And-list to the music! Nay, give me to drink
Of something exhilarant! Yet, stop! In the strife
Of your mind for the fortune I offer you, may
Not a doubt of me live? I know you not, friend;
You're a chemist-the drink that you proffer me, say,
May be something to put all your doubt to an end.

You drink with me! So! That surely is fair.
I drink to-well, why do you pause? Yes, I say
I love her, will win her, and, winning her, wear!
Now I drink to the duke and his funeral-day!

And then? Let's below-list, how the waltz flows,-
His waltz, the grand-duke's, his swan-song! And here
Are the jewels I promised. What! A base chemist throws
Them away under foot! What! In rage, you?--or fear?

You've lied to me, lied! You're not what you say-
No chemist, no alchemist you? Raise your mask!
The drink that I've taken is poison? Now may
Ananias's fate light on you! You ask

Too much for my credence-you drank of the same!
In ten minutes both shall be dead, say you? See,

You lie! Raise your mask! what's your face? what's your

name?

You love her as I love her-while she loves but me?

Dare a low-born alchemist love one such as she?

And she loves me, me? I faint! let me look

On your face! Hear the waltz! You fall! Let me see
Your face! God! I sink! You-you the grand-duke!

THE DEATH OF BILL SIKES.
CHARLES DICKENS.

Near to that part of the Thames on which the church at Rotherhithe abuts, where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest and the vessels on the river blackest with the dust of colliers and the smoke of close-built low-roofed houses, there exists, at the present day, the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London, wholly unknown, even by name, to the great mass of its inhabitants.

In such a neighborhood, stands Jacob's Island, surrounded by a muddy ditch, six or eight feet deep, and fifteen or twenty wide when the tide is in, once called Mill Pond, but known in these days as Folly Ditch.

In Jacob's Island, the warehouses are roofless and empty; the walls are crumbling down; the windows are windows no more; the doors are falling into the streets; the chimneys are blackened, but they yield no smoke; the houses have no owners; they are broken open, and entered upon by those who have the courage; and there they live, and there they die.

In an upper room of one of these houses there were assembled three men, who, regarding each other every now and then with looks expressive of perplexity and expectation, sat for some time in profound and gloomy silence.

One of these was Toby Crackit, another Mr. Chitling, and the third a robber of fifty years, whose nose had been almost beaten in, in some old scuffle, and whose face bore a frightful scar which might probably be traced to the same occasion.

They had sat thus, for some time, when suddenly was heard a hurried knocking at the door below.

Crackit went down, and returned followed by a man with the lower part of his face buried in a handkerchief, and another tied over his head under his hat. He drew them slowly off. Blanched face, sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, beard of three days' growth, wasted flesh, short thick breath; it was the very ghost of Sikes.

There was an uneasy movement among the men, but nobody spoke.

"You that keep this house," said Sikes, turning his face to Crackit, do you mean to sell me, or to let me lie here till this hunt is over?"

Crackit intimated, by a motion of his hand that there was nothing to fear. Scarcely had he done so when he pointed to the window. There were lights gleaming below, voices in loud and earnest conversation, the tramp of hurried footsteps-endless they seemed in number

crossing the nearest wooden bridge. The gleam of lights increased; the footsteps came more thickly and noisily on. Then, came a loud knocking at the door, and then a hoarse murmur from such a multitude of angry voices as would have made the boldest quail.

"In the King's name," cried the voices without; and the hoarse cry arose again, but louder.

Strokes, thick and heavy, rattled upon the door and lower window-shutters, and a loud huzza burst from the crowd; giving the listener, for the first time, some adequate idea of its immense extent.

"Is the down-stairs door fast?" cried Sikes fiercely. "Double-locked and chained," replied Crackit, who, with the other two men, still remained quite helpless and bewildered.

"The panels-are they strong?

"Lined with sheet iron."

"And the windows too?" "Yes, and the windows."

