Anxiously I peered out upon the waters, tied my handkerchief to the end of my walkwatching the chips, the bubbles, and dead ing-stick, and flourished it like a flag high weed that floated past in tiny armadas. over my head, while I strained my lungs for Yes, the tide had turned. It was coming a loud hail-in vain, all in vain! The fishin, slowly as yet, but the decisive change ers were busy with their nets and lines, or had begun. What was I to do? I was in trimming their boats, or something: they awfully frightened. There was reason for did not observe me, and presently the last alarm, indeed, and I take no shame to my-lug-sail and brown hull faded away into the self for the frank avowal. I was worse off deepening night. More sultry and heavy" than the gladiator condemned to the beasts, grew the air; one or two big flat drops of in the old Roman day. He, the gladiator, rain fell with a plash upon the sand; there was allowed a weapon, a spear, a club, some- was a premonitory growl of thunder, and thing wherewith to fight to the death: at the then a hush succeeded. last, he had his sinewy hands and brawny I turned my face to the land. The lights arms to rely upon, and he might be the con- began to twinkle in the windows of the disqueror of the Libyan lion or the German tant town; far off, too, on lonely cliffs, and bear. But I had to deal with a foe of an- spits of land that ran far out into the wild other sort, invulnerable, vast, resistless sea, and on the decks of light-ships anchored the sea! I could not swim. I had never in dangerous places, the warning-beacons before particularly regretted my lack of that began to blaze. I saw the red gleams far accomplishment; now, I would gladly have across the waters wherever I turned: they bartered all the learning, professional or va- were signs of human pity, of human watchrious, that I had ever attained, my languages, fulness, and charity. But they could not geometry, and pure mathematics, my forti- save me. The fishing-boats were all gone. fication, company and battalion drill, and all The tide was encroaching, stealthily at first, that I had crammed to win my staff ap- then more swiftly. Line upon line, the litpointment, for the power of swimming a tle foamy walls of water came sweeping on, mile or two in broken water. And yet, even arching and breaking into froth, each passcould I swim, the quicksands, the sandbars, ing its predecessor by a very little space, the strong currents, left me small chance of but pressing on, surely, steadily pressing reaching the mainland. Oh, for a boat! I on. My only hope-and be sure that my ran round to the seaward face of the shoal. fancy was busy-was that I might be missed At a considerable distance, I descried sev- at the hotel, that inquiry might be made, eral fishing-smacks, their red-brown sails and a boat sent back to fetch me off the looming black through the dusk. Much fur- Goodwin. But this was but a frail thread ther off were sundry brigs and schooners on of a chance. I was fond of rambles, and their course up Channel, under shortened not punctual as to hours; I had not ordered sail. There was a threatening bank of my dinner, having told the landlady that I clouds to windward over the moaning sea; would "see about it" after my return, the pile above pile, peak over peak, towered time of which was doubtful. Perhaps in whole Alps of slate-colored vapor, gloomy and menacing. I remembered the waiter's prediction of "dirty weather," and felt anything but comfortable. The air was oppressive, too, in spite of the chilly breeze, which came in sudden cat's-paws, that ruffled the water like the sweep of a gigantic wing, and then lulled abruptly. Even the Help at last! What was that? A seamost inexperienced could not have failed to mew flitting over me had uttered its melansee the signs of a coming storm. My only choly wail with startling suddenness-that hope was in the fishing-boats; they were was all. I watched the bird, and envied the not very far off; some of the men on board strong white wings that bore it so fast might see me, might notice my signals, and through the air shorewards. More big flat bear down to the rescue. I waved my hat-drops of rain; regular thunder-shower. I shouted till I was hoarse and husky-IWhat a flash, lighting up land and sea, and

those idle words I had spoken my own sentence of death! The wind whistled in a louder key, shriller and more shrill; the lights on shore shone out, peaceful and tantalizing. I would have changed conditions with the poorest cottager from whose window poured one of those rays.

sandbars and foamy water, and dazzling me | rolled and the arrowy lightning glanced over the crests of the waves. A sensation of cold in my feet made me look down; I was actually standing in the water; it had oozed through the treacherous sand. Very little of the Great Goodwin was now left clear. I cast a despairing glance at the town-lights and the beacons on shore ; the waves reached nearly to my feet; I sank on my knees on the wet sand, and prayed as I had never prayed. A loud report, sharper and more ringing than the deep tone of Heaven's artillery made me start: I looked up. Another

