Well, in this way," replied Muley Mustapha, deliberately," in this way. I intend to let him go out into the world, mingle with the youth of his own age, share in their sports, and, as the Giaours say, 'sow his wild oats.'"

"Muley Mustapha," said his wife, sitting bolt upright, "you shall do nothing of the sort. 'Sow his wild oats,' indeed! He shall never leave my sight, not for a single moment, until he is a grown man and I have provided him with a wife to take my place as guardian of his morals. It ill becomes a trusted vassal of my noble father, the Sultan of Kopaul, to talk thus of corrupting the child who is to be one day ruler of a mighty empire. You forget that fact, Muley Mustapha."

"On the contrary," retorted the Pasha, a little tartly, "I am not likely to forget it, so long as the daughter of the Sultan of Kopaul condescends to remain the wife of the Pasha of Ubikwi."

For Muley Mustapha had married above his station, and the circumstance had not been permitted to escape his memory. He never complained of his lot; but, when his faithful Vizier once hinted that the Koran allowed each true believer the blessing of four wives, he answered with a sigh, "I find one enough for this world: the rest I will take in houris."

Some subtle reflection of that sentiment must have made itself visible on the face of the Pasha at this moment; for his worthy spouse, with apparent irrelevance, suddenly exclaimed,

Muley Mustapha, if you are going to cast your vagabond Vizier in my face, I will leave the room—until I have time to go home to my father, who will protect me from insult."

"Great Allah!" cried the Pasha, "Who is casting anybody in your face? And who had mentioned the name of the Vizier?"

But the virtuous Kayenna had risen to her feet, and in low, intense tones began:

66 'Sir, there is a limit to what even a wife may endure. When I think that a son of mine is threatened with contamination at the hands of a low, disreputable, adventurous vagabond, like your worthless underling-"

Here the good lady was so overcome by her feelings that

she burst into a flood of tears, and had to be borne, shrieking, to her apartments.

66

I foresee that I shall have trouble in bringing up that boy," mused Muley Mustapha, as he relighted his nargileh, and stroked his flowing beard.

Braver man there was not in all Islam than the dauntless young Pasha of Ubikwi, whose valor on many a hardfought field finally won him the favor of the Sultan of Kopaul, and the fair hand of that Sultan's only child. Once, some years after his marriage, he propounded to Shacabac the Wayfarer, then a sage, whose merits had not been appreciated by a dull generation, the old paradox of the Frankish schoolmen: "When an irresistible force meets with an immovable object, what happeneth? And the wise man answered, "In case of matrimony, the Force retireth from business." Struck by the aptness of the reply, Muley Mustapha made the sage his Vizier on the spot.

From that day forth the Pasha had peace in his household. There is much virtue in self-abnegation; but, like most unconditional surrenders, it does not always evoke the admiration of the victors. Yet was Muley Mustapha not without his reward. Kayenna knew just how far she might venture in dictating to him, and, by judiciously yielding that for which she cared naught, managed ever to obtain that which she desired. Thus doth the wise spouse gain new raiment by denying to her lord the society of an unbeloved mother-in-law.

THE FIGHT OF THE ARMSTRONG PRIVATEER.

From Ballads of Blue Water.'

Tell the story to your sons

Of the gallant days of yore,

When the brig of seven guns

Fought the fleet of seven score,

From the set of sun till morn, through the long September night

Ninety men against two thousand, and the ninety won the

fight

In the harbor of Fayal the Azore.

1 Copyright 1895 by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Reprinted by permission.

Three lofty British ships came a-sailing to Fayal:

One was a line-of-battle ship, and two were frigates tall; Nelson's valiant men of war, brave as Britons ever are, Manned the guns they served so well at Aboukir and Trafalgar.

Lord Dundonald and his fleet at Jamaica far away

Waited eager for their coming, fretted sore at their delay.
There was loot for British valor on the Mississippi coast
In the beauty and the booty that the Creole cities boast;
There were rebel knaves to swing, there were prisoners to
bring

Home in fetters to old England for the glory of the King!

