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Contraband (Packard)

STERN, far astern on the horizon line, there showed a tiny smudge of black—apart, an empty sea, smooth, with an oily swell. Creamlike ribbons of white from the bow wave of the Castle Prince curled and trailed along her sides with bubbling, hissing sounds—and lost their identity in the swirling wake.

Forward, across the lower deck, an awning drooped from its lashings, listless, motionless—mute tribute to the torrid, airless heat. Beneath it men moaned and tossed, turning flushed faces restlessly from side to side, their eyes staring with that strange, drunklike aspect peculiar to the disease—the, that, like some dread phantom, strikes pitilessly, suddenly, in the night or early dawn.

In the chart house, just forward of, and below, the bridge, that served him, too, as cabin, Captain Parks bent, with scowling face, over the chart spread out before him on the table. A grim-featured man he was, with great, lantern jaws, and black eyes sunk deep beneath bushy brows—a man of squat, thickset body, of face that, even in repose, was bulldoglike in its expression.

“We'll be needing a port doctor, Mr. Miller,” he said, looking up and addressing his chief officer, who stood at the end of the table.

“I was thinkin' the same,” replied Miller. “I was thinkin' the same, sir.”

“With a weather eye out for quarantine,” added the captain.

“Aye, sir; I know it's a risk,” agreed the mate.

Captain Parks smiled grimly. “Ye may well say so, Mr. Miller. It's a toss up 'twixt the Jack and the inside of a crawling hole of a prison. Were ye ever detained in one of 'em on this benighted coast, Mr. Miller?”

“I was in a bit of a row at Zanzibar one night, sir.”

“I said west coast, Mr. Miller. Man, the other is luxurious! Look ye, we're hereabouts”—Captain Parks jabbed his forefinger on the chart at a point due south of the Gold Coast and some nine degrees in latitude south of the equator.

“Aye, sir; thereabouts,” said Miller, nodding his head.

“The mainland would be flying in the face of Providence, Mr. Miller” Captain Parks' first and second fingers spread out like a pair of dividers, one finger tip resting on the spot where Ascension Island was charted, the other on the Island of Annobon.

“The Britisher'll be the nearer by a bit, sir,” said Miller, following the captain's movements with his eyes; “but I'm thinkin' I'd rather take my chances with the Spaniards—they're not so much interested, so to speak. I'm thinkin', too, a bit of cash would go a long way with them in fumigatin' the Prince after quarantine, an' no questions asked about the cargo—the papers standin' good an' sufficient, sir.”

“I've a mind to stand on as we are,” muttered Captain Parks doubtfully.

“We'd be a ghastly, driftin' derelict by the time we was halfway to Angra, sir,” objected Miller earnestly. “The Jack's sharp work, sir, cruel sharp an' sudden. Look what's happened to us since last night. God knows if there'll be one of us knowin' our own name this time to-morrow. The day's broke hot, pasty hot, an' there's a feel in the air I don't like. Anything's better than dyin' like rats in a trap.”

“Would ye say the same,” demanded Captain Parks aggressively, “if ye were half owner of the Prince, and every penny to sink or swim with her, Mr. Miller?”

“Aye,” said Miller shortly; “for what's a ship, if you're dead?”

Captain Parks' fist came down with a crashing blow on the table. “After this voyage, I'd have owned her all—all, d'ye hear, Mr. Miller; and there'd have been a fat slice of picking for yourself and the rest of the crew.”

“I'm a bit of a fatalist,” said Miller resignedly. “What'll come'll come; there's no gettin' away from that, Captain Parks.”

“I'll risk the Spaniards, and Annobon it is,” decided Captain Parks suddenly, after a moment's pause. “We'll swing round for it. The course'll be northeast by east, Mr. Miller, and ye'll change according. That'll be by dead reckoning, but we'll get our position at noon.”

“Aye, sir,” replied the mate, “northeast by east it is, sir. I hope to the Lord we make it, though it's a fairish distance. I'll see to the course at once, sir.”

He turned to leave the cabin, but Captain Parks halted him in the doorway. “What's yon astern, Mr. Miller, have ye made her out?”

Miller shook his head. “She's been ridin' us the last hour, sir,” he answered.

Captain Parks scowled. Company at sea was neither to his liking, nor conducive to a composed state of mind. The Prince was on very private business, and there were some things worse than Yellow Jack; also, British cruisers had been known to be impertinent. Captain Parks had a very wholesome regard for British cruisers, and for one in particular.

When an American tramp makes four voyages over the same waters, she picks up acquaintances, casual and otherwise. Likewise, her outward freight must be very valuable, if the return voyage is made with her load line showing as high as the day she was launched, barring the weight of a few tons of coal.

A certain lieutenant of his majesty's ship Orthon had explained this with patience and significance to Captain Parks on the last return voyage, when the Prince, at the pressing invitation of the man-of-war, had laid to for the brief and interesting period of an hour or so.

It would have been extremely indiscreet of Captain Parks to have explained that the port of Angra Pequeña, in Southwest Africa, afforded very little opportunity for picking up a cargo, or that his character looked to the question of speed with which he should reach the Weser, and load again at the Bremen docks.

Captain Parks merely said that trade was bad—rotten bad. He was empty, that was all there was to it—trade was bad.

Lieutenant Cleaver had replied in polite sea language to the effect that, in his estimation, Captain Parks was an egregious liar, and the reputation he gave the Prince—she was then the Arunia—was one of pungent unholiness.

Captain Parks had a very vivid recollection of both the words and the occasion. He was still scowling at his chief officer.

“The change in course, sir, 'll tell the tale,” volunteered Miller.

“Aye,” agreed Captain Parks; then: “I'll thank you, Mr. Miller, to request Mr. MacKnight to shake up his crawling machinery. It's speed we want now—to the last revolution.”

“Very good, sir,” said Miller.

Captain Parks grunted in dismissal, and watched the mate disappear through the cabin doorway. Early as it was in the forenoon, the heat was intense, and the perspiration was standing out in great drops on his forehead. He cursed softly as he glanced at the barometer. It had an ugly look.

He went to the door, that Miller had closed behind him, and kicked it open viciously, then returned to his chair to stare out over the rail to the range of waters beyond. His hand sidled into a box of thick, squat-cut smokes, and his back teeth closed over the end of one, but he did not light it.

Captain Parks, being a prudent man, was rehearsing the story he was preparing for the delectation of the port officers at Annobon. This did not take him long—he had had experience before—but he still sat there, listening to the accelerated thump of the engines, and chewing on the cigar, now fast being reduced to a stump.

“Quinine! A blamed quinine ship—that's us!” he snarled bitterly, and dashed the clinging drops from his forehead with a back sweep of his hand.

Fear was a sensation that in all his dare-devil life he had never experienced; but he knew what the presence of Yellow Jack meant. By night, every last man aboard, himself included, might be down with it—or they might not. As Miller had said, the Jack made sharp work, cruel sharp. The minutes passed—half an hour. Suddenly, a form filled the doorway.

“Bridge, sir,” announced a seaman briefly, and, touching his cap, vanished.

Captain Parks came to his feet with a jump. He had forgotten that smudge of smoke astern. The next minute he was out of his cabin, and tumbling up the bridge ladder to join Miller.

“I haven't had the glass off her, sir,” was the chief officer's greeting. “I marked her position when we changed course. She'll be followin' us, sir; there's no doubt of that.”

With glowering face, Captain Parks stared astern. The speck of an hour ago now loomed big and ominous.

“She's comin' up fast, sir,” went on Miller. “We're makin' a matter of twelve knots ourselves, but I reckon she's doin' almost as much as that again.” The mate paused significantly; then added: “These parts ain't overcrowded with boats better'n twenty knots.”

“The Orthon's rated at twenty-two decimal something,” growled Captain Parks, with savage bluntness. “Don't croak, Miller, like an old woman. Say what you mean.”

“Aye, then,” rejoined Miller sullenly, “it's her station, an' yon's she, or her likes—little matter which! Sweet luck we've got, rotten fore an' aft, an' worse astern!”

“I'll thank ye to hold your tongue, Mr. Miller, and cry when ye're hurt, and that'll be when ye're one of those”—Captain Parks jerked his thumb in the direction of the awning rigged over the forward deck—“or”—pointing astern—“dancing a jig, with a ball and chain, to the tune of 'Rule, Britannia'—and not till then, understand?”

Miller made no reply.

Captain Parks snatched at the handle of the engine telegraph—the indicator already stood at “full speed ahead”—and swinging it violently over its full arc and back again, shouted down the engine-room tube for MacKnight, the chief engineer, and more speed.

Answering the demand in person, from the engine room there appeared a little, wizen, red-haired man, in shocking dishabille—a pair of greasy white trousers, and an officer's cap cocked over one ear. The engine room, with the stifling heat of the day added, could have been little better than torment. The engineer, as he planted himself at the foot of the bridge ladder, was in a lather, and the sweat poured down his bare chest and shoulders in little, trickling courses.

“I'll have ye ken, Captain Parks, as I've told Miller, there,” he shouted, “that I canna do more. Twelve knots for a benighted scrouger like the Prince, wi' her engines rockin' like a cradle on the bedplates, is treemenjous goin.”

“I'll have ye know, Mr. MacKnight,” snapped Captain Parks, “that 'the 'benighted scrouger' is my ship, and be damned to ye!”

“She's a dissolute thing,” declared MacKnight, “an'  a benighted scrouger; but I'll no' argue the matter. Twelve knots is the leemit.”

“Ye're indecent in both words and dress, Mr. MacKnight. Limit, is it? We'll have more speed, Mr. MacKnight, if ye blow her up—and less lip!”

For a moment, the fiery little Scotchman glared, unable to find words adequate to express his feelings; then, finally: “Come down in the hell of an engine room,” he choked, “wi' the life oozing out by the pores, an' larn when a mon's doin' all his all, ye slave-drivin' Yankee!”

Captain Parks laughed shortly. “A civil tongue in your head's not to be expected. Come up here, Mr. MacKnight.”

“I will,” replied MacKnight belligerently, and sprang up the ladder.

Captain Parks caught him by the bare shoulder, and pointed astern. “I'm thinking, Mr. MacKnight,” said he, “that ye'll be wishing ye were a Yankee yourself, if yon ever overhauls us. She'll be the Orthon, ye mind, that passed the time of day with us last trip up. Being a British subject, 'twill fare harder with you than with me, Mr. MacKnight. Treason's an ugly word, and ugly is the punishment.”

