cutting, carving, and slashing them, and of the five corpses made twenty fragments which rolled across the battery; the lifeless heads seemed to cry out; streams of blood wreathed on the floor following the rolling of the ship. The ceiling, damaged in several places, commenced to open a little. All the vessel was filled with a monstrous noise. The captain promptly regained his presence of mind, and caused to be thrown into the lower deck all that could allay and fetter the unbridled course of the cannon,-mattresses, hammocks, spare sails, rolls of cordage, bags of equipments, and bales of counterfeit assignats, of which the corvette had a full cargo. But of what avail these rags? Nobody daring to go down and place them properly, in a few minutes they were lint. There was just sea enough to make the accident as complete as possible. A tempest would have been desirable; it might have thrown the cannon upside down, and, once the four wheels were in the air, it could have been mastered. As it was, the havoc increased. There were chafings and even fractures in the masts, which, jointed into the frame of the keel, go through the floors of vessels and are like great round pillars. Under the convulsive blows of the cannon, the foremast had cracked, the mainmast itself was cut. The battery was disjointed. Ten pieces out of the thirty were hors de combat; the breaches in the sides multiplied, and the corvette commenced to take in water. The old passenger who had gone down to the lower deck seemed a man of stone at the bottom of the ladder. He cast a severe look on the devastation. He did not stir. It seemed impossible to take a step in the battery. They must perish, or cut short the disaster; something must be done, but what? What a combatant that carronade was! That frightful maniac must be stopped. That lightning must be averted. That thunder-bolt must be conquered. The captain said to the lieutenant : "In the tempest?" "Yes. And in moments like these." "In reality God only can rid us of this trouble." All were hushed, leaving the cannon to do its horrible work. Outside, the billows beating the vessel answered the blows of the cannon. It was like two hammers alternating. All of a sudden, in that kind of unapproachable circuit wherein the escaped cannon bounded, a man appeared, with an iron bar in his hand. It was the author of the catastrophe, the chief gunner, guilty of negligence and the cause of the accident, the master of the carronade. Having done the harm, he wished to repair it. He had grasped a handspike in one hand, some gun-tackle with a slip-knot in the other, and jumped upon the lower deck. Then a wild exploit commenced; a Titanic spectacle; the combat of the gun with the gunner; the battle of matter and intelligence; the duel of the animate and the inanimate. The man had posted himself in a corner, and with his bar and rope in his two fists, leaning against one of the riders, standing firmly on his legs which seemed like two pillars of steel, livid, calm, tragic, as though rooted to the floor, he waited. He was waiting for the cannon to pass near him. The gunner knew his piece, and it seemed to him that it must know him. He had lived for some time with it. How many times he had thrust his hand into its jaws! It was his tamed monster. He commenced talking to it as he would to his dog. "Come," said he. He loved it, maybe. He seemed to wish that it would come towards him. But to come towards him would be to come upon him. And then he was lost. How avoid the crush? That was the question. All looked upon the scene, terrified. Not a breast breathed freely, except, perhaps, that of the old man who alone was on the lower deck with the two combatants, a sinister witness. He might himself be crushed by the piece. He stirred not. Under them the blinded sea directed the combat. At the moment when, accepting this dreadful hand-toband encounter, the gunner challenged the cannon, a chance rolling of the sea kept it immovable as if stupefied. "Come then!" said the man. It seemed to listen. Suddenly it jumped towards him. The man escaped the shock. The struggle began. A struggle unheard of. The fragile wrestling with the invulnerable. The monster of flesh attacking the brazen beast. On one side forte, on the other a soul. All this was passing in a shadow. It was like the indis tinct vision of a prodigy. A soul! a strange thing! one would have thought the cannon had one also, but a soul of hate and rage. This sightless thing seemed to have eyes. The monster appeared to watch the man. There was--one would have thought so at leastcunning in