 1782;Died July 24, 1862.
Beneath this inscription is another one which reads: "Hannah Van Buren, his wife; born March 3, 1783; died at Albany, New York, February 3, 1819."
William Henry Harrison's grave is marked by no monument and bears no inscription. It is situated fifteen miles west of Cincinnati at North Bend. A brick vault on the summit of a small hill holds the remains of Harrison and his wife and children. He died one month after his inauguration and received funeral honors all over the country, but his grave is now singularly neglected and apparently forgotten.
John Tyler, the tenth President, rests in an obscurity similar to that of his immediate predecessor, Harrison. At Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, ten yards from the unique monument which marks the grave of President Monroe, are interred Tyler's remains. No monument—save a small magnolia-tree—no inscription, no tablet; nothing but weeds and shrubs and loneliness mark the last resting-place of the President whose sad fate it was to be the nation's executive at a time when his political and temperamental tendencies were the least of all adjustable to the great office he held.
James K. Polk's remains repose at Nashville, Tennessee, almost within sight of The Hermitage, the last resting-place of President Jackson. A limestone monument marks the grave, designed by William Strickland, the architect of the Capitol. It is in Grecian Doric style (a roof supported by columns), about twelve feet square and the same height. An inscription on the architrave of the eastern front reads:
JAMES KNOX POLK,Eleventh President of the United States.Born November 2, 1795;Died June 15, 1849.
Further inscriptions inform the reader that "the mortal remains of James K. Polk are resting in the vault beneath." They eulogize his virtues and detail his public services at great length.
Zachary Taylor is buried in the old burial-ground on the ancestral farm of the Taylors, five miles from Louisville, Kentucky. The plot is about one hundred yards from the mansion and contains the bodies of three generations of the family.
A few years after Taylor's death Congress made an appropriation for the purpose of constructing a vault, and within a few years the State of Kentucky appropriated five thousand dollars to erect a monument. The sarcophagi containing the bodies of the President and his wife are separated by a marble bust of Taylor.
The monument is a gray granite shaft, surmounted by a colossal Italian marble statue, representing General Taylor in full military dress, with sword and cap in hand. The monument is inscribed with the general's name, dates of birth and death on one side, and on the opposite side are the United States coat-of-arms and implements of war in bas-relief. On the other two sides are the names of the great battles of the Mexican War.
Millard Fillmore, the thirteenth President, was the second Vice-President to be called to the higher office. His grave is at Forest Lawn Cemetery, three miles from Buffalo, New York. The monument is of highly polished Scotch granite, twenty-two feet high. On the base, in raised letters, is the word "Fillmore," and farther up is the inscription which proclaims his name and the dates of birth and death.
Franklin Pierce is buried in the Minot Lot, Old Cemetery, Concord, New Hampshire. The monument over his grave is of elaborately carved Italian marble. The base is of granite, and on the plinth in raised letters is the word "Pierce." A panel is inscribed:
FRANCIS PIERCE.Born November 23, 1804;Died October 8, 1869.
Presumably Francis is the name under which he was baptized. Near the President's grave is that of Mrs. Pierce—a plain white marble spire with an upward pointing hand, marking the spot.
James Buchanan, the fifteenth President, reposes in Woodward Hill Cemetery, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Buchanan plot is thirty feet by twelve, and is surrounded by an iron fence interwoven with rose-bushes, and roses are profusely dotted all over the well-kept lawn. The President's remains are in a vault covered with slabs of rock in the center of the plot. On these is a base of granite which is surmounted by a block of Italian marble, six feet four inches long, by two feet ten inches wide, and three feet six inches high. It is worked with a molded cap and base, and bears the inscription:
Here Rest the Remains of JamesBuchanan, Fifteenth President of theUnited States, Born in FranklinCounty, Pa., April 23, 1791, Died atWheatland, June 1, 1868.
Abraham Lincoln's tomb is in the National Lincoln monument, Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois. The base on which the column stands is seventy-two feet six inches square, with projections at the front and rear for the catacomb and memorial hall, making a total length of one hundred and nineteen feet six inches. The height of the base is fifteen feet, and round the top of it runs a strong railing.
The obelisk stands on a beautiful pedestal with four bronze statues at the corners, and is eighty-two feet six inches high from the base. In front of this, on a separate pedestal, is a statue of Lincoln. In his right hand he is holding an open scroll representing the Proclamation of Emancipation.