"Curse you!" cried the desperate ruffian, throwing up the sash and menacing the crowd. "Do your worst! I'll cheat you yet!"

Of all the terrific yells that ever fell on mortal ears, none could exceed the cry of the infuriated throng. Some shouted to those who were nearest to set the house on fire; others roared to the officers to shoot him dead. The nearest voices took up the cry, and hundreds echoed it. Some called for ladders, some for sledge-hammers; some ran with torches to and fro as if to seek them, and still came back and roared again; some spent their breath in impotent curses and execrations; some pressed forward with the ecstasy of madmen, and thus impeded the progress of those below; some among the boldest attempted to climb up by the water-spout and crevices in the wall; and all waved to and fro, in the darkness beneath, like a field of corn moved by an angry wind, and joined from time to time in one loud furious roar.

"The tide," cried the murderer, as he staggered back

into the room, and shut the faces out, "the tide was in as I came up. Give me a rope, a long rope. They're all in front. I may drop into the Folly Ditch, and clear off that way. Give me a rope, or I shall do three more murders and kill myself."

The panic-stricken men pointed to where such articles were kept; the murderer, hastily selecting the longest and strongest cord, hurried up to the house-top. As he emerged by the door in the roof, a loud shout proclaimed the fact to those in front, who immediately began to pour round, pressing upon each other in one unbroken stream.

He planted a board which he had carried up with him for the purpose, so firmly against the door that it must be a matter of great difficulty to open it from the inside, and creeping over the tiles, looked over the low parapet. The water was out, and the ditch a bed of mud.

The crowd had been hushed during these few moments, watching his motions and doubtful of his purpose, but the instant they perceived it and knew it was defeated, they raised a cry of triumphant execration to which all their previous shouting had been whispers. Again and again it rose. Those who were at too great a distance to know its meaning, took up the sound; it echoed and re-echoed; it seemed as though the whole city had poured its population out to curse him.

On pressed the people from the front,-on, on, on, in a strong struggling current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring torch to light them up, and show them out in all their wrath and passion. The houses on the opposite side of the ditch had been entered by the mob; sashes were thrown up, or torn bodily out; there were tiers and tiers of faces in every window; and cluster upon cluster of people clinging to every house-top. Each little bridge (and there were three in sight) bent beneath the weight of the crowd upon it. Still the current poured on to find some nook or hole from which to vent their shouts, and only for an instant see the wretch.

"They have him now," cried a man on the nearest bridge.

"Hurrah!"

The crowd grew light with uncovered heads; and again the shout uprose.

"I will give fifty pounds," cried an old gentleman, "to the man who takes him alive. I will remain here till he comes to ask me for it."

There was another roar. At this moment the word was passed among the crowd that the door was forced at last, and that he who had first called for the ladder had mounted into the room. The stream abruptly turned, as this intelligence ran from mouth to mouth; and the people at the windows, seeing those upon the bridges pouring back, quitted their stations, and running into the street, joined the concourse that now thronged pellmell to the spot they had left; each man crushing and striving with his neighbor, and all panting with impatience to get near the door and look upon the criminal as the officers brought him out. The cries and shrieks of those who were pressed almost to suffocation, or trampled down and trodden under foot in the confusion, were dreadful; the narrow ways were completely blocked up; and at this time, between the rush of some to regain the space in front of the house, and the unavailing struggles of others to extricate themselves from the mass, the immediate attention was distracted from the murderer, although the universal eagerness for his capture was, if possible, increased.

The man had shrunk down, thoroughly quelled by the ferocity of the crowd, and the impossibility of escape; but seeing this sudden change with no less rapidity than it had occurred, he sprang upon his feet, determined to make one last effort for his life by dropping into the ditch and, at the risk of being stifled, endeavoring to creep away in the darkness and confusion.

Roused into new strength and energy, and stimulated by the noise within the house which announced that an entrance had really been effected, he set his foot against