only of hers, now darting forward with all the clustering leaves about it, and shooting up toward her as if wooing her to seize. At another moment, riveted to the vine which lay around it, it would whirl round and round, dazzlingly bright and beautiful, even as a torch waving hurriedly by night in the hands of some playful boy; but in all this time the glance was never taken from her own: there it grew, fixed, a very principle of light. And such a light!—a subtle, burning, piercing, fascinating gleam such as gathers in above the old grave and binds us as we look, shooting, darting directly into her eye, dazzling her gaze, defeating its sense of discrimination and confusing strangely that of perception. She felt dizzy, for as she looked a cloud of colors-bright, gay, various colors -floated and hung like so much drapery around the single object that had so secured her attention and spellbound her feet. Her limbs felt momently more and more insecure; her blood grew cold, and she seemed to feel the gradual freeze of vein by vein throughout her person.

vapor

At that moment a rustling was heard in the branches of the tree beside her, and the bird which had repeatedly uttered a single cry above her, as it were of warning, flew away from his station with a scream more piercing than ever. This movement had the effect for which it really seemed intended of bringing back to her a portion of the consciousness she seemed so totally to have been deprived of before. She strove to move from before the beautiful but terrible presence, but for a while she strove in vain. The rich starlike glance still riveted her own, and the subtle fascination kept her bound. The mental energies, however, with the moment

of their greatest trial, now gathered suddenly to her aid, and with a desperate effort, but with a feeling still of most annoying uncertainty and dread, she succeeded partially in the attempt, and threw her arms backward, her hands grasping the neighboring tree, feeble, tottering and depending upon it for that support which her own limbs almost entirely denied her. With her movement, however, came the full development of the powerful spell and dreadful mystery before her. As her feet receded, though but a single pace, to the tree against which she now rested, the audibly-articulated ring, like that of a watch when wound up with the verge broken, announced the nature of that splendid yet dangerous presence in the form of the monstrous rattlesnake, now but a few feet before her, lying coiled at the bottom of a beautiful shrub, with which, to her dreaming eye, many of its own glorious hues had become associated. She was at length conscious enough to perceive and to feel all her danger; but terror had denied her the strength necessary to fly from her dreadful enemy. There still the eye glared beautifully bright and piercing upon her own, and, seemingly in a spirit of sport, the insidious reptile slowly unwound himself from his coil, but only to gather himself up again into his muscular rings, his great flat head rising in the midst and slowly nodding, as it were, toward her, the eye still peering deeply into her own, the rattle still slightly ringing at intervals, and giving forth that paralyzing sound which, once heard, is remembered for

ever.

The reptile all this while appeared to be conscious of and to sport with, while seeking to excite, her terrors. Now, with its flat head,

distended mouth and curving neck, would it dart forward its long form toward her, its fatal teeth, unfolding on either side of its upper jaw, seeming to threaten her with instantaneous death, while its powerful eye shot forth glances of that fatal power of fascination, malignantly bright, which by paralyzing with a novel form of terror and of beauty may readily account for the spell it possesses of binding the feet of the timid and denying to fear even the privilege of flight. Could she have fled! She felt the necessity, but the power of her limbs was gone; and there still it lay, coiling and uncoiling, its arching neck glittering like a ring of brazed copper, bright and lurid, and the dreadful beauty of its eye still fastened, eagerly contemplating the victim, while the pendulous rattle still rang the death-note, as if to prepare the conscious mind for the fate which is momently approaching to the blow.

Meanwhile, the stillness became deathlike with all surrounding objects. The bird had gone with its scream and rush. The breeze was silent. The vines ceased to wave. The leaves faintly quivered on their stems. The serpent once more lay still, but the eye was never once turned away from the victim. Its corded muscles are all in coil. They have but to unclasp suddenly, and the dreadful folds will be upon her, its full length, and the fatal teeth will strike, and the deadly venom which they secrete will mingle with the life-blood in her veins.

