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propelled its heavy balls. This very for- | it to make one final effort to obtain 'mermidable piece was mounted on a travers- cy. He turned to Vonved, and whilst ing platform, between the fore and main- big drops of perspiration-literally the masts, and was the only cannon on board. sweat of agony-broke from his pallid Vonved had whimsically christened it brow, and the rigid muscles of his face "Sweetlips," and that name was inscribed contracted spasmodically, he once more in golden Gothic letters around the end raised his piteous cry for parden. of the muzzle. The cannon was not discharged by a lock in the usual manner of ship-guns, but by a match like land artillery.

There was something very terrible in the peculiar alacrity which the crew, one and all, manifested to carry out the dread preparations for the execution of their doomed shipmate. Their hearts were steeled against him, and inaccessible to any emotion or impulse of pity for his fate, and they actually seemed to begrudge him his fast fleeting minutes. Superadded to their intense hatred of his treachery, was their disgust at the extreme pusillanimity he now exhibited. This excited a spirit of savage contempt, and many of them openly expressed it in graphic language. Had Neilsen met his inevitable fate with hardihood, or at least with manly resignation, these rugged sons of the ocean might have felt a touch of pity and compassion, and certainly they would not have despised as well as hated him. Of all things, a thorough-bred seaman abhors a recreant spirit. A craven coward he values less than a dog.

The draught of water revived the half paralyzed man, and an incident occurred almost simultaneously, which roused him yet more from his stupor of despair. He had a little Laland dog on board, of a species resembling the Scotch terrier, and this animal now made its appearance, and ran to its pinioned master, and rearing on its hind-feet, rested its fore-paws against his knee, looking up in his face with spark ling eyes, and wagging its tail, as though expecting the customary caress. Neilsen looked down at his dog, and uttered a heart-rending groan. The little creature at once ceased its motions, turned its head from side to side with a frightened look, and then cowered at his feet, whining and trembling, evidently conscious that some inexplicable calamity had overtaken its master.

This touching little episode seemed to affect several of the spectators more than any of Neilsen's appeals, and he himself appeared to be immediately stimulated by

VOL. L.-NO. 2

"Oh! mercy, Captain Vonved! have mercy on me."

"Mercy," retorted the Rover, in a measured pitiless tone; "why should mercy be shown unto thee? Thou didst perjure thy soul to betray me, and deliberately covenanted to betray all who sail under my flag. Not a pang did it cost thee to deliver me up to the dungeon, the scaffold, the wheel!"

"Oh! I did a monstrous deed; but have mercy on me, Captain Vonved-mercy for the sake of my wife; my young and innocent wife and child."

"Ha! thy wife and child?" hoarsely cried Vonved. "I, too, have a wife and a child. Didst thou think of them when thou receivedst the price of my blood?"

"My wife-my poor wife," moaned the miserable wretch," she will be reduced to beggary if my life is taken."

"No," said Vonved, "she will not, for I will provide for her. Yes, I swear to do that."

"My brother, Captain Vonved; my brother Mads. Oh! he is heart and soul devoted unto thee-for his sake have mercy on me."

"Thy brother! Ay, he is true as steel; but thou shouldst not invoke his name. Thy brother Mads. Ay, did he stand here he would drive his dagger up to the hilt through thy false heart, and ring curses in thy dying ear.”

"O Captain Vonved! will nothing save me? Give me life-life!-'tis all I crave. Only let me live-life: life is all I crave."

"Jörgen Neilsen," solemnly answered Vonved, "art thou, indeed, a man? The veriest wretch who crawls through a despised existence would scorn to debase himself as thou art doing. Why shouldst thou cling so to life? Life! Dost thou imagine that existence would be life after what thou hast done? Burning shame and dishonor is indelibly branded on thy brow, and hadst thou the spirit of a sea man, thou wouldst welcome death as a kindly refuge from the insufferable stings of remorse."

14

"O Captain Vonved!-must I-Osavagely kicked it across the deck, with my God!-must I, indeed, die-die such a loud imprecation. a death ?"

"Thou must. No more, Jörgen Neilsen-speak no more; for as surely as my soul liveth thou shall presently die the death of a perjured traitor."

At these fearful words, the last faint glimmering spark of hope in Neilsen's breast was extinguished forever. He now yielded to the utter prostration of supreme despair, and never audibly spake another word.