The top of the base and the platform round the pedestal are reached by two flights of stairs, each of which has twenty-four steps. The tomb is a vault in the catacomb in the front projection of the base. Under the statue of the President is the single word:
LINCOLN.
Andrew Johnson's grave is on a beautiful cone-shaped eminence, a little way from Greenville, Tennessee. On each side of the tomb are piers from which springs a granite arch of thirteen stones—presumably typifying the thirteen original States. Above the arch rises a column, on the marble plinth of which are inscribed the words:
Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth President,U.S.A., Born December 29,1808, Died July 31, 1875. "His faithin the people never wavered."
Below is Mrs. Johnson's name withthe dates of birth and death, and the words, "In Memory of Father and Mother." It was erected by the surviving children.
Ulysses S. Grant's tomb is the finest mausoleum in America, and for beauty and majesty of situation one of the finest in the world. It stands on an eminence in Riverside Park, New York City, on the banks of the Hudson, directly overlooking the noble river. It is about one hundred feet square and one hundred and sixty feet high.
The building is in the Ionic style, strong and massive without a suggestion of severity, the surrounding pillars and the dome adding grace to its strength. Over the entrance are inscribed Grant's own words:
"Let Us Have Peace."
The inside is of Italian marble and Massachusetts granite highly polished, with the ceiling and rotunda formed of exquisitely wrought white stucco work. It contains two sarcophagi, holding the bodies of President and Mrs. Grant. These are placed in a well-shaped crypt, thirty feet deep, entered from two staircases, each of twenty marble steps. They are hewn from one solid piece of red Massachusetts granite, and weigh ten tons each. Two anterooms serve as repositories of Grant relics, which include a matchless piece of Japanese embroidery presented to Mrs. Grant by the Japanese government.
Rutherford B. Hayes rests in unostentatious simplicity in Oakwood Cemetery, Fremont, Ohio; James A. Garfield in a bronze sarcophagus in the magnificent monument erected by the nation at Lake View Cemetery, on the shore of Lake Erie; Chester A. Arthur beneath a monument representing an angel, and with a palm-leaf on his sarcophagus, at Rural Cemetery, Albany; Benjamin Harrison at Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis; and McKinley in Canton Cemetery, Canton, Ohio, not yet honored by a national memorial, but probably soon to be so.
Mix-Up in Which the Senior Cat, the Junior Cat, and Rations Were Involved Had tobe Adjusted by the War Office.
The precision of organization and discipline that is the very foundation of military life is always a matter of wonder and admiration to the civilian. He may express impatience with army "red tape," yet he has a lurking regard for this very thing which he condemns, because he knows, vaguely, that it has a reason for being and that it is good for men generally to be compelled to respect a silent force as powerful and dignified as this is.
Red tape is a serious matter, not to be lightly treated by any one, soldier or civilian, but the observance of its "code" to the very letter probably never was more complete than in the case of a native officer in India.
This babu, who was in charge of the documents of a certain town, found that they were being seriously damaged by rats. He wrote a letter to the government, informing it of the danger to his records, and respectfully urging it to provide him with weekly rations for two cats to destroy the marauding rats.
The request was granted, and the two cats were installed—one, the larger of the two, receiving slightly better rations than the other.
All went well for a few weeks, when the supreme government of India received the following despatch:
"I have the honor to inform you that the senior cat is absent without leave. What shall I do?"
The problem seemed to baffle the supreme government, for the babu received no answer.
After waiting a few days he sent off a proposal:
"In re Absentee Cat. I propose to promote the junior cat, and in the meantime to take into government service a probationer cat on full rations."
The supreme government expressed its approval of the scheme, and things once more ran smoothly and without friction in that department.