The terrified damsel, her full consciousness restored, but not her strength, feels all the dan

scream, but the voice dies away, a a feeble gurgling in her throat. Her tongue is paralyzed; her lips are sealed. are sealed. Once more she strives for flight, but her limbs refuse their office. She has nothing left of life but its fearful consciousness. It is in her despair that—a last effort-she succeeds to scream, a single wild cry forced from her by the accumulated agony; she sinks down upon the grass before her enemy, her eyes, however, still open, and still looking upon those which he directs for ever upon them. She sees him approach, now advancing, now receding, now swelling in every part with something of anger, while his neck is arched beautifully like that of a wild horse under the curb, until, at length, tired as it were of play, like the cat with its victim, she sees the neck growing larger and becoming completely bronzed as about to strike, the huge jaws unclosing almost directly above her, the long tubulated fang charged with venom protruding from the cavernous mouth. cavernous mouth. And she sees no more: insensibility came to her aid, and she lay almost lifeless under the very folds of the monster.

In that moment the copse parted, and an arrow, piercing the monster through and through the neck, bore his head forward to the ground, alongside of the maiden, while his spiral extremities, now unfolding in his own agony, were actually in part writhing upon her person. The arrow came from the fugitive Occonestoga, who had fortunately reached the spot in season on his way to the blockhouse. He rushed from the copse as the snake fell, and with a stick fearlessly approached him where he lay tossing in agony upon the grass. Seeing him advance, the courageous reptile

made an effort to regain his coil, shaking the fearful rattle violently at every evolution which he took for that purpose; but the arrow, completely passing through his neck, opposed an unyielding obstacle to the endeavor, and finding it hopeless, and seeing the new enemy about to assault him, with something of the spirit of the white man under like circumstances he turned desperately round, and, striking his charged fangs, so that they were riveted in the wound they made, into a susceptible part of his own body, he threw himself over with a single convulsion, and a moment after lay dead beside the utterly unconscious maiden.

Oh, my style is nothing, Monsieur le Comte, though you are good enough to praise it; and besides, after all, it is but style. I had a brother once-poor fellow!" he added-" who might, indeed, have claimed your praise; for in addition to a good style, which he possessed in an infinitely higher degree than myself, he had a peculiar art of speaking briefly, which, Heaven knows, I have not, and of leaving nothing unsaid that could be said upon the subject he treated. When he was only nineteen years of age, he was admitted to the academy of Castres; but upon his admission they made this singular and flattering condition with him-namely, that he

should never speak upon any subject till everybody else had spoken; 'for,' said the academicians, when he speaks first, he never leaves anybody else anything to say upon the subject; and when he speaks last, he finds a thousand things to say that nobody else has said.' body else has said.' Besides all this," he continued, "my brother had another great and inestimable advantage over me."

"Pray, what was that?" demanded the count.

"He was not hideous," replied Pelisson. "Oh, I do not think that such an advantage," said the chevalier. "It is the duty of a woman to be handsome, but I think men have a right to be ugly if they like."

"So say I," replied Pelisson, "but Mademoiselle de Scudery says that I abuse the privilege; and, upon my word, I think so, for just before I came from Paris something happened which is worth telling. I was walking along," he continued, "quite soberly and thoughtfully down the Rue de Beauvoisis-you know that little street that leads up by the convent of St. Mary—when, coming opposite to a large house nearly at the corner, I was suddenly met by as beautiful a creature as ever I saw, with her soubrette by her side and her loup in her hand, so that I could quite see her face. She was extremely well dressed, and, in fact, altogether fit to be the goddess of an idyl. However, as I did not know her, I was passing quietly on, when suddenly she stopped, took me by the hand, and said in an earnest voice, 'Do me the pleasure, sir, of accompanying me for one moment.' On my word, gentlemen, I did not know what was going to happen, but I was a great deal too gallant, of course, to refuse her, when, without another word, she

led me to the door of the house, up the stairs, rang the bell on the first floor and conducted mẹ into an ante-room. A servant threw open another door for her, and then, bringing me into a second room, where I found a gentleman of good mien with two sticks in his hand, she presented me to him with these singular words: Line for line, sir, like that! Remember! Line for line, sir, like that!' and then, turning on her heel, she walked away, leaving me petrified with astonishment. The gentleman in whose presence I stood seemed no less surprised for a moment than myself, but the instant after he burst into a violent fit of laughter, which made me a little

666

THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA.

