Duke.

Or with some dram conjur'd to this effect,
He wrought upon her.

To vouch this, is no proof,
Without more wider and more overt test
Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
Sen. But, Othello, speak:

Oth.

Did you by indirect and forced courses

Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
Or came it by request and such fair question
As soul to soul affordeth?

I do beseech you,

Send for the lady to the Sagittary,

And let her speak of me before her father;

If you do find me foul in her report,
The trust, the office I do hold of you,
Not only take away, but let your sentence
Even fall upon my life.

And, till she come, as truly as to heaven,
I do confess the vices of my blood,

So justly to your grave ears I'll present
How I did thrive in this fair lady's love,
And she in mine.

Duke. Say it, Othello.

Oth. Her father lov'd me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have pass'd.

I ran it through, ev'n from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hairbreadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly

breach,

Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence
And portance in my travels' history;

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak,-such was the process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline;

But still the house-affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste despatch,
She'd come again and with a greedy ear

Devour up my discourse; which I observing,

Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,

Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively; I did consent,

And often did beguile her of her tears,

When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;

She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange,

'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful;

She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd

That heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd

me,

Bra.

Des.

Bra.

And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake;
She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd;

And I lov'd her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used;
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.

Enter DESDEMONA and ATTENDANTS.

Come hither, gentle mistress;
Do you perceive, in all this noble company,
Where most you owe obedience?

My noble father,

I do perceive here a divided duty;
To you I am bound for life and education;
My life and education both do learn me

How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
I am hitherto your daughter; but here's my husband,
And so much duty as my mother showed
To you, preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor my lord.

God be with you! I have done.

THE SHIPWRECK

BY CHARLES DICKENS

On a late September night the sleeping town of Yarmouth is startled by the cry: "A wreck close by!" "What wreck?" "A schooner, from Spain or Portugal, laden with fruit and wine. It's thought down on the beach she'll go to pieces any moment!"

Numbers of excited people are to be seen, all running in one direction toward the beach and now an immense crowd stands facing the wild sea. The height to which the breakers rise, and, looking over one another, bear one another down, and roll in, in interminable hosts, is most appalling. Suddenly the wreck closes in toward the shore. One mast is broken off six or eight feet from the deck, and lay over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging, and all that ruin, as the ship rolls and beats-which she does without a moment's pause and with a violence quite inconceivable-beats the side as if it would stave it in. As the ship turns toward the shore in her rolling, her people are plainly descried at work with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. But a great cry, which is audible even above the wind and water, rises from the shore at this moment; the sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck, makes a clean breach, and carries men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge. The second mast is still standing, with the rags of a rent sail and a wild confusion of broken cordage flapping to and fro. But the rolling and beating is too tremendous for any

human work to suffer long. There is another great cry of pity from the beach; four men rise with the wreck out of the deep, clinging to the rigging of the remaining mast; uppermost the active figure with the curling hair. There is a bell on board, and as the ship rolls and dashes, the bell rings; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, is borne to those standing on shore. Again the ship is lost from view, now she rises again. Two men are gone. The agony on shore increases. Men groan and clasp their hands; women shriek and turn away their faces. Some run wildly up and down along the beach, crying for help where no help can be.

And now a new sensation moves the people on the beach, and as they part, Ham Peggotty comes breaking through them to the front. Another cry arises on shore, and looking to the wreck they see the cruel sail, with blow on blow, beat off the lower of the two men and fly up in triumph round the active figure left alone upon the mast. Ham is heard to cry: "Mates, if my time is come, 'tis come. If 'tain't, I'll bide it. Lord above bless you all! Mates, make me ready,—I'm a-going for the wreck!"

There is hurry on the beach,-men running with ropes from a capstan that is there,-and Ham stands out alone in a seaman's frock and trousers; a rope in his hand, another round his body, and several of the best men holding at a little distance to the latter. The wreck is breaking up. She is parting in the middle and the life of the solitary man upon the mast hangs by a thread. Still he clings to it. He has a singular red cap on-not like a sailor's cap, but of a finer color; and as the few yielding planks between him and destruction roll and bulge, and his anticipative death-knell rings, he is seen to wave it.