"For the sweet chief Queen of our Rana in Jaypore city had died,

Leaving a motherless infant, the heir of that House of Pride,

The Heir of the Peacock-banner of the Shield of Gold of the Throne,

Which traces its record of glory to years when it stood alone;

66

"To ages when, from the Sunlight the first of our kings came down,

And had the earth for his footstool, and wore the stars for his

crown,

As all good Rajputs have told us,- -so Môti was proud and true, With the Prince of the Land on her bosom, and her own brown baby, too!

"And the Rajput women will have it-I know not, myself, of these things

As the two babes lay in her bosom-her lord's, and the Jaypore King's

So leal was the blood of her body, so fast the faith of her heart, It passed to her new-born infant, who took of her trust its part!

"It would not drink at the breast-milk till the Prince had drunken his fill;

It would not sleep to the cradle-song till the Prince was lulled and

still;

And it lay at night with its small arms clasped 'round the Rana's

child,

As if those hands of the rose-leaf could guard him from treason wild.

"For treason was wild in the country, and villainous men had sought

The life of the heir of the Gadi: to the palace in secret brought, With bribes to the base, and with knife-thrusts for the faithful, they

found their way

Through the fence of the guards, and the gate-ways, to the hall where the women lay.

"There Môti, the Foster-Mother, sat singing the children to rest, Her baby at play on her knees, and the King's son held to her breast;

And the dark slave-maidens round her beat low on the cymbal-skin, Keeping the time of her soft song:-when, Saheb! there hurried in

"A breathless watcher, who whispered, with horror in eyes and face, 'Oh, Môti! men come to murder my Lord, the Prince, in this place!

They have bought the help of the gate-guards, or slaughtered them

unawares.

Hark! that is the noise of their tulwars that clatter upon the stairs!'

"For one breath she caught up her baby from her knee to her heart, and let

The King's child sink from her bosom, with lips still clinging and

wet;

Then tore from the Prince his head-cloth, and the putta of pearls

from his waist,

And bound the belt on her infant, and the cap on his brows, in haste!

"And laid her own dear offspring, her flesh and blood, on the floor, With the girdle of pearls around him, and the cap that the King's

son wore;

While close to her heart-which was breaking-she folded the Rajah's joy;

And, even as the murderers lifted the purdah, she fled with his boy!

"But there (as they deemed), in his jewels, lay the chota-Rana the heir!

'The cow with two calves has escaped us!' one cried; 'it is right and fair

She shall save her own butcha! * no matter! the edge of a Katar†

ends

This spark of Lord Raghoba's sunlight! stab thrice and four times,

oh friends!'

Little one.

† A dagger.

"And the Rajput women will have it-I know not if this can be so!

That Môti's son in the putta and golden cap crooned low

When the sharp blades pierced to his small heart, with never a moan or wince,

But died with a babe's light laughter, because he died for his Prince!

"Thereby did that Rajput mother preserve the line of our kings!" "Oh! Vittoo," I said, "but they gave her much gold and beautiful things;

And garments and land for her people, and a home in the Palace. May be

She had grown to love the princeling even more than the child on her knee."

"May it please the presence!" quoth Vittoo, "it seemeth not so;

they gave

The gold, and the garments and jewels, as much as the proudest should have;

But the same night, deep in her bosom she buried a knife, and smiled,

Saying this: 'I have saved my Rana! I must go to suckle my

child!'"

NAPOLEON'S OVERTHROW.

[ARRANGED FROM LES MISERABLES BY SARAH NEAL HARRIS.]

On the morning of Waterloo, Napoleon was satisfied. He was right; the plan of battle which he had conceived was indeed admirable.

Napoleon was accustomed to look upon war fixedly; he never made figure by figure the tedious addition of details; the figures mattered little to him, provided they gave this total: Victory. He treated Destiny as an equal treats an equal. He appeared to say to Fate: "Thou wouldst not dare."

About four o'clock the English line staggered backwards.

All

at once only the artillery and the sharpshooters were seen on the crest of the plateau; the rest disappeared. The battle-front of the English was slipping away. Wellington gave ground. ginning retreat!" cried Napoleon.

"Be

At the moment when Wellington drew back, Napoleon started up. The emperor half rose in his stirrups. The flash of victory passed into his eyes. Wellington hurled back on the forest of Soignes and destroyed—that was the final overthrow of England by France. The man of Marengo was wiping out Agincourt.

The emperor, then, contemplating this terrible turn of fortune, swept his glass for the last time over every point of the battle-field. His guard, standing behind with grounded arms, looked up to him with a sort of religion. He was reflecting; he was examining the slopes, noting the ascents, scrutinizing the tuft of trees, the square rye-field, the foot-path; he seemed to count every bush.

He bent over and spoke in an undertone to the guide Lacoste. The guide made a negative sign of the head, probably treacherous. The emperor rose up and reflected. Wellington had fallen back. It remained only to complete this repulse by a crushing charge. Napoleon, turning abruptly, sent off a courier at full speed to Paris to announce that the battle was won.

They were three thousand five hundred. They formed a line of half a mile. They were gigantic men on colossal horses. Aide-decamp Bernard brought them the emperor's order. Ney drew his sword, and placed himself at their head. The enormous squadrons began to move. Then was seen a fearful sight. Behind the crest of the plateau, under cover of the masked battery, the English infantry formed in thirteen squares, two battalions to the square, and upon two lines-seven on the first and six on the second-with musket to the shoulder and eye upon their sights, waiting calm, silent, and immovable.

There was a moment of fearful silence; then, suddenly, a long line of raised arms brandishing sabres appeared above the crest, with casques, trumpets, and standards, and three thousand faces with grey moustaches, crying, Vive l'Empereur !

All at once, tragic to relate, at the left of the English and on our right, the head of the column of cuirassiers reared with a frightful clamor. Arrived at the culminating point of the crest, unmanage

able, full of fury, and bent upon the extermination of the squares and cannons, the cuirassiers saw between themselves and the English a ditch, a grave. It was the sunken road of Ohain.

It was a frightful moment. There was the ravine, unlooked for, yawning at the very feet of the horses, two fathoms deep between its double slope. The second rank pushed in the first, the third pushed in the second. The horses reared, throw themselves over, fell upon their backs, and struggled with their feet in the air pilling up and overturning their riders; no power to retreat; the whole column was nothing but a projectile. The force acquired to crush the English crushed the French. The inexorable ravine could not yield until it was filled; riders and horses rolled in together pell-mell, grinding each other, making common flesh in this dreadfuf gulf; and when this grave was full of living men, the rest marched over them and passed on. Almost a third of the Dubois brigade sank into this abyss.

Was it possible that Napoleon should win this battle? We answer, No. Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No. Because of God.

For Bonaparte to be conqueror at Waterloo was not in the law of the nineteenth century. Another series of facts was preparing in which Napoleon had no place. The ill-will of events had long been announced.

It was time that this vast man should fall. Probably the principles and elements upon which regular gravitations, in the moral order as well as in the material, depend, began to murmur. Reeking blood, overcrowded cemeteries, weeping mothers-these are formidable pleaders. When the earth is suffering from a surcharge, there are mysterious moanings from the deeps, which the heavens hear. Napoleon had been impeached before the Infinite, and his fall was decreed.

-Victor Hugo.

SPICE-BOX SKETCHES.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping As of some one gently rapping,―rapping at my chamber door.