Olive his cheek, but the blood of the grape
Has flushed it a little, and given a glow-
Young Dionysus took on this shape-

Means he now revelry, mischief or woe?

Some say that Jose is out of his sphere,
Blue-blooded, gentle-born, cradled in pride;
Cadiz his birth-place, his father the peer
Of any hidalgo, who took for his bride

The heiress of mines. But Lord knows what blood
Mingled its currents, and poured in her veins;
Iberia and Carthage and Rome swelled the flood,
Visigoth, Vandal and Moor; such is Spain's.
How came it? Who knows? But the lad went adrift,
With a cloud on his life, a pang in his heart,
A pall on the past which man may not lift,
Despair and defiance as steeds at life's start.

Such is the chariot race Jose has run;

Little he's recked where his coursers have sped; They have borne him exultant in heat of the sun,

Through the dust and the din from the past that is dead. Has he lacked for his bread, or light love, or strong wine? Not he to whom action and ardor is life;

The sea is his slave, he rules on the brine,
He is ready for toil, or action, or strife.

But why stands he now with that mock on his lip,
So that, somehow, the vendors of this or of that,

When they see him, find reason to quietly slip

Round the edge of their stalls, and eagerly chat
About nothings with neighbors, his eye to escape?
Well they remember-'tis two years ago—

How with Hernan Hernandez he had that small scrape,
And gave him a sort of back-handed blow:

It counted for nothing-but Hernan is dead.

And now, just a twelvemonth, he quarrelled again
With François Lafitte, and a shot in the head
By somebody put poor François out of pain.

The roustabout Steve called him "dago" one day;
Steve was a negro as black as the soot;

He was spoiled by his freedom, and had his horse-play
By kicking and stamping-a giant and brute.
This little Olivio caught up a stone,

And hit him right square on his chimpanzee brow,
So that stretched like Goliah Steve fell with a groan,
And wanders round witless, a big beggar now.

He beat slim Camille with the hilt of his knife,

And choked her and kicked her; the court could not act;

Little Camille would rather lose her own life

Than hurt this Olivio by proving the fact.

But why tell afresh the devil's own beads,

This rosary black with guilt, shame and crime, Where each bead that is dropped rankles and bleeds, Let them sink to perdition, and rot in the slime.

But there now stands Jose waiting, it seems,
For some one to come and cross his red path;
His brow has grown darker, as if evil dreams
Were conjured from hell by the spell of his wrath.
And hither comes stalking, sombre and stern,
The sailor, Gil Sanchez, a fisherman now,
Basque to the bone, with dark eyes that burn,
A resolute jaw, and heavy, square brow.
Broad-shouldered, thin-flanked, he marches right on,
And looks not to the right or the left as he goes;
He carries his crest as high as a don;

What matters the purse when the gold in it shows?

Straight onward he comes; but fronting him full,

Jose steps forward, and says, with a sneer,

'Blessed Virgin protect us! Here's a Biscayan bull;

Run, good people, and hide; you have reason for fear."

The sailor stopped short, his eye on his foe;

A moment he pondered, as gathering strength;
Then with words that came dropping, weighty and slow,
He cast back the reproach: "So, Jose, at length,

You pick out this place to answer the word

Which clothed you with shame from your head to your feet When your loaded dice won. You never once stirred

Last night, though you shivered, when I branded you cheat." "Thou liest, thou son of a she-wolf! Thy den .

Was a cave in the rocks; thy plundering mother-" But Gil Sanchez flings back, "It comes to this, then. Call Don Jose a cheat, and he calls you another!"

"You call me a cheat! You pirate! You thief!

I will have your heart's blood, if to meet me you dare." The Basque strode toward him, but a sigh of relief

From the gathering crowd heaved out on the air, As Jose leaped backward and broke through the ring, His glittering eye glancing and taking in all;

His enemy's menace, the crowd-everything,

Till he saw what he wanted, a knife on a stall! Like lightning he sprang and seized the bright blade; Then, with bounds like a panther, right onward he came At the man he had fled from. But Gil (not afraid), Though he saw that his life was the stake of the game, In turn wheeled and fled, some advantage to gain, For he felt that the battle was badly begun. "Tis a race now for life; down each narrow lane,

Around booths, between stalls-how they pant as they run!

But the tumult, the people, the women who shriek,
The wringing of hands, the tears, the pale face

Of Barbara, who bends o'er her babe, wan and meek,
And prays Blessed Mary for safety and grace.
See the negroes, they chatter and roll their white eyes,
And huddle and scamper, their black skins turn gray;
Look at them! their feet keeping time, as he flies,
With Jose or Gil; 'tis as good as a play.
"Ha! talk of your bull-fights, but this is a time
To feel every nerve as tense as the string
Of a bow," says Baltasar.

Perhaps 'tis a crime, But I feel like I saw that Basque bull in the ring, And the matador close at his heels with the sword

To give him a stroke; but beware of his horn, Thou bull-killing Jose! I have known a man gored By a bull of this breed; thou must smite and not scorn."

But the fleet-footed Jose is gaining; Gil sees,

At the turn of a stall the grim shadow of death; Yet his eye is alert, as he rapidly flees,

And he gathers his strength as hard comes his breath. There lies the great cleaver that Sigismund swings,

When he hews up the beef which hangs o'er his block; Sanchez pounces upon it, and, whirling, he flings

Himself straight at his foe, who recoils from the shock. Too late, mad pursuer! On thy shoulder-blade falls

The axe, crashing down through brawn and through bone;
The red blood leaps, spurting o'er pavement and walls,
And the fighter sinks down with a curse and a groan.
His eyes swim in blackness, but his fingers still clutch
At the hilt of his knife, and then feebly relax,
And, mangled and crumpled he dies in a hutch.

Sanchez gives him one look, then throws down the axe.
The people come gathering; a roar and a rush;
Some shrieks and a sob from Camille, who bends

O'er the dead-“O my heart!" then a hush.

The policeman is here-the tragedy ends.

THE EXECUTION OF SYDNEY CARTON.

CHARLES DICKENS.

[Sydney Carton, a clever but dissolute man, had spent his life with but little profit to himself or others. Ten years before the incidents herein narrated, he met and loved desperately a young and beautiful girl, Lucie Monette, who soon after married his rival, Charles Darnay, to whom he bore a strange resemblance. Mr. Darnay's family, members of the French nobility, had persecuted the poor, for which he himself unjustly suffered, on a visit to Paris during the Revolution. He was tried and condemned to death. A great resolve comes to Carton, to sacrifice himself to save, for the woman he loves, the life of one beloved by her. He visits the prisoner, and by the connivance of a jailer-over whom he possesses power-carries out his purpose. The scene opens with Darnay in his cell.]

HE hours went on as Darnay walked to and fro, and the clocks struck the numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone forever, ten gone forever, eleven gone forever, twelve coming on to pass away. After a hard contest with that eccentric action of thought which had last perplexed him, he had got the better of it. He walked up and down, softly repeating their names to himself. The worst of the strife was over. He could walk up and down, free from distracting fancies, praying for himself and for them. Twelve gone forever.

He had been apprised that the final hour was three, and he knew he would be summoned some time earlier, inasmuch as the tumbrils jolted heavily and slowly through the streets. Therefore, he resolved to keep two before his mind, as the hour, and so to strengthen himself in the interval that he might be able, after that time, to strengthen others.

Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his breast, a very different man from the prisoner who had walked to and fro at La Force, he heard one struck away from him, without surprise. The hour had measured like most other hours. Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his recovered self-possession, he thought, "There is but another now," and turned to walk again. Footsteps in the stone passage, outside the door. He stopped.