this mass. It also chose its moment. It was a kind of gigantic insect of iron, having, or seeming to have, the will of a demon. At times, this colossal grasshopper would strike the low ceiling of the battery, then fall back on its four wheels like a tiger on its four claws, and commence again to dart upon the man. He, supple, agile, adroit, writhed like an adder in guarding against all these lightning-like movements. He avoided encounters, but the blows he shunned were received by the vessel, and continued to demolish it. An end of broken chain had remained hanging to the carronade. One end of it was fastened to the carriage. The other, free, turned desperately around the cannon and exaggerated all its shocks. The chain, multiplying the blows of the ram by its lashings, caused a terrible whirl around the cannon,—an iron whip in a fist of brass-and complicated the combat. Yet the man struggled. At times, even, it was the man who attacked the cannon; he crouched along the side, holding his bar and his rope; and the cannon seemed to understand, and, as though divining a snare, fled. The man, formidable, pursued it. Such things cannot last long. The cannon seemed to say all at once-" Come! there must be an end to this!" and it stopped. The approach of the denouement was felt. The cannon, as in suspense, seemed to have, or did have,--because to all it was like a living thing,-a ferocious premeditation. Suddenly, it precipitated itself on the gunner. The gunner drew to one side, let it pass, and called to it, laughing--“ Try again." The cannon, as though furious, broke a carronade to larboard; then, seized again by the invisible sling which held it, bounded to starboard towards the man, who escaped. Three carronades sunk down. under the pressure of the cannon; then as though blind, and knowing no longer what it was doing, it turned its back to the man, rolled backward and forward, put the stem out of order, and made a breach in the wall of the prow. The man had taken refuge at the foot of the ladder, a few steps from the old man who was present. The gunner held his handspike at rest. The cannon seemed to perceive him, and without taking the trouble to turn around, fell back on the man with the promptness of an axe-stroke. The man if driven against the side was lost. All the crew gave a cry. But the old passenger, till then immovable, sprang forward, more rapidly than all those wild rapidities. He had seized a bale of false assignats,and,at the risk of being crushed, he had succeeded in throwing it between the wheels of the cannon. This decisive and perilous movement could not have been executed with more promptness and precision by a man accustomed to all the manoeuvres of sea gunnery. The bale had the effect of a plug. A pebble stops a bulk; a branch of a tree diverts an avalanche. The cannon stumbled. The gunner in his turn, taking advantage of this terrible juncture, plunged his iron bar between the spokes of one of the hind wheels. The cannon stopped. It leaned forward. The man using his bar as a lever, made it rock. The heavy mass turned over, with the noise of a bell tumbling down, and the man, rushing headlong, trickling with sweat, attached the slip-knot of the gun-tackle to the bronze neck of the conquered monster. It was finished. The man had vanquished. The ant had subdued the mastodon; the pigmy had made a prisoner of the thunderbolt. -From "Ninety-Three." THE PILGRIMS AND THE PEAS.-PETER PINDAR, There is a knack in doing many a thing, A fool on something great, at times, may stumble, On which, forever, your wise men may fumble, Yes! I advise you, for there's wisdom in 't, Never to be superior to a hint The genius of each man, with keenness viewA spark from this, or t'other, caught, May kindle, quick as thought, A glorious bonfire up in you. A question of you let me beg- Pray, have you heard? "Yes."-Oh! then, if you please A TRUE STORY. A brace of sinners, for no good, Were ordered to the Virgin Mary's shrine, Who at Loretto dwelt, in wax, stone, wood, And in a fair white wig looked wondrous fine. Fifty long miles had those sad rogues to travel, With something in their shoes much worse than gravel. In short, their toes so gently to amuse, The priest had ordered peas into their shoes;— A nostrum famous in old Popish times For purifying souls that stunk of crimes, A sort of apostolic salt, Which Popish parsons for its powers exalt, For keeping souls of sinners sweet, Just as our kitchen salt keeps meat. The knaves set off on the same day, But very diff'rent was their speed, I wot: The other limped, as if he had been shot. WWW |