“'T w'u'd be vara harrd to prove,” said MacKnight cautiously. “I'm consarned wi' the machinery, an' naught else, Captain Parks. A berth's a berth, an' what's an engineer to ken o' what's in the hold, so it's no' bilge water?”

“That's as it may be,” replied Captain Parks. “But I'm thinking ye'd be easier in your mind if we managed to give her the slip.”

“I w'u'd,” admitted MacKnight, blinking; “but I canna do more. Twelve knots! Did ye ever hear of the Prince doin' the like before? What w'u'd yon be makin'?”

“Twenty-two, and better,” acknowledged Captain Parks savagely.

MacKnight wagged his head. “'Tis nae credit to your mathematics, Captain Parks, the way ye talk. If 'twere late in the afternoon, I'd no' say but we'd have a chance to hold out an' gi'e her the slip in the dark; but, as it is—ye ken, Captain Parks?”

Captain Parks scowled. By every chance, the pursuer would be up with them in the early afternoon. He knew it as well as the other. “Well, then, Mr. MacKnight,” he rapped out, swinging on his heel, “get back to your junk shop, and, if ye can do no better, put in the time praying—ye'll stand in need of it!”

“I'm a Presbyterian,” retorted the engineer hotly. “Ye're a blasphemous mon, Captain Parks! Ye'll get your deserts for it ane o' these days.”

“I'm getting them now,” said the skipper gruffly, facing around again.

MacKnight stared for a moment into the captain's troubled face. “Mon,” said he remorsefully, “ye're sore harassed. I'll do my best, I'll do my best—but 'twill do nae good.”

As the hours crept on, the heat, intense before, became unbearable. The day was a yellow haze, torrid, still. Above, the sun was like a molten disk, its color like a tongue of flame from a furnace blast. Astern, there was no longer any speck; instead, a great smudge of black smoke that, having no breeze to disperse it, settled down, a blotch on the water line, as it poured forth from the three funnels of the cruiser, now coming up hand over hand with the Castle Prince.

Grim, with jaws set like a vise, stripped down to duck trousers and an undershirt, that, open at the neck and with sleeves rolled up, displayed the great chest, the gnarled and knotty forearms, Captain Parks paced savagely up and down his bridge.

A ball of white smoke puffed out from the cruiser's side, hung, lifted. The muffled roar of the discharge floated across the water. Overhead, a shell sang, and hurtled by. It was good gunnery; just far enough away to do no harm, just close enough to be imperative.

Mechanically, Captain Parks' hand reached out for the engine telegraph lever; then he hesitated, the hand dropped to his side, and he met Miller's eyes across the bridge. Miller turned away, and began to whistle under his breath. Below, along the deck, the crew clustered at the rail, their glances alternating between the bridge and the ship astern.

Another fluffy puff of white, again the boom of the discharge, the angry scream of the flying shell—the gunnery was too good to be ignored.

With a laugh that was more a curse, Captain Parks rang his engines to the “stop.” The shake and vibration of the ship ceased, a silence fell upon the cough and hiccup, the clatter of the machinery, and, like some sullen brute hushed against its will, the Prince, gradually losing way, lay still, rolling moodily with the swell.

No man aboard moved or spoke. Swiftly, the black hull of the British cruiser drew up abreast. A white boat swung from her davits, dropped to the water, and came toward them. When within hailing distance, Captain Parks bellowed through his hands.

“What d'ye mean by this?” he bawled. “I'll have ye know that I'm an American ship, and ye'll answer for it, by the etarnal! I'm the Castle Prince, Hamburg to Cape Town.”

An officer stood up in the stern sheets, and shaded his eyes with his hands. “I'm Cleaver—Lieutenant Cleaver, of the Orthon, captain. Commander's compliments and apologies, but we mistook you for Captain Parks and the Arunia. Way enough! Make fast there in the bow!”—quick, sharp orders, as the boat's nose grated on the iron plates of the Prince's sides.

Captain Parks cursed heartily and with abandon. “Prince or Arunia, it's all the same,” he yelled. “Ye'll come aboard at your peril. What d'ye want?”

“Contraband, Captain Parks,” replied Lieutenant Cleaver, from the boat. “Contraband arms for the Transvaal, via German Southwest Africa. Is business better this voyage, captain? I see you're well loaded.”

“Aye, we're well loaded,” repeated Captain Parks bitterly. “We're full o' Yellow Jack! I warn ye again, though I'm a fool to do it, ye'll board us at your peril. We're a pestilence ship.”

Lieutenant Cleaver laughed softly, as he came clambering up the side. “You've some humor, Captain Parks,” he said. “You've well named yourself. A pestilence ship you are—the worst pest in these waters; but” He stopped suddenly, as he swung on to the deck, and a queer look came into his face as his eyes strayed ahead of him to the awning on the forward deck. Then he turned, and motioned to his men, who were swarming up behind him.

“Get back to the boat, men! Every one of you! Look sharp!” he cried hoarsely.

Captain Parks, hanging over the weather cloth of the bridge, chuckled as he experienced the first real pleasure he had known for many hours. The Yellow Jack was a blessing in disguise! He left the bridge and went to the deck to join his unwelcome visitor. As he came up to Lieutenant Cleaver, the Orthon's cutter fended from the Prince, and began to pull back to the cruiser,

“I warned ye, lieutenant, didn't I?” demanded Captain Parks. “Ye'll take a man's word after this, likely enough.”

“You did,” Lieutenant Cleaver answered coolly; “but it's hard to tell when some men are speaking the truth. I've asked the commander to send us the doctor. I suppose it's hardly necessary to inform you that you are under arrest, Captain Parks, you and your crew.”

“What for?” blustered Captain Parks.

“I've told you once,” said the lieutenant sternly. “Contraband arms for the Boers. The game's up, Captain Parks, and you might as well take your medicine like a man. Do you think you can change a ship with a coat of paint and a new name? I've seen her before, Captain Parks, you'll remember.”

“Aye,” growled the captain, “I remember. And ye'll have cause to remember it more than ye do now, sonny, I promise ye that! I ain't forgotten what ye said that day, and I've a sneaking suspicion it's yourself I've to thank for what's happened now.”

“You're more than half right about that,” admitted the lieutenant easily.

With a snarl, Captain Parks thrust his great, savage face close to the other's, and his fists clenched into knotty lumps; then he laughed shortly, turned on his heel, and began to stamp up and down the deck until, at the expiration of some fifteen minutes, he saw the cutter coming back. He joined MacKnight and Miller, who were standing by the engine-room scuttle.

“D'ye take note of the glass, captain?” asked Miller uneasily. “It's been hangin' low all mornin', but I've never seen the like of the drop it's taken in the last half hour. I'm thinkin', sir, we're in for something out of the ordinary.”

“It's little matter,” responded Captain Parks gruffly, and slued around to watch the doctor, as he came over the side, and handed a letter to the lieutenant. His eyes followed the doctor until he disappeared forward, then they came back to the lieutenant.

Cleaver had torn open the envelope, and was reading the contents. After a minute, he folded the paper, put it in his pocket, and leaned over the rail to the boat's crew below.

Captain Parks could not catch the words, but the splash of oars, and then the sight of the cutter appearing from under the stern, needed no interpretation. Lieutenant Cleaver was to remain aboard—just Lieutenant Cleaver and the doctor!

Something within Captain Parks stirred with unholy glee. Cleaver was coming toward him now.

“We'll get under way, Captain Parks,” announced the lieutenant briskly. “You'll shape your course by the Orthon's—four hundred yards astern. She'll slow to your best speed.”

“Ye're pretty free with your orders, sonny,” sneered Captain Parks.

“I am,” returned Cleaver. “I'm in command.”

“We're to follow the Orthon, eh?” murmured Parks slowly, softly. “For why, and for where, I'd like to ask?”

“Commander's orders,” replied the other shortly. “Ascension for quarantine, and inspection later.”

“Then take her there!” shouted Captain Parks. “Take her there, Mr. Cleaver! If your ratty, crawling crowd are afraid to come aboard, take her there yourself. D'ye think we're languishing for a taste of prison, that we're going to work our way to the front door? Take her there, Mr. Cleaver—I'll not!”

“I think you will,” was the quiet reply. “There was no need to risk spreading contagion. I am aboard, and you're under the Orthon's guns. I needn't tell you they could blow you to kingdom come in a jiffy. We'll get under way, Captain Parks, if you please.”

For a brief instant, dominating the rage and fury that was in his heart, there flashed through the captain's mind the thought that this slight, trim young man before him had done a rather decent thing when he had kept his men from coming aboard, and that there was pluck and nerve behind the action that had forced his present position upon him—even with the Orthon's guns to back him up. Then anger again assumed the supremacy.

“Work her, I'll not!” he roared. “That's flat!”

“Mon,” whispered MacKnight, plucking at his sleeve. “Mon, ye'll be surely daft. D'ye recollect what Miller was sayin' o' the weather a minute gone? Ye'll want no prize crew aboard the night. Let well enough alone, Captain Parks.”

The boom of a gun came across the water. “She's getting impatient, Captain Parks,” said Lieutenant Cleaver significantly.

“Have your way, then,” rapped out Captain Parks ungraciously in assumed defeat, as he caught the craftiness of his engineer. “I reckon I've little choice. Ye'll stand by, Mr. MacKnight, to go ahead. Take the bridge, Mr. Cleaver, and be damned to ye!”

Hour by hour, the Prince plowed sullenly in the Orthon's wake, and hour by hour the yellow, murky, pasty haze grew more yellow, thicker, more forbidding, gradually shading darker toward the skyline, where the horizon rim was like a jet-black band of ink.

Aboard, men gasped for breath in the sticky atmosphere, the sweltering heat, and over all brooded the dread of the prison doors to come, the horror of the pestilence already theirs.

On the bridge, Captain Parks touched Lieutenant Cleaver on the shoulder, and jerked his thumb forward, “God knows what's coming, I don't,” he said; “but I'd feel better with the sick below, as I've said before.”

“The doc says no,” Lieutenant Cleaver answered. “The only chance they've got is air, what little there is of it. Below, they'd snuff out like candles.”

