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What matters it? the ship does not stop. The wind is blowing; that dark ship must keep on her destined course. She passes away.

The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges and rises again to the surface; he calls, he stretches out his hands. They hear him not; the ship, staggering under the gale, is straining every rope; the sailors and passengers see the drowning man no longer; his miserable head is but a point in the vastness of the billows.

He hurls cries of despair into the depths. What a spectre is that disappearing sail! He looks upon it; he looks upon it with frenzy. It moves away; it grows dim; it diminishes. He was there but just now; he was one of the crew; he went and came upon the deck with the rest; he had his share of the air and of the sunlight; he was a living man. Now, what has become of him? He slipped, he fell; and it is finished.

He is in the monstrous deep. He has nothing under his feet but the yielding, fleeing element. The waves, torn and scattered by the wind, close round him hideously; the rolling of the abyss bears him along; shreds of water are flying about his head; a populace of waves spit upon him; confused openings half swallow him; when he sinks he catches glimpses of yawning precipices full of darkness; fearful unknown vegetations seize upon him, bind his feet, and draw him to themselves; he feels that he is becoming

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the great deep; he makes part of the foam; the billows toss him from one to the other; he tastes the bitterness; the greedy ocean is eager to devour him; the monster plays with his agony. It seems as if all this were liquid hate. But yet he struggles.

He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he struggles; he swims. He-that poor strength that fails so soon-he combats the unfailing.

Where now is the ship? Far away yonder. Hardly visible in the pallid gloom of the horizon.

The wind blows in gusts; the billows overwhelm him. He raises his eyes, but sees only the livid clouds. He, in his dying agony, makes part of this immense insanity of the sea. He is tortured to his death by its immeasurable madness. He hears sounds which are strange to man, sounds which seem to come not from earth, but from some frightful realm beyond.

There are birds in the clouds even as there are angels above human distresses, but what can they do for him? They fly, sing, and float, while he is gasping.

He feels that he is buried at once by those two infinities, the ocean and the sky; the one is a tomb, the other a pall.

Night descends. He has been swimming for hours; his strength is almost exhausted. That ship, that far-off thing, where there were men, is gone. He is alone in the terrible gloom of the abyss; he sinks, he strains, he struggles; he feels beneath him the shadowy monsters of the unseen; he shouts.

Men are no more. Where is God? He shouts. Help! help! He shouts incessantly. Nothing in the horizon. Nothing in the sky. He implores the blue vault, the waves, the rocks; all are deaf. He supplicates the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only the Infinite.

Around him are darkness, storm, solitude, wild and unconscious tumult, the ceaseless tumbling of the fierce waters; within him, horror and exhaustion; beneath him, the engulfing abyss. No resting-place. He thinks of the shadowy adventures of his lifeless body in the limitless gloom. The biting cold paralyzes him. His hands clutch spasmodically and grasp at nothing. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, blasts, stars, all useless! What shall he do? He yields to despair; worn out, he seeks death; he no longer resists; he gives himself up; he abandons the contest, and he is rolled away into the dismal depths of the abyss forever.

O implacable march of human society! Destruction of men and of souls marking its path! Ocean, where fall all that the law lets fall? Ominous disappearance of aid! O moral death!

The sea is the inexorable night into which the penal law casts its victims. The sea is the measureless misery. The soul drifting in that sea may become a corpse. Who shall restore it to life? VICTOR HUGO.

THE

QUEEN ARJAMAND'S DAGGER.

(Abridged and adapted from "With Sa'di in the Garden.")

THEY tell this story of Queen Arjamand:
So fair she was, so debonnair, so wise,
The heart of Shah Jahan slept in her lap:
Her mouth issued the King's decrees, her hands
Gave provinces away, and great commands.
No night but at her feet did Shah Jahan
Lay down his cap of lordship and his sword
To take soft counsel from her faithful lips.
Which many grudged, and most those other ones
The Afghan Lady-she that hath her grave

In the Kandhari Bagh-and Zan-i-Noor, Grandchild of Abdurrahîm, Prince of the Blood: "If we could turn His Majesty," said these,

"From Mumtaz, that were well wrought for the State,
Whose banner is become a Persian shift!

Mashallah! will nought dull those dazzling eyes?"
And some one whispered: "Best find newer eyes
More dazzling, killing passion with its like;
Since one love chamber have these hearts of men,
And she who enters thrusts the other forth.
There is that slave-girl, come from Jessulmere,
A brown pearl of the Prophet's Paradise,
Wondrously fair-as none e'er saw; give word
They deck her with the garments of Mumtaz,

And hang the Queen's pearls round her throat, and bring
The Rajpootni into the Queen's own room

When she is gone-so may my Lord the King
Be tenderly beguiled, and Mumtaz scorned."
And this the Palace Ladies swore was good.
Surely, 'twas perilous.

The girl

Knew-for they told her she must die, or gain
Life, and long favor, and large wealth in gold,
At moment when her veil should drop, and show
Full moonlight of her face. To reign, see you,
First in that Court, to win the eyes of him
Who ruled upon the "Peacock-throne," and stretched
Hands of command from Balkh to Himalay,
Was worth some risk, it seemed of fierce farrash. *
Therefore-half willing, half constrained-she sat
Trembling, upon the silks of Mumtaz's bed,

In vestments of the beauteous Queen, her face
Wrapped in the golden chuddur. Oh! 'tis known
What fell, because a Palace maiden heard—

*The Executioner.

Listening outside the marble jâli-work—
And told it, word for word, to Arjamand.

Clad in his private dress-white muslin clasped

With one great pearl, white cap and jewelled shoes-
And, throwing down his scimitar and shawl,

Spake with a gentle smile: "Light of my life!
Once more I shut the great loud world away
And come to reign in this one realm I love,
The heart of Mumtaz !" Rose the Rajpootni,
All quaking underneath her rich disguise,
And bent full lowly to the King of Hind,
And kissed his feet;-then, let her chuddur fall,
And-lo! it was not Mumtaz there! his queen,
But that strange, lovely, frightened girl, with throat
Heaving, eyes gleaming, hands on bosom clasped,
Who murmured: "Lord of all the world! thy slave
Waiteth thy will that she may live or die."

Doubtless, you think he drew his blade and slew her there!

He was a man, 'tis writ, of gravity;

Nice in his pride, terrible in his wrath,

But oh! you do not know how fair she was!
Otherwise who had ventured? On his lips
Ended even in beginning those dread words
Which leaped from royal anger. At mid-rage
The charm unspeakable of that sweet slave
Melted his mounting fury! Allah makes
Sometimes a face and form to smite man's soul

With witchery of subtlest symmetry,

And she was such! That Lady of the Taj

Owned not such lustrous orbs, nor could have shown
Stature so cypress-like, such arms, such limbs,

Such eloquence of beauty, touched by fear