By VICTOR HUGO.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is most highly regarded in France as a poet and dramatist, while in foreign countries his novels are best known and hold the highest place.Hugo was the son of a soldier of the First Republic and of a lady who was a royalist of the most enthusiastic type. The son, therefore, showed a blend of the two traditions whose clash has made France what it is to-day. His most striking quality was his wealth of imagination. His creations were always imaginative—sometimes superbly so and sometimes grotesquely so—but his thoughts and imagery were always vast and gigantic, even when monstrous.Hugo's second trait was his egotism, which prevented him from having the saving grace of humor. He thought himself to be almost more than mortal, and he lived in an atmosphere of hero-worship. When the Emperor of Brazil visited Paris and expressed a wish to meet him, Hugo disdainfully remarked:"I have no time to waste on emperors."When the Germans were besieging Paris, Hugo seriously proposed that the war be settled by a single combat between himself and the newly crowned Kaiser of Germany. He wrote to the emperor:"You are a great monarch; I am a great poet. We are therefore equals."His notion of himself was summed up in a single epigram: "France is the world. Paris is France. Victor Hugo is Paris."Amiel called him "half genius and half charlatan."Hugo's novels read like prose epics—overwhelming and at times almost convulsive in their effort to give expression to his tremendous imaginings. One of the most striking of them is "Ninety-Three," from which the accompanying passage is taken. The book is a great drama of the breaking out of the French Revolution, a time when every passion was at its height and was exhibited with utter unrestraint.With such a theme Hugo was perfectly at home. He flames and thunders. He flings before the reader actions in which the Titanic energy of the writer is felt in every line, and he revels in the conflict of the two great forces of repression and revolt which made that period memorable. In the passage quoted here many of the author's conspicuous qualities are seen. The translation is that contained in the "International Library of Famous Literature," and is reprinted by the courtesy of the Avil Publishing Company, of Philadelphia.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is most highly regarded in France as a poet and dramatist, while in foreign countries his novels are best known and hold the highest place.Hugo was the son of a soldier of the First Republic and of a lady who was a royalist of the most enthusiastic type. The son, therefore, showed a blend of the two traditions whose clash has made France what it is to-day. His most striking quality was his wealth of imagination. His creations were always imaginative—sometimes superbly so and sometimes grotesquely so—but his thoughts and imagery were always vast and gigantic, even when monstrous.Hugo's second trait was his egotism, which prevented him from having the saving grace of humor. He thought himself to be almost more than mortal, and he lived in an atmosphere of hero-worship. When the Emperor of Brazil visited Paris and expressed a wish to meet him, Hugo disdainfully remarked:"I have no time to waste on emperors."When the Germans were besieging Paris, Hugo seriously proposed that the war be settled by a single combat between himself and the newly crowned Kaiser of Germany. He wrote to the emperor:"You are a great monarch; I am a great poet. We are therefore equals."His notion of himself was summed up in a single epigram: "France is the world. Paris is France. Victor Hugo is Paris."Amiel called him "half genius and half charlatan."Hugo's novels read like prose epics—overwhelming and at times almost convulsive in their effort to give expression to his tremendous imaginings. One of the most striking of them is "Ninety-Three," from which the accompanying passage is taken. The book is a great drama of the breaking out of the French Revolution, a time when every passion was at its height and was exhibited with utter unrestraint.With such a theme Hugo was perfectly at home. He flames and thunders. He flings before the reader actions in which the Titanic energy of the writer is felt in every line, and he revels in the conflict of the two great forces of repression and revolt which made that period memorable. In the passage quoted here many of the author's conspicuous qualities are seen. The translation is that contained in the "International Library of Famous Literature," and is reprinted by the courtesy of the Avil Publishing Company, of Philadelphia.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is most highly regarded in France as a poet and dramatist, while in foreign countries his novels are best known and hold the highest place.Hugo was the son of a soldier of the First Republic and of a lady who was a royalist of the most enthusiastic type. The son, therefore, showed a blend of the two traditions whose clash has made France what it is to-day. His most striking quality was his wealth of imagination. His creations were always imaginative—sometimes superbly so and sometimes grotesquely so—but his thoughts and imagery were always vast and gigantic, even when monstrous.Hugo's second trait was his egotism, which prevented him from having the saving grace of humor. He thought himself to be almost more than mortal, and he lived in an atmosphere of hero-worship. When the Emperor of Brazil visited Paris and expressed a wish to meet him, Hugo disdainfully remarked:"I have no time to waste on emperors."When the Germans were besieging Paris, Hugo seriously proposed that the war be settled by a single combat between himself and the newly crowned Kaiser of Germany. He wrote to the emperor:"You