“Aye, and—look yonder there!”—he pointed his finger before him. The low, black fringe of the horizon was lifting, mounting like a pall to the heavens, and, at the lower edge, coming toward them with incredible speed, was a thin, churning, threadlike line of white.

Captain Parks' hands went to his mouth, trumpetwise, and his great voice bellowed through the ship:

“Fo'ard, there! Hold fast, every man”

The swirl, the swoop, the onrush of a mighty wind caught up his words, played with them like whirling bits of chaff, and flung them back upon him into space. With a clap of thunder, the awning tore from its lashings like rotten silk. The churning line of white was upon them. The Prince faltered, staggered, then buried her nose deep in the foaming waters, rose trembling, shaking herself like a thing of life. From the scupper ports, the green water poured in hissing streams.

Like a broken man, Captain Parks, white to the lips, turned and looked into Lieutenant Cleaver's eyes, and his lips moved dumbly.

Cleaver's only response was to avert his face.

The deck was bare! Fore and aft swept clean, with awful thoroughness. Surgeon and sick alike dashed to eternity; the services of the one ended, the sufferings of the others past. And then, as though nature herself was stunned and appalled at the ghastly tragedy she had enacted, there fell a hush, and the silence was as a solemn requiem for the dead.

It was but the prelude of what was to come. Another moment, and the tempest broke with all its pent-up fury. Great, forked tongues of lightning played through a sky now black as ink, and with a moan like a stricken thing the Prince gathered herself together, and swung slowly around head into the teeth of the hurricane, to begin her long battle with the boiling waters, that tossed her on their seething crests like a cockleshell.

Once, as the lightning for a brief instant lit up the heavens, they caught a glimpse of the black hull of the Orthon, far to windward, the storm sweeping them farther and farther apart, and then the blackness closed down upon them again.

Miller came clawing his way to the bridge, and shouted in the captain's ear. It was the tale of the disaster, the count of those that had gone. Eight men and the doctor!

As the night grew on, the storm increased. Two men were at the wheel now, and beside them towered the giant form of Captain Parks, and the slighter, trimmer figure of the lieutenant, their oilskins streaming, their eyes blinded by the spray flung in stinging sheets over the bridge, as great waves reared high over the bows of the Prince, hovered an instant in menace, and then their tumbling tons of water crashed upon her decks, shaking her as a terrier shakes a rat.

Twice already, the chart house below the bridge had threatened to go by the board, making the bridge itself perilous and unsafe: and now, at last, it went with a grinding, crunching noise, sweeping into the port stanchions of the bridge, crumpling them like bits of picture wire.

The shock threw Captain Parks bodily back against the after railing of the bridge. As he recovered himself, the quartermaster roared in his ear:

“Wheel's out, sir!”

“Tell Miller to man the stern gear. Quick, man, jump!” shouted Captain Parks. “Where's Cleaver?”

The bridge had snapped like a stick, nearly in the center; and, the port stanchions gone, that end had dropped almost to the deck. It hung, swaying crazily with the tumbling of the ship, sagging like a broken leg from the portion that still remained intact. Caught in the lower corner, where the canvas of the weather cloth made a little pocket, was a huddled heap. As Captain Parks looked, a sea broke over it. Only the quartermaster now remained with him on what was left of the bridge; the other seaman had already gone to carry the captain's order to the mate.

Captain Parks pointed, gripping the quartermaster's arm fiercely, and a black thought took shape and form. Free—if ever they weathered the storm—free! He would make his port, unload his cargo—there would be enough in that to refit—and the Prince would still be his—his! True, the Orthon lost in the storm, Cleaver, as a force, had become powerless; but, as a witness, he would, sooner or later, have to be reckoned with. Now there would be no witness! He laughed aloud as his fingers closed tighter on the quartermaster's arm.

“It's him, God help him!” cried the seaman. “We can't get to him. He'll be pounded to death in a minute—if he ain't already.”

Captain Parks' grip on the other's arm loosened, again he laughed, hard and short—and began to work his way along the bridge.

“For God's sake, sir, don't try it! 'Tain't any use, you”

The quartermaster's words were lost in the singing roar of the wind. Captain Parks, clinging to the shattered wreckage, was lowering himself down to the still, motionless thing below him. Gasping, panting from the fierce body blows that had battered him at almost every foot of the descent, as, swinging like a pendulum, he had been dashed, with the pitch of the ship, from side to side, he reached Cleaver, raised him in his arms, and began to struggle back. Inch by inch, he won his way upward; then the broken end of the bridge swung with a mighty jerk under the lift of the sea, as the Prince, without her helm, paid off into the trough of the waves, and he was hurled from his hold and flung back to the bottom. For a moment, he lay, helpless, held only from being swept overboard by the merciful protection of the canvas pocket that had already stood Cleaver in such good stead.

A pain shot through his arm and left shoulder, like the searing of hot iron. Again he picked up the lieutenant, and began to struggle upward. His breath came in short moans, his lips were bleeding where his teeth bit into them; the agony from his injured arm, that he was forced to use, was intolerable. At the end, he remembered only that the quartermaster had gripped and held them both. Then he had fainted.

When he opened his eyes again, he was in his bunk—but it was the morning of the third day before he was able to reach the bridge again. Miller gave him a helping hand as he came up the starboard ladder. Battered almost beyond recognition, the Prince was a woebegone, pitiful, broken thing to see. Captain Parks gazed upon the scene with a grim smile. To windward, banks of clouds, low, scudding, with here and there between them a rift of sunlight, heralded the breaking of the storm. There was nothing else in sight.

“Only the upper works. Only the upper works, eh, Miller?” he said softly, to his chief officer. “Below, she's sound, eh? Sound as a bell?”

“Aye, sir; thank God!” replied Miller fervently.

“What's our position, would ye say, Mr. Miller?”

“Well, sir, we've blown a goodish bit down the coast.”

“We have, Mr. Miller,” agreed Captain Parks, and he laughed as he clapped his hand on the mate's back. “We have, and it'll be Angra, after all, Mr. Miller. There's a bit of luck left us yet.”

“We'll need it,” muttered Miller. “That wave didn't wash out all the Jack. Martin an' one or two of the men that are left are touched with it. Though not bad, I reckon. We're pretty short-handed for nice maneuverin', sir. I take it, you mean to work things at Angra same as before?”

“Aye, Mr. Miller, the same as before. We'll manage right enough as far as the men go; but I'd not like to arouse Cleaver's suspicions—not for what he could do now, but for what he'd know afterward.”

“Lord, sir,” grinned Miller, “no fear of him. He's too battered to leave his bunk for a week, if he does then. He's off his head now, ramblin' about some girl, an' him promoted an admiral.”

“I'm a firm believer in luck, Mr. Miller. It's like the tide. When it turns, it's all your way.”

“I shouldn't think he'd say anything, anyway,” submitted the mate, “when he finds out you risked your life for him, sir.”

Captain Parks swung suddenly, savagely, on his chief officer, and shoved his fist under Mr. Miller's nose. “If ye, or any one of the lot aboard, open your face to Cleaver about that, I'll bash it to pulp!” he cried fiercely.

“Aye, sir,” mumbled Miller, astounded and surprised, stepping hastily back. “Aye, sir; very good.”

For the next few days, the Prince wallowed and thrashed her way far down the coast, and then, one afternoon, MacKnight slowed his revolutions, and she lay, lazily rocking with the swell. Far off on the port beam, the land was just discernible, no more than a faint streak.

The night fell black, black as the Prince herself, creeping stealthily shoreward, with lights out and the engine-room hatch carefully covered. Inside the harbor, the one boat left, and that looking like a crazy quilt, from its manifold patches in an endeavor to make it serviceable, dropped over the side, and Captain Parks went ashore.

When morning came again, the Prince lay, lazily rocking with the swell; and, again, far off on the port beam, the land was just discernible, no more than a faint streak.

Aboard, all. through that day, and for other days thereafter, there was much commotion, the cough. and sputter of the donkey engine, the grunting of men, the creaking of block and tackle—and the Prince's decks lay cumbered with that which the hatches until now had hidden from the vulgar gaze. And each night she crept stealthily shoreward, and the litter of the day's toil went over the side into barges, far up at the northern end of the bay in the harbor of Angra Pequeña.

Then came a day when the Prince did not wait for night, but steamed boldly in from sea, reeking with innocence and the smell of burning sulphur—steamed in for quarantine! And the port of Angra Pequeña received her at her face value, treating her with that compassion and tenderness that one in her sore plight and pitiful condition impelled; or, perhaps, the rather striking similarity between the port captain and one heavy-paunched, thickset German, who had superintended the loading of the barges in the dead of night, may have had something to do with it. That, however, is no more than speculation, for one cannot be sure of either face or figure by a dim and flickering lantern light, cautiously exposed and carefully shaded!

In due time, the Prince got a clean bill of health, and the authorities gave her her clearance papers, and on the day this took place Lieutenant Cleaver appeared on deck for the first time—a matter of coincidence!

Captain Parks watched silently as the lieutenant, still very weak and shaky, walked from one end of the Prince to the other, peering reflectively down the open hatches into a bare and empty hold. Then he invited Lieutenant. Cleaver to his cabin.

Cleaver accepted the invitation, and likewise accepted the tendered glass. Both men drank in silence, and then sat eying each other across the table.

“Where's your cargo?” demanded the lieutenant bluntly.

Captain Parks smiled softly, and shook his head. “The delirium will still be affecting ye, Lieutenant Cleaver?” he suggested politely.

“Oh, chuck all that!” retorted Cleaver. “What's the use of beating about the bush?”

“None,” returned Captain Parks promptly; “though what gets me is how ye should get it into your head we ever had any cargo. I put it to ye like this: If we'd had any, ye know we couldn't have got rid of it neither before nor during that blow, eh? As for afterward, we made this port, where we've lain in quarantine, and any one of the port. officials'll give ye an affidavit that we came in as empty as we are this blessed minute. How could we have had any cargo?”

“You can't squeal out of it like that,” snapped Cleaver. “I, and, for that matter, every one aboard the Orthon, can prove the difference in your water line. You were infernally deep, Captain. Parks.”

Captain Parks grinned through the smoke of his black cigar. “'Twas a miragelike effect, maybe.”

Cleaver scowled. “Where's your papers? You said you were bound for Cape Town. Perhaps that's a mirage, too!”