The appalling preparations meanwhile rapidly drew to a conclusion. A great plank of Norway pine, upwards of thirty feet in length, and about twenty inches wide, by four inches thick, which was lying in the hold among spare spars and stores, was got out and passed on deck. It was immediately balanced over the lee bulwark amidships, in such a manner that the portion inboard just sufficiently exceeded in length that outboard, so that the end rested on deck. The gunner and his crew trained Sweetlips so as to point over the outer extremity of the plank, and loaded it with a double charge of blank cartridge. The thirty-six pounder ball, securely done up in a piece of new canvas, was prepared as ordered.

Lieutenant Dunraven now officially reported to Vonved that the necessary preparations for the execution were completed.

This act did not pass unpunished. Lars Vonved, who had already been exasperated by the previous callous conduct of Solvöi towards the miserable prisoner, was now roused to irrepressible indignation, and with a swift back-blow of his open left hand, he struck the Norseman heavily to the deck, exclaiming:

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Shame, fellow! How darest thou to treat an innocent dumb creature with dastard cruelty? What! brutally kick a poor little unoffending dog because it shows its affection for its master in his misery? Beware, Nils Solvöi! Look to thyself, man, and anger me not again this day. Twice hast thou provoked me to wrath within the hour-beware the third time!"

The Rover's colossal figure dilated as he uttered this merited reproof and warning in a tone of fiery indignation, and he fiercely bent his flashing eyes on the culprit, as the latter staggered to his feet and wiped away the blood which flowed profusely from the side of his head and face. A blow in anger from even the open left hand of Lars Vonved was what few men living would wish to twice experience, and Solvöi, who was merely a big, unfeeling fellow, coarse and brutal by nature, yet not devoid of some good qualities, of which stubborn fidelity to Vonved was one, dared not speak a word in reply, but repeatedly touched his hat in deference to the commander, who had taught his crew to fear as well as to love him. The man was completely cowed, and manifested that species of brute submission to a power both physically and intellectally superior which a dog invariably exhibits when severely chastised by its master for a fault of which it is quite con

Jörgen Neilsen was then led, or rather supported, to the plank, for his limbs seemed impotent, and a piece of half-inch rope was bound round his right leg above the ankle, the other end of the rope being lashed to the canvas inclosing the ball. The bight of the rope, as seamen call it, or that portion between the ends, was four fathoms long, so that, although the ponderous ball was linked to the misera-scious. ble being, it did not restrain his personal

movement.

All hands now breathlessly awaited the consummation of the tragedy.

Neilsen's little Laland dog had closely followed the tottering steps of its doomed master, and when he was led to the foot of the plank, and the rope was being attached to his leg, the poor thing exhibited symptoms of acute distress, by restlessly fondling against his feet, and tremulously moaning and whining in the most mournful and moving manner. Irritated by its piteous cries, Nils Solvöi

By the order of Vonved, the boatswain took the thirty-six pound ball in both hands, and stood close to the bulwark, ready to heave it overboard; and the gunner stood by the breach of the great gun and blew his match. Jörgen Neilsen was placed on the plank, and a seaman tightly grasping each pinioned arm, he was made to mechanically walk up the inclined plane until he reached the bulwark. Then the seamen who held him, each sprang on the bulwark itself, and by main strength of arm forced the poor, half-unconscious wretch to move forward until

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he stood on the plank two or three feet | his countenance would ever forget it to beyond the vessel's side, and there they his dying hour. It was so frightfully conkept him in their iron grip, awaiting the vulsed and distorted as to be hardly hufinal signal.

Within the last half-hour the sky had rapidly overspread with dense clouds, and now, from heaven's topmost cope, to the horizon all around, was one lurid dome which thickened and darkened until it was literally black. The light breeze of westerly wind had gradually died away until the huge black trysails of the Skildpadde, and the brailed-up mainsail of the Little Amalia hung perfectly motionless; but the monotonous languid swell of the sullen Baltic every now and then heaved the hulls of the two vessels, and caused their standing rigging to snap and jerk, and their spars to creak dismally. This ominous elemental change had almost passed unnoticed, so absorbed were all on board by the tragedy in progress; but at the instant when the crisis had arrived, and Lars Vonved uncovered his head, and peremptorily ordered every man to do the same, a blinding flash of lightning leapt from the heart of the brooding tempest, illumining the vessels and the sea on which they floated, and a tremendous peal of thunder almost simultaneously burst close overhead, and caused every plank and timber to vibrate from the deck to the keel.

That frightful flash smote the boldest. heart with temporary terror-that deaf ening peal of heaven's artillery shook the strongest nerve. Yet he, the wondrous man whose followers they were, whatever he might secretly feel in his inmost soul, stood perfectly unmoved, and his proud lip curled, and his eyes flashed brighter than ever as he calmly uplifted his right arm, and then paused a moment before he gave the dread order which was to launch a human being into eternity.