are a great monarch; I am a great poet. We are therefore equals."His notion of himself was summed up in a single epigram: "France is the world. Paris is France. Victor Hugo is Paris."Amiel called him "half genius and half charlatan."Hugo's novels read like prose epics—overwhelming and at times almost convulsive in their effort to give expression to his tremendous imaginings. One of the most striking of them is "Ninety-Three," from which the accompanying passage is taken. The book is a great drama of the breaking out of the French Revolution, a time when every passion was at its height and was exhibited with utter unrestraint.With such a theme Hugo was perfectly at home. He flames and thunders. He flings before the reader actions in which the Titanic energy of the writer is felt in every line, and he revels in the conflict of the two great forces of repression and revolt which made that period memorable. In the passage quoted here many of the author's conspicuous qualities are seen. The translation is that contained in the "International Library of Famous Literature," and is reprinted by the courtesy of the Avil Publishing Company, of Philadelphia.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is most highly regarded in France as a poet and dramatist, while in foreign countries his novels are best known and hold the highest place.Hugo was the son of a soldier of the First Republic and of a lady who was a royalist of the most enthusiastic type. The son, therefore, showed a blend of the two traditions whose clash has made France what it is to-day. His most striking quality was his wealth of imagination. His creations were always imaginative—sometimes superbly so and sometimes grotesquely so—but his thoughts and imagery were always vast and gigantic, even when monstrous.Hugo's second trait was his egotism, which prevented him from having the saving grace of humor. He thought himself to be almost more than mortal, and he lived in an atmosphere of hero-worship. When the Emperor of Brazil visited Paris and expressed a wish to meet him, Hugo disdainfully remarked:"I have no time to waste on emperors."When the Germans were besieging Paris, Hugo seriously proposed that the war be settled by a single combat between himself and the newly crowned Kaiser of Germany. He wrote to the emperor:"You are a great monarch; I am a great poet. We are therefore equals."His notion of himself was summed up in a single epigram: "France is the world. Paris is France. Victor Hugo is Paris."Amiel called him "half genius and half charlatan."Hugo's novels read like prose epics—overwhelming and at times almost convulsive in their effort to give expression to his tremendous imaginings. One of the most striking of them is "Ninety-Three," from which the accompanying passage is taken. The book is a great drama of the breaking out of the French Revolution, a time when every passion was at its height and was exhibited with utter unrestraint.With such a theme Hugo was perfectly at home. He flames and thunders. He flings before the reader actions in which the Titanic energy of the writer is felt in every line, and he revels in the conflict of the two great forces of repression and revolt which made that period memorable. In the passage quoted here many of the author's conspicuous qualities are seen. The translation is that contained in the "International Library of Famous Literature," and is reprinted by the courtesy of the Avil Publishing Company, of Philadelphia.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is most highly regarded in France as a poet and dramatist, while in foreign countries his novels are best known and hold the highest place.
Hugo was the son of a soldier of the First Republic and of a lady who was a royalist of the most enthusiastic type. The son, therefore, showed a blend of the two traditions whose clash has made France what it is to-day. His most striking quality was his wealth of imagination. His creations were always imaginative—sometimes superbly so and sometimes grotesquely so—but his thoughts and imagery were always vast and gigantic, even when monstrous.
Hugo's second trait was his egotism, which prevented him from having the saving grace of humor. He thought himself to be almost more than mortal, and he lived in an atmosphere of hero-worship. When the Emperor of Brazil visited Paris and expressed a wish to meet him, Hugo disdainfully remarked:
"I have no time to waste on emperors."
When the Germans were besieging Paris, Hugo seriously proposed that the war be settled by a single combat between himself and the newly crowned Kaiser of Germany. He wrote to the emperor:
"You are a great monarch; I am a great poet. We are therefore equals."
His notion of himself was summed up in a single epigram: "France is the world. Paris is France. Victor Hugo is Paris."
Amiel called him "half genius and half charlatan."
Hugo's novels read like prose epics—overwhelming and at times almost convulsive in their effort to give expression to his tremendous imaginings. One of the most striking of them is "Ninety-Three," from which the accompanying passage is taken. The book is a great drama of the breaking out of the French Revolution, a time when every passion was at its height and was exhibited with utter unrestraint.
With such a theme Hugo was perfectly at home. He flames and thunders. He flings before the reader actions in which the Titanic energy of the writer is felt in every line, and he revels in the conflict of the two great forces of repression and revolt which made that period memorable. In the passage quoted here many of the author's conspicuous qualities are seen. The translation is that contained in the "International Library of Famous Literature," and is reprinted by the courtesy of the Avil Publishing Company, of Philadelphia.