“Papers!” repeated Captain Parks, removing his cigar, and staring at the other in well-simulated surprise. “Papers! Lord, man, if any one knows where they are, it's yourself ought to. The last thing ye saw before ye went and smashed yourself to sleep was the chart house going by the board. I always kept ship's papers in the chart house, from habit, like. Papers, my eye!”

“I'd give a year's pay and my chances of promotion to know how, when, and where you landed that cargo,” said Lieutenant Cleaver.

Captain Parks closed one eye slowly, and squinted with the other at the lieutenant. “'Tain't enough, sonny,” he chuckled. “Ye'll have to raise the ante.”

Cleaver drummed on the table with his fingers, and stared with puckered brows at the floor.

“I'm getting under way in half an hour or so,” remarked Captain Parks nonchalantly. “Going to put in at Cape Town to refit, and pick up a cargo—if trade ain't too bad. Ye can go ashore here, Mr. Cleaver, or ye're heartily welcome to keep on down the coast with us.”

Then Lieutenant Cleaver looked up—and then he laughed. “I'll go ashore, Captain Parks. I suppose we can count ourselves lucky if you don't lodge a complaint against us with the American consul at Cape Town for piracy, or something like that, on the high seas, eh?”

“'Twould be in reason,” said Captain Parks solemnly.

A quarter of an hour later, Captain Parks, from his partially rehabilitated bridge, waved his hand to a figure in naval uniform standing up in the stern sheets of a small boat that was being rapidly rowed shoreward; then he turned, and, calling down the engine-room tube, politely requested Mr. MacKnight to set his unmentionable species of a junk shop in motion.

title: Contraband (Packard)


text: Talk:Contraband (Packard)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Contraband (Packard)


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188 celebrated Haha and Huhu, and Tumvuru were the sons—the best of Gandharvas—of Prodha. And Amrita, the Brahmanas, kine, Gandharvas, and Apsaras, were born of Kapila as stated in the Purana.

"Thus hath been recited to thee by me the birth of all creatures duly—of Gandharvas and Apsaras, of Snakes, Suparnas, Rudras, and Marutas; of kine and of Brahmanas blessed with great good fortune and of sacred deeds. And this account, (if read) extendeth the period of life, is sacred, worthy of all praise, and giveth pleasure to the ear. It should be always heard and recited to others, in a proper frame of mind.

"He who duly readeth this account of the birth of all high-souled creatures, in the presence of the gods and Brahmanas, obtaineth large progeny, good fortune, and fame, and attaineth also to excellent worlds hereafter."

And so ends the sixty-fifth Section in the Sambhava of the Adi Parva.

( Sambhava Parva continued. )

Vaisampayana said, "It is known that the spiritual sons of Brahmā were the six great Rishis (already mentioned.) There was another of the name of Sthanu. And the sons of Sthanu gifted with great energy were, it is known, eleven. They were, Sarpa, Niriti of great fame; Ajaikapat, Ahivradhna and Pinaki the oppressor of foes; Dahana, and Iswara, and Kapali of great splendour; Sthanu, and the illustrious Bharga. And these are called the eleven Rudras. It hath been already said, that Marichi, Angira, Atri, Pulastya, Pulaha, and Kratu—these six great Rishis of great energy—are the sons of Brahmā. It is well-known in the world that Angira's sons are three,—Vrihaspati, Utathya, and Samvarta, all of rigid vows. And, O king, it is said that the sons of Atri are numerous. And being great Rishis they are all conversant with the Vedas, crowned with ascetic success, and of souls in perfect peace. And, O tiger among kings, the sons of Pulastya of great wisdom are the Rakshasas, Monkeys,


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Rh have been healed while sitting in their seats. The power of God is also falling on the people, and sinners are being saved in their homes.

Last Tuesday, a prominent physician from Alabama brought his daughter for healing. He is a doctor and surgeon and has taken his daughter to the best physicians in the country. She has been operated upon eight times. She has taken fifteen different anesthetics, and has suffered the loss of one limb. Her remaining limb was all crooked with rheumatism. When prayed for, almost immediately the crooked limb straightened out, she raised her eyes to heaven, and with tears in her eyes, began shouting, “I am healed! It is straight! It is straight!” Nearly every one in the tent was in tears, and there was a good crowd for an afternoon meeting. The doctor was so pleased and testified; he wanted all the Lord had for him. At the night service he was down at the altar, seeking his baptism.

I want to thank those who are making it possible for us to send Sister Etter’s Book to the foreign fields. Fifteen books will go out this week. We are getting testimonies now, from those we have already sent, of the blessings they are bringing to those receiving.

I am certain it will. be a wonderful way to reach the heathen, through Divine Healing; so continue to pray that the Lord will send us money to send the book out till every foreign missionary shall have received a copy. I remain in Him, your brother

The interest in the meetings continues without a lull. A number have testified to having attended Moody and Sankey meetings, Sam Jones’ meetings, all the big meetings that have been held here for the past twenty-five years, but never have they seen one to equal Sister Etter’s meeting. Crowds throng the outside of the tent every night and tomorrow they will add tent space enough to hold four hundred more people.

The Lord has marvelously healed many during the meeting. A very wonderful healing was that of a cotton buyer, well known in Meridian, who had rheumatism for twenty nine years, and 22

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 a lesson I could not, or would not learn. I said: Lord, you know I started out to win souls for heaven, and I have been busy all the time. I have tried to be faithful in everything you have given me to do. I am so exhausted with constant labor that I have to be helped many times to rise from my bed.

I thought if I would preach divine healing they would bring all the cripples in the country, and I would neglect the salvation of souls. The Lord showed me He would take care of the work. I told the Lord if He wanted me to pray for the sick to send them to the meetings, and show me He wanted me to pray for them, and I would. When I made this promise I had perfect rest of mind and soul. From this time God began to lead me to teach divine healing and pray for the sick. It is now nine years since, and God has healed thousands of all manner of diseases. Thousands have been brought to Christ by seeing the people healed. The devil tried to make me think there would not be nearly so many saved.

On Friday, April 10, 1885, we left Columbia City for Hartford City, Indiana. At Fort Wayne we were met by Lawyer C., of Hartford City, who escorted us to his house. In the evening we met the Daniel’s Band at their nicely fitted up room, and found them all on fire for God, which cheered our hearts. The Daniel’s Band arranged to have meetings in the opera house, as I was going to stay over Sunday. At five o’clock Saturday evening they began to fill the house, and by the time the meeting commenced the house was full to overflowing, and God greatly blessed the people, and several souls were saved. On Sunday the house was full all day. But Sabbath evening was the grandest and most glorious sight I ever witnessed; fully two thousand people were crowded into the hall, and fifteen or more were entranced during the evening, and God was present in mighty power. On Monday we went to New Corner, and in the evening met the Daniel’s Band of that place. The house was literally packed, and there were not enough sinners in the house to fill the altar, almost everyone being on the Lord’s side.

By very urgent request I next went to Tipton, Indiana. I commenced meeting on Sunday morning, April 26,1885, at the Methodist Church, and for two weeks we held up the cross of Christ to a dying world, amidst all opposition from professing Christians and the outside world. All hell seemed arrayed against

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Rh Kinnaras (half-men and half-horses), and Yakshas. And, O king, the sons of Pulaha were, it is said, the Salavas (the winged insects), the lions, the Kimpurushas (half-lions and half-men), the tigers, bears, and wolves. And the sons of Kratu, sacred as sacrifices, were the companions of Surya, (the Valakhilyas), known in the three worlds and devoted to truth and vows. And, O thou protector of the Earth, the illustrious Rishi Daksha, of soul in complete peace, and great asceticism, sprung from the right toe of Brahma. And from the left toe of Brahma sprang the wife of the high-souled Daksha. And the Muni (Daksha) begat in her fifty daughters; and all those daughters were of faultless features and limbs, and of eyes like lotus leaves. And the Prajapati Daksha, not having any sons, made those daughters his Putrikas (so that their sons might belong both to himself and their husbands.) And Daksha bestowed according to the sacred ordinance, ten of his daughters on Dharma, twenty-seven on Chandra (the Moon), and thirteen on Kashyapa. Listen as I recount the wives of Dharma according to their names! They are ten in all—Kirti, Laksmi, Dhriti, Medha, Pushti, Sradha, Kriā, Budhi, Lajjā, and Mati. These are the wives of Dharma as appointed by the self-create. It is known also throughout the worlds that the wives of Shoma, all of sacred vows, are employed in indicating time; and they are the Nakshattras and the Yoginis and they became so for assisting the courses of the worlds.

"And Brahmā had another son named Manu. And Manu had a son of name Prajapati. And the sons of Prajapati were eight and were called the Vasus whom I shall name in detail. They were Dhara, Dhruva, Shoma, Aha, Anila, Anala, Pratyusa, and Prabhasa. These eight are known as the Vasus. Of these, Dhara and the truth-knowing Dhruva were born of Dhumra; Chandrama (Shoma) and Shasana (Anila) were born of the amiable Shasa; Aha was the son of Rata; and Hutashana (Anala) of Shandilya; and Pratyusha and Prabhasa were the sons of Prabhata. And Dhara had two sons, Dravina and Hutahavyavaha. And the son of Dhruva is the illustrious Kala


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Author:Robert James Manion

Works

 * A Surgeon in Arms (1918)

title: Author:Robert James Manion


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190 (Time) the destroyer of the worlds. And Shoma's son is the resplendant Varcha. And Varcha begets in his wife Manoharā three sons—Shishira, Prana, and Ramana. And the sons of Aha were Jyoti, Shama, Shanta, and also Muni. And the son of Agni is the handsome Kumara born in the forest of reeds. And he is also called Kartikeya because he was reared by Krittika and the others. And after Kartikeya were born his three brothers Shakha, Vishakha, Naigameya. And the wife of Anila is Shivā. And Shiva's sons were Manajava and. These two were the sons of Anila. The son of Pratyusha, you must know, is the Rishi by name Devala. And Devala had two sons who were both exceedingly forgiving and of great mental power. And the sister of Vrihasptai, the first of women, uttering the sacred truth, engaged in ascetic penances, roamed over the whole Earth. And she became the wife of Prabhasha the eighth Vasu. And she begat the illustrious Viswakarma the founder of all arts. And he was the originator of a thousand arts, engineer of the immortals, the maker of all kinds of ornaments, and the first of artists. And he it was constructed the celestial cars of the gods. And mankind are enabled to live in consequence of the inventions of that illustrious one. And he is worshipped for that reason by men. And he is eternal and immutable this—Viswakarma.

