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Thus, conquering hate, and steadfast to the right, Fresh from the heart that haughty verdict came; Beneath a waning moon, each spectral height Rolled back its loud acclaim.

Once more the chief gazed keenly
Down on those daring dead;
From his good sword their heart's blood
Crept to that crimson thread.
Once more he cried, "The judgment,

Good friends, is wise and true,

But though the red be given,
Have we not more to do?

"These were not stirred by anger,
Nor yet by lust made bold;
Renown they thought above them,
Nor did they look for gold.
To them their leader's signal
Was as the voice of God:
Unmoved, and uncomplaining,

The path it showed they trod.

"As, without sound or struggle,
The stars unhurrying march,
Where Allah's finger guides them,
Through yonder purple arch,
These Franks, sublimely silent,

Without a quickened breath,

Went, in the strength of duty,
Straight to their goal of death.

"If I were now to ask you,

To name our bravest man,

Ye all at once would answer,

They called him Mehrab Khan.
He sleeps among his fathers,

Dear to our native land,
With the bright mark he bled for
Firm round his faithful hand.

"The songs they sing of Roostum
Fill all the past with light;

If truth be in their music,

He was a noble knight.

But were those heroes living,

And strong for battle still,

Would Mehrab Khan or Roostum

Have climbed, like these, the hill?"

And they replied, "Though Mehrab Khan was brave,
As chief, he chose himself what risks to run;
Prince Roostum lied, his forfeit life to save,
Which these had never done."

"Enough!" he shouted fiercely,

"Doomed though they be to hell,

Bind fast the crimson trophy

Round both wrists-bind it well.

Who knows but that great Allah

May grudge such matchless men,
With none so decked in Heaven,
To the fiend's flaming den.”

Then all those gallant robbers
Shouted a stern Amen;

They raised the slaughtered sergeant,
They raised his mangled ten.

And when we found their bodies

Left bleaching in the wind,

Around both wrists in glory

That crimson thread was twined.

Then Napier's knightly heart, touched to the core, Rung, like an echo, to that knightly deed:

He bade its memory live for evermore,

That those who run may read.

F. DOYLE.

A Boy of Fife.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "MRS. MARGARET MAITLAND," ETC., ETC.

'LL no' meddle wi' ye," said a small voice close to the hedge. The little owner of it stood defiant but trembling, looking from under the shadow of his sunburnt frowning eyebrows, with eyes that but for very terror would have been full of tears, at the little group of young men approaching him. It was twilight, and all that little Walter could see of the wayfarers was, that they were sailors, and that the leader had a gold band round his cap. The child discerned instinctively that he had encountered a party from that dreaded cutter which lay up the Frith like a bird of prey, to pounce on all unwary seamen. For it was "the time of the war "-significant sound to all ears that remember it; and the British navy, popular as it was, had to be recruited by means of something worse than conscription, by impressment; and in this little suffering community the horror of the press sat heavy on all souls, kindling precocious notions of fear and self-defence even in infantine bosoms.

Little Walter Erskine was six years old. He stood with his little brown hands knotted together in an attitude of

suspicion, defiance, and concealed terror, which no anxious family father could have surpassed; lowering with his blue eyes upon the laughing young lieutenant who stood willing to parley. The hedge was wet with recent rain, the sky all shrouded with tumbled heaps of clouds, and the sound of unseen running water, "the running of the paths after rain," blending with the soft distant rustle of the unseen sea.

"I'll no' meddle wi' ye," said Walter, edging backwards to the termination of the hedge, where, if he could but reach the spot, there was a chance of flight. The little party which had caused such fright to Walter stood before him, vast in the darkness, one figure behind the other, watching the child's retreat with silent amusement; but when he had edged along to that object of his hopes, and with a cry of terror and temerity rushed across the road towards the visible village houses where he could obtain shelter, the little fugitive was pursued and brought back, with remorseless laughter. Struggling desperately, and with a heroic effort of manliness resisting the temptation to bite and scratch and cry, the boy was brought before the leader of the dreaded band. taking courage from desperation, Walter changed his tactics. "Ye canna meddle wi' me-ye canna press me like you do the other men!" cried the boy," for I have my protection. Tell him to haud off his hand, and I'll let you see't."

Here,

"But if I haud off my hand," said the man who had caught him, in a voice strangely familiar to belong to one of the cutter's men, "you'll rin away."

Walter made no answer, but stood firm, eyeing with profound contempt the mean Colossus who had doubted his honour. Then, after much rummaging in his boyish pocket, full of a salt water miscellany, the child produced proudly the

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