so that I shade my eyes involuntarily; and then what an awful diapason follows, rolling, roaring from one end to another of the stormy sky. Flash again, and roll and roar, as if the heavens were rent to fragments; and how much blacker grows the night for the lurid glare of the lightning. I had seen and admired storms at sea; I had even enjoyed the elemental strife; but then I was on the safe shore, or in a stout ship, not on the Great Goodwin. Peal after peal, flash after flash, and the rain lashing my face as I turned despairingly from side to side, gaz-report-a cannon-a signal. Did it promise ing out into the night. How the tide comes on, like an invading host! The waves mounted rapidly as the wind increased, and came leaping, wolfish and eager, up the shore of the sandbank. The sea encroached with terrible speed; I saw yard after yard of dry sand covered by the tumbling water: the billows grew in size like Frankenstein's monster, and their clamor was as the hungry voices of beasts of prey. The wind moaned and shrieked fitfully as the storm gathered strength. Ah! it was all very well to lie on the smooth sand, basking in the warm sunshine, and to indulge in pleasant fancies of Neptune and Amphitrite, of their tritons in waiting, and nereid maids of honor, and conch-shells, and mermaidens, and chariot drawn by dolphins-it was all very well to think of these things when I expected to finish the evening with a nice little dinner at my hotel, and a comfortable bottle of the yellow-sealed wine. But now marine things were hateful in my eyes. Still the pitiless sea came on, on. It drove me back again and again. Very little dry ground left now, and even that must be swallowed up in a short time. I remembered the curious French tale of the man who owned a magic slip of shagreen skin, which shrank with every accomplished wish, and as it shrank, his life dwindled to the last span. Even so, but without the power of volition over the progress, I beheld my life shrinking and contracting, foot by foot, inch by inch.

Another eldritch scream-it was but a white sea-gull, as before, that wheeled round me, piping out its plaintive cry, but I shuddered at the sound. Nearer came the seething water, eager for my life, hungering for its prey; and all this while the thunder

help? Ah, no. I bitterly felt that I had not been missed; I was a stranger; no wife, no mother, no friend, would ask anxiously after me, much less seek me amid the waste of waters. In no family circle would my absence make a gap. There was no hope. Bang! went the gun again. I saw the ruddy flash and heard the sharp ring of the discharge, and then I knew it was a signal of distress. A rift in the clouds let in a partial flood of gray light, and I saw driving before the gale, a large two-masted vessel. Whether this vessel had been schooner or brigantine, I could not tell, for only the stumps of her masts were standing, and she heeled over fearfully, overweighted by the mass of broken spars and torn rigging that encumbered her side. The gun was fired again, and a loud outcry of human voices rose at the same moment, and was swept away by the furious storm. The ship was evidently rushing to her doom; stem on, she was driving towards the Goodwin. With a dreadful crash, she struck upon the shoal, embedding her bows in the sand; the waves leaped over her in a white flood like a cataract. But the sight I thus witnessed gave me new hope, and promised shelter. Even the wreck might be a refuge for a time; if I could reach it, I should be reprieved at least, and might have a chance of safety. Splashing through the knee-deep water, I reached the vessel, and by dint of great exertion got a grip of the bowsprit, and scrambled on board. As I reached the forecastle, I could see that although the stern was swept by the waves, and the poop deluged, the greater part of the deck was free, Under the bulwarks to leeward crouched two or three figures, dimly visible. I approached, and found the group to be composed of an

aged gentleman, whose white hair floated in the wind, as his head was bare, and he was clinging to the bulwarks; a young lady, apparently his daughter; and a negro, dressed as a seaman. The last lay insensible upon the wet deck, and there were stains of blood on his sable face and woolly hair.

"Papa, here is help!" cried the girl as she looked up and beheld a stranger. "We

are saved."

"Alas, no," said I sadly; "I am but a fellow-sufferer, not a deliverer. I have been left by accident on this shoal, and have scrambled on board the wreck as a drowning man might catch at a straw. If the signals have been noticed on shore-"

air will go nigh to kill him, even should aid arrive."

I now noticed that while the old man had been tenderly wrapped in a boat-cloak and shawls, the daughter wore but a simple white wrapper, which she had probably put on when hastily aroused from rest, and which was wet through with the drizzling spray. But she never complained; and through a long hour-an hour that seemed an ageshe was the one whose spirit quailed the least in the presence of danger the most imminent. The only hope we could entertain was that the wreck might hold together until the lifeboat could arrive. The cannon must have been heard on shore, and the gallantry of the Kentish boatmen was proverbial. The waves beat upon the vessel with as much fury as if they were eager to end their cruel work before help could reach us. schooner reeled from stem to stern beneath their blows, and quivered like a thing in pain. The planks groaned, the timbers "It is too true, sir," said the old man in creaked ominously, and still the surges a feeble voice; "the wretches have aban-mounted like warriors rushing to scale the doned the ship in a selfish, senseless panic. I warned them that no boat could live, and assured them that our only hope was to stick to the wreck, and signal to the shore; but they would not listen to me, because I was only a passenger; the captain died a week ago, and the mate was coward enough to take the lead in abandoning us."

"O sir," cried the young lady, "they have left us, cruelly deserted us, in spite of all we could urge."

"Who ?"

The girl pointed to where a boat, full of men, could be faintly descried, tossing on the crest of an enormous wave.