"And the illustrious Dharma, the dispenser of all happiness, assuming a human countenance came out through the right breast of Brahma. And Ahasta (Dharma) hath three excellent sons capable of charming every creature. And they are Shama, Kama, and Harsha. (Peace, Desire, and Gladness,) And by their energy they are supporting the worlds. And the wife of Kama is Rati, of Shama is Prapti; and the wife of Harsha is Nanda. And upon them, indeed, are the worlds made to depend (for all that their inhabitants do.)

"And the son of Marichi is Kasyapa. And Kasyapa's offspring are the gods and the Asuras. And therefore is Kasyapa the Father of the worlds. And Tastri, of the form of (a mare) Vadava, became the wife of Savitri. And she gave birth, in the skies, to two greatly fortunate twins the Aswinas. And, O king, the sons of Aditi are twelve with Indra heading them


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Rh

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 "I shall be happy to meet you there," said Claverhouse, "but still more so should you think better on my first proposal."

They then saluted and parted.

"That is a pretty lad, Lumley," said Claverhouse, addressing himself to the other officer; "but he is a lost man—his blood be upon his head."

So saying, he addressed himself to the task of preparation for instant battle.


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 generous principles, and the crazy fanatical clowns yonder, with the blood-thirsty assassins who head them; therefore, if they do not disperse upon your return, let me pray you instantly come over to our army and surrender yourself, for, be assured, they will not stand our assault for half an hour. If you will be ruled and do this, be sure to enquire for me. Monmouth, strange as it may seem, cannot protect you—Dalzell will not—I both can and will; and I have promised to Evandale to do so if you will give me an opportunity."

"I should owe Lord Evandale my thanks," answered Morton coldly, "did not his scheme imply an opinion that I might be prevailed on to desert those with whom I am engaged. For you, Colonel Grahame, if you will honour me with a different species of satisfaction, it is probable, that, in an hour's time, you will find me at the west end of Bothwell Bridge with my sword in my hand."


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 There was a guard, however, posted at the long and narrow bridge of Bothwell, over which the enemy must necessarily advance to the attack; but, like the others, they were divided and disheartened; and, entertaining the idea that they were posted on a desperate service, they even meditated withdrawing themselves to the main body. This would have been utter ruin; for, on the defence or loss of this pass; the fortune of the day was most likely to depend; all beyond it was a plain open field, excepting a few thickets of no great depth, and, consequently, was ground on which the undisciplined forces of the insurgents, deficient as they were in cavalry, and totally unprovided with artillery, were altogether unlikely to withstand the shock of regular troops.

Morton, therefore, viewed the pass carefully, and formed the hope, that by occupying two or three houses on the left bank of the river, with the copse and thickets of alders and hazels that lined its


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 side, and, by blockading the passage itself, and shutting the gates of a portal, which, according to the old fashion, was built on the central arch of the bridge of Bothwell, it might be easily defended against a very superior force. He issued directions accordingly, and commanded the parapets of the bridge, on the farther side of the portal, to be thrown down, that they might afford no protection to the enemy when they should attempt the passage. Morton then conjured the party at this important post to be watchful and upon their guard, and promised them a speedy and strong reinforcement. He caused them to advance videttes beyond the river to watch the progress of the enemy, which out-posts he directed should be withdrawn to the left bank as soon as they approached; finally, he charged them to send regular information to the main body of all that they should observe. Men under arms, and, in a situation of danger, are usually


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 sufficiently alert in appreciating the merit of their officers. Morton's intelligence and activity gained the confidence of these men, and with better hope and heart than they had before, they began to fortify their position in the manner he recommended, and saw him depart with three loud cheers.

Morton now galloped hastily, towards the main body of the insurgents, but was surprised and shocked at the scene of confusion and clamour which it exhibited, at the moment when good order and concord were as such, essential consequence. Instead of being drawn up in line of battle, and listening to the commands of their officers, they were crowding together in a confused mass that rolled and agitated its self likes the waves of the sea, while a thousand tongues spoke, or rather vociferated, and not a single ear was found to listen. Scandalized at a scene so extraordinary, Morton endeavoured to make his way through the press to learn, and, if pos-


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 sible, to remove the cause of this so untimely disorder. While he is thus engaged, we shall make the reader acquainted with that which he was some time in discovering.

The insurgents had proceeded to hold their day of humiliation, which; agreeably to the practice of the puritans during the earlier civil war, they considered as the most effectual mode of solving all difficulties and waiving all discussions. A temporary pulpit, or tent, was erected in the middle of the encampment; which, according to the fixed arrangement, was first to be occupied by the Reverend Peter Poundtext, to whom the post of honour was assigned, as the oldest clergyman present. But as the worthy divine, with slow and stately steps, was advancing towards the rostrum which had been prepared for him, he was prevented by the unexpected apparition of Habbakuk Mucklewrath, the insane preacher, whose appearance had so


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 much startled Morton at the first council of the insurgents after their victory at Loudon-hill. It is not known whether he was acting under the influence and instigation of the Cameronians, or whether he was merely impelled by his own agitated imagination, and the temptation of a vacant pulpit before him, to seize the opportunity of exhorting so respectable a congregation. It is only certain, that he took occasion by the forelock, sprung into the pulpit, cast his eyes wildly round him, and, undismayed by the murmurs of many of the audience, opened the Bible, read forth as his text from the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, "Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, let us go serve other gods which you have not known;" and then rushed at once into the midst of his subject.

The harangue of Mucklewrath was as


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 breastplate. Seek not aid of the Egyptians, because of the enemy, though they may be numerous as locusts, and fierce as dragons. Their trust is not as our trust, nor their rock as our rock; how else shall a thousand fly before one, and two put ten thousand to the flight! I dreamed it in the visions of the night, and the voice said, 'Habhakuk, take thy fan and purge the wheat from the chaff, that they be not both consumed with the fire of indignation; and; the lightning of fury.' Wherefore, I say, take this Henry Morton—this wretched Achan, who hath brought the accursed thing among ye, and made himself brethren in the camp of the enemy—take him and stone him with stones, and thereafter burn him with fire, that the wrath mạy depart from the children of the Covenant. He hath not taken a Babylonish garment, but he hath sold the garment of righteousness to the woman of Babylon—he hath not taken two hundred shekels of fine silver, but he hath bartered the truth, which is more


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Rh all. And the youngest of them all was Vishnu upon whom are the worlds dependent.

"These are the thirty three gods (eight Vasus, eleven Rudras, twelve Adityas, Prajapati, and Vashatkara). And I shall now recount their progeny according to their Pakshas, Kulas, and Ganas. The Rudras, the Sadhyas, the Marutas, the Vasus, the Bhargavas, and the Viswadevas are each reckoned as a Paksha. Gadura the son of Vinata and the mighty Aruna also, and the illustrious Vrihaspati are reckoned among the Adityas. The twin Aswinas, all annual plants, and all inferior animals, are reckoned among the Guhyakas.

"These are the Ganas of the gods recited to thee, O king! This recitation washes men of all sins.

"The illustrious Bhrigu came out, ripping open the breast of Brahma. The learned Sukra is Bhrigu's son. And the learned Sukra becoming a planet and engaged according to the command of the self-existent in pouring and withholding rain, and in despensing [sic] and remitting calamities, for sustaining the lives of all creatures in the three worlds traverses through the skies. And the learned Sukra, of great intelligence and wisdom, of rigid vows, leading the life of a Brahmachari, divided himself in twain by power of asceticism, and became the spiritual guide of both the Daityas and the gods. And after Sukra was thus employed by Brahma in seeking the welfare (of the gods and the Asuras), Bhrigu begat another excellent son. This was Chyavana who was like the blazing sun, of virtuous soul, of great game. And he came out of his mother's womb in anger and became the cause of his mother's release, O king, (from the hands of the Rakshasa.) And Arushi, the daughter of Manu, became the wife of the wise Chyavana. And in her was born Aurva of great reputation. And he came out ripping open the thigh of Arushi. And Aurva begat Richika. And Richika in his boyhood even became possessed of great power and energy, and of every virtue. And Richika begat Jamadagni. And the high-souled Jamadagni had four sons. And the youngest of them all was Rama (Parashurama). And Rama was superior to all his brothers in the possession of good qualities. And he was skilful [sic] in all weapons, and became the


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 wild and extravagant as his intrusion was unauthorized and untimely; but it was provokingly coherent, in so far as it turned entirely upon the very subjects of discord, of which it had been agreed to adjourn the consideration until some more suitable opportunity. Not a single topic did he omit which had offence in it; and, after charging the moderate party with heresy, with crouching to tyranny, with seeking to be at peace with God's enemies, he applied to Morton, by name, the charge that he had been one of those men of Belial, who, in the words of his text, had gone out from amongst them to withdraw the inhabitants of his city, and to go astray after false Gods. To him, and all who followed him, or approved of his conduct, Mucklewrath denounced fury and vengeance, and exhorted those who would hold themselves pure and undefiled to come up from the midst of them.