Ere that order could be uttered, a second time did the lightning flash more vividly, and the thunder rolled more heavily than before. The scorching lambent flame uplit every face, and revealed in ghastly relief the forms of the startled

crew.

Whether dazzled by the electric fluid, or acting on some mechanical impulse, (for reasoning power and moral will seemed extinct,) Jörgen Neilsen writhed partially round, and turned his face once more and for the last time towards his pitiless shipmates. Not one who beheld

man. The creeping lineaments were thickly bedewed with a bloody sweat; the eyes were so turned in their sockets, that little of the pupils was visible, and the rigid lips, previously bitten through and through in agony, were widely parted, drawn upward and downward, and covered with greenish viscid froth.

At this awful juncture, Vonved's voice thrilled every heart, as he exclaimed, in astoundingly deep and powerful tones:

"Boatswain, stand by to heave! Men forward with Neilsen."

The two stalwart seamen who gripped Neilsen's arms instantly obeyed. They thrust him up the plank with all their might-he staggered helplessly forward-— the plank overbalanced and tipped down to the surface of the sea-the declension irresistibly impelled the doomed being to the extremity of the plank, and the waters of the Baltic received his shuddering form. At that same moment the boatswain heaved overboard the cannon-ball, and in the twinkling of an eye, it dragged to the bottom all that was mortal of Jörgen Neilsen. The fatal plank, by its own impetus, plunged overboard after him, and rose many fathoms distant.

The suppressed excitement of the crew was vented in hoarse murmurs, smothered exclamations, and inarticulate cries.

"Fire!" shouted Vonved, and the gunner applied his glowing match to the vent of the great old Spanish cannon. A broad sheet of red flame was belched from its brazen muzzle, and the roar of its thunder reverberated over the inky waters of the Baltic. Hardly had the startling report died away in lessening rolls, ere, for the third time, a yet more awful flash of lightning smote the Skildpadde, shivering to fragments the maintopmast.

At a sign from Vonved, Lieutenant Dunraven handed him the sealskin bag, in which he had replaced the hundred and fifty dollars. Vonved instantly hurled it into the sea in the midst of the evanescent bubbles which marked the spot where Neilsen had disappeared forever, and he exclaimed:

"So perish all traitors, and thus may they ever receive their accursed bloodmoney!"

A fourth time the lightning vertically

descended, and a man fell crashing full length on deck at the feet of Vonved.

It was the Norseman, Nils Salvöi. The levin-bolt had struck him, and he was dead.

Vonved half-raised the body, and gazed a moment at the burnt and blackened features ere he laid the corpse gently

down again. Then he sighed heavily, and mournfully ejaculated:

"Ha! my warning to thee, Nils Solvöi, was needless: thou wilt never more arouse my wrath. The vengeance of heaven is swifter and surer than that of man."

From the Dublin University Magazine.

MY EXPERIENCES OF EARTHQUAKES.

DURING my long sojourn in the East, I sails flapped heavily; cordage, block, etc., on three distinct occasions experienced creaked again, and there arose a dismal severe shocks of earthquakes on land; and howl from the Lascars that chilled the very once I was out of sight of land sailing heart's blood. Every body had simultaaway contentedly on the bosom of the neously arrived at the same conclusion, Indian ocean, and about sixty miles from and that was that we had struck on a Acheen Head. The terrible calamity rock, and were foundering. The sleepers which lately befel the town of Erzeroum rushed on deck with terror in their faces; and its unfortunate inhabitants, prostrat- the captain flew to the pumps and sounding every house in the town; uprooting ed them. "Thank God," he cried, "there the city walls, and positively annihilating is no leak." The chief officer, to his asthe place so that in a few years it may be a matter of doubt to the future traveler where the exact site is situated-this will be fresh in the memory of all, and consequently, perhaps, my own pigmy experiences may not prove uninteresting.

The first earthquake I ever felt in my life was the shock which we experienced at sea, and which we afterwards ascertained did an immense amount of damage all over the west coast of Sumatra. It was during the middle watch, and all but the watch were down below asleep. There had been nothing to indicate any great convulsion of nature. The night was a lovely calm one, and the stars in the firmament shone out as brightly as they usually do in these latitudes between the monsoons. A light breeze swelled the sails, and urged the good ship pleasantly for ward: even the watch on deck felt so secure that most of them were more than half-asleep. Suddenly the ship seemed to be flung back violently by some agency or other. Every timber in her creaked and shook; the chain-cables rattled as though both anchors had gone by the run; the

tonishment, found the anchors all right and properly catted. The second mate had a cast of the lead, and reported no bottom. Meanwhile, the breeze which had momentarily ceased as though it had been rudely pushed back, now blew fresher than before, and we were sailing away at a very rapid rate. This, then, had been an earthquake, flinging its immense power even so far out to sea.