La Vieuville's words were suddenly cut short by a desperate cry, and at the same instant they heard a noise as unaccountable as it was awful. The cry and this noise came from the interior of the vessel.
The captain and lieutenant made a rush for the gun-deck, but could not get down. All the gunners were hurrying frantically up.
A frightful thing had just happened.
One of the carronades of the battery, a twenty-four-pounder, had got loose.
This is perhaps the most formidable of ocean accidents. Nothing more terrible can happen to a vessel in open sea and under full sail.
A gun that breaks its moorings becomes suddenly some indescribable super-natural beast. It is a machine which transforms itself into a monster. This mass turns upon its wheels, has the rapid movements of a billiard-ball; rollswith the rolling, pitches with the pitching; goes, comes, pauses, seems to meditate; resumes its course, rushes along the ship from end to end like an arrow, circles about, springs aside, evades, rears, breaks, kills, exterminates. It is a battering-ram which assaults a wall at its own caprice. Moreover, the battering-ram is metal, the wall wood. It is the entrance of matter into liberty.
One might say that this eternal slave avenges itself. It seems as if the power of evil hidden in what we call inanimate objects finds a vent and bursts suddenly out. It has an air of having lost patience, of seeking some fierce, obscure retribution; nothing more inexorable than this rage of the inanimate.
The mad mass has the bounds of a panther, the weight of the elephant, the agility of the mouse, the obstinacy of the ox, the unexpectedness of the surge, the rapidity of lightning, the deafness of the tomb. It weighs ten thousand pounds, and it rebounds like a child's ball. Its flight is a wild whirl abruptly cut at right angles. What is to be done? How to end this?
A tempest ceases, a cyclone passes, a wind falls, a broken mast is replaced, a leak is stopped, a fire dies out; but how to control this enormous brute of bronze? In what way can one attack it?
You can make a mastiff hear reason, astound a bull, fascinate a boa, frighten a tiger, soften a lion; but there is no resource with that monster—a cannon let loose. You cannot kill it—for it is dead; while at the same time it lives. It lives with a sinister life bestowed on it by Infinity.
The planks beneath it give it play. It is moved by the ship, which is moved by the sea, which is moved by the wind. This destroyer is a plaything. The ship, the waves, the blasts, all aid it; hence its frightful vitality. How to assail this fury of complication? How to fetter this monstrous mechanism for wrecking a ship? How foresee its comings and goings, its returns, its stops, its shocks? Any one of these blows upon the sides may stave out the vessel. How divine its awful gyrations! One has to deal with a projectile which thinks, seems to possess ideas, and which changes its direction at each instant. How stop the course of something which must be avoided?
The horrible cannon flings itself about, advances, recoils, strikes to the right, strikes to the left, flees, passes, disconcerts ambushes, breaks down obstacles, crushes men like flies. The great danger of the situation is in the mobility of its base. How combat an inclined plane which has blind caprices? The ship, so to speak, has lightning imprisoned in its womb which seeks to escape; it is like thunder rolling above an earthquake.
In an instant the whole crew were on foot. The fault was the chief gunner's; he had neglected to fix home the screw-nut of the mooring-chain, and had so badly shackled the four wheels of the carronade that the play given to the sole and frame had separated the platform, and ended by breaking the breeching. The cordage had broken, so that the gun was no longer secure on the carriage. The stationary breeching which prevents recoil was not in use at that period. As a heavy wave struck the port-hole the carronade, weakly attached, recoiled, burst its chain, and began to rush wildly about.
Conceive, in order to have an idea of this strange sliding, the movements of a drop of water running down a pane of glass.
At the moment when the lashings gave way the gunners were in the battery, some in groups, others standing alone, occupied with such duties as sailors perform in expectation of the command to clear for action. The carronade, hurled forward by the pitching, dashed into this knot of men, and crushed four at the first blow; then, flung back and shot out anew by the rolling, it cut in two a fifth poor fellow, glanced off to the larboard side, and struck a piece of the battery with such force as to unship it.
Then rose the cry of distress which had been heard. The men rushed toward the ladder; the gun-deck emptied in the twinkling of an eye. The enormous cannon was left alone. She was given up to herself. She was her own mistress, and mistress of the vessel. She could do what she willed with both. The whole crew of the corvette, men accustomed to laugh in battle, tremblednow. To describe the universal terror would be impossible.