"Fear not," he said, "because of the neighing of horses, or the glittering of the


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 *Riuzō, Mori, potter, 332.
 * Rokubei, potter, 211; mark, 211; decorative style, 211; descendants, 212, 213.
 * Roku no Yukansai, potter, 232; descendants, 232.
 * Rokuro of Meppō, potter, 378.
 * Rokuro of Sukikai-bashi, potter, 327.
 * Roku-roku-rin. See Chōzo.
 * Ryoemon, Funaki, potter, 338.
 * Ryōniu. See Kichizaemon (Tanaka).
 *
 * . See Kisaburo.
 * Sagawa Tomosuke, potter, 343.
 * Sahei, Tanaka, potter, 36.
 * Sahyo. See Kichizaemon (Tanaka).
 * Saibei, Agano, potter, 323.
 * Saiemon, Ono, potter, 157.
 * Sakaida Kakiemon, potter, 55, 57; develops decoration with enamels, 61, 63; reputation, 75; descendants, 112; family mark, 112; forgeries, 427.
 * Sakamoto Gembei, potter, 343.
 * Sakata Densaku, potter, 346.
 * Sakon, Irie, potter, 219.
 * Sakubei Shigetoshi, potter, 341; called Kita, 342.
 * Sakurai ware, 382.
 * Sakutarō, Ohi, potter, 257.
 * Same ware, 153.
 * Samuro, Iwamatsu, potter, 114.
 * Sanda porcelain, 380.
 * Saniu. See Kichizaemon (Tanaka).
 * San-no-jo. See Joen (Imamura).
 * Sanuki province, imitation Raku ware, 341; Takamatsu ware, 342; Shido ware, 342.
 * Sartel, M. du, on Japanese porcelains in European collections, 120, 124.
 * Sasaki Yozo, potter, 318.
 * Sasayama ware, 399.
 * Satow, Sir Ernest, on the Nawashiro potteries, 159–166.
 * Satsuma, Occidental reputation of its faience, 133; character of old and new faience, 133–135, 146–152, 166–168; Korean potters, 135; coloured ware, 136–139, 152, 157, 168–170; origin of "Satsuma ware," 140; production of enamelled ware, 142–146, 152; hybrid ware, 151, 166; Same faience, 153; composition of the faience, 153, 156, 157; porcelain manufacture, 154–156; composition of the porcelain, 156; inferior faience, 171; faience compared with Kyōtō faience, 206, 207; modern à jour decoradon, 421. See also Chōsa, Nawashiro, Tadeno, Tatsumonji.
 * Sawa family, potters, 339.
 * Sawada Shunzan, potter, 318.
 * Sawamura Tosa, potter, 229.
 * Seggars, origin and use, 74.
 * Seibei, Honda, potter, 246.
 * Seibei, Nomura. See Ninsei.
 * Seibei Yahyō, potter, 209.
 * Seifū family, potters, 226, 417.
 * Seifū Yōhei, potter, Chinese models, 417.
 * Seiji-sha, keramic society, purpose and influence, 113.
 * Seiki, Boku, potter, 152.
 * Seikuan, Boku, potter, 152.
 * Seimon, Fukuda, potter, 109.
 * Seisai, Rokubei, potter, 212; mark, 213.
 * Seiyemon, Nomura. See Ninsei.
 * Sen no Rikiu and Raku ware, 32, 37.
 * Seta ware, 366.
 * Seto, Owari, Teshiro's kiln, 13–16, 265; character and esteem of his Seto faience, 265–268, 272; ware of his immediate descendants, 270–272; later ware, 272–275, 278; mark, 274; porcelain manufacture, 282–287; character of porcelain, 292; over-the-glaze decoration, 294–297; modern egg-shell porcelain, 420.
 * Setoguchi family, potters, 114.


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 consciously for his industrious pencil. He died too early, at the very moment when he was beginning to put forth fresh sprouts, and blossom into something worthy of himself; and yet none who knew him will think he lived in vain. I never knew a man so little, for whom yet I had so much affection; and I find it a good test of others, how much they had learned to understand and value him. His was indeed a good influence in life while he was still among us; he had a fresh laugh, it did you good to see him; and however sad he may have been at heart, he always bore a bold and cheerful countenance, and took fortune's worst as it were the showers of spring. But now his mother sits alone by the side of Fontainebleau woods, where he gathered mushrooms in his hardy and penurious youth.

Many of his pictures found their way across the channel: besides those which were stolen,


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192 slayer of the Kshatrias. And he had his passions under complete control. And he had his passions under complete control. And Aurva had an hundred sons with Jamadagni the eldest. And these hundred sons had offspring by thousands spread over this Earth.

"And Brahma had two other sons, viz, Dhata and Vidhata, who stayed with Manu. Their sister is the auspicious Laksmi having her abode amid lotuses. And the spiritual sons of Laksmi are the sky-ranging horses. And the daughter born of Sukra, named Divi, became the eldest wife of Varuna. In her were born a son named Vala, and a daughter named Surā (wine) giving joy unto the gods. And Adharma (Sin) was born when creatures (from want of food) began to devour each other. And Adharma always destroys every creature. And Adharma had Niriti for his wife, whence the Rakshasas who are called Nairitas (offspring of Niriti.) And she hath also three other cruel sons always engaged in sinful deeds. They are Vaya (fear), Mahavaya (terror), and Mrityu (Death) who is always engaged in slaying every created thing. And all-destroyer as he is, he hath no wife, and no son. And Tamra brought forth five daughters known throughout the worlds. They are Kaki (crow), Shyeni (hawk), Vashi (hen), (goose), and Shuki (parrot). And Kaki brought forth the crows; Shyeni, the hawks; Vashi, the cocks and vultures;, all ducks and swans; and she also brought forth all Chakravakas; and the fair Shuki of amiable qualities and possessing all auspicious signs brought forth all the parrots. And Krodha gave birth to nine daughters all of wrathful disposition. And their names were Mrigi, Mrigamanda, Hari, Bhadramana, Matangi, Sharduli, Sheta, Suravi, and the agreeable Surasā blessed with every virtue. And, O thou foremost of men, the offspring of Mrigi are all animals of the deer species. And the offspring of Mrigamandā are all animals of the bear species and those called Srimara (swift-footed.) And Bhadramana begat the celestial elephant Airavata for her son. And the offspring of Hari are all animals of the monkey species endued with great activity and also all the horses. And those animals also that are called Golangula (the cow-tailed) are said to be the offspring of Hari. And Sharduli begat


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 when a dastardly Yankee left him alone in London with two English pence, and perhaps twice as many words of English. If anyone who reads these lines should have a scene of sheep, in the manner of Jacques, with this fine creature's signature, let him tell himself that one of the kindest and bravest of men has lent a hand to decorate his lodging. There may be better pictures in the National Gallery; but not a painter among the generations had a better heart. Precious in the sight of the Lord of humanity, the Psalms tell us, is the death of his saints. It had need to be precious; for it is very costly, when by the stroke, a mother is left desolate, and the peace-maker, and peace-looker, of a whole society is laid in the ground with Cæsar and the Twelve Apostles.

There is something lacking among the oaks of Fontainebleau; and when the dessert comes


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 in at Barbizon, people look to the door for a figure that is gone.

The third of our companions at Origny was no less a person than the landlady's husband: not properly the landlord, since he worked himself in a factory during the day, and came to his own house at evening as a guest: a man worn to skin and bone by perpetual excitement, with baldish head, sharp features, and swift, shining eyes. On Saturday, describing some paltry adventure at a duck-hunt, he broke a plate into a score of fragments. Whenever he made a remark, he would look all round the table, with his chin raised, and a spark of green light in either eye, seeking approval. His wife appeared now and again in the doorway of the room, where she was superintending dinner, with a "Henri, you forget yourself," or a "Henri, you can surely talk without making such a noise." Indeed, that was what the honest fellow could


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 not do. On the most trifling matter, his eyes kindled, his fist visited the table, and his voice rolled abroad in changeful thunder. I never saw such a petard of a man; I think the devil was in him, He had two favourite expressions: "it is logical," or illogical as the case might be: and this other, thrown out with a certain bravado, as a man might unfurl a banner, at the beginning of many a long and sonorous story: "I am a proletarian, you see." Indeed, we saw it very well. God forbid, that ever I should find him handling a gun in Paris streets. That will not be a good moment for the general public.

I thought his two phrases very much represented the good and evil of his class, and to some extent of his country. It is a strong thing to say what one is, and not be ashamed of it; even although it be in doubtful taste to repeat the statement too often in one evening. I should


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 not admire it in a duke, of course; but as times go, the trait is honourable in a workman. On the other hand, it is not at all a strong thing to put one's reliance upon logic; and our own logic particularly, for it is generally wrong. We never know where we are to end, if once we begin following words or doctors. There is an upright stock in a man's own heart, that is trustier than any syllogism; and the eyes, and the sympathies and appetites, know a thing or two that have never yet been stated in controversy. Reasons are as plentiful as blackberries; and like fisticuffs, they serve impartially with all sides. Doctrines do not stand or fall by their proofs, and are only logical in so far as they are cleverly put. An able controversialist no more than an able general demonstrates the justice of his cause. But France is all gone wandering after one or two big words; it will take some time before they can be satisfied that they are


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Rh lions and tigers in numbers, and also leopards and, no doubt of it, all other strong animals. And, O king, the offspring of Matangi are all the elephants. And Shetā begat the large elephant known by the name Sheta endued with great speed. And, O king, Suravi gave birth to two daughters, the amiable Rohini and the far-famed Gandharvi. And, O Bharata, she had also two other daughters named Vimalā and Analā. From Rohini have sprung all kine, and from Gandharvi all animals of the horse species. And Anala begat the seven kinds of trees yielding pulpy fruits. (They are the date, the palm, the hintala, the tali, the little date, the nut, and the cocoanut.) And she had also another daughter called Shuki (the mother of the parrot species.) And Surasa begat a son called Kanka (a species of long-feathered birds.) And Shyeni, the wife of Aruna, gave birth to two sons of great energy and strength named Sampati and the mighty Jatayu. Surasa also begat the Nagas and Kadru the Pannagas (snakes.) And Vinata begat two sons Gadura and Aruna known extensively. And, O king of men, O thou first of intelligent persons, thus hath the genealogy of all the principal creatures been fully described by me. By listening to this a man is fully cleansed from all his sins, and acquireth great knowledge, and finally attaineth to the first of states in after life."

And thus endeth the sixty-sixth Section in the Sambhava of the Adi Parva.

( Sambhava Parva continued. )

Janamejaya said, "Worshipful one, I wish to hear from thee in detail about the birth, among men, of the gods, the Danavas, the Gandharvas, the Rakshas, the lions, the tigers, and other animals, the snakes, the birds, in fact, of all creatures! I wish also to hear about the acts and achievements of these, in due order, after they became incarnate in human forms!"

Vaisampayana said, "O king of men, I shall first tell thee all about those celestials and Danavas that were born among


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FIGURES


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66 sunrise: “I wait for the dawn,” said the cock, “for the light is my signal; but as for thee—the light is thy ruin”; and, finally, what Mr. Jacobs calls the grim beast-tale of the Fox as Singer, in which the beast—-invited by the lion to a feast, and covered by him with the skins of wild beasts—are led by the fox in a chorus: “What has happened to those above us, will happen to him above”, implying that their host, too, will come to a violent death. In the context the fable is applied to Haman, whose fate, it is augured, will resemble that of the two officers whose guilt Mordecai detected.