THE prisoners had been left at the dis

posal of the officers of the guard, who determined to secure them for the night in the common dungeon of the fort—a dungeon

me.

"Oh, as for me,' replied the gentleman, 'you have seen me more than once before, Monsieur Pelisson, though you do not know I am Mignard, the painter; but, as to the lady, I must either not give you the clue to her bringing you here or not give you her name, which you like.'

"Give me the clue, give me the clue,' replied I; the lady's name I will find out hereafter.'

"Do not be offended, then,' he said, 'but the truth is, I am painting for that lady a picture of the temptation in the wilderness. She came to see it this morning, and a violent dispute arose between us as to how I was to represent the devil, she contending that he was to be excessively ugly, and I that, though disfigured by bad passions, there

Black Hole"-its size only eighteen feet by fourteen, its airholes only two small windows, and these overhung by a low veranda. Into this cell, hitherto designed and employed for the confinement of some half dozen malefactors at a time, was it now resolved to thrust a hundred and forty-five European men and one Englishwoman, some of them suffering from recent wounds, and this in the night of the Indian summer solstice, when the fiercest heat was raging. Into this cell, accordingly, the unhappy prisoners, in spite of their expostulations, were driven at the point of the sabre, the last, from the throng and narrow space, being pressed in with considerable difficulty, and the doors being then by main force closed and locked behind them.

Of the doleful night that succeeded narratives have been given by two of the sur

vivors, Mr. Holwell and Mr. Cooke. The former, who even in this extremity was still in some degree obeyed as chief, placed himself at the window, called for silence, and appealed to one of the nabob's officers, an old man who had shown more humanity than the rest, promising him a thousand rupees in the morning if he would find means to separate the prisoners into two chambers. The old man went to try, but returned in a few minutes with the fatal sentence that no change could be made without orders from the nabob, that the nabob was asleep, and that no one dared to disturb him.

Meanwhile, within the dungeon the heat and stench had become intolerable. It was clear to the sufferers themselves that without a change few, if any, amongst them would see the light of another day. Some attempted to burst the door; others, as unavailingly, again besought the soldiers to unclose it. As

open

frantic with pain, were now endeavoring by every term of insult and invective to provoke these soldiers to put an end to their agony by firing into the dungeon. "Some of our company," says Mr. Cooke, "expired very soon after being put in; others grew mad, and, having lost their senses, died in a high delirium." At length, and by degrees, these various outcries sunk into silence; but it was the silence of death.

When the morning broke and the nabob's order came to unlock the door, it became necessary first to clear a lane by drawing out the corpses and piling them in heaps on each side, when, walking one by one through the narrow outlet, of the one hundred and forty-six persons who had entered the cell the evening before, only twenty-three came forth-the ghastliest forms, says Mr. Orme, that were ever seen alive.

LORD MAHON.

gles and their screams "Water! Water!" became the general cry. The officer to whose compassion Mr. Holwell had lately appealed desired some skins of water to be brought to the windows, but they proved too large to pass through the iron bars, and the sight of this relief, so near and yet withheld, served only to infuriate and wellnigh madden the miserable captives; they began to fight and trample one another down, striving for a nearer place to the windows and for a few drops of the water. These dreadful conflicts, far from exciting the pity of the guards, rather moved their mirth, and they held up lights to the bars with fiendish glee to discern the amusing sight more clearly. On the other hand, several of the English,

WEALTH.

A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER TO CRITO.
FROM THE GREEK OF XENOPHON.

OR be assured that Socrates often said

FOR

to us that those who are anxious about their children that they may have abundance of wealth, but have no care that they may become honorable and upright, act like those who breed horses, but train them to no military uses, though they supply them with abundance of food; since they will thus have their horses fatter, but unqualified for what they ought to be able to do, as the merit of a horse consists, not in having abundance of flesh, but in being courageous and well exercised for the field of battle. The same fault, he said, was committed