Captain Boisberthelot and Lieutenant Vieuville, although both intrepid men, stopped at the head of the stairs, and remained mute, pale, hesitating, looking down on the deck. Some one pushed them aside with his elbow and descended.
It was their passenger, the peasant—the man of whom they had been speaking a moment before.
When he reached the foot of the ladder, he stood still.
The cannon came and went along the deck. One might have fancied it the living chariot of the Apocalypse. The marine lantern, oscillating from the ceiling, added a confusing whirl of lights and shadows to the strange vision. The shape of the cannon was undistinguishable from the rapidity of its course; now it looked black in the light, now it cast weird reflections through the gloom.
It kept on its work of destruction. It had already shattered four other pieces, and dug two crevices in the side, fortunately above the water-line, though they would leak in case a squall should come on. It dashed itself frantically against the framework; the solid tiebeams resisted, their curved form giving them great strength, but they creaked ominously under the assaults of this terrible club, which seemed endowed with a sort of appalling ubiquity, striking on every side at once. The strokes of a bullet shaken in a bottle would not be madder or more rapid.
The four wheels passed and repassed above the dead men, cut, carved, slashed them, till the five corpses were a score of stumps rolling about the deck; the heads seem to cry out, streams of blood twisted in and out of the planks with every pitch of the vessel. The ceiling, damaged in several places, began to gape. The whole ship was filled with the awful tumult.
The captain promptly recovered his composure, and at his order the sailors threw down into the deck everything which could deaden and check the mad rush of the gun—mattresses, hammocks, spare sails, coils of rope, extra equipments, and the bales of forged French currency of which the corvette carried a whole cargo—an infamous deception which the English considered a fair trick in war.
But what could these rags avail? No one dared descend to arrange them in any useful fashion, and in a few instants they were mere heaps of lint.
There was just sea enough to render the accident as complete as possible. A tempest would have been desirable—it might have thrown the gun upside down; and the four wheels once in the air, the monster could have been mastered. But the devastation continued and increased. There were gashes and even fractures in the masts, which, embedded in the woodwork of the keel, pierce through the decks of ships like great round pillars.
The mizzenmast was cracked, and the mainmast itself was injured under the convulsive blows of the gun. The battery was being destroyed. Ten pieces out of the thirty were disabled; the breaches multiplied in the side, and the corvette began to take in water.
The old passenger, who had descended to the gun-deck, looked like a form of stone stationed at the foot of the stairs. He stood motionless, gazing sternly about upon the devastation. Indeed, it seemed impossible to take a single step forward.
Each bound of the liberated carronade menaced the destruction of the vessel. A few minutes more and shipwreck would be inevitable.
They must perish or put a summary end to the disaster. A decision must be made—but how?
What a combatant—this cannon!
They must check this mad monster. They must seize this flash of lightning. They must overthrow this thunderbolt.
Boisberthelot said to La Vieuville:
"Do you believe in God, chevalier?"
La Vieuville replied:
"Yes. No. Sometimes."
"In a tempest?"
"Yes; and in moments like this."
"Only God can aid us here," said Boisberthelot.
All were silent; the cannon kept up its horrible fracas.
The waves beat against the ship; their blows from without responded to the strokes of the cannon.
It was like two hammers alternating.
Suddenly, into the midst of this sort of inaccessible circus, where the escaped cannon leaped and bounded, there sprang a man with an iron bar in his hand. It was the author of this catastrophe—the gunner whose culpable negligence had caused the accident; the captain of the gun. Having been the means of bringing about the misfortune, he desired to repair it. He had caught up a handspike in one fist, a tiller rope with a slipping noose in the other, and thus equipped had jumped down into the gun-deck.
Then a strange combat began, a Titanic strife—the struggle of the gun against the gunner; a battle between matter and intelligence; a duel between the inanimate and the human.
The man was posted in an angle, the bar and rope in his two fists; backed against one of the riders, settled firmly on his legs as on two pillars of steel, livid, calm, tragic, rooted as it were in the planks, he waited.
He waited for the cannon to pass near him.
The gunner knew his piece, and it seemed to him that she must recognize her master. He had lived a long while with her. How many times he had thrust his hand between her jaws! It was his tame monster. He began to address it as he might have given an order to his dog.
"Come!" said he. Perhaps he loved it.
He seemed to wish that it would turn toward him.