At the setting of the sun and the ebbing of the tide

Came the great ships one by one, with their portals opened wide,

And their cannon frowning down on the castle and the town And the privateer that lay close inside;

Came the eighteen gun Carnation, and the Rota, forty-four, And the tripled-decked Plantagenet an admiral's pennon bore; And the privateer grew smaller as their topmasts towered taller,

And she bent her springs and anchored by the castle on the shore.

Spake the noble Portuguese to the stranger: "Have no fear;
They are neutral waters these, and your ship is sacred here
As if fifty stout armadas stood to shelter you from harm,
For the honor of the Briton will defend you from his arm."
But the privateersman said, "Well we know the Englishmen,
And their faith is written red in the Dartmoor slaughter pen.
Come what fortune God may send, we will fight them to the
end,

And the mercy of the sharks may spare us then."

"Seize the pirate where she lies!" cried the English admiral: "If the Portuguese protect her, all the worse for Portugal!" And four launches at his bidding leaped impatient for the fray, Speeding shoreward where the Armstrong, grim and dark and ready, lay.

Twice she hailed and gave them warning; but the feeble menace scorning,

On they came in splendid silence, till a cable's length awayThen the Yankee pivot spoke; Pico's thousand echoes woke; And four baffled, beaten launches drifted helpless on the bay.

Then the wrath of Lloyd arose till the lion roared again, And he called out all his launches and he called five hundred

men;

And he gave the word "No quarter! " and he sent them forth to smite.

Heaven help the foe before him when the Briton comes in might!

Heaven helped the little Armstrong in her hour of bitter need; God Almighty nerved the heart and guided well the arm of Reid.

Launches to port and starboard, launches forward and aft, Fourteen launches together striking the little craft.

They hacked at the boarding-nettings, they swarmed above the rail;

But the Long Tom roared from his pivot and the grape-shot fell like hail:

Pike and pistol and cutlass, and hearts that knew not fear, Bulwarks of brawn and mettle, guarded the privateer.

And ever where fight was fiercest, the form of Reid was seen; Ever where foes drew nearest, his quick sword fell between. Once in the deadly strife

The boarders' leader pressed
Forward of all the rest,

Challenging life for life;

But ere their blades had crossed,

A dying sailor tossed

His pistol to Reid, and cried,

"Now riddle the lubber's hide!"

But the privateersman laughed, and flung the weapon aside, And he drove his blade to the hilt, and the foeman gasped and died.

Then the boarders took to their launches laden with hurt and dead,

But little with glory burdened, and out of the battle fled.

Now the tide was at flood again, and the night was almost done,

When the sloop-of-war came up with her odds of two to one, And she opened fire; but the Armstrong answered her, gun for gun,

And the gay Carnation wilted in half an hour of sun.

Then the Armstrong, looking seaward, saw the mighty seventyfour,

With her triple tier of cannon, drawing slowly to the shore.

And the dauntless captain said: "Take our wounded and our

dead,

Bear them tenderly to land, for the Armstrong's days are

o'er;

But no foe shall tread her deck, and no flag above it waveTo the ship that saved our honor we will give a shipman's grave."

So they did as he commanded, and they bore their mates to land

With the figurehead of Armstrong and the good sword in his hand.

Then they turned the Long Tom downward, and they pierced her oaken side,

And they cheered her, and they blessed her, and they sunk her in the tide.

Tell the story to your sons,

When the haughty stranger boasts

Of his mighty ships and guns

And the muster of his hosts,

How the word of God was witnessed in the gallant days of

yore

When the twenty fled from one ere the rising of the sun,
In the harbor of Fayal the Azore!

THE KEARSARGE.

In the gloomy ocean bed

Dwelt a formless thing, and said,
In the dim and countless eons long ago,
"I will build a stronghold high,
Ocean's power to defy,

And the pride of haughty man to lay low."

Crept the minutes for the sad,

Sped the cycles for the glad,

But the march of time was neither less nor more;
While the formless atom died,

Myriad millions by its side,

And above them slowly lifted Roncador.

Roncador of Caribee,

Coral dragon of the sea,