Such fables are used in the Talmud to point religious or even political morals, very much as the parables were. The fable, however, took a lower flight than the parable, and its moral was based on expediency, rather than on the highest ethical ideals. The importance of the Talmudic fables is historical more than literary or


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194 men. The first of Danavas who was known by the name of became that bull among men notes as Jarasandha. And, O king, that son of Diti who was known as was known in the world among men as the powerful Shishupala. He who had been known as, the younger brother of Prahlada, became among men the famous Salya,—that bull amongst the Vahlikas. The spirited Anuhlad who had been the youngest became noted in the world as. And, O king, that son of Diti who had been known as Shivi became on earth the famous monarch Druma. And he who was known as the great Asura Vashkala became on earth the great. The five great Asuras gifted with great energy,, , the spirited , , and Vegavana, were all born in the royal line of Kekaya and all became great monarchs. That other Asura of mighty energy who was known by the name of Ketumana became on earth the monarch Amitouja of terrible deeds. That great Asura who was known as Swarvanu became on earth the monarch of fierce deeds. That great Asura who was known as Aswa became on earth the monarch Asoka of exceeding energy and invincible in battle. And, O king, the younger brother of Aswa who was known as Aswapati, a son of Diti, became on earth the mighty monarch Hardikya. The great and fortunate Asura who was known as became noted on earth as king. And, O king, the younger brother of who was known by the name of Ajaka became noted on earth as king Shalya. The powerful and mighty Asura who was known as became noted on earth as king. And, O king, the Asura who was known as Suksma, endued with great intelligence and whose achievements also were great, became on earth the famous king. And that first of Asuras who was known by the name of Tuhunda became noted on earth as the monarch Senavindu. That Asura of great strength who was known as Ishupa became the monarch of famous prowess. The great Asura who was known as Ekachakra became noted on earth as. The great Asura Virupaksha capable


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TABLES

APPENDIXES


text: Land Protection Plan - Wyoming Toad Conservation Area


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/The Grateful Foxes


text: Land Protection Plan - Wyoming Toad Conservation Area/Abbreviations


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/Fuji-Yama


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/The Musmee


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/An Introduction


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/The Emperor's Breakfast


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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is establishing a conservation area in the Laramie basin of southern Wyoming to protect the Wyoming toad. The Wyoming Toad Conservation Area project is located in south-central Albany County, Wyoming, and would encompass three existing National Wildlife Refuges: Bamforth, Hutton Lake, and Mortenson Lake. The Service will work with private landowners to protect up to 43,299 acres, mainly through conservation easements, and up to 10,000 acres in fee-title land purchased from willing sellers only. Successful implementation of the Wyoming Toad Conservation Area will depend on numerous partnerships, including partnerships with The Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society chapters, State agencies, Laramie Rivers Conservation District, tribes, and other Federal agencies. We will also work with the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative as part of our landscape-scale conservation efforts.

In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service policy, both an environmental assessment and a land protection plan have been prepared to analyze the potential effects of establishing the Wyoming Toad Conservation Area in southeastern Wyoming. Both documents are contained within this volume.

The land protection plan describes the important resources and gives direction for evaluating potential habitat conservation areas. The Service has set priorities for land protection based on the needs of the endangered Wyoming toad. The Wyoming Toad Conservation Area would focus on the protection of wetland, floodplain, riparian, and upland areas that provide the year-around habitat required by the toad. The Service has defined highest conservation value areas based on scientific modeling results for the Wyoming toad to establish priorities for where to pursue easements and fee-title acquisition from willing sellers.


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/"Sayonara"


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/At Sea

title: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/At Sea


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viii

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text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/The "No" Dance


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/A Song

title: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/A Song


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/Mothers

title: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/Mothers


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/Inscription for Stained-Glass Window


text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/Sonnet to America


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Author:Grace Mary Ellison

Works

 * An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem (1915)
 * An Englishwoman in the French Firing Line (1915)
 * An Englishwoman in Occupied Germany (1920)
 * An Englishwoman in Angora (1923)
 * The Disadvantages of Being a Woman (1924)
 * Turkey To-day (1928)
 * Yugoslavia: A New Country and its People (1933)

title: Author:Grace Mary Ellison


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T would seem fitting for a Northern folk, deriving the greater and better part of their speech, laws, and customs from a Northern root, that the North should be to them, if not a holy land, yet at least a place more to be regarded than any part of the world beside; that howsoever their knowledge widened of other men, the faith and deeds of their forefathers would never lack interest for them, but would always be kept in remembrance. One cause after another has, however, aided in turning attention to classic men and lands at the cost of our own history. Among battles, “every schoolboy” knows the story of Marathon or Salamis, while it would be hard indeed to find one who did more than recognise the name, if even that, of the great fights of Hafrsfirth or Sticklestead. The language and history of Greece and Rome, their laws and religions, have

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text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/The British Empire


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x been always held part of the learning needful to an educated man, but no trouble has been taken to make him familiar with his own people or their tongue. Even that Englishman who knew Alfred, Bede, Caedmon, as well as he knew Plato, Cæsar, Cicero, or Pericles, would be hard bestead were he asked about the great peoples from whom we sprang; the warring of Harold Fairhair or Saint Olaf; the Viking kingdoms in these (the British) Western Isles; the settlement of Iceland, or even of Normandy. The knowledge of all these things would now be even smaller than it is among us were it not that there was one land left where the olden learning found refuge and was kept in being. In England, Germany, and the rest of Europe, what is left of the traditions of pagan times has been altered in a thousand ways by foreign influence, even as the peoples and their speech have been by the influx of foreign blood; but Iceland held to the old tongue that was once the universal speech of northern folk, and held also the great stores of tale and poem that are slowly becoming once more the common heritage of their descendants. The truth, care, and literary beauty of its records; the varied and strong life shown alike in tale and history; and the preservation of the old speech, character, and tradition—a people placed apart as the Icelanders have been—combine to make valuable what Iceland holds for us. Not before 1770, when Bishop Percy translated Mallet’s

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Rh Northern Antiquities, was anything known here of Icelandic, or its literature. Only within the latter part of this century has it been studied, and in the brief book-list at the end of this volume may be seen the little that has been done as yet. It is, however, becoming ever clearer, and to an increasing number, how supremely important is Icelandic as a word-hoard to the English-speaking peoples, and that in its legend, song, and story there is a very mine of noble and pleasant beauty and high manhood. That which has been done, one may hope, is but the beginning of a great new birth, that shall give back to our language and literature all that heedlessness and ignorance bid fair for awhile to destroy.

The Scando-Gothic peoples who poured southward and westward over Europe, to shake empires and found kingdoms, to meet Greek and Roman in conflict, and levy tribute everywhere, had kept up their constantly-recruited waves of incursion, until they had raised a barrier of their own blood. It was their own kin, the sons of earlier invaders, who stayed the landward march of the Northmen in the time of Charlemagne. To the Southlands their road by land was henceforth closed. Then begins the day of the Vikings, who, for two hundred years and more, “held the world at ransom.” Under many and brave leaders they first of all came round the “Western Isles” toward the end of the eighth century; soon after they invaded Normandy, and harried the coasts of France; gradually they lengthened their voyages until there

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xii was no shore of the then known world upon which they were unseen or unfelt. A glance at English history will show the large part of it they fill, and how they took tribute from the Anglo-Saxons, who, by the way, were far nearer kin to them than is usually thought. In Ireland, where the old civilisation was falling to pieces, they founded kingdoms at Limerick and Dublin among other places; the last named, of which the first king, Olaf the White, was traditionally descended of Sigurd the Volsung, endured even to the English invasion, when it was taken by men of the same Viking blood a little altered. What effect they produced upon the natives may be seen from the description given by the unknown historian of the Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill:—“In a word, although there were an hundred hard-steeled iron heads on one neck, and an hundred sharp, ready, cool, never-rusting brazen tongues in each head, and an hundred garrulous, loud, unceasing voices from each tongue, they could not recount, or narrate, or enumerate, or tell what all the Gaedhil suffered in common—both men and women, laity and clergy, old and young, noble and ignoble—of hardship, and of injury, and of oppression, in every house, from these valiant, wrathful, purely pagan people. Even though great were this cruelty, oppression, and tyranny, though numerous were the oft-victorious clans of the

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Rh many-familied Erinn; though numerous their kings, and their royal chiefs, and their princes; though numerous their heroes and champions, and their brave soldiers, their chiefs of valour and renown and deeds of arms; yet not one of them was able to give relief, alleviation, or deliverance from that oppression and tyranny, from the numbers and multitudes, and the cruelty and the wrath of the brutal, ferocious, furious, untamed, implacable hordes by whom that oppression was inflicted, because of the excellence of their polished, ample, treble, heavy, trusty, glittering corslets; and their hard, strong, valiant swords; and their well-riveted long spears; and their ready, brilliant arms of valour besides; and because of the greatness of their achievements and of their deeds, their bravery and their valour, their strength, and their venom, and their ferocity, and because of the excess of their thirst and their hunger for the brave, fruitful, nobly-inhabited, full of cataracts, rivers, bays, pure, smooth-plained, sweet grassy land of Erinn”—(pp. 52–53). Some part of this, however, must be abated, because the chronicler is exalting the terror-striking enemy that he may still further exalt his own people, the Dal Cais, who did so much under Brian Boroimhe to check the inroads of the Northmen. When a book does appear, which has been announced these ten years past, we shall have more

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xiv material for the reconstruction of the life of those times than is now anywhere accessible. Viking earldoms also were the Orkneys, Faroes, and Shetlands. So late as 1171, in the reign of Henry II., the year after Beckett’s murder, Earl Sweyn Asleifsson of Orkney, who had long been the terror of the western seas, “fared a sea-roving” and scoured the western coast of England, Man, and the east of Ireland, but was killed in an attack on his kinsmen of Dublin. He had used to go upon a regular plan that may be taken as typical of the homely manner of most of his like in their cruising: “Sweyn had in the spring hard work, and made them lay down very much seed, and looked much after it himself. But when that toil was ended, he fared away every spring on a viking-voyage, and harried about among the southern isles and Ireland, and came home after midsummer. That he called spring-viking. Then he was at home until the corn-fields were reaped down, and the grain seen to and stored. Then he fared away on a viking-voyage, and then he did not come home till the winter was one month off, and that he called his autumn-viking.”