But to come toward him would be to spring upon him. Then he would be lost. How to avoid its crush? There was the question. All stared in terrified silence.
Not a breast respired freely, except perchance that of the old man who alone stood in the deck with the two combatants, a stern second.
He might himself be crushed by the piece. He did not stir.
Beneath them the blind sea directed the battle.
At the instant when, accepting this awful hand-to-hand contest, the gunner approached to challenge the cannon, some chance fluctuation of the waves kept it for a moment immovable, as if suddenly stupefied.
"Come on!" the man said to it. It seemed to listen.
Suddenly it darted upon him. The gunner avoided the shock.
The struggle began—struggle unheard of. The fragile matching itself against the invulnerable. The living thing of flesh attacking the inanimate brass. On the one side blind force, on the other a soul.
The whole passed in a half light. It was like the indistinct vision of a miracle.
A soul—strange thing; but you would have said that the cannon had one also—a soul filled with rage and hatred. This blindness appeared to have eyes. The monster had the air of watching the man. There was—one might have fancied so at least—cunning in this mass. It also chose its moment. It became some gigantic insect of metal, having, or seeming to have, the will of a demon.
Sometimes this colossal grasshopper would strike the low ceiling of the gun-deck, then fall back on its four wheels like a tiger upon its four claws, and dart anew on the man. He, supple, agile, adroit, would glide away like a snake from the reach of these lightning-like movements. He avoided the threatened encounters; but the blows which he escaped fell upon the vessel and continued the havoc.
An end of broken chain remained attached to the carronade. This chain had twisted itself, one could not tell how, about the screw of the breech button. One extremity of the chain was fastened to the carriage. The other, hanging loose, whirled wildly about the gun and added to the danger of its blows.
The screw held it like a clinched hand, and the chain, multiplying the strokes of the battering-ram by its strokes of a thong, made a fearful whirlwind about the cannon—a whip of iron in a fist of brass. This chain complicated the battle.
Nevertheless, the man fought. Sometimes, even, it was the man who attacked the cannon. He crept along the side, bar and rope in hand, and the cannon had the air of understanding, and fled asif it perceived a snare. The man pursued it, formidable, fearless.
Such a duel could not last long. The gun seemed suddenly to say to itself, "Come, we must make an end!" and it paused. One felt the approach of the crisis. The cannon, as if in suspense, appeared to have, or had—because it seemed to all a sentient being—a furious premeditation. It sprang unexpectedly upon the gunner. He jumped aside, let it pass, and cried out with a laugh, "Try again!" The gun, as if in a fury, broke a carronade to larboard; then, seized anew by the invisible sling which held it, was flung to starboard toward the man, who escaped.
Three carronades gave way under the blows of the gun; then, as if blind and no longer conscious of what it was doing, it turned its back on the man, rolled from the stern to the bow, bruising the stem and making a breach in the plankings of the prow. The gunner had taken refuge at the foot of the stairs, a few steps from the old man, who was watching.
The gunner held his handspike in rest. The cannon seemed to perceive him, and, without taking the trouble to turn itself, backed upon him with the quickness of an ax-stroke. The gunner, if driven back against the side, was lost. The crew uttered a simultaneous cry.
But the old passenger, until now immovable, made a spring more rapid than all those wild whirls. He seized a bale of the forged currency, and at the risk of being crushed, succeeded in flinging it between the wheels of the carronade. This maneuver, decisive and dangerous, could not have been executed with more adroitness and precision by a man trained to all the exercises set down in Durosel's "Manual of Sea Gunnery."
The package had the effect of a plug. A pebble may stop a log, a tree-branch turn an avalanche. The carronade stumbled. The gunner, in his turn, seizing this terrible chance, plunged his iron bar between the spokes of one of the hind wheels. The cannon was stopped.
It staggered. The man, using the bar as a lever, rocked it to and fro. The heavy mass turned over with a clang like a falling bell, and the gunner, dripping with sweat, rushed forward headlong and passed the slipping noose of the tiller-rope about the bronze neck of the overthrown monster.
It was ended. The man had conquered. The ant had subdued the mastodon; the pygmy had taken the thunderbolt prisoner.
The marines and the sailors clapped their hands.
The whole crew hurried down with cables and chains, and in an instant the cannon was securely lashed.
The gunner saluted the passenger.
"Sir," he said to him, "you have saved my life."