"They will have brought the penalty on their own heads," said I, glancing to seaward, "for I am sure no common boat can reach the land in such a raging sea. Are you, sir, and this young lady the only passengers ? "

The

walls of a beleaguered fort. As the tide rose, the wreck became more deeply submerged, and the waves washed over the bulwarks, or swept along the deck, drenching us afresh at every moment. The old man, benumbed by cold and wet, lay helpless against the wooden screen, and never spoke except when at intervals he muttered his daughter's name, "Edith, Edith!" like a sick child calling on his nurse. The young lady, forgetful of herself, knelt beside him, and tried to chafe his cold hands and to cheer up his failing spirits. Suddenly she turned to me. "I have been thinking," she said, "that if aid should arrive, our friends could not find the wreck in this dark night. We ought to show a light on one of those broken masts." The justness of this ob"We were the only English on board," servation struck me. With great trouble, I said she, "and, as heretics, they had the opened the fore-hatch, went below, and after less compunction in deserting us. The only much groping, to my infinite delight, I manone of the crew left is this poor fellow-the aged to secure a lantern and a box of black cook of the schooner-who has been matches. I lighted the lantern, carefully stunned by the fall of the topmast. I fear closed it, and returned to the deck. To he is badly hurt, poor man; but unless fasten the light thus obtained to the top of Providence watches over our safety, we shall one of the shattered masts, was less easy, none of us live to see the daybreak. My for the ship shook all over at every blow of father is in bad health, and I fear that the the waves, and the sloping position of the exposure to drenching spray and the night-deck rendered it hard to keep one's footing.

The girl replied in the affirmative; adding, that the vessel was a Spanish one, bound from a South American port to London.

Learn nothing, forget nothing, should have been the motto on that watch seal. Wise, witty ex-Bishop Talleyrand; he knew them well. They will learn nothing and forget nothing, until-Not so long back, the writer of this has been told by one who paid his respects to another of these theatricals, who calls himself Henry the Fifth, and who, we may take it, has a provisional watch seal also, that this sham monarch received a number of faithful gentlemen in his garden of a freezing morning, and actually kept them walking up and down with him listening to his royal observations with their hats off.

Do what we will, it is impossible not to think of him as a sort of transpontine Lewisa sort of Bourbon minor actor-playing upon Royal Victoria boards of his own. He is forever "striking" an attitude of the mucsular and melodramatic flavor, and, having made his point, stands in his curls and fillet and royal pink fleshings, waiting the expected burst of applause. Perhaps, could wehave stood near enough to listen, the royal accents would have fallen into the traditional husky cadences, condoling with the Duchess d'Angoulême as his "chee-ild," and denouncing, in language of severe reprehension, all persons who were disinclined to fly to the aid of females in distress.

From All the Year Round. THE LAST OF THE LAST LEWISES. WE are told when the unhappy "desired" king was sent away bloodily from the world, that Monseigneur the Count of Provenceplain "Sir" he was usually called-the king's brother, immediately issued his proclamation from the obscure corner of Westphalia. A magniloquent document, characteristic to the last degree, and truly Bourbon, which set out with a flourish of this sort: "Louis Stanislas Xavier of France, Son of France, Regent of the Kingdom, to all whom these presents shall come, greeting!" with copious fanfaronade as to the duties laid on him "by the immutable laws of the French monarchy." It proceeds to lay down a sort of programme that reads very conically and Bourbonish, distinguished with a primo and secundo, and a tertio; so as to keep all distinct and accurate. "We" constitute ourselves regent of the kingdom-at least over all "whom it may concern ;" and have in view, primo, the rescue of the young king, and, secundo, the punishment of the "ferocious usurper," and, tertio, the delegation of powers to "our dearly beloved brother, Charles Philippe de France, whom we have nominated and appointed Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom." This precious document collapses suddenly at the end, in unbe- Thus, when he is peeping out very caucoming bathos. For it is "given under our tiously from afar off, as it were over the ordinary sign manual, and seal, which we blinds, from a mean little chamber in Veshall use in all acts of sovereignty until the rona, where he had been given shelter, waitseals of the kingdom, destroyed by faction, ing-a sort of Bourbon Micawber-for somehave been renewed." A watch seal, it is to thing to turn up-that something being a be feared, was the prosaic substitute, and we crown-news arrives post of poor little can look into the little chamber and see the Capet's being worried out of the world. pantomimists at their work-the watch seal And straight some noble pauper gentlemen, being solemnly affixed by " the Regent " in also on their keeping from the Jacobin baipresence of "the Lieutenant-General of the liffs, repair to the little chamber, and raise a Kingdom," and of the "Ministers of State." feeble cry of "Ave Cæsar!" "Long live We dare not laugh at these comic doings, Louis the Eighteenth!" You see, by the for it remains a fact that this miserable gas- canons of legitimacy and divine right, if conade actually hurried on the death of the there had been fatal omission of this great wretched boy, who was still a hostage in the form, the mischief would have been prodihands of his jailors. It was a dear sacrifice gious; and Cæsar, stepping forward, proto make for that selfish putting on of a the- ceeds to "strike" a favorite Victoria attiatrical crown and tinsel green-room finery. tude, and acknowledges the compliment This would have been criminal in common gracefully. As a matter of course, there organizations; but for that dull cerebral sap was some fine writing on the occasion, and which fills Bourbon crania we must have in- a few cabinet ministers of the older and more dulgence. This, however, remains certain-respectable courts were bored by the receipt their mummery was the death of little Capet. of some solemn, long-winded proclamations,