Toward the end of the ninth century Harold Fairhair, either spurred by the example of Charlemagne, or really prompted, as Snorri Sturluson tells us, resolved to bring all Norway under him. As Snorri has it in Heimskringla: “King Harold sent his men to a girl hight Gyda. The king wanted her for his leman; for she was wondrous beautiful but of high mood withal. Now when the messengers

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Rh came there and gave their message to her, she made answer that she would not throw herself away even to take a king for her husband, who swayed no greater kingdom than a few districts; ‘and methinks,’ said she, ‘it is a marvel that no king here in Norway will put all the land under him, after the fashion that Gorm the Old did in Denmark, or Eric at Upsala,’ The messengers deemed this a dreadfully proud-spoken answer, and asked her what she thought would come of such an one, for Harold was so mighty a man that his asking was good enough for her. But although she had replied to their saying otherwise than they would, they saw no likelihood, for this while, of bearing her along with them against her will, so they made ready to fare back again. When they were ready and the folk followed them out, Gyda said to the messengers—‘Now tell to King Harold these my words:—I will only agree to be his lawful wife upon the condition that he shall first, for sake of me, put under him the whole of Norway, so that he may bear sway over that kingdom as freely and fully as King Eric over the realm of Sweden, or King Gorm over Denmark; for only then, methinks, can he be called king of a people.’ Now his men came back to King Harold, bringing him the words of the girl, and saying she was so bold and heedless that she well deserved the king should send a greater troop of people for her, and put her to some disgrace. Then answered the king. ‘This maid has not spoken or done so much amiss that she should be punished, but the rather

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text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/The Sultan's Ring


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xvi should she be thanked for her words. She has reminded me,’ said he, ‘of somewhat that it seems wonderful I did not think of before. And now,’ added he, ‘I make the solemn vow, and take God, who made me and rules over all things, to witness, that never shall I clip or comb my hair until I have subdued all Norway with scatt, and duties, and lordships; or, if not, have died in the seeking.’ Guttorm gave great thanks to the king for his oath, saying it was royal work fulfilling royal rede.” The new and strange government that Harold tried to enforce—nothing less than the feudal system in a rough guise—which made those who had hitherto been their own men save at special times, the king’s men at all times, and laid freemen under tax, was withstood as long as might be by the sturdy Norsemen. It was only by dint of hard fighting that he slowly won his way, until at Hafrsfirth he finally crushed all effective opposition. But the discontented, “and they were a great multitude,” fled oversea to the outlands, Iceland, the Faroes, the Orkneys, and Ireland. The whole coast of Europe, even to Greece and the shores of the Black Sea, the northern shores of Africa, and the western part of Asia, felt the effects also. Rolf Pad-th’-hoof, son of Harold’s dear friend Rognvald, made an outlaw for a cattle-raid within the bounds of the kingdom, betook himself to France, and, with his men, founded a new people and a dynasty.

Iceland had been known for a good many years, but its only dwellers had been Irish Culdees, who sought that lonely land to pray in peace. Now,

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Rh however, both from Norway and the Western Isles settlers began to come in. Aud, widow of Olaf the White, King of Dublin, came, bringing with her many of mixed blood, for the Gaedhil (pronounced Gael, Irish) and the Gaill (pronounced Gaul, strangers) not only fought furiously, but made friends firmly, and often intermarried. Indeed, the Westmen were among the first arrivals, and took the best parts of the island—on its western shore, appropriately enough. After a time the Vikings who had settled in the Isles so worried Harold and his kingdom, upon which they swooped every other while, that he drew together a mighty force, and fell upon them wheresoever he could find them, and followed them up with fire and sword; and this he did twice, so that in those lands none could abide but folk who were content to be his men, however lightly they might hold their allegiance. Hence it was to Iceland that all turned who held to the old ways, and for over sixty years from the first comer there was a stream of hardy men pouring in, with their families and their belongings, simple yeomen, great and warwise chieftains, rich landowners, who had left their land “for the overbearing of King Harold,” as the Landnamabók has it. “There also we shall escape the troubling of kings and scoundrels,” says the Vatsdælasaga. So much of the best blood left Norway that the king tried to stay the leak by fines and punishments, but in vain.

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xviii As his ship neared the shore, the new-coming chief would leave it to the gods as to where he settled. The hallowed pillars of the high seat, which were carried away from his old abode, were thrown overboard, with certain rites, and were let drive with wind and wave until they came ashore. The piece of land which lay next the beach they were flung upon was then viewed from the nearest hill-summit, and the place of the homestead picked out. Then the land was hallowed by being encircled with fire, parcelled among the band, and marked out with boundary-signs; the houses were built, the “town” or home-field walled in, a temple put up, and the settlement soon assumed shape. In 1100 there were 4500 franklins, making a population of about 50,000, fully three-fourths of whom had a strong infusion of Celtic blood in them. The mode of life was, and is, rather pastoral than aught else. In the 39,200 square miles of the island’s area there are now about 250 acres of cultivated land, and although there has been much more in times past, the Icelanders have always been forced to reckon upon flocks and herds as their chief resources, grain of all kinds, even rye, only growing in a few favoured places, and very rarely there; the hay, self-sown, being the only certain harvest. On the coast fishing and fowling were of help, but nine-tenths of the folk lived by their sheep and cattle. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, and several kinds of cabbage have, however, been lately grown with success. They produced their own food and clothing, and could export enough wool, cloth, horn, dried fish, etc., as

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Rh enabled them to obtain wood for building, iron for tools, honey, wine, grain, etc, to the extent of their simple needs. Life and work was lotted by the seasons and their changes; outdoor work—fishing, fowling, herding, hay-making, and fuel-getting—filling the long days of summer, while the long, dark winter was used in weaving and a hundred indoor crafts. The climate is not so bad as might be expected, seeing that the island touches the polar circle, the mean temperature at Reykjavik being 39 degrees.

The religion which the settlers took with them into Iceland—the ethnic religion of the Norsefolk, which fought its last great fight at Sticklestead, where Olaf Haraldsson lost his life and won the name of Saint—was, like all religions, a compound of myths, those which had survived from savage days, and those which expressed the various degrees of a growing knowledge of life and better understanding of nature. Some historians and commentators are still fond of the unscientific method of taking a later religion, in this case christianity, and writing down all apparently coincident parts of belief, as having been borrowed from the christian teachings by the Norsefolk, while all that remain they lump under some slighting head. Every folk has from the beginning of time sought to explain the wonders of nature, and has, after its own fashion, set forth the mysteries of life. The lowest savage, no less than his more advanced brother, has a philosophy of the universe by which he solves the world-problem to his own satisfaction, and seeks to reconcile his conduct with his conception of the nature

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xx of things. Now, it is not to be thought, save by a priori reasoners, that such a folk as the Northmen—a mighty folk, far advanced in the arts of life, imaginative, literary—should have had no further creed than the totemistic myths of their primitive state; a state they have wholly left ere they enter history. Judging from universal analogy, the religion of which record remains to us was just what might be looked for at the particular stage of advancement the Northmen had reached. Of course something may have been gained from contact with other peoples—from the Greeks during the long years in which the northern races pressed upon their frontier; from the Irish during the existence of the western viking-kingdoms; but what I particularly warn young students against is the constant effort of a certain order of minds to wrest facts into agreement with their pet theories of religion or what not. The whole tendency of the more modern investigation shows that the period of myth-transmission is long over ere history begins. The same confusion of different stages of myth-making is to be found in the Greek religion, and indeed in those of all peoples; similar conditions of mind produce similar practices, apart from all borrowing of ideas and manners; in Greece we find snake-dances, bear-dances, swimming with sacred pigs, leaping about in imitation of wolves, dog-feasts, and offering of dogs’ flesh to the gods—all of them practices dating from crude savagery, mingled with ideas of exalted and noble beauty, but none now, save a bigot, would think of accusing the Greeks of having stolen all their

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Rh higher beliefs. Even were some part of the matter of their myths taken from others, yet the Norsemen have given their gods a noble, upright, great spirit, and placed them upon a high level that is all their own. From the prose Edda the following all too brief statement of the salient points of Norse belief is made up:—“The first and eldest of gods is hight Allfather; he lives from all ages, and rules over all his realm, and sways all things great and small; he smithied heaven and earth, and the lift, and all that belongs to them; what is most, he made man, and gave him a soul that shall live and never perish; and all men that are right-minded shall live and be with himself in Vingólf; but wicked men fare to Hell, and thence into Niflhell, that is beneath in the ninth world. Before the earth ‘’twas the morning of time, when yet naught was, nor sand nor sea was there, nor cooling streams. Earth was not found, nor Heaven above; a Yawning-gap there was, but grass nowhere.’ Many ages ere the earth was shapen was Niflheim made, but first was that land in the southern sphere hight Muspell, that burns and blazes, and may not be trodden by those who are outlandish and have no heritage there. Surtr sits on the border to guard the land; at the end of the world he will fare forth, and harry and overcome all the gods and burn the world with fire. Ere the races were yet mingled, or

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xxii the folk of men grew, Yawning-gap, which looked towards the north parts, was filled with thick and heavy ice and rime, and everywhere within were fogs and gusts; but the south side of Yawning-gap was lightened by the sparks and gledes that flew out of Muspell-heim; as cold arose out of Niflheim and all things grim, so was that part that looked towards Muspell hot and bright; but Yawning-gap was as light as windless air, and when the blast of heat met the rime, so that it melted and dropped and quickened; from those life-drops there was shaped the likeness of a man, and he was named Ymir; he was bad, and all his kind; and so it is said, when he slept he fell into a sweat; then waxed under his left hand a man and a woman, and one of his feet got a son with the other, and thence cometh the Hrimthursar. The next thing when the rime dropped was that the cow hight Audhumla was made of it; but four milk-rivers ran out of her teats, and she fed Ymir; she licked rime-stones that were salt, and the first day there came at even, out of the stones, a man’s hair, the second day a man’s head, the third day all the man was there. He is named Turi; he was fair of face, great and mighty; he gat a son named Bör, who took to him Besla, daughter of Bölthorn, the giant, and they had three sons, Odin, Vili, and Ve. Bör’s sons slew Ymir the giant, but when he fell there ran so much blood out of his wounds that all the kin of the Hrimthursar were drowned, save Hvergelmir and his household, who got away in a boat. Then Bör’s sons took Ymir and bore him into the midst of Yawning-gap, and made of

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text: Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/Chapter 1 of the Dhammapada