My second shock was rather of a ludicrous nature, if any thing can be said to be ludicrous connected with such an awful visitation as an earthquake. I was resid ing with my two brothers at the small out-of-the-way village of Alexandretta, the chief seaport town of Aleppo, and my brother William's bed-room was contiguous to mine. We had retired to rest at our usual hour, remarking that there was something in the atmosphere, and intense stillness of the night, which caused quite a depression of spirits. Notwithstanding all this, I slept soundly until I was awakened by my brother bawling out to me to jump into the middle of the room. Sucb a strange request coming at such an hour

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of the night, naturally produced a remon strance. What was I to jump into the middle of the room for, like an acrobat? Was I expected to go through the Highland fling? I had quite forgotten my brother's strange theory about the middle of the room being the most protected part of a falling house, when there came one sudden appalling crash -one tremendous shock-and I saw my room-wall rock to and fro, and open so widely that the widely that the small red tiles came tumbling through like hail. I was electrified, but only for a second or so. The next, I had jumped through the open window, and was running towards the center of a large open space. Nothing like the glorious canopy of heaven for a roof on such terrible occasions.

eaves of houses, fluttered round the camel-
drivers' fires, and dropped to the ground
exhausted and terrified. But of all sounds
the most hideously mournful that night,
blending as it did with others, was the
howl of scared troops of jackals and the
incessant baying of hundreds of village
dogs. In a very few moments the place
I had sought refuge in was crammed with
villagers and inhabitants, Europeans and
natives
natives-Turk, Jew, Christian, all with
terror in their faces, prostrated themselves,
and positively shrieked for mercy from
Him that rides on the whirlwind. There
was not a breath stirring, yet the sea
which only a minute before had been tran-
quil as a pond, now broke upon the beach
in heavy angry surf. The sight that pre-
sented itself that night was one of the
most extraordinary and impressive that I
have ever witnessed in my life, neither
should I ever wish to see the like again.
Nobody ventured to return home until
daylight and the non-recurrence of shocks
brought back courage and confidence
again.

Our house, which was the only one of solid masonry in the place, was also as exceptionally tiled with baked tiles, and we had glass windows for winter use. The rush of the earthquake was accompanied with a deep subterranean grumble, like many heavy carts being driven by rapidly. Every closed door and window was burst It was some years afterwards, and at a open simultaneously; every pane of glass different season of the year, though at the shattered; every picture thrown off the same place, that I gleaned my third expewall. But the noise on the roof! what rience of earthquakes. This time it was a shall I compare it to? To twenty thou- lovely spring afternoon, and I happened sand heavy cavalry passing over the tiles at the moment it occurred to be in the at full charge? Yes, that is the only very act of walking across the open space simile I can draw. The sensation that I above alluded to, deep in mental calculaexperienced was one of intense sickness. tion relative to some mercantile affairs. I felt more ill than I ever did in the worst Suddenly I experienced a most extraordigale at sea, and every particle of me was nary sensation of dizziness: the earth apas thoroughly shaken as by a most power-peared, if I may so term it, to be running ful electric battery. The thing was so in- away from under my feet; I could disstantaneous that one had hardly time to tinctly see the small sand of which the be afraid; but when intellect returned soil is composed sweeping past like a drift, and fear came, it came in shape of unsub-yet there was no dust raised: it flowed, as dued, unspeakable, awful terror: a terror to think what an atom I was in the sight of that Power that had just shaken the earth and mountains.

The night continued dark, but the intense stillness that had existed the moment before vanished instantly. The wail of frightened men; the screams of women and children; the lowing of cattle; the bleating of flocks; braying of donkeys; gurgling of camels; cackling of poultry rose in one confusing sound upon the night, and testified that even the very beasts and birds had instinctive dread of what had just occurred. Even the very sparrows shaken from their roosts in the

it were, a rapid stream; or, perhaps, it was rather like the rapid traveling of light when the sun suddenly bursts out on a cloudy day, such as one often sees on hill scenery at autumn time. The sensation I experienced was very different from the former occasion, but I attribute this to the fact of being on terra firma, and being in the very act of walking. I felt no nausea, but as people feel when they stand in a receding surf, exactly as if you were being carried away with it. Fortunately for myself, I happened to look up in time, for I was passing near an old wall and it fell with a tremendous crash the moment I had fled beyond its reach.

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