The old man had resumed his impassible attitude, and did not reply.
The man had conquered, but one might say that the cannon had conquered also. Immediate shipwreck had been avoided, but the corvette was by no means saved. The dilapidation of the vessel seemed irremediable. The sides had five breaches, one of which, very large, was in the bow. Out of the thirty carronades, twenty lay useless in their frames.
The carronade which had been captured and rechained was itself disabled; the screw of the breech button was forced, and the leveling of the piece impossible in consequence. The battery was reduced to nine pieces. The hold had sprung a leak. It was necessary at once to repair the damages and set the pumps to work.
The gun-deck, now that one had time to look about it, offered a terrible spectacle. The interior of a mad elephant's cage could not have been more completely dismantled.
However great the necessity that the corvette should escape observation, a still more imperious necessity presented itself—immediate safety. It had been necessary to light up the deck by lanterns placed here and there along the sides.
But during the whole time this tragic diversion had lasted, the crew were so absorbed by the one question of life or death that they noticed little what was passing outside the scene of the duel. The fog had thickened; the weather had changed; the wind had driven the vessel at will; it had got out of its route, inplain sight of Jersey and Guernsey, farther to the south than it ought to have gone, and was surrounded by a troubled sea. The great waves kissed the gaping wounds of the corvette—kisses full of peril. The sea rocked her menacingly. The breeze became a gale. A squall, a tempest perhaps, threatened. It was impossible to see before one four oars' length.
While the crew were repairing summarily and in haste the ravages of the gun-deck, stopping the leaks and putting back into position the guns which had escaped the disaster, the old passenger had gone on deck.
He stood with his back against the mainmast.
He had paid no attention to a proceeding which had taken place on the vessel. The Chevalier La Vieuville had drawn up the marines in line on either side of the mainmast, and at the whistle of the boatswain the sailors busy in the rigging stood upright on the yards.
Count du Boisberthelot advanced toward the passenger.
Behind the captain marched a man, haggard, breathless, his dress in disorder, yet wearing a satisfied look under it all. It was the gunner who had just now so opportunely shown himself a tamer of monsters, and who had got the better of the cannon.
The count made a military salute to the unknown in peasant garb, and said to him:
"General, here is the man."
The gunner held himself erect, his eyes downcast, standing in a soldierly attitude.
Count du Boisberthelot continued:
"General, taking into consideration what this man has done, do you not think there is something for his commanders to do?"
"I think there is," said the old man.
"Be good enough to give the orders," returned Boisberthelot.
"It is for you to give them. You are the captain."
"But you are the general," answered Boisberthelot.
The old man looked at the gunner.
"Approach," said he.
The gunner moved forward a step. The old man turned toward Count du Boisberthelot, detached the cross of Saint-Louis from the captain's uniform and fastened it on the jacket of the gunner.
"Hurrah!" cried the sailors.
The marines presented arms. The old passenger, pointing with his finger toward the bewildered gunner, added:
"Now let that man be shot."
Stupor succeeded the applause.
Then, in the midst of a silence like that of the tomb, the old man raised his voice. He said:
"A negligence has endangered this ship. At this moment she is perhaps lost. To be at sea is to face the enemy. A vessel at open sea is an army which gives battle. The tempest conceals, but does not absent itself. The whole sea is an ambuscade. Death is the penalty of any fault committed in the face of the enemy. No fault is reparable. Courage ought to be rewarded and negligence punished."
These words fell one after the other, slowly, solemnly, with a sort of inexorable measure, like the blows of an ax upon an oak.
And the old man, turning to the soldiers, added:
"Do your duty."
The man upon whose breast shone the cross of Saint-Louis bowed his head.
At a sign from Count du Boisberthelot, two sailors descended between decks, then returned, bringing the hammock winding sheet. The ship's chaplain, who since the time of sailing had been at prayer in the officers' quarters, accompanied the two sailors; a sergeant detached from the line twelve marines, whom he arranged in two ranks, six by six; the gunner, without uttering a word, placed himself between the two files. The chaplain, crucifix in hand, advanced and stood near him.
"March!" said the sergeant.
The platoon moved with slow steps toward the bow. The two sailors who carried the shroud followed.
A gloomy silence fell upon the corvette. A hurricane moaned in the distance.
A few instants later there was a flash; a report followed, echoing among the shadows; then all was silent; then came the thud of a body falling into the sea.